“Here's an idea not everyone will like: Firefox and IE should drop their rendering engines and switch to Webkit (used by Safari and Chrome). Then we wouldn't have the added annoyance of targeting three different DOMs.”
I'm sure someone will say something about "competition", but since it's open-source, they can continue to compete, just as Google has with their new JS engine, V8. Since everyone would be starting from the same point, they would all have the burden of not breaking compatibility. - Paul Buchheit
Microsoft would embrace and extend, creating WebKit Expression '09, and Firefox would only use WebKit 520 for the next 3 years, complaining that Apple and Google won't slow down their development to accommodate an 18 month development cycle. - Mark Trapp
NO -- webkit is at least poorly studied for security vulnerabilities, I don't want to live with swiss-cheese-alike crap from fruity company JUST because some few entrepreneurs want to make their life easier!!! - silpol
Extending the product is a good thing -- it's how the platform advances. As long as it's all open-source, we all win. - Paul Buchheit
It's not that everybody should like it. It's that they should all do it. - Louis Gray
Actually, that's already been discussed as part of the Gears' strategy... simply make Webkit a plugin for Firefox and IE. It's actually not *that* outlandish. - Chris Messina
Paul, the problem is WebKit is licensed under the LGPL; Microsoft could merely create a plugin to WebKit that did all of its extra features. They really wouldn't receive all that much flak about it, either. - Mark Trapp
@Chris - I recall that being mentioned at google code. I wonder what it would take to make a plugin for IE or firefox to use complete chrome processes as an 'accelerator' - Robin Barooah
Yeah, an IE "plugin" is the way to go. That way users don't even need to change their habits or UI, and it could potentially fall-back to IE for sites that still don't work with webkit. There's just no advantage to having different rendering engines at this point. It's high cost, low benefit. - Paul Buchheit
Didn't Netscape 9 allow users to choose which rendering engine they wanted to use? - Tony Ruscoe
@Tony: Netscape 8 did: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/T...) . You'll need to manually type the closing bracket, it is being excluded as part of the URL and I can't manually fix it. - nadim
for you all dearst proponents of single engine - go read "1984" book... dependence on one engine (or any subsystem, when it comes to that) for whole world is dangerous... and utterly stupid when it is done for sake of small group's convenience :-/ - silpol
@slipol - that would be true if we were talking about one engine developed by one company, but with an open-source project with many developers, I don't see how this could be a problem. Do you think that hundreds (maybe thousands) of developers worldwide will all collude to do something evil? Well, if so, some other people will come along and create a fork. In fact, WebKit was forked off of khtml. Let's not forget to thank the KDE folk for the good engine to begin with. - Robert Felty
Why would the two most popular browsers in the world change? - Globecode
Rob, the problem that silpol is presumably saying exists with a monoculture is that everybody is vulnerable to the same diseases. This has happened in the past where security vulnerabilities in compression and encryption libraries have made huge amounts of unrelated software vulnerable. But Paul has a good point that a dominant platform certainly makes things easier for the developer, which is why there are millions more apps for Windows than any other platform. - Gabe Schaffer
You are making a big discussion out of nothing. The hypotesis that if they all use the same basis, that will have the same DOM, they will be interoperable. That has been proved wrong: all the web browsers out there already have the same working basis (Web Standards) and still they messed things up. What makes you believe that this would be different? - Marcos Marado via fftogo
Marcos, the difference is that they all started from very different places and IE and Firefox both have a lot of historical gunk. Web standards wasn't their working basis, the browser wars of the 90s was. The browsers have been converging for years now, which makes web development a lot better than it used to be, but that only emphasizes the uselessness of having multiple rendering engines. The monoculture argument is of course nonsense. Having three engines isn't going to make the world any safer, especially since they use the same base libraries. - Paul Buchheit
@Paul I can only assume that you proclaim monoculture argument as nonsense only because you've never seen domino effect on large scale, with species of slightly different nature still staying... I've heard same kind of argumentation from Opera people as they were bragging on idea of "one proper engine under one proper standards" only to show them a bunch of weak points in their cardboard architecture, granted I had apropriate tools. But... Whatever. - silpol
The monoculture argument is based entirely on analogy, which makes for nice stories, but is a very weak form of evidence. - Paul Buchheit
Paul, but if they really wanted to interoperate, i.e. If the browser wars were really over, then they would just stop the last few years nonsense and go for standards compliance. Why did Apple fork KHTML? Why does IE insist in not adapting standards? Ultimately what matters for both end users and web developers is that each browser sees the same page in the same way. It's fictitious to say that the way to acomplish this is making them use the same code (why not use your argument for Javascript?): the way to do this is simply to follow the rules - in the web case, standards. - Marcos Marado via fftogo
