You will be missed by those people who, I suppose, enjoy acquiring/finding/sharing .torrents.
This was a bit of news that might have gone under your radar, but moderately popular torrent site Isohunt shut down about a week ago. Why? Because business cartels managed to utilize the courts to not only force the site offline but also sue its owner for more than one hundred million dollars in (USD most likely), because the music industry is hurting for money, and piracy is a pretty clear infringement on property, and most of all because it's a show of power that might remind torrent fans of the Napster Trials of the 2000s.
Isohunt was moderately useful to find things that Pirate Bay might not have had, as well as very useful whenever Pirate Bay was down. It was in my world and existed there as a respectable site, not particularly shady or anything. What else is there to say? There are some questions, I suppose.
Will the fight against media piracy be won or lost? Did the owner of Isohunt have Bitcoin among his assets? Will he be ruthlessly pursued as he tries to avoid reparations he will need to go into serious debt to afford? Wikipedia reports that the owner of Isohunt may only have 3 or 4 million to make repayments and live on. The owner also very righteously admitted that most of the torrents available on Isohunt were widely available... but it was that 5% that contributed to a healthy torrent ecology.
With each industry victory, the remaining .torrent players become bigger and the number of worthwhile torrent sites decreases. For, you see, Isohunt was forthright and not malicious, whereas a lot of .torrent sites are quite clearly crooked, shady, hard to use, and dishonest. Therefore I would like to thank Isohunt and its legally embattled owner for their service to the freedom of information and enduring human activity of piracy.
Bittersweet stuff. It was a good run, it was a good service, and people who want free data are still winning the war – until the RIAA and NSA co-operate to destroy freedom sometime in the corporate information/surveillance state future.
10/30/13
10/21/13
User Comment Rodeo: Rocktoberfest
Listen well, for I know that reading internet user commentary is an unhealthy practice. Every day, many people are drowned in sorrow and rage by scrolling down on a YouTube video. The most vulnerable and fearful video posters have been known to disable commentary altogether – suspecting the wildest, dumbest, and most impassioned responses. User Comment Rodeo asks the rhetorical: why is internet commentary such a low thing? Has it any value? Who gains by it, and who are the principal commentators? Why is it largely hateful, negative, illiterate? Does it reflect on human society in the year 2013? What conclusions can we draw about the spitefulness of modern humanity? It is known the internet can have deleterious effects on health, especially mental health, and I believe that the biggest user comment posters are also the most mentally unwell.
For this instalment of User Comment Rodeo, I wanted to stray as far as possible from the usual set of questions and the usual set of very obvious samples and go a-huntin' for more specialized examples. The beauty of user commentary is that it is limitless: if it could be used to generate energy we could go some distance to solving the energy crisis. If only impotent rage held any value at all, we could even begin to trade it, bringing in an era of fantastic riches. Since it doesn't, I changed the parameters on the UCR 3000 and waited for a haul of brilliant material. Me, getting content farmed? Hah, I'm farming the internet every day and rolling in the 'lulz' like it's dirty money.
You will see above an example of the 'intentional double post'. User is 'raging' at a localized advertisement and revealing a rather high level of acrimony. If you didn't know about the problems of a New Zealand national on Youtube, you know. That has value: not as much value as an AD BLOCKER perhaps, but value nonetheless. Double posts are generally due to user error, but as you can see, they are very enjoyable and visceral when they are intentionally done to express some idea or other.
Here's another double post, which demonstrates the flip-side of 'double posting for emphasis'. It also demonstrates how searching for double posts is risky, because they're not so highly amusing if they're not New Zealots taking the piss out of corrupt businesses, biased governments, and the eternal problem of YouTube advertising.
This is an apologist double post. A big company was at risk of being called mean things, and someone had to stand up for them. Of course length has an inverse relationship to content and quality of communication, so I don't really know where this guy is coming from. "Yeah, you know, who cares if it's people like me who enable large corporations to skirt legal issues, hide from effective taxation, and blow up clouds of careless birds with impunity. They're good for the community, they're sincerely gracious to their employees, and they're not Pamela Wallin."
Let's get back to the relatively basic single post - in this set I'd like to cite one poster (you might have noticed them already) who manages to miss the point, be a buzzkill, and expose himself as a deviant square all at the same time. Also there's an Internet Drug Expert (very cool), and what I think is a tween hipster there in the middle (VICE Montreal or die, bro)... suffice it to say there is only one truly insufferable poster, and the quality of the rest of the comments was significantly higher than what I'd expect from Youtube Comment Sections. People spend their time doing this kind of thing, maybe in isolation, maybe while they ride public transit... scary, isn't it? You may never know who these posters are, but if you're lucky you'll never know who they are.
