Even worse. I have seen both hierarchical and network databases re-invented.

But the question is, "Can he run an espresso machine?" :)

" far more important event than being the iPod/iPhone taskmaster"

I am actually going to argue that point with you. From an applications POV; IPods, IPads, iPhones, and OS X took the capabilities of Unix, and a host of other technologies, and leveraged them into something with a huge impact on social order, business, art, and science. Having Unix at the ready was important. But creating those products took the power of Unix into a whole new realm.

By analogy, knowing 2 Ca3SiO5 + 7 H2O ---> 3 CaO.2SiO2.4H2O + 3 Ca(OH)2 + 173.6kJ is important.

Taking that and using it to create a transcontinental highway system is also very important.

Why don't you ask him?

"Ignorance of mathematics isn't the cause of stupid laws and policy around technology..."

I agree somewhat but I think ignorance allows bad policy to exists. Some of what you hear coming from hucksters would, IMO, be akin to repealing the laws of gravity or building a warp drive. I am very skeptical of things such as facial recognition, trawling email to stop terrorist attacks, data mining, anything that handles data which is not ACID compliant, missile defense, and AI (AFAIAC it will never truly exist) though reflection is nice to have.

CS and the principles behind it are often so abstract that many people are not even aware of when they are lying.

You do not need electronics to compute or even build computers. You can use water, electrical circuits, wooden blocks, etc. But in any case, the Mathematics does not change. Just the implementation.

is the number of Astroturfer comments. I'd like to see some effort made to find and eliminate them.

because most of the games that came with the consoles were digital copies. This was done because digital copies are cheaper (no disc pressing, and yes, at these volumes it's an expense worth talking about) and there's not second hand market depressing the price of the physical copies in store. Having a pack in game basically tanks the value of the game at retail because of how the used market works.

I would just skip the sort and do a linear search. As a matter of fact I *am* that lazy.

Shell sort was always my favorite in terms of elegance, IMO

But it's web scale! ;)

I feel like I should've known that. Thanks for the correction.

Considering the number of companies available for outsourcing sooner or later it will probably happen, of not already. It would help explain the mish-mash of tools used in the job. Never trust a mercenary.

Not every hunter-gatherer got crushed by a mastodon either - that doesn't mean it wasn't a selective factor in tribes that hunted them.

make movies look like they were shot on a daytime TV cam to me. I saw Braveheart on one of those modern tvs and I suppose the lighting was more natural, but it was considerably less dramatic. It just killed it for me. Also (and this is mostly just me) I can perceive noticeable drops in framerate on those newer tvs. The rate goes up and down like crazy. Drives me nuts.