Up to date on your Internetz?

If not than you should be reading THIS.

Election Maps

I make this post to keep a record of this website which lists by nearly doubles and triples the most comprehensive lit of online election maps I've seen. Chkitout.

Change

Taken at one of the Sonoma State laundry rooms.

Fail Post

Christopher Beam, a writer for Slate has recently written a heavily researched article looking back into the history of the word "fail." Often used by nerds, geeks and freaks alike, he traces it's usage back as far as anyone in their right mind would care to know. The point of the article? No fucking clue, but it does seem to touch on some interesting notions.

Now when you're at the local bar is Second Life, you'll have a witty conversation starter.

Evga Scout Arena Tournament

Since I know most of you are primarily interested in the prizes, here they are:

1. GTX 280
2. 790i FTW Digital
3. GTX 260 Core 216

BoNK.

Newegg Gamers Special!

Raptor hard drives, 24 inch monitors and 4870's all on sale.

500gb Hard Drive ~ $65

For a limited time on Newegg with the following promo code:
EMCBACDCB

My bad

MMO Bullshit

Is there a reason that it takes over a day to fully install an MMO game from scratch? A good one? Because atm I cannot find one but I still have to deal with this ridiculous crap all of the two times I have installed an MMO.

Last night I downloaded the World of Warcraft trial (~4.5gb) and it took 4 hours over my Comcast 6mb connection. Today I went to install the game and it had to download numerous other patches. Other than the fact that the initial installer I downloaded should have incorporated the latest patches eliminating the need for this, this shit is taking wayy too fucking long.

I spent about 45 minutes downloading the first few patches and then i hit 2.4.3-3.0 (~2.3gb) and it said another 5 hours. Now you can blame this on my internet connection which was completely idle, or another problem but thats simply wrong.

The only problem there was is that the WoW downloader piece of shit reqauires ports to be forwarded which I did but my router (like most routers) is a piece of shit and keeps spitting at me that services are conflicting when their not.

Thank god we have websites like filefront where I can avoid this stupid bullshit and download it at a half decent rate in 50 minutes.

WoW can save a shit ton of bandwidth let alone 3 day installation frusturation among its users if they would include a fast track download service that was not deceptively simple piece of flying fucking crap.

Oh did I mention it took around 5 hours to install Age of Conan for the same reason?

I guess the lesson is don't play shitty fee inducing MMO games, thank god im doing this for school or id be piece the fuck out a long time ago..

Airport Security - looking good while doing nothing

Dated: I found an stunning article circulating the blogosphere about a man who has successfully snuck everything from knives to liquid to jihad pamphlets into planes, well past airport security cehckpoints. Doing so with fake boarding passes that are really not hard to make, it is definitely worth a read if you had even an inkling that those TSA officials were making America a safer place.

I'm Terry Tate and I approve of this message

Fail Blog

I'm sure I'm behind the curve, but this blog I discovered recently while reading up on the history of the word "fail" is fucking hilarious. I recommend you checkout a couple of the fails.

epic.

Kowloon Walled City: Wow...Just Look at this Place! [PIC]

The Kowloon Walled City was a tiny Chinese enclave in the middle of British Hong Kong for decades. It was torn down in 1993. Over the years, many filmmakers, gaming designers and other artists have used the Walled City as an inspiration when they wanted to convey a sense of oppressive urbanization or centers of unfettered criminality.

read more | digg story

"Meet McCain’s Slaves! Well, descendants of John McCain’s Great-Great-Grandfather’s slaves."

"Growing up in Mississippi on what was once the plantation land of Sen. John McCain’s great-great-grandfather, the sisters always knew their family had descended from slaves belonging to the McCain family."

Saw this posted on Dvorak Uncensored lol

8.0 MP portable camera - $120

 

Weekend Sale on Newegg, chkitout

Skippy's resignation from CAL

TinyEye

"TinEye is an image search engine built by Idée currently in beta. Give it an image and it will tell you where the image appears on the web."

Hmmmm, I'm seeing some dangerous things happen with this tool. o_0

1.5TB hd for $180, free shipping

Newegg is having a 24 hour sale, included is the Seagate 1.5 Terabyte drive for $180 w/ free shipping. Only 3 months ago I bought a Terabyte drive for $160.. on sale. Grab it while its hot!!

Check the release here, promo code EMCBABEBG

My Headphone Roundup

It has FINALLY been posted,

Norm changed a lot of stuff and there's some grammar messups, but I can't change it cuz my access has been restricted.

Check it out! and if you would be so kind please, digg it!

Digg account banned

It seems I am being banned from everywhere. The latest addition to this list:

Thanks for getting in touch with us at Digg.com regarding your account.

Your account was reported to us for abusive activity in comments. Specifically, "can i count the amount of bullshit she just streamed from not only her tits (digg shirt) but her words, even if we asked the "right" questions, there is no way her network wouldn't censor them.. digg users are not that fucking ignorant..."

As explicitly stated in the Digg.com Terms of Service located at http://digg.com/tos section 5.1 USER CONDUCT:

5.1 By way of example, and not as a limitation, you agree not to use the Services: to abuse, harass, threaten, impersonate or intimidate other Digg users;
Also, note that in our Terms of Service, we reserve the right to, “Digg may remove any Content and Digg accounts at any time for any reason (including, but not limited to, upon receipt of claims or allegations from third parties or authorities relating to such Content), or for no reason at all.”

We are willing to unban your account once we receive notification from you that you have reviewed the Digg.com Terms of Service and re-affirm your agreement to those terms.

Please don’t hesitate to contact us should you have any further questions.