Why bother with HTML, JS and others such standards then? Let's close up those shops and just standardize everything through Webkit. Which is great, unless if for whatever reason Webkit doesn't work on your device (or until the great Webkit fork). Let's standardize DOM instead, ne? :) - David Lee
Standardization is hard because there's a large amount of pages crafted specifically for quirks particular browsers. Going standard breaks them. - 9000
it sucks that it doesn't work on Windows Mobile yet.... ugh, I'm stuck in the stone age with IE6... - Harold
This conversation is so all over the place, I don't even know where to begin. All I can say is that 1985 wasn't as bad as I would have thought, seeing as it came after 1984. - Chris Messina
What's the point? You're still going to have to support IE6 for a decade anyway, and any new browser has to not break old apps. It's like those people who suggest that MS just replace the Windows kernel with Linux, as if all old apps will suddenly disappear, leaving the slate clean for all the glorious new apps to come. - Gabe Schaffer
that's one idea i love! standardization, baby! - stefan
Until someone decides that engine is crap and writes their own? - Robert Konigsberg
It's definitely +1 for Facebook in the right direction, but killer? I don't know about that. Even with the Live Feed, FB remains somewhat insulated, Friendfeed is definitely about public discussion. - Mo Kargas
live feed is definitely cool - my problem with the facebook news fees is that there is too much noise - Josh Smith
facebook is a closed community both Twitter and Friendfeed have open public pages. Therefore Facebook live feed is not a twitter or friend feed killer by any means. - Kim Landwehr
I hate Facebook. Therefore others must hate Facebook. Therefore no. - Trevor
I like Facebook. I like FriendFeed. I like Twitter. Can't we all just get along? :-D - Grant Fitzgerald
I maintain Facebook account as a networking tool. Do I utilize it as much as Twitter, Friend Feed etc.? No. I mainly use it to keep in touch with people that are out of touch.. friends of mine that are deeply submerged in pop culture. There are Friend Feed and Twitter applications that I could apply to my Facebook account yet choose not to simply because my friends list consists of a gang of people that might be inspired to sign up for these services and then add me; people that I have no desire to follow; people that I'd prefer not to follow me. In other words I use Facebook as a completely different platform in which to communicate with a completely different scence-- High school acquaintances, cute girls and the like. Facebook is also a great way of saying "I'm still alive." - Brandon McCall
I'm with Brandon on this one. I use FB as a great tool to invite my local peeps to Community Networking Events with one blast. Bulk invites and Community Calendars actually work well where I live. Keeps people informed. Also, remember that everyone has a special learning curve. Not all are professionals, just people who like to stay in touch and find out what's going on with old friends, classmates and in their own Neighborhoods. Many people I invited to participate with me on FB are just regular, working class folks who have never even heard of FB - yep, never even heard of it. "I got your invitation, Laurel. What's FaceBook?" - Laurel Phelps LaFlamme
Welcome to LCWO.net - Learn CW Online! At LCWO you can learn Morse telegraphy (CW) online in your browser. You don't need to install a program on your computer, and you always have your personal settings available, from any computer on the globe with an internet connection. You can also easily track your progress by means of different statistical functions. Sign up for a free account (or use username "test", password "test" to play around) and start learning or improving your CW today Features - Koch Method CW Course - Highscores -- compare your results with others - Speed Practice (Code Groups, Plain Text Training, Callsign Training) - Convert text to CW (does not require a login) - Forum for user discussions and feedback - more to come soon... Beta Version, News 2008-08-20 - Added Italian, Czech and Spanish as new languages. Thanks Maury (IZ1CRR), Ludek (OK2IEN) and Pablo (EA1QL). 2008-08-14 - Added French and Portuguese as new languages. Thanks David (CT1DRB) and Gael. 2008-08 - Josh Smith
cool tool. would be funny to see a realtime comparison with other microblogging platform - Olivier
very cool. It's really neat to see each tag grow "real time" - Josh Smith
Ooh, watching the cloud is pretty addictive... Must. Stop. Watching. - Brad Brooks
its cool..but. I tried to look for words like "business" and it gave no results. Can it really be that no word "business" is mentioned in all that sea of Twitters or is that a bug? - Hayk Hakobyan
but it can be real irrelevant, just because a lot of commonly used words, like 'everywhere', will show up. - Aram Zucker-Scharff
"The conflict between Russia and the former Soviet republic of Georgia moved toward all-out war on Saturday as Russia prepared to land ground troops on Georgia’s coast and broadened its bombing campaign both within Georgia and in the disputed territory of Abkhazia." - Bret Taylor via Bookmarklet
Georgia and Russia Nearing All-Out War
By MICHAEL SCHWIRTZ, ANNE BARNARD and C. J. CHIVERS
Published: August 10, 2008
Russia and Georgia veered closer to all-out war on Saturday as Russia moved parts of its Black Sea fleet toward Georgia’s coast and intensified its air attacks.So,according to this report, we have to "pay per view" what's happening?
