I’ve released a new version of this personal accounting software. Reintroducing…

It’s user-friendly, web-based, fast (AJAX), and free to download. Here’s how it works…

First you browse to the homepage and upload your bank account’s transaction CSV… Subaccounting will try to figure out the CSV columns itself

Then you browse into the bank account…

And here you make subaccounts and subtransactions within that account. A subaccount is a way of breaking up a bank account into areas for your savings, food, clothes, rent, etc. Each subaccount has it’s own balance so you can see whether you’ve spent too much on food.

Here’s how you add a new subaccount…

Type the name…

And then you add what’s called a subtransaction. A subtransaction is simply moving money between subaccounts (Eg, from savings to health).

So basically you describe your bank transactions by using subtransactions. In the following screenshot a purchase at Sweet Momma’s Kitchen comes out of the food subaccount, so we make a subtransaction for that amount.

Notice how in the following screenshot the red ‘equals’ sign went away because we resolved this transaction.

You can then browse to the food subaccount and see how you’re doing… not good it seems.

Important bits

• It supports backups and restorations via an XML export. Back up your data regularly.
• It only officially handles Kiwibank transactions although other banks will probably work. Use the CSV export and Subaccounting will try and determine the columns itself.
• It has no built-in security so be sure to secure the webserver directory yourself
• It’s released under the GPLv3.

Download Subaccounting 2.0 [October 2010].

In late June the Creative Freedom Foundation spoke at Youth Parliament on the topic of “Inquiry into whether copyright infringement is hurting New Zealand music; how can artists use new media to get their music sold rather than stolen”. Two government spokespeople from the Ministry of Economic Development and the Ministry of Culture and Heritage as well as CFF’s Bronwyn Holloway-Smith were questioned in person on the topic.

After careful deliberation the youth commerce select committee came back with a report that made the following recommendations [PDF]:

“The Commerce Committee makes the following recommendations to the Government:

• that it acknowledge that further legislation is unlikely to be effective in preventing the dissemination of music through the internet and other forms of new media
• that it seek, instead, to encourage the music industry to develop new business models to balance the interests of artists with those of consumers
• that it contribute to increasing public education about the risks inherent in peer-to-peer file sharing, and the benefits to be gained for both artists and consumers from respecting copyright and accessing music legitimately
• that it investigate measures to make it easier for artists to enforce their rights, at a lower cost that is more proportionate to the level of harm suffered.”

Good on youth parliament for taking a realistic approach to the issue of copyright online. Copyright has moved from regulating an industrial manufacturing process that made wax cylinder music, vinyl records, plastic compact disks, to trying to affect what people do in their homes.

It’s great to see that the youth parliamentarians considered the issue in depth, covering public’s interest in cultural works, how to support artistic livlihoods, business models, and the economics of copying.

Download the report [PDF].

Last Thursday CFF Director Bronwyn Holloway-Smith spoke with the Commerce Select Committee about their s92A submission and gave the following speech. After the talk she spoke with bFM about the process.

COMMERCE SELECT COMMITTEE SPEECH

My name is Bronwyn Holloway-Smith, I’m the director of the Creative Freedom Foundation – a non-profit organisation that represents over 20,000 New Zealanders including 10,000 artists, such as musicians, film makers, visual artists, and so on. I’m also a copyright holder – I’m a visual artist and have completed several major art commissions, and I’m a musician and have released an album. I’m accompanied by CFF co-founder Matthew Holloway, who’s a graphic designer and technologist.

WHERE WE CAME FROM

The predecessor to this bill – the former Section 92A – didn’t have the basic essentials of judging online copyright disputes – that is, it didn’t have independent experts in copyright law or data-forensics judging accusations. ISPs weren’t qualified, and independent mediation was prohibitively expensive. In practice risk-averse ISPs may not judge based on copyright, but may simply decide who is the bigger threat: their customer , or the accuser. By bypassing the Courts and due process in favour of a free market of risk-averse ISPs the result of section 92A became clear: Guilt Upon Accusation, not in the letter of the law but in the practice of it. Every single political party had press releases against the law. It was labelled draconian, and indeed it was.

While campaigning against section 92A we also worked constructively by suggesting alternatives. We consulted widely among artists and the public and talked to many parliamentarians. Even before the former section 92A was thrown out we had detailed suggestions drafted by lawyers for a fairer replacement revolving around the idea of the Copyright Tribunal. We’re moderates, trying to satisfy both the public and artists alike, and we’re glad the proposed bill establishes such a Copyright Tribunal with fines as it’s primary sanction. There are however some details that need changing to ensure that this bill benefits both artists and the public.

