twill: a simple scripting language for Web browsing
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.
Content-type: matter-transport/sentient-life-form
Apple and Microsoft are to be forced to use DRM
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
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
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
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
Stig's Inferno by Ty Templeton - a man on his way through hell in search of his pants?
XML Transformation in Scheme
XML Transformation in Scheme - small example of how to play around with PLT Scheme and XML.
Doping Scene Germany: A World of Pink
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"
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 JĂĽrgens Put Chancellor Under Pressure
Music industry and Udo JĂĽrgens put pressure on Chancellor - the music industry has never been a pillar of the creative economy - the musicians are. Sometimes. And Udo JĂĽrgens? I wouldn't even want him if someone paid me to have him ...
Dispute at Axel Springer: 'WamS' Commentary Chief Attacks 'Bild' Editor-in-Chief
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 Websites: Europol Searches for Terrorists 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
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!
Alligator Eggs! - by far the strangest explanation of the Lambda Calculus I have ever seen.
Erlang For The Practical Man
Erlang For The Practical Man - quick and dirty tutorial for a practical application (convert a POP3 mailbox to an RSS feed).
Drowned in a flood of data - “You can't prevent anything with such measures”
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?"
Evolved Virtual Creatures
Evolved Virtual Creatures - fascinating. Virtual creatures optimized through genetic algorithms.
Lambda Associates Home Page
Lambda Associates Home Page - Qi, a functional language based on Common Lisp. Freely available and runnable on various Lisp implementations.
Linuxtag with Patron Wolfgang Schäuble
Linuxtag with patron Wolfgang Schäuble - "As emphasized on the conference organization's website, the patronage by the Federal Ministry of the Interior is a tradition that has been maintained by the Linuxtag for five years. No political evaluation is associated with the patronage." - Sorry, but wouldn't it be time to break with tradition? First the Iron Otto and now Schäuble? Do you want such a patronage? What is the point of a patronage that one explicitly distances oneself from?
Philip Linden's Folly
Philip Linden's Folly - about the current efforts of Linden Labs to equip Second Life with an ID verification system. Interesting for German citizens in SL: this service provider collects heaps of data pools, links these to obtain as complete views as possible and makes evaluations, data sales, verifications, etc. which is of course nonsense in the context of age verification: simply enter your father's data and that's it. As a security level, complete nonsense. Piquant: their partner in Great Britain is the GB Group with the product URU, which also offers these services and is subject to EU data protection rules - I can't imagine that it is still legal in this context. And that data is also collected from non-British and non-American citizens directly affects our data protection rules. It would be interesting to see how many Europeans and especially Germans are willing to send their passport number to an American service provider to gain extended access to a virtual world. I fear far too many ...
Reset Reloaded
Reset Reloaded - an interesting approach to the CSS default differences of various browsers: simply reset everything cleanly, so that stylesheets can start on a common basis.
US Civil Rights Activists Accuse Uri Geller of Copyright Infringement
US civil rights activists accuse Uri Geller of copyright infringement - because, the spoon bending didn't work out.
Basso admits doping
Basso admits doping - clear, ok, finally taken the right path. Come clean. But why is he being cheered now? It doesn't change the fact that he doped and lied for a damn long time because he thought he would get away with it. Only when the water is up to his neck, and he is offered a reduced sentence, is he suddenly remorseful. The right way? Yes. Cheering for courage? Ridiculous.
Schäuble: Germany is among the ''safest countries in the world''
Schäuble: Germany is "one of the safest countries in the world" - that's why we absolutely need to tighten the laws. What nonsense politicians come up with. And how quickly voters forget that.
Schäuble and Zypries want to extend Paragraph 129 StGB to individual perpetrators
Schäuble and Zypries want to extend Paragraph 129 StGB to individual perpetrators - the state's rampage continues. And as expected, the Federal Incompetence (some call her Federal Minister of Justice) immediately caves under minimal pressure. Can we still hope for Karlsruhe then?
