Exactly! Jobs picked BSD (1977), the NeXT GUI (1985/1988), and an object oriented version of C (1986) that came before C++ (1983)! (OK, BSD had been around a little while by that time, and C++ predated Objective C.) They are mature technologies now, but were all picked relatively early in their life.
You certainly note some fair examples for your point. However, I was referring to Apple's choosing of HTML5 instead of Flash. The easy choice that probably benefits mostly in the short-term is to play nice with Flash. Ultimately, Jobs and his team felt the best customer experience was to ditch Flash much to the malign of developers. Would Microsoft made such a decision? And who at Microsoft makes those decisions? Where does the buck stop?
I would like you to explain a little more how C++ is more "cutting edge" than Obj-C, etc.
BSD is still used in Free/Open/Net/BSD; and Next's GUI was based on Display Postscript, which was easily tuned for PDF (PS and PDF are very similar languages)
What you will notice is that all of these choices were designed by very small teams, sometimes just 1 person was involved in the original design:
BSD - Bill Joy and a few others made the major design decisions
Next GUI - Keith Ohlfs, on top of DPS licensed from Adobe
Objective C - designed mainly by Brad Cox
You missed the Mach kernel, originally a small research project from CMU, Avie Tevanian worked on porting Mach to a multi-processor system in the early to mid 1980s.
Can't fault you on your points -- they're all solid, but I would say there's a glaring omission. Cutting edge user experience (and that includes usability) does underpin Apple's success.
That's what we need to make airline travel safer.
The two pilots both fly with loaded handguns pointed at the head of the other pilot in case they turn out to be a crazy commie/terrorist/(delete as appropriate).
Then the recipient would have to first agree that storing the ino about this 'message being confidential' on a 3rd party website was accpetable - you would have to have click through EULAs on each email and make them different depending on the jurisdiction of the recipient.
It's no different than passengers going through screening - the TSA ID checkers aren't likely to catch a high quality fake ID, and we know that boarding passes can be faked. That's one of - if not the best - arguments as to why it's pointless for the TSA to be checking IDs anyway.
The point still stands though. A fake pilot in the cockpit is as dangerous as a passenger with grenades strapped to his chest. More so.
When you're sitting in the driver's seat, who cares if you have any weapon you want? Ergo, anything that can get you in the driver's seat should be good enough to get you past security, faked or not.
I flew yesterday, and arrived early enough to watch the crew get onto the plane. There was a cursory check of their IDs, but very cursory. The main thing seemed to be that everyone knew each other; the crew had worked together before, and the flight agent who checked their IDs knew them. I would not be surprised if the flight agent was given pictures of the pilots as well as their names, though, which would probably provide the greatest security (identity verified by a trusted third party, the airline, without any chance for the pilot to interact with the verifying document, as happens with passports or other ids. If you never get to see it, you can't tamper with it).
Except that in the US (unless you are at the airline's home base) the checkin+gate staff are probably on contract from some staffing agency or rented from the airport.
The 'Delta connection' flight you are on is sub-contracted out to a 2 man outfit with a single regional jet.
Pay and conditions are so poor that staff turnover is huge and the number of staff is reduced so that people barely have time to glance at the person.
It's one of the hidden costs of replacing the company security guard with the cheap outside agency.
Although you could patent a step in the manufacturing process or an improvement in the formula.
That was the classic Edison stratergy for movie film, there were too many people with a claim to having invented film - so he patented the sprocket holes.
Although in the US you could patent the concept of a particular type of clothing being made from polartec, or even a method of selling it.
Thats the danger with print journalism. If you see a Fox news story that Obama easts babies you can pretty much guess the impartiality of the source.
If you read a tech story about Blue-ray not being very good do you know if the paper's parent company owns a study that is backing HD-DVD?