20 years of Smalltalk-80

Smalltalk 80 is celebrating its 20th birthday. Let me congratulate it and have a quick laugh at Java's expense

At Cincom Smalltalk Blog - Smalltalk with Rants you can find the original article.

Polaroid 195 is being reissued

The Polaroid 195 is being re-released by NPC, but with an improved back: this time it's based on Polaroid's standard back for packfilm. Excellent - a revised and high-quality packfilm camera, with all the adjustment options you could wish for. And with a contemporary back. I'm in love.

Here's the original article.

The Rungholt Project

Great, I didn't know there was a website for that either. Nice collection of links and data. Of course, nice material for an old Schleswig-Holstein fan like me. And Jutta will surely be interested in it too.

I found the original article at Der Schockwellenreiter.

Wolfowitz drops his mask

Things are really getting embarrassingly ridiculous at this point. But here too, someone like Blair won't understand that his pro-Bush stance is just making him look ridiculous.

At tagesschau im Internet there's the original article.

Rumors about Digiback for Leica R8 or 9 again

Translation

The rumors about a digital back for the Leica R8/9 are heating up again. This time with various people who normally know quite precisely what's going on. It's going to be exciting. 7500 USD (or EUR?) and then a 1.3x factor and 10 megapixels aren't exactly groundbreaking, but certainly interesting. Not that I necessarily want to have an R system in addition, but the combination of a – admittedly high-quality – manual body with a good digital back would really just be amazingly cool.

New iTunes prevents music sharing over the internet

So so. So performance improvement is nothing more than the castration of music sharing. Well, that's all the same to me, since I couldn't use it anyway (firewall) nor wanted to (security), but somehow I find that Apple shouldn't take its users for fools. They should rather leave that to Microsoft ... At heise online news there's the original article.

Novell claims its own Unix rights in Linux dispute

So let's summarize this one more time:

• SCO claims to have all rights to Unix

SCO claims that Linux contains infringements of rights

SCO itself actively marketed a Linux until recently, even after its own lawsuit against IBM

SCO still provides support for its own Linux today with download options for current kernel versions for its distribution

SCO doesn't even have all rights, since some of the rights are held by Novell

SCO has to this day failed to provide proof of where exactly these rights violations are

Have I forgotten any essential part of this farce, or is that already all of SCO's nonsense bundled together?

You can find the original article at heise online news here.

USA renew accusations against Iran

And work continues diligently on the next enemy image, so that no one notices how desolate conditions are in one's own country and what share the Bush administration bears in it.

At tagesschau im Internet you can find the original article.

If You're Good at Nothing, Become an Advertiser

This is something that bothers me more and more about students and university education: why does everyone believe it must be aligned with the demands of the economy? Do we really have to subordinate knowledge and scientific discourse to monetary interests? Is scientific work and education—which is supposed to be the purpose of universities—really worth so little?

I believe that university education should remain free from the constraints that the economy wants to impose on everything. Because if that happens, we'll quickly disappear from the top of the world stage.

Economic interests are short-term, science is long-term. Please continue to invest in the long-term; in the end, we all benefit far more from it than from short-term profits that go straight into the pockets of shareholders and investors anyway.

And to the students: yes, future work is important. Of course, especially in today's situation, you have to plan ahead for what you want to do professionally. But your studies should still be driven more by enthusiasm for a subject than by the question of whether it makes economic sense. Anything else would be a real shame. We already have far too many business administration students...

At Ligne Claire you can find the original article.

GMX landed on open relay blacklist

GMX's conclusion—namely to warn against using blacklists—is pretty stupid. The correct approach would simply be to close the hole, and then there would be no problems with blacklists. And ORDB isn't really problematic—you can start your own test anew and if it goes well, you get removed from the lists. And for anything more complex, there's a contact form.

In any case, there was a concrete reason why GMX ended up in this situation—using sender addresses as the sole qualification criterion for permissions is nonsense, since they can be forged arbitrarily.

At heise online news there's the original article.

Microsoft demands new tender in Munich [Update]

Ridiculous. The competition is said to be suspended - where exactly is the serious competition if you come with fake bids? The doubts about such a last-minute offer are entirely justified - either they're paying extra, then it's not a legitimate bid, but price dumping. Or they're making money from it - why was the other bid so much higher then? If you can suddenly save 7 million in a bid without it causing major pain, then something is definitely wrong, one way or another.

At heise online news there's the original article.

Oh God! (3)

Wow, Merkel really doesn't get it anymore, does she?

The reference to God in the Basic Law and in the oath formulas for civil servants is already absurd - what about a civil servant who doesn't believe in God? God won't help him, so what's the point of having "so help me God" in the formula? But to demand that for the EU as well - completely ridiculous. Europe should enshrine its Christian ties, but without disadvantaging other religions in any way - how is that supposed to work? Even now, other religious communities are disadvantaged, or does any religion besides Catholics and Protestants have state-backed tax collection? The state should stay out of the religion issue, period. By the way, there's a nice collection of links around the topic of political atheism at gottloses Ketzer. I found the original article at MEHRZWECKBEUTEL.

