Pointless Software Piracy

My Kobo Bookstore

Linspire. That one word sums up my whole experience. Now, while I don’t condone piracy for the sake of piracy, I would like to get it out there that (as with everything in life) it’s a nuanced thing in my opinion. Say, for instance, that you’re building a retro PC… you want those /486 vibes so bad, I know it! Anyway, let’s say you’re building a retro PC and you’re intent on getting hardware and software from circa 1992. Okay, that’s great and all, but the software? Technically (assuming I’m understanding correctly, but more on that later), it would be illegal to download a copy of MS-DOS, Microsoft Windows for Workgroups 3.11 (gotta have more than just Real-mode Networking… it’s a /486! With Netscape 2.02!), and all of the software and games that you might want to load on it for that authentic experience, even though the companies who designed and coded it are either ran by people who were born after its release or the company came down with a bog-standard case of not existing anymore. The question: why is it technically illegal to build these things when nobody gives a damn about computer code from 1992? I ask you. You’re not hurting Microsoft’s bottom line if you get the ancient software… they wouldn’t even support it if you went up to them; they’d probably make some comment about it belonging in a museum (Internet Archive, anyone?).

Honestly? They’re probably right on that one.

As a hypothetical, let’s say that I went and made some software for the Commodore 64 (Gen Xers, here-here) back in 1983 and copyrighted it. It gets sold in the stores on the exact same shelf as the C64, so popular that nobody would think about getting the C64 without getting my software (think cassette tape, diskette, or (if I could be super-efficient with the 6502/6510 machine code) a ROM cartridge). Well, by the time the internet would have came along and made its way into the hands of the general public, we would’ve already been through the C128, C128D, most of the early (and in my opinion, iconic) Commodore Amiga systems… Commodore Computer would have stopped existing, the IBM PC would become one of the two primary computer systems of the era, sporting MS-DOS and Microsoft Windows (or PC/GEOS… yes, I’m weird) and in competition with Apple’s Macintosh (outliving both the Lisa and Apple ][ platforms), and most, if not all, systems would be either 16-bit (Intel 8086/8088-80286) or 32-bit (anything after the original Macintoshes, Intel 80386 through the end of the original Pentium series). Technically, my software would still be copyrighted and not in the public domain (much to the dismay of retro computing enthusiasts, but I’m not a dick; no DRM or copy-protection). In practice, by 1998, the only people who would still use the software would be C64 enthusiasts, and that number would be incredibly tiny, compared to the original userbase during the hayday of the C64. If someone decided to download it to play around with in an emulator, make the source code public, or to make a room of their house that’s just stuck in the 80s… they wouldn’t be hurting me as a developer (actually, I’d encourage it, if I’m being completely honest here) in any real way. Sure, I’d be hurt, but only in a way that would come from looking to the past with rose-colored glasses. In practice, it would be do-or-don’t, so that brings us to the next question that explains this point:

Would it even be piracy? Sure, it would technically be copyrighted, BUT it’s not supported, sold, or maintained by the developer, the only thing anyone could get from it would be an understanding of how things used to be, and, quite frankly, I have a very strong feeling that nobody wants to go through the hassle of dealing with 5¼” floppies anymore unless they’re firmly dedicated and have the room to store everything. Even going the emulator route (clicking disk images into VICE instead of actually writing the disks in a VIC-1541 compatible format), it’s not like you would be able to make a major gain, as it’s, well, obsolete. It’s old, ancient, outdated, outmoded.

Put simply, while I believe software piracy is wrong, I also hold firm to the truth that, when someone abandons the code, it’s up for grabs. It doesn’t matter if you want to futz with someone by making them think you’ve got Mac OS 7.6.1 running on a brand-new ThinkPad T14; it doesn’t matter if you want to use that rotting corpse of a /386 to type up your articles, essays, and reports like it’s 1989; it doesn’t matter if you want to use Windows XP or 7 Pro as your server’s OS (my issues with that are completely unrelated… just trust me on that one); and it doesn’t matter if you want to make a private time capsule to the past. As long as the code has been abandoned by the original authors/developers/whathaveyou, it’s just waiting on a second shot at life. Whether that’s learning how things used to be or helping it grow up while staying true to the fact that it’s still GEOS… at the end of the day, it’s abandoned.

A Defense of Adblock… and Torrenting

To anyone who has ever had the misfortune of a painfully-slow internet connection or tried to scour the internet tirelessly for that one show you absolutely loved, you’re probably familiar with plugins like Adblock, Adblock Plus, and uBlock Origin, as well as seeing so many tiny files ending in .torrent. Today, I plan on defending (at least, from my position) both of these internet tools.

