May 2005 Archives

And so I went pretty bitchcakes over the AP story that came out in the past day or so. That done, the press release providing more information came out (they re-used the headers/page title from the previous release - sloppy). Obviously it wasn't cobbled together because I was being picky, but it's nice that it's out. But now that it is, some questions remain. You'd think press releases would be a dime a dozen, and while I see the wisdom in keeping them paced and measured, perhaps this should have come out before the story went live on the AP wire. Someone dropped the ball there.

That done, I go back to one of my previous complaints, that sure, they want to be unambiguous about their message - and it's true, that Opera is safer - but I can't help but think they miss the point of addressing the larger issue, and in so doing set themselves up for a fall. Software will never be fully secure. More features, more problems. However Opera is more secure, and has a better security record, than any other browser out there.

Clarity shouldn't, and doesn't have to, be at the expense of misrepresentation. And it's not just about fulfilling a wider responsibility to tell people that software is inherently unsafe - that patching is mandatory; that's not necessarily Opera's job. But it's in Opera's self-interest to make it clear - secure as Opera is, like all other software, it will still have flaws. The minute you go waving the security banner all over the place is when you're going to get the bitch slapped out of you.

The analogy I choose to use right now is this. If Kerry hadn't been waving the flag quite so much about his Vietnam War heroism, it wouldn't have been quite so big a deal when Swift-Boat people lied about him, and his actions as a war protester got scrutinised the way they did. When you tout yourself so unmitigatedly as being one way and that is so rudely ripped away by facts or innuendo - you have no one to blame but yourself.

I'd have preferred it if they had put it in the broader concept of Speed, Security, Simplicity - so that it's an opportunity to talk about broader issues about how good their browser is, and to minimise an obsession with security, which is more prevalent in some senses than is healthy already in InterWeb society.

There's plenty of nuance in the release, but it is a bit single minded in its emphasis, and the headlines it generates will create to the casual user an inflated sense of expectation. And okay, they sent it to Harris to poll - how is this a "study" though. They polled, or they surveyed. And really, I've read the release a couple of times, I'm still not sure what the numbers are meant to mean, or what point they're trying to make out of it, other than Opera's Secure, Dude.

Opera (sort of) said they would implement some changes to Opera Blogs "in the next blogging period" - so presumably, come tomorrow, the 1st of June, we'll be bowled over by the wonderful new features and improved experience. If they do not at least put in an RSS feed, I will be boggling livid for at least a couple of days. Regarding some of their other ideas, I hope they've dried off.

I have a dark comedy of silliness to tell about the experience of the phone, but I'll save that for a more appropriate time.

I think I'm constantly impressed by the diversity of languages that now dominate the boggling landscape here, prolific voices all. That said quiris is catching up at a rate that defies imagination, and I'm pretty gob-smacked by the whole thing - surely we can't have that many Polish users? Well, whatever it is, as long as it's all kosher, I'm happy enough to relinquish top spot - staying there is a bit too much pressure.

Just to be clear though, that despite the fact that Opera are so coy about it, I've already told them that winning once is more than enough, so I'm not even in the running this month. If that's the reason quiris is catching up so rapidly, I'd tell him to chill out and back the fuck off :D.

I've just realised that I'm probably the only english boggler on the front page, which is (pardon me), rather boggling. I do however still feel strongly that there's plenty of room to grow in terms of numbers and quality of the bogglers. And what did I say, most of the one post wonders have pretty much fizzled out, and it's really only the hardcore ones who are still chugging along. Well, since things got fixed at least. Remember that?

I do wonder if there shouldn't be more guidance regarding the conduct of all this, especially a rough guide of suggestions as to what goes and what doesn't (or what shouldn't so often). I've also been putting together the idea of a message calender - perhaps a more co-ordinated approach to putting certain cases forward, and some suggested material to spark it all off.

Topics of the week perhaps, like standards, UI, bloat, security, speed etc. - it'd give the better bogglers some kind of framework to write around, in addition to their normal posts. I think just responding to press attention and Opera's release schedule and news about InterWeb Smurfing/FireVole etc. is fine, but there should be a will towards setting an agenda, rather than simply reacting to things as they occur. These would be picked by us though, and labeled as part of the series - we'd draft a bunch of suggestions and poll on it in MyOpera - so that we'd be independent of Opera's editorial approval. Important if we're going to discuss perhaps unpleasant things, like ads, ad-removal, pricing, gripes etc. We'll see.

And just to be clear, I am not, nor do I see myself as, headmaster. I argue so annoyingly and at such length because that's just me - when you show up, you show up to play. I'm ever willing to be convinced, but if you felt you were right, you would want to be as persuasive as possible, and stop people from making mistakes - yes/no?

Tick-tock.

I was going to be kind to Amirans' Cafe, but after going to www.amiranscafe.com.sg, I was seriously considering firebombing the server farm that's infected with that silly nonsense. Wow, you know how to embed music, woo fucking hoo for you, you silly wanking bastards. Oh, and it's ugly. Ugly-like-Coldplay ugly.

It's the deserted parallel to Liang Seah Street, on my way to Bugis and McDonalds.

The food's not horrible.

Edit: Well okay, I was exaggerating (not about the site, it's wrong). the "Prime Steak", which I just had, was really rather good. It's basically a teriyaki steak with some of the most lovely rice I've tasted. I'll probably go back and try the Lamb, which they were out of. So yes, just the Maryland Chicken is quite that ho-hum.

Good propect of a history of violence. Cookie cutter elements to be sure, but it all looks like it'll come together in the most wonderful way. The prominent actors even managed to be made to look normal. It's not eXistenz, but then what is.

