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spectrumed · 4 years ago

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8. book

I decided to start writing a book. A novel, it’s going to be fiction. It’s a big project. I dread big projects. I don’t feel as if I am ever able to complete them. It’s going to be left unfinished, why do I even bother? So many projects that I’ve started and never finished. I get an idea, then I can’t make myself do the actual work to make it a reality. Why do I think I can write a book when I can barely read books without becoming distracted and doing something else instead? I give up too easily. But, then again, do I really have it in me to produce something that is good? That people would want to read? Insecurity creeps in, telling me that I will fail. I fear failure. Of course I do, who doesn’t? Whenever people say that their greatest fear is failure, all I wonder is who out there is not afraid of failure? Is there someone out there with so much confidence that they absolutely do not in any way fear failure? Even narcissists technically fear failure, it is what leads them to such ridiculous overcompensation, putting on the facade of bravado to mask their actual dire sense of insecurity. Do not fall for the scams, no person is truly without self-doubt. (Well, I guess maybe psychopaths, but there’s a whole lot of things amiss with them.)

Ever since I was a kid, I’ve entertained myself by coming up with stories, fictional universes that I would populate with characters of my own invention. When I was a kid, what I really wanted was to become a comic book writer and artist. Well, in between other gigs I imagined would suit me, including at one point wanting to be a “singing farmer,” as I put it. Still, I’ve always returned to fiction and storytelling. There’s something about creating a world that lets you so fully distract yourself from all the stressful daily hullabaloo that goes on around you. Escapism, it’s fun, it’s therapeutic, I think. There’s a reason why humans have been telling each other stories for millennia, since even before we lived in houses. Back when we were all huddled around the fire, wearing our best comfortable animal furs, sharing tales of the hunt. Your uncle who once took part in killing a mammoth, the impressive beast nearly gorging him with its big tusks. How clever he was when he noticed that the mammoth had one leg weaker than the others, and used that to his advantage. How the entire hunting party banded together to bring the behemoth down, getting all that meat to feed their families with for months! Stories make you feel good. Like as if you have something to celebrate, even when you might be starving due to the more recent hunts not having gone as well. Damn that saber-tooth tiger that killed your uncle…

Storytelling is linked to acting. Both with acting and with storytelling you have to commit. Whatever you are doing, whatever role you are performing, you have to sell it. You may be on stage talking about that time you went scuba diving with your future wife, and how you encountered an oyster with the most magnificent pearl inside, and how you made a ring for the pearl and used it when you proposed to her. You have to sell it. You have to get the audience laughing, gasping, crying, going “aww,” feeling as if they were there with you that day. Of course, they don’t know it is all just lies. You made it up. It’s all fiction. But you committed, so they won’t ever know. Storytelling is a gift to others, people will appreciate you if you tell good stories, but you’re also kinda deviant. Even if it’s technically based on a true story, you’ve certainly added your embellishments. You’re a trickster, a devious individual. No wonder actors have historically been seen as dubious folks. They come into town, romances all the young women and men, telling them big tales of their lives on the road, and they can’t possibly know if you are telling the truth or not. You may just be lying. You probably are lying. Let’s be honest, you’ve probably not told a single true thing in your life.

I am bad at the hustle. No, I can talk quite well, and I can keep people’s attention for a long while. But I can’t be a huckster. Going out there, putting myself on the line hoping people will swallow my bullshit. I can’t really avoid speaking from my heart when I do speak. Or when I write, as I happen to be doing now. This blog has so far been thoroughly candid in places, in such a way I may come across like I’m at a confessional. Not that I have much evil to confess, but I can’t help but be transparent. I can’t flip into different kinds of personalities, each with its own schemes and plots, being some master manipulator, someone who you can never figure out what they're truly up to, or what they truly want. No, what I am is clearly written on my face. I’ve got one self, and it is the one before you. He’s hairy, and tall, and a bit of a dork. I am happy to talk to you, to engage with you, but I won’t be anyone but myself. I am me. I hope that’ll do.

