MonkeHacks #84

Monitors, Diversification, Spirit of Tasmania

Author

Monke
November 19, 2025

MonkeHacks #84

Welcome back to MonkeHacks. It’s been a really hectic week - I moved into my new apartment so that took up a lot of my time. I also did two talks and a HackerOne pentest. I was supposed to fly back to Ireland this week, but I ended up cancelling that plan; I have to catproof the new apartment properly, and the cats have started to become more needy. Now I feel that this was the right decision.

One of my close friends was visiting me this week, and we conducted an experiment. First, he left the room. The cats stayed where they were. Then, he returned, and I left the room. The cats followed me and meowed at my door. So, in short, the cats love me (obviously). It’s all very wholesome. Every time I get home from being out and about for a few hours, they’d go to the litter machine as soon as they saw me. So I wondered, why does this happen? I googled it, and it turns out that the cats trust me so they want me to “stand guard” while they’re vulnerable as they use the litter box. Of course, I oblige. I stand guard for them while they poop. Anything for the little ones.

You may have noticed that the cover image of this edition is a giant ferry. Allow me some time to talk about what it actually is. If you’re reading this, Shubs, or other Australia-based hackers like Animesh, this might interest you.

That ship is the Spirit of Tasmania V. The Tasmanian Government were looking to upgrade the ferries that operate between Sydney, Australia and Devonport, Tasmania (currently the Spirit of Tasmania I and Spirit of Tasmania II) with the new ships, built in Finland, called Spirit of Tasmania IV and Spirit of Tasmania V, to cover the 11-hour journey across the sea. Unfortunately, this whole saga has been riddled with problems. The port upgrades in Devonport weren’t completed on time, so the ships can’t operate yet. IV is currently parked in Hobart, Tasmania, but V suffered some problematic issues. The ship had a faulty LNG (natural gas) system, so it had to be repaired. There’s nowhere to park the ship in Tasmania yet, due to the aforementioned port upgrades, so the ship is currently docked in Edinburgh, very close to where I live, for storage (it’s cheaper than moving the ship to Australia right now). It’s a giant ship. It weighs 48,000 tonnes and it’s designed to carry vehicles, as well as having hundreds of cabins for passengers.

But that’s not all! It was supposed to cost $90m AUD, but due to the upgrades, repairs, docking fees, and so on, it’s now cost $493m AUD. It won’t leave Scotland until mid-2026. TT-Line, the parent company, lost so much money doing this that they had to be bailed out by the Tasmanian government. There was so much uproar over this entire situation that several important people lost their roles - the deputy minister for infrastructure (in a vote of no confidence), the chairman of TT-Line, as well as the CEO of TT-Line. This whole saga was a catastrophe from start to finish.

So now, it’s docked in Leith, right near my apartment, and I get to watch it from my window and think about how much the Tasmanian government screwed up. I can see the ship from where I’m typing this up. Maybe if I hop on board I’ll get to hang out with Shubs and Animesh again?

The Spirit of Tasmania V, docked near where I live in Leith, Edinburgh.

Weekly Ideas / Notes 

  • I posted this tweet about my journey into cybersecurity in greentext format. Enjoy! 😋 

  • I moved into my new apartment. It has a view of the harbour, and double the floor space of my last apartment. The cats have a lot more space to run around when they get the zoomies. In short: this was a great idea. With the exception of my inability to drive, this is pretty much where I wanted to be in life when I was 17 and had big dreams - renting a nice flat, with cats, self employed and making good money. Life is pretty damn good right now. Approximately 40% of my income this month has come from things like talks, workshops and content so my income diversification effort is going in the right direction. I’m locking down my budget as well to track my income and expenditure properly, although there are a lot of irregular expenses right now with the move and such.

  • I set up my office with two 27-inch Samsung monitors. I already have the MX Keys keyboard and the MX Keys Mini keyboard for when I’m on the go, and I use the MX Master mouse as well. I should probably switch to something more ergonomic but for now, this works pretty well. I have 900Mbps internet speed now over Ethernet but apartment building is pretty new and the wifi doesn’t really reach me yet, so I’m waiting for them to fix that. This new setup should have a big impact on my productivity - previously I was only using my laptop, so having two monitors is a game-changer. Now I can browse the web and view Caido at the same time, instead of switching tabs every two seconds! Crazy!

  • Apart from a few ongoing security projects this month, I’m going to take some time away from bug bounty to focus on organising my workflows, moving everything into my new apartment and helping my cats to settle in. This is my restructuring time before I go back into bug bounty in December with a more refined and efficient workflow. I’ve made enough to cover my expenses for the month, so I can spend some time ironing out the processes in my life.

  • My Christmas present to myself is to get a mini-PC. I’m intrigued by the ones that DHH recommended but I’m open to hearing other suggestions, if anyone is particularly passionate about a specific brand or model of mini-PC. I want to chuck Omarchy onto it and build a hacking environment. I’ll talk in-depth about this as I do this.

  • I’m going to start my pwn journey soon. It’s a little tricky to figure out where to start, as with anything, but I’ll probably start looking at x86 assembly instructions and trying out some exercises to intuitively grasp how they work and to add their common design patterns to my mental context.

  • I got through more of Founders at Work this week. It’s an excellent book - a bit dated, sure, but the takeaways are timeless.

  • I talk a lot about balancing priorities, so I’ve graphed it out in terms of how it applies to me so you can better understand how I structure my life. I have very clear “categories” in my mind for what I need to manage effectively. There are a number of smaller forks from this graph (such as using YNAB for budgeting, or the mini scripts I’ve written that sync things like YNAB to my to-do list, and so on) but this is the core of it.

I suppose, if I had to graph it, my daily life looks something like this.

Reading List

  • Currently:

    • Fiction:

      • Solenoid by Mircea Cărtărescu (130/600 pages)

      • Guards! Guards! by Terry Pratchett

    • Non-Fiction:

      • A Random Walk Down Wall Street by Burton Malkiel (150/300 pages)

      • How The World Made The West by Josephine Crawley Quinn (232/400 pages)

      • Founders At Work by Jessica Livingston (181/472 pages)

  • Next on the list:

    • Fiction: Mort by Terry Pratchett

    • Non-Fiction: Day Zero to Zero Day by Eugene Lim (SpaceRaccoon)

Resources