Greetings, and welcome to The Celestial Spire, your gateway into the mind of Joseph Collins.

If this is your first time here and you're not a spambot, I bid you welcome and hope you find the content to follow interesting and possibly entertaining!
If you're a returning viewer and not a spambot, welcome back! I'm glad you've returned and similarly hope you find the newest batch of entries entertaining and informative.

What follows is any number of random journal entries about goings-on in my life or online. The content varies from entry to entry, some entries being more positive than others. There is sometimes coarse language in these entries, so if that sort of thing offends you, you may want to find another journal to read. Might I suggest my friends' journals? If strong language, rants, and the occasional depressive entry doesn't offend you, however, read on! And if you like what you see, or even if you don't like what you see, feel free to comment! Just remember that anonymous and non-friend comments are automatically screened. Rest assured however, I do read every comment that comes my way. (More on that just below.)

This journal gets entry maintenance roughly every month or two and depending on how on-top of things I am. What happens during this period is that older entries are locked up as Friends Only entries. This is done to ensure that my journal is kept neat and clean as well as remove any entries that are no longer relevant in some way or other.
It's worth noting that certain entries of interest may not be buried in Friends Only cleanup. These entries are left open for all to see for one reason or other, be they something I felt that's still relevant and interesting, or just something cool. This emotional entry about a recurring topic is a good example of a perma-Public entry.

On the topic of comments, while the journal might show a month or two of recent entries (and the aforementioned perma-Public entries), comments on open entries are screened from non-friends regardless of content. This is done due to abuse in the past from a combination of spambots and malicious users being pests. While it doesn't outright stop spam or garbage comments from being posted, it does prevent them from being displayed. Comments, depending on their content, may or may not be unscreened, but generally speaking, comments that deserve attention will get attention.

With all that out of the way, only one thing remains to be said.  Enjoy The Celestial Spire!

Crossposted from my deviantART account.

So.  Hm.  Apparently, the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA) is the "latest iteration" of the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) or the Protect Intellectual-Property Act (PIPA).  But is it really?  I'm not altogether sure, myself.  As with any good act, bill, or law, the 25-page act is chalk full of legalese and red tape-talk which seems to be repeating itself over and over.  However, pages 4-5 show some interesting wording to things which I think may be the cause of all the panic.

Chapter 1, Section 2, article 5, sub-section (k) states the following definition:
"pirated copyright goods means any goods which are copies made without the consent of the right holder or person duly authorized by the right holder in the country of production and which are made directly or indirectly from an article where the making of that copy would have constituted an infringement of a copyright or a related right under the law of the country in which the procedures set forth in Chapter II (Legal Framework for Enforcement of Intellectual Property Rights) are invoked;"

The act itself seems to be geared toward punishing people to the fullest extent of the originating country who never sought the permission of the copyright holders of commercial products (wrist watches, movie DVDs, etc), but that term definition right there seems to have people confused.  It's just vague enough to where it seems like it could be used to cover such things as clips of TV shows hosted on YouTube or reproduction/fan-works of someone else's intellectual property.  Which is to say, that clip from King of the Hill or that beautiful picture of Rainbow Dash from My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic in her formal attire you posted could be taken down by Mike Judge or Hasbro and you could end up with a hefty fine or time in jail.  All because you don't own the property in-question.

There's just one problem with that logic.  The Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement, by name alone, seems focused on preventing people from making a profit from other peoples' hard work and putting a halt to things being passed off as genuine articles.  "Counterfeit" has never meant "something that uses someone else's ideas or concepts".  The word "counterfeit" means "an imitation intended to be passed off fraudulently or deceptively as genuine; forgery", or in simple terms, "fake or pretend; a copy".  Now call me naive, but wouldn't that mean that all the things people think would be covered under this act actually wouldn't be?  Your YouTube clips and fanart should be fine, so long as you don't stupidly claim the properties within are yours and yours alone.  I see no reason why you shouldn't be able to claim "I recorded/posted this" so long as you don't try and say you created the source material.

In short, ACTA shouldn't be as big of a problem as the uneducated masses think it is.  Its focus is on counterfeit items.  It will by no means kill the Internet.

While this is one man's opinion, the forum is open for others to state their view.

( YouTube - MegaUpload Dangerous Secrets affect YOU, Mike Mozart JeepersMedia ACTA / PIPA / SOPA )
Gentlemen, it's been an honor and a privilege serving with you.

Hooray!  We're making progress!

PC World - "Congress Puts SOPA, PIPA on Hold"

Woo!  I -- ... wait.  *re-reads the article*  Wait, what?

"Rocked by Internet protests, the U.S. Congress is postponing action on the Stop Online Piracy Act and the Protect IP Act."

... what?

"Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid was scheduled to call a vote for PIPA on January 24. That was before Internet users and prominent websites staged a day of protest on Wednesday, which included a censored Google Doodle and blackouts of Wikipedia, Craigslist and Reddit. In light of the protests, several lawmakers withdrew their sponsorships of SOPA and PIPA, while others came out in opposition to the bill."