We’ll start with uBlock Origin (my ad blocker of choice for the past several years and running). Put simply, ads online are okay, so long as they are non-intrusive! That means maybe a few (no more than five and not plastered every two minutes in the video) ads every ten-to-fifteen minutes on Youtube, no layers on webpages that are invisible and trigger a modern interpretation of “Let 1k windows bloom” for the Macintosh, and (because I’m one of those people who doesn’t use all of the streaming services out there) making some of the “gray sites” where I like to watch old and obscure shows (most of which wouldn’t even be on Netflix, Hulu, and Paramount anyway) actually usable. Believe me, I’ve had more than my fair share of opening up Netflix and looking for a TV show or movie, only to find that it’s not there. To clarify, my family has a family Netflix account that I’m on, but very few things are on there that I’ll actually watch, so for me, streaming means opening up a Linux machine in VMware and perusing DuckDuckGo until I find what I'm looking for and hoping that the video server is still up. Often times, it isn’t, so I have to try other mirrors (if the option even exists) and search the rest of the web. Now, while this seems like it would only apply to the next section (where I’ll talk about torrenting), keep in mind that the hidden ads and “invisible frames” (as I call them) take up so much bandwidth, especially if you are still using an ADSL modem to get onto the Information Superhighway. Until a few years ago, when my father signed up for a few streaming services (sometime after the world shut down due to COVID-19), the internet speed at my house was 3-5 Mbps down, generally on the lower side. That wasn’t per person or per device, that was the max bandwidth for the whole modem. Honestly, ad blockers helped with the speed issue tremendously! Where a page might take ten-or-so minutes to load without the tiny plugin, that same page could load in just under two with the plugin. I still remember the difference with and without the plugins, mainly because of the shock value. Granted, in the long run, it never made the connection lightning-fast (because of the streaming services thing, we’re now at 10-15 Mbps down), but it was and still is able to rescue the bandwidth that can easily get stolen by those pesky popups or banners that make pages completely unusable, and it even makes YouTube usable again on my laptop (even though they're trying to get me to pay so much per month to stop ads… JUST MAKE THEM MORE TOLERABLE! USE AGING WHEELS AS AN EXAMPLE! IT’S NOT HARD!), though that’s starting to take an extra plugin, but it’s a nonissue except for less than five occasions and counting. Anyway, onto torrenting!

Now, I’m certain that most of you have come across a file that ended in .torrent at some point in the past and have been bewildered by what it was. Put simply, and this is coming from someone who frequently makes use of ancient and lost software, it’s just a P2P file sharing thing that doesn’t download linearly. Rather, it pulls what it can from where it can, although most of what you’ll find in the various databases and search utilities can best be summed up by the traffic in Cambodia: it’s a complete-and-total free-for-all; watch all sides, all the time. There's nothing inherently wrong about torrenting (or the dark web, for that matter), but that doesn’t always hold true for what people use it for. Hence the watch yourself warning. Anyway, within the torrenting realm lies what I consider to be my personal bread-and-butter of the internet: animé, TV shows, movies, and software, all of which might not be accessible on the regular internet anymore (namely a huge number of the software titles and animé I like to watch, many of which just aren’t in English to begin with… imagine that) or at all to begin with. Torrenting and the dark web are two ways, as far as I’m concerned, to access a complete freedom of information. A more overt way of seeing this would be to go to China, Russia, Laos, Cuba, Vietnam, or any country with restrictions on information (in any capacity) and ask even the least-savvy computer users if they know what a VPN is. They probably won’t be so quick to respond in public, but they would almost certainly show you how to get access to them so that they can get on the unfiltered Information Superhighway (yes, I’m coming from experience with seeders from China, Hong Kong, Vietnam, Russia, Laos, Cambodia, and Venezuela… why else would they try to make themselves less traceable online?). Torrents can be a way of hiding in plain sight, as the transfer of data via BitTorrent isn’t linear and comes from and goes to several other targets, rather than one at a time in a linear fashion. It’s also for this reason that I don’t use the original BitTorrent client (it’s full of ads, limits your speeds unless you pay, and doesn't have all of the features in the free version… yuck!), though there are plenty of forks and clones out there, I’m sure; still, I’ll leave you to pick your poison here. So far, with torrenting, I’ve been able to find any software or media anytime, though my first stop for software is the well-known Internet Archive (I highly recommend this to anyone working on a project, should you not want to get into torrenting). Anyway, that’s just my thoughts on the matter from the technical mind of someone who believes that all information should be free to access.

Stay safe and С Новый Годом!

ᚣᚢᛚᛖᛏᛁᛞᛖ 2024

So, it’s that time of year again… Yuletide. A lot has been going on at my end, to explain for the blog’s apparent neglect (I absolutely hate to see it get like this), but it’s just been chaotic to the nth degree. Anyway, now that I am here, I've been working on a few projects in my free time, none of which will likely see the light of day in any mainstream media, but I like to have something going on, and writing some kind of crackpot story while waiting on parts for a junk store computer to come in from Ebay seems to satisfy that need. I’m still in the process of getting certificates to back up some of my skills with a computer, and I also have been going through some of my older stuff and daydreaming about how I can revive those projects. I’m also hoping that I can get another WITSEC-themed story out (whether it be on Fur Affinity or full-on published as an eBook has yet to be seen) because there is a shockingly-low number of that type of story out. Shame, too, because those turn out to be pretty good when given a chance. I’ve also been thinking, and I don’t know where I want to go with Aleks anymore, although I may get an answer when everything goes back to normal on my end.