For free access to this article and more, you must be a registered member of NYTimes.com - FAIL - Graham Steel
Silpol: Thanks for the link. The comments were interesting to say the least. - Mathew A. Koeneker
For me, this always brings up the question of when should countries allow separatist areas go and when should they forcefully bring them back to the fold? If the people in South Ossetia really want to be their own country, should the international community support them? Or should the sovereignty of the nation take precedence? - Brett Cannon
unfortunately I know Georgia too well - I used to serve there on the edge of times in 91-92, my unit had been here http://tinyurl.com/5mdyq3 (yes, now abandoned airfield in Vaziani) that scratched gray square is place where my *stuff* was... what is going on now in that area looks as dumb mistake from US side and Russia got (almost) all possible excuses to leave no alive spot on Georgian surface... - silpol
@Brett Cannon you ask actually questions which has no single answer, IMO - silpol
the political decisions of "ordinary" people mostly just suck. they only see whats surrounding them. they dont understand the bigger causal connections and how the power-game is played. just take a look what happened to east timor. they are now poorer then before and their wish to be independent was based on totally whack assumptions. the decision to separate should be judged on the likeliness that the living standards of the ordinary people would go up. - krz9000
...and not on history or the silly coolness of supporting the underdog - krz9000
@mcdawg: look at BBC, they carry nearly the same coverage. - 9000
Putin is still the boss, eh? The NYT articles implies all President Medvedev is doing is handing out press releases. Anyway, hope this all gets resolved sooner rather than later. - Jim Stanger
...but BBC's coverage is more peicemeal, alas. - 9000
only politicians like wars - because they don't have to die of being wounded, but it solves some of their problems - silpol
There is plenty of private industry that likes them too. - Geoff Schultz
I think we are kidding ourselves if we thought Russia was not a threat to world peace. Though; please to not fear for the worse if you live in other countries. "You must face your fears if you are to overcome it. Fear is in the future. There is not fear in the present, only action and reaction." -- Oonu in Dinotopia - Brandon via twhirl
This is going to be bad, bad, bad all the way around. Georgia is our ally, and we're ignoring them. Russia, flush with petrodollars, is making up for it's lost superpower status with a vengeance. If we never invaded Iraq and succeeded in Afghanistan, we might have the moral and military might to back up a diplomatic surge to end this type of over-reaching. But we don't. So our allies suffer and our rivals outmaneuver around the world. - Kawika Holbrook
this thing has been bouncing around the timeline forever... and no can't say I agree with the current status over there - the main problem is not knowing what the real issues are... is it geopolitical? is there oil involved perhaps? - ben rogers via twhirl
If the comments at 37Signals were threaded, they could have an option to hide all replies to the trolls. It'd be a great noise suppression tool. - Michael Nielsen
Is saying something negative the same thing as being a troll? - Nicholas Molnar
Looks like it's just slapped on the comment by whoever does the moderating (according to http://www.37signals.com/svn/a...) - it doesn't seem to be a per-user flag. That comment is the first one, so it doesn't demote it, and in fact it sort of draws my eye to the content. If I were a troll, it would be a badge of honor. - ⓞnor
I think it would be even more clever if the troll comments were hidden by default (for everybody but the troll). - Gabe Schaffer
@Michael: Sounds a bit like Digg. Frankly, it always surprises me to find unthreaded comment systems. Usenet was threaded way back when, after all. - Christopher Granade
The lack of threading is by design these days, usually. Not threading makes it hard for flamewars to persist because the back-and-forth responses get diluted by all the other comments on the article. - Mr. Gunn
I guess I understand that it's by design, a la 140 character limits and whatnot. I just don't agree with it for a lot of sites. Go look at threads on Pharyngula and try to follow the action. It's infuriating. - Christopher Granade
I agree. I'm just waiting for an easy and efficient way to socialize and interact with other iPhone users. That's why I was excited about Loopt, however, it doesn't let me know when there are other Loopt users near me. That's something I really want to know! - Niall Connellan
