for cartridge games, you can find a rom dumper do do that. no need to desolder chips or anything. every cartridge system has a dumper made for it. a company named BUNG tends to make a lot of them. I have one of their N64 dumpers, and it works almost flawlessly.. except for needing a few bios flashes due to new protection schemes. note: rom dumpers are apparently semi-legal, but being I was only using it for my personal collection, i'd love to see someone bust me.:)
for CD-based systems (TG-CD, Sega CD, Playstation), you can simply dump iso images of the files using your PC CD-ROM.
fair use is a fun thing. it'll probably be harder to find a rom dumper due to the DMCA, but I'm sure a quick scour of the alt.binaries.emulators newsgroups will pop up a few people selling them.
(paraphrased)
"we're a war-like culture, and it doesn't have to be limited to the battlefield. Our government declares war on a lot of things: 'The War on drugs', 'The War on Poverty', 'The War on Underage Pregnancy'. We don't really do anything about it, we just declare War on it."
replace "video games" with "books", and think about how this sounds:
"how does preventing a person from reading a book deny them their Constitutional rights? The book isn't saying anything or displaying anything of value"
I know, you're playing the devil's advocate, but every statement deserves at least one challenge.:)
usually, the cpu is multiplier locked, so the only way to increase the clock speed is to overclock the system bus, which overclocks the bus speed, ram speed, and usually overclocks anything that's running on the PCI slots.
PCI slots are usually running at a divider of the bus speed, i.e. if the system bus is 100 Mhz, then the divider is 2/3, which keeps the bus speed at 66 Mhz. however, anything other than 66, 100, or 133 Mhz dividers are not supported, and most mobo's will support 1 Mhz increments, which will overclock everything else.
many new athlons and durons aren't multiplier locked, so you can do a multiplier increase to knock up the cpu speed, but most mobos (especially the Abit KT7) will still allow 1 Mhz incremental increases in the bus speed for that extra increase.
actually, yeah. go get yourself a Mini SuperOrb. you should be able to fit that one the BP6. I did. it's small enough in diameter to fit in the restricted area on that wonderful mobo, but made my previously semi-stable dual celeron 366 setup rock solid.
oh, sure.
600 mhz, eh?
being that you'd need either the highest quality ram at the time (you said "a few years ago"), which was pc100, you'd be not only overclocking your system bus to 133 mhz (at the celery 300's 4.5x multiplier), you'd also be overclocking your ram to that point. and a few years ago, most motherboards were LUCKY to get near a 121 Mhz bus, let alone 133 Mhz.
what did you use to cool this chip that was overclocked 200 percent? what kind of motherboard did you use?
personally, I have a dual celeron 366 setup overclocked to 550 Mhz each on an Abit BP6 motherboard, and it's been rock solid (after a bios update or two) on my linux mandrake system for almost a year and a half.
if you're going to post something to incite conversation, at least get your facts straight. I'd respect a well-informed liar much more than someone who spouts off with half-true information.
well, it seems that if you have a Shinco DVD Player (or an Apex AD 500/703), there's a few people working on adding support for DivX to the firmware they've been hacking. they've already hacked in the menus that made the Apex AD-600A so famous, and have extra unused space in the firmware, enough space to add mini-dvd support and hopefully DivX soon.
actually, GTK+ is "The Gimp Toolkit".
www.gtk.org points this out.
gtk was created after the original authors of the gimp got tired of Athena Widgets. after it was created, they branched it out, so others could use this toolkit.:)
awfully nice of em, eh?
seems that even though linux is (and will always be) covered under the GPL, where it states that the source code needs to be provided to any app that's included under the licence, the wording of the README file seems to state that this guy doesn't know when the source will be released... IF AT ALL.
I'm just as happy about this development as you are (I REALLY need a dreamcast now), but if it violates the GPL, it's all in vain.
I hate to ruin a good dissection such as yours, but there are records in The Indianapolis Star, The Toledo Blade, and a few other midwest states about parents disposing of their children's games in mass quanties. This happened during the whole "Night Trap/Mortal Kombat/Time Killers is a sin against god" fiasco a few years ago. I actually have the newspaper clippings. unfortunately, I don't know if they were put on their website (haven't checked). I also have quite a few issues of Electronic Gaming Monthly where they talk about Joseph Lieberman (these were published roughly 3-4 years ago... scared me when he was chosen as running mate), and his crusade to stop ALL video games. Yes, he actually said, and I quote, "The media has devised a way to get to our children as early as possible. The video game industry creates these 'death simulators' as a way to desensitize our children, allowing them to be fully prepared for the horrors that Hollywood has in store for them. Video games must be stopped!"
unfortunately, he was a little too broad.
because night trap alludes to sexuality, all games must suffer.
