NRW-FDP: The Bankrupt General

So the self-proclaimed party of business has really brought in a real expert

At WDR.de you can find the original article.

ATM as Gaming Console!

Ouch. That almost hurts.

I found the original article at Uhu's Weblog Droppings.

Gap in Sun's Java Plug-ins Grants Access to the System

Holla the Forest Fairy! Now it's getting exciting, when the first cross-platform worm or virus will be based on this.

From a purely technical standpoint, something like that would certainly be pretty cool nonetheless

At heise online news you can find the original article.

VW probably won't pay trade tax again

Yeah, faces of the crisis. Of course you can't burden a corporation like Volkswagen with something as trivial as trade tax. Where would that leave us. Unimaginable.

Strategy of the day: rake in billions in profits abroad, take losses only in Germany, pay no taxes, and still complain about the Germany location.

Hey, there must be a reform for that. After all, the millions missing in tax revenues in Wolfsburg have to be squeezed out of the citizens somehow.

At tagesschau.de - Die Nachrichten der ARD you can find the original article.

ADAC warns about light mobile vehicles

Because our streets aren't unsafe enough yet and because we don't have enough accidents, people are now being allowed on the road under EU pressure who a) lack adequate training (training? A theoretical exam and half an hour of driving practice can hardly be called that) and b) lack adequate equipment (ridiculous plastic boxes without any noteworthy safety features).

What's the point of this nonsense?

This Class S license is a completely stupid idea. Hopefully these shoeboxes on wheels will stay absurdly expensive enough that ideally only the dumbest people fall for it and buy them. Traffic will then do its part to provide the appropriate evolutionary pressure...

You can find the original article at WDR.de and here.

Patents Should Meet BASIC Tests of Reason

Ouch. A couple of employees from the Microsoft Visual Basic Team apparently filed a patent on the IsNot operator - yes, something like a "not equal to", but for object references instead of values - what a bunch of nonsense. And cheekily, they also claim in their application that Borland Delphi is a Basic derivative — while ignoring the fact that Delphi is Pascal, which has a quite different history...

The whole thing has the feel of a joke, but unfortunately it appears to be true.

Here's the original article.

Schrempp's luxury Mercedes stolen

A certain mocking grin on my face I cannot deny

At tagesschau.de - Die Nachrichten der ARD you can find the original article.

Seehofer steps down as faction vice chair

Well. At least some form of consistency - although it would have come across considerably more consistently if he had done it right away. Of course, that doesn't make all this fuss any more intelligent and doesn't improve this silly health mess of the Union ...

At tagesschau.de - Die Nachrichten der ARD there's the original article.

Slate Language Website

More interesting is actually Slate. On the one hand, the implementation is freely available to play around with, and on the other hand, the language at least came into the world with a concept - Smalltalk with multimethod dispatch à la CLOS and a prototype-based object system à la Self. All of it, though, in classic Smalltalk syntax. That's at least a vision - let's do what Common Lisp has been able to do for a long time, but in Smalltalk.

But then I still ask myself why not just use Common Lisp, where you'd simply have to build the prototype-based object system as a package, but macros, multimethod dispatch and other fun stuff are already done? Programming language designers are masochists

Here's the original article.

Solar Powered iPod Backup

Cool. A solar-powered battery charger for the iPod. But looking at the weather outside right now, I probably need a charger that runs on pedal power instead - there's no sun to work with here.

The original article is on Gizmodo - here.

The Curl Project

And since we're on a roll beating up on stupid programming languages: MIT wasn't really any better either. They replaced the round brackets with curly ones. Great. Not much better than angle brackets, and the commercial exploitation of this grandiose idea was promptly taken over by a company.

But since this is MIT, of course they went two steps further and wanted to basically understand it as a new markup system. So to speak, as an alternative to HTML.

And because you can only make waves at MIT if you're truly crazy, the whole thing ended up being not just an object-oriented Scheme where you replaced the round brackets with curly brackets - no, they also threw in a box model from TeX for layouting.

