Two evenings sacrificed rebuilding and and lovingly re-configuring my HTPC just so it can play old Nintendo, Super Nintendo, Nintendo 64, Genesis, and Playstation games.  Two evenings where I monopolized the television doing so, frustrating my wife.  Two evenings where I was able to forsake actual work, as in sawmill stuff, in favor of a "fun" kind of work.  Two evenings where I went to bed too late because I'm OCD and have to have things working perfectly or all figured out before calling it a night.  Two evenings just spent nerding-out for hours on end, painstakingly configuring something I don't really have the free time to indulge in all that much.

So what did I get?  In the end what was I after?

That's my five year old daughter just whomping-up on Mario 64.

That's right.  She picked up the controller and started directing Mario like she'd been doing it forever.  I sat and watched her play, giving her tips on how to avoid the Bob-Ombs and Goombas, showing her how to do the slam-jump thing using two fingers at once, and in general just enjoying her enjoying something new.

So maybe Sharaun wasn't entirely bought-into the "need" for another source of entertainment... but man we sure had a blast racing in Mario Kart.

Tomorrow maybe I'll show her the 8-bit Little Mermaid game... goodnight.

See, I use this great open-source application called Subsonic to stream all my media.  For you non-techies, this means that I run a small program on a computer at my house which can "beam" my music and movies to wherever I happen to be.  If I'm on the road, I can use my cellphone; if I'm somewhere else, I can use any web browser.  The awesomeness of this software is not to be understated - it is, quite honestly, the media solution I've been dreaming of for a very long time.  In fact, it's what finally moved me off the hard-disk based iPod model and into "the cloud."  For you techies, I run Subsonic on a four-drive NAS, running Windows Home Server in a JBOD redundant configuration.  I keep this tiny machine in our master bedroom closet, where it has a dedicated line to the internet.  The machine provides me with a whopping 4.66 terabytes of storage for my pictures, music, movies and saved television shows (a separate  repository than our DVR).  Using folder mirroring I am fault-tolerant against any single-drive failure.  It's a nice setup.

I use Subsonic daily; I drive to work while streaming music, I listen to music at work, etc.  One of the neater features of the application is that I can enable any number of friends or family to also have access to the server and likewise stream all my content at will to their mobile devices or PCs.  In this way, I've enabled a dozen or so music-minded folks who make regular use of the streaming server.  Oftentimes I'll be logged in listening to music and see a friend or two also streaming this or that.  Subsonic even supports a rudimentary chat interface, so we can talk back and forth as we enjoy my growing library.

In fact, that "growing library" is what I stopped by to write about, for that's exactly what Ben called my attention to.  I hadn't even noticed, but he sent me an instant message in the Subsonic interface yesterday saying "You're close to cracking the 1TB mark!"  I'm glad he did, because it seems like an important milestone to me.  Check out the screenshot below from the Subsonic interface, where the application summarizes the available listening library:

For a few minutes I was so happy that I almost reached a terabyte of music.  Then I realized that full-on 50% of this is movies (Subsonic doesn't differentiate in its count).  The real music-only size hovers just over 500GB of disk space.  Nothing to be ashamed of, I suppose, yet still not quite as exciting as the ten minutes where I thought I was on the verge of library-size domination.

Guess I'll just have to continue legally purchasing music from iTunes and Amazon in a reach for that next goal.

Goodnight.

In January of 2007 I decided to integrate some small Google ads into a couple of my more "highly-trafficked" websites, namely my blog and a now ridiculous-looking page I made back in highschool which I maintain partly because it's got a decent pagerank, partly because it gets hits, and partly because it's such a funny example of my 1995 webpagin' skills.  Despite my meager readership and small search traffic, I figured some unobtrusive Google ads wouldn't hurt - and I might even make a little money over time.

Once upon a time I used to check my progress, but slowly forgot I even had ads on the pages.  Last week I got a $100 payout from Google.  It took me three and three-quarter years to earn that $100, which is something like 2¢ per day.  (As an aside to that sentence, I always found it confusing that the dollars sign goes before a number and the cents sign goes after.  Just seems needlessly confusing.)  I guess that falls in line with my "might as well; might earn some money" attitude about the whole thing... but man that's some sloooow earning.

