The Snarker’s Ramblings

The main blog where I will post long form rants on non fictional things. Main Tumblr account: https://snarkylisa.tumblr.com/

[thesnarkerramblings]

Announcement

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Medium Hiatus

Quick announcement.

[thesnarkerramblings]

Rosy Thoughts

Rosy thoughts

Full of happiness

Joy

And bliss

Sometimes, they’re like jewels.

Precious

Sparkling

Reflective and all

But very manufactured and refined to standards.

Other times, they’re closer to gemstones.

Natural

Earthbound

Wild, perhaps purer

Yet also more volatile

To discover and search for.

Rosy thoughts can truly be like roses.

Attractive

Alluring

Full of seemingly endless bliss

And thorns capable of rips and rifts.

One thing’s for sure, though.

No matter how much we want them to stay

No matter how much we want them to never cave

Rosy thoughts can never

And will never

Last forever.

So whenever they’re there;

Enjoy rosy thoughts

Before they’re gone.

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[thesnarkerramblings]

Dumbest Security Fails #5: Sunny, Windy, 123

Through a good chunk of modern history, information technology has undoubtedly been vital to the rise of a globalized and interconnected society. From computers to telephones and mobile devices, the mass transmission of information across the world has come with many effects - and much infrastructure required to maintain its existence.

Of course, though, no piece of infrastructure is immune to security vulnerabilities - and that in the information technology industry is no exception. Indeed, software company SolarWinds proved this very, very right in 2020 [1].

In the midst of a global pandemic, SolarWinds managed to do something remarkable: get infected by the figurative viruses of a bunch of hackers on top of being affected by the fallout. Not only that, but as you can probably tell by the fact they’re being covered here, much of this owed to factors that were pretty easily avoidable [2].

Lazy passwords, mediocre certificate usage, unsecured plugins, and messy logs: this story had loads of disasters to work with. What exactly led to them, of course, will be detailed in the following sections.

Background Context

Despite its name, SolarWinds has little to do with solar power. Instead, it is a very generic IT company that makes network management tools and software. Overall, they don’t stick out very much in the grand scheme of tech corporations. [3]

Their history began in 1999, in an age where the Internet was mostly dial up and iPhones and their derivatives were nonexistent. The story of their founding isn’t particularly of note, with it involving a small team of computer nerds that increased as the years went on.

Like many tech companies, they started in America…and expanded internationally. They ended up doing pretty good for themselves, with even government institutions trusting them - which to be absolutely fair, is more than I can say for a lot of businesses out there.

The organization’s values motto, which abbreviates to the acronym CARE, stands for collaborative, accountable, ready, and empathetic. Perhaps the first two and the last words in the saying are true. The second last, though…not so much.

The Breach

One odd day in the year 2017, an intern decided to set one of SolarWinds passwords as none other than solarwinds123. This password, originally meant for a server, later got published onto a private GitHub platform as well. [4]

Perhaps the intern was tired of a potato flavoured business of corporate suits. Perhaps they were lazy, perhaps they were dumb. The world may never know the full truth, but the parties involved in investigating the case at SolarWinds might.

Fast forward to the tail end of the 2010s, and things get more…murky. The exact timing of when the breach started has been variously given as September 2019, October 2019, and even March 2020. Regardless, the attacks kept on going until around the end of 2020, by which point they would have happened for at least a year.

The attacks in question were likely caused by a Russian syndicate according to the American federal government. They specifically aimed for SolarWinds darling security software Orion, whose name is rather ironic looking back given how it got subtly destabilized for months on end.

In total, around 18 000 businesses were affected. This might not seem like much - until you realize that a business by nature typically has more than one person in it, thus making this five digit number possibly a six digit one. The operation resulted in debts of about 90 million American dollars as well. [5]

The Aftermath

Among the organizations impacted included those in the American government. While this might seem horrific on the surface, the breach otherwise had surprisingly little notable impact beyond the money - and the stress caused towards a bunch of hapless IT employees and product users, of course. [6]

Obviously, that’s not to say no damage was done. SolarWinds still had to settle a lawsuit in 2022, and then they had to settle another one in 2023 [7]. A higher up at the company claimed the resulting burnout from the process gave him a heart attack as well [7].

In addition, the American government expelled a bunch of Russian diplomats out of the States in 2021. While there were multiple factors, this breach was definitely one of them, to put it bluntly.

Did Anyone Learn?

Let’s put it this way: SolarWinds is still open, and they have not reported any other major breaches post-2020 as far as I’ve been able to find. There’s always the possibility, of course, that they might be hiding something. However, given the sheer repercussions of them going through with a mass coverup, I’m personally erring on the side that they did learn their lesson.

The American government is very different today, as I’m sure you’d be able to tell if you watch the news. Nonetheless, it seems that this specific case has fallen out of their publicized interests.

