Hamburg Regional Court: Top Level Domain .at Without Reference to Austria
I can imagine that the Austrians might see it differently.
At heise online news there's the original article.
Archive 8.12.2004 - 20.12.2004
SnakeSQL -- Pure Python SQL database supporting NULLs and Joins
Nett - a SQL database in Python that supports significantly more than Gadfly (for example, simple joins, foreign keys, and null values). Ok, like Gadfly, it won't be a miracle for performance, but as a SQL option for installations that don't require a C compiler, it's certainly useful.
Brian Mastenbrook: Old News
An interesting side note: the Xerox Lisp Emulator - an emulator developed by Xerox for their Interlisp machines - is included as part of the Grammars Writer Workbench. I still have a set of Medley Lisp floppies lying around at home - and two Xerox Lisp machines sitting in the corner. Nice devices with a neat graphical system. Ok, far from the performance of a Symbolics, but since they were my first Lisp machines, I like them anyway somehow.
Included with the Xerox files are emulators for DOS, Linux, SunOS and Solaris. So I might have a chance to get my old Medley Sysouts running on Linux.
Somewhere in there is also the Medley Common Lisp - so not just the Interlisp-D, which is somewhat archaic compared to more modern Lisps (for example, it only has dynamic scope). However, I would first need to dust off my old Interlisp-D knowledge to figure out how to open a Common Lisp listener on the machine again, if it's not in the root menu...
I found the original article at Planet Lisp.
No Software Patents
Web-Demo against software patents by ffii. Get involved!
ReportLab - PyRXP - Very fast validating XML parser for Python - built on RXP
GNU Development Tools for the Renesas H8/300[HS] Series - Documentation on how to build a cross-compiler for the RCX
Lego-Mindstorms Simulator - Simulation of LeJOS programmed RCXs in Java
Another Update: how to get rcxcomm working with OS X 10.2
The problem with the rcxcomm stuff under 10.2 is that the headers from the JNI under 10.2 have incorrect links and therefore don't work. To fix it, you simply need to add to the line in lejos_2_1_0/rcxcomm/src/Makefile where CCOPT is defined:
CCOPT = -g -O ${JNILIB_TYPE} -framework IOKit -framework CoreFoundation -I/System/Library/Frameworks/JavaVM.framework/Headers -I/System/Library/Frameworks/JavaVM.framework/Versions/1.3.1/Headers
The latter part is the new one - I simply added the correct include path and then it finds jni.h. And it can compile. However, I haven't tested yet whether the whole thing actually works.
The leJOS Tutorial
Anyone who wants to see what's possible with LeJOS can have it demonstrated in this tutorial. Since the LeJOS documentation itself is limited to the API, this tutorial is all the more important. After all, the demo robots supplied with LeJOS are also quite sparse ...
Update to Mindstorms System Overview
I've installed LeJOS. Cool stuff - the first time I can actually use Java for something. The only thing that doesn't work on OS X 10.2 is direct communication between the host computer (OS X machine) and the target computer (RCX brick) via the IR tower - so you can't build distributed applications between these two systems. The reason appears to be an incompatibility with the JNI (Java Native Interface) used to integrate the communication routines (written in C) into the Java classes. Otherwise everything works quite well - even exotic sensors (I have the IR proximity sensor and the ultrasonic distance sensor from HiTechnicStuff) work flawlessly. And the VM is small enough at 16 KB that you still have plenty of space for your own Java programs.
There's also an emulator included with which you can test your RCX programs on the host computer. Very practical for debugging - the RCX is a bit too primitive for that anyway. Even though the emulator is very primitive - it just spits out traces of what happened. No graphical display, no sensor simulation, etc. But still better than nothing.
Important constraints of the Java VM:
- no garbage collection. So you have to make sure you don't constantly instantiate new objects and that memory is allocated statically if possible - otherwise the RCX will eventually run out of memory (does that sound familiar from the Mars robots?)
- some language restrictions like no switch, no long data types, arrays with a maximum of 511 elements, no interface safety (you can put objects into wrong slots without getting exceptions - some of Java's type safety is lost)
- no introspection (so you can't look at your own classes). In a robot that's probably acceptable anyway - it should look at the world, not at itself
- the entire JDK isn't there - logically, the whole thing is an extremely restricted environment. The RCX only has 32K of memory...
- a very primitive toolchain - everything command line and so on. Maybe you could get a graphical Java environment to integrate everything correctly, because basically LeJOS uses the normal Java compiler. Something like Eclipse would probably be overkill in my opinion for programming a small RCX
I think I'll refresh my Java skills a bit during my pre-Christmas vacation and see if I can finally get my ideal freely moving robot working - one that doesn't bump into everything and at least builds up a rudimentary memory of its surroundings. After all, I have two RCX bricks - maybe I can finally realize my envisioned Lego truck with two brains (one for locomotion and basic collision avoidance sensing and one for spatial orientation). And as usual with Lego planning, you first realize that you simply don't have enough Lego bricks. I think that could go down in history as Hugo's first law: You never have enough Lego bricks.
XS: Lisp on Lego MindStorms
Cool - a complete Lisp that runs directly on the RCX. Perfect for the holiday season.
