Oh, and when I was at Stevens tech, they had a whole slew of introductory courses that *everyone* was required to take. Courses like calc 1 and 2, mechanics, E&M, chem 1 and 2, philosophy, literature... and comp sci classes. The first semester had the comp sci topic actually broken into two sections. The first covered the basics of how hardware functioned, the second semester was some very basic programming in visual basic. All simple stuff, but Stevens wanted to introduce you to this, and noone was exempt except for those who went into the "advanced" versions of the course.
at the Richard Stockton College of New Jersey. It was called Computers in Society and we covered various issues like privacy, copyright issues, security, business on the web, the impact of computers' advancement on warfare and others (we had a list of like 11 subjects that we covered during the semester).
Class itself was kind of interesting. Rather than the teacher lecturing, we broke up into 6 groups. Each week, two groups would do presentations based on research they did into the topic. The next class meeting (we met 2x a week), the groups would face off in a debate on the issues. This was kind of tough, because invariably we all wanted to argue the same side. This approach was really good though, because it forced the presenters to do their own research and find out things for themselves. It was sometimes not so good for the rest of the class, as an incomplete presentation wouldn't give you as much information.
The only drawback to this class was that it was a 3000-level computer science course (equivalent of a 300-level course, I guess), and so we had only comp. sci. majors in there.
This is an excellent idea though, since it will give people a chance to really learn about topics that ordinarily they might avoid, but will certainly impact them in the future.
It's not open-ended like GTA, but remember Final Fantasy VII? It was actually pointed out by my roommate's Muslim ex-roommate (after the 9/11 attacks) that Cloud and gang were pretty much terrorists. It's interesting though how when the story is presented in a certain way, you feel like you're the good guys.
The original poster is talking about content, which is a special case. IANAL or even someone well versed in this, but isn't there some law that says certain types of providers can't be held accountable since they don't control content?
For example, a telephone company can't be sued if people coordinate a crime through a phone system. At the same time, they can't dictate what goes across their lines. If ISPs are viewed as general providers, then they also can't be sued if the service they provide is used for something unlawful. But if they start controlling access to content, then they can be held liable I believe.
Uhh, did everyone miss the fact that there's an additional charge of $9.95 for every month? 10 tracks for just under $10 doesn't sound so bad, but it actually costs me at least $19.85 for those 10 tracks. It costs me more than that, actually, if I don't find those 10 tracks I like within a single month. So this is just like Pressplay, where you have to subscribe to their service (which lets you listen to the music) before they will even sell you anything.
Methinks this is crap. 99 cents sounded good until I read about the required subscription.
I know I'm beating a dead horse, but not only do I not trust MS, but I'm not so sure about the robustness and stability of their services. I have been using hotmail for years and years, since before it was an MS service--my hotmail address is my main one, the one that never changes and where people know they can reach me. Yesterday I was unable to access my account because the server with my information on it was "unaccessable"... all day... into the wee hours of the morning. Is this the kind of service we expect from them? What will happen when their authentication server goes down and all the people whose throats they're shoving Passport down can't access any of their stuff?
Just a question to toss out to everyone--how might the legal ability to modify without permission and then legally distribute (albeit with a disclaimer notifying the buyer of changes) apply to software? Wouldn't it be legal, then, for an OEM to sell a version of Windows or something, and rip out parts or modify it? It might work better and not have as many hooks in it then... but what if some company distributing Linux did the same thing? A consumer who is willing to give it a whirl because of its improvements and price (free!) could be easily turned off. Okay, okay, maybe I'm getting a little conspirational here, but it's possible too for MS to hatch their own little Linux divison and market it as, say, "Red Hat with some minor mods". If it worked like crap, do you think the average consumer would be miffed at MS or Linux? Just trying to see different ways this could apply to us...
The faq on Blizzard's website says that it will be a console game only--so they're not planning on a PC port at this time. The also state that the game will be available on multiple platforms. Of course, this could mean just two. I don't think this is going to be an exclusive though, or at least they're claiming for now that it won't be.
