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Oct 12th 2012: In an unprecedented moment of clarity, humanity finally admitted defeat, burnt everything to the ground and decided to move back up the trees. This is our last news report, good game everyone!

Sweetmorn, Discord 73, 3173 YOLD

Steve Rogers aka Captain America has died in Marvel’s recent Civil War story line.

Although he never was among my favorite comic heroes, you just don’t let a super hero die like this. And if you do, don’t later resurrect him. I still can remember how I was traumatized when Superman died in the arms of Lois and how affected I was when all the other super heroes attended his funeral to show their respect, only to get disappointed by “Reign of the Supermen” and the later resurrection.

Farewall Captain America, and don’t let them turn you into a zombie!

Pungenday, Chaos 73, 3173 YOLD

On nearly every system I use, my ~/.bashrc calls “fortune -se”. When I logged in right now I just got the following:

“You will be successful in love.”

I won’t go into any details, but getting this exact quote today is about as ironic as it gets. Or maybe fortune just has a very strange interpretation of “succesful”.

Sweetmorn, The Aftermath 29, 3172 YOLD

Since I was pretty busy with personal stuff during the last few days, I hadn’t noticed that two days ago German authorities started confiscating Tor middleman servers. That changed when earlier today I received an email from the owner of a confiscated system, who wants to get in touch with other Tor admins, in order to start a kind of “Knowledge Base” for people who were affected by the recent confiscations or who (still) want to set up their own Tor server. Since I’m also running such a baby (which never was an exit node though) on a virtual server in Germany, I’m of course interested in this recent development, so I want to share the informative links provided in his mail with you.

Articles/postings about the confiscations:
Anonymisierungsserver bei Razzia beschlagnahmt (German)
Staatsanwaltschaft beschlagnahmt Anonymisierungs-Server (German)
Erfolgreicher Schlag gegen die Privatsphäre (German)
Wie man die Anonymisierung kriminalisiert (German)
Re: confiscating middleman-tor-nodes [1], [2] & [3] (English)
Staatsanwaltschaft geht gegen Tor-Server vor (German)

General info on Tor/anonymity:
TOR web site (English, German and more)
Wikipedia article on Tor (English, German)
Sicher und anonym im Internet mit Proxys (German)
Onion Routing und Tor (German)
TheOnionRouter/OperationalSecurity (English)

Tor network overview:
Tor Network Status
Current Tor routers

Don’t get me wrong, child pornography is one of the worst crimes I can think of, and I wish the German authorities all the best in finding the people they are after. I do however feel that the route taken here wasn’t ideal, as it may well lead to a negative perception of Tor in the general public.

That’s why I’ve tripled the total amount of traffic Tor is allowed to serve on my system and donated some money to the project. I would advise you to do the same! Besides that I also encourage you to use Tor and promote it to other people, because anonymity is something that can’t be gained, only lost.

Pungenday, Bureaucracy 34, 3172 YOLD

Since too many of life’s pleasures are demonized by all the greyfaces out there, I’ve decided to start a new series called “In defense of”, where I’ll collect quotes, song lyrics, etc. which show them in a different – and maybe more positive – way.

Does love really need that kind of defense? If we’d be talking about the watered down Hollywood version, this post would most probably be pretty obsolote. But when it comes to the real thing, involving real people, feeling real happiness and despair, things may look a little different…

“To live is like to love – all reason is against it,
and all healthy instinct for it.”
– Samuel Butler, Life and love

Although a little too pathetic for my taste, it’s just too cool to have Bruce Lee in here!

“Love is like a friendship caught on fire.
In the beginning a flame, very pretty,
Often hot and fierce,
But still only light and flickering.
As love grows older,
Our hearts mature
And our love becomes as coals,
Deep-burning and unquenchable.”
– Bruce Lee

“A kiss is a lovely trick designed by nature
To stop speech when words become superfluous.”
– Ingrid Bergman

“Love is like a rumor,
Everyone talks about it,
But no one truly knows.”
– Anonymous

“Love is a haunting melody
That I have never mastered
And I fear I never will.”
– William S. Burroughs

“Love me without fear
Trust me without questioning
Need me without demanding
Want me without restrictions
Accept me without change
Desire me without inhibitions
For a love so free….
Will never fly away”.
– Dick Sutphen

Johnny Cash – Ring of Fire

Love Is A Burning Thing
And It Makes A Fiery Ring
Bound By Wild Desire
I Fell Into A Ring Of Fire

The Ring Of Fire

Boomtime, Confusion 56, 3172 YOLD

Since too many of life’s pleasures are demonized by all the greyfaces out there, I’ve decided to start a new series called “In defense of”, where I’ll collect quotes, song lyrics, etc. which show them in a different – and maybe more positive – way.

