850000 in 1 Famiclone Multicart

The Internet doesn't seem to know this "850000 in 1" multicart exists. While my Famiclone is unfortunately not working, and so I cannot give you many more details about it, I still thought the Internet deserved to have this useless piece of information. You can thank me in the comments box.

Books and Music in 2016

A new year starts, and with it my list of music and books for the previous year.

2016 was an interesting year musically. The year started with the release of Kokori's first album, Rootkit. Kokori, an industrial duo from which I am 1/2, had released several EPs and singles in the past, but Rootkit not only is our first album, but our best work so far, IMHO. Later in the year, "The Sky Is Concrete, The Stars Are Bullet Holes", one of the album's tracks, was also present on the "Passo A Passo" compilation, and Enough Records' CC Meeting mixtape. Also from my musical projects, Merankorii - my solo project - released the single "1666", 350 years after the Great Fire of London occurred, with a track that came from the 2014 album "Synthetic Works".

Matt Howden's projects "Sieben" and "7JK" had an excellent new album each. "The Old Magic", under the Sieben moniker, is available with the companion CD "The Other Side Of The River", which manages to be the highlighted disc from the bundle. While 7JK changed its formation slightly, the new album manages to be even more powerful than the first one, and from it I'd like to highlight the opening track "Liftoff For 7JK".

Sol Invictus is back, and will present us with a new album in 2017, one which I plan to get. For a band with such an huge discography and without a big sonority variation along the years, this is the kind of band one can easilly fall into skipping one or another release. However, in 2016 the single "The Last Man" was released, and boy - those are two strong and surprising tracks. I can't vouch for the album yet, but this single is a must-have.

The obscure and mystical project GVAR leaked again, this time the album "Mirroah". More mature than its debut "Vraii", the parallel-universe DVARish concept is kept strong, and GVAR stays as a must-follow project to every DVAR fan.

Luigi Rubino (probably best known as Ashram's pianist) released a new solo album, after its 2009 debut. The new album is not surprising - it packs what one would expect - but it is still a very pleasant album to listen again and again. Also unsurprising but excellent is the latest Ordo Rosarius Equilibrio album, "[Vision:Libertine] Part III - The Hangman's Triad". Conceptually and lyrically, they keep fresh and strong, as they keep being polishedly detailed sonoricly. While it would be hard for an ORE album to be surprising without them re-inventing themselves, this album is more cohese than their last few, almost competing with the genious "Make Love, And War" of 2001.

As far as books go, in 2016 I managed to read a bit more than in 2015, but still not enough. From those, I re-read the whole MegaTokyo series of Manga, and crossed it with the paralel series of books that are now being released as "Megatokyo: Endgames". Endgames is an MMORPG (some) Megatokyo characters play, and the events that happen in that virtual world obviously cross into their players' relationships... While the Endgames books can be read as fantasy novels, they wouldn't excel as such. But the fact that they're descriptions of what happens inside a virtual world - specially one that exists inside a fictional (Megatokyo) world entices me. With four volumes out there of the saga, I read three of them during 2016, and the fourth is alredy on my pile of books to read really soon.

Unsurprisingly, the rest of my list has Sci-Fi books. I've read and enjoyed Ernest Cline's two novels (Ready Player One and Armada), and picked up on a saga I was planning to read for a while now: the Enderverse. I read the Ender's Game a long time ago, but only in 2016 I decided to pick up the rest of the saga, reading the rest of Ender's Saga. It will be no surprise to have The Shadow Saga on my 2017 favorites list. Finally, I read "Altered Carbon", a book that was given to me. While this wouldn't probably be my kind of scifi, this futuristic crime novel was very enticing. You'll probably soon hear about it, despite it being from 2002, since Netflix is working on a TV series based on this saga.

If you want to read more stuff like this, check out my 2015 list. Otherwise... see you next year!

HTML, EME and Open Standards

Open Standards are standards (specifications of formats or protocols) that follow five simple rules.

They have to be:

1. subject to full public assessment and use without constraints in a manner equally available to all parties;
2. without any components or extensions that have dependencies on formats or protocols that do not meet the definition of an Open Standard themselves;
3. free from legal or technical clauses that limit its utilisation by any party or in any business model;
4. managed and further developed independently of any single vendor in a process open to the equal participation of competitors and third parties;
5. available in multiple complete implementations by competing vendors, or as a complete implementation equally available to all parties.

