Flash support for Linux has not always been great. An earlier version was so behind they SKIPPED it. But the RECENT versions are coming out for Linux very quickly; they made a decision to make Linux more supported. (And that's why they skipped a version; the new one was now on a respectable timeline.)

So, yes, it has good Linux support. Also, keep in mind that Adobe acquired Flash (as part of Macromedia) right in that time period; Adobe's track record with Flash on Linux is strong.

To clarify Flex a bit:

- Compiled Flex applications run in Flash Player; it's not an additional plugin.

- Flex applications use ActionScript 3, which is the same programming language that the newest versions of Flash use. It's structurally Java-like, but it's very easy to get powerful things done - for instance dynamically loading and playing a remote video stream can be accomplished in a few lines.

- Flex doesn't require the 'timeline' paradigm with binary source files that Flash had, replacing it with a solid and powerful layout language, making Flex a tool for app programmers rather than for animators. But there's huge crossover - and some workflows involve both tools because it trivially can include assets and videos from Flash.

- Flex Builder isn't free (unless you're a student) But the compiler IS free. So "Builder" is really like buying "Dreamweaver for Flex" more than like buying Flex. (Flex Builder is actually based on Eclipse, not on Dreamweaver, though)

And the license for OS X!

If you're buying a Mac to put Linux on it, you're probably wasting money. (Unless you're buying a zillion of them and getting a discount) OS X is like that Lenovo one, maybe... except for me the OS X vs Windows difference just dwarfs anything else.

Maybe IBM did it first, I have no idea - but I know the Macbook Pros, at least, have been doing this for a while now, too.

IANAL, but it seems to me that someone who purchased a Kindle2 prior to this announcement with the expectation that it would TTS everything would be able to sue. Or at least publicly demand a refund for their Kindle2, all titles purchased, and any shipping they paid for. (A refund I imagine Amazon would not normally allow).

I agree that the right way to fight this is not to buy DRM products, and I know several people not buying a Kindle just for it's DRM issues.

Your problem isn't with 'webapps' - which can do EXACTLY what you've just described, and we do it all the time in Flex and Flash. Your problem is with 'terrible webapps'

Oh, and as long as you bother to twiddle with the paths so it knows where to look, those apps DO run locally if you want them to - OR on the web. But voila, no platform issues, and the local disk access is optional.

Any "IE-only" web app is not a good web app, in my opinion.

Here in the US, we have government issued IDs. And they're required for plenty of things, especially in person. We don't have the Post Office as part of the system you're referring to, but that's not the biggest problem.

The problem is that there's no possible way to even reasonably verify whether a moron is who they think they are online without having already laid some groundwork. (Like mailing something to prove address) Anything they can know, someone else can know. And as a parent mentioned, the skip-tracing people have AT LEAST as much information as a major credit card you just applied for - available for a couple $.

And the credit reporting agencies and credit companies here want you to be able to get drunk and call up and apply for a credit card and get instant gratification for it with no verification whatsoever...

They ought to have to at least mail you something at the address on your credit report and call you at the phone number on your credit report. If the credit reporting agency wants to do that and setup a secret PIN with you, you could share that secret with a credit card company...

They DO mail your PINs out, so you can't take too much direct cash from a fraudulent app - you can only buy an infinite quantity of goods. So that proves they know how to keep it safe - they just don't value ensuring that you're the right person to give credit to... because the incentives aren't in place.

Flash has issues, but there's no superior product it beat out. Java is CONCEPTUALLY superior, but it didn't pan out - partially Sun's and partially MSFT's fault. ActiveX is more powerful, but is even conceptually a total lack of security and has no crossplatform support.

Since I haven't used it, hypothetically Silverlight could possibly be better, but I personally, based on their long track record, just don't trust MSFT to be even reasonably secure or to play nicely with others.

Flash video does tend to take 100% of your CPU... no matter how fast your CPU is. But youtube plays on pretty modest CPUs, so it doesn't require an especially fast CPU... it just uses what CPU it can find to make your experience better. And it's better in each version of FP. I agree, that's an issue if you're playing video on the web in the background. For some reason. Although, there are plenty of players for FLV and MP4 that aren't Flash Player... like Quicktime.

As for overlays, there's no reason to do that. That is, while you might not believe it, Flash Player isn't a video plugin like Quicktime - it's a full fledged OO programming environment. So you can put whatever you want over your video whenever you want, with a little programming. If you want to create a standardized overlay spec in XML so it's shared by a lot of players, you could do that. So the only thing you're missing is the ability to create overlays IN your video editing software, instead of in Flash... which would have to be a much more limited functionality than the complete programming language that ActionScript is.

I'll take being able to program truly interactive video over supporting overlays, any day.

I think the previous poster is on target - it takes a long time to build a clientele where they keep coming back, so you're consistently busy instead of just occasionally busy.

But if you're good (or anyone else reading) we might be interested; we definitely mange independent part time remote developers, and I think we're going to be a bit shy in Java.

