bbot's blog

Two things: "Can Obama Woo The Shithead Vote?"

A few weeks ago a dining companion said she was relieved that Obama had finally given in and worn an American flag lapel pin, because it shut up the sort of people who care about such things and took that issue out of their arsenal. I understood what she was saying, but I couldn’t bring myself to feel the same way. I was disappointed that he gave it to them. I can’t believe we still have to take those people seriously and validate their idiot bleating about God and country. Do we really have to keep pretending, at this point, to give a shit what those people think about anything at all? This country is a wreck and a laughingstock today because those people got everything they wanted for the last eight years. Doesn’t it ever occur to any of these yokels who don’t trust Obama because he can’t bowl: hey, maybe I don’t want a guy like me running the country, seeing as how I can’t even pay child support or get the fucking cable turned back on? Maybe I want somebody smarter than me in charge for a change. We’re at a grave and crucial moment in this country’s history, and once again we’re held hostage by the dim suspicions of people who think Obama is a Muslim Manchurian candidate. The most powerful nation on earth, still shackled to the idiot man-child of the South.

And:
"Texan sect reunions within days"
It strikes me, that if the children were removed from the care of a sect that had been kicked out of the Church of Latter-Day Saints due to their stance on the rape of children, (viz: favorable) then perhaps it isn't the best idea to give them back. But that's me! Perhaps my views on the rape of children (viz: unfavorable) are different than that of the average Texan.

Zing!

("bbot, when are you going to post something interesting, instead of constant whining?" Soon! Just you wait; muh ha, ha ha ha.)

"China's All-Seeing Eye"

I ask Zheng whether China's surveillance boom has anything to do with the rise in strikes and demonstrations in recent years. Zheng's deputy, a 23-year veteran of the Chinese military wearing a black Mao suit, responds as if I had launched a direct attack on the Communist Party itself. "If you walk out of this building, you will be under surveillance in five to six different ways," he says, staring at me hard. He lets the implication of his words linger in the air like an unspoken threat. "If you are a law-abiding citizen, you shouldn't be afraid," he finally adds. "The criminals are the only ones who should be afraid."

[...]

Walton's paper did have an impact, but not the one he had hoped. The revelation that China was constructing a gigantic digital database capable of watching its citizens on the streets and online, listening to their phone calls and tracking their consumer purchases sparked neither shock nor outrage. Instead, Walton says, the paper was "mined for ideas" by the U.S. government, as well as by private companies hoping to grab a piece of the suddenly booming market in spy tools.

Awesome!

In more, unpleasant, news; the commodities bubble is either caused by loss in confidence in the central banks or because investors are blithering morons. Which one is it? Who the fuck knows!

As is my (obsessive) practice, I was googling my name, when, lo and behold, I discovered that I had somehow gotten a livejournal. And learned Russian. Just for the record, this fellow is not the real bbot.

Speaking of amusing google results, I discovered that a significant phrase from a previous post was a weak googlewhack. Clicking through, I was led to this, which is unattributed, completely without links, and connected to a domain that has nothing to do with nuclear robots. How did google manage to index it in the first place?

I feel kinda bad starting a new entry just for two things, so I'll add some random zings that I've written over the last week, but couldn't shoehorn into any other posts.

• For the most damning indictment of Trackmania Nations Forever United yet, look no farther than Greg Dean's glowing praise.
• I was watching Family Guy earlier, and they zinged The Mask for overusing "Smokin!" Really? Family guy mocking The Mask for driving a joke into the ground is kind of like Bush the Second calling Obama a Nazi appeaser.
• ALTERNATE PUNCHLINE: is hypocrisy on such a stunning scale that it wraps around and becomes mildly funny. Only mildly, of course, since this is still Family Guy; which is constitutionally prohibited from cracking a decent joke.
• How is babby formed (Flash version!) is old news by now, but Did You Know that searching for "babby" brings up all sorts of freshly depressing questions? It's true! Unfortunately.

