After several beta releases and a planned bid for the Guinness Book of World Records, Firefox 3.0
has arrived. As of 1pm EDT Tuesday, users can download the latest
version of the open-source browser, which includes an improved book
marking system and drop-down search returns in the URL bar, among other
features. Aesthetically, the browser is not drastically different from
its predecessor. The forward and back buttons have been altered, while
the browser buttons and window frames have also been redesigned to
conform to the look of a user’s operating system, but not much else has
changed. On the features front, the drop-down URL bar—dubbed the
Awesome Bar—offers suggestions of possible Web sites as you type your
search query.
Version three offers a three-tier bookmarking system: bookmark stars
allow for one-click favorites; bookmark tags allow you to add details
to your favorites; and bookmark folders are saved searches that update
when you add new items matching that search to your bookmarks,
according to Mozilla. Download manager has also been revamped and now
includes the ability to pause and resume downloads, search through
downloaded files, obtain more detailed file information, and revisit
the original download page. Firefox 3.0 also boasts improved color
profiles, font and text rendering, and zooming capabilities, as well as
malware and phishing protection, Mozilla said.
Version 3.0 is three years in the making. Mozilla released the first
beta version of Firefox 3.0 in November 2007, with version two debuting
a month later. Beta 3.0 version 3 arrived in February with major code
rewrites of the page layout, graphics, and font engines and over 350
plugged memory leaks. Most recently, Mozilla on June 5 unveiled the
second release candidate for Firefox 3 with several localization
updates. That came a little over two weeks after RC1 was made
available. When the download goes live on Tuesday, the clock will start
ticking on Mozilla’s bid to break a Guinness world record for most
downloads in a single day. Mozilla said last week on its blog that it
has already received at least one million pledges from users who say
they will download Firefox 3 on release day.
Update: the final version of Firefox 3 is out now
for more than 20 minutes, but it’s basically impossible to get it at
the moment - all download servers are overloaded with thousands of
requests and the official website for Download day times out for few hours already. We will bring you first mirrors in comments when they’re available, feel free to check 10 Reasons why you should update in the meantime.
In 1783 an Icelandic eruption threw up enough dust to temporarily block out the sun over Europe.
About 20 to 30 volcanoes erupt each year, mostly under the sea.
A huge underground river runs underneath the Nile, with six times more water than the river above.
Lake Bosumtwi in Ghana formed in a hollow made by a meteorite.
Beaver Lake, in Yellowstone Park, USA, was artificially created by beaver damming.
Off the coast of Florida there is an underwater hotel. Guests have to dive to the entrance.
Venice in Italy is built on 118 sea islets joined by 400 bridges. It is gradually sinking into the water.
The Ancient Egyptians worshipped a sky goddess called Nut.
The world's windiest place is Commonwealth Bay, Antartica.
In 1934, a gust of wind reached 371 km/h (230 mph) on Mount Washington in New Hampshire, USA.
American Roy Sullivan has been struck by lighting a record seven times.
The desert baobab tree can store up to 1000 litres (264 gallons) of water in its trunk.
The
oldest living tree is a California bristlecone pine name 'Methuselah'.
It is about 4600 years old. The largest tree in the world is a giant
sequoia growing in California. It is 84 meters (276 feet) tall and measures 29
meters (95 feet) round the trunk. The fastest growing tree is the eucalyptus. It
can grow 10 meters a year.
The Antartic notothenia fish has a protein in its blood that acts like antifreeze and stops the fish freezing in icy sea.
The USA uses 29% of the world's petrol and 33% of the world's electricity.
The
industrial complex of Cubatao in Brazil is known as the Valley of Death
because its pollution has destroyed the trees and rivers nearby.
Tibet is the highest country in the world. Its average height above sea level is 4500 meters (14,764 feet).
Some of the oldest mountains in the world are the Highlands in Scotland. They are estimated to be about 400 million years old.
Fresh water from the River Amazon can be found up to 180 km (112 miles) out to sea.
The
White Sea, in Russia, has the lowest temperature, only -2 degrees
centigrade (28 degrees fahrenheit). The Persian Gulf is the warmest sea. In the summer its
temperature reaches 35.6 degrees centigrade (96 degrees fahrenheit) .
There is
no land at all at the North Pole, only ice on top of sea. The Arctic
Ocean has about 12 million sq km of floating ice and has the coldest
winter temperature of -34 degrees centigrade.
The Antarctic ice sheet is 3-4 km thick, covers 13 million sq km and has temperatures as low as -70 degrees centigrade.
Over 4 million cars in Brazil are now running on gasohol instead of petrol. Gasohol is a fuel made from sugar cane.
