Category: Life

Yes, editing is bad for you. After a while, I began having hallucinations of Tux.

CNET released an interview they conducted with the RIAA yesterday. The thing is though, the answers that CNET put in their story really did not match up to the questions asked.

For instance, take the following Question and Answer:

Q: Do your view your lawsuits, even ones where you sued a 12-year-old girl or a Boston grandmother, as a success overall and do you think the process is working?
Sherman: Yes. We’re feeling pretty good. There will be the opportunity for business models that are consistent with P2P networks (such as demo versions or low quality). There have been a lot of conversations recently about ad-supported models.

Bainwol: Now there is additional legal clarity.

Q: How useful has the NET Act, which makes not-for-profit copyright infringement a federal crime, been?
Sherman: Did it have an impact? Sure. Anything that increases risk would have an impact. The only thing that has an impact is: “What does it matter for me?” When we’ve done surveys, the lawsuits are the No. 1 or No. 2 reason for why people have changed their behavior.

See how the answers are so disjointed to the question? I can sort of see a mild relevance, but its a stretched and confusing one at best. Now techdirt has already gone ahead and pinned the blame on the RIAA. I’m wondering whether its CNET’s reporter.

The reporter asked very good questions, some that we’ve all been wondering (while subvertly pushing a certain point.) But I question how it collected the answers – the answers here seem like snippets of longer conversations. Nonetheless, it is premature of me to pin the blame on anyone.

Warning: Speculation at this point.

Rockstar North have just posted their new recruitment positions. All these are game related, with motion editors and environment artists. Now assuming that they already have an expansive team to begin with, some of these positions would already be existant.

Meaning that Rockstar needs more of these people. More environment artists? I’d argue that they’re needed for the new GTA4, which just began pre-production. So they’re hiring for GTA4, or so I assume. What’s neat is that they require a Network Programmer. For GTA4.

I therefore arrive at the conclusion that GTA4 will have multiplayer, something to which GTA3/VC/SA was so close to achieving with their unfinished network code. On that topic – It only takes a 3MB mod to get GTA: San Andreas fully online with a decent server browser, a net-oriented scripting language, and a persistent online world. Oh how they were so close.

Yep, you heard right. The new pre-release is out, and available for download. All those who have donated thus far are included in the end credits. My main concern right now are the graphics – namely the lack of them. If you have ideas as to what I can add where in that respect, feel free to email me.

Download the Pre-Release v0.8:
Download via HTTP.
Download via Bittorrent.
See it now on Google Video.

The new version features some improved audio, a completely revamped soundtrack, and added graphics. The final version may or may not contain a new interview, and is likely to contain more a few more graphics.

I’ll need your help though, coming up with ideas of what kind of visuals I could add to the film to help bridge the technical gap between the not-so-technically inclined and the documentary itself.

Update:
Add a few extra days to that. It’s currently 12AM May 21st; and I’m on render cycle 4 of 5. When I wake up, I’ll start render cycle 5. When I come back from work, I’ll start the upload processes (Piracydoc HTTP Mirror; Google Video). Everything should be up by the morning of May 22nd.

As for the interviews I’ve been trying to conduct: no new word.

A Mysterious Call:
And while I was out at a friend’s place today, I got a call from a foreign area code. As it turned out, it was someone based in Pennsylvania that had heard about the situation I was in with the “Ain’t Misbehavin” song – pretty neat. He offered a few suggestions as to possible ways of dealing with the situation, and we chatted a bit. Only because of the delay, I kept interrupting him. :S

Pretty cool experience.