File Sharing Is Not Illegal: The Debate Explodes

It’s amazing how much debate a simple blog entry can generate. “No defence for ’stealing’ music” is an article by the BBC’s Darren Waters. While the world is full of much more serious problems, apparently, it has already been decided that your sharing of music is evil… evil … EVIL !

I think it’s definitely a debate worth having. The issue is just riddled with ignorance. Are we all distracted by more pressing issues maybe ? Anyway , it’s another sort “fait accompli” if you ask me … “Sorry folks, it’s well known you’re all criminals, now bang em up !”. Excuse me ? I havn’t seen them yet, but I suspect there are lots of Court Cases and Copyright Law clauses that have already defined this issue ! It’s just that the big music industry players would prefer you really not see them.

Just look at the comments on that blog ! A polite, intelligent debate, with people who do seem to be concerned if they are really breaking the law, or having some kind of rebound effect on Artists welfare. Hardly the weazely scum bags sneaking around in black and white banded clothing that they are supposed to be (rolls eye’s).

DJ Barney

Latest - The BBC has just published a news article about legislation being voted on in Europe … “Europe votes on anti-piracy laws”. Similiar legislation was not passed in 2008 but I recommend that you write to your MEP (as I have done). People in the UK can use http://www.writetothem.com/ very easily, just writing a single email to all your MEP’s.

Assume Good Faith !

( Source )

I was at an astronomy meeting a few months ago. I had a number of Mars images spread out on the table in front of me from MRO HiRise. I had already had a discussion about Cydonia with a couple of people. I had mentioned the Face on Mars, but I had deliberately not bought along any images of it. Neither was I making it the focus of my presentation which was taken up by the image of a possible Mars Glacier.

Nevertheless, a woman came up to me (forgive me, I forget your name) and actually said “You aren’t one of those Mars Nuts, are you?”.

Incredible.

It’s as if some kind of virus has crept into society.

I was reading an article by Jimbo Wales in the Guardian. He, brilliantly in my opinion (it’s often difficult to state these things in simple terms) states that there is no such thing as “The Madness of Crowds”. Assume good faith. People will do the right thing if given a chance. Could this myth that people are somehow innately evil … original sin .. come from the way we treat them ? We use top down, monolithic approaches to society that assumes that they cannot make their own decisions or even that wars will happen if people aren’t strictly controlled and manipulated. Actually it is that strict control and manipulation that actually causes those wars because not enough people are given a chance to challenge their ignorance. We’re caught in a loop. The action taken on some assumed point is actually causing the thing that led to that action being taken in the first place. A loop, an infinite regress.

The same thing can be seen in the Psychiatric system. It is assumed that a patient will never get through their problems (it is possible however serious they may appear to be) so they are never given that chance. They are given mind destroying drugs that cause further madness. It’s the same thing. Ignorance. There never was any original rational thought. Only a knee jerk reaction against the assumed state that human beings are supposed to be in …. some kind of innate stupidity. Like Jimbo Wales I believe, I know that that just does not exist.

So we get the same thing in Science (Sometimes ! Believe me, I like Science !). A top down, Monolithic approach that deems non Scientists as “unqualified”. Wider society has nothing to offer and only qualified Scientists can participate. What nonsense ! I respect those hard earned degrees and Masters. Most Scientists have much to offer and can do many great things for society. But where did the attitude come from that I started this article with ? Namely the lady who suggested I am a “Mars Nut” ?

It’s not just me. I was heavily involved in the Mars Face debate. It taught me many things and led me to find things like Wikpedia. Actually partly because of the personal attacks I was seeing and the often ignorance by the parties involved of basic facts.

Assume good faith ! If Scientists, are so enlightened then why do they resort to personal attacks and knee jerk reactions ? I am still a member of a well respected site. I highly recommend it, but I was put off it by the initial dealing with me by the site owner. I posted about the Face. The post was deleted “because we have many highly respected dignitaries here” ! I don’t want to be bitter here. I assume good faith of him. He was only trying to run his site properly, bless him. But could he have moved my post to a sub section of the forum ? Maybe he should actually ask these “dignitaries” what their opinion of “The Face” is and keep the debate going. It has taught me much.

