Culture

The invisible man of graffiti art

The New Yorker has published a long piece on Banksy, sub-titled “The invisible man of graffiti art”. Banksy is the famous, but anonymous, UK graffiti artist whose work is a mix of cheeky social commentary and plain fun. Not much is known for sure, but the article writes:

This much is certain: around 1993, his graffiti began appearing on trains and walls around Bristol; by 2001, his blocky spray-painted signature had cropped up all over the United Kingdom…

Since street art is ephemeral, he occasionally issues books filled with photographs of his work, accompanied by his own text. He self-published his first three volumes, â??Existencilism,â?? â??Banging Your Head Against a Brick Wall,â?? and â??Cut It Out.â?? His latest, â??Wall and Piece,â?? was published by Random House and has sold more than two hundred and fifty thousand copies…

Ralph Taylor, a specialist in the Sothebyâ??s contemporary-art department, said of Banksy, â??He is the quickest-growing artist anyone has ever seen of all time.â?? Banksy responded to the Sothebyâ??s sale by posting a painting on his Web site. It featured an auctioneer presiding over a crowd of rapt bidders, with the caption â??I canâ??t believe you morons actually buy this shit.â??

Besides his own website and his books there are plenty of images on Flickr (over 18000 images) that have been attributed to Banksy. They may be originals or simply followers of the Banksy style.

Posted on by mklang

Economist Against DRM

Not bad. The Economist is against DRM making bold statements in a recent article:

Belatedly, music executives have come to realise that DRM simply doesnâ??t work. It is supposed to stop unauthorised copying, but no copy-protection system has yet been devised that cannot be easily defeated. All it does is make life difficult for paying customers, while having little or no effect on clandestine copying plants that churn out pirate copies.

and

While most of todayâ??s DRM schemes that come embedded on CDs and DVDs are likely to disappear over the next year or two, the need to protect copyrighted music and video will remain. Fortunately, there are better ways of doing this than treating customers as if they were criminals.

Nice to see that serious media has begun to realise that rhetoric alone is not enough to legitimize DRM. Articles such as this show that media is beginning to practice journalism and report not only what is written in corporate press releases but are looking at what is happening all around them.

(via Boing Boing)

Posted on by mklang

Devil's Bible on Tour

Devil_medium_small_1News from Humaniorabloggen (the humanist blog) about the Codex Gigas, more often referred to as the Devils Bible.

From the Royal Library website (The Swedish National Library): The Devil’s Bible contains the Old and New Testaments in pre-Vulgate Latin translations, Isidore of Seville’s Etymologiae, Josephus’ History of the Jews in a Latin translation, the Chronicle of Bohemia, written by Cosmas of Prague, etc. The manuscript was written in the early 13th century in the Benedictine monastery of Podlazice in Bohemia. It is called the Devil’s Bible after the impressive picture of that potentate. According to legend the scribe was a monk who had been confined to his cell for some breach of monastic discipline and who, by way of penance, finished the manuscript in one single night with the aid of the Devil whom he had summoned to help him. In 1594 the manuscript was acquired by the Imperial Treasury in Prague. When the Swedish army conquered the city in 1648, it was brought to Sweden and presented to the KB the following year.

The Codex (89,5 x 49 cm, weighs 75 kg and is 624 pages long) and was written on, the calf skin vellum (previously believed to be ass skin vellum). During the last year it has been analyzed and digitalized and is now going to be sent to Prague for a few months for an exhibition at the Prague’s Klementinum palace, the National Library seat, from this September till January 2008.

digitalization process at The Royal Library

The name “The Devils Bible” comes from the fact that the Codex Gigas contains images of the devil (pictures above). The Czech Republic will receive copies of the high quality digitalization and will borrow the Codex. The results of the digitalization and analysis are available online at the Royal Library’s website later this year. There has naturally (?) been discussions concerning the return of the work but apparently The Czech Republic does not contest Swedish ownership.

Cultural artifacts are always a sensitive issue in particular if they were taken in times of war or imperialist occupation. Some items in museums are more connected to specific cultures (the Egyptian collections in Berlin and London for example) but works such as the Codex Gigas are much more complicated to associate with one specific nation state.

Posted on by mklang

A howto for the Fascist Dictator

Naomi Wolf has written a provocative article entitled Fascist America, 10 Easy Steps in the Guardian Online.

  1. Invoke a terrifying internal and external enemy
  2. Create a gulag
  3. Develop a thug caste
  4. Set up an internal surveillance system
  5. Harass citizens’ groups
  6. Engage in arbitrary detention and release
  7. Target key individuals
  8. Control the press
  9. Dissent equals treason
  10. Suspend the rule of law

Her motivations show that the ten easy steps are easily fulfilled by the US administration. It is also interesting that all this is done in the name of freedom and democracy. In other words in order to rescue freedom and democracy we must remove your freedoms and suspend the participatory democracy. This is doublespeak and spin at its best.

Shocking.

Posted on by mklang

iCommons Summit

The third annual iCommons summit will be held in Dubrovnik, Croatia (15-17 June) and this year I have the good fortune to be able to attend.

The event includes people like Creative Commons CEO, Larry Lessig, CC Chairman and Digital Entrepreneur, Joi Ito, Wikipedia Founder, Jimmy Wales and CTO of Linden Labs, Cory Ondrejka. We have also add some new voices to the debate this year including Indiaâ??s Lawrence Liang who has become renowned for his considered commentary on the positive impact of piracy in developing countries, Jonathan Zittrain discussing themes from his new book â??The Future of the Internet and How to Stop Itâ??, Benjamin Mako Hill from MIT who will talk about competing visions of â??free cultureâ?? from the free software perspective, and Becky Hogge from the Open Rights Group, who will talk about successful campaigns to rid the world of restrictive IP laws.