Unfortunately no OS X version, only something for Windows or Linux - and the latter only for the serial tower. Let me see if I can get something working for OS X with the USB tower. I also stumbled upon TinySOAR, a complete AI Agent Runtime for the Mindstorms RCX brick. Also very interesting - and hopefully also runnable on OS X through its embedding in TCL. And also new to me is the Java VM for the RCX: LeJOS. I don't like Java much, but it's definitely interesting for the RCX. And the oldy-but-goldy: LegOS, the complete operating system for the RCX written in C. However, due to its rather hefty toolchain (a complete GCC configured as a cross-compiler), it's somewhat tricky to install. Besides, it's now called BrickOS and is incidentally also under the Lisp as runtime. Here's the original article.
Top lawyers under suspicion of perjury
Tjaja, the oh-so-upright lawyers. Sounds more like a case from a television court, specifically the most primitive private TV variety ...
At WDR.de there's the original article.
Data Protection Officer: Security Gaps in Tax Software
I think it's absolutely ridiculous that the tax authorities want to force this stuff on people before it's even available on all the important platforms. But the fact that you can actually file a tax return or submit a sales tax advance notification using only a tax number and address (which according to impressum requirements must be stated in that document anyway for businesses!) without any kind of verification whatsoever — that really takes the cake.
Brainless, thy name is tax authority ...
At tagesschau.de - Die Nachrichten der ARD you can find the original article.
German Music: Red-Green Advocates for Radio Quota - Culture - SPIEGEL ONLINE
Red-Green is trying to overtake the Union on the right. What a bunch of nonsense. These federal idiots have time for such crap.
Energy companies defend natural gas prices
And they keep lying.
At tagesschau.de - Die Nachrichten der ARD you can find the original article.
GadflyB5: SQL Relational Database in Python - 100% pure Python SQL database
Hesse Significantly Expands Police Powers
Police State Hesse?
At heise online news you can find the original article.
Green light for EU Council software patent directive
And democracy is being trampled on. The European economy too. The only ones profiting from this are the large multinational corporations that are already trying to eliminate their competitors today in areas where it's possible - mainly the United States of Dementia - with idiotic patents. And of course the many patent shakedown companies that try to push through the most absurd things as patents just to make quick money without any performance of their own.
One has to ask oneself who the members of the EU Council (and the national governments supporting them) are actually being paid by. The whole thing simply stinks of corruption.
At heise online news there's the original article.
Red-Green Gets Serious About Access to Files
I don't believe even this watered-down form has a chance of really being implemented - too many refuse and stand against citizens' access to files. Which in my opinion is an absolute scandal in itself - we're supposed to cough up money for projects, but we should absolutely not see what is being done with it. Already absurd.
At heise online news there's the original article.
Al Qaeda, Ku-Klux-Klan - and PDS
Not much comes to mind about that anymore
Barebones pure-Python PostgreSQL client - PostgreSQL client in pure Python - no C compiler required, therefore very portable, but also less feature-rich
Hamster question? Höhn has an answer
We can and will solve the hamster question at the Neurath location.
At WDR.de you can find the original article.
Pirates Response to DreamWorks
Even though the blogosphere is now puzzling over what retractable batons are - the answer to Dreamworks is actually quite funny. Unfortunately, you can't write something like that in this country anymore, because our legal system is increasingly approaching the American garbage heap and, thanks to Schily and other blockheads, is even overtaking it on the right ... By the way, batons are rubber truncheons or police batons - retractable batons being those nice telescopic batons you sometimes see in movies. I won't translate what it means to sodomize oneself with retractable batons.
I found the original article at Der Schockwellenreiter.
REgurgitate - Example of how to tokenize Python code and rebuild it
StupidSheet - Another example for tokenize - a small pure-Python spreadsheet
The Daily Whim: MT Plus Comment Spam Equals Dead Site
An interesting article about the impact of blog spam, especially on Moveable Type hosters. Gigantic server load just because the comment forms of Moveable Type are most frequently attacked by spambots and because the anti-spam plugins for MT are anything but optimal for server load.
US film industry wants to take action against BitTorrent
Eventually the film industry will then sue the plastic bag industry because you can secretly smuggle illegal DVDs in them...
At heise online news there is the original article.
Who says safe computing must remain a pipe dream?
Bruce Schneier with a few tips about computer security. I want to share the most important one here, because I absolutely agree with it: If possible, don't use Microsoft Windows. Buy a Macintosh or use Linux.
Dual system changes ownership
We're outsourcing our shit too. And our fee revenues right along with it. What a bunch of crap.
At WDR.de there's the original article.
BBC NEWS | Europe | Ukraine candidate 'was poisoned'
Well. Dioxin in borscht. I also find the comments from the doctors amusing - they said they had no idea what a high dose of dioxin would cause - previous dioxin poisonings were usually from low doses over a long time. Now they know.
Dive Into Accessibility - Oldy but Goldy - still one of the best introductions to web accessibility
gb - CIA
A fascinating project, the CIA Open Source Notification System. You stick a small script into your CVS and it diligently logs, saves, and distributes every commit. There are RSS feeds for every view and contrary to many other projects that aggregate some large amounts of data, this one is also blazingly fast. By the way, the title links to my user and shows my three projects being monitored there. So if you're curious what I'm currently breaking, you can subscribe to the appropriate RSS feed.
