The inner voice

 Don't be afraid. You're regressing to a primative but desirable state of being, akin to the amorphous mass of consciousness which predates the ostensibly objective reality which you choose to occupy.

A Vignette

Like most people of the time, I find myself falling into love to the soundtrack of famine and war. The object of my adulation is bequeathed a recondite beauty. A transcendant presence. Oddly, she never looks directly at me. Skittish. Uncertain. Scared. Occasionally I catch glimpses of her bare soul through a reflection of a reflection, but her reckless aloofness drowns me in the realisation that my fault, my failure, is not in my passions, but in my lack of control of them.

If only she could let go. Dive into absolution from the weight which fastens her gaze to the safety of her feet. If only she would look up, I imagine she'd see the scattered evening sky reflected in my dark pupils.

Has this happened yet? No. Will it? I don't know.

Are you worried? Because I'm not.

Tethering mobile devices for free

In today's glorious world of mobile computing and smartphones, the line which separates "mobile devices" from actual computers is becoming increasingly blurred and will soon disappear entirely.

Many individuals have taken to using their smartphones as broadband connections for other devices such as laptops and netbooks in a process commonly known as "tethering". As far as convenience goes, the benefits are pretty clear: a single, portable Internet access point for use with whichever device is most readily available at the time.

Unfortunately many providers in various countries have taken steps to either reduce or profit from this activity by either making tethering a violation of their terms of service, or offering a separate "tethering package" - which essentially amounts to making you pay an additional service overhead whenever you want to use your phone as a modem for another device.

Legality and ethics aside, this article isn't meant to focus on the why, but rather on the how. Specifically, how can they tell you're tethering, and what can be done to circumvent it? We'll approach these one at a time.

How can they tell?

All IP packets have a field known as the TTL. This stands for the Time To Live. Every "hop" a datagram takes from one router to the next on the way to its destination reduces the TTL by one. Once the TTL reaches zero, the packet is dropped.

This functionality was implemented so that packets affected by some routing error and which find themselves going in a circle will eventually simply disappear as soon as their TTL reaches 0, instead of snowballing into a packet storm. All routing devices do this, and generally it's a Good Thing.

All operating systems have a standard TTL set on outgoing datagrams up to a maximum possible value of 255. Let's assume that both your Windows laptop and your iPhone have a TTL of 128. When you connect to the Internet directly from your phone, the data packets leave the device and hit your network provider's router (the first hop) with a TTL of 128. The router will decrement the value by one to 127 as the packet leaves their network on its way to the Internet.

On the other hand if you're connecting from a laptop using your iPhone, the phone itself is acting as a router and any packets originating on the laptop will have a TTL of 127 as soon as they hit your provider's router. In this way they can see that there was an additional network hop before the packet reached them, and from this they logically deduce that the iPhone is tethered to a laptop/notebook/whatever.

Okay, so how can we get around that?

The most obvious solution is to modify the TTL of the datagrams at their source. If, as in the example above, the TTL on your iPhone is set to 128, changing the default TTL on your laptop to 129 will mean that after the value is decremented by your phone, the provider will receive a packet with the expected TTL of 128. To them it will appear as though you're browsing directly from your phone.

Unfortunately there is one caveat: If the TTL on your mobile device is set to 255, I'm afraid you're shit-outta-luck. Seeing as the TTL is an 8-bit field in IPv4 packets, it can only accomodate 256 possible values: 0 - 255. You cannot possibly set it to 256 on any device ever. Fortunately in most circumstances this is not the case.

According to Deutsche Telekom Laboratories (PDF), "The default IP TTLs of popular MHDs (mobile hand-held devices) differ from those of the most commonly used home OSs. The default TTL of iPhones/iPods and Macs is 64, Symbian uses 69, while Windows uses 128. This enables us to separate MHD usage from regular PC."

To modify the default TTL in Windows, do the following:

1. Click on Start and Run (or Search) and type "regedit" to open the Windows registry editor.
2. Navigate to the following registry key: [HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\Tcpip\Parameters]
3. In the right-hand pane, right-click and select "New - DWORD (32-bit value)" and set its name to "DefaultTTL" and its value to anything between 0 and 255.

