A fast comment on piracy

Lately several people have mentioned that the failing music industry/artists should get slice of the monthly fee of Internet subscription, in a similar way that the industry gets money from empty VHS- and C-tapes and CD- and DVD-ROMs.
I had some troubles with this - particularly with the last one - I know I downloaded lots of questionable material on CD's back on the day, but today most CD-R's and DVD-R's of mine are full of photos, game-saves and other things I wouldn't hesitate to show to police. Mostly because the actual questionable material can safely be stored on hard drives and deleted after use. And then downloaded again, if need be.

Yeah, I'm not really making much of a case against, now aren't I? Well, this is the punchline;

When people talk of Internet, piracy and monthly compensation, how do we divide the money between the right parties? I mean, the number one legal way of using Internet is to browse web pages - why don't they get a share? What about porn? I have a feeling that porn is at least as big part of the traffic as Hollywood-movies or music from the big cartels.

Instead of trying to keep their stuff illegal, they could try to develop ways to get money out of Internet legally - for the U2 manager even iTunes was piracy against artist*. Radio seems to have worked well for the industry for decades. Over the past ten years, the music industry has done everything it could to shoot net radios down with fees that far outweight their income.

I'm not saying I'm opposed to subscrition system (I would be happy to get the whole copyright question sorted out, so we could concentrate on some real questions) - I just think that paying one group of people who claim their property is shared illegally isn't very good while people who provide their stuff for free on Internet get nothing - nor does game, film, porn or software industry. In the worst case scenario, each of them will be knocking at the door for their own $5. And in the best case scenario -- well, that's just fucking lazy, innit? If I were to forget a keg of beer at busy junction and then notice it empty afterward, I can't really ask the police to take $5 from every person in the neighbourhood who has alcohol on his breath. Or everyone else (he might have just hidden it for later consumption!).

Advertisements work as a model for webpages, for flash, blogs, even amateurish doodles - the Swedish procecutor is claiming that the owners of Piracy Bay are raking millions (YouTube certainly does) and Last.fm is doing fairly well as far as I know.

And the music industry is saying that they, armed with the best artists in the world can't do as well as a 14 year old kid with a pen and a scanner?

And if not advertisements, then maybe subscription -capitalistically chosen between competing alternatives, mind you... or just a dollar per song. I understand it's working very well. 2007 was -again- a record year for digital music transactions.

*and I bet he doesn't mean the fact that the artist gets 5 cents of the dollar, because the rest goes to printing and spreading the CDs. And of course manager will take his 20% out of that 5 cents as well. Plus taxes.

References; U2 manager blames Microsoft et al, Canadian songwriters propose legal music sharing, Music-industry tries carrot after years of stick, Internet radio may face crippling fees, Digital sales up worldwide.

Average IQ of nations

Found this map somewhere, didn't believe it and found it uploaded at Wikipedia. However, I have not been able to find the source for this map. I understand it's based on some tests or something.

I find it quite interesting that the IQ seems to change by zones - would think there would be difference between Israel and surrounding nations, or some difference between North and South America.

Why should this be so? I don't really think about correlations between race and nation (heck, aren't Australians and Canadians mostly mostly from Britain, with some Chinese and Japanese thrown in for spiciness?) but something sure looks wacky.

What I bought and did I like it and what next?

I wrote this one and half years ago. Go on, take a look, I'll wait.

Done? OK. I have pretty much done ("bought) everything in that list. Here's what I think of them today.

1. I bought a Gen5 iPod just before the price dropped over 100 euros. Depressed me a bit, but on the other hand, the product itself has worked for me like a charm. There are some problems with DRM and pulling music out of the instrument. I also wish for mini-USB port to replace the current non-standard one (makes charging the gadget or transferring files easier while visiting). Both of those needs are fairly small problems though, and seldom occur me. Maybe I have grown to live with them.
Since then, Apple has pushed new iPod nano's and iPod touches to market, but they don't really do anything to me. I hear the DRM has gone up and not down, even on the level of hardware. When the time leaves my player, I wonder with what I'm going to replace it with. All the competitors look so very plastic, and I feel a product should be both stylish and able. Most of the competitive things on the market are either/or.

