Archive 1.10.2004 - 10.10.2004

FDP - Ifo Chief Wants to Cut Social Welfare by 30 Percent

Alarming demand. This would force social welfare recipients not only through economic hardship (which they already face de facto), but literally through life-threatening need to do anything to survive - if necessary also taking on illegal employment, accepting whatever they can get. An absolutely inhumane attitude is then the consideration that introducing people into work would be easier with a reduction in social welfare by one-third, and the saying that business leaders have plenty of work in their heads that just wouldn't be profitable is the icing on the cake of audacity. What he ultimately demands is the extortion of socially disadvantaged population groups and the introduction of serfdom - because people in such employment relationships as he envisions them are no longer able to defend themselves against abuse and misconduct due to their situation - for them it's about bare survival.

And someone like that is consulted to assess the business climate.

Here's the original article.

Daniel Barlow: Araneida 0.9 released

Exciting. This should be the first web server running in the CLISP environment - and thus can truly be ported to virtually everything that looks like a computer.

At Planet Lisp you can find the original article.

GEZ fee for internet PCs is coming

The Fee Extortion Central is really getting more influence then. Somehow absurd - the whole thing could simply be solved by treating public broadcasting stations as part of state infrastructure services and simply financing them through tax revenues. But of course that contradicts the idea of capitalism - and so the rules become more and more absurd.

So we'll forever pay GEZ fees on silly devices, have increasingly arrogant GEZ employees on our backs if we think we want to defend ourselves against it, have the ridiculous discussion about this topic over and over again. Meanwhile, tanks and bombers are still being built from tax revenues - those are of course much more important parts of infrastructure than broadcasting.

At heise online news there's the original article.

awaretek.com :: Python Tutorials - diverse Python Tutorials

gmail atom feed - Address of the Google Mail Atom Feed - unfortunately only Atom, no RSS

Laszlo - Products

Laszlo is the premier open source platform for the development and delivery of rich Internet applications on the World Wide Web. - what? This thing just got put under an open source license and is already supposed to be the "premier open source platform"? Zope, Drupal, Mambo, Typo3, Plone, Brickolage, Scoop, Xoom, Slash and all the others - are those all figments of imagination? Apart from that, LAMP is probably (unfortunately - I like neither MySQL nor PHP) the leading platform if you interpret platform in the usual sense.

Marketing hype has moved in with the companies into open source as well.

Here's the original article.

SQLite 3.0.7

Very nice - the new version has Unicode (UTF-8) support and rudimentary data types. However, PySQLite (the Python interface) still seems to work with older SQLite versions. The original article is available here.

And another small change to the RSS feed

My latest images are now being included in the main RSS feed. Otherwise they got a bit lost in the pure image blog. So for the first time there will be a small batch of images as new items, and after that of course only what I've newly created. And I don't add new images as often as I would like...

Farewell to the Industrial Estate

One last look at the magnificent panorama from the hotel room's skylight and then back to Munich. Next week then in a different hotel in a different business district ... ![154-400-300.jpeg][P1]

CIA Report: Iraq Did Not Possess Weapons of Mass Destruction

Don't bother anymore. War is repeatedly presented as important and correct, the supporters have talked themselves into the mess so many times that they believe their own lies. What do facts matter then...

At tagesschau.de - Die Nachrichten der ARD you can find the original article.

Debacle of Chess Grandmasters Against Chess Machines

It's always funny how humans want to prove their superiority over the machine specifically in a game where humans have to become machines in order to win ...

You can find the original article on heise online news.

Customer liable for PIN misuse

Yeah, great. What total idiots handed down that injustice again. With manipulation of an ATM, the PIN can be stolen - and definitely without the customer necessarily noticing. And then the thief can happily start withdrawing money - and the customer is screwed. Because now they have to first prove that such manipulation is taking place. And once again the burden is placed on the weakest person in the group, because the banks simply aren't willing to provide at least a minimum level of service for all the money they're ripping off from their customers.

At WDR.de you can find the original article.

Microsoft Chief: Stolen Music Mainly Lands on iPods

Well, whoever rages around like a monkey probably behaves that way otherwise too - and then makes a fool of themselves on other topics as well

At heise online news there's the original article.

Net activist convicted of fine for hyperlinks

And yet another mindless court ruling. Beautiful Germany, where people as devoid of understanding and knowledge as the Düsseldorf RP can bend the law and even get confirmation for it in court.

At heise online news there's the original article.

NRW Prisons Test Partial Privatization

Omni Consumer Products?

At WDR.de you can find the original article.

Rollei Announces Rolleiflex MiniDigi

Dreadfully bad display, terribly slow, fuzzy operation and at best a joke. The image quality is accordingly poor. Well, at least you can swap the memory card. Still: a real reflex viewfinder wouldn't have shown the digital image, but would have had at least some style. Oh yes, and it promptly crashed during the presentation at Photokina.

At PhotographyBLOG you can find the original article.

Season Over for Zabel

Of course. He fights his way through every sprint forward, battles to the bitter end for his position - and where does he get injured? Climbing up a ladder.

I found the original article at Radsport-News.com.

