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Archive for the ‘News’ Category
Why can’t NewsGator count?
It’s crap like this that keeps me switching NewsGator back to its Classic Reader. (Hint: look at the page count on the lower-right corner of the screenshot.)
In their rush to jump on the AJAXified Web-2.0 bandwagon, NewsGator neglected to see if their product could, you know, count properly. This bug has existed for at least four months - hell, it’s existed as long as the new ‘beta’ reader has - and it’s very simple to reproduce. Here’s how you do it.
0) Turn on the ‘mark items read as I view them’ option.
1) Click on a folder.
2) Start reading by using the ‘next page’ buttons.
By about the second or third page, the page counts will be horribly out of sync.
You had a good thing going for you, NG - why’d you have to go and screw it up with this crappy ‘beta’ reader?
I miss him already
Look out, Superman
If he knows what’s good for him, he’ll leave the dorky glasses on… or at least stay out of Serbia. Why?
The Serbians found kryptonite in a mine. No joke! … Well, it’s not the remains of the long-exploded Planet Krypton (side note: isn’t it amazing how most of a planet’s worth of rocks found their way to a single planet?), but it does exactly match the chemical name written on the side of a case Luthor was carrying that contained kryptonite.
Kryptonite is no longer just the stuff of fiction feared by caped superheroes. A new mineral matching its unique chemistry - as described in the film Superman Returns - has been identified in a mine in Serbia…
The real mineral is white and harmless, says Dr Chris Stanley, a mineralogist at London’s Natural History Museum.
“I’m afraid it’s not green and it doesn’t glow either - although it will react to ultraviolet light by fluorescing a pinkish-orange,” he told BBC News….
“Towards the end of my research I searched the web using the mineral’s chemical formula - sodium lithium boron silicate hydroxide - and was amazed to discover that same scientific name, written on a case of rock containing kryptonite stolen by Lex Luther from a museum in the film Superman Returns.
Well, we’re safe from General Zod, at least. At least, until he runs for President.
Why is it…
… that TV news people are always so hilariously uninformed about technology, gadgetry, the Internet, or reality in general?
Also, is everything a tool for pedophiles? Frigging everything?
13375p34k means you like sexin’ kids!
Links galore
- Mr. Gosling, why did you make URL equals suck?! A useful warning to Java developers - using URL.equals may be considered harmful, because apparently it does a blocking lookup to the IP address of the machine.
- No Shredder in TMNT? Peter Laird, series creator of our favorite heroes on a halfshell, suggested the change. The villain is now a more generic ‘monsters and space aliens.’ Maybe it’s this guy, even though he didn’t really come from outer space, per se?
- The world’s most indispensable Firefox tab: Ctrl-Shift-T (or Cmd-Shift-T on the Mac) will re-open the most recently closed tab. Hallelujah!
- Slain trees haunt loggers. My coworker’s response: “heh, ent ghosts.”
- Find out your Windows Vista Experience number. Sort of like a compatibility rating between your computer and Vista - is it love at first byte, or is Vista simply too high-maintenance for a down-to-earth machine like yours? (Pardon the pun - I had to.)
- O’Reilly Media launched Hackszine.com, an online companion to the Hacks series of books gracing bookshelves for quite a while now. This is already in my RSS reader.
- MAKE Blog: Do it yourself grassroots media sites using NewsCloud. Twenty bucks a month gets you a Debian install and NewsCloud; I think they handle hosting. Or you can just do it yourself, it’s open-source.
- Dear God, it’s the Woot-Off that won’t die. The offer as I type this: a 37″ Sova widescreen HD-ready LCD monitor for $649.99 plus $5 shipping. I wish I could afford this monster.
That about covers it. I’m sort of like a bargain basement Weekend Update. (Obvious pop-culture references linked for my friend Sandra’s sake, who recently revealed she has no idea what movie features the songs “Danger Zone,” “You’ve Lost that Lovin’ Feeling,” and more. Or, for that matter, has never seen SNL.)
ATTN: Pluto is still not a planet
Everyone seems to have missed the news that Pluto is not a planet except me. Are all my friends living under rocks?
Pluto (IPA: /ˈpluːtəʊ/), designated (134340) Pluto in the Minor Planet Center catalogue, is the second-largest known dwarf planet in the solar system. (emphasis mine)
Pluto was the ninth planet from 1930 until August 24, 2006. We started discovering a lot of other things in space that were a lot like Pluto, including Eris and Ceres, that we didn’t consider planets. So basically a bunch of astronomers got together and as of 8/24 last year, changed what a planet is. Pluto isn’t a full-fledged planet anymore; it, Eris, and Ceres are now dwarf planets.
Seriously, did everyone miss this?
How “Christ, What an Asshole” is the caption to the New Yorker caption contest
Are we all the everyman?
The Times seems to think we all have the capability to be Wesley Autrey. If you’ve been living under a rock for the past week with respect to news, Autrey is a 50-year-old construction worker and Navy vet who leaped in front of a subway train to save a man who’d fallen onto the tracks while having a seizure - both men lived as the train passed overhead. Autrey left two daughters behind on the platform when he jumped. The interesting part is that, despite what you might personally think (I know I sure as heck don’t think I could do it), apparently we all have that potential:
But is there something in Mr. Autrey that the rest of us lack? Probably not, experts say. Except for sociopaths, humans are built to feel and act out of empathy, said Stephen G. Post, a professor of bioethics at Case Western Reserve University’s medical school and co-author of “Why Good Things Happen to Good People,” scheduled to be published in May. Social support has always been important to survival, and people with strong social networks thrive more than those who are isolated.
And lastly, several stories in one go
Put YOUR slogan on someone’s lower back with ImageChef (via Lifehacker).
Spell your name in alphabet soup. Turn your slogan into a neon sign. Give your loved one a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. These are just a few of the cool images you can cook up with ImageChef.
Then, if you think YOU’RE a Mac fanboy or fangirl, check out this guy’s OS X Dock pillows (via MAKE’s blog).
I particularly like the Finder one, myself. Next up, China manages to kill off the white dolphin after twenty million years (via CNN):
An expedition searching for a rare Yangtze River dolphin ended Wednesday without a single sighting and with the team’s leader saying one of the world’s oldest species was effectively extinct.
The white dolphin known as baiji, shy and nearly blind, dates back some 20 million years. Its disappearance is believed to be the first time in a half-century, since hunting killed off the Caribbean monk seal, that a large aquatic mammal has been driven to extinction.
And last but not least, someone’s killing English hookers (also via CNN):
Police in eastern England are combing through rural areas hoping to find out who is behind the suspected killings of five women — all believed to be prostitutes — that may be the work of a lone serial killer.
Prostitutes were on Wednesday warned to stay off the streets of the Suffolk city of Ipswich, fearing the killer or killers could strike again.
“I’m not sure what starker message there can be at the moment: Certainly three of their peer group have been murdered, now potentially another two,” Chief Supt. Stewart Gull of Suffolk police said.
“Clearly it’s not safe, they need to stay off the streets.”
A Jack the Ripper wannabe? Maybe!
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