CupcakeOfSpice

Silly ideas in my silly mind

This may sound like fedposting, so feel free not to respond. I'm asking if people knowledgeable about cybersecurity, penetration testing, etc. could help me learn either through advice or more personal guidance. I'm familiar with Maia Crimew's blog post, but as with most of this stuff it's just vague enough to be difficult for me to push off from. I am really good with computers when using them as intended, but going off the beaten path and finding flaws or footholds is where I struggle. If you have advice or want to guide more closely, you can leave a comment here, a DM, or you can get me on Matrix @cupcake-of-spice:matrix.org

The site hackthebox dot com has battlegrounds with two teams hacking each other's virtual machines while hardening their own. If anyone wants to start a team for that, I'd be up for joining, though at my current state I may not be so much help...

The way she trots around the house

I guess just a few days ago the ISS did a thing where their ham radio repeater was transmitting SSTV images of what looked like might be Soviet propaganda? I can't read it, unfortunately. There's a gallery of people submitting what they received. ARISS SSTV

I went to church today for the first time in a few years (I may have attended other Easters, I don't remember) and I was not exactly impressed. I started noticing the hypocrisy more and more. And I know Christians are fond of the whole "Seeing hypocrites at a church is like seeing out-of-shape people at a gym," but it's more like meeting your new personal trainer, and they're really unhealthy, however that looks for them. There's one member who if there's an -ism or -phobia associated with it, he's on the wrong side of it. Yeah, they went and made him a deacon. They all just pick and choose which bits of scripture are literal and which are just metaphorical. Like helping the poor? Well, they mean the poor in spirit, which means I just have to spread Jesus, not actually materially help them. And there's no idea that the concept of capitalism as we know it was not even conceived of during the time of the Biblical stories. Or a good chunk of the church's history. They're worshipping a god they made up that is only tangentially related to the Bible. I almost wish I could go back to not seeing this, but that is no longer an option. It's just sad becoming disillusioned with something that was a huge part of my life for so long.

I've seen some posts today pointing some interesting things. While Trump is terribly racist and fascist, there are white supremacists and Nazis for whom he does not go far enough. There are far-right kooks who think Trump is not far enough right. Some pointed out he is too much of a capitalist to go that far, that in looking out for his bottom line, he avoids too much extremism because he'd start losing money.

On the other hand, he seems to have no financial goal for the country. Constantly flipping tariffs on and off, switching "buckets." Making propositions that any businessman would know is completely unrealistic. He has no idea how to be a capitalist either, it seems! So is he completely directionless? He just kinda goes wherever feels good to him at the moment? Is he possibly in some kind of cognitive decline, unable to make reasonable decisions, but since his base worships him no one can take the reins from him?

I would like to transition to eating vegan and have tried to find substitutes for some of the things I'd miss the most. (Mostly cheese and maybe honey) But both buying and making these substitutes appears to be rather pricey. I figure there must be a way to go vegan without spending everything I have, so does that mean I just have to forgo the substitutes and completely change my diet? That'll be tough, but I want to try. Any advice for getting away from animal products?

More like April tornados then May tornados, and there's also tornados in June and sometime into July.

Able deserved everything Cain did to him, sanctimonious bastard...

"Nobody went to see the Snow White movie, it's a failure." Really, why didn't they watch it? "Because it's too woke." Interesting. Everybody just... knew it was too woke without anybody watching it? "Well, a lot of people watched it just to see how bad it would be." Huh. So did a lot of people watch it or did nobody watch it? "Well, it was a commercial failure." Okay, so nobody watched it. Then how come everyone seems to know what happened in it? "Like I said, a lot of people watched it to see how bad it would be."

I don't care much because it is Yet Another rehashing of an old movie. Also Disney is Not Woke and harms minorities while claiming to help them. So we both are frustrated with Disney but for opposite reasons. It just frustrates me that we're taking seriously the people complaining that the actress for Snow White is not white enough and that the perfect little village they describe sounds like socialism so, despite it being so good for everyone involved, it must secretly be evil. Sorry, Dad just says dumb things sometimes and I get annoyed enough to post on the internet.

My grandpa is old and til now has always done things with paper copies including legal paperwork, taxes, and all that. Recently he's said the tax people don't want him using paper to file them and has sent him online resources to do so. Problem is his most recent computer runs Windows 7, and most web pages refuse to load. The only problem I have been able to determine is that the computer is wildly out-of-date, no longer receives security updates, and the internet doesn't like that.

Solutions I can think of are trying to prolong the life of the computer with Linux, getting a newer computer that has the hardware to run Windows 10/11, or taking him to the library to fill out info there. I am always glad to convert people to Linux, but for him it would have to run very similarly to the Windows 7 he's used to. He would have to be able to run EXEs easily and not have to configure anything. I know of low-to-no configuration distros, but I don't know if they can run his applications as easily. A new computer would be a pretty easy fix, but not exactly cheap either. The library, I'm not 100% sure they would allow you to do that paperwork there for security reasons, especially if the patron doesn't know how to log out and secure themselves. Even then, my grandparents have been reluctant to use our local library since they moved here from out of town, probably because they're old and don't like change.

So this is my predicament; if anyone has any suggestions regarding these or with different options, I'd appreciate them. If there is a way to use his current computer, that'd probably be ideal for him, but I do understand that's nowhere near ideal generally.

I remember a post a while ago about an OS someone on here made, but when I search for it, I can't find it. I was not able to look at it when I saw it, but I'd still like to check it out. Does anybody remember/can anybody find it? I think it might have been called Snowball OS?