Subversive government seems to be the in thing these days

It looks like the doomsday predictions from a couple of weeks ago were true - Britain pushed the Lisbon treaty through, it took a rich old guy suing them saying it’s illegal without a referendum to stop it (and even that will probably only last a week).

It’s not just Europe though, apparently Americans are putting all kinds of things into their housing bills these days. Seriously, it should be illegal for politicians to sneak something into a Bill that has nothing to do with the main topic of the Bill.

It’s no wonder the governments in power are so unpopular (we all know about Bush, but Brown has his problems too). As the internet becomes more pervasive, so does all the information people dig up.

 

Europeans found their voice

The European public has proved they are a dangerous force to be reckoned with. After a very successful education campaign, the Lisbon Treaty is dead.

EU leaders in Brussels and governments across the union, particularly Germany and France, were stunned by the Irish verdict, which amounted to a huge vote of no confidence in the way the EU is run.

Amusingly the guardian is reporting that some parts of the EU are still trying to find a loophole:

Everything suggested that Europe’s key leaders were urgently conferring on a scheme to steamroller their blueprint through despite the Irish rejection, a course likely to trigger protest from Eurosceptics and deepen Europe’s democratic legitimacy problems.

Sounds like they already have pretty serious democratic legitimacy problems if they’re still trying to push through a document that is so obviously unpopular with the citizens they represent. It can’t be a very good idea with their next election only a year away.

On the plus side, I’m no longer worried about sounding crazy in my post a few days ago. Enough of the Irish thought we were right to vote no

 

Has Europe gone crazy too?

(I’m probably going to come across as a nutjob after my rant a couple of posts ago and now this. All I can say is, either I spend too much time listening to Adam Curry or the rest of the world is too lazy to care about what their politicians are doing to them. In a world that cares so much about human rights, I’ve seen no complaints about the rights that are going to be taken away.)

Two years ago, the European Constitution was blocked. This obviously annoys the politicians backing it, so what do they do? They create the “Lisbon Treaty”, bypassing the need for citizens to approve it, and use it to say “take the constitution document that the citizens blocked, add this stuff to it, and pass it without asking them”.

At first this claim sounds like paranoid conspiracy delusions but it’s all backed up with research and links to the documents. Have a go, try to read the Treaty - as soon as you hit the meat on page 10 you see that it’s nothing but amendments to the constitution document.

Oh and here’s a bunch of politcians opposed to passing the Lisbon Treaty without a public vote as far back as July last year:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QVeMBNB0cII

Once again I’m linking to a Daily Source Code podcast, episode 764 this time. Start around 12 minutes, when Adam begins with some background (eg some EU countries have already ratified this) that is interesting but takes a while to get rolling. He then spends a full 10 minutes quoting from the document some points I have copied below, adding his interpretation in plain english examples. Now obviously there are no lawyers to confirm his statements but most of the implications are fairly obvious.

I highly recommend taking in the full 20 minute rant. I know I haven’t had much success in making any of my readers listen to stuff like this in the past, and if you don’t live in Europe you may not care, but hey at least I tried.

So here’s the articles that Adam quoted. The first point in each list is the article proper (the only bit you’re supposed to read) followed by the fine print added in an amendment. Each time it’s negated to the point where this is starting to sound like a police state.

• No death penalty, you have a right to life.
• If someone attacks a police officer, resists arrest, or is participating in a riot or insurrection, depravation of life is not illegal
• States can enact the death penalty during time of war or imminent threat of war

• Everyone has the right to liberty and security of person
• Except that minors can be detained for the purpose of educational supervision
• Except that you can be detained if you spread infectious diseases, are “of unsound mind”, are an alcoholic, drug addict or vagrant

• Freedom of expression and information, right to hold and impart information and ideas
• Excercising this freedom is subject to formalities, conditions, restrictions and penalties as is “necessary in a democratic society”. An example of when the freedom can be taken away:
  • Prevention of disorder
  • In the interest of national security
  • The protection of health or morals
  • Prevention of disclosing information received in confidence

This all goes into effect January 1st, and the only way it can be stopped is if Ireland’s referendum on the 12th of June blocks it. There is no way any other citizen in the European Union can stop it, because it’s a treaty that must be simply “ratified” rather than holding a referendum. In fact the only reason it can be stopped at all is because Ireland is the only EU country with enough independence to mandate a referendum for it.

I don’t know what else to say, other than I hope the people of Ireland understand what they’re letting themselves in for before they vote on this one. Unfortunately the entire document seems designed to avoid that, making it so complicated that people just vote yes.

