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DAS megaFLAB is so UGLY! but SO is his FAT ugly WIFE!!! i bet when they FUCK it's a MILLION TIMES UGLYER than TUB GIRL!!!!! but wait! u need a DICK to FUCK! OH!! the wife has one!!! lol!!!

DAS megaFLAB is so UGLY! but SO is his FAT WIFE!!! i bet when they FUCK it's a MILLION TIMES UGLYER that goat.cx!!!!! lol!!!

Hey, Das.

Sorry to see all the shit you've been taking lately. God, some people have too much freakin' time on their hands. I mean: damn! Why spend so much time making fun of you when they could, instead, be doing something constructive like making fun of your nasty, fat-ass wife!

Is she as gassy as you? I'll bet she is! Thank GOD they haven't invented that intarweb smell-o-vision thing yet! With your big fat ass in action, Slashdot would end up gassing more people than the Nazis!!!

Hi. My long history of posting realistic, thoughtful and well written comments on the Slashdot news website has reached the critical mass needed to attract retards with nothing better to do but insult people who think before typing. This is really exciting, because you're never really anybody until you piss somebody off. I'm moving up in the world, man. Like George Jefferson, or Johnny Rotten.


If you came to my website hoping to find things to insult me about, you're in luck. I've decided to make your job a whole lot easier. Here is a list of laughable shit about me and my life:


Here is a picture of me and my wife from 8 years ago. You might want to make fun of how big my thighs are, or how white my skin is. Also, my haircuts sucks and maybe I should wear socks with my docksiders so I don't smell so much.


Here is a Dragonball Z wig I made for my little brother when he was 11. I didn't do a very good job and of course only morons like Dragonball Z or do things with their siblings. Also, I lived in a basement, probably because nobody wanted to smell me upstairs, hu hu.


Here is a picture of me at my wedding. That little beard thing isn't very good looking, is it? I'm sure you can find something hilarious to say about it. And wow, what a mammoth I was, whew! I must about 600 pounds there, I can barely fit in that tarpaulin of a tuxedo!


Here is my desk at my old job. It's pretty messy, huh? And a Simpsons woodcut, what a DORK I am. Jeez.


Here is my little dog. I love my dog, and that is of course really lame. I'm sure you think she's quite ugly as well, right? Maybe you could threaten to harm her in some way...that's something you internet guys do, right? Unsubstantiatable threats?


Here I am, proving what an ugly, bad haircut, never shaving fat fuck of a faggot I am. But I encourage you to use your own words. These are merely suggestions.


Here is my cat. Only fat homos take pictures of cats. And what is that, a USB cable? Only fat homos use USB.


And here is a special one, just for you. Keep up the good work, guys. I'm better with you on the job.

Hi. My long history of posting realistic, thoughtful and well written comments on the Slashdot news website has reached the critical mass needed to attract retards with nothing better to do but insult people who think before typing. This is really exciting, because you're never really anybody until you piss somebody off. I'm moving up in the world, man. Like George Jefferson, or Johnny Rotten.


If you came to my website hoping to find things to insult me about, you're in luck. I've decided to make your job a whole lot easier. Here is a list of laughable shit about me and my life:


Here is a picture of me and my wife from 8 years ago. You might want to make fun of how big my thighs are, or how white my skin is. Also, my haircuts sucks and maybe I should wear socks with my docksiders so I don't smell so much.


Here is a Dragonball Z wig I made for my little brother when he was 11. I didn't do a very good job and of course only morons like Dragonball Z or do things with their siblings. Also, I lived in a basement, probably because nobody wanted to smell me upstairs, hu hu.


Here is a picture of me at my wedding. That little beard thing isn't very good looking, is it? I'm sure you can find something hilarious to say about it. And wow, what a mammoth I was, whew! I must about 600 pounds there, I can barely fit in that tarpaulin of a tuxedo!


Here is my desk at my old job. It's pretty messy, huh? And a Simpsons woodcut, what a DORK I am. Jeez.


Here is my little dog. I love my dog, and that is of course really lame. I'm sure you think she's quite ugly as well, right? Maybe you could threaten to harm her in some way...that's something you internet guys do, right? Unsubstantiatable threats?


