Acraine

When I feel the need to stay up all night, and listen to booming techno and the sounds of my enemies being blown to bits, I keep myself up with Bawlz. Its the greatest. What is your favorite energy drink for those alte night LAN parties? Some great recipes:Red Bull (1pt)Cactus Cooler (1pt)Bawls (1pt)Margarita Mix(1/8pt)

A Declaration of the Independence of Cyberspace Governments of the Industrial World, you weary giants of flesh and steel, I come from Cyberspace, the new home of Mind. On behalf of the future, I ask you of the past to leave us alone. You are not welcome among us. You have no sovereignty where we gather. We have no elected government, nor are we likely to have one, so I address you with no greater authority than that with which liberty itself always speaks. I declare the global social space we are building to be naturally independent of the tyrannies you seek to impose on us. You have no moral right to rule us nor do you possess any methods of enforcement we have true reason to fear. Governments derive their just powers from the consent of the governed. You have neither solicited nor received ours. We did not invite you. You do not know us, nor do you know our world. Cyberspace does not lie within your borders. Do not think that you can build it, as though it were a public construction project. You cannot. It is an act of nature and it grows itself through our collective actions. You have not engaged in our great and gathering conversation, nor did you create the wealth of our marketplaces. You do not know our culture, our ethics, or the unwritten codes that already provide our society more order than could be obtained by any of your impositions. You claim there are problems among us that you need to solve. You use this claim as an excuse to invade our precincts. Many of these problems don't exist. Where there are real conflicts, where there are wrongs, we will identify them and address them by our means. We are forming our own Social Contract . This governance will arise according to the conditions of our world, not yours. Our world is different. Cyberspace consists of transactions, relationships, and thought itself, arrayed like a standing wave in the web of our communications. Ours is a world that is both everywhere and nowhere, but it is not where bodies live. We are creating a world that all may enter without privilege or prejudice accorded by race, economic power, military force, or station of birth. We are creating a world where anyone, anywhere may express his or her beliefs, no matter how singular, without fear of being coerced into silence or conformity. Your legal concepts of property, expression, identity, movement, and context do not apply to us. They are based on matter, There is no matter here. Our identities have no bodies, so, unlike you, we cannot obtain order by physical coercion. We believe that from ethics, enlightened self-interest, and the commonweal, our governance will emerge . Our identities may be distributed across many of your jurisdictions. The only law that all our constituent cultures would generally recognize is the Golden Rule. We hope we will be able to build our particular solutions on that basis. But we cannot accept the solutions you are attempting to impose. In the United States, you have today created a law, the Telecommunications Reform Act, which repudiates your own Constitution and insults the dreams of Jefferson, Washington, Mill, Madison, DeToqueville, and Brandeis. These dreams must now be born anew in us. You are terrified of your own children, since they are natives in a world where you will always be immigrants. Because you fear them, you entrust your bureaucracies with the parental responsibilities you are too cowardly to confront yourselves. In our world, all the sentiments and expressions of humanity, from the debasing to the angelic, are parts of a seamless whole, the global conversation of bits. We cannot separate the air that chokes from the air upon which wings beat. In China, Germany, France, Russia, Singapore, Italy and the United States, you are trying to ward off the virus of liberty by erecting guard posts at the frontiers of Cyberspace. These may keep out the contagion for a small time, but they will not work in a world that will soon be blanketed in bit-bearing media. Your increasingly obsolete information industries would perpetuate themselves by proposing laws, in America and elsewhere, that claim to own speech itself throughout the world. These laws would declare ideas to be another industrial product, no more noble than pig iron. In our world, whatever the human mind may create can be reproduced and distributed infinitely at no cost. The global conveyance of thought no longer requires your factories to accomplish. These increasingly hostile and colonial measures place us in the same position as those previous lovers of freedom and self-determination who had to reject the authorities of distant, uninformed powers. We must declare our virtual selves immune to your sovereignty, even as we continue to consent to your rule over our bodies. We will spread ourselves across the Planet so that no one can arrest our thoughts. We will create a civilization of the Mind in Cyberspace. May it be more humane and fair than the world your governments have made before. Acraine, USA, February 8, 2003

