Municipalities are ripping off the federal government with Hartz IV

And Biedenkopf supports Clement against the municipalities - what do you want to bet that this will quickly be swept under the carpet in the discussion again? Biedenkopf will simply be brought back into line and then it's back to bashing the government. Because apart from verbal attacks, they can't do anything else.

Only one question remains: what about the people? Everyone complains about the politicians and the abuse of the municipalities and the money - but who cares about the people who are now stuck between a rock and a hard place through no fault of their own?

Neither the government nor the opposition make any statements about the people (except for Biedenkopf in a parenthesis). That's all these people are worth to them - a parenthesis and that's it. They are no longer able to work - just a line item in the cost accounting that the municipalities want to offload and the federal government doesn't want.

They are people, you penny-pinchers!

Söder? The very bottom of the political barrel.

Red-Green outraged over Söder statements - and rightly so. Söder repeatedly stands out because his statements have little to do with reality (e.g., when claiming that the SPD is to blame for the emerging Nazis), but in this case, he has added an extra layer of stupidity. If left to his own devices, he would probably demand the death penalty...

Every legal system unfortunately either has holes like a sieve or degenerates into a police state (those who think differently: keyword Gödel, just inform yourself). The attempt to mediate between these two extremes is the task of the legislative power of the state - which lies with the Bundestag. The Union does not have to make constructive proposals for change known through foaming-at-the-mouth hatemongers in the press, but should bring them forward there. Söder's remarks are pure populism and are definitely not intended to solve any existing problem or even define it more closely.

It is horrifying when a child is killed, and every child killed is one child too many - this is undisputed and not up for discussion. However, one cannot instrumentalize the death of a child to push through one's ideas - because reducing child abuse and sexual offenses against children to this one case ignores the much larger number of cases in which the perpetrators had absolutely not been previously convicted or noticed in any way. Where the perpetrators are not some known offenders, but someone from the child's immediate family environment.

Söder's outburst is not only far beyond the mark and absolutely devoid of understanding, it is also a dangerous simplification of the problem.

Moderate trackbacks in general

For WordPress, there is a plugin that automatically sets trackbacks to moderated. However, this plugin uses additional database accesses (sets the moderation flag after the creation of the trackback), which is rather annoying for trackback spammers - every additional database access increases the system load. Therefore, I wrote my own version of it, which does not require any additional database accesses. The source is available here.

Koch doesn't understand democracy again

Koch: CSU should not act as referee - the Union fools still haven't understood how democracy works. No, the Union did not win the election - if they had, they would have the majority and the discussion would be pointless.

In any case, the Union representatives completely disqualify themselves as democratic representatives with their disgusting ranting against the SSW. Well, at least Koch is known to write forewords to right-wing trash, so it's no surprise that he is stirring up trouble against the Danish minority.

We also have to put up with the NPD in Saxony - which Koch has not taken such loud offense to as the behavior of the SSW at the moment or the existence of the PDS on various occasions.

IMPOSSIBLE - supposedly ...

IMPOSSIBLE The LawBlog finds it remarkable that the Mainz police broke into an apartment to remove a banner reading "Not welcome, Mr. Bush". Well, the problem is, if we had the liberal state of law he speaks of, this would really be impossible. But we have a neo-liberal mess - and neo-liberal is as similar to liberal as National Socialist is to socialism ...

Computer Parts Returns Documented

On www.dau-alarm.de service cases of returned computer parts are documented photographically. Very funny - although probably not for the person who had to handle the service cases.

Disclaimer Madness ...

I'm just a legal layman, but I'm sure that such a disclaimer is legally quite ineffective:

The author of this page is not responsible for the way in which the information provided here is used. Files and everything else on this page are intended only for private use and should therefore not be downloaded or read. If you are in any way associated with the government, anti-piracy groups, or other similar groups, access to the files and reading the HTML pages is prohibited. All objects on this page are private property and are therefore not intended to be read. In principle, it is forbidden to enter this page. If you enter this page nevertheless, you are violating the "Code 431.322.12 of the Internet Privacy Act", which was enacted by Bill Clinton in 1995. This means you cannot take legal action against the persons who manage these files! If you continue, you agree to these terms!!!

This will certainly impress the courts greatly. And it will definitely help against cease and desist letters.

Künast: The directive will pass through the Council next Monday

Künast: The directive will pass through the Council next Monday - at least according to a letter sent to the FFII. What madness - several national parliaments and the European Parliament have spoken out against the software patent directive, and yet the point is again on the agenda as a top priority - which would be confirmed only formally without substantive discussion.

I don't quite understand why, on the one hand, the EU Council keeps trying to push through such nonsense instead of finally bringing the whole thing back to the European Parliament for a new proposal - but I could still explain that with corruption (it wouldn't be new if the EU bodies were once again engaged in serious horse-trading).

