Convergence

The deception of perspective

2012-01-22T17:38:00.000+02:00


"A well nourished Sudanese man steals maize from a starving child during a food distribution at Medecins Sans Frontieres feeding centre at Ajiep, southern Sudan, in 1998"

Look at this child. The food would be wasted on him. He would eat too much of it, if he could eat at all, and would be sick, vomiting it and not being able to control his hunger. The ideal situation would be for someone to give it to him little bits at a time, but there's no logistical way to have volunteers do that for everyone who needs it.

For the man stealing the food, it is sustenance. For the child, it is a cruel delaying of the inevitable.

Our destiny exercises its influence over us even when, as yet, we have not learned its nature: it is our future that lays down the law of our today. Once we forget that morality is nothing but a herd instinct in the individual, we forget that our purpose is to overcome the weak in favour of the strong for the eventual benefit of an entire species.

It is absurd to cling to hope when through hopelessness we define our reality.

'Scuse me while I kiss the sky

2011-12-07T20:06:00.001+02:00

When I decided that I too must pass through the experience of a parachute jump, life rose to a higher level, to a sort of exhilarated calmness. The thought of crawling out onto the struts and wires hundreds of feet above the earth, and then giving up even that tenuous hold of safety and of substance, left me a feeling of anticipation mixed with dread, of confidence restrained by caution, of courage salted through with fear. How tightly should one hold onto life? How loosely give it rein? What gain was there for such a risk? I would have to pay in money for hurling my body into space. There would be no crowd to watch and applaud my landing. Nor was there any scientific objective to be gained. No, there was deeper reason for wanting to jump, a desire I could not explain.

Charles Lindbergh was on to something there; when I signed up for my First Jump Course in pursuit of a new hobby, I could fathom nary an iota of the love affair with the sky that would develop from those first steps.

The process was not without typical human doubt and apprehension:

"Why am I doing this? What am I trying to prove?"

Stepping out onto the strut, pushed towards oblivion by a prop wash stronger than any wind I had yet felt, fear gave way to focus. Those long hours of training and drills had finally marched to the point of application; no room for error, no time for hesitation.

As I let go of the strut, of the final tether which comforted me with its illusion of connectedness with the Earth, I fell into an answer to the last question.

"Why am I doing this?"

I found an answer that escapes my capacity for elucidation, but an answer that has me returning to the breast of oblivion again and again for as long as I am able.

What is Cold Fusion?

2011-08-28T09:48:00.000+02:00

Imagine you have two balls. These balls really don't want to touch each other but if you put a lot of energy into forcing them to, they explode releasing tons of energy.

This is called nuclear fusion. The balls are certain atoms and the energy is usually extremely high temperatures(millions of degrees). Instead of making the two atoms touch you are combining them into one larger atom. This process is what the sun is doing to create all of its energy.

Cold fusion is the term for a Nuclear Fusion reaction that can be done at a relatively cooler temperature and other conditions that we can create on earth. Although currently there is no cold fusion technique that produces more energy than what is required to sustain the reaction, Emc2 is currently working on a Polywell fusor that seems to produce more energy than it consumes. It is currently being funded by the Navy.

I'm pretty sure, though, that they wouldn't want to be associated with the term cold fusion, owing to its pseudoscientific stigma.

What happens at the atomic level when you cut something in two?

2011-08-17T17:17:00.000+02:00

Let's say you cut a piece of stainless steel in half with a magic knife that maintains the structure of all the atoms but just separates them. That would be an ideal cut; just breaking the chemical bonds that hold the material together. Now, what if you tried to put it back together a few minutes later? Somewhat surprisingly, the pieces wouldn't stick together. The reason is that the surfaces of many materials are different from the bulk material on the inside. In the case of stainless steel, the surface gets oxidized by the atmosphere to make a layer of iron oxide a few atoms thick. This prevents the surfaces from making a perfect match again.

So why does this happen? There are two reasons, really. The first is that oxygen will react with pretty much anything it can get its hands on. It makes especially strong bonds with iron. The second is that when you break a bond, you're actually adding energy to the atoms, and this energy can be used to facilitate a chemical reaction with something else that they come in contact with.

Now you decide to get clever and do this same experiment in space, or a good vacuum chamber. If you still use your magic knife so that there is no grain (crystal lattice, really) mismatch when you put your pieces back together, they should stick.

This phenomenon of separate two pieces of metal stick together does happen in our atmosphere, especially with stainless steel. It's usually not a good idea to use stainless steel screws to hold together something made of stainless steel. If you screw it in really tight, you can scratch off the protective layer of iron oxide on the surfaces, exposing the pure metal underneath, which can then, over time, form new metal-metal bonds. This process is called galling.

Feynman point

2011-08-16T15:19:00.000+02:00

3.14159265358979323846264338327950288419716939937510582097494459230781640628620899862803482534211706798214808651328230664709384460955058223172535940812848111745028410270193852110555964462294895493038196442881097566593344612847564823378678316527120190914564856692346034861045432664821339360726024914127372458700660631558817488152092096282925409171536436789259036001133053054882046652138414695194151160943305727036575959195309218611738193261179310511854807446237996274956735188575272489122793818301194912983367336244065664308602139494639522473719070217986094370277053921717629317675238467481846766940513200056812714526356082778577134275778960917363717872146844090122495343014654958537105079227968925892354201995611212902196086403441815981362977477130996051870721134999999 and so on.

Gödel's universe

2011-08-14T23:54:00.000+02:00

Kurt Gödel found a solution to Einstein's equations for General Relativity where time is meaningless, because every point in spacetime can access every other point in spacetime through Closed Timelike Curves.

In other words, he found a solution to Einstein's equation where you can trivially time travel to any point in history from any point in space, a clear violation of Einstein (and most every other physicist's) views on the nature of time.

