I've neglected this blog for a while, but that is how things go. It wasn't like anyone even cared. No matter now because I got something to share.
This is one of the most rational and impassioned speeches on gay marriage rights I have seen. Senator Diane Savino, representing the "fighting" 23rd senate district of New York (aka Statan Island and bit of Brookyln), points out that it is not the responsibility of the state to determine if couples are "fit" to marry. States do not judge the quality of a couple before issuing a certificate. People just show up at city hall, ask for a certificate, and their pretty much done, that is if they are man and woman. Imagine if they did determine fitness, would Las Vegas chapels marry anyone?
She also points out that despite legislation, religious organizations can still choose to determine the standing of a marriage. The catholic church could deny sacrament if they feal the marriage is unholy, or in Judaism, the honour of an alia could be withheld. Nothing would stop that discrimination, but the state does not have the same standing. Discrimination by the government is plain wrong.
Yet, the bill failed in the senate. Shame. More state assemblies will be taking up similar measures soon (New Jersey), and maybe people will come to their senses and see the blatant wrongness being perpetuated against equal citizens of the union. Or shamefully not.
Check out the video, worth your while:
Friday, December 4, 2009
Wednesday, July 29, 2009
The Onion on the Apple Psyche
I am not a big Apple fan. I think they brainwash their customers into purchasing 
products because "it's cool," or "trendy," or "secure." When in most cases, they are years behind in hardware, there machines run hot enough to either glow or cook an egg, and I continually the most insecure. People are still willing to pay twice as much for them, and those that do tend to be completely fanatical. Well, if you are crazy about Apple and proud of it, do they have the product for you.
The Onion is reporting on the next-best, must-have Apple product. The iPhone 3Gi - the first invisible iPhone. All you have to do is believe ...
* If you don't know, The Onion is a fake news source that presents satire and humour. No such product, as of yet, is planned for release. But, I wouldn't put it past them.
products because "it's cool," or "trendy," or "secure." When in most cases, they are years behind in hardware, there machines run hot enough to either glow or cook an egg, and I continually the most insecure. People are still willing to pay twice as much for them, and those that do tend to be completely fanatical. Well, if you are crazy about Apple and proud of it, do they have the product for you.The Onion is reporting on the next-best, must-have Apple product. The iPhone 3Gi - the first invisible iPhone. All you have to do is believe ...
I bet some poor sap is already standing out in line in front of the Apple right now.
SAN FRANCISCO—In a move expected to revolutionize the mobile device industry, Apple launched its fastest and most powerful iPhone to date Tuesday, an innovative new model that can only be seen by the company's hippest and most dedicated customers.
...
* If you don't know, The Onion is a fake news source that presents satire and humour. No such product, as of yet, is planned for release. But, I wouldn't put it past them.
Wednesday, July 22, 2009
"Man Cave" Created in Albany
Two idiots create a "Man Cave" in the New York state capital to, "sell drugs, smoke pot and sleep for hours during work shifts." They may be heroes to some, but they are probably of a job and may face some jail time to boot.
Either way, the NYT's article is absolutely hilarious!
Either way, the NYT's article is absolutely hilarious!
Tuesday, July 14, 2009
Mutually assured desctruction ... no way
Yesterday, the NYT op-ed ran an essay by Robert X. Cringely in which he argues that Google and Microsoft compete with each other not to usurp the other because their interest are entangled. And, the only reason why Google is shooting across the bow of big, bad Microsoft by announcing Chrome OS is to simply keep Microsoft, "on their toes."
Crigley goes on to point out that most of Google's search request originate from Microsoft PCs, and that has "facilitated so much of [Google's] success." And that Google's real fear is that Microsoft will one day block access to Google's servers (can someone say "anti-trust").
I'm sorry, but that is all bull sh*t. Google really does have a shot to usurp Mircsoft, and their is no mutually assured destruction. The whole point of Google's develop model is that the browser is the OS, and in most ways they are right.
The Chrome browser is a simulated operating system. It handles multiple processes (a.k.a. tabs), schedules tasks (a.k.a. applets, javascripts, html rendering), and handles input, output, and visualization (a.k.a. what you see, type, and print).
Imagine a world of cheep (netbook like) PC's that run a minimal operating system (Chrome OS) and run only one program, the browser (Chrome). Within the browser you have your email, office products, calendar, telephone, and whatever else Google comes up with. All of these programs are free to the user (with advertising, paid for without), and the computer is a quarter of the cost because you don't have to pay for a stupid Windows licence (even when you don't want it).
If I were Microsoft, I would be worried. But, not that worried.
What Microsoft has that Google doesn't is coperations signed on for what seems the like the long haul. Their tech departments aren't just going to change over to a new OS overnight, and why would a coperation trust Google to store all their trade secrets on some server in Iowa? Plus, there are a lot of f*cking computers at these coperations and that is a lot of Windows and Office licences. Microsoft isn't going to fade away overnight.
The fact is, Google cannot completely obliterate Microsoft, but it can give them a serious body blow in the consumer market. That is where Microsoft is weakest, and that is where Google is attacking. It isn't going to happen all at once, and hey, it could be some other start-up that lands the punch, as Crigley points out, but it is only a matter of time.
One thing is clear, Google doesn't need Microsoft.
Microsoft makes most of its money from two products, Microsoft Windows and Microsoft Office. Nearly everything else it makes loses money, sometimes deliberately. Google makes most of its money from selling Internet ads next to search results. Nearly everything else it does loses money, too.
Neither company really cares because both make so much from their core products that it simply doesn’t matter. But companies, like people, strive and dream and in this case both dream, at least sometimes, of destroying the other. Only they can’t — or won’t — do it in the end, because it is against the interests of either company to do so.
Crigley goes on to point out that most of Google's search request originate from Microsoft PCs, and that has "facilitated so much of [Google's] success." And that Google's real fear is that Microsoft will one day block access to Google's servers (can someone say "anti-trust").
I'm sorry, but that is all bull sh*t. Google really does have a shot to usurp Mircsoft, and their is no mutually assured destruction. The whole point of Google's develop model is that the browser is the OS, and in most ways they are right.
The Chrome browser is a simulated operating system. It handles multiple processes (a.k.a. tabs), schedules tasks (a.k.a. applets, javascripts, html rendering), and handles input, output, and visualization (a.k.a. what you see, type, and print).
Imagine a world of cheep (netbook like) PC's that run a minimal operating system (Chrome OS) and run only one program, the browser (Chrome). Within the browser you have your email, office products, calendar, telephone, and whatever else Google comes up with. All of these programs are free to the user (with advertising, paid for without), and the computer is a quarter of the cost because you don't have to pay for a stupid Windows licence (even when you don't want it).
If I were Microsoft, I would be worried. But, not that worried.
What Microsoft has that Google doesn't is coperations signed on for what seems the like the long haul. Their tech departments aren't just going to change over to a new OS overnight, and why would a coperation trust Google to store all their trade secrets on some server in Iowa? Plus, there are a lot of f*cking computers at these coperations and that is a lot of Windows and Office licences. Microsoft isn't going to fade away overnight.
The fact is, Google cannot completely obliterate Microsoft, but it can give them a serious body blow in the consumer market. That is where Microsoft is weakest, and that is where Google is attacking. It isn't going to happen all at once, and hey, it could be some other start-up that lands the punch, as Crigley points out, but it is only a matter of time.
One thing is clear, Google doesn't need Microsoft.
Friday, May 29, 2009
Cyber Security and the U.S. Government
After all the talk, after all the breaches cyber security is being discusses in the same sentence as national security. Today in the New York Times, a front page article describes President Obama's and the Pentagons plans to set up new groups and organization to handle the cyber security problem. The pentagon will be in charge of the government systems, and there will be another arm in charge of civilian defences.
There is issues of privacy for the normal civilians. Many of the computer used in attacks are in homes, and your Grandmother's computer could be a target. Also, who will be in charge when it comes to civilian networks? There is a "cyber-czar," but a real task force will need to be expansive. Plus, the networks within the U.S. are vital to the rest of the Internet and actions taken here can effect commerce throughout the world.
Also, what can they really do? How will they focus their energy? Will they consult for utility companies to secure the electrical grid other critical infrastructure, or will they actually build and maintain the systems hand-in-hand? There has been much-a-do about data breaches, i.e., stealing personal identifiable information, is this covered?
All in all, it is important that the government is wising up to this problem, but I can't see what they can do from afar. In computer security, you need boots on the ground because there are so many critical networks, and 10 people discussing policy in the west wing will have no real effect unless they have tech-admins enforcing it.
Either way, I am interested to see where this leads, but one thing is for sure, the modern day spy infiltrates through the network. I am glad we are starting to try and plug those holes.
There is issues of privacy for the normal civilians. Many of the computer used in attacks are in homes, and your Grandmother's computer could be a target. Also, who will be in charge when it comes to civilian networks? There is a "cyber-czar," but a real task force will need to be expansive. Plus, the networks within the U.S. are vital to the rest of the Internet and actions taken here can effect commerce throughout the world.
Also, what can they really do? How will they focus their energy? Will they consult for utility companies to secure the electrical grid other critical infrastructure, or will they actually build and maintain the systems hand-in-hand? There has been much-a-do about data breaches, i.e., stealing personal identifiable information, is this covered?
All in all, it is important that the government is wising up to this problem, but I can't see what they can do from afar. In computer security, you need boots on the ground because there are so many critical networks, and 10 people discussing policy in the west wing will have no real effect unless they have tech-admins enforcing it.
Either way, I am interested to see where this leads, but one thing is for sure, the modern day spy infiltrates through the network. I am glad we are starting to try and plug those holes.
Tuesday, May 5, 2009
GMail Labs wish list
Well, not much of a list, but a single request. I want to be able to write a filter that will remove a label. Seems simple, but currently it isn't an option. You can only apply a label but not remove one. Why might I want this? Well, I use filters and labels a lot, and sometimes the two filters overlap and message gets marked with an additional label, not incorrectly albeit. It is just that for this particular type of email, I really only want one label to be applied. If I could write a filter that says "don't apply label" or maybe "remove label" for the emails in question, then everything would work out. Overall, it seems strange to me that filters have positive assertions but not negative assertions in filters: as in, if the message doesn't contain something, or it is not from a given address. It would be a nice feature to have and make filters much more powerful.
So get on it Google! You can try and take over the world tomorrow.
So get on it Google! You can try and take over the world tomorrow.
I'm watching hockey again!
