So, tomorrow we're off to Flensburg. Taking photos, lounging around, checking out Flensburg, watching the Rum Regatta. Let's see if the weather gives us a chance - the forecasts sound more like frostbite and water damage.
In the meantime, I'll just let the blog keep drifting along. Check out the old clutter - there's plenty. Or alternatively, check out more interesting blogs or watch the wallpaper dry ...
According to Industrial Technology & Witchcraft absolute crap. Too bad. Okay, I'll probably still check it out soon, but somehow the books deserve better. Well, Disney - what can you expect ...
And another negative review.
Absolutely sovereign. Only in the photo with Scharping does he look somehow tortured.
Ex-Bush Minister Veneman becomes Unicef Chief - yes great, now everything is being destroyed by all the pandering. It doesn't matter if Unicef soon campaigns against contraception at the behest of the new boss and engages in other nonsense, and projects are stopped just because they don't suit a staunchly conservative Bushite - let's just sacrifice children on the altar of political maneuvers ...
Or both. Sorry, but you can't categorize something like this any other way. If any providers now filter for rfc-ignorant.org, emails may be bounced or sent to the spam folder - just because the operator of rfc-ignorant.org doesn't like the whois from DeNIC. By the way, the mail RFCs do not contain any indication (and certainly no mandatory condition) that a whois service must exist for a domain. So much for the technical competence of the operator of this idiotic list ...
It's bad enough that as a mail admin you have to deal with spam, trojans, viruses and similar nonsense - and the gigantic mountains of traffic that result. More and more often you also have to deal with completely brainless block list operators and similarly stupid mail admins who implement these block lists (and possibly even bounce emails because of the listing!).
And when you point this nonsense out to them, the standard line is: "RBL filtering has almost eliminated all my spam". Great. The fact that the email medium is more damaged by such incompetent fools than by the spam itself is of no concern to them. Let's just break everything, every idiot can be a mail admin today. It's disgusting.
(Found via fh).
Apple users in parliaments complain about discrimination - I can well imagine the nonsense of the responsible IT people. Of course, for network security, you clearly rely on Microsoft products ...
Firefox gets SVG support - finally a first independent SVG implementation and above all a broad platform for this format.
Bundesrat rejects GMO law - the Union wants us to eat GenFood and what the consequences are and whether, for example, organic farming near Gen-fields is no longer possible (because farmers cannot meet the strict requirements, since genetically modified plants do spread after all), they couldn't care less. The fact that most farmers don't value Genshit at all is also irrelevant. The fact that in the end only the big corporations win and are interested in the whole genetic technology - because they can strangle farmers and squeeze them even more - is probably not irrelevant. Because somewhere the donation millions must come from ...
Genetically modified foods serve the combination (forced combination!) of seeds and fertilizers or crop protection products and the patent protection of the use of the seeds. It directly attacks the classic traditional way of working of farmers - for example, the use of fruit for the next sowing is usually not possible (because infertile) or prohibited (by contract). There is no biological reason in Germany - neither do we have to endure extreme climatic conditions nor particularly catastrophic pest attacks. It is solely about the maximization of the companies that produce the genetically modified seeds.
If you then look at who is behind it, something else becomes apparent: another point is the elimination of the classic production sites for seeds - many of the genetic engineering companies are more associated with the pharmaceutical or chemical industry than with classical agriculture (although there are also black sheep among the seed producers - but these also belong more to the industry). Here, industry is simply moving into an area it could not serve before and wants to break into - ultimately with coercive means.
With genetically modified seeds, not only are foods produced whose consumption is rejected by the majority of consumers - an entire economic sector is also being strangled or possibly even destroyed. At least severely damaged.
Agriculture, through its structures with cooperatives, associations, interest groups and political lobbying, has a fairly large power and influence on its fate - so far. But now the bad guys want to play along, whose goal is exactly the takeover of this - previously self-managed - power.
