marv's blog

Today I am going to show you how to make a cool little web-service to impress all (and none other than) your geeky friends. Now I hear you saying "Web-App? Oh I know how to do that! Start Apache (or Web Sharing) and pop a python CGI into that shared directory. Big deal." But, that would be the old (read: boring) way of doing things, and we here are going to do things the Python way. Now I should mention that the tutorial here is going to be Mac only, but that the idea can be transferred to a platform of your choice. The reason I chose to use Mac-specific technology is so that our web-service actually has a use, namely: Use Mac speech on a non-Mac computer.

When I heard that Obama would be appearing on the O'Reilly factor, I classified that as political suicide. I knew Obama was an eloquent speaker, but given the extremely unfair interview methods of O'Reilly (see this particularly disturbing clip, if you are unfamiliar with him), I didn't see a chance for Obama to come through in one piece.

Well, it seems I was wrong. I still can't quite believe how well Obama juggled this interview. And in fact, I am not the only one surprised: It seems, even Bill O'Reilly has gained respect for this man. I never thought I would write that line. Anyway, take a look for yourselves below (links to the parts 2-4 will appear at the end of the segment).

(You will have to excuse me, but for this article I will switch to German, as it is about a German TV broadcast).
Was war das nicht für eine Eröffnungsfeier für die Olympia 2008 in Beijing! Ich weiss, da bin ich ein bisschen spät dran, aber da ich zur Zeit entweder A, an meiner Diplomarbeit sitze oder B, Olympia schaue, fand ich bisher keine Zeit. Dennoch muss ich noch unbedingt eine Sache loswerden.

Während die Bilder und überhaupt das ganze Spektakel einfach atemberaubend waren, wurde meine Freude an dem Ganzen durch einen Faktor leider sehr gemildert. Und der hieß: Sandra Maischberger. Also damit das klar ist: Ich verlange ja keine literarischen Meisterwerke bei so einem Event, noch ein allwissendes Kommentator Team, doch mal ehrlich, was diese Frau während der gesamten Feier aus ihrem Mund ließ hätte sie getrost für sich behalten können. Muss man denn Allen die Party vermiesen, wenn sie einem selbst nicht gefällt? Statt Informationen bekommt der Zuschauer Kommentare die klingen als müsste Frau Maischberger gerade gegen ihren Reisschnapps Kater ankämpfen. Ihre andauernde Kritik an das Gastgeberland, war alles Andere als fundiert, und wirkte absolut arrogant. Ich habe hier mal ein paar Highlights zusammengetragen (aus dem Gedächtnis):

So this video has been making its rounds on the internet today, and it really is quite cool: It's a video of lightning taken with a high speed camera. From a nerd's perspective it is really cool, as it kind of exposes natures algorithm to find its way to the ground. It really seems like a random-walk with branches (some branches actually go back up), and the lightning manifests when it touches ground. Sounds like a nice multi-threaded search algorithm to me :-).

Hey there, just wanted to let you all know, that Obama's visit to Berlin will be broadcasted on Phoenix tomorrow (Thursday, July 24th) from 2.45 - 5.00 pm.

Hey there, everybody! Just wanted to let you know about the upcoming WebSplash 0.52, and why it is taking so long for its release. The simple answer to this is: I am currently working on my Diploma thesis, and it really needs a lot of attention right now. My progress with it has been slow in the past weeks, and so I need to use every spare minute I have to work on it. Once I see that it is progressing nicely again, I will try to get 0.52 release ready.

So while you wait, I can give you a few hints of what is new in 0.52. Most of the new features are under the hood improvements: The export interface has been improved so that I can add more media-specific exports easily in the future (yes, I have some exciting plans there). There are some small interface improvements as well. A cool new feature is iChat Theater support, so that you can share media with your friends over iChat. Whether video will make it into the next release is still unknown. While I have some code there waiting to be released, it is still a MAJOR hack, and I am unsure whether it should make it into a release or not. Finally, there are a few bugfixes, most notably, keys should work correctly now in full-screen Flash games. I will keep you posted on any updates.

This is what a headline in the USA could like. Although he didn't get a spot at the Brandenburg Gate, Obama will be giving a speech in front of crowds at the Victory Pillar in Berlin. So you might think it would be a positive thing for his campaign to show his fellow Americans that he is popular overseas with America's allies. Well, think again. A commenter on CNN stated that:

"He's going to be really cheered in Europe, he's going to give a huge speech. He's going to have a lot of support there. But he's running for the president of the United States. And so they have to walk a very, very fine line here because they don't want to be seen having too many adoring people after him in Europe because he's running for president of the United States."

Of course, with McCain's nearly zero approval rating here in Europe, it is no wonder that his team is mainly responsible for generating these stories, and making Obama's popularity an "issue". Read the full article about it here.

While I did get a few chuckles out of the video posted below, it is quite shocking to see both Bush and McCain proud of being bad in school. I guess it is their way to put further emphasis on the fear that an Obama victory would lead to an elitist government (as if that were something bad). Anyway, have a look:

I could hardly believe my eyes when I read it: On July 24th Obama will be giving a speech in Berlin. This however has caused some controversy among politicians as there are rumors that Obama would like to give the speech at the Brandenburger Gate. While Merkel says, she feels "alienated" by the fact that someone is using the historical monument as campaigning grounds, Minister Steinmeier believes that the Gate is a central part of German-American friendship, and Obama's request should be welcomed.

For what it's worth, I have to go with Steinmeier on this one. Not because I am such an Obama fan, but because I think the use of the site is justified: Many high ranking politicians and non-politicians have been giving speeches there, from Kennedy to Clinton to the Dalai Lama. If a potential American president, that stands for hope and change, would like to express his thoughts there, I believe he has every right to do so. I think it underlines the basis of democracy. That being said, I also believe that John McCain should be permitted to speak there, if he wanted to.

Though I would recommend him not to. Because Germany, as many surveys show, is Obama land. Whether or not "Unter den Linden" will be transformed into an Obama Fan-Meile on July 24th remains to be seen. I, for one, now need a reason to be in Berlin on the 24th.

Hey everybody, I am writing this from my brand-new MacBook! Yes, I know, I wasn't actually planning on getting one now. But after my good friend Master Cui called me up from the Media-Markt, telling me that due to the won quarter-finals all products were reduced by one quarter, I just couldn't resist. Of course, once we got there, no MacBooks were left... that is, except the lonely demo units standing there. After raising the quarter off to about one third off, I was convinced and bought one of the demo units. Cheapest MacBook buy ever: At just 700 EU!