If It's good (which I do hope. I've always supported Blizzard), I guess I'll have to buy a console.
I can't help but imagine that the sales for this game will be heavy, as more people own consoles than PCs (for gaming). Also, I bet Nintendo, Sony, and Microsoft are paying Blizzard a heap of cash to have the game on consoles in general and their consoles specifically. Sigh. Oh well, this one's not for me I guess.
If I'm not mistaken, a lot of the space inside a cartridge wasn't "used". They did this because of heating concerns. Basically, if they filled the whole thing up, your cartridge would melt all over your system, and that's not exactly a good thing.
I forget where I originally read this information. It was in an article about some kid who opened an SNES cartridge and was disappointed to find that half the cartridge was completely empty.
I was thinking this myself the other day. I checked out PressPlay's program, and it seemed (to me) to be utter crap. $9.95 a month gives you unlimited downloads and streaming from *selected* labels. You have to listen to the music through their client software. If you like, you can set up a second client (maximum) at work, for example, and re-download everything to listen there. If you ever cancel the service, you lose access to all of the music you've downloaded.
For a mere $17.95, you get unlimited streaming/downloads and 10 "Portable Downloads." The portable downloads are essentially MP3s--you get to keep them, burn them, whatever. If you don't go with a more expensive subscription, you can purchase the downloads on a 5/10/20-pack basis.
In the end, the portable downloads come out to around $1 each, give or take a bit, which seems pretty reasonable. However, I am not willing to pay extra overhead for a service I won't use, just for the priviledge of downloading their music:P If they cut out that $9.95 a month minimum BS, then I'd give them a whirl. Another fine example of recording companies bungling what could be something nice.
Somtimes AIDS does just happen. When I was in high school, the father of a really good friend of mine with AIDS. He got it through a blood transfusion.
Even more practically, according to the article at New Scientist you have to be travelling Mach 5 to even get the engine to ignite. Perhaps this is why they had to launch it on a rocket and then attempt ignition as it re-entered the earth's atmosphere.
I talked with a buddy of mine who is really into aviation, and to the best of his knowledge, even our (i.e. the US) best and newest fighter jets top out around Mach 4. While this jet engine certainly seems amazing (I mean, c'mon, it's Mach 7.6!), it doesn't seem like there are really any practical uses for it on Earth at this time.
I find this goal of obtaining high levels is one of the major things that turned me off to MMORPGs. I used to play EQ, for a spate of 6 months or so back in college. I cancelled my account for various reasons.
First, the whole ordeal with Conquest and Itzlegend--VI's handling of the matter left a horrible taste in my mouth. Second, the grind. I can understand that the higher levels should be more difficult to reach, but MMORPGs don't incorporate any *real* challenge, anyone with enough time can get the high levels. In fact, with EQ you have to have a ton of time if you want to become really powerful within the game. Otherwise you don't have the dozens of hours needed to camp a spawn for a single item. You don't have the hours needed to participate in high-level dungeon raids. You don't have the hours on top of all that needed to simply get the higher levels:P And god forbid you actually die and lose some xp! EQ is basically designed to keep you playing. Goals are difficult to reach only in that they require inordinate amounts of time. This turned me off greatly. Third, and this is something common to both EQ and DAOC, the squeakiest wheel gets the grease. There will always be an uber class, and there will always be a ton of players playing it. Try to tweak that class down to be reasonable, and the masses cry out. Tweak other classes up to be more in line with the more powerful one, and the masses complain. It's *really* annoying. VI and Mythic's handling of consumer opinion, in this way, is retarded.
As for DAOC, having to be a high level (45+) to have any sort of impact in RvR combat is pretty retarded as well. I played for a couple of months and had a lvl 31 cabalist and I was sick of levelling. RvR was supposed to be what the game was all about, but you had to spend months getting to that point (months where you're still paying them:P) and RvR is still pretty unbalanced. When I left DAOC, whoever had the best (i.e. most) crowd control won the battle.
