wake me when they find an exo-Earth. I'm getting bored stiff of exo-Jupiters and exo-Saturns...
Current techniques & data are only able to detect exo-Jupiters and exo-Saturns. If an exo-Earth is out there, we don't have the ability to see it yet. We do know there probably isn't room for one in a system where the exo-Jupiter is right next to the star -- which is the kind of system we've been able to detect so far.
The system in question is unusual in that its structure matches ours: the gas giants are far enough out that there's actually room for a set of rocky inner planets. When we develop the ability to spot them, this will be on the list of places to look.
I always find it interesting how many astronomical discoveries are based on years-old observations. It's incredible that we're collecting so much data that it takes this long to process it all, ask the right questions, make the right connections, double-check, cross-check, and confirm.
Our solar system: Large gas planets farther out, small rocky planets close to the star. Most star systems discovered so far: Large gas planets close in to the star with no room for small rocky planets in the habitable zone. This system: Large gas planets farther out, with enough room that there could be rocky planets close to the star.
Opera hasn't had a serious vulnerability in over 7 years. Are you joking, or have you just not paid any attention? Opera has had plenty of serious vulnerabilities in the past 7 years. Not as many published as Internet Explorer or even Firefox, but they exist. Take a look at this one from December, rated "highly critical," then explore the lists for various Opera versions.
The difference is, people rarely publish an Opera vulnerability without first going through channels, so the problem tends to get announced at the same time as the updated version of the app.
Right as i opened this story, firefox asked me if I would like to complete this update's installation by restarting firefox. I'm not restarting until they fix it. You're better off restarting Firefox now.
The issue reported is already present in the version you're already running, so upgrading won't make you any more vulnerable. And since Firefox 2.0.0.12 does fix a bunch of other bugs and vulnerabilities, you'll be safer with the newer version.
(Also, it doesn't seem to be as serious as reported, since it can't actually read anything but the Firefox program directory, which is public knowledge anyway. Your preferences, passwords, etc. are all stored somewhere else.)
I'd like to believe that the "Opera is not free" remark was supposed to mean "Opera is not Free (as in speech) Software."
But then there are so many people out there still living in 2005 who don't know that Opera has been free (as in beer) since then.
Personally, I blame the decision to use the term "free software" even though the word "free" has two entirely different meanings that could apply in this context. So much for avoiding words that could cause confusion. (It's so much easier in other languages, like, say, Spanish, where libre and gratis are impossible to mix up.)
Or, better yet, is Steve Ballmer the new Green Lantern? Unfortunately, his ring only holds power over chairs... And it can't affect wooden chairs. All of you using plastic and metal chairs had better watch out!
scientifically, artificial insemination and the likes are kind of bad for humanity. goes against evolution and all that... assuming you believe in that sort of thing. Of course, that way of looking at it implies that things like glasses, contact lenses, and Lasik are bad for humanity as well, because they remove selective pressure against poor eyesight. Or any other treatment for conditions that have a genetic component that doesn't involve rewriting the genes.
That said, it's more likely that a ship's anchor snagged it. The Guardian article doesn't speculate, but an earlier Register article suggested that was the cause:
A spokesman for Flag Telecom, the owner of the severed cable, told the Reg: "It is a problem off the coast of Alexandria in Egypt. For some reason ships were asked to anchor in a different place to normal - 8.3km from the beach. One of the ship's anchors cut our cable but there are multiple cuts - we're not the only company having problems."
Who needs adblock? I just run a stock Firefox, and visit Snopes regularly. Every once in a while a pop-up appears and is instantly squashed. I can't remember the last time I saw one stay up long enough to read what it was advertising.
For everyone who uses Doctype, it can be assumed that they're using some kind of html generator, and that generator is already generating two kinds of pages, one for IE and one for w3c compliant browsers.
What gives you that idea?
Imagine, for a moment, that someone actually has static HTML, whether coded by hand or generated by a tool. Now imagine that it's designed based on standards and validated to avoid errors. Because of that, it uses the doctype switch to trigger standards mode in all browsers (IE isn't the only browser with a quirks mode, after all) so that they're all *ahem* on the same page.
Now, let's look at the question of IE. Perhaps they've avoided a few features that don't work in IE. Or used innocuous workarounds, for instance to trigger hasLayout on an element that would otherwise get caught by one of IE's bizarre layout bugs. Or relied on progressive enhancement, so that other browsers get nifty CSS selector effects, but the page still works without them. Perhaps they have a couple of conditional comments in the head to load some style rules to get around specific issues like PNG transparency in IE6.
In short, imagine a cross-browser-compatible website that relies on standards, but uses static HTML and a single version of each page, not any kind of on-the-fly generation.
It's just too bad that Microsoft didn't learn this lesson. With their browser safely at 90%+ market share and no real competitors in sight, they stopped development (except for bug fixes, of course).
And only bug fixes that they considered critical -- security, crashers, etc. Nothing that would have fixed rendering bugs. And I don't just mean spec violations, I mean outright bugs that would make content disappear. When they did IE7, they combed the net looking for descriptions of known rendering bugs so they could fix them.
