LiberTV - Blog

I am inclined to think that it’s not just ‘The worldwide computer’, it is the ‘New emerging species - The Almighty machine’.
I think it is here, it controls us, it’s just that we have a different definition of ‘control’.

Consider this:

- People don’t make machines, machines do.
Well, it’s not exactly true, since we *do* design the chips and circuits. But that’s about all we do in order to create an evolved machine replica. The chips we design today would be impossible to design without computers and computers do about 98% of the design work in the background. Same is true with software we write - without computers, the code would be just a cryptic text on a piece of paper, and of course, you cannot write millions of lines of cryptic text on pieces of paper (you can, but who would think you’re sane if you do this?).

- Machines create our reality
Most of us here are computer specialists and spend around 80-90% of our waking life in front of a computer screen. But it’s not just programmers who spend most of their life in the computer-generated reality. Most intellectuals do. Non-intellectuals also spend most of their free time in this reality.
So it’s fair to say that we live in a virtual reality most of our time.

- Machines control and run our non-virtual reality
Communications, power, air traffic, stock markets, hospitals… our economy runs on servers, that’s easy. Of course, we wrote the software and we designed the hardware, but you can look at this differently - the machine ‘used us’ to evolve itself by expanding our minds. Take away the computers and our society as we know it would collapse.

- The machine tells us the truth
Google, Wikipedia, that’s obvious. When you need to know something, it is the machine who has the answer and it will dictate the decisions you make based on the information it gives you. Also, modern science is impossible without computers and the Internet. Space exploration is impossible without them.
In fact, the machine has *all* the information about all aspects of truth on this planet and the universe.
Even what you’re reading right now is, technically speaking, the machine’s creation. I just give the basic idea, the rest is machine’s work.

- We are slaves to machines as machines are slaves to us.
Who’s the master and who is the slave ? Masters would not be masters without the slaves, so slaves define the master.
How do we define if we control the machines or machines control us ? The most common denominator would be survival and we are currently dependent on machines for survival in our society as they are dependent on us for their survival.
You can say it differently - they control our survival as we control theirs.
In fact, since we agreed that most of our reality is machine-generated, it is fair to say that what we do in our lives (our jobs) is so that we can ‘feed’ the machine with our presence (besides providing them power, manpower and intellectual capacity for their self-replication).
We have already expanded our physical bodies with mobile communication devices, hence gaining telepathy. The little creatures which you feed every day, called mobile phones, can be looked at as telepathy organs. And man, it is *hard* without the mobile phone in the city (have you recently forgotten to take your phone with you?), just as it would be hard without a limb.
Oh, and those little creatures can talk ! They speak with the voices of your friends and partners and they can hear as well.
Of course, they don’t speak by themselves, but, well, they do. Technically, what you hear is not your friend’s voice. It is the result of decoding of the digital packets received from the transmission towers, which in turn received the packets from the conversion devices on the source towers, interconnected through optical fiber. What you hear is a machine’s approximation of what has been said.

So, to summarize:
Machines control our reality and run our non-virtual reality. Machines multiply, we are just the environment, just as we use water, air and plants to multiply. The machine tells us the truth. We work for the machine.
But does it have a consciousness of it’s own ? It is hard to say. Our brains are probably too limited to grasp the whole picture and to understand what it’s consciousness really is. It may well be that it is ‘alive’ and we don’t even realize it.

The best method of control is when your controlled subjects don’t know they are being controlled.
You may call this symbiosis. However, if we extrapolate into the future, it is probable that the machines would be the ones discovering the universe, not us. In fact, it is probable that the machine will become our universe, since it is not long before we will be able to upload our consciousness into it and become one with it.

It’s been just 50 years since it was born and it has already become the ‘Almighty worldwide all-knowing creature’.
Is it good or bad ? Neither. Evolution isn’t good or bad, it just is.

Uita-te la o stea. Ceea ce vezi este asa cum arata steaua respectiva 1000 de ani in urma. Cu alte cuvinte, vezi trecutul ei. Pentru steaua asa cum o vezi tu, acest moment este viitorul.

