Clement for raising the retirement age - great idea. First they crank up the weekly working hours. Then the working lifetime. And then we're back where we once were: workers exit the stage in a socially acceptable manner before reaching retirement age. And suddenly the pension insurance is doing better again.
Doing the GNUstep two-step is an older report about the GNUStep Live CD. I'm linking it only because it describes a problem that has also annoyed me: the CD doesn't boot. Which is pretty stupid for a live CD. And no, the argument that it doesn't boot on some old computers doesn't hold up — the computer having the problem here is just one year old.
The GNUStep Live CD developers really should tackle and solve this problem — because if all kinds of Knoppix variants boot on a computer, and even the Gnoppix CD boots — then there's no reason why the GNUStep CD shouldn't boot. And no, floppies are not an alternative — the computer has no floppy drive. It's just too new for that...
If I ever want to take a look at web-based project management, dotproject - Open Source Project and Task Management Software looks quite usable.
GeoURL has been revived - or rather, a new GeoURL service has been built. Simply go there, register your own site, and then integrate a link like my nearby link. And suddenly we can see who's in the vicinity again. The whole thing is still somewhat spartan, but it's enough to find neighbors (greetings over to Paderborn and groetjes naar Enschede!).
By the way, to help my rusty Dutch (I can read it relatively fluently, but write it only extremely haltingly), the German-Dutch dictionary at pauker.at was helpful.
Update: cool, no sooner do you post about it than other neighbors resurface. And what do I discover: Gedankenschnipsel is now also running on WordPress.
In dirtSimple.org: Optimization Surprises, Phillip J. Eby writes about optimizations he made to his implementation of generic functions in Python. I find it fascinating whenever he writes about this project, because generic functions are well-known to me from Common Lisp. However, what's equally fascinating is how he squeezes out half microseconds of performance.
In his case, it actually makes a lot of sense, since it's about central machinery that gets called constantly with generic functions. Minimal performance improvements make a huge difference in tight loops.
Also very interesting is what he discovers about Python's internal mechanisms and what effects, for example, simply the existence of closures in a function has on processes.
Exciting. Absolutely exciting.
Since we're on the topic of live CDs: Oralux is a live CD with a Debian-based distribution that is specifically designed for people with visual impairments. It asks very early for a speech interface and is overall designed so that you can control it by voice.
In a new attempt at the title of the most ridiculous homophobic organization in the USA, Focus on the Family is taking aim at SpongeBob SquarePants. Yes, that's right, that little yellow sponge with his somewhat dim-witted friend Patrick the starfish. Oh man. What kind of crazy people are these, if their expert at detecting homosexuality finds SpongeBob suspicious. Ok, it's stupid enough to begin with that they think they need an expert at detecting homosexuality. Somehow this American paranoia about gay people would be directly funny if homosexuals in the USA weren't suffering so much because of it. Well, in the land of free speech you can apparently be a Nazi without punishment, but gay - no, that's supposedly evil.