Typical case of over-engineering: instead of simply transmitting the time when regularly logging into the radio cell (whereby the cells are of course centrally fed via time servers from an atomic clock), people are thinking about a mini atomic clock. Completely crazy.
I found the original article at NETZEITUNG.DE Wissenschaft.
Cool. PLT-Scheme (that's MzScheme as the language, MrEd as the GUI library, and DrScheme as the IDE) has gotten an automated package system that allows extensions to be installed from the network. Something like CPAN for Perl, just in Scheme. MzScheme is becoming increasingly interesting as a scripting alternative.
At Planet Lisp there's the original article.
Project Schematics - Diverse Scheme code for MzScheme, including database drivers, wiki, PDF writer ...
It's quite absurd when an employee of a company whose only product is so-called social network software gets fired - because she runs a blog.
That's nice that it's here now. But I think it's a bit much that it only runs from 10.3 onwards. So count me out.
spgsql - PostgreSQL driver written entirely in Scheme
Elephant sounds interesting - a database for Lisp objects based on Sleepycat-DB. Would be another possible building block for a Lisp rewrite of PyDS or similar projects where you need a directly embedded database.
At Planet Lisp there's the original article.
But according to Wolfgang and Federal Gerd, everything is just fine. How far removed they are from reality is no longer even measurable...
The frightening thing about it is that this bunch in the opposition doesn't think it's nearly enough yet, what's being destroyed. So we can look forward to another round of china-smashing after the next election. Until the unemployed and welfare recipients, the asylum seekers and others that our elitist politicians deem not full members of society are where this elite wants them: right down in the dirt at the bottom.
At Pepilog - Berlinerin klagt in Karlsruhe gegen Hartz there's the original article.
Io - nice little prototype-based object-oriented programming language
What can we learn from this? In a kickboxing match between Jesus and Jobs, Steve would win. -
At Gizmodo you can find the original article.
Funny. With all the complaining about unjustified measurements and speed cameras, I'm missing a crucial tip on how to avoid tickets while driving: simply follow the traffic signs. Sure, signs get changed, traffic management gets changed, and some signs aren't necessary. So what? Just stick to the posted speed limit and you're done. Honestly, I can't see any problem there. The only people who have problems are those who violate the speed limit. Why one then has to discuss the rationale behind the limit (possibly even with the police officer who's already annoyed and is writing you a ticket) is beyond me.
But freedom for Germans is apparently defined by speeding on the motorway. Social laws can be dismantled, taxes raised (except petrol tax, of course), civil rights curtailed — all irrelevant, as long as there's no speed limit of 130 on the motorway.
At Telepolis News (30.08.2004) there's the original article.
Sounds quite nice and finally looks like a camera again and not like a spaceship - but I'm afraid the camera will have the same problems as other Sony cameras with high resolutions.
At PhotographyBLOG you can find the original article.
Of course, there are still small utilities with simple programming capabilities. Or scripting languages that are easy to learn and use - for example, Python. But that's not really a solution for these tinkerers. What was once the omnipresent Basic for hobby tinkerers, or for example the - admittedly problematic - language in dBase, is missing today. Hardly any programming environment that doesn't come with an object-oriented approach. Hardly any solution approaches that don't try to be a general development environment for complete programs right away.
There are still some nice exceptions - FileMaker on the Mac still tries to appeal to the hobby hacker. But it's still true: the simple entry points are becoming fewer.
Even AppleScript on the Mac has become so complex and bloated in the meantime that it's hardly possible for a newcomer to just get started with it. Some corners of AppleScript are obscure and complicated even for old programming veterans like me. And of course, while there are many great integration possibilities for all these scripting languages, the documentation for precisely these parts is downright terrible.
To stick with the AppleScript example: while there are application dictionaries that document an application's AppleScript capabilities, nearly all the descriptions I've read in them have assumed that the user already has complete and extensive knowledge of AppleScript and AppleScript structures (what are objects in AppleScript, how do you work with containers, etc.). Although these dictionaries could serve as a starting point for the hobby programmer, their creators (professional programmers in software companies) design them in such a way that often even they themselves can make sense of them.
It's similar in the Linux world. TCL was once the standard scripting language for simple entry with simple structure, an almost primitive extension interface, and the ability for even non-programmers to quickly arrive at solutions. Today, TCL in the standard distribution (which is then nicely called "Batteries Included" - only unfortunately the understandable instructions are missing) already consists of mountains of packages, many of which deal with metaŃŹĐ·Ń‹age aspects (e.g., incrTCL and the widget libraries built on it and on TK - good grief, in just this brief mention of the content there are more incomprehensible words for a beginner than filler words), which a beginner will never understand.
