Category: Side Notes

9/11 and Slayer

With all the new conspiracy theories floating around involving Osama and his body being discarded at sea I thought I’d try to start a new one on an old subject to keep things more interesting. The fact of the matter is the terrorist attack against the World Trade Center happened on September 11, 2001 which incidentally was the same day Slayer’s alum God Hates Us All was released.

I believe it would be trivial to tied Osama to the record company in some way and thus successfully claim that 9/11 was actually a promotional stunt by Slayer’s record company for their new album. Doesn’t that sound far more interesting? Just remember when you hear people talking about it in a serious manner you’ll be in on the joke because you read this site.

More on Open WiFi Networks

A couple of days ago I mentioned my reasoning for not running an open WiFi network. Funny enough the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) posted an article about why one should run an open WiFi network. As I said in my previous post on the matter I would like to run an open WiFi network so those who needed WiFi access could get it but I don’t want to deal with the fact anything an anonymous person accessed on my open network would appear as though I accessed it.

This has lead me to ponder a means of setting up an open WiFi network that could be publicly used while keeping my traffic secure, separate, and not having anything a third party does on my network reflect badly on myself. What follows is the solution I’ve thought up so far with no real concern yet for implementation.

Obviously I want my wireless traffic to be encrypted as I value my privacy. This is easy enough to do with good old WiFi Protected Access (WPA) using a strong key. Thus ideally I would have two access points, one open for third party use and one secured for my use. The other feature I would desire is keeping the publicly accessible network completely separate from my private network. This is easy enough to accomplish by using a gateway device with Virtual Local Area Network (VLAN) capabilities. I could setup one VLAN for the public network and another for my private network which would prevent the public network from talking to my private network.

The final and most difficult requirement is avoiding any legal ramifications that could be directed at me because of the web traffic generated by a third party. Like many network problems requiring anonymity I believe I’ve found my answer in the form of the Tor project. Tor is a network that can be used to anonymously access the Internet. Anonymity is achieved by encrypting all traffic and bouncing it between multiple nodes until that traffic reaches an exit point and is decrypted and sent to its destination. The benefit for me is the fact you can’t trace the source of any data going across the Tor network back to either its source or destination meaning anything accessed on my public network wouldn’t reflect on me.

What I would need to setup is a mechanism of ensuring all traffic that goes across my public network would be sent through the Tor network (not really the intended use of Tor I realize but alas it fits my needs here). I would want to set it up in a manner where inability to connect to the Tor network would disable the public network from reaching the Internet. This wouldn’t be difficult once I actually setup the Tor gateway system. There would likely be a problem of a slow connection as the Tor network isn’t speedy but honestly I don’t care, you get what you pay for. Likewise multiple peoples’ traffic would be going through a single Tor relay but again that’s not my problem nor is the fact I can’t control what happens at the Tor exit node my problem.

So this is my initial proposal for setting up a publicly accessible WiFi network without having to worry myself with personal security or the actions taken by those accessing my public network. I’ll probably investigate this a bit more and may even try to setup a trial and see how it turns out. Or I may instead do something else and leave this proposal untested and assume somebody will like the idea, implement it, and tell me how it worked out for them.

Zombies Ahead

To the person or persons who altered the road construction sign on the intersection of Londonderry and 169, you’re awesome. I realize the hack is easy and really kind of pointless but it put a huge smile on my face which more than warrants a “Hell yeah.” Sadly I didn’t get a picture (stupid iPhone camera took too long to start up) but the sign was changed to the usual “ZOMBIES AHEAD.”

Larry Correia Coming to Minneapolis April 30th

Larry Correia, author of Monster Hunter International, has posted his book tour dates to promote his new title Hard Magic. He will make an appearance in Minneapolis on April 30th at Uncle Hugo’s. The schedule shows him to be there from 13:00 to 15:00 (that’s 1:00 to 3:00 p.m. for you punks on the 12-hour clock).

If you haven’t heard of Mr. Correia he’s an avid gun enthusiast who not only competes in the likes of 3-gun but also fills his titles with tons of accurate gun fights. Honestly if you haven’t heard of him and have been reading gun blogs for any extent of time I’d be shocked.

