Archive 31.8.2004 - 14.9.2004

Whoever Bribes Gets on the List

A good (and correct) idea. However, the question immediately arises as to how much and to whom bribes will be paid to avoid getting on the list ... Cynical? Me? Not at all. That's called being realistic. At WDR.de there's the original article.

2 GB Data Uploaded

Pretty funny. Today my blog reached the limit of 2 GB of data uploads. So through all the changes, new posts, images, etc., I've uploaded a total of 2 GB of data to the server since my blog's existence. Since the Python Community Server had a life counter for uploaded bytes, I wasn't allowed to participate for a while until I patched the Community Server accordingly.

BBC Radio Player - BBC 6 Internet Radio

Collations and Linguistic Sorting - How Unicode sorting works

Europe's Last White Whale Has Emigrated

Sure, for the animals it's the better solution - after all, the tank really was too small for these animals. But somehow I feel a bit nostalgic - after all, I saw a whale up close there for the first time. A real whale, not just a dolphin. It was pretty cool back then. Even though I realized as a child that whales somehow don't belong in zoos.

At WDR.de there's the original article.

The Leica and its history - Leica IIIg - Information about the Leica IIIg

Emacs on Aqua - And here an Aqua version is being built - but still quite buggy

Cake Destruction ...

... advanced stage. ![131-400-300.jpeg][P1]

RSS Bandwidth Again

Dare Obasanjo has provided the right answer to the silly RSS consumes too much bandwidth complaints from MSDN. Yes, the MSDN blogs were apparently set up pretty stupidly - especially their aggregator and server had no proper support for Conditional GET. If I got a euro every time a blog hoster handles this topic stupidly and incorrectly and then complains about the evil bandwidth, I'd have at least 5 euros by now. But I do find it telling that Microsoft is too incompetent to get it right, drowns in traffic and has to switch feeds from full feeds to title-only feeds. Somehow fitting - it's not the first technology that Microsoft has botched.

Here's the original article.

mindlube software / developer / revclips - Integration of CLIPS - Expert System Shell - in Runtime Revolution

mindlube software / developer / revzeroconf - Rendezvous Library for Revolution - even cross-platform

mindlube software / emacs for os x - Another Emacs version for OS X - this time only as .APP

Cake destruction ...

Cake destruction ...

Cake destruction ...

... advanced stage.

Porkrind Dot Org: Carbon Emacs Port - Emacs 21 for OS X

Black Cat, White Tomcat

Now I've burned it to DVD.

Here you can find the original article.

Shell Tools from the Old Days

open still exists under OS X as well. The other two colleagues are now called pbpaste (writes the clipboard to stdout) and pbcopy (copies stdin to the clipboard). And the tools are still just as practical.

At Die wunderbare Welt von Isotopp you can find the original article.

Vim (Vi IMproved) for Mac OSX - VI Improved is also available for OS X - with Aqua Interface

Voigtlander 35/1.2

I just noticed this today - but it's been around since mid last year. I think it would be an interesting addition to my M equipment - even though I'm actually aiming for maximum compactness. Because a 1.2/35 ultimately delivers more than a 1.0/50 - the shorter focal length allows for longer shutter speeds without camera shake. And the depth of field is greater, making it less critical than with the Noctilux. Besides, with available light, the angle of view of the 50mm is often already too narrow. So the 1.2/35 could be the ideal available light lens.

Here's the original article.

Moblogging Test

I'm playing around with photo-moblogging. The image quality from the Clie is pretty poor - but Bluetooth+GPRS is quite practical ... ![130-400-300.jpeg][P1]

OzTeX - The most important TeX implementation for OS X

9-11

I remember it very well too. I was sitting at the computer and had the TV on in the background. I was hacking away at something - I think I was on vacation or working from home. Suddenly Jutta came in and said that a plane had crashed into the World Trade Center. We briefly discussed what might have happened - possibly an error in the flight control system? Meanwhile, I switched over and watched the images. Shortly after, the second plane crashed into the other tower. It took me a long time to believe what I was seeing. I still had some hope that it was an error in the flight control system, but then the plane hit the Pentagon and after that it became clear that it must have been a terrorist attack. After that, I spent hours trying to find more information, flipping through news channels all day, trying to access websites and looking for where to find news. In between, I called the office and spoke with colleagues - they had only heard about it on the radio up to that point. Dirk Steins has the original article.

