Fail, and hard. That's an optional DRM tech (DRM is evil, etc.) which can be used with the Flash VM. You might as well say that Linux is closed because some Linux apps are closed source, or that HTML5 is closed because it's possible to obscure Javascript so much that reverse engineering is required to reimplement some Javascript-based utility.
I define "working" as "can play H.264 video with at most a 50% CPU resource penalty compared to other implementations". By this definition, it isn't working.
By defining Jesus as the appendix, Jesus is in (almost) all of us. Your definition is specious, and your conclusion requires published evidence.
while a 2 GHz Athlon XP slideshows, and an Intel Core 2 Quad Q6600 + Nvidia 8800GT still has visible framerate stuttering on a regular basis.
You have something broken with your setup. If it were that bad, no-one would actually use Hulu. To wag my little tail, 1.83GHz Intel C2D with a GMA950 running Hulu fine for years, and that's on OS X where Flash is known to be more sucky.
Your identity is never stolen. It's as much a misnomer as "piracy".
What usually happens is that private corporations penalise you because they've put you in some set of lame risk databases they use, and it turns out that your entries were filled against your favour as a result of the actions of someone else.
It's your own (plural, every one of you) fault for putting so much trust and reliance on the convenience of the good ol' entry in a database by which your life is made or broken.
Adobe Flash is an open, fully implemented cross-platform and fairly simple de facto standard. Adobe's player is not great, but it works, and you could always write a better one.
The canvas element is a nowhere-fully-implemented convoluted mess on top of the mess that is HTML 5, ostensibly an "open standard" but really nothing more than Apple's troll into the increasingly corporation-dominated W3C to squeeze Flash out so anything worth using on their new legion of devices will have to be written using yet more proprietary Cocoa.
Neither Flash nor canvas are in the spirit of HTML, in that they basically provide a blank sheet outside the DOM. If you believe that modular plug-ins fit for purpose are good, Flash is a reasonable approach; if you believe that a heavy monolithic design is appropriate what with the superpower of modern CPUs, HTML5 with canvas is cool. If you actually like HTML, use SVG and build on that standard.
You are correct that a semicolon is inappropriate here. But
it's improper to begin a sentence with a conjunction
is pure bullshit, the sort of arbitrary rule magicked up by English teachers which has frustrated people what speak good English but feel that a language exists for the purposes of communicators, not bureaucrats.
And to quote the oft-cited New Fowler's, "There is a persistent belief that it is improper to begin a sentence with And, but this prohibition has been cheerfully ignored by standard authors from Anglo-Saxon times onwards. An initial And is a useful aid to writers as the narrative continues."
You haven't ever seen a meltdown until you get some asshole telling your kid "you deserve a spanking, boy" as he's trying to regain control of himself.
This sort of vocalisastion is inappropriate regardless of the ability of the person it's directed at. Remember what the person is doing - he's annoyed by some stranger kid's behaviour (which is acceptable, if intolerant), and he's turning his frustration into abuse against that kid (which is not acceptable). This guy also has a problem with social interaction. Unfortunately, millions of people have this problem.
"But my son doesn't know better, and can't know better, but everyone else should," you may say. Really? Is everyone as sophisticated and rational? Moreover, does everyone have the mental capacity to reason against, say, the approach they experienced as a child? Pushed on them by their community? I went to two "make you a man" private schools where emotion was pretty much considered a weakness, and I recall at the age of 9 some kid who clearly had difficulties with understanding and concentration being hit on more than one occasion by one teacher (back when this was "OK"). This sort of thing either imprints in you a horror at such treatment, or imprints in you the belief that such treatment is OK.
IOW, while your concern is obviously toward your child's feelings/response, the adult's behaviour toward your child may have a complex background and not be as simple to solve as "don't be an asshole". A mentally mature adult is required in this world to cope with irrational behaviour, and, unfortunately, some disorders makes this hard to do (to take another example, a socially anxious adult might retreat for weeks over a minor off-the-cuff remark). It still won't be possible to "educate" everyone to create a cushion around the sufferer: you have to help the sufferer understand, to the extent that they can, and learn coping methods.