Thanks,

---Digg Support

Now I don't remember exactly the digg I was commenting on, I believe it was about a video of a news reporter for msnbc or something asking so called "hard hitting" questions to somebody.

The only question I have is exactly who contacted them, 3rd party or user?

roff.

Filefront.... BANNED

Some or all of the file(s) you uploaded to FileFront has been deleted.

The file(s) contained illegal content or were copyrighted and distributed without the
permission of the owner(s). Owners may pursue action against you for the illegal distribution of their creation. Law enforcement agencies will be pursing distributors of illegal
content.

The file(s) were uploaded in violation of our Acceptable Use Policy and Terms of Service. Our policy states you as the uploader are responsible for your actions and will
defend FileFront and anyone associated with FileFront against all claims made.

FileFront has a ZERO TOLERANCE POLICY and FileFront will vehemently record and forward any and all
information to help law enforcement agencies investigate and prosecute those who willingly upload and/or download these files to/from our site.

Additionally, FileFront reserves to
right to ban you from use of the file storage system or take any other action it deems necessary.

FileFront's free file storage was conceived and offered solely for gamers to store
LEGAL gaming files and information for their use and for distribution, if desired.



Your account has been locked, because it contained illegal content.

Email I got from filefront after hosting the dark knight on their servers.

Think before you speak, no really..

I write to you today as a former victim of teenage culture. Long before I had become aware of it, I was tarnished by a deadly disease; the very same disease that’s affecting millions of college students across the nation. One that most are unaware they harbor, until it’s too late. As one of the former infected, it is my high hope that I can spread awareness about this deadly contamination and help to liberate the truly ambitious amongst you.

We do not know its exact origins, but we do know that it manifests itself in the minds of young adults and is currently ruining reputations around the world. It feeds on the unintelligent and takes form during the pauses in our speech. The bastard child of “uhh”, this infection has sadly become a stigma for college students all over.

What is this terrible disease? The like, abuse of the word “like.”

This verbal contaminant is common to both Norcal and Socal students and spoken in every day conversation more often than the word “change” amongst Obama’s PR representatives. The troubling difference is that while they’re aware of their words usage, we are not.

Actually, we often don’t become aware of our plight until it’s too late. It’s only when we really begin listening to ourselves during job interviews, or hear ourselves speak in oral presentations, that we realize how ridiculous we really do sound.

Some people (myself included), use the word when they feel nervous in front of the class, some use it because they have the vocabulary of an 8^th grade teen. Whatever the case, college students need to make a concerted effort to ‘chill the f*** out’ with the word because its making us ALL look like complete tools.

Now don’t get me wrong, I am all for college slang and have great time making Southern California girls cry when saying ‘hella tight,’ but this disease has become just like, kinda like, out of control. Realizing the way you sound is only the beginning, after you do this it becomes even harder -- and mildly depressing -- to try and stop. Which is exactly what it is time to do.

While many of you can flip it on and off like a switch, some people can’t turn it off so easily; if at all. You will have to put in a massive amount of effort in order to change. Doctors recommend the following treatments to aid in the healing process:

1. Stop hanging out with and/or being a stoner.


2. Read.


3. Think more. Perhaps even before or when you speak words.

I seriously challenge you reading this to try to listen to yourself during conversation and really think about the words you articulate and how you sound. Hopefully the day will come when I can attend class and not feel the need to count how many times some girl says “like,” just to make sure I’m not going insane. I am not saying everyone reading this “word salad“ uses the word to death, but to quote Obama its “It’s time for motherf***** Change."

An Update

Hey guys, so if anyone is wondering wtf ive been doing outside of updating my blog, the answer is a LOT.

Since my internship with MaximumPC I haven't had time to do free writing at all hardly. I am designing a sociological research project about video game addiction, a field research project meaning I will be playing WoW for a couple months taking notes @_@, yes unfortunatley I have to play the vile disgusting game.

I am also now running the Sonoma State Star website now, and doing quite well actually hits are up across the board and we had an all time high last week. I am working on doing an editor podcast too.

All this with 16 units and the usual amounts of alcohol and estrogen. Hopefully I will be able to upkeep this blog once again, once I do you will be the first to know ; )

Very Interesting

First feature article published

I wrote a lapstop stand review with the other intern, the first 2 pages minues the last review on the second page were all mine (minus the intro which Benson wrote).

Enjoy : ) OH also, I am getting published in the MAGAZINE- this upcoming month, the november issue, I did a writeup on the top 10 flash games, soz yeah ill officially be published in 3 weeks, ^_^ thnx

First published post

So for anyone whos reading, the reason for the lack of content not only recently but for a long fucking time has been because I am now working at MaximumPC. Here is the first post I just finished with today, enjoy ^_^

I will list all the other content I write for them here as I do it but as an intern I don't get many writing opportunities :x

Is Your ISP actively and illegally throttling Your connection?

If you have Comcast the answer is a resounding Yes, but its still nice to see the proof. You can now test to see if your ISP is including itself in the dirty dealings becoming all too prolific among american ISP's.

chck_it

Check me out on Myspace !!!!!

It seems I either have a large mob of people waiting to lynch me, or I'm seen as the second coming of Christ.

I really don't know what to think of this.

Youtube high quality

To upgrade from the standard shitty ass horrible resolution of Youtube to their improved "High Quality" codec (its really just standard quality and default is plain crap), simply put this at the end of the url of whatever video you are watching,

#

that or upload your content to a much better HD streaming service, Vimeo.

EDIT: Youtube changed their method, post changed to reflect the recent changes.

