Friggin' Sweet!

Sweet ass! I got my OpenGL Goban working on my laptop! Now I can play go in 3D!

Hey, funny story; true story, this program will not work on windows. It doesn't like my video card, but in linux, it doesn't seem to mind the video card. Go fig... heh, "go"...

Well... it was kinda cool. that's all...

It was a pain and a half getting all the libraries the program required. Coming from a linux fan, library dependencies has got to be the most annoying thing about linux...

At least RedHat Linux (which doesn't say much). I know Gentoo has a great package manager/downloader/installer, and Debian, and OSX... I guess RedHat just sucks... Oh well. Such is life... But seriously, go is the game you spend 5 minutes learning and the rest of your life perfecting. Seriously.

Gah!

Why do I keep forgetting that my birthday is tomorrow?

Is anyone out there?

ert! no Christmas update???

Yeah, well, like I said over and over, money's been tight... So I've been very careful to downplay the need of other people to buy us things... since... we can't buy them anything... But, I definately had a great time with my family and my girlfriend's family, the Lakers lost (I don't follow basketball, but I've grown annoyed with Kobe of late, and hoped he would lose.) I say "hoped HE would lose" instead of "hoped THE LAKERS would lose" because the lakers belong to Kobe (according to one of his many arrogant quotes).

Good heavens! The highlight of christmas, a four day weekend, possibly my birthday (Dec 30!), and probably new years, is almost assuredly going to be going paintballing yesterday...

Sounds good to me!

oy.

"Paintball update" or "It hurts to move"

ow. Soreness... ow...

I was out paintballing yesterday. I love paintballing... I have the scars to prove it! ^_^;; I haven't been able to go out for about two months (Ok, you know when you spell something, and the word looks wrong, but you know it's right? That's how I'm feeling about the word "months" right now. It's reminding me too much of the word "moths". I seem to think it needs a "u". "Mounthes"? I threw the "e" in there for good measure... back to the story!) Money's been tight since the move, and I haven't been able to convince myself to spend $50 on a box of paint, and $15 on admission, $12 for air fills, $5 for food, and $2.75(?) for gas for about 30 miles round trip. Oh my goodness... I'd never written it all down like that, it will require all my concentration NOT to total all that...

Recently I'd been longing for my beloved paintball in the usual depressing manner...
Thinking about paintball...
Looking at my paintball gear...
Dusting my paintball pictures...
And generally doing my best to annoy myself with the fact that I hadn't been paintballing in a long time.

I went to a movie last Saturday (Christmas) with my girlfriend and her borther from the Navy (down for christmas). We saw A Series Of Unfortunate Events. It was kind of Tim Burton-y and odd in a good way. Got in for free, so I bear the movie no ill-will. Anyways, before the movie started I saw a friend of mine walk in. A friend of mine from paintball. He came up and we exchanged the usual pleasantries, and he said I should come by the shop, because he got a ton of new merchandise. I told him I'd go sunday, and I did. I spent about 3 hours there (you pretty much just hang out at a paintball shop), went for coffee with my friend made up my mind that I'd go paintballing monday, bought some paint ($38), and a free air fill ($0 ^_^).

That night I was cleaning my gear only to discover that I had no pants. Quite a suprising discovery indeed.

My JT Paintball pants retail for $85 (worth it), but I buy them at Sport Chalet on clearance for $53 (Sweet!) Spending over $50 on pants was my first big paintball expence (after my initial purchase and decision to pursue the sport). At first I was unsure how pants could cost over $50 dollars. Once at the field the guy at the shop (there's a canopy-style shop set up on location) pointed to my pants and said to another player, "when I was at the tourney in florida, I could get those pants for $47, come back, and sell them for $87!" I replied, "then I don't feel so bad about paying $53 for them." He then answered with confusion, disbelief, and a question of where I got them. I said Sport Chalet. to which he replied (and I quote), "Fucking sport chalet, they don't give a shit if they lose money or not, it's all just inventory, inventory, inventory..."
Since then, Sport Chalet is my first stop for any form of lesser paintball gear... :)

Well, that was quite a digression. Anyways...

The pants had built in knee pads (a big plus), breathed well, protected from the elements (namely the elements PAINT & MUD!), and had a soft inlay (pants inside the pants) for great comfort...

ENOUGH ABOUT THE FRIGGIN PANTS!

Dude, where the fuck was I? Oh yeah, so, I'd just discovered I had no pants... Which put a damper on tomorrows activities... No pants = No paintballing. I know you can wear normal pants, but only if you want them to get torn to shit (if you're playing right! ;). Plus I didn't have any jeans to waste (or any jeans for that matter) My paintballing future was looking bleak... Hope was fading, I was getting light headed, and then... suddenly... My girlfriend said, "well I guess you'll just have to go to Sport Chalet tomorrow morning".

It was as if the heavens parted and down rode my girlfriend atop a golden chariot bearing my JT Tournament Paintball Pants unto me!
An angelic choir began singing sweet verse!
Dew shimmered as it clung to a bending blade of grass!
Touchstone pictures made a good Batman movie!
Ok, so some of those things didn't happen. Or maybe all of them; it's unimportant. What WAS important was that I... WAS... GOING... PAINTBALLING!
[angelic choir]
................that's enough.
[/angelic choir]
I was pretty excited...
So the next morning, I got the pants, loaded my pods, and went to Tombstone Paintball at the Serfas/Auto Center Drive exit off the 91 in Carona. It's more of a family field, you'll find about 20% advanced, 30% intermediate, 50% beginner. Good for some wholesome fun shooting you fellow man with balls of paint at 280 feet per second. This is compaired to the ultra-competative atmosphere at SC Village, known for their 20 vs 20 free-for-alls where survival is 20% luck... and 80% luck... :) Players who frequent there are widely known for being more aggressive, and... volitile... (gotta chose my words carefully, some SC patrons may be reading!) But, SC has definately got better fields (hands down) So if you can go with a private group, go SC, if just a walk-on for fun, go Tombstone...
Jesus Christ, are we ever going to get to the end of this fucking story?!

