Home → Archives → by month → August 2004
Sheer viewing pleasure
Enjoying the luxury of a big power-everything sedan as I own one now is really something to get used to. But it comes at a price: it simply doesn't feel fast, even though a view into the rear view mirror indicates the contrary. So it's time again for a weekend with a Z4 3.0. Until then, sheer viewing pleasure. The engine shown has two cylinders more than one might actually need, but it still is more than cute. Also, if your better half wants to drag you into a pinacoteca or a sculptures collection, convince her to visit a collection of World War I aero engines. They are works of art and you can learn everything from them that makes an excellent engine.
Sheer viewing pleasure >
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The $15,000 shot
What's this? A wrecked DSLR flying by another DSLR, fragments of a second before the latter is hit by the same wave of debris from a bridge explosion that already killed the first one.
Photography equipment: $15,000
Cape Girardeau Mississippi River bridge dynamiting: $150,000
Taking photodocumentation to a new level: priceless
sandisc.com: Moment of impact >
[Via Rob Galbraith DPI]
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Trademarked
A Florida, USA company named Nabi Biopharmaceuticals apparently has registered our family name as a trademark for a Hepatitis B Immune Globulin.
Talk about identity theft >
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Virus
The rats in the cellar know who you are
You know those tunes that stick in your ear for hours or even days? Here's mine: Iron Maiden's Virus. Plain brilliant. Underestimated and hardly known even to many fans, this is a masterpiece with acoustic intro, a mighty riff, addictive melody - and cutting lyrics. Press response to The X Factor tour had been devastating to say the least, as reporters wanted back the "old Maiden" and failed to accept the band's new sound. "Virus" is its reply, and the lyrics seem to be applicable to just about any field.
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Pinochet loses immunity
And sometimes, good things happen: Chile strips Pinochet of immunity. Of course, doubts remain: "The burning question is whether General Pinochet has a realistic chance of facing trial, or whether it remains a pipe dream for the relatives of victims." Still, what a step towards victory.
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Treo 650
The Treo 650 looks like the Personal Companion to have. Photos at Gizmodo and Engadget, those two blogs that look the same. vowe: "Looks like the 600 was only the beta and the 650 is the final version. They ironed out all the weaknesses." Now we are talking.
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Grandios
Handybauer werfen seit Jahr und Tag Schrott auf den Markt, der nichtmals als Alpha-Version taugt und lassen die werte Kundschaft danach auf den Hobeln sitzen, ohne auch nur im Traum daran zu denken, sich irgendwelcher Fehler anzunehmen oder gar nachzubessern - oder ohne daß es jemanden wirklich stören würde. Nun warnt Siemens vor einem Bug in einer neuen Geräteserie - und Medien wie Mobilfunkprovider loben nicht etwa das Vorgehen, sondern schlagen so fest drauf, daß es kleineren Hersteller locker das Genick brechen könnte. Details wie daß Siemens der einzige Handybauer ist, der vom Kunden selbst installierbare Softwareupdates anbietet, erwähnt natürlich niemand. Große Klasse.
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Something is in the air
In my environment within the last few weeks:
1 marriage
0 new relationships
9 split ups and separations
Something must be in the air.
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Reciprocal
University library. Soopa-thin little girls entrenching themselves behind soopa-fat 15" and 17" widescreen notebooks, and a big boy happily hacking on a mini Toughbook. Or: the one-man island of a fan-free, silent-keyboard notebook in the sea of loud, clacking, hot air whirling desktop replacements. Did I mention I like my Toughbook?
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Pinging the Mothership
"I gave myself three month of job searching. Redhat said no, Amazon A9 said no, etc. Then I pinged the mothership."
Undisclosed data cruncher recently hired at Microsoft
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Did you see that Flickr?
Flickr.com, the currently much hyped photo sharing tool, solves things so clever (and cool) that it hurts. Basically everything I've had planned for my own group photo database is in there (more on that later). It has an interesting photo annotation tool that I've tested before, and due to the kind intervention of a single person I now use my own account.
