Gates Foundation Donates Palm PDAs to New York Schools
That's nice of the Gates Foundation to give away Palms, and not those dreadful Pocket PCs
At heise online news there's the original article.
Archive 14.7.2003 - 24.7.2003
Today the tour only in the ticker ...
... but it wasn't boring. A tremendous solo effort by Tyler Hamilton (yes, the one with the damaged shoulder) over two category-one mountains. Completely alone since the second one (Col Bargarguy). And then still riding the long flat descent into Bayonne solo. Wow. And he still takes almost two minutes from the rest of the field at the end. How much strength does he have left?
Oh, and Zabel wins the sprint of the main field. 17 points on the way to the green jersey. Slowly but surely the squirrel gets fed.
Italy's Parliament Strengthens Berlusconi's Media Power
Clever: first secure immunity against corruption investigations and then consolidate total media control. Really, all he needs now is to found his own religion. Church of Corruptology or something like that.
You can find the original article at tagesschau on the Internet here.
Stage 16: Tyler Freaking Hamilton takes Stage 16!
Tyler freaking Hamilton. Yeah, that fits. For Tour de France 2003 there's the original article.
Hondo about to switch to Gerolsteiner
Well, if they're setting themselves up like that for sprints, then I expect Gerolsteiner to take over the green jersey next year!
New Mail Server in X.3 Server?
Please, please, dear Apple engineers, also replace the mail server in regular OS X with Postfix. This Sendmail is simply unbearable. Yes, you can patch it. Yes, I know how to do that. But I can't be bothered to fix it again after every upgrade. Sendmail belongs in the retirement home.
At MacGuardians there's the original article.
SCO vs. Linux: Linux Tax or Security [Update]
It's really outrageous what this company is getting away with. Still this lazy drivel when asked for concrete evidence. I hope that finally some company will put a stop to all this. The whole SCO action stinks miserably to high heaven.
At least here in the country, a stop has been put to this nonsense.
At heise online news you can find the original article.
"Antidote License" by SCO
What nonsense. I hope someone sues SCO over this story. The whole thing is taking on increasingly absurd proportions. Still no evidence for SCO's claims, but they're already busily ripping people off.
At heise online news you can find the original article.
Atom mines should devastate Germany
With friends like these, you don't need enemies anymore ...
You can find the original article at Spiegel Online: Science.
The cornerstones of the health compromise
That's just pure label fraud. Allegedly, the measures are supposed to reduce contributions to 13 percent by 2006. Nonsense. Why would the insurance companies do that if they're not forced to? And even if they did it contrary to expectations: what good does that do if the savings go toward a mandatory dental replacement insurance? And what about the other co-payments? 300 euros per hospital case - great, what's Grandma Kasulke supposed to do with her tiny pension? Sell the PC with the freshly installed Linux because the gallstones have to come out?
It's all rubbish, the mess politicians cobble together. Of course, the ordinary citizen has to foot the bill again. As usual, twice over - with higher fees and lower benefits.
People called the railway company out on that as advertising fraud. Politicians celebrate stuff like this as a major success.
The tour was already tough today...
... as Vinokourov had to painfully notice, he lost over 2 minutes. That's tough. But Armstrong also had to work hard. That he ultimately won at the finish line and put 40 seconds into Jan Ullrich is certainly also because he was probably riding mainly on adrenaline. After all, this was Armstrong's first crash in the Tour and not exactly a minor one, so the body's own doping certainly works very well. Incredible what these riders can pull off, even when they crash like Majo and Armstrong.
I think it's good that Ullrich waited for Armstrong. Okay, some will certainly argue that Ullrich waited too long, but ultimately he just gave Armstrong back what he had received from him back then. Simply a very nice gesture that shows these two riders really want to know who is stronger, not just who gets more luck.
And one thing is certain: the tension remains high until the last stage, because the overall victory will probably be decided on Saturday in the time trial. And that's also nice after Tours where the outcome was sometimes almost decided in the first week.
Cycling News.com
Ugh. Mud-slinging. They should face each other on the Tour rather than in the courtroom.
Wolfowitz "Leave Iraq alone"
Wolfowitz is increasingly taking on the characteristics of Comical Ali. I mean, who else if not the Americans has interfered in Iraq in the most persistently disruptive way? It's simply absurd what kind of loss of reality politicians are capable of...
I found the original article at Warblogs:CC.
Image of Joseba Beloki after the bad crash and the surgery
Wow, bandaged and wrapped up, but at least laughing. That's something. By the way, a really nice Tour 2003 blog where I found the image.