T-Online, Adidas and Gumball 3000
Online, Adidas and Gumball 3000 - illegal street races. Sponsored. By corporations.
Desktop Factory Announces Affordable 3D Printer
Desktop Factory announces cheap 3D printer - let's see if this or maybe one of the various free Fabber projects comes first. But one thing is certain: since my enthusiasm for 3D construction in SL, I want to have something like this.
impromptu
impromptu - a Scheme environment explicitly for using AudioUnits. Computer-generated music, with the help of heaps of parentheses.
JSONstore 0.2
JSONstore 0.2 - interesting, a mini database for JSON objects. Might be useful for projects with JavaScript on the client side, to give them a simple database.
Police rely on private service providers in the hunt for child pornography
Police rely on private service providers in hunt for child pornography - interesting, especially in light of Schäuble's demand for expanded surveillance. Then even more will be outsourced in the long run - but where will the security of citizens' privacy remain?
PyInstaller
PyInstaller - interesting alternative to py2exe, which can create executable files for both Windows and Linux.
Chanalyzer Software and Wi-Spy Stick
Chanalyzer Software and Wi-Spy Stick - Analyzer for the 2.4 GHz band. Free software available (from the Kismet people) and a beta for the Mac.
The Inventors of Helmut Kohl
The Inventors of Helmut Kohl - Reading Command.
JungleDisk - Reliable online storage powered by Amazon S3 ™
JungleDisk - Reliable online storage powered by Amazon S3 ™ - interesting approach: set up a local WebDAV server with local cache on S3. Data access like on local drives, but automatically saved to S3. Nice for online backups (if the DSL supports it - mine likes to go offline when I put too many packets on the line).
Rampant Layering Violation
Rampant Layering Violation - why ZFS does not care about the classic filesystem layers, but takes over many functions itself.
Thursday: Biggest. Anti-Spam. Lawsuit. Ever.
Thursday: Biggest. Anti-Spam. Lawsuit. Ever. - $1 billion in damages claimed. Lawsuit against several spammers who have recently collected email addresses, which is a violation of laws in the USA. Could be interesting.
Transterpreter
Transterpreter - compact runtime for a massively parallel runtime that runs on all kinds of systems. Even Lego Mindstorms. For OSX and Windows there is an IDE. Unfortunately, the OS X version cannot also load programs onto the Brick. The whole thing is programmed in Occam-Pi
Frag - 3D First-Person-Shooter in Haskell. Go figure.
GLASS: Gemstone, Linux, Apache, Seaside and Smalltalk
GLASS: Gemstone, Linux, Apache, Seaside and Smalltalk - Gemstone/S as a free version (free beer) and with Seaside a nice API set up to comfortably develop web applications in Smalltalk. Sounds good!
Haskell vs. Erlang in a Sample Project
Haskell vs. Erlang in a sample project - detailed post about Haskell and Erlang in a project with quite specific requirements (binary protocol, a lot of threads). Interesting insights into the strengths of Erlang.
Manually Adding DNS-SD Service Discovery Records to an Existing Name Server
Manually Adding DNS-SD Service Discovery Records to an Existing Name Server - an interesting way to manually get server entries in Bonjour. Could be used, for example, for network-wide centrally maintained bookmarks on sites, or for the various Linux-bound services.
Look before you leap
Caution is the mother of the porcelain box - "For not many, but for him, I put my hand close to the fire. His attitude is impeccable, since he has been with us," said Holczer.
fantasy mounts-Custom Creature Taxidermy-Gaffs - Roadkill, Frankenstein-Art.
Faster Page Loads With Image Concatenation
Faster Page Loads With Image Concatenation - interesting idea, combine small images and show only sections via CSS. Dramatically reduces image requests.
AllegroGraph
AllegroGraph - interesting product, an RDF Triple Store. The whole thing is based on an elaborate Common Lisp system. And the platform is also available for OS X. If you are willing to pay the irrationally high prices of Franz Inc.