The Outside - English

ASCAP backlash

mjr@iki.fi (Mikko Rauhala) — Sat, 26 Jun 2010 19:32:00 +0300

Several ASCAP members who apparently choose to forgo their titular responsibility of wearing their asses for hats have voiced their disgust (and lesser protests) on the organization's recent attack on the EFF, Creative Commons and Public Knowledge

'course, by "several" I mean a nice start, but one would really hope for much more of the creative people involved to realize just how much damage their so-called representation is doing to their chosen professions, and demand they put a stop to it. Sadly, I don't think that'll happen all too soon; many of them seem to have been pretty much brainwashed by the industry to thing that "strong" (ie. oppressive) copyright is what's keeping them paid.

No, people, it's not. It's the public's demand for your work, and their willingness to support it. Don't destroy your audience base by pretending that all that matters is that you get paid for each glance at or earful of the results of your work, no matter how hard you have to stomp on your fans. You just might get your wish, and end up with nothing.

I am the Wahlroos

mjr@iki.fi (Mikko Rauhala) — Thu, 17 Jun 2010 23:22:00 +0300

I don't really have much to say on Wahlroos dissing students and the Finnish student support system. But it thing did inspire me to cobble together this memetic image for my humor page. Hope it amuses.

Web video controversy summarized

mjr@iki.fi (Mikko Rauhala) — Sun, 07 Feb 2010 16:10:00 +0200

This'll be the last, definitive article from me on this subject for a while, I promise, but I wrote such a good summary on the Theora/H.264 controversy and the new Silverlight Theora player on Slashdot that I must put it up here as well (with some tweaks and updates).

1) The main point of the Silverlight player is that you can now relatively easily deploy Web video in Theora without sacrificing much potential user base. Firefox and Chrome users are covered, and Opera will be, but especially Internet Explorer is an important holdout (Safari also lacks support, but see below).
1a) It might not yet come preinstalled with the Internet Explorer, at least all versions, but MS is actively pushing Silverlight on Windows users, so the installed base is already fairly large and growing.
1b) There is Silverlight for MacOS X as well, though it's being pushed less. Mac OS X does include Java support out of the box though so the pre-existing Cortado player can be used as a fallback for Safari users there.
1c) One might not like the proprietary nature of the Silverlight framework much, but in this case it's clearly being used for good, to enable the use of another free technology.

2) No, H.264 won't die a gruesome death now at the hands of Theora.
2a) Yes yes, we all know H.264 is better technically, it doesn't matter, it still can't be a common baseline Web codec because it cannot be freely used.
2b) Though Theora doesn't offer the best in quality per bit, you can make the quality of any codec better by using more bits. Bits are only going to get cheaper. H.264 can get much more expensive at the whim of the MPEG-LA, even if you don't put a price tag on freedom.
2c) Yes, some industry players, especially those with vested interest in the MPEG-LA racket and in excluding smaller competitors, will almost certainly use H.264 on the web for a long time to come.
2d) Isn't it nice though that a widely deployable option exists that probably has already played a hand in how much money the MPEG-LA can squeeze from you if you do decide to go with H.264 anyway?

3) H.264 isn't as unified as you might think.
3a) Much of the material on the web incidentally doesn't use the very advanced features of H.264, because many players are limited in what profile or subset of H.264 they support (thus also reducing the quality advantage to Theora).
3b) Some material (like HD offerings and pirated stuff that cares neither for copyrights or patents) will use more of the bells and whistles, but then you may well be stuck with having to transcode for your mobile player even if everything does "H.264".
3c) Such conversions can be relatively well automated when needed while keeping the original not to incur generation loss (though improvement in user-friendly tools is always called for). Some need for transcoding persisting thus isn't a huge deal in either case, except of course to the extent that working with H.264 without a license might be illegal depending on jurisdiction and circumstance.

4) Yep, not much "hardware" (DSP) decoding support for Theora at this point on mobile devices.
4a) Modern mobile devices have enough oomph to decode it anyway in small resolutions that usually suffice for mobile use (Theora is lighter than H.264, too). Depending on device, might not be able to sneak in a sufficiently performant player as transparently as on a desktop browser, though; may require user installation of software.
4b) Yes, battery life will probably suffer somewhat from having to decode on the CPU, but that doesn't make it useless.
4c) Some DSP work has already been done on Theora, though it can use some improvement (and support for more DSPs). The user would probably have to install it separately in the short term as well.
4d) Mobile device vendors may well be inclined to include such support out of the box, though, if Theora use becomes more common through the already existing deployability improvements. Especially if they get a free web browser in the deal as well: Fennec, Mozilla's mobile version of Firefox, [update] has apparently been released at least on Nokia's Maemo platform. (In fact, Mozilla has sponsored the above Theora DSP work with Fennec and mobile devices in mind.)

