Writing Plugins for gedit 3 with Python. It looks like Gnome 3 actually gets a quite generic interface for Python scripting. PyGTK was already there, but that's just a GUI library. Now, work is being done on GObject and Friends, making many more elements accessible. By the way, gedit is a quite nice graphical editor that can certainly be considered an alternative to BBEdit or TextWrangler, which are popular under OSX.
Archive 13. May 2011
Python Interpreter by Noam Gat -- Unity Asset Store. And this is more for my private tinkering: a plugin that integrates an interactive Python shell into Unity3D. Somehow, Unity3D always fascinates me when I see it. Especially since the entry is now free (unfortunately, the jump to Pro - which offers some essential tools like a profiler or support for external versioning - is quite steep).
micromongo — micromongo v0.1 documentation. Also check out micromongo, it provides a minimal ORM for MongoDB servers. However, I would have to check if django-nosql already supports MongoDB by now, then I wouldn't have to use a different ORM syntax - although micromongo is really quite lean and is based only on pymongo, so for example nice for small web services, because you don't have to install a bunch of modules.
execnet v1.0.9 documentation. I should also check this out, it's basically a library for distributing functions across a network of instances - not a full map/reduce or similar, more like a better RPC. Specifically interesting to use, for example, a normal cpython front with a compute backend based on PyPy (or vice versa, to give a PyPy server a numpy+scipy backend in CPython for data analysis).
Read the Docs. I didn't know this one yet - a web service where you can read various documentations through a uniform interface. And host your documentations for projects. And also directly different versions of documentations for projects.
"When you choose an eventually consistent data store you're prioritizing availability and partition tolerance over consistency, but this doesn't mean your application has to be inconsistent. What it does mean is that you have to move your conflict resolution from writes to reads." via Mochi Labs - statebox, an eventually consistent data model for Erlang (and Riak). Also interesting outside of Erlang, as the problem is of a more general nature - data models for transactional databases cannot simply be transferred to an eventually consistent database like Riak (or Cassandra). The reason lies in the fact that conflicts only become apparent later when reading, as they are still "on the way" beforehand.
pmundkur/odisco. An implementation of Map/Reduce according to the Disco Worker model in Objective Caml. There's already something like this for Python. If I ever want to play around with OCaml again.
Thoughts on Data Privacy, Loss of Control, and Other Things
From the Spackeria, from tin foil hats and from loss of control - The wonderful world of Isotopp. Worthwhile consideration of data protection, data traces, the inevitable accumulation of data volumes and the inevitability of the accessibility and evaluation of this data.
I myself am always sitting between the chairs of the tin foil hats and Spackeria - on the one hand, I want data avoidance and have my problems with the data collection mania in some places, on the other hand, I am close to technology and enthusiastic about it and am therefore automatically collected in many data pots. And I am absolutely aware of how much can be found out about me online if someone puts it all together.
I see, just like Isotopp presents it in the article, a massive (probably inevitable) failure of legal data protection - but I myself see a certain differentiation between data that arises in the voluntary context of the use of technical services (even if the user may not directly notice these data) and data that are collected in the state context.
The state sets up data silos only under the negative aspect - a state-created database is always designed under the aspect of general suspicion. The state does not collect the data of persons involved in visa procedures in order to provide them with targeted information and services related to visa procedures - the sole purpose is law enforcement. However, this automatically suspects all persons involved in visa procedures of terrorism and other crimes - because otherwise one would not need to record their data. The executive of the state hates the disorderly citizens and deeply distrusts them, therefore they must be controlled.
A private economic pile of data has a much more banal goal - market economic exploitation. This is, as crazy as it may sound to some, much more preferable to me. Google will not use the data to negatively interpret my political beliefs and put me on a no-fly list because I criticize the state - they just want to show me better-placed advertising. In a certain way, one can rely on the reduced field of vision of capitalists, it is much more positively influenced than that of politicians. Data sets are potential businesses - not potential attackers.
For this reason, I find the current activity of various state data protection officers in the private economic or even directly private sector (warning blogs for the use of Google Analytics) laughable to embarrassing, if the same data protection officers do not stand up to projects like those that are coming up in the Interior Ministry or other state authorities.
How can a data protection officer expect to be taken seriously if he loudly complains about the location data falling off the iPhone and rails against Apple, but at the same time does not make any attempts to stop this crazy EU commissioner who has plans for EU-wide, suspicionless data retention that would violate our Basic Law (just as the data retention already failed in Karlsruhe that was spied out in Berlin)?