June 26th: Happy Carterphone day!

Happy Carterphone day! On June 26th, 1968 the FCC ruled that AT&T was required to let any specification-compliant phone onto the public telephone network, regardless of manufacturer. From the Ars-Technica Article:

Take a look at the FCC's best rulings, and there you will find Carterfone. You will find it, for example, in the agency's 1998 decision to let consumers pick and choose their own cable set top boxes...in the FCC's 700Mhz auction Block C concept, with its requirement that consumers can connect any broadband device to that portion of the mobile phone spectrum...the proposal that a merged XM/Sirius must let developers build any kind of receiver linking to the new broadcaster, including receivers that also play mp3 files and connect to the Internet.

In the end, Carterfone says that it is our telecommunications system, not AT&T, Verizon, and Comcast's. We finance the system with our subscription, application, and investment money. We support it with utility easements, regulatory breaks, and government contracts paid for by our taxes. We make it work because we are its workers. We make it exciting with our innovations, technical and social, big and small.

We do not begrudge the CEOs of these great corporations their legal positions. But they are, as Andrew Carnegie would put it, stewards of the system, not its owners. They are not there to tell us to Go Away. They are there to keep the system running while we discover it, use it, develop it, innovate it, game it, finesse it, and reinvent it to our heart's content. The great enterprise of telecommunications is no better than our right to participate in it as individuals.

It is a good day to download.

Through a fortuitous alignment of planets, two bits of download worthy content are scheduled for release today:

- Firefox 3:

This new release of Firefox is reviewed to be bigger, faster, stronger, and awesome-er than the last. I thought the last was pretty good, so I'm looking forward to giving it a spin.

As a side note, an internal utility webpage that I use at work conflicts with Firefox 2, but not Firefox 3. That means that I have to keep an I.E. window open to interact with it...no fun. Until today at 10am Pacific Daylight Time! Yay!

Also, they are trying to create a new Guinness Book of World Records entry for 'Most Software Downloads in a 24 Hour Period'. Go download it right now!

- Spore Creature Creator Demo:

Who knows if Spore (due out in September) will be any good or not, but the Creature Creator Demo is free, and looks pretty interesting. For the uninitiated, one of Spore's more intriguing features is that you build creatures lego-style, and it is then animated on the fly; the engine looks at what your critter has available to it, and makes a 'best guess' on how to animate it. Supposedly the creature creator will show that off.

My one complaint? They have a 'light' demo for free, and a 'thick' demo for $10. Maybe I'm just cheap, but unless I can later get a $10 credit toward the full game, I feel ripped off to pay $10 for a preview of what I'll later get for $50.

Here's a video tutorial of the editor:

Nothing to see here, move along...

Nothing to see here, move along...

Counterfeit items on EBay, and why you should care.

So, I just contacted a bunch of people who won the same auction as me, and sent this message:

Hi there. I am contacting you because you won an auction from nrbarish for Final Fantasy VI Advance.

I also bought this item from him, and I was sent a counterfeit game. I imagine that your copy was counterfeit also. You can read more of how to spot a counterfeit item on my blog at http://jaqenn.blogspot.com/2008/06/i-got-sold-counterfeit-copy-of-final.html

It is my opinion that nrbarish knew that this was a counterfeit game when he sold it to us. I find this unacceptable, and so should you.

Please consider contacting him and asking for your money back. If he fails to respond, please use the paypal resolution center to open a complaint and get your money back. Please also report him to EBay at the 'report unauthorized copies' page.

Why do I care? If he keeps making money selling counterfeits, he'll keep selling even if he gets caught sometimes. If he loses money selling counterfeits, maybe he'll stop, which will make EBay a better place.

Thank you.

Got a refund for Final Fantasy VI.

Dear Trevor Christman,

nicholas barish (nickbarish2000@yahoo.com) has issued you a full
or partial refund for your payment.

Message from merchant:

----------------------------------------------------------------
Original Payment Details
----------------------------------------------------------------

Date Payment Sent: May 29, 2008

Amount: $18.00 USD

Sincerely,
PayPal

Yaaaaaay.

I got sold a counterfeit copy of Final Fantasy VI

So, I just bought a copy of Final Fantasy VI on EBay. Or, I thought I did. What I really bought was a counterfeit copy of Final Fantasy VI. Grrrrr.

Here was the text for the auction:

This PRE-PLAYED game comes COMPLETE with box, & game cartridge.

Item is GUARANTEED to work.

Everything is in perfect condition.

How can I tell that it was counterfeit? Well, I'm glad you asked. I put together this handy writeup to accompany my campaign to get my money back. Lets go through this point by point:

First, this pre-played game comes COMPLETE with box, right? Lets look at a legitimate box, and compare it to my box:

Legitimate Box

Two problems with mine:

Everyone?

- The real game is not rated 'Everyone' by the ESRB. It's rated E10+.

Nintendo?

-The real box would have a Nintendo logo in the lower right corner, mine does not.

I can't find a picture of the back of a real box, but I can still pick apart the back of this one:

Do I know you?

- Who are these little misfits? They're not Final Fantasy VI characters, they are Edward, Rosa, and Rydia from Final Fantasy IV. A real box wouldn't have pictures from the wrong game on it.

2001?

- They claim a copyright on the game for 2001? The real game was released in North America on May 2nd, 2007.

Top all that off with the fact that he claimed that the game was pre-played, but the box is straight off of a printing press. It's never been folded at all, and was shipped to me disassembled.

Ok, so maybe he sent me a real cartridge, but went and got a fake box to try and increase the value of his auction? I don't really care if the box is fake, as long as the game is real.

No luck. Lets look at the cartridge:

Do I look real to you?

- Still labeled with the wrong ESRB rating.

- Still labeled with characters from the wrong game.

Nope, it's one big batch of fake.

I'm sending the guy a request for my money back, and I'm probably going to report him to EBay. Here is a copy of the email that I sent him:

Dear nbarish,

You have sold me a counterfeit copy of Final Fantasy VI. As you probably know, selling counterfeit video games is against the EBay terms of use, and is unfair to me as a customer.

I have put together a detailed summary of how I know that this is a counterfeit on my blog. You can read more at: http://jaqenn.blogspot.com/2008/06/i-got-sold-counterfeit-copy-of-final.html

I require that you send me a full refund for the purchase of this item. I will then destroy it. If you wish the item to be returned to you, please include an additional $5 shipping and handling.

Should you comply with this request, I will make note of your apology and refund in my report to EBay.

Thank you for your time.

-Trevor Christman
ebay Jaqenn

I'll let you guys know how it pans out.

Garfield, minus Garfield

I ran into an interesting comic strip today, named "Garfield, Minus Garfield". The guy has taken a bunch of Garfield comic strips, and edited away Garfield, leaving only Jon Arbuckle.

From the site:

Who would have guessed that when you remove Garfield from the Garfield comic strips, the result is an even better comic about schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, and the empty desperation of modern life? Friends, meet Jon Arbuckle. Let’s laugh and learn with him on a journey deep into the tortured mind of an isolated young everyman as he fights a losing battle against loneliness in a quiet American suburb.