Amazon FPS, Amazon Flexible Payment Service - I didn't know about this one yet. A payment service as a web service for integration into your own systems. And it explicitly supports micro-payments through the aggregation of sub-cent payments. Sounds quite interesting. Specifically, the possibility of using Amazon account balances as an alternative to credit cards or bank accounts opens up completely new possibilities - and Amazon accounts are quite widespread. Does this whole thing already work internationally? It should actually.
Archive 20.7.2007 - 3.8.2007
Multiverse - now available in version 1.0. Currently clients only for Windows, the server however in Java, and thus multi-platform. Competitor to Unity and TGE - although Multiverse definitely focuses on MMOG. Maybe interesting for tinkering projects.
Under house arrest - how the blogosphere is silenced with cease and desist letters and court proceedings. Sure, you can sometimes win in the next instance - but it costs to get there first. And in many cases, the legal protection insurance has a clause in the contract that excludes the matter at hand. How convenient.
US-Election computers cannot guarantee trustworthy elections - this will certainly be completely ignored. Because, it's only about elections.
Virtualization Rootkit Blue Pill available - here comes the fun.
Zypries intensifies criticism of online raids - hmm. Are there elections coming up somewhere? Or is the ongoing discussion just an expression of the summer doldrums?
EU lawsuit against German data protection laws - because the data protection officers are not really independent. Will it have any effect?
1.3 Megapixel USB Digital Microscope - doesn't look bad. Could be a nice toy.
Leica M8 Review: 1. Introduction: Digital Photography Review - to be honest, at that price, some of the quirks are simply not acceptable. Sorry. And for the Leica fans who might want to hit me: I myself have an M6 and am very satisfied with it. The M8 is simply not the digital M I had hoped for (and the poor rangefinder base plays a part in that).
Scan This Guy's E-Passport and Watch Your System Crash - e-Passport. A complete disaster.
Results of the largest "hacker" test for US voting machines are available - the politicians will surely argue everything nicely after corresponding payments from the industry ...
Tough stance against drug offenders - naturally only against "hard" drugs. Such as hashish, for example. Because that is much worse and more serious than alcohol, which teenagers can already buy from the age of 16 in the form of beer. Because nobody becomes addicted to beer and no harm comes to society and the young people will cope with it very easily. But hashish, yes, that is much worse. The loss of reality among the prolethicians is really shocking ...
Project Wonderland - a 3D world software under GPL by SUN. Client and server naturally in Java. Sounds very interesting from the approaches - content is currently only enabled via X3D importer.
Skeptical Science and Technology Quotes - “There is no reason anyone would want a computer in their home.” - Ken Olson, president, chairman and founder of Digital Equipment Corp., 1977
The undead don't live longer: No Amiga Center in Kent - Zombies of computer history.
Uh Oh. Another Smooth Move from Microsoft: Watch out, Ruby. Watch out OSI. - about the moral sellout that the OSI is currently engaged in. Sorry, but as long as a company like Microsoft so vehemently opposes a - certified! - Open Source license, you can't backdoor other things from them as a valuable contribution. But that has always been the essential difference between the Open Sourcers and the Free Software people. And also the reason why I sometimes prefer the perhaps somewhat fanatical statements of Richard Stallman over those of the so-called "pragmatists". Because they are ultimately only after money - and thus purchasable.
Anti-Grain Geometry - Texts Rasterization Exposures - everything you never wanted to know about fonts, hinting, and anti-aliasing, but you get told anyway.
Top official of the Federal Police had his employees' emails monitored - "The chain letter 'additionally burdens our IT network and reduces processing speed,'" explained department head Fritzsch in an employee letter, justifying the online raid. Well, well, abuse in online searches is certainly excluded in such officials ...
WGET 1.10.2 for Windows (win32) - you always need this from time to time.
"Second Life" for Germans - what nonsense. First of all, the German community in SL is already quite large, so a SL-in-SL for Germans already exists - and secondly, there is probably only pre-made content in this "Secret City". When will the press finally realize that the special feature of SL is user-generated content, and that no system without its own content creation can be a real competitor to SL? There.com is a competitor. OpenCroquet could be one. OpenGrid (based on the SL protocols and its open-source client, but its own grid) will certainly be one. But silly 3D-MySpaces and chat channels? Ridiculous ...
