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Not so much the development team or Mozilla marketing fanboys but basically a pretentious, self-righteous, deluded few.

When browsing the web, I see "best viewed with Firefox" buttons quite frequently. Every once in awhile, I'll even run into a site that uses a browser detection script that either tells me to switch browsers (I currently use Opera) or deliberately prevents me from reading the content. Luckily, I can mask my browser, but it's still annoying and having to do that prevents accurate browser stats from being collected.

The official (and correct, IMO) stance of the Mozilla Foundation is that they do not support "best viewed with Firefox" buttons. Unfortunately, overenthusiastic fans need to be reminded of this far too often, even on spreadfirefox.com (which I generally think is a good site)

I've written about the "best viewed with" phenomenon here, with a comparative look (using Google) at how many people create sites that are "best viewed with Firefox" versus people who make sites that are "best viewed with Opera".

FoxPose: http://www.cjas.org/~leng/lainspotting/2006/02/pro blem-with-tab-thumbnails.html Dunno about downthemall, though.

While we're on the topic of bonus links, here are some other useful resources for people who just downloaded Opera 9.0tp2:

Widgets user guide

Search engine customization tutorial

Content blocking tutorial

Setup info for tab thumbnails

(Regarding that last one, I am still convinced that tab thumbnails are kind of silly, and that Opera's tiling function is already much more useful. See here: The Problem with Tab Thumbnails)

Indeed. There are plenty references to various aspects of computers, so all kinds of geeks can enjoy it, not just Mac/NeXT crowd. It shows that Ueda and Yoshitoshi are both Mac addicts :)

The pictures and video of the company are really great. Norway doesn't look like Silicon Valley at all! For more pictures of the Opera offices and employees, here's a blog post about a visit to the company earlier this summer. http://www.cjas.org/~leng/lainspotting/2005/08/my- visit-to-opera.html

You may be interested in this page concerning the relationship between Apple and Lain.

sorry...reference was perhaps a bit too obscure...(surrounding articles contain spoilers...don't wander too far if you wanna watch the series).

It's funny you should mention Lain. Aside from the fact that it was made to sell a game (just like Dot Hack [insert random word here] series was), the creator also wanted to get a rise out of Americans. He purposefully wrote it as a critique of Japan becoming too Westernized. http://www.cjas.org/~leng/pubs.htm#animer Check the 6th page in the Animerica interview scan. In the third column, he states very clearly,

[Americans] won't understand [Lain]. I don't want them to understand [Lain]. This work is based on [...] Japanese people. This work is a [...] cultural war against American culture[...]

Pretty awesome, huh? ;)

More like an a mecha from a Mazinger manga or anime. Kind of like GOOOO DIVVVVAAAAH.

I would pay good money if they made the Mandriva distro's mascot a super penguin robot with a pointy head and sharp wings. Go Nagai would be proud.

Ask Eiri Masami that question.

Interestingly, Miyazaki himself doesn't like to be associated with anime. "Miyazaki does not even consider himself an anime creator, but prefers to be known as a filmmaker." http://www.cjas.org/~leng/revolution.htm

That article talks about anime history and where Miyazaki's movies fit in (mostly at the bottom of the article).

This reminds me of an interesting article I just read from the Operawatch blog about Opera needing to improve its brand image in light of Firefox's growing popularity. I think the author would agree that making inroads in the academic sector is a smart thing to do.

http://www.cjas.org/~leng/opera.htm

Let's all hope this works out better than those unfortunate IPv7 experiments based around the Schumann Resonance. Restoring reality from an offsite backup can be a real bitch.

Let's all hope this works out better than those unfortunate IPv7 experiments based around the Schumann Resonance. Restoring reality from an offsite backup can be a real bitch.

Present day...present time! Ha ha ha ha ha ha!

Well, Protocol Seven did do away with the need to actually have a computer to connect to The Wired, so I suspect IP v.8 would be entirely unnecessary.

Check out the ads for the Newton here

And for real inside guff on Newton and Sculley.... here

Yeah - a bit off topic I know - but interesting... this is an alternative vision of the direction that Apple under Sculley was heading in - I think Jobs has a better strategy. I'm surprised that Sony hasn't tried to buy Apple before now.

Pixar = movies, Universal = Music, iPod = Hardware, OS X = OS .... looks like the picture is pretty much complete....

Here are some photos of the Apple Knowledge Navigator. This is a page from the larger document about the Knowledge Navigator mentioned in my other post.

And here is a video - very s l o w - someone mirror it....

Here are some photos of the Apple Knowledge Navigator. This is a page from the larger document about the Knowledge Navigator mentioned in my other post.

And here is a video - very s l o w - someone mirror it....

I remember the same video - it was around 1989 or so. There was one guy sitting on a park bench with a newspaper, he pressed it to the flat screen it then OCRed it and began to help him to learn to read it, prompting him as he read it out aloud.

Sculley believed passionately about this. There is a paper he wrote about the Knowledge Navigator here

So the Knowledge Navigator was a real mix of technologies. But ultimately such video productions and thought experiments were all about developing the Apple brand. I saw the video at an Apple tech show in Auckland NZ and that was preaching to the converted - but Sculley saw this brand development as crucial. Wired has a great article about Apple the brand. Sculley developed Apple into one of the most recognised brands in the world.... and Apple are still living on his legacy.

