Schily for more cameras at railway stations

Today, railway facilities are monitored by video. Tomorrow it will be intensified. Oh, you can also practically search for suspicious persons? Of course, terrorists have to be found, no one can object to that. Oh, doing that manually is too time-consuming? No problem, next week we'll just add automatic biometric systems that compare against a database of terrorists. Oh, the database also contains political opponents or civil rights activists? Never mind, some waste is always expected. Ouch, a bomb package in a public park? No problem, we'll just expand the video system. Oh, also include intersections and shopping zones while we're at it, for safety's sake, naturally. The secret services want access to it because they're also responsible for security? Sure, no problem. And we'll also avoid bothersome court orders right away, that has to be more efficient. Complete surveillance profiles of citizens without any possibility for them to defend themselves? Ridiculous, what these left-wing cranks keep babbling about, they're probably just terrorist sympathizers anyway, put them in the database too, Otto.

On the road to the surveillance state. All of course only in the name of security. No one can be against security.

At tagesschau im Internet there's the original article.

Microsoft's Antivirus Acquisition Causes a Stir

Hmm. That's strange somehow: they're supposedly leading in Linux antivirus scanners, but I've never heard of them in that field? I mean, it's not like I have nothing to do with the topic—we sell firewalls with integrated antivirus scanners after all, where we simply use Amavis, and Sophos as the antivirus scanner. By the way, Amavis is really a kind of market leader—just as open source. What's interesting is that on the Amavis pages a number of antivirus scanners are listed that are supported. Gecad (RAV) doesn't appear in that list. I also can't find anything about that scanner on OpenAntivirus.org. Ok, a few times it's mentioned in passing, but somehow I can't find anything to back up this market leader hype!

Sorry, but I have a strong suspicion that a small shop is being played up here as something it's not.

At heise online news there's the original article.

The CSU Doesn't Like Penguins

How much party donation did Microsoft probably give the CSU for this? But it seems to be proof that the CSU has no interest in a free market at all - because otherwise they should actually be pleased with the decision against a monopolist and for a much more diverse platform.

At Spiegel Online: Netzwelt there's the original article.

Homeland Security Hunts Politicians

That's exactly what Homeland Security is for: suppression, surveillance, and regimentation of citizens in the homeland. Well, of course technically only of terrorist citizens, but for a respectable Republican, terrorist and democrat are the same thing anyway

I found the original article at Telepolis News.

IP addresses sold on the black market

IP addresses that lie dormant in network blocks because they're being used up in internal networks, for example, are stolen (through forged letters, etc.) and then traded on the black market. Weird.

You can find the original article at Workbench here.

Sun: Linux users actually don't want Linux

SUN doesn't get it at all. No, it's not just about us Linux and BSD users wanting to use some Unix on Intel machines. Or how else would the SUN folks explain the many ports of both Linux and the various BSD kernels to all sorts of platforms? Intel is mostly used simply because it's a cheap (in both the positive and negative sense) platform. And it's not about just any Unix - both the Linux camp and the devil worshippers (sorry, BSD users

) have very good technical reasons why they rely on their respective systems. An important aspect is definitely the complete availability of source code and the ability to get involved everywhere, not just where the manufacturer graciously allows it. SUN is still far too arrogant to understand what's really happening in the market. And that's why sooner or later SUN will make itself obsolete - or will have to change course.

At heise online news there's the original article.

Washington pushes through immunity for US soldiers

Ridiculous. The country with the largest military machinery, which has demonstrably fabricated evidence and used outright extortionist methods to start a war just to push through its own interests, which massively violates international law and wants to continue doing so, and violates international disarmament treaties—of all things, soldiers from this country should be spared from prosecution by the International Court of Justice? That's completely farcical.

At Der Rollberg there's the original article.

Blix: "I had my defamers in Washington"

Finally he's speaking plainly. Not that I would believe anything would change as a result, but at least someone is saying out loud what many of those involved are thinking but unfortunately not saying. This whole hypocrisy and tiptoeing around the USA is just ridiculous anymore. Call liars by their name. A government that makes clear threats against the EU because of the international court is not worth sparing. You can find the original article at tagesschau on the internet.

Cook must pay

Terrible fine of 510 euros. I already find it ridiculous that he refused to pay it at all and sued against it, so that an administrative court even has to deal with such nonsense. The costs for the ridiculous proceedings surely exceeded the 510 euros that were imposed on him...

But politicians are only good at taking things away from others anyway. They themselves see themselves above the law. And why doesn't he want to swear to his statement before the investigative committee? Is perjury perhaps more expensive than 510 euros?

I found the original article at tagesschau im Internet.

Investigation Committee because of Möllemann?

