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Name Marco von Ballmoos
Member since
Email [hidden]
Home page https://earthli.com/users/marco
Description

The (only) developer at earthli.com.

Contents

3209 Articles
111 Comments

18 years Ago

Puppets

Published on in Quotes

“I’ll show you politics in America. Here it is, right here. ‘I think the puppet on the right shares my beliefs.’ ‘I think the puppet on the left is more to my liking.’ ‘Hey, wait a minute, there’s one guy holding both puppets!’ ‘Shut up! Go back to bed, America. Your government is in control. Here’s Love Connection. Watch this and get fat and stupid. By the way, keep drinking beer, you fucking morons.‘”
Bill Hicks

Cartoon Violence

Published on in Public Policy & Politics

 Piss Christ by Andres SerranoAt least one embassy has been brought to the ground because of some childish cartoons published in a newspaper in Denmark. Or, shall we say, ostensibly because of these cartoons. The causal nature of the publishing of the cartoons and the burning of a Danish embassy is as plain as the nose on your face, most would say. Is that really so? A quick recap is probably in order for those that have only heard bits and pieces of fact mixed in with hyperbole from all sides, describing typical behavior... [More]

Project Gotham Racing (Xbox 360)

Published on in Video Games

Project Gotham Racing 3 (Ars Technica) reviews the latest racing game from Bizarre Studios for the Xbox 360. The previous incarnations were known for their graphics. This one will be known for its photorealistic graphics. I’ve seen a couple of movies of the game in action and it is nothing short of breathtaking. Even when the action stops for a quarter of a beat as a Ferrari slews around in a 360º turn, the city backdrops are so perfect, you can’t tell you’re not watching a movie. The cars are perfectly... [More]

What Dicks!

Published on in Public Policy & Politics

’Marshall Plan’ for Iraq Fades (LA Times) hove its bedraggled carcass into view, reared its ugly head and expired with a wheeze that sounded like: “the America we learned about is dead and probably never existed”.

The story interviews several American officials whose crassness is beyond caricature—previously found only in the diseased imaginings of a died-in-the-wool marxist. And yet, quotes from these people are sprinkled throughout a story that shows no sense of outrage whatsoever. As far as the LA... [More]

Irish Case Mod

Published on in Technology

The Whisky PC is a PC inside a whisky bottle. It’s about the size of a Mac Mini and looks pretty cool.

It’s apparently not so easy to do, as the guy (I’m assuming) who made the case had to get it professionally done:

“I tried to cut and drill couple of similar bottles at home but I realized that my tools are not good enough for it, then finaly a professional glass grinder man prepared the whisky bottle for me. He made two holes: one at the back of the bottle for CPU cooling and one at left... [More]”

Government Work is Wet Work

Published on in Quotes

“Why shouldn’t I work for the N.S.A.? That’s a tough one, but I’ll give it a shot. Say I’m working at N.S.A. Somebody puts a code on my desk, something nobody else can break. So I take a shot at it and maybe I break it. And I’m real happy with myself, ‘cause I did my job well. But maybe that code was the location of some rebel army in North Africa or the Middle East. Once they have that location, they bomb the village where the rebels were hiding and fifteen hundred people I never had a problem... [More]”

Shiira OS X Web Browser

Published on in Design

 Shiira is a KHTML-based web browser. If you visit this web site, you don’t waste a lot of time looking around for a Windows version, as it’s relatively clear that this is a Mac OS X product. Why is that? What is it about Mac products that demands a different level of graphical design quality and attention to detail? It can’t just be because everything’s shiny, can it?

No, it’s also the good use of the oversized header graphic that’s becoming quite vogue, both flaunting and reinforcing the... [More]

How’m I Doin’?

