Why Would I Write

  • A Holiday

    It’s been a while since I’ve had a holiday – then again, the last time I had a holiday, I was bumming around in between jobs. I guess that wasn’t too far away then. Anyway, tomorrow I embark on my first trip of the year, and first trip since I visited Cameron Highlands last year (where I failed miserably trying to draw inspiration from the nothingness and cold air around me). I’ll be heading to Bangkok and it’s not for a Big Bad Wolf sale (for the first in a long time). I’ll be bringing my laptop with me, but whether or not I write anything – that’s something to be seen. Hopefully it won’t be emails to colleagues.

    In other news – it’s July! Time sure flies by real quickly when you’re not keeping track of it. I can’t believe we’ve already crossed the mid-year mark. In case you’re wondering about the lack of posts, work has been keeping me busy, which is a good thing. I’ve been spending my creative energy focusing on it instead. I’ve also been relaxing my writing schedule – I figured it would be better to write only when I feel like it, instead of forcing myself to churn out posts everyday. The hacking of my blog also dampened my effort to maintain the blog. But since the latest changes I’ve made to its security, everything seems fine and dandy, so I might pick up posting more again.

    I’ve got a lot of keyboard-related stuff shipping in over the next few months, so I’m looking forward to it (assuming there are no delays, fingers crossed). I’ll be putting out more keyboard-related content when that happens. If you’re looking for a band recommendation, my current jam has been State Champ’s Living Proof (when I’m not listening to Dance Gavin Dance’s Artificial Selection). These guys are what All Time Low used to be. My favorite song off the album is The Fix Up – I think I’ve listened to it a few hundred times over the past week. It’s so good.

    Anyway, I’ve got a flight to catch later, let’s hope it’s not one of those magical disappearing planes. Until then.

  • Stop Hacking My Blog, Man

    It’s been a while since my blog was last hacked. This time it was more subtle – there was some malware causing redirection shenanigans leading people to other sites instead and set off Chrome’s unsafe site warnings. I thought I solved it by creating a new copy of my blog (and losing my old theme in the process) and deleting all my old files. I changed my passwords and installed some security plugins. It’s been fine for the most part and everything seemed okay for a while. But over the past few days I’ve had malware warnings again and notifications about failed logins and files being uploaded to my blog.

    Obviously something is up but I have no idea what. I deleted and restored the files on my blog and everything seems okay again. Today I enabled 2 factor authentication. Hopefully that solves the problem. Because if someone else is getting in without my knowledge, I don’t know what else to do. My web host can’t seem to offer any solutions either, claiming that it’s probably a WordPress issue and that I should create my own CMS or switch to an alternative – something I wouldn’t mind doing if it wasn’t so much of a hassle.

    WordPress makes blogging so easy and I’ve got everything setup the way I want it. If I were to move the blog to another service, it would break ALL the internal links on my site. Not a good idea, obviously. But if I keep getting attacked, I don’t see an alternative. Maybe go back to blogger or have my site hosted on wordpress.com – which would be terrible. If anyone has any solutions, I’m all ears. But for now, I hope 2FA is good enough.

    Also, I don’t understand why hackers would want to target my site. I honestly have zero traffic – I max out at around 30 visitors a day, usually it’s less than 5 people. Nobody shares my articles besides myself. The only ones that have any traction are posts about my Vortex Core and Whorecraft review (I kid you not, I get search results for it almost every month – unfortunately the images don’t even load anymore because I wiped my web space, also it’s such a shitty review, it doesn’t do the movie any justice).

    But back to why I’m targeted. I know it’s the result of random attacks – hackers sniffing sites on the internet, finding those with weak security and injecting malware into them. They don’t care that I’m just another blogger with nothing important to say – to them I’m just another conquest (if you can even call it that). They’ll take what they can get to increase their botnets. Hopefully none of my readers are daft enough to fall for fake links (trust me, you won’t find singles in your area clicking those shady links).

    Even though these words will fall upon deaf ears, I just hope they will leave me be. Trying to get rid of malware is exhausting. There’s only so much effort I want to put into maintaining this site. The whole reason I’m using WordPress is because it’s free and isn’t supposed to be high maintenance. Please exclude me from your attacks.

    In other news, I’ve been slowing down my writing recently. I have either been too busy to write or not bothered to write when I have the time. I think it’s because I found the quality of my writing going down. If I want to put something up, it should at the very least be worth my reader’s time. Not that any of us gain anything from it. Time is a limited resource after all.

  • Antarctica, take me to

    Despite my dislike of the cold, for some reason I have Antarctica high on the places I’d like to visit before I die. I don’t know why.

    I know nothing about that place, except that it’s just covered in snow and that I’d probably freeze to death there. This morning, I saw a post on reddit about passwords on Antarctica and I was reminded of the place.

    Maybe it’s the fact that I know nothing about it that makes the idea of going there so compelling. Then again, I’d have no idea what I would do in Antarctica (did you know it’s spelled with a ‘c’ after ‘r’? I’m getting schooled by spell-checker). I mean, I’m not much of a wildlife person, my idea of entertainment usually involves screens or music (doubt I’d find much of either over there). I guess I’d be able to take nice photographs and visit research centers. Maybe spot some wildlife if I’m lucky. Perhaps I’ll encounter The Thing (wouldn’t be a bad place to die).

    I think I would also enjoy the fact that there aren’t many people there. It wouldn’t be crowded (oh god, I hate crowds) since not many people live there or visit the place. I think it would be nice to have a hot pot meal and finish it off with some nice belly warming alcohol. Mmhmm.

    Clicking on the first relevant link I saw on Google, it would cost me over RM25k for a nice week-long trip there.

    Not cheap at all, and definitely out of my budget for now. I would have to save up for it or find some alternative means of getting there. Time to do some research! Anybody with info, feel free to drop me a message. I’m real keen on visiting the place.