RISC is not worse as a general purpose computer. They do not only offer gains in specific problem domains, they are a trade-off that are complementary to CISC. If storage is limited, or you have a very slow bottleneck getting to the CPU then CISC might be better. Generally RISC is better as single-cycle instructions means it is easier to parallise instructions and less expensive for branch prediction misses.

Most CISC instruction sets are reduced to RISC micro-code within modern processors. Take a look at the silicon for any x86 CPU these days. This translator takes most of the transistors and consumes most of the power. It also makes them more expensive than RISC, which is why RISC is used in nearly every single mobile phone. Both Apple and LG use the ARM RISC instruction set for their CPU, AFAIK.

However what you mean by CPU is actually the SoC (System on a Chip), which is effectively a computer on a chip. It integrates a lot of other specialist functions onto the chip such as graphics (GPU) and the latest 5S has hardware image processor built in. The bonus is reduced production cost and bottleneck. The penalty is reduced upgradability. The Apple chips are made by Samsung so I doubt they have anything Samsung doesn't know about on there.

Phillip.

The blog clearly says all. Though I'm not sure how you would propose to make an electric car a commodity without a way to power it or to supply energy to it.

Phillip.

The US needs to stop Putin, and the space front rather than Ukraine is the perfect place to start. The EU is hopelessly hooked on Russian gas and scared silly of Putin, so don't expect any help there. The first space race took us (using 'us' in the human race sense) to the moon, and very little since. Maybe the next one will take us to Mars?

As an aside, 'our leaders' needs to include the people. Shifting off Russian oil and gas will be painful financially, and economies that are only just getting back on their feet financially are going to be hesitant to deal a blow to the economy already suffering from unemployment and austerity measures. They do need to get a spine, but they need to sell why to the people.

Phillip.

BMW won nothing. Tesla won the electric car race by creating a car that has the range of a normal car, is faster than a normal car, and looks as good as any normal car. This is why it is scoring so high in consumer reports that cover ALL cars, not just electric vehicles.

The BMW i3 has 1/3 of the range, does 0-60 in twice the time (7 seconds), and looks fugly. In my city we have dozens of public cars like this all over the city that anybody can jump into and use for €8/hour. I am sure lots of companies will buy it for staff than need to do local runs. Probably got a good market in local governments, councils and utility companies. Being one of the slowest production cars ever to hit the road will probably mean low insurance cost.

It's apples and oranges. A bicycle is more efficient than either. It doesn't do the same job though.

Phillip.

The best app I have come across for storing ideas is KeepNote. Free and cross-platform, though it could do with a few more features. OneNote seems not bad for storing recipes etc, but is obviously unacceptable for storing personal data.

In terms of PIM, this is not really the same as OP was asking as most of them are calendar/to-do based. I've tried every single ones of these, and have found MyLifeOrganized to be the best. One of the few apps I've been happy to pay for. Microsoft Windows only but works under WINE.

Phillip.

Have you actually driven a Tesla Sedan S? It's a full grown adult, don't worry. The big car companies are unable to decimate Tesla due to inertia and poor infrastructure. All their EV attempts have been failures. They will continue to launch vanity projects or weird prototypes as Tesla expands both its market and its patent portfolio. Tesla is here to stay.

Phillip.

You are very behind the times. The Lotus chassis one is the Roadster that they stopped making a long time ago. The Tesla is like a more luxurious version of the Mercedes E-class. I have driven both and I know which I prefer...

Phillip.

It is acts like a keylogger, so I guess it would be more accurate to call it a trojan?

Phillip.

No, you just need to be gullible.

Doctors have been taking kick-backs for prescribing drugs for years. They have a long historical record of gettings things wrong. Previously using the wrong drugs and killing a bunch of people was not too serious, a number were probably going to die anyway. However something you are giving to an entire generation of healthy children you had better be pretty damn sure there aren't going to be side-effects down the line.

Phillip.

Indeed. Today we are given vaccine shots against typhoid. Before the general medical consensus was to ingest mercury as a cure. Interesting article here. Of course there was the medical backlash and studies to show no links between mercury and poisoning. All wrong. I had mercury fillings in my teeth when I was younger, which I was then told was poisonous and had to be drilled out and replaced. Very pleasant.

