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Sure, but Will Smith thinks Scientology's Applied Scholastics in its Delphi Academy is such a good idea he started his own school based on it

Microsoft pays someone to go do a PR prank like this. Remember when they paid a crew to drop a giant Internet Explorer logo on the front lawn of Mozilla's campus?

Frankly, a company with the corporate culture like Microsoft's pulling stunts like this puts an image in my head of creepy late 30's to early 40's guys pretending like they're in a college frat again.

Nothing like a bit of friendly competition, heh..

Go is not a game because it does not have rules that are clearly interpretable, except the new Tromp/Taylor rules.
One sign of this is that Japanese monks have for about 400 hundred years quarreled about how certain patterns should be interpreted.

When I started to learn the game, I was told that it was exceedingly simple, but learned that there was a thick book of how to interpret patterns, which obviously is not simple. And after playing it a little, and thinking about it, it became apparent to me that there were end game effects that were simply ignored. The Japanese versus Chinese "rules" give very different endgames, but the practice is to simply ignore that and pretend there is no problem. One just stops when the players agree that the rest of the game would be obvious and boring, without that necessarily being true.

Robert Jasiek has done extensive analysis of Go, and seems to be the only one actually understanding the game as it is played in practice.
Here are a short list of the major mistakes that Go rulesets contain.
Here are lots of short analyses of different scoring methods.
Here are some game patterns that give different problems in different rulesets.

When it is not even possible to analyze parts of games then true optimal play regresses to quarreling about it, which is precisely what the Japanese tradition has done for at least some hundred years. Robert Jasiek has made the only consistent interpretation of the Japanese "rules", and it is somewhat insane to read, with 3 levels of recursion. It means that instead of there just being an ordinary game tree, the rules at each node in the game tree are determined by hypothetical game trees at these nodes, and the same goes for the hypothetical game trees. Gaaahrgle!

Those programming Go players typically do statistics on games played by humans instead of having a scoring function, or they use the Tromp/Taylor rules.

So Go is riddled with quarrels and pretense. Not a game in practice. More like politics, or Zen.

Kim0+

Go is not a game because it does not have rules that are clearly interpretable, except the new Tromp/Taylor rules.
One sign of this is that Japanese monks have for about 400 hundred years quarreled about how certain patterns should be interpreted.

When I started to learn the game, I was told that it was exceedingly simple, but learned that there was a thick book of how to interpret patterns, which obviously is not simple. And after playing it a little, and thinking about it, it became apparent to me that there were end game effects that were simply ignored. The Japanese versus Chinese "rules" give very different endgames, but the practice is to simply ignore that and pretend there is no problem. One just stops when the players agree that the rest of the game would be obvious and boring, without that necessarily being true.

Robert Jasiek has done extensive analysis of Go, and seems to be the only one actually understanding the game as it is played in practice.
Here are a short list of the major mistakes that Go rulesets contain.
Here are lots of short analyses of different scoring methods.
Here are some game patterns that give different problems in different rulesets.

When it is not even possible to analyze parts of games then true optimal play regresses to quarreling about it, which is precisely what the Japanese tradition has done for at least some hundred years. Robert Jasiek has made the only consistent interpretation of the Japanese "rules", and it is somewhat insane to read, with 3 levels of recursion. It means that instead of there just being an ordinary game tree, the rules at each node in the game tree are determined by hypothetical game trees at these nodes, and the same goes for the hypothetical game trees. Gaaahrgle!

Those programming Go players typically do statistics on games played by humans instead of having a scoring function, or they use the Tromp/Taylor rules.

So Go is riddled with quarrels and pretense. Not a game in practice. More like politics, or Zen.

Kim0+

Go is not a game because it does not have rules that are clearly interpretable, except the new Tromp/Taylor rules.
One sign of this is that Japanese monks have for about 400 hundred years quarreled about how certain patterns should be interpreted.

When I started to learn the game, I was told that it was exceedingly simple, but learned that there was a thick book of how to interpret patterns, which obviously is not simple. And after playing it a little, and thinking about it, it became apparent to me that there were end game effects that were simply ignored. The Japanese versus Chinese "rules" give very different endgames, but the practice is to simply ignore that and pretend there is no problem. One just stops when the players agree that the rest of the game would be obvious and boring, without that necessarily being true.

