I The Behrend Beacon
SGA offers ISBN service
By ,Jeff Smen
stall aritri
Ir,s(eQo ,
It's the beginning of the semester,
and all students have to do some
thing they dread: buy textbooks.
While most students buy their
hooks at the Behrend bookstore,
others buy them online, hut know
ing if you're buying the right hook
can he a pain, especially it the hook
has already been purchased and the
professor says it's not needed for
the class. The SGA hopes to make
the process of buying textbooks
online a little easier.
On the SGA homepage is a link
where students can look up ISBN
numbers for their classes. The
ISBN is a number on the hack of
every textbook near the serial bar
that helps identify the textbook.
When buying a hook online, most
The Bombing of eßaum's World
popular webAlte ea
By Bryce Sayers
contributing writer
The humor website ebaumsworld.com is host to
many jokes that entertain college students, hut the
recent unpleasantness affecting the site is no laughing
matter to its owner, Eric Bauman. EBaum's World is a
webpage that features humorous content, mostly digital
animation and movies. The site receives an incredible
amount of visitors, hut it also has made many enemies .
Its critics accuse Bauman of using content that was
posted on other humor sites and claiming it as property
of the site. What is known is that most of the content
on cßaum's World is submitted to Bauman from his
supporters via e-mail. Bauman 'yes no credit
to the creators of t:
content he hosts on h.
website, and the wil
nets of submission coil
tests may not he th
original creators. Wh
many of them are trul
upset about is the fa(
that their work originai
ly appeared on sites thi
earn little to no money
while eßaum's World
a corporation tha
according
Wikipedia.org, make
over six thousand do,
Lars a day by sal!
advertisers space on h,
website. Many of
anti-eßaum sentime
comes from members
something awful. co
and fark.com, who hal
claimed that some c
their stories and humor
ously Photoshop-alter
pictures were posted c
eßaum's World withoi
their permission a,
rebranded with t
eßaum's World logo
Such complaints have
been made for some This Beacon rendering of multiple pictures of Lohan spl
time, but the tension er proves the lack of facial expressions that YTMND tar
did not seem salient
until a joke about 19-year-old actress Lindsay Lohan
emerged on the site. The material in question was titled
"Lindsay Lohan Doesn't Change Facial Expressions."
a series of fast-moving pictures of her that have
remarkably similar facial expressions. The humor
website ytmnd.com (short for "You're the man now,
dog!" (YTMND) which was Sean Connery's catch
phrase in the movie Finding Forrester) had a recurring
theme of "Doesn't Change Facial Expressions" for
some time, including a Lindsay Lohan animation that
appeared on the site before the animation on eßaum's
World. Eric Bauman stated that his website's version
of the Lohan joke was submitted in a contest, and he
has permission from the author. He also claimed that
he always allows complaints to be filed when someone
cries intellectual property theft and that he has heard
nothing from the man who claimed to have created the
animation on ytmnd.com. At 3 a.m. on Jan. I I, howev
er, the Lindsay Lohan animation was removed from
eßaum's World, even though the link to it still exists in
the article that addressed the controversy. Max
Goldberg, creator and webmaster of YTMND. recog
nized that tensions were rising as members of his web
site were posting anti-Bauman videos and messages on
the site's forum. On Jan. 8 at midnight, members of
ytmnd.com's forum, as well as members of Something
Awful's forums and other websites "raided" the forum
of eßaum's World. The nature of the raid was their
attempts to access the forums en masse in order to
overwhelm the servers and force the website to tem
porarily shut down. According to an anonymous
orilmc will ,tis li)i the nuinhcr
to 111'111V ,t
‘k. I t)11, , ..1 hook.or tilts cdition
11 )&1^
ihc SGA did not
rci all mi the ISBN nuinhei. nil
their weh.itc lot the present seines
lees Lori the ` , CCFCLIIA ()I
the SG:\..aul. — I here are a total of
22( I lull and part time facult \ at
Belnend he SGA sent out an e
mail asking prole.sors for the
ISBN. of the hook they use and we
got around 75 We're hoping to get
a complete list next semester...
The Internet has many different
sites students can use to check out
the prices and buy the hooks they
will need Amaton. Big Words,
eCamptis and CheapestTextßooks
are only a lew of the companies
selling textbooks on the web.
