Content-type: matter-transport/sentient-life-form

To the right of the Union is the Union

Already read about this in various places (Uhus Webdroppings, Schockwellenreiter), but "Instant Nirvana" sums it up best: Fascists. Oh yes, Schleswig Holstein is heading towards a glorious future if such politicians have a place in the Union there...

"There must be no party to our right" a Bavarian once declared - no problem, the Union simply overtakes DVU, Republicans, and NPD on the far right. Foreigners are out, now the long-term unemployed are being hounded. Of course, everyone knows at least one welfare fraudster who works on the side, they're all just lazy people who need to be motivated and, if necessary, locked up in a virtual prison and monitored, the scum. At least some Union politicians - and unfortunately more and more in the SPD - see the world this way.

Are there actually hiring requirements regarding contempt for humanity, brainlessness, and corruption for politicians? The word "politician" is only an insult for such representatives.

Update: The original author and Hessian Justice Minister naturally meant something completely different. So he says, or his press spokesman:

Wagner's quote should therefore be understood to mean that the ankle monitor also offers "long-term unemployed individuals sentenced to probation and treated addicts" the chance to return to a regular daily routine and be placed in a job, says Fuhrmann.

Of course. Let's just believe him now. Or? Achne, he's from Hesse - from Hetzer-Koch's brown swamp of donations and cronyism.

Microsoft: everything stolen

Longhorn with Glass Effects, Desktop Search and PDF Alternative - while the interface and desktop search are clearly feature theft from OS X Tiger, the Microsoft alternative to PDF is as unnecessary as a goiter. Yes, I know that PDF is also a proprietary format - but unlike any ideas from Microsoft, it works, does exactly what it was designed for and doesn't have mountains of security holes. I don't think I necessarily want document formats whose use is dependent on Microsoft software ...

Somehow, the various Longhorn presentations and ramblings from Microsoft are becoming increasingly embarrassing. Don't they have any original ideas anymore? Even the command line in the start bar sounds more like a copy of LaunchBar or QuickSilver on the Mac ...

Playing with new Theme

I finally decided to work with a new theme, or rather, to change the existing theme. It was the classic Kubrick with a custom background image, now it's "flexible Kubrick" - basically still Kubrick in terms of layout, but I've removed the rounded corners and shadows and switched the entire layout to em as a measure - no more fixed pixel widths, but instead font-relative specifications. Let's see, maybe I'll make the theme available later.

As a result, the layout should now adapt to the user's basic font settings and generally work more gracefully with corresponding changes. However, it is still not a liquid layout, but static - just with a flexible base size.

By the way, I solved the problem with the header graphic in a very classic way: the excavator is simply cut out and placed in front of a transparent background and saved as a GIF. Combined with the right background color, the result is quite usable in my opinion. And when the size of the page changes (e.g. by increasing the base font), the image grows in width with it.

If you notice anything strange, please let me know. I know it's not a layout-technical revolution. But I'm not capable of that anyway. I just wanted to try out what an em-based layout can look like and needed something to try it out on.

Demoted ...

... that Google: my PyDS-Homepage always had a PageRank of 7 before, now only 6. Tsk. Such a thing. Somehow I now have the feeling that something has been taken away from me - I just don't know exactly what yet.

First Trojan for Mac OS X spotted - if there aren't any, do you write your own? Just a guess - the information at Sophos about the alleged Trojan is very thin. No information about the spread and no specific information about the removal of the Trojan, no detailed information about detecting the Trojan (port or similar) and no information about the installed files. Sorry, but this all doesn't sound very credible ...

OpenRAW - Digital Image Preservation Through Open Documentation

OpenRAW - Digital Image Preservation Through Open Documentation aims to focus on open documentation (and promoting this with manufacturers). This is an important topic, especially in light of Nikon's stupid decision to encrypt parts of the RAW format (thus ultimately making its use in free software legally problematic due to the need to crack the copy protection). I've already written about this: the digital negatives belong to the photographer, not the camera manufacturer. Everything must be done to provide the photographer with all the information contained within - without any encryption nonsense and without the obligation to use any silly manufacturer programs (which, in the worst case, are not even available for the operating system used).

An interesting parallel is drawn on the website: can anyone imagine that film manufacturers would have kept the data for film development secret? That Agfa or Kodak or whoever else would not have provided development documentation with their films, allowing the photographer to develop the film themselves?