Here I am, proving what an ugly, bad haircut, never shaving fat fuck of a faggot I am. But I encourage you to use your own words. These are merely suggestions.


Here is my cat. Only fat homos take pictures of cats. And what is that, a USB cable? Only fat homos use USB.


And here is a special one, just for you. Keep up the good work, guys. I'm better with you on the job.

Hi. My long history of posting realistic, thoughtful and well written comments on the Slashdot news website has reached the critical mass needed to attract retards with nothing better to do but insult people who think before typing. This is really exciting, because you're never really anybody until you piss somebody off. I'm moving up in the world, man. Like George Jefferson, or Johnny Rotten.


If you came to my website hoping to find things to insult me about, you're in luck. I've decided to make your job a whole lot easier. Here is a list of laughable shit about me and my life:


Here is a picture of me and my wife from 8 years ago. You might want to make fun of how big my thighs are, or how white my skin is. Also, my haircuts sucks and maybe I should wear socks with my docksiders so I don't smell so much.


Here is a Dragonball Z wig I made for my little brother when he was 11. I didn't do a very good job and of course only morons like Dragonball Z or do things with their siblings. Also, I lived in a basement, probably because nobody wanted to smell me upstairs, hu hu.


Here is a picture of me at my wedding. That little beard thing isn't very good looking, is it? I'm sure you can find something hilarious to say about it. And wow, what a mammoth I was, whew! I must about 600 pounds there, I can barely fit in that tarpaulin of a tuxedo!


Here is my desk at my old job. It's pretty messy, huh? And a Simpsons woodcut, what a DORK I am. Jeez.


Here is my little dog. I love my dog, and that is of course really lame. I'm sure you think she's quite ugly as well, right? Maybe you could threaten to harm her in some way...that's something you internet guys do, right? Unsubstantiatable threats?


Here I am, proving what an ugly, bad haircut, never shaving fat fuck of a faggot I am. But I encourage you to use your own words. These are merely suggestions.


Here is my cat. Only fat homos take pictures of cats. And what is that, a USB cable? Only fat homos use USB.


And here is a special one, just for you. Keep up the good work, guys. I'm better with you on the job.

Hi. My long history of posting realistic, thoughtful and well written comments on the Slashdot news website has reached the critical mass needed to attract retards with nothing better to do but insult people who think before typing. This is really exciting, because you're never really anybody until you piss somebody off. I'm moving up in the world, man. Like George Jefferson, or Johnny Rotten.


If you came to my website hoping to find things to insult me about, you're in luck. I've decided to make your job a whole lot easier. Here is a list of laughable shit about me and my life:


Here is a picture of me and my wife from 8 years ago. You might want to make fun of how big my thighs are, or how white my skin is. Also, my haircuts sucks and maybe I should wear socks with my docksiders so I don't smell so much.


Here is a Dragonball Z wig I made for my little brother when he was 11. I didn't do a very good job and of course only morons like Dragonball Z or do things with their siblings. Also, I lived in a basement, probably because nobody wanted to smell me upstairs, hu hu.


Here is a picture of me at my wedding. That little beard thing isn't very good looking, is it? I'm sure you can find something hilarious to say about it. And wow, what a mammoth I was, whew! I must about 600 pounds there, I can barely fit in that tarpaulin of a tuxedo!


Here is my desk at my old job. It's pretty messy, huh? And a Simpsons woodcut, what a DORK I am. Jeez.


Here is my little dog. I love my dog, and that is of course really lame. I'm sure you think she's quite ugly as well, right? Maybe you could threaten to harm her in some way...that's something you internet guys do, right? Unsubstantiatable threats?


Here I am, proving what an ugly, bad haircut, never shaving fat fuck of a faggot I am. But I encourage you to use your own words. These are merely suggestions.


Here is my cat. Only fat homos take pictures of cats. And what is that, a USB cable? Only fat homos use USB.


And here is a special one, just for you. Keep up the good work, guys. I'm better with you on the job.

