|
Anonymous Howard
Pseudointelligent drivel delivered to your browser for free! |
|
What is this? This is what's usually called a "blog" or a "web log". Well, personally, I wouldn't call it a "blog", really. Think of it as a collection of short stories, essays, rants and other literary works. Who is this Howard guy? I am an 18 year old computer geek from Estonia. My interests include programming, tinkering with hardware, electronics, reading and other things which don't require much social interaction. My favourite authors are Terry Pratchett and Isaac Asimov, all my hardware runs Linux and this page was written using XEmacs on a 300mhz PII while listening to Nectarine. You can reach me via e-mail: . Why does this page look so ugly and why can't I comment? Long answer: One of the goals was to make the page compatible with all the browsers in the world. Another was minimalism. And I like the idea of having everything on a single page -- makes it easily greppable. The reason I don't have commenting here is to prevent the hit-and-run commentary tactics common on the net nowadays. If you have something to say, you can damn well send me an e-mail. Plus I think this minimalistic "design" looks rather nice, don't you? Short answer: Because I'm lazy and just wanted to get some kind of a page on the net to post a few rants, which had accumulated over time. Current book: "Deadly Relations: Bester Ascendant" by J. Gregory Keyes Reviews of previous books This part of the blog is grossly out of date. I'll attend to it eventually.
|
| The Two Halves of Me Posted on 24.07.2004 |
| First blog update in over two months, it seems. I just haven't felt like writing anything. I only write when I'm either very happy or very sad and I've been pretty stable lately. Only now am I plummeting into yet another month of depression, so I thought I'd vent a bit. I am the lowliest of lowliest creatures. I am the Alpha and the Omega. I exist only as an example of what not to be. I tower above that what is mortal and that what is immortal. The world defines me. I define the world. I am only a self-mirroring neural network in a carbon-based organism. I have free will. Meet the two halves of me. One, a very shy person, who would be better off dead and the other, a person, who thinks that he is the heir to the world. Unfortunately, the first one seems to be right at the moment. Although, shy would be an understatement. Or, in fact, it would be more of a misstatement since that part of me isn't really shy. It is afraid of the world, of all the bad things that can and will happen. It analyses every possible outcome of every possible decision and then refuses to make any decisions because all the outcomes are equally grim. I have no friends. I cannot go outside, because there is nothing for me there. Only more suffering. I tell myself that what is outside does not interest me, but it's only a lie. I would rather be out there, getting drunk and not caring. Not caring about the world, about my future. Others do it, others succeed. Others... have a better life than anything I can ever dream of having. I went to Stallman's lecture on software patents in Tallinn this week. I spoke on three occasions during the time. Twice to buy a ticket and once to say my name when I got there. That was the entirety of my socialising. And those were geeks. People who shared my interests. Yet, I did not speak to them. I was there merely to observe, not to partake. It's not like I didn't know any people there. Sure, I knew them. Over the Internet. I had no idea what they would look like exactly. Or what they would wear. They knew. I told them I'd be wearing my chickenshit-coloured OpenSSH shirt. Nobody came up to me to introduce themselves. The other half of me views people as mere tools. Items to be discarded when they are of no use anymore. Objects, fools, who exist to be used just because they are fools. This side of me is not in direct conflict with my other side, but it does create a lot of hardship for me. I'm not good with words and there are no words that can excuse such using of people. Some might say that I don't care, but that's a lie. I care deeply. At least one part of me does. The part that likes playing back all the possible outcomes over and over again in my head constantly demonstrating to me how I've been wrong, how I've done wrong things, how I've used people and how I'm not worthy to live. Some might say that I should not overanalyse everything. A lot of people say a lot of things. Doesn't mean that they are right. This curse does have its good sides. I can just sit and view entire lives, stories, universes unfold in my brain as it calculates causality. Believe me, when I say that this does provide a lot of amusement when there is none in your life. I was officially accepted into the university today. All I ever wanted was to get away from here. From this room, this dungeon. I kept telling myself that I'm better off here. That elsewhere, people were getting drunk and partying and... doing other things. I tried that, too, but I didn't fit in. Actually, the whole foolish reason I ever attended a party in my life was in hopes of having sex with some drunk chick, who would find me attractive after enough alcohol. But I guess no amount of alcohol in the world can do that. I'd like to believe that I'm the victim here, but I'm actually the bastard. Others have simple lives, which they feel the need to complicate through intricate social relationships. I on the other hand am a condescending elitist bastard, who partly believes that he is above everything and everyone else and also partly believes that he is below everything and everyone else. It would be foolish of me to hope anything. The best that can happen is that I graduate from the university and find a job that doesn't require much social interaction. But there are two great leaps of faith in that logic. First, my nerves probably won't last that long. As much as I wish it wasn't so, as much as I tell myself it isn't so, it still does hurt watching others, who have simple lives with simple soulmates. These are the happy people. Not happy because they are smarter than everyone else or happy because they can do things others can't. They are happy simply because their lives are balanced and they have everything they need. Second, even if I can manage to get through the whole five to seven years of mathematics and computing, there's still the problem of finding a job. I'm told it's easy. As for keeping the job, then I don't know about that. There's still that same issue. And I'd rather just sit in my little room and do nothing. Absolutely nothing. And I'd rather just sit in my little room... What a lie. That's the last thing I wish to do. I want to get away from here as far as possible. Both mentally and physically. I have spent so many hours here doing nothing that the world seems as if it was written in a foreign tongue -- one, which I don't understand at all. Even the trivial things seem hard. Getting up in the morning is hard. Getting through the day is hard. I don't want to do anything and at the same time, I want to do everything. I have so many unfinished projects and so many good ideas, I sometimes feel as if my head was going to explode. And the stack of notes next to my bed is getting bigger and bigger every day. All these ideas, they are theorethically possible. They're easy. All I need is to pull myself together and actually do them. But I can't. They seem trivial and because of that, I don't feel like doing them. What is the point of doing something when you know exactly down to the smallest possible step how to do it? If you know that you can do it and do it well, then what is the purpose of actually doing it? It's not as if I had anyone to prove myself to. Fun? Yes, that might be one reason to do something. But these projects are no fun to me. They're just things I'm good at, things I know, things I've researched and studied. Doing something that I know how to do is not fun, only drudge work. And doing something that I don't know how to do is too risky -- failure only breeds more depression. I'd like to conveniently blame it all on lack of love and lack of friendship. Sure, what could be easier than blaming the world for all the bad things in your life? Nobody loves you? It's the world that's to blame for they are required to love you! But that's not the case. There really isn't someone for everyone. That's a myth. You just don't hear about people who don't find their someone, because they simply fade away quietly or don't speak about such things, because it hurts too much. A guy I know from England who suffers from Asperger's Syndrome said that he's been seeing a psychologist who has told him not to worry about what others do or say, only about your own happiness. And he's been a bastard ever since. He doesn't care about what others think, because only he is ever right. He doesn't care what others feel, because his feelings are more important. But that's the bad side, the manipulating side in me which feels the same way. And if that's how I'm supposed to feel in this world in order to succeed, then I'm not sure I want to. I'm not sure I want to live in a world where honesty, sincerity and integrity get you nowhere and ignorance-bred confidence gets you everywhere. They say that mathematics is the most beautiful thing in the universe and in nature. I once spent some time pondering about that and I couldn't make up my mind whether mathematics was an abstraction of the real world or whether real world was an abstraction of mathematics. But when it comes to beliefs and societies, then it's simple. Societies are not built upon honesty, sincerity nor integrity. These three are abstract notions created by the society to give some meaning, some worth to the whole thing, when they're simply lies. A wise man once said that if you stare long enough into the abyss, the abyss stares into you. My one half is like a maniac, who forces me to stare into a bottomless abyss, while my other half keeps throwing people into it and there is nothing I can do about it, nothing I can do will get those people back. And that is perhaps the saddest aspect of it all. |