Bureaucracy 2.0

It would seem Microsoft finally yanked its bid for Yahoo after the two software giants were unable to see eye to eye on the proposed multibillion dollar buyout. Microsoft offered Yahoo $50 billion or $31 per share, an offer which Yahoo refused. This was an attempt by Microsoft to do a bit more of about the only thing it is good at nowadays and that is absolving its competition instead of providing some.

Since neither bureaucracy has had so much as one innovative product in the past few years, they’ve simply settled to buying out all the smaller software geniuses who’ve been making them look old and outdated. The only thing innovative about Yahoo is the quick and speedy way with which they purchase these web 2.0 brainiacs. If you can’t create success, buy it!

As for the whole acquisition; who cares? Two dilapidated companies, neither of which has released even one mediocre product for computer users in the past few years are planning to merge into an even larger pile of shit? Let’s move on shall we.

Nope sorry we can’t. It seems after Microsoft was shut down by Yahoo they put out their feelers to Facebook. Facebook could arguably be one of the most sought after companies on the internet today. After Microsoft invested $240 million in the small company, its value grew to more than $15 billion; a far cry from the original $1 billion offered by Yahoo back in 2006.

It is safe to say Microsoft is feeling a bit threatened at the moment; after the failure of Vista, the Xbox running up a deficit and their online content in need of some serious clicks, can we safely say that the software behemoth is in trouble? I’m not sure, lets Google it.

Creative, makers of popular X-Fi line of soundcards recently became unsettled when a user by the name of “Daniel_K,” fixed their drivers. For those who don’t know Creative has labeled their soundcards as “Vista Ready” since the operating system came out. The unfortunate fact is that after you install your X-Fi and put in the cd to install the drivers, it becomes apparent the included driver cd is really “Not Vista Ready”. That’s OK, they have updated drivers on their website right? Sort of. Creative to this day has not released fully compatible drivers for Windows Vista (which came out over a year ago). Vista-0, Xp-1.

The releasing of crimped drivers continues despite the enormous outcry from users; evidence of which can be found in the obscenities strewn across their customer support forums and website. “Daniel_K,” took matters into his own hands and modded Creative’s drivers to enable full Vista compatibility. Creative accused him of “stealing our goods”. The token amongst this smoldering ruin would be that Creative purposefully hindered their own drivers as a business strategy. The strat which seems to be a desire to thoroughly test their customer support centers, has so far worked flawlessly.

In more uplifting news, Facebook is now supporting online predators. Husbands giving wives the run around and women cheating on their boyfriends will need to get real creative, real quick as a new application was just released that will undoubtedly be regarding by stalkers as the Holy Grail of Creeping.

Using Facebook, the “Social Network Integrated Friend Finder” (sniff) application will allow users to “sniff” out their friends locations utilizing text messages. With this service you will be able to pay to receive a text message containing the geographical location of your friend (or victim). Unfortunately, there is still no news on blocking your cell phone from these triangulation services. Good for employers, bad for employees. Lawsuits? This is America. "I seeee youuuuu ; )"

It is truly great to see bright new minds creating the must-have gadgets of tomorrow and leading the web 2.0 charge through social, user driven sites such as Facebook. It is equally sad to see the Giants who had it so right, fall from their thrown as a few nerdy guys in their 20’s toss together sites like YouTube; all of which capitalize on the former kings absent minded traditional mode of thought. Wait, it’s sad to see Yahoo fronted by a sub 50 man company? What am I smoking, It’s ****cking hilarious. Shift happens.

As the World Wages War on P2P

I've always downloaded music and movies, who the hell hasn’t? Well right now times suck because the legal system is blitzing my pastime. The inundation of Limewire with faux music files and porn viruses has forced me to turn to my BitTorrent client for even individual songs. I could always trust uTorrent to get the job done even if it took a few days, but now with Comcast throttling my bandwidth illegally and torrent sites being forced to shut down seemingly every month, methods of online distribution are under serious attack.

The legislation behind downloading music seems to change damn near everyday. The RIAA has been changing its stance on ripping cd’s sporadically throughout the past few years; one month ripping a cd is ok and the next its illegal. Unsuprisingly the RIAA didn’t even have a policy on ripping cd’s until years after it first became available as a means of copying your cd’s to your computer.

No governing body has ever seemed to care about a phenomenon until the mainstream skews it into moral panic, so this doesn’t surprise me.

During an interview with Fox News, el presidente Bush described how he had some Beetles songs on his iPod. At the time, the Beetles had refused to put their music online, meaning that even our president had attained music through a means that is NOT in accordance with the “fair use” policy outlined by the RIAA. The lawmaker becomes the lawbreaker. Every one citizen is treated equally under the law, right?

Unfortunately for most, they are not the president of the US and A. Mary Lindor, a single mother living on disability payments in Brooklyn N.Y. was sued by the RIAA for a minimum of $750 per song she supposedly downloaded.

The RIAA is known to have sued for up to $30,000 per song “distributed”, so I guess you could say she was lucky. In this ironic turn of events it would seem her disability payments from the government would now be spent paying off her legal fees, despite the fact she had absolutely no music on her computer. This situation is so full of win I simply can’t describe it.

Scott Hinds was sued for allegedly sharing a whopping total of five songs; some of which included "Don't Know Why" by Norah Jones and "Automobile" by NWA. He was told to pay $3,750 for the songs or be summoned to court.

So the gang that yelled “F*ck the police” are having the authorities track down fans downloading their music? I only wish it was this hilarious; sadly NWA likely has zero knowledge that Scott is being subpoenaed for sharing their music, oops I mean their labels music.

