InfoWorld: SCO CEO: Novell-SuSE breaks SCO contract: November 18, 2003: By : Platforms
Is this level of loss of reality even still treatable with medication, or is lobotomy the only thing that helps?
Artikel - 4.11.2003 - 18.11.2003
Python and AppleScript
Not so uncool at all. Perl had that too with the Mac::OSA modules. The whole thing is quite practical, especially when you're building a Python script anyway that only needs a few functions from applications. However, with more complex things it can often be quite cumbersome, especially when media data types are used for which there are simply no usable equivalents in Python.
At Der Schockwellenreiter you can find the original article.
SCO Expands Collaboration with Its Lawyers
Something like that probably effectively prevents insight into the fact that SCO has no new product and no significant market to offer anymore
At heise online news there is the original article.
SPD worried about North Rhine-Westphalia
No wonder: with the ice-cold fish-eater cutting spending, nothing remains of social democracy.
I found the original article at RP-Online: Politik.
Heise News Ticker: PostgreSQL released in version 7.4
Hi. All the important points I needed have been improved. Replication is in the standard source, performance is better, and full-text indexing is usable. Now all that's needed is for someone to create Debian packages that I can backport (our servers are still all Woody) and I can finally tackle a few problems that have been bugging us for a while.
Serious Mac OS X file-save bug could delete files
Ouch. OK, not really critical - I lose the motivation to enter further text long before 1000 characters - but still, quite a nasty bug.
The original article can be found at The Macintosh News Network here.
Union holds government responsible for election fraud
Great. The Union sets up an election fraud committee and comes - oh great wonder - to the conclusion that the government defrauded voters. Sure, you could have had that result without setting up an expensive committee, after all it was hardly to be expected that the Union would set up a committee that would then contradict the Union, right?
Apart from that: does it accomplish anything now? No. Because there are no demands, no consequences, no recommendations. Essentially, just a few Union politicians have been patting each other on the back.
Great.
I found the original article on RP-Online: Politik.
Constitutional complaint against 0190 law
May his computer be flooded with dialers ...
I find it audacious anyway that protection against 0190 abuse should be lifted for everyone because of his unreliable customers when it comes to payments (everyone gets the customers they deserve?
). After all, he is not being prevented from practicing his profession. He just wants to enforce the right to use a billing method that has become notoriously problematic due to abuse.
Well, I find it quite telling when a lawyer with a dubious reputation wants to choose a billing method that has fallen into such disrepute ...
At heise online news you can find the original article.
20 Years c't: History with Checkmarks
Which reminds me again of my entire c't collection. Somehow I should probably dispose of it after all. On the other hand, it's sometimes quite fun to leaf through old c't issues. But among all the years, the old volumes are way down at the bottom, and you'd rather not dig through all that ...
At heise online news you can find the original article.
Former Israeli Intelligence Chiefs Criticize Sharon
Huh? Voices of reason from the intelligence service?
At tagesschau im Internet there's the original article.
GROKLAW - why IBM may subpoena analysts in the proceedings
A theory is put forward at Groklaw: Caldera apparently wasn't entirely above board with its IPO - the IPO seems to have been rated too positively by analysts and thereby manipulated. At least there was a corresponding suspicion that led to appropriate investigations.
Possibly IBM now also wants to capitalize on Caldera's IPO - and that could turn out badly for SCO (which were previously called Caldera) if IBM can actually draw real connections there. Stock market manipulation is not viewed favorably in the United States...
And ultimately, you can see from SCO's stock prices what the real objective of this whole affair is. The stock prices have risen nicely over the past few months, without SCO having a single current product to show for it.
Phonak wants to know: With nine newcomers to the Tour
Not bad: Tyler Hamilton with Oscar Sevilla in his corner as support, that could provide some excitement at the next Tour. After all, Tyler Hamilton has defended a good fourth place and certainly has ambitions for more.
At RADSPORT-NEWS.COM - Nachrichten-Gesamtübersicht you can find the original article.
BBEdit 7.1 released
Two very nice features are included:
- SFTP is now supported. I often edit files on my root server or on my servers at home, and both machines of course offer SFTP. Very practical.
- HTML files can now be displayed live in a second window using Webkit (the basis of Safari) while being edited. Very nice, since you can see the result right away. Ideal with a second monitor or a large screen where two large windows can fit side by side.
The update is definitely worth it. At least if you frequently edit HTML on an external server.
