Een oproep tot revolutie in de telecomsector

Telecomproviders staan er de laatste jaren belabberd op. Eerst T-Mobile met de iPhone. Het netwerk werd volstrekt onbruikbaar, en er was een Youp van ‘t Hek voor nodig voordat klachten van consumenten serieus genomen werden door het bedrijf. KPN startte onbedoeld een privacy-debacle omdat bleek dat ze haar gebruikers afluisterde, wat uitmondde in verregaande regulering door de wetgever. En Vodafone vatte mooi samen dat de reputatie van de sector zich op een “historisch dieptepunt” bevindt. De CEO wijdt dat onder anderen aan de netwerkkwaliteit en de klantenservice van Vodafone.
Mensen beginnen het zat te worden. Internet onderweg is voor veel mensen inmiddels net zo belangrijk als internet thuis, of internet op het werk. Maar voor die mobiele internetverbinding zijn we overgeleverd aan een conglomeraat van bedrijven dat structureel onder de maat presteert. Mobiel internet is op veel plekken in Nederland afwezig of is onbruikbaar traag. En ondertussen blijven de prijzen stijgen.
Het is niet voor niets dat het gezoem in het geruchtencircuit op dit moment oorverdovend is. Grote Nederlandse investeerders uit de technologie-, telecom- en mediawereld zijn bezig met het neerzetten van alternatieven voor KPN, Vodafone en T-Mobile, zo hoor ik van verschillende, goed ingevoerde bronnen.
In Frankrijk vindt de revolutie nu al plaats. Vorige maand begon ADSL-provider Free.fr met het aanbieden van telecomdiensten. Voor 30 euro per maand (of 20 als je al ADSL-abonnee bent) kun je onbeperkt bellen naar Frankrijk en 40 andere landen, plus onbeperkt SMS-en, plus 3GB internet of onbeperkt via landelijk wifi-netwerk. Dat is serieus goedkoop.
Een deel van het geheim zit ‘m in de routers van Free.fr’s ADSL-abonnees. Elke ADSL-gebruiker deelt zijn wifi-singaal automatisch met andere klanten, waardoor een enorm wifi-netwerk ontstaat dat in grote steden dekkend is. Daarnaast zitten er femtocells in de routers: dat zijn een soort mini-zendmasten die het GSM/3G-signaal versterken. Eigenlijk gebruikt Free.fr zijn miljoenen ADSL-klanten om het mobiele netwerk beter te maken. Redelijk briljant.
De oude garde reageerde laconiek op de nieuwkomer, maar dat is de arrogantie van de macht. Ondertussen trekt Free.fr hordes nieuwe klanten door het agressieve prijsbeleid. En de bestaande telco’s kunnen het prijspeil van Free.fr niet kunnen bijhouden, als ze hun netwerk niet drastisch anders inrichten.
In Frankrijk trekt een schokgolf van verandering door de telecomsector. Ik kan niet wachten op het moment dat die zich ook in Nederland aandient.

Alexander Klopping schrijf iets wat we al tijden willen.. maar wat zelfs verboden wordt. Dit is precies weer zo’n piraten verhaal. Als innovatie van de industrie zelf uitblijft, is het niet vreemd dat de mensen het dan zelf gaan oplossen..

Music video for Father John Misty (J.Tillman) | Directed by Noel Paul
Record Labels: Sub Pop, Bella Union | Production Company: Frenzy Paris | Service Company: Double Entente [via]

Great video for a great song that is sadly not available on Spotify
Album release expected in May, reviews here and here

SAN FRANCISCO — The graffiti artist who took Facebook stock instead of cash for painting the walls of the social network’s first headquarters made a smart bet. The shares owned by the artist, David Choe, are expected to be worth upward of $200 million when Facebook stock trades publicly later this year.

[via gast! bsc]

Read full article here

The Enigma cracking machines. A nice inside look at the working circumstances and the funny notes frustrated enigineers made. Also great insides in Von Neumann (Turings brilliant companion).

