Programming CouchDB with Javascript - the typical ToDo list. Interesting to see how CouchDB is addressed.
Archive 29.10.2007 - 6.12.2007
NodeBox - Tool for playing with 2D graphics, based on Python. Reminds me a bit of Processing, but with Python instead of Java.
Solar + Tiny PC + Linux = Sweeeet - Mini-PC with solar power. Cool.
Standpauke vs. Requiem - just wanted to point out the Kolumnistenschwein again. It's just too good.
Clojure - interesting Lisp dialect that compiles directly to Java bytecode and integrates well with Java, but is conceptually more aligned with Erlang's ideas (no object orientation of its own, but a functional model as the basis, strong focus on parallelism) and makes extensive use of concepts from Common Lisp (macros, multimethods). Sounds very interesting.
Getting Started on Natural Language Processing with Python - nothing specific for me in the application, but processing natural language with computers has always fascinated me.
JLine - something like readline, but for Java.
VoIP-Signatur Patent für Fraunhofer - once again nonsense from the patent front. On the one hand, signing a sequence of packets is not really so terribly innovative that it needs a patent. Also, the linking of packets via hashes of the predecessor contents is not really groundbreakingly innovative. Sure, the idea may be nice - but is it realistically worth a patent? Especially in a country where there are supposedly no patents on algorithms? Apart from that: if the signing of communication for legal transactions is so essential - why are individual institutions or companies granted patents that de facto represent a monopolization of security means? Are contract forms and receipt pads also patented, so that you can only buy them from one manufacturer? No? Oh ...
Apple iPhone in Germany: Waiting for the Court - not that I want to defend T-Mobile greatly. But that Vodafone of all companies is making such a loud fuss is quite embarrassing. After all, they originally wanted to have the iPhone exclusively themselves, but apparently failed across Europe. And now they are complaining about the evil monopolists? What would they have done themselves if they had gotten the contract? Here, only a thwarted "monopolist" is complaining about another's gain.
BGH declares control of letters in Hamburg to be unlawful - amusing how a SPD politician justifies the excessive action, contrary to the BGH's argumentation. How prolethicians repeatedly place themselves above the judiciary and the law is quite shocking. That the Social Democrats are right at the forefront of this is, of course, not surprising since Schily.
Chromatron, by Silver Spaceship Software - for puzzle lovers. Free as in free beer.
Cory Doctorow on Facebook - worth reading.
IRSeeking trouble... - "If our happy little channel is having this much of a visceral reaction, I can't imagine what some of the other channels and servers are going to do when they find out... and honestly, I wouldn't want to be on the other end of whatever technical shitstorm IRSeek is getting itself into. I mean, pissing off millions of highly technical IRC geeks en-masse? They're nuts."
Warning of "unbearable escalation" of data retention - it was clear that this nonsense would come. With our prolethic leaders in Berlin, terrorism and copyright infringement are the same thing. Will a BGH or a Federal Constitutional Court protect us from this madness?
BGH: "Militant group" not a terrorist organization - Sometimes reason prevails. Maybe now, in light of this ruling, the terrorism card will be played less often - and not every sneeze classified as an attack.
LKA-Director Hüttemann has resigned - well, now we know where all the "isolated cases" are going ...
Network - xkcd is still by far the best webcomic.
OLPC sued in Nigeria for patent infringement - and the fact that multi-shift keyboards have existed with all kinds of mini systems for decades (sorry, but there were already such things on Casio calculators and HP calculators), and that programming a keyboard driver hardly poses a challenge to anyone and therefore probably does not fall under "protectable," of course, is of no interest. You can only make money from shit if you patent the shit first.
Richter hält Vorratsdatenspeicherung für verfassungswidrig - well, whether this will impress the paranoid wheelchair user? Even with a constitutional complaint and a corresponding assessment by the Federal Constitutional Court - there is still Schäuble's "Yes and, then we change the constitution" hanging in the air ...
Telekom exits cycling - quite hypocritical, first profiting from doping-related victories and press for years and then wanting to distance themselves by ending sponsorship. Sorry, Telekom, but you were part of the problem for years (yes, I know, Telekom never pushed for doping, just as they certainly never sought positive press by paying reporters, we naturally believe them on that), you won't get out of it that easily. But well, in a potentially cleaner cycling sport, Telekom as a sponsor then no longer plays a role ... maybe the sport has a chance again with less gigantomania.
