According to my notes, it went live shortly after midnight on Oct 13, 1994. We sat in the conference room in the dark and listened to different sound effects fired for each different platform that was downloaded. At some point late that night I wandered off and wrote the first version of the page that loaded when you pressed the "What's Cool" button in the toolbar. (A couple days later, Jim Clark would go ballistic in a company-wide email because I had included a link to Bianca's Smut Shack.) For those of you who are unaware of these finer details, 0.9 was the first release of the Netscape browser (which begat Firefox) available to the general public. This beta release was an unannounced surprise. Prior to this, everyone assumed that what we were doing was going to be a standard for-sale product where you sent off your $35 and then some time later got a disc in the mail with a license key. That we just said, "Here's our FTP site, come get it, go crazy" was, at the time, shocking to people.
These anniversaries keep piling up, so I don't really have a lot to add, but check my NSCP tag or the Previouslies for more, particularly the links in this one.
I'd still like to find a way to run a mid-90s vintage Unix version of the browser under emulation on an M1 Mac. I asked about that a while back but was never able to Make It Go.
Previously, previously, previously, previously, previously, previously, previously, previously, previously, previously, previously, previously, previously.
Oklahoma Republicans have found a clever way to corrupt the election: by buying bibles from the corrupter's campaign. The price will be over 3 million dollars.
They don't openly admit that the purchase has to be from his campaign, but they make that inevitable by specifying details that other printed bibles don't fit.
Government purchases coming directly or indirectly from electoral campaigns ought to be illegal.
Accusing the wrecker of restraining the FBI from thoroughly investigating the rape accusation against Brett Kavanaugh when he was nominated for the Supreme Court.
The head of the UK "energy industry" has been chosen as the new head of the "Climate Change Committee.
I know nothing more about her besides that point about her previous experience, but that one point is enough to make me suspect that the fox is now in charge of keeping us chickens safe.
Since Iran's missiles have shown they can hit Israel and do damage, further escalation by Israel could result in a long war of attrition
US universities are confused and conflicted about how to deal with strongly opinionated students and their disagreeing view.
US citizens: call on Congress to ban carrying guns at polling places.
An Australian official is moving to revoke the visa of a visiting Palestinian who said, speaking in an event this Oct 7, that it was the occasion for “considerable celebration” as the anniversary of HAMAS's hostage taking and killings. Now the Australian is considering revoking his visa on grounds that he advocated terrorism.
The official said, "But he did prove the point that many of us are making in the lead up to the rallies on Monday, which is that the only reason you would organize a pro-Palestinian protest on Monday, is if you thought it was worthy of celebration." This seems to be valid.
Both HAMAS and subsequently Israel were responding to terror attacks. Both had grounds for belligerence if it were in accord with international humanitarian law. Both entities' retaliations instead violated that law, committing atrocities.
I defend freedom of speech in a very firm way. I don't think anyone, whether citizen or visitor, should be prohibited to express those views, even though I strongly disagree with those views.
*Demand for beef, soy, palm oil and nickel hindering efforts to halt demolition by 2030, global report finds.*
*Utilities Only Planning Enough Clean Energy to Replace Half of Fossil Fuel Generation by 2035, New Sierra Club Report Finds.*
They still plan to build lots of gas-fired power plants. Using fossil gas cause more global heating than coal.
This demonstrates that existing laws, plus existing pressure from well-informed public opinion, are not sufficient to decarbonize rapidly.
A government can be far better than blatant plutocracy and still be weak in resisting plutocracy's destruction of the eco-sphere. Australia's Labor Party seems to be an example.
Previously, previously, previously, previously, previously, previously, previously, previously.
Previously, previously, previously, previously, previously, previously, previously, previously, previously.
In the suit, entered into the docket as Driskell v. Homosexuals, Sylvia Ann Driskell, 66, of Auburn, Nebraska, asks in a seven-page, neatly handwritten petition that U.S. District Judge John M. Gerrard decide once and for all whether homosexuality is or isn't a sin.
The suit doesn't cite any case law under which a judge could make such a determination. In fact, it cites no court cases at all, quoting Webster's Dictionary and numerous Bible verses, instead, to bolster Driskell's central contention, which is:
"That homosexuality is a sin and that they the homosexuals know it is a sin to live a life of homosexuality. Why else would they have been hiding in the closet."
