Category: Side Notes

When Did Being a Skeptic Become Insult Worthy

Although I generally like to avoid giving much time to Al Gore’s apocalypse I have to say I really don’t understand one thing about its proponents. Namely the use of the word skeptic as a form of insult. Those who believe in anthropomorphic global warming climate change global climate disruption Al Gore’s apocalypse throw the term skeptic at those who dare not agree with the proponents’ beliefs.

Perhaps it’s because I come from a scientific background but I have always seen skepticism as a positive trait found in people who refuse to believe the claims of others simply because those others said they were trustworthy. Global warming skeptic doesn’t ring as an insult in my book but as a complement. It’s the same as saying a person who refuses to believe others without first analyzing the evidence for themselves.

I say our world could use a lot more skepticism. When the state tells you we need to go to war with Eastasia people should be skeptical. If somebody says that the government should confiscate your firearms for the good of society people should be skeptical. Skepticism is good and I think much of the world’s problem would be far more manageable if people would stop simply believing others without fist looking at the evidence for themselves.

I Made the Secret Gun Blogger Blacklist

I was complaining yesterday that even after two years of blogging I’m still not getting invited to the secret gun blogger cabal meetings. Well Joat pointed out in the comments that I at least made the gun blogger blacklist.

I’m moving up in the world! Linoge also pointed out an article on Weerd’s blog that sums up the whole drama llama episode involving Mr. Farago.

After Two Years of Blogging I Still Don’t Get Invited to the Secret Gun Blogger Cabal Meetings

Sorry it’s Monday so the week’s news cycle has started up meaning I have to drop in some filler material to make my daily post count goal.

There exists an undefined rule of drama; any community that exists will eventually have to deal with drama. Normally I avoid these episodes of drama llama wrangling because it’s counter-productive and pointless. Yet there are times that the posts lighting off these wrangling events have something I want to talk about buried within and this is one of those case.

There is a post over at The Truth About Guns where Mr. Farago makes a claim that there is apparently some secret gun blogger blacklist which his site is placed upon. I’ve been running this blog for over two years now and I still don’t get invited to the secret cabal meetings between gun bloggers so maybe I’m simply out of the loop, but I’m not aware of any such blacklist. What makes this claim more dubious is the fact that Mr. Farago has provided no actual evidence. He claims that he won’t reveal the evidence because he received his information with a promise of anonymity as the price tag, but that doesn’t mean anonymized data can’t be released. Simply providing some kind of evidence would greatly help Mr. Farago’s claim that such a blacklist exists.

Whatever, that’s not my concern. There are two things I do wish to write about in regards to the linked post. First Mr. Farago mentions the supposed unwritten rule amongst gun bloggers to not link to anti-gun websites. I’m aware of no rule and decided to enact this strategy myself without exterior pressure. Why? Because I don’t want them to get any Google love from me and, more importantly, I don’t want to deal with the drama a pingback on an anti-gun site can often induce. In my defense I don’t throw the link out, I provide a raw link that people can copy and paste in their web browser, I simply refuse to surround the raw link with the required ‘a’ tag.

The next point I wish to discuss requires you to read the comments on the linked post. I have a strict policy of not discussion or mentioning religion on this blog unless it’s absolutely necessary to make a point about something else. There isn’t a post on this site that promotes and detest any religion or lack thereof. Once again there is a reason I have this police, because discussing religion can only lead to a pointless sidetrack debate. The two topics on my blacklist when conversing with people I don’t know are politics and religion. Due to the nature of this blog I discuss politics a lot, which is enough to start a shit storm. As I have enough of a shit storm to deal with the last thing I really want to discuss is religion as it’s just going to create a another shit storm. Ladies and gentlemen this blogger has a strict one shit storm limit! I submit the comments in the linked article as evidence of this claim.

One person was offended that Mr. Farago used the phrase “God given right.” As the offended person made that comment somebody was offended that the commenter was offended and thus a new post was created. What followed was a back and forth discussing religion which had nothing to do with the topic at hand. In addition to sparking an unrelated sidetrack conversation the discussion was also completely pointless. How so? Because religious debate is always pointless. Those who believe in religion will not be swayed and those who don’t believe in religion will not be swayed. Both sides demand proof and provide what they consider to be proof and neither is ever acceptable to the other side. Those who believe in religion have faith (that’s the definition of religion) while those who don’t believe in religion lack such faith. Neither side is going to convince the other that they’re wrong therefore the entire debate is pointless.

