blog/archive/2010/09/09.rss

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   4                 <title>Petter Reinholdtsen - Entries from September 2010</title>
   5                 <description>Entries from September 2010</description>
   6                 <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/</link>
   7
   8
   9         <item>
  10                 <title>My first perl GUI application - controlling a Spykee robot</title>
  11                 <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/My_first_perl_GUI_application___controlling_a_Spykee_robot.html</link>
  12                 <guid isPermaLink="true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/My_first_perl_GUI_application___controlling_a_Spykee_robot.html</guid>
  13                 <pubDate>Wed, 1 Sep 2010 21:00:00 +0200</pubDate>
  14                 <description>
  15 &lt;p&gt;This evening I made my first Perl GUI application.  The last few
  16 days I have worked on a Perl module for controlling my recently
  17 aquired Spykee robots, and the module is now getting complete enought
  18 that it is possible to use it to control the robot driving at least.
  19 It was now time to figure out how to use it to create some GUI to
  20 allow me to drive the robot around.  I picked PerlQt as I have had
  21 positive experiences with the Qt API before, and spent a few minutes
  22 browsing the web for examples.  Using Qt Designer seemed like a short
  23 cut, so I ended up writing the perl GUI using Qt Designer and
  24 compiling it into a perl program using the puic program from
  25 libqt-perl.  Nothing fancy yet, but it got buttons to connect and
  26 drive around.&lt;/p&gt;
  27
  28 &lt;p&gt;The perl module I have written provide a object oriented API for
  29 controlling the robot.  Here is an small example on how to use it:&lt;/p&gt;
  30
  31 &lt;p&gt;&lt;pre&gt;
  32 use Spykee;
  33 Spykee::discover(sub {$robot{$_[0]} = $_[1]});
  34 my $host = (keys %robot)[0];
  35 my $spykee = Spykee-&gt;new();
  36 $spykee-&gt;contact($host, &quot;admin&quot;, &quot;admin&quot;);
  37 $spykee-&gt;left();
  38 sleep 2;
  39 $spykee-&gt;right();
  40 sleep 2;
  41 $spykee-&gt;forward();
  42 sleep 2;
  43 $spykee-&gt;back();
  44 sleep 2;
  45 $spykee-&gt;stop();
  46 &lt;/pre&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
  47
  48 &lt;p&gt;Thanks to the release of the source of the robot firmware, I could
  49 peek into the implementation at the other end to figure out how to
  50 implement the protocol used by the robot.  I&#39;ve implemented several of
  51 the commands the robot understand, but is still missing the camera
  52 support to make it possible to control the robot from remote.  First I
  53 want to implement support for uploading new firmware and configuring
  54 the wireless network, to make it possible to bootstrap a Spykee robot
  55 without the producers Windows and MacOSX software (I only have Linux,
  56 so I had to ask a friend to come over to get the robot testing
  57 going. :).&lt;/p&gt;
  58
  59 &lt;p&gt;Will release the source to the public soon, but need to figure out
  60 where to make it available first.  I will add a link to
  61 &lt;a href=&quot;http://wiki.nuug.no/grupper/robot/&quot;&gt;the NUUG wiki&lt;/a&gt; for
  62 those that want to check back later to find it.&lt;/p&gt;
  63 </description>
  64         </item>
  65
  66         <item>
  67                 <title>Some notes on Flash in Debian and Debian Edu</title>
  68                 <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Some_notes_on_Flash_in_Debian_and_Debian_Edu.html</link>
  69                 <guid isPermaLink="true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Some_notes_on_Flash_in_Debian_and_Debian_Edu.html</guid>
  70                 <pubDate>Sat, 4 Sep 2010 10:10:00 +0200</pubDate>
  71                 <description>
  72 &lt;p&gt;In the &lt;a href=&quot;http://popcon.debian.org/unknown/by_vote&quot;&gt;Debian
  73 popularity-contest numbers&lt;/a&gt;, the adobe-flashplugin package the
  74 second most popular used package that is missing in Debian.  The sixth
  75 most popular is flashplayer-mozilla.  This is a clear indication that
  76 working flash is important for Debian users.  Around 10 percent of the