Of course you are familiar with all those pick-up artists that plagues the internet. Or well, not just the internet. Go into any old-fashioned bookstore (where they store books on paper, not in digital code,) and you are bound to find some sleazy book written by a sleazy guy about how to sleazily seduce women. Those books don’t want you acting like me. According to them, seduction is all about manipulation. To figure out the very right thing to say to get women to fawn all over you. They don’t want you to be sincere, telling the truth as you see it. Nah, you gotta keep that stuff bottled up, deep down inside your soul, because most likely, your true self is ugly. It’s interesting how you can get little details from these pick-up artists depending on the sort of things they say, the tips they provide. The fact that all of them seem to harbour this festering misogyny is no big surprise, but every so often, you get these little glimpses of these people’s true worldview, one where power is everything, true love is a fallacy, and happiness is a lie manufactured by Hollywood to make us all into docile consumers. No wonder the “red-pill” so often leads to people taking the “black-pill.” First hucksters will lure you in, telling you that they’ve got the secret as to how to be a success, then when they’ve got you isolated, they reveal to you how truly misanthropic and bleak their actual beliefs are.

I am fascinated with cults, for much of the same reason why I am fascinated with storytelling. What is a cult leader if not just a great storyteller? They’re something like the modern day shaman, capable of spellbinding people with their weird idiosyncratic way of speaking. High-functioning people with autism are often said to have an idiosyncratic way of speaking. No, I am not suggesting that cult leaders are all somewhere on the spectrum, though it wouldn’t surprise me if some famous cult leaders did turn out to have been on the spectrum. However, for an autistic person to become a cult leader, I think they would have to be a true believer, and not some fraud just looking to scam others. Ultimately, no autistic person would want to surround themselves with people unless they truly do believe it is essential, to like, save mankind from damnation or something. It’s the difference between sincerity and insincerity. It is difficult for autistic people to be insincere, as insincerity requires a lot of social skills that autistic people struggle with. Having to juggle all these balls in the air, making sure you keep the big lie going, that you remember to change your behaviour depending on who you are speaking to in order to keep them from figuring out that you’re a bullshitter. Hollow people are great at being insincere. People like L. Ron Hubbard, the founder of the highly profitable cult that is Scientology, was at his core a hollow individual. He had no problems twisting the minds of the people around him, because he never felt a need to be sincere. If an autistic person were to become a cult leader, I can guarantee you that it wouldn’t be a profitable cult. Nah, autistic people aren’t in it for the money, we’re all about keeping it real.

Being a sincere person, surely I should be able to write a novel and make it feel earnest. Like it was delivered with passion, because I wouldn’t be able to write anything that wasn’t true to myself. Well, I do hope so. Having something I’ve made be referred to as genuine is something I see as a great compliment. I’m a student of art history, I’ve made some “serious” art before, I know how terrible art can be when it is not delivered with good faith. Sure, some art is cynical, or ironic, but even then, it tends to come from a real place. Good artists, even when they’re fully armed with the dada mindset, must believe in what they are doing. Whether they are doing it for a laugh or not, that’s irrelevant. Even if all you wish is to be silly and make something that is comical, you have to believe in what you are creating. Or else people won’t bother engaging with it. Why look at a painting by someone who is just interested in making money? Insincere artists do exist, and they can end up becoming quite successful, but ultimately, history won’t be kind to them. Damien Hirst comes to mind, heard he's into NFTs now.

Sure, I don’t like insincere people. Does that make me a bigot? Like, it’s not as if they can help themselves. It’s just who they are, spineless maggots with no soul. It doesn’t mean we have to hate them. No, no, no... I am just generalising. Don’t go thinking there’s just two kinds of people in the world, the sincere and the insincere. It’s not a binary. Most people are both, just like with introverts and extroverts, humans are complex. But there are definitely those that decide to feed into their insincere side, realising that it is often the key to success. Through insincerity, you learn to let go of self-doubt, you stop worrying so much about what others think of you, because you are never truly yourself. If they hate you, then so what? They don’t actually hate you, they just hate a role that you are playing. So what if you seduced that woman, made her feel as if you were the perfect match, then you ghosted her and completely forgot about her? It’s her fault for falling for your tricks. You were clearly just playing the game, being a super-seducer, she should have known better. By embracing insincerity, it’s like gaining a superpower. No longer do you have to care about the impact you have on others, no longer do you have to worry about what it means to be a social human being making choices that affect the others around you. Because you’re not the person they think you are. Actually, you’re not quite sure you’re the person you think you are… Who are you?

