SOPA, Internet regulation, and the economics of piracy

When Wikipedia went dark earlier this week, it grabbed the attention of many people who don't spend much time worrying about piracy or copyright issues. But in conversations about the problems with SOPA, I noticed outright skepticism from some folks about the worries raised by opponents of the legislation.

Fortunately, the opposition appears to have forced legislators to shelve their bills. But the claim that Internet piracy is threatening the economy continues to have legs - despite a lack of credible evidence to support it.

This article, by Julian Barnes, from Arstechnica.com, looks at some of the claims made by those supporting the bill and challenges many of their assumptions, such as the financial harm copyright holders are suffering.

. . . I remain a bit amazed that it's become an indisputable premise in Washington that there's an enormous piracy problem, that it's having a devastating impact on US content industries, and that some kind of aggressive new legislation is needed tout suite to stanch the bleeding. Despite the fact that the Government Accountability Office recently concluded that it is "difficult, if not impossible, to quantify the net effect of counterfeiting and piracy on the economy as a whole," our legislative class has somehow determined that—among all the dire challenges now facing the United States—this is an urgent priority. Obviously, there's quite a lot of copyrighted material circulating on the Internet without authorization, and other things equal, one would like to see less of it. But does the best available evidence show that this is inflicting such catastrophic economic harm—that it is depressing so much output, and destroying so many jobs—that Congress has no option but to Do Something immediately? Bearing the GAO's warning in mind, the data we do have doesn't remotely seem to justify the DEFCON One rhetoric that now appears to be obligatory on the Hill.

SOPA, Internet regulation, and the economics of piracy

(Via Boing Boing.)

Is it just me or is time passing quicker?

"Was that two years ago or 20 years ago?"

That's what my cousin asked me when I was raising an anecdote of some kind that had happened to "just a couple of years ago."

When I thought about it, I realized that in fact, the event was a lot closer to 20 years ago than two.

I'm sure it's a function of getting older. After all, the scope of our memories has grown a lot, and what used to take up a big chunk of our life (like a school year, for example) now passes by in the blink of an eye.

I've come to think of my brain as a vessel that can only hold so much memory. And my long-term memory is pushing my short-term memory right out. That's a good an explanation as anything else I can come up with for why I can remember what happened to me during my trip to Europe in 1978, but I struggle to remember why I walked into the kitchen just now.

All of the above is a long-winded way to admit that while its been a long, long time since this blog was updated, I hadn't actually noticed.

Today, I'm attending WordCamp Victoria 2012 and it's been fun to listen to lots of people talk about why Wordpress is important to them and along the way, there's been a lot of talk about blogging.

Ironically, The Daily Upload is not a WordPress blog. It's on Blogger, where I started it almost eight years ago.

But I've been doing a lot of work with WordPress over the last year or two and I like it a lot. In fact, I've got a new version of davetraynor.com in the works. And that's a good thing, because I first built that site almost 12 years ago - and a lot of the copy there dates from then. Well overdue for an overhaul.

I started building websites years ago, long before we had content management systems like WordPress, or Drupal, or others. I learned HTML and I still build, maintain and work on old-fashioned "static" sites, like this one or this one. But now I've switched to WordPress builds, like this.

OK…I think I've purged enough for today. It feels good to put a post together, and now that I've told you about the new website that's coming, it's time to stop procrastinating and get it done.

Thanks for listening.

Infographics are useful visual tools

While doing some research for a new project I'm working on, I came across this infographic of how to make money on the internet.

Everybody wants to make money, right? So right off the bat, the author has come up with a clever way to draw eyeballs and potential customers to his content.

But the question, "How do I make money on the Internet?" is complex and can cover a lot of issues. I wouldn't recommend trying most of the things mentioned in the Google page I've linked to. Trying to answer that question in a blog post, or sum it up in a podcast isn't the easiest thing to do. The answers are also subjective and prone to error, since the reality is most of us aren't making tons of money off the Internet. But we'll probably be happy to give someone our opinions on how it could be done.

So, back to the infographic. (Here's a good explanation of what it is.) It's called The Ultimate Cash Flow Flowchart and I found it on the Fast Company website, where it was posted last year. I've also seen it recommended on a lot of different websites.

