Category: Computers and Internet

Liberator! Part 4

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‘Do you mind if we don’t got to the cinema tonight?’ Amy asked.

‘Hmmn?’

‘I’ve sort of double-booked. I don’t really feel like going out,’ she said, ‘and I can’t really be bothered to get dressed up and I’m really tired…’

‘Yeah, me too,’ Tim said, pursing his lips and blowing the air from his mouth through the small puckered gap. He rubbed his eyes. It was true, he was tired, largely on account of the fact he was having extreme difficulty sleeping. He had spent the last few nights lying awake, tossing and turning, his mind endlessly and restlessly cogitating myriad work issued, and now compounded by the fact the Sword of Damoclese hung over his career. This in turn was causing him to agitate over their finances. However much he earned, it was never enough and things were tight enough as they were. he simply couldn’t afford to lose his job. In the meantime, he needed to conserve every penny should the worse happen, and not going to the cinema meant money not spent and in the bank for the rainy day that blotted his once-bright horizon.

Amy, however, wasn’t done. ‘…but I kind of promised Lizzie and Will that we’d be there tonight for their awards night, and I know we were supposed to go out and spend some time together but this is really important to them and besides, it’s a really good networking opportunity. I can’t really go on my own…’

Tim closed his ears and his mind as he tried in vain to stifle a yawn, then rubbed his eyes with his thumb and forefinger.

‘Ok, ok. I’ll go and shower.’

It was after midnight when they got back home and his mind was abuzz from the endless babble of small-talk with anonymous, self-important pseuds. It was like being at work. Only worse. In an attempt to unwind, he poured himself a large Scotch, despite knowing that he really didn’t need any more alcohol after all of the wine and continental lager he’d sunk at the ceremony of back-slapping and smugness he had just squandered the last few hours. Slumping on the settee, he sipped his drink and picked up the leaflet again in the hope that reading something – anything – might help stop his mind from racing. His skin felt rough and dry, his eyes sensitive and watery. He was exhausted, and this was reflected in his sallow appearance. The text was beginning to drift before his eyes as he read it again and again. The text was beginning to drift before his eyes as he read it again and again.

It was no good. He was simply too tired to read on. He poured himself a glass of wine and returned to the living room where Amy was on the sofa watching some zombifying ‘talent’ show or something while simultaneously chatting on Facebook to a friend on her iPhone. He didn’t want to arrive at work hungover the next morning – in fact, he didn’t want to arrive at work the next morning at all – but yearned for a good night’s sleep and hoped that the alcohol would sedate him sufficiently.

***

It didn’t. Another night spent restless left him feeling disorientated, groggy, detached. Every day was exactly the same, only worse. Over the past few weeks and months, Tim had felt his energy levels decreasing incrementally, and now, having reached what he felt had been a non-specific tipping point, the plummet had moved into a spiral of exponential decline. And as his energy levels dropped and his levels of exhaustion soared, he increasingly began to feel that his life was no longer his own, as though he was being steered by some other force. He was no longer in control of his own destiny.

Tim felt a strange sense of déjà vu as he entered the office. It wasn’t his office, the office where he worked and had worked for the last five years, and it wasn’t the office he worked in for three years before that. In fact, it was none of the offices he had ever worked in. And yet he couldn’t explain this vaguely bewildering sensation any more than he could shake it. He spent the morning working like an automaton, firing off emails by the dozen and answering phone calls back to back. it’s relentless, it’s dizzying, it’s dehumanizing. He keeps on sinking the hot stomach fluids that pass as coffee that the machine dispenses, but never has the time to leave his desk and relieve the pressure building in his bladder. He can feel himself slowly losing his grip and his focus. All he can focus on is the acute stab in his lower abdomen, but he hasn’t the time to stop just now.

A tall, skinny man with short, mousy hair and an ill-fitting suit that hung from his curved meatless shoulders escorted him to a generously-sized meeting room. The unsettling recognition stayed with him as he took a seat, to which the grey suit man had gesticulated wordlessly, at the long glass table. Another faceless suit, charcoal grey this time, spoke, but while Tim saw his mouth move, he heard no sound. Tim nods. He has no idea why he nods, it’s as though he has some involuntary need to nod. Charcoal grey suit moves his mouth silently again. Again, Tim has no idea what he’s saying or why he can’t hear. He’s not even sure if the dude’s actually speaking or if he’s simply miming.

Why would he be miming? That doesn’t make any sense… Nothing made any sense. Am I deaf? The eerie silence, which Tim could only liken to how he expected it might sound like in a soundproof padded cell – something he had never experienced during the course of his extremely normal life – was only one of his concerns. Where was he? Why was he here? Who were these people? He’s in autopilot, feel like a car crash, like he’s in a dream watching a fictional performance simulating his own life.