I’ve got the plot all laid out in my head for the novel. It’s going to be based in the fantasy world that I’ve been working on for the last few years. I’ve been working on this world for almost half a decade now, come to think of it. Why do I keep feeling as if I am never able to keep to a project, when I’ve clearly been working on a massive project all this time? Sure, it’s all just in my head, but it’s not as if most people have the kind of patience to keep going back to a single big project, even if it is just in their head. Not once, while thinking about my fantasy world have I been distracted and started thinking about cute puppies, instead. And you know how difficult that is. Maybe I am too hard on myself. Maybe I will finish this book, and maybe people will want to read it. Maybe it will even get a minimal number of angry reviews, like, I may get a book published without some folks trying to harass me into committing suicide for daring to think I can write. Some people may even be enthusiastic, blowing up my ego with great praise. Maybe someone will come along and tell me that they want to buy the rights to make my book into a movie or a television series. Maybe I will get rich? Maybe I will get famous! Woo! Success here I come!

Well, no, here I go being insincere. That’s not what it’s about. I should be writing this book because I want to write it. Because I want to prove to myself that I am able to write it. Sure, it’s not as if there’s not a little brain goblin inside my mind whispering sweet nothings about how one day I might turn out a real respected author. One with real fans that gets to do big book tours talking about how brilliant I am, how brilliant my work is, and how brilliant things are going for me. I am not going to pretend I don’t have the same aspirations for success that others have. Inside of me you will find the same greedy piglet of an ego hungry for more adoration and more validation that you will find in any person. Humans don’t know when to quit, we always want more. But I am at least safe knowing that I will never debase myself, descending to the same depths as those inhabited by soulless grifters who go through life abusing the trust of others in order to get by. I’m sincere, in the end. I always turn out sincere, in the end. I am a good boy.

And I am also really sexy. I don’t think I’ve mentioned this before on this blog, but I am really, REALLY, sexy. Like, you wouldn’t believe it. Oh, I am so hot. And if you follow and subscribe and hit that bell, I will teach you how you can be just as sexy as I am! And buy my book! And my merch! And my new single! And of course, my new cryptocurrency, by the name of “autism-coin.” It’s going to be a real success on 4chan, let me tell ya!

#neurodivergent #neurodiversity #autism spectrum disorder #autism #aspergers #mental health

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pizsospa · 7 years ago

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Schneeplestein ARG

So this blog @schneeplestein made by @crazions caught my attention some day and it looked very interesting and I decided to follow it. Since they there have been a bunch of posts in what looks to be like an ego ARG (Alternate Reality Game) which also involves 2 other blogs. (It might not really be that but I will call it that anyway)

I like code solving and I love ARGs so i took the time to read through all of the story and decode what I can to combine it all in one post for anyone interested... Note that this thing has ended

Also note that I’ll only really go about the “hidden” material, not story, and I don’t want to repost any logs so I highly encourage anyone interested to go take a look at the original blog first. Some great work has been put into it and it deserves to be appreciated!

NOTE!! After I finished this post I did find out someone else made something and I don’t want to change anything in what I solved and take credit for stuff I haven’t done so I will just leave BIG LINK to this doc file by @3ksal that contains a lot, some stuff which I would have never been able to do

(Its a bit long so... everything is under read more)

TO SET THINGS DOWN FIRST! I might have been a bit too late to investigate all of this since I started this basically few posts before it offically ended. Some stuff seems to have changed and I have missed it :( So we start off with Henrik’s blog posting a text post containing a nice big link.

