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'$$| ;;$' '$$ $$; $;$ $$$ $$| a$p; '$$ '$$. .$$' $$; '$$. $$| $$$; d$$b '$$ $$' d$$b '$. $$' ''' '''' '' '' '''' ' '' - - --- ---------- ----- ----------------------------------- --- - - - "We don't need to try to change the world, only our perception of its boundaries." __ ___ _______________________________________________________ ___ __ P A 1 N M A G A Z I N E V O L U M E T H I R T E E N @#! -- --- ------------------------------------------------------- --- -- [-----][ PA1N STAFF ][-----] ! [ ] | [ Editor in Chief alienbinary | | [ Co-Editor, Co-Founder Turnspike I ! [ Co-Editor Mephyt ! | [ Deputy Co-Editor angel ice i [ Editor Nemisis ! [ Editor Red Dragon [ Literary Sniper RumblingSky [ Contributor Artemis ! [ Editor Manuel O'Kelly . ! [ Editor Kello | [ Contributor greynin .--' [ Contributor Danger Girl | | [ Follow the... White Rabbit | | [ Bandwidth Warlord Cheezi | [ Guidance for ab aliabuse ' | [ Shouts Zerachiel . ! [ New Writer!@ Pinion_Blue | . [ New Writer!@ The Unduhtakuh : ! '----[ "I recognize no rights but human rights." ]----. -- Angelina Grimke | | ! [ TABLE OF DISCONTENT. (welcome to the revolution.) ][----------] PA1Nv13x01 --- Introduction alienbinary --- PA1Nv13x02 --- Letter from the Co-Editor Turnspike --- PA1Nv13x03 --- Nepenthe alienbinary --- PA1Nv13x04 --- Marijuana, Bubblebath and Masturbation angel ice --- PA1Nv13x05 --- Snowtracks: a journal , pt 1. alienbinary --- PA1Nv13x06 --- Snowtracks: a journal , pt 2. alienbinary --- PA1Nv13x07 --- My WEP Adventure The Unduhtakah --- PA1Nv13x08 --- MKULTRA for the New Millennium RumblingSky --- PA1Nv13x09 --- Untitled mephyt --- PA1Nv13x10 --- All he Wanted alienbinary --- PA1Nv13x11 --- Over-Advertising Pinion_Blue --- PA1Nv13x12 --- eBook: the new Paperback alienbinary --- PA1Nv13x13 --- Origins of Self-Censorship alienbinary --- PA1Nv13x14 --- Outro alienbinary --- alienolotry (6:55:00 PM): yes-people creep me out, because sometimes I get really fucked up ideas, and if I were to propose them to a yes-man, I'd get the go ahead on something probably criminally insane, or at least lewd. contact? email alienbinary at: alienbinary@spfd2600.org email Turnspike at: turnspike@spfd2600.org email mephyt at: mephyt@nocturnalradio.com [ for maximum reading ] ----------- - --------- - -- -- - - - - [ pleasure, please ] 1. http://www.rantradio.com/rr-industrial128.pls [ tune in to one of ] 2. http://www.rantradio.com/rr-industrial24.pls [ the streams. - ab ] 3. http://www.rantradio.com/rr-punk128.pls [ ] 4. http://www.rantradio.com/rr-talk64.pls [ ] 5. http://www.rantradio.com/rr-talk24.pls [ introducing... ] 6. http://www.nocturnalradio.com/listen.pls [---------------------] ----------- - ------------- ---- ------ - -??????-??------------???????????????--??-------------------------------------- PA1Nv13x01--------------------------------------------------------------------- [ Letter from the Editor ] [ alienbinary ] ---------------------------------------------------------------------PA1Nv13x01 -?------------?---????????????-----------???????????---------?????????????????? '-. ' '-. "Shit! I hate not being the bad guys." ./ \ - "Jack" in TCOR (2004) \ '----.___ .---------' So, welcome to the world of PA1N Magazine, Rantmedia, and the digital revolution. Sometimes when I write these introductions, I feel like I should list off all the potential consequences of free thought and free expression, much the way Sean K does in the 'Afternow' intros. Nonetheless, when you actually boil it all down and ignore what the straight media says, this is the most honest thing you might do all day. Here is unadultered free speech. This is the last respite of communication and ideas. Some of the people that come across this issue may regard what is here as crude, irreverent or even criminal. If you come to that conclusion, I'm truly sorry your head is that far up your ass. The timing of the release of this particular issue coincides with the releif efforts in areas hit by the Tsunami, also with the ongoing offensive against Iraq, the introduction of the Ident card into everyday life, and the continuing fight that a select few of us have kept alive: the fight for our right to think freely and express ideas, even unpopular ones. Adlai Stevenson once said that "A truly free society is one in which it is safe to be unpopular." If this is the case, and I beleive that his statement has a very valid underpinning, then unpopular ideas must be treated with the same respect as any other idea. Although I make no apologies for what is published in this magazine, I also sincerely hope that everyone understands the merit of each peice. There are peices of articles in this issue that I don't necessarily personally agree with the viewpoint, but I respect their right to say it. Todays times are incredibly sad ones indeed. It is an actual constant concern of Americans that they will be persecuted for their beleifs or the things they say. Next time you are at a restaraunt, make careful note of how many people are apparently obfuscating their conversations, openly fearful that someone might overhear and misconstrue what they are saying. We do NOT live in a free society, although many people are under the impression that we do. However, that is in many ways irrelevant. Whether it is forbidden or not, whether other people defend our right to speak or not, whether it is considered immoral to voice one's own opinion should it be contrary to the opinions and beleifs professed by those in positions of power, there are people who will still make their voices heard. It's not all doom and gloom, however. There is a great feeling that you can aquire by suddenly realizing that only you have the power to render yourself silent or powerless. You are the only person with control over your voicebox, regardless of what the media, the politicians and the corporate state has to say about it. You can at any time, should you feel that it is necessary, rise up and raise your voice in dissent. And if someone should physically take away your ability to speak, you cannot be robbed of your right to think freely. There is a common misconception that people can have their rights to free-thought taken away. This is not actually true, because once you lose your right to think for yourself, you are no longer alive. "It's the struggles that defines us, it is the hardships we endure." (Hatebreed, "Live for This") Every day, each and every one of us in the world, no matter who you are, is confronted with a barrage of mass media, an on-slaught of the hip thing to be scard about. One week it's terrorism, the next it's a tsunami, and after that, it'll probably be back to the war in the mideast. Ultimately, however, none of this is as terrifying as the subtle war that goes on, the war that we each respectively identify as our lives. It is a constant struggle to maintain a sense of dignity, direction, integrity and morality in a world where only the morally bankrupt hold power. We have to re-affirm for ourselves each day what it is that we beleive in. Most people will throw their hands up in frustration and say the hell with it, and become sucked into the undertow of consumer culture. But for those of us who refuse to give up, the few that are gaining in numbers, this is the battle that defines our lives. Don't get me wrong, I don't spend every WAKING moment thinking about this. I spend every moment thinking about this, period. On the other hand, there is no point in being completely depressing, if it's possible to fight back with humor. A lot of the articles in this zine are satire, and are designed to take a little swing at the mainstream, and maybe make some people laugh. Since the world is a very, very wierd place, it helps to take a moment and laugh at it once in a while. You will find the means to do so especially in this issue. I'm proud to announce the returns of both RumblingSky and angel ice, as well as the early return of Mephyt from the US Armed Forces. Instead of droning on incessantly, however, I'll let you get to the issue. Please enjoy PA1N Magazine, Issue Number 13. - alienbinary -??????-??------------???????????????--??-------------------------------------- PA1Nv13x02--------------------------------------------------------------------- [ Letter from the Co-Editor ] [ Turnspike ] ---------------------------------------------------------------------PA1Nv13x02 -?------------?---????????????-----------???????????---------?????????????????? [ Smiles and Smileys ] I downloaded a file using BitTorrent this week that was a training video from McDonald's circa 1972. The video was about how smiling and being curtious when working the counters at Mickey D's made your job easier. It was a simple idea really. Grumpy customers plus grumpy employees made for unsatisfied customers, amd more stress. However, grumpy customers found it hard to be grumpy in front of friendly employees, and the "smiles are contagious". Beyond this message, I noticed something more revealing about how things have changed in 30 years. In one scene the video instructed the employees to look at the customer as much as possible while interacting with them. More interesting was the fact that when the order was being taken, the cashier had to write the order down on a pad. Ordinarily, I get just a glance or two during my whole visit at the resturaunt, and today their fingers merely have to hit one button to signify that I ordered a double cheeseburger meal. But it isn't just that McDonalds have gone soft on their training methods, this is the way we live now. Getting more done with as little interaction as necessary. I had just this conversation with my girlfriend, who seems to be rapidly becoming a retrogrouch. She is upset that I spend so much time on the computer. This isn't so much that I do this when she is around, but that she knows I am planted on my office chair during my freetime when she isn't here. Furthermore, she has no clue what goes on in cyberspace that would be so interesting anyway. I tried to explain to her that the internet was a modern-day oracle that from which you can pull information about every subject imagineable. As an example I told her that if I wanted to know how to brew a better cup of coffee, I could google the subject than the answers would be right there. Her retort was that if she wanted to learn how to brew better coffee, she would just go talk to the person at one of the coffeeshops in town. My reply to that was: why go to a coffeeshop when you can access that information form my desktop, and I wouldn't have to talk to anyone. Again I found myself seperated from actual human interaction by convenience and efficiency. Although I believe that technology may be the factor that will save mankind from ourselves, are we heading to a point that when we redeem ourselves, the high-fives will be from behind our firewalls? [ 5up3r B0w1 ] The big game of American Football will be played in Jacksonville, Florida on Febuary 6th. The reason the former sentence sounds so awkward, is thanks to the NFL's copyright policy reguarding this game. If you listen to broadcast radio, you might have heard your local DJs attempt to side-step around the NFL's list of forbidden words like "Super Bowl", "Super Sunday", "National Football League", or "AFC". And to make matters more complicated the NFL has been known to shut down parties for showing the game on TV screens that were "too large". And if there is a fee anywhere related to watching the game live at an establishment, that too is considered an infringement in the eyes of the NFL. That means clubs must be careful asking for cover-charges if they have the game on, and cruise ships may not be able to show the game live, since you must buy a ticket to board. You may not be a fan of football, but if you are interested in a case-study of the abuse of copyright law, watch the news wire for the next few weeks.. Here's a few links reguarding this subject from Copyfutures: http://lsolum.typepad.com/copyfutures/2004/10/the_nfl_is_noto.html http://lsolum.typepad.com/copyfutures/2004/11/ive_talked_alot.html http://lsolum.typepad.com/copyfutures/2004/09/nfl_attacks_tiv.html [ How's the weather? ] The weather always amuses me. Here in the heartland of America, I spent New Year's Eve at a party at my brother's house. It was so warm that all his windows were open. I should have worn shorts. There was talk that winter would never come this year. Of course it did, as it always does. Eventually the warm air bubble was popped by cold canadian air, and it will be another 3 months before the warm air will cram that cold air back north where it belongs. However the global weather is changing in a big way. My adopted "brother" in Switzerland says that some of the snow that usualy tops the Alps is permantly gone. Also the ice sheets in the Artic and Antartica are both melting away, extreme weather seems to be getting worse (something that is hard not to notice here in "Tornado Alley"), and a new study using "shared computing" by www.climateprediction.net shows models that predict a global rate as much as twice what was prevously thought. For a decade, I tried hard to play these signs off as some left-wing attempt to control the way I live, but the evidence has won me over. And now my President needs to make the same change of heart and take positive actions to agknowlege the problem and join other world leaders in supporting improved enviromental policies. Although this maybe be either a natural cycle or a man-made entity, our actions as industrious humans are no-doubt speeding it along. Another interesting sidenote in the weather situation is the huge sunspot that faced the Earth on Jun. 17th and shot an X-7 class solar flare this way. NASA said it was the most intense radiation the Earth had felt from the Sun in 15 years (this suprizes me, since the news-making solar peak we last had was in the middle of 2000). It not only caused wide spread auroras across Canada, the upper United States, and Europe, but it also threw some satellites into convultions, including the the solar observatory (SOHO), and a new satellite launched to measure the earth's "wobble". NASA sent the team on the International Space Station to a specialy shielded module for the storm, where the crew recieved an amount of radiation about equal to an x-ray. NASA has a story on what would have happened if a moon base was present and the explorers were outdoors during the storm here: http://science.nasa.gov/headlines/y2005/27jan_solarflares.htm -Hope my tidbits were as interesting for you as it was therapeutic for me. Issue 13 is our first nestled in the bosom of RantMedia forums. Thirteen must be our lucky number because it feels like we are home, and the response we have recieved so far has been uplifting. I expect you will write something for us soon. Till next issue. -??????-??------------???????????????--??-------------------------------------- PA1Nv13x03--------------------------------------------------------------------- [ Nepenthe ] [ alienbinary ] ---------------------------------------------------------------------PA1Nv13x03 -?------------?---????????????-----------???????????---------?????????????????? ! | \ .