It's been awhile since I watched hockey with any regularity. The last time, the Lightning won the cup in an exciting run, and then the strike. Hockey really sucked for some time, but now its back. Who do we have to thank? The two great players of our day, Alexander Ovechkin and Sidney Crosby. These guys are f*ing awesome. They both got hat tricks in last night's game, but the Caps' won and lead the series 2-0. If you haven't been watching this series, you have to start now.
Not only does the series have the two best players in the league (arguable), but they put on shows. Ove goes nuts after ever goal, so much so, that defenders are looking to take his head off. Sid is much more old school, and he is all about scoring, passing and keeping his cool. But these two don't like each other. Words have been exchanged, and Ove almost got Sid to fight earlier this year. There is no blood lost between these two, and the feud just adds to the drama. More so, the third best player in the game, Malkin, is also on the ice.
Can you ask for much more? No, but there is more. The two goalies are characters too, and are both young and outstanding. Fluery, the more veteran of the two at 24, showed last year he has no qualms about standing on his head, and Varlamov (only 21 years old) got his chance in the playoffs after the season starter turned to swiss-cheese against the Rangers. I saw Varlamov dive a foot off the ground horizontally stop a goal last night which is becoming a common sight in this series. This is how hockey is meant to be played.
Here's to you hockey. You used to be our 4th biggest sport, and it seems you may be again. So far, the playoffs have been great, and there is more to come. I can't wait to see Alexander the Great and Sid the Kid continue their battle in Pittsburgh.
I can't believe I am watching Hockey again! I missed you.
Not only does the series have the two best players in the league (arguable), but they put on shows. Ove goes nuts after ever goal, so much so, that defenders are looking to take his head off. Sid is much more old school, and he is all about scoring, passing and keeping his cool. But these two don't like each other. Words have been exchanged, and Ove almost got Sid to fight earlier this year. There is no blood lost between these two, and the feud just adds to the drama. More so, the third best player in the game, Malkin, is also on the ice.Can you ask for much more? No, but there is more. The two goalies are characters too, and are both young and outstanding. Fluery, the more veteran of the two at 24, showed last year he has no qualms about standing on his head, and Varlamov (only 21 years old) got his chance in the playoffs after the season starter turned to swiss-cheese against the Rangers. I saw Varlamov dive a foot off the ground horizontally stop a goal last night which is becoming a common sight in this series. This is how hockey is meant to be played.
Here's to you hockey. You used to be our 4th biggest sport, and it seems you may be again. So far, the playoffs have been great, and there is more to come. I can't wait to see Alexander the Great and Sid the Kid continue their battle in Pittsburgh.
I can't believe I am watching Hockey again! I missed you.
Monday, May 4, 2009
LHC Hysteria: The Daily Show chimes in
Last week, the Daily Show aired Jon Oliver's top-notch investigation into the dangers of the LHC. The collider is going to come back on-line soon, and the public, or at least one man, is still screaming that the sky is falling. The Internet told me that everything is fine, but Walter Wagner believes, despite the overwhelming evidence against, that there is a 50% chance that the LHC will destroy the world. He even filed suite in the district court of Hawaii, where he outlined doomsday by black hole:
Check out the clip, mucho hilarious.
Micro Black Holes: Under this theory, the compression of the two atoms colliding together at nearly light speed will cause an irreversible implosion, forming a miniature version of a giant black hole, the remnant of a collapsed star. Like its much larger cousin, a miniature black hole would not emit light, and any matter coming into contact with it would fall into it and never be able to escape. Eventually, all of earth would fall into such growing micro-black-hole, converting earth into a medium sized black hole, around which would continue to orbit the moon, satellites, the ISS, etc.Quite a detailed vision of the future. For one, even if that is true, it would not be a medium-size black hole, it would still be a super small black hole. We are comparing masses of a planet with that of a huge star. They also seem to think the moon will be safe, at least we know there is a escape route. Thank goodness the court is smarter then these goons.
Scientists who have proposed the construction and operation of the particle collider known as Large Hadron Collider (“LHC”) at CERN are aware of problems associated with quantitatively assessing the risks involved with this novel project. This is not a new problem and virtually every new significant activity must face it. Instead of ending the pursuit of significant scientific endeavors, the scientific community has developed processes to identify all imaginable events that may lead to an adverse effects and use the best available information and scientific talent to mitigate them. No other procedure has been suggested by any professional society, any government or international organization. Amici contend that the Plaintiffs’ suppositions are without merit, and cannot be the basis of a particularized injury sufficient to confer standing.Undeterred, Wagner explains the simplicity of the statistics to the daily show. His only expertise is that he teaches a variety of high school science classes. Paraphrasing Wagner: If something could happen, or something could not happen, then there is a 1 in 2 chance that it will happen. Ughh! They allow this guy to teach our kids. Oliver's response to this unfounded argument, "I'm not sure that is how statistics work, Walter." Damn straight.
Check out the clip, mucho hilarious.
| The Daily Show With Jon Stewart | M - Th 11p / 10c | |||
| Large Hadron Collider | ||||
| ||||
Sunday, May 3, 2009
Informative Internet does it again
The Internet is on top of it again. First it answered our question about the LHC and the destruction of the earth. Has the LHC has destroyed the earth?
Now it answers our question about pig flu. Do I have pig flu?
Now it answers our question about pig flu. Do I have pig flu?
Thursday, April 30, 2009
Daly back in fashion
The last time I wrote about John Daly he was smashing cameras on the golf course and was later found drunk and unconscious outside a Hooters. I later pleaded to here less and less of this (and thus, I say it again). But now, some good news. He has rehabed like a true celebrity and is playing in the Spanish Open since his PGA card has been suspended. He is slimmer and playing well, 2-under 70.But! The real news is what he is wearing. Daly found a style. It isn't beautiful, it isn't chic, but a style none the less. Look at that orange, the checker board pants, could it really be Daly? Oh yes it is. I can't say that I like it nor hate it, but I can say that it is better to be in the news about your clothes than your little nap time outside a Hooters. So here's to you Daly. Good luck, and most importantly, enjoy playing golf. The outfit seems to suggest you are, but your still a little hard on the eyes.
So hard on the eyes.
Terence Moore took a buy out calls out Atlanta Sports
In his last column for the AJC (my home town paper), long time sports columnists Terence Moore take a final stab at the Atlanta sports franchises. He calls them good, but not great, and that good is for losers. He recalls all the close calls and the good teams but only one great team, the 95 Braves who won the world series.
I like good. I love great. But if I had to choose between celler dwellers and playoff teams, I would take the playoff team any day, even if they don't win a championship. It is a shame that Moore is leaving on such a sour note. At least we got one, and people still care about the teams. Even the hawks are selling out. Championships are hard, but at least we are competing. That is more then a lot of places can say.
I don't really agree with Moore. Living in philly, this city has 3 championships (in recent times) in just two sports: Hockey and Baseball. A lot of cities have none (New Orleans comes to mind), and some have only one, like Atlanta. You can't expect Atlanta to be like New York or LA or for that matter St. Louise. In baseball, something like 40% of the world series are split among 3 teams. In football, it is just a crap shoot, yet again certain organization dominate others. In basketball it is even worse. If you don't live in Boston, LA, Chicago, or San Antonio your lucky to have a single championship. Can you really expect Atlanta to win every year?Elite NBA teams have an elite player, such as the Heat’s Dwyane Wade, and Joe Johnson is the Hawks’ best player, but he’s only good, just like the Hawks.
The Falcons also are only good. Still, with suddenly enlightenment management and coaching, they have a chance for a breakthrough, but they need back-to-back winning seasons first. They’ve yet to do that in their existence.
Elsewhere, courtesy of decent starting pitching, promising youth and future Hall of Famers Chipper Jones at third base and Bobby Cox in the dugout, the Braves are only good (see a pattern here?). The Thrashers, not so much. Ilya Kovalchuk is the only overwhelming star on a flawed roster, and he could bolt after next season as an unrestricted free agent.
I like good. I love great. But if I had to choose between celler dwellers and playoff teams, I would take the playoff team any day, even if they don't win a championship. It is a shame that Moore is leaving on such a sour note. At least we got one, and people still care about the teams. Even the hawks are selling out. Championships are hard, but at least we are competing. That is more then a lot of places can say.
Wednesday, April 29, 2009
Charlie lost weight? As a bobble head.
Is it me, or did they do Charlie a favour in this bobble head? His gut is like two sizes too small.
Obama On Science
In a great, somewhat political, speech at the National Academies Press, President Obama shows why he understands the needs of science. Well worth watching and a great speech.
Video
Video
Yelling at the opposition
I was at the 'Natinals' Phillies game last night, and being at a ball game, I participated in my favourite part of the past time: yelling at and heckling the opposition. There was no way they could here me, I was way up in the upper deck in the outfield, but yell anyway I did.
My favourite of the night was yelled at the National's short stop, Alberto Gonzolez. I of course shouted.
"You can't hit, you lied before congress!"
I was corrected by another fan that our former attorney general never actually lied.
"Fine. You can't hit, you forgot before congress!"
My favourite of the night was yelled at the National's short stop, Alberto Gonzolez. I of course shouted.
"You can't hit, you lied before congress!"
I was corrected by another fan that our former attorney general never actually lied.
"Fine. You can't hit, you forgot before congress!"
Tuesday, April 28, 2009
Is Graduate Education a Dead End?
Yesterday the NYT ran an editorial about how broken graduate education is in America. Written by the head of the religious department at Columbia (my alma mater), Mark C. Taylor. You can get the gist of the op-ed from the first paragraph
Well I guess he is right, for every field other then science and engineering. Let's take biology or medical research, you need higher education to work in must industrial labs. It seems that there is a market for that. Or computer science for instance, the market may be tight now, but you can almost always find a job coming out of a Ph. D. program. It may not be the one you want, but there are jobs in industry, government, start-ups, wall street, and academia. For almost any science or engineering field to get the top notch jobs (not just academic ones), you must have a higher degree.
I agree with his point about the humanities. What is a Ph. D. in mid-evil history going to get you if you can't find an academic job? But, a Ph.D. in Bio-engineering will almost always get you a job. I can't blame Prof. Taylor for his opinion, but he is way, way off base. He needs to qualify his opinion for the humanities, and not make sweeping generalizations about graduate education across all fields. The view from the religion department is very different from the view at the computer science department. Perhaps Prof. Taylor should take a walk across the Columbia campus and tour the Mudd building and see what higher education in engineering and science is providing before attacking the system as a whole.
P.S. One of things he wants to get rid of is tenure. Which is odd because he is attacking the very institutions that provide his salary. If he wasn't tenured, do you think he would have the courage to speak this way? It surely would be a conflict of interest. With tenure, no conflict. This whole op-ed is rife with contradiction.
