Dark Chocolate with Surprising Side Effect
Ok, I'm going to buy heart medication later
At RP-Online: Science I found the original article.
Content-type: matter-transport/sentient-life-form
End of Management
Interesting thoughts on the difference between manager and entrepreneur.
At Telepolis News you can find the original article.
Fast-Food Experiment
The man made sacrifices for his film: lived on McDonald's for an entire month. And the result? Liver damage.
Bon appétit.
At Telepolis News you can find the original article.
French Culture Minister Calls for Laws Against Illegal Music Sharing
And I demand a law against stupid politicians who — ignoring the interests and rights of citizens — allow themselves to be harnessed to the wagon of whatever industrial interests.
At heise online news there is the original article.
Gerster sees himself as victim of a campaign
I'm just saying: black helicopters!
At WDR.de you can find the original article.
I need a CSS expert with IE 6 Win experience
Specifically, it's because of my current layout. As I was told in the comments, IE 6 on the PC is no longer displaying the headings. All other browsers I test with (Safari, Camino, Firebird, IE 5.2 Mac) display everything correctly. I don't have IE 6 for Windows (I don't have Windows to begin with), but surely someone out there has one and knows what I can do to get IE to display it properly. I'd like to keep the layout as it is and preferably not have to use too many perverse CSS hacks. But of course IE users should still be able to read something here – I'm not trying to be that mean to them, even though they do have to use the devil's operating system.
01.24.04 - Spirit Condition Upgraded As Twin Rover Nears Mars
Wow. So the flash memory is causing Spirit to constantly reboot. When it uses RAM instead of flash memory, it works. I'm repeatedly amazed at the ways NASA technicians can analyze remote equipment and restore its function from a distance.
I found the original article at NASA: News Highlights.
Contax N Digital Review
That's a record, albeit a negative one: Luminous Landscape publishes a review of the Contax N Digital, which was discontinued in June of last year.
The test results are quite mixed, as they are with almost all other reviews of this camera. The main drawbacks are the AF system, power consumption, and image quality when using RAW format (noise and moiré) - however, image quality in TIFF or JPG is surprisingly said to be better.
John McCarthy
John McCarthy - Homepage of Lisp inventor John McCarthy
Oswald Metzger has done it!
At Irene's there are matching links to the garbage from Metzger (who truly lives up to his name and wants to slaughter the welfare state), to a response in the Zirbel (with ideas for higher education reform and a critique of Metzger's drivel), to an appropriate link about the economy in National Socialism and a link to a brochure from the Federal Agency for Civic Education about the role of women in recent German history. For the sake of your blood pressure, I recommend reading the Zirbel response first, as the more heated Metzger statements are already torn apart there. The concentrated dose of Metzger's drivel could otherwise lead to more severe physical reactions ... An example: "After all, we all sense that our demographic development – the strike against childbearing that has been ongoing for more than 30 years and has now become self-reinforcing, affecting an entire generation of women (and the men involved) – is destroying the collective economic foundation of our society. The individual economic thinking of DINKs (double income, no kids) undermines, as a mass phenomenon, our social security systems, because ever fewer young active workers must finance ever more and ever older people in retirement with their economic output." - yes yes, the evil, childbearing-striking women are to blame. Somehow one almost expects nothing more now but the condemnation of contraception and babble about holes in condoms, and then you could propose Metzger as Pope ... At Irene // Antville there's the original article.
path Python module
Path Module
If you like to use Python frequently for shell scripts, this module will interest you. A module for very simple processing of directory names and filenames, which is much more elegant than os.path. Additionally, it combines the functions of the glob module and the shutil module.
What normally looks like this with os.path:
# with os.path DIR = '/usr/home/guido/bin' for f in os.listdir(DIR):
if f.endswith('.py'): path = os.path.join(DIR, f) os.chmod(path, 0755) # Assume it's a file
Looks like this with the path module:
# with path dir = path('/usr/home/guido/bin') for f in dir.files('*.py'): f.chmod(0755)
Post from the Experimental Laboratory
A farce of courts and corporate interests that weigh more heavily than the truth: Covenance manages to get two injunctions through court. On one hand, an injunction against video surveillance (an injunction that would at least be acceptable under the argument of employee privacy rights - animal welfare aside, employees have rights too) and one that simply establishes that the video footage shown in Frontal21 (broadcast from 9.12.2003 and from 16.12.2003) was illegally recorded and therefore may not be shown again. The latter is the point where my acceptance of the court ends: since when is press freedom suddenly worth nothing? When private individuals suffer from paparazzi harassment, the public interest is placed higher. But when a company operates one of the largest animal testing laboratories and demonstrably - the video footage exists and proves it - mistreats animals, is the company's interest greater than the public interest?
