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[Important] Versatile Has Moved To New Blog Domain
Revisions:
4-7-12: Initial release.
Note: This post is NOT fake. Please read this post carefully, as it has instructions about the new blog that Versatile will now be posting at.
Hey guys,
The purpose of this post is to inform you that I am now going to posting all new content at what I consider the next version of “The Underground”. I will now be found at Mysteryblock.com, working with former Underground Blog writer Toughtrasher.
If you are currently a blog writer for The Underground, and you wish to write more, then please consider writing at Mysteryblock.com. We will welcome all new and old writers.
Versatile, why are you leaving this blog?
I am not actually leaving. I will continue to monitor this blog and answer comments as they come up but here is the story as to why I am making the decision to write new content at Mysteryblock.com.
As you may (or may not have known), the Underground has survived these many years being hosted on free WordPress.com, and for that, I am very thankful for it. But as time went on, my activity on this blog has slowly went down as I put more effort in growing my youtube channel (GameDexterity), and also the Versatile Street Team, and other projects.
In late February, Toughtrasher found me on Skype and told me of an opportunity that I could not refuse. He loved the Underground, and wanted to help it grow. However, he and I knew that we cannot grow it exponentially within the confines of free WordPress.
So he offered his services, his domain name, and help me grow The Underground at the new web host. At first, I was reluctant, but the the more we talked about, and the potential with new plugins and new badass themes (and more), I decided now was the time to make that move.
Don’t worry. I will still write what I always love to write about, and the type of content you will see is more of less what you have seen before.
Over time, I may (or may not) move the highly viewed articles over to the new blog. In fact, during this transition period, I may re-write many of the old tutorials into better, more structured formats, and its going to have better synergy between the blog and my Youtube video tutorials. In short, we will have good times.
What is the meaning behind Mysteryblock.com?
The name is quite simple. A lot of the information in this world is a mystery, especially if you never knew if certain information existed. Henceforth, it will be our mission to expose the mystery, hence Mysteryblock.com.
What articles are moving over to Mysterblock.com?
As times goes on and if any specific articles are moved over to the new blog, I will write them here.
The Key(s) to True Happiness
Why can’t anyone be happy with what they have?
Do your possessions own you?
Stop and smell the roses…
Why can’t anyone be happy with what they have?
I have pondered over this question for years now, and still no answer. Nothing I have done (and probably nothing I will do) can lead me to uncover the answer. It has boggled my mind since the first time I tried becoming enlightened. The only conclusion I came up with is that it is in human nature to WANT. It must be something neurological, because it is etched into our brains. I cannot rid myself of this curse, no matter what I do. What should I do? What can anyone do? No one is ever satisfied with what they have. Think about it: every time you get something, you want something else. An endless cycle, and it is truly impossible to stop. There is a bottomless void and it is only filled by possessions (until you die). If anybody has ever come that far let me know. There is no logical explanation to this (none that I’ve found), and so I am just going to stick with my earlier statement: it is in human nature to behave this way; uncontrollable.
I have been pushing forwards, trying to make it better, and I have progressed a bit, but not enough to give up all worldly possessions. There are some things I just can’t let go of. I am certainly not willing to go as far as the Buddhist monks and isolate myself, meditating for hours and hours on end. My main point is to just TRY not caring about your items as much. In the end all they do is blind you from true happiness.
Do your possessions own you?
You are a slave to what you own. Charge your ipod, water your plants, make your bed, pay your bills, take care of your car. Now I’m not telling you to just find the closest stranger and give all of your belongings away; no. All I’m saying is that there could be more freedom involved. Stop making your bed, no one cares how neat it is, and who do you have to impress? Get a crappier car; then it won’t matter if it gets damaged. You get a couple scratches on it, no big deal! Buy a cheaper house, or move into an apartment. Less payments, more money in your pocket, for things like vacationing.
Just downgrade a bit. Like Tyler Durden always says, “Things you own end up owning you.” A lovely Fight Club quote. Amazing movie, for those of you who haven’t seen it. It’s a must if the only thing you want is to NOT want.
Stop and smell the roses.
Try and be happy with what you have. Take the good from the bad. Try to take a negative and turn it into a positive. Stop and admire the world around you; the clouds, the sun, your family, a warm meal, the roof over your head. Be grateful and hold things most dear to you close at hand. Have the ability to let that which does not matter truly slide. Forgive and forget. Don’t spend all of your time troubling about the past. It will not help you whatsoever. Worrying about the future won’t either. Mapping out all possible outcomes is just crazy, and it’s all a very deep state of paranoia. The future is just a projection of what YOU think, not the actual outcome. Just relax, sit back, and enjoy life. No point in trying to stop something that is out of your control.