P.P.S And on another point, any worthwhile graduate student, esp. a Ph. D. student, would not have to pay for their education. They will work under a grant that pays their student fees and a stipend, otherwise there is no incentive to go back to school when you can get a job in industry (schools do compete with industry in engineering). Plus, most stipend are sufficient to live on. I for example am not taking on any debt in my pursuit of a graduate degree.
GRADUATE education is the Detroit of higher learning. Most graduate programs in American universities produce a product for which there is no market (candidates for teaching positions that do not exist) and develop skills for which there is diminishing demand (research in subfields within subfields and publication in journals read by no one other than a few like-minded colleagues), all at a rapidly rising cost (sometimes well over $100,000 in student loans).
Well I guess he is right, for every field other then science and engineering. Let's take biology or medical research, you need higher education to work in must industrial labs. It seems that there is a market for that. Or computer science for instance, the market may be tight now, but you can almost always find a job coming out of a Ph. D. program. It may not be the one you want, but there are jobs in industry, government, start-ups, wall street, and academia. For almost any science or engineering field to get the top notch jobs (not just academic ones), you must have a higher degree.
I agree with his point about the humanities. What is a Ph. D. in mid-evil history going to get you if you can't find an academic job? But, a Ph.D. in Bio-engineering will almost always get you a job. I can't blame Prof. Taylor for his opinion, but he is way, way off base. He needs to qualify his opinion for the humanities, and not make sweeping generalizations about graduate education across all fields. The view from the religion department is very different from the view at the computer science department. Perhaps Prof. Taylor should take a walk across the Columbia campus and tour the Mudd building and see what higher education in engineering and science is providing before attacking the system as a whole.
P.S. One of things he wants to get rid of is tenure. Which is odd because he is attacking the very institutions that provide his salary. If he wasn't tenured, do you think he would have the courage to speak this way? It surely would be a conflict of interest. With tenure, no conflict. This whole op-ed is rife with contradiction.
P.P.S And on another point, any worthwhile graduate student, esp. a Ph. D. student, would not have to pay for their education. They will work under a grant that pays their student fees and a stipend, otherwise there is no incentive to go back to school when you can get a job in industry (schools do compete with industry in engineering). Plus, most stipend are sufficient to live on. I for example am not taking on any debt in my pursuit of a graduate degree.
Suck It Trebeck - binary style
Talk about celebrity jeopardy, IBM is preparing its own contestant. Once completed, Watson will be a super-computer with one mission: demolish the competition. IBM's newest foray into the world of AI (I guess it still called AI) is a computer that can compete against humans on the TV game show Jeopardy. Now that is a celebrity jeopardy I would want to see.
The challenge is not the data look up, any computer with Internet has access to all the necessary data. The hard part is understanding the questions, I mean answers. It must play on the same terms as the human contestants. To do that, it must parse the question and find keywords, links, analogies, metaphors, play on words, and handle ambiguity just to determine a reasonable search criteria. And once done with that, there may be more then one answer that fits, so it much choose. Not so easy. Especially once you realize that human contestants answer correctly close to 85% of the time and do so quickly. I would be really surprised if it won on its first go, but there is more going on here then simply Jeopardy.
Once a computer can parse Jeopardy clues and remove any ambiguity, that is a huge leap forward in computer human interaction. The classic test of artificial intelligence is the Turing test. Basically, if an ordinary human can have a conversation with a computer and not realize it is a computer, then true AI has been achieved. This is a huge step in that direction, and if IBM is successful, it would have big implications in the world of user interfaces. It isn't to far fetched to think about IBM holding a monopoly on human conversation user interfaces. Imagine saying, "Computer, compile file X", or saying it any number of ways we could say it to another human, and the computer knows exactly what you are talking about. Kinda cool, and kinda scary.
In the seminar class I am taking this semester, we discussed the concept of the singularity: a point where machines get so complex that humans can no longer understand them. People always say that it is only 20 years away, even 20 years ago. Personally, I have a heard time imagining such an event, but this kind of breakthrough starts to make me believe. This isn't chess where there is a fixed number of possible games, this is language. There is nearly an infinite number of ways to phrase things all of which are littered with play on words and ambiguity. Perhaps this is where the singularity originates, or perhaps not. We still have to see how good Watson really is, but I can't wait to see it take on Ken Jennings, and loose.
NYT article
The challenge is not the data look up, any computer with Internet has access to all the necessary data. The hard part is understanding the questions, I mean answers. It must play on the same terms as the human contestants. To do that, it must parse the question and find keywords, links, analogies, metaphors, play on words, and handle ambiguity just to determine a reasonable search criteria. And once done with that, there may be more then one answer that fits, so it much choose. Not so easy. Especially once you realize that human contestants answer correctly close to 85% of the time and do so quickly. I would be really surprised if it won on its first go, but there is more going on here then simply Jeopardy.
Once a computer can parse Jeopardy clues and remove any ambiguity, that is a huge leap forward in computer human interaction. The classic test of artificial intelligence is the Turing test. Basically, if an ordinary human can have a conversation with a computer and not realize it is a computer, then true AI has been achieved. This is a huge step in that direction, and if IBM is successful, it would have big implications in the world of user interfaces. It isn't to far fetched to think about IBM holding a monopoly on human conversation user interfaces. Imagine saying, "Computer, compile file X", or saying it any number of ways we could say it to another human, and the computer knows exactly what you are talking about. Kinda cool, and kinda scary.
In the seminar class I am taking this semester, we discussed the concept of the singularity: a point where machines get so complex that humans can no longer understand them. People always say that it is only 20 years away, even 20 years ago. Personally, I have a heard time imagining such an event, but this kind of breakthrough starts to make me believe. This isn't chess where there is a fixed number of possible games, this is language. There is nearly an infinite number of ways to phrase things all of which are littered with play on words and ambiguity. Perhaps this is where the singularity originates, or perhaps not. We still have to see how good Watson really is, but I can't wait to see it take on Ken Jennings, and loose.
NYT article
Monday, April 27, 2009
Simpson Theme in A Cappella: Rad Man!
If you didn't see "The Simpsons" last night, or not make it to the closing credits, then you missed out on one of the coolest a cappella performances I've ever seen. A Washington based ensemble, Canvas, performs a version of "The Simpsons" theme, sound effects and all, using only their voices. It is f*ing awesome. I guess Andy from "The Office" got it right, "Name me a song, and it's better a cappella."
Check out the video. This is the full length version.
And this is how it appeared in the closing credits. It seems the group went into a sound studio because it sounds much better.
Check out the video. This is the full length version.
And this is how it appeared in the closing credits. It seems the group went into a sound studio because it sounds much better.
My Beer is on the Bar ... with no coaster!!!
I read in Salon this weekend that beer coasters may become an endangered species. The leading producer is filing for bankruptcy. They are essential for bar hygiene, and they also provide advertising and boredom toys while drinking your favourite brew.
The economy is devastating our car manufacturers, but what about a bail out for the coaster. Should we live a life with cup stains everywhere and no toys to play with. No! I declare. Save the coaster because napkins are too old school.
The economy is devastating our car manufacturers, but what about a bail out for the coaster. Should we live a life with cup stains everywhere and no toys to play with. No! I declare. Save the coaster because napkins are too old school.
Sunday, April 26, 2009
MLB playoff predictions
I made some predictions for the MLB playoffs over at dirtysouthsports.com. I know it's early, but I call it anyway.
Summery:
Check it out.
Summery:
National League
Division Winners - Cards, Dodgers, Fish
Wild Card - Atlanta Braves (yes I am a homer)
American League
Division Winners - BoSox, ChiSox, Mariners
Wild Card - Yankees (but watch out for the Tigers)
World Series: BoSox vs Cardinals
Champions: Cardinals
That's right, my team to beat is the Cardinals. I reserve the right to be wrong, but that team is good. They hit well and pitch well (with some recent injuries). They have a top notch manager, and the Cards are a kind of team that can sneak into the playoffs and cause a lot of damage.
Check it out.
What a day!
I am sitting outside enjoying the beautiful weather. Google is telling me it is 99 degrees out, but it is most confortable in the shade from my local coffee shop. The city is alive, and the people are out and about. You can't ask for better times.
Just to make you feel jealous, here is a pick of the awesomeness that is today.
Just to make you feel jealous, here is a pick of the awesomeness that is today.
Friday, April 24, 2009
Computer Security Hype bad for Computer Security
Who can forget the hysteria over Conficker? It was everywhere, including on 60 minutes (which was the worst reporting I have ever seen about computer security, they even had to issue retractions). It was so pervasive that I even got a call from my mother who was nervous about her computer. In the end, nothing really happened - the best April Fools Day spectacle I have ever seen.
Now, the FBI cyber-crime task force is weighing in on the hype; they think it is bad. It distracts the public from other threats.
Yes Conficker is a threat, but it is not the only threat. To focus so heavily on one worm in particular doesn't provide the whole picture. Threats are constantly mutating, and it is hard enough to keep up without the press freaking out over one botnet.
Perhaps if the public and the press were better informed, these issues can be avoided. It is about time that the press hired a computer expert or two to properly cover these stories. Then maybe 60 minutes wouldn't have had to issue so many contractions.
Now, the FBI cyber-crime task force is weighing in on the hype; they think it is bad. It distracts the public from other threats.
For the general public to focus on Conficker -- that's the threat they're worried about -- I think that is actually a bit of a problem for us as a society," said Shawn Henry, assistant director of the FBI’s Cyber Division, speaking at the RSA security conference in San Francisco Thursday. "There are dozens of Conficker-like threats and vulnerabilities out there.... while the media stories helped to raise awareness, I think that focusing people on that particular aspect, perhaps took away their attention from the overall threat, which is just as great or greater than Conficker itself."
Yes Conficker is a threat, but it is not the only threat. To focus so heavily on one worm in particular doesn't provide the whole picture. Threats are constantly mutating, and it is hard enough to keep up without the press freaking out over one botnet.
Perhaps if the public and the press were better informed, these issues can be avoided. It is about time that the press hired a computer expert or two to properly cover these stories. Then maybe 60 minutes wouldn't have had to issue so many contractions.
How does -1 become 42.9 million?
I read an interesting blog post over at Zero in a Bit about a slot machine payout. The storey goes as follows: a woman supposedly won $42.9 million dollars from a penny slot machine whose maximal winnings is $9,025. Of course there is litigation, and the woman probably won't get all that money. But, where did a number like 42.9 million come from?
