Just by the way

The Daimler board is a bunch of lying rip-off artists. First they waste millions and millions through absurd bungling on the world market, then they generously grant themselves almost 200 percent salary increases while the stock price is massively falling, and now magnanimously offer 10 percent in sacrifices. At the same time, they're calling a collective bargaining agreement they themselves concluded in February as outdated. It's all pure rip-off. But of course, all sorts of business representatives will again claim that this is all completely normal and completely fine.

Ruling on AG domains tightened

Could someone drive to Hamburg with a big bag of brains and install them in the judges? They've completely lost touch with reality

At heise online news there's the original article.

When the Pink Racing Sausage Bursts

Evil. But funny.

At INSTANT NIRVANA there's the original article.

While I'm on the subject of dishonesty

If I hear that fat Austrian bishop talking about pranks one more time, I'm going to need a bag...

Derek's Rantings and Musings: Those Little Oval Stickers on Cars

Weird. Our European invention of the oval country license plates apparently sparked a mindless fashion trend of oval car stickers in the USA.

Here's the original article.

Emotional Decision

We're going to get them all. insert manic laughter At M. Kniebes Journal you can find the original article.

Firefox - Switch

Surely everyone except me already knows this, but I think this Firefox Switch campaign building on the Apple Switch campaign is kind of nice

Here's the original article.

Publishing on the Internet is worthwhile

Ooh, here comes the value chain again. Well, it's about time for the silly season anyway.

You can find the original article at NETZEITUNG.DE Internet here.

Standing Cyclists

This raises several questions right away:

• Did the Fassa Bortolo driver yesterday not actually get saddle sores, but was just afraid of impotence?
• Who is the father of Jan Ullrich's daughter - given that he's an avowed recumbent cyclist?
• Is recumbent cyclist now an official insult for machos?

At Megawatt: The Last Latent Appliance Fetishist there's the original article.

A national hero of the USA is arrested

On the absurd stance of American authorities regarding Bobby Fischer's violation of the trade embargo, one could actually only laugh if it weren't symptomatic of American administration. The mere idea that a chess game between two elderly grandmasters could violate a trade embargo is absurd. And pursuing one of the few great chess players the USA ever had with an arrest warrant is simply ridiculous. Fischer is himself a total idiot, but he doesn't deserve such treatment. At Telepolis News (18.07.2004) you can find the original article.

English or not

It was also a question for me: write in English or German? English would actually be preferred since more people can read it. On the other hand, I usually comment on German articles here - an English blog would be somehow a stylistic break. My old websites were mostly written in English (I won't link them here, whoever wants to can go on a treasure hunt for them). Newer ones mostly in German.

It's kind of funny - I keep hopping back and forth between the two languages. I can never really decide - the choice for new projects is usually rather arbitrary. But the Hugo stays in German. I still have the Timmy for English.

At owrede_log : interfacedesign.org there's the original article.

God speaks through Bush?

That's what he believes, at least if you can trust the article in Lancaster New Era. Next, he'll probably get bleeding holes in his hands?

I'll take two large, flat stones and a bag of gravel...

Here's the original article.

She's lost control

At Telepolis News (18.07.2004) you can find the original article.

Federal Employment Agency: Discrepancies over Million-Euro Contract

The Federal Agency emphasizes its lead in the application for the Federal Institute for Planning Errors ...

At heise online news you can find the original article.

First Virus for Windows Mobile/Pocket PC

Certainly, the argument will now be made again that they are only attacked because they have such a high market share. That's the typical excuse of Windows advocates. Too bad that Palm has the largest market share, and so far no viruses are raging on the Palm.

At heise online news you can find the original article.

Mars rovers "Spirit" and "Opportunity" continue to be operational

There are also positive news

At heise online news you can find the original article.

Sheriff Koch's and Deputy Bouffier's Posse

Great. Hesse now has official auxiliary police officers. I'm curious to see when Koch's close friend Steinbrück will want to introduce this great new idea in North Rhine-Westphalia as well. You can find the original article at das Netzbuch.