-' '-. ' ' ' "...With it, we anesthetize grief, annihlate jealousy, obliterate rage. Those sister impulses towards joy, love, and elation are anesthetized in stride, we accept as fair sacrifice. For we embrace Prozium in its unifying fullness and all that is has done to make us great." . ! - Equilibrium (2002) '-. \ My eyes are having trouble adjusting the harsh glare of the laptop screen. It's fifty past midnight, or ten of one, two days before christmas, as I write this. Screaming from my headphones, a cocktail playlist of Hatebreed, Barcode, Slaves on Dope, Poison the Well, Converge, and NJ Bloodline throttles my brain like an auditory baseball bat. I love this feeling. All I know at the moment is the selective sensory input that my brain chooses to pay attention to. I am aware of the smell of amber resin, coming from a small one half by one incht wooden box on the other side of the room. I am also aware of the throbbing of my eyelids, as my pupils strain to dilate and expand in accordance with a dark room in contrast with the white of the unfilled space of the text editor's window. I'm just letting my mind wander over the events of the last few days, which have been peculiar, to say the least. For the most part, I've done something that I rarely do, which is sleep. I've found that there is something exquisite about staying in bed for a solid day when you haven't been properly sleeping for a week. It's like abstaining from smoking a cigarette if you're a pack a day smoker, and then buying some expensive import cigarettes three days later. It's a terrible habit to get into; either of them are, actually. The smoker is rewarding themselves with carcinogens, while the insomniac turned sleep junkie is gorging himself on melatonin. Our brain chemistry is so fragile, yet all we do is fuck with it. I'm a little over thirty five hours into an accidental experiment involving the disuse of stimulants. I, like half the fucking planet, am prescribed a stimulant for attention deficit disorder, and like most of the prescribed population, I rarely think of going off the dose. Today it happened by accident, a sheer case of botched planning turned into a full fledged neurological experiment to determine whether or not I was the one behind the helm when it came to the complete control of my brain. The results of the experiment are more obvious in the side effects of the situation. I woke up around 4 PM this evening, way past the dose. I made a judgement call that I've never done before: I just skipped it. I've been feeling like utter hell lately, perky in the morning to the point where I worry myself, and crashing fast to the ground around 6 every night. This winter vacation I've been working at the radio station, building x86 towers for the offices, screwing around with SCSI arrays and PCI configurations, trying to make the best use of all the possible components at my disposal from the machines that have been dormant in the offices until someone, cheifly me, had the time to rearrange them back into usefullness again. It had become a very upsetting pattern for me, that around the time that I was halfway into my buddy's radio show, listening along as I worked, my mood would plummet like debris from a botched space shuttle launch. Every night I felt like I was crashing, as if I had been on coke or meth for the morning and was paying the price later. I tried abstaining from the coffee, but it didn't make a difference. I've been wondering what to do lately, I can't very well keep up this game of moodswings while school is in session, I'll get sent home for fuck's sake. So today was different by accident, as I've said. Mind you, I worry that what I'm writing won't make an ounce of sense, as I've been conditioned to beleive that my performance is dependent on my dilligence in maintaining the strict pharmaceutical regimin assigned by my doctor. They are the experts, are they not? Funny I should have picked "Equilibrium" as the movie to watch obsessively before break, and "Gattaca" as the film of choice for the duration of break. It was during the second viewing today, that I realized I was feeling differently. Side effects have a funny way of showing themselves. Often, people attribute the symptoms to something else, since it's not in the American value system to distrust medicine. Quite the contrary, actually. Science and medicine have surplanted our faith in God for the majority of Americans. Ironic I should write this two days before the christian portion of our nation celebrates the birth of Jesus. Still, it is a singular fact of importance that explains a great many of our mistakes in daily life. I've been looking around to external factors for the last week, blaming my lack of a significant other, most of the time, for not being happy. This will be the first christmas in recent memory that I haven't shared with a girlfriend or date, and it's lonely as hell. Still, given the opportunity to medicate the feeling of loneliness away, I would flush the pills down the toilet. My limbs are shaking, and my eyes still haven't adjusted to the harsh glare of the laptop screen. You know that your body is not entirely under your jurisdiction when some of the critical faculties can't do their job if you neglect to take a small pill. I'm going back and forth from stages of blinking rapidly to long periods of forgetting to blink. Welcome to the world of withdrawal from ritalin. My skin feels dry; it feels as if it's crawling. My mouth is always parched, my ears are always ringing and my eyes are constantly readjusting. Tell me that there isn't something wrong with this. I'm prescribed something to help me focus better, but nowhere in the bargain did I sign on board to become addicted to speed again. Don't get me wrong. If this weren't winter break, when I can get away with not acting 'normal,' I wouldn't. Fortunately, every single person in the united states is all kinds of fucked up right now because of the pressure of the season, and I could wear a clown suit covered in blood and traverse fifth avenue without anyone so much as pointing a finger. I'm all atwitter, to be honest, for this year's last minute shopping carnage shots. Do you remember last christmas? At some KMart, two women beat the ever loving snot out of eachother over the last whatever-the-fuck for their kids, afraid that they wouldn't be able to purchase their children's affections. It made front page Boston Globe, New York Times and Boston Herald. I had the clippings for a while, and I think I even had the security camera footage on my G4 for a while. Nothing screams of the improprieties of capitalism than two people beating the shit out of eachother in competition for their children's respect, all in the name of goodwill towards man. Yet none of this has registered until today. What the hell have I become? It's important for me to point out that I'm not against medication, unlike many of my colleagues in the electronic zine world. There are copious articles on the dangers of a drugged society, many of them with their merits that shouldn't be ignored. "Prozac Nation" and the like have sparked mainstream controversy as well, and it's a good thing. I'm a mental health volunteer, to add to the irony. For all intents and purposes, I'm a counselor. I work with children who have been newly diagnosed with mental illness, and help them come to terms with it. As I've written honestly before, I'm Obsessive Compulsive, and I feel no shame about it, as well I shouldn't. I'm potentially manic depressive and a former drug addict, but I don't make any fucking apologies. We are what we are, and all we can do is try to improve our situations, but we can do fuck all about the hand that we've been dealt with. Besides, even with all the bullshit that goes on in my life due to my disorders, I think I would rather bleed a geneticist dry than let him or her fuck with my DNA. Blood is sacred, that I do beleive, and no one should ever be ashamed of the blood in their veins. We are all human, and that means something, so fuck you if you have a problem with imperfection. I digress. Tomorrow morning I will go to Starbucks and have a double espresso, and take my pills again, but the damage is done. I've done an experiment and found the results to be shocking. Something is wrong. How, as a society, have we become so dependent on pharmacy as the new religion? When was the last time you left things to chance or tried simply HOPING that things would work out? As I mentioned sensory input at the beginning of this article, I shall return to the smell of amber resin, for it has something to teach us. Amber has been used for thousands of years holistically. Formed from a dried sap, amber resin crystals give off a divine odor that at once entices and mollifies the senses. There is something warm about the smell, and it's uses are many. Among them, it has been used to bring harmony to a place of discord, purification to places of unrest and ill memory, and to raise the positive energy of the sick. Never forget the power of ancient medicine. Shamans knew something that we choose to forget: we come from nature, therefore nature knows at least a little bit about what makes us tick. Please don't come away from this article thinking that I have bashed medication, because I'm not an opponent of it's use. Please don't think that I am advocating the medication holiday that I took today, as I've seen literally lethal effects of people doing so without consulting a doctor. The majority of people are on medication for a damn good reason, and I have seen very dangerous pills save people from suicide before. I only mean to let you in on what I am thinking, because it is so rare that I am in this particular state of mind. I beleive in the power of science, as I too, am I scientist. But this brings a conundrum to mind. How do we embrace science without forfeiting our free will to it? If today I had woken at 8 or 9 in the morning and taken my pills, I very well might feel the same as I do right now. At the same time, it's important not to discard the data that we are told to ignore. An hour ago I was in bed, rocking out to Rage Against the Machine and the Pist, trying to thrash myself to sleep. Now I beleive I might simply wander back to the bed and lay down to rest, having purged my mind of all these thoughts. Having done so, because I feel that they are important. Take one thing from this article, if you will-- if I choose to publish this-- take the knowledge that no matter what anyone says to you, it's your body and your life. Feel free to destroy it or repair it as you see fit. No one person has all the answers, I can promise you that from a professional standpoint. As a regular person, I can attest to the fact that it's hard not to want to find the person with all the answers, all the same. -- alienb, Dec. 23, 2004. -??????-??------------???????????????--??-------------------------------------- PA1Nv13x04--------------------------------------------------------------------- [ Marijuana, Bubblebath and Masturbation ] [ angel ice ] ---------------------------------------------------------------------PA1Nv13x04 -?------------?---????????????-----------???????????---------?????????????????? .-----' '---------. / \ "This is a show about the truth, you motherfuckers, / as opposed to the lies you get everywhere else. And .--' the truth is, I'm about to light up a cigarette, | because they're good for you." ! - Decoder, MindWAR '-. So I was on the way home from Rhode Island tonight from our extendeded family Christmas party, and I got to thinking about how it had taken us almost half the time to get there as it was to get back. Traffic is what you're probably thinking, and under regular circumstances you'd probably be correct, but not tonight. An accident? No. Weather? Umm... not really, in fact it was freezing rain on the way there and pretty clear by now. The reason this drive was taking so long was because my mom had driven there and my dad was driving now, and I kid you not, he did not go over 70 the entire way home. In fact, most of the time he stayed in between 55 and 65. Honestly I was starting to get a little frustrated and feeling a little out of control, and I could tell by the way my mom was sighing every few minutes that she felt the same. That's when I realized just how bad society and our daily lives have screwed us up. Since when is it not acceptable in certain peoples brains to go the speed limit, and even to go only 5 miles per hour above? Who am I to get frustrated because my dad is driving safely when there is ice on the road? Our lives have become so fast paced that when anything breaks our stride it is suddenly immoral and bothersome. The art of relaxation and leisure are now things of the past that can only be bought, through Tylenol P.M. and Yoga sessions. Everything we own now has to be shiny and fast to catch our interest. And everything we watch has to be short and condensed to keep a hold of our attention; A.D.D. isn't a disorder anymore it's a way of life. The "norm" now a days is to be running from practice to practice while popping pills to block the screams of pain from our bodies and guzzling caffeine to make sure we don't miss a step or God forbid, take a second to breathe. Even sex has become something that fits neatly into our crammed schedules. It's no longer something we can find ecstasy in but something that is done in hushed quarters on our lunch breaks or quickly before we finally hit the pillow to get our average of 4 hours of sleep. Passion has become "Tivo'ed" into our lives. Hey if we can start and stop our favorite shows why can't we plan pleasure? OK STOP, RIGHT NOW. We have now officially gone so far as to take the romance out of making love. My prescription? Masturbation and bubble bath. Ok let's not freak out, it makes sense, just stay with me. First off, if you have ever been in a bubble bath it is quite literally impossible to feel the pressure of the world around you, especially if you add the girly stuff like candles, and music (guys you can for go this the bubbles are good enough on their own). Second off, this is where you can truly relax, knowing you have no other care in the world and give yourself the attention that you really deserve. This is where the masturbation comes in. In this kind of setting we can take all the time that we want and truly enjoy what was commonly known as "pleasure" up until we condensed it at least. If you look at it in the right way masturbation is actually rejuvenation and pampering for our over used bodies. This act will restore our appreciation for ourselves and the need for this kind of ecstasy in our lives. This will transfer over to our daily lives outside of the tub and greatly increase our pleasureful interludes with others. Now back to the topic at hand. Since I have now fully explained two parts of the title of this work I will now unveil the meaning of the first part. Like I said before, we are over stressed, over worked, and over tired. It used to be that the only people who were normal were the athletes and the cheerleaders and now they are more fucked up than any of us what with the pressure to win and all of the eating disorders. The only people who take the time out of life that they deserve, and don't stress themselves with mindless crap are the stoners. Now don't get me wrong I'm not saying that we should all go out and do drugs, I'm saying that we should all go out and smoke weed. Oh don't be so damn shocked we're all on drugs already anyway! We are addicted to everything, Prozac, Botox, Adderal, Zoloft, Advil, Hydroxycut, Uppers, Downers, and Caffeine, yes our precious energy drinks and Venti Starbucks are drugs too. We'll take anything to make sure we're happy, perky, attractive, pain free, and efficient human beings. Hell we'll take stuff that causes heart defects, and even a three day erection thanks to Viagra. Stoners understand what life is really about; they get it. You won't see them racing from one thing to another or stressing themselves out over what clothes we're wearing or how quickly we're getting to death. Instead they sit around with their buddies, or even by themselves because they don't have the widespread paranoia of being alone, and they contemplate. They mull over all of the things that we take for granted and don't even think about. You know what they used to call these people? Philosophers. What the hell ever happened to this occupation? Man, what I would give to sit around in a room with a bunch of other chill intellectuals and come up with theories. It would certainly be better than waiting on people who think they're better than you just because they aren't serving the food. Then again, if I were stoned I guess working in a restaurant with food at your fingertips probably wouldn't be such a bad thing. Hmm... that must be the reason that the food service industry doesn't drug test, now it all makes sense. If only everyone had the mindset of a stoner no one would ever be rushing anywhere, there would be no traffic, no long lines, and of course we would never be bored. We wouldn't have to spend all of our money on the newest, fanciest electronics because our own hand would be enough entertainment for a life time. Everything would take on new importance and we might finally get our true priorities in order. And just to put your politically correct minds at ease, the only thing marijuana is a gateway to is contentment. So light up a blunt, hop in the tub and fuck yourself. Have fun! -??????