a heathen

Cory Doctorow's got a story over at Tor.com which is pretty cool. It includes a sly little reference to The Cuckoo's Egg by Cliff Stoll (the 0.75$ error leading to a spy-ring thing). That book was the first thing I ever read about hacking, in probably '89 or '90; the first time I heard of telnet or unix. It's dated as hell now -- fuck, it was dated as hell in '90, I bet, but it's got humourous little flourishes that make it entertaining even now:

(from http://vx.netlux.org/lib/mcs00.html)

Dave knew my ignorance of obscure Unix commands. I put up the best front I could: "Well, the e flag means list both the process name and environment, and the a flag lists everyone's process—not just your process. So the hacker wanted to see everything that was running on the system."

"OK, you got half of 'em. So what are the g and f flags for?"

"I dunno." Dave let me flounder until I admitted ignorance.

"You ask for a g listing when you want both interesting and uninteresting processes. All the unimportant jobs, like accounting, will show up. As will any hidden processes."

"And we know he's diddling with the accounting program."

Dave smiled. "So that leaves us with the f flag. And it's not in any Berkeley Unix. It's the AT&T Unix way to list each process's files. Berkeley Unix does this automatically, and doesn't need the f flag. Our friend doesn't know Berkeley Unix. He's from the school of old-fashioned Unix."

The Unix operating system was invented in the early 1970s at AT&T's Bell Laboratories in New Jersey. In the late '70s, Unix zealots from Bell Labs visited the Berkeley campus, and a new, richer version of Unix was developed. Along with hot tubs, leftist politics, and the free speech movement, Berkeley is known for its Unix implementation.

A schism developed between advocates of the small, compact AT&T Unix and the more elaborate Berkeley implementation. Despite conferences, standards, and promises, no consensus has appeared, and the world is left with two competing Unix operating systems.

Of course, our lab used Berkeley Unix, as do all right-thinking folks. East Coast people were said to be biased towards AT&T Unix, but then, they hadn't discovered hot tubs either.

From a single letter, Dave ruled out the entire computing population of the West Coast. Conceivably, a Berkeley hacker might use an old-fashioned command, but Dave discounted this. "We're watching someone who's never used Berkeley Unix." He sucked in his breath and whispered, "A heathen."

Set Theory Primer

I just stumbled on a site about Set Theory Primer as it relates to music theory. Which reminds me of my favorite story about music I wrote that no one ever heard.

Bunny called me up, "hey there's a gallery opening, we're doing a music/performance/installation -- the theme of the gallery is Summerian/Babylonian art, they're showing some pieces etc etc"

I dig Sumer, cradle of civilization etc etc and I've read through Snow Crash so I know just a bit more than nothing about their language construction (atonal glosolalia? or some shit. doesn't matter, i'm not writing poetry). So I look up Summerian music. Turns out it uses a 60-tone scale. Because I am S-M-R-T smart, I figure OK, I can make music akin to atonal 12-tone theory pieces, but I have to use 1/2 and 1/4 microtones (ie, bends and half-bends) and viola, 12-tone automagically becomes 60-tone. So I write this long droning piece in an open D tuning and because it would be a bitch to be bending whole chords (although you get some really awesome dissonances, some sonic youth/glenn branca shit going on where the notes beat against each other in the air) I go and get me a slide. So it's like this blues hawaiian indian drone monster thing. It's made of pure, concentrated awesome.

And then the day of the show, come to find out they go on an hour before they said they would and also that the music has been relegated to the alley behind the gallery. Which is OK, since that's where the party people's at anyway. Ran into solo and other people from the wayback.

when i stepped into the water, i slipped and broke my aura...

I don't know. This at home, in the heart, complex and annoying. Feeling ...not broken, but pathetic, bathetic. Sterling's preggers, Sun's home, Avery is huge, my mother thinks I hate her or I'm a jerk, I don't really know anymore. hot sub w/ sun earlier. she's way cool and outta all the girls probably the one I am most comfortable with. I love taitai and meimei and sterling, but sun's a good mix of them all. i think in jan i will go with mills to get my tattoo. she's gotta decide what she wants though...I'm getting a new tele tomorrow, I hope. I am giving the SG to Mei-mei to fuck with, the pickguard to either sun or tai-tai. new guitars are funfunfun, always leads you somewhere else, like a new girl or a new car or a new way home.

