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Oh, REALLY!? Not playing game on principle, eh? Not buying games from evil publisher, eh?

It sounds like ... boycotting. Which kinda does not work at all: http://img5.imageshack.us/img5/6062/1258035395841.jpg

It is not like nerd tears matter because they dry when *shiny* becomes available.

http://img203.imageshack.us/img203/235/steamsucks.png

You would all win the prize for twenty of the dumbest comments on slashdot, not a brain cell between you all, and a big advert for Sarah Palin right next to the article, is this what slashdot is reduced to ..

Sarah for 2012

Or just do this.

... If it's posted to "friends only" it's still public. Honestly, if you have a secret and tell it to your 100-200 or so "friends", is it reasonable to expect that no one else will hear it? No, there are only two levels: "private" (don't post) and public...

Actually, that's not true. I can make lists of friends, and have a list of friends whom I trust not to share my information, make nearly anything - posts, photos, profile information - visible only to people in that list.

Here's a screenshot of Facebook's privacy page, allowing me to control who sees anything in there: http://img686.imageshack.us/img686/5305/screenshot20100509at229.png

You can get that same menu to appear for each individual thing you post - so one of your photos or status messages can be visible to everyone ("Hey, guys, come buy my stuff!") while another is only visible to a friend ("Oh, fuck, I just realized my stuff is infected with a horrible disease!")

All the people complaining about privacy seem to be complaining solely about default settings, and they should just realize that when most people sign up for a site like Facebook, they want other people to see what they write. If they aren't the settings you want, just click on the settings menu and change them!

Take, for instance, TFA.

"Facebook sets the default for those messages to be published to the entire internet through direct funnels to the net’s top search engines. You can use a dropdown field to restrict your publishing, but it’s seemingly too hard for Facebook to actually remember that’s what you do."

If I send one message only visible to a group, I don't want all my future messages to all be only visible to that group, unless I remember to change it back. If he wants to change the default, there's an option here: http://img130.imageshack.us/img130/6425/screenshot20100509at245.png

"This includes your music preferences, employment information, reading preferences, schools, etc. All the things that make up your profile. They all must be public"

Actually, there are privacy settings here: http://img130.imageshack.us/img130/6425/screenshot20100509at245.png

"Now, you might not know it, but there is a Facebook page for “My Crazy Boss” and because your post had all the right words, your post now shows up on that page."

This is a ridiculous claim. I just made a status message saying 'Warzone 2100 is an awesome game' and it didn't appear on the Warzone 2100 page. I think he's referring to the "@" feature, where if I had typed "@Warzone 2100" it would've asked me if I wanted to tag the page (and if I ignored the prompt and kept typing, it would not have done so), but to call a secret code that you have to explicitly agree to 'all the right words' is ridiculously misleading.

Then there’s the new Facebook “Like” button littering the internet. It’s a great idea, in theory — but it’s completely tied to your Facebook account, and you have no control over how it is used. (No, you can’t like something and not have it be totally public.)

Yes, you can: http://img8.imageshack.us/img8/7281/screenshot20100509at254.png

I’d like to make my friend list private. Cannot.

Here's how: http://img217.imageshack.us/img217/2963/screenshot20100509at257.png

I’d like to have my profile visible only to my friends

... If it's posted to "friends only" it's still public. Honestly, if you have a secret and tell it to your 100-200 or so "friends", is it reasonable to expect that no one else will hear it? No, there are only two levels: "private" (don't post) and public...

Actually, that's not true. I can make lists of friends, and have a list of friends whom I trust not to share my information, make nearly anything - posts, photos, profile information - visible only to people in that list.

Here's a screenshot of Facebook's privacy page, allowing me to control who sees anything in there: http://img686.imageshack.us/img686/5305/screenshot20100509at229.png

You can get that same menu to appear for each individual thing you post - so one of your photos or status messages can be visible to everyone ("Hey, guys, come buy my stuff!") while another is only visible to a friend ("Oh, fuck, I just realized my stuff is infected with a horrible disease!")

All the people complaining about privacy seem to be complaining solely about default settings, and they should just realize that when most people sign up for a site like Facebook, they want other people to see what they write. If they aren't the settings you want, just click on the settings menu and change them!

Take, for instance, TFA.

"Facebook sets the default for those messages to be published to the entire internet through direct funnels to the net’s top search engines. You can use a dropdown field to restrict your publishing, but it’s seemingly too hard for Facebook to actually remember that’s what you do."

If I send one message only visible to a group, I don't want all my future messages to all be only visible to that group, unless I remember to change it back. If he wants to change the default, there's an option here: http://img130.imageshack.us/img130/6425/screenshot20100509at245.png

"This includes your music preferences, employment information, reading preferences, schools, etc. All the things that make up your profile. They all must be public"

Actually, there are privacy settings here: http://img130.imageshack.us/img130/6425/screenshot20100509at245.png

"Now, you might not know it, but there is a Facebook page for “My Crazy Boss” and because your post had all the right words, your post now shows up on that page."

This is a ridiculous claim. I just made a status message saying 'Warzone 2100 is an awesome game' and it didn't appear on the Warzone 2100 page. I think he's referring to the "@" feature, where if I had typed "@Warzone 2100" it would've asked me if I wanted to tag the page (and if I ignored the prompt and kept typing, it would not have done so), but to call a secret code that you have to explicitly agree to 'all the right words' is ridiculously misleading.

Then there’s the new Facebook “Like” button littering the internet. It’s a great idea, in theory — but it’s completely tied to your Facebook account, and you have no control over how it is used. (No, you can’t like something and not have it be totally public.)

