Latest WebKit passes 100/100 Acid3
FROM Surfin’ Safari:
With r31342 WebKit has become the first publicly available rendering engine to achieve 100/100 on Acid3. The final test, test 79, was a brutal torture test of SVG text rendering. Details of the bugs we fixed will follow. Indeed, we found a critical bug in the test itself that would have forced a violation of the SVG 1.1 standard to pass, so until a few hours ago it was not possible to get a valid 100/100. Acid3 test editor Ian Hickson has the details.
It is surprisingly very easy to get the latest WebKit build running on your computer. All you have to do is to download and install the latest nightly build. A new icon will be made available, as well as the debug tool Drosera.
Once WebKit is installed, it can be launched just like Safari. Its icon even looks similar to Safari’s, except that the compass has a golden lining instead of the silver one that ornates Safari’s. There is a noticeable improvement in speed, especially with pages that have a lot of JavaScript — this is obvious with pages that contain “widgets” such as Google Ads. But, the selling point of using WebKit is that you will be running the best [1] web rendering engine under the hood — WebKit runs within Safari, to make it simpler.
I haven’t tried the Windows build of WebKit, but a nightly build for that OS is also available. So, it may turn out to be just as easy to install. Give it a try and let me know.
[1] This seems to be a given, as there are no flames coming from the Firefox camp. Incidentally, Firefox 2 does not even pass the Acid2 test, and it looks like Firefox 3 will not pass Acid3 due to the rather outdated underlying Gecko engine.
Eddy.
Popularity: 12% [?]
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My first car accident
YESTERDAY, I was involved in a car accident for the first time when I collided with another 4×4. Unfortunately, mine was the only vehicle to sustain damages; the rear of the other 4×4 was built like the front of a tank and was barely scratched.
At the police station, nobody bothered to check that we were legal drivers. The tax vignette and road-worthiness of the vehicles were not verified either. It fell to us drivers to file the paperwork for the insurers to arrange for compensation.
I took the car for inspection this morning, and it appears that not much is broken after all. Now, on to sort out things with Mauritius Union, which may not be as straightforward judging from Avinash’s experience.
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When “home” starts to mean somewhere else
I’VE BEEN in Mauritius since Thursday 6 March. I laboured remotely during the first and second weeks, and still felt guilty when I started my holiday at the beginning of this week whilst aware that an important project deadline had been missed and that a colleague would have to cram it out.
Adding to the strangeness of being in Mauritius twice within a two-month period and the uncertainty back in England, what with the missed deadline, the recent storms in Britain, the unattended house, and the toppled fence left as-is, is the budding confusion about the meaning of “home”. Indeed, I find myself saying that “I am bored of being in Mauritius and would rather be home” quite often.
To muddle things even more, I don’t feel the same urge as before to obtain the British citizenship and often contemplate remaining exclusively Mauritian; but, at the same time, I want Britain to be my home.
Is there a fellow ex-pat reading this and having similar feelings?
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Saint David’s Day
Or, when to wear a leek with style.
So, there was something that I had not seen during my seven years in the UK: Prince Charles wearing a leek on his lapel.
From Wikipedia:
Saint David’s Day (Welsh: Dydd Gŵyl Dewi) is the feast day of Saint David, the patron saint of Wales, and falls on 1 March each year.
[...] Many Welsh people wear one or both of the national emblems of Wales on their lapel to celebrate St. David: the daffodil (a generic Welsh symbol which is in season during March) or the leek (Saint David’s personal symbol) on this day. The association between leeks and daffodils is strengthened by the fact that they have similar names in Welsh, Cenhinen (leek) and Cenhinen Bedr (daffodil, literally “Peter’s leek”).
Males usually wear leeks while young girls wear daffodils. The younger girls usually wear their Welsh costumes to school. This costume consists of a long woollen skirt, white blouse, woollen shawl and a Welsh hat.
And so, this is why the Prince of Wales was wearing a vegetable today (or rather, yesterday).
Of course, this is nothing new for most British.
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