VOTD

New Video of the day! I always thought that on-road bicycling would be boring, but this is hardcore. Check this out!


And heres a video for you motorcyclists who don't wear a helmet because you think you ride safe. Well, not much you could of done in this situation. Watch how fast it happens.

Zen and Art of the Motorcyclist

Here is something I found on a motorcycle forum the other day:

23 Great Things About The Motorcycle Life

- Those kids on the back seat of the school bus never wave to you when you're in a car
- Your worst day on a motorcycle is better than your best day in a car
- It's kind of fun to be anonymous in your helmet
- Your neighbors think you're a little crazy
- Riding through a rain shower in waterproof gear gives you that bring-it-on feeling of smugness
- Most of the time when you get on your bike, you're heading out to do something fun
- Nobody wishes they were you when you drive by in your car
- Freedom
- Riding a motorcycle makes you different from everyone else
- You arrive with a smile on your face
- Other people read books; you read maps
- We wave to each other on the road
- The feeling you get when you give someone their first ride
- We speak our own language
- Depending on how you feel today, you can be Arlen Ness or Nicky Hayden
- Not everyone can ride a motorcycle
- You never get tired of sitting in the garage, staring at your bike
- The conversation that always start when someone walks up to you and says, "I use to ride one of those."
- Leather jackets are cool
- You can understand why dogs love to stick their heads out the car window
- The look on your co-worker's face when you show a picture of your kid on a motorcycle
- The great feeling you get when you walk into work and set your helmet on the corner of your desk or in your locker
- You can smell when it's going to rain



11 Reasons Motorcycles are the BEST Vehicles

- $10,000 of motorcycle will outperform $70,000 of car.
- You can fill up for $10
- You almost never walk away from your car backwards
- You can identify every bike on the road at a glance - many of them by sound alone
- You can park almost anywhere
- You're not just seeing the scenery, you're part of it
- If you pack them in there just right, you can get six motorcycles in your garage in place of one car
- There are as many ways to make a bike your own as there are people
- You're the most maneuverable thing in traffic
- Downshift, throttle, buh-bye!!!

The Pirate Bay plundered, but rises again.

Well, after news that Swedish police raided The Pirate Bay's (TBP) servers at the end of August. A press release from the MPAA can be found HERE (pdf). This caused a lot of controversy about the legality of the raid as The Pirate Bay's website was perfectly legal under Swedish law(as far as we know, but the police have presented no evidence suggesting that it is performing illegal actions). Under Swedish law, it is illegal to distribute copyrighted material, but TPB claims to hosts no such data. They distribute Torrent files which merely contain information on how to build the file, which other users who are using the same torrent send to users who do not have it. A much more detailed explanation of Bittorrent can be found HERE and will help the uninitiated understand how torrents work as well as their their legality.

A team or 50 police officers raided several servers, including some that hosted data that did not belong to TPB, and have caused disruptions of service to many small companies. Many beleive that this raid was pressured onto Swedish police by U.S. politicians as well as the MPAA and RIAA. Apparently Swedish reporters have begun to pick up on the story(a blog which is translating Swedish media reports) and have been reporting it extensively. Many Swedish citizens are angered because the swedish police force is known fo being understaffed and underfunded, and often many smaller crimes go uninvestigated, yet they could spare 50 officers to raid a server room for suspected illegal activity. Perhaps they thought they might encounter actual pirates? Here is a video of the raid. The Swedish Pirate political party is organizing public demonstrations today.

Well, today TPB is back up with new servers located in Denmark. Apparently they are still experiencing some performance issues, but hope to be up to full capacity. Many suspect that the actions taken have actually helped out TPB in the eyes of the public, especially in Sweden. An interview with one of the sysadmins, Peter, can be found HERE. I do not know if it is in english or not yet.

Another interesting thing is that Canada recently introduced Captain Copyright, a superhero that will brainwas...AHEM...teach kids more about copyright infringement issues. It's better than sueing people I guess.

Camera

Well, the ongoing saga of getting my FujiFilm camera back from Bigston Corporation keeps on getting better. After the repair shop having it for over 6 months I called them yet AGAIN to ask them if anything has happened. They never contact me so I have o run through the phone games with them each time.

When I called yesterday and finally getting through to tech support after about 20 minutes I was told that my name was not in their system. I was asked if I had a work order number, but I was never given one. After sitting there is disbelief for a while, and reiterating that I had sent it in over 6 months ago and soke to someone several times about it. The lady then asked me what model of camera I had, and upon hearing that it was a FujiFilm she quickly told me that this was the support line for Samsung (Um, OK, I was never asked what kind of camera I had when I was transferred to you. What made her think that I had a samsung was beyond me). Anyways, she quickly found me in the Fujifilm system and said that they were still waiting on parts that were on backorder from Fuji. She was going to send the camera top Fuji the next day for them to repair or replace the camera.

Now I'd like to be optimistic about this whole thing, but if my camera is sent to Fuji, and never makes it way back to me I will not be a happy person. I could easily see Fuji saying they never received it, and Bigston says they sent it, and my camera will be forever lost in some sort of shipping lingo. The good news is that they did verify this time that the camera is under warantee (or well, WAS when I sent it to them LAST SUMMER!). Well, anyways wish me good luck. Here's a picture of my baby:

Electronic Supersonic.

Well, been quite busy recently so I have not had a chance to write any articles. Looking for a house to buy and beginning to pack my belongings into boxes. Also doing some research on the a forum for Yamaha R6's in preparation to buy one. Anyway, to prevent you from becoming bored, here is an awesome music video...