The importance of Open Standards is somewhat highlighted by its definition itself: an Open Standard can simply be used by anyone, without restrictions. This allows any developer to implement such a standard, and avoids user exclusion - anyone is free to use an Open Standard. This importance has been recognized though the years, and lately that recognition has reached into higher policy levels, with countries like Portugal mandating that the Public Administration must exclusively use Open Standards, as a way to ensure citizens unrestricted access to public data and services.

One good example of an Open Standard is HTML. Even if you're not very aquainted with technical issues, you probably already heard about HTML -- or at least seen a "Web address" (called URL) like "http://somesite.org/this.html". This happens because HTML is the "language of the web": each webpage is written in a format, called HTML, and since all the web pages are written in that same format, and because that format is an open standard, anyone can create a computer program (in this case, a web browser) that reliably receives the web page in that format and knows how to correctly display it on your computer screen. This is what makes it possible for you to see the same web page on your phone, your computer, your tablet, even if you are using different programs to see it. It doesn't matter weather you're using Android's web browser on your phone or Firefox on your computer, while your friend is using iOS's web browser and Safari on his Mac laptop. Everyone can see correctly a web page: that's one of the beauties of the Web, and that happens because HTML is an Open Standard.

So, what's this EME thing? And why are people fussing about "DRM in HTML"?

EME is a proposed specification that aims to "extend HTMLMediaElement" (which is a part of the HTML specification). What this means is that, if EME is approved, a part of HTML's current specification is going to be updated. The "new version" includes two kinds of changes: some mandatory and some optional. In its own words, "Implementation of Digital Rights Management is not required for compliance with this specification: only the Clear Key system is required to be implemented as a common baseline." W3C argues that this constitutes no problem, and that they are not adding DRM into HTML, because implementing DRM is not required. However, the fact that implementing DRM is possible (even if not mandatory) means that, if a website uses such an implementation, either your web browser also uses it, or you won't be able to see that part of the website (remember what I said before about the web being seen by everyone? That wouldn't happen anymore.) Of course, this wouldn't need to be an issue at all: if the specification allows for that implementation, its just a matter of all browsers implementing it, right? Wrong. The problem here is that the "specification does not define a content protection or Digital Rights Management system".

In other words: EME introduces the possibility to use things (DRM systems) that are not part of the specification, so the complete specification (a way for an independent party to implement all the specification) isn't available -- EME is not an Open Standard. And since EME aims to be inserted into HTML (by updating part of its specification), then HTML will have an extension (EME) that has "dependencies on formats or protocols that do not meet the definition of an Open Standard themselves". Yes, EME approval would make HTML stop being an Open Standard.

Summing up

HTML is an Open Standard, and that is good for everyone. So good, in fact, that some countries, like Portugal, mandate that public administrations can only use Open Standards. However, there is a proposal (EME) that, if approved, will make HTML stop being an Open Standard. That will have an high negative impact in Public Administrations, citizens and the overall web community -- which nowadays means the citizens of the world.

This approval would have an high social, political and cultural impact everywhere. From the current era of shared knowledge, easy access to information, and overall making the world more accessible, we might be heading towards the dark ages of the web. There is, of course, a solution: let's make W3C know that we oppose EME, and ask them not to approve it.

10 years of Last.fm

My Last.FM account gets 10 years old today. Here's the top 10 artists I've been listening to for the past 10 years.

You might also be interested to read what I wrote on my 100.000th scrobble.

Books and Music in 2015

A new year starts, and with it my list of music and books for the previous year.

2015 started musicly, for me, receiving the opulent limited edition of Marilyn Manson's latest album, "The Pale Emperor". The album screams "Marilyn Manson is back", and if I had any doubts about it, they would be gone when I ended up seeing the concert the band gave in Stockholm for the correspondent tour. I just wish they'd put Portugal back in their "tour in" list... There are two compilations in this list: "Colours of Black" which shows a good collection of Russian neo-folk, but that ends up being a mandatory record to have thanks to DVAR's participation on it (in a track from Moon Far Away); 400/100 is a different kind but spetacular compilation of many kinds of experimental music, all of the tracks having in common the fact that these bands somehow gravitate around the world of Metaphysical Circuits. The highlight on that compilation goes Kokori's track "The Prisoner", and while this compilation is now sold-out, you'll be able to grab that track on Kokori's upcoming album, Rootkit. Mindless Self Indulgence also presented a sort-of compilations, with early tracks in the fabulous "Pink". The list ends with the first album from Corpo-Mente, whom I'll be able to see live in the upcoming Entremuralhas 2016 festival.

