Home → Archives → by month → August 2003
Afghanistan, Iraq calling
Ben Hammersley continues his voyage through Afghanistan and blogs more stories on this mysterious country and the city of Kabul. Stories published so far include:
Kandahar Chronicles gives insight into "the day-to-day life of a relief worker based in Kandahar Afghanistan", but is unavailable for now: "Due to immediate security concerns in Kandahar, the Kandahar Chronicles has been temporarily suspended. We hope to return in the first week of September with more updates from Carlos."
Meanwhile, there is a new blog from the second country "perpetual war on terror" has been carried into: Baghdad Burning is on war, politics and occupation, written by someone who calls herself Riverbend: "I'm female, Iraqi and 24. I survived the war. That's all you need to know. It's all that matters these days anyway."
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Google RSS 2.0 feeds
While many new news aggregators come with built in Feedster support, allowing you to monitor up the minute what blogworld has written on your keywords, Google still does not offer RSS feeds. While you will already have investigated the Google API if you have to monitor a larger set of keywords or result sets, this might not be straightforward enough for casual use. For this, there now is Diego's Google RSS Feeds. A simple call like this returns a RSS 2.0 feed containing the top 10 results. The Java sources are available. Jason Bell has something similar, just the sources, not a running service though.
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Addiction
Listening to The Cure - Love Song all day long
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CSS notes
Some new CSS resources and examples:
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Immediate security update
".NET Messenger Service Staff: You are running a version of messenger that requires an immediate security update. Please visit http://messenger.msn.com/Help/Upgrades.aspx to complete the update."
The messenger that messenger@microsoft.com wants me to update is Trillian. It indeed has a severe security flaw: it allows users to circumvent provider-wanted lock-ins to single platforms or clients. As this is unacceptable to a solid business model, MSN will ban Trillian clients and older MSN Messenger versions in some weeks from its network. Of yourse I won't "update", I don't even have Microsoft clients on my machines. It's not me who is locked out. Those that solely rely on MSN as instant messaging platform are locked out. Don't have yourself locked into a single platform and out of the rest of the world - better switch.
Note on the following comments
Gentlemen, if you want to contribute to the discussion, please refrain from posting comments without sense or meaning. Also, if you cannot resist to use swearwords, but don't want to appear as a complete sissy, write them without asterixes and in unabbreviated form. Comments especially poor in content or entertainment value normally get deleted, and Hotmail and AOL addresses both improve your chance of getting so. Consequentially, most of the following comments survived solely in order to have some examples of how not to do it in the archives.
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Neutraface
Neutraface, a 1920ies Art Deco classic typeface. I am in love. Too bad I do not have it in my collection.
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Frederike Sophie
is the name of Sybille's and Nico's newborn daughter. Congratulations!
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What lyric directly follows the words "Blinded by the light..."?
"Red duck like a douchebag and discarded in the night"
"Dressed up like a dude, another runner in the night"
"Set it up like a duce and they rolled it in the night"
"Cut loose like a goose, another roamer in the night"
"Slapped up like a motor in the onus of the night"
"Caught by a ratchet with a rumor in the night"
"Woke up like a dooshe, you know i rolled her in the night"
More inspired answers at The Blinded Archive
More fun at kissthisguy.com - The Archive of Misheard Lyrics
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Popular Fallacies
Krzysztof Kowalczyk: "There are times when people try to bullshit their way during an argument. In that case it's good to know the most popular bullshits, otherwise known as logical fallacies. There is a list here and here, both with good explanations why a given fallacy is indeed a fallacy and not a legitimate argument."
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Where I live III
Hoesch/TKS Hermannshütte/Phoenix Ost, Dortmund
Click image to enlarge
This is one of the last buildings that remained up to now - after the technical facilities have been sold and shipped to China, the entire remainder of this former Hoesch oxygen steel plant currently gets teared down, giving place to a lake. In less than three weeks, nothing will be left of what can be seen on the photo.
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Posted in category Endangered Machinery
98%? Not really
Some days ago I had a conversation with the other Hebig on a certain piece of software I will talk about later. While he raves about it, I think it is nice, but of little use to me, as it does not run in Mozilla Firebird. Heiko: "It does not have to, 98% use Internet Explorer."