(I admit, without physical proof, my statements are pretty hollow. so if anyone really wants me to scan the magazines and newspaper clippings, I'll dig 'em up, and find a scanner somewhere to post 'em.)
Unfortunately, Lieberman's Crusade spawned the "great video game violence controversy" that created the ratings board for video games... I'm just grateful that the morality these people were pushing only went that far.
however, you're right on the statements that JonKatz used to come to his conclusions. they're not even largely grounded in fact. The PS2 won't change anything any more than the Super NES or Atari 2600 did. but that really was arbitrary to the point he was trying to make.
Hopefully, this doesn't come off as a "I'm so eleet because I can read/speak japanese" statement, but if you've seen only the English dub of Akira, then you haven't seen Akira. You see, Voice acting aside (LEONARDO AS KANEDA?!?!?), the adapters of the screenplay felt that a lot of the symbolism and dialogue (read: what moves the plot) were too deep (or just too foreign) for most english-speaking people (anyone resent that?), so they edited the dialogue... and by doing so, altered the plot considerably. if you had trouble following Akira, even after watching the dub multiple times, you'll see that Otomo Katsuhiro's world is a lot clearer after one viewing of the original movie... however, most of you will need to read subtitles.:)
I'm very glad that pioneer will be re-dubbing this movie. Perhaps they'll keep most of the dialogue intact, if just so people like me don't have to constantly hear "How could you like Akira? it made no sense!" from the dub-only crowd.:)
Since I earn far more than most, I think it's right that I should give a large portion of my income to help those who are less well-off.
Hey, how about you donate your money? You'll know exactly where it's going/what it's doing. Also, you won't be deciding how I, or anyone else spends their money! when you want to tax everyone because YOU want to help others, that's called socialism.
actually, if Seems Like Salvation News is right, he's already got clint mansell (the composer of the kickass music in Pi) aboard. I think clint's page talks about it, but I don't remember the address offhand.:)
so anyways, after reading your post, I realized that you, in order to "flesh-out" your flame, you read my bio, where I call myself "fat and ugly".
great. please pay at the second window.
I am a software developer. I have no problems with the "end user", but if they're uninformed, I get a bit mad. Yes, I've pirated some software. hell, I even have a bunch of NES roms on my computer, even *gasp* some that I didn't even buy. the point I was trying to make was not one of "I have repented for my sins", but merely one of "I've been there, grew up, and started contributing to the industry that I cherish".
now, about my arrogance. if there is any, it only was because I called the person an end user. you, however, have said I stuff twinkies down my throat, called me a prick, and tried to no avail to belittle me. by doing so, you have proved to the world around you that if I had one moment of arrogance, you have a lifetime of prejudice and segregation to draw from. this isn't an attack, but merely an observation.
now, to the issues you addressed.
I'm gonna make a reply to this comment with the URL of the scan from that Nintendo game.
there is no such thing as a "Rom burner". it is a "Rom dumper". you can make one from the simple tools acquired from your local radio shack, and make a serial interface to your computer.
All games are easy to pirate, unless you don't want to spend the time doing it. you can copy any CD you want to, PSX, Dreamcast, even most current PS2 games, as they're not using DVD's yet (ridge racer V and Tekken Tag Tournament are on 650 MB disks).
wanna know the games I pirated?
all the Quake games
both Unreal's.
Both Diablo's.
Duke Nukem 3D.
however... I did own them. I made copies for my friends. so I did pirate them. I support my game developers. I acknowledge that when I'm pirating something, I'm breaking the law, and I am stealing. I don't try to justify myself somehow. I broke the law. I also purchased bleem!, and I contribute to software developers that make emulators and videogames (Bloodlust software, mainly).
If you read your history on how sony got such a large market share (and read the marketing tactics of most console makers in history), they depend on the games' revenue to make up for the losses they suffer from the system's price. if you say they're not taking a risk by doing this, I direct your attention toward such failed attempts as the Sega Saturn, the Neo Geo Pocket Color, and the Sega master system (which actually did the best of these examples). they took a risk, and suffered a loss.
