Flash does a whole lot more than HTML5 does - including providing access to web cams etc. To consider Flash dead just because flash cannot be embedded directly as a tile on the metro interface is stupid. Users can always opt to use a browser with flash enabled. I will be very surprised if many users on Slashdot don't install a new version of the flash plugin everytime they install an OS from scratch.
Thanks Rob for all your work. Learnt much from this site over the years and have been grateful for what you put together. The term slashdotted exists thanks to you:). Best of luck with whatever you set out to do.
I know it is cool on slashdot to blame religion for everything and sundry. Also, I know it is considered cool to mouth off about things that you know nothing about - especially if religion is also blamed for something in the same post.
These are numbers for just two diseases. I challenge you to find me statistics which indicate that religion is directly responsible for at least 2.7 million deaths each year.
Bangalore never gets above 40 C.. and very rarely does it get over 35 C. It is true that a large number of trees were cut down and the temperature did go up, but it wasn't anywhere close to the 10C that you claim.
Noticed an error in my post - it should read: If you configure it with the following specs it comes to about *USD 1749/-*. If you are too lazy to read the article, I have given the specs below:
The Apple Macbook Pro 17 costs (USD 2578/- with anti-glare screen and display port adapter for VGA)
Here is a laptop which has similar or better specifications than a Apple Macbook and an excellent support service. You can checkout reviews of Powernotebooks for an idea about the quality of service they provide. NOTE: I am not associated with them in anyway. I have heard very good reports though.
If you configure it with the following specs it comes to about USD 1595/-. If you are too lazy to read the article, I have given the specs below:
17.3” Full HD 16:9 Wide screen (1920x1080) LED-Backlit Display with Super Clear Glare Type screen vs 17" 1920x1200 Anti-glare on the Macbook Pro 17 nVIDIA GeForce GTX 460M 192bit w/1.5GB GDDR5 vs Intel HD Graphics 3000 on the Macbook Pro 17 Intel® Core i7-2630QM (2.0~2.9GHz, 45W) w/6M L3 Cache - 4 Cores - 8 Threads, 8GB (2x4GB SODIMMS) DDR3/1333 vs 4GB on the Macbook Pro 17 750GB SATA II 3GB/s 7,200 RPM (16MB Cache Buffer) vs 750GB SATA 5400 RPM on Macbook Pro 17 Integrated 802.11 b/g/n wireless LAN + Bluetooth V3.0 + HS Combo Card Windows 7 Premium (with CD) 3-Year Labor 1-Year Parts (Year 2 & 3 Labor by PNB)-Lifetime 24/7 DOMESTIC Toll Free Support. vs No apple care plan on Macbook Pro (you can purchase a 3 year Apple care plan for 349.. the advantage is that you get international support unlike in the case of Powernotebooks.com)
In case you missed it - there is domestic toll free support in the US for the lifetime of the product with Powernotebooks.
So all in all a wonderful deal if you are in the US. Again, I am not associated with this company in any way, shape or form. Just pointing out that there are far better deals than buying a Macbook Pro.
Communism isn't the only alternative to laissez faire capitalism. A LOT can be achieved if capitalism is regulated. We have laws which prevent cartels, monopolies etc.
Companies have rules in place to prevent their employees from receiving gifts from vendors, clients and so on because they know that this can lead to a situation where there is a conflict of interest. But how is that there is no law that prevents senators, members of congress etc from receiving any funds from a company / trust / or any other organization? The politicians should be paid a salary from public funds and not allowed to take any money or any other consideration from any non-governmental organization.
I know you think you are pretty smart for making that observation - and those with mod points on slashdot here will be falling over themselves to mod you up because of the hivemind.
However, there is a huge difference between scientology and other religions - especially the more benign ones such as Christianity, Buddhism etc..
For one thing, every rite/ritual/creed of scientology is given on a pay-as-you-go basis.. no other religion does that. For another - no other mainstream religion actively seeks to "disconnect" you from your friends and relatives No other religion has actively infiltrated government and its agencies with the express purpose of thwarting an investigation. No other religion has a policy that explicitly states that overwhelming legal force, harassment, lies and slander must be used to torment any opponent.
