For some time now I have been trying to craft a WiFi Soundcard from my Neo FreeRunner (running Debian). Still a long way to go, but after few hours of heavy fighting I finally have some success. Namely, I was able to (kind of) play a song on my lappy through PulseAudio, via UDP/RTP, to PulseAudio on the Neo and hear something (very distorted, but discernible).

So, state of the art for today is:

• basically it should work out-of-the-box;
• the WiFi link here seems too weak/unstable for a full 44100Hz stereo;
• for the time being it works only after joining the multicast group manually with mcfirst;
• sound quality is awful (due to the above problems).

But I got some sound through. Will be working on it some more in my spare time.

I just spent a Weekend with (among others) a bunch of lawyers. Great, in my humble opinion, lawyers (confirmed by their successes, position, or offices held). Also – against the stereotype – great human beings, co-operation with whom is an honour and a privilege.

And it was hard. Painful. Very disturbing. The more so the higher regard I held them in.

So what has happened?¶

Well, while we were more or less agreed as far as some general values and issues are concerned (or at least we were able to find common ground, understand each others’ position and respect that), the moment the discussion veered into territory of law and lawmaking – carnage ensued.

Don’t get me wrong! We were all friends; every single moment of those discussions was of highest cultural and rhetorical standard. The extremely frightening thing was that in some things they were completely unable to find any common ground!

When I discuss an issue with a fellow IT specialist, we can get to a point where we understand each others’ views and assumptions, find those we do not agree about (like what’s important, feature-richness or time-to-market) which are actually the crux of our disagreement on a higher level (like, which methodology to assume).

Getting back to the lawyers – well, the data could have been the same; the assumptions could have been the same; the conclusions would still be completely different!..

This is seriously frightening once you realise you’re supposed to be living in a State of Law, but the law itself is almost completely subject to interpretation.

Problem Genesis¶

That got me thinking “why”. Why all natural sciences, all engineering domains, et al, are able to arrive at concrete, tangible conclusions (and produce unequivocal doctrines, documents, procedures, etc.), yet still, lawyers (and economists, apparently) are unable to do that?

Short answer that I arrived at is: lack of scientific method and process, no possibility to execute a verifiable experiment, testing a given theory. That’s not the fault of lawyers, mind you, but simply a characteristic intrinsic to those fields.

Scientific procedure can in a timely manner verify a given theory, checking the data or executing an experiment with – that’s crucial! – as much variables set as possible, testing the theory in a very controlled environment. Even more! Others can check the experiment, check the data, re-test it all and make sure there was no error in it all.

As far as lawyers and economists are concerned – that’s simply impossible. And that, taking the influence of those two groups on our day-to-day reality into account, is the tragedy of our times.

Finally, I had the time to work a bit on the brag. So here goes:

• language switching controls now work;
• as do page switching controls;
• hence you are finally able to get to entries other than the last 5;
• now we also sport messages (including a message on browser support);
• and some cosmetics.

Nevertheless, still a lot of work to be done.

It’s finally done, I’m an apostate. Well, almost – I just need to get the baptism certificate with proper annotation by mail. I am no longer institutionally tied to the Catholic Church and it feels great.

It all started about 3 years ago. I got to the conclusion that I do not believe in the guy up in the sky, and even if I did – I would not need the Church for that. What logically followed was that a nice “thank you Godbye” note was in order, as I strongly disagree with policy, methods and actions of this organisation.

What was needed¶

According to a document issued by the Polish Episcopal Conference (Rules of conduct concerning the formal act of leaving the Church, original here), what was needed was:

• a letter of resignation from the Catholic Church;
• baptism certificate duplicate;
• two witnesses;
• at least two visits to the rector of “our” parish.

Two, as during the first visit one is supposed to reveal the will to leave, rector then has to (according to the document above, and I cite):

(…)should in a personal, full of concern, pastoral conversation establish what are the real reasons for such a decision and with love and prudence try to change that decision and awaken faith seeded in the sacrament of baptism. Hence as a rule the act of apostasy – if it goes through regardless of undertaken efforts – should not be done the same day the person wanting to leave the Church announces their intent to the priest, but after a time rector prudentially sets for making the final decision, having such dire canonical consequences.