The “pay up or else” tactic is commonly used by the RIAA to intimidate their not so wealthy targets, namely college students. As listed in a previous article however, the RIAA CANNOT sue college students unless the University illegally divulges confidential information. It is simply a scare tactic to try and make college students voluntarily reveal their identity which then provide the RIAA with all it needs to promptly bankrupt you.

The RIAA has also sued a homeless man, a 12 year old, a 10 year old and a women inflicted with sever multiple sclerosis. Tell your grandpa to be on the lookout.

Of course these court happy millionaires are only doing what is best for the artist. I mean if the artists were ok with users downloading their music then the labels would all back off, right?

Tommy Wirkola, the director of a popular Kill Bill spoof named “Kill Buljo” found his movie circulating through torrent sites. He openly stated “it’s flattering that people are making copies of the movie and releasing it on the Internet. Besides, all movies today are released onto the web. It would have been worse if no one wanted to share the movie.”

Nonetheless the distributor of the movie, CCV and their lawyer Espen Tøndel, are taking legal action against the fans sharing the movie. Their going through all this despite the fact the movies director was not only complacent with, but honored by the fact that people are downloading his movie. Can you say conflict of interest? Sadly this is not the only case.

The EFPI, yet another music industry association claiming to uphold and champion the rights of artists, is in quite the arduous legal battle with one of the most notorious torrent sites, The Pirate Bay. The EFPI is suing the Pirate Bay to the tune of $2.5 million for allegedly assisting in copyright infringement and violating other laws that contain more holes then a pair of Abercrombie jeans.

One of the artists the EFPI claimed damages for is the Swedish Hip-Hop artist Max Peezay. Unfortunately the EFPI of Sweden CEO Lars Gustafsson didn’t ask Max if he wanted to be involved in the lawsuit beforehand and Max has since demanded that his name be removed and all involvement withdrawn. Unfortunately this will only bring down the $2.5 million asking price by $19,000.

The flippin sweet part about all this is that the EFPI doesn’t even own the rights to Max’s music. You gotta love how the creative geniuses don’t have control over their own creations.

So the RIAA sues the pants of everyone in sight, receives its wad of cash and redistributes it to the artists whose rights were supposedly infringed upon? No, they never gave back ANY of the $400 million they received from Kazaa, Napster and Bolt. This debacle is still raging between artists and their labels despite Napster having been shutdown hmmm let’s see, seven years ago.

After learning about all this bullshit it makes sense that torrent sites such as the Pirate Bay have moved all of their servers to private islands off Sweden and Egypt. Out there the laws surrounding file sharing are even less thorough then in America. Now if the RIAA wants to shut down the Pirate Bay they have to do so according to Swedish and Egyptian law, both of which have very lax to no laws surrounding online content distribution.

We shall see if these groups have the balls to come after these Pirates off the coast of their island in what may well become, a real life Pirate Bay.

BitTorrent is fast becoming the only remaining free peer-to-peer protocol left that isn’t oozing with viruses and malware. I recommend you take advantage of it before the laws become clear-cut in favor of ISP’s, record labels and movie studios.

McCain 101

and ppl were flipping over Obamas pastor?? no you will not come across this anywhere near Fox News. you will see a lot of stories about Obama taking pins off his suit tho, :0

I just can't figure out why the world hates our freedoms :(

Checklist 2.0

A substitute teacher finds his job in jeopardy after being accused of "wizardry", RIAA has been told to shut their pie hole and John McCain admits the war in Iraq is over oil.

Super Mario World Custom Music

...uses the sound effects from those switch-hits and Koopa Troopa stomps to make beautiful music. My untrained ears can pick out but a few recognizable tunes—Mega Man 2 and Super Mario World..

The free time some people have is amazing.........................ly well spent : D

read more | digg story

You have a Voice too, let's hear it.

Everyone enjoys watching the viral videos that websites like YouTube and eBaums World put up. They offer hours of senseless fun as well as an escape for the common procrastinator. Some also like perusing the latest blog entries full of original content and underground news. But why restrict yourself to only being a viewer and reader? You have thoughts and ideas of your own, why not tell people about them in posts and videos of your very own? With web 2.0 in full swing, it is now easier and simpler than ever before to share with people who you are and what you stand for. Literally anyone can think, create and upload. It’s really that easy.

Originally, I had never really seen much importance in creating an online journal of any sort. I flat out didn’t think people would care to read about my life and what was going on, what I had for breakfast, what I was thinking about and all that other ‘who gives a shit’ type of stuff I had seen posted on so many blogs already. I had always viewed blogs as a sort of digital, dear diary for anyone to read and frankly I didn’t find it appealing in the least.

This changed once I started writing for the newspaper. I wanted to receive feedback on my articles. Although I was given good feedback from the campus community, I needed a way to send my articles to people outside the area. I wanted to have a place for readers to access the articles I wrote presented in a style of my choosing. I wanted them to view the articles in a full, uncensored context, so I created a blog.

After I started uploading articles to my blog some strange things began happening. I found myself compelled to upload more and more content. I would find a news story nobody had heard about, a picture that was too good to pass up, or even a video that I knew would go viral in the weeks to come. I found myself posting my discoveries and ideas more often than even my articles. I wanted to share what I had learned with people so they could be informed and hopefully enjoy it as much as I did.