This is very true. In US, you can get sued by anyone on absolutely asinine grounds - and the courts are willing to grant huge damages which make no sense whatsoever. This pushes up the price of services such as healthcare.. makes manufacturing in the US a far less attractive option etc.
You make it seem like this was a carefully crafted strategy from Apple. But that is simply not the case.
It just so happened that Steve Jobs thought that everyone would be happy to play in his walled garden while he collected tax. However, with Android coming out with flash..and considering the speed at which android phones are selling, he figured that the best thing to do would be to eat his pride and his words and fix those features that are missing.
Apple was wrong to have placed all those restrictions on the iphone. This is the Apple way of acknowledging their mistake.
When we speak about the origins of the world, we are referring to the first step in the natural processes which led to the world and everything within it. The doctrine of first cause posits that this first natural step was set into motion by a *supernatural* initiator who is above and beyond all known natural laws. This supernatural being is referred to as God.
So by definition God is *super* natural and therefore does not require a natural cause to come to be.
I come from India and I am a christian. We are a minority - a mere 2.3% of the population. I know dozens of friends who though nurtured in non-christian families took the decision to become Christians.. despite severe persecution and despite having to lose everything.
Despite all the efforts of the establishment to eat into the free speech rights on individuals in the US, US is still better than a LOT of places when it comes to freedom of speech.
Speaking as an Indian, I know for a fact that my life would be in grave danger if I started a blog documenting all the corruption going on in India (something I have been wanting to do and have been working on). I have been working on getting a friend of mine to host a site for me outside India so that the Indian government won't be able to take down the site as well, in case they turn against me.
Well, one may point out a few examples where people have been targeted for doing something similar in the US, but I can assure you that it is a LOT worse in places like India.
And in countries like China and Russia, it is actually even worse than in India. In Russia there is a very high likelihood that you will be killed if you speak too much against the establishment. In China, you will probably end up in jail for a long, long time.
So for those who live in the US, please be a little bit more thankful for what you have and instead of getting distracted with all the shiny gadgets and the stupid debates about right vs left, please do try and protect what is remaining of the rights that you have.
Cowards. If you are willing to put your name on a petition to get a measure on the ballot, then you should be willing to stand by your decision. Claiming you don't want your name to be revealed because your friends and neighbors might think differently about you is no excuse to try and hide from your decision.
Would you apply these same standards to elections as well? or is that a special case where anonymity is more important and cowardice is acceptable?
And there aren't many people who would say that the Hebrews were necessarily a completely peaceful people. From the massacre of the worshipers of the golden calf to the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah, there was plenty of violence to go around.
According to the Bible, Sodom and Gomorrah were destroyed by God... Jews as a race didn't even exist. Even Abraham wasn't a jew then.
Your view is subjective. Flash crashes on YOUR computer. I use Windows, Mac OSX and Linux and I don't experience the problems that you are experiencing with flash.
Your linux distribution not coming with Flash isn't Flash's fault - it is the issue with those who put the distro together or due to licensing problems.. hardly a fault of the technology.
About open source support for flash - please do google for open source flash engines (hint - there are many) for application development, for charts and graphs, for games etc.
I think you are generalising too much. A LOT of websites targeting designers are very heavy on flash. Flash can be used for stuff other than garish animation and ads.
A lot of commenters seem to believe that ALL kids just want to be exactly like each other. I am sorry, but that is just not the case. A LOT of kids like to have things which no one else has.. also, I am guessing this girl is secretly proud of the fact that she can work a bit with Linux while the rest of the kids probably have a lot of trouble using windows with all the virus problems.
Reason No. 1: Flash's sub-pixel resolution and anti-aliasing: Seriously?
Yes.
