I’ve taken to not writing anything about my personal life, but.. it’s a late hour, and i’m feeling like shit, so i might as well use this as a kind of diary. I don’t expect commentary. Not many people can understand what i’m going through, and that’s just fine. This is mostly for me. So i can read about it later. Maybe i was also influenced by E to some degree to write this.

Since the breakup from my 6 year relationship with the first woman i really loved, I’ve gone through so many stages. I guess these are all in psych 104 or whatever, but it’s another thing experiencing them on your own.

I thought i was set. A great kid, a son none the less, someone to carry on the family name. A beautiful wife whom i loved. A burgeoning career doing the thing i love the most. Years worth of un-replaceable experiences, good memories and immortal moments. A home.

Some people say that home is where you are. But when you’ve built something together, and one of the architects are taken away, it’s no longer your home. It’s just a storage place for memories.

Granted; good memories never fade. Bad memories stick around just long enough to teach us something, but they are gradually put aside. It’s how the human mind works. The brain can’t handle too much of the bad stuff, or it malfunctions and you become incapable of performing anything but the most basic tasks; if even those. I have what is called a high thresh-hold for activity or performance. I can take higher than average loads of crap, before i become unable to go to work, meet people, do things. Whether this is a good thing or not is debatable.

We’ve sat on the beach facing the Mediterranean, felt the fine sand under our toes, looking at the sunset. Feeling the salty breeze on our faces. Being happy, smiling and looking at each other. Ate rabbit stew up in a restaurant in a small village in the Sierra Nevada mountains, with an entré of Jámon Serrano. Climbed up to an old Moor castle. Climbed the Eifel Tower. Walked across Paris to reach the Louvré which looked a whole lot closer on the map. The gargoyles of Notre Dame. The steps leading up to the Sacre Coeur. Standing in the middle of Time Square. Looking across the bay toward the Statue of Liberty.

Sitting on the couch watching Eureka, or Alias or something. The small things. Saw the whole of Alias almost in sequence. And this was just a few months ago it feels.

Since i have partially eidetic memory, and a visual memory in general as well, i can’t look at certain items anymore without feeling such deep sorrow. I remember where almost every DVD in my shelf was bought. When we first watched it. I had to replace about 3000 euro worth of furniture just to be able to live here. And here i am, still stuck in this 95 m2 appartment, with jack-all to do, and a brick where my brain should be. Just writing this makes me cry.

As i’ve concluded to so many people: all i have is a pile of good memories and the question of why.

Why do nice guys finish last?

http://forum.xbmc.org/showthread.php?p=534712

I’ve been giving megacorporations a whole lot of thought lately. In this article, i’ll be looking at three of them: Microsoft, Google and Apple.

First, let’s delve in to the big G, Google. Google is a verb. How many companies have ever become a verb? “Google that.”. There’s a whole lot of buzz around Google, namely that they are some kind of evil corporation, hellbent on world domination. There are a number of things that attest to this. Google is one of, if not the biggest owner of fiber optic cable in the world. This means, they control a large part of the backbone of the internet. They’ve been quietly buying it up along the years, and i believe they are now in the position of largest owner. The buying started in 2005, if not earlier.

Recently, theybid for a chunk of RF-bandwidth, namely the 700mhz area. This is an area that can be used to operate a mobile telephone network. In the 2007 bidding-competition, this was the C-block. The rules stated, that if bidding on the C block exceeded a certain figure, the winner would have to allow everyone to create applications and devices for that block, effectively opening it up.

“As a result of the auction, consumers whose devices use the C-block of spectrum soon will be able to use any wireless device they wish, and download to their devices any applications and content they wish,” say Richard Whitt and Joseph Faber, two of Google’s Washington-based counsel members, in a post Thursday afternoon.

Google threw in a bid of a cool 4.6 billion dollars right off the bat, thereby unlocking the deal as stated above. They didn’t actually have to pay that much (Verizon ended up actually buying the spectrum for a fair 9.4 billion, which also includes other frequencies), but the fact that they could make the bid, means they did.

Google makes money off advertisement. If you use Firefox, and the noscript plugin (very much recommended), you’ll notice that most sites use a bit of javascript called Google Analytics. This is the little bit of code that follows you around on the web, and generates valuable marketing data about your habits. This way, marketing companies can make very specific ads, or just change the layout and presentation of their ads, based on how millions upon millions of consumers surf. They also use text-ads in applications such as gmail, to look through your mail (scary, right?), and then produce ads based on the content of your mails. Say you’re mailing Tom about a new car, you’ll probably get ads regarding cars, auto accessories, cheaper service-plans..

So my question is, can google make it without the ad-revenues? If i suddenly went around like fucking Santa Claus, and installed Firefox on every last computer in the world, along with adblock and noscript, would google go bancrupt? Probably not. They’ve been adding to their portfolio with things like fiber optics and mobile devices (Android, anyone?). But would it be enough to sustain this behemoth? Who knows. The ultimate goals of Google may only be known to a select few. It’s just a proven fact that when any entity gains a lot of power, that results in trouble. Because what do people with power want? More power.