I got out twice, once was we lost 3-4 guys off the break that... was bad. and the other I got a little cocky and stayed out for too long, I got it in the left hand. But I got 15 kills that I can be sure of, and specially assisted (provided supression/deversion fire) in 3 kills). It was a pretty good day. Last time I went out I got wailed on, I had like 3 confirmed kills... Bad day. Still fun though. Just not as fun... :] By the end of the day, I knew I was getting better.

Got some In'n'Out (THE BEST burgers in the history of burgerkind) went home, took a shower, and went to the movies with my girl. What a fucking day. Kick ass.

Today... I'm so sore... Kick ass... It'll hurt, but kick it anyways...

GAH! DAMNIT! That didn't even haev a point!!!!111ONE *explosion*

Hey you! ... Nice Pants...

Click for full sized image... IF YOU DARE!!!

When do we give away our freedom?

A talk radio station I listen to was discussing a study recently released...

over half of 750 americans phone-polled said that they would agree with forcing Muslim-Americans to register themselves with the government. About 22% agreed that it was OK to profile Muslims as possible terrorists.

This seemed unbelievable to me. I know there's a lot a fear right now, but really!

I had to call the station. I told the host that "A citizen is a citizen is a citizen, be they Muslim, african-american, or mexican. And a citizen has their own rights, and it is completely unfair to erode the rights of one group for ANY reason."

I think we all remember the Japanese internment camps... a proud point in american history? prolly not...

The host asked why I thought so many people were in favor of this, and I said that there is a lot of fear in our country right now, but we can't let it control our lives. And certainly not our civil liberties.

After I got off the phone with the host (Kevin Wall in for Larry Elder @ 790AM KABC) I listened to the other callers who made good points, and got me thinking.

Pragmatically, it makes sense to suspect muslims of terrorism
All suicide bombers and world trade center hijackers have been muslim
70y/o grandma from utah is probably NOT going to hijack the plane
You can expect people from a certain group (age/sex/religious background/etc) to proform acts of terrorism. I'm not sure anyone can disagree with that...

BUT, pragmatically, you can't expect law-breakers to obey the law
If you made all criminals register as criminals, I think that would be a short list.
What naturally follows from the criminals breaking the law by NOT registering and re-registering is by finding them, and forcing them to register.
But we're not talking about criminals here... These are Americans. US Citizens who have chosen a particular religion because they have the RIGHT to do so. And we're going to be kicking down their doors and forcing them to register themselves so we can watch them, and suspect them?

No.

Subsequent callers attacked the religion itself, stating that the Koran teaches that those who do not believe in the religion must die. While this may or may not be true, the point is irrelivent! In America you have the right of religious freedom. If your religion says you must break the law, then you will go to jail for breaking the law. It's up to you (your interpritation (sp?)) to decide what you believe in. And I don't know of any practicing Muslims living as your neighbors, members of your PTA, co-workers, etc. who are going around killing Americans because their religion says so.

We are punishing a group of citizens for religious preference.

There are a lot of religious folks in Ireland who murder people in the name of a popular religion, but does that make all members suspect? How on earth could it?!

Some may argue, that it's just a little registering, and the lawful Muslims will follow suit without incident.

But that's always how it starts...

Next thing you know, there is a crack down on those who aren't registered, and people are getting picked up on the street for not being able to show their proof of "registration". Can you imagine it? Walking down the street and being afraid that police are going to pick you up and question you for being Muslim?

That's the only place this could lead. You don't register for the hell of it. You register people so you can track them and monitor their doings.

But wait, this involves NON-Muslims too...

What if you're SUSPECTED of being a closet Muslim??? Does this mean that you're subject to all the same angst a "suspect terrorist" would have to go through???

Don't forget your civil rights...
Because you have none.

If you are suspected let me say that again...
if YOU, Joe Citizen, are SUSPECTED of being a terrorist or in league with terrorist organizations, you have NO rights
The patriot act made sure of that. You do NOT have the right to an attorney, you do NOT have the right to a speedy trial, you do NOT have the right to excercise the fifth ammendment, Do NOT pass GO, do NOT collect $200!

Funny isn't it?

You may be worried now, about how you, Joe Citizen can have your rights stripped from you in a second... Well... that's up to the person who wants to question you.

This is where this path leads. And if we want to face it with the mindset of "Gee, if we just round up all the Muslims, we'll be ok..." Then soon someone will say, "Gee if we just round up all the [insert your religion here], we'll be ok..."

Wiki Wiki What?

Wiki = The Hawaiian word for "quick"

For those of you unfamiliar with Wiki, (<-me) Wiki is an OPEN online board. Think of it as a TRUE board. In that anyone who can approach it, can make changes to it.

But there are some INTERESTING social aspects here I don't want you to miss...

When I say make changes, I mean make any changes. This means that if I want to edit your post I can do so. This means, that if I want to erase the entire board and remove all information from it I can do so.

I'm sure many of you have been members of or read threads on public forums. You know how there's always that one guy who wants to crap on everything??? what are you talking about ONE GUY?! :\ What on earth do you think would happen if you put up a public white board and tied a dry erase marker to it and an eraser? God only knows! Some of you might argue that it depends on the location and the board, and the type of people local to it. My answer to that is kind of loaded, because I must say that the location is the internet* with an asterisk... because, everyone doesn't visit every site a site develops a certain kind of locale (<-certain type of surfer)

If you have a security site with a Wiki board you are probably going to get a lot of mature discussion. Heh... you'd think that wouldn't you... But if you get a... oh, lets say, Xbox Wiki board... it's probably going to have to be moderated SOMEHOW. Lest it be filled with ASCII images of penises... oy...

Now, I SAY that, but I don't know it. Which brings me back to the suprising social aspects...

