Shattered Crystalline Matrix

As a child,
I thought I could live without pain,
without sorrow.

And as a man,
I found it's all caught up with me;
I'm asleep yet I'm so afraid.

— Dream Theater, Metropolis Pt. 1

So if you're empty come with me,
and watch the world go by;
we'll laugh and laugh until we bleed,
just so that we don't cry.

— Cypher, Exit Stage Left

A good friend asked me a question the other day, something like: "What's your happiest memory of your parents?" I struggled quite a bit to come up with an answer to this question, and that effort really brought something into focus: that is, the difference in the way I perceive misery and happiness. Indeed, if you've read some of the "feeling" pieces of writing that I've posted on my blog in the past, you might easily come the conclusion that my life is defined by great misery and sadness; but while there's certainly been enough pain and suffering in my life, I would generally characterise it as one of happiness and contentment.

So, why all the sorrow and darkness? As I tried to think back to happy memories, I realised that I couldn't recall any single specific moment of happiness in my life; all of the happy times just blur together into one long stream of feelings, a sea of warmth and comfort. By contrast, the moments of sorrow stand out like brilliant points of light, frozen in the stream of time, individual moments of misery in a background of happiness. I can recall with frightening clarity most of these moments, down to the lines and bumps of the furniture, the dirt on the floor, the background sounds and noises, even the scents in the air; and most of all, the exquisite sensation or emotion of sorrow itself — what might perhaps be described as emotional masochism.

As a result, I find it hard to write about happiness and joy; there are no details to lock onto, no sensations to describe, no images with which a tapestry of metaphor may be weaved. Perhaps some day I'll find a frame of reference within which to describe these things; until then, I guess I'll continue to write about sadness and misery.

(Incidentally, I'm trying to work on bringing an actual character to life in their own right, rather than as a mere prop through which I attempt to convey a feeling; so with any luck, you'll be seeing some writing in that vein shortly...)

Ishtar's Falcon

Allan knew, long before he stepped through the doorway.

The falcon's whisperings had been growing more and more frantic, but his mind desperately shoved this to the side, seeking out any distraction that presented itself in a futile attempt to avoid the inevitable. His companions had not even noticed; Allan spent most of his time seemingly preoccupied by matters of the mind, and his behaviour today was hardly out of character. Yet, as the group approached the entrance to Allan's home, Nicole was filled with a sourceless sense of foreboding and dread; her subconscious somehow picking up a hint of the invisible inner turmoil that now seized the young man.

Step followed step as the threshold drew near, and the whispers became whimpers, then loud sobs. The colours of the world began to leak away, leaving behind a painful contrast of greys. The light brush of clothing against the skin was suddenly the painful rasp of sandpaper, and the faint whisper of a breeze was now an icy blizzard, whirling around him in sympathetic agony. The inescapable dread rose up blindly in his mind, gibbering incoherently, as he retreated from the unbearable assault on his senses; the falcon's cries continued to grow in volume, drowning out all other sound and nearly forcing him to a stop as he stepped through the entrance.

Inside, the old man sat on one of the ancient chairs placed around the room; Emily's body sprawled across the chair next to him, clutching the old man's hand with a death grip. Her muted sobs were inaudible over the sudden, dreadful scream of the falcon as Allan's eyes brushed across the scene, barely taking it in. From somewhere within, the absurd observation that the furniture needed reupholstery flitted briefly across his mind, intermingled with that insane gibbering inner voice. He saw the old man's lips moving, the sobbing heaves of Emily's chest, but the sound was still far beyond. It didn't matter, anyway, and as he collapsed to the ground, the world exploded with unbearable light, the falcon's impossibly drawn-out scream pushing him to the ground.

Allan's mind turned away from the light and sound, only to be confronted by Her face. Her brilliant, ever-present smile was now somehow confrontational; the warmth and love in her eyes now shot accusations and blame as he turned and fled down a mental corridor. The effort was futile; the image was on every wall, waiting for him at every branch and corner, an infinite prison of reflections, while somewhere behind him a nameless, roaring threat pursued him through the mental maze. The insane, gibbering voice now threatened to utterly eclipse the others, driving him onwards mindlessly, until he finally collapsed screaming in his own mind, unable to continue. Within moments the pursuing storm swept over him, stripping the very flesh from his body; the scream was now all his, as indescribable agony wracked his damaged frame. Then, somehow, She was there; Her smiling face seemingly impervious to the destruction as Her delicate and fragile arms gripped him, holding him in place with impossible force.

