The travesty is that his heirs still have a monopoly on the series, 57 years later. [...] People writing sequels to books is the right for society to continue to enrichen our culture.
Sorry, but I can't agree.
First, I prefer authors to write about novel things than to rehash old ideas. Sequels written by different authors are almost never as good as the originals (if you can show me some counterexamples, go ahead).
Why should you care about the Asimov estate? It's not like it's a patent on robot stories. Be my guest, write your own galactic empire novel. Or invent your own human-robot moral dilemmas.
If some people are willing to pay money to use some names and a plot it's because they find some value in them.
Most of what you say is implementation-related rather than format-related. It's like saying that C sucks because there are so many crappy programs. I know about feeding the trolls, but for all those who don't know better, here we go:
Nothing "just works" on all devices and in this area flash fares better than most other technologies; agree is slow; not really agree on RAM usage.
Flash uses less bandwidth than alternatives, it's quite very well optimized. Sure, someone can stuff some 10 min. mp3s encoded at 256kbps and and bunch of 2048x2048 bitmaps but that's another story.
Cut/Paste is more tedious because of security reasons but keyboard shortcuts work. Search works too and static text is indexed by Google.
Agree on native UI, but then so it's Java. Font size is controllable by user if the app is done properly -- granted, user can't override any settings. Scrolling - never had an issue. Specs are open. Rarely adjust to screen size - are you kidding me? it's vector, by default it will adjust to anything and can be programmed a lot better than CSS/HTML.
Irritating animation - not a fault of the format itself. Works with screen readers -- seriously, have you TRIED it?
What Adobe is pushing is most likely their "Flashpaper" format, something similar to PDF but lighter.
One more comment from the summary: "unfindable by search engines" - where does this come from? Google and all have been indexing PDF files since 10 years ago.
I know Slashdot crowd loves to hate flash, but at least hate it for the right reasons: its lack of speed and real 3d hardware acceleration.
Interestingly, I noticed Firefox no longer crashes because of flash. I don't know who fixed it (Mozilla or Adobe) but the last crash must have been more than 6 months ago.
Having spent my childhood in communism (brought in with by the soviet tanks), I can tell you that any system that relies on people being good or ethical is utopic.
One of the early communism slogans was "you contribute as much as you can, you gets as much as you require". Everyone was supposed to work for the common good and the state was supposed to divide resources in a sane and logical manner to avoid waste and maximize efficiency. We all know how that turned out - and all because people want to be more equal than the others (as a side-note, Orwell was a genius; you will never appreciate 1984 or Animal Farm the way someone who has lived them will).
Back to libertarianism, it suffers from the same thing: it requires people to have a work ethic and personal responsibility. Some people are like that, but some (many?) are not. They will gladly game the system.
Capitalism (in its broadest sense, let's not get into details) works because it relies on greed. It may be sad, but greed is good motivator...
You can do everything that Flash can do with JavaScript, the canvas tag, and SVG, but there aren't (yet) any development tools that are anywhere near as nice as Flash for this environment.
Not only that, but based on some demos from Adobe MAX, the next version of Dreamweaver will support the canvas tag while Illustrator (and most likely Flash) will be able to output to SVG, so you'll be able to use their tools to create HTML5 content.
They don't care what you prefer, as long as you're using their tools to deliver the product.
I'm sorry, but based on the quality of quite a few offerings currently on Apple's app store, I don't see how it could get any worse.
As for lowering the bar... sure, if it were by me, I'd made a requirement for all code to be written in assembly but I don't see how it's Adobe's fault for creating a platform fun to develop on.
Contrary to popular opinion on Slashdot, I believe the Mueller story was a classic bait to raise interest and to be followed by this real story.
Think about it - mainstream media ignores tech stories or buries them somewhere no one reads them. Meanwhile, stories about people affected by a problem are always given prominence.