But why the national governments are acting against the opinion of their own parliaments (in Germany, this was a decision of all factions in the Bundestag!) and against the opinion of their own European deputies (in the European Parliament, the rejection also had a large majority) is incomprehensible.

I can only speculate about the motivation of the other national parliaments of the EU. But I want to know the motivation of the Federal Minister of Justice responsible according to the letter from the Künast office and the federal government she represents - it is simply absolutely incomprehensible to me how action is being taken here completely against the will of one's own parliament.

Fax to the BMJ has been sent. You should do the same. 01888 580 9525

R-Archive - Discussion Forums Cease and Desist

R-Archiv - Discussion Forums Cease and Desist Notice - is this now a hoax, or what? Heise is sending a cease and desist notice to the Baron for violating forum rules? Or is there another Munich lawyer they are in a dispute with? This must simply be a hoax ...

The background to this is actually probably true - Heise has indeed blocked the Baron's forum access. So there might be something to the story. It would be quite crazy.

What you find in your comments ...

Comment spammers on the loose:

Hello dear community!

I am not a community. I may write in the pluralis majestatis, but we only do that by accident. Honestly.

I have been operating the BlahFasel auction platform BlahFasel.Blubb for a short time and am therefore addressing you, as I am interested in your opinion about my auction platform BlahFasel.Blubb. I look forward to your suggestions and hopefully constructive criticism.

Of course. You write a comment with a link and email address on an auction platform and include the name of that pile of junk X times - and all this just because you are interested in opinions. No, this is of course not supposed to be any advertising at all. How silly of us to feel that way ...

By the way, let me say this much, „BlahFasel.Blubb“ is an auction platform for BlahFasel and Blubb. However, I would like to emphasize that we do not think highly of „cheap BlahFasel“ and therefore the best Blubb does not automatically win at BlahFasel.Blubb. We are of the opinion that good BlahFasel has its price and therefore the seller (provider of the BlahFasel) determines the auction winner himself.

Huh? This is not an auction platform, this is a scam. An auction has a defined process - bids are placed and the best (depending on the orientation, the lowest or highest) bid wins. Anything else is not an auction platform - whether for BlahFasel or Blubb. At best, this could pass as a tender platform - but even there, there are formal rules that contain a bit more than "The seller determines the winner" ...

So that you can get an overview of BlahFasel.Blubb, you will find our press release in the "News" section on the right side of the page. Here, the functionality of BlahFasel.Blubb is described.

Of course, there - in press releases - everyone immediately expects the description of the functionality of the pile of junk. Completely logical. And under Imprint do you have cooking recipes?

I look forward to your opinion!!!

Opinion? Simple: lousy blog spammers (I found identical comments via search engine in other blogs), the posting that was commented on was chosen to be quite tasteless and, based on the description, I have filed the whole thing under "unsavory offers". Ergo? Plonk

BA is said to have favored Accenture in online job exchange

BA allegedly favored Accenture in online job portal - does this still surprise anyone? The botched work on this thing knows no bounds. And now it's botched work and favoritism - which was to be expected with such a poor result.

What always makes me angry about this: if you yourself are active in the industry, you only wonder about the exorbitant prices that are charged for such deals - and how poor the performance is that is delivered. But you yourself have to invest three hours of documentation work for every hour you work to get your money, because with smaller deals, cheap is great.

The Mouse's Elephant Turns 30

The little blue elephant from the show with the mouse is turning 30. Let's all congratulate him very warmly: Trööööööööt

Funny. No matter how old I get, I still love the mouse and the elephant. I even have a picture of the two on the wall. Just no plush elephant. And no plush mouse.

Energy drink for RWE - at our expense

Energy drink for RWE. Great, RWE makes profits despite shoddy management, and we finance their antics with higher energy prices. Fantastic. Let's all cheer for RWE.

Stock market news sometimes can't be beaten for stupidity - the fact that RWE simply exploits a monopoly and squeezes the market without creating real added value is all the same to them. As long as the stock price is right.

And the consumers? Their electricity bill has risen significantly more than the dividend they receive for their three shares, but we all dream of being the great stock market crooks ...

Virtualized Servers under Linux

rHype is an IBM project that was recently published under an Open Source license (GPL). This project is essentially a virtualization machine for Linux. Comparable to IBM's LPARs for mainframes, but naturally designed for much smaller machines.

It could be the ideal complement to Xen - another GPL project for virtualization based on Linux. Taken together, both could become an interesting open source alternative to VMWare.

Virtualized servers are very interesting for many purposes, as usually only a virtual machine is lost in case of problems and the migration of services on virtual machines is easier than moving around real hardware. Better to have a few large boxes with virtualized servers on them than many smaller boxes with dedicated systems.