Let me try this again, since you obviously misread something in my post as "autism is mental retardation":
1. Autism is often linked with mental retardation. Moreover, depending on your area, autism may be classed as a form of retardation (a very general term!), or classed as whatever the current politically correct term for "retardation" is;
2. Autism describes a problem with mental ability just as retardation describes a problem with mental ability. Prejudice against the "retarded" is as bad as prejudiced against the autistic.
cuz government funded movies from Europe dramatically exceed in quality and quantity anything that Hollywood ever produces.
Not "ever". But, in general, yes, you couldn't be more right. Hollywood is source of some of the worst entertainment and politics the Western world has to endure.
Lack of awareness leads people to assume he's retarded, or a brat, or both.
Autism often goes hand in hand with mental retardation, and it can cause the sufferer to act like a brat. Either way, autism is a mental fault and someone who is autistic or who has an autistic family member cannot expect the autistic person to be treated as if he is any more *special* than someone who just happens to be born, say, with a low-to-average IQ. In other words, "retardation" is also something you are usually born with, and it's no worse to be "assumed" retarded than it is to be "assumed" autistic.
My nephew has Downs and I frequently envy his parents on the simple fact that they don't really need to spend a lot of time explaining how their child is different.
Why does it bother you so much what strangers think? Perhaps you should take a lesson from your son.
Are you trolling or misinformed? "Shyster" is a corruption of "Scheisser", as in someone who produces shit, and has nothing to do with Jews. Disabuse yourself of your persecution complex.
(Perhaps you're thinking of "Shylock", whose original portrayal could be argued as anti-Semitic - but that doesn't mean the word's current use suggests any opinion by the user on Jews.)
In America, the buyer must beware: there's this weird idea that it's OK to con someone, because they should somehow know that the person they're buying from isn't trustworthy, essentially throwing all "perfectly informed and rational consumer" theories out of the water. Western European countries tend to have the different opinion that you don't get to fool someone any time (unless you're a civil servant or banker). Sales of most goods are very much not final - for example, the Distance Selling Regulations stipulate a trial period for many goods bought online. So:
1. Do you feel your software is of good quality? If YES, go to 2. If NO, give away or do not distribute.
2. Are you prepared to fix any serious problems with your software found by your customers in the year after you've sold it? If YES, go to 3. If NO, give away or do not distribute.
3. Do you want to make money from others on the basis of honest trade? If YES, go to 4. If NO, give away or do not distribute.
4. Are you prepared to accept that for a consumer to be properly informed about a complex product, he must have a trial period? If YES, go to 5. If NO, give away or do not distribute.
5. Congratulations, you're not a shyster and are the sort of businessman an economy needs.
To disagree with someone isn't "being argumentative".
The death of your partner is also an effective contraception, but it's an unnecessary excess; as is a vasectomy. There are many alternatives, some of which have similar failure rates to a vasectomy. What is more, a vasectomy induces the disability of permanently reducing/destroying your ability to ejaculate fertile sperm: you might say, "that's not a disability!" but it's a fairly significant function of the healthy human male, just like, say, walking.
Wisdom teeth? If they're not causing trouble or likely to cause trouble, you're as silly to remove them as you are to choose circumcision. I wouldn't want a dentist who recommended unnecessary removal of anything. Indeed, I have an academically keen dentist who holds a senior position with a regional dental group, and the most important thing he's done to me is make sure I brush my teeth well. The only thing I've had done to my mouth over the decades is one filling.
Nose jobs? If you mean for cosmetic vanity purposes, fortunately the average plastic surgeon isn't involved in primary care, so I'm unlikely to meet one shallow enough to push this.
Liposuction? If you have a psychological disability which makes you incapable of controlling your eating, and this has caused you to become morbidly obese, which in turn has given you other serious health problems, liposuction might be a suitable temporary treatment for the consequences of your addiction.
Lasik? That's directly fixing an obvious optical fault.
If you have a doctor who can't differentiate between the ethics of a vasectomy and a voluntary amputation, run for the hills.
They're both medically unnecessary operations to (sorta) irreversibly disable a functioning and healthy part of your body in order to increase your sexual pleasure.
