I am currently posting this from the OR Tambo International Airport, previously known as Johannesburg International Airport (and previous to that, known as Jan Smuts International Airport). In about an hour, I will board my plane for Sao Paulo, and start my South American adventure.
Lee had convinced me to try traveling through Bolivia, and I changed my plans accordingly. Unfortunately, the Bolivian embassy could not process my visa even though the consul gave me her assurances that she had the time to do so. So, I have reverted my plans back to the original one, which has its good and bad .... good that I may have the chance to do the Inca trail (if there are free spots), and cover more of Peru. Bad in that the flight between Sao Paulo and Lima is quite expensive, so has dented my budget a bit.
Keep an eye on the blog for updates ... and don't expect too many email replies!
17 December 2007
16 December 2007
Offline Blogging Tools (for the Mac)
I have been testing out Qumana, a offline blogging tool that works on Mac OS X (Leopard). Basically, I was looking for a tool that I can use to create posts offline and then upload when I have net connectivity, in particular for my South America trip. This is the only tool that seemed to work when I looked at this issue in Germany, but it has its share of problems: three major ones from my point of view.
Firstly, the title does not seem to be posted. I have tried numerous times and every time, the title is lost.
Secondly, there is no support for Blogger's labeling system. It does have tagging support - but I specifically want to use Blogger's labeling system for consistency.
Lastly, the save posts function sometimes does not work - and no error message is given. And this is the most annoying part of it all - after all, adding labels and titles are a few clicks, rewriting a post can take minutes if not hours.
The spell checker also does not seem to work ...
So all in all, I am looking for other options ... any recommendations?
Firstly, the title does not seem to be posted. I have tried numerous times and every time, the title is lost.
Secondly, there is no support for Blogger's labeling system. It does have tagging support - but I specifically want to use Blogger's labeling system for consistency.
Lastly, the save posts function sometimes does not work - and no error message is given. And this is the most annoying part of it all - after all, adding labels and titles are a few clicks, rewriting a post can take minutes if not hours.
The spell checker also does not seem to work ...
So all in all, I am looking for other options ... any recommendations?
Al Jazeera (English)
Al Jazeera, is most famous for the Al Qaeda tapes from Osama bin Laden. Originally, it was broadcast only in Arabic, but more recently (I think for the past 2 or 3 years) there has been an English 24 hour news channel also. I have been watching the English broadcast on DSTV for a few hours, and I must say I have been really impressed.
Firstly, being based in Qatar, it is no wonder that there does seem to be an emphasis on news from the Arabic peninsula. That said, the Arabian peninsula is one of the news hotspots of the world, so it is not such a bad thing. In fact, what is really impressive about Al Jazeera is its balance in reporting. For almost every major controversial topic, there are reports that examine the contrasting views. A report on Gaza features a report from Israel and a report from Gaza. A report on the climate change conference in Bali features reports from the developing country representatives, the US representatives, the pro-lobby groups and even environmentalists who think the Bali process is pointless.
Sometimes, I think that they seem to be trying too hard to be balanced! But their approach is refreshing, and I particularly liked some of their special segments, featuring topics that seem to be almost completely against the Arabian prejudicial views: shows focusing on women's movement, the high price of oil, human rights and Islamic extremism. The English channel is full of veterans from CNN and BBC, and it almost seems that they have a lot more freedom in their craft.
Christmas Markets
Last year Hans-Peter was rather despondent around Christmas, and remarked that Christmas was just not the same in South Africa. I did not really understand, until I went to the famous Nuremberg and Munich Christmas markets. Christmas, in fact seems to be in a completely different spirit than that of South Africa, and it is not a matter of rampant consumerism either.
Firstly, in many parts of Europe, Christmas gifts are actually not exchanged during Christmas but during St Nicholas day around 5/6 December. Yes, Santa has his own day!
But the main difference in my opinion is really the actual decorations and spirit. It is not just a matter of Gluhwein and snow - Christmas decorations in Germany did not feature fake trees and an assortment of fake presents and lights. Instead, most decorations almost tended to tell a story of sorts, and decorations went beyond just lights and tinsel. There is even a town in Germany (Rothenburg ob der Tauber) dedicated to the production of Christmas decorations, and the craftsmanship in some of the decorations (such as nutcrackers) is particularly impressive.
Interestingly, Christmas markets can only operate from a certain date, and it seems that tradition has somewhat controlled rampant consumerism. In a way, I think I finally get what the fuss is all about ...
Munich
Munich is well known as a city of the rich, and numerous art galleries, the BMW factory and a relatively higher priced goods definitely enforces this view. Off course Munich is best known for Oktoberfest, and I never managed to make it to Munich during Oktoberfest.
The main highlights of Munich are centred around the old town centre, a short walk from the main train centre. While the area is interesting, especially the churches, it just did not have the same character as some of the other old towns in Germany. I am not sure why.
The BMW headquarters are one of the highlights for any car fan. Located next to the Olympic Park, you end up with two tourist highlights in one! The BMW museum chronicles the history of BMW, including its history as an aeroplane engine manufacturer, to the post war era where it was reduced to producing consumer goods and bicycles to the gloom of BMW where it was almost sold off to Daimler Benz to off course its current glory years where it is one of the foremost car manufacturers in the world. The BMW World complex is a showroom like no other ... a massive complex of restaurants and cafes together with showrooms to order your cars as well technology show cases for various cars and bikes, including the Hydrogen car project.
I have been told that Munich is best visited in the summer or during Oktoberfest. While the museums are definitely worth visiting, the city a a whole is probably only worth visiting at those times?
Barcelona
First impressions: Barcelona was a concrete jungle. Apart from the odd children's playgrounds, it was just concrete everywhere. Even the trees that lined up next to some of the trees were basically planted in holes on the concrete pavements. That said, Barcelona has some really amazing architecture, and is a very vibrant city, full of life.
My time in Barcelona was pretty short ... a matter of fly in, attend conference, fly out. So after my paper presentation, I decided to skip the last session of the day and try to see a bit of Barcelona.
Apart from the Bodies exhibition, I did not enter any of the major sights ... but Barcelona is an amazing city, and even if it is a concrete jungle, it is a beautiful city with a blend of Gothic, renaissance and modern architecture. And there is greenery ... just not in the main part of the city :p I would definitely like to come back to Barcelona!
Oh, the northern part of Barcelona (near the Royal Palace and the venue of my conference) was actually very green ...
The Bodies Exhibition
I just missed the exhibition in Washington DC, and when I saw that it had just opened in Barcelona, I decided not to miss the opportunity. If you haven't heard, Bodies is a fairly controversial exhibition where a human body parts are plasticised and put on display. So instead of just seeing the human body from the view of the skeleton and or outside, the complex muscles and organs that really make us up can be put on display.
It is a fascinating exhibition - not only because it so clearly demonstrates the complex machine that is us, but also what disease means for the body. For example, what does a cancerous lung look like as opposed to a healthy lung?
The stated goal of the exhibition is to teach us about our own bodies ... I enjoyed biology in school, and to an extent, I think exhibitions like Bodies can help teach and educate people far more effectively than textbooks or even videos and 3D computer models - it just is not as realistic and in your face. Sadly, the exhibition is pretty exclusive ... entrance was about 15 Euros, and is only available in certain cities. Ultimately, the process must be adopted by museums to truly give a wider access to the public
02 December 2007
Reflections on AXMEDIS 2007
AXMEDIS; is a huge EU funded project, officially called Automated Production of Cross Media Content for Multi-Channel Distribution. This is the third conference ; hosted by the project, which brings together various efforts from the project itself and papers in the related fields.
To be honest, the conference was not very exciting ... many of the papers that I attended did not really promote anything new, and some were hashes of existing work. That said, I must admit that I did learn a lot about the MPEG-21 standard, and I am even more convinced that it is an almost useless piece of standardisation.
That said, there was one very interesting presentation, which made it all worthwhile. Richard Owens, a director from WIPO gave a long presentation on copyright and challenges on the enfocement of copyright. It was one of the most comprehensive talks I have ever been to, and he highlighted a number of interesting points; including:
- Technology should be taken as given. Copyright law needs to be applied to technology and not the other way round.
- Automatic filtering technology (based on watermarking and fingerprinting) has to be accepted as part of the deal, and groups like the EFF are coming round to accepting this position.
- Standards could have too much patents and themselves become technological barriers
- Access to education material in development countries could become a copyright exception
He also participated in a panel on rights expression languages (where I was also a panelist). The panel however was not that exciting to be honest, although my view that there is a strong need for core formal models for REL was accepted :)
28 November 2007
Conversations with a taxi driver
For both interviews, while I took trains and planes for most of the way, the last part of the connection was always by taxi. The Swiss taxi drivers were very friendly but not very talkative. The dutch drivers were more talkative, especially the last driver (who was also the only woman taxi driver).
The last trip, my driver took some back roads, primarily to avoid traffic, and because it was apparently shorter (although I have no concrete way judging that). The trip through the back roads was also interesting because it was suburbia - she pointed out schools, different types of houses and the last, soon to be demolished, factory in the centre of Eindhoven. It was also very enlightening because it gave me an idea of what it can to rent or buy property in The Netherlands; and her opinions on why there are more renters than buyers in the property market, even though it is cheaper to buy. Apparently, it is much harder to get a mortgage, so it is difficult to finance a purchase, so even though rent could be higher than mortgage repayments, it is easier to rent than to buy.
Obviously, the dutch banks were not exposed to mortgage credit crisis in the local market ...
The last trip, my driver took some back roads, primarily to avoid traffic, and because it was apparently shorter (although I have no concrete way judging that). The trip through the back roads was also interesting because it was suburbia - she pointed out schools, different types of houses and the last, soon to be demolished, factory in the centre of Eindhoven. It was also very enlightening because it gave me an idea of what it can to rent or buy property in The Netherlands; and her opinions on why there are more renters than buyers in the property market, even though it is cheaper to buy. Apparently, it is much harder to get a mortgage, so it is difficult to finance a purchase, so even though rent could be higher than mortgage repayments, it is easier to rent than to buy.
Obviously, the dutch banks were not exposed to mortgage credit crisis in the local market ...
Amsterdan
Better late than never ...
----------
In many respects, I was not too happy that I only had a short time in Amsterdam (basically a day and a half). But, Amsterdam at this time of the year is not nice - it is cold, windy and grey - with the hint of an occasional drizzle. I have always wanted to visit Amsterdam, so the opportunity to visit while on my way to Eindhoven for an interview at Phillips Research was very enticing.
Above all else, some part of Amsterdam really give the sense of a medieval town - especially in the Red Light District area - cobbled stone roads, soft glow of lamps (ok, I don't think the lamps were red in most medieval towns), narrow alleyways, and small doorways.
Amsterdam does not really have a distinct skyline - there does not seem to be a particular building that dominates the skyline. It is also the first time that I have really traveled without some knowledge of what I wanted to see and do. That in itself was a very interesting and pleasant change!
In fact, one of the only attraction that I did know of, is also the one that I did not actually go to - the house (and now Museum) of Anne Frank. The queue to get in went round the block, and I just did not have enough time to actually wait in the queue, especially given the weather.
