scyro

what Netscape thinks about Bush

2004-11-04T10:57:00.000+01:00

Take a look at this page and look at the filename of this photo:

Four more wars

2004-11-03T18:08:00.000+01:00

watching cnn...

2004-11-03T13:02:00.000+01:00

well, it might take another few days until we know who'll lead us (although Bush already seems to know), but watching cnn is interesting.
Every 10 minutes you see and hear the same stories again, but sometimes, there are ads, and there she is:

Kristie Lu Stout - what a girl.

Take a look at this page, too...

the election: shit

2004-11-03T05:34:00.000+01:00

puh - it does not look good. I can't stand it.
Looks like the asshole is going to win - again!

guys, the first time you didn't know Bush was going to be the asshole he is, but now? There is no excuse to vote for such an idiotic, brain-dead warlord.

Mark Hertsgaard - Bush should go

the election: new jersey

2004-11-03T02:11:00.000+01:00

seems to be Kerry. Good. :-)

the election: looks good

2004-11-03T01:06:00.000+01:00

Kentucky: Bush, ok, everyone knew that.
Indiana: Bush - too
South Carolina: "too close to call". That's a surprise. :-)
Virginia: "too close to call" - ok, Andrew Tanenbaum said it would be close, good to know he's right...

the election: only a few minutes left...

2004-11-03T00:42:00.000+01:00

In a few minutes, we may have the first results.
And, surprise, surprise, there is not much to tell at the moment. Kerry seems to have a small advance, at least the Wall Street "favours" him, but that doesn't tell us much.

What else? Some OSCE helpers were denied to watch the election - I don't know in which state, yet, stay tuned...

The election: An interesting opinion

2004-10-15T15:17:00.000+02:00

Well, I am not trying to be fair about the election, I simply hate GWB and think he's a threat to the whole world.

Still, there are people who try to put some serious thoughts at the election, and Tim Bray gave the whole debate a new perspective:

"The rest of the world is largely convinced that George W. Bush is an ignorant malevolent jackass. Here’s a story by way of highlight; we recently had an old friend over for dinner, and we were talking over the US election and he burst out “Americans are decent people and I like them, but if they go and re-elect that #*!^!% #$*!%* &*@!$%!, there’s just no excuse and the #!%$* with ’em!” I would say that there are a lot of people, not just in Canada, who feel about the same.

Let’s completely ignore the subject of whether they’re right or not; maybe Dubya is an enlightened, straight-arrow kind of guy who is just misunderstood. But consider the consequences. If you’re running a company and there’s a general perception that your CEO is an asshole, eventually it won’t matter that much whether he really is or isn’t; the perception will become an obstacle. And right now, the United States of America is facing that obstacle."

ongoing · That American Election

Well done, Tim.

Segway Centaur

2004-10-13T00:46:00.000+02:00

Well, the Segway HT is an extremely nice bunch of technology, but I just can't imagine using it. I would never ride on it for more than 5km, and this is about the amount of way I could also do by bike or walk. It just feels wrong not to exercise for such a short way.

But now, they designed something really nice: Take a look at the Centaur.

A four-wheeled ATV-kind of thing, with a never-seen maneuverability. I just love it.

Take a look at the movie or read the article at Popular Science - and please, write to centaur@segway.com "and include name, address and phone number to be notified of any additional information on Concept Centaur".

Yes, it is just a concept, and until now, they claim not to have any plans on selling it, but we have to show them there is a market for this awesome vehicle...

iTerrorAlert

2004-10-11T13:56:00.000+02:00

Finally, something the world has waited for a long time:

iTerrorAlert

"iTerrorAlert is a small program that displays the threat level determined by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security on your desktop."

Not that it makes any difference what the DHS tells us, as the author states:

"It is not a serious application and you might die in an terrorist attack even when the displayed level is green."