I don't want a doctor who advocates destruction of body parts for reasons other than medical necessity, whether that's leg, foreskin or vas deferens.
If you asked a doctor to cut off your leg because you had an amputee fetish, should he "go fuck himself" in favour of someone who "respects" your desire for medically unnecessary surgery?
You can mod parent down to oblivion, even when everything in it is true, and while Mueller's campaigning has proved it right. For when you try to defeat a motion democratically in the EU, and succeed, they'll push it again and again; if after the 3rd or 4th time they haven't worn you down, they'll just invoke another method using the less democratic EU frameworks to enforce it.
While people continue to support pro-EU activists who are convinced that democratic grass roots lobbying works in the EU as it might work in a national democracy, they will contribute toward the problem of helping the EU Wizard of Oz distract citizens from how it really works. It's like watching people cheerlead de Icaza while he either very misguidedly or very dishonestly waves the MS flag.
I can see some of the benefits that the EU has brought to citizens, such as the cap on mobile phone roaming charges
I can't think of anything more irrelevant and inappropriate for a government to get involved in. Woohoo, a byzantine superstate but at least I can make cheaper unnecessary calls in Poland!
The complexity of the EU's structures has the effect that only a limited number of people even understand how decisions are taken.
That's very patronising, and typical of the attitude the EU wants to promulgate: "We're doing stuff in your interest; too complex for you to understand. Let us get on with it... or do you want us to go back to WW2? Are you racist?" A sheet of A4 could effectively summarise the EU's decision-making process in principle. (A different sheet could effectively summarise the EU's decision-making process in practice - but the same applies for any organisation.)
Here in Europe, people generally don't know their MEPs
Know in what sense? Their names? What they stand for? I don't *care* about my MEP, because I don't care for that layer of government. The EU (as in, what's new to the EU, not previous peace agreements and free trade agreements) has done little to nothing for Britain, and its main effects on the country have been to introduce harmonised law to protect the interests of foreigners (e.g. farmers) and multinationals (e.g. Microsoft) and to increase taxation to prevent competition between EU states (e.g. 15% VAT minimum). Its idea of democracy, as with the EU Constitution and restrictive patent law - possibly the most wishy-washy nonsense of a Constitution ever written - is to repeatedly bash an idea via different legislative methods until it is in some way accepted.
Most of the problems that people criticize when talking about the EU's "democratic deficit" could be solved by the Fourth Estate (the media)
Wait, what? You're blaming the media for the undemocratic nature of the EU? When has it been the responsibility of the private presses to promote some political bureaucracy in the way you like? Quiet disdain is the approach of the British press, and quiet disdain is what the EU deserves. If you don't like that, start up your own web site and try to make people care.
with now pretty much all decisions requiring
"Except where we've built in exceptions" is the lasting mantra of EU democracy.
Why would I go through unnecessary surgery (which local doctors wouldn't perform anyway, so I haven't spent much time entertaining the idea)?
On a similar note, I consider it fairly inadvisable to become morbidly obese, but I don't have a stomach band because I use my mind to control my eating behaviour.
Yes, curse those "tax-eating" healthy newborns to destitute parents. Clearly they're of worse stock than anything your genes would create, and like runt whelps on a farm they ought to be tossed on the compost to make way for your mighty seed.
You're mischaracterising nature. More organisms means more intra-specific competition (inter-specific is bothersome too, if you're environmentalist). Free minds and/or those chained by instinct are, by and large, not altruistic.
There are lots of underprivileged/dying people you could help if you wanted to "continue the species", farm "taxpayers for social programs", or help fulfil "potential to do something great".
If you want kids, have kids, but don't deny that it's the supremely selfish act.
Slashdot Mirror
Please show me a link to an RTMPE specification.
Fail, and hard. That's an optional DRM tech (DRM is evil, etc.) which can be used with the Flash VM. You might as well say that Linux is closed because some Linux apps are closed source, or that HTML5 is closed because it's possible to obscure Javascript so much that reverse engineering is required to reimplement some Javascript-based utility.
