Mozilla Firefox

NewMexiKen has been using Mozilla Firefox for a few weeks now and I find it generally an improvement over Internet Explorer. One, it prevents pop-ups. Two, the history file is — imagine this — in chronological, rather than alphabetical order. Three, it seems faster than Internet Explorer. It also has a convenient bookmarks toolbar.

Today I read in Fast Forward, the personal technology column from The Washington Post, that it is also safer.

For most people, the best IE replacement is a free copy of Mozilla, the descendant of Netscape. If you don’t mind using a preview release, however, the faster, simpler and also free Mozilla Firefox will be a better fit.

Nice view of Saturn

Click here for a view from the Cassini-Huygens spacecraft.

UVa and Tech to exploit their battle of insults

From the Richmond Times-Dispatch:

Finally, fans of the University of Virginia can buy bumper stickers that boldly broadcast exactly what they think of their cross-state cow-college competitor, Virginia Tech.

At last, Virginia Tech supporters can sport T-shirts that trumpet their true views of those pretentious pantywaists in blue blazers at the University of Virginia.

Yes, in these difficult financial times, licensing officials at both schools have agreed to exploit their storied rivalry for money, to allow the sale of products that, within the bounds of good taste, disparage each other. Coming soon to a store near you: clothes, pennants, posters and key chains that give either a black eye to the Blacksburg school or a jolt to the jaw of Mr. Jefferson’s University.

As one shirt soon to go on sale in Charlottesville puts it: “Friends don’t let friends go to Virginia Tech.”

As one soon to be on the shelves in Blacksburg replies: “Friends don’t let friends go to U.Va.”

Sure, they’re polite. For now. But you can see where this might end up.

The coming intercollegiate mockery coincides with Tech’s preparations to bolt the Big East sports conference to join the Wahoos in the Atlantic Coast Conference, making their rivalry more real, and heated, than ever.

“We’re definitely beholden to them for their help in getting us into the ACC,” said Tech licensing director Locke White. “But now that we’re in, the gloves are coming off and we’re enemies again.”

This could get good.

Four more years

Doonesbury endorses Bush.

Sticky business

From B.J. Roche in The Boston Globe:

New England’s maple sugarmakers are finding themselves in the middle of an intrigue that touches on international trade and the ethics of big-box retailers. Last week we noted the busting of BJ’s Wholesale Club in New Hampshire for selling lower-grade syrup in Grade A bottles. The Massachusetts Maple Producers Association has lodged similar complaints against Trader Joe’s in Hadley, but Massachusetts has no laws regulating maple syrup classification. Syrup is graded by color and flavor from Grade A Light Amber, the costliest, down to Grade B and a commercial grade sometimes used in curing tobacco. “Large packers buy barrels of B grade and even commercial grade and blend this with various A grade syrups to achieve the grade, and, ostensibly, the price point, that some of the large retail chains specify,” notes Dick Uncles of the New Hampshire Department of Agriculture, Markets, and Food. Sugarmakers have voiced concern that the misgraded (and off-tasting) stuff will turn consumers off the real Grade A syrup. The source of all this syrup is Quebec, which exports its huge surplus. “I don’t have any problem with the stores buying cheap Quebec syrup or selling it cheap,” says Mass Maple coordinator Tom McCrumm. “What I have a problem with is calling it something that it isn’t. People buy that stuff for $6.99 a quart, I’m selling for $14 a quart, and they think I’m ripping them off.” For the real thing, go to: www.massmaple.org, www.vermontmaple.org, or www.nhmapleproducers.com.

Eschaton

Bush/Cheney campaign slogan via Eschaton:

Don’t Switch Horsemen Mid-Apocalypse

How to Get Yourself Killed At “The Passion of the Christ”

From Blogcritics.org:

..the #1 thing not to do at a showing of the movie…..start up a chorus of “Always Looking On the Bright Side of Life” [from Life of Brian] as the movie wanes.

Around the world in 10 days

From CNN Around the world in economy class:

We decided to take this one step further: And do the trip in Economy Class. Our Star Alliance round-the-world ticket cost around $2,500 for 29,000 miles around the globe.

Our route would be London to Frankfurt to Singapore to Sydney to Honolulu to San Fransisco to London. All in 10 days. And all in economy!

What follows is a diary to show how we did it, how we survived and whether we were able to do any business in our destinations, or forgive the blunt language, were we too knackered.

Who wants to go — albeit with more time and more places along the way?

Link via The Coyote’s Bark…..

Leap Babies

Not many birthdays today (one-fourth the norm one assumes).

Two famous entertainers — Bandleader Jimmy Dorsey (1904) had 12 number one hits with his own band, and two before that with his brother, Tommy. (The two brothers split in 1935, but reunited in 1953.) Jimmy played saxaphone. He died in 1957.

And singer, radio-TV star Dinah Shore (1916). Miss Shore had four number one hits in the 1940s, including Buttons and Bows, which was at the top for 10 weeks. She had a popular TV variety show and then a talk show, and a fling with Burt Reynolds, 19 years her junior. Dinah Shore died in 1994.

Throw us a kiss, Dinah.

And two famous athletes — Al Rosen (1924), four-time American League All-star and 1953 MVP with the Cleveland Indians (and someone NewMexiKen chatted with once upon a time). Rosen lead the AL in home runs (43), RBIs (145) and was second in batting (.336) in ‘53. He lost the triple crown by one point (Mickey Vernon batted .337).

And Henri Richard (1936), the Pocket Rocket, brother of the even greater NHL player Maurice “The Rocket” Richard. Henri hated the nickname Pocket Rocket (he was 5-foot-7). One supposes that helped drive him to be part of 11 Stanley Cup champion teams, more than any other player.

Leap Day

The Writer’s Almanac has a informative discussion of leap years and calendars. It begins with:

Today is Leap Day, the extra day that we tack on to February every four years to keep the calendar in time with the seasons. We do this because the earth does not orbit the sun in a nice round 365 days, but rather in 365 days, 5 hours, 48 minutes, and 45 seconds.

And includes this:

When Great Britain finally accepted the Gregorian calendar in 1751, eleven days had to be deleted from the year. The change led to antipapal riots, because people believed the Pope had shortened their lives. Mobs gathered in the streets, chanting, “Give us back our eleven days!” When the British colonies in America made the change the following year, Ben Franklin wrote in an editorial, “Be not astonished, nor look with scorn, dear reader, at . . . the loss of so much time. . . . What an indulgence is here, for those who love their pillow, to lie down in peace on the second [day] of this month and not awake till the morning of the fourteenth.”

Persistent, if nothing else

From Morning Briefing in the Los Angeles Times

Dale Webster will go surfing one more time in Bodega Bay in Northern California today. He will not go surfing Monday, ending a 28 1/2-year streak.

Webster, 55, began surfing on Sept. 3, 1975. After surfing every day for a year, he figured he’d see how long he could go. He set a goal of 28 1/2 years — targeting Feb. 29, 2004 — because he believed that was a lunar year. He maintained that goal even after learning three years ago that a lunar year is 18 1/2 years.

The surfing documentary “Step Into Liquid,” which came out last year and will be available on DVD in April, features Webster’s incredible feat.

So why did he do it?

“By the time it ends, I hope to find out,” he told The Times’ Bill Plaschke last summer.