Hi. My long history of posting realistic, thoughtful and well written comments on the Slashdot news website has reached the critical mass needed to attract retards with nothing better to do but insult people who think before typing. This is really exciting, because you're never really anybody until you piss somebody off. I'm moving up in the world, man. Like George Jefferson, or Johnny Rotten.


If you came to my website hoping to find things to insult me about, you're in luck. I've decided to make your job a whole lot easier. Here is a list of laughable shit about me and my life:


Here is a picture of me and my wife from 8 years ago. You might want to make fun of how big my thighs are, or how white my skin is. Also, my haircuts sucks and maybe I should wear socks with my docksiders so I don't smell so much.


Here is a Dragonball Z wig I made for my little brother when he was 11. I didn't do a very good job and of course only morons like Dragonball Z or do things with their siblings. Also, I lived in a basement, probably because nobody wanted to smell me upstairs, hu hu.


Here is a picture of me at my wedding. That little beard thing isn't very good looking, is it? I'm sure you can find something hilarious to say about it. And wow, what a mammoth I was, whew! I must about 600 pounds there, I can barely fit in that tarpaulin of a tuxedo!


Here is my desk at my old job. It's pretty messy, huh? And a Simpsons woodcut, what a DORK I am. Jeez.


Here is my little dog. I love my dog, and that is of course really lame. I'm sure you think she's quite ugly as well, right? Maybe you could threaten to harm her in some way...that's something you internet guys do, right? Unsubstantiatable threats?


Here I am, proving what an ugly, bad haircut, never shaving fat fuck of a faggot I am. But I encourage you to use your own words. These are merely suggestions.


Here is my cat. Only fat homos take pictures of cats. And what is that, a USB cable? Only fat homos use USB.


And here is a special one, just for you. Keep up the good work, guys. I'm better with you on the job.

Hi. My long history of posting realistic, thoughtful and well written comments on the Slashdot news website has reached the critical mass needed to attract retards with nothing better to do but insult people who think before typing. This is really exciting, because you're never really anybody until you piss somebody off. I'm moving up in the world, man. Like George Jefferson, or Johnny Rotten.


If you came to my website hoping to find things to insult me about, you're in luck. I've decided to make your job a whole lot easier. Here is a list of laughable shit about me and my life:


Here is a picture of me and my wife from 8 years ago. You might want to make fun of how big my thighs are, or how white my skin is. Also, my haircuts sucks and maybe I should wear socks with my docksiders so I don't smell so much.


Here is a Dragonball Z wig I made for my little brother when he was 11. I didn't do a very good job and of course only morons like Dragonball Z or do things with their siblings. Also, I lived in a basement, probably because nobody wanted to smell me upstairs, hu hu.


Here is a picture of me at my wedding. That little beard thing isn't very good looking, is it? I'm sure you can find something hilarious to say about it. And wow, what a mammoth I was, whew! I must about 600 pounds there, I can barely fit in that tarpaulin of a tuxedo!


Here is my desk at my old job. It's pretty messy, huh? And a Simpsons woodcut, what a DORK I am. Jeez.


Here is my little dog. I love my dog, and that is of course really lame. I'm sure you think she's quite ugly as well, right? Maybe you could threaten to harm her in some way...that's something you internet guys do, right? Unsubstantiatable threats?


Here I am, proving what an ugly, bad haircut, never shaving fat fuck of a faggot I am. But I encourage you to use your own words. These are merely suggestions.


Here is my cat. Only fat homos take pictures of cats. And what is that, a USB cable? Only fat homos use USB.


And here is a special one, just for you. Keep up the good work, guys. I'm better with you on the job.

Hi. My long history of posting realistic, thoughtful and well written comments on the Slashdot news website has reached the critical mass needed to attract retards with nothing better to do but insult people who think before typing. This is really exciting, because you're never really anybody until you piss somebody off. I'm moving up in the world, man. Like George Jefferson, or Johnny Rotten.


If you came to my website hoping to find things to insult me about, you're in luck. I've decided to make your job a whole lot easier. Here is a list of laughable shit about me and my life:


Here is a picture of me and my wife from 8 years ago. You might want to make fun of how big my thighs are, or how white my skin is. Also, my haircuts sucks and maybe I should wear socks with my docksiders so I don't smell so much.