Nikon's attempt to control and regulate RAW software and dictate what a photographer can do with their image data is similar to this stupid approach. And hopefully - if necessary through the market - doomed to fail. Because if this way of thinking were to prevail, we would eventually have digital negatives where the camera manufacturers dictate how many prints we can make from our own image ...

Softwarepatents: Industry lobbying with stacked cards? - if you already think you need to play with false cards, you should be more careful not to get caught ...

AquaMacs is an Emacs build for OS X (unfortunately only from 10.3 onwards) that aligns more closely with the Mac OS X Human Interface Guidelines. Those who appreciate the high configurability of Emacs but not the rather sick interface and key binding for Mac users might want to check this out.

The .emacs File by Bill Clementson. Shows very nicely why one should actually consider using Emacs. Particularly interesting for Common Lisp users is his customizing for Slime for integrating various Common Lisps.

Those who only occasionally work with PostgreSQL, so to speak, want to use it as a desktop database: PostgreSQLX is a compilation of the PostgreSQL server that can be easily started and stopped as a Mac application. Ideal for developers. Then also the PGAccess interface and you can do without something like Microsoft Access. Of course, all of this only from 10.3 (it's about time 10.4 comes out and I'm up to date at home again).

SPE-OSX comes from the same stable as AquaMacs and is a compilation of Stanis Python Editor - a very comprehensive IDE for Python. Also only available from 10.3.

sproutliner is a fun web application with which you can edit an outline over the web. Naturally heavily based on Ajax.

This is Münster too

This is also Münster

In memory of the liberation of the concentration camps 60 years ago.

Borland open sources JBuilder - wow. I didn't see that coming - it's basically a surrender. Can Borland stay afloat without JBuilder?

Nikon responds to RAW WB concerns

Nikon responds to the discussion about the encrypted RAW WB data - and only proves that they don't understand. Sorry, but the whole thing is full of arrogance and self-congratulation, but doesn't say anything else than that customers who bought a professional camera are bullied in their choice of software by Nikon.

If everything is really so professional and great and good: why does even Adobe have problems? Maybe because Nikon doesn't keep up with their silly promises?

And what about open source software - should photographers who bought a Nikon camera be excluded from open source due to absurd ideas of professionalism at Nikon? The result instead is the confirmation of all prejudices against RAW formats (proprietary, not future-proof).

Really professional would be the complete documentation of the NEF format, so that the RAW format is not a dead end for the photographer.

Striped Calendar for WordPress

First plugin from my picture blog (now out) is the Strip Calendar. Basically a normal WordPress calendar - only not as a block for the sidebar, but as a strip to place it over the content. Since you usually have more space to waste in the length of a page than in the width and since someone might want to break with the rather worn-out format where the calendar is in a sidebar, you can now simply install the strip calendar. The code for installation is trivial:

< ?php get_strip_calendar(); ?> ```

Just put this in the header.php or wherever you want the calendar. Done (of course first unpack the plugin to wp-content/plugins/ and activate it in the administration!).

Virtual Hosts with WordPress

The Vhost Plugin is my current favorite of the entries for the WordPress Plugin Competition. With this plugin, you can bind categories to virtual hosts - when this host is accessed, the appropriate category is automatically displayed and optionally, a different template can be applied to this combination.

I can think of a whole range of ideas spontaneously - for example, I could put my Bananenrepublik under it and present my rants as more independent content. Or I could finally run my photographic entries under one of my photo domains again. I think I'll play around with the plugin soon.

Another funny feature - but rather uninteresting for me - is the possibility to restrict a user to a VHost (and thus to a category) and set up a multi-blog platform on a WordPress installation. Could be quite funny for family blogs, for example.

Unfortunately, the installation is a bit tricky - you have to patch a few functions because there are bugs in the standard installation. With WP 1.5.1, this should hopefully be better.

The WordPress Versioning Plugin allows versioning of entries - i.e. articles and pages. This way, you can revert to an old version if necessary.

Barroso multiple guest on yacht

Barroso multiple guest on yacht - and the corruption carousel continues to spin. "There is no conflict of interest," Barroso's spokesperson insists. - of course there isn't, Barroso has no interests diverging from those of the economy and his cronies.

What, it's about conflicts of interest between office and person? Why, the EU Commission President is simply the officially appointed top profiteer? At least, that's the impression one has had for many years ...

