Blog – Page 10

Dan Q performed maintenance on GC9GTV3 Drive Slowly; Fox Crossing

This checkin to GC9GTV3 Drive Slowly; Fox Crossing reflects a geocaching.com log entry. See more of Dan's cache logs.

Performed a quick checkup on this much-loved cache before the summertime cachers come out in earnest. All looks healthy here!

The Who Cares Era

This is a repost promoting content originally published elsewhere. See more things Dan's reposted.

…

It’s so emblematic of the moment we’re in, the Who Cares Era, where completely disposable things are shoddily produced for people to mostly ignore.

…

In the Who Cares Era, the most radical thing you can do is care.

In a moment where machines churn out mediocrity, make something yourself. Make it imperfect. Make it rough. Just make it.

At a time where the government’s uncaring boot is pressing down on all of our necks, the best way to fight back is to care. Care loudly. Tell others. Get going.

…

Dan Sinker

Smart words, well-written by Dan Sinker.

I like the fact that he correctly identifies that the “Who Cares Era” – illustrated by the bulk creation of low-effort, low-quality media, for a disheartened audience that no longer has a reason to give a damn – isn’t about AI.

I mean… AI’s certainly not helping! AI slop dominates social media (especially in right-wing spaces, for retrospectively-obvious reasons) and bleeds out into the mainstream. LLM-generated content, lacking even the slightest human input, is becoming painfully ubiquitous. It’s pretty sad out there.

But AI’s doing some useful things too: it’s not without its value, even just in popular use.

So while the “Who Cares Era” might be exemplified by the proliferation of AI slop… it’s much bigger than that. It’s a sociological change, tied perhaps to a growing dissatisfaction with our governments and the increasing feeling of powerlessness to change the unjust social systems we’re locked into?

I don’t know how to fix it. I don’t even know if it’s fixable. But I agree with Dan’s argument that a great starting point is to care.

And I, for one, am going to continue to create things I care about, giving them the time and attention they deserve. And maybe if enough of us can do that, just that, then maybe that’ll make the difference.

Note #26654

I’m applying for a few roles that might be the next step in my career. And to my surprise, updating my CV and tweaking my portfolio is doing a world of good for my feelings of self-worth!

Seriously: looking back over the last ~25 years of my career and enumerating the highlights is giving me a better “big picture” view of everything I’ve achieved than I ever got from the near-focus of daily work. I should do this more often!

Typeseccing

I don’t want to withdraw any of our children from sec [sic] education lessons.

However they’re spelled, they’re a great idea, and I’m grateful to live in a part of the world where their existence isn’t the target of religious politics.

But if I can withdraw consent to receiving emails about sex education in Comic Sans then that’d be great, thanks. 😅

Note #26646

Fellow Abnibbers and I, who see each other extraordinary infrequently in our diaspora, have a tradition of sharing a group selfie when we happen to coincide. I forgot to take one when @garethbowker@infosec.exchange and I met today, and by way of penance I tried to draw what I should have done.

Unfortunately I can’t draw. He looks much less like a potato in real life! Think I got his dog right, though.

Dan Q found GC1QR0V Church Micro 605 Almondsbury

This checkin to GC1QR0V Church Micro 605 Almondsbury reflects a geocaching.com log entry. See more of Dan's cache logs.

Stopped at the pub nearby for an incredibly late lunch and to recharge the electric car on my journey from Pembrokeshire to Oxfordshire, because I’d much rather get off the motorway and find somewhere nice to sit while the electrons do their thing. Spotted this nearby cache in the yard of this beautiful church, which made for a lovely walk as the well-tended flowerbeds were wonderfully fragrant. Followed a geotrail to find the cache. Amazing, loved finding this so much. SL, TNLN, TFTC, FP awarded.

A black and white cat stands on flagstones before a wooden gate. — Also got to meet the church cat.

Note #26644

Out for a dog walk this morning along the Nevern Estuary, I spotted this brave fellow rowing his way (at least) half naked across the bay, on a route that pitted him against the wind, rain, and tide!

