Calm brilliance

snerk

Wed, 25 Nov 2009 01:28:37 GMT

Carjacking dream

Tue, 24 Nov 2009 15:31:47 GMT

I've got a car and am parked in a commercial district much like downtown Berkeley. I'm sitting out the right side of the car, fiddling with papers of some sort.

Suddenly, three young caucasian asian males enter the left side of the car, two in the back seat next to me and one in the front. The driver immediately proceeds to start the car and begin merging into traffic, ignoring my orders to exit the car. (Unclear how he managed to do so; retconned to imply that I'd left the keys in the ignition, which is not my noral behavior.)

None of them offer any sign of violence or weapons, but seem to completely ignore my presence.

I have my pepper spray kubotan in my pocket, and am considering a) whether to call 911 on my cell phone, and if so, whether to try to do so stealthily; b) whether to mace the driver or worse; c) whether they're armed; and d) why the fuck someone would knowingly steal a car with an adult inside it without presenting a show of force.

And then I wake up.

Of note, the car was a modern one, not my old Integra (the only car I've ever owned IRL). This leaves open the possibility that I was somehow idling in a car that wasn't in fact mine. I think this is just a failure of my dream imagination, though - especially coupled with the fairly poor, automaton-like simulation of the three men. Usually my dreams can manage something a bit less shallow...

Also, I'm actually not sure what degree of force would be legal in such a situation; it's clearly a felony (grand theft auto) and misdemeanor (false imprisonment aka kidnapping). but without threat of violence, I would be the aggressor.

26C3 Conlanging 101 preview - Dec 10 7-8pm PST

Mon, 23 Nov 2009 06:17:35 GMT

I'm going to be doing a preview / test run of my Conlanging 101 talk for 26C3 at Noisebridge, Thursday Dec 10 ~7-8pm PST.

I'll try to make sure it's simulcast @ http://ustream.tv/noisebridge or http://www.ustream.tv/conlangs . I'll also have some mechanism to comment live in a way that I'll see - either irc on freenode #lcs or skype - so remote people will get to participate.

So please come by or get online at the time. Any suggestions for improving it will be appreciated.

saizai.com now moved

Sun, 22 Nov 2009 10:22:09 GMT

I've had saizai.com just redirect to my LJ info page for a while. I just moved it over to be an independent entity.

At some point I'll embed (or export?) my LJ to it, add other pages, etc. For now it's pretty trivial.

CCW dream

Sun, 22 Nov 2009 10:05:41 GMT

I just had a dream where Alex and I were walking along somewhere and suddenly someone came up to rob us at gunpoint. But we didn't have anything.

And I had a gun in my pocket, and got in a position to flank the robber, and was trying to figure out whether it'd be a good idea to shoot, threaten to, or do nothing... and if I were going to take action, how I could do it without risking hitting Alex by accident, having the robber outgun me, or putting myself in a legally bad position.

And then I woke up.

BART swings

Fri, 20 Nov 2009 09:56:16 GMT

http://www.flickr.com/search/?q=bart+swings
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iPS7d39F6hE et seq.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zrCQBjvCqpk

Awesomeness.

Ki found a mouse

Wed, 18 Nov 2009 07:21:29 GMT

... in the apartment.

I have no idea where it came from; I just noticed him behaving oddly (walking around under the corner coffee table, where he never goes), then saw he was playing with a gray mouse. I thought it was one of the toy ones and was surprised - he only likes the white ones - but then it darted under something and I realized it was alive.

It took a fair amount of chase to find the thing; it darted from one hiding place to another, staying perfectly still inbetween, hard to spot. I cornered it twice and had it slip away. Finally, I had it cornered under Alex's desk; Ki thought it was in the other corner and didn't see it, but I did, and it was totally frozen from seeing him right there.

So I got a cup and carefully put it over it, then slipped a piece of paper under the cup, then a folder and then a clipboard. And I released it outside in the little patch of garden.

Ki was decent at finding the thing, though several times he seemed to totally loose track of it when I clearly saw where it'd gone. And a couple times he actually picked it up in his mouth, moved it elsewhere, and relased it. Not sure if he's just ignorant of how to kill a mouse, or was deliberately playing with it. He's done this before, though. As far as I could tell, the mouse was completely unharmed by the experience (though probably will have mousey PTSD).

