Re:Lets hope they open source it
on
Google to Buy Opera?
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· Score: 3, Informative
Additionally, I don't think you can get Opera in "just the browser" flavor. Last time I checked, it forced you to download this really crappy email client of theirs and address book and other things.
It's small enough that the non-browser features don't add much to the app size, and current versions are willing to keep everything you don't use hidden and out of the way. When I use Opera it's "just the browser" and has no problem talking to Thunderbird or KMail for email.
My favorite is how Opera Watch says "I must say that I find this very hard to believe," goes on to explain how unlikely it is and what might be behind the rumor, and somehow Slashdot turns it into "Opera Watch says this will happen!"
Actually, the RSS/Atom feed icon is used on a regular web page to indicate that a feed is associated with that page. Clicking on that feed icon will let you subscribe to the feed.
An RSS or Atom feed is an XML file containing a set of regularly updated items -- news articles, blog posts, "what's new" entries, stock ticker data, etc. The idea is that the client repeatedly retrieves the data at some interval (preferably a reasonable one, and preferably relying on HTTP caching to avoid re-fetching the file if nothing has changed). The items are usually displayed in an email/newsgroup-like interface. Firefox differs in that it puts the titles and URLs into an automatically-updating bookmarks folder.
Probably the most common use of feeds right now is to provide a list of recent posts or comments on a blog or news site. The feed contains the title, a link to the online location of the article, and either the full text or an excerpt. An end user will subscribe to a number of feeds using a client application, which will notify the user as new items become available. The client can display the content itself or open the online page in a browser. That way instead of visiting a site daily to see if there's something new, the client checks for you and notifies you when new content appears.
The Firefox 0.x branch included a separate copy of Gecko 1.7, and some changes were made only in the Firefox branch, leading to slight differences between Mozilla 1.7 and Firefox 1.0. The purpose of Mozilla 1.7.5 was to merge the two Gecko 1.7 branches (basically bringing the Suite's version up to speed with the Firefox version), so Mozilla 1.7.5 and up should display sites identically to Firefox 1.0.
This reminds me of a post someone wrote about user portability being good for getting them to switch to your app, not just from it. The assertion was basically that lots of people switched to Firefox over last year in part because they knew they could switch back if they didn't like it. That makes people more likely to try it out on a test drive basis.
If a switch is harder to revoke, people tend to be more reluctant to go through with it.
I've switched browsers a lot. Importing bookmarks is pretty easy. I've only switched email clients a couple of times, because I accumulate email, and if I'm picking up mail on the new client... well, it's a pain to transfer those messages back to the old one if I switch back. (Leaving messages on the server can only work for so long before POP3 gets bogged down.)
Icon #4 wasn't Firefox's icon, though it was similar. In particular, all of their test icons were landscape rectangles, and the broadcast waves in icon #4 were oriented left-to-right. Firefox's icon is square, with the broadcast waves oriented diagonally from lower left to upper right.
They did state that "The Firefox icon is close, but it lacks the rectangular dimension" (they wanted to match the look of the classic XML and RSS buttons without relying on text).
What's news here is that they not only recognized that Firefox got it right, but they made an agreement to use exactly the same icon.
"Collaboration" is a stretch, but coming on the heels of last month's Microsoft/Mozilla/Opera/KDE SSL validation and anti-phishing summit and Opera's plans to adopt other browsers' terminology where their own differs, it suggests a new pattern in which vendors are still competing on features and implementation, but beginning to collaborate on user experience.
Perhaps not, but it is a much easier issue to solve.
I mean, IE and Firefox still disagree over whether to use the term "Favorites" or "Bookmarks." (And didn't IE start out trying to use "shortcuts" instead of "links"?) Opera's finally tumbling to the fact that their "Pages" are everyone else's "Tabs," and plans on tweaking Opera 9 to help unify UI behavior across browsers.
Anyone remember the "channels" feature back in the Netscape Communicator / IE4 days? IIRC Netcaster used a radio dish as its icon, but I can't remember what Microsoft used for its Active Desktop icons.
Well, they already wasted time and money designing icons that, as it turns out, they won't be using, so it doesn't save the art department that much effort.
On the other hand, why should an Atom feed have an RSS icon? The problem with using "RSS" as the label is that it's an implementation detail, not a functional description. It's just like referring to Firefox, Internet Explorer, etc. as "web browsers" rather than "HTML viewers." One describes the function, the other describes the implementation -- which could change (say, by using XML+XSLT instead of HTML+CSS).
FWIW, Opera uses a similar icon to Safari - a white "RSS" on a blue background.