Absurd. Simply absurd. And one feels ashamed as a resident of Münster that both Covenant and the court ruling in Münster are...
At Telepolis News you can find the original article.
At first I thought I was going mad.
Ok, if you want to have your mind blown, just follow the title link and check out the linked images there. Ouch. By the way, I'm disclaiming any responsibility for the aftereffects.
This here is really perverse.
Cheney: "Tackle ideologies of violence at the root"
Then he should start in his own store. Or is this constant talk of God, the mission to order the world, and the lying about weapons of mass destruction by the US administration not enough ideology of violence?
At RP-Online: Politik I found the original article.
Enough Water for a Manned Mars Mission
Water, water - I only hear water everywhere. And where's the beer? (but there are nice pictures!)
At Telepolis News you can find the original article.
Health insurance companies bid farewell to 13.6 percent
And we're all being fooled ...
At tagesschau im Internet you can find the original article.
MDR.DE: Starfotographer Helmut Newton Killed in Car Accident
His landscape photographs were more to my liking than his female nudes. But there was no denying that he was one of the great photographers of our time.
My first Mac....
... wasn't actually a Mac, but an emulator on the Atari ST. However, only for a very short time, it just wasn't fast enough. My first real Mac was a PowerBook 5300c, which I bought after my PC notebook had been causing quite a bit of trouble back then. The PC notebook has since been sold as scrap, but the PowerBook still works flawlessly. With MachTen I already had a Mach Kernel back then, even though it only ran as an application under OS Classic.
At Industrial Technology & Witchcraft you can find the original article.
Plastinator knew of execution victims
Let's see how much longer he can hold up; right now his entire fantasy world is falling apart around his ears again.
I found the original article at RP-Online: Wissenschaft.
Ranchero Software: Big Cat Scripts Plugin
Ranchero Software: Big Cat Scripts Plugin - Extend context menu with custom scripts (AppleScript and Shell)
SPD Politician: Increase in Solidarity Surcharge Possible
That's just great. Once again we're supposed to pay for the stupidities of the Union government at the time of reunification. And of course the solidarity surcharge is supposed to be used for it again.
At tagesschau im Internet you can find the original article.
Train travel is getting more expensive - record high price for the first time
Translation
That's great. So once again they're fiddling around, so that according to Mehdorn the unreasonable routes over 4 hours become more expensive. The shorter routes will admittedly become minimally cheaper in some cases, but remain more expensive than before the last price reform. Somehow I get the feeling that the railway doesn't work for itself but for the airlines, because with higher prices on long-distance routes the railway certainly won't roll up the market there, after all it already has the disadvantage of longer travel times (and no, dear Mr. Mehdorn, just because you now call an IC an ICE and charge more money for it doesn't automatically make it go faster!).
The only positive thing is the elimination of reservation fees for online bookings, but that still has the disadvantage of train binding even with BahnCard 50 - with counter purchases only the reservation is bound, not the card. And automatic machine sales require that the machines actually work ... (and that the route can even be booked via them)
So once again not a great achievement. Of course the railway management's idiotic decisions are never responsible for market failure, only the employees (who can then be laid off) or the customers (whom you apparently want to actively drive away as well).
Cardinal says gays are perverts but brothels are OK
|KK| In Belgium, the Cardinal seems to have lost his mind: "I am prepared to sign here in my blood that of all those who say they are lesbian or gay, at most five to 10 per cent are effectively lesbian or gay. All the rest are sexual perverts," said Cardinal Gustaaf Joos on Wednesday. "I demand you write this down. If they come to protest on my doorstep, I don't care. I'm just speaking out on what thousands of people are thinking but never get a chance to say," he told the Belgian soft-porn P-Magazine.
If that's not strong enough for you, here's another one: "Politics, democracy. Don't make me laugh. The right to vote, what is that all about? I find it strange that a snot-nosed 18-year-old has the same vote as a father of seven. One has no responsibilities whatsoever, the other provides tomorrow's citizens," he said.
Also interesting is his view on women, especially prostitutes: "If a man thinks he needs sex or is going to explode, it is better to find a prostitute than seduce or rape a girl. At least there are no innocent victims involved," he said.
You don't really need to comment on this crackpot anymore, the gross nonsense speaks for itself ...
DVD Industry Backs Down in DeCSS Legal Dispute
Finally!
At heise online news you can find the original article.
