I care more about the untold loss of vital environment than travel costs. I know it's a lot of smelly swamp, but salt marshes are of key importance... one of the few places, short of a volcano and whatnot, that land comes from... but that's only dependent on the life there. Once a marsh dies, it stops making land.
BP really fucked up a cream puff job... of all the crazy places they drill oil, all the adverse conditions, the GoM has to be tame. And no one bothered to calculate the devastation if they fucked up. The representatives that approved the speculation should be identified and made to sweat it.
False. And I wish people would stop stealing my meme. Adobe is now and will always be the new Microsoft, while Google is the old Apple, and Apple is the Tyrell Corporation. Think about it.
You and parent are glossing over the GPs inciteful observation. And hypocrisy cannot be derived from Job's essay. Sullivan at the FSF, and it seems most, have misinterpreted what Job was saying. Sullivan's response is a straw man argument... he's arguing Job's is a hypocrite for arguing something he didn't argue. Jobs was talking about something else.
We can debate whether software should be patentable all day, but video codecs are a pretty clear example of a piece of software that are very expensive to develop and probably do need some kind of patent protection.
There's nothing wrong with reasonable patents on inventions, but the point is to allow the maker to profit from producing the invention itself - and they can license other manufacturers to make similar inventions based on the patented design.
The reason this is different is because they're treating it like selling a video recorded with their invention is the same as duplicating the invention itself. They're putting limitations on the product of the codec as though you were taking away part of their business by selling an equivalent codec. I'm sorry, but I can't see that as a legitimate use of patents.
Unlike the others that have responded to your post, I only wish I had mod points AND I could circumvent the moderation limit to mod you even higher than the allowed maximum.
We need to amplify and describe from every view imaginable, using all available car metaphors, your plain observation so that even the most stubbornly intelligent can understand it, and not be able to deny it.
Patents are fractured and everywhere, I can't seem to isolate a proper one to use as an example, applied in the way they're using the h.264 patents.
But hypothetically, if I invented a nozzle for a pastry machine that made ideal pastries, compact and of the finest quality, and I applied my patent on it in the way the h.264 patent holders have applied theirs, I'd license for free the manufacture and use of the nozzle itself, unless the pastries are sold, in which case I take licensing fees for the use of the nozzle AND for any pastries made with the nozzle that are sold. If you sell my cupcake, you pay me to do so. Except that it's not my cupcake, it's just that you made it with my nozzle.
lame. REQ: actual well known patent amusingly applied in this manner plz
That's the thing... we don't need to worry about flash. Adobe will make sure a plugin will always be available for new browser users. Just because flash isn't rolled into html5 doesn't mean it's going away. Hopefully, it will just go away from video delivery.
This may just be semantics, but it is an 'open standard' what it is not is 'open source'. There is a difference.
Wrong and wrong. It is "open source" as there exist an open source implementation of it, what its not is an "open standard",
You are incorrect. H.264 is an open standard. The fact that H.264 is an open standard speaks zero towards, yes, the fact that it has patents. x264 is the open source implementation of H.264, yet it also has patents associated with it.
as it requires royalties to be implemented legally
you don't understand what an open standard is... it has nothing to do with whether or not there are patents
(the open source implementation is illegal in any country that recognizes software patents).
This is also false. And a little ridiculous.
Sure, the specification itself is available to be read, but that applies to *all* standards, otherwise they couldn't be called as such. What differentiates an open standard from a closed one is the aspect of the latter of having one entity controlling who gets to implement it and who doesn't, and in h.264's case that's MPEG-LA through its patent portfolio.
Patent holders just get paid. They don't set standards. The standards are set by those that use the standard (whether they have to license the right to do so or not). You don't understand what an open standard is. It has nothing to do with patents.
What percentage of users are downloading vector animations?
Every single Homestar Runner fan. Every single Weebl and Bob fan. Every single visitor to Newgrounds.
ok, I like that stuff too, but not a fanatic
It is irrellivant to say "Flash does vector animations, but H.264 does not," because vector animations aren't video.
Other Slashdot users disagree with you. They seem to think that one should create a vector animation and then render it to video before publishing it. But I know that's horribly bandwidth-inefficient.
Sounds like that's just a workaround. But you've reminded me of the cool things that came out of Adobe. On the top of my list is PostScript, which was adapted for display and used by NeXT and OS X, and everything else until it was basically cloned. But PostScript wasn't open or free. Then Adobe, on a roll, did another awesome thing... they gave away PDF. Apple switched to DisplayPDF. The idea of using vectors to render what we're viewing intrigues me.
The technology is promising, and for a time it exceeded our expectations, and relatively speaking, didn't suck at all for video, but video has exploded and surpassed Flash's ability to complete (imho).
I remember the very first thing I saw in flash was Strong Bad... and I was pretty amazed; the episodes loaded far too quickly for it to be video. I figured out it was vectors just by enjoying the show, and I figured it'd get popular for vector animation distribution, basically a whole new industry.
Using Flash, a whole platform, for video, or vector animations, is akin to buying a car just so you can listen to the radio.
Then what just-a-radio technology do you recommend for delivering vector animations with synchronized sound? Consider that before ActionScript matured and Flash added FLV, Flash was primarily a vehicle for vector animation.
