Vildjäst och nymatad surdeg på råg

Med lite längre ledig tid tillgänglig, och med en ambition att inte tänka allt för mycket på jobbet, så behöver hjärnan sysselsättas. Årets stora semesterjympa blev för mig brödbakning.

Det som triggade intresset denna gång var en ombyggnad av köket i nya lägenheten, där vi bland annat bytt gasspisen mot en gasugnen mot en elektrisk – äntligen blir bakning roligt och enkelt igen.

Men varför nöja sig med enkelt? Pain de Martin har massor av tips på avancerade brödbak som ger hobbyn en helt ny dimension. Jag har bakat på surdeg förr, men uppenbarligen har jag bara skrapat på ytan. Här öppnar sig en värld med vildjäst, levainbröd och jäsningskorgar (det har visat sig att brödbakning är en verklig materialsport).

En intressant aspekt på saken är hur Internet, liksom får så många andra intresseområden, har förändrat hur vi bakar. Jag har plötsligt direkt tillgång till experter som berättar sina tips, kommenterande noviser som ofta stött på precis samma problem som mig och en länksamling som leder mig vidare till nya idéer. Den mest intressanta läsningen är inte själva blogginläggen med recept (för det kunde jag hellre köpt en brödbok), utan kommentarerna.

Om jag nu bara kunde släppa brödtankarna och somna någon gång… Varför kan jag aldrig bli sådär lagom intresserad av mina hobbies?

Stim ser framförallt regeringens förslag som en möjlighet stoppa dem som storskaligt profiterar på andras skapande och som står för en närmast industriell illegal uppladdning av musik på nätet. Det handlar om en liten minoritet i det stora fildelarkollektivet.

Visst är det fantastiskt. Industriell illegal uppladdning minsann. Här finns det ingen som är rädd att ta i så de spricker. Men jag är rädd att de riktar blicken åt fel håll för att hitta dem som storskaligt profiterar på andras skapande. Kanske en lite rakare väg mellan kulturskapare och kulturkonsument skulle kunna göra att medieindustrin plockar bort lite mindre på vägen. Hur var det? Ca 7% av försäljningspriset går till artisten, ca hälften till skivbolaget.

Men det går inte att kriminalisera en hel ungdomsgeneration och sanktionsdirektivet handlar inte heller om att stoppa teknikutvecklingen, som några av dess kritiker gjort gällande.

Nä, det är bara en olycklig bieffekt, som Lage Rahm så tydligt klargör.

Freedom (CC_BY_NC flickr:paingouin)

Free, as in free to use, free to contribute, free to distribute. What’s that worth to you? Can you put a price tag on it? What if the “sum of human knowledge” was there for you to just reach out and grab it. Would you pay for that priviledge?

Some people would, anyway. Mindpark and Joakim Jardenberg just did, in donating 25 000 SEK to the Swedish chapter of Wikimedia Foundation.

“It’s substantially less than what we pay to [Swedish commersial encyklopedia] every year, and it’s far less than a months wage would cost us.”

Joakim hopes that more media companies will follow his lead, and expresses that it’s a reasonable amount to secure a free swedish encyklopedia for the future.

I can only agree. So, if you’re not already supporting the Wikimedia Foundation in your country, or globally, please consider it.

Freedom doesn’t have a price tag. There’s noone sending you a bill for using it. But keep in mind that if someone’s to pay for your freedom – it might as well be you.

IPRED painkiller ad

There’s a lot of discussion about the Swedish Ipred implementation. Basically, the government want to allow rights holders to be able to sent threatening letters to people downloading copyrighted material, outsourcing law enforcement to private interests.

Here’s my favorite contribution so far – the Green Youth of Sweden edited the well known “Ipren” ad, as seen to the right.

Ipred
Unintelligence 400mg
Stops technological development and cultural exchange. Reduces integrity.