A very loving portrait of fiona, and the deft unpretention of newsradio. Even the best of series some times fail to meet the level of attentive unsentimentality that NewRadio manages. And Maura Tierney turns so seductively.

And so I'm not saying that the results are not believable - on the contrary, I'm sure they do very much represent the general ignorance of the public - but I have a necessary bunch of queries and caveats. It seems strange that the surely more detailed study cited doesn't seem to be readily available online - at least not to the extent where the AP links to it in the article, I can find it on the MyOpera fora, or it's on the Opera main page/press releases. My initial suspicion is that it feels like the study's been slipped to the AP, and Opera feels it can gloss over the journalists and the fact that Opera are the ones responsible for a study that makes claims beneficial to them.

My little tin-foil antennae get raised in particular by the evasive construction of this sentence - "Many American online computer users are unaware that choice of browser affects Internet security, and few switch browsers even when they know the risk, a Norwegian study said Monday".

English, by and large is a pretty simple language - sentence construction, most of the time, if you wish to be clear, consists of subject, verb, object - in that order. Within that formulation, you put the active party in the subject of the sentence - ie you say who is doing what. In the quoted sentence, the subject of the sentence is very ostentatiously tucked away at the end where no one will notice. The subject of the sentence is Opera Software, who have commissioned or conducted the sstudy. For some reason the AP is colluding with Opera in eliding the fact that Opera commissioned a study in their own interest. The sentence should read,

Opera software (subject) commissioned (verb) a study (object), which claims that many American online users etc. etc.

Don't you think that's the thing you want to not wait till the second paragraph to make clear? The reason you put the people who are doing things in the subject of a sentence is so you know who is doing what. I, did, this. In the original sentence, "American online computer users" are the subject of the clause, perhaps, but not of the sentence. The sentence is about the study, the sub-clause of which concerns the "users" - so those responsible for the survey should be the most active and prominently placed. If ever I would argue for clarity, in particular clarity of agency, this is it. The subject should be the responsible party.

Aside from this little sleight, I'd like to think that if Opera were serious about this, they would get an independent polling company to do their polling, or an academic institution to write their study - people who are expected to objectively present information, rather than Opera themselves. But even as it is, if Opera wants to do it themselves, and it's cheaper/better that way, I don't particularly take issue - as long as the study is made public and I can be assured that peer-review has taken place. "A Study" suggests to me an academic endeavour that can be cited as an authority. Where has this been published? Does it have any association with an academic institution? Surely this is just the top-sheet results - where is the detailed data, in particular the polling model used, the assumptions presumed, the questions asked.

It's not that I don't believe them, and experience tells me that the figures they state are as accurate as you might expect - but when you do things, you do things properly, lest you do a big thing badly. And you choose the right person or organisation to present your message.

Opera's supporters should not a) propagate information this is not true, verified and credible (like the BSA, for instance) b) spread FUD where there is none c) accept all positive(-ish) press about Opera as "good" press.

Opera is a good enough browser that silly tricks - such as over-stating the danger of insecure browsers - is not (should not be) necessary. *I* trust that Opera is safe - that is *my* assertion, my endorsement. But IE 6 for XP (and XP only) is not *that* much more insecure to the point where there is imminent danger for all who use it and keep it patched.

Also, you do not put all your eggs in one basket - if your product is *only* Secure, you dig your own hole - eventually there will be flaws, and at that point you loose your message and credibility. When you preach only Security, you end up like FireVole, or worse, Netscape - hounded by every security flaw that's inevitably found. Then, there is no place to hide - in language, or elsewhere.

I must say this is a genuinely very sinister episode. I suppose it really does depend on who is doing the what. Repetition can end up getting a bit banal-ly annoying after a while, but still very jumpy scary.

And so a pathetic sentimentality. I really need to watch something, and soon, that contains things getting blown up, shot, and people getting smacked over the head and called jag-off. And so a very different kind of sentimentality.

Some things are heart-breaking beyond understanding. As little sympathy as I have with a workers or labour movement, the treatment of individuals is not strained.

I think I experience a deep sense of frustration that democratic principles can so easily and apparently so naturally or necessarily become conflated with a dismissal of economic motive - how economic freedom could so easily be de-coupled from personal freedoms. "Materialism" and the desire for wealth and personal prosperity only in the most skewed of imaginations, would not be the natural coincident to the desire for personal liberty. To me there is no argument that perestroika should come before glasnost - it appears that for whatever reason, that is the natural desire of movement.

There is no doubt that there is a kind rabid intensity at work, and that it is engendered by the mirror it faces, but it seems at times a dishonesty of self - on both sides.

But the representative thing itself seems to be to be an effective thing - and for all its manipulation and the pose of its gestures, there's nothing that suggests to me that it is not worthy in some way.

A policy of personal openness needs to be accompanied by a belief in economic openness, in economic freedom - to cede that, and not to criticise others for not being more free than they already are, betrays conscience. If anything, economic freedoms need to be extended rather than curtailed by the engagement of public sentiment. You would hope that public sentiment as much understands the will towards economic freedom, and not to address that is to cling to a nothing of a thing. The rights and prosperity of those who toil depend on things that spite will infect. If they are looking only at a thing, that that thing has to be where you are. It is in their economic interests to be more free.

There are many reasons for avoidance. Other than this, there is often not the grand thing of shame, but the shrunk of embarassment.

It's produced by Computer Associates, it's called E-Trust EZ Antivirus. Dinky name, dinky interface, but it works and it's supposed to cause practically no drag on your system. Uninstall other antivirus (and restart) first. Don't install the firewall - especially if you already use XP's built in firewall. You can get it via Microsoft - they promoted it as part of their big push a while ago to get people to secure XP etc. Click on "Computer Associates, 12 month trial".