I think, of course, the answer is Flash. What would stop the original users of the original intended purpose of this particular implementation of this vector animation technology (Flash) from continuing to use and love and flourish using and loving it?
I hope you're not saying what I think you're saying... that... some vector animation fanatic, and not Adobe, had some evil master plan to ensure that s/he could always have quality vector animations available on the trickle bandwidth we used to have, so he scooped all the actual video technologies that were minding their own business, and put flash everywhere.... blue pilled web video, as it were.
Or, more likely, vector animation fans are innocent bystanders of the change in personality that overcame Adobe just after Flash created the vector animation scene, and just before Adobe decided to abandon the very platform that created them (I refer, of course, to Adobe ignoring Macs and failing to release in reasonable time native rewrites of their flagship applications, for PPC, and they failed again for x86 on repeated "upgrades" that offered no needed functionality, esp while not optimized for the platform... and that's when I started calling them the new Microsoft).
Seriously, it isn't at all the fault of vector animation shorts that vector animation itself was so abused by the world at large, so much so that many have reached a threshold and want it gone for good. But even they realize it's never really going away. Adobe will always have a plugin handy that you can install in your HTML5 browser.
Nicely put. No admin second guesses Sun when they update Solaris, nor are suspicious of IBM when AIX has a version upgrade available. I want to trust Microsoft, it would make my job a lot easier. This simple reason you give is the best answer I've heard, and it's unfortunate no discussion below your post has materialized, because this is the direction the debate should take.
Flash is partially open - Adobe has provided the.swf spec for everything but the proprietary video codecs, which are not technically "Flash."
interesting, but doesn't help Adobe's position.
But even if it was and open standard, H.264 would still beat it quite handily in video quality and file size (bandwidth).
See above - video codecs are not the same thing as Flash. This is essentially the same situation as QuickTime being an "open" standard supporting closed codecs.
I understand its not a codec, and in fact Flash can deliver H.264 video, but your point is irrelevant as Flash and H.264 are competing as video delivery methods for the spot in HTML5 (H.264 already won, btw). So it is understood we are comparing Flash (not a codec), to H.264 (a video codec) in regards to what their function is in this case: web video delivery. Flash CAN duplicate exactly the quality of H.264 because it can deliver H.264... but it will necessarily take up more bandwidth to do it, because it is a superfluous wrapper to a codec that could operate without Flash.
Explain to me how vector animation is video. What percentage of users are downloading vector animations? Were vector animations even discussed for HTML5?
You have helped make my point. The discussion is concerning which wrapper or delivery method for video HTML5 should employ. It is irrellivant to say "Flash does vector animations, but H.264 does not," because vector animations aren't video.
But I'll bet my shorts there's a better vector animation solution out there...one that is purposed soley for delivering vector animations.
Using Flash, a whole platform, for video, or vector animations, is akin to buying a car just so you can listen to the radio.
It's a little bit intellectually dishonest that those that have disdain for Apple and iPhone must always refer to Apple or iPhone when anything cell related makes the news. If Apple and iPhone really really sucked... no one would bother comparing everything to it constantly. The iPhone haters have turned the iPhone into the Gold Standard for smart phones. Nice work there... but it's so tragic. The more people that bash iPhone, the more free advertising it gets, and the more iPhones get sold. Android will forever be the alternative to iPhone, even if it becomes vastly more popular; when talked about, iPhone will always be mentioned. I'm gonna call it the Android bump. iPhone owes some of it's success to the Android bump.
I'm sure Jobs and Apple are quaking. Everything Google does turns to gold, even if they don't have the market experience to develop and successfully bring to market... um... anything. What does Google sell, again? Oh yeah... advertising. No one sells web ads better. And this is going to make Android sweet.
Don't confuse [patents vs OSS vs Free Software vs Software that costs nothing] with [open standards vs proprietary closed standards, or no standards].
Flash is a closed standard. But even if it was and open standard, H.264 would still beat it quite handily in video quality and file size (bandwidth). H.264 delivers video quality superior to Flash and with less bandwidth. Also, you can't develop an application in H.264... it's just a video codec and not an entire bulging, proprietary, and closed platform.
Ask yourself this: if you were shopping for a keyboard, would you prefer a product that was designed to be a keyboard, and does nothing else but serve as a keyboard, or would you be looking for it to do a bunch of other things to, like have a built in calculator, fan, cassette deck, radio, toothbrush, magnifying glass, tiny circular saw and oil filter wrench? Maybe the metaphor isn't spot on, but the point is Flash not only isn't suited for video delivery (any more), it was designed for another purpose, as a development platform. And as brilliant as it seems to saturate the web with a video plug in that is a door for the whole platform, and Adobe, as wrong headed as they were with this, did a fantastic job of shoehorning Flash into nearly every video delivery site, the problem is there were ulterior motives. Adobe used subterfuge to distribute a platform no one wanted nor do most realize they have (most think it's just for video). This kind of pisses me off, especially because Flash, for the most part, is so painful to behold (FUCK, there's something happening here... and I CAN"T STOP IT.... AH MAKE IT STOP... it's that kind of angst, something inserted before my eyes and I'm powerless to stop it).