I'm already looking forward to my next $100 (they only pay once you hit that mark) in July 2014.

Goodnight.

I had seen a funny thread that someone started online about the very subject, and was surprised at just how many folks chimed in to say that they, too, had seen some of their first pornography by virtue of "discovering" some mildewed magazine half-buried under a pile of rotting leaves.

Back in my day (wow, that makes me feel old), finding and then hiding your dirty magazines in the woods seemed to be a common thing (look on the internet here and here if you don't believe me).  In fact I can remember we would go strolling through the woods with eyes on the ground for the express purpose of stumbling upon porn.  And we found it when we looked, too; if you were a pack of twelve year old boys in the 80s, you had some kind of Playboy sonar... and no camouflage could hide a Hustler from that.

As I wrote back then, the whole "chase" of porn is lost on today's young men.  Porn is on your TV at night, no watching through snow required; porn comes to you on the computer; porn is on your cellphone.  There's no looking anymore, there's no "discovery," there's no state of un-knowing.  Back in my day, we relied on our found porn to reveal to us the magical secrets of sex.  Someone in that online discussion I read over a year ago, and that inspired this entry, put it best with the following:

We found an issue of Club in a garbage can, and in it there was a picture of a woman sticking her nipple into another woman's vagina.

We acted all knowing with each other, like "Yeah, that's something people do. You didn't know about that?"

In this modern internet age kids have probably seen worse than that by 3rd grade computer lab.  Whither have the innocent days of thumbing through a tattered Jugs in a draining ditch with a couple friends gone?  Our poor young men today have no chance... Gone are the days of having to muddle through not understanding every other word in those Penthouse Forum articles,  having to guess from context and later being embarrassed whilst employing it incorrectly after getting up enough courage to dare use one as you'd self-defined it.  Oh man that was embarrassing to find out that "woody" doesn't always mean a paneled surfer-mobile... kids can be rough.

I suppose I'm not really lamenting some great lost innocence of my day here, I mean there's plenty more to be sad about aside from the mechanics through which our youth are introduced to smut.  In fact I've quite forgotten if I was driving to any point here or not.  I think maybe I just wanted to talk about finding porn, quote that hilarious nipple thing, and maybe opine about "kids these days."  Mission accomplished?

Goodnight.

While I love my new HTC Evo (which is running Android v2.1 as of writing), some features are really lacking.  Coming from the iPhone perhaps I'm spoiled, but the list below is what bugs me most about the OS on the new phone.  Now, there may be some apps that I haven't found yet which might address and/or fix some of the below, but this entry was meant to be more of a rant anyway.  Here's my list:

• Browser bookmarking sucks

Why it sucks #1: Browser bookmarking could be vastly improved; the stock browser  just has one long flat list of bookmarks, offering no way to organize via folders or item-ordering.  People have suggested making folders on one of the desktop screens but this also sucks, and is not a real solution.  iPhone had this down.

Why it sucks #2: No bookmark-sync back to other machines.  This is Google's OS, right?, I love Chrome's bookmark-sync feature and have my favorite sites sync'd across my several PCs - why can't I sync my Android device's browser too?

• Contact management sucks

Why it sucks #1: Contact sorting sucks.  May seem like a small thing but I hate that I can't order my contacts by last name.  Furthermore, I hate that I can't sort contacts within a sub-group.  I like the idea of having a "Favorites" folder with my starred contacts for easy-dialing, but not being able to arrange contacts in an order of my preference is annoying.  iPhone did this.

Why it sucks #2: Syncing contacts with Google ends up compressing the crap out of your contact images, ruining them and making them look like dookey.  This is a known, Google-acknowledged issue and it makes my phone look stupid when someone see this blocky pixelated image pop up when a contact calls.

• Using media sucks

Why it sucks #1: Videos don't resume playback where you last left-off (in the stock player, and most 3rd party media player applications too).  What?!  This is a ridiculous problem to have in my opinion.  How this was not implemented baffles me.  Makes continuity while watching a movie or TV program near impossible.  Just stupid.

