31 Responses:

1. omnifarious says:

   13 years ago at 6:17 pm

   I hate youtube for all the Flash animations sucking down CPU and eating my battery life when I look at my friends page.

   • jwz says:

     13 years ago at 6:20 pm

     1. Nothing animates until you click on it;
     2. You can turn it off;
     3. Welcome to the twenty-first fucking century, luddite.
     • edlang says:

       13 years ago at 6:34 pm

       Yes, but the new Crux-like theme? I preferred the older one.

       I look forward to youtube.t.o .

       Where are they racing to?

     • omnifarious says:

       13 years ago at 11:34 pm

       Strangely enough, it causes my browser's CPU usage to go from about 3% to about 8% even with Flashblock. That cuts my battery life from about 4.5 hours to 3.7 or so because the usage never goes back down until I restart Firefox. I have hope that thumbnailing will fix that though.

       • fantasygoat says:

         13 years ago at 8:06 am

         Try plugging your laptop in sometime.

   • duskwuff says:

     13 years ago at 6:23 pm

     Turn on video thumbnailing. Problem solved.

   • bistronaut says:

     13 years ago at 6:41 pm

     NoScript lets you globally disable javascript and plugins and selectively re-enable them by site.

   • brianenigma says:

     13 years ago at 6:45 pm

     It's all about the Flashblock extension. All Flash animations start as an empty spot with a Macromedia Flash logo in it. If you decide to click on the logo, the Flash plugin and content is loaded into the browser. It's great for not just screening You Tube plugin bloat, but also has the side effect of hiding Flash-based advertising banners.

   • brad says:

     13 years ago at 7:11 pm

     Which is why I required they build a turn-off switch before I allowed it.

     http://www.livejournal.com/manage/settings/

     Check the box by "Video Placeholders".

     • omnifarious says:

       13 years ago at 11:22 pm

       Thank for a helpful response. :-) Even Flashblock doesn't quite do it, but it looks like that will.

       I hate that Youtube uses Flash because there are many standard widely supported video formats they could use instead that don't require a proprietary piece of technology to work. But my friends still often post videos I enjoy seeing and that option gives me the best of both worlds.

       • jwz says:

         13 years ago at 11:29 pm

         I know in advance that you don't like this answer, but there is no low-bandwidth video format that is more widely supported than Flash. And none of the others that are even marginally deployed are "non-proprietary".

         • omnifarious says:

           13 years ago at 8:20 am

           Well, I know that all the systems I've used support mpeg2 and 4. Perhaps they are not open (though they are at least de-facto open, like mp3), or perhaps they require too much bandwidth. I don't know. But they are widely supported.

       • sc00ter says:

         13 years ago at 4:41 am

         "here are many standard widely supported video formats they could use instead that don't require a proprietary piece of technology to work"

         Like?

         • omnifarious says:

           13 years ago at 8:21 am

           See this comment.

           • sc00ter says:

             13 years ago at 8:36 am

             Besides having much larger file sizes (especially for MPEG 2 video), most will not play in-line in a browser.

   • baconmonkey says:

     13 years ago at 9:25 pm

     my computer is powered by the heart of an orphan, so I don't have these problems.

   • master_meio says:

     13 years ago at 4:48 pm

     http://www.grouphug.us

2. deificar says:

   13 years ago at 6:52 pm

   Aww- the Eagle could not fly. :(

   • johnsmith45678 says:

     13 years ago at 11:15 pm

     It flies at the very beginning.

     • jwz says:

       13 years ago at 11:18 pm
       • deificar says:

         13 years ago at 12:21 am

         ...oh...damn...

       • lherrera says:

         13 years ago at 8:40 am

         Why, oh, why?

3. inkbot says:

   13 years ago at 7:13 pm

   now i think i know what it's like to be on e...

   • jeremiahblatz says:

     13 years ago at 7:43 pm

     Based on your icon, I'm shocked that you do not have direct experience.

     • inkbot says:

       13 years ago at 8:26 pm

       hee hee. nope, but i vowel to try it one day...

       • omni_ferret says:

         13 years ago at 11:19 pm

         *groan*

         • inkbot says:

           13 years ago at 11:28 pm

           that's not very nice for a groan-up.

           seriously, i'll just keep going...

4. fo0bar says:

   13 years ago at 7:40 pm

   I live half a block away from the park where they do that every year (back-left, but at that resolution you can't make out anything).

   Every year, I get woken up by the sound of FLAMETHROWERS outside my bedroom window.

   • dojothemouse says:

     13 years ago at 10:19 pm

     The Iraqis were ungrateful about that too.

5. sircyan says:

   13 years ago at 10:26 pm

   Interestingly enough, my girlfriend and I were driving back to Vancouver from a week's vacation in Reno when the race was finishing up.

   There's nothing quite like waking up to, "Look! You have to look at this! There's the Energizer Bunny and a giant cow in the sky!"

6. dzm6 says:

   13 years ago at 2:27 pm

   Their art cars are more better than the crap ones at Burning Man.

   Incidentally Kraftwerk's Autobahn makes a spiffy soundtrack for watching this too.