2. Eyeglasses. Bought them, you can probably see them on the right. Heavier than my old frames (which date back to year 2001 or so) the new ones are more angular and look less "geekish". I wanted glasses that didn't seem to be shamed of themselves; my last glasses were almost round and seemed to say; "I need glasses, these should do". Now I wanted (and still want) glasses that say "even if my eyesight were perfect, I might still wear these". The glasses cost over 400 euros, as I recall. Partly because my eyesight is far from perfect, partly because glasses made from titanium alloy are not cheap.
I would really wish to own a second good-looking pair. As the EU has brought new competitors to the field, the price of optics has started to fall. I should be able to get glasses for little over 200 now. But this is really on the backburner. Not because of money, but because stores don't really carry a good collection of titanium frames.

3. I bought a laptop, a HP Pavilion. This was a difficult one, the technology was again going through a new paragrim shift, from 1024x800 to 1280x800, and from one core to dual core. The laptops had also started to move from necessary business tools and toys for geeks to "my personal, only computer" class. There was also a pressure to bring the prices down plus get the hardware ready for Vista. Back when I finally did the selection (October 2006) Vista was already late (and brought out four months later). The maker of the laptop was HP, but I notice myself thinking Sony (I seem to connect non-working pieces of shit with the company thanks to the MiniDisc).
To be fair, the computer doesn't really have one big fault that makes it unusable. More like a big selection of small problems that pile up and make the gadget annoying to use.

• The cover is plastic and looks good. However, it's not sturdy and doesn't protect the screen components on the inside. Thus my screen now has some colouring faults, particularly on the right side of the screen.
• The screen and keyboard don't open up to 180 degrees, but only to 140 or so. Perfectly OK if you use the computer on a table, but if support the PC on your legs, you can't get your eyes to the optimum angle.
• The volume, playback options and media buttons are touch-operated (and only work when the OS is running). This means that if you are booting your computer at a library or in some other HUSH-place, you can only turn the sounds off only after Windows has executed the quite loud TADAA!-sound.
• The loudspeakers seem to have interface, and sometimes emit metallic SCREECH-sound on the background. The maximum volume is barely over the "I can't hear you"-level.
  
• MovieDVD's etc. seem to have problems running. Also the (quite standard with all drives, I hear) regional coding with only five switches is quite annoying particularly as DVD's of other regions seem to wander in libraries etc. quite freely.
• Integrated graphics card seems to mean that all 3D-animation (as in games) comes with a half-second lag.
  
• Of the 80 GB hard drive, 15 GB is taken by the quite useless restore-partition.
  
• Naturally, HP is so cheap as not to ship the computer with DVD's, but makes you burn them yourself.
• If you HAVE to reinstall windows using the DVD, there is no chance of saving files on self-made other partitions, but the windows-installation starts with custom-made "wiping and redoing all partitions" function. Also quite common, I hear.
  

I would wish to buy a new one, but the current one isn't "that bad", only annoying. I can't justify using about 1000€ for something I don't currently even much need. Incidentally, HP is still using the upgraded Pavilion-design as it's flagship for consumer-laptops. Don't buy it.

4. 23" flat monitor. It was 22", it cost 300€ (because I didn't choose the cheapest model) and I'm very happy with it. I think I shouldn't have gone with plasma, but that's mostly because of the energy consumption, not because of the product itself.

5. I repaired the old electric grill my dad gave me (he got it as a wedding gift, and it was ready to garbage when I got it). After that it looked almost new and is good for another 25 years or so. It makes quite excellent toasts.

What then?
Like one and half years ago, I'm still wondering about TV's. I notice that the price of 42" Full HD has dropped to around 1200-1500€ (when year ago it was over 2500€ for HD Ready 40"). I can afford one now, but don't really have the space (or need) for one. Apart of television (and maybe console of some sort) there isn't really any consumer goods I would wish to have (I don't judge clothes, glasses or books/comics to be "consumer goods" as used in this post).
It does depress me a bit that after years of living comfortably with "after necessities, I have 50€ left for fun!" , I can safely ponder buying TVs without feeling too guilty about it... only to realize that TVs, like so many other consumer goods, aren't really for me. Half of the fun of thinking about these things was that they were so far outside your comfort-range. Like computer games that become boring after you learn how to use money-cheats or after defeating the Big Boss but still having option to wander the world.

I suppose that I'm not the only person in the world with this problem. Money doesn't get you happiness, and I never thought it would.. but I always thought that by the time I would get to this point (somehow I thought it would be later in life) I would have found something else to funnel time, interest and money to. Alas, this hasn't happened.