He nods again. It’s not even a compulsion. He simply feels himself nodding as though he was a marionette, his actions controlled by some invisible puppeteer.

Charcoal suit man walks stiffly from the room and returns almost immediately with a small plastic cup full of some foul-smelling brown fluid. It could be the pumped contents of someone’s stomach for all Tim knows, but he instinctively knows it’s coffee.

Tim speaks, no words leave his mouth. Charcoal Suit smiles and nods.

Charcoal Suit walks around the table and sits down opposite. Tim’s feeling hemmed in: Baggy Grey Suit is situated at his left elbow and he feels like he’s a piece in a game of chess and the moves available to him are diminishing by the moment. He’s feeling like car crash and wondering why he simply doesn’t seem able to cope with certain things, certain scenarios, certain situations. The day spins by in a blur and he’s not even sure if it’s actually happened or if he’s dreamed or imagined half of it. He’s only too relieved when it’s time to knock off and head for home.

‘What time are you going to be in tomorrow?’ asked Peter as they passed on the stairs.

‘I’ll be working from home tomorrow,’ Tim replied. ‘I’ve got no appointments booked and I’ve got to get that report written and submitted by the end of the week and I’m way behind.’

Flashman pursed his lips, his brow furrowed. ‘Right, if it’ll help you get caught up,’ he puffed irritably.

 

 

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Liberator! Part 3

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Tim had been in a conference call for over half an hour and was dying for boredom. Sitting back and exhaling, long and slow, he took the opportunity to check what his contacts were doing on Facebook and respond to some of the myriad text messages that had been flooding his inbox during the morning. There were two more invitations to go for drinks that he would have to decline having already agreed to meet Steve and Andy for a couple of pints after work before heading over to Dan’s for their weekly poker night. It would be his turn to host it in another couple of weeks.

His mobile began to vibrate, just as it was his turn to speak in the conference call. He let it go to voicemail. On his way out of the office to pick up a sandwich by way of a late lunch, Tim checked his messages. The first was from Amy. ‘I’ve not had time to do any shopping for food today,’ she said breathlessly. ‘Jane had a crisis so I had to go for lunch with her… long story. Anyway, I’m out this evening. I’d completely forgotten it’s Sammy’s birthday meal tonight, so you’ll have to call in and pick up a takeaway or something on your way home.’

***

Before he knew it, it was on Sunday afternoon, and while checking his pockets for receipts to submit along with his expenses claim form Tim rediscovered the leaflet he had picked up at lunchtime on Wednesday. It had been another uneventful weekend at home with Amy. He’d not swap Amy for the world, but things had been growing a little stale of late: maybe to swap for just one night… No, no, it was wrong. He pushed these thoughts from his mind. Amy had spent the majority of the time asleep or otherwise lounging around in front of the TV, reading a magazine, in her worn towelling dressing gown and nightie, without makeup and her hair unbrushed. Tim felt that he should have been able to appreciate the fact she felt sufficiently relaxed and comfortable, but instead felt like a cunt for resenting her for what he perceived as slovenliness and a complete lack of effort on her part. It wasn’t as though the long lie-ins were spent getting it on. He read the first coupe of paragraphs, and found himself agreeing with the points made.

Technology was supposed to give us more leisure time, but it seems to be having the opposite result. There can be no question that there are more labour-saving devices in existence now than ever before. Things like washing, washing up even eating, take next to no time in comparison to in times past. You’ve never had it so good! And distance is no object. With the advent of the Internet, it’s as easy to keep in touch with someone on the other side of the globe as it is someone who lives on the next street. You don’t have to leave the house for either, and in both cases it’s instant. In short, communication has never been easier. Or faster. It’s instant. But this immediacy has exacerbated the demand everything, and demand it yesterday, culture of impatience. And there’s the rub. Communication is too easy. Talk is cheap. Quality is falling by the wayside: quantity rules. And there’s no escape. People arrive at work and are overwhelmed by the sheer volume of emails awaiting them.

Just then, his mobile phone rang. The song he’d once been really into and so selected as his ring-tone was now simply another sound, another source of irritation and stress, its stunted, compressed take on the original supplanting appreciation with anxiety, its trebly bastardization becoming just one more trigger in his infinite nexus of triggers. Without thinking, he allowed his reflexes to dictate and he responded in a flash.

‘Tim James.’

‘Tim, Peter.’ Peter Flashman was his manager. Tim felt his stomach sag from the inside, whole at the same time his flesh prickled with resentment a the intrusion. Yes, he was on a good salary, but he felt increasingly that his life was not his own, that he was the property of the company and constantly at their beck and call. Did the end justify the means? Was he being pad enough to cover not simply his official working hours, but his every hour outside the workplace too? ‘look, you know I hate to call on a weekend, an so late, but….’

