Genetic evidence with a large sample size is among the least refutable scientific statements in the world today. Courts accept it as proof of guilt. I think your dislike of the results are not all that impressive. Genetic research showed me that my surname - quite unique among Afrikaans surnames in that it doesn't seem to have a direct equivalent family in Europe (and is therefore believed to be a local adaptation with significant changes) are in fact of Viking descent - and matched it specifically to those Vikings that invaded Poland in the 13th century. Their descendants made it as far as Hamburg Germany by the 17th century - since that was where the first known Venter was born.
Well it rather means that I'm an oddity in my own culture. In a culture of Dutch, Flamish, French and a tiny minority of German descendants, a culture of Germanic roots... my earliest known ancestors are Norsh. I take a bit of pride in that fact.
Reality has never cared whether it suited what you would like to believe - it certainly hasn't ever cared about coinciding with any holy books before -why should it do so now ?
Besides both Islam and Judaism claim direct to be direct descendants of Abraham (who based on being from "Ur" would have been Mesopotamian) - all the science says is that the two bloodlines are much more recently still mixed - clearly the two groups did interbreed after Abraham... a LOT.
In South Africa - it DID work out well. It's a matter of how you do it. More importantly - context of situations are different, that's why there is no single cure-all for conflicts, the right solution for a given conflict depends on the specific realities of that conflict. It's also why I didn't say a single-state solution is definitely right in Israel, I merely said I think it may be better there - and I also said how a two-state solution could work, because both have merits, which one is right (and how to achieve it) is rather too complex a discussion for a slashdot post methinks.
Funny - all those other studies that both myself and other people linked seem to disagree with you. Now whether they are the 10 lost tribes, or just left-overs of the other 2 - doesn't actually matter much anyway. The core point is that Jews and Palestinians were one people - very recently.
>the US was the only colony to break away from England ever
How self-centered can you get ? In 1802 the Cape Colony did it under the treaty of Amiens (though they took it back in 1806). The British attempt to Annex and colonize the two Boer Republics (the OVS and ZAR) in 1890 and were defeated - they tried again in 1900 and ultimately won - though the country as a whole became self-ruling in 1910 and a wholly independent republic in 1961. India won their independence through a revolt, initially largely peaceful (since the leader Mahatma Ghandi was a pacifist) it became violent later on - but India won in the end. Technically even Hong Kong qualifies and somewhat earlier China certainly does. Zimbabwe was the former British colony of Rhodesia before they became an independent republic through a war of independence in 1980.
In fact you will find that the vast majority of British colonies won their freedom on the battlefield and only a small number got "granted" independence - most of those were after 1980 when the system was pretty much falling apart.
Now what is true is that the USA were among the first to do so - but don't think you're particularly unique in doing so, not in the least. In fact, your early history is remarkably similar to South Africa's - you were a Dutch colony (New York was originally called New Amsterdam and a great many American surnames are of Dutch descent - every single one with "Van" in it for starters) before being taken over by the British (at the exact same time as the Cape Colony and for the exact same reason: Britain's response to the aftermath of the French Revolution). Unlike the Cape - you made no effort to repel them at the time however and became quite happy British citizens right up until your own revolution. The Cape however had a huge anti-British feeling which is why the majority of the Dutch (and to a lesser degree French and German) descended Boers traveled inland away from British rule to establish new republics that would be self governing by 1838. Republics they would subsequently defend from being occupied by Britain again not once but TWICE. Winning the first one and only surrendering the second one due to the British concentration camps causing massive loss of civilian life (women and children).
But being early is by no means the same as being the only one. Quite frankly - most of the world were colonies of either France or Britain not long ago - the vast majority of them won their freedom back by revolution - not diplomacy. Neither the British nor the French felt any need to consider negotiations that would cost them assets worth huge fortunes - the rightful owners of those lands had to take it back by force, or settle for the two great European powers taking it all.
