You're going to need a ladder

My blog does not represent the views of Murdoch or any of its affiliates. All posts are NOT to be taken seriously and are written only for entertainment purposes.


Some of you maybe surprised at which another post had popped up, but I have peer reviews, non-functioning requirements, a program OR essay and BGP study to do, so a blog post was inevitable.  Additionally, over the course of this short time, a number of people have posed me questions that I believe need to be addressed so here they are in some sort of order.


Communication is an interesting thing. Unifying the understanding of a topic between two or more parties by the use of a collectedly accepted communication protocol is challenging at the best of times. However, there are a lot of us which begin a communication session with very little to say, nothing to say, or no understanding of what we are going to say.


I hate to say it, but I say the last kind of things often.


I hope it continues to mature, but my method of delivering what makes perfect sense in my head, is less than adequate, in fact, I'm not sure if you'd even call it half baked. Frequent readers of my blog would know the stumbling point of when I've missed a word, the annoyance when I use a complicated word because I happen to have a Thesaurus in arms reach, the misspelling of a word, or constantly use 'along' instead of 'along' erm... I mean 'alone'.


Attendees of a lecture I have been present for know of my incessant calling out to voice my opinion or providing a tangent by expanding the current topic into a  poorly formed pun. There are periods in which I believe people honestly need to know my opinion, I know they don't, but I believe it's interesting or something they haven't considered, so it is stated. I have a strong belief that a lecturer of mine does read this blog, and I know would like to, on occasion, have a brick, or some other minor signal to put accross the point that I am not longer aiding the conversation, and that the other 5 or so people in the room, may indeed actually want to learn something.


Bearing all that in mind, I have over the previous week, been a selection of situations where I have said things which have led to some very interesting outcomes:


Cousin: "That Sounds like a porn star's name" Me: "You and I watch very different porn." (silence followed by awkward laughter.)


The person I was talking to sort of seemed confused by two things. 1. That I admit to watching porn 2. That I assumed, but the fact that she believed that a name sounded like a porn star, made me believe that she watches porn.


1. I admit to everything. I try not make these statements insult anyone else other than myself, I believe this makes me more outgoing as a person - or at least more fun at parties. But openly admitting to something like watching porn, which to a selection of the population is disgusting, or, not something that you should admit to in a conversation. I got introduced to the concept of sex when I was fairly young, it's quite a number years later and I'm yet to actually experience it, damn right I'm going to keep my research up. Feel like a practical physicist getting egged on by a theoretical one "I asked you to get two electrons really close together is it really that hard??"  Even guys get embarrassed talking about porn, which I think is the real problem. Dude, I'm watching porn, your watching porn, let's just simplify things, I'm not suggesting we get naked together, but you know having a chat with a couple of drinks watching a movie is much less shameful than sitting in a room on your own hoping no one knocks on the door.


2. I've always wanted to perform more absurdest sketch comedy. Ever since my first discovery of Monty Python, I've always loved the idea of saying something really stupid in a conversation and people around me just going along with it. Whilst other onlookers just get confused. Sadly there is very little spontaneous improv in Perth. And as much as I'd like to form my own group I am yet to meet a significant amount of people with the same want. A few people, yes, enough even for my 'rave in an elevator' idea, but I would really like doing something a little bigger.


The point is, I just got a bit depressed when she thought I believe that she watched porn, I know she's the type of person who didn't. I was doing it for a laugh and didn't realise that you might think it got aimed at you. That was not my intention.


In apologising for posing the allegation, there was the unfortunate affect that it just amde the moment more awkward, sort of that joilting moment out of a play when an actor yells "prompt" Accidentally losing your focus, and realising that the world presented in front of you is a lie and the actors are simply reciting dialouge from a story in which an author has cleverly controlled character and plot. Kinda makes you wanna wish you had a trumpet to at least fill the pause with that really overused Cat Empire sample from a couple of years ago. 


Geez, you see what happens when you let me go out on a tangent, it just sort of goes everywhere. No wonder murdoch wouldn't put me on their Twitter feed. WELL, MURDOCHUNI, I've asked nicely, now I'M GONNA PULL OUT THE BIG GUNS. I'M GOING TO POLITELY SUGGEST TO BROCK TO PERHAPS MENTION this short url IF HE HAPPENS TO COME ONLINE ON MSN AND IS PERHAPS THINKING ABOUT TWEETING SOMETHING TO MURDOCH UNI AND WOULDN'T MIND ADDING A FOOTNOTE.


Yeah, you know I'm serious. Look if it is about the topics I talk about, I'm sure we can come to some sort of arrangement, it's just I'd like this blog to sort of be known enough so when I leave "This graffiti now viewable on DAULMurdoch" some people know what I'm talking about. And more importantly, would make me feel that the university doesn't actually mind the fact that I have $600 worth of parking permit off them.


Thing I said number two: "FUCK. YEAH."


I remember the first time I swore. I said it quietly, barely under my breath. Just trying it on for size. It did feel good. Rebellious. I was 12. I do hate to admit I swear, not because it's rude, but because it's admitting that you don't know many words. Granted, test have shown letting off swearing during acts of extreme pressure and pain due to the unaccepted nature of the terms release endorphins, helping ease the pain. I do find it a pity how accepted into the common vernacular they have become, because there are awesome adjectives out there. But the beauty with swear words is just the fact that they get adapted into all forms of speech, verbs, adverbs, you can use it as just about anything (Not Safe For Work, not classy, and you've probably seen it before from that idiot who keeps sending you videos. I'm talking about you Steve. Not Cool. (And, for those so inclined, the anime version.). However, working at a high school I have met people who quite literally (Don't you mean figuratively? I Literally know no people who know the meaning, or use the word figuratively in everyday conversation. ... That's not funny. Yes. Yes, yes it is.) don't use any other words to extend their sentence, and it makes me sad. Partially because it makes it lose it's punch. I recall that I have sworn on the blog before and HUMBLY APOLOGISE to anyone this may have offended.