McCarthy has a good point. We can't keep pumping our kids full of these old vaccines without doing regular studies, and using some of the profits to ensure safer versions. Personally I will selectively vaccinate my kids up to a certain age, depending on risk factor, then they can choose themselves. I had both mumps and measles, it was hardly a big deal. If the kids are old enough it's probably even better they get it naturally and get over it than take the vaccine.

Phillip.

Sure, I love the iPhone with a movie projector built in. Oh that doesn't exist, only Samsung does one. Apple ripped of the LG Prada and ran with it. They got lucky in their timing. Since everybody else has overtaken them. Who cares if they throw in a fingerprint sensor, they've been around forever on keyboards and never taken off. If Samsung throw it in as a 'ticklist' item not to be outdone then fine but nobody is going to buy a phone for such a gimmick.

Hope the sign on the door doesn't have rounded corners, otherwise the Samsung defence team wouldn't be able to go back into court for fear of infringement.

Phillip.

The one Apple stole from real life? People have been using slide-to-unlock on doors for centuries. Sometimes people experiment to see if there is a better way, but often they end up going with convention if that is what people are used to. This is why nobody but Apple are allowed patents on blatently obvious things that have been done before, otherwise we would have to use every phone in a completely different way and the damn things would become unusable. Slide-to-unlock is not innovating, it's trying to set a standard on something obvious and then claiming a monopoly on that standard.

Phillip.

Again you are insisting everything is 0% or 100%. You create a construct to try and cover a majority and hope it works most of the time. Marriage isn't a single magical thing. It's a symbolic act between two people. It's a financial tool that can be used by church/government to manipulate the birth rate. It's a legal status and can determine property ownership. It's a social status within a community. The fact is if you change the whole concept of marriage on the basis of one sole element, you have to recognise that it has an impact on all the others. I'm not saying its wrong, but that you are wrong in marriage is solely about two people that love each other. In fact people get married every year that don't care about each other just to get citizenship to a country. That doesn't mean we should abandon marriage any more than allowing gay marriage means we should allow a man to marry his horse. However all the implications should be thought out.

In France they create a special civil marriage for gay people called the PACS. They listened to what people wanted and it was hugely successful. Of course they were not allowed to discriminate against heterosexuals. The result of creating a new version of marriage that reflects our more modern society has led to now over 98% of all PACS being between heterosexuals.

Anyway all this marriage stuff is completely irrelevant. Nothing to do with the harassment and persecution of the Mozilla CEO. The hate campaign trying to lose a person their job for a personal belief they have kept firmly outside their workplace is distasteful. EVERYBODY has a belief SOMEBODY disagrees with, including yourself. If I got together an Internet lynch mob and got you fired from a job you enjoyed, I am guessing you would be a bit upset and possibly bewildered why it was you the victim when so many other people have the same belief and keep their jobs.

Phillip.

When is something a business and when is it a personal platform to launch attacks on people you don't like? Apparently Eich keeps his personal and professional separate, so I respect that. I never saw anti-gay marriage pop-ups when I installed Mozilla. Though this donation was made 5 years ago, he may well have changed his mind by now... we don't know because he keeps his private thoughts private.

However the person running OKCupid is a dick. He has given me zero proof as to Mozilla's bias against the gay agenda, in fact their web site states the opposite, therefore he is making a provably false implied accusation to try and get somebody he doesn't like fired. I have zero respect for OKCupid.

If he'd said "Don't use Firefox as our free site depends on ad-revenue and too many people are blocking ads" then I would understand. This idiotic attack-ad at somebody on a personal level is very distasteful

Phillip.

Wow no. You haven't even begun to think this argument out, have you, let alone the simple circumstance if he voted the other way and the witch-hunt was in the other direction. Let's say you have a personal belief I disagree with. Do you think it would be ok for me to do everything I can in my power for you to lose your job? Even skirting within the law, I could make your life very unpleasant.

He doesn't use his work to promote his beliefs, therefore his beliefs should not affect his work. If he keeps them separate then so do we.

Phillip.