If you believe in a religion cool keep doing it. If you don’t believe in religion cool keep doing it. Unless somebody is willing to commit acts of violence in the name of their belief of lack thereof it’s not your concern.

Also I’d appreciate it if somebody would invite me to the secret gun blogger cabal meetings. I promise I won’t tell anybody about them.

A Novel Idea of Settling a Lawsuit

Sometimes people come up with some rather novel ideas. Notch, the guy who created the rather popular game Minecraft, is facing a lawsuit from Bethesda over his latest project titled Scrolls. Normally I don’t do any reporting on the video game industry but Notch presented an excellent idea for resolving this lawsuit that would be both cheap and effective:

I challenge Bethesda to a game of Quake 3. Three of our best warriors against three of your best warriors. We select one level, you select the other, we randomize the order. 20 minute matches, highest total frag count per team across both levels wins.

If we win, you drop the lawsuit.

If you win, we will change the name of Scrolls to something you’re fine with.

Regardless of the outcome, we could still have a small text somewhere saying our game is not related to your game series in any way, if you wish.

I’d say that’s a rather splendid means of resolving a conflict. Instead of paying lawyers millions of dollars to fight in a court of law you can hire some kids, pay them in game-related merchandise, and let everything be resolved via virtual death match. This is something companies need to seriously start considering.

First Person Shooters

I don’t talk about video games very often on my site because I don’t play them nearly as often as I used to. Part of the reason for this is a lack of new games that I find appealing. Once in a while I come across a gem like Red Dead Redemption or Bulletstorm but most games have little appeal to me (unless it’s a MegaMan title, I’ll play any game with that label on it at least once).

First person shooters are a genre I used to love but become disenfranchised with over time. Part of the reason for this is the games have become more “realistic” in some ways and far too easy in others. For the most part shooters that let you carry every damned gun in the game are gone and instead restrict the player to carrying a measly two weapons. Is this more realistic? Sure. Is it more fun? No. It almost broke my heart when I first played Duke Nukem Forever only find that since his previous adventure 12 years ago Duke somehow forgot the skill of storing 10 guns on his person.

The other trend in shooters that has created boredom for me is the concept of magically regenerating health. Like restricting the player to two weapons, regenerating health is part of what I call Halo syndrome. No matter how many bullets your body has been riddled by if you can manage to hide behind cover for 10 seconds all will be fine again. Two problems arise with such a system; first it removes 90% of the challenge once found in first person shooters and second it removes any consequences from using poor tactics. I like knowing if I did something overly stupid I’m going to be punished for it which will better ensure I’ll learn my lesson.

During the start of this dumbing down phase of first person shooters one title was released that I absolutely fell in love with, Serious Sam. Serious Sam can be best summed up as Doom with far larger battles and better graphics. It was not uncommon in Serious Sam to have single battles last for minutes on end with, literally, hundreds of monsters being tossed at you. Best of all you could carry every gun in the game at all times (which you needed as you started running out of ammo for any single gun during common battles) and your health didn’t magically regenerate after finding cover for ten seconds.

It should go without saying that I’m completely psyched for Serious Sam 3 which a writer at Ars Technica was able to play a pre-release copy of. His report on the game makes me realize I’ll probably have to upgrade my graphics card so I can play this when it’s released. The game seems to be nothing more than a clone of Serious Sam 2 which was a clone of Serious Sam which is exactly what I want (I’m a huge fan of the MegaMan series, needless to say I’m completely OK with games that are basically clones of previous titles).

If more shooters were like this I’d probably still find time to play video games more often than I currently do. I never enjoyed the titles like Call of Duty, Rainbow Six, and their ilk as they tried to be somewhat realistic (I said somewhat, I know they’re not realistic overall). I don’t play video games because I want a realistic portrayal of combat, I play video games because I want to pilot at 30 meter tall walking robot with fucking guns for arms. I can’t do that in real life because, sadly, our scientists fail to see the need for 30 meter tall walking robots. Likewise I can’t fly a spaceship, carry 10 guns, or deploy and orbital ion cannon on an enemies construction yard in real life so I have to relegate such desires to video games.

Here’s to titles like Serious Sam who give the finger to realism and focus instead on pure fun and enjoyment. I would love to see such titles flood the market but alas I’m doubting that will happen again anytime soon.

An Interesting Observation

I’ve been thinking and have made a rather interesting observation. Since the uprising in Tunisia there have been political dissent in several countries in the Middle East including Egypt, Libya, and Syria. In each case the people have finally become fed up with the actions of their government, drawn a line in the sand, and old those in power to get the fuck out. The actions of these political dissidents have been directed almost exclusively at the government which they hold grievances against.