Hurrah. We needed that. Not.

Here's the original article.

Water -- Waterlanguage.org

Translation

Yet another programming language that nobody really needs. In principle, it's based on a Lisp that works with XML syntax instead of S-expressions (those wild bracket expressions that Lispers love so much and everyone else hates). Angle brackets instead of parentheses - what a tremendous improvement.

And to top it all off, it's also a proprietary project. And written in Java. Wow, Java must be really sick if it's coming up with such sick solutions.

The same thing can be done better and more elegantly with various free Lisp projects - and you can stick with the round brackets too.

Here's the original article.

Bundeswehr recruits allegedly tortured with electric shocks

Individual cases. We are surrounded by nothing but individual cases.

At tagesschau.de - Die Nachrichten der ARD you can find the original article.

Reader-Submitted: Are You an Internet Porn Addict? Congress to Your Rescue!

Ouch. American backwoods in action. What I find particularly fascinating is the existence of a National Association for Research and Therapy of Homosexuality - their research can't be particularly intelligent and meaningful if they're operating from the premise of Therapy of Homosexuality.

All these obscure organizations and pseudo-Christian splinter groups might seem cute and amusing at first glance. But you should keep in mind that a whole series of Supreme Court decisions have gone by very narrow 5:4 margins. And in the upcoming legislative period, two Supreme Court justices are set to step down - and the new justices will be nominated by the President and confirmed by the House of Representatives. And Bush has the majority everywhere ...

It could be that someday in the USA freedom of speech will officially no longer be worth the paper the Constitution is written on ...

You can find the original article at morons.org headlines and here.

Microsoft: Alleged Soundforge Crack a "Placeholder"

Microsoft software must be warned against before use. It violates too many laws.

At heise online news you can find the original article.

Siemens CEO: Euro high is a problem

After all, you have to keep increasing the company's billions in profits after taxes. And unfortunately, you can't fire all employees.

However, it seems you can't turn on your brain at Siemens management either.

At tagesschau.de - Die Nachrichten der ARD you can find the original article.

Settlement Proposal

Hey!

Even though I don't quite see how the state is supposed to organize ideologically neutral counseling - for that we would first need an ideologically neutral state.

But if the other 9 points are implemented, maybe the state will become ideologically more neutral than it is now ...

At INSTANT NIRVANA you can find the original article.

What's New in Python 2.4

Who wants to know what comes with Python 2.4, Andrew Kuchling has as usual produced a good overview. A few things are really interesting - I particularly like the generator expressions. But then again, I'm an old Lisperer.

Also nice is the Decimal data type - it will solve some problems at the company much more elegantly than they are approached today. And higher performance is certainly good too.

Here's the original article.

CSU: Seehofer remains deputy in party and faction

Oh yes, the integrity of politicians. They defend a topic for as long as their political career might not be hindered. Then they abandon the topic they previously defended with so much fanfare - but not their power position. Oh no, the average politician doesn't want to give up their power. Substantive issues, on the other hand, are just a nuisance.

At tagesschau.de - Die Nachrichten der ARD you can find the original article.

Microsoft chief warns Asian governments against using Linux

A new wave of lies and slander from Microsoft.

At heise online news there is the original article.

Web Services

When you read through all of this, at least you know again why you'd rather do XML-RPC. Yes, it doesn't have a really clean formal definition and the original leading implementation from Userland is buggy as hell. But at least there aren't a bunch of academics without real-world experience hanging around in the XML-RPC community who then think they have to indulge themselves in obscure and twisted standards documents...

At Der Schockwellenreiter you can find the original article.

Linde loses medically important patent

Occasionally, patent offices also make sensible decisions. One of the most senseless patents in recent times has been laid to rest. To bottle a normally producible gas and bring it to market at inflated prices, then expect those inflated prices to be secured by an exclusive patent is quite audacious.

