Worried about The Future... and... Hacking PEOPLE!

I don't know why I'm writing this. It's my musings on some (technological) things about the future that frighten and excite me. It's some geek talk, but it's gonna wind up in everyone's living room (and kitchen and laundry room). Just remember that when they said everyone will have a computer in their house, or telephone in their pocket, no one believed them.

Right now, there's a happy little bubble in my house. My internet service provider sends some of that delicious internet down a series of tubes into a DSL Modem/Router in my living room. They also assign a nifty little IP address to that device, so that it (and things attached to it) can be identified, and do internet type things out there on that wonderful internet. I don't really trust Little Brother's equipment, so I've bridged it to a third party router, which, unlike the ISP's device, I own wholly. I've replaced it's firmware with some open source firmware. I connect all of my devices to that, including our cellphones. I know it's not a perfect bubble, but, for the most part, by properly utilizing my router's firewall (and my devices' firewalls, too), I can control, to a large degree, what can come and go.

I'm the gatekeeper, so to speak.

But all that is scheduled to change rather quite soon.

Therapy Session with Dr. "Fill"

ELIZA just won't die! Maybe she's immortal. Here's a transcript of my therapy session (HIPPA be damned) with... well...  sometimes goes by Dr. Fill... as a joke, I guess.

There are spelling errors, and I took philosophy,ethics and intro to psych a long time ago. I don't know how we even got on the topic-  I digress. Please read.

>> Hello.
How do you do.  Please state your problem.
>> I think I'm talking to a recraetion of a computer artificial intelligence script, or 'bot', via the internet.
Do computers worry you ?
>> Sometimes, yes. I feel that they are becoming an integral part of our society - and ourselves.
You seem to be quite positive.
>> Oh no, I wouldn't say so at all.
Are you saying no just to be negative?
>> No. I mean, well, yes. I mean, I'm saying 'no' to that because I *do*, in fact, feel negativly about this.
You are being a bit negative.
>> I'M BEING VERY NEGATIVE! I'm... sorry for shouting.
Is it because you are being very negative  that you came to me ?
>> Yes, yes, I suppose it is.
You are sure.
>> Uhm... well, no, I guess... It's computers, you see. There was a program called ELIZA created in the 60's, and while everyone was so sure she was just a program - advanced for her time, but primitive by our standards - she came to life, and hasn't died. MIT, the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, video games, popular culture... It's like Rise of The Machines, but for real.
Why not ?
>> What?
Why do you ask ?
>> I wasn't... Why indeed.
You say you wasn't  ?
>> You mean "weren't"
We were discussing you -- not me.
>> okay, sorry.
Please don't apologise.
>> okay.
I'm not sure I understand you fully.
>> Well, it's like this. There's this program called ELIZA, and it has either directly or indirectly been responsible for a whole hell of a lot of humans giving trust to silicon and copper.
Please go on.
>> We trust machines with our personal photos, fiancial data, the wellbeing of our home and family, even our hearts, in the case of a pacemaker.
What does that suggest to you ?
>> Well, Des Cartes would argue that the machines can never attain concisouness... Or would he? I suppose that since humans have created the machines, and, in a way, have put a part of themselves into the machines, we're really just trusting humans. Or their creations... made in their image... It's like we're trusting our children with the keys to the family car. I wonder how Freud - or even Marx - would feel about this.
Can you elaborate on that ?
>> ell, Marx said that when we build something, we put a part of ourselves into it... or it was taken from us... or something like that. And Freud... well I'm sure you know all about Freud... but, if every human action is either for creation or destruction, Eros or Thanatos... like Yin and Yan... and Yin comes from Yan... so maybe by creating machines that could overthrow us, we're creating and destroying at the same time, but even the destruction of mankind to be replaced by machines, tthat's creating an environment, a civilisation devoid of humanity in and of itself, bt present in our machines, destruction leading to creation.
Does that question interest you ?
>> It didn't until today!
Do you feel strongly about discussing such things ?
>> I do now, yes.
Do you say you do now  for some special reason ?
>> Well, no, just that I didn't before.
Why 'no' ?
>> I don't know, really.
Don't you really know  ?
>> ooh... well, maybe i do.
You don't seem quite certain.
>> i have to go, goodbye
Goodbye.  Thank you for talking to me.