Here is a Dragonball Z wig I made for my little brother when he was 11. I didn't do a very good job and of course only morons like Dragonball Z or do things with their siblings. Also, I lived in a basement, probably because nobody wanted to smell me upstairs, hu hu.


Here is a picture of me at my wedding. That little beard thing isn't very good looking, is it? I'm sure you can find something hilarious to say about it. And wow, what a mammoth I was, whew! I must about 600 pounds there, I can barely fit in that tarpaulin of a tuxedo!


Here is my desk at my old job. It's pretty messy, huh? And a Simpsons woodcut, what a DORK I am. Jeez.


Here is my little dog. I love my dog, and that is of course really lame. I'm sure you think she's quite ugly as well, right? Maybe you could threaten to harm her in some way...that's something you internet guys do, right? Unsubstantiatable threats?


Here I am, proving what an ugly, bad haircut, never shaving fat fuck of a faggot I am. But I encourage you to use your own words. These are merely suggestions.


Here is my cat. Only fat homos take pictures of cats. And what is that, a USB cable? Only fat homos use USB.


And here is a special one, just for you. Keep up the good work, guys. I'm better with you on the job.

Hi. My long history of posting realistic, thoughtful and well written comments on the Slashdot news website has reached the critical mass needed to attract retards with nothing better to do but insult people who think before typing. This is really exciting, because you're never really anybody until you piss somebody off. I'm moving up in the world, man. Like George Jefferson, or Johnny Rotten.


If you came to my website hoping to find things to insult me about, you're in luck. I've decided to make your job a whole lot easier. Here is a list of laughable shit about me and my life:


Here is a picture of me and my wife from 8 years ago. You might want to make fun of how big my thighs are, or how white my skin is. Also, my haircuts sucks and maybe I should wear socks with my docksiders so I don't smell so much.


Here is a Dragonball Z wig I made for my little brother when he was 11. I didn't do a very good job and of course only morons like Dragonball Z or do things with their siblings. Also, I lived in a basement, probably because nobody wanted to smell me upstairs, hu hu.


Here is a picture of me at my wedding. That little beard thing isn't very good looking, is it? I'm sure you can find something hilarious to say about it. And wow, what a mammoth I was, whew! I must about 600 pounds there, I can barely fit in that tarpaulin of a tuxedo!


Here is my desk at my old job. It's pretty messy, huh? And a Simpsons woodcut, what a DORK I am. Jeez.


Here is my little dog. I love my dog, and that is of course really lame. I'm sure you think she's quite ugly as well, right? Maybe you could threaten to harm her in some way...that's something you internet guys do, right? Unsubstantiatable threats?


Here I am, proving what an ugly, bad haircut, never shaving fat fuck of a faggot I am. But I encourage you to use your own words. These are merely suggestions.


Here is my cat. Only fat homos take pictures of cats. And what is that, a USB cable? Only fat homos use USB.


And here is a special one, just for you. Keep up the good work, guys. I'm better with you on the job.

spaking of hefty chunks, have a look at daspingabyter and his wife!

gawd! those thighs!

/shudders

oh shit! the image of those two getting carnal flashed across my mind, and i spontaneously puked! you owe me a new cheap-ass walmart $14 keyboard, you farting white-thighed fat bastard!

Understood...I should have pointed out that I have a laptop, so my computer can go wherever I like it to, and before that I had a computer that was the center of my media empire so the 8 track, reel to reel, record player and the Nakamichi Dragon were all chained to it, anyway, to get the analog components of my system converted to digital to pass to the amplifier.

I have since gone off the idea of digital amplification. It's a pain in the ass and good cabling and attentive grounding usually result in better sound. Converting said analog devices to digital, I can use their meta-data in massive hands-off playlists effortlessly. It's also greatly simplified my preferred audio setup, which makes my wife happy. She hates cables all over everything, not to mention the heat and all that electricity. She'll actually use the stereo now, just plugs her iBook into the monitors and plays stuff from my iTunes library (though I should bite the bullet and buy a couple Airport Express units).

