Streamline Media Server

- About Streamline -

Streamline is a streaming media web application written in php. By taking advantage of the HTTP streming support in most modern media players, Streamline allows you to access your media library from remote machines in an on-demand manner. Unlike icecast/shoutcast iservers, which act like radio stations and do not let the user choose what they want to hear, Streamline allows users to browse their entire media library and, with a click of a button, listen to whatever they want. Simply choose a media file or set of files and they being to play immediately on your local media player.

http://streamline.sourceforge.net/

An interesting man, with an interesting site

This website: http://www.wardrobe.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk/index2.html has some interesting thoughts and a self portrait to kill for!

They get if wrong....again!

Together in electric dreams A computer program is changing the face of the music business by allowing record labels to predict a hit at the click of a mouse. Is this the death of pop as we know it, asks Jo Tatchell, or a new hope for unsigned bands everywhere? Monday January 17, 2005 The Guardian

Norah Jones ... HSS predicted her success despite industry scepticism

Martin and Ruth, aka Spike, the next big girl/boy duo (so they hope) add some synth and a new background vocal to the mix. He saves the song and she emails it to Polyphonic Human Media Interface who, within 24 hours, will tell them whether their song will be a hit. When the results arrive they hover over the 20in screen and click on the returned mail. There is a graph, showing a cluster of many dots, like a constellation, and somewhere in the cluster a red spot. The spot marks their song, not quite a bullseye, but still in the throng. "It's scored a seven," Ruth says, scanning down. "We're in. The record company will definitely meet us now." Their future suddenly looks a lot rosier.

Sounds unlikely? It shouldn't. Because, while no one's talking about it, it seems that the whole record industry is already using just this process. From unsigned acts dreaming in their garage, to multinationals such as Sony and Universal, everyone is clandestinely using a new and controversial technology to gain an edge on their competitors. And just as with athletes and performance-enhancing drugs, there is a remarkable reluctance to talk about it. But the secret is out: the record biz, once that bastion of wayward creative flair, is succumbing to the plain old-fashioned science of statistical analysis. [...]

But its greatest usefulness might be, as Smith says, in "helping with that all too frequent record company problem - a band that has written an album without any hits on it. Using the technology they might be able to write the radio-friendly songs required for the album release." [...]

Ho hum, computer illiterates and imaginationless drones to the fore!

What this article predictably fails to understand are two things; firstly, the software itself will be cloned, and everyone will have access to the same facility. Secondly, the benefits of it will not be what was said in the second paragraph that I quoth; the REAL benefit will be to show statistically that what you are presenting has never been done before.

Of course, real record labels wont need to use this or any software to decide what is worthwhile or not, because the only software they require sits between the ears of the people who run the label.

And anyway, pop music is already dead you idiots!

Deimos Eclipse

			PIA05554: Martian Moon Eclipses Sun, in Stages Full Resolution: TIFF (206 kB) JPEG (13.92 kB)
	2004-03-12	Sol (our sun)	Mars Exploration Rover (MER)	Panoramic Camera	360x360x5
			PIA05556: Deimos Crosses Face of Sun Full Resolution:
	2004-03-12	Sol (our sun)	Mars Exploration Rover (MER)	Panoramic Camera	360x360x5
			PIA05553: Martian Moon Blocks Sun Full Resolution:

Ambient Vigil

http://blog.winggang.com/ Ambient Vigil

A lifetimes work

I thought the radar sounds were very exiting; what we were listening to was the sound of the probe as it approached the surface of Titan, getting closer and closer, the sonar reflections getting returned quicker and quicker, until it slammed into the ground with a high pitched scream that was suddenly cut off. Astonishing. It gave a real impression of the descent; you can imagine it hanging from the parachute, pinging the ground. For such a simple form and amount of data, it gives a very vivid picture. As for the wind sounds, the microphone only collected bursts of sounds. The loud parts are the actual bursts, the lower, background sounds are a computer generated approximation of the wind sounds to give the general public an idea of what a contiguous recording would sound like. Cassini was launched before MP3 compression, before cheap CCDs for mobile phones and all of the other cool tools we have to hand, which is why the amount of data returned was so 'small'. ESA / NASA have done something really and truely brilliant.

