Occupy Flash?

mcgrew writes "CNN is reporting another Occupy movement — Occupy Flash. Their aim: get rid of Flash completely. They explain: 'Why does it matter when HTML5 has clearly won the fight for the future of our web browsing? Well, as we've seen with other outdated web technologies (most notably the much-lamented Internet Explorer 6), as long as software is installed on machines, there will be a contingent of decision makers who mandate its use, and there will be a requirement of continued support, the plugin will live on, and folks will continue to develop for it.' In response, a group of Flash developers have started Occupy HTML in Flash's defense. Popcorn, anyone?"

Comments

I propose we Occupy "Occupy"

[elrous0]

Clearly the "Occupy" meme is being abused now. Every dipshit with any pet cause is slapping "Occupy" on it and co-opting solidarity with the OWS movement. "Occupy" is teetering on the edge of really jumping the shark here. If it goes much further, we run the risk of "Hey, remember that whole 'Occupy' fad? What was with THAT, huh?" becoming a segment on VH1's Hey, Remember The Teens? episode on 2011.

Therefore I propose we Occupy "Occupy" before it's too late. We must stand up to those who would steal our term. Because if we don't make a stand today, tomorrow we may be faced with Twilight fans wearing "Occupy Edward" and "Occupy Jacob" t-shirts, which can only lead to nostalgic Gen-Xer's wearing lame "Occupy Empire" and "Occupy Rebellion" Star Wars shirts.

Re:I propose we Occupy "Occupy"

[Anonymous Coward]

I can see it now, this is the start of Occupygate.

Re:I propose we Occupy "Occupy"

[MightyMartian]

I'm Occupying my livingroom this weekend! If my wife tries to make me move, well, I won't be intimidated with threats from authority figures!

Re:I propose we Occupy "Occupy"

[Talderas]

That's it. It's time to Occupy Slashdot.

No longer will we idly stand by and stand for the continuation of all the Bitcoin slashvertisements!

Re:I propose we Occupy "Occupy"

[Oswald McWeany]

Bill Gates is clearly in the 1%.

Occupy Gate.

Re:I propose we Occupy "Occupy"

[Anonymous Coward]

This is what happens when your movement has no, or very loosely defined, goals.

Re:I propose we Occupy "Occupy"

[Oswald McWeany]

Yeah... it really went over the top when United Artists announced that the Bond film would be called:

Occupyssy.

Re:I propose we Occupy "Occupy"

[firex726]

I cant wait till I actually see that one TV.
Just need some scandal, and I'm sure that's what they'll coin it.

Re:I propose we Occupy "Occupy"

[mx b]

"Occupy" is teetering on the edge of really jumping the shark here.

I believe the term is "nuking the fridge" now.

Re:I propose we Occupy "Occupy"

[Intropy]

I'd help out, but I'm too preoccupied with my own problems.

Re:I propose we Occupy "Occupy"

[arth1]

Isn't it just a common mislatinization? Clearly it should be occupodes!

Re:I propose we Occupy "Occupy"

[jellomizer]

I think the Occupy Wall Street protest is called that because they are not protesting Wall Street but Wall Street as a symbol of a larger problem.

These other ones are just being stupid.

Re:I propose we Occupy "Occupy"

[elrous0]

I just can't keep up anymore. Do you know that just *yesterday* I learned that owling had replace planking? And even that still probably leaves me several memes back.

Re:I propose we Occupy "Occupy"

[cobrausn]

I've always thought the best way to govern is to favor incentive over punishment. I'm sure she could think of a way to get you moving...

Re:I propose we Occupy "Occupy"

[roc97007]

> Clearly the "Occupy" meme is being abused now.

Now?? Where have you been??

Re:I propose we Occupy "Occupy"

[Barsteward]

Probably be iOccupy.....

Re:I propose we Occupy "Occupy"

[elrous0]

Man, I was calling out "Occupy" back when it was hip--unlike you Johnny-Come-Lately poseurs only calling it out *now*.

Re:I propose we Occupy "Occupy"

[Anonymous Coward]

No, this is what happens when the concept goes mainstream. It enters the collective consciousness and people feal they own it. And they start using it as a way to express dissent, dissatisfaction, even for funny or silly reasons. This is a win. Make no mistake about it.

Re:I propose we Occupy "Occupy"

[CheshireDragon]

indeed, I am going to be Occupying some beer while Occupy(put favorite football team here) game.

Re:I propose we Occupy "Occupy"

[UnknowingFool]

Did Bill Gates rape and murder a young startup in 1991? I'm not saying he did but I find it interesting that he's never denied it. I think he called it "buying out"

.

Re:I propose we Occupy "Occupy"

[heathen_01]

Punishment is cheaper & quicker.

Re:I propose we Occupy "Occupy"

[Surt]

As a die-hard Twilight fan, and member of team centenarian pedophile, I resent this.

Re:I propose we Occupy "Occupy"

[IrquiM]

Because... you're the 99%?

Re:I propose we Occupy "Occupy"

[shams93]

Its kind of tongue in cheek, but its true, however until all of the elements of html5 like browser media capture are in place you will still see some apps having to temporarily rely on flash. Webcam software is a good example. Eventually when you have html5 media capture you won't need that feature from flash, so its on its way out, but there are still some classes of app that need it.

Re:I propose we Occupy "Occupy"

[Mordok-DestroyerOfWo]

I'm a Seahawks fan you insensitive clod! I need to occupy something a little stronger...

Re:I propose we Occupy "Occupy"

[TheCouchPotatoFamine]

um - ITS THE PEOPLE (finally, i knew they were somewhere) not a corporation... people that don't hire other people to lie full-time on the TV for them, so maybe it is a little less presentable to the media at large.. I think i'm okay with that.

Re:I propose we Occupy "Occupy"

[Andy Dodd]

I think the worst was when some moron came up with "Occupy Tibet"... Um, being occupied is PRECISELY the problem they have.

Unfortunately I can't rant on the guy's Facebook page without "liking" the stupidity...

Re:I propose we Occupy "Occupy"

[shish]

I'm starting an "Occupy My Pants" movement, any lovely ladies interested in joining? ;-)

... thought not v_v

Re:I propose we Occupy "Occupy"

[HermMunster]

It's an attempt to water down the meaning and importance of the Occupy Wall Street. These people are out there fighting for something they think is important.

CNN has no clue about what it really means to give up on the content delivery system that provides 75% of video on the web. I can't remember the last time I went to CNN and certainly didn't go there for the purpose of watching any of their videos.

Flash is a workable technology and has proven so for over a decade.

Maybe we should have an Occupy CNN.

Re:I propose we Occupy "Occupy"

[Quiet_Desperation]

Occupy elrous0's post!

I'm totally using that second paragraph as a bathroom.

Re:I propose we Occupy "Occupy"

[fotoflojoe]

What, Fonzie's not cool enough anymore? Oh, wait.

Re:I propose we Occupy "Occupy"

[Overzeetop]

And, let's face it, punishment may be what he's after. Just as long as he remembers the safe word.

Re:I propose we Occupy "Occupy"

[Eponymous Coward]

Therefore I propose we Occupy "Occupy" before it's too late. We must stand up to those who would steal our term.

Yes! Stand up to them! Freedom of expression is for us, not them!

Re:I propose we Occupy "Occupy"

[RoLi]

Nah, Obama and Bernanke are 99%, the overwhelming majority who is against bank bailouts is 1%.

Re:I propose we Occupy "Occupy"

[WraithCube]

which can only lead to nostalgic Gen-Xer's wearing lame "Occupy Empire" and "Occupy Rebellion" Star Wars shirts.

We've already reached that point. This showed up on my facebook feed this morning.

Such notable quotes as: "End Galactic Corporate Greed", "Occupy Docking Bay 94 We are the 99%", "Get our troops off tatooine", and "Death Star Destruction was an inside job"

Re:I propose we Occupy "Occupy"

[Curunir_wolf]

I just can't keep up anymore. Do you know that just *yesterday* I learned that owling had replace planking? And even that still probably leaves me several memes back.

What? Wait... what happened to "batmanning"?

Re:I propose we Occupy "Occupy"

[RyuuzakiTetsuya]

screw you. I like the Occupy movement.

okay I'm very upset no one took me seriously when I said we should call ourselves, "OccuPants..." but...

Re:I propose we Occupy "Occupy"

[hairyfeet]

Not to mention, and I'm sure I'm gonna get hate from all the web developers that are drooling in their coffee over new tech (I swear you guys are as bad as gamers when it comes to new toys) but everyone seems to ignore the elephant in the room that is taking a big shit on the rug and stinking up the joint! What is that elephant?

HTML V5 IS A BIG PILE OF SUCK! that's what! It sucks MORE resources than flash, requires MORE CPU and RAM, I've found it pretty much won't run at all on anything less than a dual core, whereas flash will run fine without hardware acceleration on a 1.8GHz Celeron or Sempron as long as you stick to SD video and will even play HD1080p if you put a decent GPU to share the load, sucks up MORE bandwidth than flash...

Are you people sure this idea of "progress" wasn't cooked up by Dilbert's PHB? Now I can understand the iFanbois rushing to embrace it because anything the God Steve said was law to those nutters, but web developers are usually a LITTLE more sane than that, so what gives? Did you lose your collective minds?

And before someone pipes in with "It'll get better" well that may be true, but I could say that in the future that I could play HD video simply by farting the theme from "The Dukes Of Hazzard" but that don't help us none NOW does it partner? We are talking NOW and guys like the nutball occupy flash want to replace flash NOW with a system that simply doesn't work!

It is worse in EVERY SINGLE MEASURE than flash and we haven't even gotten to the DRM that MSFT and Apple is gonna put into it yet! Hell is there even a way for the FOSS guys to legally play H.264 on Linux, or is it still like Blu Ray? If it sucks THIS bad now, imagine when the MPAA gets done. Oh MSFT and Apple will be happy, they both sign NDAs and support kernel level DRM so the next netflix will play beautifully on Win 8 and the next iShiny, sucks for FOSS though.

So why? It makes no sense! It is worse in every way, will most likely be a *.A.A wet dream as both MSFT and Apple want to "fucking kill Google" and what better way than trying to lock up the next format between themselves, and most importantly HTML V5 is a damned pig, sucking CPU cycles and RAM like a drunk at a free minibar! So WTF developers, have you lost your damned minds? Or is that iPad just too damned shiny for you to see anything but iMoney?

Re:I propose we Occupy "Occupy"

[Toonol]

The Occupy movement jumped the shark about two days in. The first reports were promising; Wall Street is rife with corruption, the bailout was cronyism at it's worst. The American public had, potentially, a lot of sympathy with those causes.

It turned out, though, that the Occupy movement was just the same old agitators, with a little more substantial marketing campaign behind them. The occupy movement is now, clearly, a leftist subset of the democrat party, with the same old, tired, socialist screeds. If they had kept it as a protest movement against corruption and granting political favors, I would have supported them. When one of the primary components became losers whining about their student loans, they had obviously taken their eyes off the target.

Re:I propose we Occupy "Occupy"

[Millennium]

It's also very easy to disprove. Just show me the message.

Re:I propose we Occupy "Occupy"

[Godskitchen]

More likely the swooning females would wear shirts stenciled with "Occupy Me Edward."

Re:I propose we Occupy "Occupy"

[maxwell demon]

Clearly the "Occupy" meme is being abused now.

Why? Every single file I store on an USB stick does occupy Flash. :-)

Re:I propose we Occupy "Occupy"

[Toonol]

This is a win. Make no mistake about it.

No, there IS bad publicity. People are making fun of it. That doesn't increase sympathy for the 'cause'. They're making the Tea Party seem calm and rational by comparison.

Re:I propose we Occupy "Occupy"

[Godskitchen]

Come on, their goals are so obvious: they are protesting "greed" while asking for wealth redistribution (i.e. handouts). Ironic, isn't it?

Re:I propose we Occupy "Occupy"

[maxwell demon]

I mean, Obama and Bernanke as part of the 99%?

Of course. everyone is part of the 99%. It's just a matter of choosing the remaining 1% accordingly.

Of course not everyone is part of the same 99%.

Re:I propose we Occupy "Occupy"

[Toonol]

The notion notion that American business and culture will act quickly to commodify anything new is no longer news, but still pathetic.

It's not pathetic. It's efficient.

Re:I propose we Occupy "Occupy"

[Toonol]

Right. HTML5 is nice, and an excellent increase in browser abilities, but it does not replace Flash. It gives you a slower, more laborious method of replicating much of Flash. Now, that may be worth it; I'm rewriting some stuff to use HTML5 instead of Flash... but Flash can't be completely dumped yet. Ever tried to work much with HTML5's audio?

Re:I propose we Occupy "Occupy"

[Toonol]

No need to blame intelligence agencies and counter-propaganda. The Occupy movement self-destructed on their own. They pandered to the fringe, instead of to the concerns the mainstream had. Bailing out the banks? We all hate that. Corruption in Wall Street? We all hate that. If Occupy could have focused on those issues, instead of getting distracted with various extreme socialist and anti-capitalist issues, they could have made a profound impact.

Re:I propose we Occupy "Occupy"

[hairyfeet]

You should send an email to Charlie Sheen then, as whatever he is taking seems to make him think he is 'winning" so it should be just the ticket for a Seahawks fan. Oh and my condolences.

Re:I propose we Occupy "Occupy"

[sammy baby]

I'm surprised to not have seen more "OccupyYourMom" jokes.

"I spent last night occupying your mom. She says hi, by the way."

Re:I propose we Occupy "Occupy"

[liquidweaver]

I don't think the usage of 'Occupy' jumping the shark has anything to do with the solidarity of the protestors and the american people, who are fighting back the entrenched, inequitable powers that be.
Call what they are doing whatever you want, actions speak louder than words.

Re:I propose we Occupy "Occupy"

[elrous0]

I was watching CNN today and prominent in the video was one guy wearing a "Legalize It" t-shirt with a big marijuana leaf on it and another wearing a Che Guevara t-shirt and waving a Cuban flag. And they wonder why they can't get more mainstream traction.

Now contrast that with civil rights-era marches where everyone is wearing a suit and tie.

Re:I propose we Occupy "Occupy"

[mcgrew]

"Ron Paul, a current presidential candidate for the 2012 election, has lead an
incredibly successful life and has a Net Worth of $4.9 Million".

"Barack Obama is the former Senator from Illinois and the 44th President of the
United States with an estimated net worth of $10.5 million."

Obama is only twice as rich as Ron Paul. They're both 1%ers.

Re:I propose we Occupy "Occupy"

[Dragonslicer]

Maybe we should have an Occupy CNN.

You'd just have to flood them with Twitter messages. Repeating crap on Twitter is all CNN does these days anyway.

Re:I propose we Occupy "Occupy"

[Dogtanian]

indeed, I am going to be Occupying some beer while Occupy(put favorite football team here) game.

It's far more likely that the beer will be occupying *you* (in Soviet Russia or anywhere else for that matter).

But not for long.

Re:I propose we Occupy "Occupy"

[mcgrew]

Incorrect. They're against the redistribution of wealth from the creators of wealth (those of us who work for a living in factories, in construction, in programmer's cubes -- the 99%) to the 1% who aggreate and control the wealth without creating any of it at all. We're not against paying the 1% for what they do; the wealth doesn't mean much when it's not put to good use, so the 1% are far from useless, but they're WAY overpaid. And they're being paid from the wealth that YOU produce in your cubicle.

It's time to stop the redistribution of wealth from the 99% to the 1%. We created it, we want more of it.

Re:I propose we Occupy "Occupy"

[ohnocitizen]

This is a myth. The Occupy movement has very clearly defined goals:
1. Justice - The 1% shouldn't be able to commit crimes the 99% would go to jail for and get away with it.
2. See #1.

This is essentially about the 1% exploiting the 99% and getting away with it.

Re:I propose we Occupy "Occupy"

[Hatta]

Worker productivity has increased over the past 30 years, while worker income has remained flat. We're not asking for handouts, we're asking to get paid what we're worth.

Re:I propose we Occupy "Occupy"

[mcgrew]

Jumping the shark jumped the shark?

Re:I propose we Occupy "Occupy"

[mcgrew]

I was watching CNN today and prominent in the video was one guy wearing a "Legalize It" t-shirt with a big marijuana leaf on it

From what I can see, a very large majority of the population is for legalizing marijuana, so it is indeed a good symbol; a symbol of the powers that be (especially politicians) ignoring what the folks who voted for them (the 99%, or a good proportion of the 99%) want.

The Che shirt and Cuban flag was indeed stupid -- unless, of course, he was planted by the anti-occupy folks.

Yes, the civil rights marches had folks wearing suits, and that made sense; they were seen as "dirty niggers" and wanted to show the fact that they were no different than anyone else. But I didn't see any suits at all in the anti-Vietnam War marches or protests (which were civil rights era protests)

Wearing a tie to an occupy march would be stupid. The necktie (Satan's leash or noose) is the sign of the 1%er, the symbol of wealth and power. Ever see a banker work without one? A stockbroker? Occupy protesters wearing ties would be like Palestineans protesting against Israeli domination while carrying Israeli flags.

Re:I propose we Occupy "Occupy"

[Anthony Mouse]

Because it's more stable. If any threat to the status quo arises, anyone who is currently getting a raw deal will support the threat. If those people are instead living the good life (albeit not as good as you are), they'll oppose the threat as a threat to their own safe and happy lives.

It is much preferable to be a billionaire in a world of millionaires than a trillionaire in a world of people who are starving and trying to eat you.

Re:I propose we Occupy "Occupy"

[CAIMLAS]

Occupy Occupy? I've been doing that for the past week. What you do is this: you show up at the Occupy* movement encampment and occupy it. But only between the hours of 2AM to 8AM. Wear good running shoes and/or kevlar, because these types are somewhat violent, particularly at night. Bull horns and an audio event van is a good idea, too.

It's freedom of speech, right? It must be expressed or it will be lost.

Re:I propose we Occupy "Occupy"

[Anthony Mouse]

The problem is that there is no cause. There is no 99%. It's just a bunch of people who collectively agree that they don't like the way things are, but fundamentally disagree on how things should be instead.

It's shades of "change you can believe in." People want change, but what change? Borrowing so much that we can't pay the interest is change. Nuclear war is change. Is that the change we want? Certainly not.

You need to define a platform before you can have a cause. But that dissolves the coalition of the naive who each believe that everyone wants to do the thing they want to do rather than each having their own ideas and goals.

Re:I propose we Occupy "Occupy"

[ncc74656]

"Occupy" is teetering on the edge of really jumping the shark here.

"Teetering on the edge?" It jumped the shark as soon as a bunch of smelly hippies decided to squat on private property, make insane demands, and engage in general lawlessness.

Re:I propose we Occupy "Occupy"

[scot4875]

It turned out, though, that the Occupy movement was just the same old agitators, with a little more substantial marketing campaign behind them. The occupy movement is now, clearly, a leftist subset of the democrat party, with the same old, tired, socialist screeds. If they had kept it as a protest movement against corruption and granting political favors, I would have supported them. When one of the primary components became losers whining about their student loans, they had obviously taken their eyes off the target.

At least it didn't go the direction of the Tea Party -- I was very interested in their message, until I go to the official website and it starts mentioning abortion and gay marriage. Again, way to take your eyes off the target. Same old Republican talking points with the same old, tired conservative screeds. Then they started blaming bailouts on Obama, start confusing TARP with the stimulus package, and basically start sounding like a bunch of idiots and it was pretty tough to take them seriously.

And at least someone that's mad about not being able to find a job after being saddled with student loans is still mad about a financial issue. The Tea Party couldn't even keep their message that focused.

--Jeremy

Re:I propose we Occupy "Occupy"

[ncc74656]

And, let's face it, punishment may be what he's after. Just as long as he remembers the safe word.

Fluggaenkdechioebolsen?

Re:I propose we Occupy "Occupy"

[Karlt1]

And is there nobody here that can think for themselves anymore? Why has NOBODY here asked themselves "Who is pushing this? who will gain from it?" and the answer is....drumroll....Apple and MSFT! By pushing a heavily patented spec like H.264 as the video "standard" they will be able to further lock down the web.

As opposed to a closed source plug in? Where is the spec for the Flash run time?

And guess which codec Flash video usually uses?

What you will see is the MPAA come up with a truly horrible DRM for H.264 to protect their content, Apple and MSFT will embrace it, FOSS will be fucked.

So Flash is open sourced and doesn't have DRM?

Re:I propose we Occupy "Occupy"

[styrotech]

Is HTML5 (or Flash for that matter) just about streaming video in your world?

Re:I propose we Occupy "Occupy"

[AJH16]

If it is getting so many arms does it make it an Occupus?

