10 Types Of People

I’ve spent a wee bit finding my favourite adverts from last nights superbowl, in ascending order.

Darth Vadar Volkswagen advert. Very funny, love it.

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Doritos advert.

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Best buy, buyback advert. Very funny and clever. Like the idea of the actual thing as well…

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Sony Ericsson Xperia Play ad. Very creepy, but very clever as well.

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Finally, my favourite, the Motorola Xoom ad, a very clever take on Apple’s 1984 superbowl ad. Like the whole play on it there, however their tagline “A tablet to create a better world” is a little bit…odd…

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Anyway, hope you enjoyed these as well, if you find any that you like, send them in the comments. They would be def appreciated.

I've spent a wee bit finding my favourite adverts from last nights superbowl, in ascending order. Darth Vadar Volkswagen advert. Very funny, love it. Doritos advert. Best buy, buyback advert. Very funny and clever. Like the idea of the actual thing as well... Sony Ericsson Xperia Play ad. Very creepy, but very clever as well. Finally, my favourite, the ...

You may have heard that Sony’s lawsuit against GeoHot and failoverflow was made official today (although, we knew it was coming when they took out that restraining order, lets be honest). If you don’t know whats happened, let me explain in layman’s terms. Essentially, to run any game or program on a PS3, it must be “signed” with a private key, which is essentially a long string of characters that encrypts the game or program. Then, each console has its own key, which is similar, and can be used to decrypt the game, therefore proving it is an official game. The reason that no one has managed to run anything on a PS3 before last week is because no one had this key, as it was kept in a secure Sony facility.

However (and this is where my knowledge of what exactly happened gets a bit sketchy), a group called failoverflow managed to figure out how to do something with the PS3′s key system, and then the next week, GeoHot (a famous iOS and PS3 hacker) managed to use the same method to figure out the master private key. This would theoretically allow anyone to install whatever they want on their PS3, therefore leading to the inevitable end of people finally getting Linux back on their PS3s (which, btw, we paid for in the first place). This is fantastic news for people like me (hackers and computer scientists) because it means we can use our consoles to the full potential. The cell processor can do a lot more than people are doing just now with games and stuff, and this is great. Geohot actually posted a video showing him running a homebrew program on his PS3.

However, today, Sony filed a lawsuit against Geohot and the members of failoverflow, basically suing the living daylights out of them. Apart from my anger towards Sony, there are a few things we can take from this:

1. This is a permanent hack – if Sony could fix this with a software update, they would. They didn’t bother trying to sue GeoHot when they could fix what he did with a software update, therefore they are screwed with this. There is nothing they can do, so they decide to sue.
2. They are obviously not releasing the PS4 anytime soon. This lawsuit will cost them time and money, and if they were going to be announcing the PS4 in June at E3, then they wouldn’t go to all this expense and bother.

Now, before you start harping on about software piracy, this is nothing to do with that. Yes, sure, some people will use it to clone games, but you can’t get away from that fact, and I don’t care, because thats not what I, and most people, want to do with this software. I want to install linux, I want to write small programs for my PS3, and I want to be able to play indie games, and have random little Open Source programs that people make for it. This is what I want, not to rip games and play them without buying them. Most of us aren’t like that. The people involved with this hack want openness and want to be able to use their consoles to the full potential that they can. Nothing more.

Do you stop something because someone might use it for bad? No. Unless the majority uses it for bad, then you just deal with individual people. You don’t ban cars because occasionally people use them to run people down deliberately. And this isn’t even killing anyone if people do it.

I am not for piracy, I am for openness and being able to use my console to its full potential, and in 1 case actually being able to use 1 of the features I bought with it (linux support) which Sony took away. Ironically, to stop this happening

1 last point…I just hope that Apple’s jailbreaking case loss is enough within case law to warrant this being legal as well. If you look at the list of laws that are supposodly broken with this, it seems to be a load of rubbish. I’m obviously not a lawyer, but I’m sure using my PS3 for what I want does not count as “accessing computers without authorization”. Erm, its my computer…

The worry for me, is that if Sony wins, then suddenly we have Apple, and many other companies, trying to stop us using our computers and phones fully. I hacked the bootloader on my phone so I could run modified software on it. I’m not breaking any laws, so why shouldn’t I be able to do that? Its pretty much the same issue.

P.s – The PS3 logo is a registered trademark of Sony…blah blah blah…you know the drill, right?