Investigation of the subscriber in file-sharing criminal proceedings is unlawful - the reasoning of the court reads so convincing and logical, I bet it will be overturned by a higher authority.
Japanese Watch Maker - fascinating watches.
Rasmussen fired and removed from the Tour - but is the replacement in the overall standings any better? Contador was a customer of Fuentes ... will Discovery be ready to draw similarly painful consequences? It is clear that only if the teams take a hard line can they retain any credibility. Rabobank's reaction may seem exaggerated - but the sponsor will certainly see it differently. A bank does not like it when its name is booed and hissed.
Stackless Python soll Eve Online schneller machen - as exciting as the software base is for me - as boring the game is for me. I've noticed again with Eve Online and Vendetta Online how incredibly boring space is for me. At least when it consists of zooming around in spaceships and trading. If someone ever makes such a game with the possibility to walk around on planets and create your own worlds, then I'm back on board.
The Church of the Latter-Day Dude - the dude abides.
Antique engines inspire nano chip - nano-computer inspired by Babbage's Differential Engine.
Playing it safe? - the movie now at archive.org. Go watch it!
British music industry attacks government - "... artists are having their works taken and record companies are being robbed of their investments ...". Please what? Can it get any worse? Artists are not being robbed of anything - this is simply a fact of the law, which after a certain period of time, causes copyrights to expire. This only concerns specific recordings, not e.g. song lyrics (which are protected for a longer period). The idea that it is the task of the law to guarantee an industry its sources of income is quite absurd. In other places, the same people would be outraged about state subsidies, but here it is loudly demanded. I mean, let's speak plainly: these recordings have been profitable for 50 years, secured by copyright.
…free your imagination… - a website that reports on newly discovered species.
iPhoto Library Manager - pimp your iPhoto.
Jamendo : Fabrice Collette - good French blues. Under CC license. I really should have learned French instead of Latin in school ...
Tour continues, despite all problems - "Is there more doping in the 100m race or in the marathon? For ten years we have been shortening the stages, with known success. People don't cheat because the race is hard, but because they want to win, for fame and money. If there were Olympic sack races, people would cheat there too to win."
We're All Gonna Die - "Will everyone forget about the scandals of June and July 2007 amid these deadly warnings of coming death?" - unfortunately, this also fits our situation far too well. Schäuble's saber-rattling.
DarwiinRemote - Driver to connect the WIIRemote to the Mac.
RE: question about Erlang's future - Erlang's status at Ericsson today (not as positive as one would wish, but an explanation for Bluetail and e.g. their SMTP server in Erlang).
The Real Problem With Alexa - taking a closer look at Alexa's number nonsense.
Judgment against Skype for GPL violation - it seems that with every case that is actually opened, the legal certainty of the GPL increases. Very good!
David Carr: Deadlines, Overtime and Undertime - what overtime really does in a programming project. Would be nice if managers read that. But they have been ignoring "The Mythical Man Month" for several decades anyway ...
What Linspire Agreed To - "It's worse than Novell's, actually. It's worse than Tivo, in my book. I know some say that Tivo doesn't interfere with you modifying, as long as you give up using the modified software on Tivo hardware. To me, that is a penalty not contemplated by GPLv2, because if you buy a Tivo, it's because you wanted to use the software with the Tivo hardware, but with Linspire's agreement, you have to give up pretty much all your GPL freedoms, as far as I can make out, and more. And what do you get in return for giving up everything? True Type fonts, Windows Media 10, DVD playback, patent coverage..."
Chax - miscellaneous iChat improvements - pimp my iChat.
Played through - Draw.
iGlasses for iChat AV - pimp my iSight.
Learning from Dave Winer - ok, only when it comes to blog comments. And yes, I have also drastically changed my format by using the link component much more strongly instead of the page component (pages automatically have comments for me, links do not). If I write longer texts, I might want comments. If I just point somewhere, rather not.
Tiny PC sips power, runs Linux - nice little box.