1. People are respectful.
2. People are careful about what they say when they know anyone can edit it
3. People are genuinely interested in sharing ideas
4. People are just happy to communicate with others
5. People post links. To avoid posting opinion?

This varies DRASTICALLY (sp?) from some popular public forums. Where moderators have to step in and close threads or edit posts, or squelch users. It's interesting to know how people sort of govern themselves. (one of the principals of anarchy) But my more cynical side wants to warn everyone that someone's going to get the bright idea to crap on everyone and delete entire boards for lack of anything else better to do. And when people crap on eachother here, boards get deleted, but when people crap on eachother in anarchy there are usually more body bags...

Keep in mind that repressing your opinion from certain matters is in no way healthy for the discussion, but for things like informational boards or just communicating with people all over the world, this seems like an interesting experiment in communication... Kind of sounds like this would make an interesting college paper...

Ed edited it
Ed edited it
Ed edited it
I like saying that. It's fun to say.

Haunted chopsticks

A bit ago, I'd heard some chatter about "Chronicles of Riddick: Escape from Butcher Bay". Very positive (professional) reviews from sources who are not usually COMPLETE WHORES Breathe, man... breathe... for the Video Game industry. So we bought it and Jet Set Radio Future (both used) from our local Game Stop. I don't play many console games (I got my first non-gameboy console about a year ago, and played Halo, NFS Underground, and Agressive Inline. Pretty good games. I'd already played Halo on PC, but I still enjoy the challenge on Xbox. Escape from Butcher Bay is Awesome. I couldn't put it down. (played for 6pm to 6am) What? sometimes that gamer blood pumps through my veins more ferociously, it can't be helped! The gameplay was fun, the fist fighting was a lot of fun! It kind of felt like I was playing a very sexy-looking splinter cell at times. The graphics are excellent, I've since read that many hold this game as the best looking Xbox game (even over halo 2). Vin Diesel looks like Vin Diesel. NO SHIT. It's unbelieveable. They used his voice, and when the first cutscenes started I thought I was watching live-action! The ambient elements of the game are outstanding, the attention to detail really makes you feel like you've been thrown into the worst "slam" in the universe. I was VERY impressed.

Purchasing the game prompted me to begin reading some reviews kinda back-asswards right?

This brings me to some of the reasons I dislike reading game reviews...

Everybody's a fucking expert
"Well, IMHO, this game was the worst game ever made! I heard they were using the [technical term] shading engine, and I just knew that once the story development went to [some company] that it was going to be bad. That coupled with the drop in [game company] stock of -23/152, and I just KNEW it was going to suck!"
Seriously guys. Do you think you're fooling anyone? Get a life, and try to devote 1/16 of the effort you put into video games into learning something new!

Bitching about gameplay time
[whine]"Oh my gawd! I couldn't believe the game was only 1541 hours long! I was like, 'why did I EVEN shell out the $2.99 to rent it a blockbuster ANYWAY?!'"[/whine]
Since when did gameplay time become such a huge fucking deal?! If the game wasn't under 2000 hours it's instantly crap to them! Just because you don't have anything better to do with your life doesn't mean that game designers have to accomidate you!

The one guy who doesn't even know what he thinks!
"This game was really bad except for the good parts, I was ready to gouge my eyes out from listening to the dialogue and the fist fighting was awesome, I've never seen a game pull off good melee fighting, and the gameplay just wore on and on and the cutscenes were amazing!"
How is this helpful? GET YOUR SHIT TOGETHER BEFORE YOU EMBARRASS YOURSELF ON THE INTERNET! (you wouldn't be the first though!)

Weapon selection
"I was playing 'realistic fighter XXXIVIIIF' and I was SOOOOOO disappointed at the limited number of weapons! They had a pistol, automatic rifle, shotgun, melee weapon, and grenades!!!! I couldn't believe it! I mean it just shows a lack of creativity when you can't come up with new weapons! I'll come up with some now... Rabbit launcher, Termite missile, Haunted chopsticks, Keyboard/Sword/Gun/Whistle... Was that so hard?! If I can't fight as a Marine in Korea without a pair of Haunted Chopsticks, how am I supposed to enjoy myself?!?!!?!?!/1/!/1/1/1/!!!?!!?!?/"
God, just because the developers didn't want to include some dumbshit idea for some idiotic weapon doesn't mean that they suck, or lack creativity, or eat babies, or any of that. If they made the game one way isn't because they wanted it that way! Period. (<-Period)

Ok, lets wrap this up... STFU!... Ok... Now, when you've played so many games that you become so pointlessly cynical and desperately eager to tear down any game that more than 5% of players enjoyed, it's time to quit video games, and start some other hobby. Like reading, or hitting yourself in the head with a tac hammer.

After being throughly annoyed by these strange self-hating humans, I will disregard everything they said, and continue playing with fresh eyes. AND enjoy the experience. Plus I plan to play it on the increasing levels of difficuilty, because what's life without challenges? Ummm... death??? what kind of statement was that?

Out.

OH NOES!!!!!!1111ONE

Smashed, Hammered, Wasted, etc...

Sounds like fun???

I was invited to a medium sized party this Saturday. Yesterday I got a call from the host who advised that the party was going to start early (late afternoon) to allow for a bit of food, followed shortly by hours of drinking, and crashing there. We were advised to bring a blanket because we shouldn't depend on being able to drive home. Dually noted.

I was never one for drinking. I've been known to do so with close friends, but never purely for social reasons. It just never held much of an allure to me. Instead, it held quite the opposite.

How many drunks do you remember fondly?

Yes, I know drinking isn't synonymous with "getting drunk" or any of those other colorful euphamisms. But it just never really made sense to me.

As a result, on the opportunities I've had to get drunk I've taken care to become only buzzed, or (on one occasion) really buzzed. This was kind of fun, I suppose, I remember everything, I think! and I can say with relative self-impugnity that I had fun.

This time, however...