If you look at logs of MSDN or .NET developer sites, this might be right. If you look at mozilla.org or mozillazine, it probably is not. Now Germany's most visited news-site SPIEGEL online released some figures on browser market shares on that site; and as everyone visits it, that are the numbers to look at if you want to know about what people use in Germany:
"Spätestens mit der Veröffentlichung von Mozilla 1.4 und Netscape 7 kam es zu einem kleinen Boom der Alternativ-Browser: Sie halten nun wieder einen Anteil von 15,1 Prozent. [...] Microsofts Internet Explorer [hatte] Mitte August 2003 ein Gewicht von 83,8 Prozent."
So in mid-August, Gecko browsers held a surprising 15,1% market share, while the Explorer share went down to 83,8%, calulated from a 125 million lines logfile sample.
People are smart. If they come across better tools for their tasks, they switch. Joe Simple probably won't. But far more than the 1% uber-geeks did or do. Among my fellow non-geek students, many switched to Mozilla, not because I preached, but because they simply saw me using it (keyword feature set), and others followed them.
Switching operating systems will be a larger step than switching tools and applications, but again, more than the 1% uber-geeks switched or will switch. Perhaps you or I will, too. But it is clear what I do today when I select new applications or things that run in a web browser or use a web browser as the output chanel: I prefer sofware that runs cross-browser/cross-platform, has open sources and supports standardized file formats. I avoid software that locks me in. So a tool that requires me to use Internet Explorer because "most people have it" is a tool I don't use. Remove the lock-in, and I might reconsider it.
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Where I live II
Autobahn A45 near Dortmund, Germany
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In the background, three large-scale wind turbines; in the far background, chimneys of local power plants.
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Where I live I
Paper industry in Hagen, Germany
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Night shot of local paper industry in Hagen-Bathey/Kabel, taken from Dortmund-Hohensyburg. Items of interest:
HEAT AND POWER STATION HAGEN-KABEL (left)
Put into service 1980/1981, 215 MW net power: 2 x 70 MW gas turbines + 1 x 75 MW steam turbine, 108 MJ/s district heating power, burns natural gas (pipeline connection), diesel backup (4 weeks capacity). Provides electric energy and process steam to local industries. Description in German at operator website
WAZ NEWSPAPER PRODUCTION PLANT (front right, visible in parts)
Largest newspaper plant in Europe. Printing line with 27 six-tower printing units (162 printing couples), ten folders. Web width 1360 mm, cutoff length 480 mm. Within four to five hours, this and a slighty smaller plant in Essen produce 1.35 million newspapers per day (ca. 700,000 WAZ). Round-the-clock operation allows for ample production of other WAZ publications and for external clients. No offical website available
STORA ENSO PAPER MILL (background)
Former Feldmühle. Acquired by Stora Enso in 1998. Three paper machines: trim width 369/720/720 cm, maximum speed 1000/1300/1320 m/min. Annual capacity 600,000 tons. Highly effective plant with 1,100 employees. Mainly coated reels for offset and rotogravure (magazines, brochures, books). Details at storaenso.com
YOURS TRULY
btw lives on the opposite side of the hill seen on this photo, taken from the same spot as the photo above. The side shown on the photo features a rather special power plant, the Koepchenwerk pumped storage plant (also at rwepower.com, both in German) - more on that later.
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FreeMind mind mapper
Dragging-and-dropping plain text with leading spaces
Sometimes, I come across software I don't want to miss even after the shortest test drive. In case of FreeMind, several hours of testing and playing just amplified my first impression: this one rocks.
FreeMind is a GNU-licensed mind mapper written in Java, similar to the commercial MindManager, just that it is free, fast, and cross-platform. Some notes:
- Lightweight (just 300k), unbloated feature set, no-frills interface, good keyboard shortcut set
- Fast folding and unfolding even of large trees
- Data storage in XML format; Freemind-to-MindManager, MindManger-to-Freemind, Freemind-to-DocBook XSLT files available
- Anything can be linked: local or remote files, folder, executables
- Smart drag-and-drop / copy-and-paste features (see screenshot)
- Browse directories as mind maps - this can be very handy to visualize folder and file structures of software you work on. Any file or folder can be map root
- Viewer applet available - putting it on a web or intranet site, others can browse your maps. There is a find function in both editor and browser. Alternatively, maps can be exported as HTML foldable trees
- Resulting maps are clean and elegant; if you want to scatter clip art or images across your map, this one might not be for you
- Most missed feature: undo function
So if you want a mind mapper that simply works, FreeMind is worth a serious look.
