I’m off to New York. Bye.
p/s – The Baits Witch Project
Last night, I was on my way for Baits I from the stillness of Baits II. It was snowing and windy and at the same time, a weather alert was declared by the local authority. A snowstorm was expected but Ann Arbor didn’t suffer much of the anticipated storm. Nevertheless, the snow reaffirmed that winter is here to stay, at least until the lovely spring comes back.
I found myself shivering. My fingers were numb but I wouldn’t have suffered the numbness if I had been a little bit careful about my belonging.
While walking alone toward Baits I, I looked upward and saw countless snowflakes falling gracefully from the sky above. My heart stopped beating for a moment as I struggled to comprehend the magnificence of the moment.
It was simply exhausting to me. My legs were weakened by the grandiose of Mother Nature. She is so beautiful. I stood alone with my winter gear save the lost leather glove to savor the moment of bliss that was mine. No words could describe the feeling that I felt. The only way to describe it is to be in that moment. To describe it with words is simply a fallacy.
The wind was frightfully strong but somehow, I stood against it. The numbness was unbearable but somehow, I didn’t realize it. I held out my hand into the air and a modest amount of flakes accumulated on my palm. It was cold yes but the feeling was simply what I cherish the most. It was a total bliss.
I was all alone, standing in the middle of a vast open space with a thick carpet of snow covering the earth. It was a clean carpet with no trace of being defiled by human presence. It was as white as you could ever imagine. White and clean with peace and bliss.
I wish I would die in that moment while all my senses were numbed. I wish I had died in that bliss so that any burden won’t troubled me anymore.
It wasn’t long before my sense brought me back to reality. The cold pain pulled me back down to the ground. No more able to withstand the low temperature, I walked hastily for my destination. After all this, I still wonder why human is still blind. My hope is that it isn’t too late to save the world from greed and hate.
It is getting too boring here and I desperately want to get out of this city for the rest of the hols. Ann Arbor is undoubtedly a small town but at least, livelier than some town. West Lafayette, for instance, hmm…
On other note, The __earthinc has received unusual type of visitors and new referrers. I don’t mind about the referrers but the new kind of visitor has made me to be a little bit cautious of what I will write. Of course, I have never criticized anybody that I know personally here. I’ve been very careful with that. My concern is that I’ve mistakenly identify a few IP address belonging to a few particular persons. After staying up in north and physically checking the IP and its port, I sure am surprise to see my failure to identify those IP accurately. Nevertheless, now, I have identified the exact the building. The current need needs me to study how the building network is mapped. Once that is accomplished, my IP directory will be more accurate.
Although I have a list of list, I rather not expose or share it with the public. Exposing people’s IP to the public will no doubt bring too much attention. This is what I’ve learnt from a stranger. He was and still is compiling a HUGE list of IP, comparable to ARIN, APNIC and a few other organizations. Not only he compiled it, he actually posts it on the web and updates it in the interval of a few months. As a direct consequence, legal action is being made against him. The charge made – the violation of privacy.
I am not planning to expose my list but the charge made against this guy is certainly baseless. The only violation he made was spreading the Internet connectivity map (there is a term for it but I am no mood of searching for the exact term) to the public.
IP address is one of the easiest things to get in the internet, or at least for those who are not noobs. Wherever you go, your IP will be transmitted to some computer unless you had configured a firewall to be resilient. There was a time when I was a member of ATU 5’s virtual community, a person bragged on who he managed to trace an anonymous mail back to USC. I, who read the brag could only looked in disgust. Bragging for successfully tracking an IP address is something should not be done in the public. Only noob does that. (This statement is an exception to the earlier paragraph)
It is hard but not impossible to hide the IP but the key to protect oneself in this dangerous World Wide Web is being careful of ports. Yes, ports. Of course, the first thing to find an open port is to search for a particular IP but with a protected port, a hacker will certainly move on to an easier target save if the hacker IS determined to get something from a storage device.
Serious kinds of privacy violation are spams and Bush’s plan. Spams is one of the thing that made me to discount myself from ATU 5’s mailing list and its now dead virtual community. I also almost ask for a removal from UMIMSA’s mailing list last year because of spams. Bush on the other hand is a d*mbf*ck. All his plans are nonsense. Period.
Yes, if you want violation of privacy, it’s spams, not a list of IP that includes yours.
Behold. The first The __earthinc’s yearly award. Muahahaha.
Below are the things that, in my opinion, deserve to be mentioned before the year sets in the horizon.
The news of the year – United Nations’ weapon inspection on Iraq
Space news of the year – Ariane 5 explosion
Environmental news of the year – The sunken Prestige off Spain
Sport news of the year – US reached the World Cup 2002’s quarterfinal in Korea/Japan
Crap of the year – Football (reads soccer) shootouts cause heart attacks
Person of the year – George Bush
Joker of the year – George Bush
Loser of the year – The Democrats
Beauty of the year – Jennifer Aniston
Bitch of the year – Christina Aguilera
Fucker of the year – Ann Arbor Police
Critique of the year – Bal (give him a visit at bal.mit.edu)
News feeder of the year – Reuters
Computer of the year – None (Self-assembled is the best)
Quasi-computer of the year – Anything related to Apple Computers
Motherboard of the year – ASUS P4G8X
Processor of the year – AMD Athlon
Video card of the year – ATI Radeon 9500 Pro
Sound card of the year – Sound Blaster Audigy 2 Platinum
Speaker of the year – Creative Inspire 6.1
Mp3 player of the year (hardware) – NOMAD Jukebox Zen
OS of the year – MS Window XP
Programming language of the year – C++
Web browser of the year – IE 6
Firewall of the year – ZoneAlarm 3.0
Tracker of the year – VisualCare
AV of the year – Norton Anti-Virus 2002
Digicam of the year – Fuji FinePix 2650
Image editor of the year – Adobe Photoshop 7.0
HTML editor of the year – MS Notepad 5.1
Search engine of the year – Google
Portal of the year – Yahoo!