The Future of Reading (A Play in Six Acts) - a nice compilation by Mark Pilgrim about the Kindle (Amazon's eBook reader). eBook readers that can't even display PDFs (and thus fail as display devices for a lot of the electronic books on my hard drive) are just nonsense to me.
Carnival Association with TÃœV Seal - ISO certification is just a silly carnival event.
lxml.html - Processing HTML in Python. Looks good.
Bundestag approves agreement on the transfer of passenger data - how the prolethikers pat themselves on the back for the nonsense they spout. Disgusting.
Encrypted E-Mail Company Hushmail Spills to Feds - too bad, and this from a company that has awarded itself the corresponding advance laurels.
iP2F - looks nice Flickr uploader, stumbled upon it at Schockwellenreiter. Looks quite nice. Might be an idea for my SL snapshots, instead of collecting them all in a big pile on the disk (and uploading them with an external uploader).
Patent lawsuit against Apple, Microsoft and 21 other companies - yet it is still claimed that patents secure the development interest of companies. Hello? The patent exploiters have, in the rarest of cases, developed anything. They just sit there and look for the most absurd possible interpretation of some nonsense patents.
Schäuble steps up software development - Golem.de - because the Interior Minister doesn't need to think about trivial matters like proportionality and constitutional compliance.
Tarimporter - and this one even looks into other formats. Unfortunately, both only look at filenames, not contents. Too bad.
Encryption standard under backdoor suspicion - hmm. Would actually only be consistent if, in the current paranoia situation of intelligence agencies, the infiltration of algorithms from cryptography were addressed.
Warner Music CEO: We Were Wrong - huh? Are they finally realizing something?
Ziplight - Search ZIP Files with Spotlight - maybe old news for some, but new and practical for me.
Police hand over computers of suspects to music industry lawyer - even more goats, even more gardeners.
Dirvish - another disk image backup based on rsync and hardlinks.
Is the Federal Eavesdropping Center coming? - and those who previously believed that Stasi 2.0 was only a satirical exaggeration will now slowly realize that it is deadly serious.
Court of Auditors wastes millions - by goats and gardeners?
reinteract - interesting interactive shell for Python with a nice idea for editing history. And a mode to integrate certain objects directly into the output - could be interesting as a math sheet. Or simply as a nice interface for playing with Python libraries.
rsnapshot - creates snapshots with rsync and hardlinks. On the other hand, I have been using rdiff-backup quite successfully for a while now. And good old tar works quite well too (I just don't have much to back up under Linux).
The Terrifying Toothpick Fish - ugh. There are things you really don't want to know. Ewww.
Upside-Down-Ternet - cool. Split WLAN and send unauthorized users through a proxy that turns every image upside down. Awesome.
E-Vergabe: Nutzer von Linux oder Mac müssen draußen bleiben - that's just pathetic: when you create a new platform, you can immediately build on platform independence. But that would mean thinking about such stupid projects.
Zope: Using UTF-8 in the Management Interface (ZMI) - because I needed it just now.
"Spiegel": Evidence of Power Company Collusion - fits well, as the power companies are just trying to turn the price screw again ...
Zypries accuses critics of data retention of lacking expertise - reading such statements from the federal incompetence (some insist on calling her the Federal Minister of Justice) is quite amusing. If we talk about lack of expertise here, then this first and foremost applies to our politicians, who are completely ignorant of facts and realities. When she then makes such an accusation, among other things, to the Federal Data Protection Commissioner, it only becomes ridiculous.
Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard: the Ars Technica review - a very good overview of all possible aspects of 10.5 - from the kernel inside to the GUI on top.
Doing the Leopard Moan - I think I'll wait a bit with the update ... (until the manufacturers of the many little helper tools have converted the first quirks of the system and Apple's new ideas into usable tools that help you get over them). Am I actually a Mac heretic if I say that I would prefer to have this stupid Dock completely unplugged? I mean even the one from older versions, not just the one from Leopard.
TidBITS Macs & Mac OS X: Getting to Know Time Machine - sorry, but after all the features that Apple apparently left out of the release (AirPort Disc for backups, controlled archiving of old files, etc.), Time Machine sounds anything but impressive.