Yes, you can: http://img8.imageshack.us/img8/7281/screenshot20100509at254.png

I’d like to make my friend list private. Cannot.

Here's how: http://img217.imageshack.us/img217/2963/screenshot20100509at257.png

I’d like to have my profile visible only to my friends

... If it's posted to "friends only" it's still public. Honestly, if you have a secret and tell it to your 100-200 or so "friends", is it reasonable to expect that no one else will hear it? No, there are only two levels: "private" (don't post) and public...

Actually, that's not true. I can make lists of friends, and have a list of friends whom I trust not to share my information, make nearly anything - posts, photos, profile information - visible only to people in that list.

Here's a screenshot of Facebook's privacy page, allowing me to control who sees anything in there: http://img686.imageshack.us/img686/5305/screenshot20100509at229.png

You can get that same menu to appear for each individual thing you post - so one of your photos or status messages can be visible to everyone ("Hey, guys, come buy my stuff!") while another is only visible to a friend ("Oh, fuck, I just realized my stuff is infected with a horrible disease!")

All the people complaining about privacy seem to be complaining solely about default settings, and they should just realize that when most people sign up for a site like Facebook, they want other people to see what they write. If they aren't the settings you want, just click on the settings menu and change them!

Take, for instance, TFA.

"Facebook sets the default for those messages to be published to the entire internet through direct funnels to the net’s top search engines. You can use a dropdown field to restrict your publishing, but it’s seemingly too hard for Facebook to actually remember that’s what you do."

If I send one message only visible to a group, I don't want all my future messages to all be only visible to that group, unless I remember to change it back. If he wants to change the default, there's an option here: http://img130.imageshack.us/img130/6425/screenshot20100509at245.png

"This includes your music preferences, employment information, reading preferences, schools, etc. All the things that make up your profile. They all must be public"

Actually, there are privacy settings here: http://img130.imageshack.us/img130/6425/screenshot20100509at245.png

"Now, you might not know it, but there is a Facebook page for “My Crazy Boss” and because your post had all the right words, your post now shows up on that page."

This is a ridiculous claim. I just made a status message saying 'Warzone 2100 is an awesome game' and it didn't appear on the Warzone 2100 page. I think he's referring to the "@" feature, where if I had typed "@Warzone 2100" it would've asked me if I wanted to tag the page (and if I ignored the prompt and kept typing, it would not have done so), but to call a secret code that you have to explicitly agree to 'all the right words' is ridiculously misleading.

Then there’s the new Facebook “Like” button littering the internet. It’s a great idea, in theory — but it’s completely tied to your Facebook account, and you have no control over how it is used. (No, you can’t like something and not have it be totally public.)

Yes, you can: http://img8.imageshack.us/img8/7281/screenshot20100509at254.png

I’d like to make my friend list private. Cannot.

Here's how: http://img217.imageshack.us/img217/2963/screenshot20100509at257.png

I’d like to have my profile visible only to my friends

... If it's posted to "friends only" it's still public. Honestly, if you have a secret and tell it to your 100-200 or so "friends", is it reasonable to expect that no one else will hear it? No, there are only two levels: "private" (don't post) and public...

Actually, that's not true. I can make lists of friends, and have a list of friends whom I trust not to share my information, make nearly anything - posts, photos, profile information - visible only to people in that list.

Here's a screenshot of Facebook's privacy page, allowing me to control who sees anything in there: http://img686.imageshack.us/img686/5305/screenshot20100509at229.png

You can get that same menu to appear for each individual thing you post - so one of your photos or status messages can be visible to everyone ("Hey, guys, come buy my stuff!") while another is only visible to a friend ("Oh, fuck, I just realized my stuff is infected with a horrible disease!")

All the people complaining about privacy seem to be complaining solely about default settings, and they should just realize that when most people sign up for a site like Facebook, they want other people to see what they write. If they aren't the settings you want, just click on the settings menu and change them!

Take, for instance, TFA.

"Facebook sets the default for those messages to be published to the entire internet through direct funnels to the net’s top search engines. You can use a dropdown field to restrict your publishing, but it’s seemingly too hard for Facebook to actually remember that’s what you do."

If I send one message only visible to a group, I don't want all my future messages to all be only visible to that group, unless I remember to change it back. If he wants to change the default, there's an option here: http://img130.imageshack.us/img130/6425/screenshot20100509at245.png

"This includes your music preferences, employment information, reading preferences, schools, etc. All the things that make up your profile. They all must be public"

Actually, there are privacy settings here: http://img130.imageshack.us/img130/6425/screenshot20100509at245.png

"Now, you might not know it, but there is a Facebook page for “My Crazy Boss” and because your post had all the right words, your post now shows up on that page."

This is a ridiculous claim. I just made a status message saying 'Warzone 2100 is an awesome game' and it didn't appear on the Warzone 2100 page. I think he's referring to the "@" feature, where if I had typed "@Warzone 2100" it would've asked me if I wanted to tag the page (and if I ignored the prompt and kept typing, it would not have done so), but to call a secret code that you have to explicitly agree to 'all the right words' is ridiculously misleading.

Then there’s the new Facebook “Like” button littering the internet. It’s a great idea, in theory — but it’s completely tied to your Facebook account, and you have no control over how it is used. (No, you can’t like something and not have it be totally public.)

Yes, you can: http://img8.imageshack.us/img8/7281/screenshot20100509at254.png

I’d like to make my friend list private. Cannot.