My mother has found out way too much about me already. I'm not sure how much of this blog my mother has read, but she's promised me that she read a large amount of it, and wondered how a person who rarely speaks, has so much on his mind that he believes other people should read.


But I have tried to only use it in circumstances where I don't think anything else would of worked. I use font effects such as bold to differentiate the people talking in my head because I don't think people read bold in their head very loudly, just differently. Caps lock does add something, but when you are talking about the ten seconds of film which speaks to you very loudly that you wanna get up do something about something you have no control over, so it just bubbles inside you until the voice screams profanity into the very depths of your soul until


TANGENT DETECTED. What? Oh. As I was saying, I don't mind people speaking profanity as long as it's really trying to stress a point. I was told off in second year for misusing the word "epic" in regards to fails and wins, calling fails epic, when they were indeed, regular fails. In doing so, I found epic lost it's meaning, and started using Uber and Astronomical too much, and the cycle was getting worse, luckily as a frequenter of the internet, someone was soon to re-correct my assessment of fails and wins so I didn't look like a douche on the internet, which is a challenge. Speaking of hygiene of the privates though, 


INAPPROPRIATE TANGENT DETECTED. I really wanna talk about some intimate personal hygiene products that I found very interesting, specifically it's about this gynacalogically tested deodorant I found whilst looking for tissues.


VERY INAPPROPRIATE TANGENT DETECTED. Dammit, there's this bit I wanna do about the weird things about smell pretty and I have no outlet for it, (I'm never going to get that tweet now, am I?) Facebook is filled with family members, I have no idea what the readers of this blog are offended by and the fact that one of my posts has been considered containing valuable information for study papers. (Yes, I know it was done by a search troll, it was picked up of the 74th search result page for "Need assignment site:blogspot.com, so got an automatic comment.) And another one of my posts has become an placement for an infomercial which I don't have the heart to delete due to the fact that it joins a total of 31 comments across all my posts.


Darn I would of loved to perform at the stand up on Tuesday but unfortunately never saw the place I could apply. I really wanna vent some of this blog as stand up, of course drastically shorten it. And add power point slides, cause more stand up needs power point. to at least show how to properly use power point. Either do that or a LIVE post, just have a Skype call or a live cast going the entire time I'm writing the post, so people can suggest ideas ask me to clarify things and generally put a voice and a face to a wall of text. I'm serious, email me some times and you can help me get a post which doesn't just derail into every experience I have encountering a person of the opposite sex.


"You want some company while you wait?" 


Although my social life alternatives generally serve me well in terms of talking with the outside world, there are occasions when i find myself in situations that large amounts of people would find 'normal.'  Last Saturday I went out clubbing, and for the most part, it was sitting wondering how people can live in these situations. 


I've talked about this before, but I'll say it again. If I wanted to sit with a bunch of people I've met, attempting to talk in an environment where it was impossible to communicate, while a bunch of people sit/dance near who I don't know, who have no intention of communicating or acknowledging my presence, I'd fess up to my illegal online activities (of which I partake in none.) and spend some time in prison where the food and drinks are cheaper.


For one part, what drinks do you serve? There is apparently a list somewhere of all the drinks you can get in clubs\bars, and I'd like to see it. Don't just say "What would you like?" I haven't been out drinking much, I have only tried half a dozen mixers, how do I know what I'll like? Has everyone ordered all of the drinks so they know what they like? Or do they just find one they like and stick with it? DAMMIT, JOHN, I'm a network engineer, not the owner of the second largest health and fitness chain in the greater London area, I need declaration of my parameters!


Oh and every second place is booked out with a private function, so not only do people only like socialising with only the people they know, the also must have no one else around disturbing them. Stay home. save money, and sit in your boring everyday surroundings, with your everyday people.


Is there a club somewhere, which acts like Omegle or Chat Roulette? Don't laugh like that. Yes, I know you've seen way too many naked dudes on Chat Roulette to take it seriously - I think I'm onto something here. You sit at the bar or at a table, you talk, but after a random period of time your chair moves around and places you with another group of completely random strangers. You are forced outside your comfort zone and talk with people you may hate, you may find you like. There are 6+ billion people in the world, and people are forced into friendships with people who they work with on a daily basis, there's thousands of people out there a lot of whom you'd get on with, but will never meet because there will never be introduced. Even the Facebook friend finder normally just picks up friends of friends which you already know, rather than picking randoms from the other side of the planet which you have similar status updates with. 


If you could go out and TRUELY socialise, well you never know what might happen. Sure there will be people who abuse this for one night stands, people who get into fights after being matched up with people with no common ground, but the first version of /bin/passwd would only allow one person to run it at a time. These sing only get worked out through beta testing.


Of course you could expand on this to make sensors and microphones pick up what conversations you are talking up and force like minded people to meet up, but that's no really the point.


There's a ballroom dance called Snowball, which uses this theory the compare yells "Snowball" you get with another partner. And you're forced to dance with them for a couple of minutes, so the ideas not new, so there, dear Murdoch, my "Free Thinking" idea to improve the world. Bars that make you meet people. And I didn't need to get together with a free thinking sociologist, I thought of it all by myself. Alone. On a Friday night. Wishing I had something to do.


Either that, or an alarm clock that makes no noise. There's times when my alarm clock has gone off and I haven't got up, and just switched it off, cause it's just annoying. So here we go, an alarm clock which wakes you up naturally. The body responds to sunlight a LOT. You're body becomes naturally tired in a dark environment, and the real reason it knows to wake up in the morning is because there is brighter light than there was when you went to sleep. So about 1/2 an hour before you set your alarm to 'go off' a light attached to it naturally lights up at a speed that will naturally affect the body and wake it up and ease it out of sleep nicely. If there was any noise, it would be a natural morning noise... Birds, leaves rustling... lawnmowers. That one I did come up with talking a human biologist. Not free thinking mind you, very straight forward and logical thinking, in fact. Of course, there is also the debate that the body will abruptly wake up alert to physical stimulus.  So if you could get a timer and connect it to a vibrator then maybe.. Maybe waking up could be a most enjoyable experience indeed... I am aware these sort of alerts are available to the deaf and hard of hearing, but you know, if they wake people up better, than why am I left with BEEP BEEP BEEP every morning. You have a crap day when it starts on a bad note. And I'm just saying maybe the human race could collectively have a much better life experience if waking up every morning was.. erm.. Fulfilling.


