Yhancik's friends

http://blogoscoped.com/archive/2008-09-07-n33.html

It doesn’t get any more “official” than this here. Yesterday, Saturday at around 20:07, Germany’s oldest and perhaps biggest prime time news Tagesschau announced the following under the headline “Warning against internet browser"*:

<<The Federal Office for Information Security warned internet users of the new browser Chrome. The application by the company Google should not be used for surfing the internet, as a spokesperson for the office told the Berliner Zeitung. It was said to be problematic that Chrome was distributed as an unfinished advance version. Furthermore it was said to be risky that user data is hoarded with a single vendor. With its search engine, email program and the new browser, Google now covers all important areas on the internet.>>

If the Berliner Zeitung is to be believed, then this kind of strong warning from an official source seems slightly curious, in particular in comparison with say Microsoft’s Internet Explorer 8 Beta 2 release. As I was not able to find any such warning on the federal office’s homepage yet, I asked the office for a clarification yesterday and will update should they reply with more information.

Previously, the Electronic Frontier Foundation also expressed their concern with Chrome over an address bar feature that sends information back to Google as you type, in order to provide suggestions. Google recently activated an auto-suggest feature for their Google.com homepage as well, sending back character strokes to Google even before you hit return (and when you turn off that feature, it will come back next time your cookies are cleared). Features like these may be important to Google – perhaps of special importance to them in Chrome to offer a feature that sets their browser apart – but it adds a new privacy discussion to the list.

[Via Corax at Spreeblick.]

*German original: “Das Bundesamt für Sicherheit in der Informationstechnik hat Internetnutzer vor dem neuen Browser Chrome gewarnt. Das Programm der Firma Google sollte nicht für surfen im Internet eingesetzt werden, sagte ein Sprecher des Amtes der Berliner Zeitung. Es sei problematisch, dass mit Chrome eine unausgereifte Version in Umlauf gebracht werde. Außerdem sei das anhäufen von Nutzerdaten bei einem Anbieter bedenklich. Google hat mit seiner Suchmaschine, einem Emailprogramm und dem neuen Browser nun alle wichtigen Bereich im Internet abgedeckt.”

[By Philipp Lenssen | Origin: Google Chrome Receives Heavy Criticism in Ger ... | Comments]

[Advertisement] Google books at eBay: background info on Google, AdWords, AdSense, Blogger and more...

Originally published at Gibberings. You can comment here or there.

• I accidentally a whole dubstep concert. Is that bad? #
• @JhnenVEE called it “pile of dirty maternity laundry”: http://zip.4chan.org/fa/res/359081.html #

http://lotusgreenfotos.blogspot.com/2008/09/becoming-lily-pond.html

NIGHT

I have minded me
Of the noon-day brightness,
And the crickets' drowsy
Singing in the sunshine...

I have minded me
Of the slim marsh-grasses
That the winds at twilight,
Dying, scarcely ripple...

And I cannot sleep.

I have minded me
Of a lily-pond,
Where the waters sway
All the moonlit leaves
And the curled long stems...

And I cannot sleep.

Adelaide Crapsey (1878–1914)

people change their names for many reasons: for luck, to hide, to reveal...

For Thais, names are loaded with significance and having the wrong one can bring untold misfortune. Over the past 10 years, the trend for changing one's name has grown alarmingly. Last year in Bangkok alone more than 50,000 people registered new names. And they weren't just changing their first names. Thais can also change their surnames whenever they like, as long as they choose an entirely unique name.

Unlike the West, where parents often choose a name for their child well before it's born, Thais name their children when they know the exact date and time of birth, consulting books, monks and astrologers. Some dates are particularly auspicious - such as the King's and Queen's birthdays. Those lucky enough to give birth on those dates can apply to the Palace for a name. If you're not willing to trust to luck, doctors are more than happy to book you in for a Cesarean in advance.