Virtualized servers in real use can be done with User Mode Linux today. In this case, a Linux kernel is operated as its own process under the actual hardware kernel via special APIs in user mode instead of directly on the hardware. Each virtualized machine has its own user mode kernel, its own memory, and its own virtual disk areas.

Caution with free SSL certificates

Beware of free SSL certificates - the criticism of the unchecked certificates is indeed correct. But the experts are sitting on a misconception here: why should I trust the CAs randomly delivered with my browser more than any other CA?

Of course, if I try to get a certificate from them (e.g., at the Trustcenter), I have to jump through all sorts of hoops to get the certificate. That seems very secure. But who guarantees that all certificates from this CA were issued according to the same pattern? That someone didn't feel like checking and simply confirmed a certificate without verification? Or that something was rigged?

Exactly. There is only the guarantee of the issuer. The company that issues me the certificate essentially checks itself. Of course, in Germany there are regulations for certificate authorities and, as far as I know, these include audits - but who guarantees that everything runs smoothly there? Given the level of corruption going on ...

I don't want to accuse the Trustcenter of anything here - on the contrary, we use their services in the company. But central certification authorities have a serious problem: the security and trustworthiness depend solely on the trustworthiness of the central authority. And browsers come with various certification authorities deemed trustworthy by the browser manufacturer - I don't decide that, someone else does.

This is the classic conflict between centralized certification and decentralized certification via a Web of Trust as it exists with OpenPGP or GPG. Of course, I can't trust everyone there either - but if I trust someone, I set that locally for myself. And this trust is not dependent on whether it is a large company with great boilerplate documents.

Without a Web of Trust structure, certification is still more of a facade than substance. Alongside the pearls, there are also pigs - and that's exactly what ct has found out. Great insight - we've been saying this from the PGP camp for years.

A Call to Action in OASIS

A Call to Action in OASIS is an open letter from a whole range of Open Source big names against the latest OASIS framework conditions. OASIS deals with the standardization of data formats and web services, and in the latest framework conditions, standards should also allow those based on patented techniques - and thus ultimately give companies the means to exclude Open Source programs with these standards. In principle, a rehash of the same stupid idea from the W3C - which then withdrew this idea in response to the protests.

Cease and desist letters for Gmail invitations

Abmahnungen für Gmail-Einladungen - great. The madness continues. Now people are being warned who want to sell Gmail invitations on eBay or give them away in blogs. And of course, the brand owner does not go to Google - who operate the Gmail service - but to the end users who only use a name established on the net to describe what they are giving away.

What's particularly silly about the whole thing: the brand owner is based in the same city as Google Germany - if the brand (which is of course professionally operated by Schlund + Partner, like every big and important portal) is really so threatened, why hasn't he even made a local call to Google about it? And the fact that the domain has a Created entry from August 2004 is surely purely coincidental - of course, anyone who thinks of freeloading is a scoundrel ...

For those who are not quite clear that this is not about the brand at all. Someone is sniffing fresh air here and wants to make quick money. Because greed is cool.

Google's legal counsel Lena Tangermann recommends contacting Google Germany by phone (040/808179-0) in case of a warning on this topic.

Dialer Madness - the next phase

In Dialerwahn - the next phase Isotopp reports on an IP payment system that generates paid page requests based on logged IPs and the association of these IPs with a user. So far only in use in Austria - but highly stupid. They probably have never heard of IP spoofing, but also not of anonymous proxies and tor ...

IP-based paid services must be based on some form of authorization. Either the classic password technique or better on client certificates. Anything else is highly nonsense and doomed to fail. Anyone who bases billing to end customers on the basis of the logged IP address simply does not understand TCP/IP and the Internet.

Ole von Beust for a Northern State

Ole von Beust apparently wants to create a Northern state from S.-H., HH and McPomm - I doubt that's a good idea.

However, the three federal states together would have an even greater overrepresentation of rural regions compared to urban regions in terms of population numbers. And thus, the prospect that this Northern state would firmly be in the hands of the Union - despite a few larger red cities and despite Hamburg. Presumably, that's the simple main motivation for them to calculate something.

However, whether the people of Hamburg would give up their independence and not simply vote out this eccentric at the next election is another matter.

Banner for February 23, 2005

Since I am suspected of salon anti-Americanism, I am of course participating and throwing a heartfelt: You're Not Welcome, Mr. Bush!

at the president. And yes, this refers to Bush and his administration - not to Americans in general. So please put me in the drawer of anti-religion fanatics and anti-war agitators and anti-world policemen when you quote me next (and then you can also leave out the salon before that) ...

Apache2, php5-fcgi, php4-fcgi, mod_fastcgi HowTo

Apache2, php5-fcgi, php4-fcgi, mod_fastcgi HowTo provides everything you need to know to run PHP as an FCGI process. And even in German. The little bit of Apache2 in there can be mentally converted to Apache 1.3, the Apache is actually hardly affected.

