mnoriega
Greenlighter
Hello everyone!
NMI: Manny
I’m Manny and I’m very excited to have found a high-quality forum on these topics. I found this forum via word-of-mouth in real life from a friend of mine. I don't think he posts here or even has an account; he does use the site as his primary resource for certain information he’s seeking (he’s a leech, in other words!).
I am reading through the material that's available for new users. However, I'm still going to include some questions below in case there's someone who doesn't mind responding. To make it convenient, the first section is my intro and the second section are some questions for Bluelight veterans who are able to field some newbie questions. Here I go:
First, I want to thank the people responsible for setting up + maintaining this forum and also extend my appreciation to the community that makes it happen. It seems like there's a level of quality sustained here and, at first glance, it appears like you've achieved that without heavy-handed or over-bearing enforcement. These topics are extremely important to everyone alive on the earth today. I think you're doing important, invaluable work that is most likely having a positive effect on a lot more individual lives than you would guess.
NMI Manny: Information Revolution!
About myself.. the appreciation I expressed about this forum comes from experience and knowing the difficulties that can impede the development of a quality online community. I've been a believer in the power of global, decentralized communication networks since I first got a 1200-baud modem when I was 8 or 9 years old. I started out at a young age in an extremely active BBS scene that had a lot of great discussion as well as some oddities that made it particularly interesting/dangerous/noteworthy. In those days, I remember literally hunting down INFORMATION (in the form of ascii text files back then) without running up an insane long-distance bill. In my area code, I ran a BBS that was known for always having a ton of new and useful text files (I hosted the BBS but a group of us shared sysop + info-collecting duties).
I've been working with online communities ever since: landline BBSes, Usenet, FidoNet and, within the last 15 years (roughly half my life) I've been busy trying out all the different ways networks can be built as technology continues to evolve. Right now, that work is focused on decentralized or peer-to-peer technologies as they can be applied to social networks, forums, etc. If you’re interested in more about that, I can give you pointers or you can just search for “opensocial”, “open web” or check out initiatives like status.net, diaspora, identi.ca.
NMI Manny: Life + Work
I live in a large, metropolitan city in the United States with a reputation for being socially and politically liberal (although not enough for most of us!). I work in the internet industry. When I moved here over a decade ago, I thought I would enjoy living here more than I do. In fact, I'm pretty negative about the culture here and I've found that it clashes a lot with my own personality which I got from growing up in a much poorer blue collar part of the country where people have a stronger sense of family/community/loyalty -- perhaps out of economic necessity. I’ve found that same sense of community in other countries My plan is to relocate to Brazil before really feeling like I've got a 'home base' (like how Hunter Thompson would talk about Woody Creek).
I'm a self-taught programmer and system/network administrator, specializing in Unix-like operating systems (my preference being FreeBSD ... BUT, while I think the BSD license works for an operating system, I believe most software should be GPL’ed. Sorry, non-techies, for that rude outburst of geekspeak).
I’ve held fantasies about being a journalist for a long time ... that initially came from some romantic idea I got from somewhere about hyper-hectic newsrooms with chain-smoking, adrenalin-addicted maniacs desperately trying to get information out to people. But, journalism is a changing industry and it’s hard to make a lot of money. The cause of that, the internet, is an industry where I can make quick money and I’m lucky to have started early with learning programming so I feel irresponsible & selfish chasing a profession like journalism while my parents (“retired” factory workers) are suffering from the pension scandals and need me to make money for them.
A bit more on that: I jokingly hate Hunter S Thompson out of jealousy for documenting a time when journalists were respected and could sort of attack power structures from inside the system, got expense accounts and could run around the world taking drugs and reporting news. However, I don’t glorify HST too much.. noting that he was in the right place at the right time, took advantage of undesireable workplace dynamics while RS was getting started and I never forget to remind people that he hid out in some Laos hotel during the Fall of Saigon.. don’t get me wrong, though, I love HST like I knew him (everybody makes mistakes).
NMI Manny: Any Brazilians?
Então, eu posso falar em português e seria otimo se este sitio tem alguns brazukas. Tambien, yo hablo español (mas, yo se mas sobre pt que es).
NMI MANNY - NOTE! PROFILE + PRIVACY
My profile is my attempt at a little bit of humor while being anonymous here. However, while the profile is a joke, anything I write here is not. If signatures were enabled, I would put that in mine. I read a bit about how sigs were intentionally disabled and I'm curious what the problem was and why it couldn't be fixed in some way other than outright removing that feature.
Regarding privacy...
I'm nobody famous and my life/job isn't set up in a way where it would all fall apart if people knew I use this site. However, I do wish to remain anonymous here and, at least right now, I don't want to be discussing anything related to whether or not I have personal experience using illegal substances.