A land without consequences

The Americans may possibly have plans in their desk drawers to turn Guantanamo Bay into a death camp with its own death row and execution chamber. That is, to judge and execute the prisoners right there without ever bringing them onto American soil - and without any possibility of adequate defense or even minimal public transparency about the proceedings. Perverse.

I found the original article at Warblogs:CC.

LinuxTag warns SCO

Translation

Of course - SCO wants to present the evidence first in the US proceedings against IBM, but is already brazenly claiming beforehand that Linux violates their property rights and that Linux users could potentially be breaking the law. Ridiculous. Not just the accusation, but also the approach: since they only want to present evidence in court, they make unproven claims beforehand. As if that's no big deal, spreading a little FUD isn't harmful, right? I hope that the courts in Germany won't participate in this circus and demand clear evidence from SCO, or at least ban these silly accusations.

At heise online news there's the original article.

Billion-euro demand on the railway

Maybe Mehdorn will be removed now - after all, the whole thing happened under his leadership. That would certainly be a reason if 1.8 billion in losses are incurred, which apparently only result from incorrect billings to the federal government...

At tagesschau im Internet you can find the original article.

Munich City Hall SPD Decides on Linux

Wow. I'm amazed. Signs of intelligence. And from Munich of all places. Where do you find such a thing!

At heise online news you can find the original article.

Steinbrück: Continuation of coalition open

Steinbrück lacks grounding. Without the Greens, he won't be able to hold the state and will lose it to the Union. And that would be extremely fatal - even if the SPD in North Rhine-Westphalia is pretty much a mess and ossified, a Union government would cause even more damage. I don't understand why he wants to risk that just to show the small coalition partner who's boss. Especially since the Greens in North Rhine-Westphalia are really not particularly stressful for the SPD...

At tagesschau im Internet there's the original article.

Scientists Find Animal Link for SARS Virus

Interesting. Could indicate a connection and an origin for the virus. Cat-like creatures in China.

At New York Times: NYT HomePage there's the original article.

Bush attacks "Old Europe"

It's quite absurd when a self-confessed creationist accuses Europe of unscientific fear

At Der Rollberg you can find the original article.

Own Goal by SCO

Well, SCO's action really doesn't seem particularly intelligent. It looks like the legal department didn't talk enough with the rest of the company. Maybe in the end SCO will have to sue itself and go bankrupt in the process?

At heise online news there's the original article.

SAP relies on MySQL

Well. So far SAPDB was quite an interesting database alternative (ok, I like PostgreSQL much better, but whatever). But if the MySQL people start tinkering with it, that can only get worse. I wonder if they'll remove outer joins from SAPDB's SQL? And throw out transactions? Because nobody needs that anyway, as they used to argue back in the day

At heise online news there's the original article.

spam filter from heck

Cool. Trend Micro informs its customers that an update to a spam filter had a bug and incorrectly flagged all messages containing the letter P as spam. And then they wonder why they received so few complaints about the problem.

At Cincom Smalltalk Blog - Smalltalk with Rants there is the original article.

Ullrich will start at Tour

Well then, let's go.

At WDR.de I found the original article.

Bruce Perens on SCO v. Linux

Interesting response from Bruce Perens to the SCO attacks against Linux. In my opinion, it provides a good assessment.

I found the original article at d2r.

CIA must sift through own Iraq reports

So if they don't find anything now, that's going to be extremely embarrassing

At tagesschau im Internet there's the original article.

Eiffel releases beta of EiffelStudio for OS X

OK, the development environment is interesting and the implementation sounds good. Eiffel is a nice language (somewhat quite verbose, but in return also considerably more readable than, e.g., C++). And through the integrated tools, such an environment naturally offers more than just a bare compiler - CASE tools etc. are included.

Nevertheless, in my opinion, the price of 4800 US dollars is rather an argument against buying it. Sorry folks, but for that price I can get a fully equipped license for Allegro Common Lisp, and it offers considerably better comfort and considerably nicer language features and expressiveness than EiffelStudio.

And I find the price for Allegro Common Lisp already considerably too expensive...

At The Macintosh News Network there's the original article.

Cologne on the Brink

Just on the monitor: the savings plans of the city of Cologne. Short version: everything that has any value at all is being stopped, cut, capped or canceled. That women's shelters, drug assistance programs, cultural scene, libraries, schools, public parks, streets and who knows what else are falling by the wayside is apparently not so important. To match this, it was also decided not to expand the corruption prevention department. Fits right in with the garbage clique.

Chimpanzees Are Only Human Too

So the genetic proximity of chimpanzees to us is certainly no reason to insult them in such a way ...

At Spiegel Online: Science there's the original article.

