Gadget Duress [Complete]

3. Track removed
4. Robotic Vocallette
5. Ridiculously Enlightened
6. Splintered Pi Storm
7. Sweat and Castigation
8. Streamed Imagination
9. Forced Inspiration 3
10. Sexy Bamanation Instrumental
11. Opined Instrumental
12. Glossy Degradation Instrumental
13. Promiscuous Multivars
14. Moral Disintegration 2
15. Laughtermath - Fected















Joi de Vivre: A Notice and a Disclaimer

Oh for the simple era of political commentary and 4-500 tweets a day, when my time and money were longer than the days...

*

7:00 A.M. January 1, 2010:

Day: We're gonna need more guns, bombs.
5link33: I thought we were completely non-violent now.
Day: Oh, we're not going to use them.
5link33: Are you drunk again?
Day: They're for the Minutemen. If we can funnel them enough armaments --
5link33: I don't like that.
Day: -- they'll start a war with Mexico.
5link33: I thought we agreed you wouldn't try to talk to me when you're drunk.
Day: Once the price of weed goes up, we reap converts from among the people who have to quit.
5link33: This is why we broke up.
Day: I'm not drunk. I'm more sober than I've ever been.
5link33: Oh, God, why did I give you my new number?
Day: I want you so bad.
5link33: Don't call me until you're not crazy anymore.



- Names and places here are not necessarily based on real life. Some of the written material is fiction. Some proper place names reflect futuristic and fantasy views of those places. -


=::=


Instead of deleting comments, old material is moved to an entry called "Comments," nearly at the beginning of the site (the date of that entry is 2008-08-01). That's also instead of having comments from the random factor of the general public. This is not a campaign to be the next person who gives you hope until taking office. This is not an attempt to get your money. These are just excerpts from the mind of a writer and a musician.

Soundfonts

"Onward thru the Fog"

When, at the age of ten, I first experienced Austin's Oat Willie's it struck me as the neatest store in Texas. Their stock fascinated me exponentially more strongly than items at "regular" stores, with the exception of Herget's Books in New Orleans. The pipes, scales and other paraphernalia failed to even register on my radar, and the five pound bags of ephedrine were a total mystery. The underground comics and head posters made me never want to leave. It is not surprising that the old store is still thriving decades later, although some things have changed. Wholesale manufacturers of old school methamphetamines can no longer turn to the store for the base ingredient, and that's a good thing. Now an adult of advanced years, looking back I can iterate how my outlook on life changed because of Oat Willie's. A great deal, it must be said, for the underground subculture forever after appealed to me to the nth degree.

Godspeed You! Black Emperor continues to hold my highest respect and admiration, and I consider them to be greater than any other band. Cult movies and esoteric literature and art impress far more than mainstream entertainment, and surely always will. Obscure become popular can be particularly delightful, but enjoying creative greatness as a member of a small refined audience always outshines brushes with the herd mentality. The Austin subculture eternally stands out as the source of my initial divergence from conformity, but it would be in poor taste to slight the heads from the LSU area. I found Insect Fear and Slow Death by the campus in Baton Rouge, not in the sometimes elitist capitol of Texas.

Nowadays my personal original music occupies most available free hours of the week. I hold loops and kits in the highest contempt, because that is someone else's work. Sometimes, every now and then, my own sound impresses me. In those moments all the busy work, editing and tweaking seems very worthwhile. However, there's a pain from creating only solo music and only by non-traditional methods that never goes away. Reaching a state of mind in which the beat permeates the atmosphere and every fiber of the human essence helps to soothe the ache of perceived minimized accomplishment, but pondering what staunch musical conservatives perceive makes it impossible to dispel. At least, though, at least, there's nothing mainstream about the work, and the herd mentality could only retch from some of it (hoorah).

Due to music production very little else has been advanced here as of late; that is not a great tragedy. As long as life goes on there's always time to remedy the shortage of literature and commentary, and so there's this, a few words written down because being able to do such a thing with grace and skill is a gift handed down by the divine. For that, and all of the rest of life's fleeting joys, I never fail to be grateful.

Cheers, and happy summering.

From Guest Writer Abigail Mason

* Content, including links, belongs exclusively to the author and does not necessarily reflect the views of Symbols.

Are Internet Users Being Pushed Underground?

Governments all over the world, as usual, are a bit behind the population when it comes to technology and its uses. During the London riots of 2011 politicians were mystified by this curious communication technique called BBM. This of course was just Blackberry Messenger. The use of this made it incredibly difficult for police to monitor those taking part and thus the entire situation was very difficult to control. In comparison, people who posted Facebook updates supposedly encouraging the riots were swiftly arrested. The internet is no longer a safe place to voice your opinions without the government, or anyone else for that matter, knowing about it. Everything you do online can be traced easily directly to you. Plenty of legislations has been suggested by governments such as ACTA (Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement) and SOPA (Stop Online Piracy Act), which are the most well known. All have been introduced in an attempt to stifle online piracy of films, music and other media. This legislation also had a more sinister side to it which directly infringed on the civil liberties of internet users. The whole point of the internet is that it is meant to be a free place for all to share whatever opinions and ideas they have without fear of retribution. As governments begin to realise the potential of the internet they also realise it is potential they don't want solely in the hands of their citizens and not them. So how can you protect yourself?


First and foremost is the obvious. The less personal data online the less there is to be stolen. Withdrawing yourself from social networks is a great step. If you want a little bit of a scare to push you in this direction then make use of a feature Facebook now offers. You can now easily request every bit of data that Facebook has on you. This is essentially every status update, photo and whatever else you have shared through your account. Apart from the embarrassment of reading the kind of things you posted 4 years ago, it is a great shock to see how much information can be gleaned just from your account on Facebook. It might hard at first to unplug yourself as people rely on it so much for staying connected these days, but it is the first step to not only protecting your personal data but towards controlling it.

One of the most powerful tools to look after yourself online is the use of Tor. Tor is a way to access the dark side of the web. Essentially this is where websites are that you cannot access through a normal browser or bring up in search engines. Without Tor, you can't get to them. Tor as well completely hides you online. Anything you do cannot be traced by anyone in the slightest, not even the government. Everything you post or look at is completely secret to you and this is where the internet is headed. As governments become more oppressive, users will be pushed underground and to get there they will use Tor. As more and more people head into the dark depths governments will suddenly be faced with what looks like an increasingly empty internet, despite bandwidth use suggesting otherwise. What is in this hidden web though?

One of the most infamous websites is one called Silk Road. This is an online market place where anything is for sale. By that I mean you can buy drugs, weapons and fake passports. The currency used is called “bitcoins”, which is an online currency which is also untraceable without a hefty and time-consuming investigation by various bodies. Here is an example of what you could get on there. You could purchase an old vehicle you've always wanted on there for a great price without anyone being able to trace the transaction. What about protecting a classic car, such as the one you just bought? Well, with your purchase you could also get some surveillance or tracing equipment to help you with that problem as well. It would be a simple matter of picking up you vehicle and the only people who will know about it will be you, the seller and anyone you decide to tell.

As time goes on it is increasingly likely that more people will move to this part of the internet. As it's use grows, so does the services offered. It is a haven for criminality so its increase in popularity is not always going to be a good thing. For the moment though, it is a great way to hide yourself away from prying eyes.
 
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