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Random stuff

September 14, 2009Mike2 comments
I've started releasing the work I've done on Movable Type lately. Three new styles: Carrington Blog, Swirly Glow Things and Connections have been converted (a fourth one will be posted shortly). After a long hiatus, I also released a heavily upgraded and refactored version of the Image Gallery plugin. It doesn't add much in the way of new features, but the code base really got cleaned up. Some of the changes will make it easier to support older versions of Movable Type and others will make it possible to support other editors at some point.

The story of the Ropen, the "demon flyer" of Papua New Guinea, is an interesting one. The reports sound exactly likely a pterodactyl. Even many westerners claim to have seen it and reported the same physical description as the natives. Of course, the thousands of witnesses are automatically wrong, wrong, wrong because dinosaurs could not possibly still be alive today on one of the hottest tropical locations on Earth. Please ignore the fact that they just found a whole slew of new critters in a remote location of PNG...

After eight years of active development, the Haiku project has released a LiveCD alpha of HaikuOS. This is the first serious milestone toward HaikuOS becoming a serious contender as an open source desktop OS. It's got a much smaller footprint than desktop Linux and the interface leaves the average Windows or Mac user feeling right at home. I'll review it when I get some time and if it boots successfully on my semi-decrepit PC laptop.
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  1. bethyada
    September 15, 2009 at 04:59 | #1
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    The ropen story is interesting. I was not aware of the PNG claim but I am most intrigued by the description of lights. The Welsh story describes something similar,

    'The woods around Penllin Castle, Glamorgan, had the reputation of being frequented by winged serpents, and these were the terror of old and young alike. An aged inhabitant of Penllyne, who died a few years ago, said that in his boyhood the winged serpents were described as very beautiful. They were coiled when in repose, and "looked as if they were covered with jewels of all sorts. Some of them had crests sparkling with all the colours of the rainbow". When disturbed they glided swiftly, "sparkling all over," to their hiding places. When angry, they "flew over people's heads, with outspread wings, bright, and sometimes with eyes too, like the feathers in a peacock's tail". He said it was "no old story invented to frighten children", but a real fact. His father and uncle had killed some of them, for they were as bad as foxes for poultry. The old man attributed the extinction of the winged serpents to the fact that they were "terrors in the farmyards and coverts".)

  2. DirtCrashr
    September 15, 2009 at 17:24 | #1
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    Yep, if you're gonna find somethign odd and still-alive, PNG is a good starting point - if the natives don't kill you the landscape might. Port Moresby is the kind of place where you can walk down the street and see someone get killed in a fight.