Published on in Public Policy & Politics

That’s the question implied by the smirk on George Bush’s face every time he speaks to the American people—not that he’s particularly interested in the answer. Bush dragged himself from the depths of his bubble to a dais (or rostrum, as his speechwriter put it) he’s visited six times before to deliver the 2006 State of the Union (Washington Post) address. The speech had all the earmarks of a committee effort delivered by someone who only understood about half of it. There were a good dozen different large... [More]

Ignorance Abides

Published on in Quotes

“I have never won a debate with an ignorant person.”
Ali ibn Abi Talib

19 years Ago

GTA San Andreas 100%

Published on in Video Games

The third edition of Grand Theft Auto, San Andreas, is chock full of dozens of different activities. There are three large, main cities, a whole countryside with several smaller towns and a number of rivers and bays to jet around on. There are naturally the story missions, but also jobs to be had around the city as well as more collection missions than ever. The number of things to do seems to have tripled since Vice City. The game is far from linear, but neither is everything available all at... [More]

A One-Party Republic

Published on in Public Policy & Politics

Much of the chatter from Washington these days is about corruption, misplaced values and partisan politics. This has probably ever been so, but it’s the last one, partisan politics, that truly colors everything one hears about the centers of power in the United States. Almost without exception, issues are discussed as if there are only two possible sides and those sides are adequately represented by the Democrats and the Republicans, whose opinions on all issues are diametrically opposed. It... [More]

Modern Communication

Published on in Quotes

“Never write when you can talk. Never talk when you can nod. And never put anything in an email.”
(New York Attorney General) Eliot Spitzer

Sammy “The Eel” Alito

Published on in Public Policy & Politics

 Most likely only those with the best endurance survived all 18 hours of the senate confirmation hearings for Samuel Alito. The entire transcript is also available online and runs to hundreds of pages. Reading 50 pages lends a strong feeling of deja vu whereas reading over 100 inspires more a feeling of disenchantment and nausea. Read The Shameless and Spineless by Will Durst (Alternet) for a comic synopsis of the entire transcript (see The hearing so far… (Plastic) for another). Democrats actually did ask pointed questions,... [More]

Going Along to Get Along

Published on in Quotes

“What [people] are mostly interested in, lad[ies] and gentlemen, is going along to get along. Which only shows up for what it is—monstrous—if you pull back and take the long view.”
Stephen King (Dark Tower, pg. 289)

Books read in 2005

Published on in Books

  1. Monstrous Regiment (2005) − Terry Pratchett
  2. Die Vergessliche Nation (2004) − Gore Vidal (de)
  3. Fight Club (1996) − Chuck Palahniuk
  4. Bush in Babylon (2003) − Tariq Ali
  5. The Poisonwood Bible (1998) − Barbara Kingsolver
  6. Across the Sea of Suns (1984) − Gregory Benford
  7. America (The Book) (2004) − The Daily Show with Jon Stewart
  8. A Small Death in Lisbon (1999) − Robert Lisbon
  9. Deception Point (2001) − Dan Brown
  10. Darwin’s Children (2003) − Greg Bear
  11. Amerikas Kreuzzüge (2005) − Claus Kleber (de)
  12. Gravity’s... [More]

Freedom

Published on in Quotes

“Terrorists can attack our freedom, but only Congress can destroy it.”
Anonymous

Published on in WebCore

A good eight months since the last service pack, 2.6.1, comes a new release of the earthli WebCore, 2.7.0.

The minor version bump is, in the end, an understatement. Though WebCore applications include much of the same funtionality, there are significant under-the-hood and cosmetic changes:

For the user:

  • Drastically improved search UI, including searching for users, comments, and all types of objects in an application. Search results include smart summaries showing... [More]

AJAX and Usability

Published on in Programming

Why Ajax Sucks (Most of the Time) by Jakob Nielson is a critique of Ajax that borrows almost all of its text from a critique of HTML frames made several years ago. The author claims the article is a spoof, but, given that the complaints made about frames were valid at the time — and still are — and that the complaints are just as valid for the current batch of web applications, it’s hard to see what’s so funny about this “spoof”.