Reason No. 2: Flash beats Canvas: Ok, I bet there are still some things that Flash does better/faster. But complaining that HTML5 sometimes has bad performance isn't too compelling for me, since Flash constantly crashes on me. Further, the idea that HTML5 is bad because some browser might work a little different doesn't quite work for me since: (A) HTML5 is new and not complete, and it will take a little while to work things out. (B) At least I have the option of different browsers; if Adobe Flash Player isn't working for me, there's not really too much I can do.
I have yet to encounter problems with the Flash player not playing some content in flash - I have had on rare occasions had to reinstall the plugin due to some browser problem or because of a newer flash version, but I cannot say that the flash player keeps crashing on me. But perhaps it is just me.
Reason No. 3: Flash's good developer tools: Fair enough.
Reason No. 4: Flash's supercool fonts: Better support for custom fonts is being built into HTML5/CSS3. Flash shouldn't really be used for rendering text on websites anyway, since it interferes with searching and linking and indexing.
Have you looked at HTML5 and SVG before? I have. Try rendering something complex with it and then try indexing the resulting code. There will be very little actual text worth indexing - most of it will be vector animation instructions. The same applies to stuff such as processing. Actually, the SVG animations are far more difficult to index than even RTF documents (which don't contain a lot of vector drawing instructions).
Example (from alistapart):
function drawSimpleCanvas() {
var canvas =
document.getElementById("simpleCanvas");
if (canvas.getContext) {
var ctx = canvas.getContext("2d");
ctx.beginPath();// the circle
ctx.fillStyle = "#ff0000";
ctx.arc(50, 50, 30, 0, 2*Math.PI, true);
ctx.closePath();
ctx.fill();
ctx.save();// move and resize the octagon
ctx.translate(100, 20);
ctx.scale(1.65, 1.65);
ctx.fillStyle = "#0000ff";
ctx.beginPath();
ctx.moveTo(36, 25); ctx.lineTo(25, 36);
ctx.lineTo(11, 36); ctx.lineTo(0, 25);
ctx.lineTo(0, 11); ctx.lineTo(11, 0);
ctx.lineTo(25, 0); ctx.lineTo(36, 11);
ctx.closePath();
ctx.fill();// restore graphics as they// were before move and resize
ctx.restore();
ctx.fillStyle = "#00ff00";
ctx.globalAlpha = 0.5;
ctx.beginPath();
ctx.rect(60, 20, 60, 60);
ctx.closePath();
ctx.fill();
} }
You are better off providing supplementary text surrounding the animation which could be indexed by search engines.
Reason No. 5: Flash is write once, play everywhere: More like write once, play anywhere that runs Flash. That means play anywhere on Windows desktops, kind of play on Mac and Linux but not well, and then barely play on some mobile devices.
This is pure B.S. If flash doesn't play well on a device, it is very unlikely that the same device will have enough muscle to
You want to know the most basic reason I despise Flash? It breaks the back button.
HTML5 isn't going to solve the problem. You cannot just click the "back" button and go to a previous animated screen - it is going to take you to the last web page you visited - the same as if you were using Flash.
HTML5 does not have the capability to access the webcam and the microphone on the desktop. That is a pretty serious problem considering the number of people who use this feature regularly.
The other MAJOR "feature" that Flash has is that it can be installed as a plugin in pretty much *any* browser - so if you are stuck with using IE6 because of some enterprise app which doesn't run on anything else, it will still be possible to install the flash plugin on the browser - that makes Flash far more ubiquitous that HTML5 can ever hope to be in the next 5 years.
Slashdot Mirror
Flash does a whole lot more than HTML5 does - including providing access to web cams etc. To consider Flash dead just because flash cannot be embedded directly as a tile on the metro interface is stupid. Users can always opt to use a browser with flash enabled. I will be very surprised if many users on Slashdot don't install a new version of the flash plugin everytime they install an OS from scratch.
Well, I signed up just before you ;)
Thanks Rob for all your work. Learnt much from this site over the years and have been grateful for what you put together. The term slashdotted exists thanks to you :). Best of luck with whatever you set out to do.