Where did my tangent monitor go? Because what I was going to talk about was a night in a club where I saw a girl alone in the corner, Matt and I had run out of things to talk about, so I decided to invite her in on a conversation cause she was bored. The first bar we went to, we were assumed to be on a date. I mean, two guys go out there immediately in a relationship? Whatever happened to 'on the prowl? Okay, one of our drinks were pink, but that's because of not knowing what drinks are available. 


Why won't this magical list of drinks available in bars include my alcoholic milkshakes? I mean, the sucky thing about alcoholic drinks, is that people drink them slowly, cause of the throat burn. Downing beer is considered impressive by groups wanting to out primal each other because they can tolerate large amounts of the burn. This could be solved by non-"stereotypically feminine orientated" drinks that taste
awesome and not like cleaning products. 


Also there should be a way to accurately calculate how much alcohol you need to make you enjoy everyday situations. I mean, the main reason that people seem to drink is to forget their mundane BEEP BEEP BEEP mornings by turning up the glare. When people act like idiots when they're drunk, that's no fun for the people around them. 


So yes, 1/4 cup of chocolate sauce at the bottom of a big glass, blend together 1/2 a cup of Kahlua , a cup of milk, two scoops of mint choc chip ice cream, poor it on the sauce, spray of cream, drizzle of caramelized sugar and I'd take anyone on in a skulling competition with that. Diabetes and alcohol poisoning all in one glass... Seriously, where did my tangent monitor go?


So I walked up to the female sitting alone, females attend meeting places like this in groups to fend of single creepy people coming up to them wanting to chat. Normally with one token male, who will spontaneously become anyone's partner in order to appear taken. Just an observation I have come across... So I first asked if she was waiting for someone, she said yes, so I went back to my table and waited a couple of miutes.. She's still alone, as long as I don't go over looking like I'm trying to chat her up, I'm going over there because the conversation with Matt has faded into wondering where we could acquire some cheap barstools... Damn, I'm starting to realise how we could be interpreted as a couple of guys on a date. 


We need female company.  Screw it, the worse she can do is say is "fuck off" and then mace me and I've always been curious to what mace feels like. Lachlan, come on you can do this, you touched at least 70 randoms at a music festival, you can convince one random to sit and have some friendly conversation till her mates arrive.


I ask if she'd like some company she collects her things, moves back to our table and the conversation keeps us there another couple of hours. Which is nice. Getting to hear the phrase "Au Pair" in everyday conversation. Not really my kinda girl, but good in proving to myself that I can talk to anyone and talk normal conversation. 


So there it is, three small phrases which went to weird places.


Graffiti of the week, you deserve some, you read through this, it's been a few blogs since I've posted some, so  here it is... Just for you.

"Toilet Walls, the original Internet" "Must be a dodgy ISP cause I'm always logging off in here."


I see what you did there... But what are you filling the tubes with?

"What happens if I give up my 2 fav Drugs?" "You will be unbelievably (Although here it looks like they tried to write three different words and instead mushed them all together.) bored when there is nothing good on TV"


Until I think of something else to say, Good bye.

The eye of the beholder

My blog does not represent the views of Murdoch or any of its affiliates. All posts are NOT to be taken seriously and are written only for entertainment purposes.


So I found it, I found the result of what happens when you pay someone to make the university "Less Grey"

It becomes green. 

No actually, Creepy's graffiti comes in all different colours, that are much brighter than the grey they cover.

Covering two walls of the second level of the ECL main courtyard

The internal sides of the stairwell and random poles

It does indeed brighten the place up, together with fact that the area is now covered, people can sit and admire the pretty artwork while it's rainy and grey outside.

But graffiti of the week? Hmmmm... I dunno, don't get me wrong, the area is now a lot more pretty, and seeing it's the area I spend most of my time in between classes wait that's the ref where I walk between most of my IT classes (I have lectures in Education, Veterinary Science and Chiropractic, I believe this done on purpose by the university so students don't get bored of seeing the same areas all of the time. Granted, that is nice to see different areas, but Veterinary science still smells like animals have defecated in there on more than one occasion. But granted, the nearest toilets are miles away and have you ever tried to move a horse which needs to go? Not pretty.

I was told about this artwork early this year, being the one blogger who does cover the artistic form of vandalism (and the proof that students do occasionally bring pens to class.) I have been looking forward to see what you get when you pay a graffiti artist to, well, graffiti. It was described by Creepy (The artist, I've found that graffiti artist do love their tag names to be adjectives. Wish this trend was around during some other art eras. "Psychotic Destitute's Chair" has a certain ring to it.) that "the viewer may make their own interpretation of the story" (Which I've always used as "I can't be bothered to tell you the story over and over." or, the more arty "I just drew a bunch of lines, your brain can do whatever it wants with that.") 

I mean, this is good, Murdoch's suppose to be a place of free thinkers. 

But isn't our art suppose to represent a place of academia, and about the high quality of learning that takes place here?

And then I realised, that's exactly the point. Murdoch isn't trying to show itself a place of learning, but a place of creativity and unique thinking. By the time people decide to go to university they do have the means to form their own understanding, their own forms of learning. Sure at uni, you are still getting taught by people who know more than you (Please don't act otherwise, it ruins it for the people who are trying to learn. Please also don't pretend your funnier than the lecturer, it doesn't score you any additional marks. I've got 3 passes on my transcript to prove it. Just laugh at his poor jokes and he/she is more likely to help you when you get stuck.) but that doesn't mean you know nothing. When you go to uni, your here to mold your interpretation of the world in order to identify what you believe to be wrong change it for the better.