This is the fundamental reason people make their YouTube accounts and update them. This is why people write in blogs. To share. If you keep a diary and although this is the 21^st century, I know many of you still do, I would suggest starting an online journal of sorts. A blog, a YouTube account, a Twitter account, something. Don’t try to justify it or spend time wondering what you would post, just create it. Once you find yourself yearning to tell people about something; information nobody knows about or an original idea that no one has thought of, post it. Develop your thoughts, compose your voice and share it all.

If writing in a diary can bring realization and meaning to a person’s life, then why can’t a blog? Post what interests you, post what makes you angry, post what makes you happy. The pride you’ll feel from being original and producing something which others enjoy is priceless. The world is your audience, what do you have to say?

Both worth your time

So while procrastinating a 100 point assignment due tomorrow in POLS, I found these two gems.

Bits: Wine, Beer and a Little AC/DC

A rather interesting article about gaming with... no gamers?

read more | digg story

Thomas Friedman gets Headshotted

It would seem Thomas Friedman took a pie to the face at Brown University during Earth Day recently.

He was there to harp about how corporations can lead the charge against global warming. A few students calling themselves "Greenwash Guerrillas" didn't like the fact he was a proponent of corporate greenwashing and threw two pies aiming for his head.

Aside from the fact Tom has a raging boner for corporate globalization, I agree with many of Thomas Friedmans thoughts and ideas in his books The World is Flat and The Lexus and the Olive Tree, both of which I have read. However, I do not think that corporations will EVER lead the charge for climate change. It is really quite simple, they are motivated by profit and America runs on capitalism; being environmental is generally not good for business because it means spending more $$ while forcing thinner margins.

Making people think you are environmentally conscious or "green", is great for business. This is where greenwashing comes in.



Here is the official statement from the Greenwash Guerrillas

"Providence, RI - April 23, 2008 - On Earth Day, we pied Thomas Friedman at the start of his keynote speech: "Green is the New Red White and Blue."
The goal was not simply to disrupt his talk and stain his ego, but to disrupt and expose all that he stands for and the university's corporate greenwashing of its image. In the spirit of true debate and free speech: We hereby challenge Thomas Friedman and all other green capitalists to a duel. This duel is about the debate over the future of life on this planet, and the ways in which corporate powers have hijacked this debate to make it the realm of "experts", policymakers, and consumers buying an array of "green" products. In exposing what Friedman supports, we open this debate to the public by questioning certain key elements. Carbon Trading and Carbon Markets, enshrined in the Kyoto Protocol and the Lieberman-Warner Climate Security Act of 2007, is the foundation behind green capitalism. In privatizing the atmosphere, the earth's carbon cycling capacity is handed over as property to the same corporate criminals that caused the problem.

"Biofuels," the much-touted alternative to oil, not only increase petroleum dependence, but are themselves a global humanitarian and environmental disaster in the making. Biofuels come at the expense of land for food, and from Indonesia to Columbia, traditional populations are being forced off their land for destructive plantations that are dependent on toxic chemicals, biotech seeds, and large petroleum-burning machinery. The list of false solutions goes on, while the planetary clock is ticking. If there are to be truly real solutions to the many problems we face, it will come out of transformative social movements and not corporate boardrooms. For these reasons, we challenge Thomas Friedman and all other green capitalists to a duel, in which we will continue to expose their shams while pointing towards the social movements that are already creating solutions and transforming society towards a liveable, healthy, and non-corporate future. For information:

http://www.risingtidenorthamerica.org/wordpress/category/false-solutions-campaign/ Contact: greenwashguerrillas@gmail.com"

BOOM HEADSHOT!

Western Digital 300gb Velociraptor Drive Released

All you need to know is it's called the "Velociraptor VR150" and it is faster then the previous 150gb Raptor X drive.

MacBook Air – Paying more for less

The world’s thinnest notebook. Revolutionary. One of a kind. These are just a few of the terms used to describe the new MacBook Air from Apple. How revolutionary is it though? Like everything Apple releases, it’s difficult to tell if one of their new products is truly is revolutionary or just another arbitrary electronic. Indeed the Air is the world’s thinnest notebook, but is it worthy of the attention it’s receiving let alone the $1,800 asking price? Do you need to upgrade from your existing laptop to the “Air”?

Let’s begin with what the Air’s strengths. The laptop weighs three pounds and at its thickest, is well under an inch in girth. It will wirelessly connect to any 802.11 A/B/G and N networks. The N standard has yet to become official, but the Air will support prerelease dubbed “Draft N”. The multi touch technology found in Apple’s iPhone’s has now been incorporated into Air’s “trackpad” or touchpad used in place of a mouse. This enables the zooming in and out along with the rotating of photos and text in specific Apple applications.

The Air does not include an optical drive nor an Ethernet port for wired internet. The reasoning behind the exclusion of an optical drive is the Air's ability to wirelessly connect to another Mac or PC and use that computers optical drive. You insert a disc in the neighboring computer and connect the Air to that computer wirelessly. You can then run the disc on the Air streaming it off the neighboring computer. This is pretty incredible but without a neighboring computer you have control over, you’re out of luck if you need a disc drive.

Now for where Apple cut corners. The lack of an Ethernet port on the Air will undoubtedly be an annoyance for many without wireless routers. The Macbook Air contains a Core 2 Duo Processor which was specifically redesigned for the Macbook Air, reducing the chips size by 60 percent. This results in a lowered clock speed and ultimately a decrease in performance. The largest hard drive offered for the notebook is 80gb. The 160gb iPod offers twice the storage space of the Air...