Robert Jasiek has done extensive analysis of Go, and seems to be the only one actually understanding the game as it is played in practice.
Here are a short list of the major mistakes that Go rulesets contain.
Here are lots of short analyses of different scoring methods.
Here are some game patterns that give different problems in different rulesets.

When it is not even possible to analyze parts of games then true optimal play regresses to quarreling about it, which is precisely what the Japanese tradition has done for at least some hundred years. Robert Jasiek has made the only consistent interpretation of the Japanese "rules", and it is somewhat insane to read, with 3 levels of recursion. It means that instead of there just being an ordinary game tree, the rules at each node in the game tree are determined by hypothetical game trees at these nodes, and the same goes for the hypothetical game trees. Gaaahrgle!

Those programming Go players typically do statistics on games played by humans instead of having a scoring function, or they use the Tromp/Taylor rules.

So Go is riddled with quarrels and pretense. Not a game in practice. More like politics, or Zen.

Kim0+

Which is the reason why Germany doesn't accept them as a religion:
http://home.snafu.de/tilman/krasel/germany/

More or less it is classed as a commercial organisation.

Millions of people planet wide use and benefit from Scientology principles and ideas.

I don't think that word means what you think it means.

See e.g. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fair_Game_(Scientology), http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fair_Game_(Scientology)#Court_cases_involving_.22Fair_Game.22, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karin_Spaink, http://www.xs4all.nl/~kspaink/, http://www.xs4all.nl/~kspaink/cos/idx_coskit.html, http://home.snafu.de/tilman/j/general.html

See also this quote from Wikipedia:

In 1994, Vicky Aznaran, who had been the Chairman of the Board of the Religious Technology Center (the Church's central management body), claimed in an affidavit that Because of my position and the reports which regularly crossed my desk, I know that during my entire presidency of RTC "fair game" actions against enemies were daily routine. Apart from the legal tactics described below, the "fair game" activities included break-ins, libel, upsetting the companies of the enemy, espionage, harassment, misuse of confidential communications in the folders of community members and so forth.

This is one of the good reasons why the sect tends to be viewed with suspicion in Western Europe (the sect is currently defending itself in France against a charge of fraud (see http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/7604311.stm)). I'm still unclear as to exactly how sect has been able to secure the tax-exempt status of "church" with the US authorities. I have read that it was by successfully harassing the relevant officials, but that's quite hard to prove of course.

Scientology got banned in Germany after the CoS got caught stealing government documents all over the world. Really, look it up. Or see here: http://home.snafu.de/tilman/faq-you/germany.txt

None of the murder or assassination charges against the CoS have been proved, but the circumstantial evidence that they kill people is pretty strong.

The scientology cult isn't outlawed in Germany but just not tax exeampt and not recognised as a religion, just as you say. I found this link: http://home.snafu.de/tilman/krasel/germany/government.html

Any "Church" that charges for its teachings and also has them copyrighted to prevent free distribution is not a church it's a scam at best and a dangerous cult at worst.

Germany has stated that "...the chief purpose of Scientology is not religious, but economical in nature...", which is probably the closest thing to consider. And don't forget that both Tom Cruise and John Travolta are members of that outfit. (I wouldn't even call it Cult...)

And the myth as it seems that there was a wager between Heinlein and Hubbard about starting a religion, it seems to be half-true. But I don't think that Heinlein ever planned on catching up on starting a religion... He would probably gotten himself into FSF or some other outfit instead with his statement of "Pay it forward" if he had been born at a later date. (Today it's more than 100 years since Heinlein was born, he was born 7 July 1907!)

Especially the "Pay it forward" approach is important. Even if you do someone a service and that person isn't able to return the favor you can always set the "pay it forward" approach to the problem.

That can be applied to sightings of many other things.

The problem is, how does one determine which patterns indicate something and which patterns are just convincing illusions?

In order to match them he'd have to do more than some yelling and handing out pamphlets. Even if he did follow some members home, it's still not to the level that abortion protestors will go to. Heck include PETA in that list of out of control protestors that don't get anything near this level of punishment. They've been known to set up in front of people's houses.

Forget PETA...the "Church" of Scientology makes it a regular habit of protesting in front of their critics homes. They distribute leaflets to their critics neighbors. They use and abuse the legal system to attack their critics and anyone who writes anything less than laudatory about their "religion". Search for "Operation Freakout" to see how they attacked reporter Paulette Cooper.