Conclusion:
– Be happy with what you have.
– Don’t let your possessions own you.
– Stop trying to impress people.
– Calm down and let life be the way it’s supposed to be.
– Stop trying to control everything.
The Next Underground Project – Underground Computer Club
Revisions:
3-2-10: Initial release.
3-3-10: See the initial sneak peak at the badass forum!!!!
The other day while at work, an ingenious idea hit me during the middle of the day. Instead of focusing on my real work responsibilities, I spent a good 15 minutes sketching out on paper this idea that I could just not let go. Not sure how it got into my head, but it was one of those moments where I just had to think it through.
In fact, I got so excited writing my thoughts down that I could not stop thinking about it since yesterday. Now today I am happy to reveal the next project for the Underground blog.
Before I dive deep into it, let me start off with an allegory. As children as we grew up, we went to school and at school we had extra curricular activities. These could be anything such as sports, clubs, tutoring sessions, or community service. Nonetheless, if your school was hip enough, hopefully you had a computer club.
My school had a computer club, and now that I think about what we did back then, it purely was laughable. My computer club was essentially 10 guys going to the library listening to the librarian teacher trying to teach us HTML. After we were done with the lesson, we would hop onto the library computer LAN and play Starcraft against each other for a good half hour before the bus came to take us home.
I know, it seems pretty sad in retrospect, but who would have known Blizzard was going to become a RTS king? Regardless of the story, maybe you had a computer club at school? If you were part of a computer club, I want to hear about it and learn what you guys did back then. Hopefully, it was something inspiring and you learnt something cool about technology.
Now let’s jump forward to 2010 and listen to my grand idea.
[How To] Play Need For Speed Underground 2 LAN Online For Free Using Tunngle (Yes, and Hamachi Too)
Revisions: 9-18-09: Initial release. 3-24-10: Fixed video link. 12-4-10: Fixed intro picture. 10-31-12: Fixed video tutorial link. 4-30-13: Fixed video link.
Foreword: This is simply a guide to show users how to get this game working and running online with the LAN play without hassle. This is not meant to encourage or facilitate piracy. This is merely a guide to help gamers like yourself play this fantastic game online. ~ Versatile
The “Need for Speed” series is an excellent racing series, and the Underground series really takes it up a notch. This guide will show you how to play Need for Speed Underground 2 online using Tunngle. However, the same methods will work with Hamachi so I will write the instructions for both below. I have written this because the guides existing on the Internet is sort of lousy, so I decided to make my own.
How to Play Online [Using Tunngle or Hamachi]
1) Update game to latest version. Go to www.filefront.com for the official patches. 2) Go to the need for speed folder and edit server.cfg with notepad. The contents will look like mine below:
# # The server sends a ping message to the client every PINGTIME seconds # and the client is expected to respond within PINGWAIT seconds or # the server considers the connection to be dead and the client is # logged out. # PINGTIME=20 PINGWAIT=30 # # A client can only be idle for TIMEIDLE minutes before it is # automatically logged out. Even if a client is not idle it can # only be connected for a maximum of TIMEMAXM minutes. # Either/Both values can be set to 0 to mean that the server will # not timeout the client. # TIMEIDLE=0 TIMEMAXM=0 # # Limits how many times per second the LAN server will service requests. # Lowering this number will increase game performance for slower computers # at the expense of sluggish response time from the server. Valid range is # 1-1000. # LAN_THROTTLE=30 ##———————————————————————— ## DO NOT CHANGE ANYTHING BELOW HERE ##———————————————————————— ACCOUNT=1 MASTER=1 SLAVE=1 REDIR=1 # # This line allows the server to determine on what interface to listen for # connections. It can be any publicly routable IP address (this is the case # even if the host is on a LAN that is isolated from the Internet). There is # no communication attempted with the IP address listed here. # ADDR=%%bind(“159.153.253.82”)
3) Now put a # sign in front of the last line so it looks like this:
#ADDR=%%bind(“159.153.253.82”)
4) Save the file and start the game! Host the game in hamachi or tunngle, and your friends will see it!
Video Tutorial
[Underground Exclusive] An Interview With the Tunngle Team!