Kikizo: So, how many drinks does it take for ideas to stop being feasible, good ideas, and start being just complete nonsense?

Itagaki: Haha! It’s hard to say, because I am drinking pretty much full-time. Of course, there are ups and downs, waves, of how I drink in terms of the amount, but it’s a long period of time. In the last ten years – not that you asked this question – I think I had better ideas when I was drinking whisky. When I am drinking shochu, that’s a conservative drink, so the ideas are not that great. Beer is just like water to me, so it just helps me and everyone else loosen up a little bit, it doesn’t really contribute to coming up with ideas. (found on Ars Technica)

“I wouldn’t recommend sex, drugs or insanity for everyone, but they’ve always worked for me.” – Hunter S. Thompson

BOUNCING SOULS
“I Started Drinking Again”

I ain’t shed one lousy tear over you
Since I started drinkin’
Since I started drinkin’
Since I started drinkin’ again

“Alcohol may be man’s worst enemy, but the bible says love your enemy.” – Frank Sinatra

“Alcohol is the anesthesia by which we endure the operation of life.” – George Bernard Shaw

“Man being reasonable must get drunk; The best of life is but intoxication; Glory, the grape, love, gold – in these are sunk – The hopes of all men and of every nation” – Lord Byron

(Quotes taken from Thinkexist.com)

Sweetmorn, Confusion 40, 3172 YOLD

My Mac Mini is almost here! “Almost?”, I hear you asking? Yep, almost, because this morning when the nice lady from the logistics company who is delivering my shiny new toy called, the dialog went something like this.

Me: Hello?
Ms. Logistics: Hi, it’s Ms. Logistics from Foobar Logistics. I have a delivery from Apple for you!
Me (silently): Finally we can take over the world, Igor.
Ms. Logistic: We want to deliver it today, when will you be home?
Me: Well, right after work, 6:30pm, 7:00pm to be on the safe side.

Me: Lemme guess, that’s too late?
Ms. Logistics: Unfortunately, yes. How about tomorrow morning?
Me: Sure, morning’s fine. I’ll be home until about 8:45am.
Ms. Logistics: Uh..ahm..
Me: That’s too early then?
Ms. Logistics: Yeah, I can’t promise a delivery that early [sic!]... How about 10:00 to 10:30am.
Me: Sure, who needs to go to work anyway? How about the weekend?
Ms. Logistics: I’m afraid we don’t deliver on weekends…
Me: Arrrghhhhhhhhhh!
(Disclaimer: Wording changed for emphasis.)

Finally we agreed on a delivery on Friday afternoon, where at least my girlfriend will be home because she works for a company which – strangely enough – believes that Austrian laws regarding maxium work hours per week are to be taken seriously.

And the morale of the story? Try to work for a logistics company, where you’ll have immense amounts of free time, because they apparently only deliver between 10:37am and 4:23pm on even numbered days… Seriously, I’m the last person to expect anyone to work 24/7, but those times Ms. Logistics offered me just don’t work for anyone who has a regular day job.

Conclusion: Get rid of the day job before ordering the MacBook!

Setting Orange, Discord 57, 3172 YOLD

Today when my girlfriend tried to log in to one of her favourite sites to download some music she paid for, her login credentials didn’t work. When she wrote an email to the support team (after automatic retrieval of the login credentials and checking them for correctness of course), she received the following answer:

Hey Silvia, many systems cannot recognize symbols in passwords.  We have updated your profile and removed the symbol from your password  so you should be able to successfully login to your account now. Your new password is [snipped]
[insert company name] Support

What do we learn from this?

1. They want to make us believe “+” is a symbol many systems can’t recognize. Sure. Besides thanks for assuming we’re too stupid to try out special characters (aka “symbols”) in the user name field after several failed log in attempts.
2. They store their customer’s passwords in cleartext.
3. They change user profiles without permission to avoid looking for the real problem.
4. They even try to make it look like a good solution (“you should be able to succesfully login to your account now”).
5. They suck like most tech supports do.