Re:I propose we Occupy "Occupy"

[Anthony Mouse]

That is too vague to actually mean anything. It sounds like what you're asking for is some sacrificial lambs from among the "1%" to be hanged as an example to the others. No doubt we could find some and find some laws they broke -- everyone breaks the law all the time. There is a law against everything. So let's say we do that; string up some investment bankers and make everybody feel better.

How does that help you? It isn't going to make the value of your home or your retirement account go up. It isn't going to reduce the unemployment rate or reduce income disparities.

It isn't even going to deter future bad acts, because the banks who lost all their money had more than enough incentive not to do that; the problem was widespread incompetence rather than widespread malice. Country club prison is hardly a more effective deterrent than losing a billion dollars -- the problem is that people over-optimistically expect not to lose, not that the downside is too small.

And it isn't even justice. There is not some small group of people who were at fault. It was everybody. You can't pick out a couple of them to make an example of and call it justice. If you really want justice you have to punish them all, and that is a totally hopeless goal, because there are thousands of them. They would have to close the New York Stock Exchange because all the traders would be in prison.

So justice is not available. There is only revenge. And revenge is a stupid goal, because you spend your resources trying to destroy your "enemies" rather than trying to fix the very real problems we all have to face.

Re:I propose we Occupy "Occupy"

[BitZtream]

And thats why no one cares what they are doing.

You didn't actually give a reason, you just said 'because its not fair!' which pretty much makes it obvious you're just a whiney little bitch.

Re:I propose we Occupy "Occupy"

[Anonymous Coward]

It's time to stop the redistribution of wealth from the 99% to the 1%. We created it, we want more of it.

Then quit working for "The Man" and do it your own damn self. If you want it, then you earn it.
Quit crying like a little bitch.

This doesn't work so well when "The Man" is systematically rigging the system to tilt the table. For example, consider the demonization of universal public health care by the right wing, which is currently the tool of the 1% (and of the American Christian Taliban, but that's not relevant to this discussion). How many people are rightfully afraid to risk 'doing it their own damn self' if that means losing their job-provided insurance? People with family responsibilities and health problems which will make it difficult or expensive to self-insure have hidden but real golden handcuffs tying them to their jobs: they're the only way to get (relatively) cheap guaranteed insurance which can't be taken away as soon as you start costing the insurance company anything.

Nor is it a sane opinion if you actually bother to think about the difficulty most 99%ers would have in striking it out alone. You don't seem to have noticed that most professions in our society don't work so well for independent lone wolves. The fact that we need large organizations to get many economic activities done doesn't mean that the people with the capital to create those organizations are working any harder than the people who actually do the work, or that the wealthy deserve almost all of the profits and bargaining power. Study the late 1800s and early 1900s for what can happen when the balance of power is much too far in the direction of the people with the money, and then study the post-WWII economic boom to learn how everyone wins when things are more fair.

Or don't, and continue to wallow in your Libertarian looney-toon world where the more money a person has, obviously the more righteous they must be, as only hard working heroes can get money, and if you don't have money you must be lazy scum. Where it is flatly impossible for an unregulated 'free market' to do anything bad, because free markets are good and pure and incapable of doing wrong, by definition, damn all observations to the contrary. Where you're oddly completely tone-deaf to the ways that the labor market is made less than free by the people making the loudest noises about the value of free markets.

Re:I propose we Occupy "Occupy"

[Anonymous Coward]

It's the "Occupocalypse"

Re:I propose we Occupy "Occupy"

[Darinbob]

Occupy Skyrim!

Re:I propose we Occupy "Occupy"

[dbialac]

I couldn't agree with you more. I tried to play a relatively simple HTML5 game on my Android phone and I found it completely unusable (hyperfantasy.com so you know I'm not BS'ing). Flash on my Droid is a bit slow to load, but once it loads it's responsive. Add on that Flash and Flex provide the only real write once run anywhere experience and that HTML5 can't support persistent connections (sockets) and you will find me firmly in the Flash camp for the time being. When every browser vendor decides to read the HTML5 and EMCAScript specs the same way and when persistent connections are supported in Javascript, I'll take another look the technology.

Re:I propose we Occupy "Occupy"

[tmarsh86]

They actually seem to be protesting more vociferously against the corporate influence over Washington, D.C. I, for one, am much more worried about the separation of wall street and state than church and state.

Re:I propose we Occupy "Occupy"

[Godskitchen]

Good luck with that.

Re:I propose we Occupy "Occupy"

[tmarsh86]

I don't produce the wealth in the company I work for simply because I don't bring in the clients nor directly work for them, but thanks for that lesson in marxism. I will put away my copy of the communist manifesto now.

Re:I propose we Occupy "Occupy"

[Billly Gates]

"Name me ONE THING that HTML V5 does better?"

1. HTML 5 is multiplatform
2. Wont require $$$ expensive adobe products
3. Hardware acceleration can be used on non-Windows platforms for video
4. HTML 5 supports web database and file reader and writer apis
5. Support for native gui boxes like completation dialog boxes so it looks right in each platform
6. Will run better on Andriod platforms that have mpeg acceleration that has issues with flash on certain swf
7. Better touch screen support
8. Can be controlled by CSS so the site can have a nice phone, tablet, or big desktop look
9. Better CPU usage if using a 100% hardware accelerated HTML like in future versions of Chrome and IE 9 and above

I do not own any Apple products besides a very old Ipod mini and I am not a iFanboi. I have an open mind and HTML 5 does have BIG PROBLEMS currently as well. My points are what it promises to be in 5 years. Adobe is still prevailant and IE 8 still doesn't support is so it is not multiplatform yet until it starts to die off. I hate Adobe because it closed teh web and it was free and open in the past. Now I need Windows and need $$$ for crappy Adobe ides just to have my resume current. It sounds like your video card driver didn't accelerate your video but did with flash but I dunno. My phone is crappy with flash but fine the other way around with html 5. H.264 SUCKS due to the drm and licensing and that is another issue currently. My guess is webmasters will have to do an if statement in CSS with a particular video for each browser as a fix. To me FOSS is more fucked with Flash being required for any real web development. It cuts off access to many people which is agaisnt the spirit and just as bad.

So I support HTML 5 for these reasons and oppose flash for freedom too which you do not want to hear. The cons will go away in a couple of years and better compression and codecs will be used to take care of bandwidth. Flash does it out of the box already and people do not bother with these things in plan videos with html 5 yet. Adobe is addressing this very thing so it will take less bandwidth if you use their tools. It is still developing.

Re:I propose we Occupy "Occupy"

[Godskitchen]

"Worker productivity has increased over the past 30 years..." - Citation? Assuming it's largely in part to technological advances; people didn't just magically become more productive. What's more, "work" is only "worth" as much as someone is willing to compensate you for it. If you don't feel like it's enough, you have the ability to deprive them of your services. Unfortunately, for many professions, there are lots of people willing to do the work - which drives the salaries down.

Re:I propose we Occupy "Occupy"

[tmarsh86]

Worker productivity has increased over the past 30 years, while worker income has remained flat. We're not asking for handouts, we're asking to get paid what we're worth.

That's complete BS. Worker income(for the middle 60%) has increased 40% in the last 30 years. It may not come close to the level of the 1%ers, but then the old adage you have to spend money to make money seems to be proven true every generation.

Re:I propose we Occupy "Occupy"

[Anonymous Coward]

I hate to reply to myself

No you don't, you love to hear yourself talk. Skipping almost all of the noise...

Why has NOBODY here asked themselves "Who is pushing this? who will gain from it?" and the answer is....drumroll....Apple and MSFT! By pushing a heavily patented spec like H.264 as the video "standard" they will be able to further lock down the web. Remember folks that Apple don't care about MSFT, they know MSFT will take the low end and hasn't had an original thought since Ballmer became CEO. It wasn't Windows that Steve wanted to nuke, remember?

What you will see is the MPAA come up with a truly horrible DRM for H.264 to protect their content, Apple and MSFT will embrace it, FOSS will be fucked. Remember that Apple and MSFT support kernel level DRM and I wouldn't be surprised if Apple joins MSFT in adding secureboot as well. At least now you can play flash on FOSS OSes, how much you wanna bet that will go bye bye when Apple and MSFT are done?

You're stupid. DRM and codecs are not the same thing. You can put a DRM wrapper around any content stream encoded using any codec, no matter how unencumbered by patents it is. H.264 or Ogg Ridiculousnamebis, it makes no difference -- if the content owner wants to require DRM, it can be wrapped around anything. DRM is encryption plus some method of trying to securely distribute decryption keys only to people authorized to decrypt content. The decrypted payload can be any format at all.

As for HTML5/H.264 being a way for Apple to close the web, that's hilarious. They're trying to kill off Flash, a blatantly closed system. They're promoting H.264, an open standard codec, and HTML5, also an open standard. The high quality, high performance HTML5 engine their products depend on is an OSS project, and they work with the open source community on it, even though doing so helps their most important mobile OS competitor to also have good HTML5 browsers. After what's getting close to 10 years of work on WebKit, you'd think they would have coded a closed source replacement by now if they were plotting to close the web with HTML5.

As for Flash? Yeah, Adobe "opened" it and published some docs, but there's still only one implementation which implements enough to be useful, Adobe's own. Ever wondered why that is?

It's hilarious to watch you argue in favor of a closed standard while claiming to promote open standards, just because you hate Apple and Apple has put itself in opposition to the closed standard.

Re:I propose we Occupy "Occupy"

[tmarsh86]

Horsemaning has made a comeback and displaced it.

Re:I propose we Occupy "Occupy"

[MaskedSlacker]

Yeah, but you're not as likely to get them to build artificial mountains (made out of the pile bones of the workers who died building them) in your memory.

Re:I propose we Occupy "Occupy"

[cayenne8]

Clearly the "Occupy" meme is being abused now.

I want to start an Occupy Margaritaville!!!

Time to hit the nearest bar....

Re:I propose we Occupy "Occupy"

[LordLimecat]

All clearly of great relevance to the topic at hand, right?

Are the mods all smoking crack? "Offtoic" is what you want for this entire thread, not "Insightful" or "Informative".

Re:I propose we Occupy "Occupy"

[Hatta]

Citation

What's more, "work" is only "worth" as much as someone is willing to compensate you for it.

No, my work is worth what my employer sells it for. If my work was worth exactly what I was paid for it, my employer could not make a profit by selling the products of my labor.

Re:I propose we Occupy "Occupy"

[shutdown -p now]

I find the more useful definition of 1% to be based on current income, rather than accumulated total wealth. IIRC, it takes about $300k/year to get into the top 1% of earners. Wonder how Obama and Paul would stack up there.

Re:I propose we Occupy "Occupy"

[shutdown -p now]

Incorrect. They're against the redistribution of wealth from the creators of wealth (those of us who work for a living in factories, in construction, in programmer's cubes -- the 99%) to the 1% who aggreate and control the wealth without creating any of it at all. We're not against paying the 1% for what they do; the wealth doesn't mean much when it's not put to good use, so the 1% are far from useless, but they're WAY overpaid. And they're being paid from the wealth that YOU produce in your cubicle.

That's 100% Marxist economic analysis of capitalism in a nutshell, by the way.

(Not fear-mongering, just making an observation. I'm not sure where I stand on Marx, personally, but as of late it seems to me that he makes more sense than most modern economic schools, especially Austrians.)

Re:I propose we Occupy "Occupy"

[BrokenBeta]

In addition to all the other excellent points you made, here's another:

Say I'm making a game in HTML5. How do I make it harder to steal than the average JPEG? At least with a SWF i can compile away the url-check and obfuscate it. With HTML5, everything is open source. What good is that? I need to make money off this stuff. I SELL LICENCES to my games, who the hell is going to buy a licence to a game when the source code is right there in front of them??

Re:I propose we Occupy "Occupy"

[Totenglocke]

Sorry to break it to you, but they jumped the shark on day one when they wanted to blame the minority of the population who are successful people for why a small portion of society is unsuccessful.

Don't forget - OCCUPY SLASHDOT!!!

Re:I propose we Occupy "Occupy"

[Totenglocke]

Oh, they have a very clearly defined goal alright - take money from those who were hard working and successful and give it to those who were lazy and utter failures in life. Hence why the 53% movement was started, because 53% of the country pays 100% of federal income taxes while 47% leeches - and it's that 47% who claim to be "the 99%".

Re:I propose we Occupy "Occupy"

[Totenglocke]

Only if you consider a society where hard work (both in school and at work) is rewarded and those who aren't willing to put out the effort fall behind to be "a larger problem". The whole thing boils down to jealousy. Someone who half-assed their way through a watered down online college "degree" is pissy that they can't find a job when competing against people who went to a good school and worked hard to get good grades and they're demanding that the government confiscate the earnings of those who worked hard to pay those who slacked off.

Re:I propose we Occupy "Occupy"

[Godskitchen]

I contend that your work IS worth exactly what you accept in return for it.

Re:I propose we Occupy "Occupy"

[stms]

I'm now starting the Occupy "Occupy "Occupy"" movement we don't need a bunch of nerdy /.ers telling us hipsters how to use the word "Occupy".

Re:I propose we Occupy "Occupy"

[rrohbeck]

Occupy the beer, yay.
Or... I noticed I'm writing this at 16:20.

Re:I propose we Occupy "Occupy"

[rrohbeck]

Because Flash is the biggest malware vector out there, that's why.

Re:I propose we Occupy "Occupy"

[gzipped_tar]

Nah, the "occupy" thing is just organized trolling, be it Wall Str of HTML5.

Re:I propose we Occupy "Occupy"

[Flere Imsaho]

This is what happens when your movement has no, or very loosely defined, goals.

A loosely defined movement, otherwise known as diarrhoea?

Re:I propose we Occupy "Occupy"

[endymion.nz]

To his employer, his work is worth the cost of physical inputs + the cost of wages or salary + the cost of relevant taxes, regulations and marketing + the markup at the point of sale.

Re:I propose we Occupy "Occupy"

[ohnocitizen]

Delusional: The 53% figures are BS.

Re:I propose we Occupy "Occupy"

[ohnocitizen]

Your use of the phrase "whiny little bitch" sure inspires confidence. I gave a pretty damn good reason. Research the history behind the Code of Hammurabi, or any other number of instances where 1 set of rules for the rich and powerful and 1 set for everyone else has caused an uproar. It is reason enough.

Re:I propose we Occupy "Occupy"

[ohnocitizen]

Revenge is a stupid goal, but there is justice here. There is plenty of evidence that those involved in the subprime crash knew precisely what they were doing, and purposefully looked the other way because they were making mountains of cash. That's one side of things -> the crash and lack of accountability for those who profited from it. The other side is that the wealthy have a completely different justice system than the rest of us, and that isn't fair. Frankly movement on either point would be welcome progress.

Re:I propose we Occupy "Occupy"

[MtViewGuy]

I've seen the "manifesto" of the Occupy movement and when they want at minimum European-style socialism (how's that working out with Europe about to financially implode) and at worst Communism (we know how well that worked out in the former Soviet Union under Stalin and China under Mao), I am NOT in favor of this movement.

Re:I propose we Occupy "Occupy"

[adolf]

And guess which codec Flash video usually uses?

Let me guess: One that is widely-distributed and used for free (as in beer) which is available pre-packaged from Adobe for a multitude of different platforms in a form that can be installed and utilized without any possible legal/IP implications for the end-user?

Am I close?

Re:I propose we Occupy "Occupy"

[hairyfeet]

1.-No it isn't if it requires H.264 which is locked up tighter than a nun's thighs by MPEG-LA. See the Linux distros that got threatened for distributing an H.264 codec without a license.

2.- No it will require an expensive MPEG-LA license, whereas Adobe at least allows the decoder to be distrbuted for free and even allows open source alternative like Gnash

3.- Again wrong as H.264 acceleration is part of protected path on BOTH AMD AND Nvidia cards, hence why even a FOSS friendly company like ATI can't give you the specs.

4.- not a DB guy but I doubt most folks care about writing DBs in CSS.

5.- Yeah like THAT can't be easily abused. Security Tool style dialog boxes anyone?

6.- Better pay your MPEG-LA license fee you cocksmoking teabagger will replace the old SCO meme, yay!

7. - Not everyone has a tablet, but that sounds more like a GUI problem than a flash one

8. -Again GUI problem and we've had the ability for years to base a website on the referrer.

9. - Yeah all you'll have to do is throw everyone you own out and buy all new stuff! Please tell me when you get everyone else on board, I'd like to buy some OEM stock!

So again you have a format that is MORE locked down, uses MORE resources right now , MORE proprietary and is GUARANTEED to fracture the web WORSE than it is now, because Mozilla and Opera have done made it clear they will NOT support H.264, as well as FSF and most Linux distros, and this is supposed to be progress?

Again i stand by my statement, this is Dilbert PHB's idea of progress, which is to say none at all. if they would have went with theora or WebM I would agree with you, but H.264 makes this a non starter.

Re:I propose we Occupy "Occupy"

[hairyfeet]

Well you just hit on what will be the nasty "gotcha!" of HTML V5...the DRM. There is NO WAY that MPAA and others like you that want to get paid for their content will allow their videos and games to be snatched as easily as copying a JPEG so there WILL be DRM.

Which frankly I have NO problem with as long as its fair. Steam has DRM and works just fine. what i DO have a problem with is MPEG-LA has already made it clear you will "Pay your $699 license fee you cocksmoking teabaggers!" to rip off an old meme, just look at how they made it clear Mozilla isn't allowed to have an H.264 codec unless they bend over and do the Goatse pose.

So what you are gonna end up with is a fractured all to fuck web that is WORSE than we have now. At least Adobe has made it clear its fine and dandy to distribute their decoders, in fact they haven't said boo about gnash either. with MPEG-LA you have a company clearly hostile to anyone not cutting them a check, which cuts out anything FOSS.

Here is my prediction, watch how sadly it comes true...H.264 will allow the big three, Apple, Google, and MSFT to lock down the web, Android will end up closed by eFuses or code signing so that Google can sign the NDA and play protected content, and FOSS users will end up being told "Buy a copy of Windows and dual boot when you want to watch videos". I don't know about you but I want the web OPEN and while flash isn't the greatest thing out there frankly its 1000% more open than H.264 is now. If the world jumps on the iBandwagon mark my words they'll look back at when you could do things without being on one of the big three corps products as a golden age, because that day will surely be gone.

Re:I propose we Occupy "Occupy"

[exomondo]

So Flash is open sourced and doesn't have DRM?

I think you're missing the point, he's saying that advocating change when the thing you're changing to is not much better - in some ways significantly worse and in some ways pretty much the same - as the current solution is pointless. If you're going to go to the effort of changing then change to something that is actually better.

I personally think HTML5 has the potential to be that thing, to be better than Flash, but it certainly isn't there yet so killing Flash now is a bit premature.

Re:I propose we Occupy "Occupy"

[Anthony Mouse]

There is plenty of evidence that those involved in the subprime crash knew precisely what they were doing, and purposefully looked the other way because they were making mountains of cash.

Again, there is a law against everything. If you want to take a few of those people and make an example out of them then you can, but they were by far not the only ones at fault. It was everyone. Everyone was reckless.

The problem is this: No one person or company created the mortgage crisis. It was a regulatory failure. Banks were encouraged to make as many mortgage loans as possible, to promote home ownership. Then they were allowed to sell the mortgages to investors, giving them cash with which to make more loans -- and depriving them of any incentive to care whether the borrowers were creditworthy. Nobody really thought about the consequences of doing that because everyone assumed that the worst case was that if someone defaulted, you foreclose on the house, sell it on the market and get back your investment in the loan.

At some point -- after it was too late to stop it, but before it all went to hell -- some smart people no doubt realized that there was a big housing bubble and that when it popped there was going to be a giant hole in the ground where everybody's money used to be, because the foreclosures would be worth less than the loans. Those are the people you're talking about. They did what comes naturally to Wall St. folk: If you see a bubble, you bet against it.

You can say they violated a duty to their investors, or find some SEC regs they violated or whatever you like, but I don't think they could have done anything to make it better by that point. They made a lot of money so it's convenient to point the finger at them, but it wasn't them that caused the problem. They only identified it early enough to profit from it. There wasn't really anything they could have done differently to fix it at that point -- if they had raised the alarm it wouldn't have changed anything.

There were already hundreds of billions of dollars in mortgages issued to uncreditworthy borrowers against houses that weren't worth as much as people thought they were, and weren't worth as much as the loans were for. Once they existed, at some point the bubble would have to burst and whoever was holding those mortgages when it did was fucked. Changing who got a chair when the music stopped wouldn't have averted the crisis; somebody had to be left holding the bag. Letting the people who figured it out first win is kind of how it's supposed to work. You can punish them for that if it makes you feel better, but I wouldn't really call it justice.

