vttoth

I am a software developer and author of computer books. I also work on some problems in theoretical physics. For more information, please visit my personal Web site at http://www.vttoth.com/.

The Battle of Billings Bridge

Canada, Local Ottawa, Politics No Responses »

Feb 192022

I first heard about it from a friend, though he didn’t call it by this name.

It was a few days ago. Another convoy of trucks was approaching downtown Ottawa, to join their freedom-loving brethren to promote their message of love, peace, and, ahem, “fuck Trudeau”, “Trump 2024”, “Make America Canada Great Again” and other wonderfully delightful things representing our shared Canadian values.

But some evil, selfish Ottawa citizens, like my friend, had enough. Enough of the noise, the disruption, the lawlessness, the mob rule. And since the police were nowhere to be found, they took matters into their own hands.

Quite simply, they blocked the convoy’s path. They did exactly what free citizens are supposed to do when their community is threatened by a lawless mob: they defended it. The convoy turned back. And this event now has a name: The Battle of Billings Bridge.

Thank you, neighbors. And finally, a few days later (and arguably, three weeks late) our police are doing what they are supposed to do, and by all indication, they are doing a good job. Of course there are the inevitable cries, complaints about the abuse of power, the end of democracy, the tyranny of Trudeau. Never mind that it’s our city police (of course with help from other police agencies) and they are not doing it for Trudeau. They are doing it for us, citizens of Ottawa. To help us get our city back.

No, I do not enjoy the thought of a city under lockdown, with checkpoints all over downtown. And once the thugs with their weaponized transport trucks are gone, I hope our city will come back to normal, and that the lessons learned will not include turning Wellington Street into a copy of Pennsylvania Avenue, blocked from traffic with permanent concrete barriers, with ever present police armed with military gear. This spring, I hope I’ll be able to walk on Parliament Hill again, a free citizen, not prevented by the authorities but also not intimidated by thuggish occupiers and their vehicles.

Attempted arson

Canada, Local Ottawa, Politics No Responses »

Feb 192022

In the first season of Amazon’s political thriller series Jack Ryan, a terrorist cell releases poison gas in a crowded church after chaining the doors on the outside, to ensure that the victims are locked in and suffocate.

Amidst all the news unfolding in our fine city, it escaped my attention that something similar almost took place two weeks ago on Lisgar street in the downtown core: two criminals, apparently associated with the “freedom convoy”, attempted to set the lobby of an apartment building on fire while taping its front door shut on the outside.

In case anyone wonders what grants us the right to ask our police force to defend our city from those who occupied its downtown core for more than three weeks, this is your answer.

Had this attempt succeeded, it might have entered the history books as one of the worst incidents of terrorism in the history of Canada. Thankfully, the door was freed up and the fire was extinguished by a good Samaritan. The police are still looking for the perpetrators.

Our galactic center

Astronomy, Physics No Responses »

Feb 192022

The 64-antenna radio telescope complex, MeerKAT, is South Africa’s contribution to the Square Kilometer Array, an international project under development to create an unprecedented radio astronomy facility.

While the SKA project is still in its infancy, MeerKAT is fully functional, and it just delivered the most detailed, most astonishing images yet of the central region of our own Milky Way. Here is, for instance, an image of the Sagittarius A region that also hosts the Milky Way’s supermassive black hole, Sgr A*:

The filamentary structure that is seen in this image is apparently poorly understood. As for the scale of this image, notice that it is marked in arc seconds; at the estimated distance to Sgr A, one arc second translates into roughly 1/8th of a light year, so the image presented here is roughly a 15 by 15 light year area.

Public opinion

Canada, Local Ottawa, Politics No Responses »

Feb 142022

Protesters here in Ottawa claim that the public supports them, but surveys say otherwise. In fact, apparently some two thirds of Canadians support the use of the military to end the illegal occupations.