Chris Eng has a pretty good idea. In the slot machine when things go bad, the routine that calculates the winnings probably returns an error code of -1 , and since winning are always positive, they probably use an unsigned int to store the returned value before displaying it to the customer. Ok, so we have an variable that is declared as an unsigned int and we are assigning an int to it, an int that could be negative.
So if the subroutine that calculates the winnings returns an int value of -1, that is 0xFFFFFFFF in two's compliment, then it will be casted to an unsigned int. But, 0xFFFFFFFF is now interpreted as 4,294,967,295 or 4.2 million when we remove the sign. Likely multiplied by 100 at some point (it is a penny arcade), you now get 42.9 million. Oops.
Someone didn't check their error conditions!
Chris Eng has a pretty good idea. In the slot machine when things go bad, the routine that calculates the winnings probably returns an error code of -1 , and since winning are always positive, they probably use an unsigned int to store the returned value before displaying it to the customer. Ok, so we have an variable that is declared as an unsigned int and we are assigning an int to it, an int that could be negative.
So if the subroutine that calculates the winnings returns an int value of -1, that is 0xFFFFFFFF in two's compliment, then it will be casted to an unsigned int. But, 0xFFFFFFFF is now interpreted as 4,294,967,295 or 4.2 million when we remove the sign. Likely multiplied by 100 at some point (it is a penny arcade), you now get 42.9 million. Oops.
Someone didn't check their error conditions!
Wednesday, April 22, 2009
iBotNet, some rotten Apples
One thing that always pisses me off about Apple (one of many really) is that their customers like to claim they like Apple's OSX because it is more secure. Really? More secure. Well that is not true, at all. In fact, Apple's operating system and complimentary software (like safari) continues to be more vulnerable then the alternatives, including IE7/8. Recent capture the flag competitions and PEN testing have continued to show that Apple is quite vulnerable and usually the first to be hacked (the others get hacked too, by the way).
So why aren't more attacks against Apple machines happening? Why aren't there more news stories about huge Bot Nets of Apple machines that threaten to destroy the Internet as we know it? Simple, there aren't enough Apple machines out there for an attacker to justify going after them.
Think of it this way, if you were a drooling Romanian with a tendency for computer hacking and you had this kick ass Bot Net that you want to deploy by infecting computer across the Internet, for what kind of OSes and platforms would you write yo
ur virus? If you write your virus for say Windows, then it could infect something like 85% or more of the computers on the Internet. But, if you write it to only infect Apple OSX machines, then you are talking about 8-9% of machines on the Internet. It just isn't worth you drooling time to write a virus to attack Apple machines.
But, that may be changing. Recent news is that an all Apple Bot Net has been detected, so dubbed iBotnet. It is propagating via a pirated copy of iWork '09 and Adobe Photoshop CS4. And, the iBotnet has actually been used in a real DoS attack in the wild.
Perhaps the honeymoon is over for Apple. Perhaps they asked for this. All I know is that the religious Apple users need to stop claiming that they use Apple products because it is more secure and start realizing that they use it because they think it looks cool. Or perhaps, they think it is awesome to spend twice as much for a machine with inferior hardware. Or maybe, they think a one button mouse is actually worth more then a three button mouse. Or maybe, Apple customers should start running anti-virus software just like everyone else and realize that there computer is just as vulnerable as the windows machine you scoff at.
So why aren't more attacks against Apple machines happening? Why aren't there more news stories about huge Bot Nets of Apple machines that threaten to destroy the Internet as we know it? Simple, there aren't enough Apple machines out there for an attacker to justify going after them.
Think of it this way, if you were a drooling Romanian with a tendency for computer hacking and you had this kick ass Bot Net that you want to deploy by infecting computer across the Internet, for what kind of OSes and platforms would you write yo
ur virus? If you write your virus for say Windows, then it could infect something like 85% or more of the computers on the Internet. But, if you write it to only infect Apple OSX machines, then you are talking about 8-9% of machines on the Internet. It just isn't worth you drooling time to write a virus to attack Apple machines.But, that may be changing. Recent news is that an all Apple Bot Net has been detected, so dubbed iBotnet. It is propagating via a pirated copy of iWork '09 and Adobe Photoshop CS4. And, the iBotnet has actually been used in a real DoS attack in the wild.
Perhaps the honeymoon is over for Apple. Perhaps they asked for this. All I know is that the religious Apple users need to stop claiming that they use Apple products because it is more secure and start realizing that they use it because they think it looks cool. Or perhaps, they think it is awesome to spend twice as much for a machine with inferior hardware. Or maybe, they think a one button mouse is actually worth more then a three button mouse. Or maybe, Apple customers should start running anti-virus software just like everyone else and realize that there computer is just as vulnerable as the windows machine you scoff at.
Tuesday, April 21, 2009
Introducing the 'Natinals'
When I first saw this story, I really thought it was a joke. But NO! The Nationals of the nation's capital really took the field with 'Natinals' on their uniform. Supposedly, there was a problem with
the teams seamstress, like she/he can't spell (like me). It didn't effect all the players, just the only two anyone knows, Adam Dunn and Ryan Zimmerman.
These players are the face of the franchise, and why in the world would you actually let the team on the field with that jersey? Your at home. I am sure there is an alternate uniform somewhere. So the numbers may not match up, but at least it will not look like your team's stars are no better then a 3rd grade spelling bee champion.
Pathetic. This organization is a disgrace, from bad recruiting and bribes in latin america, to the stupid placement of the camera behind home plate (it is like a mile up in the air and you can't see the ball flight at all on the TV).
As far as I am concerned, get rid of the name Nationals, since you can't spell it anyway, and just rename the team the Senators or worse the Generals. Maybe they should have kept the name Expos, at least it is easier to spell.
Monday, April 6, 2009
EuroSec Panel, my thoughts (repost)
(This post originally appeared on the FORWARD blog and reposted below to make my own blog look better)
EuroSec Panel: Thoughts and Anecdotes
My name is Adam Aviv and I am 2nd year Ph.D. student at the University of Pennsyvlania.
One of the highlights of this years EUROSEC workshop was the panel on emerging research directions. The panel was filled out by Angelos Keromytis (Columbia University and Symantec), Herber Bos (Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam), Georg Portokalidis (Vrjie Universiteit Amsterdam), Christian Platzer (Technical University of Vienna), and Edita Djambazova (Bulgarian Academy of Sciences), and the panel was moderated and organized by this blog’s one and own Sotiris Ioannidis.
Although, the topic is a throw away — emerging research what does that really mean? — we had a very engaging conversation about the future of security as computers get even more pervasive. The topic is best exemplified by an anecdote told by Herbert Bos about how one of his graduate students planned to get their Ph. D.
Herbert’s story takes place during an auspicious weekend in the lab where he instructs his “lazy” graduate student to stop putzing around and get some real work done. Being the weekend and all, Herbert intends to relax, so he heads out to a cafe (an Amsterdam cafe). He gets, in his own words, “high as a kite” and somehow meanders into the red light district to soak up some of the entertainment. Thirty minutes later, he heads back to the lab to ask what his graduate student has been up to.
“Hacking smart phones,” he replies, and this intrigues Herbert who asks, “Whose smart phone?”
“Yours.” The student answers, “and I know what you have been up to while I’ve been working. First, you went to a cafe, and then you went to a club. If you don’t write my thesis for me, I will tell your wife.” And, of course, Herbert must now write his thesis.
Even though it is not a *true* story, it demonstrates the pervasiveness of computers. The smart phone is a phone, but it also much more then a phone, it is a computer. The student hacked the phone, turned on the GPS, and was able to track the location of his adviser. Even more devious, he could have turned on the microphone and recorded the illicit conversations and produced more evidence for his Ph. D. in blackmail.
Phones are not the only computers that are everywhere in the modern age. For example, computers are in our road signs. Perhaps you weren’t aware that there were “Zombies Ahead.” They also manage our most important infrastructure: the power grid, communication satellites, air traffic control, etc. All of which must be considered vulnerable. Additionally, the home computer has proliferated, and with so many computers, often sitting idle with their butts exposed to the world, they get compromised and organized into massive Bot-Nets which threaten these critical systems.
So, the panel asked, “What do we do now?” And, perhaps most importantly, how do we communicate about this brave new world to the public? Sensationalism, like the recent 60 Minutes piece, is not the way. Not only is it alarmist, it gave no practical solutions other than to go buy anti-virus software from these companies that were just interviewed. It is not like computer security hasn’t been in the public view before. It’s been reported for at least 20 years (NYT 11/7/1988 “Computer Invasion: ‘Back Door’ Ajar”), and still the public is naive to the real threat of pervasively networked computers.
Like all panels, we thought, discussed, and speculated about the future, but reached no all encompassing conclusions. The problems will persist, and perhaps, it is our fault — we are loosing the war against the bad guys. The only real conclusion the panel can reach is that emerging research must include a clear discussion that the public can understand. People need their iPhones, but they should also understand what carrying an iPhone with them everywhere they go really means to their privacy. It is our responsibility as researchers to drive the discussion and be easily accessible because the world is changing faster and emerging threats are everywhere. If not us, then whom?
Friday, March 20, 2009
Voter Fraud on ES&S, it happened
Some of you may know, or not, that I have reviewed voting machines for the state of Ohio. I was a part of the EVERSET project, and our goal was to evaluate the voting machine vendors for Ohio, and in particular, the team I was a member of reviewed ES&S (the largest vendor in the US). You can read our report, but I can summarize, there were many problems. Scariest of all, was a systemic risk of viral propagation between election cycles, either beginning at a polling station by an individual voter or by an insider at a precinct. We also found problems as simple as a screen recalibration attack, where the touch screen doesn't allow a voter to select candidates in a region of the screen.
We could never be sure that the attacks listed, or for that matter any attacks, have been perpetrated in the wild, but now, an indictment has been filed in Kentucky about voter fraud occurring in elections dating back to 2002. Specifically, these elections used ES&S voting machines. The alleged conspiracy included many actors, but what interests me the most, was how they perpetuated their fraud.
The iVotronic, the DRE machine produced by ES&S, has a big red "Vote" button. Normally, the button does as it says, casts a ballot. However, there is another mode of operation where a voter selects their candidates and presses "Vote" which navigates to a review ballot screen where votes can be changed. After reviewing the votes, the voter presses "Vote" once more (or an on screen indicator) to actually cast the ballot. Seems simple enough, but slightly counter intuitive.
Well, the defendants allegedly abused this system by lying to voters about what happens after they hit the "Vote" button for the first time. They told them that it actually cast their ballot, when in fact, they were in the review sceen. The voter would then leave the voting booth with the review screen displayed, and an attacker would enter the voting booth and 'correct' the vote to the candidate of their choice.