I know it is cool on slashdot to blame religion for everything and sundry. Also, I know it is considered cool to mouth off about things that you know nothing about - especially if religion is also blamed for something in the same post.
But here are some facts:
1. The number of deaths from Malaria alone each year is around 1 million.
http://www.malarianomore.org/malaria
2. The number of deaths from TB alone each year is around 1.7 million (2009 figures)
http://www.who.int/mediacentre/factsheets/fs104/en/
These are numbers for just two diseases. I challenge you to find me statistics which indicate that religion is directly responsible for at least 2.7 million deaths each year.
The highest temperature ever recorded anywhere in India was just south of 52C... and Bangalore is a place with very temperate climate.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_weather_records#Highest_temperature_ever_recorded
Bangalore never gets above 40 C.. and very rarely does it get over 35 C. It is true that a large number of trees were cut down and the temperature did go up, but it wasn't anywhere close to the 10C that you claim.
Noticed an error in my post - it should read:
If you configure it with the following specs it comes to about *USD 1749/-*. If you are too lazy to read the article, I have given the specs below:
The Apple Macbook Pro 17 costs (USD 2578/- with anti-glare screen and display port adapter for VGA)
Here is a laptop which has similar or better specifications than a Apple Macbook and an excellent support service. You can checkout reviews of Powernotebooks for an idea about the quality of service they provide. NOTE: I am not associated with them in anyway. I have heard very good reports though.
Not a Dell, but better (for approximately USD 1749 or about than GBP 1077.50). Check this out:
http://www.powernotebooks.com/configure.php?special=924
If you configure it with the following specs it comes to about USD 1595/-. If you are too lazy to read the article, I have given the specs below:
17.3” Full HD 16:9 Wide screen (1920x1080) LED-Backlit Display with Super Clear Glare Type screen vs 17" 1920x1200 Anti-glare on the Macbook Pro 17
nVIDIA GeForce GTX 460M 192bit w/1.5GB GDDR5 vs Intel HD Graphics 3000 on the Macbook Pro 17
Intel® Core i7-2630QM (2.0~2.9GHz, 45W) w/6M L3 Cache - 4 Cores - 8 Threads,
8GB (2x4GB SODIMMS) DDR3/1333 vs 4GB on the Macbook Pro 17
750GB SATA II 3GB/s 7,200 RPM (16MB Cache Buffer) vs 750GB SATA 5400 RPM on Macbook Pro 17
Integrated 802.11 b/g/n wireless LAN + Bluetooth V3.0 + HS Combo Card
Windows 7 Premium (with CD)
3-Year Labor 1-Year Parts (Year 2 & 3 Labor by PNB)-Lifetime 24/7 DOMESTIC Toll Free Support. vs No apple care plan on Macbook Pro (you can purchase a 3 year Apple care plan for 349.. the advantage is that you get international support unlike in the case of Powernotebooks.com)
In case you missed it - there is domestic toll free support in the US for the lifetime of the product with Powernotebooks.
So all in all a wonderful deal if you are in the US. Again, I am not associated with this company in any way, shape or form. Just pointing out that there are far better deals than buying a Macbook Pro.
Communism isn't the only alternative to laissez faire capitalism. A LOT can be achieved if capitalism is regulated. We have laws which prevent cartels, monopolies etc.
Companies have rules in place to prevent their employees from receiving gifts from vendors, clients and so on because they know that this can lead to a situation where there is a conflict of interest. But how is that there is no law that prevents senators, members of congress etc from receiving any funds from a company / trust / or any other organization? The politicians should be paid a salary from public funds and not allowed to take any money or any other consideration from any non-governmental organization.
I know you think you are pretty smart for making that observation - and those with mod points on slashdot here will be falling over themselves to mod you up because of the hivemind.
However, there is a huge difference between scientology and other religions - especially the more benign ones such as Christianity, Buddhism etc..
For one thing, every rite/ritual/creed of scientology is given on a pay-as-you-go basis.. no other religion does that.
