[UPDATE] The 100 lost PAL SNES games have been recovered

549px-PAL-SNES.png

byuu, creator of the cycle-accurate SNES emulator higan and behind a preservation project for SNES games, has killed the project after a loss of 100 PAL games during shipping. While he still plans to dump the Japanese games that he bought, the hopes of getting a complete PAL set are gone.

On January 5th, a package containing 100 PAL games were sent to me to dump. The United States Postal Service has either stolen or lost this package. Most likely the former.

Do not tell me to wait longer. I don't want to fucking hear it. The package is gone and nobody can help. I don't want to ride on some platitude that "HERP DERP MAYBE ONE DAY THEY'LL SHOW UP!" They won't. There is no point in false hope, that's cruel to both me and the donor, and it will just delay reimbursement.

The next step is to try and obtain the insurance claim, and then I'm going to start making payments each paycheck to try and reimburse the sender until he is able to repuchase all 100 games locally. Or if he prefers, he can just keep the money that's equivalent to the value of the cartridges. I won't be purchasing the carts to be delievered to me, because I don't want to risk shipping them back.

I also want to be clear, the donor never asked for reimbursement upon loss. It was my decision and it's going to happen, because I can't live with myself if it doesn't.

Regardless, this much is certain: the SNES preservation project is officially and permanently dead.

This is a great loss to the emulation scene and its attempt at preserving the original systems accurately. Some people are suggesting byuu to set up a Patreon/GoFundMe and he seems okay with the idea if he can fully pay back for what was lost this time.

:arrow: Source
:arrow: byuu's overview


EDIT: Feb 23

It appears that the games have been recovered! The $10,000 collection of rare Super Nintendo games are no longer missing. According to the USPS, the games were actually lost, due to the label ripping off, rather than the rumors of package theft that had been floating around. Byuu, the person behind the project now says the SNES Preservation Project is no longer dead. In the linked blog post below, Byuu writes that had the media not covered this incident, these games would have sat in a facility for months, before ultimately winding up in an auction. There was a clear address on the box, even after the label had been damaged. He says while the project will continue on in the years to come, but he will never trust the postal service with larger shipments due to this issue.

My package was sitting in Atlanta, GA for well over a month with my address clearly visible right on the box. Had this case not been escalated to the media, it likely would have gone up for auction in a bin with other electronics sometime in March. As absolutely thrilled as I am to have these games finally delivered, I do still believe the entire experience reflects poorly on the capabilities of the USPS. I hope that they will improve, but ... I'm guessing that's not likely.

If you donated to his Patreon to help recover the cost of the lost games, Byuu is offering a full refund.

:arrow: SOURCE
 
Last edited by Chary,
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Saiyan Lusitano

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I'm not sure that's true.
Anyway, I don't think he bought the games, he just borrowed them.
On eBay, the normal procedure is that the seller makes sure he/she sends the product and it gets delivered to the buyer. If you think it's not true then explain why.
 

Kioku

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On eBay, the normal procedure is that the seller makes sure he/she sends the product and it gets delivered to the buyer. If you think it's not true then explain why.
Once the tracking number is live (moving), it's out of the seller's hands. Unless you get what you didn't pay for.
 

Haloman800

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Private enterprise and communities can print their own money, and have done for years. https://www.financial-dictionary.info/terms/local-money/
Company scrip/truck systems are often outlawed, though such things usually came about after serious abuse of such systems.
Unless you can show me a private company that can print the only valid currency across the country (The U.S. Dollar), then you've lost this argument. The government printing money is exactly the same as counterfeiting. Both devalue existing currency. It's one of the most viscous crimes of the government, because it hurts the poor the most (by decreasing their spending power and trapping them in debt).

Taxation is hardly theft.
Not an argument
It is a socio-political concept that has existed for thousands of years and has fairly clearly defined remits in the modern world.
Also not an argument.
The can be unfair aspects of the system but as a general concept to call if theft is a hard sell.
Still not an argument.
It is legally enforced because of the free rider problem.
It is legally enforced because if you don't pay them off, they will send men with guns to your house who will kidnap you & throw you in a cage if you don't pay, and if you defend yourself, they'll shoot you.

