Archive 2.7.2003 - 15.7.2003

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

Here's the original article.

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.

Tour de France: Beloki must give up after crash

Phew, at least it all sounds like repairable fractures and no serious permanent damage — given the speed at which the fall likely happened, it could easily have been much worse. Let's hope Beloki can show Armstrong his teeth again in next year's Tour.

Here's the original article.

Linux on a Saturday Night

It's amusing to watch an otherwise intelligent person (virtually of course only - I'm grateful that I probably don't have to witness the personal breakdowns that are taking place), desperately trying to get Linux to work and blaming Linux, throwing snide comments about Linux vs. Windows. I mean, the guy writes books, he's a co-author of the Cluetrain Manifesto, has an academic degree, but he's not able to buy and read a beginner's book about Linux before installing a completely new operating system. Classic case of overqualification - too smart to learn.

At Joho the Blog there's the original article.

More WebCore Fixes

Recommended blog by the CSS developer in the Safari team. You always get nice insights into what's coming and are pleased that Safari is becoming increasingly complete in CSS so you can finally use all those nice features (and then look down on Microsoft's inferior implementations).

It would just be nice if at least the Gecko people would keep up too (they've already implemented a lot, certainly better than IE), then us Safari people wouldn't be so alone...

You can find the original article at Surfin Safari — here.

Today's top rider of the Tour for me: Tyler Hamilton

That's clear to me. To stay with Armstrong on such a grueling stage with a broken collarbone and keep up so well, even attacking at times, is already a superb performance. Though also a bit crazy. But you probably have to be that way if you want to ride the Tour...

Aldag is simply impressive

So today's stage was simply fantastic. Aldag was in the breakaway group from the start, got caught up at one point, then attacked hard and scored a fantastic second place on the stage. Great stuff.

And Virenque also impressed with his stage win and taking the yellow jersey - even if it's probably only for one day. Good on him.

That's the kind of Tour I love, with surprises and strong performances. Excellent.

Sony's Design Complete Calculator

And no matter how much you design the casing, at the end of the day your Sony still only has PC junk inside, it will never become a Mac

At heise online news you can find the original article.

Land in Sight for Squeaky Ducky

A small outing for a rubber duck, but a great success for mankind (Ernie would be proud, as would Mr. Müller-Lüdenscheidt and Mr. Dr. Klöbner)

At Spiegel Online: Science you can find the original article.

Stoiber for longer weekly working hours

I'm still waiting to see how these union idiots think extending working hours will reduce the 4.5 million unemployed and not instead produce a future number of 6 million unemployed

At tagesschau on the internet there's the original article.

The Home Page of Squeak for SL Series Zaurus (ZauChu) and Qtopia/iPAQ

Nice. The Squeak VM for the Zaurus. I'll give that a try when I have time. The Zaurus with Smalltalk on it would be just the right thing to play around with on the go.

Here's the original article.

Monkeys Can Program

Cool. I always knew that Visual Basic was pretty ridiculous, and that Java causes stress

Here's the original article.

Freenet and AOL warn file-sharing users

Hmm. So if neither AOL nor Freenet themselves monitor traffic (which I'm inclined to believe), then that means the mere accusation by a third party (some representatives of the music industry) with evidence created by them (since no one can verify whether their log file excerpts have any connection to reality) is sufficient to threaten a user with contract termination? That the music industry has a very strange relationship with its rights is well known - they like to adopt a "shoot first, ask questions later" behavior. But the fact that providers are now complying out of excessive deference is already concerning. Where are consumer rights in all this? This simply opens the door wide to arbitrariness. And that the self-proclaimed internet experts of the music industry would have scruples about simply blanketly accusing file-sharing users, well, no one will believe that, will they? There's also the question of how they actually want to prove anything. Most file-sharing networks work in such a way that the actual transfers (and only these are potentially rights violations) take place between file-sharing users themselves - that is, from host to host. Other computers in the system normally don't notice anything. So someone must be putting data on the network that is subject to foreign copyright, and wait until the transfer takes place. In Germany, I believe that falls under "incitement to commit a crime" - and whether a provider should then cancel a user's contract on such a basis, I do find questionable. Not that file-sharing networks particularly interest me - but the whole procedure stinks to high heaven. It's the same nonsense as the incitement to copyright infringement that a Munich aristocrat pulled off years ago.

At heise online news there's the original article.

Hubble sees oldest planet

And darn it, just an old pile of junk in space

At Astronomical Trivia there's the original article.