Continuing the theme of blocks of text written by someone else, these rants by Brian Clevinger, author of the celebrated 8-bit Theater, among other things. Lacking a proper, civilized blog, he instead utilizes the commentary space after each comic to rant at length. Discard the comic, which, shorn of context, can only baffle; and instead feast upon the bile beneath. Here, he speaks at length of a Sandwich.

If you ever have the misfortune to eat at the Home Turf Sports Grill at the Cleveland Airport, do not, under any circumstances, order the Roasted Turkey Sandwich.

I'm serious.

If there is a gun cutting grooves into the skin of your temple, take your chances with the bullet. Your skull may very well deflect it. If the safety of loved ones hangs in the balance, make what final peace with them as you can.

[...]

The sandwich, I'm saying, was something of a let down. But at least it was accompanied by a pile of hot fries. Fries that were, unfortunately, made without flavor. But that's fine, because there's ketchup. But, no, somehow that served to bring out what can only be described as an anti-flavor -- an experience mathematically identical to ordinary flavor moving backward through time.

But, at least, there would be one final refuge -- a glass of Coke to obliterate all evidence of the culinary disaster. Coke is effectively industrial cleaner with a pound of sugar mixed in, so it was more than up to the task. This place had already proven beyond all doubt how incredibly cheap and half-assed it was. There's no way they actually have their own fountains. No, Home Turf just pours you half a can and charges you quadruple the price of the whole thing. Coke in this form is as fundamental a particle as one may find even within the codified strata of franchise dining. A Coke on the moon is a Coke in Florida is a Coke in Cleveland. One need merely to pour it and gravity does this part for you.

There is, in short, no way to ruin a Coke.

Unless you pour a Diet Coke.

Here, he remarks upon the habits of Roofers.

Do they cull roofers from asylums? "Doctor, I need a score of men who fear silence like the reaper himself. Silence is to be a bane to them. Their tormented souls should only know peace whilst enthralled in the most tumultuous of dins. The Big Bang itself should be as a pin dropping when these men go to work. Supply me with a rabble of such mad fiends and your rewards will pale all the riches of Earth and heaven!"

Brian and Jerry have probably influenced my writing more than is healthy.

Paul Graham writes some pretty wacky stuff, but sometimes he gets it exactly right.

One of the most remarkable things about the way we lie to kids is how broad the conspiracy is. All adults know what their culture lies to kids about: they're the questions you answer "Ask your parents." If a kid asked you who won the World Series in 1982 or what the atomic weight of carbon was, you could just tell him. But if a kid asks you "Is there a God?" or "What's a prostitute?" you'll probably say "Ask your parents."

The conspiracy is so thorough that most kids who discover it do so only by discovering internal contradictions in what they're told. It can be traumatic for the ones who wake up during the operation. Here's what happened to Einstein:

"Through the reading of popular scientific books I soon reached the conviction that much in the stories of the Bible could not be true. The consequence was a positively fanatic freethinking coupled with the impression that youth is intentionally being deceived by the state through lies: it was a crushing impression."

Looks like the OLPC project is busy collapsing into a giant, fiery ruin.

In retrospect, of course, the progression was obvious. At first, you heard all sorts of great things about how innovative it was, and how it was going to change the world. Then they started hemorrhaging people, and Nicholas began acting increasingly bizarrely. Oh well.

I have been waiting for a second generation cheapbook for quite a while, money in hand, be it an Atom-based eee pc or the next generation OLPC, but it looks like we won't be seeing another laptop out of the OLPC crew. Progress marches on however, and the cheapbook industry is by no means dead. Not Long Now.

water.html updated.

It's done!

Online Videos by Veoh.com

(And a 2.55 MiB divx video without the stuttering that veoh added.)

And I, in turn, am done with it. Time to move on to the next obsession.

I've optimized the scene to a satisfying degree.

This took 27 minutes and 30 seconds to render, 318% faster. Almost as faster as blender internal, and much better looking. Unfortunately, it's still too slow for a full 1080p render.

In related news:

Water simulation with caustics. from Samuel Bierwagen on Vimeo.

Fitting with the "whoops" nature of its start, the finished product came out at 100 fps, rather than 25, so it's four times faster than it should be. And, of course, the vimeo codec obilterated all the fine detail. Oh well.

publickey.asc updated with current version of public key.