It can be defined as follows:

where

ω

is a nonzero real constant, which turns out to be the angular velocity, as measured by a nonspinning observer riding any one of the arbitrary points.

Gödel never explained how he found his solution, but there are many possible derivations. Let's see one here:

Start with a simple frame in a cylindrical type chart, featuring two undetermined functions of the radial coordinate:

Think of the timelike unit vector field e0 as a tangent to the lines of arbitrary points.

Following Gödel, we can interpret the arbitrary points as galaxies, so that the Gödel interpretation becomes a cosmological model of a rotating universe. Because this model exhibits no Hubble expansion, it is not a realistic model of the universe in which we live, but can be taken as illustrating an alternative universe which would in principle be allowed by general relativity (if one admits the legitimacy of a nonzero cosmological constant).

The gauntlet

2011-08-10T18:48:00.000+02:00

I've pumped enough Quetiapine into myself to kill you three times over, but you're still here. Still mocking me with your lingering and your deadbelly comminations.

Rest assured, your days are numbered. I will kill you, one way or the other.

Germans

2011-08-03T18:58:00.000+02:00

Dassler Brothers Shoe Factory was created by Adolf and Rudolf, two brothers. They specialized in track/athletic spikes. They became estranged during the rise of Hitler, during and after the war, and, as a result of this, Rudolf left the company and Adi renamed the company after his own nickname: Adi-das. His brother went across town and started a new shoe company known to us as Puma.

In 2009, both companies decided to bury the hatchet by playing a friendly game of soccer football to end the 60-year rift. The match took place between workers from both companies within the framework of the “Peace One Day” initiative, an annual day of global ceasefire and non-violence.

The ensuing riot killed 3 and injured 18.

Note to self

2011-07-26T14:38:00.000+02:00

Change fucking everything.

Look at your life; it's not a buildup, it's a countdown. You're in a doped up antipsychotic haze which you're trying to pass off as a life. Are you suicidal? No, but you are busy killing yourself through crimes of omission. But take heart: only through disaster can we be truly resurrected.

An exploding universe contains nothing but the remnants of what could have been, but is not. Everything else is wasted potential and wasted matter. Nothing is quite as sublime as an unrealised ideal.

Are you socially isolating yourself? No? Is what you have any better? Look at the people with whom you surround yourself. Are they people worth emulating? No? Then why are they still there? To be fully couched in the comfort of a friend is a mode of existence with severe implications. To please you perfectly, she must understand you perfectly. Thus you cannot defy her expectations or escape her reach. Her benevolence has circumscribed you, and your life's achievements will not reach beyond the map she has drawn.

Are you in a job you can't stand but are too afraid to leave? At the end of every day, is the overarching question, "Was this day a complete waste?" Nothing is ever solved when the day is over, but nothing matters.

Take a long, hard look at your life, your routines, your peers, your job, your family. Are they yours, or are you theirs? You need an emotional response of some type. Something to remind the world - and yourself - that you are still, despite everything, a human being. It's easy to cry when you realise that everyone you love will reject you or die. This is therapy. Tears are salvation. Pain is resurrection. A little suffering is good for the soul.

Drive off a cliff, fuck someone, go on a shooting spree, do anything, but don't just sit there with a stupid, self-satisfied smirk on your face waiting for the clock to run out. What are you? Nothing. You just are. The cancer you don't have is everywhere now.

Change fucking everything.

This Sentence Has Five Words

2011-07-17T23:15:00.002+02:00

This sentence has five words. Here are five more words. Five-word sentences are fine. But several together become monotonous. Listen to what is happening. The writing is getting boring. The sound of it drones. It’s like a stuck record. The ear demands some variety. Now listen. I vary the sentence length, and I create music. Music. The writing sings. It has a pleasant rhythm, a lilt, a harmony. I use short sentences. And I use sentences of medium length. And sometimes, when I am certain the reader is rested, I will engage him with a sentence of considerable length, a sentence that burns with energy and builds with all the impetus of a crescendo, the roll of the drums, the crash of the cymbals–sounds that say listen to this, it is important.

Scribicide

2011-07-12T21:17:00.000+02:00

Somewhere, parently, in the ginnandgo gap in between antediluvious and annadominant; the axenwise cleft in the dontmind; the gap in between you and me; is there found a puir spring of scribicide.

one by one we're all becoming shadows, and i will die and you will die and we will all die and even the stars will fade out in time. tis as human a story as paper could carry well, but the cluekey to the worldroom is the honeying of the lune: love. the waxing of the moon above. uncertain comets chancedrifting into one another, exploding like spiders across the stars. together. transient as the pure cold light in the sky: from round to crescent from crescent to round they range.

Parked so dark by her kindlelight, I'm frisqued by her frasques and her prytty phyrrique. This mischievmiss burns an incandescending indigonation; a feroxysm in the uncorked cor.

A state of mind

2011-07-04T21:06:00.000+02:00

For those of you who actually read my blog (bless your hearts), you've no doubt come to accept me as an eccentric individual at the best of times. Unfortunately recent events have ascribed a disturbing aesculapian dimension to it.

I've had what most would not be loathe to describe as a nightmare month: I've lost my father; the very next day I was involved in a car accident; a week later a childhood friend died under violent circumstances; and a little over a week before the writing of this post one of my best friends took her own life. All of these calamities coupled with the typical difficulties associated with a high-stress line of work have most recently led me down a dark path.

I have experienced symptoms associated with psychtotic mental disorders: visual and auditory hallucinations, delusions, extreme paranoia, etc. The nature of these symptoms has varied from benign (voices commenting dully on my actions) to malignant (refusal to eat due to a delusional fear of being poisoned). I was passed from doctor to doctor and eventually made my way to a psychiatrist who, upon reviewing my medical and psychological history, diagnosed me with schizophrenia.

