Have you tried Java 6 Update 10?

It's first compiled to an intermediate "Java bytecode" which is THEN upon being run compiled "Just in Time" to the native bytecode.

The difference is that an interpreter is compiling "Just in Time" directly from the source code, which as a rule is considerably slower.

When's it coming to the PS3? It can't be the only device left out in the cold...

That is indeed a fabulous idea.

Um, OK, you have the choice of having things *done for you* or having to do them yourself? And you choose doing them all yourself, regardless of whether you know what the hell you're doing? Why do you insist on turning down the aid of organizations that have the potential -- and (at the moment) the desire to help make your life easier?

A key example of your way of thinking is the mess that is health insurance, due to President Bush's insistence on trying to privatize it all. As a result it's needlessly complex and expensive for the average U.S. citizen to get it, to the point that a large percentage of Americans just don't have it.

Or take private college education. Also needlessly complex and expensive for the average U.S. citizen to get.

So basically, we're left with a society where we have to devote ridiculous amounts of time in order to fight with millions of different private organizations (insurers, colleges, etc), not to mention ridiculous amounts of effort planning our own finances and saving up money our whole lives to pay for colleges and health care (I might mention that average people are notoriously bad at saving money)--and our lives are that much more stressful and complicated while our society is that much more split between its rich and poor sectors.

Meanwhile, I've been living in Austria for a couple of years now. As a student, I pay around $2500 a year for my education, and around $30 a month for healthcare. When I want a doctor's appointment, I simply go to the doctor and give them my chip-card. I don't have to think any further about paying for it. And since the health providers are all networked together, they automatically have my medical records on hand, even when I've never been to that doctor before. Much more than I can say for my experience with American doctors' offices...

Yes, I've had to go through quite a bit of government bureaucracy to get all my papers in order, but certainly nothing more than an EU citizen would face coming to America. And when I think about the amount of time, money and stress I save due to this *publicly financed system*, I hardly enjoy the thought of going back to the American way.

What are you talking about? Swing is no more MVC than any other toolkit out there. It's just as easy to mix presentation logic and business logic with Swing as it is with any other framework, if not easier--since in Swing there is no such thing as a "layout definition"--the layout is all done directly in code.

Whether or not you build an app using the MVC pattern has nothing to do with whether or not you use Swing.

What Swing absolutely *does* have going for it, however, is that it's event-driven through and through. And that does provide a distinct advantage. :)

Over the years I've developed a healthy fear of everything Java

Why?

Coming from C# I would think Java is the most natural transition...

Oh, there said and blow there chance! Your rite!

Yeah, the video quality is good... can't say I'm in love with the bundled player component though... The play/pause button is a wierd target to hit (only works when you get it in the middle) and the jog bar doesn't let you click anywhere in it to skip ahead. I know I'm being picky, but something that will be used this much deserves to be gotten right!

The Adobe CS stuff is about being able to import Photoshop and Illustrator projects complete with layers and make applications out of them.

The description of the music-rating system is very nearly perfect. What can I say--major kudos!

As for the blog stuff, consider this: people who disagree with stuff tend to self-censor. That is, once they decide they disagree with someone on a regular basis, they are unlikely to read their blog anymore. This is why sites like Slashdot gradually attain something of a unifying "mentality"--because people who don't like it simply don't come back.

People who disagree with the stuff they read are always going to be in the minority of readers because of this self-selection. This is not dissimilar to the people in the music-rating system signing up to the "alt-rock" category--they're not likely to go off polluting the ratings of songs in the "metal" category, because they already know they don't like it and consequently avoid it! Likewise, most users are not going to subscribe to be notified about new Fox News video clips if they already know they won't agree with most of them.

To sum up: I don't think we need to worry about the whole "What about the Bush supporters versus the non-Bush supporters". In most cases this is quite simply a non-issue, because content consumers self-select which "channels" they want to receive.

Thus the music-selection model you propose should work equally well for all kinds of content, without modification, I believe.

No wonder... you damn hippy!