I only noticed I had a stale key posted after Jeff of NFSnet helpfully copy and pasted the name on the key in my support request reply. The old key is availible at publickey.old.asc, if for some reason you need it. I can't think of any circumstanced under which you would need it, since I don't have the private key anymore, and can't decrypt anything encrypted with it.

On matters not concerning my massive incompetence, I now have a rsync.net account! It's neato, I tell you what.

So, when messing around in my account at NFSnet, I found out that they now offer offsite backups through rsync.net, which is all kinds of cool. But it's a buck forty per gigabyte, so I went through the root directory of bbot.org and cleared out some junk; then went and updated its WHOIS information with my new address.

I also got shadowing working right in blender-yafray!

Unfortunately, I accidently told blender to render the whole animation. It's been chewing at it for a good twelve hours now, and is only up to frame 145. Fortunately, it was at quarter-1080p, so it shouldn't take the weeks and weeks I estimated for a full render. I'll post it on vimeo once it's done, I guess.

I also also attended the Emerald City Comics Convention. It was as nerdy as one might expect. While there I bought the Man Of Stone trade. I had read part of it already, (illegally, of course) but finishing it was nice. And badass! Don't forget that.

So I finally got caustics working in blender-yafray. Turns out you have to set the "blur" setting on the photon lamp, or else it doesn't, uh, blur. This is frame 161, and with 3052 vertexes and 5605 faces, it took 1 hour and 26 minutes to render, on a dual core 4500+ X2 (32-bit mode). For the whole animation (25 fps) it would take 14.9 days to render. So I guess I've got some optimizing to do.


(click for giant damn 1920x1200 original render)

I also have some tweaking to do on the caustics, (and add shadows, which are for some reason, missing) since at this point they're criminally unimpressive. Here's the exact same image using the blender internal renderer.


(click for giant damn 1920x1200 original render)

The surface is colored funny, since it's reflecting the sky instead of refracting the plane behind it, are the shadows are pretty low resolution, but that's something I can overlook or code around for a 344% increase in performance. (25 minute 47 second)

So yeah, I guess I was wildly optimistic when I said "in a couple of days" two weeks ago.

Source file. (438 KiB)

Whenever I am awake while my mother is sleeping, I find it expedient to be in another room, or preferably several miles away; so that by mass or distance her bloodcurdling screams are attenuated before they assault my ears.

You see, my mother experiences night terrors. As that wikipedia link will tell you, night terrors are much like nightmares, only they infiltrate our world from the darker places beyond, inspiring my mother to spring awake from a dead sleep, shrieking, and then as quickly fall back into slumber; leaving bystanders wondering if medical attention should be summoned first for their shattered ear drums, or for the stab wounds my mother had to have acquired to produce such screams.

If you talk to her before she returns to sleep, she will babble what can only be described as a mad tale; of exploding cats and malevolent figures, of the cosmic horrors which lurk outside our mortal sight and wait unsleeping, ranks of eyes unblinking and filthy dripping chitinous claws, for the portent that will herald the End of Days, and plunge this plane into night unceasing.

Once it was about house painters. For some reason.

So yeah, I've become a heavy sleeper.

So a little racing game called Trackmania Nations Forever was released on Steam back in April. I downloaded it, (it's free) and promptly forgot about it until I looked in my games tab and saw it again, and, on a whim, decided to play.

Shortly thereafter I discovered that Trackmania Nations Forever is free in much the same that the bubonic plague is free, and punches to the face can be obtained at no cost.

To prevent any possible miscommunication, I am telling you right now that Trackmania Nations Forever is a bad game. It is not so bad it's good, it is so bad it's horrible. Saying that this game should be burned is an insult to fire. I'm going to be mocking Trackmania Nations Forever a lot more in the upcoming pages, but I wanted to get the point of the post across as soon as possible.

Trackmania Nations Forever, (no, I am not going to abbriviate the name of the game. The developers were evil (or stupid) enough to saddle it with a idiotically long name, and I'm evil (but not stupid) enough to continue to inflict it upon you) appropriately enough, looks like a good game. The graphics are excellent, the controls are crisp and responsive and the in-game music is surprisingly good. But this is just a thin veneer of quality designed to obscure the black, evil heart of the game from the player.

