*waves hand* These aren't the typos you're looking for...
Re:Because you don't need more cycles in biz
on
Less Is Moore
·
· Score: 1
I have sympathies with Tim Allen [...] I believe in the future, computers will have to get more powerful for AI
Am I the only one who read that as, "computers will have to get more powerful for Al [Borland]"?
I'm sitting here, doing my best Kirk impression, thinking "What does Al need with a more powerful computer?" (Or a starship, even?)
Re:Bad Logic
on
Less Is Moore
·
· Score: 5, Informative
Um, no it wasn't. "Moore's law" is a term that was coined after Thomas Moore gave a presentation showing that the company was managing to double transistor density each month. This observation created an interesting problem for the company. What should they do with all those extra transistors?
One option was that they could keep getting higher yields on existing chips, eventually driving the cost per unit to mere fractions of a penny. The other option was that Intel could do something useful with all that extra circuitry and maintain higher prices.
Considering that contemporary CPUs of the time were barely more powerful than the interrupt controller sitting next to them, using that silicon for sophisticated 32bit processors with on-die floating point units and SIMD instructions seemed like a no-brainer for the company. Thus as each successive generation of technology has made CPUs smaller, Intel has used the extra space to add more features and more optimizations.
At this point, things are getting a bit ridiculous. CPU manufacturers have so much extra space on which to work that they can fit 2-4 CPU cores on a single die and STILL produce a smaller chip than the last generation.
If you're a big fan of Tower Defense, go check out http://www.towerdefence.net./ They catalog nearly every variation of Tower Defense known to man. You can easily waste days on that site. So click through at your own risk!;-)
For rough estimates, that sounds about right. I get 72MJ for a round trip, which converts to 20kWh. So I'd say you've got it.:)
Worst case, add about 50% on to that to cover unexpected usage. (e.g. Hitting a lot of stop lights. Going to the grocery store. etc.) That would give you about a 600kWh usage per month. You can use this chart to figure out what your monthly "fuel" bill would be. Using California as an estimate, the cost for 600kWh would work out to (600 * 0.12) $72/month. Not too shabby.
If you live somewhere less expensive, like the nuclear powered Illinois, you could have a bill as low as ~$50/mo.
Power=F*v (instantaneously) so at 60 Power=4900*27=132 kW=177 hp
I'm pretty sure this is wrong. 27m/s is the constant velocity. 5.4m/s^2 is the acceleration. Never the two shall meet. Also, you're computing for momentum (potential energy), not power.
Of course, I made a mistake in my computations as well. Parent did something confusing and inserted "4,865kg" into his calculations when he meant "newtons". Let's see if we can rejigger this from scratch.
Acceleration = 5.4 m/s^2 Mass = 907kg Time = 5s
First we need to compute the newtons.
5.4m/s^2 * 907kg = 4,897.8 newtons
From that we know the wattage:
4,897.8 newtons = 4.9kW (6.57hp)
Energy used during acceleration:
4.9kW * 5s = 24.5kJ
Of course, we're computing for a vacuum. Friction and air resistance is going to significantly increase those figures. From the last time I did the work to figure out what it takes for a car to travel a constant 60mph, ~20kW of power sounds about correct. Unfortunately, I'd need to know the exact drag of the vehicle to compute this properly.
I do not want a car that goes 0 to 110 Mph in 3 seconds. That is just stupid.
Actually, you get that for free with an electric drive. The torque capacity of electric motors is so high that they are usually governed to more reasonable levels of acceleration.
As for the reason behind sports cars, that's easy. Sports cars are expensive. Electric drive technology is expensive. Electric drive technology is great for race cars. ("Horsepower sells cars, torque wins races." --Carroll Shelby) Ergo, selling an expensive electric sports car is a great way to get electric technology into the marketplace. Once the technology is in the marketplace, the price will be driven down by the laws of economics.
Say "Yes" to nuclear. It's less radioactive than coal, has killed barely a minuscule fraction of the number of people coal has killed, and we have enough supply to easily last for as long as we can reasonably project our energy requirements.