There are those who argue that frames in fact have not died out, since they... [More]

Control

Published on in Quotes

“Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities.”
Voltaire

Published on in WebCore

 Though still not officially available, earthli.com has migrated to the latest and greatest version of the earthli WebCore. Look for a downloadable release within the next week or so. In the meantime, you can cruise around earthli and see some of the improvements for yourself. As with most WebCore releases, the differences are mainly non-cosmetic and of benefit to developers working with the library. However, there are noticeable improvements to the toolbars, menus and other UI elements.

Microsoft “Live”

Published on in Design

 We’ve seen how firms large and small bring their sites up to speed. The screen shot to the left is Microsoft’s enchanting new Windows Live site. Granted, it looks like they’re still working on it, but let’s take a critical look at it anyway. (Not ready for prime time? Leave it offline.)

Their icons are fine, but don’t they have designers at that big old company? The content wraps around the icons in a way that was cool in 1995 when Netscape finally managed to do it without crashing all the... [More]

“Top of the Line” Workstation Redefined

Published on in Technology

 PowerPC G5 (Side View)The new quad processor solution from Apple for their G5 line is an amazing machine. It would certainly be good enough for any other company to trumpet as their flagship product. Not Apple. If you enter their online shop and start to configure a system, you’ll notice that there is a curious option under “Graphic Cards”.

“Quadro FX 4500 / 512MB SDRAM [+ CHF2400.00]*”

*I was shopping in the store in Switzerland … that’s about $1875.

Cheeky.

Google will tell you that this is not a typo — the... [More]

Technology Reporting

Published on in Technology

Tech reporting is spiraling ever downward: information generally starts out in the form of a carefully vetted press release and is copied verbatim to one of the big “news” sites (CNet, I’m looking at you), where it’s adorned with banner ads and clever user comments. From there, other sites copy chunks of these “articles” and paste them on their own pages with their own ads and their own clever users. As an example, there is this short article called Microsoft Takes Aim At Google (Slashdot). It is quoted... [More]

Scott McClellan dead at age 37

Published on in Public Policy & Politics

According to Cheney Looms Large in Latest Twist of CIA Leak Drama (Common Dreams):

“McClellan was also asked by reporters whether Cheney always told Americans the truth. … ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘The vice president, like the president, is a straightforward, plainspoken person.’”

Scott McClellan died at 16:34 later that day from third degree burn wounds suffered from multiple lightning strikes.

Edgewall Software Services

Published on in Design

  Another in an growing list of sites that make XHTML+CSS look really good. This is a consulting company for web and software services, which makes good use of shades of a single color (red) to differentiate between their 3 service areas. The generic graphic adds an elegant touch to the home page and the rest of the page doesn’t distract. There is a subtle news list on the right, with releases of their job tracking product, Trac, which also looks quite nice and functional. The product page for... [More]

Freedom

Published on in Quotes

“Freedom is never voluntarily given by the oppressor; it must be demanded by the oppressed.”
Martin Luther King

RoundCube

Published on in Design

 Now here’s an open-source project that knows how to look good. The banner at the top sets a bold color theme that the rest of the page uses and has a simple set of menus below with the important points for a software project. Subtle use of gradients gives it a professional look and the big screenshot (of an equally nice-looking UI) lets the graphics do the talking. All XHTML/CSS compliant (as is their product); the “made on a Mac” logo at the bottom shouldn’t come as a big surprise. The concise... [More]

Absolute Truth

Published on in Quotes

“It is the purest arrogance to suppose that an instrument so fallible as the human mind can even conceive absolute truth, much less comprehend it.”
Response to an overzealous (aren’t they all?) Jehovah’s Witness

Knowledge

Published on in Quotes

“It is the mark of an educated mind to rest satisfied with the degree of precision which the nature of the subject admits and not to seek exactness where only an approximation is possible.”
Aristotle

Joyent

Published on in Design

  Joyent is a web applications company with a suite of applications for small businesses. Their home page is a nice mix of browns and oranges; the menu side-bar has an especially clean feel to it. The purchase page looks good too, with a large “SALE” sticker in the upper left that seizes your attention. Excellent use of advanced styling for the links and callout boxes. (Joyent Home Page)