22 Jan 2005
I sort of kept forgetting to post this, or somehow waiting until it was more relevant (it didn’t get any more relevant the more I waited, I don’t think), but that’s stupid so here goes.
We’re settling next Monday (that’d be the 24th), and moving in on Monday the 31st… so, week after next, I’ll be in a new house. Incidentally, we’re also getting cable “installed” on the day we move (go figure… I can see the cable poking out of the wall, but it’s not installed unless some Telstra dude comes and plugs in a cable modem for me and says “It works now.”), and a bunch of new IT gear will arrive sometime next week (pre-moving in) to be built ready for installation pretty much as soon as we move in (assuming all goes well, and I can find some free time next week between trying to frantically get ready for school and doing non-academic-related work)
In other news, I’m finally getting the Acoustic Research AR-14 speakers when we move in, and they’ll hopefully arrive sometime early next week (Monday or Tuesday, I hope… otherwise it’ll be a while later) — I have music from the time we move in!
Oh, yeah, and I’m going to IKEA and buying lots of pillows, because I’m getting a fold-out sofa bed thing, and they’re no fun without lots of pillows (and IKEA has cheap pillows!)… I have one small dilemma, though — a few big pillows, or lots of little ones?
21 Jan 2005
In an economic system where consumer sovereignty is famed to exist, such that there is sufficient choice across most markets to permit a degree of choice by the buyer, for which marketers compete, the major studios (this discourse is limited to movie production, for reasons which shall be disclosed) are doing something horribly wrong. Many would argue that the state of the movie industry at present does not honour the notion of consumer sovereignty by virtue of the range/variety or quality of content available — but I refute this; not only because it is untrue (the consumer is sovereign, even if only presented with fewer options), but also because there are far more substantial mistakes being made with regard to this, such that any offence in the aforementioned manner becomes somewhat irrelevant.
No, it is their distribution methods that are at fault here. I don’t mean to launch on the usual tirade regarding their apparent neglect of the existence of electronic global distribution infrastructure, although that certainly plays a part of it (Peer-to-Peer and the role it plays is addressed further on, although hopefully not in the usual rhetoric-filled manner we’re all learning to ignore); I’m more concerned with the way in which, given the self-established impact (or claimed impact) of Peer-to-Peer technology and the Internet as a distribution tool in general, the studios (I refrain from making locale-specific references such as the MPAA, etc.) persist in their old distribution model in terms of their film to home consumption (VHS/DVD) release cycle.
It is clear that piracy is not greatly hindered by staggered international release dates, as DVD rips of most movies are immediately available on Peer-to-Peer networks after their release ANYWHERE, and studio rips of many before then. As such, the notion of staggered international release generally is now fundamentally flawed and is clearly detrimental to the business prospects of the production houses, more than “traditional” (read: VCD/SVCD Asian organised piracy ring reproduction) ever was, if only by economies of scale (whilst a restricted number of people from affluent nations which present a target to the production studios could conveniently acquire these “traditional” pirate copies, now significant numbers of people are connected via broadband in these affluent target areas, presenting an ever-increasing problem!).
The solution to this, it would seem, is simply to use co-ordinated International release dates — this is not, however, an absolute solution, and is still flawed in that it does not recognise the degree of consumer sovereignty that undeniably does exist. It is important that the studios recognise that people do have access to file-sharing facilities, and release their products accordingly. As such, the gap between VHS/DVD consumer release (n.b. NOT rental release) and the end (or even winding down) of cinema screening must be decreased to such a point as to be utterly inconsequential — consumers have no reason to wait, as they enjoy sovereignty (legal issues aside) over their access mechanisms!
It is clear that the time to release between the cessation of cinema screening and home release is now utterly redundant — previously, it existed to protect the interests of cinemas, but now consumers widely have access to pirated resources as they wish, at or even before cinema release time! Clearly, in this present climate, consumer sovereignty is demonstrated by electing to go to the movies rather than simply downloading them and watching them at home. With this in mind, the respective anti-piracy propaganda messages displayed in countries around the world at the beginning of movies are now even less relevant than they would have been five to ten years ago! Then, consumers made active choice to partake in piracy — now, they make active choice not to, by patronising cinemas at all!