The Air has only one USB port. With everything the notebook doesn’t include you‘re going to have to carry around quite a few accessories, most of which will plug in through USB.
On the air however, you will only be allowed to use them one at a time. If you want to buy an optical drive for the notebook, it will cost you $99 coming from Apple. This is somewhat ridiculous when you can buy a great optical drive that will burn, rewrite and read DVD and CD’s for around $30. You’re paying a $69 premium to have the official Apple drive. As well you may need wired internet which will cost you $30 from Apple and will likely plug in through USB. The included webcam doesn’t have a microphone to go along with it so you will likely need to get a microphone to plug in through USB for Skype conversations.

Many of the people buying this notebook will be people who travel a lot and need internet access, even when there is no wifi available. The adapters to give you internet outside of wifi will be yet another dongle plugged in through USB, some of which won’t fit due to the discrete placement of the USB port on the Air. That’s a lot of accesories for one USB port.

I must say the Air is a typical Apple creation in a very good and a very bad way. Apple includes features such as an automatic backlighting keyboard and multi touch technology but leaves out 3G network chips and “duh” features like more than one USB port. In short Apple is very good at making incredibly attractive electronics with some revolutionary features, but leaves out many obvious functions even the most basic users would find nice to have. You gotta give Apple credit for creating the world’s thinnest notebook, at the same time though you gotta laugh at them for leaving out so many obvious must haves.

Priate Bay opens up "uncensored" blogging service

After hearing about blogging sites such as Wordpres deleting accounts that posted links to copyrighted materials, The Pirate Bay has started up its own "uncensored" blogging service called Baywords. They will fully support free speech and will not take down any post unless it violates Swedish law. NOT US law however : )

i love the piratebay admins

Demonoid back 0nline!

This is a few days late and I apologize, but I still thought it worthy of posting.

After being shut down by the RIAA multiple times in more then one country, it seems Demonoid - The invite only very popular torrent site is back online. Demonoid was very well known for its extremely thorough torrents and close knit community. Glad to see em back : )

Surfer dude develops a theory of everything to compete with String theory

Interesting Articles on Pro Gaming

After doing some research into professional gaming I found some rather interesting articles on the topic.

• This article does a really good job critically analyzing professional gaming in its entirety.
• On GGL they did a very interesting number crunch of professional gaming. It seems Fatal1ty is receiving $2 for every one of his soundcards sold. Personally I would say he is getting screwed but I don't know much about it.
• An article by the San Francisco chronicle on the gaming scene in Korea. hint: It's a shit ton more legitimate then it is in America.
  

In other news, I highly recommend you checkout this collection of every Pixar animation ever created, all in 720 HD : ) Call me a boyo but I find them very entertaining.

Playing Out of the Closet

‘I am not wasting my life! I promise an opportunity will arise and something good will come of this!’ This is what I told my mom throughout high school as I “wasted” hours of my life playing competitive video games online. Jesus, I still feel like I’m coming out of the closet every time I bring up my favorite past time to somebody who doesn’t know I game. All I’m ever told when playing is “Why don’t you go outside?”, “You nerd”, “Haha, I wouldn’t tell people about that”. Am I such a freak to view my gaming hobby as a legitimate sport?

I am part of a team (clan). The sport we play is Team Fortress 2. The field we play on is the PC. My team runs practices organized by a team captain who calls the shots. Everybody on the team constantly works together towards a common goal. We scrimmage against other teams testing different strategies and mechanics in our gameplay, constantly improving ourselves and preparing for our upcoming games (matches).

We form pickup games or “pugs” when we don’t have enough of our members around and play with a few random friends outside our clan. Often times in pugs, teams are picked in the very same manner as a group of kids lining up along a fence on the baseball diamond with captains picking teams.

These are all characteristics and qualities of a legitimate sport that not surprisingly, are shared among E-Sports as well. In fact much of the terminology used remains unchanged.

Some people will go outside to shoot the basketball around by themselves for fun. This would be the equivalent of a player joining a public server and doing what is called “pubbing” (derived from public server) for fun. Actually no I am wrong; pubbing is much more social then one person shooting a basketball around because they are playing against and alongside other, real people.

I understand that when somebody sees me sitting at my computer they don’t know if I am watching youtube videos, looking up random websites, playing flash games, or competing against the best players in the game for a top tier league. They cannot see past what immediately meets their eyes; me, physically in a room, sitting at my computer, with the lights off. They don’t see the people I am playing against, they don’t see the people I am voice chatting with. They don’t see my team playing alongside me developing cohesion and teamwork required by any team.

I really see no difference between a group of friends shooting the shit on Ventrilo (a live voice chat or voip software) and a group of friends hanging out in someone’s living room. The social gratification gained from both are identical.

Call it strange but before a LAN (a buncha people playing video games against each other in a warehouse) this past weekend, I had not met many of the players in my clan. I‘d hung out, strategized, talked, played alongside and won with them over the past few months. I spent more time with them online then most of the people I know in real life (rl). Despite the fact I had never met them, I consider them to be among some of my best friends. After meeting them for the first time at the lan, this bond was only solidified.

It helps to be good friends if we want to play well together. The teamwork must be cohesive and the gameplay efficient. Again, this is common among ‘real life’ sports teams.

I am not going to deny it, playing these games with my team brings great meaning to my life. The same way running a marathon will catalyze a revelation in a runner’s life, or making it to the super bowl will make a grown man cry. While I can’t say I have cried after winning a tournament, the elation I feel after playing a great match alongside my teamates at a lan is unsurpassed by much of anything else.

I am very competitive so if we win it will likely affect my mood the rest of the day, the same way the weather affects people’s moods. This could easily be held true for a player of any real life sport so long as he takes it seriously.

