POKER FACE IN CYBERSPACEWritten by Oddvar Pettersen
His palms are sweaty and his heart is racing, but he smiles when he sees his cards. "I can't lose this one", he says, with a big grin on his face. Poker in cyberspace is perfect for anyone not having a poker face. Johan Eriksson shows me his hand. A full house, queens full of jacks. There are 260 dollars in pot. Jack from Ohio just folded his hand, but Hans from Norway and Steven from Australia both called Johan's 20 dollar bet. He shows me his hand again. "Can't lose this one", he says for second time. A click on mouse and Johan is 320 dollar richer. He was correct , he couldn't lose that one. We are neither in Las Vegas or in Atlantic City , but in a small one bedroom apartment in Copenhagen, Denmark. The battle is fought on internet, where cyberspace is lightening up Johan's computer screen. The online poker room is called Poker Stars, server is in Costa Rica somewhere, and players are from all over world. When poker online started at end of nineties, it created mixed feelings amongst real time casino poker players. Some took view that it would damage real poker games in casinos by tempting regular customers to only play poker online. Others were fascinated that they could remain at home and play poker (in underwear) against real people from whole world. Online poker was as sent from heaven for those who felt uncomfortable in a casino poker room or had a hard time finding a poker room near to home.
| | Free, Legal Music OnlineWritten by Daniel Punch
Almost everyone has heard about massive crack down on Internet music piracy that has been occurring over past few years. Napster was taken down (although it has now returned as a pay service), other file sharing programs now require users to pay for a license and RIAA and other similar organizations are doing their best to hunt down copyright offenders and put an end to their crime sprees. The consumers on other hand argue that their actions hurt nobody, that there is no damage done to anyone by their not buying an album. Furthermore, they claim, MP3s allow them to sample a CD before purchasing it, thus actually helping sales.I'm not here to argue pros and cons. Basically it's not worth it, as neither side of argument will ever see opposition's point of view. What I'd like to do is take a look at completely free and legal alternative to 'stealing' music. Those wonderfully talented musicians who are willing to put their creations online to download for free, solely for joy of spreading their creations to masses. Free music is surprisingly easy to come by, even music by famous bands. Sometimes it needs to be 'streamed' from Internet, meaning that you can only listen to a song while you're online, but with ever-growing popularity of broadband Internet this is really no longer a problem. Sites such as MP3.com and purevolume.com provide free music by almost any band you can think of, although there is a large amount of it that has to be streamed and not downloaded. A search for 'free legal MP3 downloads' will reveal a huge number of pages to visit. For something specific, try visiting artist's website, or site of their record label. These will often offer a few sample tracks to download for free. It's not quite as convenient as having access to every song that you want, but it's not a bad alternative. But how about we forget about mainstream for just a while and move towards alternative? Towards hopefuls, talented bands that have yet to be 'noticed'. There are a huge number of these smaller bands out there that are sticking their stuff online for any and all to listen to, just so that they can be heard. These can be easier to find, because most MP3 sites will be filled with these smaller acts. A great place to start is http://www.garageband.com/ or aforementioned http://purevolume.com
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