SUCCESS AT LAST . . . . AND VICTORY

The STORMBRINGER Cyber War Phenomenon - inside the Halls of Memory


After more than a week of crunching numbers, cleaning out the Registry Editor file by file, byte by byte in a desperate struggle against a robust Trojan Horse virus masquerading as an anti-virus file, uninstalling and reinstalling software - STORMBRINGER is proud to announce that We Have Overcome a particulary nasty cyber attack, and have emerged triumphant!



STORMBRINGER Software Amazons conducting the Cyber War equivalent of a FULL COURT PRESS on the STORMBRINGER Operating System



Decades ago in a previous lifetime, one evening in the Ninja Bars of Kadena Circle, it was explained to me that the weapons of the Modern Day Samurai are the submachinegun and the computer. At the time, the very concept of geeks and the computers they lived by was enough to strike fear into the hearts of even the bravest, boldest warrior . . . since then I have learned to live - and love - our digital assistants . . .


. . . I am not the greatest of cyber warriors, I am not even a great cyber warrior - all I have now to say for myself is: "Sensai, I have arrived . . ."


THE SMELL OF VICTORY:





SPECIAL THANKS to all STORMBRINGERS who stood by and offered assistance during this difficult time - My hope is now to restore the quality of posts to previous standards - Blog STORMBRINGER is refitted, restored to full operational capabilities and running at FULL SPEED AHEAD!!!

STORMBRINGER SENDS

Dennis Lee Hopper May 17, 1936 – May 29, 2010

A little light in the world went out last night . . .


"Zap em' with your sirens, man! Zap em' with your sirens! There's mines over there, there's mines over there, and watch out those goddamn monkeys bite, I'll tell ya."


Hey, man, you don't talk to the Colonel. You listen to him. The man's enlarged my mind. He's a poet-warrior in the classic sense. I mean, sometimes he'll, uh, well, you'll say "Hello" to him, right? And he'll just walk right by you, and he won't even notice you. And suddenly he'll grab you, and he'll throw you in a corner, and he'll say "Do you know that 'if' is the middle word in life? 'If you can keep your head when all about you are losing theirs and blaming it on you, if you can trust yourself when all men doubt you'..." – I mean, I'm no, I can't – I'm a little man, I'm a little man, he's, he's a great man. I should have been a pair of ragged claws scuttling across floors of silent seas – I mean . . .

- Dennis Hopper in "Apocalypse Now!"


Note:
This is a variation 'If you can keep your head...' a quote from Rudyard Kipling's If








If

If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you;
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too;
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or, being lied about, don't deal in lies,
Or, being hated, don't give way to hating,
And yet don't look too good, nor talk too wise;

If you can dream - and not make dreams your master;
If you can think - and not make thoughts your aim;
If you can meet with triumph and disaster
And treat those two imposters just the same;
If you can bear to hear the truth you've spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to broken,
And stoop and build 'em up with wornout tools;

If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breath a word about your loss;
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: "Hold on";

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
Or walk with kings - nor lose the common touch;
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you;
If all men count with you, but none too much;
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds' worth of distance run -
Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it,
And - which is more - you'll be a Man my son!

- Rudyard Kipling

"ALL I WANTED WAS A MISSION . . . "

". . . and for my sins, they gave me one. They brought it up to me like room service . . . It was a real choice mission - and when it was over, I would never want another . . ."



.

SURF OR DIE

Mother Nature is The Boss . . .



An unusual tale of sea survival . . . or perhaps better described as SURF survival . . . . . . . S.L.

I SURFED THE TSUNAMI TO SAFETY: Briton tells of remarkable escape by riding OVER deadly Samoan wave
Mail Foreign Service - 2 October 2009

A British survivor survived the tsunami which devastated the South Pacific by paddling towards the towering wave, he has claimed.

Tom Gogola, from Devon, was in Samoa for a three-week holiday when the island was hit by a 20-foot wall of water.

The 22-year-old was in the water surfing when he saw the wave racing towards the shore.

He did the only thing he could - and paddled as hard as possible straight for the wave.


