Squeezebox Server

I just upgraded from SqueezeCenter 7.3.3 to Squeezebox Server 7.4.1. I bought my Squeezebox in early 2006, and this is the second major update to the cross-platform, GPL'ed server software since then. Both times, the capabilities of the Squeezebox were expanded, and the experience of using it improved. Now that's what I call value!

This isn't as big an update as the switch from SlimServer to SqueezeCenter, which overhauled the browser-based UI and added the ability to synchronize playback across multiple players. Indeed, at first glance, it appeared to me that not much had changed in Squeezebox Server.

However, looking a bit closer, there are a few really nice improvements. The most prominent new feature is the introduction of applications (everyone's got to have apps, right?). For example, there's a CBC app that helps you easily find their radio streams and podcasts, and a Facebook app that lets you browse your news feed and post updates about what you're listening to (check my profile to see what I'm listening to as I write this!).

Also impressive is a major improvement to Internet radio support. The listing and organization of stations is great. You can see a very complete listing of local stations (66 for Toronto, all classified and with icons) with just a couple of clicks of the mouse or remote control, and easily browse or search thousands of stations from all around the world. One more click adds the station to your favourites, for easy access from the main menu.

Big kudos to the Squeezebox team and to Logitech. I never would have expected such great things when Logitech bought Slim Devices in 2006. It's all enough to make me pine for one of their newer devices.

My Copyright Consultation Submission

The Copyright Consultation wraps up on Sunday, September 13, so there's just over a week left to make your submission! I finally finished mine today. Here it is.

Thank you very much for receiving this submission, and for holding this consultation in the first place. I hope that hearing the views and concerns of all Canadian stakeholders will lead to new copyright legislation that is more balanced and forward-looking than the deeply flawed Bill C-61.

The primary reason for this submission is to express, in the strongest terms possible, my opposition to the DMCA-like anti-circumvention provisions of Bill C-61. Banning all circumvention of technological measures (as opposed to just circumvention for the purposes of infringement) and banning technologies that can be used for circumvention are extreme measures that destroy all balance in copyright.

We do not achieve balance by allowing copyright holders to decide for themselves exactly how their works may be accessed and then legally protecting the technologies that enforce those decisions. If a consumer has purchased a copyrighted work and a technological measure attempts to, for example, override Fair Dealing, protect the work beyond its copyright's expiration, or revoke access on the whim of the distributor, the consumer must be allowed to circumvent that measure to access the work.

The DMCA has been wholly ineffective in preventing widespread copying in the USA. The realities of modern computing and communication -- that copying and distribution now have essentially zero cost -- have led to an explosion of file sharing in that country, just as they have here in Canada and in the rest of the world. The anti-circumvention provisions of the DMCA didn't stop DVD-CSS or FairPlay from being defeated. Rather, they have been used and abused to limit interoperability, deny access to persons with disabilities, disrupt security research, and slow innovation. The American situation is absolutely not one we should be trying to recreate here.

Instead, I believe we should take a wider view on modernizing copyright, as I will explain in my responses to the five specific questions posed for the consultation.

1. How do Canada’s copyright laws affect you? How should existing laws be modernized?

I am affected by copyright law both as a producer and a consumer of copyrighted materials. Professionally, I am a software developer and a published author. Like most members of the general public, I am a consumer of music, movies, and the written word. I am a strong supporter of Canadian artists.

In both my professional and personal lives, I am a user of, contributor to, and advocate for Free and Open Source Software. While this type of software is usually distributed without charge and without any restrictions on end users, it relies on copyright law to control distribution and use in derivative works. Free and Open Source software thrives in open environments, and it is vulnerable to abuse of copyright law to restrict compatibility and interoperability with other software and hardware.

Canadian copyright law is in need of modernization. In particular, I believe it should be simplified and brought into line with current technological realities and public sentiment.

Copyright law currently just doesn't feel relevant to most individuals, especially younger people. Millions of Canadians engage in file sharing, without believing that they're really doing anything wrong. For most people, sharing feels good. Sharing music tends to build communities of fans and promote the artist whose work is being shared.

The overall effect of a decade of file sharing on the music industry has been most decidedly negative, but in the last few years, we have seen dramatic growth in online music sales beginning to offset the losses. It is hard to pinpoint the reasons for this change, but the music industry's long-overdue move to abandon DRM could be one of them. It is also too early to tell whether, given enough creativity and technical savvy on the part of artists and the industry, this could mark the beginning of a turnaround.

What is abundantly clear, however, is that file sharing is not at all comparable to commercial, for-profit copyright infringement. If non-commercial copying is to be outlawed, this should be specified expressly in copyright law and the punishment must fit the crime. In the USA, individuals have faced multi-million dollar lawsuits for sharing a handful of files. This is an unreasonable and disproportionate response. Statutory fines on the same scale as a speeding ticket (total, not per file or per transfer) would seem much more appropriate.