Dan Q found GC9FHDP Kiln-ing me softly

This checkin to GC9FHDP Kiln-ing me softly reflects a geocaching.com log entry. See more of Dan's cache logs.

The geopup and I took a walk from the Parrog to Newport Sands and back, this morning, and I’m glad we opted to find geocaches on the way back, rather than the way out, because it made this particular cache extraordinarily easy. The rocks that ought to have concealed it were absent and I was able to make out the familiar shape of this kind of container from the path, no searching required!

The remains of a stone kiln, a gravel path running alongside it, alongside a river estuary. — Had I approached from this direction, I might still be searching.

Returning it to its spot, I attempted to reconceal it with the help of some nearby slabs if slate. But given how much of an obvious magnet to playful children this entire structure is (I’m pretty sure mine had a go at dismantling it on a previous visit, predating this cache, circa 2019!) I’m not sure how long it’ll remain!

TFTC. Great to walk this path once more!

Dan Q found GC5JRP3 T’drath #3

This checkin to GC5JRP3 T'drath #3 reflects a geocaching.com log entry. See more of Dan's cache logs.

I tried to find this cache back in 2016 without success. I’m confident I’d have looked in the place it’s now hidden – which was today basically the first place I looked! – so maybe fast previous visit was during one of the cache’s periods of absencennIn any case, I returned today and brought my faithful geohound on a morning walk from Parrog to Newport Sands and back, finding this cache on our return leg. She wasn’t much help, but fortunately I didn’t need her to be! TFTC.

DB13W3

I’d like to nominate DB13W3 for Most Cursed Connector. I mean, just look at that thing!

Bonus: there were at least two different, incompatible, pinout “standards” for this thing, so there was no guarantee that a random monitor with this cable would connect to your workstation, even if it had the right port.

The Difference Between Downloading and Streaming

What’s the difference between “streaming” and “downloading” video, audio, or some other kind of linear media?¹

Screenshot from Vimeo's settings, showing the 'What can people do with your videos?' section. The 'Download them' checkbox is highlighted and a question mark has been scrawled alongside it. — Many platforms make a firm distinction between streaming and downloading, implying that they’re very different. But they’re not.

They’re basically the same thing

Despite what various platforms would have you believe, there’s no significant technical difference between streaming and downloading.

Suppose you’re choosing whether to download or stream a video². In both cases³:

The server gets frames of video from a source (file, livestream, etc.)
The server sends those frames to your device
Your device stores them while it does something with them

Want to keep a copy of this animation? You don’t have to trick your computer into retaining it as it streams because I’ve open-sourced it, and the code used to produce it.

So what’s the difference?

The fundamental difference between streaming and downloading is what your device does with those frames of video:

Does it show them to you once and then throw them away? Or does it re-assemble them all back into a video file and save it into storage?

Screenshot from YouTube music video of Rick Astley's "Never Gonna Give You Up", 34 seconds in, showing Rick singing outdoors at night. the red YouTube progress bar goes a little over half way through the darker grey buffering indicator along the timeline bar. — When you’re streaming on YouTube, the video player running on your computer retains a buffer of frames ahead and behind of your current position, so you can skip around easily: the darker grey part of the timeline shows which parts of the video are stored on – that is, *downloaded* to – your computer.

Buffering is when your streaming player gets some number of frames “ahead” of where you’re watching, to give you some protection against connection issues. If your WiFi wobbles for a moment, the buffer protects you from the video stopping completely for a few seconds.

But for buffering to work, your computer has to retain bits of the video. So in a very real sense, all streaming is downloading! The buffer is the part of the stream that’s downloaded onto your computer right now. The question is: what happens to it next?

All streaming is downloading

So that’s the bottom line: if your computer deletes the frames of video it was storing in the buffer, we call that streaming. If it retains them in a file, we call that downloading.

That definition introduces a philosophical problem. Remember that Vimeo checkbox that lets a creator decide whether people can (i.e. are allowed to) download their videos? Isn’t that somewhat meaningless if all streaming is downloading.