| The Caffeine Experiment Posted on 23.05.2004 |
|
Caffeine. The best legal mind-altering drug on the market. The geek equivalent of steroids. Source of great power and great thoughts. The thing that Keeps You Going� and the thing that helps you code. And now, Anonymous Howard brings you the event of the century... MAN VERSUS CAFFEINE: THE STRUGGLE FOR SURVIVAL! I got the idea for this event from this Slashdot story, which links to a New York Times article about a journalist who tried 13 brands of caffeinated beverages. No, it's not a ripoff. We test different brands. Oh, alright, there's some overlapping as well -- we both try Red Bull, but it's still not a ripoff. Now, about the event itself. I decided not to overdose on caffeine, so I'm going to be drinking in moderation with some time between each one. And to avoid mixing the tastes of different brands, I have a pack of chewing gum to help me get rid of the awful aftertastes of these energy drinks. And a Chupa Chups lollipop as well -- that's the pink thing on the picture.  Mmm... Caffeine... The best legal mind-altering drug on the market. Clickie the picture for a larger one. So let's get on with the show and introduce our contestants. Starting from the left, we have a strange silver-coloured 0.5l bottle of Hustler Energizer with a slogan claiming that this is the "underground cult-drink for hustlers." Has 0.03% of taurine and 0.02% of caffeine. Not much. Next we have Starter, an Estonian brand in an oddly-shaped bottle which reminds me of World War II german hand grenades. With an ugly picture of Vanilla Ninja on the back. It's one of those lame Estonian chick bands that nobody gives a fuck about. 330ml total, 30mg/100ml of taurine and 24mg/100ml of caffeine. I can't be bothered to do unit-conversion, so if you care, you'll have to do it yourself. In the background we have two 1.5l bottles of non-carbonated Montavit -- the only brand of bottled water that doesn't taste like sandpaper. The can with the pretty gold and black design sporting a big white Jesus sign and an ugly dent which I didn't notice while grabbing it off the shelf is Battery. Quite possibly the most popular brand of energy drink around here until LX and Starter appeared. Commonly favoured by gamers at LAN parties. It has 320mg of caffeine per litre and is one of the brands in this bunch that has vitamin B12 in it. Those who have experimented with B12 will know how nice it is -- gives a buzz much like that of caffeine, but it's a lot milder and lasts longer. I grabbed two flavours of Red Bull. One is sugarfree, the other is not. The sugarfree one has 0.4% of taurine and 0.03% of caffeine. The one with sugar has 400mg of taurine per 100ml and 32mg of caffeine per 100ml. Oh, for Christ's sake, you marketing droids! I know, you're trying to confuse the consumer, but at least be consistent when doing so, alright? There's 2 micrograms of B12 in both of them. Oh and the cans themselves are 250ml ones. And last, but not least, is LX Power Light, another Estonian brand with a horrible name trying to cash in on the popularity of energy drinks. The bottle contains 500ml (hey, it DOES sound better than 0.5l!) of piss-yellow substance which contains 0.3% of taurine, 0.25% of caffeine and 0.9% of B12. Uh. That must be a typo, right? Otherwise it would have to contain TEN TIMES as much caffeine as any of the other beverages. We'll see what effect it has. About 95% of caffeine is absorbed by my body. First it visits my liver, then hitches a ride in my bloodstream to just about everywhere else. The "caffeine high" will last for about half an hour from 15 to 45 minutes after consumption followed by, what I believe is "caffeine low." The half life of caffeine is 3.5 to 100 hours depending on the body, rate of metabolism and various other things. Typical half life in an adult body is about 4-6 hours. You might be wondering what the bottled water is for. Well, breaking up caffeine in the body uses up water. Lots of it. That's what it's for -- to avoid dehydration. Caffeine is also among other things a diuretic meaning it will make you pee more often. Another good thing about caffeine -- it's addictive. And this is physical addiction we're talking about, not some sissy psychological one. Real hardcore feel-shitty-if-you-don't-drink-it kind of addiction. You see, there's a substance called adenosine which basically tells your cells to slow down. Caffeine, being structurally similar, can block adenosine receptors in the brain and prevent this slowdown. Your brain compenstates by creating more and more adenosine receptors and thus, when someone cuts your caffeine supply, you'll be really really tired for a long time. Unless you fill them up with caffeine again, of course. If you want to know more about the effects of caffeine go see this page. And now... *drumroll* Let the games begin! Red Bull: Sugarfree. Amount of taurine: 0.4%. Amount of caffeine: 0.03%. Has 2 micrograms of B12. Can size: 250ml. Calories: 3kCal. Looks like beer. Tastes bitter. Doesn't smell too good either. There's a myth going around that taurine is extracted from bull testicles. Considering the taste, I wouldn't be surprised to find out that it's the truth. Let me make this absolutely clear for you. This thing has a vile taste. After drinking half of it, I was left feeling sick to my stomach. I felt like throwing up. I could feel my bowels rebelling. The can has a bigass label on it saying "Serve chilled." I guess they don't want anyone to actually taste this abomination of caffeinated beverages. I bet even piss tastes good when served ice-cold, but I don't plan on finding out. I bet piss tastes better than this crap even when served at body temperature. If you want to know whether my assumptions are correct or not, go find a "watersports" forum on the net and ask them to compare tastes. And now, if you'll excuse me, I'm going to go cut my tongue off to get this sickening taste out of my mouth. Conclusion Stay the fuck away from this crap! I don't care what anyone says, this is the vilest concoction I've had the displeasure of tasting in a long long time. Seriously, if you value the mental health of your taste buds, avoid it! Rating: 0/5 While I was looking for a suitable knife in the kitchen, my mother informed me that dinner was ready, so I took the hard way out and just ate some fried fish and boiled vegetables hoping that it would wash away the lewd taste of sugarfree Red Bull. It worked. But just to be sure, I decided to suck on the Chupa Chups Cremosa lollipop as well. Apparently, it has "sweeteners" instead of sugar and contains 30% less calories than a standard Chupa Chups lollipop. This, of course, means that you can eat them as much as you want without ever getting fat. The civilization is saved! Interesting fact: the Chupa Chups logo was designed by the famous impotent artist Salvador Dali, who was a big fan of everyone's favourite pervert Sigmund Freud. Starter Amount of taurine: 30mg/100ml. Amount of caffeine: 24mg/100ml. B2 and B6, but no B12. Apparently, you can also win a ticket to a Vanilla Ninja concert if you send an SMS that costs 3kr to some number you get off the bottle. Oh, alright, in case there are any fans out there, then the number is 12010 and the message syntax is "STARTER code firstname lastname". The code part you can get from the inside of the label. Mine is 508240. Feel free to use it. The smell is quite weak, a bit like caramel. The taste isn't too sweet, but is actually quite enjoyable with a hint of something that tastes like gingerbread. It will leave an odd aftertaste of dry gingerbread in your mouth. Conclusion Very good and enjoyable taste, although something you might grow tired of quickly. Try it and you won't regret it. The only negative thing is the rather dry aftertaste. Rating: 5/5 Wooo! This is great. I'm feeling very energetic right now. My energon has arrived and it's caffeine! It seems that it not only acted as a diuretic, but also sped up my bowels. Took care of the latter. Then realised I had forgotten to pee, so went back to do that. I'm writing this on XEmacs, which has some nice cut-copy-paste buttons on the toolbar, but I can't be assed to reach for my mouse to operate those. But I can't remember the cut-copy-paste shortcut keys either. So I gotta look the whole procedure up from either a Linux book I have here or from an Emacs cheatsheet I have printed out. Well, time to tape that to the wall. The cheatsheet, not the book. There! Done! Hmm... My fingernails need cutting. Time to take care of those. I'm listening to repetitive techno music and I like it! It's the Nectarine webradio. Very good stuff. Done! Fingernails cut! You can congratulate me later! I also remembered that since I got such a good place at that national coding competition, I have to attend the mayor's reception tomorrow. Hah! I won't be getting any sleep tonight for sure! Well, at least he's going to meet the real thing -- a scruffy, sleepy hacker with red eyes :P Oh, shit. I've got to go to work tomorrow as well. Ah, well. I can manage it. Just need more caffeine. X-G says I'm placeboing. I don't think so, heh. I haven't felt so energized in a long long time. Well, last time was when I was in love with someone. But she's been ignoring me for a while. No idea why. Was sad for a while there, but caffeine helps up the mood! When in doubt, turn to drugs, right, kids? :P About that love thing again. I don't know why, but when I'm not in love, I'm depressed and lazy. When I'm in love, I'm highly motivated and creative. And then I always get rejected and sink into a 3-4 month long period of depression. Odd, ain't it? I wish I had that special someone. Someone to love, to hug. Someone to be close to, someone to care for, to love. Someone who would love me and who would want to be close to me. I