…

For once, a Dumbest Security Fails story might actually have a happy-ish ending. Not a perfect one, of course, and probably far less glossy than the company’s PR department would like you to believe.

But given this series has gone through ridiculously public keys, laughable group chats, horrifically ignored expiration dates, and companies digging their heels deeper than need be, this is practically a cakewalk in the park. 

Maybe idealism isn’t such a foolish ideology after all.

Any other thoughts on this? Let me know in the comments!

Sources

1: https://www.zscaler.com/resources/security-terms-glossary/what-is-the-solarwinds-cyberattack

2: ​​https://specopssoft.com/blog/solarwinds-hack-weak-password-solarwinds123-cause/

3: https://www.solarwinds.com/company

4: https://www.itpro.com/security/cyber-attacks/358738/intern-blamed-for-weak-password-that-may-have-sparked-solarwind

5: https://www.fortinet.com/resources/cyberglossary/solarwinds-cyber-attack

6: https://www.ajg.com/news-and-insights/two-years-later-an-analysis-of-solarwinds-and-the-impact-on-the-cyber-insurance-industry/

7: https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2025/oct/19/global-cyber-attack-russian-hack-solarwinds-stress-health

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[thesnarkerramblings]

I’ll Always Remember You

No matter how many months pass, no matter how many people we come across and may or may not stick around, no matter how much the seasons change and cycle through holidays and sunlight and storms, I’ll always remember you.

I doubt you’d remember me. It’s been years, after all, since we’ve last seen each other. It’s also not like we were ever friends or close in any particular way, and we were in regular contact for just about a month. We also didn’t end well, and I can’t even say I left that much impact on your life anyways.

But despite everything, despite the fact that whatever we were had far more downs than ups, I am confident I will always remember you. Whether that is a good thing, a bad thing, or somewhere in between…that’s another story, to say the least.

If someone asked me a few years ago whether I found my memory of you to be a good thing or not, I’d find the answer very, very easy. I’d either tell them to mind their own business if they were obviously trying to intrude on me, deflect from the question if I found them well meaning but didn’t trust them, or bluntly say that everything I had with you was a horrendous mistake.

Now, though…things are different. It’s not that I like you, or wish to ever meet you again. God no - and on the off chance you remember me, I’m sure the same would apply to you most likely. However, I honestly don’t feel my memories of you were all that bad.

Maybe it’s some sort of twisted nostalgia, like how one might yearn for rainy days in a town long drenched in drought. Perhaps it is perspective being clouded over time, just as a glass left to fester in moisture will eventually lose its crystal clear transparency. 

Regardless of what it truly is, though, I do strangely cherish the memories we had together. The arguments. The confrontations. The mind games. The few genuine moments of peace and quiet between them all. Even if you don’t remember any of it, even if the passing of time and events has blocked out that fateful month of my life, I’ll never forget your existence.

That being said, however - do I miss you? To be perfectly straightforward and clear: no. It’s not that I hate you or wish any genuine harm or stress on you at this point. It’s more that no matter how I look at the situation we had years ago, it is very, very, obvious it was a toxic one. 

I say toxic because there was nothing that crossed the line into abuse or even harassment. There was nothing that left me in utter fear of my life’s existence or my literal safety - although emotionally, I did get somewhat unraveled. It would be extremely disingenuous for me to say anything we had with each other was ever on that kind of level, and I’m sure you’d agree.

Besides…I’m not sure I can really say I miss a perception of someone I’m not confident ever truly existed. We met, sure, but did I ever get to figure out your true self? Not really, save for the few times I got some hints. I also kept a solid guard around you to ensure you wouldn’t hijack too much - until I couldn’t, but that’s not the story I want to tell right now.

At the end of the day, it’s been years. You’ve changed, I’ve changed, and the people around us definitely aren’t the same as they were back when we met. So while I’ll always remember you, my memory now is more of a phenomenon than of something that noticeably impacts me. 

And I’ll keep it that way. 

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[thesnarkerramblings]

The Social Scientist

She was a sociologist - and quite a proud one, at that. She held multiple degrees, aced every single one of her classes during her years as a student, and was delighted to work with some of the most prestigious researchers of her field. 

She also had a loaded pile of issues underneath. You see, beneath all her bravado was both a very dark past and a complete lack of hesitance to do whatever it took to get what she wanted. Fortunately, most of what she wanted was either rather harmless or even a net benefit. A few of her deepest desires, though…not so much.

You see, she had a lot of friends. She also had a lot - a lot - of enemies due to her brash attitude peeking out and slipping at times.

Some of her enemies, I must admit, were rather loathsome. They were often guilty of criminal acts and civil misconduct. When they weren’t, they would be rather unpleasant people to hang around.

Others…not so much. Just as many targets on the social scientist’s hit list were rather undeserving of their placements and categorizations there. Of the unwarranted on the screed, many on there were just annoying at worst. Some were even fully innocent of their alleged misdeeds that the sociologist claimed of them.