I hope all people reading this who are thinking about university next year begin to contemplate this. You are no longer a passenger, you have an opinion, and provided you back it up with reasoning (APA 6th, preferably, unless your tutor says otherwise.) you have the right to be listened to and add to discussion. Congratulations, you are beginning to be perceived as mature. Don't go crazy, and give your opinion about everything (Again, 3 passes on my transcript.) but if you believe it will add to the ideas of that school of thought, welcome to the place to share them.

Granted, if Murdoch really wanted to be the place to bring free thinkers together, I think they should of just given out cans of spray paint and told people to "Go for it." But then your probably would of got Education and Humanities looking really pretty done by all the arts students, the law building looking very arty, but having really no point (Look at the art in a law firm and you'll know what I'm talking about, or a post I write about the Law building already, a while ago.) and the guild looking like... I really don't wanna know.

So yes, sitting on level 2 of ECLIT now does look very pretty. Unfortunately, everywhere else in the uni is still predominantly grey, but it's a good start, and I'm guessing quite expensive for how big the murals are, but certainly better.  

So the covering, the art, and one more thing has been done to the courtyard, which, I do actually have the authority to talk about. 

Actually to tell you the truth I don't know what model it is or where it is, I just know it's a Cisco Aironet dumb access  point. This is just the model used in other areas of Murdoch.

So yes, this area can now be accompanied by the sound of people frantically typing, or the latest Barely Political remix of the latest meme (Quick lesson. Rhymes with cream, although I think it should actually be pronounced the other way as it sounds more classy.) that your grandma keeps posting to you. Antoine Dodson actually made that his ringtone.

Now I'll try to reveal too much, all the information I'm about to tell you is avalible from the murdoch IT support website. But I thought I would help future/current students with one of the few things that I can actually aid students in understanding.

Okay, so the wireless network at Murdoch covers a bunch of places the IT group think students sit, and for the most part, it's pretty decent coverage and good speed. But a few questions get asked to geeks like me about the network, ir oder to understand and trouble shoot connecting, 

Firstly, why must I use a program to get a connection?

Well the truth is, you don't if you connect to the other network, whose SSID I will not reveal here, you should be able to just get through with your Murdoch username and password. However, it is discouraged, as it's not as encrypted and the IT group don't like people connecting through it, I haven't got a statement as to why, just, ignore what I just said, okay? I'll tell you a bit how it works, yes, it's going to get slightly geeky hear, just roll with it.

So, the application you are asked to use is the Cisco VPN client now the Virtual Private Network software connects to a server containing information about the VPN connection. The program asks you to provide a config file, which contains an encrypted group password. Murdoch uses IPSec (Is that revealing too much, serious Murdoch guys, email me and I'll happily remove any of this, I just believe the students should understand why it's complicated.) The configuration file you are required to have imported into the Cisco VPN client contains an encrypted password which is checked if you are allowed to connect to the server, once this is accepted, you are asked to provide your Murdoch account details.

In requiring this encrypted password and your credentials, crackers and geeks can't abuse our Wifi?

Is there a way to add my log on credentials to the Cisco VPN thingamy so I don't have enter them all the time?

Yes.


Are you going to tell me?


No.


What about if I sleep with you?


You just used the word "Thingamy", instead of client software. So, no. There is also a way to extract the encrypted password so you can use you operating systems native VPN client, but I won't tell you this either cause it's actually more of a hassle to configure, but it means I get access to the Murdoch WiFi on my phone.


I do not encourage or endorse finding out this information as it will be of no use or benefit to anyone. Except if you have a 64 bit operating system, as Cisco does not make a 64 version of their VPN client, however, programs like NCP are 64 bit compatible and allow the importing of the pcf file, but it does cost a little bit of money, but that's your own fault for using a 64 bit OS and not accepting that the world is still vastly 32 bit.


Except if you find a hack for that program and crack it.


MOVING ON. Before I get into more trouble, the university then requires a secure connection between your computer and the link  out to the internet.


Now for those of you wondering what exactly the internet is, it a number of computers hosting web pages each with a unique IP address, and a number of other computers that turn the humanly nice "daulmurdoch.blogspot.com" into 66.102.11.191, obtain the number 66.220.153.11 out of Facebook.com, and 64.202.189.170 when a person requests pornographic materials. An IP address is a lot nicer for a computer to interpret. 


Although if you type 66.102.11.191 into your browser bar, you'll just go to the Google homepage, as this blog is owned by blogger, owned by Google, your browser knows to go to this blog page cause it's awesome, and wonders why you should want to visit any other page. 


Speaking of this blogs IP address:

FUCK YEAH!!! NOW YOU HAVE NO EXCUSE!! 


Speaking of excuses to visit this website, Blogger are now keeping stats from blogs, and I'd just like to share a few with you now.


From May 2010 to Today September 15th 2010, 


I have had: 

• 1,091 unique visits
• 391 visits over August alone,
• 9 visits yesterday
• My most popular post has been this one, the placeholder
• The most popular website that had lead people to this blog has been the endorsed bloggers page
• Search phrases through Google which have lead people to this site have included "tiny" "I told you she was taken" "lachlan harris" "the number right" "boob magic" "girl boobs roller coaster" "lachlan murdoch house" last night cramming" and, last but not least "LG KS660" I phone which I have never owned, but find interesting. and "girl boob rollercoaster"?? You put one soft porn image on a webpage and you get all sorts of weirdos... 5 to be exact
• 62% of visitors view this page in Internet Explorer (Shakes head with shame.)
• Although most of my traffic is from Australia, I had my second top visitors from the US, and 121 visitors from the Netherlands (Legal pot apparently makes this blog quite viewable.)
• 40 views from Ukraine
• More readers in Russian than in the UK
• If you total all the readers in South Korea, Hong Kong, and Luxemburg you get a higher number than the total people enrolled in all of my units this semester.
• There's even a dedicated reader who requires this page to be translated into Portuguese 

And you thought statistics weren't interesting. To all you readers, and to all you bots and trolls abusing this address in DoS attacks, thank you.