Now, when I said "racing game" up there, you probably thought of a game where you race other cars in a track, and after a number of laps, whoever leads the pack when crossing the finish line gets first place, the person right behind him gets second place, and so on. But no, that's way too much like a good game for Trackmania Nations Forever.

No, in Trackmania Nations Forever, the default, and as far as I can tell, only gameplay mode is "Time Attack", where whoever gets the fastest time in a single lap heat gets the first place. After that single lap, the course is reset, and you do it again, and again, and again. By the way, there's no collision damage, cars can just ghost through each other, and "respawning" to the last checkpoint is instant and doesn't incur a time penalty.

This results in the most egregious Do It Again, Stupid gameplay I have ever seen in a racing game. Since there's no collision damage, the only way to be punished for poor driving is be knocked off the course, which happens a lot. A whole lot.

See that jump? Better line it up perfectly, or else you land outside of the course and have to respawn. But don't line it up too perfectly, because then you'll fall through a hole in the middle of the fucking track and have to respawn. And don't take the jump too slow, or else you'll smack into the edge of the landing ramp and have to respawn. But don't take the jump too fast or else you miss the track entirely after it takes a sharp turn right after the landing ramp. And have to respawn.

Mess up in any of a hundred ways? Do It Again, Stupid!

I played in a kind of haze of confusion, and eventually, rage; as I screwed up in tiny, almost imperceptible ways and had to respawn over and over again. "This game looks like someone spent money on it! How can the gameplay be so stupendously horrible? This has to be some sort of user-made third-party course, the real courses can't possibly be this terrible." This I screamed to the uncaring heavens, and, incidentally, the chat channel.

<bbot> Are all of the maps as bad as this?
<gc-mcwellian> no
<gc-mcwellian> some are worse

And that's by no means the end of Trackmania Nations Forever's crimes. When creating an account you have to select your nationality, accomplished by going through a list of nations eight at a time, with a sizable delay after hitting the "next page" button as it apparently requests the page from a server. Once you do, that, you get to select your state the same way.

This is so the game can locate you on the appropriate leaderboards, which are sorted by player rating, which presumably uses the Elo ranking system. Now, this is just fine, but Elo ranking is for directly competitive games like Chess, where a large difference in player skill results in a dramatically different game. A grandmaster can obliterate a newbie in a couple of moves, etc. But you can't even interact with the other players in Trackmania Nations Forever! This has the effect of making the ranking system being used purely for ranking, rather than for game-balancing (since there's nothing to balance) or server matchmaking.

Just finding a server is a chore. It is the year 2008, a mere ten years after Half Life came out; why, then, am I unable to even sort servers by ping? Or just by game mode? Why are you making me page through hundreds of servers, without being able to filter them at all? How do you fail at even the most trivial task, something accomplished over and over, without flaw, by every other multiplayer game for the last ten fucking years?

Trackmania Nations Forever is a shitty, shitty game. Its gameplay is fundamentally broken, the UI is a joke, the server browser is a hate machine designed to inflict pain on anyone who touches it, and even the name is poorly designed and fails at the simple task of conveying what the game is about. There is no aspect of this game that is without flaw, no detail not perverted to the task of assaulting the mind of the player. I deleted the game after playing it for twenty minutes, and now I wish it were installed again so I could delete it again, delete it twice, delete it three times, reformat the hard drive, and crush its platters with the sheer force of my hatred. Trackmania Nations Forever is the ultimate argument against the existence of a loving God, for if He existed, surely this blight upon existence would be unmade entirely, its component atoms wiped from the universe, and its creators damned to Hell.

Another day, another DMCA takedown notice.

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From: abuse <abuse@axxs.net>
Subject: disabled  copper.unitinu.net for copyright Violations
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Hello.

