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Down the (fire)foxhole

Sun, 23 Nov 2025 13:16:45 +1300

This weekend I decided to add Mozilla Firefox support for my IPONZ Linker Chrome extension, mainly because Firefox supports extensions on mobile.

Since I use Chrome APIs like chrome.storage, I was checking whether I needed to swap when I came across a comment that mentioned “chrome” is UI jargon that might have been originally coined by Mozilla.

Curiosity led me down a rabbit hole of deep browser lore.

In 1997 while working at Netscape, engineer Dave Hyatt wrote the first specification of XUL (pronounced /zool/ as a Ghostbusters reference), standing for XML-based User Interface Language. In the context of XUL, “chrome” referred to the top level window containing groups of UI elements, so anything making up the UI of the application (as opposed to content) was considered “chrome”. XUL was used to help rewrite the UI of the Netscape browser, which was open-sourced in 1998 and became the Mozilla project. A search for “chrome” in an archive of the 1998 codebase shows many instances throughout.

IPONZ Linker

Sun, 26 Oct 2025 14:54:19 +1300

Have you ever wanted to share a link to your favourite NZ Intellectual Property right? Probably not, but if you’re in the IP profession you may have realised that this was not possible at all 😢

The URL when viewing a record on an IPONZ register looks something like this: https://app.iponz.govt.nz/app/Extra/IP/Mutual/Browse.aspx?sid=638957163299224953

Notice that there is no case number to be seen. When you look up a record, that action is stored on the server as session state, and you’re redirected away from the search page. Then you’re connected back to your session via a session ID to view the record. This means the URL is totally useless as a permanent link, which seems suboptimal for a public register.

govern

Mon, 15 Sep 2025 13:52:19 +1200

Get
On
Vapidly
Espousing
Roko’s Basilisk
Now

In relation to becoming a certified AI Governance Professional

grizzler

Sun, 15 Dec 2024 12:37:13 +1200

You can’t spell shortbread
Without our host Dr Bear.
Call him the grizzler

Set in a Great British Bake Off-style show with a rotating cast of celebrity host judges. Some of which are talking animals. Written for purposes of scoring shortbread from grizzlybakedgoods

rabbits

Wed, 01 Sep 2021 01:29:47 +0000

Ancestral lines are often hard to trace
Forebears doth stretch at times to days of yore
But rabbit incest of a rapid pace
Allows us now to honour four

Progenitors of such a sprawling brood
All in the Garden of Mt Eden born
Mayhaps they tasted a forbidden food
And from on high their sin did draw great scorn

For now these precious souls have hopped their last
Cruel verdicts made to seal them a grim fate
So now is time to fly the flags half-mast
The rabbits’ lease hath all too short a date

vacuum

Mon, 28 Jun 2021 13:16:45 +1300

Why has our Zip forsaken us so soon
Its warranty hath all too short a date
What’s in a name? AirPower sounds a boon
Misnomers flagrant as that seal its fate

In reference to the tragic and untimely death of my flat’s Zip Fusion bagless vacuum cleaner.

nightmare

Sat, 06 Mar 2021 08:44:42 +0000

The beast extends its talons and its tongue
For me the bells have surely tolled and rung
The drool has pooled about my toes and dress
With it my blood is soon to coalesce

But though my body screams with primal fear
Its jaws have not a canine front to rear
Confusion breaks the hold on life and limb
Its mouth I pluck a tooth from on a whim

It steps back shrinking down in size aghast
Its face a man’s that shatters into glass
The nightmare’s end comes with a lucid calm
I wake in peace though something’s clutched in palm

trimeter

Sat, 12 Sep 2020 11:54:37 +0000

Anapestic trimeter is nice
Stress the syllables coming third thrice
But sometimes that’s too long
Cut a foot can’t go wrong
Then proceed to ignore that advice

mountain

Fri, 13 Mar 2020 20:57:12 +0000

A mountain towers high above a hill
The lesser summit stays a victory still
When dawn arrives the sun is tinged with grief
One’s bed provides a measure of relief

A day with plans that once seemed only bright
Falls victim to a curse that leaves a blight
Upon your mind, will friends become estranged?
They’d rather see you well so rearrange

A shower cleanses yet its waters sting
To bathe can sometimes seem a daunting thing
So even though your hair might be a mess
It makes you no less worthy of caress

stars

Tue, 25 Feb 2020 18:44:25 +0000

A pair sights high above twin shooting stars
Brush near enough in heaven they might touch
Laid bare one suffers nil an earthly scar
Yet clear night skies do still desire much

tinder

Sat, 15 Feb 2020 05:35:48 +0000

Each bio should be poetry
Acrostic and AABB
They should say what you like to do
And someone will swipe right on you
Sadly I have never met a
Soul that checked each line’s first letter

brie

Wed, 22 Jan 2020 07:36:28 +0000

There once was a man who liked Brie
Especially when it was free
For on a birthday
The parents would pay
Time to choose: nougat or Canoli

monocle

Sat, 18 Jan 2020 22:57:43 +0000

You don’t want your eyes going glassy
Unless it’s external and classy
Protection is hot
Lest an eye be bloodshot
Though you may not be able to far see

In reference to the Gentleman’s Single-Use Unlubricated Monocle

for you

Sun, 24 Nov 2019 22:29:44 +1200

Roses are red
Violets are blue
ABCB is dead
ABAB’s for you

mewse

Sat, 09 Nov 2019 02:39:32 +0000

Can’t resist the sky’s rich deep blue hues
Paw-fect day for a sketch of my mewse
So I whisk ’er away
And together we lay
As the tufts of her fur I purr-use

AABBA

Sun, 03 Nov 2019 12:00:00 +0000

I once liked AABBA
I wrote limericks at least once a day
But since lately they’re trite
I’ve decided to write
This verse in AABBC

A Pore for to Hortay

Thu, 16 May 2019 23:49:28 +1200

I.
    O Love! my Love! I have seen a sigh,
    Thou sadst so?
    “I have no tort upon my thoughts
    and the bright graces of the sky,
    And nothing is a tear of the window of the sky,
    And there is a panther’s star.
    Sign summer and the sky shades,
    And will not think that they have made the sun,
    And the sun like the world that should be so much
    To make a shadow of my mother’s star.
XII.
    O gentle leaves, or sweet to the passion of the stars are stream.
    And then I love thee to your forehead

Ghazal of Sayyed Dam-Son

Thu, 16 May 2019 23:49:28 +1200

I.
    O Lady in my Lady, in my soul,
    For beauty as the songs that should be so gone
    A beauty with the earth is free,
    And then I do not think that I am the sun.
XIV.
    I am the soul of thy stars.
XX.
    I was to thee, and far away, and the
    The soul of His Lady of the Poerate.
VIII.
    And thou art the songs that in the sun.
XII.
    I thought to thee, the night was true,
    And thou art she would come to me
    And the sun and the stars that should be see
    To the wind of the sea of the sword.

hats

Thu, 28 Feb 2019 06:16:45 +0000

Hey girl you should know that I have eyes for only you
Can’t tear my gaze away regardless of your headwear’s hue
It’s a condition with my vision and here are all the facts:
Can’t fix those it afflicts and it is known as hataracts

dominos

Wed, 20 Jun 2018 22:44:49 +0000

When life has got you down
And each day brings new lows
Help wipe off that frown
With a slice from Domino’s

fall