The sector seven plate was dropped as a desperate act to crush a dissenting voice ShinRa could not control. While it was an act of retribution, it was also an act of censorship and of control by intimidation- it was to serve as a warning so that no one else would attempt the act again.

SOPA and PIPA, the proposed Internet Security acts currently in the US congress, also seek the ability to control the flow of information, to be able to control and censor the information online, and this could be extremely problematic for website reliant on information that originates from other sources, including and especially this one.

Even in the reduced forms, these bills are dangerous and set a terrible precedent as far as free speech rights are concerned.

There is, however, a shiny golden wire of hope. Many sites, including Wikipedia, Google, Boingboing, and countless blogs, are going dark today as a form of protest against these bills, to demonstrate the terrible repercussions the ability to censor the internet would have. Many sites are urging their readers to contact their own congress members and urge them to vote against the bill.

We urge you to do the same. This bill would not just affect this site, it would affect us all, both here in the US and with possible aftereffects abroad as well.

So, The Lifestream stands with the Blackout and Against SOPA and PIPA, for a free and uncensored internet.

We just hope you stand with us all too.

UPDATE: All done, we’re now on a 1 GHz virtual PC with a fat internet pipe. Will do some more tweaks and optimizations to increase speed and decrease server load even more; keep an eye out on this thread.

We have experienced some downtime on the forums some time ago, in part due to peaked activity, in part due to shitty vB plugins, in part due to a restrictive webhost that blocks databases at times of peak activity. With that in mind, we decided to go forth and move to a new, better host – again.

This time around, we will be moving from a shared hosting account on Hostgator to a ‘virtual private server’ hosted by Leaseweb. The benefits of the latter are pretty big: A ‘dedicated’ machine, so no database blocks anymore, full control over the system (SSH / commandline control, w00t), and a lot more flexibility in what kind of software we can use.

The plan is:

* Close the forums for new replies at 3 PM my time – that’s 2 PM GMT and about… 9 AM eastern time? Something like that.
* Request a full backup from the host. This may take a few hours, depending on Hostgator support.
* Move the backup to the new server. This’ll take about as long as it takes to transfer a ~5 GB backup file – probably about an hour and a half to two hours, but it depends.
* Unpack and setup the backup. This should only take a few minutes
* Change some settings
* Test stuff
* Switch the domain name over to the new server. I set it so it should only take a few minutes for the DNS change to take effect, but results may vary.
* With luck, the whole move will take about three hours. But that’s with luck, so no guarantees, might take longer.

While we’re moving, feel free to head over to awesome sites like FFOF, SO, or goatse.cx.

Alternatively, join the TLS IRC at irc.ipocalypse.net, channel #tls.

As many of you may have noticed, TLS’s main site and forums have been going up and down a lot over the last several days. We’ve contacted our host and made some optimizations to the server, which should hopefully keep things up and running properly. We’re also looking into the possibility of dedicated hosting options to ensure that any future site outages are as brief as possible (pronounced: hopefully won’t happen at all).

Overall, thanks for bearing with us during the downtime, and we’re working hard to keep things running smoothly for all of our loyal fans.

HypochondriacPiano has put together a fan tribute album, “Final Fantasy VII: Pulse of Life.” This music has been featured on the TheLifestream’s On the Way to a Smile Audiobooks, and if you’ve wanted to get your hands on it, and listen to it on your portable mp3 player of choice, now’s your chance! Click Here to Download the Album in .RAR and here as a .ZIP and be sure to let us know what you think in the comments!

Hello all,

It seems that our domain name expired and was replaced with a generic advertising site for a while today. As it turned out, our domain name had expired, and due to administrative fail we were not notified of our impending doom.

I was able to contact the host and fix things before it became unrecoverable – I believe there’s a grace period after it expires to fix things. Here’s to hoping this doesn’t happen again. We apologise for the inconvenience.

On the upside, this reminded me that we registered the thelifestream.net domain three years ago, September 25th, 2008. We celebrated our three years anniversary with a few hours downtime. Woo!

TLS was mentioned in the new digital magazine put out by Square Enix.

One of their favorite fansites? D’awwww, tanks Square. :3

Thanks to Arianna for the heads up.