The other side is that the wealthy have a completely different justice system than the rest of us, and that isn't fair.

I'm not sure how you expect to even evaluate this, much less bring it about. The wealthy don't literally have a different justice system. They don't go to different courts where they apply different laws. What they have is better lawyers and more political influence. You can't exactly pass a law prohibiting rich people from having good lawyers or from being in the same social circle as the governor.

Or to put it a different way: If that's your goal, what's your plan? What thing do you do, what law do you pass, to make it happen?

Re:I propose we Occupy "Occupy"

[mjwx]

I'm Occupying my livingroom this weekend! If my wife tries to make me move, well, I won't be intimidated with threats from authority figures!

Prepare for divorce, because she gets the 99%.

Re:I propose we Occupy "Occupy"

[mjwx]

HTML V5 IS A BIG PILE OF SUCK! that's what! It sucks MORE resources than flash, requires MORE CPU and RAM, I've found it pretty much won't run at all on anything less than a dual core, whereas flash will run fine without hardware acceleration on a 1.8GHz Celeron or Sempron as long as you stick to SD video and will even play HD1080p if you put a decent GPU to share the load, sucks up MORE bandwidth than flash...

Not only that, they cannot get video working consistently on the three most popular browsers (Firefox, IE and Chrome).

But people as still treating HTML5 like some kind of messiah coming to save us from the tyranny that is Flash. Yet HTML5 will only server to Balkanise (OK iFanboys, we can use "fragment" instead if you like) the internet into sites designed for specific browser. The reason flash came into popular usage was precisely because there were things that HTML could do, but couldn't do consistently across browsers. We will soon see a return of pages that say "This site is designed for Browser X. Get Browser X here http://browserx.com/download", this kind of nonsense was gotten rid of in the early 2000 although HTML5 will herald it's return as it is simply too expensive to make 5 sites for Firefox, Chrome, IE, iWhatever and Android.

Flash needs to die.. eventually, no doubt about it, but the HTML5 cult is attempting to kill it before there is a viable alternative. So we'll end up with the browser war moving from compatibility with the internet to forcing sites to be compatible with browsers. Apple and MS are already trying to do this by implementing their own HTML5 standards and codecs, in the end we'll end up with another form of Flash to cover up the inadequacies of HTML5.

Re:I propose we Occupy "Occupy"

[doccus]

It won't get better. As long as Intel keeps making faster processors , that allow sloppier and sloppier code, and more bloatware, with routines that seem to travel over a full light day per instruction .. people will step up to the plate and write to the processor. Just wait until web pages average 200 MB apiece..you'll look fondly on these days...

Re:I propose we Occupy "Occupy"

[novium]

I've read that arguing with people just makes them cling even more strongly to their beliefs, so instead of arguing, I will simply quote the Economist, and let you draw your own conclusions:

"the lower 40% of households in America pay no net federal income tax. They do pay social-insurance taxes, ie Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid, and a share of corporate taxes and federal excise taxes" (http://www.economist.com/node/21534799)

Re:I propose we Occupy "Occupy"

[Totenglocke]

Yes, which are all minor taxes in comparison to income tax. I never said that they pay "no taxes", I said "no federal income tax" specifically, which is the largest tax by far and funds the majority of taxes. It's sad that people cling to this notion that there should be free riders who tax from others and think that it's a "right".

Re:I propose we Occupy "Occupy"

[Totenglocke]

No, they're not. Try reading the IRS's official numbers - 47% of the country leeches off the other 53%. Also, if you bothered reading anything about the 53% movement, most of them are far from rich - they're merely people who worked hard and were responsible for their lives, where those in the 47% want to make excuses for why they "can't" put out the effort necessary to succeed (even by a loose definition of success).

Re:I propose we Occupy "Occupy"

[optymizer]

I would love to see some benchmarks.

Re:I propose we Occupy "Occupy"

[identity0]

So we will soon see an RMS-like figure demand that they call it the equivalent of "GNU/Occupy Wallstreet"? Demand they use Identica instead of Twitter?

Maybe Jesse Jackson can come demand they call it the "Rainbow Occupation" or something.

Re:I propose we Occupy "Occupy"

[softegg]

I agree that HTML5 is awful, but for several other reasons as well. Ever try making a web page in any other version of HTML? Ever have to implement some bizarre hack just to get your page to display properly on every browser? That's HTML. Since there are many browsers and they all get to choose how to implement the standards, there will always be these incompatibilities. This is the future with HTML5.
What a future that will be: Programming multiple versions to get around browser incompatibilities will cause the cost of developing animated web content to skyrocket, which means that companies will probably abandon complex projects as being too expensive. That will pretty much set interactivity on the web back about 15 years, and put a lot of developers out of work.
Flash is ubiquitous, fairly consistent across platforms, fairly robust in it's features, capable of being developed with completely open-source tools (FlashDevelop anyone), and generally quite stable (I have not had stability issues for years.) Adobe has gone to great lengths to open up the platform. It is pretty much the de-facto platform for web games (why do they always brush this aside and act like Flash only does video?), animations, and any applications that actually need smooth animation. The Chrome app store is pretty much entire flash-based applications. It does lovely streaming video in a number of different formats. I really don't understand why anybody would be against it... unless they had a platform they wanted to control all development for.
Don't believe the hype: Flash is awesome!

Re:I propose we Occupy "Occupy"

[tehcyder]

I've always thought the best way to govern is to favor incentive over punishment. I'm sure she could think of a way to get you moving...

"Honey, there's beer in the fridge"?

Re:I propose we Occupy "Occupy"

[tehcyder]

Oh, they have a very clearly defined goal alright - take money from those who were hard working and successful and give it to those who were lazy and utter failures in life.

1. Most wealthy people start with wealthy parents, go to the right school and so on.
2. The few who are self made men do not do it in a bubble outside society, they are a part of that society, and so the more they earn, the more they should contribute to society.
3. There is a point past which being wealth becomes meaningless. If you already have one billion dollars, and I tax you at 99% on the next million dollars, so what? You won't spend all the billion dollars anyway.
4. Success and failure cannot be measured solely by your net worth, or else Donald Trump would be a better person than most people on the planet, when clearly he is a twattish buffoon.
5. There can be no equality of opportunity unless everyone has a broadly similar starting position.
6. Some people would argue that greater equality of income/wealth is a good thing for society in itself anyway, in terms of promoting overall happiness. This doesn't mean everyone has to have exactly the same, merely that too disproportionate a gap simply leads to societal unrest.

Re:I propose we Occupy "Occupy"

[tehcyder]

I had to google both owling and planking, although I'd vaguely heard of the latter.

There are a lot of people with too much time on their hands nowadays. I say, bring back National Service.

And you may get off my lawn once you've painted the edging stones white.

Re:I propose we Occupy "Occupy"

[tehcyder]

Only if you consider a society where hard work (both in school and at work) is rewarded and those who aren't willing to put out the effort fall behind to be "a larger problem". The whole thing boils down to jealousy. Someone who half-assed their way through a watered down online college "degree" is pissy that they can't find a job when competing against people who went to a good school and worked hard to get good grades and they're demanding that the government confiscate the earnings of those who worked hard to pay those who slacked off.

If you think that working hard brings its inevitable just rewards, you're frankly deluded.

People born with the right parents, money and connections do not have to work hard to have a good life. It's actually much easier and much more fun being a slacker if you've got granny's trust fund to play with while you wait for your parents to die.

Re:I propose we Occupy "Occupy"

[mcgrew]

I agree, but accumulated wealth is a lot easier to google for.

Re:I propose we Occupy "Occupy"

[mcgrew]

I never read Marx, but logic says that the car the autmaker produces is the wealth. The salesmen are necessary, but they don't create wealth, they help transfer wealth between the customer (his cash) and the automaker (his car). The engineers and designers and factory workers produce the wealth. But wealth needs more than simply its creation, it needs to be sold (changed from product to cash), the cash needs to be managed, etc.

Re:I propose we Occupy "Occupy"

[kmoser]

Won't work. Somebody will just form Occupy "Occupy Occupy" and it will eventually recurse infinitely to become "Occupy" all the way down.

Re:I propose we Occupy "Occupy"

[V for Vendetta]

I've always thought the best way to govern is to favor incentive over punishment.

Yeah, that worked well for bankers and their bonus. They totally became caretakers of the common good whereas before they were selfish bastards ...

Re:I propose we Occupy "Occupy"

[MachineShedFred]

"Occupy $NOUN" is just the new "Change You Can Believe In", which was "The New Direction" of the 2006 midterm elections. You can probably continue the cliche train as far back as you'd like.

It's all horseshit, and means nothing. Actually improving things is what matters, and that's a slow train indeed.

Re:I propose we Occupy "Occupy"

[MachineShedFred]

"It's time to stop the redistribution of wealth from the 99% to the 1%. We created it, we want more of it."

And when you created it, you used someone else's resources to do it, with a previously agreed-upon arrangement where you would be compensated for your work at a pre-determined rate. Let me repeat that: When you accepted that work in a factory, in construction, or in a programmer's cube, you accepted the compensation that you'd be getting for doing that work. If you no longer think that compensation is fair, feel free to negotiate for better, or leave that position and find one that you think is acceptable.

Or, better yet, come up with your own resources to develop a product or service that people will buy from you, so that you get that wealth you feel you so richly deserve.

Re:I propose we Occupy "Occupy"

[phatsonic]

Why haven't I thought of that before?
Gonna print out a sign for my bathroom saying "#OccupyToilet" right now!

Re:I propose we Occupy "Occupy"

[DaVince21]

Commenter 1: joke.
Commenter 2: joke.
Commenter 3: joke.
Commenter 4: grumpy old troll

Re:I propose we Occupy "Occupy"

[Anthony Mouse]

Incidentally, if you want something that will actually go some way toward fixing what you're talking about (along with a long list of other things), pay attention to Larry Lessig and his anti-corruption movement.

Lessig has been promoting his message within the Occupy movement and I think he has the right idea. These are a couple of links if you have a couple hours to listen to them: Lessig on Diane Rehm discussing Occupy movement, Lessig lecturing about the issue.

If you don't have time, the bottom line is: Public financing of elections. And if the Occupy movement would get behind that as their single issue, they could dedicate themselves to something tangible and productive that would actually make a difference.

Re:I propose we Occupy "Occupy"

[novium]

If you're paying payroll and sales taxes, it's hardly a free ride. Those are all very regressive taxes. Are you familiar with marginal utility? I don't know how you fared in the Great Recession, but that first year was a PITA for me. I had just finished a year in AmeriCorps, and I was broke. AmeriCorps ended in september, right as the crisis hit. So looking for work was fun, I can tell you that. I took every job I could get my hands on, but my total income that year was less than 10,000 dollars.

And i can tell you, ten percent of my income that year was a big deal to me. $1000 bucks would make me or break me- be the difference between sleeping in my car or making the rent on my 1 room share of a really shitty four bedroom apartment.

Eventually, I was able to find "real" work, and now, while 10% is nothing I'd throw away, it's not as desperately important to me.

Hopefully you can draw your own conclusions from here.

Re:I propose we Occupy "Occupy"

[Totenglocke]

If by "regressive" you mean "don't get to free ride". Everyone pays the same percentage for sales tax, SS / Medicaid / Medicare tax, and any other non-income taxes. That's not regressive. Regressive would mean that the lower your income is, the higher percentage you pay. Since it's a set percentage, it cannot be regressive. I graduated from college in December 2008, so I'm very much aware of how shitty it was to find a job. I spent most of 2009 working at Wendy's making about $7.15 an hour and then I had some part time work doing tech support for a small company but they didn't have enough business coming in and had to let me go. Our incomes for the year were probably pretty similar, though you chose to do something as low paying as AmeriCorps, so sorry, but you're not getting sympathy on that part. The difference between you and me is that I think people should be responsible for themselves and not steal money (even if it's legally sanctioned and the theft is done by the government and the ill gotten gains distributed by the government) from others who were more successful. The whole concept of Rape the Rich is pure jealousy, plain and simple. You look at someone with a high paying job and think "That bastard owes me money". I see someone with a high paying job and think "I'm going to bust my ass at work and in grad school so that someday I can be in his position".

Re:I propose we Occupy "Occupy"

[novium]

The point about regressive is that it doesn't need to be higher the less you make; due to marginal utility, a flat tax across the board will disproportionately affect the poor.

Non-regressive taxes are not a free ride.

Also, if you'll read more carefully, you'll see that I said. I did AmeriCorps the year *prior* to the Great Recession, thus putting me in the job market right as it hit. But I don't think I was asking for sympathy; just establishing that I was broke going into the Great Recession, and was broke for most of it due to the suckiness of the job market.

I was actually better positioned than you were- I had a master's degree and a year of job experience at a fairly high level, but yeah, the best jobs I were able to get were part time secretarial work at an IT firm and a job making sandwiches at a ski resort. But that's neither here nor there; my point was that I have looked poverty in the face, though only lightly. It's not like I had a family to support.

Um....I don't think I said anything about theft. Just argued that flat taxes are inherently regressive, and that the poor DO pay their fair share via payroll and sales taxes...more than, in some ways, considering marginal utility. From my perspective, what *you're* advocating is theft. It's not that strange to argue that those making 80% of the money should be providing 80% of the taxes. What's the point of robbing the poor to pay the rich? Why should those making the smallest portion of the income pay the majority of the taxes?

Re:I propose we Occupy "Occupy"

[novium]

Oh- one question. So you were making minimum wage, and if our incomes were similar, you were *certainly* not paying any federal income tax.

The reason I ask is that it's occurred to me that the fallacy that the 53%ers may be falling into is thinking that those not paying federal income tax are simply not having it deducted. That's not the case; they just get all of it back from Uncle Sam in their tax returns.

Re:I propose we Occupy "Occupy"

[Totenglocke]

The point about regressive is that it doesn't need to be higher the less you make; due to marginal utility, a flat tax across the board will disproportionately affect the poor.

No, it doesn't. If everyone pays 10% in taxes, then everyone loses 10% of their income. Just because you personally want to make a judgement of how much money people "should" have and think that some people "can afford" to have a higher percentage of their income taken from them doesn't change this.

Non-regressive taxes are not a free ride.

Hence why I proposed flat taxes and pointed out why flat tax rates aren't regressive. Progressive taxes, which you support, are a free ride because the extra penalty for being successful is used to reward those who didn't work as hard and weren't successful.

Also, if you'll read more carefully, you'll see that I said. I did AmeriCorps the year *prior* to the Great Recession, thus putting me in the job market right as it hit. But I don't think I was asking for sympathy; just establishing that I was broke going into the Great Recession, and was broke for most of it due to the suckiness of the job market.

No, I was well aware that you said that. As I said, you chose to do that which paid little and didn't establish experience in your field or allow you to already have a job (which yes, you might have been laid off from but you also might have proven yourself to be a good employee and have been kept on). You were broke going in due to your choice to do AmeriCorps - you could have chosen to go directly into your chosen field and earned several times as much money, not to mention reduced the chance of being stuck looking for a job during the recession. As I said, I graduated right after things went to crap and had a rough first year too before I found full time work (which wasn't in my field and was paying about half of what I'd have been making if I'd found a job in my field).

Um....I don't think I said anything about theft. Just argued that flat taxes are inherently regressive

Again, I pointed out that a flat tax cannot be regressive, by it's very definition. Secondly, you're arguing for progressive taxes, which means wealth redistribution - ie theft.

From my perspective, what *you're* advocating is theft.

Because you think that you and your pals have a right to someone else's money, so you think that them keeping the money they earned is "stealing" from you. That's patently false and sheer greed on your part. It's normal for a person to not want their property stolen - not greed. What exactly have you and those you support done to deserve other people's money?

It's not that strange to argue that those making 80% of the money should be providing 80% of the taxes.

And a flat tax would accomplish that since the more you earn, the more you pay in actual dollars. You're also ignoring that in our current system, the 53% who pay income taxes pay 100% of the taxes and it gets more lopsided the higher up you go. I can't find the link right now to give exact numbers, but the IRS data shows that the top earners (top 1%? 5%? I forget which) earn 20% of all income in the US by pay almost 40% of the taxes - that's paying almost twice as much in taxes as you just deemed fair. You're also then ignoring the lower earners who pay 0% in income taxes - by your own argument, even the poor should pay federal income taxes so that the group earning only 1% of total income pays 1% of total income taxes.

What's the point of robbing the poor to pay the rich?

Again, someone defending their right to their property is NOT stealing from thieves. If we had high income taxes on the poor which were used to provide money transfers (welfare) to the rich, then you'd have an argument - and that would be just as wrong as the current system of stealing from high ear

Re:I propose we Occupy "Occupy"

[novium]

Dude, everyone pays taxes. They pay income taxes. They pay payroll taxes. They pay sales taxes. It's just that the poor get the income tax refunded to them, making it an interest-free loan to Uncle Sam.

I noticed you completely skipped over the part where you were in the hated 47% by your own admission of income. Where's your self-hatred? Though there's really no argument you could make that'll make me take you seriously now. I suppose that was a lost cause anyway, considering your other statements, like....Oh, noo! I joined americorps! I actually was contributing something to my community! HORRORS! And I was gaining job experience...I think I said that explicitly... so you know, I bettered myself while bettering my community. That's what I did, straight out of school. And I would have done it, recession or no, because it was the right thing to do. And you...worked at Wendy's.

Of the two, I think I know which looks better on the resume. I certainly have never complained about the boost my AmeriCorps gave me, even if the crash of the world economy meant it took a year to find a decent job. Shockingly, employers tend to look well on civic-minded folks who have shown grit and dedication. To say nothing of having held a position at a higher level than a new job seeker could usually attain.

Plus, I'm pretty sure you don't know the least little thing about economics. Utility theory isn't subjective to me. I'm not pulling it out of my ass when I say that $1k is more valuable to someone making 10k/year than $100,000 is to someone making $1m. It's one of the fundamentals of the dismal science.

As to spoiled punks...Dude, I work in the non-profit industry. If you think I'm looking for success or wealth, you're obviously smoking something. Seriously, maybe you should talk to someone. You know what non-profit work is? It's working your ass off for half the money you could be making in the for-profit sector, pulling ridiculously long hours, and giving everything you've got to a cause. Because you actually want to see the world become a better place.
I don't think I'm the greedy one. I'm not the one pushing to crush the poor into the dust in order to line the pockets of the wealthy with a few more dollars that mean less than nothing to them.

Have you ever heard of the just world fallacy? You're a prime example. You're so sure of the virtue of the rich (they worked hard for that money!) and so sure of the moral depravity of the poor (nothing better than envious thieves!)

Unfortunate

[timeOday]

I think the Occupy Wall Street movement is tackling an important issue, and co-opting the name for a trivial issue like this is unnecessary and unfortunate.

Re:Unfortunate

[Anonymous Coward]

What issue are they takling? You talk to people and they have no clue what they are demanding... it is simply a disorganized mess.

Re:Unfortunate

[MightyMartian]

That's an insult to disorganized messes. Even a disorganized mess makes more sense than the Occupy movement(s).

Re:Unfortunate

[Anonymous Coward]

Who have you spoken to? ... or do you mean the media are reporting that people they talk to have no clue?

Re:Unfortunate

[PPH]

The media has spoken to the protesters on the street. So unless OWS has been secretly organized by some hidden cabal, who else is there?

Perhaps you have the names of a few comrades you'd care to share with us? Things will go easier for you if you do.

Re:Unfortunate

[timeOday]

I feel like I get the gist of the Occupy movement, just as people get the gist of the Tea Party. I agree that neither is definitive enough to be considered a political party, but pushing in a general direction and keeping some flavor of issues on the front burner can be constructive.

If the press really wanted to understand the Occupy movement, it wouldn't just stand back and complain that the movement is not producing a manifesto. Rather, they would take an empirical approach, by conducting surveys with the protesters, to see which attitudes best characterize them, statistically. (Quick, somebody write an app for that).

Re:Unfortunate

[kelemvor4]

It's really bad. I saw an interview with one of the occupiers who had been given the boot the other day and when they asked her what she thought of the coppers evicting her and the other protesters she said "maybe it was what we needed." I think she is right.

Re:Unfortunate

[Jonner]

Though OWS has fuzzy goals, they clearly seem to be against corporate control. What better symbol of corporate control is there than Flash? OWS's issue may be more important, but technology standards are not trivial.

Re:Unfortunate

[roc97007]

But it *is* funny!

Re:Unfortunate

[kimvette]

Really? What is OWS's stated goal? To be a nuisance? To institution a communist system like the Soviets had, where you get paid even if you don't show up to work, can't get fired, but also no one (except elitist tyrants) can afford anything, and there is nothing in the stores to buy anyhow?

