Ben Francis

Yesterday I mentioned that BBC Radio 2 had been talking about my comments on Wednesday night, but I only found out on Thursday morning at work whilst “listening again” on the BBC web site. Here’s the whole story…

The 2 hour Great British Music Debate 2004 was aired on BBC Radio 2 on Wednesday night. I sent an email to the panelists asking about Copyright law and the Internet. I also asked about the regulation of Peer to Peer file sharing.
 
I’ve transcribed it from the listen again feature on the BBC web site which runs for a week after transmission and can be found on this page http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio2/events/greatdebate2004/

I can provide an mp3 of the show upon request.

My question was as follows. (Please note that this wasn’t the exact wording, I didn’t save my question at the time.)

QUESTION

I would like to ask the panelists, do they think that digital media and the Internet, which mean the cost of duplication of music is almost zero, have rendered archaic Copyright law obsolete? Are more liberal licenses like Creative Commons which offer greater freedoms the future of the music industry?

Could Peer to Peer file sharing networks be regulated by the music industry as a broadcast medium like radio, rather than them suing potential customers for using them?

—

Below is the response. Unfortunately Creative Commons wasn’t mentioned and I’m not sure if the question I was really asking got answered, but this is what I got.

ANSWER

Read More…

There was something odd about today, but I can’t quite pin it down.

Everything seemed very quiet at work and the phone didn’t ring until about 2:30 which is very odd indeed. I found out that they were talking about me (or rather my comments) on BBC Radio 2 last night, which was odd.

On the way home everyone seemed to have forgotten how to drive (That’s probably not that odd). There was an elderly woman driving a metro who stalled at the worst junction/train crossing/centre of mayhem I drive through each day. She then stalled it again. Then she waited a bit before flooring it and I’ve never seen a wheel spin quite like it. Then I got stuck behind a vehicle (two separate cars actually) travelling at 40mph all the way home.

Boy is it cold in here.

Must learn to keep my mouth shut

I’ve taken responsibility over updating a “what’s on” web page at work with updates about every month and I’ve been given the FTP login details by the company who currently looks after the site. I was browsing through the webspace with a couple of collegues and I found that the entire website was contained in one folder in the web root called “NewFiles” which contained all of the HTML files (probably a hundred or so) with no subdirectories or obvious naming convention. The archived news was in individual HTML files scattered around the place, the pages contain odd bits of broken javascript and the site only really works in Internet Explorer. The web page was now several months out of date and it needed some recent content. Pictures are missing and badly arranged.

I pootled over to the gallery.

Me: Hi [Arts Officer], have you got the new “what’s on” leaflet for the gallery? I want to update the web site and I need some new content because it’s all way out of date.
Arts Officer: No, not yet. *Looks vaguely over my shoulder*
Me: So it’s not been printed?
Arts Officer: No not yet. But I’ve got some text about the exhibition in January.
Me: OK, could you email it to me?  I’m not sure where to start really, I’ve just been looking at the web space and the organisation is a complete shambles, there’s no structure to anything at all and the pages are a mess.
Arts Officer: Right. Ben, this is [name of woman standing behind me] from [name of company who currently looks after the web site].
Me: Ah.
Woman: Thank you for just insulting my Father’s work. I’m afraid we can’t charge very much for your web site so it’s very low down on our list of priorities.

I explained that I hadn’t meant to cause any offence and I completely understood that it wasn’t their top priority (I didn’t, we pay them enough! They don’t even have a web site of their own). But that from an organisational point of view it’s a nightmare, there’s no structure in it at all. It also has the problem that the menu doesn’t work in Safari (the main browser we use) or Firefox (the main browser I use). To that she replied:

“Yes, but I find a lot of web sites don’t work in Safari. Don’t You?”

Oh why did you have to go and say that? I tried to explain, in the politest possible way that this was more likely down to web design than the browser itself, that the web sites probably aren’t following web standards. Just because something works in Internet Explorer doesn’t mean it will work for everyone.