We will redefine the word 'conquest.'

A Message From The Iraq Resistance 12-17-4 "We are simple people who chose principles over fear." People of the world! These words come to you from those who up to the day of the invasion were struggling to survive under the sanctions imposed by the criminal regimes of the U.S. and Britain . We are simple people who chose principles over fear. We have suffered crimes and sanctions, which we consider the true weapons of mass destruction. Years and years of agony and despair, while the condemned UN traded with our oil revenues in the name of world stability and peace. Over two million innocents died waiting for a light at the end of a tunnel that only ended with the occupation of our country and the theft of our resources. After the crimes of the administrations of the U.S and Britain in Iraq , we have chosen our future. The future of every resistance struggle ever in the history of man. It is our duty, as well as our right, to fight back the occupying forces, which their nations will be held morally and economically responsible; for what their elected governments have destroyed and stolen from our land. We have not crossed the oceans and seas to occupy Britain or the U.S. nor are we responsible for 9/11. These are only a few of the lies that these criminals present to cover their true plans for the control of the energy resources of the world, in face of a growing China and a strong unified Europe . It is Ironic that the Iraqi,s are to bear the full face of this large and growing conflict on behalf of the rest of this sleeping world. We thank all those, including those of Britain and the U.S. , who took to the streets in protest against this war and against Globalism. We also thank France, Germany and other states for their position, which least to say are considered wise and balanced, til now. Today, we call on you again. We do not require arms or fighters, for we have plenty. We ask you to form a world wide front against war and sanctions. A front that is governed by the wise and knowing. A front that will bring reform and order. New institutions that would replace the now corrupt. Stop using the U.S. dollar, use the Euro or a basket of currencies. Reduce or halt your consumption of British and U.S. products. Put an end to Zionism before it ends the world. Educate those in doubt of the true nature of this conflict and do not believe their media for their casualties are far higher than they admit. We only wish we had more cameras to show the world their true defeat. The enemy is on the run. They are in fear of a resistance movement they can not see nor predict. We, now choose when, where, and how to strike. And as our ancestors drew the first sparks of civilization, we will redefine the word 'conquest.' Today we write a new chapter in the arts of urban warfare. Know that by helping the Iraqi people, you are helping yourselves, for tomorrow may bring the same destruction to you. In helping the Iraqi people does not mean dealing for the Americans for a few contracts here and there. You must continue to isolate their strategy. This conflict is no longer considered a localized war. Nor can the world remain hostage to the never-ending and regenerated fear that the American people suffer from in general. We will pin them here in Iraq to drain their resources, manpower, and their will to fight. We will make them spend as much as they steal, if not more. We will disrupt, then halt the flow of our stolen oil, thus, rendering their plans useless. And the earlier a movement is born, the earlier their fall will be. And to the American soldiers we say, you can also choose to fight tyranny with us. Lay down your weapons, and seek refuge in our mosques, churches and homes. We will protect you. And we will get you out of Iraq , as we have done with a few others before you. Go back to your homes, families, and loved ones. This is not your war. Nor are you fighting for a true cause in Iraq . And to George W. Bush, we say, "You have asked us to 'Bring it on', and so have we. Like never expected. Have you another challenge?" Iraq Iraq Resistance

Joined up boxes...Irdial Style!

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"{irdial}...release my pain"
via email from Germany

Number 8: "black boxes"

[...]

******* What do you want from entertainment?

go out
smoke tabs
smell smoke
drink drink
hear drones
see drones
go home

Thats what going out is about right now, and thats fine. It is NOT however
sufficient for the people of Irdial. WE WANT ENTERTAINMENT, or at least FREE
FOOD & DRINK to have to put up with tiresome drones played by drones. Effort
must always be rewarded. You make an effort, you should be rewarded. Drones
drones drones drones drones drones drones. The ideas behind flat drones is well
understood. Drones are not exiting in any way any longer, except as historical
curiosities; DYNAMICS and RIGOR are far more interesting; the use of time to
divide sound up an disorganize it, in other words, composition, application of
intelligence...THIS is what is interesting. Real time manipulation of sources
and output, via anything other than a mouse.