Take your time looking it over and following the flow. It starts off with a satirical tone, but it moves into a clever and accurate description of ways that people (and companies) are making money.

What about you? Do you have a favourite example of an effective infographic? Feel free to pass it along in the comments and give yourself a warm glow for helping with my research.

Transforming a Panorama into a Movie

I've always liked panoramas when I'm making photographs. Thanks to apps like AutoStitch for my iPhone, it's become pretty easy to shoot impressive panorama's with a minimum of effort. Like the one below, which I shot on our holiday in Saskatchewan last month.



Of course, shooting with an iPhone is nowhere near the quality that I can get with my Nikon. And when you combine a digital SLR with a sturdy tripod, add in a bit of Photoshop processing and a really cool location, like Bagan, Burma, you'll come up with an amazing panorama shot like the one that Ben Wilmore has done.

He stitched together 14 different images into an amazing single panorama, then turned the image into a movie and posted it to YouTube. The result is a very impressive panorama that seems to go on forever.

The scary world of American politics

The race for the Republican nomination for the 2012 presidential nomination is heating up across the border. Like many of my friends, I've been amused (and amazed) at the kinds of things that become campaign fodder in that party. Tea party politics, gay rights, big government, big hair - Canadians like to mock the discussion.

But it's disconcerting to see how crazy, ugly and scary things are getting in the US. For example, consider an article in this month's Rolling Stone, Michelle Bachmann's Holy War. The congresswoman is running for president and you won't believe the back story.

Close your eyes, take a deep breath, and, as you consider the career and future presidential prospects of an incredible American phenomenon named Michele Bachmann, do one more thing. Don’t laugh.

It may be the hardest thing you ever do, for Michele Bachmann is almost certainly the funniest thing that has ever happened to American presidential politics. Fans of obscure 1970s television may remember a short-lived children’s show called Far Out Space Nuts, in which a pair of dimwitted NASA repairmen, one of whom is played by Bob (Gilligan) Denver, accidentally send themselves into space by pressing “launch” instead of “lunch” inside a capsule they were fixing at Cape Canaveral. This plot device roughly approximates the political and cultural mechanism that is sending Michele Bachmann hurtling in the direction of the Oval Office.

The profile painted by writer Matt Taibbi is, to say the least, unflattering. But as he notes, don't make the mistake of dismissing her because she's so clearly deluded. Each time her opponents have done that, it's only made her stronger.

In modern American politics, being the right kind of ignorant and entertainingly crazy is like having a big right hand in boxing; you’ve always got a puncher’s chance. And Bachmann is exactly the right kind of completely batshit crazy. Not medically crazy, not talking-to-herself-on-the-subway crazy, but grandiose crazy, late-stage Kim Jong-Il crazy — crazy in the sense that she’s living completely inside her own mind, frenetically pacing the hallways of a vast sand castle she’s built in there, unable to meaningfully communicate with the human beings on the other side of the moat, who are all presumed to be enemies.

This is the dark side of where our world is headed. No longer do political leaders need to be concerned with truth, or even reality. Get prepared for a Presidential campaign that is going to set new standards for what is considered fair game. And the crazier the better, it appears. Nothing is too outlandish.

It's going to be quite a show. Taibbi's profile of Bachmann will be dismissed by her supporters, who will merely note how by attacking her, he's only proving her point. And perhaps that's the scariest part of this. We've arrived at the point where any serious debate about the truth is not possible. The polarization seems complete and there doesn't appear to be any way to have a rational discussion - at least in public. But as the article concludes, those who call Bachmann nuts and want to laugh off her outrageous untruths and outright lies had better be careful.

It could happen. Michele Bachmann has found the flaw in the American Death Star. She is a television camera's dream, a threat to do or say something insane at any time, the ultimate reality-show protagonist. She has brilliantly piloted a media system that is incapable of averting its eyes from a story, riding that attention to an easy conquest of an overeducated cultural elite from both parties that is far too full of itself to understand the price of its contemptuous laughter. All of those people out there aren't voting for Michele Bachmann. They're voting against us. And to them, it turns out, we suck enough to make anyone a contender.

