#hackeri

[alinladaru]

Instituțiile sanitare publice din România pot solicita acces gratuit la soluții de antivirus de la Bitdefender

Producătorul de soluţii de securitate informatică Bitdefender a anunțat că va oferi acces gratuit la soluţii de securitate informatică destinate mediului de business tuturor instituţiilor sanitare publice din România, ca parte a unui demers de a le consolida rezilienţa în faţa recentelor atacuri informatice. Astfel, instituţiile sanitare publice de toate dimensiunile, de la cabinete medicale, la…

[positivefumo]

raymoo

[postcard-from-the-past]

Bullock hackery in Ceylon, modern-day Sri Lanka

British vintage postcard

[fallenines]

id like it of the cold wouldnt make my fingers hurt while i do computer nonsense

[technomancyshenanigans]

just realized I don't talk about dnd on here much but have Jelai'Yul! she's an aberrant mind sorcerer (in a 5e starfinder homebrew(we just got lvl 5!)) who's favorite combat strategy is "COSMIC HORRORS BEYOND MORTAL COMPREHENSION UPON YEE. WEEP, AND DESPAIR."

shes basically a mix of wh40k tech priest and mass effect quarian (pls be niceys to her she only has a basecoat of paint rn)

[chireikiden]

Hmmm I wouldn’t say it’s entiiirely a retcon.

From Reimu’s perspective, majority of them came from underground, that’s most likely her assumption from UFO.

As for Shous omake, it’s worded a bit whacky, but vaguely enough that it would be reasonable that after the temple fell to ruin and she didn’t have much else to do anymore, she joined her friends underground.

Thing is, Shou's profile quite unambiguously says "[after the temple had fallen to ruin] her companions, who had been sealed away in the depths of the earth, made their return to her."

But yeah, I'm willing to take it as a mistake on Reimu's part.

[dreaminginthedeepsouth]

Dave Granlund :: @DaveGranlund#MikeJohnson

* * * *

LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

December 13, 2023

HEATHER COX RICHARDSON

DEC 14, 2023

In a day that was chock full of political stories in which Republicans were launching attacks on Democrats, Senator Brian Schatz (D-HI) made a key point. “We have not passed an emergency supplemental, a Farm Bill, or regular Appropriations,” he said. “The story is not what they are doing. The story is what they are not doing.”  

Schatz was referring to specific, vital measures that are not getting through Congress: the outstanding funding bill for aid to Ukraine and Israel, border security, and humanitarian aid for Gaza; the Farm Bill, which governs the nation’s agricultural and food assistance programs and needs to be renewed every five years; and the regular appropriations bills that Congress must pass and that House extremists tossed out former speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) over because they wanted deep cuts that he had agreed with President Joe Biden not to make. 

But there is a larger point behind Schatz’s observation. Republicans, especially the extremist wing, have garnered power by promising to stop the government from acting. The extraordinary gerrymandering in Republican-dominated states following Operation REDMAP in 2010 created such safe districts that Republicans did not need to worry about losing elections. That safety meant that their role was not to offer real legislative solutions to problems, but rather to gin up support for the party nationally by pushing party talking points on right-wing media. Those talking points focused on slashing the government, which they claimed was hurting their constituents by defending secular society and providing benefits to undeserving minorities and women. 

Now, though, the Republicans are in charge of the House of Representatives, and they actually need to get work done. But extremist Republicans’ skill set involves pushing talking points to create a false reality that demands gutting the government, not legislating, which requires compromise and deep understanding of issues. 

We appear to be watching Republicans’ fake image crash against reality. 

This morning was the scheduled date for the House Oversight Committee’s closed-door deposition from President Biden’s son Hunter. Committee chair James Comer (R-KY) subpoenaed him in early November, trying to find evidence that the president participated in illegal business deals before he became president. But, in fact, the committee is making its case entirely by innuendo—it has turned up no evidence of any such schemes—and publicly misrepresented the closed-door testimony of Hunter Biden’s former business partner to say the opposite of what it did.

