I think you missed a third point. They sip power, compared to x86 chips. Well, that, and apparently recent ARMs compare favorably against low-end Intel chips.

And anyhow, I've got a PC from circa 1998 that I use to run some older software, and I wouldn't expect much argument that that's a general purpose computer, even though my last 2 phones far outclass its performance in every measurable way. Performance level doesn't have much to do with whether something's a real computer or not.

Do you diff your project's documentation when you get back from vacation? Generally, if there's a large change to the project, the official documentation is updated, RFE bugs are filed (and later closed), the revision control systems for docs and code will show matching changes, and there will be a certain amount of e-mail traffic between developers (first discussing proper implementation, later informing other parties about changes that may affect them).

While the changes are fully documented in the appropriate places, it's immensely faster to read a paragraph of text explaining the change and the reasoning behind it than to search through the documentation to find the same information. Add to it that we generally get organizational changes through E-mail (changes to the org chart, HR representation, etc), and I see plenty of things that belong in an E-mail.

And well you should, if you're pushing work that should be yours onto the other person, but that's a problem whether or not they were out on vacation. There *are* situations where a two-line E-mail will save your coworker from chasing through logs on a bug-tracker, looking at code reviews, etc, to figure out what changed while they were gone. That is, I could send an absent coworker a summary e-mail that would save them considerable time when they return, and if I didn't do that, then I should get in just as much trouble for wasting their time as I should for sending them something that will be invalid by the time they get back.

My mobile apps: Null set. I'm not interested in developing for Apple hardware, and I don't want to do the testing for the heterogenous crapshoot of Android hardware. That's why I said in my last post "I haven't seriously considered mobile development".

Because my time is worth much more than the fee and the development hardware I would have to buy. If I could eliminate a week of testing due to having a more restrictive platform, I've made up the difference in dev costs.

Then again, that same perception (the value of my time) is why I haven't seriously considered mobile development. I don't think I'd make my money back for the time investment, at this point.

Because the users of the #2 platform have already demonstrated a predisposition toward paying more than they have to for things, and I've seen claims that Apple users will pay more for apps. The iOS platform is also less fragmented than the Android platform, so there are fewer device configurations that you have to account for.

Disclaimer: That's all word-of-mouth to me. I'm not a mobile app developer, but those are some of the arguments that I've seen others make.

There's a Heinlein short story that covers the scenario (still on Earth), but in a independent "reservation" for exiles, called Coventry. Someone opts to go there as punishment for a crime, expecting an individualist anarchic utopia, but finding another little world of corrupt governments, unethical bureaucracies, etc.

I've used an Android torrent app (also, an iOS one on a jailbroken iPod Touch). My LTE connection is a significant fraction of the speed of my cable internet connection. If I had my hardwired pipe saturated, and I "just had to" have something ASAP, I could imagine running a torrent on my phone. Or if I were a high schooler trying to hide my activities from tech-savvy parents, or something.

OK...those are kind of contrived scenarios. You might be surprised by some of the stupid things people do with tech, though.

...But they'll still become the sole basis of at least half of the comment threads.

VTD-XML is a dual-licensed piece of software. From their FAQ:

The software is distributed for free provided certain license terms are followed, and otherwise, a license can be purchased for it as a commercial product. This seems to be a case where the GPL-licensed version of the software was inappropriate, and Versata should've paid for a license. I think that it can be argued that there are real damages in this case.

It's standard C and C++ (and Java, for that matter). It's the pre-increment operator (Returns the incremented value, rather than the original value). Post-increment has to save the previous value, so that it can increment the variable and store it, then return the original value. Pre-increment doesn't have to make the extra copy, since what's being stored is the same as what's being returned. Most of the time, the difference is optimized away anyhow; the compiler realizes that you aren't immediately using the return value, so it just pre-increments the value without creating any extra copy.

And why ++i is faster than i++?

--No one, Ever.

It's like a horizontally-interlaced version of 1080i, rather than 1080p. Imagine sweeping the view from left to right. Depending on the speed of rotation, there's a chance that the part of the screen that's under the even fields on one frame will be under the odd fields on the next frame. Overall, I'm sure it's better-quality than upscaled 960x1080p video would have been, but noticeably inferior to progressive-scan 1920x1080 video at 60fps (which is what Sony originally advertised it as, apparently).

I'm with you on the 1200-line monitors, though. The shape is much more pleasant than a 16:9 screen, and it can fit more information on it.

My pupils are different sizes at the same light level, and always have been. In the right lighting conditions, one eye is shifted more toward red and the other is more toward blue.