I recently went to the emergency room at a local private hospital in my area. I had been in a mountain biking accident, where I went end over end, and took a mean one to my face. Today a relative of mine took the initiative to contact the hospital regarding the cost of my visit. They were told that my ct scan (of my head) alone would cost over $12,000 (I have not received the bill yet). As Im not insured I knew I would have to pay more than those with insurance. If there are any sifters out there with any info for me regarding the cost of a ct scan or any other bits of info that could help me, I would of course appreciate it. Im just getting started searching for info, but I thought sift members know just about everything. So, I stopped here first.
Flouride is good for you. Jesus said, "It is not what goes in a man's mouth that makes him unclean, but that which comes out." It is written in the Proverbs of King Solomon, "He who seek good finds goodwill, but evil comes to him who searches for it." I seek good in the flouride, personally. I choose to believe the Bible above, not instead of, Science.
I believe that science would find more good in the world if science sought more good in the world. "As a man thinketh, so is he." Jesus said. "Ask and you shall receive, seek and you shall find, knock and the door shall be opened unto you." If science, instead of asking, "Is there something wromg in the flouride?" would ask different questions,such as "What are some good and viable applications of flouride that we have yet to think of?" perhaps there would be a new answer com out of flouride instead of a new problem. It is doubt that kills. Faith gives life. I have faith in flouride just because of the words of Jesus.His words are Life. He is Messiah. God bless the EPA with new and positive answers instead of potential disasters and dangers, and that in the Name of Jesus Christ.
True enough, it may be harder to go that route, but the high road usually is.
It is written, "The foolishness of God is wiser than man's wisdom, and the weakness of God is stronger than man's strength." Amen. Hallelujah. The LORD is Good. In Him is no evil. Amen and amen. Jesus is Lord. God bless you all.
US scientists say they have produced embryos that are clones of
two men, in an attempt to produce patient-specific stem cells.
Researchers removed DNA from donated human eggs, and replaced it with
DNA from the skin cells of two volunteers. They produced embryos with
genetic material that matched the men’s, but did not go on to
extract stem cells. The team at Stemagen Corporation in La Jolla,
California, says the work could be an important step to developing
embryonic stem cells for patients. They produced five embryos called
blastocysts from 25 donated eggs. DNA fingerprinting proved that at
least one of these was a clone.
“We’re the first in the world to take adult human cells
and then document that in fact we were able to clone embryos from
them,” lead researcher Dr Samuel Wood told the BBC. He said the
embryos were destroyed in the process of verifying they were clones,
but they were now working on creating stem cell lines. Dr Lyle
Armstrong of Newcastle University is one of a handful of other
researchers who have made cloned human embryos using a technique known
as nuclear transfer pioneered in Dolly the sheep. Unlike the US team,
the Newcastle group used DNA from embryonic rather than mature tissue.
Dr Armstrong said the US study showed that the objective of using cells
from an adult person to make individual stem cells might one day be
possible. Are you ready for Me, Myself v2.0?
PRAGUE- A 21-year-old man who demonstrated in support of imprisoned
German Holocaust denier Ernst Zuendel on October 28, a Czech national
holiday, will be tried in court for the denial of Holocaust, state
attorney Zdenka Galkova said.
Galkova said she sent the man's file to the court today. If found guilty, he faces up to three years in prison.
A British teenager who is accused of possessing material for terrorist purposes has appeared in court.The 17-year-old, who was arrested in the Dewsbury area of West
Yorkshire on Monday, was given bail after a hearing at Westminster
Magistrates' Court.It is alleged he had a copy of the "Anarchists' Cookbook", containing instructions on how to make home-made explosives.His next court hearing has been set for 25 October.The teenager faces two charges under the Terrorism Act 2000.The first charge relates to the possession of material for terrorist purposes in October last year.The second relates to the collection or possession of information useful in the preparation of an act of terrorism.
It’s now officially a mindcrime in the United States to violate Islamic
law. At Pace University, a man has been arrested and will face “hate
crime” charges for throwing a Koran into a toilet, after the university
caved in to demands from Muslim students
11 people in Philadelphia were
arrested simply for holding signs and reading passages out of the Bible
during a gay pride festival downtown.Though by all
indications their protests were conducted peaceably, and with proper
restraint, these men and women were forcibly detained, unceremoniously
dragged down to the police station, and eventually charged with a total
of three separate felonies and five misdemeanors
What,
exactly, was the nature of their crimes? Well, according to the police,
their charges included "possession of instruments of crime" (a
bullhorn), "ethnic" intimidation (reciting a Biblical passage), and
"inciting a riot" (again, reading verses from the Bible). All told, the
protesters faced more than $90,000 in fines and court costs, and the
very real prospect of facing as many as 47 years in prison.
posted by eric35796 months 2 weeks ago • 891 views
Paramount
studios is poised to drop its support of the high-definition DVD (HD
DVD) format after Warner Bros studio said it would back the competing
Blu-ray format, the Financial Times reported on Tuesday.The loss of
support from Paramount, which is owned by Viacom Inc, would likely deal
the final blow to the HD DVD format backed by Toshiba Corp and put an
end to the format war, the newspaper said on its Web site. Time Warner
Inc’s Warner Bros studio on Friday said it would exclusively
release high-definition DVDs in Sony Corp’s Blu-ray format,
marking a major setback to the HD DVD camp.
