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- YOU HACK 'EM, WE HUMP 'EM
- or
- Why YOU Should Be a Software Courier
-
- by Dixie Flatline
- -=EMC=-/«VD»/UltraTech Courier
-
- Hey, Binkie, yer sittin' there with a shit-eating grin on
- your yawp and that brand-new HST from the Pieman dangling from
- your com port. Only trouble is, you just logged onto Filez 'R' Us
- and have the wrong end of a 3-to-1 transfer ratio staring you
- right in the face -- and you ain't got dick-primary in new warez
- you can upload at the moment.
-
- Sounds like _you_ need to become a courier for a cracking
- group. "Jeez, I dunno, Dix. Sounds like a lotta hard work," you
- say. Well f*ck, man, LIFE's hard work at times. You probably
- tore out your hair by the fistfuls trying to get that first modem
- and Procomm to work back in the dark ages -- and now you've got a
- half-meg Ymodem-G transfer whistling away at 14.4 kilobaud. The
- hard work's behind you!
-
- 9 REASONS WHY _YOU_ SHOULD BE HUMPING WAREZ
- 9) f*ck the software companies!
- 8) You get first crack (pun intended) at the newest programs.
- 7) f*ck the software companies!
- 6) You have a compelling reason to upload! (Great for leeches
- like me.)
- 5) f*ck the software companies!
- 4) You can kiss many file ratios goodbye. Good couriers usually
- get exempt status on the "home base" boards; you will
- _definitely_ wind up with some bodacious upload credit on the
- boards you hump to on a regular basis.
- 3) f*ck the software companies!
- 2) When you're a courier, women will pull up their skirts and ask
- you to play doctor. (Unless you're a female courier, in which
- case change gender to "women," clothing to "pants," and
- direction to "down.")
- [Needless to say, this is just wishful thinking on my part.
- In the six months or so I've been schleppin' bytes, I have yet
- to be woken up at three AM by Mariah Carey pounding on the
- door and screaming, "Let me in, you bastard, before I come all
- over your doorknob!"]
- 1) f*ck the software companies!
-
- THE BASIC TOOLS:
- 1) US Robotics Courier HST modem. (Aptly named, you noticed.)
- It's not brutally expensive, it's faster than prunes through a
- duck, and 95% of the pirate boards out there are running it
- (or its rich-bitch cousin, the Dual Standard), so maximum
- throughput is, like, in the ag-bay.
- 2) Your favorite flavor of comm software, preferably one that
- supports both Zmodem and Ymodem-G batch-fers. (And if it
- doesn't, well...that's why God invented Chuck Forsberg!)
- 3) A second job. (Those LD charges can add up!)
-
- WHAT MAKES A GOOD WAREZ RUNNER?
- 1) Call the "home base" BBS _daily_. Make it the first thing you
- do (in conjunction with that first, kick-start-the-brain cup
- of java, of course), or the last thing (Letterman boring?
- Fire up Qmodem!). That's the only way you can catch the new
- releases -- you know, the ones that are SO new the ZIP
- comment's still damp...
- 2) PRIORITIZE. Some distribution boards will give you a list of
- subsidiary BBS's that need the new stuff ASAP. After that,
- throw it up wherever they've got the hard disk space. But get
- it to the assigned boards FIRST!
- 3) Keep track of your work. Right from the start, I began keeping
- stats on which boards get what warez -- as well as any boards
- that had it already. (This refers both to couriers for rival
- groups, when two or more groups release the same program
- simultaneously, and casual cross-pollinators -- what I refer
- to as "the amateurz.") Periodically upload your stat reports
- to "home base," just to prove that you're really doing
- something with all the shit you're leeching in the name of
- "couriering!" It's one thing to brag about all the boards
- you're getting the warez to, but when it's down there in black
- and white (or the ASCII equivalent thereof)...well, you know
- what they say about the vocal abilities of money, and the
- ambulatory powers of bullshit.
-
- SO HOW DO I GET IN ON THE GOOD LIFE?
- Basically, keep your ears and eyes open. Major groups
- such as INC and The Humble Guys have periodic recruiting drives
- for new couriers. Alternately, new groups pop up every so often,
- and they'd LOVE to have someone tote their latest bales for 'em.
- (Me, I lucked out by being in the right place at the right time
- when -=EMC=-, «VD», and UltraTech were first looking for runners.
- Hey, it could happen to you!)
-
- Special thanks to SlaveLord @ UltraTech BBS, Bearman @ Vortex,
- Father Time @ Inner City, Captain Tom @ Twin Peaks, and all the
- other sysops who bore with me when I f*cked something up.
-
- Remember, the shortest distance between two BBS's is a Flat Line!
-
-
-