You may have heard that Sony's lawsuit against GeoHot and failoverflow was made official today (although, we knew it was coming when they took out that restraining order, lets be honest). If you don't know whats happened, let me explain in layman's terms. Essentially, to run any game or program on a PS3, it ...

Many of you will have heard that Time Magazine have just released their “person of the year” for 2010. This is for the most newsworthy person this year. Not necessarily good, or anything like that. Influential and news worthy.

So, before they choose, Time like to ask people what they think. On the right, you can see the final public votes for this. It is absolutely clear from this who should be the winner, and remember this is all about the most newsworthy and influential person. Hitler won one year, infact, so it is not about how good the person is.

From the vote, it is clear than Julian Assange won. He has 382,025 votes, with an average of 92% rating. Compare that with the second place, Recep Tayyip Erdogan with total 233,639 votes and an average of 80%. That is over 100,000 votes more, and 12% higher average for Julian Assange than anyone else. That is absolutely massive. To me, it is clear who the person of the year is.

However…you may have heard who Time Magazine announced as person of the year…Mark Zuckerberg. Wait, is he on the list…oh, yeah, he is. Number 19. He got 18,353 votes with an average rating of 52…

What else can I say about that? 382,025 v 18353 and 92% v 52%

There are a few questions about this that I want to ask…

• What are Time’s editors smoking???

Seriously? Are they just trying to be annoying, or are high, or do they honestly think this makes sense?

• What has Zuckerberg done to deserve this, this year?

Don’t get me wrong, I am not saying that Mark Zuckerberg has not done anything, neither am I saying he is not worthy of getting an award like this. I am just saying, what has he done this year to be the most influential or newsworthy person? Was it the film? Well, I know almost noone who has even heard of the film, never mind seeing it. Was it the pledge to donate half of his money before his death to charity, that was very conveniently announced the week before this? I am not saying that thats not a great thing for him to do, seriously good on him, but it doesn’t really make him influential or newsworthy. Was it perhaps all the security and privacy concerns on facebook? Maybe… How about all the cool features that they have added this year? Or, maybe it is the fact that sooo many people have only just realised it exists? Hmmm…

• What is the point in the public vote?

Clearly, Time Magazine’s editors are just ignoring what people said. None of the top 9 people were chosen. Several of those people have been hugely influential and news worthy. Even if you do not believe that Julian Assange was influential and newsworthy, which I do, then how about The Chilean Miners? Recep Tayyip Erdogan? Barack Obama? Or even Lady Gaga? Seriously…all of them were pushed aside for number 10, Mark Zuckerberg. It makes you wonder why on earth they even have the public vote, as it seems to be just swept aside…

Many of you will have heard that Time Magazine have just released their "person of the year" for 2010. This is for the most newsworthy person this year. Not necessarily good, or anything like that. Influential and news worthy. So, before they choose, Time like to ask people what they think. On the right, you ...

Surprise! This is a surprise Video of the Week (it is no ordinary one). It doesn’t have that in the title, that should be your clue! Your second clue should be the song reference in the title…10 points to anyone who has guessed it already. Don’t look down!! Thats cheating. Ach well, noone gets points because you have probably already looked down.

Anyway, lets talk a little about the XFactor before I give you the video (this is what makes it special). Many of you will remember the RATM campaign last year, to take XFactor off the top of the charts. I remember when I was younger, the Christmas number1 was a great time of unknown. Who would become the Christmas number1? Nowadays, we know who it will be the week beforehand, when the xfactor winner is announced. This is a horrible way for the Christmas no1 to have turned out to be. Yet, the campaign last year did nothing to help it. Still, there are no real challengers to the xfactor winner (whoever that might be, I really don’t care, and please don’t tell me…)

So, this is why I am supporting the campaign to get Surfin’ Bird by the Trashmen to Christmas number 1, by buying the single next week (anytime starting 00:00 tonight, until 23:59 next Saturday).

It is, in my opinion, an equally apt song to have for this campaign as Rage Against the Machine’s was last year. The Trashmen revolutionised the music industry in just a few short minutes. It did, however, never reach its true potential in the charts, only reaching number 5 in the UK, and number 4 in the US. It has spawned several cover songs, and a huge following of young people since its inclusion in the seventh season of Family Guy.

It is one of those songs that changed history, and it’ll hopefully do it again.

RATM got 500,000 downloads last year, which made it to number 1. The Facebook group for this campaign has over 600,000 followers so far. If everyone on that page buys it, it is a sinch. But you too can help.