It is clear that cinemas, therefore, have intrinsic appeal in their presentation of content, rather than any exclusivity of content that may exist or be contrived to exist as a result of manipulation of releases by studios. If this intrinsic appeal is acknowledged, there should be little detrimental effect in a minor overlap of cinema/home release at the conclusion of a screening period, surely! Likewise, the video and DVD rental chains would not suffer substantially by changing their business model to permit the sale as well as rental of content — it is simply a matter of habit; habit which is proven to be outdated and rapidly becoming irrelevant in this new market of extreme consumer sovereignty.
I have a specific example in mind when I write this article, but that isn’t overly relevant. Suffice to say, I have seen this movie at cinema release, and was going to purchase it from Video Ezy (a local rental/sale chain; there was confusion on their website regarding the respective release for rental and sale of this movie) — but couldn’t. The movie is still in Overnight release stage, and I was planning on studying this film for academic purposes — something that is financially unrealistic given imposed rental conditions, and something which may be easily circumvented through the use of peering technologies. Will I buy it when it becomes available? Most probably. That’s not really relevant, though — I could elect not to, regardless as to legal/moral obligations.
The failure of major studios to recognise this capacity for choice and adjust their strategies accordingly is apparently far more damaging than the effects of piracy and human greed alone.
20 Jan 2005
From Jeremy Zawodny’s Comment Policy page, a comment from Alden Bates in response to a threat to screw with the minds of those who violate the policy:
“I had all the screws in my mind replaced with those funky ones which no screwdriver will fit. :)”
Oh I so want to do that! :D
p.s. Happy birthday to meeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee! ;)
19 Jan 2005
Last night my birthday was pre-emptively celebrated with the family (it was the 18th, my birthday is January 20 — siblings were going to stay with grandparents from this afternoon for a few days, so we celebrated it early) at Café Pacifico in East Sydney/Darlinghurst. Food was great, and they had a hammock where normal places would have bar stools…
And I kind of randomly took a picture of a candle with the macro feature on my camera, which came out nicely:
Source resolution (2048 by 1536) image available by clicking on the photo. If you use it, please drop me a line just out of courtesy. A reminder that commercial usage is prohibited, however if you should desire these rights, feel free to get in touch.
18 Jan 2005
Over the past week or two, I’ve heard about VoIP a bit more than usual, first with Adrian of Beat FM doing his thing over VoIP from Lismore with FireFly/Freshtel, and then a little later, when Steve asked if I could join a convo with a guy called Dave to provide some general Linux advice, as Dave had just installed the Asterisk PBX software on a box (or, if you’re Steve, “computer”) and needed to SSH into it.
So, awareness/interest catalysts are there. I’d looked/heard about the Asterisk software some time ago, but sort of wrote it off as not quite worth the effort. More recently, however, we’ve been trying to get general ICT stuff sorted for the new place of residence, in a way that’ll let us cut costs a little.
Context: We’re a household of six, and about that many functional computers (give or take two depending on whatever) at any one time. We’ve got three mobiles (the siblings don’t, yet), and had one landline (there are two lines where I’m staying, one listed, one not — but that’s only temporary so it doesn’t count), which was used for voice and data. We’d had HFC TV/data cable run into our house previously, but didn’t use it for either CATV or Internet.
So Dad’s wanting to figure out a way to get rid of the landline, or at least cut the costs of having it there, seeing we’re going to be using Telstra Cable (and therefore don’t need the copper). Unlike the other major telco here in Australia, Optus, Telstra don’t run telephony over HFC even if it’s installed at the premises — most likely as a business decision (they’ve already made considerable outlay in installing and maintaining a copper network, which they’re going to try and make people think they continue to need for as long as humanly possible — they get line rental, LSS, DSLAM port fees and (from some customers) ADSL revenue all off the same single service!)
Dad’s idea: Use capped local call costs with mobile telephony provider, Orange, to eliminate need for copper. The limitation? Maximum 10 minute calls before we need to redial/pay standard rates, and inability to use data/fax (well, okay, not complete inability… but sufficiently difficult). Yeah, there are caps with other providers like Vodafone and 3, but even $59 caps would be more/about the same than/as we’d otherwise spend.
Josh’s idea: True VoIP (not softphone) hardware solution, with (at least one) DID line, running over HFC Internet. Dad had suggested VoIP previously, but I think I’d kind of assumed he was talking about doing it on the cheap (so, crappy desktop calling software — something like FireFly, which is fine just for fun, but not if you’re actually using it to make calls regularly) — and basically said “no” outright. Essentially this solution would either involve dedicated hardware or an Asterisk server connected to an Internet Telephony Provider IAX.