Bookmark the microsoft page, it'll probably still be there when your "trial" runs out in 12 months. Yes you have to register with an e-mail address - but I don't remember them sending stuff other than your serial.

I wonder why so often now, when I'm faced with meeting people again, the prospect sends me into such a funk. Though yes, I suppose it's not entirely new. It's as if I'm about to long haul fly again. The planning and test drilling always seems pleasant and it seems quite contrary when contrary, but this side up is quite spunky.

On the way to collect my visa, the cab's radio was turned to some Chinese radio station with the woman constantly repeating "aspartame" so as to make me think I should go have a look at what the news has been saying about it. Long story short, I'm trusting Wikipedia not to be full of crap, unlike most news outlets. Aspartame is safe. As you'd think, there are more nut-jobs out there than you'd wish to know about, spreading all kinds of FUD about it. But Louis, when he can't get Hansens, will take diet vanilla coke any day. But apparently the reason for the resurgence of idiots is the switching of Coke and Pepsi to Splenda.

A great selling point if I ever. I saw it first on OperaWatch but it was everywhere. All the articles lead back to this post on the IE bog. Basically once you install Net'sCrap 8 (or the even more popular 8.01 - now *with* security), you can no longer use IE, or any part of its rendering engine, to view XML files. Which for me wouldn't be a big issue except that it means that I can't view histories in MSN Messenger - which are basically XML files rendered using IE. Who would have thought.

Conspiracy theories regarding AOL wanting to sabotage MSN Messenger users on the advent of the new AIM beta: transform and roll out. Oh, and a number of job vacancies opened up at Netscape - I wonder if it's related. (Could that have *been* a lamer joke?)

But yes, I've never known Opera to fuck things up in any way shape or form - but then it can't use IE's rendering engine. More features, more problems. For those that don't know, you can run a different version of Opera as simply as installing it into another folder - I'm honestly not even sure if it adds anything to the registry other than perhaps things that make it default browser (if you tell it to, not before), place it in the start menu etc.

I suppose I could write about Celebrity Love Island, but I think I'd rather just do a short thing on the chat client in Opera. The main thing being - ah, so it's pretty cool. I particularly like that the text ends up being so clearly presented. And that the smileys aren't ugly. I can't say I've ever really been a big fan of chat, perhaps earlier on, for fun to try it out, but otherwise, it always seemed like a kind of weird sub-culture. Of course I know of the IRC eye-patch boys, but then there's not really that much "chatting" going on is there. I suppose the best use of the chat client is for multiple user chat, though I suppose a more limited/controlled version of that would be via an IM client. I wonder at the efficiency of it all though, since it can seem to get pretty messy, and I'd imagine my fingers cramping up.

From which you can glean that Louis knows absolutely fuck-all about chat. Thanks for coming, tip your waitresses (servers?).

But yes, set Outlook to remind me for 7.30 on thursdays (am I that silly? I just made that mistake - friday).

Oh, and some clever monkey fixed something for me, so now javascript pop-ups pop up when I want them to. I think it even fixed CNN, though that's of less importance. I suppose I could take BBC out of the sandbox, but I don't see the point. You wonder if I should do a search to find out how to make MSNBC work. And I did.

One-eyed Mia Kirshner is such an *actress*. Very effective though. Very much like a button. Probably the best thing on the show in a long while. It's really just about a deftness and force of movement, a kind of firmness and resolution.

I like the idea of vagrant Jack. They also pulled out his dissolute jacket for it, which is nice. Perhaps they're doing something professional.

The readiness is all.

I really don't mean this to be mean (except in my own sinister little roundabout way), but I'm a bit bored with what (and how) people write about Opera. I mean no particular offense to anybody, but there really should only be so many times people can write

1) Why I use/like Opera
2) Why you should switch to Opera
3) Why Opera is better than IE, FireVole
4) I heart Opera
5) This good review of Opera is great
6) This crap review of Opera didn't know what it was talking about
7) Did you know about this feature in Opera?
8) This guy slagged off Opera, let's go flame him
9) Click on my affiliate links so I can get a free license
10) I like writing 3 line posts so I can get more clicks and win a phone
11) Opera 8 is out!! (like, a month ago dude)
12) IE has tabbed browsing, FireBadger has this feature, Netscape is out, they all stole Opera's features, ha-ha their security sucks, (I think I'm trying to say that we have news feeds for a reason)

I'm not saying people shouldn't write about these things, and I can't as of right now quite say what else Opera Bogglers should write about, but surely people can be more interesting that this yes/no? And I suppose what I mean to say also is that a little nuance wouldn't kill anyone - sure we all use Opera, but booster hats are a "sometimes" cookie. I think in general it's also a matter of doing better rather than more.

I think I really appreciate the posts about the more technical aspects of Opera, I know the new userjs.org is something I was glad to hear about, though I can't honestly say that that many things about it set my heart aflutter quite yet. But yes, knowledgable technical posts are always raising a kind of bar.

Also I suppose, just as there are news feeds, where news belongs, there is also the forums, where discussions occur. So what is Opera Boggling about? I think I know - perhaps, maybe - but I think it's a question each Boggler needs to ask himself each time he puts the word Opera in one of his posts.

What is nicely gratifying is that I don't think I've yet encountered a boggling community that has quite as many languages saying "I heart Opera" - it's especially nice that it's not just the english bogs that are getting hits. But yes, a "why I use Opera" post in japanese/polish/mandarin is still just that.