I openly plan to take my time getting drunk so I can enjoy the ride (and possibly forget) as much as possible.
I realize that is is kind of an odd thing to plan for, I've never really been a person who plans ahead, heh... but I've always been careful around alcohol, because I don't think there's anything cool or smart or funny about stumbling about, and puking all over yourself. Ok, maybe funny...

But I suppose I'll soon find out. Funny, since I've decided this, I've been looking forward to Saturday very much. I suppose I'm just anxious to try new things!

Isn't that what life's all about???

Now, I shall away to the corner! To buy some cocain, and try yet another new thing!
Nothing like living life to its fullest!

Nerds

There is little that pisses me off more than nerds.

I know a lot about computers, I appreciate computers, I am intelligent, I am a great learner, and am quick at mathematics. But have no delusions... I AM a GEEK. I am NOT a nerd. Nerds are people who think that having more knowledge than another person makes them better than other people. They may not admit it, some might not even know it, but they do. But the people around them know, they can tell it in the tone of their voice.

How can you tell a Geek from a Nerd???

Easy. A geek will know about things. A nerd will know about EVERYTHING.

I went to the store to buy some tomatos--
Did you know that tomatos are actually fruits? But I think it should be another classification because of the acid content-- *SLAP!*

Generally speaking, a geek may annoy you because you find geeks annoying. But a nerd will annoy you because he just WON'T SHUT UP ABOUT THINGS HE "KNOWS".

This includes things like asking questions and then answering them...
We definately can't do it this way. Why? Because it wouldn't be bandwidth efficient. Why? Because the use of a connection-less protocol can increase speed, but the gains in speed wouldn't outweigh the possiblity of lost packets. Why? Because connection-less protocols don't use the three-way-handshake method of data transmission. Why? Because... they... just don't.
When they get stuck like that, a solid hit with a 2x4 to the back of the head will usually get back to where they should be... Just like a western digital hard drive! Oh! I'm so bad! :)

The above was something I had to endure in a recent staff meeting, and the catylist for this post. I was rather annoyed that our staff meeting time was being absorbed by these idiots trying to sell us their crap, while other, more pertainent, topics get pushed back another two weeks.

Another thing... Nerds are fidgety (sp?) they're always twitching, or moving their hands excessively, and all the crap.

Nerds think that if they've got a thought in their head, they've got to share it with everyone. Nerds finish your sentances, and jump at the chance to correct you to make themselves feel superior by being correct.

Geeks are more like cool nerds. We know what they know, but we keep our mouths shut until it comes time to dispense enlightenment. :)

Hence the phrase: Network Guru

We sit atop a mountain of legacy hardware in deep meditation, contemplating cool names for our nethack characters. When someone draws near to us, it is, in most cases, not to ask for wizdom, but to force it from us, by stating idiotic nonesense. This, of course, causes us to strike them down with our superior knowledge, and pragmatic thinking. I'm getting goose-bumps!


Actualy, now that I've written it, I'm not sure that I agree with it. Geeks vs Nerds, I mean. Maybe I just used "nerds" to put a common label on the kind of person I described, I mean, there ARE humble nerds... I think that there should be another classification between Geeks and Nerds due to their high acid content--[Hit with 2x4!!!]

Haiku

This one was for a coworker of mine who's son's name is Tristain.

I had a nice mouse
Then Tristan found my nice mouse
I had a nice mouse

I wrote this in a moment of encompassing futility.

Work my ten hour day
Up all night watching patches
Late to work again

This one was for fun, I do like (well prepaired) tofu though.

Tofu once again.
Flavor devoid healthy goo.
Make some real food.

What? I love pineapple!

Pineapple is good
Pineapple in light syrup
Pineapple pancakes

We're all so disconnected, but so united we don't even know it

We're stuck in traffic
People are hot and angry
Honks of brotherhood

Ah Nethack... Why must I love it so?

Goodbye Jim the Rogue
Killed by a newt while helpless
Must I love Nethack?

After being forced to use IE.

*Click* Pop-up *Click* Pop!
Do you trust "Speed download bar"?
I'll switch to Firefox

This one was forced. I think it shows.

Bill loaded windows
A computer seppuku
Death by your own code

Hell, the code he used to write windows 3.1 is probably still in XP! hahaha... *sob*

Is my boss watching me???

Yes.

After reading an article off of MSN, I remembered that people still suffer under the delusion of privacy in the workplace. Please, allow me to teach those of you who believe this something very important:

Anything that takes place on hardware (or software) owned by a company is property of the company.(<-period)

This means, surfing the net, chatting with your friends, e-mail, webmail, files on the hard drive, and phones (to an extent).

The reasoning behind this is a real reason, and a fake reason:
The fake one first...
If anyone comes to experience their workplace as a hostile one as a result of actions facilitated by company hard/software the company is liable.(<-period)
What this means is that if you write something mean spirited on your monitor and leave, and someone walks into your cubical and sees it, they can sue the company for creating a hostile work environment... It may sound stupid, but now-a-days everyone is overly sensitive... punk-ass-bitches... oh crud!

And now... the REAL reason...

Productivity.

For those of you who can't read very well, the dot at the end of that last word was a period. It signifies the end of the statement. Productivity is the REAL and ONLY reason behind monitoring the activity of their employees. They want to be sure that their employees are in fact working to make the company successful! This is not to say that they are enacting stalinist policies and slapping you across the face for any minor indiscression.

Believe it or not, your boss understands.

He knows that you have to screw around online a little, he may secretly resent not being able to keep you working 150% of the time, but he knows that if he does that; all he'll wind up with is a gaggle of burn-outs.

Winding down at the workplace with a little idle surfing is a prevelage, NOT a right. And once you start realizing that, the better off you will be.

But, keep in mind...

That there are many ways to spy on you, so before you even TYPE anything, think about who just may see it.

And all the information they gather on you, ESPECIALLY e-mail is COMPLETELY admissable in court... So be VERY careful to what you "admit" to.