 

I still have some hope for America

Sometimes I wonder if America’s gone crazy. Luckily, there are still some sane people around and listening to those that are speaking out on podcasts says to me that eventually enough people will pay attention and they will start waking up the general public. The influence of Ron Paul over the internet generation certainly proved to me that it’s starting to happen. In any case, here are a couple of examples.

I nearly blogged about a lengthy rant from Dave Slusher when I heard it, but I slacked off and eventually forgot about it until today. At the time, I wondered why I wasn’t hearing more people speaking their mind about America’s political situation (maybe you hear it more often if you’re actually in America).

This morning I started listening No Agenda’s latest episode, and the way they talk about the stupid things going on in the world in an honest way reminded me of Dave’s rant - showing a clear passion for their country and utter disbelief at what’s happening to it. I find that No Agenda gives me the real interesting news coming out of America, with opinions that actually have half a brain behind them.

Topics I enjoyed in this week’s episode:

• privatised jails leading to luxury jails where celebs pay for comfortable cells
• why are we paying US$120 a barrel for oil while shell sits back and makes crazy amounts of money
• canola is a manufactured oil, anyone talking about canola plants is talking out of their arse
• A juicy rumor that the music business is considering a new model, advertising in music videos

Now I’ve talked about both shows before, but nobody’s ever given me feedback about listening to ‘em and quite frankly, I’m not surprised. Predominately talk shows aren’t everyone’s cup of tea.

The thing about No Agenda in particular is that you need to get past the episode length. Don’t be scared by the fact that each episode is between 60 and 100 minutes; nobody has that much time to sit around listening to a podcast. No Agenda, to me, is like a great background radio show. I put it on and continue with what I’m doing. Anything from walking home to writing a blog post (yes, I’m listening to it while writing this). Occasionally something they say will catch my attention and I refocus for a bit, or rewind if I only pick up on it in the middle of a conversation. The point is you don’t need to listen to the whole thing. There are no ads or music so it’s literally just eavesdropping on a couple of tech geeks chatting (except they actually want you to listen).

This all sounds like a waste of time; but the benefits you gain from catching the pieces that really interest you are very much worth it. Particularly if you’re like me, not an American and often wondering WTF is up with those silly people. Here’s two Americans wondering the same thing, and because they are American they’re often more informed on the topics. This leads to some very interesting opinions and discussion; not limited to Americans either but often news coming out of the UK as well.

Apparently No Agenda is generating quite a large audience, and many of them don’t know why they listen (this was mentioned a week or two ago). I think I’ve figured out why - they take the news of the week and apply proper, down to earth reasoning to it rather than the sugar coated crap that comes out of the mainstream news channels.

It’s addictive because it’s so refreshing for anyone paying attention and actually giving a crap about the state of the world.

 

An Australian spanner in the Yahoo & Microsoft deal

I haven’t seen this reported in the usual coverage sources, so maybe I can get some traction on this one.  Microsoft is going to have one hell of a time figuring out what to do in Australia if the takeover goes ahead.  They can’t do a plain merger between the two companies here because they’ve aligned themselves with competing Free To Air TV networks

I had forgotten about this myself, but one of our local newspapers just pointed it out and it’s sure to complicate matters.  Microsoft joined with Channel Nine at least 4 or 5 years ago to create ninemsn, and a couple of years ago Yahoo managed to score a deal with Channel Seven and created Yahoo!7.  (For the curious, our other major networks are Channel Ten and ABC - unrelated to the American ABC channel - and both run their own websites).

If Yahoo becomes a part of Microsoft I doubt either network will be willing to put aside years of fierce rivalries just because their website partners have become the same company.  On top of that, all of our FTA networks have been making a big push in the last year or so to have a website and/or podcasts for their popular shows (particularly the talk shows) and if they have to change their website address it’ll only confuse the market share they’ve worked so hard to build.

If it does happen, I’m going to sit back and watch the fireworks

 

No agenda, but plenty of interesting discussion

In the last couple of weeks I’ve started listening to a new show from two of the more recognisable names in the podcast universe - John Dvorak and Adam Curry - called No Agenda.  It’s a nice return to the podcast days of old; no jingles, no music, no ads (except the usual podshow/limelight tail) and, funnily enough, no agenda of topics the show will cover.

Normally I wouldn’t post just because I’ve found a cool new show, but these guys have been talking about some really interesting stuff.  Here are two of their topics that I was tempted to blog about, but to be honest I wouldn’t be saying anything that wasn’t already said on the show.