When I read replies like that, I really wonder how people would treat a mechanic who says “I don’t know what the problem with your engine is, but many streets don’t recognize your tires so I’ve changed them. Besides that I changed your ignition lock and made a backup key for myself. All cool, eh?”.

My only hope: those guys obviously are dull boys, and dull boys don’t get chicks. If we’re just a little lucky, the gene pool will sort itself out.

P.S. Yeah, I might be a little p*ssed after spending 13 hours in the office.

Boomtime, Discord 49, 3172 YOLD

I’m really interested to get some opinions on this particular topic: is there a conncection between how people perceive their own knowledge of computers and what kind of hardware they buy?

I’m wondering because I’ve just been reading a discussion about the new Intel based notebooks, especially the new Mac Books which will be released in June. With 13,3” it will be the smallest of Apple’s new offerings, and a lot of people have cried loud for a MacBook Pro – ok, the name really sounds stupid – with the same form factor. But will they really feel a difference? Or do they just want them because the “Pro” makes them feel better (no insult intended)? My own hardware almost always has been pretty old, and I have never much felt the need to own something better just because I’m a “power user” (periods of “decadence kills depression” excluded of course ). And what’s a power user anyway?

When my last notebook broke, I ressurected my old desktop machine (an Athlon 650 with 320MB RAM). Although not blazingly fast, I was able to do everything I wanted. My computing needs may be really simple, but given that I was able to read my mails, surf the web and working/coding in several terminal windows while listening to my MP3s or web radio, why should I bother buying new hardware? The same goes for the Mac Mini which will hopefully get delivered next week: why pay a lot more money for a Core Duo, when the Core Solo is already way better than the machine I had before that and which did everything I wanted? With all the money I have already saved by not buying computers I won’t really use to their full potential anyway, I can easily buy complete new systems when I don’t want to upgrade the current ones anymore…

How about you guys out there? Do you buy fancy new hardware because it makes you feel “1337”? Or are you still using your 486 because as a real hacker you know how to squeeze out every percent of performance possible?

Boomtime, Discord 44, 3172 YOLD

Jennifer Government for real?

Pungenday, Discord 30, 3172 YOLD

Disclaimer: This is a rant. It will be unfair and biased. Live with or go away.

Ok, here we go: I hate the Lucky Couple™! Don’t get me wrong, I’m no frustrated sicko who hates all happy people in his vicinity, at least not most of the time. It’s just that I really can’t stand that particular kind of couple who are so offensively in love that the average Hollywood love story seems like a Homerian tragedy when comared to the uberhappy Lucky Couple™. Really, if you’re in a restaurant and all you are doing is petting on the verge to hard-core pornography, either go home or at least have the decency to go all the way and give the people around you something to see. Actually being happy, kissing and everything else the average couple does is perfectly ok, but I absolutely hate the way the Lucky Couple™ involves the whole room in their private life without realizing that WE DON’T CARE. Really. We don’t.

Prickle-Prickle, Chaos 64, 3172 YOLD.

1. You’ll turn into a bitter cynic. This in fact is probably the best thing about your job, which really should make you think…

2. Only wackos and smartasses work in this field. Depending on which group you belong to, this might even be fun. More often though you’re screwed.

3. If your boss screws up, it will probably get communicated to the customer as your fault. Given that you took the job in the first place, that’s even true.

4. Every job where people tell you things along the line of “An average day has 24 hours and if that isn’t enough, you’ll have to make use of the nights too!” and find that actually funny, is a good reason to spend the rest of your life in a zen buddhist monastery, a mental home or both.

5. The best thing about your average work day is that there’s always at least one person in the office who is worse off than you (see #1). However, he’s most likely also the one poor guy who’s neither a wacko nor a smartass (see #2), so you have to control your bitter cynicism and feel sorry for him.

6. The coffee is cold or bad and the coke is either warm or a diet coke. They’ve thought about everything!

7. After a certain amount of time you won’t be able to remember if the sentences “Resistance is futile. Your life as it has been is over. From this time forward, you will service us.” have been said by your boss or Locutus of Borg. What’s even worse is that it doesn’t really make a difference anyway…

P.S. I’m also planning on writing up some reasons for “Why working in Business IT rocks”. Yeah, right.