NASA Is Said to Loosen Risk Standards for Shuttle - the remaining shuttles must eventually be scrapped ...

Cunning ants build traps together and operate them jointly to catch larger insects. Nature never ceases to amaze.

Practical Common Lisp is a new book about Common Lisp with many practical examples. Finally, a Common Lisp book that doesn't just delve into rather theoretical examples but addresses practical topics such as spam filters, web servers, HTML generation, ID3 tags, and other stuff. The book content is available to read online.

Schily and Democracy

Well, Otto Orwell has messed up again: a Federal Data Protection Commissioner elected democratically (among others by his own faction) dares to take his role seriously and speak frankly about Otto's data collection mania. And already Otto attacks head-on, accusing him of having no political function and suggesting he should just keep quiet - what nonsense. The Federal Data Protection Commissioner has an important political function: he represents our (the citizens') interests in securing our data and upholding our right to informational self-determination. Among other things, against deranged and data-hungry interior ministers.

Great sign for a banana republic when the executive branch attacks parts of itself that have a controlling function. What's next - Eichel insults the Federal Audit Office as a bunch of bunglers who can't count?

But in the end, it probably just boils down to this: the dogs that are hit bark, of course ...

Contax – RIP or Resurrection - Thoughts on what could happen to Contax after Kyocera's withdrawal. Specifically, the 645 system is mentioned here, as it was allegedly developed by Zeiss and Kyocera was only the manufacturer - if this is the case, Zeiss could find another partner for production. Unfortunately, the 645 system is beyond good and evil for most financial possibilities ...

Nikon Encrypts D2X and D2Hs White Balance Data - they really have a screw loose. What's the point of encrypting the image data so that the user is forced to use the camera manufacturer's software to read it? It's not as if Nikon makes money from selling software - they earn (and not badly) from the cameras. And especially with professional cameras, such paternalism towards the user is just brainless nonsense. The image data belongs to the photographer - and all of it, not just the parts that Nikon kindly leaves unencrypted ...

Parliament in Kuwait approves women's suffrage - I would like to have something positive here for once. Even if it is only a small step in that direction - for the region, the whole thing is almost revolutionary.

Should Spam be Punishable?

DIHK against penalty for spam senders - no wonder, as many spammers in Germany are members of the Chamber of Commerce ...

But what also doesn't really sit well with me about this story:

In the future, it is to be prohibited to conceal or withhold the true identity of the sender in the header of a commercial email.

This may be a justified demand for commercial communication, but as I assess Otto Orwell, this will soon be extended to all citizens. And if he doesn't do it, lawyers will do it with cease and desist letters when, for example, the web server sends automatic notifications under the name www-data ...

Judgment against Kanther

Judgment against Kanther: Koch should provide an explanation - well, not just an explanation would be appropriate, but what would be right won't happen anyway: Koch's resignation. Because no matter how often he claims he knew nothing, no one believes him. The judgment itself is at least not as weak as the prosecution demanded:

With the penalty of one year and six months' probation and a fine of 25,000 euros for Kanther, the Wiesbaden Regional Court went significantly beyond the prosecution's demand.

Kanther wants to appeal. Let's hope the next higher instance doesn't cave. Although personally, I would have preferred it to say "without probation" ...

Preparatory Question

Can you actually have the Pope declared a hate preacher?

What to expect from the BZÖ

The future President of the Federal Chamber shows: Haider MP criticizes "brutal Nazi persecution" - must be the thin air in the Alps. Severe brain damage due to lack of oxygen.

The Carinthian Federal Councillor Siegfried Kampl and future President of the Federal Chamber criticized the "persecution" of Nazis in Austria after the Second World War. Furthermore, he referred to Wehrmacht deserters as "comrade killers".

In comparison, our local Nazis are quite cute ...

Adobe acquires Macromedia for $3.4 billion

Just went through my mind ...

... Social elections. By mail. Lick and seal the envelope. Spontaneously thought of gender databases - and the planned all too easy access.

typoc(not to be confused with Typo3 the CMS) is a blog engine in Ruby and uses Rails. Could be ideal to play around with this stuff.

Bistro Intro is a Smalltalk variant that runs on the Java VM. I didn't know that before.

Seashore is an image editor that builds on GIMP things and uses the same format - but for OS X. You should keep an eye on it, could be quite nice for some simple purposes.