So Hunter Biden’s lawyers called their bluff, saying the younger Biden would be happy to testify…but only in a public hearing, so that his testimony could not be misrepresented. The committee refused that offer, saying he must appear behind closed doors, a condition that seemed to undercut their claim they want transparency. 

Today, Hunter Biden turned the tables on their habit of giving press statements by showing up himself outside of the Capitol to reiterate that he would answer “any legitimate questions” in a public hearing. “Republicans do not want an open process where Americans can see their tactics, expose their baseless inquiry, or hear what I have to say. What are they afraid of?”

He offered his own statement. “Let me state as clearly as I can,” he said. “[M]y father was not financially involved in my business, not as a practicing lawyer, not as a board member of Burisma, not in my partnership with a Chinese private businessman, not in my investments at home nor abroad, and certainly not as an artist,” he said. “There is no evidence to support the allegations that my father was financially involved in my business, because it did not happen,” he said. 

He portrayed his father as a loving parent who supported him through his addiction struggle, and noted that Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) had showed naked photos of him in a committee hearing, taking “the light of my dad’s love for me” and presenting it “as darkness.”

Republicans say they will prosecute Hunter Biden for contempt of Congress because he defied a subpoena. But that, too, is awkward, as a number of Republican representatives—including Judiciary Committee chair Jim Jordan (R-OH)—ignored subpoenas from the House Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the U.S. Capitol. 

Pushing the idea that there is a “Biden crime family” is a transparent effort to create confusion by suggesting that the Bidens are simply the Democratic version of the Trumps, whose family business, the Trump Organization, was found guilty of tax fraud in January 2023. Judge Arthur Engoron also found that company, along with Trump and his two older sons and two other employees, liable for bank fraud in September 2023 and is currently considering fines of at least $250 million and ending the Trumps’ ability to do business in New York. Testimony in that trial concluded today. 

With no comparable Biden Organization, Republicans are trying to invent one. 

Their effort to convince voters that President Biden is corrupt has led to the tail wagging the dog as, after hearing constantly about how lawless Biden is, their supporters have demanded that House Republicans launch an impeachment inquiry into him. Today, House Republicans unanimously voted to open such an inquiry, though the lack of evidence made them caution that such an inquiry did not mean they would ultimately impeach the president. 

When asked what he’s hoping to gain from an impeachment inquiry, Representative Troy Nehls (R-TX) answered: “All I can say is Donald J. Trump 2024, baby.”

Biden reacted with uncharacteristic anger, calling out Republicans for ignoring the many imperative issues before them in order to “waste time on this baseless political stunt that even Republicans in Congress admit is not supported by facts.” He listed the nation’s unfinished business: funding for Ukraine and Israel, immigration policy, and funding the government to avoid “self-inflicted economic crises like a government shutdown, which Republicans in Congress are driving us toward in just a few weeks because they won’t act now to fund the government and critical priorities to make life better for the American people.”

Biden pointed out that having wasted weeks after tossing out their own House speaker and “having to expel their own members”—a reference to George Santos (R-NY), whom the House expelled two weeks ago—Republicans are now “leaving for a month without doing anything to address these pressing challenges.” 

Republicans’ image has met reality today in another way, as well. In 2020, former president Trump insisted that Biden would tank the economy, but in fact, under Biden it has bloomed. Today the Dow Jones Industrial Average, one of the key measures of the stock market, climbed to a new all-time high, topping out at over 37,000. At the same time, unemployment has sat below 4% for months now, and inflation has fallen, showing that “Bidenomics” has been hugely successful. 

Tonight, though, Trump doubled down on Republican talking points, telling an audience in Iowa that unless he is reelected—presumably to reverse Biden’s policies—“we’ll have a depression the likes of which I don’t believe anybody has ever seen.” 

But in an interesting rejection of House talking points in favor of reality, this evening the Senate passed a clean $886 billion National Defense Authorization Act, which gives a 5.2% pay raise to military personnel, by a vote of 87 to 13. House Republicans had loaded the measure up with a wish list of attacks on abortion, LGBTQ+ rights, and diversity initiatives.

