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Comment: Geez... sorry. (Score 1) 182

by Mortice (#34122246) Attached to: Flash Comes To the iPhone Via App

You know what? I *get* that 'HTML5 video' is shorthand for 'video in a generally supported format wrapped in HTML5 tags'. But if I hadn't got that, I wouldn't have found it out from either the article or the summary.

I'm not really sure what the point of Slashdot is if it's just going to be another link aggregation site with the summary merely an excerpt or paraphrase of the linked article. It being 'news for nerds', I'd expect *at least* a technical angle on the story, because frankly there are far easier places for me to get my 'technical news for laypeople'.

Hence my point. Sorry it rubbed you up the wrong way.

Comment: Re:...And yet I still knew what they meant. (Score 1) 182

by Mortice (#34122236) Attached to: Flash Comes To the iPhone Via App

You know what? I *get* that 'HTML5 video' is shorthand for 'video in a generally supported format wrapped in HTML5 tags'. But if I hadn't got that, I wouldn't have found it out from either the article or the summary.

I'm not really sure what the point of Slashdot is if it's just going to be another link aggregation site with the summary merely an excerpt or paraphrase of the linked article. It being 'news for nerds', I'd expect *at least* a technical angle on the story, because frankly there are far easier places for me to get my 'tech news for laypeople'.

Hence my point. Sorry it rubbed you up the wrong way.

Comment: Re:...And yet I still knew what they meant. (Score 1) 182

by Mortice (#34122212) Attached to: Flash Comes To the iPhone Via App

You know what? I *get* that 'HTML 5 video' is shorthand for 'video in a generally-supported format wrapped in HTML5 video tags'. If I didn't get that though, I wouldn't have found it out from the article. So in the age of twitter, reddit, etc., what exactly is the point of Slashdot if it's just another link aggregation service? You would expect, it being 'news for nerds', that you'd see some technical content added to the story here if anywhere.

Hence my point. Sorry it rubbed you up the wrong way.

Comment: HTML5 is a video format now? (Score 2, Informative) 182

by Mortice (#34113514) Attached to: Flash Comes To the iPhone Via App

"the video is decoded and then encoded in HTML5"

I'm glad to see the standard of technical journalism around here is as high as ever, Slashdot. Please point me at the part of the HTML5 which describes its capabilities as a video container format and/or codec. Hint: the presence of a tag doesn't cover it.

Iphone

Flash Comes To the iPhone Via App 182

Posted by CmdrTaco
from the doesn't-seem-very-convenient dept.
An anonymous reader writes "While the HTML5 and Flash standard debate rages, Apple, a major promoter of HTML5, has allowed its iOS devices to run Flash videos. Apple has given approval to an app developed by Skyfire that translates Flash code into HTML5. According to CNN, when a user clicks on a Flash video the Skyfire app downloads the Flash video on Skyfire's server where the video is decoded and then encoded in HTML5 and is delivered to an iOS device. The app is embedded in the Safari browser."

Comment: Re:Well, at least the rest don't do this. (Score 1) 605

by Mortice (#30363668) Attached to: TSA's Sloppy Redacting Reveals All

[T]o post it to the public; a highly abusive act

When TSA sees this, it means they won't make the same mistake again, which ultimtely results in less useful information released to the public.

So you're annoyed that someone released information to the public because doing so might result in less information being released to the public? Your ideas intrigue me.

Comment: Re:It's not about the learning curve. (Score 2, Interesting) 578

by Mortice (#30244442) Attached to: Dumbing Down Programming?

All right, I can't resist. A ruby implementation...

def should_uncheck(item)
    item.checked? && current_font.provided_styles.include? item.style
end

menu.items.select{|item| should_uncheck?(item)}.map{|it| it.uncheck}

You could do something similar in any language supporting higher-order functions. The code meets your requirement of not expressing things through nested loops and reads more like "do this to all items for which 'condition' is true." That said, Inform7 is very cool. :)

The Internet

Geocities Shutting Down Today 396

Posted by kdawson
from the goodbye-and-thanks-for-all-the-blinkies dept.
Paolo DF writes "Geocities is closing today. Its advent in 1995 was a sign of the rising 'Internet for everyone' era, when connection speeds were 1,000x or 2,000x slower than is common today. You may love it or hate it, but millions of people had their first contact with a Web presence right here. I know that Geocities is something that most Slashdotters will see as a n00b thing — the Internet was fine before Geocities — but nevertheless I think that some credit is due. Heck, there's even a modified xkcd homepage to mark the occasion." Reader commodore64_love notes a few more tributes around the Web. Last spring we discussed Yahoo's announcment that Geocities would be going away.

Comment: Thorough research (Score 5, Insightful) 184

by Mortice (#29872963) Attached to: Arbitrary Code Execution With "ldd"

'I researched this subject thoroughly and found that it's almost completely undocumented'.

Did the thorough research include a Google search for 'ldd security'?

My thorough (3 minute research) turned up this tidbit from TLDP:

Beware: do not run ldd on a program you don't trust. As is clearly stated in the ldd(1) manual, ldd works by (in certain cases) by setting a special environment variable (for ELF objects, LD_TRACE_LOADED_OBJECTS) and then executing the program. It may be possible for an untrusted program to force the ldd user to run arbitrary code (instead of simply showing the ldd information). So, for safety's sake, don't use ldd on programs you don't trust to execute.

It will be advantageous to cross the great stream ... the Dragon is on the wing in the Sky ... the Great Man rouses himself to his Work.

Working...