More tour blogs (or related):
- Logos Tour Blog
- Tour Blog
- Velonews with Tour notes from Tyler Hamilton ( RSS Feed for Velonews via myRSS)
- Radsport News with Tour notes from Jörg Ludewig ( RSS Feed for Radsport News via myRSS)
- Team Telekom Pages with Tour notes from Rold Aldag
- Cycling Pictures with Tour notes from Thomas Liese
Vinokourov's day was today ...
... in any case, his attack towards the end was top-class. Well-placed and well-executed. With that, he made an impressive showing and reiterated his claim to a podium place in Paris. And Armstrong now has to fight on two fronts. That will take energy, even if he has something planned for tomorrow - he will have to work hard for it. The main rivals now just 15 and 18 seconds behind the yellow jersey - the Tour hasn't been this exciting in many years.
Neotonic ClearSilver
Hmm. Sounds interesting - a high-performance template engine in C, with bindings for various scripting languages including Python. That could be fun to play around with - Cheetah is great, but can be a bit sluggish sometimes. An efficient template language could make it possible to provide templates to users in the Community Server as well. Let me take a look.
Controversial public oath in Berlin
What is this militaristic shit supposed to be anyway? Why do we need this crap? We should actually have overcome this nonsense in Germany by now.
You can find the original article at tagesschau on the Internet and here.
Unusual Product Names #2
This must be the most absurd reason for a product name I've ever heard
At PhotographyBLOG there's the original article.
Amazon sued for purchase recommendations
Patents are a pain in the ass - even though I can't help but crack a smirk when Amazon now gets a taste of its own medicine.
At heise online news you can find the original article.
Bush's Cinderella Test
I had already read about it elsewhere, a really great idea that the White House came up with there. Well, the idea is so stupid that it will probably be implemented in Germany soon too... I particularly like the "are you for me or against me" question that you have to answer. Who still believes that negative votes don't go straight into the electronic shredder?
At Spiegel Online: Netzwelt there's the original article.
This tour is way too exciting for me...
... at least if it continues the way it did today, with Jan Ullrich and Alexandre Vinokourov constantly attacking and keeping pace with Armstrong. The Euskatel riders Majo and especially Zubeldia attacking, and Armstrong who is really being driven into the ground. That costs strength. If this continues, it will be a very tough Tour for Armstrong. And then this final attack by Jan Ullrich on Armstrong! Wow!
Politech: John Gilmore: I was ejected from a plane for wearing "Suspected Terrori
An absurd story about how John Gilmore (co-founder of EFF) was denied a flight with BA from the USA to London because he was wearing a button that said "Suspected Terrorist". Well worth reading. If anyone thinks there's even a shred of sense left in this so-called war on terror - forget it.
SCO plans Linux licenses for users
The ridiculous license can stick it where it's eternally dark
At heise online news you can find the original article.
Newspaper: More Costs for Patients
This practice fee for self-initiated doctor visits—even with your general practitioner—what's the point of this nonsense? In the end, it just means people won't go to the doctor to save money. And then they get really sick and end up causing hefty costs to the healthcare system when they need much more complex treatments.
It should give healthcare system reformers something to think about when someone like Geissler takes a stand against this dismantling.
At tagesschau on the Internet there's the original article.
BGH: Function of Hyperlinks Takes Precedence Over Commercial Interests
Strike! heise online news has the original article.
File sharing is to become a crime
Absurd. And calling something like this an "Author, Consumer and Computer Owner Protection and Security Act" is pretty audacious. How does such an excessive penalty threat protect a computer owner? But with "Protection and Security" you can apparently get any nonsense approved in the USA ...
At Spiegel Online: Netzwelt there's the original article.
MTV.com - News - Metallica Sue Canadian Band over E, F Chords
Ok. Metallica's music is shit. Their web design is shit. And their behavior probably too - or why would a band come up with the idea to sue another band because they unlawfully used the chords E and F, which according to Metallica in this combination are a sign of Metallica? Mr. shit brain from heaven!
Update : Ok, apparently it's a hoax. The music and the web design are still shit though. At least I wasn't the only one who fell for it, so I'm in good company
Software Association Uses Legal Study on Open Source for Lobbying
Was expected — if an ex-Microsoft executive is running the show, it's clear that FUD replaces facts in the discussion.
At heise online news you can find the original article.