Object: CONTROL ROOM
Facility: Hot Rolling Mill
Company: Edelstahl Witten-Krefeld
Industry: Stainless steel making
Location: Witten, Germany
Click to see area-level annotations at flickr
Facility: HANSA COKE PLANT
Company: DSK/Ruhrkohle
Industry: Coal and Coke
Location: Dortmund, Germany
Click to see area-level annotations at flickr
Check flickr.com/photos/haiko for my entire photostream and to leave comments. Note: flicks is made for snapshots. To view the photos in their original sizes, without lossy downsizing, check "all sizes" and then the largest size available.
flickr.com/photos/haiko >
And:
flickr.com/groups/industry >
flickr.com/groups/dortmund >
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Shooting Dictators is great fun
James Abbe (1883 - 1973) has been one of the best photojournalists in the 1920ies and 1930ies. If you see a well known photo of Mae West, Josephine Baker or Charlie Chaplin from that time, its probably is an Abbe shot. When going to Europe, he left entertainment photography back in America and covered the Soviet Union, the Weimar Republic and the Spanish Civil War. He officially portrayed Stalin, Hitler, Mussolini and Franco - "Shooting Dictators is great fun," he said. Now, Cologne's Museum Ludwig will present more than 200 Abbe photos. Not to miss.
Note: At the same time, Museum Luwdig presents "Snapshots - The Eye of the Century": 520 selected works from Christian Skrein's snapshot archives. In an unique collection, Skrein has collected more than one million shapshots taken by anonymous, private photographers between 1888 and today - 1888, when George Eastman dropped his box camera on the market and made photography popular.
James Abbe
Shooting Stalin. Die "wunderbaren" Jahre des Fotografen James Abbe (1883-1973)
2004/10/02 - 2005/01/09
Museum Ludwig, Cologne
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GetContentSize examples
Now that you spoke about the content ratio thing, gimme da numbers - Yo:
Content percentage of page source
Counts (X)HTML only: no images, associated JavaScript or CSS files
As of 2004/08/23
66%
54%
49%
46%
45%
44%
40%
40%
36%
27
21%
21%
13%
11%
10%
9%
7%
Commercial sites have bars with a shaded background. See a pattern there?
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GetContentSize
Now that the current version of this weblog has reached the end of its lifecycle and should give way to something new, I think about what I liked and what I did not like about it, what limited me in what I want to do and what should be continued in the next version. Changes will be incremental as I don't see much change in starting over from scratch.
Having a high content-to-code ratio is something I for sure want to continue. Currently, approximately 40% (33% ... 48% depending on paragraph count, currently 48%) of the code served to your browser is content, 60% are markup, layout and meta data. Decreasing the weight of these code elements increases content weight. How do I measure it? Have a look at the fine print section of my sidebar and click the "content ratio" link. A tiny Adrian Holovaty script does the math. Why is measuring it important, even with Adrian saying that results are trivia at best? A to be able to see if layout/markup code improvements actually work, B to keep traffic within control, and of course C to see how cool this web standards thing really is.
Benefits of web standards, namely page weight: everyone raves about it, hardly anyone actually seems to measure it. Saying "It loads fast enough anyway" is of no value, presenting actual numbers is. If you measure things, you can make qualified statements on page weight improvements and you can engage yourself in iteratively fine-tuning your layout/markup code. Maximizing content/code ratio minimizes the amount of traffic wasted on non-content. In its current markup version, this site causes roughly 6 GB traffic per month, consuming 60% of my free amount. With the introduction of a photoblog this is likely to increase heavily, so I want to make sure right form the beginning that most of what goes over the wire actually is of value. Anything below 40% content/code ratio won't make it into productive use.
Try GetContentSize with your own URL >
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Nikon DSLR issues
Christian Buil who focuses on CCD detectors in the field of astronomy and spectroscopy has an interesting Nikon D70 test. Results can be translated into just about any photographic field that requires very long time exposures (say, rotten industry). Though the D70 is an excellent camera, it shows the same design issues owners of earlier Nikon DSLR models already have reported of. In his set of rather scientific tests Christian details what has assumed before:
- Nikon RAW is not RAW: a median filter gets applied to the sensor raw data, resulting in losses in sharpness and details
- Output circuits mounted right next to the sensor cause bright spots on long time exposures
While the latter is a no-issue below say 300...400 seconds exposure time on lower ISO numbers, the former is the reason why some Nikon owners complain about low sharpness no matter how expensive their lenses are. The example shows why: to the left, a standard Nikon RAW without darkframe substraction. A median filter is applied to all three layers: "The presence of this numerical filtering explains why the long exposure in the darkness in this mode do not show any sign of thermal signal, which is completely abnormal for CCD specialists." With darkframe substraction, the camera takes two successive frames: the first with shutter open, the second with shutter closed. Then, median filtering of the first frame, substraction of second frame, repeated median filtering, writing to disk. To the right, the same exposure unfiltered (true RAW):
Saving unfiltered RAWs requires a workaround: in noise reduction mode, switch the camera off for a tiny while after it has completed the first frame: "The firmware of D70 automatically saves the image stored in the buffer memory on the CompactFlash card. It is a safety measure if the user cuts off the power supply without taking guard there. Now, the D70 save an absolutely true raw image." Now this isn't exactly convenient or elegant, but seems to work. Firmware hackers, start your engines. Nikon, update your manuals and don't keep silent about the filter application.