--Sarah Strickland 1

many jews changed their names when they first arrived at ellis island. or had them changed. then after the second world war, many first generation American-born jews went into an all-too-understandable hiding, and names were changed so success may be pursued.

but for me, it was instead a revelation. since i was 14, tigerlily had been my secret name. maybe i got it from peter pan. it just felt more like my real name than the one i had been given (which, not coincidentally, had been yelled so often i wanted never to hear it again). nine years pass, and i am a hippy in san francisco. i've left the haight behind and now live in the castro near a wonderful health food store named agapé.

i needed to be free of some people i had gotten involved with, so i moved, left no forwarding address, and changed my name. since i had a friend staying with me at the time whose name was now fern blossom, i decided now was the moment to take my 'real name.' i needed a last name too, so i became lily pond.

it was 1973. it was around this time of year so why not?: today marks the official 35-year anniversary of my name. but wait -- i said something about revelation. isn't this just as much about hiding too? it was at first. but the name took root, and the symbol became increasingly important to me. i went to kyoto to tour lily ponds. i built one.

my name was revealed to me, and, thankfully, i listened.

Originally published at Gibberings. You can comment here or there.

finalzoom3, originally uploaded by vebelfetzer.

I believe it is complete.

http://feeds.penny-arcade.com/~r/pa-mainsite/~3/384353270/

http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2008/9/5/mazeltov-human-wizard/

Originally published at Gibberings. You can comment here or there.

Untitled , originally uploaded by vebelfetzer.

We’re not done here, gentlemen. I’d estimate current completion at around 80%. I foolishly did this while I was waiting for a corrective layer to dry on the Cardiographer.

I will put this in my upcoming solo art show at Lighthouse Roasters, Seattle.

12 x 12″
oil/copal on board

http://tale-of-tales.com/blog/2008/09/05/introducing-rose/

http://tale-of-tales.com/blog/?p=468

In our ongoing series of revealing the six Red Girls, we present Rose, the second youngest of the six avatars that you will get to play in The Path.

Rose is very mature for her age. But there is a certain air of innocence about her that is charming and disconcerting at the same time. Barely a teenager -Rose is eleven-, she is discovering the world around her with fresh eyes. And all is beautiful! The wind in the trees, the birds in the air, the flowers along the path. Rose is taking it in voraciously. So much so that she will defend even nature’s smallest creatures against anyone who might wish them harm.

But who will protect sweet Rose herself, when she is lured off the path?

There’s new pictures of Rose on the website of The Path, some portraits in the gallery, a new wallpaper with Rose’s feet (yes, we thought that was the picture that best expresses her personality) and some making-of documentation and inspirations in the development journal, where we talk about the ongoing production.

But if you want to start playing with Rose today, have a look at her Livejournal.

In another fourteen days, a fourth character will be revealed.

http://tale-of-tales.com/ThePath/blog/2008/09/05/the-making-of-rose/

http://tale-of-tales.com/ThePath/blog/?p=97

Rose is a quiet one…..

I don’t even remember her walking into the room, but one day there she was.

I thought she seemed a bit too jealous of her older sister so I made her skirt longer than in my initial sketch. The lace I added later seemed to express her innocence but also the visceral quality of lace… kind of like veins.

If I talk inspiration of her character it would be Lain (from the anime Serial Experiments Lain) which I watched again for the thousandth time when I was planning the characters. I loved the hairstyle so much I made a variation for Rose. Here, the intro to the show:

And then in the course of looking through all the amazing artists work out there I must say one thats stuck with me is Esao Andrews… he deserves a separate Inspirations post but for now I’ll leave you with this painting.

Finch by Esao Andrews

You will find a new wallpaper on the downloads page too.

http://lotusgreenfotos.blogspot.com/2008/09/travelling-along-contours.html

THE SHAPES OF LEAVES

Ginkgo, cottonwood, pin oak,
sweet gum, tulip tree:
our emotions resemble leaves and alive
to their shapes we are nourished.

Have you felt the ex- panse and contours of grief
along the edges of
a big Norway maple?
Have you winced at
the orange flare

searing the curves of a curling dogwood?
I have seen from the air logged islands,
each with a network of branching
gravel roads,

and felt a moment of
pure anger, aspen gold.
I have seen sandhill cranes moving in an open field,
a single white whooping crane in the flock.

