I just don't understand any legitimate concern to decline a breathalyzer test.

False positives. For example, here's an article that talks about a guy who was on a low-carb diet and the excessive ketones in his breath caused a breathalyzer to think he was drunk.

Yes, let's ban a useful tool because some people are too meek to ask others to stop doing distracting things with their laptops. [rolls eyes] When did people become so afraid? Is it really that hard to respectfully ask someone to change their behavior so as not to disturb others? Are we to ban a useful technology in the classroom because of a handful of bozos?

If this guy has paid, say, $2000 for health insurance, and his little foray racks up $20,000 in hospital expenditures, then we have paid the other $18,000 as the other insurance pool members.

Yes, that's how all types of insurance work. The point the parent was making was that if this guy does not have insurance, then the hospital has to treat him and, since he's uninsured, the taxpapers foot the bill for 100% of his hospital costs. Under Obamacare he'd be required to purchase his own insurance thereby sparing the taxpayers the burden of paying for his hospital stay.

So lots of web applications and interactivity are moving to HTML 5 and JavaScript and companies like Apple and Google are pushing hard to move things in that direction. Some devices, like the Google ChromeOS laptop, are just a browser with no capability for Flash and Java. We're going to see more of that.

Believe me, I agree with you that Java would be a better solution, but it's not really an option now and probably won't be one at all in the near future.

But then it wouldn't be web pages.

A neat demo, to be sure, but it's not compiling. It's just interpreting Python into JavaScript which is itself interpreted. I would much rather see the ability to write in the language of my choice and have that compiled into bytecode which I would then serve to clients. That bytecode would be what is executed. Then we can use whatever language is best for the job.

Will it finally support languages other than JavaScript for client side programming? Just when we seem to be entering a point in time where people finally realize that they can choose the right language for the job, so much is moving to the web where there's only one language or nothing at all.

This article is from April 7, 2009 and is old news. It's already been covered on Slashdot and other tech news sites a long time ago.

Breaking news: Oracle has made an offer to purchase Sun Microsystems. Will it be approved by regulators? Stay tuned!

Having more 'training' documentation, perhaps some YouTube videos for this would help.

What sorts of training do you envision are needed? Office suites seem to be pretty simple and straightforward affairs.

If it gets approved, viola!

Only applicable to patents related to classical music.

Here's the clip: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OpIYz8tfGjY

Where is the place that is now what slashdot was?

That would be LWN.

Except that when you use Microsoft products you have to upgrade your hardware twice as often.

No you don't. Unlike Linux distros and Apple, Microsoft supports their operating systems for a long, long time. I bought a new laptop with XP earlier in the decade and used it for eight years until the hardware died. People using Windows 7 now will be able to keep using it on the same hardware five or ten years from now provided they take care of the hardware.

And if you use Mac you also pay twice as much for the same hardware.

This argument has also been disproved many times before. The price of a Mac compared to a comparable PC is not that much more. It's certainly not twice the price.

You have, of course, ignored the fact that I was responding to the assertion that Dido is not famous, not that everyone is heard of her.

You are joking, right? You quote the guy saying "a singer you've never heard of" before you respond. Anyone can look at your post and see that what you claim is not true. It's clear as day that you are responding to the fact that he (jokingly) asserted that not everyone may have heard of her. No one asserted anything about fame. Even then, fame is relative. How many people know who Richard Stallman is?

I've heard of Dido only once about 10 years ago because a coworker liked her music. I haven't listened to any of her songs that I'm aware of.

But just to play devil's advocate and provide some perspective for you...

21 million copies sold of her debut album

There are 6.8 billion people in the world and she sold only 21 million albums. Only 0.3 percent of the population has bought her stuff. She doesn't seem to be that popular.

MTV Music awards

MTV caters to a very narrow subset of musical genres and artists. There's far more in the musical landscape than what they represent.

BRIT awards

I have no idea what that is.

Grammy nominated

That doesn't mean much. The Grammys are the opposite of the MTV music awards as there are Grammys for all types of music, even polka. And nominated doesn't mean they won. Many artists have been nominated.

#98 best selling of the 21st century

#98 world wide counting all countries music sales across all genres?

duet with Eminem

Isn't Eminem a rapper/hip-hop artist? There are a lot of people who don't listen to that. For example, I listen to jazz and classical. I'd be hard pressed to name more than a couple of artists outside of those two genres. For example, I couldn't name any other rappers except for Ice-T (because he's in Law and Order) and Timbaland (because he was on slashdot having been caught as a plagiarist).

music featured in a big movie

I've never seen a movie where they display the name of the song and artist currently playing. If you didn't know of the song beforehand, you won't magically know the artist just because it was playing in a movie.

song the opening theme of a US TV show

There are thousands of US TV shows. Not everyone watches the same ones.

haircut named after her

Is that a measure of success? I can't think of any haircuts with names other than a crew cut.

sold-out world tours

This is only of note to people who have heard of her and want to buy her product. The same can be said of many artists that most of us have never heard of. Lana Lane has had several sold-out world tours. I doubt most people have heard of her.