But _some_ flat-earthers seem to be genuinely thinking that it is true because they think it is in The Bible and then _must_ be true else their whole being is worthless. Some think that they are the centre of the universe and thus it _must_ be geocentric.
Agreed. The moral of the story is that some people will believe even the most preposterous, obviously fictional bullshit. See: War of the Worlds
The part that I find funny is that it is simple to test the flat Earth theory... If the Earth is flat, then it must have edges right? It would be enough for one of these guys to get a boat and then navigate to find one of those edges. Or would they have some "fail-safe" theory to explain how a supposed flat Earth would have no edges?
If you suggested such a thing to a flat-earther (and I'm certain that it has been suggested before) they would invent some reason why going out to the edge won't work, or can't be proven. It might even involve a government conspiracy.
But really, I think you've missed the essence of flat-eartherism. It's not so much that they genuinely believe in a flat earth (though some surely do). Rather, flat-earthers are the original internet trolls, long before internet trolls or even the internet was a thing. The motivation of most flat earthers is simple: they get off on winding up otherwise very smart people. As the argument progresses, they will spin more and more outlandish explanations for why the earth is flat, each "theory" honed to a razor-sharp point through countless arguments in discussion forums over many decades. These arguments are designed to confound, not to actually explain sincerely-held belief.
TL;DR: Never wrestle with a pig. You'll just get dirty and the pig will enjoy it.
Wouldn't the govt funds be better served by informing the people about healthy choices, make a NEW food pyramid, tell them the evils of sugar and processed foods, to cook and eat "real" food, rather than trying to ban every company trying to sell junk food?
First, banning advertising on public transit doesn't cost anything. Or, rather, the cost is negligible.
Second, yes, public education about healthy choices would be great. It costs much more than banning advertising, but I agree that education programs would be a positive step.
Third, there's no reason the two can't co-exist. It's not an either-or.
But I'm torn...is it really the government's business to play nanny, and try to prevent stupid people from behaving stupidly?
I think it's a legitimate function of government to prevent corporations from preying on the unwary public, especially those who aren't otherwise well-informed.
And being fractal makes the initial question of "how long" meaningless. To what resolution? If you look at the molecular level, it is nearly infinite. If you look at the sand grain level, less so. If you look at one foot intervals, even less so.
Agreed. It's a meaningless question, and any answer will be just as meaningless, if not more so.
I wasn't twisting anything, I was asking what the fuck you were actually trying to say, because I was not seeing it, and giving you the benefit of the doubt that you were attempting to communicate something that may have been worth knowing.
I'll post the exchange here, just to keep all the pertinent points in a single post:
I'll be more specific, then: if one finds the available technologies lacking, there are two reasonable options: invent the necessary technology, or do something else.
Obviously... but are you then asserting that the technology of vector animation *IS* actually lacking in post flash modern web technology?
I made a general statement about what to do when sufficient technology wasn't available, and you attempted to twist that into me supporting the idea that vector animation is lacking. This is so intellectually dishonest that I'm actually a little bit surprised you haven't quietly crawled away yet. You know very well that's not what I was saying.
And now there's a permanent record of your utter lack of honesty.
Yeah yeah. Keep telling yourself that. You might even eventually believe it. But I won't.
I asked because I wanted to be sure about it, not because I was making any sort of deliberate attempt to try and pigeonhole your opinions into some preconceived set of standards that I have.
Bullshit. You are being intellectually dishonest. Give up, already.
you instead decide to take up the position that if a person is unable to find alternative software to accomplish an end, then there are not sufficient people interested in those ends for it to be a desirable goal.
Look, it's really simple: if the technology doesn't exist, you're either really early, or it isn't as interesting as you think it is to a sufficiently large audience. Flash is ancient at this point, so it's probably the latter and not the former. At this point, you can invent it yourself, or move on. This is true of a wide variety of topics. And while it's true I don't really care about Flash or vector animation, I stand by the general gist of my statement. You can decide for yourself if it's worthwhile to pursue, you don't have to convince me. All the effort you've spent arguing meaningless points with me could be better served on something constructive.
The logical conclusion of this attitude is that unconventional or unpopular ideas would never actually gain any momentum, and in fact we'd probably still be living in caves and not capable of communicating beyond grunts.
