Procedure: I just now put the badly scratched CD burned on 12/14/1998 in my optical drive and successfully unpacked the Fallout 2 directory I had RARed as a backup.
If it's mission critical, make several copies and store them in different locations.
This was a consumer CD, by the way, which means it was also the cheapest consumer CD I could buy at the time. I've never had problems with any of my old CDs unless they get scratched severely or left under UV.
So after I dug around in my archives, I found out that my memory is failing me. They didn't even bother with a law firm, but sent out blanket DMCA notices:
------- MOTION PICTURE ASSOCIATION OF AMERICA, INC. 15503 VENTURA BOULEVARD ENCINO, CALIFORNIA 91436
On August 17, 2000, a federal district court in the Southern District of New York confirmed that offering, providing, or trafficking in DeCSS, or any other device designed to circumvent CSS, violates the DMCA. The district court granted a permanent injunction against (1) posting on any Internet site, or in any other way manufacturing, importing or offering to the public, providing, or otherwise trafficking in DeCSS or any other technology primarily designed to circumvent CSS, and (2) linking any Internet web site, either directly or through a series of links, to any other Internet web site containing DeCSS. -------
Apparently the search engine I was using way back then to mock them with links to DeCSS was Lycos. It should also be noted that DeCSS was not on my website, nor anywhere on the ISP where my website was located. I tried to get the sysadmin to file a perjury complaint against the MPAA but he considered the matter settled when he told them the DMCA required a URL to the offending material, which they had not supplied.
That's actually pretty complicated. I give you this simpler plot: terrorist hides gun in rectum, gets security green light because the backscatter scanner says he's legit, gets on plane, pulls out gun......and promptly gets taken out by passengers who would gladly risk being shot after the 9/11/2001 realization that everyone on board is likely to be killed if the terrorist manages to get control of the cockpit.
We should probably be paying some attention to our harbors and the cargo that actually goes on planes, and not so much toward taking grandma's denture glue away because it's more than the allowable amount.
"Oh, and getting rid of that blatantly abusive 'a corporation is a person' law would help to make things ~much~ clearer-cut for us all."
I wouldn't mind that ruling so much if it were accompanied by "...and has all the responsibilities of a person." Then the boards of companies who willfully contribute to consumer deaths could be sent to death row.
"is it fair to say that the 'X administration' or the 'Y government' is party to this scheme?"
Yes, inasmuch as those heads of state have the clout to suggest changes in legislation that would prevent abuse by the media corporations. "The buck stops here" still means something in my book.
"The market price is controlled by no one entity."
I agree with this one hundred percent. In practice, as seen in several real-world examples, corporations have a tendency to collude to artificially keep prices high.
"Free market" only works for the people who own the corporations. Everyone else gets a corporate dick in the ass.
He's not in the sysadmin business any more, and the ISP he ran is managed by fuckbags these days. I'm not giving them free publicity. My name is Steve Pordon, which is not exactly a secret to anyone with access to google and a spare 10 seconds. Are those the names you were referring to?
My old sysadmin told the MPAA to pound sand when they sent a blanket DMCA takedown notice to him for DeCSS, which at the time was not hosted on my site, along with a warning that even linking to search engine results for the file would result in a lawsuit (bizarrely, since I had never done this). After he did that, I followed up with their law firm directly, pointing them to my new page full of DeCSS links and telling them if they wanted to test their theory in court they could. I re-sent that on the one-year anniversary of the first one and mentioned the irony of me being nearly completely uninterested in DeCSS until they started threatening me. Never did hear back. Never did spend another dime on any movie in any way connected with the MPAA.
$20-25 is actually my price point for games. But I won't pay that for some cheap Flash-based puzzler that the developer wrote over the weekend. I've spent about that much on Darwinia, Multiwinia and the truly amazing Defcon from Introversion, and I believe another $15 for the XBLA version of Darwinia. I do rarely go above this, but only for something I feel is really worth the extra outlay (e.g., X-Plane 9 with its 6 DL DVDs of Satellite imagery covering nearly the entire planet).
For more casual games, like anything on the iphone, my price point is more like $2 with the occasional spike for something really special, like Shredder. Which I bought twice (ipod version and ipad version...thanks, broken Apple payment system).
Addendum: and if you can't make music, you can bring a recorder into an empty field and record ambient sound loops for your game. Still 100% free assuming you already have something that can record.
"Unless you found a place for cheap slave labor, it won't be that easy. [...] Or maybe you're a superstar who can do all of this by him or herself."
This is no longer the case. If you can make music and script a little, you can churn out games quite easily with something like Unity 3D. Whether they're any good will probably depend on how creative you are, but it really isn't hard these days at all.
