Open Letter to Martin Walser
I believe there's nothing more to add to that, except a hearty, approving yay. At INSTANT NIRVANA you can find the original article.
Content-type: matter-transport/sentient-life-form
US Department of Justice Takes Action Against Greenpeace
Since we're talking about the misuse of the legal system for censoring unpopular opinions ... (a law from 1890?) At Telepolis News there's the original article.
US Marine restricts sonar use
Amazing.
At Spiegel Online: Wissenschaft there's the original article.
USA prevent resolution against Israel with veto
Class act. On one hand, the US government calls the UN obsolete, on the other hand they keep interfering constantly.
At RP-Online: Politik I found the original article.
W3C adopts new web forms
My feelings about this are mixed. Of course, good standards are helpful - especially when they make the end device and browser more powerful in function, and new, efficient user interfaces can be implemented based on them.
On the other hand, however, the multitude of standards and sub-standards creates so much technical overhead that it becomes harder for ordinary people to get into it. And regardless of how we feel about the result of invalid and partly haphazardly cobbled together HTML dumps, it is precisely this easy access and the fairly tolerant implementation in browsers that allowed HTML and the web to take off in the first place.
It's much more accessible for a lot more people to produce this format - if necessary, you take another site, look at the source and do something similar. Many started that way, many don't get beyond copying - but that doesn't matter, they are present.
Sure, designers recoil in horror, HTML standard purists too, as do software developers. I myself get screaming fits when I look at certain output on the web. But the fact remains that with more complicated techniques, these people wouldn't be here at all.
Would the web be better because of that? Is it really sensible to shield yourself through technical barriers and make the web more elitist? Or is it precisely the haphazardly hacked and sometimes truly awful content that makes the web what it is: an almost popular medium?
The new W3C standards are becoming ever more technical, ever more complex. And in doing so, they raise the barrier to entry. Sure, HTML 4 still exists and will certainly be supported for a long time - but it will become, so to speak, the dumbed-down version. The professional will throw XHTML and XForms around, the amateur with shoddy HTML 4.
I don't know what would be more fun for me. But I'm afraid it would be the shoddy HTML 4...
At heise online news there's the original article.
How to Silence the ODEM Founder
A report about the prosecution's censorship attempts against Alvar Freude. A great way to deal with critics. I wonder if perhaps one authority (Stuttgart public prosecutor's office) is just trying to give support to another authority (Düsseldorf regional president's office)? It's also great that the legal system is being abused for this.
At Der Rollberg you can find the original article.
Andrew Grumet's Commentary on Comment Spam
Evidence of automated comment spam on Moveable Type weblogs. It makes sense for spammers to concentrate on weblog software with significant market share, since they can then push out spam automatically. The infrastructure for relatively automated discovery of Moveable Type weblogs is already in place.
It becomes problematic when this automation reaches the point where it doesn't matter to the spammers whether an individual weblog is indexed by Google or not — then they come with the big watering can, just like with email today. And in the long run, there will probably be no way around registration requirements for comments (or at least some form of checking for humanity on the other end).
Things get really tricky when trackbacks are spammed — because these are inherently designed for automated ping distribution, moderating that becomes difficult. Sure, you can use heuristics to decide whether a spammer is a spammer, but they will occasionally fail.
Unlike wikis, weblogs are particularly interesting for web spammers due to their high prevalence and extensive interconnection — and many protocols (trackback, pingback, comments) are very much designed for openness.
Germany is the export world champion again
Faces of the Economic Crisis.
At tagesschau im Internet you can find the original article.
E-Data strengthens process due to patent infringement
Another piece of evidence for a ridiculous patent that is hard to beat in terms of banality and wishy-washy claims. And companies want patent protection for this? For downloading music with transfer to CDs? For storing software on data carriers when purchasing the software? For on-demand storage of electronic books on e-readers when purchasing? Absurd.
Even though Microsoft is hit again here, patents in such a general and banal form are simply economically damaging. Actually, even the dimmest member of the European Parliament should understand that. Actually.
