Journal of a Sysadmin

New way to get music

This is great.

Lots of bands have started posting (in recent time at least, and generally smaller bands) MP3 examples of their music, tracks from CDs, videos, and demo recordings, CD sales info, and then post their tour dates. I think this is a perfect way to get the word out about themselves and to market themselves WITHOUT COMPANIES LIKE SONY.

I found one decent site www.stoplookandlistenzine.com which lists many startup bands with tracks. Another site is www.soundclick.com where they actually chart music based on listener feedback.

This is the way I feel music is intended to be. If you want to sell a CD yes do it and if I like your music I might even buy it but if I never get to test out your music how will I know to buy your CD? Oh, and do NOT base your CD prices on the big companies prices. If you can’t sell a CD for $10.00 and make a decent turn around on it you are doing something drastically wrong… Thing is, I refuse to pay $25.00 for a single f’ing CD that I may not even like!

Bike downtown

A little different route today. This one went from home past 17th, over crowchild and ended around 8th and 8th SW. Then I biked straight home from there.

Total Time 00:51:23
Total Distance 19.00 km
Average Cadence 85 rpm
Average Speed 22.1 km/h
Odo 1177 km (from 1144)
Max Cadence 114 rpm
Max Speed 46 km/h

Help everyone stop spam

Want to help everyone stop spam?

I’ve started using Sender Policy Framework (was Sender Permitted From) to make who my outgoing mail servers are public knowledge. I implemented it here, and at work where it is makeing a real difference.

So, using milter-greylist and amavisd-new you can whitelist based on SPF being available (and correct) and either add or subtract from the SPAM score based on SPF. If everyone was required to use SPF you could in theory drop mail based on SPF, though at this time it’s not recommended to do.

Visit the Current SPF Protocol Specification for more information and set it up if you can!

Oh Canada, protect us from ourselves.

On November 18th Bruce Perens of Debian fame addressed the UN as a speaker at the World Summit on the information society. His speech (which is online) started my doing some reading on a few things that have gone on in this area in the past couple of weeks and, quite frankly, it pissed me off.

So, it is Bruce Perens fault (perhaps indirectly but…) that I have a rather large spouting on the main page of hardrock.org (no doubt, you would notice if you looked).

It’s going to stay there until bill C60 dies.

The legal departments of large companies want us to pay large fees for the music and software that we buy (have you actually seen how F*cking much they want for a CD lately? It’s outragous) then not allow us the rights of fair use. They have lobbied the government to change copyright laws in our country (via Bill C60) to take rights of fair use away from us.

Perhaps you need more information on what bill C60 is about first. Maybe you also need information on what DRM is, and what Sony Music is doing to take away our rights.

Microsoft, Computer Associates, and Symantec also knew about Sony’s DRM software and knew what this software would do. Still they let it happen, and possibly even gave input into how it should be done.

Credit for disclosing the Sony rootkit and its backdoor can be given to Mark Russinovich who does this for a living. When he found out how he had been compromised be naturally was angry. It’s not so much that it happened (I’ve had machines compromised before) it’s that you trust the people that work for these large companies to NOT do something stupid like this and what do they do?

They take advantage of that trust and use it against us.

And this in its self is part of the problem. From

http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,1895,1880543,00.asp

Russinovich was reluctant to discuss the details of how the DRM software works, citing fear of prosecution under the DMCA (Digital Millennium Copyright Act).

Even the guy that found it was scared to actually say anything because he knows what these laws do. They take away our rights, all of them. We buy a computer (our money, our property). We buy software for it (our money, our property except for the basic copyright holders rights of course). We buy music (our money, our property again with the exception that the musician holds the copyright on the music).

Not allowing us the option of installing the software, or the option of removing this software, and hi-jacking our computers are a breech our rights and freedoms, the people who have paid for this copy of this software or music. When we buy a CD from the store the CD is ours to do with as we please. The Sony DRM solution takes that away and installs software on your computer without your permission.

And Bill C60 will give them these rights in Canada as they have them in the US. This is why we have to stop Bill C60 from passing.

So, where does Bruce Perens fit into all of this? In his UN speech he said:

The software patent holders have so far held off from attacking Open Source until they can get more nations to pass software patent laws. Moving against us now now would only raise more objections to their political campaign. But the time will come. We fought the software patent camp off successfully in Europe last year, but they’ve already started a new offensive, and now they are using ineffective patent pools to deceive legislators that the problem is solved for Open Source and that laws supporting software patenting can now go ahead. Planning to defend Open Source with a patent pool is like planning to hold off the avian flu with a box of tissues.

This exactly is the same problem. These companies have more money then the person (like me) who writes free software. They have so much money, it’s impossible to fight them off and we might as well fold and try and get away with as little beating as possible. The only things these patent and digital copyright laws are designed to do is to keep the rich rich and everyone else in chains.