Oh, and it's a key component for any serious attempts at interplanetary or interstellar space travel. Which could be important if we want to research more efficient solar collection or need to go track us down more nuclear materials. (Or you could send missions to Titan and supply the Earth with a near-infinite supply of $10billion/gal gasoline.:-P)
While I'm not so sure about a lot of climate science, water vapor is supposed to be a relatively invariant quantity. Excess vapor dumped into the air is not a concern as it will not remain long enough to be a greenhouse issue.
The greater concern is supposedly the CO2 gases since that is one of the few things we can change about the climate. (Especially with the ocean's capacity to be a huge carbon sink/carbon emitter.)
Personally, I want to know what happened to the CFC scare. Supposedly our air conditioners were going to rip a hole in the Ozone layer and cook us all to death. Apparently, the CO2 we were ignoring is far more insidious.
What, no love for the Big 3? Lemme see here. We've got the range-extended Town & Country EV from Chrysler that will do 40 miles on a single charge, plus another 360 miles using a mixed gasoline-electric propulsion. They're also working on Dodge and Jeep vehicles with similar designs.
Ford used to have the market in a bag with their Ford Ranger EV pickup. Of course, they discontinued it in 2002. Now they're playing catch-up with the rest of the market. They are promising an electric vehicle by 2011, so there should be plenty of competition in late 2010/early 2011.
Speaking of competition, what discussion is complete without mentioning the Chevy Volt? Still the gold standard for the emerging industry, it will be anyone's guess if it lives up to the hype.
Then there's the announcement by Aptera of the first pre-production model of the Aptera 2e
I rather like the look of this car, but I am concerned by a couple of issues. First up is the single back wheel. Won't that make the vehicle a rollover hazard? I presume the front wheels are extended to help mitigate this issue, but one good blowout looks like it could send that sucker fishtailing right into roll. (And for that matter, how servicable is that tire?)
My second issue is the power-train. Generally you want as much weight sprung as possible, and electric motors are heavy. Aptera seems to understand that as it appears there is an axel linkage on the front wheels. Presumably this is how power is transmitted. Is having that axel exposed going to cause any safety and reliability issues? I'm just imagining something flying off the road and getting wrapped around the the axel. Or in an accident, a pedestrian getting an appendage caught in there.
Or is this a rear-wheel drive vehicle? In which case, is that axel really necessary? Could'nt the steering be accomplished by swiveling independent pods rather than linking them?
Just my 0.005 cents worth after accounting for inflation.:-P
P.S. The Shelby looks pretty darn sweet! I'd never spend money to purchase a vehicle like that*, but I wouldn't mind taking her for a spin.
I really thought Ogg went the way of the dinosaur.
Not really. Most posters manage to miss the purpose of Mozilla's funding. This deals directly with an issue in the HTML5 specs. Specifically, the fact that HTML5 does not have a default codec for audio/video. It used to be Ogg Vorbis/Theora, but that got canned when Apple claimed they couldn't support it in Quicktime without opening themselves to possible patent lawsuits. To which Mozilla countered that they couldn't support Apple's default of MPEG4 due to licensing issues.
The end result of the debates (and *cough*arguments*cough*) is that support for Ogg was removed from the spec. As of right now, WebKit will support Quicktime formats (+user installed Ogg plugins) while Mozilla will support Ogg. What Mozilla is attempting to accomplish with this grant is to propel forward the use of Ogg in public places like Wikipedia. If they can gain enough of a market presence, they probably figure they can make Ogg the defacto standard for HTML5 audio/video. Much in the way MP3 became the defacto standard for music by being positioned in the market at the right time and place.
This was a PC game that came on a floppy disc, packaged in one of those folding clear plastic containers just big enough for a floppy that would hold closed by pressing the nubs at the top together. And it was a clone of Q-Bert, not a derivative of Freeway/Frogger.:-)
Nope. Already been down that road. Math Blaster is not it. The game I'm talking about was a standalone title in a blue software box of a traditional two-piece variety. The game had gorgeous EGA graphics in its day which it was able to achieve thanks to the slow pace of gameplay.(The game had to give you enough time to build up fuel by answering math questions. Once you had the fuel, it played like a really slow Lunar Lander.)