But beyond Flash video, which is anathema to anybody that isn't blind, there isn't any issue with Flash. It is, it turns out, a neat little platform. However, there's no good reason to use it for video delivery. NONE. If Adobe would cease their video crusade, and just let Flash spread by it's own merits, maybe even open the standard, Flash would find it's true niche, and would eventually get rolled into htm6 or whatever. Unfortunately, Adobe is going to let Flash go down with video (and to some extent, the iPhone, iTouch and iPad).
If flash had not been used as a video delivery system, I have no doubt it would be supported by the Apple devices. But since it's only used for video (99.99% of the time), there's no reason to have it there, and plenty of reason not to.
sorry if I got off the subject a little there... now I get off my soap box, with a "good luck" to flash devs, and a word of advice: "run from video delivery... run as fast as you can... it's going to kill your platform."
but from that small sample size I've seen a lot less of random things breaking
You'll excuse me please if I am skeptical, not of your experience, but that this Windows 7 serenity will last in any meaningful sense. I absolutely LOVE XP desktop installs for about 6 months. Then they make me want to murder. Let's see if the peace lasts... give it time.
OMG are you actually trying to make the case that Flash is a better delivery method for video? (Just so you can develop flash apps on Apple mobile products?)
It's not, and it isn't arbitrary, and I don't give a fuck if no one cares that flash sucks for video. I care about the quality of the video. Because I care, I avoid flash video. Flash video is synonymous with shitty video, and it just doesn't matter to me that no one else cares (if we are to believe your point).
I'm not sure why I am responding to you because you are just making stuff up. Off the top of my head I can think of 3 readily available web technologies that were superior to flash that predated flash: QuickTime, Windows Media, and Real. I'm sure by 2004 there were even more that were completely obliterated by flash's inexplicable dominance of the market. Yes, crappy videos require less bandwidth... and any other video tech at the time could have delivered the same crappy video with less bandwidth too. But the other video technologies were actually purposed for delivering video, and not an entire platform that could cook you breakfast and clean the apartment. I think that's why they were better, not that they were so focused on quality, but that video delivery was their business.
not very practical when most people were still on dialup
By 2003, when flash spread like the virus that it is, cable internet and dsl was also spreading like wildfire, especially in the populated areas, growing with the consumer's thirst for more bandwidth.
You will be more successful making valid arguments if you avoid making things up. People actually remember what happened, and it sort of gives it away.
The Mac is the key. Think of it as a great big dongle. It's really the same thing. However, there are more complex reasons I won't go into concerning user experience and streamlining customer support that speak to your hair splitting. In a nutshell, Apple doesn't sell computers, they sell lifestyle... and accessories to go with that, including Macintosh. The product they sell isn't a PC, though it duplicates all a PC can do. Apple doesn't have a business division, for all those multibillion dollar businesses banging down their door begging to run OS X on commodity hardware, and they have no apparatus to deal with the tiny minority of possible sales to those that just don't fit into the hardware options they provide, and wish to use OS X on nonApple hardware. It's a cruel world. Unless you go rogue, and Apple allows for that, isn't taking any hackent0sh users to court, but is going to disincentivize the idea by killing support whenever it's convenient for them. They're just trying to sell their hardware. It's nothing personal against us that wish OS X was running everywhere, and its not about control, it's about selling their hardware.
I do not, and you've glossed over the point. The damage is done. Unless you rip everything yourself, and have only that source, crappy mp3s will get in there. You shouldn't ask why should you use anything but mp3s, you should ask why still use mp3s? If you are into compression, there are better free options, smaller files, faster rips, same quality. If you are into lossless, the regardless of the proof of concepts that high bit mp3s are transparent, even if it holds scrutiny to detailed analysis... the question isn't IF it can do it... the question is what benefit is there? If you just look or listen to an mp3... can you even tell if it's lossless? or the quality of the rip? If you want lossless, like I do, I can' t see the point of choosing mp3 over the other lossless formats. So either way... mp3 has served its purpose honorably... but now it kind of sucks because you can't tell if it sucks or how bad it sucks until you actually discover that you have a bad track. I know... big deal, and that isn't dependent upon the codec, but it isn't nothing... even it's just an accident of history that there are more crappy mp3s than there are excellent mp3s.
You are right, but I wasn't incorrect. My library really does sound better. It's not so much the format, per se, as the fact that mp3 began in low bit rate hell, barely broadcast quality and not "perfect digital copies" as the RIAA claimed (Napster should have exposed this lie and won), and those low bit rips are still out there. Yes you can get high bit rate rips, but I trust the FLAC folks and Apple Lossless more than I trust Johnny-mp3.
Lala was a much better music service, offering songs in straight MP3 format.
If the format is your sole criteria, then you have made a grave mistake. If you meant DRM-free, then you should have said that, but all of the formats Apple offers through iTunes are technically superior to mp3. And the DRM is not tied to the format, meaning, I use the formats Apple uses, but I don't use DRM. And my music library just sounds better than your mp3 library.
The real reason it's bad that Lala is going away is that variety and competition is good, less variety and competition is not as good.
