The Sound of Russian Music

Gosh. A whole article about me and buying music from AllOfMp3.com. Well actually it's about a Wall Street Journal piece, but fully 50% of the article is quoting my words.

Yet another awesome tool from the MySociety people [from: del.icio.us]

Slashdot FAQ - Accounts : My RSS Headline Reader Tells me I Was Banned!

I'm getting really tired of this. I share an NTL web proxy server with thousands of users. Every so often enough of us try to get Slashdot via RSS that we all get banned. And yet my RSS reader plays very nicely with them and only fetches every 4 hours while I'm awake.

Come on Slashdot, get your act together. You could get my real IP if you tried. And then you wouldn't ban me because of the aggregation of users on a single IP.

I'm looking for sponsorship to go to the O'Reilly Emerging Technology Conference - March 14-17, 2005

I'll be writing it up and I promise to promote you to anyone I meet.

Somewhere on the net in the dim and distant past I've seen an essay on how to be an online guru in your chosen field. But I can't find it again. Anyone got any ideas?

It's something like
- Post copiously
- Join all the mailing lists, BBS and Usenet groups in your field
- Start your own mailing list and newsletter
- Attend conferences and seminars
- Get speaking engagements at those seminars
- Start a blog on the subject
- Write the book
- Declare yourself "The Expert"
- ???
- PROFIT!

What else should you do?
[from: JB Ecademy]

Backing Blair :: FAQ :

What exactly is it that you want from me?
We want you to register to vote. Then, when the election comes around, we want people who live in 'safe' Labour seats or marginal ones to vote for the candidate most likely to beat the Labour candidate. Not the anti-war-person, or the seems-like-a-nice-person, but the candidate most likely to beat the Labour candidate.

But your group is called 'Backing Blair'! What's all that about?
We're using satire with an Orwellian tone to reach people. We realise some folks may be challenged/confused by this; that's why we have an FAQ.

OK, so why do you want us to do this?
People involved in this campaign pretty much want to get rid of Blair and bring a halt to his style of government. We hope that includes you. Common beefs include Iraq, the erosion of civil liberties, Blair's almost unquestioning loyalty to the Bush administration and the Blair government's ongoing swing to the right.

Our ultimate goal is to significantly reduce Labour's majority. We hope this will weaken Blair's position within the Labour party and lead to a viable leadership challenge.

But for a protest vote to be effective, it must be visible and damaging.

[from: del.icio.us]

[from: del.icio.us]

We've now got a Flickr style way of walking round the member database at Ecademy. This started when I realized that the 50 words (keyword bios) were the same as tags in flickr and del.icio.us.

Start here with a list of the most popular keywords. From there you can browse the database by walking round related tags based on clustering.

I'm going to write up how I did this over the weekend and some of the implications.

A key factor I'm grappling with at the moment is the relationship between folksonomy tagging and the soft metadata that generates and relatively hard metadata like Geolocation. My gut feel is that it's a mistake to use a folksonomy for geolocation. But maybe I'm repeating the old mistakes of trying to build hard categories before the event. And note here that Craigslist geolocation categories suck. Badly. More on that later.

Big Champagne have just released "illegal" download figures for last week. They think the top track was downloaded more than 5 million times. That's 250 million a year, times the number of tracks and include direct copying and we're 3 or 4 orders of magnitude larger than iTunes if not more. The ease of ripping, the analog hole and the relatively small size (6Mb) mean that audio is essentially a free commodity. Digital distribution and especially P2P distribution just ain't going to go away. You can kick and scream all you want about freeloaders, parasites, the poor artist and so on. The industry can attempt to prosecute students and dead people but it won't change a thing. Deal with it.

We've got a thread running on Ecademy, about alternate business models for the music industry. Here's my latest.

How is there no distributor in an online model? The majors (with the possible exception of Sony) can't sell direct due to channel conflict. So there has to be a 3rd party (like Apple) in the chain.

The big saving in the digital world is from all the manufacturing, shipping, distribution, warehousing and retailing costs. The actual cost of the CD is tiny these days, but the manufacturing setup is still fairly large and has to be spread across the production run. The equivalent costs online of all this are ripping the analog to digital which can be automated. And the cost of running the online site (bandwidth, servers, programming) which is spread across the entire catalogue.

So the key to getting the online costs down looks like size of catalogue and volume. Even if we keep the current model of "selling" individual tracks or small groups of tracks (the album), there should be enough savings in the process to get the price 30% down from the CD equivalent and still pay the artists and record company the same gross.

I think the next 30% comes from amortizing the original marketing, promotion and production costs. The vast majority of the catalogue is more than 1 year old and most of it is more than 5 years old. The production and marketing of that huge back catalogue of every bit of audio ever recorded has long since been paid for. So now we're left with a cut for the rights holder, the artist and the online site and that's it.
It certainly looks to me as though those three could make just as much money per track at an online price of 20cents as they do on back catalogue CDs via HMV or Amazon at $9.99 per CD. And quite a bit more than they make from royalties on 3rd party "best of" CDs (all that crud in Woolworths!).

