by Matt | Aug 13, 2002 | Imported Entry
As if we needed any more proof that the DMCA was bull-shit and that the record industry is just out to cement their strangle hold on consumers rights…
“LOS ANGELES (Reuters) – Video may have killed the radio star, but Forrester Research has said Internet piracy was not to blame — as record labels have claimed — for the 15 percent drop in music sales in the past two years. ”
Full Story: Internet piracy not guilty for flagging music sales
Just another happy thought to toss around in your head while you’re heading off to sleep. G’night my little digital deviants.
by Matt | Aug 13, 2002 | Imported Entry
For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction. In this case, copyright protection software has given way to anti-copyright software. I’m talking mainly about protected CDs and they’re weak and pitiful anti-piracy techniques. Thanks to hard working people who don’t give a flying fuck about this crap we have programs such as Clony, BetaBlocker, BlindWrite or Insektor, all of which circumvent multitudes of different protection systems. Insektor for example allows you to play backups of SafeDisc and Securom protected CDs. Betablocker allows for proper copying of SafeDisk 2 cds using CloneCD. All of these programs can be found very easily around the web. A quick search on Google turned up all of them for me. I love technology.
Links:
Clony XXL homepage
CloneCD.Net
CloneCD BetaBlocker Page
BetaBlocker site (???) in german.
BlindWrite
CloneCD Insektor Page
Speaking of technology, my favorite place for random tech-ish news is back online. NeoWin is reopen for buisness after a short downtime to figure out some backend stuff. Check’em out.
As for me, I still feel like crap. Durring the day it’s not that bad but at night I feel like my throat is going to explode in some Aliens-ish “theres something growing in my throat” sort of way. I’ve been coughing up very pleasent wads of something green-ish in hopes that the more I cough-up, the less remains for me to cough up later. At least that was the plan. I’ve also been reading my new book: Stupid White Men and Other Sorry Excuses for the State of the Nation. It’s a fantastic book. It basically points the finger at the rich and powerful (aka: republicans) for the sudden downturn in everything from the economy to the music industry. It’s quite an interesting read.
That is all.
by Matt | Aug 12, 2002 | Personal
I hate being sick. Especially when I’m not really “sick” just “feeling like ass.” While Lauren was here she developed a bit of a cough and now I think I’m coming down with it as well. My throat has been hurting for a few days now and I’ve started to get a little bit of a cough. Nothing major mind you and nothing thats so debilitating that I need to stay in bed for a week, but it’s enough to have me sucking on cough drops and drinking lots of OJ.
I don’t really have much going on at the moment so it’s not like I’m staying home for work or anything. Adecco hasn’t called in 2 weeks so I’ve pretty much given up on them. When I feel up to it I’ll go back to helping my Dad as a carpenter. For the moment though, I’m content to sit here and work on designs for webpages. Sites such as BlogProject.com for instance. I’ve taken a new direction with the design at the moment. Before I was working under the “it’s going to be fantastic” ideal where as now I’ve switched to the “wouldn’t it be nice to have something done before christmas” approach. I’ve simplified things I bit and will be going with a simple “top and both sides” design. It’ll look nice, but it’ll be simple for the moment until creative vision strikes me and I redesign it. Once I’m finished I’ll pass it along to either Chip or Chris who will add whatever content system we’ll be using. Most likely Moveable Type since thats what we’ve all been using lately.
That is all.
by Matt | Aug 11, 2002 | Imported Entry
The only interesting thing I did today was pick up my parents from the airport, which I’m starting to think was a mistake. From the minute they got off the plane all they would talk about was baseball. Even my brother, Capt. Baseball, actually told them to, and I quote: “stop talking about f*ing baseball.” Adding to this is serious jet lag and a 3 hour time difference between the east and west coasts. This results in EVERYONE being in a seriously shitty mood. Especially when something doesn’t go their way. For instance, this evening my father tried to check his email. Adelphia, being the worst cable company in the world (yes, far worst than Comcast) has, at the moment, some very broken email servers. They’ve been trying to fix them for quite some time. Lucky for me it’s only incoming mail. Since I don’t use Adelphia for anything but outgoing I’m ok. Unfortunatly for my father, he relies on his email. Instead of A) trying to fix the problem, B) calling Adelphia to see what the problem might be or C) trying again later he chooses option D. Option D includes throwing a temper-tantrum like an 8 year old girl and throwing, yes throwing, various items from his desk across the room. Then, in a loud pissed off voice, declairing that the cable modem was going back tomorrow and that he “didn’t want to deal with this shit.”
You can see that we’re dealing with things in a mature and adult manner at this point. I almost told him to go sit in the corner for 10 minutes of quite time. As for my actual reaction I said something along the line of “just settle down and try it in the morning.” Apparently this wasn’t a good idea and I was met with a “and its all your damn fault, my computer worked fine before.” At this point, I would like to point out that his “computer” is a whopping 133mhz and is running Windows 95. So “working fine” is a term that shouldn’t even enter into the description of this giant paper weight. I don’t see how its my fault that his computer can’t physically handle a cable modem. Sure, the point to all this is that his email should have been working. Yes, it should have. Did I break it? No. You want to get pissed at someone, call Adelphia. Acting like a spoiled fucking child won’t help either. I know you’ve “had a long day” but fuck you.
So, if his royal highness gets his way, which he will, I’ll be offline for the rest of the summer. I don’t exactly relish that idea so I’ll simply have to steal his modem. Or he can buy me another one, since he happens to be using my old one at the moment. And if he doesn’t like me using “his” modem, too fucking bad, he shouldn’t have returned a modem that was working fine just because he doesn’t know how to use it.
I’ve even offered to fix the problem or at the very least call Adelphia. That apparently wasn’t good enough. No, we’d rather complain about things that we could easily fix. It’s much easier to live with something when you’ve gone out of your way to prove that you’re incorrectly right. He’ll probably simmer down after a nights sleep… but he’ll probably return the modem anyway. I should also mention that while this story paints my father in a bad light, he actually gets pissed off quite rarely and is usually a mild mannered baseball coach type of person. That’s what happens when you spend all day travelling I suppose. Well, if I don’t post for a while, don’t be surprised. Later.
by Matt | Aug 11, 2002 | Imported Entry
Apparently Scott has been having a rough day. He also apparently hates…
Pop Music:
“The music industry easily at the lowest point it has ever been. Each day, the radio waves of America are infested with a combination of terrible pop quintets, rappers who rap about rapping with other rappers while wrapping things, rock groups whose most inspired lyrics could pass for a LiveJournal entry, and that terrible “Hero” jingle from Spider Man which sounds like it begins midway through the damn song.”
Moby:
“Of all the faux underground music that exists today, one person stands out above the rest as the most haughty, irritating, and completely useless of the artists of this type. This one man does all he can to try to seem different, but ends up just looking conceited and whiny. This man is Moby.”
And the movie Signs:
“Movies like this are mainly why I dislike seeing things in the theater from the month of April through the month of September. Everything that comes out in that time period is designed to rake in maximum profit for as little quality as can possibly be afforded. Now that M. Night Whatever has a shitload of money one would hope that he would be making better movies in the future.”
Ouchy. I just thought I’d share since I didn’t do anything interesting today of my own. Enjoy the bitter opinions of Something Awful
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