>It's religion mate, not racism. Religion (either directly or indirectly) is responsible for more deaths throughout history than any other cause.
I'm an atheist as well mate, but that statement is just plain wrong. In fact religion is only responsible for about 8% of all wars - nearly all wars are about money or territory. In plain old atrocity - it pains me to say this but thanks to China and the Soviet Union - the record for the 20th century belongs to atheists. Though I personally blame the statism of those nations rather than their lack of religion. Atheists in free countries tend to support freedom of religion - even though their personal choice is to not participate.
>Eventually I believe this is what will return to the area...maybe it will be called Israel..but there will be Jews, Christians and Arab living in one democracy that is not forced to have a majority for one religion.
Basically that's the single-state option, Israel right now is demanding a two-state option - and yet not sticking to prior agreements on where it's borders should be. A two state solution could also work (provided all citizens of both states have truly equal rights) though I personally think it a superfluous approach. We didn't end appartheid in South Africa by keeping the old homelands as separate nations (which the UN didn't even recognize as such) we did it by merging everybody into one nation. It's not a perfect country but it's a damn sight better than it was in the 1980's. Right now the real problem is that neither of these two groups have the kind of leaders we had in De Klerk and Mandela, on each side. A white leader prepared to sacrifice his power for the greater good, and a black leader prepared to let the past go and skip on retribution to instead build a peaceful future. That's what Israel and Palestine needs. They've occasionally had a leader on either side who came close - but they've yet to manage one on both sides, until they do, neither a two-state nor a single-state solution will be realized in any workable manner.
We both know it's political - we all know that. We also know that for a lot of the people on the ground in those countries it's been about religion and ethnicity for a very long time.
>If I recall, there were 2 world wars that involved germans in france... Two to one. And if you think the first one owes most of it's thanks to America then you need to read some books.
Emotions are useful. They form the basis of art, of many good things about us as well. The real lessons is learning to harness them as a tool rather than being a slave to them.
A few people achieve that- proving it's possible, but it could be a long time before MOST people have achieved it.
When you do reach that, you can use rationality to make those decisions best made with logic and facts, and emotions as information for those decisions where that is useful. It's good to consider emotions in choosing a spouse, it's even better if you can then add rationality in how you approach marriage, especially when (as is unavoidable) you argue about something.
Trying to deny our humanity is not just idealistic, but would defeat the nobility of whatever goal you think makes it worthwhile. We must progress AS humans, it's logically impossible to do that if we sacrifice our humanity in the process.
After all mercy, empathy, sympathy and indeed humanity are emotions too. Without them - none of the progress we have made would ever have happened.
>It would be interesting (academically) to see if this research result were confirmed/falsified.... If I remember right, the article I first read a year ago was a confirmation - at least about the blood disorder link but honestly I can't remember well enough to say that as an absolute fact so I speak under correction.
If anybody knows the academic research behind this (without the politicking) that would be really useful.
Don't blame you. By all means - look up the study if you want to. It was published in nature about a year ago - can't remember the author, some genetics professor from Jerusalem.
>So, it would be not as sad, if it had been two genetecally different groups killing each other?
I can see how my post could be construed that way - sorry, it was not what I meant at all. What I meant about it is that it makes both their sets of claims equally just - and thus makes it impossible to find a just solution that does not involve cooperation between them. This makes the problem extremely difficult to solve -and THAT is what is sad. The genetic heritage is merely the reason for the difficulty.
You know... the French could justifiably turn your whole "Do you speak German" thing around and ask: "Are you ruled by the Queen of England" to Americans. How sad that almost nobody in America knows that the only reason your country even EXISTS is because the French funded your war of independence and kept you going (granted, they did it mostly to spite England but still). Ironically in doing so they impoverished themselves tremendously - directly leading to the French Revolution.
Yeah you HELPED liberate them in World War 2 (you know there were soldiers at D-Day from ALL the allied nations including Britain and even my little South Africa right ?) - they liberated you 300 years ago.