But Sculley also viewed the idea of this sort of technology, and especially Newton, as the future. I recall that he went on after leaving Apple to work with a company developing a wireless device for the Newton. He is still a believer in this vision - this article from 2000 suggests a merger with 3Com - Palm and Apple = Newton redux = iPalm?

Here is a page with a bunch o' info on Lain's Apple relationship.

If you don't want to figure it out by yourself, you can read some explainations and possible interpretations at thought experiments lain. The page also contains a nice summary about all the apple (and BE) references in SE: Lain.

As far as I can tell, Anime is good because it is simply better. There are probly a million reason why there are no comparable shows in America to eva (a series with big robots attacking eachother, but it is so perfect in every way) or Kare Kano (a sappy teen romance show were the animated characters out act any real actor in America) as shows as insanely funny as FLCL (A show where robots comes out of a young boys head. Don't ask :). Look at Cowboy Bebop> , these shows are better acted, have actual contining story lines, and have some of the best scripting in the world, all things that American TV is lacking. Can you imagen a show like Seral Experiments Lain (were a girl discoveres her identy as a man-made god [maybe, its a compicated show] while in The Wird) could ever be made in America, it is just to groundbraking to be considered in America.
Doubt me, just sign on to Morphious or your favorite file transfer program and check out one of the titles I've just mentioned. Or go to anipike and just serf. Yes there are many good American TV shows, West Wing, Invader Zim, Family Guy (oh wait) Futurama (darn) and the Simpsons (well it was good for a time), but they are in the minority. For every one of them, there are a dozen Darma and Gregs.
I won't lie, there are a whole lot of bad anime titles, but the reason why we see so many good titles over here is that none of the bad stuff gets sent over the pond, just like only the best titles get to Japan, its like a big filter.

Serial Experiments Lain

"The creators of lain have made a progressive cyberpunk anime which is highly informed and operative on multiple layers, both figuratively and literally." Thought Experiments Lain

"It's a computer lover's show. If you can appreciate the appeal of a powerful computer, or the feeling of urgency associated with needing a new one, you'll like this show. If you live a good percentage of your life online, this show speaks to you. If you feel amputated every time you visit home because there's no ethernet, the makers of this show understand. Better than any other anime I've seen, lain examines our networked society and discusses the implications of our humanity becoming increasingly "wired". a Review of Lain.

And an undetermined amount of words:
The ultimate geek anime. Give it time and it will blow your mind. You gotta get through the first episodes to be enlightened.
--
$HOME is where the .*rc is

Anime fans familiar with the drug Accela in Lain may appreciate the irony in one of the advertising slogans Amtrak used:

"Get back lost time!"

As explained on Lawrence Eng's fan page, that voice is in fact called Whisper, and it comes standard on every Mac.

And while I'm posting anyways, I have a question about Otakon -- why is it so dang expensive? I would have loved to drop by for a couple hours and browse for some DVDs, but the door price was over $20.

Yeah, yeah, I'm know I'm not a real otaku. But why doesn't a big con like that set aside a section as an admission-free space for vendors to sell goodies to the public at large? The Baltimore Convention Center has 7 Halls, 4 Ballrooms, and 50 meeting rooms, and I'm pretty sure Otakon rented the whole thing that weekend.

I knew there were some Apple and other computer references in Lain, like "Think Different" and even stuff like "Copland OS," but one of the pages on the link in the parent article has a lot more that I never heard of before or didn't notice, like "Navi" is an Apple reference?! And I've been a Mac fan for years. The mock "think different" ad is pretty funny, too.

okay...


Here is a link to an interesting Lain site, Thought Experiments Lain. It has spoilers galore, and a good explanation of the computer, literary and historical references in the anime. Don't visit the site unless youve seen Lain in its entierty and are trying to make some sense of it.

Here's a link to my little' 'ol Lain Gallery. With plenty of pretty pictures for you to look at.

I was also at otakon, but I went to the bandai panel instead of Lain. Got an interview with the guys for atanime.com too. (eep, shameless self promotion!) BTW, did anyone else who was there think that BOA's Performace at otakon was sub-par?

Anipike has plenty of links for other stuff.

Personally, I loved this anime and found it intriguing. Yes, I do think it is VERY pretencious, but that just part of the experience. When doing an anime like this, its impossible to avoid it. Eva was amazingly pretencious too. Lain is currently my favorite set of anime dvds, and if you havnt seen it yet, I honestly reccomend checking it out.

Okay, Im done..

Check out Infomania for a huge list of computer references in Lain.

Thought Experiments: Lain at

http://www.cjas.org/~leng/lain.htm

contains more than you'd ever want to know about Lain, including the desktops that were used. Hope that helps.

Well, if you want to write a review for /., please do it :) I'd like to see the responses from the public.
And don't forget to start with www.cjas.org/~leng/lain.htm :)

IMO Lain can be understood... Check out this link for more depth:

http://www.cjas.org/~leng/lain.htm

Lain looks AWESOME on DVD format, and when you play it back with a surround sound system it sounds fantastic, very immersive.

Thanks for putting out the full name of "Kare Kuno". I know that the Japanese like to give things shorthand names, but it took a long time for me to find that out, as well as the full name. Personally, I think the title "translation" "His and Her Circumstances" to be extremely stilted. I found one I like better: "He said, She said", it may not be totally literal, but I think it passes on the general idea much better.