"The fruit section of L. aegyptiaca may be allowed to mature and used as a bath or kitchen sponge after being processed to remove everything but the network of xylem. Marketed as luffa or loofah, the sponge is used like a body scrub."
- Simon
from Bookmarklet
I didn't realize that loofah sponges were fruit. I had previously thought they came from the sea.
- Simon
"Conceptual computer artwork of the total volume of water on Earth (left) and of air in the Earth's atmosphere (right) shown as spheres."
- Simon
from Bookmarklet
"The prosecutors rested their case after asking for a one-year sentence for three executives — David Drummond, senior vice president and chief legal officer; Peter Fleischer, global privacy counsel; and George Reyes, a former chief financial officer."
- Simon
from Bookmarklet
"Cummingtonite is a metamorphic amphibole. Cummingtonite was first described in 1824 for an occurrence near Cummington, Massachusetts, hence the name."
- Simon
from Bookmarklet
"The winner of the marathon, American Fred Lorz, was disqualified for accepting a ride in a car during the race. Initially, he was hailed a true hero at the finish. But Alice Roosevelt, the president's daughter, had photographed his ride, and he was later disqualified. Fellow American Thomas Hicks received the gold, even though he also was aided by two shots of strychnine and several glasses of cognac."
- Simon
from Bookmarklet
"MEPs also agreed that restrictions on a user's internet access can only be taken "with due respect for the principle of presumption of innocence and the right to privacy". But an earlier amendment which ruled that any application for cutting off internet access must go through a judge was rejected."
- Simon
from Bookmarklet
"Blow me" means quite different things in British English and American English...
It's short for "blow me down". A way of expressing surprise. Although, I suspect the American version is understood in the UK.
- Simon
Haha! Well, we have to be careful over there about saying that we're wearing a fanny pack...
- Spidra Webster
Heh, yeah. When I first heard that phrase I did a double take...
- Simon
Although it was never said to me while I was visiting the UK, I was pre-warned about phrases like "I'll come 'round and knock you up in the morning"
- Spidra Webster
"Pissed" is another term that has different meanings. In the US it means "very annoyed", whereas in the UK it means "intoxicated". Took me a little getting used to at first.
- Simon
Yup. Took me even longer to get "taking the piss".
- Spidra Webster
I think if you went around saying "blow me" everywhere you would get a punch in the face. We don't all live in some kind of Mary Poppins film you know.
- Pete Gilbert
Heh, there are many such British phrases that would probably elicit similar responses in certain types of British company. I still smile when my older relatives use it, but mostly because it's rather anachronistic -- I can't think of anyone I know under 50 in the UK that says it these days.
- Simon
True. Like it was common US slang in the early 20th century and earlier to call a mistake a "boner". Umm...that doesn't have the same meaning now...
- Spidra Webster
"Fag" is another word with quite different meanings on each side of the pond. Having a fag in England means smoking a cigarette.
- Gabe
"Cambridge University Footlights Dramatic Club is an amateur theatrical club in Cambridge, England founded in 1883, run by the students of Cambridge University "
- Simon
from Bookmarklet
Some former members: Douglas Adams, John Cleese, Peter Cook, David Frost, Stephen Fry, Eric Idle, Hugh Laurie, John Oliver, Emma Thompson.
- Simon
"When he finds a female, he bites into her skin, and releases an enzyme that digests the skin of his mouth and her body, fusing the pair down to the blood-vessel level. The male then atrophies into nothing more than a pair of gonads, which releases sperm."
- Simon
from Bookmarklet
I bet many married women can sympathize.
- Jim Norris
"When it is mature, the male's digestive system degenerates, making him incapable of feeding independently, which necessitates his quickly finding a female anglerfish to prevent his death." --- So, reproduction be damned... males just do it 'cause they have the munchies?
- Aaron D'Souza
"A law that demands consent to internet cookies has been approved and will be in force across the EU within 18 months. On 26th October, it was voted through by the Council of the EU. It cannot be stopped and awaits only the rubber-stamp formalities of signature and publication."
- Simon
from Bookmarklet
"So almost every site that carries advertising should be seeking its visitors' consent to the serving of cookies. It also catches sites that count visitors – so if your site uses Google Analytics or WebTrends, you’re caught."
- Simon
Do you hear that? It's the sound of a million webmasters screaming out in revolt against the disconnect between lawmakers and reality.
- Bill Strathearn
Eee pc was released in Nov 2007. Expect Asus to come tumbling down as eee pc stats are included. However, I doubt most people who buy eee pcs would have bought extended warranty. The data could be biased either way. So far, netbook reliability has been quite bad.
- Peng-Toh
"King George II imposed the "Dress Act" in 1746, outlawing all items of Highland dress including kilts with the intent of suppressing highland culture. The penalties were severe; six months' imprisonment for the first offense and seven years' transportation for the second."
- Simon
from Bookmarklet
I had a much funnier comment about the Continuation War.
- Jim Norris
@Jim: Doh! Your comments are one of the reasons I use Friendfeed :) I deleted the article before I saw your comment. I found that there arguably were several other wars between democracies.
- Simon
I was comparing it to the other Continuation War of R5RS vs. R6RS.
- Jim Norris
"There are discussions saying ‘You’re stealing my content,’ but publishers have complete control on whether that content goes online in the first place. If they want put up a paywall, again, publishers can put up a paywall. We don’t force you to make it free. The other part of the extreme is even if you’re online, that doesn’t mean that we can come in and force you to index your content with us. And this is the whole robots stuff, where if you don’t want to put it in Google, or even just in Google News, you can block it."
- Simon
from Bookmarklet
I wish this were reaching a larger audience. I heard an interview of one of the Google news guys by the BBC a week ago where the interviewer spent half of the time saying things like, "Explain how you aren't leeches." It was really depressing. Now that I know a little something about a subject that is in the news frequently, it's unsettling how much I took the media at face-value before.