As usual, the list of books aren't of books released in 2015, but that I've read in 2015. As you can see, the year topic was "music", too, with particular highlight to the great books about 78" and vinyl records.

See you next year!

How to extract a dts from an Android Phone

How to extract a dts from an Android Phone

1) Get its boot.img

    $ adb pull /dev/block/bootdevice/by-name/boot boot.img

2) Find out which dts is the device using

    $ adb logcat # the device's boot process, watch the first few lines.
   
3) split the boot.img in its components

    $ # wget http://www.enck.org/tools/split_bootimg_pl.txt -O split_bootimg.pl
    $ split_bootimg.pl boot.img
  
4) Look for the correct dtb on the boot image

    a) hexdump -C -v boot.img-dtb |less
    b) On this hexdump, search for "d0 0d fe ed"
    c) there are probably several occurrences, choose the one matching what the device is using (point (2))
    d) take note of the address where it is
   
5) convert the address from hex to binary

    $ # https://github.com/ARivottiC/aliases.sh has conversion aliases
    $ hex2dec address

6) extract the correct dtb from the bunch

    $ dd if=boot.img-dtb of=correct.dtb bs=the_result_from_5 skip=1

7) convert dtb to dts

    $ # look for dtc on the $OUT of an android build
    $ dtc -I dtb -O dts -o correct.dts correct.dtb

Event about Copyright in Águeda (Portugal), next May

A workshop about Copyright and Digital Rights Management and a monkey on the poster? Are you lost? Here's an explanation... this famous monkey is a pro in taking selfies. If you want to know more, the rest of the story will be told next 9th of May!
I'll be talking about DRM on an event next to Paula Simões (Portuguese Education Freedom Association) who's going to talk about copyright levies, and Teresa Nobre (Creative Commons) who's going to talk about free culture.
It promises to be a great afternoon, I hope you'll be able to join us!

Kokori news

A consequence from the fact that I almost stopped blogging is that those of you who still read this blog and were used to follow my musical endeavors through it were left in the dark.

I did refer at some point that I am 1/2 of a post-cyberpunk industrial duo named kokori. But from then until now, kokori has released three EPs and one single, besides participating on several compilations. Here's one of the tracks from our "Release Candid Hate" EP, so you know what I'm talking about:

But the flow never stops, and we are at this moment on an ambitious project - a crowdfunded compilation.

With your help, Kokori is going to be part of an awesome 3 tapes compilation. Metaphysical Circuits, a tape label from our good friend Christian of The Beard Of Snails Records (R.I.P.), is aiming to release "400/100", a three-hour, 43 track triple cassette compilation. An epic, eclectic statement, spanning ambient excursions, techno textures, slick synths, cinematic guitars, song-craft, improvisation, wyrld jamz, and no-fi noise melodies, this project has everything to be a must-have compilation, and we're proud to be a part of it with one new, exclusive track. Alongside with Kokori will be musical projects like Palm Era, TAKAHIRO MUKAI, Vejgaard Ambient, Northville Tunnels, The Child of a Creek, Stephen Connolly, Strange Mountain, cryptic scenery, Geoff, Les Bicyclettes de Belize and more. But why with your help? Well, because this endeavour needs you as much as you need it: your funding and pre-order will make it happen, and in the process you can even get some extra goodies. Find all about it on its campaign page!

Books and Music in 2014

As tradition mandates, here's my yearly post about music release and books I've read the previously here.

Click on the images for details.

Top 10 music releases of 2014

Top 5 books I've read in 2014

You can also see last year's list.

European Elections: get out and vote!

