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How can vector animations (e.g. Homestar Runner) be taken care of? Converting an SWF animation to H.264 bloats it by a factor of ten or more in my tests, which makes a 2 GB/mo plan feel like it's 200 MB/mo.

Now why would you want to convert it to a discrete video?

Just convert it to a different vector format - SVG, for example.

There's certainly enough flexibility to make SVG animations - there's a few here:
http://srufaculty.sru.edu/david.dailey/svg/

There are, however, a few problems with that.

For one thing, this spikes my CPU far, far more than even the most ridiculous of flash-based websites (which indeed need to go away in so far as there not being a plain HTML equivalent accessible) I've encountered.

For another, it's just plain glitchy. This may depend on the SVG interpreter in play, but In the 'flipping a coin' example - http://srufaculty.sru.edu/david.dailey/svg/MatrixTransform.svg - there is a discontinuity in the animation once the text hits an exact 45Â angle where the text just stretches horribly.
The 'SVG Girl' demo even outright crashes FireFox. ( I know, Flash sometimes crashes, too.. but at least that's just the plugin, not the entire app.)

Problem is, there's just not much attention for SVG, at least as part of animation/multimedia. FireFox was late to the game in adding (partial) SMIL support for SVG, Adobe's only barely offering SVG authoring tools, and ever since Apple rediscovered the notion of drawing pixels directly to the screen, Canvas has gotten far, far more love.

I suppose one could argue that HomeStarRunner should be moved over to Canvas - which, given the lack of real need for HomeStarRunner to be presented as vectors in the browser isn't all that odd a suggestion.

Either way, Flash isn't really needed, most of what it does can be done today.. just that the in-browser result is even less reliable than Flash.

How can vector animations (e.g. Homestar Runner) be taken care of? Converting an SWF animation to H.264 bloats it by a factor of ten or more in my tests, which makes a 2 GB/mo plan feel like it's 200 MB/mo.

Now why would you want to convert it to a discrete video?

Just convert it to a different vector format - SVG, for example.

There's certainly enough flexibility to make SVG animations - there's a few here:
http://srufaculty.sru.edu/david.dailey/svg/

There are, however, a few problems with that.

For one thing, this spikes my CPU far, far more than even the most ridiculous of flash-based websites (which indeed need to go away in so far as there not being a plain HTML equivalent accessible) I've encountered.

For another, it's just plain glitchy. This may depend on the SVG interpreter in play, but In the 'flipping a coin' example - http://srufaculty.sru.edu/david.dailey/svg/MatrixTransform.svg - there is a discontinuity in the animation once the text hits an exact 45Â angle where the text just stretches horribly.
The 'SVG Girl' demo even outright crashes FireFox. ( I know, Flash sometimes crashes, too.. but at least that's just the plugin, not the entire app.)

Problem is, there's just not much attention for SVG, at least as part of animation/multimedia. FireFox was late to the game in adding (partial) SMIL support for SVG, Adobe's only barely offering SVG authoring tools, and ever since Apple rediscovered the notion of drawing pixels directly to the screen, Canvas has gotten far, far more love.

I suppose one could argue that HomeStarRunner should be moved over to Canvas - which, given the lack of real need for HomeStarRunner to be presented as vectors in the browser isn't all that odd a suggestion.

Either way, Flash isn't really needed, most of what it does can be done today.. just that the in-browser result is even less reliable than Flash.

SVG animation is available in Firefox using JavaScript or HTML. I suppose you mean SVG animation using SMIL? That's planned for Mozilla 2. I think some SMIL support is needed to pass Acid3, so I would suspect some SMIL support would be coming soon after Firefox 3.1 (in other words, next year).

The games on disney.com on nick.com only work in IE -- If you have kids, you might have noticed this.

A friend of mine attends Slippery Rock University and can't access a great majority of the site (to check email, register for classes, etc.) without IE.

As someone else mentioned, many online classes require you to use IE.

I've been IE free for 2 years now and haven't personally encountered a problem yet -- but many people have, and many people I know have.

You will find this site interesting:

Images in the Public Domain... The Badger.

...not many animals left for new O'Reilly books.

You will find this site interesting:

Images in the Public Domain... The Badger.

...not many animals left for new O'Reilly books.

More like 200,000.

The government is exempt from LAWS!

Broadband travels over YOU

Ok, maybe that was a bad reference as a primary reference. Still, I was only pointing out that there are lots of lengths you can choose from when you're using a cubit. The standard English cubit is 18 inches, but there are lots of references to other lengths as well, not only by aol members. 1 2 3 4.

OK, they give birth to larvae, not lay eggs like ordinary respectable arthropods. Principle is the same, anyway. Here is all you probably want to know about sleeping sickness with large drawings of the brain-eating microbes, from a professor at Tulane.

The World Health Organization's page on trypanosomiasis.

For population control, predators (including parasites) don't work nearly as well as the demographic transition. Learn about this concept, because it controls your future. Definition with nice graph.

You're on the money with that one. Some things that most (all?) countries in sub-Saharan Africa could use:

• A stable government.
• A stable legal system. Without either of these, you will not be able to have:
• A stable business environment / stable economy. Even with "the foundations of law and democracy" this is difficult to achieve: look at Japan over the last 10 years, and Argentina/Brazil/Mexico over the last 2-5.
• Rid the government of corruption. This helps towards fixing the above.
• Allow the populace to educate, shelter, and feed themselves. This means anything from a handout to a "hand up", depending on which charity/NGO/whatever you are talking to. It doesn't really matter how it gets done as long as it all gets done (education is the big one for the long term, but it can't happen without the other two). None of this can take place in an environment in which the average Joe lives in fear of a) roving bands of thugs and b) government troops.
• Effective measures to prevent the spread of disease. AIDS is a big fear right now. Many children die daily of African sleeping sickness. Malaria is another huge killer. Malaria and one other disease which leads to blindness (blanking on the name right now) are preventable with drugs.
• Note that I haven't mentioned an IT infrastructure yet.
• Electricity? Yeah, right. Lagos, Nigeria will be the world's 3rd largest city by 2015, behind Tokyo and Bombay. The city is growing rapidly and none of the infrastructure can handle it. It is a big deal that certain companies in the city will be provided with 22h/day electricity at some point in the near future! You can't have an IT infrastructure on 22h/day of electricity (and don't expect 22h/day of "uninterrupted" service).
• Don't bother joining the geekcorps if you want to help Africa. Instead get involved with HFH, The Grameen Foundation, The Heifer Project, or any of a number of other fundamental-infrastructure-building organizations. I'm sure geekcorps does great things, but their efforts seem better directed at "second tier" nations that already have basic infrastructure laid and are ready to make the leap into the 20th (yes) century.