How Bad is Flash?

I saw this blog post a few days ago, but it has taken me a bit to respond to it. It largely claims that Flash sucks, and a part of me agrees but a part of me is nostalgic of first playing around with Flash 4 (or maybe it was 3, whatever was out in 1999). Way back then, it was this revolution for the web because Java applets looked gaudy and the support for Javascript wasn't nearly as widespread as it is now. That blogger hates the navigation Flash-based sites provide, but I think that's too harsh. For small sites, namely movie sites, Flash can be great. It lets you have a little fun, which is what you're there for in the first place. No serious business should have an entirely Flash-based site, mind you, but it can still have its uses for multimedia, especially when you want to make it harder to download the content in question. I know, proprietary formats are bad, all that jazz, but sometimes they really are necessary. You can't write off proprietary formats just because they get big; why does Adobe need to give away what they've worked hard on? What's in it for them to give people carte blanche access to their formats? My two biggest gripes with Flash though are really that it's lagging behind in 64-bit support, and Flash-based advertisements are ridiculously annoying, and they just feel like a breeding ground for viruses, whether or not that's true. I believe Flash already has safeguards to prevent such things, but it seems too flashy (no pun intended) to be 100% safe. I don't think it's going away anytime soon, especially since people were pissed that the iPhone wouldn't support Flash, which means their brand recognition must be amazing, but I am curious to see what advantages Silverlight will come up with (the fact that it has a toolbar for IE but not Firefox is discouraging).

I actually got an e-mail about Amazon Flexible Payments Service on Friday but I totally didn't know that it was going into public beta that same day. The message sounded like it was an internal beta, but I guess not. Anyhow, it's basically an API that Amazon Web Services (about 4 floors above my office) is providing to add an easy, affordable payments system to small businesses' websites. It sounds pretty huge and extensible, but will it be able to take over what Paypal provides? That's very hard to say, but Amazon's brand recognition likely surpasses Paypal, and is maybe even more trusted (I have nothing to back this up other than anecdotal bad press for Paypal), so it definitely has a chance. After all, remember how S3 really took off?

I neglected to report on this a while back, but AT&T had hidden away in its terms that it had a $10 DSL plan, which it was obligated to offer as a result of losing some lawsuit, and now they're covering it up by saying that there was no demand for it. Do these people take us for total nimrods? No duh there's no demand, it's hard to demand something when you don't know it exists. Are people really happy to pay them for overpriced, low-quality Internet service?

If you're stuck without a TV, like me, then you may be entertained by LikeVid. It provides totally legal television channels available online, some of which are Internet-only, and it's a fun way to kill some time when you don't want to do anything but sit back and absorb.

Lastly, if you know nothing about torrents, you may find some value in this article explaining all about it. I'd say that it's a worthwhile read if you don't know what that word means seeing as how it has become a rather important idea to understand.

In the box office this weekend it should be no surprise that the big winner was The Bourne Supremacy at over $70 million, which is nearly 3 times as much as the opening weekend for the first movie in the series. I thought it was impressive that The Simpsons Movie managed $25.6 million, which is a pretty heavy drop, but it's in 2nd place and I'm sure it cost much less than $128 million to make so I think they'll be doing just fine. It's also amazing that Transformer, despite being a month old, is still #8. Passing $300 million in a little over a month is pretty crazy.

It looks like the World of Warcraft movie got a greenlight from Legendary Pictures, which is interesting because I have no idea what they're going to come up with for a plot. It's obviously just a cash cow, but the fans will go and see it so it's really probably a brilliant move.

Now for a bit of bad news: neither of the Grind House film DVDs will include the interstitial trailers. How greedy is that? Obviously, they're pre-planning a double dip, which is a bit cruel considering that you're not just keeping special features from the fans but you're actually tearing away a vital part of the experience. For shame, Weinstein Company.

The trailers for Superbad had me interested, but this clip on YouTube has me even more determined to see this movie. It's sure to be crude, but as long as it's as funny as this clip I really don't mind.

Now to close out with a couple of trailers. The first is for Lions for Lambs, which looks like a thinly veiled critique of Bush's politics. I'm not happy about the war, but a fictional movie about it isn't going to change anything, and it sounds too preachy to be received well. The other is much better: We Own the Night. It's Joaquin Phoenix and Mark Wahlberg playing two brothers, club owner and a cop, who ally together to stop some bad dudes. I can't really explain it without it sounding lame, so you're going to have to just watch the trailer to understand why I like this movie so far.

Yesterday was the Amazon.com Company Picnic, so here's a couple of pictures from that:




And now, it's finally time for some Unconscious Mutterings:

I say ... and you think ... ?

1. Voices :: Hearing


2. Have to :: Eat


3. Machine :: Maniac


4. Seventh grade :: Sucked


5. Beach :: Ball


6. Roommate :: Apartment


7. Cyclone :: Twister


8. Theater :: Movie


9. Pregnant :: Baby


10. Phoebe :: Buffay