As somebody who loves the public domain (all of my photos are public domain, as is any software I release to newsgroups, etc), I'd like to take this a step further. I'd like to see more artists taking the public domain seriously and VOLUNTARILY dropping their copyrights the way many older software companies are releasing their old software under the GPL.

I don't think the current state of copyright would seem so bad if only there were more artists who didn't treat copyright as a tiger cage. Exclusive copyright for 70 years past the owner's death doesn't make sense for most things -- they lose relevancy and thus their market value -- so let them go when they start becoming unprofitable. There are hundreds of Bob Dylan songs and not all of them are worth paying for...but I'd use them if they were free. I mean, where's the demand for "Talking John Birch Blues" or "The Ballad of Frankie Lee and Judas Priest" for any use other than satire?

Artists are moving to independent labels at record rates. They need promotion and open access to their back catalogs could help provide that. It would also make the artistic community that much better.

Somebody said elsewhere:

I'm making a deal with you guys. With Webslum 3, I am going to try to find a way encrypt all access logs and user directories. The only people who will ever know what's on your site and what's been downloaded from it is YOU. The feds can subpoena all they like: Ican't give them records I don't keep.
Oh, and IM me for access to my major elite 150 gigabyte music server. Email me to join my mixology club (one free CD of rocking music in the mail every month, out of consanguine kindness). Gonna get my rocks off before donning these Sennheisers means prison.

You may like to look.

No, the two are a bit different. Bokeh refers to the LOOK of the depth of field effect, not its existance. For example, take the same picture at the same focal length and with the same aperature setting for two separate lenses and you get two different looks to the out-of-focus background.

Good bokeh turns sharp background contrast into soft, slowly sloping gradiants (like the airbrush in Photoshop) that highlight the foreground subject. Bad bokeh turns sharp background contrast into a series of pointed halos around the object that distract from the foreground subject. The ideal for many photographers is bokeh that looks like a pointellist painting does up close, though everybody has a different preference (here's my favorite bokeh and a miserably failed attempt).

No, the two are a bit different. Bokeh refers to the LOOK of the depth of field effect, not its existance. For example, take the same picture at the same focal length and with the same aperature setting for two separate lenses and you get two different looks to the out-of-focus background.

Good bokeh turns sharp background contrast into soft, slowly sloping gradiants (like the airbrush in Photoshop) that highlight the foreground subject. Bad bokeh turns sharp background contrast into a series of pointed halos around the object that distract from the foreground subject. The ideal for many photographers is bokeh that looks like a pointellist painting does up close, though everybody has a different preference (here's my favorite bokeh and a miserably failed attempt).

Typical heavy handed IT lunacy. You're making it harder to use a possibly essential device on a machine you didn't know might need it, creating more work for yourself while gaining little to no security, as potential theives would just go to a machine that didn't have USB disabled.

I've been subverting this type of network policy since second grade, and it's easy because it lulls you into a false sense of security. "I don't have to worry about X machine, I've locked it down!" Meanwhile, us grade school kids are running video games through the shell in WordPerfect.

Want a secure network? Stop with the locks and start with the spies. Befriend your users and make them your eyes and ears. Remind them not to trust anybody and help them identify suspicious activities. Most of all, make them care. That's tough to do. But unlike being an asshole, it actually works.

I would not trade my working 3G, 30 gig ipod for a larger device with a worse interface.

However -- if I has a broken 1G 5 gig ipod, I might consider this. New device for $100? That's not bad at all. Certainly the iPod isn't worth anything to me.

Of course, if the only problem with the iPod was a dead battery, I'd spend $30 on a new long-life lithium ion and send Dell here.

Heh. In college, I was a member of a group that was sharing Japanese CD games that were never offered in the US. Hard drive space was a premium...i think I had MAYBE 10 gig. But I had access to a number of older CD-ROMs...so, I would rip and compress the CDs until they'd fit two-to-a-CDR, burn them, and share them off these old CD-ROMS. I had 6 of them going...

