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Contrary to what Gamespy is reporting, BitTorrent is not shut down. See.

Gamespy’s reporter is writing about the shut down of a single torrent site. The BitTorrent client and technology are very much still active. This writer is just an idiot. Or maybe it’s the editor, who knows over there anymore.

CNN reported today that Federal agents have launched a campaign on users of BitTorrent Software used to steal data files from the internet.

This is also erroneous. The campaign was NOT against bittorrent users. It was against the pirate websites that post torrents to things such as “Episode III” before they’re released.

“Our goal is to shut down as much of this illegal operation as quickly as possible to stem the serious financial damage to the victims of this high-tech piracy — the people who labor to produce these copyrighted materials,” said John Richter, acting assistant attorney general in the Justice Department.

You know what this proves? George Lucas has control of the Justice Department. Here’s how I imagine it going down.

George Lucas: OMFG! Episode III is on teh intarweb? People can see it without paying $10 a ticket? RICK! TO THE SKYWALKER CAVE! We’ve got to call the President!

Rick McCallum: As you command, Master.

George Lucas: President? It’s important that you stem the serious financial damage this is wreaking upon my empir^H^H^H^H^H I mean, my legitimate business. I’M A VICTIM!!!!111oneone

UPDATE: Apparently, Gamespy has now altered the headline to more correctly say, “Bittorrent site shut down” instead of, “Bittorrent shut down.” So, kudos to Gamespy for correcting their HEADLINE to be more correct… now if only they would leave their game reviews alone. Note that they have still not corrected the erroneous content of the article itself.

I was browsing around on verizon.com and happened upon their DSL page. There was something out of place on that page. Namely, this:

The first question that came to mind was, “What does a cat and milk have to do with Verizon’s DSL service?” I just don’t know. If I get Verizon DSL do they give me a cuddly kitten? It looks like they’ll throw in a free bowl of milk, as well. This kitten also appears to be somehow trained to live in or near computer monitors. Perhaps that’s why there’s a bottle of milk on this monitor. The cat may derive comfort from this. I hope this is not the case. If I had Verizon DSL, I’d want to be sure that I could view anything I wanted, not just high-resolution images of milk and other cat-friendly entreés.

It’s just weird to have that cat there, even kind of scary. Is this some sort of strange avatar of the DSL Internet gods? Perhaps this cat represents some sort of household deity as it did to the ancient Egyptians. “If you subscribe to Verizon DSL, we will ensure that prosperity smiles upon you through your very own divine totem.” The cat was also the symbol of the Egyptian goddess, Bastet. Bastet was a daughter of Ra and at times was considered a moon goddess, analogous to Artemis. This would make the cat a symbol of the hunt, or perhaps nighttime. That doesn’t make any sense, either.

Or perhaps it’s something more nefarious… The monitor could be a dimensional portal into a parallel universe. The bottle of milk appearing on the monitor is a clue that Verizon DSL allowed some sort of super-intelligent, internet-using cat to slip through this portal into our world. Since Verizon managed to photograph this event, I can only hope that they have not been completely conquered by this “SuperCat”.