It was a bloody silly question. Suggested reading - The Ancestor's Tale by Dawkins, though as he's a prominent and intelligent atheist you'd probably burn the book.

Just launched OO.o on my cheap netbook (533 MHz Atom, 512 MB RAM, no swap, Linux and a little 8GB SSD) and it only took 8 seconds.

So yes, OO is much faster to load than it used to be :)

Are you paying $50 per hour for your developers' typing?

Or are you paying them $50 per hour for their intellect?

Long compile times, in my experience, give an opportunity to nip off for a coffee or a cigarette, both of which tend to lead to greater productivity because you actually interact with co-workers.

Most of my programming problems have been solved during coffee or smoke breaks - yes it's frustrating to wait for a recompile, but the benefits of chewing the fat with other developers far outweigh the perceived loss in efficiency.

Well smart-arse - the next time you write a 60 gig project, please publish the details.

Arse.

Well in 1994 when I did an Objectivity programming course, ORM was discussed, and there was even talk of working the other way with a SQL dialect aimed at talking to OODBMS systems. Happy days - that was my first bit of C++ programming, and overloading operators blew my mind :)

After reading your post I would like to meet Monique - do you have her mobile number?

If there's one thing I like, it's big hairy lawyers.

May I beg to differ, and offer Talisker as a fine (and slightly better mannered) alternative?

It's got the peat, but it's from Skye and is a little more subtle than either Ardbeg or Laphroaig (bigger island, so perhaps the influence of the sea is slightly less).

But then I am Welsh, so inclined to perversity in my choice of beverage :)

and any sensible evolutionary system would have seen us wiped out long ago.

Give it time...

Honestly has anyone ever heard of wireshark or netflow?

Nice troll - good luck to you reading packet traces from a 40Gb link.

No wonder you post as AC :)

My thoughts exactly - but then I've only ever set up redundant networks on Cisco kit - perhaps there is a way to set up HP switches to failover without STP, but it's a mystery to me ;-)

Trouble is with this government it's more likely that pro-Palestinians will be targeted, as criticism of Israel will soon be against the national interest once Mandie has completed his putsch.

Some researchers published an article with an inflamatory title: "Charlatanry in forensic speech science: A problem to be taken seriously", and got sued for libel. This isn't about censorship or intellectual property laws, it's about a company protecting its image from mudslinging.

That's one perspective, true.

My perspective differs somewhat - the 'company protecting its image' are IMNSHO a bunch of snake oil salesmen, who are misusing libel law to silence researchers who point out that their snake oil is no better than any other snake oil.

How anyone can believe in lie detectors has always been a mystery to me - there may be a way of detecting a lie through imaging of brain activity, but the notion that voice analysis can detect lies is truly farcical. At best, voice analysis can detect stress, but then so could polygraphs, and they aren't overly accurate.

You're right though - most of the preceding discussion was off-topic and irrelevant.

Once you have the complete Dubliners' discography, what need have you for other fripperies?

Aye - those clogs are a bugger when trying to move silently.

Haha - you're entirely wrong.

Complimentary = with our compliments.

Complementary = making complete.

Unless you are trying to claim that the meaning of 'complementary' is that the bathroom sans soap is somewhat less than whole, you've just made a complete arse of yourself.

Thankyou for playing the pedantry game - please feel free to come back when you are better at it.