I don't think we should compare BPG with JPEG, since it is very outdated. I wonder how it stacks against WebP - does it also support animation? Better compression? Licenses? Faster encoding/decoding? Browser manufacturer support? I'm all for making web more optimal, because you can never have "fast-enough" bandwidth, especially on a mobile device in bad connection area, but lets compare similar things.

Wikipedia Zero does NOT, ever, pay any ISPs anything. Frequently, you, the client, might not have any internet access on your mobile device, and yet will still be able to access Wikipedia for free. This is frequently done as a CSR initiative or other reasons by the mobile operator.

You're welcome.

I am part of the Wikipedia Zero initiative, and we need to ensure that http://m.wikipedia.org/ runs on ALL platforms, including the mostly forgotten flip phones with no JavaScript. Which obviously presents the problem of testing. There are some sites (we have an account with one of them) that provides multi-platform testing, but all that means is multiple flavors of Android & IOS... with possibly the latest BB thrown in. Unfortunately, the bigger problem is the older devices, where capabilities were much more varied. One day I hope we can have access to the most commonly used labs testing, including various Nokias, etc. Hoping...

"Physics" is a fairly artificial concept of separation of knowledge - after all, knowledge is just one. Our brains, on the other hand, are too tiny to fit all of it in. We started learning about surroundings "midway", e.g. F=ma - basic physical phenomenon, and from there started moving towards the very small (quarks), very large (galaxies), and much more complex - chemistry, biology. I think the discoveries tend to go in waves, and when there is an imbalance of knowledge, the area at the bottom shoots up. For example - enough data accumulated and enough mathematical tools were developed to boost physics and chemistry, which helped with computers, which in turn boosted biology. Next step - exact predictions of social sciences, terraforming, ... Time to travel far far away.

P.S. Even though I couldn't find who was the original author, my physics teacher once told me that when governor visited Franklin's lab, and was shown all the electrical research, he wondered what was the purpose... to which Franklin replied "Physicists will tinker with it for a bit, and later you will start taxing it". It might have been someone else of course, but does not change the point - something gets discovered, and later it becomes ubiquitous in our everyday life.

The raw speed of the code might actually diminish since the .net runtime could have optimized it better for the specific environment (CPU model, available RAM, phase of the moon, etc). On the other hand, the startup would benefit - no more need to just-in-time compile. Plus there is no need for memory to compile it. On the other hand, the runtime might use some cycles to further optimize code during execution, whereas with this approach the code won't change any further. In any case, great for instant startup, but I suspect conceptually this is not much different from the older binary pre-compiled cached versions of the assemblies.

Current:
* http://online.wsj.com/news/art...

Older (after AirFrance disaster)
* http://www.spiegel.de/internat...
* http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07...

Thekohser, thanks for the reply, could you point me to the correct info? I only found http://upload.wikimedia.org/wi... and that doc is not trivial, so any help explaining your position would greatly help. Where do 49+% go? Is it the same for all non-profits or non-profits in the same sector (if there is such a division). Thank you!

Disclaimer - I work for the Wikimedia foundation, but expressing my own opinion.

Donations go to the Wikimedia Foundation, covering various technology/organizational costs, but the foundation is not involved in the actual editing or reviewing process - that has always been done exclusivelly by the community. Donations would never affect the content of an article simply because its a different group of people - those who receive the money spend it on internet/development/building/conferences, while volonteers independently decide what should stay and in what form. An analogy here would be donating money to ISP to support the service, while abusing one of the web sites on the web.

if a plane stops midflight, it might crash... costing waay more than a $100K...

More like in three. And they are not the only issues. And all of them are addressed. Go read Wikipedia or something.

To me the the options are quite simple: you either shell out some cash and there's a small chance of you being reanimated, or you don't and you're gone.