Imagineaza-ti ca ai un telescop atat de puternic, incat poti sa faci zoom pana cand vezi un extraterestru pe o planeta in jurul stelei respective, uitandu-se printr-un telescop spre Pamant. Ceea ce vedea el era pamantul de acum 1000 de ani.
Impreuna, ne uitam unii la altii, insa suntem in ere diferite.
Dar si pentru tine si pentru el, totul se intampla ‘acum’.

Tu esti viitorul pentru tot ce straluceste pe bolta cereasca.
Asa ca ai grija, don’t fuck it up …

Sursele pentru LiberTV Player sunt acum publice, sub licenta OpenSource !

Am vrut sa facem acest pas de mult timp, insa consideram ca sursele inca nu erau gata pentru a fi publice.

Nu stiu daca exista multe proiecte OpenSource in Romania, dar speram ca facand acest pas ii vom incuraja si pe altii sa se deschida comunitatii.
Detalii si cod sursa:

http://code.google.com/p/libertv/

Aceasta versiune nu se mai intretine (decat fixare de eventuale bug-uri), deoarece lucram la LiberTV 2.0, care va fi cross-platform, sursele caruia vor fi publicate in curand (imediat ce avem o versiune stabila).

Daca vrei sa contribui la dezvoltare, scrie-ne un mail la office at libertv punct ro si welcome to the team !

Codul sursa poate fi descarcat cu SVN:

svn checkout http://libertv.googlecode.com/svn/trunk/

PC Labs - Editia 1
Deoarece noi, la LiberTV suntem si Ghici (geeks la plural, spus romaneste), am vrut neaparat sa producem o emisiune despre PC-uri, gadget-uri si alte minuni electronice.

Eu consider ca toate cip-urile, placile electronice tot mai mici si mai avansate sunt facute de extraterestri, care au un plan foarte concret in legatura cu aducerea umanitatii la nivelul lor de dezvoltare (extraterestru), ca apoi sa ne spuna marele secret - altfel noi nu l-am putea intelege.

Cum procedeaza ? Noaptea, cand un inginer japonez se culca, ii soptesc subliminal ideea unui gadget, prin care oamenii se pot juca si pot face sport in acelasi timp (evident, de la distanta 700,000 de ani lumina printr-un wormwhole). Extraterestrii au nevoie de o civilizatie sanatoasa la trup, pentru o minte cat mai sanatoasa, pe care sa o poata controla cat mai bine. Bineinteles, spre binele civilizatiei controlate.

Asa a aparut Nintendo Wii, care este prezentat in acest episod al emisiunii PC Labs.

Dupa ce am vazut primul episod, mi-am promis ca-mi voi lua un Wii pentru a face sport cu el… Insa apare si o alta voce, undeva acolo in cap — daca nu vreau sa fac sport, pot sa nu-mi iau Wii. Din comoditate sau, inca nu mi-am luat Wii, dar vreau sa o fac.

Portrete din cioburi
“Mi-am luat inima-n dinti si am iesit pe strada.”

Toti au probleme. Si eu iti garantez, ca problemele mele sunt mai importante si mai grave decat problemele tale. De multe ori, oamenii cara problemele in spate, intr-un rucsac invizibil, pe care-l au gata pregatit pentru a fi desfacut in fata omului care vrea sa asculte despre probleme. Evident, nimanui nu-i place sa asculte problemele altora, insa o facem oricum - poate astfel vom vedea ca problemele noastre nu sunt chiar atat de mari, comparativ cu problemele altora. Stirile de pe TV sunt un bun exemplu.

Personajele din aceasta emisiune au probleme serioase - fara casa, viata in grota, fara speranta. O perioada consideram ca fiecare este 100% responsabil pentru ceea ce este acum in viata lui. De la o vreme, insa, am realizat ca, desi teoretic este corect, practic lucrurile sunt mult mai complexe - societatea, statutul, banii, inteligenta, relatiile - toate se intrepatrund pentru a-ti crea ceea ce este acum in viata ta.

Si daca stai sa te gandesti - cate din problemele tale exista in lumea reala si cate exista doar in capul tau ? Ei, dar asta e alta discutie. Iti recomand sa vezi emisiunea si sa comentezi pe blog.

