Posts Tagged “family”
A Canadian who was deported to Syria by the US government for a hellish, 10.5 month torture ordeal will not get justice in the USA.
Maher Arar is a Syrian-born Canadian and father who was arrested while passing through the US on his way home to Canada. The Canadian government provided US authorities with bad intelligence suggesting Arar had ties to Al Qaeda. Arar was deported to Syria where he was held in a 3′x6′x7′ cell for 10 and a half months, during which time he was brutally tortured.
The Canadian government investigated Arar’s case, concluded that he was not a terrorist, had no ties to terrorists, and had been unjustly detained and tortured, and paid him $10.5 million.
Arar has tried to clear his name in the US — he is still considered a terrorist there, as is his family — but no court has heard his case, because the US government (including the Obama administration) claims that allowing the case to be heard would compromise national security. The Supreme Court has now refused to hear Arar’s case.
Upon his release, Arar sued Bush’s Justice Department, but his lawsuit was rejected by a succession of U.S. courts, in part out of deference to the executive branch’s claim that national security would be harmed by allowing a federal judge to review the relevant evidence. That’s a common legal maneuver that was used frequently by the Bush administration, and which Obama pledged to use less often. So far, those promises have been proven to be empty…
Arar and his family remain on a U.S. watch list, and the United States has never officially apologized or admitted it made a mistake.
Instead, Obama’s Justice Department told the Supreme Court that Arar’s case remained too secret for justice, and that the U.S. law offers no recourse for him.
Supreme Court Rejects Case of Tortured Canadian
(Image: Maherarar.ca/Bill Grimshaw)
  
Tags: family, government
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Fox’s Glee sounds like a fun bit of TV, and it’s true to life in that it features lots of scenes in which people who care passionately about art end up copying the works they’re inspired by, and share their copies. But what does it mean for Rupert Murdoch’s Fox to bring us all these positive messages about remixing the culture around us as a natural part of life and creativity, even as Rupert and his family are travelling the globe, calling every act of copying theft, declaring that fair use is illegal and will be eliminated, and that every use of work, no matter how trivial, must be compensated?
Christina Mulligan, a visiting fellow of the Information Society Project at Yale Law School, guest-posts on the Balkinization blog:
In one recent episode, the AV Club helps cheerleading coach Sue Sylvester film a near-exact copy of Madonna’s Vogue music video (the real-life fine for copying Madonna’s original? up to $150,000). Just a few episodes later, a video of Sue dancing to Olivia Newton-John’s 1981 hit Physical is posted online (damages for recording the entirety of Physical on Sue’s camcorder: up to $300,000). And let’s not forget the glee club’s many mash-ups — songs created by mixing together two other musical pieces. Each mash-up is a “preparation of a derivative work” of the original two songs’ compositions – an action for which there is no compulsory license available, meaning (in plain English) that if the Glee kids were a real group of teenagers, they could not feasibly ask for — or hope to get — the copyright permissions they would need to make their songs, and their actions, legal under copyright law. Punishment for making each mash-up? Up to another $150,000 — times two.
The absence of any mention of copyright law in Glee illustrates a painful tension in American culture. While copyright holders assert that copyright violators are “stealing” their “property,” people everywhere are remixing and recreating artistic works for the very same reasons the Glee kids do — to learn about themselves, to become better musicians, to build relationships with friends, and to pay homage to the artists who came before them. Glee’s protagonists — and the writers who created them — see so little wrong with this behavior that the word ‘copyright’ is never even uttered.
You might be tempted to assume that this tension isn’t a big deal because copyright holders won’t go after creative kids or amateurs. But they do: In the 1990s, the American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers (ASCAP) asked members of the American Camping Association, including Girl Scout troops,to pay royalties for singing copyrighted songs at camp. In 2004, the Beatles’ copyright holders tried to prevent the release of The Grey Album – a mash-up of Jay-Z’s Black Album and the Beatles’ White Album — and only gave up after massive civil disobedience resulted in the album’s widespread distribution. Copyright holders even routinely demand that YouTube remove videos of kids dancing to popular music. While few copyright cases go to trial, copyright holders like the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) don’t hesitate to seek stratospheric damage awards when they do, as in the Jammie Thomas-Rasset filesharing case.
Copyright: The Elephant in the Middle of the Glee Club
(Thanks, Mike!)