I can easily understand why EQ was more interesting though--EQ had a more developed world. DAOC had the 3 realms, and taken together they might encompass more area than Norrath, but the 3 realms were basically just a vehicle to gain xp and equipment. I found the story line, actually, to be trite and boring in DAOC.
I think both companies and games, however, have distinct problems with their customer relations. While playing EQ, I felt that the game revolved too much around 3 classes--the warrior, the cleric, and the enchanter. You've got your meat shield, a healer, and your "crack dealer" (clarity, a spell that enhanced mana regen). In DAOC I don't get as much of that feeling, but I feel that some classes are unfairly ignored--the shaman and the cabalist. Although shamen have gotten some love recently and a lot of classes have been buffed as well.
As for NWN, the game was interesting in the 3 or 4 days it took me to beat it. I thought it would have a lot of replay value since I could do it again as a different class, but in the end I just found it boring to do over again. The ability to make modules is pretty nice, but at the same time I know I will *never* make one. Basically it's nice if someone else wants to create the content and give it to me, but otherwise it's a useless feature.
Hrm, I should have left work 30 min ago but I felt like writing this.
[they can patent the bios code that the OS checks for]
Sort of off-topic, but what exactly is involved in filing for a patent? Is it possible for an individual to file for a patent and charge no licensing fees at all? This could prevent disreputable companies filing for some obvious patent, receiving it, and charging for it.
That caught my eye too, but then I thought they could be pointing out that it's not easy to engineer *new* viruses, whereas it was simpler to create polio since they already knew how it was structured bla bla bla.
I forget where I saw this mentioned, but a potential conflict is the two philosophies of crime-fighting. Superman is more of a stereotypical do-gooder, whereas Batman is more like a dark vigilante.
I've used MS software ever since I got my first PC back in '93. Recently, though, I borrowed the RH 7.2 install discs and took them home to put RH on a partition. I was kind of excited to have RH on my system, I was fantasizing about the old days of MUDding and possibly getting tintin++ again. Imagine my dismay when I realized that I had a winmodem! I rebooted in XP and looked up some info to find out why RH wouldn't recognise my modem. After an hour or so of searching around, looking for drivers on the manufacturer's website, I finally found a place that had some generic drivers for my modem's chipset.
But then again, perhaps that's why they call it a WinModem--designed for Windows. I'm not being sarcastic, but I think it's kind of retarded that the thing is software driven but the manufacturer (Creative) didn't have any sort of support for it. At the time, all I could think was that there was some MS conspiracy to put out cheap, functional equipment but make it so that it was difficult to get it to work with anything besides MS. Let people buy all the hardware, then they'll be upset when it isn't compatible with anything else.
My feeling is that if you have "common" hardware, then chances are that someone already has made drivers. This community support is one of the greatest features of the *nix community. I had problems with XP too when I first started using it, and the support was non-existant.
This thought makes me curious. What company would provide the OS with ads? Do these ads sit on my hard disk or do I need a connection to constantly download and view them? If it's the former, what stops me from modifying them to go away. If it's the latter then that's a real pain in my ass seeing as I'm stuck in south jersey on a 28.8 connection.
At the same time, I have to ask if the company involved would actually reinvest the money in OSS development. Maybe it's just me, but I somehow doubt a significant portion of it would.
Actually they did a piece on NPR on how the Patterson kidnapping didn't receive the same nation-wide media as the Smart kidnapping. Probably heard it there and it got him thinking.
I don't know what it is, but I only get like half a dozen spam emails a day. I've seen people on here claim to receive 200+ a day! Anyway, I try to track down the open relays the emails are sent from, and forward the email to abuse@whatever.com. I usually use whois, does anyone know of a way to get more/better information about the source?
I've also, lately, taken to looking at the links that are sometimes included. I don't follow the link, but I send a complaint email to whoever is hosting the site, and the people they are registered with or are buying their bandwidth from. A lot of the time, I get bounced emails when complaining to the hosting service directly. "www.freehostco.com" and "www.bestoptinchoices.com" are the two that pop in to my mind readily.