Why it sucks #2: No "marketplace" where a user can purchase and download content to the device.  When I had iTunes on my iPhone, I could easily purchase and download a few episodes of Scooby Doo from the airport just before boarding a cross-country flight with my four year old.  Not having this easy-access to for-purchase content is crappy.

Why it sucks #3: Getting media on the device is less than intuitive.  There's no dead-simple synchronization mechanism (DoubleTwist is OK... but 3rd party and not native) and while dragging-and-dropping content is nice for tech-heads it's not entirely obvious where anything should go on the SD card or internal storage.

• The app store sucks

Why it sucks #1: It's full of spam apps, crap apps, it's disorganized and it's confusing.  I mean, there are multiple versions of the same application compiled or optimized for specific phones, CPU instruction sets, etc.  There are font packs for apps listed as apps.  There are tons of apps that do illegal things (download MP3s from shady sources, etc.).  There are apps that slow-down or crash devices, don't run on certain devices, etc.  I know part of this is owed to the multitude of Android hardware and software versions that are in the wild... but a lot of it is just poor housekeeping and policing.

Why it sucks #2: There's no way to browse and install apps from a web-based storefront (again, iTunes gets this right).  Luckily, AppBrain has this down - but there still needs to be a native solution.

• Gaming sucks

Why it sucks #1: Compared to the iPhone, gaming on Android blows. The graphics suck.  Comparing the exact same games from the same developer, the graphics on Android are noticably worse.  You can verify this yourself with games like Doodle Jump or Zenonia.  Why this is the case, I don't know - but it's a noticeable deficiency coming from the better-looking platform.

Why it sucks #2: The selection of games sucks.  Now, I do have to give Android points here for allowing emulators in the app store, because if it weren't for my NES/SNES emulators and ROMs this device would suck completely at gaming (instead of mostly sucking, as it does now).  Again, however, even the presence of emulators speaks to the above bullet about the proliferation of shady and grey-area software on the application marketplace...

• Random small things suck

You can't arrange/re-order application icons within a folder.  Yep, folder support is great for organizing and being frugal on screen real estate - but having app icons ordered as they were dropped into a folder is dumb.

There's no concept of regular or centralized backup and restore.  With an iPhone, if your device died or you bought a new one you could plug it into iTunes and 30min later you'd have a carbon-copy of your previous phone.  With my Evo, if it breaks or I lose it I have to start from zero.  You lose all applications (unless you're synchronizing with AppBrain), all customizations, and unless you're syncing contacts with Google or Facebook or Exchange or something else - you'd lose them too.

Landscape mode only works on one "edge."  At least on the Evo, I only get landscape mode in a "turn it left" horizontal position.  This may seem dumb, but if you're using the phone while plugged into power and you're right-handed, it'd be nice to have the option to turn the phone to the right and have the cable on the short-edge you're not holding.  iPhone does landscape regardless of which "edge" you point down.

The funny thing is, reading this back it almost seems like I'm bagging on Android for not having a native client-side "management" and "content" application ala iTunes.  Odd indeed because I hate iTunes.  But I do have to admit that having iTunes for things like purchasing/renting content and backing-up/restoring/upgrading a device is a real plus for Apple hardware.  So c'mon Google, do iTunes but do it right.

Bye.

An incredibly productive day at work gave way to some work in the evening hours at home.  Sometimes when you get on a roll you just get too zoned to stop and things just carry into the evening hours.  Maybe this makes up for how much I've been away from things lately, by choice or not.

I need something quick and dirty to write about.  Ideas?  The stink in Sharaun's car is still there.  Writing is still hard.  I haven't finished the halfway-mark best-of 2010 entry yet, and Sharaun is still successfully incubating Cohen.

Oh wait, I have one...

