The blog post seems pretty erratic. The page is littered with random graphics and headers, and it's long as hell. Easily eight or ten thousand words collected in blocks of varying sizes. All written in that awful, awful color scheme.

As I scroll and skim through the guide I see no less than four black-and-white drawings that look like they were written out in real life, photographed, and re-uploaded instead of simply drawing them in Paint like a normal person or even scanning them. I try downloading one of the images - it's a black circle full of weird shapes drawn on raggedy parchment - and check the EXIF data.

Miraculously it looks like it's wiped completely clean, so whoever is keeping this website up knows how to do that much. Maybe they own a device with some privacy features? Hard to say.

There's not much sense in jumping around at first, so I go scrolling all the way back up to the top.

~ / ---- INTRODUCTION TO CRAFT ---- \ ~

The website is as unprofessional as ever. The jaunty formatting reminds me of some of the retro game walk-through websites I've stumbled on. I still see them around while trying to play "safe" games - meaning games with no online components, no DRM, no telemetry, available on a dirt cheap or trackerless service. That means playing a lot of games from before the year 2000. From what I've seen, it feels like the older you go on these, the sillier looking the net guides get. The blog post feels very 1995-or-older, there's even some text art emoticons slapped on random sentences along with random decorative text effects.

The first paragraphs are... way above my paygrade? Very high level techno-babble. They might be complete gibberish, but I'm honestly not smart enough to tell. My formal education consists of whatever I remember from my mother reading to me while I was half-comatose, bored, and sick as a dog, what little I've had time to study using online resources since my life has stabilized, and things I overheard while homeless and/or squatting. I'd say I'm fairly tech savvy - my new source of income has given me plenty of close encounters of the silicon kind as it were, and my "problem" is less apparent the further I am away from people, so it lends to it. Truly the ideal shut-in! Outside of that, I admit my fundamentals are very lacking.

Intrinsic reality is the composite of many ethereal forces, colloquially known as "strong forces," counterbalanced by quasi-real pseudoforces such as electromagnetism and gravitation. While all of these forces can be expressed in rigorous probabilistic terms, only strong forces require the use of third-space theory to establish our semistable deterministic reality while omitting True Knowledge (T/D), avoiding a total, catastrophic, ans frankly very impolite implosion of all unanchored matter. Damage wrought by failed permutations of solutions to this problem are the likeliest cause for our lonely existence across observable reality. Conventional theories of physics capture this idea in total but fail to account for the other subsets of ethereal forces:

So on and so forth. I can kind of understand the way it starts out, but when you start throwing "quasi-"s around it makes my head spin. I'm still sure it's all garbage, it reads like someone telling me to vibrate higher and feel my energies. I really hope I didn't sign up for a freaky newage cult somehow by opening this link. At least it would be a relatively novel and unique way to ruin my life.

Mercifully, I find a too-long-didn't-read disclaimer slapped just after the wall of technobabble:

TL;DR: If you have a lot of statistically improbable bad luck it's (probably) ghosts LOL (･ω･)b

I almost feel cheated for trying to read any of the stuff before. I'm not really seeing a connection between "strong forces" and ghosts, but whatever, I feel the headache setting in big time now. Making eye contact with the little emoticon I'm tempted to just click off the damned blog and call it my own bad luck for trying to read it at all, but I still don't know what the author expects me to do about the ghosts, so I'm trapped. The next section seems much more relevant, and at least slightly more succinct:

~♪~ GETTING STARTED & FIRST PROJECTS ~♪~

Due to the immutable nature of fate within a given set of mutually coherent planes, deviations from natural law in one plane must be expressed using a counterbalanced set of energies across other planes within the frame of reference, per the law of conservation of Truth. Just as digging a canal to divert a river or using an enzyme to break down food efficiently changes outcomes in a physical process in ultimately entropically favorable ways, making grooves in reality itself permits these energies to reach balance more efficiently across the frame of reference and therefore allows you to alter their final nature and destination.

By combining basic truths, a fortuitous physical medium, and building the conditions for repetitive energy expenditures from the very source of your bad luck, you may begin to burn off a small quantity of your misfortunes, slowing their growth, and store their karmic "heat" byproduct in a usable form. This process is not likely to be efficient with mundane tools, but builds a bridge towards more sophisticated solutions, and serves as a way to test your compatibility with the arts.