Somehow, though, I’ve got the next few years planned out in my head.

Anyway, not much to post this week, apart from the fact that I’m still here. Happy Yuletide, everyone!

Caffeine & Computers

My Kobo Bookstore

Okay, so I feel like Reagan Ridley right about now, seeing as how I’m already on my umpteenth cup of coffee (I’d go for the energy drinks if I could bring some into this house without starting WWIII), but I feel like I’m making progress. I’m still going over the markdown document for The Golden Record (the vast majority of my writing has generally been for my eyes only, so I forget that other people don’t have access to my thoughts and memories of other writing projects), but, you should be expecting a new character: Link Riviera. The reasoning for his creation is that, originally, Aleksey was my fursona, but (and I’m genuinely not sure if I’ve stated this here before) he’s more of a sociopathic, fictional character now, rather than a portrayal of myself. Granted, I like the feeling of the character not being myself, but I literally started writing characters based on either myself (I never made a whole batch of them, I didn’t inherit any narcissism gene, thankfully… I hope) or people I knew decently well. Some, however, were based on other fictional characters, which I do hope to bring back for the rest of the world to see. Anyway, my computer courses are going well and I’m thinking of building a NAS, just for the hell of it. I have loads of anime, comics, pictures, everything, and I’d like a way where I could store them to play on my TV or devices whenever. Somehow, the thought of building a NAS from scratch seems easier than using one of the junk store computers I have lying around. Anyway, we’ll just have to see what the future holds!

Next Few Weeks

My Kobo Bookstore

Not much to say this week, but I’ve decided to start pursuing certificates for some of my skills with a computer. My plan is to block off a couple or three hours Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday and leave writing for my downtime (usually Friday and part of Saturday and Sunday) for the near future. So far, I have to say that Codecademy is actually working out better than the college courses did, not to mention that it’s leagues cheaper and easier than sitting in a classroom with a teacher who may or may not be an objectively-bad match for me (I’ve had some that were just flat out terrible teachers and some that, while they were excellent at their jobs, they just weren’t right for me). Anyway, that said, I went ahead and sprung for the annual billing of the Pro tier so I could get my certificates (and give myself a good refresher course, too) and have something I can go back on, should writing not work out like I’m hoping… plus, it would be a good middle-finger to some people who are still going on about my failure with college back in 2018/2019. Anyway, put simply, my writing is going to be pushed to the back (this should help with writer’s block as well) for a block of time while I focus on something else.

Keep quirky!

I’m Still Here.

My Kobo Bookstore

Yeah, pretty much what the title says: I’m still around. With Typhoon Helene and the still-deteriorating condition of my grandfather, my thoughts these past few weeks have just been massively screwed. Sadly, I can’t code a firmware patch for my body/brain to just make it go away (or at least go back to the level of functional I’m used to), so that’s unfortunate, but I guess it’s a good-enough wakeup call for me to come to terms with some things that I’ve just been ignoring over the past several years, as well as some financial issues. Right now, about all I’m really good for (these past few days, at least) has been doing a “B47_L1NK Restoration” on an old laptop that was given to me a few months back.

Anyway, I’m not going to force anything because, the last time I tried that, I just ended up worse. I can’t give an ETA right now about when everything is going to be back to normal with me, but hopefully it’ll be back soon.

Just an update

My Kobo Bookstore

Not much to report back this week, other than I’ve somewhat-started on a story focusing around my new sona, Link Riviera. The abridged version is that, while Aleksey was my first fursona, he’s not an accurate portrayal of me anymore, just a character. Anyway, between some life issues (namely my body taking its sweet time adjusting to and from the Megaplex trip, followed by Typhoon Francis sending a monsoon our way) and a mixture of jetlag and reading the comics and books I bought (I HIGHLY recommend Bloodline and Slightly Damned to any comic lovers out there), I am way behind on getting stuff typed. Still, though, I do enjoy the slower pace of being able to relax after finishing a draft.

A proofreader had reached out to me a few days after I got back, so I took him up on his services, so that makes two firsts for The Golden Record (first for not having an AI cover and first for being proofread by a set of fresh eyes). When it gets published, I do plan to bring the book prices down again (at least a few more times in the future, mainly because of how Kobo sends payment at an interval which I haven’t hit yet), so I can say with confidence that they should be lowered by Christmas, assuming that’s been a deterrent for anyone who looked at them.

Whelp, anyway, like I said, not much to post this week, so stay weird!