How the social scientist determined her classification of other people was as elusive as the woman herself. Sure, she claimed she had a methodology. Everyone in her academic world said they did, and she was bound to the same rules and guidelines as them. Her interpretation of these rules and guidelines, however, was quite a stretch.

In theory, she categorized those around her in the typical ways that her colleagues did: the outcasts, the criminals, the lower classes, those of average wealth, the elite. From there, she also ostensibly divided them based on how they got to where they did: by choice, by luck, by working with or against the system, by altruism or self-interest. It didn’t seem much different.

In practice, though, she was absolutely throwing people into these categories based on both her emotions and her self-serving goals. It’s not that she couldn't care for anyone at all like a true sociopath or narcissist. It was more that who she directed her sympathy towards was fairly arbitrary - and prone to changing on a whim.

That being said, she managed to hide a good chunk of her true tendencies for a while. Even as she slowly burned down bridges with her hidden ruthlessness, her marks were often in poor position to call her out anyway. 

Of course, however, all things come to an end - including her iron grip on her cozy standing. Eventually, she couldn’t suppress the mental trauma from her younger years. Abuse, hitting, lust; it all came rushing back into her mind the more she wished it gone from it. And the more she wished her memories were gone, the less her sanity could stay afloat.

One day, she lost the tenure that she once valued so precariously. She went off the grid not long afterwards, never to be found again. There are several people who want her back, dead or alive. Of course, that’s because they want answers and justice, not because they treasure her as a person who deserves dignity.

Sometimes, I wonder if her past drove her to become as haughty as she became. If it was her lonely childhood or her getting her ego stroked too many times on the job. Other times, however…I suspect she still might have become standoffish regardless of her circumstances - albeit less harmless.

Only she could know, though. Maybe?

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[thesnarkerramblings]

100 Words

One hundred words

That’s all this poem will be

A short poem, quite right

A short poem to read

There’s not much meaning to be found here.

No huge metaphors;

No major similes;

Not much symbolism

Why would you look for imagery?

Besides that, there’s no big message.

I can’t say there’s a theme;

(At least, not intentionally)

Though you might find one

If, into this, you read

Running out of words

But that’s okay with me.

This wasn’t ever meant

To have an argument to stress

Or to get you to confess

So I lead you to the end.

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[thesnarkerramblings]

How To Make Ice*

It’s summertime in the Northern Hemisphere, and that means that the weather outside in non-Arctic locations on ground level is overall, pretty hot. Concrete feels like it’s burning, vehicle equipment is scorching to the touch without air conditioning, and external heat cloaks people in a coating that slowly but surely suffocates them. 

With this being said, ice can be a brilliant bandaid over the heat of the summer season on sunny days. How can you acquire this, though? After all, water won’t likely freeze naturally outdoors.

Well, this article will go into the whos and hows of acquiring frozen water during trying times like these. And unlike with most of my articles - your success, should you follow my advice, is fully guaranteed!

Find Water

The first thing you must do to create ice, obviously, is to find water. It doesn’t matter how pretty or ugly or clean or unsanitary it is. As long as it is made of hydrogen and oxygen, you are good to go for this first step!

Where do you find this wondrous substance, then? Well, there are the immensely large reserves of natural water sources out there. People often call them lakes, rivers, ponds, oceans, seas, and even groundwater reserves. But beyond those frequent and cliché choices - there are also some less common, but equally valid, options.

You could buy some hydrogen peroxide at a local pharmacy, as that contains both elements vital to water. You could take a passenger flight in first class and break open your plane’s windows to collect water from the clouds. Heck, you could literally set up a chemistry lab and synthesize H2O (or rather, dihydrogen monoxide) on your own!

At this point, you might be thinking: “Doesn’t this cost too many resources and have a lot of risks when it comes to safety?” Normal people would say your concerns are valid. But guess what?

There is a far easier solution to those so-called woes than they believe.

Boil Water

Like with this article’s methods for collecting the starter source of ice, this section will probably turn up the noses of boring, average people. Heck, it has a good chance of making most readers roll their eyes. However, if you’ve gotten this far, I’m fairly sure you’re willing to hear me out here.

You see, the number one enemy of solid water is poor sanitation™ according to most people. On that point, I am willing to somewhat concede. That being said, there is a very simple and easy way to sidestep this which will totally not impede your ice making: boiling your water!

Before you think of just boiling your water to the lowest possible temperature required to boil it (read: 100 degrees Celsius, or 212 degrees Fahrenheit) - please shut down such a naive train of thought as soon as possible. It won’t get you anywhere, and you’ll be left right where you started.

You must crank up your boiler to as high a temperature as possible. In an ideal scenario, this would be the temperature of an intergalactic body in space. However, this kind of situation is very impractical in real life, so just do the best you can and everything will succeed. 