Third stage victory for Petacchi

So something like that. Petacchi is racking up victory after victory and Zabel is lagging behind? Come on, Erik, get pedaling!

I found the original article at tagesschau on the internet.

Monitor - Genetic Engineering Contribution

Why does a citizen in Germany have to feel, with every decision made by politicians, that they've been betrayed and sold out? That their own interests - even when it's the opinion of a majority - don't interest a single politician? That all politicians are either corrupt or let themselves be controlled by business, with corporate interests standing far above the will of citizens?

And why is every piece of nonsense always sold to us again by politicians as supposed commitment or even a victory for consumers or something equally great, when in reality it just means we've been screwed over once more?

But where the Federal Gerd spends their vacation is apparently a much more important decision...

Here's the original article.

Price for rolling tobacco soon at record level?

Maybe Jutta will finally quit smoking then.

At tagesschau im Internet you can find the original article.

Teleinfo clarifies spam allegations

Ouch. Teleinfo doesn't seem to be particularly clever about this. Well, at least Heise's lawyers have something to do during the summer slump.

The original article can be found at heise online news - here.

Hubble discovers sensational exoplanet

Wow, an astronomical cliffhanger

At Astronomical Trivia there's the original article.

Yahoo! News - ONLINE DIARIES CAN CAUSE TEEN FRIENDSHIPS TO SUFFER

This is so absurd, I just have to link it. How good that we all don't write diaries, because they can disadvantage teenage friendships. What, we all don't have teenage friendships? So annoying, must be due to our blogs. Or the fact that we're no longer teenagers.

Here's the original article.

Sex, Lies and Video Surveillance

ACK. Unfortunately.

At Ligne Claire you can find the original article.

Sharp lets Zaurus die in Germany

Too bad. The Zaurus is a nice platform. I like to tinker with mine. Well, I guess I have another exotic computer lying around here then.

At heise online news you can find the original article.

target="_blank"

Okay. I'll remove the target=_blank then.

At .::: [unsinnfälliges] you can find the original article.

The Observer | Politics | Confess or die, US tells jailed Britons

So we've arrived at the methods of the Inquisition? Very nice choice: either the British suspects in Guantanamo Bay confess that they are terrorists, then they get 20 years in prison. Or they don't confess and get the death penalty if they are found guilty in the trial. What kind of legal system is that supposed to be? Is this the Bush administration's idea of freedom? I call that perverted.

Here's the original article.

Mass crash at 55 km/h

So (and with third place for Zabel in the sprint) today's stage of the Tour ended. Ouch. Jimmy Casper didn't look good at all, I hope it's not too serious. It almost looked like a game of dominoes, the way the riders all tumbled. That hurts just watching it.

You know that a tour stage is just not that exciting right now...

... when commentators report for 10 minutes about the technique of peeing in cycling races (of course including an anecdote).

Merkel wants to have the final say in tax dispute

Merkel. Power word. What irritates me about the combination of these two words in one sentence?

At tagesschau im Internet there's the original article.

The internet is shit

Read!

Here's the original article.

User Feedback on Blogs

I'm honestly always amazed at how many blogs don't have comments (for example Schockwellenreiter) and how many only allow comments after registration with some strange service. Are spam comments really such a huge problem? I hardly ever see them in the blogs I read anyway, and I only get a comment once in a blue moon myself. The whole thing is rather strange... You can find the original article at Nochn Blogg. here.

AOL blogs!

Ouch. Well, then the weblogs.com servers will probably get Septembered 1, just like Usenet did back then. In any case, what will likely cause problems is the infrastructure of information services. If a significant number of weblogs are created via AOL (and you can bet that the AOL weblogs will really be diaries and will be hard to beat in quantity and easy to beat in quality

), how will services like Technorati, Feedster, blo.gs and similar handle it? So we can be curious to see how the blogging infrastructure will cope with something like this and what happens to it (certainly a few hardware upgrades will be necessary). I can well imagine that one or another service will give up the ghost, especially if the AOL weblogs are cranking out pings. Possibly AOL will set up its own server this time, which would at least be sensible, and distribute the pings via changes.xml to the other services.

Unlike Usenet, the blogosphere is not a push medium, so it shouldn't make any difference to the end user (unlike Usenet, where every participant had to experience the chaos). Except that there will be even more weblogs and probably the various weblog search services, information services and directories will have to think about how to structure their information - otherwise you won't find anything in all that mess. [1] the invasion of millions of AOL users into Usenet took place in September 1993.