I decided to close this rather lazy UCR on a high note. Spam comments like this are everywhere, some newer ones are offering drugs but I do enjoy an old fashioned Pick Up Artist 'advertisement'. This guy is very subtly a spam bot, but you'd never know just by reading the blatant yet comment. The internet... it only cares about the one thing it will never possess: sex.
For this instalment of User Comment Rodeo, I wanted to stray as far as possible from the usual set of questions and the usual set of very obvious samples and go a-huntin' for more specialized examples. The beauty of user commentary is that it is limitless: if it could be used to generate energy we could go some distance to solving the energy crisis. If only impotent rage held any value at all, we could even begin to trade it, bringing in an era of fantastic riches. Since it doesn't, I changed the parameters on the UCR 3000 and waited for a haul of brilliant material. Me, getting content farmed? Hah, I'm farming the internet every day and rolling in the 'lulz' like it's dirty money.
You will see above an example of the 'intentional double post'. User is 'raging' at a localized advertisement and revealing a rather high level of acrimony. If you didn't know about the problems of a New Zealand national on Youtube, you know. That has value: not as much value as an AD BLOCKER perhaps, but value nonetheless. Double posts are generally due to user error, but as you can see, they are very enjoyable and visceral when they are intentionally done to express some idea or other.
Here's another double post, which demonstrates the flip-side of 'double posting for emphasis'. It also demonstrates how searching for double posts is risky, because they're not so highly amusing if they're not New Zealots taking the piss out of corrupt businesses, biased governments, and the eternal problem of YouTube advertising.
This is an apologist double post. A big company was at risk of being called mean things, and someone had to stand up for them. Of course length has an inverse relationship to content and quality of communication, so I don't really know where this guy is coming from. "Yeah, you know, who cares if it's people like me who enable large corporations to skirt legal issues, hide from effective taxation, and blow up clouds of careless birds with impunity. They're good for the community, they're sincerely gracious to their employees, and they're not Pamela Wallin."
Let's get back to the relatively basic single post - in this set I'd like to cite one poster (you might have noticed them already) who manages to miss the point, be a buzzkill, and expose himself as a deviant square all at the same time. Also there's an Internet Drug Expert (very cool), and what I think is a tween hipster there in the middle (VICE Montreal or die, bro)... suffice it to say there is only one truly insufferable poster, and the quality of the rest of the comments was significantly higher than what I'd expect from Youtube Comment Sections. People spend their time doing this kind of thing, maybe in isolation, maybe while they ride public transit... scary, isn't it? You may never know who these posters are, but if you're lucky you'll never know who they are.
I decided to close this rather lazy UCR on a high note. Spam comments like this are everywhere, some newer ones are offering drugs but I do enjoy an old fashioned Pick Up Artist 'advertisement'. This guy is very subtly a spam bot, but you'd never know just by reading the blatant yet comment. The internet... it only cares about the one thing it will never possess: sex.
10/8/13
Internet Video Masterpieces, Vol. 1: The Political Pet
A while ago I saw a strange and vaguely disquieting video. It is funny, vaguely exploitative, and borderline surreal. For a minute I didn't know if it was real or some viral satire. I know the video isn't new by even the laxest standards, but to be quite honest I still wonder if I will 'get over it', to borrow an approximate phrase. The first viewing was followed by a few more for verification and I am almost certain it is the Real McCoy. How foolish of me to doubt the reality of 2013 internet video.
Really, though, the above video is obviously too earnest to be hoax, which fact actually makes it slightly more worrisome than if it was a well-timed joke. Hello, yes, this is the sort of thing that is not considered insane or cruel in our reality. But, also, you have to admit it's quite a funny video – this thing could have wrecked America's Funniest Home Videos (and might've, I don't know). Finally, as a true event, and not even a particularly remarkable one, it probably speaks volumes about this era or dawning era of time.
Imagine that the American Bald Eagle in the video represents something important, like a country's economy, the possibility of freedom, the hope for world peace, or a large tract of unspoiled land. Maybe that crashing eagle represents hamburger joints, ecological protection, civil equality, animal rights, low gas prices, or legalized euthanasia to you. Maybe it even reminds you of America, The Beautiful (it is in fact supposed by many to be a national symbol of the United States). Fixed with a greater meaning or different perspective the clip can take on absurd or tragic overtones. Of course, the real tragedy is what happened, and it's a multifarious tragedy at that.
You may be thinking, 'Why not make a few casual video remixes of this eagle crashing and post that? You know, instead of writing a bunch of words like a dork? You know, a good edit or parody can get you into high places and big money.' For starters, I don't have the software for it, and I don't want to be hassled on the internet – but I've got at least three funny ideas already. I would love to see what sound bytes or song excerpts or hilariously slowed-down samples would do for that clip. It's OK to laugh and make fun because the eagle didn't die, though later it was made to pay with its life for damaging property.
