Author: Ianforrester

Senior firestarter at BBC R&D, emergent technology expert and serial social geek event organiser. Can be found at cubicgarden@mas.to, cubicgarden@twit.social and cubicgarden@blacktwitter.io

Piracy sounds too sexy, say copyright holders

Pirate child

From ArsTechnica

For years, we’ve heard complaints about using the term “piracy” to describe the online copyright infringement—but most have come from Big Content’s critics.

As noted copyright scholar William Patry argued in his most recent book, “To say that X is a pirate is a metaphoric heuristic, intended to persuade a policymaker that the in-depth analysis can be skipped and the desired result immediately attained… Claims of piracy are rhetorical nonsense.”

That may well be true, but copyright holders have long preferred the term, with its suggestions of theft, destruction, and violence. The “pirates” have now co-opted the term, adopting it with gusto and hoisting the Jolly Roger across the Internet (The Pirate Bay being the most famous example).

Some of those concerned about online copyright infringement now realize that they may have created a monster by using the term “piracy.” This week, at the unveiling of a new study for the International Chamber of Commerce which argued that 1.2 million jobs could be lost in Europe as a result of copyright infringement by 2015, the head of the International Actors’ Federation lamented the term.

“We should change the word piracy,” she said at a press conference. “To me, piracy is something adventurous, it makes you think about Johnny Depp. We all want to be a bit like Johnny Depp. But we’re talking about a criminal act. We’re talking about making it impossible to make a living from what you do.”

Translation: we should have chosen a less-sexy term.

Gutted, they built up this stupid image of pirates and its totally back fired on them. Another win for remix culture I would say. Heaven knows what they will come up with instead.

Should you play money poker with friends?

I say no. I think there’s too many things which can go wrong in a game especially when money in involved.

Victoria Coren seems to disagree but considers that social rules should be considered up front.

First, you have to decide whether you and your friend are happy to play fully against each other: trap-checking, check-raising, punchy value bets, the lot. If so, don’t be surprised if your friendship turns a little tense for a while. But there is no need to tell everyone your life story. Plenty of casino cohorts know each other and, if you’re playing straight, there’s nothing to announce.

If you are not prepared to treat your friend as any other opponent, you shouldn’t play on the same table. I am still stuck in an ancient tradition with my old mucker The Sweep: if we are heads-up in a casino pot, we check it down. That kind of thing must be announced, but should be avoided. Luckily, The Sweep is a total rock. If he so much as breathes on a pot, I fold everything but aces anyway.

Its getting a little like this when playing Werewolf with friends too.

Pacemaker + Sonodrome devices better explained

how pacemaker and sonodrome device can work

I thought I was pretty straight forward with my thoughts about using sonodrome devices with the pacemaker but some people did ask for a clearer description, the picture above this should be all you need.

So instead of plugging the Pacemaker straight into a amp, you plug the line out into the input of a your Sonodrome box. The Sonodrome box can be anything you want to build, I really want to build a Flanger Effect box on my first go, something I love playing with when djing but is sadly lacking from the pacemaker right now. Once you attach the output of the Sonodrome box to the Amp your away pretty much. I know you can buy effect peddles which do the same thing but there usually so heavy, made for bands, use external power and look like crap. What I would build would be unfussy, simple and small enough to throw in the bag alongside the pacemaker for live events.

A couple words of warning however.

The Sonodrome box, needs to deliver totally clean sound when not in use, because un/plugging it mid set would be a nightmare. So no amplification at 0 I guess. The Box should aid that feeling of movement, so big fat buttons and the like. They also need to be pretty solid when mounted, as there expected to get quite a lot of abuse.

There’s also some advantages to this type of setup, like taking a 3.5inch stereo jack on the input but having a selectable 5.5inch jack or even a XLR on the output. The projects seem pretty straight easy to follow. The one idea which really interests me a lot is the wiimote one. With bluetooth and a few selectable effects it should be straight forward to farm all the changes to the accelerometers on a wiimote instead. Although I can kind of imagine how it would work, I have no idea how much work it would take, maybe I’d be better asking someone to build it for me and paying them instead. Any takers?

Makerfaire 2010

On my way back from Makerfaire 2010 and thankfully I can decompress on the train back. The event was a hit with plenty more makers that last time. Surprisingly the event took place inside the science centre instead of millennium square which the science centre circles and was the venue of the last one. One of the downsides of the move to the science centre is the cost which was about 4 pounds per person. There was the question would

Some very cool things I saw….

Lasers! Some of the guys from the spraycan project had built a multi-colour laser out of a standard green laser, a red dvd laser and blu-r laser. Using special mounting mirrors between them all, You can see the whole lot on this forum specially setup for laser makers. Some of the others are equally impressive and dotted all over the forum. Will I make my own laser? who knows maybe some day in the future. Maybe I’ll start by strip down my toy red laser and add a couple other Red DVD lasers to a baseplate and then try adding a controller. Hummmm one for a rainy day me thinks.

Sonodrome create bespoke audio hardware and software which fit into small pocket size tins. What I like about them is the size and ability to add it to my pacemaker output. So I could live mix on my pacemaker and plug into one of these pocket size tins for some crazy filtering. Heck I can even chain them for some real fun. Talking to the guys behind Sonodrome its possible to do some stuff with wiimotes as a controller, so look out for some hacking in that area by me soon.