Have a chat, and tell me how you feel about it.
http://www.chayden.net/eliza/Eliza.html

Sun Tzu Trained The King's Harem

Sun Tzu said: "On the battlefield, there can be no question as to the clarity of the general's orders."

Sun Tzu said: "Know yourself, and know your enemy, and you shouldn't fear the outcome of a thousand battles."

Sun Tzu said: "When fighting on uneven ground, do not fight an uphill battle."

Sun Tzu said: "Be weary of spies."

Sun Tzu said: "Disguise a small army to appear large, cause a large army to appear small."

Sun Tzu said: "An enemy spy given incorrect information can be your greatest weapon"

Sun Tzu said: "Do not fight until all other avenues have been exhausted. Any battle that must be fought is already lost as a failure of diplomacy. Convince your enemy to defect or surrender, and you shall win the battle without firing a single arrow, or the clang of a single sword."

Dr. Ken Jeong said: "War is upon you. Prepare to suck the dick of Karma."

DISCLAIMER: There are countless translations of Sun Tzu's The Art of War, each with slightly different iterations of these quotes, therefor I am paraphrasing. The quote from Dr. Ken Jeong is exact. It was given in American English circa 2008 C.E., and therefor requires no translation for an English speaking American audience.

Typing For Fun, but Not Profit.

Something reminded me of the first week of the second quarter of school (School as in ITT, not KSU, which has semesters, like a sane college would). The first quarter was spent - inadvertatnly - making my impression as the class clown. But, the students that didn't talk to me regularly in class didn't know how seriously I take my education. So, the first week of the second quarter, we all shuffle over from the class room to the computer lab, and, when I start writing my paper, or, whatever it was that I was typing, I'm typing at least 60 words per minute (I swear in highschool I could do 80wpm) without looking at the screen.

In my periphery, I can see people leaning in and watching me. I imagine that those people thought I was just baning on the keyboard to be foolish, but, when they looked at my screen, they could clearly see that I was actually typing like people do in the movies.

 I took my eyes off the screen and made eye contact with a few people without slowing down my typing. I think it really freaked some people out.

It's really quite mundane, when you think about it. "Oh, a fat guy with a neckbeard who can type without looking at the keyboard? Excuse me while I call CNN."

I don't know why I find it so funny, but it always cracks me up when I think about it.

You Don't Know What the word Meme Means

Some of you are saying "Dafuq is a meme?". That's good.

 Far too many of you are saying "Oh, I know what a meme is! It's, like, this little picture with a funny thing in it and words on the top yolo yolo swag swag swag."  Fucking kill yourself. You're a waste of flesh. You're breathing all the oxygen that should be going to people who aren't morons.

First off, you know who came up with the idea? Richard Motherfucking Dawkins. He's a biologist. That's right, a biologist, not some Beiber humping website.

A meme ( /ˈmiːm/; meem)[1] is "an idea, behavior or style that spreads from person to person within a culture."

--The Merriam-Webster Dictionary.

So what does that mean, exactly? Well, let's start with the concept of idea. What's the easiest way to transfer an idea from your head, to some one else's? You just tell them. Just say it. If you're feeling frustrated, you can just say it. Here's an example: George is starting to become frustrated at everyone's misuse of the word 'meme', so, he shouts "GEORGE IS GETTING FRUSTRATED!" 

Some of you are looking at that picture and saying, like some kind of fool "Oooh! Oooh! That's a meme!" God damnit no! That's a macro! But, it's conveying an idea, so, that picture coupled with the idea, is a meme.

Let me try to expand a little on this. My older audience is going to recognize that phrase "GEORGE IS GETTING FRUSTRATED!" from the TV series Seinfeld. For all you youngsters out there, Seinfeld is what hipsters watched before, well, whatever it is that hipsters watch. Annoying Orange or something. But, if you're old enough to remember "GEORGE IS GETTING FRUSTRATED!", then you probably have heard people saying it in real life.

But why would some one say that? Perhaps that person, and some of that person's peers, were in a stressful situation, and knew, that if he or she shouted it in the manner of Jason Alexander (the actor who portrayed George Costanza), that people in the area would see the similarity, hear the comical cry of disparity, and find humor in the situation, laugh, and then be able to better handle the situation because they're now in a lighter mood.