Frankly, I'm getting really tired of all the artificial limitations that Jobs is placing left and right for developers and consumers alike
I read your other posts, and it's not that you sound trollish or anything, just that you have your own experience, which as it turns out isn't what it's supposed to be and not Apple's fault. But I quoted you because it is becoming extremely trendy to bash Apple for jealously protecting their IP. It is difficult for one to separate personal preference or bias from the truth of the matter when trying to make a global evaluation of a company using a few gripes repeated ad infinitum by the uninformed. It's not an artificial limitation that Apple is employing. Or rather, it's no more artificial than Windows requiring a key. But Apple's money comes from hardware, and by restricting their software to only run on their hardware, by any means, they are creating a consumer insentive to buy their hardware. To quote the insane and immoral tyrant himself, "it's as simple as that."
mod coward up, makes all parent posts irrellivent.
wow, it's in the manual:
3.1.1 Mac OS X guests
Starting with version 3.2, VirtualBox has experimental support for Mac OS X guests. This allows you to install and execute unmodified versions of OS X on supported host hardware. Whereas competing solutions perform modifications to the OS X install DVDs (e.g. different boot loader and replaced files), VirtualBox is the first product to provide the modern PC architecture expected by OS X without requiring any “hacks”. You should be aware of a number of important issues before attempting to install a Mac OS X guest:
1. OS X is commercial, licensed software and contains both license and technical restrictions that limit its use to certain hardware and usage scenarios. It is im-portant that you understand and obey these restrictions. As a result, before attempting to install Mac OS X in a virtual machine, make sure you understand the license restrictions of the Mac OS X version you want to use. For most versions of Mac OS X, Apple prohibits installing them on non-Apple hardware. These license restrictions are also enforced on a technical level: Mac OS X ver-ifies whether it is running on Apple hardware, and most DVDs that that come with Apple hardware even check for an exact model. These restrictions are not circumvented by VirtualBox and continue to apply.
2. Only CPUs known and tested by Apple are supported. As a result, AMD CPUs will never work at all, and if the Intel CPU is newer than the build of OS X, it will most likely panic during bootup with an “Unsupported
Configuring virtual machines
3. The Mac OS X installer expects the harddisk to be partitioned so when it does not offer a selection, you have to launch the Disk Utility from the “Tools” menu and partition the hard disk. Then close the Disk Utility and proceed with the installation.
4. In addition, as Mac OS X support in VirtualBox is currently still experimental, please refer also to chapter 14, Known limitations, page 278.
salient details from
p.278
4 Known limitations
Mac OS X guests.
– Mac OS X guests can only run on a certain host hardware. For details about license and host hardware limitations, please see chapter 3.1.1, Mac OS X guests, page 47. – VirtualBox does not provide Guest Additions for OS X at this time. – The graphics resolution currently defaults to 1024x768 as OS X falls back to the built-in EFI display support. See chapter 3.12.1, Video modes in EFI, page 61 for more information on how to change EFI video modes. – Even when idle, OS X guests currently burn 100% CPU. This is a power management issue that will be addressed in a future release. – OS X guests only work with one CPU assigned to the VM. Support for SMP will be provided in a future release. – Depending on your system and version of OS X, you might experience guest hangs after some time. This can be fixed by turning off energy saving (set timeout to “Never”) in the system preferences. – By default, the VirtualBox EFI enables debug output of the OS X kernel to help you diagnose boot problems. Note that there is a lot of output and not all errors are fatal (they would also show on your physical Mac). You can turn off these messages by issuing this command:
I guess YouTube and every other "tube" site on the net must be wrong then, and you're right.
Yes. That is quite clear. Thank you for stating the obvious.
Most people don't give a fuck about whether it's encoded...
And here you show your fundamental misunderstanding about what the problem is with Flash delivering video. Flash is not a video codec. Video has heen shoehorned into the platform, at the expense of your processor cycles and a pleasent viewing experience devoid of stuttering and pixelation. Then they put it everywhere. Listen to what I am telling you... any other method of delivering video will be better than flash. ANY OTHER METHOD OF DELIVERING VIDEO IS PREFERABLE TO FLASH.
Now... if you have a game you developed in flash... that's great, good for you, congratulations. If you have some sort of whiteboard application that hundreds can use, collaborate simultaneously over the web from remote areas, all developed neatly in flash... hey, I think that is AWESOME.
Flash really has some areas in which it shines. Just because Adobe leveraged flash out of what it's good at, to convince video delivery sites to use flash, doesn't make it any better for delivering video. If everyone in the world used square tires on their car it still would not detract from the fact that square tires really suck at rolling. Stop trying to put square tires on my car, and do ANYTHING intelligent. Please.
If what you say is true (btw, it isn't) then flash would turn into another Java... a platform whose sole purpose is to be cross-platform at the expense of standardized interfaces and usability. I can understand why a flash developer might be pissed at Apple, however, flash developers are dwarfed by the number of users that prefer standardized interfaces and superior usability. Apple is right... developing an app in flash will be inferior to the same app developed natively. Why settle on the lowest common denominator when they have the authority to make things a little better? Apple is right, in this particular instance, and flash developers should blame Adobe for selling them magic beans.