TinderWiki
I like Tinderbox - really. Very cute program, tons of interesting features. And it's a real adventure: many features are documented nowhere and pop up somewhere at some point and you're quite amazed that it exists. At Tinderbox Wiki I found the original article.
To Ping Or Not To Ping?
So the pings to central directories have been running in their own background thread from the very beginning at Python Desktop Server. This is definitely recommended for http://weblogs.com and http://blo.gs. I'll continue pinging there, not because I think weblogs.com itself is important - but the changes.xml from there is used by various services as a control file to, for example, pull the RSS feed into the database at http://feedster.com/. The original article is at Der Schockwellenreiter here.
Time trialing can be exciting after all ...
... as today's stage of the Tour shows. Jan Ullrich with a mercilessly good time, basically a demolition of the opposition. Tyler Hamilton with a fantastic time with a broken collarbone - if he hadn't crashed at the start of the Tour, I believe he would have given the favorites a serious scare this year. Vinokourov with arguably his best time trial of his career. And Lance Armstrong way behind Jan Ullrich - who took 1 minute and 35 seconds from him! And now the Pyrenees are coming! And another time trial! That makes the whole Tour as exciting as it hasn't been in years! Ullrich just 34 seconds behind Armstrong in the general classification, and Vinokourov still only 51 seconds behind Armstrong!
Wow. I'm running out of exclamation marks.
BGH examines legality of deep linking
And here a newspaper proves how little it understands what the internet is all about. Here a search service is even being sued because it links directly to articles. People, think about it: if deep linking is banned, weblogs won't be allowed to link to the articles themselves anymore, only to the publisher's main pages. Anyone who sets a link would first have to check whether it's even legally feasible. Otherwise, he could be sued by such an ignorant organization.
Possibly Handelsblatt is also among those who complain about how much weblogs are displacing their quality content from Google search results.
Originally I reflexively linked to Handelsblatt. But I don't set links to such ignorant people, it could improve their Google ranking after all.
I can only hope that the BGH puts an end to this nonsense.
At heise online news there's the original article.
Former FreeBSD Developer Launches Own Operating System
Hachja, how much that reminds me of the stories with Theo de Raadt in the NetBSD project. Especially the reasoning comes across as very familiar to me
At heise online news there is the original article.
RSS
As usual, the linked list is missing the Python Desktop Server again. Unbelievable! By the way, there's now also a Windows installation package for Python Desktop Server available at http://simon.bofh.ms/~louis/. The original article can be found on netbib weblog.
Those who want to be found on the web must be on the web!
It's like this: how much content disappears behind paywalls or registration barriers? Google and other search engines don't register! How much content disappears behind format barriers? Google does open some common formats, but not all and not in all variations. How much content disappears behind no-linking barriers? Content in proprietary formats simply don't have links pointing into them - and therefore have poor Google rankings too. The same applies to deep-linking preventers.
Example: those dreadful Flash movies where, sensibly enough, the "Skip Intro" link is inside the Flash movie instead of outside in HTML. And where do these geniuses place such a traversal preventer? Right on the homepage. So every bot already fails at the index.html and doesn't search further. Just like everyone who doesn't have Flash. Or everyone who is, for example, visually impaired.
People, get this straight once and for all: you all have a blind buddy, and that's Google (and its colleagues). Sites with poor accessibility, with JavaScript-programmed links instead of normal links, with too much Flash and proprietary formats - all of that makes life difficult not only for the blind, but also for search engines, which are still significantly blinder. You're not only excluding a population group, you're excluding yourselves from the internet infrastructure (links and search engines). And then you expect sympathy?
Instead of thinking it through and putting the content out there, preparing it and linking it where and how it's reachable for search engines, you'd rather spend vast sums on search engine optimizers to push your meager content up in Google. And then of course you're offended when stupid weblogs simply climb up, just because they work exactly as search engine programmers currently imagine it ...
At Der Schockwellenreiter you can find the original article.
Immigrants keep population stable
Don't worry, the politicians will manage to prevent any influence of reality and facts on their actions. We can rely on one thing: once politicians have found a scapegoat, no statistics from the Federal Statistical Office will stop them from continuing to spread their false opinion into the world ...
At tagesschau im Internet you can find the original article.
frankfurt.blogplan.de
Cute. But I'm somehow not in the mood to do that for Münster. Looks like work. Doesn't one of the others here feel like it?
At Nochn Blogg. there's the original article.
Good to know!