-??------------???????????????--??-------------------------------------- PA1Nv13x05--------------------------------------------------------------------- [ Snowtracks: a journal, pt. 1 ] a memoir. [ alienbinary ] ---------------------------------------------------------------------PA1Nv13x05 -?------------?---????????????-----------???????????---------?????????????????? December 25, 2004. Rocking out to "Binary Nation" by Chemlab. You know you've reached that age when everything's not so much fun anymore, when the best gifts you have to go buy for yourself. No kidding, I went out two days before christmas on request of someone who won't be named, to buy myself something small because they had forgotten to get me anything. Isn't family fantastic? Naturally, though, I went straight for the jugular on this one. I picked up my own personal 'OXIDIZER' CD at the only place I'll still buy physical CDs and wrapped it up. "To me, from me, with love." Jared Louche, if you're reading this, you've outdone yourself this time. I heard parts of the album when I was putting last issue out, but now I can honestly say, you guys rocked hard with this one. Also, it's kind of an ego trip to see a song called "binary nation." Regardless, I'm chilling up in my room at my parents house, as per usual, on Christmas day. I've never been happier to have a holiday over with and done. Normally, I'd be writing in my journal or talking on the net to my friends, comparing the loot, but I don't think that's in the cards this year. I feel old, though. Everytime I found a gift card to a book store, I thought about what manual I needed, and how it would save me money for my job, and more than that, I've never had so many fucking starbucks cards at one time. You'd think that everyone I know had a surplus of them, and was in dire need of a person to pawn them off on. I wonder if I'm hard to shop for. I wonder why I care. * * * For the first time in a while, the phone hasn't made a peep. Not even to say that it's running low on juice. I only hope that means everything's fine, and not that I've horribly mangled the insides of it from playing around too much. It can happen. I remember a month ago I was bored and set my desk phone LCD to read "ALIENBINARY" when I should have been studying. I ended up spending so much time hacking around in the BIOS that I even reprogrammed the ringtones. On a corldess. Who does that? * * * I was talking to a friend of mine about something blatantly sexual tonight, and as I was lacing up my boots, I went off topic and explained that I just bought new Bates Enforcer paratrooper boots. She replied that this had nothing to do with sex, but that was still interesting, to which I made the following statement: alienolotry (7:35:46 PM): not for me. boots and sex go hand in hand in my mind because I'm not okay in the head * * * "Some motherfuckers always trying to ice-skate up a hill." -- Blade December 26, 2004. I love that quote. If I wasn't so picky about the scars I choose to keep on my skin, I would probably have it tattooed on my arm, but I digress. I went to the movies for the first time in several months. It's not that I don't like movies, it's that most of them suck, since the industry has taken hold of film completely. Still, I have an almost unhealthy obsession with the "Blade" trilogy, and it just so happened that I had the day off. Actually, that's a bit of a misnomer. The truth is, I work freelance, so I never really *HAVE* to go to work, unless I get called in on an emergency, which happens more than I'd like. So, like any junkie needing his fix, I dropped down into AIM, to see who was around. My memory works in wierd ways, and I was thinking about the last Blade flick, Blade II, or, as it's less commonly known, "bloodhunt". See? I have a problem. I need a new hobby. Sorry, back to the story. I went to see Bloodhunt with a girl I may have referred to in earlier issues as Metalgirli. It seems like it would have to be three or four years ago, I'll have to check the DVD case to find out. Anyway, before I go on about my fixation with Snipes' masterpeice, I'll have to tell you a little side story. Roughly a million years ago, when I was fifteen, I was going to take courses at this quasi-camp style school over the summer in C programming. When I got there, I found that it was boring as shit. On the other hand, they did give me a shell account, and that was good enough for me. They had all sorts of technically oriented courses at this place, even one in RC modeling. I entered the demolition derby contest with one of the cheapest models out there, and I won. Unfortunately, I was sort of disqualified, because on close inspection of my wonder-craft, they found that I was reinforcing the little sucker with steel and polymers. Being a day student, I had the benifit of going home and into my little workshop where I had access to all sorts of gear. I'm glad, in retrospect, at least, that I restrained myself from looping an ignition switch to the main servo motor and an Estes rocket engine, because I think I would still be paying people back for the damage I would have done to their RC cars. It makes no difference now, though. That steel shod worked great. I would smack my controller like the batteries had died or something was shorted, so the other competitors would get all riled up for an easy kill, and they would gun their engines straight at my apparently frozen vehicle. At the last moment, I would either toggle the switch and accelerate at them head on, move out of the way so that they would slam into the concrete and the laws of inertia would destroy them, or my favorite, to just let them find out "what my car was made of." A 400 dollar model met it's end at the merciless hands of my little deathmachine, all because the steel plate I put under several coats of plastic glue and krylon spraypaint acted as a ramp, and the damn thing flew off and overturned, smashing itself to peices. Like Sean Kennedy says "wear body armor." So it turns out that there is a such thing as bad-boy appeal. Unfortunately, I don't have an ounce of it anymore, because I cleaned up my act, but when I was a punk kid, I had oodles of it. This attracted the attention of one of the CITs, a gorgeous girl who taught the intermediate HTML course. Wouldn't you know it, when I was disallowed from returning to the program, I never got her number or contact information. Four years later, or something to that effect, she found me through a website I used to run under my "christian" name. (I hate that term, but it beats "real name", since alienbinary IS my REAL name.) We met up again soon after that, and I have to say I was impressed. Ladies, there is nothing sexier to a decker than a girl who knows just as much as we do. It's just fucking hot. I'm still a little bit miffed on a couple of the various stunts she managed to pull. Number one, how she found me. Number two, how she hacked my livejournal. Number three, how the fuck she managed to learn more about digital audio player tech than I do, which I found out she does. I'll explain this in a bit. Feeling nostalgic, I dropped into AIM and it turns out that it was my turn to play, and wouldn't you know it, Metalgirli was online. It took a whole forty five seconds to convince her to see Blade: Trinity with me. Before the show, we were eating Thai food, something I had never done before. She, being the cultured one between the two of us, was explaining the various customary dishes and what to order, and what NOT to order. After the waiter took our menus, we somehow got on the topic of PDAs. I think it started with a conversation about cellular phones that grew out of some bitch ten feet away with a ring tone that was so loud I almost wet my pants, but I'm not sure. Regardless, we were on the subject, and it turned towards digital audio players. Wouldn't you know it, like I said, she knew more about them than I did. In retrospect, my pride would have been seriously injured if it had been anyone but her. We got to the theatre early, and I bought the tickets, about ten bucks (US) a peice. Ten dollars is a lot to see a movie, when you think about it. I mean, I've been to music shows that have more action than half the "action" films out there, and the music's better, plus the price is often free or five bucks. This is the first gripe I have with the money grubbing assclowns at the MPAA. Eventually, we got in to see our film, and there were about 11 people total in the whole theatre. Before you make a judgement on the successfullness of the movie, understand that we had snuck into several other films prior to ours starting, and there were significantly less people in the other ones, so Blade 3 is doing just fine, thank you. I'm used to those wierd "don't smoke, drink, eat or fuck" etc., PSAs that they show before the coming attractions, but this was the first time I've ever seen an anti-piracy ad on the silver screen. Motherfucker, I almost broke something when it started. It was like this: "you wouldn't steal a car." (show man stealing car) "you wouldn't steal a purse" (short clip of man stealing handbag) "you wouldn't steal a DVD" (you can guess what this frame was about) and then "BUYING BOOTLEG DVDS IS STEALING." in big bold, sort of trembling letters all over the screen. I'll go into that at some other time. At the moment, I think I'll just go back to watching Blade II before I pass out and have to go to work. I hope you enjoyed this odd trip down memory lane and the pseudo rant, because I had no idea that was what I was going to write about until I was halfway through this entry. That's why they call it stream of consciousness, I suppose. Goodnight. * * * 12.27.2004 introspection. I just got done with the movie "Pieces of April," which is a tremendous peice if you haven't seen it. I was watching it with my sister, because I wanted to share it with her. It's odd that sometimes all we have to do in order to open up to the people we love is to share a movie or a song. Not in the file-sharing sense, but in the sense that by playing a film that means a lot to me for another person, I feel like I am letting them into a part of me, and who I am. When you identify with art, it's because something in your very soul cries out "that's me!," and holds on as fast as it can. When we see representations of lives that have paralells to ours, we can find insight into what we would otherwise be blind to. Perhaps this is why art is so important, and why I spend all the time I can on the projects I do for RantMedia, because ultimately, the aim is to give everyone a voice. Originally, in the story above, I included a peice about how the MPAA put an ad in the movie even at the theatre, and my reactions to this. I took it out because it detracted from the story. Ironically, it wasn't the story of how I met Metalgirli that I originally intended to tell. It's hard in this day and age, as a cyberpunk especially, to try and sort out what is and what is not the enemy. Ultimately, it would be nice to say that there is no enemy, and that we should just be happy, but that's not the case. Still, it is not unlikely that for the warrior in the battle for our minds, determining friend from foe will become increasingly difficult if you don't know what you're looking for. As I watched 'peices', I was thinking about how the DVDs I own are all in some way giving money to an organization I don't support. That's not entirely true, though. A lot of my films are independent, but even then. I bought this particular flick because it spoke to me. It spoke specifically to something in my past and in my life, and I wanted to own it. What the corporate/political state has GOT to learn is that we are not below paying for the things we want. Indeed, if something warrants the fee being charged, then I'll pay it. If not, I just abstain from it, but I know I'm a minority in that situation. Music, film, visual art, sculpture, dance, whatever, these are all things that remind us why we're actually alive; albeit some of them remind me why I don't always treasure that fact. Still, art is a form of communication that is vital to the survival of our species. If we are ever to find a solution to the controversy over digital rights, it must come from the understanding that art is an entity that exists independent from it's corporate masters. Art isn't something you can bottle and sell, and even putting a film on DVD doesn't guarantee that the consumer will get the full experience. For me, I'm a softie, so I can be moved to tears by a lot of movies. Give me a good plot, a mild sedative, and a melancholic climax, and you can find me blubbering like a baby in a corner. It's something I'll admit to. But see, that reaction is fucking MAGIC. When this happens, that means whatever I'm watching has reached out to me on some fundamental level that you or I can only try and understand. Most people will watch a film or look at a peice of art and not have any reaction to it except the basic neurological responses to the uses of color theory. But once in a while, the peice will slam someone to their news in it's righteousness, and for THAT PERSON, there are few gifts greater. -??????-??------------???????????????--??-------------------------------------- PA1Nv13x06--------------------------------------------------------------------- [ Snowtracks: a journal, pt. 2 ] a memoir. [ alienbinary ] ---------------------------------------------------------------------PA1Nv13x06 -?------------?---????????????-----------???????????---------?????????????????? 