have very few real friends. Oh, by the way. I'm gonna let you in on a little secret. The key to being "talented and intelligent" is to shut the fuck up, look lazy and only say something when you feel that this something will be either very insightful or something that others don't know. You'll soon get the reputation of a silent genius, heh. Actually being talented or not doesn't have anything to do with this. It's all about the art of bullshitting. Hmm... Let's see. Upped heart rate? Check! Upped blood pressure? Yup, seems to be. Higher level of alertness? From what I can tell, yeah. Sweating? Yup! Shorter attention span? Ahh! Good song! Ghidorah - "Toilet Story 2." The name might not be very marketable, but the song is good. Nice chiptune. Hmm... 250 + 330 = 580ml of caffeinated beverages. This isn't much. I could be "allergic" to caffeine, though. Meaning I get a "caffeine high" with a much smaller dose. Let's hope I won't overdose. Mmm... One bottle of Montavit finished! Time to open up the next one! Oooh! Cool! A female friend of mine from the U.S. is telling me about her threesome with a girl and her husband! Damn cool! :D And she's an elementary school teacher as well! But first things first, I got an e-mail from someone who I thought was the love of my life. Well, at least she replied. Hadn't gotten a letter from her in ages and was feeling that she was ignoring me. Which is odd since she herself once sent me an e-mail saying that we shouldn't ignore eachother and that we should work these things out as adults. Anyway, she finally told me that there's no hope for anything but friendship and it'd probably be best if I stopped bothering her. (Well, "bothering" wasn't the word she used and not just because she didn't write it in english.) How do I feel about that then? I don't. That's it. I made peace with this whole ordeal some time ago after she hadn't replied for a long time. She's not for me, I'm not for her and it would suck to lose a good friend. And yup, she's the one I wrote "Perfection" and "Perfection II" about, heh. This is scary. I'm taking it too easy. Must be because I've been hurt so much in the past, that I've grown a thick skin when it comes to relationships. Or maybe I just grew up. Or it could be a case of voodoo pharmacology with caffeine talking. Which wouldn't be that bad either, since I'd really... Oh, hell! This is a great song! Johannes Bjerregaard and Jeroen Tel - "Stormlord"! Grab it NOW! Oh, right, where was I? Ah, yes, I'd really love to be friends with her. And I'd really love to know why she doesn't want to be more than friends. No, not because I'd like to change myself so that she'd like me more. Hell no. I'd like to know it so I could change myself in such a way that the other members of the opposite sex would find me cute. Hmm... I can feel caffeine leaving my body. I should drink another one now. Nah, not yet. Don't want to overdose. Wondering if I should drink another one or try to get some sleep. Hmm... Any suggestions? Right. Sleep it is then. Will do the rest tomorrow. Perhaps get some more to try out. Now, just going to wait until this wears off and then go to sleep... Might take a while. Got to sleep at 4:15am. Woke up around noon feeling very energetic again. Must be B12 because caffeine doesn't last that long. Felt like B12 too. Had breakfast, which consisted of a few small sausages, cucumber and tomato slices, sour cream and mayonaise. Why? Because I'm on the Atkins diet, that's why. Anyway, opened up that can of Battery to go with my meal. Was nice. Will talk about some good old Battery trips later, heh. Also took a pill of Ginseng called Gerimax. Expecting a beautiful day :) Off to sauna now. Right. First about Battery. Battery One of my favourite energy drinks, actually, so expect this review to be slightly biased. The taste isn't all that great. It leaves the mouth a bit too dry afterwards. Slightly lemony, which is just the generic energy taste, I assume. If anyone asks you what energon tastes like, tell them it tastes like lemon. Actually, my first serious caffeine trip was with a can of Battery which I consumed early in the morning before going off to school. Now that's something worth remembering. The world seemed so beautiful back then... Meeemories... Those watercoloured meeemories... Conclusion Packs a punch. Has to do with the B12 in it, I assume. Or maybe it was the Ginseng pill I took with it in the morning. Anyway, I didn't feel tired during the day. But I did feel, as Bilbo described it, like butter scraped over too much bread, heh. Loses a point for the dry aftertaste. Rating: 4/5 So, anyway, what did I do today then? Well, I woke up sleepy. Went and got some caffeine in my bloodstream to kickstart myself, along with some ginseng, heh. Washed, got into my elegant black suit and dragged my ass to the city where I was one of the 17 people in our county who had gotten into the top 10 on national olympiads. I was the only one in the top ten there who had anything to do with computer science. I got the 6th place on the national coding olympiad. And for making our great county famous, I got a 100kr gift card for the local bookstore. Planning to pick up something Japanese-related some day. (Here's looking at you, entheh!) Oh and in case you are wondering, there are 62336 people living in our county as of 1999. Now, then. After that, I idled at work for a few hours with nothing to do. Apparently, they had hired some dumbass off the street who asked less than what I did and who used MY program to generate the needed 30000 numbers and to print them -- a good few hours work which *I* was going to get paid for. Which means I got fucked again. Great. Anyway, went to a local restaurant later with my mother and grandmother. Relatively good food. Ordered a tall glass of Coca-Cola and a Espresso con Panno, which is basically espresso with whipped cream. Good stuff. Packs a punch, heh. Also grabbed some bottled water (carbonated Montavit) and an emergency bottle of LX Power Lemon on my way home. Emergency bottle, you may ask? Well, in case I ran out of caffeine... So here, ladies and gentlemen, is our latest entry to this contest: LX Power Lemon With a name like that, you know you're going to get a drink that looks, smells AND tastes like something you use for cleaning the floors and I'm happy to report this drink didn't let me down! The smell is awful. The drink itself is very sugary and lemony, but it's not really that bad. Reminds me a bit of caramel and upon closer inspection of the label, I found out that it does indeed contain caramel. In fact, all Estonian energy drinks seem to have caramel in them. Conclusion Cheapass drink. Well worth the money. Disturbingly lemony taste, though, so I wouldn't recommend it to people who suffer from lemon phobia. Also claims to have 25mg of caffeine per 100ml, which I think is a very fucking insane claim. That's probably a typo. Hopefully a typo, really, because I'm planning on drinking another container filled with caffeinated goodness right now. Rating: 4/5 Right. I feel as if I had been hit by a truck. Which means that caffeine hasn't kicked in yet and I'm really really fucking tired. And you know what that means. Time to pop another bottle! Hustler Energizer Ahh... The famous "underground cult-drink for hustlers." Wait, but what does "hustler" mean anyway? Let's consult The Dictionary: hustler n 1: a prostitute who attracts customers by walking the streets [syn: streetwalker, street girl, hooker, floozy, floozie, slattern] 2: (informal) a shrewd or unscrupulous person who knows how to circumvent difficulties [syn: wheeler dealer, operator] Ah. So. I'm drinking an energy drink that's designed either for prostitutes or for pimps. Great. You know, the first time I saw this one was when my chemistry teacher was drinking it. And he does look like a pimp. Big strong guy with a bald spot, beard and a pony tail. He makes very bad jokes and likes to stare at various body parts of young girls. Anyway, on with the show! People want to know what it tastes like! Oh, fucking yay, it smells of caramel again. Why can't you people do something original and make it smell of something other than caramel or lemon next time? And it tastes of caramel too! With a fragile, carbonated aftertaste of caramel. It's basically liquid caramel with caffeine in it. It looks like dark piss. You know, the kind you get if you don't drink much water and it's filled with nitrides? Yeah, you know what I'm talking about. And that's what it looks like. Conclusion Caramel, caramel, more caramel, more friggin' caramel, enough caramel to make it run out of your eyes, nose and ears until the four horsemen of the Apocalypse come knockin' on your door, beat it down, look at your caramel-crusted corpse and one of them exclaims: "say, Ringo! That really is a lot of caramel right there!" Rating: 3/5 With just 2 centimeters of caffeinated goodness left in my 0.5 litre mug, I still don't feel anything. Okay, now I got into an argument about women on #allegro. Entheh tried to help me figure out why girls ignore me. Told him to call me back after I've finished drowning myself in caffeine. He was surprised to learn that I'm doing this for a girl. Hum. Well. Actually, it's not entirely for a girl. It seemed like a cool idea at first too, but it turned into a drink yerself silly and rant about random shit on your blog event. Great. Anyway, you want to know WHY them opposite sex ignore me? Because I'm a fat, ugly fuck with no future. That's why. I'm a nice guy in person. I have feelings, deep feelings. Hell, you've probably read about them feelings of mine on this blog already. Although, the "no future" part isn't entirely correct. I plan on taking over the world and dealing cruel punishment to everyone who made me feel bad during my worthless life here on this sack of dirt plummeting towards its eventual doom through the curvature of spacetime. Mwahahaa! Okay, so I still have to work on my evil laugh there. Hmm... I can feel caffeine