Nullam

Improvement

Tue, 04 May 2010 00:21:00 +1000

Recently I had an interesting exchange with some people about the reason we as a species would want to surpass our current condition and improve ourselves as a whole by whatever means we can manage.

Personally I think that it is very worth our while to explore technologies that would improve our capacity to think and operate as well as to increase our lifespan as much as we would like. But there are others who are comfortable living in the current human condition and believe that any long term improvement methods will not be of any gain to the human species and the individual experience.

A point put forward against transhumanism is that we currently possess all the necessary abilities and features to live acceptably or as best as we ever could. This may be true, but any casual observer can see the current situation as far from acceptable. There is no telling how long it will take and if it will ever come to pass that our species finds itself in an organisational configuration that each individual can happily accept without expanding our own capabilities artificially. We don't know if this is the limit of our society and so we need to find the limit and shape ourselves to experience it. If this turns out to be as far as we can go than so be it, we will never know if we don't search.

I think that by improving ourselves and humanity itself; we will dramatically increase our odds of materialising such a utopia. It may even turn out that by transforming ourselves into a particular form; mere human trivialities we experience today will no longer be an issue for such an entity. It may be that it will no longer be necessary to exist in a functioning society at all if we take the right form, a singular universal gaia type organism for example.

I however don't think a utopia would be a very nice ending to humanity, a society that has reached a plateau in drive and curiosity that merely continues perpetually in the same state unchanged may as well not exist at all. If it's there or not there; what difference would it make? it doesn't interact with the universal stage at all. Much more desirable would be a continually explorative and curious existence. That would be much more acceptable, exciting and bearable than the restricted and scheduled life demanded of a utopian society. I'd rather live in a chaotic free for all than endure an enforced way of life.

I only wish that we don't stop our technological progression at this point and that we continue with the same veracity we have shown in the past; Unhindered by unfounded desires such as remaining "human". We are thought and experience, our vessel is a tool to accommodate our minds and interact physically with the world; nothing more.

I cannot simply become complacent with my current form and living condition, I find my surroundings and human form severely oppressive. My clumsy imprecise and limited mortal vessel gives me the feeling of experiencing life as if I had weights attached to all aspects of my body and mind. I think it is natural and imperative for our own enlightenment that we discover ways to lift the weights that pull us down to earth and learn to master the natural laws of our peculiar reality and spread ourselves to the utter limits. Searching for the ultimate pleasure and comfort. Just as we have been stumbling towards since we sharpened our first shards of rock.

In the face of a meaningless universe and a pointless existence; what better to do than explore, and exhaust every possible means to have fun.

Quine

Sat, 30 Jan 2010 21:11:00 +1000

My new favorite scrabble word is quine. A quine is a program that can print it's own source code. Here is a basic one I wrote just now:


#include <stdio.h>



char *str = "#include <stdio.h>%c%cchar *str = %c%s%c;%c%cint main(void) {%c%cprintf(str, 10, 10, 34, str, 34, 10, 10, 10, 9, 10, 10);%c}%c";



int main(void) {

    printf(str, 10, 10, 34, str, 34, 10, 10, 10, 9, 10, 10);

}

This is just about the most awesome thing I've seen all week.

Japan and It's unbearably strong attraction

Sat, 30 Jan 2010 02:36:00 +1000

Honestly I don't know exactly why I love Japan so much, maybe it's just simply because it's so foreign and peculiar that it breeds fascination in people like me. Maybe it's that I glorify it too much based on the ridiculous amount of anime I watch. Maybe it is genuinely 1000x more awesome than Australia. I'll never know until I go there.

For a few years now I've been intensely absorbed in Japan and it's language that it's distracted me from my regular studies and makes me want to swap degrees. Just recently I've craved to just go there as soon as possible, verging on a spontaneous plane ticket purchase that I so desire.

I'm getting my passport renewed and plan to do another bachelor degree after my current Bachelor of IT and apply to visit Japan as an exchange student for a year. According to my universities website I will need a GPA > 5.5 to be eligible for some lucrative scholarship. That will be a huge motivator for me and I'm sure I will achieve much higher than that when the time comes just out of sheer excitement. I'm not very proactive with my current course because I don't really know what awaits me at it's completion and if it's all that exciting. Though I definitely do want to be a programmer in a tiny cubicle in the middle of a giant tower surrounded by busy people.

Apparently my oh so kind government allows me to take seven years worth of full time study and pay for it in the future when I'm allowed to cash in my monopoly money. This gives me two bachelors! but it doesn't count for anything higher, only undergraduate degrees.

My itching ambition to live in Japan was spawned by nothing in particular, it's probably totally arbitrary. I wouldn't be surprised to know that Japan just happened to be a foreign country I took interest in from a group of so many other countries that I could love just as much. I find myself getting so bored of the mundaneity (should be a real word) of every day Australian life and reading countless Japan travel journals written by other travelers.