But all this is still based on the trad model of "selling" individual "product". I think Napster will fail hopelessly. And not due to the model but to the execution. But at least they're exploring a new model where you rent the right to listen to an unlimited supply.

The truly radical approach here is to treat mid-fi downloads (less than 128kb) as pure marketing, no different from radio play and then make the money from a premium product (DVDs) and live performance. At the moment, the industry demands that online sites that provide previews can't play more than 30 secs of lo-fi. Why not actually give away the full track but as 32k or 64k MP3s? Nasty, crackly AM radio level. Now we can start doing things like 50% filling of an iPod at point of sale.

And so on.

[from: del.icio.us]

Have you got any photos of Ecademy Events? Please post them to Flickr with a tag of "Ecademy". Then they'll turn up here as well. Once there's enough coming in, I'll provide a link on Ecademy to them. [from: JB Ecademy]

This is so Cool! Find friends based on your usage of del.icio.us. The more shared bookmarks, the more likely you are to be friends. [from: del.icio.us]

I intend to stay in Ecademy chat all day today. Join me at

irc://irc.freenode.net/ecademy

or if you don't have an IRC client, we have a web interface at

http://www.ecademy.com/chat.php

If you use Firefox, I can recommend the Chatzilla extension as one of the easiest to use IRC clients. [from: JB Ecademy]

Bloggerheads has an intriguing theory that Kilroy Silk's new far right UK political party is funded by Veritas the software maker. Given that Veritas has now merged with Symantec, customers of either company may want to question whether they wish to support such a party.

Personally I've never like Symantec's products (or Veritas) or what they've done with the various companies they've absorbed. So I have no problem in deciding to never buy any of their products again.

17th Feb meeting [from: del.icio.us]

In the spirit of today's theme.

I want to like Apple. I really do. The Macintosh and OSX look like the perfect marriage of open source software and a professionally designed UI. Some of their software like iLife, GarageBand, iChat is truly amazing. And if I want access to all that Linux software, it's just a compile away. And with it's base of unix it has all the protection from abuse that you get with OSS. And the drivers work (as long as it's Apple hardware). No messing around with re-compiling the kernel to use a third party driver that is unfinished. And that white plastic is just so elegant. Dear.

But underneath all that there's some worms.
- Is Apple the new Sony? Pay a premium for the name, no matter what the product or competition?
- Apple just love to lock you in. Way too often the hardware you want to use is an over priced, return to factory, upgrade. Why can't I just swap the disk out for a generic item. Or add memory with a couple of Dimms from Overclockers?
- Apple are not just playing along with the entertainment industry, but pushing further. So I'm not allowed to play the Japanese import DVDs I bought in the USA?
- The best 3rd party software appears on Windows first. If you're really, really lucky it turns up on Macintosh later. For instance, it's nice to see that Mac Skype is now out of beta. Only a year after Windows Skype.
- Nobody likes to talk about it but Apple hardware doesn't have a stellar reputation for reliability. Remember those iPod batteries and iBook screens?

So I'll continue with my iProduct envy. But walk away and use a generic PC with Win XP for my desktop and Linux for all my servers. [from: JB Ecademy]

[from: del.icio.us]

I've just been fitting a Malossi kit to my Suzuki AN400 Megascoot. The first stage is to remove the lower left body panel. This has an astonishing number of little plastic nubbins that hold it on. The foot rest rubbers also have a very large number of bits that plug into the bodywork and you have to get under them to reach some of the fixings. Eventually you get the bodywork off, and the next piece is the CVT air filter cover, and then the plastic CVT cover. That gets you to here.



The next piece to remove is the inner cover. This is ally and has two dowels that eventually get stuck, bottom right and top left. The cover has an outrigger bearing for the clutch mechanism. Sometimes the shaft spins in the bearing making a nasty screech at very low speeds. You can safely ignore this as I'm not sure how to fix it if it happens to your bike. With the ally cover taken off, we have this.



The belt and two pulleys are now visible. We need to get the nuts undone on the front and rear pulley and remove them. I used a Halfords 12V hammer socket driver. Piece of cake. Way easier than cobbling together crowbars and using old bits of belt to try and lock the front socket. The nuts are 24mm so you may need to get a 24mm socket.

The front pulley assembly now comes off. There's a bent spring washer behind both nuts. Make sure you keep everything the same way round so the spring washer goes back on the same way.



You need to remove the oil splash plate to get the centre slider out as we need this for the Malossi kit.



The centre slider has 4 plastic locator pieces which we also need. Assemble the Malossi replacement with it's 8 rollers, slide the centre bearing shaft into the middle, put the centre slider piece in o top of the rollers and mount it back on the shaft. You need to hold whole thing together with your fingers round the back as you slide it on the shaft to stop the rollers falling out. Put the outside pulley on and the washer and nut. Just finger tight as we'll be removing it again.

Now the scary bit which is changing the spring in the rear driven pulley. Remove the clutch drum and then the whole clutch pulley assembly.