I define "working" as "can play H.264 video with at most a 50% CPU resource penalty compared to other implementations". By this definition, it isn't working.
By defining Jesus as the appendix, Jesus is in (almost) all of us. Your definition is specious, and your conclusion requires published evidence.
while a 2 GHz Athlon XP slideshows, and an Intel Core 2 Quad Q6600 + Nvidia 8800GT still has visible framerate stuttering on a regular basis.
You have something broken with your setup. If it were that bad, no-one would actually use Hulu. To wag my little tail, 1.83GHz Intel C2D with a GMA950 running Hulu fine for years, and that's on OS X where Flash is known to be more sucky.
Your identity is never stolen. It's as much a misnomer as "piracy".
What usually happens is that private corporations penalise you because they've put you in some set of lame risk databases they use, and it turns out that your entries were filled against your favour as a result of the actions of someone else.
It's your own (plural, every one of you) fault for putting so much trust and reliance on the convenience of the good ol' entry in a database by which your life is made or broken.
Adobe Flash is an open, fully implemented cross-platform and fairly simple de facto standard. Adobe's player is not great, but it works, and you could always write a better one.
The canvas element is a nowhere-fully-implemented convoluted mess on top of the mess that is HTML 5, ostensibly an "open standard" but really nothing more than Apple's troll into the increasingly corporation-dominated W3C to squeeze Flash out so anything worth using on their new legion of devices will have to be written using yet more proprietary Cocoa.
Neither Flash nor canvas are in the spirit of HTML, in that they basically provide a blank sheet outside the DOM. If you believe that modular plug-ins fit for purpose are good, Flash is a reasonable approach; if you believe that a heavy monolithic design is appropriate what with the superpower of modern CPUs, HTML5 with canvas is cool. If you actually like HTML, use SVG and build on that standard.
*Facepalm*. You've missed a pre-Internet meme as old as the hills, and haven't even corrected it proper. You mean:
people who speak English well
You are correct that a semicolon is inappropriate here. But
it's improper to begin a sentence with a conjunction
is pure bullshit, the sort of arbitrary rule magicked up by English teachers which has frustrated people what speak good English but feel that a language exists for the purposes of communicators, not bureaucrats.
And to quote the oft-cited New Fowler's, "There is a persistent belief that it is improper to begin a sentence with And, but this prohibition has been cheerfully ignored by standard authors from Anglo-Saxon times onwards. An initial And is a useful aid to writers as the narrative continues."
You haven't ever seen a meltdown until you get some asshole telling your kid "you deserve a spanking, boy" as he's trying to regain control of himself.
This sort of vocalisastion is inappropriate regardless of the ability of the person it's directed at. Remember what the person is doing - he's annoyed by some stranger kid's behaviour (which is acceptable, if intolerant), and he's turning his frustration into abuse against that kid (which is not acceptable). This guy also has a problem with social interaction. Unfortunately, millions of people have this problem.
"But my son doesn't know better, and can't know better, but everyone else should," you may say. Really? Is everyone as sophisticated and rational? Moreover, does everyone have the mental capacity to reason against, say, the approach they experienced as a child? Pushed on them by their community? I went to two "make you a man" private schools where emotion was pretty much considered a weakness, and I recall at the age of 9 some kid who clearly had difficulties with understanding and concentration being hit on more than one occasion by one teacher (back when this was "OK"). This sort of thing either imprints in you a horror at such treatment, or imprints in you the belief that such treatment is OK.
IOW, while your concern is obviously toward your child's feelings/response, the adult's behaviour toward your child may have a complex background and not be as simple to solve as "don't be an asshole". A mentally mature adult is required in this world to cope with irrational behaviour, and, unfortunately, some disorders makes this hard to do (to take another example, a socially anxious adult might retreat for weeks over a minor off-the-cuff remark). It still won't be possible to "educate" everyone to create a cushion around the sufferer: you have to help the sufferer understand, to the extent that they can, and learn coping methods.
