The Adventures Of Hax0r Man

Chapter 3

Hax0r Man goes shopping

by LateBlt

  Like most other people, Hax0r Man sometimes feels a need for material
objects. He is not a big materialist--he doesn't get excited by things like
fancy jewelry or expensive clothes--but his life does depend on some basic
necessities of life, without which no one can live. Things like MOSFETs,
floppy disks, and capacitors. Although he has not tested this theory out, he
has been told that if he needs these kinds of physical objects, he can get
them from "stores" or "shops", places that have such things and exist for the
purpose of giving them to people. Hax0r Man likes this idea of places
existing just to give stuff to people; the Hax0r Ethic is still alive and
well. Open-source of course!
  Hax0r Man decides to run some errands today and see what he can come up
with, as a sort of experiment. He walks into a large store, figuring that
such a large building would have the best selection, and stops to ask someone
some questions. The person is a young man in some kind of clothes that seem
to identify him as someone who works at this store.
  "Excuse me, sir," Hax0r Man says. "Where can I find MOSFETs, floppy disks,
and capacitors here?"
  The young man looks as though he was not expecting this question. Hax0r Man
is surprised; he would think that store employees are often asked where they
can find things. Perhaps most of the people who visit stores are so familiar
with the layout that they do not need to ask such questions.
  "I'm sorry, what are you looking for, sir?"
  "MOSFETs, floppy disks, and capacitors, preferably ceramic," Hax0r Man
repeats patiently.
  "Um, I don't think we carry any of those things here. This is a
supermarket."
  "A supermarket? Even better. If you're super, you must have a good
selection, right? That's sort of why I came here."
  "Yes sir, we tend to have a larger selection of food than most smaller
local markets. But... I'm sorry, can you please repeat the first thing you
mentioned you're looking for?"
  "MOSFETs", Hax0r Man repeats again.
  "Is that a type of vegetable?" the young gentleman asks dubiously.
  "What's a vegetable?" Hax0r Man asks.
  "I don't think we have what you're looking for, sir. I'm sorry."
  "I see. What do you have in this giant building, then?"
  "Mostly food. And household supplies, like light bulbs and laundry
detergent."
  "You sell mostly food? A building this large is devoted mainly to food?"
  "Um, yes, sir."
  Hax0r Man is amazed. "Um, correct me if I'm wrong, but this is Silicon
Valley, right?"
  "Yes, sir. That's El Camino right there," the young employee says, pointing
out the window.
  "That's what I thought. Okay, you're telling me that in Silicon Valley, a
place of business this large is entirely devoted just to *food*?"
  "Yes sir, you are correct."
  "Do you know where I can buy MOSFETs?"
  "No sir, I have no clue. If you're looking for a computer store, though,
there's a good one I know of." The young man starts describing directions on
how to get to the store he's thinking of, but Hax0r Man holds up a hand to
interrupt him.
  "I'm sorry, but the place you're describing sounds like it's far away. Do
you mean to tell me that in this area, there's no computer store within
several blocks?"
  "Yes, sir."
  "But that implies that a *minority* of buildings here are computer
companies. How can this be possible? A place like this which sells something
other than computers should be an aberration, not the norm."
  "I'm afraid that's not the case, sir. If you look at most of the buildings
that exist, even here in Silicon Valley, most of them aren't computer
companies."
  "I can't believe what I'm hearing. Are you for real? What's the point of
having a place like Silicon Valley, then, when most of the buildings aren't
devoted to silicon? It's like going to a theme park and finding that there
are hardly any fixtures on the so-called theme."
  "I suppose that might be true. I can't really answer your question, sir, I
didn't design Silicon Valley. But I can assure you that most businesses here
aren't actually computer-related."
  Hax0r Man is crushed. What is the point of living here if it's just like
any other place?
  Still, Hax0r Man has lived here in Silicon Valley as long as he can
remember, and it's not like he has anywhere else to go. He might as well
stay. Getting back to the matter at hand, Hax0r Man resumes his original
pattern of thought. "Do you mind if I just walk around and take a look at
what you do sell?"
  "Go right ahead, sir. That's what the aisles are for."
  "Thanks."
  Hax0r Man walks around, and sees that, indeed, there is a lot of food on
