Flash can create a 'native' PC or OS X app (OK, it consists of a standalone Flash player bundled with your flash App, but the practical upshot is the same unless some strange permutation of misconceptions has led you to expect 'bare metal' efficiency from something like Flash).

Flash was actually a great system if you wanted something to write relatively small, animated, resolution-independent applets that can be embedded on web pages and downloaded as pseudo-native PC/Mac apps (Java was obviously better at coping with substantial projects - but its been getting a bigger and bigger pain for non-techie end users to install). Of course, it got abused as a way to add gratuitous animation to websites, and its only merit as a video player was that it was less annoying than RealPlayer...

The real killer, though, is that it doesn't run on tablets... however, when it was briefly available on Android I tried some existing Flash stuff and it quickly turned out that Jobs was right - apart from the bloat and security nightmare, lots of existing Flash stuff just broke on a touch screen.

Nonsense. There's no need to make it literally impossible to unlock a stolen iPad (probably unattainable, and certainly liable to deprive legitimate owners of the use of their property) - you just need enough of a hurdle to make it unappealing to thieves. I'm sure that the value of a stolen iPad is much less than $400 - and equally that the value of a locked, stolen iPad is much more than $0 (just use a bit of sleight of hand to sell it to some mug and leg it - thieves don't generally do warranties).

A solicitor's letter (for US readers: Solicitor = Lawyer, and probably a notary public to boot) is easy to verify and should be more than sufficient to confirm the identity of the new and previous owner. No thief in their right mind is going to go through the risk and expense of obtaining a credible fake solicitor's letter for the value of a stolen iPad - and I'm sure that bent lawyers are even more expensive than real ones.

Requiring a legitimate owner to produce a court order is going to cost them more than the value of a legally acquired iPad.

Flame:

...see definition of fire in GP post.

Bzzt. Wrong. That's cartoon physics. Hollywood physics assumes the audience is stupid. Cartoon physics assumes that the audience is intelligent enough to recognise and laugh at the absurdity.

You're underestimating what "a lot of kinetic energy" is when you're talking about speeds measured in km per second - and kinetic energy goes with the square of the velocity.

A lot of kinetic energy gets transformed into a lot of heat. Hot things give off light (they don't need to be "on fire") - fire gives off light because it is hot. A light bulb gives off light but it isn't on fire - but it is hot. Lightning isn't on fire. The sun isn't on fire. Probably what you see is most of the asteroid (and a chunk of the moon) getting turned into a plume of superhot gas, if not plasma.

No Hollywood physics involved, or there would have been a loud 'kaboom' at exactly the same time as the flash, a perfectly circular blue shockwave ring shooting out from the moon and Harrison Ford in a fridge.

For starters, you can find Opera in the official Mac App Store, Chrome & Opera in the official iOS store... Prior to the App Store you could always easily find alternative browsers via the 'Get software...' links that Apple included.

And, since we're talking about 1999, guess what the default browser on Mac OS was back then? Clue: it had a logo like an 'e' with a whoosh around it, and wasn't Safari. Kids today don't remember what a stranglehold MS had on PCs in the late 90s.

If only it supported routers with built-in ADSL (which was the dealbreaker last time I looked at DD-WRT - and it took me some digging to discover that was why none of the routers I wanted to use it on).

If that's since been fixed - and supports a router I can actually buy somewhere - then mod me happy.

Personally, I could put together a low-power Linux box, get an ADSL modem, an ethernet switch, wireless access point (sounds like Belinksysco crap would be just as big a liability in WAP-only or modem-only mode) but (a) that's replacing 1 always-on box with 2-3 always-on boxes (b) there's the non-zero chance that I could screw up and (c) it doesn't really help joe public who need a reliable, secure plug-and-go box.

Any trustworthy all-in-one ADSL Modem/Routers/WAPs out there?

The consequences of that could be terrible!

The shark would be safer - at least they can't climb trees.

