Okay, it's time for big old backlog of links, since I didn't get to post much recently. First up...

Okay, it's time for big old backlog of links, since I didn't get to post much recently.
  • First up is this account of the first web browser, including a screenshot, written by none other than Tim Berners-Lee, who of course invented the whole shebang, and is one of my personal geek idols. Yes, I really do have geek idols. Hush.
  • Flitting as usual from one topic to another totally unrelated one, what music have I been listening to recently? Jurassic 5 get props* for being really good, and also for writing two songs with the same hook. Did they run out of ideas? Ben Folds Five are also entertaining me at the moment, and with great song titles like The battle of who could care less and One angry dwarf and 200 solemn faces, how can you go wrong?
  • I'm really looking forward to storing five DVD-quality movies (4GB of data) on a combined disc+drive that's less than 4 centimetres wide. Bring it on.
  • Tabloid newspapers make it to Russia, complete with page 3 girls and a "bizarre" column.
  • Could the world stop being so scary? 'Cause I could really do with not being blown up. Y'know what? Terrorism works. Because I'm scared of being blown up right now; and that was the idea, wasn't it? Maybe I should fight terrorism by eating more.
  • I'm doing a French module this year, and About.Com's french site is amazingly good. But the temptation of using the fish is frequently too great.
  • I'm glad to see my home country continuing to take baby steps towards tolerance of other sexualities, even if the level of gay social interaction at the moment still appears somewhat basic.
  • Also, I don't think I've read anything more hilarious in my life: US Senators warned about snipers on golf courses. Best of all is that they're warned about "Al Qaeda" snipers on golf courses. Uh, guys, I don't know if you've noticed, but it's kind of likely the sniper is an all-American nutcase, isn't it? As this thought provoking article points out, labelling everything bad as "Al-Qaeda" at the moment is a habit that is only going to backfire. We'd be better off blaming Canada.
  • Meanwhile, Dawson gets involved in gay sex in his latest movie. Cue massive box-office success. It's hardly surprising that he agreed to do it, though, since apparently pornography is a white-collar hobby now. America? Sliding into decadence? Nah.
  • I thoroughly recommend checking out the fascinating Google zeitgeist, a great place to get good data on current operating system and browser usage stats (hint: Microsoft at 92% market share).
  • Finally, some cheerful news on the health front: a new and effective treatment for gliomas, the most common type of brain cancer. Okay, so it doesn't affect me. It's still nice to know.
  • Would Microsoft be allowed to get away with this? Apple is giving away free copies of OS X 10.2 to every teacher in the US. That's a lot of people. Expect pirated copies of OSX to become a lot more easily available :-)
  • Oh, and thanks be to Ed (he of the seldom-updated but hilarious rant weblog) for finally convincing me to read Tomato Nation, which is absolutely fucking hilarious, especially when she talks about her cats.

    I hate to think about what the juxtaposition of these topics does to Google's page ranking algorithm.

    *I accept no responsibility for using the word "props" in a sentence. That's what happens when you listen to a lot of Jurassic 5, okay?