At heise online news you can find the original article.
Cologne CDU admits to donation misconduct
It's become so commonplace by now that it's almost boring again. Frightening.
At WDR.de you can find the original article.
Reichmann in the Rockies
A report by Michael Reichmann on the Contax 645 combined with the Kodak 16 Megapixel digital back in use in the Rocky Mountains. And although he does not describe the combination as ideal at all (too many minor inconveniences in operation and interaction, plus power consumption), he is enthusiastic about the results and counts them among the best he has produced.
At PhotographyBLOG I found the original article.
Good Apple, Bad PC
Usually I find Jörg Schieb rather dull than entertaining, but his observation that the good guys in movies predominantly use Apple and the bad guys predominantly use Windows is simply true and correct. Just like in real life.
At WDR.de you can find the original article.
Loadbalancer in Python
A special feature of this load balancer (besides the fact that it's written completely in Python): it doesn't use multiple processes or threads, instead it uses asynchronous I/O. This allows many connections to be handled simultaneously in just one thread, which keeps the system load much lower than classical balancers that start a process or thread for each connection. It uses either Twisted or the asyncore module that comes with Python. And the whole thing is also blazingly fast - for example, the same approach is used in Medusa, a web server in Python that comes close to Apache's performance when serving static HTML pages. Here's the original article.
Twiki API
Wow. An API that allows you to edit a wiki via VoodooPad. I think I'll take a closer look at that, it could be interesting for PyDS. VoodooPad could then be used as a frontend, I would just need to make all important objects accessible via this API. And for Twiki there's already an API too. You've got to be able to do something with this kind of thing...
On the Re-Christianization of the West
No religious reference in the European Constitution!
At Telepolis News you can find the original article.
Israel has equipped submarines originating from Germany with atomic bombs
Did anyone really seriously expect that the madness with nuclear weapons could actually come to an end?
At Telepolis News you can find the original article.
Copy protection provider withdraws lawsuit threat
Did someone perhaps notice that fraudsters shouldn't stick their necks out too far?
At Telepolis News you can find the original article.
Zabel irritated after Ullrich''s return: No break clown
I can understand that the idiotic reporter questions annoy him. After all, he has been searching for top positions in the world rankings for a long time, mostly in first or second place. A racing team can consider itself fortunate to have such a good racing driver. And Zabel is anything but a man for just a few races - he always does a full program throughout the year. How a reporter comes up with the assumption that there is no room for Zabel in the Telekom squad is really a mystery to me. But that's how it is, when reporters don't know anything useful to report, they just invent some nonsense to get themselves in the spotlight.
At RADSPORT-NEWS.COM - Nachrichten-Gesamtübersicht you can find the original article.
Copy protection manufacturer wants to sue doctoral student
Is there any more brain-dead activity than suing a doctoral student for exposing the bottomless stupidity of a copy protection manufacturer (actually more of a snake-oil salesman)? The company clearly sold something with its alleged copy protection that simply doesn't match the specifications - because it's not copy protection at all, just ridiculous. Now wanting to slaughter the messenger and then even claiming 10 million in losses from fraud money is really the height of idiocy. At heise online news you can find the original article.
Military sonar let whales strand
I'm not holding out much hope that the military will shut down powerful sonar systems based on the facts. In the long term, court rulings probably won't help either, as they'll simply pull out the big security card. As long as the militarists have their fancy toy, that's what matters, regardless of the consequences. The original article can be found at Spiegel Online: Wissenschaft (link).
No Napster 2.0 for the iPod
That's great. Napster will only support Windows Media formats, but no AAC and no MP3. Very sensible - how many players are there that can play this format? What market share do these few players have? Idiotic decision.
But idiotic decisions are what Napster is most known for
At Gizmodo there's the original article.
Cycling World Championships: Bronze in time trial for Peschel
Not bad for someone who had their lung punctured during the tour
At tagesschau im Internet you can find the original article.
Fun with the Nigeria Connection
Apparently one of the Nigerian scammers has finally been caught. Very good - even if the arrest is probably more due to the police's luck and the perpetrator's stupidity.