FCGI offers, in combination with suexec, the possibility to run PHP per virtual host under a dedicated user and thus the possibility in shared hosting environments to set up files in a virtual host so that another user with his PHP cannot read them. You could even run the FCGI-PHPs in a chroot jail to isolate them even more.

In addition, FCGI is often significantly more resource-efficient for PHP, as fewer PHP processes can run than Apache processes and the Apache processes do not become so bloated. If you have many virtual hosts, this can lead to the FCGI processes catching up in number - but then you should consider whether the FCGI processes should not run better on a dedicated machine.

This would be exactly the right thing for simon, especially since I could then also allow PHP for the other users.

Fairsharing Petition

Go there, sign. Anyway, anyone interested in there being a private copy. By the way, the action also has a Weblog.

mod_fastcgi and mod_rewrite

Well, I actually tried using PHP as FastCGI - among other things because I could also use a newer PHP version. And what happened? Nothing. And there was a massive problem with mod rewrite rules. In the WordPress .htaccess, everything is rewritten to the index.php. The actual path that was accessed is appended to the index.php as PATH INFO. Well, and the PHP then spits out this information again and does the right thing.

But when I had activated FastCGI, that didn't work - the PHP always claimed that no input file was passed. So as if I had called the PHP without parameters. The WordPress administration - which works with normal PHP files - worked wonderfully. And the permission stuff also worked well, everything ran under my own user.

Only the Rewrite-Rules didn't work - and thus the whole site didn't. Pretty annoying. Especially since I can't properly test it without taking down my main site. It's also annoying that suexec apparently looks for the actual FCGI starters in the document root of the primary virtual server - not in those of the actual virtual servers. This makes the whole situation a bit unclear, as the programs (the starters are small shell scripts) are not where the files are. Unless you have created your virtual servers below the primary virtual server - but I personally consider that highly nonsensical, as you can then bypass Perl modules loaded in the virtual server by direct path specifications via the default server.

Ergo: a failure. Unfortunately. Annoying. Now I have to somehow put together a test box with which I can analyze this problem ...

Update: a bit of searching and digging on the net and a short test and I'm wiser: PATH_INFO with PHP as FCGI version under Apache is broken. Apparently, PHP gets the wrong PATH_INFO entry and the wrong SCRIPT NAME. As a result, the interpreter simply does not find its script when PATH INFO is set and nothing works anymore. Now I have to search further to see if there is a solution. cgi.fix_pathinfo = 1 (which is generally offered as a help for this) does not work anyway. But if I see it correctly, there is no usable solution for this - at least none that is obvious to me. Damn.

Update 2: I found a solution. This is based on simply not using Apache, but lighttpd - and putting Apache in front as a transparent proxy. This works quite well, especially if I strongly de-core the Apache and throw the PHP out of it, it also becomes much slimmer. And lighttpd can run under different user accounts, so I also save myself the wild hacking with suexec. However, a lighttpd process then runs per user (lighttpd only needs one process per server, as it works with asynchronous communication) and the PHPs run wild as FastCGI processes, not as Apache-integrated modules. Apache itself is then only responsible for purely static presences or sites with Perl modules - I still have quite a few of those. At the moment I only have a game site running there, but maybe it will be switched in the next few days. The method by which cruft-free URIs are produced is quite funny: in WordPress you can simply enter the index.php as an Error-Document: ErrorDocument 404 /index.php?error=404 would be the entry in the .htaccess, in lighttpd there is an equivalent entry. This automatically redirects non-existent files (and the cruft-free URIs do not exist as physical files) to WordPress. There it is then checked whether there really is no data for the URI and if there is something there (because it is a WordPress URI), the status is simply reset. For the latter, I had to install a small patch in WordPress. This saves you all the RewriteRules and works with almost any server. And because it's now 1:41, I'm going to bed now ...

Put Your Money Where Your Mouth Is ...

As you can see in the 3M Security Glass Ad (real money in a real installation), 3M seems to take the security of its security glass very seriously. Nice advertising idea - I wonder how many people have already tried to break the glass.

Back to Camino from Firefox ...

... and back. Odyssey of the web browsers.

After working with Firefox for a few days, I switched back to Camino. Why? Well, under OS X, Firefox is suboptimal. For one, I have the impression that fonts are generally displayed smaller than in Camino or other real Mac programs. It might be an illusion. However, it is not an illusion that Firefox under OS X does not support Services. And that is annoying - what's the point if a bunch of programs hook into the Services menu and provide useful services that build on highlighted text in other programs, if the main application in which I spend my time on the computer does not support it at all?