Under the terms and conditions of your hosting agreement with us, 
"Copyright Violations - Violation of copyrights held by individuals 
and corporations or other entities can result in civil and criminal 
liability for the infringer. are prohibited on all servers.
" (See http://www.olm.net/company-info/standard-policies.html ).
  We received the complaint/notification below regarding Copyright 
Violations on copper.unitinu.net/ .
"this is the second copyright violation on this server "As a result 
of our investigation, and we had to disable the server for the time 
being.  Please understand that we had no other choice, because we 
must protect the integrity of our network .

We appreciate your understanding to this matter. If you have any 
further questions, please let me know.

Best regards,
Juany
Spam/Abuse Coordinator
OLM, LLC
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e: abuse@axxs.net
v: 1-800-741-6813

>From: universal-studios-no-reply@copyright-compliance.com
>Subject: DMCA Notification Notice ID: 14-16650013
>To: abuse@axxs.net
>Sender: universal-studios-no-reply@copyright-compliance.com
>Reply-To: universal-studios-no-reply@copyright-compliance.com
>Date: Thu, 1 May 2008 21:52:25 -0700
>
>-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
>Hash: SHA1
>
>Re:  Unauthorized Use of NBC Universal Properties
>Notice ID: 14-16650013
>29 Apr 2008 22:40:28 GMT
>
>Dear Sir or Madam:
>
>Please be advised that NBC Universal and/or its subsidiary and 
>affiliated companies (collectively, NBC Universal) are the owners of 
>exclusive rights protected under copyright law and other 
>intellectual property rights in many motion pictures and television 
>programs, including the title(s) listed below (the NBC Universal 
>Properties). NBC Universal diligently enforces its rights in its 
>motion pictures.
>
>It has come to our attention that Olm LLC is the service provider 
>for the IP address listed below, from which unauthorized copying and 
>distribution (downloading, uploading, file serving, file "swapping" 
>or other similar activities) of the NBC Universal Property or 
>Properties listed below, or portion(s) thereof, is taking place.  We 
>believe that the Internet access of the user engaging in this 
>infringement is provided by Olm LLC or a downstream service provider 
>who purchases this connectivity from Olm LLC.
>
>This unauthorized copying and distribution constitutes copyright 
>infringement under Section 106 of the U.S. Copyright Act.  Depending 
>upon the type of service Olm LLC is providing to this IP address, it 
>may have legal and/or equitable liability if it does not 
>expeditiously remove or disable access to the motion picture(s) 
>listed below, or if it fails to implement a policy that provides for 
>termination of subscribers who are repeat infringers (see 17 U.S.C. 512).
>
>Despite the above, NBC Universal believes that the entire Internet 
>community benefits when these matters are resolved cooperatively. We 
>urge you to take immediate action to stop this infringing activity 
>and inform us of the results of your actions. We appreciate your 
>efforts toward this common goal.
>
>The undersigned has a good faith belief that use of the NBC 
>Universal Property or Properties in the manner described herein is 
>not authorized by NBC Universal, its agent or the law.  The 
>information contained in this notification is accurate.  Under 
>penalty of perjury, the undersigned is authorized to act on behalf 
>of NBC Universal with respect to this matter.
>