Meanwhile in the United Kingdom (UK) events unfolded that caused a great deal of anger in the people towards their government, which sparked uprisings in the form of riots. Unlike the uprisings in the Middle East that have been directed towards the offending governments the uprising in the UK is being directed at private businesses, homes of private individuals, and other people who had nothing to do with the offending actions of the government.

Defcon Summary

Well Defcon has concluded and I’m back in good old Minnesota. It saddens me to know that the convention is over but I don’t know how many more days of partying I could handle. I met some great people and look forward to meeting them again next year at Defcon 20.

So how about the convention? The convention itself was great. This was the first year in our new location, the Rio Hotel and Casio, and I must say it was a far better venue than the Rivera was. The Rivera was becoming too small for the thousands of attendees which was easily seen with the cramped hallways and speaker rooms overflowing with people. The Rio is huge and traffic flow was much better than last year which is good when you have somewhere between 11,000 and 12,000 people attending.

There were some good talks including one by Deviant about breaking into handgun safes. Needless to say most of the handgun safes you can purchase in stores such as Cabela’s and Gander Mountain are pathetically easy to get into without the key or thumbprint (yes he covered saves with biometrics as well). When the talk is posted I’ll link to it here.

Although I already knew that using Internet kiosks was a bad idea and therefore I avoided it, I never knew just how easy they were to hack. If you every sit down to an Internet kiosk and feel the need to hack it just visit this website. The site itself includes tons of ways to bypass the “security” found in most Internet kiosks. Likewise you shouldn’t used those kiosks as you have no idea what somebody has done to them.

The creators of the Wireless Ariel Surveillance Platform (WASP) gave a presentation on their drone. Although no live demonstration was given the capabilities they mentioned were impressive. The WASP is able to intercept and crack a lot of Wi-Fi traffic (it even includes a word list for attempting to break Wi-Fi Protected Access (WPA) secured networks) as well as intercept Global System for Mobile Communications (GSM) phone calls and text messages. The entire unit weights a mere 14 pounds.

Another presentation I found very interesting was the one on cellular security. The speaker examined the traffic sent over a standard Android phone. He covered several popular applications and it’s rather surprising the type of information some of those applications send back home. This, again, is nothing that most people didn’t already know but few have actually released the exact information that was being returned.

Dan Kaminsky did his talk which is always a pleasure to watch. I’ll have to wait for Defcon to publicly post his talk so you guys can watch it but there was one part that really made the Austrian economist in me laugh. He was able to insert ASCII art of Ben Bernanke into the Bitcoin network which will remain there for all eternity (eternity being measure as the lifespan of the Bitcoin network).

Outside of the talks the usual assortment of parties and boozing were had by most. On Saturday night the Freakshow party was thrown in the pool area of the Rio which included some impressive entertainment including a guy break dancing and moon talking on stilts. There were also a couple of scantily clad ladies rolling around the pool in a giant ball. This being Defcon nerdiness was present and a few of my friends and I attempted to calculate the girls weight by using the radius of the ball and the depth at which is sank into the water. What else can you expect from engineers?

Of course no post about my adventures involving flying would be complete without a little comment regarding the Transportation Security Administration (TSA). This year I decided to have a little fun and wore this shirt when I flew out of Minneapolis and this shirt when I went through in Las Vegas. I forgot most TSA agents are illiterate and therefore would not notice my witty shirts. OK, I’m assuming illiteracy is the reason I didn’t receive extra special attention but either way the TSA basically left me alone for once. Still I would like to close this post by saying fuck the TSA.

Vacation Time

Dear readers it has come time again for my annual vacation. I’m going to be taking the week off and heading to Defcon on Las Vegas. Why do you care? Ultimately because my vacation will directly interfere with this blog as I’m not really planning on making promises to write up posts during my off time (for me a vacation means skirting all of my responsibilities, not just my job).

Never fear though because I’ve planned ahead and have some material pre-written for the days I’ll be gone. I’ve written a sort of mini-series that will provide one post a day and then threw in some miscellaneous posts for good measure. It’s unlikely that I’ll be posting while I’m at Defcon because that place is a war zone when it comes to network and honestly nothing can be considered truly safe. I’m not saying you won’t see any posts I haven’t already pre-written but I’m making no promises that you won’t.

So while I’m away you’ll likely notice only a reduction in the number of posts that appear per day and that those posts likely won’t be related to anything that happened after today. Let me close by saying this… FUCK YEAH VACATION TIME!