Blu-ray discs outsold HD DVD by nearly two-to-one in the United
States last year, but HD DVD had secured major allies in August when
Paramount Pictures and DreamWorks Animation SKG Inc said they would go
exclusively with HD DVD. But Paramount is understood to have a clause
in its contract with the HD DVD camp that would allow it to change
sides if Warner Bros backed Blu-ray, the Financial Times said, citing
people familiar with the situation. However, Paramount spokeswoman
denied this news as speculative with “Paramount’s current
plan is to continue to support the HD DVD format”.
posted by eric35796 months 2 weeks ago • 1175 views
New BitTorrent sites are launched every day,
but only a few stand out or have something new to offer. YouTorrent is
such a new site; feature-wise it’s just a meta-search engine, but
the design and user interface make it one of the best I’ve seen.
YouTorrent
is “the world’s first real-time torrent comparison search
engine” according to the site itself. The site is a meta search
engine, which means that it doesn’t host any torrent files
itself. It currently searches 12 sources; Mininova, The Pirate Bay,
IsoHunt, MyBittorrent, NewTorrents, SuprNova, Monova, Vuze, BitTorrent,
LegitTorrents, SeedPeer and BTjunkie.
posted by eric35796 months 3 weeks ago • 539 views
BURNING MAN: BEYOND BLACK ROCK goes behind the scenes of a social revolution to explore the philosophy that fuels it, the social contract that drives it, and the transcendent experience that makes it a worldwide cultural force. Granted unprecedented access to the inner workings of the Burning Man organization, the filmmakers spent 18 months with the founders, organizers, artists and participants to document the full complexity and diversity of the Burning Man community. But, true to its title, the film goes beyond the city they raise in the desert - revealing the Burning Man's plans to bring its unique culture to the rest of the world. BEYOND BLACK ROCK tells, for the first time ever, the real story of Burning Man - from the inside out.
These are things people actually said in court, word for word,
taken down and now published by court reporters who had the torment of staying
calm while these exchanges were actually taking place.
ATTORNEY: Are you sexually active?
WITNESS: No, I just lie there.
ATTORNEY: What is your date of birth?
WITNESS: July 18th.
ATTORNEY: What year?
WITNESS: Every year.
ATTORNEY: What gear were you in at the moment of the impact?
WITNESS: Gucci sweats and Reeboks.
ATTORNEY: This myasthenia gravis, does it affect your memory at all?
WITNESS: Yes.
ATTORNEY: And in what ways does it affect your memory?
WITNESS: I forget.
ATTORNEY: You forget? Can you give us an example of something you forgot?
ATTORNEY: What was the first thing your husband said to you that morning?
WITNESS: He said, "Where am I, Cathy?"
ATTORNEY: And why did that upset you?
WITNESS: My name is Susan.
ATTORNEY: Now doctor, isn't it true that when a person dies in his
sleep, he doesn't know about it until the next morning?
WITNESS: Did you actually pass the bar exam?
ATTORNEY: Were you present when your picture was taken?
WITNESS: Would you repeat the question?
ATTORNEY: So the date of conception (of the baby) was August 8th?
WITNESS: Yes.
ATTORNEY: And what were you doing at that time?
WITNESS: Uh...
ATTORNEY: She had three children, right?
WITNESS: Yes.
ATTORNEY: How many were boys?
WITNESS: None.
ATTORNEY: Were there any girls?
ATTORNEY: How was your first marriage terminated?
WITNESS: By death.
ATTORNEY: And by whose death was it terminated?
ATTORNEY: Is your appearance here this morning pursuant to a deposition
notice which I sent to your attorney?
WITNESS: No, this is how I dress when I go to work.
ATTORNEY: Doctor, how many of your autopsies have you performed on dead
people?
WITNESS: All my autopsies are performed on dead people.
ATTORNEY: ALL your responses MUST be oral, OK? What school did you go to?
WITNESS: Oral.
ATTORNEY: Do you recall the time that you examined the body?
WITNESS: The autopsy started around 8:30 p.m.
ATTORNEY: And Mr. Denton was dead at the time?
WITNESS: No, he was sitting on the table wondering why I was doing an autopsy on him!
ATTORNEY: Are you qualified to give a urine sample?
WITNESS: Huh?