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Schill-out party
Hamburg, last night. Photo: Indymedia
Yesterday, Hamburg's mayor ejected right-wing and Rambo-wannabe Roland Barnabas Schill from his position as secretary of the interior, and noone seems to be sorry about that. Instead, 2,000 locals spontaneously held a street party. Both Heiko and Indymedia provide photo coverage, and both report that the Hamburg police made violent use of truck-mounted water guns to terminate the demonstration after 01:00 this night.
Heiko Hebig: Schill out party photos
Indymedia coverage
Papa Scott: No mercy
Lyssa: Schill-out Zone - must read if you speak German
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Sony-Ericsson T610
Today I had the opportunity to play around with a Sony-Ericsson T610 for a while, and my first impression is very good: especially compared to my Siemens S55, it feels very solid, has an excellent display, a surprisingly well done user interface and even takes pictures of acceptable quality (did not check Synch-ML or synchronization features). Due to the body design, it feels a bit larger and heavier than it is, though. Judging after a five minute test, this might be one even for die-hard Siemens users.
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The Big Birthday Question
In a side note to yesterday's posting on Roman Polanski I asked about national differences in birthday habits - some left comments, and the Rainy Day Team - Eamonn Fitzgerald and wife - held a conference "to come up with an explanation for why birthdays are downplayed in the Anglosphere and revered in Germanic culture". As always, Eamonn came up with an excellent piece - my non-German readers can expect lots of insights into our habits. Meanwhile, transmissions on Mozilla, PHP, Blogging, Syndication and technology will resume soon on this frequeny. Stay tuned.
Rainy Day: Eamonn Fitzgerald on the big birthday question
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Links Galore
First, some additions to my way-too-large blogroll:
And in addition to todays Daily Links:
- Martin points to Exhibit Engine, "a PHP/MySQL application for smooth and versatile online photograph display" that lets you produce excellent online galleries with a strong focus on technial aspects - great. Gallery might be easier to set up and maintain for most general purposes, but though it has its advantages, I still don't like it too much. Thanks Martin!
- Talking about photography, Timo Autiokari's excellent site on Accurate Image Manipulation for Desktop Publishing might keep you occupied for a while
- If not, ask Julia - her mother warned her
- Mark Pilgrim has a working Atom API implementation that plugs into Movable Type. A wxPython based Windows GUI client is available, too
- It has been mentioned here before, but the more details on the Sony Clie UX50 get public, the more desirable it appears - though the price tag is prohibitive
- Russell Beattie probably was the first to report about a explosion in a Spanish Repsol refinery in which seven gasoline tanks exploded and set up a large gallery. If you speak Spanish, this El Mundo story has more details for you
- And finally, iAppoint exports your Outlook calendar into iCal format, for use in iCal, PHP iCalendar or your iPod. Via Kalsey Simplelinks
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Roman Polanski 70
So far, there are just two moments I have been instantly caught and baffled by what I came across on TV when zapping. One, seeing Don't look now with Donald Sutherland (in German, "Wenn die Gondeln Trauer tragen", a much more poignant title). The other, seeing Knife in the Water, Roman Polanskis black and white masterpiece done in 1962. Both movies rooted me on the spot within few seconds, and since that day about 10 years ago I saw Polanski's movie, I am constantly fascinated by his work. Today, he turns 70, and the Süddeutsche Zeitung has a good piece on his work (in German): Die kalte Formation der Welt.
Side note: Why is it that on their birthdays, German media are full of homages, appraisals and work retrospects of important figures, while - at least according to Google News - the British and American media don't loose a word? Is this an unknown custom in those countries? Perhaps Scott or Eamonn can help me out.