Another forum. They actually do provide a way of discussing “Pseudo-science”, but again, I don’t go there anymore. I found the discussion revolting to be honest ! Just because a point was made by some one that “could not be true” and because they stuck to it doggedly the debate descended into nasty personal attacks. Snidey remarks about the persons character. The clubbing together of people into a “chosen few” mentality who “know” that “The Face” is not real. Ga !

Actually I still highly recommend that site (but be careful of the kind of thing I describe). I do not believe in a “Face” either way, what concerns me more is the attitude towards so many people. See the Cydonia article Wikipedia talk page for some examples.

Assume good faith !

Might those people actually have something to offer ? Yes, they probably do go off into wacky conspiracy theories. But, really, who is to say what is wrong and right ? No one certainly knows everything in this World to say the least. People make mistakes. New evidence comes to light. How can anyone be SO sure some people are talking “nonsense”, or are “nuts”.

Ah! That word again … “Nut”.

Has there ever been such a lame resort to an insult just because there is no other way to conduct the argument ? We should all get a grip on ourselves a lot more. Words do determine reality. Behaviour is the sacred responsibility of us all.

DJ Barney

The Searchers 2.0 (This Is Not a Game III)

I watched the Alex Cox film Searchers 2.0 last night. The film observes the Hollywood obsession with the revenge fantasy. People are attracted to films that show revenge to be a pleasurable, righteous, almost noble approach to solving an injustice. It’s great in the terms of an excuse for a load of special effects, but, in reality of course, revenge plots go wrong, are tragic and just mess everything up. This has been portrayed, for millennia, as tragic for both parties in many plays and stories, from Shakespeare, to some of the better movies. This is as it should be, as Alex Cox argues.

So we watch Clint Eastwood. We watch Rambo. We think we have our fiction firmly separated from fact. But then we have the post 911 situation. Retribution, revenge, in all it’s bloody disgusting glory.

We somehow think a jaunt into the desert will be a glorious journey of convoys with dust rising behind them. Slo’mos of soldiers throwing themselves over sand dunes, gallantly shooting down Taliban fighters. Odear. Look at Iraq, or Afghanistan. Hardly any causalities on our side, but millions of civilians killed.

Look, before you start throwing bricks through my window and tell me I’m supporting Terrorism, or think I’m about to convert to Islam, let me tell you this. I would stop a terrorist plot if I uncovered one. I would report it to the police like anyone else. If I had a chance to talk to a bitter member of Al Qaeda, grieving over the numerous civilian causalities in his country, then I would try and talk him out of taking revenge.

But what on earth do we think is going to happen when a rather shabby war is started, in the name of revenge for 911, and other bombings, like the London bombings ? Again, I really do defend the right of a country to defend itself. But that defence is endlessly stated to be for “stopping Terrorism”. I can’t think of any War that has stopped Terrorism in the entire recorded history of this Planet !

It is revenge isn’t it ? You see ?

Maybe if more people could admit the carnal emotions and motivations involved in the so called “WOT” then maybe we could move on. Maybe we could really stop Terrorism and take an intelligent approach to the whole thing, because at the moment. It is not, come on admit it.

Again, I support the Soldiers fighting out there. Their sacrifice is not in vain, although I sometimes wonder if it’s really necessary. I talked to a local Taxi driver here who had fought out in Iraq. He told me that it is not a popular War among the troops. But troops have to follow orders.

What orders are WE following ?

(Previous blogs:This is Not a Game, This is Not a Game II )

Jumper

( Jumper )

In the movie Jumper, young men are pursued by an Inquisition like figure, Samuel L Jackson playing Roland Cox, the leader of the Paladins. He thinks he is doing the world a favour.

The main characters, David Rice played by Hayden Christensen and Griffin played by Jamie Bell, develop a form of “special power” that arises after some form of trauma that allows them to use it. There are echoes of the nature of Shamanism. Medicine men that are given access to “another world” after an illness or trauma.

The film portrays the power as more like something that “is not supposed to happen”. It’s impossible. A “freak of nature”.

At one point the Jackson character says to Rice’s pleading that “they always go bad in the end”.