  77 users submitting data to popcon.debian.org have this package
  78 installed.&lt;/p&gt;
  79
  80 &lt;p&gt;In the report written by Lars Risan in August 2008
  81 («&lt;a href=&quot;http://wiki.skolelinux.no/Dokumentasjon/Rapporter?action=AttachFile&amp;do=view&amp;target=Skolelinux_i_bruk_rapport_1.0.pdf&quot;&gt;Skolelinux
  82 i bruk – Rapport for Hurum kommune, Universitetet i Agder og
  83 stiftelsen SLX Debian Labs&lt;/a&gt;»), one of the most important problems
  84 schools experienced with &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.skolelinux.org/&quot;&gt;Debian
  85 Edu/Skolelinux&lt;/a&gt; was the lack of working Flash.  A lot of educational
  86 web sites require Flash to work, and lacking working Flash support in
  87 the web browser and the problems with installing it was perceived as a
  88 good reason to stay with Windows.&lt;/p&gt;
  89
  90 &lt;p&gt;I once saw a funny and sad comment in a web forum, where Linux was
  91 said to be the retarded cousin that did not really understand
  92 everything you told him but could work fairly well.  This was a
  93 comment regarding the problems Linux have with proprietary formats and
  94 non-standard web pages, and is sad because it exposes a fairly common
  95 understanding of whose fault it is if web pages that only work in for
  96 example Internet Explorer 6 fail to work on Firefox, and funny because
  97 it explain very well how annoying it is for users when Linux
  98 distributions do not work with the documents they receive or the web
  99 pages they want to visit.&lt;/p&gt;
 100
 101 &lt;p&gt;This is part of the reason why I believe it is important for Debian
 102 and Debian Edu to have a well working Flash implementation in the
 103 distribution, to get at least popular sites as Youtube and Google
 104 Video to working out of the box.  For Squeeze, Debian have the chance
 105 to include the latest version of Gnash that will make this happen, as
 106 the new release 0.8.8 was published a few weeks ago and is resting in
 107 unstable.  The new version work with more sites that version 0.8.7.
 108 The Gnash maintainers have asked for a freeze exception, but the
 109 release team have not had time to reply to it yet.  I hope they agree
 110 with me that Flash is important for the Debian desktop users, and thus
 111 accept the new package into Squeeze.&lt;/p&gt;
 112 </description>
 113         </item>
 114
 115         <item>
 116                 <title>Navteq bruker 3-12 måneder, OpenStreetmap.org trenger noen dager</title>
 117                 <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Navteq_bruker_3_12_m__neder__OpenStreetmap_org_trenger_noen_dager.html</link>
 118                 <guid isPermaLink="true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Navteq_bruker_3_12_m__neder__OpenStreetmap_org_trenger_noen_dager.html</guid>
 119                 <pubDate>Tue, 7 Sep 2010 21:40:00 +0200</pubDate>
 120                 <description>
 121 &lt;p&gt;Jeg ble riktig fascinert av
 122 &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.aftenposten.no/nyheter/iriks/article3800967.ece&quot;&gt;en
 123 artikkel i Aftenposten&lt;/a&gt; om hvor hardt Navteq jobber for å oppdatere
 124 kartene som brukes i navigasjons-GPSer, der det blant annet heter at
 125 &quot;på grunn av teknikken tar det alt fra tre til tolv måneder før
 126 kartene er oppdatert&quot;.  Når en kjenner hva slags oppdateringshastighet
 127 som er tilgjengelig på
 128 &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.openstreetmap.org/&quot;&gt;OpenStreetmap&lt;/a&gt; som
 129 oppdateres på dugnad, blir det litt trist å se hva noe av det beste en
 130 kan kjøpe for penger får til.&lt;/p&gt;
 131
 132 &lt;p&gt;Fra en endrer kartdataene i databasen til OpenStreetmap tar det
 133 ca. 15 minutter før endringen er synlig på kartet som alle kan se på
 134 web.  Dernest overføres det daglig til en kartdump som lastes ned av
 135 personen som lager Garmin-kart for Norge ca. en gang i uken.  Med
 136 OpenStreetmap.org og &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.frikart.no/&quot;&gt;Frikart.no&lt;/a&gt;
 137 kan en altså ha korreksjonene på plass i sin Garmin-GPS i løpet av en
 138 uke.  Det er også av tekniske årsaker at det tar så langt tid.