Before he knew it, Tim had agreed to take on three additional projects, produce another report by Wednesday and meet with some new clients in a week’s time, which involved cancelling the three days of holiday he had booked to visit his sister who had recently given birth. He felt bad: not only had he not met his new nephew yet, but, he realised with no small shame, he hadn’t seen or even contacted his sister in almost three months. But what could he do?

 

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Liberator! Part 2

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Back at the office, Tim’s afternoon raced past in a flurry of telephone calls and a short but mentally taxing meeting called at short notice by the department manager, who had to announce that there were ‘significant changes afoot within the company’s structure’. ‘We’ve all got to be seen to be on board with this, going forward,’ he said.

A break was called and everyone dispersed, headed to the coffee machine, toilets or outside for a cigarette. Tim loitered in one of the recessed areas and checked his Blackberry, which he had kept on silent while in the meeting. It showed he had fifteen missed calls. He rubbed his eyes with his thumb and forefinger. His skin felt rough and dry, his eyes sensitive and watery. He would have to deal with returning the calls later. As he made his way back to the meeting, he encountered a tall, skinny man with short, mousy hair and an ill-fitting suit that hung from his curved meatless shoulders who was loitering outside the generously-sized meeting room. The grey suit man acknowledged Tim.

‘Have we met?’ Tim asked hesitantly.

‘Er, probably not’, the man replied. ‘I’m visiting from Head Office.’ He introduced himself as Richard Fiddler, Executive Director, and gesticulated toward a seat midway down the long glass table as they entered. Another man in a navy pinstripe suit spoke, and asked Tim if he had met Barry Brown from the Manchester office previously. Tim nodded, as Barry, a chubby ginger bloke with a goatee bounded forward with his hand extended. He displayed an expression like a happy Labrador or a man who was meeting a friend he hadn’t seen in years.

The man in the navy pinstripe suit addresses Tim again, but he doesn’t quite catch what he says. He feels a little out of his depth in the company of all of these high-powered executives. To save face, he simply nods again. He feels has though he’s a marionette, his actions controlled by some invisible puppeteer, his nodding an involuntary action like a nerve twitch, a sleep kick, a cough or some kind of tic.

The meeting resumes. It’s insufferably dull. There’s talk crossing the table, line upon line of factual data and a grasp of figures and financial projections. There are flip charts and flow charts and Microsoft® Office PowerPoint® slideshow presentations. The presentations are slick. A beefy bloke in a navy pinstripe suit speaks commandingly about the business plan for the forthcoming financial year and the company’s ‘high-level’ strategies.

Some middle-aged bim with goofy teeth and a tasteless trouser-suit straight out of the 80s is presenting now. She’s clearly wise to using Microsoft® Office Fluent™ interface but her presentation is all style and no substance. She goes on for an age, extolling the virtues of ‘building relationships,’ ‘being progressive’ and ‘proactive cascading.’ She’s winding down her interim report and the business projections for the next six and 12 months and she’s pushing to end with a positive, but instead simply spouts more corporate bromides. The meeting concludes with more rhetorical throat-clearing and back-slapping both metaphorical and literal, faux camaraderie slipping across the smooth surface of the smoked glass table. Tim’s glad when he can make his exit: he has reports to write and calls to make.

As the meeting progressed – or, perhaps more accurately, became increasingly mired in relentless corporate self-absorption – Tim could feel his tension rising. Anxiety coursed through his veins, accelerated by a massive doses of adrenaline and norepinephrine secreted by his overworked medulla. Sustained high levels of catecholamines in the blood are a good indicator of chronic stress, and Tim’s were off the scale. As the realisation dawned that his job was potentially on the line, a fear gripped him and his head began to swim. A strange sense of disorientation began to wrap itself around him like a cloud. The remainder of the day was spent in a caffinated, adrenalized daze and he arrived home after seven in the evening tired, exhausted and drained and also tetchy and wired. He couldn’t help it. The simple fact was that he had been feeling decidedly fractious lately, and it was difficult to pinpoint the exact reasons why. And because he didn’t know, he felt he couldn’t really talk about it with Amy – what was there to say? It was his problem, and he didn’t want to push it onto her. Thursday and Friday bled into one forgettable grey mass of telephone calls, conferences, meetings and reports, and by the time Friday night finally arrived, Tim’s hands were tender from the relentless batter of forceful handshakes and he still hadn’t found the time to catch up on all of the calls he had missed during the lengthy meeting on Wednesday afternoon. He tried in vain to stifle a yawn, then rubbed his eyes with his thumb and forefinger. His skin felt rough and dry, his eyes sensitive and watery. He was exhausted, and he needed the weekend to rest and recuperate.

