Not enough soldiers? So what, where's the Photoshop?
In this country, you simply grab a couple of 1-euro workers and put them in spare uniforms
At Telepolis News (29.10.2004) you can find the original article.
Archive 22.10.2004 - 29.10.2004
project: darkwave
Label that distributes music by Nickie Jaine and Black Tape for a Blue Girl, among others. I find Nickie Jaine's voice absolutely impressive. There you can also find a whole range of songs as MP3s for download and many audio samples. And it's not one of the major labels with their copy paranoia.
And no, this is not my usual music. Every now and then you have to listen to something new.
SanDisk's budget 2GB Secure Digital card
Crazy. 2 GB for 200 dollars. Under 200 euros. Back in the day you were happy if you had a hard drive that worked — today you've got tiny plastic postage stamps with that kind of capacity. Even crazier: today's megapixel monsters actually make these cards necessary ...
At Engadget you can find the original article.
SLIME: The Superior Lisp Interaction Mode for Emacs - Embed Common Lisp systems in Emacs
The Security of Checks and Balances
The discrepancy between theoretical and actual separation of powers. Not only in the USA, but here in Germany too, the executive is once again trying to seize all power and push the judiciary and legislature to the margins. A development that should alarm anyone who believes in democratic systems. This makes the small victories for democracy all the more important — such as, for example, Parliament's rejection of the European Commission. Unfortunately, in situations like those we're currently being presented with by governments (I can barely stand to hear the drivel about "we are at war with terrorists" anymore — that's complete nonsense; people who say such things have no idea what war really is or have repressed it if they once knew), the other branches of power are often harnessed to the government's cause. An independent Bundestag that also contradicts the government, even when the government belongs to the leading faction, is just as important as constitutional courts that keep politicians in check. Otherwise we'll get 1984, albeit with a delay, but still just as Orwell once imagined it ...
You can find the original article at Schneier on Security here.
58,000 ballots missing in Florida
United Banana-States of America
At tagesschau.de - Die Nachrichten der ARD you can find the original article.
iDrum - The Drum Machine for Mac OS X - Drum kit for GarageBand (and also standalone)
Opel Crisis: Competition with Sweden over the Vectra
Doesn't it get a bit tight when so many people crawl up to the GM managers? I find it disgusting how there's haggling going on and countries are played off against each other. But that's how it works today - first you do nothing when industry gets bought away, then you do even less when everything gets stripped down, and afterwards people try to play everything against each other just to squeeze out the last drop. The blessing of this so-called great globalization.
I found this at tagesschau.de - Die Nachrichten der ARD and the original article.
TuneFinder X
Cool. You enter a melody and the program delivers the song. Problem: I might be able to hum a song, but a) it won't sound anything like the original and b) I still can't input the notes of the melody into a keyboard from that. I could also whistle the melody, but then Jutta always complains ... Here's the original article.
Mediation Committee: Mail Order Customers Should Bear Return Shipping Costs
Because it's annoying for shippers when customers exercise their rights, these are simply being cut back.
You can find the original article on heise online news.
Website operator warned for hardware notification
Now it's even forbidden to report on the existence of devices, if it's up to the lawyers of a mysterious design patent holder.
At heise online news there's the original article.
Barroso wants to reshape Commission
Actually, he could send half the team home. But it will probably just be a minor cosmetic adjustment.
At WDR.de you can find the original article.
iDive 1.1 - Video clip management similar to iView Media Pro, but specifically for video
OpenPsion - Linux for Psion Computers - Linux on Psion Series 5 and Netbook
OpenZaurus 3.5.1 is released! :: OpenZaurus ::
A new version of OpenZaurus - the alternative to the Sharp ROM - is out. And now available in three variants. Without GUI (interesting for those who use the Zaurus as a small mobile control computer and don't need a GUI), an Opie version (the familiar environment that also comes with the Sharp ROM in an older version) and a GPE version. The latter is particularly cool because it's based on an X server and can therefore run normal X programs.
PhpWiki - Open Zaurus Collie Install Guide - Installation of OpenZaurus on SL5500
S5: A Simple Standards-Based Slide Show System - Implement presentations in dynamic HTML
Bill Clementson: Allegro CL 7.0 released
Nice what Franz built into Allegro Common Lisp. However, the exorbitant price for Allegro CL is still rather off-putting for hobbyists. Yes, I know about the free version, but it's not really usable on all platforms - because, for example, on OS X the GUI part has always been missing so far.
At Planet Lisp you can find the original article.