I really do not have proof that they're not going to have cheaper prices for the game cube's games, but nintendo has learned from the history of the N64... they'd have to be stupid not to. the cartridge format almost killed them. partially due to size, and mostly due to price.
I dislike nintendo. I was involved in a lawsuit with them due to their stance on Emulation... however, I'll still buy their product because of the strong games like Metroid and Zelda... and I HATE pokemon... but I am a fanboy.:)
Survivor is a soap opera. I love how you call me a media tool (in so many words), but yet, you are the poster child for "hooker with a penis" by TOOL.
your anti-nintendo sentiment has no reason to be here. the proof that you're spouting this sentiment on a NINTENDO-RELATED STORY only proves that you're here to flame.
and that last sentence replying to my priceofQuake == priceofQuake3 statement.... it didn't reply. you had no retort. you just started calling me a prick. I applaud your arguementative skills.
the reason that nintendo games are cheaper is because they're OLDER. I distinctly remember purchasing The Legend of Zelda when I was 8... it was 49.95 at Toys R Us. I still have the recipt, as it was the purchase that made me want to contribute to the gaming community.
If you don't want to spend the money to buy a game, then either rent it, or just don't buy it. I've pirated quite a few games in my life, but for consoles, I will purchase every game that I own. Piracy is not a valid form of protest, it is simply stealing something that you don't want to pay for.
Quake 3 is being pirated because people like you don't want to pay for something. Period. I bought every Quake game because I support Id Software. I purchased Diablo because I supported Blizzard Entertainment. The list goes on and on...
The reason that cartridges cost so much is because it is a far more pricey medium. The CD format is less expensive. the average CD costs roughly 15 cents to press, while it takes fifteen dollars to make a cartridge. that is the sole reason that Nintendo 64 games cost so much. the media is more expensive to produce. I acknowledge that the companies are making quite a large chunk of change off the media (CD-based systems even more so), but if you look at the business model of Sony, Sega, and Nintendo, they actually LOSE money on the consoles, and they try to make that money back on the cartridges/CD's they sell.
When Nintendo finally debuts the Game Cube, the media will be substantially less expensive merely because of the media being less expensive.
Oh, and the original Quake sold for $49.99, and Quake3: Arena originally sold for $49.99.
Guess you got the original Quake in one of those "bargain bins"...
Judging from your opinions, I can safely say that you have been, and will always be, an "end user."
a lot more information is on nintendo's official spaceworld site. the screenshots of Samus Aran (yes, METROID LIVES!!!) alone make me want to get this console.
however, the controller absolutely BLOWS. how am I going to be able to play a fighting game on it? at least the n64 had the button arangement...
perhaps someone will just make a fighting game-oriented gamepad, and we'll all be happy.
oh well, if they make another Zelda game, and a Metroid game, I'll buy this system.
1) the minority in any group is the one that makes the largest stink, makes the most heated flames, hurls the largest stones, etc.
2) no matter how much you hate AC's, you eventually act like one (Hi CmdrTaco! *Waves)
3) we all like RMS, ESR, CmdrTaco, and other zealots... untill they disagree with us.
4) you can always tell the ones that look like they're going to lose an arguement, because they hit the lowest.
the moral of this post?
you're not going to agree with everyone. deal with it.
you're a commie, she's a socialist, that guy over there is a conservative, that cute girl is a democrat. that guy with the big muscles is a libertarian. the guy picking flowers is of the green party.
my opinion stinks like a big festering sewer treatment plant.
your's does too.
now shut the fuck up, and get along with the rest of the world.
Actually, Ziff-Davis, in it's entirety, is owned by Softbank, Inc. (which ironically, is not a bank) which is run by an Asian by the name of Soon (I know, asian is a broad term, but I dunno if he's Korean or Vietnamese.... note that I'm Japanese, so it's not racism... just a generalization.)
I don't care about your politics, but I knew this to be wrong, and had to call you on it.
I had just installed mandrake 7.1 beta just after this message had been sent out. seems that the GnomeICU had set my date of birth to Jan. 1st, 1999. the next morning, I found that my UIN had been deleted. even numerous emails questioning what had happened went unanswered. The final result was that I lost my UIN, because the people at Mirabilis/AOL, in all their infinite wisdom, felt that I was an extremely intelligent 17-month-old baby boy.