Such a shame. Of all the comapnies I'd trust to take over Digg, Google would be right up there on the list. I'm sure they had some great ideas. Wonder what happened. - Calvin Robinson via twhirl
Google were smart, no offence to Digg but i don't see how the deal would add value to Google. - Nicholas James
Nicholas have you not seen the new beta google design? They could incorporate Digg into the search pageranks and the news services quite nicely. - Calvin Robinson via twhirl
Yes but its not really that hard to develop something like that themselves. They've already built a digg like voting system for their search results and the other features are not hard to develop. - Nicholas James
yes... true. the new google will allow digg like interfaces already. I think the real problem with digg is it turns people off by being a bit snobby. twitter does the same... and as a result it will die. In the end these services fail not because of technology, but because of the culture they enable. friendfeed should take note of some Alister's private feed here and realize that an elitist culture could kill the fun on friendfeed as well. All services do different things, but people use the service. - Noah David Simon
Reddit turned me off because it just got so political and argumentative. It wasn't intelligent discussion, it was just bullheaded arguing. I visit Digg every now and then because they seemed to have got some of the quirks worked out that originally drove me to reddit. - Jason Shultz via twhirl
I guess big name bloggers who take potshots at Techmeme for not including them don't like linking to FriendFeed where a long conversation about this took place today. - Robert Scoble
I think that was a cheap shot Robert .. not really sure *exactly* who it's aimed but it's still cheap. FriendFeed is not the end all be all no matter how much you or I might think it is and making a dig at a person (people) for not wanting to link to a FF conversation - especially when it wasn't even part of a post - is a little beneath you I think. - Steven Hodson
+1 cheap shot. There's only supposed to be one conversation about this, and it needs to be associated with your post/link, Robert? I suspect you don't really mean that, and just got carried away, right? Did you post the same comment over on the FF item generated when TechCrunch posted the same thing? http://friendfeed.com/e/cd783f... - Ken Sheppardson
+1 cheap shot...definitely out of order there Robert, if that was an intentional & serious shot at Duncan - for frankly the same reasons as @Steven. - Zee at WeDoCreative
I don't remember TC complaining about not being on Techmeme. I agree it was a cheap shot though. - Robert Scoble
damn, you are good Robert to come clean & be honest like that. Who the hell gave you your ethics? You must have had great parents. - Zee at WeDoCreative
Scoble, it's 10am here, I saw the email, figured that people would be interested in seeing it, and published it. If there's a convo here I haven't seen it yet due to the time difference (ie: I've not seen it rise to the top of my FF feed in the hour I've been in front of a computer). However now you've pointed it out I'll go searching for it and add it to the post. Go through my archives, I'm regularly linking in to FF when I see stuff. Indeed I love doing so - Duncan Riley
You should know, Duncan, that before you post something you should search FF to see if Robert and his followers are talking about it first. ;-) - Ken Sheppardson
Why does he need to post to the FriendFeed discussion? I'll be damned if I search FriendFeed from now on to see if there is a discussion related to the topic I am blogging about, just so that I can link to it. - Andru Edwards
Robert rarely displays that "world revolves around" me thing I am not going to stress the odd cheap shot. Especially int he context of a discussion about someone who DOES have that kind of thinking :) The funny thing is, I think Jason is a good guy, I enjoy the car / poker / name dropping twitters the way I watch "The Soup" on E!. I think its probably satire. - Soulhuntre
link to one of the FF convos added + link to Allen's video - Duncan Riley
I hope this is a one time deal and no one starts a Jason Calacanis email-list proxy blog thingy. If that's the case, then Jason hasn't left blogging, he just passed it on to someone else. - Bwana McCall
Bwana, one off for me. I just thought the content might be interesting to people. Indeed it's the first time I've written about Calacanis/ quiting blogging full stop - Duncan Riley