And I don't need to go into the dismal situation under Windows with the scripting host and the OLE Automation interfaces (or whatever they're called these days) - anyone who has experienced a version change of an application and had to completely rewrite their entire solution due to a total change in the scripting model of, say, Access, knows what I'm talking about.
Ultimately, we (we == professional programmers) are taking a piece of freedom away from end users - the freedom to tinker around and yes, also the freedom to shoot themselves in the foot. And I think that precisely in the world of free software, programmers should start spending some thoughts on this again. It's nice that almost every larger program embeds some scripting language. But what's not so nice is that hardly any of these embeddings have decent documentation of their capabilities, and only the most primitive examples and complete solutions for very complex applications are available as starting points for learning. Hobby programmers in particular learn most easily by reading existing tools. And yes, I'm not exactly a good example myself, because the Python Desktop Server has a number of extensibilities that are also intended for end users - but I also wrote far too little documentation for it. Somehow a shame, because that's how many projects become incestuous affairs, because the actual end users are left out. No, I don't have a real solution - because especially with free projects, documentation creation is often an annoying and unpopular part of the project and is therefore treated like a stepchild. Besides, most programmers aren't able to create generally understandable documentation anyway. But maybe that's also an opportunity for projects that try to increase activity in large open source community projects that have had lower participation so far. debian-women comes to mind spontaneously (since Jutta is currently working on it). Because greater participation by women would certainly also be helpful for documentation and information that doesn't necessarily require a fully trained master hacker. After all, not everyone has the desire to spend their entire life learning new APIs and tools ... Here's the original article.
Wow, someone was really enthusiastic about landscape photography there: >Since most people have pretty bad taste, they easily mistake the cutesy postcards for good photography, especially if they are displayed as large, impeccably sharp prints. Hence the success of photographers like Alain Briot, Michael Reichmann, and Ken Rockwell. Their photography is pure Socialist Realism, only not as honest about its program -- relentlessly upbeat, eager to please, depicting the world not as it is, but as it surely should be ... and utterly devoid of power to evoke anything but the most trite and saccharine-sweet of emotions.
I must admit, though, that I do have a fondness for the postcard motifs he criticizes so harshly. I produce some of them myself for my own pleasure. And I don't think there's anything wrong with that — though one should keep it within limits (Velvia can sometimes really be too much of a good thing). However, for several years now I've mostly been shooting black and white film, because for me the interplay of light in landscapes is often the most interesting part — and that tends to get lost in color images. For me, color images have always had more of a documentary character.
By the way, the article is still worth reading (or perhaps especially because of this): it examines the context of a photograph and the possibilities of photography in a very interesting way. Photography rarely stands alone — there's always something accompanying it, even if it's just the title.
Yeah, those crazy advertisers who want to sell every bit of crap are really annoying. Sometimes so stupid that it's actually funny. But this lottery stuff really gets to me - especially when there's a threat at the end: you'll have this invitation in your mailbox tomorrow. NO THANKS! I don't play the lottery, I don't want any advertising for citizen rip-offs. das Netzbuch has the original article.
eBay apparently (I don't know if it's really true) conducts checks on credit card number usage when registering new accounts. In any case, I received two emails from eBay stating that my credit card number registered with eBay was used to open new accounts.
I simply wanted confirmation from eBay that this situation is actually true. The emails apparently come from eBay (both Received lines and other elements are quite clear), so it should really be an email from them.
You would think there would be a simple and direct way to contact eBay about this abuse situation. Forget it.
The email itself only says something vague about contacting them. But not how. On their websites there is a contact option, but you have to search for the right category for this case - otherwise your email ends up in the wrong pile. Of course, credit card abuse isn't something you need to make directly accessible to customers upfront, no.
Then you send an email there and get a banal standard response that emails can be forged. Yes, and? I didn't want to know that, I wanted confirmation of whether my credit card was really used for other accounts and wanted to know how eBay will proceed with it. Whether the email that alerted me is genuine or not should be irrelevant, right? Forget it.
So I send my email to their wonderful spoof address. Then comes a terse response that they don't know what it's about and what my concern is, and they need my member ID. Okay, so I explain everything again and provide my member ID. Fine. Now they want the headers, even though I've already pointed out that the headers point to eBay. Even the Received lines - why does this miserable bot at eBay think it needs to babble about cryptic and incomprehensible header lines to me? I'm not a layperson, thanks, I can read my headers myself.