The sensation of time passing had deserted him; the very memory of entering the house only moments ago was now buried in the distant past. Finally, the storm began to subside, the unimaginable fury beginning to dwindle. The inconceivable strength of Her arms had held him in place throughout the ordeal, cradling him with love and warmth, not allowing him to be moved even the slightest distance. Now, as the agony drew to an end, She gently lowered him to the floor of the corridor. He looked up, motionless and uncomprehending, as She began to fade, flowing away with the last of the storm, until Her whispered farewell accompanied the last of Her into oblivion.

The world snapped back into place. The stark contrast of grey assaulted his eyes again, and once more the falcon's voice could be heard again; no longer screaming, but now weeping inconsolably. As his eyes adjusted to the harshness of the light, he became aware of Nicole's frantic form bend over him; he realised her lips were moving, and strained for the sound... "Allan! Allan! Come back to us!"

He suddenly stood, his iron strength returning as demanded, and took the frantic Nicole into his arms, as she collapsed against him in relief. The others looked on, fearful; the warmth in his eyes was gone now, replaced by the icy coldness of the falcon, and even Emily's tear-streaked face was watching him intently, the flood having temporarily abated. He glanced over to the old man, and when he spoke, the terrifying ring of command could not be refused.

"Take me to Her body."

Out of the thinning mists and the cloud of strange incenses filed twin columns of giant black slaves with loin-cloths of iridescent silk. Upon their heads were strapped vast helmet-like torches of glittering metal, from which the fragrance of obscure balsams spread in fumous spirals. In their right hands were crystal wands whose tips were carven into leering chimaeras, while their left hands grasped long thin silver trumpets which they blew in turn. Armlets and anklets of gold they had, and between each pair of anklets stretched a golden chain that held its wearer to a sober gait. That they were true black men of earth's dreamland was at once apparent, but it seemed less likely that their rites and costumes were wholly things of our earth.

— H P Lovecraft, The Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath

I use a variety of Firefox (Iceweasel, actually; thanks MozCo) extensions, and I thought I'd make a list for my benefit as well as everyone else's. I'll divide them into two categories; the "must-have" ones that are critical to my browsing experience, and then the less important ones.

First up, the "must-haves":

• Adblock Plus: Not much to say about this one; it's the best out of a handful of advert blocking extensions, and is pretty much essential to keep all of that cruft away from your eyeballs. It automatically updates the block list via subscriptions of your choosing, which is pretty handy
• Delicious Bookmarks: The official Delicious extension. Delicious is how I keep URLs for later reference; I don't care too much about the social aspect, just about being able to find things later when I want them.
• Feedly: Feedly is a Google Reader frontend, but so much more. It integrates with FriendFeed, Twitter, and other sites, and has its own completely separate UI.
• Firebug: This one is essential for doing any kind of web development. HTML / CSS exploring, JavaScript debugging, and more.
• FoxyProxy: Advanced proxy management tool. You can select different proxies for different sites based on pattern matching. For various reasons, I need to be able to do this to access certain sites, so this is a must.
• Greasemonkey: This one obviously has no value on its own, but there are a handful of extremely useful scripts I use, like Password Composer.
• NoScript: This one is fairly self-explanatory; it includes protection against XSS and ClickJacking, and allows you to "opt-in" to JavaScript, Flash, etc.
• Session Manager: This extension extends the built-in session management functionality in Firefox; you don't have to worry about losing your session every now and then, and lets you load older sessions, omit that page that keeps causing the crash when you load a session, manually save / load sessions, unclose closed tabs and windows, and more.
• Ubiquity: A command-line for your web browser; I use dozens of Ubiquity commands every day.