kicking in. A slight headache, even. You know what? I'll just have to drink more caffeinated beverages! Because caffeine is also used to treat headaches! Great idea! Okay, it's been half an hour and I still can't feel caffeine kicking in properly. Yeah, there's a mild buzz, but that's all. I guess it really was a typo on that LX bottle. In other news, I managed to relapse into my IRC addiction. Gave it up cold turkey last year just before September 1st. Hadn't been on IRC properly since then. Now I'm sitting on #allegro again, talking about random shit. And if that wasn't bad enough, I'm back on the allegro.cc forums as well. I've got two ideas for two separate short stories. Well, actually three, but one of them isn't completely worked out yet. First one involves a lot of physics and is fucked up. The other one involves a lot of moose and is fucked up. The third one involves stabbing cows and setting chickens on fire and is also fucked up. Don't you just loooove my ideas? ;) Better get to outlining them a little better, I guess. This story will have to wait. Don't want to accidentally overdose on caffeine either, heh. Alrighty. Three different story ideas outlined and some pieces of them written as well. Good stuff, I think. I hope, heh. Gotta get a good night's sleep, some cinnamon rolls and good weather to drag my lappie to the balcony and actually write them. Sent the ideas to X-G as well. He can pick one of those and write something based on that if he wants. It's 5:21am right now. I'm starting to feel tired, but I don't think it's a good idea to do more caffeine right now. Well, for one, it has fucked up my schedule. I was planning on going to the gym tomorrow, but even if I go to sleep right now, I won't wake up until 6pm or so. Plus if there's going to be some good weather, I want to be on the balcony writing, not sleeping. 6:51am. *Yawn*. Tomasu managed to piss me off with his trolling. The bloody canadian hasn't got a clue about firewalls and yet he mouths off about buggy netstacks, powercycling and whatnot. Fucking morons. Oh, and met an old friend on IRC I hadn't met in a long long time. Was great :) Actually, I'm considering whether or not to actually post this long rant. Seems to be very... Useless. 8:26am. Restate my assumptions. One. Caffeine is the most important substance in nature. Two. Everything around us can be represented and understood after a sufficiently large quantity of caffeine. Three. If you graph the caffeine quantities of different energy drinks, patterns emerge. Therefore: there are patterns everywhere in caffeine consumption. If you didn't get that... Sucks to be you. And now, on to our next contestant. LX Power Light Tastes like carbonated water with a hint of caramel. Again. Awful taste. Again. No surprise there. This one looks, smells and tastes like something you'd use for cleaning as well. Bleh. Don't drink it. Conclusion Cheap crap. Avoid it. I'm tired. Rating: 2/5 Mom's pissed at me because I didn't send her the pictures I downloaded onto my computer off the camera. Which are by the way 2720x2040. I can't be bothered to resize them. Grandmother's pissed at me because I'm not outside cutting the hedge. But I'm tired and too busy reading this. Also listening to Nectarine. Well, caffeine seems to be kicking in. Finally. Just one more can to go. I feel bad. I've been awake for about 22 hours now after not getting much sleep. Got addicted to the trivia on #allegames. <+[GameBot]> Question.......What did Australia receive its first shipment of in 1788 ? <@elver> prisoners <@elver> convicts <+[GameBot]> Woohoo elver!! You got it right.....convicts <+[GameBot]> elver you've won 100 times today, good guess!! 3pm. Went to for a 5-hour nap. Woke up around 8pm. Grilled two sausages, ate. <+[GameBot]> Question.......What Liverpool club spawned The Beatles ? <@elver> cavern <+[GameBot]> Woohoo elver!! You got it right.....cavern <+[GameBot]> elver you've won 200 times today, well done!! <@elver> Booyah :D Had that final can of Red Bull with a lot of ice and carbonated water. Tasted less like piss that way. <+[GameBot]> elver you've won 263 times today, congratulations!! Had breakfast. Looked in the mirror. I look dead. Eyes hurt. Conclusion Experiment failed... |
| Sub-Perfect Posted on 11.05.2004 |
| Well, I guess this is what blogs are for anyway. Some facts changed though. Nine. Nine out of ten. Nine points. Nine. Only nine. The painful thought kept hammering against the insides of his skull. Sub-maximum. Sub-perfect. Sub-excellent. Sub-intelligent? No. He couldn't bear the thought. He had always been good at whatever he did. He had always been the best. And to fail like this at something he was great at? It didn't feel real. It felt surreal. It felt more real than reality itself, yet at the same time it seemed to him as if he was living in a nightmare he couldn't wake up from. Disappointment. He was at the top of his group. He was the best there was. People came to him for advice on this subject. People asked him. And some of those people, very few, but some, and none from his own group, the strongest group of them all, some had gotten ten points. Losers. Lucky losers. He hated them. He hated them for being better than him. Misery. He knew no other state of mind as well as he knew misery. Failure. Disappointment. Sadness. They were all his friends in his darkest hours. His demons. He had sent them away for a while, but he knew they would return. And they did. Happiness was just a way of setting himself up for a fall. He didn't know why he did it. He didn't know why he hoped. It wasn't for him. None of it was. None of the beauty in the world had been created for him to enjoy, only sadness and sorrow. Maybe his goal in life was just to serve as an example for others? No, that thought was painful as well. Life in itself was pointless anyway. There was no divine narrative. Eventually it would all be gone. None of it would matter or make a difference in the grand scheme of things. "How did you do?" His mind was ripped out of thought. Confusion for a moment, then realization. He would have to tell others. He wished he could avoid that. It was easier, being a loner. People made less fun of him that way. People didn't hurt him that way. He felt more secure alone. Maybe he just took everything too seriously. Maybe others didn't take anything seriously enough. Semantics. He was still different. Different. But how? Better? Worse? Or simply... different? "Nine." He would have given everything to taste the fun that others had. To live the lives that others had. Love. Another emotion he had been suppressing. Never too successfully. False hope. Yes. Painful memories. Like a moth to fire, he had always been drawn to love. And just like a moth, he had always gotten too close and had deep burns on his soul to prove it. "Oh, you did fine then." Fine. Fine? He felt rage boiling inside. How could he settle with just fine? He wanted it all. He wanted to be the best. He wanted the respect that came with being the best. Only success would make the demons go away. Would make sadness go away. Losers. All around him. How could they settle with what they had? He had seen the world beyond and he wanted it for himself. He wanted to satisfy his curiosity. He wanted to learn. And there were people, people around him, who settled with a job, an apartment and a relationship. He wanted more. Much, much more. Yet, they were happy. And he wasn't. Losers. All around him. And he was the greatest of them all. He looked at them, studied them carefully. He studied how their minds worked, he put together their biographies in his head relying on body language, intonation, speech and eyes. Ah, eyes. The windows of the soul. He could read a lot from someone's eyes. And at the end, he could only come up with a single explanation for all this madness. Ignorance is bliss. That had always been the truth. What you didn't know, couldn't hurt you. If you didn't know loneliness, it had no way of getting to you, no way of gnawing at your soul, eating away at the very thing that made you human... He wanted it bad. He wanted to feel someone else's hand in his own hand. He wanted to feel someone else's lips pressing against his lips. He wanted to know what it would be like to love and to be loved. He wanted... Stop. He didn't want to think about it. He didn't like it one bit. He didn't like how it made him feel. Rejected. Outcast. That's what he was. He didn't need human emotions, stupid human emotions. They would only get in his way. But in the way of what exactly? In the way of his pursuit of knowledge? But what would it all be worth in the end? Could he have been wrong from the beginning? He felt empty. What if he were to start drinking? Would it make him happier? It would certainly chase away his demons. There would even be the chance of feeling love, even if it was only for a night and caused by alcohol. Maybe he could settle down later, have a few kids and live the quiet life of a farmer or a truck driver. At least he would be happy. Lies. He didn't need that to be happy. A simple life would never make him happy. Deep down he knew it. He had other things to comfort him. He had his friends. Well, people he considered friends, anyway. He was unsure how they felt about him. There was even a girl he liked, who he had been talking to, but he was sure he would never find happiness with her. She was too different to fall for someone like him. Everyone was. Sadness embraced him. |
| The Desert of the Future Posted on 07.05.2004 |