Hope this summary will clarify things somewhat.

Harmitonta huvia vai järjestäytynyttä rikollisuutta?

mjr@iki.fi (Mikko Rauhala) — Sun, 31 Jan 2010 18:35:00 +0200

(English summary at end.)

Yhteisöpalvelu Facebookin uusin trendi on Doppelgänger Week (kaksoisolentoviikko). Meemitartunnan saaneet käyttäjät vaihtavat Facebook-profiilikuvakseen jonkin julkisuuden henkilön, jota heidän on sanottu muistuttavan. Monien verkkomeemien tapaan osallistujat tyypillisesti myös kehottavat kavereitaan mukaan.

Harmitonta yhteisöllistä huvia, muttei erityisen uutisoinnin arvoista, eikö vain?

Piraattinäkökulmasta huomiota kiinnittää kuitenkin laajan suosion saaneen kampanjan synkempi todellinen luonne: kyseessähän on suuren luokan masinoitu tekijänoikeusrikkomuskampanja, jossa varmasti tuhansia teoksia ladataan Facebookiin tekijänoikeuslakia ja palvelun omia käyttöehtoja rikkoen. Yllytysaspekti vain pahentaa asiaa.

Tapaus kuvastaa oivasti yleisen oikeustajun ja tekijänoikeuslakien välistä yhä syvenevää juopaa ja alleviivaa aivan tavallisten ihmisten rikkovan lakeja rutiininomaisesti jokapäiväisessä elämässään. Ketäänhän tästä tuskin saatetaan oikeuden eteen, mutta yhteiskunta, jonka lakeja kaikki rikkovat, on perusoikeudellisesti epävakaa. Kun kenen tahansa vaikeuksiin saattamiseen löytyy laillinen tekosyy, voidaan tuomittavat syntipukit valita näppärästi vaikkapa pärstäkertoimen mukaan.

Vai ollaanko reiluja ja laitetaan kaikki kaksoisolentoviikon osallistujat maksamaan viekkaudella ja vääryydellä hankitusta huvituksestaan?

English summary: The Doppelgänger Week on Facebook is a cleary huge ploy to violate copyrights and incite the violation thereof on a massive scale. The incident highlights the rift between oppressive copyright legislation and the routine daily lives of normal people who see nothing wrong with having a bit of fun.

Indeed, a society where lawbreaking is rampant is unstable with respect to basic human rights; when everybody breaks the law, just about anyone can be legally made a scapegoat and gotten in trouble for not liking their face if nothing else.

Or should we be fair and make all of the Doppelgänger Week participants pay for their ill-begotten fun?

HTML5 ja H.264: Web-videon kohtalonvuodet

mjr@iki.fi (Mikko Rauhala) — Tue, 26 Jan 2010 20:08:00 +0200

Palaanpa lyhyesti viime kirjoituksessanikin sivuamaani web-videoaiheeseen, kun kerran Chistopher Blizzard, mm. suosittua Firefox-selainta valmistavan Mozilla Corporationin evankelista kirjoitteli aiheesta hyvän blogiartikkelin.

Oleellisesti tiivistäen: H.264 on, vaikkakin teknisesti hyvä ja laajalti käytetty, myös WWW:n tulevaisuudelle myrkyllinen videoformaatti. Jossain määrin GIF:lle ja MP3:lle verrannolliseen tapaan sitä tarjotaan nyt hyvänä ja joillain mittareilla ehkä jopa edullisena ratkaisuna videokoodaukseen, mutta lisenssiehdot vaihtuvat vuosittain. Kun maailma on saatu koukutettua formaattiin, maksuja voidaan ruveta vaatimaan yhä laajemmalta joukolta käyttäjiä ja koko ajan suurempina — ensimmäinen annos ilmaiseksi tai ainakin halvalla, siis. Ohjelmistopatentit ovat pohjimmiltaan syypää siihen, että tällaista edistystä hidastavaa ja yhteiskunnallisesti kalliiksi käyvää toimintaa voidaan ylipäätään harrastaa, mutta toistaiseksi lainsäätäjät ja lakeja luovasti tulkitsevat virkamiehet eivät ole vielä järkiintyneet.