RFC 2229 - RFC for the Dict Protocol

Squawks of the Parrot: Suboptimal optimizing

PostgreSQL has a bug when optimizing LIKE expressions.

The Web is Small

That's how you wander through the RSS reader and stumble over one thing after another, eventually landing on someone you've already discussed the correct functioning of mail/newsreaders (or MausNet frontends) with in the MausNet. Weird. The web is definitely too small.

Here's the original article.

Cologne Stollwerck factory to close

Shame. Okay, Stollwerck was never really my favorite chocolate - I'm quite spoiled by Cluizel, Valrhona, Dolfin and Domori, everything else is just chocolate garbage to me - but still, somehow it belonged to Cologne. Hopefully the chocolate museum will remain there.

At tagesschau.de - Die Nachrichten der ARD there's the original article.

More on Nokia's 9300 Communicator

Looks nice. Maybe I should swap out my private phone for something more current at some point. After all, I still have such an outdated S3 Com for my private plan, so the Nokia is even smaller.

You can find the original article at Engadget.

Rolleiflex T - Information about the Rolleiflex T

Sony Has Stupid Ears

I have a Sony Clie PEG TH55 - a nice device that has everything a business PDA needs. So camera, MP3 player and other gadgets. Oh, and of course it can do calendar and stuff too.

What it can't always do though: play my MP3s. I have various MP3s created with different programs. At first I thought only the 192 kbit MP3s from iTunes were causing trouble, so I quickly converted a bunch of songs from my iTunes to 128 kbit MP3s (using Amadeus II - a really cool audio editing program!). Well, the result: Pink Floyd songs work, those were converted from AAC tracks (I ripped them more recently). Emerson, Lake & Palmer doesn't work - those were 192 kbit MP3s before, but were saved as 128 kbit MP3s the same way. With the same software.

Anyway, my iPod is much nicer and more pleasant for music anyway. I had just hoped to get by with just one device in an emergency, but that's only very limited with the Clie. Annoying.

Back ...

... at least physically. The rest arrives tomorrow.

NASA space probe Genesis crashes

Nice Crater.

At NETZEITUNG.DE Wissenschaft I found the original article.

Blog vacation until Thursday night

That's why there won't be anything new here until then. No, I'm not moblogging. Check out the old stuff, or read some more interesting blogs, I'd rather explore Hamburg instead

HyperPAD - Application Development Software published by Brightbill-Roberts and IQ Technologies.

While browsing through old software and investigating what became of it, I came across the now free — as in free beer — availability of HyperPad. HyperPad was a programming environment for DOS computers that was heavily inspired by HyperCard. No graphics, but a pretty good recreation of what made HyperCard special — and an almost identical copy of the programming language. Quite amusing for the time, when integrated development environments with GUI builders were still utopias from the workstation market.

Here's the original article.

Perversion, this time public-service broadcasting

Just as the special report on the storming of the school in the North Caucasus is ending, they run an ad break. One advertiser offers CD collections of church hymns with a note about these terrible times to calm Christian souls, another advertiser offers the folk plays of the Theaterstadl on video cassettes.

Does nobody at ARD have even a shred of sense left in their head? Right after images of dead children, the injured, and terror footage, while the question still hangs in the air about how many children may have been killed there, and while the numbers of injured are climbing, an ad block airs? Could it be in worse taste?

Sorry, but I'm normally only used to this kind of tasteless stuff from the private broadcasters—and I find it extremely tasteless there too. But for the publicly-funded ARD, which is also financed by my GEZ contributions, I consider this outrageous.