- Ryan Moulton
The Economist: The Internet is bound to do serious damage to the newspaper business [17 July 1999] - http://www.columbia.edu/itc...
"IF AMERICA’S newspapermen were looking for comfort, Intel’s Andy Grove was not the man to invite to their annual conference in San Francisco in April. “You are under attack from both sides,” he said—on the advertising side from companies such as Internet auction houses, which are usurping the classified business, and on the editorial side from online news services. He gave them three years to adapt or die."
- Simon
from Bookmarklet
A pretty insightful article on the plight of newspapers, especially since it was written back in 1999.
- Simon
"Complainant stated she was using her Apple iPhone and an application called Trapster.com. As I looked at her phone there was a satellite view of her house and the surrounding neighborhood with a yellow ping marking my police vehicle in her driveway."
- Simon
from Bookmarklet
"One of the things that people say an awful lot about the Apple Mac is that the OS is fantastic, that it's very graphical and easy to use. What we've tried to do with Windows 7 is create a Mac look and feel in terms of graphics."
- Simon
from Bookmarklet
Yeah, why bother with the whole "easy to use" part when you can just clone the graphics. That's the important bit for sure.
- Bill Strathearn
"Now seems like a good time to recall the words of former Palm CEO Ed Colligan, a mere three years ago: Colligan laughed off the idea that any company — including the wildly popular Apple Computer — could easily win customers in the finicky smart-phone sector. “We’ve learned and struggled for a few years here figuring out how to make a decent phone,” he said. “PC guys are not going to just figure this out. They’re not going to just walk in.”"
- Simon
from Bookmarklet
"Mr Murdoch, told Sky News Australia: “I think we will [remove our websites from Google’s search index]. The people who simply just pick up everything and run with it – steal our stories, we say they steal our stories - they just take them. That's Google, that's Microsoft, that's Ask.com, a whole lot of people ... they shouldn't have had it free all the time, and I think we've been asleep.""
- Simon
from Bookmarklet
I don't think Mr Murdoch understands how the internets work. It's not like a big truck, it's more like a series of tubes...
- Jim Norris
When I hear statements like this, I really want to just implement it for him to save them the trouble. We'll gladly stop "leeching" his content if that's what he'd prefer.
- Ryan Moulton
""But we are better," he replied. "If you look at them, most of their stuff is stolen from the newspapers now, and we'll be suing them for copyright. "They will have to spend a lot more money on a lot more reporters to cover the world when they can't steal from newspapers.""
- Simon
from Bookmarklet
http://www.youtube.com/watch.... He says so many wrong things, either about Google's "first click free" initiative http://googlewebmastercentral.... that the WSJ is running (free article for Google users, pay-wall for WSJ readers), the French three strikes law (for people illegally downloading, not putting on websites), etc. I'm only at 1/5 of the video, but I expect much more ignorance (lies?) from him now.
- Jérôme Flipo
"Saint Nicholas of Myra is the primary inspiration for the Christian figure of Santa Claus. He was a 4th-century Greek Christian bishop of Myra, now in Turkey."
- Simon
from Bookmarklet
I suppose it's quite apt that Santa Claus is from Turkey.
- Simon
Simon: Why? Is it because you eat Turkey on Christmas?
- Gabe
Yeah. In England, roast turkey has traditionally been the primary dish at Christmas since the Victorian era: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki...
- Simon
I thought that England didn't have turkeys. I assumed the English ate goose, as that's what Dickens wrote about in A Christmas Carole.
- Gabe
England didn't have turkeys, but they were brought over from the Americas in the 16th century. Interestingly, it appears that "A Christmas Carol" helped turkey become more popular at Christmas -- the reformed Scrooge buys a turkey for the Cratchit family's Christmas meal at the end of the book. I think another reason it became popular was that Queen Victoria decided to break with tradition and opted for turkey at the royal Christmas meal.
- Simon
Issue 25313 - chromium - rounded corners look lighter in Chrome than in Safari and Firefox - http://code.google.com/p...
"I'm really outraged by this, I never saw such attitude in software development... ever, in my entire life, and I have 10 years of experience in software development..... this is just unbelievable, such irresponsibility! Going public with this!!! come on!! WHY!?"
- Simon
from Bookmarklet
Simon, I think the author of the comment you just quoted, Comment 14, is satirizing a comment above, e.g., Comment 9. But the author of Comment 9 is being serious.
- Ruchira S. Datta
I'm not so sure. Graphics geeks get really sensitive about this kind of stuff. Both #14 and #9 may be expressing their honest opinions. They only way to be sure is to troll them both and post a reply about the bug not being that important because the page still operates correctly with the sub-optimal rounded corners. Also, I can't repro it on the latest dev channel release of Chrome 4 on the Mac.
- Bill Strathearn
I once filed a bug with IBM about a single pixel being the wrong shade of gray, but arguing for a P1 seems to go too far.
- Amit Patel
I see crap like this on a fairly regular basis, and it doesn't appear to me that comment 14 is being satirical (or if it is, then the author is pretty bad at making satire clear). There seems to be no shortage of douchebags who will spam every bug that bothers them with "the sky is falling" comments, lambasting the individuals responsible with ad hominem attacks, and so forth. This is one of the things that makes working on open-source software for a large company less fun than it should be.
- Joel Webber
Apparently the author of comment 14 is going to escalate the issue, so the Chromium team can just ignore it for now until the executive fixes the bug.
- Matt Mastracci
It was something to do with menus. There were lines between menu items, border lines around the menu, and lines around the currently selected menu item, and the intersection of where those lines met was a pixel drawn in the wrong color. I don't remember the details :(
- Amit Patel