ESA - Mars Express - Mars Express sees its first water
Wow! That's really a speedy success for Mars Express!
Gerolsteiner wants to remain a top team above all
A bit of my secret favorite for surprises in the next season. Sure, not the big names, but interesting riders in all areas with good motivation and often good performances. It could be that they'll make life difficult for one or another safe candidate. At RADSPORT-NEWS.COM - News Overview you'll find the original article.
Gerster apparently largely exonerated
Well, it seems he got lucky after all. Clement must be relieved, since he had really stuck his neck out with his support.
You can find the original article at WDR.de.
Halliburton Admits to Bribery in Iraq Contracts
Maybe some of the connections between US business and US administration will now get their comeuppance...
At tagesschau im Internet there's the original article.
Imaging Resource: Kanguru FC-RW
Imaging Resource: Kanguru FC-RW - portable CD burner with integrated card reader
Trademark lawyer should profit from dubious websites
He says he has no fear about his reputation as a lawyer. - hello? The guy is a lawyer. He's a partner at von Gravenreuth. He works in trademark law. What kind of reputation could he possibly still lose? Maybe someone can explain that to me, I'm really curious about it ...
But whether von Gravenreuth still remembers his own cases that he conducted, in which he wanted to hold everyone liable for any alleged form of trademark infringement? Now suddenly of course nobody is responsible for the actions of clients. Such a remarkable change of heart, especially now that he's indirectly affected himself ...
At heise online news there's the original article.
New Colors
Maybe nobody notices if they use my RSS feed, but for the others I've freed Hugo from this toxic green
I have no idea if I like these colors now, but at least you don't get spontaneous eye cancer anymore.
What I still don't like: titles can't be distinguished whether they link or not. But I have no idea how to do that cleverly - with colors? Or with icons? I'm just not sure about it yet.
Novell says goodbye to United Linux
That's fine too, it was just vaporware anyway. Or rather, just another label for Suse.
At heise online news you can find the original article.
Regulatory authority releases location database for radio systems
The idea is basically good - but then there should be more than this: Description: HTTP 404. The resource you are looking for (or one of its dependencies) could have been removed, had its name changed, or is temporarily unavailable. Please review the following URL and make sure that it is spelled correctly.
Doesn't look like the database is working particularly well
Update: after some searching in the source you can get this URL, where after several attempts you finally get a response now and then ...
At heise online news you can find the original article.
Reindeer Graphics, Inc. - Products
So the idea is already pretty cool: take multiple images with different sharpness and then combine them afterwards in software so that the sharp areas come together and thereby improve the overall sharpness of the image. However, 500 dollars is a bit steep, a decent tripod and a small aperture are significantly cheaper
RSS News Feed: Always know what''s new - The Day - SPIEGEL ONLINE
Yeah. Great. Der Spiegel has an RSS feed. In other words: a . Wow. I'm really thrilled. And of course just one for the headlines. No topic-specific RSS feeds, just one central one for headlines. Brilliant idea. Especially that update interval of 5 minutes. Doesn't sound like they really understood what the point of RSS is. So, dear Spiegel Online editorial team, if you really want to do something innovative, then offer automatically generated RSS feeds for each article category. So people can get their selections the way they want them - not everyone wants to read everything from you.
And as another point, finally offer comment functions on articles, or at least direct reply links, so you can refer to a specific article and the author of that article is addressed directly. Other outlets can do it too...
If you really want to be smart about it, you'd also offer trackbacks. But that's probably asking too much.
Simple Python Aggregator
Simple Python Aggregator - Minimal RSS Aggregator in Python
XML.com: Lightweight XML Search Servers [Jan. 21, 2004]
XML.com: Lightweight XML Search Servers [Jan. 21, 2004] - XML search servers as standalone web servers in Python
Adobe Photoshop: Plugins for Adobe Photoshop
Adobe Photoshop: Plugins for Adobe Photoshop - Lists of plugins for Photoshop
Civil servant died unnoticed
Quite clearly: this year's winner of the civil service mikado
At Industrial Technology & Witchcraft you can find the original article.
CIA Bot - CIA
CIA Bot - CIA - Forward change messages from projects to various channels (RSS, IRC, HTML)
d2r: comment spam filtering - it's all about the IPs - Möglicher Ansatz für Comment Spam Filtering im PyCS
heise online: Bluetooth for telephoning and surfing
heise online: Bluetooth zum Telefonieren und Surfen - Sounds like an interesting product, worth keeping an eye on.
IBM won''t indemnify, plans to win suit
Well, the blue giant is flexing its muscles
At XMLMania.com - Google News Search: SCO Linux I found the original article.