Languages for the Java VM
For those interested in what programming languages are available on the JVM - yes, there are far more than just Java. And many of them are far more interesting than Java. And many integrate very well with Java libraries. In any case, Robert Tolksdorf has started building such a list here. I have no idea if it's complete, but the selection is enough for me ...
(although of course I'm biased and would only take either a Lisp dialect or Jython anyway)
PyX - Python graphics package - Generate 2D and 3D graphics suitable for presentations in Python
SLAVEGROOVE
William Gibson with a few excerpts from an American tract about slavery in the American South. In it, slavery is portrayed as the last harmonious multicultural society and as a particularly Christian society. And this is being read in lessons at a Christian school in the USA. On Gibson's blog I found the original article.
Bill Clementson: LispWorks 4.4 released
Looking at how the LispWorks implementation — originally actually foreign to OS X — is gaining ground on OS X (the previous version already ran cleanly under OS X, but this one has made further progress), one can clearly see how the distributor of the originally and still macOS native MCL implementation is failing in the market. You can't really put it more positively — MCL is in my opinion to be regarded as a debacle these days. At least the biggest news on their websites for 2004 is from the summer — that they got their mailing list running again. Great. MCL was once the star in the Lisp sky. At Planet Lisp you can find the original article.
Durus - Compact object database for Python - fast, but designed for read-heavy systems
Statement coverage for Python - Primitive code coverage analysis for Python
Australia: Controversial Aid Program for Aborigines
Completely crazy, the people down under ...
At tagesschau.de - Die Nachrichten der ARD you can find the original article.
Bundeswehr: Struck reports new abuse cases
Just isolated cases. We have no systemic problem. Move along. There's nothing to see here.
At tagesschau.de - Die Nachrichten der ARD you can find the original article.
Torture threat: Prosecutor demands fine for Daschner
And Pandora's box is open.
At tagesschau.de - Die Nachrichten der ARD I found the original article.
Galactic Baby at Our Cosmic Doorstep
Oh my goodness, aren't you just sooooooo sweet
At heise online news you can find the original article.
IPython - An enhanced Interactive Python
I had already written something about this earlier, but I've only been using it more intensively now. I have to say, the whole thing has developed tremendously. With a few settings in the system and in IPython, the whole system behaves almost as comfortably as a Lisp system prompt.
The integration of display system (on OS X it's recommended to set LESS to '-R' so that color information is evaluated) and editor (of course using VIM is recommended, but it also works quite well with the bbedit command line tool) allows you to work very nicely with the Python shell. On one hand, you don't have to constantly step out to quickly look at files or change a file, and on the other hand, you really get useful information with exceptions (the automatic activation of the debugger helps here).
Automatic deep-reloading too — that is, reloading a modified module while updating the contained references — helps tremendously, since you can finally edit the files directly and test them immediately without having to exit Python every time. Existing references to objects from classes that are in the modified file of course have to be rebuilt as well, since they still reference the old class.
All in all: highly recommended.
Logix Home
A very interesting project: building a language with a far more Lisp-like structure on top of the normal Python runtime. Compiles to the same bytecode as Python. Can be mixed with Python and also supports IPython as a shell.
With Logix, for example, the boundary between statement and expression finally falls away: in Logix everything is expressions. Lambda expressions that execute multiple commands and conditional expressions without detours through boolean expressions become possible.
There are also macros. The definition looks somewhat wild, but all the mechanisms seem to be there as they are also common in Common Lisp. So not just syntactic sugar, but real code-generating macros.
Of course everything is still alpha at the moment, but it already sounds very interesting. I'll keep watching this, it could definitely be interesting for me. Especially because I can mix it with Python.
Packages and small packages are becoming more expensive
It's logical, really. When the service gets worse (because more and more postal offices are being closed), you have to raise prices. Always so counter-cyclical.
At tagesschau.de - Die Nachrichten der ARD you can find the original article.
Sensation in Münster: Mammal Discovered
Monogame Guinea Pigs. Strange. I haven't quite given up hope on discovering the Honest Politician. Maybe that one can be found behind some tree stump in Bolivia too.
At WDR.de there's the original article.
Mediation Committee: Stiegler threatens to go it alone
Hello Mr. Stiegler? Yes, the Union is annoying with their fussing about seat distribution. Yes, the Karlsruhe ruling is frustrating for you. But please think about this: these are our highest constitutional judges. When they hand down a ruling, one shouldn't respond by essentially giving the court the finger with everything one says. No, because a ruling from the Federal Constitutional Court doesn't suit you is not sufficient reason to simply change the Bundestag's rules of procedure just like that. The whole thing sounds pretty absurd. So into the appropriate category ...
At tagesschau.de - The news from ARD you can find the original article.
xmltramp: Make XML documents easily accessible. - small compact XML parser and generator library for Python - nicely integrated into the syntax
RDFLib 2.0.4 Readme - Library for working with RDF in Python