I am fed up to my eyeballs with these insurgents, these seditionists who think mob rule is the way to resolve what could be a rational discussion about the value and validity of certain pandemic measures. (Of course we all know that it’s not about the mandates, it never was. The protesters might think that they are here on account of the mandates but in reality, they are just pawns, the forces behind them are much more sinister.)

But using the military? Talk about turning the propaganda into a self-fulfilling prophecy. The protesters may think of themselves as peaceful, perhaps even law-abiding, but the forces behind them actually covet violence: To them, success is measured by the number of dead cops and dead protesters that will be left on Wellington Street.

Which is why I sincerely hope that the military stays put in their barracks, and once this madness is resolved, the only thing that will need to be cleaned up on Wellington Street will be some litter and debris, and perhaps some doggie poo.

Random thoughts from occupied Ottawa

Canada, Local Ottawa, Politics No Responses »

Feb 102022

Some random thoughts concerning this siege and occupation by an astroturfed movement.

Lots and lots of volatile fuel in unsafe containers in the open, and people playing with powerful fireworks. What can possibly go wrong?
To those concerned about the rights of these truckers, ask yourself: were you equally concerned about the rights of Occupy protesters who were evicted from Ottawa a decade ago? What about the rights of BLM protesters last year in the US?
A protester asserted that they cannot cut off his fuel supply that keeps him warm. It is against the law. Isn’t occupying the streets of my city, honking through the night, creating a fire hazard with fireworks and fuel in close proximity, and holding a city hostage while demanding the resignation of a lawfully elected government not against the law?
How an issue gets politicized, in three acts:
Act I: Natural disaster occurs.
Act II: Politicians in charge respond.
Act III: Populist opportunists react: Look, the government is politicizing the disaster!
(NB: I don’t care if the populist are MAGA-hat wearing opportunists from the US or the left-wing opposition in Orban’s Hungary.)
In a recent article, Toronto journalist Matt Gurney describes the protest as having evolved into a “cover to a cadre of seasoned street brawlers whose primary goal is to further erode the legitimacy of the state — not just the city of Ottawa, or Ontario or Canada, but of democracies generally,” and worries that “any move they make will trigger an incident that can easily result in dead cops, dead truckers and delighted far-right agitators.” Wish I could disagree with him.
One swastika flag is one too many. Why was it tolerated any more than an “I love Trudeau” flag would have been tolerated by the same protesters?
The Conservative Party may have done an about-face today, but it will take a long time for me to forgive them for abandoning core values of our constitutional order for the sake of short-term populist advantage.
Is it 1914 all over again? Looking at Ukraine, I wonder. Or is it more like 1933? That’s what Wellington street looks like, for sure. History, of course, never repeats itself, it only rhymes. But generation after generation, we keep making the same mistakes…

Those “unscientific” mandates

Canada, Humor, Local Ottawa, Politics No Responses »

Feb 062022

Some of the occupiers holding our city hostage are demanding an end to the “unscientific” mask and vaccine mandates.

I was wondering how to react, but then I came across this New Yorker cartoon. It. Just. Nails. It.

An absolute disgrace

Canada, Local Ottawa, Politics No Responses »

Feb 042022

Here is a quote from an internal e-mail, obtained by The Globe and Mail, that interim Conservative leader Candice Bergen authored:

“I don’t think we should be asking them to go home […] I understand the mood may shift soon. So we need to turn this into the PM’s problem.”

The evil cynicism is palpable. As is her complete disregard, contempt even, for the well-being of us, residents of Ottawa.

There was a time when I considered myself a supporter of the Conservative party. I even voted for Kim Campbell in the first Canadian election in which I could participate as a newly minted citizen.

But this sick joke of a party? I’d sooner vote for a rabid toad as prime minister than these shameless, power-hungry sociopaths.

“Freedom” convoy

Canada, Politics No Responses »

Jan 272022

I am restraining myself as I do not wish to contribute to the hate and division that is plaguing our societies. I keep many of my thoughts and suspicions on this topic to myself.

