Sunday, December 23, 2007

Creative Commons, some Vids and my project.

After the new year I have a project that is going live. This project is a video for Creative Commons. This video will be made so that children can understand what CC is all about. It is based on a slide show based on this slide show. I will be narrating myself and hope to have it out before the end of January. For those of you that have no idea what CC is just check out the vids below




Monday, December 17, 2007

Minimo DOES work on Nokia's n770

Me and a buddy of mine (twitter: @sysnerd) were hacking on my n770 trying to get minimo running. The issue was this...

* You install it from the apt frontend (can't remember what is called)
* it installs in the extra menu
* you go to run it and it does nothing

Now here is the issue... The run script is a bash script but they have it trying to run as a c shell. This will not work, it's like a Frenchmen trying to explain string theory to a deaf German, not good.

To fix this you have to

* have xterm (its in the apt frontend)
* cd to /usr/bin/
* open a text editor, we used vi
* and edit the top line of the script to read #bash/usr/bin
* save and close

thats it,

Happy Hacking

Saturday, December 15, 2007

chrisrmas comes early when the giver is stoked

To get it out of the way my parents got me a nokia n770 for christmas. They have been sitting on ths info for a month. Well my nerdy younger brother was playing with it and couldn'tsit on the info anymore. So he made up this bullshite (and not believed) story about how Iwas going to be in Venezuala durring christmas. So my mom gave in and so here I am blogging from my n770. The only thing that is pissing me off right now is the update button on twitter.com is not wotking, so I avent yet tweeted from it. Altough I have been using pidgin and someother cool stuff. OH! xkcd is awesome on this.

Friday, December 14, 2007

Lulz: nokia, web.20 bubble and Douchebags

More funny videos because I'm way too lazy to come up with my own content. I have actually had these videos in a folder on my desktop for almost a month. I'm so on top of stuff









Wednesday, December 12, 2007

roflcopter

Tuesday, December 11, 2007

You have to take the good with bad I guess: the RIAA and NASA

This is probablynot news to anyone but the RIAA hates you. Arstechnica is reporting today that 'Those MP3 and AAC files that you've ripped from your CD collection are still "unauthorized copies" in the eyes of the recording industry. In a brief filed late last week, the RIAA said that the MP3 files on a PC owned by a file-sharing defendant who had admitted to ripping them himself were "unauthorized copies." ' HUH? you mean the disc that I bought that contained no User Agreement, and no copy protection was not really mine. So that means when I was in high school and had $500 worth the CDs stolen out of my car, that they should have replaced them for me. Well I'd like to speak to a manager please.

"When asked by the RIAA's lead counsel whether it was wrong for consumers to make copies of CDs they have purchased, Jennifer Pariser replied in the negative. "When an individual makes a copy of a song for himself, I suppose we can say he stole a song," said Pariser. Making "a copy" of a song you own is just "a nice way of saying 'steals just one copy'," according to Pariser." OMG your bastards.

The line I like best is "I suppose we can say he stole a song" IF your going to call us thieves, then do it, but don't patronize us.


Now on to the Good:

The space shuttle Atlantis was attacked by a giant spider. Well, that's what it looked like on NASA TV, as an "evil space spider" walked right over a live picture of the launch pad.

see it here

And now a special note to local6.com, Why do you make it so bloody hard to embed video. That is why I didn't credit you for the video above, if you want a plug don't be a knobjockey.

Monday, December 10, 2007

Freedom Hater of the Day: Nokia

ARSTechnica posted today that Nokia is upset with the W3C (World Wide Web Consortium) because they want to include both OGG Vorbis and Therora in the HTML5 Spec.

Why I Didn't I hear about this sooner? OGG on the web w00000000000000tzzz!!!!111one.

But Nokia had a List of issues, I answered this list of on Digg and figured that you all should see it too.

So with out Further adieu, My Rebuttal: A Rope of Sand:

1. W3C shouldn't make any standards relating to codecs. Leave that to other standards bodies like ITU-T and ISO/IEC.

*But the W3C is the standards body for the web not ITU-T and ISO/IEC, those 2 have no "jurisdiction" (I guess that word will do)

2. There are over a billion PCs in the world today, many connected to the web, but these numbers are tiny compared to traditional video playback devices like DVD players.

*DVD players have nothing to do with the web.