Well, there are a few other basic ones too:

Don't use the flash unless it is so dim, and the action is so fast, that you absolutely have to. Flash light is unnatural, causes skin to look shiny and brings blemishes out of nowhere. Not using a flash in low light means shots could be blurry with a 1/20 shutter or slower...but the colours will look so much more natural.

Fix your goddamn white balance! Don't use the same white balance indoors you use outdoors or people will look all purple. And don't use the same with your flash that you use without!

Another colour thing: most digitals have a really crummy ISO rating, so if you keep your camera on Auto Shutter, it'll adjust itself to use a really long exposure. So either put the camera down, put it on a tripod or if you can't, adjust the shutter to at least 1/20 if you're steady, 1/40 if you've been drinking, and 1/100 if the subject is moving at all. And keep your elbows tight against your sides, just like shooting a rifle.

Something some people don't understand is that modern cameras have two positions for the shutter. Press down a little, and the camera does all of its auto work (focusing, metering, adjustments, etc). Press it again and it takes the picture. If you push the shutter all the way down before these adjustments are done, some cameras will take your word for it...and take a shitty picture! So, press down, give it a second, and press again. Kodak cameras force you to do this with a red light in the viewfinder. Best of all, put it on full tilt manual, do your adjustments before your subjects know you're taking the picture, and you're ready to hammer away whenever you like.

Check out my digital photos to see how following these simple, stupid rules on colour and shutter speed can lead from SHITTY photos (like the ones I took in 2001) to PRETTY DAMNED GOOD ONES (like the ones I've taken this year).

Well, Redblade beats that for sure. Automatically generate characters with complete customizable races, classes, feats, etc etc, allowing a DM to give his players a file and have them go to town, making their own magic weapons and equipment if they like. And then make nice HTML character sheets.

Incidentally, I did something similar to what you and your cousin did, aways back in 1991. I wrote a spreadsheet and forms to access it in dbase4. Essentially, I learned how to write SQL to play D&D, at the ripe age of 13. Two years later I accidentally learned LISP to program a "room" in a MUSH.

Oh, and I'd learned BASIC accidentally too...because that was the language you used to manipulate sprites in the Logo II Animals add on pack (IIRC).

this one is going to cliffy. congrats on fuckin his daughter too. is she a fine piece of ass? i hope she aint underage. i'll send you to cliffy for that, too.

showing folks information in a graphical or visual format makes it more real

I agree. As a demo to a new government GIS system I'm working on, I created a web service: enter any street address in New York, and you get spit back a 1 pixel/foot aerial photo of the property embedded with the parcel boundaries. The premise is to settle border disputes between neighbours without going to the planner's office for the plat blueprints. And some people are just shocked that we have the ability to do this...they're of the opinion that we're taking the photos real time (not so -- it takes about a year to scan and process the data for 1/3 of the state). The neat thing about this is all the data is freely available from NYS -- gigabytes and gigabytes of geographic data, census data, elevation data, orthophotography (overhead pictures), raster graphics (scanned maps), polygon files (which contain in them a bunch of fantastic parcel data)...and linking them all is as easy as layering them in ArcMap.

Is prividing so much data online a privacy thing? Maybe. But the information is so valuable -- to planners, developers, ecologists, home buyers, home owners and just plain curious folks that I think it's worth it. I mean, I don't freak out over the town pruning trees along the right of way , the census man, or USGS surveyors. Besides, the data over my house is so old, it has the driveway in the wrong place and trees that aren't even there any more.

BTW: NY did shut down access to detailed maps and orthophotgraphy files after 9/11. The came back up in November, 2003, even more detailed. We heal quick in the Empire State.

BTW2: I can't make the webservice available, because the machine it's on is laughably underpowered. If you want access, convince your town to buy our software ;)

Yes. What works better is superliminal messaging. On my website I sell a series of superliminal CDs that will help you lose weight fast. Here's a sample from the transcript:

[soothing new age music plays]
[Das speaks] Welcome to the superliminal weight loss tape. I will provide you with the gentle encouragement you need to lose weight and be a better you. Are you ready? Sit someplace comfortable, close your eyes, and turn up your headphones. We're ready to begin.
[Das screams] HEY FATTY! GOD YOU ARE FAT! SMALLER PEOPLE ORBIT YOU! EAT LESS FOOD YOU FAT FUCK!