How about you both just call it even and learn to STFU about it ?
You know what the saddest thing about the whole Middle-East crisis is ? The people fighting are the same people on both sides.
Genetic research has shown that the Palestinians and the Israeli's are the SAME people. More specifically the Palestinians are the descendants of the so-called "ten lost tribes" - it's not even conjecture, it's basic proven science. In the years since the diaspora (and the classic story about why that happened is simply not true: the Romans never displaced any culture, so to think they did it in Israel is silly). Here's what science says happened: A lot of Jews left Israel during the Roman occupation, settling around Europe in two major groups. The Azkanazi in Eastern Europe and the Sephardi in Spain. These two groups were the two not-lost tribes. What happened to the other ten ? They were not scattered and dispersed or lost, that legend is false. They stayed right there where they were, over time they converted to Islam. When the other two tribes started coming back they found a largely Arab culture with an Islamic religion living in the area and claiming it as their homeland. They could not believe that these Muslim Palestinians were fellow Jews (especially since it didn't fit their legends that all the tribes left), and the Palestinians would never have thought that their ancestors were Jewish Israelites. But the scientific evidence is extremely strong - they share a very direct common ancestry and were one people just about 1700 years ago (in other words, almost exactly when the diaspora started).
An inevitable war between brothers, over a homeland that historically belongs as much to one as the other... and they still can't figure out a way to get along. Now that is human nature at it's worst, in a nutshell.
"of course, the old accounts also describe Amazon warriors."
You do realize that there is significant evidence that at least part of the Amazon myth is based on reality right ? Genetic evidence at that. Based on the oldest writings about them - they had entered Europe and Greece from the Russian Steppes to which they later returned. In the steppes are Burial Mounds in which were found the bodies of woman with the adornments of warriors. That's already a big hint. It gets better, we know for a fact that the people who lived in those parts of the steppes later migrated from Russia toward Asia - and were the ancestors of Genghis Kahn's hordes. To this day their descendants expect women to fight as well as men - and here it gets really interesting. A small minority of Mongol children are born as blonds, and as far as we know - it's only EVER daughters. Apparently suggesting a female-only gene that causes blondness in a small minority. Genetic testing of some of them found a clear mitochondrial DNA link (that is maternal only) with the bodies found in the Steppes.
It's not absolute, nothing in science ever really is - and less so in archeology because evidence is *always* incredibly sparse, but right now the evidence we do have, suggests that at least part of the amazon legend as written by the first Greek historians was, in fact, true.
>Google won't act on those patents, though. They've said it time and time again and, most importantly, they have no interest in doing so.
More than that - google has actively PLACED WebM under a free patent license that is GPL compatible - it says so right in the article (yeah I know, nobody reads those). Which means they CAN'T change their minds later. A patent license is a contract and you cannot unilaterally and retroactively change a contract.
>"It does not really use any features of JPEG, it is an entirely different kind of compression." I'm aware the compression type is different, but there is a lot more to an image format than it's compression layer. Still I'm not expert in image compression algorithms, my field of specialty as a programmer was operating system development so I won't argue - I could easily have misunderstood a detail there.
>Also, it definitely isn't "developed by photographers"."
Okay let me rephrase - it was developed by programmers most of whom were also photographers specifically to address the shortcomings of the jpg standard for digital photography.
Better ?In this case I base that assertion on the description in Gimp for photographers, if I'm wrong then the book is wrong too (not that this would be a first of course:P )
"It adds an optional lossless mode" This is a good thing - lossy compression is good for some things (web publication for example) so making it optional would make the format more usable, not less.
"In the end, it also didn't really end up any better than JPEG. Sometimes it is even worse."
This is an entirely subjective statement - and not even a good one at that. You use a step of comparison "better" without giving anything to compare with - or any grounds on which to make the comparison. Or simply put: better at what ?
Either way the core point of my post stands: web browser support prevented it from ever even being a serious contender for use.