The Rijksmuseum and the Van Gogh Museums were also other attractions I had thought of visiting - although I only found out about these after arriving in Amsterdam. The Van Gogh museum was also very crowded, and given that the entrance price was 10 Euros, I decided to only visit the Rijksmuseum.
Apart from museums and the Red Light District, one cannot mention Amsterdam without mentioning bicycles and coffee shops that sell soft drugs. For the former, the number of bicycles is absolutely staggering - I know that most people have more than one bicycle, but the number of parked bicycles and the number of cyclists on the road is simply staggering. As for the soft drugs - while I was not offered any, the number of shops selling magic mushroom and other hallucinogens is quite impressive And added to that, in some areas, some areas where there are more than one special coffee shops, the air just smells of marijuana ... I wonder if people can get high through passive breathing.
As for the interview itself - it went well, and like the previous one, I do not think I embarrassed myself. But this interview was a lot easier in some respects - there were only five interviews (although longer) plus the presentation, much of the topics of the interview was familiar as there is a lot of DRM related activities at Phillips. Unfortunately, I apparently do not fit their required profile, so did not get the job. Oh well.
Van Gogh on the Dam Square
Canals and side streets
Statue of Anne Frank (near the Museum)
----------
In many respects, I was not too happy that I only had a short time in Amsterdam (basically a day and a half). But, Amsterdam at this time of the year is not nice - it is cold, windy and grey - with the hint of an occasional drizzle. I have always wanted to visit Amsterdam, so the opportunity to visit while on my way to Eindhoven for an interview at Phillips Research was very enticing.
Above all else, some part of Amsterdam really give the sense of a medieval town - especially in the Red Light District area - cobbled stone roads, soft glow of lamps (ok, I don't think the lamps were red in most medieval towns), narrow alleyways, and small doorways.
Amsterdam does not really have a distinct skyline - there does not seem to be a particular building that dominates the skyline. It is also the first time that I have really traveled without some knowledge of what I wanted to see and do. That in itself was a very interesting and pleasant change!
In fact, one of the only attraction that I did know of, is also the one that I did not actually go to - the house (and now Museum) of Anne Frank. The queue to get in went round the block, and I just did not have enough time to actually wait in the queue, especially given the weather.
The Rijksmuseum and the Van Gogh Museums were also other attractions I had thought of visiting - although I only found out about these after arriving in Amsterdam. The Van Gogh museum was also very crowded, and given that the entrance price was 10 Euros, I decided to only visit the Rijksmuseum.
Apart from museums and the Red Light District, one cannot mention Amsterdam without mentioning bicycles and coffee shops that sell soft drugs. For the former, the number of bicycles is absolutely staggering - I know that most people have more than one bicycle, but the number of parked bicycles and the number of cyclists on the road is simply staggering. As for the soft drugs - while I was not offered any, the number of shops selling magic mushroom and other hallucinogens is quite impressive And added to that, in some areas, some areas where there are more than one special coffee shops, the air just smells of marijuana ... I wonder if people can get high through passive breathing.
As for the interview itself - it went well, and like the previous one, I do not think I embarrassed myself. But this interview was a lot easier in some respects - there were only five interviews (although longer) plus the presentation, much of the topics of the interview was familiar as there is a lot of DRM related activities at Phillips. Unfortunately, I apparently do not fit their required profile, so did not get the job. Oh well.
Van Gogh on the Dam Square
Canals and side streets
Statue of Anne Frank (near the Museum)
21 November 2007
17 November 2007
Swiss Time
The swiss are known for their punctuality, but my quick trip to Zürich was all about being late. It started with my flight into Zürich, when the plane arrived late (apparently because of snow). The ground crews assured us that we would still manage to get to Zurich on time as there was a strong tail wind - but even the fastest passenger jets in current service would be hard pressed to make up for a 45 minute delay. In the end, I was 30 odd minutes late getting into Zürich, and just missed my train to the hotel, which meant that I ended up being late in meeting up with Oksana (who commented it was my turn for payback anyway :p)
The delays continued - the taxi from my hotel was late, and the flight from Zürich to Amsterdam was late by 20 minutes ... and this time there was definitely no snow around. That said, the trains did run on perfect time ... something that cannot be said about Deutsche Bahn currently.
Why was I in Zürich? I had an interview at IBM Research Labs for a researcher position. It was certainly an interesting experience - a presentation (by me), a round table discussion with at least half a dozen researchers followed by 10 half hour interviews (plus another 30 minute interview before my presentation). It was a very interesting experience - and although I can't judge whether I was spectacular or not, I don't think I embarrassed myself ... which is always a good sign.
A quick comment on Amsterdam's Schipol airport - it is huge - the airfield anyway. We taxied for about 15 minutes between landing and the actual gate, and the terminal building is not small either. Very well decorated too :)
The delays continued - the taxi from my hotel was late, and the flight from Zürich to Amsterdam was late by 20 minutes ... and this time there was definitely no snow around. That said, the trains did run on perfect time ... something that cannot be said about Deutsche Bahn currently.
Why was I in Zürich? I had an interview at IBM Research Labs for a researcher position. It was certainly an interesting experience - a presentation (by me), a round table discussion with at least half a dozen researchers followed by 10 half hour interviews (plus another 30 minute interview before my presentation). It was a very interesting experience - and although I can't judge whether I was spectacular or not, I don't think I embarrassed myself ... which is always a good sign.
A quick comment on Amsterdam's Schipol airport - it is huge - the airfield anyway. We taxied for about 15 minutes between landing and the actual gate, and the terminal building is not small either. Very well decorated too :)
15 November 2007
More Snow
It hasn't really stopped snowing, but very lightly. Regardless, after a night's worth of light snow, the ground was completely covered - although by the time I looked out my window (around 7am), the roads and cycle paths had already been cleared.
I think I understand some of the attraction to snow. Apple may have made white cool, but snow could have been the inspiration.
I think I understand some of the attraction to snow. Apple may have made white cool, but snow could have been the inspiration.
14 November 2007
First Snow
So the first winter snow fell in Erlangen today. Very light snow to be honest, and except for some open areas like parks, you could not actually see the result.
Snow seems to bring out a lot of excitement, which I find amusing and slightly puzzling to be honest. After all, while snow is something novel, that is hardly the case with most of my German colleagues. It is after all just water :) And the mud and dirt mixed with the snow (as it melts) is hardly pretty. But I will admit - walking through a light snowfall is a lot better than walking through rain ;)
But I think people really long for a "good" snowfall ... not just a few flakes. Then off course the landscape does change dramatically. That, and the prospect of a white Christmas seem to be the real attraction; not snow for itself.
Well, I hear it is snowing (a lot more) in Zurich ... maybe I will experience a good snowfall :)
Snow seems to bring out a lot of excitement, which I find amusing and slightly puzzling to be honest. After all, while snow is something novel, that is hardly the case with most of my German colleagues. It is after all just water :) And the mud and dirt mixed with the snow (as it melts) is hardly pretty. But I will admit - walking through a light snowfall is a lot better than walking through rain ;)
But I think people really long for a "good" snowfall ... not just a few flakes. Then off course the landscape does change dramatically. That, and the prospect of a white Christmas seem to be the real attraction; not snow for itself.
Well, I hear it is snowing (a lot more) in Zurich ... maybe I will experience a good snowfall :)
05 November 2007
Cycling and Ice Skating
Yesterday (Sunday) a friend from work and I decided to go to the Ice Rink in Nuremberg. Well it was his idea actually, and I sort of tagged along ... my one and only previous encounter with a Ice Rink was hardly pleasant ... New York Central Park, about 20 US dollars and not much fun.
My friend, being Dutch, suggested that we cycle to the Ice Rink if the weather was good. After all, it was only 20 odd KM away, and he had recently acquired a GPS system so we should not get lost!
Cycling in Germany is interesting - and certainly more pleasurable than in South Africa. Since so many people cycle, the drivers have more respect for cyclists. Furthermore, most roads have dedicated cycle lanes, making it a lot safer and easier. Given that the areas around Nuremberg and Erlangen is generally flat, cycling is actually quite easy going. So apart from a few mishaps on the way back at night (when my friend, somehow managed to stray off the cycle track one or two times into the garden path next to it), it was generally an easy going experience.
As for the skating, it was certainly a better experience than my last time. I could actually walk around on skates on the ice - but not really skate. Oh well, some other time probably.
And after 47 Km of cycling, a KM or so of walking and the little skating, I was dead tired, and managed to fall asleep quite early too! I miss cycling ...
My friend, being Dutch, suggested that we cycle to the Ice Rink if the weather was good. After all, it was only 20 odd KM away, and he had recently acquired a GPS system so we should not get lost!
Cycling in Germany is interesting - and certainly more pleasurable than in South Africa. Since so many people cycle, the drivers have more respect for cyclists. Furthermore, most roads have dedicated cycle lanes, making it a lot safer and easier. Given that the areas around Nuremberg and Erlangen is generally flat, cycling is actually quite easy going. So apart from a few mishaps on the way back at night (when my friend, somehow managed to stray off the cycle track one or two times into the garden path next to it), it was generally an easy going experience.
As for the skating, it was certainly a better experience than my last time. I could actually walk around on skates on the ice - but not really skate. Oh well, some other time probably.
And after 47 Km of cycling, a KM or so of walking and the little skating, I was dead tired, and managed to fall asleep quite early too! I miss cycling ...
02 November 2007
Reflections on ACM DRM 2007
This is my fourth successive attendance of the ACM DRM Workshop, although, this would be the first time that I would not stay on for the rest of the ACM Computer and Communications Security Conference. The workshop has always had a great mix of papers (authors were from at least 8 different countries in 5 continents), and a relatively low acceptance rate (33%) ensures high quality of papers. For the first time the workshop had some sponsorship from Microsoft, which meant that I get some money to defray the costs of travel to the workshop!
The conference also gives a great opportunity to meet and talk to other researchers in the field. Being effectively a "regular" it was more of an opportunity to re-establish old contacts, and since I was only spending the day at the conference, there was unfortunately not enough time to talk to most of the new people!
The first two papers focussed on implementation experiences. The first paper, by researchers from Phillips Labs, looked at mostly key management in pay per view broadcast systems. The system was quite cool, and although their system meets their performance targets, I think those targets are not really user friendly - for example around 40 seconds before a pay per view live show starts from cold boot. The second paper was by Nicholas Sheppard from the University of Wollongong (who I also met at Virtual Goods), on partial implementation of the MPEG-21 DRM standards. I finally understood what IPMP (Intellectual Property Management and Protection) tools are about, and while they provide a useful abstraction for the interpretation and enforcement of DRM policies, they are not specific enough to actually provide interoperability between implementations. The paper did not actually look at the actual enforcement of policies, just the interpretation, and I have a feeling that there will be too much overhead in the process.
The third paper was very strange. It was interesting because the first part was a good tutorial on side channel attacks, which are used against encryption algorithms such as AES. However, I am not sure of its relevance to the workshop, and should have probably been in CCS than the workshop itself.