And further:

Until now it is not proven that iTerrorAlert can display any other level than "Elevated" because the level did never change since the development of iTerrorAlert has started. :)

Well, I doubt we have to wait a long time for a change - isn't it a good way to tamper the votes by raising the thread level? Be prepared to see high or even severe short before the election...

iDJ iPod Party [II]

2004-10-10T23:16:00.000+02:00

...just got a comment from Bryan:

------
date: saturday 27 november 2004
location: GEM museum The hague
open: 21.00 - 01.30 u.
host: Bridget Maasland (BNN)power: LJS Apple Centre Den Haag

- iDJ iPOD PARTY -
The first iPod funparty in The Netherlands
After New York, London and Tokyo is The Hague City number 4 to iPod Party!
- NO PARTY WITHOUT A FAMOUS DJ - will be a future quote from the early 90s.

- SHARE YOUR TUNES -
This party is about a new lifestyle for people who love art, design and culture.
The GEM museum in The hague is the ultimate location to launch this new format, a special place where art, design, culture and creatives share their music.

- BE YOUR OWN DJ! -
The iDJ's are the people with their iPod (or laptop) who register with email, they have a reservation at the 2000watt mixset with their own T-shirt with follow up number.
Two-by-two they play their 3 different tunes for about 3.30 min. The iHost (the person behind the mixset) will crossfade your tunes into the next one. So there can be all harmony with a stranger or you can go into the battle with a friend.

- BATTLE! -
Bridget Maasland (BNN) will make the link between the iD's and the public. She will take notes from the partypeople and ask them to vote for the two best iDJ's, they can battle against eachother at the end of the night, to win the new iPod mini.

TICKETS are available soon: Presale 7.50 - door 12.50 - shirt: 25.00 (reservation only)
idjparty@mac.com
-----

hmm, this really sounds promising. I don't think I'll be able to make it, but I'll definitely try...

overclock your iBook

2004-10-10T22:57:00.000+02:00

Unfortunately, I can't try this, it doesn't work with my new G4, but whoever wants to give it a try:

iCook

german Podcasts

2004-10-10T04:06:00.000+02:00

hmm, can this be true? I have, until now, only found one german Podcast: Poetcast

Besides, there is only fAb, who doesn't want to produce a Podcast but has registered the domains podcast.de, podcaster.de and podcasting.de.

Well done Fabian Fabio (sorry)...

they crawl up their asses

2004-10-09T23:08:00.000+02:00

As Slashdot mentions:

People from Bits of Freedom registered websites with 10 different providers and used it to publish public domain material (from an author who died over 100 years ago).
Afterwards, they set up a fake society that claimed to have the rights on that exact material. They sent complaints to all 10 providers from a hotmail address.

Unbelievable: 7 out of the 10 complied and removed the material, one (iFast) even forwarded all the personal details of the site owner to this society - without being asked to do so and of course without asking the owner.

The 3 who didn't remove the page are UPC, Freeler and XS4ALL.

Read the whole story here.

QotD: Apple's stock price on January 1, 2005

2004-10-08T18:55:00.000+02:00

Eric asks about the stock price for Apple:

QotD: Stock Price

I say $39.51

looks familiar...

2004-10-08T15:38:00.000+02:00

Picture Show :: Instant Mess

[thanks to powerbook _ blog]

after the election: civil war in the US?

2004-10-08T14:15:00.000+02:00

How do the criminals around Bush think to come away with that?

the Diebold election systems, which are used in 15 constituencies in Florida, don't write a verifiable record of the vote
it is possible to manipulate the system with the security code "1111"
Glenda E. Hood, Florida Secretary of State, states that there was no record of any tampering yet. Well, who wonders? The systems don't record anything....
Mrs. Hood, by the way, is the first Secretary of State who wasn't elected in a democratic way, but just announced by Jeb Bush
Walden O'Dell, CEO of Diebold, stated he wants to help the Republicans to win.
Glenda and Jeb were forced to show the list of criminals who aren't allowed to vote: 48.000 people, thousands of black people (their majority votes for Kerry), 61 Hispanics (their majority votes for Bush)
journalists who critizise the government in Florida are hindered: They don't get interviews or press reports ahead of time

Mark my words: After the election, when Bush wins again, there will be a civil war in the US. People are not going to agree to be kidded like this.

Using of Smart Playlists for Podcasting

2004-10-08T04:49:00.000+02:00

BlogicBlogger wrote an article about how to keep track of new Podcasts and how easily (as in "1-click-spirit") getting rid of shows you are not longer interested in.