Actually JPEG2000 tried to do exactly that. It was a format developed by photographers to use the best features of JPG but in a more powerful lossless compression that would be ideal for their purposes. Most advanced image editors (gimp, photoshop etc.) support it... as far as I know, no browser does. Result: even photographers barely use it, despite it being developed by photographers, for photographers.
More-over print-shops/magazines all demand old JPG (though with additional requirements that it be 300dpi and pre-cropped/scaled to page-sizes) so if you want to do an A3 blow-up or you get published in a magazine... well good-luck to you with JPG2000.
It was a very sweet format - and got killed by lack of browser support. PNG is horrible for photos (much as I love it's openness) - it's a great format except that a PNG of the same quality tends to be about 40% larger than the jpg.
So where did we end up ? Photographers make 800x600 jpg's at 70% quality 75DPI to put on the web - deliberately too bad to print, and show of their work, while selling the print-quality versions of their pictures (most of us save those as bzip2 compressed tiffs as that lets us save our post-processed images at full quality with a lossless compression that's at least a little smaller than things like DNG).
Dropping support for all patent encumbered protocols in favor of free protocols is in fact almost the exact opposite of what it would be if Microsoft dropped all support except WMV.
For google to push for html5 to use a protocol that is free-for-all, patent-unencumbered and open-source is a good thing(tm) - and REDUCES their own market control (and everybody else's as well) in favor of an open-standard that really can be implemented by anybody.
Since it really is just about the exact opposite in effect, it deserves the exact opposite in response (i.e. it deserves applause)
Slashdot Mirror
I just think the GNAA trolls were slightly more intelligent than some of the serious posts on /. these days.
Genetic evidence with a large sample size is among the least refutable scientific statements in the world today. Courts accept it as proof of guilt. I think your dislike of the results are not all that impressive.
Genetic research showed me that my surname - quite unique among Afrikaans surnames in that it doesn't seem to have a direct equivalent family in Europe (and is therefore believed to be a local adaptation with significant changes) are in fact of Viking descent - and matched it specifically to those Vikings that invaded Poland in the 13th century. Their descendants made it as far as Hamburg Germany by the 17th century - since that was where the first known Venter was born.
Well it rather means that I'm an oddity in my own culture. In a culture of Dutch, Flamish, French and a tiny minority of German descendants, a culture of Germanic roots... my earliest known ancestors are Norsh. I take a bit of pride in that fact.
Reality has never cared whether it suited what you would like to believe - it certainly hasn't ever cared about coinciding with any holy books before -why should it do so now ?
Besides both Islam and Judaism claim direct to be direct descendants of Abraham (who based on being from "Ur" would have been Mesopotamian) - all the science says is that the two bloodlines are much more recently still mixed - clearly the two groups did interbreed after Abraham... a LOT.
STFU
In South Africa - it DID work out well. It's a matter of how you do it. More importantly - context of situations are different, that's why there is no single cure-all for conflicts, the right solution for a given conflict depends on the specific realities of that conflict. It's also why I didn't say a single-state solution is definitely right in Israel, I merely said I think it may be better there - and I also said how a two-state solution could work, because both have merits, which one is right (and how to achieve it) is rather too complex a discussion for a slashdot post methinks.
Funny - all those other studies that both myself and other people linked seem to disagree with you. Now whether they are the 10 lost tribes, or just left-overs of the other 2 - doesn't actually matter much anyway. The core point is that Jews and Palestinians were one people - very recently.
Citations provided by myself and others in the follow up posts of the discussion - numerous citations in fact.
>the US was the only colony to break away from England ever
How self-centered can you get ?
In 1802 the Cape Colony did it under the treaty of Amiens (though they took it back in 1806). The British attempt to Annex and colonize the two Boer Republics (the OVS and ZAR) in 1890 and were defeated - they tried again in 1900 and ultimately won - though the country as a whole became self-ruling in 1910 and a wholly independent republic in 1961.
