We absorb daily huge amount of information, the above video gives an impression how much.
Oct 012009
Oct 022009
Stephen Fry and zoologist Mark Carwardine head to the ends of the earth in search of animals on the edge of extinction. In New Zealand the travellers make their way through one of the most dramatic landscapes in the world. They are on a journey to find the last remaining kakapo, a fat, flightless parrot which, when threatened with attack, adopts a strategy of standing very still indeed.
[via]
Oct 032009
Afgelopen jaren heeft muziekgebruik in de digitale omgeving een vlucht genomen. Nieuwe marktontwikkelingen vragen om herziening en ontwikkeling van nieuwe licenties”, verklaart Buma/Stemra op haar website. Zo is er een licentie ontwikkeld voor ingebedde bestanden met muziek, zoals Youtube-filmpjes.
Een simpele rekensom: Stel, je hebt een muziekblog, waarop je elke dag een videoclip publiceert, afkomstig van Youtube. Binnen de definitie van Buma/Stemra wordt dat beschouwd als illustratie, en dat valt binnen het segment Achtergrondmuziek. 365 clips per jaar, gedeeld door 30, maal 650 is 7.908 euro. Een absurd hoog bedrag”, aldus de muziekwebsite.
Dear Friends,
I have just read and signed the online petition:
“Buma Stemra laat de Bloggers met rust”
Hosted on the web by PetitionOnline.com, the free online petition service, at: http://www.PetitionOnline.com/bumablog/
I personally agree with what this petition says, and I think you might agree, too. If you can spare a moment, please take a look, and consider signing yourself.
More information:
- Sargasso – Buma legt bom onder blogs
- ZDnet – Protest tegen tarieven Buma/Stemra
- Tweakers – Rekening Buma voor embedded content blijkt juridisch discutabel
- Eerste Hulp bij Plaatopname – Buma update
Update: Continue reading »
Oct 052009
Vervolg op: Buma Stemra laat de Bloggers met rust
Buma/Stemra heeft tarieven voor online media-gebruik gepubliceerd http://www.bumastemra.nl/…. Hierin kondigt zij aan dat zij voor on-line media gebruik geld zal vragen, waarbij zij geen onderscheid maakt tussen commercieel en niet-commercieel gebruik.
Dit is een concept voor een open brief die Bits of Freedom naar Buma/Stemra zal schrijven hierover.
Volg Bits of Freedom op Twitter en vergeet de petitie niet te ondertekenen!
Update:
Eigenlijk moet deze petitie gericht zijn op onze politici in Den Haag en in Brussel. Zij staan toe dat rechten organisaties met de Auteurswet in de hand onze cultuur smoren.
De Auteurswet is bedoeld om artistiek werk te stimuleren. In deze eeuw leid de huidige Auteurswet (met name de interpretatie daarvan door partijen als o.a. BUMA-Stemra) echter voor kunstmatige schaarste, remmen van nieuwe diensten, smoren van concurrentie en ondersteuning van een niet functionerend bedrijfsmodel.
Update II:
Please read the letter of Pim van de Werken guitarist of Silence is Sexy to SENA: Open brief aan SENA (Dutch)
Calculate how much BUMA will bill you for embedded clips containing BUMA-Stemra rights: Fair Play Calculator (Dutch)
Oct 052009
Waarschijnlijk zal Buma Stemra het volgende aanhalen: Continue reading »
This awesome song & video, made by John Boswell , can be downloaded here: Colorpulsemusic.com [© 2009 Colorpulse]
Sounding like a cross between Auto-Tune-abusing T-Pain and The Matrix’s Agent Smith, Carl Sagan describes the natural beauty of the universe in a song called “A Glorious Dawn.” Seeing as how Sagan probably was the most successful science popularizer of all time, this song seems in keeping with his goal of getting the masses to appreciate science. A few verses even feature the “vocal” talents of noted astrophysicist Stephen Hawking (also no slouch in the “make science popular” field). [read more]
Quote: This is awesome to the billionth power [Cynical-c.com]
Barnhard Blog note:
John Boswell is good example of an artist who uses the new media for the distribution of his work.
Recent worrisome BUMA-Stemra (Dutch RIAA) billing announcements may cut-off the Dutch market for artist like John Boswell by simply scaring the hell out of Dutch social media users with sky-rocketing bills for embedding Youtube clips on e.g. weblogs (like non-commercial ones like Barnhard Blog).
Although BUMA-Stemra only aims to bill embedded clips on blogs containing licensed material it is expected that Dutch bloggers will be hesitated/scarred to post any embedded clip containing music, just to be sure …
Update & another John Boswell‘s clip: Continue reading »
Oct 072009
Het zou me niet verbaasd hebben als er bij een recente bijeenkomst van de Publieke Zaak verborgen camera’s opgehangen waren. Aan de andere kant zouden dan sociologen en antropologen driftig aantekeningen zitten te maken.