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U.S. Troops Shoot Dead Reuters Cameraman Mazen Dana in Iraq
"'We were all there, for at least half an hour. They knew we were journalists. After they shot Mazen, they aimed their guns at us. I don't think it was accident. They are very tense. They are crazy,' said Stephan Breitner of France 2 television. Breitner said soldiers tried to resuscitate Dana but failed. 'They are young soldiers and they don't understand what is happening.'" - The Kansas City Star, via Horst Prillinger
"Eyewitnesses said soldiers on an American tank shot at Mazen Dana, 43, as he filmed outside Abu Ghraib prison in western Baghdad which had earlier come under a mortar attack. Dana's last pictures show a U.S. tank driving toward him outside the prison walls. Several shots ring out from the tank, and Dana's camera falls to the ground. The U.S. military acknowledged on Sunday that its troops had 'engaged' a Reuters cameraman, saying they had thought his camera was a rocket propelled grenade launcher. [...] 'They saw us and they knew about our identities and our mission,' [Reuter soundman] Shyoukhi said. [...]
Dana's death brings to 17 the number of journalists or their assistants who have died in Iraq since war began on March 20. Two others have been missing since the first days of the war. Dana is the second Reuters cameraman to be killed since the U.S.-led force invaded Iraq. On April 8, Taras Protsyuk, a Ukrainian based in Warsaw, died when a U.S. tank fired a shell at the 15th floor of the Palestine Hotel, the base for many foreign media in Baghdad." -
Reuters
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Units of choice
One of the first things that struck me odd in university was how we were introduced into calculating machine parts: "OK gentlemen, now that we calculated everything to the fifth decimal place, lets add, say, two thumbs of safety."
Subsequently, I started expressing speeds in angstrom per lunar cycle instead of in meters per seconds, as this unit combines extreme precision in its one and (seemingly) slightly less precision in its other part. Memorizing conversion factors for my new favourite unit was the easier part.
Now, Google has found a heart for those of you that want or have to deal with similar esoteric units, and I praise the makers of Google Calculator for including both the angstrom and the lunar cycle. For quick reference, calling
For more academic uses, I also set up http://xrl.us/c2angstrom (speed of light c in angstrom per lunar cycle) and http://xrl.us/angstrom2c (angstrom per lunar cycle in c). If all this does not help, try http://xrl.us/theanswer.
More usage examples at waxy.org and loads of other places in blogworld.
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Firebird popup flood
Click to view screenshot
Sometimes, Firebird throws empty popup windows until the maximum number of program windows is reached - funny. I configured the browser to open anything in new background tabs, including requested popup, while unrequested popups get blocked. But if I use the Blogrolling boookmarklet and open another tab, Firebird sometimes starts to open new and new windows - not tabs - the size specified in the bookmarklet source. However, it does not crash. Hit the close box or Ctrl-W often enough, and you can resume your work as if nothing had happened - plus, you get a funky new wallpaper.
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Are you talking to me?
Robert de Niro, clearly one of my all time favourite actors, turns 60 today. Who who loves acting and the movies can't love his work? German viewers will invariably connect him to the fascinating voice of Christian Brückner. German press coverage at DER SPIEGEL, ARD, ZDF and Süddeutsche Zeitung. English sources don't seem to have stories yet, so monitor Google News to stay up to date. For his filmography, photos and quotes, check IMDB or Rotten Tomatoes.
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George Soros: Why the Fight for a Worldwide Open Society Begins at Home
From time to time - no more than four or fives times a year - a new writing by George Soros gets published on the website of his Open Society Institute and Soros Foundations Network, and every single time it is excellent reading material. So is his newest piece, America's Global Role: Why the Fight for a Worldwide Open Society Begins at Home, first published in the June 2003 American Prospect.
I won't excerpt from it, better read the whole article. What he says does not only apply to the U.S, but to any free nation whose government follows an ideology in contradiction to the nation's ideas and values. He considers core elements of the National Security Strategy "views of extremists, not adherents to an open society. Perhaps because of my background, these views push the wrong buttons in me. And I am amazed and disappointed that the general public does not have a similar allergic reaction. Of course, that has a lot to do with September 11."
