May 2006 – Paweł Gościcki

Powerful quote from a powerful movie

Some trust fund prosecutor, got off-message at Yale, thinks he’s gonna run this up the flagpole, make a name for himself, maybe get elected some two-bit, no-name congressman from nowhere, with the result that Russia or China can suddenly start having, at our expense, all the advantages we enjoy here. No, I tell you. No, sir. “But, Danny, these are sovereign nations.” Sovereign nations. What is a sovereign nation, but a collective of greed run by one individual? “But, Danny, they’re codified by the U.N. charter!” Legitimized gangsterism on a global basis that has no more validity than an agreement between the Crips and the Bloods! Corruption charges. Corruption? Corruption ain’t nothing more than government intrusion into market efficiencies in the form of regulation. That’s Milton Friedman. He got a goddamn Nobel Prize. We have laws against it precisely so we can get away with it. Corruption is our protection. Corruption is what keeps us safe and warm. Corruption is why you and I are prancing around here instead of fighting each other for scraps of meat out in the streets. Corruption is why we win.

The above quote comes from Syriana. It’s one of the many very controversial (yet true, at least to some degree) quotes from this terrific movie. Definitely a must see for anyone interested in the Peak Oil.

Crack your Windows password

Just for future reference. In order to crack your windows password you have to:

Download pwdump2 (homepage) and run it to dump the hashed passwords.
Crack your password online using ophcrack.

Should work for 99% of the passwords. Alternatively, you may also read this guide.

Subspace – the new meaning of life

It has all started at the Netvision conference. I was attending a lecture about advergaming (using games for advertising). The host gave a side example of an online game (almost a MMOG to be exact) called Tankmania. It’s not really an advergame, as there are no ads in the game. It was rather an example of how popular an online flash-based game can be. As soon as I had the chance I had logged into Tankmania to check it out. The next minute I was hooked. Two weeks have passed and I was playing it almost daily. The problems started appearing when the game stopped working. I could not connect for two straight days. I was desperate.

At the end of the second day I decided that it was time to try some other MMOG. Back in the day (in 1996 and 1997) I used to play Subspace. Very intensively, I might add. I could play for 12-13 hours straight. I stopped playing it when all of the official servers went offline. Back then I have thought that the game has been discontinued, but now I was on a mission to find out what has actually happened to Subspace. 10 minutes reading the Wikipedia entry and my hopes were up as the article was very clear that the game is still alive and doing quite good! And what’s more, it is still being actively developed and is completely free to play! The very next minute I was downloading the Continuum client. Upon firing up the game old memories started coming back to me. I was almost crying. Subspace, my only true love…

Subspace in all its glory

I knew my life has found a new meaning.

BTW: You can usually find me playing SSCU Trench Wars under the very meaningful nickname: XML over HTTP.

EDIT: If you want to know more about Subspace, you can watch this great introductory movie.