On Unix-like operating systems, the TTL is usually set to 64. In BSD or OS X you can easily change it using sysctl to modify net.inet.ip.ttl. For Linux, simply modify the net.ipv4.ip_default_ttl sysctl variable. To make the changes persist across reboots, add the changes to /etc/sysctl.conf. If you're unfamiliar with using sysctl, be sure to read the man page before proceeding.

A few last thoughts.

Already a few possible questions pop up in my head.

"Why not just spoof my User Agent when browsing?" I have always been and remain against spoofing of User Agents. Not only does it damage the efficacy of legitimate browser statistics, but it simply does not work. It's like a burglar who begins to meow after being caught red-handed in the hope that you'll assume he's a kitten and leave him alone. Any device, application or extension that promises to protect you by spoofing your UA is snake oil.

"Isn't there some other way that they can tell?" Frankly yes, but you don't need to worry about it. This would require deep packet inspection, and for any ISP who would benefit from disallowing or charging for tethering, DPI would be prohibitively expensive.

"Can I get in trouble doing this?" No. Changing the default TTL on your laptop/netbook/PC is absolutely not prohibited by any law. Just don't e-mail your mobile provider boasting about how you "cleverly" circumvented their tethering policy. You'll find your contract voided painfully fast.

"Can I damage my computer or my network doing this?" As long as you don't set the TTL inordinately low nor go out of your way to do stupid things with firewalls, you'll be fine. Imagine a TTL set to 5 and after a 4-hop loop the packet arrives back at your router. The loop will continue indefinitely until you reboot the router.

In summary, TTLs are serious business!

Good luck and have fun!

Guilt, denial and groupthink

As is normal for a group of people who work together, every once in a while at our office an email gets sent out - usually by the boss - hilighting and chastising some egregious behaviour; be it anything from unprofessional conduct with a client to a lack of hygene in the bathroom.

A personal observation is that, usually without variance, every member of our staff (bear in mind, we are a small company of only 8 employees, all sharing a single office) replies with some form of indignation at the behaviour described. Seeing as at least one member of staff must be guilty of said behaviour, the fact that there is a universal display of scorn introduces an ostensible paradox.

From a purely cognitive point of view, this phenomenon never ceases to fascinate me, and I believe it treads into the realm of a branch of mathematics known as game theory.

When the original email enters the wilderness of the office network, the initial reaction of everyone involved is to speculate as to whom the guilty party might be; a zero-sum game is created. By responding with (sincere or pseudo) indignation, the individual believes himself to be removed from the pool of possible suspects. However, the consequences of this behaviour are purely mathematical and fully predictable.

As the pool of possible suspects shrinks, so does the likelihood increase that more individuals will react with this form of veiled denial in order to remove themselves from the pool and eliminate any chance of suspicion. Of course, the guilty party (or parties) must play this game too, in order to avert suspicion. This eventually leads to the absurd conclusion that everyone appears to be in equal disgust at behaviour in which at least one of the parties involved must surely have participated. Thus, everyone involved ends up looking even more foolish.

This is a variation of the so-called prisoner's dilemma that is occasionally found in game theory. As the dilemma itself illustrates, the best possible outcome for all parties involved is to accept, each and equally, some measure of the guilt and for no single individual to deny any burden of the guilt. In this way, the shared guilt amounts to less of a loss than the shared foolishness of the absurdity of a universal denial in the face of evidence to the contrary.

The dilemma, of course, is that none of the parties involved cooperates, even though it's in everyone's best interest to do so.

In this example we see mathematical principles being highlighted in our daily interactions, and not simply being relegated to the notebooks of mathematicians.

The legend of Jenga-henge

So a friend and I were bored the other day and played some Jenga. After what seemed like literally minutes, we got bored and gave up, at which point I completed construction on a monument that would make the Druids themselves weep: Jenga-henge.

Glorious Jenga-henge

May it stand for a thousand years!

 But as the legend foretells, the completion of this decadent monument angered the old gods! They sent in their most vicious monsters as retribution for this vulgar display of ego!

"What's this, then?"

Destruction!

Oh, the humanity!

A challenger appears...

Tag-team destruction.

Surveying the carnage.

Jenga-henge is no more.

"What?"

May the legend of Jenga-henge live forever, and serve as a lesson to those consumed by hubris.