From the indictment:
That is quite an elaborate scheme. These dopes also allegedly intended to buy votes and also infiltrate precinct election headquarters, for each party.
But on a meta-level, I find this conspiracy particularly interesting. For starters, they did not take technical advantage of the defaults in the voting software. Instead they abused the GUI. The review screen is a good thing, a voter should be able to change their vote before final cast, but this simple extra step inspires the attack. It required no technical skills at all.
Instead, they lied about what the review screen meant. In effect, they were able execute an attack that we described technically, where you hijack the voting machine to display correct voter intent, but change the recording internally or on the paper printout. I actually like their attack better, it is clever, but it does rely on the naivety of the voter.
Which brings me to another point, there needs to be better education for the voter (nation wide) on exactly how these machine function and exactly at which point ballots are cast. When using paper ballots: it is obvious. The ballot get stuffed into the box. When using DRE machines: it much less obvious. Educational instruction, outside the polling station, would have mitigated this attack. Unfortunately the education occurred in the polling station, and it was misinformation.
The second part of the attack was buying votes. One problem with buying votes, is that it is hard to verify that the voter voted the way an attacker intends. This problem persists mainly in the polling station. One could, for example, require the voter to mark a paper ballot a specific way, but in terms of direct recording, that is impossible. More so, it would be very difficult to go find the ballots that you purchased amongst the many legitimate ballots, and then, that process may arouse suspicion. At that point, is it really worth it?
They took a different approach, going after absentee voters. Unlike polling station voting, absentee ballots are filled out at home, and can be viewed during the marking. They can also then be handed over to the attacker once complete, and the attacker knows that their money has been well spent. The only thing left for the attacker to do is mail the ballot off.
Even more impressive, by stuffing the absentee voter box, rather then the polling station box, the attackers created a backup plan of sorts and hedged their bets. If their attack in the polling station was unsuccessful and the vote total was close, only then would the absentee ballots be counted, which they purchased. More frightening, it is hard to catch vote buying of absentee ballots because they are so rarely counted to begin with. Who knows, this kind of attack could have pre-dated voting machines entirely.
This indictment is one of the most revealing voting scams I have seen. The defendants took full advantage of the deficiency of the system, and worse, they worked from the inside. It must have been very effective. Now that we know how they did it, how do we assure fair elections in the future? I really don't know because that question is too damn hard. One thing that needs to happen is a comprehensive education for the voters about the technology they are using so that they are not deceived, but even that is really hard. For starters, this attack took advantage of a lesser used mode of the voting machine. Also, how do you know they just won't be lied to again? In terms of mitigating the purchase of absentee votes, that is even harder to stop because, by definition, there is no way to properly supervise the casting of the ballot or who casts the ballot (putting it in the mail).
So what's the moral of this story. Voting is a hard thing to get right. No matter what, their will always be ass-holes who game the system. The goal should be to stop them, but perhaps it is inevitable that fraud will occur. Focus should shift away from hacking fraud, and return to normal ol' fraud because this was a classic voter fraud scheme. Not to suggest that technical attacks will nott or have not happened, but rather, that is not the whole picture. To really fix things, every factor must be reviewed, and even then, I don't think we will get it absolutely right.
We could never be sure that the attacks listed, or for that matter any attacks, have been perpetrated in the wild, but now, an indictment has been filed in Kentucky about voter fraud occurring in elections dating back to 2002. Specifically, these elections used ES&S voting machines. The alleged conspiracy included many actors, but what interests me the most, was how they perpetuated their fraud.
The iVotronic, the DRE machine produced by ES&S, has a big red "Vote" button. Normally, the button does as it says, casts a ballot. However, there is another mode of operation where a voter selects their candidates and presses "Vote" which navigates to a review ballot screen where votes can be changed. After reviewing the votes, the voter presses "Vote" once more (or an on screen indicator) to actually cast the ballot. Seems simple enough, but slightly counter intuitive.
Well, the defendants allegedly abused this system by lying to voters about what happens after they hit the "Vote" button for the first time. They told them that it actually cast their ballot, when in fact, they were in the review sceen. The voter would then leave the voting booth with the review screen displayed, and an attacker would enter the voting booth and 'correct' the vote to the candidate of their choice.
From the indictment:
Obiect of the Conspiracv
2. The object of the conspiracy was to deprive the aforesaid qualified voters of their federally secured right to vote and to have their votes given full force and effect, by misleading them regarding the operation of a voting machine and then changing the votes that they selected, in order to secure the election of the candidates supported by the Defendants and their co-conspirators.
Manner and Means of the Conspiracy
3 . It was part of the conspiracy that the Defendants and their co-conspirators agreed to take advantage of voter unfamiliarity with new voting machines by misleading voters as to the mechanics of casting their votes once they were selected.
4. It was part of the conspiracy that WW serve as the Democrat election judge in the Manchester Precinct. It was further part of the conspiracy that CW serve as the Republican election judge in the Manchester Precinct. Both WW and CW were instructed by Defendants Freddy W. Thompson and Charles Wayne Jones to tell voters that when they had pushed a button labeled “Vote” that their votes had been cast, when, in fact, that function merely provided a review screen of the voter’s selections in each race, and that the further step of pushing the “Cast Ballot” button was required. This review screen gave the voter the opportunity to change any candidate selections prior to casting the ballot.
5. It was part of the conspiracy that when the misled voters left the voting booth after pushing the “Vote” button, WW and/or CW entered the booth, changed their votes to candidates selected in part by Defendant Russell Cletus Maricle and cast the ballot by pushing the “Cast Ballot” button.
That is quite an elaborate scheme. These dopes also allegedly intended to buy votes and also infiltrate precinct election headquarters, for each party.
8. It was part of the conspiracy that the Defendants discussed and agreed to buy votes also during the early voting of absentee voters in favor of “the slate.” This plan involved having Defendants William E. Stivers, William B. Morris, and Debra L. Morris pay absentee voters for their vote and then sending them to Defendant Charles Wayne Jones who was acting as operator of the voting machine at the Clay County Clerk’s Office. Voters who sold their votes were given a mark or otherwise told to signal to the Defendant Charles Wayne Jones by Defendants William E. Stivers, William B. Morris, or Debra L. Morris and, based upon the mark andior signal, Defendant Charles Wayne Jones would cast their vote for “the slate.”I am glad they caught them. Now I hope they are found guilty.
9. It was part of the conspiracy that the Defendants discussed and agreed that in order to implement the method of corrupting the voting process described above, it would be necessary to cause to be appointed as precinct workers for both major parties persons who were in the conspiracy. It was further necessary that their assignment to respective precincts be coordinated so that no one outside the conspiracy would be in place to observe their actions.
But on a meta-level, I find this conspiracy particularly interesting. For starters, they did not take technical advantage of the defaults in the voting software. Instead they abused the GUI. The review screen is a good thing, a voter should be able to change their vote before final cast, but this simple extra step inspires the attack. It required no technical skills at all.
Instead, they lied about what the review screen meant. In effect, they were able execute an attack that we described technically, where you hijack the voting machine to display correct voter intent, but change the recording internally or on the paper printout. I actually like their attack better, it is clever, but it does rely on the naivety of the voter.
Which brings me to another point, there needs to be better education for the voter (nation wide) on exactly how these machine function and exactly at which point ballots are cast. When using paper ballots: it is obvious. The ballot get stuffed into the box. When using DRE machines: it much less obvious. Educational instruction, outside the polling station, would have mitigated this attack. Unfortunately the education occurred in the polling station, and it was misinformation.
The second part of the attack was buying votes. One problem with buying votes, is that it is hard to verify that the voter voted the way an attacker intends. This problem persists mainly in the polling station. One could, for example, require the voter to mark a paper ballot a specific way, but in terms of direct recording, that is impossible. More so, it would be very difficult to go find the ballots that you purchased amongst the many legitimate ballots, and then, that process may arouse suspicion. At that point, is it really worth it?
They took a different approach, going after absentee voters. Unlike polling station voting, absentee ballots are filled out at home, and can be viewed during the marking. They can also then be handed over to the attacker once complete, and the attacker knows that their money has been well spent. The only thing left for the attacker to do is mail the ballot off.
Even more impressive, by stuffing the absentee voter box, rather then the polling station box, the attackers created a backup plan of sorts and hedged their bets. If their attack in the polling station was unsuccessful and the vote total was close, only then would the absentee ballots be counted, which they purchased. More frightening, it is hard to catch vote buying of absentee ballots because they are so rarely counted to begin with. Who knows, this kind of attack could have pre-dated voting machines entirely.
This indictment is one of the most revealing voting scams I have seen. The defendants took full advantage of the deficiency of the system, and worse, they worked from the inside. It must have been very effective. Now that we know how they did it, how do we assure fair elections in the future? I really don't know because that question is too damn hard. One thing that needs to happen is a comprehensive education for the voters about the technology they are using so that they are not deceived, but even that is really hard. For starters, this attack took advantage of a lesser used mode of the voting machine. Also, how do you know they just won't be lied to again? In terms of mitigating the purchase of absentee votes, that is even harder to stop because, by definition, there is no way to properly supervise the casting of the ballot or who casts the ballot (putting it in the mail).
So what's the moral of this story. Voting is a hard thing to get right. No matter what, their will always be ass-holes who game the system. The goal should be to stop them, but perhaps it is inevitable that fraud will occur. Focus should shift away from hacking fraud, and return to normal ol' fraud because this was a classic voter fraud scheme. Not to suggest that technical attacks will nott or have not happened, but rather, that is not the whole picture. To really fix things, every factor must be reviewed, and even then, I don't think we will get it absolutely right.
Saturday, March 14, 2009
Roku, now with Amazon Video ... Who asked for that?
Over the last weekend, my Roku updated with new features. I now have access to Amazon Video on Demand. Cool, I thought, but once I started learning the details, I was much less enthused. I have been a Netflix customer for about 3 years, and the streaming videos are nice (even if I have seen most of the films) and convenient. Pair it with the Roku, and you are now cooking. Now I have the Amazon video option, which is pay as you go for either rentals or purchases, but Amazon has broken their services with DRM.
If you rent with Amazon, then you have 24 hours after the purchase until the video goes away. Your spending 2-4 dollars and you don't get more then a one night rental. This will not compete with Netflix in anyway, except for the films offered on Amazon that are not on Netflix. There are overlaps. Some films are free (with subscription) on Netflix which you have to pay 3 dollars for a 24 hour viewing on Amazon. It must be trying to compete with cable on-demand services, but they don't even come close to the new-release selection provided by Comcast.