H.264-videolla on jo vahva asema (myös ongelmallisella) Flashilla toteutetussa videossa. HTML5 tuo suorine videotukineen kuitenkin potentiaalia muutokseen: asioita täytyy nyt miettiä muutenkin uusiksi. Valitettavasti suuryrityksillä (kuten Microsoft, Apple ja Nokia) on intressi sulkea pienempiä kilpailijoita markkinoilta tai ainakin kerätä kaikilta visuaalisilta verkkotoimijoilta suojelurahat pois, joten HTML5:een ei saatu teknisesti huonompaa mutta avointa Theoraa yhteiseksi perustason kodekiksi. Muutama selain, Firefox etunenässä, ovat kuitenkin Theora-leirissä, kun taas isot suljetut softatalot kannattanevat lähinnä H.264:a. Nähtäväksi jää, millaiseksi tilanne muodostuu lähitulevaisuudessa; varmaa on, että jos avoimet vaihtoehdot katoavat kokonaan kilpailussa, Web-videosta tulee kallista toimintaa.

Eräs mielenkiintoinen spekulaationaihe on Googlen hiljattainen yritysosto: On2 Technologies, jonka aiempiin tuotoksiin Theorakin perustuu. On2:n nykyinen videoteknologia on Theoraa kehittyneempää, ja moni Web-videosta kiinnostunut miettiikin, josko Google olisi valmistautumassa toimimaan avointa Webiä tukevien lausuntojensa mukaisesti ja julkaisemaan On2:n teknologian vapaaseen käyttöön. Patenttiviidakko toki vaikeuttaisi tämän yrittämistäkään — saattaisi vaatia huomattavaa työtä varmistaa, ettei lopputuote rikkoisi muiden mittavia videopatenttisalkkuja tai ainakaan niiden tunnetuimpia osia. (Theorastakin pyritään levittämään tällaista pelkoa — patentteja on niin paljon ja ne ovat niin epäselviä, että on käytännössä mahdotonta varmuudella sanoa mistään teknologiasta, ettei se mitään niistä riko.)

Jos kuitenkin on ylipäätään joku, jolla olisi muskelia tehdä tämä siirto, se on Google. Julkaisemalla oma edistynyt vapaa kodekki ja siirtymällä vaiheittain sen käyttöön Google käytännössä pakottaisi muut teollistoimijat mukaan — vapaat projektit toteuttaisivat tuen varmasti mielellään, ja Googlen suosittujen palvelujen kuten Youtube paino motivoisi suljettujakin toimijoita mukaan.

Tämä reportteri toivottaisi uudet videoyliherramme tervetulleeksi, mutta onko Googlella tähän munaa ja ennen kaikkea lopulta edes motivaatiota? Vain aika näyttää.

English summary: Well, read the excellent article by Mozilla's Christopher Blizzard if you're at all interested in the situation of video on the World Wide Web, and everyone's freedom to communicate visually therein.

HD media decoding, now with slightly more freedom

mjr@iki.fi (Mikko Rauhala) — Thu, 31 Dec 2009 01:50:00 +0200

Thought it'd be a good time for a tech article for a change, what with Broadcom being unusually free software friendly. Their track record with that is not very good at least with their WLAN and GPS chips, you see, people generally having to reverse-engineer drivers for their stuff if they want to use it in a free system.

But now, it seems that Crimbo spirit has overcome at least the Broadcom Media PC Group. With co-operation from the XBMC media center project and the GNU/Linux distributor Red Hat, Broadcom has published Linux drivers for their Crystal HD video decoder chips under the GPL (kernel driver) and LGPL (library and application code). The chip can decode the most relevant mainstream video formats — MPEG-2, H.264 and VC-1 — in full HD, and quite a bit more efficiently than a general purpose processor. This makes Crystal HD attractive for use especially in small media center PCs as well as portable computers, where you can't or don't want to have the fastest possible main processor because of power consumption, cooling and price concerns.

Of course, this does not necessarily imply that Broadcom in general is becoming more open — big companies do tend to have different policies in different branches, pretty much on a boss-by-boss as well as a case-by-case basis. Still, the contribution is real, and especially tangible given that the only well-working option for accelerated video playback on GNU/Linux thus far has been Nvidia's VDPAU — requiring both an Nvidia graphics card and their proprietary drivers.

