SCO vs. Linux: A Journalistic Revelation

The Latest Absurdities from Absurdistan

At heise online news you can find the original article.

Pyco - Tiny Python Distributions - build small Windows EXEs from Python tools.

Lasso - Souk - Python module for integration of the Liberty Alliance Single Signon Protocol.

Film Foundation Honors Artists and Cinemas

In Münster, Cinema and Schlosstheater each won a prize (20,000 and 15,000 euros). Congratulations to them! After all, these are our last bastions of independent cinemas - Cinema has existed since my school days with long cinema nights and lard sandwiches during intermission.

At WDR.de you can find the original article.

Module Pycaml

Interesting project: someone has written a reimplementation of the Python/C API for OCaml (of course the native-code compiler, not the bytecode interpreter). This makes it possible to do the following things:

• Write Python extension libraries in OCaml
• Use Python-C extension libraries in OCaml
• Use Python modules in OCaml (generally use the Python interpreter in OCaml)
• Use the Python toplevel for OCaml

It all sounds very exciting and could be very interesting for some applications - OCaml produces very fast code and can easily compete with C in this area. Especially for implementing the parts of code that are too slow in Python, OCaml is of course much more interesting than C because of its significantly better type safety.

Here's the original article.

Python 2.4

Now it's out.

Here you can find the original article.

Aiming at Saturn's moon Titan and ... letting go

I find it very nice that the landing capsule is supposed to land on my birthday.

At WDR.de there's the original article.

Oops

At Die wunderbare Welt von Isotopp I found the original article.

Pro-Linux News: Daffodil Replicator becomes free software - Replicator that is database-agnostic and supports PostgreSQL among others

Python Packages Index: pyDB2 0.996a - DB/2 API for Python - need that at work

Debate on Integration Reignited

Yes, sure, immigrants should swear an oath to the constitution. Not every German has done that - except if they're a civil servant or served in the Bundeswehr - but you can certainly demand it of immigrants. Because terrorists would never swear falsely and would be completely frightened away by it anyway and run off.

And when it comes to German language skills: we still have Bavaria in the Federal Republic, don't we?

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

Fangs: The Firefox Screen Reader Emulator Extension - Standards-schmandards

A screen reader emulator for Firefox. So you can see how your own pages would come across in a screen reader.

Here's the original article.

tsearch-v2-intro - Introduction to tsearch2 - a full-text index technique for PostgreSQL

Tsearch2 - full text extension for PostgreSQL - Further documentation on tsearch2

Aldipod at Heise

So actually the apple is the same as the pear. The person eating it just has to come to terms with the fact that it tastes different.

At Der Schockwellenreiter I found the original article.

Luminous Landscape field test the R-D1

The first test of the R-D1 that I've come across so far. Well, 3000 dollars (or euros) is no small change and not everyone can just pick one up right away - so it can take a while before the first tests come in. The camera is still interesting. But simply incredibly expensive.

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

Yet another Project in Python

If you've taken a closer look at the Toolserver, you may have already suspected that I want to do more with it. A second project that I started a few days ago will serve the same purpose. Active Storage Framework for Python is a Python framework for putting data into databases. However, not one of the usual object-relational mappers, but its own database structure that simply misuses a SQL database underneath as a data storage — I didn't want to reinvent everything. The ideas of the Active Storage Framework for Python come from Userland Frontier and Mumps — so a hierarchical namespace in which all elements are automatically persistent and in which many object types are mapped as tables (similar to Frontier). The whole thing uses pretty much every introspection feature of Python that I know. Ok, there are some programs from me that use even nastier methods, but sometimes I'm ashamed of the particular hacks there — what I've done here is considerably cleaner. Mainly getattr and friends. Though taken to excess. As a starting point for the Active Storage Framework for Python, the README is a good choice. If you want to try it out: PostgreSQL and psycopg must be installed. Otherwise you just need a database and you can get started. The Active Storage Framework for Python creates the database schema automatically. At the moment it's only available in CVS, since I'm currently — it's still 0.1.0 — tinkering wildly with it. Interfaces and data structures can still change significantly.

Here you can find the original article.

Toolserver Framework for Python - Slides

Anyone interested in the project Toolserver Framework for Python - a server written in Python that makes creating web services simple and convenient - can take a look at the presentation I recently gave to colleagues about it. To view the presentation, you need a reasonably current browser that supports and has JavaScript and CSS enabled. Yes, even the devil's tool works with it.

If the slides seem too vague without my commentary, you can simply print the presentation in your browser. This pulls a different CSS stylesheet and the printout includes supplementary explanations. Basically what I talked about. The presentation system used is actually quite clever - it's S5 by Eric Meyer. Practically perfect for quickly putting together presentations with notes and publishing them on the web. And I still prefer vi to PowerPoint. Here's the original article.

Half a million euros fine for Prince Ernst August

Can't they finally lock this guy up?

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

Large Surveillance Operation on Internet Relay Chat

What a pile of rubbish.

At heise online news you can find the original article.

Criticism of ITU Proposals for Network Management

And again new brain cramps from the ITU - this time even with obvious evidence of this bureaucratic monster's technical incompetence. Sorry, but geographically or politically oriented allocation of IP addresses is simply and plainly gross nonsense - merely submitting such a proposal already disqualifies one from further discussions about technical matters of the Internet ...

Yes, RIPE and other IP registries are certainly also geographically organized - but their organization is based on the rough geographic structure of network topology. Breaking that down to such silly concepts as nation states would be utter lunacy.

At heise online news you can find the original article.

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.

SimpleTAL - standalone TAL and METAL implementation

ATM as Gaming Console!

Ouch. That almost hurts.

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

Infinity-to-the-Power-of-Infinity - Small application for creating icons from other icons

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.

Digital Lumber, Inc. - A complete nameserver in Python

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.

pyeBay - Use the eBay API from Python - Python API für eBay

Python IAQ: Infrequently Answered Questions - Partly witty, partly serious answers to not entirely obvious questions about Python

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.

Welcome to read4me project page - RSS Reader in Python with Bayesian Filter

wxPython and wxGlade Tutorial - Tutorial on wxPython and wxGlade

2Entwine | FotoBuzz Viewlet - Javascript+Flash for presenting images with in-image commenting

Arachne GPL 1.73 WWW Browser (glennmcc) - Free internet suite for DOS

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.

"DOS Solutions" - Lots of links to DOS software

Download Acta - Another historical outliner software for the Mac that is available as a free download

ONLamp.com: Introducing Slony - Slony is an asynchronous replication solution for PostgreSQL

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.