Dude, a diablo three would kick *bottom*! One is no doubt planned, but I doubt that it will be coming out any time soon., They just finished WoW, and I think that that will hold them over for a while. Anyone know what they're next project will be? I wonder if a new starcraft type thing will come out... that would be cool. Battle.net has huge possiblilitesd, but I think that Valve's Steam has really taken the market in online gaming and distribution. I love HF2, and steam just makes it so much better, the online gaming it awesome.

Has anyone here watched the FMA series in its entirety? What did you think of the ending? Also, a new FMA games for PS2 is coming out mid-january. Anyone planning on getting it? I've also heard rumors of an FMA movie coming our next summer. Evidently, it takes place two years after the series ended. I wonder if they find eachtoerh (you'll only know what this means if you've seen the ending of the series.) Here's an article from Megagames about the upcoming game:DescriptionSquare Enix announced that FullMetal Alchemist and the Broken Angel will ship to retailers nationwide on January 18, 2005. The action role-playing game will be available exclusively for the PlayStation 2 system. FullMetal Alchemist expands the story in the anime series which airs on Cartoon Network's Adult Swim programming. The tale follows the adventures of brothers Edward and Alphonse Elric on their quest to make right the mistakes of their past.The early success of the anime series on Cartoon Network shows the great amount of potential the Fullmetal Alchemist franchise holds in the U.S. market, said Ichiro Otobe, president and COO of Square Enix, Inc. We anticipate that American players will find the game to be as addicting as the Japanese fans have found it. The Fullmetal Alchemist franchise, which encompasses comic books, a novel, TV animation, and games, has enjoyed a phenomenal amount of success in Japan.In a forbidden act of alchemy, Edward and Alphonse tried to raise their mother from the dead and lost their left leg and entire body, respectively. Immediately after the accident, Ed sacrificed his right arm to save Alphonse's soul and transplanted him into a suit of armor. The action begins as the two brothers head towards Central City in search of the Philosopher's Stone, the only object that can return them to their natural states.Based on the wildly popular anime and manga series in Japan, FullMetal Alchemist has made its way to America, beginning with episodic programming on Cartoon Network's Adult Swim. The series spans 51 episodes in a story that ranges from tear-jerking drama to hilarious comedy. The anime series has been extremely well received by fans and media alike with a DVD release set for 2005.FullMetal Alchemist for the PlayStation 2 expands the tale in the anime series and is accompanied by fast-paced gameplay in which players can alchemize objects for use in battle. The story takes place in a lost chapter from the anime series during the Elric brothers' journey to Central. With animated cut scenes and in-game graphics that are the same quality as the TV series, the game ties in seamlessly with its anime counterpart. The key to gameplay depends on how well the player utilizes the versatile battle system. Over 50 transmutable objects ranging from trees to trash cans litter the landscape, allowing the practice of alchemy to have unlimited potential. In addition to controlling Ed, players can also equip the sub-character Alphonse and call him to aid during heated battles. --Copyright 2004, Megagames.com