All this is fine. It’s all making sense. It’s just that there are waaaaaay too many new TLAs for my comfort — I’ve made an effort to use acronym markup on most new terms in this post, but it really needs a glossary at the end! If I can be bothered, I’ll do that when this post finishes…
Basically, everything is perfectly normal thus far. There’s no really difficult concepts to grasp — it’s just “plug in a Grandstream ATA, hit the web interface, sign up for an account with a provider and start making and receiving calls”. But you know, that’d be boring. That’d really suck. Why? Well, when you’ve got Cat5 coming out of your ears between rooms, you may as well use it.
Asterisk will manage calling, call routing, call waiting, voicemail, DND, hold music, diverts, CID and everything else under the sun. Even if there’s only one DID number, it’s still possible to have multiple incoming lines per number for a nominal fee (with ATP it’s $AU5.50 per month inc. GST), and there’s no limit (bandwidth aside) to the number of simultaneous outgoing calls that are possible (although, according to Dave, who is also on Telstra cable, things start to get painful above 4 calls). The easiest way to use phones with Asterisk is with VoIP SIP telephony devices, which plug into standard RJ45 network sockets and connect directly to the server using data. Why not do this? Well, for one, you lose all the functionality of any analogue telephony equipment you might have lying around.
So how do you get this kind of equipment to work? This is where the more confusing and difficult to remember acronyms (at least for me) set in. Asterisk can interface with standard PSTN lines, functioning as a non-VoIP PBX system with the requisite hardware installed — namely, FXS and FXO modules. Standard analogue equipment (phones, fax machines, etc.) plugs into FXS ports on the PBX, whilst PSTN lines connect into FXO ports. Digium, principle sponsor of the Asterisk project, have a great explanation of the relationship between the Asterisk PBX and FXS/FXO modules, complete with diagrams.
We’ve only really got one analogue phone worth keeping, which is a Uniden cordless thing with two handsets (base station and separate charger for the second handset), and that’s what I’d interface via an FXS to the PBX, as well as a second FXS for a fax machine. I’m a tad uncertain as to how well fax data will work over VoIP, but that’s a question for the FaktorTel support team when it comes to actually signing up for stuff.
There is only one other hesitation surrounding VoIP, and that’s the issue of emergency calling (“000″ in Australia, “911″ for US… I don’t know about the rest of the world, sorry). If there’s a power failure or the Internet goes out, how do we make calls to the outside world in the event of an emergency? Well, logic prevails — in a household with three mobiles on two different networks (three if you’re counting roaming), chances are that at least one of them will be working fine in the event of an emergency… and if they’re not, then the telephony networks in Australia are probably so stuffed that even if we were calling over a PSTN line, it’d probably not work either!
So there’s an essay about VoIP for you. And what I sort of want to do with it. I haven’t forgotten about the acronyms, by the way: here’s a list of terms for you…
Glossary
- ADSL
- Asymmetrical Digital Subscriber Line
- ATA
- Analogue Telephone Adapter
- CATV
- Cable TV
- CID
- Caller Identification
- DID
- Direct In-Dial
- DND
- Do-Not-Disturb, the ability to disable ringing on a certain phone/line
- DSLAM
- Digital Subscriber Line Access Multiplexer
- FXO
- Foreign Exchange Office, a port into which PSTN lines are connected.
- FXS
- Foreign Exchange Station, a port into which handsets and analogue equipment is connected
- HFC
- Hybrid Fibre (over) Coaxial
- IAX
- Inter-Asterisk Exchange
- ICT
- Information and Communication Technology
- LSS
- Line Spectrum Sharing, service required to run telephony and ADSL over the same copper
- PABX
- Private Automatic Branch eXchange
- PBX
- Private Branch eXchange, generally a contraction of “PABX”, as manually switched exchanges are related to dinosaurs.
- POTS
- Plain Old Telephone System, also PSTN
- PSTN
- Public Switched Telephone Network
- SIP
- Session Initiation Protocol, an IETF standard protocol for initiating connections for interactive platforms, including VoIP
- SSH
- Secure SHell
- VoIP
- Voice over I.P. (“Internet Protocol”)