Voeckler and Voigt - two great fighters

Jens Voigt was simply superb in his breakaway action. It's a shame that things didn't quite work out at the end, but CSC can really be satisfied with such a rider. Just like with Basso, who showed an incredible performance today.

But the real top rider for me today was Thomas Voeckler, the way he defended his yellow jersey again. I'm keeping my fingers crossed that he keeps it through the rest day - with a flat stage tomorrow that's quite likely. And maybe he'll manage it in the Alps again, even if that's already less likely.

And otherwise? Andreas Klöden showed great form again. The same with Georg Totschnig - although people had expected that more from him than from Klöden. Tyler Hamilton has dropped out - a shame, but understandable. Zubeldia also out - still in 5th place last year. Heras and Mayo have shown that they probably won't have anything to say in the overall standings this year. Ullrich either - but he looked better today than yesterday.

Boo - Home - dynamic language for .NET with Python-like syntax and advanced features especially in the area of data types

Deutsche Bank warns of software patents

That I could actually agree with Deutsche Bank on a topic ...

I found the owrede News and the original article.

Just another ticker, but ...

... things also become clearer on this tour:

• Armstrong has put together a top team. Having 4 helpers on the second category 1 climb is certainly comfortable. Almost too comfortable.
• Klöden is in top form. You can forget about Ullrich - getting such a time penalty in the first mountain stage is bitter. Maybe Klöden should go for the overall victory. Ullrich might still be useful as a helper...
• Hamilton is not as strong as last year. And his team is not particularly well set up for the mountains.
• Voeckler is brave, but will definitely lose his jersey in the mountains. But he's already seen that himself. Still, an amazing performance from him and his team! I'm happy for them to keep the yellow jersey as long as they can.
• CSC also has a top team. Basso and Sastre are both in good shape. Having two leaders this far up front is a good sign. Riis still knows how it's done - even as sports director. And the stage victory is well deserved, I think.
• The collapse of Spanish cycling has left wounds: none of the teams could really impress on the climb. Sure, IBB has inherited some good riders, but is that really enough? First they need to become a real team. That said, Menchov and Mancebo are also dangerously good riders on their own.
• Where is Euskatel? Where are the climbing goats? Where is Mayo? Yes, I know, a minute behind Armstrong. Exactly. A whole minute. Okay, significantly less than Ullrich's 2:30...
• The dark horse Heras will probably flop rather than shine. It won't be so easy to turn an elite helper into a Tour winner.
• Totschnig seems to be in good shape in the mountains. However, he's probably lacking the helpers.

Has Armstrong already won the Tour? No, it would be too early for that. But this year he probably has different rivals than last year. And Ullrich too: he's not fighting for victory this year. He's just fighting for a podium place overall.

The times will probably be very hard...

... when you realize you agree with Geisler. Previously, interviews with Geisler were a reason to get upset (even though I always found him very likeable and unlikeable). And today? When discussing the dismantling of the welfare state, he zooms past left of Industrieschröder ...

Weird. He even aligned himself with Attac — regarding the topic of welfare state and the American model — on the same side.

This reality is broken. Can I please have a new one?

Pregnancy counseling eligible for funding even without certificate

What nonsense. If the church wants to provide isolated counseling that is purely church-motivated, it should pay for it itself. Squeezing taxpayer money for that is absurd. Whoever wants to opt out of the consequences of pregnancy counseling must also be excluded from the financing.

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

Unfortunately only ticker, but the stage was probably great

In any case, the results are impressive:

• Virenque in the mountain jersey and as stage winner. And that on French national holiday. He also moves far forward in the overall standings - fourth place! Which makes him quite dangerous for the classification. Especially if he stays this strong in the mountains.
• Erik Zabel only not second because of Andreas Klöden - hey, the T-Mobile boys still need to practice their lead-out, the lead-out rider also needs to get out of the sprinter's line of fire!
• Zabel is now fighting for the green jersey in second place with only 10 points behind. And McEwen was probably not in the vicinity. That gives hope for further stages!
• The yellow jersey was sovereignly defended by Brioche la Boulongere and Thomas Voeckler - which should give some of the favorites food for thought.
• But the most amazing thing: a mountain stage with a Category 1 climb, and Zabel is right up front in the main field. With a damn strong position in the overall standings! That should give some of the sprinters food for thought ...