Sugru is interesting shame the guys can’t seem to make enough to make it into the shops.

Lastly Steampunk magazine. I’ve never really engaged with steampunk culture or anything like that. I’m more a futuristic kind of a guy in these departments, hi-tech trainers, hi-tech fabrics all dark colours. Anyway it was interesting to think about and the woman’s dresses and corsets are well something else!

Of course there was tons and tons of other things at Makerfaire but theres really caught my attention. The whole event was amazing and I look forward to 2011.

Pleo Autopsy video from Makerfaire

Pleo is one of those super hightech toys which people seem to love or hate. It draws a lot of attention because its beautifully life like. But how would you feel if you saw Pleo taken a part by a maker? There’s a manifesto which makers always quote,

If you can’t open it, you don’t own it

That might be the case, but its a little freaky watching the poor Pleo stripped of its skin. Now to be fair the Pleo was half working anyway but to see it lying there with its eyes looking out across the camera, is almost too much to bear.

I remember a long time ago when I was at an event in London and some jurk comes on stage and flying kicks a Aibo off the stage. He shouted, its not real as the crowd all held there mouths gasping. It was certainly one way to start a debate about humans putting there feelings onto objects. A very interesting debate which I can’t help remember after seeing this video. Thanks Elin Roberts for posting it.

Fianlly had a feel for the Boxee Remote and its excellent

The Boxee remote

I had the chance to play with the all new Boxee Remote and I was very impressed. It feels so light (it may or may not have had batteries in it) but solid enough to take some abuse like people sitting on it and being dropped off sofa edges on to stone floors. The top edge with the navigation is very mac like with the basic amount of controls to do most things. But then if you roll over the remote your greeted by a full qwerty keyboard. The keyboard is lower that the edges so even when lying flat the buttons don’t touch. Being all RF is good because the keyboard is very usable when not facing the screen. Although the remote is a good size I do wish it was a little thicker. I’ll be buying one for my xbmc setup as soon as there available.

Three changes got me thinking

Hulu launched a new series called if I can dream. Its some 90210 crappy series but whats interesting is the fact there is no geo-ip on the media, making it a drama series that anyone can enjoy no matter where they live. You only have to look at something like Dr Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog to see what happens when you got a well produced hit with no geo-ip.

I also saw TV product placement ban has been lifted in the UK. Commercial broadcasters will soon be allowed to accept payment for promoting branded goods in hit TV shows.

The promotion of alcohol, tobacco, gambling and foods that contain high levels of fat, salt or sugar will still be banned. The BBC will remain banned from promoting any products.

Product placement is already widespread in films, notably James Bond movies, and on American TV shows, including Sex and the City and Simon Cowell’s American Idol.

Both ITV and Channel 4 welcomed the lifting of the ban. An ITV spokesman said: “ITV welcomes the government’s announcement today to permit limited product placement in UK-made TV programmes. While we do not necessarily agree with the restrictions placed on certain categories, it is a step in the right direction as it will deliver additional revenue for investment in original content in the UK.”

Honestly I watch so much American tv that this makes no difference to me and to be fair with a new revenue model available, maybe more of the copyright owners will be less precious about who sees the media.

Finally, See Saw launched which is meant to be the UK Hulu but to be honest it feels very much like iplayer of early 2009. Where’s all the social sharing features which we all use everyday? Wheres the RSS feeds and API? Nowhere to be seen. Somebody please write a XBMC and Boxee plugin for this, so I consume it in a rational way.

The Data Visualisation Manchester Weekender

So as you may have already seen, Data.gov.uk, BBC Backstage and Manchester Digital Development Agency (MDDA) will be running an ‘unconference’ focussing on data visualisations. The unconference will team up 100 developers and 100 designers to create diverse and imaginative data visualisations from open data. The aim of the event is to facilitate an unusual opportunity allowing the diversity of the two traditional job roles to bring together imaginative use of open data sources.

The website for more information and to sign up is dvwm.weebly.com

Whats the schedule?

April 9th will see a pre-party get together at a central Manchester venue (TBA)

April 10th will be the first day of the event complete with open sessions to help get you inspired

April 11th will be the day when you can show off your visualisation on stage

This may also help answer your questions?

  • It will be a mix of hackday/mashed with a unconference type event, its the same format as we have used for Over the Air 2008
  • There will be lots of coding, designing and general hacking.
  • We have secured a venue in central Manchester which will allow over night stay, so theres no need to worry about hotels on the Saturday night.
  • A small but good amount of food and drink will be available, but if you ever feel hungry for more theres plenty of shops and restaurants in central Manchester.
  • The venue isn’t far from Piccadilly station, so getting to and from the South, East and West should be pretty easy.
  • Anyone coming into Victoria Station should change on to the tram heading to Piccadilly.
  • The event is totally free but requires signup beforehand and confirmation from the organisers.
  • Visualisations don’t have to be just virtual, they can be physical too.
  • You can use the hashtag or tag – DVWM to find related stuff
  • Yes its in Central Manchester not Central London
  • Yes we all love open data

Interested designers and developers can find out more and apply for an invitation via the DVWM website.