The recent Presidential Address regarding withdrawals from Afghanistan spawned loads of reactions on Twitter. One of them was from a boy who seemed to be from the Christian-right side of the political spectrum, which simply called for Obama stepping down. I notice it, probably because I didn’t like the attitude, but when I clicked it I saw that there were others that didn’t like the comment too. However the top-reply is from a (probably self-proclaimed) ‘social media expert’ (it says “Fuck you bitch”).
While I get that this is the internet, where trolling, cursing, insults and threats are far from uncommon… I was surprised to find out that the first insult came from someone who describes himself as a “Social media expert, your spokesperson, and lover of humanity.”
May the Flying Spaghetti Monster have mercy on the poor soul that hires this person to manage their social media.
Today an article at the BBC reported the ‘music industry’ claiming that piracy is destroying local music. Of course not the entire music industry believes this, just IFPI which represents only a fraction of all those working in the music industries (yes, there are multiple music industries).
The article states:
The sales of albums by local artists there have fallen by 65% in five years.
Federation chairman John Kennedy said the situation in Spain is now “almost irreversible”.
“Spain runs the risk of turning into a cultural desert,” commented Rob Wells, Senior Vice President, Digital, at Universal Music Group.
A cultural desert? Really? How about including statistics on live music? There is a very vibrant scene of young, creative musicians in cities like Barcelona and it appears to be thriving. I’m sure there are numbers that suggest the same. Such a ‘desert’ is more likely to be created by ‘music monopolies’, where big companies flood the market with non-local musicians by employing huge marketing budgets. Local artists would struggle to compete with that. If anything, big labels like UMG are causing a cultural desert, but is it really about the richness of culture or the richness of the labels?
When I read the following bit in the article, I had to count to 10…
He described the loss of the recent court case against BitTorrent website Oink as “a terrible disappointment” and an indication that current laws in the UK are “out of touch with where life is”.
Out of touch with where life is??? It is 2010. Music distribution is nearly costless, yet ‘you’ demand unreasonable prices for a copy of a song. Yes, there are production prices (but live revenue and sponsoring can help with that), and yes there is a marketing budget which needs to be earned back, but perhaps the world is better off without the marketing. You cannot finance one thing, by making money from something unsustainable – that’s bad business.
“The news from the commercial viewpoint is reasonably good but it’s not happening fast enough,” said Mr Wells.
So by stifling innovation through draconian laws, this process is going to be accelerated?
“The music industry finally believes it is making progress in the battle against web piracy with governments taking action and legal music services beginning to prove viable,” said BBC technology correspondent Rory Cellan-Jones.
“But the industry is still furious about what it sees as negligence by some governments notably Spain – and is warning that there is a growing threat to local artists posed by piracy.”
Prove that there’s a threat. Record sales mean nothing at all.
There ARE ways for artists to make money and not to depend on selling records… The only side in this that really depends on selling records are the record companies. And guess who are the loudest party in this struggle? Exactly. Record companies have to reshape themselves totally and governments have to prevent these companies from ‘micro-managing’ the lives of consumers.
I’m sure some people will read this and feel angry. Please leave a comment and let’s discuss the future. I am 100% confident there is more than enough money to be made in the music industries, both local and global. Hey, my livelihood depends on it.
If you have numbers to share, for instance on live revenue in Spain, please do!! Help me make my point (or disprove it, if you want).
This afternoon a Dutch court ruled in favour of Dutch copyright protectors, BREIN, in a case versus The Pirate Bay. Within ten days, The Pirate Bay must block access to all Dutch users. BREIN’s head honcho, Tim Kuik, is happy about the verdict, because The Pirate Bay (TPB), according to him, is simply illegal.
What does this verdict change though? Internet users can make TPB’s servers think they’re not in The Netherlands simply by using a proxy. The less tech-savvy users can simply use one of The Pirate Bay’s clones. Those that are getting paranoid can be relieved that people are constantly working on increasing the quality of filesharing and making it harder to track (see this article about HydraTorrent, which, by the way, has already copied all of TPB’s torrents). Now that The Pirate Bay is gone, will the market for music in The Netherlands suddenly be a little bit bigger? No, no, no. Only the lawyers are profiting from this.