Here's how: http://img217.imageshack.us/img217/2963/screenshot20100509at257.png

I’d like to have my profile visible only to my friends

... If it's posted to "friends only" it's still public. Honestly, if you have a secret and tell it to your 100-200 or so "friends", is it reasonable to expect that no one else will hear it? No, there are only two levels: "private" (don't post) and public...

Actually, that's not true. I can make lists of friends, and have a list of friends whom I trust not to share my information, make nearly anything - posts, photos, profile information - visible only to people in that list.

Here's a screenshot of Facebook's privacy page, allowing me to control who sees anything in there: http://img686.imageshack.us/img686/5305/screenshot20100509at229.png

You can get that same menu to appear for each individual thing you post - so one of your photos or status messages can be visible to everyone ("Hey, guys, come buy my stuff!") while another is only visible to a friend ("Oh, fuck, I just realized my stuff is infected with a horrible disease!")

All the people complaining about privacy seem to be complaining solely about default settings, and they should just realize that when most people sign up for a site like Facebook, they want other people to see what they write. If they aren't the settings you want, just click on the settings menu and change them!

Take, for instance, TFA.

"Facebook sets the default for those messages to be published to the entire internet through direct funnels to the net’s top search engines. You can use a dropdown field to restrict your publishing, but it’s seemingly too hard for Facebook to actually remember that’s what you do."

If I send one message only visible to a group, I don't want all my future messages to all be only visible to that group, unless I remember to change it back. If he wants to change the default, there's an option here: http://img130.imageshack.us/img130/6425/screenshot20100509at245.png

"This includes your music preferences, employment information, reading preferences, schools, etc. All the things that make up your profile. They all must be public"

Actually, there are privacy settings here: http://img130.imageshack.us/img130/6425/screenshot20100509at245.png

"Now, you might not know it, but there is a Facebook page for “My Crazy Boss” and because your post had all the right words, your post now shows up on that page."

This is a ridiculous claim. I just made a status message saying 'Warzone 2100 is an awesome game' and it didn't appear on the Warzone 2100 page. I think he's referring to the "@" feature, where if I had typed "@Warzone 2100" it would've asked me if I wanted to tag the page (and if I ignored the prompt and kept typing, it would not have done so), but to call a secret code that you have to explicitly agree to 'all the right words' is ridiculously misleading.

Then there’s the new Facebook “Like” button littering the internet. It’s a great idea, in theory — but it’s completely tied to your Facebook account, and you have no control over how it is used. (No, you can’t like something and not have it be totally public.)

Yes, you can: http://img8.imageshack.us/img8/7281/screenshot20100509at254.png

I’d like to make my friend list private. Cannot.

Here's how: http://img217.imageshack.us/img217/2963/screenshot20100509at257.png

I’d like to have my profile visible only to my friends

I wish I could be more impressed by that.. but I'm not. It's already trivial to...
1. take a video source
2. split up into images
3. from those images, sort by quality (least blur to most blur)
4. map them onto the panoramic plane (thanks to it being video, you can use motion vectors to help this process, but it's not really needed.. existing algorithms will chew through them easily enough)
5. remove those images that are superfluous (i.e. not needed for covering the entire canvas)
6. blend (using al algorithm a la smartblend to try to keep the number of decapitated people down)

You can have fun with some movies that way...
Terminator 4: http://img194.imageshack.us/img194/1629/moviepanosterminator4.jpg
The Mist (may be considered a spoiler, for those who haven't seen it yet): http://img41.imageshack.us/img41/3221/moviepanosthemist.jpg

The article notes that the panorama of one of the microsoft buildings is 'crisp'.. well sure, when scaled down a good fraction of the original video's size in terms of coverage. Now if they combined multiple frames for a superresolution image (similar to how astronomers might image stack a bunch of blurry shots and out comes a high-resolution detailed image) and thus panorama, that'd be more fun.

I wish I could be more impressed by that.. but I'm not. It's already trivial to...
1. take a video source
2. split up into images
3. from those images, sort by quality (least blur to most blur)
4. map them onto the panoramic plane (thanks to it being video, you can use motion vectors to help this process, but it's not really needed.. existing algorithms will chew through them easily enough)
5. remove those images that are superfluous (i.e. not needed for covering the entire canvas)
6. blend (using al algorithm a la smartblend to try to keep the number of decapitated people down)

You can have fun with some movies that way...
Terminator 4: http://img194.imageshack.us/img194/1629/moviepanosterminator4.jpg
The Mist (may be considered a spoiler, for those who haven't seen it yet): http://img41.imageshack.us/img41/3221/moviepanosthemist.jpg

The article notes that the panorama of one of the microsoft buildings is 'crisp'.. well sure, when scaled down a good fraction of the original video's size in terms of coverage. Now if they combined multiple frames for a superresolution image (similar to how astronomers might image stack a bunch of blurry shots and out comes a high-resolution detailed image) and thus panorama, that'd be more fun.

"Gimp one looks just like the autoscaling done by Firefox, while the other one looks pretty blurry to me"

Opposite here.

Here is the Firefox crop:
http://img24.imageshack.us/img24/9004/firefoxcrop.jpg

Again, nearly identical to Irfanview, paint.net.

Something is odd with GIMP scaling.

got this time, in the super high res mode no less...

Buzz Lightyear attacks helpess baby birds. Full Story at 11.

That is NOT a meat cleaver!

THIS is a meat cleaver:
http://img697.imageshack.us/img697/4034/12027320202011.jpg

That is what I was picturing was going to be used. I am very dissappointed that not only was that NOT the tool he used, but that he has no idea WHAT a meat cleaver is!

http://img121.imageshack.us/img121/8550/gimpcrop.jpg

Gimp on the right.

http://img63.imageshack.us/img63/9454/csiwtf.jpg

There's always this bit from one of the Matrix sequels...