Last year, I took part in a Digital Media Project (DMP) meeting over Skype, where I also presented a paper via Skype. The fourth paper was about Chinese copyright laws and fair use effects on DRM (in China). The author could not get a visa to travel to the USA, and he presented the paper via Skype. The connection was choppy, but it went well enough. The paper was not very different to other existing papers in the area - but it is the first time these issues have been explored in a Chinese legal environment.
The invited talk, by Andrew Odlyzko, was an exploration of technology and economics. He looked at how economics affect the actual adoption of new technology, and while DRM could redefine pricing patterns, there is also a strong resistance from users on certain pricing patterns. For example, many consumers would object to differential pricing which charge services and products according to what the consumer would be willing to pay for it - and would much rather prefer flat rate pricing. In his opinion, while there will be always limited areas for DRM application, the main advantages offered by fine level controls offered by DRM will be largely ignored.
The session after lunch started with two papers on DRM models - my paper on the formalising of DRM as an access control model, followed by Greg Heileman exploring the distribution of music through game theory model. The game is still in its early form, and is currently quite simple - but it clearly explains why certain business models in online music distribution are working, and others aren't. My own presentation was also well received.
The next three papers were on the complicated area of software protection methods - how do you protect software in its binary form, while being executed in a processor and stored in memory. The first two papers presented some work in obfuscation, while the last paper (another paper from Phillips Labs) was on a complete white box cryptography system - and the presenter gave a very useful and interesting overview on the subject.
The last paper from Microsoft Research, looked at a new approach to fingerprint hashing: where the hash is computed from the metrics of the fingerprint lines (but not through wavelets). The system is quite neat, and provides quite good accuracy - as long as fingerprints are accurately collected.
Overall, the workshop was great, and there was a great collection of papers on a good variety of topics in the area. It was agreed to hold an eighth workshop next year, and it was also agreed that we should try to co-ordinate better with Virtual Goods, so that they are not too close together, and maybe have better participation in both workshops.
The conference also gives a great opportunity to meet and talk to other researchers in the field. Being effectively a "regular" it was more of an opportunity to re-establish old contacts, and since I was only spending the day at the conference, there was unfortunately not enough time to talk to most of the new people!
The first two papers focussed on implementation experiences. The first paper, by researchers from Phillips Labs, looked at mostly key management in pay per view broadcast systems. The system was quite cool, and although their system meets their performance targets, I think those targets are not really user friendly - for example around 40 seconds before a pay per view live show starts from cold boot. The second paper was by Nicholas Sheppard from the University of Wollongong (who I also met at Virtual Goods), on partial implementation of the MPEG-21 DRM standards. I finally understood what IPMP (Intellectual Property Management and Protection) tools are about, and while they provide a useful abstraction for the interpretation and enforcement of DRM policies, they are not specific enough to actually provide interoperability between implementations. The paper did not actually look at the actual enforcement of policies, just the interpretation, and I have a feeling that there will be too much overhead in the process.
The third paper was very strange. It was interesting because the first part was a good tutorial on side channel attacks, which are used against encryption algorithms such as AES. However, I am not sure of its relevance to the workshop, and should have probably been in CCS than the workshop itself.
Last year, I took part in a Digital Media Project (DMP) meeting over Skype, where I also presented a paper via Skype. The fourth paper was about Chinese copyright laws and fair use effects on DRM (in China). The author could not get a visa to travel to the USA, and he presented the paper via Skype. The connection was choppy, but it went well enough. The paper was not very different to other existing papers in the area - but it is the first time these issues have been explored in a Chinese legal environment.
The invited talk, by Andrew Odlyzko, was an exploration of technology and economics. He looked at how economics affect the actual adoption of new technology, and while DRM could redefine pricing patterns, there is also a strong resistance from users on certain pricing patterns. For example, many consumers would object to differential pricing which charge services and products according to what the consumer would be willing to pay for it - and would much rather prefer flat rate pricing. In his opinion, while there will be always limited areas for DRM application, the main advantages offered by fine level controls offered by DRM will be largely ignored.
The session after lunch started with two papers on DRM models - my paper on the formalising of DRM as an access control model, followed by Greg Heileman exploring the distribution of music through game theory model. The game is still in its early form, and is currently quite simple - but it clearly explains why certain business models in online music distribution are working, and others aren't. My own presentation was also well received.
The next three papers were on the complicated area of software protection methods - how do you protect software in its binary form, while being executed in a processor and stored in memory. The first two papers presented some work in obfuscation, while the last paper (another paper from Phillips Labs) was on a complete white box cryptography system - and the presenter gave a very useful and interesting overview on the subject.
The last paper from Microsoft Research, looked at a new approach to fingerprint hashing: where the hash is computed from the metrics of the fingerprint lines (but not through wavelets). The system is quite neat, and provides quite good accuracy - as long as fingerprints are accurately collected.
Overall, the workshop was great, and there was a great collection of papers on a good variety of topics in the area. It was agreed to hold an eighth workshop next year, and it was also agreed that we should try to co-ordinate better with Virtual Goods, so that they are not too close together, and maybe have better participation in both workshops.
31 October 2007
More Travel Notes
I had flown United before, on a short return trip between JFK and Washington DC in 2003. On my return flight from Washington DC, the glory of code shares meant that I was returning on an United flight instead of a Lufthansa flight. The airport was quite empty, which was rather surprising, but I am not going to complain about the lack of queues, and even security clearance was interesting.
United has a really horrible seat configuration in Economy class: 2-5-2 on a Boeing 777, rather than the more rational 3-3-3 seating plan. And, I had the middle seat in the middle row! But there were two things in my favour - firstly, I was somehow upgraded to Economy Plus ... I did not ask questions, nor did I seek to find an aisle seat after that bit of news. Secondly, it seems my row only had four seats in the middle, so I did not have to leap across two people to get to my seat! Economy plus was basically an economy seat with extra leg room - nothing too special, except I have to confess it is the first time I have been in an aeroplane economy seat that had more legroom than a train seat (and for that matter some back seats in cars). United also had seatback TV screens (something still missing from Lufthansa planes) and XM satelite radio, which was cool. The food wasn't great, but then only a few airlines have great airline food.
My return to Nuremberg created its own logistical puzzle. I had a tele-interview at 3pm. However due to a slight delay in baggage arrival, I missed the first connection of my optimal route back home, and had to settle for the less optimal route (bus) which then got stuck in traffic. However, I still managed to get the connecting bus, and managed to get home less than 5 minutes before the phone rang ... good enough to take off all the layers required to walk outside!
Oh, and the interview went well, and was invited to a full interview :)
United has a really horrible seat configuration in Economy class: 2-5-2 on a Boeing 777, rather than the more rational 3-3-3 seating plan. And, I had the middle seat in the middle row! But there were two things in my favour - firstly, I was somehow upgraded to Economy Plus ... I did not ask questions, nor did I seek to find an aisle seat after that bit of news. Secondly, it seems my row only had four seats in the middle, so I did not have to leap across two people to get to my seat! Economy plus was basically an economy seat with extra leg room - nothing too special, except I have to confess it is the first time I have been in an aeroplane economy seat that had more legroom than a train seat (and for that matter some back seats in cars). United also had seatback TV screens (something still missing from Lufthansa planes) and XM satelite radio, which was cool. The food wasn't great, but then only a few airlines have great airline food.
My return to Nuremberg created its own logistical puzzle. I had a tele-interview at 3pm. However due to a slight delay in baggage arrival, I missed the first connection of my optimal route back home, and had to settle for the less optimal route (bus) which then got stuck in traffic. However, I still managed to get the connecting bus, and managed to get home less than 5 minutes before the phone rang ... good enough to take off all the layers required to walk outside!
Oh, and the interview went well, and was invited to a full interview :)
Airport Security
Ever since my first visit, I am always "randomly" selected for extra security screening at US airports. Once you are on the list it seems that you will never get off!
For the first time this year, I had experience with the new, improved version of the extra security check, featuring some very interesting explosive testing (new machines that check for explosives on the person) and then extra screening for explosives for bags and hand luggage. This extra screening takes a lot longer but does not require being patted down etc.
I must compliment the TSA officials actually - for the first time I have been through the airport security checks, I got the idea that the officials actually knew what they were checking for, and were not just going through the motions. They were also all friendly, despite being short staffed. It seems that the TSA vacancies are just not being filled, despite the demand. One of the officials confessed that the job is basically unattractive, and gave me the feeling that she would take a different job herself if she could.
Airport security is important, of that there is no doubt. But looking at all the expensive gadgetry, I wonder - is the cost of security working out to be more than the actual cost of the risks? After all, TSA can claim to have prevented a repeat of another 9/11 attack - but that is a hollow claim, because there is no evidence that there was any attempt at such an attack.
Furthermore, short staffing the security apparatus not only creates extra delays for passengers in being processed, but means that the security checks are rushed, and possibly not as thorough. In this scenario, not only are the security checks expensive, but ultimately ineffective: i.e. useless.
For the first time this year, I had experience with the new, improved version of the extra security check, featuring some very interesting explosive testing (new machines that check for explosives on the person) and then extra screening for explosives for bags and hand luggage. This extra screening takes a lot longer but does not require being patted down etc.
I must compliment the TSA officials actually - for the first time I have been through the airport security checks, I got the idea that the officials actually knew what they were checking for, and were not just going through the motions. They were also all friendly, despite being short staffed. It seems that the TSA vacancies are just not being filled, despite the demand. One of the officials confessed that the job is basically unattractive, and gave me the feeling that she would take a different job herself if she could.
Airport security is important, of that there is no doubt. But looking at all the expensive gadgetry, I wonder - is the cost of security working out to be more than the actual cost of the risks? After all, TSA can claim to have prevented a repeat of another 9/11 attack - but that is a hollow claim, because there is no evidence that there was any attempt at such an attack.
Furthermore, short staffing the security apparatus not only creates extra delays for passengers in being processed, but means that the security checks are rushed, and possibly not as thorough. In this scenario, not only are the security checks expensive, but ultimately ineffective: i.e. useless.
Georgetown
Georgetown, now effectively a suburb of Washington DC, is one of the oldest towns in the USA, and has a rich history of association with the political elites. Many presidents once lived here as did most of the "important people". Many comment that the USA is a relatively young country - does not have the historical culture of Europe for example. What is evident, especially in places like Georgetown is, Americans love to celebrate whatever much they do have - and they have had a rich history of preservation of their heritage.
In my previous visits to Washington DC, I had never got round to visiting the area; particularly because it is one of the few suburbs without any direct Metro connections. Having exhausted most other tourist options, I decided to have a walk around Georgetown on Sunday evening. It is reputed as one of the trendy and vibrant parts of the city, and it does hold up this end. It is full of cafes, bookshops, restaurants, bars and in many respects resembles a part of an European city, rather than a typical US city.
I did not actually eat in Georgetown, but I did spend a respectable amount of time in the Barnes and Noble bookshop, where I picked up U2's coffee-table book for 10 US $ ... a real bargain price, although it was really an impulse purchase.