This film is a masterpiece of portraying discrimination and prejudice. The suppression and killing of people that are regarded as “freaks”.

This is a very real fight. I’m afraid the persecution of Witches in the Middle Ages did not end then. It still lives on in our modern world.

Take the language of the modern health system that treats people with emotional problems. Replace their word that they use to describe people like that, with the word “Witch” and suddenly that entire little world makes sense.

“Is he showing signs of madness?” (replace the word madness with any of the technical terms).

Could be … “Is he showing signs of associating with the Devil?”.

“Do you hear voices?”

Could be replaced with … “Do you talk to the spirit world? This is the work of the Devil!”.

I don’t regard these as spurious comparisons. Look at the play “The Crucible” that was written in the 1950’s at the time of McCarthyism.

Today it is so called “Mental Patients” that become a convenient scapegoat for the paranoias of society. Look at The Crucible. It is an examination of how a “Witch Hunt” can become a way for the petty jealousies and insecurities of people to be projected onto the people around them.

I am not talking idle philosophy here, these are very real threats. The accusers do not wield the Bible and the Stake here. They have authority to use so called “medications” that can kill. This is no secret. Read the insert for these “medications”. They can cause suicidal thoughts, which, of course may be acted upon. They have a whole list of “side effects” associated with them.

This “Side effect” has a name. It is fundamentalism.

It’s reductionist. Linear. Atomic. There is no appreciation of the strangeness of life. The unknowability.

Someone I know was almost killed as a very young child. He was showing signs of being what we just call today, intelligent, but might have been known as “sensitive” in the past. Predicting events before they happen, like a dog that recognises that his owner is coming home hours before the event. Knowing things “he shouldn’t know”. Asking questions.

Apparently Science has deemed that some people’s behaviour is not acceptable. Well, that’s the excuse. Actually I think it’s a Fundamentalism hiding behind Science. The Scientific Method recognises that there is an unknown that cannot essentially be known ! This is the whole point of the Scientific Method. To be able to lay down knowledge of that unknown. So to claim that it is Science that has “proven” that certain people need treating is indeed absurd.

No, this is the same thing that the ancient healing women (“Witches”) had to put up with. The current state of affairs with the modern health system is very similar. I’d say identical. Patients “hear voices”. “Babbling in strange voices”. There is no test to prove that someone suffers from the myriad of unproven diseases in that field. A patient is left to sink or swim after having a barrage of cruel treatments fired at them. If they die, or commit suicide, then well, they must have been ill. Their death proves that the doctors were right all along, and that the patient was actually OK and on the road to recovery.

However, if they survive, then the treatments must be working. The patient then must have something wrong with them that is one of the many diseases that they are labelled with. They can no longer trust their own mind … they are possessed of the Devil ! A Witch.

Jump.

DJ Barney

Addenum: I feel it’s appropriate to add a link to here for anyone in this situation that needs help.

How to Keep the Compiz Cube Zoomed Out and in 3D

Don’t worry. This blog isn’t turning into a tech tips blog. I’ve just been dreaming about 3D desktops for years and then it all comes at once along with everything else that Ubuntu has to offer. A working copy of Compiz is installed from the distro CD. It is setup to provide a change desktop animation which will probably be enough for most people. Here it is with a few other things turned on.

Your basic “cube” showing all available desktops.

NASA TV in 3D. Could it be called “virtualised TV” ? That’s full frame video running there, not a thumbnail. It’s a live window.

At a watchable size.

I didn’t know it could do this until I had to resize a maximised window. Peek at what’s underneath

The 3D windows from another perspective.

Your classic desktop view with the 3D tastefully visible in the background. You can just see the menu that is open, visible on one of the other desktops on the right.

So no more “Living in a box…. I’ve been living in a cardboard box !” as that 80’s song goes.

3D movement is almost completely free as long as the middle mouse button is held down over the desktop. But it won’t stay in that position once the mouse button is released (grrrr!), and will snap back to whatever desk is nearest. This just seems such a shame as I can’t admire this work of beauty with it’s virtualised video and everything. So after looking into accessibility options I found a way of locking the middle mouse button down.