At Der Schockwellenreiter you can find the original article.

The Curta

Beautiful.

At INSTANT NIRVANA I found the original article.

Saturday 5 July Pg : also works with SBCL, OpenMCL and Lispworks

Cool, a complete Lisp implementation of the PostgreSQL interface. Very interesting, and runs in OpenMCL, which means I can play around with it.

I found the original article on CLiki Recent Changes.

Alleged Million-Dollar Purchase on eBay Turns Out to Be a Bad Joke

Are we now introducing a 0.8 per mille limit on the Internet?

At heise online news there is the original article.

Berlusconi refuses to apologize

Oh man, the troll from Italy doesn't even recognize a golden bridge when you put it on his foot. Ok, so now it's at least clear that Berlusconi wants to make a fool of himself. I think this EU Council Presidency will have at least high entertainment value. The political value, however, should be rated as rather questionable. At WDR.de I found the original article.

Embarrassing Iraq dossier in Word format

Yesterday and the day before already here, today also at Heise and Telepolis.

At heise online news there is the original article.

Sport in the Odd Summer

Another Tour casualty (with a few nice links)

You can find the original article at Ligne Claire.

taz 4.7.03 The Servant's Dream

Go for it, push yourself, you pig!

I'm crossing my fingers for Udo Bölts to get a daily victory. He really deserves it.

Here you can find the original article.

WebDesktop

Weird. A semi-transparent web browser that runs directly on the desktop. So to speak, Google as a wallpaper (or any other website). Crazy, what kind of ideas people come up with, of course I have Geektool running, with an image of the Holtenauer Lock in Kiel and my current system log on the desktop. That's of course much more sensible. Here's the original article.

German Government Continues to Hinder Fight Against AIDS

Well, everyone has to cut back, so the Eurofighter is approved, but AIDS assistance is cut. That makes sense, doesn't it?

I found the original article at Telepolis News.

Children's Rights: Not a Matter of Compassion

Of course the USA won't ratify something like that, after all they have also detained minors in the camp at Guantanamo Bay. At WDR.de there is the original article.

Lispworks 4.3 OS X Screenshots

Yummy.

At lemonodor you can find the original article.

The Omni Group - Applications - OmniOutliner

Nice Tool

Here's the original article.

UK's Straw Admits Iraq Dossier Was 'Embarrassing'

The British government's reaction to the digital traces in the Iraq dossier. It's quite amusing how they squirm now that their embellishments courtesy of Microsoft have been exposed

Here's the original article.

Berlusconi as EU Council President

Unfortunately

At Der Rollberg you can find the original article.

I Love Me, vol. I

Michael O'Connor Clarke stumbled upon strange pages on the web full of gibberish. These pages contain seemingly randomly generated text content with links. He did some research into who owns the domains and discovered they're connected to Scientology. He's wondering what's going on. My theory: they're trying to improve their Google rankings for their main sites. Through many sites with content and links to each other, they get correspondingly good search positions. The random content could even be regularly refreshed, which Google would then rate as "actively maintained site with many inbound and outbound links." This way these link networks could boost other sites, but due to the random content they wouldn't show up in search results for more specific searches—for non-specific searches they'd get lost in the noise. Essentially stealth Google-bombing. Possibly to combat Operation Clambake? On the other hand, if you read through Operation Clambake and the original Scientology documents hosted there, it could also all be religious texts—they're almost as confusing.

Here's the original article.

Microsoft Word bytes Tony Blair in the butt

Hmm. A government-presented (and allegedly stolen) intelligence report on Iraq had been edited in Word. Unfortunately, the editors left traces behind. The creative minds who adapted the original document are now known by name.

Here's the original article.

Nazi jokes in the EU Parliament

Well, the troll from Italy is going to give us a lot of fun. It didn't take long before he showed what he's made of for the first time. He'll certainly fit very well with Dubya. At WDR.de you can find the original article.

Ringel new CEO of WestLB

Fits anyway. Ringelpietz was what they were doing before anyway.

At tagesschau im Internet I found the the original article.

Secret Santa terrorism

Ah yes. Apparently the CIA held a report secret for 30 years, according to which the Ebenezer Scrooge terrorist group was planning an attack on Santa Claus. Of course it was just a joke by a couple of silly spies, but it was kept secret nonetheless. Well, I think it probably had more truth to it than the reports about weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, especially the British version of it.

I found the original article at Warblogs:CC.