Brainfucked.

So I was talking to my friend Bill and we got onto the subject of programming languages (we're nerds, what can I say?) and which one is the most difficult. I said "Java" just because it's a clunky piece of shit, to which he responded "Brainfuck." So I hopped on Google later that day and was hit with this:

http://www.pvnbattle.com/admin/joshua/hw.txt

That is the example for "Hello world!" I sat down and did some reading, all while talking to my girlfriend, Sarah, and came up with this mess:

http://www.pvnbattle.com/admin/joshua/test.txt

Want to know what it says? Try compiling it :) http://home.arcor.de/partusch/html_en/bfd_doc.html#N0x8078008N0x80f3cd4 Brainfucked Documention (The compiler I use)
http://neworder.box.sk/newsread.php?newsid=13065 A short tutorial
http://www.ascii.ws/images/ascii-chart.gif ASCII chart. You'll need it!

Vermont. Home. Woo!

So I'm sitting on my couch, at home, in Vermont and I'm rather happy, even though I haven't gotten anything done in the past few days but a bit of X PRIZE research. I've been spending too much time with my girlfriend, Sarah, and my family.

I Am Legend SUCKED!!!

6:57 AM

Yep, I'm still awake. Yet another sleepless night of hanging out with Leslie, George, and Tony in the coolest place ever, my room. Activities included a raid, running from facilities management, a serial killer style swipe of some letters, guitar hero, monopoly, twister, coding a program that acted as a spinner because the cardboard one that came with the game sucked, more guitar hero, and then finally peace and quiet; if, of course, you mean "peace and quiet" where Tony is playing StarCraft at full volume. Gonna make a morning run to Gracie's so I can rid m of these extra meal options before winter break. I'm starting to realise, by looking at the post timestamps on this blog, how fucked up my sleeping habits have become since moving to this floor.

Here's a link to the twister program. Hold down CTRL + C or click the "x" to exit.
twister.cpp = source code (C++)
twister.exe = the program
http://www.pvnbattle.com/admin/joshua/twister.zip

Reverse Engineering and Cracking

So the other day I saw IDA Pro 5.2 and thought of some of the things that such a program could be used for. Almost immediately after seeing the organization of a few programs, I wandered back to my lair and downloaded it for myself. I bought up an old C++ project and was spellbound. I could trace everything in the program and even modify parts of it using hex. Then something happened that changed everything -- I saw where I had written an IF statement. I thought to myself, "Hey, why can't I change that thing to point there if it's true AND false?" Realization -- I could use this to get past those pesky boxes asking for the user to enter a serial number to activate certain programs.

After a bit of random failures on an old game my mother was obsessed with (it expired after 60 minutes of play time), I found a few sites with various, legal files to practice on.

http://www.learn2crack.com/windowcrack(a-d).htm -- Not very helpful but quite a few files to try
http://www.crackmes.de -- Good site with plenty of examples and solutions

If you're just getting started, I have to say that neither site offered much information on where to begin. But if you're interested, I'm sure you'll figure it out :)

Google Lunar X PRIZE

Recently, George Hotz and I have been working together in Google's X PRIZE competition (http://www.googlelunarxprize.org/) . Yesterday we began "Space Week", a week of research, movies, and cold ramen. Although the movies have been a success (sort of) and I haven't yet tried the ramen, we've been spending a lot of time reading and discussing ways to get an unmanned craft to the moon.

Primary issues include fuel state, engine type, specific impulse, weight, materials, and a bunch of other random numbers that we're not entirely sure are relevant yet. We've decided that our best chance is to use a liquid engine with a specific impulse of 450 seconds. The other things.. well, they're still a mystery.

Movies watched so far:
Rocketman
Eurotrip

24 Hours Later

Here I sit in my room. It's 4:27 in the morning and there's a Guitar Hero showdown going on. My couch has been overtaken by Leslie and George as they duke it out for top rocker. My room has been overtaken by my roommate's clutter; it seems to devour everything, especially my socks. I had to buy another package today while at WalMart getting a sled as I didn't trust the rumor regarding Gracie's trays (until I saw that it actually WAS possible to sled on one.) I have class at 10am but I don't really care. Maybe I should sleep, but my mind is too preoccupied. Kind of wondering if Blogger is owned by Google or maybe there's a Google API out there somewhere. Will look that up after posting this.

Oh, and Leslie just beat George on "Lay Down" and "Welcome to the Jungle"
It appears as though Geohot has a weakness -- Guitar Hero III!

Update -- He finally scored a win on "My Name is Jonas" and "Threes and Sevens"
Tiebreaker will be "Through the Fire and the Flames" on easy!

5:01 AM -- George has won "Through the Fire and Flames"
5:27 AM -- George has won every song since then. The record stands at Leslie 2 : George 23847298
Too bad; I was pulling for Leslie to win :(

Bored.

I, Joshua Farrar, have finally taken the time to sit down and actually make on of these cursed things so I can share with people various things I do in my boredom. You know, the typical dorm lifestyle. I'll be posting something cool as soon as I think of it :D