Of course, you can't put the entire television program at half-mast all the time. But the greed for advertising revenue should surely take a back seat to common sense at ARD...

Dispute over Microsoft's patent claims shakes anti-spam standard

I hope this Microsoft proposal will be firmly rejected. This is absolute nonsense, what Microsoft is imagining here - an anti-spam technology that is patented by Microsoft (or any other company - only Microsoft is particularly suspicious due to its embrace-and-extend practices) simply must not be accepted as an IETF standard.

At heise online news there's the original article.

What kind of crap you can find on eBay

Taken from an auction description via copy-and-paste. I suspect that despite his disclaimers, he's operating well outside legal boundaries here, especially since it's going to be hard to sell a 5-pin network cable and similar nonsense.

3Com Network and "Hacker Card" for Sale

The unique opportunity here on eBay!

A 3Com 905B – TX Rev. 03-0172 410

The revision with the "error" known in the hacker scene

Which consists of the card having an incorrectly built encoder (H1012).

With this encoder you can make all data stored on the Internet visible

  • Break SSL encryptions up to 2000 times over
  • Open and close http protocols undetected
  • Program and delete htts, httm
  • Inject Java programs into network ports undetected
  • Online access to servers and computers
  • Access to private computers
  • Ghost logs on networks

And much more!

For legal reasons, I'm selling the card as a network card

Which is basically what it's intended for anyway.

Without illegal hacker software!

But you can find it on the Internet!

The Netscape cable is inserted into the card on an EEPROM basis.

The cable is 90cm long and has a Netscape 5-pin connector.

Sale as network card with 10/100m/bits

And RJ45 connection.

PCI card!

So dear eBay security team, this is an auction that doesn't violate the guidelines!

I got this card from San Jose (California, USA) and I paid $429 (USD) for it in early March 2004!

I assume no liability for damages caused by the card or its misuse with various programs from the Internet!

!!! Sale as a completely normal network card !!!

Shipping costs are €5.90 with DPD as an insured package!

Since I don't want trouble with the police or the public prosecutor's office, I'm selling the card here as a network card!

If you have any questions, just send an email!

Best regards

The depressing part is the two bids. Okay, it might still be a cheap network card, but honestly, throwing money at such a brazen lunatic is really stupid. But the bidders probably actually believe this garbage...

Leica - OBE - Prototype 2

Wow. Leica is ripping off collectors again. That's fine, they should bleed for their foolishness.

Sorry, but this is really absurd. I can still accept a replica of the prototype. But all the fuss around it sounds more like esotericism than photography. At least this 0-series edition finally has a rudimentary viewfinder - unlike the last version which was just a wire mess with a crosshair.

Somehow I find it fascinating how Leica products range from a digital module for the R9 to the M-system with high-performance optics, to compact cameras and digital compacts (usually a bit overpriced) to such crazy things as gold-lacquered and snakeskin-leather special editions and things like 0-series replicas.

I still prefer to stick with the M-system. Sure, I pay a lot of money for it, but at least I get decent MTF diagrams for my lenses and a really easy-to-use rangefinder camera. If I feel esoteric (and have too much money) I can always buy an MP.

Here's the original article.

Milosevic is no longer allowed to defend himself

Were they perhaps tired of his hours-long absurd rambling?

At tagesschau.de - Die Nachrichten der ARD you can find the original article.

Call for Trackbacking

Yeah, Serendingsbums is soooo great and can do soooo much with trackback. Unfortunately it only implements trackback autodiscovery (which is a dumb idea to begin with, which is why the Python Desktop Server naturally doesn't do it) and doesn't even have support for the trackback module in the RSS feed (which would make trackbacking posts from the aggregator easier, if the aggregator evaluates the trackback module - which the Python Desktop Server does, because it makes sense) ...

Devil's grin

At Die wunderbare Welt von Isotopp you can find the original article.

