The Angry Exile: Not feeling too flash

The Hangman

Into our town the Hangman came,
Smelling of gold and blood and flame.
And he paced our bricks with a diffident air,
And built his frame in the courthouse square.
The scaffold stood by the courthouse side,
Only as wide as the door was wide;
A frame as tall, or little more,
Than the capping sill of the courthouse door.
And we wondered, whenever we had the time,
Who the criminal, what the crime
That the Hangman judged with the yellow twist
of knotted hemp in his busy fist.
And innocent though we were, with dread,
We passed those eyes of buckshot lead --
Till one cried: "Hangman, who is he
For whom you raised the gallows-tree?"
Then a twinkle grew in the buckshot eye,
And he gave us a riddle instead of reply:
"He who serves me best," said he,
"Shall earn the rope of the gallows-tree."
And he stepped down, and laid his hand
On a man who came from another land.
And we breathed again, for another's grief
At the Hangman's hand was our relief
And the gallows-frame on the courthouse lawn
By tomorrow's sun would be struck and gone.
So we gave him way, and no one spoke,
Out of respect for his Hangman's cloak.
The next day's sun looked mildly down
On roof and street in our quiet town,
And stark and black in the morning air
Was the gallows-tree in the courthouse square.
And the Hangman stood at his usual stand
With the yellow hemp in his busy hand;
With his buckshot eye and his jaw like a pike
And his air so knowing and business-like.
And we cried, "Hangman, have you not done
Yesterday, with the foreign one?"
Then we fell silent, and stood amazed,
"Oh, not for him was the gallows raised."
He laughed a laugh as he looked at us:
"Did you think I'd gone to all this fuss
To hang one man? That's a thing I do
To stretch a rope when the rope is new."
Then one cried "Murder!" and one cried "Shame!"
And into our midst the Hangman came
To that man's place. "Do you hold," said he,
"with him that was meant for the gallows-tree?"
And he laid his hand on that one's arm.
And we shrank back in quick alarm!
And we gave him way, and no one spoke
Out of fear of his Hangman's cloak.
That night we saw with dread surprise
The Hangman's scaffold had grown in size.
Fed by the blood beneath the chute,
The gallows-tree had taken root;
Now as wide, or a little more,
Than the steps that led to the courthouse door,
As tall as the writing, or nearly as tall,
Halfway up on the courthouse wall.
The third he took -- we had all heard tell --
Was a usurer, and an infidel.
"What," said the Hangman "have you to do
With the gallows-bound, and he a Jew?"
And we cried out, "Is this one he
Who has served you well and faithfully?"
The Hangman smiled: "It's a clever scheme
to try the strength of the gallows-beam."
The fourth man's dark, accusing song
Had scratched our comfort hard and long;
"And what concern," he gave us back.
"Have you for the doomed -- the doomed and Black?"
The fifth. The sixth. And we cried again,
"Hangman, Hangman, is this the man?"
"It's a trick," he said. "that we hangmen know
For easing the trap when the trap springs slow."
And so we ceased, and asked no more,
As the Hangman tallied his bloody score.
And sun by sun, and night by night,
The gallows grew to monstrous height.
The wings of the scaffold opened wide
Till they covered the square from side to side;
And the monster cross-beam, looking down,
Cast its shadow across the town.
Then through the town the Hangman came,
Through the empty streets, and called my name --
And I looked at the gallows soaring tall,
And thought, "There is no one left at all
For hanging, and so he calls to me
To help pull down the gallows-tree."
So I went out with right good hope
To the Hangman's tree and the Hangman's rope.
He smiled at me as I came down
To the courthouse square through the silent town.
And supple and stretched in his busy hand
Was the yellow twist of the hempen strand.
And he whistled his tune as he tried the trap,
And it sprang down with a ready snap --
And then with a smile of awful command
He laid his hand upon my hand.
"You tricked me. Hangman!," I shouted then,
"That your scaffold was built for other men...
And I no henchman of yours," I cried,
"You lied to me, Hangman. Foully lied!"
Then a twinkle grew in the buckshot eye,
"Lied to you? Tricked you?" he said. "Not I.
For I answered straight and I told you true --
The scaffold was raised for none but you.
For who has served me more faithfully
Then you with your coward's hope?" said he,
"And where are the others who might have stood
Side by your side in the common good?"
"Dead," I whispered. And amiably
"Murdered," the Hangman corrected me:
"First the foreigner, then the Jew...
I did no more than you let me do."
Beneath the beam that blocked the sky
None had stood so alone as I.
The Hangman noosed me, and no voice there
Cried "Stop!" for me in the empty square.