Etcetera. We also have a tape that will make YOU less wishy washy and indecisive and more attractive to girls.

Not to mention that the quality is GREAT. I take a lot of digital pictures and love making huge blow ups of the really good shots. I turned a box of photo paper into a really awesome 8/10 gallery for about $50, in ink and paper...with borderless printing (basically just full bleed).

You think you're being funny. I think so, too. But never underestimate the true allure of voyeurism -- and I'm not talking porno. People like to look into other people's lives. Photographs are one the most intimate ways to do that (and for this reason, I found that awkward movie kind of chilling).

I keep all my photos online (I've got about 3200). I only take maybe 100-200 a month and am really bad about posting them.

There are people -- friends I haven't seen in forever, ex-coworkers, and even people who only know me from friggin' slashdot -- who only ever communicate with me to ask when I'm updating the site. People love it. And I lead a pretty boring life! Can you imagine if somebody interesting (like, say, a cop, a rock singer, Linus Torvalds) started posting a massive visual blog of their entire day?

What a terrible fucking argument. All media, throughout history, has made itself by taking what's popular and copying it. From movements in composition and painting to today's bland pop, it's all repetition. Bubblegum pop, the British Invasion, Dadaism, even painting on caves in a certain style.

Blaming the industry for this is like blaming the Beatles for ripping off Elvis, or the Who for ripping off the Beatles, or Mozart for ripping off Beethoven.

"Some old man" is not making 90% profit. I won't contend that the industry isn't making a ton of money off of record sales and unfairly pushing their costs onto the artists. But the majority of this money is going towards the promotion of records, a tiresome process that a lot of artists aren't good at. It takes easily a million dollars to produce and promote an album following the RIAA's standard methodology which includes EVERYTHING. Indies pay the artist more money but may do little more than press the record, some don't even have a distribution system. It's sobering that a band that sells 100,000 indie records makes about the same as a band that goes double platinum...but realize that the indie act isn't avaialable at your mall record store, isn't on the radio, and had to work five times harder to sell those 100k, while a signed band could sell 100k farting in a can.

And still, there's good music coming out of the most commercial segments of the industry. I count at least six bands from the big five in my last mix...most of it's older stuff, but I think it shows that it's not all britney clones out there.

Besides, as much as you may not want them to, the Britney clones sell records. In these uncertain times, people like the simplicity of artists who sing about being a complete slut.

Cheapasses is right. You get what you pay for, and if you're paying for impossible things, you should beware the catch. There is no such thing as unlimited bandwidth, or unlimited space...merely limits that you haven't hit yet.

A t1 line is still over $700 per month, so burstable bandwidth starts at more than $2 per gigabyte. People who are on better pipes pay way less, of course, but then again they need to maintain them, and technicians start at about $25 per hour. Servers need to be powered, backed up and maintained to prevent hackattacks. So when somebody offers you unlimited bandwidth, unlimited space, unlimited email with 24x7 support for a pretty number like $7.77 or $5.55 or whatever, they're basically lying to you.

Check your AUP. Somewhere in there you'll find a line saying that your unlimited bandwidth can be terminated at any time if you use too much of it. Unlimited really means "We're not telling you the limits. But you'll know when you hit them." Generally because your site takes off. You get popular, people start laughing at your jokes and caring about your weblog. Then your provider cuts the cord. Sucks, don't it?

See, ISPs at all levels make money by overselling. They tell you you have a T1, when really it's fractional. They tell you you have 256 kbit upstream, then it maxes at 192. The most egregious example of this is the El-Cheapo webhost, an animal I despised so much that I started my own crummy service to combat it. If you have the know-how, and you have the time, I suggest you do the same. It can be a lot of fun and offsets the cost of big web projects. Just don't harbor any dreams of getting stinko rich.