ATTORNEY: Doctor, before you performed the autopsy, did you check for a pulse?
WITNESS: No.
ATTORNEY: Did you check for blood pressure?
WITNESS: No.
ATTORNEY Did you check for breathing?
WITNESS: No.
ATTORNEY: So, then it is possible that the patient was alive when you began the autopsy?
WITNESS: No.
ATTORNEY: How can you be so sure, Doctor?
WITNESS: Because his brain was sitting on my desk in a jar.
ATTORNEY: But could the patient have still been alive, nevertheless?
WITNESS: Yes, it is possible that he could have been alive and practicing law.
Each state and D.C. has been colored to represent its most recent
straw poll winner. These polls, however, may not be representative of
the entire state since many are smaller, local straw polls, and some
are several months old.
1. Ron Paul (17)
2. Mitt Romney (9)
3. Fred Thompson (7)
4. Rudy Giuliani, Mike Huckabee (2)
6. Duncan Hunter, John McCain (1)
8. Alan Keyes, Tom Tancredo (0)
STRAW POLLS
head-to-head
Records of wins, losses, and ties grouped by the Condorcet method.
posted by eric35797 months 2 weeks ago • 477 views
Perspective - An art installation from Burning Man 2007. The letter "A" is six inches tall. The "E" is ten feet tall. This led me to a question, I was hoping someone could answer.
If "A" is six inches tall and 10 feet from the camera,and "E" is ten feet tall, how far away do you place"E" to make the letters appear to be the same size from the cameras perspective?
MTV
Networks plans to make every clip from every episode of hit animated
comedy “South Park” available for free online next year as part of a
strategy to reach consumers everywhere. The decision from the biggest
division of media conglomerate Viacom Inc follows on the heels of the
“The Daily Show with Jon Stewart,” whose popularity online has helped
boost television viewership. MTV Networks’s Comedy Central network
began offering in October some 13,000 “Daily Show” videos dating back
to 1999. Offering versions of TV shows online has not hurt television
ratings, and may have actually helped. “One does not diminish the other
by any stretch of the imagination. That is kind of our hat trick,” MTV
Networks Chairman and Chief Executive Judy McGrath said at the Reuters
Media Summit in New York on Wednesday.
In August, Comedy Central signed an extension of a deal with “South
Park” creators Matt Stone and Trey Parker, and agreed to create a new
joint venture to spread “South Park” materials across the Web, on
mobile phones and video games. Other shows from the 20-year archives of
MTV Networks could also get the same online treatment, but executives
stopped short of naming other properties. The Daily Show’ was the first
out of the gate and it’s been a big success and it’s a nice little
model for us to follow,” said Mika Salmi, MTV Networks president of
global digital media. “There’s no limit to which shows we can use at
this stage.” Once criticized for moving slowly to establish itself
online, MTV Networks has aggressively expanded its digital media
presence over the past year by building new Web sites and communities
on the Internet and over cellphones globally. It’s good to finally see
some progress.
Stumble This
US scientists say they have produced embryos that are clones of
two men, in an attempt to produce patient-specific stem cells.
Researchers removed DNA from donated human eggs, and replaced it with
DNA from the skin cells of two volunteers. They produced embryos with
genetic material that matched the men’s, but did not go on to
extract stem cells. The team at Stemagen Corporation in La Jolla,
California, says the work could be an important step to developing
embryonic stem cells for patients. They produced five embryos called
blastocysts from 25 donated eggs. DNA fingerprinting proved that at
least one of these was a clone.
Paramount
studios is poised to drop its support of the high-definition DVD (HD
DVD) format after Warner Bros studio said it would back the competing
Blu-ray format, the Financial Times reported on Tuesday.The loss of
support from Paramount, which is owned by Viacom Inc, would likely deal
the final blow to the HD DVD format backed by Toshiba Corp and put an
end to the format war, the newspaper said on its Web site. Time Warner
Inc’s Warner Bros studio on Friday said it would exclusively
release high-definition DVDs in Sony Corp’s Blu-ray format,
marking a major setback to the HD DVD camp.
MTV
Networks plans to make every clip from every episode of hit animated
comedy “South Park” available for free online next year as part of a
strategy to reach consumers everywhere. The decision from the biggest
division of media conglomerate Viacom Inc follows on the heels of the
“The Daily Show with Jon Stewart,” whose popularity online has helped
boost television viewership. MTV Networks’s Comedy Central network
began offering in October some 13,000 “Daily Show” videos dating back
to 1999. Offering versions of TV shows online has not hurt television
ratings, and may have actually helped. “One does not diminish the other
by any stretch of the imagination. That is kind of our hat trick,” MTV
Networks Chairman and Chief Executive Judy McGrath said at the Reuters
Media Summit in New York on Wednesday.
written by JaszAdams