Cyborg-Feeling for everyone - if they have the 600 euros. Otherwise, wait for the mass-market version. Techno-phobias and warnings of the downfall of the Western world by the personal environment included.
Archive 9.5.2007 - 23.5.2007
Google turns the page… in a bad way. - how Google nests on Dell computers. No, not just the toolbar, but an additional tool for redirecting to ad pages.
Inside the Monkeysphere - interesting.
[Introducing Mahlee™](http://www.kirit.com/Introducing Mahlee™) - Multithreading for JavaScript.
PyCells - calculating memory cells. Basically something like a machinery for spreadsheet calculations. Hadn't I already seen that before? Never mind. It's still interesting.
Ex-Telekom-Profi beichtet Doping - well, that's probably the end of the clean record of Team Telekom.
Innere Sicherheit: The Scent of Terror - the use of tried and tested Stasi methods is certainly simply consistent with the current situation. Or so. (read while it is still openly accessible)
The Birth Control of Yesteryear - in ancient Greece. Fascinating.
Warner raises the stakes in EMI offer - Kids, don't mess up the DRM-free music with this nonsense.
Economics professor demands: "We need a regulated market for organs" - complete madness. There are good reasons why donor organs in this country may only be taken from deceased people. And exactly why this Pandora's box must not be opened. But what does an economic expert care. Presumably, he thinks he's particularly modern with this inhumane idea. One thing is clear: his brain is definitely not suitable as a donor organ ...
100-Dollar-Laptop: Negroponte sharply criticizes Intel - with good reason. The way business is being attempted there is outrageous. This is probably the biggest danger for OLPC: the arrogance and selfishness of the capital-driven society of the rich countries.
CIA's Harsh Interrogation Techniques Described - Torture. Plain and simple torture - especially the "Water Board" method is nothing more than a simulated execution. And this is applied - approved by the government - in a supposedly democratic state that makes such a fuss about its constitution. Because non-Americans are probably subhuman. Or something. Probably I'm just anti-American again. Just like ABC News, which as a well-known anti-American propaganda channel is not trustworthy anyway. Which is why their report on torture by the CIA can simply be ignored.
Diamonds Tell Tale Of Comet That Killed Off The Cavemen - Were Stone Age cultures set back in their development by a comet impact? Interesting stuff.
The Cerne Abbas Giant - the Brits. They were probably always a bit strange.
The Red Hot Erlang Blog - interesting blog software in Erlang. One should take a look at it, some of the features look nice.
Uffington White Horse - and there are horses too. A 3000-year-old image, and they still measure the size in feet.
Wilmington - why wander to the Andes, when gigantic ground "drawings" are so close at hand?
Amazon kündigt DRM-freie MP3-Downloads an - nice deal for EMI. I think it's about time for the other major labels to stop with the DRM nonsense if they want to keep up. Two huge shop platforms for EMI and good press, that can quickly make the number 3 the number 2 or even better, if download numbers are the primary sales share.
Deutsche Telekom bids farewell to T-Com brand - one builds a brand for a lot of money. Then one crushes it and introduces another brand that again swallows money for advertising measures. At the same time, one wants to pay the service employees less money for more hours. So that one can squander more money on nonsensical marketing measures? The monkey dance that the Telekom is currently performing is simply ridiculous.
Friday 20 - It's about almost everything - why the Deutsche Telekom strike is more than just an attempt to save the company's employees. Much more.
individual-i [de] - linked by the raven, pointed out by the eagle owl and no, I don't have a bird. But simply one of several logos in the top right corner of my site, as a sign that individual rights are more important to me than an exaggerated and unrealistic need for security. And the link collection at the raven should be explored as further information.
JPC - Computer Virtualization in Java - a PC emulator in Java. Strange.
Why, oh WHY, do those #?@! nutheads use vi? - interesting text about the strengths of vi. Slightly shocking: this was written by people who built a VI emulation for Microsoft Visual Studio.