Turing’s Cathedral (70min)

Turings contribution to Maths covers at least 6 major fields. Directly linked back to his turing machines again, he made a good stab at the notion that some logic implies that some things cannot be calculated: The Church-Turing Thesis.

Note: the follow 2 videos are really technical and not light material.

The mathematics of Alan Turing [50 minutes]

It still is worked on, into that what can and which cannot be explained.

Church-Turing Thesis – Story and recent progress [70 minutes]

Turings ideas about Artificial Intelligence lead him to develop the Turing test; how to distinguish humans from machines. His test was dead-simple: Create a test. If we cannot make the difference anymore, AI simply succeeded in coming into existence.
It is quite obvious that with more and more computer in our real life, this becomes increasingly important.

For starters, building a smart brain (Computing Beyond Turing [neuroscience & brains]- Jeff Hawkins [80 minutes] ) is not that easy. Seeing the difference between a cat and a dog is even toooo hard!

The people of Poland have taken to the streets in response to ACTA. With in the past three days tens of thousands of protesters have shown their discontent for the Anti-Courtesy Trade Agreement. The ACTA agreement which has been signed by seven other countries including the US and Australia, is supposed to put law and order on the internet which has become an illegal place for anarchy according to some. But the people of Poland believe it’s an abuse of power.

What did we say again about the relevance of NO LOGO anno 2012?

“The academic publisher Elsevier has attracted controversy for its high prices, the practice of bundling journals for sale to libraries and its support for legislation such as SOPA and the Research Works Act. Fields medal-winning mathematician Tim Gowers decided to go public with a blog post describing how he’ll no longer have anything to do with Elsevier journals, and suggesting that a public website where mathematicians and scientists could register their support for an Elsevier boycott would further the cause. Such a website now exists, with hundreds of academics signing-up so far. John Baez has a nice write-up of the problem and possible solutions.”(via)

ACTA, SOPA and PIPA also try to kill off already open initiatives in which Universities participate.. excuse me? Again it can be much more open.

Breaking the Code (Movie)

Next post more on the technical side of Alan.

Ever wondered how diseased cells kill them selves in protection of the rest? Here’s the mechanics. Already 5 years old, but enjoy.

”I want to denounce in the strongest possible manner the entire process that led to the signature of this agreement: no inclusion of civil society organisations, a lack of transparency from the start of the negotiations, repeated postponing of the signature of the text without an explanation being ever given, exclusion of the EU Parliament’s demands that were expressed on several occasions in our assembly.”

“As rapporteur of this text, I have faced never-before-seen manoeuvres from the right wing of this Parliament to impose a rushed calendar before public opinion could be alerted, thus depriving the Parliament of its right to expression and of the tools at its disposal to convey citizens’ legitimate demands.”

“Everyone knows the ACTA agreement is problematic, whether it is its impact on civil liberties, the way it makes Internet access providers liable, its consequences on generic drugs manufacturing, or how little protection it gives to our geographical indications.”

“This agreement might have major consequences on citizens’ lives, and still, everything is being done to prevent the European Parliament from having its say in this matter. That is why today, as I release this report for which I was in charge, I want to send a strong signal and alert the public opinion about this unacceptable situation. I will not take part in this mascarade.”

Source: https://www.laquadrature.net [via]

Lees meer over ACTA en wat jij ertegen kan doen: Bits of Freedom | Sargasso

Wat is er aan de hand? Vandaag werd bekend dat het internationale anti-piraterij verdrag ACTA door de Europese Commissie is goedgekeurd. Dit verdrag – dat net zo schadelijk is als de zojuist afgeschoten SOPA en PIPA-wetgeving in de VS – is in achterkamertjes bedisseld. We weten ongeveer wat erin staat, maar geen der onderhandelingspartijen is bereid om de informatie met het grote publiek te delen.

Europa kan een sleutelrol vervullen: als ACTA in mei wordt verworpen, is het hele verdrag van de baan. De bal ligt nu dus bij de EU. Stemmen politici in met een verdrag dat ingrijpende consequenties heeft of kiezen zij voor een vrij en open internet?