So what does it achieve? It makes it easier for people to get websites banned if they disagree with the content. The Pirate Bay doesn’t host any copyrighted content, it links to it. It also hosts a lot of legal content, I personally use it to distribute my DJ sets, so thanks BREIN for killing one of my best distribution channels.
While living in Turkey I witnessed horrible web censorship. I couldn’t use YouTube, one of the most popular sites on the web, unless I used a proxy or some other workaround that simply kills the user friendliness. Why was YouTube banned? Because the Turkish government didn’t like the content of one of the movies on YouTube, because it was against the law in Turkey. When YouTube didn’t remove it, the government had ALL of YouTube blocked via the courts. For years! In an older post I already mentioned that the whole YouTube ban is pointless anyway. Research in Alexa.com’s traffic ranking system has shown that YouTube is the 10th most popular site in Turkey. Turkish Prime Minister Erdogan surprised everyone when he stated that even he uses YouTube.
Not only was YouTube banned, at some point ALL of blogger/blogspot was banned, because some blogs contained copyrighted material. The website of atheist Richard Dawkins was blocked, because somebody found it to be offensive.
In Holland, blasphemy is also illegal, so is disturbance of the peace, or insulting people. These could all be precedents to take down websites now that that door has been opened. Tim Kuik is proud, but he’s only keeping lawyers paid and limiting the freedoms of the citizens of The Netherlands.
Help us out. Spread the word. Understand that blocking sites like this does not help artists make more money, it only helps LAWYERS make more money. When they killed Napster, 10 things came in its place. There is no more stopping it. The business model needs to change. That’s the only way.
Besides that, don’t buy from artists that support this. I personally won’t buy anything anymore from any artist supporting or represented by BREIN. Especially artists shouldn’t align themselves with freedom-infringing practices like this. Art is about expression, not repression and free expression only happens in free environments.
So, before I write about the joys of Prague last week… I want to get something off my chest first.
The public transport in Prague is not too expensive, although some people would disagree with me. The problem is the availability of tickets at night. There’s no machines available, no shops open, metro stations where there are offices: closed. If you can reach machines, but don’t have exact change: good luck. Even the guys from the tram/metro service won’t change money with you. Oh, and the tramdrivers don’t sell tickets.
So if you don’t have a ticket already, sometimes you’re more or less forced to ride the tram illegally, or put yourself in danger by walking through a city filled with junks and bums for 1.5 hour. So you get on the tram, but a lot of trams at night have police officers in them… who help to enforce the public transport company’s rules. By helping controllers fining you for more than 25 times the price of a ticket. That, by my book, is fascism. Using state security forces to enforce corporate interests at the cost of civilians.
There’s the option to send an SMS to a number to buy a ticket ‘code’ or something, but we were told this only works with Czech numbers… and at the information display at tramstops, the number to SMS is not mentioned. Great job, guys.
Yes, we got fined.
More about Prague soon! It was awesome. So was the 24 hour busride through Europe 🙂
I’m sure I’ll offend someone with this; good. This needs to be said and people have to start becoming aware of this. The following is possibly the biggest hurdle for the Bulgarian people and it needs to be discussed.
A few months ago I was on Bulgarian English-language news website Novinite.net, where I often got into discussions with other readers through their commenting system. One day one of the people argued that foreigners that come to live in Bulgaria must be the lowest of the low in their country. Why else would someone move to Bulgaria? Most of the commenters on the newsportal are Bulgarians that have moved abroad, mostly the USA. They are very hateful and find reason to despise just about everything. They point: the corruption is the fault of them, they hate parties on both sides of the political spectrum, except for the extreme right-wing party Ataka. It’s like they’re reading the news just to get an affirmation that their move abroad was a good choice. These people are among the most negative Bulgarians I’ve come across and they mask their own insecurity and feelings of inferiority by pointing, pointing and pointing.
Many people I meet have trouble understanding why someone from Holland would ever move to a country like this (twice!) and even bother to pick up a few words and sentences. To me, Holland is organized, linear, and everyone stays in their own bubble. To some that might sound appealing, but to me that sounds boring – and on top of that, the weather’s always shit. I went to Bulgaria to taste a little more of life. The food is better and more authentic, the people are not emotionless robots when they’re working, and they worry a bit less about their time. Whereas in Holland people look up the exact times of the bus and try to be at the busstop the minute before the bus comes, here people are more likely to simply go to the busstop and wait. That’s what I like, that’s why I’m here.
