Illegal download
As has previously been noted, Virgin Media and the BPI have struck an agreement to start “educating” Virgin Media customers who download music illegal by the BPI passing on the IP addressed of anyone who downloads (even though it has been proven that the IP addresses can be wrong, read paper by University of Washington).
Today reports are coming out that letters have been sent out to 600 Virgin Media customers who have apparently been downloading and I want to point you guys to this BBC blog entry, specifically to the comments section. I have not read all of the comments but I feel that Paul Freeman-Powell makes some very valid points, as does mikearthur.
If you are interested in this subject then this is well worth a read(even though Darren Walters seems to of taken in the propaganda by the lobby companies and decided it is stealing, rather than copyright infringement. Every track downloaded does not equate to a sale!!
EDIT:
I just read a comment by vastariner who makes a very good suggestion of recording live shows and then selling these on a bands website. As a fan who has been to see the show or just wants a live copy of the band I would be very much inclined to do this. I also love this comment by Mark_WE disassembling Darren Walters point regarding why it is stealing.
Finally, I leave you with a quote by Bobsy_26 here.
Lest we forget, the anti-piracy ads shown on DVDs and in the cinema:
* You wouldn’t steal a mobile phone/car/handbag… mp3? Yes, that’s clearly the same issue.
* Piracy feeds terrorism. Oh boy, the image of a cackling Osama Bin Laden sitting on a heap of counterfeit DVDs, working his diabolical masterplan of media piracy against the west, is just too chilling.
* Piracy hurts artists. Yes, I’m sure it does under the current system, but it hurts record labels first, and harder. And that’s something I have limited sympathy for…
I promise to stop linking and referencing comments now :).
Longtime no speak
It has been quite a while since I have posted here so I feel an update is in order. I have finished my 2nd year at University so have technically finished for the summer. However I have been given a research grant from EPRS so I am now working as a research associate in the Culture Lab of Newcastle University. In this past week I have learnt a lot of C++ and started to look at OpenGL. I needed to this as I am going to be working with the OpenCV library written in C++ (so I need to learn C++) and OpenGL is going to be used to produce some GUI for applications I am going to be making.
On another note, I am currently posting this blog using Firefox 3 Beta 5, which comes with the latest addition of Ubuntu, something that I have just installed moments ago so be expecting a review on this OS in the coming weeks. I just have to say that it is already better than Gutsy in my eyes as it has support for my wireless adaptor out the box and I have connected to the Internet with no problems compared to after installing Gutsy and having issues with IPv6.
I will leave it here for the moment but will be returning soon!
UPDATE: Things have changed slightly since my last post. I installed Vista after Ubuntu, which naturally overwrote the bootloader so I could not get back onto Ubuntu without reinstalling GRUB. Once this was done I had to change the menu.lst file so have I could select Vista.
Another point I would like to make is that unlike Hardy, Vista could not connect to the Internet using my wireless adaptor so I had to search the Internet for the correct drivers - oh the irony.
Interesting game reviews (i.e. Zero Punctuation)
One of my friends randomly linked me to a video by this cheeky chappy, which was a review of Assassins Creed and I have to say it was one of the funniest reviews for a game I have ever seen (well heard). Not only that, it actually hit all the points that made Assassins Creed a great game and what actually made it a bit, well shit.
Well worth having a look at the site. All the game reviews, which are videos, should be in the articles section.
http://www.escapistmagazine.com/articles/view/editorials/zeropunctuation
Living with Linux
A while back you may remember a post regarding my new computer and the joys of running Linux. I feel that it’s time that I do a post regarding my feelings towards Linux, or Ubuntu 7.10 (Gutsy Gibbon) to be more precise.
I have to say I haven’t had that many issues with setting up and running Gutsy but I still have a few minor problems present now (which will you will read about later, if you can be bothered going through all of this entry).
