Category Archives: asterisco

Asterisco.paradigma.pt posts

“Thoughts on music”, from Steve Jobs or Howto Kill the DRM stuff right now!


Why would the big four music companies agree to let Apple and others distribute their music without using DRM systems to protect it? The simplest answer is because DRMs haven’t worked, and may never work, to halt music piracy. Though the big four music companies require that all their music sold online be protected with DRMs, these same music companies continue to sell billions of CDs a year which contain completely unprotected music. That’s right! No DRM system was ever developed for the CD, so all the music distributed on CDs can be easily uploaded to the Internet, then (illegally) downloaded and played on any computer or player.
Continue reading “Thoughts on music”, from Steve Jobs or Howto Kill the DRM stuff right now!

iphone rant

Everyone is talking about the iPhone from Apple and I wanted to add something. 🙂

Not having 3G is really dummy. even in EUA everyone is talking about EVDO and they are also talking about the 1.8Mbps plus cell network. its funny because we have it in Portugal already working. 😉

Here in the Netherlands, where I am, its much more expensive and slow unfortunately. 🙁

Connected to that but also with the concept of comunication device I was/am expecting it to do iChat AV through wifi and 3G, so it is now missing a small front camera for that.

it is also missing a usb host interface for something you could think about…, and why didn’t they predicted the use of some flash memory card… there are now sizes of 4 GB… and so it could be very helpful.

Let’s hope these and also the 4 and 8 Gb versions get upgraded to something bigger and better.

I suppose that they will me messing with the iPhone and so the commercial version can be somehow different and better.

And last but not list, as Pedro Melo questioned, how can you do some programming on it? dashboard? some new API? how?

no problem. everyone will be talking until the day it sells, and even after that we will be still talking about that… 🙂

There is one more funny detail about all this, the guy from Cingular, made some menaces about anyone who hack the device or use it with another network… I am afraid it is going to be a bigger story by next summer.

ohhh well. I am still mostly waiting for Leopard OS.

Happy 2007 for everyone!

a photographer with “An Ethical Dilemma”

This test only has one question, but it’s a very important one.

By answering the question honestly, you will discover where you stand morally. The test features an unlikely, completely fictional situation in which you will have to make a decision. Your answer needs to be honest, yet spontaneous.

You are in Miami, Florida. There is chaos all around you, caused by a hurricane, with severe flooding. This is a flood of biblical proportions. You are a photo/journalist, working for a major newspaper, and you are caught in the middle of this disaster. Yet you are attempting to shoot career-making photos.

Suddenly, you see two men floundering in the water.
They are fighting for their lives, trying not to be taken down with the debris. You move closer. Somehow the men appear familiar. You suddenly realise who they are.
It’s George W. Bush and Tony Blair!

You have two options. You can either attempt to save their lives, or you can shoot dramatic Pulitzer Prize winning photos, documenting the demise of two of the most powerful men on earth.

So, here’s the question:
Continue reading a photographer with “An Ethical Dilemma”

When do you want to SHIFT?

SHIFT, social and human ideas for technology
28 and 29 September 2006

SHiFT - Social and Human Ideas For Technology

SHiFT will be all about emerging technologies, whether they’re the latest internet trend or the latest social or psychological development. SHiFT will evolve around five major areas, and the idea is to have contributions about them from all sections of society:

People and Technology
Knowledge Management
Civic Participation
Rights, Liberties and Privacy for the Digital Age
New forms of Economics

Apart from the Conference (program and speakers), there are going to be four workshops on September 26 to 27th:
Designing the Next Generation of Web Applications with Peter Merholz
Creativity with Dannie Jost & Henriette Weber Andersen

This event wasn’t possible without the perseverance of Pedro Custódio (organization), and I personally thank him for trying to do some shifting in Portugal, unfortunately I couldn’t visit him and this great event.

I wish all the best for this event and for the lucky ones that are going. 🙂

Amanda Across America

Amanda Congdon is back and in my opinion is much better than it was before.

The way I see it, Rocketboom was a much more young cable tv type of program with the difference in the budget and the way it was broadcasted and received… And I am not saying that it wasn’t very important, it really made a turn-point in the way last mile broadcast can be done.

But now with this new Amanda Across America, you will have a lot more, because now the content and form is much more creative, different and experimental. I could say that also it is much more of a vlog than rocketboom ever was.

I hope to write more on this later…

for now I leave you with her new vlog / project!

amanda across america - and so, it begins.


about
| and so, it begins | Josh Wolf Behind Bars Again | the wiki | the map
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ah ah, someone wrote about Amsterdam, Netherlands in the wiki already… 🙂