RIAA vs iTunes

Here's a great quote from Slashdot. The article the comment appeared in was how the RIAA was pressuring Apple to increase thier prices.

"Hey, what do with this golden goose?"

"What does it do?"

"It lays golden eggs."

"Do we own the goose?"

"No, but we get half the eggs as long as the goose uses our nest."

"We ain't got to do nuthin' and we still get half the eggs?"

"Yep."

"But we don't own the goose."

"Nope."

"I say we kill it!"

Cheaters suck...

Below is the message I sent to Guild Wars violation reporting system.

It is in my regret that I even have to write this message, but I feel it must be done. As a summary, I believe the player of the character Eyes On Silas is using a bot to control his character. The following is an account as accurate as I can remember of the time about 12:30PM to 1:30AM on Thursday, September 15th.

The night started when I was helping Helena The Dread (N/R11) and Errutu Denuscar (N/W12) kill Garfaz Bloodfang with my character Dargo Dramea (E/Me20) in the Diessa Lowlands. Out of boredom I offered to take them up to Yaks Bend. We stopped at the Grendich Courthouse before we left for the big trip. At this point we offered to take another person up for free. Eyes On Silas joined up as a level 11 Warrior/Monk.

Immediately I thought something was off. Eyes On Silas began saying in the team channel "Let's go!" and "I'm ready!" "Lead on!" But, we went out anyways, not really thinking he was a bot but simply maybe not so good with the language. We got out to Diessa Lowlands to begin our journey. He said "Lead on!," turned, and ran to the nearest group of Charr. He attacked the group as we tried to keep up. Mid battle he spoke "In the name of the k-ing!" amongst other phrases that we would hear later on. He almost died, just barely getting off a healing signet as the last Charr fell. He said "Lead on!" once again. So I started to lead, stopping before the next group to let everyone catch up. He didn't, saying "Lead on!" before running into the next group and attacking. After we killed the Charr, I finally asked in team-chat if he was a bot. The other two guys understandably thought it was funny. We got no direct response, only another "Lead on!" after a few moments.

As we continued our way I kept asking if he was a bot, telling the other guys that he was a bot, but we still only got the cookie-cutter responses as before. During one battle he finally died, saying “Revenge me!” When we didn’t resurrect him after awhile (mainly because we couldn’t) the bot began responding “I am THE team!” and something to the sort of “You will regret this!” By this time we reached the Ascalon Foothills, where he was resurrected and the charades began again, but this time we let him attack a group of Hydras and watched him die. We got few responses back from him at this time. We moved up into Traveler’s Vale where he resurrected again, and we quickly watched him die, again.

At this point I realized that I was going to drag this bot to Yak’s Bend, and since we were so far it made little sense leaving the bot and reforming. So we pushed on into Yaks Bend.

I had accused Eyes On Silas several times in team chat of being a bot. I had said several times in team chat that I was going to report him. We never got any other responses that resembled a player was playing the character.

When inside Yaks Bend, I announced on the all channel that Eyes On Silas was a bot as a warning to anyone who was listening. Some people asked how I knew that, and about 30 seconds later Eyes On Silas responded with “You wish.” I noted his apparent automatic responses he was spewing, which he said to just use the up arrow in the chat window. He then apparently demonstrated the technique, speaking about 75% of the phrases he said sequentially without any doubles in a matter of seconds (literally less than a second between them). I told him I was reporting him of using a bot, which he said what that would do.

Now, I want to rant here a little bit. Eyes On Silas did not attempt to refute my accusation, what a person would normally would do. No, he asked what would be the consequences. This, if you know a little about the psychology of lying, is a HUGE admission of guilt.

At that point, some others commented how “stupid” the phrases “the bot” said. Others said to report him and offer links to the Guild Wars support site. By this time I had added Eyes On Silas to my friends list, and I had noticed that he immediately left Guild Wars.

As a final note, I would like to say how much I enjoy Guild Wars. You guys have built perhaps the only MMORPG that I will ever play, let alone enjoy.

I would also like to note that I am no perfect soul myself. I have done the whole IDDQD and IDKFA equivalents in games, but this was only done to amuse myself. What Eyes On Silas did is FAR different, as his cheating affects the accounts of thousands of others by giving him a very unfair advantage over others. I hope in your investigations, either in the case of Eyes On Silas or in the many other cases I imagine you deal with, that you remove these people in order to better Guild Wars as a whole.

Once again, I thank you for this amazing game and your incredible support of the Guild Wars community.

Sincerely,

Joseph Auman

The Willard Preacher

Next to this one building I often pass, and have classes in, exists a small clearing around the main entrance. Here, a guy makes his daily trip to this spot and preaches his beliefs to whoever passes by.

He is known as The Willard Preacher, after the building he preaches next to.

I guess this guy has been doing this for over 15 years, and when I first saw him I thought a psychology professor was having an outdoor class.

But, today, instead of just walking by, I decided to stop for about 5 minutes between classes. Mostly, he was talking about how our “liberal” professors were pushing their liberal ideas onto us. He said in one line:

“Would you sodomize and prostitute your morality to these liberal professors to get a better grade?”

I did what most people did: ignored it as ranting of someone with far too much time on their hands.

Snap to 30 minutes later in my statistics class. We were discussing some property of probability when he made an off-topic comment.

“It’s like those people who believe in ID, Intelligent Design. I think they shouldn’t drive cars. You know why? Because those people don’t believe in science, so they shouldn’t be driving cars since they are built on science.”

That provided some amusing irony to the day.

Err..

Wow, college, how I missed thee (NOT).
Buried under homework, I'm slowly pulling myself through. There's no way to really tell how this year will go this time around ( my guess is certainly not as good as before), but maybe with a little luck and some majic I cna get through it.

After a few mishaps and shenanigans, I'm in my new dorm room. Noel is my roommate, and we're getting along fine. I only wish there was some air conditioning (Damnit, where's this cold weather, PA? You're failing my expectations!). Some day I will post pictures, as soon as I get off my lazy ass and get them of my phone.

But, alas, as I sit here at alsmost 1 AM, I realize that I have homework to pound out before tommorrow. Hey, that's Guild Wars over there... lets try that out instead. Heh...