At least for this thing, I'm so not catlike. My response is "meep!" not "hunt!".

Normally I'd get Alex to do it, but he just left for a week. :(

I'm going to 26c3!

Sun, 15 Nov 2009 20:38:15 GMT

So, I submitted a talk to 26C3 on "Conlanging 101". And it actually got accepted (with flight paid!).

Which means I get to go to Berlin and attend an awesome hacker conference, and all I have to do is give a talk I'll enjoy. W00tage.

The talk is a) an intro / overview to conlanging (like an expanded version of my lightning talk at Toorcamp - http://conlang.org/toorcamp.pdf) plus b) conlanging-by-crowd-committee where I'll (albeit very quickly) go through actually making a new language on the spot good enough to translate part of the Babel text (like a super-compressed version of my Berkeley DE-Cal class). Plus workshop afterwards.

Most likely what I'm going to do is spend ~10 minutes giving a fairly fast-paced overview, ~35-40 going through making a language on the spot, and anything left over on Q&A.

Anywho:
a) got ideas for how to improve the talk / workshop? (German speakers: anything I should be aware of, or any good jokes to make? Ich spreche keine Deutsch. :()
b) anyone else going?
c) anyone in the area (even vaguely, as in Western Europe; I'm somewhat tempted to make it an excuse to visit other places in Europe) who's either interested having a visitor or willing to host me for a couple days? (if yes, please email me directly)

Choose your own adventure

Wed, 11 Nov 2009 06:24:01 GMT

http://samizdat.cc/cyoa/

Excellent essay / analysis about CYOA books with top quality data-illustrations.

Go read at least the first section, srsly.

SF outdoor lasertag Nov 14th

Fri, 06 Nov 2009 08:51:54 GMT

http://sflasertag.org/battlesfo/

Nov 14 11a-4:30p, ~4-5x fairly intense 12 minute games.

Run by a friend of mine (boyziggy) at cost just 'cause he's really hardcore into lasertag. (He's designed arenas, done international tournaments, etc. His day job is an audio tech for SF Opera, so he knows audio fairly hardcore also.)

Capture the flag in Junipero Serra park (OK, technically not SF but still close). Lots of gun styles from sniper w/ scope to uzi size. Team oriented, radios provided. Weapons recently upgraded to have instant hit feedback.

$50. Rides from BART provided if needed. Potluck food requested.

I have nothing particular to do with it (though I'll be going and helping referee), just think some of y'all would enjoy this.

Why I support full legalization of marijuana

Thu, 29 Oct 2009 11:50:56 GMT

I've not really discussed this publicly before, but I suppose I ought to, simply to give another data point.

I support full legalization for essentially two reasons:

1. Medical

I have used a fair number of drugs for my tic disorder: lorazepam, clonazepam, alprazolam, gabapentin, and ziprasidone. (I think I've even left out one or two.)

None of them have adequately controlled my tic longitudinally, most have given me very unpleasant side effects (e.g. dyskinesia, dizziness, nausea, dissociative episodes), and while the oral lorazepam was mildly effective for acute control, it has very significant and long-lasting unpleasant side effects.

More to the point, all of these are oral medicines. There are no inhalant or injectable medications that I could plausibly get prescribed - intramuscular lorazepam certainly exists, but it doesn't leave hospitals.

The problem with that is that oral medicines take half an hour to take effect and (at the doses I need to have any effectiveness - e.g. 2mg lorazepam) take many hours to wear off.

Unfortunately for me, I can begin to asphyxiate within less than 15 minutes of the onset of an episode, and they rarely last longer than an hour. The effect profile is simply not well matched to what I need.

By contrast, an inhalant (like marijuana) takes effect within 15 seconds and the acute effects wear off within an hour or two. And for that matter, the side effects are far more pleasant. (I've heard of people using lorazepam recreationally, but I really don't understand why someone would. I don't like being dissociated.)

It's also much more effective, even putting aside the onset time issues. With pot I can go from sporadically asphyxiating and being completely unable to use my limbs because they're too spastic to completely relaxed in about two minutes flat. The best I ever got from any of my meds was a lessening of maybe ~3 points out of 10.

And... it's safer. Lorazepam has a pretty bad interaction profile, with potentially very serious complications including death. Pot has almost no harmful effects (the only serious ones I know of are linked to impurities, like with any smoked organic substance), and nobody has ever overdosed on it.

