Bellsouth stopped offering alt.binaries so I can't get Weeds anymore

[zeeba amoeba]

Just happened today. Suddenly AT&T no longer supports the entire alt.bin*.* heirarchy of Usenet newsgroups... that's thousands of newsgroups... with games, tv shows, movies, art pics, comedy clips, lots of pirated software, all gone. I can't get Weeds anymore. Or any other tv shows. Major buzzkill.

Oh, and you know what the headline of the web page was? "AT&T rolls out New and Enhanced Usenet newsgroup service." Yeah the "new and enhanced" is NO MORE SUPPORT for binaries. I like their choice of words.

I went on their web site and it said this is due to the difficulty of policing some newsgroups which might contain child pornography. Well, I haven't seen any of that crap. I'm not sure I believe it. And if a newsgroup is hard to police then what about all these web sites out there?

I think they can get away with this because so few people use the usenet anymore. Most people just go to the web for everything.

I guess I'm going to have to join Pirate Bay and download their software (or is it spyware).

 

[Pops]

Time warner(RoadRunner) did the same thing. If you want Usenet, you have to pay for it from a Usenet provider. The US government has used the child porn thing to threaton all the ISPs and get access to all their records. Many are probably afraid of criminal charges from the government if they continue to carry newsgroups.

 

[greenhead]

Just pay 10 bucks a month for any one of the large usenet providers. And you will have access to all of the binaries, and you will get good connections with super fast download speeds. There's also torrents, and I'm sure that you will find "weeds" episodes there also, though torrents can be a bit slower (depending upon seeders), although it's free.

 

[ScrogHog]

torrents.to great place to find torrents never couldnt find what i wanted

 

[The Conundrum]

You could go the Old Fashioned route and Rent the discs to rip them ... but that might take you away from the keyboard ... right?

 

[Wunderkind]

Demonoid allows some of it's content to be open to the public and you can get an invite to join fairly easily.

 

[zeeba amoeba]

Time warner(RoadRunner) did the same thing. If you want Usenet, you have to pay for it from a Usenet provider. The US government has used the child porn thing to threaton all the ISPs and get access to all their records. Many are probably afraid of criminal charges from the government if they continue to carry newsgroups.

I was thinking that must be it. But I don't know that the government prosecutes ISPs for what a user does. That seems unlikely. That would be like suing the highway department, because a bank robber used the road to get to the bank. I don't think the government is at fault in this instance. Heck, the government is mainly controlled by corporations anyway and does whatever they want.

I think the for real deal is this. The industry is getting together and trying to stamp out piracy. Newsgroups carried a lot of stuff, I mean every show you can imagine. Hollywood has a lot of clout, so they can go to ISPs and say look, do what we say, we can help you in return. And the ISP doesn't care about Usenet because like only 1% of people use it anymore. And the ones that do use it are major bandwidth users, downloading lots of programs.

Child porn is a really convenient excuse, because nobody really wants to bring it up or worst of all appear like they condone it. So the ISP uses that as a reason and people think twice before arguing about it. I bet that's going to be continued to be used for another purpose, namely to monitor and spy on people on the internet.

Anyways there are other usenet providers and maybe they will be around for a little while longer. I hope at least until Weeds has its final episode.

Damn arbitrary decisions by these corporate giants, inconveniencing me, without any notification. This is just like the hike in gas prices, from $1 to $4 a gallon. I don't recall giving my approval of that. At all. Dammit.

 

[HempHut]

I guess I'm going to have to join Pirate Bay and download their software (or is it spyware).

Huh?

Torrent index sites don't require proprietary software -- just a web browser. You'll need a torrent client to download the actual files you want, but there are plenty of those around to choose from that are perfectly safe to use.

 

[socker1314]

hit up the torrents. mininova has a torrent for seasons 1-3, took me 12 hours to download. All great quality xvids.

 

[TheGoodStuff]

Piratebay for torrents, or surfthechannel.com for youtube-style streaming.

 

[2tall]

I watch weeds at http://www.surfthechannel.com/

 

[NorCalFor20]

nice thread

 

[zeeba amoeba]

Huh?

Torrent index sites don't require proprietary software -- just a web browser. You'll need a torrent client to download the actual files you want, but there are plenty of those around to choose from that are perfectly safe to use.

I appreciate the advice and info about torrents, and who knows I may have to go that route sometime soon because the way things are going, it looks like Usenet is dying a slow death. When ISPs no longer support it, that means the # of contributors will steadily diminish...