“Well I suppose that’s a lesson we should learn. Perhaps you should learn to think before you speak.”

I have to admit, she has a point. She then made signs of leaving, having had the final word, so I apologised again as she walked off.

When she’d gone I curled up in the corner and nearly died with embarassment. The Arts Officer reassured me, saying that yes it was unfortunate but that she thought we had both dealt with it in a positive and professional way.

In other news

Teaching our children it’s wrong to share
Perhaps someone from Creative Commons could go along and teach them a different lesson…

SCO web site is defaced
Very subtle, very amusing, but doesn’t really help the case at all. Not to be condoned.
Meanwhile SCO is merrily selling its first Linux licenses in the UK What is it they’re selling exactly?

NASA throws lump of metal at a comet
Apparently for scientific reasons.

Dev is back

Dev is back up I see. Not that iMen were even told officially that it had gone down in the first place…

Don’t forget about cooling, computers need air

I spent most of Sunday converting the part of my desk which used to house two drawers into a computer Unit to free up some legroom under the desk.

I managed to build in a false floor under which the remarkable tangle of cables for my 8 point home network, surround sound audio cables etc. can be hidden. It was made of black ash MDF to match the desk and fits perfectly with a slot in the back for cables to discretely disappear, supported by two carefully cut supports.

I unplugged everything so I could relocate the box then wired everything back up which took about 15 minutes. It all looked neat and tidy and my main tower fits perfectly next to the subwoofer, router and switch.

I booted up the computer and it was just sat there playing music and displaying the gmatrix screensaver when Ubuntu froze and bombed out.  Upon rebooting the machine the CPU temperature was reading a 75 degrees C and was probably hotter than that when it crashed.

I’d completely neglected to build in any ventillation. The hot air was pumping out of the back of the box and getting trapped in a black wooden box where the temperature built up and it overheated. The aluminium case was hot to the touch.

I think I’ll have to take the back off the desk to allow airflow and hope it doesn’t fall apart!

Running out of Petrol

The petrol gauge on my car can be a bit tempremental so I try and keep it reasonably well topped up. But this morning I got in the car and the fuel light came on. I was already running a little late but I dashed to the other side of town to the Petrol Station.

When I got to the petrol station I realised I didn’t have my wallet so had to drive home to fetch it. I then went back to the petrol station and filled up.

On the way to work I got stuck behind three lorries and wait for two trains and by the time I arrived I was 40 minutes late.

I probably could have got to work on the fuel left in the car.

In other news

Friday night was speech day at BGS which was traditionally dull. The special guest was an ex BGS pupil who discovered a gene related to obesity, she was the most interesting person talking all night.

However, it was worth sitting through the speeches to a) get my hands on the Dirk Gently Omnibus (I won the Computing Prize and it was my Prize) and b) go to the pub with djkoa

I also made a final decision not to retake any of my maths A Level and got to see a lot of people who’ve been at Uni all term.

P.S. Deepest Sender is very cool

Power Outage…

I was in a meeting about Sonic Postcards when Gary burst in and asked if we still had power. Turned out one of the three power phases to the college had blown (I’m pretty sure of this, the electrician said it was the case and it certainly smelt like something had melted). Nobody is quite sure how we managed to draw enough power off it to make the something melt, but it did. As it happens, the entire server room and the office happened to be on the phase that blew.

The UPSs kicked in nicely but we had to take out the Windows servers (because apparently they drain the most energy) and leave the Mac servers running. After a while the power outage was seeming more permenant by the second and computers were dropping like flies as the UPSs ran out of juice so we had to take the whole lot down.

…+ Meningitis Outbreak…

Meanwhile, before the power cut the college had received a phone call saying that one of the lads who went on a school trip yesterday has come down with Meningitis C! This means that all the students and staff (including a member of staff I’d just had a meeting with) had to have an injection as a precaution. They all had to be kept after school and walked down to the hospital round the corner (I think).