I'm already looking forward to the weekend, then I can watch the stages live again

Patent Dispute

In the MacGuardians forum, the patent attorney speaks grandly about how nice it is when his assessment—that patents are there for everyone, small and large companies alike—is confirmed. However, the Heise article mentions something about how the small company only achieved success (before that it was nearly bankrupt) after it teamed up with SportFive, an agency from the RTL-Bertelsmann group. But RTL-Bertelsmann is certainly no small company.

Aside from that: I also find the patent itself rather questionable, because it does nothing other than translate the ancient concept of faxback machines to mobile phones.

Send a number code to a central hub and send something else back. Evaluate which number codes you received. Incredible creative height—you couldn't possibly come up with something like that without being a genius.

And what do we learn from this: Patent attorneys see the world with blinders on. And patents are simply not for everyone—because if they were, the student wouldn't have needed help from RTL-Bertelsmann ...

The original article can be found at MacGuardians.

Quality Journalism de Luxe

Ouch.

At das Netzbuch you can find the original article.

The Discovery of Umami

About the discovery of the fifth taste sensation umami (besides sweet, sour, bitter, and salty).

Here you can find the original article.

The Long Now Foundation: Feynman and the Connection Machine

A nice story about my favorite physicist's work on the Connection Machine (my absolute dream hardware).

Here's the original article.

classic camera - Structure and Operation of the Minox Shutter

Gmail is weird

I've had a Gmail account for a few days now. To play around with it, I thought I'd just load a bunch of emails into it and check out the search and filter functions. Hacked together a little Python script that dumps my archived mail via SMTP into my mail server, which then gradually passes it on to Google. The script ran smoothly. 1305 emails were successfully sent to Google without any error messages (it's only the 1998 archive, which is why there are so few).

Only 640 arrived. Where's the rest? My server sent all the emails to two servers. gsmtp171 and gsmtp57. The first got 556 emails, the second 749. No error messages for these 1305 emails. But I'm missing a large chunk. And the numbers don't add up to either of the two mail servers - so it wasn't a single server either. All emails come from one mail system - so they're syntactically correct, after all they made it to my mailbox. Besides, syntactic rejections should show up accordingly - if attachments were executable, the email would be rejected directly on the mail server (I had 4 of those).

Strange. Somehow this doesn't really give me much hope that Google built something really good here...

I don't want to begrudge McEwen the victory today

Honestly. Somehow it would have been nicer if Hushovd had grabbed it one more time.

But damn tight that finish. Wow. But somehow already frustrating for the two breakaway riders to be caught just a few meters before the finish line.

Syd Barrett

Many beautiful songs from one of the best songwriters (cheekily linked into the frame). Shine on, you crazy diamond.

Here you can find the original article.

Wegmann's Tour Premiere: "I had a little shock there"

Somehow sympathetic. Well, it has to be, after all it comes from Münster

I found the original article at Radsport-News.com.

Windows XP more secure than Linux and Mac OSX!

Tjaja, the so-called experts from the chip lab. At Industrial Technology & Witchcraft you can find the original article.

AIDS Conference Disputes Over Condoms

Abstinence Campaigns - the Nonsensical Answer from Religious Zealots to the Spread of AIDS. Is What They're Causing Actually Manslaughter?

I find it hard to believe that prostitution in Thailand is a problem of lack of abstinence. It's already cynical when something like this is spouted by a head of state at an AIDS conference, or when the US government focuses on it.

Of course, behind this lies the usual notion that women choose prostitution voluntarily - something only people who are very out of touch with reality or very cynical could believe. As if it weren't bad enough that in many parts of the world, young girls and boys hardly have any other chance of survival than prostitution - which ultimately leads to death through AIDS.

