He's referring to the fact that because perl coding styles can be so person specific, something programmed in Perl that is mission critical may give a ton of leverage to a programmer you'd rather oust.

That may very well be true

Just walk through any major city. I'd say the majority of tourists have giant cameras around their necks, and you can always spot some trying to take "artsy" shots from weird angles.

Additionally, just about everyone I know who is not a serious amateur photographer like me (and some who are) looks at the pictures I've taken and ask for advice and tips.

Photography has become a very mainstream hobby but software is either for n00bs or pros, with no gradual scale. If Apple could make the "Microsoft Word" of photo software, it'd be another feather in their cap.

Don't get me wrong. America has this really annoying tendency to arm "freedom fighters" who turn around and become our enemies. Or to support horrible dictatorships in order to maintain influence in a region / country.

However, you don't see travel to Afghanistan, Iraq, Iran, or Syria banned, do you? (Although it might not be the best idea). And they're more recently at fault then the Castro regime.

Actually, a lot of people just go through an intermediary country. Book a flight to Mexico City, then from Mexico City to Cuba. The Cuban customs will even give you the "stamp" on a piece of paper they staple on your passport. After you leave you can rip it out and the US government never needs know.

Why you would do this when visas are still available is beyond me, but people do do it.

Bollocks.

Castro nearly started a global nuclear war. That's why Kennedy had the embargo instituted in the first place, and until Castro is 100% gone the US will never open up to them.

OK but look at most DSLRs.

Some people buy fancy cameras and never take them off of program mode.

Others will eventually learn to do things like adjust shutter speed, f stop, iso, etc.

But everyone I talk to wants to be a "photographer" and wants to know how to fiddle with a cameras settings. Same as every guitarist I know, whether or not they can play well, wants to be able to play songs well.

With a camera, or a guitar, you can buy a decent model that will take you all the way (until you get really high end).

With photo software, you don't have that option.

If Apple did the Photos app thing right, they would be able to keep the advanced features and provide a seamless path from n00b to pro.

Yeah but that's the thing. Everyone I've met who has a digital camera thinks they're a photographer, and hell, they WANT to be a photographer.

But right now, you either use a dumbed down program like iPhoto, or a program like Lightroom / Aperture where you can use things like content aware fill, or any of the other magic goodies Adobe / Apple comes up with.

I could see Apple, as a game changer, pull in all sorts of advanced features under one single umbrella. That way, you don't have to buy crazy expensive programs, and you can grow with your program. It'd work out quite brilliantly for Apple if they can pull it off.

Or Apple will push out their zero cost competitor. What would really stop Apple from stripping the best features from Aperture and putting them into iPhoto? TFA suggests that Aperture is being replaced, not discontinued.

There is an interesting question of economics as to what is the true price of something. For instance, when a coal fired plant charges $x for electricity, it also causes health problems for the residents down wind, increases CO2 levels, and a spate of other issues. So the real "price" is paid not by the people burning the coal for electricity, but by society.

It's the same thing for cars. Cars pollute and enough cars can make a city's air unbreathable. They also can create quality of life issues. Which would you rather live in? An area with jam packed highways where you can't walk anywhere or somewhere walkable with nature. Mass transit also works most efficiently when it is used by the most people.

So in this case, it makes sense to say cars should reflect the actual cost to society, and to encourage mass transit use.

This is not so surprising. In his book Freakonomics, Stephen Levitt used econometric techniques (statistics for economists) to show that the most dangerous mode of transportation was not flying, driving, or riding a bicycle, it was walking while drunk.

Fact is, drunk people tend to do stupid things, like walking out in the middle of the road without looking.

Why is it 1 in 10? Well, accidental death in 22-64 year olds is not particularly common. And natural causes, even less so.

Very valid point.

Where exactly are you hiding when I'm at home cooking and put my mom on speakerphone? Or when I'm in the car, driving, and trying to pay attention to the road? Or when me and my friends, sitting around the couch with some beers, speaker phone in the one person who was sick and couldn't come join us?

While there are idiots in the world who are rude and ignorant of other people, their existence does not mean everyone is. Banning speaker phone just because some people are morons makes about as much sense as legislating that we replace all glasses with plastic sippy cups because some idiots break them and hurt themselves.

Data becomes public if and only if it's introduced into evidence by the Law Firm. Is it really so onerous to say, if you have health data that is confidential, take steps so it will not be disclosed until such time as it becomes part of the public record? Otherwise you open the door to all kinds of corner cases where a law firm can effectively disclose this information.

Speaker phone isn't all bad. I use it all the time when multitasking, and I could see being able to click a button on your watch to activate as being quite nice.