 

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…. And the Point Is…?

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I’ve never really been big on computer games. When I was a child, there weren’t any. Not really. I was seven then the first Spectrums came onto the market, and no-one I knew had one. Home computing was simply not mass-market in the way it is today. My sister, five years my junior, got a second-hand one, and while I spent the occasional half hour playing flight simulation games, I much referred, well, most other activities. Reading, drawing, making things. I even used to play sports, despite being hopelessly crap at all of them. I liked being outdoors, although preferred quiet, indoor solo pursuits. So why didn’t gaming appeal? I suppose I couldn’t really see the point. It didn’t feed my imagination like reading, wasn’t productive like art.

I did, much later, while at university, discover the joys of Mario Kart, and purchased a second-hand N64. The other games that came with it, I didn’t dig. FIFA Soccer was really difficult to play, and Goldeneye gave me motion sickness. It didn’t help that I’d keep dropping my weapons and spend half the game bitchslapping my assailants.

I did also waste many hours playing Jimmy White’s Whirlwind Snooker and a game called Ascendancy in the mid-late nineties, particularly during a fortnight-long bout of very heavy flu. I couldn’t leave the house, had no energy, there was nothing on television and so I sat, in my dressing gown, playing computer games.

When I began writing seriously, I found that all of my spare time – and even time that wasn’t spare – and all of my energy was occupied with the outpouring and arrangement and rearrangement of words. I soon forgot about playing games on the computer. I had a better use for it, and it was impossible to do the two things at once. Gaming very soon struck me as a terrible waste of time: there was nothing remotely constructive about it, and ultimately, it was not particularly rewarding.

Sitting at work the last few weeks – well I have to pay the bills somehow – I’ve been bored half to death by a couple of guys who sit nearby, talking endlessly about computer games. Well, specifically, console games. Having both rushed out to purchase the latest version of FIFA Soccer, they’ve begun arriving at work and recounting the games they’ve played in the minutest of details. The sliding tackles, the headers, the goals, the fine tuning alterations they’ve made to their players strength, weight and agility ratings, comparing notes and exchanging advice on how to improve their rankings.

I couldn’t care less about football to begin with. Actually, that’s not true: if there’s one thing I care less about than football, it’s fantasy football leagues, and if there’s one thing I care less about than either of those things, it’s virtual football.

More recently, the morning’s topic of conversation was different. The two mind-numbingly obsessive gamers sounded like they’d taken a night off gaming to look at cars. For three hours straight they discussed the different dealerships they’d seen and what cars, makes and models they were each stocking. From the sound of it, they’d even test-driven a few cars, detailing to nth degree the BHP of each vehicle, the handling, the brakes, the overall performance, and what upgrades might be done to improve aspects of the performance. Christ, it was tedious, but a made a change from the usual gaming bollocks. Their moronism remained unchallenged as one bragged about taking a corner at 70mph, while the other boasted of pulling off a risky move to overtake (or ‘take over,’ as he put it) another vehicle. Dangers to society they may be, but at least they’d left the house. Or so I had thought, until I eventually discovered that they had both left work the night before and headed straight to purchase the eagerly-anticipated new version of Gran Turismo, released that very day, and had proceeded to stay up until after 2am playing the game, trying out the different cars.

Picking my jaw off the floor, I began to wrestle with the levels of pathetic non-existence these guys are clearly scaling on a nightly basis. They’re actually reasonably popular, and have more friends than I do. Friends who stop by their desks, email, phone and text them… usually to discuss football and gaming, but still. By contrast, I go out several nights a week, either with company or without, to pubs, gigs, comedy and spoken word events. Meanwhile, they stay in six nights a week, are ‘too busy’ for social networking because it interferes with their gaming and football watching. I contribute in my own small way to the world with my reviews, my writing and so on. And yet it’s rare for people to stop by my desk, email, phone or text me to discuss music or literature or the state of the world. I’m not actually complaining, but, well, how can this be?

More saliently, how can these people – who seemingly represent the majority, and are thus considered to be fully functional participants in society – not realise that their behaviours are unfeasibly sad? Do they not miss real life? Or even the interaction that social networking and on-line chat facilities afford, which can often provide a fair substitute, while offering the means of connecting with like-minded individuals who may not reside locally, or even in the same country? Surely these are not only more useful, but more exciting applications of technology? Or could it be that virtual life, as represented by gaming, has evolved to replicate the reality so well that reality, with its inconveniences and unpredictable elements, seems like a rather poor second?