By the time you’re done, you’ll have the perfect cooling method related to water. You will finally stop mentally, and perhaps verbally, complaining about whatever heat might be outdoors - if mainly because you’ve experienced far worse. Your machinery and sanity be damned, your hydrogen and oxygen based strategy is complete! Thus, you may now name it “Ice.”

…

Congratulations! You have finished this tutorial!

Any other thoughts on this? Let me know in the comments!

*This article is satire. Please do not take it seriously.

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[thesnarkerramblings]

Rainy Day

It has been a very hot day for days on end. The sun has been shining, with plenty of bright rays lingering on outdoor grounds just about everywhere. The air has been humid, filled with both moisture and warmth causing it to feel like an overheated sauna left supervised by a non-tech savvy employee.

Even the surfaces outside - besides the shaded ones, obviously - have been next to impossible to touch. They either have the touch of actively burning firewood or the structural instability of a melting stack of goo. 

Of course, it’s impossible to fully control the weather. We can control our individual environmental habits and sometimes, call upon larger corporations to control theirs. But when it comes to day to day conditions, that is nature’s domain. 

There is no way of guaranteeing a perfectly stable grip on how many clouds there are or the temperature or the exact timing of a storm. Experimental technology to increase the likelihood of rain exists [1], but it can’t just create it out of nothing or ensure a specific, consistent state of precipitation from the sky either. As it stands, hourly weather on a specific day is its own force.

Nonetheless, I do wish that something, anything could come to cool down these days. A breeze; some rain. Heck, this might sound unhinged, but even a bit of sleet I wouldn’t fully mind. The odds of that last thing coming are next to zero, of course, but at this point I’m just desperate for something to suck out the heat from the weather that has stuck for some ungodly reason lately.

Out of these options, the most easy way for these perverted meteorological conditions to cool down at this time of year would honestly be a rainy day. I don’t mean that kind of wording in the sense of a market crash - which, given these trying times, I definitely do not want to wish into existence. Rather than such, I would be very overjoyed to learn if liquid precipitation comes.

A breeze is temporary in effect and can be warm. I’d love to have one, but it’s more like a bandage than a cast or splint. Sleet, darkly humorous as it could be, would also be rather disruptive to the ecosystem. 

But rain? It’s repetitive and while not permanent, of course (it really shouldn’t be for reasons as clear as day), its effects linger for longer. Puddles pool on the ground, droplets linger on plants and routes, and a blanket of mist in the metaphorical atmosphere down below. Rain is a factor that can be truly felt, even for lengthy ages of time after it’s gone.

That being said, I am not blind to the effects of there being too much rain. I very well know that an overabundance of rain - especially when combined with the dread of an underserviced draining system - can quickly and easily lead to the unfiltered chaos of a flood. 

I do not hope that water seeps into the buildings people use to work and shelter, nor into the homes of wildlife they make to survive their harsh conditions. Too much of a good thing is never ideal, after all, and too much rain in particular is just another sort of natural disaster that is arguably even worse than what the current heat brings.

But if there’s any unambiguous wish I have right now, anything that I want to happen with few asterisks - it’s for rain to cool down this scorching plague right now.

Because good Lord, just about no one of sound mind asked for it.

Sourcing

1: https://www.preventionweb.net/news/how-make-it-rain-cloud-seeding-combat-drought

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[thesnarkerramblings]

I Don’t Know This Place

Long ago - ages, in fact -

I thought I knew this place.

I wouldn’t say I knew it well.

I came in distant, and didn’t stick for long.

The mood towards myself

Went from casual to hostile

As people around me got riled.

But I knew it well enough

To know that certain things weren’t tolerated;

Bigotry, extremism, 

Lies with no reason.

And I knew it well enough

To know that even though

It wasn’t always the safest of spaces

(Nowhere is, after all),

Your identity could never be

An instant sentence.

Now, looking at this place

In glass shards through a window

I see things that weren’t there

And deeds which wouldn’t fare

Way back when.

Anyone can speak out now.

Anyone, in theory.

In practice, this often means

Giving speakers to those

Who freely condemn

People for what they’re born with Or what they can’t control

I think back to the days

Some years or so ago.

They were flawed, for sure.

Tormentors were hidden

By those in power

As those below them 

Wallowed in corners

But there’s no way what I see now

This casual disregard

For basic decorum

Would fly in the world

My memories were derived from.

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[thesnarkerramblings]

I Think I’ve Seen This Film Before

I think I’ve seen this film before - and I didn’t like the ending.

I’m not saying this because I’m a Taylor Swift megafan. I do find her a pretty solid songwriter (well, most of the time), but not to the point where I would buy every single variant and popular piece of merchandise she throws out. But this isn’t what’s relevant right now.

You see, somewhere in a land that has become more and more of a distant memory to me as the days pass, there is a couple. They rarely show affection publicly. However, when they do, it seems normal…at least, until you scratch the surface of their polished sheens.