With a half-zillion free email providers out there, blocking a kid's email address will last all of two minutes. All they have to do is create an alias at Gmail, Yahoo, etc.
It reminds me of the early days of Hotmail, when they "verified" that you were a US resident by having you enter a matching city and ZIP code. Which just meant that all their overseas users lived in Beverly Hills, 90210.
The Acid Test is all about seeing if browsers can properly render intentionally mis-written, broken code, including things that I find it hard to believe that anybody would do on propose on a real-world page.
This misconception seems to come up every time Acid2 gets mentioned on Slashdot.
Broken code was part of the Acid2 test, but far from the primary focus. Read the test guide sometime. The first Acid test didn't use broken code at all; it simply tested implementation of the box model.
The bottle could, maybe, be empty. If the picture makes it obvious it's not empty, it could have water, or lemonade, or ice tea, or Cola, or. . . you get the point, in it. It's *probably* beer, but I wouldn't put it past kids to think it was a cool prank to take an old empty they found somewhere, wash it, then fill it with soda and take pictures.
Hmm, standard operating procedure for theater -- even with adult actors, you don't want them getting drunk and screwing up the performance -- and any drama students would likely be familiar with it.
A bit more on-topic, I remember a guy in middle school who used to drink soda out of a bottle in a paper bag at lunch, just to bait school officials into checking what he was drinking. Of course, in that case, the bottle was right there and they could verify it easily.
It's been a while since I've taken their quiz, but IIRC the left/right economic scale (or at least the questions) still suffers from the binary thinking that the system is designed to avoid: either you trust the government, in which case you lean left, or you trust corporations, in which case you lean right. I don't trust either of them, which puts me near center on the economic axis. Someone who trusted both government and corporations would end up in the same spot, however.
You know that is how it used to work right? The person who lost the Presidential race became VP.
I think "work" is pushing it. The problem was that with the President and Vice President coming from opposite parties, they tended to have opposing viewpoints, and weren't terribly inclined to work together. It only took two full-on elections (no one really wanted to run against George Washington) to figure this out and pass an amendment changing the way the VP was elected.
The SQL database got injected with content but the actual server isn't compromised. This isn't news.
So it would be news if the injection ran arbitrary code on the server itself, but because it runs arbitrary code on the clients that visit the site, it's not news?
Just trying to figure out where the dividing line is.
What would be nice about an online demo is that you could then test it in other browsers. Since this is an issue with the user interface, not the rendering engine, so it's possible that, say, Seamonkey or Camino might approach the situation differently (not to mention Opera, Safari, etc.)
Fortunately, it's pretty simple to just point a browser at a site that uses basic auth and see what the dialog looks like. Opera shows the site and message on separate lines with a "Label: Text" scheme, which would make this sort of phishing tricky. Konqueror 3.5 seems to use a similar format to Firefox, stringing them together as "Message at Hostname"
Back in February I was browsing the aisles in Micro Center and found an ancient jewel case of "Netscape Basics" that had been marked down to 42 cents. It contained a copy of Netscape 4.5 and advertised compatibility with Windows 95 and Windows 98.
They also had a somewhat less-ancient version of Opera in a box. Would you believe that 1.5 years after Opera had stopped charging for their browser, this store still wanted $39.99?
I didn't even really think AOL was still around in any meaningful context... who uses them these days, anyhow?
Think beyond the dial-up service and AOL application. Those are declining, but people still use other services owned by AOL: MapQuest, Moviefone, etc. And of course AIM.
Slashdot Mirror
Current techniques & data are only able to detect exo-Jupiters and exo-Saturns. If an exo-Earth is out there, we don't have the ability to see it yet. We do know there probably isn't room for one in a system where the exo-Jupiter is right next to the star -- which is the kind of system we've been able to detect so far.
The system in question is unusual in that its structure matches ours: the gas giants are far enough out that there's actually room for a set of rocky inner planets. When we develop the ability to spot them, this will be on the list of places to look.
I always find it interesting how many astronomical discoveries are based on years-old observations. It's incredible that we're collecting so much data that it takes this long to process it all, ask the right questions, make the right connections, double-check, cross-check, and confirm.
Our solar system: Large gas planets farther out, small rocky planets close to the star.
Most star systems discovered so far: Large gas planets close in to the star with no room for small rocky planets in the habitable zone.
This system: Large gas planets farther out, with enough room that there could be rocky planets close to the star.
Opera hasn't had a serious vulnerability in over 7 years. Are you joking, or have you just not paid any attention? Opera has had plenty of serious vulnerabilities in the past 7 years. Not as many published as Internet Explorer or even Firefox, but they exist. Take a look at this one from December, rated "highly critical," then explore the lists for various Opera versions.
The difference is, people rarely publish an Opera vulnerability without first going through channels, so the problem tends to get announced at the same time as the updated version of the app.
The issue reported is already present in the version you're already running, so upgrading won't make you any more vulnerable. And since Firefox 2.0.0.12 does fix a bunch of other bugs and vulnerabilities, you'll be safer with the newer version.