Of course, the Union - which has repeatedly revealed itself to be industry-dependent - hitches itself to the cart. And of course, our industry chancellor performs this balancing act and Minister Künast has to present a law that is already watered down to the extreme - and even that is rejected in the council (which has a Union majority).
KDE developers annoyed with Apple - because they once again don't understand how to work in a team and send patches to an upstream project. Collaboration between companies and open source projects is still problematic - companies simply have a completely different agenda than the OS project.
Leica has a brand new lens. A 75/2 APO Asph. - looks really very cute. Nice and compact, built-in lens hood (which you can finally lock so it doesn't push in) and of course the usual Leica quality. Unfortunately, the purchase resistance with just over 2000 Euros is then a bit large. But especially for owners of the classic 0.72x viewfinder magnification, this is of course an interesting lens: it offers the 75mm focal length with a still focusable wide-open aperture and is significantly lighter and smaller than the 75/1.4. Why bother with the 75/1.4 behemoth if you can't use the f/1.4 aperture on the camera anyway because the focusing accuracy of the rangefinder isn't sufficient...
The crazy thing is: I hadn't heard any rumors about the device beforehand (ok, I only rarely read the Leica Users Group anymore - but none of the photo sites had anything either) and Leica doesn't have anything on the websites. But the thing is already in the store (no, I didn't buy it - the purchase resistance...).
Apparently, Leica wants to renovate some of the old gems - first the 90/4 Macro, then the 50/1.4 and now a 75/2. Quite impressive - of course, due to Cosina and the Voigtländer lenses, it's important that Leica shows some activity, but still, you don't just pull new lens designs out of your sleeve - there's a lot of work involved.
Fortunately, my Leica equipment is very close to perfect condition (50/2.8 and 90/4 collapsibles - I'm only missing the macro adapter for the 90mm and possibly, in the long run, a 35/2) and I'm therefore not really at risk of Leica temptation at the moment.
Lewis Perdue claims that parts of Dan Brown's "The Da Vinci Code" were copied from his book "Da Vinci Legacy" and has set up a blog describing, for example, the publisher's reaction to the allegations in the lawsuit: Da Vinci Crock
Normally, such things are quickly and discreetly settled (no, not what you think - through payments, of course!), but with a megaseller like "The Da Vinci Code," the publisher naturally makes a fuss.
And now I'm wondering whether to give the whole thing the category "Law" or "Entertainment" or whether I need a category "Blogsoap."
(I found the whole thing at photomatt)
Already read about this in various places (Uhus Webdroppings, Schockwellenreiter), but "Instant Nirvana" sums it up best: Fascists. Oh yes, Schleswig Holstein is heading towards a glorious future if such politicians have a place in the Union there...
"There must be no party to our right" a Bavarian once declared - no problem, the Union simply overtakes DVU, Republicans, and NPD on the far right. Foreigners are out, now the long-term unemployed are being hounded. Of course, everyone knows at least one welfare fraudster who works on the side, they're all just lazy people who need to be motivated and, if necessary, locked up in a virtual prison and monitored, the scum. At least some Union politicians - and unfortunately more and more in the SPD - see the world this way.
Are there actually hiring requirements regarding contempt for humanity, brainlessness, and corruption for politicians? The word "politician" is only an insult for such representatives.
Update: The original author and Hessian Justice Minister naturally meant something completely different. So he says, or his press spokesman:
Wagner's quote should therefore be understood to mean that the ankle monitor also offers "long-term unemployed individuals sentenced to probation and treated addicts" the chance to return to a regular daily routine and be placed in a job, says Fuhrmann.
Of course. Let's just believe him now. Or? Achne, he's from Hesse - from Hetzer-Koch's brown swamp of donations and cronyism.
Longhorn with Glass Effects, Desktop Search and PDF Alternative - while the interface and desktop search are clearly feature theft from OS X Tiger, the Microsoft alternative to PDF is as unnecessary as a goiter. Yes, I know that PDF is also a proprietary format - but unlike any ideas from Microsoft, it works, does exactly what it was designed for and doesn't have mountains of security holes. I don't think I necessarily want document formats whose use is dependent on Microsoft software ...