And now comes the kicker: for this banal information about how eBay proceeds with actual multiple use of credit card data, I cannot send from a different email address, but must send from the one registered with eBay. Because that's so much more secure. And because it's damn impossible with a mere forwarder address like the one I use for eBay. Idiots. They babble about headers and potentially forged emails (and about not being able to receive attachments because of virus risk - which of course unnecessarily complicates sending unmodified emails), but for security they want the sender registered with eBay. As if that weren't easy to forge.
Of course, the whole thing with back-and-forth takes about a week, because eBay only responds once a day. A week after being informed of possible credit card abuse and still no useful answer about what eBay intends to do - whether they will file a report, or if I have to, whether information is shared (whether it's even secured at all), etc.
What a mess. If there were a direct contact point for this admittedly fairly common situation of credit card abuse (preferably via the web interface, since they could then use the login credentials, which would be much safer for identification), and if competent employees were sitting at the other end instead of just bots, the whole thing could have been handled within a maximum of 2 days. But no, you have to make it extra complicated and extra stupid.
Needless to say, eBay points out that the email address used must be able to receive mail to register, but nowhere does it mention that you also need to be able to send emails from that email address.
Now that's quite a crazy idea: a Linux-mountable filesystem that accesses Google Mail via HTTP and stores the filesystem contents there. And it's all written in Python too. I mean, if that's not insane ...
With Google's latest changes, there seem to be problems though, because Google is trying to exclude scripts. So it's possible it no longer works.
vnc2swf - Screen Recorder - Create Shockwave movies from running actions on the screen
Absolute competence in all matters. Where do I get cat pictures now? Our cat has been dead for years anyway...
At Wortfeld you can find the original article.
It would be nice if you could travel by zeppelin. I would much prefer it to traveling by plane ...
At Der Schockwellenreiter you can find the original article.
Not uninteresting. Ok, I would definitely prefer the CM ( Jutta has one, really a fine device), simply because I'm a fixed focal length fetishist, but if you want to have a zoom compact, the CM Zoom is certainly interesting. Ok, only if you're willing to pay the absurd price. But that's normal for Leica.
At PhotographyBLOG there's the original article.
There's something to that. I mean, they're blowing millions on nonsense and then they steal map materials because they're too cheap to pay for them? I always knew it - no satire and no grotesque can be as absurd as real life ...
At Die wunderbare Welt von Isotopp you can find the original article.
Too bad. Heise News didn't understand it either. Webcam users wouldn't be left in the lurch if the module maintainer weren't acting like an offended crybaby and nurturing his poor ego. Because as a module outside the kernel, it would still be possible to offer support without problems (and if the hardware really is so widespread, distributions like Suse would certainly include it in the distribution kernel).
Nobody has a fixed right to be in the actual kernel source with their module. Often it doesn't even make sense - because some modules directly in kernel source aren't properly maintained and thus a constant source of trouble when kernel interfaces change.
And purely binary components of a kernel module are a security risk, since their function cannot be verified. And they directly contradict the GPL - that has nothing to do with overly pedantic interpretation. Binary kernel modules, or even just parts of them, are always a problem. And hooks that only serve to give such a component access to the kernel are not necessarily what I understand as secure kernel design...
At heise online news there's the original article.
Wow.
At NETZEITUNG.DE Science you can find the original article.
librep - A very lightweight Lisp interpreter specifically designed for embedding Lisp in programs as a scripting language
Lush: Lisp Universal SHell - Interesting Lisp dialect with its own statically typed Lisp derivative for efficient compilation
mod_rep - Integration of librep (Lisp interpreter) in Apache similar to mod_perl
Rhizome - Interesting wiki with a focus on semantic content - page references are semantically defined
SourceForge.net: Project Info - Common Lisp JPEG Library - JPEG Encoder/Decoder in Common Lisp
thunk webserver - interesting web server entirely in Scheme - suitable for porting TooFPy?
Bigloo homepage - Bigloo is one of the most powerful Scheme implementations with various code generators (.NET, JVM, and C code)
The module developer is now complaining that his module would be demoted to a second-class module because it could only be distributed as an externally maintained module, but not directly in the kernel tree—because without the hook, his binary-only module cannot be loaded. Out of spite, he throws in the towel and no longer wants to support the module at all.
