I haven’t ripped a CD in a long time, so tonight when I had occasion to, I was at a loss for the right method. I used to rip CDs mostly on a computer that runs Ubuntu, but I no longer have an external optical drive, so I was stuck using my Mac. Here are my (loose) requirements:
No iTunes. I’m sure they’ve improved the ripping and encoding process a lot since I last checked, but I just can’t stand using the software.
The rip has to be pretty secure. Truthfully, I don’t really have a way of verifying this paranoia, but I want to at least see a log that shows possible errors.
Output must be lossless, or at least output the lossless step. I want to rip, and then I want to optionally encode, but I don’t want to have the encoder determined by the ripper. FLAC is acceptable, and a mountable disc image is even better.
Finally, I’d prefer a command line interface. And obviously free software.
I looked at a number of options. I used to use rubyripper, which is super paranoid about ripping and checking, but I had a vague recollection that last time I had some compilation issues. Since it’s not in very active development, I decided to keep looking around.
I tried using abcde, which I’ve used before on Ubuntu, and it worked fine but got inconsistent track names. I’m sure this is something I could debug, but I was eager to try other options.
Finally, I settled on XLD. It’s got its own error-checking system, but can also use cdparanoia. It’s built to be easily extensible on the encoder side, so it can output in most any format now and in the future. It’s got a command-line interface and a very subdued GUI. Most importantly, it handled everything I threw at it, including one fairly scratched disc, with no problems.
I moved a month ago, September 1, to a new corner in San Francisco. In two years here, I’ve lived in the Mission, in Noe Valley, in Bernal Heights, in Pacific Heights, and now in Hayes Valley. The picture above is my corner, as photographed by the Google Street View car in April 2011.
Courtesy of OldSF, here’s a photo of the same corner (same angle!) from 1929:
Look at the stairs, across the street on the left side, and how they match with the current construction. And across the street on the right, the building now obscured by a tree but just the same.
Even more exciting to me, from the same site, is the photo from a year earlier, in 1928:
A horse, right there on the street! And look, on this side of the street, on the left, the building is under construction.
San Francisco’s got a lot of interesting history for a relatively new place. It’s nice to feel like I’m part of it.
Salon has run an interview with Bill McKibben, a longtime journalist and environmental activist. His journalism 25 years ago played a major role in bringing climate change into the public’s attention, and his work with his organization 350.org has moved opposition to the Keystone pipeline to a prominent position.
I found much of the interview to be inspiring, but I thought a metaphor he used in the response to the first question was especially salient:
Everyone believed, 25 years ago — at least I did — that people would see there’s a problem. That if scientists and the rest of us really explained to policy leaders what was going on in the world, then they would take care of the problem. …
…But at a certain point it just began to dawn on us, or many of us, that it wasn’t working. And really the reason it wasn’t working was the incredible power of the fossil fuel industry, based in wealth. They presented an almost insurmountable obstacle, and we certainly were never going to outspend them. So the hunt was on for the other currencies we might work in. The only ones that anyone could think of was currencies of movements: numbers, passion, spirit, creativity, occasionally spending one’s bodies.
From an activist perspective, it’s very interesting to see somebody talk about these tactics as currencies, and to put them in the same strategic collection as things like journalism or research. That’s true for environmentalism, but I think it’s also true for the issues I work on, like copyright reform and privacy.
It’s easy to get into a familiar rhythm that produces measurable successes, but that doesn’t always move you towards real victories. Investing energy in just one “currency” means you won’t be as effective as you can be, and sometimes you won’t be effective at all. The narratives of change in some areas look very different from others.
Even just within the activism space, it’s important to diversify. When it comes to domestic policy, people in DC often push the opinion that DC is the only place where change can happen. But that’s just not true. Change happens when engineers write code, when lawyers file suits, when journalists tell stories, when whistleblowers leak secrets, when people get informed, and in so many different ways. Different efforts require different balances of these currencies.
The group broke into three camps. The participants from Silicon Valley were deeply influenced by how activists in the Arab Spring had used cell phones, text messages, and social media to organize. “They talked about liberation technology, and how that could be used and deployed around this movement and this issue, particularly given how strongly young people feel,” one of Steyer’s aides said. … Podesta, who was skeptical, described them as the “all we need is the killer app” camp.