Slashdot Mirror
BP really fucked up a cream puff job... of all the crazy places they drill oil, all the adverse conditions, the GoM has to be tame. And no one bothered to calculate the devastation if they fucked up. The representatives that approved the speculation should be identified and made to sweat it.
Apple is the new Microsoft, after all.
False. And I wish people would stop stealing my meme. Adobe is now and will always be the new Microsoft, while Google is the old Apple, and Apple is the Tyrell Corporation. Think about it.
You and parent are glossing over the GPs inciteful observation. And hypocrisy cannot be derived from Job's essay. Sullivan at the FSF, and it seems most, have misinterpreted what Job was saying. Sullivan's response is a straw man argument... he's arguing Job's is a hypocrite for arguing something he didn't argue. Jobs was talking about something else.
There's nothing wrong with reasonable patents on inventions, but the point is to allow the maker to profit from producing the invention itself - and they can license other manufacturers to make similar inventions based on the patented design.
The reason this is different is because they're treating it like selling a video recorded with their invention is the same as duplicating the invention itself. They're putting limitations on the product of the codec as though you were taking away part of their business by selling an equivalent codec. I'm sorry, but I can't see that as a legitimate use of patents.
Unlike the others that have responded to your post, I only wish I had mod points AND I could circumvent the moderation limit to mod you even higher than the allowed maximum.
We need to amplify and describe from every view imaginable, using all available car metaphors, your plain observation so that even the most stubbornly intelligent can understand it, and not be able to deny it.
Patents are fractured and everywhere, I can't seem to isolate a proper one to use as an example, applied in the way they're using the h.264 patents.
But hypothetically, if I invented a nozzle for a pastry machine that made ideal pastries, compact and of the finest quality, and I applied my patent on it in the way the h.264 patent holders have applied theirs, I'd license for free the manufacture and use of the nozzle itself, unless the pastries are sold, in which case I take licensing fees for the use of the nozzle AND for any pastries made with the nozzle that are sold. If you sell my cupcake, you pay me to do so. Except that it's not my cupcake, it's just that you made it with my nozzle.
lame. REQ: actual well known patent amusingly applied in this manner plz
That's the thing... we don't need to worry about flash. Adobe will make sure a plugin will always be available for new browser users. Just because flash isn't rolled into html5 doesn't mean it's going away. Hopefully, it will just go away from video delivery.
Err...
This may just be semantics, but it is an 'open standard' what it is not is 'open source'. There is a difference.
Wrong and wrong. It is "open source" as there exist an open source implementation of it, what its not is an "open standard",
You are incorrect. H.264 is an open standard. The fact that H.264 is an open standard speaks zero towards, yes, the fact that it has patents. x264 is the open source implementation of H.264, yet it also has patents associated with it.
as it requires royalties to be implemented legally
you don't understand what an open standard is... it has nothing to do with whether or not there are patents
(the open source implementation is illegal in any country that recognizes software patents).
This is also false. And a little ridiculous.
Sure, the specification itself is available to be read, but that applies to *all* standards, otherwise they couldn't be called as such. What differentiates an open standard from a closed one is the aspect of the latter of having one entity controlling who gets to implement it and who doesn't, and in h.264's case that's MPEG-LA through its patent portfolio.
Patent holders just get paid. They don't set standards. The standards are set by those that use the standard (whether they have to license the right to do so or not). You don't understand what an open standard is. It has nothing to do with patents.
What percentage of users are downloading vector animations?
Every single Homestar Runner fan. Every single Weebl and Bob fan. Every single visitor to Newgrounds.
ok, I like that stuff too, but not a fanatic
It is irrellivant to say "Flash does vector animations, but H.264 does not," because vector animations aren't video.
Other Slashdot users disagree with you. They seem to think that one should create a vector animation and then render it to video before publishing it. But I know that's horribly bandwidth-inefficient.
Sounds like that's just a workaround. But you've reminded me of the cool things that came out of Adobe. On the top of my list is PostScript, which was adapted for display and used by NeXT and OS X, and everything else until it was basically cloned. But PostScript wasn't open or free. Then Adobe, on a roll, did another awesome thing... they gave away PDF. Apple switched to DisplayPDF. The idea of using vectors to render what we're viewing intrigues me.
The technology is promising, and for a time it exceeded our expectations, and relatively speaking, didn't suck at all for video, but video has exploded and surpassed Flash's ability to complete (imho).
I remember the very first thing I saw in flash was Strong Bad... and I was pretty amazed; the episodes loaded far too quickly for it to be video. I figured out it was vectors just by enjoying the show, and I figured it'd get popular for vector animation distribution, basically a whole new industry.
Using Flash, a whole platform, for video, or vector animations, is akin to buying a car just so you can listen to the radio.
Then what just-a-radio technology do you recommend for delivering vector animations with synchronized sound? Consider that before ActionScript matured and Flash added FLV, Flash was primarily a vehicle for vector animation.
I think, of course, the answer is Flash. What would stop the original users of the original intended purpose of this particular implementation of this vector animation technology (Flash) from continuing to use and love and flourish using and loving it?