His solution is a Windows Script that uses the rating system, but, to be honest, I don't like that: iTunes has something very powerful, called Smart Playlists, and I want to make use of that.

So here is my configuration without any need for scripting:

iPodderX creates normal playlists for every feed you subscribe to (Adam Curry: Daily Source Code, Evil Genius Chronicles, IT Conversations and so on), so first I create a smart playlist

Ω Podcasts:

Match any of these:

Playlist is <name of playlist>
Playlist is <name of playlist>
...

Live Updating

This Playlists holds all my Podcasts. The Ω says it's a technical playlist and should not be syncronized to the iPod.

Now let's do a playlist for all the new stuff that comes in:

new Podcasts

Match all of these:

Playlist is Ω Podcasts
Playcount is 0

Live Updating

Very easy. Never played: Put it in the playlist.
I have also checked:

Limit to 300MB selected by most recently added

My iPod is way too small for everything, so I have to set limits for everything. Most recently added gives me the newest Podcasts I've not heard yet, so a 20 days old DSC for which I haven't had the time yet doesn't interfere with my daily addiction for the new stuff. Next we need a Playlist for the stuff that should be kept on the iPod:

good Podcasts

Match all of these:

Playlist is Ω Podcasts
My rating is **

Live Updating

I used two stars since I keep the one star for stuff that's broken. I don't give more than two stars because there are random playlists for three to five stars and, although I like Adam Curry's voice, I just don't want to hear it when I lie in bed with my girlfriend and listen to some romantic songs... ;-)

So, back to business: The last two playlists are syncronized with the iPod, and every morning, I just have to choose new Podcasts and start with the first track. That's it.

If you want to keep the new and the good stuff in one playlist, you have to create another one (this is the last one, I promise):

Podcasts

Match any of these:

Playlist is new Podcasts
Playlist is good Podcasts

Live Updating

And that's it.

Goombah: music recommendation system

2004-10-07T23:50:00.000+02:00

Goombah could become a really cool piece of software.

It connects to your iTunes Library, gets your Playcount for each song and compares this to others in the Goombah-Community: Voila, you get your recommendations for songs which you don't have but others with a similar taste hear a lot.

The system just opened to a Beta test, so there aren't that much users online, but still, the recommendations for me aren't that bad:

Red Hot Chili Peppers - Californication
Eminem - Sing For The Moment
Red Hot Chili Peppers - Easily
Audioslave - Like a Stone
Eminem - White America
Radiohead - Paranoid Android
Moby - Porcelain
Radiohead - Karma Police
Eminem - Drips
Eminem - Business
...

I don't know exactly how Eminem made it into the list, I have no Eminem song in my Library and I can't think of any of my songs to be similar to his music, but anyway...Red Hot Chili Peppers isn't that bad, Radiohead is also quite good and I just listened to Audioslave, this is my kind of music, too.

OK, the recommendations are somehow "mainstream", you won't find the ultimate underdog band no one ever heard of, but still...let's wait for the users (that means you) and the recommendations are going to be better.

The software does a good job in hiding what it's doing. In the FAQ, you can read that it uses BitTorrent for exchanging information with other users, which is a nice use of the technology in my opinion, but besides a warning to open some ports in your firewall and the initial connect at the very first time you run it you can't see it connecting or using the net. There isn't even a way to choose different Neighbors (the people whose libraries are used for your recommendations) or to recalculate the Library.

For example, I got a recommendation for Coldplay - A Rush Of Blood To The Head. I was a little bit confused, since I own the album, and then I saw that iTunes named it "Rush Of Blood To The Head". I added the "A". OK, so how can I tell Goombah to rescan my library? I didn't find a way.

Now, a few hours later, the recommendations for Coldplay are gone, it must have found the change. Still, it's a pitty you can't trigger the update on your own.

So, I will keep running the software, at least since I provide the biggest Library in the Neighborhood (7.068 songs and counting...), the second one has something about 2.800. Besides, I am waiting for better recommendations...so start using it!

the bible for dummies

2004-10-07T13:05:00.000+02:00

I'm not at all a religious man, but still, I know most of the stuff in the bible from my childhood.
During that time, the only chance to have a more entertaining look at the bible was through television, but the bible movies weren't that much fun.