Also, I've noticed that lately people tend to be sending out forms, and have the info sent to their pager (or whatever device) through ICQ's paging service. I can get their ICQ numbers, but I'm not sure where to go from that point. I've forwarded the emails in question directly to abuse@icq.com and asked that they do something about this. I have yet to receive a reply.
One final thing: sometimes in the email a 1-800 (or similar) number is listed. How does one go about resolving this to a business name and address? I'd love to report these people to the BBB or some government agency.
I tend to go to the Suncoast, like a lot of other people have suggested. They tend to carry a pretty good (?) selection of kung fu movies as well:D
So far Suncoast has had everything I wanted that had already been released. The only time I'll buy something "illegal" is when it's the only way. For example, you can't find Nausicaa at all, except in a fansub format. Disney was supposed to be re-releasing all the Studio Ghibli here in the States, but I never saw anything beyond Kiki's Delivery Service (although I've heard that My Neighbor Totoro and Laputa were both released State-side). Sometimes fansub/bootleg is the only way to go. I was a huge fan of Warriors of the Wind when I was just a wee one, and it amazes me how they cut out integral parts of the story in that version!
Another reason I might suggest fansubs is that they put out *everything*. Rather than just the episodes that make up the central story. I saw a hilarious episode of Sorceror Hunters once, but I've never seen it on a VHS cassette or DVD for legal purchase here.
For your fansub needs I'd say either hop online and do a few searches, or head to either Phillie or NYC, you should be about equal distance from both. A lot of people who make and collect fansubs will make you free copies as long as you send them a cassette tape and $$$ for shipping, and as long as the tape hasn't been released in the US.
Terrorist Mutant Ninja Turtles
Terrorist Mutant Ninja Turtles
Terrorist Mutant Ninja Turtles
Terrors in a half-shell, turtle power!
The Feds should be scouring the sewers then I guess?
Slashdot Mirror
Oh, and when I was at Stevens tech, they had a whole slew of introductory courses that *everyone* was required to take. Courses like calc 1 and 2, mechanics, E&M, chem 1 and 2, philosophy, literature... and comp sci classes. The first semester had the comp sci topic actually broken into two sections. The first covered the basics of how hardware functioned, the second semester was some very basic programming in visual basic. All simple stuff, but Stevens wanted to introduce you to this, and noone was exempt except for those who went into the "advanced" versions of the course.
at the Richard Stockton College of New Jersey. It was called Computers in Society and we covered various issues like privacy, copyright issues, security, business on the web, the impact of computers' advancement on warfare and others (we had a list of like 11 subjects that we covered during the semester).
Class itself was kind of interesting. Rather than the teacher lecturing, we broke up into 6 groups. Each week, two groups would do presentations based on research they did into the topic. The next class meeting (we met 2x a week), the groups would face off in a debate on the issues. This was kind of tough, because invariably we all wanted to argue the same side. This approach was really good though, because it forced the presenters to do their own research and find out things for themselves. It was sometimes not so good for the rest of the class, as an incomplete presentation wouldn't give you as much information.
The only drawback to this class was that it was a 3000-level computer science course (equivalent of a 300-level course, I guess), and so we had only comp. sci. majors in there.
This is an excellent idea though, since it will give people a chance to really learn about topics that ordinarily they might avoid, but will certainly impact them in the future.
It's not open-ended like GTA, but remember Final Fantasy VII? It was actually pointed out by my roommate's Muslim ex-roommate (after the 9/11 attacks) that Cloud and gang were pretty much terrorists. It's interesting though how when the story is presented in a certain way, you feel like you're the good guys.
The original poster is talking about content, which is a special case. IANAL or even someone well versed in this, but isn't there some law that says certain types of providers can't be held accountable since they don't control content?
For example, a telephone company can't be sued if people coordinate a crime through a phone system. At the same time, they can't dictate what goes across their lines. If ISPs are viewed as general providers, then they also can't be sued if the service they provide is used for something unlawful. But if they start controlling access to content, then they can be held liable I believe.
