A South Korean software engineer who built a grave for Internet Explorer — pictures of which quickly went viral — said that the now-defunct web browser had made his life a misery.
South Korea, which has some of the world's fastest average internet speeds, remained bizarrely wedded to Microsoft's Internet Explorer, which was retired by the company earlier this week after 27 years.
In honour of the browser's “death”, a gravestone marked with its signature “e” logo was set up on the rooftop of a cafe in South Korea's southern city of Gyeongju by engineer Kiyoung Jung, 38.
“He was a good tool to use to download other browsers,” the gravestone's inscription reads.
Images of Mr Jung's joke tombstone quickly spread online, with users of social media site Reddit upvoting it tens of thousands of times.
Once dominant globally, Internet Explorer was widely reviled in recent years due to its slow speed and glitches.
But in South Korea, it was mandatory for online banking and shopping until about 2014, as all such online activities required sites to use ActiveX — a plug-in created by Microsoft.
It remained the default browser for many Seoul government sites until very recently, local reports said.
The websites of the Korea Water Resources Corporation and the Korea Expressway Corporation only functioned properly in Internet Explorer until at least June 10, according to a report by the Maeil Economic Daily.
As a software engineer and web developer, Mr Jung told AFP he constantly “suffered” at work because of compatibility issues involving the now-defunct browser.
“In South Korea, when you are doing web development work, the expectation was always that it should look good in Internet Explorer, rather than Chrome,” he said.
Websites that look good in other browsers, such as Safari or Chrome, can look very wrong in Internet Explorer, which often forced him to spend many extra hours working to ensure compatibility.
Mr Jung said that he was “overjoyed” by the browser's retirement.
But he also said he felt genuinely nostalgic and emotional about the browser's demise, as he remembers its heyday — one of the reasons he was inspired to erect the grave stone.
He quoted Japanese animator Hayao Miyazaki: “People are often relieved that machines don't have souls, but we as human beings actually give our hearts to them,” Mr Jung said, explaining his feelings for Internet Explorer.
He said he was pleased by the response to his joke grave and that he and his brother — who owns the cafe — plan to leave the monument on the rooftop in Gyeongju indefinitely.
“It has been very exciting to make others laugh,” he said.
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Past winners of the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix
2016 Lewis Hamilton (Mercedes-GP)
2015 Nico Rosberg (Mercedes-GP)
2014 Lewis Hamilton (Mercedes-GP)
2013 Sebastian Vettel (Red Bull Racing)
2012 Kimi Raikkonen (Lotus)
2011 Lewis Hamilton (McLaren)
2010 Sebastian Vettel (Red Bull Racing)
2009 Sebastian Vettel (Red Bull Racing)
Benefits of first-time home buyers' scheme
- Priority access to new homes from participating developers
- Discounts on sales price of off-plan units
- Flexible payment plans from developers
- Mortgages with better interest rates, faster approval times and reduced fees
- DLD registration fee can be paid through banks or credit cards at zero interest rates
The alternatives
• Founded in 2014, Telr is a payment aggregator and gateway with an office in Silicon Oasis. It’s e-commerce entry plan costs Dh349 monthly (plus VAT). QR codes direct customers to an online payment page and merchants can generate payments through messaging apps.
• Business Bay’s Pallapay claims 40,000-plus active merchants who can invoice customers and receive payment by card. Fees range from 1.99 per cent plus Dh1 per transaction depending on payment method and location, such as online or via UAE mobile.
• Tap started in May 2013 in Kuwait, allowing Middle East businesses to bill, accept, receive and make payments online “easier, faster and smoother” via goSell and goCollect. It supports more than 10,000 merchants. Monthly fees range from US$65-100, plus card charges of 2.75-3.75 per cent and Dh1.2 per sale.
• 2checkout’s “all-in-one payment gateway and merchant account” accepts payments in 200-plus markets for 2.4-3.9 per cent, plus a Dh1.2-Dh1.8 currency conversion charge. The US provider processes online shop and mobile transactions and has 17,000-plus active digital commerce users.
• PayPal is probably the best-known online goods payment method - usually used for eBay purchases - but can be used to receive funds, providing everyone’s signed up. Costs from 2.9 per cent plus Dh1.2 per transaction.
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Would I ever find you again
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You, the kiss to my soul, my cheer and
sadness?
Would your lights ever break the night of my eyes again?
Would I ever find you again?
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This world is night and you're the lifetime,
This world is eyes and you're the vision,
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It was discovered in 2004, when Russian-born Manchester scientists Andrei Geim and Kostya Novoselov were experimenting with sticky tape and graphite, the material used as lead in pencils.
Placing the tape on the graphite and peeling it, they managed to rip off thin flakes of carbon. In the beginning they got flakes consisting of many layers of graphene. But when they repeated the process many times, the flakes got thinner.
By separating the graphite fragments repeatedly, they managed to create flakes that were just one atom thick. Their experiment led to graphene being isolated for the very first time.
In 2010, Geim and Novoselov were awarded the Nobel Prize for Physics.
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imVentures: $100m
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Ten tax points to be aware of in 2026
1. Domestic VAT refund amendments: request your refund within five years
If a business does not apply for the refund on time, they lose their credit.
2. E-invoicing in the UAE
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3. More tax audits
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4. More beneficial VAT and excise tax penalty regime
Tax disputes are expected to become more frequent and more structured, with clearer administrative objection and appeal processes. The UAE has adopted a new penalty regime for VAT and excise disputes, which now mirrors the penalty regime for corporate tax.
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Contributed by Thomas Vanhee and Hend Rashwan, Aurifer
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