Still, the absence of such a reaction is among the most interesting observations one could have made since that date. But would the public in other countries act fundamentally different under similar conditions? George Soros: "I put my faith in the people. But in the end, open society will not survive unless those who live in it believe in it."
IN THE ARCHIVES
2003-05-20: George Soros: Bush's Inflated Sense of Supremacy
2002-10-05: George Soros: Busted - Why The Markets Can't Fix Themselves
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A side note on comments
One thing I love about blogging are comments, posted elsewhere or on this blog. They add insight and views from different perspectives, answer questions, solve problems or simply delight. Still, from time to time blog authors have to handle comments left by the not so smart.
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How Technorati works, Radio an "obnoxious spam tool"?
Lilia Efimova asked how everyone's favourite Technorati works, maker David Sifry answers.
Part 1 of his mini-tutorial also answers the question why many of us recently observed a drop in the inbound blogs count: "Radio Userland has an obnoxious habit of sending pings to www.weblogs.com for each weblog 'category' if you use multiple categories on your blog. Same information, same author, just link spam, basically. So, last night we cleaned out a bunch of that stuff." Good.
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Einer geht noch
Die Miniatur-Ventilenties, die von IT+W aus derzeit die Runde machen, kann man bei Schwatzgelb.de auch in Originalgröße bewundern - als kostenlosen Sommer-Service sogar gleich im Six-Pack.
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Shorten this!
Very long URLs posted in comments have the bad habit of breaking the site's layout, so I started to replace very long URLs with shortened versions, using Bjoern Hansen's Metamark service. I hope this makes URLs posted in comments more legible. Original long URLs are kept in a wiki page.
Now I think of integrating the URL shortener into Movable Type, so that very long URLs get automagically shortened when a new comment is submitted. Another feature planned: Comment preview with JavaScript and DOM (via Simon Willison) - much nicer than Movable Type's Comment Previewing.
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Quote of The Day
Robust debate in a democracy will almost always involve occasional rhetorical excesses and leaps of faith, and we're all used to that. I've even been guilty of it myself on occasion. But there is a big difference between that and a systematic effort to manipulate facts in service to a totalistic ideology that is felt to be more important than the mandates of basic honesty.
Al Gore in his first major address on Administration policy since last September, delivered August 7th at New York University. In his address he claims that "the Bush Administration routinely shows disrespect for [...] the Rule of Reason [...] because they feel as if they already know the truth and aren't very curious to learn about any facts that might contradict it."
Read the full transcript or view the speech (Real Media link)
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:: in category Quotes
Presenting: Kaizers Orchestra
Kaizers Orchestra: six well dressed young men from Norway, playing Hummpa rock on "pump organs, oil barrels and whatever junk they find along the way".
Heard them live at the Haldener Open Air yesterday (where tonight, Patti Smith herself will play). So full of energy, play will and fun, it appears perfectly clear to me why the Orchestra's performance was elected Concert of the Year at Roskilde 2002. To find out yourself, go and listen to the live excerpts and and watch the video clips at the band's website.
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:: in category Music
US immigration question
This very valid question came up on the #joiito IRC chanel this morning:
"rabid hyperbole aside, is there an actual example of someone [who wants to visit the US under the visa waiver program] being denied entry by US Immigration for expressing an anti bush sentiment ?"
Among the discussion participants, there are no known cases. Have you heard of any? Do I run risks to be rejected by the immigration officer if I post negative opinions of the current administration on my weblog? Do I run in such risks if I wear a "The current administration sucks" badge on my shirt while at the airport?
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Die Schule der Angst
Überwachung und Paranoia prägen den Alltag in New York. Bericht von Francine Prose aus einer Stadt im dauernden Alarmzustand in DIE ZEIT:
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dubtown.de
This link is strictly off topic, but for you weekend websurfing pleasure, I now point you to dubtown.de, Daniel Hinze's most excellent voyages to what remains of an industry that was. The site is in German language, but you will have no problems finding the photos.
Find other sites on that subject in this linklist and soon, see a similar site by yours truly at westfalenhuette.de - yes, the placeholder you see for now is a bit out of date ;-)
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