...more recent posts
Downloaded Netscape 4.75 today. It took me way too many steps to get AOL instant messenger off my system after I did a custom install without it, followed by checking no in a dialogue box when it seemed like it was going to install it anyway. I don't like when installers put things I don't want in my system folder (in 3 different places.) That's just not very polite. Anyway, this fixes the horrible Netscape Java security bug, although I still keep Java off all the time unless I really need it (and I never really need it.) Some people have been reporting more stable performance out of 4.75 (even one "much more stable" by someone probably too hopeful) so I'm going forward. I wish Mozilla would get better. I want to feel good about my browser.
David McCusker lays down the game rules for middlemen. I wish he was in charge of the game.
Really interesting story on the BBC Sci/Tech page today. Apparently some Canadian scientists have genetically modified a goat so that it will produce spider silk in its milk. Huh? In case you didn't know, spider silk is "[s]tronger and more flexible than steel... [it] offers a lightweight alternative to carbon fibre." Because Spiders are anti-social they could never be farmed, and hence this material could never be massed produced. Until now. I wonder if you could make one of those Clarke Space Elevators with this stuff? (a tether connecting the ground and a geostationary - Clarke orbit - sattelite.)