Federal Government Fears Loss of Image
Based on my indirect experiences with Hamburg's authorities, I can well imagine that they would come up with nonsense like the claim that the far-right threat is being massively exaggerated. These are very strange people in the Immigration Office in Hamburg. And to Mr. Schily: Germany's reputation abroad is the last thing I'm concerned about when I see the increasingly strong activities of right-wing extremists.
At Telepolis News (26.10.2004) there's the original article.
The E-Business Weblog: The Pain in the Neck
You should stop me. You should arrest me. You should prevent me from stealing people's time. Those poor people! Helpless victims of an intrusive, mind-straining blogger! If I keep blogging, everyone will lose their minds. Do something! Shut down the Internet! Rain brains from the sky! Duplicate cat pictures! This can't go on. - okay, so I think we bloggers owe help to that poor man. I'm in favor of launching an action "Stop Roell." Who will design an appropriate logo for it?
Double Your Data Volume with the PROshift+ Adapter
Not really new, but elegantly implemented: a shift of the camera within a larger image field produces two images that are then stitched together in the computer to create a larger image. Of course, this only works if the lens also provides the necessary image circle.
At PhotographyBLOG you can find the original article.
iPod Photo, doesn't rock?
Cool. Ok, Phil Askey doesn't quite like it, but he's not always the measure of all things. I don't always agree with him on cameras either.
For me, Apple's description sounds pretty cool. Automatic syncing of downscaled images to the iPod, display via simple cable directly on the TV. You can take your digital photos with you and torture relatives with the obligatory vacation slideshows without having to bring a computer along.
Ok, an integrated card reader would certainly have been awesome, but then Apple would have had to commit to a format and that would have been a bit much. However, they could have implemented USB synchronization with the camera, that certainly would have been possible. But maybe an update will come next year. Anyway, it sounds appealing enough to me that I'm already thinking about whether I should talk my current 30GB iPod off to Jutta to get myself the new Photo part. At Digital Photography Review (dpreview.com) there's the original article.
On the Lookout I
On the Prowl I
Heron gathering in the natural section of the Münster Aa in the Aasee meadows. Probably a guest from the zoo - sometimes you can see storks there too. The image is a cropped enlargement, therefore fewer pixels than usual.
Cassini probe approached Saturn moon Titan
Things are getting exciting!
At tagesschau.de - Die Nachrichten der ARD you can find the original article.
A party where everyone can become anything
At least the fact that they want to wall off Düsseldorf and Cologne I consider an exceedingly sensible measure. Actually, you could fence in the entire Rhineland. As far as I'm concerned, they could even charge admission during carnival season.
The original article is available at WDR.de.
Fred Miranda Releases Velvia Vision Plug-in
Sounds quite interesting. Sure, you can do all of it by hand if you know how. But not everyone feels like figuring it all out themselves - a plugin like that is pretty handy. And Fred produces quite decent plugins - his Stair Interpolation is still one of the best upsizing tools.
You can find the original article at PhotographyBLOG.
James Tauber : Cleese
A project that wants to build an operating system on Python. Launch the Python environment directly from the bootloader and from there on program everything in Python. Funny idea. And why not - Lisp machines were also practical devices, Java machines exist by now, Native Oberon has been around for a long time - a native Python would be exactly the right thing.
Stuttgart: State Minister Slaps Party Colleague
I'm certainly in favor of corporal punishment for politicians: but it should only be administered by voters. Otherwise, I've always been of the opinion that Southern Italy begins below Frankfurt and therefore Italian conditions in state parliaments down there are completely normal.
At tagesschau.de - The ARD News you can find the original article.
Sarah McLachlan - World On Fire
Nice idea. Instead of making a stupid frenetic video, she simply had herself filmed and donated the money that would have gone into production. And now incorporated into the non-video, showing where all the money is going and putting it in relation to what individual production costs would have been.
And as a nice side benefit, her music is also quite pleasant to listen to.
Stupid Users
I can now count myself among them. Really. I just spent 45 minutes searching for an import problem with iMovie - my clips played with sound on the camera, played a sound during import (on the camera as well as - when display off - on PC speakers) and showed normally loud sound in the timeline too (after I set the recording to 16bit - I got that tip from the iMovie FAQ). Well, only when playing back did no sound come out at all.
Eventually I noticed the small icon in the menu bar where the sound waves were stolen from the speaker symbol. After I turned the sound back on, there was also noise coming from the speaker during playback.