Apparently nobody seems to care that when I decide to take apostasy the last thing I fancy doing is “a personal, full of concern, pastoral conversation” with a representative of an organisation that I am trying to leave.

Preliminary steps¶

I got the baptism certificate, found a few templates of the letter (sorry, they’re in Polish only), based on those I created a short, succinct version and gone to the rector. That last thing was not an easy task, as the poor overworked man only had a single duty hour on a single day of a week, and exactly when every normal working person is either at work, or at school.

That, I suppose, should be a good sign of priest’s “you-are-a-mere-supplicant” take on our case, but I must have ignored it. After all, the conversation was supposed to be full of “love and prudence”…

First StationConversation¶

Obviously, rector was not amused. Thankfully I don’t recall all the details of our conversation, but I do remember that: 1. an attempt was made to convince me that a person not heeding the One True Faith is completely irresponsible, immoral and generally a scoundrel; 2. having taken a course in Logic (and a good one at that) I was shocked to discover that a person in such a high office as the rector, being in a position of authority to many, is unable (unwilling?) to comprehend the difference between an implication and if-and-only-if.

All in all it was both funny and scary. The “personal and full of concern” conversation consisted of him announcing his truths and their supposedly “obvious” conclusions, after which I in a calm manner was showing the gaping holes in his reasoning (no, I will not agree to an assumption that if I am Catholic somehow automagically that makes me moral; and even if I did, it still does not follow that only Catholics can be moral!..); after that the priest would either repeat his reasoning or pound his fist, or – for added rhetorical effect – do both in any order.

Basically the whole conversation was lost time, as rector finally just stated that my letter was too short. Simple statement of intent of leaving the Church is not enough, one “needs to justify”. I’ll just quote here in response:

Engaging with world-view issues of third parties or justifying to another person one’s religion is in our opinion unacceptable in a law-observing state. It is also not required in other countries.
– Polish Association of Rationalists.

Long break and a nudge¶

After that delightful conversation I didn’t get back to the topic for about 3 years. I didn’t want to drag my witnesses to the end of the charted lands (where I lived) just to hear, e.g., that the justification must be different. Besides I just lost interest. In making any further contact with rector, for example.

Then one day a friend reporter from Sweden wrote that she’s going to Poland due to impending Polish EU Presidence and is supposed to write a few articles on social issues (including the Church) – and might I know anybody that would be willing to do apostasy and go on record with it? I asked around, suggested her to write to the Polish Association of Rationalists, and when her desperation to find somebody reached it’s zenith – “ah, what the hell” (sic!), thought I, and we decided I will be the guy.

A long expected party¶

This time I was prepared perfectly. I had three witnesses (one of whom decided at the last moment); I had my (Catholic) girlfriend by my side; I had two Swedish journalists on-board; and I had the letter, calling on the canonical code, the Freedom of Religion Bill, and the Protection of Personal Data Bill (and here is a pdf version; sorry, both in Polish). I have established the “working hours” (up 400%! now whole 4 hours a week!) and the whole gang was afoot with the idea that – after all the sacraments I took – the time is high for my first profanment.

When we got there we were treated with 25 minute wait, a procession (basically about 20 people walking around the church) and some 2 persons waiting in line.

When our queue came I entered the parish chancellery, the rest of the group with me; I tried to explain the rector who all those people were, but he got extremely agitated (taking a photo by one of the Swedish journalists was a bit counterproductive in the circumstances) and showed everybody but me and the witnesses the door (while loudly stating his disapproval and waving his finger).

Insulting Comrade as a supplicant¶

Either way we got straight to business, I took four copies of the letter out and stated that I would like the additional witness (the one that decided late, so her name was not printed on) to write in; It was a bit superfluous, but I wanted her to be part of the process too. Then it started and Logic raised its ugly head once again.