Westerwelle will no longer become Chancellor - this likely aligns with the will of 95% of voters

'Cool it, Linus' - Bruce Perens - a bit more information about the BitKeeper story. And I agree with Bruce - Linus should never have started this silly BitKeeper business in the first place. Andrew Tridgell is just doing what he does best - cracking proprietary protocols. It's silly to attack him for that.

Greens give up resistance against missile defense system

Greens drop resistance against missile defense system - the next person who asks me where the money for social system support is supposed to come from: not doing MEADS (along with many other ridiculous military projects) would be a first start.

The more than 800 million that are now being invested in the development of this military nonsense would be better spent elsewhere - and no, there are not many jobs to secure in the arms industry. The arms industry's excuse is simply wrong. Hardly any other industry is already as far rationalized as hardly any other industry.

It's also very nice to see how the big parties show unity in this regard - when it comes to spending citizens' money on nonsense and mindless trash, they quickly agree. Just as when it comes to cutting social benefits.

By the way, there is a fairly simple way to protect soldiers in foreign deployments from enemy rocket attacks: not to carry out foreign deployments ... (and don't tell me the nonsense about defending the Basic Law in the Hindu Kush now)

Server Names

Dirk Steins: Server Names - apparently, you can find the Simpsons quite often. In our case, the entire production DMZ is labeled with Simpsons names. The old production systems are all named after Lucky Luke characters, which unfortunately left a gap due to server death (William was hit). Our front-end computers are named after South Park characters. And the main firewall is named Kyle, with its failover system named Evil-Kyle.

It works quite well, Kyle is a huge asshole. Only Kenny, which we initially set up as a server in front of the firewall for playing around, just so we could once shout "My God, they killed Kenny, you bastards!" - he just doesn't want to be killed ...

Lafontaine is apparently about to leave the SPD - if you have nothing else to report and rather exude a lack of concept, then at least you can still celebrate your departure. One can only hope that the left-wing alternative won't have to endure this chaotic troublemaker ...

Growing resistance among cardinals against Ratzinger - it is allegedly just a rumor that rat traps are set up everywhere in the Vatican

"Auch Hondos B-Proben positiv " - well, that's that then

Opening of the House of Photography in Hamburg - then a visit to Hamburg will probably be due again ...

Homemade system as BitKeeper replacement - sometimes the arrogance of OSS programmers bothers me, who always think they can do everything better than others. How much more synergy effects would come into play if these programmers would concentrate their - undoubtedly present - programming qualities on a few projects? A good source management system with fast patch handling we could all use - but no one is served with two dozen half-baked solutions ...

Visa abuse already a topic in the Kohl cabinet? - the names are different, the faces the same. The slogans too. And we can be sure that this fact - that the Union government had exactly the same problems as the red-green government - will be deliberately ignored by the Union. Let's look forward to another election campaign of lies again.

Golden Hamster Stories

Goldhamster turns 75 years old:

On April 12, 1930, a golden hamster burrow was excavated near the city of Aleppo (Syria), containing one female and 11 young animals. Of the young, three males and one female could be raised and bred at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. All golden hamsters in human care worldwide descend from this brother-sister mating that took place 75 years ago. In the wild, the golden hamster was considered lost or extinct.

So this is a joke, right? All pet golden hamsters are the result of inbreeding? Everything stems from these two animals at the beginning? And they haven't mutated into furry broccoli yet? Wow.

Oh yes, the election campaign has begun ...

Müntefering: "Profit-seeking endangers democracy"

There are days like this ...

... on which Microsoft announces mountains of security vulnerabilities, almost all of which are associated with the execution of arbitrary code. Or Oracle names 89 security vulnerabilities in its database. And those are the days when you're glad not to use this software ...

Just as a hint ...

... if I get the following message when accessing your weblog:

Sorry, your IP address is listed in the local realtime blackhole list. You may not enter this site.

then you have done something wrong by definition. Blogs are meant as a means of communication - and installing silly communication preventers just because you don't want links in your referrer log that come from spammers is simply ridiculous. In that case, you might as well take your blog completely off the network.

It is now official: Contax brand comes to an end. No sale to another, no continuation - the name Contax as a camera brand is gone from the market for now. Maybe Zeiss (who probably own the name Contax themselves and only licensed it) will find someone else for it - the Contax rangefinder camera (not the G series, but the new one based on the Voigtländer device) already has another partner. But the Contax we have known since the late 70s is now history.