12.29.2004 10:24 PM "my name is alienbinary, and I'm an addict..." I've been reading "Dry." by Augusten Burroughs, one of the paperback memoirs I picked up when I worked at a bookstore, before it came out. I have advance versions of almost every book that was worth it's salt on the New York Times bestseller list for the past year. Anyway, Burroughs has an incredible style, passive in the sense that it never assails the reader, but aggressive in it's ability to convey forcefully that which must be expressed. In "Dry.", he's telling about getting sent to rehab by the advertising agency he used to work for, and how he chose a place called the "Proud Institute," which is a gay rehab facility in the middle of nowhere. When I say gay, by the way, I mean homosexual, just in case anyone was misinterpreting what I've written as being if nothing else, euphemistically in poor taste. Burroughs is writing as a gay alcoholic advertising executive from Manhattan, which is pretty much the cream of the crop for stereotypes, but you don't find stories like this one in other books. No one's got the fortitude to be as honest, which is why I'm reading his book, when for all intents and purposes, I should probably be reading something much lighter and sunnier. I've been having a wretched time lately, and rehashing old drug habits is salt in the wound. As he described the institutionalized chairs with the industrial molding and the fireproofing, I let my mind wander, and match up with memories of my own. Unlike a lot of people, I admit to what I am. I'm someone who has fucked up a lot in his life, and is doing his best to stay afloat. He was just describing the type of glass where the chicken-wire is embedded inside the pane, so that it can withstand blunt force and still remain intact. His descriptions were not loaded with adjectives, because every single one of us can pull up a memory of the clinical glass walls. I realized that as I was reading. No matter who you are, you have probably been on one side or the other of that chicken-wire divider, and you know exactly what it feels like. If you're a police officer, you might be used to interrogating prisoners behind the protective shield. If you've ever been in an ER triage, you know that the nurse's station is plated that way for people who lose control. If you've ever been to a bank in a seedy part of town, you know what it means. That wire and glass tells everyone around that there is a gigantic division between the parties on their respective sides. That glass speaks of loneliness. As the first character in his group therapy session was introduced, I could feel myself getting red-faced. I was embarassed, I felt like I too, was a new member of an AA meeting, and I had to listen to a complete stranger pour out his soul. After the story about the man who drove drunk and crashed the car with his mom inside, I put the volume down and went to the kitchen downstairs for a bottle of water. Yes, I am eccentric in the sense that I prefer my water bottled, not from the tap. Eat me. Anyway, crossing the threshold of the stairs, with each passing step, I began to feel more at ease. I realized that there are thousands of people in the world who will read that chapter and seperate themselves from it. They won't internalize the story because it scares them. They will learn nothing from it and waste their time. Myself, on the other hand, I embraced the story and allowed it to carry on in my mind as I read each passing line. To me, the chance to identify with a situation that's not entirely unlike something I've been through before is a gift. Furthermore, I've been through this sort of thing already. The world can either be a scarier place or a simpler place once you experience what Burroughs details; either you can run away from what you know, or you can accept it, and when you emerge alive and almost unscathed, you can thank god for every moment of the tribulation. Just a thought. "scars remind us that the past is real" - Papa Roach or, if you prefer Dr. Lecter... "What a collection of scars you have. Never forget who gave you the best, and be grateful. Our scars have the power to remind us that the past is real." -- Thomas Harris * * * January 1st, 2005 Happy New Year. I guess. I went to a party last night, saw Nemisis for the first time in ages. It was good to see him. Before the party, a mutual friend of ours picked me up at my parents' house and we cruised around running errands. It occurred to me while I was shooting around with him, buying the milk or pausing to pick up a pack of butts, that it had been almost a month since I was riding shotgun just running errands. The peculiar thing was, I was digging it. What a lot of people don't realize, is that the things most of us consider to be trivial or routine are actually incredible. Allow me to explain. If you have a moment to pick up a gallon of milk for someone, you have to consider that you actually had a moment in which you could do that. This means that for at least a few minutes, you actually had free time, or rather, choice over what to do with your time. This is extroardinary. These days, people plan out for days, weeks, months, even years in advance what they are going to do. They have their itineraries all planned out; most of these agenda packing people think this is a good thing. I venture that it's really not. I think it's actually a really sad, pathetic way to live. If you have everything planned out, you leave no room for life. You leave no space for the flux that comes with the impossibility of actually pinning down the day to day life on this planet; you ignore the fact that every day something new can happen that will fuck up your day planner and send you into rescheduling, scribbling out, changing plans, color coding and rain check hell. On the other hand, if you allow yourself to have gaps in your day, you can learn to appreciate them. They can be so damn sweet. Ironically, the time spent at the pizza joint stealing food from Nemisis' workplace while he closed up shop was some of the best spent all night. I think on estimate, we spent about three hours, just drinking doctor pepper from the machine, supressing laughter at some of the customers, digging up old stories about each other that the other had strategically repressed-- for all the right reasons one would repress a memory-- was the highlight of the night. I got caught more or less with my pants down when someone brought up the time I emptied this boat looking trash can in the cafeteria, put a chair in the middle of it, hopped on it and had someone wheel me around while I sang "row, row, row your boat"-- right smack into the drug counselor (an accident, I swear)-- landing me my only pseudo-suspension from public school that I can recall. Anyway, back to last night. We planned to go to a party where it was five bucks a head, all you can drink. I thought this was a terrible deal, at least for me, since I don't drink at all. More to the point, I don't do any drugs, so I was shit out of luck when the alternative was passed around. I went anyway, my buddy spotted me for the five, since it wasn't fair to expect me to pay for the alcohol I wouldn't be drinking, and we hung out. I will say one thing: no one got into a knife fight or a brawl, which is a plus for this particular crowd. In retrospect, that being the norm, I don't know why we went in the first place. Regardless, the party was kind of funny, a little cozy in a two room apartment (with kitchen) and about twenty or thirty people. I spent the majority of the night catching up with an old friend of mine who seems to have made it his hobby to get himself caught doing things that aren't legal. He had been drinking since noon, and it was nearing, and then past, midnight, so he was pretty much 'krunked'. At one point, he dropped a blunt on his polyester and about two minutes later, he responded-- way after the blunt had burned a hole in his crotch-- by jumping up and spitting out the words "anyone seen a blunt?" He said those words, I should mention, but not exactly or necessarily in that particular order. He gave me a look of resignation when someone handed him a freshly chilled bottle of champaigne for the countdown to 2005, and explained that this meant he was just going to have to drink it, he supposed. After the whole count-down, happy new year thing, I text messaged a kiss to Metalgirli, and we left the apartment. Nemisis wasn't short in following, he was busy explaining how it was physically impossible for the fireworks we had been watching to have been the ones from the charles river, if for no other reason than the fact that it was an hour and a half past midnight, not exactly the time when they shoot the pyrotechnics off the famous barge in Boston harbor. On the way to the rendez-vous point, my friend and I observed with the sort of cool reserve you would expect from the Crime Scene Unit (I was wearing a CSU black t-shirt, army/navy surplus, after all,) a splatter pattern that occuppied a large portion of the rear part of our train car on the B-Line. Someone had been quite clearly clocked because they forgot to bring what must have been a half pint of their own blood with them when they left the train. A woman across from us-- the only other person in the rear of the train-- asked me if it was really blood, and I pulled out my palm pilot and said "if it photographs like blood, it's blood... yep, it's definitely a splatter pattern. Someone got maimed hardcore." I still have that picture in RAM on my palm, if anyone would like to see it. First stabbing of the new year, I guess. I'll leave this journal entry for now, as I feel like either taking another nap or simply going back to bed. My lungs are still tired from the overly smoky apartment and running around int he cold last night. I think I'll burn some sage in a bit and take a shower, but that's assuming I get out of bed at all today. Like I said, Happy new year, sort of. -??????-??------------???????????????--??-------------------------------------- PA1Nv13x07--------------------------------------------------------------------- [ My WEP Adventure ] [ The Unduhtakah ] ---------------------------------------------------------------------PA1Nv13x07 -?------------?---????????????-----------???????????---------?????????????????? So there was this great article at SecurityFocus that spurred my curisosity to mess with Wi-Fi in ways that I have never messed before. The article was titled WEP: Dead Again, authored by Michael Ossmann [1]. In it he discussed KoreK's new statistical WEP (Wired Equivalent Privacy) attack and subsequent tools. Again, a jump start to my curiosity. I'm just going to splay out in this article everything I tried with wireless, success and failure. Well, maybe just the success. I'll give commands, as well as some tips and tricks - I will not tell you how to install programs in Linux. Speaking of Linux, I use Red Hat 9 on my laptop. And an Orinoco wireless card. And so should you. [ editor's note: freebsd and a first gen ] [ airport card, so there. - ab. ] I was dying to crack WEP after reading the article. Where should I begin? Well, I already had Kismet up and running so I started there. But before we go into Kismet, let me discuss how my networking is configured. I don't have my Orinoco configured to come up automatically and grab an IP. No, no, no. I comment out the following line in /etc/hotplug/net.agent and bring it up manually: exec /sbin/ifup $INTERFACE This does two things. First, it solved the old "BAP" error. Second and more importantly, it allows me to bring the interface up exactly how I want depending on environment and circumstances. You'll see what I mean later. Props to Dekonta for figuring this out [2]. So I fired up Kismet to see what was around. Hmm. Three networks, two 54g and my 11b. Two of the three were encrypted, including mine, and all three were using the default channel, 6. Of course I would never attempt to crack my neighbor's WEP, nor could I with my b-only equipment. I did learn that I was too lazy to perform a wireless survey previously to reduce interference and improve performance. Oh well. At least I changed my net to channel 10 then to focus my packet collection efforts. Now I'm ready to crack some WEP. From the article, I decided to try the, seemingly, most effective tool, aircrack [3]. It also made sense to use the associated tool, airodump, to collect the packets. First I had to bring up the interface. And I always, ALWAYS, spoof the MAC before I bring it up. Hence, the hotplug hack. To do that, I use a simple script by Dual_Parallel called macninja [4]. # perl macninja.pl -b eth1 With the -b switch macninja spoofed a Belkin MAC and brought the interface up. From the aircrack docs came the command to put the card into monitor mode. # iwpriv eth1 monitor 1 10 I then went and surfed furiously. But it was taking forever to get any amount of IVs (Intialization Vectors) that would be useful. Ah ha! I'll stream my favorite internet radio station [5] to generate the necessary packets. No dice. In fact it was slower. I decided to start a torrent. Torrent sites still do exist, and, oh yeah, jackpot. The "interesting" packet numbers were flying. How many do I need? Michael had the quickest crack times between 300,000 and 1 million packets. The aircrack docs stated 500,000 to 1 million packets. I shot for 500,000. # airodump eth1 wlan.pcap I collected half-a-million packets, manifested in wlan.pcap.cap and wlan.pcap.csv, and started cracking. I thought it fairly obvious to stay with Michael's aircrack fudge value of 4. # aircrack -f 4 -n 128 wlan.pcap.cap I let it run for a few minutes, became impatient, and hit Ctrl+C. Damn my television generation attention span. Since Michael had single-digit crack times in the 300,000 to 500,000 range, I aimed for 300,000 packets. I let that run for an hour, but since it only had the first four bytes of the key, I Ctrl+C'd out of that. Hacking takes time. This I learned. The next night I started another torrent and went to bed. My goal was to collect 1 million packets. I awoke to about 980,000 packets and stopped the capture at 1 million. Before leaving for work, I started the cracking process, only to find the results when I returned. After a long hard day of corporate slave labor, my spirits were lifted by two simple words... KEY FOUND! With 1,004,664 IVs aircrack found the WEP key in just over six minutes, trying 297 keys at 48 keys per minute. Newer equipment and WPA (Wi-Fi Protected Access) are making these attacks less and less likely. It's still important to know how to do such things, and to know the vulnerabilities surrounding your information security. Manufacturers aren't going to secure your network for you. The government isn't going to ask if they can look at your data. The proliferation of encryption needs to be accelerated within the Community. It needs to be used properly and universally. Hacking isn't about breaking into other's networks. It's about securing your own and those you care about in the Community. Strengthening that ideal was the payoff at the end of my WEP adventure. [1] http://www.securityfocus.com/infocus/1814 [2] http://www.kismetwireless.net/Forum/General/Messages/1058245225.517217 [3] http://www.cr0.net:8040/code/network/aircrack/ [4] http://www.oldskoolphreak.com/tfiles/perl/macninja.txt [5] http://www.rantradio.com/rr-talk24.pls -??????-??------------???????????????--??-------------------------------------- PA1Nv13x08--------------------------------------------------------------------- [ MKULTRA for the New Millennium ] [ RumblingSky ] ---------------------------------------------------------------------PA1Nv13x08 -?------------?