Little Brother
One of the covers of this book (the one reproduced below), has the following quote on the top of the page:
I’d recommend Little Brother over pretty much any book I’ve read this year
While I don’t know if that quote’s author meant either this year (2009) or the last one (when the book was published), in my case, it applies to both.
Drawing some elements from what’s arguably its predecessor, the novel is first and foremost, actual. It depicts, although in an exaggeratedly fast pace, changes that we are already starting to see happening throughout the world. In a bigger or smaller scale, the trend is always the same: increased surveillance, dwindling privacy and in some cases, free speech as well. The reason? Security and fighting against global terrorism.
This should be cause to widespread public discussions on topics such as privacy (both off and online), surveillance (idem), security, and the role of the internet in modern societies. But that has yet to happen (the “widespread” part at least) — probably because despite these changes being rolled out fast, they’re not fast enough:
If the low hum of a refrigerator were to increase in pitch over the course of several weeks, the appliance could be singing soprano by the end of the month and no one would be the wiser.
By fast-forwarding reality, the Little Brother will hopefully produce the same effect as reducing the time span during which the refrigerator has to go from a low hum to full blown soprano: the change will get noticed. Noticed in a way that prompts to action. And that action starts with realising that forfeiting your freedom to get security is useless (if not downright counter-productive). It starts with daring to be free, even when it’s the opposite passive subservience that becomes social norm (as it increasingly is). Here technology, while far from being enough on its own, does play a key role. And this is the other big plus of the book: despite being small (<400 pages), it's full of practical examples on to use technology to attain that goal. Now if on the one hand, tech-savvy readers will point out that some things have been (very) oversimplified, on the other hand the author does a great a job of explaining non-trivial technical ideas to a lay audience, mainly through the use of very good analogies.
The book is available for free here. Find some time and go read it. The fast-paced style will glue to the screen. When the soreness in your eyes gets you, order the dead tree version, and then read the rest. It’ll be a worthwhile read, because besides an engaging story, the whole book is a call to daring to be free. For while freedom is a right today, it is not (and never has been) a right without a price. And a part of that price is not being indifferent to it — i.e. daring to use it.
Dude where’s my summer?
Usually, I’m WAY too busy this time of day (check out of the time of the post) to even be bothered to turn on the computer, but what the hell: it’s September 9th, summer is still pretty much up and running (it’s ~25ºC now), it’s a sunny morning, even if there are still a lot of clouds on the sky, and it’s raining with thunders and lightnings! What the hell?!
This is my Firefox weather forecast bar:
Have the gods finally lost it?
Lisbon treaty
I’m not that much informed on most EU stuff, but one of the ideas I had about the treaty of Lisbon, was that it was essentially the same thing as the proposed European Constitution (proposed but rejected a few years earlier), with a new “look and feel”. And guess what, turns out it was true. In this petition, 20 reasons are given to reject the Lisbon treaty. It’s aimed at Irish people (Ireland did a referendum on the issue, and the majority of voters voted against the treaty), and the first reason states:
1 The Lisbon Treaty agreed by EU leaders in November 2007 is almost identical to the EU Constitution agreed by EU leaders in 2004.
The Constitution was democratically rejected by the electorates of France and the Netherlands in referenda in the summer of 2005. They objected to the undemocratic and right-wing content of the Constitution. That EU leaders have returned with the same text in a different format is undemocratic and is an insult to the democratically-expressed wishes of the peoples of France and the Netherlands.
However, the most worrisome, IMHO, are these (emphasis added):
14 Article 28c mandates: “Member states shall undertake to improve their military capabilities.” Taken with the “start-up fund” and “specific procedures for guaranteeing rapid access to appropriations… for urgent financing of [unspecified] initiatives in the framework of the common foreign and security policy” (detailed in Article 28d), member states will be obliged to increase their financial contributions to the military capabilities of the EU.
15 Article 28/7 reaffirms that “commitments and co-operation” in the area of common security and defence “shall be consistent with commitments under the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation”. This effective alignment to NATO is not balanced with any commitment to protect the neutrality of member states such as Ireland.
The major role for the military, during peace time, is to enforce a nation’s sovereignty, namely by guaranteeing its territorial integrity. To transfer this role to the EU effectively changes its nature. And it does so in a very dangerous way, for it subtly crafts the same kind of alliances that a century ago, swiftly caused the assassination of an Austrian nobleman to transform into a gigantic conflict that plunged the entire world — it now goes by the name of World War I.
To finish up, I want to add the following: as a Portuguese citizen, one of the things that shocked me the most to hear about the Lisbon treaty, was our President (Head of State) saying that (in a comment regarding Ireland’s rejection) governments should not do any kind of referenda regarding international treaties! Yes, he said that, in a TV interview. On this, the only thing I can say is that at the core of any healthy democracy, lies the sovereignty of its people. Alienations of that sovereignty, such as the one proposed, irrespective of their motivations, subvert the democratic regime. For it keeps the name “democracy”, but slowly reduces the amount of power that the actual people can wield — de facto decreasing their freedom. Healthy democracies endure as long as we are able and willing to strive for freedom, true freedom, and not just the illusion thereof.
War on sharing
A melhor explicação que vi até hoje para a importância e razão de restringir as leis de copyright à regulação de actividades comerciais, traduzido para português. Obrigado ao Miguel Caetano pela tradução:
Esta já não é a primeira vez que Stallman manifesta publicamente uma posição contrária à campanha da RIAA e de outras organizações representantes da indústria discográfica mas creio que este ensaio resume de uma forma magistral o seu ponto de vista em relação à partilha de ficheiros, tendo ainda o bónus de conter uma série de sugestões realistas com vista a conciliar os interesses dos partilhadores e dos artistas. Segue em baixo a minha tradução:
Cliquem no link da tradução, e boas leituras!