Moreover, copying for one's own personal use (and for the use by other members of one's household) should not be subject to any copyright restrictions at all. Once a consumer has legitimately purchased a work, he should not be prevented from making a backup copy or transferring the work to another format or device. Any restrictions only undermine the credibility of copyright and artificially diminish the value of new technologies that could otherwise help users enjoy the content they have purchased.

In the not-too-distant past, copying and distributing creative works was difficult and expensive, which meant that these acts were generally only carried out for commercial purposes. If someone was going to make money from copying the work, it certainly made sense to ensure that it was the creator, so as to provide an incentive to create. Today, copying and distribution is effectively free and instantaneous, making personal and non-commercial copying commonplace. Copyright law should reflect this reality.

2. Based on Canadian values and interests, how should copyright changes be made in order to withstand the test of time?

Technological neutrality and flexibility are key to ensuring that copyright law can withstand the test of time. Rights and exceptions can be specified without ensorsing or banning particular technologies, leaving the courts with sufficient flexibility to apply the principles to the relevant technologies of the day. Bill C-61 was very poor in this regard, attempting to carve out exceptions for specific uses of specific technologies, many of which were already obsolete.

3. What sorts of copyright changes do you believe would best foster innovation and creativity in Canada?

I believe that all of the changes I have described so far would have a positive effect on public perception of the credibility and relevance of copyright law. If fewer Canadians are inclined to violate copyright law, then creators will be better able to receive the benefits that the law intends.

Beyond that, the best way to foster creativity is to ensure that copyright law does not negatively affect people's ability to create new works based on existing ideas. Creative people have always built on what has come before, and with the help of technology that is now more true than ever. More flexible Fair Dealing, most especially including parody and satire, would be helpful in this regard, and certainly the public domain must be protected by not extending the current term of copyright.

4. What sorts of copyright changes do you believe would best foster competition and investment in Canada?

Once again, I believe that technological neutrality in copyright is key to fostering competition and investment in Canada. Banning particular technologies would be damaging to the software and electronics industries.

5. What kinds of changes would best position Canada as a leader in the global, digital economy?

Certain large players in the content industries are having trouble adapting to the new, digital economy, and they are pressing for extreme changes to the copyright balance. It is worth noting again that these changes have not had the desired effect in other jurisdictions that have adopted them, and that artists and creators, themselves, are not at all convinced.

I believe that the more reasonable proposals described so far in this submission would be much more effective in helping position Canada as a leader in the global, digital economy.

Thank you again for receiving and considering this submission.

Perform and be Glamorous!

What better time to write on one's long-neglected blog than when trying to shamelessly plug something?

That time has come! (And, no doubt, it will come again soon.)

Swingin'OUT, Toronto’s queer swing dance group, is holding a fundraiser to for The 519 Capital Campaign, and we're looking for performers. Our fundraiser, Glamorous: A Tribute to the Jazz Age, will be an incredible evening of glitz and glamour, with a 1920’s, 30’s and 40’s theme.

Dance, drag, burlesque, cabaret, or any other performance style...if you can work with our theme, we'd love to hear from you! Check out our Call for Performers for all the details.

My Letter to the Governor General

I just sent the following e-mail to the Governor General. It's not too late to have your voice heard. Write to info@gg.ca to express your opinion.

Excellency,

I am writing to encourage you to allow Parliament to express its non-confidence in the government and, if it does so, to ask the Liberal-NDP coalition to form a new government.

As I am sure you know, the concept of Responsible Government forms the basis of our democracy. Yesterday in Question Period, the Prime Minister faced repeated demands to allow Parliament to express its lack of confidence in the government with a vote. I was shocked to hear our Prime Minister dismiss these demands as an attempt to "hide behind parliamentary niceties."

Such profound disrespect for this defining principle of our democracy is appalling.

It comes as no surprise, then, that the Prime Minister plans to seek prorogation of Parliament for no reason but to avoid facing a confidence vote. But without the confidence of Parliament, the Prime Minister lacks the authority for this action. The use of such tactics to hide from a confidence vote would set a profoundly troubling precedent, severely damaging our parliamentary democracy. I urge you to deny such a request.

You have been entrusted with the great responsibility of upholding Canada's parliamentary tradition, and I am confident you will act appropriately.

Vote Wisely

Some more thoughts on the day before we go to the polls...

Stephen Harper's probable perjury is just the latest reason to want him out of office. From a surplus-killing $12-billion GST cut to a climate change plan that will allow emissions to rise, from arts cuts and film and TV censorship measures to the Canadian DMCA, from the MPs' handbook on obstructing parliament to In & Out, this has been the most disastrous Canadian government in recent memory. And the most secretive, least transparent government ever. Oh, and who can forget about broken promises on income trusts and fixed election dates?