---????????????-----------???????????---------?????????????????? X--- O.o ---X "The cure will be administered to survivors once it has been decided that enough people have died." - Biohazard, sound byte from "Uncivilization" X--- O.o ---X Just when you thought it was safe to take hallucinogens... In December of 2004, a story was released to the mainstream media about how the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) had approved a Harvard proposal to test the effects of the drug Ecstasy in terminally ill patients. Specifically, the study was reportedly aimed at those suffering from severe anxiety related to being diagnosed with terminal cancer. Of course, as always, most of the major mainstream news sources simply cut and pasted a couple of articles written the same way rather than actually think or speak for themselves. Well, fear not my inquisitive friends. That's what I'm here for. For those who do not know, there has all ready been a major study performed by the US Government regarding psychotropic drugs and the effects they have on people. It was called the MKULTRA program. In April of 1953, CIA Director Allen Dulles approved the MKULTRA program which was initially aimed at helping the United States gain the upper hand in the clandestine "mind wars," concept. However, the program's goals were quickly broadened to encompass the entire concept of mind control. Despite the fact that numerous documents have since surfaced that somehow managed to avoid the CIA paper shredder, it would seem that the government, with the aid of the media, continues to do a fine job of keeping the realities of the MKULTRA program buried in the shroud of, "conspiracy theories." Writer Jon Elliston quotes one CIA auditor who wrote: "Precautions must be taken not only to protect operations from exposure to enemy forces but also to conceal these activities from the American public in general. The knowledge that the agency is engaging in unethical and illicit activities would have serious repercussions in political and diplomatic circles." So, how is the FDA approved study related to the old CIA MKULTRA program? Well, it looks as though it only took 51 years for the government to figure out a way to remove the, "unethical and illicit activities," aspect from the project, allowing them to go public to some degree. Despite the fact that history has a way of repeating itself, it is possible to learn from one's mistakes. The goals may be the same, but the method is what has changed. Instead of using tactics such as secretly dosing unsuspecting victims and studying their reactions, now they can openly say they are searching for ways of easing the suffering of terminally ill patients. They've taken an insidious, secret project and disguised it as an openly discussable, humanitarian issue. Could the honey be any sweeter? After all, who better to use as guinea pigs than those who are all ready slated to die? Especially when you can say you're trying to help them. What's almost amusing is that you can't legally kill a terminally ill patient who wants to die, but you can test the effects of illegal, thought altering drugs on them. Of course, FDA approval for studying the "potential" medicinal properties of hallucinogens has been going on for quite some time. There are a number of studies underway as you read this across the country using drugs such as LSD, ibogaine, mescaline, DMT, and PCP, just to name a few. The practice of telling half-truths by the FDA regarding hallucinogens and the studies involving them is confirmed in an article posted on their own website. Paula Kurtzweil wrote the article, "Medical Possibilities for Psychedelic Drugs," in which she gives an account of the history of hallucinogens. She states, "During the 20 years following World War II, LSD was used to study brain chemistry and to determine its effects in patients with schizophrenia and other mental disorders. It also was studied for use in conjunction with psychotherapy--with, for example, alcoholics and cancer patients. Due to concern about possible unpredictable side effects and abuse, LSD research came to a virtual halt by the mid-1970s. Unsupervised use of these drugs by millions of young adults in the 1960s made use and abuse of psychedelic drugs a major public health concern." The discerning reader would note that there is absolutely no mention of the MKULTRA program, despite the proven existence of the project during that same time period. Could it be a coincidence that "LSD research came to a virtual halt by the mid-1970s" while it was during the mid-1970s that the truth about the MKULTRA project began to surface? Perhaps it was merely an oversight on the part of the author. More likely, it was just another attempt to conveniently "forget" a vital segment of our government's history concerning experamentation with psychotropic drugs. Whatever the reason, on or off the record, it is clear that the United States Government is still experamenting with the effects of hallucinogenic drugs upon the psyche of human beings. The names and places may have changed, but the song remains the same. You can call it a conspiracy theory if that will help you sleep better at night. Personally, I'd prefer a few sleepless nights if the result prevents me from waking up with a sore rear end in the morning. Sources: Baldor, Lolita C., Associated Press Writer; http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/ap/20041228/ap_on_he_me/ ecstasy_cancer_treatment_4 Elliston, Jon, MKULTRA: CIA Mind Control; http://www.parascope.com/ds/mkultra0.htm (Note: This is an incredibly thorough article, complete with the authentic CIA documents that somehow managed to escape destruction.) Kurtzweil, Paula, Medical Possibilites for Psychedelic Drugs; http://www.fda.gov/fdac/features/795_psyche.html -??????-??------------???????????????--??-------------------------------------- PA1Nv13x09--------------------------------------------------------------------- [ Untitled ] [ mephyt ] ---------------------------------------------------------------------PA1Nv13x09 -?------------?---????????????-----------???????????---------?????????????????? I've recently come to a junction in my life, just as real as any train station, or bus terminal. Hundreds of doors I could open, many more I either haven't seen, or aren't allowed to open. Each of these is a different destination, in it's simplest form, but first I have to run an obstacle course to get to whatever I want to do. I have the option to do nearly whatever I want, but first I have to choose. This choice has been one of the hardest, and simplest for me to see. I have to choose to succeed, to a degree, in the world. It almost feels as if I have the eyes of a thousand generations on me at times, looking down on me with scorn and anticipation. Watching and waiting to see if I'll stick to what I may have started, or abandon the Nothing that I have achieved. To build structure out of matchsticks and hope that it survives the hurricane that is my life. To describe what has happened in my life in the recent past couldn't be done in a single sitting, as I could never fully do it all justice without explaining how I managed to get where I am from just a couple of months of changes. Conversations between AB (AlienBinary) and myself on the subject have taken up the better portion of the dark hours of many an evening. Pacing back and forth, trying to communicate the things in me now that I can't begin to fathom the full repercussions of. It is in this, that I have begun to think that possibly a Spark of something has begun to emerge. Perhaps something that will help me at some point to either become a new individual, or a stronger version of myself. Often, I find myself trying to describe to various people the ways that I have been feeling about life and survival recently. Promises broken and ideals created. The very stuff that dreams are made of and lives crushed by. Oddly strange how this can all be within a single thought, but these things reside in the same corner of my mind, and refuse to take their seperate corners as I have been trying to force them to do. Like a pair of tired boxers about to overthrow the referee and declare a tie on their own, my thoughts wander about my head. Refusing to take orders any longer, and nearly gaining their own personality unto themselves. In what manner could you feasibly describe a hunger to succeed, and a fear of the same? The situations I find myself in recently are giving me nearly everything I've wanted, but I still can't believe that half of what I've achieved is remotely real. Constantly, I've found myself trying to force my brain to comprehend the reality that I've chosen to envelope myself in. Heavy fog or mist can hide nearly anything, as most individuals who have to drive through it know. The problem I now have is that everything I need was within reach what only seems to be moments ago, and now it's managed to become seperated from me, still heading the same direction, but their voices are becoming fainter as I progress. Possibly, the direction they were going was the one I should have gone in the first place? To all questions, there has to be an answer. A question without an answer isn't much of a question at all, in at least a practical sense, a real sense. Something has to have at least a semblance of tangibility to be remotely believable. Life right now, doesn't have that same feeling of reality that my own thoughts are giving me. Life seems to almost be less real than my own imagination. How an artist would love to be in my mind, I'm sure. [ alienb's note: I'd nominate Jackson Pollack ] [ for the dubious task of illustrating meph's ] [ mind, but that's because I have a really ] [ sick sense of humor. -ab ] Back to the matter of choices though. I have the choice to do with my life as I please at the moment. I have the choice to leave, and finally achieve the fear in my mind of being forgotten completely. I also have the choice of trudging onwards, pressing against the winds and the elements, attempting to locate where everything I think that I need is. Or, I could simply stand still. The choice, I suppose, is really mine. No one else seems to be able to make it for me unless, that is, I'm hiding some facet of myself that could take over my body, personality, and everything that makes me that which others percieve me as. Choices, choices... In the meantime though, I have to work on finding the things that I need, or at least think I need. Perhaps if it were less difficult to figure out what I was looking for, that "thing" in the haystack wouldn't be so difficult to discover. If I could get my body and mind to cohesively work as a unit, instead of fighting each other, there would be a greater chance of finding this fabled "contentment". Or maybe I should let it all fall to pieces around me, and wait until the ground has all settled so I can more easily pick apart the remains and sift through the rubble. At least then I'd know where I went wrong. Unfortunate that you can never truly revisit the things that you left behind. -??????-??------------???????????????--??-------------------------------------- PA1Nv13x10--------------------------------------------------------------------- [ All He Wanted ] [ alienbinary ] ---------------------------------------------------------------------PA1Nv13x10 -?------------?---????????????-----------???????????---------?????????????????? In order to get yourself in the right frame of mind for what you're going to read, read the lyrics to "Hanging On The Corner" by Blood For Blood, here: http://www.plyrics.com/lyrics/bloodforblood/hangingonthecorner.html "Down past Hayes Square is where the wealthy dine / where they laugh and drink fine wine. / Well two blocks over is where the sergent died / in a hail of gunfire / on a warm summers night. / All you forgotten in the projects I hear Ya'. / All you numbers in the cell block, we care. / All you sweatin in the detox, / we care." -- Blood for Blood, 'Hanging on the Corner' If you ever want your mind blown, find someone down on their luck enough to sit in the freezing cold with an empty coffee cup trying to gather enough pennies for breakfast. That person is not only hardened, but experienced. Time and society may do their numbers on these people, and often they do. Some are so far gone, understanding what they are saying is next to impossible. However, if you put in as much patience as you can, the stories you will hear, and the perspective you might gain is astronomical. I could stay at college for nine years and not learn as much in classrooms or lecture halls as I do from my urban excursions. Don't get me wrong, I don't go out like a missionary, looking for the poor. I just go out to do something I need to do, and it always happens that on the way, there are about fifty vagrants or transient bums who are just itching to tell a story. I guess I'm a sucker for idealism, because I've listened to so many of these, and I beleive it's something I must do. If your wallet has a twenty dollar bill in it, then you have a voice, according to the socioeconomic system right now. Imagine what life would be like if you never had the chance to say something. What would you do if you could never tell someone about your day? I dunno, ask a homeless person. The following peices are about various encounters in my travels that stand out in my mind. They are the ones that needed to be relayed, these stories are told by me, because too many people don't have a voice of their own. I can only hope that I do them a little bit of justice in my storytelling. Everything in this peice is true, don't doubt that for a second. You can, but you'll be missing the point. Extroardinary encounters happen every single second, it's just that only once in a while are you the person having one. * * * Everything in me said 'go.' Open sores on his lips, alcohol on his breath, the man on the corner of newbury and boylston was a poster image of what people are reduced to when the system fails. I reached into my pocket and fumbled for a bill amidst a plethora of crumpled holiday receipts, hoping against hope to pull a single out. There are very few moments more awkward than the one in which you accidentally flash a twenty dollar bill to a starving man. I dropped the single into his beggar's cup, hoping that I might be on my way right after the transaction. To be honest, I was already too high strung, worried about things that were ultimately not that important. The holidays tend to do that to you; the whole season makes me forget reason and my priorities get all kinds of screwed up. Strapped on my shoulder was my blue hemp fiber messenger bag that I've had since I was sixteen. Sewn almost completely across every available surface are patches for bands, mostly hardcore and industrial. This was the last thing I expected a man on the brink of starvation to care about. "You a punk?" he asked, not in any derogitory way, but just curious. "You look like a punk rocker, man." He explained. I didn't think so, and I still don't, but it's neither here nor there. Music is a conversation peice and obviously this man just wanted to talk. Having six or so hours before I had to be anywhere in particular, I obliged him for a moment. That moment turned into almost twenty minutes if I had to estimate. "Name some bands." he said, explaining "I used to be into punk, before all this," at which he gestured to the way he was dressed, his beggar's cup and haggard expression. "You're