De bijeenkomst barste namelijk bijna uit zijn voegen door de enorme energie en wil om te zaken te veranderen. En het moet voor wetenschappers toch altijd interessant zijn om het begin van veranderingen van zo nabij te observeren. De camera’s hingen er niet, dus moeten ze het doen met mijn observaties.
Lees meer op: Denationaledialoog.nl
Oct 082009
Frustrated at the lack of innovation and, well, slickness of Facebook, Australian designer Barton Smith took it upon himself to create an entirely new look for the social networking behemoth.
Focused on creating a more streamlined interfact, and enhancing the user experience and absorbability of content, Smith has created a video and designed screenshots for core areas of the site.
He explains his goals and the benefits:
Found on ‘The Next Web‘
Oct 092009
BUMA/Stemra failed on embedded music, duh! But this seems more to us look like a “ploy”, to keep the media busy with non-news. Newspapers, Radio and Television got the easy fish, which they even didn’t report properly:Besides some amateurs, ALL ONLINE Media STILL has to pay for Embedded content!!!
Why, why, why?
Hey media, are you really getting to the bottom of this? Do we have to wait till they want to charge us for singing at home for ourselves? *sigh*
Silvio Berlusconi today sought to duck the blame for a series of secret Italian payments to Taleban fighters that left French soldiers exposed in Afghanistan.
The Times has learnt that when French soldiers arrived to assume control of the Sarobi area, east of Kabul, in mid-2008, they were not informed that the departing Italians had kept the region relatively peaceful by paying local Taleban fighters to remain inactive.
Within a month, ten French soldiers had been killed in an ambush by the insurgents. It was one of the biggest single losses of life by Nato forces in Afghanistan.
The French public was horrified to learn that the soldiers had been mutilated and photographs were later published showing the militants triumphantly sporting their victims’ flak jackets and weapons.
In a statement this morning, the office of Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi said The Times report had made “totally baseless accusations”.
Read more:
Times – Silvio Berlusconi attempts to duck Afghanistan bribe scandal
Oct 152009
DEN HAAG – De heksenjacht op het gratis downloaden van muziek en films moet stoppen. De muziekindustrie moet er zelf voor zorgen dat het weer aantrekkelijk wordt om voor cd’s en dvd’s of digitale bestanden te betalen.
De werkgroep Gerkens pleitte er onlangs in een rapport voor om het gratis downloaden van muziek, films en computerspelletjes op termijn strafbaar te stellen. De Kamerleden zijn het zat dat het auteursrecht massaal wordt omzeild.
De bond voelt niets voor zo’n strafbaarstelling. „Downloaden is ingebed in de Nederlandse maatschappij”, aldus Combée. Hij wijst bovendien op de gevolgen. Internetaanbieders zouden, net als in China en Saoedi-Arabië, continu het internetverkeer van consumenten in de gaten moeten houden. „Vrij gebruik van internet, zonder controle achter de voordeur, moet overeind blijven.”
Lees artikel: Telegraaf – Consumentenbond: Stop downloadverbod
Gerelateerd: DC – Social media maken of breken film
Oct 152009
Related post: 4-Block World – I Wish It Were Hyperbole
Some random comments on the above:
There’s a fine line between clever and stupid, but not for him.
In a couple of years, posts like Beckerhead Tom’s will seem very silly to everyone. It’s too bad he doesn’t realize that now.
Can’t teach at the U: Got to be smart.
Can’t be a News Anchor: There’s a channel with the 24 hours a day,
Can’t be in Show business: Requires Talent and Creativity
Can’t be a NFL Owner: Yep – all them NFL Billionaires are Libruls!!!Thowing out hyperbolic associations with Nazis is intellectually lazy and historically illiterate.
it’s fine to feel threatened, but comparing the wholesale slaughter of over 6,000,000 human souls to the dubious claim that conservatives can’t get jobs as professors or TV anchors is patently ridiculous.
Found on: J-Walk Blog
Oct 152009
Het samenlevingscontract om met elkaar af te spreken hoe we samen leven. Gert Stam geïnterviewd voor TV Drenthe.
Oct 182009
Just when you thought calling your MP would secure it, somewhere else in the EU complex it can still escalate..
“When the Parliament adopted amendment 138 on two occasions, it boldly stated that a free access to the Internet is an integral part of fundamental freedoms, and cannot be restricted without a judge’s prior decision. Mrs Trautmann and Mr Vidal-Quadras just helped the Council of the EU to restrict citizens’ freedoms at their will. This outrageous maneuver could open the door to ‘three strikes’ policies, discrimination of content and arbitrary filtering of the Net all over Europe.”, concludes Jérémie Zimmermann, co-founder and spokesperson for La Quadrature.”