Where is the logical error? With the kernel developers who reject binary-only modules and don't want backdoors for binary-only modules in the kernel? Hardly.
The module developer could simply continue operating and distributing his module outside the kernel. He just can't be distributed with the hook directly in the kernel. He could distribute kernel patches that patch the hook into the kernel source. He rejects both options.
Such or similar discussions come up repeatedly when individual developers fail with their great idea—and yes, sometimes the failure only comes after a few years because previous maintainers took a more relaxed view of the whole thing. But binary-only modules in the Linux kernel are a constant nuisance: not only can't you fix them because you don't have the source. You also can't do security reviews. And sorry, but any decent admin doesn't want hooks on their system through which unverifiable binary modules can plug into the kernel.
Ultimately, the whole thing comes down to whether Linux must support every piece of hardware, even if there are no open source drivers for it. That Linux can also serve proprietary interfaces is clear—simply develop subsystems outside the kernel and integrate them into the kernel. The support for this is built into the kernel. But must the kernel itself support such modules?
In my opinion, no. It's certainly a downgrade for modules with purely binary components when they can't be distributed along with the kernel. But modules with purely binary components are already second-class citizens in an open source system anyway.
Of course, it may be more complicated for the user (although with Debian GNU/Linux, for example, it's quite trivial to install module subsystems to the kernel), but it can hardly be the goal of an open source system to compromise its own principles to make something easier that isn't even a focus of that system.
The real cause of the problem doesn't lie in the behavior of the Linux subsystem maintainers. The real cause lies in Philips' stubbornness in not wanting to release parts of the driver.
The fact that the module author is now scorching the earth (deleting downloads, deleting the mailbox, deleting sources, FAQs, etc.) just proves that he doesn't get it. Well, someone else will probably take the source and all the stuff and continue operating it—probably outside the kernel. The author didn't get that either. Instead, he's acting like a stubborn child.
Linda and Service Oriented Architectures - Description of TupleSpaces - PDF Version
Optimal syntax for Python decorators - a significantly better alternative to the current decorator syntax in Python
Psyche - A Scheme in Python that can be extended with Python functions
QScheme - compact and fast Scheme based on its own VM
Schemix - Scheme as a kernel module in the Linux kernel
Welcome to Myghty! - Perl's HTML::Mason ported to Python
A Conversation with Manfrend von Thun - Fascinating when a K (APL descendant) fan interviews the creator of Joy (a kind of functional Forth).
Candygram - Erlang Thread Primitives for Python - interesting for ToofPy
Debian Backports - Backports of Debian packages - the answer to "stable is outdated"
So I currently have 6 invitations for Google Mail accounts available. If you want an account, just send me an email via the contact form (the small envelope icon at the bottom right of the sidebar). Please fill in your name, though — I don't feel like sending invites to Donald Duck or whatever.
Main page for the programming language JOY - Joy is a kind of functional Forth
Couldn't you not only rotate it, but also flip the part with the display in front of the optics, that would be really brilliant. Ok, I admit, I have no idea how you'd make something like that work, but still - that would be brilliant.
There's the original article at Engadget.
Oh shit. Now Ilford too.
You can find the original article at PhotographyBLOG.
How annoying, the US Patent Office has no idea again and Microsoft gets a patent on something that's existed for Unix since the 80s
At heise online news there's the original article.
Yes, some programmers of GPL-licensed software probably didn't fully understand the meaning and implications either ...
SourceForge.net: Project Info - DoXFS Document Management System - Document archive with XFS and PHP frontend
The horror won't let go of me: I spent the first 10 years of my professional career programming with exactly this compiler system. An inventory management system. And now the monster is coming to Linux ...
A very interesting interview with Norbert BlĂĽm. My favorite quote from it: That reminds me of the fairy tale of the fisherman and his wife Ilsebill - the more she has, the more she wants. Apparently all their fuses have blown. They think the welfare state is now being auctioned off. First Geisler, now BlĂĽm. With old Union politicians, reason seems to slowly be dawning. Unfortunately far too late - because during their active time in government, they did not stand up against neoliberal ideas and ultimately helped ensure that neoliberal ideas became firmly established in the Union, among other things (I'm thinking of something like the March Hare).
The SPD may still make excuses that adopting neoliberal ideas is necessary to survive in the political arena (which I personally think is complete nonsense). But what excuse does the Union have?
You don't need to ask the FDP for an excuse - they're completely burying their political ideas under the neoliberal dungheap...
I found the original article at Der Rollberg.