This seems to be a very real possibility. For a start, one of the gaming buffs actually drives. I mean properly, a real car. He goes places in it. He then drives the same vehicle while playing ‘GT’, and apparently, it’s amazing how realistic the handling is. His virtual car is just like the real thing! Ok, but to me, that sounds very much like going home from work to play a game where I do my day job, only without getting paid for it.

In recent months, the ad breaks on television have been taken over by plugs for the latest Wii games and controls, the X-Box Kinect (what’s with the ridiculous spelling?) and the ‘brain training’ games for the Nintendo DS. All very commendable: they’re actually helping the nation to get fit and for idiots to sharpen up and be slightly less retarded, and even helping the elderly fend off Alzheimer’s by keeping their minds occupied. Brilliant! But aren’t they simply providing so-called ‘solutions’ to problems they perpetuated in the first instance? Much like McDonald’s adding healthy options to the menu, it’s a win-win situation for them, and while such steps could be seen as a positive move made as a response to the enormous backlash, they’re certainly not doing it because they’re philanthropically motivated.

Putting to one side for now the suggestion that these innovations are nothing to do with the nation’s wellbeing and are instead merely new ways of making vast quantities of money by tapping into the zeitgeist and the widespread paranoia concerning our collective health, there remains one glaringly obvious question: why? As in, why the need for all of these things that replicate that which already exists? So, there are puzzles and crosswords and Sudoku and the like on the DS, are there? Ok, so why the need for a digital version? The originals were perfectly adequate and have been around for a long time. When did you last hear someone on a train or sitting at a bus-stop complaining that the battery had run out on their pack of cards, or that the screen on their word-search had broken while in their pocket?

The same arguments are equally applicable to the Kindle. ‘But it’s just like a book! You can turn the pages just like a real book! And no trees died to make a Kindle!’ the device’s advocates proclaim with glee. A book is also like a real book. You can turn the pages of a book just like a real book, too. Because it is a real book. And once manufactured, a book requires no power and is a lot easier to reuse and recycle than a Kindle. There will be ancient, leather-bound tomes in existence centuries after the Kindle has been extinguished and superseded, we can be sure of that.

Some will no doubt accuse me of churlishness, and argue that I should be pleased that there are now devices in so many households that encourage fat kids to do aerobics, to run, jump, dance and swim. Ok, but whatever happened to actually doing real aerobics, running, dancing, swimming? Football, cricket… Look, I hate to put a damper on things, but it’s all just another fad. Rubik’s Cubes were great brain-trainers and Space Hoppers made people bounce around, and outside, too. Ok, so it was safe to go outside back in the 80s, before paedophiles had been invented, but really, where’s the perspective here? How can virtual sports, sports simulations, be as good on any level as real sports? I’m speaking as someone who hates sports, and was rubbish at sport as a child. But I still got out there, and I still walk between places now. It’s free, and it’s a way of incorporating exercise into my daily routine. Believe me, it’s not difficult. It makes a lot more sense than driving to the takeaway for my tea, then coming home to play a virtual cooking game, followed by a game where I can pretend to drive the same car I just got out of round a digital replica of real streets, before finally moving on to a game where I walk on the spot, encouraged by a digital replica of a real-life personal trainer or celebrity.

What’s next, I wonder? I can just about see the point of The Sims, but lately it’s all become a bit too, well, realistic in its detail. Your characters have to interact and go shopping to remain happy and healthy, and you need to empty the bins and so on. And then of course there’s Second Life, where you live out an alternative life in the virtual world. How far will it go? Will people experience virtual (or real) depression when they are made virtually redundant from their virtual jobs that are so realistic you feel like you really could be in the office, shuffling papers and taking calls from complaining customers? Having been virtually sacked, you lose contact with all of your virtual friends, run out of virtual money, fall behind on the virtual rent and find yourself on the virtual streets… you’re so down you’re contemplating suicide and accidentally kill your real self because you’ve lost the ability to differentiate.

Real life may be grim at times, but replicating it is surely the most pointless of all things. Whatever happened to using one’s leisure time constructively, productively, or even  indulging in a spot of escapism? After all, escapism doesn’t have to be mindless, and surely even mindless escapism has to be better than mindless realism and living in a mind-draining facsimile of real life.

 

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WordPressing Issues: New Blog Location and Other Changes

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Having previously devoted some time to to finding a blogging platform that offered reasonable visibility, extreme ease of use and could be readily – and again, easily, given my limited technical skills – fed into my website, I’ve spent the last year or more augmenting my MySpace blog with pieces posted on my Windows Live blog. It wasn’t great and the limitations on comments were frustrating, (i.e. you need an account to comment, and I learned that much of my traffic is ‘casual’ rather than ‘networked’ or repeat visitors), but it did the job.