In my previous visits to Washington DC, I had never got round to visiting the area; particularly because it is one of the few suburbs without any direct Metro connections. Having exhausted most other tourist options, I decided to have a walk around Georgetown on Sunday evening. It is reputed as one of the trendy and vibrant parts of the city, and it does hold up this end. It is full of cafes, bookshops, restaurants, bars and in many respects resembles a part of an European city, rather than a typical US city.
I did not actually eat in Georgetown, but I did spend a respectable amount of time in the Barnes and Noble bookshop, where I picked up U2's coffee-table book for 10 US $ ... a real bargain price, although it was really an impulse purchase.
28 October 2007
Shiny New Toy
After some months of talking about it, I finally went out and bought myself a Macbook. I know Hans will be disappointed that I didn't buy the black one, but the black one is $100 more than the white one with the same specs! I had already confirmed that the Alexandria store had stock before I came to the US, so it wasn't too difficult: 2.16Ghz Core 2 Duo, 2GB of RAM, 120 GB hard disk, and Leopard (although I had to upgrade it myself).
Apple store was interesting - a lot busier than 2 years ago, when I bought my iPod. The staff carry wireless paypoints, so they can conduct the transaction without going to the till point. But since I paid for it with cash, that option was not utilised.
Installing Leopard took some time - about 70 odd minutes, and at 5GB, Microsoft is not the only one making bloated operating systems. So far though OS X has been a lot more friendlier, although there are quite a few quirks that I need to learn.
Apple store was interesting - a lot busier than 2 years ago, when I bought my iPod. The staff carry wireless paypoints, so they can conduct the transaction without going to the till point. But since I paid for it with cash, that option was not utilised.
Installing Leopard took some time - about 70 odd minutes, and at 5GB, Microsoft is not the only one making bloated operating systems. So far though OS X has been a lot more friendlier, although there are quite a few quirks that I need to learn.
Travel Notes
So, I have been awake for about 21 hours and I feel fine ... makes adjusting to the US time zone a lot easier. Travelling was rather uneventful (well the flights anyway), except, for once German efficiency failed, and the flight to Washington DC was about 30 minutes late.
That was not the problem - the problem was the 1 and half hour queue at the immigration desk. Talking to a few fellow passengers, we were all in agreement that the Germans have really got this area covered well. It is very rare to get this kind of a delay at the immigration counter. Off course, they have less paperwork (actually no paperwork), no fingerprints and no photos. But where they really score is in the distributed nature of the immigration desks - they are not centralised in one area, as is the case in Dulles International Airport.
That said, Frankfurt airport is not the most pleasant connection. Actually, the problem is more Terminal B, the main non EU hub for Star Alliance planes. There are few amusements, but there is a Hagen Dazs shop to keep one satisfied, for a short while at least. Terminal A, which seems to be the EU hub is a lot nicer, and resembles a lot more like a shopping mall than an airport to be honest.
My hotel, from the outside resembles somewhat like a typical motel portrayed by Hollywood. It is not bad at all inside though - free WiFi, way too many TV channels to count, a balcony and a really comfortable room. And knowing the area (after staying for 2 weeks close by) is a bonus. Not a bad find at all!
That was not the problem - the problem was the 1 and half hour queue at the immigration desk. Talking to a few fellow passengers, we were all in agreement that the Germans have really got this area covered well. It is very rare to get this kind of a delay at the immigration counter. Off course, they have less paperwork (actually no paperwork), no fingerprints and no photos. But where they really score is in the distributed nature of the immigration desks - they are not centralised in one area, as is the case in Dulles International Airport.
That said, Frankfurt airport is not the most pleasant connection. Actually, the problem is more Terminal B, the main non EU hub for Star Alliance planes. There are few amusements, but there is a Hagen Dazs shop to keep one satisfied, for a short while at least. Terminal A, which seems to be the EU hub is a lot nicer, and resembles a lot more like a shopping mall than an airport to be honest.
My hotel, from the outside resembles somewhat like a typical motel portrayed by Hollywood. It is not bad at all inside though - free WiFi, way too many TV channels to count, a balcony and a really comfortable room. And knowing the area (after staying for 2 weeks close by) is a bonus. Not a bad find at all!
26 October 2007
Directions?
I have nothing against asking for directions ... except when it is the bus driver asking the passengers!
There are some road works taking place on the normal bus route. Thus, the buses have been taking a short detour. This evening, on my bus ride home, the bus driver actually stopped the bus at the last stop before the detour and asked whether if any of the passengers knew the detour. After everyone stopped laughing, two guys volunteered to direct her along.
Well at least she asked ... much better than not asking and getting lost!
There are some road works taking place on the normal bus route. Thus, the buses have been taking a short detour. This evening, on my bus ride home, the bus driver actually stopped the bus at the last stop before the detour and asked whether if any of the passengers knew the detour. After everyone stopped laughing, two guys volunteered to direct her along.
Well at least she asked ... much better than not asking and getting lost!
22 October 2007
A Really Bad weekend for English Sport
After thrashing the English 36-0, their rugby team seemed to grow a spine, and led a truly remarkable recovery: beating the Aussies and then the French in the Semi Finals. And that brought upon the predictable hysteria. The already high final ticket prices (they were 700 Euros for the cheapest seat to about 2000 Euros for the really good seats at the start of the tournament) exploded, and CNN reported people paid over 8000 Euros for a ticket!
I met up with Lee who was guiding some South Africans on a VW Touareg experience through Germany, at an Irish Pub in Nuremberg, which had a whole lot of English, a few South Africans and some (confused) Germans. The atmosphere was electric, with the English singing all the way, but the game, while remaining tight, but out of their reach.
It was hardly a brilliant game, but it was an epic contest. And, it seems that 15 is the magic number for South Africa and Rugby World Cups.
Throughout the week, the British press had been talking up the weekend double: winning the Rugby World Cup followed by Lewis Hamilton winning the Formula 1 WDC. Hamilton, more or less shot himself in the foot at the start, when all his Schumaresque luck, seemed to have deserted him (although it can be argued that luck deserted him in the last race). His attempt at regaining the position he lost to Alonso at the start forced him off the track (in previous races, it was usually him forcing people off the track), leaving him at the lower end of the points paying positions. Later, a gear problem, threw him down to last place. Mika Hakinen (who was attending the race) must have been reminded of the similar incident he had in 1999, in a McLaren, in Brazil. To Lewis' credit, he fought back very well, eventually finishing in 7th place. But Kimi, who went from 3rd in the WDC to winner, drove a flawless race, and the Ferraris imparted the ultimate humiliation to Hamilton - lapping him halfway through the race. The McLarens were no match for the Ferraris, finishing over 30 seconds behind - but after such a scandal filled season, it is great the a McLaren driver did not win the WDC.
So it is great to be a South African, a Bok supporter, a Tifosi, and overall not English. To show how bad things really are - they lost 2-1 to Russia mid week, which means that there is a very real chance that they might not even qualify for Euro 2008 At least they won the cricket in Sri Lanka (but then they were expected to lose ... maybe that's their magic formula).
I met up with Lee who was guiding some South Africans on a VW Touareg experience through Germany, at an Irish Pub in Nuremberg, which had a whole lot of English, a few South Africans and some (confused) Germans. The atmosphere was electric, with the English singing all the way, but the game, while remaining tight, but out of their reach.
It was hardly a brilliant game, but it was an epic contest. And, it seems that 15 is the magic number for South Africa and Rugby World Cups.
Throughout the week, the British press had been talking up the weekend double: winning the Rugby World Cup followed by Lewis Hamilton winning the Formula 1 WDC. Hamilton, more or less shot himself in the foot at the start, when all his Schumaresque luck, seemed to have deserted him (although it can be argued that luck deserted him in the last race). His attempt at regaining the position he lost to Alonso at the start forced him off the track (in previous races, it was usually him forcing people off the track), leaving him at the lower end of the points paying positions. Later, a gear problem, threw him down to last place. Mika Hakinen (who was attending the race) must have been reminded of the similar incident he had in 1999, in a McLaren, in Brazil. To Lewis' credit, he fought back very well, eventually finishing in 7th place. But Kimi, who went from 3rd in the WDC to winner, drove a flawless race, and the Ferraris imparted the ultimate humiliation to Hamilton - lapping him halfway through the race. The McLarens were no match for the Ferraris, finishing over 30 seconds behind - but after such a scandal filled season, it is great the a McLaren driver did not win the WDC.
So it is great to be a South African, a Bok supporter, a Tifosi, and overall not English. To show how bad things really are - they lost 2-1 to Russia mid week, which means that there is a very real chance that they might not even qualify for Euro 2008 At least they won the cricket in Sri Lanka (but then they were expected to lose ... maybe that's their magic formula).
Würzberg
Würzberg is one of the popular tourist destinations in Bavaria, and to be fair it really needs a full day to go around everywhere. I did not spend too much time (about 3 hours in total), partly because I missed a train from Mainz (by a minute) and partly because the connecting train from Frankfurt was then 15 minutes late.
The main highlight of the town is Residenz - palatial residence of the town bishop, now another UNESCO world heritage site in Germany. Residenz is proof of both religious spending excess and the lavish artworks funded by the excesses.
As you enter the main hall, there is the "Grand Staircase" leading to the upper floors. The stairs are decorated with statues and the main dome features an amazing painting, remarkably unscathed in the war. It is brilliant for both its size and grandeur. The upper floors contain many restored rooms, used to entertain guests and some of these rooms easily rival the opulence of the Sanssouci palaces.
Unfortunately, I could not take pictures of the interior of the Residenz, but I could take pictures of the chapel on the southern wing. The lavishness of the chapel is a good indication of the lavish decorations of the rooms in the palace.
The rest of the town features the usual churches and impressive town halls. The university building is particularly impressive, although built much more recently. It also has a fort on the opposite banks of the Main river, but it was too late to attempt a visit there.
The main highlight of the town is Residenz - palatial residence of the town bishop, now another UNESCO world heritage site in Germany. Residenz is proof of both religious spending excess and the lavish artworks funded by the excesses.
As you enter the main hall, there is the "Grand Staircase" leading to the upper floors. The stairs are decorated with statues and the main dome features an amazing painting, remarkably unscathed in the war. It is brilliant for both its size and grandeur. The upper floors contain many restored rooms, used to entertain guests and some of these rooms easily rival the opulence of the Sanssouci palaces.
Unfortunately, I could not take pictures of the interior of the Residenz, but I could take pictures of the chapel on the southern wing. The lavishness of the chapel is a good indication of the lavish decorations of the rooms in the palace.
The rest of the town features the usual churches and impressive town halls. The university building is particularly impressive, although built much more recently. It also has a fort on the opposite banks of the Main river, but it was too late to attempt a visit there.
Mainz
Mainz, about 50 kilometres from Frankfurt is yet another ancient town, dating back to the Romans. Mainz is really known for two things - and one of them changed the World.
