flup: random Python WSGI stuff - a collection of WSGI server adapters for FCGI, SCGI and Apache Jakarta 1.3 protocols as well as a few WSGI middlewares for authentication, compression and error handling.
Archive 24. July 2005
Stupid Patents the One Hundred and Eleventh
Whenever you think you've seen the most idiotic patent, something even more stupid is guaranteed to come along - Microsoft wants to patent smileys:
The patent application published on Thursday describes a method for encoding self-created emoticon images as strings that can be embedded in text messages.
Leonardo is a CMS with blog and wiki modules in Python. Currently quite simple as CGI, but it should be migrated to WSGI and Paste and could then be quite interesting as general CMS components in a WSGI solution.
Python Paste is a meta-framework - a framework for creating new web frameworks based on WSGI. Many interesting middleware modules and a reimplementation of WebWare based on WSGI.
Scotland Yard shoots innocent people
By now it's clear that the person shot by British police was innocent. And yet: Scotland Yard defends headshot practice. The former Scotland Yard chief:
"There is only one sure way to stop a suicide bomber who is convinced of his mission - to destroy his brain immediately, completely," he wrote in the Sunday newspaper "News of the World". "That means shooting him in the head with destructive force, killing him instantly."
One must keep in mind that these were plainclothes police officers - a panic reaction when a group of armed people in civilian clothes are after you is, of course, preprogrammed. To use this as justification for a targeted headshot is more than just cynicism.
Executions on suspicion as a response to terrorism - this turns the alleged protection of society itself into terrorism and a danger to every citizen. The inhumanity of the police representatives in defending this practice - Police chief 'sorry' over death - is simply revolting.
Seaside is a flexible and very interesting web framework in Smalltalk. I have already linked to tutorials about it, but not the framework itself - at least not at its new address. Runs on Squeak and Visual Works - and through their wide availability on almost everything that can be called a computer and has a TCP/IP connection to the outside world.
Mandatory insurance sponsorship by the state?
Foreign Minister Fischer advocates for a mandatory Riester pension - naturally, the reader wonders what the Foreign Minister has to do with it, but never mind:
Federal Foreign Minister Joschka Fischer has spoken out in favor of introducing a mandatory private pension insurance. "The pension system must be affordable. I wish that the Riester pension would finally be introduced in a binding manner and that we encourage people to private provision."
Well, well. Encouraging private provision. To this end, a mandatory participation in the biggest insurance scam of all time - the Riester pension, whose returns are modest and whose payment guarantees are more than questionable.
One could, of course, simply choose a model of a citizen's insurance, in which everyone pays into the state social insurance schemes, without leaving a loophole for higher earners to escape - especially within the framework of great ideas such as the Ich-AG and increased self-employment, the social insurance system is further hollowed out. But that would be an intelligent solution. The state social insurances have the advantage that they are subject to certain rules by the constitution - and the state must ensure that the corresponding services are provided.
Instead, the private insurance industry is further sponsored and, according to Fischer's ideas, even with a mandatory requirement for citizens. Yes, that brings growth, that makes sense. That citizens are simply being taken advantage of and many models are pure extortion, and no payout security is given in any way, we simply ignore for now.
One thing is certain: with the idiocy of our politicians, there will soon be a lot to earn in the insurance industry. Which will presumably have nothing better to do than to gamble our then private forced pensions on the stock market and sell them to hedge funds.
Crazy Vinokourov ...
... snatches the victory from the sprinter teams right in front of their noses in Paris. Nobody really expected that. First, he still gets two seconds of goodwill in the fight for the overall classification and the 5th place and then he simply doesn't want to fall in line and leave the field to the sprinters. Classy move, I love such surprises.