The overly-prevalent mindset on Slashdot that "Flash is evil", "Flash needs to die", and "Flash is only used for bad things" is just plain wrong and broken. Flash is used in many places to greatly enhance things beyond what browsers are normally capable of
Finally, the voice of reason.
I use Flashblock because I want to use Flash services on the web.
The problem isn't flash, it's how certain organisations use flash. This isn't the fault of flash but it is something I have to deal with (have dealt with). If Flash died tomorrow, I guarantee you by Friday (+8 GMT) all the punch the monkey ad's on the web would have been converted to HTML5. Apple and Apple fanboys are benefiting from the same thing that they've always benefited from, lack of negative interest. HTML 5 is better right now because there's no money in writing HTML 5 ad's at the moment, this does not scale. If HTML5 becomes dominant it will become just as unusable as an un-flashblocked browser because Flash is not the motivation for all the Flash annoyances on the web.
Put simply, blame the ad producers, not the conduit they use to display ads.
2 methods, both part of the standard Microsoft MO.
1. Make parts of Microsoft.com use silverlight, forcing people to install that plugin if they need to access those parts.
2. Get partners to push it. I was an employee of a die hard MS ISV when Silverlight came out. It was pushed like there was no tomorrow. Everything had to be developed in silverlight despite the fact Flash or even basic HTML performed the function better but the command came down from on high and I had to install Silverlight via group policy. The CxO's said that "Silverlight was the future" and that "Flash was dead" so I take it with a very large grain of salt when Steve declares "HTML is the future" and "Flash is dead".
I'd be quite confident in saying, 90% of web users actually want flash, 50% of web users were forced to install silverlight. I dislike flash ad's as much as the next guy but with Flashblock they dont bother me and I get all the Flash content I do want. Android is the same as I've set all plugins to be "on demand".
USB is ubiqutous because intel put it on all their motherboards,
Yep, Intel put it on their mobo's as standard, Micorosft built the driver into XP as standard. USB prevailed.
In the late 90's Apple was pushing it's own proprietary Firewire, now days only the most expensive mainboards have firewire where as the cheapest have at least six USB (and still have one PS2 port). Firewire is dead in the water.
Yes, and the reason USB is so ubiquitous, was in part because Apple shipped a computer that had USB as the only interface for small/basic devices like keyboards,
No it isn't.
Sorry to interrupt your revisionist history but USB became so ubiquitous because both Intel and Microsoft supported it. Apple had nothing to do with it and PC's were shipping with USB earlier then Macs were.
Firewire has effectively failed because no industry giant has given it significant support. I cant load up Windows XP SP2 and expect a firewire disk to work without any additional drivers and yes, Apple did want to kill USB in favour of firewire.
Except the major depressions of 1839 and 1873, the Panics of 1837, 1857 and 1893, the depressions of 1807 and 1815, and the recessions of 1802, 1812, 1822, 1825, and 1828. Other than that we did swimmingly.
Didn't a few people also die of dysentery.
Also there was a pretty major civil war.
Not to mention cholera, polio, influenza was deadly. Oh and most people in the US were subsistance farmers or workers before and in the industrial revolution
Where's this Roman Guy to tell us how much better life was before then, what was the average life expectancy of an American in 1850, infant mortality, adult literacy?
Feck, in life expectancy alone the US is up about 10 years in the last 60 or 70.
What would be the devices "primary" use?
I find it hard to believe you could just create a device solely for this purpose and not run into some kind of legal trouble whether you're including the key or not.
/. is so America-centric. Just make it in a nation where they dont care about trivialities like the DCMA. Not like Intel is going to shut it's factories there.
Besides, who said it had to be a physical device, run everything through a hypervisor, if done right there is no need for the signal to ever hit a physical decoding device. Even if it is a physical device just make the entire ROM flashable and claim it's for upgrade purposes. This is not uncommon, there is already a community dedicated to hacking Samsung TV's where the entire ROM is flashable for upgrading purposes.
I don't want to be a whiner, but I don't understand what OS X fans are so lyrical about. OS X still has no option to make my car fly, nor does it allow me to play tennis outside in my iTennisCourt, and swim in my iSwimmingPool. Do OS X fans also go crazy over other office equipment, such as staplers or paperclips?
They spent twice as much on a computer then they needed to and all they got was a crappy OS. Its the ultimate in buyers remorse, the best was to cure their own doubts is to convince people to do the same thing they did.
I've never seen a Dell fanboy attack an Asus user. Cant say the same for Mac fanboys.