Just as annoying was the fact that Tab-X is not supported under OS X. This extension attaches a close icon to every tab. I don't know what the UI designer of Firefox was thinking, but I consider neither the mandatory activation of a tab and then clicking on a tiny X at the right edge of the toolbar to be ergonomic, nor closing a tab via the context menu. Okay, you can get used to that if necessary.

Furthermore, I was constantly bothered by the fact that Firefox has its own password manager and does not use the KeyChain. I find it simply practical that all kinds of programs can register at a central location and that I can delete my passwords there if I need to. In addition, this helps to avoid constantly having to re-enter passwords just because you visit a page with a different browser.

Unfortunately, I lose all the nice things that are available via Firefox extensions - for example, the Web Developer Toolbar. Only that it doesn't work on my Mac anyway, who knows why - so I've only ever had it under Linux, and there I continue to use Firefox. I will miss the plugin for the Google PageRank status and the plugin for mozcc, however - both were quite practical. It's somehow stupid that I can't have both - a Firefox with proper integration into OS X, that would be it ...

Due to the pretty broken 0.8.2 of Camino, I downloaded and installed the 0.8.1 again. At least it has functioning tabs and doesn't crash all the time. I have no idea what they did with the 0.8.2, but it was definitely not to the benefit of Camino.

And of course, right after I wrote this, Camino started acting up. I can't believe it. The 0.8.1 had worked flawlessly before. Nevertheless, there were the same problems as with the 0.8.2 - probably triggered by some sites with which I work more frequently now than before? I have no idea - I haven't installed any special tools under OS X, on the contrary, I have uninstalled one.

So, trying other browsers again. Safari 1.0 under OS X 10.2.8 is clearly behind in features - but it would still remain as an alternative, but it crashes on some pages. OmniWeb is basically a souped-up Safari, but it crashes even more frequently. And Opera doesn't get along with the CSS of the WordPress admin at all - it's wildly mixed up. In addition, it always asks multiple times for passwords and Keychain access when I access some protected pages. And it has had this quirk for months - not very confidence-inspiring.

The IE for Mac is not even a desperation option. Netscape? No, sorry, but that's not necessary. Mozilla also not - then rather Firefox, because Mozilla not only does not integrate well into the system, it also looks completely different from OS X applications ...

The only really usable alternative browser under OS X 10.2 is - despite its problems - OmniWeb. As a last resort, Safari, but OmniWeb is more advanced in rendering on some pages. However, it still does not support things like clicking on the label of a checkbox to toggle it - it is used in the WordPress admin and avoids silly target practice. Except in OmniWeb or Safari. Okay, the fact that the QuickTag bar is missing in OmniWeb and Safari is intentional in WordPress - the JavaScript is not quite compatible.

So, back to the whole thing and use Firefox again and complain about the missing services (which, by the way, can also work in Carbon applications - if the programmer has considered this in his program)? Or just play with OmniWeb and see if you can get around the problems?

And what do we learn from this? All browsers suck. Even the good ones.

Future Bathing Paradise Mars?

Giant ice lake discovered on Mars - wow. So far there have only been traces, but no one has found solid-state water just lying around on Mars before. And then right away a pond the size of the North Sea ...

750 votes ...

... about whether Red/Green with the cooperation of the SSW can govern S.-H. for another 4 years. Ouch. You can't really call that a comfortable majority. And somehow, this doesn't make politics in S.-H. any easier to manage ...

Brüderle threatens with anti-Danish resentments

Brüderle criticizes the SSW and demands that they handle their special status responsibly to avoid anti-Danish resentments - hello, still all your cups in the cupboard? What Brüderle is doing here almost borders on blackmail. Do what we want, or we'll bully you could be read into it. Quite stupid. But that's how they are, our Prolethikers ...

Get a Spanner in the Works

Now I'm being pelted with wood here. Well, I'm a good-natured person and it does promote the PageRank. How many gigantic bytes of music are stored on your computer?

7GB of music alone and I don't know how many more GB of audio plays. All completely legally ripped or downloaded. Actually, not much... The last CD you bought...

Haindling, "Achtung, Achtung". Which song were you listening to when the call came?

Kraftwerk, "The Model" (yes, unfortunately the English version - last.fm doesn't have the German one). And yes, I'm an old fart. Five songs that mean a lot to me or that I listen to often:

• Grummel. That's by far not enough to even begin to ... Give me 50 ...

• Kate Bush, "Babooshka" (my song, and I won't tell you why)

• Emerson, Lake & Palmer, "Black Moon" (or anything where they rock - piano not needed, but rock must)

• Pink Floyd, "Money" (because that's all it's about)

• Steve Miller, "The Joker" (yeah. simple and plain.)

• Madness, "One Step Beyond" (because I always feel young then)

Who do you throw this stick to (3 people) and why?

