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/.

China’s answer to Grace Hopper: Xia Peisu, who “built modern China”

Computers, History No Responses »

Feb 262020

The United States had Grace Hopper: A diminutive, elderly lady with a stern look on her face, uncannily wearing a rear admiral’s dress uniform as the oldest active-duty commissioned officer in the United States Navy, even as she earned the nickname Grandma COBOL, for her role in the development of one of the oldest computer programming languages still in use today.

But there was another female computer scientist with a career just as defining and just as fascinating as that of Rear Admiral Hopper: Xia Peisu, sometimes known as China’s mother of computer science.

Xia Peisu in 1946

I learned about Xia Peisu just now, from a BBC News online article. What an amazing life! I am especially fascinated by Chinese scientists and engineers who never gave up, who continued to work for the benefit of their country even through the indignities of the Cultural Revolution and other political upheavals.

Dr. Xia lived a long life: she passed away in 2014, at the age of 91. She lived to see the modern, interconnected world with computers everywhere. She also lived to see computers as means of oppression and surveillance in the hands of police and totalitarian regimes, China among them. I would have loved to know what she thought of it all.

A difficult paper

Astronomy, Personal, Physics No Responses »

Feb 172020

Our most comprehensive paper yet on the Solar Gravitational Lens is now online.

This was a difficult paper to write, but I think that, in the end, it was well worth the effort.

We are still investigating the spherical Sun (the gravitational field of the real Sun deviates ever so slightly from spherical symmetry, and that can, or rather it will, have measurable effects) and we are still considering a stationary target (as opposed to a planet with changing illumination and surface features) but in this paper, we now cover the entire image formation process, including models of what a telescope sees in the SGL’s focal region, how such observations can be stitched together to form an image, and how that image compares against the inevitable noise due to the low photon count and the bright solar corona.

Banana republic

Politics No Responses »

Feb 042020

Before heading to bed, I briefly turned on CNN, to listen to a few minutes of the coverage of the Iowa caucus fiasco.

In light of what I am hearing, I only have one question: Exactly when did the great United States turn into an incompetent banana republic?

Hmmm, actually, I also have a second question. Is this how the Democratic Party planning to beat Donald Trump in November?

Epidemic

Health, Media, Politics No Responses »

Jan 242020

A terrible sickness is upon us.

As of mid-January, just in the great United States 13 to 18 million people have been inflicted. Nearly 6 million required medical visits, and some 120,000 have been hospitalized. Worse yet, though the numbers are uncertain, somewhere between 6,600 and 17,000 people died. And that’s nearly two week old data; since then, I am sure there have been more victims.

Oh, you thought I was talking about the coronavirus outbreak that leads the evening newscast?

No. I am talking about the flu. Specifically, the 2019-2020 flu season, with data from the Centers for Disease Control.

As for the coronavirus, there have been a grand total of two confirmed cases so far in the US. None in Canada.

And that sums up the problem that I see with how we are being informed nowadays. Things that are exceptional and sensational lead newscasts. Things that are mundane are left forgotten, even when they are orders of magnitude more likely to affect you.

That is not to say that I disregard the threat that the coronavirus represents, or that I blindly criticize the response of authorities (in China and elsewhere) who are trying to contain a virus before it becomes more widespread. But keeping things in perspective is important.

Cat trouble

Cats, Personal No Responses »

Jan 132020

We have had at least one cat in the house for nearly 24 years. More than one, for nearly 20 years.

Never before did I have a problem with cats and wires. And believe you me, I have plenty of wires in this house, especially in my study.

A few days ago, our cat Freddy overnight decided to attack my wired earbuds that I use with my desktop computer for Skype. He completely chewed through the (thin, rubbery, and I guess tasty) wire in several places, and eventually left the scene with his “trophy”, the separated earbuds.

Needless to say, I was not amused.

And then two days ago, while I was sitting on the porcelain throne in the little programmers’ room, I suddenly heard a loud noise from my study. A few seconds later, I heard my wife cry out in anguish: “Your mouse!”

Yup. The poor mouse, completely separated from its plug, was by then hanging from Freddy’s mouth as he was proudly exiting the scene.

Was I ever pissed. Before I even got downstairs, my wife locked Freddy in the downstairs powder room. I went there with the remnants of the mouse and impressed upon him just how angry I was. No, don’t worry, I did not harm Freddy. I would rather poke my eyes out first. I love the little guy dearly, but even if I didn’t, I do not harm living creatures. Darnit, I feel bad swatting fruit flies. I would most certainly not hurt a cat. But yell at him? Oh yes. Throwing the remnants of the mouse wire at him? Yes. Smashing the mouse in front of him showing just how upset I was? Absolutely.

When I left him in the sink with the remnants of the mouse, I think he knew. When I let him out of the powder room some time later, he was not afraid of me (much to my relief) but he remained very subdued. And when I was finally talking to him again the next day, he seemed relieved.

Will he stop chewing wires? I hope so. I am now liberally applying cat repellent to the wires on and under my desk and also around my servers. We are also giving Freddy snacks rich in fiber; cats supposedly don’t need fiber, but sometimes they do. And we will visit the vet soon for a checkup, just to be on the safe side.

Silly cat. What kind of a cat steals a mous… Oh wait.