This is important, let's walk through an exercise. If a person steals your car, is it theft? What about if two people steal your car? What if 10 people steal your car, is it still theft? What if 10 people take a vote (and allow you to vote also) on stealing your car, is it still theft? What if they steal your car and give you a bike, still theft? What if they steal your car, give you a bike, and give a poor person a bike? At what point does it stop being theft?

Eminent domain is an odd one and certainly not without scope for abuse. That said I can see the value in having the option rather than having progress and public works held up by someone for no great reason other than they don't want to move.
Jeb Bush in Florida tried to use eminent domain to bully an elderly man out of the home he'd lived in his entire life. Eminent domain is the equivalent of the Godfather holding a gun to a persons head and forcing them to sell something. No matter what person or group of persons does it, it is violence and it is immoral.

I find capital punishment to be horribly distasteful, and probably ineffective to boot, but the very same concepts that allow killing in self defence would appear to provide the groundwork for capital punishment to be a thing.
Self defense is the only valid situation, and it's only valid to the extent you're in danger (you can't shoot someone for bumping into you). What did the children at Waco Texas do, when the government burned them alive? What did the civilians in Syria do to justify death by non-stop drone strikes under Obama? The government doesn't need a valid reason to murder you, or anyone else.
 
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Nyteshade714

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I've had no faith in the US Postal Service for years. I watched them "deliver" the PS3 I ordered from ebay by casually tossing the box into the ditch in front of my house. If I hadn't been there to grab it, somebody could have easily swiped it from the side of the road without even getting out of their car.
 

FAST6191

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Unless you can show me a private company that can print the only valid currency across the country (The U.S. Dollar), then you've lost this argument. The government printing money is exactly the same as counterfeiting. Both devalue existing currency. It's one of the most viscous crimes of the government, because it hurts the poor the most (by decreasing their spending power and trapping them in debt).

Not an argument Also not an argument. Still not an argument. It is legally enforced because if you don't pay them off, they will send men with guns to your house who will kidnap you & throw you in a cage if you don't pay, and if you defend yourself, they'll shoot you.

This is important, let's walk through an exercise. If a person steals your car, is it theft? What about if two people steal your car? What if 10 people steal your car, is it still theft? What if 10 people take a vote (and allow you to vote also) on stealing your car, is it still theft? What if they steal your car and give you a bike, still theft? What if they steal your car, give you a bike, and give a poor person a bike? At what point does it stop being theft?

Jeb Bush in Florida tried to use eminent domain to bully an elderly man out of the home he'd lived in his entire life. Eminent domain is the equivalent of the Godfather holding a gun to a persons head and forcing them to sell something. No matter what person or group of persons does it, it is violence and it is immoral.


Self defense is the only valid situation, and it's only valid to the extent you're in danger (you can't shoot someone for bumping into you). What did the children at Waco Texas do, when the government burned them alive? What did the civilians in Syria do to justify death by non-stop drone strikes under Obama? The government doesn't need a valid reason to murder you, or anyone else.

(Attempted) Inflation control by supply, give or take issues with fractional reserve, can be a fun one and . Personally I would view it as a form of social manipulation towards the end of getting people to continue doing things rather than resting on their laurels, or those of their ancestors, and as everybody else in the world is attempting to improve their lot in life the stagnation of your economy once people can afford to be fat and happy is not necessarily a good thing. Maybe once the world has achieved the resource utopia of some of your previous debates we could revisit the issue. Whether the balance could stand to be tweaked is certainly a matter that could be discussed, and I do find the credit rating system, arguably the representation of the debt system, in the US to be unpleasant (the notion of a credit builder loan aimed at general people and not those maybe trying to restore some credit being something that turns my stomach at times). That said credit ratings are the largely unknown logic product of private companies.
Anyway any private enterprise can mine themselves some bitcoin, or indeed attempt to establish their own such system, and barter is still a thing, though may be subject to taxation at some level depending upon a variety of factors and could see the government call them (all things from the first part of the system) other instruments of wealth. Any other private enterprise would appear to be able to choose to accept such a currency, and assign values to debts accordingly. I will leave part of this hanging though as I will first have to read some of the truck systems code. Equally though law might get troubled if an aggrieved party chooses to invoke law of the land it appears there is even scope within that with the, often favoured, binding arbitration approach and there are even religious takes on the matter if that is the sort of thing that floats your boat ( http://peacemaker.net/arbitration/ ).