• [Jutta][2], because she writes so little
• [Christian][3], for the same reason and because he needs links for his blog
• [ToJe][4], because he is probably the freshest new addition to the Münster blogosphere

OpenPGPComment for WordPress

OpenPGPComment is a WordPress plugin that allows you to display signed comments properly. Users can sign their comments with gpg, and the server then displays these comments without the signature in the post comments, but offers a popup window with the gpg output as a link. Nice idea.

Digitally signed comments are not only useful for associating comments with users - they also offer advantages for the user themselves. Specifically, it is ensured that signed comments have not been subsequently altered by the server operator. A not insignificant advantage, especially in weblogs, where the server owner usually has significantly more options available.

I would have liked to try it out myself, but it requires proc open - and proc open is only available from PHP 4.3 onwards. And in Debian Woody, there is still a PHP 4.1.2 ...

rdiff-backup and duplicity

rdiff-backup and duplicity are very practical backup tools that use the rsync algorithm to efficiently copy over the network and, unlike normal rsync, also store historical versions. rdiff-backup uses a mirror+reverse-delta format and duplicity uses a base-version+forward-delta format. The latest version of librsync, on which both projects are based, should also transport Mac OS X metadata, so it could also be useful for OS X. I have already successfully used rdiff-backup for Linux backups.

Spammers are really quite stupid ...

... someone is struggling with my trackbacks right now. Every hour. Almost exactly at 25 minutes past the hour. With strongly varying IP addresses. The texts are also very different - and non-spammy. But what is the idiot doing? Trackbacking the same link every time. A link that I already put on the bad link list two weeks ago. Somehow not particularly smart, because everything ends up in the trash directly. Ok, otherwise everything would end up in the moderation queue, which wouldn't help him either.

Rabies (Rabies, Lyssa)

Medicine-Worldwide: Rabies (Rabies, Lyssa) describes rabies and its course in humans. And of course, there is a rabies page on Wikipedia.

The Elections in S.-H.

I can't claim that I'm bursting with joy. So far, Hesse has been the epitome of stupid election results for me. But as usual, reality has outdone itself. I can't claim that this causes me any kind of anticipation for the elections in May here ... What is really disgusting about elections: the blabbering of all the social failure politicians afterwards. So much nonsense in one place should be banned. If a Stoiber blathers on that show politics cannot replace real politics - the man who consists only of show and hollow phrases - then the whole thing takes on quite bizarre traits. One could feel like being in a staging of a play of the Theater of the Absurd:

In it, our everyday world is present in terrifyingly distorted forms. The uncanny, as Sigmund Freud, often arises from the overemphasis of psychological reality in relation to material reality. In the theater of the absurd, the characters only perceive the outside world through the prism of their fears, obsessions, and delusions.

Yep, fits. Can I get my ticket refunded and get my money back?

Google-Whack: melted möllemann

Ha, my very personal Googlewhack: gemölter möllemann. I just need to find a dictionary that includes "Gemölter" now.

And of course, all of this is just to solidify my number 1 ranking for "gemölter" ...

Red Alt - Kubrickr

Red Alt - Kubrickr generates a header image for the Kubrick layout from a selection of images on flickr that are licensed under CC. Should be usable for all Kubrick designs where the images have the same dimensions.

I've already toyed with the idea of building something like this myself - we'll see, maybe I'll integrate something like this into my photo plugin. Because I already had changing header graphics before, which I actually quite liked.

In case of side effects, contact your software manufacturer ...

Microsoft vs. Wine: Deja Vu on the FUD Front describes how Microsoft's WGA stuff - checking a legal system software according to Microsoft's definition even for updates for normal applications - makes the update of applications that run under Wine or Crossover Office (Windows emulators under Linux) impossible.

Let me spell that out for you: You can have a legal copy of Microsoft Office, and because you choose to run it on a Linux box using Wine, you won't be able to update it.

Pope compares abortion to Holocaust

Pope compares abortion to Holocaust and continues to incite against a modern world. Apart from the fact that his historical knowledge about the elections of the National Socialists in Germany is very simplistic, he offends thousands of women who have had abortions for good reasons. And even if he doesn't like it: the laws are made by the national parliaments and not by the puppet in Rome. And that's a good thing, no matter how stupid our current legislators sometimes are ...

The Hypocrite of the Evening?

Höhn unter Beschuss - cute how Rüttgers suddenly discovered his alleged heart for women in forced situations. I have not heard that he has ever advocated for women and their rights during the regular forced deportations that also take place in NRW. Simply hypocrisy and political calculation. So much for the topic of cynicism ...

Introducing sIFR: The Healthy Alternative to Browser Text

Introducing sIFR: The Healthy Alternative to Browser Text describes a method based on JavaScript, CSS, and Flash to free text styling from the limitations of CSS and use any fonts.

