Young Rewired State

I’ve spent the last two days at the Google HQ in London attending Young Rewired State [hit link for more info about event] (#youngrewiredstate), and it’s been nothing short of epic.

And of course, I’ve taken some photos.

The schedule (shamelessly copied from the site) was as follows:

Saturday 22nd August:
10:00 Start
10:30 Planning session
12:30 Lunch
13:30 Hacking starts
17:30 Dinner
18:30 Home (Hacking overnight allowed!)

Sunday 23rd August:
10:00 Back to hacking
11:30 Brunch
12:30 Back to hacking
16:00 Presentations to Judges and Press
18:30 Prizes announced

On the first day we split into groups and started thinking up ideas. At about 4pm we finally settled on our idea: to make something very similar to RentACoder, but much simpler, targetted at talented coders who need experience in order to get a proper job. Here are a couple of screenshots of the final result (click to embiggen).

We decided on a PHP/MySQL project and as luck would have it, I was the only PHP/MySQL programmer in the group! So it was fairly frantic work (solid coding from 10 till about 3 on the last day) and we ran into all sorts of problems with versioning and people overwriting each others’ work in FTP, especially as the CSS people tended to be working on the same files as I was at the same time!

IRC

As with all hack days, IRC was one of the most important methods of communication. Literally everyone had their laptops out during talks, especially during the presentations at the end and there was a fairly constant stream of chatter on the channel. @samhale123 also put up a bot on the channel to tweet things over IRC – we had several hours of fun attempting to overload the script / twitter / the server!

Immaturity with Twitterfall

Google

Google is an amazing place with by far the best decor I’ve seen in a company building. The floor is laid out like the London underground and the meeting rooms are more or less in the right place for stations (with consistent naming). There are ducks on the ceiling and random awesome other bits of furniture / decor adorning the walls / ceiling / floor.

We were also given a load of Google freebies, including Google yo-yo’s, Google cakes, Google water, Google pens, Google notebooks…

This actually was a telephone box!

Google and Youtube Cakes

People

Of course it was a floor full of geeks, which essentially means a brilliant selection of geek T-shirts (I spotted several from ThinkGeek, at least one from the xkcd store…). The mentors (helping out with coding / guiding the groups) were also working in all sorts of fantastic companies; one of our mentors is working at last.fm, one at moo, one with the BBC etc. And needless to say there was a wide array of OS’ – the large majority seemed to be using Macs, those with PCs were probably split 50/50 between linux (mostly ubuntu, one debian that I know of) and windows.

There was also a brilliant selection of judges, including people from Wired (for some reason looks very familiar; came to school to give a talk maybe?), C4, etc.

Some of the judges

The presentations were good fun – there were something like 40 people from the press / outside making the buzz all the more exciting. And we (@workforpeanuts) won the “Wish I’d thought of that” award!

Anyways, this is the first hack event that I’ve ever been to, and if this is anything to go by, I’m definitely game for another at some point. Heck, maybe DEFCON next year… *MANY* thanks to @hubmum for organising such an amazing event.

And I took other cool photos so go for it and browse!

Songbird v Foobar

Interestingly enough I switched away from iTunes 7 and haven’t touched it ever since their highly hyped update to 8. I switched to foobar2000 which is actually a pretty awesome bit of software. I have however been constantly hearing about Songbird and its amazing features so I’ve now finally got round to installing it and testing it out. Here are my thoughts.

Foobar > Songbird

One of the reasons I switched away from iTunes in the first place was obscene memory usage. I’m not sure how iTunes 8 is with memory but I had many grievances about the performance of iTunes 7 when I used it. Testing Songbird on a decent laptop (3GB RAM, Intel Core2 Duo T8100 @ 2.10 GHz, a processor that benchmarks faster than most in its clock speed range), it took 5 seconds for the program to start up fully while foobar loaded instantly. Foobar’s memory footprint was absolutely miniscule at 10MB while Songbird required a hefty 80MB, though that’s fairly unsurprising considering its capabilities as a browser.

In terms of usability, as a foobar2000 user, I miss features like Cursor Follows Playback (and more importantly Playback Follows Cursor), complete ID3 tag control, advanced syntactical filters and fully customisable shortcut keys, for which I have yet to find Songbird extensions. Whatever the case these are minor concerns and are bound to be ironed out / provided in the long run by extensions or built in natively. However my concern is that Songbird seems directed more at less savvy / control-freak users who don’t necessarily want to use something like a RegEx string or SQL query to perform operations or filter their music – the functionality is based more around forms and buttons rather than console, debug window and command prompt. While most people probably welcome this user-friendly approach, I personally enjoy the ‘hackability’ and almost complete controllability of foobar. Of course, since Songbird is open-source a real hardcore user may prefer to hard code in mods, though I for one prefer not to have to recompile software to make it do what I want.