Now take a look at this: The Brick Testament. Stories from the bible made with Lego.

720 hours of work...

2004-10-07T00:42:00.000+02:00

...for this illustration - I'm impressed.
Unfortunately, the 1600x729 px JPG just isn't enough to see all the details. I really would like to have this one in the 12 ft version he's talking about... :-)

Take a look at the other stuff on Kevin's page, he's doing a great job. There is even a student page for people who want to change their occupation...

the cheese of the gods

2004-10-05T20:38:00.000+02:00

During my time in india I couldn't get enough of it, unfortunately, I haven't found anything similar here. Even the Indian restaurants around don't serve (good) Paneer.

I'm a little bit stunned by the english in the article, it contains too many words I have never heard of (what is the meaning of whey and clingfilm?), but otherwise this recipe for Paneer from kuro5hin.org sounds quite easy.

I'll take some time to try this - hopefully my flat mates don't mind the mess.

[Unix] Programming helpers

2004-10-05T16:53:00.000+02:00

Very nice article:

Ten Commands Every Linux Developer Should Know

Some of them are missing under OS X (I especially miss fuser), but the article is quite interesting for us Mac-Addicts, too.

PS: Does anyone know about fuser for OS X?

The Saddam-bin Laden link

2004-10-05T10:53:00.000+02:00

Donald Rumsfeld, one of the madmen in the White House, just announced that he has "not seen any strong, hard evidence that links the two [Osama bin Laden and Saddam Hussein]".
Really? Man, this is new to us.
Of course, it didn't take him long to object to this press coverage: His comments had been "regrettably misunderstood".
Of course, my dear, of course...

Nonetheless, their tactic of accusing the CIA for wrong information seems to work - unbelievable. There's still a majority of US citizens who would vote for Bush.
OK, Kerry isn't my first choice as president, either, but, come on, everyone is better than this miserable failure made by the voters - despite what Reason states on their front cover.

Oh, I really want to vote in the US. We (the population of the entire world) should have the possibility to do this - someone like Bush is a thread to the whole world.

"Wenn bald alles lodert und alles brennt
und die Erde erzittert vom Bombardement,
wenn uns nichts mehr bleibt, als um Erlösung zu beten,
dann lasst sie uns preisen:
Die klügsten Männer auf unserem Planeten"

Die klügsten Männer der Welt - Die Ärzte

[Unix] bar man from clearing the display after quitting

2004-10-05T09:43:00.000+02:00

There's one thing I always wanted to do, but actually never came into my mind when I had the time: Try to find a way to bar man from beginning a new page on Terminal after quitting.

It is such an annoyance: You just found the correct example for your kind of problem, press q and everything is deleted. Sure, I began to copy and paste it, but I can't learn something I didn't type on my own. So I remembered it.

But once you tried to remember things like:

find / $ -newer ttt -or -user wnj $ -print

you begin to wonder whether there is a better way.

And yes, there is! Thanks to Chandan, or precisely, thanks to the comment from Tero:

"That's actually an annoying feature caused by the default pager (less). Clearing up the screen can be disabled by adding -X into its default parameters. I have following in my .bashrc to disable it globally:

export LESS=-Xc

Here's the explanation from man page:

-X or --no-init

Disables sending the termcap initialization and deinitialization strings to the terminal. This is sometimes desirable if the deinitialization string does something unnecessary, like clearing the screen.

Another option I use is -c which makes scrolling a bit more smooth."

Well, I can't see any difference made by the -c switch, the drawing is too fast, but maybe I'll see it the first time I'm using less on my iBook through a 28.8kbit Modem connection (whenever this might happen).

Anyway, thanks Chandan for bringing up the topic and Tero for the solution.

a new generation of Launcher

2004-10-04T22:35:00.000+02:00

I was quite pleased with Launchbar 3 - easy to use, fast, reliable...
There came a time when I wasn't able to work on any Mac without Launchbar anymore.

By accident (del.icio.us) I saw they released the Beta of Launchbar 4. OK, it is programmed by Austrians, but still, they know what they're doing! ;-)

It feels a little bit slower than v.3, but the features are well worth this small lag. And I think I haven't even found all the features yet.

