Michael Geist at INTA Workshop

If you want a brief explanation what is wrong with ACTA this video is an absolute must.

The full text of the report can be found at http://www.michaelgeist.ca/content/view/6350/125/

Send in the Copyright Demolition Squad!

A video detailing what a scientist faces if he wants to publish a scientific article made me share some short, rather polemic thoughts on copyright on Google+. I then realized that they are worth being put on this blog. So here we go:

It is a well-established lie that copyright is a means for creators of art, music, scientific papers and other works to protect their intellectual property against people who want to prey on it. Little could be farther from truth. Copyright is regularly and habitually being perverted into a means to dispossess creators of their intellectual property so that they do not obtain a fair payoff.

In my opinion, those who fight the ever worsening, dreadful state of copyright are no enemies of the authors. They surely are enemies of those parasites who prey on these authors' works but fighting this vermin definitely is a just cause.

Joe Scientist comes face-to-face with
the scientific publication business

Copyright Claims vs. Hatsune Miku Youtube Videos

As you may know, I am a member of the German pirate party. An important reason for joining was that I disapprove a system where the mere claim (without the need for providing any evidence) that certain content infringes copyright is sufficient for its takedown. Not only does this approach collide with my view that guilty until proven guilty should be a universal principle not just for penal codes, it also makes the abusive use of false claims way to easy.

In the case of YouTube’s automated system things are even worse. Not only can false claims be made – they can made by anybody, not just by persons who are authorized by the copyright holder to do so. I am a huge fan of vocaloids in general and Hatsune Miku in particular and while I have an account at nicovideo (the site where most vocaloid music is uploaded), I prefer accessing them on youtube because there you can build a virtually infinite number of playlists.

I now learned that there seems to be a concerted action to have high-ranked Hatsune Miku videos removed from youtube by making false claims of copyright infringement which not only results in those videos being removed but also in accounts being closed due to such claims and the three strikes rule.

The Disappearance of Hatsune Miku from YouTube

This is incident is sad in may ways including:

• A means created for a just cause is abused for a hidous one (first and foremost copyright is not about making money but about empowering creators of content so that they have a say in how it is used – this is so central that German law does not even allow you to give up this right).
• Damage is done to the community because many Hatsune Miku songs usually are happy ones that brighten your day.
• As vocaloids allow every hobby composer to use vocals without having to paying quite a lot of money on a singer or having to find people willing to sing without payment, they allow talents that would otherwise have been lost to give a world-wide audience delight.

For more please visit Recent Copyright Claims Affecting Miku Youtube Videos at Vocaloidism. Please help spread the word about this attack on wonderful music created for what likely is the oldest reason to make music: the fun of making it and listening to it.

Fittingly, the song that you hear as BGM for the above video is The Disappearance of Hatsune Miku.

I wonder if the incident may have to do with the top position at Singers You'd Like to Perform at the 2012 London Olympics Opening Ceremonies

3D printed zoetrope

Meet the awesome 3Drehkino, an improved zoetrope. Improvements are:

• It uses flashing LEDs and the stroboscopic effect instead of a slit.
• It has electronics to sync the flashing with the rotation of the disk; the animation therefore works for a wide range of rotation speeds.
• It uses 3D objects rather than flat ones, making it look much very realistic.

3Drehkino

If you ask me the obvious next step would be painting the objects. Via A Hack a Day.

Toccata and Fugue in D minor on a Glass Harp

The Toccata and Fugue in D minor (BWV 565) is a piece of organ music attributed to Johann Sebastian Bach and one of the most famous works in the organ repertoire. Hear it performed on a glass harp:

Toccata i Fuga d-moll J.S. Bacha - Festiwal Muzyki Kameralnej w Bolonii (HD)

Mr Bean and the European Anthem

Allow me to share this performance of the European Anthem by Mr. Bean who runs out of text and improvises one of his own using German loanwords and the like. I laughed so heartily that I had tears in my eyes ☺

Rowan Atkinson (Mr. Bean)
European Anthem - 'Beethoven's 9th Symphony'

Youtube Videos: Navigation by Numbers

You can use the number keys 0 through 9 to move to certain locations in a youtube video:

key	0	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9
position	beginning	10%	20%	30%	40%	50%	60%	70%	80%	90%

Allow me to use Big Buck Bunny as an illustration:

Skipping through Big Buck Bunny

Video DownloadHelper

Video DownloadHelper makes downloading videos, audio and pictures an easy task. It supports hundreds of sites.

