Two weeks ago I sat down with Tim Pritlove and he interviewed me about Plone and Zope for his Chaosradio Express podcast.

I thoroughly enjoyed the experience, largely due to the fact that Tim proved to be an excellent host. He gave me enough leeway to ramble while at the same time providing enough structure for the process to let me relax and be myself. Thanks Tim!

In the end we talked over one and a half hours and I can only assume that one has to have a genuine interest in the content matter to listen to it all the way through but afterwards I still felt that I had left much unsaid.

I tried to be honest and upfront about Zope and Plone's weaknesses while still conveying that they both are truly great systems with even greater communities. The interview was conducted in German, though, so I figure the percentage of the audience of this blog that will find it interesting is probably rather small, but nonetheless, here's the link to the episode.

This entry is just to break my two month blogging hiatus and at the same time to test embedding a yolanda video:

(The video (hopefully) shows my buddies erdgeist, cryx and denis with their opentracker talk from day before yesterday)

Some folks have set up a yolanda instance for the congress.

Yolanda seems rather interesting, by the way. It aims to be a 100% free better-than-youtube video solution. I'll look into how this might pertain to Plone in general and Plone4Artists in particular...

Update: I've removed the embed link. It worked, but there seems to be now way to switch off autostarting the video. If you want to see the video (and speak German... and are interested in Bittorrent) click here.

Quick and dirty: you've probably already heard about the issue surrounding the HD-DVD processing key, but here's a really neat variation: the hex-value of the key encoded in webcolors as a banner...  how cool is that?

I can't vouch for the authenticity of the contents or the integrity of the author, but this blog entry regarding a job interview with Apple for the position of a security researcher gone bad seems all too plausible to me... If you're a Mac User a must read - if not, don't miss the opportunity for glee...

via (the one and only) fefe.

The Chaos Computer Club (of which i am a proud, albeit currently rather inactive member) and a Dutch initiative Wij vertrouwen stemcomputers niet (literally "We don't trust voting computers") has proven, that electronic voting machines used in Germany  and the Netherlands are inherently unsafe and urges the government to abolish their usage, as they respectively any electronic voting devices ultimately pose an unnecessary threat to the democratic process. Details (in German) can be found here.

Now there is an official online-petition at the Deutsche Bundestag supporting this motion, which I would ask you to consider signing.

N.B.: The link points to a webserver located at Napier University, Edinburgh which carries out the petition, so don't wonder about the weird URL (the official explanation for that can be found at the website of the Deutsche Bundestag.)

Also noteworthy: the strongest voices against the use of computers in voting seem to come from online- and hacker-communities, while the only defenders seem to be the manufacturers (the linked 'news item' is really just a slap in the face of any concerned citizen, Mr. Groenendaal ought to be ashamed!) or clueless municipal employees. I think, that says something...