A lady who was known as Churchill's main rival in parliament was giving a speech. Churchill, with his usual enthusiasm for his rival, dozed off while the lady was speaking. She stopped her speech and awoke Sir Winston by yelling, "Mr. Churchill, must you sleep while I talk?" Churchill sleepily replied, "No, ma'am. I do so purely by choice."Attorney: "At the scene of the accident, did you tell the constable you had never felt better in your life?"Farmer: "That's right."Attorney: "Well, then, how is it that you are now claiming you were seriously injured when my client's auto hit your wagon?"Farmer: "When the constable arrived, he went over to my horse, who had a broken leg, and shot him. Then he went over to Rover, my dog, who was all banged up, and shot him. When he asked me how I felt, I just thought under the circumstances, it was a wise choice of words to say I've never felt better in my life."An old country gentleman and his wife were out driving one day, when a police officer pulled him over. "What seems to be the trouble young man?" asked the old gentleman. As the officer said, "Excuse me sir, but didn't you notice your wife fell out of the car back there?". To which the old gentleman exclaimed, "Thank you son, I thought I went deaf!!!".An old man is lying on his deathbed with his children, grandchildren, and older great-grandchildren all around, teary-eyed at the approaching finale of a very long and productive life. The old man in is a terminal coma, and the doctors have confirmed that the waiting will be over within the next twenty-four hours. Suddenly, the old man opens his eyes and croaks: "I must be dreaming of heaven! I smell your grandmother's strudel!""No, grandfather, you are not dreaming. Grandmother is baking strudel now.""I know I will never have another taste of her delicious strudel after this one. Could you please go down and get me a piece?", the old man begs with what is left of his final breath.One of the grandchildren is immediately dispatched to honor the old man's last request. After a long time, he returns empty-handed."Did you bring me one last piece of your grandmother's delicious strudel?" the old man plaintively queries."I'm very sorry, grandfather, but she says it's for the funeral.""How many are there working at your office ?""About one third.""How long have you been working at that office ?""Ever since they threatened to fire me."(Note: In Germany and many parts of Europe, McDonalds serves beer.)A German tourist walks into a McDonalds in New York, and orders a beer. The guy in the line behind him immediately tells him: "They don't serve BEER here, you moron!", to which the German replied in astonishment, "You mean you're here for the food!?"The juvenile sea squirt wanders through the sea searching for a suitable rock or hunk of coral to cling to and make its home for life. For this task it has a rudimentary nervous system. When it finds its spot and takes root, it doesn't need its brain any more so it eats it. It's rather like getting tenure.Microsoft is not the answer. Microsoft is the question. "No" is the answer.Two Kentuckians were driving a semi down a road when they came to a viaduct. The sign said 10 feet zero inches, so they got out to measure their truck. Unfortunately, the truck was just over 12 feet high. They didn't know what to do, when finally one of them looked both directions and said, "I don't see any cops, let's go for it.!"A third rate actor is botching Hamlet mercilessly. By the time he gets to the famous "To be or not to Be" soliloquy, the crowd is abusive. They're screaming at him, throwing chairs, fruit, whatever. So at "slings and arrows" he stops, faces the crowd and yells. "WHAT ARE YOU BLAMING ME FOR? I DIDN'T WRITE THIS CRAP!"Look up in your local phonebook for someone with the surname 'Whitehead'. Phone them.You: Is that Mr Blackhead?Them: No - this is Mr Whitehead.You: Sorry. Wrong zit.I bought a dog the other day... I named him Stay. It's fun to call him... "Come here, Stay! Come here, Stay!"What do you do with a dog with no legs? Take it out for a drag.At an Oxford college, they were debating what to do with all their money. The concensus was to buy land, since "for the past thousand years, land has proven to be a very wise investment for the college."The crusty old patriarch piped in, "True, but the past thousand years have been atypical."There was this magician who had a job on a cruise liner, entertaining the passengers with a nightly show. He was very successfull in his job and there was always a full house at all his performances. Life was sweet. The money was rolling in, he had one of the best cabins, ate the best food, mixed with the best people. All was fine until one day the captain bought a parrot.The highlight of the parrot's day was going along to see the magician in action in the evening. During the magician's performances, the parrot would watch him very carefully during each trick, and immediately after the magician had completed the trick the parrot would call out in a loud squark, "It's