The problem is that we need to undo that big nut, but it's holding spring pressure behind it and there's no easy way to hold the whole assembly still while you undo it. Of course there's various factory tools to do this which cost large amounts of money and nobody has them. So here's the trick.



Put the assembly in a vice with a cloth or bits of wood and tighten it down, being careful not to damage the fins on the back by resting the vice jaw against lots of them. Then use a large C-clamp to take up the tension on the other side. If there isn't one already, put a mark on the nut and centre with a felt tip.
Now you can use a big stilson wrench to undo the nut. Undo it until it's almost off. Now release the vice pressure leaving the C Clamp holding everything together, pick what's left up and put it on the floor supported on a couple of blocks of wood. Now with your foot holding the top down, remove the big nut, release the C Clamp and gently let the spring expand. If your vice is big enough, you could probably do all this in the vice rather than on the floor. There's quite a bit of preload but once the spring is an inch or so free, you can hold it down with your hand and gently release it.



The spring and roller on the right came from an AN400X (MkI). The spring and roller on the left are from the AN400K3. It looks like Suzuki now use less preload and an 18gm roller instead of the original 21gm. More on this later. The Malossi spring is lighter but about the same height as the stock AN400K3 spring. So fit the spring, hold the clutch part down with your hand or foot and finger tighten the big nut in the middle. Now take the whole assembly back to the vice, put on the C Clamp and tighten the nut down with your stilson. The official torque is 105 Nm which basically means as tight as you can get it. A tip here is to get your felt tip marks to line up again so the nut is in the same place and will probably have the same torque as when you started.

Now put the whole assembly back on the rear shaft with the belt in the pulleys, Put the clutch drum back on and then put the spring washer back on the same way round. This is with the outside edges against the clutch and inside edges against the nut. Now do up the nut with the electric hammer socket. The torque setting is 85Nm so you can try a proper torque wrench and something rigged up using the holes to hold it still. Easier is just to give it a few goes with the hammer driver. I put a drop of loctite on the nut threads as well. When everything is done up tight with the belt in place, use a bit of wood and your hands to lever the pulleys apart which lets the belt drop into the centre.

Now take off the front outer pulley, put the belt around the shaft and replace the outer pulley, spring washer and nut. The washer goes the same way round as the other one. You need to make sure the belt is free and not being pinched by the pulley as you finger tighten the nut. The torque on this nut is 105Nm. Holding the pulley still is not easy. Don't be tempted to wedge a large screw driver in the fins as you'll just break a fin off. You can feed an old bit of belt between the pulley and casing to wedge it solid but easiest is just to give it a few goes with the hammer driver. Again a drop of loctite on the threads is good for peace of mind.

Now check over everything, replace the inner and outer cover, and the air filter and air filter cover. This is a good moment to clean the air filter. Suzuki now use yellow foam so it's easy to see the muck. Finally re-assemble the lower left panel putting all the plastic nubbins and screws back in. Done!

Now I've only had a quick run up the road, but you'll find that under hard acceleration the revs have risen in the mid range from 5.5K-6K to 6.5K-7K the engine is pulling a bit harder and the gear ratio has dropped. And the end result is quite a bit more acceleration between 25 and 60.

Now some alternatives. The Malossi kit is not exactly expensive at about £120 so that's the easiest way to go. If you fancy an alternative, the stock AN400K3 rollers seem to be 18gm where the old AN400X were 21gm. The Malossi set are 16gm with a lighter spring. So it seems highly likely that you can get almost the same effect by using the stock spring with 17gm rollers. Malossi don't make 17gm but Taffspeed apparently do have 17gm rollers from another manufacturer. As an alternative you could use 4 Malossi 16gm with 4 stock 18gm (spaced symmetrically) to give an average of 17gm. Rollers are cheap. But unfortunately I've now gone for the full Malossi so somebody else will have to try this.

I think what's happened is that Suzuki have made the CVT a bit more lively and also reduced the spring pressure, but they haven't gone as far as Malossi do. This ties in with some drag race testing that Paul Blezard and I did between a new AN400K3 and my old AN400X-Malossi. The X was consistently faster up to about 45mph no matter who was riding. But the K3 then pulled back and started to catch up. One guess here is that the Injection model is inherently quiter and more efficient and so Suzuki didn't have to try quite as hard to put a hole in performance to get past the noise tests.

Some thoughts:-
- What's the difference between a Technorati keyword search and a tag:search. And would it be helpful to have the keyword search on the tag display?
- I'm really close to having Ecademy profiles "50 words" displayed with a Flickr style tag UI. So how can I get Ecademy profiles into their corresponding Technorati tags. And would it make any sense? This is relatively static data, where Technorati is all about dynamic changes.
- I've had tags on blog entries here for a while now. I've got Technorati links on each page and in the RSS. I'm successfully pinging Technorati on new posts. But the results never seem to turn up in Technorati. I wonder why?
- The Technorati developers forum has a sign up form. Just one catch, first name, last name and email address are required fields but have no input elements. Is this a challenge?