Rant 343 / Addictive Additive

Someone noticed how users of 4chan manipulated the TIME's 100 most influential people vote into a joke. The first letters of the top 21 were made to spell "MARBLECAKE, ALSO THE GAME". Marblecake is an IRC channel while "the game" is a meme. Basically the rules of "the game" are:

1) each time you even think of "the game", you lose the game.
2) you are always playing the game.
3) you cannot win the game.

The meme involves making readers think of the game without expecting it. This is one way they did it. Another way is to ask readers to try out the tongue twister, "thug aim".

I really didn't expect it to spell that out. They were only spamming the autovoters in 4chan to vote moot up. The rest were probably done by some other people with botnets or proxies.








Piratebay lost the trial. It is pointless in the big picture, the best I can say about it is that it's a moral victory for the IFPI and RIAA. On the other hand, this trial can set a precedent for future trials of this nature.

It's not like the Piratebay is really the best, since it's full of bullshit torrents filled with viruses anyway. It is the most prominent though, since it used to be affiliated with a Swedish political party.

Those guys should give up on suing these websites. After all these troubles, all they got was $4.5million and a year of jail for each of the Piratebay guys (they were hoping for $17.5m originally). And it may not even happen because under Swedish law this verdict isn't lawful till they're done with the appeals.

Even if they are jailed, more websites will just appear out of nowhere. Or new methods of filesharing, like Rapidshare. Like the Piratebay guys said, there will be an epic win in the end, even if it's not for them specifically.







Holy cow! Michael Crawford is the Phantom of the Opera! Even though the title song was written for Sarah Brightman's voice, I thought he was the one who made it as good as it was.

The "live" version



The DVD version (Phantom of the Opera begins at 1:55)



He sounded better in the 1988 version, but the dvd has the full version of the song. The movie version of this musical was crap compared to these.


Also, check out the real version of the opera from FF6 (aka FF3 in the US). This is the full version of Aria Di Mezzo Carattere. If you're not familiar with FF6, there was a scene where one of the character were involved in an opera. The player was supposed to memorise the script and during the opera, he'd need to pick the correct lines at certain points.

Due to the technologically challenged SNES system, this was played in MIDI format in the game. It was ok for most parts, except the voice of of the Celes which was substituted by a weird MIDI tone. It was the best that MIDI could do, but it was bad. Now that they have made the real version, the true epicness of Nobuo Uematsu is revealed.

Part A


Part B



This is the original version dubbed with the artificial voice software known as Vocaloid.



The original version, in English...



The ending cinematic of FF6, also playing the same tune.



Finally, the intro movie of the PS version FF6, which I played.



If FF6 can be remade with today's technology, it would be an epic game. In fact, if not for its late release being at about the same time as the introduction of the Playstation to the market, it would have been a big hit. Right now, too many people know its story, so a complete remake of this game would not be profitable. Too bad. I'll just have to stick with the SNES or PS emulator.







Here's a hilarious quote:

" The creator of the qwerty keyboard must have had a fetish. I don't think it's a coincidence that you can type 'stewardess' with one hand."

*hint* the other hand *hint*







Having met so many Singaporeans who act like they're white, here's a refreshing look on life. This is a white person who sounds like he/she is dying to be Asian, and Mongolian at that.








The US is about to set up a cybersecurity military command, probably because they were shocked by recent reports of how thoroughly their networks are penetrated by unidentified organized foreign hackers.

Given how freely hackers today are able to delve into the mysteries of the internet, this is certainly not surprising. With the world becoming so dependent on the internet, it has turned into a place that needs order, at least in the eyes of some.

Of course, it is best to leave the net as the anarchy that it is, but some people just want to link classified intranets with the internet, and then want complete security. Moronic assholes..