up his sleeve, it's up his sleeve," or, "It's down his trousers, it's down his trousers," each time ruining the magician's trick.Well life was no longer as sweet and the magician started to struggle to satisfy the passengers. The magician naturally got very tired of the parrot and longed to kill it.Then one night in the middle of the magician's performances, the ship hit an iceberg and sank. Everyone was killed except for the magician and the parrot. The magician managed to swim to a piece of wreckage, climbed aboard and collapsed. The parrot flew towards the magician and perched on the edge of the raft and stared at the magician.For a whole day the magician was unconscious, and all this time the parrot did not take his eyes off him. Eventually the magician started to stir, and looked up not really knowing where he was or what had happened. He eventually found enough energy to sit up. He then noticed the parrot, who had not stopped focusing his eyes on him all this time."Alright I give up....." chirped the parrot, ".....what have you done with the ship?"I am on a bus. The driver announces that smoking is prohibited and punishable by a fine of several hundred dollars. Suddenly, a baby starts crying. Come on kid, you're only 6 months old, you can make it without a cigarette.There's a story about some guy who had to go to a boring meeting. While going up alone to the meeting in an elevator, he found that there was no dustbin to dispose of his chewing gum in there. He finally pushed it to the back of the bar you can hold on to while the lift is moving. So he got to the meeting, got everything fixed there, and joined some guys on the way down. All of them were stiffs, not much fun. So when he was standing there, he looked around, and stated in suprise: 'Hey! Look! It's a piece of chewing gum!', and he pulled it off the bar and put it in his mouth. Similarly, another bloke and a buddy of his frequented a bar and pulled a similar prank. They filled a flask (one of those that looks like a cow stomach people use at [American] football games) with this vegetable soup the cafateria used to serve. The stuff was awful and looked like vomit. Anyway, one of them hid this flask under his shirt. When the bartender wasn't watching, he opened the flask and pretended to vomit all over the bar. When the bartender looked over, the other guy picks up a piece of vegatable off the bar and eats it. This reaction caused other people in the bar to blow chunks as well. For some reason they were never allowed back into that bar.How can you tell which bottle contains the PMS medicine?It's the one with bite marks on the cap.An airliner is coming into land at an airport obscured by fog. Visibility is practically nil, the ILS system is on the blink, so the pilot has to land on wits alone. "Flaps, check," he says to the co-pilot, "Landing Gear, check. Altitude, check. Right, we're going in. Hold on." The plane lands and comes to a screeching, grinding halt; just short of the edge of the runway. "Holy Cow!" exclaims the pilot, "This must be the shortest runway I've ever landed on!" The co-pilot looks left and right and says "Yeah, and about the widest, too..."A fellow walks into a pet store and asks to buy a canary. The proprietor replies, "I'm fresh out, but I DO have a parakeet." The customer insists on a canary, until the shop owner informs him that a parakeet can be made to sound like a canary if one files the beak just so. "But be careful not to file too much off, or the parakeet will drown when he goes to take a drink of water." The potential customer decides that this is complete *BLEEP*, but thanks the shop owner politely and leaves, sans parakeet. He goes into another pet shop and asks for a canary -- no luck. "But", says the shop owner, "I do have a parakeet, and if you file the beak just so, it can be made to sound just like a canary." He goes on to explain that filing off too much beak will jeopardize the bird's life, due to the potential for drowning when he takes a drink. The fellow finally decides that there is some merit to these claims and buys the parakeet. "Besides", he thinks to himself, "parakeets are much cheaper." His next stop is a hardware store, where he wanders into the file section, holding his recently purchased bird. The owner wanders by and asks of he needs some help. The new bird owner sheepishly explains how he intends to make his parakeet sing like a canary. The hardware store owner knowingly picks up a file and hands it to him. "Here, a Nichols #2 bastard file. But be careful not to file too much off, or the poor beastie might drown." The bird and file owner thanks the hardware store owner and leaves for home.A few weeks later, the bird owner wanders into the hardware store. The owner, recognizing him, asks how he made out with the parakeet. The fellow looks down and sadly reports "Bird's dead". The hardware store owner shares his sorrow and asks "Filed off too much beak?" To which the former bird owner replies "Nah, he was dead when I took him out of the vise."