Pungenday, Chaos 38, 3172 YOLD

I just wasted two hours fixing a problem that maybe wasn’t one to begin with. Don’t you just love it when software starts acting strange for no obvious reason, and you have nfc what’s going on? And then suddenly, when you’re about to finally throw that frigging PC out of the window so you can once and for all start your new career as buddhist mendicant, it just starts working again as if nothing ever happened.

Given that my free time is currently rather limited, I’m pretty pissed at the moment, as I’ve tried really hard to have some spare hours this afternoon to spend on some personal projects of mine. Ok, I’m talking about software projects, and maybe I also would have wasted hours chasing some stupid bug. But at least it would have been MY bug, and I would even have considered it to be fun. Strange, eh?

Setting Orange, The Aftermath 18, 3171 YOLD

Recently BoingBoing had an article on the first international conference on netporn criticism. They quoted Mark Dery’s keynote, where I read this paragraph that really got me thinking:

Can we be far from the future foretold by J.G. Ballard, where car-crash enthusiasts get off on vehicular manslaughter and fans of Space Age snuff thrill to footage of astronauts being roasted alive during re-entry? In the introduction to his 1974 novel Crash, Ballard wondered if the android numbness induced by media bombardment – the “demise of feeling” – would open the door to “all our most real and tender pleasures – in the excitements of pain and mutilation; in sex as the perfect arena…for…our…perversions; in our moral freedom to pursue our own psychopathology as a game.”

This strangely reminded me of a lot of stuff I have read during the last year. For one there’s Michel Houellebecq’s “Les Particules élémentaires” (English: “The Elementary Particles”, German: “Elementarteilchen”), where somewhere in the middle of the book a character (David di Meola) gets introduced, who has sex and violence mixed up in the most shocking ways one can imagine. This is presented as a logical and inevitable process, which is the consequence of the destruction of old moral values in the 50ies, 60ies and 70ies: Once this liberation gave people the freedom to satisfy all their sexual needs, they went on to satisfy their more basic and gruel phantasies. And suddenly, Charles Manson isn’t a shocking counterpoint to the Hippie movement, but its logical consequence…

Reading how Houellebecq describes the content of the snuff videos the aforementioned character produces, one instinctly also has to think about Pasolini’s Salo. Shortly after the first pictures of Abu Graibh surfaced, I read a commentary that compared the aesthetics of those pictures to the one which can be found in Pasolini’s movie (if only I could find that link again). And when you now think about how this whole incident was covered in the media, don’t you also have a feeling that there was a strange urge to go into the most unpleasant details and show as much gruel photos as possible? Sometimes I’m almost convinced that TV news have become a convenient way to sublimely satisfy the darker parts of our own desires.

And then, when I read some texts about critical theory, I found this paragraph about how we as a society are constantly trying to rationalize things in order to get rid of old myths, a process in which enlightenment itself becomes the ultimate myth. This dialectic between overcoming old structures only to rebuild them in what we perceive as more rational, really makes me wonder if we as a society are only doing this in order to find explanations that allow us to follow the desires of our more primitive selves in a way that makes more sense in contemporary society. Do we even want to evolve? Or are we only looking for excuses for not doing so?

For the last few days the pope’s visit at the Weltjugendtag in Cologne is dominating German speaking media. If you look at how the participants celebrate “the vicar of Peter”, you’d almost believe that The Beatles are on tour again… I even did see a laola wave on TV! What were this guys chanting while doing this? I suppose something along the lines of “Give me an I! I! Give me a N! N! ... So what’s the word? INQUISITION! Horray!” would have done the trick. When I saw all this religious hysteria, I nearly got afraid that in some years time secularism will only be a fond memory and creationists will try to take over the European school system…. Finally I found a link to this platform in teemow’s blog, which tells me that I’m not the only one who thinks that the enlightenment was one of the better episodes in recent human history… Or maybe I just haven’t seen the light, and the pope is here to reinstall Edmund Stoiber as emperor by God’s grace, after which millions of Germans will do laola waves, singing “habemus papam” and “Wir sind Papst!”. And in the digital age, Canossa is only an election pledge away…

Note: I really respect religion and people’s religious believes, as long as those people in return respect my agnostic and critical approach to religion. Believe in anything you want, be it God, Buddha, Krishna or some stones in the desert. I really couldn’t care less, but don’t try to force your believes on me and try to stay in touch with recent (e.g. no older than say, 200 years) scientific developments.