| "The goal of science fiction is not to predict the future, but to imagine it." -- J. Gregory Keyes In the past, people lived where they could -- caves, small shacks and various other shelters. The world of humans was fragmented just like the world of animals. Over time, large kingdoms were built that united people, empires that spanned whole continents. Trade routes were established linking humans in distant parts of the world. Cities grew, technology advanced and one day man woke up to find himself living in a small concrete box among other such boxes connected to the rest of the world via a tiny cable. This is the story of our generation, the generation of The Cable. We grew up surrounded by slabs of concrete somewhere in a large city. We went to a school where we were educated like animals in an industrial farm, herded into large groups, where we developed our own social structures very similar to those found in prisons. The teachers never cared. They just had a job to do. We were bombarded with information and we developed the typical diseases of our generation: Attention Deficit Disorder, Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder and those of us who were lucky ended up with Asperger's Syndrome. Some of us went on to flip burgers, drive or sell things. We earned minimum wage and had to live with it. Others found their calling in sports, but fierce competition either killed or crippled most of them by the age of thirty. Those who survived never managed to earn enough to live a decent life. Some, like your storyteller, found their calling in computers. It's not like we had any choice. Those of us -- in retrospect, the luckiest of us -- who were tormented by fellow students, excluded from social structures reminiscent of animal groups, those of us, who got the last few places in the popularity contest known as the school, we had no choice but to bury our faces in books and study. Some couldn't take the pressure of being an outcast. They wanted to belong somewhere and they either joined the ranks of gamers, drug addicts, criminals or the dead. There wasn't much choice. There never was. So what happened to us, the outcasts, the tormented, the geeks, nerds, anoraks? We went on, boldly, surviving the perverted natural selection system of our grand society. We were plenty, but we were alone, even among our own breed. The luckiest of us went through college, found a job, settled down and made their contribution to the gene pool. The unluckiest found themselves doing tech support, facing hordes of humans exhibiting signs of complete ignorance and, quite often, ended up looking in the bottle for their salvation. Our world is a strange place. It's the world of the cable and the bit. We are the generation of The Cable. Slaves of the world-wide telecommunications network known as the Internet. Everything a human needs has been distilled into a box, a monitor and a cable that connects us to the rest of the pathetic loners of the world. We live our lives in front of the glowing screen. We make friends there, we start relationships there, we end them there, we hate, love, cry, cheer -- we do everything in front of the box. Every human emotion, every human desire, everything available to you without ever having to leave your room. Evolution crawls to imperfection. That was an idea expressed in "Dark Genesis" by J. Gregory Keyes. Our world, a stunning display of nearsighted intelligence, must be the ultimate in imperfection so far. We are playing the symphony of our destruction and we are enjoying it. The world will never be the same again. Everything is moving to the Internet. Even our jobs. People no longer work in the office, they work at home, telecommuting. People no longer go on dates, they make love over the Internet, pretending, or they meet only for sex. Books, movies, even food is delivered to our doorsteps after we order it over the Internet. Soon, everyone will be in their homes, connected to the rest of the world via The Cable. Streets will be quiet, desolate places void of any signs of life. Welcome to the desert of the future. Snacks are to your right. Have a pleasant stay. |
| Time Travel Posted on 05.05.2004 |
| With apologies to the one that inspired me. Do you ever feel that the older you get, the faster time goes? I'm sure everyone has at one point or another felt that way. If you, dear reader, have not, you're probably still too young and shouldn't be reading this anyway. Time. The fourth dimension of the spacetime we inhabit. It was said in a game once, I believe it was Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri, that in one dimension, there is existence, in two, there is life and in three, there is freedom. I believe the fourth dimension, time, adds hope. Seasons pass; the land that once was frozen comes to life, only to succumb to cold again in the ever-repeating cycle; wounds heal, whether we want them to or not and birds return each spring to their old familiar places to hatch out yet another generation. Life goes on and as long as there is time, there is hope for a better future. So why does it seem to us that as we get older, the passing of time gets faster? There are, of course, physiological reasons for this. The ability to memorize and learn starts getting worse around the time we reach adulthood and our brain stops growing. As this happens, we start remembering less and less, although this probably does not in any significant way contribute to the problem at hand. Not until the late 60s anyway. Time to a clock is always the same. Time to a human is always subjective. Depending on what you happen to be doing, a minute can seem either like an eternity or like a speck of dust in the furthest corners of your mind. If you spend an hour watching paint try, you probably won't remember every fine detail of it afterwards and not because of the paint fumes. If you look in the eyes of someone you love and see the whole spectrum of emotions in the windows of her soul, that one moment can crystallize in your mind and you will carry it with you for the rest of your life. Einstein said that time moves slower near massive objects since spacetime near them is curved. This effect is known as time dilation. A similar effect can be observed with memory as well. Time seems to be moving slower when we are doing things that are new to us. Children remember everything better, because everything is new to them. As we grow up, we settle into a routine, which consists mainly of sleeping and working. There isn't much worth remembering in life after childhood and there certainly isn't much new. Gone is the magic sparkle of honest curiosity you can see in a child's eyes. It is said that we are what we eat. Yes, that applies to our bodies, but we are also our experiences. Everything around us shapes us. Every experience changes the way we think, whether the effects are visible or not. If you, dear reader, happen to live near a video rental, be sure to pick up "The Butterfly Effect" and watch it a couple of times. It explains this concept much better than I ever can. Remember, you only live once. Cherish each happy moment you have and pay less attention to the unhappy ones. Life only gets worse as we grow up and there is no point in carrying the emotional baggage of past's mistakes. I guess that's why time seems to move faster as well -- there are simply less and less positive things to remember. |
| Perfection II Posted on 05.05.2004 |
| I had not noticed her before, her quiet beauty, her inner beauty, remaining well-hidden until one day, until that fateful day, when she stole my heart. She came like a bright summer sun, cutting through the stormclouds of my life, her warm rays refracting off the tears of clouds and casting a rainbow into my heart, where darkness and despair had lingered since the beginning of time. Like her there were no others, only distant shadows of her. She was the sun in the sea of stars, in the universe of my life. The brightest, the closest and the warmest of them all. Blinded I was, when I looked into her, blinded by the beauty of her soul. Too close I got to her and scorched my heart did get, my soul charred into a hot lump of coal, burning with the quiet flame of sadness. Everything bears a price in this world and love unanswered costs the most, for it consumes the soul itself and takes away the will to see the coming day. Darkness engulfed my heart, an empty kind of black mist fell and tapped into my soul, draining it dry of emotions until only sorrow and loneliness remained. The bright sun gone, stormclouds fell once again. Bolts of deadly light tore up the sky until it was too cold, too cold indeed. The skies and the lands froze, clouds weeping nothing but snowflakes. Only the ice desert of reality remains now with no hope for spring ever again. I'm sorry. For everything. |
| The Source of Intelligence Posted on 26.04.2004 |
| This rant was written a long long time ago. The reason why I didn't post it is actually quite silly. I was waiting for my best friend to read it and to give me his opinion. Unfortunately, it took him several weeks to read despite the fact that it was written in 3 hours and tweaked a bit afterwards. Also, this rant is mostly about how things apply to me. There are always exceptions to everything. If you happen to find yourself in this rant and want to perhaps discuss these things further, then be sure to drop me a . Originally, I was planning on writing a rant about the social relations between hard-core geeks and the so-called "normal people" known by such names as Joe Average, Jane Average and the modern favorite -- at least when it comes to describing the user-friendliness of contemporary operating systems -- Aunt Tillie, coined by Eric S. Raymond. I was pondering about how hackers in particular tend to communicate with these "mundanes". This led me to think about how hackers are created. What is it that makes hackers, drives them, what defines them and how they relate to the world around them. Thus, this essay was born, hopefully offering an insight into the world of hackers. And by hacker I mean the peaceful open source hacker, not the cracker, who breaks into systems. Eric S. Raymond, as one of the "elders" of the hacker tribe has written a series of essays on the subject of hackers and open source titled "The Cathedral and the Bazaar". While containing a few minor annoyances, it's a very good read for anyone interested in the subject and should be compulsory reading