In order to pass this test, the browser has to be compliant on standards of HTML and CSS rendering. Safari, Opera and beta version of Firefox 3.0 pass the Acid2 test. IE8 somehow surprised me because Microsoft used to be too arrogant in creating their own “standards”. I thought they didn’t care but now they are trying to be standard compliant… for real? I still can’t believe I’m blogging about this.

For related information here are some good articles:

IE8 goes on an Acid2 trip; beta due in first half of 2008

Internet Explorer 8 and Acid2: A Milestone

Don’t you want to forget your enemies, forget that you’ve done something terribly wrong, embarrassed, publicly humiliated, traumatized, or even heart-broken? I’m sure everyone has some kind of bitter memories that he or she wants to forget entirely.

There’s one episode in the series that dealt about this idea when Claire wanted to forget his father (I won’t spoil the details). I can connect and sympathize in Claire’s character in that episode (Truth & Consequences) because It’s really hard to lose someone you love dearly. Sometimes, the pain is so much to bear that you wish you have no memory of that person anymore.

Foolish thoughts…

“The Persona selector is dynamically loaded and populated from a JSON feed and all designs are loaded via URLs to remote resources”.

I don’t know the security model for these theme resources so anyone paranoid enough may worry that some theme authors can put arbitrary code in their themes if there’s no special verification, digital signature or seal of approval from Mozilla. Even though it is really convenient for designers, I don’t like the idea that it downloads the graphics on demand just like that from the internet. I don’t even know if the graphics are coming from Mozilla Labs or any secure location. Maybe not?

There is an API currently being developed so there should be more changes on the way for this extension. It looks great on the default theme but someone will immediately notice that it simply adds background picture on Firefox toolbar with some transparency on tabs. Sometimes, I find it hard to read the tab texts when the background is too dark. There’s no transparency option so you cannot customize it anyhow. You can only choose from the existing lists of background designs at the moment. I really hope they add more option in this extension because Persona looks like a bland IE toolbar background changer. Some users may find this useful because it make their plain themes colorful; however, some advanced users maybe annoyed with this. To a certain extent, I find Persona too simple to fit my taste. I’ll uninstall it for now but I’ll try Persona one again when a new version arrives. For now, I’ll stick with the default theme of Firefox no matter how boring it is.

Link: Mozilla Labs: Persona for Firefox

The most interesting part of this two-part documentary is the race to reach absolute zero. In The Conquest of Cold (first part), the invention of refrigerator shows how the use of ice influenced the industry and world economy at large. In The Race for Absolute Zero (second part), the documentary reviewed the details on how great scientists raced in reaching the illusive zero Kelvin, and how they competed to create the first Bose-Einstein Condensate.

Scientists have not reached zero Kelvin yet but they are very darn close to achieving it and they are still experimenting on how to get there. The lowest so far is at 100 pK achieved at Helsinki University of Technology, Finland. That might be outdated because there must be on-going experiments now that have achieved even lower temperature.

I am not a scientist but I always keep an inquiring mind about the mysteries of nature and the universe.

Absolute Zero BBC documentary is based on Absolute Zero and the Conquest of Cold book written by Tom Shachtman.

Link: BBC Four Documentaries: Absolute Zero

The runner-ups are facebook, conundrum, quixotic, blamestorm, sardoodledom, apathetic, Pecksniffian, hypocrite & charlatan.

Check out the details of Merriam-Webster’s Word of the Year 2007 here.

In Sam’s Teach Yourself ABAP 4 in 21 days, you just need 2 lines in order to create your first “hello world” program in SAP.

Here’s how:

report ztx0201.
write 'Hello SAP World'.

Easy? Don’t be fooled. I know a lot of hello world programs in a number of programming languages but it does not count in my resume.

Using this view, you can appreciate the elevation of the mountains and highlands even more. Looking at the Central Luzon area gives you more idea how flat it is. I think that the darker the green patches are, the more vegetation or forestation there is. At Central Luzon, looking at those darker green patches gives you a bird’s eye view of a large agricultural farm around San Luis, Pampanga. In mountains — the darker the green area, the denser the forest.