Though differences seem to be dramatic on the test shots, keep in mind that we are talking about very long exposure times on higher ISO numbers in a special field. Most general D70 shots I've seen so far, including night shots, are superb. But this workaround might help you to push the limits once you've reached them. And while you're at it, take some infrared shots. Here, CCD sensors excel.
Comparative test: Canon 10D / Nikon D70 in the field of deep-sky astronomy >
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One for the day
Click preview to enlarge
Object: Harbor crane 7
Industry: Bulk freight handling
Location: "Außenhafen" harbor, Duisburg, Germany
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Posted in category Endangered Machinery
dcRAW Extractor
If you want to get most out of your digital photography, you can't rely on the processing and JPEG compressing algorithms built into most digital cameras. Instead, you should record the sensor raw output and manually extract a JPEG from it. In other words, capture a digital negative and develop it later in your digital darkroom. Adobe Camera Raw and Capture One Capture One DSLR are excellent camera vendor independent tools for RAW file extraction. But what to use if you want to do it open source?
Try Dave Coffin's dcRAW. Dave wanted to "write an ANSI C program that decodes any raw image from any digital camera on any computer running any operating system" - and didn't exactly miss his goal: many free and commercial RAW extration tools use dcRAW code or parts thereof, there is support for more than 100 camera models, you can run it from the command line on Linux, and there are binaries and GUIs for Windows and Mac OS. Features:
- 24 bit non-linear PPM conversion
- 48 bit (16 bit x each RGB channel) linear conversion to PPM
- 48 bit linear conversion to PSD
- Customized hot pixel interpolation
Resources:
If you can, try different RAW extractors and try to get a camera-specific color profile. Tests show that while one extractor, say Adobe Camera Raw, might excel in situations with high dynamic range, another extractor, say C1, might excel at night shots where drawing in shadows is all that counts. Both vendors spare few efforts to increase the quality of their respective algorithms, so I am exited to see how dcRAW will compare.
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Realitätsschub
Ausgerechnet Roland Koch, ansonsten weiser Worte eher unverdächtig, bringt es auf den Punkt. An die eigenen Reihen gerichtet:
"In einer so schwierigen Zeit ist in Deutschland jeder gut beraten, einmal getroffene Entscheidungen mitzutragen. Das gilt auch für meine Partei. Für Hartz IV bedeutet dies: Das Gesetz darf nicht zurückgedreht werden."
Und an alle die gerichtet, die im derzeitigen Protest-Wahn gerne mal die Fakten übersehen:
"Nach einem Regierungswechsel wird die CDU/CSU bestimmt nicht die Zumutbarkeitsregeln ändern."
Die Union hatte dem Gesetz im Bundestag mit großer Mehrheit zugestimmt.
Tagesschau: Diskussionen um Korrekturen beenden >
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Man schaut sehr neidisch nach Deutschland
"Man schaut in Frankreich sehr neidisch nach Deutschland. Man hat den Eindruck, sie trauen sich wirklich, etwas zu reformieren. Hartz IV - das sind sehr heftige Maßnahmen. [...] Wenn die Reformen auf dem Arbeitsmarkt wirken, könnte Deutschland wieder zur Lokomotive werden."
Le Figaro-Korrespondentin Cecile Calla im Tagesschau-Interview >
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Six easy steps
- Use mathematics as a shorthand language, rather than as an engine of inquiry.
- Keep to them till you have done.
- Translate into English.
- Then illustrate by examples that are important in real life.
- Burn the mathematics.
- If you can't succeed in 4, burn 3. This last I did often.
Alfred Marshall, economist, theorist
[Via Mike Notthingham]
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You're In Control
From the MIT labs: "The You’re In Control system uses computation to enhance the act of urination. Sensors in the back of a urinal detect the position of a stream of urine, enabling people to play interactive games on a screen mounted above the urinal. [...] You’re In Control questions how technology can both challenge and enforce social mores."
MIT Media Lab: Your're In Control >
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Hasselblad and Imacon merge
"Hasselblad has announced the acquisition and merger with Imacon, the digital cameraback and scanner company. The new company will be called Hasselblad Imacon and will be clearly targeting the professional digital market. Christian Poulsen, founder of Imacon and new CEO of Hasselblad said, 'Both companies are committed to producing the highest quality products and the integration of established technological expertise and vision will ensure we maximise penetration for both new and existing products in the marketplace.'"
dpreview: Hasselblad and Imacon merge >
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Phantom Phone Ringing
Steven Garrity: "The phenomenon of experiencing a sensation of vibration in the pocket-region, leading one to believe their cell phone is vibrating. The sensation can be triggered by other vibrations, such as the engine in a car, but can also appear when no external stimuli is present."
