But we are back now, and ready to kick ass. Quin has some stories to tell, while Muri and Sabrina have been hacking away on . . . some more flash crap, honest I can’t say I know. Expect the normal crap from us, and hopefully we can make this main page a simple compilation of everything on the individual blogs, getting rid of this . . . what is this, anyways?

Oh, right, this is reality.

As artists and coders and musicians and so forth, I know I should be promoting the idea that we are proud of the reinforcement of copyright laws. Bullshit! This had nothing to do with copyright laws.

If copyright laws make ‘linking to or providing access to’ copyrighted files against the wishes of the owners, Google is a bigger threat. This was a simple attack by the media companies against what they think is the threat.

Let me repeat this in broader terms, so even those media companies can understand. The threat to media companies are the users who enjoy their product.

Yup, that’s how it works now. The price on internet radio goes up, because heaven forbid people be able to listen to something that isn’t owned and managed by ClearChannel. Want to rip a CD? That almost illegal. Rip a DVD, that is illegal. Want to watch a DVD in Linux? Probably illegal as well. Pay for cable, happen to be moving and unable to watch the Galactica finale, and have enough bandwidth to burn that you download it rather than wait for the repeat? I don’t want to guess if that was illegal, do I?

This has not been the year for the rebel internet. &t is gone, The Pirate Bay lost the first round, and the year isn’t even half over. But, on the upside, TPB brought back ShareReactor. And if today’s verdict does not get people talking, nothing ever will. So, there is hope. &t refugees have moved, and from what I’ve heard the information is still free.

And that’s what the media moguls need to remember. Information, like technology and genies., does not go back into it’s bottle once let out. Once you release a movie, record, painting, what ever, it is out there. Other people will be inspired by it, and as artists that is what we can only hope for. Other people will want to make their own copies, and while we smirk behind their backs at the “uncreative reproductions” , we know that there can arise some spark of genius there as well. In the copying of a whole item, there is no chance for genius to show itself, but there is not the lost profit that they scream about either. A kid sharing a song, on a tape 20 years ago or as an mp3 today, does not suddenly devalue the original. It is not a lost chance at a sale. I, both personally and speaking for the Lab, bought more albums because of what I’ve downloaded and like than I would have previously. While that is not evidence alone, it does begin to add up after a while.

In the end, the pirates will remain. Not because they are, as a whole, unafraid. But, because there are too many to stop.

Yup, the Laboratory is back online. Muri woke me up to tell me, then she hit me again for stealing her computer 6 months ago. The themes will have to suck till she gets a new computer.

What’s taken so long? Well, blogger sucks. Sorry, I just don’t care for it. Free is good, but there are things I’d rather not say on a google owned archive. So, now we are back online, Sabrina has joined the crew. You don’t remember her, but she’s used my pseudonym on blogger to post some rants about her coworkers in some digital projects. She may do that again, but now she’ll have to leave out the project names since she’ll be tied to us. Win some, lose some I guess.

It’s also taken a long time to get moving, because we have all been trying to pick up enough CSS and stuff to know how the server works. None of us wanted to trust some ‘pay us 15$ a month for a .com and a blog’ site. So, Muri’s been working on creating some graphics, I’ve been learning CSS with Bri, and Bri has been staying employeed. Colleges like that. So, the graphics have been rendering off and on for a few weeks here and there. Yes, we’re crazy enough to try for metal and photons in the same picture. We’ll wait, you’ll have to as well.

Sabrina also told me she will be keeping her public blog for school here. Some CS/Art thing, I guess. Means she can’t use a pseudonym, but that’s her problem. Means we might get public attention.

*waves to the public*