internet

I've been using the Internet as a culture box. I am referring to that part of TV that is supposed to enrich our personal and collective culture, rather than dumb us down by lowering our standards as consumers of media. That's what the Net can provide and in increasing quantities.

Here are the tools I am using so far in no specific order:

01 A computer hooked to the TV and to the sound system. In my case, I am running a Neuros LINK which is an Ubuntu box configured for HDMI TV and Surround audio output.

I've been shifting my home entertainment from TV to the Web. It makes me sometimes feel like I'm back to the days of Marconi and Farnsworth as far as maturity is concerned, but that's for another post. For now, I just want to congratulate Last.fm on the excellent job they've been doing at creating an enjoyable experience that traditional one-way radio will never achieve (unless it starts using the Internet).

The key to using Last.fm is to register an account and to feed your account's library with your favourite artists and albums.

Do I trust the Cloud to reliably hold my data, and for the arbitrary duration of my needing it?

Not entirely, yet. I guess it's an instinctive reaction of fearing the loss of something precious and thus wanting to keep it close to oneself. But there is survival merit in this attitude, and we all know software isn't always reliable at that scale, yet.

What to do? I guess first take regular backups of the data on the cloud to your local network.

If one's opinion of human beings is that they are fundamentally and irremediably:

• greedy
• unethical
• irresponsible
• sheepish

then one would agree with the position taken by the RIAA and its counterparts in all countries.

However, since the RIAA and co. are in fact made up of human beings, then those people necessarily believe that these are fundamental human traits, and therefore they themselves behave in such a way! Let alone forcing their clients, us the people, to react accordingly.

That to me is the psychosis of these organizations.

PS.

As a citizen of the Internet, I like to read up on topics that interest me. These include professional, social, commercial, leisurely, health-related, and intellectual topics.

Over time, one chooses some preferred sources of online information. For each topic there's a set of sites that I trust most to give me useful information.

I often feel like a cultural black hole. Engulfing and consuming large quantities of culture, music, movies, books, and yet never producing any of it myself. Does it just get wasted inside? Well, I talk about it :-)

The Internet is promoting a new kind of culture that is more inclusive. To me, YouTube is the most glaring example: everyday people producing audio/video material, mostly out of their own time and effort, that addresses any topic that concerns them. Sometimes using it for commercial self-promotion, and that's part of the point too.

I wish to unveil before an unsuspecting population a plan to reconcile P2P technology with the interests of content producers: music labels, production firms, software firms, book publishers, etc. I do so at the risk of being laughed out of my own blog.

Intelligent musicians have realized that the Internet gives them the opportunity to reach their consumers directly, bypassing the dinosauric and frankly greedy middleman, yielding a fairer deal for everyone who deserves it. Radiohead and NIN are definitely not your average teeny boppers :-)

Musicians, take a good look at this page: http://www.flickr.com/photos/kentbye/1813174776/

Fascinating study (from 2003) on the amount of information stored and flowing through different media (Broadcasting, Telephony, Internet). Must-read for anyone serious about informatics. We're talking exabytes (one million terabytes) and zettabytes (1000 times more).

According to this study, 5 exabytes were stored digitally in 2002. 18 exabytes flowed through electronic channels. Information would be doubling every 2-3 years.