But I think volume is also doing a good thing, in that there's only so long that things stay on the latest page, which tends to help drown out the attention seekers, and perhaps encourages more frequent calls for an RSS feed. Also it seems a good time to introduce things like "most visited post in the last 24/48 hours", so that the better posts are more readily evident. Oh, and if you'll notice, even people who post super frequently aren't necessarily climbing the charts - after a while, people figure out that you post crap.

My contrarian instincts are kicking in, and I really have to just say that I've yet to read a really good software review</>. Honestly the best ones are the ones that aren't reviews per-se, just little notes, on sites such as Neowin, that tell you what's special about the app, perhaps a blurb from the site etc. That is often the most useful - that along with the recommendation of sites that are staffed by real people who actually know things and use computers, not journalists to whom the "industry" is more important than the day to day usage. Good only to grouch.

Which brings me to the conveniently provided "positive reviews" that Opera chose to link to on www.opera.com. As reviews go, still hung up on "new features" - how "features" sets it apart. These people are stricken with the affliction of news. As any actual Opera user can tell you,

It's not about the features.

And even when it is about the features, it's something that really you take for granted, because people are being paid to innovate, and do so to put ease of use as much as possible within easy reach. I'm not saying you don't have to have the balls to make it so you're happy with it, it's just that you just don't expect things to be any other way. And it's not ugly.

The Boston Globe review is marginally better than the other two because it's about the company as much as it is about the browser - but then again it's just another one of those things to catch the world up on what's already passed them by - by someone to whom all this is some kind of revelation. Like someone just came on his face.

What is otherwise incensing me now is the fact that Delwyn (a friend of mine) made the decision of FireBadger based on the fact that cute bushy tail vs gay superman with red orgasm - who do you think is gonna hit dat? Maybe time Opera got a mascot worth a damn. I'm telling you, cute things make a lot of difference - without the penguin, you think linux users would get laid?

And so this is what feature directors do, they come in and they do what features do best - they find the premise and dig deep. And so basically what they're doing is what Sorkin does in his 2 hour season premieres, but in their own way, with a kind of cant, obviously. They immerse in the mythology, or the diegesis if you will, and distill the things that, so often repeated, or so resonant, they they come to become. I won't say exactly that they do another pilot, as I think I mistakenly said before; what they do is exaggerate, reflex, emphasise, amplify, deft subtle. Often not new - pivotal - but not necessarily new. So that even if important changing things occur, it still is a kind of suspension, a kind of disruption of the flow or tick of the cadence. It's like casting in amber, making it crystal, a kind of refraction.

Though part of the problem, of course, is that in doing this, even though it leads to generally better episodes, it still means that however good the directors and episodes may be, they are unable to transcend the show, its premise, and the limitations of the genre, cast, and feel. Though of course, in the best series, or even in good ones, they can become some of the most effective, sometimes all the more's the pity for the after.

Jorja Fox has ceased to be any kind of attractive. And I wanted him to die - all of them, really. Bastards all. No help or pity, to those less fortunate than ourselves.

Yeah, I basically can't quite stand my last post being on top, because it's absolutely horrendous writing - hence new post. Normally I do okay when I'm sleeping odd hours and never quite feel rested, but that must have been strange. Most of the time I just get disjointed rather than rubbish. And I felt awfully about having to spank the word into the title.

It's absolutely wonderful that Z-Nix is still getting in the Maxell discs - the quality is excellent, though I'm sure it could be cheaper. Considering how much they cost, I really should get a Benq drive, but the Lite-On's still fine, and the myth of scanning is always convincing. Anyway the bigger issue is with the inability of the spin to catch up, which is annoying in so many ways.

Is it hard to make arrangements with yourself?

I'm quite enjoying Celebrity Love Island, not least because of Abi Titmuss and Liz from Atomic Kitten. Their little drama is entertaining if a little flickery.

Movable Type really needs to take a couple of pages from WordPress, esp things like ticking multiple categories etc. But then I've still not migrated, and neither likely to, so.

I'm still feeling too competitive about Opera Blogs, but ah well. I think I'll try my best to keep at least a post or 2 on the latest page, that seems fair. More dark comedy regarding my phone, and much annoyance with forms.

Starhub has been acting up a bit recently, basically with the bandwidth

out of the island.

I really don't like writing about or responding to reviews and generally getting too involved in what so many people write about, but I thought it important to point things out about CNet and its inherent, but inconsistent, bias. CNet, quite rightly, is a profit driven enterprise, and all power to it for that. However, it's rather conspicuous in favouring its coverage towards the highest ends of the markets - writing about big ticket items like HDTVs, and more recently, cars.

Just a side note now to say that this penchent, as occurs with so many tech newspapers, leads to what the Inq refers to (at least in part) as Megahurts - basically the inflation of hype. There will always be a market for the new and the expensive, but in certain ways I'm always sceptical about how outlets, like CNet, encourage a "we have to have the best, who cares if it costs me my left testicle" attitude towards technology. They do this at least in part because that is where the advertisers are - though to be fair, the people paying the most have a right to read the most coverage.

But yes, CNet has never really struck me as a place that was shy about price - sure they'd warn you if something was hideously overpriced, but they often shrug it off as "well, you pay for the best". They've also tended to privilege "the best" in their ratings, over "value" - so very good things get a high rating, even if they are expensive. So the high ratings tend often to be reserved for the most expensive items with the most established reputations etc.

So when they decide to put that aside and say, well, Opera is a fantastic cutting edge browser suitable for early adopters (as if Opera were a constantly beta browser) but it's not worth it due to the fact that it costs money, I'm baffled beyond words.

I think the fact that they figure the cost and availability of tech support into the review should be a real issue to take with the way they do things - one time "support" for FireVole and IE cost as much, if not more than unlimited (if e-mail only) support from Opera. Which would be fair if they stuck to their ethos of "rate according to how good it is, not by how much value it provides" - since IE and FireBadger have phone support - but it's not at all borne out in their overall reviews of the browsers at hand.