That's odd, I don't recall saying anywhere that we should have invaded NK. Try 1-800-PHONICS.
The fact is, we were in talks with other Asian powers in late 2002. Then we dropped the ball for about a year while we invaded Iraq, a non-threat. I don't consider that addressing the issue.
Note that I didn't call the performers shitty, I called their performances shitty. Perhaps it's a tiny distinction, but it matters to me. I will check some of the newer material out.
You should pay more attention to the world around you.
"NORTH KOREA'S PURSUIT of a nuclear arsenal directly threatens the security of the American people, as well as our ability to shape the international order so as to strengthen the stability of Asia, defeat the global threat of terrorism, and enhance the security of the United States and our allies. Those who counsel a return to the status quo fail to grasp the danger of rewarding threats with retreat and concession. America's challenge in Asia is to compel North Korea's nuclear disarmament, protect ourselves and our allies from the insecurity caused by the nuclear ambitions and nature of North Korea's regime, and demonstrate to other rogue leaders that America will not be blackmailed into violating first principles of sound statecraft." (Jan. 20, 2003)
You also appear to be against making a coherent argument. Here are the things you warned against in your upstream post, only one of which you appear to have mentioned in this newest one:
"civil war in Iraq that will follow our withdrawal, Turkish invasion of the Kurd areas in the north, Iran's proxy rule in Iraq through Iraq's Shia majority (which threatens stability of all Arab states in the region that are friendly to us) and finally acquisition of nuclear bomb by Iran (which btw will put pressure on Saudis to get one too, which they can) throws fragile Middle East into an all out chaos and the skyrocketing oil prices bring world economies including ours into another depression."
Slashdot Mirror
"If so, please share the interesting 'hows,'"
Procedure: I just now put the badly scratched CD burned on 12/14/1998 in my optical drive and successfully unpacked the Fallout 2 directory I had RARed as a backup.
If it's mission critical, make several copies and store them in different locations.
This was a consumer CD, by the way, which means it was also the cheapest consumer CD I could buy at the time. I've never had problems with any of my old CDs unless they get scratched severely or left under UV.
So after I dug around in my archives, I found out that my memory is failing me. They didn't even bother with a law firm, but sent out blanket DMCA notices:
-------
MOTION PICTURE ASSOCIATION OF AMERICA, INC.
15503 VENTURA BOULEVARD
ENCINO, CALIFORNIA 91436
UNITED STATES
PHONE: (818) 728-8127=20
Email: MPAA23@pacbell.net
Anti-Piracy Operations
[snip boilerplate DeCSS tooth-gnashing]
On August 17, 2000, a federal district court in the Southern District of
New York confirmed that offering, providing, or trafficking in DeCSS, or
any other device designed to circumvent CSS, violates the DMCA. The
district court granted a permanent injunction against (1) posting on
any Internet site, or in any other way manufacturing, importing or
offering to the public, providing, or otherwise trafficking in DeCSS or
any other technology primarily designed to circumvent CSS, and (2)
linking any Internet web site, either directly or through a series of
links, to any other Internet web site containing DeCSS.
-------
Apparently the search engine I was using way back then to mock them with links to DeCSS was Lycos. It should also be noted that DeCSS was not on my website, nor anywhere on the ISP where my website was located. I tried to get the sysadmin to file a perjury complaint against the MPAA but he considered the matter settled when he told them the DMCA required a URL to the offending material, which they had not supplied.
That's actually pretty complicated. I give you this simpler plot: terrorist hides gun in rectum, gets security green light because the backscatter scanner says he's legit, gets on plane, pulls out gun... ...and promptly gets taken out by passengers who would gladly risk being shot after the 9/11/2001 realization that everyone on board is likely to be killed if the terrorist manages to get control of the cockpit.
We should probably be paying some attention to our harbors and the cargo that actually goes on planes, and not so much toward taking grandma's denture glue away because it's more than the allowable amount.
Standard MO: don't fix the flaws, "fix" the person who exposes them. I feel more secure already!
"Oh, and getting rid of that blatantly abusive 'a corporation is a person' law would help to make things ~much~ clearer-cut for us all."
I wouldn't mind that ruling so much if it were accompanied by "...and has all the responsibilities of a person." Then the boards of companies who willfully contribute to consumer deaths could be sent to death row.
"it has technically been served willingly"
Yes, but on the other hand, changing images to tubgirl to horrify hotlinkers is cathartic like you wouldn't believe.
"is it fair to say that the 'X administration' or the 'Y government' is party to this scheme?"
Yes, inasmuch as those heads of state have the clout to suggest changes in legislation that would prevent abuse by the media corporations. "The buck stops here" still means something in my book.