And now, the rest:

• bit.ly preview: This extension gives you rollover preview for URLs using various shortening services (like tinyurl, bit.ly, etc.) as well as some other things like Twitter tweets.
• DownThemAll!: A greatly enhanced download manager. Allows you to do thinks like snarfing a whole image gallery, and otherwise just giving you better functionality for managing active downloads, if you download in your browser a lot.
• Elasticfox: One of the best Amazon EC2 management interfaces.
• Firecookie: Extends Firebug with cookie management functionality.
• FireScope: Extends Firebug with linkage to reference material like the HTML and CSS specifications.
• Jiffy: JavaScript profiling for Firebug.
• Stylish: Like Greasemonkey, but for CSS.
• Tree Style Tab: Arrange your Firefox tabs in a collapsible tree, instead of a flat list.
  

Please find enclosed an updated version of Mike Taylor's FAQ, "Why Debian Is Not My Favourite Operating System".

1. How can I add a package?

   That's easy! Just use aptitude install package.

2. How can I upgrade my installation to the latest version?

   That's easy! Just use aptitude update; aptitude full-upgrade.

3. How can I search for a package?

   That's easy! Just use aptitude search keyword.

4. How can I reconfigure an already-installed package?

   That's easy! Just use dpkg-reconfigure package. (Sorry, this one still sucks.)

5. How can I get cutting-edge versions of some packages?

   You can upgrade to testing or unstable by replacing your distribution name in /etc/apt/sources.list with one of those keywords, and then following the instructions in FAQ 2. Please be warned that this is not, in general, a reversible operation.

6. How can I keep stable versions of most packages?
   

   You can't; mixing and maxing packages from stable with packages from unstable or testing will likely result in insanity, hair loss, and result in a broken system. However, if you want to mostly stick with stable, but want updated versions of a handful of packages, backported versions of many packages are available at backports.org; these are newer versions of packages compiled against the older libraries in stable. See the site for more information on how to make use of backports.

7. Why is php4 deleted when I install netpbm?
   

   It isn't. However, when trying to diagnose other issues of this kind, you can use aptitude why package to tell you why a certain package is required, and aptitude why-not package to tell you why a certain package conflicts with other packages if you try to install it.

8. Why can't I reinstall PHP4?
   

   You can, but see FAQ 7 for more information about similar issues.
   

9. How can I downgrade my system back to stable?
   

   You can't. While you can attempt to downgrade any individual package by forcing the package manager to select an older version (for example, aptitude install package=version), downgrades are explicitly not supported, and trying to downgrade masses of packages at once, or downgrade a package to a much older version, will likely result in failure and a broken system.
   

10. How can I fix ``also in package'' errors?

    Don't downgrade. If you got this error while doing something else, report a bug.
    

11. How can I fix another, seemingly identical, error?
    

    Seriously, no downgrades!

12. How can I fix yet another, also seemingly identical, error?
    

    I mean it, no downgrades!
    

13. How can I fix all the other similar errors?
    

    Seriously, I'm not even joking.
    

14. So how the hell are you supposed to downgrade?
    

    You're not!
    

15. What's the relationship between apt, dpkg and dselect?

    dpkg is the low level tool for manipulating Debian packages. apt is a library that provides additional functionality on top of dpkg, such as locating and downloading packages on demand, and performing dependency analysis to install dependencies at the same time. apt-get is a basic apt frontend usable from the command-line. aptitude is a more advanced apt frontend which is usable from the command-line as well as having an ncurses GUI. There are also a variety of other package management frontends, such as synaptic. dselect is an ancient dpkg frontend that basically nobody uses anymore; if you don't know what it is, then forget you ever heard about it.

16. Remind me again how easy Debian makes package-management?

    Well, Debian's far from perfect, it's just better than everything else. *g*
    

I've recently been grappling once again with an old problem: how to manage the development evolution of an idea that's too big for my mind to consider all at once. Technology has provided tools to help deal with this problem in general, mostly in the form of enhanced communication channels and "external memory" (ie. storage), as well as information processing tools to sift through external memory. Unfortunately, these tools only go so far; for one thing, in order to write down information or otherwise store it externally in some form, you need to be able to encode the information (say, in English). This works great in many cases, but is of little help in a situation where the ideas and concepts are not sufficiently crystallised in order to be able to encode and communicate them. For ideas with sufficiently small scope, it's not a problem to keep the idea in my mind over a period of time, as I slowly refine and crystallise the idea to the point where it can be communicated to others; but every now and then, something comes along that's so huge that I can't keep it in mind all at once.