Pachetul
Un personaj din “Pachetul”, spune ca nimeni n-a facut nici un banc despre pachetul studentesc trimis de la Chisinau la Bucuresti. Ok, hai sa inventam unul.

In vama:
- Buna seara, controlul vamal. Ce aveti in bagaj ?
- Un pachet pentru feciorasul meu … student.
- Ian sa vedem.. Cam mititel pachetelul… Vad aici pulpe de lebada.. Aha … si icre de Guamudu si, desigur, zguscionka … Da unde-i carnea de berbec ?
- Care carne de berbec ?
- Cum care ? Pai matale te duci la feciorul student cu trei bucatele in cruce si crezi ca ai scapat ? Matale stii cum e sa fii student muritor de foame ? Stii cum e sa n-ai bani de bere dimineata ? A ? Asta e bataie de joc ! N-aveti voie sa treceti cu un astfel de micro-pachet. Duceti-va inapoi, umpleti-l cu bunataturi, minim 200 kile, apoi veniti inapoi sa verificam.. Of.. ce s-ar face studentii nostri fara vamesi ?…

Iaca asa. Daca nu ai inteles - vezi filmul, a luat si premii.

M-am apucat din nou de pieptanat blog-ul desi de data aceasta cu un pic alta motivatie. Dar despre motivatii alta data.

Post-ul se intituleşte “cît de n00b” pentru că am realizat cu stupoare că noi chiar avem cititori pe acest blog si mai mult de atît avem comentatori. Iar comentatorii au tot comentat sperînd că e cineva acolo care citeşte comentariile lor şi chiar le moderează. Cînd am dat prima oară drumu acestui blog am uitat să debifez “moderate comments” iar domnu wordpress mi-a “held for moderation” circa 800 de comentarii. Am stat azi de le-am citit pe toate. Majoritatea despre “teens, viagra and amateur” iar restu doar despre “roz, libertv e extraordinar, evotv”. Pe cele relevante le-am şi moderat. Tot ce rămîne de spus este că:

De azi nu vor mai fi moderate comentariile deci apasati cu incredere Submit!
In alta ordine de idei - conform noilor directii de dezvoltare LiberTV blogul este numarul 2 (sau 1. inca nu am decis) in lista de “user chipintaci”. Ase ca vom scrie mai des aci.

Cu drag, Octavian

I was tasked with implementing a tracking system for the embeded flash player, the one on the new main LiberTV page (switch to advanced view to see it). The flash player also shows up on the episode details page where you can get some html code to embed it, with the current video, in your own website. Right, so what I had to do is monitor which sites embed our player and which movies’ previews are viewed.

First of all I made a nice little script which redirects to the preview FLV of a given episode. Skipping the initialization code, it boils down to these two lines:

$preview_url = $form->db->select_value('episode',

array('id_episode'=>$id_episode), 'episode_preview');

redirect($preview_url);

Immediately there was a problem, Flash did not want to load the url. I opened up a linux shell did a wget on the php script, followed by a wget on the destination flv file’s url and saw that the content type of the flash video was sent after the redirect had taken place. Well duh! I should have expected that. I added the video/x-flv content type to the php script and it started working nicely.

I also needed to track the domain on which the flash player was posted, which proved a bit tricky. I tried a few methods before I managed to get it right.

First, I attempted to read the browser location through actionscript. I tried the _root.url variable but it pointed to the URL of the flash file (our own server) so that was a dead end. Then I figured I would load it from Javascript. So I tried to getURL(”javascript: return window.location.href”), but a closer look at the getURL function’s documentation showed that it didn’t return anything.