Barren northern plains? I don't think so!

http://img156.imageshack.us/img156/9837/1002942s.jpg

That's typical. For interest, add rivers, hills, and the odd grizzly bear or native settlement.

For sake of interest, this was taken about an hour south of Fort Vermillion.

Obligatory.

In summary, unattractive squares should stick to Linux http://dogcow.atspace.com/linux.html

Those guys are lawyers. You are practically guaranteed they are on Windows. On the other hand, your windows gallery shows the typical Apple crowd, 30 years back.
Now this is more like it!

I really liked your images showing the volumes of water and air.
I just thought I'd contribute free AOL disks, spam, politics, and the average person's grasp of logic science and reality.

-

Join the club:

http://img690.imageshack.us/img690/2258/osxflashiplayerapr10.jpg

http://img696.imageshack.us/img696/4771/flashosxperformance.jpg

2.16Ghz Core 2 Duo.

Join the club:

http://img690.imageshack.us/img690/2258/osxflashiplayerapr10.jpg

http://img696.imageshack.us/img696/4771/flashosxperformance.jpg

2.16Ghz Core 2 Duo.

Have you seen flash performance on OS X (and by extension, OS X based devices)?

http://img696.imageshack.us/img696/4771/flashosxperformance.jpg
http://img690.imageshack.us/img690/2258/osxflashiplayerapr10.jpg

2Ghz Core2Duo iMac, 10.6.3.
The first is Blizzard's Diablo 3 site, the second is an SD H.264 video stream from BBC iPlayer.

If flash was on the iPhone in its current state, it would be unusable.

Adobe simply do not care enough about the Mac platform. Just look at the debacle with the creative suite and Intel macs, and the severe feet-dragging on a 64 bit version of Photoshop. Hooray, in CS5, finally. Or the severe crash issues with some CS apps in OS X - solution 'buy newer version'.

They have made some improvements very recently - the 10.1 beta of Flash is a marked improvement, but they've had *years* to fix it with performance complaints being major. It's not even as if the platform itself is hard to work with or Apple's being "deliberately obtrusive" and "denying them access to underlying APIs" as some have claimed - other third party developers seem to be able to make decently-performing plugins and apps just fine, not to mention the extensive documentation on the graphics internals of OS X and how to program for them on Apple's dev site.

Even if Apple liked Flash, it would be woeful on the iPhone.

Have you seen flash performance on OS X (and by extension, OS X based devices)?

http://img696.imageshack.us/img696/4771/flashosxperformance.jpg
http://img690.imageshack.us/img690/2258/osxflashiplayerapr10.jpg

2Ghz Core2Duo iMac, 10.6.3.
The first is Blizzard's Diablo 3 site, the second is an SD H.264 video stream from BBC iPlayer.

If flash was on the iPhone in its current state, it would be unusable.

Adobe simply do not care enough about the Mac platform. Just look at the debacle with the creative suite and Intel macs, and the severe feet-dragging on a 64 bit version of Photoshop. Hooray, in CS5, finally. Or the severe crash issues with some CS apps in OS X - solution 'buy newer version'.

They have made some improvements very recently - the 10.1 beta of Flash is a marked improvement, but they've had *years* to fix it with performance complaints being major. It's not even as if the platform itself is hard to work with or Apple's being "deliberately obtrusive" and "denying them access to underlying APIs" as some have claimed - other third party developers seem to be able to make decently-performing plugins and apps just fine, not to mention the extensive documentation on the graphics internals of OS X and how to program for them on Apple's dev site.

Even if Apple liked Flash, it would be woeful on the iPhone.

You should try Flash on Mac (and as the iPhone is based on OS X, the comparisons are quite neat).

http://img690.imageshack.us/img690/2258/osxflashiplayerapr10.jpg
This screenshot was taken on a Core2Duo 2.1Ghz iMac, running 10.6.3 with the 10.0 release version of Flash. That is a 862x468 1500kbps SD H.264 video stream from BBC iPlayer.

http://img696.imageshack.us/img696/4771/flashosxperformance.jpg
This screenshot is the same computer sitting idle on the Diablo 3 main page.

WebkitPluginHost is the process that deals with plugins in the new version of Safari, and Flash performance is just dog awful on OS X (and was before Safari changed the way plugins are controlled).

I am running the 10.1 beta release of Flash on this same machine and there have been significant improvements, but it is still very resource intensive to do something as simple as play an H.264 video stream - something that can be done by other apps (even third party stuff like VLC and XBMC etc) with considerably better performance than Flash.

Maybe HTML5 is also bad, but Adobe have had a long time to fix flash on OS X and have barely done enough to keep it functional. It only seems to be now, with all the fanfare about leaving it off the iPad (I guess they didn't care for the iPhone) that big strides seem to be in the works. As it stands right now though, the 10.0 stable release is woeful for performance (and it's not about hardware decoding either, even with software decoding only the Windows version is considerably better).

You should try Flash on Mac (and as the iPhone is based on OS X, the comparisons are quite neat).

http://img690.imageshack.us/img690/2258/osxflashiplayerapr10.jpg
This screenshot was taken on a Core2Duo 2.1Ghz iMac, running 10.6.3 with the 10.0 release version of Flash. That is a 862x468 1500kbps SD H.264 video stream from BBC iPlayer.

http://img696.imageshack.us/img696/4771/flashosxperformance.jpg
This screenshot is the same computer sitting idle on the Diablo 3 main page.