Mainz is the birthplace of Johannes Gutenberg, who was once exiled, but came back and the first printing press, and the first printed works were produced in Mainz. The development of the printing press is quite fascinating, and the Gutenberg Museum has a number of old books, including a few of the original Gutenberg Bibles. The museum also has a section on the development of printing in other parts of the world, including China, where the movable type pre-dated Gutenberg, but was somehow did not have as great an impact.
The other attraction of Mainz is its massive cathedral, an UNESCO world heritage site. I was there at the end of the Sunday Mass, and had a chance to hear the organ playing - the acoustics is amazing! The cathedral is not as decorative, and in many ways, it is rather plain.
Mainz is the birthplace of Johannes Gutenberg, who was once exiled, but came back and the first printing press, and the first printed works were produced in Mainz. The development of the printing press is quite fascinating, and the Gutenberg Museum has a number of old books, including a few of the original Gutenberg Bibles. The museum also has a section on the development of printing in other parts of the world, including China, where the movable type pre-dated Gutenberg, but was somehow did not have as great an impact.
The other attraction of Mainz is its massive cathedral, an UNESCO world heritage site. I was there at the end of the Sunday Mass, and had a chance to hear the organ playing - the acoustics is amazing! The cathedral is not as decorative, and in many ways, it is rather plain.
The Rhine Valley
I saw most of the Rhine Valley through the train - first the more high speed ICE Express to Koblenz, and later, the more sedate regional train on the way back.
The Rhine Valley is beautiful, and littered with old, small towns - many dating back to the Roman days. Due to the tight timeline, I did not have time to stop at any of the towns between Mainz and Koblenz.
Both sides of the river are lined with cycle paths, and I would really like to cycle from Mainz, to Koblenz and then through the Mossel River valley. Much of it is flat, and it is only about 200 Km in length ... easily doable really - especially if you stop often. But, I can't really do it this year ... it needs to be done in Summer :)
The Rhine Valley is beautiful, and littered with old, small towns - many dating back to the Roman days. Due to the tight timeline, I did not have time to stop at any of the towns between Mainz and Koblenz.
Both sides of the river are lined with cycle paths, and I would really like to cycle from Mainz, to Koblenz and then through the Mossel River valley. Much of it is flat, and it is only about 200 Km in length ... easily doable really - especially if you stop often. But, I can't really do it this year ... it needs to be done in Summer :)
Koblenz
Koblenz is one of the oldest towns I have visited ... once a Roman settlement, it celebrated 2000 years of existence a few years back. But much of its Roman history has disappeared, and much of its tourist attractions are comparatively modern in nature.
Koblenz sits on a very strategic position: two major rivers - the Rhine and the Mossel - meet here, and the major attraction of Koblenz is Fort Ehrenbreitstein, built in the 1800's and is one of the largest defence instalments of its time. Apart from its strategic location (on a hill, overlooking the rivers, facing France/Luxembourg), it has some very interesting design facets, including false walls and multiple fail safes. However, despite two world wars, the theory has not been tested - even though the Nazi's had a massive base here. While the fort is no longer used, there are still German bases around Koblenz.
Fort Ehrenbreitstein was the location of the Virtual Goods conference dinner, and it was certainly the most impressive conference dinner location I have been to.
On the other side of the Rhine is Fort Konstantin, also from the 1800s but very much in ruins, but provides a n impressive view of the town. It is a much smaller complex, but a lot easier to get to, and only 15 minutes walk from the main train station.
The remains of the old town - mostly dating back to the mid 1500s - is still impressive. Like many older town centres, it features churches, cobbled stone streets, and lots of cafès. The most amusing attraction is the statue of a local boy outside the town hall, which periodically spits water at unsuspecting visitors.
But now, Koblenz is best known for Deutsches Eck - the symbol for united Germany. Initially, it was meant to represent German power, with the statue of Kaiser Wilhelm I charging towards France. But the statue was largely destroyed in WW 2, and then after reunification, it was rebuilt, and turned towards Germany.
20 October 2007
Music: Dark Passion Play
Rudy first introduced me to Nightwish, I think sometime last year. Since then, I have been hooked - their combination of opera and heavy rock/metal/instrumental was amazing, as was their inclusion of other styles of music into their whole package. Since then some things have changed: their lead singer, and the operatic voice, Tarja Turunen left, and a new singer Anette Olzon was selected after a worldwide audition.
They released their latest album last month, and I finally went to get it this morning. The musical style has certainly changed - but not necessarily for the worse. Anette's style is a lot more poppy, but more Gwen Stefani rather than Britney ... so not bad at all.
What impressed me most about the album though is how it has been put together, and features a very impressive mix of music and styles. It is overall still a rock album, but features a lot more string instruments, some Irish music, some choir and even a full orchestra. Most impressive is their first song, The Poet and The Pendulum, is like a mini opera, and as an album, I think it is the most impressive album I have come accross for a long time. At 18 Euros, it was certainly not cheap, but definitely well worth it.
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On the note of pop stars, I found it very amusing, that at Virtual Goods, every one used Britney Spears as the artist of the song they were trying to protect. I have also found that people tend to use Titanic as the movie they want to protect. I think that these are the works I would least like to protect with DRM and is probably why no one takes DRM seriously.
They released their latest album last month, and I finally went to get it this morning. The musical style has certainly changed - but not necessarily for the worse. Anette's style is a lot more poppy, but more Gwen Stefani rather than Britney ... so not bad at all.
What impressed me most about the album though is how it has been put together, and features a very impressive mix of music and styles. It is overall still a rock album, but features a lot more string instruments, some Irish music, some choir and even a full orchestra. Most impressive is their first song, The Poet and The Pendulum, is like a mini opera, and as an album, I think it is the most impressive album I have come accross for a long time. At 18 Euros, it was certainly not cheap, but definitely well worth it.
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On the note of pop stars, I found it very amusing, that at Virtual Goods, every one used Britney Spears as the artist of the song they were trying to protect. I have also found that people tend to use Titanic as the movie they want to protect. I think that these are the works I would least like to protect with DRM and is probably why no one takes DRM seriously.
19 October 2007
Reflections on Virtual Goods 2007
The Virtual Goods workshop series is an interesting gathering from different disciplines: IT, Law and Business and is sponsored by IFIP TC 6.11. It was a comparatively small conference (considering the length of the program) with about 35 attendees, but featured participants from at least 11 countries and 5 continents (there was no South American attendee). This diversity certainly made the conference very interesting.
This is the first conference I have attended which officially started in the afternoon, and then carried on to Saturday. I am not sure if this is a bad idea or a good idea, and I think the conference could have been accommodated into two days. But this did allow for two social events ... so I have no problem with the organisation! I am only reflecting on the papers I found interesting. Complete program, abstracts and the presentations can be found here.
In the first (and only) paper session of the first day, Eetu Luoma's paper on copyright management was definitely the highlight. He is specifically looking at the requirements for electronic copyright management in universities. Universities are in a strange position in some ways - they need to encourage learning and publications, but at the same time, have control over the copyrights of these publications which are complex to manage due to the number of parties involved: publishers, the authors and the university. Add to this the cost of lawyers and administration, and copyright management is often just a mess ... and mostly not available in an electronic form.
The social event featured a key note talk by Dr Susanne Guth, who discussed content protection in the mobile TV standard DVB-H, which is being rolled out in Germany. There are two profiles available for DVB-H: Smartcard profile (driven by smartcards such as SIM) and DRM. The talk was enlightening particularly because of the decision process and the factors that affected the decision. The DRM profile is cheaper and easier to implement, and arguably offers a more complete, open and flexible solution. The smartcard profile is more expensive, a lot more complicated to implement and features some proprietary technology. Yet, at the end of the day it was the smartcard profile that is being deployed; for a simple reason. The smartcard profile allows operators to lock customers in for a longer time and thus it means that there will be less numbers of customers who will switch networks. At the end of the day, that means a higher probability of breaking even, and thus the economics dictated the choice of system.
Some of the issues raised by Eetu, were addressed by my presentation, bright and early, first thing in the next morning. My presentation on negotiations was really an advancement of my first ACM paper and then the paper I contributed to the Digital Media Project last year. It is one of the cornerstones of my PhD, and it was nice to see that the paper following mine, looking at the use of ODRL to specify web service agreements, would be a great application of my protocols.
The second session of the second day was possibly one of the most interesting of the conference. Martin Springer gave a presentation on music sampling, and an ontology that can represent sampling rights. The ultimate aim of the ontology is to create a mapping for copyright law. I have two reservations on this: I do no think it is possible to make such ontology, and I do not think it is possible to technically enforce licenses that allow sampling. Regardless, it should not mean that such attempts should be ignored. The next paper was from Australia, looking at search engines and copyright infringements - and some famous cases were analysed. The last paper of the session was interesting to me for two different reasons. Firstly, the author presented an alternative rights model: instead of focusing on licensing, it focused on copy control. basically, if you have a copy, you can do what you want. The model is a very impressive representation of the analogue world - no doubt about that - but I think it is digitally irrelevant and not enforceable: digital goods exist and operate through copies - on the disk, on the network, in memory - controlling this is infeasible. The second reason I found it interesting, is that the author was an independent researcher; and in fact not even involved in IT in his daily professional life. Since the growth of large universities and corporate research labs, private research is almost non existent, and it is the first time I have seen such a contribution (in IT at least). The author, Nicholas Bentley, told me that many conferences and journals have refused to even consider his work ... maybe we should get off our high horses. Surely, public access to academic work is what academia is all about?
The next interesting session was the next day, on superdistribution, which featured two contrasting papers. The first paper, presented an incentive scheme for super distribution. A lot like Amway, but for digital goods. It sounded a bit like a pyramid scheme to me, and I do not think the business model can be supported, for music anyway. The next paper was on why superdistribution incentive schemes will fail. In their, admittedly short, study the authors found that users are just not interested in superdsitribution, and one of the key reasons: users just did not want to make money off friends.
The last session of the conference had two interesting papers: first on user collaboration in second life. I had not thought a lot of virtual environments and their impact on virtual goods - but they represent some of the most interesting cases. If you think about it, the real market for World of Warcraft items exists because they are unique and cannot be replicated. I wonder if some of these models can be replicated outside the tight controls of the virtual worlds. The last paper was on universities - specifically the specific DRM needs of universities. It promoted a lively debate, and was a great finish to the conference.
This is the first conference I have attended which officially started in the afternoon, and then carried on to Saturday. I am not sure if this is a bad idea or a good idea, and I think the conference could have been accommodated into two days. But this did allow for two social events ... so I have no problem with the organisation! I am only reflecting on the papers I found interesting. Complete program, abstracts and the presentations can be found here.
In the first (and only) paper session of the first day, Eetu Luoma's paper on copyright management was definitely the highlight. He is specifically looking at the requirements for electronic copyright management in universities. Universities are in a strange position in some ways - they need to encourage learning and publications, but at the same time, have control over the copyrights of these publications which are complex to manage due to the number of parties involved: publishers, the authors and the university. Add to this the cost of lawyers and administration, and copyright management is often just a mess ... and mostly not available in an electronic form.