Both parties are known in the media - albeit to rather different extents. The guy does have a presence, but it’s fleeting and usually tied to his connections with noticeably more notable people. In addition, he has also found himself wrapped up in controversy due to his associations and unstable demeanour. 

The girl, on the other hand, is consistently the talk of the town. While she has had growing pains PR wise in the past, she has otherwise spent years comfortably swimming with the sharks on top. She dresses well, starts lasting trends, and decks out her profiles in boldly decorated style. Just about everyone in her corner knows who she is, for better and worse.

Now, these two personalities are probably some of the last two people on earth you’d expect to hook up - let alone have a lasting romantic relationship. They were certainly a crack pairing to me. But against all odds, against all standard rules of the universe when it comes to romance…they hooked up anyways.

To be fair, it’s not like there is absolutely no basis for this relationship whatsoever. They did actually meet some time before deciding to start anything romantic - about half a year prior, to be specific. That being said, the circumstances which they met up in pre-romance do not convince me this basis is a particularly stable one.

When the guy and the girl first met, the girl was at the height of her career, as she usually is. The guy, well, had just returned to the public eye after several months of staying on the down low due to being very dubiously accused of multiple criminal counts with a felony nature. 

In fact, the girl was part of a team who helped clear the guy’s name. After they saw how shaky his accusers’ claims were, they decided to take it upon themselves to sift through the accusations and talk to various parties involved. 

Lo and behold: much of the evidence was misread at best, and outright fabricated at worst. Due to this, several accusers of the guy lost their positions, and the ones that didn’t definitely got their reputations tainted. It certainly didn’t help that many of them belonged to a faction the investigators already didn’t like that much either.

After this, the guy got a happy ending, right? Sure, the investigative team into his rivals eventually fell apart, and it’s not like he’s a consistent household name now. He also gained two partners with very complicated thoughts on each other. But he got his reputation back, earned plenty of friends, and also got a cool girlfriend from their place’s upper echelons.

Well…it’s just that I’ve seen a very similar arrangement go horribly wrong before.

I once knew two girls. They were somewhat younger than the guy and the girl mentioned above, but their relationship was otherwise rather similar. One of the girls was covered in prestige and had a stable following. The other was an up and comer with a lot of unresolved issues. They bonded closer together in the wake of another world’s wreckage - until they didn’t.

Once they didn’t, they broke up. Their fallout quickly became vicious. They traded virulent and sometimes violent back and forths, not helped by their lack of proper PR management. Soon enough, they lost their positions.

Like the guy and the girl, these two girls also had partners to deal with. Instead of having rivalries with each other, though, these partners were swept right into the rivalry the two girls eventually formed. It was not pretty.

Perhaps I’m just projecting. Maybe the guy and the girl will keep their happy ending after all.

But I can’t quite shake the feeling that somehow…they might not.

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[thesnarkerramblings]

Poem

This is a poem.

It goes

Like this:

There is a line

And then another

Not punctuated properly

But who cares?

It’s a poem.

Does this poem rhyme?

No.

If it did,

It would probably look more even than it is now.

But it isn’t.

Likewise,

There is no meter to this poem either.

Even if you’re not familiar with the specific kinds

There is nothing uniform here to bind.

Still, it is a poem.

Words are being toyed with

In ways prose wouldn’t allow

Odd spacing

Hardly stable

Something to somewhat confound

Like all works of writing

This poem must end

Therefore,

It finishes here.

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[thesnarkerramblings]

The Contract

By signing this contract, you agree to forever be bound by it in some way or another. Even if you manage to feel like you’ve escaped the letter of the terms (and there is a non-zero chance that you will), the spirit will always remain with you - for better and for worse.

First of all: your values are going to be impacted. Whether they’re reinforced, drastically changed, or both, you cannot leave the place this contract covers without having your moral and ethical qualms hit. The zone is designed to make you question your morality, after all.

Maybe you’ll come out of the place inspired to help fight for the greater good, even when it gets tricky. Maybe this could even encourage you to stay and aid the place in question through its wildly swinging highs and lows. 

Or…maybe your personal ethics will be pushed to their breaking point the longer you stay in the area. Perhaps you’ll end up doing deeds you never could have possibly thought of before you entered this contract - and as they slowly (or quickly) slip further and further into the deep end, you’ll irreversibly lose your sanity. 

Secondly, don’t sign this contract to come into the place expecting peace and quiet. That is going to absolutely destroy you the moment you walk in, as this area thrives on the complete opposite.

Fights aren’t just occasional instances in this zone: they’re the bread and butter that this place is built on. Arguments are spectacles, lashings are stylized, and tension is never, ever done in a way that guarantees a neat resolution. A solid one, maybe. But the most solid resolutions also tend to be the most punitive ones, with justice being served in an uncaring, permanent manner.