You'll notice I'm not writing about the quality of, or a great deal about, the "substance" (who was it that said quotation marks of protest?) of the review, because if I did that, I'd want to bite my hands off with a spoon. Can anyone say flashily irrelevant?

And oh man do I regret it when I write these things, because it makes me think I need to tell everybody that I'm not really like that.

Oh, and I actually rather like Netscape now that I've played around with it for a bit - I'm really rather indifferent to it in relation to FireRodent. I don't mind saying, that the option to use IE rendering isn't the worst idea in the world.

Ok, that was a bit harsh, but what's the fun in having a name if people can't make fun of it in some way. And yes, the whole handheld things is very gonzo, but not annoyingly so. I think you have to fight the urge to read it all as being "real" - and the picture they obviously want to paint of Bristina as being "People Like Uz". And yes it does come across as making things out a bit sad and bereft. Not really quite as funny as Newlyweds, which I'd suppose to be the benchmark. Well at least this has a vital ingredients, big star (/to be) and washed up nobody husband. The asking of questions is interesting. And you wonder at the smacking of manipulative attention-sook and pathos.

Other titles could have included Bitch-ney POV. And he's got all the hallmarks of "man" - in that he looks like a dick.

I had to get it off filelist, since everyone else was bleating about how there aren't propers out.

An interventionist god.

I don't answer stupid questions. People who don't know anything ask questions that so lack the will towards conviction.

Not entirely unaware.

It's nice that it happened, in what looks appears to be Manchester. So that's why they call it pathetic fallacy, which is not exact. Man-Whore. Don't Know Much.

I am failing to see how the fucking annoying (and really very untrue) warnings of - hey you're using a crappy browser - from people who should know better, are there to do anything other than piss me the fuck off.

I got it from Techwhack (welcome to Opera Blogs, my your name could be a not so funny but mildly scatological (unless semen doesn't count as excrement) joke). They point you to this crap and this crap.

I do not need to be condescended to constantly about how "your" browser is better. Agnosticism is what it's supposed to be about. Sure I trash FireVole, but not for its ability to render pages - if you conform to standards, who gives a flying fuck? I mean it's all fine as long as it's fun and games, but if you try goodger's page in IE, you the most jingoistic rant that you'd think they would want to remove from web culture forever, rather than perpetuating.

Fuckwit motherfuckers.

But yes, the hilarity of "rending engine", which I'll assume is intentional.

Isn't depraved vulgarity just fun?

But yes, you have an unsafe non-beta browser - what a cockmunching idiot you must really be.

I'm not doing it for "cred" - I don't have any - my middle name is hackety mchack. Ok, I'm figuring I'm being really very harsh on the Opera marketing people, but I'm assuming that they'd rather have something a little unvarnished in terms of feedback - though I'm not sure the splinters would have helped, even *with* lube bent over. I suppose what I neglected to say is that I'm absolutely fucking ecstatic that they even are bothering to keep all this going. And BEING SHOUTED AT probably never brought out the best in anybody. I do however feel suitably martyred by the fact that if I don't take some time off and stop typing/mousing so much and so promptly, RSI is going to bite so hard.

And so wonderful news, Opera Blogs is getting more attention, probably a little revamp, and they finally (I think) are on their way to sorting out the sorting bug. Well, at least I see posts breaking away from the pack, I'm not sure if that means anything though, since some of the latest posts are still pretty ancient.

Golden Showers never killed anybody. I really really can't see myself getting behind the whole linking-in business, but I applaud the enthusiasm, and the willingness to change, and the gesture towards forethought - but it really needs to be nudged a bit - and to be honest, all this requires greater input from a larger and more varied group of voices from within the community.

What I think they need is to stop thinking of it as a contest, and to start thinking of it as incentivising their boosters, with whom they have to be gently persuasive in both wooing and persuading. But it needs to be more than an afterthought, and it needs to not be about the trendiness of boggling - think Barry Goldwater, have some mushrooms and peyote (vision, get it?).

Another series that I wonder where it's been all my life. I hope to god that Judd Apatow can get back to doing stuff like this - that doesn't suck ass - now that 'piss as we gulp it' is died like it's dead.

I suppose it really helps that so many cast members from Freaks and Geeks show up. The only problem is the one of self-immolation, as covered elsewhere, not least about Peep Show, but at least that's not what this is "about". But yes, still plenty of dousing and shrieking. And woman who looks like cat-woman on CSI is endlessly charming. And the male cast is actually funny, and actually directed worth a damn.

And really, it's just so very very sweet and wavy.

And guess what? It sure beats (baby pops out) "Luke!" (another baby) "Leia!"

Yeah, I think I never quite grasped how much phones cost nowadays - the last time I bought a phone, sure, it wasn't cheap, but I wasn't spending quite this much. And I mean, really, I thought they were being sort of sponsored, or they had some kind of deal with the distributer or they had samples lying about. But the idea that they'd have to resort to paying retail? Crazy. And I mean, really fuck me crazy. Oh, and they're not being that silly and giving me a serial for Opera for Mobile (or whatever) - though to be fair, I did remind them before they had a chance to forget, and that really wouldn't cost them a cent.

And so like I said, I feel shatteringly ungrateful now. Not that I don't mean what I say about how things should be improved, and neither do I feel significantly bought off, but I'm starting to think all this might be a bit wasted on me. But yes, to anyone who's not quite grasped the coolness or cost of what you can get, this is pretty huge. Ok sure, it's not like they're fucking Oprah before tax, but you'd think it's a pretty big wad to blow every month of some fucker to grouses at them so much.