However, I could get more visits. Murdoch, look you've been posting other peoples' blogs on your twitter feed. And I know we haven't gotten on the best, but could you post mine. Look I provided all this invaluable information to students about the graffiti and about wireless, so, come on, look, would it help if I did the URL shortning? http://bit.ly/cnHNGG  Please?? PLEASE??

So anyway, to get to the outlet to the internet at Murdoch you need to create a tunnel to that computer using secure shell, now Windows does not have a program to do this, so you need something like puTTY in order to create this connection. Unfortunately there is no way to circumvent these security procedures if your wanting an eassier system, but just think about how encrypted the connection is! The packet must be encrypted firstly by the tunnel, then by the VPN connection - trust me, these is probably the most secure, unleachable and untappable connection possible. Murdoch network designers... You did good at this bit. But your group password choice is a bit weird.. Seriously? That? I guess you weren't planning on entering it very often. For all those wondering, No, you wouldn't guess it if you tried, even if you had an attack running, the programs I've got estimate it would take about 3 years of brute force (about the time it has taken me to get to this point in my degree.) with the laptop I'm using currently, so, it's not worth it.


Why do they make you pay for quota to use the internet?


Well, it so people just don't endlessly download and abuse the privilege with torrents, etc.


You can get a torrent through the SSH?


I am not at liberty to say. Also, no, they have blocked it.


Isn't it true that Murdoch has the most expensive internet out of  all the WA universities?


I believe so, but we have the best refund policy - I put $5 on my Internet quota during my first semester at Murdoch and currently have $47 of quota. I believe IT students get a pretty big chuck as there is the believe we need it for our studies the most. Which is true, but WoW and porn cost significantly enough without the added expense of paying for quota


I was disappointed to find 64.202.189.170 did not contain pornographic material


Oh yeah, cause I'm really gonna post a porn site on my blog, I'm not that low brow. I don't even pay for porn, I'm all class.


Cause not paying for porn makes it so much more high brow.


Yes it does. I believe I have time for two last questions before I have to wrap this up.


Is there going to be a graffiti of the week this week?


I showed you Creepy's work. That stuff was paid for. Go enjoy it. One more...


Is there any reason why the university doesn't just set up a WPA2-Enterprise setup, that way students would only have to enter in their credentials once, the computer could then be issued an encrypted digital certificate, and the user would not need to enter their passwords in again. Any traffic outside WAIX could be monitored and still paid for using quota and sent through a HTTPS session authenticated via the same digital certificate.


I'm sure there's a good reason that it would mean they'd need to restructure their current infrastructure and by only using WPA2 encryption, it means once that standard is broken, then their whole network would be vulnerable. May I ask you a question?


I guess so


Would you sleep with me?


You said that when multiple websites hosted on one IP address, the computer knows which one to go to "because it's awesome." So, no.


Well played. 


For more information on the artwork see here. 


For more information on how you can set up your computer for the wireless, see here. 


To check if a website is free or not check it here. 


To check your own quota level, click here, now you will have to click through a warning that the certificate has expired, you are free to ignore this, it means they don't want to waste money on a website that no one uses now that quota is displayed next to the battery icon in MyMurdoch. 


To see this website in Portuguese, click here


For the Murdoch Twitter feed, see here. 


For the website not containing the pornographic material, click here.


One last thing, Murdoch IT Services, could you PLEASE get EndNote X4, I'm using Office 2010 now. Oh, and if it's not too much trouble can you make it that I can download it off the internet, every time I need it it's about 2 in the morning and I don't wanna bother the IT staff and sign another form.


Until I get banned for disclosing too much about the Murdoch network, Good bye.

Nostalgia is immediate

My blog does not represent the views of Murdoch or any of its affiliates. All posts are NOT to be taken seriously and are written only for entertainment purposes.


Looking back, last week was actually quite good. In fact, really good. The previous week (Starting 15th August On the Civil, Islamic and Hebrew calenders, Starting 16th August for those who follow ISO 8601. Did you know that New Years Day CANNOT fall on a Sunday? That's right meaning no new years party will be on Saturday night and be on the correct day - Whoever made it was really against weekend partying. - I'm talking about you Gregory.) I had attempted to attempted to set lots of goals about uni, work and social commitments, all which epicly fell through, so I was pleased throughout last week, where everything went a lot better than I expected it to go.


Monday started good as all my lecturers were cancelled due to illness, which is bad cause it was the first time one of my lecturers had ever cancelled his lecturers, but it saved me the embarrassment of walking in late. Guess I could still be getting there


Walking in late to a lecture goes like this: 


You walk in to a room full of students and a lecturer that all turn and look at you. 


This causes the recorded lecture to have a dramatic pause, and everybody listening at home two hours before the exam is going to begin, goes WHAT HAPPENED TO THE AUDIO? And frantically start turning up the volume, you on the other hand remember walking in late and hang your head in shame even though it was several weeks ago


The lecturer then tries to continue with what he was saying, he'll let out maybe two words which causes the people at home to freak out and fall off their chairs at the sudden noise. 


However, this distraction you caused has made the lecturer loose his train of thought so he goes silent again. The listeners at home turn the volume up again and everybody in the lecture looks at you again and you hang your head in shame, or sometimes stare back if the reason for being late is better than sleeping in or losing track of time.


The lecturer regains his composure and begins halfway through his sentence, not only do you have no idea what he's talking about the listeners at home have again fallen off their chairs.


It's one of the most embarrassing things ever, only just beating turning up on time but forgetting to put on pants. (Your talking to a veteran here.) It is very embarrassing, that is.... (Of walking in late to lecturers, not walking into lecturers without pants.) until the next person walks in.