  
Tags: family, travel
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This lovely five-bedroom home at 108 Ocean Avenue in Amityville, New York is now for sale for $1.15 million. Who cares? Well, 108 Ocean Avenue used to be 112 Ocean Avenue, where Ronald DeFeo Jr. killed his family in 1974 and, several years later, the Lutz family were traumatized by things that go bump in the night. The original Amityville Horror address, and spooky windows, were changed by previous owners to keep away creep-seekers. The real estate listing refers to it as a “legendary home” but does not mention flies, blood streaming from the walls, or a demon pig named Jodie. From Newsday:
James Cromarty, 77, bought the house in 1977. By that point, a bank had foreclosed on the house from the Lutzes, who have since died. DeFeo is at the upstate Green Haven Correctional Facility, serving 25 years to life for the murders.
“Nothing weird ever happened, except for people coming by because of the book and the movie,” said Cromarty, who lived a decade in the house.
He and his wife, Barbara, sold the house in 1987 to Peter and Jeanne O’Neill. Reached Monday, Jeanne O’Neill said, “I loved it. It was a beautiful home.” They sold the house in 1997 for $310,000 to the current owner, which records identify as Brian Wilson.
“It’s one of the more beautifully redone houses in the neighborhood,” said listing agent Laura Zambratto of Daniel Gale Sotheby’s International Realty.
‘Amityville Horror’ house back on market, for $1.15M (Newsday)
The Amityville Files
  
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 Digital media isn’t as young as it once was, and your media collection has likely grown well beyond what most portable devices can handle. With the right tools, you can stream anything from your spacious hard drive to any device.
Photo by Desirée Delgado.
If your media library has gotten too big for its britches and no longer fits on your portable device, it’s time to explore options beyond physically syncing your media to your device’s hard drive. You’ve got loads of ways to remotely stream your stuff to your gadgets, wherever you are. Naturally, for most remote-streaming activities you’ll need to either keep media library connected to the internet by either keeping your computer on when you’re away or hook it up to a freestanding NAS media server. Finding the right service for your gear can be hard, but we’ve got the lowdown on which ones to use depending on where you plan to stream it from.
Stream from Your Home Computer to Another Computer
Dead-Simple Media Streaming: Opera Unite: For simplicity’s sake, Opera Unite, a feature of the Opera browser, is probably our favorite tool for streaming media to any computer over the internet. While we’ve covered how to share large files via Opera Unite, the ability to stream audio and video inline with its simple, uncluttered interface make it easy to set up and use. Using the Stream application within Opera Unite, you can also share it to family and friends by providing them with a simple URL. There’s an option to leave your library public, or to keep it password protected. Unfortunately, there’s no ability to build playlists with the browser, but it won’t confuse your non-techie family and friends. Opera Unite is available through the Opera browser for both Windows, Mac OS X, and Linux.
Advanced Music Streaming: Subsonic: If you’re looking for more advanced features for your music streaming, the free open-source browser-based Subsonic remains a good alternative to Opera Unite. You won’t get that same kid-friendly interface here, but what you’re missing there you will make up in features. Subsonic was designed to browse large libraries consisting of hundred gigabytes. You can search for tracks by tag, assign ratings, add comments, create playlists and much more. There’s also a friendlier-to-use, cross-platform Adobe AIR desktop program for Subsonic called SubAir if the web browser isn’t quite your style. If you want to stream music to another device, it’s well worth it to use it as your go-to music streaming service (we’ll look at its device streaming more closely below). Most workplace firewalls will not block Subsonic, unlike popular streaming service Orb. Subsonic supports Mac, Windows and Linux.
An Oldie: Orb: Which brings us to another option: Orb. Personally, we find Orb these days to have a rather clunky and increasingly complicated interface for web-based streaming—making it slow and frustrating to use for even medium-sized libraries—but it does still stream music and video pretty well if you don't like the options above.
 A Windows Media Center Must: Remote Potato: Finally, if you’re a Windows Media Center user (particularly if you use it as your DVR), don’t hesitate to download and install previously mentioned Remote Potato; it streams any recorded show directly to whatever browser you wish.
