Last night, I got an itch in my bones to rip up my personal website again.
The main reason is a trip to DefCon 34; my Mom wants posts and pictures, I might enter a couple of CTF contests and need a place to post writeups, and maybe as something to put on a business card.
A self-hosted website with four posts in six months is better than a twitter feed with four posts in six months, right?
It has come to my attention that Neil Gaiman has slithered out from under the rotten log where he's been hiding to claim he was the subject of a smear job.
He sexually exploited one of his fucking tenants like it was droit de fucking signeur, and frankly, he belongs back under that fucking log.
An essential part of fascism is performative cruelty.
No.
INDIANA JONES: Sallah, I said *no* camels. That's *five* camels. Can't you count?
— Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade
COLONEL VOGEL: Tell me about this miserable little diary of yours. The book is useless and yet you come all the way back to Berlin to get it. Why?
[he slaps Henry in the face with his glove]
COLONEL VOGEL: Why?
[he slaps him again]
COLONEL VOGEL: What are you hiding?
[he slaps him again]
COLONEL VOGEL: What does the diary tell you that it doesn't tell us?
[he tries to slap him again; Henry grabs his wrist, stopping him]
PROFESSOR HENRY JONES: It tells me, that goose-stepping morons like yourself should try *reading* books instead of *burning* them!
— Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade
ELSA: It's perfectly obvious where the pages are. He's given them to Marcus Brody.
PROFESSOR HENRY JONES: Marcus? You didn't drag poor Marcus along did you? He's not up to the challenge.
WALTER DONOVAN: He sticks out like a sore thumb. We'll find him.
INDIANA JONES: The hell you will. He's got a two day head start on you, which is more than he needs. Brody's got friends in every town and village from here to the Sudan, he speaks a dozen languages, knows every local custom, he'll blend in, disappear, you'll never see him again. With any luck, he's got the grail already.
[Cut to middle of fair in the Middle East, Marcus Brody wearing bright suit and white hat, sticking out like sore thumb]
MARCUS BRODY: Uhhh, does anyone here speak English? Or even ancient Greek?
— Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade
INDIANA JONES: Nazis. I hate these guys.
— Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade
MAJOR STRASSE: Victor Laszlo published the foulest lies in the Prague newspapers until the very day we marched in, and even after that he continued to print scandal sheets in a cellar.
— Casablanca
CAPTAIN RENAULT: In 1935, you ran guns to Ethiopia. In 1936, you fought in Spain, on the Loyalist side.
RICK: I got well paid for it on both occasions.
CAPTAIN RENAULT: The winning side would have paid you much better.
— Casablanca
RICK: How can you close me up? On what grounds?
CAPTAIN RENAULT: I'm shocked! Shocked to find that gambling is going on in here.
[a croupier hands Renault a pile of money]
CROUPIER: Your winnings, sir.
CAPTAIN RENAULT: Oh, thank you very much.
— Casablanca
MAJOR STRASSER: What is your nationality?
RICK: I'm a drunkard.
CAPTAIN RENAULT: That makes Rick a citizen of the world.
— Casablanca
At a time like this, scorching irony, not convincing argument, is needed.
— Frederick Douglass, "What to the Slave is the Fourth of July"? July 5, 1852
What to the American slave is your 4th of July? I answer: a day that reveals to him more than all other days of the year, the gross injustice and cruelty to which he is the constant victim. To him, your celebration is a sham, your boasted Liberty, an unholy license, your national greatness, swelling vanity. Your sounds of rejoicing are empty and heartless, your shouts of Liberty and equality, hallow mocked, your prayers and hymns your sermons and Thanksgivings with all your religious parade in solemnity are to him, mere bombast, fraud, deception, a thin veil to cover up crimes, which would disgrace a nation of savages. There is not a nation of the earth, guilty of practices, more shocking and bloody than are the people of these United States at this very hour. Go search where you will. Roam through all the monarchies and despotisms of the old world. Travel through South America. Search out every abuse and when you have found the last, lay your facts by the side of the everyday practices of this nation, and you will say with me that for revolting barbarity and shameless hypocrisy, America reigns without a rival.
— Frederick Douglass, "What to the Slave is the Fourth of July"? July 5, 1852
Captain Renault: What in heaven's name brought you to Casablanca?
Rick: My health. I came to Casablanca for the waters.
Captain Renault: The waters? What waters? We're in the desert.
Rick: I was misinformed
— Casablanca
Back in 1922, the late Heywood Broun, who is not remembered primarily as a boxing writer, wrote a durable account of a combat between the late Benny Leonard and the late Rocky Kansas for the lightweight championship of the world. Leonard was the greatest practitioner of the era, Kansas just a rough, optimistic fellow. In the early rounds Kansas messed Leonard about, and Broun was profoundly disturbed. A radical in politics, he was a conservative in the arts, and Kansas made him think of Gertrude Stein, les Six, and non-representational painting, all novelties that irritated him.
— A.J. Liebling, "Nemesis and Ahab", 1955
Georgia (left) and me on the couch.
I use Claude Code and Gemini Code Assist extensively for both my day job and my programming hobby.
It is critically important to note that carbon footprints are notoriously a scam, like to the point where I had considered not engaging with the topic. There are no individual solutions for systemic problems, which is why the people who benefit from systemic problems are so keen on convincing you that there are!
However, I do like to know things, so I did the research anyway! Go figure.
Here is the math I've done.
Combined, this would put my consumption at anywhere from 1.0 - 2.5 kg of CO2E per week.
A gas-powered car produces 400g of CO2E per mile driven, so I'm "driving" Claude Code 2.5-~6 miles a week.
[U]nfortunately, he is an utterly untamed personality, who is not altogether in the wrong if he finds the world detestable, but he thereby does not make it more enjoyable either for himself or others.
— Goethe, letter to Carl Friedrich Zelter, 1812
Feeling seen.