But instead of going through that ordeal I rushed into a totally empty classroom before reading the note on the door. So I went to the library and ICT347 LECTURERS AND LABS ARE CANCELLED DUE TO ILLNESS. Caps lock impact loses it's effect when a whole message is capitalised. Just sayin'. That goes to all you people who THINK your message is important and chose to capitilise it all. Capitilising is like highlighting, YOU DON'T HIGHLIGHT AN ENTIRE BOOK, A WHOLE SENTENCE CAPITILISED LOOKS LIKE YOU DON'T KNOW HOW A BUTTON WORKS. THE CAPS LOCK BUTTON IS A TOGGLE, PUSH IT ONCE, IT ON, PUSH IT AGain and it's off. That's better.


My 339 lab was still on and was good as we all just talked about the election. Which I am not going to talk about because apparently people are happy with slow internet, only being able to get wireless, internet cut outs, copper cabling that's now over 100 years old and think that the occasional boat full of people fleeing their country is going to put our entire society into disrepair. And due to that, we now have this but that's okay cause it means for five minutes I can watch bits and pieces on Australia from different news shows from around the world, see social media being affected by real world events... Then being eclipsed by more important issues.


It gave me the chance to submit some 339 work so I felt like I had actually been doing things in those labs, so that was nice, then I went home early and had a leisurely day. 


Tuesday wasn't very major, just a day at work then I came home. 


Now, I work for... Um... Let's just call them "The department." Now I work at a sub-branch of the organisation, one of it's many fine "Facilities." Recently, over a period of time now extending to a couple of years, a selection of other people who work for "The department" have been using social online mediums to  interact with friends during their day to day activities, however, content of these interactions has been somewhat, erm. "Not in the best interests of the department." Such as two intoxicated females actively exploring their sexualities in a display of strong public display of affection. The physical evidence of this act, published without proper privacy controls, or being shared and reposted through friends until it got into the public domain. But it hasn't just been drunk chicks making out that has been causing unrest with the department, it has been the meer act of these interactions occurring during scheduled work time. And rightly so, your are being paid to carry out a set of functions, and if the progress of those functions is hinded by the processional of non-fiscal (Hands up who only knows this word because it was over used during the election campaign!) driven personal gains, then its understandable. But when the department suggests to not mention any staff, the interactions of a day to day basis, eventful or otherwise, on such mediums which could be easily accessible to people who might want to take those statements out of context for personal gain or defamation of others, it makes me a sad panda. So hence, I cannot really discuss what goes on at work.


Wednesday the week got interesting again with a meeting of my IT Project guys then went really well, I'm stuck with stereotypes that IT projects never really get off the ground and there's constant conflict, none so today as we started laying the groundwork for our first submittables. At least from a documentation side, as well as a planning side, the project looks like it could come together as well as an A-Team job... Only with unfortunately less explosions. I've been given the task of librarian, a task which I have accepted with more gusto than I probably should.


The task is the management of ALL produced documents and their document versions. I find it interesting not to read official documents, but the document revisions, it's interesting to look at how much work went to an article to get it right, and version numbering has always interested me I don't know why, I blame my sister who worked in archiving for years and has a degree in it. The couple of times I've done software clean outs, I just can't throw out old versions, but I keep them for prosperity. I watched a 15 minute video of someone unboxing of Windows 3.11 and found it some of the most interesting  footage to see what promotional material has changed over time. I like having multiple versions of Nero (v4 - v9), Windows (All the way back to MS-DOS 5), Fedora (Down to Core 2), Intel Chipset motherboard (I don't have all, but I have the accompanying CDs of 8 different chipsets. I'm just one of those people which believe these things should be preserved.


So anyway, I get to manage documents and be aware of all the changes, so far we've only done one document but it has been enjoyable that everyone has gotten along so far, but I believe we need to change our numbering standard, the first document went from v0.1 - v0.9 and luckily, that was the submittable version, we might not be so lucky with future documents, but I'll cross that bridge when I come to it.


So, document written up, client communicated with and overly long lecture on Project Management cancelled (But instead replaced with a FOUR HOUR horror this Thursday. That's right, he's expecting us to come to a four hour lecture during the break, and when an entire team hasn't shown up since lecture 1, he's very optimistic...  


Yes, Mum.. 


That's all well... 


and good... 


OKAY, I'll go


Sheesh.) Okay this brings us to Thursday, which my 339 lecturer was better enough to continue our lectures on encryption, now everybody in the computing world finds encryption a difficult topic, but I'm feeling brave, so I'll try and explain some of it to you



Today I'm going to teach you about cryptography.

Okay, so Alice wants to send a message to Bob. It's kind of personal so she wants to encrypt it i.e. Make it only readable between her and Bob. She decides to use the basic Symmetric Protocol to send it.

- Alice and Bob agree on a cipher (The scheme in which they are going to use to encrypt a message.)
- Alice and Bob agree on a key (A once only use code that will determine how the cipher will encrypt the message.)
- Alice encrypts the message and sends it. It's here where it gets a bit complicated.

You see Alice has a crush on Bob, and unbeknown to her he has recently started going out with Eve. Now Eve is the jealous type and has been listening in on their private channel and although she can't actually read the message, she is good friends with Alice and thinks that this message could be her admitting her undying love for Bob, and is so disgusted, that she quickly contacts Bob promising that if she sees her now that she will let him get to third, to which she has been denying him, but not before Bob has the time to decrypt Alice's message and realise that he too wants to be with her so he has sent an encrypted message to her returning her love, before, quite rudely, joining Eve, because hey, she was immediately there, and he'll proceed to break up with her after this afternoons main event.

Now Bob's encrypted message is being sent to Alice, but on it's way it get intercepted by Mallory, who, although a friend of both Bob and Alice, has unfortunately spent the past 5 years fantasising about Alice. Being friends with both, Mallory knows the block cipher scheme they use and after interpreting the patterns she successfully opens the message, the contents of which enrage her, so, being of sound mind alters the message pretending to be Bob to explain to Alice that he is currently seeing Eve and, therefore, cannot be with her and sends the message along.