I believe the game was called "Math Lander". But good luck finding any info on it.:-(
Using Fast Hack'em wasn't just right, it was a moral imperative.
Is that a Real Genius reference? Kudos if it is!
Those must be IIGS or Atari games. I never had either computer.
IBM PC, actually. The former I played on a PCjr while the latter I played on a PCXT. As I said, the mere existence of these games is not even acknowledged today. I appear to be the only one who remembers them. Very sad.:-(
The market is rife with such special cases. Should we let all of them die because they were "special"?
As for the toy aspect, it ignores the historical importance of Atari. Yes, they made games. But that doesn't mean that making games is not an important part of the history of computing. Knowing that side of the equation offers up all kinds of interesting insights into today's software development practices. Ignoring their contribution is a bit like saying the Byzantine Empire was a special case and should be mostly ignored.
(Which is actually a surprisingly common mistake made in history textbooks. By glossing over the East Empire, the connection between the Roman Empire and modern history is often obscured. Worse yet, the development of the areas of the middle east and Russia are almost completely obscured from history. It's like these major geopolitical forces just came into being one day.)
And even with that remaining 30%, a much smaller percent (we're talking single digits) are using next-gen javascript engines that are necessary to make the 3d stuff usable that can be done in Flash six months ago.
FWIW, 100% of the alternative engines can do it on modern hardware. The exception I mentioned was a fill-rate limited device. The problems there had nothing to do with the JS engine. (Which is actually quite fast.) Even then, wiioperasdk.com attempts to provide a 3D engine for the Wii. Has been since 2007.
Also, IE is currently the slowest JS engine on the market. By a wide margin.
Even though what it would bring to the iPhone is being able to run the exact same code that is already, today, without some fancy browser cherrpicking, running on the vast bulk of personal computers.
Except that it doesn't work that way. Take it from someone who's dealt with flash on these devices. The same code doesn't run because the interface is different. Only the simplest of simple applications run. Everything else needs to be custom-built. And for the record, Flash APIs are too limited to allow for alternative input like the touch screen on the iPhone. Only the basic Mouse emulation + text field support would make it through. Same as on the Wii.
But if you're wanting to talk about where mobile devices and general (and probably eventually the iPhone) will be in a few years, then I expect Adobe's big push into getting Flash Player 10 onto mobile devices (which should probably also translate to home devices like the PS3, the Wii, etc.) will make Flash even more of a leader.
Well, they're failing miserably at this, I'm afraid. The only such platform where Flash is usable (Nintendo Wii) is stuck on Flash 7. Nintendo had Opera remove support with the DSi. The only modern Flash support exists on the PS3, but the NetFront(!!!) web browser is so limited that its not very useful. And it's not useful at all without a keyboard and mouse. (Same problem I mentioned earlier.)
But anyway, from my very first post, I stated my basic point was return on investment.
A fair argument, but Flash isn't it. The Flash platform makes some fundamental assumptions about the underlying platform. That is both its strength and its weakness. Ultimately, it has had a very poor showing on mobile devices and is unlikely to make headway. The ROI on it is terrible. (From my 3+ years experience with it on limited platforms.)
And that's probably the last you'll hear from me on the subject.