Eh, there's plenty of Superman and Batman clones around. Marvel's got the the Squadron Supreme, a JLA clone invented in the 1970s for an unofficial JLA/Avengers crossover (the same year, DC created an Avengers clone to meet the JLA). Hyperion and Nighthwak are the Superman and Batman characters. Image introduced Supreme (no connection) in the 1990s, a Superman-like character who accumulated many elements of Superman's mythos that DC discarded in the mid-1980s. The Authority's Apollo and Midnighter are very much like Superman and Batman (except for being a couple). Big Bang Comics is all about taking classic comics characters and trying to duplicate the feel of the 1950s stories -- their Superman/Batman clones are Ultiman and the Knight Watchman.
And so on.
Of course, lawsuits over clones go back decades. Consider the twisted case of Fawcett Comics' Captain Marvel. He was introduced just two years after Superman, and by 1941 DC Comics had filed a copyright infringement lawsuit against them. It took years, but Fawcett lost and ended up cancelling all their superhero books. Oddly, DC ended up buying Captain Marvel from them, but the trademark lapsed, and Marvel Comics introduced their own Captain Marvel, leading to another legal battle... which is why both DC and Marvel now have characters named Captain Marvel, but DC has to use the name Shazam on the covers.
Forget personality conflicts. Interracial couples are old hat. Cross-religion? Easy. PC vs Mac? Getting more interoperable all the time.
He's an X-box guy. She's a Playstation girl. Can they reconcile their differences, or are they doomed to an early breakup? Find out in our 6-part reality series...
As I understand it, it's mainly that the subordinates donated the eggs. Even if all involved agree that he discouraged them from doing so (overtly, anyway), there's still a sense of "we need eggs -- hey, you have eggs!"
It's like rules about conflicts of interest. An individual may be perfectly able to set aside his emotional or financial stake and make city zoning decisions that affect his own property, or preside as judge over the trial of someone who used to beat him up in the elementary school playground. But when that happens, it's all too easy for someone else to claim bias, so guidelines are in place to keep people out of those situations.
This story just keeps getting murkier and murkier.
I suspect even if the two other results are valid, most researchers are going to want to start over with an "untainted" line of cells. This of course sets the research back, because even if you can duplicate the process they used, you still have to take the time to carry out the procedure -- whereas before allegations started surfacing, you could have some groups trying to repeat the process and others building on what had already been done.
Reminds me of a short story by (IIRC) Arthur C. Clarke, written back in the 1950s or 1960s. Someone had come up with a machine that would record and play back experiences directly into the brain. They started out with things like having a gourmet savor an exquisite meal, but of course someone decided it would be great to record a pair of *ahem* "highly skilled" people having sex. The inventor kept playing back the same recording, neglecting his wife/girlfriend (because she couldn't measure up to the professional), who eventually decided to see what the fuss was and picked up the other side of the recording, and they just wasted away.
Assuming the comic is still online by the time you read this, don't forget to move the mouse cursor over the panels so you can actually see something other than the backgrounds.
Even so, it's not a terribly exciting stand-alone strip. It looks like they're going the route of Girl Genius and basically posting one page of a comic book at a time rather than a series of short episodes.
Open Slashdot->Preferences, then go to the "Homepage" tab, then look under "Customize Stories on the Homepage"
You can disable Zonk right there -- his posts will never reach your browser again. (This is compatible with all web browsers I've tested, though you have to enable cookies. But then cookies are such delicious delicacies, you have to wonder why anyone would want to disable them other than being on a diet.)
There's only one problem, though: This patch requires you to register with Slashdot. One wonders how responsible it is to require personal information (I hear they actually want a username and a password! At least you can use a throw-away email address) in order to use this valuable functionality.
Hmm, I didn't notice the live feed when I looked at the site earlier. I imagine it would be hard to stay in character 24 hours a day. That said, I don't think it's impossible, either -- certainly stage-trained actors can stay in character for hours, and people sometimes do performance pieces where they maintain a persona while interacting with people over the course of a whole day (though I'm sure they relax when they go home or to their hotel room afterward).
Again, I'm not saying it has to be a double-hoax, just that it could be.
no professional actor could possibly act as the contestants have for that length of time and with that level (or rather lack) of intelligence.
Speaking of arrogance -- you've got to be kidding, right? How many hours of footage are actually aired on this show? How many hours are aired in a typical TV season?
I'm not saying this is or isn't what's going on, but a professional actor should be entirely capable of maintaining a character over the course of a TV series, whether it's open fiction or a fake reality show.
I want to believe that. I want to believe that they didn't find people who see no contradiction between "low Earth orbit" and "distant view of Earth." I want to believe these people weren't fooled by the lack of incredible acceleration during launch. Most of all I want to believe that the producers aren't cruel enough to mess with people's dreams to that level.
Unfortunately, I'm too cynical about the TV industry to be convinced either way.
Slashdot Mirror
Additionally, I don't think you can get Opera in "just the browser" flavor. Last time I checked, it forced you to download this really crappy email client of theirs and address book and other things.