RTFA. She was already in the Sheriff's office on another matter when they discovered the outstanding warrant. She was only in jail for one night and then let go, which would be quite consistent with the cops doing exactly as you suggested.

You appear to be responding to a story about a woman rotting in jail because she failed to return a $5 video cassette.

TFA is actually about a woman who spends one whole night* in jail after ignoring served warrants and certified letters for years - and then only after she was in the Sheriff's office for some other reason and they discovered the outstanding warrants.

TFA doesn't specify what led to the original arrest, whether it was the store being heavy handed, or a last resort after trying to impose a reasonable penalty.

So, really, "10 years ago, police fail to send SWAT team to drag woman to jail for unreturned video." would be a better, but less click-worthy headline.

(* note the cunning journalistic use of 'Feb 13 arrest report' and released on 'Valentines day' to misdirect anybody capable of subtracting 13 from 14).

Sorry - I don't understand the article. Too much text on the page confuses me.

Please could you re-print it with double-line spacing and a large bit of generic stock photography of a rocket or something so I know what it is about?

Maybe a big chunk of white-space at the top so I'm not confronted with a whole paragraph of text on the first screen.

Also, the screen appeared too suddenly and made me jump - which is dangerous because today is my first day wearing my big boy pants. Maybe more javascript effects would slow it down?

Yours,
A.N. Audience

Ah, Javascript - so "expressive" that everybody can invent their own programming paradigm and then flame anybody who does it differently... and if that isn't enough just invent a new language that compiles to Javascript.

Finally, we have a single, unified platform for the language wars!

Sorry - must dash - lots of code to convert to use "object.create" because, apparently, every time you use a constructor function, someone shoots a puppy.

You seem to assume that the problems in education have appeared from nowhere in the last few years.

Also, when I were a lad, at least in the UK, Kids TV had a lot more imaginative adventure serials, magazine shows about hobbies and current affairs and game shows where the contestants actually had to know or do stuff; and a lot less cheap cartoons designed explicitly to promote toys, thinly-disguised adverts for music and fashion accessories, mundane soap operas about dull people living dull lives, no-brain-required 'contests' and talent shows designed explicitly to raise money from premium-rate phone lines... all designed on the principle that anything requiring an attention span of more than 5 seconds will hit ratings. Seriously - modern kids television (insofar as it still exists) positively encourages goldfish-level attention spans. Hell, some programmes are flagged 'ADHD' in the listings!

(Boringly, 'ADHD' in the listings apparently means 'High Def' and 'Audio Description available'.)

As for the 'firing bad teachers' bit - the danger is that will only clear up a tiny percentage of teachers who are dramatically bad, while further re-enforcing the obsession with testing. If your job is on the line based on your test results, you're not going to skimp on the test cramming in order to do something creative or interesting.

Is "false security" better or worse than "no security"? I don't think there's a simple one-size-fits-all answer to that - it depends on the type of threat and who the target is. If the bad guys want to snoop on an individual over a period of time, then traffic sniffing probably is easier. If its an organised gang going after money then MITMing a major ecommerce or banking site might be far more effective - and only needs to be in place for an hour or two to collect enough paydirt.

Anyway, the headline was "Is Firefox now the most secure mobile browser" not "Is Firefox the most betterer-than-nothing mobile browser". Browsers display nice reassuring padlocks and tell users that "the connection to this website is secure" not "meh, well, its probably safe from casual snooping, but if anybody organised is after you or whoever you're connecting to then you're basically screwed."

Actually, they did start out (as Acorn) by going head-to-head with Intel. Others have mentioned Acorn but not really pointed out that the original 1987 ARM was a credible competitor to the 80286 and 68000. (By "credible competitor" I mean "left the 68k and 286 choking on its dust"). It was only ever really used in that way in the Acorn Archemedes and RiscPC which never made it big outside of the UK - although it outlived most of the other non-Wintel personal computers.

OK - when ARM was spun off they did, as you say, rather sensibly, end up going after the embedded market, but ARM might never have happened if Acorn had gone with the 80286 for their BBC Micro successor.