favorite?," he prodded, obviously excited to talk about music. It occurred to me right then that he wasn't playing me either. This man hadn't stopped me to talk about music so I would think he was cool. He was past that. I think when every meal is almost guaranteed not to be there for you, you stop caring about the petty things. Music's universal, it's like the way people share things they can't express any other way. When you sing, or even share music, you share something that's important to you. Almost a peice of you. "My guilty pleasure lately has been Hatebreed, to be honest." I told him, truthfully. He blanked for a moment, and then when his mind snapped back to the then and there, he was oblivious to what had just happened. He asked again what my favorite was, and I told him again that I was listening to Hatebreed at the moment. He seemed to not understand. It was then that I began to peice together that the person I was talking to wasn't entirely of sound mental condition. His blackouts were frequent, and I could smell booze. I gauged from his pupils and his speech that he was suffering from a combination of low blood sugar and thinning of the blood from too much liquor. His head suddenly focused in on the skulls on the patch for Hatebreed on my satchel, and he said out loud "Ah, Hatebreed." I looked at him quizically, not sure if he knew what he was talking about. He told me he wasn't familiar, but it sounded like his kind of music. "Name some more." I swung round my bag, so he could have a full view of the collection of bands on my bag, and take his pick, to see if he liked any of them. He smiled a sort of half sad, half distant smile, and said "I knew you was punk." "Whatever, man. If you must label me." I said. Next came where was I from, how old was I and more. We shot the shit for a little bit, I was making up parts about me as I went. As I was leaving, or tried to leave, he asked with conviction, pleadingly "what do you want to do?" I gave him a simple answer, kind of a joke. I told him: "I just want to have a good time. You know." With a hapazard shrug. I didn't mean it though. I knew what he was asking me. I may not have the balls to walk in his shoes, but I imagine that from his standpoint, even I can see that he must reflect on the poeple who squander their lives, as his had obviously not gone in the best direction. "No!" he exclaimed louder than before, with twice the conviction. "what do you want to do with your time on this planet?" I don't know if you've ever been sideswiped with a question like that from a total stranger, but it will knock you the fuck off your toes. It's a heavy thing to ask even your best friend, let alone some stranger. I looked at his dark black lips, his dark skin and his bloodshot eyes. I thought about what it must be like to see a million people a day, all doing everything but live their lives, even though opportunity is there. His question wasn't as much an inquiry as a rhetoric. It was a mantra. He wanted me to know that he was more than some transient filfthy bum. I'd like to beleive that I hadn't been acting as if he was, but I've found that the homeless are always infinitely more sensitive to body language than the priviledged. At a loss for words, he told me what he was getting at. "You should change the world." he said, out of the clear blue. "change something, for me." That was what he asked. I was thinking a mile a minute now. Who the fuck was I talking to? Never in my life had I met a man so destitute, yet so full of conviction. He didn't seem real, but at the same time, his realness was more glaringly obvious than the authenticity of anyone else around me. Nothing about him was fabricated, and he was speaking his mind, saying all the poignant bits first, in case I should bolt and he wouldn't have a chance to talk to me anymore. That's when I began to understand. In response, I shifted my bag to my lap and sat down on the stoop next to him, a gesture that although innoccuous in my eyes, meant a lot to him. "You're sitting down, that's amazing." he said. It hit me like a bomb, all this man, this broken shell of an anonymous human being wanted was someone to talk to. More than that, I was sharing the same peice of shitty concrete with him. I was not above the filfth or grime that had become his home. I was another human being, and we were having a lively conversation as people do. I was his society, his audience and his entertainment. There's a lot to be said about this. I sighed deeply, and I tried to figure out a way to explain that I wasdn't being one hundred percent honest when I said I wasn't trying to change the world. After all, those of you reading this are likely familiar with Hacking for the Homeless, a project that puts computers and the people who can teach computer skills in homeless shelters, one of PA1N's many projects. He pointed at my left forearm as I was mulling this over, at a neoprene case that was strapped to my left bicept, containing my iPod. "What's that?" he wondered out loud. "It's um, it's an iPod, a digital music player thing." I said, unsure how much he understood. "That thing that holds 10,000 songs or something?" he asked wide eyed. I have to admit, I went wide eyed as well. Here was a man that had been begging for food money for the last twenty minutes with only a mild cough to show for it. What the hell did he know about iPods? "It's a smaller model, my friend. I'm on a budget, it's got a couple thousand songs." I told him, not wanting to ask why the hell he was up on the stats of the iPod. "1,000 songs. Right there. My oh my, no shit." he mused. "Play me something. One song" he asked. I wish I had understood then what I understand now, because I said no to that. I was wearing earbuds and I wasn't about to share earbuds with a man who looked like he should be visiting a clinic next chance he got. If I had understood what he was really asking, I would have played him anything he wanted, and let him keep the earbuds. Fuck 'em, I have a ton of headphones, I work at a radio station, remember? He tried to convince me to let him hear a song, but I wouldn't relent. Next he wanted to try on my sunglasses. It was odd, I thought. He was so interested in things I used every day. I pulled my red chrome mirror lenses off my head, and handed them to him, which he put on immediately. He smiled at me through the lenses. "These are some nice shades. They're all... red and shiny, it's like metallic red, that's crazy. How do I look?" he asked, playfully. I told him the honest truth, he looked good. If I hadn't fought so hard to find a pair of red chrome lenses that weren't over 80 bucks, I would have let him have them. For the next ten minutes, he wore my sunglasses, and you could almost taste the pride in the air, he was exhuding it from every pore in his body. Like I said, simple things. This meant so much to him. I was showing trust, I was sharing my things, I was talking about important things. I was treating him as he should be treated: my equal. The conversation that ensued is personal, it was a real conversation that will remain between him and myself. I threw caution to the wind and decided to just hang out with this man. David, that was his name. I had to leave eventually, and I told him as much. "Look David, I gotta run, family's coming home for the holidays, I haven't seen my sister in a long time." I told him truthfully. He smiled at me with that same mixture of distance and sadness. "You go on, you be with your family." he told me. "When you see your mom, tell her Merry Christmas for me. Will you do that?" He asked. "Absolutely." Absolutely. And I did. As I got up, I went to shake his hand and he pulled me into a hug. I'll be the first to admit I was scared. He had an open sore on his lower lip, and my germ fear was off the chart. I was in broad daylight on newbury, so I didn't think he would pull anything, but the gesture took me by surprise. The final part of our encounter is completely true, and it blew my mind. His eyes were filled with tears as he looked me up and down. I, his only companion in God knows how long. Some kid off the subway had spent a bunch of time with him, not afraid of him, not disgusted, simply there. His gratitude was overpowering. "I love you. Merry Christmas." He said. Later I was thinking this over. For about three days straight, actually. Love? How does love enter into it? Simple. I gave him something that no one else would. I had taken the time to hang out with him. I shared a part of my day with him. I was his friend. No pretenses, no bullshit, just hanging out. It's easier to understand if I explain the music part now. Imagine never having access to music. Imagine the awesome gift it would bring if someone were to give you the opportunity to hear what you wanted to hear, even if only for a moment. Music is essential to life, it is the most intricate and celebrated form of communication. He was asking me for the chance to feel like a regular guy for just a moment, that's all. I blew that one, but I'll try and pack some extra headphones I stole from an airplane in my bag if I ever see him again. All the things that I took for granted, including my own family as he eluded to in his request, were things he understood to be divine. He even said himself the greatest of ironies. "These people don't realize, they're two steps away from where I am. It happens all the time. They don't think it applies to them. Fuck them." His anger was real, but it was justified. He was right. Of all the thousands or millions of people he must see in a day, I was the only one to treat him as people should be treated. I treated him with respect, courtesy, and decency. I wasn't saccarine, and I told him when he was making me uncomfortable. I was straight up with this man. All he ever wanted, I came to understand on the subway ride home, was for just one person to treat him like a human fucking being. -??????-??------------???????????????--??-------------------------------------- PA1Nv13x11--------------------------------------------------------------------- [ Basic Cable and Over-Advertising ] rant!@ [ Jon Wilson aka Pinion_Blue ] ---------------------------------------------------------------------PA1Nv13x11 -?------------?---????????????-----------???????????---------?????????????????? Amongst the overflowing amount of Blink-182 videos that never seem to go away, and the reruns of Growing Pains.....with that lovable chump turned Fundamentalist Christian Kirk Cameron. I noticed something on the Godbox yesterday. Cox Cable, the local conglomerate on all things digital entertainment in our area (and when i say our area, i mean Jupiter....just north of that flaming ball of hellfire), was showing commericals for its basic cable service. Now correct me if im wrong, but if you are the only cable company in the area and you are advertising your basic cable service on the only basic cable service in the area, then what possible difference, or for that matter profit, would you make by placing these spots on television. Granted im not too worried about missing the preview commericials for "Who wants to live on the Real-Survivor-Idol Millionare Island Dance and Chili Cook-Off" or the newest line of products from The Gap, but i honestly dont understand the thought process the executives went through to get these commercials on air. If i did understand it, it would probably go a litlle something like this: [exec walks into room, straightens tie, sits down at top position of table] Executive Head: "Good Morning Gentlemen. I trust this meeting will be short?" [two lower level executives, obviously crying inside from the pathetic bastardazation of all things sacred and holy in their lives, clear their throats and begin their presentation] Lackey Number One: "Yes, Sir. Very short. We are going to present an idea to you for the commercial to fill the 30 seconds right before "The Spanking New Adventures of Donkey Kong and Miles Davis (sponsored by MTV and Clorox Bleach)" Lackey Numero Dos: "Sir we have an absolutly outstanding idea for this spot! Picture This: A commercial on both our Basic and Digital streams, advertising our Basic and Digital Streams! [The head executive holds his open hand up, as to gesture a stop from the moron lower level executive from speaking out of his mouth-hole] Executive Head: "You want to run an ad on Basic Cable, for Basic Cable?" Lackey First One: "Yes, Sir. That is the plan." [as if waiting for the head to go greco-roman and raise his thumb in approval or lower it in utter dismay of the very notion that they could pass a green light for something so incredibly idiotic.... the lackeys wait for what feel like 4 minutes....but is really only 3.925 minutes] Executive Head of Retards: "Thats absolutly brilliant Steve!!!" Retard Number One: "Thank you!, and my name is Paul sir..." Executive dead by five-thirty: "Thats what i said.....Steve...." Number One guy man: "....yes sir...." Executive nicknackpattywackgivadogabone: "the project is green-lighted, bring a rough draft back to me when im not drunk!" [lackey/moron/giraffes walk out of boardroom in a stupor, surprised that something so meaningless was actually good for launch....] /end pathetic excuse for a skit youll never see on the Kids in The Hall, or performed by the West Chester, Pennslyvania comedy skit troup: Chester Nut Bars on Parade (featuring Weird Al and the 1991 Denver Broncos!) But Since i dont know what they were thinking.....i can only begin to think that the Higher ups had one of five things on their minds: A: Make the Commerical and put it on every thirty seconds that the Season Finale of Will and Grace isnt on. B: Show it to some girl scouts in the hopes that they and their families would get free cookies/sexual favors C: Take the hard copy betamax tape of the Commercial and sacrifice it to the devil of all things decent and entertaining on television (read: the same devil that let Pauly Shore do "Jury Duty") D: Mix the Commerical with some Mayonaise and Bread (white because all bread companies are racist) and make a nice Crap Sandwich E: Frank Zappa Again, only God and the Denver Broncos will ever really know the truth as to the decision that was made to put this commerical on air and rot away all other neuro-pathways inside my cerebral cortex. Hopefully, They will share with me and all the other white bread loving americans when we all die from the ebola virus.... Right now, a necrofiliac is having his way with Christopher Reeves corpse....and theres nothing you, the government, or Incubus can do about it... Hows THAT for a curveball... Running out of time to look for the Holy Grail/Jebus H. McCullock Jon Wilson ---------------------------- Note from AB: There are reasons I don't own a TV and this is one of them. Also, having a background, albeit mostly academic in communications law and work experience in broadcast media, I feel obligated to make a few comments about what "basic cable" actually is, and why this is actually even funnier to those of us in the industry. Basic cable is a concept that was cooked up when major corporations and the FCC got together and began to seriously fear the idea of cable television. For one, the FCC had incredibly limited jurisdiction over cablecasting for a long time. Previously, it was up to the Federal Trade Commission and the secretary of something that I can't remember and you wouldn't know if I could anyway. In the beginning, cablecasting was boundless, and traditional, over the airwaves TV was declining in viewership. This prompted the FCC, once given limited jurisdiction over cable TV, to create the "must carry act", a series of rules and regulations that state that basic cable companies must rebroadcast local broadcast (remember, that's "over the airwaves" as opposed to "cablecasting") television programs, in order for the major networks to actually stay above water. Beleive it or not, there was a time, and I consider this to be a great time, when even FOX was scared shitless of being bankrupt. This being the case, cable providers are actually frightened of losing their viewership, because it resembles broadcast television so much, thanks to the FCC and the must carry law. In response, you have television spots from companies that actually remind you that you are watching what you are watching. They really do beleive that you are that stupid. - ab -??????