WebkitPluginHost is the process that deals with plugins in the new version of Safari, and Flash performance is just dog awful on OS X (and was before Safari changed the way plugins are controlled).

I am running the 10.1 beta release of Flash on this same machine and there have been significant improvements, but it is still very resource intensive to do something as simple as play an H.264 video stream - something that can be done by other apps (even third party stuff like VLC and XBMC etc) with considerably better performance than Flash.

Maybe HTML5 is also bad, but Adobe have had a long time to fix flash on OS X and have barely done enough to keep it functional. It only seems to be now, with all the fanfare about leaving it off the iPad (I guess they didn't care for the iPhone) that big strides seem to be in the works. As it stands right now though, the 10.0 stable release is woeful for performance (and it's not about hardware decoding either, even with software decoding only the Windows version is considerably better).

I have a pair of 20" at 1600x1200 as well, they go great rotated to portrait layout and placed on both sides of a 2560x1600 screen.

1600x1200 + 2560x1600 + 1200x1600

Out of curiosity, is there anything I'm not legally allowed to draw?

I'm not a muslim and therefore consider myself to be allowed to draw Mohammed, infact I just did in GIMP (not MSpaint as I didnt want to offend Linux fundamentalists)
Do not click if offended by shocking religious imagery http://img13.imageshack.us/img13/1287/mohow.jpg

So is there anything I can't draw on a piece of paper (without any words in any language) ?

Well, pigs may be flying - the new 10.1 release candidate flash build for OS X is *much* better than the total dog's breakfast that the 10.0 stable is.

CPU use for a 480 SD stream is down from 60-65% on a 2Ghz Core 2 Duo to 45%. For the 720p HD stream, core use is down from 103% (cpu meter measures up to 200%, with the graphs showing up to 100% per core) down to 86% usage, as long as it is played full screen. If you play the HD stream in the window, you still get noticeable frame dropping, but at least that has now gone for the SD streams in the window.

Flash websites have also seen a 20%ish drop in CPU use with the beta release.

Of course, similar 720p H.264 videos (which the flash streams are) play at 5-10% CPU use in Quicktime/Perian/VLC/Mplayer etc.

I showed these screenshots on slashdot a few days ago:
http://img690.imageshack.us/img690/2258/osxflashiplayerapr10.jpg - SD content on BBC iPlayer (10.0 stable flash release)
http://img696.imageshack.us/img696/4771/flashosxperformance.jpg - Diablo 3 website (10.0 stable flash release)

Those numbers drop noticeably with the new beta release of the plugin, but they are still ludicrously high. While the iPad has more grunt than the iPhone, it's still nowhere near the power of a 2Ghz Core 2 Duo. iPhone OS is still pretty much OS X underneath, so unless it gets better still, there is just no way you will get acceptable performance on the iPad.

Well, pigs may be flying - the new 10.1 release candidate flash build for OS X is *much* better than the total dog's breakfast that the 10.0 stable is.

CPU use for a 480 SD stream is down from 60-65% on a 2Ghz Core 2 Duo to 45%. For the 720p HD stream, core use is down from 103% (cpu meter measures up to 200%, with the graphs showing up to 100% per core) down to 86% usage, as long as it is played full screen. If you play the HD stream in the window, you still get noticeable frame dropping, but at least that has now gone for the SD streams in the window.

Flash websites have also seen a 20%ish drop in CPU use with the beta release.

Of course, similar 720p H.264 videos (which the flash streams are) play at 5-10% CPU use in Quicktime/Perian/VLC/Mplayer etc.

I showed these screenshots on slashdot a few days ago:
http://img690.imageshack.us/img690/2258/osxflashiplayerapr10.jpg - SD content on BBC iPlayer (10.0 stable flash release)
http://img696.imageshack.us/img696/4771/flashosxperformance.jpg - Diablo 3 website (10.0 stable flash release)

Those numbers drop noticeably with the new beta release of the plugin, but they are still ludicrously high. While the iPad has more grunt than the iPhone, it's still nowhere near the power of a 2Ghz Core 2 Duo. iPhone OS is still pretty much OS X underneath, so unless it gets better still, there is just no way you will get acceptable performance on the iPad.

* The Build Order dialog is completely gone. In 2008 Microsoft decides your build order, no control for you.

Really? That's funny that I brought up the exact dialog box that you claim doesn't exist.

http://img541.imageshack.us/img541/1992/2inarow.png

Oh, slashdot, how do we love thee.

Where did I say it crashed my browser? It doesn't cause crashes, it's just very heavy on CPU - look at the screen shot. That's a 2Ghz Core 2 Duo iMac, and that page on Windows (while looking the same) doesn't push the CPU nearly as hard.

HD streams on BBC iPlayer drop frames, yet the exact same streams on XBMC running on top of OS X (ie, just start the XBMC app - no rebooting) play with a tenth of the CPU use (but stop after 1 minute since the addition of the swf verification by the BBC on their streams).

This is not a problem with my systems. I have 3 Macs, all with various levels of OS X (one of them PPC) and Flash is dreadful on all of them. Should I reinstall OS X on all three? My family members have another 3 Macs between them with the same issue. Should I reinstall them?

I am not disputing that it works - I have spent a lot of time on Blizzard's Diablo 3 site (looking forward to the game) and it's not full of crashes or impossibly slow animations or video, but it pushes my CPU up near the limit to do this. There's no way that the site would run on flash on the iPhone with a 600Mhz ARM cpu.