One solution that some people resort to is encoding partial fragments of the idea independently. Unfortunately, this leads to a breakdown in cohesion and coherency; instead of a single coherent idea, you now have a sprawling mass of interrelated ideas that don't fit together so well, which really isn't a good substitute for the real thing.

Unfortunately, I don't yet have an answer to this; the particular idea that I'm working on (which will probably turn into a blog) is simply too important to break down into separate ideas, as it just won't have the necessary impact in that form. Every time I pick the idea up again, I realise that I've lost my grasp on various aspects of the idea, so it seems like I can't make any progress; as soon as I develop one aspect, I lose what I've developed on another aspect.

Anyhow, I guess I'm not really expecting a solution to any of this, but I thought I'd throw it out there while I'm banging my head against the wall.

People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals... sounds like a worthy cause, right? Sign me up! Unfortunately, the organisation seems to be run by clueless retards. Here are two of the latest examples I've run across:

Torture in Thailand: Imogen Bailey features in an advertisement protesting cruel elephant "training" techniques in Thailand. In the ad, we have the eminent Ms. Bailey looking like a playful submissive dressed, err, undressed for a bondage shoot; this is an advert /against/ elephant torture?

Human Battery Cage: Ah yes, the battery cage, bane of hapless chickens everywhere. From the site:

The Human Battery Cage is a unique piece of installation/performance art designed to show the public, in a vivid and realistic way, the cramped conditions caged birds are subjected to for the production of eggs for human consumption.

Right, so, they have a nice gallery full of people sitting in the cage in these horrific cramped conditions... and every single one of them has a grin so big it looks like The Joker was on makeup duty for the day. Hello?

Basically, it seems like PETA don't care what message they send, as long as people get the message; this seems to completely defeat the point of trying to send a message in the first place.

This is more of a "dear diary" or "note to self" post; go read something else if that's not what you're looking for. It follows on from an earlier post, but isn't nearly as introspective, so don't look for any deep insights here. I probably wouldn't have posted this at all, but the words were flowing, and lately I've been trying to take advantage of that whenever I can. So, don't say I didn't warn you...

I was the one who would not abandon you;
even in death I was the one who would not leave you.
I used my freedom to protect you,
and all the while direct you;
do you remember me this time?
Even in death I gave you life,
I gave you life.

-- Dream Theater, The Ministry of Lost Souls

For the past few weeks (actually, past couple of months), I've been rather busy on the work front. I don't want to go into too much detail, because the detail is mostly irrelevant, but suffice to say that it's been enough to consume a substantial amount of time and attention. I tend to work best under pressure, and so I've been operating at much closer to my maximum potential than I've experienced for a while; coupled with my relatively newly unlocked emotional intensity, this has made for a rather extreme ride, although it has also been immensely fulfilling.

There's one aspect I'm having to adjust to right now, though. I've been drawing much more deeply on my emotional strength to keep me going; this was necessary to avoid burnout, but since I'm still not really used to these levels of intensity, I've been experiencing again something I had completely forgotten about until now. Somewhere back when I first took control of my emotions after flaring out of control for so long, I recognised that while certain situations might threaten to overwhelm me with negative emotions, turning away from these situations would be just as fatal in the long run as suppressing the emotional responses would have been. Turning away means isolating myself from parts of the world, while suppressing the response leads to a mental callousness or numbness that would prevent me from empathising with others. I knew I could cope with the emotion no matter how intense, so it was just a matter of exerting the willpower to endure the experience.

