Blågg

Spotify – Missing songs..

// May 1st, 2009 // 2 Comments » // Bog-skinke, Tanker, Teknologi

I really like Spotify, and it’s currently my main source of music. There are a couple of problems though that’s keeping me from completely going to Spotify (and paying for it to avoid the ads).

So many of the artists I like are not on spotify – like Pink Floyd, Metallica, Beatles, Led Zeppelin, AC/DC, etc. etc.. But what’s even worse is the music that once were available to you, but got removed because of rights. Some music can’t be played in some countries. Lately I’ve had a feeling that my playlists were shrinking, and suddenly wanted to hear “Eagles – Hotel California” – a song that I’ve had in one of my playlists from the start. It wasn’t there..

Turned off “Hide unplayable tracks”.. and a bunch of red songs showed up.. Songs that once were available, that now are hidden from Norwegian Spotify listeners. After searching for replacements, about 5-10% of this particular playlist was still unplayable. Bah!

NRKbeta had a great post about this after the pirate bay trial: Congratulations – you just wet your pants .. They hit the nail on the head. People don’t get why they can play a song in one country just fine, but just across the border you can’t.. Or why you can’t buy TV-series on iTunes if you live outside the US, and so on.. Rights owners, record companies, MPAA, RIAA, etc, etc, needs to loosen up a bit. The Internet is global and it’s heavily integrated in our culture these days, country restrictions just creates obstacles for people – obstacles they don’t get why should be there. When you add other obstacles such as DRM, forced anti-piracy propganda on original DVDs/Blurays, etc, etc, it’s no wonder why pirating is so much easier, faster and better when they impose stupid restrictions like this.

And wrap up todays wail, here’s a funny video Håvard gave me – explaining IFPI’s anti-piracy strategy:

Link

Secure beneath the watchful eyes..

// July 1st, 2008 // 1 Comment » // Personlig, Tanker

I want one of these:

It’s a poster from the government body in charge of transportation in London, these were put up all over London back in 2002 when they first introduced CCTV cameras on all public transportation (?). As you might know, England is the country with the most surveillance in the world (1 CCTV camera for every 14 people) – 500.000 cameras in London, and 4.200.000 cameras in the entire country. The poster is like straight out of Orwell’s 1984, and I want one! I wonder if the people that made it were playing on the Big Brother theme, I hope they meant it sort as a joke..

There is apparently also a similar poster made by an american bus company, it looks more like a war poster though.

If you have any idea where I can get these, please let me know!

Norwegian online banks..

// July 1st, 2008 // No Comments » // Tanker, Teknologi

You should be able to afford something better than the cheapest SSL certificate when you’re a BANK, come on, get at least the wildcard one.. and preferably one with Extended Validation so that people get that fancy green validation line in modern browsers.. Cheap bastards..

Also, the two last days most of the manjor banks in Norway have had big problems with their net bank service. According to Norwegian newspapers this problem was caused by a piece of hardware malfunctioning at EDB Business Partner.. You’re the heart of Norwegian Internet banking and you have a single point of failure?? (if the newspapers are reporting this correctly.. who knows..).. But anyway, you should have multiple redundancies in every possible point of failure when doing something like this..

.. today’s little rant

Hvordan lure 550 millioner kroner fra norges befolkning.

// December 30th, 2006 // No Comments » // Bog-skinke, Tanker

1. Start en statlig eid kringkastingsorganisasjon, lovsatt finansiert av en kringkastingsavgift.
2. Lur en sak forbi et sovende storting om flytting av lisensdato fra 1. mars til 1. januar.
3. Krev dobbel lisens for disse 2 månedene (januar og februar er allerede betalt fra forrige lisens, og må nå betales for igjen).
4. Sett styreleder Hallvard Bakke pÃ¥ saken med noen dÃ¥rlige unskyldninger, “Men har vi ikke allerede betalt for januar og februar?” – “Nei, det blir helt feil mÃ¥te Ã¥ se dette pÃ¥. Folk skal betale det samme som de alltid har gjort, sier Bakke.”. For 20 Ã¥r siden gikk visstnok NRK glipp av 2 mÃ¥neders lisensavgift nÃ¥r de justerte lisensdatoen motsatt vei, derfor er det bare pÃ¥ sin rett at NRK skal fÃ¥ disse pengene igjen med renter. “Det er vanntett, det, altsÃ¥.”
5. Profitt, ca 550 millioner kroner ekstra inntekt..

Beklager, men det blir litt drøyt Ã¥ kreve inn 2 mÃ¥neders ekstra lisens nÃ¥ 20 Ã¥r etter at dere “glemte” Ã¥ kreve den inn. Hva med de som har blitt lisensbetalere de siste 20 Ã¥rene? Hvorfor skal de betale dobbelt? Hadde man krevd inn det lille ekstra som de faktisk mistet (justert etter konsumprisindeks) hadde det vært greit, men her skal man tydeligvis ha det igjen med renter. Norges befolkning er ikke en bank hvor du kan la være Ã¥ ta betalt, for sÃ¥ Ã¥ komme tilbake 20 Ã¥r senere og kreve tilbake “innskuddet” med renter.