I found the original article at Der Schockwellenreiter.
Religion is cocaine for the people
|KK| Yeah, I can only agree with Mr. Schockwellenreiter on that. Update: Der Spiegel has the whole nonsense from the Vatican summarized and in German. Where does the Church get such brainless idiots from? Update 2: There's more at Telepolis. Update 3: Tagesschau also thinks nothing of Sex, Lies and the Vatican. At Der Schockwellenreiter you can find the original article.
Fast Track to Shopping Cart
Pointless Features the World Doesn't Need ...
At Spiegel Online: Netzwelt you can find the original article.
Sculley: Apple should have used Intel chips
Sculley confirms once again that it was indeed good for him and Apple to part ways. I mean, if he really thinks his biggest mistake was Apple not going with Intel chips, then his biggest mistake is probably that he carries around a very personal reality distortion field with him.
His Steveness certainly hasn't always had the right ideas (I'll hold it against him forever that he killed the Newton), but at least the computers became cool again under him. Ok, the fact that he was the boss of the systems shop that let itself be bought by Apple was less his merit than that of his people, but a little bit of luck is part of the business too.
At The Macintosh News Network you can find the original article.
Bill Bond
Yay! A Tarantino Bond would finally be the right answer to Triple-X
At Markus Kniebes Journal you can find the original article.
Building a Balancing Scooter
An overview of a DIY Segway. I particularly like this quote from the list of downsides of the device: I feel like a total techno-dweeb riding it around. It just screams "silicon valley nerd," even more than having 3 cellphones and a PDA strapped to your belt. OK, I am in fact a silicon valley nerd, but I don't want everyone to know it. Here's the original article.
07.10 - 05:03: Color Blind
Interesting - a service that simulates color blindness and thereby allows people with normal vision to understand how their websites appear to color-blind people. Particularly relevant for graphic designers and layouts that rely heavily on color.
I found the original article at ab::gebloggt.
Microsoft Changes Internet Explorer Due to Eolas Patents
Strange world ...
I don't know whether to wipe my laughing or crying eye first.
I think I'll just resort to a simple head shake ...
At heise online news you can find the original article.
New Move Against Copyright and for Copy Programs
It is obvious that the acceptance of DRM systems cannot be decided and implemented by courts. This can only happen through cooperation between rights holders and manufacturers of copying programs - an interesting standpoint. So DRM is completely irrelevant to the user, who is not asked anyway. It is solely about copy program manufacturers wanting to fleece users just as much as rights holders do. User freedoms can then be trampled on without a second thought.
At heise online news you can find the original article.
Technical Incompetence or Wishful Thinking?
When I read the linked article, I had to grin somehow. But then the head-shaking took over at so much nonsense. The article contains so many wrong ideas and interpretations of open source that you can only wonder how so many errors fit into such a short article. The biggest mistake is probably once again the mistaken assumption that open source needs a business model to function. Absurd notion - searching for a business model in the creation and distribution of open source is just as sensible as pulling on the value chain of weblogs. Of course there are companies that build a business model on the existence of open source - similar things exist with weblogs too. But the business model is absolutely irrelevant to the actual engine.
But then I thought about what it would really mean if SCO won (which apart from the article's author and maybe Darl McBride, probably nobody really believes). What would that mean for open source? Not much - the questionable sources would have to be named sooner or later and would simply be removed from the Linux kernel. Version 2.2 is according to SCO's own statements clean, it has already worked, at worst subsystems would fall back to the 2.2 level. Not fatal, at most annoying.
What would happen if the Linux kernel were banned by SCO? Wouldn't that destroy open source? Apart from the fact that this notion is quite absurd, here lies the biggest mistake in the article - a mistake, however, that is made almost consistently in the media. Open source is not Linux - Linux is only one (even relatively small, though significant) component of the entire open source field. Linux is a kernel - and thus important, but only one possible component that can easily be replaced. In the Intel processor environment, one could relatively quickly simply use the FreeBSD kernel (due to its compatibility functions for the Linux API) instead of the original Linux kernel. For other processors, just take NetBSD - much open source is not dependent on Linux anyway, but runs on almost everything that is Unix-like.