So to put it simply, I want something that can actually serve my medical need. I like being able to continue breathing and being able to use my hands as tools and all that stuff we take for granted.

And pot is the best thing I've come across to date purely on medical grounds.

I would be perfectly happy to use another drug if it was as effective, and I'd rather it weren't something that has associated tar etc., but such a thing just ain't available.

2. Recreation & taxes

First off, to be very clear: I actually prefer being sober. Always have, probably always will. Both with pot and other drugs, like alcohol and caffeine.

However, I think that it's absolutely clear that our culture not simply condones, but glorifies the recreational use of drugs: principly, alcohol and tobacco.

To claim that pot is more harmful than either of those, either to the user or to their surrounding society, is patently absurd. (Think: how many fights would you get in a bar where people smoked pot instead of drinking alcohol? How many people would get run over by someone who's high vs drunk?)

So the argument is simple: let people get high - they already do, and we already enthuisatically encourage it when it comes in the form of alcohol - and while you're at it reap a huge public financial benefit both from taxing it and from not having to deal with all the criminal violence (and prosecution) that surrounds the current black market.

That's not a moral argument, nor even a slippery slope one, it's merely saying that we already encourage things that are much worse than by any objective standard. So how about some consistency?

(For that matter, I think it'd be a net benefit if people moved away from alcohol to marijuana. Think of it as a harm reduction campaign. ;-))

Anyway, that's my 2¢. The second part is pretty humdrum, but I think that my particular medical needs are relatively unsual because of their severity and acuteness, which contrast with the more typical use of marijuana for long-term palliative care of pain and nausea.

Multi factor trustification

Sun, 25 Oct 2009 02:57:09 GMT

I was recently reading Sephen Downes' paper Authentication and identification (a pretty good paper, IMHO, and worth the read), and thought of StackOverflow and some related authentication / trust network stuff I read a year or so ago, and...

I'm interested in how one can 'trustificate' users. That is, given a user who authenticates to me as (for example) having certain OpenIDs, who (internal or external to my site) has created certain friendship links, comments, content, etc., how can I establish a reliable metric that determines whether the user is a) trustworthy and b) unique?

Of course, I have the various usual techniques for determining whether some particular account is a bot or a sockpuppet - browser fingerprinting, timing attacks, bot-foiling javascript, CAPTCHAs, etc - so that's not *quite* what I mean to ask here. It's a more ephemeral thing. (My difficulty in precisely stating the problem is part of what I think someone here probably has a better answer to...)

There are two models I know of that are somewhat similar to what I want.

One is gpg/pgp web of trust via key signing, which is ish what the trustlet wiki is about. This is essentially the same as 'friendship' links, except that (at least a priori) I don't have any obvious way to establish trusted nodes that are sufficiently widespread (that would be analogous to e.g. a notary-signed key or key signed by someone you personally know). Sure, I could manually choose some users who are obviously good, give them high trust, and propagate that trust to their friends etc. But this probably won't easily capture the vast majority of my userbase, and I'm a bit skeptical of how reliable such friendship links are a priori, since people in practice establish them with so little actual verification of identity or veracity (certainly some such links may be useful for trust-by-proxy, but which ones?).

The other model is that used by e.g. StackOverflow - doing certain things earns you points, points can be transferred or earned in very controlled ways that are relatively regulated to be hard to spam, and one's total points are effectively a measure of how much one has contributed (and therefore how much one should be trusted). This is a lot closer to what I could see working for me, but doesn't take advantage of things I might know about a new user (e.g. their friends on other networks like Facebook & Twitter).

Ultimately what I want is a simple number that tells me roughly how trustworthy a given user is (and distinguishes them from e.g. a spammer, sockpuppet, troll, pointfarmer, bot, etc), which can in turn be used to give that user rights (e.g. moderation, creating new pages or tags, voting, etc), and which takes advantage of whatever data I have available. (E.g.: OpenIDs, emails and whether they validate, IP sources, generated content, etc.)

The process has to be fully automatic, relatively transparent to my users (e.g. it's probably impractical to ask them to explicitly rate how much they trust their "friends"), practical, reliable in practice if not necessarily theoretically perfect, relatively proof against gaming (or at least built so it's easy to detect and trace [networks of] users trying to game it), and not rely on any third parties changing how they behave (i.e. I can write code, but I can't expect other people [like Facebook] to do so).