"I personally hate Scientology but they are a religion and must be respected as one."

Not necessarily. From http://home.snafu.de/tilman/krasel/germany/:

"The German Federal Government maintains that Scientology is an organization which has primarily economical interests. This idea has been reinforced by a ruling of the Federal Labour court (which is not connected to the government in any way). After having reviewed several Scientology books, the judges concluded that Scientology is not a religion, but a commercial enterprise.

  Furthermore, the German government maintains that Scientology tries to distribute its ideas as widely as possible, ideally leading to a society where humans life together according to Scientology rules. A closer look at Hubbard's writings shows that this is not desirable since Scientology is structured in a totalitarian, anti-democratic fashion."

There is an entire faq on the Germany v Scientology thing: http://home.snafu.de/tilman/faq-you/germany.txt

"I personally hate Scientology but they are a religion and must be respected as one."

Not necessarily. From http://home.snafu.de/tilman/krasel/germany/:

"The German Federal Government maintains that Scientology is an organization which has primarily economical interests. This idea has been reinforced by a ruling of the Federal Labour court (which is not connected to the government in any way). After having reviewed several Scientology books, the judges concluded that Scientology is not a religion, but a commercial enterprise.

  Furthermore, the German government maintains that Scientology tries to distribute its ideas as widely as possible, ideally leading to a society where humans life together according to Scientology rules. A closer look at Hubbard's writings shows that this is not desirable since Scientology is structured in a totalitarian, anti-democratic fashion."

There is an entire faq on the Germany v Scientology thing: http://home.snafu.de/tilman/faq-you/germany.txt

Well, there was one famous drive-by by the IE team a few years back. Pity it didn't turn out exactly how they expected.

At the risk of being redundant, here is another link.

Better than the big IE logo they left back when IE4 shipped, although the cake surely didn't provide as cool of http://home.snafu.de/tilman/mozilla/mozilla-ie-car d.jpgpictures. (It is sad seeing the guy placing the marketshare number there, however.)

Copy the project directory (touch all the files) and do a wget -r on the tree; by looking at the access time, you'll know all internal referenced files. Alternatively, scan the webserver logfiles to know which files are useful.

That's creative, and a neat idea. But, I cannot too highly recommend xenu . It only runs on windows, but is FAST, has DETAILED reports, AND it'll construct a site map!

I wouldn't think of testing a website without it! HIGHLY recommended! - MartyB

Like the time the Internet Explorer guys left an Internet Explorer icon at the front door of Netscape

"Stu Sjouwerman (FSM, $5000 donation to the IAS, WISE 2001 directory) is also known as Warm Regards Stu was vice-president of PSS, Inc (now defunct) and is Chief Operating Officer of Sunbelt Software Distribution (view corporate information), a Clearwater-based software distributor listed in the WISE 1999 list with Stu as contact. Stu also has the Clearwater-based company 3A Data and is the author of the book Make Money On The Internet. Watch him searching for witnesses for Scientology without mentioning it."

I don't even know where to begin here, let's go line by line:

I'm not sure I believe that - the rounds currently deployed to the US Army for their M16s are intended to tear an opponent apart, since an opponent who dies instantly can't continue to fight injured, or worse, charge and set off a bomb.

No, M855 - used by the M16A2 and up (A3, A4), is built to shatter after passing 4" of flesh, and does this quite well provided the weapon firing the round has a 16" barrel. Weapons with shorter barrels have less time over which to induce force upon the projectile thus resulting in a lower muzzle velocity and less fragmentation. This is one of the complaints about the M4 (14") and Colt Commando (11")

Here is an image of what M855 does within a gel block that has the same consistency as muscle tissue:
M855 wound cross-section

They're also built to knock the target off their feet to prevent a charging enemy.

Again this is incorrect. No round short of .50 BMG (used by .50cal sniper rifles and machineguns) is really capable of knocking a man over, especially not a charging one. Here is a list of the most common types of modern rifle ammunition and their kinetic energy - I'll leave the math as an exercise to the reader, but none of these would knock a 150lb. man running at 10mph over backwards, or even begin to. Bear in mind that unlike M855 (5.56x45mm) most of the higher-power rounds pass through the target completely without imparting the lion's share of their kinetic energy. Knockdown is due to tissue trauma and pain, if anything, and is rarely a factor when shooting an opponent.