I may be willing to rent a film from Amazon, but it is unlikely. Amazon also has purchase options, but it is riddled with DRM. You can watch the film on the Roku any number of times or online at Amazon, but you only get 2 downloads of the film and then only on a Windows machine only playable on the same Windows machine. I could understand this if the price was less then if I purchased the DVD, but it is not. Why would I pay the same price for an inferior product? What happens if Amzon's video service fails? Well, then I loose my purchases (check the terms of service) because of the stupid DRM.
I am even more surprised by the DRM choice because Amazon has been a warrior against DRM in music downloads. The choice to not use DRM is what made Amazon's music store such a success, and it basically forced other services (looking at you iTunes) to remove their DRM to keep competing. So, why would they backtrack? I don't know, but it is not a successful business model.
All I can say is that Amzon Video is not a winner, and until they re-prioritize their service, they have lost a potential customer. Fix your service!
If you rent with Amazon, then you have 24 hours after the purchase until the video goes away. Your spending 2-4 dollars and you don't get more then a one night rental. This will not compete with Netflix in anyway, except for the films offered on Amazon that are not on Netflix. There are overlaps. Some films are free (with subscription) on Netflix which you have to pay 3 dollars for a 24 hour viewing on Amazon. It must be trying to compete with cable on-demand services, but they don't even come close to the new-release selection provided by Comcast.
I may be willing to rent a film from Amazon, but it is unlikely. Amazon also has purchase options, but it is riddled with DRM. You can watch the film on the Roku any number of times or online at Amazon, but you only get 2 downloads of the film and then only on a Windows machine only playable on the same Windows machine. I could understand this if the price was less then if I purchased the DVD, but it is not. Why would I pay the same price for an inferior product? What happens if Amzon's video service fails? Well, then I loose my purchases (check the terms of service) because of the stupid DRM.
I am even more surprised by the DRM choice because Amazon has been a warrior against DRM in music downloads. The choice to not use DRM is what made Amazon's music store such a success, and it basically forced other services (looking at you iTunes) to remove their DRM to keep competing. So, why would they backtrack? I don't know, but it is not a successful business model.
All I can say is that Amzon Video is not a winner, and until they re-prioritize their service, they have lost a potential customer. Fix your service!
Wednesday, February 18, 2009
How to Get to Germany
One of my office mates and I just got a papper accepted in a conference in Germany. We are quite happy about the accept, but making the travel arrangements have been ... well non direct. I tried all sorts of ideas on what would be the cheapest way to get to Germany (turns out going south to go north is cheapest), for the both of us. According to my travel partner, below is my intended route. 
[This a whiteboard in my office. I messed with the contrast using GIMP to make it more legible.]
[This a whiteboard in my office. I messed with the contrast using GIMP to make it more legible.]
Tuesday, February 17, 2009
Griffey's a Brave ~ not really
I said I want him. Now I got him. I hope I was right.
[Turns out I was a little premature. I wasn't the only one. The AJC jumped the gun a little.]
[Turns out I was a little premature. I wasn't the only one. The AJC jumped the gun a little.]
The 9 o'clock Block o'Fun
At 9 on Tuesdays, two shows play against each other. One on NBC and one on FOX. One about hunting terrorists, and the other portraying the same techniques as the villain. It's Heroes vs. 24.
On one side you have 24 on FOX where terrorists are on the loose. Jack Bauer is the only man who can stop them, and he will do everything necessary, including torture.
At the same time over on NBC, heroes (and heroines) are treated like terrorist and the villains are the tortures government tracking them down.
Why does this not surprise me?
On one side you have 24 on FOX where terrorists are on the loose. Jack Bauer is the only man who can stop them, and he will do everything necessary, including torture.
At the same time over on NBC, heroes (and heroines) are treated like terrorist and the villains are the tortures government tracking them down.
Why does this not surprise me?
Monday, February 16, 2009
Best Teaching Advice Yet
Some of my lonely readers may know that I am in the throws of teaching this semester. I read a lot of blogs, and I ran across this post from Luis Von Ahn's blog, "Luis Von Blog." A professor at CMU, Professor Von Ahn provides detailed advice on teaching. I repost the advice below
One thing that I would add to this list is this word of advice: "Teaching is hard, get over it."
It's one thing to give advice on dealing with students, but he never address another fundamentle problem, laxidasical teachers. It takes an emmence effort on my part to prepare lecture, demos, and home works, and I have no one to complain to but myself. Teaching is one of the hardest endeavours I have ver undertaken, and the sooner you realize that it is not going to be a cake walk, the sooner you get to work and start preparing. Teaching is hard, very hard.
Anyway, I can't wait to start calling all my students "dude" because I am always forgetting their names. Thanks for the advice Luis, and word to all my dudes and dudettes.
Some of this advice doesn't apply to my class (I have 35 students and no TA's), but I see exactly where he is coming from. Unfortunitly, I can not pull the "I have a Ph.D., trust me" trick, yet. But, I could have used it a couple of times.
1. Crush them on the first 2 homework assignments -- those who remain will be good students.
2. When you don't know the answer to a question say it's outside the scope of the class.
3. Teaching evaluations are highly correlated with the grade the students think they will get at the time of filling out the surveys. Make your course easy, then crush them on the final (but see #1).
4. Never admit you're wrong. "I have a PhD, trust me."
5. Schedule office hours at 8am.
6. If you can't learn their names, call them all "dude."
7. Never, under any circumstances, disclose the exact grade cutoffs at the end of the semester. Somebody has to get the highest B, and they won't be happy. "You're lucky you got a B, dude."
8. Finish lecture 10 minutes early every time –- they love this (and they'll never know you love it even more).
9. Easiest way to get rid of whiners without yielding: "I'll take that into account when calculating your final grade."
10. Get good teaching assistants.
One thing that I would add to this list is this word of advice: "Teaching is hard, get over it."
It's one thing to give advice on dealing with students, but he never address another fundamentle problem, laxidasical teachers. It takes an emmence effort on my part to prepare lecture, demos, and home works, and I have no one to complain to but myself. Teaching is one of the hardest endeavours I have ver undertaken, and the sooner you realize that it is not going to be a cake walk, the sooner you get to work and start preparing. Teaching is hard, very hard.
Anyway, I can't wait to start calling all my students "dude" because I am always forgetting their names. Thanks for the advice Luis, and word to all my dudes and dudettes.
Monday, February 9, 2009
GUIDE: follow up "YouTube Music Video (mp4) to mp3 audio"
I decided to take my posting about getting mp3's off you tube an additional step. If you meet the requirements listed in the post, I have written a quick python script that will download the video and convert it into an mp3 automatically. I am not saying that it is the best script, but it works. You should also change the access to os.system() calls, i.e., the calls to wget, to use direct paths, i.e., /usr/bin/wget, for security reasons.
Go ahead and give it a go, and let me know how it works. There are likely bugs. I just hacked it up before I left work today.
Go ahead and give it a go, and let me know how it works. There are likely bugs. I just hacked it up before I left work today.
#!/usr/bin/env python
# pwn_music.py
#****************************************************
#Download Music from YouTube
#
# Usage:
#
# python pwn_music.py <YouTube URL> [<audio file name>]
#
# if no audio file name is provided, defaults to audio.mp3
#
# Sample Execution:
# python pwn_music.py http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gp7f4l myaudio.mp3
#
#
#
# (c) Adam Aviv, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
# Released under the Creative Commons Licence
#
# Legal Note:
#
# The legality of certain audio downloads from YouTube is unclear. Use
# this program at your own risk. The author takes no responsibility
# for the way in which his code is used.
#
# Required Packages:
# (1) wget
# (2) faad
# (3) lame
#
# This program is designed to run on Linux Operating Systems
#
#****************************************************
import os,re,sys
def get_pwn_url(youtube_addr):
l = youtube_addr.split("www.")
if len(l) != 2:return None
l[1] = "pwn"+l[1]
url = "www.".join(l)
cmd = "wget -O - %s"%(url)
fd = os.popen(cmd)
data = fd.read()
fd.close()
if data:
start = 'href=\"'
end = '\">Download High Quality Video'
regex = r'%s.*%s'%(start,end)
match = re.compile(regex).search(data)
if not match:return None
return data[match.start()+len(start):match.end()-len(end)]
def pwn(pwn_url,out_name):
cmd = "wget -O video.mp4 %s" % (pwn_url)
os.system(cmd)
cmd = "faad video.mp4 -w | lame -r - %s"%(out_name)
os.system(cmd)
os.system("rm video.mp4")
def main(youtube_addr,out_name="audio.mp3"):
pwn_url = get_pwn_url(youtube_addr)
if not pwn_url:
print >>sys.stderr, "Invalid initial URL or No High Quality Download"
print pwn_url
pwn(pwn_url,out_name)
print "audio done, in file %s" %(out_name)
if __name__ == "__main__":
argc = len(sys.argv)
if argc < 2:
print >>sys.stderr, "ERROR \nUSAGE:pwn_music.py youtube_url audio_out"
elif argc >4:
print >>sys.stderr, "ERROR: \nUSAGE:pwn_music.py youtube_url audio_out"
else:
if argc == 2:
main(sys.argv[1])
elif argc == 3:
main(sys.argv[1],sys.argv[2])
Friday, February 6, 2009
Posting about Bonds over at DSS
I have sports in the title of this blog for a reason. I just put up a new post over at DirtySouthSports (DSS) about Bonds and the perjury case. Really it is a plea for finality for the whole steroid issue.
Go ahead and give it a read:
http://www.dirtysouthsports.com/2009/02/perjury-bonds-law-and-court-of-public.html
Go ahead and give it a read:
http://www.dirtysouthsports.com/2009/02/perjury-bonds-law-and-court-of-public.html
Thursday, February 5, 2009
GUIDE: YouTube Music Video (mp4) to mp3 audio
I learned a new trick today. I was listening to the radio when I heard a new song I liked. I normally don't purchase music nor [air quote] steal [air quote] music, but I was interested in how hard it would be to get an mp3 of a song I just heard on the radio without resorting to torrents or other file sharing services.
Turns out it is pretty damn easy, so I wrote up a quick guide to share with the (only 2) people who read my blog.
This guide is written for Linux system with these prerequisites:
1. faad : audio extractor
This can be easily installed through any major package manager. In fedora type
~>su -
~>yum install faad
2. lame : mp3 encoder
This can be installed the same way as above replace faad with lame
3. mplayer : video, audio player for linux
You can install mplayer though a repo or you can download from here
4. mplayer codecs: the codecs that make mplayer work
You will likely want this tar ball of the codec otherwise go to the link above
Step 1: Go To YouTube
Chances are that if you hear a song on the radio, there is a music video. If there is a music video, then somebody has uploaded it onto YouTube. A lot of the time, the band itself does this since it gives them some added publicity and exposure. Most of the time howerver, it is a pirated, illegal copy. Hopefully you can get your hands on a clean copy which may avoid my next point.