Sigh, why do people not get it.
The oil from BP rigs is not sold exclusively to BP refineries and so forth. The oil is traded on a public exchange, this is then purchased by refineries which sell the refined product on another public exchange which is then purchased by a retailer. So if you go to Esso or Mobil you're still buying BP oil. If you go to BP petrol stations you're buy Chevron oil.
Its done this way because the production of oil wells do not equal the consumption of the same companies oil refineries.
If you really want to help, stop using so much oil and invest in alternate energy. Boycotts against BP are useless as you'll only hurt the unrelated retail arm whilst the drilling and exploration arm goes on with business as usual.
The guy hates his own name and his proud heritage.
Wow, someone is clutching at straw(man)s.
Entertainers change their names for many reasons, to make them more pronounceable, racial stereotypes, to make them more neutral or naturalised (Natalie Portman was born Natalie Hershlag) , even just changing Juan to John to stop from sounding Mexican to avoid anti-Mexican sentiment. Sometimes it's only because someone in the Writers Guild has the same name (Futurama writer David X Cohen only has an X in his name because the Writers Guild already had a David Cohen on the books)
"People, we make stuff up! We follow a show about puppets making prank phone calls."
Fox News is making prank phone calls now?
The reason why Stewart is taken seriously is not that his show is serious it that all other American news sources are just as laughable but not as funny. Stewart isn't a good newscaster, the newscasters are very poor comedians.
[snip] and by the same token, we the voters shouldn't get our opinions from people who are paid to make us laugh
I've got some bad news for you, Rush, Beck and Coulter. They aren't political scientists either, they are actors. Entertainers who are attempting to provoke the right emotional response out of you. They may not be comedians but that does not make them any less of an actor. The biggest difference is that Stewart/Colbert are pushing their agenda (comedy, which writes the pay check) and Rush/Coulter are pushing someone else's agenda (who writes the pay check)
paid to make us laugh, not make us see truth.
You must live in a pretty sad world to believe that these ideas are mutually exclusive. Parody has been used for millennia to draw attention to uncomfortable facts and other things people tend to gloss over, especially political facts.
As a non-american, I can see how Stewart/Colbert can be taken more seriously then Fox or any other news channel. They report far more accurately then Fox (I've never seen MSNBC, probably because those socialist, lefty enviro-nuts turn off the TV when they leave the room). If I want to know what's actually happening in US politics, the best source I've found is the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC). At the very least the Beeb separates factual news from option pieces, where as American channels tend to disguise opinion pieces as factual news.
I'd be able to take the "Move" more seriously if it didn't look like a sex toy.
There, I said it. Someone had to. Seriously, who designed this and instantly did not think "our customers will think this looks like a Dildo"? Were they trying to copy Nintendo's "Wii" (thanks capt. obvious) and who thought up the name, they must have put a whole 10 minutes work into that.
This comment was written on my Microsoft Type, computed on my AMD Process and not proof read using my Samsung See.
The idea that stolen gadgets are going to be used for something beyond simple hardware really overestimates either your value of data or the intelligence of thieves.
Because no thief would check your email or look for credit card details. OK, the moron that knocked over your house whilst you were at the pub wouldn't, he'd just sell it to a pawnbroker (or put it in the free classifieds) but pawnbroker is generally smart enough to check for any obvious money making data. If you've left your CC details anywhere, check your email for receipts, checking the obvious things like Itunes, anything incriminating, even addresses, bills and bank statements that can be used (or sold) in identity theft. ID theft in Australia is becoming a serious issue, from people stealing bills out of your letter box to gathering data online. It will probably become larger then physical theft in a few years.
With 2 factor authentication that is only true if you've got both authentication mechanisms saved on the device.
This is why, with 2 factor authentication you need to have the password and token separate (of course people tend to put the laptop and token into the same bag all the time but I digress, that's a physical security problem). With my bank (I think this is the same for all Australian banks now) when I transfer money to an account that isn't mine via internet banking I have to type in a code sent to me via SMS. Now if Pavel the cracker gets my bank ID and password via a keylogger he wont be able to do anything except shuffle my savings around between my internal accounts. This is how 2 factor auth is meant to work.
This is just a visibility bias. Do you remember the last 10 officers who didn't give you a ticket? But you do remember those who did. There are many honest cops, but they are doing their job and not screwing with citizens so the citizens don't even notice them.