There are also several components which come natively with foobar (or as pre-installed plugins) such as ReplayGain (very important; Songbird’s equivalent is the ‘VolumeProfiles’ addon); minimise to tray (again critical [to me]; Songbird has the ‘MinimizeToTray’ addon); and a ‘resume playback after restart’ option (a nice touch to foobar; Songbird has an addon called ‘last track resume’).

This demonstrates the syntax of a Foobar preference element - a lot of the preferences are like this. There's just so much control

You can even control exactly what text is in the window title, status bar and system tray tooltip

Songbird > Foobar

Enough nitpicking. Songbird really does have some really awesome features. Its integration with the web is very nciely done – I get the impression more or less every online music service is supported to some extent, and the whole browser integration is a brilliant idea. Foobar’s web integration comes in the form of ‘freedb’ which I assume is some sort of tags downloader though it’s never given me any vaguely sensible suggestions so isn’t very good. There’s also a mini player built in which foobar doesn’t seem to have without resorting to skinning. Ratings are native which foobar is critically missing – you have to use ‘quick tagger’ [addon]. The default iTunes interface was offputting at first but the browse library by artist/genre/album etc at the top is another feature foobar lacks but Songbird has. And, of course, Songbird is open source.

It’s interesting that Songbird was developed as an open source project thus appealing to the techies while also being amazingly pleasant to use with some of the most useful and critial features built in and vast extensionability. Someone commented Songbird is like the Firefox of media players. I can’t say I disagree.

I find the way they've built a media player around a browser quite cool and certainly in line with the whole web integration thing

Songbird has a clear iTunes-like interface and the mashTape (web integration with artist/song info, reviews, even youtube) is a pretty cool feature IMHO

Songbird, Foobar > iTunes

Despite a slow load time, Songbird wipes the floor with iTunes when it comes to performance. There was a problem with iTunes 7 in which scrolling through a large library was a misery owing to the intense slowness of just about everything. Songbird on the other hand is actually pretty snappy. And of course Foobar runs like lighting.
Both are extensionable. I know there are iTunes addons etc. but both these alternatives take extensionability to a much higher level. Songbird probably uses extensions about as much as Firefox while Foobar takes extensionability to an extreme by more or less requiring them to function normally (hence the pre-installed ones).
And of course neither associates itself with a store that sells DRM music So it’s all good.

Overall, based on my experience of them so far, both are far more than adequate replacements for iTunes (unless you’re a fool and actually use the iTunes store in which case your music is useless if played by anything but Apple products). Foobar even has support for iPods (not sure about Songbird). Neither has performance issues, and both are more or less customisable enough for the standard user. If you’re after an easy and pleasant-to-use player with an automatically decent-looking interface with truly wonderful web integration, go download Songbird. If you’re a control-freak in search of hackability and control almost to the extent of writing your own RegEx (and also a completely no-nonsense player), foobar’s the one for you. On the other hand if you want a program that is slow, memory-hogging and defaults to buying music from a store with hideous DRM, go ahead and download iTunes.

๏̯͡๏﴿

Why File Sharing Isn’t Bad for the Economy

I notice from my Slashdot feed that the RIAA have been giving up on a lot of cases recently. For one they failed to extract $222K from someone who shared 24 files on Kazaa. There was also a case (the same one maybe?) in which the defendant subsequently turned on the RIAA following his success in court and sued. There have been two cases that I know of since the beginning of the Christmas holidays in which lawsuits have been dropped by copyright firms. Fairly recently a Dutch study (thank you Slashdot) found that actually file sharing is good for the Dutch economy. Then someone wrote a book/blog post/ebook/news article about the concept of free stuff in an economy and how it works really quite well. It appears that the whole DRM thing is rapidly turning on its head, against law firms and in favour of open source and freebies. Here’s a concise exposition of all I’ve gathered that seems to make sense regarding this phenomenon.