This link leads to a Vimeo upload with a placeholder text title, black and white patter and seems to contain morse code and someone speaking, all distorted. (I don’t know if there is anything behind that speech, I’m not good at all with such stuff. I also tried to solve the morse code, really tried, downloaded the video to slow it down but I just really have trouble with making out audio so... sad but I gave up on it) Besides that there is one QR-code displayed 2 times! That code is a Imgur link which will lead to this

A nice edited hospital hallway gif with some text, one of which is a code and the other another Imgur link to that

(thanks for no double coding)So we have a key and a code which I put into AES 128bit decoder (I know the creators seems to like that) and got..

A blog @97-110-116-105 . Now I found this blog way before I saw this so it was kinda useless to solve and the blog already had some posts on it. From what it looks like it belongs to Anti, so I’ll just call it Anti’s blog.

The actual story starts of with Henrik telling us his blog has seem to got all posts deleted and he has memory problems. He finds out he has some logs laying around and starts posting them along with general text posts about his situation and answered asks. After the link the first suspicious post there is this one. Some zalgo and some binary which translates to:

Someone clearly mocking Schneep On his post “a small update” is also the first time google doc links is added under the word “God”. More links like this are on some other posts later too

Some time later Schneep’s blog posts a second post similar to his very first one, it contains a Vimeo vid uploaded by the same user who uploaded the first one. It’s a glitched out distorted old ad for Camel cigarettes and wouldn’t you know? There is another QR-code in it! This time it links to a private page on Anti’s tumblr.

It shows us a morse code and a hexadecimal one.

First and foremost: I haven’t solved this. The hexadecimal code brings ”aGFwcGllc3RiaXJ0aGRheS5jYXJyZC5jw==“ which def looks like AES again but I can’t make out the key. I’m sure its in the morse code from the post plus from the video description and title but different decoders give me different answers and it just looks like a lot of random letters. Might be an anagram (that contains the word fun) but idk...

Sometime later regarding the story you might have noticed a 3rd blog from Chase that is also part of the story. It doesn’t have any hidden codes on it like the others. He interacts with some of Henrik’s posts and later even posts a convo between them!

But after some time we get a post of him on the floor along with a google doc that sounds like someone had shot him.

(Small post to note with a google doc link, I just like the writing)

Sort of hidden in some text posts throughout is a whole seperate website! (it is linked on 2 different posts)

NOTE that there was a countdown!

Taking a look at the header you can clearly tell it was counting down to Henrik’s birthday. I only found this on said date so i didn’t get to see this live, only when you click on the link it appears for half a second. And of corse... more aes code...

A sweet little message! Doesn’t mean much so back onto what the website showed after the countdown:

A german “welcome” greets us and you can have a dialogue with someone (sounds like Anti imo).

You will reach an end and depending on if the one you’re talking to liked your answers or not you will be guided to a blank page or to a site on Schneep’s blog.

Sneaky little creator has changed the picture on this page and I wouldn’t doubt it didn’t change before I saw it too, I only got to see 2 images though. First time visting I got this

Probably a picture of infusion bags hanging? highly saturated with filters on top. Changing levels of the picture in the right top corner you can see some binary but...

The picture is small... and it was way too hard to read no matter how I changed filters so what/if that means anything is still out there and hopefully not too important.

The changed picture is this now:

This is all that was to the extra site if the picture doesn’t change again. (I checked the source code too but since it seems to be made with the help of a website tool i doubt you can even hide anything in there)

Anti’s blog starts off with this

I fairly simply Cipher that really doesn’t mean anything(or does it?). It translates to: I REMEMBER IT LIKE IT WAS YESTERDAY

In general he laughs around at the other’s misery and mocks them.Here he links to some imgur post

(”DO YOU WANT HIM TO DIE?”) Doesn’t look like there is something hidden in it, but I have to appreciate the work, it looks really cool imo

In another post he tags it something weird looking but the “?=“ definitely told me it should be a youtube video link. I have tried to solve this and the “https://youtube.com/watch?=v” is sure but the rest of the link is hard to do. I have put it through Caesar Cipher decoder and decoded it by hand a few times, but the link doesn’t seem to work. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9i73ddxye4c I don’t know if it’s on my part and I actually did do something wrong, the video was deleted or lil Anti just played a trick all along.