Support for globalization critic Geißler joins Attac - always good for surprises, the man.
Atze Schröder and Wikipedia - is it clear to the comedian who portrays Atze Schröder that trademarks in the trademark register are publicly accessible? Or does he now want to prohibit Wikipedia from including the link to the Patent and Trademark Office in the article? Or even sue the trademark register?
capsulehotel - strange. very strange.
MarcoPolo - Automatic location switching for Mac OS X - very cool. Uses various rules to decide with which probability you are in a certain network environment and switches accordingly. Can also trigger shell scripts, so you can automate quite a lot with it. Very good for network nomads.
Administrative Court: Honey must be protected from GM maize pollen - a small victory that hopefully won't be undone in higher instances (yes, sometimes I'm a hopeless optimist and dreamer).
Beautiful Soup: We called him Tortoise because he taught us. - not new, but practical: an HTML parser for broken HTML. In Python. (and yes, I need to automate HTML browsing for tests right now)
ISO working group proposes Unicode with "ß" as uppercase letter - funny, never thought about it, a big ß is sometimes necessary. Never knew that there was even a big form of it ...
twill: a simple scripting language for Web browsing - automated web browsing. I think I've mentioned it before, but never mind, things are often repeated.
Apple and Microsoft to be forced to use DRM - completely crazy. If a manufacturer threatens to sue for a market for copy prevention (whose effectiveness is questionable at best).
Flickr → iPhoto - Import Flickr feeds into iPhoto as a photo stream (via a converting detour). Not a bad idea, even if it might blow up your hard drive.
FlickrExport - plugin for iPhoto. Considering moving my pictures from iView to iPhoto - iView is technically superior in terms of features, but what good are features I don't use? Lightroom would also be nice, but it has even more features that I actually never use. iPhoto has the nasty habit of just working ...
Google will create psychological profiles from online games - by now, even the last person should realize that "don't be evil" was just a silly marketing gimmick.
Stig's Inferno by Ty Templeton - a man on his way through hell in search of his pants?
XML Transformation in Scheme - small example of how to play around with PLT Scheme and XML.
Doping-Szene Deutschland: Heile Welt in Magenta - it fits so well, here's the link to an article from 2005 with a good summary about Team Telekom and doping. The doctors are not in the spotlight for the first time.
Escaping the data panopticon: Prof says computers must learn to "forget" - very true. Especially in times of Web 2.0 applications, data collectors, automatic archives, and mass publication of the most private content.
Music industry and Udo Jürgens put pressure on Chancellor - the music industry has never been a pillar of the creative economy - the musicians are. Sometimes. And Udo Jürgens? I wouldn't even want him if someone paid me to have him ...
Conflict at Axel Springer: "WamS" Comment Editor Attacks "Bild" Editor-in-Chief - well, one Springer crow just can't peck out the eye of another. Too bad that the contents are now sufficiently documented in various places. Despite the flip at Welt Online ...
Terror-Webseiten: Europol sucht Terroristen im Netz - "According to the Interior Ministry, the German EU Council Presidency also aims to extend Europol's competencies to all forms of cross-border serious crime. This would allow offenses such as the dissemination of child pornography or activities by hooligans to be pursued even more effectively."
A MacFUSE-Based Process File System for Mac OS X - quite nice. Very nice. procfs and its many variants are extremely practical for shell scripts that want to check something quickly. Good to have something like this as an option for OS X as well.
Alligator Eggs! - by far the strangest explanation of the Lambda Calculus I have ever seen.
Erlang For The Practical Man - quick and dirty tutorial for a practical application (convert a POP3 mailbox to an RSS feed).
Drowning in a flood of data - “You can't prevent anything with such measures” - yes, another Spreeblick link. But really - read it. The interview is brilliant. "By the way: have you ever thought about the fact that one special aspect of suicide bombers is that they are rarely repeat offenders?"