dive into mark

Let’s all talk about panda fucking.

Kuro5hin: Pandas deserve to be eaten.

International animal rights groups speak of a need to “save the Panda” or “repopulate the Panda species” but guess what: Pandas don’t seem to give a damn about the fate of Pandas. Maybe they know that disappearing off the face of the earth is inevitable and, because of this indisputable fact, screwing is pointless.

And then, suddenly…

Washington Post: They Date, Mate — but Will Pandas Procreate?

The giant pandas mated for the first time yesterday, but the encounter was so brief that the National Zoo’s specialists aren’t sure if it was a pairing that could produce a cub this summer or fall.

The reproductive attempt in the early afternoon only lasted about 15 seconds [Boy, haven't we all had days like that? -M], assistant curator Lisa Stevens said last night, and staff at the Panda House had to study a tape of the male Tian Tian’s performance [...especially when we're on camera... -M] to confirm that he and the female Mei Xiang got together.

Which leads us to the incredibly obvious conclusion that pandas read Kuro5hin.

…

If pandas are not your taste, here’s some other stuff going on today:

• Simon Willison: Lots and Lots of CSS Buttons → Eric Meyer: Steal these buttons too. A reformulation of Antipixel’s Steal these buttons, as remixed by Raging Platypus. All Hail Raging Platypus!
• Phil Ringnalda: Make IE Suck a Little Less → SlimBrowser. It’s just amazing how many popup killers there are for IE. I tried SlimBrowser and don’t care for it; I use the keyboard almost exclusively, and it doesn’t get keyboard behavior right. Alt-F should open the File menu, but it doesn’t. Once a menu is open, Esc should close it, but it doesn’t. Ctrl-F4 should close the current tab, but it doesn’t. Ctrl-L should either open a location dialog or set focus to the location bar, but it doesn’t. Once I enter a URL, Space should scroll, but it doesn’t (I have to click the page area first, then hit Space.) And so forth.
• Sam Ruby: SharpReader vs. Syndirella → Trackback from Maximum Aadvark → Syndirella author may stop development → More on the future of Syndirella. FWIW, I’ve tried both and like Syndirella better. Its interface seemed better designed, and it was simple to add new feeds. SharpReader apparently can only import a feed list from an OPML file; if there’s a “subscribe to new feed” option, I sure can’t find it. (Update: Paul found it by reading the manual. Rule #1 of user interface design: if the user can’t find it, the function’s not there. Rule #2: nobody reads the manual.) Syndirella is also Free Software; SharpReader is not. So maybe someone else will pick up development and not let all that code go to waste.
• BoingBoing → Blogs save lives. Encyclopedia Brown to the rescue. I read every single one of those books growing up.
• Slashdot: Open BSD lands $2 million in DARPA money → U.S. Military Helps Fund Calgary Hacker. Microsoft, for example, has issued 68 security bulletins or alerts for its products in the past year, better than one a week. OpenBSD, which does not develop as many products as Microsoft, says only one vulnerability or hole has been found in its software in the past seven years. That’s not really a fair comparison; OpenBSD has had one remote root hole in 7 years. But a fair comparison still wouldn’t make Microsoft look very good.
• Joe Gregorio: SARS and the 1918 Influenza Pandemic.
• Interesting People: Ready.gov wasn’t ready for SARS. Looks like they still aren’t. I wonder if duct tape will protect me.
• Wesley Felter: XBox BORE attacks → The DRM struggle → the bad guys are winning.
• John Gruber: Translation of Selected Portions of Last Week’s ‘QuarkXPress 6 Feature Overview’ Announcement from PR-Speak to English. QuarkXPress 6 will be expensive and late.
• TiVo Home Media Option. Now, instead of sitting on my couch and recording programs with my remote control by clicking through menus on a 36-inch television screen, I can sit on my couch and record programs with my web browser by clicking through a slow-loading web site on a 14-inch computer monitor. For only $99!
• On the other hand, TiVo Developer Resources looks interesting, although I’m not enough of a legal beagle to know whether I should be worried by the TiVo Public Source License or not.
• Tim Bray: Disconnectedness. I bet I haven’t compiled an operating system in a decade or two. Try make advent.
• Kuro5hin: Librarians use shredders to counter new FBI powers → New York Times: Librarians use shredder to show opposition to new FBI powers.