17,000 illegal downloads don’t equal 17,000 lost sales

- US District Judge James P. Jones

Mike Henley, a former member of CompSoc, pointed out something that I think makes a lot of sense. If music downloaders suddenly no longer could download it for free, I suspect many of them would just stop downloading full stop. The reason they download is more because it’s convenient than any reason concerning the price: there are simply so many good deals out there that good music is already available for decent prices. Therefore it can be deduced that they are actually not harming the industry – they aren’t reducing demand and removing themselves from the market by downloading for free since the market wouldn’t contain them in the first place.

- Me

I think everyone who’s outraged about people downloading and enjoying stuff that they should be paying for and blaming them (amongst Maths, public schools and gnomes) for the economic downturn should really consider the fact that, As Michael observantly pointed out in a comment, most people who currently download for free just wouldn’t buy music in the first place if the download option didn’t exist. If you don’t know you’ll definitely like a product, why risk £12.99 buying it? This judge has definitely got it right.

The way I see it (not why it’s right/wrong but why it’s taking place) is that a new market for music is being created involving mostly bittorrent and uploaders. The ‘product’ is really a few megabytes of data – an mp3 file. The cost to the producer (warez-bb.org uploader for example) of sharing this product is approx. zero. (compare £10 with the millions recording companies must spend on equipment, overheads, disks, labour etc) Chances are they downloaded it themselves in the first place. Every time someone downloads the share, nobody has to pay to get it copied. So there are no production costs, and ‘competition’ (kudos is the new dollar – believe me it’s true – warez-bb forum uploaders survive on the number of thanking replies they get) results in a price of zero and a well-archived and user-friendly method of obtaining free music.

Dutch Study Says Filesharing Has Positive Economic Effects

- Slashdot

Interesting as the economics of this may be, I’m not prepared to learn Dutch. However from what I can deduce: those who opt to download are probably more exposed to online marketing and are thus more likely to buy products that can’t simply be downloaded for free – concert tickets, firefox.com gadgets… To make things better, the actual act of transferring data via downloading costs both parties virtually nothing. A CD on the other hand would involve paying for the media, case, P&P, etc.

I’m reading a book (yes, another one – still haven’t finished the other[s]) called ‘Wikinomics’. It’s about open source and collaboration. I think it’s fairly clear that the internet is bringing a whole new business model to the world (there was an article in the FT on this but I didn’t bookmark it) which revolves around goods and services which the consumer doesn’t actually pay for. Google deliver unbelievably powerful search power to millions (billions?) of users around the world, for free. How nice of them. In fact, our young enterprise idea was (still is come to think of it) based on this system of providing free stuff and using advertising/sponsorship to earn the actual income.

Finally, it’s probably a safe bet that the RIAA and MPAA are fighting a losing battle. Digital music and films are just so easy to copy and distribute that whatever crazy measures ISPs, Microsoft, Sony, the RIAA, the MPAA and Apple dare put into place, a workaround will be found, probably within minutes, and probably in a secret underground hacker convention in Germany or China. Besides, lawyers aren’t exactly popular, especially if employed en masse and paid an unreasonable fee to crucify people like you and me.

I think I’ll leave you with a thought from xkcd.com:

Surviving China

Communist China

I’m leaving for the Lake District on Thursday on the school Winter Walking trip, after which I’ll be travelling to China with my family. Being the cynic that I am, I suspect China will be more Ray Mears-esque in terms of tough survival than the potentially freezing/hail-ey/flooded conditions of the Lake District in Winter, and being the masochist that I am, I’ll love both trips. Being the pragmatist that I’d like to think I am, I’ve already started thinking about how to survive the desperately corrupt, totalitarian and uncompromising system of law, justice, police and politics.

Internet: Tor

The ‘Probrem’
Accessing the internet is crucial to me, even at home. My main form of communication with the outside world when I’m not out is through the internet. I rarely make phone calls when email and IM suffice and writing letters is almost out of the question. In China, it will be my only point of communication with the outside world, since I’ll be separated from everyone I know by thousands of miles. Unfortunately China’s internet is segregated from the outside world by the Great Firewall of China which means any data obtained from the censored network of ‘information’ available from inside China is very probably erroneous, especially if it has anything vaguely to do with politics. Most blogs (wordpress for example) are also banned.

TOR: The Onion Router

The Solution
TOR (The Onion Router) is basically an open source software which links thousands of computers around the world in a huge relay network for the purpose of providing what is essentially a very secure proxy. This means anonymity for anyone who uses it, as well as a method for getting round internet censorship in certain authoritarian schools and institutions and, more importantly, China. I shall be bringing with me a portable version to grant me the ability to keep track of and avoid the growing list of poisonous Chinese foodstuffs.