Let me put it this way: 1. Put out a sensationalistic story about how no one (not even the head of FBI) is safe from phishing - raise fear, uncertainty and doubt. 2. Get the real story out about FBI catching phishers. The media will link the two, where otherwise the real story would have gone unnoticed. 3. Profit! (Bonuses, awards, whatever)
Hate to break it to you, but Flash has vector graphics; if anything, it makes it easier adapting for different resolutions. The only real difference is the input method, but you can use System.Capabilities to see what's available - accelerometer, multitouch, pointer, etc. and fall back.
Secondly, you wouldn't be able to publish and sell apps if a JVM or Flash Player would exist on an iPhone, because without jailbreaking the device, the only way to install apps remains through the App Store
Why? Maybe I want to sell through Apple's App store but also through my site directly and avoid their fees.
Whether or not I use the SDK is kinda irrelevant as long I pay to join the developer program and get an iPhone to test (the simulator is not enough for serious testing, especially for the actual user experience, sensors, etc).
Flash CS5 on both Mac and PC are supported. I am in the same position as you, especially since many people who play my chess game would love to see it on their iPhones.
As for quality, only AS3 is supported. Most simple/crappy flash games are written in AS1/AS2 because of the easier learning curve, but really, considering apps like iFart on IAmRich, I doubt anyone will contend that the quality of the approved flash games could be too low.
The same note is present in Adobe's case - see here (scroll to bottom): "Delivery through the App Store requires participation in the iPhone Developer Program and approval of the application by Apple."
It's worth noting that there are already a few apps made with Flash on Adobe store. Also not mentioned in the summary is that this is actually native code being generated: "We created a new compiler front end that allowed LLVM to understand ActionScript 3 and used its existing ARM back end to output native ARM assembly code. We call this Ahead of Time (AOT) compilationâ"in contrast to the way Adobe Flash Player and Adobe AIR function on the desktop using Just in Time (JIT) compilation. Since we are able to compile ActionScript to ARM ahead of time, the application gets all the performance benefits that the JIT would offer and the license compliance of not requiring a runtime in the final application."
I installed Windows 7 RC on a three year old laptop (2Gb, single-core AMD Turion, ATI Xpress200 card -- overall a pretty slow system). The boot takes longer than XP, but after that is just as fast as XP SP3, even with all the fancy stuff turned on. My father, who doesn't care about eye-candy, only stability and responsiveness, says he likes it.
I don't think every XP owner will shell out $200 for the upgrade, but I'd say it's worth it, if only for the added security.
Yep, I actually remember reading these "studies". I won't bother googling for them, but they are out there.
The only thing I want to know is - are these studies publicly funded? And how can I apply for some grants for my research? I'm pretty sure I can come up with some very insightful findings, like the importance of watching football on TV...
I don't have much time for playing games these days, but almost all of my favorite games had great stories: from Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis, Zork, Wing Commander Series to Syberia, Deus Ex and Freelancer.
Playing the first Dune game (the one madde by Cryo in 1992) got me into reading the books.
What Microsoft did to Netscape (drive their $30 Navigator browser out-of-market) is approximately equivalent to Comcast announcing "we'll give everyone free MP3s" and thereby driving Itunes.com out of business.
There are many things available for free that do not "kill" costly alternatives. Gimp vs. Photoshop is a classic example. I tried to get rid of Adobe's Creative Suite, but at the end of the day, none of the alternatives would offer me the same productivity.
As I mentioned it previously, in 1998 I chose to use IE4 not because it was free, but simply because NN4 was driving me nuts, both as a web developer and as a user.
Reinstalling the same thing from scratch over and over again is crazy.
You install once, apply all patches to that date and the most important software (VPN in your case -- although their PPTP solution was pathetic) and then you create an image with Norton Ghost, Acronis TrueImage or something similar.
Whenever you need to reinstall, you reimage the partition and you have a fully working computer in 5 minutes.
There are very few black people in Eastern Europe; this has little to do with ethnic cleansing or racism. If fact, where I live, a black guy is big shot TV star just because he's relative good looking and his skin color makes him look exotic. This part of Europe has its share of racism, but it's toward gypsies.
It makes sense to portray people that the viewers can relate to. It's something I tell my clients when they suggest stock photos. Just last week I had to do completely different sets of pics for a site that had US and UK versions.
