1.2 Activity Widget requires javascript, pops.

[DJPaul]

The Activity widget, as on testbp.org, requires Javascript. Despite most web browsers now supporting Javascript, and mobile browsers of the same quality and features as desktop-grade browsers, I would suggest it is still best practice to code for disabled/no Javascript.

Another related issue is the "pop" of the Activity widget content loading; there is a noticeable time lag between the web browsing finishes loading the page, and before the Javascript kicks in to load the Activity widget content.
I have not looked to see if it is AJAX loading this in the background -- as I suspect it is -- or whether it is just poor use of jQuery/CSS fades/effects. On page load, the Activity widget should come with a "full set" of data which is displayed immediately.

[apeatling]

This is deliberate, the activity loads separately from the page. The reason for this is because filters may be applied and you want to return the activity for the selected filter. If you auto-load the stream without JS, then it's going to query and fetch twice, once on page load and once by the JS when the filters are applied. Essentially you'd be doubling your load for no reason.

If a developer wants no JS access then they can change the template file by uncommenting a line in the loop files - it's dead easy. However, I don't want to do this by default since it doesn't make any sense to force this on everyone.