Ep 36 - Callsign: "HexWit" - Hacker, Algorithmic Trader, Contrarian

Sarid Harper sits down to tell the story of a life driven by curiosity and contradiction. He opens with a vivid teenage UFO sighting outside Billings that shattered familiar narratives and seeded a contrarian mindset. From there we follow his path through London, Montana, Copenhagen, Berkeley, and Bali — learning Visual Basic, assembler, FreeBSD, and offensive security; building exploits and testing the world’s biggest banks; then pivoting into social engineering, hypnotherapy, and Ayurveda when the ethics of the work started to weigh on him. He explains how those disparate skills converged into algorithmic trading (PIPNOTIC), describes a synesthetic way of seeing numbers, and shares why failure and resilience have been his truest teachers. The episode pairs technical war stories with spiritual reflection: an exploration of truth, responsibility, and how to raise a family while living a life that refuses easy answers.Some of the topic we cover:Green School (Bali)https://www.greenschool.orgDoctor Who (referenced when describing a UFO sighting)https://www.bbc.co.uk/doctorwhoKnight Rider (referenced when discussing American-style muscle cars)https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Knight_RiderBigfoot (referenced alongside monster trucks in Montana)https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BigfootGreat Pyramid of Giza (visited in Cairo)https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Pyramid_of_GizaLiDAR discovery beneath the pyramidshttps://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-022-05355-8Joe Rogan (mentioned during the pyramid/LiDAR discussion)https://www.joerogan.comGraham Hancock (cited in the same conversation)https://grahamhancock.comCraigslist (used for finding housing in Berkeley)https://www.craigslist.orgYMCA (room rented near Berkeley’s YMCA)https://www.ymca.orgHack This Site (hacking challenges mentioned)https://www.hackthissite.orgPull The Plug (the “pulltheplug.org.com” hacking farm)https://pulltheplug.org.comVisual Basic (learning to write early computer viruses)https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Visual_BasicFreeBSD (used for building firewalls on Intel 486 machines)https://www.freebsd.orgPython (used to write scripts that hacked IP telephones)https://www.python.orgFIX Protocol (the stock-exchange messaging protocol)https://www.fixtrading.orgAyahuasca (the plant brew used in multiple ceremonies)https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AyahuascaAyurveda (the 5,000-year-old “science of life” referenced)https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AyurvedaMescaline (Carl Jung’s entheogen of choice)https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MescalineCarl Jung (referenced for psychedelic research)https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carl_JungFriedrich Nietzsche (quoted regarding going against the herd)https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Friedrich_NietzscheThe Big Short (film mentioned when discussing standing alone)https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1596363Stop AI (advocacy group to pause new AI model training)https://stopai.orgPIPNOTIC (the speaker’s own algo-trading software)https://pipnotic.org