Neo-neoism

I've noticed something - the prefix "neo-" (meaning "new") is often added to political/sociological views with a pejorative connotation ("neo-conservative" would be the canonical example of this phenomenon, but I'm sure you could think of others). Whatever happened to the Matrix, where Neo was wicked cool? I'm declaring myself a neo-neoist ("one dedicated to putting a positive connotation on the prefix 'neo-'"). I've done a Google search, and there's some guy with a blog called "neoneoism", but I don't think the name is otherwise taken. Due to this, I've declared myself Grand Oracle of neo-neoism, and am accepting applications for lackeys.

Ok folks, show's over - that's my random wackiness for tonight. Peace.

A new model for browser extensions

I'll open with my standard disclaimer: I haven't investigated this in any detail, nor do I have any experience developing browser extensions. That said, this is a blog - rampant, uneducated speculation is my speciality.

Mozilla is releasing a new extensions framework named "Jetpack". The main feature of this API is that installing an extension would not require a browser restart. Now, its still in early beta, and the security framework hasn't been completed yet, but, if I may speculate, this may be a useful model for browser extensions. The main thing that catches my attention is that this appears to be an API of some sort - if I understand the current extensions model correctly, they basically work as patches to the browser, re-writing chunks of its code. (The last sentence implies that Jetpack will deprecate the current extensions model - as well as I can tell, that is not the case.) Now, back to this being an API - instant install/uninstall (I assume) is nice - a good security model is a must have - but, beyond that, I could see other browsers implementing Jetpack. Firefox is great, and I love its customization options, fair desktop integration, and good rendering - but it is a bit heavyweight - some of the webkit browsers coming up show promise, but the customization is a bit lacking - this could be a useful common ground. Just saying.

I am not a beta tester

Operating system stats: Windows 7: 0.41% market share, Linux: 1% market share. Win 7 isn't even gold master yet. (Windows 2000 has 1.2% - its coming up on a decade old ...) This is not the year of the Linux desktop. Nor is that year in the foreseeable future. Sorry, Linux fans, y'all come back now.

Opinion: yes. Knowledge: no. Ahh, the blogosphere!

So, as the title suggests, I know nothing about royal protocol, or naming horses. Still, reading this article that talked about the Queen being given a horse renamed George (after her grandfather), it occured to me that I would likely be slightly insulted if someone gave me an animal named after a member of my family. Just saying.

Coppertop

Here's the final sentence of an article about the recent Google failure:

I can only hope that Google, Amazon, and others notice what a difference it can make to treat their valued customers like valued customers -- and, little by little, move toward becoming even more open and honest with us all in the future.

One minor nit - we are not Google's customers. We are Google's product - its customers are advertisers (They pay Google's bills, we don't).