Your photography sucks

Have you noticed how everyone and their mother claims photography as a hobby nowadays? Do you know why? I'll cut right through the bullshit: because it's easy.

Okay, that's a bit of an explosive statement; good photography is everything but easy, in much the same way that good abstract expressionism is - I would imagine - extremely fucking difficult to pull off, but that doesn't stop anyone capable of projectile defecating paint from calling themselves an "artist".

Jackson Pollock was a genius. Whoever came up with this abomination, well...

Which brings me neatly to the next point in this disjointed rant: photography is the oil-on-canvas of the twenty first century. Anyone within snatching distance of a camera is equipped to take a picture and plaster it on their Flickr profile, but that doesn't make them a photographer any more than taking a laxative would make me a proctologist.

Annie Leibovitz, Robert Mapplethorpe... These people are photographers. You? You're an asshole with a camera, too much time, and not enough negative reinforcement.

Addendum: Yes, I do recall that I, too, have a Flickr profile. However, I've never claimed to be a photographer nor denied being a hypocrite.

Selective load balancing with Squid and iproute2

Recently I was asked by a client to develop a load balancing solution over two of their ADSL lines, but only for http traffic, and only for specific users. Sounds like a pain in the ass, right? Well, it was.

Essentially they've got four ADSL links:

• eth0: 111.111.111.111 (main uncapped line)
• eth1: 100.100.100.11
• eth2: 100.100.100.22
• eth3: 100.100.100.33

eth0 is the default route where all traffic goes through, and eth3 is used for something else.

They're using Squid as their proxy server, and want all traffic for a specific Squid ACL (let's call it "employees") to be load balanced between eth1 and eth2.

My biggest worry was in how to set this up without having to alter the default route on the system, but - as is always the case with Linux - there is a way if you look hard enough.

My first thought was to use iptables to mark packets, then set up an iproute2 rule to pick up on those packets and forward them to the relevant routing table. Unfortunately, the best one could do with this method is manipulate all http traffic, however, as mentioned, only the traffic for specific users must be load balanced.

Obviously, this method won't work.

The key to the solution is Squid's TCP_OUTGOING_TOS configuration directive. This directive allows one to set the TOS value in outgoing IP packets on a per-ACL basis. What this means is that if you have an ACL called "employees", you can have all traffic generated by the users in that ACL have the TOS set to an arbitrary value. You can then use an iproute2 rule to pick up on all packets with that value set and do whatever you want with them. Bingo!

Firstly, we need to create three routing tables: ADSL1, ADSL2 and BALANCE. This is usually done in /etc/iproute2/rt_tables.

Then we begin adding routing information:

# Assumes 100.100.100.10 is the address of the router on eth1

ip route add 100.100.100.9/29 dev eth1 src 100.100.100.11 table ADSL1

ip route add default via 100.100.100.10 table ADSL1

# Assumes 100.100.100.21 is the address of the router on eth2

ip route add 100.100.100.20/29 dev eth2 src 100.100.100.22 table ADSL2

ip route add default via 100.100.100.21 table ADSL2

Now we add some rules

# eth1 traffic goes to table ADSL1

ip rule add from 100.100.100.11 table ADSL1

# eth2 traffic goes to table ADSL2

ip rule add from 100.100.100.22 table ADSL2

# Squid sets desired traffic TOS. Marked traffic goes to table BALANCE

ip rule add tos 0x0c table BALANCE

And finally we create the multilink route in the table BALANCE.

ip route add default scope global table BALANCE nexthop via 100.100.100.10 dev eth1 weight 1 nexthop via 100.100.100.21 dev eth2 weight 1

Then finally, in your Squid configuration, simply add the configuration directive

tcp_outgoing_tos 0x0c employees

That's pretty much it. iptraf confirms that all http traffic for the desired ACL gets balanced over eth1 and eth2. Obviously the load balancing won't be perfect due to route caching, etc. But it probably is the most beautiful solution possible without splashing out on a pricey Cisco router or some such.

For more information, be sure to read the Linux Advanced Routing & Traffic Control HOWTO.