Internet suspension needs to go. In future years the internet will continue to become more pervasive and internet suspension will be seen as increasingly unfair, and comparable to cutting off someone’s electricity, phone or postal service. To avoid revisiting a law that will be outdated in the near future it makes sense to look ahead and to exclude suspension. While this penalty has been implemented overseas, a recent study from the University of Rennes found that instead of reducing piracy levels, the introduction of the French internet disconnection “Hadopi” law actually saw the piracy rate in France go up by 3%.

So why did this occur and what can we learn from this?

WHY WE’RE HERE

This new bill has emerged because of concerns of lost sales due to illegal file sharing and its effects on New Zealand artists and industries. It’s fair to say that if no one thought they were losing money we probably wouldn’t be here today. What this means is that we’re not here to defend some abstract copying right for the mere sake of it. We’re here discussing the public’s interest in cultural works, how to support artistic livlihoods, business models, and the economics of copying.

It’s tempting to take a simplistic view of copyright as a property right, as if it were a physical object, and then to derive rewards and punishments accordingly. But copyright doesn’t fit so comfortably into this category, and treating copyright as a property right won’t solve the problem that brought us here today.

Copyrighted works are not simply items of property, but they form our culture. People will always want to access and participate in their culture. In order to do this there must be legal options for accessing cultural works. Again, it would be naïve to view this as an entitlement issue –whereby if the work is not offered for sale then people should simply accept that they’re not entitled to it. People’s appetite for cultural works will always exist, and without addressing the public’s demand for legal options we won’t solve the underlying grievances of either the public or artistic industries.

Our submission includes several suggestions for achieving this.

We see the internet as an opportunity for artists, not a threat, unlike industry bodies who have a history of fearing new technologies. When casette tapes came out frightened music executives predicted the end of the music industry with the “home taping is killing music” campaign. Similarly, the former head of the Motion Picture Association of America, Jack Valenti, said “the VCR is to the American film producer and the American public as the Boston Strangler is to the woman home alone”. To the contrary, Industry analysts later considered the home movie sale and rental market to have been the saviour of the movie industry.

Today we’re fifteen years into the mainstream internet, and yet all of the Top 10 movies illegally shared online aren’t legally available online in New Zealand for paying customers. If there are lost sales is this due to illegal file sharing, or unsatisfied customers? Statistics that show a decrease in profits don’t tell the whole story.

A 2009 inquiry by The Guardian found that there was an overall increase in consumer spending on copyrighted entertainment, from 4.4 billion pounds in 1999 to 8 billion pounds in 2008. Computer gaming emerged as a considerable contender – with the industry more than tripling in size from 1.1 billion pounds in 1999 to 4 billion pounds by 2008. A further study by the Dutch Government found that most reported losses in the music industry can be attributed to things other than piracy, such as competition with other forms of entertainment. People have a finite budget for spending on entertainment options and these include music, films and video, magazines, books, sports, live gigs, theatre, and dance.

The music industry itself has changed dramatically in the past decade, with increased competition seeing profits now distributed amongst many more specialised service providers. It was the case that recording companies took profits from most aspects of music – operating as gatekeepers to the industry – but this is no longer the case thanks to greater competition and new technologies. Musicians can now produce music on home computers, and accordingly music companies now expect most artists to turn up with a finished album. Whereas once they earnt profit from studio time now this is not so common. Recording companies are also being challenged by specialised music distributors. And allowing people to buy digital singles rather than entire albums means that people can pick and choose the tracks they like, a legal option that may result in reduced profits. No industry can guarantee increased profits year after year, especially during a recession, and while illegal file sharing may be partly responsible it can’t be held completely responsible for a drop in profits.

Copyright has moved from regulating an industrial manufacturing process that made wax cylinder music, vinyl records, plastic compact disks, to trying to affect what people do in their homes.

Making laws to change peoples habits in private homes, on private internet connections, is always problematic. Yet that’s the result we all want from this bill. A copyright law that affects individuals must win the hearts and minds of New Zealanders with due process, expert judgment, proportionate sanctions, compensation to artists, and a clear and easy to understand process. We’re pleased to see that the bill goes a long way toward this goal.

Thank you for your time, we welcome your questions.

Plato and the Pythagorians advocated a mind/body distinction in terms of the supernatural and natural. At the time this ideology helped justify slavery because a slave’s caged body had a free mind that would later rest in an afterlife; after the slave owners were done with the slave’s body. The idea of a distinction between the mind and body has powerful implications for what we will tolerate within our lives.