THIS IS WHAT WE REQUIRE BOYS & GIRLS.

Imagine for yourself, a black cube, two foot on a side (yes, feet you E.E.C.
scum-sucking bastards.) This box, has a 1/4" audio output, and a three pin
balanced audio output on the rear face. On top of this box, is a T-bar lever,
that has one dimension of freedom about an axis that is perpendicular to the
user, rather like the throttle on a jet airliner. On the right hand face, as you
stand behind the box, is an interconnect so that you can join this box to
another box of a similar type. This box, when standing alone, plays synthesized
noises, the texture, tone volume of which is controlled by the way in which the
lever is thrust back and forth, and an internal pseudo random event generator,
which is also under the guidance of this single lever. When the box is networked
with other boxes of the same design, the motion of the T-bar lever causes the
mechanisms inside the other boxes to react. Each of the different boxes would
have a different mode of activation, for example a spinnaker winder, a set of
twenty five numbered push buttons, large steering wheels rotated by a knob,
7 parallel sliders, a large fighter jet joystick, a mallet driven rubber pad.

A performance (and people this would be a *real* performance) of these boxes,
either in unison or ensemble would be pretty breathtaking, since the player has
only intuitive and reactive control over the sound that is produced, and of
course, when she is playing with another person, we have two people and two
devices fighting to cooperate, five boxes? NOW THAT WOULD BE ENTERTAINMENT.
Ideally these people would be arranged in a circle, so that they could influence
each other, and then, they would play it the opposite way, with their backs
turned to each other, then with half facing and half blindfolded. Tempo, timbre
change, chance, all of these would be manipulated in real time, as a
performance, and I can GUARANTEE YOU that in terms of excitement it would be an
improvement orders of magnitude grater than watching an anemic escapee from
THX1138 playing with a mouse.

Surprise, anticipation, excitement, adrenalin, motion, performance, interaction,
collaboration, warm blood; this is what our boxes would bring to entertainment,
and of course, it would be a work in progress. We would be adding to the
technology of these boxes constantly to bring the audience more and more sonic
hysteria. After all, isn't that what got you into music in the first place?

[...]

From Issue 8 of Irdial-List.... 2/26/2001 Oh yes!

You and what army?

The "Iraqi Resistance" video

Reuters carried this article yesterday which discusses the Iraqi video which asks Bush, ""George W. Bush; you have asked us to 'bring it on'. And so have we, like never expected. Do you have another challenge?" Since it's in the news again, I thought I'd post this link to the video for anyone who may have missed it in my previous post. A message from the Iraqi resistance I have no way of verifying it's authenticity. The Reuters article has as much information as I've ever had about this video.

smoke-free work places

I understood the smoking bans in public places to be for the workers' benefit. It's one thing to go to a pub 2x a week and sit in smoke, it's quite another to work 40+ hrs in that poison. Safety meaures are in place for all sorts of employs, so why should the hazards of second-hand smoke be denied? It does make going out far more pleasant, and I do know smokers who are in agreement. Here, we have seen the rise of smoking rooms and well-heated patios for those who like to indulge, and it seems to work quite well. (Note: you will age 10 years if you even step foot in a smoking room. Your skin will fry in the haze, but you will also save $$ as you do not even have to light up, you can just step in and inhale.) Now if someone could invent an effective ventilation system, we would all be better off.

For generations man has sought to block out the sun

Comparing Israeli sunlight records from the 1950s with current ones, Dr Stanhill was astonished to find a large fall in solar radiation.

"There was a staggering 22% drop in the sunlight, and that really amazed me." Intrigued, he searched records from all around the world, and found the same story almost everywhere he looked.

Sunlight was falling by 10% over the USA, nearly 30% in parts of the former Soviet Union, and even by 16% in parts of the British Isles.

Although the effect varied greatly from place to place, overall the decline amounted to one to two per cent globally every decade between the 1950s and the 1990s.

Dr Stanhill called it "global dimming", but his research, published in 2001, met a sceptical response from other scientists.