This release is a complete gamechanger in the GNU/Linux HD media playback market. The Crystal HD doesn't care what graphics chip you have in your computer, so if you so desire, you can take your business to Intel or ATI/AMD — both more supportive of free software drivers than Nvidia, but behind on the video acceleration front — or whoever. No longer is the choice between a high-powered computer or a low-powered computer with an Nvidia card with its proprietary driver; you can just pick almost any low-end box you like as long as it has a suitable card slot available.

As for the costs, apparently there are mini-PCI-e cards on eBay starting at ~$22, which is next to nothing when you consider that the rest of the PC can then be quite a bit less powerful and still be able to run your videos. Only mini-PCI-e versions are available at this time, suitable for some small form factor desktops (often preferred for media center PCs) and laptops. Any such slot especially in a laptop may already contain say, a Wifi card, though, which you often don't really want to remove. ExpressCard (suitable for many laptops without the above caveat nor the need to open the case for installation) and full-sized PCI-e (suitable for common desktop PCs) versions are on their way.

Now, having hyped this thing to high heaven, as a free software advocate I'll have to mention a slight blemish on the release as well. The Crystal HD firmware (the software running on the decoder chip itself) will remain non-free. This is hardly a surprise; proprietary firmware is common across all kinds of devices even when the manufacturers provide free drivers and/or technical information to driver writers. I mostly just mention this not to lull people into thinking that the release is some sort of panacea; it's not. But it is as good as things usually get in these times, which is not too shabby.

As another obligatory side complaint, the video formats in question are patent-encumbered in large parts of the world, and thus under the control of media patent holder cartels. Fact remains, however, that almost all HD video and a huge portion of the lesser stuff is and will be in these formats for the foreseeable future, and being able to watch some of it is a good thing.

One does still hope that the technically worse but free Theora gains some ground at least in the web video scene. Some steps towards it have been taken; Theora is out of the box supported on at least Mozilla Firefox (3.5 and up), has at least experimental branch support in Opera, and though it's unclear to me at this point, it seemed like the Google Chrome browser was getting support as well.

Of course, companies such as Microsoft, Apple and Nokia are not likely to support any technologies that would give smaller competitors a level playing field; a free market is something these players loathe. As a workaround, there is a Java player and possibility of a future Flash player to leverage Theora also on less co-operative browsers, which would be important for wider website adoption. As far as they go, at least some noncommercial efforts such as Wikimedia Commons use Theora precisely due to its freedom, and for your vlogging needs eg. blip.tv will deal in Theora as well as other formats.

Yes, I got sidetracked there for a moment; seems I can't very well write about video formats without lamenting the current cartels having control of much of our multimedia infrastructure. Regardless, Broadcom's product does crack open some doors that were once closed to free software, even if it doesn't quite go ahead and blow said doors off from their hinges. Kudos to them for that much, at least.

WikiReader - OpenMoko's fighting chance

mjr@iki.fi (Mikko Rauhala) — Tue, 13 Oct 2009 14:28:00 +0300

It seems OpenMoko is back with their mysterious Project B. After the Freerunner, still the one and only free software mobile phone, didn't do quite as well as was hoped, they apparently needed to do a smaller project to hopefully bolster their viability as a company. They were quite quiet about what exactly this project was, until now.

Introducing the WikiReader: a small Wikipedia-in-your-pocket with your basic sunlight-readable screen and an offline copy of Wikipedia (updatable via a memory card either by physical subscription or free downloads). The device is designed to be very low on power consuption, and it is claimed to operate for up to a year of "typical use" on two standard AAA batteries (rechargeable ones are usable, but not provided). Wikipedia seems to be somewhat involved or at least friendly to the project (and why not, if it's a way to improve their reach).

The WikiReader is said to use free software and the source is to be released "later today", though it's not made clear if the software on the device can actually be user-altered. What with the statement on the source being under the heading "Developer Support" and OpenMoko's history of being quite open, I'd expect so, so perhaps the device will see some third party applications as well. The lack of connectivity and low specs would obviously limit the potential, though.

Even without altering the software itself, the device could presumably be used for a low-budget E-book reader through custom card images, though one should not expect the same experience as with the larger and more expensive e-ink based devices.