Q.E.D. I need a drug habit.

Aaand another sunset

I should really stop posting these. They start to get pretty predictable. The sun sets and there's lots of red.

Lauttasaari last Monday (14.1.2008)

Finnish race, ethnology

Originally nomads (hunters and fishers), all the Finnic people except the Lapps and Ostyaks have long yielded to the influence of civilization, and now everywhere lead settled lives as herdsmen, agriculturists, traders, &c. Physically the Finns (here to be distinguished from the Swedish-speaking population, who retain their Scandinavian qualities) are a strong, hardy race, of low stature, with almost round head, low forehead, flat features, prominent cheek bones, eyes mostly grey and oblique (inclining inwards), short and flat nose, protruding mouth, thick lips, neck very full and strong, so that the occiput seems flat and almost in a straight line with the nape; beard weak and sparse, hair no doubt originally black, but, owing to mixture with other races, now brown, red and even fair; complexion also somewhat brown. The Finns are morally upright, hospitable, faithful and submissive, with a keen sense of personal freedom and independence, but also somewhat stolid, revengeful and indolent. Many of these physical and moral characteristics they have in common with the so-called "Mongolian" race, to which they are no doubt ethnically, if not also linguistically, related.
-Encyclopædia Britannica, Eleventh Edition, 1911
Article on "Finland", p. 387.

The article on Finland can be found here, here and here.

EDIT: As people seem to think this holds water, let me paste here the text I wrote in the comments;

This theory was popular hundred years ago - if it was researched, I can't tell how. The "theory" served the same purpose as those written of Africans - that due to "submissive" nature, the Finns should be ruled by a a more dominative race. Namely, by Swedes and Russians.

The view of Finns as Mongolians was well spread, however, and till around World War 2 foreign reporters writing about Finns could be expected to remark how that particular specimen under observation - were it a politician, athletic or a businessman - was "uncommonly European for his race".

This all changed starting in the 40s. First Winter War, then Continuation War fought along Adolf "Pure Race" Hitler followed by Olympics in 1952 buried this theory well into the rubbish bin to which it deservedly belongs.

It is, however, good to remember stereotypes like this and how absurd they are, as most likely some of the ones we hold today are as idiotic as the one above.

Trying to install Linux, 1st documented case

I have gone into record saying that I have troubles getting Linux working for me. I have tried Ubuntu (twice), Mandrake and MEPIS, over the course of four years.

Well, I tried Ubuntu (7.10, x64) again. The files loaded from the LiveCD splendidly, but this is how the desktop looked;

[Sorry for the messy table.]

Well, that's "installing linux"for few months. Say what you want about Windows, but at least you can get the desktop to show up after given time.

The past year in pictures, first part

During the past year, I took over thousand photographs. Without inspecting them in any detail, I had just nonchalantly dumped them to /random/photos/. Last weekend, I browsed them through in an effort to find the pictures I loved enough to want developed.

During the following weeks, I'm going to some select pictures of that stash - most of it buildings and places I found especially charming, sad or moving. Here's the first;


This picture was taken at graveyard in Stirling. Build on a hill between the town castle and a Victorian prison, the centuries old (and still used) graveyard had beautiful statues erected by rich corpses as well as modest graves. Many of them were covered in moss, and some were just broken, presumably by vandals.

I don't know how they did things at Scotland, but in Finland the church decides 20 odd years back that "resting place for all eternity" meant actually "about 50 years"*. If after 50 years no relatives would be found (and ready to pay rent), the gravestone would be removed and the land given to someone recently passed away.

Seeing as how many of the gravestones were over 100, 150 years old, in bad condition and covered by plants, it should be safe tosay this is not so in Scotland. One has to wonder, though, how do they find places for new graves? Land is an expensive commodity, particularly near population centres.

*You could probably write something sarcastic about this.

Sunshine at Helsinki

Helsingin Sanomat International Edition reports:

December in Helsinki was unusually dark
As anyone who lives here will confirm with alacrity, it was grim up north in December. During the 31 days of December 2007 the sun shone for a total of just 20 hours in the Greater Helsinki area.

I don't really have anything insightful to add to this. Lets us just conclude that it is all very depressing and cold as well (but not apparently cold enough for snow). If I had money, I would flee Finland every late September only to return with the birds around mid-March.