M-16 rounds are nasty - they have a hollowed out section on one side so that upon a collision, they drastically change shape. This causes them to travel through the body with an increased angular velocity spinning the way though the targets internals

This is vaguely correct but misleading. The small ring in the side of an M855 bullet that exists where the bullet protrodues from the neck of the cartridge does induce a tumbling motion, but upon yawing 90 degrees within the flesh of the target the bullet typically shatters with at less 50% of the bullet mass fragmenting. There reason for this is not to spin the bullet through the target's internals, but rather to create a larger internal surface area to the wound itself, in order to maximize bleeding. The tissue trauma and kinetic energy doctrines of wound theory are largely ignore by 5.56x45mm largely because of the desire to incapacitate rather than kill targets precisely because each soldier wounded means two people busied (the soldier and a doctor/nurse/rescuer). The bullet that most closely describes what you're saying is the 5.45x39mm round fired in the AK-74, the successor to the AK-47. The Afghans in the 80s referred to them as 'poison bullets' for this reason.

If you've ever seen a target dummy shot with an M-16 round, the hole going in is the size you'd expect it to be - you can fit your hand in the hole on the other side. People who get shot in the arms with an M-16 will lose the arm, go into shock (and thus completely exit the battle) and almost certainly die shortly thereafter.

This is, again, garbage. The large holes are due to fragmentation, not tumbling, and the shock is induced by the maximized blood loss, not straight tissue trauma. I don't know who told you the above but they don't know the first thing about wound theory.

Keep in mind that the United States and European armies are the only military forces that don't use disposable regiments and therefor have large support structures for injured troops. The Chinese army is beginning to move this direction, but historically have no problem with wars of attrition.

That's true enough. Chinese firearms have historically been utter shit.

--Ryvar

A Florida-based computer security vendor, Sunbelt Software, said yesterday that it had been part owner of anti-spyware technology developed by Giant Company Software Inc., the company that Microsoft had acquired a day before. Microsoft knew about the relationship between the companies but didn't contact Sunbelt about the Giant deal before announcing it earlier this week...At the same time, Eckelberry declined to comment on reports that Sunbelt continues to hold some related rights to the Giant anti-spyware technology, including exclusive rights to offer software development kits related to the technology.

Sunbelt Software Distribution, Inc (Scientologists in the management: Stu Sjouwerman, Alexander Eckelberry, Sam Licciardi (married to Denise Licciardi, the sister of Scientology boss David Miscavige!), Greg Kras). It is unknown if the parent company Sunbelt International Group is run by Scientologists - I have no information that J.M. is a Scientologist.Corporate Information.

It wouldn't take long to write a script to find all the broken links on a page.

Just use Xenu's Link Checker.

...with the exception of the "write the serial modem code" argument, which would be reasonable if the code hadn't already been written for Linux (including emulators), none of your arguments hold water.

You can write and run your software on an ordinary Linux desktop, without even the need for a simulator module for the most part. The same Linux which runs your desktop can also run your 'plane, and for a considerably smaller performance and resource hit than XP (although in real life you'd go to the trouble of having a highly modular kernel and not load very much for the instance on the 'plane).

I have no idea why you'd bother with Atmel chips.

Linux runs natively on the Crusoe, another performance gain.

So you used MS-FS for testing algorithms? Then FlightGear would have given you even more control and oversight over what you were testing.

Reading between the lines, you didn't even look.

The .223 has been gaining popularity with LE over the years due to the development of frangible bullets - they still pack enough kinetic energy to slice through body armor, which is one of the primary reasons for choosing a 5.56 instead of a 9mm, but once the bullet hits a 'resistant' material like flesh or a wall, it disintegrates into small, harmless pieces. Anecdotal evidence from tactical entry situations that even NATO M855 ball ammo (62gr steel-core) doesn't tend to overpenetrate - the bullet is traveling so fast and is so hydrodynamically unstable that it tumbles and snaps in two after about 10cm of travel through flesh.

Now, in Europe (or at least Geneva), where the army d00dz have H&K 7.62mm battle rifles, the overpenetration issue is legitimate - a 168gr 308 bullet will blow right through a man like a hot knife through butter,.