Because if the difference between streaming and downloading is whether their device belonging to the person watching the video deletes the media when they’re done. And in virtually all cases, that’s done on the honour system.

Comic showing a conversation between Firefox and Netflix, as represented by their respective logos. Firefox says 'Hey, send me a copy of Dispicable Me 4?'. Netflix replies: 'Promise you'll delete it when you're done watching it?'. Firefox responds: 'Umm... sure!' — This kind of conversation happens, over the HTTP protocol, *all the time*. Probably most of the time the browser is telling the truth, but there’s no way to know for certain.

When your favourite streaming platform says that it’s only possible to stream, and not download, their media… or when they restrict “downloading” as an option to higher-cost paid plans… they’re relying on the assumption that the user’s device can be trusted to delete the media when the user’s done watching it.

But a user who owns their own device, their own network, their own screen or speakers has many, many opportunities to not fulfil the promise of deleting media it after they’ve consumed it: to retain a “downloaded” copy for their own enjoyment, including:

Intercepting the media as it passes through their network on the way to its destination device
Using client software that’s been configured to stream-and-save, rather than steam-and-delete, the content
Modifying “secure” software (e.g. an official app) so that it retains a saved copy rather than deleting it
Capturing the stream buffer as it’s cached in device memory or on the device’s hard disk
Outputting the resulting media to a different device, e.g. using a HDMI capture device, and saving it there
Exploiting the “analogue⁴ hole”⁵: using a camera, microphone, etc. to make a copy of what comes out of the screen/speakers⁶

Okay, so I oversimplified (before you say “well, actually…”)

It’s not entirely true to say that streaming and downloading are identical, even with the caveat of “…from the server’s perspective”. There are three big exceptions worth thinking about:

Exception #1: downloads can come in any order

When you stream some linear media, you expect the server to send the media in strict chronological order. Being able to start watching before the whole file has downloaded is a big part of what makes steaming appealing, to the end-user. This means that media intended for streaming tends to be stored in a way that facilitates that kind of delivery. For example:

Media designed for streaming will often be stored in linear chronological order in the file, which impacts what kinds of compression are available.
Media designed for streaming will generally use formats that put file metadata at the start of the file, so that it gets delivered first.
Video designed for streaming will often have frequent keyframes so that a client that starts “in the middle” can decode the buffer without downloading too much data.

No such limitation exists for files intended for downloading. If you’re not planning on watching a video until it’s completely downloaded, the order in which the chunks arrives is arbitrary!

But these limitations make the set of “files suitable for streaming” a subset of the set of “files suitable for downloading”. It only makes it challenging or impossible to stream some media intended for downloading… it doesn’t do anything to prevent downloading of media intended for streaming.

Exception #2: streamed media is more-likely to be transcoded

A server that’s streaming media to a client exists in a sort-of dance: the client keeps the server updated on which “part” of the media it cares about, so the server can jump ahead, throttle back, pause sending, etc. and the client’s buffer can be kept filled to the optimal level.

This dance also allows for a dynamic change in quality levels. You’ve probably seen this happen: you’re watching a video on YouTube and suddenly the quality “jumps” to something more (or less) like a pile of LEGO bricks⁷. That’s the result of your device realising that the rate at which it’s receiving data isn’t well-matched to the connection speed, and asking the server to send a different quality level⁸.

The server can – and some do! – pre-generate and store all of the different formats, but some servers will convert files (and particularly livestreams) on-the-fly, introducing a few seconds’ delay in order to deliver the format that’s best-suited to the recipient⁹. That’s not necessary for downloads, where the user will often want the highest-quality version of the media (and if they don’t, they’ll select the quality they want at the outset, before the download begins).

Exception #3: streamed media is more-likely to be encumbered with DRM

And then, of course, there’s DRM.

As streaming digital media has become the default way for many people to consume video and audio content, rights holders have engaged in a fundamentally-doomed¹⁰ arms race of implementing copy-protection strategies to attempt to prevent end-users from retaining usable downloaded copies of streamed media.