How can I judge without being ungrateful.

And so yes, slightly flabbergasted. I'd post the receipt, but that'd just be tawdry. Do you think it comes with its own nightstand?

I had been planning to do a post about their publicly available financial report, might move that up in the schedule.

But yes, really, I don't think I quite grasped how big the prize was, and it was nice those guys didn't succumb to me being annoying, and waited till the new model came out. But really, 2 cameras? what's that about?

And so House decided to do interesting things. To be honest I preferred the jumpy pumpy to the revelation, but who would have guessed, eh? I can't say it's the most innovative way of presentation, but it was okay - unfortunately still referential, but then most things are. It's always more fun to play than to play for a reason, though playing for a reason in roundy circles without saying uncle is as good a way as any. Is playing for playing another kind of roundy circle? I've not thankfully made myself lose all interest and find it all tedious.

And so they picked up on the odd ambivalence of Sela Ward's empathy. Are her eyebrows really like that? And so it occurs to me that as with so many times, I probably liked or thought I liked more than came out and chiseled.

I recommend for convenience the TorrentSpy.com directory. For House.

24 is really starting to epitomise the quote, that thankfully I managed to find on Yahoo - "You call this a coronation? I call it bad comedy." But the presence of *sinister* Mia Kirshner, after her camped out depravity on the L Word makes her look aged. And Trey is on 24, who would have thought? And how what the hell is wrong with them that they decided to be so very wrong and so very what were they thinking.

Both 24 and Alias are *so* on my list. But she makes a very cute terrorist mercenary, as I think is the point. I wonder if Daisy Adair will ever re-appear. I can't believe I missed that many episodes of 2.5 Men, silly btefnet. And oh my, now they're pulling out before they spurt 101 all over the screen. Probably the will they/won't they of violence-enabled melodrama.

Really, the pure tonnage of people getting finagled into coming here via Google is oxen stunning. Oh, and one friendly person signed up for my tracker, hoorah.

You shot a 6 year old.

Greg the Bunny is fucking hilarious, and is actually better than you'd ever expect. Makes you want to watch every series that got canceled summarily. And puts puppet Angel into perspective. Sarah Silverman, for being witchily annoying, does however turn out to be reasonably effective totty. They must have some kind of special thigh make-up.

Ranks up there with ...doesn't mean you have to do porn.

The vision of Risky Business.

I'm not quite sure what to make of h.264, seems nice. I'd have to compare.

And so also really rather moving, and effective, and talently done. The physical comedy alone is breathtaking.

Opera, Blah. I did an updated file for my previous post - Proxomitron Made Simple/Idiot-Proof - Advanced Ad-Blocking. The file url hasn't changed, but the rar file now extracts to a directory named Proxomitron Grypen, conveniently it won't over-write the old directory. Most of the caveats remain, but it's still simple, unrar, put the shortcut into your startup folder and you're off.

If you want to do a clean install and tweak it yourself, read my more recent post about Grypen. But this version I've tweaked to make it more usable. And my ads now show up, which took getting used to, but now things are more symmetrical.

Next is the Search.ini. But in the mean time, you can have a taster with my most recent search.ini. Not modified from version 5, just from 4, updated to 5. And pretty packed up top, and only for 8 (obviously).

I wonder if the displacement (even if to the present) at the beginning of each episode is a gesture towards "female time" - or some other not-so-condescending way of putting it. Jig-lamps I think is the analogy. But it's the finale so I should pay attention. And stick to not posting till it's over.

I mean, okay, I admit to being a bit distracted, but I genuinely am pretty bored as well. I wonder if they're contractually obligated to show a certain amount of HLA every episode. Baby drama never helps.

And yes, I am sucking my thumb until they - Opera - fucking fix the fucking latest page - I can't imagine that they actually want it this way. But that aside, a bunch of friendly newcomers have trooped over to grace the endeavour.

I'm sure there's a swell of butter in the aftermath of peoples' reviews coming out of Opera, and much flapping and rending. All part of the fun and games to be sure. Probably not exactly what the OSTF has in mind when it tries to tickle effluent. Much disappointment with the Washington Post though, you'd have wished perhaps for more political inflection. I think I've almost ceased to care about the fact of their lush - I'd rather wait for Thursday at Pumpkin Time.

And so apparently a swell of people eager to reward incumbency, and Polish(?) becoming particularly sought after? I wonder if they speak German or install English. I'm presuming the latter and have nostrils for the first.

It's not all position, as much is the kite-flying of fibre, sugar, and NewsRadio Tracker.

SpelChek has an annoying penchant for american spelling.

Who's a clever monkey? The wonderful tutorial is here. The source/files are here. Not even as difficult as installing say Movable Type, though I did get a number of things messed up. The database stuff was pretty confusing, since my ISP sets things up so that things are much simpler than they represent.

But yes, voila, biffing.fallingbeam.org. Currently the only thing I'm seeding is Dion's Nikon Booth Babes, but all are welcome to it. It's a registration only tracker, so deal with it. For this, I only provide telephone support, my typing can't handle it otherwise - but it's simple, just sign up and things should just work out.

Mena Suvari really is rather charming in the Teenage Dirtbag video, it makes me almost want to watch Loser again, even though it really wasn't that much of anything, despite Amy Heckerling. Interesting in terms of her, but not so much in terms of the thing itself. The narrative of the video is really rather effective, and her doing the girl portion is particularly gratifying. Is anyone possibly surprised she's now a swinging divorcee?

Speaking of which, Maura Tierney is lovely all over again on NewsRadio - so fresh faced. And the theme music has an excited joy about it that moves me like a funny puppet. But-ta-FU-co.