Robotic Parking (Gerhard Haag, $40,000 donation to the IAS, Peggy Guignon alias Margaret Guignon alias Peggy Haag, $40,000 donation to the IAS; WISE 1999 and 2001 directory): Gerhard Haag has been written about extensively in the german book "Der Sektenkonzern" (see my summary). He was the manager of Stahlbautechnik Neckar GmbH, which he had bought from Krupp in 1989, and had introduced scientology management techniques, and forced his employees to take scientology courses. The result was a large scale fraud, as later described by Jeanette Schweitzer, a former employee. (He lost a lawsuit in which he attempted to prevent her from talking about the fraud). In 1991 and 1993 his company was caught hiring illegal aliens. In 1993 he was convicted for threatening his maid. He claimed in court that he was penniless, and fled the country. He went to Albania, where he tried to introduce scientology management into the government ("Project A" / Bulgravia). When Albania was informed of his background he was told to get out. He then went to the US, and first settled in Clearwater. The patent from his company is registered to one Heiner Schween (not a Scientologist; here is his company). Read also this article from the St. Petersburg Times.

Neil Gaiman is a Scientologist.

See this link, or this one if you think I'm kidding.

Scott

a) Xenu's Link Sleuth is a Windows program that checks broken links
b) Xenu is an excellent worldwide free product written by Tilman Hausherr
c) Tilman fights Scientology
d) Verisign is controlled by Scientology (can't prove it, so)
e) Verisign lauch Sitefinder
f) Xenu.exe program is almost unusable

My two cents.

a) Xenu's Link Sleuth is a Windows program that checks broken links
b) Xenu is an excellent worldwide free product written by Tilman Hausherr
c) Tilman fights Scientology
d) Verisign is controlled by Scientology (can't prove it, so)
e) Verisign lauch Sitefinder
f) Xenu.exe program is almost unusable

My two cents.

a) Xenu's Link Sleuth is a Windows program that checks broken links
b) Xenu is an excellent worldwide free product written by Tilman Hausherr
c) Tilman fights Scientology
d) Verisign is controlled by Scientology (can't prove it, so)
e) Verisign lauch Sitefinder
f) Xenu.exe program is almost unusable

My two cents.

A green lizard monster thing for a browser mascot!

Open source rocks! What else did you port from Mozilla? ;-)

Cue rant . . .

Actually it's the 20mm component of the former Objective Individual Combat Weapon program, part of the Small Arms Master Plan, now dubbed XM29. Essentially this weapon combines a variation on the G36C for underbody (almost a submachinegun) with an overslung semi-automatic 20mm explosive round (grenade, really) that can be set to burst at a given range by pointing at the object to burst upon, then increasing the range up a meter or down a meter.

There are some problems with this when compared to the M16A2 / M203 40mm underslung grenade launcher combination currently in use (or increasingly the less successful M4/M203 combo).

First of all, the 'normal' rifle portion (the G36C) sports a barrel so ridiculously short that the rounds do not exhibit the fragmentation behavior desired. A 10" barrel is insufficient for accelerating a 5.56x45mm round to the point where it can be truly effective in outdoor combat. The M16 family used a 16" barrel for a good reason - there's a full 75~100m/s muzzle velocity advantage over the 11" Colt Commando. Many sections of the Armed Forces have refused to or have been extremely reluctant to adopt the 14" barreled M4 for this same reason. Size does matter here, because longer barrels mean the bullet is in a sealed chamber being accelerated by explosive gases for a longer period of time and 10" is simply not enough.

Beyond this, there are many questions regarding the utility of the 20mm explosive round component itself. Everything from fears regarding any failure of the electronics system to, again, lethality. The single-shot breach loading M203 40mm grenade launchers currently in use provide an effective fatality radius of approximately 5m, and will wound most individuals within 15 meters of impact. The 20mm grenade, however, is the minimum size of projectile which can carry a useful explosive load and is loaded with circuitry to boot. The fatality radius is 1~2m with a 5m wounding radius. On the other hand it is far more accurate than the M203, but US soldiers are nothing if not well trained.

Current plans are for 45,000 units at a cost of $10,000 each (several times the cost of an M16/M203 combo) by 2009, and the general idea currently is to outfit active squads with one such weapon each.

The SAMP also includes a potential replacement for the Mark 19 Automatic Grenade Launcher (uses special high-power 40mm grenades) called the Objective Crew Served Weapon that utilizes 25mm grenades. This one may show significant merit as the possibility of an infantry-portable automatic grenade launcher is simply too good to pass up.

--Ryv

Cue rant . . .