A dirty bomb -- or radiological dispersion bomb -- is a relatively unsophisticated device that combines radioactive materials with conventional explosives. When exploded, such a device scatters radioactive particles into the environment. No nuclear-fission reaction takes place as would occur with a true nuclear weapon, and, while anyone within the initial blast radius will probably be killed immediately, more casualties would probably result from the long-term effects of the dispersed radioactive material. According to Michael Levi, the physicist who managed a Federation of American Scientists' (FAS) study into the effects of a dirty bomb explosion, protecting yourself after such an attack is a matter of getting indoors, showering, and not eating contaminated food or breathing open air. As he put it: "It's really a matter of closing your windows and waiting for instructions." 6 Levi also cautioned that the much-hyped potassium iodine anti-radiation pills said to be selling so well in the wake of the attorney general's announcement, are likely to be of limited use against dirty bombs, as most studies predict the use of non-iodine radiation in any such device. 7
Moreover, Dr. John W. Poston Sr., professor of nuclear engineering at Texas A&M University, and chairman of a committee that produced a study on dirty bombs for the national Council on Radiation Protection, contends that the dispersal method used in such a device would so dilute the radioactive material involved as to make any radiation doses incurred non-fatal. Similarly, according to a report by the Center for Strategic and International Studies, 1.5 pounds of radioactive cesium dispersed by detonating 4,000 pounds of TNT would only increase the amount of radiation that most of the affected people are normally exposed to by 25 percent. 8 As Mark Gwozdecky of the International Atomic Energy Agency put it: "It's hard to imagine any kind of dirty bomb producing the kinds of mass casualties that we saw on Sept. 11." Such a device would, he added, be a weapon of mass disruption rather than a weapon of mass destruction.
Again, dirty bombs don't work.
Let's move on to the next point:
These conclusions were corroborated by the FAS study, which found that, while a dirty bomb would not inflict deaths on anything like the scale of even a crude nuclear device, widespread contamination exceeding Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) safety guidelines could result. If the risk of cancer deaths could not be curtailed to around 1-in-10,000, the EPA would probably recommend the long-term evacuation of the contaminated area.
Again, we hear that dirty bombs don't work. I've also highlighted an interesting point for you. The EPA will evacuate when there is a danger of 1 cancer in 10,000 eventually developing. Let's be clear on that. There is no immediate danger and more than enough time for an orderly evacuation of the affected street blocks. For comparison, your normal chances of dieing of cancer are 11 in 50 per the 2005 census of US Mortality.
In addition, the government has known for some time that their cancer models for radiation are highly conservative and do not actually reflect reality. So you are even safer than originally thought.
Now let's consider the property damage. If dispersed outdoors, the streets and exteriors of the building will need to be decontaminated. What does that mean? That means that teams run around with Geiger counters and identify where exactly there is radiation being produced above acceptable limits. The areas would then be washed down and the dirty water collected for disposal.
If dispersed indoors, then what? Well, a section of a building may need to be stripped, decontaminated in a similar fashion to the outdoors, then rebuilt. Materia
Oh, and before you decide to buy into the comment placed on the DOM2 bug, consider this:
1. DOM2 Events was introduced as a standard in 1998. It was formalized in 2000. Microsoft has had over 10 years to implement the standard. One would think it would be top on their list.
2. Here's a list of the editors for the Events section of the original spec back in 1998:
Tom Pixley, Netscape Communications Corporation Chris Wilson, Microsoft Corporation
Notice anyone interesting?
3. Consider again: Why is Microsoft implementing HTML5 features that depend on DOM 2 Events and could still change if they don't have time to implement DOM 2 Events?
Remember: the HTML5 spec is not finalized. Pieces of it are, but not the pieces that Microsoft chose. DOM2 was finalized in 2000, yet Microsoft left it out of IE 5.5, IE 6, IE 7, and now IE 8. Sensing a pattern?
Slashdot Mirror
Fair 'nuff. It wasn't clear from your post that it was not intended to be a direct response.
Though if there's anywhere on the public Internet that Moore's law is well understood, Slashdot is it. :-)
Translation: The number of transistors doubles.
I said nothing about "power". Those are your words, not mine.
s/Thomas/Gordon/g
*waves hand* These aren't the typos you're looking for...
Am I the only one who read that as, "computers will have to get more powerful for Al [Borland]"?
I'm sitting here, doing my best Kirk impression, thinking "What does Al need with a more powerful computer?" (Or a starship, even?)
Um, no it wasn't. "Moore's law" is a term that was coined after Thomas Moore gave a presentation showing that the company was managing to double transistor density each month. This observation created an interesting problem for the company. What should they do with all those extra transistors?
One option was that they could keep getting higher yields on existing chips, eventually driving the cost per unit to mere fractions of a penny. The other option was that Intel could do something useful with all that extra circuitry and maintain higher prices.