Namely, the rector asserted that there should be just two witnesses. I steadfastly stood by the notion that there should be at least two – so that there can be three. After quite a bit of back-and-forth between the two of us (“nowhere does it state that there has to be three witnesses!”/“yes, but nowhere does it state that there cannot be three of them.”/“but here it states that there should be two!” and so on and so forth) I used the “proprietor” argument: this is my document, prepared by me and presented to you, but I retain the right to change it and make it look the way I wish. And this is the moment we got our first great quote!

You are a mere supplicant here and you should act accordingly.

To be honest I was completely awestruck. First thought: get out, shut the door. But too long it all took already, so as calmly as I was able I explained that “I must strongly protest what has just been said”, that I am simply exercising my constitutional rights, and that in no way, shape nor form am I a supplicant here. But I decided to back off the “third witness” thing, abiding the age-old rule that “one should not argue with a fool; he will be brought down to fool’s level and beaten with experience”.

A short verification of identities ensued, followed by re-writing of witness’ data by the rector (even though part of that data was already present on the papers), and finally – signing.

During the whole visit a discussion was underway and I – as surprising as it may seem I do not have much to do with priests – habitually kept calling the priest “Sir” (instead of “Priest” as is apparently customary), to what he vehemently protested. That caused next two great quotes. After yet another “Sir”…

Stop or I will start calling you Comrade – that caused short bursts of laughter from witnesses’ direction. I simply opened my arms and said “please do”. Unfortunately he was unwilling to take that opportunity.

And the third great quote, after yet another “Sir” in place of “Priest” – Stop offending me! Things should be called by their true names.

That was the quote I honestly did not know where to start with. First, never ever in the Polish language and culture calling anybody “Sir” was considered offensive; quite the contrary, it was an expression of some elemental, fundamental respect. Second – oh how tempted was I to indicate that had I wanted to call things by their true names, precisely that would be something that rector could feel offended with!..

But the papers have already been signed, I got my copy, so we went in peace.

Summary and conclusions¶

After the whole exercise a few conclusions come to mind. First, apostasy in Poland is an extremely arduous process, requiring closer contacts with genuinely troublesome people. Not much fun. Conversation with the rector cased sudden outbreaks of facepalm every single time. Bureaucracy is absurd – do I really need to go, in person, to my baptism parish, then two times to “my” parish (which could be miles and miles away) simply to leave an organisation I never actually said I want to join (the decision was made for me in infancy)?.. Then there is the royal treatment one gets from the people one has to talk to – as a supplicant, a scoundrel, an immoral person. “With love and prudence”.

Nevertheless I believe I made the right choice. Now nobody can manoeuvre me into anything faith- or Church-related. Church statistics (counting the “number of baptised”, as manipulative as it is) as far as I know will sadly still include me, but fighting that is the next step.

Report based on my apostasy will be published in a Swedish newspaper. As soon as that happens, I’ll link it here.

Thanks¶

I believe I should thank a few people:

• Pixel, Kasia, piorek, Kondzi, Sasza, czesiek – thanks for the support and the will of being my witness (and actually doing that where applicable);
• Basia, My Dear Parents – for support and understanding, discussions and conversations, openness and positive take on it all;
• Kinga and Kalle – thanks for the nudge and going along with the plan in a fun and relaxed manner.

Let me start off with this:

I’m not even on Facebook and I hate it, because everybody stopped sending personal emails. Everything is getting too centralized.
– timeOday on Slashdot

I agree wholeheartedly. See, this is a bigger problem than most of Fb’s (or any other single-company-network) users are willing to admit: the minute the best interest of the $Company stops being aligned with users’ best interest, guess who gets screwed. Yup. The users. As in: You.

And what could make such a change, you ask? Government/law enforcement for one. If something’s centralized, that means that the Police (or whatever force of your choosing) have to go to a single entity to establish a way of accessing data on lots and lots of users. Quite convenient – for the law enforcement. Not that much for users.