It’s a bit of a hack, but it does use a legitimate way of altering X server mouse behaviour. I wonder if there’s a way of doing this already built into Compiz ? If there is, no one would tell me. Google would not find it.

In Ubuntu … (Note: “\\” shows where I had to split the line. It should all be on one line.)

Make sure you have a backup of your X server config file.

sudo cp /etc/X11/xorg.conf \\
/etc/X11/xorg.conf.bak

Edit it …

sudo vim /etc/X11/xorg.conf

If you don’t like the command line you can use this …

gksudo gedit /etc/X11/xorg.conf

Find this section …

Section "InputDevice"

        Identifier "Configured Mouse"

        Driver "mouse"

        Option "CorePointer"

EndSection

Add this line …

Option "DragLockButtons" "3 2"

The section will now look like this …

Section "InputDevice"
        Identifier "Configured Mouse"
        Driver "mouse"
        Option "CorePointer"
        Option "DragLockButtons" "3 2"
EndSection

The first number after “DragLockButtons” is the button to be toggled. In this case button 3, the middle mouse button on my three button mouse. The second number is the mouse button to use to activate the toggle.

Save the xorg.conf file. Type “:”, then “wq”.

Logout of Ubuntu and then back in again. That will restart the x server without having to restart the entire system.

Now you can click the right mouse button over a clear area of desktop and the middle mouse button will lock allowing free rotation of the compiz cube. You can walk away and leave it in mid rotation. Hit the right mouse button again to let Compiz focus back to the active desktop.

There’s only one drawback here if you only have three mouse buttons. The defined lock button can no longer be used as a normal mouse button ! I just use the right click key on my keyboard.

Users with more than three buttons can set the lock toggle button to an unused mouse key and won’t have this problem. Just set the second number to whatever mouse button you want to use.

DJ Barney

Addendum: If you do use a multi button mouse then make sure you use one number in the “lock” field (see above). Click that button and then the next button you press will lock. It’s a toggle lock, so the next time you click that button the lock will be cancelled.

Ubuntu - On The Shoulders of Giants

In the late 90’s I was struggling with my life. I was struggling with a “mono culture of the mind” on my computer… Microsoft Windows. It reflected my programmed brainwashed view of the world. Then a friend of mine mentioned Linux (thankyou Paul !). I installed it and immediately I could see what was coming. Now, ten years later, built on the shoulders of giants, here it is. The Ubuntu distribution is a work of genius !

The screengrab above shows the same idea I had at the beginning of the millennium. It seems that other’s were thinking similar thoughts. Not as some kind of attack on Windows. I think Windows has it’s place like any product. Just as a way to make the users experience as easy as possible and open up freedoms.

Now I have Ubuntu in my Windows boot menu. It is such a smooth system ! It almost makes me blush to compare with some of the systems that make users jump through so many hoops just to get something done. It’s sad. They seem lost in comparison.

The age of the “Uber Geek” is over, and yet it is many of those Geeks that have been working hard on the things “under the bonnet” in Ubuntu. So suddenly I can install applications at the click of a mouse … no compiling or fiddling around. Those video card effects on windows that I’ve been trying to get to work for years on Linux are suddenly there by default. I just had to update the Nvidia driver and enable because it’s a proprietary driver (not open source).

All this may seem like reporting the fall of the Berlin wall about 6 months later, or going on about the Moon landings, but I have some “complications” shall we say, going on in my life (I guess everyone has a few of those ;). It’s just a happy moment to see Tux chase off those angry Macho Geeky monsters who can turn the computer experience into a hair pulling hassle. Technology is a double edged sword. It does not automatically bring good. It has to be in the right hands. Ubuntu is like a whole colony of penguins storming the silicon castle and tearing down the gates so the people can come flooding in

DJ Barney

Spielberg and Lucas Get It Wrong This Time

(Image source)

I went to see the new Indiana Jones film (Spoiler warning).

Oh dear. Where was the film production that was supposed to be like the other films ? The print was muddy. The editing sloppy. The action sequences were just badly filmed.

What were they thinking ?

Where was the masterstroke of action sequence orchestration that we saw in the first Indiana film ? The scene where Indi takes control of the truck carrying the Ark is still a work of genius. A homage to every stunt technique created in Hollywood history. So well edited and crafted that it can be watched over and over, and I still gasp at the way it pulls me in to the action.