Over time, I became used to the process; the experience never became any less intense, but the willpower required to avoid turning away became second-nature. Now that things have escalated to a much higher level, I'm suddenly having to deal with this temptation again. When confronted with pain, suffering, sorrow, anger, and other negatives, I'm finding that a much higher level of willpower is required. Intellectually, I know this isn't something there's a mental limit to; no matter the intensity of the emotion, the mental capacity will be there to cope with it; if not, the mind automatically filters the intensity down to manageable levels. However, knowing this, and actually practicing it, are two completely different things; so, I'm having to learn all over again to consciously suppress the urge to turn away from the situation at hand, or suppress the emotional response.

Anyhow, that's all for now; I've got some other stuff floating around, but it'll have to wait for another post, since nothing is concrete enough yet to put into words.

The blind man at the back takes firm hold of the tail and says, "But why do we need to call it an *elephant*? No-one knows what that is. Everyone knows what a rope is, so we should just call it a rope."

And that is how the elephant came to be labelled a rope in all the guide books.

— Dougal Stanton, Haskell-cafe mailing list
(in <ea8ae9fb0901161321k1beadf8crd42e57e6cc4e3587@mail.gmail.com>)

I continue to be baffled by the SSH intrusion attempts that show up in my logs.

Jan 11 10:03:47 azure sshd[6044]: Invalid user white\twhite from 121.144.130.32
Jan 11 10:04:23 azure sshd[6070]: Invalid user venta\tventa from 121.144.130.32
Jan 11 10:04:34 azure sshd[6081]: Invalid user white\twhite from 121.144.130.32
Jan 11 10:05:11 azure sshd[6106]: Invalid user venta\tventa from 121.144.130.32

No, none of my usernames have a tab or a \t in them.

Jan 10 17:24:05 crimson sshd[23214]: Invalid user llinco\361ir from 209.222.52.89

Who?

Jan  8 13:14:12 crimson sshd[12153]: Invalid user has-cechova$ from 64.119.177.36
Jan  8 13:46:54 crimson sshd[13596]: Invalid user !a@b#c from 64.119.177.36
Jan  8 13:46:56 crimson sshd[13598]: Invalid user !@#abc from 64.119.177.36
Jan  8 13:47:26 crimson sshd[13620]: Invalid user mail$ from 64.119.177.36
Jan  8 13:50:37 crimson sshd[13762]: Invalid user Xu}7fXta!p7y from 64.119.177.36
Jan  8 13:50:39 crimson sshd[13764]: Invalid user Xu}7fXta!p7y from 64.119.177.36
Jan  8 13:50:42 crimson sshd[13766]: Invalid user Xu}7fXta!p7y from 64.119.177.36
Jan  8 13:50:45 crimson sshd[13768]: Invalid user Xu}7fXta!p7y from 64.119.177.36
Jan  8 13:50:47 crimson sshd[13770]: Invalid user Xu}7fXta!p7y from 64.119.177.36
<snip more identical attempts>

Why would any of these usernames exist on my system? And why does "Xu}7fXta!p7y" get a zillion attempts, but the others only get one each?

Jan  8 11:09:18 crimson sshd[7359]: Invalid user 123!@# from 190.14.234.71
Jan  8 11:09:54 crimson sshd[7383]: Invalid user bl\345hajk from 190.14.234.71
Jan  8 11:15:46 crimson sshd[7607]: Invalid user fv11r01rc3@l from 190.14.234.71
Jan  8 11:15:52 crimson sshd[7611]: Invalid user pcsarl,49 from 190.14.234.71
Jan  8 11:19:16 crimson sshd[7746]: Invalid user r00tp@ssw0rd from 190.14.234.71
Jan  8 11:21:45 crimson sshd[7845]: Invalid user 4fj^w! from 190.14.234.71
Jan  8 11:22:03 crimson sshd[7857]: Invalid user #jaime56 from 190.14.234.71
Jan  8 11:34:57 crimson sshd[8360]: Invalid user moromete*!*@* from 190.14.234.71
Jan  8 11:35:01 crimson sshd[8362]: Invalid user moromete*!*@* from 190.14.234.71
Jan  8 11:35:04 crimson sshd[8364]: Invalid user cartaya*!*@* from 190.14.234.71
Jan  8 11:35:07 crimson sshd[8366]: Invalid user cartaya*!*@* from 190.14.234.71
Jan  8 11:35:22 crimson sshd[8376]: Invalid user moromete*!*@* from 190.14.234.71
Jan  8 11:35:25 crimson sshd[8378]: Invalid user cartaya*!*@* from 190.14.234.71

Protocol mismatch: expect SSH but found IRC.