The European Elections are happening this weekend. In Portugal, they're on Sunday, but my first message goes to all Europeans: go out and vote. You think we're heading in the right direction? Go out and say it. You think we're heading in the wrong direction? Go out and say it. You're not planning to go out and vote because you're fed up with politics and politicians? Well, if you're fed up with the ones you have, go out and vote for others - if you don't, others will choose for yourself, and you'll still be fed up. In summary: there's no reason not to vote.

My second message goes towards the Portuguese people. I am not going to tell you how to vote: that's really up to you. You have a life, and your life is deeply impacted by European politics. The countries finances, the money you have on your pocket, even the currency you use, the taxes you pay, the choices you're able to make, the laws you have, the things you do. So, even if you think you're not, you're fully capable of choosing for yourself, and to choose who will better defend your interests. So, with that in mind, I urge you pay attention to the choices that are laid out in front of you. You have sixteen (16!) parties to choose from. Pick one, go out, vote.

These are your options next Sunday:

Aliança Portugal (AP: PSD + CDS-PP)
Bloco de Esquerda (BE)
Coligação Democrática Unitária (CDU: PCP + PEV)
Livre
Movimento Alternativa Socialista (MAS)
Nova Democracia (PND)
Partido Comunista dos Trabalhadores Portugueses (PCTP/MRPP)
Partido da Terra (MPT)
Partido Democrático do Atlântico (PDA)
Partido Nacional Renovador (PNR)
Partido Operário de Unidade Socialista (POUS)
Partido pelos Animais e pela Natureza (PAN)
Partido Popular Monárquico (PPM)
Partido Socialista (PS)
Partido Trabalhista Português (PTP)
Portugal pro Vida (PPV)

I've also made a small summary and comparison text about the position of these parties, if you're interested. I'm sorry it isn't as complete as I wished it to be, but it might be helpful all the same. If you're interested, read it here.

Sunday is a great day: one of those days you can make a difference, where you can speak up and say what do you want in your life, your future. Don't let others decide for you. Vote!

Books and Music in 2013

Another year gone. Just like in years before, here's a recommendation of music and books, from what has been released during the year (in the case of music), and what I've read in 2013 (for books). Note that there are other, great 2013 music releases, that I only got my hands on in 2014, and those aren't on this list. Without further ado:
Books:

* Neal Stephenson - The Mongoliad (Books 2 and 3)
* Iain M. Banks - The Hydrogen Sonata
* Cory Doctorow's fiction - The Rapture of Nerds and Pirate Cinema
* Music - Looking For Europe
* Tech - Videojogos em Portugal
Music:

* Kokori - Release Candid Hate (Vinyl)
* Gvar - Vraii (Cass)
* Charanga - Borda Tu! (CD)
* Dismal - Giostra Di Vapori (CD)
* Mindless Self Indulgence - How I Learned To Stop Giving A Shit And Love Mindless Self Indulgence (CD)

DRM hopefully to be fixed in Portugal

DRM bills being discussed, with a physical DRM'd book
sent by ANSOL serving as an argument

2001's European Directive 2001/29/EC says that member states must legally protect DRM measures, making it illegal to circunvent them. But it also states that they must ensure that it doesn't prevent uses permitted thanks to copyright exceptions (for instance private copy).

The transposition of that directive to the Portuguese Law (CDADC) was made in 2004, but the way that CDADC ensures that copyright exceptions is protected doesn't work. CDADC states that you can't circunvent DRM, but since you must be able to exercise the copyright exceptions, it states that in those cases you have to request the means to achieve your objective to IGAC (a state administration service). The problem is that if you request those means to IGAC, they won't hand them over to you because they don't have it.

Well, that is now going to change. Two Portuguese parties submitted to the Parliament a couple of bills with the same basic objective: to change CDADC, changing the way the law ensures the right to copyright exceptions by simply stating that if the DRM in question prevents any of those exceptions from being exercised, then you can circunvent them in order to exercise them. Simple and effective, right?
These two bills were debated in the parliament, and then approved in generality. Now they follow it's natural path, to a comission that will merge both bills and do amendments (amendments that will not change the essence of the bills, I hope), and the final text will be again voted in the Parliament, who can turn it into Law, finally giving back users the rights that were taken from them nine years ago.