Tomorrow the measure will go to the House, where extremist Republicans angrily oppose it, but experts expect it will pass nonetheless. 

LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

HEATHER COX RICHARDSON

[spiderpinata]

What if her last name was Borealis?

Then her name would be Aurora Borealis.

Please give me my writing award now.

[dhaaruni]

Not everybody you find personally annoying is your ideological and moral enemy.

[electrasarchive]

By Laura Snapes

Genre: Rock

Label: Atlantic / 679

Reviewed: May 4, 2012

Marina Lambrini Diamandis' second album is a high-gloss record made with Dr. Luke, Stargate, Greg Kurstin, and Liam Howe, and dressed in layers of philosophy, mythology, and blonde wigs.

In Marina Lambrini Diamandis' oft-cited comeback interview with Popjustice last August, she introduced the concept that would lead into her second album: that of Electra Heart, a kind of not-quite-alter-ego/character/affectation/cinematic simulacrum that would feed into the follow-up to her 2010 debut LP as Marina and the Diamonds, The Family Jewels. Representing Greek tragedy, the "loss and failure" side of the American Dream, a daddy complex, and the vacuity apparently lingering inside us all, over six months prior to the eventual release of the LP there was very much a feeling of Marina over-complicating the whole affair: trying to dress up the high-gloss record that she had made with Katy Perry's collaborators (seemingly at the behest of her major label) in layers of philosophy, mythology, artifice, and blonde wigs. (There's a babyish song here called "Hypocrates", misspelled for seemingly no good reason, and with no reference to the philosopher in the song.) It must have stung like billy-o when Lana Del Rey came along and executed precisely what Marina was aiming for, hardly having to open her much-discussed mouth in order to explain herself whilst Marina tied herself in conceptual knots. In short, Electra Heart bears no profound relationship to Greek mythology or philosophical thought beyond exploring situations of basic human pathos (or lack thereof), but its rare affecting moments are heavy with tragedy.

The Family Jewels was disliked by many for its vaudevillian Sparks-like gaucheness, Marina's self-aggrandizement and cock-a-hoop vocal (though there's no doubting the chops of a song like "Hollywood"). But there was a sense of personality to the music as well as Diamandis' deep, hiccupy voice, and a promising sense of audaciousness that's been all but lost here. Working with Dr. Luke, Stargate, Greg Kurstin, and Liam Howe, the songs on Electra Heart fall into three basic categories: the bland, swampy banger (sub-category: "Lies"' Skrillex-lite), a regal, electronic strut falling somewhere between Depeche Mode at their poppiest and the Doctor Who theme tune, and very cloying, nursery rhyme music-box ballads. The campy ding-dong of "The State of Dreaming" is as close as Electra Heart gets to fun, with huge church bells whooshing from side to side in the mix like a pantomime dame testing the trajectory of her ball gown skirts. Relegating great early single "Radioactive" to the bonus tracks on the deluxe version of the LP is nearly as daft as some of the waffle that Marina comes out with here.

Marina really, really wants you to know that she's into pop culture, though the lazy, meaningless strings of references that comprise a good chunk of the songs here aren't any kind of postmodern comment on the Tumblr-ification of society, but just plain bad songwriting. The bombardment of archetypes and clichés is exhausting: "Beauty queen of a silver screen" persuading someone to buy her "a big diamond ring" on "Primadonna"; the titular "Homewrecker" (where excruciatingly bad spoken word verses clash against a pretty triumphant chorus) whose "life is a mess, but I'm still looking pretty in this dress." "Teen Idle" is just horrible, a glitchy ballad that sounds as though it was recorded in a church, where she wishes to be a "virgin pure/ A 21st century whore," "a prom queen fighting for the title/ instead of being 16 and burning up a bible/ feeling super super super suicidal," a chorus of Marinas echoing "super." She wishes for "blood, guts, and angel cake" because "I'm gonna puke it anyway," a weird preoccupation of hers that also crops up in "Homewrecker" ("girls and their cosmic gourmet vomit"), continued from "Girls" on her debut. But as for ending the ego, Marina does seem obsessed with ideas of finality and death-- knowing "where I will belong/ When they blow me out" on the quavering, celestial "Fear and Loathing"-- seemingly finding solace in the reliability of microcosmic, compact celebrity tragedies, perhaps in the face of the parts of this album that ring desperately true.