And just incase you aren’t sure, you can also donate to charity through this. Money from this campaign is going towards primarily the RSPB, but also to the British Heart Foundation, and the Pink Ribbon Foundation. But don’t let this be a 1 off charity thing, let it stir you to give to charities regularly. Charities do great work, and any charity that supports this deserves some money…

Whats that you say? You want the video? Ok…enjoy members of RSPB dancing to this fantastic song!

Ba ba ba bird bird bird…bird is the…word?

Facebook group (incase you missed it up there ^^^): http://www.facebook.com/birdbirdbirdistheword

Surprise! This is a surprise Video of the Week (it is no ordinary one). It doesn't have that in the title, that should be your clue! Your second clue should be the song reference in the title...10 points to anyone who has guessed it already. Don't look down!! Thats cheating. Ach well, noone gets ...

Or “Why backdoors are bad things.”

Heard of the US government saying they want backdoors into web applications? All in the name of terrorism…sorry, in the name of fighting terrorism. It is so they can get access to data that they “need” to stop people blowing other people up. Ok…sure. Lets have a think of a few points about this:

• People who look for backdoors

Lets think about this, people are always looking for backdoors in web apps. And they are always there, because no code is perfect. It is quite hard however when noone knows about it. And when it is found, it can be fixed and will not happen again. So, although they will happen, they can be fixed, if a backdoor is in it for the US, do you think Google (for example) will close that backdoor to then open another one? No, they won’t.

• Documentation

If the government want these backdoors, they will want written documentation about how to access information through these doors. Now, we all know that the government are rubbish at keeping information secret (for one thing). They lose information on laptops, cds, usb sticks, the internet all the time. I don’t want information about how to access my private data being lost on a train. Not a good idea.

Also, what about Freedom of Information? If the government has inforamation, and someone asks for that information, they have to release it. (And then, of course, they will put it on wikileaks). I’m not sure if that is true in America, but certanarily if America has the info, Britain will get it as well. They are “allies” afterall, aren’t they? So, let us get the information freed!!! Let the whole world know how to get into my email…

• Terrorists aren’t that stupid…

If terrorists are stupid enough to communicate over big web apps, there is no way they will manage to bomb anyone anyway. They are normally cleverer than that. They don’t email each other, or put up a shared evernote note on when their attacks are going to happen. No. They will create encrypted sites that only they have access to, which is not a big web app, is homegrown, and won’t have any backdoors into it. And how are they going to get into that then?

Essentially, like every other policy that governments say, this  has not been thought through, and is just going to cause more and more security flaws in web apps that normal people use, and our data is going to get stolen. It WILL NOT stop terrorists from doing what they are doing.

Or "Why backdoors are bad things." Heard of the US government saying they want backdoors into web applications? All in the name of terrorism...sorry, in the name of fighting terrorism. It is so they can get access to data that they "need" to stop people blowing other people up. Ok...sure. Lets have a think of ...

Just thought I would let you know that there have been a few changes to my blog over the past week. First of all, you will notice at the bottom of every article there is now a star rating. This is meant for people to rate what they think about my writing/reviews etc. Not about whether you agree with me, necessarily, but about whether you think it is a good article. I know that a lot of people don’t tend to comment on my blog, but if you are reading it you might be more willing to click a star. Please take the 2 seconds to do this as I like to know if I can improve at all.

The other thing is beside every comment there is a thumb up/thumb down button. This is to encourage conversation on my blog, as conversation is an important thing on any site. If people like your comments, they will vote them up. And the best votes float to the top of the pile (or at least they should do…). So, please continue to read my blog, but I’d love you to take part in commenting and talking about the subjects. I am thinking currently of making it easier for people reading the RSS feeds from my website to comment, or to rate articles and comments. Currently it isn’t possible for this, and that is something I would love to change, as you shouldn’t have to come to my site to do these things. You do have to currently, however.

There are a few architectural things within my site that have changed that should make it a bit faster and easier to find. You may not notice this at first, but it will get better.

Anyway, I hope you enjoy these changes, and I think I’ve set a new record for the amount of time I’ve had the same theme I like this one…

Just thought I would let you know that there have been a few changes to my blog over the past week. First of all, you will notice at the bottom of every article there is now a star rating. This is meant for people to rate what they think about my writing/reviews etc. Not ...