That being said, the thrill of the game can also be a decent mood booster if used carefully. There are still plenty of times when the spectacle is more fun than draining. These are the times when the place feels less like a war zone and more like a safely run casino: high energy, high stakes, but also high rewards.

Of course, like a casino, you must be careful not to lose yourself in the thrill either. Indeed, getting addicted to the shock factor of this contract’s place has spelled the downfall of many, many contractors over the years. These unwary signers have come from diverse backgrounds, and have ended up in various positions before sealing their fates from betting far too much.

To minimize the negative effects of this contract, it is critical to build up personal real estate elsewhere. For the love of God - do not rely on this contract’s place as your sole source of friendships, business allies, prizes, or financial gain. 

Chances are that whoever you meet here will eventually abandon you, whether they want to or not. It is great to build connections with your colleagues, as they can help you both survive the place and increase your rewards. But investing in them for anything related to permanence has a strong probability of leaving both of you emotionally wrecked down the line. 

Overall, the strongest and most clear survivors of this contract are the ones that pick their battles, construct their lives both in and out of the place, and ultimately, once they’re satisfied - leave. Few successful signers decide to remain forever, as the place’s thrill is designed to eventually wear off. 

In the end, there are many ups and downs to this contract. Only a select few will ever truly understand them. With all that being said and done, there is one last thing here:

Do you agree to these terms and conditions?

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I’ll Likely Still

There’s a story I’ve been working on for a while. 

One night, I was scrolling the depths of the online world about a show I like. I stumbled across a certain theory regarding one of the characters, and said theory had quite a few implications social messaging wise. 

As an enjoyer of the show even then, I found the speculation from that theory stretched details a lot. It took a few points, cranked them up several notches, and ignored just about anything in the show that could indicate otherwise. 

That being said, despite the community infighting which the theory sometimes caused, I also found the analysis on its own to be rather harmless. It was about a fictional character - and not one directly based on a real person either. Besides, I was fascinated by both the mental contortions the theorists did as well as the genuinely solid art and writing coming out of them.

As I continued going down the rabbit hole of this social justice related theory, a question popped into my head. What if, instead of theorizing about a definite work of fiction, no matter what others have occasionally claimed….these theorists got their hands on a real person instead? Would they choose sanity? Or would they end up speculating about the real person?

These were the questions that sparked my story idea. Sure enough, I was drafting up some chapters, an outline, and even some character descriptions. I’m still drafting those up now. But sometimes, I wonder if it’s worth it.

You see, something very significant changed mid-production. It wasn’t related to my story, mind you: I already had most of the major story beats planned out. However, my source of inspiration - the show - did the one thing I absolutely did not ever expect to happen.

To be clear, the show did not clearly confirm the theory that got me interested in writing my story in the first place. But it did throw a ton of fuel at it in ways just about no one outside the theorists could have possibly suspected up to that point. And good lord, did it lead to a bloodbath.

In the world of fandoms, pointless arguing about background lore is common and expected. What this led to, though, ended up being far worse than that. 

Because of the more politicized nature of the topic, the arguments began devolving into ones about legitimate morality and ethics in the real world. Of course, the Internet being the Internet, many participants in this war could not take on the subject with any sort of nuance. 

As such, both sides of the line developed a vicious, vicious, with us or against us mentality I have seen in very few places. It started to remind me of a place I had managed to escape years ago - and in all honesty, the place that watching its show played a large part in helping me heal the final wounds from.

I wondered if it was really worth it to continue working on the story I had begun to write. Then, I realized something.

Sure, the show I watched and the fan theories I looked at did help inspire me to write my story at first. But my story was its own thing. It didn’t need the show to have a coherent plot or characters or even themes. It definitely wasn’t a fanfic of the specific theory that has caused so much infighting in the fanbase recently, either.

Ultimately, I’m going to continue working on what I’ve been working on. 

And whenever I finally want to release it? It will come out.

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[thesnarkerramblings]

Covered Up

Song covers have always been hit or miss for me. Sometimes, I find song covers on par with or even superior to their original counterparts. Perhaps they manage to capture the sentiment of their originators perfectly, or fix the weaknesses of the latter. Other times, though, song covers end up making me wish I took the 3-5 minutes I used for them for their original copies instead.

As I was searching through YouTube today, I discovered a rock band. They weren’t like any old dad rock or prog rock band, though - or incidentally, a metal one. They were more eclectic in taste, and had a mix of original songs and covers as well. I clicked on one of their covers, and boy - was I hooked.

Most singers and musicians who choose to cover songs attempt to stay at least somewhat faithful to their covers’ originators. They may change the instruments, modify speed or dynamics, or even tweak several lyrics. But in the end, the covers are still functionally recognizable as and meshable with their originals.

This rock band’s song covers, though, were much more experimental. They didn’t just tweak a few words or make the instrumentation darker. They played with chords and melodies on top of everything that rebellious song cover makers typically have fun with adjusting. 