It was only recently, when his conclusions were confirmed by Australian scientists using a completely different method to estimate solar radiation, that climate scientists at last woke up to the reality of global dimming. [...]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/4171591.stm

Music in Pubs

Music in pubs is normally so bad I go only to pubs with no music. There is one exception that I found, where the barman had extraordinarily good taste, but its still hit and miss (did I just type that?) Round my way all but one of the pubs have been destroyed. One (where great footballers used to drink) has turned into a Hoegarden pouring, grey walled, Viking staffed, berrless, cheerless, muzac puking steel trap. One has turned into an eastern fusion bar restaurant; they tore out London's last remaining intact Edwardian pub interior to make this place, the day before the preservation order was issued. Another very old pub has just turned into an Italian gastro joint, with garish colours and handsome staff. The soul of London has gone north. So be it.

Nevermind!

It's up to the parent. In that case, its all fine. People in support of a smoking ban, in their rabid fervor, do sometimes say that the police, or social services should be called when a parent smoked in her own house in front of children. Which is just plain wrong. But you didnt say that.

Its not about the fumes

Barry, its not about smoking, or your health, or the shampoo you waste to clean your hair after seeing godspeed you black emperor.... or anything like that. This is about my right to own a club, and my right to let people smoke in it if they desire. When I own a club, it is a private space, NOT a public one. The government can ban smoking in public libraries, and government buildings, because they are responsible for those spaces. They have absolutely no business telling private people how they can run their restaurants, clubs and bars. A restaurant is not 'a public venue'. A court house is. A police station is. The DMV is. 'Public' means belonging to everyone, not 'a place where members of the public gather'. Its as simple as that. I dont smoke, in fact, I dislike smoking, BUT, I am aware of peoples rights. You cannot on the one hand complain that there is too much government, and then on the other say that smoking in public should be banned. People have the right to congregate to perform whatever acts they want in private; a restaurant is a privately owned business and space, and as such, should operate under policy thought up by the owner. There are no two ways about this. If you let them ban smoking, then they will be able to ban eating carrots, or taking vitamin suppliments, all under the same guise of protecting the public health, which is total bullshit. and as for this line:

I totally agree with a smoking ban. I think people smoking in their own homes (as long as they do not have children) and people smoking outside is fine though.

wha chu talking 'bout Willis?! Are you, Barry Sutcliffe, going to call the police when you go by a house and see someone smoking a cigarette in front of children? Just what EXACTLY do you mean by that?!?!? OMG YHBT, AOF!!!!

Now going private really means going private!

------------------------------------------------------------------------ You have received this message from the "FIPR Alert" mailing list run by the Foundation for Information Policy Research http://www.fipr.org/ ------------------------------------------------------------------------ The spy in the GP's surgery Alice Miles The Times, 12/1/05 FOR SOME reason, there has been a lot more fuss about identity cards than about the electronic patient record. The what? Quite. The NHS’s electronic patient record is already up and running. It contains basic demographic data — name, address, date of birth — for every person in the country. This year the system will “go live”, area by area, with more and more of a patient’s personal medical record added to it. It will be far more intrusive than an ID card. And hundreds of thousands of NHS employees will have access to it. Wave bye bye to patient confidentiality... http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,1058-1435976,00.html ------------------------------------------------------------------------ You have received this message from the "FIPR Alert" mailing list run by the Foundation for Information Policy Research http://www.fipr.org/ for all administrative matters, including unsubscribing, please visit https://mailman.aldigital.co.uk/mailman/listinfo/fipr-alerts or send an explanatory email to ------------------------------------------------------------------------ [...] Now 'going private' really means 'going private'!!! Shall we read on? [...]

No system with that many users can be secure.

You may not even know it is happening. Local advertising campaigns will alert patients that the system is starting up in their area. If you fail to notice the adverts, your GP is under no obligation to inform you that he is about to post your most private details online.