But I still can’t not comment on this “freedom” convoy that is coming to mess up our lives here in Ottawa this weekend.

Freedom to do what? Let me tell you:

The freedom to infect others with a severe illness.
The freedom to act in a way that can be a direct, tangible threat to the lives of some of the most vulnerable among us.
The freedom not to take part in preventing the spread of a severe communicable disease.
More broadly, the freedom from any responsibility towards others in our society.

Presenting this as “freedom” offends me deeply, as I personally experienced not being free, having grown up in a communist dictatorship. What is evident to me is that you don’t know what it is like to be deprived of freedom. This is why you cannot tell the difference between a true desire to be free as opposed to just blind, unconstrained selfishness and egotism, the freedom to do whatever the heck you want with no regard to any consequences that might impact the lives of others.

Playing with fire

History, Politics No Responses »

Jan 262022

World War III is long overdue.

Back when I started grade school, more than 50 years ago (yikes!) no sane adult expected the world to survive through the rest of the 20th century in one piece, without another major war. Recall that even Star Trek, for all its optimism, assumed that World War III (sometimes called the Eugenics Wars) would break out in 1992.

Yet here we are, the year is 2022, and the world is still largely peaceful. But for how much longer?

Ukraine is rapidly turning into a hot spot that might yet trigger a conflict the world has not seen in many decades. And it appears that we are on a collision course that resembles in some ways the events leading up to World War I. Nobody wants escalation; yet everyone believes escalation is inevitable and necessary.

Russia supposedly wants NATO to stop expanding, stop encircling their country. On the surface, this might seem like a valid concern. Russia, after all, has been one of the great losers of the past half century. The collapse of the USSR, the loss of its system of allied satellite states, internal strife, a struggling economy all add up. Of course having an increasingly authoritarian government serving a corrupt oligarchy doesn’t exactly help either.

On the other hand, Russia’s willingness to use force in the “near abroad”, including Georgia, the annexation of Crimea, and Eastern Ukraine rightly troubles other neighboring nations, especially the Baltic states that spent decades under Soviet occupation, incorporated into the USSR. Other Eastern European states also have not forgotten what it was like to be occupied by the Soviet Union. NATO is rightfully concerned that if it does not show resolve, its credibility as a defensive alliance will be destroyed.

And this sets up a tricky situation. Every step Russia takes to push back NATO actually strengthens NATO’s resolve. Every step NATO takes to deter Russia from aggression and to assist Ukraine actually strengthens Russian resolve. Moreover, NATO’s resolve helps Putin set the pretext for an almost certainly unpopular war, by presenting NATO actions as a threat to Russian security. Add to this that a war in Ukraine could do wonders to help Putin’s waning credibility, and that Russians, rightly or wrongly, see political discord in the United States as a sign of weakness and, for them, an opportunity, and we have a perfect storm.

Do I worry unduly? Is it not possible that even if Ukraine goes up in flames, it will remain a regional conflict on the geopolitical map, like Korea or Vietnam were many decades ago? Or perhaps a quick and decisive victory by Putin, like the one he enjoyed in Crimea, would settle this affair in his favor and the world will move on? Perhaps.

But it will also be the biggest military confrontation on European soil since 1945. And if that doesn’t scare the bejesus out of you…

And of course nobody wants a world war. Nobody wants escalating conflict that gets out of hand. That was true back in 1914 as well. But just as in 1914, political ineptitude, miscalculations, overestimation of capabilities, underestimation of opponents, a false sense of urgency to act, may all add up. And there may very well be parasitic opportunists, other nations who will join the circus sensing opportunities. I can easily imagine, unfortunately, Xi’s China entering the fray when they have reason to believe that the West’s attention is elsewhere. And that’s how a regional conflict becomes a global one.

1914

History, Politics No Responses »

Jan 172022

Another week has passed in this amazing world of ours.