Let's say dev-slashjava@xig.net for this. Send what you can in terms of resume portfolio.

arete

Movies are sold not licensed, like any other copyrighted material, and you ARE (via Betamax) within your legal rights to timeshift/formatshift. (but there's no requirement they make it easy)

What the DMCA makes illegal is circumventing an encryption scheme... So you ARE allowed to format shift (although the MPAA/RIAA would rather you didn't know that) but there's no legal way to do it losslessly.

I've actually started to think this should really be a 2nd amendment issue - that encryption is the
current democratic arms.

CreepyCrawler did a better job of responding on the merits, so I'll just touch a few points:

I'm not a lawyer and, frankly, don't want to be a lawyer. I do HAVE a lawyer, and have entered a modest number of contracts...

If you think I need to be a lawyer to make my /. post, which, summarized, basically says to the OP "You're an idiot and you need a lawyer" - then I think you have a rather odd view of the world. You needn't be an attorney to handle that post.

I completely agree that the probability is low of any dispute rising to the actual expensive investigation and lengthy court hearings (because OP would have to make something of very significant value AND somehow have significant resources to continue fighting against this contract in court AND the contract would have to be weak enough that this didn't get immediately shut down.)

I also agree that this slight relevance depends on the contract actually being very badly written - because establishing his bad faith through crazy methods is only necessary if there's any doubt about whether he understood the contract in the first place. Which, if it's written reasonably, there probably isn't. I agree. And etc., I'm sure there's more.

However, if you don't think that an argument of bad faith in this context could EVER be relevant, especially to damages, or that IF it was worth enough money for them to do an intensive investigation and there is no circumstance where they would EVER use this if they knew about it (remembering that we haven't actually seen how good or bad the actual contract is) then I'm not sure I believe you're a lawyer. However, I suspect you're just saying that it's vanishingly, impractically unlikely - which I agree with.

But more importantly, you really missed my point there. First my meta-point, that the OP should take away from my post that not having an attorney is bad, and HIM not having an attorney is even worse. Do you disagree with either of these points?

To rehash that particular point of mine, it was:

- Whether /. is findable/admissible/worthwhile or not I can tell from your OP that you _believe_ this contract would restrict your rights, and you want to sign it then ignore it.

- That doing this to a random university makes you, in my opinion, a liar and a badly behaving person - whether or not the courts can thwack you for it.

- And that, in general, the courts may thwack you for acting in bad faith, if it can be demonstrated. (through obvious reading of the contract, or whatever)

- My mention of his /. post was really just illustrative - which I'd think you'd understand, considering the use of 'gasp' and 'Guilty' in your post.

P.S. ASKING on /. isn't what I meant as evidence of bad faith but (assuming you went through the possibly significant work to prove he really was the poster) his specific wording seemed in pretty bad faith to me.

I was just trying to pretend to be funny... which I admit is often sortof orthogonal to seeming rational. But rockets sounds like a better idea, around here.

While that's the explanation I'd LIKE, really I just added 0 later, and - as another poster suggested - I didn't think it was as meaningful.

But mostly I just don't value editing on /. enough to go renumber my points just to add a new one at the start. I'm sure around here somewhere I have a post that starts with -1.

Original complainer clearly doesn't understand that integers stretch in both directions.

Well, the INTENT was that I agreed with and was expanding on the, uh, 'concise' posting of the parent post -- that I wasn't trying to say this post armed you to negotiate your contract, but rather that the OP's obvious lack of legal understanding made it even MORE important they seek an attorney.

My execution might've been poor, though -- I don't exactly edit /. posts. :)

Thanks for the other bit; corrected.

Something is seriously wrong w/ your OSX install. I've used several minor versions of each major version of OS X, and it shouldn't do this... Have you tried reinstalling? Tried running Rember? (free memtest for OS X)

I'm curious what menu pops up. Does the mouse jump to a new location when you click? The only thing I can imagine popping up at an arbitrary location is the context menu - this would be what's supposed to happen if you right-clicked instead of left clicking. Is it possible you're clicking on the wrong button, or your mouse is malfunctioning, or your keyboard is malfunctioning/dirty (you'll get the same behavior if the 'control' key is being intermittently depressed)

You could test the keyboard part pretty easily by just unplugging the kybd and clicking around with the mouse plugged directly into the machine, and seeing if you get the same behavior.

re: speed - I'd expect OS X to perhaps startup slower, esp 10.3 (4 and 5 have actually sped things up in certain scenarios.) , but I'd much rather watch a YouTube on the G4. The only other things that's very true is that however much OS X might be harder on your CPU/HD/etc., it's MUCH more RAM intensive. If you're running 10.3.9 and you can fix your crazy clicking issue, I'd recommend at least 512M of RAM. That machine takes at least 2 GB, and almost all the USB+ models are completely compatible with most standard PC RAM of the right speed. (My 400Mhz G4 tower is PC133, but I don't recall if the one you have is PC133, DDR, or the one model that used something weird.)