Where were the crisp perfectly framed stills that we saw in the bar fight in Indi One ? Freeze frame your DVD in that bar scene and almost every frame jumps out like some carefully drawn frame in a graphic novel.

Well, it’s humbling. Even the masters can fail.

“Even Master fail he can sometimes..” Yoda (Lucas are you listening ?)

Sometimes one has to fail to make something brilliant.

The audience in the theatre I saw the film in sauntered out very quietly at the end. In fact they did seem humbled. “So even these guys can get it wrong sometimes”. Is that what they were thinking ?

I heard a very telling comment…

“Indiana Jones doesn’t do UFO’s !”.

I think the Cold War setting was a mistake. complete with the nuclear explosion, it was too much ! I strongly believe the Cold War is still something very painful to a lot of people. It’s too much to examine so closely again the pain of “MAD” in what is an escapist film. It is much more comfortable looking at these things through the lens of World War Two or the 1930’s. Those periods of history have become accepted, legendary. We’re still sorting out the Cold War.

I saw a review that said that even this Indiana release is still a lot better than “the likes of National Treasure”. I strongly disagree ! National Treasure is a film that is very much like the original Indiana release. Snappy, audacious, “it has balls” as some 1930’s Hollywood magnate might say.

I hope Speilberg and Lucas learn from their mistake. Even Masters are still learning !

I’m still looking forward to the Star Wars TV series and the animated Star Wars feature. Spielberg and Lucas still have a lot of talent in there.

DJ Barney

Open Source Health

So Microsoft have released Virtual Observatory. Google has “Sky”. I think it’s great that this space imagery is available in this form. But why is it only available in proprietary applications ? NASA Worldwind seems to be being sidelined by the organisation that spawned it. By the time the Java version is ready things would have moved on.

When my hiatus from my Space Data Wiki project is over I’m going to start putting together an open source application using Open Layers that will allow comments to be put on Mars images (MRO HiRise).

I regard my work as an important part if what is going on in our world at the moment. There is a profound Paradigm Shift going on that is hidden only to those who are hiding in a cave not participating in the Wiki revolution, or the Linux community (Ubuntu?). There are reflective changes going on in society. This is the predicted “shift” of the Mayan 2012 date. Far from being a destructive act, it is a new beginning. A coming to fruition of very old fights. This is no “New Age” airy fairy thing going on here. The Mayans and other “Mystics” throughout the ages were sensitive enough to see the trends and where they might lead.

So do I see some last dinosaur gasps of some very aged Tyrannosaurus Rex ? Why IS Microsoft tying up public domain space imagery in another of their applications ? Their faux “hey kids look how cutting edge we are” approach does not fool me.

Why does Bill Gates, the “genius”, finance Aids research (look here if you dare) when Dr Rath has discovered that the use of Vitamins can recover someone with “Aids” ? This is no “Quack” claim as the Dinosaurs would like you to believe. Dr Rath was a pupil of Linus Pauling who discovered the crucial importance of Vitamin C. Who doesn’t worry these days occasionally … “Am I getting my Vitamin C ?”.

Could it be because people like Bill Gates represent a dying age ? (sorry Bill, I’d have a friendly chat if we ever meet). They are not as clever as they think they are, or as philanthropic. If Gates wants to help Aids victims he would finance Rath. But he’s too tied up in knots … in the old paradigm.

Take our current model of health (well the “official” one anyway). You get sick. You go to the doctor. He gives you something.

This is stupid. It’s reductionist. Linear. It is based purely in empirical evidence. It atomises problems into “patients” and “pills”.

So what to do ? Well how about an “open source” health system, with the ethos of Ubuntu ? Why not expose the process of how someone becomes sick ? The state of the society they live in ? The pesticides used on the farms near them ? Or the ways of living and socialising that keep them healthy ? The classic “Health System” is an epitomy of the “Cathedral Model”. It runs a kind of sham. The “Bazaare Model” is allowed to run but it is crippled. Health food shops stay open. Alternative treatments are available, but to say they can cure Aids, or Cancer is heresy.