I'm not *as* concerned with unique authentication per se, in that I don't mind anonymous / psuedonymous users gaining high trust levels or even having multiple identities so long as they don't behave badly or use that to game the system. (E.g.: creating accounts whose purpose is to gain trust points and transfer them to an owner account, aka "trust farming" - this has happened in every web app I know of that has both a points economy of some sort and method for transferring points to other users, and is something I want to avoid).

Have any of you done this before? Any other implementations that the gpg or StackOverflow style that'd be good for me to take a look at?

I'm pretty sure that this is not an original idea, but I just haven't seen much other than what I mentioned that actually tries to address it.

Though this is actually a practical question for me (as in, I'm currently writing code that does this and I'd like to make it not suck), I'd also be interested in more theoretical discussion of trust-based authentication etc in general.

Monkeys using hammer-and-anvil technique

Sat, 24 Oct 2009 13:02:58 GMT

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oyt0CIIL_Mg

Disturbingly cute as well as more advanced thinking ability than I thought they had.

Kickass sensory robotic hand prosthetic

Thu, 22 Oct 2009 14:51:47 GMT

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X85Lpuczy3E

I for one welcome our new cyborg overlords...

... and hope to become one someday. :-)

Two years

Sun, 18 Oct 2009 01:19:50 GMT

Whee, I guess?

Should think of something to do.

Seagate drive dead :(

Sat, 17 Oct 2009 20:36:09 GMT

I had a ST31500341AS installed and working for several months. Suddenly last night it failed and hung my machine. On reboot, BIOS fails to load the drive and erroneously calls it ST_M13FQBL.

Pre-installed firmware was CC1H.

Anyone know whether this is fixable? I have irrecoverable data on that drive. :'(

Amnesia

Thu, 15 Oct 2009 07:26:29 GMT

Yesterday I had a periodontist appointment at 2pm for deep cleaning. A half hour beforehand, I took (as prescribed) 0.5 mg of triazolam.

And while I remember calling a taxi and getting there and walking into the office, I have not a fucking clue what happened afterwards.

Evidently at 5:30pm I went to Walgreen's and got a whole bunch of snack food. But I don't remember how I got from the dentist's to there, or from Walgreen's to home. (I presume the dentist called a taxi for me? But why would I have gotten out early?) Or what happened at the dentist. Or much of anything from around then really.

Alex says that when he got home ~6:30pm I was coding. I don't remember what I wrote; hopefully whatever-it-is works...

That's a pretty powerful amnesic effect. Damn.

I've still got 2x 0.25mg pills of the stuff. I guess I'll save them for some other time I want to be knocked way the fuck out for some procedure that doesn't require any sentience and for which I'm unlikely to be taken advantage of...

How hostile could a state be to federal law?

Sun, 27 Sep 2009 10:58:10 GMT

Suppose for instance that California changed from medical pot only to full legalization and taxation of pot.

Could it do things like:
* make it a crime to cooperate with the DEA (e.g. telling them about pot sellers' customers, pot seller locations, etc)
* order cops to interfere with the DEA
* make some aspects of drug enforcement crimes (and try to prosecute DEA officers for them)
* deny DEA funding

What are the limits? How seriously could a state outright disagree & interfere with federal law & its enforcement?

(I just use pot as an example 'cause it's currently a partial détente, with pot being limitedly legal despite federal illegality. And it is a crime to tell the feds who's got a medical pot ID card. How far might it go?)

Dice-O-Matic

Sun, 27 Sep 2009 06:32:05 GMT

This thing is just plain awesome:

http://gamesbyemail.com/News/DiceOMatic

"Currently, GamesByEmail.com uses some 80,000+ die rolls for play in games like Backgammon, Gambit (a RISK clone), W.W.II (an Axis & Allies clone) and others. To generate the die rolls, I have used Math.random, Random.org and other sources, but have always received numerous complaints that the dice are not random enough. Some players have put more effort into statistical analysis of the rolls than they put into their doctoral dissertation.

A few years ago I tinkered with a dice rolling machine made from Legos. Though great fun, it was noisy and cantankerous and unreliable, and it never recovered from the move two years ago. But it had made players happy, at least for a while. So I decided to make a 'professional' grade rolling machine.