Timeline:

2001 - 2011/29/EC EU directive is published

2004 - EU directive is transposed to Portuguese Law

2013-06-12 - general discussion about two bills aiming to fix the Law

2013-06-14 - both bills approved in general

2013-06-26 (10:00) - Comission meeting scheduled to discussion and vote of both bills in speciality

DRM in HTML5

Many people have doubts regarding how can possibly be an issue of having DRM on HTML, the foundation language of the entire web. One person in particular had the doubt of "how can it be possible that DRM (closed by its nature) is inserted into a standard?"

I have replied to her about it (in Portuguese), but I think that, with some adaptations and a translation, this text might also have a wider use for those of you trying to understand HTML, standards and DRM. Oh, and don't forget, click on the image in the right to sign a petition against DRM on HTML.

The "short answer"

You should attend to the Document Freedom Day 2013 celebration event nearer to you: they're happening starting today until April all around the world. There, I'm sure, there will be people knowing and willing to explain to you any questions regarding open standards in general and the "DRM in HTML" issue in particular.

The "long answer"

A standard should be considered open if it complies with a number of requisites. Here's the list (taken from this page, that explains each point better):

An Open Standard refers to a format or protocol that is:

• Subject to full public assessment and use without constraints in a manner equally available to all parties;
• Without any components or extensions that have dependencies on formats or protocols that do not meet the definition of an Open Standard themselves;
• Free from legal or technical clauses that limit its utilisation by any party or in any business model;
• Managed and further developed independently of any single supplier in a process open to the equal participation of competitors and third parties;
• Available in multiple complete implementations by competing suppliers, or as a complete implementation equally available to all parties.

Unfortunately not every format is an open standard, or, in other words, doesn't comply with the previous points. If the proposal to have DRM on HTML5 is accepted, HTML will stop being an open standard, since it will stop complying with the second requirement of the list.

In more detail: the proposal on the table is called EME (Encrypted Media Extensions). An HTML document can include EMEs, and the specification of EME enables the website to require a certain "Content Decryption Module" (CDM). And here lies the problem: CDMs aren't standards (much less open standards!) and the EME specification doesn't include or refer to any specification of any CDM. In other words: the definition of open standard we just saw isn't complied, because to implement HTML5 we have to implement EME, which has to accept any CDM, which isn't a standard and so we cannot implement.

In other words, with an example: I make a website, and put there a media object (video, for instance) using EME, and I specify in the HTML document that the EME object needs the CDM module (which is a form of DRM) called "OneTwoThree". Now, if you want to see that website, you need a web browser that knows how to undertand HTML5 and EME (both possible since there's the specification), and the browser then needs to get the CDM called "OneTwoThree" (imagine it as being a browser plugin, not unlike Flash) and use it to play the video. The problems are obvious now: what if the CDM only exists for one specific Operating System? What if the CDM isn't free? You know... the thypical problems of a non-open standard format.

Life in 140 characters

At home with thousands of records, thousands of books, hundreds of DVDs, and still being accused of "stealing" on twitter, just because I have the same understanding than the Portuguese Republic's Attorney General of the Portuguese law. Next time you see me whining about how frustrating is to try having conversations 140 characters at a time, remember this blog post.

My top 10 of books read in 2012

Like I did for 2011, here is my blog post about the best ten books I've read in 2012. But first, the same disclaimer I did last year:

Unlike with music, and unfortunately, my "books consumption" isn't that high in the last few years, and 2011 was terrible in that aspect: I only read 35 books in the whole year. So, instead of doing a "Top ten of 2011 books" like I did for music, I'm doing a "top 10 of books I've read in 2011".

The difference here is: in 2012 I've behaved even worse, and have only read 19 books :-( Anyway, here's the list (in no particular order):

The "Piracy Is Liberation" saga continues, and I continue as hooked at it as before. As I said last year,

Piracy Is Liberation is a dystopia, sometime in the future, where people live in "the city" and capitalism is the mandatory religion. Instead of explaining it to you, I'll point you to the torrent for the first book (Deicide is number 9) - uploaded and spreaded by the author himself.

So, this year I've read number 10, "Hypertext Consciousness", which is the best book of the saga so far. Book 11 is out now already and I've had the pleasure of buying it from the artist himself at the latest Feira Laica, but still didn't manage to read it...