Personally, I'm not too interested; I carry a connected laptop around anyway, so I'm not perhaps very representative of their target market. I do wish OpenMoko well in finding a large enough interested niche to be able to continue their work on open hardware; maybe even get back into the phone business, now with some more experience under the belt.

N900 - historic turning point or business as usual?

mjr@iki.fi (Mikko Rauhala) — Thu, 03 Sep 2009 15:18:00 +0300

I suppose I'm gonna have to comment on the upcoming Nokia N900 internet tablet slash phone. The N900 is a GNU/Linux based smartphone, but despite some hype, apparently not a very free one.

Some components whose drivers have been proprietary in Nokia's previous tablets (such as wlan) do seem to be more open this time around, however, this does not by any means apply to all of it, and reportedly even the userspace phone stack is proprietary at least for the time being.

A special mention should be reserved for the PowerVR graphics processor in the device; it provides 3D acceleration, but with a quite proprietary driver. This is a more general problem though, since in the embedded GPU space there pretty much aren't any open alternatives. See also my more elaborate comment on the above-mentioned hype article (which I, as well as many others, have heavily commented on otherwise as well).

Fact remains, that using the opening words of the article itself, this is not a historic event for free software lovers. This is merely business as usual; a company making a largely proprietary Linux-using phone.

The actual historic turning point of mobile computing for freedom-lovers was the launch of the OpenMoko project; even if its success has been ... limited and the road rocky. Though the company seems to be quite on the rough, at least it's a honest effort at a free phone, and it did manage to spur some community development around the subject.

The Neo Freerunner is still sold, even if it has its issues especially on the power saving front (in practice you'll want to charge it daily, though you can somewhat improve it with a hardware fix, which as hardware fixes go is relatively simple but nevertheless requires physical tinkering). There is also decently working phone software for it — and free software, at that. There is even a community project to refine and slightly update the Freerunner hardware design.

This is what the true revolution in mobile computing is about, even if its profile is still low and reach limited. We'll see how things go from here.

Total Eclipse of the Fun

mjr@iki.fi (Mikko Rauhala) — Tue, 25 Aug 2009 22:02:00 +0300

Recently, I've been watching some nifty literal music videos, which are parodies of existing music videos. The gag is that the songs are rewritten with new lyrics that comment on the actual video footage.

One especially popular video was a rendition of Total Eclipse of the Heart, which you could find on Youtube here. Of course, you can't find it there anymore; it's been removed due to a copyright claims. Also several other literal videos have suffered the same fate.

Suppressing this kind of parodies is not generally thought of the point of copyright, but such conduct naturally arises from the oppressive regime regardless. The media industry indeed wants to take away both our money and our civil rights, but their sinister agenda goes even further than this: They also want to take our fun away from us.

So without further ado, here's what they don't want you to have a good time watching and listening to: the Total Eclipse of the Heart literal music video.

I guess that means I just flipped them the bird. Douchebags.

Back from hiatus

mjr@iki.fi (Mikko Rauhala) — Wed, 24 Jun 2009 01:33:00 +0300

Took a little personal time off from this blog.

Well, actually, it just kinda happened as I was low on energy, what with several political talks and meetups going on in the last weeks. There was an ACTA mini-conference at the Finnish parliament, which I attended as a part of the Pirate Party delegation. There wasn't much news, but at least we got to keep a presence and do some networking. And then there was the official assembly of the Pirate Party where we mostly went through formalities, following the more unofficial get-together with games, food and sauna. I didn't attend the sauna due to tiredness and a scheduled sauna the next day after gym, but I can only imagine they made all the important decisions there as is usual in Finnish politics.

Other things that have kept me away from ranting here include tiny matters such as buying a new home (or half of one, anyhow); the papers were signed today. It's right across the street from our present one, so moving will probably not be very cumbersome. It's a nice four-room and a kitchen, and for a decent price as well (as they often are these days). My mother-in-law is probably moving to our current apartment (which my wife owns), probably keeping it in shape a bit and happy to pay rent since it stays in the family. And of course, time permitting, she'll be a handy nearby slave for us. If all goes well, we'll be moving at the start of August (and by going well I mean that the current tenants have moved out as scheduled and there aren't any surprises that'd delay our move).

I'll be getting an extended summer holiday real soon now, hopefully recooperating sufficiently to start making timely blog posts again. As always, sidebar blogs and news sites recommended in the meantime.