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Nokia 7610
_small.jpg "Yours truly")
The Nokia 7610 has been hyped in some parts of blogworld for its Liveblog feature that gives you to an chronological view on your photos, videos, SMS and MMS collection. Judged by its photo quality in default settings, there is no reason to hype at all. Above is the scaled down, sharpened and level corrected version of this test shot, a JPEG compression hell which is technically not exiting at all. Looks crisp and clear on the cell phone's display though. Generally, the 7610 is much smaller, lighter, faster and more elegant than the 6600. Looks like you still have to wait for the Sendo X though it you want a Symbian phone that comes with both a non-chunky body and a conventional keypad layout. If you want to blog to your weblog from Lifeblog, check out Lifeblogger.
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Siemens S65
Spät, aber gegenüber dem eh schon späten Markteinführungstermin nicht wie bei Siemens üblich um ein weiteres halbes Jahr verzögert, ist das S65 ab sofort erhältlich. 489 € Listenpreis, 365 € Straßenpreis, mit Vertrag bei 02 149 €, anderswo 49 €. Die Kamera könnte fast schon als Foto-Notizbuch für immer dabei gelten, um sich Locations zu merken, zu denen man später mit richtiger Kamera zurückkehren möchte. Leider ohne HTML-Browser, den man dann in Form von Reqwireless WebViewer oder einem anderen J2ME-Tool nachrüsten muss, um in den Genuss von WWW-Surfen über den WAP-APN für 5 Öre im Monat flach zu kommen. Vielleicht ist es Siemens ja auch endlich mal gelungen, PC-Software beizulegen, die nicht wie seit zehn Generationen nicht weiterentwickelt aussieht und funktioniert.
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Übertreu
Konservatives Rechtsverständnis hört nicht bei erfundenen jüdischen Vermächtnissen und Schwarzgeldkonten auf. Dazu gehört auch, daß einem strafrechtliche Verantwortung für illegale Vermögenstransfers "nicht im Traum einfallen würde", sollten die Gelder ohne Abstimmung mit dem eigenen Apparat doch "einem linkswütigen Zeitgeist entgegengestellt" und damit für eine edle Sache verwendet werden - was mislang, da das beiseite geschaffte Vermögen samt Zinserträgen in voller Höhe vom Bundestagspräsidenten eingefordert wurde. Damit, so der konservative Schluss, wäre aber gleichzeitig bewiesen, daß man nicht im Eigeninteresse gehandelt habe: schließlich sei nun ja kein Cent in die eigene Tasche geflossen und der gegen die selbsternannten Law-and-Order-Sheriffs erhobene Vorwurf der Untreue somit absurd. Vielmehr, so Kanther, Weyrauch und Casimir Prinz Wittgenstein, sei das nicht nur "treu und redlich", sondern sogar "übertreu". Brutalstmöglich treu, sozusagen.
ZDF - Weyrauch: "Treu und redlich" >
SZ - Kanther: "Rechtsauffassung der Bundestagsverwaltung abwegig" >
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Defended
Diego Doval now is Dr. Diego Doval as he has successfully defended his thesis on self-organizing networks - my congratulations, Diego!
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Wiki.cc
"wiki.cc is a collection of wikis for the development community, a place to learn and get information on various programming languages and general information on development." It includes, among others, a PHP wiki, a PECL wiki, and a PEAR wiki. Harry Fuecks: "Although the PHP wiki has most content right now, can see these being helpful particularily for PECL and PEAR, where theres no real common repository for user submitted documentation."
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Sprengwut
Dortmund, 1991. Photo: Kai Scharwacht
Dortmund, heute
Dortmund, in naher Zukunft
Als Flash-Animation mit Überblendung:
Slideshow in groß
Im A bis Z der Photographie S wie Sprengwut. Auch A wie Abrisswahn, D wie Denkmalpolitik, verfehlte und S wie sich in die Zukunft sprengen.