Panorama on Hohmann and the right wing of the CDU
Panorama has taken up the subject (once again). And as usual, exposed the lies and deliberate blindness of the Union leadership. If Mr. Meyer really knows so little, as he claims: why on earth is he in a position at all? Because if what he says is true, he's simply too stupid for his job.
In any case, it's quite remarkable that he stands there and claims to have known nothing of Hohmann's convictions, when Hohmann has repeatedly attracted attention even in the Bundestag with his right-wing interpretations and been booed.
Voice of the Majority?
The right-wing fringes of the CDU. An interesting enumeration of all the corners where known right-wing names keep reappearing. Also included, of course, is the connection of the currently so outraged Roland Koch to precisely these right-wing fringes ...
At Telepolis News you can find the original article.
High Performance Computing for Mac OS X
For the number crunchers among OS X fans. Compiler and tools specifically compiled and assembled for G4 and G5. Everything a number cruncher's heart desires
InfoWorld: Microsoft prepares security assault on Linux: November 11, 2003: By Kieren McCarthy, ...
The loudmouth from Redmond should probably smoke less of that stuff that gets him so riled up, then he might see reality a bit more clearly too
Steinbrück: Citizens must spend more on old age and care
Great strategy to boost the economy: let's simply tell those who ultimately spend money on consumer goods that they should put it aside instead, since they'll soon have to spend more on pensions and care. And then the politicians complain again when economic growth fails to materialize. And then of course we have to keep reforming. Until everything goes to hell.
At RP-Online: Politik I found the original article.
Union and FDP want to further weaken employment protection
What a load of nonsense. Relaxing employment protection will only bring more unemployment. Instead of securing jobs, this will only destroy more of them. The few positions that get filled in the short term won't help either - anyone who was waiting for a relaxation of employment protection to hire someone has already factored in that employee's dismissal. So it's just window dressing. But the Union dimwits and the FDP fools are busily patting each other on the back for their genius.
I found the original article at RP-Online: Politik.
Destruction of Public Broadcasting?
Well, and afterwards the money is thrown into the private broadcasters' mouths again and Haim Saban is delighted because he can rake in a decent profit. Sure, then there's only drivel in tabloid style on television, but that doesn't matter, it just makes people happy and stupid.
At das Netzbuch you can find the original article.
Apple releases update for Mac OS X 10.3.1
Let's see if I might soon be able to master the panther jump after all
At heise online news you can find the original article.
Kill Bill
An absolutely fantastic film - rarely seen such well-made cinema. Everything came together perfectly. Part 2 is coming soon, fortunately.
However, a few of the people who stood up at the end and left the cinema were somewhat quiet and looked thoughtful
Quick End in New Kimble Trial
How often do they want to put this guy on probation? Wouldn't a real prison sentence be appropriate? Somehow there's at least one probation sentence too many - he hasn't even served the last one yet, and he's already getting another one imposed. The whole thing is pretty strange...
At heise online news there's the original article.
You call that a Monad? This HEREs a Monad.... And a Shell.
Functional Shell? Hmm. Interesting - the shell language is a functional language and offers typical combinators for connecting system information, files and commands. Crazy, but interesting
At Lambda the Ultimate I found the original article.
Hohmann maybe after all out the door?
Just heard on the radio that Hohmann is now facing expulsion proceedings after all. Let's see what actually comes out of this.
Koch and Merkel agree: Hohmann facing expulsion
Amazing. Still, Anne Will asks the right question on the Tagesthemen: why didn't the Union react earlier, when it was known how he thinks and what he means? The suspicion that it's only to limit public damage is very close at hand. Well, how Merkelnix squirmed in the interview was really amusing. Ms. Will knows her business.
I found the original article on RP-Online: Politik.
Mac OS X 10.3: Finder's Zip Function Not Compatible
Ugh, by now almost all the features I liked about Panther have bugs in them, plus a few features I've been using since Jaguar. But they're not going to get me to update with that...
At heise online news you can find the original article.
Rebel With A Cause
Here someone reports how they built a web application with an Apple XServe, OpenMCL (the free version of Macintosh Common Lisp) and the Portable AllegroServe, and what it encompasses. They also used a custom-written framework for web application development with Common Lisp - I'm curious whether that will be released as well. Maybe I'll get a CLDS together someday after all. Here's the original article.
Simoni challenges Armstrong to Giro-Tour duel
Will Armstrong accept the challenge? I don't think so. The next Tour would put him at the top of all Tour riders if he wins it, and I don't think he'll want to unnecessarily risk this opportunity.