Jan  8 10:33:41 azure sshd[17826]: Invalid user !#!@#&*#!@#$ from 190.14.234.71
Jan  8 10:33:54 azure sshd[17834]: Invalid user !@###$@ from 190.14.234.71
Jan  8 10:42:09 azure sshd[18122]: Invalid user #@#POLICE@!!@!@!@ from 190.14.234.71
Jan  8 10:43:45 azure sshd[18188]: Invalid user *&_%$#*&!@#$@! from 190.14.234.71
Jan  8 10:44:34 azure sshd[18215]: Invalid user fericitmereu@l from 190.14.234.71
Jan  8 10:53:09 azure sshd[18577]: Invalid user %$#$%!@#^& from 190.14.234.71

Shit! It's the POLICE, run for it!

Jan  8 10:59:41 crimson sshd[6038]: Invalid user kx028897chebeuname+a from 190.14.234.71

Who?

Anyhow, if you have some explanation for any of these, please let me know; I'm dying of curiosity.

I have tasted of the fruit,
and it's opened up my eyes;
it's given me a thirst,
that's so hard to satisfy;
drink from juicy lips,
delicious in a kiss,
allow yourself.

— Infected Mushroom, Illuminaughty

Fear of change is a common human affliction. Some fear change in the world around them, because they do not know whether they will be able to survive in a world that is different to the one they now live in. Some fear change in all things, because they fear that the change may be for the worse, rather than the better. Others fear intellectual change; that is, a change in their thinking, in their mind. This fear stems from a fear of losing one's identity; and of course, the accompanying fear that should such a change occur, they would no longer be able to understand why the change is good or bad, or perhaps even realise that any change has occurred.

Such fear is certainly not baseless; it can be truly terrifying to observe the downward spiral of someone afflicted with a psychological or neurological disease that slowly tears apart what was once a person, while the individual thus afflicted is almost oblivious to the process. Then there are forms of "brainwashing", or forced intellectual change; people hear of things like the so-called "Stockholm syndrome" (which, incidentally, is not a real medical term), and brainwashing through the use of psychotropic drugs and mental torture. Thus, it is perhaps not such a great leap from fearing these extreme scenarios, to fearing any kind of intellectual change at all.

However, down this path lies many dangers. First and foremost are the consequences of being unable to correct incorrect views that one holds; you need no longer worry about changing from correct beliefs to incorrect beliefs, but at the same time, any incorrect beliefs you hold will continue to mislead you, as you resist any attempts to change them. Then, too, there are the consequences of isolating yourself from others; even if you are, in fact, right, and they are wrong, you cannot hope to interact with them on anything more than a superficial level if you cannot at least understand their perspective, however incorrect it may be.

Thus, while I respect in some way those who seek to avoid intellectual change, I choose to embrace it fully. This does not mean that I buy into any hair-brained theory or belief that gets thrown my way. Any new ideas and concepts are carefully examined, tested, torn apart and put back together; but at the end of this process, if the new idea meets muster, then I will embrace it. Far from seeing this as "losing" myself, I feel that the new me is simply something greater than the old me; I don't discard the old beliefs or perspective as the new ones are embraced, I simply cut them out of the decision-making loop. Thus, I retain all of the previous awareness I had, but now it is augmented by new and different things.

I should, perhaps, stress the latter point; while some people seek to forget about painful memories or times of their life, to "put it behind them", I don't wish to do that. I don't wish to dwell on the past, but neither do I wish to discard the past, and lose the value of experiences. All of the pain, misery, suffering, and darkness is as much a part of me as the joy, love, peace, happiness, and light; to discard that is to discard part of who I am, and to become something less than I was before.

I urge those of you who fear change to, instead, embrace it, and release yourselves from that fear.