One bright, beautiful Sunday morning, everyone in tiny Jonestown wakes up early and goes to their local church. Before the service starts, the townspeople sit in their pews and talk about their lives, their families, etc.Suddenly, at the altar, Satan appears!! Everyone starts screaming and running for the front entrance, trampling each other in their determined efforts to get away from Evil Incarnate.Soon, everyone is evacuated from the church except for one man, who sit calmly in his pew, seemingly oblivious to the fact that God's ultimate enemy is in his presence. This confuses Satan a bit.Satan walks up to the man and says, "Hey, don't you know who I am?"The man says, "Yep, sure do."Satan says, "Well, aren't you afraid of me?"The man says, "Nope, sure ain't."Satan, perturbed, says, "And why aren't you afraid of me?"The man says, "Well, I've been married to your sister for 25 years."

Thats crazy! I received a creative zen micro, and it has a feature under its msystem menu to partition parts of the HD to use just for data. I was kidna turned off that the entire thing diudnt fuction as a HD, and you have to use creatives utility or media player to get music on, but the fidelity is incredible! How does the walkman sound? Do you have to convert to ATRAC before it will send onto the device?

To my knowledge, windows 2003 is only a partial upgrade to Xp, essentially ported to allow for beter server based applications. If you are gaming or just word processing, lol,. 2003 won't really do you that much good. I am really ecited for Longhorn though, that should be incredible, especially with the 3D desktip stuff that they are doing. I wonder how well that will work oon a standard desktop though, Have you heard anything about longhorn?

I've been using Mozilla Firebird with gmail for about two weeks, and I love it. I really enjoy gmail, although I have no intention of leaving a gig of info in there. It's useful to send mp3's when need-be, but besides that, I dont really see any usage for the one gig allowance. I just like the feeling of having so much room, lol. I've always wondered what would happen if everyone on the web signed up for a gmail account, how on earth would they get enough space on their servers? I guess thats why their mail serive is by invite only right now

I dunno, Im playing it again anyways, lol. I just bought a nVidia 6800 GT 256, and the graphics are beautiful. Its so incredible, Maximum PC gave the game an 11, out of 10, and they've never given a game a 10 before

I have a question: Why is the only hosting requirement to be active in this forum? Is it to keep users connected and prevent people from becoming idle with their accounts, and therefore wasting space? Or is it for the small income that comes off the occasional ads? I love the idea, I am just wondering what makes it applicable to such large use.

I use Firefox 1.o, and I've got to say, I used Opera in the past, as well as the full Mozilla package, and this is by far the best in my opinion. Its incredibly fast, compact, and the interface is gentle to the eye. I love firefox!

For all of my boards, I've always used phpbb. I love its versatility, the skins that are created for it, and its capabilities as a free BB app. I do realize, however, that there are many BB options available. Has anyone else used phpbb, and would be able to compare it to the opther solutions available out there? I thought about trying another one, but the amount of time and effort to transfer over has always bept me from trying it.

44 WPM, hmm. I kept making typos though, its hard to be tested on something Cool site though, thx.

Oh MAN, that game was so sick. I used to paly that for hours... Bnet all the way. I used to paly a lot, but now its just the thing I do to kind of reminisce about the days when I was 9 with old friends

I disagree; gaming is like wine: it must be taken in moderation. If one sits inside and does nothing but absorb the glow of a monitor or TV, then he needs to take a walk and go hang out with members of the opposite sex. If one understands that such a thing must be done in moderation, and mixes a healthy but of gaming with other hobbies and interests (not including drugs or pornography), then he has discovered the true meaning of gaming: simply another pastime. You wouldn't say baseball had to go, would you?

To be brutally honest, while I thought that HF2 kicked, I have to admit the the ending lef tme wanting more. I was kind of bothered that they left it at another cliffhanger, and while I know that they are making an expansion pack for HF2 and an HF3 is planned, I wish they had left us with a more substansial ending. I want to know what happens to Alyx, I want to know more aobut G-Man, I mean seriously: this game hardly answered any questions. Anyone else feel this way?