Finally, in meta matters, I created two new categories for your convenience: Finnish and English. Posts will be tagged with either if they contain at least a summary in the relevant language (though I'll probably continue mostly making single language posts). So, non-Finnish speakers, feel free to subscribe to the English-only RSS feed or something if you couldn't care less about what I'm blathering to the local audience. Note: Apparently the addition of language categories has caused the old articles to look brand-spanking-new in the RSS feeds. Sorry about that.

Joo eli nykyään on sit erikseen tägit English (englanti) ja Finnish (suomi), jos vaikka haluupi seurata vain artikkeleita joissa on (ainakin) yhteenveto ko. kielellä. Yleensä kyllä yksikielisiä harrastanen vastakin. (Eli en tällaisia joissa on sairaasti englantia ja sitten pari riviä suomea.) Huom: Vissiin kielitägien lisäys sai kaikki artikkelit näyttämään feedeissä uusilta ja säihkyviltä. Sori.

Patent trolls considered useful

mjr@iki.fi (Mikko Rauhala) — Fri, 05 Jun 2009 04:57:00 +0300

Okay, so everyone who's any competent in the software industry loathes software patents, medical patents kill people, and patents even delayed the industrial revolution for decades by keeping steam engines primitive and prices high. The two professions that benefit are of course patent lawyers and government officials (both patent and antitrust ones), as they get to more effectively leech off of the rest of society who are trying to get useful work done. As expected, these leeches are also the first to get their input heard in making new patent law.

And then there's patent trolls, the companies that don't actually do anything except generate and/or acquire patents and sue other companies for infringement, usually expecting the victim to pay them off rather than fighting a long-winded court battle which might end up with absurd "damages" awards. Everybody hates those no-good low-lives, right?

Wrong. Well, at least for the no-good part. Hating the low-lives I can dig.

I've come to the perhaps slightly counterintuitive conclusion that patent trolls are just what the doctor ordered for this sick society of ours. They're the chemo to the patent cancer. The medicine is certainly nasty enough, but if it kills the disease before the patient, it's all good in the long run, right? As with cancer, there are other factors and treatments that may also be required, but here's why patent trolls have good potential as a significant causal agent to the eradication of patents:

Patent trolls like to fuck the big players. The bigger they are, the deeper their pockets. Hell, they're the only ones that can fuck the big players. Since they don't do anything useful themselves, they can't be countersued for patent infringement, nor can a MAD cross-licensing deal be negotiated as is usual between industry heavyweights.

Thus I hope that patent trolls become even more plentiful than they already are, so much so that they can severely damage the ability of large corporations to do business. Given the premise, the latter might just have to cry "uncle" and reverse their patent lobbying stances, otherwise facing the fate of the dinosaurs.

Now, there is the danger that the industry lobbyists will manage somehow to outlaw patent trolls while keeping practicing industry companies able to harass others with patents. I think that might be a hard sell, though, what with the patent troll lawyers lamenting the imaginary poor basement inventor no longer being able to profit from his idea by selling the patent to them. Of course, they'll defend the patent system as a whole while they're at it, but they won't be able to cover up its economic damage forever.

Also, the trolls may realize this and limit their activities, but I think that unlikely as well. It's the comedy of the commons; no single troll has incentive to limit their extortion racket. And with the mentality being to make a quick buck or two billion, I don't think the future sustainability of the business is a prime concern. Hell, they may realize themselves that they have no long-term future, so better loot all you can while you can.

'course, trolls will harass small to mid-size businesses as well, but those are already victims in the patent regime anyway. Trolls are not required, the large companies can and do extort these targets quite gladly themselves. There may be some extra burden to bear, but that's the chemo side effects. It'll feel better in a few years. I promise. *crosses fingers*

Moving the Outside

mjr@iki.fi (Mikko Rauhala) — Tue, 21 Apr 2009 21:33:12 +0300

The canonical URL of this blog is hereby changed to http://rauhala.org/blog/ for easier to remember access. The root of http://rauhala.org/ will also redirect to this blog, and thus the short informal form "rauhala.org" may also be used to refer people here. The old addresses will redirect to the appropriate page on this site indefinitely.

The root may, on occasion, not redirect to this blog but rather display or redirect to something more current, such as my inevitable election campaign pages. This blog will be prominently featured in the root regardless.