Second post that links to another imgur site:

Looks like Henrik’s workplace with all these logs, a phone with broken screen, sticky notes and empty coffee cup and yet again!

Another code...There is one across all and then even damn morse code on the red one, really doesn’t make it easier to read with the 3d effect on top. I like to think I typed it off right and that “XILDM” was the key but it didn’t work. Plus the morse code is hard to read and I’m not sure in which order it should be so.... this is still open to be solved.

The last suspicious thing he posts is an audio post that sounds like an old clock ticking (?) getting louder. The name of it is yet another code and the picture a QR-code! The QR-code just leads to this, a google search for “does space have a sound” I thought for sure that would be the key to the code to solve it but no. I even thought ‘Maybe the key is the answer’ or the zalgo tag but no, don’t know what this one means.

All in all... I really enjoyed this!! I’m really sad to leave a bunch of things unsolved but I am not the brightest person for this. I haven’t seen anything like this in the community and outside it only a few that aren’t that interesting. While many will do a lot of code solving like this one, this also had more story and so much extra work put into it. Seriously, Google docs, the logs that were actual scanned papers, photographs, polaroids, The videos, A whole other website, The amazingly edited gifs and 3 whole blogs. A lot was put into this and I really like it, kudos to the creator, it was a really neat project! :)

#jacksepticeye #dr schneeplestein #schneeplestein arg #idk what else to tag this really?#blood tw #knife tw

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redatuvu-blog · 6 years ago

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FEZ: An Aesthetic Review

FEZ is a side-scrolling puzzle-platformer game developed by Polytron Corporation and published by Trapdoor. The game stars a character named Gomez, who, upon receiving a new fez from a magical golden space cube, gains the ability to twist his two-dimensional world in a third dimension. However, doing this smashes the golden cube into 64 bits – 32 light and 32 dark – which scatter across worlds linked by dimension-defying doors. Gomez must go on a quest to find the bits and discover the secrets the cube held. FEZ’s unique gameplay, memorable art style, and intriguing puzzles make it a game that many players enjoy.

The gameplay is the forefront feature of the game. It mostly controls like a two-dimensional platformer, akin to early 1990’s games like Super Mario World and Sonic the Hedgehog. The gimmick of the game, though, is the ability to rotate the world around a vertical axis, changing the perspective and layout of any puzzle. If the player is on a platform to the left, and cannot jump far enough to reach a platform on the right, rotating the world to the right can overlap the platforms from that perspective, which Gomez can move over as if they were always in two dimensions to begin with. This mechanic can be mind-boggling at first, but as the player progresses through the game, it will begin to come naturally to think in three dimensions. It may be strange, but that’s part of what makes it truly memorable.

Artistically, the game at first appears to be yet another “retro-revival” style, where everything is pixelated and simplistic, which is a style that’s frequently considered unimpressive. FEZ, though, uses the simplicity to its advantage, giving each area extremely unique color palettes and organic details, but still blends them together into one natural, cohesive world. The first few areas are islands floating in an ocean, and while pretty, they are not necessarily outstanding. The deeper the player dives into the game, the more variety is added, taking them through dense forests, a rainy graveyard, a brick-built city, and a dark sewer, and each new addition is more striking than the last.

The game is also non-linear; a player can beeline to the graveyard first and then go back to find the lighthouse and smoggy city, or do it the other way around. Whichever way Gomez goes, he will almost inevitably be coming back to those areas again to find bits he missed or previously gave up on.