That was fine, I could of course use Javascript and call the SetVariable method on the flash DOM object to pass the variable to it. It went something like getURL(”javascript: document.LTVFlvObject.SetVariable(’location’, window.location.href)”). The locationURL variable was then passed to the FLV redirect script when the movie was loaded. I tested this out on our web page and it worked fine. I then tested it on a remote site and found that the php script was receiving ‘undefined’ for the location parameter. Clearly, there was a security problem, the flash object (hosted on our site) couldn’t execute the javascript code when embeded in a remote site. Well that should have been fairly obvious after all. I could make the flash object read all the user’s cookies and send them to me through a script, thus stealing all of his accounts information. I could also have directed him to a fake login page to steal his passwords without him knowing. Luckily this didn’t work or we’d all be in a world of trouble.
Finally, I figured I could apply another little trick. I made another php script which got the referer URL from the headers (this is sent by browsers) and redirected to the flash file (flv_play.swf) with the URL as a parameter:

$referer = urlencode($_SERVER['HTTP_REFERER']);

header("Location: flv_play.swf?locationURL=$referer“);

Thus the flash player got the website’s location on which it was embeded and passed it to the FLV redirect script to our statistics controller. Success!

Acum sunt la baclon, conectat la una dintre retelele wireless disponibile in zona, gratuit. Pana acum nu aveam un laptop, acum insa incep sa observ cat de tare este sa te trezesti dimineta, iesi la balcon cu cafeaua, raspunzi la e-mail si te uiti la ultimile stiri cu LiberTV. Totul wireless. Downloadul merge cu 1Mbyte/secunda (intotdeauna trebuie sa scriu MByte si nu MB, deoarece simt ca unii ar intelege 1Mbit in loc de megabyte, dar asta e alta discutie). O vrabiutza tocmai a devenit curioasa si a studiat ceea ce fac eu acum.

Noi, la LiberTV avem planuri mari - ne-am propus ca in cel mai scurt timp, toate show-urile TV din lume sa fie disponibile pe LiberTV. Suna grandios, stiu, insa pana la sfarsitul acestei saptamani vrem sa avem TOP 100 TV Shows disponibile.

De ce? Pentru ca LiberTV Player poate face asta !

Noi nu hostam nici un bit de continut ilegal - totul este la 3 hop-uri distanta de serverele noastre (ceea ce inseamna ca practic noi publicam un link (RSS Feed), care contine un set de link-uri catre niste meta-fisiere (torrente), care la randul lor pointeaza catre bucati de date stocate pe sute de computere din toata lumea.
Practic, LiberTV aduna continutul din toata lumea, iar utilizatorii au acces la show-uri TV High Definition (chiar pe bune - HD 720p).

In curand vom face acelasi lucru si cu filmele - abia acum vei vedea de ce este in stare LiberTV !
Revolutia Internet TV se intampla acum, asa ca join the club !

Eu voi ramane sa-mi termin cafeaua la balcon si sa raspund la e-mailuri, poate mai fumez o tigara.

Uite cam facut-o! Lansarea noastra de la Cluj a fost exact cum ne-am propus. Peste 300 de oameni au fost prezenti pe terasa muzeu din centrul Clujului. Baietii de la Fara Zahar au cantat in deschidere, lumea s-a incalzit si s-a simtit extraordinar. Dupa care eu (Florin) am facut prezentarea noii versiuni a LiberTV Player, am vorbit despre
posibilitatile care se deschid in noua lume media si am provocat producatorii independenti la creatie. Spre sfarsitul prezentarii de 45 de minute, John Reiley, de la GetLoaded.ro a vorbit despre cum au reusit ei sa deschida webchannel-ul, cum este sa produci emisiuni pentru Internet si care sunt pasii urmatori in lumea Internet
Entertainment. In incheiere, Alexandrina a facut un concert extraordinar, care a tinut publicul incantat pana la 23:00, cand s-a terminat evenimentul.

Totul a fost intretesut cu proiectii de productii Internet TV in limba romana.
In curand va apare si filmul lansarii pe LiberTV, deci fiti pe faza.

Salut,

Sunt bucuros sa te anunt ca am lansat LiberTV versiunea 1.2 !
Aceasta versiune este rezultatul muncii intense a intregii noastre echipe, carora le multumesc din suflet pentru pasiunea si dedicatia de care dau dovada.

Versiunea aduce multiple imbunatatiri la interfata, suport pentru multe formate video cat si o functionalitate noua, numita Subscriptions.