Oct 192009
I’m sure all politicians careen between saying what they believe and spouting whatever crap will get them elected. But it seems like Republicans have adopted a universal strategy of popular deceit, and if they speak truth it’s only by coincidence. Here’s the pattern I’ve seen:
- Toss out a slew of outrageous lies.
- Watch for one to capture the public’s imagination.
- Turn it into jargon (”death panel”) that sticks in voters’ heads.
- Step back from the lie when it’s debunked, and craft a milder (still dishonest) version. But keep the original jargon.
- Repeat as necessary. Debunkers eventually move on to tackle some new lie, leaving the last version in place and the jargon established.
Republicans sound like they’re conducting a giant experiment in saying whatever they can get away with, and I suspect they’re surprised as any of us by some of the results. That’s probably too harsh, though. What’s worse is that a good chunk of them might believe the stuff they say. That’s the difference between, for instance, Glenn Beck and Michele Bachmann. Either way, the country loses.
Read full article @ WakingupNow.com [via]
The new resolution, championed by the Obama administration, has a number of disturbing elements. It emphasizes that “the exercise of the right to freedom of expression carries with it special duties and responsibilities . . .” which include taking action against anything meeting the description of “negative racial and religious stereotyping.” It also purports to “recognize . . . the moral and social responsibilities of the media” and supports “the media’s elaboration of voluntary codes of professional ethical conduct” in relation to “combating racism, racial discrimination, xenophobia and related intolerance.”
More at weeklystandard.
And things have gone worse apparently…
The Pirate Party, which holds a seat in the European Parliament, proposed legislation that said, essentially, that no one could be disconnected from the Internet without a fair trial. When the proposal when to the European Commission (a group of powerful, unelected bureaucrats who have been heavily lobbied by the entertainment industry), they rewrote it (detail) so that disconnection can take place without trial or other due process.
On the national level, France’s Constitutional Court have approved the latest version of the French 3-strikes rule, HADOPI, which has created a kind of grudging, joke oversight by the courts (before your family’s Internet connection is taken away, a judge gives the order 1-2 minutes’ worth of review, and you aren’t entitled to counsel and the rules of evidence don’t apply — the NYT called it similar to “traffic court”). Under this rule, there is now a national list of French people who are not allowed to be connected to the Internet; providing them with connectivity is a crime.
[article at boingboing]
Its obvious we can wait for censorship to get started, while even MI15 disapproves!
Oct 242009
Short 3 minute pitch of what changes we might expect the coming 50 years.
Oct 252009
Uit de show Morimos Solamente van Alex Agnew
Oct 252009
Who Knew Discussing A Long Repealed Copyright Law Could
Be So Interesting… from the copyright-geeking dept
The summary? Copyright law is so screwed up that even if you put a significant number of the top copyright scholars and students in an auditorium for a day, they’ll disagree on almost everything, and only agree that the system is a total mess. Even simple questions like “how should copyright be handled on blogs” created a collective shoulder shrug, with everyone effectively admitting that copyright law has no answer for such basic questions. That should worry people. If the intention of copyright is to “promote the progress of science” then it shouldn’t be so incredibly ambiguous and contentious. All in all, it seems to reinforce the point that copyright law has been stretched and twisted in so many different ways over the years, that it may be fundamentally broken. Basically, copyright law is adjusted every so often not based on any look at whether or not it actually promotes the progress, but based on whatever new technological innovation comes along that throws some legacy providers’ business models into doubt. That industry freaks out, and politicians respond with some patch that protects that industry, but has little to nothing to do with actually promoting progress.
Read more @ Techdirt.com
Like Belgium, England, Norway and Germany for example, the United States has joined in supporting the open source platform by changing the white house flagship to it.
WhiteHouse.gov has gone Drupal. After months of planning, says an Obama Administration source, the White House has ditched the proprietary content management system that had been in place since the days of the Bush Administration in favor of the latest version of the open-source Drupal software, as the AP alluded to in its reporting several minutes ago. [techpresident]
Oct 272009
The LAPD has just released a new Orwellian commercial for iWatch, a program that encourages residents to spy on each other and report any “suspicious behavior” (whatever that means) to the authorities, who we’re assured will sort everything out.
Read more @ Trueslant.com [via]
Oct 272009
Maureen Heymans, Technical Lead, demonstrates the features of Google Social Search. [via]
Oct 272009
New feature: Follow us on Twitter
Oct 282009
Terwijl in andere EU-landen de bezorgdheid is toegenomen tot 80 à 90 procent van de ondervraagde bevolking, is die in Nederland als enige EU-land de laatste jaren juist drastisch gedaald van 50 naar slechts 35 procent.Imore]
Zijn we plots stiekem een heel onkritisch (naief) volgzaam volkje geworden?