The patient record programme — which will include new information, but not existing records — is part of the £6.2-billion IT system being built to cover the whole NHS. It is the biggest civil IT programme in the world, could eventually cost up to £30 billion and will link 240 hospitals, 8,000 surgeries, 100,000 doctors and 380,000 nurses on the internet, enabling computerised appointment bookings, an electronic X-ray archive and online repeat prescriptions (eventually, maybe). The electronic patient record forms a major part of the system. It “sits on the spine”, as one official put it. [...]

What the article fails to mention is that this contract is being executed by...

Micro$oft So this means that it will be compromised before it ever goes online.

[...]

Thankfully, if you don’t trust the system you can opt out. You will, though, be automatically included unless you say you want to opt out, in which case all your records will remain with your GP. Hence the importance of catching the announcement that the electronic record is starting in your area. [...]

hmmm opt out who amongst you is now going to opt out? Will you also 'op out' of the ID card scheme? hmmmmm this NHS scheme is there to increase efficiency and save money, but you are going to be allowed to 'opt out' of it, and cost the NHS money and time...why?

Why is it an option for you to make the government spend more in this arena, but NOT be able to opt out of the biometric pasport and ID card?!

T-Mobile... Compromised!

Hacker penetrates T-Mobile systems [...] The government is handling the case well away from the spotlight. The U.S. Secret Service, which played the dual role of investigator and victim in the drama, said Tuesday it couldn't comment on Jacobsen because the agency doesn't discuss ongoing cases-- a claim that's perhaps undermined by the 19 other Operation Firewall defendants discussed in a Secret Service press release last fall. Jacobson's prosecutor, assistant U.S. attorney Wesley Hsu, also declined to comment. "I can't talk about it," Hsu said simply. Jacobsen's lawyer didn't return a phone call. T-Mobile, which apparently knew of the intrusions by July of last year, has not issued any public warning. Under California's anti-identity theft law "SB1386," the company is obliged to notify any California customers of a security breach in which their personally identifiable information is "reasonably believed to have been" compromised. That notification must be made in "the most expedient time possible and without unreasonable delay," but may be postponed if a law enforcement agency determines that the disclosure would compromise an investigation. Company spokesman Peter Dobrow said Tuesday that nobody at T-Mobile was available to comment on the matter. Cat and Mouse Game According to court records the massive T-Mobile breach first came to the government's attention in March 2004, when a hacker using the online moniker "Ethics" posted a provocative offer on muzzfuzz.com, one of the crime-facilitating online marketplaces being monitored by the Secret Service as part of Operation Firewall. "[A]m offering reverse lookup of information for a t-mobile cell phone, by phone number at the very least, you get name, ssn, and DOB at the upper end of the information returned, you get web username/password, voicemail password, secret question/answer, sim#, IMEA#, and more," Ethics wrote. [....] At the same time, agents received disturbing news from a prized snitch embedded in the identity theft and credit card fraud underground. Unnamed in court documents, the informant was an administrator and moderator on the Shadowcrew site who'd been secretly cooperating with the government since August 2003 in exchange for leniency. By all accounts he was a key government asset in Operation Firewall. On July 28th the informant gave his handlers proof that their own sensitive documents were circulating in the underground marketplace they'd been striving to destroy. He'd obtained a log of an IRC chat session in which a hacker named "Myth" copy-and-pasted excerpts of an internal Secret Service memorandum report, and a Mutual Legal Assistance Treaty from the Russian Federation. Both documents are described in the Secret Service affidavit as "highly sensitive information pertaining to ongoing USSS criminal cases." At the agency's urging, the informant made contact with Myth, and learned that the documents represented just a few droplets in a full-blown Secret Service data spill. The hacker knew about Secret Service subpoenas relating to government computer crime investigations, and even knew the agency was monitoring his own Microsoft ICQ chat account. [...] Jacobson lost his job at Pfastship Logistics, an Irving, California company where he worked as a network administrator, and he now lives in Oregon. The hacker's access to the T-Mobile gave him more than just Secret Service documents. A friend of Jacobson's says that prior to his arrest, Jacobson provided him with digital photos that he claimed celebrities had snapped with their cell phone cameras. "He basically just said there was flaw in the way the cell phone servers were set up," says William Genovese, a 27-year-old hacker facing unrelated charges for allegedly selling a copy of Microsoft's leaked source code for $20.00. Genovese provided SecurityFocus with an address on his website featuring what appears to be grainy candid shots of Demi Moore, Ashton Kutcher, Nicole Richie, and Paris Hilton. The swiped images are not mention in court records, but a source close to the defense confirmed Genovese's account, and says Jacobson amused himself and others by obtaining the passwords of Sidekick-toting celebrities from the hacked database, then entering their T-Mobile accounts and downloading photos they'd taken with the wireless communicator's built-in camera. [...] http://www.securityfocus.com/news/10271 Amazing. If these guys were not so young and in need of attention, they could be VERY powerful indeed. Imagine it, access to s3cret s3rvice documents....instead of bragging about it on IRC, if they SOLD that information to the needy, i mean, criminals, well, you do the math. The ones who dont get caught, the older ones, the careful, they are the ones that the SS will never, ever catch.