However, old habits die hard. I've got a lot of expertise in Usenet and know my way around it... I'd rather type in a show in binsearch :

http://www.binsearch.info/?q=&max=250&adv_age=70&server=

and download everything I want, automatically, with just a few clicks....using .nzb headers...I can set up a massive download of dozens of shows, and leave it unattended for several days in a row. (ha ha maybe that's the real reason they quit supporting usenet...just to save bandwidth). In this way, I was able to get four years of Dr Who, two years of Torchwood, four years of Weeds, five years of Alfred Hitchcock, all five seasons of 4400, all eight shows of "Diary of a Call Girl," et cetera.

So yeah for the time being my plan is to pony up $15 a month and continue subscribing to a premium newsgroup server. AT&T was just my stopgap, the one i used whenever my subscription expired (I like to subscribe only once every 2-3 months to save money). Besides it was my turn to gripe about something. I think we each take turns around here.

 

[greenhead]

However, old habits die hard. I've got a lot of expertise in Usenet and know my way around it... I'd rather type in a show in binsearch :

Do you know about the searching abilities of some of the premium newsgroups? They automatically generate thumbnail previews of every result.

I could never use ISP newsgroups again, after having gotten used to the premium ones.

<WEEDS RESULTS>

 

[accessndx]

Dude,

Get a demonoid account. You just need an invite code....which I'm sure could be arranged.
If not demonoid use piratebay or any of the other bittorrent tracking sites. I've been using them to get Torchwood, Dr. Who, etc...as well as tons of other stuff at the click of a button. I just got some insane soundboard of Jimmy Page with the Black Crowes at the Greek theatre....totally ripping on the speaks right now...found it last night...woke up this a.m. and FLAC lossless version is now mine to burn.
If you can't find it on demonoid or piratebay...you may find it equally challenging to have found it on the newsgroups...

 

[zeeba amoeba]

Dude,

Get a demonoid account. You just need an invite code....which I'm sure could be arranged.
If not demonoid use piratebay or any of the other bittorrent tracking sites. I've been using them to get Torchwood, Dr. Who, etc...as well as tons of other stuff at the click of a button. I just got some insane soundboard of Jimmy Page with the Black Crowes at the Greek theatre....totally ripping on the speaks right now...found it last night...woke up this a.m. and FLAC lossless version is now mine to burn.
If you can't find it on demonoid or piratebay...you may find it equally challenging to have found it on the newsgroups...

Thanks maybe one day, for the time being I'm going to stick w/ the usenet.

Hey I've got a computer hooked up to a 50" tv. So I don't burn any dvds anymore. I used to go that whole route and now i have like two hundred dvds gathering dust in a closet. I never watch dvds. Download show > play show directly from pc. It works really great. My remote control is my foot which taps the spacebar on my keyboard to PAUSE.

Sometimes i have this fantasy like I find a cool dealer and they will accept say, a hundred gigs of movies or shows in exchange for, say, an oz. of kush. I think that would be a pretty generous trade on my part.

 

[NorCalFor20]

Thanks maybe one day, for the time being I'm going to stick w/ the usenet.

Hey I've got a computer hooked up to a 50" tv. So I don't burn any dvds anymore. I used to go that whole route and now i have like two hundred dvds gathering dust in a closet. I never watch dvds. Download show > play show directly from pc. It works really great. My remote control is my foot which taps the spacebar on my keyboard to PAUSE.

Hell yea! I have my shit setup the same way. Wireless keyboard and mouse, my computer chair is a couch. Instead of having the sound come out of the TV though I have a box that re routes the sound from my TV speakers to my surround sound, best way to do it, its called an auxillary switcher you can get them from radio shack.

 

[zeeba amoeba]

Hell yea! I have my shit setup the same way. Wireless keyboard and mouse, my computer chair is a couch. Instead of having the sound come out of the TV though I have a box that re routes the sound from my TV speakers to my surround sound, best way to do it, its called an auxillary switcher you can get them from radio shack.

We are birds of a feather (does that sound gay? lol)

...except my keyboard is fully wired. I tried the wireless route, but the dam infrared on my tv conflicts with the infrared on the keyboard so I had to go with wired.

??? how do I do it?

I bought a 20' cable for both mouse and keyboard! Works great although there is a problem when people trip over the damn cable (usually me). I solved that by jamming the cable under the sofa with a wine bottle cork.

As for sound, yeah I use surround sound too, fully optical digital, that means a laser light is beaming the data from my computer's high-end sound card. The sound actually sucks, because some of the speakers have died over the past year or so. I'm only getting sound from 2 out of 5 speakers.

I have a second fantasy where I find a cool dealer who lets me set them up a system like mine in exchange for say a quarter-pound of kush plus expenses. I think that's a generous offer on my part.