I hope you're not saying what I think you're saying... that ... some vector animation fanatic, and not Adobe, had some evil master plan to ensure that s/he could always have quality vector animations available on the trickle bandwidth we used to have, so he scooped all the actual video technologies that were minding their own business, and put flash everywhere.... blue pilled web video, as it were.
Or, more likely, vector animation fans are innocent bystanders of the change in personality that overcame Adobe just after Flash created the vector animation scene, and just before Adobe decided to abandon the very platform that created them (I refer, of course, to Adobe ignoring Macs and failing to release in reasonable time native rewrites of their flagship applications, for PPC, and they failed again for x86 on repeated "upgrades" that offered no needed functionality, esp while not optimized for the platform... and that's when I started calling them the new Microsoft).
Seriously, it isn't at all the fault of vector animation shorts that vector animation itself was so abused by the world at large, so much so that many have reached a threshold and want it gone for good. But even they realize it's never really going away. Adobe will always have a plugin handy that you can install in your HTML5 browser.
Well, basically, because Microsoft says so.
Nicely put. No admin second guesses Sun when they update Solaris, nor are suspicious of IBM when AIX has a version upgrade available. I want to trust Microsoft, it would make my job a lot easier. This simple reason you give is the best answer I've heard, and it's unfortunate no discussion below your post has materialized, because this is the direction the debate should take.
Flash is partially open - Adobe has provided the .swf spec for everything but the proprietary video codecs, which are not technically "Flash."
interesting, but doesn't help Adobe's position.
See above - video codecs are not the same thing as Flash. This is essentially the same situation as QuickTime being an "open" standard supporting closed codecs.
I understand its not a codec, and in fact Flash can deliver H.264 video, but your point is irrelevant as Flash and H.264 are competing as video delivery methods for the spot in HTML5 (H.264 already won, btw). So it is understood we are comparing Flash (not a codec), to H.264 (a video codec) in regards to what their function is in this case: web video delivery. Flash CAN duplicate exactly the quality of H.264 because it can deliver H.264... but it will necessarily take up more bandwidth to do it, because it is a superfluous wrapper to a codec that could operate without Flash.
Explain to me how vector animation is video. What percentage of users are downloading vector animations? Were vector animations even discussed for HTML5?
You have helped make my point. The discussion is concerning which wrapper or delivery method for video HTML5 should employ. It is irrellivant to say "Flash does vector animations, but H.264 does not," because vector animations aren't video.
But I'll bet my shorts there's a better vector animation solution out there...one that is purposed soley for delivering vector animations.
Using Flash, a whole platform, for video, or vector animations, is akin to buying a car just so you can listen to the radio.
It's a little bit intellectually dishonest that those that have disdain for Apple and iPhone must always refer to Apple or iPhone when anything cell related makes the news. If Apple and iPhone really really sucked... no one would bother comparing everything to it constantly. The iPhone haters have turned the iPhone into the Gold Standard for smart phones. Nice work there... but it's so tragic. The more people that bash iPhone, the more free advertising it gets, and the more iPhones get sold. Android will forever be the alternative to iPhone, even if it becomes vastly more popular; when talked about, iPhone will always be mentioned. I'm gonna call it the Android bump. iPhone owes some of it's success to the Android bump.
I'm sure Jobs and Apple are quaking. Everything Google does turns to gold, even if they don't have the market experience to develop and successfully bring to market ... um... anything. What does Google sell, again? Oh yeah... advertising. No one sells web ads better. And this is going to make Android sweet.
...and how is .h264 an open standard, again?
In every way that matters.
Don't confuse [patents vs OSS vs Free Software vs Software that costs nothing] with [open standards vs proprietary closed standards, or no standards].
Flash is a closed standard. But even if it was and open standard, H.264 would still beat it quite handily in video quality and file size (bandwidth). H.264 delivers video quality superior to Flash and with less bandwidth. Also, you can't develop an application in H.264... it's just a video codec and not an entire bulging, proprietary, and closed platform.
Ask yourself this: if you were shopping for a keyboard, would you prefer a product that was designed to be a keyboard, and does nothing else but serve as a keyboard, or would you be looking for it to do a bunch of other things to, like have a built in calculator, fan, cassette deck, radio, toothbrush, magnifying glass, tiny circular saw and oil filter wrench? Maybe the metaphor isn't spot on, but the point is Flash not only isn't suited for video delivery (any more), it was designed for another purpose, as a development platform. And as brilliant as it seems to saturate the web with a video plug in that is a door for the whole platform, and Adobe, as wrong headed as they were with this, did a fantastic job of shoehorning Flash into nearly every video delivery site, the problem is there were ulterior motives. Adobe used subterfuge to distribute a platform no one wanted nor do most realize they have (most think it's just for video). This kind of pisses me off, especially because Flash, for the most part, is so painful to behold (FUCK, there's something happening here... and I CAN"T STOP IT.... AH MAKE IT STOP... it's that kind of angst, something inserted before my eyes and I'm powerless to stop it).