I have a dog now, he is cute and small and I am responsible for him. I hope to get a cat sooner rather than later; a jellicle for preference (gonna name her "Sally Pimienta").

talked to eden like 4 or 5 times in the last week; things are rough on his end vis-a-vis V. which sucks, he's had it rough sometimes. he was very sincere and sorry about getting out of touch with us all, said thanks for me trying to keep in touch with him since he didn't know how to start things. he's spoken to solo and bunny and will probably maybe this time come to miami. I dunno. Told me Mo's living in O-town and they don't really hang or speak. eden talks to mike now and again tho..

while moving I found some boxes with pictures. i feel distant from them, they don't really touch me anymore...I don't know how to feel about that.

good books: world war Z, that dylan bio I'm xmas'ing away, the last postsecret book mills gave me for xmas
good music: night ripper by girl talk -- all samples...shit, it's like "paul's boutique" all over again; coil's "the ape of naples" which i re-listened to because bunny hooked me up with coil bootlegs and i ran into an interview with sleazy from last year about all the shit since balance died...oh and the new fucking daft punk album is so fucking hot it glows

vignette: eden's gf at the time lived on sunset, i go with him to hang, her gay friend says hello -- i am broken and falldown ebcause of mo. i leave the party and go to his old pad with ron -- rose was there even then -- and tell him our friendship's over. he tells rose that if it's her fault...blahblahblah. i tell him it's his fault, it's about b but more about how he didn't tell me. i leave and go back to the party. the girlfriend's gay friend tells me my aura has changed color dramatically -- from orange/red to green (or other way? I don't remember the colors he said). I tell eden and tell him what happened.

And I hope when you think of me years down the line you can't think of one good thing to say

This is amazing: an audience sing-along with the Mountain Goats' "No Children"

Courtesy of Largehearted Boy, whose music blog is one of the few that doesn't suck on a variety of levels. Seriously, check out the blog -- full concerts by bands that don't suck etc etc.

Lyrics here in case you want to sing along yourself.

different poerformance:

staggolee Stagger Lee Stack-A-Lee Stacker Lee

The Stagger Lee Files, about the different versions of the song.

The Annotated "Stagger Lee", about the Grateful Dead version specifically but also includes some history. ...and the actual Stag Lee story that inspired the song(s).

I really love how it's this one mutating story that moves from musician to musician and it's the same thing, but always a bit different, for example, check out the lyrics to Nick Cave's surprisingly filthy version and then compare Dylan's.

Versions:
Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds: Album version, and live.
Grateful Dead, live.
Isley Brothers.
Lloyd Price.
RL Burnside.
Samuel L. Jackson.
Mississippi John Hurt.
Tony Furtado.

I'm still looking for the James Brown and Bob Dylan versions.

into ether

So The Blackroom broke up and no more band for me. BUT last night I did in fact play with Bunny & Nestor (who is dating the Good Witch, odd bit of synchronicity) and some chick who I promptly forgot her name; apparently she's primarily a DJ but last night it was 3 laptops and one guitar -- me. Bunny did live video loops, Nestor dropped live ambient and the chick dropped a few loops too. Things to remember: the Dm shape on the mid strings, bending. the walking bassline with the stutter strut. the dub line. the high diads+low drop. I wasn't real happy with the clean guitar sound, wish I hadn't given Eden those pedals before he left (or at least gotten them back...) oh well, what goes around comes around.

Last night was just a birthday party for Nicole (another DJ), but end of month we're doing it again to celebrate the film they got into the festival thing that won something or other. You're invited. Yes, you.

i'm the operator with my pocket calculator

I can't stop playing with it since I saw this over at penny-arcade.

ouch.

You know, postsecret is a truly genius idea. It fulfills a certain voyeuristic thrill at seeing others' secrets, it encourages art and beauty in the world, it works as a release valve for those holding secrets in and those viewing them as well, and finally, it holds a mirror up to those viewing them. That's a lot of spinning plates.

I saw the exhibit and it was moving, and then it was Sunday and I saw the updated page and the postcard here, and for the first time ever since then, I felt like that again. It is heartbreakingly sad and beautiful and it took my words away.

I love that bridge postcard. I wish I'd sent it in.

Why do you do what you do?

I just ran across Why Do You Do What You Do?. It's beautiful.

All Hallow's Eve: The King In Yellow

So I just found out that one of my favorite horror books is actually freely available as an audiobook online: LibriVox » The King in Yellow by Robert W. Chambers

Hallowe'en comes quick, kids.

i have no mouth and i must scream

So, one of the most famous paintings in the world, Edvard Munch's "The Scream" has finally been recovered.

I don't want to like that painting, but you know, there's something comforting about knowing that even a long time ago, someone somewhere was feeling like that. There's a bit of solace in being able to say "yes, this is Not Fun, but it's completely normal."