…= Chaos

Unfortunately the power outage meant that the phone exchange was down so the office staff couldn’t ring all the parents to let them know what was going on. When I relayed this fact to the electrician he said that he could switch one of the working phases to the broken one to give the phones power, and why hadn’t anyone asked him to do this anyway? So the power was switched and the phones back online. The electrician wasn’t sure about the load on the now working phase so we rushed around the place turning everything off that didn’t need to be on.

After a while it emerged that the fuse that had blown was actually one that had to be changed by the electricity board so they had to be called out. At this point the power had to be switched back to how it was so the electricity board didn’t know it had been touched (shh), meaning the phones would go out again. So we ran an extension lead from a working socket upstairs down to the phone exchange, the fax machine and some temporary lighting in the office (it was starting to get dark).

At this point the network manager (who had just popped out) arrived wanting to know why all the lights were switched off!

phpicalendar
Regarding my previous post about setting up phpicalendar to allow multiple calendars being posted to a WebDAV server with different usernames and passwords…

I was going to suggest hacking phpicalendar to allow transversing subdirectories recursively so that each calendar could be in its own (separately authenticated) directory, but before I do that I’m going to try something else. After reading a lot of Apache documentation I’ve come across another possibility. (I’ve been reading http://httpd.apache.org/docs-2.0/mod/core.html#files and
http://httpd.apache.org/docs-2.0/sections.html)

Basically, within the Apache configuration a section can be nested within a section in order to manage access control on an individual file basis. So instead of having a subdirectory for each user, you need only have a calendar file (.ics file) per user within the default calendars directory.

The example given in the Apache documentation is:

<Directory /var/web/dir1>
<Files private.html>
Order allow,deny
Deny from all
</Files>
</Directory>

For this application I was thinking something along the lines of…

<Directory /var/www/phpicalendar/calendars/>
<Files calendar1.ics>
DAV On
AuthType Basic
AuthName “Private”
AuthUserFile /etc/apache/htpasswd
Order allow, deny
Allow from all
<Limit PUT DELETE PATCH PROPPATCH MKCOL COPY MOVE LOCK UNLOCK>
require user user1
</Limit>
</Files>
<Files calendar2.ics>
DAV On
AuthType Basic
AuthName “Private”
AuthUserFile /etc/apache/htpasswd
Order allow, deny
Allow from all
<Limit PUT DELETE PATCH PROPPATCH MKCOL COPY MOVE LOCK UNLOCK>
require user user2
</Limit>
</Files>
</Directory>

The downside to this is that the .ics filename must be identical to the one in the Apache config file.

Note: this isn’t secure, the next task is to pipe all this through SSL.

Runtime Error… on an ATM

I noticed that BBC News is reporting “Concerns over Windows cashpoints”, “Cash machine networks could soon be more susceptible to computer viruses, a security firm has warned.”

There’s been a Windows Runtime Error displayed on our local Nationwide cash machine for about a week now, which I find highly amusing. It still works, but apparently they’re waiting for someone from head office to sort out the error.

On a semi-related note, the Sainsburys Bank cash machine down the road is being very unstable. The screen flickers, it’s extremely slow and kept beeping at me at random intervals last time I used it. I thought it was going to eat my card.

Guiness lamp

lauperr bought me the *coolest* present. It’s a Guinness Neon Lamp (you’ve really got to see it, I’ll post photos when I find the lead for lauperr‘s camera). She bought it on eBay from a Mr Wong from Hong Kong (I kid you not) and had it shipped over 😀

Pub Quiz

After our impressive winnings last fortnight (8 free drinks and a bottle of wine) we failed to win the quiz this time. We were against stiff competition and the questions were mostly about events just before we were born. We did manage to come away with a T-shirt, DVD and bottle opener and we didn’t pay for a drink all night 🙂 so it wasn’t all bad! And we didn’t come last either.

Illness

I’ve just recovered from a tummy bug which I caught off Laura. I haven’t thrown up in about ten years, I thing I’ve been storing it all up ‘caus this time was pretty bad!