Revisions:
8-18-09: Initial release
Foreword: After two weeks of anticipation, I am very happy to bring what is considered the first interview ever on the Internet with the Tunngle team. Actually, what I did was send in my list of questions to Zax, who then filtered it on with the rest of the group to get the answers. Now we finally have something worth showing to everyone. I hope by reading this interview, it has given you some insight into what Tunngle is, and the main drivers behind it. I am so glad to have found Tunngle, and I wish I had found it earlier! ~ Versatile
Before I get started and show off the tutorial questions with the answers, I am sure there are some questions that some of you are wondering about so let me go through those first.
Update from Versatile – Book Cover Contest Inside! Prizes will be awarded!
Revisions:
8/16/09: Initial Release. Added book cover contest. Deadline = Thursday night (8/20/09) – 6PM Central time
NewsBreak: Hail and I have started to acquire some potential pictures for the new book. I am looking at showing off the top 10-20 images on Thursday night, 7PM Central time. If you want to submit your entry, please send it to versatileninja [at] yahoo.com for consideration. I will then put up a poll for a week and if the winning picture is from someone who is not part of the Underground staff will win a special edition of the book with your name recognized as well as a dedication to you specifically, with my own personal signature.
The sad part is if no one participates, then that means no one will receive this distinguished award! ~ Versatile
This week is going to be a busy week for me in terms of the blog. The original plan was to release the newsletter late this week, but it is too early to tell if I am going to get to it or not.
Next week I am super busy since I am traveling Monday through Wednesday for a business trip, and then next Thursday I move into a new house. No idea when I get Internet service at my new location. Maybe I’ll decide to not get it for awhile so I can focus on the book exclusively? >_>
All right so back to the book. It is going along great! I am about 24 pages in, and this is just the beginning. What do I use for typing? Microsoft Word of course. It really is a great tool, and it is the king of word processing in my opinion.
Now last night I spent almost 3 hours with a fellow underground user on IM talking about life in general and the book was brought into conversation. An idea sparked in my head thanks to the other participant, and I said yes, it would be very cool if I can use your idea, give you credit, and mentioned your name/location in the book!
As I thought about it more, is it possible other people from the community want to contribute some ideas to the book and be recognized? Wouldn’t that really make your friends jealous? I know I would be jealous if I saw my best friend recognized in an Underground book!
OMG, how can I participate? I want to be recognized too!
The best way to contribute is to email (versatileninja at yahoo.com) me your idea. By posting your idea here on the blog, someone may steal it and try to get recognition for it. If the idea is good enough, and it has inspired me to use it, then I will.
I will then ask for your call sign (How do you want to be recognized in the book) as well as your location. This way people know it is you from your town, and not general like Bob from USA when I can say Bob from Hilton Heights, Florida. Get my drift?
Very sick. How is the book coming along?
The book is coming along very well. I still have a long way to go before I complete it, but I can assure you what I have already is very good so far. I can’t wait to release it as I am dying to write it as you are dying to read it.
I’ve decided that for the book, it will not be on technical articles, but rather on high level concepts. Why do people do what they do? Piracy and how to detect it, and why its important to you even if you don’t engage in it, etc.
If I talk too much about it, it will ruin the element of surprise. Anyway, below is a screenshot of the table of contents as it is today. Next week, we can expect it to change drastically. ;0
Note: I have a lot of headers to keep me on track. That is why a lot of the pages is 24, but with no content yet. ;0
Two More Things!!!
As I get closer to finishing the book, I would like some input for possible book titles. Right now I have it named simply “The Underground Book”. I’m sure we can do better than that!
So over the next month, I will be constantly polling you guys for ideas and suggestions. If you have an idea for the name of the book, let me know here on this post or just email me.
Over the course of time, I will have a list of names and then we vote for the best one. The one whose title is selected will have the book digitally signed by me, and I will include a special thank you note as part of the book so you can flaunt it with buddies.
The next item is I am still trying to figure out what to do for the book’s cover. I am currently thinking of doing two items so far:
1) A picture of some kind of bad ass fractal art
2) A picture of a rabbit hole
This is where you come in, and I’m going to make this a quickie. What we are going to do is host a contest, and see if I can get entries in to my e-mail by this Thursday.
Maybe you can make something for me, or if you got a badass idea that would represent the book then please e-mail me. As usual, I can put up a poll and the winner will get a special autographed book, and most likely their name into the book. Sounds great? Let’s see if anything happens then!
—->Here are the rules for the book cover contest:<—-
1) The theme of the book is “Underground”. Please pick a picture that somehow relates to all things “Underground”.
WTF! What does it even mean to be “Underground”?!
