Apparently the ELSPA has decided to take a page out of the books of the MPAA and RIAA and make up crazy statistics to boost their cause (as well as their pocketbook).

From Escapist Magazine:

John Hillier of the European industry group Entertainment & Leisure Software Publishers Association (ELSPA) has claimed that 90 percent of Nintendo DS owners in America are using pirated games.

Not only does that number sound ridiculously bloated, but that would mean that nine out of ten DS owners in the US are using illegal games on a modded DS. According to those numbers I would then have to assume most of my friends that have the Nintendo DS are pirates especially since they are technical types who are more into modding their tech. Out of the 25+ people I know with a DS, not one of them are playing pirated games and no one is using the R4 chip as stated later in the article.

Speaking to the Sunday Post about the R4 “pirate chip” for the DS, Hillier, manager of the association’s Intellectual Property Crimes Unit, said, “In America it’s thought 90 percent of Nintendo DS users are playing pirated games because of R4s. Takings from Nintendo DS games in the U.S. are lower than any other console and no doubt it will have a similar impact (in the U.K.).”

See there, “in America it’s thought”… THOUGHT - in other words, we make up the numbers because people aren’t buying the sucky games we sell for bloated costs. I am applying for a high ranking job in one of these companies because I can make up ridiculous numbers for shock value  therefore justifying my expenses and salary (see resume under skills and qualifications: grossly inflate statistics to scare consumers into sending us money).

How many awesome games have come out for the DS? Animal Crossing WW was a big hit, that cooking game, Brain Age… just because your sales are down, does not mean people are stealing rampantly. Apparently the new business model is to support an old failing business model by screaming piracy and collecting unearned profits from people too afraid, too monetarily restricted, or too uneducated to defend themselves from the false prosecution. See also patent trolls and other such business models that requires little actual innovation or work but has the potential to reap big rewards. This is a modern scam artist tactic under a big corporate umbrella of legitimacy.

Pirate:

• commandeer: take arbitrarily or by force
• Piracy is robbery committed at sea, or sometimes on the shore, by an agent without a commission from a sovereign nation. Although the terms are often used interchangeably, the difference between a pirate and a privateer is that the privateer was commissioned by a government and the pirate was non-commissioned. (See Privateer)

Who’s the pirate now?

I would have to say that the pictures on this post at pingdom have to include some of the most elegant cabling jobs I have ever seen. I have witnessed many an ugly server rack in my time in IT (I have probably created a few as well) and there are few things that I find more beautiful as a sysadmin than a well organized datacenter. Now, go feast your eyes on the artful cabling then challenge yourself to make your own beauty.

Link: pingdom: When data center cabling becomes art

Aaron Seigo gives the Keynote at the KDE 4.0 Release Event. Introduction given by Adriaan De Groot, Vice President of the KDE e.V.

Another reason I love HowToForge, you can learn how to do just about anything from the folks that contribute there. I have not tested this howto, so if you try it and get it to work let me know.

This guide explains how you can install Apple’s Safari browser on Ubuntu 7.10. As there is no Linux version of Safari, we will run it under Wine. We will use a tool called PlayOnLinux to install Safari under Wine. With PlayOnLinux you can install lots of Windows games and some Windows applications (such as Office 2003, IE6, MS Money, etc.) on Linux. Installing Safari on Linux is good for people such as web designers who have switched to Linux but still need to test their web sites in other browsers.

Installing Apple’s Safari Browser On Ubuntu 7.10 With PlayOnLinux

Last.fm announced today that users in the US, UK, and Germany can now stream full length tracks as well as entire albums straight from the Last.fm social music service. They state they will be paying artists directly and have the support of EMI, Sony BMG, Universal and Warner as well as independent artists.

According to their announcement:

Full-length tracks are now available in the US, UK, and Germany, and we’re hard at work broadening our coverage into other countries. During this initial public beta period, each track can be played up to 3 times for free before a notice appears telling you about our upcoming subscription service. The soon-to-be announced subscription service will give you unlimited plays and some other useful things. We’re also working on bringing full-length tracks to the desktop client and beyond.

Free full-length tracks are obviously great news for listeners, but also great for artists and labels, who get paid every time someone streams a song. Music on Last.fm is perpetually monetized. This is good because artists get paid based on how popular a song is with their fans, instead of a fixed amount.

If this service does well it could help push the major labels into a new service model that serves the customers and the artists. Last.fm was acquired by CBS last spring.

The latest version of gOS (stands for goodOS not Google OS) was released via BitTorrent a few weeks ago from thinkgos.com. The mirrors for direct FTP and http download are mostly available but the virtual appliance download link is offline (at the time of this post).gOS is the linux distribution that powers the popular EEEPC being sold through Wal-Mart.

gOS is built off Ubuntu Gutsy running the windows manager Enlightenment E17 rather than Gnome. Designed to run on low end and affordable hardware, gOS is built on the reliability and stability of Canonical’s Ubuntu without the added bloat included in the latest Ubuntu release Gutsy.