At VeloNews: The Journal of Competitive Cycling there is the original article.
Security Focus has RSS Feeds
Just found at ScriptingNews: quite practical for administrators, the new feeds from Security Focus:
CSU plans basic pension for childless people
Great idea: you don't have children because your life planning makes children simply impossible (e.g., because of financial constraints, or because work doesn't allow for a normal relationship)? Or because your partner is past the age when she should have children (or you're past the age when you should father children) and the risk to the child would be too great? Or because you or your partner is infertile? Perhaps the blood type of you and your life partner is also incompatible, so that child and mother would be exposed to great danger? Perhaps one of you is HIV positive or affected by another serious illness that would be passed on to the newborn? Or perhaps you're gay and therefore can't have children and are classified as unsuitable for adoption because of your homosexuality? No problem, there's only basic pension, so you're screwed in old age. Beautiful new world of discrimination. When will it be demanded that such people should kill themselves in a socially acceptable manner upon retirement?
The CSU should urgently remove the extremely dishonest S in the middle of the party name.
At RP-Online: Politik I found the original article.
Greed Behind the Mask of the Benefactor
An interesting interview with the former British environment minister about the effects of cultivating genetically modified plants on the environment. Michael Meacher's conclusion is by the way very negative for GM plants.
The original article can be found at Spiegel Online: Science at this link.
Greens continue to reject crypto ban
Cryptography bans. Great idea. Criminals will certainly all comply with them. How stupid does a politician have to be to believe something like that? Yes, I know, as stupid as some politicians on the interior committee, but how stupid is that really? Paving-stone stupid? Bread-in-puddle stupid?
Crypto bans only criminalize the perfectly sensible legal use of the technology, nothing more. What follows from this is a presumption of guilt based solely on the use of a technique - he encrypts, so he must be hiding something evil. The fact that maybe it's simply about preventing everyone from reading along (and sorry, but I wouldn't trust the agencies that could read along with deposited keys any further than I could throw them), that no longer matters when cryptography without key escrow is banned.
The state's constant demand to believe it's allowed to read everything anyway is completely divorced from reality. This whole eavesdropping mania brings nothing except a restriction of our rights and high costs.
At heise online news there's the original article.
Harry Potter Makes You Stupid
Yep. Got back from Hamburg at 23:10, got off the train and down in the station in front of the station bookstore there's a horde of people listening intently to some guy tell stories until 0:00 because that's when the Harry Potter sale starts - they even had the food shop next door open specially. On the way home then saw a Harry Potter party at a small corner pub with witch costumes. Weird.
And I've had the 5th book lying around in the corner (the English edition) the whole time and haven't even started reading it...
At No Retreat, No Surrender there's the original article.
It had to start sometime...
Not cool. Now the Python Package Index is being spammed - in this case, a financial advisor registered himself as a package on PyPI - the downside of an open architecture. Maybe it would be better if projects had to request a project key first and could only send updates with it - that would have prevented spam from the start, but would have required more work upfront since these keys would need to be manually approved for the whole thing to make sense. Let's see how PyPI tackles the problem.
I found the original article at Artima Python Buzz.
SCO versus Linux: All your code are belong to us
It's getting absolutely insane what SCO is demanding now. Why should IBM have to disclose all possible documents and personnel data based on nothing but wild claims without any evidence whatsoever? I can't really imagine that something like this could go through — even in the US legal system. It would be about time for IBM to come down on this with the legal hammer.
Simply buying SCO would definitely be the most boring solution to the problem anyway. I want to see SCO blood!
At heise online news there's the original article.
Spammed by your router
In the dumb department: Belkin is forcing their own customers through a firmware upgrade for their WiFi router to redirect occasionally to ad pages for a Belkin product (which can be disabled, but is enabled by default). Marketing by Idiots.
Stoiber threatens Hohmann with removal
I agree that Hohmann deserves to be fired. But since when does Stoiber (CSU) decide on expulsions from the CDU? Am I confused or is it Stoiber? And what does Merkel have to say about it now?
I found the RP-Online: Politik and the original article.
Test of the Influence of Google Spamming on Blog Hosting Users
Well, I have to chime in too. Of course Dirk is right when he points out a weakness in the Google system. Of course he has the free choice what he does with his blog platform - even making it available to Google spammers. But if he does that, he has to deal with the resulting backlash. And it comes.
