If you have never read or heard of “The Hacker Manifesto”, then it’s time to now.

The Hacker Manifesto

by
+++The Mentor+++
Written January 8, 1986

Another one got caught today, it’s all over the papers. “Teenager Arrested in Computer Crime Scandal”, “Hacker Arrested after Bank Tampering”…

Damn kids. They’re all alike.

But did you, in your three-piece psychology and 1950’s technobrain, ever take a look behind the eyes of the hacker? Did you ever wonder what made him tick, what forces shaped him, what may have molded him?

I am a hacker, enter my world…

Mine is a world that begins with school… I’m smarter than most of the other kids, this crap they teach us bores me…

Damn underachiever. They’re all alike.

I’m in junior high or high school. I’ve listened to teachers explain for the fifteenth time how to reduce a fraction. I understand it. “No, Ms. Smith, I didn’t show my work. I did it in my head…”

Damn kid. Probably copied it. They’re all alike.

I made a discovery today. I found a computer. Wait a second, this is cool. It does what I want it to. If it makes a mistake, it’s because I screwed it up. Not because it doesn’t like me… Or feels threatened by me.. Or thinks I’m a smart ass.. Or doesn’t like teaching and shouldn’t be here…

Damn kid. All he does is play games. They’re all alike.

And then it happened… a door opened to a world… rushing through the phone line like heroin through an addict’s veins, an electronic pulse is sent out, a refuge from the day-to-day incompetencies is sought… a board is found. “This is it… this is where I belong…” I know everyone here… even if I’ve never met them, never talked to them, may never hear from them again… I know you all…

Damn kid. Tying up the phone line again. They’re all alike…

You bet your ass we’re all alike… we’ve been spoon-fed baby food at school when we hungered for steak… the bits of meat that you did let slip through were pre-chewed and tasteless. We’ve been dominated by sadists, or ignored by the apathetic. The few that had something to teach found us willing pupils, but those few are like drops of water in the desert.

This is our world now… the world of the electron and the switch, the beauty of the baud. We make use of a service already existing without paying for what could be dirt-cheap if it wasn’t run by profiteering gluttons, and you call us criminals. We explore… and you call us criminals. We seek after knowledge… and you call us criminals. We exist without skin color, without nationality, without religious bias… and you call us criminals. You build atomic bombs, you wage wars, you murder, cheat, and lie to us and try to make us believe it’s for our own good, yet we’re the criminals.

Yes, I am a criminal. My crime is that of curiosity. My crime is that of judging people by what they say and think, not what they look like. My crime is that of outsmarting you, something that you will never forgive me for.

I am a hacker, and this is my manifesto. You may stop this individual, but you can’t stop us all… after all, we’re all alike.

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All Content graciously borrowed from: Mithral.com

Bang. The unarguably greatest of Anime of all time has gone on sale. What is usually around $150, is now under 40 bucks on Amazon. I do not want to go into detail about what Cowboy Bebop is exactly, you have Wikipedia for that. I will tell you though, that this is the greatest Anime of all time. You cannot go wrong in buying this. It is available here for pre-order on amazon. It is available on both the Canadian and American sites. You may notice that it says “remix” in the name. All that means is the audio is remastered to 5.1 surround sound. If you have not bought this yet, what are you doing? Go pre-order it right now. It is due to ship out on February the Fifth, so you can get it on your doorstep as early as next week.

Go now.

It’s time to fight back. Are you tired of reading useless, inane, and asinine comments? It bothers me how many stupid people read, write, and post on the internet. If you feel the same way, and want an worthwhile internet experience, then look no further for the Stupid Filter has come. Basically, it runs a filter over text on a web page, and blocks out anything it believes to be “stupid”. It has released a Beta, and works surprisingly well.

As taken from the link, Stupid Filter is:

“The solution: an open-source filter software that can detect rampant stupidity in written English. This will be accomplished with weighted Bayesian or similar analysis and some rules-based processing, similar to spam detection engines. The primary challenge inherent in our task is that stupidity is not a binary distinction, but rather a matter of degree. To this end, we’re collecting a ranked corpus of stupid text, gleaned from user comments on public websites and ranked on a five-point scale.

Eventually, once the research is completed, we plan to release core engine source code for incorporation into content management systems, blogs, wikis and the like. Additionally, we plan to develop a fully implemented Firefox plugin and a WordPress plugin.”

Sounds too good to be true? I guess we will have to wait and find out.

The presentation of new tech is done. I am not going to write any gigantic blog posts about new tech goodies, nor shall I talk a lot about Macworld 08′. If you haven’t been keeping yourself informed, what have you been doing? The CES and Macworld are so important to everyone, I can’t even begin to talk about it.

The highlight of Macworld was Steve Jobs 90 minute keynote. If you missed it for some reason, I am providing you with an easy way out. Here is a video of the entire presentation, in 60 seconds! Everything that is important to the average consumer in a minute. Take this great opportunity, and check out the video. For more in depth coverage of the entire CES, and Macworld, Engadget has got it all.

Again, this video is here to help you catch up on everything important; which you may or may not have missed.

You use them without even knowing. Being Logically fallacious is very common nowadays, some of the time, being unintentional. However, it is my belief that understanding the art of Logical Fallacies, will make you a much smarter person. You will be able to win arguments on a dime. Shut people down so fast, they won’t know what hit them. I will begin by quoting the Skeptics guide to the Universe’s definition of a “Logical Fallacy.”