Chapter two in this post is Microsoft and Apple. Both big healthy companies, with a long-running history of weird products, bad products, and amazing success-stories. But one would probably not be without the other. I’m talking about Apple, receiving money from Microsoft to continue operating. This was in the 90′s. Now what did this result in, initially? Microsoft products were now available on Macs. Programs like Office and Internet Explorer became available on the Mac platform. But this hasn’t quelled the interest for Mac applications, such as iWork and Safari, both of which are living healthy lives of their own. IE isn’t available anymore, and the office version is growing a bit old as well. One can dual-boot a mac in to windows, using Boot Camp. No doubt, also a fruit of this unholy alliance.

CNET recently wrote that Apple “owes” Microsoft 30 billion dollars, and as a side effect, most of their success. Had Microsoft not sponsored Apple, they probably would not have gone on to get a significant market-share in mobile phones, computers and software. The iPod is a household standard, and who hasn’t heard of the iPhone, perhaps the most anticipated product launch of the 00′s. Apple has created a whole breed of geeks. People who follow the word of the Steven, use 100 bucks on their haircuts, drink 10 euro cups of coffee, while surfing wirelesly on their admittedly crippled Mac Air. Whatever they make, these people buy. They do the marketing for Apple. All that’s needed is a few select words, usually starting with “Oh and by the way..”, and the apple fanatics take care of the rest. Blogs, offices and dinner tables everywhere are filled with discussion on their new product, the price and features usually a mere subtopic.  Whatever the price, whatever the problems and obvious deficits, people will buy it. They’ll line up to get it.

Funny how one of the most powerful forces in marketing and design today, depended on one of the industry’s grandfathers. When has a Microsoft product last seen even a fraction of the hype of an Apple launch? Maybe Microsoft should have added a clause to get a share of the marketing genious that is Apple, in exchange for all those moneys? Maybe there were clauses in there that nobody knows about. But they sure have stayed quiet about the whole deal.

I, xxx xxxx hereby declare that if Timo Soini, of the right-wing populist “True Finn”-party gets elected as president of Finland, i will move out of the country within one month of his inauguration.

The stupidity must end.

This is just a bit of news i picked up elsewhere, it’s probably in all the major news outlets here, so i won’t bother with sources. Check any magazine.

There’s 87 million euros (that’s like a kazillion u.s. dollars) of money that’s been collected by different organisations to benefit the veterans of our wars. There are roughly 67 000 veterans left, and two-thirds of them will die within the next five years, according to studies. This means, that they’d have to start giving out cash at a speedy rate, so that everyone get’s their share. This also means that people who have donated to the cause over the past decades don’t get lied to, and that the money goes where it was collected for.

Let’s get a few things straight. I don’t disrespect veterans, on the contrary. My grandfather is a veteran of WW2, and he lost 6 brothers to russian bombs and bullets. Others in my family had to go in to exile, or spent weeks in bunkers waiting for the firebombings to stop. My family has seen war.

It’s the origanisations i have a problem with. They collect money, yet they are very stringy about where it goes. My grandfather hasn’t seen much in way of support, and for instance rehabilitation has been sporadic at best. Why are they sitting on 87 million euro?

Well, one explanation is that veterans need to be remembered after they have all passed, and i agree totally. But for 87 million you get a whole lot of remembrance for a whole lot of generations. With that kind of money, we could send videos and books  about veterans to every person in the country for a few years.

Most people, including my grandfather, still live in debt, in a small apartment, in conditions less than stellar. He still has his dignity and wisdom, but i still feel we could give more. He’s 87 now, and 5 years is about what i’d give him at most.  It’d be nice to spend those last years not having to worry about bills or payments.

So how about it, guys?

I vote we stop giving any more money to these organisations that say they are benefiting veterans, until they actually start doing so. This discussion has been ongoing for a long long time, and yet, it’s still one of the most popular places to donate money. Let’s just not cheat these people out of the money they’ve rightfully earned, in the last few years of their lives.

So the wife was in a car accident yesterday. No, nothing serious. Some ass in a rental drove in to her while she was giving way to a bus (as is the law). The guy, incidentally a Swedish speaking Finn (more on this later), started screaming bloody murder immediately. He first told my wife, who was in the car with her sister, and her boyfriend, that he would be calling his father, who’s friend, apparently, is a police officer. My wife asked whether the police officer would be coming as well, to which he replied, no. My wife then called the police.

While waiting, the boy’s parrents showed up, and started screaming bloody murder, and even flat out threatening my wife. The mother told my wife that she, and her boy would be getting a criminal record for this, if she didn’t admit to her guilt. My wife told her that she isn’t admitting to anything she didn’t do, and especially for someone elses benefit. She kept screaming and trying to force her to admit that it was her fault.

Among the accusations presented were:

- She was reversing (down-hill?)
- She was letting the car slide downhill instead of breaking (also not true, three witnesses can attest to this)

The funny part is, my wife’s sister and her boyfriend saw the boy talking on the phone while the accident happened. He has probably wiped his logs by now, and claimed that he was simply “holding” the phone, not using it.

The other funny part is, for some generalized reason, the group of people i loathe to be a part of, swedish speaking finns, are just typically like this. Accident happens, call your mom and dad, who of course are convinced of their golden boy’s innocence.