India won their independence through a revolt, initially largely peaceful (since the leader Mahatma Ghandi was a pacifist) it became violent later on - but India won in the end.
Technically even Hong Kong qualifies and somewhat earlier China certainly does.
Zimbabwe was the former British colony of Rhodesia before they became an independent republic through a war of independence in 1980.
In fact you will find that the vast majority of British colonies won their freedom on the battlefield and only a small number got "granted" independence - most of those were after 1980 when the system was pretty much falling apart.
Now what is true is that the USA were among the first to do so - but don't think you're particularly unique in doing so, not in the least. In fact, your early history is remarkably similar to South Africa's - you were a Dutch colony (New York was originally called New Amsterdam and a great many American surnames are of Dutch descent - every single one with "Van" in it for starters) before being taken over by the British (at the exact same time as the Cape Colony and for the exact same reason: Britain's response to the aftermath of the French Revolution). Unlike the Cape - you made no effort to repel them at the time however and became quite happy British citizens right up until your own revolution. The Cape however had a huge anti-British feeling which is why the majority of the Dutch (and to a lesser degree French and German) descended Boers traveled inland away from British rule to establish new republics that would be self governing by 1838. Republics they would subsequently defend from being occupied by Britain again not once but TWICE. Winning the first one and only surrendering the second one due to the British concentration camps causing massive loss of civilian life (women and children).
But being early is by no means the same as being the only one. Quite frankly - most of the world were colonies of either France or Britain not long ago - the vast majority of them won their freedom back by revolution - not diplomacy. Neither the British nor the French felt any need to consider negotiations that would cost them assets worth huge fortunes - the rightful owners of those lands had to take it back by force, or settle for the two great European powers taking it all.
>It's religion mate, not racism. Religion (either directly or indirectly) is responsible for more deaths throughout history than any other cause.
I'm an atheist as well mate, but that statement is just plain wrong.
In fact religion is only responsible for about 8% of all wars - nearly all wars are about money or territory. In plain old atrocity - it pains me to say this but thanks to China and the Soviet Union - the record for the 20th century belongs to atheists. Though I personally blame the statism of those nations rather than their lack of religion. Atheists in free countries tend to support freedom of religion - even though their personal choice is to not participate.
Oooh a fellow sliders fan ! I loved that show as a teenager !
>Eventually I believe this is what will return to the area...maybe it will be called Israel..but there will be Jews, Christians and Arab living in one democracy that is not forced to have a majority for one religion.
Basically that's the single-state option, Israel right now is demanding a two-state option - and yet not sticking to prior agreements on where it's borders should be. A two state solution could also work (provided all citizens of both states have truly equal rights) though I personally think it a superfluous approach. We didn't end appartheid in South Africa by keeping the old homelands as separate nations (which the UN didn't even recognize as such) we did it by merging everybody into one nation. It's not a perfect country but it's a damn sight better than it was in the 1980's.
Right now the real problem is that neither of these two groups have the kind of leaders we had in De Klerk and Mandela, on each side. A white leader prepared to sacrifice his power for the greater good, and a black leader prepared to let the past go and skip on retribution to instead build a peaceful future.
That's what Israel and Palestine needs. They've occasionally had a leader on either side who came close - but they've yet to manage one on both sides, until they do, neither a two-state nor a single-state solution will be realized in any workable manner.
We both know it's political - we all know that. We also know that for a lot of the people on the ground in those countries it's been about religion and ethnicity for a very long time.
>If I recall, there were 2 world wars that involved germans in france... Two to one.
And if you think the first one owes most of it's thanks to America then you need to read some books.
Emotions are useful. They form the basis of art, of many good things about us as well.
The real lessons is learning to harness them as a tool rather than being a slave to them.
A few people achieve that- proving it's possible, but it could be a long time before MOST people have achieved it.