The technique works similarly to CSS image replacements, except that the replaced text can grow with the page (e.g., if the user has set a larger base font). If a visitor has Flash and JavaScript available, correspondingly marked text areas are replaced by a Flash rendering.

If the visitor has no Flash or JavaScript is disabled, they will see normal text content via the browser's capabilities. Accessibility is thus largely preserved - the HTML remains semantic, and screen readers for text browsers as well as semantically controlled HTML readers should have no problem with it. Visually impaired users with large fonts can also benefit - for example, by disabling Flash, the user's chosen font size will be selected.

It is definitely better than CSS image replacement for headers, as it can adapt to the dynamic environment much better. Image replacements are not zoomed and do not support copying and pasting of content (which is also supported by Flash).

BAStats Pre-Release for WordPress 1.5

BAStats Pre-Release - very nicely done. It provides direct insight into referrers, page views, etc. on a web server. Simple time-based filtering and fairly straightforward filters. I have no idea how it processes the data itself - whether there are appropriate data cleanup runs included, since it's still a pre-release. But it's quite nice to sit in front of the website and get live views. And much more manageable than a tail -f on the access log.

One effect of BAStats is that visitors receive a cookie. Anyone who rejects it, no problem - everything works as before. The cookie simply serves to identify a visit.

Commodore 64 as Display Board Controller

The failure of a Commodore 64 at Dortmund train station causes a complete failure of the display board system. A multi-billion-euro company. With thousands of employees. Listed on the stock exchange. Operating a facility like Dortmund train station with a Commodore 64. If only it had been a ZX Spectrum...

Update: Heise has since corrected the report, the computer is not a C64 but an Intel machine running Xenix. Which doesn't exactly make the problem simpler...

New Game, New Luck: b2evolution

Today I took a look at b2evolution (as usual, just a brief superficial test flight). It's related to WordPress and that alone is interesting - let's see what others have done with the same base code. So I got the software, grabbed the Kubrick skin (hey, I'm liking Kubrick these days), and got started.

What immediately stands out: b2evolution places much more emphasis on multi-everything. Multi-blog (it comes pre-installed with 4 blogs, one of which is an "all blogs" blog and one is a link blog), multi-user (with permissions for blogs etc. - so suitable as a blogging platform for smaller user groups) and multi-language (nice: you can set the language for each post, set languages per blog). That's already appealing. The backend is reasonably easy to use and you can find most things pretty quickly.

But then the documentation. Ok, yes, the important stuff is documented and findable. But as soon as you go deeper, almost nothing is self-explanatory or documented. Ok, I admit I shouldn't have immediately set out to make the URIs as complicated as possible - namely via so-called stub files. These are alternative PHP files through which everything is pulled to preset special settings via them. Apparently you're supposed to be able to get a URI structure like WordPress with it - the b2evolution standard is that index.php always appears in the URI and the additional elements are tacked on at the end. That's ugly. I don't want that. Changing that apparently only works with Apache tools done by hand (no, not like WordPress's nice and friendly support for the auto-generated .htaccess file) and then corresponding settings in b2evolution. Ok, you can do that - I know Apache well enough. But why so complicated when there's an easier way?

Well, but the real catch for me comes next: b2evolution can only do blogs. At least in the standard configuration. Exactly - just lists of posts ordered chronologically. Boring. Not even simple static pages - sorry, but where do I put the imprint? Manually created files that you put alongside it? Possible, sure. But not exactly user-friendly.

There are also some anti-spam measures, for example a centrally maintained banned words list (well, I personally don't think word lists are that suitable) and user registration. Not much, but sufficient for now. You can certainly do more via plugins. Speaking of plugins, there's a very nice feature to mention: you can have different filters activated for each post. Each time anew depending on the post. Very nice - WordPress has a real deficit there, the activated filters apply to everything across the board - one change and old posts suddenly get formatted wrong (if it's an output filter).

Also nice: the hierarchical categories really behave hierarchically - in WordPress they're only hierarchically grouped, but e.g. not much is done with the hierarchy. In b2evolution, posts from a category automatically move to the parent category when a category is deleted. Also, thanks to the multi-blog feature, you can activate categories from different blogs for a single post and thus cross-post - if it's allowed in the settings.

Layout adjustments work via templates and skins. Templates are comparable to the WordPress 1.2 mode and skins are more like the WordPress 1.5 mode. So with templates everything is pulled through a PHP file and with skins multiple templates are combined and then the blog is built from that. Special customizations can then be done via your own stub files (the same ones that are supposed to be used for prettier URIs) and via those you could, for example, build fixed layouts with which you could simulate static pages.

All in all, the result of the short flight: nice system (despite the somewhat baroque corners in URI creation and quite sparse documentation) for hackers and people who like to dig into the code. For just getting started directly, I find it less suitable - WordPress is much easier to understand and get going with. And to compete with Drupal, b2evolution is too thin on features - just too focused on blogs. You can certainly bend it in the right direction - but why would you want to do that when you could just use something off-the-shelf that can already do all that?