And I have traveled along the contours
of leaves that have no name. Here
where the air is wet and the light is cool,

I feel what others are thinking and do not speak,
I know pleasure in the veins of a sugar maple,
I am living at the edge of a new leaf.

Arthur Sze

From The Redshifting Web:
Poems 1970-1998,
published by Copper Canyon Press, 1998. Copyright © 1998 by Arthur Sze.


i discovered a cool blog today; its author and i sometimes think alike.

http://xkcd.com/472/

1. Miscellaneous JavaScript errors fixed.
2. The More Colors option on the text color selector is fixed.
3. No longer adds extra lines to drafts saved from the RTE.
4. The "Browse Server" button from the Insert Image window has been removed.
5. Insertion of Scrapbook images from the Insert Image window now works properly.
6. The Firefox spellchecker now works with the RTE.

http://blogoscoped.com/archive/2008-09-04-n21.html

Chrome is Google's newly released browser. It's currently available for Windows only. Following are a couple of FAQ's and bits of interest.

Where's the search history button?

In Chrome's interface the search history has been integrated into the back button – just hold down the mouse button when you're clicking on the back arrow. After a short delay, a menu pops up showing your recently visited pages. You can also access the full (searchable) history from that menu.

Where's the home button? Where's the favorites bar?

By default Chrome has no home button. You can enable it by opening the options dialog – click the wrench icon in the top right and then "Options" – and checking the box labeled "Show Home button...".

As for the bookmarks bar, whether it shows for you by default depends on your previous browser settings. To show it or hide it, hit Ctrl+B.

Does Chrome work together especially well with Google services like Gmail, Google Maps, or Google Docs?

Google argue they improved the speed of JavaScript, which is heavily used in Google's web apps. Some others offer a more nuanced viewing saying it's not always the fastest.

With all these JavaScript speed tests, it's important to understand they're only one part of the equation. A lot of the times, the bottleneck of the application is not the script but the data that's still being downloaded. If you're on a very slow connection, or you're using a site with very heavy downloads, switching to a faster JavaScript engine won't really help.

Additionally, Chrome ships with the Google Gears plug-in, which is used in some Google (and some non-Google) apps to deliver offline functionality for web pages and more. But don't expect Chrome to work much better, or even work at all, in all of Google services – take a look at the following screenshot from Google Groups, visited with Chrome:

Is Chrome more secure than other browsers? Does it respect my privacy?

Chrome is likely not 100% secure, even when you'd get that impression from parts of the comic book Google put forth – but no popular browser is ever completely secure. For instance, it has been mentioned that there are ways to automatically drop a file on your desktop (edit: or whichever place is defined as download directory) when browsing a page with Chrome. E.g. any webmaster can add an executable called "Windows Explorer" with an icon of their choosing to your desktop via the following HTML included in their page... using the Chrome default settings you won't even be asked for confirmation, which opposes Google's statements that a Chrome tab is like a "jail":

<iframe src="Windows%20Explorer.exe" style="border: 0"> </iframe>

As for Google respecting your privacy, well, there are some ways the browser communicates with Google's server through its address bar auto-completion – the "omnibox" – that got some people worried. To disable some of the omnibox-server communication, right-click the Chrome address bar, select "Edit search engines" from the context menu that appears, and uncheck the box labeled "Use a suggestion service...".

As a bonus, Chrome has an "incognito" mode – press Ctrl+Shift+N – which makes your browsing more private.

What does that Chrome logo remind me of...?

I don't know, but here's a guess...

I missed the Google webcast where they talked about Chrome...

The webcast is archived on YouTube. (Not all slides are showing in the video, I've uploaded the first 10 as a zip file.) Larry Page appears near the end. Note the Q&A at the end of the session is not included in that video.

How can I optimize my website for Chrome?

Chrome is based on the existing Webkit rendering, which mostly adheres to web standards, and is also used in similar form by the Safari browser. So your first best bet is to work within the official standards of HTML (or XHTML) and