So, while flash is just about good enough for OS X (ie, they brute force it), it just won't work for the iPhone.

Tell me, should an SD stream also stutter - as this one did, and push the CPU as shown in the screenshot. I rebooted just to be sure. Bear in mind this isn't even the HD stream (that XBMC used to play perfectly at very low cpu load before the added the flash verification check), which is even worse in the browser plugin.

http://img690.imageshack.us/img690/2258/osxflashiplayerapr10.jpg

I took that a few minutes ago, on a fresh reboot of OS X 10.6.3, iMac Core 2 Duo 2.16Ghz, 2GB RAM, Safari 4.0.4.

There is no excuse for the performance to be that poor. If you set the stream to play fullscreen, you can at least get the SD stuff to play with no stuttering (and there is a visible drop is CPU use while playing fullscreen, so I assume there is some scaling thing going on or something, or some other processing that badly affects it).

I don't get any crashing though (and never said I did). It's not unique to my install of OS X either, and is common across all versions of OS X I have used, on many different Macs.

The video playing is not the only thing that pushes it though, as shown by my Diablo 3 flash website shot shown earlier.

It's just poor.

For thos of us who have used a Mac, the Flash issue is about performance. Have you ever used Flash on OS X? The result would be much the same on the iPhone (given that the core of iPhone OS is the same as OS X), except now there's no 2GHz+ CPU to make it look acceptable and all you have is a little ARM chip and a battery.

If it was about control then they wouldn't be promoting Flash's replacement for the iPad and iPhone. It really is about performance.

Don't just take my word for it - google "flash performance OSX" for a vast number of complaints about it. It really is hideous. Not just sluggish, but banging a 2Ghz core at 100% usage for website animations and video streams - ie, it drains the battery on your MacBook Pro rather quickly, and is one of the few things that can get the fans on my iMac to become audible.

In fact, I just opened the Diablo 3 page and had it sit idle for about a minute or so and then had a quick look at the CPU use. This is a 2GHz Core2Duo, and whether it is that full-site-flash or a youtube video, or BBC iPlayer stream, the CPU usage looks exactly like this:

http://img696.imageshack.us/img696/4771/flashosxperformance.jpg

"Finally, if you're a high-bandwidth user of Verizon's smartphone data services, the company will soon hunt you down and throttle you."

This comes to mind:
http://img580.imageshack.us/img580/3567/homeruchokingubartad.jpg

What a P/R master though! So customer friendly. And all this time, I thought when I buy "unlimited" service, I didn't expect unlimited bandwidth (physical impossibility) but I do expect unlimited access... how stupid of me.

The American equivalent is the FTC, Federal Trade Commission.

You can complete a complaint form at https://www.ftccomplaintassistant.gov/

Not sure the best address to use on the form, but here is one of them:

Sony Computer Entertainment America, Inc.
919 E Hillsdale Blvd 2nd Floor
Foster City Ca 94404-4247

Appropriately, the PS3 blog considers FTC to be a swear word.

Complaining to the BBB is pointless. SCEA already has an F... I don't think they can get an F-.

But nothing is better than Wonderflonium. (Do not bounce.)

The problem with your data is that it counts 'gun deaths', not crime levels. Your data includes suicides and accidental shootings with the violent crime. That's a very convenient set of data to present if your agenda is to outlaw gun ownership, but it's a bit disingenuous.

So I'm going to counter with a few graphs of my own.

First, http://img339.imageshack.us/i/89312727.png/

This is the one you already made: gun laws on the x axis, gun deaths on the y. I guess most people can be convinced there's a negative correlation there. Let's move on.

I assert that suicides contribute a significant amount to that correlation. In support, I present http://img691.imageshack.us/i/96131586.png/ (source: http://www.afsp.org/index.cfm?fuseaction=home.viewpage&page_id=05114FBE-E445-7831-F0C1494E2FADB8EA) as support. The shape of the two graphs is pretty similar. This kind of makes sense, because guns are a pretty effective way to kill yourself, but I digress. Instead...

http://img249.imageshack.us/i/21700353.png/

That's gun laws versus murder rates (source: http://www.infoplease.com/us/statistics/crime-rate-state.html). Suddenly the correlation is much less obvious. On the low end of strictness, data is all over the place, and on the high end, as availability of guns goes down, murders actually go up.

The same trend repeats with violent crime ( http://img220.imageshack.us/i/72421515.png/), property crime ( http://img260.imageshack.us/i/21861589.png/), and robbery ( http://img176.imageshack.us/i/84688439.png/). Interestingly, though, not with rape ( http://img519.imageshack.us/i/45149589.png/); can't really explain that one.

So, yeah. I don't think anyone would argue that more guns leads to more gun-related deaths (which the data you provided does show, however weakly), but we were never arguing about gun deaths. We were arguing about crime, where the correlations are much less clear-cut.

The problem with your data is that it counts 'gun deaths', not crime levels. Your data includes suicides and accidental shootings with the violent crime. That's a very convenient set of data to present if your agenda is to outlaw gun ownership, but it's a bit disingenuous.

So I'm going to counter with a few graphs of my own.

First, http://img339.imageshack.us/i/89312727.png/

This is the one you already made: gun laws on the x axis, gun deaths on the y. I guess most people can be convinced there's a negative correlation there. Let's move on.

