X-Git-Url: http://pere.pagekite.me/gitweb/homepage.git/blobdiff_plain/b2642f1921797c2600da902d19e93d7bc138d02e..ebc2683561f253832ddd59949f0fc39e1f522415:/blog/index.rss diff --git a/blog/index.rss b/blog/index.rss index 3b1fcbb4ef..62cb9e0fc6 100644 --- a/blog/index.rss +++ b/blog/index.rss @@ -6,6 +6,126 @@ http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/ + + Graphing the Norwegian company ownership structure + http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Graphing_the_Norwegian_company_ownership_structure.html + http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Graphing_the_Norwegian_company_ownership_structure.html + Mon, 15 Jun 2015 14:00:00 +0200 + <p>It is a bit work to figure out the ownership structure of companies +in Norway. The information is publicly available, but one need to +recursively look up ownership for all owners to figure out the complete +ownership graph of a given set of companies. To save me the work in +the future, I wrote a script to do this automatically, outputting the +ownership structure using the Graphviz/dotty format. The data source +is web scraping from <a href="http://www.proff.no/">Proff</a>, because +I failed to find a useful source directly from the official keepers of +the ownership data, <a href="http://www.brreg.no/">Brønnøysundsregistrene</a>.</p> + +<p>To get an owner ship graph for a set of companies, fetch +<a href="https://github.com/petterreinholdtsen/brreg-norway-ownership-graph">the code from git</a> and run it using the organisation number. I'm +using the Norwegian newspaper Dagbladet as an example here, as its +ownership structure is very simple:</p> + +<pre> +% time ./bin/eierskap-dotty 958033540 > dagbladet.dot + +real 0m2.841s +user 0m0.184s +sys 0m0.036s +% +</pre> + +<p>The script accept several organisation numbers on the command line, +allowing a cluster of companies to be graphed in the same image. The +resulting dot file for the example above look like this. The edges +are labeled with the ownership percentage, and the nodes uses the +organisation number as their name and the name as the label:</p> + +<pre> +digraph ownership { +rankdir = LR; +"Aller Holding A/s" -> "910119877" [label="100%"] +"910119877" -> "998689015" [label="100%"] +"998689015" -> "958033540" [label="99%"] +"974530600" -> "958033540" [label="1%"] +"958033540" [label="AS DAGBLADET"] +"998689015" [label="Berner Media Holding AS"] +"974530600" [label="Dagbladets Stiftelse"] +"910119877" [label="Aller Media AS"] +} +</pre> + +<p>To view the ownership graph, run "<tt>dotty dagbladet.dot</tt>" or +convert it to a PNG using "<tt>dot -T png dagbladet.dot > +dagbladet.png</tt>". This is the result can be seen below:</p> + +<img src="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2015-06-15-ownership-graphs-norway-dagbladet.png" width="80%"> + +<p>Note that I suspect the "Aller Holding A/S" entry to be incorrect +data in the official ownership register, as that name is not +registered in the official company register for Norway. The ownership +register is sensitive to typos and there seem to be no strict checking +of the ownership links.</p> + +<p>Let me know if you improve the script or find better data sources. +The code is licensed according to GPL 2 or newer.</p> + + + + + Measuring and adjusting the loudness of a TV channel using bs1770gain + http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Measuring_and_adjusting_the_loudness_of_a_TV_channel_using_bs1770gain.html + http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Measuring_and_adjusting_the_loudness_of_a_TV_channel_using_bs1770gain.html + Thu, 11 Jun 2015 13:40:00 +0200 + <p>Television loudness is the source of frustration for viewers +everywhere. Some channels are very load, others are less loud, and +ads tend to shout very high to get the attention of the viewers, and +the viewers do not like this. This fact is well known to the TV +channels. See for example the BBC white paper +"<a href="http://downloads.bbc.co.uk/rd/pubs/whp/whp-pdf-files/WHP202.pdf">Terminology +for loudness and level dBTP, LU, and all that</a>" from 2011 for a +summary of the problem domain. To better address the need for even +loadness, the TV channels got together several years ago to agree on a +new way to measure loudness in digital files as one step in +standardizing loudness. From this came the ITU-R standard BS.1770, +"<a href="http://www.itu.int/rec/R-REC-BS.1770/en">Algorithms to +measure audio programme loudness and true-peak audio level</a>".</p> + +<p>The ITU-R BS.1770 specification describe an algorithm to measure +loadness in LUFS (Loudness Units, referenced to Full Scale). But +having a way to measure is not enough. To get the same loudness +across TV channels, one also need to decide which value to standardize +on. For European TV channels, this was done in the EBU Recommondaton +R128, "<a href="https://tech.ebu.ch/docs/r/r128.pdf">Loudness +normalisation and permitted maximum level of audio signals</a>", which +specifies a recommended level of -23 LUFS. In Norway, I have been +told that NRK, TV2, MTG and SBS have decided among themselves to +follow the R128 recommondation for playout from 2016-03-01.</p> + +<p>There are free software available to measure and adjust the loudness +level using the LUFS. In Debian, I am aware of a library named +<a href="https://tracker.debian.org/pkg/libebur128">libebur128</a> +able to measure the loudness and since yesterday morning a new binary +named <a href="http://bs1770gain.sourceforge.net">bs1770gain</a> +capable of both measuring and adjusting was uploaded and is waiting +for NEW processing. I plan to maintain the latter in Debian under the +<a href="https://qa.debian.org/developer.php?email=pkg-multimedia-maintainers%40lists.alioth.debian.org">Debian +multimedia</a> umbrella.