It's small enough that the non-browser features don't add much to the app size, and current versions are willing to keep everything you don't use hidden and out of the way. When I use Opera it's "just the browser" and has no problem talking to Thunderbird or KMail for email.
My favorite is how Opera Watch says "I must say that I find this very hard to believe," goes on to explain how unlikely it is and what might be behind the rumor, and somehow Slashdot turns it into "Opera Watch says this will happen!"
Actually, the RSS/Atom feed icon is used on a regular web page to indicate that a feed is associated with that page. Clicking on that feed icon will let you subscribe to the feed.
An RSS or Atom feed is an XML file containing a set of regularly updated items -- news articles, blog posts, "what's new" entries, stock ticker data, etc. The idea is that the client repeatedly retrieves the data at some interval (preferably a reasonable one, and preferably relying on HTTP caching to avoid re-fetching the file if nothing has changed). The items are usually displayed in an email/newsgroup-like interface. Firefox differs in that it puts the titles and URLs into an automatically-updating bookmarks folder.
Probably the most common use of feeds right now is to provide a list of recent posts or comments on a blog or news site. The feed contains the title, a link to the online location of the article, and either the full text or an excerpt. An end user will subscribe to a number of feeds using a client application, which will notify the user as new items become available. The client can display the content itself or open the online page in a browser. That way instead of visiting a site daily to see if there's something new, the client checks for you and notifies you when new content appears.
The Firefox 0.x branch included a separate copy of Gecko 1.7, and some changes were made only in the Firefox branch, leading to slight differences between Mozilla 1.7 and Firefox 1.0. The purpose of Mozilla 1.7.5 was to merge the two Gecko 1.7 branches (basically bringing the Suite's version up to speed with the Firefox version), so Mozilla 1.7.5 and up should display sites identically to Firefox 1.0.
This reminds me of a post someone wrote about user portability being good for getting them to switch to your app, not just from it. The assertion was basically that lots of people switched to Firefox over last year in part because they knew they could switch back if they didn't like it. That makes people more likely to try it out on a test drive basis.
If a switch is harder to revoke, people tend to be more reluctant to go through with it.
I've switched browsers a lot. Importing bookmarks is pretty easy. I've only switched email clients a couple of times, because I accumulate email, and if I'm picking up mail on the new client... well, it's a pain to transfer those messages back to the old one if I switch back. (Leaving messages on the server can only work for so long before POP3 gets bogged down.)
Icon #4 wasn't Firefox's icon, though it was similar. In particular, all of their test icons were landscape rectangles, and the broadcast waves in icon #4 were oriented left-to-right. Firefox's icon is square, with the broadcast waves oriented diagonally from lower left to upper right.
They did state that "The Firefox icon is close, but it lacks the rectangular dimension" (they wanted to match the look of the classic XML and RSS buttons without relying on text).
What's news here is that they not only recognized that Firefox got it right, but they made an agreement to use exactly the same icon.
"Collaboration" is a stretch, but coming on the heels of last month's Microsoft/Mozilla/Opera/KDE SSL validation and anti-phishing summit and Opera's plans to adopt other browsers' terminology where their own differs, it suggests a new pattern in which vendors are still competing on features and implementation, but beginning to collaborate on user experience.
Perhaps not, but it is a much easier issue to solve.
I mean, IE and Firefox still disagree over whether to use the term "Favorites" or "Bookmarks." (And didn't IE start out trying to use "shortcuts" instead of "links"?) Opera's finally tumbling to the fact that their "Pages" are everyone else's "Tabs," and plans on tweaking Opera 9 to help unify UI behavior across browsers.
Anyone remember the "channels" feature back in the Netscape Communicator / IE4 days? IIRC Netcaster used a radio dish as its icon, but I can't remember what Microsoft used for its Active Desktop icons.
Well, they already wasted time and money designing icons that, as it turns out, they won't be using, so it doesn't save the art department that much effort.
On the other hand, why should an Atom feed have an RSS icon? The problem with using "RSS" as the label is that it's an implementation detail, not a functional description. It's just like referring to Firefox, Internet Explorer, etc. as "web browsers" rather than "HTML viewers." One describes the function, the other describes the implementation -- which could change (say, by using XML+XSLT instead of HTML+CSS).
FWIW, Opera uses a similar icon to Safari - a white "RSS" on a blue background.
Eh, there's plenty of Superman and Batman clones around. Marvel's got the the Squadron Supreme, a JLA clone invented in the 1970s for an unofficial JLA/Avengers crossover (the same year, DC created an Avengers clone to meet the JLA). Hyperion and Nighthwak are the Superman and Batman characters. Image introduced Supreme (no connection) in the 1990s, a Superman-like character who accumulated many elements of Superman's mythos that DC discarded in the mid-1980s. The Authority's Apollo and Midnighter are very much like Superman and Batman (except for being a couple). Big Bang Comics is all about taking classic comics characters and trying to duplicate the feel of the 1950s stories -- their Superman/Batman clones are Ultiman and the Knight Watchman.