At tagesschau.de - Die Nachrichten der ARD you can find the original article.

Russia wants to develop new nuclear weapon

Oh how sensible. And innovative. A nuclear weapon that no one else has. Because all nuclear powers haven't been working on that since the bomb existed. And so forward-thinking - you kill people with it, who can be proud of being killed by something no one else has. Absolutely necessary.

At tagesschau.de - Die Nachrichten der ARD there's the original article.

Hartz IV and its Consequences

Of course, when asked about this exact topic beforehand, the government claimed that such consequences would certainly not occur and that all the speculation from unions and social organizations was pure scaremongering. Does anyone still bother counting how many times we've been screwed over and lied to?

At Der Schockwellenreiter you can find the original article.

In the Matrix

Translation

Well, somehow that's a boring consideration - I don't know how many sci-fi stories have already done this. But if it really were a simulation - who the hell wrote this crappy software? I mean, look at it - sure, the software manages to create nearly perfect large-scale nuclear fusion reactors, but can't produce intelligent politicians. What's the point of this nonsense ...

At Industrial Technology & Witchcraft you can find the original article.

Ludwigshafen: Ceremony for Kohl cancelled

What amazes me much more is how, after all the shady dealings of the Kohl era that came to light, cities still offer honorary citizenship to the fat man ...

At tagesschau.de - The news of the ARD you can find the original article.

Audit Office: Sharp Criticism of Eichel's Policy

What I always find amusing about this: the Federal Audit Office points out obvious waste and clearly recognizable abuses. But has a government ever actually eliminated these as a result? Has a government ever drawn the logical conclusion and pulled out the Federal Audit Office's list when considering savings and put these points right at the top?

Nope. Instead, each new government term finds new ways to strip benefits from citizens and then still manages to sell it as a great innovation. And voters are dumb enough to let them get away with it.

On tagesschau.de - The News of the ARD you can find the original article.

Y2K Problems with Lotus Agenda and Think Tank

I recently (P2982) had the case where Lotus Agenda catapulted the date on my HP 200 LX back to 1985. I've now figured out what caused it. The funny thing about it: I had the same problem with Think Tank. In both cases, the date in the settings file was to blame - it didn't have a valid date and the PDA simply assumed 1985. And apparently when accessing such a file, the HP has a problem and resets the system date. After I updated the Think Tank options file and the environment file in Lotus Agenda with touch to a current date, everything works. Finally got an organizer with really sensible software. Really, I'm only missing Word 5.0 (the only truly good program from Microsoft) and the organizer would be pretty much perfect. Okay, Microsoft Works 1.0 is also acceptable, but a bit lean on features.

I'll see if I tackle some installation attempts of Visual Basic for DOS this evening, another crazy piece of software I have lying around here (I think I still have DBase IV somewhere too, while we're talking about crazy stuff).

686 Black cross stud tool belt - hats belts - extremepie.com

Wow. A belt with a slot head screwdriver, a Phillips head screwdriver and a bottle opener built into the belt buckle. Finally feel like Tim the Tool Man.

Here's the original article.

Firefox 1.0

I know everyone is thrilled about it as if it were the invention of sliced white bread. But I'm anything but happy with the new version of Firefox. Two annoying bugs are massively spoiling its use for me.

The first is an incompatibility with Codetek Virtual Desktop. Basically, it manages virtual screens where it hides windows and displays those of the new screen. To do this, it sends a redraw to the applications. Firefox then nicely paints its main window, but that's it. Only by changing the size can you get Firefox to redraw its content.

The second bug is even more annoying: every time I start it, the top menu is completely missing. It's simply empty. I have to send Firefox to the background and bring it back to the foreground to activate the main menu.

If you imagine how I work — multiple virtual screens, one for each important application, constantly switching between screens — then you can perhaps understand why I'd rather stick with Camino until Firefox becomes something stable and usable.

