Sure, what's wrong with recursion?

int factorial( int n )
{
return (n > 1)? n * factorial( n - 1 ) : n ;
}

Either high or sober, that's what I'd have gone for. That aside, I think it's fairly obvious that the mantra would be 'design high, code sober'...

There is one already. It's called RISCOS. Sure, it needs some work (like pre-emptive multitasking and SMP, okay a *lot* of work), but it's small (the OS uses 6Mb of RAM) and it's very fast. And there's already a reasonable amount of software available for it, plus a working GCC implementation, so more can be ported.

It just needs volunteers. Preferably ones who will happily write hand optimised ARM assembler...

And that's the exact reason you're unlikely to see them reinvent themselves the way Apple did. Apple did it because they had no choice - they were getting their asses handed to them in every sector they were in, they were haemorrhaging money and were on the verge of bankruptcy. It was a do-or-die move.

Microsoft have no need to copy them. They may not be raising the roof on the stock indexes, but they're still making money and because of that, inertia will mean that they'll never look at the kind of radical solutions that Apple did; it's easier to play the safe game and make smaller profits for less risk.

Driver's License and Work Photo ID (I'm there 40 hours a week, so I count that as 'typically'.

Does the job for most situations that require any form of ID.

Yep, I got mine 3 weeks ago. Typically, I haven't had time to do any more than write the basic Debian install to an SD card and make sure it boots.

Sorry.

Yeah, that's about right. Loading screen looked *awesome*, then you got to the game (assuming you could avoid the dreaded 'R Tape Loading Error' )and you realised exactly where all the £1.99 that the tape had cost you went...

And yet, we never learned. The very next week, it was back to WHSmiths with your pocket money for *another* £1.99 game from Mastertronic, hoping against hope to avoid the inevitable disappointment...

WIth a significant propotion of cars using plastic petrol tanks these days, I imagine you'll find they'll just jam a screwdriver through the bottom of the tank and collect whatever comes out. Even steel petrol tanks wouldn't put up too much resistance to a decently sharpened item.

Expect to see a significant increase in burnt-out vehicles as they fill the jerry cans they've got, leave fuel pouring out and throw a match into the remains to cover their tracks...

I think you just proved his point.

(No, it's not a syntax error, by the way)

Hang on, we're still talking about India here, right?

Uh, no. No it isn't. Not even vaguely, in fact. 240V effectively *is* the DC equivalent (ignoring rectification losses), the PMPO (ie. peak voltages your 50 or 60hz sine wave actually hits) will probably be around 380v though. If you want 380VDC, then you need the same or more AC.

Are we going back to transputers again, then?

Really? So you only use graphics cards with open source firmware, do you? No, thought not.

Look carefully - the firmware blob is closed, just as it is an most commercial graphics cards. The driver, on the other hand, is open.

Before anything else - this is my favourite local Indian Restaurant. Been eating there for a few years now and will continue to do so.

Secondly, 'several ambulances'? People 'writhing on the floor, fainting and vomiting'? Here's what actually happened:

Restaurant holds a curry-eating competition. Top of the list in the later rounds is the 'Kismot Killer', a curry that recently replaced a naga-based one, as too many people were finishing it easily. Anyway, if you order a killer, the restaurant staff will do everything in their power to put you off - there's warnings all over the place and you have to sign a disclaimer before eating it. If you *really* insist on eating the damn thing, you can't say you weren't warned. But anyway. So two people get to the later stages (one American, FWIW) and one of them has the bright idea of vomiting immediately after eating so as to avoid the after-effects. The other continues eating *despite being in pain and feeling faint*. I mean, seriously? So despite having the red cross present (it was a charity event), they got an ambulance to take these two to hospital for safety. The hospital gave them strong anti-indigestion medication and kicked them out.

Short version - idiots did idiotic things, complained that they shouldn't have to have any personal responsibility when the inevitable happened.

It's already running Debian.

See, I agree with you 100%, more if I could. In my years developing, most of the languages I now use to program are not the ones I was employed to do, but ones where I've been dropped into a project, had to hit the ground running and learn on the fly. It's not difficult, once you know the concepts of *how* to program.

But. Try going in to a job interview and saying "No, I don't have 5 years of this language, but give me a week, some small changes to work on and access to google and I'll be able to program it as well as most of your other developers". It may be true, but it doesn't wash with HR people or project managers. They have a ticksheet of skills and levels and they don't care a damn how easily transferrable any of them are - if you don't have it exact, tough.