I found the original article at NETZEITUNG.DE Wissenschaft.

Bush will »if necessary« postpone US elections

Actually, it would be time to send UN election observers to the US presidential election. Especially after last time election results were manipulated, there was the scandal around voting machine manufacturer Diebold in between, and now this story is coming up ...

At Der Rollberg you can find the original article.

DaimlerChrysler threatens production relocation

And the extortion continues - so that employees have to pay for the incompetence and horrendous salaries of the executive level ...

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

FCKeditor - The text editor for Internet

A Wysiwyg editor for HTML source that runs in a browser textarea, implemented using DHTML (so Javascript, not as a Java applet) and should work on IE, Mozilla and Firefox.

I actually wanted to write something positive about it, but then Firefox crashed on me ...

Here you can find the original article.

gppl's nest - Hierarchical Queries with PostgreSQL

well hit

At Pepilog - gut getroffen you can find the original article.

Gwydion Dylan: Overview - free high-end Dylan compiler

ICANN remains firm on Sitefinder

Good decision. And best to really close the RFC for wildcards at the top-level domain. Sorry, but the top-level domain is always a point of power concentration - and thus fundamentally of course tempting. But it should generally be kept free from commercial interests, at least insofar as they go beyond the normal registrar service, since it's immensely important for operations. There's no room for silly games - these oh-so-great new services are simply nonsense at that level. Just because paint manufacturers would like to sell more paint doesn't mean we paint the highways either ...

At heise online news there is the original article.

LWN: Oracle patents content management systems

And again, a stupid US patent. This time on content management workflows like they occur in pretty much every CMS. Great prospects for EU software patents

Here you can find the original article.

Marlais Sourceforge Project - portabler Dylan Interpreter

Abuse scandal at Austrian priest seminary

According to the news magazine "Profil," 40,000 photographs and numerous films containing "partially depraved sexual depictions" were seized on computers at the St. Pölten seminary. In addition to sexual intercourse with children, the photos allegedly also showed homosexual acts between seminary participants and their superiors. Bad enough on its own. But then the reactions to it are pretty strange:

Everything related to homosexuality or pornography has no place in a priestseminiary, the statement read. - So sexual intercourse with children does have a place in priesterseminaries? Is homosexuality something bad? That's a funny sentence.

However, the responsible Bishop Kurt Krenn sees it differently. While he confirmed to the ORF that he had seen a photograph in which seminary director Küchel touched another clothed man's genitals, and that deputy Rothe was shown sharing an intimate kiss, he argued that this was in no way "something to do with homosexuality," but rather "boys' foolishness." - he really takes the cake with this one. Yeah, just boys' foolishness. Sure. And once again it seems that homosexuality is much worse than the aforementioned abuse...

Somehow the whole thing is pretty absurd and dishonest. But the church will sweep it under the rug again...

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

Rent A Coder - Automated Form Filler

If you're wondering where the spam comments are being produced: not by the dummy who's looking for a programmer on rentacoder to write him such a spam bot

Here you can find the original article.

Identity crises among bloggers?

Perhaps the meaning crisis simply lies in wanting to see a deeper purpose in blogging at all? Whoever doesn't look for meaning in blogging doesn't have to miss it either ...

At M. Kniebes Journal you can find the original article.

%u2018Building Accessible Websites%u2019 serialization - Book about page design with accessibility in mind

Who's calling?

Actually, only one paragraph in the article matters regarding the entire reverse lookup at directory assistance: If you can do well without your own phone number landing in the databases of information brokers and being "reverse-translated", you can lodge an objection at 01375/103300. This works automatically, quickly and conveniently. Important: Be sure to use the line you want to exclude when calling, as the phone number is determined automatically and not requested.

So simply call from the appropriate line, listen, wait for the signal tone and pay 12 cents. Even though I find it absurd that I have to explicitly object to something I never agreed to in the first place ...

At WDR.de you can find the original article.

Coriolis Systems :: Products :: iPartition - Something like Partition Magic for OS X