What is Google spamming about? Not everyone may be clear on what's behind it. So here's an explanation of some phenomena related to it. Ultimately, so-called search optimizers bet on the fact that the advertised websites are linked in many places. Through linking, the ranking in Google rises. The more links, the higher. The higher the ranking, the higher the advertised website appears in Google's result list. And that's exactly what these people sell. Improvement of the position in Google search results. Search optimizers sometimes do this themselves by finding link partners for the site to be promoted. That's the positive method. It requires work, but that's what they're paid for. The result is usually small link networks between companies with complementary products - in principle a real-life form of "customers who like this product also like that product," like you know from Amazon. But there are also others that are far from positive. These other methods rely on external Google-juice (that's the jokingly used term for the base ranking of a website). The reason: if a website has a high Google ranking through linking, it can pass some of that on to pages it links to. A link from a site with high ranking is rated better than a link from a site with low ranking. Google spamming targets this.
Some search optimizers operate link farms - these are simply lots of domains and web servers without real meaningful content. Usually the pages are simply filled with words according to usage frequency (so search engines can find something). These link farms form a closed circle of sites that now has to become large enough for Google to use it for ranking. That gives the optimizer a basic ranking. Advertised sites are now linked from these link farms and pushed in ranking. Who operates like this, for example, is the Scientology Church. The disadvantage for the optimizer: it's some work and the costs are there for the many sites in the link farm. But it can be well automated. However, Google can also easily recognize it and ban it from the index!
The second approach to using external Google ranking is simple ranking parasitism. This can happen in two ways. The better known is comment spamming. Many suffer from it.
The reason for comment spamming is simply that the weblog scene through its index pages, central services, and links to each other has very high Google ranking. This means that links from weblogs to websites are highly valued by Google - the corresponding links appear multiple times through page replication and content syndication (for example, the excerpts and links at blogg.de are syndication).
We simply have with weblogs.com, various German indices, main pages of weblog communities like Antville servers, and all the regional services, with Geourl, with open syndicators (Phantom4 thingies for example) and who knows what else crawling around there - extremely fast high ranking. Many central pages simply link only to weblogs - are classified by Google through the many links as link hubs, and the linked pages inherit some of the Google-juice of the central page. Additionally, on some central pages the title links and sometimes the content of weblogs are replicated. Also, the weblogs link very strongly to each other and thus push their Google-juice up mutually.
Comment spamming relies on the fact that Google indexes the comments on many weblogs - this is especially true for weblog systems where the comments are integrated into the layout, as Moveable Type can do it, or for another example: the Schockwellenreiter's blog. My own is less of a target for comment spammers because my comments are external to the website - and are excluded from Google indexing by a robots.txt (you can also just disable traversal and leave indexing active, that should be enough). Comments on weblogs with lots of Google-juice become positive for the target websites.
Here people build on foreign Google-juice without providing their own performance (content) and therefore it is parasitism.
The same applies to what happens at blogger.de. Huh? Why are they parasiting? They have their own blogs, don't they? Yes. But these own pseudo-blogs are on a community server. The blogger.de server - if it's actively used for blogs - will build up quite a bit of Google-juice, just like it is with all Antville systems. The reason is the integration into the main index. What's only missing is a correspondingly high number of weblogs with content, preferably with high internal linking as seen on other Antville servers (many ants link to other ants), and that reflected through the main page - that produces plenty of Google-juice. Through the bloggers.
A ranking optimizer can use this well by occasionally posting on their own blogs that point to websites to be promoted. Once the blogger.de main page has good Google-juice through the bloggers themselves, it becomes interesting for them. Ultimately they're also just parasiting from the webloggers here, though not quite as directly as with comment spam - here they're more parasiting from the community than from the individual blogger.
Everyone has to decide for themselves how they handle this and what they think of such methods, but I'm of the opinion that normal, editorially maintained blogs would bring just as much for the companies to be promoted - but they would also give back content for the bloggers. Of course that's work - but it would be an honest form of search engine optimization that would also benefit from external Google-juice, but at least would integrate itself into the system with content.
The current ranking blogs on blogger.de with their nonsense content are a pure parasitic solution that I would strictly reject on hosts I operate, should they ever appear.
At Nochn Blogg. you'll find the original article.
de.indymedia.org | USA: Voter Fraud and Lawsuits for Injunction
Some background and summary of the situation surrounding Diebold voting (fraud?) machines in the USA at Indymedia. There's also a link to the emails from Diebold as a PDF. I'm also going to help with the request to mirror and make them available internationally: diebold.pdf: 3.00 MByte, last modified: Tue, 28 Oct 2003 15:42:50 GMT, file type: application/pdf
110 far-right incidents in the Bundeswehr in ten months
Just a lot of isolated cases. Nothing to see here. Move along.