Somehow, the various Longhorn presentations and ramblings from Microsoft are becoming increasingly embarrassing. Don't they have any original ideas anymore? Even the command line in the start bar sounds more like a copy of LaunchBar or QuickSilver on the Mac ...
I finally decided to work with a new theme, or rather, to change the existing theme. It was the classic Kubrick with a custom background image, now it's "flexible Kubrick" - basically still Kubrick in terms of layout, but I've removed the rounded corners and shadows and switched the entire layout to em as a measure - no more fixed pixel widths, but instead font-relative specifications. Let's see, maybe I'll make the theme available later.
As a result, the layout should now adapt to the user's basic font settings and generally work more gracefully with corresponding changes. However, it is still not a liquid layout, but static - just with a flexible base size.
By the way, I solved the problem with the header graphic in a very classic way: the excavator is simply cut out and placed in front of a transparent background and saved as a GIF. Combined with the right background color, the result is quite usable in my opinion. And when the size of the page changes (e.g. by increasing the base font), the image grows in width with it.
If you notice anything strange, please let me know. I know it's not a layout-technical revolution. But I'm not capable of that anyway. I just wanted to try out what an em-based layout can look like and needed something to try it out on.
... that Google: my PyDS-Homepage always had a PageRank of 7 before, now only 6. Tsk. Such a thing. Somehow I now have the feeling that something has been taken away from me - I just don't know exactly what yet.
First Trojan for Mac OS X spotted - if there aren't any, do you write your own? Just a guess - the information at Sophos about the alleged Trojan is very thin. No information about the spread and no specific information about the removal of the Trojan, no detailed information about detecting the Trojan (port or similar) and no information about the installed files. Sorry, but this all doesn't sound very credible ...
OpenRAW - Digital Image Preservation Through Open Documentation aims to focus on open documentation (and promoting this with manufacturers). This is an important topic, especially in light of Nikon's stupid decision to encrypt parts of the RAW format (thus ultimately making its use in free software legally problematic due to the need to crack the copy protection). I've already written about this: the digital negatives belong to the photographer, not the camera manufacturer. Everything must be done to provide the photographer with all the information contained within - without any encryption nonsense and without the obligation to use any silly manufacturer programs (which, in the worst case, are not even available for the operating system used).
An interesting parallel is drawn on the website: can anyone imagine that film manufacturers would have kept the data for film development secret? That Agfa or Kodak or whoever else would not have provided development documentation with their films, allowing the photographer to develop the film themselves?
Nikon's attempt to control and regulate RAW software and dictate what a photographer can do with their image data is similar to this stupid approach. And hopefully - if necessary through the market - doomed to fail. Because if this way of thinking were to prevail, we would eventually have digital negatives where the camera manufacturers dictate how many prints we can make from our own image ...
Softwarepatents: Industry lobbying with stacked cards? - if you already think you need to play with false cards, you should be more careful not to get caught ...
AquaMacs is an Emacs build for OS X (unfortunately only from 10.3 onwards) that aligns more closely with the Mac OS X Human Interface Guidelines. Those who appreciate the high configurability of Emacs but not the rather sick interface and key binding for Mac users might want to check this out.
The .emacs File by Bill Clementson. Shows very nicely why one should actually consider using Emacs. Particularly interesting for Common Lisp users is his customizing for Slime for integrating various Common Lisps.
Those who only occasionally work with PostgreSQL, so to speak, want to use it as a desktop database: PostgreSQLX is a compilation of the PostgreSQL server that can be easily started and stopped as a Mac application. Ideal for developers. Then also the PGAccess interface and you can do without something like Microsoft Access. Of course, all of this only from 10.3 (it's about time 10.4 comes out and I'm up to date at home again).
SPE-OSX comes from the same stable as AquaMacs and is a compilation of Stanis Python Editor - a very comprehensive IDE for Python. Also only available from 10.3.
sproutliner is a fun web application with which you can edit an outline over the web. Naturally heavily based on Ajax.