Previously you seem to have like to have said things are not an argument when they were clearly not intended to be (you have done it to obvious jokes in the past), as they might have been here. It is a rather weak tactic in debate, though I suppose as a statement on your part it is technically true in some of those instances. What you wrote there is clearly not my yellow spirit level. Language, even formal debate, does provide the option for some flavour and flourish, and I find such things to be both useful and enjoyable.
Still I would return to the free rider issue. With no funds you soon get no public works and no support systems, something I would consider desirable and seldom otherwise adequately provided by private enterprise or smaller communities (though they themselves often being called governing bodies presents an amusing definition quandary for the word choices you favour).

Your exercise is flawed, and not only in a "this, therefore that" with the government being able to define laws sense. To answer the question your answer could be repeated ad infinitum but is bears little relevance to the matter of taxation. I have a sense of the arguments you have and the worldviews of those that make similar ones and this would probably have to start with us discussing the idea of sovereignty of nations (the particular one favoured in Europe and thus the US being that of Westphalian sovereignty, though complicated in this instance by the manifest destiny idea somewhat unique to the US). This could be further complicated by all land on earth these days being claimed and free movement of individuals not being a thing. Suffice it to say though the US, and most countries following a similar model, would claim the right to set laws and thus taxes within its border, and somewhat more controversially on its own citizens when not in those borders. The US nominally sets this taxation to primarily be for the good of the people rather than enrichment of rulers and military/bureaucracy which works for me. I don't know if it is possible to legitimately live tax free (give or take sales tax) in the US right now, and given the general criminalisation of "homelessness" I could see it being harder than many places. If that is your grievance rather than the general notion then we have scope for a discussion.

So there are cunts in the world, this is a known thing and while it stops some fun we tend to try to press on anyway and minimise damage. Violence can be defined, especially when talking law, as excessive force where force can be a justified reaction. I would assert in this case that eminent domain can be, and should be, a justified use of force as a limit to individual rights in face of some measure of group would have to be the case. I sense this may be a sticking point though.

How immediate does the danger need to be? If you are charged with the protection of society that could provide scope from where I sit. For your examples wasn't waco considered a failure in law enforcement, something that unfortunately happens and should be addressed and seriously considered. The Syria stuff falls under war and foreign policy which is something of a different matter. Though in any case I can not imagine a lack of desire to minimise such things, and steps taken to achieve those goals.
 
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Saiyan Lusitano

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Once the tracking number is live (moving), it's out of the seller's hands. Unless you get what you didn't pay for.
That still doesn't matter. If it doesn't reach the hands of the buyer it's still your responsibility because if it goes missing, you have to refund the buyer whether tracked or not. Just before yesterday I kept checking the tracking info of an order I sent to a buyer of mine and made sure he received it (it was being held at the post office due to not being able to receive it) because if it didn't, that would be trouble.

--------------------- MERGED ---------------------------

I've had no faith in the US Postal Service for years. I watched them "deliver" the PS3 I ordered from ebay by casually tossing the box into the ditch in front of my house. If I hadn't been there to grab it, somebody could have easily swiped it from the side of the road without even getting out of their car.
Exactly. Even tracked packages are at risk of being stolen since drivers sometimes have the terrible habit of leaving it anywhere where anyone can just steal it.
 

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