Just four-weeks ago, Leader Harper made this prediction: "My own belief is if we were going to have some kind of crash or recession, we probably would have had it by now, a year into the crisis." Since then, the TSX has dropped by 26%, and Scotiabank and TD have said that the country is headed for a deep recession. Isn't it great to have a PM with a Master's in Economics?

Some two thirds of Canadian voters do not want to see the Conservatives reelected tomorrow, but we're poised to hand Harper another minority government, nonetheless. Here are the latest poll results from Nanos and seat predictions from democraticSPACE and Election Prediction Project, all of whom most accurately predicted the vote in 2006.

Hopefully, they'll prove sobering for anyone who bought Layton's line about running for PM. He doesn't have a shot. Either he's deluding himself or he's merely trying to delude you. If you're a staunch New Democratic Party supporter, I would think you're facing a really difficult decision tomorrow: will you vote for the NDP or against Stephen Harper? Unless you live in one of a handful of ridings, you really can't do both.

The same is true for Green Party supporters, but the situation is even more dire. There are but two ridings in which Green candidates might possibly be elected: Central Nova and Vancouver Centre.

If you oppose Stephen Harper, I really hope you've given some serious consideration to how you'll vote. I hope you've read all the parties' platforms and thought about the course this country will chart over the coming years. If you care about the environment, I hope you've reflected on how, for the first time ever, a major party has put an environmental issue at the heart of its campaign, and what it will mean for the future if that move is seen as a big part of the reason for its defeat. I hope you've at least used the tools available to see which candidates in your riding can defeat a Conservative.

Please vote, and please vote wisely.

Our Perjuring PM?

On Friday evening, it was revealed that Harper's expert witness found that the Cadman tape was not altered. A couple days later, that story seems to have dropped off the radar, but it's really significant.

In 2005, Conservative-turned-independent MP Chuck Cadman voted with the Liberal government, passing the budget by a single vote and preventing the government from falling. At the time, Cadman was battling malignant melanoma. After his death, his widow, Dona Cadman, revealed that her husband had been approached by two Conservative Party officials with an offer of a million-dollar life insurance policy in exchange for his vote against the Liberal budget. Under section 119 of the Criminal Code of Canada, it is illegal to bribe an MP.

At the beginning of this year, a tape-recorded interview by Vancouver journalist Tom Zytaruk came to light, in which Prime Minister Stephen Harper acknowledged that he had approved of making an offer to Cadman.

Zytaruk asked, "The insurance policy for a million dollars, do you know anything about that?"

Harper responded, "I don't know the details. I know that there were discussions. This is not for publication?" He went on to explain that the offer to Cadman was "only to replace financial considerations he might lose due to an election," and he failed to address specifically the allegation of a million-dollar insurance bribe.

Last March, Prime Minister Stephen Harper sued Stéphane Dion and the Liberal party for defamation over allegations made linking Harper to the affair. So as to avoid demonstrating malice, the Liberals were forced to remove allegations from their Web site.

This August, Harper testified. During cross-examination, he was asked about Zytaruk's question regarding the insurance policy and responded, "That is not the question as he put it. He has done some editing there.

"What I do know is that this answer is not the answer to this question, I think there's been some editing in this question, so I don't think it goes from this question to this answer."

Harper tried to delay the proceedings until after the election, but on Friday lawyers for the Liberal party filed an analysis of the recording by Harper's own audio expert. His findings?

The key portion of the recorded interview contains no splices, edits or alterations.

The best information available to the public now suggests that Prime Minister Stephen Harper made verifiably false statements on a material matter while under oath in a court of law.

Mr. Harper has already made history with his defamation suit, which seems to have been engineered to silence any discussion of the matter until after the election. He is the first sitting prime minister ever to have filed such a suit. If Canadians return him to office tomorrow, he may also become the first sitting prime minister ever to be charged with perjury.

Reassurance

Concerned about the economy? Worry no more.

Lego Memories from Gizmodo

This week, gadget blog Gizmodo took a trip to Lego in Billund, Denmark. The most amazing post to come out of it was about a trip through the vault containing almost every Lego set ever manufactured. They included a video of their journey, from which I took the following two screen captures.

The first Lego set I ever owned:


The last Lego set I ever owned:


From the 4,720 set in the vault, they pulled out 10 boxes and showed them to the camera like this. It's hard to believe that my two most memorable Lego sets were included. The rush of memories is just incredible. Thinking about those simpler days is the perfect antidote for all the complexities in life right now.

My View on Organ Donation

On Monday, the story about Health Canada's new regulations for organ donation broke. CBC reported on the rules, which came into effect in December and prevent several high risk groups from donating. Included among these groups are injection drug users, people with tattoos, and any men who had sex with other men in the previous five years.