Hmm. Sounds relatively similar to what I wrote about b2evolution almost a year ago. There hasn't been much development there in the meantime.

sohu-search is a weird bot

The Sohu.com Search Bot Is Acting Strange

The search bot from sohu.com is currently crawling my pages. So far, so good. It uses robots.txt, which is already a good sign. But there are two things that really puzzle me:

First, it accesses every page twice. Once with a HEAD request and once with a GET request. That's pretty stupid for several reasons. On one hand, you can handle it directly using Conditional GET, and on the other hand, it provokes double page generation for dynamically generated pages — because even though the HEAD request only fetches the header lines, for example to calculate the Content-Length, the page still has to be generated anyway (of course, this depends on how the generating system is written).

Second, every few pages it accesses a page called abcdefghijklmn.htm. And I really don't understand what that nonsense is supposed to be. Some kind of keep-alive check? No idea. Very strange.

Bill Gates attempts to blackmail Denmark

Bill Gates tries to extort Denmark with Navision. After Microsoft bought Navision, the 800 jobs are now being used as leverage against the Danish government to bind it to Microsoft's wishes regarding the software patent directive in Europe.

When you look at which companies are in favor of the software patent directive and what methods are being used (extortion, bribery, lobbying, FUD) to push it through, it really makes you sick. These are practically mafia methods. And the motivation behind the whole thing is probably just as honest as the mafia's.

There's already the first Microsoft denial - so there must be something to the extortion story. In the article about the denial, there's also information about other companies that have put pressure on Poland. And apparently it worked in Poland - at least in part.

It's really disgusting what behavior these companies are displaying - Siemens is extorting the German labor market with the threat of moving its mobile phone division to Poland, for example, and is extorting the Polish government with the same jobs over software patents. The whole mess only works because politicians are unable to talk to each other and actually pursue common European goals - and thus put a stop to these games of the industry giants. Because every politician only wants to secure their own advantage and at most looks out for their own interests in their own country, companies can happily play countries off against each other.

Vocational Training is Being Nationalized

DGB on Training Pact: "Vocational Training is Being Nationalized" - did anyone really believe this absurd training pact would prompt the economy to actually create apprenticeship positions? They're not even interested in training people themselves and thus securing the skilled workers they need. When there's a shortage of skilled workers, it's much easier to cry out for some ridiculous green card projects - and politicians are dumb enough to go along with it. And when you don't need people anymore because profits have risen, you just throw them out.

A mandatory levy is certainly problematic - not because of the levy itself, but because business executives will use it again as a flimsy excuse to lay people off because they supposedly wouldn't be competitive otherwise - but it's probably the only way to force the economy to actually train people.

Of course, the real solution would be if business executives actually used their brains again and maybe even rediscovered their social responsibility. But who still believes in that in times of Esser and Ackermann? Or the Daimler CEO without a Rolex, but with doubled salary despite declining profits? Does anyone really credit these rip-off artists with even rudimentary social competence?

By the way, the whole thing about competitiveness on the international market is quite a farce as an argument when Germany consistently keeps expanding exports and raking in record profits in export-oriented sectors. How does that work if our system is supposedly so uncompetitive on the international market?

Mozilla removes support for umlaut domains

Mozilla removes support for umlaut domains - in my opinion, the only right reaction. The IDN stuff is just nonsense without any real sense anyway. Sorry, but umlaut domains that only work on the web but not in email are just a disaster waiting to happen. And the technical implementation - the fact that only a small subset of Unicode can even be mapped - is also ridiculous. All just to boost domain marketing and stroke the egos of some idiots...

News.Individual.DE no longer free from 1.4.

The news server news.individual.de will soon be a paid service because no sponsors could be found. I learned about this through Rabenhorst. It's really a shame that it can't continue to be operated for free. Well, the server's performance is so good that 10 euros is definitely worth it to me.

Check PageRank Authenticity

Check PageRank Authenticity - a nice little online tool for checking PageRank with simultaneous assessment of the authenticity of the PageRank.

What absolutely fascinates me about it: I actually have a PageRank of 6 with my weblog and a PageRank of 7 with the PyDS homepage. Wow.

Less politics for more GEZ fees [raben.horst]

Less Politics for Higher GEZ Fees - great. Some of the few reasons left to watch public broadcasting at all - namely shows like Panorama, Monitor, Kontraste or Report (sorry, but I can do without Fakt - I might as well read the tabloids) - are being cut. Because the Tagesthemen is being moved - to make room for who knows what. In any case, for nothing that interests me. The only other reason that comes to mind for me with ARD is Tatort. And that's about it...

What am I paying GEZ fees for again?