The other author that visited one year later was Neal Stephenson. Once again recalling what I've said in the past,

If you know me, you know that, on my scale, Neal Stephenson is the best writer EVER. [...] Every Neal Stephenson's book was mind blowing to me - you read each of those books and they actually and visibly change you.

So, this year we have two from him - yay! - "Some Remarks", a very nice-to-read but completely different book from him, since it is an anthology/collection of texts he've written on the most various subjects along the years, and then "Mongoliad - Book 1", which is the first of a series on the "Foreworld" universe that has been constructed by a number of authors, including Neal Stephenson. The Mongoliad books have participation from Neal Stephenson (I've read in an interview to him somewhere that more or less 20% of the text of the first book has his pen), but not every Foreworld media (books included) will have. Anyway, reading Mongoliad book 1 made me want to be a follower of the Foreworld universe, even if I was quite disconcerted about the way the publisher deals with its fans. Let me explain: against all "common rules" in book publishing, Mongoliad's books 1 and 2 had their hardcover edition published after the paperback edition (book 3 have the same release date for both hardcover and paperback). What's so wrong about this (besides the obvious penalization to those fans that are willing to pay more for the limited edition, that will have the chance to start reading the book only later than the others) is that there are three short stories that are only available (on paper, free of DRM) on this editions. Not only that, but worse: all this was only announced after the release date of the first book, meaning that me, amongst many others that bought the (paperback) book on pre-order or in the release date, found themselves in posession of the incomplete edition, being forced to buy the book again (another edition, of course) to be able to read the short story.

But enough of venting about publishers that should know better, let's talk about the rest - and the rest is SciFi... or about it.

You might have heard of "The Hunger Games", and, well, I was sucked into it. After seeing it on the theater (which was actually an accident, we went to see "something" and this was what turned out to be ;-)), we bought the trilogy and read it, three in a row. Not extremely clever or even original, this saga is quite welcome, specially since this kind of themes do not reach mainstream as often as I'd like to...

The British Library has an exhibition about SciFi called "Out Of This World: Science Fiction but not as you know it", and I blame myself for not knowing about it before and travelling to UK just to see it. Anyway, they did an excellent job of summing it up in a book, which is undoubtedly the best book I've ever read about SciFi, and I encourage everyone to grab a copy and read it. Most importantly, if I had to choose "you can only either see the expo or read the book", I'm sure I would prefer the book, so I'm quite happy :-)

The rest:

• Keith Brooke - The Accord
• James Blish - The Quincunx Of Time
• James P. Hogan - Thrice Upon A Time

Copying music and movies on the Internet is legal in Portugal

The news broke out today, but I think this has wider impact and interest than just the Portuguese reader, so I decided to, shamelessly, simply translate the news article that can be found originally (in Portuguese) at Exame Informática.

Only the italics (well, and possible language and translation mistakes) are mine, the rest belongs to Exame Informática.

---

At the beginning of 2011, the Portuguese Association for Audiovisual Commerce of Cultural and Entertainment Works (ACAPOR) made titles in the Portuguese newspapers for having presented a complaint to the Portuguese Republic's Attorney General (PGR) of two thousand Portuguese Internet users that used P2P services to share allegedly ilegal copies of movies (by leaving boxes filled with paper prints of "proof", and they were accusing not persons but IPs).

After a little more than one year, the Department of Investigation and Penal Action (DIAP), that has the objective of analyze complaints to PGR that are then forwarded to the Public Ministry, published a devastating dispatch to ACAPOR's pretensions.

Besides the several notes to the procedures followed by ACAPOR, DIAP delivers a dispatch that risks marking the history of the defense of author's rights in Portugal. Here's an excerpt that just arrived to our office: «More over, in the legal point of view, and even if we put in this kind of networks the question regarding the user being simultaneously in the digital environment as both an uploader and downloader of the files to share, we see the actions by the participants licit for private use - art. 75 nr. 2) and 81 b) from CDADC, - even if one can think that when the copy is done the user doesn't stop his participation in the sharing».

While considering that the Authors Rights and Related Rights Code (CDADC) doesn't make the use of file sharing networks (P2P) illegal, the dispatch from the Public Ministry recognizes the merit of ACAPOR's actions for alerting to the need of rethinking the judicial questions related to the defense of the authors' rights of movies, music and software in the digital age. But even in this point the DIAP investigators leave a message - and remind that the defense of the authors' rights must be applied having also into account «the right to education, culture, freedom of action in the cybernetic space, specially when just freedom is limited to the individual being in nothing related with commercial questions, with the profit of the mercantile activity».