In memory of the liberation of the concentration camps 60 years ago.
Borland open sources JBuilder - wow. I didn't see that coming - it's basically a surrender. Can Borland stay afloat without JBuilder?
Nikon responds to the discussion about the encrypted RAW WB data - and only proves that they don't understand. Sorry, but the whole thing is full of arrogance and self-congratulation, but doesn't say anything else than that customers who bought a professional camera are bullied in their choice of software by Nikon.
If everything is really so professional and great and good: why does even Adobe have problems? Maybe because Nikon doesn't keep up with their silly promises?
And what about open source software - should photographers who bought a Nikon camera be excluded from open source due to absurd ideas of professionalism at Nikon? The result instead is the confirmation of all prejudices against RAW formats (proprietary, not future-proof).
Really professional would be the complete documentation of the NEF format, so that the RAW format is not a dead end for the photographer.
First plugin from my picture blog (now out) is the Strip Calendar. Basically a normal WordPress calendar - only not as a block for the sidebar, but as a strip to place it over the content. Since you usually have more space to waste in the length of a page than in the width and since someone might want to break with the rather worn-out format where the calendar is in a sidebar, you can now simply install the strip calendar. The code for installation is trivial:
< ?php get_strip_calendar(); ?> ```
Just put this in the header.php or wherever you want the calendar. Done (of course first unpack the plugin to wp-content/plugins/ and activate it in the administration!).
The Vhost Plugin is my current favorite of the entries for the WordPress Plugin Competition. With this plugin, you can bind categories to virtual hosts - when this host is accessed, the appropriate category is automatically displayed and optionally, a different template can be applied to this combination.
I can think of a whole range of ideas spontaneously - for example, I could put my Bananenrepublik under it and present my rants as more independent content. Or I could finally run my photographic entries under one of my photo domains again. I think I'll play around with the plugin soon.
Another funny feature - but rather uninteresting for me - is the possibility to restrict a user to a VHost (and thus to a category) and set up a multi-blog platform on a WordPress installation. Could be quite funny for family blogs, for example.
Unfortunately, the installation is a bit tricky - you have to patch a few functions because there are bugs in the standard installation. With WP 1.5.1, this should hopefully be better.
The WordPress Versioning Plugin allows versioning of entries - i.e. articles and pages. This way, you can revert to an old version if necessary.
Barroso multiple guest on yacht - and the corruption carousel continues to spin. "There is no conflict of interest," Barroso's spokesperson insists. - of course there isn't, Barroso has no interests diverging from those of the economy and his cronies.
What, it's about conflicts of interest between office and person? Why, the EU Commission President is simply the officially appointed top profiteer? At least, that's the impression one has had for many years ...
NASA Is Said to Loosen Risk Standards for Shuttle - the remaining shuttles must eventually be scrapped ...
Cunning ants build traps together and operate them jointly to catch larger insects. Nature never ceases to amaze.
Practical Common Lisp is a new book about Common Lisp with many practical examples. Finally, a Common Lisp book that doesn't just delve into rather theoretical examples but addresses practical topics such as spam filters, web servers, HTML generation, ID3 tags, and other stuff. The book content is available to read online.
Well, Otto Orwell has messed up again: a Federal Data Protection Commissioner elected democratically (among others by his own faction) dares to take his role seriously and speak frankly about Otto's data collection mania. And already Otto attacks head-on, accusing him of having no political function and suggesting he should just keep quiet - what nonsense. The Federal Data Protection Commissioner has an important political function: he represents our (the citizens') interests in securing our data and upholding our right to informational self-determination. Among other things, against deranged and data-hungry interior ministers.
Great sign for a banana republic when the executive branch attacks parts of itself that have a controlling function. What's next - Eichel insults the Federal Audit Office as a bunch of bunglers who can't count?
But in the end, it probably just boils down to this: the dogs that are hit bark, of course ...