“All arguments have the same basic structure: A therefore B. They begin with one or more premises (A), which is a fact or assumption upon which the argument is based. They then apply a logical principle (therefore) to arrive at a conclusion (B). An example of a logical principle is that of equivalence. For example, if you begin with the premises that A=B and B=C, you can apply the logical principle of equivalence to conclude that A=C. A logical fallacy is a false or incorrect logical principle. An argument that is based upon a logical fallacy is therefore not valid. It is important to note that if the logic of an argument is valid then the conclusion must also be valid, which means that if the premises are all true then the conclusion must also be true. Valid logic applied to one or more false premises, however, leads to an invalid argument. Also, if an argument is not valid the conclusion may, by chance, still be true.”

On the same website, it goes into detail about certain fallacies. It even gives you a top 20 list, of the greatest ones (in their opinion). This will give you knowledge, which many do not have. People will perceive you as a more intelligent individual, and you will be a pro at debates and arguments. All you need to do is give some of your time. Take my advice, it is well worth it.

I am currently in the market for a few pieces of technology. I am not planning to buy any however, until the CES and Macworld are done. Hopefully a lot of prices will drop then.

First and foremost, I need a new monitor to replace the ol’ faithful I am currently using. The Dell Ultrasharp 22 inch Widescreen is a very strong candidate. I am also planning to buy a serious pair of speakers, to replace the 2.1’s I am using right now. It is almost set in stone that I will replace these with the Logitech Z-5500. I was not joking when I said a serious pair of speakers. These babies have 505 watts of total RMS, and a total peak power of 1010 watts. They are obviously 5.1 surround sound, with one mean Subwoofer. I have also been looking around recently at audio mixers. This would produce an even cleaner and responsive audio output. This would be the lowest on my to buy list though. It is not necessarily needed; it’s more of an audiophical want.

My advice to anyone else who is in the market for technology, wait a month. After the international CES is done, prices on most tech goods will drop. This means that February is the tech buying month.

Not being able to do what you want, with what you fully own. This is DRM. The average computer user, probably knows little, or has even heard of DRM. Well, it’s time to find out. Taken from Wikipedia:

“Digital rights management (DRM) is an umbrella term that refers to access control technologies used by publishers and copyright holders to limit usage of digital media or devices. It may also refer to restrictions associated with specific instances of digital works or devices. To some extent, DRM overlaps with copy protection, but DRM is usually applied to creative media (music, films, etc.) whereas copy protection typically refers to software.”

I personally, think DRM should no longer exist. I help in the fight against DRM. I want to be able to do whatever I like, with what I legally purchase. I want a world without DRM. I want you to join the fight.

I searched, and found a well organized site explaining more about DRM. Then, I found a similar site which helps defeat DRM: DefectiveByDesign.

/If you want to truely own what you purchase, help abolish DRM./

This is a very interesting article I found on the net. Apparently, doorknobs are reaching the end of their days, being replaced by door levers. The argument is well presented, and fairly logical. If you need to kill some time, then this article is the perfect way to do it.

Free books + Free minds

Wowio is a website which allows you to download free e-books, and e-comics. When I first stumbled upon the site, it appeared to be pretty shady. Being my inquisitive self, I still had to sign up. Guess what? It works! This website is awesome.

Basically how it works is, first you sign up for an account. They require a bit more information than I am usually comfortable to give out, for the sign up. The reason behind this, and a major drawback to the site, it only works if you are an American citizen. They require so much information, so they can prove you are who you say you are.

Next, after you receive your confirmation email, you browse their large section for books. Books referring to all of their available novelty. They have a lot of great books. Many are educational. One of these books, is called Logic Puzzles. After you find books you like, you “add to download queue.” You can add as many books as you like to this queue. However, you can only download the top three books in the queue every day. This should be far more than sufficient.

My Rating
This website has a lot of quality content. If you have forgotten, it is completely free! I definitely recommend that you check out this website. If you aren’t a person for long novels, they have plenty of other novelty available. Don’t let that stop you. However, due to the slight drawbacks, that you have to be an American citizen, and can only download three books a day, this website receives:

Overall
4.5 / 5

Gentlemen, trials are too important to be left up to juries.

This is one of the most memorable quotes taken from the movie, Runaway Jury. As you may tell from the quote, this movie is a Drama/Thriller. Is it ever thrilling. Let me tell you, it kept everyone guessing until the last second. This movie is so deep, you could watch it a hundred times and keep learning, after each viewing. Again I will try and leave spoilers out of this review. I would like to add, this movie is based off the novel “Runaway Jury”, written by John Grisham.

Basically, this movie is about a court case, in which, there is jury rigging going on. Also, both the prosecutor and defendant, are trying to be bought out by someone in the jury. Meaning that person will sway the jury votes to the highest bidder. This is portrayed superbly. As the movie goes along, everyone has difficult choices, of which they need to make. By making certain choices, they need to live through the consequences. That is about all I can say about the movie, without spoiling anything. And let me tell you, I could write for days, about spoilers in this movie. I will say again that this movie is very deep, so prepare to think.

I recommend this movie to everyone. It takes you through an unforgettable experience. There is no major downfall to this movie, that I can think of. Due to all of this, I give this movie:

Overall
4.5/5