I’d also encourage anyone who reads this to consider running a Tor router and generally helping the cause. There’s a Facebook page and group and a volunteer section in the site. You’ll probably route some of my traffic if you set it up quickly enough!

Internet: Remote Desktop

The ‘Probrem’
There is still a problem. Although I’ll be able now to surf without hindrance (albeit slowly – Tor is rather slow), I might need to access some files on my home computer which are stored on encrypted hard drives. I’d be worried about taking a HDD on a plane trip which, after being bombarded with X-rays then being shaken about a bit, might be rather shaken up. I obviously can’t just use remote desktop normally – China will get the password to my home computer and will probably keylog everything that goes through which would grant Hu Jintao the key to all my data: precisely the opposite of what I want. Remote desktop through Tor is also painfully slow.

Remote Desktop

The Solution
Remote desktop’s security needs to be pimped up. For some, a windows product juxtaposed with the word ’security’ is almost oxymoronic, but I’m not *that* cynical. Some time ago I found a fantastic guide to Remote Desktop which focuses on security. Here are a few good ideas which I took:

1. Lockout Policy

Run >> secpol.msc
Security Settings\Account Policies\Account Lockout Policy
It’s always a good idea to set this if you’re going to allow remote desktop connections to your machine in case Mr Brute Force comes along.

Security Policy

2. Use SSL

Run >> gpedit.msc
Computer Configuration\Administrative Templates\Windows Components\Terminal Services\Encryption
This speaks for itself really – encryption is a necessity if anyone’s going to get round the Great Firewall of China

Group Policy Window

3. Change Port

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Terminal Server\WinStations\RDP-Tcp\PortNumber
If a hacker finds your IP he might immediately try the default Remote Desktop port. Change it to something random like 156 to baffle him. If you’re concerned about choosing a port number, here’s a list of port numbers. Happy reading

Food

The ‘Probrem’
Need I say more?

Everyone knows about China's tainted milk scandal

The Solution
We’re bringing rations from good old Tesco – I can look forward to a holiday of canned food. In addition, there are some food items which are probably not poisonous. Food which has to be imported and can’t be made/grown in China for example. I can’t think of anything immediately… Vegetables should also be fairly safe provided they are properly washed to cleanse them of excessive pesticides and have thick skins. Hopefully they aren’t full of Arsenic like the rice.

Though I hate to say it, China is still fundamentally a third world country, despite her phenomenal economic growth. There are real problems which she faces. I suspect, owing to the way China seems very good at under-stating problems (e.g. SARS some years back) that the economic situation over there is far worse than it seems and I’m genuinely concerned that possible ensuing riots might cause the government to change fairly more violently than I hope. Meanwhile however, I’m really looking forward to being plunged into such exotic territory and actually almost excited about the potential danger – what doesn’t kill me will make me stronger, right?

I hope these ideas help someone – this research should in theory help me. I’m still not sure whether I’m over-preparing and/or being melodramatic about China’s perilous nature. If you think there’s something important I’m forgetting, please point it out to me! I’m making it a new policy to attempt to abide by some of Ben’s rules (an excellent compilation of blogging policy I think), particularly rule three about actively welcoming critical comments. In this case in particular, my holiday (or, if you’re as worried as me, my life) might depend on it, so if you have any advice for me or anyone travelling Communist-Eastwards this Christmas, I’d be very keen to hear from you. TIA

Firefox T-Shirts

I’ve stumbled upon yet another point of intersection of my obsession with Firefox and graphics, this time in the form of dyes on woven fabric. The Mozilla Community Store was Slashdotted (or maybe came through on Lifehacker) and it appears to sell a fairly large range of T-shirt designs created by users. Naturally I couldn’t resist combining some practice using The GIMP for routine tasks and some of these designs into a summary of my favourite designs. I also posted some good Firefox desktop backgrounds, some of which really are quite beautiful.

To buy one of these designs, follow one of the links below. I’m afraid you’ll just have to guess which link corresponds to which design…
http://communitystore.mozilla.org/gallery/view/69
http://communitystore.mozilla.org/gallery/view/85
http://communitystore.mozilla.org/gallery/view/85
http://communitystore.mozilla.org/gallery/view/147
http://communitystore.mozilla.org/gallery/view/87

Some pro-Firefox propaganda from me: please get a T-shirt, use a desktop background and/or set up a redirect script on your site (like Vivan did) to help rid the world of the disgusting phenomenon that is Internet Explorer.