Chronicling the depravities of the State.
I never thought I’d post this many video game related articles in one day but I learned that the Nintendo Entertainment System (NES) turned 30 yesterday, making the same age as me.
The NES was the first video game system I ever owned and I probably spent more time playing that thing that I should admit (in my defense I grew up in the small town with nothing to do). It was kind of cool to learn that it’s the same age as I am.
As most people can probably guess I’m a huge fan of cyberpunk. There’s something really cool about the idea of merging man and machine to create something that far exceeds the capabilities of any natural person. The Deus Ex series is the epitome of cyberpunk in the video game world so I was pretty excited when Square Enix announced a new new entry in the long running series. However, I was hesitant because it was announced for iOS and to this day I haven’t played a first person game on a touch device that had even remotely decent controls.
Much to my joy I think Deus Ex is the first game to finally get the control problem solved. Although Square Enix didn’t do anything revolutionary the little shortcuts make a world of difference. Moving around in the game is done with the traditional on screen “move” zone and “look” zone. Moving your finger in the “move” zone moves your character around and moving your finger in the “look” zone moves the camera relative to your character. Where Deus Ex improves things is that you can move to a location by double-tapping it. Although it sounds like a very minor addition it saves you a lot of finger waving. You can also target an enemy, which locks your camera on it for firing purposes, by tapping them.
I haven’t made it far enough into the game to make any kind of formal judgement by the controls have impressed me. With any luck we’re entering the stage of touch screen gaming where first person shooters become enjoyable.
By now everybody has heard that Zimmerman was found innocent of murder and manslaughter by his jury. I have little to say about the trial or the ruling that hasn’t already been said by much more qualified individuals than myself. With that said, I do have something to say about the reaction many have had to the verdict.
After the verdict was released social media sites exploded with threats against Zimmerman’s life and riots. I think, by far, these reactions are the worst thing to come out of the Zimmerman trial. Regardless of your opinion about this case you should be able to accept the jury’s ruling without resorting to violence or the threat thereof.
Even if you believe Zimmerman is guilty of murder or manslaughter, killing him or destroying some poor schmuck’s storefront isn’t going to change anything. Nature is cruel, it often necessitates situations that cannot be corrected. Taking Zimmerman’s life won’t bring back Martin’s.
Violence is cyclical. Zimmerman killed Martin, whether you believe his actions were self-defense or murder are irrelevant to the fact that one man is alive and another is dead. If you kill Zimmerman then all that has been accomplished is adding another corpse to the pile. In turn Zimmerman’s family will likely seek vengeance for the death of their kin. On and on the cycle goes until there are no people left.
The only way the cycle ends is when somebody decides there has been enough bloodshed and refuses to further add to the problem. Let’s rise above barbarism; nothing will be accomplished through more death or riots.
Some interesting research has come out of the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization (CSIRO) that shows deserts have actually begun to green because of the rising CO2 levels in the atmosphere:
In findings based on satellite observations, CSIRO, in collaboration with the Australian National University (ANU), found that this CO2 fertilisation correlated with an 11 per cent increase in foliage cover from 1982-2010 across parts of the arid areas studied in Australia, North America, the Middle East and Africa, according to CSIRO research scientist, Dr Randall Donohue.
Many proponents of global warming have been claiming that the rising CO2 levels have lead to an increased in temperature, which has lead to an increasing rate of desertification. Others have been claiming that the Earth is in a state of CO2 starvation, which has cause a decrease in plant life. If CSIRO’s research pans out the latter group could be proven correct if deserts continue to green as CO2 level increase.
The most interesting aspect of this research, in my opinion, is it demonstrates how little our species knows about the consequences of various planetary changes. This is an important lesson because many people become so enamored with certain ideas that they become willing to use force to propagate them. Such zealotry should be avoided as our species is discovering new data every day that stands to change our previous conclusions. At one time many people thought the Earth was flat but today we know it is roughly spherical. Today a majority of people believe global warming is a man made phenomenon but in the future we could learn that it’s being caused by an extraplanetary phenomenon. Because of this I believe it would be prudent to avoid using force to coerce individuals into reducing CO2 output. As time goes on we may even learn that increased CO2 levels are beneficial if it leads to a reversal of desertification.