Oh man. But at least the MVX 150i from Canon is a really cute little camera with enough features for me. Now I just need to try it out tomorrow in daylight to see what it's like - in the dark it of course has heavy noise in the image.
Not that I needed a camera, but I've always been tempted to make something with my iMovie. And as the guy from the Shockwave always says so nicely: Boys need Toys. You should really start to get scared when I extend my Python Desktop Server with rendering features for video formats.
ETOS Compiler - Erlang-to-Scheme compiler specifically designed for Gambit 4.0
EU Commissioner wants to see Castro die
The biting reflexes of so-called democratically and Christian-oriented politicians in Europe and supposedly free America ...
At tagesschau.de - Die Nachrichten der ARD there is the original article.
Gambit Scheme 4.0 beta 10 released!
Very nice. Gambit Scheme was one of my favorite playthings many years ago - among other things, I tinkered with it long enough back then until I had a DOS version. One that was even reasonably usable. And the features of 4.0 sound very interesting. Especially the comprehensive Unicode support and the threading system sound very good.
At Rainer Joswig's Lisp News you can find the original article.
Gambit Scheme System - efficient Scheme that generates native code via C compiler
iMovie FAQ - Home - FAQ about iMovie - not much, but at least something
Retrocomputing - MIT CADR Lisp Machines
I tried out the emulator for the MIT CADR mentioned in P2879 on a Linux machine. Since it's based on SDL, it needs a direct console or X running directly on the console - it's not network transparent. But otherwise: really excellent. Ok, boot takes forever, but once it has booted, the response time on an approximately 1 GHz Epia is quite acceptable. Optimize the code a bit, get a somewhat more powerful machine and you have a nice historical CADR running. Without having to revive the old hardware. Just beautiful. You get directly into the normal system and have the entire screen for a large listener. With the system menu you can then split the screen into editor windows (with the good old ZWEI) and listener (the Lisp prompts). Mail is included, Telnet and a few more tools for Lisp development. Very nice, the whole thing.
The keyboard emulation is still problematic - you can hardly find special characters. The special characters are oriented towards American keyboards, the normal letters on the other hand to the local keyboard mapping, but not all keys are functional - the umlaut keys of the German keyboard produce breaks, but don't deliver the special characters that actually lie on them and are thus missing.
Besides, the mouse still has serious problems: the area where it can move gets smaller and smaller, so it becomes increasingly difficult to click anywhere.
Otherwise though, really impressive work overall. This could turn into a really nice thing, even if the machine uses not Common Lisp but one of its many predecessors.
If anyone starts it directly from the console without X, don't be alarmed: the special characters are ok. SDL uses AA-Lib internally and thus emulates the graphical elements with characters on the text console. A bit unusual, but quite usable if you don't have X at hand at the moment.
By the way, after startup the machine seems to calculate in the octal system. A (5 6) gives 36 and a (3 4) gives 14. You can probably set the base somewhere for how numbers are displayed. My Symbolics manuals (the Symbolics and the CADR are related) didn't provide anything directly, but I also didn't feel like rummaging through 1 meter of paper.
Genscher mistakenly signed CSU membership application
Really now. Simply slipping Genschman a CSU party motion, that's really mean.
At tagesschau.de - Die Nachrichten der ARD you can find the original article.
Java predecessor celebrates birthday: 30 years of p-System
Oh yes, the UCSD-p system. A beautifully baroque system with oddly obscure system libraries and its statically designed file system, which drove many a user to madness. The editor was nice. And made me receptive to vi. In the first years of my computer science classes, I still had fun with UCSD Pascal - unfortunately, it was then switched to CP/M and first Pascal M and then Turbo Pascal.
At heise online news there is the original article.
Ken Iverson is dead
Probably none of the kids today know him anymore - the inventor of APL and J. Two of the strangest and most interesting programming languages. His work certainly influenced many programmers and language designers, and in my opinion, he deserves to be seen on the same level as McCarthy (Lisp inventor), Kristen Nygaard (Simula and thus OO inventor) and Alan Kay (Smalltalk father). After Kristen Nygaard, he was the second great figure in language design to pass away.
Retrocomputing - Symbolics Lisp Machine Emulation
Someone is already working on the Symbolics emulation. And their approach is extra cool: they OCRed the Lisp sources of the Symbolics microcode from the patent document, converted them, and now they're building an emulator and working their way through the microcode instructions that are missing from the patent. Some people—fortunately—simply have too much free time.
XShelf 1.1.2 for MacOS X - Tool to simulate the old NextStep Shelf (interrupted drag-n-drop actions)