On the other side there’s e-mail. Everybody has it and use it on a daily basis. It’s de-centralized, meaning that there are lots of providers; you don’t like yours, you can go to a different one. You’d have to change the address, but it’s a small price (and not always, actually, it has to be that way), and you still can retain your address book and send everyone info on that.

Getting back to the Bad Gummint scenario – with de-centralized systems, like e-mail, the Police would have to go to every single e-mail provider to eavesdrop on all e-mail users. But that’s not possible. You can create your own e-mail server in your closet. Good luck tracking down all those (me included) that did so.

That’s just the tip of the iceberg in regards to advantages of de-centralized systems. And the only benefit of Facebook over those? The user base. Yes, the one that will soon be shrinking.

Where should this user-base go? Well, I’d say “go de-centralize yourselves”. Instead of Facebook – there’s Diaspora; for all you Twitterlings – have a look at Identi.ca and more generally StatusNet; and as far as AIM/ICQ/GaduGadu is concerned – Jabber/XMPP is a great answer. So good, in fact, that Google uses it for it’s GTalk; the IM blurb on the left of your GMail? That runs on Jabber/XMPP.

That’s why you won’t ever find me on Facebook (nor Google+, nor any other centralized social network). You will, however, find me on Diaspora*.

Update¶

Oh look. Facebook bans Google+ app and Google removes Twitter from real-time search. Case in point.

Another Update¶

Seems like for Facebook your personal data are their own trade secrets and hence they “cannot” give you them.

Let me repeat that: you will not get your own personal data from Facebook, as they are deemed Facebook’s trade secrets.

As always, lots of work, not enough time, late /me is late and hasn’t got the time to publish on the brag…

And much to publish there is indeed. Last week I had the pleasure of quarreling with the Police HQ and Fundacja Dzieci Niczyje (“Nobody’s Children Foundation”; they’re whole argument can be summarised in short thus: “Won’t somebody think of the children!”) at a meeting in the Ministry of Justice, about Network Censorship; I met Billy B. from TechSoup (hint: there might be an event co-organised by TechSoup and Brama, but with Autumn/Spring timeframe); and I had the priviledge of participating in the “Res Publica 2.0” conference (co-organised by Centrum Cyfrowe Projekt: Polska).

Some changes are also visible on the site – slowly working towards enabling missing functionality, like accessing older entries or selecting the preferred language of the entry, where available. Also, have a look at the shiny new Multi-URL Shortener. ;)

Meeting at the Ministry of Justice¶

That was Monday, 06.06.2011. In general, I had the feeling that our whole argumentation (of which we had quite a lot with Panoptykon Foundation, Internet Society Poland and Kidprotect) had absolutely no effect on our interlocutors (the Police and FDN). Every single merit-based argument we summoned was duly countered with short “But children!”. Temperature went up, voices followed, but still not a step stride was made to resolve the issues.

Either way, the Best Statement of the Meeting goes to… representatives of the Ministry of Infrastructure, who sat completely silent throughout the whole few hours of the meeting up until when the Ministry of Justice representative asked them directly for their take on the topic. And they did. In two sentences they basically said we’re right and the other side is just plain wrong. Game, set, match.

Tech Soup¶

…is a very large organisation striving to connect NGOs with technology. Much of that technology is closed and costly, supplied by corporations giving TechSoup beneficiaries huge discounts; still, there are quite a few open solutions in their portfolio.

For about a week Billy B. (don’t get discouraged by the website) visited Poland, so we took the chance to meet. That was the fun meeting, with the talking, and the getting-to-know, and so on. One thing led to another and there might be an event organised together by TechSoup, Brama and FWiOO.

Res Publica 2.0¶

What can I say! You get an invitation to the Belweder, you take it! Obviously the conference was more of a media thing than anything else, but then again that was the main aim – to announce and promote the Open Government Roadmap for Poland report. And that aim was achieved.

As an added benefit, please help yourself to a Find Rysio Photo. Also, the videos are available on Kamil Śliwowski’s website (who was responsible for the videotaping the event for Projekt Polska).