Wenn eine Industrie derzeit floriert, dann das Abriss- und Sprenggewerbe. Unabhängig von teilweise bereits erklärtem Denkmalstatus und industriegeschichtlicher Relevanz einer Anlage wird so ziemlich alles abgerissen, was sich einschmelzen und so die heimischen Stahlkocher weniger Zukaufschrott benötigen lässt. Im Vergleich zur nicht geringen Abriss-Grundlast des letzten Jahrzehnts setzte in den letzten Jahren ein wahrer Boom ein. Entsprechend die Dimensionen: alleine in Dortmund wurden Areale von der zigfachen Fläche der kompletten inneren Innenstadt abgeräumt. Selbsterklärend am dankenswerterweise von Kai Scharwacht zur Verfügung gestellten und mir entsprechend der aktuellen Lage gepatchten Bildbeispiel. Vernichtet wurden: Hochofenwerk Westfalenhütte, die zum Fotozeitpunkt noch in Bau befindliche (sic!) Kokerei Kaiserstuhl III, Versuchsbergwerk Tremonia, Union-Brauerei. Oberster Sprengfreund: Oberbürgermeister Langemeyer, der unter der Erzeugung gigantischer Freiflächen, für die sich oft keine andere Folgenutzung als "grüne Wiese auf lange Zeit" erahnen lässt, "Dortmund in die Zukunft sprengen" versteht.
Nicht, daß das alles wäre. Bruchstücke der Liste dessen, was alleine in den letzten zwei Jahren verloren ging, inclusive teilweise denkmalgeschützter oder zur industriegeschichtlichen Dokumentation einmaligen Anlagen:
- Dortmund
- Westfalenhütte Hüttenwerk mit Sinteranlage, Hochofenwerk und Warmwalzwerk sowie Rasselstein Hoesch Kaltband
- Phoenix Ost Hüttenwerk mit Oxygenstahlwerk, Sekundärmetallurgie, Strangguss, ehem. Warmwalzwerk, ehem. Stahlgießerei und zahlreichen Sekundäranlagen
- Großkokerei DSK Kaiserstuhl III
- Großgasometer Zeche Minister Stein
- Union-Brauerei
- demnächst: Zentralkokerei Hansa
Deutschland
- Henrichshütte mit Oxygen- und Elektrostahlwerk, Sekundärmetallurgie, Gießhallen und Strangguss, Hattingen
- Hüttenwerk Ruhrort, Hochofen 7, Duisburg
- Anthrazit-Bergwerk Niederberg, Neukirchen-Vlyn
- Zeche Heinrich-Robert, Schacht Franz, Hamm
- Bergwerk Hugo 2/5/8 (komplett außer 2), Gelsenkirchen
- Bergwerk General Blumenthal 2/6, Recklinghausen
- Bergwerk General Blumenthal 8, Marl-Sinsen
- Kohlenwäsche Bergwerk Haus Aden/Monopol 1/2, Bergkamen
- Kohlenwäsche Bergwerk Westfalen, Ahlen
- Bergwerk Grimberg 3/4, Bergkamen
- Bergwerk Ewald Fortsetzung/Haard 1/2/3 (komplett außer 3), Oer-Erkenschwick
- Kokerei Hassel, Gelsenkirchen
- Braunkohlekraftwerk Vetschau, Vetschau
- Braunkohlekraftwerk Espenhain, Espenhain
- Kraftwerk Thierbach, Thierbach
- Sodafabrik Matthes und Weber, Duisburg
- Continental-Werke, Limmer
- Parkstadion, Gelsenkirchen
- Konrad-Adenauer-Haus, Bonn
- Sparkassenhochhaus "Langer Eugen", Hagen
- demnächst: Bergwerk Haus Aden/Monopol 1, Bergkamen
- demnächst: Neue Maxhütte, Sulzbach-Rosenberg
Europa
- Kokerei Terte, Belgien
- Kokerei Buda Marly, Belgien
- Kokerei Sluiskil, Niederlande
- Kalimine Marie-Louise, Frankreich
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:: in category Das A bis Z der Photographie
Bushism
Our enemies are innovative and resourceful, and so are we. They never stop thinking about new ways to harm our country and our people, and neither do we.
President George W. Bush during the signing ceremony for a $417 billion defense spending bill (FY 2005)
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Bloglines niceties
A nice and useful detail: Bloglines' Tell a Friend function. It makes introducing people to the aggregating thing most easy: just enter their email address and select some or all feeds from your own subscriptions list. Then on click, the recipient can create his own Bloglines account that's s already populated with the feeds you've recommended. Finally, help to install the Bloglines notifier for Mozilla which allows to autodiscover and right-click-subscribe-to additional feeds.
