zircon

What improved your credit was buying lots of stuff on credit and paying it off quick, which is exactly what I recommended. I can guarantee you that more credit lines is NOT good for your credit. One or two are the ideal numbers.

Who said you have a "student right"? That's BS. I never said that and that right doesn't exist. Another bad argument. Many Drexel students commute, and if they have to spend long hours in the labs to do their work, that's just how it goes. Anyone doing advanced engineering can't work from home anyway, so plenty of people deal with this issue already. Art students should be no different. Then your school is poorly planning their media labs. If they can't provide tools to students to do their work then they're not doing a good job planning. Think about it. Even if they had an expectation that people would be pirating stuff, how do they know that any given student has a fast enough connection to do that anyway? Or that a student even HAS their own computer? All that being said, can't people just come in early or work during study periods? When I had to do lab work at Drexel, I did all of it in between classes or a little after my classes ended. I never worked past 8PM.

Don't forget that some cards have fees. You know all those fancy rewards cards by companies like American Express? How about "Gold" and "Platinum" cards? These might have high spending limits and give you some sort of bonus, but they often require that you spend a certain amount each month, OR they charge you just for HAVING the card. For some people, the bonuses of such a card make up for the fees; I'm just using these cards as another example of how CC companies make money.

Absolutely. Get a card that has no monthly or annual fees (there are plenty like this) - a Visa through your bank would do the job. Amazon Visas are also excellent, as 1-3% of the money you spend is converted into Amazon credit in $25 increments. No monthly/annual fees on those either. Once you get the card you'll probably have a credit limit of $500. You might even need to tie it to the account of someone else if you can't show that you have the capability to pay it off (through your employment, for example - they'll ask you that, among other things). Once you get it, use it as MUCH as possible in any situation where you actually have the cash in your bank account. Pay the card off weekly. You'll never pay a dime in interest if you do it this way, so there's no harm. If you use the card all the time and pay it off very quickly, your credit line will increase. I went from $500 on one card which I got when I turned 18 to $8,700 on two cards now (I'm 21). The other advantage to credit cards is security, believe it or not. Credit card companies are very, very good at fighting on your behalf. If you get scammed or your card gets stolen, you're not responsible. The card company will take care of it. If someone steals your debit card and drains your account, you might be out of luck. Likewise, your bank might not care enough to fight for you to get you a chargeback (if that's even possible on a debit card - I'm not sure) whereas credit card companies almost always will.

Your credit score is determined in part by how many open credit lines you have and when they were opened. Someone with good credit has one or maybe two credit cards and that's it, and they are all fairly old accounts. If you are constantly opening and closing accounts then you look unreliable. Prophet; you're going to pay for your house in cash? Upfront? Did you win the lottery or something? You need a mortgage to buy a house. You most likely need a loan to buy a car unless you're buying one that is very cheap. The problem with paying cash for everything is that even if you DO have the money for a huge purchase, what are you going to do if something comes up afterwards that requires a ton of money? ie. Some sort of hospital emergency, a fire in your home, a lawsuit, etc. The point of taking out loans to make big purchases is that you're not completely draining your savings. Credit is awesome.

Hmm, not sure I buy this. Your school doesn't have media labs that you can work in? You can't use free software, ie. GIMP? Drexel, for example, has 24/7 media labs. All students in the appropriate programs get access, thus there's no excuse to pirate anything.

Wow... you really need to take a personal finance 101 course (or read the Consumerist more). Credit scores are really important if you ever care about getting a house.

Opening a new credit line to get some sort of bonus is an awful idea. You'll lose more money in the long run because your credit will look worse as a result (more open credit lines = bad for your credit score) and future loans will be less favorable.

It doesn't hurt the debate since we're talking about casual conversation and usage here. Legally speaking, obviously it's "copyright infringement". I'm just pointing out that we ALREADY use the word "stealing" (which is synonymous with "theft") to describe what happens when you use someone's identity without their permission. That is a well-accepted standard and in fact I think even the legal term for that IS identity theft. So, the word is already diluted. What I think hurts the debate is the silly semantics game of "is it REALLY stealing or not"? The answer is very clear. No, it isn't, legally, "stealing" because theft has a very specific definition. Piracy is, very simply, copyright infringement and nothing more. So, let's move past the "is it stealing" debate because there shouldn't BE a debate about that topic. The use of the word "stealing" to describe it is just easier in terms of writing it, and it more succinctly summarizes what the act is, whereas copyright infringement is a more vague phrase to the average person.

You're also not stealing the apple tree's identity. I didn't say they were equal. I said it's just appropriate shorthand. Again, "identity theft" has nothing to do with theft. It's not theft at all. But it's a faster way of saying what we want to say and it's easier to understand in casual conversation.

Guys, "theft" or "stealing" is appropriate shorthand for copyright infringement. It's not literally the crime of theft or stealing, but think about it. What do we call it when someone uses your credit card? Identity theft. Are they literally TAKING your identity, so you no longer have it? No. All they're doing is just using your card without your authorization. But "identity theft" is easier to say and the effect of the crime is similar.