(Also, it doesn't seem to be as serious as reported, since it can't actually read anything but the Firefox program directory, which is public knowledge anyway. Your preferences, passwords, etc. are all stored somewhere else.)
I'd like to believe that the "Opera is not free" remark was supposed to mean "Opera is not Free (as in speech) Software."
But then there are so many people out there still living in 2005 who don't know that Opera has been free (as in beer) since then.
Personally, I blame the decision to use the term "free software" even though the word "free" has two entirely different meanings that could apply in this context. So much for avoiding words that could cause confusion. (It's so much easier in other languages, like, say, Spanish, where libre and gratis are impossible to mix up.)
Who needs adblock? I just run a stock Firefox, and visit Snopes regularly. Every once in a while a pop-up appears and is instantly squashed. I can't remember the last time I saw one stay up long enough to read what it was advertising.
IIRC, it was chosen because the word was common to most European languages, so it would sound familiar to anyone in their initial target audience.
What gives you that idea?
Imagine, for a moment, that someone actually has static HTML, whether coded by hand or generated by a tool. Now imagine that it's designed based on standards and validated to avoid errors. Because of that, it uses the doctype switch to trigger standards mode in all browsers (IE isn't the only browser with a quirks mode, after all) so that they're all *ahem* on the same page.
Now, let's look at the question of IE. Perhaps they've avoided a few features that don't work in IE. Or used innocuous workarounds, for instance to trigger hasLayout on an element that would otherwise get caught by one of IE's bizarre layout bugs. Or relied on progressive enhancement, so that other browsers get nifty CSS selector effects, but the page still works without them. Perhaps they have a couple of conditional comments in the head to load some style rules to get around specific issues like PNG transparency in IE6.
In short, imagine a cross-browser-compatible website that relies on standards, but uses static HTML and a single version of each page, not any kind of on-the-fly generation.
And only bug fixes that they considered critical -- security, crashers, etc. Nothing that would have fixed rendering bugs. And I don't just mean spec violations, I mean outright bugs that would make content disappear. When they did IE7, they combed the net looking for descriptions of known rendering bugs so they could fix them.
Didn't Netcraft confirm it, too? Or am I getting it mixed up with something else?
With a half-zillion free email providers out there, blocking a kid's email address will last all of two minutes. All they have to do is create an alias at Gmail, Yahoo, etc.
It reminds me of the early days of Hotmail, when they "verified" that you were a US resident by having you enter a matching city and ZIP code. Which just meant that all their overseas users lived in Beverly Hills, 90210.
This misconception seems to come up every time Acid2 gets mentioned on Slashdot.
Broken code was part of the Acid2 test, but far from the primary focus. Read the test guide sometime. The first Acid test didn't use broken code at all; it simply tested implementation of the box model.
Hmm, standard operating procedure for theater -- even with adult actors, you don't want them getting drunk and screwing up the performance -- and any drama students would likely be familiar with it.
A bit more on-topic, I remember a guy in middle school who used to drink soda out of a bottle in a paper bag at lunch, just to bait school officials into checking what he was drinking. Of course, in that case, the bottle was right there and they could verify it easily.
It's been a while since I've taken their quiz, but IIRC the left/right economic scale (or at least the questions) still suffers from the binary thinking that the system is designed to avoid: either you trust the government, in which case you lean left, or you trust corporations, in which case you lean right. I don't trust either of them, which puts me near center on the economic axis. Someone who trusted both government and corporations would end up in the same spot, however.
I think "work" is pushing it. The problem was that with the President and Vice President coming from opposite parties, they tended to have opposing viewpoints, and weren't terribly inclined to work together. It only took two full-on elections (no one really wanted to run against George Washington) to figure this out and pass an amendment changing the way the VP was elected.
So it would be news if the injection ran arbitrary code on the server itself, but because it runs arbitrary code on the clients that visit the site, it's not news?
Just trying to figure out where the dividing line is.
It's sad, but telling, that this comment could get modded as a troll.
What would be nice about an online demo is that you could then test it in other browsers. Since this is an issue with the user interface, not the rendering engine, so it's possible that, say, Seamonkey or Camino might approach the situation differently (not to mention Opera, Safari, etc.)
Fortunately, it's pretty simple to just point a browser at a site that uses basic auth and see what the dialog looks like. Opera shows the site and message on separate lines with a "Label: Text" scheme, which would make this sort of phishing tricky. Konqueror 3.5 seems to use a similar format to Firefox, stringing them together as "Message at Hostname"
Back in February I was browsing the aisles in Micro Center and found an ancient jewel case of "Netscape Basics" that had been marked down to 42 cents. It contained a copy of Netscape 4.5 and advertised compatibility with Windows 95 and Windows 98.
They also had a somewhat less-ancient version of Opera in a box. Would you believe that 1.5 years after Opera had stopped charging for their browser, this store still wanted $39.99?
I took pictures of both as proof.
Think beyond the dial-up service and AOL application. Those are declining, but people still use other services owned by AOL: MapQuest, Moviefone, etc. And of course AIM.
Sure, but the point is that it went to the brink and bounced back.