It is easy to lose perspective as we struggle with the pandemic and make our way through everyday problems. But we shouldn’t. These days, I must admit, I worry more often than ever that our world is heading towards conflict and upheaval, in some ways a repeat of the mistakes made back in 1914, ending a golden era.

A golden era I say? You bet. Yes, I recognize it’s not for everyone, far from it. Far too many people on this planet still struggle for the basic necessities of life; die in conflict; or live miserable lives under oppressive regimes. Yet it is also true that never before did such a large percentage of humanity live as well as today, with access (at least) to most basic necessities, some level of medical care, schooling, a degree of public safety, with at least some of their basic rights respected.

Meanwhile those of us living in luckier corners of the world enjoy everyday luxuries that not even the kings and queens of the past could dream about. Case in question: the other day, my beautiful wife visited a grocery store and came home with a package of assorted fruits, not perfectly fresh, which the store sold at a discount rather than throwing it away. One of the fruits was a kiwi fruit. As I was munching on it (yum!) it just hit me. Here I am, in Ottawa, in the middle of a very cold winter day (it was I think -26 C outside) eating a … kiwi fruit? Not a carrot. Not a potato. A kiwi fruit. Probably not all the way from New Zealand, “only” from California, but still!

Let that kiwi fruit be a reminder of what we might be throwing away if we allow the politics of the day to radicalize us. If we allow politicians to choose conflict that might escalate and get out of hand. “We have no choice” is not an acceptable excuse. It was what the leaders of Europe said back in 1914 when they plunged the world into a conflict of unprecedented scale. But choices do exist.

The world in which I grew up was the world of the Cold War. Yet it was a world led by politicians who experienced war first hand, and for whom avoiding conflict (or at least, avoiding escalation) was a top priority. This was even true for the septuagenarian Soviet elite. Whatever their intentions were concerning the USSR and the spread of communism, plunging the world into another global conflict was not considered an acceptable outcome.

Today? I am not so sure. There are flashpoints we know about (Ukraine, South China Sea) and flashpoints that we may not even have considered yet. More troubling, the world is now led by my generation: a generation that takes peace and prosperity for granted, a generation that believes they have an inalienable right to munch on a kiwi fruit even in the middle of a harsh Canadian winter, and who take it for granted that kiwi fruits appear magically on supermarket shelves whenever they desire to eat some.

That, of course, is not true. But if we have to find it out the hard way, it will be too late.

This is what happened in 1914. No kiwi fruits or supermarkets just yet, but still, that fateful year was preceded by an unprecedented golden era that, in many parts of the world (especially in Europe and North America but not only there) brought about amazing progress. Then, myopic politics ended it all. And now I worry that there will be a repeat performance, and as the world plunges into chaos, just as in 1914, we’ll be told that “we have no choice”.

We do.

All the Viktor Toths I’ve known…

Personal No Responses »

Jan 112022

My name is not the rarest, but also not terribly common. I never met another Viktor Toth in person, but over the years, I came across a few and I’ve at least been in close contact with one.

The first Viktor Toth I read about as a teenager was featured with his girlfriend in some silly magazine for young Pioneers in then-communist Hungary.

Around the same time, I also read about a Viktor Toth in a small town in Hungary, who butchered his unfortunate wife with an axe. Yikes!

When I came to Ottawa, Canada, I was surprised to learn that there was already a Victor Toth in the local phone book. I never met him, but I did end up working with a gentleman who knew him.

It was still relatively early in the Internet era when I first searched for my own name, in the context of the small Hungarian town of Visegrad where I once lived. Much to my surprise, I found a Viktor Toth but it wasn’t me. It was a Hungarian astronomer who organized a conference that happened to take place in that small town. (Much later, he and I got in touch and even collaborated a little, contributing an article to a Hungarian popular science magazine about the future of radio astronomy in the country.)

There is a Viktor Toth who is an internationally renowned jazz saxophonist; unfortunately the type of improvisation-based modern jazz he plays is not my favorite subgenre, but he seems very well regarded.