The social event featured a key note talk by Dr Susanne Guth, who discussed content protection in the mobile TV standard DVB-H, which is being rolled out in Germany. There are two profiles available for DVB-H: Smartcard profile (driven by smartcards such as SIM) and DRM. The talk was enlightening particularly because of the decision process and the factors that affected the decision. The DRM profile is cheaper and easier to implement, and arguably offers a more complete, open and flexible solution. The smartcard profile is more expensive, a lot more complicated to implement and features some proprietary technology. Yet, at the end of the day it was the smartcard profile that is being deployed; for a simple reason. The smartcard profile allows operators to lock customers in for a longer time and thus it means that there will be less numbers of customers who will switch networks. At the end of the day, that means a higher probability of breaking even, and thus the economics dictated the choice of system.
Some of the issues raised by Eetu, were addressed by my presentation, bright and early, first thing in the next morning. My presentation on negotiations was really an advancement of my first ACM paper and then the paper I contributed to the Digital Media Project last year. It is one of the cornerstones of my PhD, and it was nice to see that the paper following mine, looking at the use of ODRL to specify web service agreements, would be a great application of my protocols.
The second session of the second day was possibly one of the most interesting of the conference. Martin Springer gave a presentation on music sampling, and an ontology that can represent sampling rights. The ultimate aim of the ontology is to create a mapping for copyright law. I have two reservations on this: I do no think it is possible to make such ontology, and I do not think it is possible to technically enforce licenses that allow sampling. Regardless, it should not mean that such attempts should be ignored. The next paper was from Australia, looking at search engines and copyright infringements - and some famous cases were analysed. The last paper of the session was interesting to me for two different reasons. Firstly, the author presented an alternative rights model: instead of focusing on licensing, it focused on copy control. basically, if you have a copy, you can do what you want. The model is a very impressive representation of the analogue world - no doubt about that - but I think it is digitally irrelevant and not enforceable: digital goods exist and operate through copies - on the disk, on the network, in memory - controlling this is infeasible. The second reason I found it interesting, is that the author was an independent researcher; and in fact not even involved in IT in his daily professional life. Since the growth of large universities and corporate research labs, private research is almost non existent, and it is the first time I have seen such a contribution (in IT at least). The author, Nicholas Bentley, told me that many conferences and journals have refused to even consider his work ... maybe we should get off our high horses. Surely, public access to academic work is what academia is all about?
The next interesting session was the next day, on superdistribution, which featured two contrasting papers. The first paper, presented an incentive scheme for super distribution. A lot like Amway, but for digital goods. It sounded a bit like a pyramid scheme to me, and I do not think the business model can be supported, for music anyway. The next paper was on why superdistribution incentive schemes will fail. In their, admittedly short, study the authors found that users are just not interested in superdsitribution, and one of the key reasons: users just did not want to make money off friends.
The last session of the conference had two interesting papers: first on user collaboration in second life. I had not thought a lot of virtual environments and their impact on virtual goods - but they represent some of the most interesting cases. If you think about it, the real market for World of Warcraft items exists because they are unique and cannot be replicated. I wonder if some of these models can be replicated outside the tight controls of the virtual worlds. The last paper was on universities - specifically the specific DRM needs of universities. It promoted a lively debate, and was a great finish to the conference.
18 October 2007
MP3, AAC, DRM and the Future of Music
One of the highlights of the 2007 Virtual Goods Workshop was the presentation by Prof. Dr. Karlheinz Brandenburg titled “From data compression to virtual goods - technical perspectives for the usage of digital music”. Prof Brandenburg is one of the inventors of MP3, and has been involved in the audio field ever since. I must, at this point, also point out that the department head of Multimedia Security at the Fraunhofer IIS (where I am currently interning, and thus my boss); Stephan Krägeloh is also one of the co-inventors. However, Prof. Brandenburg is the main inventor of the MP3, and can be regarded as the “Father of the MP3”.
The focus of the conference was virtual goods, and MP3 is perhaps the most significant virtual good. For the first part of his talk, Prof. Brandenburg focussed on the development of the MP3, which like many new technologies was greeted with scepticism (why would anyone need audio compression?) and took a long time to get through the standardising process.
Off course, MP3 really took off when the Internet took off; but even then, ironically, piracy was a big factor in its success. In the early 90s, MP3 decoders were available for free (i.e. without any patent costs), but encoders cost in the 100s of US dollars. Somewhere along the line, a rogue employee was involved in releasing the encoder software for free (with a redesigned front end). And once it was on the Internet, it was hard to remove, and MP3 encoders became freely available to the public, and the rest is history …
AAC, first really thrown into the spotlight for being the base format for Apple’s iTunes Service is the follow up, providing better quality at the same compression ratio. AAC is also more flexible – according to Prof Bandenburg, there is no improvement in MP3 quality after 192 kbit/s, even though the maximum bit rate is 320 kbit/s.
Off course no discussion of lossy compression can be complete without a listening test, of lossy compression (AAC) and lossless encoding. To make it harder, the test comprised of three audio tracks, with three samples, with at least one sample being lossless, and one sample being lossy. I found it easy to distinguish between lossy and lossless for a classical music track, but could not find any difference in the speech and pop music tracks. No one in the audience picked up all the correct answers.
The last part of his talk was about DRM, and what he thinks of the future of music. In his opinion, DRM for audio will depend entirely on how much piracy occurs for non protected files within the next year. If the record companies do not suffer significant losses, in his opinion, DRM will be dead within a year after that. He pointed out that othe efforts at securing music distribution, such as SDMI, failed horribly, and interoperability will remain the main factor in determining whether DRM will ultimately succeed.
But the future of audio is not only about DRM and compression; but rather search and organisation. It is after all quite common to have gigabytes of music and the organisation and use of the information is now more important than the actual storage of the music. New ideas would include automatic playlist generation (not from the tags but from the actual content of the music) and search by humming.
Personally, I have my doubts about whether non protected music distribution will work. As I commented on my last post, I have very good reasons to believe that there will be more pirated copies than legitimate copies after a year or so, and thus DRM will be needed, if protection is required.
The focus of the conference was virtual goods, and MP3 is perhaps the most significant virtual good. For the first part of his talk, Prof. Brandenburg focussed on the development of the MP3, which like many new technologies was greeted with scepticism (why would anyone need audio compression?) and took a long time to get through the standardising process.
Off course, MP3 really took off when the Internet took off; but even then, ironically, piracy was a big factor in its success. In the early 90s, MP3 decoders were available for free (i.e. without any patent costs), but encoders cost in the 100s of US dollars. Somewhere along the line, a rogue employee was involved in releasing the encoder software for free (with a redesigned front end). And once it was on the Internet, it was hard to remove, and MP3 encoders became freely available to the public, and the rest is history …
AAC, first really thrown into the spotlight for being the base format for Apple’s iTunes Service is the follow up, providing better quality at the same compression ratio. AAC is also more flexible – according to Prof Bandenburg, there is no improvement in MP3 quality after 192 kbit/s, even though the maximum bit rate is 320 kbit/s.
Off course no discussion of lossy compression can be complete without a listening test, of lossy compression (AAC) and lossless encoding. To make it harder, the test comprised of three audio tracks, with three samples, with at least one sample being lossless, and one sample being lossy. I found it easy to distinguish between lossy and lossless for a classical music track, but could not find any difference in the speech and pop music tracks. No one in the audience picked up all the correct answers.
The last part of his talk was about DRM, and what he thinks of the future of music. In his opinion, DRM for audio will depend entirely on how much piracy occurs for non protected files within the next year. If the record companies do not suffer significant losses, in his opinion, DRM will be dead within a year after that. He pointed out that othe efforts at securing music distribution, such as SDMI, failed horribly, and interoperability will remain the main factor in determining whether DRM will ultimately succeed.
But the future of audio is not only about DRM and compression; but rather search and organisation. It is after all quite common to have gigabytes of music and the organisation and use of the information is now more important than the actual storage of the music. New ideas would include automatic playlist generation (not from the tags but from the actual content of the music) and search by humming.
Personally, I have my doubts about whether non protected music distribution will work. As I commented on my last post, I have very good reasons to believe that there will be more pirated copies than legitimate copies after a year or so, and thus DRM will be needed, if protection is required.
Free vs Piracy
16 October 2007
Rough Minutes of the Open ODRL WG Meeting
These are the rough minutes of the ODRL WG meeting at the 2007 Virtual Goods Workshop in Koblenz, Germany. I hope it is complete, but I could have unintentionally left out things ... they are reconstructed from notes I typed at the meeting.
There hasn’t been a face to face ODRL meeting since the last International ODRL workshop in Lisbon in 2005. With ODRL joining forces with the Virtual Goods workshop, the conference also provided an opportunity to have a face to face meeting of the ODRL v2 working group. Three regular contributors from the mailing list were at the meeting: the co-leaders Dr Renato Iannella and Dr Susanne Guth and myself. However, since it is an open meeting, a number of other interested parties were also present, which provided the discussions with some new positions and insights. The other attendees included (and this is not the complete list) Pramod Jamkhedkar (PhD student from the University of New Mexico), GR Gangadharan (PhD student from the University of Trento), Martin Springer (independent contributor to the DMP) and Dr Rüdiger Grimm (from our hosts at the University of Koblenz-Landau).
The main thrust of the meeting was a push to simplify the ODRL v2 model, in an attempt to create a simpler core language; which could then be extended to have different profiles such as licensing and negotiation support. Susanne Guth and I promoted the use of access control as the base model for v2. Pramod Jamkhedkar however promoted the use of database style definition, and maybe the use of tupple calculus and a sound logical (mathematical) structure. In the paper I am due to present at the ACM DRM Workshop in two weeks time, I do present something that bridges these two approaches, and could lay the foundation for the v2 model. I will release a link to the paper on the WG mailing list after I present the paper in Washington in 2 weeks time.
Martin Springer raised the point that a model depends on what we need to describe, and that requires detailed use cases. Susanne Guth countered that detailed use cases would however lead to very specific models, which would not achieve the generality required for ODRL. In this respect, the current approach of stating general requirements (or goals) for the model is much better than specific use cases.
Rüdiger Grimm raised the question on the necessity of the duties element. After all, duties could be reworded as constraints. Pramod Jamkhedkar commented that, everything could be modelled as rights and constraints – and the use of duties and parties are dependent on the level of abstraction we want. It was felt that duties provide an additional level of expressiveness and thus should be retained.
Susanne Guth raised the issue of a container. The container, as defined in ODRL 1 was too complex, and needed to be refined. Susanne proposed a narrower definition of the container, as defined in the current model document. She also suggested the use of XLink for the XML implementation of the concept.
Renato Iannella raised the issue of whether the exclusive attribute needs to be retained. It is a rarely used concept, and I commented that it could easily be expressed as a duty instead of an attribute. It was agreed that this may be the best approach, and an example on how it can be used can be discussed in the model.
Also with duties, the non-performed section was removed, as it can also be expressed as another separate duty. This approach could also have less processing requirements than the current approach of a non-performed section.
