In 1699 a lone 200 ton vessel slipped across the water in the darkness of a moonless night, with a destination of Port Martinique. Upon arrival only one man disembarked, a very well dressed man of either great political power, or possibly from the House of Lords. But he was neither. For he was John Roberts…aka Black Bart.
On the pier he moved about with purpose towards the trade tavern to negotiate supplies and fresh water. But while walking he noticed an inordinate amount of sailors and soldiers in uniform. Seeing a familiar face he pulled aside a dock worker and inquired, and so discovered the Spanish had two Galleons moored up on the outer piers that Bart had not seen. Turning to the skies he measured dusk, and made hast about his negotiations.
Upon returning to his ship, the Royal Fortune, he ordered a third of the crew to move the supplies onboard, a third to load the port canons with ball and the starboard canons with grapeshot and chains, while the last third would rig the sails for Corsair maneuvers.
One of the most important elements to pirates were and always have been, their ships. In today’s computer age of piracy your ship, be it your personal computer or a seedbox, is your main and primary tool with which to operate your goals. Or is it?
One of the finer pleasures in life is picking a time to take a vacation, whether arbitrarily or acutely framed in date. Early this year, I found myself with frequent flyer miles to burn and a craving for massive seratonin release.
It should come as no surprise that a twenty-something year old male about to turn twenty-something-plus-one over the summer would book a flight surrounding his birthday; I set my sights on Las Vegas with intentions to gamble, booze, schmooze, and other unspeakables that men my age lust after. I booked the hotel, then months later took advantage of the cancellation policy in favor of cheaper lodging at one of the… less desireable hotels and casinos on the strip.
I had a ridiculous time, and not to push the cliche but the unspeakables will remain so. You are then curious, no doubt, as to why the author has chosen to write about an unknown mix of pork and beef blandly boiled in water and stuffed into a nondescript bun, further stuffed into a complementary nondescript foil sleeve.
Yes, I’m a Wii owner. I got a Wii for Christmas, and was obsessed with Wii Sports and Animal Crossing…boy did that change. Nintendo really has hurt Wii owners by not updating the online to be like the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3. Let’s not even mention the way DSi owners get first dibs on everything. Just watch me outline five of many improvements Nintendo failed to deliver us fanboys.
You are here today witnessing the beginning of a revolution! Today I am officially declaring that Post-Grunge never existed. All the fanatics are just gonna have to go home, party’s over.
Post-Grunge is supposed to be a music genre that according to Wikipedia, is nothing more then radio friendly grunge. (We all know the impeccable credibility of wikipedia; the most well respected educational outlet on earth.) I can recall hearing a new grunge band on the radio almost every week while riding the bus to school. It perplexes me to think that the music has not changed much, but the genre apparently has.
Who came up with this genre? What was the purpose behind it? Allmusic.com is a truly respected source for musical information. They claim, “The major difference is that while the Seattle bands were firmly rooted in underground alternative rock of the ’80s, post-grunge was influenced by what grunge became — a wildly popular form of inward-looking, serious-minded hard rock.” I certainly can’t believe it was an attempt to make the genre’s more specific…nothing’s changed!
Almost everyone can probably remember the first time they encountered the concept of infinity. At first it seems like an absurd idea. How can anything possibly go on forever? As a young child you learn virtually everything through tangible experiences. So when confronted by something as abstract as infinity most children will think that it simply cannot exist. After all, you cannot see or touch infinity (nor smell or taste it for that matter!) How is a young child supposed to understand something that they can’t sense? With this said, a lot of adults also encounter this bewilderment.
One of these adults is my dad. As soon as infinity is mentioned he becomes a vehement atheist, in terms of infinity. “How can something go on forever? Infinity is just a big cheat!” he can be heard saying in dismay. These sorts of thoughts don’t really cross the minds of children, but that doesn’t stop them from using infinity in their arguments. A frequently heard phrase at my first school was “I’ve got infinity of them”. This would always appear when two kids would be having a disagreement about who had more Pokemon cards or something equally pointless! Any mention of infinity was almost always then followed by someone saying “I’ve got infinity plus 1” or something along those lines.
My friends, I gambled and I lost. I rediscovered that drinking nonstop for two days does nothing to heal the wounds that cut so deep. Unfortunately, sobering up only left me a little less endowed in the wallet and just as utterly empty inside as before.
The cause of my broken heart? My aches and pains? more…
As we all know, the famous public tracker, The Pirate Bay, was acquired by the gaming company Global Gaming Factory X, on Tuesday, for $7.8 million. We also all know that Global Gaming Factory X is supposedly coming up with a new system, one that includes a new “P2P system”, and a way for the content providers to get paid. That basically means that us, the pirates, would have to pay, which is the main reason that sites like The Pirate Bay are around!
Now, I know that most of the members at TPS don’t think of The Pirate Bay as a great tracker. But, I’ll bet that it was many people’s first tracker when they started to use BitTorrent, myself included. The Pirate Bay is the heart of BitTorrent, the whole mindset of it. They definitely believe that piracy should be legal everywhere, and they really decide to be jerks to the major companies, just what we all want to do, as you can see below.
As you can see from this letter to EA, they sure are fighting back to the companies to show they don’t care about them
It seems this is a never ending affair. The stereotypical four-eyed, dice-chucking lover of the, up until recently, text heavy, role playing game defending the honor of the thinking man’s (or woman’s) game from the aggressive numb-skull that is the fan of fast-paced killing in first person shooters. I’m a big fan of both and love when a company tries to mesh the two. This guy does not.
Filesharing. That’s why everyone is a member of this site. It’s our common interest. But is it moral to participate in filesharing? Is it even technically illegal?
Strictly speaking filesharing is not a crime in terms of theft. The most frequently quoted definition of stealing is that the action in question led to someone being deprived of his or her personal property. As such, seeing as filesharing involves copies, it is not exactly stealing.
However, for an action to be considered theft it does not have to deprive the lawful owner of the use of an object or income from its use or sale. With that said, imagine there was a greedy shoemaker who made huge quantities of shoes and in fact made so many that he couldn’t sell them all. If someone were to “take” some of these excess shoes from the shoemaker without permission, it would still be considered theft, even if the shoemaker had no intention of selling them.
Members of the P2P community are always looking for something better, something faster, something just out of reach. The last time you tried to research music trackers, what did you find? Chances are, your “research” dead ends at a few familiar names with an all too familiar reputation. The two largest trackers, and two of the most coveted tracker memberships across the board, are not hard to remember — What.cd and Waffles. As easy as they are to remember, and as well respected as they are within the torrent community (even here at TPS), it’s easy to lose track of objectivity.
Your average noob doesn't know a great tracker from a dud!
So, how do you know they’re “the best” the net has to offer? Why should you not rest until one or even both of these mammoths are in your torrenting arsenal? more…
Filesharing. That’s why everyone is a member of this site. It’s our common interest. But is it moral to participate in filesharing? Is it even technically illegal?