Contax – RIP or Resurrection - Thoughts on what could happen to Contax after Kyocera's withdrawal. Specifically, the 645 system is mentioned here, as it was allegedly developed by Zeiss and Kyocera was only the manufacturer - if this is the case, Zeiss could find another partner for production. Unfortunately, the 645 system is beyond good and evil for most financial possibilities ...
Nikon Encrypts D2X and D2Hs White Balance Data - they really have a screw loose. What's the point of encrypting the image data so that the user is forced to use the camera manufacturer's software to read it? It's not as if Nikon makes money from selling software - they earn (and not badly) from the cameras. And especially with professional cameras, such paternalism towards the user is just brainless nonsense. The image data belongs to the photographer - and all of it, not just the parts that Nikon kindly leaves unencrypted ...
Parliament in Kuwait approves women's suffrage - I would like to have something positive here for once. Even if it is only a small step in that direction - for the region, the whole thing is almost revolutionary.
DIHK against penalty for spam senders - no wonder, as many spammers in Germany are members of the Chamber of Commerce ...
But what also doesn't really sit well with me about this story:
In the future, it is to be prohibited to conceal or withhold the true identity of the sender in the header of a commercial email.
This may be a justified demand for commercial communication, but as I assess Otto Orwell, this will soon be extended to all citizens. And if he doesn't do it, lawyers will do it with cease and desist letters when, for example, the web server sends automatic notifications under the name www-data ...
Judgment against Kanther: Koch should provide an explanation - well, not just an explanation would be appropriate, but what would be right won't happen anyway: Koch's resignation. Because no matter how often he claims he knew nothing, no one believes him. The judgment itself is at least not as weak as the prosecution demanded:
With the penalty of one year and six months' probation and a fine of 25,000 euros for Kanther, the Wiesbaden Regional Court went significantly beyond the prosecution's demand.
Kanther wants to appeal. Let's hope the next higher instance doesn't cave. Although personally, I would have preferred it to say "without probation" ...
Can you actually have the Pope declared a hate preacher?
The future President of the Federal Chamber shows: Haider MP criticizes "brutal Nazi persecution" - must be the thin air in the Alps. Severe brain damage due to lack of oxygen.
The Carinthian Federal Councillor Siegfried Kampl and future President of the Federal Chamber criticized the "persecution" of Nazis in Austria after the Second World War. Furthermore, he referred to Wehrmacht deserters as "comrade killers".
In comparison, our local Nazis are quite cute ...
... Social elections. By mail. Lick and seal the envelope. Spontaneously thought of gender databases - and the planned all too easy access.
typoc(not to be confused with Typo3 the CMS) is a blog engine in Ruby and uses Rails. Could be ideal to play around with this stuff.
Bistro Intro is a Smalltalk variant that runs on the Java VM. I didn't know that before.
Seashore is an image editor that builds on GIMP things and uses the same format - but for OS X. You should keep an eye on it, could be quite nice for some simple purposes.
Westerwelle will no longer become Chancellor - this likely aligns with the will of 95% of voters
'Cool it, Linus' - Bruce Perens - a bit more information about the BitKeeper story. And I agree with Bruce - Linus should never have started this silly BitKeeper business in the first place. Andrew Tridgell is just doing what he does best - cracking proprietary protocols. It's silly to attack him for that.
Greens drop resistance against missile defense system - the next person who asks me where the money for social system support is supposed to come from: not doing MEADS (along with many other ridiculous military projects) would be a first start.
The more than 800 million that are now being invested in the development of this military nonsense would be better spent elsewhere - and no, there are not many jobs to secure in the arms industry. The arms industry's excuse is simply wrong. Hardly any other industry is already as far rationalized as hardly any other industry.
It's also very nice to see how the big parties show unity in this regard - when it comes to spending citizens' money on nonsense and mindless trash, they quickly agree. Just as when it comes to cutting social benefits.
By the way, there is a fairly simple way to protect soldiers in foreign deployments from enemy rocket attacks: not to carry out foreign deployments ... (and don't tell me the nonsense about defending the Basic Law in the Hindu Kush now)