Dialer page enters "OK" in the dialer [Update]

There are no legitimate applications for dialers - it's all nonsense. The few situations where it might possibly make sense can be solved in other ways. This entire dialer garbage should be completely banned, end of story.

At heise online news you can find the original article.

Dreamcard offers Hypercard-like environment

Is there finally an adequate successor to HyperCard? For an old nostalgic like me, that would certainly be something. It would also fit well with my rant about end-user-friendly programming solutions - because HyperCard was something that end users could tinker with endlessly and create their own small solutions without having to complete a computer science degree first.

At The Macintosh News Network there's the original article.

Morons in the News: Diebold Machines Appear to Have Built-in Code for Fraud

A new voting machine scandal in the USA?

At morons.org headlines you can find the original article.

Rebellin becomes Argentine: With new passport to the World Cup

That's quite a cool reaction. No ranting, no verbal outbursts - just switched citizenship and Italy's left empty-handed.

I found the original article at Radsport-News.com.

Smalltalk/X - the forgotten Smalltalk

Forgotten because I never think about it being there. Yet it is one of the more interesting implementations: free as in free beer, even for commercial purposes. Support costs money (which is fine). Good portability - unfortunately not available on OS/X - when you consider Windows and various Unix systems. And a compiler that generates natively executable programs directly - especially practical for classical application development. Due to the nature of compilation (via a C compiler), integration of external C libraries is also good. So if you can live with the platform limitation, it is certainly a very interesting implementation.

Here you can find the original article.

WebHome - Cookbook - s c h e m a t i c s : c o o k b o o k - Cookbook for practical Scheme applications

Doubts About the Reliability of eBay's Security Concept

They have no security concept. After notifying me about the possible creation of new accounts using my credit card data - and thus potential credit card fraud - I have received no confirmation from eBay to this day as to whether the notification is genuine and whether my credit card data was actually used in full.

Credit card numbers can be automatically generated and then used - only through combination with address and name does a potential misuse result. Preventive blocking based on a non-detailed report would make credit cards pretty unusable.

Although I have meanwhile fulfilled all the strange requirements from these support trolls, there is no confirmation and no information about what eBay is now doing in this case. It would also be far too easy if they actually provided support.

The simplest thing would have been to just answer my question with "no, our data shows no multiple use of your data" or "yes, we have account registrations that use your complete data" or something similar. But no, instead you have to jump through a pile of pointless hoops and in the end you simply don't get an answer anymore. Really great.

Update: today I finally got a terse response (filled with technical incompetence about supposedly non-falsifiable header lines that point to some identities in emails - nonsense, the only non-falsifiable headers are server forwards, that says nothing about identity), stating that there are no irregularities and no double use of my credit card. Where exactly the emails came from that informed me about this double use (and where the non-falsifiable headers clearly mentioned eBay servers), they didn't tell me. Although they previously wanted to know exactly in several emails from me which headers these emails had so they could verify their authenticity.

In summary: a lot of blabber, a lot of delay, but in the end the whole thing leaves at best a feeling of confusion and technical incompetence at eBay. Given that they also operate one of the larger internet payment services with PayPal...

At heise online news there's the original article.

Apache 2.0 module mod_macro - Macros for Apache configuration

Carvware Software - Make useful use of game controllers and multi-button mice under OS X

eBay.de: Domain Hijacking Made Easy

Wow. So much incompetence from two involved providers is pretty heavy.

astonished face

At heise online news there's the original article.

Google Mail Invites Invasion

I had laboriously worked my way down to 4 invites (despite a temporary top-up from Google), and now I have 6 again. Who wants one, who hasn't had one yet? If so, please use the email form.

Hamburg Senate in Law-and-Order Frenzy

Hamburg soon the largest facility for open incarceration, with automatic suspicion of every citizen? And all of this completely without Schill? Fantastic. Of course, all of this has a lot to do with the much-invoked Hanseatic openness to the world. The Hamburg policy failures are still managing to spoil my favorite city for me ...

At Telepolis News (31.08.2004) you can find the original article.