-??------------???????????????--??-------------------------------------- PA1Nv13x12 -------------------------------------------------------------------- [ eBook: the new paperback ] [ alienbinary ] -------------------------------------------------------------------- PA1Nv13x12 -?------------?---????????????-----------???????????---------?????????????????? Despite the Digital Rights Management debacle that surrounds every single peice of digital media, there is something inexplicably attractive about the portability of a book that can be carried in something as small as a microdrive, or stored on a flashcard a quarter of the size of a credit card. As the preface encourages, I was 'beaming' a distribution of "The Hacker Crackdown" by Bruce Sterling to a colleauge of mine at the station, where I'm director of Computer Services/Affairs, only a few days ago. Recently having acquired a Palm V from another job contact, the slightly off-kilter engineer you know in this magazine as Crazy Ivan was verily frothing at the mouth for me to come and fill his Palm with freely distributed GNU docs. Crazy Ivan is my co-worker, except he's not the technician. His job is to maintain clunkier, more rudimentary machines that make my head hurt and remind me of old VAX room-warmer computers. His world at work is populated by tubes, fuses, slider switches, coaxial cables, audio only switchboards and optical lasers, where mine is primarily dedicated to software and advanced microprocessing technology. Being a non-profit station, we both have the job of taking technology that may be slightly out of date, and making it state of the art, but I digress. When asked what "The Hacker Crackdown" was, I told him it was a bit of light reading for the train or long car rides. The latter is silly, because his peice of shit stanza won't die, and he likes to drive everywhere, but when on the train, he can't stand still. I told him that it was a history of "Operation Sundevil", a peice of history that he should get to know, as a history buff and tactical student, he would find it fascinating, if not downright funny. I also told him that he would have to accord a bit of respect to the author, as it was a free gift from Sterling, as it says in the preface and introduction. The Crackdown was one of the most successful "true crime" blunder stories every written, and it would never be out of date, or out of print. Still, Sterling, an avid supporter of the rights of computer hackers, decided that the best possible step for the distribution of his book would be to be placed in .pdb format, the Palm DataBase format for 3Com/Palm Computing's PalmOS which is standard document format for handheld computers that don't run WinCE. So, giving the analogy of leaving a paperback on the train for another person to read, once you have finished, he suggested that the book be distributed, be given freely to whoever desires. The information inside was more important than the profit. He did, however, add his own concept of DRM: he suggested that the second anyone choose to try and profit from his philanthropy, they might find themselves in a world of shit, as Bantam Books has an army of lawyers that's not at all to be scoffed at. Indeed, I fear that any major publishing house of the late 20th and 21st centuries indeed had and has a formiddable legal team that would make any opposition turn to buttermilk. Something about this reminded me of Eminem's off-hand remark about how he wouldn't file a lawsuit if someone was bootlegging his music, he'd just beat the shit out of them. I thought this was a fair trade. The second money changes hands where it hasn't been earned, something is amiss. However, this sort of philanthropy isn't the driving force behind the electronic book format. In fact, I would say that it's quite far behind in the ladder of the electronic book food chain. The most popular of all, it appears, is actually the audiobook, in particular, Audible.com seems to be making a veritable killing off of the concept. Audible.com is a company that strikes deals with major publishing houses to republish the material in audio format, read whenever possible by the author, but otherwise read by a professional narrator. You can expect to pay about 20 dollars, roughly the same price as a hardcover edition of whatever novel or peice of literature you intend to pick up, and the chosen outlet for audible has gone to Apple's iTunes DRM, the m4p encoding, a derivative of MPEG Audio Layer 4. As an English Major, among other disciplines, I have to read copious amounts of literature in very small periods of time. Often this is downright impossible without someone chronically dispensing visene into my eyeballs so that I don't have to blink or sleep. At the rate of approximately 300-400 pages a week, in addition to working full time as a sysadmin, volunteer counselor, and the various other things that are required of one living on their own, it's an accomplishment to be able to break even. For this reason, I found quickly sometime in my sophomore year during a course in which I had to read the entirety of Walt Whitman's Leaves of Grass in a week, and know most of it by heart, that the best practice was probably, and indeed, turned out to be, the forking over of what was at the time nine dollars and ninety nine cents for a digitally signed version I could stick on my CD Player, mp3 player, mp3 CD player, iPod, etc., and listen to while I worked on something else. Indeed, I was one of the only students in the entire class to pass the course, let alone ace it. I do attribute a stupid amount of credit to the ingenuity of what I call "the new paperback." As a sort of "independent librarian" as Sean K calls it, as well as a bibliophile, I'm privy to a lot of the history of publication. From the times of the Iliad, when the story was passed down by orrators like Homer, or legends were handed down to children like the story of Anansi or the complete stories of the Asutru Pantheon to the Norse children, all the way to the Gutenberg Bible and the Pamphleteers of the 1700's, I've studied the history acutely. It's important, as you might imagine, as part of a growing independent media outlet like RantRadio and RantMedia, as often people forget that PA1N Magazine is. For clarification, PA1N Magazine is an electronic Zine borne of the subculture, cultivated by RantRadio, the brainchild of Cimmerian and later on an immense number of like-minded people. I discovered rant by suggestion, actually, it was forced on me much to my delight. Sapphire, a person I've known for a while, contacted me over an instant messaging client and told me to tune into the Sean Kennedy radio show, back when it was still live. I hungrily downloaded all the episodes, and was in love with it, much as I had become entranced by the spoken word of Henry Rollins, Jello Biafra, and to a lesser extent (only due to lack of distribution) Leonard Cohen. Having been an indy zine writer for many years prior, the idea had brewed in my mind for quite a while, and it was 2003, as those of you who have been paying attention, that brought issue #1 of the zine, thanks in great allegiance to Turnspike, my ever loyal compatriot, and the gracious bandwidth of Cheezi, proprietor and founder of E-Lite Communications (as well as a personal friend.) Cheezi, like myself, was no stranger to zines, and I think that it's important to any budding librarian to recognize the significance of the electronic media in both audio and visual format. During the late twentieth century, which I doubt anyone reading this will be unfamiliar with on publication, the paperback book took over as the dominant force in physical book publishing. Hitherto, I remember that any book past the sixth grade reading level, which was my first grade bread and butter, was hardcover. If you wanted anything, you either had to get the horrible newsprint version of the book, yellowed and battered, or the expensive hardcover which made it bulky and cumbersome. It was seventh grade when I personally remember carrying a paperback book everywhere, but this is all personal experience. Incidentally, it should so happen for this article that the very audiobook that inspired this article should have been a teaser of Michael Crichton's "State of Fear" from the Apple Online Music Store, courtesy of Audible.com, as the first book I remember toting around with me religiously as I trudged through it's pages was Jurrassic Park, arguably the most successful book to ever deal with paleontology and genetic engineering ethics in the same story; Jurassic Park, if you haven't paid attention for the last ten years, was a Michael Crichton novel, then movie, then book again, then interactive theme park ride at Universal Studios. So how appropriate, indeed, that I should dub the eBook the new paperback. The allure of a paperback, from a librarian's perspective is cost-efficiency and portability. I consider it my personal duty to educate anyone I know, if they so desire, in any field they are interested in, and therefore I am constantly lending out books. As it stands, I need to make a note to myself to grab one of my copies of Chuck Palahniuk's "Fight Club" for a friend of mine, who wants to see what I mean by experimental writing..... ..."I am Jack's Hacker Zine..." [ History Lesson ] Project Gutenberg, arguably the most famous of the electronic book movements was started in an effort to convert the world's classics to public domain via the internet. Started in 1971, by Michael Hart, the Project was named after the inventor of the first printing press, Johann Gutenberg. Until the time of the printing press, the Bible was the most distributed of all books, and each individual Bible had to be hand transcribed onto parchment. Literacy was for the clerics, and the masses were left in the cold. Upon the invention of the printing press, one of the first things to come out of it was what is now called "The Gutenberg Bible." Contrary to what the name suggests, it's not a revision of the scriptures, but a cheap, easy to make version of the bible that could be hand cranked out of a press and mass produced. Shortly after this became a major success, pamphleteers took up the press and began distributing leaflets, arguably the first underground zines. Leaflets were the primary means of political propaghanda then, as there was no radio or television. With the invention of the printing press, Gutenberg is seen almost as a "promethean" figure; he brough literacy to the masses. Centuries later, Michael hart and a small crew of volunteers began the arduous process of transcribing print into electronic text, to create a freely accessibly library for the world. Like Gutenberg himself, Hart brought books that would otherwise be only enjoyed by an elite few to everyone with access to the internet. Copyright issues, however, did cause a bit of a stir, and I do recall years ago being on a hotline server that had to hide it's share of Project Gutenberg texts, for fear of being charged with copyright infringement. Now, however, pretty much any book is freely available online, and the Project is now a full fledged institution. If you prefer your eBooks in plain text format, you will very much enjoy the Gutenberg Project's site and distribution. Currently, you can find an enormous collection, or "collection of collections" as they refer to it on their site at the ibiblio website. ibiblio is a massive FTP archive of everything from GNU open source software to text files to a large mirror of Project Gutenberg. The advent of the Palm Pilot, or the personal digital assistant in general, brought about an entirely new wave of portable libraries. Palm Digital Media, otherwise known as "Peanut Press" ws one of the first Digital Presses to make an actual publishing house on the internet. Since the flash card was recently introduced into the PDA, Palm Digital Media made custom anthologies by genre that could be purchased much like a CD or even a paperback anthology online. It would arrive via mail, only it has a watermark, like a serial number to unlock the collection. Once entered, the whole smart card was a portable library containing about a dozen different full length novels that could be inserted into a PalmOS device and browsed like a small library. Today, there are inordinate numbers of documents available online in public domain format, particularly in Palm's .pdb document format, many free for download. After a few choices, you can hotsync the palm, and suddenly your day planner is also carrying the digital equivalent of a full bookshelf. The most profitable industry, however, appears to be the audiobook. Although books on tape have been around for a long time, only recently did they hit the mainstream with force, as companies like Apple began to make deals with publishing companies and offering them for purchase via a search bar within the iTunes software itself. Mary Wollestonecraft Shelley's "Frankenstein" is approximately 7 hours of audio, hardly a dent in the iPod, which as of late is selling in upwards of 40 gigabyte capacity. It is entirely possible, as I've done it before, to have more than a solid week's worth of audio on the iPod. One of the benifits to mp3 (although audiobooks via iTunes are .m4p encoding) is that it can be reripped. If you find yourself in possession of Sun Tzu's "The Art of War" and you don't have 11 hours worth of room on your portable media player, you can decrease the bitrate by half, since there is only one critical layer to spoken word. From experience, I can say that the quality difference is almost completely unnoticeable. Teasers have found their way into the electronic book world as well. You can now download both audiobooks, pdfs of the first few chapters of new releases, and even .pdb docs from the publisher to ensnare potential customers. I'll be the first to admit that it works. Ironically, when they did this in paperback books, I hardly paid attention; James Patterson's slasher detective novels almost always had at least one teaser for the next book, since he put out a book almost every month for a while. While I was working at the sharper image, the only thing we could possibly do to alleviate our boredom, which was bordering on neurosis, was to demonstrate products. Having just done something horrendously unintelligent to my old Palm Vx, I decided to upgrade to the Palm m505, which was one of Sharper Images featured products during the christmas season that I worked there. Unbeknownst to them, however, I was not entering notes to myself, or trying to seduce customers into asking questions, but actually plowing through the same paperbacks that were in my satchel in the backroom, where I couldn't get to them. Since 3Com's PalmReader software automatically opens up to where you left off, I could shut off the palm immediately, and not lose my place. In fact, you can actually bookmark several documents or books to the very line you were on, allowing you to browse magazines and books at the same time, without having to remember your place. This was the perfect setup for me, as I was often finding myself in a rush to get back to what I was doing when a customer asked for help. I was able to go paragraph by paragraph seamlessly, without losing my place, because my palm would tell me where I had left off. It most likely is the reason that I didn't up and leave during the holiday rush at that store. Also, as an engineer, I find it a little difficult to carry manuals for each system on hand all the time, since the average network manual is over 500 pages long, and comes in a clunky binder (and also costs about $350 dollars.) Instead, I've managed to compile the important features of the manuals into seperate documents using programs like AportisDoc, iSilo or PalmReader, and put them on the PDA instead. The weight and size difference, for those who are curious, can be expressed in ratios. something like... "Manuals:Palm = Hummer:Matchbox Toy Car." Get my point? In a world where we have to pack everything but still pack light, the ability to carry huge quantities of data that is easily accessible without consulting a full fledged computer terminal is inexorably helpful. And as a guy with four jobs, it helps to be able to have all my reference materials at my disposal in a device that's about the size of a pack of cigarettes. Project Gutenberg: http://www.gutenberg.org/ http://promo.net/pg/ http://www.gutenberg.org/catalog/ http://www.ibiblio.org/about.html http://www.ereader.com/free/ebooks http://www.openarchives.org/ http://www.palmdigitalmedia.com/free/ebooks http://pda.tucows.com/palm/docs_books_default.html http://www.ereader.com/promo http://www.ereader.com/free/ebooks http://www.palmpilotarchives.com/e-book.html -??????