I assert that suicides contribute a significant amount to that correlation. In support, I present http://img691.imageshack.us/i/96131586.png/ (source: http://www.afsp.org/index.cfm?fuseaction=home.viewpage&page_id=05114FBE-E445-7831-F0C1494E2FADB8EA) as support. The shape of the two graphs is pretty similar. This kind of makes sense, because guns are a pretty effective way to kill yourself, but I digress. Instead...

http://img249.imageshack.us/i/21700353.png/

That's gun laws versus murder rates (source: http://www.infoplease.com/us/statistics/crime-rate-state.html). Suddenly the correlation is much less obvious. On the low end of strictness, data is all over the place, and on the high end, as availability of guns goes down, murders actually go up.

The same trend repeats with violent crime ( http://img220.imageshack.us/i/72421515.png/), property crime ( http://img260.imageshack.us/i/21861589.png/), and robbery ( http://img176.imageshack.us/i/84688439.png/). Interestingly, though, not with rape ( http://img519.imageshack.us/i/45149589.png/); can't really explain that one.

So, yeah. I don't think anyone would argue that more guns leads to more gun-related deaths (which the data you provided does show, however weakly), but we were never arguing about gun deaths. We were arguing about crime, where the correlations are much less clear-cut.

The problem with your data is that it counts 'gun deaths', not crime levels. Your data includes suicides and accidental shootings with the violent crime. That's a very convenient set of data to present if your agenda is to outlaw gun ownership, but it's a bit disingenuous.

So I'm going to counter with a few graphs of my own.

First, http://img339.imageshack.us/i/89312727.png/

This is the one you already made: gun laws on the x axis, gun deaths on the y. I guess most people can be convinced there's a negative correlation there. Let's move on.

I assert that suicides contribute a significant amount to that correlation. In support, I present http://img691.imageshack.us/i/96131586.png/ (source: http://www.afsp.org/index.cfm?fuseaction=home.viewpage&page_id=05114FBE-E445-7831-F0C1494E2FADB8EA) as support. The shape of the two graphs is pretty similar. This kind of makes sense, because guns are a pretty effective way to kill yourself, but I digress. Instead...

http://img249.imageshack.us/i/21700353.png/

That's gun laws versus murder rates (source: http://www.infoplease.com/us/statistics/crime-rate-state.html). Suddenly the correlation is much less obvious. On the low end of strictness, data is all over the place, and on the high end, as availability of guns goes down, murders actually go up.

The same trend repeats with violent crime ( http://img220.imageshack.us/i/72421515.png/), property crime ( http://img260.imageshack.us/i/21861589.png/), and robbery ( http://img176.imageshack.us/i/84688439.png/). Interestingly, though, not with rape ( http://img519.imageshack.us/i/45149589.png/); can't really explain that one.

So, yeah. I don't think anyone would argue that more guns leads to more gun-related deaths (which the data you provided does show, however weakly), but we were never arguing about gun deaths. We were arguing about crime, where the correlations are much less clear-cut.

The problem with your data is that it counts 'gun deaths', not crime levels. Your data includes suicides and accidental shootings with the violent crime. That's a very convenient set of data to present if your agenda is to outlaw gun ownership, but it's a bit disingenuous.

So I'm going to counter with a few graphs of my own.

First, http://img339.imageshack.us/i/89312727.png/

This is the one you already made: gun laws on the x axis, gun deaths on the y. I guess most people can be convinced there's a negative correlation there. Let's move on.

I assert that suicides contribute a significant amount to that correlation. In support, I present http://img691.imageshack.us/i/96131586.png/ (source: http://www.afsp.org/index.cfm?fuseaction=home.viewpage&page_id=05114FBE-E445-7831-F0C1494E2FADB8EA) as support. The shape of the two graphs is pretty similar. This kind of makes sense, because guns are a pretty effective way to kill yourself, but I digress. Instead...

http://img249.imageshack.us/i/21700353.png/

That's gun laws versus murder rates (source: http://www.infoplease.com/us/statistics/crime-rate-state.html). Suddenly the correlation is much less obvious. On the low end of strictness, data is all over the place, and on the high end, as availability of guns goes down, murders actually go up.

The same trend repeats with violent crime ( http://img220.imageshack.us/i/72421515.png/), property crime ( http://img260.imageshack.us/i/21861589.png/), and robbery ( http://img176.imageshack.us/i/84688439.png/). Interestingly, though, not with rape ( http://img519.imageshack.us/i/45149589.png/); can't really explain that one.

So, yeah. I don't think anyone would argue that more guns leads to more gun-related deaths (which the data you provided does show, however weakly), but we were never arguing about gun deaths. We were arguing about crime, where the correlations are much less clear-cut.

The problem with your data is that it counts 'gun deaths', not crime levels. Your data includes suicides and accidental shootings with the violent crime. That's a very convenient set of data to present if your agenda is to outlaw gun ownership, but it's a bit disingenuous.

So I'm going to counter with a few graphs of my own.

First, http://img339.imageshack.us/i/89312727.png/

This is the one you already made: gun laws on the x axis, gun deaths on the y. I guess most people can be convinced there's a negative correlation there. Let's move on.

I assert that suicides contribute a significant amount to that correlation. In support, I present http://img691.imageshack.us/i/96131586.png/ (source: http://www.afsp.org/index.cfm?fuseaction=home.viewpage&page_id=05114FBE-E445-7831-F0C1494E2FADB8EA) as support. The shape of the two graphs is pretty similar. This kind of makes sense, because guns are a pretty effective way to kill yourself, but I digress. Instead...

http://img249.imageshack.us/i/21700353.png/

That's gun laws versus murder rates (source: http://www.infoplease.com/us/statistics/crime-rate-state.html). Suddenly the correlation is much less obvious. On the low end of strictness, data is all over the place, and on the high end, as availability of guns goes down, murders actually go up.