According to the physician in question, the condition has most likely been with me for a long time - possibly years - but due to its mildness has remained largely asymptomatic (or, at least, with symptoms mild enough that they cause little distress and are easily managed without ever triggering the urge to seek professional help).

Seeing as the condition has been wildly exacerbated by my recent prolonged period of intense stress, the headshrinker has opted temporarily to put me on a course of strong tranquilizers (benzodiazepine) in order to determine whether a relief in stress may bring about a relief in the psychotic symptoms. Unfortunately symptoms have persisted since entering into this course of treatment, so I will almost certainly end up on a chronic course of antipsychotics and intensive psychotherapy.

The status quo has obviously compelled me to do some reading which has alleviated some of the myths surrounding the illness, which - in turn - has made me a great deal less fearful and anxious about the entire situation.

The Inner Voice - Mark II

2011-07-04T15:59:00.002+02:00

Attaining a higher state of consciousness is a bête noire for the unready; regressing to a former state of being surpassing our occupied reality. We give it labels because we're haughty, but the awakening of the formerly abandoned recesses of the mind expedites some species of emendation in us. Fear is a natural reaction to being well adjusted in a profoundly sick society.

The inner voice

2011-07-03T08:14:00.000+02:00

Don't be afraid. You're regressing to a primative but desirable state of being, akin to the amorphous mass of consciousness which predates the ostensibly objective reality which you choose to occupy.

Substances

2011-07-03T07:42:00.001+02:00

We loved each other so much that sometimes it hurt, even when we were close. I wanted to be her and she wanted to be me. Sex never felt complete, and afterwards we talked carelessly about easy subjects to avoid discussing the ache that bruised us both. So one day, in the kitchen, she cut me and I cut her; gently, slowly, too easily. It was the knife we used for onions and our tears were painful but expectant. We dripped the blood into coffee mugs, then bandaged up and went to bed. We fucked and there were stars but we saw different constellations.
The next day the blood was dry and rusty in the mugs. We scraped it diligently onto sheets of paper. We looked at each other silently and lowered our heads to snort each other's dust. Afterwards we both carried a pouch of powdered blood, and when we were low and apart we would retire to a restroom and sniff, sniff, sniff.
Oh my darling, we went on and on. Our blood was there always, red and viscous, burnt ochre and blowaway. My blood in your nasal membranes, filtering into your capillaries, finding its inexorable way to your heart. Your blood. My nose. My heart. We belonged to each other and we had made our love tangible, real; something that could be weighed and consumed, taken and enjoyed.
It wasn't a surprise when we used the scalpel to shave flesh from each other's upper arms. We dried the flesh, though it was difficult to dessicate it completely. We used the airing cupboard. The powdered flesh was better ; cocaine to blood's speed.
Did it end badly? Did we go too far? Was our love replaced or deleted by want or need? In losing ourselves in each other did we lose the essence in ourselves that the other loved? Did time simply bore us with its slow wearing-down? I have no answers to any of those questions. But now, sitting here in the kitchen, I admit I am scared of the knife, that I can't dig deeply enough to draw blood, that I will have nothing in the morning but red, raised scratches on my arm. I don't want her to cut me.
Did we kill each other, or are we living happily; but only as happily as you are?

A Vignette

2011-04-11T20:21:00.002+02:00

Like most people of the time, I find myself falling into love to the soundtrack of famine and war. The object of my adulation is bequeathed a recondite beauty. A transcendant presence. Oddly, she never looks directly at me. Skittish. Uncertain. Scared. Occasionally I catch glimpses of her bare soul through a reflection of a reflection, but her reckless aloofness drowns me in the realisation that my fault, my failure, is not in my passions, but in my lack of control of them.

If only she could let go. Dive into absolution from the weight which fastens her gaze to the safety of her feet. If only she would look up, I imagine she'd see the scattered evening sky reflected in my dark pupils.

Has this happened yet? No. Will it? I don't know.

Are you worried? Because I'm not.

Tethering mobile devices for free

2011-03-18T15:55:00.003+02:00

In today's glorious world of mobile computing and smartphones, the line which separates "mobile devices" from actual computers is becoming increasingly blurred and will soon disappear entirely.

Many individuals have taken to using their smartphones as broadband connections for other devices such as laptops and netbooks in a process commonly known as "tethering". As far as convenience goes, the benefits are pretty clear: a single, portable Internet access point for use with whichever device is most readily available at the time.

Unfortunately many providers in various countries have taken steps to either reduce or profit from this activity by either making tethering a violation of their terms of service, or offering a separate "tethering package" - which essentially amounts to making you pay an additional service overhead whenever you want to use your phone as a modem for another device.

Legality and ethics aside, this article isn't meant to focus on the why, but rather on the how. Specifically, how can they tell you're tethering, and what can be done to circumvent it? We'll approach these one at a time.

How can they tell?

All IP packets have a field known as the TTL. This stands for the Time To Live. Every "hop" a datagram takes from one router to the next on the way to its destination reduces the TTL by one. Once the TTL reaches zero, the packet is dropped.

This functionality was implemented so that packets affected by some routing error and which find themselves going in a circle will eventually simply disappear as soon as their TTL reaches 0, instead of snowballing into a packet storm. All routing devices do this, and generally it's a Good Thing.

All operating systems have a standard TTL set on outgoing datagrams up to a maximum possible value of 255. Let's assume that both your Windows laptop and your iPhone have a TTL of 128. When you connect to the Internet directly from your phone, the data packets leave the device and hit your network provider's router (the first hop) with a TTL of 128. The router will decrement the value by one to 127 as the packet leaves their network on its way to the Internet.

On the other hand if you're connecting from a laptop using your iPhone, the phone itself is acting as a router and any packets originating on the laptop will have a TTL of 127 as soon as they hit your provider's router. In this way they can see that there was an additional network hop before the packet reached them, and from this they logically deduce that the iPhone is tethered to a laptop/notebook/whatever.