I had been slowly accumulating parts for over a year when I put out a plea for financial assistance. Many players donated small amounts, and a few made some over-the-top donations. I also received a large donation of the elevator parts. The help allowed me to gather the last and most expensive bits, and four months of spare time later, everything is working better than planned.

I had a soft target of a machine capable of 200,000 rolls a day, as site traffic is growing. However, any automation project worth doing is worth over doing, and I way overshot the mark. The result is what you see here: a machine that can belch a continuous river of dice down a spiraling ramp, then elevate, photograph, process and upload almost a million and a half rolls to the server a day. I may not get nominated for a Nobel prize, but the deep rumbling vibration you feel more than hear when two rooms away is quite impressive.

There is no doubt that I will still receive complaints about the rolls, but now I can honestly say I have done all that I can possibly do: the rolls you get are exactly as random as those you would get throwing by hand. As I promised earlier, if you donate to the site and are unhappy about the rolls, let me know and I will pull a die out of the machine, melt it flat and mail it to you, as an object lesson to the other dice. Tangible revenge. "

Zombie simulator (with nukes!)

Sun, 27 Sep 2009 00:21:03 GMT

Zombie Infection 2

To run it in your browser (w/ Java):
1. click here
2. click 'setup'
3. click 'go'

Clicking 'setup' will (randomly) reset the simulator.

It's a zombie infection simulator written by Alex & me which does:
* zombies (w/ time to eat, lifespan / increased lifespan from eating, and ability to break down walls)
* civilians (w/ panicability and breeding speed)
* military (w/ ability to recruit back up to their starting numbers, and ability to use pocket nukes under duress that will take out a bunch of zombies at once)

The defaults make for a fairly balanced war, and zombies will tend to make warrens.

Zombie aging is off by default; if you turn it on you'll notice that they survive much more poorly. Civilian panic duration very significantly helps zombies - most of their kills are made by panicking civilians (or military!) running into them.

The AI is pretty simple - zombies shamble towards the first thing they see (whether zombie, civilian, or military) and convert it if they get it first; military runs towards zombies, or failing that, areas of panic; and civilians run blindly away from zombies (... often into another one).

But it's fun to play with.

Feel free to use it however you like under Creative Commons license by-sa (i.e. credit us and share any improvements you make).

We'd love to hear your comments, feedback, etc.

Interviewing a Phelps

Sat, 26 Sep 2009 11:27:58 GMT

I've got a couple interviews lined up for a new podcast about people or situations I find interesting.

For next week: one of the Phelps, of godhatesfags.com et al.

I'll be focusing on meta and philosophical issues related to their brand of Calvinism, rather than on any of the usual boringly scandalous bits. No arguing with them about how they're shocking and rude and gays are okay after all; that's been done and I don't believe in arguing with someone's axioms.

So: what questions do y'all think I should ask 'em?

For context, my interview request email:

Hello.

I'd like to interview a member of the Phelps family for a new podcast.

To get right to the point, my approach is fairly different from what you usually get. Up to you whether you're up for it, but I believe in being upfront.

1. I and my listeners already know about your main preachings - why the Bible condemns gays, stem cells, etc. Frankly, your position per se is relatively standard for conservative Christianity; it's only your approach that's unusual.

As such, I don't want to discuss or debate those questions / positions at all. It's not something new, and it would not be interesting for my listeners.

(And I flatly do not do "spectacle". Certainly people like Jerry Springer can be unoriginal and get people to watch because it's like a car wreck, but I have absolutely no desire for that approach, unlike many of your previous interviews.)

2. I *do* want to talk to you about your approach, and about some aspects of your variant of Calvinism, such as your views on predestination, free will, the purpose and effect of preaching, how one can tell if one is a member of the elect, etc.

Some narrow aspects of your preachings may come up in this context - e.g. to talk about apparent inconsistencies, ways in which you interpret things differently from non-Calvinists (though you might use similar language), etc.

For example, I'll want to discuss why/whether you believe:
"God doesn't hate people because they're gay, they're gay because He hates them." (i.e. conditional election)
"Our preaching is intended to harden your hearts, not to save you." (As mentioned e.g. at ~35 min into Sept 13th's sermon.)
"WBC members are part of God's unconditionally elected few to be saved from Hell."

3. I have some absolute boundaries - both that I will not violate of yours, and that I will not tolerate your violating of mine.