Regarding security...
I do know a lot about computer/network security and I firmly believe that internet users need to understand a LOT more about that topic so they can make informed decisions for themselves. I don't think it's debatable that the internet is "one big intelligence-gathering tool for powerful institutions and the traditional intel orgs that have worked for them." (quote paraphrased from John Young of cryptome.org) See below in the questions area for my offer to help on that here at Bluelight.
NMI Manny: Political Views
Damn... I hope I’m not talking about myself too much. I got carried away, I think. But, finally, I want to disclose my political views which are strong and play an important part in my life. On the Drug War policy... it is the best evidence we have today of how far the elite/political class in the USA will go to get what they want. The Drug War also proves that a ‘security/military/intel formation’ of the type that President Eisenhower warned us about exists today with an enormous amount of corrupt influence. As an example of the evidence I’m talking about, any policy wonk is forced to admit that the current approach to controlling the drug trade is proven to be an absolute failure, by any metrics you want to look at. In particular, the quantity of cocaine imported from Colombia/Bolivia has increased each year that US funding of Plan Colombia has increased, going over 20 years now. The evidence leaves no doubt that the banking/finance industry benefits from the existence of such an enormous global black market, the prison-industrial complex is real and it’s basically running a system of forced labor camps, arms dealers benefit, governments benefit by using it as an excuse to spend enormous amonts of money on militarizing themselves ... any one of these things should be scandals of the highest magnitude and those responsible should receive the harshest sentence possible in any system based on the authentic pursuit of justice.
... which brings me to my final disclosure about myself, regarding my general political view. My views could be described as 'libertarian-communist' although I am more for pragmatism, e.g. what works to immediately bring relief to the victims of western militarism, economic warfare, corporate theft of public resources and an end to the system of corruption from my last point. Currently, I strongly support the “21st-Century Socialist Revolution” that's been developing in Latin America since 1990. There is a mind-boggling level of disinformation about this revolutionary movement in the corporate media but, if I had my way, that form of socialism would continue evolving and spread throughout all of the countries in the Americas. Also, I find that people from the US are weird about discussing politics. I try not to be and I enjoy discussing politics and current events.
Ok - that's probably way more than enough about myself. I'm here to participate (which is 50% listening, after all!) so feel free to reply, provoke me, inform me or whatever!
-----
SECTION #2 - QUESTIONS I HAVE:
I will probably find out when I read through all FAQs, sticky posts, etc but would appreciate anyone who has the time to make that go faster for me via explanations or pointers.
Is there a WYSIWYG editor for posts? The one I'm using now is the one with extra functionality but it shows the forum's markup tags. I'm not happy with most WYSIWYG implementations on the web today but I get something out of them.
One of the primary things I want to do here is research. I am very curious about all the things we're not supposed to know. I already noticed the Research Forum and that sounds about right. I'm interested in things like: price indices for black market goods (including illegal substances), macro-level information about banks, money laundering, etc in different areas, law enforcement tactics and the counter-tactics by their targets, corruption within law enforcement agencies, stuff like that. It'd be great if I could get a pointer to a forum like that. I don’t think I’ve explained this well, see my next point:
An example of the research data I have in mind: Purdue has recently been massaging its relationship with the feds by starting to experiment with discontinuing the Oxycontin line of pain killers, which had become very popular street drugs. A pilot program is underway for recipients of state medical insurance. Basically, they are getting a new pill caled an ‘OP80’ (instead of ‘OC80’) which is engineering to be difficult to inject or snort. Well, this has a real effect in society. All of a sudden, people who had been getting $1200 - $2000 dollars every month by selling their prescriptions to drug dealers don’t have that money anymore. A scarcity is being created, which leads to fights over supply. I know that in my city, this ‘disturbance’ in the black market has resulted in a crime increase, violence between drug dealers, prices of certain narcotics, etc. *This* kind of info is what kind of news we should be getting.
With that in mind, I'd love any pointers to other online resources with hard-to-find or quality info like that.
As I wrote, I'm very experienced with network/computer security. I'm wondering if this site has a sticky post, FAQ or other documentation to help people understand the security issues involved with casual web use and what they can do + watch out for + etc with proxies, Anonymizers, Tor, etc ... in very plain English. If not, I'd be happy to help put one together by myself or work with others. Anyone interested?
Finally, and I just gotta look, but are there large Bluelight communities in other languages? Is there an interest in serving other communities (half of my city primarily speaks Spanish) in the US or other countries?
If you've read this far, thank you! I'd appreciate any feedback from Bluelight veterans about what I've said, suggestions, first impressions, etc.