Even though it bothers me a bit that all the practical extensions are closed off to me because of this. On the other hand, that was already the case before — the prereleases never really worked well with the Web Developers Toolbar for me on OS X. Under Linux, Firefox is definitely my favorite browser, but the OS X version is a bit too buggy.

Microsoft in Licensing Frenzy

Microsoft grants a free license for a mountain of network protocols - provided that signatories commit to never working on Open Source projects. The tricky part: Microsoft grants licenses to protocols that don't even belong to them - such as TCP/IP, AppleTalk and ZModem. A subtle hint in the description text points out that you should get other licenses for the protocols that Microsoft doesn't own. Sorry, Microsoft, but the license isn't even worth using as toilet paper.

Here's the original article.

Mikel Evins: RAD Skater

Cool! One of the old SK8 developers — essentially the best rapid prototyping system from Apple, kind of HyperCard on steroids, dope, amphetamine and dextrose — and a few other programmers from the scene want to build an open source RAD tool that should build on SK8's ideas — and will therefore be called Skate.

As far as I'm concerned, they could be done with it already.

At Planet Lisp you'll find the original article.

ITU will assume regulation

If you want to get really spooked: read the interview with the ITU guy in the current CT on page 64. Just reading that arrogant attitude that oozes out of every sentence makes me feel sick. Yes, the ITU would very much like to regulate the Internet - sure, because right now it has no say in the Internet. And that's a very good thing. The ITU is a bunch of bureaucrats, participation comes with high costs and accordingly is dominated by large corporations. Open source projects and standards from the free software community wouldn't stand a chance at the ITU - but both at IETF and ICANN there are opportunities for influence for organizations that aren't big corporations. RFCs are created in a way that is open to almost everyone - you just have to be willing to take on the organization, but a working group isn't bound to a mountain of money like at the ITU.

No, I don't want the ITU as a regulator on the Internet - because an Internet run by the ITU would no longer be any fun.

Wage cut debate: smoking breaks should be deducted from wages in the future - Economics - SPI ...

And here we go again, another scapegoat being driven through town. While I'm not a smoker and don't take explicit coffee or tea breaks, the idea that employee breaks alone actually have a meaningful impact on operating results is pretty absurd. Ultimately, this suggests that employees are all just shirkers anyway - a theme that's been running through all these discussions lately.

The fact that idle time and wasted work hours are often caused by absurd organizational structures in companies is conveniently overlooked. If I think about how much working time was squandered on meetings that turned out to be completely pointless in hindsight, I couldn't make up for it with breaks until retirement (especially since there seems to be an endless supply of meetings that later turn out to be pointless).

Here's the original article.

Lotus Agenda running on HP 200 LX

If you have an HP 200 LX like me and you're a fan of the old Lotus Agenda - essentially a first desktop freeform database with a strong focus on automatic data organization - you can download the linked file. It's a pre-installed version of Lotus - Agenda has apparently been freely available for quite some time. Really innovative software for its time. Although not blazingly fast on the small machine, it's definitely usable - however, not from the graphical environment of the HP 200 LX, but directly from the prompt.

Important note: Agenda is not Year 2000 compliant. The date jumps back to 1985 when you enter Agenda. So don't be alarmed, that's normal - just correct the date afterwards. However, for using Agenda as an activity planner and project manager, that's a bit annoying, since you rarely plan projects in 1985 anymore.

Here's the original article.

NEWSBLITZ: wireless iPod media system patented

A wireless iPod would be funny. On the other hand, there's a WLAN ban here in the apartment (collectively agreed upon), so while it would be amusing on one hand, it would be pointless on the other.

If Apple would finally teach the iPod Bluetooth, that would be something else - especially for syncing, Bluetooth would be quite practical. Sure, Firewire is faster - but for the initial synchronization or after extensive shopping sprees in the iTMS, you can just plug in the cable. Regular playlist updates and rating updates could easily be handled via Bluetooth.