Bob then goes to Alice's place after leaving Eve in tears for a very painful, very quick break up, to find Alice in tears, with Mallory comforting her, who proceeds to push Bob out for "the terrible way in which he broke the news to Alice."

Bob goes home a broken man, confused and alone, but on his front step he sees Eve. Mallory had forgotten to re-apply the encryption key, so Eve just saw a plain text message and she walks up to him and whispers in his ear

"I know how to help, get over Alice." She said "Now Alice is gone, but I'm still here you know I've been waiting twenty four years..." and Bob's frown disappeared... He said "I don't know why she's leaving, or where she's gonna go, I guess she's got her reasons but I just don't wanna know, now I gotta get used not receiving clear text from Alice..."

And although Bob is now happily with Eve, and Alice will eventually be turned by Mallory (Oh come on, she was going out with Bob, who we all know was only there cause Alice was in denial. I knew it, she knew it,  Diffie-Hellman knew it.) but this whole debacle could have been avoided if they'd used an Asymmetric encryption scheme using a public key exchange.

Alas, this will in my next post. Maybe. Originally this had an ending where half the people killed themselves but I was forced to re-write it, happy now?

Okay now onto Friday... When I worked... At the... Workplace. Oh screw it. Okay, Thursday night Mum calls and talks to me about how my weeks going and then ends on "Don't forget to get up early to go to work." We all know what's going to happen next, so I head to work at 9:15 rather than 7:30, okay day at work, the server had been down since midday Thursday and wasn't up until a guy came out and fixed it. Dodgey configuration, I won't go into it, I've bored you enough with encryption algorythms, it just pisses me that I went in late and couldn't work out how to fix it and be a hero. Ah well, you get that. I did get rid of another unrelated error that had been occurring so that was nice. But, still no feeding my hero complex.

It's here where my week got un-normal. I actually went out, straight from work to Perth. To wonder round the city and hang out with some guys I hadn't hung out with since Mandurah. My expectations of a night out are already 20 years older than me, which is unfortunate. I like a nice dinner, some walking around, some window shopping then home by 9:30ish. Not so, I didn't mind, my spontaneity still continues to surprise me - Well surprise me in the way that it seems not many other people seem to have it. May all those nights along in my bedroom with one hand on my mouse the other on my joystick have gotten to me, and my body is willing to do anything to do different.

What? I like flight sims.. and porn


So, in the end, did have nice dinner with mate and his boyfriend, then we ran into more mate's friends, Mate's boyfriend proceeded to head back to restaurant with Mate's mate... The last thing he remembers is sitting down, but we'll get to that in a moment.


So meanwhile Mate drags me to geek bookshop to talk with different mate. So we hung out there for a couple of hours, just talking...  She was selected at birth at a clinic with the best gene's her parents could come up with, and as a result is perfect... Aside from the fact that her bones are very brittle and have over the course of her life bean replaced partially with Titanium, along with various possible cell mutations solved through gene therapy. So we all know where this is going, me trying to find the right words to screw up any chance of future social interactions when fate decided to be nice and give me a distraction

The route shown is pretty simple, 850m, somehow, completely unassisted a completely inebriated Mate's boyfriend managed to traverse it, before amazingly running into us and immediately falling to his feet moaning and vomiting. This was proper drunk. In fact, first proper drunk I'd seen, unable to crawl he sat against a wall, not wanting to move and proceeded to vomit. Pieces of barramundi still very visible amongst the bile. This person, was a classy drinker, though, getting smashed on a delicious 2008 Chardonnay, with the aroma and the chucks of South-Western fish, I hate to admit that this was the third time in my life vomit made me hungry. Now, don't get me wrong, vomit has on many occasions grossed me out and disgusted me, but a couple of occasions, one particular time I had a bug and my macaroni cheese didn't want to stay down, when I was cleaning it up, I was so close to.. Ya know, just a taste, I mean it was an annoying bug cause I was starving but immediately re-saw whatever just went down. But I didn't, I kept my cool as 50% of the passes by were disturbed by the sight (Annoyingly mostly females in such a state that I could tell THEY WOULD SOON BE IN A SIMILAR POSITION. Seriously, hypocritical bitches. Bet their output wouldn't be half as attractive with the 3/4 empty bottle of Jim Bean they were sharing. A nurse came along (As they do when they see something and know they should do something.) Helped us correct our attempt at our recovery position.

Then the female took charge and we discussed our options, my hero complex bubbled up again as we realised I had the only car in Perth and a taxi or train did not seem possible. It would of been perfect had I not got lost.

City blocks are hard to drive around at the best of times, but when a carpark exits onto a different road than you think it does, you end up at Trinity College before confessing, yes I'm lost and require 10 minutes more driving, on top of the already 15 minutes, to get back to the person who needs it. A stern talking to later and the unconscious (But still breathing.) passenger was loaded into my backseat with a completely empty tank. I got into gear and watched her walk away, I'm not sure if it's good or bad that I didn't call out after her that she "could hold me like that anytime I needed to vomit onto the footpath." Alas, I'd met a science experiment but got choked up, but I know where she works.

Dude, she bossed you around and saw that you couldn't do as your told or look after a friend very well.


Thank you voice of reason, tell that to my medial orbitofrontal cortex, or Amygdala or even my Hippocampus I'm sure it'll love to hear that. (Woot, three tiny sections of my brain wanting me to have sex, you'd think with how loud they are they'd have cooler names.)


So anyway, then my Mate crouched on the back floor of my car keeping his friend alive while I drove home we got him inside, and although his complaining was loud when we lifted him above a metre we continued to push him into our shower.


It's here where interesting point 4 (I hope you've been keeping count) happened of the evening. My house mate saw the spectacle and proceeded to help by saying "Good luck with that" and going to bed.


Now, he has since explained that this was his reaction because he doesn't know how to handle situations like that. He was actually terrified and said the previous not with as much sarcasm as I believe he'd had when he said it. He then apologised that if I got into that kind of situation he hoped other would be around, and complimented on the fact that it was handled nicely. Bah, I'm sure if he ever is the only one able to help something primordial will kick in and he'll save me. Or kill me for being the Alpha male. Ego-high-five!


