RIAA takes aim at OpenNap

For anyone familiar with the Recording Industry Association of America's tactics, it should come as no surprise that the record industry had a busy week. According to the Wall Street Journal, the RIAA has sent out some 60 legal notices since Monday in an attempt to shut down OpenNap, the open-source Napster clone. With the freshly written circuit court decision waved aloft, the RIAA is demanding that ISPs that host the OpenNap servers shut them down immediately.

This is, of course, a somewhat futile effort: Plenty of OpenNap servers are hosted overseas, and Net history has shown that there's always some ISP happy to host a legally dubious service for at least a little while. Still, it will put a considerable damper on the service; and other centralized P2P services will undoubtedly be targeted next.

Consider it yet another thorn in the side of the MP3s-just-want-to-be-free movement. As Gnutella continues to struggle to handle its traffic, FreeNet and MojoNation are still too obscure for your average consumer to use, and Napster veers closer to closure every day, it appears that MP3 chaos is about to descend, like a cat-and-mouse game with 50 million former Napster users on the run. Now would probably be a good time to apply for a job in the legal department of the RIAA: It'll be needing a lot of help in upcoming months if it plans to shut everything down. -- Janelle Brown [12 p.m. PST, Feb. 23, 2001]

- - - - - - - - - - - -

Microsoft hacked? Well, maybe not

We had a chuckle at this Microsoft support page, which advises customers "HOWTO: Read the Fucking Manual" with step-by-step procedures.

Was it the work of a malcontented customer service rep who'd answered one too many whiny support calls before finally going off the deep end?

Nah. Of course, it's a hoax from some anonymous Web wag, which actually lives at this URL. Oh well. -- Katharine Mieszkowski [12 p.m. PST, Feb. 23, 2001]

- - - - - - - - - - - -

The U.S. Army marches to the "All your base" command

After our recent item about how the bizarre English translation of the game ZeroWing has developed into a meme of enormous proportions, we began -- predictably -- to hear back from readers eager to fill in the blanks.

Which is how we found out about one place where ALL YOUR BASE ARE BELONG TO US has really developed a following: the U.S. Army. Bill McIntyre sent us this note from a friend nicknamed "Army Chip," a member of the "Permanent Opposing Force" that runs combat exercises against other divisions (a fan base well suited for intergalactic shoot-'em-up games like this one):

"We watch that video about three times a week. It has many and humorous military uses. At physical training in the morning: 'How are you gentleMEN!' At operations orders: ' ... and then, sir, all their base are belong to us!' On the intercepted radio frequencies: 'you have no chance to survive, make your time!' This thing has a huge and twisted following."

For McIntyre, this note provided inspiration for an unmissable T-shirt opportunity -- as well as nearly endless fodder for adventures in Photoshop, allowing what's now known as "AYB content" to live on and on and on.

Which is bad news for irked Salon reader Zach Francks, a game site manager who rues the day that AYB blossomed into a Net phenomenon. "Our sacred inside joke was suddenly a pop icon," he sighs, with the weary dismay of the teenager who swears she liked Nirvana before they were cool.

Francks says that it's time to "put the joke to rest," and is appealing to his readers to do the same. We wish him luck. -- Amy Standen [3:45 p.m. PST, Feb. 21, 2001]

- - - - - - - - - - - -

Cashing in on Dale Earnhardt's death

Where there's celebrity death, there will be opportunistic vultures. On the Web, they roost on eBay. NASCAR driver Dale Earnhardt's body was barely cold before hucksters looking to make a buck off his death began to hawk their wares on eBay.

Nobody's placed a bid yet in the auction for the URLs Earnhardtmemorial.org and Earnhardtmemorial.com. Maybe that's because the minimum bid is $1,000.

One artist is selling a 36-by-48-inch commemorative collage of Dale Earnhardt's life. The minimum bid is $3,000, which you can justify to yourself with the assurance that all proceeds supposedly go to the Make-A-Wish Foundation, a charity Earnhardt supported.

Another seller wants no less than $2,000 for "wHEATIES CEREAL BOX COLLECTIBLES. COMPLETE 4 BOX SET. BOXES ARE UN-OPENED AND STILL IN EXCELLANT SHAPE."

Let the mourning begin. -- Katharine Mieszkowski [11:25 a.m. PST, Feb. 21, 2001]

- - - - - - - - - - - -

The truth revealed: "All your base are belong to us"

In A.D. 2001

War was beginning

And the translators of an obscure chapter from the Sega version of the late '80s arcade game ZeroWing were turning in their graves. Why had this travesty of translation come back to haunt them? "Give us a break!" they cried, beseeching meme-hungry Net addicts to stop broadcasting ZeroWing's clumsy Japanglish all over town. But it was too late.

Captain: What happen?
Mechanic: Someone set up us the bomb
Operator: We get signal
Captain: What!
Operator: Main screen turn on.

Captain: It's you!!
Cats: How are you gentlemen!!
Cats: All your base are belong to us

Just a little careless dialogue scripting and a thousand Web sites bloomed, broadcasting this shoddy video game translation to the masses. As pranksters rushed to plaster that curiously catchy ALL YOUR BASE ARE BELONG TO US on every possible surface (a banner behind Colin Powell and Norman Schwartzkopf, T-shirts,Vanna White's "Wheel of Fortune" puzzle, across a dozen Shriners' red caps), the rest of us asked ourselves, "But what's the point?"

Maybe the point is that there is no point. But if there is, do not expect to find it on ZeroWing. Freed from the dusty corners of video game arcana ALL YOUR BASE BELONG TO US offers only this prognosis:

Cats: You are on the way to destruction. -- Amy Standen [2:15 p.m. PST, Feb. 21, 2001]

- - - - - - - - - - - -

A one-step solution to the California energy crisis

The power crisis in California makes for some strange innovations. Sure, there are ways to get around those high gas and electricity bills: You can turn off the heat, build bonfires, invest in candles, eat raw vegetables only or simply buy a generator. Or, you can adopt the solution being offered by the Rolling Blackout Survivor Kit.

"No danger of Carbon Monoxide Poisoning!" promises the Web site. "No need to build Costly Hydro-electric Dams!" For $19.95 the Rolling Blackout Survivor Kit will grab electricity from the air itself -- via a "wind powered suspension device" with a "hi-tech polymer-blend cord," a "collector key" and an "energy collection jar." Get it? If not, here's a hint: Benjamin Franklin. Still don't get it? Then visit the Web site. It's a cheap laugh, sure. But in these dark, cold days, a cheap laugh is better than none at all. -- Janelle Brown [3:30 p.m. PST, Feb. 16, 2001]

- - - - - - - - - - - -

Got a tip for the In Box? E-mail us