Anyway. A Bluetooth iPod will probably never exist, just like I'll probably be waiting forever for a Bluetooth digital camera.

At Industrial Technology & Witchcraft you can find the original article.

the Degree Confluence Project

Absolutely Cool: someone has started a project to find and photograph all the intersection points of integer-valued longitude and latitude coordinates. You have to come up with an idea like that in the first place

Here's the original article.

CDU politicians want to open party to the 'right'

Oh great, instead of eliminating the cause of the phenomenon and finally pursuing a policy that offers people a meaningful perspective for their lives, the whole thing is simply opened up to the right. Even more garbage, even more populism, and even more lies. That's the politicians' answer to political disillusionment and protest votes. I never expected much intelligence from them, but that really takes the cake.

At tagesschau.de - Die Nachrichten der ARD you can find the original article.

CSU apparently wants to significantly restrict dismissal protection

And once again, an attempt is being made to smash something that doesn't suit the economy. The CSU previously spoke loudly in favor of a more social regulation of health insurance contributions and made a big fuss about how they were the much more social Union - and now they're running to the right of the CDU. Of course, those evil unions and those oh-so-lazy and useless workers. You have to get rid of them all, then the economy will boom. What a load of rubbish.

At tagesschau.de - Die Nachrichten der ARD you can find the original article.

Sniffer service warns companies when mentioned in weblogs

Oh wow, we're so important that we already have to be monitored ...

At heise online news there's the original article.

Public prosecutor demands eight years for Berlusconi

I don't think it will happen, but putting Berlusconi in jail would certainly be something

At tagesschau.de - Die Nachrichten der ARD you can find the original article.

German Internet Prize Awarded

There are efforts to prohibit private copying, which in plain English means taking away a right. We probably can't prevent the prohibition of private copying, but we don't support this idea and are thereby constantly contributing to the fact that new business ideas cannot develop on the market. - how short the reach of these federal idiots really is.

Private copying was absolutely legal before the massive cuts of the current government. There is no effort to allow it - there are efforts to prohibit it. A previously existing right for citizens is being taken away. And the federal shredder even thinks such a chubby victory would be a success. With politicians this fucking stupid, it's no wonder that political disaffection sets in. Every reasonably intelligent citizen must feel ripped off by something like this.

At heise online news there's the original article.

The Rage of Heiner Geissler

Heiner Geisler is doing what I like about him again: shitting on the current direction of the Union and simply speaking his mind. And as has happened occasionally in recent years, I agree with him again. Even though he's certainly looking at the problem from a completely different angle - the result is the same.

Capitalism devours its children. In the past, capitalists also knew their Marx - perhaps not because they wanted to implement his ideas, but because they wanted to prevent them. But at least they thought about how they could precisely contain the errors that would lead to what Marx described as inevitable in capitalism.

Today only short-term profit and short-sighted personal enrichment count. And that combined with an unprecedented freedom of managers from responsibility. No matter how crappy a result is, managers can continue to pat themselves on the back - and in the next place they can find someone they can run into the ground.

In parallel, the influence of multinational corporations keeps growing - so large that nowadays the various business associations basically only cry for these corporations and completely overlook that with all this madness their own companies will also fall by the wayside.

How can a head of the trades association seriously advocate for economic development that will ultimately sustainably damage the domestic market? Doesn't it occur to them that craftspeople's businesses live almost exclusively off the domestic market? How is a painter or plumber supposed to sell their services if nobody has the money to pay them anymore - only large companies and administrations alone cannot ensure the survival of the trades.

Same with the association heads of retail trade - how stupid do you have to be to speak out in favor of measures that directly and immediately reduce the purchasing power of citizens as the head of such an association? How are retail chains - even large chains like Metro - supposed to make meaningful sales in Germany if only a small upper class can afford to shop (or wants to - it's not necessarily about what people can do, but what they think they can do and act accordingly)?