for individuals seeking to become hackers. There he defines the driving force to be the yearning for ego-boosting, the enhancement of one's reputation among peers. I do not fully agree with this conclusion, however. Does it mean that all hackers are people of low self-esteem looking to boost their social status? Probably not. The answer might perhaps lie in neurochemistry. The Swedish scientist Lars Terenius, one of the discoverers of endorphins suggested that humans might be the only species on the planet lacking enough chemicals in their brains to keep them happy and this is what drives some of them to drink and take drugs while others find happiness in scaling mountains, penning theories and building machines. One of Eric S. Raymond's more famous sayings is that every project starts by scratching the developer's own itch. Generally it has been thought that this is true because hackers tend to write programs that don't exist, but which they need. I believe there is more insight to that saying, especially when compared to Terenius' theory. Hackers tend to start new projects not only because they need them, but also because they have the need to create something, since they, as great artists, find happiness in the process of creation as well as in the final product and the positive feedback it might generate. Everything does not simply depend on neurochemistry. The divergent nature of happiness-seeking suggested by Terenius' theory has led us to another question: Why do some people find happiness in a bottle while others find it in a book? If everyone could extract happiness from alcohol, then we'd probably still be in the dark ages and, surprisingly, that's not far from the real answer. It's very popular, not to mention convenient, to blame everything on brain disorders nowadays. For example, whenever geeks are mentioned, someone always brings up Asperger's Syndrome to explain their seemingly autistic nature. However, the answer is simpler than that. Geeks just have a lot more common sense. They have the brain power needed to analyse problems more thoroughly and to choose the path which promises the most return for their efforts. When in groups, the members share something in common, they constantly reinforce their social bonds, provide protection for each other and are generally content with themselves. It is easy to acquire happiness from such closely knit social structures. Building upon our prior assertion that geeks simply have a lot more common sense, we could extrapolate that those geeks who do not engage in such groups tend to do more thinking themselves. Partly because there is effort involved in reinforcing social bonds and partly because they don't have a group to do their thinking for them. However, the gain from constant peer review and help from other members of the group offers a substantial bonus and more than mitigates the negative effects of having to spend time on social relations which might be seen as a distraction at first. It was Newton who said "If I have seen farther, it is by standing on the shoulders of giants." The modern hacker subculture offers a way to constantly leverage this effect and to give back to the community at the same time thus expanding the size and number of these proverbial giants at what seems to be an exponential rate. In essence, we can conclude that within social groups where membership is based on the level of intelligence and where members share a common interest, time spent on reinforcing social bonds more than often pays off as knowledge gained. The key to understanding what sets hackers apart from others is the simple fact that people tend to converge into groups based on their interests. What makes the hacker subculture so special is that their interests lie in a field of study which is very diverse and which requires constant analytical thinking. There are generally two ways a hacker might approach the "real world". He either tries to analyse the world around him or he tries to "hack" it. First way is more consistent with those hackers who are into theoretical sides of whatever they are interested in and the second approach is commonly used by programmers. Analytical thinking when applied to social interactions with the "real world" results in failure more often than not simply because the number of possible reactions to anything is mind-bogglingly huge and it tends to discourage the avid hacker. "Hacking" of the social structure, sometimes also referred to as "social engineering" is nothing new. People have been using it for many things in the past. The act of talking someone into having sex with you, a feat more common among young males, is one of the more older forms of social engineering. Hackers and crackers alike have been using it to gain access to information and resources not available to them through more common means. It is interesting to note that social engineering was there before computer hacking and the latter seems to have grown out of the former. Allegedly, one of the more famous hackers of our time, Kevin Mitnick, wasn't really all that good at computers, but was more an expert in social engineering. Whether this is true or not, I don't know. There are more myths and legends surrounding that guy than there are around Jesus. It is therefore common to see two extremes among hackers. One is the shy type, the analytically thinking one that doesn't get out much and is generally a loner. The other is the kind of a person who "has a life", does go out and does exercise his skills of social engineering for his personal gain. There are, of course, members of the hacker subculture who do not represent these extremes and there are a few lone geniuses who do not even bother with the hacker subculture. Tsutomu Shimomura comes to mind. And as with any movement that gains popularity, there's an endless horde of fan-boys all seeking to become hackers as well, but who only care about the image of hacking and are largely ignorant. Surprisingly, if we were to consider them in the frame-set of Raymond's ego-boosting and if we were to add some skills to them, they would fit in nicely. I shall concentrate on the shy type because the others are not as interesting or are simply beyond the scope of this small essay. A question that one might pose is whether this lack of social skills is a cause or an effect. Whether interest in a certain subject is the cause or the effect of having a minimal social life. It turns out that both of these are possible. If one were to be introduced to computers at a very early age, interest in them could lead to lack of interest in social life which leads to loneliness which itself induces more interest in the subject as I will show in the next paragraph. Preoccupation with computers, or more commonly nowadays with the seeming anonymity provided by the internet which has given rise to online communities of teenagers, leads to an ever-decreasing amount of social life and thus to the withering of social skills. It is also likely, that a person has simply chosen a subject such as computers because he or she had no other choice. This usually happens because of low self-esteem which could be caused by just about anything. If one is unable to find acceptance in "real life", one just tends to go somewhere where acceptance is not based on looks, but on other skills. Many hackers tend to demonstrate that they do not require acceptance in "real life" by not adhering to its standards. They wear odd clothes, their hair is a mess, they listen to eclectic music and so on. While this is commonly attributed to their lack of interest in their looks, which might sometimes be true, it also makes for a powerful social statement. It is possible that a person has simply chosen exile from social life because he or she is disappointed in it. This might be caused by a very painful break-up, a bad childhood or a general belief that the mankind is stupid, materialistic and most, if not all of its members should be shot on sight. This, however, is rare because old wounds tend to heal and people who have previously been exposed to a great deal of social interaction usually regain their confidence in socializing quickly after whatever event causes them to doubt in it in the first place. To sum it up, I'd like to note that one does not have to be a loner or an outcast to be part of the hacker subculture. One might just have an interest in the subject. However, as I showed above, this does tend to lead to lack of social interaction. It is therefore my conclusion that it is hard, if not impossible, to become good at any scientific subject without sacrificing some amount of social skills, which might be regained through the practice of social engineering, whether it is done consciously or not. |
| We Were Script Kiddies Posted on 08.03.2004 |