Thanks, but no thanks. I'll take my chances with capitalism where a combination of work, ingenuity and luck can result in accumulation of wealth.

Re:Unfortunate

[Anonymous Coward]

Try reading the signs instead of listening to right-wing radio. You might start to understand it.

Re:Unfortunate

[ByOhTek]

D) The 1% to be held more responsible/accountable for their actions, given that they have more power in controlling the direction of the country, than any other 1%.

(mind you, the remaining 99% could do more than they are to direct the country, and I suspect this movement is part of that finally starting to happen).

Re:Unfortunate

[elrous0]

Reminds me of that scene in PCU where the main characters are being approached by the various causeniks in the quad, none of whom have any real understanding of the causes they're espousing. When one of the causeniks urges them to "Free Nelson Mandela!" they have to explain to him that Nelson Mandela has already *been* freed.

Re:Unfortunate

[ByOhTek]

Responsibility, and accountability for the wealthy few who direct the country. Focusing more on leading the country (and to an extent, even the world) and it's people to a more financially suitable situation for everyone, and not just the wealthiest few?

People may be focused on different aspects related to that, but I'd call that the overall goal. Changing the government, and allowing government control over more things isn't the way to go about it, changing the mindsets of those individuals with disproportionately more power, who make the decisions, is what is needed, and I think that's what most of the people in the occupy movement are trying for.

Re:Unfortunate

[TheRaven64]

Maybe I missed something, I was under the impression that they were protesting against the concentration of wealth into the hands of a small percentage of the population, most of whom did nothing to create that wealth. What they lack is a good solution to this problem - part of the point of the protests is to draw attention to the problem in the hope that someone will solve it.

Re:Unfortunate

[Anonymous Coward]

Too see an uneducated idiot, look in the mirror.

"... there is a really simple way to accomplish the goal they claim to seek and it only takes about 30 minutes of your time once a year ... "

Huh? Since when has any social movement been accomplished by only voting? Voting is important, but so is all of the work surrounding the argument for the reason to vote a choice.

Re:Unfortunate

[rickb928]

"A and B are just whiny bitches"

Oh, great, so they're spies...

Re:Unfortunate

[Wahakalaka]

Vote for whom? Republicans? Clearly no. Obama? All his campaign sponsors are Wall Street firms. The whole point is that there is no one to vote for, and little / no recourse within the system.

Re:Unfortunate

[Anonymous Coward]

Occupy is a result of what happens when enough people get sick of their bread and circuses - they might not be able to coherently word their grievances into a manifesto but they know they're generally unhappy with the way their society is heading. It usually degenerates quickly into governments struggling to keep control with police and then military violence against civilians, and then you either have a regime change or a bloodbath or both on your hands.

Re:Unfortunate

[delinear]

Indeed - and we all know the media would never skew people's views to push an agenda. After all, the media told us they're only interested in the truth.

Re:Unfortunate

[truthsearch]

This might be the most ignorant comment I've read on the internet this week. It's wrong in so many ways I don't even know where to begin.

Re:Unfortunate

[Nadaka]

I agree that A and B are bad ideas. My dumbass hippy brother supports them as well.

C is very very much legitimate.

I also submit E:
Government reform intended to stamp out corruption and graft both in government as well as corporate entities. Effectively to take back the government that has been auctioned off to the highest bidder and no longer provides for the common good.

The specifics on E are very hard to nail down, in no small part because the people in power over government and business are intentionally obfuscating and hiding their own corruption and collusion. There are many local Occupy movements that have nailed down their demands for local government. But on a national scale it is going to take organization. Occupy is only a few months old, in the long run it is going to take years to effect serious positive change.

Re:Unfortunate

[mikerozh]

I experienced last 15 years of 70 years of communism which should now be called "Occupy Russia". I hope to never see this in the United States.

Re:Unfortunate

[Nadaka]

Part of that is that the guy with the ball has orchestrated a trick play, and intentionally made it hard to figure out where the ball is. Plus they already have the score on the board and the clock is running down and you are out of time outs. So when you finally find the guy to tackle he steps out of bounds rather than risk a fumble and turnover and they take their time setting up the next play.

Re:Unfortunate

[Jeng]

You cannot come up with a solution until you know what the problem is.

If you tear down a government without a clear idea of how to rebuild it it is then likely that the rebuilt government will end up being worse than the original.

Re:Unfortunate

[ByOhTek]

The tea party is already going after that group.

If you have a lion chewing on your leg, and a tiger on your arm, would you use your free arm and leg on the lion, completely ignoring the tiger? You seem to be implying that is the best course of action.

Oh, wait, from the looks of your post and your sig, it's obvious, you use the simple metric of liberal=wrong, conservative=correct. Never mind, carry on without having to think about an issue.

Re:Unfortunate

[MightyMartian]

There are aspects of some of their complaints I can't disagree with. Where private concerns received public funds to stay afloat, the bonuses should have been squashed, and in all likelihood, the boards and senior management should have been thrown out on the street.

But in general, where you have a private company that has not dipped into the well, that remains strictly the concern of the shareholders, providing those getting bonuses are not violating the law (ie. various forms of what amounts to fraud and theft).

Other aspects of this movement remain very opaque to me. There seems to be a lot of anger at politicians and bankers, but little recognition of how the middle classes were as much the authors of this catastrophe as their betters, buy accessing cheap credit in obscene proportions. To my mind, a good deal of the Occupiers seem to be taking part in a vocal exercise in blame shifting.

Re:Unfortunate

[AvitarX]

And seriously, flash isn't bad.
Anybody that hates flash should play the binding of isaac, great, fun, cross platform game, done with flash.

Re:Unfortunate

[amicusNYCL]

What issue is that? That a bunch of idiots are having a street party calling it a 'movement' when all they really need to do is actually fucking vote rather than being whiney little bitches?

Hey, great solution. They can vote for the Republican candidate who has been vetted and funded by Wall Street, or the Democrat candidate who has been vetted and funded by Wall Street. Yeah, that will show them!

Re:Unfortunate

[WolfgangPG]

Yes. We have a large middle class that thinks Credit is the same thing as a savings account.

Re:Unfortunate

[roc97007]

The Occupy Wall Street movement descended into self-parody shortly after it started. The participants themselves trivialized whatever issues they had by their own actions during the protest. Like a lot of people, I cared about the issues, but had to cringe at how silly and empty the protest became, and now wouldn't be associated with them for a big bag of gold.

The name had ceased to mean anything long before we started making fun of it.

Re:Unfortunate

[amicusNYCL]

What better symbol of corporate control is there than Flash?

Well, Apple, for one. Adobe exerts control over but two things: Jack, and Shit, and Jack left town.

Flash isn't going anywhere. It may end up relegated to corporate online training, but it's not dying by any sense of the word. It's just settling into its niche. The Flash player is only going to die when you can author a complete online training course in the Flash IDE and export it to HTML5 with no loss of functionality. That is still years away, at best.

Re:Unfortunate

[amicusNYCL]

Really? What is OWS's stated goal?

Try to keep up. For one, a major goal is to highlight and reduce the influence that corporations have in our government.

Re:Unfortunate

[interval1066]

Interesting, my sig make no mention of liberals being wrong, only that the current administration is culpable in the housing crisis mess. It is what it is, I didn't make Obama or Clinton say what they said. Nor do I state any party affiliation. Seems like you're the one who's not doing any thinking.

Re:Unfortunate

[Anonymous Coward]

Maybe airing the interviews of the few people who have no idea why they are there makes better TV than the interview of the movement leaders. Remember that in our post-truth society we expect the media to lie to us and the news are now mostly chosen on their entertainment value.

Re:Unfortunate

[cathector]

it's weird that with so many years of perspective people still refer to Soviet Russia as a communist system.
the primary political aspect of soviet russia was totalitarianism, not communism.
Stalin murdered 20 million russians, not counting deaths during the war.
he used enforced wide-scale mass-starvation as a weapon, for example.
that kind of terror is not a feature of communism, that's a feature of totalitarianism.
ditto china, ditto nazi germany.

for further reading, check out "Koba the Dread: Laughter and the Twenty Million" by Martin Amis, or "The Origins of Totalitarianism" by Hannah Arendt.

Re:Unfortunate

[n dot l]

What issue is that? That a bunch of idiots are having a street party calling it a 'movement' when all they really need to do is actually fucking vote rather than being whiney little bitches?

Vote? You still believe in voting? Where the fuck have you been living these past ten years, and what's the immigration process like?

Re:Unfortunate

[Curunir_wolf]

D) The 1% to be held more responsible/accountable for their actions, given that they have more power in controlling the direction of the country, than any other 1%.

Yep, that's a good point. They actually could have a significant influence. And some of them probably do. Unfortunately you're talking about a herd of 3 1/2 million cats, all going in different directions with different ideas. Most of them actually work very hard for the money they earn, and that's their focus - politics is just something to navigate around.

Frankly, to me, if you reach that level, even as a household, you need to start taking care of your civic responsibilities. The US is built on a participatory government, and I'm afraid part of the issue is that most of those folks are simply absent from the process and ignorant of the policies that don't directly affect their livelihood. Really inexcusable.

Re:Unfortunate

[ByOhTek]

Oh, like how it targets liberals (who helped with the problem) but ignores the conservative in the middle (who helped, maybe in different ways)?

You are targeting a lot of liberal stuff, but ignoring the conservative elements that also contribute to the problem.

Your right, it would be a stretch to call that thinking, it's obvious enough that you could stop at calling it 'observation of the obvious.'

Re:Unfortunate

[i-reek]

Pro Tip: Never call an individual or group "ignorant" in the same sentence you confuse "their" with "they're".

It detracts from the rhetoric somewhat.

Re:Unfortunate

[Toonol]

The 1% to be held more responsible/accountable for their actions,

What does that mean?

Are you talking about ones that committed crimes? Absolutely, they should be punished.

Are you talking about ones that did nothing illegal, but acted unethically? Name and shame them.

Are you talking about finding rich scapegoats and tearing them down, because you're miserable and want somebody to pay? Too bad, grow up.

Re:Unfortunate

[Curunir_wolf]

Try reading the signs instead of listening to right-wing radio. You might start to understand it.

Okay, I'll start.

• "I will never get a job in this economy"
• "close corporate tax loopholes, tax religious groups, legalize weed, and bring back Arrested Development"
• "shoot sperm not bullets"
• "eat local"
• "racial profiling stops at home"
• "one day the poor will have nothing to eat but the rich"
• "don't be a gashole"
• "if only the war on poverty was a real war we would actually be putting money into it"
• "even in a good economy I'm unemployable!"
• "kill corporations not people"
• "things are fucked up and bullshit"
• "pepper spray goldman sachs"
• "the clothes have no emperor"

Discuss

Re:Unfortunate

[Curunir_wolf]

There's only two ways to acquire wealth, either voluntary trade or theft. There are two ways to steal, with the help of the government or without it. Many wealthy people have acquired wealth through stealing with the help of the government. Many others have not. Those that have not stolen, deserve to be rich. Trying to argue against the concentration of wealth even in the cases of people simply acquiring it through voluntary trade is absurd and immoral. This isn't about rich vs. poor but rather trade vs. theft. Occupy Wallstreet seems not to be against theft, but who's doing the stealing, the poor from the rich rather than the rich from the poor.

Very nice. I'm going to use this quote. Glad you posted it anonymously, so I don't have to bother with attribution.

Re:Unfortunate

[DriedClexler]

You can't both be for "responsibility" while also being for forgiveness of your debts incurred when getting an overpriced worthless degree.

It's unfortunate, too, because I agree with their criticism about all the wealthy who have gotten that way without producing any real value ... but most OWS solutions would simply make *themselves* those people, to the extent they want high salaries despite having worthless skills. Plus, their demand for more funding for higher education would just make the education system even more bloated and wasteful, with more university leaders getting big salaries for doing nothing of value.

Re:Unfortunate

[Hatta]

changing the mindsets of those individuals with disproportionately more power, who make the decisions, is what is needed

No amount of protesting will change the mindset of sociopathic CEOs. As long as there is concentrated power, people will be corrupted by it. We have to eliminate those positions of power.

Re:Unfortunate

[gl4ss]

well, one of the complaints is that the wall street guys got their debts(bad business dealings) nullified. and kept their bonuses.

Re:Unfortunate

[timeOday]

all they really need to do is actually fucking vote rather than being whiney little bitches

My answer to that is, they did! I think there's a huge overlap between OWS protesters and disappointed (former?) Obama supporters.

Re:Unfortunate

[Dhalka226]

The fact that you do not like their position (which you then hilariously misinterpret and set up... good god, is that five strawmans?) is not an indication that it is not important. If nothing else, the debate is staggeringly important.

Having to explain and defend your beliefs is important, even if you come away believing the exact same thing as you did going in.

Re:Unfortunate

[mcgrew]

There's only two ways to acquire wealth, either voluntary trade or theft.

Neither theft nor trade create wealth, they both merely move it around. When you produce a product you have indeed created wealth, and the guy in the boardroom neither designed nor built the product -- the people he hired did. They're the ones who created the wealth. Are you a programmer? You create wealth. Are you a salesman or an accountant? Your job iss needed, but you create no wealth; you obtain your wealth from those who create it.

Those that have not stolen, deserve to be rich.

I haven't stolen, nor am I rich. Do I deserve to be? I would posit that Sam Walton stole his wealth by exploiting his workers. If your workforce recieves food stamps, you're stealing from both your workers and the government.

The rich people I've known became that way through a combination of great luck and very hard work. As I mentioned, there are many who steal their way to riches.

If you're a section-8 landlord, in my mind you're a god damned thief, stealing from both the government and your tenants, as well as your competetitor's tenents, since Section 8 drives up rent prices. Disclaimer: I have been friends with Section 8 landlords, and Section 8 renters so I know both groups.

If you're a stock trader you're a parasite. If you're a CEO who gets huge bonuses after running the business to the ground, you're a thief and a parasite.

If you're an American President who bails out failed businesses for fear of another Great Depression (and there were two, B & O), you're the victim of extortion.

One can get rich honestly, but it's damned hard to do. It takes a shitload of all kinds of luck.

If you're born into wealth and don't use that wealth to better society, you're a parasite.

Re:Unfortunate

[DriedClexler]

That's an eminently reasonable point, but it gets undermined when you advocate that kind of treatment for yourself, which I think the OWSers are doing.

Re:Unfortunate

[mcgrew]

Since the 1% control the media, you know which side the media are on and whose agenda they promote.

"Dancing With The Stars" as news, anyone?

Re:Unfortunate

[mcgrew]

Yes, the 1% are to blame for everything. Clearly Obama's descision to...

...do anything at all (no different from his predecessor) comes from his corporate masters -- the 1%. If you think anyone but the 1% have any power at all, you're deluded. Our government is of, by, and for the 1% and the 1% only. Any action whatever Bush, Obama, or Bernake take is at the direction of and for the benefit of the 1%.

Re:Unfortunate

[mcgrew]

To institution [sic] a communist system like the Soviets had, where you get paid even if you don't show up to work, can't get fired, but also no one (except elitist tyrants) can afford anything, and there is nothing in the stores to buy anyhow?

Where in the hell do you guys hear this bullshit, Rush Limbaugh? Maybe you should read once in a while rather than listening to AM radio, you might discover that "institution" is a noun and "institute" is the verb you're vainly looking for. BTW, no, that's not what OWS is about. Read a single newspaper ONCE and you might get a clue of how incredibly ignorant you are.

YOU are part of the problem. Wake up.

Re:Unfortunate

[operagost]

You can't both be for "responsibility" while also being for forgiveness of your debts incurred when getting an overpriced worthless degree.

QFT

Re:Unfortunate

[operagost]

We call it a totalitarian communist system in the same way we call the USA a democratic (republican, really) capitalist system. I would like to separate the economical aspects of communism from the political, but we have not yet seen a communist government that was not totalitarian. China is the closest, since the passing of Mao, but is an oligarchy (of party members) really any better?

Re:Unfortunate

[mcgrew]

I've noticed that all the comments from apparently anti-OWS T-partier types have terrible problems with homophones. I don't know if it has to do with lack of intelligence or lack of education, but there's no point in arguing with someone so uneducated and so foreign to books that they don't know the difference between There, Their, and They're.

You might as well argue with your dog. Your dog's probably smarter.

Re:Unfortunate

[PPH]

Now where did that thread about the blogger (not part of the 1% media toadies) go with the OWS getting their panties in a bunch when he made a video of them?

I think there's plenty of independent media out there for us to choose from (anyone with a cell phone camera and YouTube account). OWS has an agenda that they want filtered through their PR division just like everyone else. They just don't have security guards in their corporate office lobby to filter out the "undesirable" media like the 1% do.

Re:Unfortunate

[Curunir_wolf]

You're responding to the wrong person, but I'll respond back anyway, because I liked the OP's post. "Voluntary trade" includes all the activities you're referring to, but includes the end result which is trading value for value. Focusing on producers of goods instead of the needs of consumers is a trick of interventionist "planned economies". Producing something that no one want wastes wealth. If you're a programmer, you only create wealth IF the results are useful to someone else (generally that means someone is spending less time on a necessary task made more efficient by the program).

I haven't stolen, nor am I rich. Do I deserve to be?

The OP meant that rich people that have not stolen deserve to be rich. Although I sort of agree with you that someone born into wealth can turn into a parasite by wasting the opportunities.

I would posit that Sam Walton stole his wealth

There's a solid argument for it.

by exploiting his workers

That's not it - or at least it's by far the weakest one. "Exploiting workers", especially today, is a red herring, or a propaganda tool. Workers can be exploited only by their own consent. I know that will raise your ire, but it is demonstrably true. Labor is cheap, skilled labor pays better, and these are both voluntary trades. If you don't like your wages, find someone who values them more or just work for yourself. Issues that prevent individuals doing that often come down to government-sponsored protectionism, over burdensome regulation (barriers to entry often supported by incumbent lobbies), or well-meaning but short-sighted policies that promote government dependency over personal interdependence.

One can get rich honestly, but it's damned hard to do. It takes a shitload of all kinds of luck.

That's more the case now that it was 30 or even 20 years ago. These days "luck" has less to do with it than "pull", and that's a problem with government interventionism, once again.

Re:Unfortunate

[interval1066]

I'm targeting no one, I'm simply pointing to the Feds culpability in the crisis. Your impling that I'm targeting liberals based on...?

Re:Unfortunate

[interval1066]

I'm not disagreeing with this. But the people who have to most power to do anything about it, the Fed, refuse, making them the most culpable. Robbers will rob, those with the power to stop it have a duty to stop it. When you can't tell the cops from the robbers, the cops MUST take on more blame.

Re:Unfortunate

[cathector]

you mean we tend to summarize the nature of a nation by its political structure rather than its economic ?
i think that's true. probably because the vast majority of nations have all been capitalist since forever.
in the case of actual totalitarianism tho it isn't really a valid distinction: the whole point is that it's a total system. eg for all practical purposes the government dictates the speed of light.

Re:Unfortunate

[Billly Gates]

No he is right.

Look mcgrew, you can't force someone to pay you or pay you more. Be creative, go occupy DC for creating this problem with lax bank regulations, the Federal reserve, community re-investment act, and other things that obstruct the free market? Go register people to vote? Integrate into the democratic party in the primaries?

Right now everyone owes too much money as we created our money out of thin air with debt. It is time to pay and the workers are the ones paying for it with lower paychecks as this is the markets way to correct itself. It is not the greedy CEO problems but created by banks. I do not agree it is right but I can't change it and yes they need to get paid by everyone deflating their salaries until more debt is paid back.

It is not a Rush Limbaugh concept, but people will not be paid more until the government steps out, debts both public and private are paid off, and economic prosperity solves the inequality. There is no other way. Greece and Italy tried to be very socialistic and look where they are now? Economic collapse

Re:Unfortunate

[Richard_at_work]

You are largely making the same mistake you take issue with other people making - Stalin was in power for 12 years, and the USSR went on for another 40 or so years after him. During the period after him, the USSR changed dramatically in policy and stance.

Can you name any mass killings etc carried out under any of Stalins successors? No, because the totalitarian regime largely died with him.

Re:Unfortunate

[shutdown -p now]

The immediate problem is that income inequality in U.S. is at it highest point since the end of WW2, and still growing steadily. That in itself is really just a symptom of other problems, of course, but, generally speaking, the most obvious ways of treating this (like raising income tax back to where it was during the "golden age of capitalism") will also treat those other problems.

Re:Unfortunate

[shutdown -p now]

You don't need communism or socialism to reduce income inequality. You just need more progressive income tax, higher capital gains tax, and more publicly funded welfare programs. You know, kinda like what U.S. had back in 60s.