Stream It to Your Smartphone
Again, you’ve got plenty of options for streaming your home library to other devices. We’ll highlight a few of our favorite choices for streaming to some of the more popular phones on the block.
 iPhones and music: Subsonic: The iPhone app for Subsonic, iSub, allows for iPod-style browsing on your device. It has the ability to resume music when you’re interrupted by a phone call or a text message. You can also browse multilevel directories, and like the Android app, it caches information for speedier browsing. (It doesn’t cache played songs, though.) Developed by a third-party developer, it’s available for $4.99. There’s another iPhone app for Subsonic, called Z-Subsonic, with similar functionality for the same price. Unlike the Android app, neither apps are free.
Keep in mind that after the 30-day trial period for all Subsonic apps, you need a license key which is obtained by donating to the Subsonic project. The license never expires. If you’re looking for a completely free alternative, you’ll want to check out Orb. The speed and effectiveness of Subsonic make it worthwhile though.
 Android phones and music: Subsonic Subsonic is the best option. The Subsonic app in the Android Market supports streaming, downloading, playlists, album art and searching songs. The music that you have listened to is cached onto the phone to improve performance. By creating a new user and preferences in Subsonic, you can provide custom settings for your Android device specifically (or other mobile devices) by downsampling the bitrate. The Subsonic Android app also has an offline mode for when you roam into an area that isn’t supported by 3G or Wi-Fi. The Android app for Subsonic is available for free.
 Stream Video to iPhone: Air Video: When you’re looking to stream video from your home computer to your iPhone, you can’t currently do much better than the previously mentioned Air Video. It’s an awesome app (also available for the iPad) that transcodes any video on your desktop, on the fly, and streams it in an iPhone-friendly format and downsamples the quality as necessary to fit the connection you’re on.
Stream Video to Android: We had trouble finding a great desktop-to-Android video streaming app. Know of one? Share it in the comments!
Stream Music with Other Phones: Despite the fact that we haven't mentioned Orb much at all, it still does something right—WAP browsing (a common protocol used with mobile browsers). There are plenty of other phones besides iPhones and Android devices out there, and they will still rely on a WAP browser. It's fast and easy to navigate, with an intuitive interface. Music streams through Orb effortlessly through 3G or Wi-Fi, but if you're going to be relegated to EDGE, it might not be such a pretty tune. If you're looking for something that you can access anywhere, Orb still might not be the best option. It really depends on the level and availability of the data service your cell phone provider gives you.
Stream Media to Your Game Console
Stream to Your Xbox 360: Your Xbox 360 can stream a lot of media straight from your desktop without the need for any fancy add-on most of the time, but for those pesky file types it doesn’t support, head on back to old, reliable Orb. Orb makes it easy to stream media from your desktop to your 360.
Stream to Your Wii: OrbIf you’ve got a penchant for streaming stuff to your Wii, we’ve already covered how to do that with Orb. The quality of the videos you’re streaming won’t be nearly as high as the source, but it’s better than nothing.
Stream to PS3: PS3 Media Server: The open-source PS3 Media Server transcodes any video to an PS3-friendly format and streams it across your local network to your PS3.
What Do You Use?
We’ve highlighted some of our favorite streaming tools for some of our favorite gadgets, but we’ve far from exhausted the breadth of options out there. Let’s hear what you use to stream media from your desktop computer to your gadgets in the comments.
Tags: family, google, internet, linux, Wii
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 I love messing with settings and geeky file-sharing programs. My spouse doesn’t, but digs Hulu and appreciates free. So I set up a media center that satisfies my geek cravings but is actually easy-to-use for non-nerds. Here’s what I pieced together.
Photo remixed from 96dpi.
The Goal (and Geeky History)
For more than a year now, I've been messing with computers connected to TVs, trying to make it just as easy to watch last night's shows on Hulu as it would be with a DVR. I wanted my wife to be just as enthused about this kind of Living-in-the-Future project, but, until recently, none of what I'd set up could be called actually "easy to use"—unless you happened to write about computers and software tweaks for a living.
 My first attempt, an Apple TV patched to run Boxee, had the advantages of a super-simple Apple remote, sleek-looking hardware, and an always-on setup, but I soon came to see the poor, neglected Apple TV was underpowered for anything more than low-definition streaming, and was far from easy to move files into. I’m unabashed in my admiration for Boxee, the media center software that plays all kinds of streaming web content, and built a cheap, powerful media center around it. But even though the Boxee Beta is much improved, it’s still, well, beta, and still very geeky to get around.