Sure, the end results were almost different songs from their originators. Purists could argue that such significant modification defeats the entire point of song covering. But this ambition is exactly what I found fascinating about the band - especially since they were just that good at making their new soundtracks fit with the lyrics they got.

Like every band out there, of course, they had their weaknesses. They weren’t enough to detract from me liking their overall output, mind you. However….woo boy, their pitfalls were definitely noticeable.

If I’m going to be honest: lyricism was not one of their strong suits. This wasn’t a problem during song covers, as the lyrics for those were already handed to them by song originators. For their original songs, though, their flaws absolutely started to show.

It wasn’t that their lyrics were nonsensical. If they were, I would either be writing a very different article right now or avoid writing one altogether. With that being said, they loved clichés. Loved them. Their figurative language use was bare bones at best, and their wordplay was nowhere near as creative as their sonic trappings.

What became more glaring to me, though, wasn’t just their lyrics. While I do appreciate songwriting craft, sometimes I like to binge down less lyrically deep content if the backing tracks and vocals are interesting enough - which the band I’m writing about right now has been more than capable of doing.

You see, wherever they were from, they were definitely not from my broad corner of the globe. Sometimes…it showed.

As I was digging deeper into the band’s discography, I found out that they covered a somewhat touchy song. Said song, in its original form, could have veered on offensive. But thanks to the charisma and style of its initial singer and his team, it avoided drowning all too far.

The band, on the other hand, could not manage this balance. They ended up applying far too much flair to the song in question. While this sort of strategy often worked with breezier, simpler compositions, the band’s usual tactics did not work here. What ultimately resulted was something that skirted on sending the very message the original version was trying to condemn.

At the end of the day, however…I still like this band. Sure, they have their downsides. I’d definitely be very careful about whom to recommend them to. But hey: their music bangs. 

And I find their ambition addictive.

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[thesnarkerramblings]

Dear OS

I get it, Operating System. You want me to update to your latest and shiniest version - the one the company that owns you is absolutely raving about on their website and Twitter and whatnot. At least half your users have already given in, whereas others have just given up on you and moved onto other devices that don’t belong to your company. Yet, somehow, I’m still here.

I can’t bring myself to let you go. I mean, you’ve been invaluable to my daily life. You let me search material up, connect with people, and entertain myself. I would be lying to say I don’t appreciate you at all despite your obvious, obvious flaws.

At the same time, though…God, when you’re iffy, you’re really dubious. Your website loading can take forever when I first turn you on after a while, your apps can take an eternity to download, and your ability to send information to other people outside of Internet-assisted technologies is….questionable, to say the least.

I still remember the last time I updated you. It was a mild day - although I can’t recall the exact season for the life of me. I had been holding back on updating you for a while, as despite your corporation’s fierce insistence otherwise, I had heard very mixed reviews on the update they made that year.

But the company pushed. It nudged and hit and threw out constant, constant reminders to update you every. Single. Day. 

For every day I refused to bend to your corporate owners, the web pages I typically scrolled slowed down more and more. Then, my apps also slowed down. Then…it became impossible to use said apps because they locked updates to your latest version, and I had to update you to be able to use them again. 

So I did. I updated you…and everything was back to normal again for some time - at least, for a given value of normal anyway. I hated your new interface, I loathed how difficult closing many applications ended up becoming, even though I was finally able to open them again. On top of all of that, I did not like how your icons were displayed. But hey, you were back again…sort of.

I guess it’s time for the cycle to repeat again. Yet again, there is a new update for you from a desperately greedy corporation that’s claiming innovation. Yet again, it’s getting mixed reviews from the users who are actually willing to update. And yet again, you’re being forced to bug me all the time to update to your allegedly newest and coolest version.

For now, I’m holding onto current you as much as I can. I’ve heard that your latest version - even compared to previous upgrades - is very divisive in a way previous editions have not been. Apparently, you will either really love it - or loathe its tacky UI to the core of your bones. 

Sometimes, I wonder if maybe - just maybe - it’s worth it to take the risk. Perhaps, for once, your latest update could be an improvement instead of part of an inevitable series of detriments which will eventually force me to get a new device altogether. Maybe I could bring myself to like it, just like I’ve brought myself to tolerate your previous updates in the past.

But at the same time…there’s no rush. As is, I like your current quality enough. Sure, you’re not the same as you were when I first found you. But you still have a similar overall charm beneath your current surface aesthetic.

So until your owners naturally force me to update you again, I’ll leave you be. 

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[thesnarkerramblings]

Somehow, You Did

Over five months ago

I thought you were done

I thought you were over

I was dead certain you screwed everything over

You prioritized revenge

Over your sanity

Over your name

Your skin in the game

And equanimity 

Worst of all, though

You sacrificed your capacity

To go through with aid

You could have made

If their eyes weren’t on

Your capabilities

When the leaks all came out

I knew what to do

I broke it off:

Everything we knew

I hated that it came to this

I hated losing my chance at bliss

But it was already gone

The moment you took

The sword and cut into the morgue

But somehow…you persisted.