And so on.
Of course, lawsuits over clones go back decades. Consider the twisted case of Fawcett Comics' Captain Marvel. He was introduced just two years after Superman, and by 1941 DC Comics had filed a copyright infringement lawsuit against them. It took years, but Fawcett lost and ended up cancelling all their superhero books. Oddly, DC ended up buying Captain Marvel from them, but the trademark lapsed, and Marvel Comics introduced their own Captain Marvel, leading to another legal battle... which is why both DC and Marvel now have characters named Captain Marvel, but DC has to use the name Shazam on the covers.
Forget personality conflicts. Interracial couples are old hat. Cross-religion? Easy. PC vs Mac? Getting more interoperable all the time.
He's an X-box guy. She's a Playstation girl. Can they reconcile their differences, or are they doomed to an early breakup? Find out in our 6-part reality series...
As I understand it, it's mainly that the subordinates donated the eggs. Even if all involved agree that he discouraged them from doing so (overtly, anyway), there's still a sense of "we need eggs -- hey, you have eggs!"
It's like rules about conflicts of interest. An individual may be perfectly able to set aside his emotional or financial stake and make city zoning decisions that affect his own property, or preside as judge over the trial of someone who used to beat him up in the elementary school playground. But when that happens, it's all too easy for someone else to claim bias, so guidelines are in place to keep people out of those situations.
This story just keeps getting murkier and murkier.
I suspect even if the two other results are valid, most researchers are going to want to start over with an "untainted" line of cells. This of course sets the research back, because even if you can duplicate the process they used, you still have to take the time to carry out the procedure -- whereas before allegations started surfacing, you could have some groups trying to repeat the process and others building on what had already been done.
Reminds me of a short story by (IIRC) Arthur C. Clarke, written back in the 1950s or 1960s. Someone had come up with a machine that would record and play back experiences directly into the brain. They started out with things like having a gourmet savor an exquisite meal, but of course someone decided it would be great to record a pair of *ahem* "highly skilled" people having sex. The inventor kept playing back the same recording, neglecting his wife/girlfriend (because she couldn't measure up to the professional), who eventually decided to see what the fuss was and picked up the other side of the recording, and they just wasted away.
Actually, I have a GF as well (12 years today IIRC)
Her name isn't Adelaide, by any chance?
Hitting delete certainly looks less suspicious than throwing all the equipment in a trunk and burying it at sea.
An article about Microsoft and Sony has been up for 2 hours and only has 75 comments?
This has got to be a first.
Assuming the comic is still online by the time you read this, don't forget to move the mouse cursor over the panels so you can actually see something other than the backgrounds.
Even so, it's not a terribly exciting stand-alone strip. It looks like they're going the route of Girl Genius and basically posting one page of a comic book at a time rather than a series of short episodes.
Open Slashdot->Preferences, then go to the "Homepage" tab, then look under "Customize Stories on the Homepage"
You can disable Zonk right there -- his posts will never reach your browser again. (This is compatible with all web browsers I've tested, though you have to enable cookies. But then cookies are such delicious delicacies, you have to wonder why anyone would want to disable them other than being on a diet.)
There's only one problem, though: This patch requires you to register with Slashdot. One wonders how responsible it is to require personal information (I hear they actually want a username and a password! At least you can use a throw-away email address) in order to use this valuable functionality.
Hmm, I didn't notice the live feed when I looked at the site earlier. I imagine it would be hard to stay in character 24 hours a day. That said, I don't think it's impossible, either -- certainly stage-trained actors can stay in character for hours, and people sometimes do performance pieces where they maintain a persona while interacting with people over the course of a whole day (though I'm sure they relax when they go home or to their hotel room afterward).
Again, I'm not saying it has to be a double-hoax, just that it could be.
no professional actor could possibly act as the contestants have for that length of time and with that level (or rather lack) of intelligence.
Speaking of arrogance -- you've got to be kidding, right? How many hours of footage are actually aired on this show? How many hours are aired in a typical TV season?
I'm not saying this is or isn't what's going on, but a professional actor should be entirely capable of maintaining a character over the course of a TV series, whether it's open fiction or a fake reality show.
one of the sole Slashdotters...
Does that make you more unique than the rest?
I want to believe that. I want to believe that they didn't find people who see no contradiction between "low Earth orbit" and "distant view of Earth." I want to believe these people weren't fooled by the lack of incredible acceleration during launch. Most of all I want to believe that the producers aren't cruel enough to mess with people's dreams to that level.
Unfortunately, I'm too cynical about the TV industry to be convinced either way.
Ma' Bell strikes back!
And after they got rid of the Death Star logo, too...