For another - no other mainstream religion actively seeks to "disconnect" you from your friends and relatives
No other religion has actively infiltrated government and its agencies with the express purpose of thwarting an investigation.
No other religion has a policy that explicitly states that overwhelming legal force, harassment, lies and slander must be used to torment any opponent.
There was a total of 46 inches of rain in just two days.
994mm rainfall in a 24-hour period in the most urbanised city in India -
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maharashtra_floods_of_2005
This is very true. In US, you can get sued by anyone on absolutely asinine grounds - and the courts are willing to grant huge damages which make no sense whatsoever. This pushes up the price of services such as healthcare.. makes manufacturing in the US a far less attractive option etc.
You make it seem like this was a carefully crafted strategy from Apple. But that is simply not the case.
It just so happened that Steve Jobs thought that everyone would be happy to play in his walled garden while he collected tax. However, with Android coming out with flash..and considering the speed at which android phones are selling, he figured that the best thing to do would be to eat his pride and his words and fix those features that are missing.
Apple was wrong to have placed all those restrictions on the iphone. This is the Apple way of acknowledging their mistake.
When we speak about the origins of the world, we are referring to the first step in the natural processes which led to the world and everything within it. The doctrine of first cause posits that this first natural step was set into motion by a *supernatural* initiator who is above and beyond all known natural laws. This supernatural being is referred to as God.
So by definition God is *super* natural and therefore does not require a natural cause to come to be.
I come from India and I am a christian. We are a minority - a mere 2.3% of the population. I know dozens of friends who though nurtured in non-christian families took the decision to become Christians.. despite severe persecution and despite having to lose everything.
a religion that basically ignores modern medicine and believes in healing through prayer alone.
[Citation needed]
Counter point - you are ignoring the thousands of hospitals across the world which are run by churches.
Also, you appear to be unaware of Mendel, Pasteur etc..
Despite all the efforts of the establishment to eat into the free speech rights on individuals in the US, US is still better than a LOT of places when it comes to freedom of speech.
Speaking as an Indian, I know for a fact that my life would be in grave danger if I started a blog documenting all the corruption going on in India (something I have been wanting to do and have been working on). I have been working on getting a friend of mine to host a site for me outside India so that the Indian government won't be able to take down the site as well, in case they turn against me.
Well, one may point out a few examples where people have been targeted for doing something similar in the US, but I can assure you that it is a LOT worse in places like India.
And in countries like China and Russia, it is actually even worse than in India. In Russia there is a very high likelihood that you will be killed if you speak too much against the establishment. In China, you will probably end up in jail for a long, long time.
So for those who live in the US, please be a little bit more thankful for what you have and instead of getting distracted with all the shiny gadgets and the stupid debates about right vs left, please do try and protect what is remaining of the rights that you have.
http://www.nowpublic.com/world/sri-lanka-buddhist-mobs-attack-churches
Cowards. If you are willing to put your name on a petition to get a measure on the ballot, then you should be willing to stand by your decision. Claiming you don't want your name to be revealed because your friends and neighbors might think differently about you is no excuse to try and hide from your decision.
Would you apply these same standards to elections as well? or is that a special case where anonymity is more important and cowardice is acceptable?
And there aren't many people who would say that the Hebrews were necessarily a completely peaceful people. From the massacre of the worshipers of the golden calf to the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah, there was plenty of violence to go around.
According to the Bible, Sodom and Gomorrah were destroyed by God... Jews as a race didn't even exist. Even Abraham wasn't a jew then.
Your view is subjective. Flash crashes on YOUR computer. I use Windows, Mac OSX and Linux and I don't experience the problems that you are experiencing with flash.
Your linux distribution not coming with Flash isn't Flash's fault - it is the issue with those who put the distro together or due to licensing problems.. hardly a fault of the technology.
About open source support for flash - please do google for open source flash engines (hint - there are many) for application development, for charts and graphs, for games etc.
Designers HATE Flash.