In the same dispatch, the DIAP and Public Ministry responsible confess that it is impossible to investigate the distribution and download of illegal copies in the Internet using the IP address. According to the investigators, accusing someone using the IP address as a bases is «erroneous», since the titular of the IP address used in the Net access «isn't necessarily the user in that specific moment, isn't necessarily who shares the work, but the one who has the service in its name, independently of using it or just formally figuring as its holder».

The Public Ministry refers, based on the analysis that it made of the CDADC articles, that only in cases where the author (and we assume no one else, even if the CDADC refers also artists, and producers) expressively forbids it you can consider a crime the public sharing of a work.

The dispatch also implicitly criticizes the way ACAPOR has dealt with the process, highlighting that the association that represents video rental stores didn't present any document showing that the movie(s) author(s) did forbid the «public sharing».

---

The article goes on, but this is the important part. If you want to read more about this (also in Portuguese), see also the news at TeK.

Merankorii (my one-man-band) is going to be celebrating Culture Freedom Day in Lisbon, Portugal, next saturday (May 12) at Flausina.

The concert is free, and you should show up!

More info here.

Censorship and Privacy on the Web

"Censorship and Privacy on the Web" is the title to a presentation I made (in Portuguese) for "Crime in the XXI century" 2 days event, as ANSOL's Vice-President. Here's the presentation (yes, I'm trying Google Drive for the first time).

Source, images and resulting PDF can be used and re-used, here.

Happy Document Freedom Day!

Yup, it's today, happy Document Freedom Day! For those that don't know what's this all about, Document Freedom Day is a worldwide event to celebrate and promote Document Freedom and Open Standards. As I put it on the "Testimonials" page,

Open Standards and Document Freedom are not only essential, but its importance is more visible as time passes by. From official documents and government websites to cientific archives or medical records, citizens in the digital era deal - or try to - with digital documents every day. It is crucial not only to ensure that they can easily do so, without obstacles, but also to prevent us from a dark future, by providing the right means of archival of all that information.

ANSOL is going to spend the day doing cool things about the issue, but as always we wanted also to party to everyone interested, so we're organizing a nice dinner party, and you are of course invited! If you're not in Portugal that's no excuse: there are 48 events in 21 different countries: some parties, some educational, but all of them fun! If you think Open Standards are not that important, consider this: in 2004, during the tsunami in the Indian Ocean, the rescue operators of different countries were unable to exchange information about the ongoing operations, because they all used different closed formats of documents. This massively slowed down and complicated the coordination of rescue actions. Lots of human lives were put into danger just because vendors did not care about use of open standards in their products. And this is just one example. So, what are you waiting for? Join us!

My top 10 of books read in 2011

Unlike with music, and unfortunately, my "books consumption" isn't that high in the last few years, and 2011 was terrible in that aspect: I only read 35 books in the whole year. So, instead of doing a "Top ten of 2011 books" like I did for music, I'm doing a "top 10 of books I've read in 2011".

Take notice that this list has no particular order.

Iain M. Banks is an awesome writer, even if I've (still?) never read anything from him apart from The Culture novel series. In 2011 I "ended" the series: I've read Look To Windward (2000), Matter (2008) and Surface Detail (2010), and all those three novels ended up on this top 10. Let me explain what's this "The Culture" series: "The Culture" is the name of a (fictional) technology-advanced alien civilization, but the books are more political or philosophical than what you would expect from "SciFi with aliens". That's right, my kind of SciFi. The Culture is an anarchic socialist utopian civilization, but, while "utopian" is on their description, the fact is that nothing is perfect and they're sometimes confronted with big dilemmas - and sometimes they make mistakes. On "Look To Windward", someone wants to get revenge from The Culture from a mistake they did 800 years before. One thing that quite teased my mind on this one was the whole concept of the Sublimed having created a Heaven. "Matter" is quite different from the rest of The Culture novels (and the first to need a glossary), because it "zooms out" for the reader, and describes other cultures and civilizations, how they get together and co-exist on the Universe. That would be mind-exercising enough for a good read, but the hints on the relations between groups with levels of power of different magnitudes also gives many food-for-thought. Finally "Surface Detail", which is probably one of the most interesting novels from the series, and that kind of picks up the theme hinted by the Sublimed Heaven from two books ago (well, and the virtual approaches from Matter), and takes it into a cross of ideas from virtual worlds and concepts of Heaven and Hell. I just hope he doesn't leave this theme as "written", and a thematic sequel appears. But, most importantly, I really hope Banks releases another Culture novel soon - I'm already anxious to have more.