We now know through modern research that disabling parts of the brain can affect the mind and its personality. Those with brain damage can have different personalities, and this effect can last for life. A person could live for one half of their life with one personality and then — through brain injury — live the other half with a very different personality. The concept of one essential personality is false. The idea of ghosts or souls that survive death of the body must be reconciled with the dozens of personalities that we can induce in the body’s brain.

When children are treated poorly they often react against the person, showing some simple forms of reciprocal altruism (be nice to others until they’re not nice to you). One evolutionary explanation for this behaviour is The Selfish Gene which is about how kindness is a product of selfishly taking care of others in your gene pool, as shown in this YouTube video:

This basic tit-for-tat altruism involves getting payback for kind deeds, however when the payback is in the form of supernatural rewards the question is whether there is any payback. Our innate reciprocal altruism can be co-opted by the promise of supernatural rewards that are inherently unknowable. It’s as if you lent money to a friend who promises they’ll pay it back in an afterlife.

The ideology that Plato and the Pythagorians advocated is still with us and, I think, it’s a foolish wager to make.

A fascinating transcript of a trial in which biochemistry professor Michael Behe is called to testify about a Creationist idea called Irreducible Complexity: the suggestion that some things in nature are too complex to have evolved from simpler forms. Irreducible Complexity is positioned against Evolution.

Irredicible Complexity is little more than pointing out something unknown, and others have called it an “argument by lack of imagination”. Behe has given some specific examples including the eye (a mediocre piece of design in humans), and bacterial flagellum which is a simple biological motor.

Here’s the court testimony in which Behe undoes his own argument:

Q. Just for some more foundation. In the first paragraph, it says, Intelligent design’s leading scientist, Dr. Behe, a professor of biochemistry, visited the U, which I understand to be the University of Minnesota, last week as a guest of the McLauren Institute, and that, in fact, did occur?

A. Yes, I visited Minnesota as a guest of the McLauren Institute.

Q. And if you could turn to the third page of the document. And there’s some discussion on that third page about the bacterial flagellum and the type III secretory system?

A. Yes.

Q. And Mr. Kurzinger makes his own observation about the type III secretory system being a subset of the bacterial flagellum?

A. I’m sorry. Could you say that again?

Q. In the paragraph that begins, much to Dr. Behe’s distress –

MR. MUISE: Objection, Your Honor, that’s hearsay. He’s pointing to a paragraph for the truth of what’s in the statement.

THE COURT: Well, it’s sustained to the extent that you’re going to read it. He can read it and put it into context.

BY MR. ROTHSCHILD:

Q. Could you read the paragraph that says, much to Dr. Behe’s distress?

A. Out loud, or –

Q. Please.

A. Okay. This paragraph says, Much to Dr. Behe’s distress, the TTSS is a subset of the bacterial flagellum. That’s right, a part of the supposedly irreducible bacterial outboard motor has a biological function.

Q. And I’m not going to ask you about whether you were distressed or not. But the next paragraph then says that he asked you about this at lunch, correct?

A. That’s what it says, yes.

Q. And you did have lunch that day?

A. We had lunch, and I recall a conversation about this, but again, I don’t recall many details.

Q. Okay. And according to Dr. Kurzinger, you acknowledged that the claim that –

MR. MUISE: Objection, Your Honor. He’s referring to an editorial, and he’s trying to recount this as an exact conversation. Dr. Behe doesn’t have recollection of what occurred. This article has no relevance.

THE COURT: The next paragraph starting with, when I asked Dr. Behe, I think, is where you’re going.

MR. ROTHSCHILD: Yes.

THE COURT: Why don’t you go right to that, as it’s expressed there, instead of trying to paraphrase it.

BY MR. ROTHSCHILD:

Q. It says, When I asked Dr. Behe about this at lunch, he got a bit testy, but acknowledged that the claim is correct. Paren, I have witnesses. He added that the bacterial flagellum is still irreducibly complex in the sense that the subset does not function as a flagellum.

My question here is, is Mr. — Dr. Kurzinger’s account that you agreed that the claim that the TTSS is a subset of the bacterial flagellum, did you agree to that?

A. I don’t recall, but I would, if I was going to answer it very carefully, I would make a lot of distinctions before saying so.