I think you are generalising too much. A LOT of websites targeting designers are very heavy on flash. Flash can be used for stuff other than garish animation and ads.
A lot of commenters seem to believe that ALL kids just want to be exactly like each other. I am sorry, but that is just not the case. A LOT of kids like to have things which no one else has.. also, I am guessing this girl is secretly proud of the fact that she can work a bit with Linux while the rest of the kids probably have a lot of trouble using windows with all the virus problems.
Yes.
Reason No. 2: Flash beats Canvas: Ok, I bet there are still some things that Flash does better/faster. But complaining that HTML5 sometimes has bad performance isn't too compelling for me, since Flash constantly crashes on me. Further, the idea that HTML5 is bad because some browser might work a little different doesn't quite work for me since: (A) HTML5 is new and not complete, and it will take a little while to work things out. (B) At least I have the option of different browsers; if Adobe Flash Player isn't working for me, there's not really too much I can do.
I have yet to encounter problems with the Flash player not playing some content in flash - I have had on rare occasions had to reinstall the plugin due to some browser problem or because of a newer flash version, but I cannot say that the flash player keeps crashing on me. But perhaps it is just me.
Reason No. 3: Flash's good developer tools: Fair enough.
Reason No. 4: Flash's supercool fonts: Better support for custom fonts is being built into HTML5/CSS3. Flash shouldn't really be used for rendering text on websites anyway, since it interferes with searching and linking and indexing.
Have you looked at HTML5 and SVG before? I have. Try rendering something complex with it and then try indexing the resulting code. There will be very little actual text worth indexing - most of it will be vector animation instructions. The same applies to stuff such as processing. Actually, the SVG animations are far more difficult to index than even RTF documents (which don't contain a lot of vector drawing instructions).
Example (from alistapart):
function drawSimpleCanvas() {
var canvas =
document.getElementById("simpleCanvas");
if (canvas.getContext) {
var ctx = canvas.getContext("2d");
ctx.beginPath(); // the circle // move and resize the octagon // restore graphics as they // were before move and resize
ctx.fillStyle = "#ff0000";
ctx.arc(50, 50, 30, 0, 2*Math.PI, true);
ctx.closePath();
ctx.fill();
ctx.save();
ctx.translate(100, 20);
ctx.scale(1.65, 1.65);
ctx.fillStyle = "#0000ff";
ctx.beginPath();
ctx.moveTo(36, 25); ctx.lineTo(25, 36);
ctx.lineTo(11, 36); ctx.lineTo(0, 25);
ctx.lineTo(0, 11); ctx.lineTo(11, 0);
ctx.lineTo(25, 0); ctx.lineTo(36, 11);
ctx.closePath();
ctx.fill();
ctx.restore();
ctx.fillStyle = "#00ff00";
ctx.globalAlpha = 0.5;
ctx.beginPath();
ctx.rect(60, 20, 60, 60);
ctx.closePath();
ctx.fill();
}
}
You are better off providing supplementary text surrounding the animation which could be indexed by search engines.
Reason No. 5: Flash is write once, play everywhere: More like write once, play anywhere that runs Flash. That means play anywhere on Windows desktops, kind of play on Mac and Linux but not well, and then barely play on some mobile devices.
This is pure B.S. If flash doesn't play well on a device, it is very unlikely that the same device will have enough muscle to
You want to know the most basic reason I despise Flash? It breaks the back button.
HTML5 isn't going to solve the problem. You cannot just click the "back" button and go to a previous animated screen - it is going to take you to the last web page you visited - the same as if you were using Flash.
HTML5 does not have the capability to access the webcam and the microphone on the desktop. That is a pretty serious problem considering the number of people who use this feature regularly.
The other MAJOR "feature" that Flash has is that it can be installed as a plugin in pretty much *any* browser - so if you are stuck with using IE6 because of some enterprise app which doesn't run on anything else, it will still be possible to install the flash plugin on the browser - that makes Flash far more ubiquitous that HTML5 can ever hope to be in the next 5 years.