something else is needed here in the browser to interpret the SVG like a browser plugin, but they are not telling me what in the docs.
get Adobe's SVG plugin.
but the browser doesn't support inline SVG I guess.(?)
SVG starts after the horizontal line. as per http://wiki.svg.org/Inline_SVG

to be honest, this is the only example I have gotten to work with firefox. all the others require server mods or something, or just plain don't work. this one works when viewed locally, but not over a web server.

doing SVG and xhtml (required for SVG) requires a server modification to the .htaccess file. here it is:
AddType text/html .xhtml
RewriteEngine on
RewriteBase /
RewriteCond %{HTTP_ACCEPT} application/xhtml\+xml
RewriteCond %{HTTP_ACCEPT} !application/xhtml\+xml\s*;\s*q=0
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} \.xhtml$
RewriteCond %{THE_REQUEST} HTTP/1\.1
RewriteRule .* - [T=application/xhtml+xml]

So far only the firefox browser supports SVG without a plugin.