Situational awareness probably saved his life.


Aiming the tip of his surfboard up to ensure its nose was not pushed under by the towering wall of water, he said he rode right up and over the top of the wave.

It is not clear how far out to sea Mr. Gogola was at the time. The nearer tsunami wave comes to shore, the more quickly it will change height as the water becomes more and more shallow.

Mr Gogola's father Steve, 59, said: "He said it was pretty unreal surfing when the tsunami happened. He and a friend decided to paddle out, rather than in, and they were picked up by a boat.

"Tom also said half of the people who were surfing got washed into the jungle."
Mr. Gogola, keeping in contact with his family on Facebook, said the tsunami has taken everything apart from a few clothes.

The college student wrote yesterday: "I've lost everything but I've still got my life."


This young man - he is no longer a kid after what he went through - has a good survival attitude.


His father said: "When I saw the news I thought, oh God, Tom is out there, I hope he is alright."

Mr. Gogola was not the only surfer to survive the giant wave by riding it out.


SURFED TO SAFETY: Chris Nel rode out the tsunami for an hour and a half, fearing that he would be smashed into the land at any second if he lost control


New Zealand student Chris Nel was surfing on the south coast of Savai'i island in Western Samoa when the 8.3 magnitude quake struck on Wednesday morning. He had been in the water with four other New Zealand surfers and an Australian when the tsunami appeared.

Mr. Nel, a hospitality student, was forced to ride out the tsunami on his surfboard for more than half an hour, fearing he would be 'smashed into the jungle' by the surging water.

Now, back home on dry land, he is thanking his lucky stars that he lived to tell the tale.


RIDING THE WAVE: The roof of a building is swept away by a tsunami wave in Apia, Samoa, on Tuesday


Mr. Nel, from Wellington, was on holiday in Western Samoa when the massive undersea earthquake struck.

"I went out early morning for a surf, then I felt the tremor - you get them all the time in New Zealand, so I didn't really think too much of it. Then I went out in the water and caught a few waves."

Mr. Nel had been in the water with an Australian man and four other New Zealanders when the first signs of the coming tsunami appeared.

"All of a sudden the water went really weird, it kind of glassed off and got really lumpy, then we started moving really quick, getting sucked out to sea," he said.


CALM BEFORE THE STORM: The water is eerily glassy as the first of a series of tsunami waves approaches the shore outside the Ulimasao Marist Center, in Vailoa, in Samoa on Tuesday.


"It was pretty scary looking back and seeing the reef completely dried up; it looked like a volcanic riverbed, it was just gone."

Then he saw a giant spurt of water hit the shore.

"I was thinking, This is it, we're going to get washed away and smashed into the jungle."

"We didn't know what was going on, we thought, Why is no one coming out to help us?" but it turned out everyone had already been evacuated by that point."

The surfers tried in vain to reach the shore as whole trees started floating past them. They lay on the surfboards as wave surges swept ashore, riding them out and trying not to get smashed.

"After about 35 or 45 minutes of floating around, we managed to time it between a surge to get to land through the reef channel," Mr. Nel said.

When he made it to shore, he saw that the surf camp he had been staying at had been destroyed.

"A lot of my stuff got washed out to sea and I found one of my surfboards in the jungle," Mr. Nel told the Dominion Post newspaper.


Animation of the tsunami moving through the Pacific:




Initially he had stayed at the beach to help salvage a wrecked boat but left when he heard another tsunami warning.

"Everyone just got out of there. I managed to grab my passport and board shorts."
The surfers headed to a village and waited for about five hours until the threat of a second surge had passed.

Days earlier, Mr. Nel had been surfing off the south coast of Upolu, an area that was devastated by the tsunami.

Mr. Nel left Samoa on Thursday, flying back to Wellington wearing the pair of jeans he had managed to find in the jungle.

"We were really, really lucky," he said.


Luck is skill, preparedness & opportunity.


"If anyone had caught a wave closer to shore there would have definitely been people who would have died or been severely injured."






"Hey! Charlie don't surf!"