Still, the team that handled localization screwed up. They should have replaced the whole photo, rather than "fix" it (badly). Stock photos are pretty cheap and even if you order from Getty or ask for extended rights or something, it's still peanuts for any sizable company.
Unfortunately until MS includes video tag support in IE, nothing will matter. Even if IE share drops to 40-50%, no content provider will be able to say "screw 'em". And then we can only hope that MS will support H264 and not just VMW or whatever they want to push.
Whether you like it or not, we'll still need to use Flash for video for the foreseeable future (which, by the way, supports H264).
Education used to be to very high standards, especially in "hard" sciences. As a side-note, we never had the misconceptions that girls are not good at maths and as a result I recall that in highschool the top 5 students in maths were all girls; us boys had a chance to compete in physics and chemistry though.
The system had one flaw however, in that it emphasized theory instead of practical implementation.
Anyway, the whole system has gone downhill lately; in the '80, students') role models were scientists (I'm not making this up) whereas now everyone dreams of becoming rich overnight or marrying a rich man...
As a user AND as a developer, I can safely say Netscape 4 was a disaster compared to IE4. IE3 was a joke but IE4 was simply better, more robust and more standard compliant than NN4.
10 years later and I can still remember the inane layer tag, the stupid positioning bug in DIVs (you couldn't have an absolutely positioned div unless it had a border?!), the rounding errors, the refresh bug!!
If you ever used NN4.0 you know for a fact it didnt hold a candle to IE6.0
Not only that, but NN4 was a lot worse than IE4 - imagine that! Netscape 4 was simply atrocious from any point of view - user or developer. It had incompatible tags (e.g. ) poor support for standard ones, was incredibly slow, even had a huge refresh bug, and crashed constantlty.
Microsoft didn't have to push IE aggressively, I recall installing and using IE4 simply because it was better.
Actually, there was a game I quite liked called Urban Chaos. The main character was a Caribbean black woman, a police officer. Though it wasn't groundbreaking, I enjoyed it immensely.
If you can pretend you're an orc, elf or zerg, why not a black warrior?
Slashdot Mirror
Sorry, but I can't agree.
First, I prefer authors to write about novel things than to rehash old ideas. Sequels written by different authors are almost never as good as the originals (if you can show me some counterexamples, go ahead).
Why should you care about the Asimov estate? It's not like it's a patent on robot stories.
Be my guest, write your own galactic empire novel. Or invent your own human-robot moral dilemmas.
If some people are willing to pay money to use some names and a plot it's because they find some value in them.
Most of what you say is implementation-related rather than format-related. It's like saying that C sucks because there are so many crappy programs. I know about feeding the trolls, but for all those who don't know better, here we go:
Nothing "just works" on all devices and in this area flash fares better than most other technologies; agree is slow; not really agree on RAM usage.
Flash uses less bandwidth than alternatives, it's quite very well optimized. Sure, someone can stuff some 10 min. mp3s encoded at 256kbps and and bunch of 2048x2048 bitmaps but that's another story.
Cut/Paste is more tedious because of security reasons but keyboard shortcuts work. Search works too and static text is indexed by Google.
Agree on native UI, but then so it's Java. Font size is controllable by user if the app is done properly -- granted, user can't override any settings.
Scrolling - never had an issue. Specs are open. Rarely adjust to screen size - are you kidding me? it's vector, by default it will adjust to anything and can be programmed a lot better than CSS/HTML.
Irritating animation - not a fault of the format itself.
Works with screen readers -- seriously, have you TRIED it?
What Adobe is pushing is most likely their "Flashpaper" format, something similar to PDF but lighter.
One more comment from the summary: "unfindable by search engines" - where does this come from? Google and all have been indexing PDF files since 10 years ago.
I know Slashdot crowd loves to hate flash, but at least hate it for the right reasons: its lack of speed and real 3d hardware acceleration.
Interestingly, I noticed Firefox no longer crashes because of flash. I don't know who fixed it (Mozilla or Adobe) but the last crash must have been more than 6 months ago.
Having spent my childhood in communism (brought in with by the soviet tanks), I can tell you that any system that relies on people being good or ethical is utopic.