For the past several days, we here on the TLS forum have been taking part in a fun little exercise called the 30 Days of Final Fantasy. The idea is that you talk about one FF-related topic a day for 30 days. These are the topics for each day:

Day 01 – Your favourite FF game!
Day 02 – Your least favourite Final Fantasy game.
Day 03 – Your favourite Final Fantasy theme/song.
Day 04 – Your favourite Final Fantasy party from your favourite game.
Day 05 – Your favourite Final Fantasy City/Town.
Day 06 – Favourite part of your favourite Final Fantasy game.
Day 07 – Least favourite part of your favourite Final Fantasy game.
Day 08 – Favourite Chocobo Version.
Day 09 – Favourite Moogle Version.
Day 10 – Best Final Fantasy scene ever.
Day 11 – Final Fantasy game that disappointed you.
Day 12 – Final Fantasy game you’ve played more than 5 times.
Day 13 – Your favourite version of Cid.
Day 14 – Favourite Final Fantasy male character.
Day 15 – Favourite Final Fantasy female character.
Day 16 – Your favourite Final Fantasy limit break.
Day 17 – Favourite Final Fantasy mini game.
Day 18 – Favourite Final Fantasy opening sequence.
Day 19 – Best Final Fantasy outfit.
Day 20 – Best Final Fantasy hair.
Day 21 – Favourite Final Fantasy pairing/ship.
Day 22 – Favourite Final Fantasy summon.
Day 23 – Least Favourite Final Fantasy mini game.
Day 24 – Best Final Fantasy quote.
Day 25 – Final Fantasy game you plan on playing (old or new).
Day 26 – OMG WTF? Final Fantasy moment.
Day 27 – Best Final Fantasy storyline.
Day 28 – First Final Fantasy game obsession.
Day 29 – Current Final Fantasy game obsession.
Day 30 – Saddest Final Fantasy character death.

I got the idea to post about it from LiveJournal user Xi-Feng, who got the idea from LJ user toffeethesnob, who got the idea from LJ user Korynth, who got the idea from LJ user wheatcakes.

(Sheesh! I hope that’s all the credits where credit is due.)

Anywho, it’s been a lot of fun, and I’m making this frontpage post to invite more of you to get in on it. It’s not too late to take part, as it’s only up to Day 06 on the forum right now (I myself am only up to Day 05, as I started a day later than everybody else).

So, come join us. =) Share your favorites, your least favorites, your disappointments, and the Final Fantasy moments that inspired you, made you cry, or that you’ll never forget for whatever other reasons.

How familiar are you with the Final Fantasy games that came before VII? Howabout the game that is most frequently cited to challenge VII’s dominance over the fandom? Have you played it before at all? If so, how long ago was that? Would you like to give it another run-through? Maybe you love this entry so much you’ll jump at any excuse to play it again – I know that’s how many of us feel about it.

Whether you have played it before or not, join us as we journey together through Final Fantasy VI; experience the game that gives Final Fantasy VII a run for its money and presents us with one of the most memorable villains in all of video gaming!  While we progress through the game, pausing at checkpoints, join us for discussion on what you’ve just seen. How did you react? Did you interpret things differently than others? Of course, you can also seek help from more experienced players in tough battles and special items.

Final Fantasy VI is the journey of a group of people fighting, for various reasons, an oppressive empire. Magic, lost to humankind after a war which nearly destroyed them, has reappeared, and one man has set his sights on its source. Will you help us stop him?

Can you?

We just started today, and the checkpoint is to merely play through the game’s opening moments. See here for more details and discussion!

This is Cookie Monster, overlord of what is deemed Great and Just.  I’ve been telling the site staff to make an announcement about this for months.  And for their reluctance, I’m posting myself.   We have made a twitter account that you all can find and follow right here.  We will be updating it soon.  So, let the tweeting begin, we hope to see you there.

Here at the Lifestream.net, we’re usually looking for new and interesting angles to examine Final Fantasy Seven from, and it is with this in mind we are announcing our new front page feature- essays and articles written and submitted by you- the fans. Towards this end, we are proud to present the first of what hopefully will be many user editorials, an essay by a girl named June- also known as Messenger of the Ancients- reposted in its entirety with her permission. For some context, this essay is in part a response to my and Squall of Seed‘s recent articles, as well as the Love Triangle Debate that has plagued much of Final Fantasy Seven Fandom, so you may wish to familiarize yourself with these before reading. In any case, please, sit back, relax, and enjoy the essay.

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So, given how long Voices of the Lifestream has been in existence, we’re not sure how many of you haven’t heard of it before, but since we here at Thelifestream.net are into all things Final Fantasy Seven and want to encourage fan projects of all sorts, we figured we’d tell everyone who wasn’t already aware know about this awesome fan orchestrated remix album to the great songs of Final Fantasy Seven, and let you listen to these awesome arrangements at the same time.

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So the final vote for the most memorable moment of the Compilation of FFVII begins now. Which moment has had the most impact amongst the fans of the Compilation? Well…it’s now a final match between these four events. Below you’ll find the ranking results of the previous vote. Now we’ll see which moment is most memorable of all.

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