Students who still have textbooks
left over troth the previonn semester
h a ,SOO4 (a P,41,c(111
elf
:72)
I [JD EITP L r
7is widespread ire
source, who was present online for much of the contro
‘crsy, theic was some unauthorized illegal activity in
the raid. such as hackers who redirected page requests
to other pages (inappropriate sites instead of
ebaumsworld.com), but according to the source, "these
individuals were rogue elements and did not have the
general support of the YTMND community." Goldberg
assumed no responsibility for the attack and deplored
the incident. latter that day, the front page of YTMND
had a statement from Goldberg about the attack, "I tried
to stop this all when it was just a snowball, but it just
turned into an avalanche... it affects a lot more than
lust ebaumsworkl.com and really crosses the line." He
has also warned that his websitc is now in danger of
tetaliation. Despite the admonishment from Max
Goldberg and Bauman's denial of stealing content, the
iti-eßaum senti-
Alt still exists
thin YTMND
id many content
-cation websites
telephone mes
sage for verifica
tion that the e-mail was indeed his. Bauman's reply to
the voice mail confirmed the previous message, includ
ing a racial slur and warned Goldberg, "Soon you will
he contacted by Federal Investigators." Goldberg sent
Neil Bauman a reply, which is posted in the same arti
cle that contains the two messages from Bauman. In it
he restated that he was trying to prevent his users from
attacking eßaum's World and has tried to minimize the
anti-eßaum content on his site. After receiving the
tirade from Bauman, however, Max replied, "If you
had been paying attention, for the last three days I have
been deleting hundreds of users, sites and posts with
pieces of your personal information...l'm done."
Goldberg announced at 2:07 p.m. on the same day that
all posts on his site with "ebaum" in the title will be
deleted by midnight. There has not been a reply from
anyone representing eßaum's World. Many websites
contain information about the conflict, but finding a
neutral source may he difficult due to the inflammato
ry nature of the subject. The online encyclopedia,
wikipedia.org, has extensive information on the parties
involved. but the moderators of the site warn that the
neutrality of the eßaumsworld.com article and related
information is still under review. This event is, at least,
an indicator of how serious many people take the work
they display on the Internet. As Max Goldberg said in
his first article on the raid, "I think there is something
to he said for communities coming together for a com
mon goal, even if it is over something so petty."
Lim also sell their textbooks at some
the same sites listed above.
Malt Cherpak, a second semester
Management Information Systems
major, said. "I almost always buy ,
my hooks online and I hate trying to
search for the hook I need for a
class. Putting the numbers online
w ill he a big help."
Erin Schroll, a fourth semester
accounting major, said, "I never
bought any of my books online, but
I think it will make it much easier
for students who do buy books
online. I might consider buying
some of my hooks online if I
remember to next semester."
Brandon Eckstrom, a fourth
semester business major, said, "I
think it's a great idea, it will defi
nitely make buying books way eas-
.roughout the
iternet. On Jan.
1, Goldberg post
on his website
e-mail from
it Bauman, the
ce president of
laum's World
id father of Eric
tuman. The e
il was titled
and
silt." The lan-
lage of the mes-
Lge was infor
ll, implicated
x as responsi
e for the raid,
cused him of
vocating the
ath threats
iuman received
d insulted the
tubers of the
'MND commu-
Goldberg
Neil
Bauman over a
iced togeth-
Questions for Qwerty
By Jeremy Korwek
staff writer
Idks(X) 9( p psi sedu
Qwerty,
I keep hearing from people that they
downloaded a cool video or some big
file from a program or website called
"Bit Torrent." What is "Bit Torrent" in
the first place, and how does it work?
Also is using this program illegal? If it's
not, how do I get started?
-Torrential
Torrential,
Bit Torrent is a very widely used type of
file sharing system. Basically, a file of
any type is broken down into many pieces
and is prepared for distribution. The file,
in the new, broken up form, is sent to a
group of eight computers in a temporary
network group called a "swarm." The
"swarm" consists of two "seeds," users
who have a complete copy of the file in
question and six "peers," users who are
still downloading the file.
The file in its shattered form is shared
among the group; each piece is sent to a
different user all the while each user is
requesting a different piece from another
user. To keep the sharing speed up, the
pieces of the file that are fewest in number
are requested so that it prevents the net
work from bottlenecking and reducing the
overall network speed. The great thing
about Bit Torrent is that even before you
finish downloading the complete file, you
arc already sharing the pieces you have
with other users creating a sense of com
munity among the Bit Torrent users. The
distribution of the file allows many more
people to obtain a copy of many popular
files. This includes new Linux distrihu-
tions, new open source programs, videos
and other large computer files.
