The nihilism of humdrum ignominy and quotidian fêtes of bureaucracy abound. People scurry, sulk through their existences – barn mice bathed in the blood of the slaughtered pig that is the American Dream, packed-meat animals gaudily festooned in glimmering metals and shiny plastics, outright dissidents shell-shocked by the blithe disregard for … nobody wants to consider the future – not the future that is staring them in the face.

Before my disjointed rant falls apart or unhinges itself entirely from the limited medium of words, segue to something someone else wrote which may express the sentiment more effectively:

Go ahead. Blow it all to hell. Crack the planet in half and let red magma pour out into limpid pools over the ruins. Deep underground, scientists say, the core of the earth is solid, because of the crushing pressure of the whole world wrapped around it. Like a rare black pearl in an oyster, it waits, shiny and smooth down to the last molecule, hoping for its time to float under the sun without the encumbrance of its old skin, of our little flea-bitten existences.

Let it happen I say. The world’s been saved once, while every ungrateful son and daughter slept and dreamt their baseball and apple pie dreams. And all they can do when they wake up is raise the chant for death again. They miss their sleeping world so much. Good for them. Better to desire nothingness than to have no desire for anything, like me. I didn’t even want the drinks; I just had them.

- Move Under Ground by Nick Mamatos

The full text is available online.

Stolen from a favorite webcomic: “How could you possibly think typing ‘import skynet‘ was a good idea?”

Have not been working on Skynet, (lies?) however, did put together some fun scripts to automate menial labor. Still procrastinating the development of the script automation framework – keep diagramming and reorganizing. May not get around to it.

(Preface to Skynet)

Thinking of getting a quantity of alcohol to pass the rest of the day. Cannot sleep yet – must wait a few more hours to reset internal clock to “work”.

Internal conflict. Nihil inimicus quam sibi ipse.

A roughly five-story tank containing a petroleum-based flammable liquid caught fire about 5:15 p.m. at the Bayer CropScience plant, 8400 Hawthorne Road, Fire Battalion Chief Joe Vitale said.

- Chemical tank catches fire at the Kansas City Star

Those CropScience people really seem to have a problem containing their flammables…

Originally spotted at Video: Air Force’s Killer Bugbots Attack at Wired.com.

The heat in Max Butler’s safe house was nearly unbearable. It was the equipment’s fault. Butler had crammed several servers and laptops into the studio apartment high above San Francisco’s Tenderloin neighborhood, and the mass of processors and displays produced a swelter that pulsed through the room. Butler brought in some fans, but they didn’t provide much relief. The electric bill was so high that the apartment manager suspected Butler of operating a hydroponic dope farm.

But if Butler was going to control the online underworld, he was going to have to take the heat. For nearly two decades, he had honed his skills as a hacker. He had swiped free calls from local telephone companies and sneaked onto the machines of the US Air Force. Now, in August 2006, he was about to pull off his most audacious gambit yet, taking over the online black markets where cybercriminals bought and sold everything from stolen identities to counterfeiting equipment. Together, these sites accounted for millions of dollars in commerce every year, and Butler had a plan to take control of it all.

- One Hacker’s Audacious Plan to Rule the Black Market in Stolen Credit Cards by Kevin Poulsen at Wired.com

War Games may have kicked things off optimistically enough for the cybercrime genre, but the reality of cybercrime is far grittier and throws longer shadows than anything film noir ever imagined… if you would prefer not to await the movie incarnation, check out some recent events.

This suits my aesthetic inclinations.

From 2008 in Photographs, courtesy of the Boston Globe.

No sleep last night, running into 40+ hours of wake-time. Words and phrases resurface from past scrawl like the ghost image of a passenger jet partially obscured by clouds [shark breaching the surf] reappears after the genuine article is long passed. No flotilla of 747′s in the patch of sky where I see them. No opalescent liquid pouring down over the wall. There is less than what is seen, for me – I am coping with that in my sleep-deprived state.

I started hoarding data last night. The act kept me awake then and keeps me awake to this moment. Text flashes across multiple terminal windows, reminding me that I have tasked a machine with something Herculean and tedious and somehow necessary. Acquired: every modern English word. Acquired: massive entropy data set. Acquired: every common surname, every common male and female first name, acronyms, and data which makes very little sense outside of its original context. Acquiring: more data. I will acquire increasing amounts of data. I will fashion the data into meaning (nuanced, idiosyncratic meaning most likely).

Completely lost the plot – back when my mind reconstitutes or the liquor wears off.

Courtesy of the darling parishioners of the Westboro Baptist Church:

I remember when we used to sing songs this one, back when I was a wee lad – we would sing so many wonderful songs before we ventured out to set fire to the lovely crosses we had placed in all our neighbors’ lawns.

Received a call from a number registered with “Countrywide Home Loans” a few days ago. I did not pick up – let the call go to voicemail (per unknown number protocol) and found a synthesized voice message requesting I call the number back to inquire about an “account” (no further information RE: nature of account, origin of call).

I ran the number through whocalled.us (handy reverse lookup for business/nuisance callers) and found it was related to Countrywide. So I called to see what was up – the VRU required an account number (I do not do business with Countrywide – thankfully) or SSN. Interesting.

A little digging turned up some evidence of information security malfeasance at Countrywide (one less reason to provide them with any data), however, in reading about a recent FBI advisory, I believe that there is a possibility that my cell phone was auto-dialed as part of an Asterisk vishing scam.

What does this mean for consumers? You cannot trust the number which appears on the caller ID, nor can you trust the numbers published for a given company…

… or you can free yourself from any suspicion or doubt. Simply post your personal information, financial account information, et cetera on as many websites as possible.