For those not familiar, the past few days of absolute gaping silence is more what my posting schedule has been like than otherwise. Which is why really I'm not too upset at the prospect of living with monthly archives.

But anyway, leaving the obligatory Opera reference aside (see what I did there?), the discovery I made over the weekend was Grypen's filters for Proxomitron, which are, excuse my french, the dog's bollocks. Which apparently is slang for out-side-standing.

Apparently they're based on JD's filters, and they work fantastically well, though there are always going to be one or two quirks. For those not faint of heart, just do a clean install of Proxo with his filters (like Opera, you can just install to a new directory - the startup shortcut just goes in the start menu). You start by installing this, then this. Then except for tweaking and setting your proxy, you're done.

I still say I'd rather have the non-nuclear option of Opera having better CSS filtering, but this is the next best thing. I suppose I'd like to do another idiot proof post, but I just suspect that no one gives a flying fuck. Though as always, it's just easy in terms of doing it for others. I wouldn't wonder if you could just install Proxo and then copy the files over, since I don't think the registry's even involved.

Personally I'd rather have CNet's front page back, and really it is a bit annoying smurfing my spite with ads - if only because of the flickery-ness of them. Oh, but SpelChek gets its ads well-filtered :).

It's her birthday tomorrow (14th, this Saturday), so yes Partay. Well, party in the sense of she'll be over and people will come bask in her glory. Or something.

Anyone know what kind of cake she likes? (shh)

Everyone is welcome - and I do mean everyone - do come.

I'm sure I've mentioned hit and run Josh/Dan before. The much charmingness of Mary Louise-Parker. I just like the arc of her initial romance, with the end of Red Red Wine. Aztec, Two-Step, Turandot is also another of the superbly fantastic lines in television. I've got to keep awake a bit more to photocopy and send off. I'll have to check, perhaps if I can print there. Big Block of Cheese and the incredible-ness of that constipation. The times when I wished I still could pick up and few the Super Light. It's nice to be able to un-style and make prettier the silliness of SpelChek - and it'd be nice if the button in the edit page had a tooltip worth a damn - but whatever.

Again with the confluence - but it is the events, rather than my them of the piecing. You'll know when you see me. And the really very very funny bits in Concrete Cow about Lion/Witch/Wardrobe - "Aslan's just going to piss you off". Oh and the reasonably promising trailer for the new Narnia movie. It makes me want to read the ones that I remember more resonantly - Dawn Treader and (Su-lin will soon inform me) the one with the iconic presence of "Under Me", or something to that effect. But I think the Dawn Treader contributes in no small extent to my affection for Golding. And I shall find the opportunity to at least try reading Starter For Ten. One of my very first spell-checked posts, how lovely. Though it's annoying in the sense that it doesn't let you manually edit straight away, and there is more than one step towards putting it all back; so I tend to just check and when it shows nothing wrong, to close it. And it finds all manner of silly things wrong, which is wrong of them and silly. And I really must do a follow up on my writing about embracing chaos - the title is handily supplied: Chaos, Control. Chaos, Control. You Like? You Like? It's probably a kind of wrong that bulimia summarises for me such a assertive sense of the will towards control. There probably really is something wrong with me going Sorkin crazy again, but at least now I'm going to fun things like doing a Mary Louise-Parker splash. And dreams about things, and my grandfather, and his death and his funeral. Very much like Aslan.

I normally like to space paragraph things, but when it's composed the way it is. And apparently Opera has decided to abdicate all responsibility. And I think I'm just a bit worn out from Optool. You really do need to restart after you first launch after updating. Klipfolio 3 will be a treat. Perhaps I should cover their striptease before the money-shot.

Just because it seems that it's come to be expected, or at least common with things like forums etc., it seemed like a good idea to slot a spelling check facility, which is now voguishly supplied by SpelChek.com. I suppose I might add it to the forum as well, especially since it come bundled along with easymod, but we'll see. It's ad supported, but I haven't seen anything which says to me that it'll cause trouble. If you use proxomitron, you'll want to add spelcheck.com to your bypass list. I'm sure there's a more elegant way, but bypass is just easy.

Oh, and because my typing some times slips up. Fun fun fun.

Ah, so I now recover where it's from: "though it's not like I'm a drug *person*, I just *love* pot". From the West Wing pilot no less. And uttered by Bobbi Bernstein - probably due to her ability to exude wanton insalubriousness.

The Inq. The original article. The act of aggregation twice. Like a very slow noose. Oh, and the subjective ambivalence of what is "not true", and the rabid frenzy that is journalists. Hardtalk.

I don't know why I'm stepping into it the way I do, I can't help myself. And I'm not ragging on an individual, this is something I would go to great pains to correct in any number or shape of people.

Opera Watch decided to contact Norwegian embassies to see if they use Opera. The idea of "supporting the home team" - of gaining a level of utility from purchasing something that you are affiliated with - is well within the realm of expectation and behaviour. But for most people, the consideration of such utility tends to weigh less and less when you consider to yourself the relative price or cost of those affiliated goods, compared to those available better and more cheaply from somewhere else.

People *like* imports. Imports mean I can get better stuff cheaper than I could if I bought everything I wanted that was made within spitting distance of myself. I get a Norwegian Browser, I get Taiwanese designed and Chinese manufactured electronics, I get Japanese made optical media. Certain people and places make better things more cheaply than others; it's called comparative advantage. People *like* imports.

The warm fuzzy feeling you get from buying things made from where you're from tends to go away pretty quickly when you realise that where you're from can't make all great things cheaply all the time. If all things were equal, sure, why not get something to which you have a sentimental attachment. But.