Candle Cove

So, earlier today my friend and I end up talking over coffee about some fond childhood shows. He mentions an old show broadcast for a short time here during the 80s, but originally from the early 70s I think. It was called Candle Cove, and was about a girl who's friends with imaginary pirates (played by puppets) with an incredibly creepy villain. I'm talking the stuff of nightmares, here. Unbelievable what they passed off as kids shows back then, but I digress.

What triggered my curiosity - and nostalgia - was when he mentioned that it gave him strange recurring dreams. I was too young to remember exactly - so maybe it's just a false memory brought up by the conversation - but I'm rather sure the show gave me nightmares as well. The last episode in particular was, well, odd.

I looked into it, and I've never really experienced a comparable level of being both nostalgic and freaked out at the same time.

After scouring the net for a while, I came across a few articles on the show, including the following discussion taken from a forum thread from about four or five years ago:

Candle Cove
NetNostalgia Forum - Television (local)

Skyshale033
Subject: Candle Cove local kid's show?
Does anyone remember this kid's show? It was called Candle Cove and I must have been 6 or 7, I never found reference to it anywhere so I think it was on a local station around 1971 or 1972. I lived in Ironton at the time. I don't remember which station, but I do remember it was on at a weird time, like 4:00 PM.

mike_painter65
Subject: Re: Candle Cove local kid's show?
it seems really familiar to me.....i grew up outside of ashland and was 9 yrs old in 72. candle cov...wasit about pirates? i remember a pirate marionete at the mouth of a cave talking to a little girl

Skyshale033
Subject: Re: Candle Cove local kid's show?
YES! Okay I'm not crazy! I remember Pirate Percy. I was always kind of scared of him. He looked like he was built from parts of other dolls, real low-budget. His head was an old porcelain baby doll, looked like an antique that didn't belong on the body. I don't remember what station this was! I don't think it was WTSF though.

Jaren_2005
Subject: Re: Candle Cove local kid's show?
Sorry to ressurect this old thread but I know exactly what show you mean, Skyshale. I think Candle Cove ran for only a couple months in '71, not '72. I was 12 and I watched it a few times with my brother. It was channel 58, whatever station that was. My mom would let me switch to it after the news- Let me see what I remember.
It took place in Candle cove, and it was about a little girl who imagined herself to be friends with pirates. The pirate ship was called the Laughingstock, and Pirate Percy wasn't a very good pirate because he got scared too easily. And there was calliope music constantly playing. Don't remember the girl's name. Janice or Jade or something. Think it was Janice.

Skyshale033
Subject: Re: Candle Cove local kid's show?
Thank you Jaren!!! Memories flooded back when you mentioned the Laughingstock and channel 58. I remember the bow of the ship was a wooden smiling face, with the lower jaw submerged. It looked like it was swallowing the sea and it had that awful Ed Wynn voice and laugh. I especially remember how jarring it was when they switched from the wooden/plastic model, to the foam puppet version of the head that talked.

mike_painter65
Subject: Re: Candle Cove local kid's show?
ha ha i remember now too. :) do you remember this part skyshale: "you have...to go...INSIDE"

Skyshale033
Subject: Re: Candle Cove local kid's show?
Ugh mike, I got a chill reading that. Yes I remember. That's what the ship always told Percy when there was a spooky place he had to go in, like a cave or a dark room where the treasure was. And the camera would push in on Laughingstock's face with each pause. YOU HAVE... TO GO... INSIDE. With his two eyes askew and that flopping foam jaw and the fishing line that opened and closed it. Ugh. It just looked so cheap and awful.
You guys remember the villain? He had a face that was just a handlebar mustache above really tall, narrow teeth.

kevin_hart
Subject: Re: Candle Cove local kid's show?
i honestly, honestly thought the villain was pirate percy- i was about 5 when this show was on. nightmare fuel.

Jaren_2005
Subject: Re: Candle Cove local kid's show?
That wasn't the villain, the puppet with the mustache. That was the villain's sidekick, Horace Horrible. He had a monocle too, but it was on top of the mustache. I used to think that meant he had only one eye. But yeah, the villain was another marionette. The Skin-Taker. I can't believe what they let us watch back then.

kevin_hart
Subject: Re: Candle Cove local kid's show?
jesus h. christ, the skin taker. what kind of a kids show were we watching? i seriously could not look at the screen when the skin taker showed up. he just descended out of nowhere on his strings, just a dirty skeleton wearing that brown top hat and cape. and his glass eyes that were too big for his skull. christ almighty.