What I do is a sport and that is incontrovertible. You can play games professionally just like any other sport. Just talk to Jonathan “Fatal1ty” Wendel who has amassed hundreds of thousands of dollars dominating E-Sports tournaments. People laugh when I tell them I won my iphone at a video game tournament but this is reality ladies and gentlemen.

“Wasting my life” or “hanging out with friends”, however you choose to view it, the time spent at my computer playing with these friends of mine have been some of the best times of my life.

More pictures of me and my team can be found here

Legend of Zelda- The Movie?

It seems link is making it onto the big screen.

The trailer looked interesting, from what I can see a lot of really good stuff and some bad stuff. For one the character who plays link looks 100% NOT like the character in the game. The special effects look pretty good, but the hairy guy who is battling him with the sword looks kinda cheesy. As well, I don't know how they are going to cram the storyline into a 2 hour movie. They should probably do a 3 part series similar to the lord of the rings, that'd appease the fans a great deal more. Especially when fans are prooooobably going to be the VAST majority of the consumers going to see the movie.

I can only hope its as good as Doom
@_@

Totally out of context, but this shit is epic win

Nvidia 9800gtx Released

The first benchmarks ever released
Nice pictures along with some vague benches
Newegg's selection

Crysis still wont run @ 60fps tho, roff.

Hackers Stage International Protest Against Scientology

Anonymous, the group of unknown hackers who declared war on scientology recently, showed up at Scientology establishments across the world this past March 15^th to protest. Wearing Guy Fawkes masks made popular by the movie V for Vendetta, they picketed outside Scientology self improvement centers spreading the “truth” about scientology.

Anonymous declared war against Scientology over YouTube on January 21. Their motivation derived from the fact that the church was attempting to censor the internet.

An internal church video of Tom Cruise ranting about Scientology surfaced a few months ago on the popular website Gawker. After everybody and their mom clicked in to view it, the church went nuts and started sending out litigation letters to the websites circulating the video, demanding they take it down. Some complied (Google- well duh, Google even complies with Chinese censorship policy, why wouldn’t they cooperate with scientology), and some didn’t (Gawker).

This censorship attempt was essentially the straw that broke the camels back for Anonymous. After going public with their declaration of war, they began committing multiple acts of online and offline terrorism aimed at the church. Their terrorist tactics include bomb threats, mailing fake anthrax, black faxing and flooding the church’s voice mails with death threats.

While all of these attacks were underway, the group began organizing protests. The second of these protests was the one I attended on March 15^th, which incidentally happens to be just two days after the birthday of scientology’s creator: L. Ron Hubbard. The protest was held despite scientology’s efforts within the legal system to prevent it. The reason the legal system failed scientology? They couldn’t identify any of the individuals in Anonymous, go figure.

I attended the March 15^th protest in San Francisco and was met by police officers and more than a few Guy Fawkes’s. After being given multiple handouts, I started taking pictures. I noticed the entrance to the ‘church’ had an enormous gate in front of it that seemed less ornamental then it did secure; this was where the police were doing their best to look important. I found it odd a religion would gate their entrances in such an up front, hostile fashion. I mean they are a religion, right?

One of the more sonorous “Anons” was speaking through a loudspeaker reading off information regarding the documented deaths and names of the alleged victims of the church. Despite his apparent dominance within the group, he was not wearing any sort of disguise or mask at all. He had his entire head shaven except for a small crop on the back that spelled out “SP”.

An SP or Suppressive Person is a label applied by the church to its greatest enemies according to their “Fair Game Policy”. This would be anybody who speaks out against the church, including government organizations.

The protesters were very organized. They kept one another in check only referring to eachother as “Anon” and “Anonymous”. They made damn sure they didn’t even J-walk as to avoid any run ins with the coppers standing nearby.

The given handouts weren’t so much outlining claims and allegations against the church as stating policies and facts within and surrounding scientology. They encourage the reader to inquire as to why everyone is wearing masks and why the protest is being held. They guide you to informative websites or at times simply tell you to Google the following terms if you are at all skeptical.

The church has not been ignoring these SP groups either. They’ve launched a completely redesigned website, rife with boatloads of brand new propaganda videos about the “Youth for Human Rights” campaign. This campaign is basically the means through which scientology is actively slithering their way into our children’s classrooms all the while fronting as a human rights organization.

Is it not strange that all of a sudden scientology feels the need to distribute videos stating how fair and supportive they are of human rights? It is not coincidental this is happening right around the time Anonymous is publishing information completely contradicting their bullshit. If the church is innocent then why go on the defensive?

To become a “member” of this “human rights” group, you have to pay $40 a month. What exactly does the organization do you may ask? They release ‘‘information’’ about human rights and make emotional porn videos that seem oddly similar to political ads. They do nothing to actually help human rights across the world, they but only preach. Thanks for the offer, but I will save my $40. Besides since when was there such a thing as a “non-profit corporation”? Can you say oxymoron? Damn, I need call my broker before they go public.

There is another Anonymous protest being held in April and if the turnouts continue to increase at the rates they have been, expect gridlocked traffic through 701 Montgomery St.

You can check out all of the pictures I took at the protest here.

My previous article introducing this topic can be found here.

A previous blog post containing information about the war.

Why aren't there more people like this in government?

Can u say innovative?

After a long wait the Cyborg arrives

I know more then a few of my buddies and I have been anxiously awaiting the release of the Cyborg Keyboard. Well now it seems it has finally been released (although strangely not listed on the website).

Here is the board available at Circuit City. In addition, a very detailed post with up close n personal pictures of the board.

Thanks to Mistrwebmastr for linking this one.