Ultimately, the same applies to the BDI chief and all the other straw men: if companies with German headquarters become fewer and fewer, there will soon be no need for German business associations anymore. Maybe one or two lobbying organizations remain, but why would large corporations put money into an association if only they and maybe a Japanese competitor sit in that association anyway? Do they really believe that their smaller industrial company will survive the wave of mergers and hostile takeovers?

What is currently happening is primarily, of course, fatal for the people who have to live in this system and who see the increasing dismantling of their rights and security. But that's only the beginning - with the people, the domestic market also goes under and with it the economy itself. All the babblers who today help to break apart the system with their reforms are definitively burying the German economic location. And once that's gone, Europe won't be doing well for much longer either - because other countries in Europe are going through these problems too and everywhere things are being dismantled.

The result that is emerging cannot be the goal - because we've already had a society where workers are dirt and the money bags ultimately determine everything. And in every era when we had that, we didn't like it. One would think we had finally learned something from our history...

I found the original article at Industrial Technology & Witchcraft.

Free tablets for nuclear power plant residents

It's kind of strange, really. On one hand, there's always an emphasis on how safe nuclear power is and that even in the event of accidents, not much would happen. On the other hand, considerable effort is expended to contain damage in the event of a major accident - which is of course commendable in principle. But wouldn't it be time to think about how to tackle the risk at its root? In any case, the arguments of nuclear power proponents remind me strongly of tap-dancing around the issue.

At tagesschau.de - Die Nachrichten der ARD you can find the original article.

Japan starts whaling operation

And they continue to tell their lie of scientific work

At NETZEITUNG.DE Wissenschaft I found the original article.

Microsoft: Internet Explorer as secure and comfortable as all other browsers

As detached from reality as this Microsoft person expresses themselves, they might as well go into politics. At least a state government, if not even the EU Commission.

At heise online news you can find the original article.

Audit Office Criticizes Toll Collect

While we're on the subject of shoddy work and corruption ...

At tagesschau.de - Die Nachrichten der ARD you can find the original article.

Study: Fraud costs healthcare sector billions

But the solutions for the problems of the healthcare system are still just about cuts to services and increased financial burden on patients for the federal bunglers. And only when there's absolutely no other way does the health minister admit that all her talk about coming contribution reductions was just hot air and wishful thinking...

Wouldn't it be time to really clean up this system? To curb the influence of the pharmaceutical industry? To subject doctors—even against their will—to stronger quality controls? To finally place health insurance funds under independent and centralized supervision?

If really double-digit billions are really being lost through fraud and negligence—then I want to see part of it recovered, because those are far more dignified cost-saving options than what the government has put on the table so far. Yes, the doctors, the industry and the funds will complain and grumble. So what?

But knowing our government, it'll probably just come down to some voluntary self-declaration by those involved—which of course nobody feels bound by anyway and won't stick to. Just like with the training placement regulations. All lies and shoddy work.

At tagesschau.de - The News of the ARD you can find the original article.

Tanks greet protesters in America

Tank deployment at anti-war demo in the USA? Sure, the possibility that the tanks got lost and just wanted to ask for directions is certainly there. Because tanks are never equipped with radios and can never ask command for directions. And the alternative too - that they simply got stuck at a traffic light and that's why they were driving around there - sounds completely plausible. The suspicion that some trigger-happy military person or perhaps the tank crew themselves thought their appearance at an anti-war demo should clarify something to the demonstrators is probably pure paranoia.

At Warblogs:CC I found the original article.

The More Things Change...

How H. L. Mencken of the Baltimore Evening Sun Foresaw Bush - Back in 1920!

As democracy is perfected, the office represents, more and more closely, the inner soul of the people. We move toward a lofty ideal. On some great and glorious day the plain folks of the land will reach their hearts desire at last, and the White House will be adorned by a downright moron.

At [/ndy's Weblog][0] you can find the original article.