I think wireless Internet was the biggest issue I had with setting up Ubuntu and it still isn’t completely fixed now. I started off trying to use an old BT Voyager wireless adaptor and installed ndiswrapper to get things started. I didn’t really have any problems with the installation or finding the driver for the adaptor - the main problem was that the wireless adaptor wasn’t working.
After purchasing a new wireless adaptor (some cheap Belkin G thing), I set about trying to get wireless Internet. Eventually managed to find the right driver for the adaptor and that was all fine. I know decided that the current network manager was not sufficient for my use (note: I have not got wireless Internet working at this point) so I installed gtkwifi and had no look AT ALL. So after much struggling I returned to the original network-manager provided with the Gutsy installation.
I couldn’t work out why I could not connect to the network for a while before realising (rather embarrassingly) that the encryption used on the network is WEP(ASCII) and not WEP(passphrase). Once this little mistake was corrected I now had a network connection!!!
Great isn’t it? Not really - I did not have Internet access and after some little research discovered that Gutsy used ipV6 as default and of course hardly any wireless routers support ipV6 (another reason why ipV6 will fail). Disabling ipV6 solved this lack of Internet issue.
Unfortunately this is not the end of the story as I still get random disconnecting now. I think this may well be down to having a rubbish wireless adapter but it is still annoying and I am yet to find a permanent fix for this. I do however have a temporary solution for when a disconnection occurs:
- Remove wireless adaptor
- Plug back in
- In the terminal type:
sudo modprobe -r ndiswrapper sudo modprobe ndiswrapper
- Reconnect
- Re-enter encryption
- It will connect and subsequently drop immediately
- Re-connect again and this time the connection holds!
Another really annoying issue that I have with the wireless Internet is that I cannot use more GMail account very well at all. Whenever I go on my account and try to send any sort of email the Internet connection always drops. Why? I have no idea and I am yet to find a solution for this so if anyone can help, please do.
Apart from this wireless Internet issue I am loving having Gutsy; it’s help me improve my knowledge of Linux and it is just pleasant to use. I am also in love with multiple desktops and how simple all the software is (and the fact it is free!).
Some of the features that I like can be seen below.
With a new release of KDE just out and a new version of Gnome coming out shortly I have to decide whether to try out Kubuntu running the new KDE or to hold out a little but longer and to get the next version of Ubuntu running the new version of Gnome.
(The Internet disconnected twice whilst creating this entry)
My new computer
I decided that my old Dell Inspirion 1000 was getting just a little bit too old these days so have bought some computer components and built my own desktop. Not real issues occurred except that I was one sata cable short which meant I couldn’t install an OS until I got a new one.
The spec is as follows (it was built on a budget, the original spec was going to cost me about £700):
- Corsair 2GB Kit (2×1GB) DDR2 800MHz/PC2-6400 XMS2 Memory
- Intel Core 2 Duo E4500 2.20GHz Socket 775 800FSB 2MB Cache
- Seagate ST3250310AS 250GB Hard Drive SATAII 7200rpm 8MB Cache
- MSI P35 Neo-F Socket 775 FSB1333 onboard 8 channel audio ATX Motherboard
- NEC Optiarc AD-7170S-0B 18x DVD±RW/DL/RAM Serial ATA Black
- GNR TS902W - Flat panel display - TFT - 19″ - widescreen - 1440 x 900 - 300 cd/m2 - 850:1 - 5 ms - 0.285 mm
- Antec Black NSK4480B ATX/MATX Mini Tower - With 380W EarthWatts PSU
- MSI 7300 256MB GDDR2 (512MB TurboCache) DVI VGA TVO PCI-E Graphics Card
The system is currently running Ubuntu but I am contemplating putting on either OS X Tiger or Leopard - maybe just as an experiment rather than the main OS.
I am also currently having issues finding the correct drivers for my wireless adaptor (got to love Linux), so if anyone has the driver for BT Voyager 1010 wireless adaptor please contact me (yes I know it is old and is only 802.11b but don’t have any money for a new one!!).