At RP-Online: Politik I found the original article.
Die Zeit 46 / 2003 - M.Moore: "Not All of America Is Crazy"
A feuilleton by Michael Moore in Die Zeit. Available in full online. He also has a few quips for us: "It's as if you're turning into us, into a people that believes the rich must always get richer and everyone else should kiss their ass." Here's the original article.
fashion victims paradise - cease and desist craze, ouch!: cease and desist craze now at your doorstep...
Sure, it's not a big deal to put up an imprint – but what's all this cease-and-desist nonsense? If laws are now only being misused to enforce wrongdoing, then it's high time we changed the laws.
The fact that a central authority against unfair competition lends itself to such rubbish says a lot. What kind of legal understanding does it take to abuse an apparatus designed to protect economic interests to beat up on a private website? And how do they reconcile that with their own mandate: as a cross-industry association of companies and business organizations for the purpose of promoting commercial interests within the meaning of § 13 UWG throughout the federal territory? What kind of promotion of commercial interests is present in such an absurd attack? Sure, now all sorts of people will cry out: but it would be commercial for these-and-those-absurd-reasons – maybe because of banner advertising or whatever else – and then they'll immediately tell you again that the law is simply unambiguous on this and that the competition authority is in the right. So what? Screw being right! In Germany it's only about being right anymore, no matter how absurd, how ridiculous, or how stupid the occasion is. Stop to think about whether the action is even appropriate? Oh come on. Why would you, that would overload the poor little brain...
Large Dog of Milky Way Torn Apart
In a few billion years, Canis Major should be completely dissolved. - that should drastically lower property prices there
At Physikalische Kleinigkeiten there is the original article.
Merkel rejects further sanctions against Hohmann
Merkel said on Wednesday evening on ZDF that the CDU leadership had left no doubt with its rebuke of Hohmann that ways of thinking like those of the MP would not be tolerated. - which is why he continues to be a faction member and remains a party member. Because of course a way of thinking changes immediately through a rebuke.
We acted decisively and announced consequences for any repetition. - well, surely that will prompt Hohmann to change his mind. He's now a very nice and friendly fellow. Sure. We all believe that.
The Union leadership has done nothing in all previous incidents involving Hohmann, and it will in fact do nothing here either. And not the next time either. No wonder - at a time when a Minister President writes a foreword to a book that propagates far-right ideological ideas, such an MP hardly stands out.
However, it irritates me that Jürgen Rüttgers actually makes a demand that I agree with - namely the one for Hohmann's expulsion. A topsy-turvy world.
I found the original article on RP-Online: Politik.
Panther *could* run on Intel
Well, of course that can be done. And I even believe in the easily - because the complete hardware abstraction is in the Darwin kernel. The system is nicely layered - everything higher up is written in Objective-C (okay, older parts from the old OS world like Appleworks certainly in C++ or C). The porting effort for OS X to Intel should really be very minimal. And I even think that within Apple there could well be a machine with Intel chips running ported OS X. The question is whether Apple would benefit from it: Apple doesn't just make money from supplying software (or an operating system among many), but also and especially from sold hardware. If Apple now switches not only the used components but also the CPU to standard parts, what kind of control or defense would Apple still have against the clones so despised by His Highness?
Because one thing is clear: an open clone market would be anything but beneficial for Apple. They need their own hardware market - and the availability of cheap alternative devices would disturb that very significantly.
At MacGuardians you can find the original article.
Saddam wanted peace at the last minute
And so they come to light, one after another: the lies of the US government.
On RP-Online: Politik I found the original article.
NRW State Administration Switches to Microsoft Office 2003
So we also know what our NRW tax money is being wasted on ...
At heise online news you can find the original article.
Google Indexing IRC?
Well, I'm not sure if I'd think it was great if Google logged what I share on IRC channels. I think archives and IRC are quite at odds with each other — IRC is simply fleeting conversation, like chatting at the regular table in a pub. I wouldn't think it was so cool if someone put a tape recorder on the table at the regular table to record everything ...
At Google Weblog there's the original article.
Network specialist Novell acquires Linux distributor SuSE [Update]
You sit in a 3-hour meeting and what happens? Suse gets sold. Something like that.
At heise online news you can find the original article.