I remember the first time I had a site get "overnight popular." It was a certain web comic that we begged to come on board. In about two weeks ge went from moving 2 gig a month to over 50. And because we small timers get the short end of the bandwidth stick, his bill was about $200. Not his bill FROM us, but the bill TO us from our host for just his transfer. We didn't mark it up. That's a lot of money when you're a hobbiest. Shit, that was as much as we paid for everybody else's bandwidth that month.

We have a policy of not touching people's sites or restricting tranfer, but if we hadn't known the guy (and known he was good for the money, which his new fans donated in droves, we even threw in $30), we probably would have had to use the "no contract" clause and take the site offline. Damned if I'm paying for somebody else's popularity...

I think my wife would disagree with you. But she always has a controversial opinion of such things.

Actually, his name is Generalissimo Augusto Nicolas Calderon Sandino, which you think may be a rather big and subversive name for a cat, but I assure you he is, in fact, a big subversive cat. Just look at the way he kicks a llama's ass in NWN.

I bought a Volkswagen Passat, it was $19000 after my trade-in. It was pretty quick, but could have been quicker. So I dropped $400 on a performance chip, $150 on a new blow off valve, $50 on a filter charger, quality oil, a fuel pressure regulator and put nothing but great gas into it.

All in all, I'll say I've put about a hundred hours into making the car work the way I like it. My freelance rate is $40.hr. Does Volkswagen of America owe me $4000?

Here's a picture: http://images.dasmegabyte.org/dasmb31337.jpg. It rocks.

Consider this: without fair use laws for artistic works, we would have more beautiful pieces and far less derivation in the fields of art, music and multimedia.

Now, this is just speculation, and kind of hypocritical -- a trip to epmf.dasmegabyte.org will show you that my "art" benefits so much from fair use that i'm pushing its legality. However, it's something to think about. How much would we *really* suffer if we couldn't use other peoples' works in reviews, collages or academic works? I mean, shit. Most of the motion video on the internet is derivative of offline media, and many pieces of art, music and motion video borrow heavily from popular entities. And these works are usually less enjoyable than the original and offer no real insight into anything. I mean, c'mon -- Park Wars was awful, not funny and not really a great parody of anything. The "all your base" craze was mildly amusing at first and tunnelled its way into cliche in less than the time it took to play all the way through zerowing. And I don't need to remind you of all the hideous flash videos out there that have taken advantage of the Budweiser "wossop" commercial, the mastercard "priceless" adverts or the plight of metallica and dr dre as seen through the eyes of us internet "subterraneans".

It's not suprising that when I visit the monthly Saint Rose JCA Poetry Slam that all I hear is rehashes of hallmark cards and Korn lyrics. This beleif that art must be built on top of other art is totally antithetical to the concept of free expression. Poetry is about combining words in a fashion that's totally different from the way anybody else would combine them to create a window into your thoughts. Art should be about expressionism -- making images the way you see them or feel they should be seen. And motion video should be about telling a unique story from a unique point of view (or, shouts my jackoff film professor of three months, it should show the truth -- which means it should show nothing but pictures from the lives of boring people). Where's the originality in constructing the same ironic mismatch of media, the same syncronicity of images on image?

Sure, copyrights are bad and I hate them (although I will kill the guy who stole my "akira" video and repackaged it with his name). But what are we really restricted from doing? Garner's Grendel was the Beowulf legend, but it was really nothing like Beowulf...it shared no words or storyflow. That was what made it a masterpiece without pulling from the respect granted to the 800 AD original. Animal Farm was made an allegory, not a scathing work of historical fiction, because allegory succeeded in illustrating the sadness far better than the original. And one could very easily argue that a hiphop track which creates a new loop rather than borrowing from a popular song can be just as good as one that borrows heavily...listen sometime to the work of the RZA, whose work on the Ghost Dog soundtrack included very few copyrighted samples.

Copyright law is an invitation; nay, a challenge, to the artisans of the world: We've blocked off one channel to create art -- art that could easily become complacent and derivative. It's your job to make something new, rather than waste your time riding the coattails of others. An artist needs paint, sure, but she doesn't necessarily need blue paint...she might not create the Giocanda, but she could easily create Guernica.