And what if companies no longer want to use open source because of the proceedings? Please what? Companies should refrain from using something they can get for free, just because there's a court case in a marginal area? Why should companies do that? How many companies use pirated software, knowing that it's illegal, knowing what that could mean, because they don't want to spend the money? As long as greed exists, open source will also find commercial use. And greed will exist as long as we have a market economy. So for a damn long time.
But surely companies won't release their own things under open source licenses anymore? Why not? It's a fairly inexpensive way for many companies to get free advertising. Besides, these companies rely on project business, less on software creation. The SCO proceedings don't change that at all. And even if it does decrease - much open source is created by individuals, originated at universities, or created in loose developer groups. Companies have contributed things - but usually only those in which they themselves had an interest for their own business fields. If companies no longer contribute to open source, they primarily harm themselves. Open source typically arises from someone having a problem that bothers them - and begins to create a solution for it. Suddenly something should change about that?
What bothers me most about what is written in the press about open source is the complete obtuseness of the authors about the facts of open source - that there is far more than just Linux, that the companies based on Linux are absolutely not necessary for the survival of open source, and that the motivation for open source has absolutely nothing to do with business models: Open source is the enthusiasm of people to create something that other people use with just as much enthusiasm. This motivation, the core of open source, cannot be stopped by court proceedings or bans. Open source would continue to exist even if it were banned by law - then just underground. Because creative achievements by people cannot be prohibited or suppressed - that applies in the software world just as much as with writers, painters, or musicians.
Open source will - no matter what the representatives of proprietary software attempt to do - continue to exist. Get ready for that. There is no going back.
VeriSign Defends Sitefinder
As suspected, Verisign shows no insight whatsoever. But the justifications are truly absurd - presenting price gouging based on a technical monopoly as innovation is quite audacious.
At heise online news you can find the original article.
World Rankings: Zabel ahead of Bettini again
That's how it should be
At RADSPORT-NEWS.COM - News Overview you can find the original article.
Asteroid narrowly missed Earth
Should I rate this as positive or negative now?
At Spiegel Online: Wissenschaft you can find the original article.
The VeriSign Special Session Approaches
You could almost feel sorry for Verisign given the speakers against them. But only almost...
Update: Verisign has convened its own Technological Review Panel. Let me translate the charter here:
- Solicit and gather technical information and data regarding the implementation of the Site Finder service from interested parties. : First collect the complaints and see who among them might look important. The rest simply aren't interested parties according to our definition.
- Distill the received information and data to implementation issues. : If we have to deal with a complaint anyway because the complainant can't simply be ignored, then we can maybe just claim it has nothing to do with the implementation.
- Based on the implementation issues, determine which issues are based on fact concerning the service. : If possible, just claim it's all lies or not real.
- For each issue associated with the service, determine the likelihood of the issue arising for Internet users, and the consequences of each issue for Internet users. : If we have to acknowledge there's actually a problem, try to weasel out of it by claiming it basically never happens anyway.
- Based on the resulting factual analysis of the issues, determine what enhancements could be made to improve the service. : If there's no way around it, make non-binding concessions - we won't implement the whole thing anyway.
- Report the observed implementation issues to VeriSign along with any data supporting such issues. : All the complaints we can't simply lie about, push aside, or ignore get printed out and filed away. Guarantees of fixing problems? Commitment to follow the panel's recommendations? Yeah right, forget it.
And the panel participants even volunteer for this stuff for free. There's certainly no recognition here that SiteFinder was simply monopoly abuse and should never have existed. And no sign that the idea would be dropped.
At Wortfeld you can find the original article.
European iTMS in May 2004?
It's about time...
At Industrial Technology & Witchcraft you can find the original article.
Good Question
The question of what happens to Java if SUN goes bankrupt is quite simple to answer: we'll delete it and everyone will use Python instead!
