Tag Archives: free culture

Find out if your website is banned in China

“The Great Firewall of China”:http://www.greatfirewallofchina.org/ is a website that tests to see if any given URL is banned under the censorship regime of the Chinese Communists Party. Neither this blog, nor my personal website “elliott-herder.com”:http://elliott-herder.com are banned but one of my favorite blogs “Architectures of Control”:http://architectures.danlockton.co.uk/ by Dan Lockton somehow got on the Chinese black list. Or it a red list?

Linux phone line-up

Mobile phones sold by US providers are routinely handicapped and DRM-ed up to their retractable antennae. Whether it’s only playing Verizon songs on Verizon phones or the ridiculous per-MB data rates they charge, we in the States are way behind the technology curve. That’s all about to change. The world of cellular communication is about to be revolutionized by the increasing capacity of WiFi enabled phones and VOIP applications. At the forefront of this movement are “these phones”:http://blog.wired.com/gadgets/2007/03/eight_great_lin.html reviewed by Wired Magazine. All of them are open source and therefore user-modifiable. I can hear the sirens’ song of ‘free calling’ already. I can’t wait to see how corporate America kills this golden-egg laying goose.
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The Gupp Phreedom

Free music: Harvey Danger

It’s not often that you’ll hear me endorse straight up rock and roll. Generally I take my rock with a twist of Swedish pop, folk, or political anger but this latest album by Harvey Danger is good. Not only is _Little by Little_ good, it’s also free. The band decided to release the album as a free “torrent”:http://www.harveydanger.com/downloads/Harvey_Danger-Little_by_Little.MP3.zip.torrent , “direct download”:http://files.harveydanger.com/downloads/HarveyDanger_Little_by_Little.zip , and as a “traditional CD”:http://www.harveydanger.com/store/ . As to why a young rock group might *on purpose* expose themselves to the perils of pirating? Here’s their “explanation”:http://www.harveydanger.com/press/why.php .
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The new album is bouncy enough to dance to but not too pop-ish, with smooth male vocals and thoughtful but still-accessible lyrics. By no means pedestrian, _Little by Little_ is what rock has been waiting for. The sound is reminds me of Ben Folds, but without the pretension that makes him almost unlistenable. Luckily you don’t have to take my word for it, “try it yourself”:http://www.harveydanger.com/downloads/ . Let me know what you think.

"Pirate schools" given healthy tongue-lashings

Faced with very little fear of punishment on the part of its enemies, conglomerated music is doing what it does best, complaining. Filing more than 150,000 complaints to universities this year alone, it’s not a surprise that some of their complaints have fallen on deaf ears. The biggest culprits in ignoring the RIAA’s rants are the universities: Ohio, Purdue, Nebraska-Lincoln, U of Tennessee and the University of South Carolina. Good job pirate schools!
I saw this article via “the Inquirer”:http://www.theinquirer.net/default.aspx?article=37780 and then read the full article in the Indianapolis Star. The interesting thing is that I then read the discussion forum on the Star’s website and noticed that almost without exception the commenters were pro-piracy. If readers in Indiana can be anti-establishment, what hope do the powers-that-be really have?
“the AP article”:http://www.indystar.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070221/LOCAL/702210482 printed in the Indy Star, and the “forum page”:http://www.topix.net/forum/source/indianapolis-star/T17R2HQ22B3SJMVQI

More good music: Macadamia

Reminiscent of the Postal Service but more experimental, Macadamia is two British guys from England who ‘get together to make experimental music.’ They’ve released two albums so far and both are available for free download at their “website”:Eatmacadamia.com.
For more great free music, see my “previous post”:http://duenos.net/article/26/billie-the-vision-and-the-dancers. And about the site I found both bands, “Last.fm”:http://duenos.net/article/14/melodic-match-making-on-lastfm

Colonization given a new lease on life

No this isn”t a comment on the reemergence of neo-colonial tendencies by American-based multinationals, it”s about a computer game. This isn”t any video game though, it”s my favorite and it has been for 11 years when I first installed it on my mom”s IBM x486. Colonization was developed by Sid Meier (now famous for the super-popular Civilization series) in 1994 as "an exercise in nation-building." The gameplay is unbeatable and it really is fun at all skill levels, from the lowly discoverer mode up to the completely impossible-to-win-you’re-going-to-die-in-two-turns viceroy.  If the level of detail and care a game”s Wikipedia page shows is any indication of popularity, Colonization must be well-loved.
The only problem with the game that I”ve seen so far is that you can”t play it anymore. No operating system will support it anymore without sucking RAM like nobody”s business. The version I have now will technically run in OS X if it goes to Classic Mode, but it always end up crashing and Classic Mode is nothing but a chore. Besides the fact, Classic Mode”s days are numbered. Windows users are stuck running it out of DOS and from what I understand that”s no more of a picnic than Classic. So what shall I do? My favorite game of all-time is bound for the rubbish heap and it seems like there is nothing I can do about it. Enter FreeCol. Apparently there are a lot of people out there who liked the original Colonization and they rebuilt it from the ground up on an open-source platform.
Though the graphics, text, and menus of FreeCol are all different from the original, qualitatively the game play is exactly the same. In fact, it may be better because the new version offers multiplayer capability, allowing Colonization enthusiasts from all over the world to connect and develop the New World together, or against each other.

Melodic match making on Last.fm

I love the internet and if you’re reading this blog, you probably do too.  My most recent web-obsession is music site Last.fm.  Self-described as the herald of the social music revolution, the site brings purpose to the social networking phenomenon.
Simply download the AudioScrobbler and play your music as you normally would.  If you’re using any of the mainstream mp3 players, AudioScrobbler will upload your listening history and as your profile gets more filled out, Last.fm will start making recommendations based on your own music profile.  Not only that, but since it is a music-centered social networking site, there are thousands of people who can help you discover new music that is right up your alley.
I have always secretly envied all those people in the dorm during college who knew absolutely everything about the latest indie bands or underground music trends.  It seemed like they got all their knowledge just by virtue of wearing thrift store t-shirts and women’s cut corduroys, but now I am just as knowledgeable.  As I listen to my favorite bands (at the moment it”s Billie the Vision and the Dancers) I can just click on their name in the AudioScrobbler and it takes me to their artist profile page on Last.fm where I can talk about the band and find more artists like them.
Check out Last.fm and join the revolution.