- Manny
NMI: Manny
I’m Manny and I’m very excited to have found a high-quality forum on these topics. I found this forum via word-of-mouth in real life from a friend of mine. I don't think he posts here or even has an account; he does use the site as his primary resource for certain information he’s seeking (he’s a leech, in other words!).
I am reading through the material that's available for new users. However, I'm still going to include some questions below in case there's someone who doesn't mind responding. To make it convenient, the first section is my intro and the second section are some questions for Bluelight veterans who are able to field some newbie questions. Here I go:
First, I want to thank the people responsible for setting up + maintaining this forum and also extend my appreciation to the community that makes it happen. It seems like there's a level of quality sustained here and, at first glance, it appears like you've achieved that without heavy-handed or over-bearing enforcement. These topics are extremely important to everyone alive on the earth today. I think you're doing important, invaluable work that is most likely having a positive effect on a lot more individual lives than you would guess.
NMI Manny: Information Revolution!
About myself.. the appreciation I expressed about this forum comes from experience and knowing the difficulties that can impede the development of a quality online community. I've been a believer in the power of global, decentralized communication networks since I first got a 1200-baud modem when I was 8 or 9 years old. I started out at a young age in an extremely active BBS scene that had a lot of great discussion as well as some oddities that made it particularly interesting/dangerous/noteworthy. In those days, I remember literally hunting down INFORMATION (in the form of ascii text files back then) without running up an insane long-distance bill. In my area code, I ran a BBS that was known for always having a ton of new and useful text files (I hosted the BBS but a group of us shared sysop + info-collecting duties).
I've been working with online communities ever since: landline BBSes, Usenet, FidoNet and, within the last 15 years (roughly half my life) I've been busy trying out all the different ways networks can be built as technology continues to evolve. Right now, that work is focused on decentralized or peer-to-peer technologies as they can be applied to social networks, forums, etc. If you’re interested in more about that, I can give you pointers or you can just search for “opensocial”, “open web” or check out initiatives like status.net, diaspora, identi.ca.
NMI Manny: Life + Work
I live in a large, metropolitan city in the United States with a reputation for being socially and politically liberal (although not enough for most of us!). I work in the internet industry. When I moved here over a decade ago, I thought I would enjoy living here more than I do. In fact, I'm pretty negative about the culture here and I've found that it clashes a lot with my own personality which I got from growing up in a much poorer blue collar part of the country where people have a stronger sense of family/community/loyalty -- perhaps out of economic necessity. I’ve found that same sense of community in other countries My plan is to relocate to Brazil before really feeling like I've got a 'home base' (like how Hunter Thompson would talk about Woody Creek).
I'm a self-taught programmer and system/network administrator, specializing in Unix-like operating systems (my preference being FreeBSD ... BUT, while I think the BSD license works for an operating system, I believe most software should be GPL’ed. Sorry, non-techies, for that rude outburst of geekspeak).
I’ve held fantasies about being a journalist for a long time ... that initially came from some romantic idea I got from somewhere about hyper-hectic newsrooms with chain-smoking, adrenalin-addicted maniacs desperately trying to get information out to people. But, journalism is a changing industry and it’s hard to make a lot of money. The cause of that, the internet, is an industry where I can make quick money and I’m lucky to have started early with learning programming so I feel irresponsible & selfish chasing a profession like journalism while my parents (“retired” factory workers) are suffering from the pension scandals and need me to make money for them.
A bit more on that: I jokingly hate Hunter S Thompson out of jealousy for documenting a time when journalists were respected and could sort of attack power structures from inside the system, got expense accounts and could run around the world taking drugs and reporting news. However, I don’t glorify HST too much.. noting that he was in the right place at the right time, took advantage of undesireable workplace dynamics while RS was getting started and I never forget to remind people that he hid out in some Laos hotel during the Fall of Saigon.. don’t get me wrong, though, I love HST like I knew him (everybody makes mistakes).
NMI Manny: Any Brazilians?
Então, eu posso falar em português e seria otimo se este sitio tem alguns brazukas. Tambien, yo hablo español (mas, yo se mas sobre pt que es).
NMI MANNY - NOTE! PROFILE + PRIVACY
My profile is my attempt at a little bit of humor while being anonymous here. However, while the profile is a joke, anything I write here is not. If signatures were enabled, I would put that in mine. I read a bit about how sigs were intentionally disabled and I'm curious what the problem was and why it couldn't be fixed in some way other than outright removing that feature.
Regarding privacy...
I'm nobody famous and my life/job isn't set up in a way where it would all fall apart if people knew I use this site. However, I do wish to remain anonymous here and, at least right now, I don't want to be discussing anything related to whether or not I have personal experience using illegal substances.