Still on SciFi, but now entering the Cyberpunk field, Charles Stoss's "Rule 34", a sequel (you don't have to read the previous to understand this one) to "Halting State", actually creating an "Halting State Series". This is not only a good book, it is a book that made me create my first entry on 2014's wish list: "The Lambda Functionary", its sequel, is planned to be released by then. What is Rule 34 about? Well, it has porn (obvious by the title), it has spam and Nigerian scams, it has bugs, it has AIs, it has surveillance and everything a world with SOPA's and ACTA's will end up having - including all the aspects related with the fact that no law enforcement can shut the network down or control it. A must-read (the series, in fact) for those interested on where are we walking towards in this matters.

Talking about Cyberpunk, and obviously, I couldn't miss Neal Stephenson's REAMDE. If you know me, you know that, on my scale, Neal Stephenson is the best writer EVER. REAMDE is a very fine book - and probably the most easy-reading of them all - but it didn't stop from being a... kind of... disappoint me. No, wait, listen carefully: the book is great. Thing is, you expect always the unexpected from the best. Every Neal Stephenson's book was mind blowing to me - you read each of those books and they actually and visibly change you. With REAMDE that will happen to a lot of readers, but being an "sort of easy reading book", you'll have lots of action and cool turning-page stuff, but, specially if you've read the rest of Stephenson, there's not very much new stuff to make you think... it's probably not a book that changed me, like the others before it.

And, to end up SciFi and Cyberpunk, but on quite a different form, "Piracy Is Liberation - Deicide". There are only three series of comics, and "Piracy Is Liberation" is one of them. Piracy Is Liberation is a dystopia, sometime in the future, where people live in "the city" and capitalism is the mandatory religion. Instead of explaining it to you, I'll point you to the torrent for the first book (Deicide is number 9) - uploaded and spreaded by the author himself.

OK, so what's next? Non-fiction. I'll start with an author very well known by it's fiction: Agatha Christie, and her best work in my opinion, which is non-fiction and it is delicious: Come, Tell Me How You Live. The title is the question that this book answers: Agatha Christie not only wrote quite some novels in archaeological settings, but she was also married to Max Mallowan (a prominent archeologist) and worked with him. So, when she got back into England, people used to ask her about her life there, and instead of just telling and retelling, she ended up writing this novel about her stories in Syria - and this is an autobiographical and very very very funny book.

Talking about Syria nowadays I can only think about the most recent events there, and from that thought the mind travels to Egypt. And it is about Egypt's recent events that the next book I have on this list talks about: Alexandra Lucas Coelho's "Tahrir - Os Dias Da Revolução. Here's the short review I wrote soon after I ended reading it: "An emotive short report of what the Tahrir revolution was all about. A book everyone should read - really. I won't be surprised to see this translated into English in the near future - and I really hope so too, because no one should be kept from reading it."

The last two books from this top 10 are... books about books. Living with thousands books (wife's a collector) and being a collector myself (but of music), this two books were really exciting, and Paula heard me saying more than once, while I was reading each of them, "too bad there aren't books like this about music". "Used and Rare: Travels in the Book World" tells the (real) story of a couple that started to find interest in books, and how they suddenly found themselves in the amazing world of book collectors - ending up with more than one or two rare books in their own collection. Phantoms on the Bookshelves was written by a collector - a big collector, that is (with more than 40.000 books) - and it is more introspective, a book where Bonnet reflects on what it is to be a book collector, how to be a book collector, what are the perils of being a book collector, and... well, a book that every collector (of books or something else) will probably empathise with ;-)

There, here it is my top 10 of books I've read in 2011. Let's hope I'll find the time to read more in 2012...