"You only ever touch me in the dark/ Only if we're drinking can you see my spark," she sings on "Lies". "The only time you open up is when we get undressed," she laments on "Starring Role", which glimmers like clashing porcelain before a stuttering, empowering chorus where she refuses to be a supporting cast member in an alluded-to love triangle. "Doesn't mean that I am weak," she asserts on "Power & Control", repeating, "I am weak, I am weak, I am weak" in an increasingly ephemeral voice. "Every day I feel the same/ Stuck, and I can never change/ Sucked into a black balloon/ Spat into an empty room" goes "Living Dead", a snappy, taut Soft Cell-like number. It feels like shaky ground to say that these vulnerable moments are Electra Heart's finest, catchiest, and hardest-hitting songs, Marina's soaring vocals packing some genuine emotion, picking up on themes of self-loathing that don't need blasé allusions to bulimia in order to indicate emotional emptiness; where the often transcendent states of sex and alcohol collaborate for profoundly dispiriting experiences. Her honesty, at least, is empowering. Whilst there's no getting past some of the duller and more unbearable material on this record, it's a real shame that it's come hamstrung in this unnecessary concept, ready for people to laugh when Marina fails to pull it off. If she'd made a record full of songs as unaffected as these four, Electra Heart could be one of the year's most acclaimed pop albums. Let's hope there's a next time.

[attila-werther]

yayyyy movie logic computer code :)

[melfiiis]

reymoo hackery

[foone]

Oh I've got a fun idea for a unique way to do a story: it's a fictional wiki page documenting the discoveries of a group of reverse engineers trying to figure out how to hack demons. They've got an API to make contracts with demons.

They've figured out to cast spells out of magical code stored in the blockchain (because of course it's a block chain, it's hell)

There's a list of spells people have found, with comments on what they might do, reports on experimentation, and attempts to decode the "source".

Like there's a subsection with a name that won't render properly because you don't have the proper demonic fonts installed, but it's got the reporting name "shinigami eyes". It's a simple divination spell, so called because it makes numbers appear over the heads of people.

They've got a home-patched version to switch it to arabic numerals for the non-hackery who can't read demonic numerals (they're base 6, of course), and they've been slowly brute forcing the different stats they can query.

The first success was a number that represents the number of days it's been since you've visited a library. Apparently that's one of the statistics stored in your the soul! And weirdly, it counts down? The spell has to query the per-person LIBRARY_THRESHOLD and then subtract from it the LIBRARY_CURRENT to get the displayed count.

It could even be real wiki: keep expanding it by adding additional pages for in-universe discoveries, like... the time they figured out how you can get test animals to cast spells from their own soul (which, being without original sin, have effectively infinite reserves).

P. S. Okay that one got me so I can't end here: they have a list of animals it doesn't work with. The implication being that some animals DO have original sin, and even better yet: these hellhackers only figured that out by accidentally selling a horse's soul to Beelzebub.

[ms-demeanor]

I thought you were a librarian

I can see where you'd get that impression.

But no I'm a former journalist with a degree in English Lit who has been doing hackery bullshit for 20 years and has been working in IT since 2011 who went back to school for a nutrition degree then pivoted to visual arts and continued working in tech while doing that.

I was also in a punk band, worked as a barista for like 10 years, and have had a pretty scattered history of doing stuff like headshave fetish videos.

[transformativeworks]

The #OTW is at #DEFCON32 this weekend (8-11 August 2024 in Las Vegas Nevada)! But in the spirit of hackery and early fan spaces - there is a little hunt to find us.

Friday & Saturday you likely find the Rogue Swag Nomad haunting Chill Out Room 2 - they will have this bag, those ears, and very neon pink and green hair. Come and get some stickers!