>Please be advised that this letter is not intended to be a complete 
>statement of the facts or law as they may pertain to this matter or 
>of NBC Universal's positions, rights or remedies, legal or 
>equitable, all of which are specifically reserved.
>
>Please send us a prompt response indicating the actions you have 
>taken to resolve this matter, making sure to reference the Notice ID 
>number above in your response.
>
>mailto:antipiracy@nbcuni.com?subject=RE%3A%20DMCA%20Notification%20Notice%20ID%3A%2014%2D16650013
>
>If you do not wish to reply by email, please use our Web Interface by
>clicking on the following link:
>
>http://webreply.baytsp.com/webreply/webreply.jsp?customerid=14&commhash=f6ad821813d9351df3e575c53c83f7ff
>
>Note: If your email program has inserted line breaks into either the
>email or web links above, you can copy and paste the entire link in to
>you email program, or favorite web browser, respectively.
>
>
>Very truly yours,
>
>
>Mark Ishikawa
>c/o NBC Universal Anti-Piracy Technical Operations
>100 Universal City Plaza
>Universal City, CA 91608
>
>tel.  (818) 777-4876
>fax  (818) 866-2026
>antipiracy@nbcuni.com
>
>
>*pgp public key is available on the key server at ldap://keyserver.pgp.com
>** For any correspondence regarding this case, please send your 
>emails to antipiracy@nbcuni.com and refer to Notice ID: 
>14-16650013.  If you need immediate assistance or if you have 
>general questions please call the number listed above.
>Title:  Definitely Maybe
>Infringement Source:  BitTorrent
>Initial Infringement Timestamp:  26 Apr 2008 15:10:02 GMT
>Recent Infringement Timestamp: 26 Apr 2008 15:10:02 GMT
>Infringing Filename:  Definitely, Maybe.Proper.XVid.avi
>Infringing File size:  852286612
>Infringers IP Address:  69.94.127.78
>Infringers DNS Name:
>Infringing URL: http://cyberfun-tracker-001.cyberfun.ro:8080/announce
>
>
>- ---Start ACNS XML
><?xml version="1.0" encoding="iso-8859-1"?>
>
><Infringement xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance" 
>xsi:noNamespaceSchemaLocation="http://mpto.unistudios.com/xml/Infringement_schema.xsd">
>   <Case>
>     <ID>16650013</ID>
>     <Status>Open</Status>
>   </Case>
>   <Complainant>
>     <Entity>BayTSP, Inc.</Entity>
>     <Contact>Mark M. Ishikawa, c/o NBC Universal Anti-Piracy 
> Technical Operations</Contact>
>     <Address>100 Universal City Plaza, Universal City, California 
> 91608 United States of America</Address>
>     <Phone>818-777-4876,818-866-2026</Phone>
>     <Email>antipiracy@nbcuni.com</Email>
>   </Complainant>
>   <Service_Provider>
>     <Entity>Olm LLC</Entity>
>     <Address></Address>
>     <Email>abuse@axxs.net</Email>
>   </Service_Provider>
>   <Source>
>     <TimeStamp>2008-04-26T15:10:02.000Z</TimeStamp>
>     <IP_Address>69.94.127.78</IP_Address>
>     <Port></Port>
>     <DNS_Name></DNS_Name>
>     <Type>BitTorrent</Type>
>     <UserName></UserName>
>     <Number_Files>1</Number_Files>
>     <Deja_Vu>No</Deja_Vu>
>   </Source>
>   <Content>
>     <Item>
>       <Title>Definitely Maybe</Title>
>       <FileName>Definitely, Maybe.Proper.XVid.avi</FileName>
>       <FileSize>852286612</FileSize>
>       <URL>http://cyberfun-tracker-001.cyberfun.ro:8080/announce</URL>
>     </Item>
>   </Content>
></Infringement>
>- ---End ACNS XML
>-----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----
>Version: 8.0
>
>iD8DBQFIGp4IvmTY1IeHkqERAnvIAJ0WbM0055nefXiOItHfgK/jwwj84wCg0HwT
>3ux1SJqdBrDAJ/YvbNxQ7Ck=
>=E5BT
>-----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