</p> + +<p>The free software based TV channel I am involved in, +<a href="http://www.frikanalen.no/">Frikanalen</a>, plan to follow the +R128 recommondation ourself as soon as we can adjust the software to +do so, and the bs1770gain tool seem like a good fit for that part of +the puzzle to measure loudness on new video uploaded to Frikanalen. +Personally, I plan to use bs1770gain to adjust the loudness of videos +I upload to Frikanalen on behalf of <a href="http://www.nuug.no/">the +NUUG member organisation</a>. The program seem to be able to measure +the LUFS value of any media file handled by ffmpeg, but I've only +successfully adjusted the LUFS value of WAV files. I suspect it +should be able to adjust it for all the formats handled by ffmpeg.</p> + + + Hva gjør at NRK kan distribuere H.264-video uten patentavtale med MPEG LA? http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Hva_gj_r_at_NRK_kan_distribuere_H_264_video_uten_patentavtale_med_MPEG_LA_.html @@ -969,92 +1089,5 @@ you find any.</p> - - Frikanalen, Norwegian TV channel for technical topics - http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Frikanalen__Norwegian_TV_channel_for_technical_topics.html - http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Frikanalen__Norwegian_TV_channel_for_technical_topics.html - Mon, 9 Mar 2015 11:10:00 +0100 - <p>The <a href="http://www.nuug.no/">Norwegian Unix User Group</a>, -where I am a member, and where people interested in free software, -open standards and UNIX like operating systems like Linux and the BSDs -come together, record our monthly technical presentations on video. -The purpose is to document the talks and spread them to a wider -audience. For this, the the Norwegian nationwide open channel -<a href="http://www.frikanalen.no/">Frikanalen</a> is a useful venue. -Since a few days ago, when I figured out the -<a href="http://beta.frikanalen.no/api/">REST API</a> to program the -<a href="http://beta.frikanalen.tv/guide/">channel time schedule</a>, -the channel has been filled with NUUG talks, related recordings and -some Creative Commons licensed TED talks (from archive.org). I fill -all "leftover bits" on the channel with content from NUUG, which at -the moment is almost 17 of 24 hours every day.</p> - -<p>The list of NUUG videos -<a href="http://beta.frikanalen.tv/organization/82">uploaded so far</a> -include things like a -<a href="http://beta.frikanalen.tv/video/625090">one hour talk by John -Perry Barlow when he visited Oslo</a>, a presentation of -<a href="http://beta.frikanalen.tv/video/624275">Haiku, the BeOS -re-implementation</a>, the -<a href="http://beta.frikanalen.tv/video/624493">history of FiksGataMi, -the Norwegian version of FixMyStreet</a>, the good old -<a href="http://beta.frikanalen.tv/video/623566">Warriors of the net -video</A> and many others.</p> - -<p>We have a large backlog of NUUG talks not yet uploaded to -Frikanalen, and plan to upload every useful bit to the channel to -spread the word there. I also hope to find useful recordings from the -Chaos Computer Club and Debian conferences and spread them on the -channel as well. But this require locating the videos and their meta -information (title, description, license, etc), and preparing the -recordings for broadcast, and I have not yet had the spare time to -focus on this. Perhaps you want to help. Please join us on IRC, -<a href="irc://irc.freenode.net/%23nuug">#nuug on irc.freenode.net</a> -if you want to help make this happen.</p> - -<p>But as I said, already the channel is already almost exclusively -filled with technical topics, and if you want to learn something new -today, check out the <a href="http://www.frikanalen.tv/se">Ogg Theora -web stream</a> or use one of the other ways to get access to the -channel. Unfortunately the Ogg Theora recoding for distribution still -do not properly sync the video and sound. It is generated by recoding -a internal MPEG transport stream with MPEG4 coded video (ie H.264) to -Ogg Theora / Vorbis, and we have not been able to find a way that -produces acceptable quality. Help needed, please get in touch if you -know how to fix it using free software.</p> - - - - - The Citizenfour documentary on the Snowden confirmations to Norway - http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/The_Citizenfour_documentary_on_the_Snowden_confirmations_to_Norway.html - http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/The_Citizenfour_documentary_on_the_Snowden_confirmations_to_Norway.html - Sat, 28 Feb 2015 22:10:00 +0100 - <p>Today I was happy to learn that the documentary -<a href="https://citizenfourfilm.com/">Citizenfour</a> by -<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laura_Poitras">Laura Poitras</a> -finally will show up in Norway. According to the magazine -<a href="http://montages.no/">Montages</a>, a deal has finally been -made for -<a href="http://montages.no/nyheter/snowden-dokumentaren-citizenfour-far-norsk-kinodistribusjon/">Cinema -distribution in Norway</a> and the movie will have its premiere soon. -This is great news. As part of my involvement with -<a href="http://www.nuug.no/">the Norwegian Unix User Group</a>, me and -a friend have -<a href="http://www.nuug.no/news/Dokumentar_om_Snowdenbekreftelsene_til_Norge_.shtml">tried -to get the movie to Norway</a> ourselves, but obviously -<a href="http://www.nuug.no/news/Dokumentar_om_Snowdenbekreftelsene_endelig_til_Norge_.shtml">we -were too late</a> and Tor Fosse beat us to it. I am happy he did, as -the movie will make its way to the public and we do not have to make -it happen ourselves. -<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XiGwAvd5mvM">The trailer</a> -can be seen on youtube, if you are curious what kind of film this -is.</p> - -<p>The whistle blower Edward Snowden really deserve political asylum -here in Norway, but I am afraid he would not be safe.</p> - - -