I agreed with you that any increased CPU usage uses more batteries. My exact statement was/is:

"Anything that uses more CPU will eat your battery faster"



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Actually, you followed that up with:
<blockquote>"Compared to turning off Airport when not using it and dimming your screen, the amount of time you save blocking Flash will likely be minimal."</blockquote>

Here's the thing... you dim your screen to nearly nothing and turn off your wireless card, and you've essentially rendered your laptop useless. Networking and being able to 'see' the stuff we're looking at are expected of our computers. Yes, I know, it sounds crazy to expect that a computer function as it was meant to.

The only time that I find it reasonable to turn off my wireless card and dim my screen are on transatlantic flights, because I *know* my battery won't make it past four hours, and that I won't have the opportunity to plug in for a while. I expect that I'll probably have to change batteries half-way through the flight.

On the other hand, what we DON'T expect is that the most seemingly benign piece of content on our screen consumes more CPU cycles and battery charge than any other aspect of our computer's hardware, and for absolutely no perceptible benefit or reason, and for those many of us who slip our laptops out at starbucks to work for a couple of hours, it shouldn't be much to expect that our battery last for the duration.

And yes, a Flash instance that pegs your CPU will exhaust your battery far more rapidly than leaving your screen on full brightness while your airport card is operating. Please don't try to tell those of us who are victims of Flash anything otherwise.



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