Maurice Ogden

Thursday, 10 November 2011

Not feeling too flash

Tech stuff isn't usually my thing but since I'm a moderate Flash hater - not because I'm an Adobe hater but because I know a few technophobes and I've been asked about a zillion times, "Oh, Angry, this thing keeps popping up on my computer, could you tell me if it's okay" and it turns out to be yet another fucking Flash Player update and invariably prompting another conversation about why the damn thing's needed at all - I'm not all that sad to hear about this:

IN a stunning move, software developer Adobe is reported to be throwing in the towel when it comes to getting multimedia platform Flash to run on mobile devices.

According to a report on ZDNet, the company is halting development on future mobile versions of Flash for Android and Research In Motion's PlayBook, among other mobile operating systems.

The move would be a major blow to Android device makers, who have long touted Flash compatibility as a key competitive advantage over Apple's iPhone and iPad.

It also would mark a posthumous vindication for former Apple CEO Steve Jobs, who took a controversial stand by not supporting Flash on Apple's mobile products.

Admittedly I don't own a mobile device that even needs Flash so this specific news doesn't really affect me either way, but I do wonder if this might be the beginning of the end. If Adobe throw in the towel for Flash on regular operating systems as well that'd certainly affect me - not only would it be one less thing I get asked about but I could remove the Flash blocking apps from my computers.

Oh, I'd be just gutted.

PS...

Click for link

Errrm, how can I put this... no.

Comments (4)

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Longrider · 698 weeks ago

The problem with Flash is the amount of web pages that insist upon using it as a major component of their design. Jobs' stubborn insistence on not supporting it effectively denied users of his products access to those sites. So, much as I dislike Flash, I dislike Apple's intransigence and sheer bloody mindedness even more.
My recent post Made in Britain

1 reply · active 698 weeks ago

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Angry_Exile 90p · 698 weeks ago

I lean the other way and feel it's one of the few admirable things they've done lately. They've not denied Flash support on their desktop machines, I'm guessing because (a) it's less of a resource issue and (b) there are 3rd party flash blockers around anyway, but by digging their heels in over mobile devices and nailing their colours to the HTML5 mast they've created an incentive for websites to use an alternative or to offer non-Flash versions.It's happened a bit quicker than I thought but I'd guess that the web has passed "peak Flash" if Adobe are beginning to drop support for it on mobile device OS.

I don't think there are that many sites which are completely un-viewable as I have a Flash blocker running all the time and see more or less what a mobile device user would see, the only difference being that I can restore the Flash individually or on a whole page with a click or two. Mostly it's a few Flash elements embedded within the page, and half the time they're adverts. I suspect the amount of Flash which is advertising currently missing anyone with an iSomething is the reason behind this. If it was just YouTube clips and there was no money involved nobody would care whether Apple supported Flash or not.

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microdave · 698 weeks ago

I wouldn't mind so much if there was a decent alternative. I ditched Adobe Reader (PDF's) ages ago in favour of Foxit, which is free, much faster, and has a smaller footprint.

If a post includes a YouTube or similar video I usually click on Download Helper to grab it, followed by VLC media player to watch. This means my ageing lappy isn't crucified trying to play the clip live, and I can make use of screen grab, or variable playback speeds.

1 reply · active 698 weeks ago

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Angry_Exile 90p · 698 weeks ago

There's HTML5 and Youtube at least support it and let anyone join the trial. Go to <a href="http://www.youtube.com.html5" target="_blank">www.youtube.com.html5 to join, and if you dislike it you can leave from the same page. A slight caveat I found was that for some reason the odd video would refuse to load in HTML5 and I had to go leave the trial and rejoin afterwards. That may be fixed now but I'm not sure since my Flash blocker somehow forces YouTube clips to play in HTML5 even though I'm not in the trial anymore.

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