And finally, there’s the Viktor Toth who recently put his pet rat into a virtual reality harness and had him play Doom. For the record, the only rat I own is this one, and he definitely doesn’t play Doom:

2022

Personal No Responses »

Dec 312021

Y’all heard the joke: twenty-twenty-two,
It will be just like twenty-twenty, too.
But I really hope it will not be so.
We really just can’t give it another go.

Christmas

Personal, Religion, Space No Responses »

Dec 242021

Although we are not religious, we celebrate Christmas.

And I still cannot think of a better way to celebrate Christmas than with the words of the astronauts of Apollo 8, and the sense of awe they felt when they became the first human beings ever in the history of our species to be completely cut off from Mother Earth, when their spaceship disappeared behind the Moon.

Earthrise from Apollo 8

Re-emerging, they read passages from the Book of Genesis to their audience, with Frank Borman concluding with the words:

[G]ood night, good luck, a Merry Christmas – and God bless all of you, all of you on the good Earth.

To me, this is the most beautiful Christmas message ever.

I don’t do(om) rats

Cats, Internet, Personal 1 Response »

Dec 242021

For the record: The Viktor Toth who has recently become quite popular on YouTube by placing his pet rat into a virtual reality harness and letting him play Doom is not me.

Even if I were inclined to do such an experiment with a live animal (I am not) it would be one of my cats, and the retro game of choice would be Duke Nukem.

You see, I was never really a fan of Doom.

An old Linux desktop

Computers No Responses »

Dec 212021

Someone reminded me that 20 years ago, I made an honest-to-goodness attempt to switch to Linux as my primary desktop.

I even managed to get some of the most important Windows programs to run, including Microsoft office.

I could even watch live TV using my ATI capture card and Linux software. I used this Linux machine to watch the first DVD of The Lord of the Rings.

In the end, though, it was just not worth the trouble. Too many quirks, too much hassle. I preserved the machine as a VM, so I can run it even today (albeit without sound, and of course without video capture.) But it never replaced my Windows workstation.

I just checked and the installed browsers can still see my Web sites… sort of. The old version of Mozilla chokes on my personal Web site but it sees my calculator museum just fine. Konqueror can see both. However, neither of them can cope with modern security protocols so https connections are out.

Funny thing is, it really hasn’t become any easier to set up a really good, functional Linux desktop in the intervening 20 years.

In memoriam: Thanu Padmanabhan (1957-2021)

Physics No Responses »

Dec 202021

Though he passed away in September, I only learned about it tonight: Thanu Padmanabhan, renowned Indian theoretical physicist, is no longer with us. He was only 64 when he passed away, a result of a heart attack according to Wikipedia.

I never met Padmanabhan but I have several of his books on my bookshelf, including Structure Formation in the Universe and his more recent textbook Gravitation. I am also familiar with many of his papers.

I learned about his death just moments ago as I came across a paper by him on arXiv, carrying this comment: “Prof. T. Padmanabhan has passed away on 17th September, 2021, while this paper was under review in a journal.”

What an incredible loss. The brilliant flame of his intellect, extinguished. I am deeply saddened.

A tribute article about his life was published on arXiv back in October, but unfortunately was not cross-listed to gr-qc, and thus it escaped my attention until now.

LRT then and now

Local Ottawa No Responses »

Dec 072021

Finally, Ottawa’s LRT is back in service again, operating more or less reliably, at more or less full capacity for a few weeks already, after a nearly two months long shutdown following the system’s second derailment in its mere two years of operation.

Let me celebrate this triumph (er, am I being too sarcastic?) with an archive photo from the city of my birth, Budapest, from 1966 or 67.

You see, back then, more than half a century ago, they were able to maintain nearly uninterrupted streetcar service at a major Budapest intersection, even if it took laying down temporary tracks as a new underground pedestrian passageway was constructed and in the process, a lot of the old infrastructure (water mains, sewage) was also replaced.