McKibben represented the second faction, which Podesta described as a “human-rights kind of strategy.” McKibben talked about civil disobedience, of the sort that he and his followers engaged in, and about his latest effort, a campaign modelled on the anti-apartheid divestment movement. He believes that major institutions can be pressured to divest themselves of fossil fuels. He is at work enlisting what he says are huge numbers of young people—his organization has thousands of volunteers—including an extensive network on college campuses.
Podesta and Lehane argued that, to change policy, one had to change the politics. They cited immigration reform and gay marriage, issues on which national politics had changed quickly in the Democrats’ favor. “Right now, there’s no pain in being a weasel on climate change,” Podesta said. “What’s the safest political thing to do? Don’t piss off the fossil-fuel industry, because they’ll come after you if you do. And then the other group is ‘Say the right thing, but don’t do much.’ ” Republicans have been able to claim that the science is unclear and that there hasn’t been appreciable warming in the past ten years and not “pay any price for it.” Podesta and Lehane urged Steyer to spend his money on electoral politics, to force politicians to pay a price.
The protests against SOPA were historic and exciting, and for a year after — it’s slowed down now — people were asking how to get that kind of action behind their own cause. The answer I gave was that you just can’t generate that at random; a lot of different things have to come together. But a better answer might have been: the narrative of SOPA won’t, and basically can’t, be the one that works for you. An effective strategy of change requires a diversity of tactics.
San Francisco’s Civic Center Plaza, between City Hall and the Main Library, is a beautiful public space with a bunch of flag poles. In addition to a handful in the corners of the plaza, there are two rows of nine of them along the central walkway, each flying a different flag.
Many of those flags are unusual, and I’m surprised not to find a catalogue of them anywhere. Here’s what I could find about the flags there, starting from the southwestern corner (closest to City Hall) and continuing around counterclockwise. It’s a bit hard to see the field of the flags, so some of these might be slightly incorrect.
Southern row, west to east:
On the southwestern corner is, I think, the first official US flag with stars, and has 13 stars and stripes. This one was flown from 1777 to 1795, and replaced by the Star-Spangled Banner, or the Great Garrison Flag, which had 15 stars and, uniquely, 15 stripes. That flag flew during the War of 1812 and was the one about which Francis Scott Key wrote his famous poem.
The Pine Tree Flag, also known as the Appeal to Heaven Flag, shows a pine tree with that caption above. The phrase “An Appeal to Heaven” was popularized by Locke. This flag was used largely during the Revolutionary War, and also by the Massachusetts Navy (and privateers hired to assist them).
Another American Flag with a small number of stars. I think this one is the short-lived 20-star flag, which flew from 1818-1819.
Up next we’ve got the Flag of Texas. I don’t know why that would be flying in this set, but it looks unambiguously like that: the left quadrant is a blue field with a single white star, and the rest of the flag is a white stripe over a red one. Maybe it has something to do with the next one, which is:
The original California Bear Flag, which is much simpler than the modern version. Both, however, include a bear and a star, and that star comes from an earlier flag called the California Lone Star Flag, flown during a failed rebellion in 1836. The name and star are said to be inspired by Texas, so maybe that’s why that state got included.
The next one’s an American flag, and to my eye it looks like the 36-star version that flew again for only a few years between 1865 and 1867, or between the inclusion of Nevada and Nebraska into the country. Weird flag choices, guys.
Another US flag, which looks to me like the 48-star version that was flown from 1912 to 1959. Until July 4, 2008, this was the longest-used version of the flag in history.
The last flag on the southern row is the current American Flag, with 50 stars and 13 stripes.
Northern row, east to west:
On the northeast corner is a flag with a British Union cross in the canton and a red field with the word “Liberty” in white. This one’s kind of a mystery to me. It’s probably just a slight variation on the Taunton Flag, which was a Revolutionary flag first raised in Taunton, Massachusetts, but I can’t find any evidence of a version that doesn’t have the full “Liberty and Union” text. Both flags are modified from the Red Ensign, the flag that was flown by civilian merchant ships.
The next one in from there is a historical Flag of New England, which is likely another one that flew during the Revolutionary War. It’s got a green pine tree in a white field on the upper-left corner, and is otherwise red. The flag seen in John Trumbull’s famous Bunker Hill painting appears to have a version of this flag right in the middle.