No need to apologize mate. I saw that email in about ten different places and have read about 5 different threads of discussion on it. The fact that one more exists is all the better, not everyone needs to see a conversation through the same lens. - Steve Spalding
Ugh Ken, that's what I feared what happen - Bwana McCall
"John Brockman explained to me...", "My friend... Mark Cuban", "My good friend Xeni Jardin...", "Ted Leonsis", "Brentwood" :-) - Sprague D
His rules don't apply to him, Sprague. I'm kinda sick of this nonsense landing on my stream. I don't think he understands what he sounds like to those outside The Industry. So, enough. - Jim Stanger
Just curious here... I don't see any copyright or creative commons notice on Jason's email. Is this all just a set up to go after folks who post the email verbatim? :-) - Ken Sheppardson
FF is definitely cool, but only if you're a major blogger with thousands of followers will you ever get significant commentary on a post here. For most of us, our blogs are where our readers are. - Aziz Poonawalla
Oh I wholeheartedly disagree, Aziz. I get as much out of FF as I contribute, nay more, and I'm just a guy with a truck. Just track people that interest you and share back with the world. The people that in turn find your info interesting will find you. It may take time if you're not talking about geek culture, but this is all just seed planting right now. Can't wait to see what flowers... - Jim Stanger
Conversation: There Can Be Only One™. - Chris Baskind
what really prompted Jason to goto a closed email list, is he thinking up a startup in email space or did he miss being at foocamp this weekend, any ideas? FF does generate real conversation better than blog comments -imho - Sudha Jamthe
I am sure of two things: 1) Jason is trying to position email as much cooler than blogging due to some financial motive and 2) he knows his emails will be reposted - so he is basically still blogging - Soulhuntre
Holy hell the egos in the talking about tech space... and I thought developers were bad. - Jason Carreira
This is so amazing... and not just because I've been drinking. Probably tomorrow morning too! We'll see... kind of freaking me out now that I'm taking a closer look. - Anthony Marco
Crazy isn't the word I'd use. Disrespectful, careless, self-entitled, irresponsible... Yep, somehow I've become a cranky old bastard. GET AWF MUH LAWN. - Akiva Moskovitz
Back in the 70's and 80's we had to settle for the odd apartment complex or motel and it was always with the sneakers tied-on tightly since we'd be chased out just as quickly as we entered. I've recorded some more thoughts on the subject here: http://snipurl.com/swimkid - Christopher Harley
I agree with @Leo - this is a made up story. And why are they calling it a "Facebook" craze, when it's Google Maps that makes it possible? - Rex Hammock
Why is it that only the British flip out over this stuff as full-fledged phenomenon that need to be stopped, probably with more cameras and monitoring of Facebook. - Andrew Feinberg
yeah, it seems like every other story is fake these days or some kind of viral marking ploy - Scott Beale
never needed facebook or google maps to do this. In my home town we would gather at a Mcdonalds to review a very good aerial photo that hung on a wall for empty swimming pools in 1975 for skateboarding. The media has nothing better to report on? - Jerry Schuman
@Rex because Google Maps doesn't have a messaging component? - Adam Turetzky
Is this a hoax like using Bluetooth to hook up with people on the tube: "toothing"? - Cote'
And what a great use of technology. I love how people become alarmed when someone utilizes something new for a purpose it's inventor didn't think of and it then upsets people. Sorta like searching Google for phonebooks inadvertently shared online ("phonebook" filetype:xls) or looking for Mac computers with Personal File Sharing turned on by searching the first sentence of the default page that's displayed. - Adam Turetzky
People should learn to lock their gates. Maybe set up a fake security camera (convenience stores do this all the time, and it works). Maybe get a dog, or a motion-detector linked to an extra-loud recording of a dog.
That aside, I agree there rotten punks are quite disrespectful. - Ivan via fftogo
This sort of thing won't be a problem if not for the fact that if there is a "dipping" party and a drunken idiot drowns, the owner, who didn't want them there in the first place, would be sued. Life would be more fun without the lawyers. - Robert Hafer
Disrespectful indeed. Wait until the owner has guard dogs. - Justin Rains