Anyone have better knowledge of this?
Uhh, did everyone miss the fact that there's an additional charge of $9.95 for every month? 10 tracks for just under $10 doesn't sound so bad, but it actually costs me at least $19.85 for those 10 tracks. It costs me more than that, actually, if I don't find those 10 tracks I like within a single month. So this is just like Pressplay, where you have to subscribe to their service (which lets you listen to the music) before they will even sell you anything.
Methinks this is crap. 99 cents sounded good until I read about the required subscription.
I know I'm beating a dead horse, but not only do I not trust MS, but I'm not so sure about the robustness and stability of their services. I have been using hotmail for years and years, since before it was an MS service--my hotmail address is my main one, the one that never changes and where people know they can reach me. Yesterday I was unable to access my account because the server with my information on it was "unaccessable"... all day... into the wee hours of the morning. Is this the kind of service we expect from them? What will happen when their authentication server goes down and all the people whose throats they're shoving Passport down can't access any of their stuff?
Just a question to toss out to everyone--how might the legal ability to modify without permission and then legally distribute (albeit with a disclaimer notifying the buyer of changes) apply to software? Wouldn't it be legal, then, for an OEM to sell a version of Windows or something, and rip out parts or modify it? It might work better and not have as many hooks in it then... but what if some company distributing Linux did the same thing? A consumer who is willing to give it a whirl because of its improvements and price (free!) could be easily turned off. Okay, okay, maybe I'm getting a little conspirational here, but it's possible too for MS to hatch their own little Linux divison and market it as, say, "Red Hat with some minor mods". If it worked like crap, do you think the average consumer would be miffed at MS or Linux? Just trying to see different ways this could apply to us...
The faq on Blizzard's website says that it will be a console game only--so they're not planning on a PC port at this time. The also state that the game will be available on multiple platforms. Of course, this could mean just two. I don't think this is going to be an exclusive though, or at least they're claiming for now that it won't be.
If It's good (which I do hope. I've always supported Blizzard), I guess I'll have to buy a console.
I can't help but imagine that the sales for this game will be heavy, as more people own consoles than PCs (for gaming). Also, I bet Nintendo, Sony, and Microsoft are paying Blizzard a heap of cash to have the game on consoles in general and their consoles specifically. Sigh. Oh well, this one's not for me I guess.
Am I the only one who takes a sort of sick pleasure in seeing sites slashdotted? Hmmm...
I thought that was copyrights?
If I'm not mistaken, a lot of the space inside a cartridge wasn't "used". They did this because of heating concerns. Basically, if they filled the whole thing up, your cartridge would melt all over your system, and that's not exactly a good thing. I forget where I originally read this information. It was in an article about some kid who opened an SNES cartridge and was disappointed to find that half the cartridge was completely empty.
I was thinking this myself the other day. I checked out PressPlay's program, and it seemed (to me) to be utter crap. $9.95 a month gives you unlimited downloads and streaming from *selected* labels. You have to listen to the music through their client software. If you like, you can set up a second client (maximum) at work, for example, and re-download everything to listen there. If you ever cancel the service, you lose access to all of the music you've downloaded.
:P If they cut out that $9.95 a month minimum BS, then I'd give them a whirl. Another fine example of recording companies bungling what could be something nice.
For a mere $17.95, you get unlimited streaming/downloads and 10 "Portable Downloads." The portable downloads are essentially MP3s--you get to keep them, burn them, whatever. If you don't go with a more expensive subscription, you can purchase the downloads on a 5/10/20-pack basis.
In the end, the portable downloads come out to around $1 each, give or take a bit, which seems pretty reasonable. However, I am not willing to pay extra overhead for a service I won't use, just for the priviledge of downloading their music
Somtimes AIDS does just happen. When I was in high school, the father of a really good friend of mine with AIDS. He got it through a blood transfusion.