For you:
* I won't directly challenge you on any of your beliefs.
* I won't bait or trap you.
* I won't try to provoke you in any way - though I may ask difficult questions, I don't do so in an attacking manner.
* I will already know a fair amount about your beliefs, and try to demonstrate that knowledge so we can get as quickly as possible onto the interesting material.
* I will edit you to (if anything) sound a bit clearer - removing ums, uhs, pauses for looking something up, etc. It's a relaxed interview, not live, so you're absolutely welcome to take time before answering. In any case, I won't edit you out of context or as if you're saying something you don't intend.
* I will, for the most part, try to avoid the same old questions you've been asked a thousand times before.
* I will not ask you about your personal life, ex-members of your church, lawsuits, etc.

For me:
* We will not, except briefly as a summary, discuss the messages you preach - as I said, it's been done before, and I'm not interested in doing it again.
* We will not discuss my own beliefs or personal life in any way at all. The show is about my guests, not me.
* We will speak calmly and politely at all times, as a normal conversation, not a sermon, rant, argument, etc. If you raise your voice at me, insult me, start preaching, etc. more than once, the interview is immediately off.
* We will treat each other as intelligent adults. In particular, you will need to bear in mind that sometimes I ask questions whose answers I know, because I want to have my listeners hear what your view of it is.
* We will not use profanity or hate speech. I realize you have strong views about how certain people - the majority of people even - are inherently sinful, evil, doomed to burn in Hell, etc. But you'll need to tone it down a notch to remain civil. Likewise, you won't get any hate from me.

My style is broadly similar to what you can hear in most NPR/PRI author interviews - calm, neutral, intellectual, and non-superficial.

It will probably take about 60-90 minutes total, and get cut down to about 50 minutes. I'll email you a copy of the raw recording, and a copy of the edit when it's done.

So far all of my interviewees have enjoyed my interviews; hopefully you would as well.

To be crystal clear: if you do this, you will *not* get to preach with my podcast as a pulpit. (And for that matter, nor will I.)

But you *will* get a much fairer treatment than you generally get, and you'll be reaching a different audience than you normally would have access to.

If you're interested, please let me know your availability, contact phone number, and name of available interviewee(s).

Thanks,
- Sai

Twitching card

Thu, 24 Sep 2009 11:45:50 GMT

I'm going to print this out on something to carry around with me in my wallet. Suggestions appreciated for how to improve it.

Hi! I have a tic. Here's the basics. Talk to Alex Fink ### ### ####, Ryan C**** ### ### ####, or Dr. Matt Arnold ### ### #### if you need help. It'll probably be over in < 1 hour. Ask me if you have questions. See http://bit.ly/saitwitch for more. And relax, I've been through this before. - Sai Emrys, aka Ilya Starikov

Triggers
Possible Symptoms (likeliest first)
Possible Fixes

Stress
Hand tremors
Sugar / food

Low sugar
Pain
Water

Dehydration
Muscle twitching, esp. right side
Comfort

Exhaustion
Muscle weakness, esp. torso
Pot

Overheating
Stutter or no speech
Benzodiazepines

Bad luck
Flailing when using tools, cups, etc
Sign language

* Asphyxiation
Writing

Light sensitivity
Massage

Panic attacks
Distraction

* Sustained pulse > 160 bpm

* Paralysis, ep. inability or swallow

* Call 911 if these last more than 1 minute. Otherwise don't.
Medics: 1-2 mg IM Ativan stat if seizing or asphyxiating; works well. Monitor airway if atonic. No known allergies; taking only mirtazapine, sometimes ziprasidone.
ER: EEG during if possible; page Arnold. Alex Fink is my medical proxy.

Triggers	Possible Symptoms (likeliest first)	Possible Fixes
Stress	Hand tremors	Sugar / food
Low sugar	Pain	Water
Dehydration	Muscle twitching, esp. right side	Comfort
Exhaustion	Muscle weakness, esp. torso	Pot
Overheating	Stutter or no speech	Benzodiazepines
Bad luck	Flailing when using tools, cups, etc	Sign language
	* Asphyxiation	Writing
	Light sensitivity	Massage
	Panic attacks	Distraction
	* Sustained pulse > 160 bpm
	* Paralysis, ep. inability or swallow

One phisher's account, v3

Mon, 21 Sep 2009 05:53:12 GMT

41.214.34.223 Sep 19 (1 day ago)
196.207.193.31 Sep 19 (1 day ago)
41.214.33.2 Sep 18 (2 days ago)
213.154.92.123 Sep 16 (4 days ago)

Compare to the previous set. Looks like 41.24.214.34.2xx is a regularly used subnet. They're all in Senegal.