Last week I ditched my beloved iPhone and bought an HTC Evo 4G, an Android OS based device.  Here are some things I miss about the iPhone:

• Doing things in Android can be slow, jerky, or jumpy - even with the Evo's horsepower.  The iPhone OS is so smooth.  All screen transitions and animations are slick and pretty.
• The iPhone could do simultaneous voice and data over 3G (technically this is an AT&T vs. Sprint network limitation).
• The iPhone's Safari browser was better than any of the many browsers available on Android.
• The iPhone's default sounds, while extremely limited, were actually decent.  Every default sound on the Evo is terrible.  Yes, every one.
• The iPhone did a good job at being intuitive.  If you wanted to do something, chances are Apple considered you might want to do that something and made a quick way for you to do it.  Android is much less intuitive.
• The keyboard.  This may just take getting used to Android, but I can't for the life of me stop typing periods when I want spaces.

Here are some things I really like about the Evo:

• I can view Flash content on the web.
• I can drag and drop files right onto the thing rather than being tied to iTunes.
• Everything is customizable; everything.
• I can do multiple things at once, like stream music from home while surfing the web.
• It has Nintendo and Super Nintendo emulators and I can install illegal ROMs and play 8-bit Zelda on the crapper.
• The 8MP camera takes pretty nice pictures, at least with decent lighting
• The monthly cost, which is a good bit cheaper than the iPhone and comes with truly unlimited data.

Goodnight.

When's the new iPhone come out again?

Dropped this on the ground from pocket height this past weekend.  The thing is still 100% functional so I guess I'm going to use it like this until Jobs and crew release some new hardware.  It's a little rough on the fingertips but I tried to get rid of any loose shards by rubbing it on the carpet.  How the "touch" part still works is a mystery to me.

Goodnight.

Hard to believe that Sharaun and I will be married ten years this year. Veterans. Pillars. So long together now, if you count the years we dated (subtracting that self-imposed "break" around '95 that she won't let me talk about much), that I've been with her as long as I haven't. Sixteen years without, seventeen with. Something to be said for longevity - and perhaps forgiveness and long-suffering too - I suppose.  I know, this paragraph reaches for continuity... but those ten years are the first thing I think of when I think about how it's now two-thousand ten.  That, and that Keaton will be four and I'll have been ten years at my job.  Or, is a "career" now?  When does that line get crossed?

Ten years.

I read Hemingway's The Sun Also Rises for the first time over the weekend. Made me half wish I could spend a year drinking my way around Europe, bankrupting myself halfheartedly chasing fleeting passions, having impossible conversations with a cadre of equally sloshed and disenfranchised comrades. But in addition to daydreaming about being part of the perennially-tight "lost generation," reading the book piqued my interest in good literature again.  I found myself once again wanting to read.  I made a trip to a couple used book stores in town on Saturday, but came up short.  A visit to the library was disappointingly equally unsuccessful.  Not to say there wasn't plenty of good reading to be had at each stop, just that I couldn't find a single one of the ten or so tomes I'd set out to acquire.

Then I wondered about downloading books... maybe reading them on my iPhone or something.  At first, I wrote off the idea as stupid.  Who'd want to read from a screen, let alone a screen as small as the iPhone's?  But, later that night as I lay in bed I decided to re-download the Stanza application for the phone.  As a test, I grabbed a free book from Project Gutenburg - Metamorphosis by Franz Kafka.  At right around 100 printed pages I figured it'd be short enough to use as test.  Stayed up reading it in bed and, as I finger-flipped the last "page" I realized that, yes, I think I could read books on my phone.  I immediately set about finding some of the stuff I'd been out amongst the brick-and-mortar searching for.  Oh, it's all there, but unfortunately most of the works carry a prohibitive pricetag.

In short order, however, I found a way "around" that and was able to load up my phone with all manner of classic  and "modern classic" literature.  I'm actually pretty excited to have a pocketful of good books with me at any time.  Now to see if I can truly adapt to reading things this way... I'll keep you posted.

A couple paragraphs I wrote on the iPhone over the course of the weekend, to round things out:

Saturday we woke with an idea at grand plans on the day. Something as a family, something fun for Keaton. We took our time in the morning. I made coffee and Sharaun and Keaton had cereal. I read a little. By and by it was 10am and we thought we'd better firm up plans. 11am and some discussion later and we were no closer to anything material. We ate lunch and after that everything fizzled. We played a few games of memory together and ended up running errands and shopping for dinner. A Saturday to remember. Maybe next weekend.