You can, of course, still launch all your programs with abbrevations - meaning, you just press Command-Space, then itu <enter> and iTunes starts. Every character filters the list of possible programs, and if you choose iTunes after pressing only i, from now on it will be started by pressing i.

But of course, there are not only your programs in the list, but also your bookmarks and your contacts. And the Preference Panes. And your Folders. You can start nearly everything.

OK, so all of this was already possible with v.3 - what the heck was I missing? Well, actually, I wasn't missing anything, until I saw v.4:

index of your iTunes & iPhoto Library, Browser History (not just Safari, but OmniWeb, Camino, whatever)
list of recently used items: browse through your last documents
live updating of index: new programs are available immediately
Smart Groups: group your programs, documents, songs, photos
complete file system browsing, including moving, open with, ...
file content search: search inside your text-, rtf-, html-files
and so on...

Just while typing this, I discovered the feature "Open Terminal Here": Just enter the abbrevation of a folder and press Command-T.

The update is really worth the 10.-- EUR.

iDJ Party

2004-10-04T18:57:00.000+02:00

the iDJ Party, an interesting idea:

"Nobody knows who's coming and especially, what kind of music. Only you know what you'll play. Surprise the audience with the unknown, or play a song that you haven't heard for the last twenty years or so"

Date and location are still secret, but it should be in The Hague, Netherlands. That's too far away... but I really would like to see that (and I can think of one or two songs I would want to play, too).

browserTunes: a remote for your iTunes

2004-10-03T17:11:00.000+02:00

A few months ago, when Apple announced the Airport Express, I'm sure I wasn't the only one who dreamed of a new iPod, with 802.11b/g interface, to simply stream your music from the iPod (the "remote") to your stereo.

Well, we all know Steve didn't do us the favour - instead, the 4G iPod looks uglier (come on, you really like the different color of the wheel?) and doesn't have the cool sensor buttons like the 3G. At least it's cheaper and has a better runtime, though I have to admit the eight hours of the 3G are enough for me.

So I lived on with my 3G iPod and my lovely iBook and only sometimes spent a thought on buying an Airport Express Station - mainly while listening to a CD (yes, I still have those) on my Onkyo amplifier and JBL speakers. Connecting the iBook to the stereo would have been an option, but since I can't stand cables lying around in my flat, I wouldn't be able to control iTunes anymore.

And then, I found browerTunes. It doesn't sound so revolutionary, "Control iTunes from any Browser!", but once you realize its potential, you wouldn't want to miss it.

More and more of us tech-loving kids do have expensive toys at home, like PDAs with 802.11b/g. Me, I have a Sharp Zaurus SL-5500. Bought just a few weeks ago for my thesis, I would never use it as a PDA, since it can only loose in comparison to my six years old Palm V.
But now, it fulfills another purpose: It is a more-than-complete remote for my iTunes Music Library on the iBook.

There is one drawback, though: I am addicted to my iBook, so connecting it to my stereo leaves me alone on my sofa, without a computer. Fortunately, I can browse the Internet with my Zaurus, so I don't miss it that much.

Back to browerTunes: It is still a 0.x development, but nonetheless worth a look: The developer is fast, there is new version every few days, and I think we haven't seen the last complete rewrite of code.
The change to a SQL database made the program a whole lot faster, although the first version was a little unstable, but the new 0.2.1 beta - released yesterday - runs quite smooth on my system since now.

heal your iPod

2004-10-03T11:43:00.000+02:00

The Powerbook...Blogger wrote about goPod, a software to uncap the EU iPods.

At first, I was sceptical, since all software which promises to uncap 3G iPods simply turns up the volume of every title, but this one works as advertised:
It hacks the firmware.

Result: The maximum volume is a lot too loud. But maybe I'll find a use for this, and it is a good feeling not to have a crippled iPod anymore.

GPS for my Palm V

2004-10-03T11:21:00.000+02:00

Thanks to the Datenimperator I found the GPS Companion.

It might have been a good idea not to buy the first GPS II I found at ebay.
True, the GPS II would be water resistant and I could mount it on my motorbike, but, well, both products are so cheap (at least I hope it for the Companion) that I can afford both. Besides, who wants to put a GPS on his motorcycle during the winter?

There's a whole new world out there for me to discover.