Even more practically, according to the article at New Scientist you have to be travelling Mach 5 to even get the engine to ignite. Perhaps this is why they had to launch it on a rocket and then attempt ignition as it re-entered the earth's atmosphere.
I talked with a buddy of mine who is really into aviation, and to the best of his knowledge, even our (i.e. the US) best and newest fighter jets top out around Mach 4. While this jet engine certainly seems amazing (I mean, c'mon, it's Mach 7.6!), it doesn't seem like there are really any practical uses for it on Earth at this time.
I find this goal of obtaining high levels is one of the major things that turned me off to MMORPGs. I used to play EQ, for a spate of 6 months or so back in college. I cancelled my account for various reasons.
:P And god forbid you actually die and lose some xp! EQ is basically designed to keep you playing. Goals are difficult to reach only in that they require inordinate amounts of time. This turned me off greatly. Third, and this is something common to both EQ and DAOC, the squeakiest wheel gets the grease. There will always be an uber class, and there will always be a ton of players playing it. Try to tweak that class down to be reasonable, and the masses cry out. Tweak other classes up to be more in line with the more powerful one, and the masses complain. It's *really* annoying. VI and Mythic's handling of consumer opinion, in this way, is retarded.
:P) and RvR is still pretty unbalanced. When I left DAOC, whoever had the best (i.e. most) crowd control won the battle.
First, the whole ordeal with Conquest and Itzlegend--VI's handling of the matter left a horrible taste in my mouth. Second, the grind. I can understand that the higher levels should be more difficult to reach, but MMORPGs don't incorporate any *real* challenge, anyone with enough time can get the high levels. In fact, with EQ you have to have a ton of time if you want to become really powerful within the game. Otherwise you don't have the dozens of hours needed to camp a spawn for a single item. You don't have the hours needed to participate in high-level dungeon raids. You don't have the hours on top of all that needed to simply get the higher levels
As for DAOC, having to be a high level (45+) to have any sort of impact in RvR combat is pretty retarded as well. I played for a couple of months and had a lvl 31 cabalist and I was sick of levelling. RvR was supposed to be what the game was all about, but you had to spend months getting to that point (months where you're still paying them
I can easily understand why EQ was more interesting though--EQ had a more developed world. DAOC had the 3 realms, and taken together they might encompass more area than Norrath, but the 3 realms were basically just a vehicle to gain xp and equipment. I found the story line, actually, to be trite and boring in DAOC.
I think both companies and games, however, have distinct problems with their customer relations. While playing EQ, I felt that the game revolved too much around 3 classes--the warrior, the cleric, and the enchanter. You've got your meat shield, a healer, and your "crack dealer" (clarity, a spell that enhanced mana regen). In DAOC I don't get as much of that feeling, but I feel that some classes are unfairly ignored--the shaman and the cabalist. Although shamen have gotten some love recently and a lot of classes have been buffed as well.
As for NWN, the game was interesting in the 3 or 4 days it took me to beat it. I thought it would have a lot of replay value since I could do it again as a different class, but in the end I just found it boring to do over again. The ability to make modules is pretty nice, but at the same time I know I will *never* make one. Basically it's nice if someone else wants to create the content and give it to me, but otherwise it's a useless feature.
Hrm, I should have left work 30 min ago but I felt like writing this.
[they can patent the bios code that the OS checks for]
Sort of off-topic, but what exactly is involved in filing for a patent? Is it possible for an individual to file for a patent and charge no licensing fees at all? This could prevent disreputable companies filing for some obvious patent, receiving it, and charging for it.
That caught my eye too, but then I thought they could be pointing out that it's not easy to engineer *new* viruses, whereas it was simpler to create polio since they already knew how it was structured bla bla bla.
I forget where I saw this mentioned, but a potential conflict is the two philosophies of crime-fighting. Superman is more of a stereotypical do-gooder, whereas Batman is more like a dark vigilante.