The same trend repeats with violent crime ( http://img220.imageshack.us/i/72421515.png/), property crime ( http://img260.imageshack.us/i/21861589.png/), and robbery ( http://img176.imageshack.us/i/84688439.png/). Interestingly, though, not with rape ( http://img519.imageshack.us/i/45149589.png/); can't really explain that one.

So, yeah. I don't think anyone would argue that more guns leads to more gun-related deaths (which the data you provided does show, however weakly), but we were never arguing about gun deaths. We were arguing about crime, where the correlations are much less clear-cut.

The problem with your data is that it counts 'gun deaths', not crime levels. Your data includes suicides and accidental shootings with the violent crime. That's a very convenient set of data to present if your agenda is to outlaw gun ownership, but it's a bit disingenuous.

So I'm going to counter with a few graphs of my own.

First, http://img339.imageshack.us/i/89312727.png/

This is the one you already made: gun laws on the x axis, gun deaths on the y. I guess most people can be convinced there's a negative correlation there. Let's move on.

I assert that suicides contribute a significant amount to that correlation. In support, I present http://img691.imageshack.us/i/96131586.png/ (source: http://www.afsp.org/index.cfm?fuseaction=home.viewpage&page_id=05114FBE-E445-7831-F0C1494E2FADB8EA) as support. The shape of the two graphs is pretty similar. This kind of makes sense, because guns are a pretty effective way to kill yourself, but I digress. Instead...

http://img249.imageshack.us/i/21700353.png/

That's gun laws versus murder rates (source: http://www.infoplease.com/us/statistics/crime-rate-state.html). Suddenly the correlation is much less obvious. On the low end of strictness, data is all over the place, and on the high end, as availability of guns goes down, murders actually go up.

The same trend repeats with violent crime ( http://img220.imageshack.us/i/72421515.png/), property crime ( http://img260.imageshack.us/i/21861589.png/), and robbery ( http://img176.imageshack.us/i/84688439.png/). Interestingly, though, not with rape ( http://img519.imageshack.us/i/45149589.png/); can't really explain that one.

So, yeah. I don't think anyone would argue that more guns leads to more gun-related deaths (which the data you provided does show, however weakly), but we were never arguing about gun deaths. We were arguing about crime, where the correlations are much less clear-cut.

The problem with your data is that it counts 'gun deaths', not crime levels. Your data includes suicides and accidental shootings with the violent crime. That's a very convenient set of data to present if your agenda is to outlaw gun ownership, but it's a bit disingenuous.

So I'm going to counter with a few graphs of my own.

First, http://img339.imageshack.us/i/89312727.png/

This is the one you already made: gun laws on the x axis, gun deaths on the y. I guess most people can be convinced there's a negative correlation there. Let's move on.

I assert that suicides contribute a significant amount to that correlation. In support, I present http://img691.imageshack.us/i/96131586.png/ (source: http://www.afsp.org/index.cfm?fuseaction=home.viewpage&page_id=05114FBE-E445-7831-F0C1494E2FADB8EA) as support. The shape of the two graphs is pretty similar. This kind of makes sense, because guns are a pretty effective way to kill yourself, but I digress. Instead...

http://img249.imageshack.us/i/21700353.png/

That's gun laws versus murder rates (source: http://www.infoplease.com/us/statistics/crime-rate-state.html). Suddenly the correlation is much less obvious. On the low end of strictness, data is all over the place, and on the high end, as availability of guns goes down, murders actually go up.

The same trend repeats with violent crime ( http://img220.imageshack.us/i/72421515.png/), property crime ( http://img260.imageshack.us/i/21861589.png/), and robbery ( http://img176.imageshack.us/i/84688439.png/). Interestingly, though, not with rape ( http://img519.imageshack.us/i/45149589.png/); can't really explain that one.

So, yeah. I don't think anyone would argue that more guns leads to more gun-related deaths (which the data you provided does show, however weakly), but we were never arguing about gun deaths. We were arguing about crime, where the correlations are much less clear-cut.

Vermont is the only state that has no gun licensing or permits of any kind. They would have low gun crime because they are vermont. But you did say freely carry so I digress. Also you would be wrong anyways unless you have some good citations. Below I provide links allowing you to compare gun law strictness to gun deaths by state.

http://newsbatch.com/gc-stateglaw.html
http://newsbatch.com/gc-regionowndeath.html

Since it isn't obvious enough from that picture I bothered getting the raw data and punched it all into excel to make a pretty graph just for you!:
http://img100.imageshack.us/img100/7756/gunlaws.png

Proving you fairly definatively wrong. Please /. mods don't mod people up unless they've done some homework.

Their site is a mess anyway. And this is from Mozilla?!

oh the irony! I went to the website you linked, and look at the words the recaptcha made me type... I wonder if I'm in some kind of NSA/CIA blacklist now :'(
http://img532.imageshack.us/img532/9273/recaptcha.png

Sounds exactly like part of the plot of the Futurama episode "Crimes of the Hot":

http://img25.imageshack.us/img25/9389/futuramathreadpic.png

Started out as a giant mirror in space to deflect the sun's heat, but got flipped around and "somehow" got turned into a magnifying glass and scorched a line in the earth

wait what? the mac does not have hideous shine effects. I just took a pic of some of the native apps (itunes, safari and the system preferences) and I see no shine effects. I guess the window buttons, but they are so small, that does it really count as being overly shiny?
http://img42.imageshack.us/img42/7720/screenshot20100401at440.png
Said that, I do prefer gnome over kde.