• American Thought Crime Prevention Bill - although depending who you ask people may be overreacting to this one
• Dutch backpackers who overstayed their Tourist Visa due to illness and wound up in a Texas prison for six weeks (article in Dutch here, you can either get a basic translation from something like the fish or listen to Adam translate the major points on the show).

So far, the show seems to mostly revolve around topics they think need more attention in the news.   That’s not really surprising given their backgrounds, but it means that if you do give it a try you may hear some stuff you wish you hadn’t (and I’m not talking about their language )

 

A politician who makes sense?

I finally finished listening to a rather lengthy episode from Adam Curry last friday.  He rambles for 20 minutes starting at 44:15 about the US elections and how Ron Paul has policies that normal people actually want.  I’m not American, nor am I really into politics, so I’m not going to sit here and try to describe why this guy is gaining a huge internet following.  Listen to the podcast, or if 20 minutes of Adam Curry is too much for you then how about 8 minutes of Bill Maher:

There’s also Ron’s “a new hope” video which is a 9 minute campaign spot but covers more of the major points he’s trying to put across.

I still have to catch up on the Monday and Tuesday DSC episodes - which have shownotes sounding like not everyone loves this guy - but it’ll be interesting to see how the US elections pan out.  Is the internet community now powerful enough to get this guy elected when he doesn’t have the huge campaign funding of the bigger candidates?

 

Update on my posts over the weekend

Some of the topics I posted about last weekend have received extra attention this week.  The majority of the new discussion is related to my DRM post; I’ve put all of this on my link blog but I know of at least a few people who read my blog and don’t subscribe to the links.

Bill Harris over at Dubious Quality wrote up a nice summary of BioShock issues that covers not only the issues I experienced, but the stuff that I left out.  He also links to a Bioshock DRM article at TwitchGuru which goes into a lot of detail about the SecuROM issues and quite rightly calls this “a badly botched launch for an early contender for game of the year”.  Meanwhile, Alex from the WGA management team has posted the details of why WGA failed (I was right, they had a cascade of sysadmin mistakes) and promises to prevent it ever happening again.

In much brighter news, both Scott Sigler and JC Hutchins left comments on my 7th Son post.  As much as they love me for what I say about them, I still consider this a bit of an honor and once again proves my point about podcasters connecting with their audience

While I’m on the topic of podcasters loving me, if you listen to today’s DSC you’ll hear Adam raving about a link I sent him (show timestamp 12:50) - the Opera Mini beta which is attempting to produce an iPhone-like browser for any Java enabled phone.  I highly recommend the Opera vs iPhone video, it’s hilarious

 

DRM hitting the news this week, proving itself worse than useless

I would’ve laughed at the DRM issues that hit the PC world this week if they hadn’t hit me as well.  In fact, my flatmate did laugh.  Me, I’m going on a rant so buckle up.

It all started on Tuesday with the release of Bioshock.  What little I had read about the game sounded interesting (I really enjoyed System Shock 2 back in the day) and the demo convinced me it was worth buying.  I was holding off on the purchase, trying to decide if I wanted to use my download quota on the Steam edition or pay the extra A$15 and get the box.  I was also waiting for someone to resolve the widescreen issue (a user-created patch is now available).

This turned out to be an accidentally fantastic idea, because the shit hit the fan on release day.

The game uses a particularly heinous version of copy protection, which limits all users to 2 installations.  This is taking DRM a little to far - yes it’s very similar to the iTunes model, where you can uninstall one machine to free up a license - but music can be transferred to an iPod and is in almost every respect completely different to a PC game.  Restricting use to this level is just absurd, I’ve never uninstalled anything before formatting my computer and I shouldn’t have to.  To make matters worse, the game sold at a pace they weren’t expecting and the activation server crashed so unless you got in early, you couldn’t install the game at all.

The part that really pissed me off though was the inclusion of this atrocity in the Steam edition.  Steam, for those who don’t know, is a bit like a console interface for your PC.  It provides the ability to play your list of games anywhere, while ensuring you can’t play the game in two locations at the same time.  More secure than CD keys while retaining the ease of use for those of us with the hard drive space and bandwidth to download their games.  Apparently not secure enough for some people.

Including this extra layer of DRM is not only unnecessary, it goes against the nature of Steam and the forums are rife with people boycotting Steam and all other 2K games until they fix it.  I would rant further but 2K Games have apologised for the mess, upped the installation limit to 5 and, much to my satisfaction, promised to remove the copy protection after a few months (which a lot of developers are doing these days).