NetVideoHunter Video Downloader

NetVideoHunter Video Downloader is a very nice download helper tool that lets you easily collect and download videos and music from sites like Youtube, Facebook, Metacafe, Dailymotion, Break, VKontakte, DivShare and from many other sites…

FlashGot

FlashGot allows you to download all the links, movies and audio clips of a page at the maximum speed with a single click, using the most popular, lightweight and reliable external download managers.

This add-on is especially useful for videos that require more bandwidth to be watched as a stream than you actually have.

ProxTube

ProxTube unblocks youtube videos. It is useful because in some countries like Germany YouTube videos are blocked for rather questionable reasons. Please do not abuse it for accessing videos of which you know that they are violating your local penal code.

Two questionable reasons for why videos are blocked in Germany:

1. The copyright holder possibly (in contrast to actually) does not allow the content to be  online.
2. The video contains symbols of unconstitutional organizations.

The latter is very annoying. In general, German laws outlaw the use of symbols of unconstitutional organization but not if they serve to further civil enlightenment, to avert unconstitutional aims, to promote art or science, research or teaching, reporting about current historical events or similar purposes.

However, I repeatedly had to circumvent youtube's blocking to watch videos that use original footage from the NS era to illustrate the terrible crimes committed by Nazi Germany. They were blocked due to the ubiquitous swastikas, not due to their message that simply put was: We must never let this happen again.

Music on re-purposed hardware

Queen Bohemian Rhapsody Old School Computer Remix

Funkytown by Lipps Inc.
Remix with Old Computer Equipment (Junky Town)

The Animals House of the Rising Sun
Old School Computer Remix

Nayn Cat telnet server

So you only have telnet and want to watch your beloved Nyan Cat? No problem, simply use telnet, namely

telnet miku.acm.uiuc.edu

Nyan Cat via telnet

Nyan Cat [original]

Some like it hot

The current prediction for climate change by 2100 is that we are heading for an increase in temperature of 6 Kelvin (6 degrees Celsius or 11 degrees Fahrenheit). And here are some short National Geographics videos outlining an increase in temperature of 1 through 6 Kelvin

Could Just One Degree Change the World?

2 Degrees Warmer: Ocean Life in Danger

3 Degrees Warmer: Heat Wave Fatalities

4 Degrees Warmer: Great Cities Wash Away

5 Degrees Warmer: Civilization Collapses

6 Degrees Warmer: Mass Extinction?

The Secret World of Arrietty Official Trailer

If you like Ghibli movies you will love this new film.

The Secret World of Arrietty Official Trailer

Hit the Road Jack

A 50 year old song that still sounds great: pARTyzanT plays Hit the Road Jack, a song written by Percy Mayfield and recorded by Ray Charles that 50 years ago was a number one hit on the Billboard Hot 100.

Hit the road Jack!

Totoro main theme on acoustic guitar

lonlonjp playing the “My Neighbor Totoro” theme on an acoustic guitar. For more from this musicians visit his youtube channel.

“M” My Neighbor Totoro Main Theme となりのトトロ 主題歌

The History of English in 10 Minutes

The video contains ten short chapters, namely:

1. Anglo-Saxon or whatever happened to the Jutes?
2. The Norman conquest or excuse my English
3. Shakespeare or a plaque on both his houses
4. The King James Bible or let there be light reading 
5. The English of science or how to speak with gravity 
6. English & Empire or the sun never sets on the English language
7. The age of the dictionary or the definition of a hopeless task
8. American English or not English but somewhere in the ballpark
9. Internet English or language reverts to type
10. Global English or whose language is it anyway?

Add caption

The deadly touch of the ice stalactite

An ice stalactite or brinicle (brine icicle) is the undersea equivalent of a stalactite or icicle. They form beneath sea ice when a flow of extremely cold, saline water is introduced to an area of ocean water.

BBC Nature: ‘Brinicle’ ice finger of death filmed in Antarctic

The video is the first ever recording of the formation of an ice stalactite and not only shows its beauty but also its deadly power. More at the BBC’s site.

Spanish Vocaloids

After presenting to you some demo songs for the Korean vocaloid SeeU I would now like to introduce you to two Spanish voices, namely Bruno and Clara.

Bruno - Amor, amor, amor [VOCALOID3]

Clara - Tres Cosas (Salud, Dinero y Amor) [VOCALOID3]

Bruno - El Makoki [VOCALOID3]

Bruno & Clara - Juntos Tú y Yo [VOCALOID3]

Clara - Por Una Rosa [VOCALOID3]

Bruno - El manisero [VOCALOID3]

Bruno & Clara - El Trenecito [VOCALOID3]