 139 Jobbene som tegner kartene, henter ut kartdumpene og konverterer til
 140 Garmin-format tar minutter og timer å gjennomføre, slik at de ikke
 141 gjøres kontinuerlig men kun regelmessing.&lt;/p&gt;
 142 </description>
 143         </item>
 144
 145         <item>
 146                 <title>Terms of use for video produced by a Canon IXUS 130 digital camera</title>
 147                 <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Terms_of_use_for_video_produced_by_a_Canon_IXUS_130_digital_camera.html</link>
 148                 <guid isPermaLink="true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Terms_of_use_for_video_produced_by_a_Canon_IXUS_130_digital_camera.html</guid>
 149                 <pubDate>Thu, 9 Sep 2010 23:55:00 +0200</pubDate>
 150                 <description>
 151 &lt;p&gt;A few days ago I had the mixed pleasure of bying a new digital
 152 camera, a Canon IXUS 130.  It was instructive and very disturbing to
 153 be able to verify that also this camera producer have the nerve to
 154 specify how I can or can not use the videos produced with the camera.
 155 Even thought I was aware of the issue, the options with new cameras
 156 are limited and I ended up bying the camera anyway.  What is the
 157 problem, you might ask?  It is software patents, MPEG-4, H.264 and the
 158 MPEG-LA that is the problem, and our right to record our experiences
 159 without asking for permissions that is at risk.
 160
 161 &lt;p&gt;On page 27 of the Danish instruction manual, this section is
 162 written:&lt;/p&gt;
 163
 164 &lt;blockquote&gt;
 165 &lt;p&gt;This product is licensed under AT&amp;T patents for the MPEG-4 standard
 166 and may be used for encoding MPEG-4 compliant video and/or decoding
 167 MPEG-4 compliant video that was encoded only (1) for a personal and
 168 non-commercial purpose or (2) by a video provider licensed under the
 169 AT&amp;T patents to provide MPEG-4 compliant video.&lt;/p&gt;
 170
 171 &lt;p&gt;No license is granted or implied for any other use for MPEG-4
 172 standard.&lt;/p&gt;
 173 &lt;/blockquote&gt;
 174
 175 &lt;p&gt;In short, the camera producer have chosen to use technology
 176 (MPEG-4/H.264) that is only provided if I used it for personal and
 177 non-commercial purposes, or ask for permission from the organisations
 178 holding the knowledge monopoly (patent) for technology used.&lt;/p&gt;
 179
 180 &lt;p&gt;This issue has been brewing for a while, and I recommend you to
 181 read
 182 &quot;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.osnews.com/story/23236/Why_Our_Civilization_s_Video_Art_and_Culture_is_Threatened_by_the_MPEG-LA&quot;&gt;Why
 183 Our Civilization&#39;s Video Art and Culture is Threatened by the
 184 MPEG-LA&lt;/a&gt;&quot; by Eugenia Loli-Queru and
 185 &quot;&lt;a href=&quot;http://webmink.com/2010/09/03/h-264-and-foss/&quot;&gt;H.264 Is Not
 186 The Sort Of Free That Matters&lt;/a&gt;&quot; by Simon Phipps to learn more about
 187 the issue.  The solution is to support the
 188 &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.digistan.org/open-standard:definition&quot;&gt;free and
 189 open standards&lt;/a&gt; for video, like &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.theora.org/&quot;&gt;Ogg
 190 Theora&lt;/a&gt;, and avoid MPEG-4 and H.264 if you can.&lt;/p&gt;
 191 </description>
 192         </item>
 193
 194         <item>
 195                 <title>Anonym ferdsel er en menneskerett</title>
 196                 <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Anonym_ferdsel_er_en_menneskerett.html</link>
 197                 <guid isPermaLink="true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Anonym_ferdsel_er_en_menneskerett.html</guid>
 198                 <pubDate>Wed, 15 Sep 2010 12:15:00 +0200</pubDate>
 199                 <description>
 200 &lt;p&gt;Debatten rundt sporveiselskapet i Oslos (Ruter AS) ønske om
 201 &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.aftenposten.no/nyheter/iriks/article3808135.ece&quot;&gt;å
 202 radiomerke med RFID&lt;/a&gt; alle sine kunder og
 203 &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.aftenposten.no/nyheter/article3809746.ece&quot;&gt;registerere
 204 hvor hver og en av oss beveger oss&lt;/a&gt; pågår, og en ting som har
 205 kommet lite frem i debatten er at det faktisk er en menneskerett å
 206 kunne ferdes anonymt internt i ens eget land.&lt;/p&gt;
 207
 208 &lt;p&gt;Fant en grei kilde for dette i et
 209 &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.datatilsynet.no/upload/Microsoft%20Word%20-%2009-01399-2%20H+%C2%A9ringsnotat%20-%20Samferdselsdepartementet%20-%20Utkas%C3%94%C3%87%C2%AA.pdf&quot;&gt;skriv
 210 fra Datatilsynet&lt;/a&gt; til Samferdselsdepartementet om tema:&lt;/p&gt;
 211
 212 &lt;blockquote&gt;&lt;p&gt;Retten til å ferdes anonymt kan utledes av
 213 menneskerettskonvensjonen artikkel 8 og av EUs personverndirektiv.