Okay, so how can we get around that?

The most obvious solution is to modify the TTL of the datagrams at their source. If, as in the example above, the TTL on your iPhone is set to 128, changing the default TTL on your laptop to 129 will mean that after the value is decremented by your phone, the provider will receive a packet with the expected TTL of 128. To them it will appear as though you're browsing directly from your phone.

Unfortunately there is one caveat: If the TTL on your mobile device is set to 255, I'm afraid you're shit-outta-luck. Seeing as the TTL is an 8-bit field in IPv4 packets, it can only accomodate 256 possible values: 0 - 255. You cannot possibly set it to 256 on any device ever. Fortunately in most circumstances this is not the case.

According to Deutsche Telekom Laboratories (PDF), "The default IP TTLs of popular MHDs (mobile hand-held devices) differ from those of the most commonly used home OSs. The default TTL of iPhones/iPods and Macs is 64, Symbian uses 69, while Windows uses 128. This enables us to separate MHD usage from regular PC."

To modify the default TTL in Windows, do the following:

Click on Start and Run (or Search) and type "regedit" to open the Windows registry editor.
Navigate to the following registry key: [HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\Tcpip\Parameters]
In the right-hand pane, right-click and select "New - DWORD (32-bit value)" and set its name to "DefaultTTL" and its value to anything between 0 and 255.

On Unix-like operating systems, the TTL is usually set to 64. In BSD or OS X you can easily change it using sysctl to modify net.inet.ip.ttl. For Linux, simply modify the net.ipv4.ip_default_ttl sysctl variable. To make the changes persist across reboots, add the changes to /etc/sysctl.conf. If you're unfamiliar with using sysctl, be sure to read the man page before proceeding.

A few last thoughts.

Already a few possible questions pop up in my head.

"Why not just spoof my User Agent when browsing?" I have always been and remain against spoofing of User Agents. Not only does it damage the efficacy of legitimate browser statistics, but it simply does not work. It's like a burglar who begins to meow after being caught red-handed in the hope that you'll assume he's a kitten and leave him alone. Any device, application or extension that promises to protect you by spoofing your UA is snake oil.

"Isn't there some other way that they can tell?" Frankly yes, but you don't need to worry about it. This would require deep packet inspection, and for any ISP who would benefit from disallowing or charging for tethering, DPI would be prohibitively expensive.

"Can I get in trouble doing this?" No. Changing the default TTL on your laptop/netbook/PC is absolutely not prohibited by any law. Just don't e-mail your mobile provider boasting about how you "cleverly" circumvented their tethering policy. You'll find your contract voided painfully fast.

"Can I damage my computer or my network doing this?" As long as you don't set the TTL inordinately low nor go out of your way to do stupid things with firewalls, you'll be fine. Imagine a TTL set to 5 and after a 4-hop loop the packet arrives back at your router. The loop will continue indefinitely until you reboot the router.

In summary, TTLs are serious business!

Good luck and have fun!

Guilt, denial and groupthink

2011-03-14T20:21:00.001+02:00

As is normal for a group of people who work together, every once in a while at our office an email gets sent out - usually by the boss - hilighting and chastising some egregious behaviour; be it anything from unprofessional conduct with a client to a lack of hygene in the bathroom.

A personal observation is that, usually without variance, every member of our staff (bear in mind, we are a small company of only 8 employees, all sharing a single office) replies with some form of indignation at the behaviour described. Seeing as at least one member of staff must be guilty of said behaviour, the fact that there is a universal display of scorn introduces an ostensible paradox.

From a purely cognitive point of view, this phenomenon never ceases to fascinate me, and I believe it treads into the realm of a branch of mathematics known as game theory.

When the original email enters the wilderness of the office network, the initial reaction of everyone involved is to speculate as to whom the guilty party might be; a zero-sum game is created. By responding with (sincere or pseudo) indignation, the individual believes himself to be removed from the pool of possible suspects. However, the consequences of this behaviour are purely mathematical and fully predictable.

As the pool of possible suspects shrinks, so does the likelihood increase that more individuals will react with this form of veiled denial in order to remove themselves from the pool and eliminate any chance of suspicion. Of course, the guilty party (or parties) must play this game too, in order to avert suspicion. This eventually leads to the absurd conclusion that everyone appears to be in equal disgust at behaviour in which at least one of the parties involved must surely have participated. Thus, everyone involved ends up looking even more foolish.

This is a variation of the so-called prisoner's dilemma that is occasionally found in game theory. As the dilemma itself illustrates, the best possible outcome for all parties involved is to accept, each and equally, some measure of the guilt and for no single individual to deny any burden of the guilt. In this way, the shared guilt amounts to less of a loss than the shared foolishness of the absurdity of a universal denial in the face of evidence to the contrary.

The dilemma, of course, is that none of the parties involved cooperates, even though it's in everyone's best interest to do so.

In this example we see mathematical principles being highlighted in our daily interactions, and not simply being relegated to the notebooks of mathematicians.

The legend of Jenga-henge

2011-02-26T12:54:00.000+02:00

So a friend and I were bored the other day and played some Jenga. After what seemed like literally minutes, we got bored and gave up, at which point I completed construction on a monument that would make the Druids themselves weep: Jenga-henge.

Glorious Jenga-henge

May it stand for a thousand years!

But as the legend foretells, the completion of this decadent monument angered the old gods! They sent in their most vicious monsters as retribution for this vulgar display of ego!

"What's this, then?"

Destruction!

Oh, the humanity!

A challenger appears...

Tag-team destruction.

Surveying the carnage.

Jenga-henge is no more.

"What?"

May the legend of Jenga-henge live forever, and serve as a lesson to those consumed by hubris.