THE LEGALITY OF THIS PROCEDURE IS NOT CLEAR. If you have a guilty concious, then don't continue.
Still with me? Ok.
There will likely be more then one version of the music video posted. You should care most about the audio quality, not the video quality, when choosing which posting to work with. Once you have chosen the best sounding music video, it is time download the video.
2. PWNYouTube
PWNYouTube (Pown YouTube) is a web site that specializes in downloading video from YouTube. It is really easy to use.
You have two options: (1) copy the URL for the YouTube clip to the PWN YouTube site, or (2) simply change the YouTube URL in your browser by adding 'pwn' before youtube.
For example:
Just change this
www.youtube.com/watch?12340-ad...
to this
www.pwnyoutube.com/watch?12340-ad...
Then download the highest quality option provided to you. The resulting file will be name video.mp4. Go ahead and play the video with mplayer to check the sound quality. Don't worry about the picture, you will likely have some missing frames, but you don't care about that. If it's all good, move on to the next step.
3. Convert the mp4 to an mp3
There may be other ways to do this conversion, but I found this way the simplest. It proceeds in two steps really, but we are going to combine it into one command line statement. The first step is to extract the audio from the mp4 file to create a raw pcm output. The second step will convert the raw pcm into an mp3 encoding.
To do it all at once using the command line, first cd into the directory where the video.mp4 file was saved from step 2. Now type this command:
faad video.mp4 -w | lame -r - audio.mp3
You should see some feedback on the screen, like how much of the file has been converted and etc. Once all of that is done, your done. Really? Yeah really, that's it.
The audio.mp3 file is a mp3 comprehension of just the audio content of video.mp4. You can check the quality of the mp3 by playing it in mplayer. It will report all sorts of info on it when it loads.
Now, you have successfully, in a matter of 5 minutes, produced an mp3 of a song you just heard on the radio. How easy was that? Share and be merry.
Turns out it is pretty damn easy, so I wrote up a quick guide to share with the (only 2) people who read my blog.
This guide is written for Linux system with these prerequisites:
1. faad : audio extractor
This can be easily installed through any major package manager. In fedora type
~>su -
~>yum install faad
2. lame : mp3 encoder
This can be installed the same way as above replace faad with lame
3. mplayer : video, audio player for linux
You can install mplayer though a repo or you can download from here
4. mplayer codecs: the codecs that make mplayer work
You will likely want this tar ball of the codec otherwise go to the link above
Step 1: Go To YouTube
Chances are that if you hear a song on the radio, there is a music video. If there is a music video, then somebody has uploaded it onto YouTube. A lot of the time, the band itself does this since it gives them some added publicity and exposure. Most of the time howerver, it is a pirated, illegal copy. Hopefully you can get your hands on a clean copy which may avoid my next point.
THE LEGALITY OF THIS PROCEDURE IS NOT CLEAR. If you have a guilty concious, then don't continue.
Still with me? Ok.
There will likely be more then one version of the music video posted. You should care most about the audio quality, not the video quality, when choosing which posting to work with. Once you have chosen the best sounding music video, it is time download the video.
2. PWNYouTube
PWNYouTube (Pown YouTube) is a web site that specializes in downloading video from YouTube. It is really easy to use.
You have two options: (1) copy the URL for the YouTube clip to the PWN YouTube site, or (2) simply change the YouTube URL in your browser by adding 'pwn' before youtube.
For example:
Just change this
www.youtube.com/watch?12340-ad...
to this
www.pwnyoutube.com/watch?12340-ad...
Then download the highest quality option provided to you. The resulting file will be name video.mp4. Go ahead and play the video with mplayer to check the sound quality. Don't worry about the picture, you will likely have some missing frames, but you don't care about that. If it's all good, move on to the next step.
3. Convert the mp4 to an mp3
There may be other ways to do this conversion, but I found this way the simplest. It proceeds in two steps really, but we are going to combine it into one command line statement. The first step is to extract the audio from the mp4 file to create a raw pcm output. The second step will convert the raw pcm into an mp3 encoding.
To do it all at once using the command line, first cd into the directory where the video.mp4 file was saved from step 2. Now type this command:
The audio.mp3 file is a mp3 comprehension of just the audio content of video.mp4. You can check the quality of the mp3 by playing it in mplayer. It will report all sorts of info on it when it loads.
Now, you have successfully, in a matter of 5 minutes, produced an mp3 of a song you just heard on the radio. How easy was that? Share and be merry.
Thursday, January 29, 2009
Name Your Cow and Drink Lots of Milk
By naming a Cow, it produces more milk. reports Scientific America.
This study suggests that milk production is related to the fear factor of humans. Naming the animal reduces this fear, and thus the cow produce more milk. Or, is it because when you name a Cow, the name forces the human to take on a sense of ownership? If you have a stake in the Cow (i am so puny), then you are inclined to care for it more, be around it more, and take more of an interest in its milk production capabilities. All of that adds up to healthier, better fed, and more attended cows that produce more milk.
Along these same lines, I have also heard that talking to plants help them grow faster then plants that don't get talked to. In fact, when I was in elementary school, we did such an experiment. We had two plants, one of which we read stories to daily, and one that was neglected. Both were watered and receive ample sun, and the one that was read to, did grow slightly taller (I make no claims to scienctific validity of a study done when I was 7 years old)
What gives? Well the same principals are at work. We aren't talking to the plant across the room. We were reading right next to it, providing it more attention, and subtly, more care then the plant we weren't in contact with on a daily basis. Under those circumstances, it is more then reasonable for the plant that got a daily story to grow taller then the one that didn't.
Naming your cow or talking to your plants is a good thing for us but it is meaningless to them. What is in a name? Is Bessy better then Steak Sandwiche Jane? Or, do they care what storey you read to them? Do some plants prefer comedy over drama? Of course not. It matters to us humans though. The fact that we take the time to read to a plant or name cow is good for us, and what is good for us, translates into good for the things we care for. By creating an emotional bond, we in essence take care of the cow or the plant because it helps take better care of ourself.
Even if it's mainly for my psychological well being, now I know that what is best for me and my (non-existent) cow is to name it Sh*t For Brains. It is will be even better to pet it's head and say, "How come the sh*t in your head doesn't smell, Sh*t For Brains?" Then, I will have a never ending jokes, and I will have lots of milk to drink. Win Win.
British researchers compared production from the country's National Milk Records with the survey responses of 516 dairy farmers to see if there was an association between yield and cow naming. Dairy farmers who reported calling their cows by name got 2,105 gallons (7,938 liters) out of their cows, compared with 2,029 gallons (7,680 liters) per 10-month lactation cycle. The results held regardless of the size of the farm or how much the cows were fed. (Some 46 percent of the farmers named their cows.)
...
"If cows are slightly fearful of humans, they could produce [the hormone] cortisol, which suppresses milk production," Douglas says. Farmers who have named their cows, she adds, "probably have a better relationship with them. They're less fearful, more relaxed and less stressed, so that could have an effect on milk yield."
This study suggests that milk production is related to the fear factor of humans. Naming the animal reduces this fear, and thus the cow produce more milk. Or, is it because when you name a Cow, the name forces the human to take on a sense of ownership? If you have a stake in the Cow (i am so puny), then you are inclined to care for it more, be around it more, and take more of an interest in its milk production capabilities. All of that adds up to healthier, better fed, and more attended cows that produce more milk.
Along these same lines, I have also heard that talking to plants help them grow faster then plants that don't get talked to. In fact, when I was in elementary school, we did such an experiment. We had two plants, one of which we read stories to daily, and one that was neglected. Both were watered and receive ample sun, and the one that was read to, did grow slightly taller (I make no claims to scienctific validity of a study done when I was 7 years old)
What gives? Well the same principals are at work. We aren't talking to the plant across the room. We were reading right next to it, providing it more attention, and subtly, more care then the plant we weren't in contact with on a daily basis. Under those circumstances, it is more then reasonable for the plant that got a daily story to grow taller then the one that didn't.
Naming your cow or talking to your plants is a good thing for us but it is meaningless to them. What is in a name? Is Bessy better then Steak Sandwiche Jane? Or, do they care what storey you read to them? Do some plants prefer comedy over drama? Of course not. It matters to us humans though. The fact that we take the time to read to a plant or name cow is good for us, and what is good for us, translates into good for the things we care for. By creating an emotional bond, we in essence take care of the cow or the plant because it helps take better care of ourself.
Even if it's mainly for my psychological well being, now I know that what is best for me and my (non-existent) cow is to name it Sh*t For Brains. It is will be even better to pet it's head and say, "How come the sh*t in your head doesn't smell, Sh*t For Brains?" Then, I will have a never ending jokes, and I will have lots of milk to drink. Win Win.
Tuesday, January 27, 2009
GUIDE: Printing Handouts in OpenOffice Impress 3.0 (linux)
Something that should be easy, turns out to be annoying as crap. It took me like 30 minutes to print handouts in 3.0 version of OpenOffice when it was intuitive in the 2.* branch. What gives? Well it seems that in the newer version of OpenOffice like to fall back on the underlying window managers (gnome/kde) printing dialogue to handle print requests. That's nice and all. You get more control over printer options, but that dialogue has no idea that you want to print handouts vs. notes or the entire slide show. One can go mad trying to figure out how to print the bloody handouts. Thankfully, OO.org is well aware of this because i saw the bug report, but that isn't going to help you out in the here and now. Lets go through the motions. (this may not be an issue in windows or macs, i don't own either so i don't know)
You may have noticed this instruction in the help guide when you search "printing handouts"
Ok that seems simple enough. Let me follow those instructions.
Wait. What the hell. Where is this "Contents listbox?" It isn't there. We need to tell OO.org not to use the default print dialogue. Instead it should use the OO.org print dialogue. Why this isn't setup ahead of time is beyond me, but OO.org needs to make it clear that this can be done in the instructions. I only found out because I read bug reports.
Either way, lets make it happen. Go to Tools->Options->OpenOffice.org->General and check off "Use OpenOffice.org dialogs"
Now, go back to the File->Print, and there we go. We now have the options to print handouts. Yes!!
That's how you do it. It shouldn't be that way, but that is how its done.
You may have noticed this instruction in the help guide when you search "printing handouts"
Ok that seems simple enough. Let me follow those instructions.