 

That story may sound bad, but DRM caused even greater headaches over the weekend.  I finally purchased Bioshock on Saturday, had some crashing issues and one of the recommended solutions was to update DirectX.  Unbeknownst to me, Microsoft’s WGA servers were in the middle of a meltdown and anyone trying to use a WGA service found themselves branded a pirate.  This is particularly unacceptable because they upped the stakes in Vista to piss off the pirates - which has ultimately backfired and pissed off paying customers.

I was lucky enough to not end up in Vista’s total lockdown, all I had to put up with was the ugly UI mode and wondering when Microsoft Support would respond.  Others weren’t so lucky and the official WGA forum is a mess.  The only saving grace in this was the timing - very few users need WGA checks outside of Windows Update patches so the damage was somewhat contained.

It’s all resolved now, but both issues bring out a very important point.  Requiring remote activation of software, and denying access to it when the activation fails, is the stupidest idea anybody has ever come up with, ever.  History buffs may scoff at that, but think about what would happen if this WGA failure happens again in a few years, once Vista becomes as mainstream as XP is today.  In our computer-reliant world It would be a complete disaster.

Or it would be, if enterprise customers had to put up with it - and they don’t.  Enterprise customers demand offline activation, and that’s what they are given - the latest Vista cracks install an OEM key just like the ones used in pirated copies of XP.  Completely offline self-contained activation that doesn’t require access to Microsoft’s servers.  It’s so good in fact that it will pass a WGA check (and the only way to prevent that is to deactivate the key, denying access to the enterprise customer it was created for).  It doesn’t matter how smart your developers are, there are equally smart people in the world who can crack your activation in much less time than it takes to write.

 

The beauty of it all?  The people that these useless restrictions were invented to stop wouldn’t even know about the issues unless they keep up with the hardcore tech news.  Their software is cracked to remove all activation requirements and just works (Vista was cracked before it hit retail, same with Bioshock).  Meanwhile, customers who are doing the right thing and paying for their software find themselves locked out and branded as pirates because a sysadmin screwed up.

The music industry is starting to wake up to the fact that if you trust your customers and give them a reasonably priced DRM-free option, they’ll take it.  The PC world needs to grow up - I realise we’ll never be free of copy protection but systems like Steam are highly successful and prove there’s no need to make it so restrictive.

Technorati Tags: Bioshock, Vista

 

The TV industry needs to watch itself too

If you’re not into talk of the music industry failing from my last post, maybe you’ll be interested in the problems surfacing in the TV industry.  I’m going to be pointing once again at a Daily Source Code episode from Adam Curry - whether you like him or not he did work for MTV and has a fair bit of experience with both fields.

DSC 637 (warning: some nsfw language) is focussed on a TV controversy unfolding in the UK (and incidentally starts with one of my favourite songs about podcasting).

A week ago, it came to light that the BBC released some fabricated footage involving the Queen.  They quickly apologised, but it hasn’t ended there.  Partly because they did it to the Queen, and partly because the BBC is funded by the public (via a mandatory fee from all television holders), people are digging into the deception far deeper than anyone has before with some definite results.

What Adam has a clip of, and provides experienced commentary on, is an interview first with the chairman of the BBC, then with an ex-chairman of the BBC and a TV producer.  The TV producer is the one that stands up for the truth and rips a few shreds off of the BBC - stating, on the record, that this sort of fabrication has been happening since TV was first invented and anyone saying otherwise (which the other two both do repeatedly during the interview) is lying through their teeth.

If you do listen to the interview, go back and re-read at the article I linked above.  Note that it was a week ago, and both of these guys say the much the same thing as they did in the interview - passing the deception off as a recent trend - but the lies are slowly being exposed and it’s going to be fun to watch.

It often amazes me the stuff people will believe on TV, but if this news picks up steam it could change all that and do some serious damage in the process.  Adam, of course, is trying his hardest to make it happen and offer independent media to fill the gap.  If he gets his way, not only the UK but the US as well will start to find out things about their TV shows (and radio stations) that they might not have believed were possible.

And if you don’t believe me, listen for a few anecdotes from Adam’s own past with MTV and various radio stations.  Absolute, total, and deliberate deception.  He’s asked for people from his diverse listener base to call in with similar accounts, which will means the next episode or two of the DSC should be quite interesting.

I won’t bore anyone with further updates on the situation, you’ll have to subscribe to the DSC to hear more.  I will leave you with something Adam links to at least once a year, the Zen TV Experiment.  Once you try it, I doubt you’ll look at TV in the same way again