That I'll agree with. I've pirated a few programs that I already own because I can't find the disc, or the company auth server is down and I need it for a project right away.

I missed where you made an argument somewhere earlier, it sounded like you were just talking about yourself. Well, this is kind of my point. If a million people today decided to stop buying software and start pirating, there would be a massive drop in demand and many software companies would hemorrhage money and probably go out of business. If ONE person decided to do that, nothing would happen. Likewise with stealing candy bars. Even though the statistics are just not clear on exactly WHAT the impact of piracy is on demand, you admitted that there is definitely some loss of motivation (ie. demand) due to easy piracy, so the issue is definitely there. Dave: I agree with you 100% that new business models are necessary today, but I think that the open source movement (among other things) has churned out a massive amount of freely available IP - software, music, literature, etc - so that there's little excuse to pirate most things. REAPER is a competitive alternative to Cubase, Office -> OpenOffice, GIMP -> Photoshop, etc. If someone really has no resources, there are now plenty of tools out there that they CAN use for free. It would be more advantageous for all parties involved for there to be focus on noncommercial licenses, unlimited shareware (etc).

Not sure I understand what you mean. Are you referring to emulation or something? Also, bear in mind that I'm not saying piracy is so horrible that anyone who pirates things should go to jail or something ridiculous like that. There are degrees of being ethical or unethical. Downloading an album that is normally being sold is unethical, but it's really not that big of a deal. I just have an issue with people trying to defend their actions as not being unethical at all. If you just said, "Yeah, I pirate stuff because I don't feel like buying it" I wouldn't really care. That's your prerogative. But if you try to pass piracy off as being A-OK, that's a different story.

Again though, that's a weak justification. Arguably, if you shoplift a candy bar from a store, you're not hurting anyone. The candy bar sells for 99 cents, but it probably costs the retailer less than 50 cents, and it takes a fraction of a fraction of a cent to produce. Even a mom-and-pop corner store would not consider this to be a loss worth writing on the books. Yet, we still can't allow this behavior. Furthermore, if you feel like you can get anything for free anyway, you're going to be less inclined to buy anything to begin with. Say a friend of yours sends you a zip file with a few CDs of music from artists you enjoy. You had planned on purchasing those CDs. Now you have them on your computer, for free. Are you still going to go out and buy them? Maybe, maybe not. But I think that unless you're really a diehard music fan, that action is going to diminish your motivation to purchase the product. Now, substitute a friend coming over and giving you the music with the widespread availability of pirated IP on a wide variety of websites. You're one click away at any time from getting anything you want. That's going to diminish your motivation to buy ANY of those things you now have access to.

Nice contribution!

That's some really weak justification. The issue is that when you buy a CD or computer program, you don't literally own it 100%. You own the rights to use it, and a physical container holding the intellectual property (sometimes, not even that). Thus, if you bought one of my CDs and uploaded it online, it is not relevant whether 0 people download or 100 people download it. You used a right that you don't have. Only I have that right. The same goes for software or any other kind of IP.

Yeah, the overriding reason for most people is just pure laziness and lack of morals, really. What other reasons are there?

Well, when you have a dozen people writing it on a deadline, it's hard to take seriously either way. I don't consider serialized comics to be good literature, generally speaking, so I think your expectations might be set too high. Stuff like Watchmen is great, as well as limited mangas like Nausicaa, because they had one (or maybe two) writers and a definite beginning and end. When you're writing the same character for decades upon decades, and you literally can't just end the story, some BS is going to start happening at some point or another to continue to artificially lengthen things.

The whole point of Spider-Man from the day he was created was to be an angsty character. He was angsty before the word really even came into popularity. Superheroes prior to him were basically all "perfect" in some way, but with Spider-Man came a generation of heroes with definite imperfections. Peter Parker has super strength, but can't get a date, and gets picked on at school. Etc. That's what made him such a great character.

Ah, noted..

Very cool track - and a great progression. I-v is pretty common, actually. Off the top of my head, "Clocks" by Coldplay uses it. Bladiator also used it a bit in the first part of his piano arrangement featured on Voices of the Lifestream, "The Golden Ivories of Gaia". http://ocremix.dreamhosters.com/songs/ff7/MP3/4-10%20Bladiator%20-%20The%20Golden%20Ivories%20of%20Gaia%20(Various%20Themes).mp3 For example, :31-:33.

Whoops, good catch on those four plugins. Not sure why I had them listed as Mac-compatible (though if you have an AU->VST adapter, or are using Cubase, you should be OK, right?) I think it's fair to say that GarageBand is effectively a free program. It has been coming with every new Mac for what, four years now? I think that MOST people reading the guide that are on a Mac would probably have one that was shipped within the last four years. But, I'll put in an addendum anyway just clarifying that. Likewise with Cacophony's shareware status.

Are you a Mac, PC, or Linux user? Do you have an internet connection? If you answered "yes" to these two questions then you can get some GREAT free music tools that can be used for remixing or anything else you want. I've written up a guide to such tools including my personal favorites and others suggested to me by fellow remixers and musicians from various forums. http://soundtempest.net/the-best-free-music-software/

lol second job