Re:Unfortunate

[shutdown -p now]

"Communism" (well, what passed for one in the USSR) is on the far end of economic left spectrum. The problem is that what U.S. currently has is on the far right end of that same spectrum. Going too far in either direction leads to painful excesses. There is a balance in the middle, however, where you have both freedom of entrepreneurship and "making oneself", and healthy society overall. Yes, this requires redistribution of income - in form of income taxes which go towards public welfare programs. No, it's not communism.

Re:Unfortunate

[randyleepublic]

The problem is that the PTB have, despite their manifest stupidity, managed to pretty effectively neuter the what is the actual answer to what ails us. Fortunately there is one way to start that is simple enough for even the occupy kids to get a handle on: ban fractional reserve lending. My sig is a signpost to the rest of the story.

Re:Unfortunate

[mcgrew]

Focusing on producers of goods instead of the needs of consumers is a trick of interventionist "planned economies".

That's true, but it's beside the point I was making.

Workers can be exploited only by their own consent.

Being driven by hunger is far from "consent". When one out of ten people are looking for work, it isn't hard to exploit them, and it's impossible for them to prevent being exploited. IMO if you hire a person full-time, you owe them a living. If your workers are on food stamps, you're the parasite, not your worker.

One can get rich honestly, but it's damned hard to do. It takes a shitload of all kinds of luck. That's more the case now that it was 30 or even 20 years ago.

My Uncle Dan was a rich man, and his riches came from pure luck. His first lucky stroke was being born with intelligence, creativity, and good eye-hand coordination, all fairly rare traits. The second stroke of luck (which surely seemed bad luck at the time) was having his ship torpedoed in WWII and sent to a hospital, where he met his future partner, a man who'd lost his leg in that war (another stroke of luck) who was a good salesman (more luck).

The fellow showed Uncle Dan the prosthesis, amd my uncle said "that's crap, I can make a better leg than that!" and produced one. The two of them went into business together. Dan's partner (whose name I can't remember) would walk into a ward full of maimed soldiers with his sales tools, and the legless veteran would invariably say "what the fuck do YOU know about it?"

Dan's partner would just smile and roll up his pants leg -- instant sale. They made millions. But if any one of those coincidences hadn't happened, he likely would not have become rich.

Most likely you're right when you say things have changed, and it's "pull" now, but I suspect that has always been the way.

Re:Unfortunate

[Curunir_wolf]

My Uncle Dan was a rich man, and his riches came from pure luck. His first lucky stroke was being born with intelligence, creativity, and good eye-hand coordination, all fairly rare traits. The second stroke of luck (which surely seemed bad luck at the time) was having his ship torpedoed in WWII and sent to a hospital, where he met his future partner, a man who'd lost his leg in that war (another stroke of luck) who was a good salesman (more luck).

Oh, I see... No one is allowed to be rewarded for their talents, or for taking advantage of opportunities they are presented with. That's not "luck" - it's making the most of what you have. "To each according to his need, from each according to his ability" - Is that it? Yea, total failure. Resources are accumulated by people with ability because they are better able to utilize them - the same type of reward system used in natural selection. It may not seem fair to you, but it's means everyone benefits. Your moronic idea of allocating resources based on need is nothing but a spiral to poverty and death for everyone.

Re:Unfortunate

[roc97007]

The Doonesbury strip, not exactly a hotbed of conservative thinking, made fun of that. Mark interviews a leader in the movement, who wears a grocery sack over his head. Written on the side is "We're the 99%". Upside down. Because figuring out that a sack worn over the head would be inverted was apparently too much logical thinking. At least he got the apostrophe right.

Re:Unfortunate

[kimvette]

Where in the hell do you guys hear this bullshit, Rush Limbaugh?

From Russian immigrants who actually lived through Soviet-style communism.

Re:Unfortunate

[ToasterMonkey]

Occupy is a result of what happens when enough people get sick of their bread and circuses - they might not be able to coherently word their grievances into a manifesto but they know they're generally unhappy

If the best you can sum up your opinion is "generally unhappy" then have more bread and circus. What else can you give an uneducated mob?

I don't get how bread and circuses is used in derogatory fashion like this anyway, not when you come right out and say they don't know what they want in the next sentence. How do you sate incoherent general unhappiness? These people are SCREAMING for more bread and circus!

If someone likes NASCAR more than economics, that's their OWN fault. Expect no sympathy from me, I'm self taught, so fuck off and watch a movie like everyone else.

Re:Unfortunate

[mcgrew]

What's bullshit isn't that Russia was like that, because from everything I've read it was. What's bullshit is that anyone is suggesting that. To eqate the Democrats with Soviet Communism is incredibly... I don't know how to say it without being insulting... brain-dead stupid.

Re:Unfortunate

[mcgrew]

No one is allowed to be rewarded for their talents, or for taking advantage of opportunities they are presented with.

On the contrary, if you're handed a stroke of luck there is nothing wrong with taking advantage of that, and in fact you should. But don't make the mistake of thinking luck played no part, because it always does. Similarly, bad luck usually has a hand or two in poverty.

Your moronic idea of allocating resources based on need

I never advocated that. I advocate those who have been lucky enough to become rich to pay their fair share in taxes. "To whom much is given, much is expected in return" if you're a religious man, as well as "render unto Ceasar that which is Ceasar's".

Re:Unfortunate

[kimvette]

No, it's not that it is the goal of most Democrats; it will be the unintended consequence.

Yeah right

[Anrego]

I get that this is mainly humor, but does anyone actually think this is going to have any kind of impact. Most users don't even realize what it is they are installing when they click the "click here to install required add-on" button.

I'm all for the quick death of Flash .. much as it is maligned, it enabled a lot of the really cool stuff we have today.. but it's time for it to die. I don't see this "movement" making any actual difference however.

Re:Yeah right

[mcgrew]

does anyone actually think this is going to have any kind of impact.

Some obviously do or they wouldn't have started it. Personally, I thought it was pretty silly, and it seems so do most other slashdotters. There are some good comments.

I doubt Occupy Flash will kill Flash, and I think the Flash occupiers are wasting their time. It's like putting a man on death row who's already dying of cancer. I'm of the belief that flash will die on its own, like so many other obsolete technologies (and other technologies that died that maybe shouldn't have).

Why would anybody install an add-on when the browser can do it without the add-on? HTML5 is capable (or so I've read), so Flash, although once necessary, no longer is.

I think the "Occupy HTML" is even sillier, a bunch of developers trying to hang on to their outmoded skills. Occupy COBOL, anyone? Flash developers, time to take some new classes.

Re:Yeah right

[Anrego]

Why would anybody install an add-on when the browser can do it without the add-on? HTML5 is capable (or so I've read), so Flash, although once necessary, no longer is.

This seems to be where the backwards logic of this thing begins. Yes, most of the slashdot crowd is aware of and makes decisions about what they put on their computer. Most of the general public on the other hand isn't and doesn't. Most browsers will automagically install whatever plugin is needed by a visited page with a simple click... and most users will make this click without even reading the message.

The key to killing Flash isn't convincing users not to install the plugin. It is convincing developers not to use it. Flash will be installed on a users computer the second the hit on the one website that still uses it. Users won't make a decision about this, they will just do it and get on with their day. For comparison look at java applets.. something that has been dead for a long time. Most computers still have the java plugin installed, because at some point, the user hit a website that still had a cute java based banner or under construction sign or something.

Re:Yeah right

[TheCarp]

We claim solidarity with the oppressed of occupy FORTRAN and deplore the brutal unwarranted acts of card stack shuffling by the police at their encampment!

Re:Yeah right

[Billly Gates]

It is a chicken and an egg. Developers use what people use. People use because that’s what developers write for.

They feel something that just works as a superior product. Many love IE because all websites work with it so they feel IE supports the most standards whether it is true or not.

Windows 8 METRO IE and IOS are finally breaking Flash. People only still use old IE browsers is because developers think they still need to support it. Only recently with MS pulling the plug on XP are corporations finally leaving IE 6 behind otherwise they will use it forever. Some actually are doing this just and running it in VMs.

I hate Flash because they obstruct free and open standards of the internet and require money to learn and participate. Adobe is the new standard whether you feel it is the best solution or not. With IE 8 staying for a while if Windows 8 flops it will be a thorn in developers’ eyes as they will still use flash for years to come. It all depends on if people upgrade.

HTML 5 can be better and freerer once it matures and browsers support it. Give it 2 - 3 years as Flash right now is far from dead.

Re:Yeah right

[mcgrew]

It is a chicken and an egg

The egg came first. I mean, who eats chicken for breakfast?

Many love IE because all websites work with it

I see you've never used IE6 or IE7. Half the sites on the net won't work with 6, and man, you should see the "hit the moving link" in slashdot on IE7.

Re:Yeah right

[FiloEleven]

Why would anybody install an add-on when the browser can do it without the add-on? HTML5 is capable (or so I've read), so Flash, although once necessary, no longer is.

That's the thing, though--HTML5 is not yet close to being a Flash killer for games, if nothing else. It's around 10x slower, more resource-intensive, and more cumbersome. Creating a silly protest of Flash isn't going to kill Flash. The only thing that will work is to throw more resources at HTML5 and JavaScript performance to bring them into parity or surpass the performance of Flash. It will surely happen at some point, but I think that point is at least a few years away.

Personally I'll be a little sad when it happens only because AS3's syntactical sugar is infinitely preferable to JS.

Zap!

[MightyMartian]

Just an electric chair so we can properly deal with Flash and Flash developers. The beast must die.

Re:Zap!

[tepples]

With what do you plan to replace Flash for playing web cartoons? If with JavaScript and the HTML5 canvas, then authoring tools will have to become as mature as Flash CS series, and canvas implementations will have to become at least twice as efficient as they are today (see benchmark of SWF vs. canvas).

Re:Zap!

[MightyMartian]

I have a feeling that Adobe themselves are probably working furiously on HTML5 tools even as we speak. I think even they know now that the game is almost up, and it's time to move on from Flash.

Occupy elrous0

[Xest]

Consider your comment occupied. I'm not even sure why, but I thought I better get in on the fad before I start to look uncool.

It's a shit meme and anyway George Bush beat them all to it years ago with Occupy Afghanistan in 2001 and Occupy Iraq in 2003.

Re:Occupy elrous0

[Skidborg]

Please. The Greeks have them loooong beat. Israelis are late to the party wannabes.

Re:Occupy elrous0

[Lunzo]

Israel was occupying long before the Greeks. Their Occupy Caanan movement even has several books written about it.

Thank goodness

[Oswald McWeany]

Thank goodness I hate flash- always have- worst thing to have happened to the web. OK, shockwave is worse.

And what percentage of malware took advantage of flash flaws- it was quite a high percent if I recall.

Re:Thank goodness

[amicusNYCL]

And what percentage of malware took advantage of flash flaws- it was quite a high percent if I recall.

Today, surprisingly only 16%. Java is the king of malware with 37% of infections, and Acrobat is trying to keep up at 32%. Those three combine for 85% of infections. The IE browser itself and Windows Help make up a big chunk of the remainder.

The "Occupy HTML" isn't a giant flash website?

[Ex Machina]

But it still has the problem of not being able to link to the internal sections. Good job!

Occupy HTML, written in HTML

[RicardoGCE]

Game, set, match.

Re:Occupy HTML, written in HTML

[Jonner]

Indeed, it's a beautiful site (though a direct copy of Occupy Flash) with no Flash dependency at all. The only way it uses Flash is to detect if it's installed. I'm skeptical it's serious at all. I have a sneaking suspicion one person dreamed the whole thing up, including both sites.

Re:Occupy HTML, written in HTML

[FumarMata]

You didn't understand a word. They are saying that for certain websites, it's better to use HTML and for other websites it's better to use Flash. To do all websites only in Flash or only in HTML is a mistake. One might think that it's a reasonable response... but well, some times you have to explain it twice for people to understand. Or people should read/listen before talking about something

(O) Occupy Inside

[John Sokol]

Oh please, Flash vs. HTML is nonsense. There are some real issues at hand here, like who controls the software that we live on.
See my site that talks about this http://occupyinside.org/

Occupy /.

[caywen]

This whole thing helps keep me occupied.

Re:Occupy /.

[DarwinSurvivor]

If anonymous coward were treated as a single account it's karma would be so low, it would be banned from posting until at least 2056.

pissing contests

[tverbeek]

HTML5 is not a superset of Flash.
Flash is not a superset of HTML5.

Get over the pissing contests and use the right tool for the job.

Re:pissing contests

[Oswald McWeany]

And that is always HTML5 right! ;)

Re:pissing contests

[Jonner]

HTML5 is not a superset of Flash.
Flash is not a superset of HTML5.

Get over the pissing contests and use the right tool for the job.

Saying Flash is appropriate for a web site is like saying IPX/SPX are appropriate protocols for a LAN connecting to the Internet. Sure, it can be done, but it's a stupid way to do it and thankfully went away many years ago.

The right tools to create web sites are web standards. Even Adobe agrees with that; they've actually been promoting HTML5 for a while. They're still promoting AIR for desktop apps I think. I have no interest in that, but it is apparently the right too for some people.

Re:pissing contests

[Artraze]

Agreed. But part of the problem is that Flash's existence is a higher cost than HTML5. Flash a is closed source, singular implementation that exists outside the control of the browser. As a result, it increases attack vectors and can subvert browser managed privacy (e.g. having it's own cache and cookies). Sandboxing helps, but is more of a hack than a proper solution.

So, even if HTML5 isn't a superset of Flash, it does offer clear benefits in it's implementation. So if Flash's unique benefits are _mostly_ within HTML5, then it's quite possible Flash, while not replaced, quite simply isn't worth it anymore. This is rather why Silverlight was DOA: it just didn't offer enough to be worth having another plugin to maintain.

Re:pissing contests

[spottedkangaroo]

AIR would be fine by me (who cares what it runs imo, even if a slow crappy platform), but they dropped linux support, making Pandora One a PITA to run.

Re:pissing contests

[supersloshy]

Somebody forgot about Flash games and animations (like Homestar Runner), quite possibly the most legitimate uses for Flash in existence that HTML5 couldn't replicate nearly as well, what with varying implementations and a constantly changing standard.

Re:pissing contests

[The Moof]

Sure! Unless your project spec requires that a standard actually exists to develop based upon... or you want to do less encoding work to push multimedia out to a client... or you don't want to do stupid javascript tricks reminiscent of the old NS4/IE5/IE5.5 days for compatibility problems across platforms...

I'm just poking fun, but right now, the biggest strike against HTML5 for me was its unwillingness to actually standardize. W3 has it as a "Last Call" draft, so maybe it'll be finalized in the near future. However, the fact the working group suggested it become a "living standard" makes me leery (and makes it nonviable for some projects).

Re:pissing contests

[sneakyimp]

AIR is basically like a redistributable type thing. Unless I'm mistaken, Microsoft does a similar thing with .NET and their other development tools. Similar also in concept to Java where there's a virtual machine to interpret your code.

You are right about standards being the way to go, but the point of creating any sort of redistributable/virtual machine concept is to provide consistency and continuity where there is a lack of standards. Flash has provided a pseudo/quasi standard means of delivering video and vector graphic animation to a desktop browser for years because there was a huge pissing contest going on between different browser factions and they offered poor support for audio and video and no way at all to connect with sockets and wildly different ways (or no way at all) to do things like rotate objects, blur things, or change the transparency of objects or work with vector graphics. To say it's "stupid" to use Flash for a website completely ignores the fact that Flash was either necessary or expedient to do things. Last time I checked, Youtube (you've heard of it, right?) and Vimeo still used Flash to display video for linux, osx, and windows platforms.

As for standards, what is the video standard for HTML5? Do I encode my videos as h.264? Or Ogg Vorbis? V8? Maybe they've sorted this out and I just haven't heard.

I think Adobe has been pretty forward-looking lately and is probably psyched to see an end to the constant updating of the Flash Player. I'm sure they spend a lot of money and energy on it and would love to see a standard evolve so they can get back to making really good tools like Photoshop and Premiere and Dreamweaver and After Effects and such.

Re:pissing contests

[harperska]

The right tools to create web sites are web standards. But the right tools for building a RIA consist of proper application frameworks and SDKs. Flash provides this in the form of Flex and BlazeDS, something that HTML5 currently lacks. I agree that flash has no place on the common web, but it certainly is a decent platform for RIAs.

Re:pissing contests

[eric_brissette]

Unfortunately, we do not live in some kind of web developer utopia where everyone diligently updates their web browser to take advantage of new and superior standards.

Both of these sites should be replaced with an OCCUPY CRAPPY OUTDATED WEB BROWSERS movement. Well in sentiment at least, I've never been very good at naming things.

Re:pissing contests

[tepples]

I understood "not a superset" to mean that there are things that Flash pages can do that HTML5 pages cannot, such as ask the user and stream video from the user's webcam.

Re:pissing contests

[amicusNYCL]

The right tools to create web sites are web standards.

What world do you live in that every piece of content created for online distribution is a "web site". How the hell are we supposed to produce decent and interactive online training courses without Flash? If you look at good vs. bad online training courses, you'll notice that the "bad" ones are basically glorified Powerpoint presentations, just page-turners with minimal interaction and nothing to engage the learner. Guess what technologies are used to produce those courses? If you look at "good" courses you'll find animation, narration, video, software simulations, interactions like games, drag-and-drop or matching, etc, things that are proven to engage learners and increase the information retention rate. Guess which technologies are used to produce those courses?

Flash as a concept is not going to die, not for a long time. The Flash player will only die once a project in the Flash IDE can be exported to HTML5 with no loss of functionality. As it stands, there are many, many things that you can do in the Flash IDE that do not get supported when you export to HTML5.

Re:pissing contests

[mikecase]

Ugh, wish I had mod points. I work in the e-learning industry, and feel the same way. HTML5, while promising, just isn't ready to be an alternative for making interactive training. Simple things like synching multiple audio files to animation events is easy in Flash, but overly complicated in HTML/JS. "Leading edge" animation tools like Adobe Edge and Sencha Animatior don't support audio and run poorly on IE8. Audio and video codecs are not supported universally across browsers, so files have to encoded multiple times to ensure playback works. Flash made these things just work, cross platform, new and old hardware. For e-learning, it was the right tool for the job. Now it's hard to look at the current state of HTML5 and not view it as a step back. Obviously the situation will improve, but efforts like this and the total cluster fck that was Adobe's press about discontinuing mobile Flassh Player developments just confuse our clients and customers.

Re:pissing contests

[supersloshy]

Video files aren't interactive and take up much more space than an SWF animation while being lower-quality due to compression and not being vector-based like Flash. Like on Homestar Runner, you can click things in the cartoons to have easter eggs pop up.

HTML5 and Flash have their ups and downs, but just because they can do similar things doesn't mean that Flash should be eliminated completely.

Re:pissing contests

[Darinbob]

That's the problem. HTML5 is confusing a lot of people who think it's very similar to HTML4 or HTML3; ie, a standard set of markup commands for displaying documents, only extended for multimedia. Except that all the new stuff in HTML needs to be handled by additional codecs. Sure, older HTML didn't really specify GIF vs JPG vs PNG either, and that's a fault and browsers needed to hone in on a common defacto set of supported capabilities. So new HTML5 will be the same way, a muddled mess as long as the browsers aren't cooperating with a common set of supported capabilities not specified in the standards. I'm not a fan of Flash but it's disingenuous to say that HTML5 is solving that mess especially since you will still be able to use Flash with HTML5.

Re:pissing contests

[Darinbob]

I think this is actually the rationale behind the irrational move from Mozilla to enforced and constant upgrades. They've decided that it is their holy mission to drag everyone kicking and screaming to newer browsers. Ie, beneficent overlords. In this case though Mozilla has decided that a year old browser is already out of date and is assuming everyone actually wants a browser to become the universal API for badly written web apps.

Re:pissing contests

[Darinbob]

And HTML5 will use closed source singular implementations of the codecs it relies upon.

Re:pissing contests

[Billly Gates]

You can with CSS animations. The problem is Chrome and Mozilla have their own incompatible implementations.

HTML 5 will work eventually but it is being rushed due to mobile devices that need content right NOW without flash. Drag and drop, file completation dialog boxes, simulations, and interactions all are part of the HTML 5 standard.

Browsers aren the standards need to catch up. ... and as others pointed flash is accelerated on all Windows desktops but old cards do not have mpeg acceleration by default and only IE 9 accelerates all of html by default. That is another issue, and IE 8 UGh. So sick of these older IE browsers.