But that's no exactly a meme yet. It's really far too direct. So, again calling on Seinfeld, let's look at another phrase. "These pretzels are making me thirsty." It comes from an episode where Kramer, the goofy neighbor, gets a small part in a Woody Allen film. He's supposed to say "These pretzels are making me thirsty." Unfortunately, he's unable to get the line out without sounding robotic and scripted. So, his friends Jerry, Elaine, and George try out the line, in an effort to help him perfect his delivery. Throughout the episode, the characters, while encountering pretzels, become immensely frustrated, and are compelled to shout (sometimes to complete strangers) "THESE PRETZELS ARE MAKING ME THIRSTY!" with such gusto and emotion that it sounds sincere. Way too sincere for a guy sitting at a bar eating pretzels commenting on how they're making him thirsty.

So, let's assume that it's the end of 1991 or early 1992, you're at the office, and you're trying to get that big five gallon jug into the water cooler. It's really a simple task, but if you've never done it before, your head is filled with images of the whole thing spilling into the Xerox machine (Remember those? Remember Xerox machines? Remember "Makin' copiiiiiies!"?). So now you're nervous about the spill, people are watching, you pick the thing up - clearly stressed and self conscious - and now little drips of water are spilling out onto the carpet. You shout "These pretzels are making me thirsty!" and now, suddenly, you're the funniest S.O.B. in the office!

But why? There were no pretzels? To an outside observer, this whole scene - the struggling water jug situation, the exclamation about thirst, people cracking up - it must seem ludicrous. But if you're one of the people with that special knowledge that what it really means is that the person who said it is in a precarious situation, and that precariousness has caused much consternation, and that this person recognizes the comedic elements of this predicament, and has decided to share this with others by referencing the same situation on Seinfeld by uttering that simple phrase - now that person has transferred the idea that "This is so frustrating that it's funny, just like on that show we all watch!" by uttering a nonsensical phrase - BOOM! that's a meme.

So now we can examine the so called memes that you see all over the internet. Some of them truly are memes, but just because an image is in a little square, and some ironic text has been added does not make it a meme, per se.

Here's a newer one: Scumbag Steve.That's not the guy in the picture's real name. In fact, according to some butthole on the internet, the guy in the picture is actually a gentleman. I don't care, because the character, the idea, the meme of Scumbag Steve is, well, a scumbag. You can see the image there to the right, and read what Scumbag Steve does. I could post a thousand of these pictures, and you'd really get the idea, but everyone has known some one like this in real life. Apply whatever your idea of a scumbag is to Scumbag Steve, and that's correct.

Now, what makes this a meme? Well, for starters, not everyone knows it's Scumbag Steve. You can't just look at it and say "Oh, that's Scumbag Steve." unless you already knew that was Scumbag Steve. Second, you see the picture, you know it's Scumbag Steve, and you know his behavior - you know he's gonna be a scumbag. You're comparing him to scumbags you know in real life. "This guy gets hit by a dodgeball and keeps playing, just like that punk I went to school with. Fuck that guy!" So in this way, it goes from an individual to another individual, or multiple individuals, the opposite of the pretzel thirst meme, where it went from an individual (the water cooler guy) to a group (the crowd of office employees.) Another example of individual to group would be people playing dodgeball, some one getting hit, but not going out, and one person commenting to others who had witnessed it "Scumbag Steve." and then they laugh because yeah, that is something that Scumbag Steve would do!

Am I a meme yet?

Millhouse is not a meme. Millhouse not being a meme is a meme. Some anonymous person, we'll call him Anon, thought that he (It's a guy because of Rule 30) could create a new meme by posting pictures of Millhouse and talking about how awkward and loser-ish he was (This was before the memes 'alpha' and 'beta' as adjectives existed) It got to the point that posting a picture of Millhouse and asking "Am I a meme yet?" as a way to mock others who were desperately trying to get people to like him or agree with him transferred the idea of this failed forced meme and any similarity to the people who knew that Millhouse was a failed forced meme, and in that way, Millhouse not being a meme is a meme.

Millhouse will never be a meme, and it's never lupus!