Investigation Committee for Möllemann Millions? I'm in favor!

At tagesschau im Internet I found the original article.

Visible Human Server

This might be something for Jutta - a catalog of the human body with graphics and descriptions.

At gnurps you can find the original article.

Another Smalltalk?

Interesting - just a few screenshots, but what they show would be really nice: a native Smalltalk for Mac OS X. I've already played around a bit with VisualWorks, but it's just not native - you still see your own system world there, and it's poorly integrated into OS X at best. A Smalltalk that looks and feels like an OS X application, and that could perhaps use all the Objective-C classes via a corresponding bridge, that would be something. I found this at Cincom Smalltalk Blog - Smalltalk with Rants - the original article.

Gabriel: Exit of Modern Talking 'long overdue'

I told you so, Gabriel had to become something absurd like a pop commissioner because he has far too much expertise

(and besides, I'm of the opinion that Carthage, uh, Modern Talking should have been dissolved long ago)

At tagesschau im Internet there's the original article.

NASA technician succeeds in repair from 800 million...

Way cool - a story about how NASA technicians reactivated a damaged LED in a tape drive via remote maintenance so they could continue retrieving data from the probe. It's quite fascinating how these repairs work, especially when you consider the response times between command, execution, and response.

And I worry when I have to swap a kernel on simon remote.

At Astronomische Kleinigkeiten you can find the original article.

The Measure is Full - Kill IE 6!

Well, that's what Microsoft considers innovation - even more stupid bugs and even more ridiculous features that broadcast the user's private data to the world.

At Industrial Technology & Witchcraft you can find the original article.

Gizmodo 1983

A look back at "High Tech" from 1983 at Gizmodo. Cute

I found the original article at Gizmodo.

Yet another alleged representation of the people's will ...

Na Class, another far-right party that wants to draw from the brown swamp. Founded and carried by people who didn't even seem acceptable to the Schill party. Why does such rabble have to meet precisely in Münster?

At Telepolis News I found the original article.

Waste: Encrypted File Sharing

Well, here's someone writing again who doesn't know what he's talking about (no, not majo, but the scribbler from Süddeutsche!) Because the first file-sharing system with greater distribution and encryption is FreeNet - all data and search queries are transmitted there in such a way that no one can tell where data is located and who wants it. Precisely a system that makes censorship absurd, because it's impossible in such a system. Not even the operators of nodes in FreeNet can see what data is stored on their nodes and what paths the data takes. Very interesting concept, all things considered, unfortunately a FreeNet node consumes bandwidth for breakfast. At Industrial Technology & Witchcraft you can find the original article.

PEAK / PyProtocols

I need to check this out, it sounds a bit confusing, but quite interesting. This might be a way to break up some of the rather tight couplings and bindings of modules in the Python Desktop Server. And since the Python Desktop Server is still in Beta, you're allowed to do that sort of thing.

I found the original article on Tao of the Machine.

Shift Housing Cover

Sounds absurd? It is: essentially a plastic construction with a couple of lenses that provide a 35mm focal length on full frame, with 3.5 mm shift travel. Various connections for the body. The fixed focus lens from them with the adapter for the magnifier is also quite amusing. And the prices are unbeatable – for 21 dollars I can't even get a body cap for my M-Leica

Here's the original article.

Severe Weather Warning for NRW

Today it finally worked out for Münster, with violent gusts of wind and above all a welcome thunderstorm. Hopefully the oppressive heat of the last few days is now over, it was really getting to everyone ...

At WDR.de you can find the original article.

Python and curses - and a Python implementation of readline

Hmm. Too bad – there's a report about a Python library class that offers a much better alternative to readline (the input routine used in the Python interpreter). You can do multiline editing with it and, for example, use Tab to autocomplete Python names (modules and other globals). Disadvantage: it requires curses. And oddly enough, curses isn't generated when building the private Python for PyDS. Strange.

Ok, so I simply copied the files from the standard Python that comes with OS X 10.2, and it works. Nice module. Only: once again, the programmers have no idea about unusual environments like, for example, 8-bit character sets. Umlauts don't work. Backspace doesn't work; you have to use Ctrl-H instead.

But it's definitely more comfortable, even if it takes a bit longer to load. Let's see if it can possibly be integrated into the monitoring client in the Python Desktop Server, since that suffers mainly from its absolutely spartan input capabilities.

Here's the original article.

No Entry!

Cool stuff. According to rumours, the USA will soon prohibit other nations from accessing near-Earth space (i.e. communications and surveillance satellites) and will probably actively prevent it (e.g. through communication jamming).

At MEHRZWECKBEUTEL you can find the original article.