Skyshale033
Subject: Re: Candle Cove local kid's show?
Wasn't his top hat and cloak all sewn up crazily? Was that supposed to be children's skin??

mike_painter65
Subject: Re: Candle Cove local kid's show?
yeah i think so. rememer his mouth didn't open and close, his jaw just slid back and foth. i remember the little girl said "why does your mouth move like that" and the skin-taker didn't look at the girl but at the camera and said "TO GRIND YOUR SKIN"

Skyshale033
Subject: Re: Candle Cove local kid's show?
I'm so relieved that other people remember this terrible show! I used to have this awful memory, a bad dream I had where the opening jingle ended, the show faded in from black, and all the characters were there, but the camera was just cutting to each of their faces, and they were just screaming, and the puppets and marionettes were flailing spastically, and just all screaming, screaming- The girl was just moaning and crying like she had been through hours of this- I woke up many times from that nightmare- I used to wet the bed when I had

kevin_hart
Subject: Re: Candle Cove local kid's show?
i don't think that was a dream. i remember that. i remember that was an episode.

Skyshale033
Subject: Re: Candle Cove local kid's show?
No no no, not possible. There was no plot or anything, I mean literally just standing in place crying and screaming for the whole show.

kevin_hart
Subject: Re: Candle Cove local kid's show?
maybe i'm manufacturing the memory because you said that, but i swear to god i remember seeing what you described. they just screamed.

Jaren 2005
Subject: Re: Candle Cove local kid's show?
Oh God. Yes. The little girl, Janice, I remember seeing her shake. And the Skin-Taker screaming through his gnashing teeth, his jaw careening so wildly I thought it would come off its wire hinges. I turned it off and it was the last time I watched. I ran to tell my brother and we didn't have the courage to turn it back on.

mike_painter65
Subject: Re: Candle Cove local kid's show?
i visited my mom today at the nursing home. i asked her about when i was littel in the early 70s, when i was 8 or 9 and if she remebered a kid's show, candle cove. she said she was suprised i could remember that and i asked why, and she said "because i used to think it was so strange that you said 'i'm gona go watch candle cove now mom' and then you would tune the tv to static and juts watch dead air for 30 minutes. you had a big imagination with your little pirate show."


EDIT:
Thanks to the wonders of the communication age, I was able to find a couple of episodes online.

Here is the infamous last episode... I told you it was, erm, odd: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o2h5ym6ZlVY

Here's another episode from the show... the part where he talks about "to grind your skin" really creeped (creeps) me out: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CjP6eVDjuIM

An ode to the octopodes

What is the plural of octopus? 'Octopodes', 'octopi', and 'octopuses' get thrown about, but which is most correct?

First of all, 'octopuses' is reached simply by applying the classical rules of English pluralization to the word octopus, rendering it a grammatically - though not traditionally - correct plural form.

'Octopi' originated due to a mistaken assumption that the word octopus is Latin in origin.  This is an easy mistake to make, considering that 'octo' is the Latin word for eight, and the '-us' ending suggests a Latin word suffix of the second declension.  However, it is significant to note that the Latin word 'octo' actually derives from the Greek word 'okto', also meaning eight.

Were octopus a Latin word, it would actually be spelt 'octopes' (falling in the fifth declension), and be pluralized as 'octopedes'.

Arguably, the most correct plural of octopus is 'octopodes'.  The reason for this is because, as hinted at earlier, the word octopus actually derives from the Greek (not Latin) word 'oktopous' which is pluralized in the form 'oktopodes'.  This use is, however, comparatively rare.

Surely a grammar lesson can't be all this post is about, so I'll throw in some amusing octopus-related anecdotes:

I love octopus; it is just the most amazing creature. Once, when I was snorkelling, I happened to notice this lazy bit of weed sprouting, unusually, out of a hole with the hollowed out head of a cray fish attached to it.  As my eye is usually tuned to such things, I decided to get a closer look and, of course, it turned out to be an octopus... fishing!

