The Pirate Bay Fights Back ...

Im sure most of you are aware now days of BitTorrent, the uber popular and easy to use P2P file transfer system used by almost everyone in the known universe. put simply, BT is the latest and greatest thing to come along in the last 3-5 years of file sharing methods via the internet. basically working on the principals of having many "seeders" helping to give out or upload a file to "leachers" who partake to download the particular file or files in question.

This largely works on the principal of fair trade, where by no single user is ever the sole giver or taker of one such digital file(s). which also works perfectly in theory as any downloader can be downloading multiple parts of the file, at once, from many users.

Alot of the time this method is perfect for large file downloads, and of course if you know anything about BT, you know the best site to find lists of all the music and movies you want is The Pirate Bay (.) org. well ok, technically this site argues that alone it does nothing wrong, it is simply a gateway / storage tank for marking BT files. it doesnt host any illegal content on its own servers, its users however are the ones that hold the illegal / legal data being transfered at all times.

Since its inception this , and other sites have been targeted heavily along with others by the MIAA, RIAA, MPAA and every other acronym organisation under the sun representing big corporate america and its affiliates. basically the big boys dont like the idea of free media out there, and feel that we should all live in 1984, paying for plastic discs and not evolving to the screams of a society searching for a better method of entertainment delivery, storage and consumption, at a fair price to all along the chain. the bottom line is hiding behind the fear mongering tactics of advertising file sharing as totally illegal and leading to crime (have you seen those cinema ads lately? geezzz) these organisations dont want to step up the technological game ..... unless they can maintain the same bottleneck of little content for big cost to the consumer.

The latest news from The Pirate Bay camp is that they are currently in a lockdown dragout trial with Swedish police and the large Hollywood movie studios. now in all circumstances we like to view the law as impartial and a beacon of justice standing between all parties, setting innocence until proven guilty, protecting individual rites and seeking truth. but as long as the law is a human with a badge, the wheels of justice will always be greased by money and power. in the last few days its recently been made aware that the Swedish chief police investigator on this trial, has been an employee of none other than ..... the american movie studio : Warner Brothers. thats a nice way to say, the big boys are lining the cops pockets with cash to force a verdict into their corner, shutting down technology, P2P file sharing, and expanding their markets of over priced goods and services which are no longer suitable to this market. so who are the bad guys now?

FULL STORY
THE PIRATE BAY

6 Degrees Of Maya ....

So time is ticking down and Mexico just feels like its about to hit me full on. It's been way too long since i posted anything so here goes for breakin the drought. Truth be told, lately ive just been so busy with work, my only break is the weekend, and well by that time the last thing i feel like doing is sitting in front of my mac, reading text lol.

But enough of that, time to reorder things and put priorities first. Namely locking down Mexico details and accomodations, and then moving onto more planning. So far so good though, ive done a ton of reading and research, so much so that Craig over at Ink recons im over prepared to travel the Bus network HA!

Anyways, back to the topic ....
I'm searching through flickr, looking for images of Tulum, deciding whether to trek round that way after Tikal, and suddenly (as always with internet researching) you stumble onto something which just leads to so much more. So i spot this image of a bloke reading a National Geographic magazine, and suddenly see that there was a whole feature on the Maya in the August issue 2007.

So off i go in search of this issue and its contents :)
i'll link up some pages below for anyone interesting in a bit of quick reading and great GREAT images regarding the Mayas of Central America. be sure to take the quiz and learn some quirky facts. some include .....

* The Maya put a board on the front and back of a baby’s head and tied them together to flatten the baby’s forehead. The boards were left on for several days or weeks. The ideal was for the forehead and nose to run along the same line in profile.

* The Maya believed the human race had been made out of ground corn and penitential blood. According to the sacred book Popol Vuh, the gods decided to make the human race after attempting to make humans out of mud, wood, and rushes.

* The water-filled underworld, Xibalba, was entered through caves. Caves were the primary sites of rituals performed to honor underworld gods and played a key role in creation. Xibalba was regarded as a place of fright.

Fascinating ancient culture, i guess im just trying to put forward an idea of why im eager to visit this region, its ancient relics, and the surviving culture and natural surrounds. like i've always said, i kinda have a bee in my bonnet where i just feel that time is really shorter than we all feel it to be. I see my opportunity to do these things now, and i'll be damned if anyone is gonna put me in a 2.5 kids, 1/4 acre block lifestyle. Viva Mexico .....

National Geo Site

Palenque, deep in the Chiapas Forests. Famous for its Pyramids and King Pakal.


King Pakal's Death Mask made from jade


Reflect on a civilisation that was destroying its environment, ruled by war and religion. Sound familar? maybe one day someone will be looking upon the empire state building from a Manhatten jungle.

NSW sky to get heritage status

Of all the BS things i've seen lately, this takes the cake for the month. This news story comes in from NSW, a week or two ago during the whole, Earth Hour crock, which basically went unnoticed, or at least made some big wigs feel they were caring for the environment for a second.

"The National Trust of NSW is set to classify both the day and night sky above the state as worthy of preservation."

National Trust NSW president Zeny Edwards said the sky viewed from NSW had extraordinary aesthetic, historic, social and scientific significance for all Australians.

The move was timely with Earth Hour on Saturday, when switching off city lights would allow the sky to be seen clearly, he said. "Our sky is the only vista common to the whole country," Dr Edwards said today. We hope the listing of the sky will be a unifying symbol to help focus awareness on the need to protect our environment in the broadest sense." A clear view of the sky is the right of every Australian and should be preserved."

Yesh .... how bout we stop worrying about who can see what in the sky from where, and start worrying about water, drought, food and waste production, green transportation and a host of other issues which demand our attention now. and to think these idiots get put into these places of office and councils on our behalf, coming up with hair brain ideas like "heritage listing the sky"? and we just sit back and let them fill their pockets. who knows, the air we breath over in the west may be considered inferior soon to our fellow New South Welshman. ... Alec, don't name your kid Zeny, got it!



SBS