Warwalking

My preliminary warwalk of our appartment was unsuccessful.

However, later I saw a network pop up, and made a few more passes around the appartment. There are three networks broadcasting SSID with 0 <-zero encryption... oh... and they're running DHCP, to make your illegal access to the internet even easier...

AND... One of the access points is still at (completely) factory default... With my knowledge of default passwords, I could get access to their wireless router and perform wholely anti-social things with it.

IF...

...I were so inclined. But that would not be very advantageous of me to do so, because that would deny me of the possiblity of connecting to their network and accessing the internet for free. (which is illegal to do on purpose) However, with my limited knowledge of computers :-> I wouldn't know what network I was connected to anyways!

Windows does the "hacking" for you anyways... It automatically selects any open wireless access point and connects to it for you. Some people get their own wireless access point and wind up accessing the internet on their neighbor's network and not even know it!

Way to code microsoft... way to code...

But anyways, one detail I neglected to mention, is that the best connection I can get to one of those three open (and one secure) networks... Is about a 5%... It goes drops in and out so much there's no use in even trying to access the internet.

But...

The wireless card that I have is rather old, and my friend was able to connect (strongly, might I add) to one of the networks broadcasting via DHCP public IP addresses... wow... that's just wrong... Although, I think I know where my server will be... :)

I'm looking forward to getting back on the internet once I get a kick-ass card

I hate people who say "NIC Card" Don't they know that the "C" in NIC stands for CARD?!... SERIOUSLY!...

Ok, now that that's out in the world, and on the internet for all to see... the healing can begin. Lets start the Hug Circle!

Nethack

Ah nethack.

So friggin difficuilt I can't stand it.

So friggin engrossing I... can't stand it.

An example of a phrase commonly heard in the nethack forums...
"THEY THINK OF EVERYTHING!!!"

Eat a floating eye corpse and you'll get ESP, which will allow you to see enemies anywhere on the map, but only while blinded. To take advantage of it, you may want to drink a potion of blindness, or preferably, find and wear a blindfold. Of course, while blindfolded, even with ESP you won't be able to see inanimate objects on the floor -- when you find piles of items, your character will have to "feel" for them. Oh, and you won't be able to read scrolls. Whoops! In that pile of items you just felt is a cockatrice corpse -- fortunately you were wearing gloves, otherwise you would've been turned to stone just by touching it. But now, blind and protected, you can pick up the cockatrice corpse and use it to attack monsters -- now your enemies will turn to stone when you strike them! Unfortunately, their inventory turns to stone as well. Hey, no problem -- you've got a pick-axe, so you can chisel open their statues to yield a pile of rocks and any of their old possessions. Sadly, thanks to the blindfold, you can't see a nearby pit and tumble inside. Too bad you were holding the cockatrice corpse -- it landed on top of you and turned you to stone. Yet Another Stupid Death, and another reason to cry out in anguish because they think of everything!

Nethack has a HUGE following, because it focuses on the aspects of gameplay as opposed to the aspects of flashy graphics, and scantily clad females...

This name has earned the nickname "The Gradewrecker" because, once you get started, you can kiss that GPA goodbye...

If you're interested in nethack, by all means, play it. And by all means, read anything you can about it (not including spoilers of course) the gameplay is very difficuilt, you get one life. You can suspend your game (leave and come back later) but not save. You must play this game with all of your brain... or you'll find yourself getting frustrated and tired of such a graphically-impaired game.

Don't take my word for it... find our for yourself...

The power of Linux

I was talking to a coworker who mentioned that netscreen has the ability to do VPN fail-overs, which means that if the VPN connection goes down, it will try to establish another VPN to another point of entry on the target network. He was talking about how cool it was, and that it was previously only available through one company, and they reqired thousands of dollars of equipment, and support to set it up. But now, it was available on semi-low-end netscreens, which was cool. I was suprised. I told him I could write a VPN fail-over script in 7 minutes on any of our linux gateways at customer sites. He was suprised.

This is the power of Linux, it's the power of total control. If you choose proprietary hardware (and software) then you are limited by those things. But If you have total control over a system. You can do almost anything.

You just need to think it up and it can be done.

If someone approached me and said, Wouldn't it be cool if when one VPN went down, the box could automatically establish another VPN to another point of entry on the target network??? I would have said, Hmm... that's an interesting idea, let me get back to you in 7 minutes... and voila! VPN failover is born!

Granted, not all of these solutions are easy... The afformentioned box that cost thousands of dollars and provided VPN failover also proformed load-balancing... that's a little bit more complicated to program in linux... BUT it can be done with diligance!

Computers stop being scary and stupid, and buggy, when you figure out how to tell them exactly what to do.

Because when you tell them what to do... They DO IT.

You just gotta speak their language, and when you can talk to them, and ask them to do all the piddly little shit that you don't want to do, or never had the time to do, or couldn't think quickly enough to do, or couldn't devote enough time to do, you'll realize that computers are kinda cool...

Wasting away...

I ate a bowl of cereal for lunch...

I forgot to bring my noodle bowl to work for "dinner"...

Starvation.

I'm very hungry.

I require sustanence.

With the change in my ashtray, I was able to purchase, like... half a soft taco from del taco... Actually, they gave me the entire half out of pity. I think I had enough for 1/3 of a taco...

Tea, tea, tea.

Tea is very filling... mostly...

I had green tea with a low steep time, with french vanilla cream and two sugars... it didn't even taste like tea. Still filling, but didn't taste like tea.

I suppose it's not the end of the world... I'll survive... and I'll probably be even more hungry in the future... but what does that matter? I'M HUNGRY NOW!!!!!!!111ONE

Ok... I feel better...

I'm going to get some more tea.

To market, to market...

The market is kinda fun. I think...