Q. Okay. But you don’t recall whether you said that or not?

A. No, I don’t.

Q. Okay. And then you go on to say that you still think — well, I’ll leave that. Your argument is that, even if the type III secretory system is a pre-cursor to the bacterial flagellum, is a subset, the bacterial flagellum is still irreducibly complex because that subset does not function as a flagellum?

A. That’s correct, yes.

Q. And, therefore, the bacterial flagellum must have been intelligently designed?

A. Well, again, the argument is that, there is — that when you see a purposeful arrangement of parts, that bespeaks design, so, yes.

Q. And yesterday, you testified that, that doesn’t mean the bacterial flagellum was necessarily designed, appeared abruptly in one fell swoop, correct?

A. That’s correct.

Q. Could have been designed slowly?

A. That’s correct.

Q. So under this scenario, at some period of time, the bacterial flagellum wouldn’t have had all of its parts until the design was completed?

A. Could you say that one more time?

Q. Yeah. Under this scenario of slow design — which was what I experienced with my kitchen — at some period of time, the bacterial flagellum wouldn’t have had all its parts until the design was completed?

A. That’s right.

Q. And so without all its parts, it wouldn’t be functional?

A. That’s right. Not as a flagellum, yes.

Q. So that is a phenomenon in both intelligent design and natural selection?

A. I’m not quite sure what you mean.

Q. In slow design, the bacterial flagellum has some prior existence, it doesn’t have all its parts, right?

A. Well, if — until it has all its parts and it starts functioning, I guess it’s problematic to call it a flagellum.

Q. It has some subset?

A. I guess things that will eventually be part of the flagellum would begin to appear, yes.

Q. Just not function like a flagellum?

A. Yes, the system would not yet function as a flagellum.

Q. Just like has been suggested for natural selection?

A. I’m sorry.

Q. Just like has been suggested for natural selection?

A. I’m not quite sure what you mean.

Our submission’s introduction reads “Today, a large proportion of interactions with copyrighted material involves personal use through personal computers and devices with internet connections. It is fair to say that, in turn, a proportion of these interactions involve infringement of copyright. Understandably, there is much debate as to how to interact with the new paradigm of creation and distribution that the internet represents. Some have responded to this new digital era by seeking to extend the scope of copyright, and the methods of its enforcement, so that existing ways of creation and distribution are protected, if not privileged. We do not share this view.”

Download Submission

I was recently asked by a NZ primary school student to help explain evolution for a 5 minute presentation. Naturally I told them that I’m not qualified but I gave them some pointers to youtube videos about it, and I provided the following speech. I had to make some generalizations but I tried to be accurate and here’s what I sent her:

You might have heard people say you look like your parents.. perhaps you have your mother’s eyes, or father’s ears. When you were in your mother’s womb you grew your eyes and ears from a recipe called DNA: Deoxyribonucleic acid, which tells bodies how to grow. DNA is a recipe for life, and all living things on earth use it to grow and reproduce. Trees have DNA and so do all animals. Human children are all the result of about 50% of our parents DNA with 100 to 200 mutations, which is why we look a bit like each of our parents. Because of your parents DNA and those 100-200 mutations your DNA is unique (unless you’ve got a twin).  Little bits of DNA is in all parts of our bodies.. in our blood, our muscles, and our hair. If a crime scene had DNA that was like yours but not quite the same then it would mean that the DNA was from someone in your family.

A poodle is a weird animal that didn’t exist 500 years ago. Dogs are domesticated wolves, and since people began breeding wolves we’ve been able to breed them into poodles, chihuahuas, and other hairy and hairless dogs. Someone trying to make a friendly dog would just breed friendly dogs together to get friendly dog DNA. Someone trying to make a small dog would breed the smallest dogs together to get small dog DNA. People breed dogs, horses, birds, and all kinds of plants. People breed all kinds of life on earth, and what they’re controlling is DNA. A scientist named Charles Darwin wondered if people could make such a massive change to dogs by breeding them then could nature do it too? In wild forests would weak animals get food, or would the strong get food? If there was a strong animal would it have more children? What Darwin discovered was that nature had a natural ability to breed… to naturally allow the smartest and strongest to survive. About 150 years ago he wrote a book that explained this and it was called “On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, or the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life”

What Darwin discovered is that just like dog breeders being able to encourage the growth of small dogs, nature had been breeding all life on earth for a long time. Dogs can be bred to the size of chihuahuas in a few hundred years, but nature had been doing it for millions of years. About 200,000 years ago there weren’t any people, but there were hairy apes. The weakest and dumbest apes didn’t have as many children as the strongest and smartest, and with those mutations that we talked about earlier those apes eventually became humans. Before apes were fish that breathed air called lung fish. and before that were fish in the water. Life keeps changing shape and adapting. So all life on earth is related in a big family tree that looks like this

This is called Evolution, which is a fact and a theory about how every life form is related and how different species of plants and animals arose. Although some people don’t believe in Evolution they have never been able to prove it wrong and infact Evolution has mountains worth of evidence.