I am really looking forward to it and to meeting all the other commoners. Naturally the event will be blogged 🙂

Posted on by mklang

Stealing Wifi

A man in the UK has been fined £500 and sentenced to 12 monthsâ?? conditional discharge for illegally using someone elseâ??s open wifi (an offence under the Computer Misuse Act see more on note below*). These (one and two) BBC stories gives more information on this but it also includes lots of interesting pre-suppositions about the dangers of open wireless Internet access points.

The main arguments in the BBC stories are that the use of someone elseâ??s wifi is mainly to enter into illegal porn sites, launch hack attacks, to steal information or worse.

Is this really what people try to do on other peoples networks? My experience is that most unauthorized wifi use is travelers checking email, or neighbors using each otherâ??s nets out of sheer incompetence. Naturally there are always going to be nasty people attempting to abuse openness but how bad can it be?

Phil Cracknell has called for an awareness campaign to inform of the dangers of openness â?? â??The perception in the past has been that borrowing a bit of bandwidth is cheeky but not really criminal behaviourâ??. But then again Phil Cracknell is chief technology officer of security firm NetSurity and may be a bit interested in increasing our perception of insecurity.

Most of the people I come into contact with (ok, so I hang with the wrong crowd) donâ??t believe that borrowing bandwidth is cheeky â?? itâ??s a simple act that does not harm anyone.

Using anything for an illegal activity is however illegal and should be punished.

—

* Added 23 April

Stealing wifi is actually an offence under the Communications Act of 2003. To be an offence under the Computer Misuse Act there has to be more than simple wifi use. Basically the Computer Misuse Act requires an unauthorised entry into the computer system. This is similar to Swedish law where “only” using someone’s wifi is not an offence while entering into someone’s system without authorisation is an offence (DatorintrÃ¥ng). This difference is quite subtle and should be investigated further since it could be argued that it is not possible to use wifi without unlawful entry.

Posted on by mklang

Middlemen Wanted

Cheaper computers, better software, more intuitive software, the net, cheaper and faster connectivity have all worked together to make interesting audio and video content available at no cost. In addition to this the Creative Commons licensing system has provided a support for those who want to both share and maintain some control over their content.

The problem is that there is too much content online. It’s disorganized and hard to find. All this opens up an exciting niche for the middleman. Someone who will trawl the internet looking for content worthy of listeners and viewers. Naturally these middlemen have already appeared and are able to recommend good content for those of us who want but lack the time and inclination to attempt to find and wade through all the less interesting stuff.

BlocSonic is one such middleman and they (or he/she) have now released their “Volume 4: Soundtrack for the coming revolution“. They write:

Once again, we’ve got a terrific collection of 10 tracks culled from the wide world of net audio. In this one we feature one from ccMixter, a couple from Jamendo and others from various netlabels. Hip-Hop, Trip-Hop, Unplugged Electronica, Post-Rock, Indie Rock, Drum & Bass are all represented. So download it, give it a listen, contact us and leave feedback. If you’d like, we’d love it if you leave a review at netBloc Vol. 4’s archive.org page.

It’s surprising that these services have not been more widespread. Or maybe it’s just because I have not found them earlier. Here is volume 4:

01 – Sun Zoo – New Pirates (featuring DJ HDL)

02 – Maniax Memori – It’s Not Jazzz

03 – Dirge – Phone

04 – deutscheunschuld – Just One Night (DU Remix Edit) (Featuring Vocals by Jeremy Carr)

05 – You Are My Everything – Can You Feel What It Takes?

06 – Bersarin Quartett – St. Petersburg

07 – Lucas CK – Tu cries

08 – Crepusculum – A Sheltered Life (Herzog Reprise)

09 – BSK – October

10 – L’Onomatopeur – Pour Petite Tete

(via the Creative Commons blog)

Posted on by mklang

Stallman in Göteborg

This is really cool. Richard Stallman will be giving a lecture in Göteborg in May.

The Free Software Foundation Europe and Göteborg University are pleased to invite you to a lecture with Dr. Richard Stallman:

Free Software and Beyond: Human Rights in the Use of Software and Other Published Works

Dr. Richard Stallman will speak about the goals and philosophy of the Free Software Movement: defending essential freedoms for the users of software. In addition, he will address how the ideas of free software do or don’t extend to other kinds of published works. He will also explain what the Pirate Party must change in its program to avoid unintended negative consequences in the software field.

Dr. Stallman is the founder of the GNU project and president of the Free Software Foundation. He has received an honorary doctorate from the Royal Institute of Technology, the University of Glasgow, Free University of Brussels and Universidad Nacional de Salta. In 1990, he was the receiver of a Macarthur foundation fellowship and has been elected member of the US National Academy of Engineering and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.

The lecture will take place at:

University Aula
Göteborg University
Vasaparken
Göteborg, Sweden

May 16th
From 5pm to 8pm

While the lecture is a public event, and we invite you to forward this invitation to whomever you feel might be interested, we kindly request that in order to participate, you register via http://www.rms2007.se/registrering

Posted on by mklang

Tattoos for Kids

Tattoos have been going in and out of fashion for as long as the technique has been known. With the more recent upswing there has also been a rise in the use of temporary tattoos. Considering this it was only a matter of time before some tattooist specialized in tattoos for children. Not temporary tattoos but real ones. Not only that but they even have a system without needles.

Unlike our competitors who only offer temporary rub on tattoos. Our patented needle-free system only causes slight discomfort and ensures a vibrant tattoo, guaranteed not to fade for at least 10 years!

What can I say? Finally a useful parenting tool? Even the name of the company is provocative, Tattoos4Toddlers indeed.

(via Neatorama)

Posted on by mklang