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XP SP2
By now, anyone and my mother will know that for those who are unlucky enough to have to run this OS, SP2 for Windows XP is out. It includes a number of patches for already known bugs, a useless firewall that does not control outgoing traffic and an even more useless "Security Center" that can be terminated without warnings, forces your antivir vendor to include a new API that has no benefit and that does nothing more than any Windows back to 2k in non-admin mode could do anyway. Accordingly, it does not include architectural changes that would improve XP security from the grounds up. It does come though with a pop-up blocker and a plug-in manager for IE - the former might be the nail in the coffin of an obsolete ad medium and might also take away some of the impetus to switch to Firefox for those who still haven't done so.
Due to the included bug fixes, you'll need it anyway, so grab the 270 MB download once, run anywhere installer from the MSFT website (German, English language version) or get it via BitTorrent.
Given that the distribution of system-specific, much smaller (80...90 MB) SP2 packages via Windows Update won't start before the end of this month, anyone who grabs SP2 now will get the 270 MB full size version, which imposes an interesting challenge to Microsoft's network capabilities: With a limit of 2.5 million downloads per day, 270 MB file size and assumed 100% download limit usage, we have 675 Terrabyte per day or continuously 62.5 Gbps. Now think of peak traffic, and you have an idea what sorts of pipes are needed. Clearly, the peer-to-peer approach seems to make much more sense for files of this size than a centralized download does. Then again in real world, the MSFT server are delivering the file fast enough so that most users won't expose themselves to the extra hassles.
Additionally to the SP, a free set of SP2 Support Tools is available (German, English language version) that contains a number of tools part of the XP Resource Kit, a payware any serious user should have anyway.
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Industrial Night and Magic: Heinrich Robert Colliery
New at Industrial Night and Magic: a photographic tour of the daylight facilities of Heinricht-Robert colliery, with a maximum shaft depth of -1,565 meters one of Europe's deepest workplaces, and as part of DSK Bergwerk Ost one of the last mines in Germany that is still productive. See Robert shaft (coal extraction), Heinrich shaft (man-ride), the coal processing plant, the boiler house and other facilities. 36 images, so just imagine all photos have been taken on a single roll of film. A page strictly in black and white, strictly without bold typeface and, due to the large image size, for screen resolutions of at least 1024 x 768 dots.
Industrial Light and Magic: Heinrich-Robert colliery >
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John Kerry, the man who uncovered Iran-Contra
"From his first appearance on the public stage, giving voice as a decorated officer to the antiwar disillusionment of Vietnam veterans, when President Nixon and his dirty-tricks crew targeted him, Kerry has uncovered cancers on the presidency, and this is especially why the Bush administration fears him. He has explored the dark recesses of contemporary history, often without political reward or even acknowledgment. Tarred as a 'flip-flopper' by Bush's $85 million TV ad campaign, Kerry in fact is one of the most consistent political leaders of his generation. The truth is a vivid and unbroken line, but only sketchily known."
Salon.com: John Kerry, the man who uncovered Iran-Contra >
RELATED
campaigndesk.org - "Critique and analysis of 2004 campaign coverage from Columbia Journalism Review"
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Stakes have risen too high to sit this election out
Bruce Springsteen in a New York Times editorial:
"These questions are at the heart of this election: who we are, what we stand for, why we fight. Personally, for the last 25 years I have always stayed one step away from partisan politics. Instead, I have been partisan about a set of ideals: economic justice, civil rights, a humane foreign policy, freedom and a decent life for all of our citizens. This year, however, for many of us the stakes have risen too high to sit this election out."
"[...] That is why I plan to join with many fellow artists, including the Dave Matthews Band, Pearl Jam, R.E.M., the Dixie Chicks, Jurassic 5, James Taylor and Jackson Browne, in touring the country this October. We will be performing under the umbrella of a new group called Vote for Change. Our goal is to change the direction of the government and change the current administration come November."
Bruce Springsteen: Chords for Change >
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Gleich drei Wünsche auf einmal
Der Tag ist gerettet, der heutige Link für alle die, die nichts eigenes schreiben, aber trotzdem bloggen und obendrein noch Namen der Prominenz fallen lassen wollen, ist da: Interview mit Lyssa, via the one and only Style Sheet servant.
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Mig-29 Fly-0ut
The End of an Era: Yesterday, the German Luftwaffe handled over its last Mig-29 Fulcrums to Poland, ending the somehwhat symbolic era in which the German Air Force operated fighter aircrafts inherited from its former foe, the East German Volksarmee. The Polish Air Force has bought all 22 German fighters for one symbolic Euro in order to replace their older Mig-21 machines until the delivery of new F-16 fighters will start in 2006. Germany has sold their Fabulous Fulcrums, one of the most fascinating and possibly the most beautiful warbird ever, in order to free capacity for the finally arriving Jäger 90 Eurofighter. Jg 73 Steinhoff Fulcrum Squadron will now be converted into the central Eurofighter training center.
