Really? IE supports VBScript, but I can't remember Firefox, Webkit or Opera having support for it.

If you calculate money in cents, you only need integers. This is valid for many programming languages by the way and can be applied in almost all situations.

Distributed => Disassembly

Somewhat related, but not quite the solution is the Distributed Bill of Materials (DBOM): http://ieeexplore.ieee.org/xpl/freeabs_all.jsp?arnumber=924533 (and related articles); The DBOM tells the devolvers how to devolve a product and what the resulting parts are made of.

Risk = Probability x expected loss

If expected loss is not (nearly) 0, you need to manage probability as well. So while the hazard (expected loss) may be less than estimated before, it says nothing about the probability. And in my opinion it is the probability in nuclear plants that is the issue.

This is of course besides the question what a "lower hazard estimate" means. A lower hazard estimate can still be pretty high.

I think the largest problem with roundabouts in cities is that crossings are often 'linked' to each other. If you have a traffic light on one crossing, and a roundabout on the next, then the traffic towards and from the roundabout is influenced by the traffic light. This is especially a problem if the crossings are close to one another.

In The Netherlands there has been a large increase in roundabouts, since 15-20 years. You see them virtually everywhere, even on 100km/h roads. The only objection so far is that emergency services, like ambulances and firetrucks have more difficulty passing other cars on roundabouts than on traffic lights, because the emergency services can manipulate the traffic lights, but not the roundabouts of course.

The approach that if situations are more difficult, people will start paying attention is also used in the "Shared space" concept. In The Netherlands this concept became quite popular, especially by Hans Monderman, who implemented it in for example the city of Drachten as well the village of Makkinga. In the latter they removed _all_ roadsigns, road markings, stopping restrictions, parking restrictions, etc. In Drachten they replaced a really busy crossing (22,000+ cars/day) with a roundabout which works really well. Searching for videos on 'shared space Monderman' gives some really interesting results, I would say.

The idea of Shared Space is that a lot of road signs are removed, making people actually look to each other (making eye contact to see what the other person is going to do) instead of "looking at the lines" ("coloring between the lines"). This is actually only possible if your driver license is sufficiently difficult to get, so people not only know how to drive, but also learn how to anticipate to potentially unexpected events.

11 wins, 4 ties, 5 losses. Actually, winning on veteran mode is not that difficult. The computer only knows what all other people did and it responds to your actions by using the actions of all other users. So in fact the computer is limited by the actions of all other people; it predicts that you are the same as one of those other people. If you can predict what most users would do, than you know what the response of the computer will do and so you pick a different option. So in fact you only have to beat the average guy.

"You have twenty-five-thousand-six-hundred-and-thirty-three new messages. First new message received on Tuesday, February first at seven fifty-nine am"

Wrong. 70% of the development (i.e. 70% of the commits) is done by paid employees. See also: http://news.cnet.com/8301-13846_3-20024219-62.html

You're confusing only-having-AppStore with not-allowing-other-programs.

Of course the average quality of the programs is higher, because all programs are checked. However, allowing other programs on the iPhone, while still having the AppStore as an easy way to buy/sell programs, would result in the AppStore having a similar quality level, while enabling choice for both developers and consumers.

pro-consumers will likely install applications from other sources, but then they choose to get a potential lower quality application. The same is valid for developers. If you want to be able to get your app in the AppStore, you'll need your app to be of higher quality. In other words: you could also see the AppStore in this case as a quality level.

Again: having an AppStore should not exclude the possibility of developing/using apps through a different way.

I agree. And then you even forget the opportunity costs. Even if the value of the "thing" you're considering buying is larger than its cost, you can only spend the money once. Thus, you buy the "thing" that has the highest value for the price you pay.