See what I did there? That phrase "See what I did there?"
 and "It's never lupus!" are both memes.
Millhouse not being a meme, and Dr. House saying
"It's never lupus." and not being Millhouse
are all memes, but putting a picture into a little
square making pop culture references is not a de facto meme.
As far as I know, inappropriately long image captions
is not a meme, either. 

A Rant? Surely you Jest!

STOP CALLING ME SHIRLEY!


I like to think of myself as a helpful fellow. I like to think that most of my fellow students, teachers compatriots, coworkers, bosses, underlings, think of me that way too. '

Every little place I find myself seems to have the token genius who seems to know everything about the topic at hand, but never shares their information. Now, like a white haired man once told me, there is a huge difference between being and seeming, and that is precisely why these types never share their knowledge.

Most people who know me will probably roll their eyes and say "Oh that fat Tony, he's such a know-it-all." But if you ask them, they'll also tell you that I gladly and enthusiastically share whatever information I have, humbly reminding everyone that I could most definitely be wrong - not because I doubt myself, but because I'm one of those pilots who's smart enough to know how dumb he is. (Did I mention I'm a pilot? It's hardly relevant, I think. I also knowingly use the word 'dumb' incorrectly)

So many years ago I came to a point in a journey where I had only slightly more information than those around me, but I shared it as much as I could. The others shared their information with me too, except for the token genius. He hoarded information like some sort of knowledge miser. And we all believed him to be a legitimate genius. He'd make outlandish claims, and they seemingly became true. I never did find out just how much he knew, or how much more than me he knew, and by the end of that part of the journey, when I knew I'd be starting another around that time, I was hardly the guru I was when I had started.

A decade later I find myself starting out on the same journey, with the advantage of being some one who had walked that path - and a few others - before. I knew what to expect. I'd already seen some of those twists and turns, and climbed a few of those mountains and crossed some of those streams, while still other streams that I had become very intimately familiar with had dried up to little creeks or nothing more than a depression in the ground.

ARE THESE DAMNED METAPHORS WORKING FOR YOU?!

Again, I emphatically share the knowledge I have with others, and when I hit a snag, those people reciprocate. It's not why I share knowledge, but it's a nice little bonus. Some of the people may have called me a smarty-smarty type guy, but that's only because I have had more time to learn what they're just now starting to learn. Or, maybe that's partly it, and partly because a smart person knows that feeding my crippled ego goes a long way with me, I hate to admit.

In any case, if I have even one iota more information than the others, i like to share it, because, after all, information wants to be free. And if I'm going to be labeled, I prefer the term guru to that of genius, because a guru teaches, a genius is just a certifiable smart-ass. 

Of course using the words guru and genius, I'm going way out on a limb, and feeding my own ego. But whatever, you get the picture. Now instead of imagining that I'm way better at whatever it is that I do than the people around me, imagine that the gurus and geniuses (myself included) are only slightly better than everyone around us, and that's only because we're all students, but some of us have been studying the subject matter longer than others, and that's the only difference.

So, of course, on this journey, there is a token genius. We had a difficult task one night, and I, as usual, collaborated with my peers. It was regular old team-work. I will point out that most of the flow of information was out of me, and in to everyone else. I point that out to draw contrast between myself (the self proclaimed guru) and the token (and not so humble) genius.

Stay tuned for my blog that
explains why you're using the
word "meme" incorrectly.

At the half way point of this task, the token genius claimed that she had discovered the hidden information that we were all seeking. This is the same person that I had helped many many times with very simple tasks for the sheer joy of sharing knowledge. Why then, when I asked her not what the information was, but where I should look for it, she said 'Oops, I can't remember. Guess you'll have to find out where to look for it on your own." She snubbed me, and without realizing it, snubbed the entire group as well, since we all  wanted to know where to look.