And don’t get me wrong. I do write free software and give it away for free but it is MY software, I wrote it and I hold the copyright on it. Whatever you do with it is fine AS LONG AS YOU ABIDE BY THE LICENSE I PUT IT UNDER. This generaly includes re-releasing it or feeding me back the changes you’ve made.

Music, I can see as being a copyright issue. My brother writes a song, it’s his song. If you make money with it you MUST give him his credit and I believe a small fee.

My brother on the other hand, has no use for DRM software. I will guarentee that if someone downloads one of his songs from the internet via a legitimate download source and like it they will go and BUY his CD and will ATTEND his concerts and will tell OTHERS about his music.

That carries far far more power for the software developer or the musician then DRM can ever.
It also carries far more power then Bill C60 ever could for the musician.

Yes musicians and software companies need to make money, but laws like Bill C60 will not ever be able to make them money, it will ONLY ever stop innovation and our own rights.

I would also like to ask where some of the great Canadians who have stood up for our and others rights before are now and where they stand on this. Where is Bruce Cockburn, Neil Young, Getty Lee? Where is Stephen Lewis while our human rights are being trampled? I hope he was in attendance during Bruce Perens speech as the economics of free software would help even the situation in Africa. Hopefully his own country is as important as any other.

At any rate, now the time is late and I must sleep. I hope that this will help stir others into asking their friends, neighbors, and maybe family to write their MP or to sign the petition at http://www.digital-copyright.ca/billc60/.

Thanks for reading.

Saturday Bike (maybe last of the year)

So, I went for a decent ride around the resevoir but, when I got to Heritage Park an annoying thing happened. As I was approching the park I had to hop off the trail to go around the hordes of pedestrians that had come out (it was after all, 15C or so). When I did the front brake cable popped out of place, maybe because of being jarred (it had done this once before as well).

So, this means I had to stop. I leaned over the front and fixed the cable but in doing so reset the time/distance on my bike comp. That is annoying…

As it is, all I got was a partial time/distance and averages over that.
Total Time 00:21:35
Total Distance 8.14 km
Average Cadence 87 rpm
Average Speed 22.6 km/h
Odo 1144 km (from 1111)
Max Cadence 113 rpm
Max Speed 41 km/h

The total time was around an hour, and it would have been about 23k but of course there’s no telling now. It was a great day for a ride, warm and sunny with no wind. A little ice in the trees on the south side of the resevoir which made things interesting. If I could get a few more of these rides in before the snow flies it would be nice, but it’s *very* unlikely to happen.

We’ll see, I do have Thursday, Friday, and Monday off =)

Autumns Quiet Rage

Today was November 11th which I think may be a marker for me. I cleaned up the back yard in preparation for winters decent onto the prairies, felt somehow angry (perhaps at the final passing of the summer) at everyone and everything, and had a shiver for most of the day…

It’s not that it was cold today (we’ve had colder days already) but it was something else… I can’t wait for boarding to start (officially today at sunshine) but still I resent that the winter is coming and will force us to be cold, bundle up, stay inside, not go for long bike rides or sit on the deck and sip our beers or pick raspberries or mow the lawn. All these things I love to do in the summer months when it’s warm and the days are much longer.

I noticed the long shadows on the grass while working in the yard today: at one thirty in the afternoon. The days are so much shorter already. It’s going to snow come monday they say and it just may be the last time the snow has fallen then melted this fall and most of the ground was left uncovered in the end.

jhb has finally gotten a work permit and her AIP and maybe she’ll have her PR status soon. That would mean all the waiting would finally be over. When she received her work permit she started working almost the next day and has been so much happier since! It’s wonderful to see. I know she’s been feeling down about that (not being able to work and help contribute) but she has been contributing so much daily she really doesn’t need to feel like this. Not only at home btw, but also at the Red Cross, Alzheimers Society, and other charities with offices around the city.

What else has been happening? I’ve been biking to work which means that my odometer is now at 1111km (a total of 1330 km this year) without going for a decent ride since September. The bike rides are nice but sometimes I wish they were longer and that I had more time for
them. I hope at some point in the future to be able to buy a lighter frame as well. This one, although it’s strong enough is lead heavy. Maybe in the next couple of years, at least I can look forward to being able to work a lot less and go a lot farther.

The snow (as I mentioned before) is already down in the mountains and it is getting very deep there! We are hoping (or at least I am) that next weekend we will be able to go and snowboard on Saturday at either Sunshine or Lake Louise. This is yet to be seen but, we are hoping it happens but time and finanaces will tell.

Our little puppy Missy is not so little anymore. She’s over a year old now, very spotted, very red, and very pretty. She loves to snuggle on the bed, or on the couch either with a pillow, a cat or us which I like to think is her preference.

At any rate, our little corner of the world is good. Getting colder and darker but it is still good. Autumn creeps up on us and next thing we know it’s spring again and with it flowers and grass and beer on our deck.

Once I’m tired of snowboarding or seriously injured, I’ll be impatient for spring to arrive again.