Regardless of your opinion on Zimmerman’s innocence or guilt, yesterday’s action by the prosecution should strike you as, at the very least, questionable:
In a surprise move this morning, the prosecution asked the Judge to drop the Aggravated Assault charge and to instruct the jury on Third Degree Murder, which is murder in the course of committing a felony.
The felony the State wanted as the predicate was Aggravated Child Abuse (Jury Instruction) because Trayvon Martin was 17 at the time of the shooting.
Fortunately, Judge Nelson denied the request. But the prosecution’s action still demonstrates how badly they want to find Zimmerman guilty. Throughout the trial the prosecution has, in my opinion, failed to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that Zimmerman wasn’t acting in self-defense. I believe the prosecutor also believes this but wants to put Zimmerman in a cage no matter the cost. Because of this desire he apparently decided to entering a request to instruct the jury on another lesser charge was his best hope of nailing Zimmerman. Ordinarily I wouldn’t have a problem with either the prosecution or defense requesting something but this request was made after both sides made their closing statements. The defense had no time to address the charges so, had the judge agreed to instruct the jury on the charges, there would have been no way for Zimmerman’s lawyer to defend against the charge.
There has been a lot of chicanery going on since the start of this entire Zimmerman/Martin fiasco. It really demonstrates how ineffective the justice system in this country is.
Every time I talk to a statist about anti-statism they always end up falling back on the pathetic question, “Without government who will build the roads?” Seriously, there’s an organized crime ring going around the world bombing the shit out of brown people and the only thing these statists are worried about are the God damned roads. You know, the roads filled with craters that never get filled in because the Department of Transportation is too busy ripping up several perfectly good highways (if you live in Minnesota you know what I’m talking about)?
But here I am to tell all the statists out there that their precious roads will be just fine without the state. In fact the roads may be better because without the state to punish people who are filling in potholes we may actually have a qualify transportation infrastructure:
A man dubbed the “pothole Robin Hood” is under police investigation for taking asphalt from the city of Jackson, Miss., and filling in potholes on city streets.
Ron Chane admits that he takes the asphalt and repairs potholes, and then signs the filled-in holes with the message “citizen fixed,” he told ABC News.
“It’s sort of like Robin Hood. Once we saw that people were appreciating what we did, we went out again and made a goal of fixing 100 potholes. We’ve actually filled 101 potholes, so our mission has been completed,” Chane said.
Yup, somebody is actually working to maintain the infrastructure everybody relies on and the police are investigating him because he took asphalt, which his tax dollars paid for, from the crooks who weren’t using it. Statism: throwing logic out the door since inception.
Have you ever thought to yourself, “Man, I really want a Glock but I don’t want to register a firearm.” Fear not, the same man who brought up an AK receiver fabricated from an old shovel has now posed instructions for building a Glock frame out of scrap metal pieces.
Have I mentioned the fact that gun control is dead?
Finally, it’s here, the final guide in my OpenPGP series. I’m sorry it took so long to post but free time has been at a premium as of late. This guide will explain how to use Thunderbird and Enigmail, which you should already have installed, to send e-mails that will give the National Security Agency (NSA) a hard time.
Before I get to the guide I want to note a couple of things. First, this guide will not explain how to add your e-mail account to Thunderbird. If you need instructions on that please see Mozilla’s guide for automatic account configuration and manual account configuration. Second, this guide will be applicable to OS X, Windows, and Linux but the screenshots will be taken from OS X as that is the primary operating system I use. With those notes out of the way let’s begin.
The first thing we need to do is enable OpenPGP for your account. This can be found by navigating to the menu button, selecting Preferences, and clicking on Account Settings…:
You should be looking at the Account Settings… page. From here select the OpenPGP Security item under your e-mail account:
By default OpenPGP is disabled for every account. To enable OpenPGP for your account click the Enable OpenPGP support (Enigmail) for this identity check box. This will also allow you to change the options below the check box. By default Enigmail is setup to use your e-mail address to identify the OpenPGP keypair to use for your account. If you entered your e-mail address when you created your OpenPGP keypair this is the option you should selection, otherwise you’ll have to manually select a keypair.
