German courts keep Potter fans waiting

A few kids started to translate the latest Harry Potter book from English to German and posted it to the inoffizielle Harry Potter Community. The German publisher, Carlsen Verlag, took legal action. CNN has details.

Link via Garret.

Manila – Blades of grass

Dave is collecting screenshots from people using Manila here and here. It’s interesting to see how Manila looks on different people’s screens and what they like about Manila. I submitted a screenshot of the pref page that configures the search engine because I think it is one of the most important features of Manila. How else would I be able to find anything ever again? I use the search engine on my own and on other people’s Manila sites several times a day.

England and America are two countries separated by the same language

said George Bernard Shaw. Here is a Dictionary that translates British to American English and the other way round. It uses frames, but in this case they are really useful because you get the American meaning of a word in the upper frame and the British meaning in the lower frame so you can compare them. Neat.

Link via /usr/bin/girl.

Summer?!

Craig reports they have 112°F (about 45°C) in Austin today, the hottest day since they keep records about the temperature. Wow! And although he has been living in Austin for 20 years, he still expects September to be cooler than the previous months.

Yeah, Craig, it does get cooler in September over here in Germany. It can still be nice and warm, but it’s usually cooler than in July and August. However, it doesn’t make much of a difference this year since we didn’t have a real summer anyway. Somehow I feel cheated because we didn’t get a summer – I want my money back!

On the other hand, I’m not sure I could stand temperatures above 100°F or 40°C for more than a few days. After the day we spent in Death Valley last year, where we had about 50°C, and I felt horrible. I guess I would gone mad, had we not had an airconditioned car into which I could flee from the heat.

Happy 3rd Wedding Anniversary, Sheila and Brent!

New designs everywhere

Hey, what happened over at NetDyslexia? They became NDX – and they’ve got a cool new layout!

“The test version of our redesign is up. Let us know how it works on the PC. It looks okay on NC 4.7 and IE 5 on the Mac and it renders extremy quickly.”

Yep, I use IE 5 (Mac) – it looks great and loads fast, too!

As a mathematician, of course I like the rulers on the left. They provide an objective means of measurement how much blogging the NetDyslectics do each day!