A fair number of message boards only allow for a certain subset of image formats to be uploaded. In my experience, png is nearly always one of those..tif is not.
No, these actually are png images. They can be handled by any software that is capable of working with png images. This is not (as many seem to think) simply changing the extension of torrent files, or attaching a torrent as some sort of metadata to an image.
Instead, what they're doing here is encoding the data contained in a torrent file as valid image data. I'm not sure exactly what technique they're using, but the process is essentially analogous (though surely more complex) to treating each bit as a black/white pixel indicator. Given some agreed upon dimensions for the image (either width or height, doesn't matter which) this gives you a black and white bitmap which could then be encoded as a png.
Clearly what they are doing is more complex since their images are color (and they may be relying on specifics of the way png images are formatted), but the basic idea is the same.
You're over generalizing a very specific instance of religion, namely fundamental Christianity. For example, Buddhism (at least in some forms) does not have any notion of an all knowing being and seeks nothingness as its end goal. I agree that certain religious beliefs are incompatible with a scientific viewpoint, but that is hardly the point that you are trying to express.
There is a certain similarity insofar as both profess to "know" something which has not been (cannot be?) proven. Atheists claim that god does not exist, theists claim that god does exist. Neither point has yet to be proven to be true, thus I find a strong assertion of either viewpoint to be somewhat absurd. A more rational response to something that appears not to be falsifiable is to simply acknowledge that we can't make rational statements about it.
But when you graduate, marry, and have kids, will you have the money to keep five PCs upgraded, one for you, your spouse, and each of your children?
I'm not quite sure why you keep bringing up this notion of having five game capable PCs in a single house. None of the LAN parties I've been a part of (except those in the CS lab at school) involved having computers already present. Everyone brought their own. So the question of whether I would have enough money to keep five PCs in top gaming condition (the answer is yes, by the way) is irrelevant.
I any case I would always have a PC for my own dedicated use and 1+ for anyone else I lived with.
We can't go downloading Linux, because you know every time someone does that's one less person who buys Windows. And we wouldn't want to see Microsoft loose money, now would we? So I guess there really is no legal use for BitTorrent.
They could even try lowering their regular prices a bit. The problem right now is that the amount you save with a pirated copy is enough to justify (for some people) the associated loss of quality. To quote an explanation of the Baen Free Library http://www.baen.com/library/:
The only time that mass scale petty thievery becomes a problem is when the perception spreads, among broad layers of the population, that a given product is priced artificially high due to monopolistic practices and/or draconian legislation designed to protect those practices. But so long as the "gap" between the price of a legal product and a stolen one remains both small and, in the eyes of most people, a legitimate cost rather than gouging, 99% of them will prefer the legal product.
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A fair number of message boards only allow for a certain subset of image formats to be uploaded. In my experience, png is nearly always one of those. .tif is not.
Instead, what they're doing here is encoding the data contained in a torrent file as valid image data. I'm not sure exactly what technique they're using, but the process is essentially analogous (though surely more complex) to treating each bit as a black/white pixel indicator. Given some agreed upon dimensions for the image (either width or height, doesn't matter which) this gives you a black and white bitmap which could then be encoded as a png.
Clearly what they are doing is more complex since their images are color (and they may be relying on specifics of the way png images are formatted), but the basic idea is the same.
You're over generalizing a very specific instance of religion, namely fundamental Christianity. For example, Buddhism (at least in some forms) does not have any notion of an all knowing being and seeks nothingness as its end goal. I agree that certain religious beliefs are incompatible with a scientific viewpoint, but that is hardly the point that you are trying to express.
There is a certain similarity insofar as both profess to "know" something which has not been (cannot be?) proven. Atheists claim that god does not exist, theists claim that god does exist. Neither point has yet to be proven to be true, thus I find a strong assertion of either viewpoint to be somewhat absurd. A more rational response to something that appears not to be falsifiable is to simply acknowledge that we can't make rational statements about it.
But when you graduate, marry, and have kids, will you have the money to keep five PCs upgraded, one for you, your spouse, and each of your children?
I'm not quite sure why you keep bringing up this notion of having five game capable PCs in a single house. None of the LAN parties I've been a part of (except those in the CS lab at school) involved having computers already present. Everyone brought their own. So the question of whether I would have enough money to keep five PCs in top gaming condition (the answer is yes, by the way) is irrelevant. I any case I would always have a PC for my own dedicated use and 1+ for anyone else I lived with.
Try making a link to FireFox using the IE icon. Some of the users I've done this for never even noticed the difference.
We can't go downloading Linux, because you know every time someone does that's one less person who buys Windows. And we wouldn't want to see Microsoft loose money, now would we? So I guess there really is no legal use for BitTorrent.