Breaking a taboo for one's own security

Well, and here we go again into the arms spiral. Of course, some other states will now take up idiotic nuclear weapons programs again, citing the USA as justification. And we once believed that disarmament negotiations would put an end to this madness.

You can find the original article at tagesschau im Internet here.

World Record: A Titanic Bloom

I find this record stinks to high heaven!

At WDR.de there is the original article.

Transfer fee for Ullrich?

Aaaargh. Rip-off artists, dimwits, armchair cyclists and penny-pinchers. Feel free to distribute these labels among those involved as you see fit ...

Well, then a tour without Jan Ullrich. Let's watch once again as Beloki rides behind Armstrong

At WDR.de I found the original article.

Boyz need Toyz

Darn. So now I need Fischertechnik in addition to my RCX? How mean of them.

At Der Schockwellenreiter you can find the original article.

Camera phones are also used by voyeurs

How - besides perverts, is there another buyer segment for this junk?

At heise online news there's the original article.

Lenin Shines

The question remains: does it also glow in the dark?

At tagesschau im Internet you can find the original article.

Railway Managers Fly

Ok. Form an orderly group, megaphones out, everyone together please: "Me-dorn-out! Me-dorn-out! Me-dorn-out!".

At Der Rollberg you can find the original article.

New pricing system: Railway fires two managers

Well, as long as Mehdorn remains in charge, I don't really believe that a new pricing system will be any better than the mess that Mehdorn has piled up...

At WDR.de I found the original article.

Clueless and cynical politicians

Particularly amusing are such proposals when you consider that we have too few jobs, not too few workers. Could it be that someone has stopped thinking?

At Der Schockwellenreiter you can find the original article.

Matrix Reloaded features nmap

Cool, in Matrix Reloaded, there's actually real hacking in a hack scene: first finding a host with nmap and then using an ssh exploit to break into the host. No more of the silly Stone Age login screens with nonsensical commands and ridiculous text, but a somewhat realistic situation with actual programs. Cool! On http://insecure.org there are a few screenshots with explanations. On bbums rants, code & references I found the original article.

A Weeping Willow

A Weeping Willow

This weeping willow stands by a pond at the Kanonengraben. A few years ago it was cut back very severely - all branches were lopped off, leaving only the main trunk standing. In the meantime, it has managed to recover somewhat.

Spring Promenade

Spring Promenade

The linden trees along the promenade positively glow in spring.

Who might be sitting there?

Who might be sitting there?

Did children start building a treehouse here?

dot.comical

Poor commercial sites. Maybe it will eventually dawn on them what the problem is: they're sometimes so boring that nobody wants to link to them. And then down they go in the Google ranking, because the pages are simply and plainly not relevant.

At Der Schockwellenreiter you can find the original article.

Court bans domains with city names

Hardly has a court issued a sensible ruling on Internet matters ( Court clarifies liability for Internet forum operators), when the next one comes along and does very strange things again. Let's look forward to a good wave of nonsensical lawsuits and cease-and-desist letters. You can find the original article at heise online news here.

Marvin Minsky: Artificial Intelligence is Brain Dead

Minsky is right. Sure, today's AI solutions uncover credit card fraud: but they are narrow specialists. Only capable of attacking tightly defined problems.

The big goal, the creation of artificial intelligence (and dealing with the big picture and the overall question of what intelligence actually is) has receded into the background, replaced instead by a focus on details and fragments of the world.

Logically, there's money for this from the business sector - in times when government funding for research without a specific purpose is declining further and only purpose-driven private funding (or from the business sector) is available, researchers eventually have to deliver something as a result that can be put to use.

And that's why real AI research is falling by the wayside. We now understand in much greater detail how computers can solve partial areas. But do we know more about how intelligence actually works? How we can replicate such a thing with machines? No. That part has receded into the distant future.

At heise online news there's the original article.

Script Kiddies

Ouch.

At Der Schockwellenreiter you can find the original article.

Texas bill: enviro = terrorist

In Texas there is a bill that would make Greenpeace (or other environmental activists) a terrorist organization and donations to Greenpeace a punishable act.

I found the original article at Warblogs:CC.

Rail long-distance traffic continues to decline

It is of course not the fault of the pricing system, because that is Mehdorn's doing and Mehdorn knows everything and can do everything and is right anyway. Please dear Deutsche Bahn, revert the pricing system or correct it massively and throw Mehdorn out before his great plans completely ruin the railway.

At tagesschau im Internet there is the original article.

Bianchi Team receives Coast license

Well, that was quick ...

I found the original article on WDR.de.

The Anonymous Packers

Well, what's really behind it all remains unclear. Just hot air? Or an attempted rip-off? Or simply political propaganda and preparation for the next election to create a suitable climate?

I found the original article at Telepolis News here.

Canned Meat II

Folks, have you all already forgotten what role lawyer Steinhöfel played in the D-Info affair, for example? I recommend doing a little research on Google. At Der Schockwellenreiter you can find the original article.