When you do reach that, you can use rationality to make those decisions best made with logic and facts, and emotions as information for those decisions where that is useful. It's good to consider emotions in choosing a spouse, it's even better if you can then add rationality in how you approach marriage, especially when (as is unavoidable) you argue about something.
Trying to deny our humanity is not just idealistic, but would defeat the nobility of whatever goal you think makes it worthwhile. We must progress AS humans, it's logically impossible to do that if we sacrifice our humanity in the process.
After all mercy, empathy, sympathy and indeed humanity are emotions too. Without them - none of the progress we have made would ever have happened.
>It would be interesting (academically) to see if this research result were confirmed/falsified....
If I remember right, the article I first read a year ago was a confirmation - at least about the blood disorder link but honestly I can't remember well enough to say that as an absolute fact so I speak under correction.
If anybody knows the academic research behind this (without the politicking) that would be really useful.
Don't blame you. By all means - look up the study if you want to. It was published in nature about a year ago - can't remember the author, some genetics professor from Jerusalem.
But it took me all of thirty seconds on google to find a link:
http://women.timesonline.co.uk/tol/life_and_style/women/the_way_we_live/article5504478.ece
This isn't the original article I first read (which was mostly science rather than the political stuff added in the times) but it's a good start.
>So, it would be not as sad, if it had been two genetecally different groups killing each other?
I can see how my post could be construed that way - sorry, it was not what I meant at all. What I meant about it is that it makes both their sets of claims equally just - and thus makes it impossible to find a just solution that does not involve cooperation between them. This makes the problem extremely difficult to solve -and THAT is what is sad.
The genetic heritage is merely the reason for the difficulty.
>In my experience bad engineers some how end up in management.
Because they make terrible employees.
You know... the French could justifiably turn your whole "Do you speak German" thing around and ask: "Are you ruled by the Queen of England" to Americans.
How sad that almost nobody in America knows that the only reason your country even EXISTS is because the French funded your war of independence and kept you going (granted, they did it mostly to spite England but still). Ironically in doing so they impoverished themselves tremendously - directly leading to the French Revolution.
Yeah you HELPED liberate them in World War 2 (you know there were soldiers at D-Day from ALL the allied nations including Britain and even my little South Africa right ?) - they liberated you 300 years ago.
How about you both just call it even and learn to STFU about it ?
"They practice ethnic nationalism, not religious discrimination."
South Africa did that, it didn't work out very well for my ancestors either.
You know what the saddest thing about the whole Middle-East crisis is ? The people fighting are the same people on both sides.
Genetic research has shown that the Palestinians and the Israeli's are the SAME people. More specifically the Palestinians are the descendants of the so-called "ten lost tribes" - it's not even conjecture, it's basic proven science. In the years since the diaspora (and the classic story about why that happened is simply not true: the Romans never displaced any culture, so to think they did it in Israel is silly).
Here's what science says happened: A lot of Jews left Israel during the Roman occupation, settling around Europe in two major groups. The Azkanazi in Eastern Europe and the Sephardi in Spain. These two groups were the two not-lost tribes. What happened to the other ten ? They were not scattered and dispersed or lost, that legend is false. They stayed right there where they were, over time they converted to Islam.
When the other two tribes started coming back they found a largely Arab culture with an Islamic religion living in the area and claiming it as their homeland.
They could not believe that these Muslim Palestinians were fellow Jews (especially since it didn't fit their legends that all the tribes left), and the Palestinians would never have thought that their ancestors were Jewish Israelites.
But the scientific evidence is extremely strong - they share a very direct common ancestry and were one people just about 1700 years ago (in other words, almost exactly when the diaspora started).
An inevitable war between brothers, over a homeland that historically belongs as much to one as the other... and they still can't figure out a way to get along. Now that is human nature at it's worst, in a nutshell.
"of course, the old accounts also describe Amazon warriors."
