Transferred from paxdora.blogspot.com [LINK]
Original Post Date: 7/4/11

It's funny how people draw a line on what constitutes piracy. If you pirate 20 video games per month for example, you're a pirate. But, if you only pirated a couple cheap games a few years ago.. well, you're not a pirate.

Many will only associate pirating with video games or applications, but conveniently ignore music, movies, art, or written material. The definition of piracy also varies from country to country. Piracy in one country might be perfectly legal in another. What piracy is can also become a moral or ethics debate, but here's roughly what the universally accepted definition of pirating means: the unauthorized use, appropriation, or reproduction of copyrighted or patented material or ideas.

Since it's safe to assume that if you're murdered once, you would still be labeled as a murderer, it would also be accurate that if you've ever pirated (even once) you're still a pirate. You might be a reformed pirate or a remorseful pirate.. but you're still a pirate.

Knowing this, try to examine your own life:

* Have you ever downloaded or used a copyrighted song, game, or application?
* Have you ever downloaded or used a copyrighted picture, photograph, clip art, logo, book, comic, or other piece of art?
* Have you ever recorded a TV show, movie or commercial using a tape recorder, VHS/Beta, or digital recorder?
* Have you ever recorded a song off the radio?
* Have you ever photocopied a book or any kind of copyrighted text?
* Have you ever watched an unlicensed video on YouTube? Listened to a song?

If you answer yes (or even a "sort of") to any of these questions then you're a pirate.

Things can get even more complicated:

* Have you ever watched an online or streaming video? Are you 100% positive it was licensed for your viewing?
* Ever listened to music online?
* Did you take a screenshot of a video game or webpage and save it?
* Is your desktop wallpaper licensed for your use?
* How much do you know about the software on your own PC?
* Do you use Windows? Then you're a pirate. Why you ask? I take it you weren't aware that Microsoft software contained patented code owned by other companies... they've lost legal cases for pirating code, but you were still technically using their code, and it was unauthorized for your use.
* Almost ever major software/hardware corporation is embroiled in unlicensed patent cases and you've been a party to them all. Have you ever owned a cell phone? Chances are it contained patents & copyrighted material that were owned by another company and unlicensed.
* Have you ever taken excerpts from a book or any kind of text online? How was it used, do you know what the Fair Use limitations are?
* Your PC downloads unlicensed video, audio, graphics all the time from web sites, and they are all copied to your computer and stored in cache.
* Do you have any shareware, demo software or browser plugins with expired licenses?
* Do you have any open source software in which you accidentally deleted the wrong .txt file which was required for its authorized use?
* Have you ever copied a friend's drawing or homework? Are you sure they didn't copyright it? It doesn't take much to copy protect your work or ideas.
* Have you ever used the old MP3.COM "music locker" service? (As you recall, the case was won in favor of the record labels.)
* MP3tunes allowed users to purchase music through their service and store in music lockers as well. The record labels viewed this as copyright infringement as well.
* Are you 100% positive that all of the software you use at work (installed by others) is fully licensed?
* Are you 100% positive that you don't have any software on your PC that has been sharing files, music, or videos on the internet?
* Have you ever downloaded free software without knowing you were only allowed to use it for 15 or 30 days?
* Have you ever used sound effects, logos, graphic materials or clip art without receiving a license directly from it's owner? How do you now the website you purchased the clip art from was licensed themselves to sell the art?
* Have you used Amazon or Google's cloud players? They're unlicensed.
* YouTube is a really big offender of copy protected material. It's saturated daily with unlicensed and illegal videos, songs, and other forms of art and material.

I love to hear the classic excuses for this type of thing too:
"YouTube? Well, I asked Yahoo Answers and everyone said it was legal. So it must be legal."
"If you delete your cache, the cops won't find anything. So yes, it's legal."
"Well, officer.. I didn't know is was copyrighted material!"
"I thought was legal. There wasn't any kind of notification telling me it wasn't."
"I'm just a kid, I didn't know it was illegal."
"I thought I could trust the website.. it looks official."

When you think about it, it's extremely difficult if not impossible NOT to pirate or unintentionally use patented material. A person (or website) may tell you one thing, but the record labels or entertainment industry might view it as the complete opposite. And just because a court case hasn't set a new legal precedent, that doesn't mean it's not piracy or wrong.

So, please don't complain about pirates.. after all, you're one of them. If you surf the internet, it's impossible for you not to be one. Unintentional pirates are still pirates.

If you complain about piracy, that makes you a hypocrit.. and a filthy pirate. If you didn't even know about your own crimes, then you're an filthy and incredibly ignorant pirate.

If you absolutely MUST complain, just complain about how they're a bigger pirate then you. It's a lot more honest.

And if you're still looking for some kind of loop hole, argument of oversimplification, or justification that you're not a pirate, then there's something I should tell you: Everything I posted on this blog is Copyright Me. You're not authorized to copy this, but I see that you have already in your active system memory and hard drive cache without my authorization. So, by reading this you've just confirmed that you're a pirate.

Welcome to the family. Arrrr.

Transferred from paxdora.blogspot.com [LINK]
Original Post Date: 6/28/11

I don't know if you're aware of this or not, but the definition of a troll has changed. Here's the old definition; [LINK]

Basically, it was a method of self-entertainment by deliberately starting an argument by antagonizing a user or users. Rather than calling them Internet Trolls, however, they are simply referred to as Trolls now. The reason for this is because you can "troll" in real life, and it's not just limited to the internet or message boards any more.

