I wonder what it would cost to move to Google docs? More than this, perhaps, but this is on top of whatever else they're paying.

It should be ok for languages which were designed with speed in mind so that it sort of balances out. Java, for instance.

A prick has stood down. He wasn't forced to. Free speech is important (and wasn't under attack anyway - at least, not by a government; the only attack that matters) but not as much as the right to treat people fairly and sensibly, which this prick opposed. Everyone wins!

Perhaps you'd care to mention which photos you believe are stunning? They all look distinctly average to me.

Is it even a course? It's barely a web page.

Not unthinkable in the UK. Google "uk banks glitch" for the least year or so. I think it's largely believed to be related to the use of unskilled developers. Cheap, though. Well, in the short term; until you lose customers.

Would I leave a bank/service if I were personally inconvenienced? Absolutely. Not to `send a message` because the companies don't listen to `messages`. But to not be inconvenienced again.

I only heard about this in Slasdot, and I don't give a shit. If I'd heard that a company were selling food which killed people, and their defence was "oh, we heard it was poisonous so we stopped selling it for a bit, and instead gave it away to poor people" I'd never buy anything from them again.

If patents didn't exist it would make absolutely no difference to the amount of progress which goes on, because the patents are bullshit. Apple would not make a penny more profit if samsung didn't have to use a slightly different shaped case or whatever. Microsoft wouldn't be going hungry if they were not able to make more money from FAT patents rather than selling their own shitty smartphones.

The problem is, that 'no wrongdoing' verdict might come after years of litigation, costing millions of dollars, a non-zero amount of business impact (people getting depositioned, document discovery, etc etc) and who knows how much lost customer goodwill.

After all, smoke=fire, mud sticks, etc etc.

> I plan to clone my hard drive on April 8th and just restore from that backup
> whenever I get hacked. No fail in this plan!

That's actually quite a good plan, with just one small change; replace "get hacked" with "boot".

> Get rid of Java entirely unless you desperately need it; in that case, keep it up to
> date religiously

Three - sorry now four - updates a year, so that's not going to be hard.

The school started a relationship with Facebook the moment they knowingly logged in with somebody else's credentials.

Credentials gained under duress, in case anybody says 'but she handed them over!'