A stick of gum

A stick of gum! So, I can shove my stick of gum into someones mac/pc, take a charge and be off? Gota Love It. Never before have we been so contented.

This is real life

This is what real life is about; it is the path the Huygens probe will take when it lands on Titan. The yellow dot is the landing area. This is what people should group together to achieve, not grouping together and pooling resources to mass murder and enslave human beings.

Leonard T. Bayard

I got that 'Leonard T. Bayard' article via email, from someone who 'normally doesnt send around group emails'. The rule of thumb with these issues is simple; everyone everywhere has to stop reacting to the misbehaviour that is going on all around us. By this I mean specifically that no matter what outrage happens, like flying airplanes into buildings the populations must simply fail to react. All of these acts are provocations, and when we fail to react to a provocation, it looses its power. We must all retreat to our immediate local communities, and cease to finance central government. Central government is the cause of outrages of the guantanamo kind (long term smouldering injustice) and the shock and awe kind, like 911. To make both of these types of crime happen take access to the unlimited funding provided by you. Stop the funding, and there will be no more outrages...not that you should pay any attention to them even if they happen. There will be a never ending string of outrages, attacks, reasons to mobilize, confine and suspend your rights by dictat. It is your responsibility to draw a line beyond which you will not go, and say, "no matter what happens, we will not go any further". If not, then there is no limit to how far down the hole we will be dragged, and it is very dark down there. To sum up, by all means, we need to read of all the outrageous and shocking things that are being done, but only whilst we have previously said "no more". Half of, for example, the usa, 'doesnt get it'. Thats fine. If the other half extracts itself completly from the equation, then the math says that the bad guys fail. We cant let the outcome of an election determine how we are killed. Elections can be instruments of disasterous change, and sadly, sometimes they have to be nullified. On this same subject, there is a new TV Programme about the thousands of people that must have been involved in The Final Solution. Everyone on the right mailing list now knows that there is a small army now working on the UK's ID card system, that has,

"...more staff and consultants working on the ID Card proposals than there are police officers in post in all the UK Computer Crime Units (including NHTCU) added together."

According to The Telegraph. The promo spots for this programme have voice re-enactments of the people who facilitated The Final Solution, each saying in turn for example, "I drove the train", "I drove the trucks", "I closed the doors", "I ticked the lists" etc etc. Its obvious (lets see how obvious it is to the programme makers) that this ID card business is precisely the same thing; a multitude individuals all facilitating the mass abuse of human rights by doing a small task that in aggregate, ends up destroying lives. Anyone who is working in this ID card "Army" is of exactly the same type as those described in this probramme. They are all partipants in human rights abuse on a mass scale, and in the future, "I was just following orders", "It was just a small contract" will be no excuse. They will be found to be guilty, and millions of words will be written, and TV programmes produced, trying to explain how it was that so many people could collaborate to make such a terrible system come into being and operate.

OMG: Italy Bans Smoking

ITV.comMamma mia! Italy brings in smoking ban ITV.com, UK - 23 hours ago Italy has introduced anti-smoking laws banning people from lighting ... or money to create sealed-off smoking areas ... But Smokers ignoring the ban face fines of up to ... [...] The world really has gone insane!