Actually it's the 20mm component of the former Objective Individual Combat Weapon program, part of the Small Arms Master Plan, now dubbed XM29. Essentially this weapon combines a variation on the G36C for underbody (almost a submachinegun) with an overslung semi-automatic 20mm explosive round (grenade, really) that can be set to burst at a given range by pointing at the object to burst upon, then increasing the range up a meter or down a meter.

There are some problems with this when compared to the M16A2 / M203 40mm underslung grenade launcher combination currently in use (or increasingly the less successful M4/M203 combo).

First of all, the 'normal' rifle portion (the G36C) sports a barrel so ridiculously short that the rounds do not exhibit the fragmentation behavior desired. A 10" barrel is insufficient for accelerating a 5.56x45mm round to the point where it can be truly effective in outdoor combat. The M16 family used a 16" barrel for a good reason - there's a full 75~100m/s muzzle velocity advantage over the 11" Colt Commando. Many sections of the Armed Forces have refused to or have been extremely reluctant to adopt the 14" barreled M4 for this same reason. Size does matter here, because longer barrels mean the bullet is in a sealed chamber being accelerated by explosive gases for a longer period of time and 10" is simply not enough.

Beyond this, there are many questions regarding the utility of the 20mm explosive round component itself. Everything from fears regarding any failure of the electronics system to, again, lethality. The single-shot breach loading M203 40mm grenade launchers currently in use provide an effective fatality radius of approximately 5m, and will wound most individuals within 15 meters of impact. The 20mm grenade, however, is the minimum size of projectile which can carry a useful explosive load and is loaded with circuitry to boot. The fatality radius is 1~2m with a 5m wounding radius. On the other hand it is far more accurate than the M203, but US soldiers are nothing if not well trained.

Current plans are for 45,000 units at a cost of $10,000 each (several times the cost of an M16/M203 combo) by 2009, and the general idea currently is to outfit active squads with one such weapon each.

The SAMP also includes a potential replacement for the Mark 19 Automatic Grenade Launcher (uses special high-power 40mm grenades) called the Objective Crew Served Weapon that utilizes 25mm grenades. This one may show significant merit as the possibility of an infantry-portable automatic grenade launcher is simply too good to pass up.

--Ryv

Elron Hubbard already did this with a tomato! Did you really think those movies were based on fiction?

Sun totally defines themselves in terms of toppling Microsoft, and that fanatical hatred is so deeply integrated into their corporate culture that they are incapable of even considering doing anything else. If Microsoft disappeared, Sun would dry up and blow away, without any idea of what to do next.

Sun does't develop software or hardware, they develop badly designed weapons for toppling Microsoft, i.e. Java, Solaris and its ilk. Sun views their customers as mercenaries in their holy war, just like the U.S. views the Kurds in their fight against Hussain after the first Gulf war -- they make lots of empty promises about support, hype them up with lies to rebel against their cruel and ruthless leader, then thoughtlessly abandon them to be gassed and slaughtered in the battle field trenches, without any regrets. Sun is much more interested in exploiting the propoganda value of their hated enemy slaughtering their customers, than actually helping those customers.

In this day an age, anyone who's still a Sun customer is just plain stupid. If anyone buys Sun, it will be one of their few remaining loyal customers, because nobody else in the industry has the right combination of suicidal tendancies, unbridled malice, ignorance of history, and sheer gullability. (AOL/Time Warner, Worldcom and Enron come to mind...)

Since any corporation that bought Sun would have to put years of work into de-toxing them from their self-destructive obsession (which would be less possible than reforming David Duke to marry a sharp spoken black lesbian poet), purchasing Sun Microsystems would be an idiotic thing for any company to do.

A patently false rumor about Apple buying Sun ran through the mill a year or so ago, and it was obviously impossible because of the extreme mismatch of corporate culture. Apple has its problems, but they're not that dumb. Sun employees would never get along with Apple employees, because the Sun employees think they're all fucking geniuses who want to dictate the behaviors of people who they consider stupid (Java, java, java! Attacking Microsoft is more important than developing products or supporting customers!), and Apple employees simply won't put up with that shit. Remember what happened with the Sun/Netscape alliance and how much the Netscape engineers resented Sun.

Would any of you Sun/AOL/Netscape alliance refugees like to testify?