Sorry, did I throw you a curveball? It be easier if I explain how Underground fits into the blog’s image here. When I think “Underground”, I think of that knowledge that hardly no one knows. This could be stuff related to computers, gadgets, or exploits related to technology. Now let’s broaden the horizon a bit. Time to time we have articles about life. Maybe you know that special “lifehack” that makes your car run better, or you know a great way to manipulate people. You know, a life hacker or something that gives you the mystery and awe of something underground.
I want a picture that when you look at it, you can nod your head and go “Yup, that’s pretty underground like”. If you find a picture that you think is a good fit, don’t be afraid to add a few lines to your picture and explain why you think it would be a good fit for the Underground theme. To us, it might be a bowling ball, but to you, it is a black ball that represents darkness and hidden knowledge within the 3 holes of finger snapping fear? See, that was easy right?
2) Pictures cannot be explicit. No swearing, nudity, violence, etc. Use your own discretion.
3) Pictures can be of any format. Hand draw, found online, personal photograps, photoshop, or other. If you are scouring the net for pictures, we ask that you pick a picture that is not watermarked across the whole image.
If you want ideas, go to photobucket.com or flickr.com for your inspiration.
4) Do not pick a picture because you think it will work with a hypothetical title in your head. Just focus on finding that great picture, and the titles will come later. I assure you, it will be fine!
5) Yes, you can submit as many pictures as you want. We will decide how many of your pictures make it to the final round.
6) Once all pictures have been submitted to versatileninja {at} yahoo.com by 6PM central time on Thursday, I will review it with the other authors and select the top 20 images that we feel would be right for the book. I will then post a poll, and leave it open for 1 week for you, the community, to vote for. The winner will then receive a special prize once the book is released!
Other pieces of advice: Creativity counts! Don’t go for some “normal” look. If you find something cool, and you can explain to us how it relates, you have a good shot at being in the top 20!
I hope this sound exciting, because it sure is exciting to me. As I finish writing this post, I have 3 individuals asking me questions, so I hope this clears everything up. Let the races begin!!!!
Update on the Underground Book
Revisions:
8-7-09: Initial release
8-8-09: Added a subsection on the pricing of the book…oh wait, what price?
All right so before I finally sign off and enjoy a few days of not posting on the blog, I wanted to give you guys a quick update on the book I have been working on the side.
What book?
Well, it is more of an e-book. I don’t want to steal the thunder away from the book, but it is a work in progress. In it I really want to touch upon some personal stuff that I have encountered in my life, as well as what I have witnessed in other people’s lives. We are in the 21st century, and there is a lot of great content to be learned.
With that said, the first chapter lays down the groundwork of the book, as well as hint to the journey the book will take the reader. The second chapter is devoted the mind of a pirate, and I want to show some insight that pirates are as regular people. In fact, you may encounter many of them on the street without knowing it!
For the rest of the book, it is up in the air. Do I focus specific articles on console modding? Heck, I could devote a whole PDF book to just PS2 modding itself. Or should I put in a few articles on PC maintenance? A chapter on how to defend yourself against viruses and spyware? A chapter on underground material so sick it makes baby Jesus cry?
I have no idea yet! But I assure you, once I get there, it will be worth it. Anyway, below is a teaser of the table of contents so far! I need a graphics artist to help develop a picture for the cover, so if you know Photoshop, let me know!
Wait, don’t leave us hanging? How you going to distribute/price it?
I knew this was coming, and I talk about the decision in the e-book alot. The e-book will be free. It will be distributed via pdf here on the blog, as well as all my popular forums that I visit. If it makes sense, I could distribute via torrents also. I can’t believe why I am doing what I am doing, and probably a lot of you out there won’t believe why I am doing what I am doing.
Lots of hours invested into a book…no financial gain. You would think I am very stupid. >_> Well, once you read the book, we’ll see who is stupid then. Trust me, I covered this topic in the book as well. LOL!
Quick Update From Versatile
Just so everyone knows, I will be out on vacation from August 8th through August 16th. I probably won’t be near a computer to check up on stuff until next week Thursday, so when I am gone this Friday, this place is going to be pretty empty, unless the remaining authors are going to be so kind enough to fill in for me with an article or two. *cough*
If not, then should I be surprised? >_>
With that said, the newsletter that is expected for an August 15th release date will have to be pushed back, probably sometime the week after my vacation or the following week. The content in this month’s newslettter should be very good according to my sources. >_>
Anyway, before I head out on vacation this Friday, I really want to get some stuff done. You know, the stuff that I promised. With that said, on the TUG blog this week, I’m going to squeeze off at least an article or two before I head out on vacation. It will be tough though, because there is so much information I want to talk about on V1, but I really want to get some new dirt on TUG.