RELATED
Detailed Mig-29 study at the Finish Fighter Tactics Academy
fas.org Mig-29 datasheet
RD-33 turbofan engine at airliners.net
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:: in category Aviation, Air and Space
Luschen
Immer wieder erstaunlich, wie viel Inkompetenz einen auf breiter Ebene erwarten kann. Heute: das Bankgewerbe. Vor einiger Zeit verlor ich meine EC- wie Kreditkarten, Kartensperren und Ersatzkarten mussten her - Drama in zwei Akten.
Akt Nummer Eins: Eurocard/Mastercard. Der Werbetext zu Ersatzkarten auf der Mastercard-Website ist eine einzige Propagandalüge: weder die angegebene Rufnummer noch die versprochenen Fristen stimmen. Zuständig für über eine Sparkasse laufende Karten ist nämlich die auf der Mastercard-Site mit keinem Wort erwähnte Agentur Pluscard - ein bankenfremder Dienstleister und bezeichnenderweise die einzige Firma in diesem Spiel, die schnell, kompetent und freundlich agierte. Um der Sache ein wenig Pfiff zu verleihen, tauchte die Karte pünktlich vor dem Wochenende, an dem sie wirklich benötigt wurde, wieder auf - und sollte daher entsperrt werden. Laut PlusCard gar kein Problem: solange die neue Karte noch nicht verschickt ist, was nur ein mal in der Woche geschehe, brauche die Sparkasse nur ein Entsperrfax zu schicken. Dort erwarteten einen dann Mitarbeiter, die nichtmals den simplen zugehörigen Prozess kannten, die einen erst das falsche Formular unterschreiben, dann am Folgetag zwecks Unterzeichnung des richtigen Formulars erneut in der Filiale erscheinen ließen und es schließlich erst nach mehrfachen Folgeanrufen ingesamt drei Tage später schafften, das nur mit Kartennummer und Unterschrift zu versehende Fax an PlusCard abzusetzen - die die Karte dann wie versprochen binnen 10 Minuten freigaben.
Akt Nummer Zwei: EC-Karte bei der Dortmunder Volksbank. Kartensperre schnell und problemlos über nicht sonderlich intelligent programmierten Sprachcomputer. Ersatzkartenbestellung in der Hauptstelle bei etwas gelangweilt wirkendem Mitarbeiter. Dauere drei bis vier Wochen. Heute überraschenderweise nach nur zwei Wochen Post erhalten. Überraschenderweise aber keine EC-, sondern nur eine nicht bestellte und für nichts taugliche ServiceCard drin. Reife Leistung.
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Moment décisif
"For me, the camera is a sketchbook, an instrument of intuition and spontaneity and the master of the instant, which questions and decides simultaneously. In order to 'give a meaning' to the world, one has to feel oneself involved in what he frames through the viewfinder. This attitude requires concentration, a discipline of mind, sensitivity, and a sense of geometry."
Henri Cartier-Bresson, portrait and landscape photographer whose work on a 50 mm Leica marked the beginning of photojournalism, and co-founder of Magnum agency died at 95.
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Your Google issue replies
Thanks Heiko, Alexander, Moe and all others who replied to the Striking Google issue. Of course you all are right saying that the single incoming link to the photo gallery has "striking pictures" as its link text. Here, the combination of a unique link text from a single source and the lack of web pages with the specific term in their content led to this #1 ranking.
In other seach results, the Ruhrort Blast Furnace Demolition photo series currently ranks #18 for blast furnace - so it shouldn't be too difficult to place it among the Top 10. Then again, I can think of much more interesting scientific and engineering information on this subject that should populate the first ten results pages instead - but which all is absent in the current result set.
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Gemeinschaftlicher Mord in mindestens 464 Fällen
Ab und zu passieren Dinge, die selbst dem durch die alltägliche Berichterstattung Abgehärtetem die Sprache verschlagen lassen. Ein Supermarktbesitzer, der sämtliche Zugänge zum lichterloh brennenden Gebäude verschließen lässt und seine Wachmänner, die die Anweisung unglaublicherweise aus offenbar freien Stücken befolgen und obendrein auch noch auf eintreffende Feuerwehrleute schießen, fallen in diese Kategorie. Vorsätzlicher Mord durch Verbrennen oder Ersticken in mindestens 464 Fällen - um zu verhindern, daß Flüchtende das Gebäude verlassen, ohne vorher bezahlt zu haben. Unfassbar.