Considering that contemporary CPUs of the time were barely more powerful than the interrupt controller sitting next to them, using that silicon for sophisticated 32bit processors with on-die floating point units and SIMD instructions seemed like a no-brainer for the company. Thus as each successive generation of technology has made CPUs smaller, Intel has used the extra space to add more features and more optimizations.
At this point, things are getting a bit ridiculous. CPU manufacturers have so much extra space on which to work that they can fit 2-4 CPU cores on a single die and STILL produce a smaller chip than the last generation.
He may not be CEO, but last time I checked Gates still represented Microsoft.
So the Borg icon may be coming up on 15 years old, but it's still relevant! ;-)
If you're a big fan of Tower Defense, go check out http://www.towerdefence.net./ They catalog nearly every variation of Tower Defense known to man. You can easily waste days on that site. So click through at your own risk! ;-)
For rough estimates, that sounds about right. I get 72MJ for a round trip, which converts to 20kWh. So I'd say you've got it. :)
Worst case, add about 50% on to that to cover unexpected usage. (e.g. Hitting a lot of stop lights. Going to the grocery store. etc.) That would give you about a 600kWh usage per month. You can use this chart to figure out what your monthly "fuel" bill would be. Using California as an estimate, the cost for 600kWh would work out to (600 * 0.12) $72/month. Not too shabby.
If you live somewhere less expensive, like the nuclear powered Illinois, you could have a bill as low as ~$50/mo.
I'm pretty sure this is wrong. 27m/s is the constant velocity. 5.4m/s^2 is the acceleration. Never the two shall meet. Also, you're computing for momentum (potential energy), not power.
Of course, I made a mistake in my computations as well. Parent did something confusing and inserted "4,865kg" into his calculations when he meant "newtons". Let's see if we can rejigger this from scratch.
Acceleration = 5.4 m/s^2
Mass = 907kg
Time = 5s
First we need to compute the newtons.
5.4m/s^2 * 907kg = 4,897.8 newtons
From that we know the wattage:
4,897.8 newtons = 4.9kW (6.57hp)
Energy used during acceleration:
4.9kW * 5s = 24.5kJ
Of course, we're computing for a vacuum. Friction and air resistance is going to significantly increase those figures. From the last time I did the work to figure out what it takes for a car to travel a constant 60mph, ~20kW of power sounds about correct. Unfortunately, I'd need to know the exact drag of the vehicle to compute this properly.
Oh, is that what's tripping you up? Here:
https://nrich.maths.org/discus/messages/8577/7263.html?1071520520
v = u + at
27m/s = 0 + (a * 5s)
a = 27m/s / 5s
a = 5.4m/s^2
5.4m/s^2 * 4,865kg = 26,271 newtons = 26kW
That sounds about right. Snack time!
Fig newton?
You're right so far.
Not sure what this is all about. 4865 newtons is 4,865 watts. 4,865 watts * 5 seconds = 24,325 joules.
12V * 5A = 60 watts. You're off by a factor of 81.
*munch* *munch*
Fig newton?
You forgot the airborne, radioactive particles which may be inhaled and cause cancer. Not to mention The Great Smog which killed 12,000 people.
Actually, you get that for free with an electric drive. The torque capacity of electric motors is so high that they are usually governed to more reasonable levels of acceleration.
As for the reason behind sports cars, that's easy. Sports cars are expensive. Electric drive technology is expensive. Electric drive technology is great for race cars. ("Horsepower sells cars, torque wins races." --Carroll Shelby) Ergo, selling an expensive electric sports car is a great way to get electric technology into the marketplace. Once the technology is in the marketplace, the price will be driven down by the laws of economics.
Say "Yes" to nuclear. It's less radioactive than coal, has killed barely a minuscule fraction of the number of people coal has killed, and we have enough supply to easily last for as long as we can reasonably project our energy requirements.