So I set my sights on Windows Media Center, the software built into most versions of Windows Vista and 7, as my new starting point. Windows Media Center (which I’ll dub WMC occasionally here) is free, assuming you’ve got a copy of Windows, and offers a lot of features for both the geeky media nerd and casual viewer, alike:
- Built-in Netflix, easy Hulu: This one’s a biggie. Netflix looks terrific and works just fine. Using a simple plug-in, you can load Hulu Desktop from Media Center’s menu, navigate it with the same remote, and head back to Media Center when you’re done.
- Simple remote setup: Search for “Windows Media Center” or MCE at Newegg.com or any retail store, and you’ll likely find a remote you can use with a little USB dongle that just works once you plug it in. Plus, all the buttons they include on the thing actually work, which makes everybody less frustrated.
- Easy file trading: If all the PCs in your house are running Windows 7, the OS’s HomeGroup networking feature is a very, very nice and simple means of trading files in and out of your Home Theater PC (HTPC). If you’re all using Windows but have some different flavors, it’s still pretty easy, and the Macs in the house can get by, too. In short, nobody has to run FTP software, or learn how to mount network drives from a command line.
- Geeky back doors: Using plug-ins, it’s easy for the nerdiest member of the house to still use media centers like Boxee or XBMC, or stream WMC content to a browser, while keeping the box an on/off machine for everyone else.
How did I make my WMC media center the kind of box that my wife can use to turn on, watch Glee, transfer pictures to for showing friends, then turn off? What follows are my setup tweaks and plug-in recommendations.
The Basics
 From the hardware standpoint, you’re setting up a Home Theater PC, or HTPC. I opted for a small little computer that can still pull off high-resolution, TV-sized graphics, and repurposed my ASRock ION 330 for the job (it’s currently out of stock on Newegg). For a smaller, sleeker option, you could also try the Acer Aspire Revo that Adam used for his Linux/XBMC-based media center, because both it and the ASRock were originally intended to run Windows. If you’ve got a decent laptop or PC that’s sitting around as a spare, that can do, too, but you’ll have to figure out the best cable hook-up from it. Even a big old desktop can do the trick, but it’s likely going to be louder and bigger than you want.
 You’ll also need a USB mouse and keyboard, just for the setup, and a copy of Windows, one with Media Center included. There’s an XP version dubbed Media Center Edition, but at this point, there’s no reason not to upgrade to Vista or 7, both of which include Media Center in their Home Premium and Ultimate editions. If you’re starting with a new system, connect your video-to-TV, load your Windows DVD into the drive, boot up, and follow the installation instructions. Connect your system to the internet, plug in the USB receiver for your remote, and after a minute or two, you’ll be able to use the green Windows button in the center to launch Media Center. I aimed to make it even more simple by heading to the start menu, finding the Windows Media Center link, and dragging it into the Startup folder. This way, if the box is turned off or has to restart, it loads again right into Windows Media Center.
 You won’t have much to look at in your brand-new HTPC, but you should get familiar with how Windows Media Center works from a remote. My remote has buttons that launch instantly to the Video, Pictures, and Music sections, which are far more convenient than having to explain the navigation system to other users. When inside WMC, the green Windows button serves as a kind of Home button, dropping whatever you’re doing and heading back to the main menu. Hitting the power button puts your HTPC to sleep by default, and that’s a pretty low-power, quick-start solution for a box you keep connected to your TV. After about 10 minutes, Windows Media Center and its remote should make good sense. You can simply close down WMC and return to the Windows desktop by hitting the Tasks menu, selecting Shutdown, and choosing Close. Do that, because we’ve got just a bit of tweaking to do.
Getting Your Files on WMC
Now we’re going to start actually tweaking your HTPC. You can do most of this with a mouse and keyboard, but I’d recommend also installing UltraVNC on your HTPC, and setting it to start automatically with Windows, and assign a password to it. That way, you can remotely configure and fix your from any computer in your house, without cluttering up your media center with a keyboard and mouse. (Here’s an old primer for setting up VNC on your machine.)
Either way, head to the Start menu and type in enough of “Network and Sharing Center” to have it appear as an option, then click it.