They may wish you just left,

But you’re still around;

And by that, both they and I are confounded

You lurk around

Taverns and traces

Of places which you

Were barred from gracing

And no matter how much

They try to implore

You to go:

You just ignore.

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[thesnarkerramblings]

The Daisy Theory: A Teaser

Cheryl Sakurai

London, Ontario, is a small city. Unlike its ever traversed British counterpart, with its skyscraping buildings, bustling social scene 24 hours a day, and rich cultural heritage woven into each inch of its fast-paced neighborhoods, the London I know has always been more reserved. 

Few buildings in my hometown are tall. The handful of skyscrapers and apartment complexes higher than 30 stories are relatively new developments - and messy ones at that. Much of the city still isn’t built up, either. Indeed, stretches of grassland and trees litter the landscape of a partially completed suburbia.

To call London, Ontario a tourist hub would be a ludicrous lie. There is hardly anything one could call a “nightlife,” for starters, unless you count the generic university and college student parties that sometimes spill over into town. Most touring artists with a functioning budget wouldn’t dare touch this city either. 

During the daytime, a potential tourist’s main entertainment sources only lie in the monuments of obscure Canadian history scattered across town: colonial houses, low-budget collectors’ museums, the artifacts of designated heroes here and there. There are adequately tended parks, but they do not possess any notable natural wonders or festivals to distinguish them from the municipal parks of many other suburbs. No matter how much the city council tries whitewashing things, you are much better off going to see the tourist traps of Niagara Falls or the overcrowded attractions of Toronto than deciding to stumble into London, Ontario, for its name.

This is not to say I resent my hometown. Far from it. My school, Oak Ridge High, is a wonderful building with solid education - at least for university pathway students. The teachers generally do their jobs, and the textbooks and equipment are more than functional. 

My two best friends - Glen and Blossom - also attend with me. We aren’t enrolled in many of the same classes, but we hang out whenever we can. They are sometimes quite the personalities with their portal fantasy obsession, but it is a fascination I mostly share as well. We might not really have any friends other than each other, but that’s fine by us. Except for a certain Jared, we get along with our classmates perfectly fine during assignments.

The shops are also sufficiently varied. There are well-stocked groceries, dollar stores, fashion vendors, woodworking suppliers, and computer fixers like in any other generic suburb. The cashiers are nice, and the guest services are reasonably helpful.

Nothing of note happens here. 

I like it that way.

April 5th, 2026

Right now, our tour guide for Waterloo is taking us through the physics department. We’re in the study area, a fast food diner-like hall without the fast food. Across from us is a sleek water refill station.

“Got any questions?” the guide asks us.

“Not really,” I respond. “I’ve already been to the open house.”

“Wonderful!” he exclaims. “We’re going to the lecture hall next.”

After visiting the lecture hall, the guide decides to show us a few miscellaneous rooms due to the fact that we have extra time. Among these include the washrooms, the outside of the professor lounges, and a few doors he isn’t sure about. A messily decorated blue door piques my interest.

“Where does that go?” I ask the tour guide.

The tour guide makes a tongue click.

“Eeehhhh…” he hesitates, “nowhere good.”

Blossom raises her pale hand.

“Oooooooh,” Blossom points to what appears to be a mainframe in the room, “those solar panels look cool!”

“Yeah, they’re also made by a total psycho,” the tour guide says. “Anyways…you guys are going to Waterloo next year, right?”

“Just me,” I correct him.

The tour guide takes out a few passes from his pockets. Mixed in with three legitimate looking visitor tickets are orange striped and rather shoddy papers.

“Maybe I could change your friends’ minds for next year,” he muses to me. “I have some extra passes to get you three into the party that’s happening at the dorm tonight. Wanna go?”

Glen stares at both me and Blossom.

“Do you really think we’re getting out of there sober?” he asks us.

“We’re not going to get drugged,” I reassure him. “Also, I think it’ll be fun to experience a bit of university life before September.”

Sure enough, a few hours later - we’re in.

Later That Night

I’ve been partying for a while. God, Glen was right about it being tiring. The crowds are way too heavy, the music is comprised of mid-tier TikTok songs that can’t bother to even attempt a bridge or realistic instruments, and the amount of alcohol nearby is enough to make the vicinity have the odor of a chemistry lab. Glen and Blossom eventually grow tired too, so we decide to sneak back into the physics building after hours with the help of our tour guide.

While our tour guide is away, I start to become nauseous. Somehow, though, I don’t want to throw up either - if only because I have little in my system to throw up besides the half full glass of root beer I drank earlier. Or was it laced with something? I don’t remember.

My friends are busy admiring the mysterious lab that the tour guide wanted to keep off limits for us, but I can’t partake in their joy. Just as I’m about to call for help, I pass out.

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