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🔗 Internet 🔗 Apple Inc. 🔗 Computing 🔗 Computing/Software 🔗 Computing/Free and open-source software 🔗 Open 🔗 Linux 🔗 Mozilla

Mozilla Firefox or simply Firefox, is a free and open-source web browser developed by the Mozilla Foundation and its subsidiary, the Mozilla Corporation. Firefox uses the Gecko rendering engine to display web pages, which implements current and anticipated web standards. In 2017, Firefox began incorporating new technology under the code name Quantum to promote parallelism and a more intuitive user interface. Firefox is available for Windows 7 or Windows 10, macOS, and Linux. Its unofficial ports are available for various Unix and Unix-like operating systems including FreeBSD, OpenBSD, NetBSD, illumos, and Solaris Unix. Firefox is also available for Android and iOS. However, the iOS version uses the WebKit layout engine instead of Gecko due to platform requirements, as with all other iOS web browsers. An optimized version of Firefox is also available on the Amazon Fire TV, as one of the two main browsers available with Amazon's Silk Browser.

Firefox was created in 2002 under the code name "Phoenix" by the Mozilla community members who desired a standalone browser, rather than the Mozilla Application Suite bundle. During its beta phase, Firefox proved to be popular with its testers and was praised for its speed, security, and add-ons compared to Microsoft's then-dominant Internet Explorer 6. Firefox was released on November 9, 2004, and challenged Internet Explorer's dominance with 60 million downloads within nine months. Firefox is the spiritual successor of Netscape Navigator, as the Mozilla community was created by Netscape in 1998 before their acquisition by AOL.

Firefox usage share grew to a peak of 32.21% at the end of 2009, with Firefox 3.5 overtaking Internet Explorer 7, although not all versions of Internet Explorer as a whole. Usage then declined in competition with Google Chrome. As of August 2021, according to StatCounter, Firefox has 7.62% usage share as a "desktop" web browser, making it the fourth-most popular web browser after Google Chrome (68.76%), Safari (9.7%) and Microsoft Edge (8.1%), while its usage share across all platforms is lower at 3.45% in third place (after Google Chrome with 65.27% and Safari with 18.34%).

🔗 United States/U.S. Government 🔗 United States 🔗 International relations 🔗 Germany 🔗 Military history 🔗 Military history/North American military history 🔗 Military history/United States military history 🔗 Europe 🔗 Italy 🔗 Sociology 🔗 Organizations 🔗 Military history/German military history 🔗 Military history/French military history 🔗 Military history/Cold War 🔗 Cold War 🔗 Military history/Dutch military history 🔗 Rome 🔗 European history 🔗 Military history/Italian military history 🔗 Military history/European military history 🔗 Military history/British military history 🔗 Military history/Post-Cold War 🔗 NATO

Operation Gladio is the codename for clandestine "stay-behind" operations of armed resistance that were organized by the Western Union (WU), and subsequently by NATO and the CIA, in collaboration with several European intelligence agencies. The operation was designed for a potential Warsaw Pact invasion and conquest of Europe. Although Gladio specifically refers to the Italian branch of the NATO stay-behind organizations, "Operation Gladio" is used as an informal name for all of them. Stay-behind operations were prepared in many NATO member countries, and some neutral countries.

During the Cold War, some anti-communist armed groups engaged in the harassment of left-wing parties, torture, terrorist attacks, and massacres in countries such as Italy. The role of the CIA and other intelligence organisations in Gladio—the extent of its activities during the Cold War era and any responsibility for terrorist attacks perpetrated in Italy during the "Years of Lead" (late 1960s–early 1980s)—is the subject of debate.

In 1990, the European Parliament adopted a resolution alleging that military secret services in certain member states were involved in serious terrorism and crime, whether or not their superiors were aware. The resolution also urged investigations by the judiciaries of the countries in which those armies operated, so that their modus operandi and actual extension would be revealed. To date, only Italy, Switzerland and Belgium have had parliamentary inquiries into the matter.