You see, he was just sitting in his hole, lazily dangling a tentacle out of it, using the crayfish to attract small whiting and other fish stupids to his lair; as soon as they'd come in for a quick feed - BANG! - out he'd shoot, grab 'em, and into his hole he'd go.  I watched him fishing like that for about an hour, and it was truly fascinating the way that little arm swung around in the current, just lolling about with his craftily deployed crayfish head.  Brilliant little buggers.

On another occasion, I found an octopus at low tide, all holed up.  Ran back to the flats and scooped up a handful of soldier crabs, and returned to the occy hole to drop them, one by one, around his lair.  I've never been more tickled than by seeing this little bugger drop out first one arm for a fat juicy soldier crab, then another, then another, until eventually he had six independent battles going on simultaneously, and still he wouldn't let go of any of them.  Of course, once he'd retreated with his fat cache o' crab, I dropped a little gold coin in the sunshine right out his lair, and he darted out, leaving the real treasure behind, to take a look.  Out he came, and then less than a heartbeat later, about twelve soldier crabs too, very mildly chewed, scattering off over the sands.

If you're ever watching an octopus be sure to have something shiny to lure them around with; they simply can't stand not to possess the shine.  I've had them crawl all over me and follow me for hours just trying to get the gold coins out of the mesh pockets in my snorkel trunks.

A pressing matter

What with Facebook changing their layout into a redundant, buggy mess yet again, some of my friends asked me to write a rant about the situation.  Well, seeing as I don't really care anymore, here's a rant for you:

Write it yourselves if you feel so strongly about it!  Or how about this, stop whining and don't use a service you don't like and are in no way paying for!

However, if you do need my wit to validate your own opinions, then I'm sure you're already aware of the fact that I have addressed this issue in the past.  Sure that article is boring and outdated now, but it's still better than anything you could come up with.

No, today I have decided to tackle a real and serious issue that has been vexing me greatly: Cow farts.

Studies show that cows emit massive amounts of methane through burping and farting.  Methane, of course, is a major contributor to global warming and is 23 times more powerful than carbon dioxide.  Some experts say that the average dairy cow emits up to 500 liters of methane per day, which is comparable to the average car on the road.  As we know, cars are a major contributing factor to the fact[1] of global warming.

An ongoing study by Welsh scientists is examining whether feeding cows garlic can have an impact on cow flatulence.  Early results suggest that a garlic based diet reduces cow farts by 50%, but result in disgusting milk.

Other efforts include a Fart Tax proposed by the government of New Zealand which was not adopted because it's fucking stupid.

What can be done about the problem?  Personally, I suggest a re-evaluation of the beef industry.  In a world where overpopulation is rife and we don't know what to do with unwanted children, the elderly or the homeless, do we really need to look towards another species as a source of dietary meat?


[1] Not really.  For an intelligent and totally unbiased look at global warming from an unbiased perspective, see this article.  Oh, did I mention it's in no way biased whatsoever?  Because it's not.

Why updates have been scarce

The recent sales on Steam have left me quite a bit less broke than I might have been had I bought a couple of dozen games at their usual prices, but it has left me in complete poverty as far as free time and productivity are concerned.

As you can tell from my Steam screenshot, my preference is generally for strategy, real-time tactics, and role-playing games.  The main culprits thus far have been my favourite MMO Eve Online, and an absolute little gem of an indie platformer called Braid that has managed to make itself one of my favourite games of all time.

I was hoping to make this post a little bit longer and more interesting, but these games aren't going to play themselves, you know...

Polyphasic sleep: A followup

Well, I've been trying dilligently for the past week or so, but - would you believe it - the one week I decide to give this a shot, I actually develop a social life.  A number of  social engagements that crept up on me over the past week have turned out to be difficult, if not impossible, to reschedule.

One of the drawbacks of a polyphasic sleep schedule is the unacceptability of missing just a single nap.  Miss one, and you're thrown off for a day; miss two, and you're completely screwed. After about three or four days of sticking with it faithfully, I began to miss naps and the whole thing fell apart.  Even an impromptu fishing expedition with my brother this morning was more than marginally unpleasant due to accumulated sleep debt.

If even during what is supposedly a holiday I am unable to make time for this sort of thing, I seriously doubt I'll be able to keep it going during normal life.  I can't say I consider it a healthy lifestyle, nor can I say it was fun while it lasted, but, goddamn, if it isn't interesting!