Mars rover "Spirit" is not reporting
Maybe he just met the Beagle and the two of them went for a ride through the municipality.
At Spiegel Online: Wissenschaft there is the original article.
Photoshop plugins for professional photo retouching
Photoshop plugins for professional photo retouching - Photoshop filters for 8-bit and 16-bit photo editing
PyChecker: a python source code checking tool
PyChecker: a python source code checking tool - something like lint for python
RAW vs JPG © 2004 KenRockwell.com
A brainless comparison of JPG and RAW that apparently primarily relies on the author having no eyes in their head. JPG always has artifacts, unless it's saved as uncompressed JPG. But uncompressed JPGs are significantly larger than RAW, since RAW simply stores the sensor data (one color value per pixel!) instead of three color values.
Furthermore, he conveniently overlooked the fact that JPG only offers 8 bits per color channel, whereas RAW typically offers 10 or 12 bits per color channel - which preserves significantly more detail and offers higher dynamic range. Plus, you can then make far more adjustments to this data that don't destructively affect the information in the image.
But of course he only makes perfect images on the first shot and therefore doesn't need any later post-processing. However, the fact that even simple shrinking or enlarging of a JPG means decompression of a lossy compressed image combined with equally lossy recompression, with bicubic interpolation for the shrinking in between - he conveniently ignores that too.
Anyone who uses JPG directly in the camera instead of RAW has a fundamental problem: they're essentially throwing away their negatives and keeping only the first print, from which they then make further prints. No professional photographer would be so foolish with analog media, but apparently there are always people who think the basics of value preservation (which is what a professional's business is built on) don't apply to digital technology...
To his criticisms: my DCS 520 does 3.5 images per second. And that with RAW formats - it primarily only does RAW formats. In a burst it can handle up to 12 images. Newer cameras have similar numbers with significantly higher pixel counts (the DCS 520 only has 2 megapixels). JPG and standard TIFF can be produced in the background if needed - while the camera isn't currently photographing, it converts images. This way you have ready-to-send images available and still have the digital negative available.
As for file size: the negatives are under 2 MB, which isn't a problem with today's memory cards. The same applies to other camera systems with larger sensors; RAW formats are typically in the MB range roughly equal to their megapixel count, at most twice their megapixel count.
The inconvenience of conversion is also relative: an installed Photoshop plugin and I can open the negatives directly if needed. Then I can apply Photoshop's normal batch methods to them. Or I can convert the files using Photo Desk software, which only takes a few keystrokes. If he has to wait for conversion before continuing to photograph, that says less about the RAW format than about his complete inability to build simple automation scripts. And the latter is rather embarrassing for a so-called professional - after all, workflow efficiency is supposedly the alpha and omega of a professional, so you'd expect basic engagement with your tools. And as for the image content being the same in RAW and JPG, that guy is just blind. I deal with JPG frequently enough (for example, my image albums on http://leicaesk.de/ dynamically produce JPG from the original PNG files), the artifacts are clearly visible when you look at fine structures. A good example is ((deleted image, sorry, shut down the server it was on in 2007)) - just go to the largest view and look at the horizon where the wind turbines are. The image was captured directly as JPG; my Olympus E-100RS is just too slow when I shoot TIFFs and the camera can't do RAW. The artifacts around the wind turbines are clearly visible as streaks or shadows. With multiple recompression, the effects get larger. In RAW you have clearly defined contours there without the streaks.
Sure, RAW is proprietary format that needs special software to handle. Of course you should back up standard format files alongside your RAW files - for information preservation reasons TIFF is suitable, since you can use 16 bits per color channel there and color profiles find sensible use. The file size isn't unproblematic there, but the alternative would be loss of information you can never reconstruct again (except from the original negative).
What's certainly true is the speed of some RAW solutions: but that's a software problem. If it's too poor, you should simply consider whether this camera combined with that software is simply the wrong tool.
So my conclusion would be different: shoot RAW whenever possible. Choose camera system and software based on how efficiently this workflow is implemented and how meaningfully the features can be used. Test camera and software as a unit - especially if you want to make money with the tool, the whole chain should work. Petteri Sulonen is of the same opinion; he develops this further and gives good hints.
Test of the iX Spam Filter via Email
Test des iX-Spamfilters per E-Mail - Procmail filter for spam detection - procmail requires too much memory for goggle
Due to Gerster: CDU sees a Clement case
Oh yes, an investigative committee. Today it only serves self-promotion and election campaigns...
I found the original article at RP-Online: Politik.