“Entropa” – controversial art

Posted on | January 23, 2009 | No Comments

Czech Republic artist David Cerny has really stirred the pond with his EU-funded piece ‘Entropa’. Danish newspaper Information recently published an interesting article on the matter (in Danish, sorry), but also a gazzillion blogs have picked up the story. Here is one (in English).

My thoughts are: How can this upset people so much? Art is supposed to move barriers of our self-imagery and cause reflection – and Cerny does that so magnificantly. As a Dane, I do not feel provoked by his imaging of Denmark, because his critizism is spot on. Rather, it creates food for thought and improvement in an interesting way.

Check out this fine Flickr stream by Kevin Martel to see Entropa in detail.

Also, check out a few of Cerny’s own words on the case – as well as video of the piece:

There are loads of other interesting videos on the matter out there.

Proprietary inaugural stream

Posted on | January 21, 2009 | No Comments

We’re all really excited about the inauguration of the 44th president yesterday. One of the Obama administrations focal points is the protection of the openness of the Internet. However, the official web streaming from the inauguration event did not pay homage to the promises set forth. The PlayOgg team suggested that we all write the Obama administration, “asking them why the official streaming format is Microsoft’s Silverlight and not Ogg Theora. Public events like this should be broadcast in publicly accessible free formats, not used as levers to gain market share and control over citizens for proprietary software companies like Microsoft.”

Lawrence Lessig on Colbert Report

Posted on | January 10, 2009 | No Comments

Check out this little snippet. It’s quite funny and interesting (if you can refrain from being annoyed by Stephen Colbert’s contant if-I-interrupt-and-yell-the-highest-I-am-funny humour).

Also, read the EFF (Electronica Frontier Foundation) piece.

US bailout costs costs more than Marshall Plan, Louisiana Purchase, moonshot, S&L bailout, Korean War, New Deal, Iraq war, Vietnam war, and NASA’s lifetime budget — *combined*!

Posted on | January 3, 2009 | No Comments

Interesting and immensely scary fact posted on the Boing Boing blog:

Barry Ritholtz sez,

“In doing the research for the “Bailout Nation” book, I needed a way to put the dollar amounts into proper historical perspective. If we add in the Citi bailout, the total cost now exceeds $4.6165 trillion dollars.

People have a hard time conceptualizing very large numbers, so let’s give this some context. The current Credit Crisis bailout is now the largest outlay In American history.

Crunching the inflation adjusted numbers, we find the bailout has cost more than all of these big budget government expenditures – combined:

• Marshall Plan: Cost: $12.7 billion, Inflation Adjusted Cost: $115.3 billion
• Louisiana Purchase: Cost: $15 million, Inflation Adjusted Cost: $217 billion
• Race to the Moon: Cost: $36.4 billion, Inflation Adjusted Cost: $237 billion
• S&L Crisis: Cost: $153 billion, Inflation Adjusted Cost: $256 billion
• Korean War: Cost: $54 billion, Inflation Adjusted Cost: $454 billion
• The New Deal: Cost: $32 billion (Est), Inflation Adjusted Cost: $500 billion (Est)
• Invasion of Iraq: Cost: $551b, Inflation Adjusted Cost: $597 billion
• Vietnam War: Cost: $111 billion, Inflation Adjusted Cost: $698 billion
• NASA: Cost: $416.7 billion, Inflation Adjusted Cost: $851.2 billion

TOTAL: $3.92 trillion”

Bail out the Yes Men!

Posted on | December 14, 2008 | No Comments

The Yes Men needs our help:

Dear Friend,

‘Tis the season for government handouts. But since we aren’t a giant
corporation, we thought we’d ask you instead – because you’ve been
generous in the past.

So here’s our plea: we need money to finish our film. It’s going to
premiere in one month at the Sundance Film Festival – if we finish it.
And for that, we still need to raise a fair amount of money.

We normally ask for money only for our activist interventions, but we
feel this film has every chance of reaching a wide audience, and of
having an impact. We think it could inspire people to keep the pressure
on at this crucial moment, and people who have seen it agree.

If you happen to be able to contribute a small amount just to see this
film happen, please go to http://www.theyesmen.org/donate

If you want to invest a large amount (to own some of the film) then
email us at mailto:invest@theyesmen.org

And if you happen to be going to Sundance, you’re more than welcome at
our igloo – if, that is, we make it there.

Please help us out if you can!

Thanks!!!!
Mike and Andy

I’ve already sent them a small helping hand – I hope you will too.