Officers dont hand out tickets in Australia, you get photo'd by a multi-nova (speed camera) and the Fines Enforcement Registry sends you a ticket with a bill to be paid in 55 days. Nice and de-personalised with no-one having to take actual responsibility.
So long as people keep paying their bills, the market is bearing this imposition.
How?
It's not like you can just buy a phone and use it on any telco like say in Europe. This is not "what the market will bear" this is "how much can a monopolist/oligarchy abuse you" and the answer to the 2nd scenario is "a hell of a lot more then the in first scenario". Places where the market is made to work right like Australia and Europe not only are you not forced to buy a 2 year contract as you can get phones outright and pay month by month but you can switch between carriers at will as they all operate on 2100 GSM in major cities.
The market is not "bearing" this imposition. This imposition is being forced on the market whether the market likes it or not.
Pray tell, where are the iPhones that cost 2.5x as much as these Android phones sold?
Try looking at the unsubsidised market. These prices are from the UK and before you rabbit on about tax, being from outside the EU, we dont pay VAT (tax).
So do you see that an Iphone that is over a year old is competing with the latest Android releases. For phones that are barely older then the latest Iphone you're looking at almost half the price.
I love the tears of fanboys in the morning, comparing subsidised phones to subsidised phones is pointless as carriers will just try to bilk as much money out of you as possible without you noticing.
True, but GOG won my heart because it was entirely DRM-free, totally unlike Steam.
I agree, but a lot of people will choose Steam over other platforms because they've already got steam. But I'll look for whatever option has the least DRM.
The Virtual Console section of Wii Shop Channel sells only old games and still prints money. If Nintendo can do it, why couldn't GOG?
I answered that question in my GP post.
In addition to that many other services like Steam and Impulse sold the exact same products for pretty much the same price
Nintendo on the Wii have a captive audience and no competition. It's a completely different market, A few weekends ago while ago Stardock and GOG both had a sale on MOO and MOO II at the same time, I received their promotional emails within hours of each other. GOG has to compete with more entrenched services, Nintendo simply does not permit them on the Wii.
Comcast has throttled any P2P traffic - regardless of your plan - into the ground. The FCC has told them numerous times to stop, they told the FCC to fuck off. Numerous times.
But hey - things can play out different in Oz right? Whatever keeps those delusion flags flying is fine by me.
Two completely different cases here.
ISP's in Oz cant throttle p2p connections, they can only throttle entire connections and this must be advertised with the service. ISP's in Australia are dumb pipes, doing any kind of throttling or port blocking without the customers knowledge is illegal. That being said, throttling (the entire connection) after a certain cap has been reached is completely legal as long as it has been advertised (customer knows when signing up for the service).
This complaint is because a customer feels that Optus has misrepresented their service in their advertising, not because Optus is throttling (in plain English, Optus was caught lying). As other posters have mentioned the ACCC (Australian Completion and Consumer Commission) our competition watchdog is quite popular and does work, albeit a little slowly.
As for throttling once you've used a set amount of data, that's pretty much standard practice... it's not like they hide it.
My understanding of the complaint was not that OptArse was throttling but the way optus had advertised the service.
Throttling is standard practice, nothing you can sue about there but they have to be honest about it as you can sue for misleading advertising, which as I understand it is what the complaint is about.
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Finally, the voice of reason.
I use Flashblock because I want to use Flash services on the web.
The problem isn't flash, it's how certain organisations use flash. This isn't the fault of flash but it is something I have to deal with (have dealt with). If Flash died tomorrow, I guarantee you by Friday (+8 GMT) all the punch the monkey ad's on the web would have been converted to HTML5. Apple and Apple fanboys are benefiting from the same thing that they've always benefited from, lack of negative interest. HTML 5 is better right now because there's no money in writing HTML 5 ad's at the moment, this does not scale. If HTML5 becomes dominant it will become just as unusable as an un-flashblocked browser because Flash is not the motivation for all the Flash annoyances on the web.
Put simply, blame the ad producers, not the conduit they use to display ads.
2 methods, both part of the standard Microsoft MO.
1. Make parts of Microsoft.com use silverlight, forcing people to install that plugin if they need to access those parts.
2. Get partners to push it. I was an employee of a die hard MS ISV when Silverlight came out. It was pushed like there was no tomorrow. Everything had to be developed in silverlight despite the fact Flash or even basic HTML performed the function better but the command came down from on high and I had to install Silverlight via group policy. The CxO's said that "Silverlight was the future" and that "Flash was dead" so I take it with a very large grain of salt when Steve declares "HTML is the future" and "Flash is dead".