This time, they shut down copper.unitinu.net. Fucking bittorrent users!

So I hit them with a little bit of the old form letter.

Received: by 10.86.99.11 with HTTP; Fri, 2 May 2008 15:25:08 -0700 (PDT)
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Date: Fri, 2 May 2008 15:25:08 -0700
From: bbot 
To: abuse 
Subject: Re: disabled copper.unitinu.net for copyright Violations
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Delivered-To: bbot.filler@gmail.com

Dear OLM.net:

Thank you for forwarding me the notice you received from NBC Universal
regarding "Definitely, Maybe.Proper.XVid.avi". I would like to assure
you that, contrary to the assertions in the notice, 1) I am not
hosting or making available the claimed infringing materials, and 2)
you are already protected by the Digital Millennium Copyright Act's
("DMCA") safe harbor from any liability arising from this complaint.
The notice is incorrect, probably based upon misunderstandings about
law and about some of the software I run.

First, in terms of legal liability, this notice does not create any
risk for you as a service provider. As you know, the DMCA creates four
"safe harbors" for service providers to protect them from copyright
liability for the acts of their users, when the ISPs fulfill certain
requirements. (17 U.S.C. =A7 512) The DMCA's requirements vary depending
on the ISP's role. You may be most familiar with the "notice and
takedown" provisions of DMCA 512(c), but those apply only to content
hosted on your servers, or to linking and caching activity. The
"takedown notice" provisions do not apply when an ISP merely acts as a
conduit. Instead, the "conduit" safe harbor of DMCA 512(a) has
different and less burdensome requirements, as the D.C. Circuit Court
of Appeals held in RIAA v. Verizon (see
http://www.eff.org/legal/cases/RIAA_v_Verizon/opinion-20031219.pdf)
and the Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals confirmed in RIAA v. Charter
(see http://www.eff.org/IP/P2P/Charter/033802P.pdf).

Here, any content that came from or through my computers merely passed
through your network, so DMCA 512(a) applies. Under DMCA 512(a), you
are immune from money damages for copyright infringement claims if you
maintain "a policy that provides for termination in appropriate
circumstances of subscribers and account holders of the service
provider's system or network who are repeat infringers." If you have
and implement such a policy, you are free from fear of copyright
damages, period.

As for what makes a reasonable policy, as the law says, it's one that
only terminates subscribers who are repeat infringers. A notice
claiming infringement is not the same as a determination of
infringement. The notification you received is not proof of any
copyright infringement, and it certainly is not proof of the "repeat
infringement" that is required under the law before you need to
terminate my account. I have not infringed any copyrights and do not
intend to do so. Therefore, you continue to be protected under the
DMCA 512(a) safe harbor, without taking any further action.

Additionally, universal-studios-no-reply@copyright-compliance.com has
signed their notice with a PGP signature, and has claimed to have
their public key on file with keysever.pgp.com. They do not, so it is
impossible to actually verify the legitimacy of this email; in
addition to its claims being completely spurious.

You might be curious, though, about what did trigger the notice. The
software that likely triggered the faulty notice is a program I run
called Tor. Tor is network software that helps users to enhance their
privacy, security, and safety online. It does not host or make
available any content. Rather, it is part of a network of nodes on the
Internet that simply pass packets among themselves before sending them
to their destinations, just as any Internet host does. The difference
is that Tor tunnels the connections such that no hop can learn both
the source and destination of the packets, giving users protection
from nefarious snooping on network traffic. Tor protects users against
hazards such as harassment, spam, and identity theft. In fact, initial
development of Tor, including deployment of a public-use Tor network,
was a project of the U.S. Naval Research Laboratory, with funding from
ONR and DARPA. (For more on Tor, see https://www.torproject.org/.) As
an organization committed to protecting the privacy of its customers,
I hope you'll agree that this is a valuable technology.

Thank you for working with me on this matter. As a loyal subscriber, I
appreciate your notifying me of this issue and hope that the complete
protections of DMCA 512 put any concerns you may have at rest. If not,
please contact me with any further questions.

Very truly yours,
Your customer, Samuel Bierwagen

I, of course, prepaid copper six months in advance; so the next step is small-claims court to get my money back. Jerks!

So I was looking through the stats for bbot.org, when I saw a whole lot of incoming hits from http://www.rediscussed.com/2008/02/23/futuremark-3dmark-vantage/. Clicking through, I noticed an image that was awwwful familiar...



And sure enough, that's frame 250 from my water simulation page. This is called "hot-linking" and boy oh boy is it not cool. First of all, he's using my image without permission. I don't care, but he's also using my bandwidth which means he is directly costing me money, which is completely unacceptable.

Second of all, what little content there is in that blog post seems to be about DX10's water simulation capabilities, which will look pretty much nothing like the output of a non-realtime CGI suite like Blender. Not only is it a stolen image, but it's an inaccurately stolen image.

And third of all, he's using my hosting, which means he's pointing to a file on my server. And there isn't a thing in the world to keep me from changing that file.



Hot linking isn't cool. Don't do it.

(I would be remiss in not mentioning Dan's Adventures In Hot-Linking.)