On the question of the legality of
Big Breasts are a Bust
By Michelle Vera Suroviec
photography editor
mitt 131 Opsu.edu
Many women who perceive themselves
as flat-chested desire larger breasts. These
women do not understand what kind of a
curse they are asking for. These oversized
mounds of flesh arc not as soft as marsh
mallows or the trademark of the perfect
woman.
If a woman thinks she would like larger
breasts, then she should try this little
experiment. Take a large purse and fill it
with canned goods. Make sure there is a
good mixture of soups, beans and tuna,
just in case this exhaustive experiment
causes hunger pangs later on. Wrap the
purse around your neck so that the bag
gage drapes across the chest. Find an
oversized hoodie, since nothing else will
fit right, to throw over the purse. Now
step out into the world with that new
seductive figure.
It may not be the same as being natural
ly endowed, but it is extremely accurate.
Try to take a run or jog. Notice the back
and neck pain from all that excess weight?
Good, because back pain problems are
always sexy. Getting strange looks at that
chunky but larger pair? Is the attention
worthwhile? Do the extra wolf whistles
and howls from creepy, nerdy, drunken
freshmen with a bad case of beer goggles
give a special irreplaceable feeling on the
inside?
If a person enjoys the physical pain, the
foregoing of all cute clothes and the
unwanted attention, then bigger breasts
may still rank high on the list of unattain-
Do you have
for articles?
Send them to us!
SLeditor@psu.edu
Friday, January 13, 2006
f ri' i j i T l
Bit Torrent files in general, one would
have to say that it is legal, mostly because
of the fact that many more legal tiles are
shared using Bit Torrent than illegal files.
Many of the legal files that arc distributed
include ones that would he too large to be
hosted on a regular web server. Some of
the largest files are open source operating
systems, including, but not limited to
Linux, BSD, UNIX and many variations
thereof. Each of the operating systems
average around 600 MB, and unless the
person who is paying for the web hosting
is a millionaire or has a million ads on the
download page, it would only take a few
people trying to download the file to
knock down the server and ruin it for
everyone
As for the "illegal" files being shared
over Bit Torrent, just as in Sony Corp. of
America v. Universal City Studios, Inc., I
believe that the technology itself is not to
blame; the people who misuse the tech
nology arc the ones to blame.
Unfortunately not every one will use tech
nology in the way that the ones in power
see fit.
If you still want to get started in using
Bit Torrent, you will need to download a
client program that will allow you to
download the pieces of the file that you
want. My personal favorite is Azureus
because of the clean interface and simple
controls. You can download Azureus
from their website at
http://azureus.sourceforge.net. Once you
download it or any other client, you can
begin the search for "torrent" files. The
torrent files contain all the information
about who to look at to find the other
pieces of the file you want. To find the
torrents you want just use your favorite
search engine and add the word "torrent"
to the end. From there, it is just a period
of time until you have the file of your
dreams in your hard drive.
able wants. There arc countless other ben
efits to having a smaller rack, such as the
ability to stand straight up and still be able
to sec the feet without strange maneuver
ing.
Any woman who feels her bust size
should directly correlate with her confi
dence level needs to buy a Wonderbra and
stop making excuses. Wishing to look like
a professional model is not the answer.
Models are paid to look a certain way and
have the assistance of a staff of image con
sultants at their beckoning. Unless model
ing is someone's full-time occupation,
there is no need to feel inferior to a cover
girl that has her imperfections taped and
glued away and has special lighting and
post-production airbrushing working in
her favor.
Real guys prefer all shapes and sizes, so
one person's undesired set may be some
one else's fantasy. Remember, larger
breasts only stay perky for so long. It's
only a matter of time before the granny
sag steps in.
Dove's campaign for Real Beauty fea
tures confident women with all kinds of
curves in an attempt to change the stereo
type. In an effort to improve the self
esteem of women, Dove has created the
Dove Self-Esteem Fund. In another bold
move, Dove is planning to air new com
mercials during the upcoming Superbowl
in three weeks. In between commercials
featuring beer babes and celebrities
singing about soft drinks, Dove's message
about the self-esteem of women will pro
vide an interesting contrast. For some,
this message might be very refreshing.
ideas