But beyond Flash video, which is anathema to anybody that isn't blind, there isn't any issue with Flash. It is, it turns out, a neat little platform. However, there's no good reason to use it for video delivery. NONE. If Adobe would cease their video crusade, and just let Flash spread by it's own merits, maybe even open the standard, Flash would find it's true niche, and would eventually get rolled into htm6 or whatever. Unfortunately, Adobe is going to let Flash go down with video (and to some extent, the iPhone, iTouch and iPad).
If flash had not been used as a video delivery system, I have no doubt it would be supported by the Apple devices. But since it's only used for video (99.99% of the time), there's no reason to have it there, and plenty of reason not to.
sorry if I got off the subject a little there... now I get off my soap box, with a "good luck" to flash devs, and a word of advice: "run from video delivery... run as fast as you can... it's going to kill your platform."
but from that small sample size I've seen a lot less of random things breaking
You'll excuse me please if I am skeptical, not of your experience, but that this Windows 7 serenity will last in any meaningful sense. I absolutely LOVE XP desktop installs for about 6 months. Then they make me want to murder. Let's see if the peace lasts... give it time.
Wake up jackass. I fixed my app a year ago so it would work with IIS7 and I had 64 bit working 4 years ago.
I'm not a dev, just an admin, you insensitive clod!
It's not, and it isn't arbitrary, and I don't give a fuck if no one cares that flash sucks for video. I care about the quality of the video. Because I care, I avoid flash video. Flash video is synonymous with shitty video, and it just doesn't matter to me that no one else cares (if we are to believe your point).
there were no other decent, easy alternatives
I'm not sure why I am responding to you because you are just making stuff up. Off the top of my head I can think of 3 readily available web technologies that were superior to flash that predated flash: QuickTime, Windows Media, and Real. I'm sure by 2004 there were even more that were completely obliterated by flash's inexplicable dominance of the market. Yes, crappy videos require less bandwidth... and any other video tech at the time could have delivered the same crappy video with less bandwidth too. But the other video technologies were actually purposed for delivering video, and not an entire platform that could cook you breakfast and clean the apartment. I think that's why they were better, not that they were so focused on quality, but that video delivery was their business.
not very practical when most people were still on dialup
By 2003, when flash spread like the virus that it is, cable internet and dsl was also spreading like wildfire, especially in the populated areas, growing with the consumer's thirst for more bandwidth.
You will be more successful making valid arguments if you avoid making things up. People actually remember what happened, and it sort of gives it away.
The Mac is the key. Think of it as a great big dongle. It's really the same thing. However, there are more complex reasons I won't go into concerning user experience and streamlining customer support that speak to your hair splitting. In a nutshell, Apple doesn't sell computers, they sell lifestyle... and accessories to go with that, including Macintosh. The product they sell isn't a PC, though it duplicates all a PC can do. Apple doesn't have a business division, for all those multibillion dollar businesses banging down their door begging to run OS X on commodity hardware, and they have no apparatus to deal with the tiny minority of possible sales to those that just don't fit into the hardware options they provide, and wish to use OS X on nonApple hardware. It's a cruel world. Unless you go rogue, and Apple allows for that, isn't taking any hackent0sh users to court, but is going to disincentivize the idea by killing support whenever it's convenient for them. They're just trying to sell their hardware. It's nothing personal against us that wish OS X was running everywhere, and its not about control, it's about selling their hardware.
I do not, and you've glossed over the point. The damage is done. Unless you rip everything yourself, and have only that source, crappy mp3s will get in there. You shouldn't ask why should you use anything but mp3s, you should ask why still use mp3s? If you are into compression, there are better free options, smaller files, faster rips, same quality. If you are into lossless, the regardless of the proof of concepts that high bit mp3s are transparent, even if it holds scrutiny to detailed analysis... the question isn't IF it can do it... the question is what benefit is there? If you just look or listen to an mp3... can you even tell if it's lossless? or the quality of the rip? If you want lossless, like I do, I can' t see the point of choosing mp3 over the other lossless formats. So either way... mp3 has served its purpose honorably... but now it kind of sucks because you can't tell if it sucks or how bad it sucks until you actually discover that you have a bad track. I know... big deal, and that isn't dependent upon the codec, but it isn't nothing... even it's just an accident of history that there are more crappy mp3s than there are excellent mp3s.
You are right, but I wasn't incorrect. My library really does sound better. It's not so much the format, per se, as the fact that mp3 began in low bit rate hell, barely broadcast quality and not "perfect digital copies" as the RIAA claimed (Napster should have exposed this lie and won), and those low bit rips are still out there. Yes you can get high bit rate rips, but I trust the FLAC folks and Apple Lossless more than I trust Johnny-mp3.
Lala was a much better music service, offering songs in straight MP3 format.
If the format is your sole criteria, then you have made a grave mistake. If you meant DRM-free, then you should have said that, but all of the formats Apple offers through iTunes are technically superior to mp3. And the DRM is not tied to the format, meaning, I use the formats Apple uses, but I don't use DRM. And my music library just sounds better than your mp3 library.
The real reason it's bad that Lala is going away is that variety and competition is good, less variety and competition is not as good.