Why is it that maintaining uninterrupted service in 2021 in a G7 capital city is suddenly harder than rocket science?

A long forgotten birthday

Personal No Responses »

Nov 202021

I kept staring at my calendar.

November 20. November 20. Why is this date memorable?

Then it suddenly popped into my mind. My father was born exactly 115 years ago, on November 20, 1906, in what was then Austria-Hungary, in the fine city of Temesvár, today known by its Romanian name as Timișoara.

He passed away in the fall of 1985, not long before I left Hungary.

Another friend gone

Personal No Responses »

Nov 142021

I am sure everybody had people like my friend Ken in their lives: People who, often by pure chance, played a major role in shaping our lives at critical turning points. When I came to Canada in 1987, I met several people who opened doors for me, offered me opportunities when I needed them most, or simply rewarded me with their friendship.

Ken Bowman was one such person. A mid-level manager at Canada Post in 1989, he was running the little project that I joined. I needed the income badly as my previous contract work ended months prior and I was rapidly running out of money. But the project itself was also interesting, challenging even. Oh, and the machines were fabulous: IBM PS/2-70 workstations with very large (by the standards of the time) hard drives, high resolution color monitors, laser printers… Lovely work.

I worked there for about nine months, but the friendships proved lasting. Some time later, Ken joined the company that was set up by a couple of my teammates on this project. He led the business side of one of my favorite development projects, which involved not only a product catalog but also an engineering and load sizing component, with plenty of interesting physics.

Ken’s partner at this company had a long, difficult-to-spell last name. One day, they received personally addressed but otherwise identical pieces of junk mail. The partner’s name was spelled flawlessly. Ken’s? Not so much. The envelope just read “Kenowman”. Needless to say, this earned him the obvious instant nickname: from this point on, he was often called Obi wan Kenowman, or just Obi wan for short. He loved it.

Even after he retired, we stayed in touch. Whether it was the politics of the day, a reaction to one of my silly blog posts, or just a picture of his beautiful cat Cimarron, I received missives from him occasionally, mostly in the form of lengthy text messages. And before the pandemic changed the world, we also met from time to time. Seeing him in person, I was actually worried about his health: he lost a great deal of weight, more than what I’d consider healthy.

Ken with one of his grandsons, two elegant gentlemen in happier times.
Photo courtesy Hollis Bowman.

Sadly, it appears that my concerns were not unfounded. One morning a few days ago I received an e-mail from Ken’s daughter Hollis that her Dad was now in palliative care. And before I could even respond, a second e-mail arrived: her Dad passed away.

And just like that, another friend is gone. If I am counting it right, Ken is the fifth person who played an oversize role in shaping the first couple of years of my life here in Canada. Inevitably it makes me wonder, who’s next? (Let that be a plea to my remaining friends: please stay healthy and take good care of yourselves!)

For now, though, Ken, I’ll miss hearing your voice on the phone from time to time. I’ll miss getting text messages from you about the state of the world. I’ll miss pictures from you about your beautiful cat.

I’ll miss you. Thank you for having been a part of my life.

James Bond in Hungarian

Film, Personal No Responses »

Nov 122021

In 1973, my Mom and I visited my aunt here in Ottawa. It was a remarkable journey for 10-year old me. The differences between Hungary, then firmly behind the former Iron Curtain, and Canada were… astonishing. (Let’s just say that this experience firmly inoculated me against any communist claims about building a better society.) The trip was equally impactful on my Mom, though of course she experienced it quite differently as an adult.

At the time, my Mom spoke very little English. So when my aunt and her husband decided to take her to a movie theatre to see the latest James Bond movie, the first one with Roger Moore in the title role, they assured her that they will provide a running translation.

Then the film began and they quickly found out that translation was not necessary after all. At least insofar as these opening shots were concerned.

To this day, we cannot stop laughing when we think back of this moment.

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