Work begins back this week after what feels like a fantastically drawn out hiatus. I'm not exactly eager. I feel a bit too disconnected from what's going on. I've felt this way before and it always passes naturally as I wade back in. Not sure where to get started, but it's coming up on annual review time and I guess that's about as important a piece of work as you can dig into. A good start, I suppose, to numb me back into the day-to-day of corporate infinity.

Goodnight.

After I wrote all this mess, I decided to break it out from the regular day-to-day stuff that makes up the bulk of sounds familiar, just to spare the typical audience from something they likely wouldn't be interested in.  But for those who may get down with the music/audio/technical junk, here's some.

Well folks, I thought I had it all.  A while back when I got the new 2009 Beatles remastered catalog in lossless FLAC format I figured I had the best sounding version of the stuff to be had by humans. I was even super happy that I was able to losslessly transcode the FLAC files into Apple's own lossless audio format for pristine playback on the iPod (I know, no comments about my 6G iPod Classic's crappy DAC or sound quality in general here, please).  Anyway, put short - I was pleased that, on my portable device, I had the best-sounding versions of the Beatles' records you could get.

Then EMI (not Apple, and the subtle distinction is important here for Beatlemaniacs) goes ahead and releases the entire catalog again in digital format, via a special USB key, and this time they offer a "24 bit"  lossless FLAC option.  What does this mean?  I dunno... not a lot unless you want me to get way technical... oh wait, you do?  If you wanna skip the techy stuff, move forward to the very last paragraph here ("Goodnight") and just know that the 24 bit version is, for some scientific reason, better than what I had previously.  For the smarty-pantses out there...

Regular readers tuned-out?  Gone?  Good.

See, normal, CD-quality tunes have a bit-depth of 16 bits per sample (a sample being sized as 1/44,100th of second).  Higher-definition audio, such as DVD-quality audio, often comes at at an increased bit-depth of 24 bits per sample, and a smaller sample size (sometimes 48 kHz, sometimes 96 kHz, sometimes as much 192 kHz).  If you're nerdy, you can think of it as an analog-to-digital thing, trying to take enough discrete points of digital data to accurately represent a continual analog sound.  The more often you "record" the analog sound, and the higher "resolution" in which you make the recording can be thought of, respectively, as sample-rate and bit-depth.  (And for the real nerds those last two links are to a couple far-better explained Wikipedia articles on the subject.)

Anyway, EMI's straight-to-digital release upped the Beatles catalog ante by offering the lossless files in 24 bit format (albeit still sampled at 44.1 kHz, which some maintain is akin to a cliffhanger ending in a summer blockbuster... leaving open the door for yet another "upgrade" to a higher quality version of the set at a later date).  Oh great; this now means that my heretofore "best quality" 16 bit files on the iPod are, in fact, now trumped.  And while folks will argue with me about an iPod's ability to, with any noticeable difference in sound quality, reproduce 24 bit audio... I of course want to get these new recordings on my trusty portable device.

Problem is getting 24-bit FLAC files converted over to 24-bit ALAC (m4a) files - using Windows - hasn't historically been the easiest thing in the world. At this point in time, it's rather trivial if you're in the MacOS environment, but quite a bit more tricky in a Windows environment (especially if you prefer open-source stuff or you're not overly-anxious to spend money on a pay-for piece of software to do the task).  If you're a Mac person, you've got XLD or Max at your side and'll have hardly any issues getting high-def stuff onto your iPods (provided you're stubborn like me and want to do it regardless of whether or not the playback quality warrants it).  If you're a Windows user, you're options are significantly more narrow.

However, I'm here to report my personal success in the hopes that others out there may share in it.  See, just last week the venerable application dBpoweramp released a version of their great conversion software that supports encoding of 24 bit Apple lossless files.  What's more, the software does the conversion in a batch format, from the original directories, in mere seconds, and it's completely free for a 28 day trial period - no strings attached.  Wonderful.  And, as a check, the final files imported into iTunes show 24 bit / 44,100 Hz as expected (and I'm sure would match the sampling rate on a 96 kHz file as well).  Losslessly perfect!

