They are talking about genetic differences in gut bacteria, not genetic differences in people. This has nothing at all to do with genetic differences between Europeans, Native Americans and Japanese. It has to do with the bacteria currently living in the guts of those born in Japan vs. those born in the US. Thus they really do mean "North Americans" as in "people currently living in North America", a set that includes people of European, Native American, African and presumably even Japanese ancestry.

The point, other then to be snarky, is that while C and C++ aren't as transparently portable out of the box, they are available on far more platforms than Java. Too many people throw out "Java is more portable than C", which is only really the case if you are porting between PC platforms.

In many ways, Java's "portability" is overblown as pretty much any VM based or interpreted language is equally portable. I'd be willing to bet that JavaScript is available on more platforms.

Java is extremely portable. A Java application can be run anywhere someone wrote a VM for it in C or C++.

Well...I'd say step one would be to stop publicly referring to putting a link in an HTML form as "programming".

I gather you didn't play any of the DLC! "The Pitt" was only playable for me if I shut the game entirely down every half hour.

Or PS3 owners.

Or (from what I hear) PC owners.

That's not what he said.

He said he's #5 on Google, and another site that does what his does is #6 on Google, while neither is in the top #100 on Bing.

(Not that you can really tell how valid it is without knowing the sites.)

That's why I use ls -lh.

And, of course, the common mistake is believing that "baud" == "bits per second".

If you *really* want to know how big your files *really* are, you should demand that the OS round up to the nearest cluster.

"Experiment" implies that they will later roll it into the browser, like the other "optional experiments".

I am all for improving the browser. I sure would like one that's faster, or uses less memory, or...

Oh, wait, you meant adding features, like last release's ultra-critical "pretty picture behind the address bar" update.

Given that I always say NO GODDAMNIT NO NO NO NO! to those requests because I don't want some idiot social networking fuckhead marketer spamming all my contacts, saying "we'll just do it automagically" fills me with terror.

Why on Earth are they trying to turn Firefox into the Mozilla Application Suite!? There's a reason that failed, and Firefox, originally just an afterthought to quiet those complaining about Mozilla's bloat, won out.

What is wrong with "do one thing and do it well?"

In any case, I look forward to the next project, which spins off a browser from the Firefox project for people who just want a browser.

Amazon is trying a very old business model:

1) Undercut everyone on price.
2) Drive all competitors out of business.
3) Profit! ...not new at all. What is particularly dangerous is that retailers with enough market share can do more than just manipulate price. Witness Walmart's insistence on "explicit" music being edited without any packaging notice. That's the sort of thing that happens when a single retailer wins.

The battle has sadly mostly been lost for music, to Apple. (Ironically enough.) I would hate to see the same damn thing happen to ebooks.