Same person as last time, obviously.

Interestingly, they set a security question this time, but gmail ignores it if you ask it to just send a reset to the secondary account.

Someone should obtain access to secretary-kristopher@usa.com and/or leanna_lopez@ymail.com and give me the password. They are likely to have rather more interesting content; they're the addresses that the 2nd stage victims are directed to...

AFAICT usa.com isn't an email service, though. Perhaps it's just a sham address for looking more official & USA-affiliated? (To excuse the obvious ploy of the "California conference" getting canceled and moved to Senegal...)

Spammer

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Leanna Lopez <leannalope501@gmail.com>
Date: Wed, Sep 16, 2009 at 1:53 PM
Subject: INVITATION...............
To: [spam]

Dear Friend,

My name is Leanna lopez female, working with (WORLD YOUTH ORGANIZATION FOR HUMAN WELFARE) California, U.S.A. We are organizing a global youths combined conferences taking place from November 25th - 27th 2009 at California in the United States and in Dakar-Senegal, from December 2nd - 4th 2009.In our request to invite people from various countries around the world,

I went in search of e-mails on the web site as a means of contacting youths and organizations .As a result, I picked your e-mail from an N.G.O`s website.If you are interested to participate and want to represent your country, you may contact the secretariat of the organizing committee for details and information. You should also inform them that you were invited to participate by a friend of yours (Leanna lopez), who is a member of the American Youths 4 Peace and a staff of (WORLD YOUTH ORGANIZATION FOR HUMAN WELFARE).

I believe that we may have the opportunity to meet if you may be willing to participate in this event. You can also inform youths & NGOs in your country about these conferences. The benevolent donors of the Organizing Committee will provide round trip air tickets and accommodation for the period of participants? Stay in the U.S., to all registered participants.

If you are a holder of passport that may require visa to enter the United States you may inform the conference secretariat at the time of registration, as the organizing committee is responsible for all visa arrangements and travel assistances. Below is the contact address of the conference secretariat:

By email: secretary-kristopher@usa.com

Please get back to me with the e-mail: leanna_lopez@ymail.com

Sincerely,

Leanna Lopez

Victims

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: taban donato [redacted]
Date: Thu, Sep 17, 2009 at 3:51 PM
Subject: Re: INVITATION.....................
To: Leanna Lopez <leannalope501@gmail.com>
Cc: secretary-kristopher@usa.com, leanna_lopez@ymail.com

Hi thanks for your email, could you please provide for details of this aforementioned conference and do you have a website for this organisation?

Regards

Alex

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Rubenstein, Steven [redacted]
Date: Wed, Sep 16, 2009 at 2:00 PM
Subject: RE: INVITATION...............
To: Leanna Lopez <leannalope501@gmail.com>

this sounds so interesting!

Can you tell me, which NGO's webpage did you get my name from?

Thanks!

Dr. Steven Rubenstein
Reader in Latin American Anthropology
University of Liverpool

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Zeinab Elshenawy [redacted]
Date: Fri, Sep 18, 2009 at 5:08 AM
Subject: Re: INVITATION...............
To: leannalope501@gmail.com, secretary-kristopher@usa.com, leanna_lopez@ymail.com

Dear
Sir / Madam
I'm willing to participate in this
Common global youth conferences taking place in November
November 25th - 27th 2009 in the state of California in the United States in Dakar, Senegal, from December 2nd - 2009.In 4th
Arho answer
Your e-mail and we await the answer

Contact: --
Address of the company in Egypt
Address: Egypt , Mansoura
Gamal El-Deen El-Afghany st
El-Adala Building -6th floor
Tel : [redacted]
Mob : [redacted]
or : [redacted]
Fax : [redacted]
e-mail : [redacted]
[redacted]
Best Regards
General Manager /
Mr. Al-Saied Al-Afify

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Pablo Chufeni [redacted]
Date: Sat, Sep 19, 2009 at 10:01 AM
Subject: Re: INVITATION...............
To: Leanna Lopez <leannalope501@gmail.com>
Cc: secretary-kristopher@usa.com

Regards.
Could you please indicate the website and contact phone number to confirm this information?
Thanks in advance.