We go, and look for stuff to eat. Makes sense right??? It's kinda odd doing the Grown-Up Shopping... You find yourself saying things like, When the hell did it get so expensive to buy a *&$#ing box of cereal?! or the classic, But if I buy the store brand instead of the name brand, I can save $1.39... Does it make sense? I guess... It's just kind of wierd to walk around with a cart full of...

food...

Not junk food, mind you, serious food. Like Ssppaggettii (spelling?!) Sauce, and tomato soup, and bread, and cheese, and luncheon meats, etc...

When DID cereal get so damned expensive?!

We eat a lot of cereal.

No beer and no TV make Homer go crazy

We haven't gotten the cable hooked up yet, and I look forward to it taking away from my reading and programming time. O_o Heh... yeah. I was rather suprised that we were able to keep (somewhat) busy without the aid of television. I did find it rather difficuilt to watch my favorite programs though... But, such is life, and we've been keeping busy watching movies and reading books and thinking of places we should go but never going. I must say, however, that I do enjoy going to the market after 10pm. But I think I'll save that for another post. (keep you all in rapt anticipation!!!)(sure.)

Beer?

I was never much of a beer drinker, never saw the point. It tastes bad, and it doesn't even do a good job of getting you buzzed... I'm rather heavy with muscle (and a small spare tire! >_< *sob*), and it takes quite a few beers at 5% alcohol to get me "buzzed". Just mix a strong drink, down it, and get that instant buzz in a quarter the time! w00t! Anyways, I will soon be old enough to legally purchase alcohol, so... go me! My dad said he'd buy me 4 shots of taquila (sp?) after I get off of work. Thanks pop!

Invitation to house warming!

Housewarming! in one week!
OMGWTFSTFURTFM!!!11ONE
It's a POTLUCK!
(We have NOOO MONEYYYY!)
[Discreetness]
We're registered at Target!
[/Discreetness]
Gifts or food required for admittance!

Welll... it's just a first draft... I think it needs a little fine-tuning... And a pirate ship watermark... Yeah, that would do it.

The first few months...

They say the first few months of after moving in are the most difficuilt... in regard to money... after move-in fees (?) and down payments (wtf?!) etc,etc,bs... you find yourself rather pinched for the first few months. We've figured out the finances a few times (cuz I worry like that) and we are in for another tight month, then smooth sailing! Cool, yes?

Not really...

No big deal if the rest of this month is going to be a little tough, but it DOES become kind of a big deal when that month happens to contain christmas...

ERT!

We had delusions of a house-warming party... maybe it was just me who was delusional... all the people we know and care about would come over and visit, they'd see the place, munch on some hours-derves, (I know I got the "hours" right...) hang out, and have a good old time.

But then...!

No money for hours-howeveryouspellthem-s, no microwave to heat any food in, no method of entertaining our guests, and certainly not enough room for more than 8 people at a time. (Hire a bouncer and form a line?)

*Sigh* right now, we're living on our combined income, and mine (being larger) is going toward paying bills, which leaves us to live off of my girlfriend's income...

Immasculating? yes.

This is difficuilt enough without my girlfriend having to give me $20 for gas before I leave for work... Which reminds me, I need to get gas. Don't get me wrong, I'm all for women's rights, and I IN NO WAY believe that women are inferior, but it's just difficuilt as a man to feel like I'm not providing for our household...

I suppose I'll have to get over it...

In the meantime, we're eating instant anything. 5 instant noodle bowls for $2! We can't afford NOT to! Although I question what warrents a noodle bowl to cost $0.40 I probably shouldn't ask, someone might answer...

Tea is very filling...

Good heavens, that's all I can stand... Out.

Lots of stuff

Bloody hell, there's a lot of things you need to do before moving to a new place, and even more to do afterwards!

Maybe all of it wasn't actually that hard, and we were just lazy about it...

There's stuff everywhere, though by now we're mostly unpacked, and it's difficuilt to find anything on the first couple of days...

One thing I DO find interesting is that the necessities are unpacked first, so after the first couple of days, you can look around, and see all the things that you REALLY do need to function normally.

Examples: (in a vague sort of order)
@ Sheets sleeping without them can be difficuilt!
@ Toothbrush brushing your teeth without them can be difficuilt!
@ Mini-disc player what? you gotta have music while unpacking!
@ X-Box ...you also need to do things when you take breaks from unpacking!
@ Laptop you have to warwalk the appartment a few times until the cable comes...
@ I'm tired of this This is kinda stupid. Is anyone still reading???

Enough.

No updates for a bit... ^_^;;

Sorry, been too busy with the move and all... BUT I've still been recording my thoughts, so I'll update now, a flurry of posts... umm... yeah... enjoy!

Perceived (sp?) Value

Listen carefully, because this is going to make you a lot of money...

I do pen testing for our customers, this consists on doing some generic footprinting some port scanning, and kicking off a nessus scan.

The next morning you reap the results and mold it into a 5 page (webpage) report, which includes a "manager summary" inwhich you present the results in an understandable (read: as non-technical as you can get) fashion.

For one of these reports we charge somewhere around two large.

Other "security firms" are doing the same but charging up to 100 times more.

Why? How?

Because they submit their results with a FAT report. When it's presented to the board that "hey we just spent 200 grand on this report" and the report isn't thicker than your head you got problems.

Will it be read? I'd wager not. But the perceived value is what matters. Other than that, it's all fluff.

Will the IT manager request the readers digest version and some actions items? Definitely.

But this is BIG business. In small business, they want it to be cheap and quick, which is yet another service we offer... but if you want to make bank... one big hit and a whole lot of BS later, you got a fat wad in your business pocket.

Guess what I want to do for a living...?

This morning

This morning I was rather tired, somehow the shower failed to wake me up sufficiently.

Before I knew it I was pulling into the parking lot and into my spot.
which kinda made me worry about my driving manner on the way over

I got in early, early being fifteen minutes after eight (heh, heh... hmm). When I get in that early I get to see the morning security guard sweep up the walk. As I walked up I found myself suprised at the fervor with which I wished he would not talk to me.