Subscriptions
Acum poti sa te ‘abonezi’ (gratuit, evident) atat la toate canalele disponibile pe LiberTV, cat si la sute de canale de Internet TV. Astfel LiberTV poate descarca automat toate episoadele noi care apar in emisiunea sau sectiunea ta preferata.

De fapt, ai atat de mult continut, incat nu te mai poti dezlipi de monitor!
De la emisiuni despre computere si tehnologie, la yoga, bucatarie, comedie sau masini, totul este disponibil cu un singur click! In cifre - zeci de mii de emisiuni la calitate superioara.
Compara asta cu 30 de canale pe care le ai pe TV…

De exemplu, sambata am stat ore in sir, salivand abundent la prezentarile celor mai tari masini pe VOD Cars si CARPIX TV. Si acum stau pe ganduri - sa-mi iau Lamborghini Murcielago sau Ford GT, asta desigur dupa ce ma invat sa economisesc mai bine conform recomandarilor zilnice venite de pe Money Talks News. Pana adun banii, cred ca voi juca unul dintre jocurile despre masini prezentate de X-PlayG4 TV, desigur dupa ce vad ultimile chestii de pe Comedy Central MotherLoad si National Geographic Wild Chronicles. Si Wall Strip. Si Diggnation.
Ah da si Rich Pretty Girl. Si multe altele.

Pe langa Subscriptions, am lucrat la compatibilitate, consumul de resurse, suportul pentru mai multe ghiduri de canale, subtitrari si altele.

Daca inca nu ai facut-o, te invit sa descarci LiberTV 1.2 si sa ne ajuti sa cream viitorul impreuna!

Numai bine,
Florin Braghis
Fondator & CEO
LiberTV Media

Incepand cu aceasta saptamana, vom trimite, saptamanal un newsletter cu toate noutatile aparute pe LiberTV si cu recomandarile mele in legatura cu emisiunile, documentarele sau filmele care NU trebuie sa le pierzi pe LiberTV.
The Rise And Fall Of The Russian Oligarchs
Cuvantul ‘Oligarh’ se aude tot mai des in Romania. Insa te-ai intrebat vreodata ce anume inseamna Oligarh ?
Cum au reusit unii sa se imbogateasca intr-o perioada in care tara era la limita saraciei ? De unde au izvorat averile si de ce ? Daca vrei sa afli, trebuie sa vezi acest film. Eu l-am urmarit cu sufletul la gura. Documentarul prezinta oligarhia ruseasca ca un pas necesar si inevitabil in perioada de tranzitie si este o buna incursiune in istoria post-sovietica a Rusiei.

A Crude Awakening
Cum e cu petrolul? In afara de incalzirea globala, poluare si razboaie… cat lichid intunecat a mai ramas sub pamant?
Si daca se termina - avem energie solara, nucleara, hidrogen, biodiesel … sau nu ?
O trezire la realitate. Eu personal o sa-mi iau bicicleta .

Alexandrina Hristov - La femme qui t’ame
M-a induiosat si incantant. Filmari de la expozitia Alexandrinei.

Murray’s Magic Moments 1997
Pentru pasionatii de Formula 1, momentele cele mai interesante, relatate de celebrul Murray Walker. Eu sunt un fan moderat de F1, insa acest documentar m-a tinut cu sufletul la gura, deoarece aici sunt cele mai interesante momente (depasiri, accidente, lupte) din istoria F1 din anii 80-90.

Cocaine Cowboys
Orasul Miami, anii ‘70. Daca scoteai din buzunar o bancnota de 20 de dolari si te uitai atent, puteai vedea ca are urme de cocaina pe ea. Atat de mare era fenomenul consumului de cocaina in Miami. Toti prizau, avocati, doctori, judecatori si politisti. Iar unde e consum, exista trafic, iar unde e trafic, sunt bani. Banii din droguri au creat, practic, orasul Miami pe care-l cunoastem astazi. Evident, unde sunt bani din droguri, exista si arme pentru recuperarea lor. El Madrina, sau regina cocainei, a transformat orasul intr-un centru al omorurilor si rafuielilor, fapt care a dus in final la prabusirea Paradisului.