One of the early communism slogans was "you contribute as much as you can, you gets as much as you require". Everyone was supposed to work for the common good and the state was supposed to divide resources in a sane and logical manner to avoid waste and maximize efficiency. We all know how that turned out - and all because people want to be more equal than the others (as a side-note, Orwell was a genius; you will never appreciate 1984 or Animal Farm the way someone who has lived them will).
Back to libertarianism, it suffers from the same thing: it requires people to have a work ethic and personal responsibility. Some people are like that, but some (many?) are not. They will gladly game the system.
Capitalism (in its broadest sense, let's not get into details) works because it relies on greed. It may be sad, but greed is good motivator...
Not only that, but based on some demos from Adobe MAX, the next version of Dreamweaver will support the canvas tag while Illustrator (and most likely Flash) will be able to output to SVG, so you'll be able to use their tools to create HTML5 content.
They don't care what you prefer, as long as you're using their tools to deliver the product.
I'm sorry, but based on the quality of quite a few offerings currently on Apple's app store, I don't see how it could get any worse.
As for lowering the bar... sure, if it were by me, I'd made a requirement for all code to be written in assembly but I don't see how it's Adobe's fault for creating a platform fun to develop on.
Contrary to popular opinion on Slashdot, I believe the Mueller story was a classic bait to raise interest and to be followed by this real story.
Think about it - mainstream media ignores tech stories or buries them somewhere no one reads them. Meanwhile, stories about people affected by a problem are always given prominence.
Let me put it this way:
1. Put out a sensationalistic story about how no one (not even the head of FBI) is safe from phishing - raise fear, uncertainty and doubt.
2. Get the real story out about FBI catching phishers. The media will link the two, where otherwise the real story would have gone unnoticed.
3. Profit! (Bonuses, awards, whatever)
Hate to break it to you, but Flash has vector graphics; if anything, it makes it easier adapting for different resolutions. The only real difference is the input method, but you can use System.Capabilities to see what's available - accelerometer, multitouch, pointer, etc. and fall back.
Why? Maybe I want to sell through Apple's App store but also through my site directly and avoid their fees.
Whether or not I use the SDK is kinda irrelevant as long I pay to join the developer program and get an iPhone to test (the simulator is not enough for serious testing, especially for the actual user experience, sensors, etc).
Flash CS5 on both Mac and PC are supported. I am in the same position as you, especially since many people who play my chess game would love to see it on their iPhones.
As for quality, only AS3 is supported. Most simple/crappy flash games are written in AS1/AS2 because of the easier learning curve, but really, considering apps like iFart on IAmRich, I doubt anyone will contend that the quality of the approved flash games could be too low.
The same note is present in Adobe's case - see here (scroll to bottom): "Delivery through the App Store requires participation in the iPhone Developer Program and approval of the application by Apple."
It's worth noting that there are already a few apps made with Flash on Adobe store.
Also not mentioned in the summary is that this is actually native code being generated:
"We created a new compiler front end that allowed LLVM to understand ActionScript 3 and used its existing ARM back end to output native ARM assembly code. We call this Ahead of Time (AOT) compilationâ"in contrast to the way Adobe Flash Player and Adobe AIR function on the desktop using Just in Time (JIT) compilation. Since we are able to compile ActionScript to ARM ahead of time, the application gets all the performance benefits that the JIT would offer and the license compliance of not requiring a runtime in the final application."
I installed Windows 7 RC on a three year old laptop (2Gb, single-core AMD Turion, ATI Xpress200 card -- overall a pretty slow system). The boot takes longer than XP, but after that is just as fast as XP SP3, even with all the fancy stuff turned on. My father, who doesn't care about eye-candy, only stability and responsiveness, says he likes it.
I don't think every XP owner will shell out $200 for the upgrade, but I'd say it's worth it, if only for the added security.
OK, I know -- let's do nothing about anything, or better yet, tag it 'whatcouldpossiblygowrong' and then do nothing.
I hate this attitude on Slashdot: every initiative has to be met with skepticism or downright opposition.
And then people lament that our society is too risk-averse (see space exploration and 'risk of death' stickers on Segways).