This part still isn't very intuitive due to all the jargon used, but it seems much more legible to me. My "JO crystal"-senses are already tingling from the off-hand mention of storing up luck, but I do like the notion of trying to reuse my own fortune instead of generating it from scratch. I mean, if whatever ghost I've got clinging to me is the thing making me unlucky, then does the luck I've lost have to go somewhere else? This blog certainly seems to be saying so. I've already been moving in that general direction with my own studies; that's part of how I came up with the idea to run both a "network security" service AND a "penetration testing/bug bounty" service simultaneously.

My thought process was, if my clients are guaranteed to get infiltrated even when I offer the highest quality protection possible, doesn't that necessarily mean that the hackers and scams are using new, undetected, never-before-seen viruses and exploits?

Yes it does, as it happens, and it pays a surprising amount of money when you turn them in.

So many free bug bounties, and I can trial-and-error with the sordid knowledge that when I get done I'll have something new to test because another client will get hacked. The source of my misfortune seems to care little whether I reap the long-term benefits of the fallout.

Though I'll probably get hit with a federal investigation if I uncover too many more day-zero exploits for their liking, or maybe I'll get envious tech journalists stalking me instead. No doubt at least one person is trying to track me down on the premise I'm in cahoots with the people I report - only the fact I am provably not connected to them at all is working in my favor, given the undying string of "coincidence." Anonymity only goes so far where money is involved anyway.

If you stumble upon this narrative on Amazon, it's taken without the author's consent. Report it.

The overall point being that, making a "lucky" break out of an "unlucky" one is a very effective strategy, even if I'm merely profiting from the raw improbability of the misfortune itself in a very robotic way. This seems like an extension of that idea.

I read further down the post. Next up is a cute little drawing of what looks like a stepladder, with each step slanted sharply downwards. A big circle sits on one of the steps, an arrow indicating it's falling downwards. The whole thing is set inside a box. To the right of the box is a smaller square, with a strange and squiggly symbol I've never seen before written in it.

This device may be considered an appropriate foundation for all future crafts. While there are far superior power sources if you have access to more esoteric materials from the start, this design can be seen as a rugged and ideal tool for those whose poor luck is caused by haunting, possession, or sentient curses. The function is essentially that of an electrical dynamo, converting the friction from quasi-real forces rubbing against each-other to energy, and because it is so often driven by ghosts, I tend to call it a "geist dynamo."

To construct it, obtain a flatbed container (preferably at least partially transparent) that is heavy and sealed enough to limit external forces like air currents, increasing the required energy expenditure to affect fortune, and thereby increasing usable waste byproduct. Fit a custom staircase made from a karmically neutral material such as plywood to this container snugly, angling the steps around forty five degrees, such that objects cannot sit stably on the surface. The more steps the staircase has, the more improbable the outcome can be made, further increasing waste. Ensure each step is sufficiently tall to avoid "skipping" steps as an exploit, e.g., accidentally making a ramp.

Next, obtain an object you understand to give good fortune - typically a coin - and something that your ghosts hate. Any time you want to activate the geist dynamo, prepare the object by adhering the thing that your ghosts hate or fear on a "bad" outcome of the lucky object. Depending on the nature of your haunting the best option for an antithesis will vary, but some extremely safe bets include peach wood, red bean paste, dog's blood (ideally sourced from a black dog), or a stable and long-lasting blessed incense. As long as it can adhere to the misfortunate result without affecting the fall pattern too much, it is appropriate for use.

Once you have prepared the loci, place it at the top step, quickly cap the dynamo off and place a piece of paper with this depicted beginner's seal above the container.

Watch your misfortune put to work for the glories of industry. The lucky object will plunge, fall on the "bad" outcome, and sit. Once the ghost(s) are agitated enough from exposure to the natural repellent, the object will be flung back up, resuming the process. Both the expressed misfortune and the expenditure from the outburst will serve as your power. If you have any fate with the craft, this cyclical process should happen at least once per week, and it should only require manual resetting once every few hours. If this happens less often or less consistently, I have bad news: your energy expenditure is outpacing your haunting, and you will be fully cured with a few more repetitions. (★≧▽^)

I rule out obtaining "dog's blood" immediately and under any circumstances, a chill crawling down my spine. That one seems eerily personal to me, though I know in the back of my head - a more rational place - it's not uncommon for people to see dogs as an enemy of ghosts in a great many places. You can even see them barking at ghosts in movies. Still, any proximity to dogs (let alone spooky dog blood) is a hard pass. It's been years and I still have a hard time drinking out of anything opaque thanks to ba-ba's jug. No way, no how.