3. This industry is used to paying license fees and royalties for video codecs like MPEG-2.

* yeah and I'm sure they would be heartbroken to save money

4. This industry is used to making money, and it doesn't care about keeping things free.

*Free Software refers to freedom, not money. Think Free Speech, not Free Beer.

5. Web codec standards should be either free or low-cost to implement.

*see number 3

6. Web codec standards should support DRM to placate Hollywood, but DRM implementations should be optional.

*there hasn't been DRM on the Web so far (that I know of), and if they wanted to, the spec is in the Public Domian http://www.vorbis.com/faq/

7. H.264 for video and AAC for audio would be Nokia's recommendations for codecs.

*what in the hell do they have against Linux. If you standardize on those two the web will suck for Free Software fans for at least the next two years. x.264 is fairly stable and complete, but I don't about AAC

Friday, December 7, 2007

DRM and trying to explain it to those who have no clue, part 2: a rope of sand



read the origianal post asking for help

If you are not a viddler user, or don't want to comment on the video, feel free to leave a text comment those are just as good

New thing I've joined: KnockaTV

Ok I got into the alpha for KnockaTV. And here is my initial review... Have you ever seen Mike Judge's "Idiocracy"? Remember the TV?













well what does this look like?















I don't want to kill this thing before it gets going but as of right now it is unnecessarily insane. The switch between shows is ridiculous, and it is killing my ADD

Thursday, December 6, 2007

Remembering James Kim

I remember this time last year and the search for James Kim. I remember hearing all of his close friends and colleagues in their attempts to cover the story without bursting into tears. I remember sitting on the bus (in tears) at the obvious pain that everyone was going through. I remember watching James on TechTV and was glad to see him working at CNET after TechTV was disbanded. And to hear of his passing is a heavy on the hearts of all tech lovers.

Below you will find the video and the full text of the article that was put up on Crave.



"One year ago today, we learned of the death of our dear friend and colleague, James Kim. James was, both at work and at home, a kind, intelligent, exuberant presence. We miss him very much.

To keep James' memory alive, we want to revisit the video tribute we created when we first heard the news. We hope you enjoy these video clips from CNET.com and Crave as much as we have.

In his honor, James' family and friends have established the James Kim Technology Foundation (JKTF). The foundation provides San Francisco public schools, and the children who attend them, access to emerging technologies like the ones James covered every day for CNET.com and Crave. You can learn more about JKTF at the foundation's Web site."

Wednesday, December 5, 2007

DMCA idiocy slideshow: explaining the DMCA to info-civilians

I found this posting by Cory Doctorow on Boing Boing, check it out!

Wellington Grey has a great little slideshow about the idiocy of the DMCA's "anti-circumvention" measures, which prohibit breaking the digital locks off the stuff you own. In it, Grey recounts how offended he was when he bought a TomTom GPS that came with a CD in a sealed envelope, the seal on which read, "By breaking this seal, you agree to our contract," but the contract itself was on the CD, behind the seal. In other words, the CD said, "By breaking this seal, you agree to a bunch of secret stuff."

http://www.wellingtongrey.net/miscellanea/archive/2007-12-04--DMCA/2007-12-04-on-the-digital-millenium-copyright-act.html

Tuesday, December 4, 2007

DRM and trying to explain it to those who have no clue

A couple of moths ago I was stopped by a wal*martian who was asking about the sticker that was on my iPod. The sticker reads "WARNING DRM Product restricts usage or invades privacy. DefectiveByDesign.org". I had no idea how to explain it to them. I stumbled through with a terrible example and left briskly feeling like a loser, and ultimately a failure.

How do you describe DRM? That's like going give me a definition of Evil, or what is air? So I started looking for talking points or some help on educating people. And I have to say that I came up fairly dry.

I think I'm okay arguing with people who know about it and are just on the wrong side, but when it comes to the unwashed masses I have no clue. I really wish someone like Cory Doctorow would write a "how to teach the unteachable about evil and DRM" (Cory feel free to use that title;) )

please post ideas in the comments

Sunday, December 2, 2007

New thing I've joined: Seesmic

OK I'm a joiner and now I have joined Seesmic thanks to Veronica Belmont (http://www.veronicabelmont.com/ and twitter.com/Veronica) so here is the test video.