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Toughbook
Left: Bruce on duty near a steel mill, displaying an aerial view of the area visible in the background; Right: Bruce vs. average O'Reilly book size. Click previews to enlarge
Martin wants to have a new notebook that he can both throw around and use in the shower and that has an integrated camera. I have such a notebook and cannot recommend it highly enough: an older Panasonic Toughbook called Bruce, fast enough to run most applications I need, small enough to carry it anywhere and ruggedized enough to operate it both inside dusty and dirty photo locations and in my bath tub where taking notes or watching movies is quite convenient. It does not have a camera, but I am not too sure about that Martin plus shower plus video camera scenario anyway. Instead, it comes with a touchscreen, which is most useful even on a non-Tablet PC operating system.
I've initially acquired Bruce in order to pull photos from my digital camera onto it while on photographic assignment. As the screen can be read even in daylight and color and gray scales qualities are quite OK, I now can also check photos for sharpness and cutout right on spot, much better than the tiny camera display would let me do. Today, I use it as my main notebook while on the road, simply because its small size (and its built in handle) makes it much more convenient to carry than standard notebooks and usable in environments where you might not want to unpack an fullsize notebook. With five hours plus battery runtime, LAN and WLAN connectivity and a touchscreen that makes mindmapping even more intuitive, I see no need to go back to a large machine for most use cases.
Roadmap: use as my personal message hub (email, instant messaging, skyping, news aggregating), migration to W2k, more RAM, larger HDD, lighthttpd HTTP server installation web server installation (lighthttpd is Linux only...), migration of my personal wiki from my home server to Bruce. Perhaps: patch integrated GSM modem antenna to WLAN PCMCIA card in order to improve radio characteristics.
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Blümchenphotographie
Klick = Ansicht in groß
Weiter im A bis Z der Photographie:
B wie Blümchenphotographie, kurz für: Bienchen- und Blümchenphotographie. Schimpfwort und Mädchensportart. Genannte Lebewesen abzulichten gilt als Zeichen mangelnder Kreativität und Ausdauer bei der Suche nach geeigneten industriellen Örtlichkeiten. Die Ablichtung seltener Hütten-, Zechen- oder wie im Beispielbild Walzwerkblumen dient der Dokumentation der jeweiligen Anlage und ist daher in Ausnahmefällen erlaubt. Oft nichtmals kompatibel zu den in der Industriephotographie vorherrschenden langen Belichtungszeiten (siehe Beispiel).
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:: in category Das A bis Z der Photographie
Striking Google
Click preview to exectute Google search
Sometimes, Google is weird. How can the search for striking pictures produce one of my photo galleries as number one hit when this gallery is just a smallish site with basically no incoming or outgoing links that doesn't even have the search term in its source code?
(If you have an idea, please use email or instant messaging as comments are still disabled. Responses will get added manually to the posting.)
UPDATE
2004/08/04: Your replies
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Abwehrstrahler
Klick = Ansicht in Groß
Bis das Industrial Night and Magic Weblog da ist, entsprechende Beiträge einfach hier:
A wie Abwehrstrahler. Wirksamer als die Leuchtbüchse 84 mm oder andere militärische Gefechtsfeldbeleuchtung. Von Industriebetrieben stets so montiert, daß sie die gewünschte Fotoperspektive garantiert unmöglich machen, möchte man später an dem Foto nicht ohne Ende digital herumschrauben. Zwingt daher auf Fotos wie diesem zu Perspektivenänderungen. Einzige Lösung: offensiv damit umgehen und als Bildmotiv selbst nutzen. Dann entstehen Aufnahmen wie oben, und die Atmosphäre auf solchen Fotos gefällt mir immer besser - auch wenn das, was eigentlich Motiv werden sollte, natürlich in den Hintergrund tritt. Foto: Hochofenwerk in Duisburg.
FOTOS IN DER ÜBERSICHT
Hochofenwerk: klassische Perspektive
Hochofenwerk: Gegenlichtperspektive
ALLE EINTRÄGE
Das A bis Z der Photographie
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:: in category Das A bis Z der Photographie
Mozilla Security Bug Bounty Program
So far, most found security bugs in Mozilla products have been fixed within a day, if not within hours. Now let's improve on the bug finding site:
"The Mozilla Security Bug Bounty Program is designed to encourage security research in Mozilla software and to reward those who help us create the safest Internet clients in existence. Reporters of valid critical security bugs will receive a $500 (US) cash reward and a Mozilla T-shirt."
Mozilla Security Bug Bounty Program >
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Tasty
Fish of all kinds in a photographic collection at Frankie Dintino's website. Via Incoming Signals
blameitoneve.com: Fish! >
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