I have no idea what a "peach wood" is either, and I don't have any incense or a blessing to go with the toy, but I do have some red beans that I keep around to make one of my favorite foods from my time in Japan. Anko, red bean jam. Thinking it through, if ghosts hate Anko, that might explain why it settles my nerves so well...

The rest of the device sounds surprisingly doable as well, even with things I have lying around the house. I could cut the bottom off one of the big liter bottles of soda and rig together a little staircase out of some old Tupperware using glue and tape. I happen to have a few pennies lying around, since do I find them fairly regularly - always on "tails," always just waiting there for me.

Even as I think it through, I find myself strangely compelled to make the contraption, rifling through my cabinets. It's not crystal anything, there's no talk of purchases or subscriptions - yet, at least. What could trying it out possibly hurt besides my dignity? It's also very rare that a site would tell you "our miracle cure won't keep working if you aren't at least thiiiis haunted, sorry loser!" Which tells me that whoever is writing the blog truly believes it, if nothing else.

In short order I put together a rudimentary staircase made out of Tupperware and cardboard boxes mashed together, glued, and taped up. Five steps on the pseudo-"staircase" should be enough to test the idea out at least. The arrangement isn't very snug in the re-appropriated liter bottle, but I can see inside pretty well now that I've torn the label off, and there's not quite enough room for the penny to fall out. When I set it on the counter, the setup just sits there. I feel a vague sense of shame looking at it, shaking my head.

Experimentally, I flip the penny I found in my sock drawer, popping it on to my countertop. Tails. Again - tails. Tails. Tails. This much is "certain," unless I literally vocally bet on tails, that's how the coin will land.

I'm not even going to bother with the paper seal woo woo stuff yet, but the thought process on the bean paste does make me curious whether the device itself works.

I try smearing the red bean paste on the tails side, flipping it again. The coin swerves in the air strangely, falling off my counter-top and to the floor, but it still lands tails-side-up. I eye it cautiously for a second, but no ghost pops out. It's kind of eerie that it fell tails-side-up at all this time, since the extra weight should drag it down pretty hard the other way, but it could still be a fluke I suppose - like winning the lottery four times in a row. Perfectly normal.

I pop open the "geist dynamo" and put the "loci" on top, trying my best not to feel like I'm back at the elementary school science fair with a little vinegar volcano. By the time I get the bottle back over it, the coin slides off the ramp, tumbling to the next step. Tails. It slides faster, flipping to the next step again - it's tails. My tension builds. The coin slides faster still, faster than it should given how gentle the ramp angle is, tumbling to the next step. Tails again. The coin skids as it topples over the final ledge, teetering for a bit, then lands on tails one last time. I take a deep breath...

And then I exhale in a sigh, nearly a full minute later. I rub my face gently.

"Damn it all."

Nothing happened. Despite all my casting of aspersions and griping, I really hoped this would work. That anything would work for me, honestly, no matter how silly it seems.

I reach for the bottle, ready to pull off the cap and dismantle the junk tower and get a move on with my weird, weird life.

Then the coin spasms and contorts like an inchworm, my eyes going wide at the sight. Before I can react it flattens, launching into the air, slamming into the top of the bottle. It hits hard enough to take the bottle with it, well over a foot in the air. The makeshift ramp falls out, popping apart as it hits the counter with an almighty clattering, and the cut liter bottle itself buckles. The coin whizzes out of it at an odd angle even as the now-empty bottle plops back down, no longer practically levitating.

Stunned, I barely react as the coin flies past my head at speed - barely missing me - and slams into my wall with a thud. I hear it clatter to the floor.

My heart flutters wildly.

I turn around and squint at the downed coin from across the room, trying to make it out from where it's now sitting... below a brand new divot in my poor drywall.

Tails.

Quiet as any ghost, barring the pounding in my chest anyway, I creep up to the coin... and quickly flip it over, leaving it on heads. Safe.

I, uh, suppose a round two couldn't hurt?

With some better engineering. And a hardhat.