July 31, 2015

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

April 24, 2015

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!

April 23, 2015

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!

January 21, 2015

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.