To no avail

Howdy!

Hey.

Just one more day till we can start up another weekend!

Oh yeah!

I'd hoped I would have just snapped at him but "hey" and "oh yeah" seemed to be as far as I managed to get.

I didn't speak with sarcasm, my "oh yeah" was sincere. At least, I think it was sincere. I wondered what made me pander to his pointlessly innane statement. I didn't have to be polite, I didn't even have to say anything. But I did.

We co-locate at this facility which makes us some kind of tenant in their house.

As a result we suffered a congenital gap between us and the staff working here. You can almost feel the people talking about you after you leave a room.

It's wierd.

Anyways, I make an effort to bridge the gap with pleasant conversation and innane responces to innane comments. Why? I don't know.

Humans are social creatures and even when we don't want to affirm it, we do. You mean we don't THINK we want to...

But then...

I went to the restroom and while standing at the urinal, I heard someone come in and turn on the sink. I finished up and walked around to the sinks. The gentleman was washing his glasses.

As I approached the sink I, noting my personal resentment for the innane conversation which took place shortly prior, nodded very slightly to him and addressed the sink. As I washed my hands (which usually takes me about 20 seconds) it became obvious the other gentleman was having some trouble and taking a while. So...

We washed in silence.

I think we caught eyes once more before I dried my hands and left.
What was odd was that an exchange like that usually left me feeling disconnected, but this time, not really.

There definitely wasn't the same feeling in quiet presence of that gentleman than the feeling I get when I walk into the lobby to get a soda.

I concluded that there IS a way to be social (or at least a sickly version of "social") without the idiotic prattle.

We acknowledge eachother's existance, and move on.

If we have relevant information to convey, we do so.

If not, I don't wanna hear it!

I'd like to point out that the employees in the lobby did not acknowledge my existance in the same manner the gentleman did. How do you know if your acknowledgement is a gentlemanly one or an akward one? You don't need to know, you do before you even walk in the room.

Guess that's it. Sorry if you thought I was going somewhere with this...

Signing off...

Tea of the day

Green Tea.

Per a request from a friend that I just try my tea with sugar I added one packet of Equal to my tea.

Bleach.

Until next time...

Tea of the day

The Tea for the day is: Bawls Guarana, High Caffeine Guarana Beverage" (Insert evil grin here)

Thankless Hacking...

It sucks when you go through all the trouble of hacking into someone's network and they get all pissy about it!

Guy changes our account password with negative five mintes notice, hey guys, fyi i just changed ur pass to this about five minutes ago! hava nice day! ass. Our monitors poll for network stats like every minute, so their passwords were out of date and they locked out our account... so we can't get back in. no big, just call him... nope, he just went on 5 day vacation. Seriously! What idiot makes ANY change before becoming unreachable for more than a day?! That's an excellent way to get fired! So I hack our way back in and let him know in case he decides to look at the security logs and he gets all pissed off! geez, If I never said a thing he never would have known...

Random Quote

Let's set the record straight. There is no argument
over the choice between peace and war, but there is
only one guaranteed way you can have peace - and you
can have it in the next second - surrender. - Reagan

Interesting trick...

I was reading a magazine article about a study that they did
did on whether or not people really paid attention to what they
they were reading. The results of which seemed to prove that
that people don't really comprehend what they're reading about
about, but another study proved that the original test was
was flawed, because it ran a test similar to this paragraph and
and it did not really test comprehension, rather it proved that
that our brains gloss over this type of trick because that's just
just the way it works.

75% of people didn't notice that the word that ended one line
line was repeated in the beginning of the next line.

2 Ninjas + Tape = One HUGE ninja!

Henchmen over VidPhone:Some kind of animal just got number 27!!! It was horrible! It was like two ninjas taped together to form one HUGE ninja!!

Venture Brothers, Saturday nights at 12:30 on Adult Swim

Mt. St. Helens Live Eruption shots

Click for full sized view!

Refresh page for live webcam image of the eruptions!

Corperate Economy BS Generator

Amaze your friends, laugh with your coworkers, produce presentations that use a lot of jargon but make no sense (impressing your audience), miraculously get a raise!

BS generation is a very important facet of business.
Web Economy BS Generator

Like it or not, this actually kind of makes sense...

"To productize out-of-the-box synergies our integrated infomediaries must monetize mission-critical channel communities proactively or back-end cross-media schemas will incentivize dynamic best-of-breed application/architecture relational supply-chain paradigms. Effectively whiteboarding our bleeding-edge leverage matrix and recontextualizing their enterprise extensible platform convergence functionalities."

Tea of the day

The tea of the day is Plantation Mint.

...yeah. I know... Lay off.

Monopolistic tendencies

Free enterprise. Ain't it great.

It is the obvious reason why a nation under 300 years old is arguably the world's economic leader.

Stop Microsoft from buying up new technologies.
the open source community is gaining momentum and will never "sell out" to M$

Stop them from holding your small business hostage
M$ has a history of doing this, with licensing audits and by discontinuing support for their older software in an attempt to make you pay their price, or find yourself operating a publicly unsecure system with no way of fixing it.

The truth is that Microsoft's Monopolistic Behavior is a detriment to our way of life, and our nation's ideals.
As soon as we all are armed with this kind of information, change can begin.

Take Back the Internet

What kind of question is that? the internet is already free (if you want some free ISP and toolbar banner ads).
No, I'm not talking about paying for access, I'm talking about just surfing the web!

You may think that surfing your favorite web site is free, but it's not.

If you must endure ads, banners, pop-ups, redirects, etc. to see your fave site, it is not free.

let me repeat that.

IT IS NOT FREE.

We are all bombarded by ads during our lives, buy this, buy that, we've been turned into demographics by huge corperations who gather our data and sell it to the highest bidder!

Unfortunately the internet is ripe with this kind of spying. Which is why these programs were called spyware... they report your surfing habits to internet companies who sell you as a percentage on a pie chart.

