Hi Gus. Maybe I'm not the sharpest knife in the drawer but I can only see 'black boxes' where your wunnerful cartoons should be.

Any suggestions?

Cheers.

Seems i'm suffering from the same condition using IE 6.0.2.

Hi Gus.  I'm suffering from the dreaded "blackbox syndrome" as well.

Whale meat again, cost you hundred thousand yen
But I know whale meat again will come if pay
Soup, steak or stew (have you tried whale cordon blue?)
When whales all dead will be a sorry day

John, John and SuburbanAlien, Can you see colour and light now?

There is little more I can do. The images are processed by the server and although the images are produced to suit many programs including internet explorer, the best viewing I found was Netscape. The program is a bit slower than IE but crisper. Old versions of IE might need to be updated and of course broadband makes it much faster to see. Hope you can see the "sweeping lady of IR" soon.

Hamish, I think it is unfortunate that you have had to cave in on a principle. That is, browsers and software that are open-source compatible should be used, as this approach will reach the greater unwashed. Because of an acknowledged bug in IE, that won't show PNGs in some environments, the site has had to revert to JPEG.

It's sad, when there are better browsers for free, and PNG is the evolving standard.

I'd like you to reconsider the policy. I do not suck on the Gates-Microsoft uber-monopolist titty, in fact would rather be pic-less than use IE. I'd rather use Lynx. I realise that many corporate and government shops have unified on MS products, especially since XP, but there is a resistance, maybe even an insurgency.

We're working on a bit of a hack to ensure that even IE can 'see' Gus' brilliant cartoons. PNG is the way to go for all sorts of reasons, so we will try very hard to come up with a solution.

TG - I also think we ought to be pushing alternatives - how about writing a short piece on how to get/install/use Firefox for example? Perhaps we need to explain some of it's advantages as well. Just a thought. I am not religious about browsers! There are a lot of people out there who need a bit of assistance in getting a better browser, an bit of encouragement and hand-holding.

Hey TG, I am somewhat taken aback by your tirade. Not only do you demean the majority of internet users but you also abuse the moderator.

For what? Trying to ensure that the majority of users of a web site can actually see what is on the pages? Or perhaps you think Gus's cartoons should only be viewed by people of your obviously superior judgement.

Perhaps you don't understand the purpose of web sites but I actually think the purpose is to try and attract as many visitors as possible in an attempt to achieve the purpose of the site existing. In this case, trying to encourage others to pursue and hope for better government. Web sites 101 tells any web site designer to ensure that their sites cater for all possible browsers and if not, then cover those most used. Otherwise you might as well try putting messages in bottles and tossing them out to sea.

Where did you get the impression that your preferences are "above" the great unwashed, which appears to be everyone but yourself? Could I also suggest that you try using the English language rather than the constant cryptic comments which only you can follow?

I find your attitude more than sad and can only hope that you can try and accept other people as they are instead of wanting to reproduce them in your own image.

If you actually want to contribute to an improvement in democracy lesson one is trying to fit in and compromise to ensure a reasonable level of communication.

Yes Hamish I have now seen the light... and the colour.

Working for me now Hamish ... thanks.

Hi Hamish, I've never been able to see Gus' cartoons, but can now see this one. Thanks!

Great picture Gus. Just one comment about Japanese culture and whale meat. Many Japanese have a fairly ambivalent opinion about this. On the one hand they tell Westerners to mind their own business and leave their food culture alone. While living in Japan, I was often confronted with the "we don't tell you not to eat cows" argument. The "well cows aren't an endangered species" reply was usually ignored.

One the other hand however, if you ask older Japanese if they really like the taste of whale most will reply with a resounding "no". During the hungry years after World War Two, whale meat was seen as a cheap and plentiful source of protein at a time when other protein sources were scarce or expensive. So many older Japanese literally had a gutful of this stuff growing up and aren't keen to eat it. Oddly enough this also applies to pumpkin!

I have Firefox and I agree it's lots better that Internet Explorer, and open-source knowledge of any sort should be supported where we can in my view.

Firefox page with reviews and the free download.

But there will be no requirement from this website about which browsers people should use, and if people can't see the pictures in PNG (I can't in IE any more), I think we should just use jpegs. They're under 50kb so they should load reasonably quickly (people with dial-ups please let us know - it's one thing difficult to test), and I can't see the difference.

David, if you come up with a hack to make PNGs consistently work on IE, I'm into it.

On Firefox and open-source software, Znet , the main international site of the Chomskean Left I suppose, and extremely busy, runs a user-moderated, "Action of the week". I was interested to note a few weeks ago that "Use open source software" was the official, "Action of the Week", with downloading Firefox touted as the sort of "everyperson's minimum" that anyone could do.

I'm not a browser-nazi either, but there are real reasons why many people, including myself, feel that open-source software is politically as well as functionally better if practicable, similarly that I think a hamburger (made with locally adapted and modified open-source technology) from the corner shop is better than a Big Cac (standard, patented, controlled hamburger technology - wouldn't they just love to own all hamburger technology?). And one thing about Firefox is that it has broken the quality and support barrier. Like the hamburger down the road, it's just better, and really quite convenient after all.