Giving up on a puzzle in FEZ is not uncommon; the challenges in the game can be mind-boggling, to say the least. Some of the hardest puzzles are actually, completely, literally impossible to get right without knowing exactly what you’re looking for. One puzzle, for example, gives its solution through the blinking of two stars. The blinking translates into a binary code, which can then be translated into a string of commands to enter into the game, which finally completes the puzzle. Very few players will know binary upon entering that puzzle’s room, and even fewer may realize that they need binary. For many puzzles, the solutions can only be found online, which can be a bit disheartening. However, only 32 bits need to be found to get the main ending of the game, and the 32 light bits – called “cubes” – are much simpler and intuitive to obtain. The game itself even calls collecting those 32 cubes the 100% ending, giving casual players the ability to stop and appreciate what they’ve already done. Only players who really love the game need to collect the 32 “anti-cubes” for the second, more confusing ending at 200% completion.

Despite the insane difficulty curve and bare-bones plotline FEZ holds, it’s still a good game for people looking for either an intriguing puzzle game or a cutesy platformer. The more a player is immersed in this game, the more inspiring and beautiful it becomes, making it highly reviewed and one of my personal favorites.

#fez #gaming #polytron

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click2watch · 6 years ago

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Casa Is Open Sourcing Its Lightning-Enabled Hardware Bitcoin Node

Bitcoin storage startup Casa is open sourcing aspects of its lighting network-enabled bitcoin node the firm announced Friday.

It’s also launching a browser extension allowing users to interact with their Casa Nodes – hardware devices that connect to and help validate the bitcoin blockchain – directly on any cryptocurrency website that boasts lightning network functionality.

Lightning is a layer-two payments protocol running atop bitcoin to facilitate transactions at higher speeds and larger volumes. As such, certain web-based applications such as Satoshi’s Place – a blockchain-based art sharing platform – leverages the lightning network as a more efficient means for users to make bitcoin payments.

“The main thing right now if you’re using a Casa Node and your going … to any of these other [crypto] sites, you’re basically having to open a second browser tab to open the main Casa dashboard and enter in all the [payment] information somewhat manually,” explains founder of Casa Jeremy Welch.

Starting today, Welch highlights that Casa will support an extension for two web browsers – Google Chrome and Firefox – by which users can control their Casa Node directly and enter in payment information more easily on “websites that are lightning network enabled.”

Having been built in “less than a month” according to Welch, this product is just one of many anticipated in the first quarter of this year.

“We’ve been pushing out a lot of code and one of the things that drives us is that fact that when we push products out and when we really put a lot of time into stuff, we know that people are going to get really engaged,” Welch told CoinDesk. “We’ve got a lot more coming out this year. It’s just the beginning for 2019.”

Outpacing expectations

Indeed, likening the current phase of blockchain development more broadly as similar to the “early days of the Internet,” Welch anticipates “there’s going to be a lot more lightning applications that are out there on the web.”

And it’s not just Casa that’s working these types of tools to increase usability of the bitcoin lightning network.

Welch noted that today’s browser extension couldn’t have been built without the help of Will O’Beirn – founder of blockchain-based crowdfunding platform Grant.io and developer of a separate standalone lightning browser extension by the name of Joule.

“[Joule] got quite a bit of attention I would say at the end of the year, early January and we were getting a bunch of requests [for browser extension] from customers,” explained Welch to CoinDesk. “We also had previously planned for it before and so we put these plans together and talked to Will.”

Speaking to this push for increased collaboration, Casa announced yesterday it would be open-sourcing key features of the Casa Node.

The reasons outlined were primarily about corroborating product security, but also included extending creative license for people to “reuse, extend, and improve [product] code,” as stated in the press release.

“I would say everything [Casa] has built has been difficult. We’re pioneering new ground … [but] it’s a privilege to build for a community that really appreciates new products and that’s one of the things that’s driving us this year,” added Welch.

The Casa Node product in particular has seen an overwhelmingly positive response from users since its first release last year in October.

While refraining from specifying exactly how many Casa Node products were sold, Welch did reveal to CoinDesk that the number of orders Casa has received since then has “outpaced initial expectations,” saying:

“We had a small batch [of Casa Nodes] that went out end of October, a batch in November, and a batch in December. Those got much bigger, much quicker. We sold 100 in the first hour and we sold another 200 by the end of the first day.”

Casa CTO Jameson Lopp via CoinDesk archives

This news post is collected from CoinDesk