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At the end of this month I’ll be attending the seventeenth iteration of DEFCON. I’m excited; I haven’t been to a hacker convention since HOPE, nearly three years ago now. I’ll make sure to report back with photos!

That brings me to the next topic: ConfCon. Organized by PhreakerD7 and ThoughtPhreaker, ConfCon is going to present talks on a variety of telephony subjects. It’ll all take place over an interconnected network of conference calls, allowing you to join in by simply picking up your phone.

ConfCon is free and takes place this July 25th.

In other news, HWHQ‘s forums were irreperably damaged by spammers. HWHQ is home to the fantastic podcast GameRadio, hosted by C4 & Kobar. The database was corrupted, and unfortunately, despite C4’s best efforts, a backup was not able to be restored. Thank you spammers – not only do you fill my email, cellular phone, and instant messaging accounts with garbage, but you also killed a great forum.

I’ve started to record an audio book of Rice Tea. You can download it here for free. The aim was originally to do a chapter a day, but it’s been very hard for me to keep up lately. I’ve started a second job, and layoffs at my old job have increased my stress level by quite a bit. I’m now doing the work of three people, which is both highly stressful and frustrating.

Back to Rice Tea, the production of the audio book has been very beneficial to me. I didn’t realize to what point some of the dialog was bad – I literally laughed out loud in some bits. I haven’t had the chance to read over the whole thing like this, so it’s been nice. I’m thinking of making a film out of it. What inspired me was seeing the great film Primer, which was done on a $6,000 budget. If they can do it, I can do it.

I’ve been reading a few books as of late. One is “The Rebel Sell” by Joseph Heath and Andrew Potter. The book is a critique of the notion of counterculture as it is applied in the mainstream, and why its actually all just part of the ever ambiguous “system.” The other book I’ve been going through is called “Inside the Machine”, by Jon Stokes and published by the ever-excellent No Starch Press. This last one is an introduction to microprocessors and computer architecture. It’s target audience is the average enthusiast, and the author does his best to make sure that you understand the concepts at hand.

I’ve also gone on a book buying binge, and have purchased within the last month: Applied Cryptography; Secrets & Lies; Mathematics: In Content, Methods & Meaning; An Introduction to Environmental and Applied Geophysics; Learning SQL; The Filmmaker’s Handbook and Spook Country.

In other news, I’m almost 24 now. The last few years have just flown by, and that’s making me panicked a bit. It seems like just yesterday I was at HOPE – and yet that was three years ago. I used to think that I needed to accomplish more to justify the time that went by. I don’t know if that’s so true anymore. What I do know is that I’ve been too passive lately. I need to do something. I can’t let this year slip between my fingers.

I’m 23 and I’ve never had a girlfriend. As a consequence, most of my family thinks I’m gay. I’ve had the “it’s okay if you are and we will still love you” speech more times than I care to count. Which is great. It means they love me.

But the thing is, this celibacy isn’t by choice. It just so happens that I’ve been rejected by every single person I’ve ever asked out. No exceptions. That’s how it was like in high school, then in university, and now in the real world. I’ve never known what it is like to be loved by someone other than my mom.

I don’t know what the problem is. I like to think I’m normal. It’s not like I go on a date and then start talking about a collection of cut fingernails I’ve been saving. No – I’m decent looking, handle myself well in social situations, I’m polite and have interests beyond the standard fare.

I’ve been told that my problem is that I’m too nice. That girls like guys with an edge. That girls only start looking for the nice ones later in life. I don’t know what to make of that. Whatever my problem is, for it is my problem, I’m beginning to give up. One can only be rejected so many times.

I landed today on the YouTube channel of Nation for Marriage, a non-profit group that purports to “fight for the future of marriage.”

What they’re campaigning for is to abolish gay marriage. But as I read through the official website, it becomes rather clear that this has nothing to do with the sanctity of marriage. It has to do with a religious movement seeking ways to ostracize gays, and fight to keep them as outcast from public view.

Why? Because the religion says so. Outright demonizing of gays is no longer viable in this age, so groups like these strategically attempt to undermine the acceptance of gays in other ways. In this case, they use the morality card as a tool to deny fundamental rights. It’s an effective tactic, as any question of an ethical nature delays legislators and splits their constituents, meanwhile serving to pass off their views as legitimate.

Or at least that’s how I wish it was, as the whole issue would make some form of sense. It could be packaged neatly, and the movement behind it dismissed. Yet the truth is that there are a variety of people against same-sex marriage. They come in all genders, backgrounds, and ages.

It’s hard to understand those that sit on the other side of the fence. An emotion that could easily be confused for hate fuels these people. They subscribe to inducing great torment, and yet are completely uncaring of this fact. It’s a particularly dangerous human state, one which is passive, and doesn’t involve violence nor rage. After all, these are rational people, behaving in a calm intelligent manner. Yet, in this one aspect of their livelihoods, they are able to commit themselves to such vast societal destruction.

These are not bad people, yet they do bad things. Why otherwise good people are willing to cause such harm is a question at the heart of many tragedies, and is what makes this fight for equality so difficult.

I console myself in the fact that history will be on the side of equality, yet I wish it wouldn’t require decades for it to be so.

Well, as it turns out, the “last” set of corrections weren’t the last. But it’s done now. Very minor changes overall, mostly grammatical in nature.

Rice Tea is done. Finally. Big thanks to my parents, without whom, this would not have been possible.