Pablo Chufeni
Servas International Youth Coordinator
Skype - [redacted]
Facebook - [redacted]
Cel - [redacted]
Web - [redacted]

Yongmudo; first injury

Sat, 19 Sep 2009 11:01:16 GMT

So, I've joined Berkeley's yongmudo club. So has Alex. Whee and stuff.

On the boo note: they do actual hard-contact sparring, with just a bit of padded armor. And against heavy bags. Not something any aikido class I've been in has done, and an obvious weak spot for me.

But: today I hurt the top of my left foot doing a roundhouse kick against the bag. I'm not sure if I hit it wrong (entirely possible) or if my foot's just not conditioned out of feeling pain (also possible, and for my purposes, desirable). In any case, it hurts, and I'll probably limp for a day or two.

I'll probably need to get a cup and some hand and foot gloves at some point... I've never dealt with either, so not really sure if I'll find some that're comfortable. But enh, I guess it's useful to have around, and will take a bit of sting out of workouts.

ASL music again

Thu, 17 Sep 2009 20:18:17 GMT

First: This guy is rather good. Especially the Jonathan Coulton. <3!

Second: I've got a few songs buffered up to do at some point. Here's one I was just thinking of.

I like how several of the lines lend themselves to excellent ASL alliteration; OTOH that makes me want to get the rest of 'em to the same quality too. :-P

I kinda want to do "Brand New Day" and "Slipping" also. The other ones in queue: Death Cab for Cutie, "I Will Follow You Into the Dark" (yeah, it's emo, hush); Arrogant Worms, "Carrot Juice is Murder"; Cowboy Bebop, "Real Folk Blues"; Saez, "Jeune et Con"; Nena, "99 Luftballons"; Weird Al, "White and Nerdy".

HORRIBLE
Any dolt with half a brain
PEABRAIN UNDERSTAND SAME
Can see that humankind has gone insane
HUMAN INSANE.emph

To the point where I don’t know
If I’ll upset the status quo
If I throw poison in the water main

Listen close to everybody’s heart
HEART.hold(L) LISTEN_TO.(R)
And hear that breaking sound
BREAK@heart LISTEN_TO.(R)
Hopes and dreams are shattering apart
HOPE DREAM BREAK.SHATTER.iterative
And crashing to the ground
CL.flitter-to-ground

I cannot believe my eyes
EYES DISBELIEVE
How the world’s filled with filth and lies
WORLD CL.full-to-chin DIRTY.(R) LIE.(L)
But it’s plain to see
BUT SEE.me~DIG-INSIDE
Evil inside of me is on the rise
EVIL CL.full-to-chin.incremental

PENNY
Look around
LOOK.around
We’re living with the lost and found
LIVE WITH LOST, FOUND
Just when you feel you’ve almost drowned
FEEL FALL~DROWN.slow
You find yourself on solid ground
CL.ground-under-feet~STAND.final-emph
And you believe
AND BELIEVE

There’s good in everybody’s heart
HEART.hold(L) GOOD.end@L SELF.distrib
Keep it safe and sound
BRING@heart>neutral ~ KEEP.iter
With hope, you can do your part
HOPE.topic SAME.distrib
To turn a life around
LIFE CHANGE

I cannot believe my eyes
EYES DISBELIEVE
Is the world finally growing wise
HAPPEN WORLD WISE
‘Cause it seems to me
SEEM
Some kind of harmony
CONNECTION.distrib
Is on the rise
CL.full(neutral).incremental

HORRIBLE (overlapping with Penny below)
Anyone with half a brain
Could spend their whole life howling in pain
‘Cause the dark is everywhere
And Penny doesn’t seem to care
That soon the dark in me is all that will remain

Listen close to everybody’s heart
And hear that breaking sound
Hopes and dreams are shattering apart
And crashing to the ground

I cannot believe my eyes
How the world’s filled with filth and lies
But it’s plain to see
Evil inside of me is on the rise

PENNY
Take it slow
He looks at me and seems to know
The things that I’m afraid to show
And suddenly I feel this glow
And I believe

There’s good in everybody’s heart
Keep it safe and sound
With hope, you can do your part
To turn a life around

I cannot believe my eyes
How the world’s finally growing wise
And it’s plain to see
Rapture inside of me is on the rise