When I go to Japan I'm definitely going to write a journal, I'll post it all right here on this website and it will contain many pictures and countless comments about glorified quirks of Japan and it's people. I'll even throw in the obligatory "Back at home you just don't see this.". Just watch me!

Exploitation

Thu, 07 Jan 2010 18:58:00 +1000

Thanks to some unknown benefactor who did a security report on my site some time ago, I regularly get visits from people obviously trying to hack my site using the exploits released in that report. I regret to inform these hopefuls that all the security issues mentioned in that report were addressed within a couple of hours from its release.

Nevertheless, the majority of my visitors are attempted exploiters trying to get access to my database. A noble task indeed. If you happen to be one of these hopefuls, I urge you to take a look around and read some stuff while your copying and pasting URL's from the report. Maybe you have something to say?

Also, for your information, the source code for this site is available from sourceforge at: http://sourceforge.net/projects/nullam/. Perhaps you can find an exploit nobody else has seen. I encourage it.

Obfuscation

Thu, 15 Oct 2009 00:43:00 +1000

This was easier than I thought it would be, but maybe mine isn't so great.


#define                                                             br putchar

#define                                                             obr 73

#define                                                             rdb int

#define                                                             erb main

#define                                                             bro ++

#define                                                             ber --

erb() {rdb bdr     =obr;br       (bdr bro);  rdb bed=obr   /2;bdr-=bed;rdb orb,

ord;      ord    =br     (bro     bdr        )-bed;        br(orb=obr+bed);

bdr      =bed   /ord     bro     ;orb        =br(          br(     bed-ord)

+(       orb/   orb+     ord/    ord)        *(ber ord*     ber     bdr));

bed=     br(     br(      br(     orb        +bdr          +(ber   ord)+ber 

ord-(orb/orb     ))+      ord    + bro       ord)          -bdr    -ord);bdr=br

(br((bro bed+    bro orb)/ord     bro)/      ord);br(bro   bdr/ord-bed/bed);}

Life is lame

Wed, 19 Aug 2009 18:00:00 +1000

In life nothing exciting ever happens, nothing truly exciting anyway. I go through some levels of excitement but it always turns out to be not so great. Each moment I decide whether I want to go back to bed or not, to retreat into my room and watch some lame video until I forget that I have to do something tomorrow.

There are no great memories, just the memories that people decide were good for me, I really don't give them any special meaning other than their face value. I look forward to the future only if it means being past a mundane situation. It's like trudging through deep mud and not even knowing if its worth getting to the end.

It's so difficult making any meaningful friendships with people when I constantly judge everybody and fear of being judged myself. It's not something I do on purpose, I don't know how it happens, it's automatic I guess. When you walk passed a retard you think "There's a retard!", am I right? extreme example but it's the same.

And so everything is just boring, lame and unrelenting. There isn't much to look forward to, there isn't much to enjoy in the present and the past isn't part of the equation. I don't think depression can be cured, I think that its just a realisation of the world and human society, a state of mind that sees the world for what it is. To be happy is to be ignorant. Stop smiling, it's making me uncomfortable.

An experiment in colour

Sun, 09 Aug 2009 18:07:00 +1000

Well I decided to make some changes to my stylesheet for no good reason. I think it looks pretty good. I need a new title image though, I don't know.

Conky buses!

Sat, 25 Jul 2009 00:23:00 +1000

So to show off my new code tags I'm going to show you a script I wrote to get the upcoming bus times displayed right there on your desktop!

There are three bits of code required here, first there is the code to fetch the timetable data for the current day from your local bus service. You're unlucky if they don't provide the data in html form, although if the timetable doesn't change often you can simply create the timetable file yourself.

This is my code:
getbusses.sh:


#!/bin/bash

curl "http://jp.translink.com.au/TransLinkPublicTimetable.asp?RouteCode=301&TimetableKey=1849&Direction=inbound&TimetableVehicle=BTBus" 2>/dev/null | \

awk '/.*Doomben Station.*/{ getline; print; getline; print; getline; print; getline; print; getline; print; getline; print;}' | \

sed "s:.*<td class=\"TimetableDetails\">[ ^I]*\([0-9]*\:[0-9]*.*\)</td>.*:\1:p" -n \

    > ~/scripts/buses

That one is quite simple, it shouldn't be hard to make one up for your timetable provider.