Of course if you’re clever and have your wits about you then that diagnosis of Cancer can be turned into an approach that avoids nasty Chemotherapy and can recover your health.

But not everyone is that clever, or has those wits. What about people with family problems ? The Disabled ? People slogging away at some job just to keep their family going who neither has the time or the energy to cut through the thick wad of lies, propaganda and downright predatory behaviour that inhabits our “Health” system these days ?

So lets open it up. Expose the internal workings of your local surgery. Why isn’t the community involved in their own treatment ? Why has the medical profession been going on about a “Cure for Cancer” for the last 60 years, if not a lot longer, when we already know that healthy cells rely on nutrition, even in advanced cases ?

Don’t give up. Beware The Shift. The sands are shifting.

DJ Barney

Addenum: Thanks to the auto generated links by WordPress I just read this little gem … “Bill Gates on Pharmaceuticals: The System Isn’t Working“.

Well you said it Bill …

“One thing Gates won’t be leaving behind in retirement is his distaste for open source software. After one scientist asked if Gates would consider open source uses in health research, the man who built his $280 billion company on the power of intellectual property bristled.

“There’s free software and then there’s open source,” he suggested, noting that Microsoft gives away its software in developing countries. With open source software, on the other hand, “there is this thing called the GPL, which we disagree with.”

Open source, he said, creates a license “so that nobody can ever improve the software,” he claimed, bemoaning the squandered opportunity for jobs and business. (Yes, Linux fans, we’re aware of how distorted this definition is.) He went back to the analogy of pharmaceuticals: “I think if you invent drugs, you should be able to charge for them,” he said, adding with a shrug: “That may seem radical.”

Crucially he has misunderstood the GPL license ! A license that actually gives you the right to charge for something that you give away free. I know it sounds counterintuitive but just read it. In the area of Pharmaceuticals this would work by publishing the details of a treatment and insuring others can duplicate it for free. That would include the entire chemical makeup. All trials, the lot. The company would then charge for support services basically. With an “open source” drug the company would be less likely to be hit with expensive lawsuits because the way the drug works would be exposed to scutiny … just like the code of an open source application. Now, this might lead to the dumping of faulty medications, but medications that actually work safely would eventually be produced. No more “side effects”. No more horror stories. Patients who can trust the treatments and companies who can make profits without the guilt of having damaged patients. This could also work with Vitamin treatments. The Vitamins are by definition free, you cannot charge for them. Basically they are in food ! But specific formulas can be made. One would charge for the service of bringing you that formulae, but it’s make-up would be open.

Mr. Gates. Do you really want to help ?

The Cancer Quacks

So this hybrid embryo research is still being pushed through because it “will give us a cure for Cancer” as I heard this Scientist say on the radio (BBC Radio 4).

How long, how many decades, are we going to listen to this mantra ? How long are we going to allow ourselves to be duped and led around by the nose by this excuse that will end in more suffering and deaths ? We’ve had decades of cruel animal experimentation. Decades of people dying from Cancer, Aids, and other diseases while the same governments tell us about the CURE (if you want to call it that) in their own advice. Have we all gone mad ?

Nutrition. We’ve all heard it. Do I need to drag out the recommendations to eat healthier to save your heart or your mental life ? That IS the “Cure” for Cancer and Aids. These are natural treatments based on Vitamins and Minerals. Most people use it just by eating well, but advanced cases of these serious diseases can be treated by careful regimes of what we normally get in food … allowing the body to repair it’self … after all it’s evolved to do that over millions of years if given the right building blocks.

Don’t listen to these “Scientists” (they are not) who say that this kind of talk is “dangerous”. They work for the Pharmaceutical companies who have a vested interest in KEEPING you sick. But you don’t have to get involved in that fight. Just look at the advice from your government to eat well. Or go to your local health food shop. Do some research. Drop the fear. Anything is possible.

DJ Barney

Your Own Personal Atmospheric and Low Earth Orbit Transportation

( Amazon )

I made this last image in 2003 when I found a patent for the craft depicted in the image. The likeness is taken directly from the patent drawings. All it needs is a power unit. It flys using electromagnetics and has no toxic or greenhouse emissions that I know of.

DJ Barney