Flash/Flex can handle complex applications just fine. Here are some examples of applications done with Flex: http://flex.org/showcase.php

In there is a timeline-based video editor, a calendaring/email/finance app, a task manager, and a photo editor. I've also seen a PowerPoint type presentation app, a Visio-type tool for creating object relationship charts, plus I've used it myself for creating a medical reporting application for diagnostic sensor data analysis. Flex can hold it's own very nicely against Java's capabilities, and I think it's easier to develop for and has a better experience installing and running on the client.

That said, we are currently trending away from using plugins at all, due to the mobile platform. More and more will be done with HTML/JavaScript/CSS, leaving plugin-based tools as more niche products for Web development. Flex however now compiles mobile applications, so I think we will see more life in that space.

"Java is a much nicer development system than say Flash."

That's a pretty subjective statement. I would take doing development in Flash-based Flex development over Java any day. Flash Builder is a very nice development environment, and I would say that laying out a screen using Flex is a heck of a lot easier than using Spring layouts.

Shocked, amazed, and not surprised at all.
You don't know me, but I met you and the /. crew at Linuxworld nearly a dozen years ago. You guys were hot stuff back then, but today? Who knew?

Still, so many things have changed --

No more World Trade Center and no more Space Shuttle.
Innocent little cellphones are now GPS-enabled computers more powerful than my old workstation.
Steve Jobs is moving on from Apple (again)
But he's leaving behind iPods and iPhones and iPads.
Madonna's still around, but we're no longer GaGa for her.
Which still leaves her better off than Saddam Hussein and Moamar Gaddafi.

Change is a good thing, partly because the wistfulness it brings drives home how great things were and partly because of the hope -- and real possibility -- that things to come will be greater still.

Congrats for a great run.
Live long and prosper.
Or something like that.

PS: Didn't need the fish, but thanks anyway.

Those giant TVs had been working very well, and were a big part of the success of the Olympics as well in that it contributed in a big way to the atmosphere of celebration, but in a safe way. No alcohol was allowed in, beer and wine stores were closed down, and it was designed as a family friendly atmosphere. The same rules were in place for every game shown during these playoffs. The night of the riot, I saw a clip at the end of the game of a whole bunch of beer bottles being thrown towards one of the TVs. Evidently the checking for alcohol got lax, and that became part of the flashpoint.

"A "Brand" is something that requires a large scale organization to be effective."

Nonsense. A business with one single person still has a brand. Even if you have no logo, your name, your reputation, how you present yourself to customers, how you communicate, all form part of your brand identity. A brand does not equal a logo, the logo is simply a symbol that helps communicate elements of your brand identity. Many individual business people use Facebook, twitter, and blogging as a way to market themselves and contribute to that identity, sometimes very effectively.

You are better off with a better quality picture to start with, not more pixels. More pixels of a bad quality image downsampled still gives a bad quality image. In fact, increasing the density of a sensor reduces the size of the receptors, reducing the number of photons reaching the receptor and leading to noise and quality issues. It's especially apparent in the small sensors used in point and shoot cameras and in cell phone cameras. It is possible to actually make an image worse through nothing more than increasing the sensor density.

The T60s and T61s still ship without cameras.

Absolutely. Even if she actually had pot or worse, a strip search is totally inappropriate. It's a violation and can cause major emotional damage. Why were the parents not called? What kind of school is this where kids are treated as criminals? How can this possibly be justified? As a parent, I would be absolutely irate to hear that a school would even consider strip searches, much less actually apply them. Kids do need rules and structure, but more than anything they need people who care and who support them and provide a safety net. This kind of act from people the kids should be looking up to utterly destroys that sense of safety.

Working as designed to protect you from all those nasty things out on the internet.

Fabulous, thank-you, I was hoping someone would pipe up with one. I hadn't seen any mention of any Safari debuggers up to this point, this will be very helpful.