In the discussion of the Assets element, it was decided to remove WEMI and metadata. Parts, which aimed to define collections of assets is strictly not necessary, and was thus removed. The inheritance model however needs to be revisited – OMA uses the inheritance model, but it does not strictly belong under the Asset element. Any changes to the inheritance model, would require some clarifications from OMA.
reType, which I introduced to simplify the agreement/offer model was retained. It offers a high degree of flexibility and it was decided that the vocabulary for reType will not be defined (apart from agreement probably).
The tradable attribute was removed, as negotiation support will be a profile and not a core component of the model.
The following elements were removed: signature, encryption, legal and communication.
There hasn’t been a face to face ODRL meeting since the last International ODRL workshop in Lisbon in 2005. With ODRL joining forces with the Virtual Goods workshop, the conference also provided an opportunity to have a face to face meeting of the ODRL v2 working group. Three regular contributors from the mailing list were at the meeting: the co-leaders Dr Renato Iannella and Dr Susanne Guth and myself. However, since it is an open meeting, a number of other interested parties were also present, which provided the discussions with some new positions and insights. The other attendees included (and this is not the complete list) Pramod Jamkhedkar (PhD student from the University of New Mexico), GR Gangadharan (PhD student from the University of Trento), Martin Springer (independent contributor to the DMP) and Dr Rüdiger Grimm (from our hosts at the University of Koblenz-Landau).
The main thrust of the meeting was a push to simplify the ODRL v2 model, in an attempt to create a simpler core language; which could then be extended to have different profiles such as licensing and negotiation support. Susanne Guth and I promoted the use of access control as the base model for v2. Pramod Jamkhedkar however promoted the use of database style definition, and maybe the use of tupple calculus and a sound logical (mathematical) structure. In the paper I am due to present at the ACM DRM Workshop in two weeks time, I do present something that bridges these two approaches, and could lay the foundation for the v2 model. I will release a link to the paper on the WG mailing list after I present the paper in Washington in 2 weeks time.
Martin Springer raised the point that a model depends on what we need to describe, and that requires detailed use cases. Susanne Guth countered that detailed use cases would however lead to very specific models, which would not achieve the generality required for ODRL. In this respect, the current approach of stating general requirements (or goals) for the model is much better than specific use cases.
Rüdiger Grimm raised the question on the necessity of the duties element. After all, duties could be reworded as constraints. Pramod Jamkhedkar commented that, everything could be modelled as rights and constraints – and the use of duties and parties are dependent on the level of abstraction we want. It was felt that duties provide an additional level of expressiveness and thus should be retained.
Susanne Guth raised the issue of a container. The container, as defined in ODRL 1 was too complex, and needed to be refined. Susanne proposed a narrower definition of the container, as defined in the current model document. She also suggested the use of XLink for the XML implementation of the concept.
Renato Iannella raised the issue of whether the exclusive attribute needs to be retained. It is a rarely used concept, and I commented that it could easily be expressed as a duty instead of an attribute. It was agreed that this may be the best approach, and an example on how it can be used can be discussed in the model.
Also with duties, the non-performed section was removed, as it can also be expressed as another separate duty. This approach could also have less processing requirements than the current approach of a non-performed section.
In the discussion of the Assets element, it was decided to remove WEMI and metadata. Parts, which aimed to define collections of assets is strictly not necessary, and was thus removed. The inheritance model however needs to be revisited – OMA uses the inheritance model, but it does not strictly belong under the Asset element. Any changes to the inheritance model, would require some clarifications from OMA.
reType, which I introduced to simplify the agreement/offer model was retained. It offers a high degree of flexibility and it was decided that the vocabulary for reType will not be defined (apart from agreement probably).
The tradable attribute was removed, as negotiation support will be a profile and not a core component of the model.
The following elements were removed: signature, encryption, legal and communication.
10 October 2007
Bamberg
The old town centre of Bamberg is an UNESCO world heritage site .. that's right - the entire town. Thus it is quite the tourist attraction, and there are quite a number of interesting buildings to be seen. Apart from old houses, there are really three major highlights: old churches, the older town hall and Little Venice.
The old town is built between two major canals, and Little Venice, is the highly decorated, and spruced up section of the old fishing village. With the recent floods accross Europe, I cannot help but wonder at the rationality of living right next to the water, but I suppose it is easier to control the flow of water on a canal than on a river.
While Little Venice is built next to the canal, the older town hall (Rathaus) is built in the middle of the canal. Apart from the unusual architecture of having a building in the middle of the canal, the Rathaus is also highly decorated with paintings on the outside and a number of statues adorning the building and the bridges connecting the Rathaus to the dry land.
I am not sure how religious the people of Bamberg really are, but most likely, the answer is not very. They must have been at one point, because there are so many religious symbols, such as the statue above outside the Rathaus. There are also a number of churches.
Churches, and for that matter, all religious buildings have always facinated me. Especially old ones. They are highly decorated and offer visitors a free art gallery. And apart from wondering at the extent people went to, to raise money and build these buildings, I can also marvel at some of the incredible inconsitencies thrown by the contents in the churches. Take the statue of Zeus, hurling lightning down to the earth while a sleeping Jesus lies below comforted by angels. A mixture of the unholy and holy in almost perfect harmony - I wonder what the religious conservatives of today would think. This is from the St Michael's Benedictine Monastery (founded around 1050, not sure when the work was created and installed).
St Michael has a number of beautiful artwork installations, including the entire roof painted with medicinal plants. The lighting makes it quite spectacular, even without any fancy stained glass windows.
The Imperial Cathedral (Dom) is slightly older, and more well known, particularly for having a papal tomb. While it is certainly majestic, it seems a lot colder and impersonal, and I found St Michael a lot more interesting.
Bamberg is certainly an interesting town to visit and walk around. However, it is not a place which draws you to see it again and again. It does however seem to host a fair share of rock concerts, including Nightwish in their new tour (after I leave Germany :( ). In a city of churches, it is somewhat ironic.
08 October 2007
Way of Darkness II Festival
Germany is well known for hard rock and heavy metal bands, and the vast number of fans of the genre. The chance to attend a heavy metal festival, just a short train ride away in Bamberg was hard to resist, although due to various reasons, I only managed to attend Saturday, and even then, not for the whole 13 odd hours. I did return to Bamberg on Sunday, and I will have a separate post on that later.
Overall, I really enjoyed myself. Yes, it was louder than any concert I have ever been to. Yes, it was a bit weird to be one of the few non Caucasian people in the hall (I did spot two Chinese guys). But this is also Germany - it was the most organised music event I have been to: sets were changed within the allocated 20 minutes, bands stuck to their time limits, sound and lighting were fantastic, refreshment stalls were quick and efficient, and even the merchandise stalls were efficient. Even language was not an issue; primarily because it was an international event featuring bands from a number of different European countries.
Heavy metal music is actually quite fascinating. Despite the colourful names of the songs, there is not much in the sense of lyrics ... it is usually someone screaming into the microphone. And it seems that much the screaming effects are done at the mixing desk, not by the singer himself (well all the screaming frontmen were men), as a number of the frontmen chose to use a separate microphone to talk to the crowd. In fact, I am not too sure what the purpose of the frontman is really ... after all, anyone can scream (and have it distorted accordingly). It is also quite easy to see why heavy metal attracts labels such as satanic: just look at the names of the song: anything and everything on the "wrong" side of morality: illicit sex, drugs, disease, violence and hell. But above all, it is about the show. The show featured many things that I have never seen on stage. Metal music, above all, is about non conformance. And this is what makes it so fascinating.
So with that, a run through the bands that I saw.
Morning Beloveth (Ireland)
I only caught the last part of the act, so can't really say much.
A.O.K. (Germany)
Of all the acts I saw, A.O.K. was the embodiment of non conformance. The performance was, I think, the most fun I have ever seen a band have on stage. It started with a food fight ... started with a song called baguette ... where the one of the lead singers (there are two frontmen) bashes a baguette on his head, while the other throws baguettes into the crowd. And off course the crowd throws the baguettes back. But the food fight carried on, including wieners, lettuce and corn flakes. The food fight between parts of the crowd and the band was hilarious to watch ... esp since the band actually just carried on playing.
It did not stop at the food fight either ... first the front men mooned the crowd, and eventually ended up prancing naked on the stage, head banging during the last part of their show. If nothing else, A.O.K embodied what is different about heavy metal.
Exrementory Grindfuckers (Germany)
They were not as impressive as A.O.K, and coming in after them must have been difficult. There was one highlight though: a duet, in English (a love song to boot) with a female singer (I presume from a band that played earlier). The lyrics were quite funny actually ... although I can't remember the details.
Rompeprop (Netherlands)
This was the first foreign band, and it featured the biggest moshpit I have seen - in size and number of participants. The hall was fairly large, and the mosh pit took a significant portion of the audience space.
Delirium Tremens (Germany)
While A.O.K's show was about celebrating chaos, this band had the most interesting and impressive stage show. It started off with the frontman emerging wearing what can be best described as medieval armour ... his entire body seemed to be covered with studded clothing ... and massive studs at that. And slowly the show evolved ... two pigs heads appeared, carried by two men wearing hangman’s hoods. After removing himself from the armour, the frontman briefly joined the moshpit, grunting and screaming from the middle of the moshpit, before moving back to the stage to perform some fire breathing. Quite impressive really.
Tyr (Denmark)
Tyr was the replacement band, for the more interestingly named Prostitute Disfigurement. They were by far the most mainstream band of the evening ... playing music much closer to the likes of Metallica and the like i.e. more heavy rock than heavy metal. Musically, it was the performance I enjoyed listening to the most.
Fleshcrawl (Germany)
One of the main bands of the festival, it embodied all the screaming and heavy riffs and drumbeats. In fact listening to them, I was wondering what the border was between noise and music ... and for the first minutes of their set, I think it was more noise than music. But they are really impressive musicians, and I think part of the problem, from my view anyway, was the screaming. Unlike the previous bands, Fleshcrawl did not have any on stage antics. And the music was actually quite impressive, especially when the frontman shut up :)
Dismember(Sweden)
They were the main band of the day, playing a 80 minute set. Unfortunately, to catch the last train out of Bamberg, I had to leave sometime in the middle, so when the band took a break in their set (after 40 odd minutes), I decided to leave. Simply put, they were a better version of Fleshcrawl and Tyr put together. Their music was brilliant, especially when their songs required solos, and their songs were more than just screaming. In fact, I even recognised a few :). It was easy to see why they were the headline act, and I wish I could have seen more of them. But the next train out of Bamberg was at 5am the next morning, a whole 2 and bit hours after the last act was scheduled to finish.
Overall, I really enjoyed myself, and I would consider going to another metal festival ... but only if it is organised by Germans :p
Banking Crisis
No, this post is not about the credit crunch. On that front, I am not surprised. After all, how many emails have you received offering low cost mortgages and low interest credit cards? Just like viagra and penis enlargement, some people must be taking up these offers.
