Artikel - 3.8.2004 - 13.8.2004

From Python to PLT Scheme

Wow. That's really amazing now: a Python to DrScheme compiler that gets integrated as a package into DrScheme and then allows Python development with DrScheme's tools. Ok, the compiler still has some deficits and the code is still very slow, but that's expandable. And of course it would be a really interesting Python implementation, since on the one hand you could mix all the Python libraries and on the other hand the MzScheme libraries. For me, this system in its perfection would be almost nirvana.

Here's the original article.

Genetic manipulation turns monkeys into workaholics

That's what every employer dreams of...

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

Hasselblad and Imacon Merge

Oops. So Leica's digital back will turn an ordinary Leica R9 into a Hasselblad R9D

At PhotographyBLOG you can find the original article.

I'm Not Qualified for This Job

The new CIA chief is incompetent for the job - according to his own opinion. Great qualifications for someone who should be feeding an out-of-control administration the mental ammunition for military campaigns ...

You can find the original article at Telepolis News (13.08.2004).

SCO vs. Linux: Analysis of the Analysts

The sad documentation of an analytical failure. His speech is analyzed in more detail here by the way. But that's just propaganda again. Just like this article on Groklaw (the comments are worth reading too). At heise online news you can find the original article.

System upgrades and their joys

Spontaneous decision not to proceed with a pending system upgrade:

 grave bugs of libc6 (2.3.2.ds1-12 -> 2.3.2.ds1-13) <open> #259211 - apache segfault after upgrade from woody #265486 - Upgrade breaks system

The Python Paradox

Paul Graham thinks Python programmers are smart. So are we.

Here's the original article.

Add-on lenses for your cameraphone

Gross - plastic lenses you stick on your phone camera. Well, phone cameras are pretty crappy in quality anyway, so a plastic lens won't make much difference. Still - it's perverted to do something like that.

You can find the original article at Engadget.

A dark day for human rights in Britain

How the Labour government and the British High Court overtook the US administration on the right ...

At Telepolis News (12.08.2004) there's the original article.

iPod vs. The Cassette

The ultimate comparison. Objective and unbiased.

Here's the original article.

Server migration taking place

simon.bofh.ms now has a new server with more CPU and more RAM. Very nice, because now I have room to tinker with the system again

Stu Nicholls | Cutting Edge CSS | A CSS font

Pervers: a font composed of CSS divs and spans and stuff like that, with borders and all. How crazy do you actually have to be to come up with something like this? It probably doesn't help accessibility much either.

Here's the original article.

The IE weblog makes me laugh

Microsoft at it's best: with SP2 they believe they have the safest browser. Amusingly, however, the first holes have already surfaced that are in that great new SP2 IE ...

Besides, they have implemented a great new and original idea: popup blocker. Because, nobody had such an idea before, it's so original, MS should get it patented ...

Here's the original article.

Bill Clementson: Mandelbrot Set ASCII art

Mandelbrot Set. In 11 lines of Common Lisp. As ASCII art.

At Planet Lisp you can find the original article.

Two terabyte memory card

I'm currently considering it a hoax. Although of course I wouldn't mind having a 2 terabyte memory card, no question about it. But somehow the whole thing sounds rather unrealistic...

At Digital Photography Review (dpreview.com) you can find the original article.

CLiki : Armed Bear Lisp

A Common Lisp implementation that compiles to the Java VM. I'm not a fan of the JVM, but for program portability it's still practical of course.

Here's the original article.

MzTake - a Scriptable Debugger

An interesting concept: a programmable debugger for MzScheme (the platform of DrScheme). Essentially more of a monitor - it observes the running program and, based on specifications in scripts, can trigger various actions. For this, a variant of Scheme specially optimized for event control is used. This appeals to me because I typically don't use normal interactive debuggers - somehow they're just not my thing. I prefer to let programs run and collect information during the run. In Lisp, something like this is already quite elegant to implement - just wrap functions accordingly (or in Common Lisp use advise to bind debugging code to functions). MzTake simply extends this concept further.

Here you can find the original article.

Python on Smalltalk VM?

