Check out (works on on FireFox) this very cool XUL app to search books on Amazon. http://www.faser.net/mab/chrome/content/mab.xul

XUL (XML User Interface Language) is a user interface markup language developed to support Mozilla applications like Mozilla Firefox and Mozilla Thunderbird. Like UIML, it is an application of XML that describes user interfaces. The acronym is pronounced zool, to rhyme with “cool”.

This week I started my new work and it is really fun to get back into it. Put aside the first month or two where everything is a blur and you are trying to get your head around all the details of what you are doing and are supposed to know and do, the project that I am working on is an exciting one. It is a product by Micrsoft that is still in beta testing and is called Windows OneCare Live, which is combined antivirus, firewall, back up and tune up application. I am working on the security policy of the firewall and it is an interesting project for sure. So my frequency of posting might dip for the next month or two as all my focus is on getting up to speed as soon as possible.

For those of you who read the digg.com RSS feed, as you know when you want to read an article, you get sent to digg.com website and then have to click on the link again to get redirected to the link. No more of that with this script as it will directly redirect you to the website of the article.

I am publishing it here since the original script did not work and I had to fix it. Hope you find this useful too. Also for many more greasemonkey scripts visit userscripts.org

At the airport the other day, flying with American Airlines, I was thinking to myself why the symbol of both this airline as well as the USA is a bald eagle. So I did some research and found different stories depending on who you ask and what their perspective is. Some say it is because of its long life, great strength and majestic looks, and also because it was then believed to exist only on this continent.

Others believe it was because at one of the first battles of the revolution the noise of the war woke the eagles up who were circuling above these fighting men and represented the freedom.

A third opinion (and in my personal findings most relevant) goes to the significance the eagle has in the native Americans’ lives and the story of creation for many of them, i.e. as the earth was flooded and everyone were being killed by this flood, a beam (spirit) from the sky materialized into an eagle that saved a woman and flew her to the tree of life where she rested until the earth reappeared after the flood and gave birth to the new generation of mankind.

What we do know is that in May 1782 a committee was established that consisted of Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Franklin and J Adams and they were to decide what the seal of United States should be. Franklin suggested a turkey and Jefferson had an eagle in mind. It is unclear why they wanted these two birds and as I mentioned the opinions differ here. Nevertheless the eagle suggestion won and was taken as the symbol of this nation. Added to that the, phrase “E Pluribus Unum.” (from many comes one) was adopted as the motto, thirteen arrows and an olive branch was to be carried by the eagle in each talon, thirtheen arrows for 13 colonies that declared independence from the Great Britain. The olive branch represents a universal sign for offering of peace. While the emblem was finally accepted officialy in 1787, Thomas Jefferson wrote the following about accepting the eagle as the nation’s symbol:

I wish that the bald eagle had not been chosen as the representative of our country, he is a bird of bad moral character, he does not get his living honestly, you may have seen him perched on some dead tree, where, too lazy to fish for himself, he watches the labor of the fishing-hawk, and when that diligent bird has at length taken a fish, and is bearing it to its nest for the support of his mate and young ones, the bald eagle pursues him and takes it from him…. Besides he is a rank coward; the little kingbird, not bigger than a sparrow attacks him boldly and drives him out of the district. He is therefore by no means a proper emblem for the brave and honest. . . of America.. . . For a truth, the turkey is in comparison a much more respectable bird, and withal a true original native of America . . . a bird of courage, and would not hesitate to attack a grenadier of the British guards, who should presume to invade his farmyard with a red coat on.