The Pirate Bay vs. IFPI Denmark

Posted on | December 4, 2008 | No Comments

It is at the same time amusing and terrifying to follow the ongoing dispute between Swedish torrent-tracker The Pirate Bay (TPB) and the Danish branch of IFPI, the international record label association – personafied by Danish IFPI head, Jesper Bay. IFPI has run a court case against Internet provider Tele2 to have them prohibit their customers’ access to TPB on the grounds that TPB is illegally engaged in music filesharing activities. Fact is that TPB is merely a search engine, just as Google is – but that is, appearantly, in the eyes of IFPI, beside the point. With the court ruling, Denmark now joins China as one of the only countries in the world where Internet is censured.

That was the terrifying part. Now for the amusing part: As an immediate reaction, TPB – thepiratebay.org – has launched thejesperbay.org. A small site describing in 5 easy steps how to reconfiguere your browser to circumvent the blockade – thus dodgeing the bullet. It’s the copyright against the technology. The CEO against the nerds. BOY, that is THE battle you can never win, Mr. Bay.

Here are some interesting comments:

Bandbase.dk (Danish equivalent to MySpace)(in Danish)
Comon.dk (reaction from the Internet Provider)(in Danish)
Computerworld.dk (open letter from a music consumer to Jesper Bay)

I also enjoyed the piece on the subject in Danish newspaper Information by music reviewer Ralf Christensen (in Danish too, sorry). His best comment, in my opinion, is his reference to the court sentence against video tape recorder manufacturers in the US, who back in ’84 were also under allegation for contributing to illegal sharing – but were aquitted by the Supreme Court.
Same principle. Good point.

Freeform101 added to Technorati

Posted on | December 2, 2008 | No Comments

Finally found the time to join the Technorati phenomenon – which basically means that Freeform101 has been registeret officially to the blogosphere. Hope you’ll add it to your favorite Technorati blogs (scroll to the bottom of this page and click the ‘Add this blog to my favorites’ icon). Thanks.

The best free software

Posted on | November 29, 2008 | No Comments

The great Lifehacker technology-blog just announced their top-50 list of the best free software right now, as voted by their readers. See the list here – with links for download and all. Check it out and make an effort to replace your proprietary software (Microsoft Office, Microsoft Outlook, Adobe Creative Suite etc.) with these free alternatives made by the people. Support the open source communities!

Today: Buy Nothing Day

Posted on | November 28, 2008 | No Comments

Today is the official Buy Nothing Day, as announced by Reverende Billy and Church of Stop Shopping, a New York Based advocacy group lead by comic preacher Reverend Billy, aka. actor Bill Talen, that trough books, flicks and spectacular appearances – most famous of which are those taking place in the citys’ Starbucks branches – are trying to make you and me think about our consumption habits.

“America shopped until it dropped”, they announce in their most recent newsletter, making reference to the economic apocalypse – or “shopocalypse” in the Reverend Billy lingo – that is taking place right now. We buy much more than we are able to consume – and we buy from the big boxes rather than the local stores, thereby weaknining our community while strengthening the corporations.
Absolution is within reach, however: Join the Church in my old hood on Union Square today in New York for the official Buy Nothing Day! Were I not in Denmark, I would surely be there.

Read more on the Reverend Billy website.

Currently I am also reading one of Rev Billy’s books, “What Should I Do if Reverend Billy Is In My Store?”.
Definitely not the last autofunk.dk/freeform101_web posting on this issue…

Tactical media strike extraordinaire

Posted on | November 26, 2008 | No Comments

I know I’m a little late on blogging on this, but I want to do my part on spreading the word of the amazing New York Times spoof that took place a couple of weeks ago in the US. What a spectacle and what an incredible scale for political activism – one can only admire the efforts put into a tactical media strike of this magnitude.

For those unaware of the event, read the press release:

November 12, 2008
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Not all readers reacted favorably. “The thing I disagree with is how
they did it,” said Stuart Carlyle, who received a paper in Grand
Central Station while commuting to his Wall Street brokerage. “I’m all
for freedom of speech, but they should have started their own paper.”

Later that day, this one came tickin’ in:

November 12, 2008
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

In response to the spoof, the New York Times said only, “We are looking
into it.”  Alex S. Jones, former Times reporter who is an authority on
the history of the paper, says: “I would say if you’ve got one, hold on
to it. It will probably be a collector’s item.”

Although I was not surprised to see the involvement of the Yes Men, I was baffled by imagining the amount of work behind a tactical media strike like this one.

Absolutely beautiful.

PS: You should sign up for the Yes Men newsletter.