Flash will stay around for desktop users of training videos for 3 years. After 3 years HTML 5 will mature and Adobe will fix the issues of html 5 export. I hate Adobe products but that is another topic. My hope is new free tools will replace the dependency on Adobe as HTML 5 is documentated and supported as output. Adobe should not be allowed to monopolize the net.

Re:pissing contests

[Billly Gates]

Right now Flash is cheaper to support. This is especially true if you already invested in the tools. Supporting IE 8 users angry that HTML 5 is not working costs money and potential for them to go to a competitor. It is still your problem and not theirs as it owns 30% of the web.

Flash is what made corporations and grandma stick with IE 6 as webmasters used it to make up for the lack of using beautiful frameworks for older browsers. I hate flash and what it did but there is no business case to get rid of it.

I am happy Steve Jobs disowned it and even happier MS is doing the same with Windows 8 Metro as it gives these users and webmasters an incentive to get a kick in the butt to look at HTML 5.

But change is expensive and corporations who just blew $500,000 upgrading their IE 6 intranet apps to IE 8 will be very pissed and scream, cry, and kick after blowing that to change to anything HTML 5 friendly before 2019. But it sucks right now because you need flash for desktops and HTML 5 for phones and this wont change in the short term future. That means your phone will be better at browsing the web than your powerfull computer because corporations and Joe six pack wont upgrade their browsers.

Re:pissing contests

[amicusNYCL]

You can with CSS animations. The problem is Chrome and Mozilla have their own incompatible implementations.

Unfortunately for us, our animators don't understand browser differences. Because they're animators, not programmers. This is why we need a tool to export our Flash projects to HTML5. Without that this is a non-starter. We already have all of our Flash frameworks and courseware shells developed, we don't have the time right now to redirect all of our programmers to create an entirely new set of frameworks, models, and tools by hand and then train our animation staff how to use them.

Drag and drop, file completation dialog boxes, simulations, and interactions all are part of the HTML 5 standard.

What standard? All I can find is an editor's draft specification dated about 2 weeks ago. Have they already released a candidate recommendation and final standard since then?

Flash will stay around for desktop users of training videos for 3 years.

No, Flash content will continue to be produced until there is a viable HTML5 exporter that does not drop functionality. Once we reach that point, the existing Flash courseware will still be in use for probably another 10 years or so before we see a training environment that does not include any Flash-based courseware. There's no reason to state an arbitrary timeline like 3 years, especially since this is Adobe we're talking about. When Adobe releases something that produces HTML5 content with every feature currently in the Flash IDE supported, then we will start to see training companies producing HTML5 courseware. Note that these are not just "training videos", the courseware is much more than video. If we were producing static videos then we could use HTML5 now.

Re:pissing contests

[mjwx]

HTML5 is not a superset of Flash.
Flash is not a superset of HTML5.

Get over the pissing contests and use the right tool for the job.

Saying Flash is appropriate for a web site is like saying IPX/SPX are appropriate protocols for a LAN connecting to the Internet. Sure, it can be done, but it's a stupid way to do it and thankfully went away many years ago.

Very bad analogy, Saying HTML5 is automatically better is like saying LTE is better the Optic Fibre. Sure LTE newer and has some fantastic marketing behind it, but it ignores that Fibre can really get the job done better, is cheaper to deploy, has fewer technical problems and is practically guaranteed to work. I wont be upgrading my server link from 15 yr old fibre to modern LTE simply because LTE has better marketing.

Right tool for the right job. Until HTML 5 becomes consistent across all browsers (this means MS and Apple need to adopt an open standard and codec, instead of pushing their own standards and codecs) it will rarely be the right tool.

Re:pissing contests

[mjwx]

Agreed. But part of the problem is that Flash's existence is a higher cost than HTML5. Flash a is closed source,

As is the h.264 codec that Apple and MS are pushing for HTML 5.

So as a site builder who wants to put up some videos, I can use Flash which is cheaper and works across almost all browsers or I can use HTML 5 which is more expensive and means I need to support multiple encodings and pray that the user gets the right encoding for their browser when I they get to my site.

This is assuming MPEG-LA lets me use h.264 without license fees.

Re:pissing contests

[gl4ss]

websites are used to distribute other things than html.

you wouldn't build a "web site" with flash anyways. you could use a website to embed your flash program though.
used properly, flash isn't so bad. too bad some browser builders don't even build their plugin systems well(cough safari cough). and what is air? it's just a custom browser-included packager for flash.

html5 still doesn't quite cut it.

Glad I read this, I learned a few things

[kiwimate]

Though the 15-year old technology is still commonly used for advertisements, videos and games, many developers have been moving toward more modern and universal standards like HTML5

Well that's pretty impressive. It's been around for 15 years, and is still heavily used. That said, HTML5 is looking pretty sure to eclipse it, eventually.

"We feel this move effectively creates two Internets -- the one you can use on mobile/tablets and the one you can use on the desktop," one of the founders of the Occupy Flash movement said via e-mail. "This is not good for anyone except Adobe."

Now that I know it's been around for 15 years, I'm kind of impressed it's still working, and not terribly surprised that it hasn't morphed well into newer technologies that are being used in ways people were only beginning to think of at the turn of the millenium. I know 15 years is not that unusual for some technologies, like mainframes, but just think about the rapid pace of development in web standards, graphics cards and algorithms, etc.

Huh, I wonder what Adobe thinks.

HTML5 is now universally supported on major mobile devices, in some cases exclusively. This makes HTML5 the best solution for creating and deploying content in the browser across mobile platforms. We are excited about this, and will continue our work with key players in the HTML community

Seems reasonable. As does this:

Our future work with Flash on mobile devices will be focused on enabling Flash developers to package native apps with Adobe AIR for all the major app stores. We will no longer continue to develop Flash Player in the browser to work with new mobile device configurations

Fair enough. What about security fixes?

We will of course continue to provide critical bug fixes and security updates for existing device configurations. We will also allow our source code licensees to continue working on and release their own implementations.

Spiffy.

Aren't there more important things these people could be spending their time on?

Re:Glad I read this, I learned a few things

[MozeeToby]

I've yet to see HTML5 as an alternative for casual flash games though. Granted, volume wise flash is used much more for videos than games, but there are many popular websites out there for casual gaming that are powered almost exclusively by Flash. Ignoring this segment of Flash's users and pretending that we can just make flash go *poof* and disappear without addressing that use case is pretty foolish in my opinion.

Re:Glad I read this, I learned a few things

[Desler]

Well that's pretty impressive. It's been around for 15 years, and is still heavily used.

Why is that impressive? 15 years is nothing in comparison to C's 39 years, Fortran's 54 years, the Zilog80's 35 years, etc. Only idiots who constantly jump to the latest "ooh shiny" fad technology would think 15 years is all that long. Tried and true tech lasts many times longer.

Re:Glad I read this, I learned a few things

[sneakyimp]

I'm all for killing Flash, but I worry about a couple of issues:
* What about video support in HTML5? Aren't there still issues with the supported codecs? Doesn't H.264 require licensing fees or something? Aren't all the browser developers fighting over a standard? One thing Flash did amazingly well IMHO is to make publishing video much easier. Encode once, play in Flash player on all major browser (on the desktop at least)
* Javascript as a language makes me sad. One defines classes using prototypes rather than classes. I much prefer the syntax and clarity of AS3 when I do OOP. I feel that the intent of the programmer is much clearer when using classes.

Re:Glad I read this, I learned a few things

[Jonner]

http://chrome.angrybirds.com/

Re:Glad I read this, I learned a few things

[AdamJS]

Is there a toolset that makes it as easy for extreme amateurs to throw together their ideas for animations and games in HTML5 like there is for Flash?

Such ease of use and development for, well, non-programmers and animators and similar is one of the larger reasons for its popularity [outside of video sites].

Re:Glad I read this, I learned a few things

[AdamJS]

Uh, languages that lasted a long time and are still in both widespread use and massive prevalence in the industry ARE more impressive.

That doesn't mean that something less impressive, isn't still impressive.

Impressive.

Re:Glad I read this, I learned a few things

[MozeeToby]

Go under page info -> media (in Firefox) and you'll see http://chrome.angrybirds.com/fowl/gwt-voices.swf

Your example uses flash for sound effects, which are a pretty core component of a gaming experience. Care to try again?

Re:Glad I read this, I learned a few things

[sexconker]

Extreme amateurs and non-programmers are what gave Adobe Flash a bad reputation in the first place. In the hands of a real programmer Flash wasn't nearly so obtrusive and slow.

You mean the same kind of amateurs that created the game Angry Birds flagrantly copied?

Re:Glad I read this, I learned a few things

[Anonymous Coward]

But notice the performance. On my i5-2500k it takes 1-2% CPU time for JS logic & 1-5% canvas GPU acceleration. And that's while playing the game. It looks better than 99% of Flash games, most of which lock up an entire CPU core.

About the sound. I actually had the Flash plugin disabled and the game still worked. I didn't notice the lack of audio because my volume control was at minimum.

Re:Glad I read this, I learned a few things

[Anrego]

Javascript as a language makes me sad.

I don't generally like prototype based OOP, but I've come around to being ok with javascript for stuff of low to medium complexity (and as I'm not a web dev, this has been most of my experience with it). Javascripts date handling is still bafflingly insane however, especially given that this is a fairly commonly needed feature.

Re:Glad I read this, I learned a few things

[kiwimate]

True. Hence my caveat:

Now that I know it's been around for 15 years, I'm kind of impressed it's still working, and not terribly surprised that it hasn't morphed well into newer technologies that are being used in ways people were only beginning to think of at the turn of the millenium. I know 15 years is not that unusual for some technologies, like mainframes, but just think about the rapid pace of development in web standards, graphics cards and algorithms, etc.

Re:Glad I read this, I learned a few things

[Toonol]

I much prefer the syntax and clarity of AS3 when I do OOP.

Absolutely. HTML5 would be much improved if AS3 had been accepted as the next version of Javascript. It's a nice little language. I don't think Javascript is THAT bad, though. I think it's hated because of it's function as the main scripting language used on the web, and is inevitably used by shoddy programmers for irritating purposes.

That's one reason people will come to hate HTML5 in a few years, once they realize that the primary use of the canvas and audio tags will be to serve up poorly programmed advertisements.

Re:Glad I read this, I learned a few things

[sneakyimp]

That's one reason people will come to hate HTML5 in a few years, once they realize that the primary use of the canvas and audio tags will be to serve up poorly programmed advertisements.

Yep. Meet the new boss. Same as the old boss, only with a shittier programming language.

Re:Glad I read this, I learned a few things

[Hatta]

Now that I know it's been around for 15 years, I'm kind of impressed it's still working, and not terribly surprised that it hasn't morphed well into newer technologies that are being used in ways people were only beginning to think of at the turn of the millenium.

It has. Flash was originally a platform for vector animations and games.

Re:Glad I read this, I learned a few things

[gl4ss]

That's one reason people will come to hate HTML5 in a few years, once they realize that the primary use of the canvas and audio tags will be to serve up poorly programmed advertisements.

exactly. unblockable ads. once they implement some way where they can proxy the "client has actually seen this ad" info through the serving servers through some ajax hickery there's no stopping for the adverts.

Re:Glad I read this, I learned a few things

[Provocateur]

Aren't there more important things these people could be spending their time on?

But those things might occupy their time, which could be better served by googling the next best mainstream thing to Occupy.

As much as I hate flash..

[Superken7]

As much as I hate flash, you gotta admit flash existed for a reason: it filled the gaps where HTML was more lacking. Unfortunately, that's still true today even with HTML5, although the trend towards HTML5 is very obvious and clear.

Many browsers still can't playback HTML5 properly and there isn't even a single video codec which will work consistently across browsers just like flash does, AFAIK. (I'm talking about h264 license issues, WebM's lack of hardware decoding, etc..).
Also, while rich media solutions are certainly possible with CSS3 and javascript, it still requires significantly more effort than its flash counterparts.

Of course, that doesn't excuse many many (many) uses where flash isn't really necessary but still being used. THAT must go. And flash video should be avoided where possible if the browser supports anything else. I think the main issue with that is that many web developers are still being lazy (hey, megavideo, I'm looking at you!).

But flash still accomplishes some things across browsers consistently in a way that HTML5 and CSS3 still can't - or at least not effortlessly for the web developer, which is what counts most of the times; let's hope Adobe helps with that with the HTML5 tools they are building.

So don't blame everything on flash, the standards are advancing too slowly IMHO even with backers such as Apple and Google.

Re:As much as I hate flash..

[Jonner]

Flash was created for a reason and for many years was necessary to do some things like play video and sound. Even if it's still more convenient for those things, it's no longer necessary. The more web developers abandon it, the more pressure there will be to improve implementations of web standards for the things that Flash has been used for. The longer people hold out against the change, the more painful it will be for all of us.

Re:As much as I hate flash..

[PortHaven]

+ 10 for most intelligent post on topic.

---

Seriously, I think so much effort is wasted on calls to get rid of Flash. When the focus should really be a replacement for JavaScript.

Re:As much as I hate flash..

[sneakyimp]

Yes. mod parent up.

Re:As much as I hate flash..

[sneakyimp]

Yeah! How are we gonna have chat roulette if flash goes away? I NEED MAH INTERWEB COCKS!

Re:As much as I hate flash..

[Quiet_Desperation]

it filled the gaps where HTML was more lacking.

Well, blame the WWW members who voted down the <annoying_ad>, <useless_animation> and <meltdown_cpu> tags.

Adobe Flash as a Content Classifier

[mmmbeer]

Flash must live on! If Flash dies out then that means highly annoying and CPU-hogging advertisements will be converted into HTML5 and get around my simple flashblock. I don't like Flash as much as the next guy but when you can currently carte blanche disable flash and easily remove the most heinous of web content, I fully support its continued use.

Re:Adobe Flash as a Content Classifier

[Anonymous Coward]

Install.... wait for it... Adblock Plus! :-P

Re:Adobe Flash as a Content Classifier

[phantomfive]

I don't like Flash as much as the next guy

Really? Why does the next guy like Flash so much? (I'm sorry! I'm sorry!)

Re:Adobe Flash as a Content Classifier

[Billly Gates]

The advertisements are in a particular section of a site. They can still be blocked.

Also with mpeg aceleration they wont bog down at all.

"I hate flash" is the new "I hate Microsoft"

[Viol8]

Except with less rationale to it. Why anyone gets worked up about a plugin that does what its supposed to do reasonably well and has some very comprehensive development tools I have no idea. Its probably the sort of people who really have nothing to complain about in their lives but are still at the age where they need a "cause" to feel worthy who are making the most noise about it.

Re:"I hate flash" is the new "I hate Microsoft"

[Anonymous Coward]

Have you ever tried using the plugin in linux? It does not do what it is supposed to and it does not do it reasonably well.

Re:"I hate flash" is the new "I hate Microsoft"

[jcupitt65]

It's pretty awful on OS X as well. Flash 10 needed about 6x more CPU on OS X than Windows and crashed every 10 minutes or so. According to this elderly benchmark anyway.

http://arstechnica.com/software/news/2008/10/benchmarking-flash-player-10.ars

Re:"I hate flash" is the new "I hate Microsoft"

[Jonner]

You've clearly never done any serious web development. Even you'd been a heavy Adobe user, you'd have noticed that they've been pushing HTML5 for a while now. I have no idea if their tools for working with web standards are up to the quality of their Flash ones, but that seems to be the goal. Hating Adobe is less reasonable than hating Microsoft, but hating Flash is not.

Re:"I hate flash" is the new "I hate Microsoft"

[Billly Gates]

I can't stand Adobe for the logical reasons their products are complicated, very expensive, proprietary, and killed unix web development and the webs openess that existed 10 years ago. It is rational.

Also while looking georgous, air and flash kept IE 6 & 7 around for years after they should be dead. Webmasters have to use what users use and users use what webmasters develop for. It is why Windows won. Finally with flash not being an option for IOS and Windows 8 Metro/mobile it will give incentive to leave and for people/corporations to upgrade their browsers.

Re:"I hate flash" is the new "I hate Microsoft"

[Viol8]

Of course I bloody use it - what you do think I watch youtube with? And what exactly doesn't it do? I've never had an issue with it.

Re:one you mean ten ..

[hebertrich]

There's a lot of noise when you get your ear on the ground.For years people have been held hostages to deadend jobs living paycheck to paycheck and be abused of by the executives being paid a million to one for the employees. It's about indecent and totally selfish people that have no conscience of the harm they inflict to the people of America.
There is an URGENT need for people to start demonstrating and join in. Those who dont either are totally blinded by the lies of the politicians ( in particular the right ) and fear fear about collapsing economies , wars and terrorists not to mention catastrophic destructions by the same people who are using them like modern day slaves ! For crying out loud , arent you tired of electing people who dont represent you but only the interrests of their rich corporate masters and party contributors. There is a lot more to be totally pissed off of the reality of how the US government treat it's " citizens " .
The reform cannot leave the huge chunks that are the government and regulating bodies who make it possible for the corporations of treating people like such .It's government approved ! .. So vote left or right , you're screwed both ways. Fantastic .. what a great democratic model .
TO get rid of the problem , one must introduce amandments or whatever is required to facilitate the arrival of new political parties in the US.
The problem is the establishment. Get rid of it by getting the " Mr Smith goes to Washington " types elected , You got to get rid of those parties to be able to effect any significant change or betterment of the situation for the US Citizen.

It's obvious.

I therefore would like to see the following changes implemented , kind of an option that should be considered to the actual system.The People of the USA would be voting on all law projects which would be proposed by representatives that , once you cut the establishment out of the equation , would represent the interrest of the People and Citizens , which no party at the moment does really . So . politicians would be free to propose anything they like cause the only ones making the decisions on that level would be the people.
That sounds a bit more democratic to me .. Democracy is not one man voting for 10 million others , it's letting the people's voice express itself and be the guide to a society that will tremendously benifit from it. i mean .. it's early and im out of coffee .. bbl

"Legacy" websites

[iB1]

As long as there are websites out there that aren't been updated, then Flash is here to stay

I want Flash back

[Anonymous Coward]

When HTML5 wasn't the "future", every bling-obsessed art director chose Flash, and it was easily blocked and sites that relied on it ignored, because sane web designers knew not to rely on it. Nowadays you can't even Google properly anymore because every text field is broken beyond repair by tons of Javascript that breaks in anything but the very latest browser. I hate HTML5.

Occupy HTML Site

[tlongren]

Does anyone else find it hilarious that the Occupy HTML site is done in HTML5?

Re:Occupy HTML Site

[Jonner]

I suspect both sites were made by the same person.

This site requires that you do not have Flash...

[Anonymous Coward]

Please uninstall Flash and try again.

Flash is dead but flash will survive

[codgur]

Flash is gone from all my machines. The thing is the kids play Club Penguin....requires flash. Transcender is used to study for tests....requires flash. Illustrators that work at big firms (who are the folks that draw whatever they want and it looks insanely good) ask about HTML5 and how it will replace flash. They are concerned that the design will be in the hands of the programmers when told that the final implementation will be in the programmers hands not the look and feel, they are not comforted. Mobile Flash's demise has led to a huge concern among regular web flash designers. IMHO flash may be on its way out but it is very far from dead, still very much in use today, and it has some foot steps that will take HTML5 a long time to fill (if ever): illustrators ceding power to the programmers.

Occupy this comment!

[gestalt_n_pepper]

I did! Who's with me? Down with the unoccupied 1%... or something.

Occupy screwdrivers...

[FumarMata]

Occupy screwdrivers, use hammers

Re:Cartoons - newgrounds.com

[sadness203]

And the internet was never designed to be what it is now. It was supposed to help share knowledge and idea around university. (Or military). What's your point ?

so Occupy Iran is next?

[Shivetya]

It sounds like a very bad Mad TV skit come to life, based on just previous stories here

On a side note: After first hand experience with those in Atlanta, all I can say is, Occupy THIS. Damn if I don't want to ever be around people like that.

Re:so Occupy Iran is next?

[Millennium]

On a side note: After first hand experience with those in Atlanta, all I can say is, Occupy THIS. Damn if I don't want to ever be around people like that.

But... but their rights! They can do whatever they want; they're the 99%!

Re:so Occupy Iran is next?

[tomboalogo]

from the Tao of Red "That's America. Any kook can have any damn fool idea he wants!"

In a 100 years Occupy will be equiv. with STUPID

[PortHaven]

Seriously,

Most people attacking Flash have never built an application in it. I'm not talking about some stupid animated banner ad. html 5 will do that fine.

But try coding a web application to handle a variety of browsers from ie 7 to ie 10, Firefox, Chrome, Safari, and so on.

Doing that with html 5, js, css can often be a maze of exceptions, variants, etc. With Flash, it's simply installing a single common plugin.