The scammer, here known as FakeRose, wanted me to send $1000 to a London branch of Western Union because she said she was robbed at gunpoint. Here’s part of the chatlog….

FakeRose: hmmmm

Matthew: ok bron is here

FakeRose: ok
go now

Matthew: I haven’t seen her in ages
you’ll be glad to know she still has that damn fine ass

FakeRose: Can you go now?

Matthew: She’s getting my wheel chair ready
what a kind woman

FakeRose: ok

Matthew: and really, she’s got some child-bearing hips that can’t be beat
what do you think about bron?
honestly?

FakeRose: okay
Can you leave for the western union now?

Matthew: she’s okay?
I think she’s great
bron is wonderful
well what do you think of bron?

FakeRose: she is okay

Matthew: is that all?

FakeRose: aren’t going to the western union again?

Matthew: well I’m a bit worried that you just think that bron is okay
I thought you two were best of friends
what went wrong in your friendship?

FakeRose: Nothing

Matthew: then why do you think she’s okay?

FakeRose: Leave for the WU now

Matthew: I want to talk about you and Bron
you clearly have some issues
did Bron say something rude?

FakeRose: am freaked out here
not this day

Matthew: no. we must discuss this now

FakeRose: can you leave for the WU?

Matthew: we need to talk about you and bron first
what went wrong?
Are you ok?
ROSEANNA SKELETOR MCCOLL ARE YOU THERE?
(cruel parents to give you that middle name)

FakeRose: am here
am freaked out

Matthew: me too
what do you think of Bron though?

FakeRose: she is caring and kind
am getting frustrated here

Matthew: I agree. She is caring and kind.
thank for you saying that
…
and she has a slammin’ booty

[FakeRose has defriended you]

Over at PublicActa.org.nz Jon Penney has written an excellent article about how artistic remix rights (what under New Zealand law calls Fair Dealing defenses) are eroded by DRM. Digital Restrictions/Rights Management is like a brick wall in front of legally purchased content that attempts to block legal or illegal use of material. Penney writes,“ACTA may create substantive a new civil and criminal offence— and indirectly conferring new “access control” rights on copyright holders they do not current possess— despite its pretensions as an “enforcement only” treaty.  Indeed, even putting aside current New Zealand law, ACTA is supposedly limited to enforcing copyright and intellectual property, not technology measures or access control.”

UPDATE We have just returned from a MFAT/MED briefing on ACTA. CFF Director Bronwyn Holloway-Smith asked about the stakeholder meeting and whether it was about international or domestic stakeholders. It apparently is the case that certain NZ stakeholders will be invited to meet international delegates and other domestic stakeholders. This is the first time this has happened in ACTA negotiations. They hoped that it would set some precedent for stakeholder involvement in other countries.

Introducing…

A simple personal accounting system that I wrote over the holidays. It’s user-friendly, web-based, fast (AJAX), and free to download. Here’s how it works…

First you browse to the homepage and upload your bank account’s transaction CSV… Subaccounting will try to figure out the CSV columns itself

Then you browse into the bank account…

And here you make subaccounts and subtransactions within that account. A subaccount is a way of breaking up a bank account into areas for your savings, food, clothes, rent, etc. Each subaccount has it’s own balance so you can see whether you’ve spent too much on food.

Here’s how you add a new subaccount…

Type the name…

And then you add what’s called a subtransaction. A subtransaction is simply moving money between subaccounts (Eg, from savings to health).

So basically you describe your bank transactions by using subtransactions. In the following screenshot a purchase at Sweet Momma’s Kitchen comes out of the food subaccount, so we make a subtransaction for that amount.

Notice how in the following screenshot the red ‘equals’ sign went away because we resolved this transaction.

You can then browse to the food subaccount and see how you’re doing… not good it seems.

Important bits

• It supports backups and restorations via an XML export. Back up your data regularly.
• It only officially handles Kiwibank transactions although other banks will probably work. Use the CSV export and Subaccounting will try and determine the columns itself.
• It has no built-in security so be sure to secure the webserver directory yourself
• It’s released under the GPLv3.
• It may never be updated again.

Download Subaccounting 1.0.