| Slashdot posted a story today about the culture of script kiddies. You can find it here. One of the questions raised in the comments was about the origin of the exploits that script kiddies get their hands on. I'll try to answer that question and many others in this rant based on my own experiences. Purists will certainly frown upon my use of the word "hack", but please bear with me. That's what it seemed like back then and to be honest, that's what it seems like right now too. Besides, what other word is there? You see, I was a script kiddie once. I'm not proud of it, but it was a phase in my life. Soon after getting myself a computer, a shiny new Celeron 300A running Windows 98, I started exploring. I was pretty much an outcast. I was beat up and mocked a lot at school, so I retreated to my room and spent most of my time there. I learned programming with QBasic, I learned everything I could about Windows and DOS, about computers, hardware, etc. That is, everything I could get my hands on as I didn't have a net connection back then. And then it happened. I got a modem. Internal one that I installed myself without any previous experience. Heh, yeah, it does sound lame, but back then, it was something elite, something to be proud of. I remember the sounds it made as it dialed my ISP's number. Ah, those were sweet days. A whole new world opened up for me. A world filled with knowledge and most importantly, with other people who were like me. For the first time in my life, I felt as if I belonged somewhere. I made a lot of friends there. And enemies too, of course. On IRC, on newsgroups, on the web. The "big things" back then were unpassworded Frontpage server extensions and openly shared drives. I guess one could thank Microsoft for creating a whole generation of script kiddies. The only Estonian hacker group back then, Aatiplex, had even written something they called "Share Scanner" in QBasic which went over IP ranges looking for people who had unpassworded shares. That was a lot of fun. I spent many nights mapping the dialup ranges of different ISPs worldwide and then scanning those. The average rate of success was about 10-20 fully open shares per /24. Technical explanation in the following three paragraphs. Feel free to skip them. When you connect to the internet, you are assigned a unique IP address by your internet service provider (ISP) from their pool of IP addresses. This address identifies you on the internet. (For you purists out there, I'm not going to go into NAT, static IP addresses and IPv6 for the sake of simplicity.) It consists of four numbers, each in the range of 0-255. These numbers are usually written using the dot notation so an address looks like A.B.C.D. To specify ranges, one uses something called a netmask. The netmask format used above, /24, defines a "class C range" or A.B.C.0-255. Where does this 24 come from? An IP address is 4 bytes or 32 bits in length and this /24 indicates that the first 24 bits remain a constant. Frontpage extensions were used on many webservers. These were basically CGI (Common Gateway Interface -- a set of standards for the creation of dynamic web page.) scripts that allowed the uploading and editing of web pages on the server through Microsoft Frontpage, which was a very common HTML editor back then. While these extensions themselves didn't have many holes in them and were generally hard to exploit for most script kiddies, it was however common practice to use empty passwords so one could simply connect to the web server using Frontpage and start editing away -- it didn't even prompt for username or password. One could even consider this legal. After all, there wasn't any kind of protection to circumvent. The open share problem was a similar one. Microsoft Windows had a feature where one could share out a portion of any drive to the whole world. While it's very convenient on local networks, it's a pretty bad thing if you happen to be sitting on a public network such as the internet. Yes, you could password these shares but people seldom did that. One could gain a lot of respect for doing, what seem in retrospect, trivial hacks. It was a lot like going around and beating up strangers for fun. Why did I do it? Because that was one way to gain respect. When you're an outcast with no social life to speak of, you tend to look for ways to establish yourself. A lot of people will tell you to study, to remain yourself, because in some odd way that's supposed to show that you are better than they are. Yes, that might pay off 20 years later, when you have a better job than they do, but that's assuming you can put up with the mental and physical torture without turning into a basketcase. Learning more about computers pays off almost instantly, however. The net is a place where physical appearance and strength doesn't matter. It's a place where brain triumphs over brawn. In the land of dumbusers, the half-brained script kiddie is the king. My all time favourite and probably my most famous hack was one I did on IRC. I used to hang around in a certain IRC channel filled with other script kiddies. One day, someone popped in there and started calling us names, saying that we didn't know anything about computers and were just posers. Turns out the guy had his entire C drive shared out. He got a friendly pat on the back, lost his games and finally went to admire a pretty blue screen. I've heard people say that the satisfaction one gets from a good hack is better than sex. As I've yet to experience the latter, I can't really comment on this, but the adrenaline rush was awesome. As for obtaining 0day and other exploits, then that wasn't always easy, but it was possible. There was one guy on that channel who could be described as a "retired blackhat". He had been involved in the scene some time ago and still had connections. He also ran a private FTP server from where we could get new stuff from. The funny thing is that this server was located at his workplace and he made no attempt to hide that fact or his real name. I found it a bit, well, uninteresting though. So I learned Python and started writing my own tools and exploits for simpler vulnerabilities. That was fun. That was also the time when IIS had its famous directory traversal holes. One could run just about any command line program over HTTP. Plenty of fun for everyone. Especially after I found the entire list of Estonian webservers, wrote a scanner for that vulnerability and left it working during the night. Several sites learned about the importance of keeping their software up to date the day after. (What's annoying is that just last month, a similar hole was found in the Windows/Cygwin version of Apache. Get the scoop at Securiteam's website.) I also formed a little group of my own with a few other people. In order to establish ourselves within the community, we went on a defacing spree doing something around 60 sites, including some government websites from both Estonia and outside, in a few days. You can't imagine the adrenaline rush, the sense of satisfaction, that this provided us. Remember, we were the kind of people who didn't go to parties, who were awkward around girls, who had always been mocked and laughed at by our peers. This was our way of getting back at them, getting back at the world for resenting us and most importantly, this was the only way we could establish ourselves, the only way we could get respect. Sure, it was just within a small community of people, but it was still more recognition than we got in the real world. In the end, I got lazy. What kept me going, kept me writing new things and exploring the world of computers and networks was competition and rivalry. All my good things have come from stiff competition. I got pretty good at it, but then it all died away. Some went on to offer their services for money, some joined the ranks of blackhats, some, like me, retired. It simply wasn't fun anymore. I guess we all just grew up in the end. |
| Perfection Posted on 05.03.2004 |
| There she is again. The most perfect girl in the universe. Her golden hair falling softly on her face, her sweet sad eyes like that of a newborn looking suspiciously and with a certain kind of curiosity at the world around her. Her perfect legs supporting her perfect body as she treads the worn wooden floor. Her eyes meet mine for a brief conversation in a language that nobody understands and only a fleeting image remains, burned into my brain as if there was nothing more precious, nothing more valuable in this world. She sits there in the hallway, staring into space, waiting for the next lesson to begin. I walk up to her, my head a mess of tangled thoughts, a cobweb of ideas that I know will get swept away when I hear her sweet voice. I sit next to her, about a metre from her so as not to invade her personal space. For a moment I'm in heaven. The next, it's hell. "Errr... Hi," I mutter in a shaky voice. "Hi," she replies, clearly searching for thoughts as well. "So... Umm...," I begin. And with nothing else to hang on to, with nothing else to ask, to say, I ask her the corniest of things. "How did your math test go?" "Fine," she replies with confidence. I can feel her look on me, but I can't determine what kind of a look it is. "So... Er... How did you do the hexagon in a circle one?" We both know that it was one of the easiest. We are both aware of it. And she's very good at math. Did I tell you that she's perfect? Well, she is. "Oh, that was easy," she begins with what seems to be careful confidence, her soft voice like a melody to my ears. "The hexagon consists of six equal triangles, each having sides equal to the radius of the circle," she continues more confidently. I nod. I know this. But there is something in her voice which makes it seem as if she was the smartest person in the world and I was hearing it all for the first time. "Yes," I mumble, trying to take part in the conversation, "that's how I did it as well." We talk about the rest of the test and then it's over. The classroom door opens, we both get up and enter. Forty five minutes of math and yet she's the only thing on my mind the whole time. I see her again and again. I see the sadness in her eyes, silence in her ways, emptyness in her soul. I wish to replace that sadness and sorrow with joy and happiness, I wish to fill that void in her soul... I see her in the coatroom. I see her getting into her dark winter jacket and I see her leave, looking down on the ground as she goes. I see her disappear into distance and I sigh as I go the other way. I can't stop thinking about her even in the evening. All the while sitting in front of my computer, staring at my buddy list, waiting for her to come online. Knowing full well, that she's got other things to do, other places to go, other people to see... |
| The Hacker Manifesto Posted on 05.03.2004 |
The Hacker Manifesto, translated into estonian. Based partly on the translation done by Anc0. You can find the original here.
H�kkeri s�dametunnistus
T�na saadi j�lle �ks k�tte, see on k�igis lehtedes: "Teismeline
arreteeriti skandaalse arvutikuriteo p�rast," "H�kker arreteeriti
peale panga pommimist"...
Pagana lapsed. Nad on k�ik �hesugused.
