Alex Pooley's Blog

My wife and I sponsor a child in Mongolia. Every now and then we receive letters, photos, and other types of updates which I always find particularly interesting. I thought I would share the most recent update I received today in case you have ever wondered what’s involved in sponsoring a child. Also, you may be interested to learn that the total sponsorship money ($10 or so a week) is split between the sponsored child and the child’s community.

You can find out more about sponsoring a child with world vision at the world vision website. World vision is a “Christian humanitarian organisation” which does irk me a little - what does religious affiliation have to do with helping people?

It seems you can’t volunteer to help unless you’re “a committed Christian excited at the prospect of using the unique gifts and talents God has given you to help children and families in need”.

wtf.

I came across this post in my daily readings. It describes hows Scott Petersen has created a toolchain that takes C code, converts to a byte code, and then runs via a virtual machine through Flash. Supposedly Scott has Quake, Ruby, Python, and other scripting languages running through Flash. The implications of this are huge. With the ubiquity of Flash, their virtual machine (Tamarin), and the ability to automatigically get C code running through Flash, we’ll finally have a decent platform on which to create rich Internet applications.

Personally I think this is a game changer and Adobe’s management should be commended for their foresight. This move will likely cement Flashes ubiquity, and please many web developers, myself included.