Slashdot Mirror
site killed before first post. that's gotta be a record.
there was no NES ET game. there was an atari game, and after many many years, a Game Boy Advance ET game.
maybe you were talking about the NES ET. and maybe you smoked about a kilo of crack beforehand.
for cartridge games, you can find a rom dumper do do that. no need to desolder chips or anything. every cartridge system has a dumper made for it. a company named BUNG tends to make a lot of them. I have one of their N64 dumpers, and it works almost flawlessly.. except for needing a few bios flashes due to new protection schemes. note: rom dumpers are apparently semi-legal, but being I was only using it for my personal collection, i'd love to see someone bust me. :)
for CD-based systems (TG-CD, Sega CD, Playstation), you can simply dump iso images of the files using your PC CD-ROM.
fair use is a fun thing. it'll probably be harder to find a rom dumper due to the DMCA, but I'm sure a quick scour of the alt.binaries.emulators newsgroups will pop up a few people selling them.
from the mameinfo.dat file:
they're commonly known as monsters. not ghosts.
Blinky, Pinky, Inky and Clyde are their nicknames.
the real names are Shadow, Speedy, Bashful, and Pokey.
if you would have read a few more posts deep into the thread, they've got three new names to choose from:
KDraw
Killu
VeKtor
the authors requested that the killustrator links be taken out, but the new name will be put up in it's place. new name, new URL, new everything.
Move on.
George Carlin has an entire rant about this:
(paraphrased)
"we're a war-like culture, and it doesn't have to be limited to the battlefield. Our government declares war on a lot of things: 'The War on drugs', 'The War on Poverty', 'The War on Underage Pregnancy'. We don't really do anything about it, we just declare War on it."
replace "video games" with "books", and think about how this sounds: "how does preventing a person from reading a book deny them their Constitutional rights? The book isn't saying anything or displaying anything of value" I know, you're playing the devil's advocate, but every statement deserves at least one challenge. :)
are you stoned?
usually, the cpu is multiplier locked, so the only way to increase the clock speed is to overclock the system bus, which overclocks the bus speed, ram speed, and usually overclocks anything that's running on the PCI slots.
PCI slots are usually running at a divider of the bus speed, i.e. if the system bus is 100 Mhz, then the divider is 2/3, which keeps the bus speed at 66 Mhz. however, anything other than 66, 100, or 133 Mhz dividers are not supported, and most mobo's will support 1 Mhz increments, which will overclock everything else.
many new athlons and durons aren't multiplier locked, so you can do a multiplier increase to knock up the cpu speed, but most mobos (especially the Abit KT7) will still allow 1 Mhz incremental increases in the bus speed for that extra increase.
actually, yeah. go get yourself a Mini SuperOrb. you should be able to fit that one the BP6. I did. it's small enough in diameter to fit in the restricted area on that wonderful mobo, but made my previously semi-stable dual celeron 366 setup rock solid.
:)
www.bp6.com has a bunch of info on this board.
oh, sure. 600 mhz, eh? being that you'd need either the highest quality ram at the time (you said "a few years ago"), which was pc100, you'd be not only overclocking your system bus to 133 mhz (at the celery 300's 4.5x multiplier), you'd also be overclocking your ram to that point. and a few years ago, most motherboards were LUCKY to get near a 121 Mhz bus, let alone 133 Mhz. what did you use to cool this chip that was overclocked 200 percent? what kind of motherboard did you use? personally, I have a dual celeron 366 setup overclocked to 550 Mhz each on an Abit BP6 motherboard, and it's been rock solid (after a bios update or two) on my linux mandrake system for almost a year and a half. if you're going to post something to incite conversation, at least get your facts straight. I'd respect a well-informed liar much more than someone who spouts off with half-true information.
well, it seems that if you have a Shinco DVD Player (or an Apex AD 500/703), there's a few people working on adding support for DivX to the firmware they've been hacking. they've already hacked in the menus that made the Apex AD-600A so famous, and have extra unused space in the firmware, enough space to add mini-dvd support and hopefully DivX soon.
the page is here
actually, GTK+ is "The Gimp Toolkit". www.gtk.org points this out. gtk was created after the original authors of the gimp got tired of Athena Widgets. after it was created, they branched it out, so others could use this toolkit. :)
awfully nice of em, eh?
seems that even though linux is (and will always be) covered under the GPL, where it states that the source code needs to be provided to any app that's included under the licence, the wording of the README file seems to state that this guy doesn't know when the source will be released... IF AT ALL. I'm just as happy about this development as you are (I REALLY need a dreamcast now), but if it violates the GPL, it's all in vain.
unfortunately, he was a little too broad.
because night trap alludes to sexuality, all games must suffer.
