*Drumroll*

Took my entrance exam for data processing sciences on thursday, felt pretty easy, pretty sure I'm getting in.

That's all for now.

Settling In

So I've been here for a week now, haven't done a whole lot but I did check out the local bar with my cousin and a friend mine, drank a few and played some billiard, my friend's jokes almost made my lungs burst from laughter, owch, it's a good feeling though.

I also just started regularly walking with another friend of mine, we'll be doing it every second day, we walked one hour this friday and chatted all kinds of crap, then went shopping and came to my place to listen to some music.

Then I got an offer from yet another friend of mine to join a local casual World of Warcraft guild, I haven't played in ages but it's worth consideration, I know I won't get hooked to that thing and it's one way to further socialize here. We'll see.

I'm not too interested in updating this blog so often anymore like I used to be, maybe I'll do it once in a while when I have something to say. I've been doing this as a personal thing but it's feeling increasingly pointless, only handful of people other than me visit this blog anyway.

Then I've also read a lot to my entrance exam, those damned books.

Moving Done

Pretty fast and painless operation, here are some pictures of the apartment:

White Hat Hacking

Hacking as a subject is really interesting but in most cases it's highly illegal, there are ways around it though, such as being a white hat hacker.

From the wikipedia article called "White hat":

"White hat hackers, also known as "ethical hackers," are computer security experts, who specialize in penetration testing, and other testing methodologies, to ensure that a company's information systems are secure. Such people are employed by companies where these professionals are sometimes called "sneakers." Groups of these people are often called tiger teams or red teams. These security experts may utilize a variety of methods to carry out their tests, including social engineering tactics, use of hacking tools, and attempts to evade security to gain entry into secured areas.

The National Security Agency offers certifications such as the CNSS 4011. Such a certification covers orderly, ethical hacking techniques and team management. Aggressor teams are called "red" teams. Defender teams are called "blue" teams."

To even become a real hacker you have to consume endless amount of information about operating systems and various other things, naturally what you need to learn depends on what you wish to hack. Since hacking is highly illegal, amateur hackers can easily get caught from malicious hacking since they probably can't cover their tracks efficiently enough. I doubt even good hackers can get away with everything, I'm sure they are very careful on picking targets - hacking the White House is not the safest operation to go for.

The effort needed to get into the trade mixed with the high risk of getting caught leads to the fact that being a white hat hacker is a good option for many people who love hacking, they may hack but they leave their contact details and/or instructions on how to fix the problem they caused. So some hackers start hacking as a hobby but end up working for some company they hacked. Security gets improved and the hacker needs to find a new way to get in, creating a loop which solidifies the security all the time.

Hacking the White House might get you employed, think about that for a minute.

Snakes On A Plate

Not really, but I did visit a snake show the last sunday with my sister and two of her kids, I've been to one when I was a kid, it felt lot duller this time around though. Only two spiders and three lizards were present, but there was a freak show side to the thing, wax statues of weird things such as a man with two pupils, stuff like that - some things were authentic too such as a two-headed baby's mummy.

After that trip we went to celebrate my aunt's birthday in an italian restaurant, I ate some salad, a steak with onion potatoes and a mango sorbet, overall it was pretty eventful day.

Now to go and buy some curtains and go get a vacuum cleaner from my brother since I'll be moving out next week.

Until the next time I can be arsed to write.

Lost

Do you ever get the feeling that you have wasted so much time doing nearly nothing at all? Well I do and today is one of those days I think about it; I should be less on my computer (not shut it off completely from my days but lessen its presence), I should practice piano a lot more (I'm now 7 or 8 months in and I have only practiced 2 full songs and parts of some songs), I should exercise more (even though I do exercise), I should expand my knowledge a lot, I should try to be more social (goes against my nature but still for some reason I want to try) and I should sleep when normal people sleep.

I have a lot of improving to do, let's see how it goes.

Swine Flu

Swine influenza outbreak, news go wild, world is trembling, another mild threat blown out of proportion, that is all.

Pork anyone?