What has to be made clear though is that this sentimental attachment does not translate into "helping" "your" own people. When you impose the consumption of a thing on people - the cost difference of which is not commensurate to the (surely very limited) sentiment derived from it - you are simply being counter-productive, and not a little wasteful. In addition, you are artificially propping up an industry which rational markets cannot sustain. At some point the economic forces at work will convince you more and more of how much you are costing yourself, and things will have to change. At which time the propped up industry will collapse - and fall further than it would have otherwise if it had not been propped up in the first place.

"By pursuing his own interest, he frequently promotes that of the society more effectually than when he really intends to promote it. I have never known much good done by those who affected to trade for the public good." Of which, more here.

Not least in public services, government should strive to use what is most economically rational. To do otherwise is to betray a trust between it and its people: not to waste the funds it collects in taxing the people. Governments serve a purpose, and it should fulfill that purpose with the least burden possible on the people that pay its wages - to do otherwise would be irresponsible.

I cannot honestly say that using Internet Explorer is in the economic interests of anybody, considering the amounts that can be required to secure it, or to clean up after its lack of security - in both the act and the loss of productivity. But to recommend Opera simply because it fulfills some masturbatory purpose is a corrupt kind of perversion.

How much more pride could you feel for the produce of your home, if you could not just say that it is yours, but that it is the best - and best not just as a thing, but best for any who would consider its purchase. "Hey, it's not very good, but we make it, so we use it - aren't we clever?"

Moreover, governments are the least capable of any to make decisions of industry - to be as arbitrary and cruel with its favour or neglect as to betray all sense. If wishing made it so - perhaps. National Champions are a very silly kind of toss.

Even when it comes to using Opera, there is, or there should be, a right and a wrong reason for it.

For some reason the Economist decided that they're not going to post the photo they used along with this article in the their print edition. I'm sure there are any multitudes of reasons, though perhaps not least the critical response towards the economist of the hosting costs of pictures of hot women.

But being who he is, the august writer who inhabits the role of scriptor for this site (how over-worked it that?) had discovered the whom of which the Economist had been representing, and have found her bio on the Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders website. The photo in the Economist is rather a bit more striking.

It's interesting that you watch a documentary about Debbie Does Dallas, which features the Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders - or perhaps just their uniforms - at the same time this article gets noticed. Really a rather fetching as well as striking picture, as I've mentioned - and which you are welcome to peruse, should you come over. Or visit your news-stand before friday and look at the US section.

Apparently she's a rookie, so not as featured as some of the others, and unfortunate (or not) she shares her name with someone who uses that name as a pseudonym - for an industry in which such things are de rigeur, for particular reasons. I really do wish I could find more of Margo.

I really wonder how much overlap there is between Kylie and Pet Shop Boys, since I would assume they had at least similar people working on their tours, and they would seem to inhabit similar markets. Incredibly camp followings and sensibilities both, and icons in their own right. But the symmetries are quite stunning, looking at Kylie's Showgirl tour.

Neowin is reporting on Firefox reacting to the lunch of Opera 8. Apparently they decided to consult the Oracle this time to find out how *good* browsers do things.

I can't help but notice that one of the spanky *new features* is "instantaneous Back-Forward" - which in Opera is known as: *duh*, how back and forward have *always* been. And nary a mention of the fact that Opera has had this implemented for years now.

I mean I'm not one to harp on the fact that Mozilla, and in fact most Open Sauce projects, tend to get most of their ideas from existing proprietary products (they do it, admittedly, better than anyone else, in a good way), but this is one thing that Opera really needs to roll on the floor laughing about.

Talk about rediscovering the fucking wheel. I nearly fell off the floor.

Poor baby, can't figure out how to filter out those sites that don't work by adjusting the app's settings. And so now they're turning it into a more closed beta. Which is code for "we got bitchslapped by the bad press so we're gonna go off and tweak". I'm sure Opera users, of all people, will be savvy enough to realise that one size doesn't fit all, and that when people do stupid stuff with their sites, that things break, and if you want to get things just right, you're going to have to play with settings on your own rather than just stand there with your pants round your ankles. If things don't work with the GWA, just add that site's url to the exception list - is that so difficult?

From my experience using Web Accelerator, I can't say it was seamless, but I can't say it was particularly troublesome. I mean, I have more issues using Proxomitron or Opera than I had with Web Accelerator. And call me a sucker, but I got the impression it wasn't doing too bad a job. If nothing else, when viewing sequential pages, for example the individual entry pages of this bog, the pre-fetching was remarkably accurate and useful.

This seems to be the way things go nowadays, Google or someone launches something, people throw as much FUD at it as possible, and basically shame them into crawling away and sucking their collective thumbs. People have gotten so hyped up over conflated notions of information harvesting and over-fed kittens of *evil* - that sensible, helpful things get pilloried out the gate.

Oh and apparently it wasn't actually calculating the time saved per page, it was just extrapolating a guess-timate.

Though obviously I'm starting to feel that my view-point is in the minority (you're all hippy-dippy tie-died globalisation-protesting bastards :D), there's a wonderful discussion on various aspects of Opera Blogs going on in the forums. It really gladdens my heart to see people giving a crap. And really, very very good ideas being thrown about.

My particular favorite (because it's mine) is user filtered RSS feeds, so you only get the headlines from people you give a crap about. Also you get me talking about Why Opera Blogs is good/necessary. Am I on fire or what?

Oh and the rest of them make good points too :D. Especially about nonsense posting and a desire for more quality content, as opposed to quantity (whose premise, on principle, I sternly disagree with). But regardless, it's a discussion, which is more than I've been getting till now.

Mandatory reading, if you work for Opera, and can make things happen.