I pirated that game just so I could critique how god damned bad it was.

CDs absolutely influenced the scale and speed of it. And it was a generational shift that went from piracy being something that wasn’t well understood and mostly a niche issue for music and movie lovers (“home taping is killing music”) to something that impacted all types of media.

I had a friend back in the early 2000’s who did this.

He paid for this way through school by abusing the schools T1 access and pirated shitloads of movies and would dump them all to DVD-Rs and then sell them on ebay. He wouldn’t make exact DVD rips, he instead would fill the DVD with tons of different movies or shows and sell them as collections. He did especially well with anime, which was difficult to access in the US at the time.

He later went on to be an electrical engineer at Boeing.

I also remember people hating Valve at first for this DRM scheme, and it’s also weird that people forgot that Steam itself is a minimally invasive form of DRM.

Soulseek has no torrents and no swarms. It’s a classic, direct peer-to-peer connection between you and another user. You have to choose to share items in your library, like in the old days. Most file sharing like this was shut down two decades ago now since bittorrent was alive and kicking in 2001 and became the dominant way to share files. However, Soulseek has somehow flown under the radar and kept chugging along. It’s my premier place to find obscure music I can’t find anywhere else.

I’m honestly surprised CG has survived this long. Most of the other trackers I was on from that era are long gone.

Oink’s Pink Palace gone, What gone, baconBits gone, cheggit gone… I think the only two other than CG that still exist are indietorrents and empornium. I’m old now so the porn trackers no longer appeal to me.

Those were the halcyon days, for sure,

Soulseek is still kicking ass and taking names, bruh

If you’re on linux check out the Nicotine+ native linux client for soulseek

It’s definitely not easy, especially if you don’t have a seedbox.

I have gotten a good amount of upload, but that’s on torrents I have been seeding for literally years at a time.

https://wiki.installgentoo.com/index.php/Private_trackers#What_is_a_private_tracker.3F

What is a private tracker?

A private tracker is a torrent website that provides the same functionality as a public tracker but is invite-only. This means you need to be a member to view the contents of the site and download its torrents. A tracker can either be semiprivate, where you can create an account for free by just registering your details, or fully private, where another user has to invite you. Within a tracker, there is usually an extensive set of rules covering how much one can download, what kind of content one can upload, what precautions one must take when logging into the site, etc. Such rules and content vary from tracker to tracker, and go from rather liberal with little enforcement to ultra-paranoid and autistic

Private trackers enforce ratios, and good private trackers reward long-term seeding, which is part of why I like private trackers.

I’m very proud of my CG account that turns seventeen next month.

EDIT: No I don’t have invites, before anyone asks.

Usenet is an excellent suggestion. I wish I wasn’t too poor for it. I miss the days when it was included in an ISPs internet connection.

It’s definitely easier than trying to break your way into the private tracker game. Trash guides is top tier useful stuff.

annas archive

libgen

Hell yes!

AMA

So, are you a masochist in other aspects of your life, too?

The video worked excellently, just so you know.

Bandcamp, even though it’s ownership is questionable at this point, still has Bandcamp Fridays where the artist gets 100% of the sale, and they let you download DRM-free high quality FLAC files.

This is for all those who don’t like this, and want to demand DRM-free files.

Removed by mod

Transsexual is an old, negatively coded word (with use as far back as the Rocky Horror Picture Show in 1975). Transgender is the preferred nomenclature.

It was a derogatory term that implies that being transgender has something to do with sex and not an expression of gender.

Asexuals, who are disinterested in sex, can be transgender. Calling them a “transsexual” implies that there is a sexual expression happening.

When you express your gender (whatever it is), do you feel like you are being sexual? I would wager most don’t think they’re being sexual simply walking around being who they are.

That’s why the term for non-trans people is “cisgender” not “cissexual.”

I’m sorry I didn’t mean to imply I didn’t support the non-binary among us, that was bad phrasing on my part. Of course I support their right to be who they are.

It displays as +5.

racist or transphobic

That stuff just gets removed. Admin and mods on blahaj don’t fuck around, really.

I chose blahaj not just because I support our trans brothers, sisters, and non-binaries, but also explicitly because it does not federate downvotes.

There’s a massive difference in how it feels to only see upvotes alone.