Lees meer over ACTA en wat jij kan doen op Bits of Freedom | Sargasso

See original @ Blog.jackrusher.com [via]

In this year’s Reporters Without Borders international press freedom index, the U.S. slumped to 47th place, a fall of 27 places. Note: Europe is not complete White either. Even with better privacy laws now introduced (much needed small victory).

View the nicely done site, or see other stuff..

Bekijk de video in andere formaten.

Het Arcus College in Heerlen wist 60 miljoen euro te sparen en werd zo het rijkste ROC. Het geld werd opzij gezet voor de bouw van een futuristisch scholencomplex. Het onderwijs werd er niet beter op. [via]

En nu allemaal heel veel centjes sparen om later goed privaat onderwijs te fixen voor de kleine

Update: 3 man uit TU Delft Top declareert bijna 1 miljoen in 3 jaar aan reiskosten. Hoezo videoconferences?

Over a century ago Thomas Edison got the patent for a device which would “do for the eye what the phonograph does for the ear”. He called it the Kinetoscope. He was not only amongst the first to record video, he was also the first person to own the copyright to a motion picture.

Because of Edisons patents for the motion pictures it was close to financially impossible to create motion pictures
in the North american east coast. The movie studios therefor relocated to California, and founded what we today call
Hollywood. The reason was mostly because there was no patent.
There was also no copyright to speak of, so the studios could copy old stories and make movies out of them – like
Fantasia, one of Disneys biggest hits ever.

So, the whole basis of this industry, that today is screaming about losing control over immaterial rights, is that they
circumvented immaterial rights. They copied (or put in their terminology: “stole”) other peoples creative works,
without paying for it. They did it in order to make a huge profit. Today, they’re all successful and most of the
studios are on the Fortune 500 list of the richest companies in the world. Congratulations – it’s all based on being
able to re-use other peoples creative works. And today they hold the rights to what other people create.
If you want to get something released, you have to abide to their rules. The ones they created after circumventing
other peoples rules.

The reason they are always complainting about “pirates” today is simple. We’ve done what they did. We circumvented the
rules they created and created our own. We crushed their monopoly by giving people something more efficient. We allow
people to have direct communication between eachother, circumventing the profitable middle man, that in some cases take
over 107% of the profits (yes, you pay to work for them).
It’s all based on the fact that we’re competition.
We’ve proven that their existance in their current form is no longer needed. We’re just better than they are.

And the funny part is that our rules are very similar to the founding ideas of the USA. We fight for freedom of speech.
We see all people as equal. We believe that the public, not the elite, should rule the nation. We believe that laws
should be created to serve the public, not the rich corporations.

The Pirate Bay is truly an international community. The team is spread all over the globe – but we’ve stayed out of the
USA. We have Swedish roots and a swedish friend said this:
The word SOPA means “trash” in Swedish. The word PIPA means “a pipe” in Swedish. This is of course not a coincidence.
They want to make the internet inte a one way pipe, with them at the top, shoving trash through the pipe down to the
rest of us obedient consumers.
The public opinion on this matter is clear. Ask anyone on the street and you’ll learn that noone wants to be fed with
trash. Why the US government want the american people to be fed with trash is beyond our imagination but we hope that
you will stop them, before we all drown.

SOPA can’t do anything to stop TPB. Worst case we’ll change top level domain from our current .org to one of the
hundreds of other names that we already also use. In countries where TPB is blocked, China and Saudi Arabia springs to
mind, they block hundreds of our domain names. And did it work? Not really.
To fix the “problem of piracy” one should go to the source of the problem. The entertainment industry say they’re
creating “culture” but what they really do is stuff like selling overpriced plushy dolls and making 11 year old girls
become anorexic. Either from working in the factories that creates the dolls for basically no salary or by watching
movies and tv shows that make them think that they’re fat.