Someone is working on a Python implementation that runs on the Smalltalk Virtual Machine of Visual Works. Also quite interesting - the Visual Works VM is one of the best when it comes to efficient garbage collection and good just-in-time compilation. The Java VM could learn a thing or two from it before it even comes close to being in that league...

At Python owns us you can find the original article.

Already vaccinated against hay fever?

That sounds very interesting. And it's proof that genetic engineering can also be used sensibly. Let's see when something like this comes to the regular market and when vaccines against allergies are actually available. It would be nice to be able to eat an apple again, or to be able to take a walk under blooming birch trees in spring...

At Telepolis News (10.08.2004) you can find the original article.

blog: bknr-devel

A web application framework with object database and templates and everything you need. Sounds very nice.

Here's the original article.

Bluetooth attacks on cell phones from almost 2 km away - Golem.de

Yuck.

Here you can find the original article.

Mikel Evins: Clotho status

Cool. Mikel Evins is now actively working on a graphical environment for OpenMCL. Based on Carbon, so it won't be bound to specific OS X versions. And of course written completely in Common Lisp - as a side effect, the conclusion will also include a CLOS wrapper around the Carbon API. I'm very much looking forward to the first beta versions.

At Planet Lisp you can find the original article.

phil ringnalda dot com: First look at MSN blogs

Phil took a look at the new MSN Blogs (currently only available in Japan). A pretty messy pile of HTML in last-century-style, links that partially only work with Javascript, and various other oddities besides. Sounds more like the work of an intern.

Here's the original article.

Storms flood parts of North Rhine-Westphalia

Sure. And here? Of course only scorching heat.

(I live on the second floor and the house is on a hill, so storms only affect me through the puddle at the house entrance)

At WDR.de you can find the original article.

Beckstein welcomes planned refugee camps in Africa

Yes sure, intern them far away from Germany, then the upstanding German citizen won't have to be confronted with the fact that there are asylum seekers. It's much more humane for the German citizen if he's not constantly having his nose rubbed in the suffering of the world.

angry face

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

Lafontaine threatens to get involved with Left party

For whom is this actually the worse threat - for the Chancellor, or for the new left-wing party?

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

NETZEITUNG MUSIC: Pink Floyd's «The Wall» Becomes Musical

Well, Pink Floyd is not identical with Roger Waters - and only he is making the musical. He's doing what he's been doing the whole time since his departure: exploiting what already exists. That he hasn't created anything new since he left doesn't seem to bother many people.

Since I'm listening to old Pink Floyd records right now: I think it's a shame that the band is no longer active. And I'm still convinced that a large part of the responsibility for that was Roger Waters' ego - because he now believes that he is identical with Pink Floyd...

Here you can find the original article.

NETZEITUNG SPORT: Voigt continues in the yellow jersey

Maybe he'll get Danish citizenship as an honor after all

Here's the original article.

Server migration is delayed somewhat

Because the provider only sets up running machines with 1 partition and 1 system on it. And when copying from one system to the other system while it's running, you can easily make mistakes that make the system unreachable. And thus abruptly interrupt the server update.

It would be so much easier for administrators if you simply installed 2 independent systems on the disks as a matter of principle, so that you could install into an inactive system during restructuring work. Well, the low price has to have some reason ...

Tens of thousands of policyholders have their legal protection cancelled

Because it's absolutely outrageous when customers take out insurance and then get the absurd idea of actually claiming on that insurance...

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

On the Situation of the "Nation Blog" [blogosfear.org]

An interesting - because pointless and silly - discussion. Someone accuses the bloggers of selective perception. Upon pressing further, it turns out that his perception of this selectivity is based on the fact that he analyzed a link list that was pre-filtered to only include a certain type of links - namely established (because registered) news services. He's given a different list that would be more representative. What does he do? Sweeps it all away because it doesn't fit his expectations. Although this other link list shows the exact opposite of what he claims, he first throws out what would contradict him and summarizes the rest under techie babble. That's how simple the blinkers are. And what is all this? Clear. The summer doldrums.