You do realize that there is significant evidence that at least part of the Amazon myth is based on reality right ? Genetic evidence at that. Based on the oldest writings about them - they had entered Europe and Greece from the Russian Steppes to which they later returned. In the steppes are Burial Mounds in which were found the bodies of woman with the adornments of warriors. That's already a big hint.
It gets better, we know for a fact that the people who lived in those parts of the steppes later migrated from Russia toward Asia - and were the ancestors of Genghis Kahn's hordes. To this day their descendants expect women to fight as well as men - and here it gets really interesting. A small minority of Mongol children are born as blonds, and as far as we know - it's only EVER daughters. Apparently suggesting a female-only gene that causes blondness in a small minority. Genetic testing of some of them found a clear mitochondrial DNA link (that is maternal only) with the bodies found in the Steppes.
It's not absolute, nothing in science ever really is - and less so in archeology because evidence is *always* incredibly sparse, but right now the evidence we do have, suggests that at least part of the amazon legend as written by the first Greek historians was, in fact, true.
>Google won't act on those patents, though. They've said it time and time again and, most importantly, they have no interest in doing so.
More than that - google has actively PLACED WebM under a free patent license that is GPL compatible - it says so right in the article (yeah I know, nobody reads those). Which means they CAN'T change their minds later. A patent license is a contract and you cannot unilaterally and retroactively change a contract.
>"It does not really use any features of JPEG, it is an entirely different kind of compression."
I'm aware the compression type is different, but there is a lot more to an image format than it's compression layer. Still I'm not expert in image compression algorithms, my field of specialty as a programmer was operating system development so I won't argue - I could easily have misunderstood a detail there.
>Also, it definitely isn't "developed by photographers"."
Okay let me rephrase - it was developed by programmers most of whom were also photographers specifically to address the shortcomings of the jpg standard for digital photography.
Better ?In this case I base that assertion on the description in Gimp for photographers, if I'm wrong then the book is wrong too (not that this would be a first of course :P )
"It adds an optional lossless mode"
This is a good thing - lossy compression is good for some things (web publication for example) so making it optional would make the format more usable, not less.
"In the end, it also didn't really end up any better than JPEG. Sometimes it is even worse."
This is an entirely subjective statement - and not even a good one at that. You use a step of comparison "better" without giving anything to compare with - or any grounds on which to make the comparison. Or simply put: better at what ?
Either way the core point of my post stands: web browser support prevented it from ever even being a serious contender for use.
Actually JPEG2000 tried to do exactly that. It was a format developed by photographers to use the best features of JPG but in a more powerful lossless compression that would be ideal for their purposes. Most advanced image editors (gimp, photoshop etc.) support it... as far as I know, no browser does. Result: even photographers barely use it, despite it being developed by photographers, for photographers.
More-over print-shops/magazines all demand old JPG (though with additional requirements that it be 300dpi and pre-cropped/scaled to page-sizes) so if you want to do an A3 blow-up or you get published in a magazine... well good-luck to you with JPG2000.
It was a very sweet format - and got killed by lack of browser support. PNG is horrible for photos (much as I love it's openness) - it's a great format except that a PNG of the same quality tends to be about 40% larger than the jpg.
So where did we end up ? Photographers make 800x600 jpg's at 70% quality 75DPI to put on the web - deliberately too bad to print, and show of their work, while selling the print-quality versions of their pictures (most of us save those as bzip2 compressed tiffs as that lets us save our post-processed images at full quality with a lossless compression that's at least a little smaller than things like DNG).
Dropping support for all patent encumbered protocols in favor of free protocols is in fact almost the exact opposite of what it would be if Microsoft dropped all support except WMV.
For google to push for html5 to use a protocol that is free-for-all, patent-unencumbered and open-source is a good thing(tm) - and REDUCES their own market control (and everybody else's as well) in favor of an open-standard that really can be implemented by anybody.
Since it really is just about the exact opposite in effect, it deserves the exact opposite in response (i.e. it deserves applause)