Your photography sucks

2011-01-15T22:05:00.000+02:00

Have you noticed how everyone and their mother claims photography as a hobby nowadays? Do you know why? I'll cut right through the bullshit: because it's easy.

Okay, that's a bit of an explosive statement; good photography is everything but easy, in much the same way that good abstract expressionism is - I would imagine - extremely fucking difficult to pull off, but that doesn't stop anyone capable of projectile defecating paint from calling themselves an "artist".

Jackson Pollock was a genius. Whoever came up with this abomination, well...

Which brings me neatly to the next point in this disjointed rant: photography is the oil-on-canvas of the twenty first century. Anyone within snatching distance of a camera is equipped to take a picture and plaster it on their Flickr profile, but that doesn't make them a photographer any more than taking a laxative would make me a proctologist.

Annie Leibovitz, Robert Mapplethorpe... These people are photographers. You? You're an asshole with a camera, too much time, and not enough negative reinforcement.

Addendum: Yes, I do recall that I, too, have a Flickr profile. However, I've never claimed to be a photographer nor denied being a hypocrite.

Selective load balancing with Squid and iproute2

2011-01-14T09:55:00.000+02:00

Recently I was asked by a client to develop a load balancing solution over two of their ADSL lines, but only for http traffic, and only for specific users. Sounds like a pain in the ass, right? Well, it was.

Essentially they've got four ADSL links:

eth0: 111.111.111.111 (main uncapped line)
eth1: 100.100.100.11
eth2: 100.100.100.22
eth3: 100.100.100.33

eth0 is the default route where all traffic goes through, and eth3 is used for something else.

They're using Squid as their proxy server, and want all traffic for a specific Squid ACL (let's call it "employees") to be load balanced between eth1 and eth2.

My biggest worry was in how to set this up without having to alter the default route on the system, but - as is always the case with Linux - there is a way if you look hard enough.

My first thought was to use iptables to mark packets, then set up an iproute2 rule to pick up on those packets and forward them to the relevant routing table. Unfortunately, the best one could do with this method is manipulate all http traffic, however, as mentioned, only the traffic for specific users must be load balanced.

Obviously, this method won't work.

The key to the solution is Squid's TCP_OUTGOING_TOS configuration directive. This directive allows one to set the TOS value in outgoing IP packets on a per-ACL basis. What this means is that if you have an ACL called "employees", you can have all traffic generated by the users in that ACL have the TOS set to an arbitrary value. You can then use an iproute2 rule to pick up on all packets with that value set and do whatever you want with them. Bingo!

Firstly, we need to create three routing tables: ADSL1, ADSL2 and BALANCE. This is usually done in /etc/iproute2/rt_tables.

Then we begin adding routing information:

# Assumes 100.100.100.10 is the address of the router on eth1

ip route add 100.100.100.9/29 dev eth1 src 100.100.100.11 table ADSL1

ip route add default via 100.100.100.10 table ADSL1

# Assumes 100.100.100.21 is the address of the router on eth2

ip route add 100.100.100.20/29 dev eth2 src 100.100.100.22 table ADSL2

ip route add default via 100.100.100.21 table ADSL2 

Now we add some rules

# eth1 traffic goes to table ADSL1

ip rule add from 100.100.100.11 table ADSL1

# eth2 traffic goes to table ADSL2

ip rule add from 100.100.100.22 table ADSL2

# Squid sets desired traffic TOS. Marked traffic goes to table BALANCE

ip rule add tos 0x0c table BALANCE

And finally we create the multilink route in the table BALANCE.

ip route add default scope global table BALANCE nexthop via 100.100.100.10 dev eth1 weight 1 nexthop via 100.100.100.21 dev eth2 weight 1

Then finally, in your Squid configuration, simply add the configuration directive

tcp_outgoing_tos 0x0c employees

That's pretty much it. iptraf confirms that all http traffic for the desired ACL gets balanced over eth1 and eth2. Obviously the load balancing won't be perfect due to route caching, etc. But it probably is the most beautiful solution possible without splashing out on a pricey Cisco router or some such.

For more information, be sure to read the Linux Advanced Routing & Traffic Control HOWTO.

Candle Cove

2010-03-29T02:23:00.000+02:00

So, earlier today my friend and I end up talking over coffee about some fond childhood shows. He mentions an old show broadcast for a short time here during the 80s, but originally from the early 70s I think. It was called Candle Cove, and was about a girl who's friends with imaginary pirates (played by puppets) with an incredibly creepy villain. I'm talking the stuff of nightmares, here. Unbelievable what they passed off as kids shows back then, but I digress.

What triggered my curiosity - and nostalgia - was when he mentioned that it gave him strange recurring dreams. I was too young to remember exactly - so maybe it's just a false memory brought up by the conversation - but I'm rather sure the show gave me nightmares as well. The last episode in particular was, well, odd.

I looked into it, and I've never really experienced a comparable level of being both nostalgic and freaked out at the same time.

After scouring the net for a while, I came across a few articles on the show, including the following discussion taken from a forum thread from about four or five years ago:

Candle Cove
NetNostalgia Forum - Television (local)

Skyshale033
Subject: Candle Cove local kid's show?
Does anyone remember this kid's show? It was called Candle Cove and I must have been 6 or 7, I never found reference to it anywhere so I think it was on a local station around 1971 or 1972. I lived in Ironton at the time. I don't remember which station, but I do remember it was on at a weird time, like 4:00 PM.

mike_painter65
Subject: Re: Candle Cove local kid's show?
it seems really familiar to me.....i grew up outside of ashland and was 9 yrs old in 72. candle cov...wasit about pirates? i remember a pirate marionete at the mouth of a cave talking to a little girl

Skyshale033
Subject: Re: Candle Cove local kid's show?
YES! Okay I'm not crazy! I remember Pirate Percy. I was always kind of scared of him. He looked like he was built from parts of other dolls, real low-budget. His head was an old porcelain baby doll, looked like an antique that didn't belong on the body. I don't remember what station this was! I don't think it was WTSF though.