Update: after reading a few other things on blogosfear, I had to grin. Because the site is exactly what he accuses the bloggers of: incestuous to the point of dismissal, follows the big news and consists largely of the usual suspects who comment and write there. So nothing new and nothing original. So to speak, the institutionalized summer doldrums.

Devilish grin

Here you can find the original article.

Capitol Hill Blue: Dubya Does It Again!

"Our enemies are innovative and resourceful, and so are we. They never stop thinking about new ways to harm our country and our people, and neither do we," Bush said.

Teufelsgrinsen

Hier gibts den Originalartikel.

SCO vs. Linux: After the Code Come the Licenses

Here it should be clarified, among other things, whether it is permissible to compare SCO with a company that sells boxes that protect against earth radiation or serve as orgone accumulators.

Teufelsgrinsen

At heise online news there is the original article.

Simulators: Virtual Machines of the Past (and Future)

Wow. A bunch of old machines simulated. Nice toy.

At Lambda the Ultimate - Programming Languages Weblog I found the original article.

Spiegel and Springer: Writing as it was before

Ok, let's add even more confusion to all this chaos through silly obstinacy campaigns. It doesn't matter if ultimately – regardless of how the squabbling turns out – several generations of children can't write correctly. You have to make sacrifices like that when you're searching for the one true way ...

At WDR.de you can find the original article.

Strato data centers certified by TÜV

Given the regular database outages, disappeared homepages and lost domains, this is somehow a mockery of the seal. But that's just how it is: certificates say nothing about reality, only about the wishful thinking and wallets of the certified and certifiers.

At heise online news you can find the original article.

T-Systems opens spam gateway

Blockhead.

angry face

At heise online news there's the original article.

Warm

Too warm.

Benneter: Anti-Schröder Letter is Impertinent

Well. And as you can read elsewhere, it's actually just a hoax - old, created by only one person, uninteresting and not circulating at the grassroots level, but only among journalists. Great research... Even Tagesschau participates in the summer lull stunt. At NETZEITUNG.DE Internet I found the original article.

Cyclone

An interesting C derivative that has borrowed from many other languages - including those of the ML family. A C with type safety, memory management (though still manual memory management), polymorphic functions, pattern matching, type inference and many other nice features. Packaged in a perversely bloated syntax that builds on the already perverse C syntax

Here's the original article.

dude, where's my python?

I can't add anything to that. If the Python community starts bringing features into the language by argumentatively besieging Guido, and if these compromises are then realized according to the motto "a syntax that everyone likes equally little", then it's time to switch languages. Ruby looks nice and the available modules for various purposes easily match Python. Or Prothon - though the available modules are still very sparse there. Or simply back to good old MzScheme? Here's the original article.

Henri Cartier-Bresson is dead

His images will live on forever.

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

iMovie removes copy protection from Apple's purchased music

I find it somewhat silly to write that iMovie removes copy protection just because you can do a re-encoding of AAC files with it - coupled with the quality losses that come with re-encoding. It becomes particularly silly when you know that iTunes itself can do a re-encoding of AAC files to MP3 - and also removes the DRM in the process. But of course that way the headline sounds much cooler ...

At heise online news you can find the original article.

News: Munich puts LiMux on ice

Great. Really cool.

Here's the original article.

Security vulnerability allows reading Linux kernel memory

Yuck. Ugh.

At heise online news you can find the original article.

ALG II: Children's savings accounts are also being checked

As if politicians' hypocrisy were the biggest problem with unemployment benefit II ...

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

Nepotism accusations against Hohlmeier's office

Should betting offices start taking bets on how long ministers stay in office?

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

c't - Article Search

Sins of Youth

Here you can find the original article.

Gmail Full!

Cool, so someone managed to fill up the GB Mail at gmail

You can find the original article at Disobey Nonsense Network.

Youth Media Protection: Age Verification via PostIdent is Not Sufficient

Strange. Recently, another court said that entering a personal ID number (and subsequently checking the date of birth) would be sufficient. But here even Post-Ident isn't enough - even though the procedure itself is used by authorities when identification from a distance is required. All rather odd...

At heise online news there's the original article.