Getty Images set free

There is an old saying that a picture is worth a thousand words and for this reason I always like to find a suitable picture to insert alongside each blog post. It is easy to find suitable pictures online, but they are often subjected to a license meaning that they are not available for free use. Getty Images is an excellent repository of professional images that newspapers and other media outlets pay substantial charges for the rights to use.

The good news is that recently they have introduced a policy of allowing blogggers the rights to use any of their pictures for free. Here is an example of the type of wonderful image which is available,
 

Is Julian Assange a hero?

In recent times Julian Assange has been making headlines all over the world. Many people (including Julian) would like us to believe that we have a choice between supporting him and all of his actions or supporting the actions of the US secret service and their allies. However, the reality is a little bit more complex than that.

I feel sorry for Julian. But the reason I feel sorry for him is mostly because of his dysfunctional upbringing rather than because he has been unfortunate enough to become a target for reactionary forces within the US military and their allies.

First let me state clearly that I think it is a good thing that the wikileaks site has uncovered many unsavoury actions undertaken by the western powers during their so called war on terror. This is clearly a situation where the response to the alleged threat of terrorism was in many instances much worse than what it was supposed to be preventing.

However, the credit for making this information public must go to Bradley Manning, the brave soldier who made the information public and not to Julian Assange whose only role was to design the process which was supposed to assure Bradley and similar whistle-blowers of anonymity. In fact the process which Julian designed failed  badly in this case and a a result Bradley Manning is currently held in solitary confinement due to the failure to protect his identity and has no prospect of ever addressing the world's media though the window of the Ecuadorian embassy.

Julian is currently facing extradition from UK to Sweden to face charges that have nothing at all to do with his involvement with WikiLeaks. It is true that the laws on sexual assault in Sweden are much more favourable to the victim than in the UK, but this is not necessarily a bad thing. In any case, I am sure that he would get a fair trial in Sweden if he returned there. He claims that he fears that the Swedish government might turn him over to the Americans, but in fact that UK government would be much more likely to do that than the Swedes.

I think that part of Julian's problems are that he has an inflated view of his own importance. The current outpouring of sympathy for his position is only making this situation worse.

Fighting for our musical freedom

I listen to a lot of radio shows as podcasts on my phone. One thing that I notice is that most of the talks shows that include occasional music when broadcast live have the music cut out when posted as a podcast. I assume that the reason for this is because the radio station is worried that they don't have the rights to post the music on line.

One of the shows that I like to listen to is the Miriam Meets series on RTE. It is ironic that even when she is interviewing the performer and composer of a song on the program they still cut out the music because they don't have the rights to their own music - presumably the reason they agreed to the interview is t promote their music, so cutting the music form the show doesn't serve anyone well. On the other hand, I was particularly pleased to hear a recent episode when she interviewed singer/songwriters Paddy Casey and Declan O Rourke. They were proud of the fact that they are not signed up with a record label because of the freedom it offers them. They were even wiling to perform some of their compositions live on the radio. I think more musicians should value their freedom in this way.

I was recently experimenting with some music technology and since I am not a big Apple fan I was looking for a Linux alternative to GarageBand. A friend pointed me at the Linux Multimedia Studio. Not only is this excellent software that is easy to use, but there is also an excellent collection of sample projects available. Viewing these sample projects I am reminded of when I first encountered open source software. In much the same way that having access to the source code allows you to study how a program works and even tweak it to better meet your needs, having access to the LMMS project file allows you to study the individual  instruments used in a recording and tweak the recording so that it is more suited to your personal taste.

Imagine how cool it would be to have the "source file" for some of your favourite songs. Not only could you sing Karaoke, but you could even hear exactly how you would sound like if you played some of the drum solos along with your favourite celebrity hard rock band!

My friend Speedie, recently posted about the need to encourage coding skills among young people  ensure that they don't lose their creative skills in the digital age. While I agree with him, I also think that we have the same issue with music. Many young people think that the only way to create music is to download a track that someone else created and they never even think of creating their own musical compositions.

Modern music creation tools have become so easy to use  that there is no excuse not to express your musical creativity. Perhaps we ought to launch a MusicDojo series of events to complement the CoderDojos. I don't have much musical skills, but if any musical types want to start such a series I am more than happy to help with the technology part.