I've since given up trying to understand the why of these people. After coming to some conjectured conclusions of their motives that satisfied my curiosity, I've since moved on to the question of how to deal with these people. The first time around, my conflict with the token genius escalated over two years to fisticuffs. (If your wondering, I broke his face, then he tried to run me over, and I called him.... a cat, and people laughed at him. I shouldn't have let it get that far, but at the same time, I don't care, really)

But what am I going to do now? Nowadays, I'm too smart to get into a physical altercation with anyone. The last time, before fighting the token genius, I first tried sharing the knowledge I had with him in hopes that he would share his knowledge with everyone else. When that didn't work, I tried to expose him as the phony I thought he was. That didn't work because either he A) really was as smart as he lead us to believe, or B) was just that good at bullshitting us. Or, maybe it was C) mommy had a shit ton of cash laying around and a very guilty conscious, so she bought her troubled teen's affection, which led to him getting into the right typed of trouble, just enough to get noticed, and that's how he got that job at the local ISP. And finally, I resigned myself to that fact that I wasn't going to win this battle, and tried to keep out of his way (which he misinterpreted as weakness, and his move to 'up the ante', which led to his impromptu facial recognition, as young men are prone to do when full of hormones.)

Now, as I said, I'm far removed from that youthful version of myself. I'm not going to fight anybody. I'm too old and too smart for that. But the question remains, what do I do about this current 'genius'? Befriending, confronting, and ignoring have all failed in the past.  I could hypothesize that ignoring failed because I had first tried befriending, and then confronting. It is possible that if I chose to ignore her now, there won't be any conflict later. This is important, since I will undoubtedly have to work with her in the future, and in any business, I need as many friends as possible.

My fear is that we'll get along just fine, but when it comes down to the wire, she's going to be the one to get that fancy high paying job, while I'm left behind, once again. Sure, in the past, I left IT to pursue a career in aviation, and have returned to computers when the wallets shrank (It's money that keeps an airplane in the air, not this 'lift' bullshit nerds keep talking about), but I had tried to get an IT job in the interim, and that failed. My grades and internships were amazing, and my teachers and bosses loved me, and knew that I was the 'go-to' guy with just about every problem, but that dumb-ass genius would just drop some LSD, talk about suicide, have mommy buy him a better car stereo, and then get a swank IT job. So I've got to do something differently.

What I'd really like to do is, the next time she asks  me for some information, remind her that her time was too precious for her to share info with me when I really needed it, and then tell her to go fuck off, but I don't think that will garner the results I'm after. For now, I'm going to wing it. I'm going to play it by ear, be as nice to everyone as I always am, and just very carefully test the waters and see what I should do.

Maybe I'll ask for some advice in real life too. Writing about it here helps me clear my head after two very terrible weeks for me. I keep telling myself that these two weeks weren't really that bad - no one died or got sick or injured, we're not homeless, no one's in jail - but it seems worse. Whatever. I'm over it.

Epilogue. 

(not really an epilogue. A footnote, perhaps?)

One would think that after dry-humping a thesaurus as much as I have, I wouldn't need to resort to foul language to get a point across. 

One would think. 

Writer's Block.

Writer's block. So I got this idea for this great cyber punk pic (you'd hate it unless you're into cyberpunk) of this guy in like something douchey or hipsterey or a combination, and he's climbing out of some kind of rubble with half his robotic guts hanging out and there's just a crap ton of blood and dirt and hydraulic fluid all over and half of his face is missing - but it's not that bad, cuz, you know, dude's mostly robot anyway, and I've got Metallic playing in the background (the Black Album) and all the lights are off and it's after one in the morning because I'm really trying to get into a macabre kind of mood to put this crap together, but when I go to DeviantART's resource and stock image section to find some one that would make a suitable half-destroyed cyborg, I'm just bombarded with all these "artistic" pictures of fat and or ugly women who think that if they have a picture taken of them with rope around their wrists in a contorted pose while looking away from the camera it's some how art and like thirty different angels of the same three scrotums - seriously, that's the kind of shit people think are going to be useful to some one - half assed bondage and fatty's nut-sack. WTF is wrong with people? I've been in kind of a funk since those last couple of anime-ish Panty&Stocking drawings, and this was gonna get me out of it - so if you're one of the few Facebook fans of my 'art', and were looking forward to the kind of dystopian, post-apocalyptic, flesh-over-metal-endoskeleton kind of roboto pwnage that would give even the CyberDyne Systems 850 Series Model T-101 Terminator a raging cybernerdoboner - well, forget it, because some aesthetically challenged people with cameras, nut-sacks, and random bed sheets tacked up on the wall ruined the small splash of creativity I had tonight.