-??------------???????????????--??-------------------------------------- PA1Nv13x13 -------------------------------------------------------------------- [ Origins of Self-Censorship ] [ alienbinary ] -------------------------------------------------------------------- PA1Nv13x13 -?------------?---????????????-----------???????????---------?????????????????? A society in which you cannot speak your mind freely, without the fear of being persecuted is a horribly diseased one indeed. Self-censorship, or compliance with forms of censorship used to be known as "expurgation," a really clinical sounding word for a rather grotesque process. Walt Whitman once wrote of his publisher's requests to edit out some of the more racy imagery and segments from 'Calamus' that "The dirtiest book of all is the expurgated book." (Whitman) What he meant, if it's not clear, is that even the most conservative of people should recognize that the watering down of art should be considered more obscene than the most contraversial peice. In sociology and psychology, the phrase "self censorship" refers to the act of being ones own auditor, and it's one of the most prevalent problems in our society. If you had to count the number of times that you've bit your tongue or not said what you felt deep down should be said, you would lose track. Every day we think of more things not to say than things to actually share with others. Although the mechanism itself is a social defense, one which when used properly can avoid conversations that are unpleasant or downright cruel. Most males can think of a girl who asked them in the past hour if they look fat in a particular outfit. Any guy who has ever had to do this assessment knows that the report is an imperative negative. As men, we are not allowed to tell women if the dress makes them fat. Granted, this is a completely arbitrary example, so take the idea of political dissent. Although my feelings on Michael Moore are always wavering, the trend surrounding him is fascinating. If you recall the aftermath of the release of "Bowling for Columbine," easily one of the most important films of the last few years, whether for better or worse, you most likely recall Moore as being hailed as a champion of the freedom of speech, and a bold filmmaker, etc. His documentary was a bestselling DVD. A few years later, Moore released "Farenheit 9/11", which I have not seen, and have absolutely no opinion on whatsoever. This became incredibly popular as "Bush-bashing" was growing in it's popularity as a sort of lunch-break community activity. Somehow, after the elections, Michael Moore became known as the anti-christ to the very people that applauded the film. One person I know returned "Bowling for Columbine" as he explained his new distaste for the man. This, it should be noted, was someone who saw the movie immediately, and considered it at the time to be a cinematic masterpeice. At the very least, this behavior was peculiar. So how is this a form of self-censorship? After the elections, and Bush won, people wanted someone to blame. A few weeks prior to November 2, a movie called "Farenhype 9/11" came out, bashing Moore and calling the documentary trash. The public for some reason ate this up, and once again I have no opinion on the movie in question, but then somehow determined that Moore had undermined the campaign of Senator Kerry through his rediculous stunts, and that the man was a prime example of liberalism gone wrong. Soon, Moore was shunned and bookstores began selling anti-Michael Moore books and propaganda that essentially claimed that the liberals were responsible for the degradation of American culture. After that, no one wanted to be associated with him. I imagine that if you were to watch carefully at the average video retailer, anyone who purchases the film now probably carries it home in a paper bag like pornography. It's as if people all realized that they wouldn't be accepted as dissidents. For a month or two, dissent was strong, now, with the peculiar decline of Moore's favor, so went the support for political dissent. The insidious fact of the matter is, no one realized that they went hand in hand. By denying yourself the right to voice an opinion that you hold, or show support for the opinions of someone you agree with, you have effectively socially castrated yourself. You become incapable of having a point of view, because you stop yourself in every sentence, afraid how the statement will be taken. A third, and more disturbing form of self censorship is the decline of independent sources of information. In the 1960s, although political activists were hounded constantly, the demonstrators didn't stop showing their support for the anti-war movement. When not allowed to talk about it in school, students put black handkercheifs around their biceps, like armbands in protest of the war. These students were suspended and a couple expelled. At this point, dissent had made it's way into popular music like never before, and classic rock became a statement in itself. It was popular to explore different forms of art and poetry, socially acceptable to read even Marxist literature. Twenty years later, then thirty, and now almost 40 years after the Vietnam War, a congregation of people peaceably assembled to show their concern for current events is not tolerated. Although the first ammendment explicitly states that the people have the right "peaceably to assemble," police have forcibly removed peaceful demonstrators for speaking out, and this time, no one said a word. Was it because they didn't feel that strongly about the cause and didn't care? I doubt it. After Bush's re-election, several people I know actually wept for days, scared for their loved ones overseas, afraid for the future of the country, or just horrified that a man who would invade a country for economic gain could possibly be the popular choice. So what was the motive behind the silence? Did they just not see it on the news? Unlikely. I don't own a television, and it was hard to miss the footage of shock troops in full riot gear clash with people holding picket signs. Even CNN reported what the protestors were saying during the President's re-innauguration a few days ago. So then, could it be fear? Absolutely. For every person who took up a pen and began to transcribe their thoughts, you could find another person shredding their notebooks or hiding their political bumper stickers. Afraid of being pegged as just another fucking liberal, Americans all over the country zipped their mouths willingly and turned the other way as the first ammendment was violated in full view of the public on international television. Self-censorship is a subtle demon. There are volumes of phrases in the English language that can be rephrased into "I better not say that or..." but there are far fewer that express the dangers of silence. What you have to say may not be popular, but it doesn't mean it's not important. One of the most common excuses people give professors here for not wanting to read their work aloud in class is that they claim it's not very good. My response to that statement is that if it's not very good, why did you bother to bring it in the first place? Why the hell would you submit mediocre work? The real reason they won't read aloud is that they don't know if they might clash viewpoints with other people. Another common phrase is, "I'm not done" to which one of my professors always insists "read what you have." I would say that fifty percent of the time, the peices that the authors claimed to be unfinished were not only finished, but polished and edited. Although I wouldn't recommend saying every single thing that occurs in your brain, I would certainly suggest that it might be a good idea to say one or two of them. At the rate I see, self-censorship has taken enough of a toll that soon I will be able to walk past any political rally and have no idea as to the nature of the platform of the demonstrators. Soon people will hold blank signs, or mouth slogans without making noise. Even the internet has become homogenized. In a place where you can find any sort of pornography, recipe for explosives, personal journals or newsgroups about the possible existence of Loch-Ness, people are still afraid to say what truly bothers them. That old saying about not having anything nice to say, and the subsequent instructions not to speak at all should be rephrased to "if you have something to say, but you're too chickenshit to say it, don't bother getting on the podium." -??????-??------------???????????????--??-------------------------------------- PA1Nv13x14--------------------------------------------------------------------- [ Outro ] goodnight [ alienbinary ] for now... ---------------------------------------------------------------------PA1Nv13x14 -?------------?---????????????-----------???????????---------?????????????????? It's about 4:30 in the morning as I write this outro. I've been up all night and early morning because I can't seem to put my thoughts in order enough to go to bed. All the same, I'm so pumped to get this issue out that I would very much like to pound out the outro so that when the final peices of the issue make it into my inbox, it'll be ready for publication. This has been one of the fastest assembling issues, one of the highest quality in my opinion, and one of the most fun to do. Never before have I been met with such support, enthusiasm and creativity. In my opinion, I know I have something going when both Cimmerian and Sean Kennedy are responding to my emails within a few hours of the original transmission. Turnspike was right to call on the support of RantMedia and it's subsequent projects, and I'd like to personally thank him once again for porting the old issues to the RantMedia forums. One of the most surprising things about this particular issue was that I got articles from people I either had talked to maybe once or twice in my entire life before, or people that I didn't even know of. It's pretty humbling when you get a submission on WEP from a guy who knows more than you do about the subject. I felt like I should have been responding with "are you sure you didn't mean to send this to 2600?" To have mephyt back on the team is an incredible asset. Other than the fact that no one writes depressing shit better than him, his "emo peices" he calls them, he's one of the few PA1N Crew I can talk to on the phone for literally hours long distance and just bitch. If you haven't picked it up by now, a lot of things piss me off, and I have a lot of weight on my shoulders, so for someone to be willing to help share the burden is a gift from god, or server, or whoever you choose to pray to. To be perfectly honest, I even called meph right after he got back from the service to ask him about what kind of combats I should buy while I was actually in the Army Navy store, staring at about 12 racks of different boots. The sales chick was cool about it, but it must have been odd watching someone check out combat boots talking on a hacked cellphone in between conversations about what to write and various aspects of publishing. If they didn't know me, they would probably assume that I was trying to run a publishing company that sold books about military hardware. Other than good fashion advice, Mephyt's work is always a solid rock for me to put in the layout. This particular peice is something I can identify with, and without a doubt, I'm sure everyone who reads it can as well. Sometimes, when you've made all these choices in a short period of time, the prospect of making one more, just one more choice is extraordinarily daunting indeed. In one of our conversations, I asked meph to relay some of his experience since he was gone, and we got into a debate about whether or not combat was something that could be brought home at least in part through writing. When he started to argue against the idea, I had a strange inclination to try a new approach. "Soldier," I began my sentence, and I proceeded to ask him a series of questions, playing the role of commanding officer. Much to my amazement, he snapped immediately, instinctively, actually, into the role of a reporting officer; the conversation was eery. After I made my point, and he realized what was going on, Mephyt told me that he had actually snapped to attention (with the exception of the cellphone in the crook of his neck) and was almost automatically responding the way he was trained. Much of the conversation that followed was about choice, and whether or not an organization like the armed forces has the power to strip an individual of their will to make their own choices. A lot of that conversation subsequently found itself into this issue's article. Angel ice was one of the people who shocked me by submitting an article for the first time in a while, and one of the funniest ones I've ever read at that. Strange she should have been writing about the drug culture of America at the time I was working on "Nepenthe." I think it will take a long time, possibly forever, to forget how funny it was to hear her read it over the phone in it's unpolished form. Especially the part where she suggests you "fuck yourself." I think I almost spit up the water I was drinking, but I can't remember for certain. So, here it is motherfuckers. The thirteenth issue of PA1N Magazine is upon you. Enjoy. - ab