Yes, there is a lot of bad Flash code out there. But there is far more bad html & js. Furthermore, there are many things that html 5 can't quite do on a level that Flash currently can.

So it makes more sense to allow for a transition. Allow html 5 to become more refined.

To call for such a policy of cold turkey is just stupid. Why not call for the elimination of all html 4 code from the web. I mean, we have the new glorious html 5.

---

Let's look at the criticisms:

1. Flash is buggy well so are many html, ajaxsites. I find Facebook hugely buggy and constantly run into issues with ajax. In fact, I run into issues far more with html, js, ajax, etc than I do with Flash.

Score 0

2. Crashes a lot. I guess on Linux. Over the past several years I've had very few crashes of Flash on either my Windows or Mac PCs. Exception, for about 2-3 months there was a version of Flash Player 10 that was crashing with sad face all the time. Comparitively, if I exclude that one update period. Then Flash has crashed less for me than any browser I've used.

Score 0

3. Requires constant security updates. Seriously, what doesn't? Windows does. Firefox feels like it updates almost everytime I use my computer. iTunes, I swear has a new update and new terms of service every launch.

Score 0

4. Doesn't work on most mobile devices.

Score 1 ... but how much of that is corporate politics?

In conclusion...

Challenge: Before anyof you downgrade this post. I challenge you to go look at ActionScript 3 as a programming language. And compare it with JavaScript. Tell me which is a better programming language.

Flash's demise has far more to do with corporate politics, closed gardens, and restrictions on use than it does with the technology itself.

And OccupyFlash is clearly full of people on par with the stupidity of a lot of the ows crowd.

"Apple iPhones and iPads, have not been able to view media coded for Flash on their mobile gadgets" - Occupy Flash

Who's fault is that? Adobe's? No, it was a greedy Steve Jobs with a personal vendetta to kill a company that kept Apple alive for nigh a decade. But finally when Apple was around 5% market share decided to release it's next product version for Windows first. For this blatant sin Steve Jobs has waged a war against Adobe and sought it's death.

Why? Because if you could play all those Angry Birds and Zombie games in Flash. Why would anydeveloper needlessly fork over 30% of their profits to Apple.

And that folks, is the crux of the whole issue. Just as OWS is really just aiding the cause of those high up corrupt bankers (more government involvement and regulations just means less and bigger banks, with more bailouts). OccupyFlash is just make Apple leap for joy and secretly shout "SUCKERS!!!!!"

PS - Slashdot, sure would help if you gave an example of junk characters.

Re:one you mean ten ..

[phantomfive]

For years people have been held hostages to deadend jobs living paycheck to paycheck ...... I therefore would like to see the following changes implemented , kind of an option that should be considered to the actual system.The People of the USA would be voting on all law projects which would be proposed by representatives

Why on earth do you think your solution would fix your stated problem? You think voting for laws directly would solve the problem of dead end jobs? More likely it would put ME out of a job as I now have to spend all my time understanding a new law regarding the importation of game hens......

I got into an arguement with someone about this

[JustAnotherIdiot]

I promptly started to ignore him when he stated that "most all mobile devices don't even support flash! Even Android doesn't support it!"

"Occupy Abode (Flash)!"

[LoP_XTC]

99% of my CPU cycles are taken up by 1 process!
bogomip greed must end and priority reniced to lesser PID's!

Occupy Adobe (Flash) Now!

Re:one you mean ten ..

[DarkOx]

I agree with some of what occupy is saying but they don't speak with one voice, and some really misinformed or crazy stuff comes out there.

I mean NPR has if anything given them pretty sympathetic coverage and even listing to some of the people they chose to interview, I could not help but think, how the heck did that guy get accepted by a college in the first place, not being able to pay for is the least his problems. I really wonder what percentage of occupy protestors could manage a high school civics or intro to economics final. I don't think it would be very high.

So why the are not wrong to be upset with the financial industry and government, I can't get on board. I want to know what a movements goals are before I become part of it. If their only goal was to be heard well, we heard them. Now what? Its either time for them to go home, or propose an agenda.

Re:In a 100 years Occupy will be equiv. with STUPI

[PortHaven]

Guess it was the astericks I used to break up two thought areas.

These people need to find a vagina to occupy...

[bigsexyjoe]

I mean, really. Occupy Flash? A) Adobe admitted that HTML5 is the future, and B) you need something better to occupy your time.

HTML5 has not "won"

[tomhudson]

The problems with "HTML5 has won the web"

1. Its performance is crappy at best.
2. It exposes too much of the source for people who want to make a living off their code. It's bad enough with Flash and Java decompilers ...
3. Unlike Flash, Python, Perl, Tcl.TK, C, C++, Java, etc., HTML5 needs a browser - and browsers are themselves a crappy - and inconsistent - host environment, so you also inherit any security and bug problems from the browser.
4. The standard for HTML5 is not yet even finished.

Sure, you can write applications in HTML5 (I'm writing one now) - but it's a crappy way to write a program. The DOM might be okay for documents (hence the "D" in Document Object Model) but it's a real impedance mismatch for anything else.

Re:HTML5 has not "won"

[lolcutusofbong]

1. Optimization is never over. JavaScript is ridiculously fast now compared to 2005.
2. Cry more, faggot. Nobody's entitled to a particular business model.
3. HTML5 is a standard FOR DISPLAYING WEB PAGES. What a SHOCK and OUTRAGE it is that you need a web browser for that!
4. At least there is a standard...

Re:HTML5 has not "won"

[tomhudson]

1. Optimization is never over. JavaScript is ridiculously fast now compared to 2005.

"ridiculously fast now compared to 2005" is still 'ridiculously slow" compared to pretty much everything else - and WAY slower than flash on the same machine. Go compare a flash game from 2005 the javascript+html5 implementation. You're going backwards with HTML5.

2. Cry more, faggot. Nobody's entitled to a particular business model.

And nobody is entitled to demand that developers use HTML5+Javascript when there's something better that supports their particular needs and/or business model, such as Flash, Java, or c/c++/objective-c/c#, or whatever, and that will also run just fine without the restrictions of the browser and the sucky DOM model. And flash is a lot more cross-browser than HTML5+javascript+css right now, so bite me.

3. HTML5 is a standard FOR DISPLAYING WEB PAGES. What a SHOCK and OUTRAGE it is that you need a web browser for that!

Which makes it inappropriate for anything but a web page. Not for building apps, not for video, not for dynamic content. Which is why flash, java, python, perl, c/c++, etc., will continue to exist for building applications ("apps").

4. At least there is a standard...

No, there isn't. That's the problem. The HTML5 spec is still in the process of being worked out.

Re:HTML5 has not "won"

[tomhudson]

essentially, the browser is now the new plugin.

Sad, but true. And we saw how that model played out with Google's Chromebooks. A bunch of hype, then .... nothing. Even people who spend most of their time using a browser will find that 5%-10% of the time when they need more than a browser to be a deal-breaker - especially now that standard laptops that can do more are selling for less.

When I said that chromebooks were garbage nobody would want, everyone dumped on me - and yet, here we are, and even lousy sellers like the Blackberry Playbook beat it.

People haven't yet caught on that the browser is on the way out. The "app craze" is the camel's nose. If there's an app for everything and everywhere, including for discovering sites, and instead of downloading a mess of html+javascript+css every time you visit a site, you can just grab an updates to its' app on the fly, why would you need a browser?

That's one good thing about flash - run the same code in the flash player, and you've got a full-screen app (it's how I wrote a game that works on pretty much everything, including the Wii, with zero code to do crap like browser sniffing or dynamic scaling. Flash might suck, but html5+css+javascript+dom sucks even more for anything but web pages).

Re:HTML5 has not "won"

[lolcutusofbong]

Is anyone actually using pure HTML5 to write applications? I thought HTML5 was just an upgrade to the markup that included a few neat tricks like video tags, and the heavy lifting was done by JS, Python, PHP, Ruby, Perl, C, C++, etc.

Re:HTML5 has not "won"

[tomhudson]

I'm (ab)using it by making my own tag names instead of divs to enhance readability, etc.

For example: <SomeCustomTag> </SomeCustomTag>
.. instead of <div class=SomeCustomTag> </SomeCustomTag>

It's now supported in all browsers, AND there's a loophole in the current spec that allows it - though I don't think that's what they had in mind :-)

Advantages: Easier to find the end tag, more self-documenting, and you don't have to specify a class=whatever in the tag to style it - it can be styled in the css file, same as any "approved" tag.

But yes, the heavy lifting is going to have to be done using a programming language, either up-front, or behind the scenes of you're using a tool that supports declarative syntax and then "writes the glue code" (and it's this latter that Adobe is developing). And of course, Flash is not dead - Adobe is just not developing it for mobile any more because there are just too many different handheld devices - and besides, within 3 years, handhelds will mostly support full desktop functionality anyway, since that's going to be the next big thing in differentiating devices (MetoUI is just the first step towards this dual-ui functionality). The goal is to eventually kill the browser dead - same thing Apple is doing with the App Store and Google is doing with Android apps.

Re:HTML5 has not "won"

[Darinbob]

I think the motivation to replace the operating system with a browser is misguided. There's nothing wrong with having applications that run on an operating system that's not a browser. Sure it causes headaches with these kids and their smart phones but supporting mobile apps should not be enough of a reason to abandon all sanity.

The KISS principle is being abandoned wholesale, along with the Unix idea of one tool for one job instead of a program that does everything.

Re:HTML5 has not "won"

[Billly Gates]

People are using JS for much more than it was designed for. Even IEs dynamic html was to do simple things and people abused JS to cover inefficiences in older versions of IE and html 4.

There are animations being developed for CSS 3 that is not done yet but will take care of alot of the issues you describe. People are using javascript instead and it is ugly

Re:HTML5 has not "won"

[tomhudson]

Nobody will be supporting mobile apps within 10 years, because all mobile devices except for the very lowest entry-level ones will be able to run desktop software.

The reason is simple - as entry-level devices get smarter, the only way to maintain margins on higher-end devices will be to make them more capable. Microsoft isn't stupid - MetroUI isn't about making a tablet interface - it's a trojan for eventually getting the full-blown Windows OS onto tablets. It's their first smart original idea since ... well, forever ... and it's going to be effective.

This is where going with iOS instead of a cut-down OSX is going to bite Apple. It's also going to be somewhat of a problem for Android (though not as much, since the underlying OS - a heavily modded version of linux - is still going to be able to be modded to expose the underbelly to non-android applications.

The can be worked around by making mobile devices that have enough functionality to replace desktops, which are specifically approved (or laptops, which are mobile devices, but also approved),

"General Purpose Desktop Computers and Servers" means computers, including desktop and laptop computers, or servers, used for general computing functions under end user control (such as but not specifically limited to email, general purpose Internet browsing, and office suite productivity tools).

If it's running a desktop OS, runs desktop programs, can even look like a desktop in terms of the general form factor (screen + optional keyboard + mouse), you're good to go. And of course, now that we can use things like Wiimotes and kinects (and my laptop comes with a remote control of its own), the use of alternate input devices - including touch screens - is irrelevant.

Additionally, since the mobile restrictions only apply to dedicated devices:

The use of Software in systems and solutions that provide dedicated functionality ... or designed for use in embedded or function-specific software applications ... (long list of dedicated devices, including mobile phones) ... are excluded from this definition and not licensed under this Agreement.

... smartphones are already "general enough" that you could get away with installing desktop java on them - you can use them all day without making a single phone call - I'm surprised that Google hasn't thrown that at Oracle.

The real problem is going to be the same as always - once people find that they can run their Windows programs on certain mobile devices, those are the devices that they're going to buy. But that's several years down the road (though closer than you'd think).

Re:HTML5 has not "won"

[tomhudson]

The real problem is that HTML5+CSS+Javascript is going to have to do a lot of work to even approximate the capabilities of a regular application. Why settle for an overly-complicated development model that will always be second best?

Better yet - follow the money. People are developing native apps for app stores. Web-based apps will always be the bastard red-headed step-child, and will never inherit the kingdom. And ccs3 doesn't cover the problem of you exposing all your code to the end user plus every competitor out there who will make a me-too because they think that you might make some money, so they might make some money too.

Re:HTML5 has not "won"

[mjwx]

The problems with "HTML5 has won the web"

1. Its performance is crappy at best.
2. It exposes too much of the source for people who want to make a living off their code. It's bad enough with Flash and Java decompilers ...
3. Unlike Flash, Python, Perl, Tcl.TK, C, C++, Java, etc., HTML5 needs a browser - and browsers are themselves a crappy - and inconsistent - host environment, so you also inherit any security and bug problems from the browser.
4. The standard for HTML5 is not yet even finished.

Ergo, the death of flash will just promote the rise of a new plugin to compensate for the inadequacies of HTML5. Just like SWF and Flash came about to compensate for the problems with HTML.

With any luck it will be an FOSS plugin but there's a phrase about "the devil we know" that keeps coming to mind

Re:HTML5 has not "won"

[tomhudson]

Ergo, the death of flash will just promote the rise of a new plugin to compensate for the inadequacies of HTML5. Just like SWF and Flash came about to compensate for the problems with HTML.

What is this "death of flash" nonsense? Adobe isn't dropping flash - just stopping with trying to keep up with flash with all the different mobile platforms. Flash3d is where it's at now. Sure, today it only runs on desktops, but within 3 to 5 years, all mobile platforms that have enough screen space will also supply a complete "desktop experience."

Why do you think Microsoft is putting out their whole MetroUI thing? It's their trojan horse to get people to install their OS on mobile devices, then let them run desktop applications as well. They're just doing their embrace and extend routine a bit smarter this time.

The consequence is that the other vendors (Android and Apple) will also have to offer the full desktop as an alternate interface. And that means that flash will run on most machines with no need for a "mobile version." Adobe is just being smarter than the retards (like Mark Shuttleworth) who think that the current platform is not going to change much in the next 3 to 5 years in terms of what it can do.

We already have quad-cpu tablets and dual-cpu phones.

Re:HTML5 has not "won"

[mjwx]

What is this "death of flash" nonsense? Adobe isn't dropping flash

Just parroting the iFanboys.

Flash has been dead since iYear 0 (2007) if you ask them.

Of course I dont beleive it's going anywhere, there's too many legacy sites and as many people have pointed out, HTML5 is not a capable substitute for many uses of Flash.

Sure, today it only runs on desktops, but within 3 to 5 years, all mobile platforms that have enough screen space will also supply a complete "desktop experience."

Mobile traffic will never overtake desktop/laptop traffic.

Android will end up offering an alternative to flash, what or how I'm not sure but as I said, there's too much legacy in flash and it's not going anywhere. The idea of "there's an app for that" web site to compensate for the browsers deficiencies will go away as with any platform that depends on the idea. My Desire Z with Android 2.3.5.is almost as capable as my desktop browser.

Re:HTML5 has not "won"

[gl4ss]

1. Optimization is never over. JavaScript is ridiculously fast now compared to 2005.

2. Cry more, faggot. Nobody's entitled to a particular business model.

3. HTML5 is a standard FOR DISPLAYING WEB PAGES. What a SHOCK and OUTRAGE it is that you need a web browser for that!

4. At least there is a standard...

1. some fundamental issues limit the possibilities here.
2. -
3. the problem is this: if you built a html5 app 2 years ago, there's a chance that it doesn't run on a new browser anymore.
4. there isn't. oh you mean for the boring old shit in the concept of html5 there is? ok. who cares, all that you could do 5 years ago with a browser anyways.

Re:HTML5 has not "won"

[tomhudson]

Mobile traffic will never overtake desktop/laptop traffic.

Here's the thing - why do people now not consider laptops to be "mobile" devices? They most certainly are ... I've taken my 17" all over the place (I like the full-sized keyboard, decent screen size, twin hard drives, and separate number pad)

"Traffic" is a poor metric, when we're moving back to downloading and running applications locally. I don't see the browser lasting another decade, because everything it does can be replaced by local applications. Imagine if you didn't have to hit 20 different servers and download 800k of junk just to display this page - just fetch the data and let your local application render it. No more "slashdot @$@$$#@!####@@ the site again!" I'd settle for a simple news reader interface with the ability to display inline images over this crapfest. You'd be able to search locally, fetch only new posts, keep as much history as you wanted, etc.

It's the same with things like google docs. Sure, you can use them - but why bother? "Oh, we'll fix it so you can have persistent data stored on your local computer when you're not connected!" sort of torpedoes their whole "nothing is stored locally so if your computer gets stolen your data is still safe in TehCLOWDZ". And it only takes one browser exploit to get your passwords hijacked and your company's shared data shared more than you would like.

Android will eventually expose the whole OS to end users, not just the "Android Interface". They'll have no choice - not when devices from Microsoft will be giving people both options and letting them run any software they want (one of my friends has such a tablet and he loves it - an Android or iPad would be crippleware to him). At that point, the desktop version of flash player will be just fine. And really, who wants to run a game in a browser when you can run it right on the desktop?

And the best part? Once tablets are running the full desktop, Oracle can't hit the manufacturer up for "mobile" licensing. The terms of the license (I looked them up yesterday) only require fees for dedicated devices. If it can run a full office suite, do email, and surf the web, it can use the regular desktop JRE. If it can act as a server, it can use the regular desktop JRE. Only devices that have limited, dedicated functionality, as opposed to general-purpose computers, need to take a paid license.

The grass is greener on the other side

[DrXym]

Of course as soon as Flash goes everyone will suddenly realise how frigging awful the equivalent code in JS hooked up to a canvas is. At least with Flash the plugin had the potential to be rendering content on a separate thread and largely independent of anything else going on in a page. It was even better on Windows since a Flash anim could invalidate its plugin window and repaint without bothering the browser.

Now if you hit a page with a few Flash-like HTML animations, they'll all be in contention on the same thread, running off timers and generally chugging. And hardware accelerated video? Screw that, you're stuck with WebM or whatever else can be called the lowest common denominator.

Re:The grass is greener on the other side

[DrXym]

The DOM is single threaded. JS would be invoked from a timer and would have to tween a frame and completely render the new frame before returning. The JS calls are synchronous so the canvas implementation would have to either perform the drawing action or at least pretend to. If rendering was deferred it would still have to be rendered at some point. Control only returns to the page and other timers when JS completes. Then the browser has to figure out that the canvas has been invalidated and recompose it and any elements sitting over the top of it before repainting. And it has to do this 30 times a second. And it's in contention with possibly 3 or 4 other such canvases.

Re:The grass is greener on the other side

[DrXym]

Flash has the potential to do anything it likes because it lives outside the browser and the DOM. Indeed many modern browsers host plugins in a separate process so it does run in a separate thread and the plugin can apply its own strategies in addition to that. When you implement everything in HTML then everything is in contention from the same presentation thread.

It'll cost a lot of money to promote

[tepples]

Vote for whom?

Start a party with a platform of government transparency. Buy a significant chunk of ad time on major cable TV networks. Internet advertising is not enough because more people watch ads on TV than watch ads on the Internet. I'll admit that it'll take a lot of fundraising to match the Republicratic political machine.

Re:It'll cost a lot of money to promote

[X0563511]

... and hence the reason it's not practical. The very problem you want to vote against prevents you from fixing via voting!

Re:It'll cost a lot of money to promote

[WolfgangPG]

But it wouldn't take much to match the Democtraic political machine... I mean really...

Protocol instead of plugin

[techtech]

I think they should open it, and it should not be plugin, but a protocol, as in flash://adobe.com would launch the app/anim/advanced air application/whatever in flash.app / flash.exe or your open source choice for executing flash.

And at this time when you can do everything for the most in html (html5/csse3/js) it just need skills., why should you embed the really advanced stuff flash could do like 3d games etc. For HTML pages, html is the best.

Then I do not need to restart the browser everytime there is an update to flash either, much safer than a forced execution of flash (I use flashblocking), I do not see the reason for a page to have a lot of different flash animations one page, that scenario would usually be just ads.

And you do not need flash for playing video, that era is over. If you are a developer and can not manage to make a cross platform player / solution and a worst case fallback to flash, you should not develop that page.

Re:Cartoons - newgrounds.com

[harperska]

Flash may have not been originally intended to create applications, but the Flex framework and BlazeDS make it a very nice platform for doing so. Much better than developing an RIA directly in HTML/JS/CSS.

Re:In a 100 years Occupy will be equiv. with STUPI

[impaledsunset]

I'm sorry, but you've missed one important criticism:

It's a proprietary non-standard technology controlled by a single company with a single proprietary working implementation. Whether you like the other technologies used in the web, they aren't controlled by a single company, and have multiple implementations letting you choose the most secure or stable one. With Flash, you're stuck with Adobe's implementation, especially on platforms that are overlooked (such as GNU/Linux and non-x86 hardware such as mobile devices), and if unfixed bugs pop up, you can't fix them. At the moment I can't play mp3 sounds in Flash, because Adobe have incorrectly used memcpy instead of memmove, but my distro can't fix that with a patch.