-Don

PS: FYI: The Vice President of Marketing for Electronic Commerce of the Sun/AOL/Netscape alliance is a dyed-in-the-wool evangelical Scientologist, who applies Scientology Cult Teachings to (in her own words) "every marketing plan I work on".

If you're stuck on IE, here it is:

And the beast shall be made legion. Its numbers shall be increased a thousand thousand fold. The din of a million keyboards like unto a great storm shall cover the earth, and the followers of Mammon shall tremble.

from The Book of Mozilla, 3:31

(Red Letter Edition)

Also see The mozilla museum and The hidden features of mozilla. Its about the old netscape, but still very enjoyable and sometimes hilarious.

...Like dumping a giant Internet Explorer "E" on Netscape's lawn?

Nah, they never do goofy shit either...

Like this? :)

Add to that, Xenu, a free link checking tool.
Also check this, a list of testing resources.

I have to disagree with you, there are no multiple rules to GO. There are some difference in the scoring rules, but most of these differences cancel out, since it is difficult to show posistion where it affects the outcome of the game. The definitve reference site for these rules is here. Beware, though the theoretic aspect of the site might give a false sensation that the rules are complicated, but they are easily learned in a few minutes as this site proves.

These are big. These are very big.

There's nothing worse than transferring a friend's data from an old mail client, noticing a duplicate, and not being sure which address is current. Think of all the places where something as simple as an address or e-mail address may be duplicated: e-mail software at home and work, Palm/contact software at home and office, phone numbers in the cell phone, etc.. Being able to sync contacts between work and home via the Palm was a huge step, but even now if I have information in a mail client or a cell phone it's a pain to keep it synchronized.

Donald Norman complained about this effort to "set up" stuff in The Art of Human-Computer Interface Design back in 1990, and this is the first time that I've seen an integrated solution to deal with this. Sure, things like my newsreader (MacSOUP) and mail client (PowerMail) will have to be modified to work with these, but this is totally sweet.

In a related matter, I'm totally psyched for iCal. Despite its lame name, this looks like it has the potential to replace my Palm desktop application (which took its own sweet time getting ported to OS X in the first place -- but as a longtime Mac user and former U.S. Robotics/3Com shareholder, I'm used to getting the shaft from Palm).

Now while I don't have a huge need to publish my calendar to millions of people or even within a large business, for several years I've been looking at something to simply allow my wife and I to compare Palm schedules so that we know what the other has planned before one of us tells others that we'd love to go to that party or movie. I guess we'd count as a small workgroup. Several Palm options exist, but they're all about US$50 and either require Windows (but of course the sites don't bother to say that until you're on the demo download page, do they?) or an Internet service that (a) I don't necessarily trust with my whole calendar, and (b) who knows when they're gonna go belly up. Being able to handle the whole thing behind my own firewall looks great.

In terms of the upgrade cost, I prefer to think of it this way: The upgrade is $129, but includes the features I've liked in the demo of the kick-ass application Watson ($29) in Sherlock, a workgroup-synchronizing Palm calendar (~$50), and a Unicode character palette (comparable to ~$9 shareware). So, as far as I'm concerned, the upgrade is really only about forty bucks, which while not free, offers enough cool features and improvements (multithreaded finder, finder search, spring-loaded folders, Quartz extreme) that I'm not too concerned. Heck, with iChat I might even turn into one of those instant message wankers.

Close enough? It's not clippy, and Mozilla's green, but it's real.

Mozilla stomps IE

Found this:
Here's the link
Do a search for Gaiman on the page. Apparently his father is real high up, and Neil used to be active. But the site is sceptical about Gaiman's active status.

Good idea.

Here is a list of all celebrities involved with the cult.

I really hope they get over the whole communist-like theme. Those red stars with yellow borders (Help->About Mozilla) do not impress, and I suspect those who have suffered at the hands of communist regimes would take offence.

I much preferred the cute little green dinosaur, briefly visible on the splash screen.

Not a big issue for me, but others on the Mozilla mailing lists seem to be up in arms about it.

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I found my ABC-gear fetish while in service. Here's a picture of me and my marine buddies having fun.

Not Bart!

Nancy Cartwright, voice of Bart Simpson, is a Scientologist! I found her name on a list of Scientologist celebrities at this page Sob, sob...

Steven

...and a Scotsman invented the telephone in the US

Philipp Reis was a scotsman?

Reis, Johann Philipp

The real inventor of the telephone

SCNR