Bloogle

Hmm. Does the Register realize that their structure is damn similar to a weblog - even if it's a community blog - is it? And that they would have to be locked out then?

At Der Schockwellenreiter there's the original article.

Contax N Digital SLR Discontinued

Oh shit. Hopefully they'll come up with an alternative. No idea if Contax (i.e. Kyocera) can weather the disaster otherwise - and whether Zeiss will go along with the circus.

You can find the original article at PhotographyBLOG here.

iComic - absolutely cool

I don't know if I've mentioned it before, but even if I have: iComic is so cool that it can definitely be mentioned more than once

If you dig around a bit in the forum, you'll also find plugins for Userfriendly. My favorite comics now fresh on the desktop every day - Dilbert and Userfriendly.

Here's the original article.

Möllemann, the Arms Dealer

I hope more comes out of this. Draining the swamp could catch one or two other politicians as well. Because I don't think Möllemann pulled all of this off alone - there were certainly others who knew about it too.

At Industrial Technology & Witchcraft you can find the original article.

Private Competition for Rail

At least they're doing delays quite well

At WDR.de there's the original article.

Clement wants less bureaucracy in professions

And when do we introduce mandatory brains for professional politicians? What that would all save ...

At tagesschau im Internet there's the original article.

A Virtual Pome Fruit as a Potential Bone of Contention

Somehow, this age-old dispute between Apple Computer and Apple Records is really absurd. And the idea that multimillionaire Paul McCartney should rake in even more millions just because he named his record label after a piece of fruit is somehow even more absurd. The fact that Apple Computer is cast as the victim here doesn't really help either (even though they themselves are hardly innocent when it comes to absurd lawsuits - just think of the patented trash can).

At heise online news you can find the original article.

Jürgen W. Möllemann is dead

I'll spare myself the tasteless joke that he's finally made an impression. I also won't make any comments about him bouncing back up like a wobbling doll. And I'll refrain from speculating about who packed his parachute. Because that would all be tasteless and mean. And that's not who I am.

At tagesschau im Internet you can find the original article.

Microsoft Patents Interactive Entertainment System

And once again an absurd patent that the world doesn't need

At heise online news there's the original article.

Pantani to Bianchi?

Well, I don't know if that's a good idea. Can a Pantani subordinate himself to a Jan Ullrich? Because it's clear to see that he no longer has the performance of his earlier days - and Bianchi probably won't be able to afford a double leadership. And Pantani as a loyal domestique - no, sorry, but I just can't imagine that...

Here's the original article.

Commuter allowance under scrutiny

Yeah, great. On the one hand, employers are constantly demanding higher flexibility from employees in choosing their workplace, on the other hand they want to cut the benefits that serve as compensation for this flexibility. The employment office considers a commute of 50 km to be reasonable, and the tax office is cutting the commuter allowance.

At tagesschau im Internet there's the original article.

Steve Ballmer feels threatened by Linux

Steve Ballmer is making a fool of himself again: Non-commercial software suffers from the lack of a central authority that takes care of "health, growth and innovation". - and why doesn't that work with Windows? Especially with health? Even more absurd: that's why Linux will never be as innovative as Windows. - I'm still waiting for Microsoft to implement innovative features like tabbed browsing in Internet Explorer, and for Microsoft to implement something as innovative as a functioning package management system for post-installation software like Debian apt-get or Red Hat rpm. Sorry, Ballmer, but that's only good enough as background material for the Monkeydance.

At heise online news there's the original article.

Web Crawler searches for tax evaders

I wonder if this spider adheres to the robots.txt convention. And how to react if, for example, auction sites block it.

At heise online news there's the original article.

Renewed Dispute over Draft on Publication of Security Vulnerabilities

What? 30 days after receipt until the patch and then another 30 days to secure important infrastructure, and then - after 60 days! - only then the publication? Ridiculous! If the vendor is given any chance at all, it should be a maximum of a few days! After all, it's about security holes through which attackers can compromise a system.

At heise online news you can find the original article.

430 Million Euros Demanded for Eschede Victims

It's not about the victims anymore. It's only about the money being scented out.

For me, the whole thing is taking on really ridiculous dimensions. This US popinjay is putting on a show and throwing threats around. The US legal system perversion provides the necessary backing.

Funny actually - when Israel was supposed to be prosecuted in Belgium for human rights violations, Bush protested sharply. He doesn't just boycott the international court of justice, he even had himself authorized by the House of Representatives to intervene by force if necessary, should US citizens be prosecuted there.

That's all so dishonest.

I found the tagesschau im Internet with the original article.

Sendmail also now protects against spam

And who protects us from sendmail?

At heise online news there is the original article.

End of single-use packaging?