The next piece of code is the workhorse. This one is executed every minute by conky.
nextbus.pl:


#!/usr/bin/perl

use DateTime;



my ($sec,$min,$hour,$day,$month,$yr,@rest) =   localtime(time);

my $line;

my $outputCount = 3;                        #Number of times to output (from current time)

my $previousLine;                        #Used to detect duplicates (this is commonplace practice at translink...)



open(BUSES, "<", "/home/d47/scripts/buses");



while ($line = <BUSES>) {

    if($line == $previousLine) {                #Detect duplicates

        next;

    }



    $previousLine = $line;



    if($outputCount == 0) {

        exit;

    }



    chop $line;



    my @checkTime = split(":", $line);



    my $cHour = @checkTime[0]+0;                #Hour



    if($cHour == 12) {

        $cHour = 0;

    }



    if(substr(@checkTime[1], 2, 2) eq "pm") {        #Adjust to 24Hr time

        $cHour += 12;

    }



    my $cMin = substr(@checkTime[1], 0, 2)+0;        #minute





    if($cHour < $hour) {

        next;

    }



    if($cHour == $hour && $cMin < $min) {

        next;

    }



    my $timeUntil = ($cHour - $hour) * 60 - ($min - $cMin);



    print $line, " (", $timeUntil, " mins)\n";



    $outputCount--;

}

As you can see it is rather strait forward, it cycles through each line on the "buses" file and determines if that bus is yet to come, if it is then it is printed. The program exits when $outputCount amount of buses are printed.

The third and last piece of code is the easiest. Its the code to put into your .conkyrc file, here is my whole file to show context.
~/.conkyrc:


use_xft yes

xftfont Bitstream Vera Sans Mono:style=Bold:size=8



update_interval 1

total_run_times 0

double_buffer yes

text_buffer_size 2048



own_window yes

own_window_type normal

own_window_transparent yes

own_window_hints undecorated,below,sticky,skip_taskbar,skip_pager



background yes



minimum_size 250 0

maximum_width 250



default_color cyan

draw_shades no



color0 cyan

color1 red

color2 white



border_margin 5

border_width 2



alignment top_right

gap_x 25

gap_y 35



no_buffers no

net_avg_samples 2



override_utf8_locale yes



no_buffers yes



TEXT

DATE ${hr 2}



${color0}${font StyleBats:size=16}4${font}   EST${color}${alignc 45}${color2}${font Arial Black:size=30}${time %H:%M}${font}${color}

${alignc}${time %A %d %Y}

${alignc}${time %s}



${color0}${font StyleBats:size=16}8${font}   UTC${color}${alignc 45}${color2}${font Arial Black:size=30}${utime %H:%M}${font}${color}

${alignc}${utime %A %d %Y}

${alignc}${utime %s}



SYSTEM ${hr 2}

${color0}${font StyleBats:size=16}A${font}${color}   CPU:      ${color1}${cpu cpu0}%${color} ${alignr}${color2}${cpubar cpu0 8,60}${color}

${color0}${font StyleBats:size=16}y${font}${color}   RAM:      ${color1}${memperc}% ${mem}${color} ${alignr}${color2}${membar 8,60}${color}

${color0}${font StyleBats:size=16}q${font}${color}   Uptime:   ${color1}${uptime}${color}



WEB USAGE ${hr 2}

${color0}${font StyleBats:size=16}x${font}${color}   P:        ${color1}${execi 60 awk '{print $1}' ~/scripts/currentusage} /  60GiB${color}     ${color2}${execibar 60 awk '{print ($1/63)*100}' ~/scripts/currentusage}

${color0}${font StyleBats:size=16}g${font}${color}   OP:       ${color1}${execi 60 awk '{print $2}' ~/scripts/currentusage} / 140GiB${color}     ${color2}${execibar 60 awk '{print ($2/143)*100}' ~/scripts/currentusage}${color}



BUSES ${hr 2}

${color0}${font StyleBats:size=16}B${font}${color}   Next buses into the city:

${color1}${execi 3600 ~/scripts/getbuses.sh}${execi 60 ~/scripts/nextbus\ 2.0.pl}${color}

And that's it! All I need to do now is become social and want to know when I can travel to the city to go clubbing! Oh goodie!

Nullam rewritten!

Fri, 24 Jul 2009 22:17:00 +1000

I have completely rewritten the code for nullam.net from the ground up. The site is now implemented using smarty templates, it is about a million times more efficient and comprehensible.

Its amazing what little oddities I found while reviewing the old code. Lets just say it's very evident that I am making progress in my programming proficiency.

If you come across any errors or any odd behaviour I want to know about it! Please send a brief email to d47@nullam.net or simply comment on this post.

As for functionality there is absolutely nothing new in the slightest! Enjoy it!

P.S, I love smarty templates.

Kill my family but don't take my anime!!!!

Tue, 21 Jul 2009 21:34:00 +1000

FFFUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU

It's happened again, my brand new 1tb hard-drive just died in a flurry of clicking and jerking. Why out of the four hard-drives I have does it have to be the one with all my anime on it! it was FULL of anime, 1tb of anime! One of the drives was completely empty but it had to be the full one. If someone I know dies I can shrug it off but taking my anime! I'm enraged!

Well from now on there is no question that I will be backing up everything I have. Every gigabyte I buy will be two, the cost of hard-drives to me is double what is labelled. From now my computer speaks in raid 1.

At least its under warranty =/