What's wrong with GCC?

It's architectually a bit too complex, making it difficult to add new compiler frontends, optimisations and backend targets. Add in license concerns with GPLv3, and there's a compelling set of reasons to move to Clang.

You do know that she has no part in the writing of the speech or on its content? Her role is purely a ceremonial one.

I've experienced someone running the power amp output of one Marshall amp into the power amp input of another, then into a 4x12". The sound was a phenomenally throaty roar, but I doubt it would do much for the longevity of the second amp.

Yes but they are absolutely related. Different techniques that both similarly diminished the art-form of music by making it louder.

You haven't got the faintest idea what you're talking about. The criticism of the loudness war is concerned with clipping and a lack of dynamic variation thanks to over use of compression, not increased volume per se.

That's a thought. Must amend my will:

.. to be cremated in the chassis of a Marshall 8x10" cab ...

To go along with the music requests that include Killed By Death by Motorhead, And no, I'm not joking about the music, as that's what my will really does insist on being played.

I love my Ampeg SVT, but would quite eagerly swap it for a valve based Marshall bass head. They even do an 8x10" speaker now, so you can get the best of both Ampeg and Marshall worlds. Sigh. Anyway, so long Jim, and thanks for all the tinnitus.

ESR says a lot of things, and few of them make sense. Lisp is a great playground for conceptual stuff, but pretty much anything of value in Common Lisp has migrated to other, more mainstream languages.

Guile was a failed attempt at making an embeddable scripting language for the larger GNU apps. It failed because very few people actually wanted to use Lisp for such a purpose, even in if it was in a minimalist Scheme like form. There was even a flame war aeons ago when Tcl was proposed as a ready made alternative to a fledgling Guile. RMS shot the idea down in flames since he considered Tcl beneath unworthy of use by "real programmers". As you've noted, since then alternatives such as Lua have become popular in the embedded scripting language niche.

I remember getting OS/2 Warp as a freebie when I bought my first PC. It was from a short lived high street retailer called Escom, who could sell machines cheaper if they had OS/2 rather than Windows. Since I was going to slap Linux (RedHat 3.0.3) or NetBSD on the machine I didn't care about the lack of Windows - for those that expected to get Windows it mustc have come as a surprise! I tinkered a bit with OS/2, but the interface felt clunky and cluttered. The Windows 3.51 machines that were gradually supplanting our SunOS boxes at work felt pretty elegant in comparison. The biggest problem was a lack of apps, and although there was some sort of DOS emulation I seem to recall you had to effectively reboot the machine into a weird hybrid OS/2 and DOS mode.