(I admit, without physical proof, my statements are pretty hollow. so if anyone really wants me to scan the magazines and newspaper clippings, I'll dig 'em up, and find a scanner somewhere to post 'em.)
Unfortunately, Lieberman's Crusade spawned the "great video game violence controversy" that created the ratings board for video games... I'm just grateful that the morality these people were pushing only went that far.
however, you're right on the statements that JonKatz used to come to his conclusions. they're not even largely grounded in fact. The PS2 won't change anything any more than the Super NES or Atari 2600 did. but that really was arbitrary to the point he was trying to make.
Hopefully, this doesn't come off as a "I'm so eleet because I can read/speak japanese" statement, but if you've seen only the English dub of Akira, then you haven't seen Akira. You see, Voice acting aside (LEONARDO AS KANEDA?!?!?), the adapters of the screenplay felt that a lot of the symbolism and dialogue (read: what moves the plot) were too deep (or just too foreign) for most english-speaking people (anyone resent that?), so they edited the dialogue... and by doing so, altered the plot considerably. if you had trouble following Akira, even after watching the dub multiple times, you'll see that Otomo Katsuhiro's world is a lot clearer after one viewing of the original movie... however, most of you will need to read subtitles. :)
:)
I'm very glad that pioneer will be re-dubbing this movie. Perhaps they'll keep most of the dialogue intact, if just so people like me don't have to constantly hear "How could you like Akira? it made no sense!" from the dub-only crowd.
Hey, how about you donate your money? You'll know exactly where it's going/what it's doing. Also, you won't be deciding how I, or anyone else spends their money! when you want to tax everyone because YOU want to help others, that's called socialism.
you're dumping roms.
unless you're BURNING them to a CD, you're dumping a rom. ever heard of a rom dump?
duh.
smile, satan loves you.
mushroom blue
*Jason steps down from his high horse*
:)
so anyways, after reading your post, I realized that you, in order to "flesh-out" your flame, you read my bio, where I call myself "fat and ugly".
great. please pay at the second window.
I am a software developer. I have no problems with the "end user", but if they're uninformed, I get a bit mad. Yes, I've pirated some software. hell, I even have a bunch of NES roms on my computer, even *gasp* some that I didn't even buy. the point I was trying to make was not one of "I have repented for my sins", but merely one of "I've been there, grew up, and started contributing to the industry that I cherish".
now, about my arrogance. if there is any, it only was because I called the person an end user. you, however, have said I stuff twinkies down my throat, called me a prick, and tried to no avail to belittle me. by doing so, you have proved to the world around you that if I had one moment of arrogance, you have a lifetime of prejudice and segregation to draw from. this isn't an attack, but merely an observation.
now, to the issues you addressed.
I'm gonna make a reply to this comment with the URL of the scan from that Nintendo game.
there is no such thing as a "Rom burner". it is a "Rom dumper". you can make one from the simple tools acquired from your local radio shack, and make a serial interface to your computer.
All games are easy to pirate, unless you don't want to spend the time doing it. you can copy any CD you want to, PSX, Dreamcast, even most current PS2 games, as they're not using DVD's yet (ridge racer V and Tekken Tag Tournament are on 650 MB disks).
wanna know the games I pirated?
all the Quake games
both Unreal's.
Both Diablo's.
Duke Nukem 3D.
however... I did own them. I made copies for my friends. so I did pirate them. I support my game developers. I acknowledge that when I'm pirating something, I'm breaking the law, and I am stealing. I don't try to justify myself somehow. I broke the law. I also purchased bleem!, and I contribute to software developers that make emulators and videogames (Bloodlust software, mainly).
If you read your history on how sony got such a large market share (and read the marketing tactics of most console makers in history), they depend on the games' revenue to make up for the losses they suffer from the system's price. if you say they're not taking a risk by doing this, I direct your attention toward such failed attempts as the Sega Saturn, the Neo Geo Pocket Color, and the Sega master system (which actually did the best of these examples). they took a risk, and suffered a loss.