I'd be quite confident in saying, 90% of web users actually want flash, 50% of web users were forced to install silverlight. I dislike flash ad's as much as the next guy but with Flashblock they dont bother me and I get all the Flash content I do want. Android is the same as I've set all plugins to be "on demand".
Yep, Intel put it on their mobo's as standard, Micorosft built the driver into XP as standard. USB prevailed.
In the late 90's Apple was pushing it's own proprietary Firewire, now days only the most expensive mainboards have firewire where as the cheapest have at least six USB (and still have one PS2 port). Firewire is dead in the water.
No it isn't.
Sorry to interrupt your revisionist history but USB became so ubiquitous because both Intel and Microsoft supported it. Apple had nothing to do with it and PC's were shipping with USB earlier then Macs were.
Firewire has effectively failed because no industry giant has given it significant support. I cant load up Windows XP SP2 and expect a firewire disk to work without any additional drivers and yes, Apple did want to kill USB in favour of firewire.
Didn't a few people also die of dysentery.
Also there was a pretty major civil war.
Not to mention cholera, polio, influenza was deadly. Oh and most people in the US were subsistance farmers or workers before and in the industrial revolution
Where's this Roman Guy to tell us how much better life was before then, what was the average life expectancy of an American in 1850, infant mortality, adult literacy?
Feck, in life expectancy alone the US is up about 10 years in the last 60 or 70.
This is London, there is no sun.
Besides, who said it had to be a physical device, run everything through a hypervisor, if done right there is no need for the signal to ever hit a physical decoding device. Even if it is a physical device just make the entire ROM flashable and claim it's for upgrade purposes. This is not uncommon, there is already a community dedicated to hacking Samsung TV's where the entire ROM is flashable for upgrading purposes.
They spent twice as much on a computer then they needed to and all they got was a crappy OS. Its the ultimate in buyers remorse, the best was to cure their own doubts is to convince people to do the same thing they did.
I've never seen a Dell fanboy attack an Asus user. Cant say the same for Mac fanboys.
Sigh, why do people not get it. The oil from BP rigs is not sold exclusively to BP refineries and so forth. The oil is traded on a public exchange, this is then purchased by refineries which sell the refined product on another public exchange which is then purchased by a retailer. So if you go to Esso or Mobil you're still buying BP oil. If you go to BP petrol stations you're buy Chevron oil.
Its done this way because the production of oil wells do not equal the consumption of the same companies oil refineries.
If you really want to help, stop using so much oil and invest in alternate energy. Boycotts against BP are useless as you'll only hurt the unrelated retail arm whilst the drilling and exploration arm goes on with business as usual.
Wow, someone is clutching at straw(man)s.
Entertainers change their names for many reasons, to make them more pronounceable, racial stereotypes, to make them more neutral or naturalised (Natalie Portman was born Natalie Hershlag) , even just changing Juan to John to stop from sounding Mexican to avoid anti-Mexican sentiment. Sometimes it's only because someone in the Writers Guild has the same name (Futurama writer David X Cohen only has an X in his name because the Writers Guild already had a David Cohen on the books)
Fox News is making prank phone calls now?
The reason why Stewart is taken seriously is not that his show is serious it that all other American news sources are just as laughable but not as funny. Stewart isn't a good newscaster, the newscasters are very poor comedians.
I've got some bad news for you, Rush, Beck and Coulter. They aren't political scientists either, they are actors. Entertainers who are attempting to provoke the right emotional response out of you. They may not be comedians but that does not make them any less of an actor. The biggest difference is that Stewart/Colbert are pushing their agenda (comedy, which writes the pay check) and Rush/Coulter are pushing someone else's agenda (who writes the pay check)
You must live in a pretty sad world to believe that these ideas are mutually exclusive. Parody has been used for millennia to draw attention to uncomfortable facts and other things people tend to gloss over, especially political facts.
As a non-american, I can see how Stewart/Colbert can be taken more seriously then Fox or any other news channel. They report far more accurately then Fox (I've never seen MSNBC, probably because those socialist, lefty enviro-nuts turn off the TV when they leave the room). If I want to know what's actually happening in US politics, the best source I've found is the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC). At the very least the Beeb separates factual news from option pieces, where as American channels tend to disguise opinion pieces as factual news.
Well, a well educated populous is the enemy of any dictator.
Cant imagine why anyone would go after education first.