Let me try this again, since you obviously misread something in my post as "autism is mental retardation":
1. Autism is often linked with mental retardation. Moreover, depending on your area, autism may be classed as a form of retardation (a very general term!), or classed as whatever the current politically correct term for "retardation" is;
2. Autism describes a problem with mental ability just as retardation describes a problem with mental ability. Prejudice against the "retarded" is as bad as prejudiced against the autistic.
cuz government funded movies from Europe dramatically exceed in quality and quantity anything that Hollywood ever produces.
Not "ever". But, in general, yes, you couldn't be more right. Hollywood is source of some of the worst entertainment and politics the Western world has to endure.
Lack of awareness leads people to assume he's retarded, or a brat, or both.
Autism often goes hand in hand with mental retardation, and it can cause the sufferer to act like a brat. Either way, autism is a mental fault and someone who is autistic or who has an autistic family member cannot expect the autistic person to be treated as if he is any more *special* than someone who just happens to be born, say, with a low-to-average IQ. In other words, "retardation" is also something you are usually born with, and it's no worse to be "assumed" retarded than it is to be "assumed" autistic.
My nephew has Downs and I frequently envy his parents on the simple fact that they don't really need to spend a lot of time explaining how their child is different.
Why does it bother you so much what strangers think? Perhaps you should take a lesson from your son.
I wish it were that easy! In the real world, developers go through all this and have to worry about their app being rejected.
Are you trolling or misinformed? "Shyster" is a corruption of "Scheisser", as in someone who produces shit, and has nothing to do with Jews. Disabuse yourself of your persecution complex.
(Perhaps you're thinking of "Shylock", whose original portrayal could be argued as anti-Semitic - but that doesn't mean the word's current use suggests any opinion by the user on Jews.)
What is hypertext if not a disorganised set of modules with lots of GOTOs? ;)
In America, the buyer must beware: there's this weird idea that it's OK to con someone, because they should somehow know that the person they're buying from isn't trustworthy, essentially throwing all "perfectly informed and rational consumer" theories out of the water. Western European countries tend to have the different opinion that you don't get to fool someone any time (unless you're a civil servant or banker). Sales of most goods are very much not final - for example, the Distance Selling Regulations stipulate a trial period for many goods bought online. So:
1. Do you feel your software is of good quality?
If YES, go to 2.
If NO, give away or do not distribute.
2. Are you prepared to fix any serious problems with your software found by your customers in the year after you've sold it?
If YES, go to 3.
If NO, give away or do not distribute.
3. Do you want to make money from others on the basis of honest trade?
If YES, go to 4.
If NO, give away or do not distribute.
4. Are you prepared to accept that for a consumer to be properly informed about a complex product, he must have a trial period?
If YES, go to 5.
If NO, give away or do not distribute.
5. Congratulations, you're not a shyster and are the sort of businessman an economy needs.
To disagree with someone isn't "being argumentative".
The death of your partner is also an effective contraception, but it's an unnecessary excess; as is a vasectomy. There are many alternatives, some of which have similar failure rates to a vasectomy. What is more, a vasectomy induces the disability of permanently reducing/destroying your ability to ejaculate fertile sperm: you might say, "that's not a disability!" but it's a fairly significant function of the healthy human male, just like, say, walking.
Wisdom teeth? If they're not causing trouble or likely to cause trouble, you're as silly to remove them as you are to choose circumcision. I wouldn't want a dentist who recommended unnecessary removal of anything. Indeed, I have an academically keen dentist who holds a senior position with a regional dental group, and the most important thing he's done to me is make sure I brush my teeth well. The only thing I've had done to my mouth over the decades is one filling.
Nose jobs? If you mean for cosmetic vanity purposes, fortunately the average plastic surgeon isn't involved in primary care, so I'm unlikely to meet one shallow enough to push this.
Liposuction? If you have a psychological disability which makes you incapable of controlling your eating, and this has caused you to become morbidly obese, which in turn has given you other serious health problems, liposuction might be a suitable temporary treatment for the consequences of your addiction.
Lasik? That's directly fixing an obvious optical fault.
If you have a doctor who can't differentiate between the ethics of a vasectomy and a voluntary amputation, run for the hills.
They're both medically unnecessary operations to (sorta) irreversibly disable a functioning and healthy part of your body in order to increase your sexual pleasure.