Take HDCP, for example, which e.g. Netflix use for their 4K streams. To download these streams, your device has to be running some decryption code that only works if it can trace a path to the screen that it’ll be outputting to that also supports HDCP, and both your device and that screen promise that they’re definitely only going to show it and not make it possible to save the video. And then that promise is enforced by Digital Content Protection LLC only granting a decryption key and a license to use it to manufacturers.¹¹

Fingers hold a small box, about half the size of a deck of cards, labelled "ezcoo 4K HDML 2.0 Splitter 1x2". On the side facing the camera can be seen a "HDMI In" port and an "EDID" switch that can be set to 4K7.1, 4K5.1, or COPY1. — The real hackers do stuff with software, but people who just want their screens to work properly in spite of HDCP can just buy boxes like this (which I bought for a couple of quid on eBay). Obviously you could use something like this and a capture card to allow you to download content that was “protected” to ensure that you could only stream it, I suppose, too.

Anyway, the bottom line is that all streaming is, by definition, downloading, and the only significant difference between what people call “streaming” and “downloading” is that when “streaming” there’s an expectation that the recipient will delete, and not retain, a copy of the video. And that’s it.

Footnotes

¹ This isn’t the question I expected to be answering. I made the animation in this post for use in a different article, but that one hasn’t come together yet, so I thought I’d write about the technical difference between streaming and downloading as an excuse to use it already, while it still feels fresh.

² I’m using the example of a video, but this same principle applies to any linear media that you might stream: that could be a video on Netflix, a livestream on Twitch, a meeting in Zoom, a song in Spotify, or a radio show in iPlayer, for example: these are all examples of media streaming… and – as I argue – they’re therefore also all examples of media downloading because streaming and downloading are fundamentally the same thing.

³ There are a few simplifications in the first half of this post: I’ll tackle them later on. For the time being, when I say sweeping words like “every”, just imagine there’s a little footnote that says, “well, actually…”, which will save you from feeling like you have to say so in the comments.

⁴ Per my style guide, I’m using the British English spelling of “analogue”, rather than the American English “analog” which you’ll often find elsewhere on the Web when talking about the analog hole.

⁵ The rich history of exploiting the analogue hole spans everything from bootlegging a 1970s Led Zeppelin concert by smuggling recording equipment in inside a wheelchair (definitely, y’know, to help topple the USSR and not just to listen to at home while you get high) to “camming” by bribing your friendly local projectionist to let you set up a video camera at the back of the cinema for their test screening of the new blockbuster. Until some corporation tricks us into installing memory-erasing DRM chips into our brains (hey, there’s a dystopic sci-fi story idea in there somewhere!) the analogue hole will always be exploitable.

⁶ One might argue that recreating a piece of art from memory, after the fact, is a very-specific and unusual exploitation of the analogue hole: the one that allows us to remember (or “download”) information to our brains rather than letting it “stream” right through. There’s evidence to suggest that people pirated Shakespeare’s plays this way!

⁷ Of course, if you’re watching The LEGO Movie, what you’re seeing might already look like a pile of LEGO bricks.

⁸ There are other ways in which the client and server may negotiate, too: for example, what encoding formats are supported by your device.

⁹ My NAS does live transcoding when Jellyfin streams to devices on my network, and it’s magical!

¹⁰ There’s always the analogue hole, remember! Although in practice this isn’t even remotely necessary and most video media gets ripped some-other-way by clever pirate types even where it uses highly-sophisticated DRM strategies, and then ultimately it’s only legitimate users who end up suffering as a result of DRM’s burden. It’s almost as if it’s just, y’know, simply a bad idea in the first place, or something. Who knew?

¹¹ Like all these technologies, HDCP was cracked almost immediately and every subsequent version that’s seen widespread rollout has similarly been broken by clever hacker types. Legitimate, paying users find themselves disadvantaged when their laptop won’t let them use their external monitor to watch a movie, while the bad guys make pirated copies that work fine on anything. I don’t think anybody wins, here.