But why I really believe there’s some type of underlying inferiority complex in the Bulgarian society is the expressions of powerlessness people give. They feel their vote won’t change a thing, they feel it doesn’t matter who they vote for, they feel corruption can’t be solved….. They feel completely powerless to change anything about Bulgaria. That’s why I believe this is a more important thing to handle than fixing corruption, the justice system, or anything else. People have to believe they can make a difference; and then they will. The state of Bulgaria is improving, but slowly and with a determination to make a difference, from person to person, this process could speed up ten-fold.
People need to stop pointing at politicians, politicians need to stop pointing at each other, companies should stop pointing at politicians and politicians should stop pointing at companies. We ALL live in this country and we ALL want to have the best we can get; every time you point a finger, you can also pick up some of the litter on the streets and make a real difference.
Life’s not perfect people, nor will it ever be. Stop expecting to get something great, while you don’t believe other people deserve something great to happen to them. You are part of those other people, we are one society. Now stop pointing or holding out your hand and DO something. Anything at all. Make a difference today.
BasBasBas.com is about my life abroad. I regularly write about my adventures in Istanbul, Bulgaria and travels in the region, but like to ponder about the future also. If you’d like to stay up to date, you can subscribe to my RSS feed or get email updates in your inbox. You can also follow me on Twitter.
I am leaving Entrecard. For a while now, I’ve been thinking about it and recent events have made the decision all the more easier. I’ve turned off advertising on my blog. When my last ad finishes, on the 16th, the widget goes. Until that time I’m still returning drops.
Entrecard is a social network for bloggers who can drop by each others’ blogs and earn credits in return. With these credits, they can advertise on each others blogs. A nice system, but in the end it’s not worth it for me.
8 Reasons to Quit Entrecard
If you’re a blogger using Entrecard, don’t take any of the following points personal. If any of them insult you, please keep reading on until the end of this article.
Poorly invested time. Unless you’re on a very fast connection, it’s going to take you a considerable amount of time per day to get the best out of Entrecard. To get the best out of it, 300 drops per day is a must and its results are spectacular then. However, your time is better invested in discovering and commenting on relevant blogs, using Twitter and more actively engaging the blogosphere, because…
Entrecard traffic has low value. Much of the traffic generated through Entrecard just inflates your statistics and increases your bounce rate. Many people just “drop and run”, as it’s dubbed in the Entrecard community. In the end, the traffic has more value than that of most social bookmarking services, but is for the most part still of low value.
Bad quality blogs. I’ve had it with low quality blogs. There are too many of them. Poorly written content, grammar and spelling mistakes all over the place, lots of sponsored posts, bad designs. Stay away from me.
Non-interesting blogs. I suppose making a blog about your cats is fun, and I’m sure it’s fun for many others to read it, but I’m simply not your target group. You don’t need me on your blog and I don’t want to be there to be honest. There are many other types of blogs I am not interested in that I had to visit because of returning ‘drops’.
I don’t care about your ‘hubby‘. Dear Stay/Work At Home Mom (SAHM/WAHM) bloggers, please erase this word out of your vocabulary. If I see it one more time I will puke. Never thought this word would end up on my own blog. Refering to your spouse like this in every one of your blog posts is like two ugly people making out right in front of me. My stomach cannot help but revolt. Sorry. I guess Entrecard has brought me to your blog, but I doubt you really want someone like me there.
Linkback building obsession. My God, is there an immense obsession with getting linked back on Entrecard. It’s good to get links back to your blog, because it helps to build your status in search engines. Google Bombs are proof of this. Entrecard is a BAD place to build your linkback. Firstly, you want to get linked back from blogs and sites that are relevant to your site. I don’t need topdropper links back to my page from blogs about cars.
Secondly, I don’t want to give “link juice” out to unrelated blogs. It’s unfair to the related, relevant or highly interesting blogs that I link to. More about this on SeoBlogr. I read a better article about it recently, found it via Entrecard, but forgot to bookmark it. Doh! 🙁 So stop caring about your Google PageRank (PR) people, I have zero PR and I get a LOT of search engine traffic. Start worrying about writing good content, writing some linkbait and having high keyword density (but not too high or you’ll get flagged as spam 😉 ).