I don't want a doctor who advocates destruction of body parts for reasons other than medical necessity, whether that's leg, foreskin or vas deferens.
If you asked a doctor to cut off your leg because you had an amputee fetish, should he "go fuck himself" in favour of someone who "respects" your desire for medically unnecessary surgery?
There's none more irrationally angry than one who's repressed his guilt.
You can mod parent down to oblivion, even when everything in it is true, and while Mueller's campaigning has proved it right. For when you try to defeat a motion democratically in the EU, and succeed, they'll push it again and again; if after the 3rd or 4th time they haven't worn you down, they'll just invoke another method using the less democratic EU frameworks to enforce it.
While people continue to support pro-EU activists who are convinced that democratic grass roots lobbying works in the EU as it might work in a national democracy, they will contribute toward the problem of helping the EU Wizard of Oz distract citizens from how it really works. It's like watching people cheerlead de Icaza while he either very misguidedly or very dishonestly waves the MS flag.
I can see some of the benefits that the EU has brought to citizens, such as the cap on mobile phone roaming charges
I can't think of anything more irrelevant and inappropriate for a government to get involved in. Woohoo, a byzantine superstate but at least I can make cheaper unnecessary calls in Poland!
The complexity of the EU's structures has the effect that only a limited number of people even understand how decisions are taken.
That's very patronising, and typical of the attitude the EU wants to promulgate: "We're doing stuff in your interest; too complex for you to understand. Let us get on with it... or do you want us to go back to WW2? Are you racist?" A sheet of A4 could effectively summarise the EU's decision-making process in principle. (A different sheet could effectively summarise the EU's decision-making process in practice - but the same applies for any organisation.)
Here in Europe, people generally don't know their MEPs
Know in what sense? Their names? What they stand for? I don't *care* about my MEP, because I don't care for that layer of government. The EU (as in, what's new to the EU, not previous peace agreements and free trade agreements) has done little to nothing for Britain, and its main effects on the country have been to introduce harmonised law to protect the interests of foreigners (e.g. farmers) and multinationals (e.g. Microsoft) and to increase taxation to prevent competition between EU states (e.g. 15% VAT minimum). Its idea of democracy, as with the EU Constitution and restrictive patent law - possibly the most wishy-washy nonsense of a Constitution ever written - is to repeatedly bash an idea via different legislative methods until it is in some way accepted.
Most of the problems that people criticize when talking about the EU's "democratic deficit" could be solved by the Fourth Estate (the media)
Wait, what? You're blaming the media for the undemocratic nature of the EU? When has it been the responsibility of the private presses to promote some political bureaucracy in the way you like? Quiet disdain is the approach of the British press, and quiet disdain is what the EU deserves. If you don't like that, start up your own web site and try to make people care.
with now pretty much all decisions requiring
"Except where we've built in exceptions" is the lasting mantra of EU democracy.
I say that, because not having children because of your own ideology is just as selfish from the unborn potential child's perspective.
Does not exist, thus has no perspective, except in religious or quasi-religious formulations.
Why would I go through unnecessary surgery (which local doctors wouldn't perform anyway, so I haven't spent much time entertaining the idea)?
On a similar note, I consider it fairly inadvisable to become morbidly obese, but I don't have a stomach band because I use my mind to control my eating behaviour.
Yes, curse those "tax-eating" healthy newborns to destitute parents. Clearly they're of worse stock than anything your genes would create, and like runt whelps on a farm they ought to be tossed on the compost to make way for your mighty seed.
You're mischaracterising nature. More organisms means more intra-specific competition (inter-specific is bothersome too, if you're environmentalist). Free minds and/or those chained by instinct are, by and large, not altruistic.
There are lots of underprivileged/dying people you could help if you wanted to "continue the species", farm "taxpayers for social programs", or help fulfil "potential to do something great".
If you want kids, have kids, but don't deny that it's the supremely selfish act.
Agreed! No sex for me with my girlfriend unless we're using effective contraception. Which we are, so it's all good.
...I might consider it. There's no more selfish act in the world than having your own children.