After being sick I was having weird dreams while trying to sleep which seemed to continue into when I was awake. Perhaps these are what are called hallucinations. I think I thought I was running Buckingham Palace and the Queen was getting mad with me because I was doing a bad job of it. There was too much paperwork to fill in you see and I didn’t understand any of the forms!

On top of that, I couldn’t seem to get comfortable, I was tossing and turning all night, and rambling at lauperr keeping her awake. I couldn’t concentrate on anything or straighten out my thoughts. If I thought about a person for example, that person would suddenly change into a group of shapes in my head – rods, spheres and cubes – and then float around incomprehensibly in the air. I didn’t really know where I was and felt very uneasy. Scary stuff!

I’m glad that’s all over!

Backdated Entries
Why is it that backdated entries seem not to show up in friends’ lists? I backdated two entries which don’t show up anywhere but my journal page. Oh well.

Pottering
Today has been pottering around, filling out (online) forms, shopping for stationary, domain renewal, complaining to a hosting company and digging up the front lawn.

Freelance Computer Support (tolatech.co.uk)
Tomorrow I’m setting up a wireless network for someone. It’s amazing how jobs keep coming in without asking for them. Word of mouth is the best advertising for my sort of work. Talking of my freelance-on-the-side stuff, I don’t think lauperr really understands that I’m kind of at work all the time. I only get a proper wage packet for 30 hours a week, the rest of my time is bits of work here and there. This means that I don’t really come home at night and “finish” work, but I’m basically working whenever I’m needed. I still have a few jobs that need chasing up.

I met a “client” in the car park of a supermarket yesterday whilst out with Laura and was told off for stopping to chat to them to arrange when I can do some work for them. It’s just the way things work.

Random observations of the day
* Photoshop is quite cool.
* Programming PIC chips is easier in Windows than in GNU/Linux, thank the lord for Wine.
* Being charged to cancel hosting once the paid-for time is up is stupid when the charge is double that of two years domain registration!
* TV is crap.

I don’t actually remember writing “lmao I’m drunk!” at the end of the last entry so I think I really must have been. I must have written it when I came back from the hotel bar in a bit of a state. Presumably I was finding something amusing, perhaps the way the room was spinning around me creating an effect not dissimilar to a fairground ride. I’ve since found out that my colleagues didn’t leave the bar until 3:30am and didn’t get to bed until gone 5.

Backtracking a little… after leaving my hotel room (number 42) last night I went for the evening meal to find I’d been put on a table (number 7) with complete strangers, a couple of old guys and a few young female teachers (but don’t tell lauperr). I expect the idea was to get us all to mingle and practice our “networking” skills.

I thought I’d play “Let’s see how long it takes you to figure out I’m not a teacher” which actually lasted all evening! I thought I was rumbled when the guy next to me, after having given me a detailed account of his past, said “So what’s your educational background?” but I somehow managed to escape to the toilet!

I always find it amusing how people react when put with a group of strangers. The kind of ritual that goes on to initiate polite conversation and not offend anyone. Anyway… I overslept and woke up at 9:30 (the training started again at 8:30) but I made it in time for the first talk. I felt very ill all day and didn’t get to eat until tea time which didn’t help!

I’m currently sitting in a hotel room, a very nice hotel room in fact, and one which happens to have the number 42 🙂 Much nicer than anything I’ve stayed in while in London doing recordings. This hotel happens to be just down the road from my work (Barnsdale Lodge), but it’s free so hey.

I’m in the middle of a two day D&T conference for teachers. Being at a conference for teachers, people assume I’m a teacher – which I find vaguely amusing as the teacher who taught me A Level Product Design last year is supposed to be on the same course.