You will also notice several check boxes under Message Composition Default Options. The check box labeled Sign non-encrypted messages by default will ensure that Enigmail cryptographically signs e-mails that you’re not encrypting. I usually select this because the cryptographic signature allows recipients of my e-mails to verify that I sent the e-mail and that the contents haven’t been altered. The check box labeled Sign encrypted messages by default does the same thing as the check box above it but for encrypted e-mails. I usually check this by default as well. Selecting Encrypt messages by default will cause Enigmail to encrypt every e-mail you send. I usually leave this option unchecked because most of the people I send e-mails to don’t have OpenPGP and therefore are unable to decrypt messages I send to them.
The last check box, which is labeled Use PGP/MIME by default, is, in my opinion, pretty useful. Normally when you send a cryptographically signed and/or encrypted message the recipient sees a blob of text. PGP/MIME puts OpenPGP signatures and encrypted content into attachments. If the recipient is using OpenPGP, and has the proper decryption key, they will see whether or not the signature is valid and be able to read the encrypted contents. On the other hand, if the recipient isn’t using OpenPGP, they will not see the signature text or the encrypted content. I check this option because the signature text and encrypted content often confuse recipients unfamiliar with OpenPGP. When this option selected, as far as the recipients without OpenPGP are concerned, the e-mail is just a regular old e-mail.
Before leaving the Account Settings… page there is one other thing you may wish to consider doing. Navigate to Composition & Addressing:
By default Thunderbird is setup to use HyperText Markup Language (HTML) formatting for e-mails. I’m not a fan of HTML formatting when it comes to e-mails and it can raise some Cain with the OpenPGP signature process. I always deselect Compose messages in HTML format. You can either leave it checked or not, it’s up to you.
Once you’ve completed your work in the Account Settings… page click the OK button; it’s time to send an e-mail. Composing an encrypted and signed e-mail with Thunderbird and Enigmail is easy. Start a new e-mail and enter the recipient, subject, and message you want to send. After you’ve done that click the arrow next to the OpenPGP button in the toolbar:
As you can see, encrypting the e-mail, if you didn’t setup Enigmail to do it automatically in the Account Settings… page, is as simple is clicking the Encrypt Message menu item. If you look at the lower right-hand corner of the e-mail composition window you’ll see a key. If the key is gray the e-mail will not be encrypted, if the key is yellow the message will be encrypted.
Now that your e-mail is setup to be encrypted it’s time to click the Send button. If you haven’t imported the recipients public key into GNU Privacy Guard or flagged the recipient’s public key as trusted you will see the following dialog:
If you’ve imported the key but never flagged it as trusted just click the check box next to the recipient’s public key. You can also attempt to download the recipient’s public key from a key server if you haven’t imported it by clicking the Download missing keys button. Clicking that button will open the following dialog:
Many keyservers are setup to share public keys with each other. If the recipient has uploaded their public key to a notable server selecting the default option will stand a good chance of finding the public key you need.
Those who previously imported the recipient’s public key and flagged it as trusted won’t have to worry about the above steps. In either case you’re done. Congratulations, you’ve sent your first encrypted e-mail. Now convince your friends and family members to follow these guides so they can send you encrypted e-mails and decrypt your encrypted e-mails.
In a rather hilarious turn of events Dark Tangent, the organizer of the Def Con security conference, has kindly asked the Feds to avoid the event:
The request was posted to the main Def Con webpage by Jeff Moss, the founder of the hacking conference.
In the past, he said, the convention had been an “open nexus” where government security staffers and law enforcement agents could freely mix and share ideas with the other hackers, researchers and security professionals that attended.
“Our community operates in the spirit of openness, verified trust, and mutual respect,” he said, a state of affairs that had led to an exchange of information that had seemed mutually beneficial.
However, wrote Mr Moss, many people now questioned that free exchange of ideas in the wake of ongoing disclosures about the US National Security Agency’s Prism programme, which, since 2007, has been scooping up huge amounts of data about people’s online activity.
As a result, “it would be best for everyone involved if the feds call a ‘timeout’ and not attend Def Con this year,” he wrote.
I guess this year’s Spot the Fed contest will be far more exciting than in years past. It also stands to reason that any employee of a federal agency will receive extra special attention from any black hat hackers at the event. Hackers, in general, don’t appreciate being spied on and have a tendency to return the favor. Since the federal government has been spying on everybody it wouldn’t surprise me if the attendees at Def Con decided to spy on federal employees or attempt to compromise any electronic devices they bring along (after all, this is the same conference where a team demonstrated how easy it is to intercept Global System for Mobile (GSM) phone calls).