"A kick to the buttocks of a subordinate employee is not part of a supervisor's occupational activities, even if it is done with the intention of promoting performance." LAG Düsseldorf, Az.: 12 (18) Sa 196/98 Note to self: do not kick employees.
At Zickenterror you can find the original article.
It's hard to fight for a liar
Ok, I think things could get tough for Bush now. If CNN puts little children in the news who don't like Bush, then that could be the beginning of his downfall. I mean, what could be worse than little children who don't like Bush? Maybe there's a video where Bush kicks a dog?
I found the original article at Warblogs:CC.
Jeffrey Zeldman Presents: The Daily Report
A point that is often overlooked in discussions about the Mozilla Foundation as the new custodian of the Mozilla browser is its significance in the realm of commercial browsers. Netscape will probably definitely die, and AOL apparently has no more interest in it (according to Zeldman's source, they're even removing the logos). Mozilla will probably only exist as a free product from now on, and commercial Netscapes will likely disappear in the long run. So AOL is surrendering the territory without a fight to Microsoft and the open source variants of Mozilla.
I can't say I'm surprised by this - AOL never had real interest in Netscape anyway; it was just a means to an end, and with the latest agreement with Microsoft, that means has become superfluous. For AOL, it was never about browser freedom in the antitrust proceedings against Microsoft.
In the end, the user is left behind, because Internet Explorer with its lousy implementation can dominate the market a little bit more - unless Mozilla establishes itself on a broader scale, but that will probably now happen less through companies pushing it and more only through users themselves.
Kindermann: No one presents their visions anymore
It's a shame. Kindermann is at least one of the last manufacturers of good - and above all affordable - medium format projectors. It would really be a pity if this quite old company were to disappear. Let's hope that the restructuring works and Kindermann is preserved and there's still room for the old products.
At dotcomtod you can find the original article.
Shooting Nekkid Women... for Fun
Ok, are there any dumber leisure activities than chasing naked women with paint guns? Update: It's a hoax. The original article is at lies.com.
Some continue to resist iTunes Music Store
We are Apple. Resistance is futile. You will be assimilated.
At The Macintosh News Network you can find the original article.
Walrus lady ''Antje'' is dying
Oh no :( - I still remember well when she first appeared on our television and snorted and slobbered over the pool edge. What a shame.
I found the original article at tagesschau im Internet.
PDF Has Stupid Ears
Yep. I really see it that way. PDF is nice enough as a transport format for print output. And as a basis for the Quartz engine in OS X. But in the browser as a page format, that's silly. I'm really annoyed by all these constantly linked PDF files - does creating HTML versions really take people so much effort? When I want to view a price list, I don't want to have to launch Acrobat or Preview first, just to have another window open. You can render that as HTML too. Silly people.
Just as silly as this Macromedia vision (yeah, I have visions like that too - after enjoying a pepperoni pizza with extra cheese) building everything with this horrible (and discriminatory) Flash-MX.
At Der Schockwellenreiter there's the original article.
"T" in Court
Oh yes, how nice, we will certainly get by in our language without the letter between S and U. I have hardly ever needed to use this letter in this entire text (ok, except in the title, but that is a citation). You can read everything just fine without the letter between S and U ...
At heise online news there is the original article.
There is no spoon...
Dubya has now completely lost touch with reality. Did Saddam Hussein have a weapons program? Yes, definitely. And we gave him the chance to let inspectors investigate it, but he refused - well, the world might have a somewhat different view of reality than Dubya on this point, for example the weapons inspectors who were in Iraq and had to leave because the war-hungry US government preferred to play with bombs instead of waiting for the results ... I found the original article at Warblogs:CC.
Allwetterzoo Münster - Offspring
Because there are constantly searches for baby animals on my website, here's the link to the page at Allwetterzoo Münster about young animals
Above and Below Lie So Close Together...
... as Alexandre Vinokourov and Joseba Beloki had to experience today. Alexandre Vinokourov wins his first stage victory and closes the gap to Lance Armstrong to just 20 seconds, Joseba Beloki crashes badly and ends the Tour in an ambulance. On one hand, you're pleased about this year's very interesting Tour with many attacks, on the other hand, bad crashes are simply the price riders sometimes have to pay. In this case, it was probably just softened asphalt that tore at Joseba Beloki's rear wheel. Hopefully it looked worse than it actually is, so that he has to end this Tour but not his career :-(
Still, big praise for Alexandre Vinokourov for a great ride to the finish - the attack came at exactly the right time, his strength was already clearly visible, he saved everything well for the final attack. Wow.