For politicians out of touch with reality

As far as I’m concerned, the most disturbing aspect of the new law is that it will make investigation of child pornography and other serious crimes on the Internet harder. Apparently, copyright laws must be implemented and defended at any prize whatsoever. If you thought that the media industry comparing file sharing with stealing cars was too unrealistic for anyone to really agree, think again. If you press the download button, you’d better think twice – to some you’re worse of a criminal than child pornographers or basically any other criminal on the net. You’re the lowest of low.

I’ll have that pain killer now, thanks!

It’s the new Creative Commons “jump drive”, packed with Jonathan Coulton’s greatest hits – complete with unmixed audio tracks for every song.

Oh, and did I mention – it’s green?

About Twitter. I must confess that I have been using facebook for a while, even though I’ve been a sceptic. I’m not the proudest of users, but getting used to the kind of deprived integrity it offers. Unfortunately, my scepticism towards facebook seems to have been associated with social media in general, even though I am a long time couchsurfer, a kind of social media that I really love. So, having decided to try out Twitter, I wasn’t too optimistic.

I was wrong.

Twitter doesn’t seem to have the downsides in the same way that facebook does. It doesn’t flood me with friend requests that I would never have invited personally, it just lets me easily follow whoever I like, and it doesn’t require mutual agreements. It’s far more open than facebook.

Facebook has a way of forcing all of your friends actions on you, and making you feel guilty because you’re not responding to everything.

C’mon, let’s twitter!

Now, even though High Fidelity is fiction, there is something very real behind the stereotype. Statistics has shown that the people filesharing music are also, on average, spending more money on cultural experiences (music, movies) than people not filesharing.

Creating mixtapes is still legal, unless you have to break some sort of DRM protection to make them, but giving them away is not in most countries, as in Sweden where I live. Apparently, the media industry seems to think it’s a good idea criminalizing a behavior that’s fueling some of their best customers interest in their products.

Anyone wondering what could possibly be the source of the record industry’s declining sales? Maybe their best customers don’t like being treated as criminals, and thus prefer not giving their money to the ones lobbying against them?

Perfect Christmas gift for my kids!

The reason for asking this is that I met a woman (while hitch-hiking) who was talking about the hitch-hiker culture of the 60′s and 70′s. According to her it was much more of a social movement than just about traveling. So, if it was sort of a social movement, it’s not enough to ask why the hitch-hikers disappeared, we also have to ask where this social movement went, or did that disappear aswell?

Let’s start with the easy question. Why did the hitch-hikers disappear. I would say that it’s probably mainly due to two or possibly three changes. First we have the spread of the freeways, where you’re not allowed to stop you can, nor to hitch-hike in the first place. That made longer distance hitch-hiking a real pain. Next we have the cars which became more easily accessible, possibly in combination with better public transport, which reduced the need for hitch-hiking. A third explanation could possibly be the mental barrier of fear against picking up strangers, providing that is a factor that’s changed over time. This is a rather common explanation, but I’m skeptical about it. I think most people have always been negative towards picking up strangers and this argument could just as easy be just another “things were better in the past” kind of argument. My opinion is that peoples fear of strangers isn’t really getting stronger over time; more like the other way around.

Ok, to the point already! Where did the social movement go? Well, when one technology fails a social movement, maybe they find other paths. Being pushed away by the freeways and laws they might well have found new ways on the Internet. Only this time it’s not about traveling, it’s about a place to sleep. (Well, sometimes the hitch-hiking turned out the same way I hear.) Breaking against the commersialistic approach of hotels, motels and hostels, they found something revolutionizing. Please join us at couchsurfing.com!

XO is built from free and open-source software. Our commitment to software freedom gives children the opportunity to use their laptops on their own terms. [...] We are using open-document formats for much the same reason: transparency is empowering. The children—and their teachers—will have the freedom to reshape, reinvent, and reapply their software, hardware, and content.

Projektet är en lysande kontrast till företagens vanliga strategier. Istället för en ökad centralisering av ägandet och minskade möjligheter för enskilda att påverka utvecklingen så bemyndigar OLPC sina användare. Istället för att begränsa konkurrens och skapa nya monopol så öppnas utvecklingen upp på ett sätt som också den fattiga världen kan ta del av. Beroenden bryts och nya möjligheter skapas.