A thousand yays and cheers! I’m writing this from my brand spanking new MacBook (the white 2 GHz model) and I’m soooo enjoying it. Right now I’m still getting used to using it (eg. writing “@”) and configuring like hell… But I just love the Just Works™ feeling it’s got. Awesome!
Anyways, I’ll probably be looking into installing some Debian or Ubuntu on it at some point, but for now I just want to try out OS X.
(Most) TV-owning Danes are used to paying the biannual TV License Fee, which pays for the ability to receive public TV and radio broadcasts[1] from DR (Danmarks Radio). But now, in an attempt to rake in some more money, they have decided, that since they put up some of their shows (far from all of them and none of the syndicated shows/movies), everybody with access to the internet from their homes will have to pay up.
Up to now you only had to pay if you owned some sort of TV tuner and/or a radio receiver (the TV license fee and Radio license fee, respectively), but from Jan. 1, 2007 everyone owning an internet capable device and a connection as fast as or faster than 256 kbps will have to pay the TV license fee.
Seriously… I’d probably use it a little every now and then if I was able to, but they do not even support Linux! I am actually able to watch the shows with a some human interaction with the sources of the pages that embeds the video stream and a little going through the ASF playlist files manually to copy/paste the actual stream URLs to my media player of choice. I am not sure that my dad would be able to do that though — or for that case, nor would most of my Linux- (and Mac-)using friends.
OK, great, so I am actually able to watch the shows… Good, because their FAQ specifically states, that even if you use Linux or Mac (and are thus (in most cases) unable to watch the programs) you still have to pay. And as far as I know, this also goes for game consoles with internet access and cell phones that are capable of WAP, GPRS etc… I guess, even my Nintendo DS is enough, since I am able to buy a browser for it and use it to access the web. Same goes for all the PSPs out there.
Another problem presents itself…
Until very recently I was on a 256/256 kbps connection and that was definitely not fast enough to even watch the low-quality streams from DR without major hiccups or buffering half the show before pressing start. I would say that a 1 mbps pipe would be the slowest possible, to watch their streams — and the quality would still be questionable at best. (Especially the sound, they are really doing a bad job compressing that.)
To lay down some facts now… I own an old Thinkpad R32 running Debian Linux (unstable) on what is now a 1024/128 kbps[2] connection, I don’t own neither a TV or a radio (and I am getting along just fine, thanks). Until now, I have not been paying the license fees, which is perfectly legal, because I am not able to watch or listen to their programming, nor do I have any desire to. But, from Jan. 1, 2007, where nothing in my life changes — except for the calendar year — I will have to cough up 2000 DKK (~355 USD / ~270 EUR) a year just because I have a computer (and a Nintendo DS) and an internet connection. That is half a month’s income for a student such as me — it doubles the cost of my internet connection!
Now, the question is: is this fair?
I say NO!, not by a long shot! If DR wants people to pay for the content they access over the internet, then they will have to put some access control on their website, which can easily be done[3] — that is the only sensible way to do this; not force everyone with an internet capable device to cough up. This is the government forcing people to pay DR (a public service TV network, for crying out loud!) for having an internet connection!
By this logic, I should start lobbying for the government, so they can make everyone pay for being able to access lillesvin.net. That’s public service too! I’m telling you all the things you didn’t know you wanted to know… And all the things you didn’t know you didn’t care to know.
This reminds me so much about when Jubii.dk (a danish search engine that started out as a ripoff of Yahoo!) started talking about making the ISPs pay for their costumers being able to access the search engine — and take my word for it if you have not tried it out, it is nothing special. In fact, it is quite the opposite. Not surprisingly, that idea did not quite get the support that Jubii.dk had hoped for.
… at least until these hard drives crash and burn.
On top of that my ISP has decided that I should no longer keep the IP address that I’ve had for 3 years, so they changed it — no notice or anything. Unfortunately I didn’t notice until today because of lillesvin.net DNS trouble. So I’m still waiting for the change to be registered on the DNS servers.
So what else is new? I’m still living in the same crappy place (at least for some months yet) and I’m still studying linguistics, though I am doing my supplementary year on Cognitive Semiotics — so far it sucks and it’s really confusing. I might change my mind later on, but for now it sucks. Oh yeah, my laptop battery is dead and so is the cd-/dvd-rom drive — no warranty… But apart from that, all is great — believe it or not, everything is absolutely great! :)
On a completely unrelated note, I’ve put up a little Paypal donation thingy on my googlepages music site in case anyone should like my music so much that they’d actually want to pay for it. Don’t like it that much? Don’t donate! It’s that simple! (If you’re considering asking what your money will be spent on, then the answer will be: “drugs and hoes”.)
Some might have noticed that I’m not much online anymore — others might not. Anyways, I just wanted to let the one or two potentially concerned people know that I’m perfectly fine, I’m just not up for much online communication at the moment. It’s just that the computer has been boring me lately. I sit down, hit a few keys, issue some commands and then I get bored…
So now I’ve found other nerdy stuff to do — e.g. play Magic: The Gathering. Yeah, I know it’s sooo ‘96 but it’s still a hell of a lot more fun than looking at the screensaver being activated every 5 minutes. Besides, I really like the game and have never played before, so a great big many thanks to my two great nephews for being consistent in their effort to teach me how to play.
Also I’ve been writing a lot of songs lately, I just need to get some lyrics done too, then I’ll be unloading some three or four new songs on the world. But for me the lyrics are the hardest, so it will probably take a while still.
And then, of course, I’ve got my linguistics study and my tutoring in Phonetics and Phonology - man, that’s a whole lot of fun. The IPA and the sounds it describes become surpringly interesting (at times even hilarious) when you’re teaching it to others!
By the way, if someone should have (or know where to get) either of the following things, please contact me.
Man, I wish Loki hadn’t gone out of business. :(
UPDATE: (Apr 15, 2005 09:17) I found 2 more Psychic Venom. ;-) And Rune + expansion has been tracked down (see the first (and by now: only) comment on this post).
This morning I found this in my inbox…
To: madsen@sjovedyr.dk
Date: Tue, 14 Feb 2006 02:21:23 -0500
Subject: php contract work
From: #####@########.orgI saw your ad posted on phpbuilder.com for php contract work.
I have a survey form / MySQL database project I am working on and am wondering
how much you would charge to complete it.Here is a link to the form, and what I am looking for is explained there:
http://www.friendsofdenmark.us/.
If you want to call, my number in Washington, DC is ### ### ####
Thanks,
##### ######
From IP Address: ##.##.###.##
From Browser: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.7.5)
Gecko/20060111 Netscape/8.1
Two words: Hell no!