LiveSpaces are to be shut down early in 2011: they’re merging with (or, more specifically, being replaced by) WordPress. That’s cool, not least of all because WordPress offers a much greater and more flexible functionality, and during the period in the run-up to the end of LiveSpaces, the option to migrate existing Live blogs onto WordPress blogs has made the transition relatively smooth.

I say relatively, because a lot of the formatting has been screwed up in the process: line spacing, font colour, font types… the old blog is now here on WordPress, and while the contents has made it unscathed, aesthetically, it’s a bit of a mess. It’s something I will be attending to, in due course. However, it’s not a top priority at this moment in time, and I need to get myself acquainted with the workings of WordPress, which may take some time and could well result in things looking worse before they look better.

Hey ho. I’m here, and if you’re reading this, so are you. Thanks for stopping by: please com again. And remember, there’s always more of the same (only different) at Christophernosnibor.co.uk.

1923 Turkish Bath: Cyberterrorism and Virtual Warfare

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The world is full of crazy, crazed and angry people. This much is apparent just from turning on the news, reading a newspaper, sitting in a pub or walking down the street. Some of them have a definite point to make, and are driven to take desperate measures to get their voices heard. However, it perhaps goes without saying that some degrees of extremity are a step too far, and the means never justifies the end. Others, however, simply like stirring things up, getting their kicks by making life difficult and unpleasant for others, and have the sole objective of fucking shit up. There are instances where this can be witty or clever and artistic, and these type of activities I don’t only approve of, but actively enjoy. I’ve even engaged in a spot of mild pranksterism in various forms and guises in my own career of (counter)cultural activity, and it’s this type of thing that the avant-garde thrives upon.   But in many instances, it’s just pointless vandalism and mindless destruction. This very much goes against my life motto of ‘don’t be a twat.’

Hacking websites and screwing with them is one of those things that strikes me as being fundamentally twattish, particularly when the victims are completely random and genuinely innocent. Whisperinandhollerin, the music site I review for, was hacked yesterday. On going to upload some reviews, I was deeply perplexed to see the homepage had been replaced by a large graphic (a detourned Israeli flag with a pair of defecating dogs in silhouette), beneath which appeared the legend ‘1923Turk’ and ‘Fuck Israel.’ The tab contained the information ‘hacked by Gamoscu.’

Being the curious sort, I did a spot of research into 1923TURK. Details are scant, but from what I can ascertain, 1923turk grup are the second largest hacking organisation currently active, having risen from position number four in the hacking ranks just under a year ago. Their attacks aren’t so much widely documented, as much as their presence is widely announced, and each member tags their hacks (in the case of W&H is was Gamoscu, but other members seem to be much more prolific, if the edidence a brief Google search yields is to be taken at face value). YouTube videos, a Facebook page with several hundred fans (which features links to the sites they’ve hacked and defaced), and they even report their own hacks on sites such as zone-h (http://www.zone-h.org/). Zone-h doesn’t only record reported hack attacks and rank the notifiers, but gives further details, breaking down the hacks by category of Single def.  (defacement) / Mass def. / Total def. / Homepage def. / Subdir def. (1923turk have thus far claimed a total of 70,074  defacements across all categories. Yes, well done).

In some respects, this latter ‘claiming’ or attacks is not entirely dissimilar to the way terrorist organisations claim responsibility for attacks. The concept of on-line terrorism is one that does, to an extent, perplex me, not least of all where ‘organisations’ like 1923 Turk are concerned, because precisely what they hope to achieve is so unclear. I mean, are they opposed to the Israeli oppression of the Palestinians? If so, fair comment, but there are other, more appropriate, places to advertise the fact. One of the things I like about music reviewing is that it’s apolitical, and is purely about the art, the music. I, for one, always make a point of reviewing as objectively as possible, and entirely honestly. This means that some acts who may hope for or even expect a positive review might not get what they’re after, but that’s the way it is. And sure, I’m opinionated, but I’d be a lousy critic if I wasn’t. But I do make it policy to review without prejudice, and not to make any comments that could be perceived as overtly political, defamatory or inflammatory. Of course, it’s not all about me, but I definitely speak for all of the site’s contributors here, who write for the love of music, nothing more and nothing less.

According to a thread on the hackthissite forum from 2009, ‘1923Turk Group has hacked the websites which contains child porns, terror propagandas, and all various attacks for the Turkish Nation and Unitary Turkish Republic.’

