While everyone’s rightly worrying about Dashboard and widget security issues, I’ve found a more immediately annoying problem — widgets that run processes while hidden. If a widget appears in Activity Viewer repeatedly sucking up CPU while hidden, it’s gone. I noticed this because one (extra geeky) binary clock was constantly using 8-20% of my cpu cycles while invisible. Hula girl has been known to run off on her own as well.

Sidenote: Clocks in Dashboard are a waste of screen space. Yes I have Hula Girl and the Butterfly, but no clocks.