Oh, and it's a key component for any serious attempts at interplanetary or interstellar space travel. Which could be important if we want to research more efficient solar collection or need to go track us down more nuclear materials. (Or you could send missions to Titan and supply the Earth with a near-infinite supply of $10billion/gal gasoline. :-P)
While I'm not so sure about a lot of climate science, water vapor is supposed to be a relatively invariant quantity. Excess vapor dumped into the air is not a concern as it will not remain long enough to be a greenhouse issue.
The greater concern is supposedly the CO2 gases since that is one of the few things we can change about the climate. (Especially with the ocean's capacity to be a huge carbon sink/carbon emitter.)
Personally, I want to know what happened to the CFC scare. Supposedly our air conditioners were going to rip a hole in the Ozone layer and cook us all to death. Apparently, the CO2 we were ignoring is far more insidious.
What, no love for the Big 3? Lemme see here. We've got the range-extended Town & Country EV from Chrysler that will do 40 miles on a single charge, plus another 360 miles using a mixed gasoline-electric propulsion. They're also working on Dodge and Jeep vehicles with similar designs.
Ford used to have the market in a bag with their Ford Ranger EV pickup. Of course, they discontinued it in 2002. Now they're playing catch-up with the rest of the market. They are promising an electric vehicle by 2011, so there should be plenty of competition in late 2010/early 2011.
Speaking of competition, what discussion is complete without mentioning the Chevy Volt? Still the gold standard for the emerging industry, it will be anyone's guess if it lives up to the hype.
I rather like the look of this car, but I am concerned by a couple of issues. First up is the single back wheel. Won't that make the vehicle a rollover hazard? I presume the front wheels are extended to help mitigate this issue, but one good blowout looks like it could send that sucker fishtailing right into roll. (And for that matter, how servicable is that tire?)
My second issue is the power-train. Generally you want as much weight sprung as possible, and electric motors are heavy. Aptera seems to understand that as it appears there is an axel linkage on the front wheels. Presumably this is how power is transmitted. Is having that axel exposed going to cause any safety and reliability issues? I'm just imagining something flying off the road and getting wrapped around the the axel. Or in an accident, a pedestrian getting an appendage caught in there.
Or is this a rear-wheel drive vehicle? In which case, is that axel really necessary? Could'nt the steering be accomplished by swiveling independent pods rather than linking them?
Just my 0.005 cents worth after accounting for inflation. :-P
P.S. The Shelby looks pretty darn sweet! I'd never spend money to purchase a vehicle like that*, but I wouldn't mind taking her for a spin.
* Unless I had way too much!
Not really. Most posters manage to miss the purpose of Mozilla's funding. This deals directly with an issue in the HTML5 specs. Specifically, the fact that HTML5 does not have a default codec for audio/video. It used to be Ogg Vorbis/Theora, but that got canned when Apple claimed they couldn't support it in Quicktime without opening themselves to possible patent lawsuits. To which Mozilla countered that they couldn't support Apple's default of MPEG4 due to licensing issues.
The end result of the debates (and *cough*arguments*cough*) is that support for Ogg was removed from the spec. As of right now, WebKit will support Quicktime formats (+user installed Ogg plugins) while Mozilla will support Ogg. What Mozilla is attempting to accomplish with this grant is to propel forward the use of Ogg in public places like Wikipedia. If they can gain enough of a market presence, they probably figure they can make Ogg the defacto standard for HTML5 audio/video. Much in the way MP3 became the defacto standard for music by being positioned in the market at the right time and place.
This was a PC game that came on a floppy disc, packaged in one of those folding clear plastic containers just big enough for a floppy that would hold closed by pressing the nubs at the top together. And it was a clone of Q-Bert, not a derivative of Freeway/Frogger. :-)
Nope. Already been down that road. Math Blaster is not it. The game I'm talking about was a standalone title in a blue software box of a traditional two-piece variety. The game had gorgeous EGA graphics in its day which it was able to achieve thanks to the slow pace of gameplay.(The game had to give you enough time to build up fuel by answering math questions. Once you had the fuel, it played like a really slow Lunar Lander.)
I believe the game was called "Math Lander". But good luck finding any info on it. :-(
Is that a Real Genius reference? Kudos if it is!