This particular post continues, ‘There are a lot of special teams in 1923Turk Group. Some of them hack terror supporter sites, some of them hack porn sites, the others hack enemy state sites and enemy company sites etc… They are at a cyber war via enemy of Turks!’ there’s more: ‘It is used for a lot of harmful sites. In addition, they don’t forget their brothers. Especially, East Turkistan (Uyghuristan) and Azerbaijan are important for them. Also, they rejects so-called Armenian Genocide claims. They don’t want to open the border gates with Armenia, because of Nagorno-Karabakh! They know Nagorno-Karabakh is a part of Azerbaijan, but now any Azeris don’t live in Nagorno-Karabakh because of the migration! Armenians killed 613 civilians, of them 106 women and 83 children. It is called The Khojaly Massacre. The Khojaly Massacre was the killing of hundreds of ethnic Azerbaijani civilians from the town of Khojaly on 25 February 1992 during the Nagorno-Karabakh War…. Also, 1923Turk Group hacks a lot of states’ sites, universities’ sites, security company sites, organisation sites, big companies’ sites etc. Now, Enemies of Turkia (Turkey) are afraid of 1923Turk Group! Because, 1923Turk Group is cyber army of Turkia(Turkey) and all Turks(Oghuzs, Uzbeks, Azeris, Uyghurs, Kazakhs, Kyrgyzs etc.) They are the Turks are the ghost soldiers of the cyber world. They sweared as 1923 Turk Group staffs to protect Turkish flag in this cyber world…They will be nightmare for who recognizes so-called Armenian Genocide claims or who supports the terrorist organizations(especially, pkk) or who publish child porn.’

Fine: so as is so often the case, we have a small extremist collective misrepresenting the majority (and while I for one consider myself apart from any majority going, I’m no extremist) and taking their ‘message’ to the rest of the world who have absolutely nothing to do with the situation. I mean, really, how many people surfing for, say, music reviews, are going to grasp the significance of a statement like ‘Martyrs are immortal our land is indivisible’? 

Critics of the tactics employed by the group challenge precisely what their tactics achieve, while supporters claim that they have ‘won fame’ and that ‘Hacked sites’ masters pay attention and see their social messages! 1923Turk Group just warns! It’s a reaction.’ But this again assumes that those who run or visit hacked sites can make out the ‘message’ or give a toss beyond restoring the site to the way it was. Raising awareness to issues is one thing, but there are more useful platforms and channels to do this, and moreover, for any such campaign to be effective, messages must be at least deciperable, if not immediately clear.

So Turkey have condemned Israel over the deaths of nine Turkish pro-Palestinian activists killed last week… but then, so has the rest of the world. How this has any kind of connection to child porn, or why child porn particularly offends the Turks (more than it offends / disturbs / distresses any other nation) is unclear. But I digress. The UN haven’t exactly praised the Israeli action either, but I don’t see them hacking the NME’s website. The same is true of Whisperinandhollerin, which is neither pro-Israel or involved in pornography of any sort. Again, linking terrorism and pornography into a coherent political framework isn’t easy, and again raises the question, ‘precisely what are they people trying to communicate?’

Ultimately, I would suggest that it doesn’t matter all that much. The bottom line is that war solves nothing, and in any acts of war, it’s always the innocent who suffer. In the scheme of things, a few defaced websites and the like isn’t much, but it’s simply a part of the bigger picture of people needlessly inflicting harm and damage… and for what? It never solves anything. Man is indeed a bad animal. And I, for one, am tired of it.

Low Profile – Another Blog on Blogging

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People – the ‘general public’ – have short memories. The collective memory is getting shorter, as is the average / collective attention span. This isn’t necessarily indicative of an increasing level of stupidity, so much as it appears to suggest that we, as a species, have reached our capacity in terms of evolution. We can only absorb so much information, and human brain simply isn’t built to process and retain everything it’s bombarded with in the Internet age, this age of media and information overload – at least not on a conscious or liminal level.

We’re expected to take in and retain more than is physically possible. When presented with so much information from so many sources, it comes down to a simple choice between quality and quantity. The popularity of Twitter, flash fiction, etc., etc., suggests that the latter wins out almost every time.

Small wonder, then, that if you’re not receiving constant updates, tweets, bulletins, and all the rest, people soon forget. Failure to update a blog for a few weeks and it’s dead, the audience moves on, because they want new material and they want it now! Celebrities can make headlines on account of their inane Internet postings, or similarly sink without trace. If you’re not on-line, then really, you don’t exist. And having a media bod or one of your ‘people’ take care of such business isn’t good enough: social networking has created a certain expectation that personal pages and profiles equate to a direct line to the artist. An unreasonable expectation? Perhaps, but keeping the fans happy is what it’s all about. They’re the ones paying the wages of any given artist.

