deekoo.net

Deekoo is a peripatetic and iconoclastic game programmer with a thing for tentacles and a deep and abiding mistrust of the creeping surveillance state.
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December 4, 2008:


Slime Colours: Brown, Red, and Yellow.

I seem to have leveled up in malware management - I now have a standard procedure for dealing with Cutwail infestations when I control a reasonably powerful router between the infected machine and the Internet. Also, I've reported a New Trojan to the clamav virusdb maintainers (it stole WoW passwords for a pack of goldfarmers hosted in Texas). Unfortunately, they seem to have listed my two samples as two separate pieces of malware, when they're fairly clearly a single polymorphic one, which doesn't exactly fill me with confidence.

Other odd tasks: implementing things that I thought I'd already done (too many times), and both typesetting a language that I don't understand (Russian) and devising a 7-bit character encoding for it. (Why 7-bit? Well, the target OS for that project is Windows; I don't actually have access to a Russian Windows install, so debugging any problems caused by windows being Smart and actually paying attention to font encoding directives would be a veritable nightmare - and I really don't look forward to the notion of installing a dozen different versions of Windows in a language I don't understand to check for bugs that I might not be able to recognize without understanding the language they're in.).
... and then, a day later, going through and correcting a case problem in the original translated document. I'm not sure WHY every B at the beginning of a word was capitalized...

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October 15, 2008:


A blatant allegory

Mighty nice place of business you have here.

It'd be a right shame were something bad to happen to it. Real flammable, all this paper you have here. It'd go up in the snap of a finger.

No, I'm not with the maphiya. It really hurts me when people assume a big guy in a suit has to be a crook. Look, I'm here to help you. I'm selling insurance. Fire insurance, theft insurance, vandalism insurance, the works.

I wish Guido over there would stop playing with his lighter. It makes me nervous. Little guy like you, if you asked him to stop he'd probably just laugh. Hey, Guido, knock it off, would you? That's better. I mean, I know you say you can't afford insurance, but you can't afford NOT to have it either. Some firebug comes by when I'm not here to tell him to quit it, the place goes right up.

Good, you're a smart man, you can see we'll work well together.

...

About that loan your friend wants... well, look, I'm not made of money. You already owe me more than I care to think about, and a nice guy like you, I wouldn't want to have to put you in collections, if you know what I mean.

But you're a good guy, and I know you're good for it. The real problem is that I'm strapped for cash myself - you know Joe who usedta live down the street? Yeah, the guy with the Porsche and that big house? Always talked of making it big on the daily double, so smooth you'd figure sure he'd win it? Nice guy. Stunning guy. His pension wasn't up to the payments on the car and the house, and you know how he loved them. Couldn't choose between 'em. So he came to me for a loan. Figured he'd refinance, and when he made it big he'd pay me back, we'd all be happy as clams, him with his fast car in his big garage, me with the satisfied feeling I get from making other people happy.

So to cut to the quick, I lent him more than was a good idea - you know how I'm a soft touch. And, well, you know how it goes with Joe. If he's short on cash, he bets it all on the long shot - helps him out big when it comes through, but sometimes it doesn't. And even the best of guys, there comes a time when you've got to say no more - if I'd let him slide back in August, I wouldn't've been able to help you out that time you missed work for a couple weeks. So eventually I wound up having to collect. Trouble is, the long shot didn't come in and Joe didn't have any cash - and now I'm stuck with this house and this car. And look at the market these days. Nobody's buying. I'll be lucky if I get half what I gave him back.

So, let me get right to the point. I don't have any cash on hand now. But you've worked with me a long time, so you know how the insurance business goes, if you know what I mean. If you'll just help me land a few stubborn sales, I'll be able to help people out again. You'll be doing everyone a favor, trust me - those misers who won't buy insurance just wind up costing everyone else money, so the sooner we take them under the wing the sooner we won't have to worry that some fire's going to spread and take out other people's stores too.

...

I must say, this has been a wonderful partnership. Wouldn't you agree, Senator?

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