Jaren_2005
Subject: Re: Candle Cove local kid's show?
Sorry to ressurect this old thread but I know exactly what show you mean, Skyshale. I think Candle Cove ran for only a couple months in '71, not '72. I was 12 and I watched it a few times with my brother. It was channel 58, whatever station that was. My mom would let me switch to it after the news- Let me see what I remember.
It took place in Candle cove, and it was about a little girl who imagined herself to be friends with pirates. The pirate ship was called the Laughingstock, and Pirate Percy wasn't a very good pirate because he got scared too easily. And there was calliope music constantly playing. Don't remember the girl's name. Janice or Jade or something. Think it was Janice.

Skyshale033
Subject: Re: Candle Cove local kid's show?
Thank you Jaren!!! Memories flooded back when you mentioned the Laughingstock and channel 58. I remember the bow of the ship was a wooden smiling face, with the lower jaw submerged. It looked like it was swallowing the sea and it had that awful Ed Wynn voice and laugh. I especially remember how jarring it was when they switched from the wooden/plastic model, to the foam puppet version of the head that talked.

mike_painter65
Subject: Re: Candle Cove local kid's show?
ha ha i remember now too. :) do you remember this part skyshale: "you have...to go...INSIDE"

Skyshale033
Subject: Re: Candle Cove local kid's show?
Ugh mike, I got a chill reading that. Yes I remember. That's what the ship always told Percy when there was a spooky place he had to go in, like a cave or a dark room where the treasure was. And the camera would push in on Laughingstock's face with each pause. YOU HAVE... TO GO... INSIDE. With his two eyes askew and that flopping foam jaw and the fishing line that opened and closed it. Ugh. It just looked so cheap and awful.
You guys remember the villain? He had a face that was just a handlebar mustache above really tall, narrow teeth.

kevin_hart
Subject: Re: Candle Cove local kid's show?
i honestly, honestly thought the villain was pirate percy- i was about 5 when this show was on. nightmare fuel.

Jaren_2005
Subject: Re: Candle Cove local kid's show?
That wasn't the villain, the puppet with the mustache. That was the villain's sidekick, Horace Horrible. He had a monocle too, but it was on top of the mustache. I used to think that meant he had only one eye. But yeah, the villain was another marionette. The Skin-Taker. I can't believe what they let us watch back then.

kevin_hart
Subject: Re: Candle Cove local kid's show?
jesus h. christ, the skin taker. what kind of a kids show were we watching? i seriously could not look at the screen when the skin taker showed up. he just descended out of nowhere on his strings, just a dirty skeleton wearing that brown top hat and cape. and his glass eyes that were too big for his skull. christ almighty.

Skyshale033
Subject: Re: Candle Cove local kid's show?
Wasn't his top hat and cloak all sewn up crazily? Was that supposed to be children's skin??

mike_painter65
Subject: Re: Candle Cove local kid's show?
yeah i think so. rememer his mouth didn't open and close, his jaw just slid back and foth. i remember the little girl said "why does your mouth move like that" and the skin-taker didn't look at the girl but at the camera and said "TO GRIND YOUR SKIN"

Skyshale033
Subject: Re: Candle Cove local kid's show?
I'm so relieved that other people remember this terrible show! I used to have this awful memory, a bad dream I had where the opening jingle ended, the show faded in from black, and all the characters were there, but the camera was just cutting to each of their faces, and they were just screaming, and the puppets and marionettes were flailing spastically, and just all screaming, screaming- The girl was just moaning and crying like she had been through hours of this- I woke up many times from that nightmare- I used to wet the bed when I had

kevin_hart
Subject: Re: Candle Cove local kid's show?
i don't think that was a dream. i remember that. i remember that was an episode.

Skyshale033
Subject: Re: Candle Cove local kid's show?
No no no, not possible. There was no plot or anything, I mean literally just standing in place crying and screaming for the whole show.

kevin_hart
Subject: Re: Candle Cove local kid's show?
maybe i'm manufacturing the memory because you said that, but i swear to god i remember seeing what you described. they just screamed.

Jaren 2005
Subject: Re: Candle Cove local kid's show?
Oh God. Yes. The little girl, Janice, I remember seeing her shake. And the Skin-Taker screaming through his gnashing teeth, his jaw careening so wildly I thought it would come off its wire hinges. I turned it off and it was the last time I watched. I ran to tell my brother and we didn't have the courage to turn it back on.

mike_painter65
Subject: Re: Candle Cove local kid's show?
i visited my mom today at the nursing home. i asked her about when i was littel in the early 70s, when i was 8 or 9 and if she remebered a kid's show, candle cove. she said she was suprised i could remember that and i asked why, and she said "because i used to think it was so strange that you said 'i'm gona go watch candle cove now mom' and then you would tune the tv to static and juts watch dead air for 30 minutes. you had a big imagination with your little pirate show."

EDIT:
Thanks to the wonders of the communication age, I was able to find a couple of episodes online.

Here is the infamous last episode... I told you it was, erm, odd: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o2h5ym6ZlVY

Here's another episode from the show... the part where he talks about "to grind your skin" really creeped (creeps) me out: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CjP6eVDjuIM

An ode to the octopodes

2010-02-24T17:29:00.000+02:00

What is the plural of octopus? 'Octopodes', 'octopi', and 'octopuses' get thrown about, but which is most correct?

First of all, 'octopuses' is reached simply by applying the classical rules of English pluralization to the word octopus, rendering it a grammatically - though not traditionally - correct plural form.

'Octopi' originated due to a mistaken assumption that the word octopus is Latin in origin. This is an easy mistake to make, considering that 'octo' is the Latin word for eight, and the '-us' ending suggests a Latin word suffix of the second declension. However, it is significant to note that the Latin word 'octo' actually derives from the Greek word 'okto', also meaning eight.