The three inquiries reached differing conclusions as regarded different countries. Guido Salvini, a judge who worked in the Italian Massacres Commission, concluded that some right-wing terrorist organizations of the Years of Lead (La Fenice, National Vanguard and Ordine Nuovo) were the trench troops of a secret army, remotely controlled by exponents of the Italian state apparatus and linked to the CIA. Salvini said that the CIA encouraged them to commit atrocities. The Swiss inquiry found that British intelligence secretly cooperated with their army in an operation named P-26 and provided training in combat, communications, and sabotage. It also discovered that P-26 not only would organize resistance in case of a Soviet invasion, but would also become active should the left succeed in achieving a parliamentary majority. The Belgian inquiry could find no conclusive information on their army. No links between them and terrorist attacks were found, and the inquiry noted that the Belgian secret services refused to provide the identity of agents, which could have eliminated all doubts. A 2000 Italian parliamentary report from the left wing coalition Gruppo Democratici di Sinistra l'Ulivo reported that terrorist massacres and bombings had been organised or promoted or supported by men inside Italian state institutions who were linked to American intelligence. The report also said the United States was guilty of promoting the strategy of tension. Operation Gladio is also suspected to have been activated to counter existing left-wing parliamentary majorities in Europe.

The US State Department published a communiqué in January 2006 that stated claims the United States ordered, supported, or authorized terrorism by stay-behind units, and US-sponsored "false flag" operations are rehashed former Soviet disinformation based on documents that the Soviets forged.

The word gladio is the Italian form of gladius, a type of Roman shortsword.

🔗 Birds 🔗 Animal rights 🔗 Veterinary medicine

Abnormal behavior of birds in captivity has been found to occur among both domesticated and wild birds. Abnormal behavior can be defined in several ways. Statistically, 'abnormal' is when the occurrence, frequency or intensity of a behaviour varies statistically significantly, either more or less, from the normal value. This means that theoretically, almost any behaviour could become 'abnormal' in an individual. Less formally, 'abnormal' includes any activity judged to be outside the normal behaviour pattern for captive birds of that particular class or age. For example, running rather than flying may be a normal behaviour and regularly observed in one species, however, in another species it might be normal but becomes 'abnormal' if it reaches a high frequency, or in another species it is rarely observed and any incidence is considered 'abnormal'. This article does not include 'one-off' behaviours performed by individual birds that might be considered abnormal for that individual, unless these are performed repeatedly by other individuals in the species and are recognised as part of the ethogram of that species.

Most abnormal behaviours can be categorised collectively (e.g., eliminative, ingestive, stereotypies), however, many abnormal behaviours fall debatably into several of these categories and categorisation is therefore not attempted in this article. Abnormal behaviours here are considered to be related to captive housing but may also be due to medical conditions. The article does not include behaviours in birds that are genetically modified to express abnormal behaviour.

🔗 Typography

An ink trap is a feature of certain typefaces designed for printing in small sizes. At an ink trap, the corners or details are removed from the letterforms. When the type is printed, ink naturally spreads into the removed area. Without ink traps, the excess ink would soak outwards and ruin the crisp edge.

Ink traps are only needed for small point sizes and are usually only found on typefaces designed for printing on newsprint. Fonts of this kind are applicable for classifieds or telephone books. Typefaces with ink traps may be offered in versions without them for display on screen or at larger sizes.

Typefaces featuring ink traps include Retina, Bell Centennial, and Tang.

🔗 Computing 🔗 Systems 🔗 Business 🔗 Engineering 🔗 Systems/Systems engineering

Parkinson's law of triviality is C. Northcote Parkinson's 1957 argument that members of an organization give disproportionate weight to trivial issues. Parkinson provides the example of a fictional committee whose job was to approve the plans for a nuclear power plant spending the majority of its time on discussions about relatively minor but easy-to-grasp issues, such as what materials to use for the staff bike shed, while neglecting the proposed design of the plant itself, which is far more important and a far more difficult and complex task.

The law has been applied to software development and other activities. The terms bicycle-shed effect, bike-shed effect, and bike-shedding were coined as metaphors to illuminate the law of triviality; it was popularised in the Berkeley Software Distribution community by the Danish software developer Poul-Henning Kamp in 1999 and has spread from there to the whole software industry.

🔗 England 🔗 English Royalty

The Groom of the Stool (formally styled: "Groom of the King's Close Stool") was the most intimate of an English monarch's courtiers, responsible for assisting the king in excretion and ablution.

The physical intimacy of the role naturally led to his becoming a man in whom much confidence was placed by his royal master and with whom many royal secrets were shared as a matter of course. This secret information—while it would never have been revealed, for it would have led to the discredit of his honour—in turn led to his becoming feared and respected and therefore powerful within the royal court in his own right. The office developed gradually over decades and centuries into one of administration of the royal finances, and under Henry VII, the Groom of the Stool became a powerful official involved in setting national fiscal policy, under the "chamber system".