- Link to the whole article here

The Three Ps of Online Indulgence - Alexandra Samuel - Harvard Business Review

This is the first article I've read in reaction to the Andrew Weiner controversy that looks at the legitimate issue of how to protect your online privacy.

Alexandra has some real insights into why people use the Internet for activities they might not want others to know about and rather than condemning those actions, she offers up some real-world advice for how to do it safely and without crossing over your own moral barriers.

Many knee-jerk reactions are that we just shouldn't indulge in this sort of thing. For that matter, don't do anything bad. Of course, the real world doesn't work that way.

Realistically, there are lots of regular people doing things online that they likely don't want to be "open" or "public" about. That's their right, and this article treats everyone with respect.

Here's an excerpt:

It's no accident that a notorious Twitter #fail comes from someone who is social media-savvy. It's a classic case of live by the sword, die by the sword: those who truly live their lives online are likely to bring their whole selves online with them. One part of that self may be the brilliant politician (or hilarious comedian, or compelling CEO, or articulate spokesperson) but it's likely that there are shadow selves too: The womanizer. The glutton. The partier. The gambler.

None of us is one thing only. We all have shadow selves. Offline society is set up to sanction and repress those, which is a necessary and valuable thing. Social judgment can help control compulsion or addiction: the raised eyebrow from a colleague who catches you checking out someone other than your spouse, the bartender who cuts you off.

The Internet, online society, on the other hand, allows us the elbow room to indulge, to explore our shadow selves without the same social pressure to behave. It does this by applying a veneer of anonymity and creating a sense of distance from our actions. Flashing, for example, is anti-social behavior and the vast majority of us wouldn't consider doing it in public, even with consenting partners. Yet, on NPR today, came a report of the high number of older married couples who are regularly sending explicit texts, despite the fact that it is, in a sense, flashing publicly.

Via The Three Ps of Online Indulgence - Alexandra Samuel - Harvard Business Review

How to make Mail.app stop posting inline attachments

If you use Apple's default email program, Mail, you may have run into this problem.

When I click on the Attachment icon to send someone a file, Mail automatically adds the file as an inline image, which drives me crazy.

I searched through all the preferences, but I couldn't find a way to change this behaviour, so I had to keep right-clicking on the image and choosing "View as Icon" from the menu. That fixed the problem, but it was a pain.

Then I found the answer via Micah Gilman's Blog. Thank you Micah!

If this is a problem for you, you'll appreciate this fix.

Here's the link to the blog post, or you can just follow along below.

I’ve found this to be a real annoyance, especiallly with a business where I have to send images in emails often. Mail.app by default displays images inline, and most email clients won’t recognize them as attachments. If you right click (or ctrl click with a one button mouse) on the image you can select to view the image as icon, which makes it behave like a normal attachment. To make this the default behavior you’ll need to use the Terminal to set the preference. Terminal is in Applications>Utilities. Open Terminal and type:

defaults write com.apple.mail DisableInlineAttachmentViewing -bool yes

That will make every attachment you send act like an attachment instead of a pretty unusable decoration.

If you decide this isn’t what you’re looking for, to restore inline attachment viewing type:

defaults write com.apple.mail DisableInlineAttachmentViewing -bool false

Restart Mail and you’re back to normal.

One more thing, if you’re having the issue that Mail is resizing your image like Lissa describes in her comment below, after attaching a file, make sure that you select “Actual Size” from the “Image Size” pulldown in the lower right corner of your message window.

Source: Disable Mac Mail.app Inline Image Attachments | Micah Gilman's Blog

I've got Bieber Fever

I had heard about this. But I didn't really see what the big deal was. And I sure never thought I'd get it. But it happened.

I've got Bieber Fever.

Today, on the flight to Toronto, (I'm on my way to the CPRS conference in Saint John) I watched Never Say Never, a documentary about this kid from Stratford and his incredible journey to playing a sold-out Madison Square Garden in New York.

It's quite a story. I'd heard some of it of course. Anyone who spends any time in the social media world has heard of Justin Bieber. But I didn't know his music or much of the story.