Were octopus a Latin word, it would actually be spelt 'octopes' (falling in the fifth declension), and be pluralized as 'octopedes'.

Arguably, the most correct plural of octopus is 'octopodes'. The reason for this is because, as hinted at earlier, the word octopus actually derives from the Greek (not Latin) word 'oktopous' which is pluralized in the form 'oktopodes'. This use is, however, comparatively rare.

Surely a grammar lesson can't be all this post is about, so I'll throw in some amusing octopus-related anecdotes:

I love octopus; it is just the most amazing creature. Once, when I was snorkelling, I happened to notice this lazy bit of weed sprouting, unusually, out of a hole with the hollowed out head of a cray fish attached to it. As my eye is usually tuned to such things, I decided to get a closer look and, of course, it turned out to be an octopus... fishing!

You see, he was just sitting in his hole, lazily dangling a tentacle out of it, using the crayfish to attract small whiting and other fish stupids to his lair; as soon as they'd come in for a quick feed - BANG! - out he'd shoot, grab 'em, and into his hole he'd go. I watched him fishing like that for about an hour, and it was truly fascinating the way that little arm swung around in the current, just lolling about with his craftily deployed crayfish head. Brilliant little buggers.

On another occasion, I found an octopus at low tide, all holed up. Ran back to the flats and scooped up a handful of soldier crabs, and returned to the occy hole to drop them, one by one, around his lair. I've never been more tickled than by seeing this little bugger drop out first one arm for a fat juicy soldier crab, then another, then another, until eventually he had six independent battles going on simultaneously, and still he wouldn't let go of any of them. Of course, once he'd retreated with his fat cache o' crab, I dropped a little gold coin in the sunshine right out his lair, and he darted out, leaving the real treasure behind, to take a look. Out he came, and then less than a heartbeat later, about twelve soldier crabs too, very mildly chewed, scattering off over the sands.

If you're ever watching an octopus be sure to have something shiny to lure them around with; they simply can't stand not to possess the shine. I've had them crawl all over me and follow me for hours just trying to get the gold coins out of the mesh pockets in my snorkel trunks.

The Client

2010-02-22T23:47:00.000+02:00

"That bitch. That fuckin bitch."

"Easy now, Mr. Coetzee," Clinton said, "save it for your lawyer. Hmm... Assuming of course that's where you want to go with this."

"Yes, yes of course," Coetzee replied, rifling through a stack of grainy black-and-white photographs of shadowy figures like thick tendrils of smoke from some unseen cigarette, with exciting curves an lurid coils. At least one of the photographs indisputably showed the face of Mrs. Coetzee, and at least one showed the face of an attractive young man who was, in every respect, not Mr. Coetzee.

"You know," Coetzee continued, "with this... She won't see a bloody penny."

The harsh rain had returned to the region. Persistently it pattered upon the awning outside the window. The shine of an indifferent sun barely broke through endless ashen clouds and suffused the room in a dusky half-light. Clinton's office was small and unstately; it had been a general practitioner's office before the inexorable tide of conurbation had turned a formerly pleasant Durban neighbourhood into a run-down cog in the city-machine. Those old ghosts were gone now, but the air the oak walls breathed still sometimes smelled of ether and stale yesterdays. Clinton's desk was spartan save his stationary, telephone, an overflowing ashtray, and a framed picture of his deceased son Andrew. The room was bedecked with a cabinet at the far end. It housed various types of liquor, and the drawers below contained papers and files with notes on past clients. The wall behind Clinton's desk was chequered with framed photographs and awards from his career with the South African Police. Among them a diploma for attaining the rank of Lieutenant, a certificate for outstanding service in the Criminal Investigation Department, and a photograph of him shaking hands with former cabinet minister Chris Heunis, both smiling broadly. The latter taken after the successful resolution of a corporate blackmail case in the town of Somerset West to where Heunis later retired. Clinton did not display these documents out of pride, but rather as attestations to his ability. Advertisements. Although someone hiring a private investigator would be allayed to see that he is, at least by nature, a family man, that is not why Clinton kept the picture of Andrew on his desk.

"Forgive me for saying so," Clinton said as he rose out of his chair and walked around the desk past Coetzee towards the cabinet, " but it sounds like you've had this idea for a while. Leaving your wife, I mean."

"I'll be honest with you, Mr. Durant-"

"'Clint,' please. We've been over this before."

"Hrm. Clint," Coetzee continued without swiveling in his chair to make eye contact. Speaking as though Clinton were still sitting across from him, "As you know I've been, ah... suspecting... my wife for a number of months now. We've, well, been having problems for a long time."

"So what's your poison, Mr. Coetzee?"

"What?" Coetzee turned to look at Clinton.

"A drink. Can I pour you a drink?"

"Ah. Hmm, I shouldn't drink, really."

"Oh, come. It's almost five o'clock, and we're discussing a pretty sensitive personal matter. Some bourbon, maybe?"

"Well," Coetzee paused for a moment in indecision, "Scotch, if you have."

"Coming right up." Clinton reached into the cabinet toward an expensive bottle of Glenfiddich eighteen-year-old single malt before pausing, then reached past it for a comparatively cheap bottle of blended Famous Grouse. He poured a shot into a tumbler and handed it to Coetzee before pouring himself a Jim Beam on the rocks. Coetzee took a big sip and wiped his moustache with a handkerchief.

"As I was saying," he continued, "Gerda and I have been having problems for a long time."

"Since before you suspected her of... being unfaithful... or do you think it's the other way around? That she felt distrusted, pushed away, forced into the arms of another man, as they say."

Coetzee's eyes seemed to scan his brow from the inside as he mulled what Clinton had said. "No, I... Okay, we've had problems before I suspected her of..."