Terrible Lizard in Feather Dress

Surprises again and again.

At NETZEITUNG.DE Wissenschaft you can find the original article.

SCO vs. Linux: Motions Rejected, Deadline Extended

Well, let's see if they finally have something to show for it in 30 days - but I wouldn't bet on it

At heise online news you can find the original article.

Business leaders demand swift tax reform

Clear. Exactly. Corporate taxation is too high. Of course. You can imagine what a bold reform should look like. Rip-off mentality at its finest. At tagesschau.de - Die Nachrichten der ARD you can find the original article.

Censorship in Germany

It's so beautifully simple, really. A cease-and-desist letter, horrendous costs, and you've already squeezed small private projects out of existence. And you pat yourself on the back for showing those left-wing punks or whoever happens to be in the line of fire. Maybe you even brag about it at your fraternity meeting. Or at the regulars' table. Because it's so great to throw your money around and assume the arrogance that the world belongs to you...

At Der Schockwellenreiter there's the original article.

one of Landshut's landmarks

Got shown around the city this evening. Pictures of the castle and the highest brick tower in Germany didn't work due to lack of light. ![153-400-300.jpeg][P1]

The End of the World

In parts quite picturesque - but nothing going on here. Nothing at all. ![150-400-300.jpeg][P1] ![151-400-300.jpeg][P2] ![152-400-300.jpeg][P3]

The Hotel at the End of the World

Not in Munich, not in Landshut as claimed either - instead in the industrial area of a small town somewhere near Landshut. Do you have any idea how boring an industrial estate in the middle of nowhere is? |:-)| ![149-400-300.jpeg][P1]

The Unwanted Voices

Why OSCE Observers at US Elections Would Be Entirely Appropriate.

At Telepolis News (03.10.2004) you can find the original article.

Erik Zabel is Vice World Champion in Road Racing

Not bad either. Sure, the world champion jersey would have looked good on him too, but finishing in his proven 2nd place at the world championship somehow fits him as well

iPod Information Center - the ultimative site @ http://www.cilly.dyndns.org/iPod/ - all possible information about the iPod

Munich Again

next week and the week after I'll be on the road in Munich again. So things might get a bit thin here - or terrible if I make good on my threat to moblog with the PDA

Pope beatifies last Habsburg Emperor

No Church!

An organizational mass murderer and a crazy nun. That's fitting. Blessed are the poor in spirit, right?

At tagesschau.de - The News of the ARD you can find the original article.

Warez Raid: The FTPWelt Story

Buy the current CT, open page 62, read and laugh your socks off at Syndikus and his bandit antics. Or as the chocolate wave rider always says: Read! That's an order!

Judith Arndt World Champion: "A Great Day"

Yes, let's congratulate them!

I found the original article at Radsport-News.com.

Leica - a la carte

I saw this demonstrated at the trade show. Brilliant. I wish it had existed when I bought my M6. On the other hand: if it had existed back then, I probably would have paid double for my M6. After all, the MP/M7 has now almost reached in euros what my M6 cost in marks.

Here you can find the original article.

Flowers

Blumen

Blumen

In the flower beds. For once, they actually chose a pretty witty - because naturally looking - planting.

Thistle

Distel

Distel

The thistle has already said goodbye to autumn vacation

Autumn - Time of Fruits and Seeds

Autumn - Time of Fruits and Seeds

Autumn - Time of Fruits and Seeds

No idea which tree this is - but the fruits look funny. The leaves somehow remind me of rowan.

Mushrooms

Mushrooms

Pilze

The flowers go, the mushrooms come.

Groundbreaking

Directional

Richtungsweisend

or disoriented?

Tilt

Lean

Lean

This is what the city imagines comfortable park benches to be ...

Spiderman

Spiderman

Spiderman

in mini version

and always more rain

and again and again rain

and again and again rain

It's annoying when going for a walk, but it makes otherwise boring subjects more interesting.

US Government Shows Little Interest in Computer Security

Fits right in that the energy ministry gets hacked every two days

At NETZEITUNG.DE Internet you can find the original article.

Argentine Rebellin not allowed to start at World Cup

All the effort for nothing ...

At Radsport-News.com I found the original article.

Instiki - Nice little Wiki in Ruby

Java Runtime Properties for Mac OS X - Tips on how to call Java in OS X - also with a custom icon

Merck recalls medication - stock plummets

I am not amused. The hospital had prescribed this stuff for me for the time before the operation

At tagesschau.de - Die Nachrichten der ARD you can find den Originalartikel.

PythonCard Home Page - getting better all the time - a GUI app framework for Python and wxPython

Red Robin - Jython - Install Jython in Eclipse

Pain patient not allowed to grow cannabis

The neighing bureaucratic horse that carried this judge along must have been on dope too ...

At tagesschau.de - Die Nachrichten der ARD you can find the original article.

SPE - Stani's Python Editor - complete IDE for wxPython built entirely on wxGlade

Sports doctor Ferrari sentenced to suspended sentence

Does Armstrong now apologize to Simeoni for his terrible behavior towards him?

I found the original article at Radsport-News.com.