And there you go again, twisting things into your bizarre agenda. Seriously, you are awful at debate. I mean, really, really bad.
You're quite welcome to go and invent the technology that you need to pursue your lifelong dream of vector animation. You don't need my approval. But if you're just going to whine that Flash is the only viable alternative and you can't be bothered to do anything about it (save for the whining) then you're wasting everyone else's time. Figure out a better solution or move on.
Given how you utterly misinterpreted what I was doing, it wouldn't suprise me in the slightest if you were also wrong in your other assumption
Okay, I'll bite. Please explain what you are doing. To me, it looks like you're arguing with people on the internet about whether what you're trying to do is worthwhile or not. In my humble opinion, that's a pretty stupid thing to do, and only takes away from whatever it is you were actually trying to do.
So go on, explain it. I'll wait. I'll even patiently read it.
This got voted insightful? Really? I guess there's not many artists on Slashdot.
There probably aren't, but I fail to see what that has to do with Flash. Yeah yeah, I know... you're going to try to tell me it's an art form. I don't really care.
Loosen up and live a little.
Says the guy complaining about moderation. You first, buck-o.
Paper books are clearly inferior to electronic ones; we shouldn't be wasting time scanning old books. Many of them contain outdated ideas, and there are plenty of new, superior electronic books available, so we may as well just throw all the old ones on a fire for warmth.
Nice try. But no, books (or ideas) are not the same thing. It's not even close.
(And no, I won't explain it to you, for the same reason that I won't wrestle with a pig).
Hence my question about what solutions if any had been invented in the past few years.
A) It wasn't actually a question. As noted above, you were attempting an amateurish Socratic Method.
B) You dropped both the beginning and end of my my statement (leaving only the gooey center) in order to make your point, which was rather dishonest of you. The full statement was:
If there's a need for vector animation tools, someone will invent a better solution. If there's not, then so be it.
Clearly, if you're not finding the tools, it may very well be because there isn't a strong enough need for it. Hence, my advice to do something more productive with your time, instead of looking backwards at obsolete anachronisms.
You know, when you repeatedly never actually answer direct questions, and insist on making analogies, it leaves one to guess at what you are actually trying to say. It's a pretty lazy way to try and communicate, if you ask me.
So is twisting other people's statements into affirmative support for their position when they in fact said nothing to support your position.
"Nice try"??? What are you suggesting that I was trying to do
You were attempting to distort my statement. It was pretty transparent, and says much about your intent here. Protest all you want, you were attempting something rather ugly.
which you assume was rhetorical, but in fact could be taken as sincere
I think we both know it wasn't sincere. That you're still pretending it might have been is more evidence that you're just interested in having an argument on terms that I'm simply not interested in.
Tepples might have expressed some skepticism that alternatve technologies exist that can do what was done with flash, but rather than actually answer the question, you appear to criticise the very fact that anyone would *WANT* to do anything that happened to be only previously possible with with flash.
Not particularly interested in debating this point.
Sure, but that doesn't mean that nobody else is interested in it.
Then why aren't there any alternatives?
(You can answer that last one if you want, but actually, I don't care, so you'll probably be wasting your time).
I'm not sure why someone hasn't made a free animation format similar enough to flash yet.
I suspect that if you ruminate on this point for a sufficient amount of time, you will probably (maybe) conclude that such a thing wasn't actually as useful or necessary as you had imagined.
If you go deeper, you might even eventually conclude that such a standard format would be abused in much the same way that Flash was (i.e. entire websites written in Flash instead of HTML) and that it's probably for the best that Flash is dead and nothing is there to take its place.
but are you then asserting that the technology of vector animation *IS* actually lacking in post flash modern web technology?
Nice try.
No, that's not what I'm saying. I was making a very general statement. Whether vector animation is useful or necessary is a subject I'm not actually interested in. That said, if it were useful or necessary, there would probably be something more viable than Flash to support it.
Hardly, those animations provide easy practive at animating, drawing, storyboarding and lining up something to music. While they are dumb, crude and simple there's something valuable there. Are you going to say that other art is "a stupid waste of time and isn't important"?