The More You Know

When I started this blog in 2009 (shit I’ve been writing almost every weekday for two years) I had two major concerns; I’d get bored and stop updating regularly or I’d run out of things to write about. Well it appears as through I actually enjoy writing (maybe I should start working on that novel I’ll never finish) so I haven’t had the urge to stop updating and as I learn more in life I’m finding a plethora of things to write about.

I’ve been meaning to do an introspection post where I write about any advantages I feel I’ve received since starting my blog. One advantage through writing on an almost daily basis is the extent of my vocabulary has increased quite a bit. Anybody reading this site can go through my older posts and see far fewer different words were used. The other advantage is an increase in my storehouse of knowledge.

One goal I had with this site is stating both my opinion and factual information. The engineering part of my brain requires I portray any information as accurately as possible. This leads to my using words that make no concrete confirmation such as probably and most likely. It has also lead me to look up the actual facts on subjects instead of going by information provided by most news outlets. Unlike Fox News, MSNBC, and NPR many bloggers like to dig up the actual source of information they’re talking about. For example if I talk about a piece of legislation I try to find the actual bill or law, read it, and post a link to it so others can read it. One of my pet peeves is when an article talks about a law but doesn’t mention either the bill number of reference name of the bill making the act of looking it up difficult.

Doing this fact checking has lead to an extensive increase in the amount of actual knowledge I have at hand. Instead of talking about gun laws I think are in place I can state authoritatively what gun laws are in place. Having factual information is great but it comes at a price, the loss of naivety. When you learn about the history behind laws you realize they weren’t passed with good intentions. One quick example is the fact most early gun laws were passed to prevent newly freed blacks from purchasing firearms. Another example that seems to be big these days is the extensive number of marriage laws which were originally passed to prevent blacks from marrying whites. Learning things like this really destroys any positive outlook you may have on government.

I’ve always had a libertarian outlook on life but as I’ve started researching political issues I must say I’ve moved further and further away from any belief that government is good. This position was more beaten into me than anything. Every law I research, every government action I looked into, and finding the real meaning behind words spoken by politicians has lead me to the realization that government is run almost exclusively by assholes.

With all of that said I really enjoy the fact that I’ve become a walking repository for information regarding guns. Much of what I’ve learned about firearms has only happened because I chose to write about them. I also like the fact that I usually know quite about about actual news events (I still know nothing about the latest celebrity news which I’m grateful for).

In summary I feel as though writing this blog has made me a much smarter person. When I was in elementary and high school I remember teachers telling us to write everyday. They always claimed that you would be a better person for it but alas in my youth I wasn’t smart enough to take their advice. Now that I am actually going along with that idea I’ve learned those teachers were right. Cripes I can’t believe I’ve actually come to a conclusion which agrees with what I was taught in school. Most of the information I was taught there ended up being statist bullshit, but I guess real information was there to be had outside of shop class if one looked hard enough. Lesson learned.

What I Did This Weekend

Yeah I usually don’t waste time posting about my personal life on this site because I realize nobody gives two shits. With that said I believe I did do something relevant to the interests of my readers; I took a new person shooting.

A friend and me took another friend for her first trip to the range. Even though the conditions were less than ideal (it was cold, wet, and we only had the 50 yard range available to us which isn’t a good range for your first time shooting) she did very well and enjoyed herself. In fact she said she wants to get a gun now.

Thanks Nicole for joining Brian and me and being and awesome first-time shooter.

This is why we win ladies and gentlemen, because range trips are fun and “let’s sit around and talk about banning guns” parties are lame and boring.

Aliens Vacationing in Roswell

If you read various news articles you’ve probably heard that proof has been brought forth of aliens landing at Roswell. This “proof” comes from a newly released Federal Bureau of Investigations (FBI) document that is short on details and reads more like an April Fool’s joke.

What do I make of the document? Much like everything else the government says I take this document as being bullshit. Although I will admit such a document would certainly be a very quality trolling.

April Fools

It’s April 1st which means it’s that day when you try to fuck with all of your friends. I love to fuck with people I know but a prank is only good if I can see the reaction of the person thus I’ll not be wasting your time with any pranks here. Call me a curmudgeon but honestly I need to devote energy to fucking with people I actually know.