digeridoo

Applets were always the answer. Amazing how badly a technology can fail because of start-up time.

Proof is a word that shouldn't be used lightly. I don't think anyone would see this as proof that quantum foam doesn't exist. The laws of physics allow for quantum foam to happen, which may lead us to start looking very differently at the structure of the universe. However, we now have some strong evidence from measurements over a reasonably large distance that quantum foam is not an immediately noticeable factor in the universe.

I kind of liked quantum foam as a possible way of explaining gravity observation that are not explained by the amount of visible matter and thus attributed to 'dark matter', because 'matter' is the only thing we know that would cause gravity. This tells me I shouldn't get too excited about that possibility.

The article is a bit dodgy in this regard. It just means that at a quantum level, the energy fluctuations (as observed in this experiment) are not big enough to cause significant space-time alterations.

Perhaps I'm tired, but how can the Japanese life expectancy figure be higher when considering fatal injuries?

Last time I checked in C, all pointer types where the same storage size. There's no need to define the same data structure multiple times by using templates. You just use casts.

What's so confusing about the term virtual machine? It's an abstraction of the underlying machine.

Also known as: embarrassingly parallel problems.

Java is a language for people good at resisting temptation. It gives you all sorts of ways to make your code look nicer, more elegant, but the only way to be productive in Java is to avoid all of them.

In my experience, you can be more productive in Java than in any other language, because it has by the best tools and libraries. However, don't use reflection, don't use cloning, avoid automatic (de)serialization, don't doc needlessly, don't separate interface and implementation when you don't have to, use refactoring and code generation, don't feel bad about code duplication.

Most of all, always consider that coding is cheap. Changing a constant? Easy, not hard. Changing interfaces? Easy, not hard. Introducing an alternative implementation? Easy, not hard. Changing names? Easy, not hard. Adding new types? Easy, not hard. You don't need to think about easy things in advance, think about the problem instead.

Last noteworthy S3 outage was in 2008.

I never quite understood fitness. I bought some weights 2 years back and found a light exercise routine I like enough to do it daily. Works like a charm.

> today’s programmer can even go so far as to question the usage of malloc

In old school or new school C, there's every reason to minimize the use of malloc and it's easy to avoid.

Well, if the money supply kept up perfectly with economic growth then the value of money would stay the same. Inflation is extra money supply expansion.