IBM PC, actually. The former I played on a PCjr while the latter I played on a PCXT. As I said, the mere existence of these games is not even acknowledged today. I appear to be the only one who remembers them. Very sad. :-(
The market is rife with such special cases. Should we let all of them die because they were "special"?
As for the toy aspect, it ignores the historical importance of Atari. Yes, they made games. But that doesn't mean that making games is not an important part of the history of computing. Knowing that side of the equation offers up all kinds of interesting insights into today's software development practices. Ignoring their contribution is a bit like saying the Byzantine Empire was a special case and should be mostly ignored.
(Which is actually a surprisingly common mistake made in history textbooks. By glossing over the East Empire, the connection between the Roman Empire and modern history is often obscured. Worse yet, the development of the areas of the middle east and Russia are almost completely obscured from history. It's like these major geopolitical forces just came into being one day.)
I can't help but think that the entire web gets a little bit better every time IE6 support is dropped. Nice work! And nice site, too! :-)
FWIW, 100% of the alternative engines can do it on modern hardware. The exception I mentioned was a fill-rate limited device. The problems there had nothing to do with the JS engine. (Which is actually quite fast.) Even then, wiioperasdk.com attempts to provide a 3D engine for the Wii. Has been since 2007.
Also, IE is currently the slowest JS engine on the market. By a wide margin.
Except that it doesn't work that way. Take it from someone who's dealt with flash on these devices. The same code doesn't run because the interface is different. Only the simplest of simple applications run. Everything else needs to be custom-built. And for the record, Flash APIs are too limited to allow for alternative input like the touch screen on the iPhone. Only the basic Mouse emulation + text field support would make it through. Same as on the Wii.
Well, they're failing miserably at this, I'm afraid. The only such platform where Flash is usable (Nintendo Wii) is stuck on Flash 7. Nintendo had Opera remove support with the DSi. The only modern Flash support exists on the PS3, but the NetFront(!!!) web browser is so limited that its not very useful. And it's not useful at all without a keyboard and mouse. (Same problem I mentioned earlier.)
A fair argument, but Flash isn't it. The Flash platform makes some fundamental assumptions about the underlying platform. That is both its strength and its weakness. Ultimately, it has had a very poor showing on mobile devices and is unlikely to make headway. The ROI on it is terrible. (From my 3+ years experience with it on limited platforms.)
Thank you for the conversation. :-)
The CDI says:
Again, dirty bombs don't work.
Let's move on to the next point:
Again, we hear that dirty bombs don't work. I've also highlighted an interesting point for you. The EPA will evacuate when there is a danger of 1 cancer in 10,000 eventually developing. Let's be clear on that. There is no immediate danger and more than enough time for an orderly evacuation of the affected street blocks. For comparison, your normal chances of dieing of cancer are 11 in 50 per the 2005 census of US Mortality.
In addition, the government has known for some time that their cancer models for radiation are highly conservative and do not actually reflect reality. So you are even safer than originally thought.
Now let's consider the property damage. If dispersed outdoors, the streets and exteriors of the building will need to be decontaminated. What does that mean? That means that teams run around with Geiger counters and identify where exactly there is radiation being produced above acceptable limits. The areas would then be washed down and the dirty water collected for disposal.
If dispersed indoors, then what? Well, a section of a building may need to be stripped, decontaminated in a similar fashion to the outdoors, then rebuilt. Materia
Oh, and before you decide to buy into the comment placed on the DOM2 bug, consider this:
1. DOM2 Events was introduced as a standard in 1998. It was formalized in 2000. Microsoft has had over 10 years to implement the standard. One would think it would be top on their list.
2. Here's a list of the editors for the Events section of the original spec back in 1998:
Notice anyone interesting?
3. Consider again: Why is Microsoft implementing HTML5 features that depend on DOM 2 Events and could still change if they don't have time to implement DOM 2 Events?
Remember: the HTML5 spec is not finalized. Pieces of it are, but not the pieces that Microsoft chose. DOM2 was finalized in 2000, yet Microsoft left it out of IE 5.5, IE 6, IE 7, and now IE 8. Sensing a pattern?