Geforce 9800 GX2 Released!

Check em out in all their sexy glory : )

P.S. Can you say collusion? lol, check the prices..

Benchmarks here

On Illegally Downloading Music at SSU

Since day one of living in the school dorms freshmen year I have had witnessed more than a few friends express their hesitation about downloading music and movies over the school network. They were scared to death of using programs such as Limewire or BitTorrent on the school network. They feared the school would expel them or something else completely ridiculous.

Well I am here to tell the hesitant on-campus student that you need not worry about illegally downloading music over the SSU network.

The Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA), the so called record industry trade group, has been sending out numerous complaints and pre-litigation letters to individuals and universities across the nation. Some seeking damages of hundreds of thousands of dollars. A handful of the cases involved, asked for over one thousand dollars per song. The news reports on these lawsuits are enough to scare any ignorant user away from downloading.

Around 61 million people in America alone share music online, on a regular basis. The RIAA has so far managed to send out 2,423 threat letters to college students around the nation.

In the vast majority of cases the RIAA tracks what is known as an IP address. Think of this as a sort of street address for your computer. The RIAA can find out where the address is located and who the landlord is (your ISP or Internet Service Provider such as Comcast) but cannot gain any information on the individual occupying the address without going to the landlord first.

The RIAA cannot prosecute somebody as a criminal based solely off an IP address. They need to find out the individuals personal information. They need to know which individual is using the computer tied to the IP address.

This is where the Universities come in. For anybody plugged into the school network, the University is then your ISP.

Let’s say the RIAA discovers a certain IP address is sharing an episode of Grey’s Anatomy and traces the IP address back to a College University. This is when the RIAA sends out their pre-litigation letters to the University demanding that the University turn over information regarding the student operating on the said IP address. The University decides to either hand over the student’s personal information or not. As well the university can quash the subpoena ignoring it completely or forward the litigious letter to the students using the listed IP addresses.

Across the nation there have been very few instances of a university handing over a student’s confidential information to the RIAA. In nearly all of these rare instances, the Universities were private.

To say the least, if Sonoma State University handed over confidential student information to the RIAA, they would have one huge pile of shit lawsuit on their hands assuming the student was smart. This is because it is against Federal privacy laws for the university to hand over student information in such a situation.

In most cases when a University receives a RIAA threat they deal with it internally; they will send out a warning letter to the student involved, telling them to stop their activities.

In other cases the University will send the RIAA subpoena to the student, for the student to handle on their own. The average price the RIAA asks for in these subpoenas is $3,000. The subpoena basically states ‘pay this amount or face a lawsuit.’

This is the catch that the RIAA doesn’t want you to know: Even though the university forwarded the subpoena to you, the RIAA still does not know who you are. By contacting the RIAA regarding your payment for the subpoena, you have just given them the last piece of information they needed to pursue you in criminal court. This would be your name and contact information, they didn’t have prior to you coming to them.

Before you responded to the subpoena, the ONLY information they had on you was your IP address and your ISP; which would be the University. This is NOT enough grounds for them to pursue you in court!

Basically the RIAA is sending out lawsuits to a bunch of “John Doe’s” hoping they contact them back to make payment, upon which time the student just provided the RIAA with enough information for them to take the student to court in a criminal case.

This is of course, assuming the University did not reveal your credentials. However, it is fair to say students here do not have to worry about SSU turning over their information to the RIAA due to Federal privacy laws.

It is simply the moral panic created by the media which inevitably snakes its way into our TV sets that is influencing the students I met freshmen year into being petrified of downloading content on the school network.

Has you or anybody you know been sued by the RIAA? No.

The real solution to this ridiculous problem is to stay anonymous online. Nearly every one of the most popular BitTorrent clients have encryption options which will prevent anybody from seeing that you are file sharing.

If you are searching for “Don’t stop the music” on Limewire and the songs brought up have a file size of 117kb, then it is safe to say, that is NOT the song. You just have to be smart and use common sense.

With the recording industry attempting to lower the royalties artists receive for their music to eight percent of the songs wholesale revenue, how can we not be encouraged to download illegally. The RIAA claims they are protecting the copyright of the creative geniuses creating the music. When it is being proposed that only eight percent of the money we pay for the music goes to the actual songs “creative genius”, you can only laugh at the RIAA’s ‘protecting the artist’ statement.

When more than 75 percent of the money we pay for music is going to corporate interests, it proves they don’t give a rat’s ass about the actual artist; the creator of the music in the first place.

If it is any consolation to freshmen; I personally downloaded more than 75 gigabytes of games, music, movies, whatever over the school network in my dorm freshmen year and did not so much as receive a single notification from the University, RIAA or anyone telling me to stop.

For more information regarding this ongoing war between universities and the RIAA as well as information about staying anonymous online and covering your digital footprint, you can visit my blog at whisp8.blogspot.com

FOR MORE INFORMATION

This is a Blog post about covering the ongoing RIAA stories as a journalist.

A story about the music industry trying to cut down on the royalties artists receive for their music. The proposed percentage each artist would receive per sale of each song? 8% of wholesale revenue.

I highly suggest reading TorrentFreak. They break many of the stories related to torrenting or companies such as Comcast filtering their users internet traffic illegally.

Notable TorrentFreak articles-

• Stop Downloading Fakes and Junk From BitTorrent
• Video: How People Are Tracked Using BitTorrent
• How To Share Torrents With BitTorrent Illiterates
• RIAA Keeps Settlement Money, Artists May Sue
• Pirated by iTunes, Artist Turns to BitTorrent