The next one’s a variant of the Pine Tree Flag, this one with the words “Liberty Tree” at the top and “An Appeal to God” at the bottom. It was used during the Revolutionary War, and I couldn’t readily find information about why the other version seems a bit more common.
The Moultrie Flag features the word “Liberty” in a white crescent on the corner of a blue flag. It’s another Revolutionary War flag, but has since become associated with South Carolina, and serves as the basis for that state’s flag.
The next one’s a classic, the Gadsden Flag, with the rattlesnake saying “Don’t Tread On Me.” Of course today this flag may be best known as a symbol of the Tea Party, which is kind of a funny association to have out in front of San Francisco’s City Hall.
The next flag is a modern Flag of California. The bear on this flag was modeled after an actual bear named Monarch that, after its death in 1911, was stuffed and is still on display in the Academy of Sciences in Golden Gate Park.
The Grand Union Flag, also known as the Continental Colors, is usually considered the first official flag of the United States. It’s got the British Union cross up in the left corner, which is slightly different from today’s version in that it doesn’t have the red on the diagonal. That’s from Ireland’s St. Patrick’s Cross, which wasn’t incorporated until 1800.
The next flag is the Betsy Ross Flag, with the 13 stars arranged in a circle. There are all kinds of fun legends about the extent of Betsy Ross’ actual involvement in the design and manufacture of this flag, but in any case it’s still one of the more recognizable symbols of the Revolutionary War, but apparently there’s not enough evidence to determine whether it was any more popular than other flags with 13 stars that were available at the time.
Finally, the Bennington Flag, which features 13 7-pointed stars and a big “76” in the middle of the blue field. There’s a legend that the original Bennington flag was carried off the battlefield by Nathaniel Fillmore, and handed down through his family into the eventual possession of President Millard Fillmore, after whom the street in San Francisco is named. But that story falls pretty firmly into the category of legend, as historians aren’t generally convinced that this flag flew at the Battle of Bennington at all.
Over on the EFF “Deeplinks” blog, I’ve just published my 100th post, an intro to the cryptographic property of perfect forward secrecy. One hundred strikes me as a nice big round number, averaging a little more than one a week since I started in November 2011. Here are some of my favorite posts of the first 100.
Dear Hollywood: An Open Letter to the Hardworking Men and Women in the Entertainment Industries – In the wake of SOPA (and the petty response from the top lobbyists that failed to get it passed), this letter speaks to the actual people that those lobbying groups purports to represent. I got a number of responses from people who work in the film industry, including an email from a director whose work I really admire, and it was generally pretty fun to write this.
Google Abandons Open Standards for Instant Messaging – As Google is switching from Talk to Hangouts as its instant message platform, it’s also dropping support for federated XMPP connections. That’s a pretty technical issue, so I wanted to make sure that I communicated it in a way that expressed the significance of the issue to people who aren’t familiar with all the specifics. I got a lot of feedback while drafting, and I’m proud of the way this turned out.
Why Isn’t Gatsby in the Public Domain? – This was maybe my favorite to actually write, as I got the idea one evening and whipped through it the next morning in a generally really enjoyable situation. Every piece we post on Deeplinks has had at least two sets of eyes, but the person I worked for to edit this one is my favorite.
Critical Fixes for the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act – For weeks after Aaron Swartz’s death, EFF attorneys worked with other prominent legal experts and even got feedback from Congressional staffers on how to improve the statutory language in the CFAA. But after a few weeks, there was still no generally readable summary of the changes that need to be made. This was my intro-to-CFAA-reform document in the form of a call to action. I was paid the highest possible compliment on this one: copies were printed out and left on every seat at Aaron’s DC memorial service.
Mobile User Privacy Bill of Rights – These are some basic rights that any phone user deserves, but that carriers, app developers, and even OS makers have at times undermined. Most can be addressed by the app developers, though, which is why this is targeted at them in addition to us users ourselves. When the California AG released its guidelines for mobile privacy, it tracked this list of rights pretty closely.
Congress Shouldn’t Debate Copyright in a Reality-Free Zone – Many of the facts that should inform the copyright debate are as undisputed as they could possibly be, but Congress refuses to engage in an evidence-based debate. There’s a lot of political pressure on them not to, in fact. But really, copyright is fundamentally an economic policy, and its stated goal can be measured and achieved. We’ll get real, meaningful reform when Congress stops debating copyright in a reality-free zone.
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