After 15 minutes of being washed by his beloved, he became more human enough to walk around, use the toilet on his own, and then proceed to question which house he was in. Now the last thing he remembers is sitting down waiting for the other guy to arrive and being presented with wine, he doesn't know if he made it, if he paid, how he got to Hay or how he got to my place. After consuming sandwiches, responding to the 38 voicemail messages (I'm not joking. Thirty Eight.) left by concerned and loving parents. and staying another 36 hours, he returned home fine and looking forward to next Friday.


After only 9 hours asleep I was up and having coffee with my parents who then proceeded to take me to Ikea and tell me to meet them at their place at 8.45 the next morning at there place ready to take Ikea purchases to my sisters house. So then I get invited to go out for dinner. And then invited out clubbing.


You'll notice that this is the first post up in a couple of weeks. Not much happens in my life. When I get invites that sound crazy I take them, so that when I look back over my life in 10 years when the infected are breaking down my last barricade, I can at least tell myself, I occasionally lived.


So went out for tea and watched house mate have a fudge sundae. For tea. And that's it. I know he's not annorexic in the way that he doesn't eat a lot to be thin, he just doesn't eat a lot. It's just.. Seriously? No substantial meal? I cleaned up a fish and chips (Seriously that nice smell was with me 24 hours later.) and picked up my cousin and some friends (including her lesbian friend that I believe I've spoken of before.) and headed out. My cousin was already extremely happy by the fact that she was pleased to see me for the first time in years. So we went to The Court and I watched my cousin and one of the people I hadn't met before drink. Meanwhile the sober amused each other with dancing styles  (I now know how fun pole dancing is. Seriously it's a challenge and an ability to vent crazy and apparently a fitness option. To those females who do pole dancing to get fit, I know it's been an option for a while, but admit that you are venting sexual frustrations and I believe we can move along as a society.). Midnight came quickly and as we'd acquired another passenger there was now six that needed to be taken home in my car that can only fit five at best. So for the second time that weekend I performed a traffic violation and one of them (Almost too eagerly) climbed into the boot. And she was one of the perfectly sober ones. She decided to amuse herself by being my guide and shouting GPS directions whilst tolerating bumps and a couple of repeated spins round some roundabouts. Although she got out fine and seemed all there I still apologise for the unintentional beating I gave her. 


My cousin decided to kick me one more time emotionally before venturing into her house to sleep. "If she wasn't gay, you'd make a cute couple." A relationship she had befriended me over, and avoided me at all costs because of, she saw could go to the next level. She could finally see why we kept meeting and chatting behind her back, we're totally different, yet can talk. The person in question decided to retort this indefinitly "If Hitler wasn't a bastard, he would of made a wonderful dictator." I shared her opinion, the one thing in my life I'm currently looking forward to the most can't be spoiled yet. And now she's moving for ten weeks away, so I can't party hard with her any more, no more photo bombing competitions. 


Dude, what the hell...?

What?


You're missing her, don't do anything stupid to try and get her attention.


I won't, and plus, she's been in my boot, once a girl's been in your boot, there's really no further you can go with a girl, anything now is just back tracking.


Fair enough, I just think you should get obsessed about someone else so you don't screw up a good friend.


Noted. And plus we didn't meet good enough.


Meet good enough? Is that proper English?


I meant, the way we met wasn't good enough


So let me get this straight, you don't want to be in a relationship with a person you met in a boring way?


Yeah.


You met on Facebook, bitching at her cousin, on your cousins' wall.. That's up there with weird.


Yeah, but not crazy enough, first question your asked when you get into a relationship, and I would like it if the story I get to tell people is "Lachlan appropriate"


"Lachlan appropriate"?


Head smacked in with a baseball bat by best mate. Lachlan appropriate. Falling off a road attempting to do a corner in third. Lachlan Appropriate. Buying an Xbox 360 to aid in hitting on a girl. Lachlan Appropriate. Pole dancing in a gay nightclub. Lachlan appropriate.


So, you mean moronic.


Kind of. Just a little bit crazy, not necessarily unique. Hitting on the only female on a message borad, Getting friended randomly on Facebook after hearing my name once, buying the same type of cheese, rescuing her from the top of a building site being patrolled by a gorilla who keeps ditching barrels at me.


Hmmmm... And here's me thinking the most important thing in a relationship is that you love each other


Who wouldn't love a girl stuck at the top of a construction site being patrolled by a gorilla who keeps ditching barrels.


Good point.


Now can I finish this post?


Okay


Good. (Not long left now.) So on Sunday despite getting to sleep at an unreasonable hour, I managed to get myself to my parents place only five minutes late, to find that they weren't ready to leave yet. Saw sisters new place and envious because I'm not sure where I'll be at the end of the year and I'm pretty sure it won't be that nice. Although it wouldn't of worked out cause theres no aerial connector in the bed room and no cat 6 cabling pre-installed, and its a lot metal so it would absorb signal. Although there is a phone connector in the bed room, so I could use that as the modem and wireless in there, but then I wouldn't get it in the main room or on the deck. And I'd have to get out of bed to answer the phone, but I could get a splitter. Nope. Without network coverage on the deck the outside is wasted. Ah well, scrap that and build a new place.


So there it is, one of the few weeks that was, drunk people, car driving, pole dancing, no desperately hitting on anyone and no time to do my 339 assignment. But for that week at least I have an excuse. I was enjoying myself, and why would I want to ruin that week with doing assignment work.


So it's now 10:00PM on Monday the 30th August 2010. I have no plans and that means 339 will get done and I should get to work on time tomorrow. It means I've run out of things to say and have no graffiti of the week, now that I do regret not obtaining from nightclub toilet - Ah well, something to look forward for next time. When will next time be?  I have no idea what you'll be reading all I can say is I look forward to you company, goodnight God bless, Keep Calm and Carry On. So until I get banned from the network, Good Bye.