Messenger of the year – MSN Messenger 4.6
Media player of the year – RealOne
Mp3 player of the year (software) – Winamp 3
Game of the year – Star Wars Jedi Knight II: Jedi Outcast
Gamer of the year – Mohd Saiful Mohd Bohari (You wouldn’t believe how many ORIGINAL games he bought)
Weblog publisher of the year – Blogger.com
Weblog of the year – Samizdata.net
Fast food of the year – Subway
Restaurant of the year – Penang in Chicago
Coffee shop of the year – Starbuck
Pop of the year – Mountain Dew
Dining Hall of the year – South Quad
University of the year – University of Michigan
Campus of the year – Central Campus
Zoo of the year (Special Award) – University of Michigan North Campus
Reshall of the year – West Quad
Organization of the year – Solar Car Team
Workspace of the year – SCT’s workshop in Ypsilanti
Professor of the year – Myron Campbell
GSI/TA of the year – David Winn
Course of the year – EECS 280
Building of the year – Umich EECS Building
Hangout place of the year – Underground, Michigan League
Day of the year – Tuesday (It was EECS 280’s deadline)
Swear word of the year – Mother Fucker
Planet of the year – Saturn
City of the year – Chicago, Illinois
Mall of the year – Somerset in Troy, Michigan
Freeway of the year – I-90, USA
Street of the year – S. University St. in Ann Arbor, Michigan
Car of the year – Toyota Celica
Book of the year – The Turk by Tom Standage
Magazine of the year – Computer Shopper
Text book of the year – Savitch’s Absolute C++
Football team of the year – AC Milan
Sport site of the year – uefa.com
NCAAF team of the year – Iowa
Movie of the year – Lord of the Rings: Two Towers
Disappointment of the year – Star Wars Episode II: Attack of the Clones
Flop of the year -Jason X
Shit of the year – Jason X
Short Film of the year – BMWFilms.com’s The Hire
Cartoon of the year – South Park
Sitcom of the year – Friends
Group of the year – Tool
Song of the year – Broken by 12 Stones
Well, hope that wrap the year. Next year, I’ll take vote for some entries but this year, to hell with democracy I say.
Altruism. It’s a funny word isn’t it?
It is a word that means unselfishness which in turn means doing something without thinking of one’s own benefit. It is a good notion no doubt but I have reasons of not trusting the existence of altruism although I myself have gone through this so-called altruism.
I believe that things happen for at least a reason. War occurs because of greed and prosperity exists because of greed too. Hate is caused by jealousy and love is also, not jealousy but again, greed. With three to one, it is safe to claim that the world is based on greed. Greed is everything.
Take this for an instance – the United States without covering its intention wants to attack Iraq and thank god the world stands in the US way. Russia on the other hand is against any unilateral action against Iraq. Vladimir Putin does this not because he hates the American but instead, it is about money. Iraq owes Russia billions of Rubles, and if the US was allowed to invade the gulf state, Russia thinks Iraq won’t be able to pay up the Russian. The Muslim nations on the other hand are against the US move since they are jealous of US. Plus, seeing the US gaining the riches of the Arab is the last thing they want to see. Therefore, in the end a war based on greed was prevented by greed itself.
Greed’s hand is far reaching. War was prevented by greed and this simply points to another uneasy thinking – peace is also greed. It is only during peace our so-called needs and wants could be satisfied. Needs and wants are economy’s complicated term for greed. When you are in a class, certainly it will be troublesome to hear supply and greed instead of hearing supply and demand.
When we sits in a class especially business related, we are learning Greed 101 or greed 345 in reality. Sure, some of you say I sit in the class to further my knowledge which in turn will benefit the society. Sure, I will respect you for that but somewhere in the way, you will earn fame and money while serving the society. And isn’t that the true goal of us learning? To earn respect, power and money no matter how hard you deny it? See, even when we are doing a virtue, in the end, it is greed along, like Satan in the mask of an angel.
Love is a virtue too but trust me, it is no shorter than greed. Love is a greed of owning someone else, to have the other’s tender and kindness without sharing it with another.
Greed may well perhaps gave birth to socialism and communism. These two ideas are against greed but they themselves reflect the greed and jealousy of the lower class. They are dismayed with the greed of the upper class because they themselves want that richness and power. Therefore, while democracy is the upper and middle class’ greed, communism is the lower class’ greed. (After years of reading nonsense, I still can’t draw a clear line between socialism and communism. I once remember the difference but now, I’ve lost it)
Religions are against greed as far as my knowledge enlightens me. But yet, religions promote love and stuffs that would promise the believers a good health in the afterlife. Of all virtues, altruism in religion’s sense is the closest you could get to the real meaning altruism. Nevertheless, one that practice altruism has the greed for the afterlife. So, no matter how hard the believers say, in a way, being a believer is caused by another kind of greed.
“It’s too bad the world is based on greed.”
– Papa Roach, Between Angels and Insects. 2000