My brain tends to visit strange venues… During a short discussion about xirdal’s fixie on the Warsaw Hackerspace mailing list “I accidentally” the following:

Oops,
I did it again.
...I played with your parts
Got lost in the frame
Oh bikey, bikey!

Oops!
...You think I'm a pro.
That I'm in the know...
I'm not bike repairman!

I’ll just leave that here.

Łukasz Anwajler (of Warsaw Hackerspace fame) wrote a short, informative and generally fun to read article on Node.js.

For those of you living (like I) under a rock last few months – Node.js is an I/O framework enabling writing programs in JS. Yeah, no browser needed. Yeah, with filesystem access, sockets and the like. Yeah, one could write an http server in it (or, for that matter, a webapp, server-side).

Lately much discussion was caused by Google’s decision to hide the Location Bar in the next Chrome/Chromium version. Seems like Mozilla wants to follow suit. I believe Location Bar still has its important place in a browser, and would like to offer a better solution for Mozilla.

The Problem¶

Reasons for Location Bar hiding/removal are those:

• users do not know how to use it;
• it takes up valuable vertical space;
• Google (or any other) search works almost just as well, and users use that instead anyway.

Additional reasons for Google are obvious: more search data – instead of going directly to a website, users will have to actually use Google Search.

The Solution¶

…is simple. Make a huge and visible, window-centered Location Bar (that can work as a searchbar too) the default homepage in Firefox. This has many benefits:

• new users will get a nice, visible UI as soon as the browser starts, without loading any page (and exposing any data to Google);
• power users will get the Location Bar at their fingertips, and won’t lose an important, valued tool.

Moreover, Mozilla will be leading the charge instead of following in Google’s footsteps.

Yesterday and today I have the pleasure of participating in the Sector 3.0 (gotta love the wordplay) NGO-targeted conference, as a FLOSS Foundation representative. Great fun!

Loads of fantastic people, loads of fantastic organisations, loads of awesome ideas. Knowledge flows wide and untamed in both directions. Such initiatives are much-needed in Poland, as are NGOs in general.

One important result of me being here is refreshing or making new contacts with Fun People. Fun People tend to do Fun Stuff. And we all love Fun Stuff.

The second result – well, I’m writing this about an hour before my workshop on Free Software. From what I see I’ll be having quite a few participants, so we’ll talk about more results in about 3 hours. I hope I’ll be able to transfer some knowledge to others, in exchange for the whole knowledge I got in those two days from all the great activists.

Summary¶

My workshop was a total success – about 20 people attended, seems like I was even able to keep them interested throughout the whole 1.5h deal. It turned out to be more of a presentation, though, as the attendees had next to none exposure to FLOSS before. Somehow people got involved anyway and spoke up, we had a nice discussion about pros and cons, and what FLOSS actually is.

I was at least a bit surprised when after the workshop the attendees started to come to me and congratulate on it. I was doing it basically unprepared (it got on the agenda the night before), so it was really gratifying.

By the way, I think I found a great way of promoting FLOSS. It starts rather classically:

• ask who among the attendees uses FLOSS;
• show them that most of them actually do (Firefox, OpenOffice, Wikipedia’s FLOSS engine…);
• define FLOSS (the Four Freedoms, some more general description.

Now, here’s the fun part:

• ask attendees to create two lists – pros and cons of FLOSS;
• then, ask them to classify those according to whether they differ among the projects (like support quality), or are FLOSS-definition-related (like ability to share with others).

Guess what? Almost all if not all of the cons differ among the projects. Almost all pros – are definition-related. The kicker is: when using FLOSS you might get the cons, but you always get the pros.

Wideo¶

The workshop was being recorded – why Kamil Śliwowski decided to record it is beyond me, though. Anyway, video is supposed to be on-line in a couple of weeks, I’ll post a link as soon as I get it.

Update

First video is up at YouTube. Longer video, only fro my workshop, on its way.