I've used MS software ever since I got my first PC back in '93. Recently, though, I borrowed the RH 7.2 install discs and took them home to put RH on a partition. I was kind of excited to have RH on my system, I was fantasizing about the old days of MUDding and possibly getting tintin++ again. Imagine my dismay when I realized that I had a winmodem! I rebooted in XP and looked up some info to find out why RH wouldn't recognise my modem. After an hour or so of searching around, looking for drivers on the manufacturer's website, I finally found a place that had some generic drivers for my modem's chipset.
But then again, perhaps that's why they call it a WinModem--designed for Windows. I'm not being sarcastic, but I think it's kind of retarded that the thing is software driven but the manufacturer (Creative) didn't have any sort of support for it. At the time, all I could think was that there was some MS conspiracy to put out cheap, functional equipment but make it so that it was difficult to get it to work with anything besides MS. Let people buy all the hardware, then they'll be upset when it isn't compatible with anything else.
My feeling is that if you have "common" hardware, then chances are that someone already has made drivers. This community support is one of the greatest features of the *nix community. I had problems with XP too when I first started using it, and the support was non-existant.
This thought makes me curious. What company would provide the OS with ads? Do these ads sit on my hard disk or do I need a connection to constantly download and view them? If it's the former, what stops me from modifying them to go away. If it's the latter then that's a real pain in my ass seeing as I'm stuck in south jersey on a 28.8 connection.
At the same time, I have to ask if the company involved would actually reinvest the money in OSS development. Maybe it's just me, but I somehow doubt a significant portion of it would.
Actually they did a piece on NPR on how the Patterson kidnapping didn't receive the same nation-wide media as the Smart kidnapping. Probably heard it there and it got him thinking.
I don't know what it is, but I only get like half a dozen spam emails a day. I've seen people on here claim to receive 200+ a day! Anyway, I try to track down the open relays the emails are sent from, and forward the email to abuse@whatever.com. I usually use whois, does anyone know of a way to get more/better information about the source?
I've also, lately, taken to looking at the links that are sometimes included. I don't follow the link, but I send a complaint email to whoever is hosting the site, and the people they are registered with or are buying their bandwidth from. A lot of the time, I get bounced emails when complaining to the hosting service directly. "www.freehostco.com" and "www.bestoptinchoices.com" are the two that pop in to my mind readily.
Also, I've noticed that lately people tend to be sending out forms, and have the info sent to their pager (or whatever device) through ICQ's paging service. I can get their ICQ numbers, but I'm not sure where to go from that point. I've forwarded the emails in question directly to abuse@icq.com and asked that they do something about this. I have yet to receive a reply.
One final thing: sometimes in the email a 1-800 (or similar) number is listed. How does one go about resolving this to a business name and address? I'd love to report these people to the BBB or some government agency.
I tend to go to the Suncoast, like a lot of other people have suggested. They tend to carry a pretty good (?) selection of kung fu movies as well :D
So far Suncoast has had everything I wanted that had already been released. The only time I'll buy something "illegal" is when it's the only way. For example, you can't find Nausicaa at all, except in a fansub format. Disney was supposed to be re-releasing all the Studio Ghibli here in the States, but I never saw anything beyond Kiki's Delivery Service (although I've heard that My Neighbor Totoro and Laputa were both released State-side). Sometimes fansub/bootleg is the only way to go. I was a huge fan of Warriors of the Wind when I was just a wee one, and it amazes me how they cut out integral parts of the story in that version!
Another reason I might suggest fansubs is that they put out *everything*. Rather than just the episodes that make up the central story. I saw a hilarious episode of Sorceror Hunters once, but I've never seen it on a VHS cassette or DVD for legal purchase here.
For your fansub needs I'd say either hop online and do a few searches, or head to either Phillie or NYC, you should be about equal distance from both. A lot of people who make and collect fansubs will make you free copies as long as you send them a cassette tape and $$$ for shipping, and as long as the tape hasn't been released in the US.
Terrorist Mutant Ninja Turtles Terrorist Mutant Ninja Turtles Terrorist Mutant Ninja Turtles Terrors in a half-shell, turtle power! The Feds should be scouring the sewers then I guess?