...  What was that first part again?

"Rocked by Internet protests [...]"

Ah.  That's what I thought you -- this has to be a joke.  You're kidding me.  You are fucking kidding me, right?  You're serious?  You're serious.  A handful of websites put up some lame "blackout" pages and people in favor of the bills, and Congress, actually didn't just notice... but were moved to reconisider SOPA/PIPA...  Just... just because of that?!

... *facepalm*

I have no faith in this country anymore!  Oh sure, don't listen to people or organizations.  Instead, take notice of some lame-ass censor bars before you reconsider.  God... this country... my country...

That's it.  I quit.  I'm Canadian now, eh.

This week sucks.  Hard. Of course, my problems are pretty trivial when I think about it.  It doesn't make them any less real to me, of course, but still.

Meh...  Maybe I just need to get laid.

Lazy blackout is lazy.

Here's a fun fact: Only the English Wikipedia is blacked out.  And even so, there's is an extremely easy way around that.  Just disable scripts for "en.wikipedia.org" and you're golden.  This is especially easy to do if you're running the NoScript addon for your web browser.  Worse still, if you're bright enough, you can even get around that blackout page by simply clicking the "Stop Loading" button!

What a lame blackout.  :P

Edit: I should probably say something about the idea of the blackout itself...  I personally think it's a stupid idea, since these sites are basically doing the grunt work that the bills are trying to enforce.  But whatever.  If the internet goes dark, so be it.  I doubt it'll happen, but we'll see.

Mission comprete!

( LTO-013 - Rokko Chan v1.03 )

Seven videos jam-packed full of Mega Man styles!  :D

Now seems like an appropriate time for a bit of a break.

I'm playing my "games" again.  Hurting people.  Same as it ever was.

Yeah.  I think it's time I disappeared for a while.

I'm sure you'll do fine without me, internet.

Carry on, carry on.

Good news, everyone!  I found out what the hell was lagging my video every 2.5 seconds!

As none of you know (because I never said anything prior to this), I had a bit of a problem with my computer since last October.  After upgrading some video codecs, certain applications would have a half-second hiccup exactly every 2.5 seconds.  I had no idea what was causing it as it didn't show up in my Task Manager as any kind of spike.  I figured something was just installed badly or I otherwise screwed something up in fixing my codecs.  Welp, come to find out today that the culprit was none other than VIA Technologies' "HD Audio Deck" application! ("HDeck.exe".)

I spent twenty minutes trying to fix my machine's random hiccups yesterday since I was trying to record a game for this coming Monday.  During this time, I closed what I thought was the problem, but it turned out that XMPlay was completely innocent, as were JoyToKey, AOL Instant Messenger, and mIRC.  After I closed HD Audio Deck, my computer ran perfectly!  I recorded an hour-and-a-half of game footage no problem!  That of course got me thinking... but that thought could wait for another day.
The next day (today), I immediately closed out HD Audio Deck after it initialized and ran Media Player Classic under settings I knew would show the 2.5-second hiccups.  After watching a good ten minutes of MythBusters, I was certain, but not 100% sure, that the problem was fixed.  After running Super Mario Bros. X -- a game I know was showing the 2.5-second hiccups guaranteed, I was convinced.  HD Audio Deck is, was, and has always been the problem.  Even before I started noticing the jaggies, I knew that thing slowed down my machine a little once it was actively running.  But for some reason, until now, I didn't think it was the cause of the newer, miniscule jaggies!

Aah...  Man.  You know, my machine runs almost as good as it did back when it was fresh-faced and brand new.  That was about a year-and-a-half ago.  Despite all the crap I do to it, how much the registry must be screaming in agony by now, my computer... my beautiful little Lydia II... is still running almost perfectly as she ever did.  I love my computer.  <3

Merry Christmas, everyone!  Once again, your friendly neighborhood pet fox made out like a bandit despite this Christmas being considerably smaller.  Let's take a look at the damages, shall we?

- A long-sleeved white t-shirt
- Two new pairs of pajama pants
- A Nintendo 3DS (?!) The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time 3D Bundle (!!!)
- Star Fox 64 (!!)
- A new/used set of wireless headphones for the downstairs TV (not a gift so much as a hand-me-down since my dad got a new set for the TV upstairs)

So!  I just about plotzed when I opened the package containing my new Nintendo 3DS.  I've barely even played with it at all and I'm already enjoying the hell out of it!  I haven't even played either of my new games yet!  Just set it up and messed around with Face Raiders and some of the other neato functions.  The 3D vision doesn't really work for me without or without my (prescription) glasses on, but I'm not giving up on it yet.  Hopefully, my eyes will adjust and I'll be able to see the full 3D effect.  The 3D is there!  Don't get me wrong!  But I just can't see it as well as other people can.  Now if I can just get the Friends registration thing to work, I'll be in business...  Keeps telling me I'm offline...  XD

Edit: My Nintendo 3DS Friend Code, for those curious, is 3609-1545-4707.  Happy gaming!  :D