What's more, the open standard technologies with free implementations easily yield to developments on the part of the client. Want to extract information from HTML? That's easy. Want to learn a HTML 5/JavaScript inside a daemon on your server? That's not difficult. Want to alter the behaviour of a HTML 5/JavaScript application with GreaseMonkey or NoScript? Please, go ahead.

With Flash? Haha, good luck!

Re:Can we get rid of Java while we're at it?

[sneakyimp]

Persian: But...! This is madness!
Leonidas: [Kicks Persian down a hole]THIS. IS. PHP!!!!!!

Ten times bigger.

[tepples]

I think they should open it, and it should not be plugin, but a protocol

Adobe's way ahead of you. It relicensed the Flash spec as part of the Open Screen Project.

And you do not need flash for playing video

But you do need Flash for playing vector animations like Weebl and Bob. Otherwise, you have to render each frame of the SWF to produce mp4 and webm files, and in my tests, those end up ten times bigger than the SWF.

Re:Ten times bigger.

[techtech]

You should take a look on these samples:

http://raphaeljs.com/

You can also animate vector (svg is native i modern browsers, some gpu accelrated even) with fallback for older browsers, (which raphael takes care of) Maybe not there yet, but another sign that flash plugin will die.

About the open source project, sure, but no one have bothered making a good plugin then, why bother.

Occupy My Arse

[Oswald McWeany]

Although my arse contains only 1% of my intelligence- over 50% of my slashdot comments come out my arse.

The rest of my body will now be staging Occupy My Arse. Richard Simmons has been denied membership.

About that HTML5

[PGGreens]

So how long before people start grumbling about HTML5 like they have been about flash? And by people, I mean the occupiers here. I mean, HTML5 seems great, but it's sure to have its own set of headaches. Just seems a bit over-zealous.

why isn't their site flash?

[shadowrat]

They are protesting html5 by making a rather nice if simple cross platform html5 site? do people not know how to protest anymore? Rosa Parks. She knew how to protest. Drive the message home. Don't tie up public resources any longer than you need to. Don't whine about something but expect other people to act.

You could always turn it into a video

[tepples]

By transcoding their SWFs to MP4 and WebM, spending ten times the data transfer allocation to send them, and making viewers spend ten times the data transfer allocation to receive them.

A movement missing reality...

[n7ytd]

'Why does it matter when HTML5 has clearly won the fight for the future of our web browsing?'

A future technology still being defined does not solve today's problems.

While we're at it, let's boycott all manufacturers of prosthetic legs as using stem cells and legal pot to regenerate lost limbs is clearly the superior technology.

Video in Wine?

[tepples]

Native apps are much better for encoding video and there's no need for the browser to support that.

Not everybody who wants to make an application already owns a Mac, and you don't necessarily want to turn away visitors who have one. To what extent does Wine for Mac OS X support applications that record video or audio?

Where do you cut off the PUT request when sending a chunk of live video?

Where do you cut off the GET request when receiving a chunk of live video?

Okay, time to rehash all hte old arguments!

[thePowerOfGrayskull]

HTML5 is far from ubiquitous. Implementations differ by vendor and platform. The standard is not finalized and won't be for some time yet -- meaning it's impossible to get uniform support for all features across browsers.

Flash is slow, inefficient - a total CPU hog. These days it's mostly used for advertising, and who wants to look at advertising anyway.

Did I cover the basics? Can we move on now?

Converting web cartoons

[tepples]

How do you recommend converting Strong Bad Emails to run in HTML5?

Re:Converting web cartoons

[supersloshy]

With this ;)

Re:Converting web cartoons

[tepples]

How well does sb45demo run on a smartphone or tablet?

Apply force to each cat

[tepples]

If you have a lion chewing on your leg, and a tiger on your arm, would you use your free arm and leg on the lion, completely ignoring the tiger?

I'm guessing yes. I can apply more force to one cat at a time to clear each off in turn. I ignore the tiger until the lion is subdued or vice versa.

Either way...

[awjr]

So what we're really discussing is which Adobe product we will be buying/using, their Flash IDE or their HTML5 IDE.

The browser makers will have to work furiously

[tepples]

The browser makers will have to work just as furiously. Right now Adobe's implementation of SWF is twice as fast as Firefox's implementation of HTML5 canvas on my machine at this benchmark.

Re:Cartoons - newgrounds.com

[Quiet_Desperation]

My Little Pony is done in Flash, and they seem to get it into my TV somehow.

Some sort of newfangled thing called "video", I think.

Flash a total CPU hog?

[5865]

Nothing does a better job making my Athlon64 3000+ obsolete than by switching everything to HTML5.

Watching a video on Youtube in HTML5 shoots my CPU up to 80% while watching it through regular Flash only uses 55%.

Angry Birds in HTML5 is jerky (not to mention the crappy aliasing) and it'll work a lot better if implemented in Flash.

So surely I'm missing something when people keeps complaining Flash is a resource hog.

I hope it's not another hipster programmer fad like the functional language for everything trend a couple of years ago.

Re:Flash a total CPU hog?

[Billly Gates]

What browser are you using? Video card drivers make a difference too.

In phones it will be the other way around as the drivers accelerate mpeg video but not flash. I have an ATI 5750 so it is a high end card with recent drivers so both are accelerated and I notice no difference. Actualy html 5 is faster, particularly with IE 9. Chrome disables hardware acceleration by default. Chrome 17 beta fixes this. Go into config:flags and check it on and you will see a difference.

HTML 5 will get faster as browsers enable this and video card drivers start to enable more video acceleration. The new drivers have it and my guess is they want you to upgrade. Try IE 9 and update your video drivers as well as do that setting in Chrome. It will tie in performance

Adobe appears to be working hard on Edge

[mrsnak]

Their now-in-beta HTML animation program. The development team is enthusiastic and receptive to producing a good program. I've been using it on projects and it's getting close to what LiveMotion (Edge's lead developer work on it) was for Flash - easy to use and very intuitive, unlike Flash, which requires good programming skills to use with any effect. Tumultco's Hype is also quite good, but slightly more limited at this time.

Occupy this...

[ArcadeNut]

While I despise Flash, I realize that a lot of companies have a ton of money invested in Flash. Replacing it is not going to be free. Flash will eventually be replaced without the help of protesters if the benefits of HTML5 out weigh those of Flash and the cost of HTML5 is similar to Flash. Cost = Labor, Training and Development Tools.

flash

[lister king of smeg]

i would mod you up if i could.

html5 had a lot of promise to replace plugins when it had a standard codec of ogg and vorbis for audio and video but without it what happens? we will use a billion different plugins for audio and video and be right back where we are now anyway. flash is cross platform and lets be honest depite being abused badly is great at serving up small games video and audio with or without drm. why should we stop using it? the only bad thing i can say about flash is it keeping the browser 32bit. my only hope is that with adobe dropping flash as it appears it will do sometime in the near future that it goes open source with it, i would find it highly amusing if it became the default video audio/vidoe codec for the html 5. just a question why is java-script supposedly superior to flash?

Re:flash

[hairyfeet]

See it is THAT, that right there that is pissing me off! If it had been Theora or WebM, even though they currently take more resources I could understand that. it would be about having a "universal codec" that ANY device could run without fear of trolls and THAT is a goal I can understand.

But everyone acts like that is still the case when its not! Both MSFT and Apple have made it clear it SHALL BE H.264 and with everyone falling all over themselves drooling at the profit margins Apple is getting nobody, not this occupy dufus nor anybody on this site, seems to be capable of asking the MOST IMPORTANT of all questions, which is "Why is this being pushed? who will gain from this?"

And i think it is pretty damned clear who will benefit from a locked all to hell DRMed patented up the ass "standard' becoming the only source of video on the web, and that is Apple and MSFT! you look at apple after Steve came back, he didn't give a shit about MSFT, hell he had gates on the stage with him, why? because he knew MSFT had a market they didn't want which was the low rent commodity market. What worried Steve was NOT MSFT but Google and the rise of the web. kinda hard to lock anyone down if everything is in the cloud and uses formats all can use isn't it?

So while I can understand the hatred of flash, really i can, on anything other than windows it has never been great, but lets not replace something that "kinda sorta' works for DRM in a box, okay? We should all tell these numbnuts that we will NOT accept HTML V5 unless it uses a 100% free codec that EVERYONE can use! I know that with so many thinking I'm a "dirty M$ ninja poo poo head" that those words might seem like a shock but I don't want MSFT to be able to force upgrades simply because you want to watch the latest videos any more than I want Apple to control the direction of the web with iShiny!

so PLEASE web developers, tell them you won't have HTML V5 unless it is usable by all! Otherwise the dreams of iMoney is gonna take us back to the bad old days where the web was fractured and you had to have a bazillion codecs just to function! You'll have some on Theora (the FOSSies) you'll have some on WebM (The google fanbois) and you'll have MSFT and Apple pushing H.264. Can your device accelerate all three? will you have to base your battery life based on which sites you see? Is this REALLY progress over flash? I don't think so, and i hope I'm not alone in this.

More open standards

[Alistair Hutton]

I see one of the demands is that we should tell website that we want future content in more open standards. The Flex SDk has been open source since version 3.0 and the Flash Player specification has been open for longer.

Welcome

[Kaziganthi]

I, for one, welcome our new occupy overlords.

Re:Explanation with charts

[b4dc0d3r]

CHARTS: Here's What The Wall Street Protesters Are So Angry About

Simple to understand, pictures and everything. With Firefox and NoScript, it's not a slideshow, so sorry if it actually is one.

Re:Cartoons - newgrounds.com

[Hatta]

The point is that neither flash nor HTML are appropriate for developing applications. Use C++ or Python with QT or WX.

80/20 Rule

[od05]

Here are my real-life stats on my site for the past 30 days. The real-amount of people using iOS devices is still small.

Operating System Visits Operating System contribution to total:
1 Windows 1,862 88.62%
2 Macintosh 119 5.66%
3 Linux 32 1.52%
4 iPhone 29 1.38%
5 Android 25 1.19%
6 (not set) 20 0.95%
7 iPad 11 0.52%

Out of those people, 94.62% of all visitors had identified some version of Flash. My site utilizes Flash heavily.

I've tried Adobe Wallaby and Google Swiffy, neither does a perfect job converting to HTML5, especially with AS3 files. Edge doesn't support rollovers/hover yet, fortunately actions made it into the latest release. The Flash content on my site views fine on most browsers (including my Droid). Given the small amount of iOS users, I don't plan on converting my Flash content to HTML5 it anytime soon. Until a significant amount of iOS users contribute traffic, I don't see it as much of a problem.

Two Internets! No Waiting!

[IClavdivs]

FTA:

"We feel this move effectively creates two Internets -- the one you can use on mobile/tablets and the one you can use on the desktop," one of the founders of the Occupy Flash movement said via e-mail. "This is not good for anyone except Adobe"

It's not creating 2 Internets, that's completely idiotic. It means that you have to target multiple platforms, which is just business as usual in the world of web development. If you're trying to build a website that targets everything with one solution, you're doing it wrong.

Re:In a 100 years Occupy will be equiv. with STUPI

[Billly Gates]

I was just about to type a similiar point.

One difference between you and me is I HATE FLASH. I agree with your points on a technical scale too. However, it is agaisn't the very spirit of the web itself. 15 years ago anyone could learn HTML and get a job. You opened notepad and typed in html and it was easy. Flash ... oh you need that for a job now. Ok that will be $700. Photoshop too? That will now be $1400.

Linux for web developlment? Nope. MacOSX or Windows :-(

I learned Linux 10 years ago because unix had awesome tools like PHP that were free. Now flash being proprietary is forcing me to use Windows again and that is agaisnt the spirit of GNU. I am not a gnu zealot but those who are and like flash are hypocritical. No one sees the dangers of this?

Now you need to pay Adobe and use closed standards to develop wibsites. You mention IE which I just learned to hate developing for as I am trying to start a business and learned how bad IE 6 is. I expect corporate customers and the big boys still use IE 6 and will well after 2013 as they use VMs and I need it to look pretty across all browsers. Now I am tempted to learn flash and it is wrong and so many levels. Sigh

I pray Windows 8 is fixed more in desktop mode so corporations and people can upgrade IE 7 to IE 10 and we can start HTML 5.

Apple did the right thing in killing Flash. It sucks on my Andriod and is CPU sucking when I try to watch porn. Mpeg hardware acceleration can help things greatly.

To me in 2011 Flash is the most practical solution, while HTML 5 is the most ideal.

Re:In a 100 years Occupy will be equiv. with STUPI

[Karlt1]

"Apple iPhones and iPads, have not been able to view media coded for Flash on their mobile gadgets" - Occupy Flash

Who's fault is that? Adobe's? No, it was a greedy Steve Jobs with a personal vendetta to kill a company that kept Apple alive for nigh a decade. But finally when Apple was around 5% market share decided to release it's next product version for Windows first. For this blatant sin Steve Jobs has waged a war against Adobe and sought it's death.

I can play SD resolution H.264 video on a first generation iPod Touch (400Mhz 128KB of RAM). Hell even a video iPod from 2005 can play an SD video (dual 80Mhz). How well does Flash play video on low end devices?

Is it Apple's fault that Flash was late for Android, the Xoom, Palm, BlackBerry and every other mobile platform? Why would anyone depend on Adobe?

Re:one you mean ten ..

[mcgrew]

For years people have been held hostages to deadend jobs

Please take this in the way it's presented; most folks here like being informed, I know I do and appreciate when someone enlightens me about something (happened to me here today already).

Sometimes it's not good to squash two words into one. "Sometimes" is a good one. But when squashing those words together changes the meaning, that's not conducive to good communication. "Deadend" looks like "deadened", only one timy letter difference, but a world of difference in meaning, and in fact looks like a misspelling of "deadened".

Leaving the space between "dead" and "end" (or using a hyphen) greatly enhances communication.

BTW, that was a good comment, you should be modded up. I've advocated for quite a while that after the legistature passes a bill and the President signs it, it shouldn't become law until it's put to a popular vote. And laws should have expiration dates; why are some obsolete WWII era laws that were meant for the war effort still on the books?

O Noez! :)

[Vince42]

it's not too late: http://www.saveie6.com/ ... :D

Re:one you mean ten ..

[Billly Gates]

You talk about harm inflicted with these people living paycheck to paycheck.

Do you think they would like the alternative? No job? Starvation? Or Living at home with their parents?

I do feel it is not fair and our parents generation (I am in my 30s) had it much easier, but what are the alternatives? You can't force someone to pay you more. In an economic recession or depression like we are in now the employers can and will take advantage. When things improve like in the 1990s and 1950s the people decide to quit their jobs, start businesses, and invest in themselves so they can be compensated more.

With high debt you should be angry at Washington DC and not Wall Street. Lax regulations of banks caused all of our monitary system to be created out of thin imaginary numbers so the market responds by having us all be paid less as a means to correct itself. It is the invisible hand of the free market in respond to goverment. Go occupy DC and take your anger out on them.

Sure living paycheck to paycheck might not be ideal but that is life and it beats starvation right?

I really should have hit preview ...

[tomhudson]

I meant:

For example:
.. instead of

And no, it doesn't matter if your tag conflicts with a tag that's defined in the new spec, with 4 exceptions: html, head, body, and title. The spec is flawed in that you can only have one title tag, and yet we see real-world examples every day with stuff with multiple titles - anthologies, the the front page of the newspaper, magazines (all of which every story has a title) ... chapters in books, which can also have titles, etc. This is a serious flaw in the spec, because it means that you have to use less-intuitive names instead of "title", such as storytitle, articletitle, sectiontitle, etc. The parent-child relationship should have been sufficient to differentiate between them, but the spec is the spec, no matter how much it sucks (just look at the original menu and dir tags).

Think of Flash as the tool, not the plug-in

[Arkhan]

Flash may very well be on the way out as a browser plug-in (a distribution platform, if you like).

It will likely live on a long time as an artists' tool.

Flash as a platform, a plug-in, was a way to solve the problem of "I've made this cool animation in Flash, now how do I show it to people?"

Adobe has gotten with the times, and turned Flash into a vector animation tool with the level of features for professionals you'd expect (think Photoshop or Illustrator). Sure you can make a "Flash movie", but you can also import your artwork from better creation tools, easily animate it with tweens (etc) in Flash, then export to any number of video or animation formats, or more importantly to frames or sprite sheets. Those exported formats find their way into your game, program, etc. The old "Flash movie" has nothing to do with this workflow.

The plug-in is decreasingly useful every day. The tool is quite useful for the designer/artist and will live on. You just won't watch Flash-created content in a Flash platform plugin. You'll be watching Flash-animated content (likely created outside Flash) in some other platform and never know Flash was part of the picture.

You don't look at graphics in a Photoshop or GIMP plugin, or play iOS games inside XCode, but the tools still exist and are useful, separate from the obsolescence of the delivery platform.

Obviously a troll

[jprupp]

Flash only works properly in Windows, and not elsewhere. Flash is about Adobe effectively controlling parts of the web with their proprietary plugin, which is the only thing that can properly parse Flash content.

HTML may not be the best markup language around. JavaScript may not be the best scripting language around. But they are by all means superior to Flash, in the sense that they're open and well supported at this point by all major browsers, including those on mobile devices.

I use Ubuntu as my operating system, and Flash is nowhere near usable. On the other hand, HTML5 gets good support from browsers here. All three Firefox, Chrome and Opera handle it very well.

When I got to the part where you said that Flash could handle 1080p video well enough, I understood that your post was a troll. I don't know why I bothered feeding it.

Meh. How about something new?

[LukeWebber]

Sure Flash sucks. So does HTML. So does Silverlight. So do Java applets. I've done them all, and they're all crap. Could we please do something new?

E4X

[optymizer]

I really enjoyed using XML with Actionscript. It's just more natural that Javascript's dreaded DOM API. CSS3 selectors are OK, but I think they're implemented in Javascript, not native code.

Flash is fine

[jones_supa]

Alike many others, my first-hand personal motivation for HTML5 replacing Flash was the sucky video playback performance. I was hoping for some hackers to finally create a clean and lightweight replacement, but these implementations turned out to be even slower and they lack professional quality in general. And, at the same time Adobe has improved Flash by adding VDPAU acceleration.

To add a nice mini troll, I have even started to feel that sometimes Flash is actually a more sane way to create multimedia-rich content for the web than the hacky HTML AJAX stack.

According to Jordan .....

[thirdwikidotorg]

According to Jordan ..... They flash mobile update of 2011 made it LESS able to watch '720'p videos on your mobile phone so I guess the problem is,,, is that there seems to be a reluctance to actualy implement the HIGHER flash codecs even though they have been promised by adobe flash. Why is this for the mobile (most general) platform. Surely its in everyone's interest to implement a 720 higher hd-video option ???????????????? Source http://www.thisweekinlinux.com/ there should be a video link on youtube. It shows Jordan trying to press the vido flash option tab to show higher hd video.

HTML version renders pretty well though..

[sentimental.bryan]

Went to the site but NoScript had disabled Flash by default. The HTML stuff looks pretty good though.

Occupy Flash indeed, but HTML has a BIG issue.

[master_p]

The problem with HTML is that HTML is instructions to a browser, not a program itself that the browser runs. If HTML was a program, then any progress in HTML would come from libraries and not from browsers, and it would come much faster.

To explain it differently: HTML tags are not functions of a programming language; they are hardcoded instructions that each browser must interpret. HTML is the assembly of web, and the browser is the CPU which executes the instructions. That's extremely bad, because it does not allow the extension of HTML by programming new functions or modifying the current ones in HTML itself; one has to modify the browser to achieve these changes.

Now that we know that a web browser should really be a display server, HTML should be abandoned for a truly programmable approach, where the markup language is actually a program that creates the visual output itself.

Yo dawg...

[MachineShedFred]

I heard you like occupying, so I occupied your occupation, so you can occupy occupations while you occupy!

v1aGra 4 ur guvment

[rubypossum]

You have been manipulated by your compassion and love for your fellow people and that compassion has been turned by the 1% into energy causing you to fight to give them power. What makes you think our ridiculously corrupt government wouldn't do anything other than decide treatment policy based on what Pfizer says? Shit, the essential treatments would be illegal and Viagra would be MANDATORY. It doesn't take a libertarian to recognize that. As for me, I'm skeptical of anyone who wants to centralize power away from the choice of the actual people. And on that note, I quite working for The Man five years ago and I'm quite happy.