In the wake of what is being called (somewhat laughably in my opinion) the Government Shutdown of America, the video gains so much poignancy that it could cut backwards in time, alerting everyone in 2005 of the recession. In the video, the eagle plays the part of whichever major political characters, parties, or concepts you wish to deride with regard to the Government Shutdown. Meanwhile, it is absurdly likely that the States will eventually Balkanize as a result of what is essentially political pageantry. Things are getting pretty surreal around the world, but in the United States one can still, after all these years, bear witness to many high-caliber amazing and surreal things.
Yet perhaps it was all too real, and the video (posted and likely videotaped in August 2013) actually was meant as a sort of warning. Of course if go into the past looking for warnings, you're liable to find them... maybe sometimes a Youtube video, no matter the consequences, is just a Youtube video. However chilling the context of a video, however wicked a reality it exposes, the world is of course what news and comics make of it: a big place that's not so dangerous as everyone says, but instead actually kind of funny. While we slide into chaos it's the small things that prove us to be small time idiots that are actually pretty good examples of things we could do, as a species (which includes American Humans whether you like it or not), to better ourselves before we slide entirely off into the deep end – if we're not already there.
Hell, I've gone and made the whole thing sordid. It started off with a funny video with numerous deeper meanings and then I was going to say how unfair it was to the eagle (not to mention frightening and disorienting) but I don't want to be taken as an animal rights nut (even though the eagle was being exploited and was specifically property in the situation in the video – which in metaphor could make the handler either China or Liberal Lefties depending on who you are – because then well meaning realists (and anti-animal jack-offs) would scoff at me. As a symbolic video it has some value, as a 'funny video' the view count speaks for itself, and as a warning – heed it and weep.
Really, though, the above video is obviously too earnest to be hoax, which fact actually makes it slightly more worrisome than if it was a well-timed joke. Hello, yes, this is the sort of thing that is not considered insane or cruel in our reality. But, also, you have to admit it's quite a funny video – this thing could have wrecked America's Funniest Home Videos (and might've, I don't know). Finally, as a true event, and not even a particularly remarkable one, it probably speaks volumes about this era or dawning era of time.
Imagine that the American Bald Eagle in the video represents something important, like a country's economy, the possibility of freedom, the hope for world peace, or a large tract of unspoiled land. Maybe that crashing eagle represents hamburger joints, ecological protection, civil equality, animal rights, low gas prices, or legalized euthanasia to you. Maybe it even reminds you of America, The Beautiful (it is in fact supposed by many to be a national symbol of the United States). Fixed with a greater meaning or different perspective the clip can take on absurd or tragic overtones. Of course, the real tragedy is what happened, and it's a multifarious tragedy at that.
You may be thinking, 'Why not make a few casual video remixes of this eagle crashing and post that? You know, instead of writing a bunch of words like a dork? You know, a good edit or parody can get you into high places and big money.' For starters, I don't have the software for it, and I don't want to be hassled on the internet – but I've got at least three funny ideas already. I would love to see what sound bytes or song excerpts or hilariously slowed-down samples would do for that clip. It's OK to laugh and make fun because the eagle didn't die, though later it was made to pay with its life for damaging property.
In the wake of what is being called (somewhat laughably in my opinion) the Government Shutdown of America, the video gains so much poignancy that it could cut backwards in time, alerting everyone in 2005 of the recession. In the video, the eagle plays the part of whichever major political characters, parties, or concepts you wish to deride with regard to the Government Shutdown. Meanwhile, it is absurdly likely that the States will eventually Balkanize as a result of what is essentially political pageantry. Things are getting pretty surreal around the world, but in the United States one can still, after all these years, bear witness to many high-caliber amazing and surreal things.
Yet perhaps it was all too real, and the video (posted and likely videotaped in August 2013) actually was meant as a sort of warning. Of course if go into the past looking for warnings, you're liable to find them... maybe sometimes a Youtube video, no matter the consequences, is just a Youtube video. However chilling the context of a video, however wicked a reality it exposes, the world is of course what news and comics make of it: a big place that's not so dangerous as everyone says, but instead actually kind of funny. While we slide into chaos it's the small things that prove us to be small time idiots that are actually pretty good examples of things we could do, as a species (which includes American Humans whether you like it or not), to better ourselves before we slide entirely off into the deep end – if we're not already there.
Hell, I've gone and made the whole thing sordid. It started off with a funny video with numerous deeper meanings and then I was going to say how unfair it was to the eagle (not to mention frightening and disorienting) but I don't want to be taken as an animal rights nut (even though the eagle was being exploited and was specifically property in the situation in the video – which in metaphor could make the handler either China or Liberal Lefties depending on who you are – because then well meaning realists (and anti-animal jack-offs) would scoff at me. As a symbolic video it has some value, as a 'funny video' the view count speaks for itself, and as a warning – heed it and weep.
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