"The market price is controlled by no one entity."
I agree with this one hundred percent. In practice, as seen in several real-world examples, corporations have a tendency to collude to artificially keep prices high.
"Free market" only works for the people who own the corporations. Everyone else gets a corporate dick in the ass.
"Then again, you're not naming names, either."
He's not in the sysadmin business any more, and the ISP he ran is managed by fuckbags these days. I'm not giving them free publicity. My name is Steve Pordon, which is not exactly a secret to anyone with access to google and a spare 10 seconds. Are those the names you were referring to?
Shockingly, the information you're confused about is laid out right there in the linked article.
I prefer this more accurate definition: http://encyclopediadramatica.com/Cougar
"Mules I think she said were 5 for $5."
Hell, looks like they're cheaper than avocados. Probably don't taste as good spread on a sandwich, though.
If your cats are thinking about how to get sex with your wife, it's time to exchange them for new ones.
The other end of the scale is a picture of a real doll that looks similar to the initial real person head shot, from what I gathered.
My old sysadmin told the MPAA to pound sand when they sent a blanket DMCA takedown notice to him for DeCSS, which at the time was not hosted on my site, along with a warning that even linking to search engine results for the file would result in a lawsuit (bizarrely, since I had never done this). After he did that, I followed up with their law firm directly, pointing them to my new page full of DeCSS links and telling them if they wanted to test their theory in court they could. I re-sent that on the one-year anniversary of the first one and mentioned the irony of me being nearly completely uninterested in DeCSS until they started threatening me. Never did hear back. Never did spend another dime on any movie in any way connected with the MPAA.
It is that easy, which was my point. Not necessarily quality.
$20-25 is actually my price point for games. But I won't pay that for some cheap Flash-based puzzler that the developer wrote over the weekend. I've spent about that much on Darwinia, Multiwinia and the truly amazing Defcon from Introversion, and I believe another $15 for the XBLA version of Darwinia. I do rarely go above this, but only for something I feel is really worth the extra outlay (e.g., X-Plane 9 with its 6 DL DVDs of Satellite imagery covering nearly the entire planet).
For more casual games, like anything on the iphone, my price point is more like $2 with the occasional spike for something really special, like Shredder. Which I bought twice (ipod version and ipad version...thanks, broken Apple payment system).
Addendum: and if you can't make music, you can bring a recorder into an empty field and record ambient sound loops for your game. Still 100% free assuming you already have something that can record.
"Unless you found a place for cheap slave labor, it won't be that easy. [...] Or maybe you're a superstar who can do all of this by him or herself."
This is no longer the case. If you can make music and script a little, you can churn out games quite easily with something like Unity 3D. Whether they're any good will probably depend on how creative you are, but it really isn't hard these days at all.
"ISPs would have to know which of the packets passing through their servers contain bits of porn and which don't. How is that accomplished?"
Easy. Flip the naughty bits to 1.
That's odd, I don't recall saying anywhere that we should have invaded NK. Try 1-800-PHONICS.
The fact is, we were in talks with other Asian powers in late 2002. Then we dropped the ball for about a year while we invaded Iraq, a non-threat. I don't consider that addressing the issue.
Note that I didn't call the performers shitty, I called their performances shitty. Perhaps it's a tiny distinction, but it matters to me. I will check some of the newer material out.
You should pay more attention to the world around you.
"NORTH KOREA'S PURSUIT of a nuclear arsenal directly threatens the security of the American people, as well as our ability to shape the international order so as to strengthen the stability of Asia, defeat the global threat of terrorism, and enhance the security of the United States and our allies. Those who counsel a return to the status quo fail to grasp the danger of rewarding threats with retreat and concession. America's challenge in Asia is to compel North Korea's nuclear disarmament, protect ourselves and our allies from the insecurity caused by the nuclear ambitions and nature of North Korea's regime, and demonstrate to other rogue leaders that America will not be blackmailed into violating first principles of sound statecraft." (Jan. 20, 2003)
But yeah, we went to Iraq instead. Oh well.
You also appear to be against making a coherent argument. Here are the things you warned against in your upstream post, only one of which you appear to have mentioned in this newest one:
"civil war in Iraq that will follow our withdrawal, Turkish invasion of the Kurd areas in the north, Iran's proxy rule in Iraq through Iraq's Shia majority (which threatens stability of all Arab states in the region that are friendly to us) and finally acquisition of nuclear bomb by Iran (which btw will put pressure on Saudis to get one too, which they can) throws fragile Middle East into an all out chaos and the skyrocketing oil prices bring world economies including ours into another depression."
Because she reads at an advanced level. NOW WHO'S CHILDISH?