Aga kas sina oma kolmeosalise ps�hholoogia ja 50ndate tehnoajuga
oled kunagi proovinud maailma vaadata l�bi h�kkeri silmade?
Oled kunagi m�elnud, mis teda k�itis, mis j�ud tagant l�kkas?
Olen h�kker, astu minu maailma...
Mu maailm algab kooliga... Ma olen targem kui enamus lapsi. See
jama mis nad meile �petavad on mulle igav...
Pagana laiskvorst. Nad on k�ik �hesugused.
Ma k�in kesk- v�i p�hikoolis. Ma olen kuulanud �petajaid seletamas
50ndat korda kuidas murdu taandada. Ma saan sellest aru. "Jah,
�petajaproua, ma ei n�idanud teile oma �lesannet, aga peas oli see
mul tehtud..."
Pagana laps. K�llap tegi j�lle maha. Nad on k�ik �hesugused.
T�na elan ma avastusega. Leidsin arvuti. Ja tead, see on lahe. Ta
teeb seda, mida ma tahan, et ta teeks. Kui ta teeb vea, siis
sellep�rast, et mina tegin vea, mitte sellep�rast, et ma ei
meeldi talle...
V�i et ta n�eb minus ohtu...
V�i arvab, et ma olen ninatark...
V�i talle lihtsalt ei meeldi �petada ja tegelikult
tahab ta midagi muud teha...
Pagana laps. M�ngib muudkui m�nge. Nad on k�ik �hesugused.
Ja siis see juhtus... Uks maailma avanes... S��stes
l�bi telefoniliini nagu heroiin l�bi narkomaani veenide,
elektrooniline pulss p��seb v�lja, otsides varjupaika p�evasest
n�rimeelsusest... leides selle.
"See ta on... ma kuulun siia..."
Ma tean siin k�iki... isegi kui ma pole neid kunagi kohanud,
kunagi nendega r��kinud. V�ib-olla ma ei kuule neist enam
kunagi... Ma tean teid k�iki...
Pagana laps. J�lle ripub telefoni otsas. Nad on k�ik �hesugused.
V�id kihla vedada, et me oleme �hesugused... Meile on lusikaga
titetoitu suhu topitud, kui me n�ljusime prae j�rgi... Su pehmeks
l�tsutatud liha oli maitseta. Meid on valitsenud sadistid,
v�i ignoreerinud osav�tmatud. �ksikud, kel oli midagi �petada
leidsid meis innukad �pilased, aga need on vaid veetilgad k�rbes.
See siin on n��d meie maailm... Elektroni ja l�liti maailm, baudi
ilu. Me kasutame maksmata teenust, mis v�iks olla mudaodav...
kui seda ei juhiks inimesed, keda huvitab vaid kasum, ja te
nimetate meid kurjategijateks. Me avastame... ja te nimetate
meid kurjategijateks. Me januneme teadmiste j�rgi... ja te
nimetate meid kurjategijateks. Me eksisteerime ilma nahav�rvi,
rahvuse, ilma religioossete eelarvamusteta... ja te nimetate
meid kurjategijateks. Te ehitate aatompomme, s�dite, m�rvate,
petate ja valetate meile ja proovite meile selgeks teha, et see
on meie h�vanguks. Kes on kurjategijad? Meie?
Jah, ma olen kurjategija. Mu kuriteoks on uudishimu. Mu kuritegu
on inimeste hindamine selle j�rgi, mida nad �tlevad ja kuidas
m�tlevad, mitte millised nad v�lja n�evad. Mu kuritegu on
andestamatu. Sinust �leolek.
Ma olen h�kker ja see on minu manifest. Sa v�id mind peatada,
kuid sa ei suuda peatada meid k�iki... L�ppude l�puks oleme me
ju k�ik �hesugused.
+++The Mentor+++
T�lkis Anonymous Howard.
5 m�rts, 2004.
|
| The Age of Looking Back Written some time ago |
| Eighteen. The magic number. The age of consent in many countries, the required age to purchase alcohol and tobacco, the age when one can legally start looking at porn, the time when a boy is considered to be a man, whether or not he has actually lost his virginity. And that will also be my age in two days. There was a documentary on TV today about three different boys celebrating their 18th birthday. One of them was very poor and his party consisted of drinking illegal vodka and getting beaten up. The other was from what one would consider a middle-class family here in Estonia. He had a fairly decent meal with his family and close friends in a small pub. The third guy was from a rich family and his party took place in a big restaurant with a band, lots of friends and plenty to drink. But none of those are for me. No. I haven't celebrated my birthday in years, because I feel like I can never have exactly what I want. I don't want it to be a drinking festival where the goal is to be the first one under the table. Especially since I don't drink alcohol. I don't want it to be a classical "let's get together, eat and look like we're having fun" party either. That is not fun. Unfortunately, there doesn't seem to be any middle road between these two. And branching off into the unknown wouldn't be very feasible either. A lanparty then? Sure. I would like that. But that would be hard since most people I'd like to invite don't have computers or won't be able to transport them to my place. Plus of those that do, some don't even play computer games. They just use their several gigahertz machines for chatting, surfing the web and downloading mp3s off kazaa. A lanparty where people just chat, surf and listen to music would look pretty pathetic. Gifts. I don't know. I already have pretty much everything I need. Well, to be honest, I'd only need some food and water to survive, but what I mean is that I have everything that I need to live comfortably. I have two computers and an old laptop, which I'm currently using to write this little rant. I have a scanner and a graphics tablet for all of my artistic needs. I have a printer too, but that one is currently clogged. Again. As happens to just about any inkjet if you don't use it for a few days. But that is a subject for another rant. The bottom line is, there is nothing material that I require for my birthday. What I would like is a friendly "happy birthday" and perhaps a hug. You can never have too many hugs or good wishes. And most importantly, a person who is willing to do that to you, or even acknowledges your birthday, is more valuable than anything money can buy. I also realised today that I haven't done anything in these past 18 years worth mentioning. Yeah, I got the 7th place at that coding competition, but so what? Most people don't even have the slightest idea about what coding really is. If you try to explain it to them, even when they ask you to, then they usually stop listening and start nodding. Common people never can do those two things at the same time. So whenever someone is nodding while you're talking, know that they are not listening. So what do I have to show for these 18 years filled with misery and constant failure? Nothing, I guess. A guy from my class once asked me arrogantly how much money I've made with this 'computer stuff'. Well, 900kr sounded a bit too little, so I lied, of course. 400 for a shitty little homepage a long time ago and 500 for an 800 line PHP based news system. In case you are unfamiliar with this 'kr', then know that 1 euro = approximately 16.5kr. Not much, I know. I'm not in it for the money, but you try telling that to a huge pile of arrogant muscle ready to punch your face in should the answer be something he doesn't like. Things haven't been much different in my personal life either. I don't go 'out' with 'friends' since I don't drink and also because I lack friends with whom to go out with. Not that I would like to either. Just that there are no places one could go to in a town like this. Yes, plenty of 'waterholes' for the thirsty kind, but as I said, I don't drink alcohol. Plus they closed down the only good billiard house last year. Or was it the year before? Who knows, it's gone now. The only personal experience that I can look back upon and not feel very depressed about is one hug from a girl. My friend's ex-girlfriend. And only because I asked. Yes, I'm that pathetic. Not a single kiss, and definetly nothing more intimate. I met a girl once on the internet and we met in real life, but that, of course, didn't work out. Just my luck, it seems. Last week I ran into a girl at school and later realised that that was the closest I'd been to someone of the opposite sex in a year. Didn't exactly improve my mood. If someone asked me what my biggest accomplishment was, I'd probably say "not dying." In this whole world, I have only one person I can really trust and rely on and I'm writing on his blog right now. (Side note: this little rant appeared first on X-G's blog.) He was even kind enough to give me Terry Pratchett's "Night Watch" for my upcoming birthday. A very good book, I must admit. Thanks a lot for it. But there's something else that I want for my birthday, something that he has already given me. This little something is friendship. Yes, it's corny, yes, it's old, but it works. A good friend willing to say "happy birthday" as if he really meant it is something that one doesn't find often. It's not the material gifts, little novelty items and other trinkets, that count. It's the gift of friendship, that matters. |