So the police came, took some pictures, and statements, and told everyone to wait for an investigation. Our car is unscathed, where as the rental got a nice big hole in the front from our tail-hook, which went right through the plastic. I don’t think we can lose this case, because we have more witnesses, and the boy and his family were acting very rudely, making threats and all.

They’re going down.

Here’s a picture that describes how the case will go, if it goes to court:

Odd problems. I have two desktops at work. Both with a 946GZ intel chipset/graphics whatever. Under Windows 7, i get extended dualscreen, under Vista, i get only Cloned mode. No changes in bios. What the hell is up with that? Seriously. It’s pissing me off.

Ok so some of you might remember i contacted AMD a while back to ask about stuff pertaining to Ubuntu and ATI Stream, and whether i could post stuff about it, and perhaps even ready .deb packages to help the community out, since ATI officially doesn’t make or support anything for Ubuntu. No reply from those guys… and that was like.. two months ago.

Ok, i’m also gonna write an article about information gathering on the internet. I recently did some “Sherlocking” of my own, and hunted down a webpage that B had started writing, with very little to go on. The process was rather interesting, and i was in fact impressed at how quickly i was able to track him down without any help! I’m also going to talk a little bit about Maltego, a commercial tool for doing information gathering.

Information gathering can be useful in many circumstances, like say, employers looking for prospective employees, or say a hacker doing some social engineering, or just a pen-tester looking for a way in to the target company.

Social engineering and information gathering has always been near to my heart, simply because in everything there’s always the human element that can make or break any secure system. If you can smile nicely to the secretary, or talk your way through a company reception desk, you can get the keys to the world. A well placed word or gesture can get you much further, much faster, than a keystroke.

In the underbelly of society, exists a cult. It’s members are not faceless, not unknown. But invisible to most, due to what? Ignorance? Sheer implied, intrinsic anonymity?

I speak not of a cult of religious proportions, though one might call it that, and not be too far off. It’s not a cult of violence, though elements of that may be found if properly sought.

I walk through the morning rush, scarecly aware of my surroundings. Still lacking the first cup of coffee for the day, my approach toward the innevitable is nearly automatic, or comatose, depending on your interpretation. A neatly clad woman passes me, clearly in either a more controlled, or a more rushed state of mind and time. Like sound trailing light, a cloud of entoxicating perfume drifts by, following her. It passes me, not long after she did. A moment of euphoria. Back to numbness.

Out of the subway now, still steaming toward the innevitability of the day’s work. A face passes by. A short exchange of looks, perhaps? Or just a simple, seemingly random gaze? A face recognized. From the cult.

No official, visible recognition of status or position, or even existence. Just a signifying look. Quick mental references; synapses firing wildly to connect dislocated data.

I smile contently.

The most dangerous man, to any government, is the man who is able to think things out for himself, without regard to the prevailing superstitions and taboos. Almost inevitably, he comes to the conclusion that the government he lives under is dishonest, insane, and intolerable, and so, if he is romantic, he tries to change it. And even if he is not romantic personally, he is very apt to spread discontent among those who are

– H.L. Mencken, Smart Set Magazine in December 1919

Seriously, what the fuck?

Do these people writing “articles” in to these so called “magazines” call themselves “journalists” ? I mean, like are they on a coffee-break, and go like “so.. how is your journalisting going?” -”it’s swell, bob.” ? Do they hit on women in the bar in the after-hours by saying “Hey baby, i write for a magazine.. What do you do?”.

You people are idiots and bringing your title to shame. At least don’t call yourself journalists; take the title..asshat or dickbishop instead. I guess, the fault lies in your bosses, and the owners, and ultimately in the stupid population of this country, who are willing to, time and time again, pay for shit.

Okay, that’s just words on a screen, but just.. take any day. Take today as an example:

“The war of 1918 was extraordinarily expensive!”

and

“Marja-Leena Kirvesniemi forced to take sex-test”, yeah, in 1991 when she was still an active cross-country skier.

This shit was in the news tens, or even hundreds of years ago. Other shining examples of plainly fucking with readers include “Horrific Formula 1 accident @ Spa!”, yes, in 1973.

I mean, i know there are slow news days, and you need to cheat people out of their hard-earned money even those days, but come the fuck on. Couldn’t you find some piece of shit drying on the wall that looks like jesus, or like, find a picture of elvis or jackson alive? Just try? Or start making news! How about that?

Start jumping down from buildings wearing invisible bungee-cords, in the middle of a crowded shopping mall, and have a special effects team create a life-like corpse on the bottom floor! Or uh.. take an old boat out in to the docks, and sink it with nobody inside?

How a-fucking-bout it guys? Stop writing shit and bringing a shame to your fucking careers. I don’t have anything against news, how frivolous they might be, but fuck! I don’t need to re-read news from 20 years ago! “Man lands on moon!”, holy shit!!!!!!

Edit: Yes, all the news have a spurious connection to the modern day, such as “someone was sex-tested recently”, and “someone wrote a book on the civil war”, and “formula 1 is still dangerous”