For what it's worth, as long as you can get files encoded into an Apple container, an iPod classic will indeed support 24 bit playback (I have the 6th generation 160GB, your mileage may vary).  And, even with the internet, it's pretty hard to nail down the sampling-rate limitations... but from experience I can tell you my 6G classic has no issues at all with the 24 bit / 44.1 kHz Beatles ALACs.  Apparently, however, the iPod does have a sampling-rate ceiling of 48 kHz, and reportedly trying to load anything sampled at a higher rate than this onto your iPod will cause iTunes to spit it right back (yet my Apple TV is able to play 24 bit / 96 kHz files via the optical output, which is fantastic).

So for me, I'll ignore the audiophile mantra of "you'll never be able to tell on the iPod anyway," delete my old 16 bit ALAC files from the iPod, and go with my newly-FLAC-transcoded 24 bit / 44.1 kHz ALAC versions of the Beatles' catalog for portability.  I mean, even amongst all the stuff I read online about the quality of the iPod's DAC, there's reason to believe you might be able to tell a difference.  But at home, I'll try loading the ALACs onto the Apple TV and playing them back via optical to the surround system for the "best" listening... (since I don't want to have to buy one of those mega-expensive iPod DAC bypassing docks/transports anytime soon...).  Anyway, I've said it before: I'm no audiophile.  I obsess about it, but, when it comes down to it, I can't hear the difference.

Anyway, if you're a Windows user and dBpoweramp worked for you, you'll likely end up like me and buy it despite doing all you needed to do with it long before the free trial expires... I mean, it's worth it  - and down the road when more stuff comes in higher-definition format you're gonna want to be able to re-encode on the fly anyway.  Drop me a line if you had luck with it, or go buy it... whatever.

I got some Beatles to go listen to...

Goodnight.

Hi internet.  Hope your midweek was well.

I actually wrote, post-posted (that's like post-dating when writing a check, remember those?... and that?) this entry on Tuesday night.  I love getting ahead on a week of writing.

So anyway... I wanted to relate a funny story.

Well, I think it's funny...

I'll just jump right in:  Recently, a fairly good-sized brouhaha was raised around the fringes of the internet when a piece of software called Microsoft COFEE leaked onto one unnamed-here bittorrent website.  What's COFEE, you ask?  Microsoft COFEE stands for Computer Online Forensic Evidence Extractor and is described by Microsoft thusly:

With COFEE, law enforcement agencies without on-the-scene computer forensics capabilities can now more easily, reliably, and cost-effectively collect volatile live evidence. An officer with even minimal computer experience can be tutored—in less than 10 minutes—to use a pre-configured COFEE device. This enables the officer to take advantage of the same common digital forensics tools used by experts to gather important volatile evidence, while doing little more than simply inserting a USB device into the computer.

Oh, so it's a Microsoft-sanctioned "hacker toolkit" for cops.  Maybe something that would've been interesting to me back in college, but not anymore.  However, this little collection of software tools had become one particular bittorrent site's coup-de-grace.  Sit back and I'll tell you about it, hopefully in language plain enough that non-nerds can also get a kick out of it.

Maybe a bit of explanation on how some of the "higher echelon" private torrent sites work first (without revealing too much of the man behind the curtain):  Most better sites have request systems.  Simply put, if someone wants something, like the as-yet-unreleased new Strokes album in FLAC format, they can create a request for it.  Once this request exists, other users of the site can add their request to it by voting for it.  In addition to acknowledging that other users would also like to have the file shared out to the community, voting on a request also adds to that request's "bounty."  A request bounty is a user's "reward" for scoring and uploading the item to the site.  It's a bit complicated here to talk about what the bounty actually is, but those familiar with ratio-based trackers can likely guess that it's a big ratio-positive.  For simplicity's sake, think of this as everyone in a room putting a dollar (or perhaps more, as you'll read shortly) on a table and pledging the "pot" to someone in return for them providing something.