And the farce of the economy continues. It's already audacious how the economy interprets the letter from Brussels - I can already see a clear difference between "wants to stop the deposit system" and "cannot advance the introduction", as it allegedly states in the letter according to WDR. But the economy has been blocking the whole thing for years anyway. They really took the cake when they complained before the introduction of the first stage that everything had come too quickly - and all those years before they simply ignored the topic.

Addendum: what's also remarkable is how the press handles it. While WDR and Tagesschau still point to the true content - namely that there is absolutely no contradiction from the EU Commission (or even a rebuke) - this essential detail is simply ignored in Pro7 news, for example.

At WDR.de there's the original article.

German Bureaucracy Is Not Moving

In my opinion, it is an absolute outrage that precisely given the financial situation of the federal government and the states, the bureaucracy does not disclose its data. There is constant talk of costs when something is taken away from citizens, but citizens are denied access to the corresponding areas - how are we supposed to accept that if we cannot verify it? The way this is currently being handled is highly unbelievable and of course provokes every form of suspicion of corruption.

When will we finally learn that transparency in communication is the only right strategy in the long run?

At Der Rollberg there is the original article.

Network Censor Büssow Resigns Against Critics

Translation

The entire behavior of the district government in the dispute over the blocking orders is increasingly becoming a farce. I still hope that somewhere, someone will simply sue the entire district government and force them to finally conduct the whole matter openly. But I fear that such excesses have by now become rather the norm - competent politicians and political officials seem to no longer exist.

One thing is clear in any case: this massive defensive stance of the district government smells suspiciously like there is actually something to hide there - because otherwise the whole discussion could have easily been defused by the publication that was already promised.

So the only question that remains is whether politicians and bureaucrats simply want to conceal their stupidity, or whether there is actually more behind it.

At das Netzbuch - ralles Weblog you can find the original article.

Are you old? Are you poor? You can die ...

... so at least that's how it reads, what experts are thinking about. That's perverse: because you're too old, nothing more is done to save your life. Unless you have enough money, then you can buy your life. Otherwise just die. How such moronic proposals are supposed to motivate anyone to support the social system is something these idiots can surely explain to me now. Does anyone still know that science fiction film in which all people from a certain age somewhere in their 30s are killed (in the film it's called renewal)? Sometimes you get the feeling that such utopias will soon no longer be science fiction but documentary drama...

Note: But it becomes particularly perverse when a theologian and advisor to the German bishops' conference strikes the same note. At Zickenterror I found the original article.

Dynamically Scoped Variables

I had exactly this problem in the Python Desktop Server as well. So I wrote PyDS.Context for it. There flet is defined and activated as a new builtin. Using flet you can create a dynamic context:

 > > > try: > > > _flet.begin(variable="wert") > > > ... > > > finally: _flet.end()

Not the most elegant version, but at least usable. However, I would prefer it if Python had real fluid lets like in Scheme.

At PragDave there's the original article.

This is just cool - ST-80in VW 7

That's really cool. A Smalltalk-80 running under an emulator for a Xerox Alto written in Smalltalk (Visual Works 7). Wow. The Dolphin mentioned in the article is one of Xerox's D-machines. I have two compatible systems sitting around here. Unfortunately, I never received the Smalltalk diskettes with the microcode and the image, but so far I've only had the Lyric and the Koto Lisp. Lyric is a nice Common Lisp environment, but Koto is really great: a pure Interlisp-D environment (ok, it's also included in Lyric and in the later Medley Common Lisp, but in Koto it's all pure Interlisp-D!).

I found the Cincom Smalltalk Blog - Smalltalk with Rants and the original article there.

Lead on the Shelves

Sure, they stand behind this concept just as much as they do behind all the other handheld and portable concepts they've botched and buried so far

(I still have a version of Pen-Windows 3.x at home on my Dauphin DTR-1)

At Spiegel Online: Netzwelt you can find the original article.

The Open Content License becomes European

Sounds quite interesting, perhaps this could be an alternative to the Creative Commons license that has been the subject of quite a bit of discussion lately. I've also removed it from my sites where it was used, because of the liability clause.

At heise online news there is the original article.

The Monty Hall Problem

Because I kept searching for it again and couldn't remember what it was called, here's a note link. For everyone who thinks they always intuitively assess their chances correctly, this might be an eye-opener.

Here you can find the original article.

A Muzzle for SCO

Good. At least putting verbal brakes on this nonsense is a start.

At heise online news you can find the original article.

Correct lens distortion

Another plugin. I haven't tried it yet and therefore don't know whether it works well or not. The principle sounds very useful though - and it might even make sense for the digital cameras. My other cameras don't have any problem with lens distortion

Here's the original article.