Wait. What the hell. Where is this "Contents listbox?" It isn't there. We need to tell OO.org not to use the default print dialogue. Instead it should use the OO.org print dialogue. Why this isn't setup ahead of time is beyond me, but OO.org needs to make it clear that this can be done in the instructions. I only found out because I read bug reports.Either way, lets make it happen. Go to Tools->Options->OpenOffice.org->General and check off "Use OpenOffice.org dialogs"
Now, go back to the File->Print, and there we go. We now have the options to print handouts. Yes!!
That's how you do it. It shouldn't be that way, but that is how its done.
Saturday, January 24, 2009
Thursday, January 22, 2009
Lost and SciFi
It is now the day after the season premier of Lost, and I am going to get into a little spoiler discussion. If you haven't seen it yet, then don't continue reading. To fill the rest of the page so you don't accidental read anything you don't want to, I present a turkey.
Ok, if you are still there, let me begin. There were two interesting articles that caught my attention on the web rounds today. The first was an article by guest blogger Steve Johnson on boingboing. He wrote about the complexity of Lost, and how it weaves disjoint storeys from the past, present, and future to convey emotion and drive the plot line. It has now taken this a step farther. The Lost writers have figured out a way to make it all seem sane, the island manipulates time "like a record that is skipping." The survivors are lost in time and literally lost. Johnson expresses my sentiments, that maybe, just maybe, things may come together, and we will get our questions answered. I just want to know why that damn statue had four toes. That is all I ask for, but this brings about larger issues about the genre of Lost.
Now that Lost is dealing with time travel, and they even created laws that govern it. There is nothing you can do to change the past or future. No matter what you do, the past has happened and the future will be. They describe it as a stream that is always moving forward. That seems to me very science fictiony. Which brings me to the next great article I read today.
Over at AMC, John Scalzi proposed a way to define science fiction and just plane ol' fiction. This comes about, it seems, because of one film in particular Repo Man.
Ok, if you are still there, let me begin. There were two interesting articles that caught my attention on the web rounds today. The first was an article by guest blogger Steve Johnson on boingboing. He wrote about the complexity of Lost, and how it weaves disjoint storeys from the past, present, and future to convey emotion and drive the plot line. It has now taken this a step farther. The Lost writers have figured out a way to make it all seem sane, the island manipulates time "like a record that is skipping." The survivors are lost in time and literally lost. Johnson expresses my sentiments, that maybe, just maybe, things may come together, and we will get our questions answered. I just want to know why that damn statue had four toes. That is all I ask for, but this brings about larger issues about the genre of Lost.
Now that Lost is dealing with time travel, and they even created laws that govern it. There is nothing you can do to change the past or future. No matter what you do, the past has happened and the future will be. They describe it as a stream that is always moving forward. That seems to me very science fictiony. Which brings me to the next great article I read today.
Over at AMC, John Scalzi proposed a way to define science fiction and just plane ol' fiction. This comes about, it seems, because of one film in particular Repo Man.
... I know people who not only believe Repo Man is scifi, they will fight you on the matter. Seriously, man: The spittle will fling. I've seen it. I've been sprayed with it. It's not pretty.In the earnest desire to avoid further spittle, allow me to suggest a refinement to the "percentage" theory of scifi, which is simply this: Whether a movie counts as science fiction depends on whether the science fiction elements are crucial to the plot. "Crucial to the plot" in this case means that if you pull out these elements, the story collapses; it literally cannot go on because the mechanisms that move it forwards no longer exist. If that's the case, it's science fiction. If your movie is still standing, then what you've got is another genre with some scifi thrown in for flavoring.
I ask, does Lost fit this bill? I mean, the island can manipulate time, and it seems it may be the key to figuring this all out. Lost also has many other scifi elements. For example, it has the crazy smoke monster and the button to save the world, but most of the action and plot revolve around being deserted on an island with a bunch of crazy "other" inhabitants. Then the plot changed to deal with the invaders, and then finally we move into time travel. Hmmm. It seems to me that this whole time travel thing could be the mcguffin that Scalzi refers to, but this is Lost we are talking about. When could we ever predict what will happened? It could just be, as Johnson suggest, that time distortion is the key to this whole crazy thing, and then again it very well couldn't. We will just have to see. Until then, I will watch and enjoy
Wednesday, January 21, 2009
F10 at work and dissapointed with Amarok
Some good news, for those who care, I have successfully updated my work computer from Fedora 9 to Fedora 10. I was really worried about this update for a number of reasons, but mainly due to the ATI video card. For those in the know, ATI linux support is mediocre at best, and they usually require you to do a hand stand to get it to work (literaly). The last time I upgraded this machine, it didn't work, and I had to downgrade the Xorg from the 9 repo to the 8 repo. Ughh, it was ugly, so you can feel my aprehension.
This time, however, it went pretty smoothly. There was some little tricks that I had to pull, but the famous leigh123 of the fedorafurom has a most excellent guide for the ATI install. I have a couple of additions to it though:
(1) Make sure you update the kernel, kernel-devel, kernel-headers before running the guide. It may still work, but you won't get the nice hardware acceleration
(2) If it doesn't work on the first try, uninstall the ati and fglrx packages in the guide, and start again. It is likely has to do with a kernel module build error and should work on the next go.
(3) Yes, you have to create a new initrd. Just do it, otherwise the kernel module won't build automatically.
Now for my bitch and moan of the day. With F10 comes the new Amarok. Amarok was a most excellent music player for linux. It handles libraries, podcast, and internet radio with little overhead. But now, with the update, comes Amarok 2.0, and I must say, it sucks. Like really sucks. It crashes all the time. It doesn't import your old settings. There is less functionality. This update has
actually gone backwards, and I would suggest leaving Amarok behind.
Instead, check out the newest RythmBox. It is everything Amarok used to be and is actually smoother and better.
This time, however, it went pretty smoothly. There was some little tricks that I had to pull, but the famous leigh123 of the fedorafurom has a most excellent guide for the ATI install. I have a couple of additions to it though:
(1) Make sure you update the kernel, kernel-devel, kernel-headers before running the guide. It may still work, but you won't get the nice hardware acceleration
(2) If it doesn't work on the first try, uninstall the ati and fglrx packages in the guide, and start again. It is likely has to do with a kernel module build error and should work on the next go.
(3) Yes, you have to create a new initrd. Just do it, otherwise the kernel module won't build automatically.
Now for my bitch and moan of the day. With F10 comes the new Amarok. Amarok was a most excellent music player for linux. It handles libraries, podcast, and internet radio with little overhead. But now, with the update, comes Amarok 2.0, and I must say, it sucks. Like really sucks. It crashes all the time. It doesn't import your old settings. There is less functionality. This update has
actually gone backwards, and I would suggest leaving Amarok behind.Instead, check out the newest RythmBox. It is everything Amarok used to be and is actually smoother and better.
Thursday, January 15, 2009
I'm in trouble
If coffee and soda make me more prone to hallucinations because of the caffeine, then I am definitely a high risk case. In fact I should be hallucinating right now, and something like 80% of the day in general. What I can I say, I like my stimulates.
From National Geographic:
From National Geographic:
Among the 200 test subjects, those who consumed the equivalent of seven cups of coffee a day were found to be three times more likely to have hallucinatory experiences than those who consumed less than a single cup a day.Then again, you should be hallucinating if you drink 7 cups of coffee a day.
Lead author Simon Jones, a psychology Ph.D. student at Durham University in the U.K, is intrigued but cautious about the connection.
"This hasn't shown that caffeine causes hallucinations, though the data are consistent with that idea," he said.
"It could also be that people who have hallucinations are more anxious and worried, so that causes them to consume more caffeine."
Saturday, January 10, 2009
Sports and Politics
Believe it or not, CNN wrote a really good article about the BCS and how politicians from the loosing side, like some from Utah or Texas, have tried to dismantle it and install a play off to determine the national championship. So we should all know that Florida won the (air quote) national championship (air quote) last night, even though USC destroyed their oponet and Utah was undefeated ... UNDEFEATED and slaughter former #1 Alabama. It make your head want to burst open. what the hell does Utah have to do to win a nation championship? This is the second time they went undefeated and got left out of the title game. Politicians have seen the injustice and perhaps have heard moans from their electorate and are now answering the call and taking up the fight in the way politicians fight: talk, bills, hearings, and whining. Even the president-elect, Barak Obama, is not a fan of the BCS and wants to "throw some weight around."
I really want a play off, but I really like the bowl setup, just not how the champion is determined. I love all the bowl games, each matchup intrigues me, but we have got to have at least one more game, like Utah vs. Florida, for me to be convinced that the champion is really the champion. If it takes some politicing, or even the president, to make it happen, then make it happen because it's time.
I really want a play off, but I really like the bowl setup, just not how the champion is determined. I love all the bowl games, each matchup intrigues me, but we have got to have at least one more game, like Utah vs. Florida, for me to be convinced that the champion is really the champion. If it takes some politicing, or even the president, to make it happen, then make it happen because it's time.
Advice on Graduate Studies
The bloggers over at Cosmic Variance (a discover magazine blog) have been running a series called, "unsolicited advice." Recently they have been talking about education, from undergraduate to postdocs. I found the advice on how to be a good graduate student particularly interesting and applicable, and I would like to share it. My own experience has been similar, but I would add one more piece of advice.
Be self motivated. You got to want it, and if you don't, no one is going help you. In the end, it is all on you, so get your sh*t done.
So check it out.
LINK
Oh and if you are an undergrad looking to apply to graduate school, check out this piece.
LINK
Be self motivated. You got to want it, and if you don't, no one is going help you. In the end, it is all on you, so get your sh*t done.
So check it out.
LINK
Oh and if you are an undergrad looking to apply to graduate school, check out this piece.
LINK
Friday, January 9, 2009
Pluto still lingers on
A great Blog piece from the New York Times recounts the story of how Neil deGrasse Tyson became the #1 Pluto hater. First off, I think Pluto is not a planet in the sense that the Earth and Jupiter are planets, but I also do not think it is insignificant. One thing I do know is that I am not an astronomer, and my opinion makes no difference on the matter. A lot of people do not feel the way I do, and after the article “Pluto’s Not a Planet? Only in New York” appeared, Dr. Tyson was inundated with hate male from elementary school students to jet propulsion lab physicists. One lonely NYT reporter takes claim, Kenneth Chang, and he writes about as a guest blogger in the Tierner Blog. Read on, it's pretty cool.LINK
Also, Dr. Tyson has a new book out about the matter. I am definitely going to read this one.
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