Elikkä ollaan nykyvään rauhala.org noin lyhyesti ja heleposti. Kanoninen osoite on http://rauhala.org/blog/, joskin etusivultakin ohjautuu tänne silloin kun se ei satu olemaan varattu esmes väistämättömille vaalikampanjasivuille (joilta kyllä myös pääsee tännekin heleposti sitte ku niin sattuu käymään). Vanhatki osoitteet toimivatten yhä.

The Pirate Bay loses, pirates win

mjr@iki.fi (Mikko Rauhala) — Fri, 17 Apr 2009 14:34:00 +0300

Righto, the Pirate Bay people have lost the first round of their trials to come. On the whole, this isn't surprising.

What is somewhat surprising is the severeness of the penalties in the face of very lacking evidence of any losses to the industry or active Pirate Bay involvement in the very specific charges. Jail for a year? Over 3.5 million dollars in penalties? For what? Aiding and abetting hypothetical activities that the prosecutor and the plaintiffs, in their incompetence, were unable to prove had anything to do with the Pirate Bay, let alone that anyone suffered from them? This is US-style justice in its finest, and the US, of course, has laid political pressure on Sweden from the get-go. The Swedish government might just have passed this pressure along to the court.

What is the evidence of that, you ask? Nothing as of now. However, given that the whole case was initiated due to unconstitutional government pressure towards the judicial system (which caused some uproar in Sweden) to begin with, the Swedish government clearly isn't above such underhanded measures. On the other hand, simply supposing the court was incompetent is a valid and likely explanation as well, so take your pick.

More surprising is that Carl Lundström, a businessman who merely provided ISP services to the site, was convicted along with the rest of them. It almost seems as if the court was also under pressure to convict someone with actual money to pay the extortionists. The four received identical sentences too, because they "worked as a team". Not too much thinking on the quite different positions of some of the defendants on the part of the esteemed court... Still, here as well either corruption or incompetence works as an explanation.

Anyway, this should improve the Swedish Pirate Party's chances in the EU parliamentary elections quite a bit this summer, so thanks to the court for that at least. Let's hope it pans out.

The case itself, on the other hand, will be dragged out through the whole appeals process, possibly including the European Court of Justice, pretty much regardless of who wins what round. This farce of a trial will thus entertain us and keep piracy at least intermittently in the news for years to come.

Hopefully justice will prevail in the end, but I'm not overly confident about it. In the grand scheme of things, however, the pirate movement will simply gain a few very prominent martyrs if it doesn't.

ACTA: Anti-Citizenry Totalitarianism Agreement

mjr@iki.fi (Mikko Rauhala) — Mon, 13 Apr 2009 02:22:00 +0300

And so it came to pass that a leaked draft of the controversial ACTA treaty on stifling free trade and stomping on civil liberties and the democratic process incites me sufficiently to rant on this fine weekend a bit, despite my earlier intentions to take it easy.

In case you were unaware, ACTA tries to subvert the democratic process by being negotiated in secrecy between several large (meta-)governments and sprung upon the unsuspecting populace only after its signing, at which point local parliaments will have the choice to make their countries ACTA's bitches or face penalties. This avoids pesky citizen participation in the process of creating our own laws, even in the form of public scrutiny and criticism. What would those lead us to, democracy? One shudders at the thought. (Really, one does, but one shudders at corporate rule even more.)

I shall keep it somewhat short, however, as IP Justice have already done a more thorough study of what has been known of ACTA even before. Also, there's just so much wrong with it that it'd take all week to write it up, so I will just concentrate on one particular issue:

Page 44 onwards (going by the leaked PDF page numbers) specifies that for activities that include "significant willful copyright or related rights infringements that have no direct or indirect motivation of financial gain" (emphasis added) the signatories should impose criminal "penalties that include sentences of imprisonment as well as monetary fines" and "forfeiture and/or destruction of materials and implements that have been used in the creation of [...] pirated copyright goods".

What's significant? In one study, students had on the average around 800 illegal music files on their portable players (conservatively, I presume the sample consists of students who have a player). And that's not even going into all the movies and series episodes many of them will probably load up, watch, keep some and delete most.

While I don't know what will be seen as "significant", the media mafia will sure make an honest effort to push the bar so low that it'd be a worthy challenge in the World Championship of Limbo. Hell, even I think the above infringement is "significant" by a reasonable interpretation of the word, but of course, I think in a sane world you wouldn't get into trouble for it regardless.

This is just conjecture, but based on the track record of ever more imposing copyright laws and their strict practical interpretations, if the current draft text on this matter goes through, the world will be full of copyright criminals. Not just wussy civil infringers like now, but criminals. As in "people who really do commit criminal offenses". And I will proudly be one of them.