It's a great story. The documentary is well done, marching us through the short arc of his career - heck, he's only 16 years old. But I loved the movie. I like old musicals and this is a take-off on that genre. We see the live shows, and meet all the backstage characters while we move towards the big night - the MSG gig. There are no surprises here. But the passion is real and we see a lot of talent at work.

It's interesting because we see plenty of footage from Justin's early years thanks to YouTube clips. Most of his career has been captured on video and it's fascinating to watch the evolution. He's lived a lot of his life in front of a camera but unlike child actors, a lot of this stuff is raw and unscripted. You feel like you're often seeing the real thing - not a performance.

The truth is, I like the story, the music and the film. It's a well done feel good story and that's the way I feel.

Enough already. I've got Bieber Fever. What more do I need to say? I think you'll like this movie. I sure did.

Don't mess with Grand Rapids

Back in January Newsweek published a list of the Top 10 American cities in decline and the folks in Grand Rapids didn't take kindly making the Top 10. But instead of writing a lot of angry letters (actually, they probably did that too) about 3,000 of them got together to create a Lip Dub to refute the charge.

The result is a pretty amazing piece of work that really makes you want to visit the city. It certainly doesn't look like it's a dying town. Here's the video:

It's also fun to read some of the coverage about the video, which is now well on its way to going viral.

The Grand Rapids Press gives us some of the back story, as well as some details on some of the folks in the video.

Awesome YouTube lip dub proves Grand Rapids is awesome from MSNBC gives a good overview of the back story, as well as including a response from Newsweek, which was posted on their Facebook page:

To the Grand Rapids crowd:

First off, we LOVE your YouTube LipDub. We're big fans, and are inspired by your love of the city you call home.

But so you know what was up with the list you're responding to, we want you to know it was done by a website called mainstreet.com--not by Newsweek (it was unfortunately picked up on the Newsweek web site as part of a content sharing deal)--and it uses a methodology that our current editorial team doesn't endorse and wouldn't have employed. It certainly doesn't reflect our view of Grand Rapids.

The Daily Mail online also has a review of the video, including some more comments about the various scenes.

Anyone who tells you that social media is just a fad - well, that's just silly. Welcome to the revolution.

Wise Law Blog: Proposed California Law Tackles Social Media, Privacy Concerns

Just how much privacy should we expect in our life?

It's a question that's going to be coming up more and more often, as the social media world matures and our on-line worlds merge with our off-line world to become our "world."

Issues like the one I've linked to here are going to continue to be in the news - at least until we figure this out. And I suspect that given the pace of technology vs the ability of regulators to keep up, any "final solution" is unlikely. We'll all continue to struggle along.

Meanwhile, let's all review our privacy settings on our various online activities, keep track of our credit card information, watch out for gift cards and rewards cards that want to track all our activities - the list is long. On the other hand, most of those things end up improving much of your day-to-day experience - like the recommendations feature on Amazon, for example.

I'm not convinced that protecting privacy means that we need to close down access to our private information. I can think of plenty of situations where I want to be able to share that stuff. What we need is a way for me to be confident that when that information is shared, it's with people who will protect it. That's where the real opportunity lies. Figuring out that issue from the protection of the consumer point of view, while still letting companies benefit.

The link below refers to a blog post that got me thinking about that this morning. It's about a law being proposed in California that has Facebook gearing up its lobbying efforts to oppose. It's a good analysis.

Here's an excerpt:

A proposed new law in California would have radical implications for Facebook and other major social media sites:
The bill, which would apply only to users in California, would prohibit sites from displaying users' home addresses or telephone numbers without their consent and would mandate services remove of any information about a user within 48 hours of the request, or face a $10,000 fine.

Under the proposed law, social networking sites would be required to have all users choose their privacy settings--explained in "plain language"--as part of the registration process. It also spells out a privacy setting that would be mandated to serve as the default on all sites and that would prohibit "the display...of any information about a registered user, other than the user's name and city of residence, without the agreement of the user."
Perhaps predictably, Facebook has already commenced lobbying against the bill, claiming it is a "serious threat" to "California consumers' choices about use of personal data." However, their argument essentially hinges on the idea that consumers of social media products won't be able to give up their privacy until after they've become familiar with the service they're using.

Via Wise Law Blog: Proposed California Law Tackles Social Media, Privacy Concerns