 214 Her heter det at enkeltpersoners grunnleggende rettigheter og frihet
 215 må respekteres, særlig retten til privatlivets fred.  I både
 216 personverndirektivet og i den norske personopplysningsloven er
 217 selvråderetten til hver enkelt et av grunnprinsippene, hovedsaklig
 218 uttrykt ved at en må gi et frivillig, informert og uttrykkelig
 219 samtykke til behandling av personopplysninger.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/blockquote&gt;
 220
 221 &lt;p&gt;For meg er det viktig at jeg kan ferdes anonymt, og det er litt av
 222 bakgrunnen til at jeg handler med kontanter, ikke har mobiltelefon og
 223 forventer å kunne reise med bil og kollektivtrafikk uten at det blir
 224 registrert hvor jeg har vært.  Ruter angriper min rett til å ferdes
 225 uten radiopeiler med sin innføring av RFID-kort, og dokumenterer sitt
 226 ønske om å registrere hvor kundene befant seg ved å ønske å gebyrlegge
 227 oss som ikke registrerer oss hver gang vi beveger oss med
 228 kollektivtrafikken i Oslo.  Jeg synes det er hårreisende.&lt;/p&gt;
 229 </description>
 230         </item>
 231
 232         <item>
 233                 <title>Oppdatert kart over overvåkningskamera i Norge</title>
 234                 <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Oppdatert_kart_over_overv__kningskamera_i_Norge.html</link>
 235                 <guid isPermaLink="true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Oppdatert_kart_over_overv__kningskamera_i_Norge.html</guid>
 236                 <pubDate>Wed, 22 Sep 2010 20:50:00 +0200</pubDate>
 237                 <description>
 238 &lt;p&gt;For ca. et og et halvt år siden
 239 &lt;a href=&quot;http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Kart_over_overv__kningskamera_i_Norge.html&quot;&gt;startet
 240 jeg på et kart over overvåkningskamera i Norge&lt;/a&gt;, i regi av
 241 &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.personvern.no/&quot;&gt;personvernforeningen&lt;/a&gt;.  Det har
 242 blitt oppdatert regelmessing, og jeg oppdaterte det nettopp.  Fra den
 243 spede start med 22 kamera registrert er det nå registrert 54 kamera.
 244 Det er bare en brøkdel av de kamera som finnes i Norge, men det går
 245 sakte men sikkert i riktig retning.&lt;/p&gt;
 246
 247 &lt;p&gt;Informasjonen registreres fortsatt direkte inn i
 248 &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.openstreetmap.org/&quot;&gt;OpenStreetmap&lt;/a&gt;, og hentes
 249 automatisk over i
 250 &lt;a href=&quot;http://people.skolelinux.no/pere/surveillance-norway/&quot;spesialkartet&lt;/a&gt;
 251 når jeg kjører et script for å filtrere ut overvåkningskamera fra
 252 OSM-dumpen for Norge.&lt;/p&gt;
 253 </description>
 254         </item>
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