I really do not have proof that they're not going to have cheaper prices for the game cube's games, but nintendo has learned from the history of the N64... they'd have to be stupid not to. the cartridge format almost killed them. partially due to size, and mostly due to price.
I dislike nintendo. I was involved in a lawsuit with them due to their stance on Emulation... however, I'll still buy their product because of the strong games like Metroid and Zelda... and I HATE pokemon... but I am a fanboy.
Survivor is a soap opera. I love how you call me a media tool (in so many words), but yet, you are the poster child for "hooker with a penis" by TOOL.
your anti-nintendo sentiment has no reason to be here. the proof that you're spouting this sentiment on a NINTENDO-RELATED STORY only proves that you're here to flame.
and that last sentence replying to my priceofQuake == priceofQuake3 statement.... it didn't reply. you had no retort. you just started calling me a prick. I applaud your arguementative skills.
*Jason claps*
that was my arrogance, and it was warranted.
have a nice day.
the reason that nintendo games are cheaper is because they're OLDER. I distinctly remember purchasing The Legend of Zelda when I was 8... it was 49.95 at Toys R Us. I still have the recipt, as it was the purchase that made me want to contribute to the gaming community.
If you don't want to spend the money to buy a game, then either rent it, or just don't buy it. I've pirated quite a few games in my life, but for consoles, I will purchase every game that I own. Piracy is not a valid form of protest, it is simply stealing something that you don't want to pay for.
Quake 3 is being pirated because people like you don't want to pay for something. Period. I bought every Quake game because I support Id Software. I purchased Diablo because I supported Blizzard Entertainment. The list goes on and on...
The reason that cartridges cost so much is because it is a far more pricey medium. The CD format is less expensive. the average CD costs roughly 15 cents to press, while it takes fifteen dollars to make a cartridge. that is the sole reason that Nintendo 64 games cost so much. the media is more expensive to produce. I acknowledge that the companies are making quite a large chunk of change off the media (CD-based systems even more so), but if you look at the business model of Sony, Sega, and Nintendo, they actually LOSE money on the consoles, and they try to make that money back on the cartridges/CD's they sell.
When Nintendo finally debuts the Game Cube, the media will be substantially less expensive merely because of the media being less expensive.
Oh, and the original Quake sold for $49.99, and Quake3: Arena originally sold for $49.99.
Guess you got the original Quake in one of those "bargain bins"...
Judging from your opinions, I can safely say that you have been, and will always be, an "end user."
however, the controller absolutely BLOWS. how am I going to be able to play a fighting game on it? at least the n64 had the button arangement...
perhaps someone will just make a fighting game-oriented gamepad, and we'll all be happy.
oh well, if they make another Zelda game, and a Metroid game, I'll buy this system.
Cnet Bought SoftBank and ZDnet? heh. dunno how I missed that one. I stand corrected.
1) the minority in any group is the one that makes the largest stink, makes the most heated flames, hurls the largest stones, etc.
2) no matter how much you hate AC's, you eventually act like one (Hi CmdrTaco! *Waves)
3) we all like RMS, ESR, CmdrTaco, and other zealots... untill they disagree with us.
4) you can always tell the ones that look like they're going to lose an arguement, because they hit the lowest.
the moral of this post?
you're not going to agree with everyone. deal with it.
you're a commie, she's a socialist, that guy over there is a conservative, that cute girl is a democrat. that guy with the big muscles is a libertarian. the guy picking flowers is of the green party.
my opinion stinks like a big festering sewer treatment plant.
your's does too.
now shut the fuck up, and get along with the rest of the world.
thank you for your time.
Actually, Ziff-Davis, in it's entirety, is owned by Softbank, Inc. (which ironically, is not a bank) which is run by an Asian by the name of Soon (I know, asian is a broad term, but I dunno if he's Korean or Vietnamese.... note that I'm Japanese, so it's not racism... just a generalization.) I don't care about your politics, but I knew this to be wrong, and had to call you on it.
I had just installed mandrake 7.1 beta just after this message had been sent out. seems that the GnomeICU had set my date of birth to Jan. 1st, 1999. the next morning, I found that my UIN had been deleted. even numerous emails questioning what had happened went unanswered. The final result was that I lost my UIN, because the people at Mirabilis/AOL, in all their infinite wisdom, felt that I was an extremely intelligent 17-month-old baby boy.
I'm just the prodigal son, aren't I?
bleh.