At Der Schockwellenreiter you can find the original article.
Multithreaded Python for DOS
A Python 2.2.1 for DOS that supports all essential features. Hmm. If someone were to port all the additional modules, you could even run the Python Desktop Server on it. Or how about an AS/400 or VMS? Here's the original article.
Code more beautifully
And there's also HyperEdit. I quite like it because the preview is next to the source rather than below it. That's practical since my monitor is wider than it is tall — this way I don't lose as much context. However, I have to admit that I rarely launch it, since I almost never create any HTML by hand anymore, but instead generate almost everything in some form programmatically.
At Der Schockwellenreiter there's the original article.
System of info screens in Hamburg U-Bahn cracked
No wonder - such a system tempts you to hack it. And if it runs on WLAN without encryption, it practically begs for hacks.
At heise online news there's the original article.
Unheard of false assumptions
In this context, perhaps not entirely unimportant is Haim Saban's criticism of Middle East reporting by German television broadcasters. Haim Saban was, together with Rupert Murdoch (among other things owner of Fox News Network), for example each holding 49.5% of Fox Family Worldwide (meanwhile sold to Disney - the money probably went into the Kirch deal). Murdoch was also the one who bought Saban's Power Rangers import and thereby established Saban's wealth. I think given that background it's fairly clear what he meant with his criticism. That we would be informed equally fair and balanced as Americans are through Fox News. At Telepolis News there is the original article.
Why I hate Microsoft ...
Security holes in Internet Explorer are a dime a dozen - of course there are patches for them too. So just install them. That's quite simple, right? Wrong. IE 5.5 is installed - the patch is only available for IE 6. But you can just update the browser, right? Wrong. IE6 requires Service Pack 6a on NT4. But you can just install that, can't you? Wrong.
And now it got really wild: I have an NT4 with IE 5.5 on it. Installing the normal SP6a gave me a message that I was trying to install a normal encryption version over a high-encryption version and that wouldn't work. But there's no high-encryption SP6a - you literally have to patch the normal SP6a by hand! So unpack the service pack, search for update.inf, search for the checksecurity.system32.files section, throw out schannel.dll from there. Now you can finally install the service pack. And the first reboot, because I just want to patch a browser.
Ok, then finally install IE6. It churns away for an eternity and what comes next? Of course, the reboot. Because I just want to patch a browser. The fact that it keeps working after the reboot was clear. What the heck is it doing with all that? It's just a damn browser!
Then finally install the cumulative patch for IE6. Which, surprisingly, doesn't require a reboot. I thought. Until the question came up whether I wanted to restart now. It's just a browser! A damn browser! A crummy application program that needs to be patched because the manufacturer is too stupid to do it right!
That's just bullshit. (Side note: Of course this isn't a real Windows system, but a VMware - so I could work in parallel, namely under a real operating system
)
ES5 developers remove backdoor
And do we believe you? Nope. Better not to. Once a liar, always a liar. At heise online news you can find the original article.
Grafmatic Sheet Film Holder
A very interesting peripheral for large format cameras with Graflex mount: with this magazine you can expose 6 film sheets in succession without having to deal with cassette changes. In principle something like a revolver cassette that you can pre-load - has some similarity to the pack film cassettes for Polaroid, except that the films here are not bent, but rather pushed backwards inside the cassette through the click-clack process.
Particularly cool: you could adapt these parts to other cameras. I at least have the option of such an adapted cassette for my Polaroid 600 SE.
Update: I won the auction on eBay. Let's see what I get now.
Fight against windmill[...]e>Chimney sweep
If I consider that the exhaust duct of the gas burner might be clogged with a bird's nest (and I know from my own experience that this is not absurd - at our place not only was there a bird's nest in the air shaft, but an entire crow was sitting there and had to be rescued by the fire department), I'd rather let the chimney sweep earn his money. And all these smoking chimneys around here - where people have switched to wood burning - should probably also be properly maintained.
I think Mr. Theisen should rather switch to tilting at windmills.