No, I'm saying that the cost (imposing Flash on everyone else) isn't worth the value of the curious anachronism. If there's a need for vector animation tools, someone will invent a better solution. If there's not, then so be it.
Your comments read as if those ends (animated vector diagrams) are neither possible nor desired with modern technologies.
I'll be more specific, then: if one finds the available technologies lacking, there are two reasonable options: invent the necessary technology, or do something else.
Of course, I'm sure that it's a whole lot easier to effectively insult a person by suggesting that their question is irrelevant than it is to try and actually answer it.
You are mistaken. The OP wasn't actually asking questions. The OP was wielding the Socratic Method in a sophomoric manner. Tepples wasn't interested in the answers, he/she was interested in making what I'm sure he/she thought was a stinging manner about the unavailability of better options.
Say I want to make an animutation that plays back using a vector animation technology other than Flash Player. Which software would you recommend for this?
I would recommend using your time to do something else.
How would someone who has submitted a work to such a portal convert a Flash animation to an HTML5 vector animation,* or a Flash game to an HTML5 game?
That's easy: don't. It's a stupid waste of time, and ultimately not very important in the grand scheme of things.
Never let it be said that I can't answer a rhetorical question.
In all seriousness, your line of questioning is roughly akin to "What kind of wood sealer should I use on the deck chairs of this sinking ship?" You think you're being insightful, but you're really just protesting the inevitable death of flash with petty, meaningless points. Move on. Get over it. Do something useful.
A no-knock search warrant on the personal lawyer of a sitting president is as far from a nothingburger as you can get. This is now officially a Very Big Deal.
Not in the least. I'm satisfied that you were never actually interested in grid storage. Thus, there's not really an argument. What I said about imagination applies to any difficult problem, not just bridge storage. That you fail to recognize that says more about you than me.
So no, not butt-hurt at all. But I would like to point out that during this conversation, I remained civil, while you resorted to name-calling. Thus, you lost the argument the moment you called me a douche.
Slashdot Mirror
But _some_ flat-earthers seem to be genuinely thinking that it is true because they think it is in The Bible and then _must_ be true else their whole being is worthless. Some think that they are the centre of the universe and thus it _must_ be geocentric.
Agreed. The moral of the story is that some people will believe even the most preposterous, obviously fictional bullshit. See: War of the Worlds
The part that I find funny is that it is simple to test the flat Earth theory... If the Earth is flat, then it must have edges right? It would be enough for one of these guys to get a boat and then navigate to find one of those edges. Or would they have some "fail-safe" theory to explain how a supposed flat Earth would have no edges?
If you suggested such a thing to a flat-earther (and I'm certain that it has been suggested before) they would invent some reason why going out to the edge won't work, or can't be proven. It might even involve a government conspiracy.
But really, I think you've missed the essence of flat-eartherism. It's not so much that they genuinely believe in a flat earth (though some surely do). Rather, flat-earthers are the original internet trolls, long before internet trolls or even the internet was a thing. The motivation of most flat earthers is simple: they get off on winding up otherwise very smart people. As the argument progresses, they will spin more and more outlandish explanations for why the earth is flat, each "theory" honed to a razor-sharp point through countless arguments in discussion forums over many decades. These arguments are designed to confound, not to actually explain sincerely-held belief.
TL;DR: Never wrestle with a pig. You'll just get dirty and the pig will enjoy it.
Wouldn't the govt funds be better served by informing the people about healthy choices, make a NEW food pyramid, tell them the evils of sugar and processed foods, to cook and eat "real" food, rather than trying to ban every company trying to sell junk food?
First, banning advertising on public transit doesn't cost anything. Or, rather, the cost is negligible.
Second, yes, public education about healthy choices would be great. It costs much more than banning advertising, but I agree that education programs would be a positive step.
Third, there's no reason the two can't co-exist. It's not an either-or.
But I'm torn...is it really the government's business to play nanny, and try to prevent stupid people from behaving stupidly?
I think it's a legitimate function of government to prevent corporations from preying on the unwary public, especially those who aren't otherwise well-informed.
Which subreddit should I be reading instead of this site?
I'd like to know this too.