Regarding security...
I do know a lot about computer/network security and I firmly believe that internet users need to understand a LOT more about that topic so they can make informed decisions for themselves. I don't think it's debatable that the internet is "one big intelligence-gathering tool for powerful institutions and the traditional intel orgs that have worked for them." (quote paraphrased from John Young of cryptome.org) See below in the questions area for my offer to help on that here at Bluelight.
NMI Manny: Political Views
Damn... I hope I’m not talking about myself too much. I got carried away, I think. But, finally, I want to disclose my political views which are strong and play an important part in my life. On the Drug War policy... it is the best evidence we have today of how far the elite/political class in the USA will go to get what they want. The Drug War also proves that a ‘security/military/intel formation’ of the type that President Eisenhower warned us about exists today with an enormous amount of corrupt influence. As an example of the evidence I’m talking about, any policy wonk is forced to admit that the current approach to controlling the drug trade is proven to be an absolute failure, by any metrics you want to look at. In particular, the quantity of cocaine imported from Colombia/Bolivia has increased each year that US funding of Plan Colombia has increased, going over 20 years now. The evidence leaves no doubt that the banking/finance industry benefits from the existence of such an enormous global black market, the prison-industrial complex is real and it’s basically running a system of forced labor camps, arms dealers benefit, governments benefit by using it as an excuse to spend enormous amonts of money on militarizing themselves ... any one of these things should be scandals of the highest magnitude and those responsible should receive the harshest sentence possible in any system based on the authentic pursuit of justice.
... which brings me to my final disclosure about myself, regarding my general political view. My views could be described as 'libertarian-communist' although I am more for pragmatism, e.g. what works to immediately bring relief to the victims of western militarism, economic warfare, corporate theft of public resources and an end to the system of corruption from my last point. Currently, I strongly support the “21st-Century Socialist Revolution” that's been developing in Latin America since 1990. There is a mind-boggling level of disinformation about this revolutionary movement in the corporate media but, if I had my way, that form of socialism would continue evolving and spread throughout all of the countries in the Americas. Also, I find that people from the US are weird about discussing politics. I try not to be and I enjoy discussing politics and current events.
Ok - that's probably way more than enough about myself. I'm here to participate (which is 50% listening, after all!) so feel free to reply, provoke me, inform me or whatever!
-----
SECTION #2 - QUESTIONS I HAVE:
I will probably find out when I read through all FAQs, sticky posts, etc but would appreciate anyone who has the time to make that go faster for me via explanations or pointers.
Is there a WYSIWYG editor for posts? The one I'm using now is the one with extra functionality but it shows the forum's markup tags. I'm not happy with most WYSIWYG implementations on the web today but I get something out of them.
One of the primary things I want to do here is research. I am very curious about all the things we're not supposed to know. I already noticed the Research Forum and that sounds about right. I'm interested in things like: price indices for black market goods (including illegal substances), macro-level information about banks, money laundering, etc in different areas, law enforcement tactics and the counter-tactics by their targets, corruption within law enforcement agencies, stuff like that. It'd be great if I could get a pointer to a forum like that. I don’t think I’ve explained this well, see my next point:
An example of the research data I have in mind: Purdue has recently been massaging its relationship with the feds by starting to experiment with discontinuing the Oxycontin line of pain killers, which had become very popular street drugs. A pilot program is underway for recipients of state medical insurance. Basically, they are getting a new pill caled an ‘OP80’ (instead of ‘OC80’) which is engineering to be difficult to inject or snort. Well, this has a real effect in society. All of a sudden, people who had been getting $1200 - $2000 dollars every month by selling their prescriptions to drug dealers don’t have that money anymore. A scarcity is being created, which leads to fights over supply. I know that in my city, this ‘disturbance’ in the black market has resulted in a crime increase, violence between drug dealers, prices of certain narcotics, etc. *This* kind of info is what kind of news we should be getting.
With that in mind, I'd love any pointers to other online resources with hard-to-find or quality info like that.
As I wrote, I'm very experienced with network/computer security. I'm wondering if this site has a sticky post, FAQ or other documentation to help people understand the security issues involved with casual web use and what they can do + watch out for + etc with proxies, Anonymizers, Tor, etc ... in very plain English. If not, I'd be happy to help put one together by myself or work with others. Anyone interested?
Finally, and I just gotta look, but are there large Bluelight communities in other languages? Is there an interest in serving other communities (half of my city primarily speaks Spanish) in the US or other countries?
If you've read this far, thank you! I'd appreciate any feedback from Bluelight veterans about what I've said, suggestions, first impressions, etc.
- Manny