The captain is drunk. I’ve put a lot of energy into the community on the Entrecard ship and we’ve sailed far and become friends, but the captain has been making poor choices and I suspect he’s incapable of taking this censorship much further. I love the community on board, but I’m getting off before we hit an iceberg. Graham, the owner of Entrecard, is childish and yesterday banned one of Entrecard’s top users. As you can see in the comments, many people are outraged. I think this was the final proof of Graham’s immaturity and incapacity to make the right decisions at the right time. Although Turnip‘s tweet wasn’t a great show of maturity either. 😉 While Graham is saying the negative publicity is only good for Entrecard, his poor leadership is not and new and current members will soon realize that.
Excuse me? Is this the Soviet Union I’m living in? In the past I’ve made a comparison between Turkey and China regarding the freedom of the press and I also said at the time that it was an exaggerated comparison, as Turkey’s press enjoys a lot more freedom than China’s. But this, this has not been equaled by China, I believe.
This summer we saw American Tibetan activists hold demonstrations in China during the Olympic games; they could not have done that if they got detained upon entering the country. Yes, they were arrested and deported, but only after committing a criminal fact in China. Most of their names could have and should have been known to the Chinese government. They write about the Tibetan cause publicly.
What this prosecuter is asking for is detestable and I am shocked and outraged.
“Those YouTube users determined to be living outside Turkey will be detained upon entering the country.”
Detained and then what? Imprisoned for insulting Turkey? They did not commit any illegal acts if they published these videos outside of Turkey, unless they are Turkish citizens, which might make it illegal. If I were to say “the US is a big pile of smelly cowdung”, I cannot be arrested upon entering the US. If I however threaten someone in the US, particularly government officials, there’s a good case for them to find out my name and to detain me upon entering the country. What this prosecutor is asking for is to limit the freedom of speech with matters pertaining to Turkey worldwide.
The whole YouTube ban is pointless anyway. Research in Alexa.com’s traffic ranking system has shown that YouTube is the 10th most popular site in Turkey. Turkish Prime Minister Erdogan surprised everyone when he stated that even he uses YouTube.
““There was a vigorous internal debate between Wong and her colleagues at the top of Google’s legal pyramid.” Wong, who had to play mediator, decided that Google, by using a technique called IP blocking, would prevent access to videos that clearly violated Turkish law, but only in Turkey. For a time, this solution seemed to work for the Turkish judges, who reopened access to YouTube.
But last June a Turkish prosecutor made a demand that Google block access to the offending videos all over the world, to protect the rights and sensitivities of Turks living outside the country. Google refused, arguing that one nation’s government should not be able to set limits of speech for Internet users worldwide. As a result Youtube has remained blocked in Turkey.”
Me: Hey Twitter! Some guy on your network said my site sucks and used some profanity. I feel really insulted. Can you ban the entire network from saying bad things about me? Oh you can just make it so that my IP address can not see it anymore? Well, I’ll be using proxies to see it anyway, but I’d prefer if you would make any insulting depictions of my site invisible all around the world.
FAIL.
The vice president of the European Parliament’s Human Rights Sub-Committee, Howitt, criticized the ban, saying that around 1,000 websites are blocked in Turkey and this places the country alongside some of the world’s worst nations for cyber censorship.
The information age is here and it’s never going away. You’re a really marvelous country Turkey, but it’s time to do something about these ridiculous prosecutions.
As I was going through my blog archives, trying to figure out what I was doing exactly one year ago hoping it would inspire me for a new post, I discovered that today’s a special day.
Exactly one year ago (to the hour), I was watching a film called Earthlings, somewhat horrified I should mention. I’ve always said I thought being a vegetarian was noble, but I simply loved meat too much to become one. I ate meat 2-3 times per day. I loved meat. All of that changed over the course of one documentary. One of the greatest documentaries I’ve ever seen, I should add, with a great soundtrack provided by Moby. I decided I could no longer be a hypocrite.
Earthlings
.
After watching the film, I simply could not eat meat anymore, so I quit. For a while, I thought, not expecting myself to even last 2 months. I’ve exceeded my expectations by far… It has now been a year since I last ate meat (minus the grasshoppers).