After reading the article, I went to CBC's Your View section to read some comments. As expected, there was a range of opinions, from outrage to blatant homophobia. What I found particularly troubling was the way people were misreporting, misinterpreting, misstating, and downright making up various numbers to try to back up their arguments. So, I set down to find some actual numbers and do some very rough calculations to try to interpret them. When I went to post my analysis, I discovered that they have a 2000-character limit. So, I broke it into two pieces and was able to post the first half. But, for whatever reason, the second half never appeared. I checked their Submissions Policy and found no restriction on multiple, related posts, so I tried submitting it again from another IP address, just in case they automatically screen out multiple submissions as a guard against spam. No dice, so I guess someone actually reviewed it and decided not to post it. Anyhow, the discussion is now closed, so I figured I'd just post it here...

First off, in response to the ridiculous non-statistics that have been bandied about, I'd like to offer some actual figures and back-of-envelope calculations.

2005 HIV Infection Numbers (from Health Canada):

58,000 HIV-infected people in Canada
29,600 are MSM (men who have sex with men)
2,250 are MSM-IDU (injecting drug users)

You'll notice that about 50% of HIV infected people in Canada are men who have had sex with men. Some people have inverted this claim and said that 50% of MSM are HIV-infected, which of course, is not at all the same thing. As we'll see in a moment, the real number is a tiny fraction of that.

Canada's population in 2005 was approximately 29,271,200. That's interpolated from the 2001 and 2006 census numbers (from Wikipedia: Canada).

I'll work on the assumption that 2.5% of the population are MSM. Of course, various studies have offered wildly differing figures, but I think it's reasonable to assume that 5% of men have had sex with men as a "consensus figure" for my rough estimations (from Wikipedia: Demographics of Sexual Orientation). Of course, I've halved that since I'm looking for the percentage of the population as a whole.

Using these figures, let's estimate HIV infections rates among...

MSM: 29600 / (0.025*29271200) = 0.040
MSM+ISU: (29600+2250) / (0.025*29271200) = 0.044
Non-MSM: (58000-29600 - 2250) / (0.975*29271200) = 0.00092

So, by my rough estimate, 4% of MSM are infected with HIV, compared to just under 0.1% of the rest of the population.

As a gay man, I find that pretty alarming. A man who has sex with men is more than 40 times more likely to be HIV+ than anyone else. The immediate reaction might be to take the steps that Health Canada has taken. But of course, a couple of statistics don't tell the whole story.

What you really have to look at is how small a risk those numbers actually represent. All donated tissues are tested, and those tests are considered to be highly effective, with false-negative rates of just 0.003% for HIV testing (from Wikipedia: Accuracy of HIV Testing). So, multiplying that out, we can estimate the chances that a donated organ that tests negative for HIV will actually carry the disease...

MSM: 0.04*0.003 = 0.00012
Non-MSM: 0.00092*0.003 = 0.00000276

Yes, that's right. A negative-testing organ from an MSM is "only" 99.988% safe, while a negative-testing organ from someone else is 99.999724% safe.

Now, given the choice, who wouldn't want the safer organ? But, of course, that's not the choice we face in reality. There is a chronic shortage of donated organs available and people are dying on the waiting lists. That's why those people in need of organs are willing to take that extra risk, as they expressed in their responses on the CBC's forum.

So, the appropriate question to ask is this: does the benefit of additional organ donations outweigh the increased risk of infection? My figures, while just estimates, suggest that it does, and by far. If we also apply the 2.5% MSM estimate to the pool of organ donors, then we can calculate the overall risk when they are included in the system:

Total: 0.025*0.00012 + 0.975*0.00000276 = 0.00000569

Removing this "high risk" 2.5% of the donor pool improves the safety of the system by a mere 0.000293%. The numbers strongly suggest that we're best served by maximizing the size of the donor pool and relying on existing, highly effective testing to identify unsafe organs. Even if these estimates are out by orders of magnitudes, how can the new regulation possibly be justified? Of course, if it had been debated in the open, we would be able to see and evaluate Health Canada's reasoning. But, I'd suggest, the way it was adopted in secret and announced a month later doesn't reflect well on that reasoning.

Gay and bisexual men may feel unduly targeted by this regulation, but we're not its real victims. Those people in need of organ transplants are.

Are You Smarter Than a Global TV Executive?

I just caught Collin Mochrie on the radio promoting a new show he's hosting on Global: Are You Smarter Than a Canadian 5th Grader, adapted from the American Are You Smarter than a 5th Grader, natch.

Okay, I have no issue with these limited-run adaptations in general. I don't think anyone honestly expects Global to come up with original Canadian programming ideas. All they do is air American shows anyway, so doing an occasional local version is a slight improvement, at least.

But this title is simply beyond the pale. Even if no one at Global noticed, surely one of the clever kids on set would have pointed out that, in Canada, we say grade five.