the shelves. But this so-called "super" market actually does sell a few
things other than food. Most notable among these is batteries; Hax0r Man sees
a whole rack which stocks AA, AAA, C, D, and 9-volt batteries. He takes a few
of these, since batteries are always useful. Then Hax0r Man gets an idea. If
this place sells mostly food, they probably sell lemons, right? Hax0r Man
knows that lemons can be used as a mild electrical power source. When he
finds the lemon location, he takes a lemon and begins to formulate a plan.
This is going to be fun!
  Hax0r Man plugs a couple of wires into the lemon and uses his
wristwatch-contained voltmeter to check the voltage coming out. It's rather
disappointingly low, but Hax0r Man bets he could crank it up if he wires
several lemons in series. So he proceeds to do exactly this. Sure enough,
with each additional lemon, the voltage goes up slightly, until he's got a
charge of about 1.5 volts, almost comparable to that of a typical battery
cell.
  Leaving his new 1.5-volt lemon battery for a moment, Hax0r Man builds a
dual-trace oscilloscope out of a nearby watermelon, then hooks up the lemon
battery to it so he can observe its voltage output. Hax0r Man also connects a
D-cell he found on the shelf to the other scope input, and now he can watch
these two traces play off each other. Hax0r Man makes a simple electret
microphone out of a radish and hooks it up to the lemon input, and sure
enough, he finds that by speaking into the mic, he can create waveforms on
the lemon line. Hax0r Man has built a simple LM (Lemon Modulation) device out
of common supermarket materials!
  Not content to leave it at this, however, Hax0r Man gets really into the
swing of things and builds an oscillator out of a soft drink can. Then he
unwinds a wire-mesh sieve which he found in the cookware aisle and re-winds
it into a step-up transformer. Connecting the transformer to the oscillator,
Hax0r Man now has a nice high voltage which he promptly plugs his laptop
into. Of course, although the lemon voltage has been stepped up to the usual
120-volt sine wave, the power capacity of this arrangement is somewhat
lacking, so Hax0r Man takes a 2N3055 out of his pocket and uses it to create
a 15-amp current source. More than enough to drive his laptop!
  Hax0r Man has to take a moment to catch his breath; he's so excited he can
hardly see straight, but there's hax0ring to be done, so he can't stop now.
Powering up his laptop, Hax0r Man runs a sound editing program and starts
creating synthesized sounds on his Lemon Modulation system. He's jamming! He
can see the nifty sound waves on the watermelon scope, and through a feedback
loop that goes back into the lemons, he can generate awesome sounds with the
press of a few keys. Hax0r Man loads up some breakbeat samples and gets into
a groove, entertaining all the passersby who are meekly shopping for
rutabagas and celery. "MY NAME IS DJ LEMON!" Hax0r Man shouts to the crowd.
"Or maybe DJ Hax0r. Either works."
  This continues for a while, until a middle-aged man wearing some kind of a
suit approaches Hax0r Man and asks him what he's doing.
  "I'm just hax0ring and laying down some phat beats," Hax0r Man responds.
  "You seem to have reappropriated some store merchandise for this purpose. I
assume that you'll remove all this stuff from the product shelves and pay for
it at your earliest convenience."
  Hax0r Man pauses to consider this. "Uh... Actually, no. I hadn't really had
any plans like that in mind, but thanks for checking."
  "Sir, you've ruined what appears to be a large number of lemons, a
watermelon, a radish, a sieve, and a soft drink. You need to pay for these
items."
  "Okay. I'll pay with a musical performance. Would you like to hear some
live tunes as generated by my open-source synth software?"
  "No."
  Things begin to happen very quickly after this. Hax0r Man is bodily
removed, by means of mechanical force, from the store, and encouraged with
very encouraging words to never walk inside this building again. Hax0r Man
wonders why he would want to walk into a business that doesn't sell MOSFETs
anyway, but he graciously agrees to these terms.
  The modus operandi of businesses like these doesn't make a lot of sense. It
seems that they want to encourage people to walk in, but then when people
like Hax0r Man go in, the business becomes almost eager to actually pull the
customer out. How can such a place ever stay in business? It's just one of
the many paradoxes that are a part of everyday life for non-logical
people like non-hax0rs. Ah well, Hax0r Man can only feel sorry for them as he
walks back home, his shopping list empty for now.