It was never my intention, but it turns out that becoming a vegetarian is actually easier than stopping to be a vegetarian. Who would have thought.
Please take a moment to watch this documentary. I’ve heard many people say that they don’t really want to know where their meat comes from, or what happens to the animals before they eat them. This is a bs excuse. You are consuming them, so you are responsible. At least look at what you are doing. I’m not asking you to stop eating meat, but at least make yourself aware of what you’re doing.
Saying that you don’t want to know what you are partly responsible for is like the 1930’s/40’s Germans ignoring what was being done onto the Jewish population during the second World War. Yes. Suffering is done upon animals in a massive scale, an inconceivable scale. Just imagine the number of turkeys killed for thanksgiving.
I’m fine with people’s choice to eat meat. As long as it is a choice. Think about what you consume. You are responsible.
If you wish the world was different, if you wish things were not this way… then change what you can. Start with yourself. The rest will follow. You cannot expect the world to change first. You take the first step.
As I wrote before, it’s really hard to get your residence permit in Turkey. The bureaucracy is crazy and apparently nobody really knows what exact documents you need to show them for them to issue you a residence permit. I received an email from one of my university’s international office employees that shows the Turkish bureaucratic chaos quite well.
I’ve bolded the parts of the email that really display the chaoticness very well, for quick reading. 😉
For those who are through – bravo .. geçmiş olsun too ..
For those who are still going tomorrow . .stay calm – stay together in line – at the entrance and upstairs while getting the little piece of paper for BANKO (bank, window) and numbers … don’t let people crowd in – or cut into your line – then you will be left behind .. and do not take cameras with you – they might see it in the x-ray machine .. and do not take pictures inside the compound or building ..
The cafeteria is down the steps – the A Block is up the stairs after your ID check – (where they enter your name into the computer from your ID card or passport … make sure you get the card back .. and then exit the entry building – and wait for your group on the stairs .. then into the A Blok door – and one floor up – where you get little pieces of paper – BANKO and SERIES ..
BANKO 1 to 9 are located in the main room in front of the building .. BANKO 10-15 is in rear room (behind the elevators near the toilets) .. BANKO 16-18 are in the opposite corner (separate entry door) in the rear room and are really tight for space … each BANKO has its own series .. shown in larger numerals on your piece of paper .. . you just need to be there when your number comes up – but there is no indication – just word of mouth from others . .about which number is being looked at .. stay calm ..
Cafeteria is downstairs Burger King/Migros outside – a block down .. Aksaray is about 5 blocks down .. and the Grand Bazaar is another 5 blocks or su .. the “light rail trolley” is across the main street in front of the police building (VATAN CADDESI) and up the hill about 5 blocks to the next main street which has the rails right down the middle of the street – this system takes you to Blue Mosque, Eminönü .. the ferry docks .. always travel towards your left side as you exit the police building .. and you come to the old city ..
As for paper work –
Every university has a different style of “student validation” .. and every university has difficulties with some banko people – for example, the “example” brought by two students from another university for us – was rejected by six of the banko officials – and had to be redone .. not enough information .. students did not even get processed with it .. but one official says this is what we should be doing …
Every time – the system changes – every time there are new or old officials .. making some petty decision ..
However, the division chief showed us what to do on the student validation paper .. and we did that – if his own people do not accept it – (as one tried to do) they can go speak to their chief (as I told him on the phone – he did – it was ok) ..
There is no reason to get upset – keep patient – and have your paperwork in order – yes
do not show English duration and acceptance letters – they look and might decide you need them to be in Turkish .. just show the minimum forms
and maximum patience .. and call if you have a problem .. and let Brandon know ..
maybe we can solve it at the time ..
Terry
Oh, how I wish this was just limited to the foreigner police. This type of bureaucracy is everywhere.
I’m sure I’ll offend someone with this; good. This needs to be said and people have to start becoming aware of this. The following is possibly the biggest hurdle for the Bulgarian people and it needs to be discussed.
I am leaving Entrecard. For a while now, I’ve been thinking about it and recent events have made the decision all the more easier. I’ve turned off advertising on my blog. When my last ad finishes, on the 16th, the widget goes. Until that time I’m still returning drops.