The trouble is, creating and maintaining a web presence requires a degree of effort, and is time-consuming. Indeed, maintaining any kind of profile and remaining in the public eye – without reaching overkill – requires a degree of effort, and is time-consuming. Do you really think it’s possible to do a Salinger nowadays?

I recently read an article on writing a successful blog. Unsurprisingly, it was presented in the form of a list – ten essentials for a successful blog or somesuch. One of the points was that content should be new, original and exclusive. Fair enough. The article – which I refuse to link to and grant it further unwarranted authority – also suggests that a successful blog should be well-written. If only! I’ve seen no shortage of incredibly successful (if one measures success in terms of popularity, which seems to be the general benchmark in blogging terms) blogs that are atrociously written. It would also have been nice if the author had taken her own advice.

Another point was that a successful blog must be updated daily. At least. The author’s contention was that readers demand new content, and if a writer can’t keep up with that demand, why should they expect readers to return to their blog? Now, I’ve long believed in the adage ‘content is king.’ But my interpretation of this is that content should be considered, and have a degree of depth – actual content. After all, there’s no shortage of superficial fluff, and a little bit of real meat can go a long way. This returns us to the quality vs quantity debate.

Obviously, writers write, and many writers of books – fiction or otherwise – through the years have relied on other forms of writing, such as journalism, as a means of establishing a steady income and raising their public profile. It beats working in a fast food joint, after all, and is good exercise. Continual writing keeps one sharp, can improve a writer.

Today, whether it pays or not, everyone is expected to have a blog. And what writer wouldn’t have a blog? The trouble is, meeting the expectations and obligations maintaining a blog brings can take a writer away from their actual job of writing. It’s all very well promoting oneself and one’s writing through blogging, but it’s counterproductive if one reaches the point that there’s nothing to promote and the blog becomes the end in itself.

It’s possible that we’re now reaching the point that blog saturation will bring about a new wave of blog abstainers. So many blogs, so little time! So much writing, and for what? How much more content does the world need? I for one can’t possibly read all the blogs I subscribe to, and find it impossible to work and read blogs concurrently. I’m not necessarily convinced that, as Stewart Home claimed in his final ‘Mister Trippy’ blog that blogging is dead, or even that the days of the blog are numbered. However, I do think that the blogosphere may be subject to change, and (hopefully) shrinkage as we move into the new decade. Ideally, there’ll be fewer blogs, with the crap, crass, poorly written and substance-lacking ones falling by the wayside. I daresay that the reality will be the exact opposite, but I can dream.

As for me, I intend to keep on bloggin’ for the time being. Do the blogs raise my profile? Possibly. Do they help sell books? Maybe, just a few. But as I do have some bigger projects I’m wanting to concentrate on, don’t be too surprised if the blogs are less frequent.

One final word on blogs, though: remember, success is all relative…



 And if you’re loving my work, there’s more of the same (only different) at Christophernosnibor.co.uk… and hey, there are always the books you can buy.

Everything that’s wrong with today’s world – part 1 in a very occasional series

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Sometimes, when I’m lost for ideas or looking to add new contacts who might be interested in my work, I’ll peruse MySpace profiles. Sometimes I’ll go through my friends’ friends, others I’ll check out the recommendations. MySpace also has in its homepage a tab for ‘people’ (along with celebrity updates (which include insightful status updates from the likes of Russell Brand – ‘Just posted a new vid on…’ and Lady Gaga ‘I love korea!! Xoxo’), music, etc.). I’ve no idea how these people get selected, but occasionally check their profiles either by clicking in error, or through curiosity. They never fail to disappoint in their inherent shitness. Bland, egotistical posers one and all, and the majority are borderline retarded.

The sad fact is that these are average, everyday people, and as such largely representative of our society (at least the 16-35 age bracket). This short article marks the first in an occasional series. When I’m feeling lazy or pressed for time, rather than try to summon the bile and expend the energy trying to create an articulate critique regarding an issue that, for me, represents things that are wrong with the world today, I’ll simply copy and paste someone’s ‘about me’ blurb to make my point by way of illustration.

So, to kick off, I would like to introduce you all to Mr Edward Nigma…

Sports dnt like many take 2 much effort lol!!! i like all motor sports mostly bikes tho.(well watchin them) Scared Of spiders a hate the things more than 4 legs just aint normal!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! lol Happiest When in bed out with ma mates or on ma bike or just messin about doin random stuff lol. Things i hate!!!!!!!!!!! a hate traffic cops(fat pricks in a shiny car wae hats on WANKERS!!!! ) , sundy drivers, gd weather bikers and scooters. Tattoos most of ma tattoos have a reason bhind them well apart from ma clown it was just random lol and a must add they r addictive and a want more!!!!!!!!!!! if any 1 wants 2 buy me some just say lol .