Anyway, long ago on this torrent site someone requested COFEE.  And, over time, the request garnered more and more votes.  In a twist to the standard system, with every vote each user has an option to "pledge" extra bounty towards the eventual uploader (when a requester pledges extra, it comes out of their site "credit," so to speak) if they are really keen on getting the particular item.  As time went by, the COFEE request became laden with more and more votes and higher and higher additive custom bounty from users particularly interested in getting their hands on the then fabled software. In fact, before the events of the next few paragraphs unfolded, the bounty on the item was enormous, easily the highest in the site's history and enough to keep any uploader in good graces forevermore.  It seemed that people, thinking the request would likely never get filled, began pledging ridiculously large custom bounty amounts just to drive up demand and make the chase all the more fun.

Then it happened.

Some user actually got COFEE and uploaded it.  Bam.  The site went wild; the uploader basked in fifteen minutes of internet stardom.  And then the moderators began thinking.  I mean, this tool is meant for the likes of the FBI and NSA... and here they were essentially "offering" a link to it (let's not get technical about whether a .torrent file in and of itself is illegal or not).  Someone with brains came to the conclusion that this would 1) likely lead to some small amount of publicity and 2) that publicity would ultimately be negative for the site in general, as well as any users who might snag the software.  In the end, the moderators wrote, in part:

The resourcefulness of our users never ceases to amaze us. Suddenly, we were forced to take a real look at the program, its source, and the potential impact on the site and security of our users and staff. And when we did, we didn't like what came of it. So, a decision was made. The torrent was removed (and it is not to be uploaded here again.)

Just to be clear: we were not threatened by Microsoft or any law enforcement agency. We haven't been contacted, nor has our host. This was a decision made by the staff based on our own conversations and feelings about the security impact of having the software here. We know some of you, perhaps the majority of you, won't agree with it. To those that feel that way, we can only offer an apology and the explanation that we removed it for your security, and ours.

This is not an indication of any policy or rule changes going forward. This is a one-time decision, for a unique situation. This is not something we will do with other torrents or requests. At this point, the software can probably be found elsewhere, for anyone who wants it. We hope you all understand, and will continue searching out those rare items which attract huge request bounties. Feel free to discuss this here, but this decision is final. Thank you, all.

A sound decision, and the right one, to be sure; and the makings for an interesting story which was ultimately covered fairly widely on a smattering of technology blogs and news pages.  And, they're right... once the applications hit the internet the walls came down.  COFEE is now widely available, all over the place in fact... so taking it down from the one tracker that ultimately sourced it doesn't really do anything but remove a single head from the hydra.  As they say, it's in the wild now.

So, why did I write all this?  Other than being interesting to me, the whole event got me curious as to what request now reigned supreme at that site, being that COFEE had come and gone and taken it's insane bounty along with it.  So I had a friend who's a member at this illicit site (and who I don't really like due to his felonious nature and lack of respect for more-than-fair copyright law) log on for me and check.  Know what's right up near the top now?

Richard Nixon - Missing Watergate Tapes (18½ minute gap tape)

When the White House agreed to comply with a Watergate investigation subpoena and hand over recorded conversations to Chief Judge Sirica, they informed the Court that two subpoenaed conversations had not been recorded, and that an 18½ minute gap existed on a third tape, tape 342, which recorded a conversation between President Nixon and Chief of Staff H.R. "Bob" Haldeman on June 20, 1972. The 18 1/2 minute gap can be heard here.

To me, this request is brilliant.  The comedy value is high, and the unspoken nod to the COFEE leak being ever-thought-of as unattainable is nicely relevant.  Not only that but, aside from kitsch value, it really is funny to see this request gaining votes and accumulating bounty.  I mean, who knows?... perhaps the internet as a collective organism has become enabled to do things far greater than the sum of its parts ever could.  Maybe some guy knows a guy who used to know a guy... and bam; Nixon's tapes leak online.  Anyway, I thought it was hilarious.  Oh, and, anyone who knows a guy who might know a guy... let me know and I can probably find someone who's a member at this horrible scofflaw website who'd love to get their grubby red hands all over this thing.

Well OK, it was a funny story if you're an technology nerd... I promise.

Goodnight.