"Of cheating."

"Of cheating. Things have been cold between us for months. I tried everything, but... you know."

Clinton pretended to be interested as he sipped his bourbon while sitting on the desk near Coetzee. He was convincing. "She didn't want you to try?"

"Yes, basically. It was like she gave up. Like she wanted our marriage to end but didn't want to make a move herself," Coetzee said.

"How many months?"

"What?"

"Well, you said that things've been cold between you for months. You've suspected her of infidelity for maybe half that time, and you only came to me a week ago. So how many months have things been cold?"

"Oh, well, since December I think."

"You think?"

"Uh, yes. You see, we... Gerda, the kids and I... we normally go to my brother's farm near Stellenbosch over Christmas. She usually loves the trip. And the farm. Last year, however... she didn't seem all that interested. Disappointed, almost. That's when I first picked up on it, really. That things have changed."

"I see," Clinton said as he got up off the desk and sat down again at his proper place in the chair behind it. "Mr. Coetzee, it is my belief that your wife has been having affairs since at least December."

"Affairs? You're saying more than one?"

"You didn't really think this was the first time, did you?"

"Well, I-"

"Look," Clinton interrupted, "I took these photographs less than a week ago. Only a day after you first came to see me. If you recall, we agreed to the night when she usually goes to her Bridge game."

"That's right. Tuesday."

"Tuesday. And you know what I saw on Tuesday? This." He picked up the photographs Coetzee had been rifling through earlier and tossed them back onto the desk closer to Coetzee.

"I'm not sure I follow."

"On the first night night I tailed her, on her very first night by herself since you came to see me, she slept with another man. Now, Mr. Coetzee, I would not presume to know how your wife conducts herself in the bedroom, but in my experience a woman does not behave that way and do those things with a man she's been seeing for at least three months. There's novelty in those pictures. Passion. This guy she was with... he's new to her."

Coetzee fidgeted with his hands, downed the last of his Scotch and wiped his brow with the handkerchief. "I don't think I understand, Clint. What you're saying... about it being passionate and new... it doesn't fit with what you said about her being unfaithful for months. How can you be so sure it's been going on that long? Are you really saying there's been more than one man?"

"I'm saying that, yes." Clinton stroked his chin, staring at Coetzee, "How long has your wife been having her weekly Bridge game?"

Coetzee had a look of shocked revelation on his face.

"If I were a gambler, Mr. Coetzee, I'd wager your wife has never played a game of Bridge in her life."

"Fuckin bitch."

Clinton got up from his chair and walked over to Coetzee. "Look," he said as he amicably handed Coetzee his coat, "this is all a lot to take in. Bad decisions were never made on a cool head, so why don't you take some time to think about it? Talk things over with your wife before rushing into something you may regret. And if you want me to follow her around again and take some more pictures, I'll do that for you."

"Thank you, Mr. Durant- ah, Clint," Coetzee smiled, "but I don't think she can say anything to change my mind at this stage. God knows, she can only make things worse. If that's even possible. No. No, these pictures are more than my lawyer'll need. My mind's made up. As I've said, she won't see a penny of my money."

Clinton led Coetzee out of his office and into the small, adjacent reception area where his elderly secretary, Gwen Lawson, was already putting on her sweater and preparing to go home. "Speaking of pennies," Clinton forced a chuckle, "when can I expect you to settle your account for services rendered?"

"I'll send you a cheque at the end of the month. Is that in order?"

"Perfectly in order, Mr. Coetzee. Have a nice evening and try not to think too hard. That's what mornings are for. If you need anything else... well, you have my card." he said as he ushered Coetzee towards the front door.

Coetzee greeted Clinton and Gwen, picked up his umbrella from next to the door and opened it as he went out to his car. Clinton closed the door quickly to keep the rain out.

"It sounds like we won't be seeing him again," Gwen said.

"No, Gwen, I don't think we will. But we'll be seeing his money," he said with a wink.

Small Offender

2010-02-21T03:36:00.002+02:00

She whimpers. She floats in the darkness like a majestic thing, this little girl of thin frame. The plain white dress she wears, torn into a mere tattered rag, contrasting against her black skin and reflecting the light of some moon to give her the semblance of an angel.

She drifts in space among a myriad of stars that seems to go on forever in every direction. Each one nothing more than a speck of light on an endless blanket of darkness, but each one a massive and powerful furnace, undulating with prominences, roaring silently with activity. Each one of those countless specks of light representing a source of life to countless civilizations upon countless worlds; some, unimaginably different; some, not unlike our own with joy and sorrow and day and night and love and hate and kindness and cruelty and life and death.

As she breathes, the universe breathes. As her heart beats, so, too, does reality oscillate itself into existence in a constant unfolding, like an eternally blooming lotus blossom.

All of her days until now have been filled with these things: joy and sorrow and day and night and love and hate and kindness and cruelty and life, but now nothing exists but this moment. The beauty and the peace of it all have consumed her entirely, and no thoughts or memories traverse her mind other than awe at the magnificence of this spectacle. Drifting amid the vastness of space, the empty, silent coldness embracing her, she keeps her focus on only this moment.

She whimpers. She exhales one final time. The cold embrace has swallowed her. With her last breath she destroys the universe. As her heart stops, so does the endless dance of creation. As her vision turns to blackness, so all that was, and is, and shall be disappears into a void so striking in its emptiness that it is almost tangible.

The seemingly endless vignette of stars in which she drifts is a mere reflection on the surface of a lake. A lake so calm and still that it is like a mirror. A lake on which the little girl of thin frame with the torn white dress floats motionless. A lake in the African wilderness, many kilometers from civilization. The cold embrace - not of space, but of the water - has mercifully kept the pain of her wounds from her mind, and the night has mercifully kept from her vision the red tinge of the water around her. Her last moments were calm, at least. The cold and the dark her only comforts.