Java vs. C#: Checked vs. Unchecked Exceptions

Billy Barrett writes:

I have come to the conclusion that writing a highly robust application with C# is nearly impossible because of [reasons such as...] you are catching the exceptions that are being thrown and then the person who wrote the component you …

All the cool kids are going to the Sells Brothers Web Services DevCon 10-11 Oct in Bedford, MA. I've been spending all my time preparing for the BZ Media Web Services Dev Con happening this week in NYC. Both should be good but the Sells Brothers is clearly more technically …

"Whitepaper: Pingback vs Trackback" [Daypop Top 40]

Autonomous vehicle race from LA to LV, \$1M to first across the line.

Pre-order Thinking in C#

"potholes" [Daypop Top 40] Photoshop makes me doubt such things, but if it's real, it's funny.

Friday Five:

1. What are your favorite ways to relax and unwind?

Coding and pondering challenges in information theory is my favorite way to escape from the real world. But since mostly what I do is code, I have to relax and unwind from that. To be honest, I put …

New Scientist is reporting some science-based speculation that the acidic clouds of Venus may harbor microbial life. "Microbial" my sweet aunt Agnes -- I'm thinking shark-blimps that endlessly pursue schools of blimplets as they swirl through the jetstream...

"Clones" to be re-rendered, displayed on Imax. Supposedly, there's a digital printer for the IMAX that prints 8000 x 6000 resolution. And then also, one supposes, they can render the scenes using the appropriate "lenses" (I once saw 2001 on an IMAX screen and the obelisk looked like a melted …

Oh, those charismatic megafauna get all the props. UNEP has put Great White Sharks in Appendix I of the Convention of Migratory Species, which means that every nation has to prevent taking them. More interestingly, apparently there's a camel species recently discovered "in a lost land of salty sand dunes …