And being fractal makes the initial question of "how long" meaningless. To what resolution? If you look at the molecular level, it is nearly infinite. If you look at the sand grain level, less so. If you look at one foot intervals, even less so.
Agreed. It's a meaningless question, and any answer will be just as meaningless, if not more so.
I wasn't twisting anything, I was asking what the fuck you were actually trying to say, because I was not seeing it, and giving you the benefit of the doubt that you were attempting to communicate something that may have been worth knowing.
I'll post the exchange here, just to keep all the pertinent points in a single post:
Obviously... but are you then asserting that the technology of vector animation *IS* actually lacking in post flash modern web technology?
I made a general statement about what to do when sufficient technology wasn't available, and you attempted to twist that into me supporting the idea that vector animation is lacking. This is so intellectually dishonest that I'm actually a little bit surprised you haven't quietly crawled away yet. You know very well that's not what I was saying.
And now there's a permanent record of your utter lack of honesty.
No, I was not.
Yeah yeah. Keep telling yourself that. You might even eventually believe it. But I won't.
I asked because I wanted to be sure about it, not because I was making any sort of deliberate attempt to try and pigeonhole your opinions into some preconceived set of standards that I have.
Bullshit. You are being intellectually dishonest. Give up, already.
you instead decide to take up the position that if a person is unable to find alternative software to accomplish an end, then there are not sufficient people interested in those ends for it to be a desirable goal.
Look, it's really simple: if the technology doesn't exist, you're either really early, or it isn't as interesting as you think it is to a sufficiently large audience. Flash is ancient at this point, so it's probably the latter and not the former. At this point, you can invent it yourself, or move on. This is true of a wide variety of topics. And while it's true I don't really care about Flash or vector animation, I stand by the general gist of my statement. You can decide for yourself if it's worthwhile to pursue, you don't have to convince me. All the effort you've spent arguing meaningless points with me could be better served on something constructive.
The logical conclusion of this attitude is that unconventional or unpopular ideas would never actually gain any momentum, and in fact we'd probably still be living in caves and not capable of communicating beyond grunts.
And there you go again, twisting things into your bizarre agenda. Seriously, you are awful at debate. I mean, really, really bad.
You're quite welcome to go and invent the technology that you need to pursue your lifelong dream of vector animation. You don't need my approval. But if you're just going to whine that Flash is the only viable alternative and you can't be bothered to do anything about it (save for the whining) then you're wasting everyone else's time. Figure out a better solution or move on.
Given how you utterly misinterpreted what I was doing, it wouldn't suprise me in the slightest if you were also wrong in your other assumption
Okay, I'll bite. Please explain what you are doing. To me, it looks like you're arguing with people on the internet about whether what you're trying to do is worthwhile or not. In my humble opinion, that's a pretty stupid thing to do, and only takes away from whatever it is you were actually trying to do.
So go on, explain it. I'll wait. I'll even patiently read it.
(But honestly, I doubt you'll even try).
What tool converts an SWF file to a format that a WebGL-based animation playback script can read?
FFS, you are a whiny bitch.
This got voted insightful? Really? I guess there's not many artists on Slashdot.
There probably aren't, but I fail to see what that has to do with Flash. Yeah yeah, I know... you're going to try to tell me it's an art form. I don't really care.
Loosen up and live a little.
Says the guy complaining about moderation. You first, buck-o.
Paper books are clearly inferior to electronic ones; we shouldn't be wasting time scanning old books. Many of them contain outdated ideas, and there are plenty of new, superior electronic books available, so we may as well just throw all the old ones on a fire for warmth.
Nice try. But no, books (or ideas) are not the same thing. It's not even close.
(And no, I won't explain it to you, for the same reason that I won't wrestle with a pig).
Hence my question about what solutions if any had been invented in the past few years.
A) It wasn't actually a question. As noted above, you were attempting an amateurish Socratic Method.
B) You dropped both the beginning and end of my my statement (leaving only the gooey center) in order to make your point, which was rather dishonest of you. The full statement was:
Clearly, if you're not finding the tools, it may very well be because there isn't a strong enough need for it. Hence, my advice to do something more productive with your time, instead of looking backwards at obsolete anachronisms.
You know, when you repeatedly never actually answer direct questions, and insist on making analogies, it leaves one to guess at what you are actually trying to say. It's a pretty lazy way to try and communicate, if you ask me.
