"There is some concern that Apple will have a hard time recruiting a top-notch CEO because of Jobs's presence." reads quite ironically too given how things panned out.
I just wish that Logo+<Number> didn't require you to hold the Logo key for a second or so before you press the number. I want quicker switching between apps than that.
Having done substantive work in both, the most significant difference that for me favours Python is that every module explicitly imports the names that are accessible within its namespace (barring use of 'from X import *' which is generally discouraged). In comparison I found it a real pain to track down definitions of specific names in a complex chain of 'require'd Ruby code.
If you read the context, this isn't really a specific criticism of ssh, but rather a general criticism of Unix's network model (or lack of it). Maybe we should all be using Plan 9, but as we're not ssh helps a lot.
I think you're right that the members of a community give it its value, but I think you underestimate the influence of the software. Consider it like the decor of a bar - once the regular clientele are established it becomes less important, but initially people are drawn there because they feel an affinity with the look and feel. IMHO of course.
OK, so you significantly edited your reply, rather than do the same I'll respond again:
"smoothly conflate mercantilism and capitalism."
That mercantilism was a phase of capitalism is a common - though not universally accepted - point of view.
"WW2 flat requires the re-branding of command economies as "capitalist"."
Repeating myself somewhat, but that depends on how you attribute causation. That capitalism was in crisis in the 1930s is pretty uncontentious. That the effects of that crisis on Germany contributed to the rise of Nazism is also fairly uncontentious. The rest depends on how you weight those factors against others.
I appreciate that you are not open to the view that a non-murderous and non-totalitarian socialist society is possible. I myself am on the fence.
However I do strongly believe the first half of my argument: that capitalism begets death and destruction on a scale that exceeds the murderousness of the 20th century's totalitarian regimes (whether within 'wartime' or 'peacetime' matters not to me).
I hope that something better is possible. I accept that based on the empirical evidence we are screwed.
Unless you mean to imply that the United States, England, and France started WWII? I mean, you could make a roundabout Treaty of Versailles argument to do that
That would be a simple version of the argument I have in mind. Basically I don't think WW1 and WW2 were disconnected events, there is a path of historical causation that runs through both.
WW2 requires the re-branding of command economies as "capitalist"
Only if you see the rise of Nazism and WW2 as discrete historical events with no causal relationship to the years that immediately preceded them. I've encountered reasonable arguments that the first half of the 20th century was dominated by a single protracted world war with a lapse in explicit hostilities in the 1920s. The rise of any ideology has to be accompanied by conducive political and economic conditions.
You might; I'm as impressed of that as I am by ID.
Apparently your repeated mistake is to confuse the methodologies that lead to sound scientific theory and the methodologies that lead to sound historical theory. I'm attempting to highlight complexity and nuance in the history of the 20th century that you are overlooking. If you refuse to see it then no amount of rational argument will help.
Arguably the two world wars of the 20th century were a consequence of the expansionist tendencies of capitalist economies, and between them deaths were nigh on 100 million.
Of course you may well reject such an argument, as I might reject the argument that the tens of millions of deaths in totalitarian states that described themselves as communist were an inevitable consequence of their politico-economic structure.
My point is not to claim that either of these points of view are true or false. My point is that complex, somewhat subjective and potentially contentious historical analyses are required to attribute causation to the 20th century's multiple clusters of mass homicide (unlike, say, the deaths caused by the 1918 flu pandemic where an objective attribution of cause is relatively straightforward).
The evidence is not as straightforward as you portray it.
(edit: I missed out the word 'deaths' in the first paragraph)
One key reason for the usual 'right now' availability is to avoid cannibalizing sales of existing products. They were happy to pre-announce the iPhone because there were no existing Apple phones. Arguably the tablet can also be pre-announced for the same reason (although one could also make an argument in the other direction viz the MacBooks)