On the left-hand side of the menu that pops up, you’ll see a link to “Change Advanced Sharing Settings.” Hit it. Under the “Home or Work” menu, you’ll basically want to turn on everything involving sharing, and likely turn off password-protected sharing. Normally, we’d never recommend opening up your box so wide on a network, but since this PC isn’t going to be in a coffee shop at any given time, and assuming your home wireless router is decently secure, this should be fine. For more fine-grain tips on setting up Windows 7 sharing so that it reaches XP users, view these tips and a video from Butterscotch.com.
 Head to the Network and Sharing Center again from the Start menu, and click the Homegroup link in the lower-left. Follow the instructions to create a new homegroup, and look for the option to change the password, because it’s likely to be unwieldy. After that’s done, head to your Start menu and click the Computer link. In the window that pops up, click over on the “Libraries” folder in the left-hand sidebar. Right-click on the libraries you want people in your house to be able to drop files into, like Videos, hover over the “Share With” sub-menu, and choose “Homegroup (Read/Write).” Repeat as necessary with Music, Pictures, and Documents.
From this point on, Windows Vista and 7 systems should have an easy time of finding your HTPC’s shared folders in their left-hand sidebars. If XP systems don’t quite see your shared stuff, you may have to access them manually by entering \\htpc into a file explorer address bar, substituting the name of your HTPC for htpc. Still no luck? If that XP system has a username and password, you can set up the same user/pass on the HTPC, and from the right-click sharing options on a media library, choose "Share with->Specific People."
 If you’ve got a Mac system on the network, we’ve (thankfully) already covered mounting a Windows shared folder on a Mac. Looking to add a printer? The How-To Geek’s home away from Lifehacker has a step-by-step guide to sharing between 7 and XP.
Make Downloaded Files Easier to Read
 If you're an avid user of BitTorrent, Usenet, or other file trading services, you'll probably dig around and figure out how to set up an automated or remote-controlled system for piping hot, fresh television and movies into those shared media folders—the details are a bit too much to tackle here, but we've covered some setups before. With my spouse, at least, the way those files get named and unpacked into WMC's Videos folder isn't all that helpful—crabXviDa1 looks more like a crustacean horror flick than the first half of Crazy Heart (which, *ahem*, must have been ripped from my DVD).
Luckily, one of our commenters has walked us through automated TV renaming on a Windows system. That system uses TVRename to get the job done, but if you grab more films and music from the wild, wild web, MediaRenamer is its counterpart.
Plug in Hulu (and Boxee, and XBMC)
 I originally leaned toward Boxee with my media center because it seemed like the only system that could organize and stream Hulu semi-reliably. It still does a great job queueing and organizing Hulu, but Hulu has since released a big-screen-oriented Desktop player that plugs so nicely into WMC. What’s more, when you click the Hulu entry in the WMC menu, your Media Center remote still works in Hulu Desktop, and when you close it down, WMC pops right back up. The same goes for the Boxee and XBMC integration tools, which extend your access to all the geeky streaming stuff and hardcore media player tools that those apps offer. For a complete rundown of what’s offered in each, try our handy comparison chart.
The Final Geek Touches: Media Browser, Remote Streaming, and TV Recording
For all intents and purposes, your Windows Media Center now does a fine job of starting automatically, offering up file access, and organizing your media in a way that makes sense, along with offering instant television through Hulu. All your non-geek family and friends can likely use it when you’re not there with network diagnostics, and everybody’s pretty happy.
But why stop there, if you can add a little more awesome on the sly? We’ve previously loved these little add-ons for Windows Media Center, and they install without interfering with your standard operation:
- Install a TV tuner for roll-your-own DVR: Adam covered the basics of installing and managing a TV tuner on a Windows PC previously, and the DVR powers of WMC have only grown in Windows 7.
- Remote Potato: Simply put, it streams your Windows Media Center content to a browser with Silverlight installed, and lets you schedule your TV recording from nearly anywhere in the world. It’s awesome.
- Media Browser: The standard view of your files is fine for getting them to play. To actually enjoy the grandiosity of your Ultimate Media Hub, Media Browser re-skins the experience and adds trailers, IMDB info, and more.
That's our idea of a spouse-friendly, quietly awesome Windows Media Center. If you have your own setup you'd like to share, or other add-ons or plug-ins that make yours much better, by all means—tell us about them in the comments.
Tags: family, google, internet, linux, movies
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