Reddit Secret Santa

Reddit recently ran an ambitious, community-driven Secret Santa project.  Initially it was a niche interest idea from a handful of lunatics, but the idea quickly picked up steam and received strong support from redditors.  It didn't take very long for redditgifts to become the biggest Secret Santa exchange in history.  The story got picked up by the mainstream media who ran with it as a lovely Yuletide story of an online community acting as a force for good, which is quite remarkable as most online communities specialize in ruining lives.

Let me get to the point:  I participated, and I finally received my gift!  The wait is the consequence of international shipping, but it was more than worth it.  I initially signed up with the intention of brightening a stranger's life - which, I am told, is the correct spirit in which these endeavours are to be undertaken - so the fact that I got anything at all, let alone a terrific gift, is just a bonus.

As you can see, my Secret Santa - an obviously intelligent, sophisticated and good looking redditor who goes by the handle ultimatenerd - got me a Pedobear plush from Desu Toys to keep my cat Molly company, and a copy of Max Brooks' The Zombie Survival Guide; a book I've been meaning to read for quite a while now.

I'm thrilled with my gift from the Internet, and I'm already looking forward to 2010's Reddit Secret Santa exchange!

Polyphasic sleep

One of the benefits of working from home - and, from past experience, being unemployed - is that I get to make my own schedule.  A consequence of this is that my sleeping patterns tend to get severely warped.  As much effort as I put into having a healthy sleeping pattern, my aversion to having eight to ten wasted hours per day and my general enjoyment of the various activities with which I occupy myself, I usually end up with my circadian rhythms having me go to sleep at five or six in the morning.

With my sleeping patterns having yet again reached a nadir in productivity, and with the benefit of still technically being on holiday, I've decided finally to give polyphasic sleep a try.  A lot more has been written about it than I could, so I'll try not to rehash too much other than to explain that the system of polyphasic sleep I'll be attempting to adopt involves sleeping six times per day, for twenty to thirty minutes at a time.

Allegedly it takes about a week to adjust to the system, and fortunately my plate for the next week or two is rather manageable - even in the throes of sleep deprivation.  My naps will occur at 02:00, 06:00, 10:00, 14:00, 18:00, and 22:00.  This is quite convenient, as the naps will occur at the same hours on either side of noon.  In total, I'll get roughly three hours of sleep per "day" (my concept of what constitutes a day or a night will need re-evaluation.).  Reportedly this is as much as the human body requires under this system, and most people who have successfully switched - I admit, there aren't many - report feeling more alert, healthy and productive than they ever have before.  With this in mind, it certainly can't hurt to try! (don't quote me on that if I die)  A potential pitfall lies in missing a nap; while delaying a nap for up to an hour in a pinch is acceptable, missing just one scheduled nap can derail the entire system and require a great deal of time and effort for recovery.  Self-discipline and a strict schedule are the order of the day.

If SEALS can make it through Hell Week, then I can make it through a week of sleep deprivation until my body adjusts.

Another  potential problem with polyphasic sleep is that a person eats more - after all, you're awake for longer.  The fact that my diet already consists of six small and carefully planned meals per day meshes well with my new endeavour, so that's the least of my concerns.

Ultimately, there's very little science to back this up and long-term studies on its effects and efficacy are non-existent, so I'm not optimistic of success.  Let's just call it a temporary hobby until my holiday officially ends.

So my question is: What would you do with 30 to 40 extra hours per week?

Irish blasphemy law becomes operational

The new Irish blasphemy law becomes operational in Ireland today.  This type of law is silly, outdated and dangerous.  Are you religious and don't believe me?  Then recall that Jewish high priests had Jesus executed for the "crime" of blasphemy.  Jesus understood the importance of questioning, criticizing and subverting religious belief... and they nailed him to a cross for it.

That's precisely why this type of law is patently absurd.  Blasphemy is an arbitrary accusation that can - and often is - reinterpreted by individuals and groups to fit their particular need.  Even in Christianity, what is considered gospel to one branch is considered blasphemy to the other.

When you have ill defined laws, you have judicial manipulation and eventually end up with tyranny.