On reception was a cat called Aaron which looks so much like Bazil (a black and white cat I grew up with who ran away a few years ago) that I’m actually seriously considering the possibility that it is indeed the same cat! Quite how it travelled twenty miles from home is another matter entirely…

Despite the fact I’ve nearly fallen asleep in all of the lectures today I’ve actually found it quite interesting. There was an initial talk by someone from industry describing some of the wacky projects they’ve done, and I mean a big ball of welded metal spikes the size of the Leaning Tower of Piza kind of wacky. Then I went to a talk about a different approach to brain storming, followed by a talk about Ergonomics by a senior lecturer from Loughborough University (we swapped business cards) and a talk about programmable electronics by a guy from Nottingham Trent University who suggested I email him.

The programmable electronics stuff has fascinated me and I’m dying to have a go with it. I don’t think work are really interested in going down that route but I may have to buy a few bits to play with at home 🙂 A teacher from Oakham school showed me a robotic dog his students have been developing which was impressive. I’ve got a great idea for making my own DRD (Farscape reference) but I don’t know how long it will last before I get banned from doing it because it’s too nerdy 😛

I under an hour I have to head back to the conference venue for a meal before I can come back to sleep in this massive bed. It’s a real shame lauperr isn’t here because there’d be plenty of room if I could get away with it. Still, with her current state of health it’s probably best she stops at home. Near the toilet 🙁

Update

lmao I’m drunk!

Work

A current project at work is setting up a Linux/Apache/MySQL/PHP server to eventually be used to host a web site for Catmose Arts and run services for the County. I’m currently using a PC from home for the job because I inadvertently wiped the BIOS of the 2Ghz/120Gb/1Gb server I was supposed to be using! Will tell that story next time.

Once I’d got some hardware that I knew worked with Debian stable it took me very little time to set up the server. My current problem is setting up a webdav server (reasonably securely) to allow people to publish iCalendar compatible calendars to the web site (see rfc2445). I’m using phpicalendar to parse and display the .ics files on the web ok but I’m having problems setting up write access to the calendars directory using webdav (any help appreciated). Read access is fine and I can subscribe to calendars. I’m using the mod_dav module for Apache and I want to use at *least* digest authentication for write access. I really need to do a lot more reading and googling so I’m comfortable with my httpd.conf file and my htaccess config.

Another problem is that I want each calendar uploaded to the server to be protected by a separate username and password (for writing, not reading). Currently phpicalendar only parses .ics files stored in one directory and does not transverse the directory tree recursively. As http authentication built into Apache only allows password protecting directories, not files, this is a problem because I can’t currently put each calendar in its own directory. I’m going to try and hack the phpicalendar code but I fear I may break it 🙂 Again, any help welcome. I think there may also be a bug in the way URLs are parsed differently in normal and printer-friendly views, I’ll try and let the developers know.

Casual Observation

I’ve noticed that “Suits” have started wooly jumpers and smiles as some kind of disguise. It’s a worrying trend which I fear may have been influenced by Steve Jobs and is passing through the corporate world like wildfire. So remember people, stay on guard. The Suits(TM) are getting more devious every day.

Holiday

Because of previously mentioned hitches the holiday has been moved to February. lauperr, her family and myself will now be heading off to Agadir in Morocco. The more I read about Morocco the more I think we should have booked somewhere in the Canary Islands but… I’m sure it will be great. I’ve finally got my passport and I get to go on a plane for the first time too (nobody can believe I’ve never flown).

Other News

So much going on at the moment, don’t have time to blog it all. My car sailed through its MOT on everything except Carbon Monoxide emissions (grr, there goes another £130). Money is still a problem but I’m getting quite a bit of Freelance work to supplement my income and keep me out of the red. If they can just cancel Christmas, I should be fine 🙂 (bah humbug). I’m slowly being driven insane by the lack of music during my 80 minutes a day of driving too and from work. I’ll have to ask for a CD player for my car for Christmas, but if anyone knows how to unlock a locked car radio that’s had the wrong code punched in too many times…

Poor lauperr

Poor lauperr is very ill at the moment and needs lots of nursing. Feel free to send flowers and cards (or a donation to a favoured animal charity), but chocolate is likely to end up in the toilet :S