Later, the office was renamed Groom of the Stole. The Tudor historian David Starkey classes this change as classic Victorianism: "When the Victorians came to look at this office, they spelt it s-t-o-l-e, and imagined all kinds of fictions about elaborate robes draped around the neck of the monarch at the coronation;" however, the change is in fact seen as early as the 17th century.

🔗 Companies 🔗 History 🔗 Architecture 🔗 Buddhism 🔗 Japan 🔗 Japan/History 🔗 Japan/Business and economy

Kongō Gumi Co., Ltd. (株式会社金剛組, Kabushiki Gaisha Kongō Gumi) is a Japanese construction company which was the world's oldest continuously ongoing independent company, operating for over 1,400 years. In January 2006, it became a subsidiary of Takamatsu.

🔗 Food and drink 🔗 Sweden 🔗 Project-independent assessment

Lördagsgodis (Swedish) or lørdagsgodis and lørdagsgodteri (Norwegian), (English: "Saturday sweets" or "Saturday candy") is a Norwegian and Swedish tradition of children eating candy or sweets mainly or only on Saturdays.

The tradition started as a health recommendation in 1959 following the government-funded Vipeholm experiments, where patients of Vipeholm Hospital for the intellectually disabled in Lund, Sweden, were unknowingly fed large amounts of sweets to see whether a high-sugar diet would cause tooth decay.

Over time, what was once a recommendation has turned into a routine for both children and adults to eat candy on Saturdays, as an event to look forward to during the week. It is common for Swedes to buy lördagsgodis by weight from candy walls in grocery stores. Candy consumption started increasing in 1980s and by 2010s, Sweden had the highest per capita candy consumption in the world. As of 2015, the Swedish government, facing high candy consumption and in effort to improve public health was considering enforcing Saturday candy. Such deliberations were being met with criticism from groups who instead supported a cap on consumption.

🔗 United States 🔗 Law

In re Bilski, 545 F.3d 943, 88 U.S.P.Q.2d 1385 (Fed. Cir. 2008), was an en banc decision of the United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit (CAFC) on the patenting of method claims, particularly business methods. The Federal Circuit court affirmed the rejection of the patent claims involving a method of hedging risks in commodities trading. The court also reiterated the machine-or-transformation test as the (meaning sole) applicable test for patent-eligible subject matter, and stated that the test in State Street Bank v. Signature Financial Group should no longer be relied upon.

The Supreme Court of the United States issued an opinion on appeal (as Bilski v. Kappos) that affirmed the judgment of the CAFC, but revised many aspects of the CAFC's decision. In its decision, handed down on June 28, 2010, the Supreme Court rejected the machine-or-transformation test as the sole test of process patent eligibility based on an interpretation of the language of § 101. The majority, however, had high praise for the Federal Circuit opinions, advising that "[s]tudents of patent law would be well advised to study these scholarly opinions."

🔗 History 🔗 Ancient Near East 🔗 Malta 🔗 Phoenicia

The Cippi of Melqart are a pair of Phoenician marble cippi that were unearthed in Malta under undocumented circumstances and dated to the 2nd century BC. These are votive offerings to the god Melqart, and are inscribed in two languages, Ancient Greek and Phoenician, and in the two corresponding scripts, the Greek and the Phoenician alphabet. They were discovered in the late 17th century, and the identification of their inscription in a letter dated 1694 made them the first Phoenician writing to be identified and published in modern times. Because they present essentially the same text (with some minor differences), the cippi provided the key to the modern understanding of the Phoenician language. In 1758, the French scholar Jean-Jacques Barthélémy relied on their inscription, which used 17 of the 22 letters of the Phoenician alphabet, to decipher the unknown language.

The tradition that the cippi were found in Marsaxlokk was only inferred by their dedication to Heracles, whose temple in Malta had long been identified with the remains at Tas-Silġ. The Grand Master of the Order of the Knights Hospitaller, Fra Emmanuel de Rohan-Polduc, presented one of the cippi to the Académie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres in 1782. This cippus is currently in the Louvre Museum in Paris, while the other rests in the National Museum of Archaeology in Valletta, Malta. The inscription is known as KAI 47.