Just looking at how jagged the road and mountains surrounding Baguio City gives you more trill especially when you haven’t been there.

After seeing a number of mountain terrains in Google maps, I suddenly had an urge to go hiking!

If I pattern this to my trend in buying gadgets, I won’t purchase any of these until a 2nd-generation model comes up or it has become terribly cheap. I like books on paper and reading e-books on LCD monitor isn’t that bad either. I just think that this kind of e-book reader will be popular when marketed to gadget-frenzy people who likes reading books as well. However, I don’t see these gadgets appealing to bookworms. I’ve asked many friends before — they all prefer novels in paper. My girlfriend for instance, won’t read e-books unless it is the last resort. On the other hand, my colleagues like e-books for reference materials and IT publications. The convenience of search and multiple bookmarks is very useful for such of type books.

Now, I don’t want to spoil your reading so you might as well head to the source of the article.

Link: Amazon Kindle vs. Sony Reader

Here are the things that I suggest you do when someone want to borrow your belongings, whether at school, office or neighborhood:

1. Lend your belongings to trusted person only. When you have doubts, get a collateral (just like what most lending companies do)
2. When the person borrowing has no collateral and you don’t trust the shit out of him, but you still want to act like a good Samaritan — pray hard that he will even bother caring for your stuff. Don’t expect he will even care. Actually, you shouldn’t be expecting anything in return since you’re a good Samaritan.
3. Be selective. Don’t lend anyone who has a reputation for being irresponsible. It’s harsh but you rather be selfish so you don’t have to worry about your things being broken.
4. Whenever you decide to lend your belongings, always test the item before lending it to the borrower. Then, after the borrower return your stuff, test it again in front of him to check that your stuff is still in good condition. This acts as a proof that the item works fine when you lend it and when you received it back.
5. Finally, when you discover that the borrowed item was broken, tell the last borrower right away. It’s better when you work on #4 so you can act sooner. You certainly don’t want that person to get away so easily. As much as possible, make a bold statement that you lent the item in good condition and pressure him to act responsibly to the problem. In the end, you don’t want to compromise your belonging just because it was returned broken. When you let that happen, you’re being too kind or just dumb.

There are a handful of good Samaritans out there willing to lend you their stuffs whenever possible. However, not all of us are meant to be good Samaritans. I tried being a good Samaritan before. It initially feels good. When people begin abusing your goodwill you start to realize that lending whatever-you-have is not always a good idea. You have to set boundaries.

You have to be practical. Otherwise, leechers will simply suck the very last marrow out of your bone until you have nothing.

I know that this sort of accident is not funny. However, you can’t help but notice the name of the ship. What a coincidence! People across the internet made puns out of the ship that “crashed” at the Blue Sea of Death (BSod).

It’s typical that MS Explorer (as in Microsoft Explorer) to crash once in a while and that is NOT unusual when you use Windows. IMHO, these comments are generally inspired by unhappy Windows experience and some of them (certainly not all) are made by Linux enthusiasts.

Some of the jokes at Digg:

• MS Explorer crashes. Outlook not good.
• One Note, Access to such treacherous waters should be limited to ships which Excel at breaking through icebergs.
• I wonder if the penguin had any thing to do with this?
• This story made the Frontpage of cnn.com, their Publisher added it last night.
• Luckily no-one ended up in the Blue Sea Of Death
• This is what happens when you try and take M/S Explorer into penguin infested territory.

… and at Reddit:

• The captain gave the Word to Excel, but they crashed. Now they have no Access to shore.
• This Explorer crash may not be on the FrontPage of reddit yet, but it’s all over the .NET. I saw it on MSNBC too - according to their anchor (a hot male), the Outlook looks pretty grim for the ship: the Sea is very Sharp this time of year in the antarctic.
• Him and his Entourage obviously weren’t heading to the right MapPoint

Note:
M/S means Motor Ship.
All puns about penguins are pertaining to Linux.

Stricken Antarctic ship evacuated [ via Digg and Reddit ]