Ninja.com is a Google Co-Op frontend to the regular Google Search, but with a black background (and white/yelow text). This Digg err.. link(?) claims it’ll save energy, or be more energy efficient.

I think the only actual value comes from this comment:

“I like it, but needs an “I’m feeling sneaky” button.” - blablaman

And, if you were wondering - on current production monitors (LCD and CRT) a black background isn’t any more energy efficient than a white background.

On LCD it’d actually use fractionally more power (the light comes from a backlight source - the Liquid Crystals have an electric charge applied to filter out a certain bandwidth of light at a certain percentage. (Think miniature bits of celophane)

On CRTs the Electron beam which would normally be aimed into the phosphor, is instead blocked (I forget where - but it’s still generated).

Next-Gen screens may save money - but either way, it’s so small it’s unnoticable. Instead, go get a low-powered laptop. The latest generation processors have very good speed stepping which uses significantly less power when there’s low processor utilisation.

This Reuters article in SciAm, amongst others, has a quote by someone* from the European Committee for Interoperable Systems (ECIS).

From the article:

It said Microsoft’s XAML markup language was “positioned to replace HTML,” the industry standard for publishing documents on the Internet. XAML would be dependent on Windows, and discriminatory against systems such as Linux, the group said.

Uhh… XAML is positioned to replace HTML? Looks like someone is somewhat lacking in the “checking facts before making ass of self” area.

As Wikipedia puts it:

When used in WPF, XAML is used to describe graphically rich visual user interfaces, such as those created by Adobe Flash. XUL and UIML are other examples of XML-based user interface languages. The language allows for the definition of both 2D and 3D objects, rotations, animations, and a variety of other effects and features.”

Sorry folks, but it’s meant for “rich” interfaces - like for traditional applications such as Word, Media Players, or 3D Games.

Sure, you can embed it in a web page - but it won’t replace the web page. It’s also highly dependant upon having a rendering engine (typically Windows Presentation Framework) available. It’ll spread to desktops running Windows XP, and the .NET 3.0 Framework, and also Windows Vista - you might even get some people creating browser-based applications, but they’ll probably be for either a custom deployment environment (Kiosks, POS Machines, etc), or for corporate Intranet things.  In that case, it’s no different to having an ActiveX control, or Java applet embedded in a page - it requires something else to run it, even though it’s started through your browser.

* = I can’t figure out who it should be attributed to - there’s three different people all mixed in there

If you’re looking for stuff to read when I’m not blogging (or, just want something interesting to read).

Check out these aggregated RSS feeds I’ve set up via Google Reader.

• Food (Slashfood, CandyBlog, CFE, and a few others)
• News (ABC Australia, BBC World Edition, Google News, and others)
• Teh Funnies (All my daily webcomic and other funny-stuff reading - PvP, Userfriendly, XKCD, Penny Arcade, The Chaser, The Daily WTF, etc)
  NB: Some webcomics have only a blank/single line entry for the actual comic. You need to click on the title to actually see the comic.
• Photography (Photos and other photography related news)
• Science (Science news/stories from all over…  National Geo, Scientific American, Nature.com, and … “others”)
• Tech (Tech news & talk from Slashdot, Digg, and a whole crapload of other places)

(I’m up to somewhere around 70 RSS subscriptions, all up - if you remove the duplicates. The “Everything” feed is here)

Note: I don’t approve (or even like, some of the time) the articles on these before they go up there - it’s just a shortcut to a bunch of different sources at once.  Some sources are under review by me too - so they may not be there all the time.

Edit: I also listen to a bunch of audio casts too (aka “podcasts”) - I’ll dig out my OPML file for that and share it soon.

Remember that TV Show, KITT? Well, PvP have finally revealed the truth. Yes, KITT is a Cylon.

Battlestar Galactica rocks, oh, and btw - someone needs to hook me up with, err, this issue.  And… Which chick? Grace Park (Sharon/Eight), Tricia Helfer (Six), or Lucy Lawless (D’Anna Biers/Three)