Frankly, I'm getting really tired of all the artificial limitations that Jobs is placing left and right for developers and consumers alike
I read your other posts, and it's not that you sound trollish or anything, just that you have your own experience, which as it turns out isn't what it's supposed to be and not Apple's fault. But I quoted you because it is becoming extremely trendy to bash Apple for jealously protecting their IP. It is difficult for one to separate personal preference or bias from the truth of the matter when trying to make a global evaluation of a company using a few gripes repeated ad infinitum by the uninformed. It's not an artificial limitation that Apple is employing. Or rather, it's no more artificial than Windows requiring a key. But Apple's money comes from hardware, and by restricting their software to only run on their hardware, by any means, they are creating a consumer insentive to buy their hardware. To quote the insane and immoral tyrant himself, "it's as simple as that."
mod coward up, makes all parent posts irrellivent.
wow, it's in the manual:
3.1.1 Mac OS X guests
Starting with version 3.2, VirtualBox has experimental support for Mac OS X guests. This allows you to install and execute unmodified versions of OS X on supported host hardware. Whereas competing solutions perform modifications to the OS X install DVDs (e.g. different boot loader and replaced files), VirtualBox is the first product to provide the modern PC architecture expected by OS X without requiring any “hacks”. You should be aware of a number of important issues before attempting to install a Mac OS X guest:
1. OS X is commercial, licensed software and contains both license and technical restrictions that limit its use to certain hardware and usage scenarios. It is im-portant that you understand and obey these restrictions. As a result, before attempting to install Mac OS X in a virtual machine, make sure you understand the license restrictions of the Mac OS X version you want to use. For most versions of Mac OS X, Apple prohibits installing them on non-Apple hardware. These license restrictions are also enforced on a technical level: Mac OS X ver-ifies whether it is running on Apple hardware, and most DVDs that that come with Apple hardware even check for an exact model. These restrictions are not circumvented by VirtualBox and continue to apply.
2. Only CPUs known and tested by Apple are supported. As a result, AMD CPUs will never work at all, and if the Intel CPU is newer than the build of OS X, it will most likely panic during bootup with an “Unsupported
Configuring virtual machines
3. The Mac OS X installer expects the harddisk to be partitioned so when it does not offer a selection, you have to launch the Disk Utility from the “Tools” menu and partition the hard disk. Then close the Disk Utility and proceed with the installation.
4. In addition, as Mac OS X support in VirtualBox is currently still experimental, please refer also to chapter 14, Known limitations, page 278.
salient details from p.278
4 Known limitations
Mac OS X guests.
– Mac OS X guests can only run on a certain host hardware. For details about license and host hardware limitations, please see chapter 3.1.1, Mac OS X guests, page 47. – VirtualBox does not provide Guest Additions for OS X at this time. – The graphics resolution currently defaults to 1024x768 as OS X falls back to the built-in EFI display support. See chapter 3.12.1, Video modes in EFI, page 61 for more information on how to change EFI video modes. – Even when idle, OS X guests currently burn 100% CPU. This is a power management issue that will be addressed in a future release. – OS X guests only work with one CPU assigned to the VM. Support for SMP will be provided in a future release. – Depending on your system and version of OS X, you might experience guest hangs after some time. This can be fixed by turning off energy saving (set timeout to “Never”) in the system preferences. – By default, the VirtualBox EFI enables debug output of the OS X kernel to help you diagnose boot problems. Note that there is a lot of output and not all errors are fatal (they would also show on your physical Mac). You can turn off these messages by issuing this command:
VBoxManage setextradata vmname "VBoxInternal2/EfiBootArgs" " "
To revert to the previous behavior, use:
VBoxManage setextradata vmname "VBoxInternal2/EfiBootArgs" ""
I guess YouTube and every other "tube" site on the net must be wrong then, and you're right.
Yes. That is quite clear. Thank you for stating the obvious.
Most people don't give a fuck about whether it's encoded...
And here you show your fundamental misunderstanding about what the problem is with Flash delivering video. Flash is not a video codec. Video has heen shoehorned into the platform, at the expense of your processor cycles and a pleasent viewing experience devoid of stuttering and pixelation. Then they put it everywhere. Listen to what I am telling you... any other method of delivering video will be better than flash. ANY OTHER METHOD OF DELIVERING VIDEO IS PREFERABLE TO FLASH.
Now... if you have a game you developed in flash... that's great, good for you, congratulations. If you have some sort of whiteboard application that hundreds can use, collaborate simultaneously over the web from remote areas, all developed neatly in flash... hey, I think that is AWESOME.
Flash really has some areas in which it shines. Just because Adobe leveraged flash out of what it's good at, to convince video delivery sites to use flash, doesn't make it any better for delivering video. If everyone in the world used square tires on their car it still would not detract from the fact that square tires really suck at rolling. Stop trying to put square tires on my car, and do ANYTHING intelligent. Please.
If what you say is true (btw, it isn't) then flash would turn into another Java... a platform whose sole purpose is to be cross-platform at the expense of standardized interfaces and usability. I can understand why a flash developer might be pissed at Apple, however, flash developers are dwarfed by the number of users that prefer standardized interfaces and superior usability. Apple is right... developing an app in flash will be inferior to the same app developed natively. Why settle on the lowest common denominator when they have the authority to make things a little better? Apple is right, in this particular instance, and flash developers should blame Adobe for selling them magic beans.