What is the criteria for TUG this week? How do I determine if something is underground?
Simple. If I can’t share it on public radio, TV, magazines, or newspapers, then it goes on TUG. For example: Learning how to remove the password to Excel documents. Sounds fine right? Well, its not cool if you un-protect an Excel spreadsheet from your boss that has hidden data about the companies cost structure. >_> Now that’s underground!
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When Underground Values Clash: Part 2
Intro: Part 2 of the series. Sort of like my version of a follow up.
To each person his own. That’s a saying I try to follow a lot in my world. You might be thinking, how does THAT relate to anything? And then I can say, think about it. Everything has a certain meaning, but interpretations will differ correct?
As a team, Versatile and I have been writing articles for the past 2 years. Since the day we really started moving, we were never really sure what “The Underground” really meant. Even knowing what underground material is, where to get it, and how to use it, we could never really be sure of the difference between legal and illegal. There’s that gray area that Versatile talked about in the first part of this series.
The problem is, we have so many things we want to talk about. So many different exploits, hacks, and tricks that we’ve found out about or discovered on our own. Each thing is useful to a different person and can be underground in its own way. So now we have to think about interests. Will this be interesting for our readers? Will this be something that you or I will refer to when the time comes? There are so many blogs out there that just spew information, and not in a relatively easy to read fashion either. Plus there are rules to WP, the lovely TOS that Versatile mentioned.
Here’s where I’m going with this: There is a balance to everything in life. We, as The Underground, are trying to maintain this by staying within a “grey area,” occasionally overreaching the bounds on either side. And because interpretations differ over this “grey area,” people will find some things to be illegal whereas others won’t.
What does this mean? To each person, his own.
Suppose someone wrote an article on the theory behind cracking COD4 and playing it on cracked servers. As a theory, it is free information, and so long as the person is not promoting that people ACTUALLY use it, should it be “illegal” to share that information? Some people will say, yes, because it might be used to actually carry out the task. But I would say, the writer is staying in the darker side of the “grey area” but isn’t really breaking the rules. He might be telling us HOW to do something, but in the end, it is only “underground” if you decide to take the information and use it right?
So really, the interpretation differs. And that’s why we can’t use WP to post major “works” anymore. What we see as informative, they see as potentially dangerous or illegal. And in a sense, that’s correct. Any user can take our information and just break the law.
To each, his own. We’re back at that statement. Just like Versatile said, OUR underground is different from YOUR version. At least, some of you. Everything is underground on some level, whether or not you agree, that fact will not change. I don’t consider something simple like using a Junction to make a “modification” to AIM chat files Underground, whereas someone inexperienced would. Then again, I might consider downloading L4D and playing on the Garena networks underground, but someone who is way past that wouldn’t.
Do you see the difference? So when a comment comes along saying “[but] …I am not seeing any good “underground” content”, there’s nothing wrong with that. It’s just that opinions differ. And we try our best to do the research for you so that we can make everyone’s life a whole lot easier.
So for now, we’ll keep doing what we do. We’ll play the WP game and play hardball on the V2. If you want to see something, sound off in comments, twitter, or emails. Don’t think we’re slacking off and not really looking for things. Just remember: To each, his own.
Voltaire.
When Underground Values Clash – Look at It From My View
Foreword: This thread is a personal view on what it means when people throw out the term “Underground”. This is simply an expression of thought, and not meant to promote warez or illegal activity. ~ Versatile
Revisions:
7-22-09: Initial release
If you hadn’t known already, I read all comments on this site and if something comes to mind I blog about it. Sometimes you got to be careful, because you never know when it might resurface indirectly here as a topic of discussion. Anyway, the latest thing that is going on that almost ticks me off is what I read recently. A user who has been following us off an on since the 3rd suspension said:
[but] …I am not seeing any good “underground” content.
Basically, we have a user who visits the blog from time to time, and since the last suspension, the articles and topics that come up on this blog are just so-so. Is that the vibe? No feedback on the TUG blog? Maybe I’m just jumping to conclusions, so if you have seen the TUG blog (content is limited but its slowly growing) please leave some comments here. (http://tug.cjb.net)
Anyway, this comment really hits home hard, and its rough because there are are so many variables that may not meet a certain reader’s expectation. I wish to explain what is going on in my head, and the risks I am taking for this blog. This is my personal take on the matter, and not anyone else. I am speaking for no one else here, only for myself. If you are an author and you want to elaborate on my topic, please do so in your own thread. I am curious to hear someone else story besides my own. For now, I am the target so send me your bullets.
Welcome to the Underground. 