I'd be able to take the "Move" more seriously if it didn't look like a sex toy.
There, I said it. Someone had to. Seriously, who designed this and instantly did not think "our customers will think this looks like a Dildo"? Were they trying to copy Nintendo's "Wii" (thanks capt. obvious) and who thought up the name, they must have put a whole 10 minutes work into that.
This comment was written on my Microsoft Type, computed on my AMD Process and not proof read using my Samsung See.
Because no thief would check your email or look for credit card details. OK, the moron that knocked over your house whilst you were at the pub wouldn't, he'd just sell it to a pawnbroker (or put it in the free classifieds) but pawnbroker is generally smart enough to check for any obvious money making data. If you've left your CC details anywhere, check your email for receipts, checking the obvious things like Itunes, anything incriminating, even addresses, bills and bank statements that can be used (or sold) in identity theft. ID theft in Australia is becoming a serious issue, from people stealing bills out of your letter box to gathering data online. It will probably become larger then physical theft in a few years.
Just last week there was a story about how criminals were able to sell a house due to a cracked email account.
With 2 factor authentication that is only true if you've got both authentication mechanisms saved on the device.
This is why, with 2 factor authentication you need to have the password and token separate (of course people tend to put the laptop and token into the same bag all the time but I digress, that's a physical security problem). With my bank (I think this is the same for all Australian banks now) when I transfer money to an account that isn't mine via internet banking I have to type in a code sent to me via SMS. Now if Pavel the cracker gets my bank ID and password via a keylogger he wont be able to do anything except shuffle my savings around between my internal accounts. This is how 2 factor auth is meant to work.
Racist.
Officers dont hand out tickets in Australia, you get photo'd by a multi-nova (speed camera) and the Fines Enforcement Registry sends you a ticket with a bill to be paid in 55 days. Nice and de-personalised with no-one having to take actual responsibility.
How?
It's not like you can just buy a phone and use it on any telco like say in Europe. This is not "what the market will bear" this is "how much can a monopolist/oligarchy abuse you" and the answer to the 2nd scenario is "a hell of a lot more then the in first scenario". Places where the market is made to work right like Australia and Europe not only are you not forced to buy a 2 year contract as you can get phones outright and pay month by month but you can switch between carriers at will as they all operate on 2100 GSM in major cities.
The market is not "bearing" this imposition. This imposition is being forced on the market whether the market likes it or not.
Try looking at the unsubsidised market. These prices are from the UK and before you rabbit on about tax, being from outside the EU, we dont pay VAT (tax).
Iphone 3GS 8GB GBP 425/US$670
Iphone 4 16GB GBP 698/US$1095
HTC Desire GBP 340/US$535
Samsung Galaxy S GBP 375/US$590
Brand new HTC Desire HD GBP 430/US$675
So do you see that an Iphone that is over a year old is competing with the latest Android releases. For phones that are barely older then the latest Iphone you're looking at almost half the price.
I love the tears of fanboys in the morning, comparing subsidised phones to subsidised phones is pointless as carriers will just try to bilk as much money out of you as possible without you noticing.
No, that's how the free market works.
Capitalism is about making illegal deals with your competitors so they cant be hired by anyone else for more money.
I agree, but a lot of people will choose Steam over other platforms because they've already got steam. But I'll look for whatever option has the least DRM.
I answered that question in my GP post.
Nintendo on the Wii have a captive audience and no competition. It's a completely different market, A few weekends ago while ago Stardock and GOG both had a sale on MOO and MOO II at the same time, I received their promotional emails within hours of each other. GOG has to compete with more entrenched services, Nintendo simply does not permit them on the Wii.
Two completely different cases here.
ISP's in Oz cant throttle p2p connections, they can only throttle entire connections and this must be advertised with the service. ISP's in Australia are dumb pipes, doing any kind of throttling or port blocking without the customers knowledge is illegal. That being said, throttling (the entire connection) after a certain cap has been reached is completely legal as long as it has been advertised (customer knows when signing up for the service).
This complaint is because a customer feels that Optus has misrepresented their service in their advertising, not because Optus is throttling (in plain English, Optus was caught lying). As other posters have mentioned the ACCC (Australian Completion and Consumer Commission) our competition watchdog is quite popular and does work, albeit a little slowly.
My understanding of the complaint was not that OptArse was throttling but the way optus had advertised the service.
Throttling is standard practice, nothing you can sue about there but they have to be honest about it as you can sue for misleading advertising, which as I understand it is what the complaint is about.