In the great Sid Meiers computer game Civilization you can build Wonders of the world. One of the most powerful ones
is Hollywood. With that you control all culture and media in the world. Rupert Murdoch was happy with MySpace and had
no problems with their own piracy until it failed. Now he’s complainting that Google is the biggest source of piracy
in the world – because he’s jealous. He wants to retain his mind control over people and clearly you’d get a more
honest view of things on Wikipedia and Google than on Fox News.

Some facts (years, dates) are probably wrong in this press release. The reason is that we can’t access this information
when Wikipedia is blacked out. Because of pressure from our failing competitors. We’re sorry for that.

THE PIRATE BAY, (K)2012

The above does not imply artists cannot be rewarded, only that those rewards can easily come in an other way(s). Moreover, rewards should be seen from the feed-back loop culture and the public good provides us. No artist can claim all, nor should we be obliged to it. Get over it and start live in the 21th century. For starters, what about creative commons for example?

Bill Maher gets OWNED by Guests for Supporting SOPA

Bill Maher seems to think that just because his crappy religious hit piece “Religulous” was pirated, that Washington D.C. should control the internet totally with the SOPA bill. He refers to people downloading copyrighted materials as people who “just want free shit”. Mr. Maher perhaps there are some of us out there who would rather download something to see if its worth buying, instead of spending our hard earned money and being disappointed.

Most shocking part of this Youtube clip is the notice the user added to the video:

NOTICE: Fair Use Copyright Law
This video may contain copyrighted material, the use of which has not always been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. We are making such material available in our efforts to advance understanding of environmental, political, human rights, economic, scientific, and social justice issues etc. We know that our use of any such copyrighted material constitutes a ‘fair use’ as provided for in section 107 of the US Copyright Law. In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, the material on this video is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes.

The fear the entertainment industry, nitwit politicians and other 20th century dinosaurs try to evoke seems to work … Sadly with these penny-wise pound-foolish remarks Bill Maher, his network and of course the advertisers of his show lost me as a fan.

Let’s forget Bill for a while and watch some Michael Moore retro clips from e.g. 2006.

Congress may take books, musical compositions and other works out of the public domain, where they can be freely used and adapted, and grant them copyright status again, the Supreme Court ruled Wednesday. In a 6-2 ruling, the court said that, just because material enters the public domain, it is not “territory that works may never exit.”

With current copyright most of the time ALREADY 60 years, US Courts still think Older works, ALREADY in the public domain should by politicians allowed to put BACK AGAIN in Copyright. Hey.. what could go wrong?
Seriously… could this mean that a nice lobby at congress could pull any work from organisations as Wikipedia or the Internet Archive, because they just didn’t like it (both for commercial or even political reasons). This doesn’t make sense.

From the February 2012 issue of Esquire, an interview with former President Bill Clinton about the current political and governmental landscape in America.

One of the real dilemmas we have in our country and around the world is that what works in politics is organization and conflict. That is, drawing the sharp distinctions. But in real life, what works is networks and cooperation. And we need victories in real life, so we’ve got to get back to networks and cooperation, not just conflict. But politics has always been about conflict, and in the coverage of politics, information dissemination tends to be organized around conflict as well. It is extremely personal now, and you see in these primaries that the more people agree with each other on the issues, the more desperate they are to make the clear distinctions necessary to win, so the deeper the knife goes in.

(via)

Nederland kent 414 gemeentes.. Naast de 18 miljard die het kabinet wil bezuinigen, de 7 miljard die het plots extra moet bezuinigen, komt hiermee dan dus mogelijk nog tussen de 2-10 miljard aan tekort bij.. En dan hebben we het nog niet over de financiele strop voor de bovenmatige kantoor bouw die niks waard is.
In welke mate die meteen ook in de bezuinigingen meegaat is nog niet bekend, maar overheid/nl heeft zijn zaakjes nog niet helemaal crisisproof geregelt. Misschien wat transparanter jezelf opstellen?

Because we like drawings, why not draw in 4 minutes a fastrack of economic theory & economic change.

“Attack of La Niña” Athlete Extra – Sean Pettit from MSP Films on Vimeo.

Sean Pettit ripping mountains with his skies.