So is twisting other people's statements into affirmative support for their position when they in fact said nothing to support your position.
"Nice try"??? What are you suggesting that I was trying to do
You were attempting to distort my statement. It was pretty transparent, and says much about your intent here. Protest all you want, you were attempting something rather ugly.
which you assume was rhetorical, but in fact could be taken as sincere
I think we both know it wasn't sincere. That you're still pretending it might have been is more evidence that you're just interested in having an argument on terms that I'm simply not interested in.
Tepples might have expressed some skepticism that alternatve technologies exist that can do what was done with flash, but rather than actually answer the question, you appear to criticise the very fact that anyone would *WANT* to do anything that happened to be only previously possible with with flash.
Not particularly interested in debating this point.
Sure, but that doesn't mean that nobody else is interested in it.
Then why aren't there any alternatives?
(You can answer that last one if you want, but actually, I don't care, so you'll probably be wasting your time).
I'm not sure why someone hasn't made a free animation format similar enough to flash yet.
I suspect that if you ruminate on this point for a sufficient amount of time, you will probably (maybe) conclude that such a thing wasn't actually as useful or necessary as you had imagined.
If you go deeper, you might even eventually conclude that such a standard format would be abused in much the same way that Flash was (i.e. entire websites written in Flash instead of HTML) and that it's probably for the best that Flash is dead and nothing is there to take its place.
but are you then asserting that the technology of vector animation *IS* actually lacking in post flash modern web technology?
Nice try.
No, that's not what I'm saying. I was making a very general statement. Whether vector animation is useful or necessary is a subject I'm not actually interested in. That said, if it were useful or necessary, there would probably be something more viable than Flash to support it.
Hardly, those animations provide easy practive at animating, drawing, storyboarding and lining up something to music. While they are dumb, crude and simple there's something valuable there. Are you going to say that other art is "a stupid waste of time and isn't important"?
No, I'm saying that the cost (imposing Flash on everyone else) isn't worth the value of the curious anachronism. If there's a need for vector animation tools, someone will invent a better solution. If there's not, then so be it.
Your comments read as if those ends (animated vector diagrams) are neither possible nor desired with modern technologies.
I'll be more specific, then: if one finds the available technologies lacking, there are two reasonable options: invent the necessary technology, or do something else.
Of course, I'm sure that it's a whole lot easier to effectively insult a person by suggesting that their question is irrelevant than it is to try and actually answer it.
You are mistaken. The OP wasn't actually asking questions. The OP was wielding the Socratic Method in a sophomoric manner. Tepples wasn't interested in the answers, he/she was interested in making what I'm sure he/she thought was a stinging manner about the unavailability of better options.
Say I want to make an animutation that plays back using a vector animation technology other than Flash Player. Which software would you recommend for this?
I would recommend using your time to do something else.
How would someone who has submitted a work to such a portal convert a Flash animation to an HTML5 vector animation,* or a Flash game to an HTML5 game?
That's easy: don't. It's a stupid waste of time, and ultimately not very important in the grand scheme of things.
Never let it be said that I can't answer a rhetorical question.
In all seriousness, your line of questioning is roughly akin to "What kind of wood sealer should I use on the deck chairs of this sinking ship?" You think you're being insightful, but you're really just protesting the inevitable death of flash with petty, meaningless points. Move on. Get over it. Do something useful.
Mmmm, tasty tasty nothingburger.
A no-knock search warrant on the personal lawyer of a sitting president is as far from a nothingburger as you can get. This is now officially a Very Big Deal.
2018 and you're still using 'fanboi'?
You must be new here.
Not in the least. I'm satisfied that you were never actually interested in grid storage. Thus, there's not really an argument. What I said about imagination applies to any difficult problem, not just bridge storage. That you fail to recognize that says more about you than me.
So no, not butt-hurt at all. But I would like to point out that during this conversation, I remained civil, while you resorted to name-calling. Thus, you lost the argument the moment you called me a douche.
And an utter lack of imagination.
The truth has a well-known liberal bias, you know.
Here's an idea: shut down fucking FaceBook. That should put a big dent in the spread of fake news.