So, its about time for my 6-monthly Ubuntu Review. I am writing this while waiting for the official release of Ubuntu. I hope I get this finished before it is released…it could be anywhere between now and midnight in the samoa islands (I think thats the last place that gets the time). My Ubuntu reviews always seem to be very popular for some reason, so I decided to make sure it’s done as soon as possible this time. I’ll get it written before lunch time. Anyway, I’ll stop blabbing…

Obviously this is a Long Term Support (LTS) release, so there won’t be a huge number of changes in functionality, as the idea of LTS is to have a rock-solid stable release that can be used. I will also only be focusing on Ubuntu (not Kubuntu, Xubuntu or Lubuntu). I may do a review of them later, but as I don’t use them primarily, I don’t know them as well.

I have been using Lucid since alpha 1, and have seen it grow from a Koala into the fully fledged Lynx. (Yeah, ok, that sentence meant nothing…) (more…)

So, its about time for my 6-monthly Ubuntu Review. I am writing this while waiting for the official release of Ubuntu. I hope I get this finished before it is released...it could be anywhere between now and midnight in the samoa islands (I think thats the last place that gets the time). My Ubuntu ...

So, I sent an email to Jim Murphy, my MP (although technically he isn’t my MP just now as parliament has been dissolved, and that must take a lot of hot water…) about the Digital Economies Bill (now the Digital Economies Act). Yesterday, I got a reply from him by letter (yes…letter), nearly 3 weeks after I sent him the original email. There is obviously no point in writing to him again until after the election (and if he actually gets back in the seat, which I hope he doesn’t), so I thought I would post about it here. I scanned it in, and if you click on the small copy of the image, you will be able to see it in all of its large, scanned glory.

Take the jump to see extracts of it, and my opinions on what he wrote to me.

**UPDATE** Image changed due to information that needed to be blurred out #fail **UPDATE**

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So, I sent an email to Jim Murphy, my MP (although technically he isn't my MP just now as parliament has been dissolved, and that must take a lot of hot water...) about the Digital Economies Bill (now the Digital Economies Act). Yesterday, I got a reply from him by letter (yes...letter), nearly 3 ...

I emailed my MP about the Digital Economies Bill last week. I haven’t got a reply yet, but I thought I would post the letter before I get a reply. I sent it on Thursday, so lets see how long it takes for him to get back. Here we go…

Dear Jim Murphy,

I am writing to you to ask you a few questions on your thoughts on the upcoming Digital Economies Bill. I have a few worries about this bill that seems to be being pushed through very quickly before the general election.

1. It discourages free wifi in public places. With the current proposal, it would mean that if someone broke copyright laws on free wifi, the owner of the wifi will be fined. This part of the bill will completely kill free wifi in Britain, which would be such a shame.

Also, companies with free wifi would be made to keep a log of all data going through the Internet. This is not easy for a small shop for example, and in general is a very hard thing to do.

2. Part of the proposal is to block website that break copyright. This is a dangerous road that we should never go down. This would mean, for example, that YouTube would be blocked in the UK.

YouTube gets 24 hours of video uploaded to it every hour, and policing this amount of data going into it is an unnecessary requirement on any company. Because of this, it would mean that there is copyright material on YouTube, which would mean it would be blocked.

3. The proposal also includes a law that has been rejected in several countries. The 3-strikes law, which means that if someone gets accused of copyright violation 3 times, their Internet gets cut off and their name on a list which means they can’t get any Internet connection ever again.

This is a shocking idea in several ways. The fact that this could happen without any trial is the first, and is completely against the British law system. The fact that we are changing it from “innocent until proven guilty” to the complete opposite shocks me.

The other thing is the idea of getting your Internet connection cut off. Several countries are actually setting down having an Internet connection as being a human right, yet we are getting a bill that will say it is a privilege. There are so many things that are moving online, that it would be a terrible idea to even consider cutting this off.

These arguments aren’t even starting to discuss the technical implications of this bill, which are very large. Too large to go into in this email.

I hope you will let me know how you feel about this bill, as I, and many other people, have serious problems with this bill, and we feel it is being pushed through without proper thought about it, by the Lords, people who aren’t even voted into power.

I will be posting this letter, and your reply, to my blog and to http://votegeek.org.uk/east-renfrewshire/ to let other constituents make good choices in their voting this general election.

Yours sincerely,
Alistair McKinlay

I emailed my MP about the Digital Economies Bill last week. I haven't got a reply yet, but I thought I would post the letter before I get a reply. I sent it on Thursday, so lets see how long it takes for him to get back. Here we go... Dear Jim Murphy, I am writing ...

Nothing really can be said…

Nothing really can be said...