There is one near perfect way to begin affecting a change:
Use the Mozilla web browser instead of Internet Explorer

With all the latest security threats and weaknesses found in Internet Explorer it's no wonder the United States Computer Emergency Readiness Team (US-CERT) advised that one of the best ways to keep your computer safe and secure is to stop using internet explorer. Read for yourself (strangely enough, the final solution listed on the page under "solutions" is this suggestion)

But I digress.

Since I've switched browser to Mozilla Firefox and installed the AdBlock Extension, I have not seen an ad (banner, popup, flash, or redirect) for about 8 weeks. Whenever I see one I just tighten the adblock by adding the new ad to the block list. Additionally, I haven't encountered any popups since I made the switch.

Imagine, all those little annoyances that we've all just ignorantly accepted... GONE

"Ads, banners, pop-ups. Oh well. I guess that's just how the internet is and always will be..."

Not any more.

Empower yourself. Don't be their unwitting pawn.

Take back the internet.

Don't we find it odd...

Google

Don't we find it odd that Google is the unquestioned master of all things web?

STOP BUTTERING THE WAFFLES I DON'T LIKE BUTTER

Keep your fork! There's CAKE!

I love this thing. I bought it at the Orange County Museum of Art Gift Shop

... too funny

Phenomenon (existing Thing) - Dictionary Definition by freesearch

Phenomenon (existing Thing) - Dictionary Definition by freesearch

heh, cool. I just thought it was a creative name, turns out it actually has special meaning! go fig.

something that exists and can be seen, felt, tasted, etc., especially something which is unusual or interesting:

answering machine

A window with a view

A bit of refreshment in the morning...

I woke up. I looked at the clock. early.

I lay in bed contemplating absolutely nothing.
Wondering if I should sleep...

I love the warmth of my girlfriend on my back. I love how she snores lightly, like a baby.

ok, enough of that.

I drove to work listening to the new Modest Mouse CD (I played the 8th song over 4 times). I pulled into the lot and parked. I checked that my ID card was still clipped to me.
I gathered my phone, pda, swiss card
got out of the car and walked to the building
I walked back to my car to get my keys out of the ignition
they are cleaning the bbq, i guess if you own a building and
a company you can bbq your food on a friday if you want.

for some strange reason friday seems to be
"Wear a hawaiian shirt day"
the security guard has one on
he looks like an idiot.
the entrance security door
is propped open by a server box
I grab a mug from the cabinet.
The mugs they have here are glass
I like watching my tea spreading into the hot water
I thumb through the selection and choose "Plantation Mint"
woot.

I hold my card up to the door, it buzzes and clicks unlocked.
I walk through the door and am surrounded by the noise of a data center.
but my next door is just around the corner and soon I return to silence.

I walk up to our room, on my right; a fleeting glance inside through the window just before the door. A scrolling view of the monitors on the 5 stations and the images projected onto the three screens on the wall.
I pull my card from under my untucked shirt where it it clipped to my beltloop. I pull it out with my left hand and hold it to the reader.
my waist moves slightly forward and to the left
as I streach the cord on my ID retractor to reach
the reader.
I stopped a little short.
The fraction-of-a-second-too-long beep is as shrill as it was yesterday.

As I enter the room and my eyes scan the area in which I'll spend 9 hours of my day. My focus comes to rest on the projector screen on the left on the far wall.

On this screen was something that had the power to change my day.
Maybe even all the days following this one.

Roger got back from his week vacation to niagra falls about a week an a half ago. Since then he's been showing us (on the projector) some webcams he was able to find of places he was going to be. He said he was going to try to get on them, but I'm not sure if he did. After his return he seemed to retain the interest in the webcams. This interest is what may change every day after this one.

The NOC I work in is a thin wall away from another data center. thousands of blowing servers and humming machinery and AC units pumping cold air into the raised floor. The noise is a droning reminder of where we spend our day.
Inside.
Inside a facility with no name on it, made to withstand a 9.0 earthquake, capable of sustaining all its data centers for 24 hours on one of it's two generators with diesel delivered within 3 hours in the case of a catastrophic power outage, mantraps, guards, Infra Red sensors guarding parts of the building you're not allowed to enter (including under the raised floor), but...
for all its features
not
one
window

we moved here from a smaller NOC with a window.
with a window with a view
a view of greenery
cars
people
Frank from fedex
that one guy who always parks in that one spot
and after he gets out of his car he walks
around it inspecting it three times like he has
OCD and doesn't know it
Life.

You don't realize it but when you move into a place like this and the excitement wares off you are left wanting something imperceptible.
Completely unknown to you...
Until you get it back.

Which leads me back to the projector.

On that screen on the left with the streached little wobbles on it from when Ryan left it leaning against the corner of the table was a view a spectacular view.
it was mountains with a little bit of snow on top
it was valleys shrouded in mist and fog
it was clouds settling before and behind mountains
accentuating each peak and blending each base into
obscurity
it was beauty it was nature it was a view

It was a webcam 150 feet above the top of Mt. Wilson
http://www.astro.ucla.edu/~obs/towercam.htm#imagetop

it was yosemite valley and half-dome
http://www.yosemite.org/vryos/turtlebackcam.htm

It was what I'd been missing. It was what WE'D been missing.



i feel like having some tapioca pudding right now.

-The Existing Thing out

Tea for the day...

The tea for the day is Plantation Mint by Bigelow Inc.

"In Plantation Mint we use only the finest mountin-grown tea blended with natural spearmint. I hope you enjoy it."

I wonder if they really have to go to the mountains every time they need to get their tea.

Re: The Existing Thing's first post

Sigh...

"Hence: I am an the Existing Thing"

wow, talk about starting on the wrong foot.

some people people have to make a focused effort to make mistakes like that.

to me,

it just comes naturally.

The Existing Thing's first post

Hi. I am a thing. I am existing.

Hence: I am an the Existing Thing