Definitions are always constantly changing and evolving. You could even say that people who use the more "updated versions" of words are more progressive.. or daresay, evolved than those still using the old definition.

Consider the film "Idiocracy". The English language completely changed. To you, they would be considered less intelligent, but it was the next evolution and progression of the language. But consider that the you speak now would be considered foolish or less intelligent by your own forefathers.

Even individual definitions of words have completely changed. This was demonstrated very well in "The F Word" episode of Southpark; [LINK]

The term troll (and trolling) has reached a new level of progression. I think it happened about 6-12 months ago in fact.

The definition of a trolling is now something said or done to provoke any kind of emotional response (most commonly laughter) or any kind of matter not to be taken seriously.

If you make a joke or amusing anecdote, you're trolling. If you play a practical joke whether it causes laughter or anger, you're trolling. If something is amusing or ridiculous, it's a troll attempt. The troll will fail, however, if it's not funny or effective. Even farting on someone or farting in general is now considered trolling.

So yes, whether you like it or not the definition of a troll (and trolling) has radically changed. Although you could still relate trolling to it's previous definition incarnation, but just remember that it makes you less progressive than everyone else.

If someone plays a practical joke or posts something that gets an emotional (or serious) response, don't get angry at them and accuse them of not understanding what a troll is. Chances are, you're wrong and have just proved that you're less progressive (and evolved) than the others who understand the new and true definition.

You might as well get angry at people for not using the term gay as being happy and glad.. you primitive ape you.

Transferred from paxdora.blogspot.com [LINK]
Original Post Date: 6/23/11

In RIFT, you can still make a little platinum by buying low and selling high but it can be quite tedious without mods to help you out.

One method I prefer is to organize AH results by "Time Left" and bid on items that are just about to expire. Crafting materials are the best, such as buying cloth and ore at their lowest (vendor) price. You only need to check the AH for new groups of expiring items every 1-2 hours since you will receive mail messages if you are undercut on the ones you have already bid for. I like to bid on items right before a shard reboot as well, it increases your chances of winning the item.

The other method is to buy items simply to vendor them. In WOW, there used to be a small profit to be made from buying low-cost bandage mats, and then vendoring for a profit. However, RIFT is a special case and large profit can be made from vendoring items that auction for less than their real value.

Search all AH items and organize by Unit Price. Then you mouse-over on each item to see what it vendors for, and compare to the Unit Price value. Bid or Buy Out any item that is being auctioned for less than the Vendor price.

In the following case, there is a profit to be made of 28s x 13 Celestite. This is not a lot so I usually target more expensive items but imagine 50-100 transactions per day giving you 1-50g per.

This occurs far more often than you can possibly realize. Some players are in a rush to auction multiple items, so they don't pay attention to the item's true (vendor) value. Others are in competition with other players and keep undercutting their prices, or they're sick and tired of an time not selling (especially runes) so they keep lowering it's price without realizing they can make more plat by just vendoring it.

The best items suitable for this method are gems, herbs (Krakenweed), Consumables (Potions), Runes, Scrolls & Armor Enhancements/Consumables, and Crafting Ingredients (like Pristine Femur and Hollow Bone). You can get the most bang for the buck with stackable items.

Each day, I can make 6-10p by just vendoring buy-out items. :)

It works better on larger population shards as well. On new shards, players are much more careful because they're more concerned about saving money.

Transferred from paxdora.blogspot.com [LINK]
Original Post Date: 6/21/11

Other than rune disenchants, there's a lot of plat to be made from selling artifacts. They especially sell better on PVP shards since opposing-faction artifacts are more difficult to obtain.

Puzzles and Cairns [LINK] are a nice way to make some platinum, but you can only do them once, and usually you'll want to keep the gear yourself if you're leveling. You need plat strategies that provide a sustainable income.

The fastest method to collect artifacts is by cheating (e.g. fly hacking) which I will cover later. This method, however, is completely legitimate and can be done at very early levels.

There are two artifacts on the top peaks of the Sanctum bridge that are often overlooked by the Guardians. I like to create level 7-10 Defiant's on multiple shards and run them to Sanctum, park them on top of the bridge, and then use Mighty Leap to jump back and forth from each side of the bridge. Remember when I said that the jumping skill was invaluable? :)

Here's a video of the location and how to get up the side of the bridge:


After you create a new Defiant character and leave the tutorial instance, remember that there's a fatigue zone all around the newbie zone. You can't simply swim across the water channel to the Guardian side. However, if you look on your map there's a small island North North East of your starting location. Head towards the long stretch of land until you're on the northern tip closest to the island, and then swim straight for the island. You'll fatigue yourself just a little bit, but you'll still be able to swim across. Then just swim towards Sanctum and watch out for NPC aggro (there's not much, most mobs are closer to land.)

After you reach the Sanctum bridge, just climb around the edge on the South side of the bridge and hop onto the main road leading into town. In the early mornings, no one is there.

You can easily jump onto the bridge from max distance and get on top of the bridge without ever aggroing the guards. Don't fall off though, it's a pain in the arse to start again from the beginning. Once you're above the guards, you never have to worry about them attacking you.

Then it's a simple matter of logging in and logging out throughout the day to collect the nice white, green, and blue artifacts that drop in those two locations on top of the bridge arcs.

Due to the difficult of obtaining the opposite faction artifacts, even many of the white artifacts can be sold for 1p a piece on the Defiant side. Once your bags are full, you can just let the guards kill you and you'll respawn at the training zone near Meridian.