For the past month, I have had no access to my savings or current accounts through the Internet portal at Standard Bank (SA Bank account). At first, it was because of scheduled downtime, but it did not appear, long after the downtime was over. And, despite emails to the Internet banking team, nothing seemed to be resolved. Anyway, after 4 weeks, I got an email from the email support unit saying that I had to go to a local branch to get it resolved ... and the email acknowledged that was going to be difficult seeing that I was on a different continent.
So, I loaded up my Skype account, got myself to one of my regular net cafès (luckily the weather was good, so I could sit outside ... I did not know, how long I had to rant at the operator) and got on the phone. Predictably, the customer service, at first could not help ... since it was a Saturday noon, despite advertising support number that operates until 4pm. Eventually, after about 20 minutes (bow down to Skype ... it still costs less than 5 minutes of a cell phone call in either South Africa or Germany), I found out that my savings and current accounts (not my credit or notice deposit accounts) were closed due to FICA reasons; so I was directed to the FICA helpdesk.
The FICA helpdesk could not work out what went wrong either. They mentioned that someone at the Musgrave branch in SA loaded a FICA related notice on the 17th of July, but I was already in Berlin, a full 6 days after I went to the Musgrave branch to buy foreign exchange and put a change of address notice (complete with the relevant FICA documentation). It is also about three weeks before I noticed problems my account. It was also distressing that I was not notified at all about this, considering the amount of money I have in the accounts. However, the FICA rep could not help me on a Saturday, but did promise me to get it sorted out first thing Monday morning.
Which she did - Monday morning, it seems it is all sorted out, and I can access my accounts again. The main downside to all this - I have to fork out about R2 000 (approx 200 €) more in flights and accommodation costs for my conference travels this month (ACM DRM in Washington DC and Virtual Goods in Koblenz). I still have no idea what went wrong, and why my accounts were suspended. It is at times like this, that I really miss 20Twenty.
And to really put the situation in crisis mode - I had no access to my German bank account either, and with sorting out the visa, I had all of 5€ in total on Friday night. My Deutsche Bank account provides me with two cards: a savings card and a current card. But these accounts are different, and not linked. Furthermore, the current card expires ... as it happened on Friday. So, since I had no money in my savings account (which has since been resolved) and my access to my current account disabled, and no open bank offices over the weekend, I was in a really financial distress. Luckily, I had some US dollars on me, and I got on a bus to Nuremberg (they don't check to see if you have a ticket on the bus), changed my dollars to Euros, and managed to ride out the weekend (quite well too ... see my other posts this week).
So in summary ... it is possible to live life without bank accounts, as long as you have cash in hand. US dollars seem like the best bet, but I saw that the forex office also buys and sells Krugerrands. I think, above everything else, that could be the best cash equivalent of them all.
For the past month, I have had no access to my savings or current accounts through the Internet portal at Standard Bank (SA Bank account). At first, it was because of scheduled downtime, but it did not appear, long after the downtime was over. And, despite emails to the Internet banking team, nothing seemed to be resolved. Anyway, after 4 weeks, I got an email from the email support unit saying that I had to go to a local branch to get it resolved ... and the email acknowledged that was going to be difficult seeing that I was on a different continent.
So, I loaded up my Skype account, got myself to one of my regular net cafès (luckily the weather was good, so I could sit outside ... I did not know, how long I had to rant at the operator) and got on the phone. Predictably, the customer service, at first could not help ... since it was a Saturday noon, despite advertising support number that operates until 4pm. Eventually, after about 20 minutes (bow down to Skype ... it still costs less than 5 minutes of a cell phone call in either South Africa or Germany), I found out that my savings and current accounts (not my credit or notice deposit accounts) were closed due to FICA reasons; so I was directed to the FICA helpdesk.
The FICA helpdesk could not work out what went wrong either. They mentioned that someone at the Musgrave branch in SA loaded a FICA related notice on the 17th of July, but I was already in Berlin, a full 6 days after I went to the Musgrave branch to buy foreign exchange and put a change of address notice (complete with the relevant FICA documentation). It is also about three weeks before I noticed problems my account. It was also distressing that I was not notified at all about this, considering the amount of money I have in the accounts. However, the FICA rep could not help me on a Saturday, but did promise me to get it sorted out first thing Monday morning.
Which she did - Monday morning, it seems it is all sorted out, and I can access my accounts again. The main downside to all this - I have to fork out about R2 000 (approx 200 €) more in flights and accommodation costs for my conference travels this month (ACM DRM in Washington DC and Virtual Goods in Koblenz). I still have no idea what went wrong, and why my accounts were suspended. It is at times like this, that I really miss 20Twenty.
And to really put the situation in crisis mode - I had no access to my German bank account either, and with sorting out the visa, I had all of 5€ in total on Friday night. My Deutsche Bank account provides me with two cards: a savings card and a current card. But these accounts are different, and not linked. Furthermore, the current card expires ... as it happened on Friday. So, since I had no money in my savings account (which has since been resolved) and my access to my current account disabled, and no open bank offices over the weekend, I was in a really financial distress. Luckily, I had some US dollars on me, and I got on a bus to Nuremberg (they don't check to see if you have a ticket on the bus), changed my dollars to Euros, and managed to ride out the weekend (quite well too ... see my other posts this week).
So in summary ... it is possible to live life without bank accounts, as long as you have cash in hand. US dollars seem like the best bet, but I saw that the forex office also buys and sells Krugerrands. I think, above everything else, that could be the best cash equivalent of them all.
05 October 2007
German Red Tape
Most people hate bureaucracy; and it is probably the worst problem about democratic systems. As much as oversight and process is good, it is at times mind numbingly idiotic. And Germans, it seems, are particularly fastidious about their red tape.
It all started back in Cape Town, even before I left. I am scheduled to be in Germany for 4 and a half months, but they could not issue me with a visa for that long (or for that two visas). Instead, I had to get a 90 day visa, and then upgrade it in Germany.
And that is where the fun started. I could not update in Berlin, partly because I was lazy and did not look up the details in time (and the offices only open 3 days a week for 4 hours at a time), and partly because I did not have the relevant documentation. You see, to get the visa update I needed, I needed to be a registered resident of Berlin ... which is rather convoluted since you have to have a lease agreement to be get such a registration. So, I left things for Erlangen.
At Erlangen, I discovered that the Cape Town Embassy had actually processed the wrong type of visa for me, and I could not update my visa easily. I had two options: either get a work permit (which I don't need as a short term scientific assistant at a research institute) from the wonderfully named Aliens Office, or get the visa issued, fly outside to a non Schengen country and then re-enter.
The personnel department decided to first try the Aliens Office, who did process the request very fast (took 2 weeks instead of the usual 8) and I finally managed to get the visa sorted this morning. After having my photo retaken because the ones I had (taken in Berlin) did not meet the specifications ... strange as the photo is actually shrunk in the final visa.
But here is the really fun part ... since my flight leaves the day after I finish my internship, I have to go get another extension (for the two days) closer to the time. I do not need extra documentation, but that is how it must be done. Since I might be in Barcelona at the time, I am wondering if I should just change my flights instead.
It all started back in Cape Town, even before I left. I am scheduled to be in Germany for 4 and a half months, but they could not issue me with a visa for that long (or for that two visas). Instead, I had to get a 90 day visa, and then upgrade it in Germany.
And that is where the fun started. I could not update in Berlin, partly because I was lazy and did not look up the details in time (and the offices only open 3 days a week for 4 hours at a time), and partly because I did not have the relevant documentation. You see, to get the visa update I needed, I needed to be a registered resident of Berlin ... which is rather convoluted since you have to have a lease agreement to be get such a registration. So, I left things for Erlangen.
At Erlangen, I discovered that the Cape Town Embassy had actually processed the wrong type of visa for me, and I could not update my visa easily. I had two options: either get a work permit (which I don't need as a short term scientific assistant at a research institute) from the wonderfully named Aliens Office, or get the visa issued, fly outside to a non Schengen country and then re-enter.
The personnel department decided to first try the Aliens Office, who did process the request very fast (took 2 weeks instead of the usual 8) and I finally managed to get the visa sorted this morning. After having my photo retaken because the ones I had (taken in Berlin) did not meet the specifications ... strange as the photo is actually shrunk in the final visa.
But here is the really fun part ... since my flight leaves the day after I finish my internship, I have to go get another extension (for the two days) closer to the time. I do not need extra documentation, but that is how it must be done. Since I might be in Barcelona at the time, I am wondering if I should just change my flights instead.
01 October 2007
Radiohead's New Distribution Strategy
After the conclusion of their previous contract, Radiohead has decided to go independent, and record and distribute their new album, In Rainbows, themselves. In fact, they are releasing the album on the 10th of October. (See http://www.pitchforkmedia.com/article/news/46015-new-radiohead-album-aaaaaaahhh)
It is their distribution strategy that is most interesting. There have been many bands that have done the independent recording route off course. They have a "box set" with the double CD, vynils, artwork photographs etc. for 40 pounds. Expensive, but you do get a lot I suppose. But it is their digital strategy that is impressive: download on MP3 (no DRM protection), with downloaders paying what they wish.
It is, as correctly pointed out by Questionable Content, not a new strategy. Webcomic authors are not the only ones to make out a living of mass patronage; but certainly one of the most noticeable. The idea is off course that people who really appreciate your work will pay something, presumably reflecting how much it meant to them. It is also a risky strategy, as there are also a number of stingy freeloaders out there, who don't like sharing bandwidth on bit torrent, let alone volunteer to pay for music!
Is this going to be a new successful direction for recording artists? I don't think so. Yes, big name bands like Radiohead can afford to do this. But can a start up band make a living out of donations from fans? The problem with this approach is, that the artist needs a reputation first - to draw the crowd. Only then, can they consider giving it away. The function of the reviled record label is really to take a gamble on a new band, finance their new album, promote and distribute their album; and hope that they become big.
Radiohead (and the Creative Commons mix push by the Beastie Boys a few years ago) are great efforts at "freeing music" but these guys have relatively little to loose.
It is their distribution strategy that is most interesting. There have been many bands that have done the independent recording route off course. They have a "box set" with the double CD, vynils, artwork photographs etc. for 40 pounds. Expensive, but you do get a lot I suppose. But it is their digital strategy that is impressive: download on MP3 (no DRM protection), with downloaders paying what they wish.
It is, as correctly pointed out by Questionable Content, not a new strategy. Webcomic authors are not the only ones to make out a living of mass patronage; but certainly one of the most noticeable. The idea is off course that people who really appreciate your work will pay something, presumably reflecting how much it meant to them. It is also a risky strategy, as there are also a number of stingy freeloaders out there, who don't like sharing bandwidth on bit torrent, let alone volunteer to pay for music!
Is this going to be a new successful direction for recording artists? I don't think so. Yes, big name bands like Radiohead can afford to do this. But can a start up band make a living out of donations from fans? The problem with this approach is, that the artist needs a reputation first - to draw the crowd. Only then, can they consider giving it away. The function of the reviled record label is really to take a gamble on a new band, finance their new album, promote and distribute their album; and hope that they become big.
Radiohead (and the Creative Commons mix push by the Beastie Boys a few years ago) are great efforts at "freeing music" but these guys have relatively little to loose.
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