To go all apocalyptic on you, this really heralds that the end times are nearer than even I expected. This kind of lawmaking is blatantly corrupt, and these kinds of laws simply cannot exist and be enforced in this reality. Thus I say unto you: if the ACTA passes provisions of this kind, and countries take them up into their own legislations, there will be a backlash. I don't know if it'll be the definitive backlash to erase these corrupt and monopolistic laws altogether, or a smaller, temporary push back, but there will be one.

And I will proudly be a part of it.

Even if it's just the smaller one. Which is likely. For now.

Cold feet

mjr@iki.fi (Mikko Rauhala) — Sat, 11 Apr 2009 01:32:00 +0300

This entry contains bitching of a medical nature, but as you can see from me writing it, I'm still alive, so don't panic while reading.

So yeah, I got this pain in my leg last week and after two days, decided to go check it out at a doctor since it was getting rather bad, and similar to my earlier pain when I had a clot on the other leg. (That one by the way came from lying around after surgery, not from out of the blue like this pain. It also responded well to medication and is ancient history.)

I get to my hospital (it's a Sunday at this point, so lesser public options aren't open), queue for a couple of hours and a half, get to a doc, he sends me to blood tests, I wait some more, give the blood, wait some more, get back to the doc (I might pay for a private healthcare provider next time what with all the waiting, we'll see). The doc says yeah, it's a clot, gives me sick leave until the end of month, shoves me out (he was no-nonsense, which is good when you have a large queue of people waiting for service). I go get my prescribed shot of blood-thinners and an appointment for an ultrasound on Monday for confirmation (they don't do that on Sundays).

I get home, am feeling a bit better that at least the problem was found and is being treated. Come Monday, they don't find a thing wrong with my leg in the ultrasound (besides it still hurting like hell). Ah well, at least it's not a clot; likely options don't seem to be as serious, so okay, but I get an appointment at my work healthcare provider on Tuesday to check out what it actually might be (the work healthcare doesn't include weekend appointments, in case you wonder; I would pay out of my own pocket, though the government would subsidize it a bit).

Anyway, I get to the doc and explain about the situation and the earlier results. He says it's likely some random muscular pain from cramps or such, orders up some more bloodwork just in case and gives me painkillers.

Come next morning, 8 o'clock, the doc calls me up and wants me to get a second ultrasound to be sure since my bloodwork was still way funky. I manage to get a timely appointment at the company's office in a neighbouring municipality; "soon" wasn't on the agenda in the more local offices. So, off I go again to be seen through, and as you might guess, there was nothing wrong with the blood vessels. This time the ultra-doc does mention some old blood leakage hanging around the muscle tissue as if there had been some spasming going on (no shit?), but that this wasn't anything to worry about. Also, the pain has subsided somewhat at this point, the ultra-poking didn't hurt nearly as much as expected.

So my leg's been cleared of a clot twice this week, and is actually steadily improving. Now, there's still the matter of the somewhat elevated levels of clotting factors in my blood, but the ultra-doc said those might be up for other reasons, like if there was an infection or something. (The bloodwork did show elevated levels of white blood cells and some other infection indicator as well, so yeah, okay, I'll buy that for now.)

I have a control appointment after Easter to check the progress (probably with more bloodwork), but it seems I'm somewhat likely to return to work during, not after, this month. Knocks on head.

I do feel a bit fluish though (maybe that's the infection...). This did actually overworry me slightly for there being perhaps a small embolism in the lungs for some reason, but having the obvious "clot moved from clotted leg to lung" reason debunked doesn't really give that worry much of a leg to stand on, ha-ha. A hypocondriac as I am, of course I mentioned it to the doc anyway, but he rightly didn't bite. And no, I haven't actually felt out of breath. Knocks on head again.

So yeah, I've had a fun week.

Societal stuff? Yeah, things have been happening. See the sidebar guys for now, though, as I am a bit tired. For the Finns, Effi, Piraattiliitto and the Pirate Party blog have some nifty tidbits as usual, and for the imaginary non-Finn, there's an entry also in English about the botched Finnish e-voting incident having to be redone over at Effi's.

As for me, unless there's a sudden outburst of sanity all over the world, I'm taking a break over Easter. (Or, you know, if something pisses me off enough for me to positively have to vent. Whichever comes first.)