Driskell writes, "I'm sixty six years old, an [sic] I never thought that I would see the day in which our Great Nation or Our Great State of Nebraska would become so compliant to the complicity of some peoples [sic] lewd behavior."
Sadly, the link to the "neatly handwritten PDF" is 404.
Update: In all its handwritten glory.
Previously, previously, previously, previously, previously, previously, previously, previously, previously, previously, previously, previously.
It allows the feed reader apps on my various devices to quickly download the new entries in all of my subscribed feeds from one place, without needing to hammer on each source individually (which is fraught.) It does this job adequately, if you never use its website as your actual feed reader.
But every time I see what their logged-out front page looks like -- which is always, since they are pathologically incapable of keeping me logged in -- I think, "I'm gonna have to stop using this pretty soon, aren't I?"
Yeah, see, I need (for light values of "need") an RSS CDN. I don't need "Threat Intelligence", "Market Intelligence", "AI Insights" or "AI Summary". These are in fact the opposite of what I need. But that someone from the "growth hacking" investor class has insisted on shoehorning this nonsense into the RSS CDN very strongly implies that they will be turning the blood-screws tighter and tighter.
Also, did I just see something scroll by in that crime-against-typography customer-testimonial ticker that said "netskape"? What fresh hell is this?
Also, the SF Pissed Off Voter Guide is out.
Ranked Choice Voting Strategy:
For instance, entiiiiirely theoretically, say you don't love London Breed but detest Mark Farrell. You could vote for your favorites 1st and 2nd, then list Breed as a 3rd choice, leaving Farrell off your list entirely. This way, if it came down to a faceoff between Farrell and Breed, your vote would help keep him out of the mayor's office. Use ranked choice voting to vote your heart while making sure the worst candidate doesn't win.
Previously, previously, previously, previously, previously, previously, previously, previously, previously.
It turns out that if you put Elon Musk on the graph, almost the entire US population is crammed into a vertical bar, one pixel wide. Each pixel is $500 million wide, illustrating that $500 million essentially rounds to zero from the perspective of the wealthiest Americans.
The histogram above shows the wealth distribution in red. Note that the visible red line is one pixel wide at the left and disappears everywhere else -- this is the important point: essentially the entire US population is in that first bar. The graph is drawn with the scale of 1 pixel = $500 million in the X axis, and 1 pixel = 1 million people in the Y axis. Away from the origin, the red line is invisible -- a tiny fraction of a pixel tall since so few people have more than 500 million dollars.
Since the median US household wealth is about $190,000, half the population would be crammed into a microscopic red line 1/2500 of a pixel wide using the scale above. (The line would be much narrower than the wavelength of light so it would be literally invisible). The very rich are so rich that you could take someone with a thousand times the median amount of money, and they would still have almost nothing compared to the richest Americans. If you increased their money by a factor of a thousand yet again, you'd be at Bezos' level, but still well short of Elon Musk.
Previously, previously, previously, previously, previously, previously, previously, previously, previously, previously.
Cards Against Humanity is exploiting a legal loophole to pay America's blue-leaning non-voters to (1) apologize for not voting last time, (2) walk us through a step-by-step plan of how they'd vote this time, and (3) post "Donald Trump is a human toilet" on social media. This whole thing should probably be illegal -- so quick, give us your money before they change the law!
How do you know who didn't vote?
We formed a Super PAC and bought the personal voting records of every American citizen from a data broker we found on the internet. It's pretty fucked up.
How do you know who's "blue leaning"?
We got your partisan lean from the same data broker who sold us your voting history. You wouldn't believe how easy it was for us to get this stuff. So fucked up!
This rules. Can I give you more than $7.99?
If you agree with us that this is a pretty good idea, you can donate as much as you want during checkout for your 2024 Election Pack. Literally no limit, because we're a Super PAC. This is the kind of crazy shit that happens when the Supreme Court rules that "money is speech" and corporations can spend unlimited amounts of cash influencing elections. If you want to make a very large donation, please email us and we'll work it out. [...]
You should post:
"How is this not illegal??? Cards Against Humanity is PAYING people who didn't vote in 2020 to apologize, make a voting plan, and post #DonaldTrumpIsAHumanToilet -- up to $100 for blue-leaning people in swing states. I helped by getting a 2024 Election Pack: www.Apologize.lol"
Previously, previously, previously, previously, previously, previously, previously, previously, previously.
Planet Debian upstream is hosted by Branchable.