A fine, clean popcorn machine!

Authenticity.

Adminisk8or

01/02/2023

What a week it's been. Where I expected to be met with a very slow work week, I instead got rushed by a few projects- most of them unexpected, and one of them, unfortunately, dealing with a suicide. But thankfully, that's all behind.

One of the things I tried to get finished, but haven't just yet, is my new firewall. The configuration is a little less straightforward than I had hoped, but it's my own fault for complicating my home network the way I do. Hopefully I find the time tomorrow, or sometime this week to get that finished.

We also received a hand-me-down popcorn popper, this week. It had been well loved, and still in great shape- but needed a pretty impressive cleaning job. And so, I gave it one. And boy, what an effort it took! Five steel scrubber sponges, two rags, and one worn out me later, it was pretty well clean. Unfortunately, now I'm having a hard time finding the manual on how to use the thing, because the "top quality service" of the vendor apparently includes links to manuals that don't work for all of their products.

But Saturday, for me, was a very unexpectedly busy day. For some reason, I decided to spend an hour after waking up and before going to in-laws to clean up the house and fold my laundry. That might've been a busy enough new year's eve alone, but then we went over to help my parents-in-law prepare for everyone to come over; and that involved a few interesting things. First, I helped haul off some items to the thrift shop, and then more to the dump. We came back, and then got to work on mounting a TV. Finding the studs in that wall was one of the hardest things I've ever done; in fact, we initially assumed the contractors built it dumb, and decided to use one stud and then some heavy-duty anchors for the other side of the mount. I went on an errand to go get those from the hardware store, but also had to grab a few parts from home to also fix some hutch doors that they wanted to fix, plus grab a coax cable extension to move one they had out of the way. While at home, I discovered my entire network rack was silent because Happy New Year to me, my primary battery backups decided to give up the ghost. So I had to unmount those, and introduce a new one I had coincidentally acquired only a few days prior, and of course I broke a fiber optic cable in the process, but didn't have time to fix it then and there (I didn't have time to even replace that battery backup!) and had to take off to get the anchors, some groceries, and then take an accidentally super aggravating shortcut back to their house. And then, finally, after all that, we somehow found a stud we hadn't been able to find previously, and we were able to mount the TV with no real issues. I fixed the cabinet doors, moved/extended that coax cable, and everything looked great. And I was pretty tired. But I still had to go over to my brother's to help him with figuring out how to port forward on a Netgear router. And although it was only less than a mile away, I had to walk, because I didn't feel like asking whichever family member decided to park behind us to move. And so, after that trip, I came back over, and then we decided to walk over to the nearby cemetery, as it was the anniversary of the passing of my oldest brother-in-law. And then we had actual food at dinnertime. So, was it a tiring day? Yes. Was it worth it? Yes.

And maybe that plays into an interesting nightmare I had on the first day of this new year. In this dream, I found myself with my in-laws on vacation. We were staying at some AirBNB in some part of Idaho- and a rather spacious one. The entire top floor was a dormitory of probably a dozen or so beds. However, I slept in longer than I should've, and when I woke, everyone, including my wife, said they were going on ahead to church without me. Naturally, I was a bit startled by this, and although I told them "alright", I got up and tried to get ready as fast as possible. The first scare of the dream, though unrelated with the overall theme, was a serpent that the owners of the AirBNB had wondering the house. It scared me a little initially, but I quickly found, despite looking like a venomous cobra, it was a rather cuddly and friendly snake. But then things started getting stressful, because, first of all, I was in a hurry, and I was trying to find my Sunday clothes and get myself pulled together. Just as soon as I'd find my clothes, I'd have frustration trying to tie my tie, which I would just give up on, declaring it was too short, anyway. And then I would suddenly realize that I forgot where I set my keys and phone. Then I would wonder where something else was. All the meanwhile, I had a hard time finding the lights, because not only were there too many light switches to figure out what each one did, they were all in slightly odd places, like the middle of the room. Amidst my stress and worry, I was on this top floor, bending down to get something, and I stood up, and right in front of me, standing in front of the far wall, was my wife. And while I wanted to be relieved, something felt very off. I quickly put together in my head that she had already left with everyone else to church, so how could this be her? And to make matters worse, she was just standing there, silent, smiling... and part of me even thought she looked perhaps the very slightest bit... off. In any case, my mind quickly came to the conclusion that I was not looking at my wife, but some kind of hallucination. I loudly declared that it wasn't really her, and that the illusion should go away, as I walked off down the stairs, towards the restroom to do my hair. But there she was again, standing silently and smiling, still. The only times she ever spoke was in a tone that was supposed to sound like sarcastically denying she wasn't real, but still came off as unnatural. Getting more anxious, I faced the hallucination face on and told it, boldly, to leave. Slightly laughing, it finally did; but now, I was all a sweat, and before long, I woke up, and found myself hyperventilating.

Why do I share this dream? Well, for one thing, I think that "hallucination" was probably more likely a demon I saw, and that sure is interesting; but that's a side note to the point I wanted to make. In this nightmare I had, I knew from the start that things were off. It didn't just start with the demon, or the light switches, or misplacing my things- it was my family. I know my wife and in-laws pretty well- or at least well enough to know that such a situation as happened in the dream would never happen in real life. My in-laws are, in some ways, a closer family to me than some of my own family. And my wife, however frictional things get between us at times, is an angel, and always looks out for my well being, even when I don't deserve it. The point I'm trying to make is that, it is good to know that my family is full of genuine, good people, and whatever faults they may have which I know not, I know they are all good, loving people who look out for me and others around them.

In cyber security, there is a similar principle called Authentication. It's part of a triad of values, comprising of Availabilty, Authorization, and Authentication. Availability entails the concept of making something appropriately available to the right places and people, Authorization deals with whether individuals, machines or groups have permission to access certain things, and Authentication deals with providing proof that someone is who they claim to be. Often, you see Authentication manifest in things like passwords, biometrics, showing ID, etc. The idea is that anyone can try to log into a system claiming to be someone- the question is, can they prove it's true?

So, it's good to know and see that authenticity in the people who surround you. Know the difference between people who have their faults, but try their best to love and support others, and people who try putting on a show of kindness and goodness, but sadly, at their core, don't seem to currently be very capable of it- and let's hope that one day they do. Until then, happy new year, and see ya!