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Note:These pages make extensive use of the latest XHTML and CSS Standards. They ought to look great in any standards-compliant modern browser. Unfortunately, they will probably look horrible in older browsers, like Netscape 4.x and IE 4.x. Moreover, many posts use MathML, which is, currently only supported in Mozilla. My best suggestion (and you will thank me when surfing an ever-increasing number of sites on the web which have been crafted to use the new standards) is to upgrade to the latest version of your browser. If that's not possible, consider moving to the Standards-compliant and open-source Mozilla browser.

August 30, 2003

R.I.P. Osirusoft

One of the best of the RBL services I use to filter mail on Golem went dead this past week, victim — I now learn — to a massive DDoS attack. Until I realized what was going on, this caused considerable problems with mail delivery on this machine, and even with posting comments on this blog.

Since spammers have already taken to using trojan horses to distribute spam, it was only a matter of time before they turned to using them to mount DDoS attacks on anti-spam sites.

The arms race continues…

Posted by distler at 12:25 AM | Permalink | Post a Comment

August 29, 2003

Baghdad Café

Is it a sign of progress that new Iraqi blogs (genuine, as far as I can tell) are springing up like toadstools after the rain?

  • Where is Raed ? the grandaddy of Iraqi bloggers, Salam Pax blogged the build-up to the war, right through the invasion. He’s still going strong.
  • G. in Baghdad a young Iraqi Christian and friend of Salam’s.
  • Baghdad Burning, a 21 year old female CS graduate in Baghdad.

I don’t know, but after all the bad news coming out of Iraq recently, one looks for signs of improvement wherever one can find them.

Update (10/22/2003): Add Healing Iraq and Ishtar to the list.

Posted by distler at 11:06 PM | Permalink | Followups (3)

August 28, 2003

Another Approach to Comment Validation

Sean at agresticism is playing around with using XML Schema for comment validation (in VBScript, of all things!). His setup is still under development, but I like the idea of using an XHTML Schema and built-in XML processing tools much better than all the extra baggage attached to using the W3C Validator.

Non-MovableType users should definitely take a look.

Posted by distler at 2:16 PM | Permalink | Post a Comment

August 27, 2003

More MathML Entities

Someday, I should go through the list of MathML entities and make sure that itex2MML has conversions from their (La)TeX equivalents. Ugh!, that’ll be a job.

In the meantime, I just keep stumbling on ones which aren’t defined. My last post required me to add \mp → ∓ to the list of known conversions. So here’s an updated version (just the executable was updated, not the MT plugin).

Posted by distler at 8:43 AM | Permalink | Followups (5)

Belle de Jour

There’s recent data out from BELLE (the B-meson factory at KEK) indicating new (beyond the Standard Model) CP-violating physics.

Asymmetry data in B to phi K_S from BELLE
Asymmetry data from BELLE, from which the value of sin(2 ϕ 1 ) is determined, plotted as a function of the decay time. The smooth dotted curve indicates what one would expect from the Standard Model, whereas the smooth solid curve is a fit to the observed data.
Continue reading “Belle de Jour” ...
Posted by distler at 12:22 AM | Permalink | Post a Comment

August 23, 2003

Fair and Balanced

The ruling has, rightly, been reported all over the blogosphere. but I’d like to add my voice to the chorus of praise for Judge Denny Chin’s decision, which found the Fox Propaganda Channel’s suit against Al Franken to be “wholly without merit, both factually and legally.”

This is, evidently, doing wonders for the sales of Franken’s new book (and subject of the suit), “Lies and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them: A fair and balanced look at the Right”, which seems like a fitting outcome, no?

Posted by distler at 11:51 AM |