Yep, I actually remember reading these "studies". I won't bother googling for them, but they are out there.
The only thing I want to know is - are these studies publicly funded? And how can I apply for some grants for my research? I'm pretty sure I can come up with some very insightful findings, like the importance of watching football on TV...
To each his own.
I don't have much time for playing games these days, but almost all of my favorite games had great stories: from Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis, Zork, Wing Commander Series to Syberia, Deus Ex and Freelancer.
Playing the first Dune game (the one madde by Cryo in 1992) got me into reading the books.
There are many things available for free that do not "kill" costly alternatives. Gimp vs. Photoshop is a classic example. I tried to get rid of Adobe's Creative Suite, but at the end of the day, none of the alternatives would offer me the same productivity.
As I mentioned it previously, in 1998 I chose to use IE4 not because it was free, but simply because NN4 was driving me nuts, both as a web developer and as a user.
Blame yourself.
Reinstalling the same thing from scratch over and over again is crazy.
You install once, apply all patches to that date and the most important software (VPN in your case -- although their PPTP solution was pathetic) and then you create an image with Norton Ghost, Acronis TrueImage or something similar.
Whenever you need to reinstall, you reimage the partition and you have a fully working computer in 5 minutes.
Another example of Microsoft evilness!
There are very few black people in Eastern Europe; this has little to do with ethnic cleansing or racism. If fact, where I live, a black guy is big shot TV star just because he's relative good looking and his skin color makes him look exotic. This part of Europe has its share of racism, but it's toward gypsies.
It makes sense to portray people that the viewers can relate to. It's something I tell my clients when they suggest stock photos. Just last week I had to do completely different sets of pics for a site that had US and UK versions.
Still, the team that handled localization screwed up. They should have replaced the whole photo, rather than "fix" it (badly). Stock photos are pretty cheap and even if you order from Getty or ask for extended rights or something, it's still peanuts for any sizable company.
It's even more relevant when you look at software prices (Adobe, I'm looking at you).
Any Adobe product, bought from the online store in Europe, NOT localized but in US English, will cost up to double the US price.
Same product. Different market. No additional expenses. Double the price.
Unfortunately until MS includes video tag support in IE, nothing will matter.
Even if IE share drops to 40-50%, no content provider will be able to say "screw 'em".
And then we can only hope that MS will support H264 and not just VMW or whatever they want to push.
Whether you like it or not, we'll still need to use Flash for video for the foreseeable future (which, by the way, supports H264).
I would hardly call Alenia just a lowest bid contractor. They are a big and respectable company.
As a Romanian, I can say this is perfectly true.
Education used to be to very high standards, especially in "hard" sciences. As a side-note, we never had the misconceptions that girls are not good at maths and as a result I recall that in highschool the top 5 students in maths were all girls; us boys had a chance to compete in physics and chemistry though.
The system had one flaw however, in that it emphasized theory instead of practical implementation.
Anyway, the whole system has gone downhill lately; in the '80, students') role models were scientists (I'm not making this up) whereas now everyone dreams of becoming rich overnight or marrying a rich man...
I was there.
As a user AND as a developer, I can safely say Netscape 4 was a disaster compared to IE4. IE3 was a joke but IE4 was simply better, more robust and more standard compliant than NN4.
10 years later and I can still remember the inane layer tag, the stupid positioning bug in DIVs (you couldn't have an absolutely positioned div unless it had a border?!), the rounding errors, the refresh bug!!
Netscape did it to themselves.
Not only that, but NN4 was a lot worse than IE4 - imagine that!
Netscape 4 was simply atrocious from any point of view - user or developer. It had incompatible tags (e.g. ) poor support for standard ones, was incredibly slow, even had a huge refresh bug, and crashed constantlty.
Microsoft didn't have to push IE aggressively, I recall installing and using IE4 simply because it was better.
Actually, there was a game I quite liked called Urban Chaos. The main character was a Caribbean black woman, a police officer. Though it wasn't groundbreaking, I enjoyed it immensely.
If you can pretend you're an orc, elf or zerg, why not a black warrior?