Uncanny coincidence

Culture, History, Politics No Responses »

Jan 052020

Back in 1944, Astounding Science Fiction magazine published a short story, Deadline by Cleve Cartmill, about a devastating war on an alien planet, and the development of a uranium fission bomb. The details of the bomb were sketchy, but at least a few of the details provided (about isotope separation, about the concern that a fission explosion might “ignite” nearby matter and cause global devastation) were sufficiently accurate to earn the magazine a visit by the FBI.

Something similarly uncanny happened three days ago, when the New York Times published an opinion piece by a former Obama aid about hypersonic missiles. The article included, among other things, the following paragraph: “What if the former commander of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards, Qassim Suleimani, visits Baghdad for a meeting and you know the address? The temptations to use hypersonic missiles will be many.”

Hours later, Suleimani was killed at Baghdad airport (although not by a hypersonic missile, just an ordinary drone strike.)

I doubt Mr. Trump was acting on the advice of a former Obama aid, so almost certainly, this was pure coincidence. But that is just uncanny.

The consequences of the Suleimani attack, unfortunately, are another matter. One has to wonder if there was any real thinking, any real strategy. Even Fox’s Tucker Carlson chose to question the wisdom of this act, blasting the hawks who may have been responsible for talking Trump into taking this reckless step.

The attack was a godsend to the ayatollahs. It offers them the best possible way out of an wave of protests unprecedented in the history of the Islamic Republic. It finally prompted Iraq’s parliament to vote in favor of the removal of remaining US troops. And it gave Iran an excuse to completely abandon the nuclear deal.

No, I don’t think the ayatollahs will escalate. They don’t have to. The threat of imminent war is always a more effective means to control the population than actual war. And facing an incompetent imbecile, they can just bide their time, while Trump loses whatever goodwill remains among America’s allies towards his administration by threatening Iranian cultural sites in retaliation.

The roaring twenties

Canada, Environment, History, Personal, Politics, Pop culture No Responses »

Jan 012020

A year ago today, I was looking forward to 2019 with skepticism. I expressed concern about a number of things. Not everything unfolded according to my expectations, and that’s good news. What can I say, I hope 2020 will continue the trend of defying pessimistic predictions.

The political crisis in the United States continues to simmer with Trump’s impeachment, but it remains less dramatic than I feared;
NATO and the EU remain intact for now, though unresolved issues remain;
An orderly Brexit is now possible with Johnson’s election victory; I still think the Brits are shooting themselves in the foot with this idiocy, but an orderly Brexit may be the best possible outcome at this point;
Sliding towards authoritarianism in places like Hungary and Poland remains a grave concern, but there is also pushback;
Russia continues to muck up things in untoward ways, but there was no significant (e.g., military) escalation;
China is ramping up its campaign against the Uyghurs with an ever widening system of concentration camps but there was no significant escalation with respect to their neighbors;
Japan, sadly, resumed whaling, but so far I believe the impact is minimal;
Brazil continues to wreak havoc in the rain forest, but there is pushback here as well;
Lastly, Canada did have elections, but populism was crushed (for now at least) with the defeat of Maxime Bernier’s People’s Party.

And now here we are, entering the roaring twenties! A decade that will bring things like Prohibition and organized crime in the United States, institutionalized antisemitism in Hungary, the rise of fascism in Italy, the Great Depression… no, wait, that was a century ago. Here’s to hoping that humanity got a little wiser in the past 100 years.

Speaking of that century, my wife’s Mom and mine can now both tell us that they lived in every decade of a century, having been born in the 30’s and now living in the 20’s.

Peace on Earth

Personal No Responses »

Dec 242019

I simply cannot think of more appropriate words to offer this time of the year than the words uttered by the crew of Apollo 8 on December 24, 1968 as they re-emerged from behind the Moon where, for the very first time in human history, these three human beings were briefly cut off from all the rest of humanity:

“And from the crew of Apollo 8, we close with good night, good luck, a Merry Christmas – and God bless all of you, all of you on the good Earth.“

A sad day for Star Trek

Television No Responses »

Dec 082019

I just visited Twitter.

This is Deanna Troi from Star Trek: The Next Generation, played by Marina Sirtis.

Deanna Troi was not my favorite character, but I always respected Marina Sirtis. So I was very sad to see the death of her husband, Michael Lamper, announced on Sirtis’s Twitter account. They have been married as long as my wife and I.

And then this is Odo from Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, played by René Auberjonois.

According to his Twitter account, René Auberjonois passed away today, at the age of 79.

As I said, a sad day.

The first Ottawa LRT

Hungary, Local Ottawa, Transportation No Responses »

Nov 302019

Not a day goes by in Ottawa this autumn without news of yet another service interruption with our brand new light rail transport system.

You’d think that reliably operating an urban rail network is not exactly high science in 2019; especially considering that 60 years earlier, this town had an extensive network of streetcars, which operated reliably for 68 years.

Sadly, that network fell victim to the myopic urban planning trends of the postwar years, which also saw streetcar networks destroyed, or at the very least, severely diminished, as in the case of my city of birth, Budapest, where, for instance, a once popular streetcar line was replaced by an overpass carrying vehicular traffic to an already congested downtown core.

And now we have an LRT that is made unreliable, in part, by a risk-averse culture in which an entire urban transportation system is shut down because of a single door’s failure to close properly.

Red sky, green sky, blue sky and the post-truth world

Politics No Responses »

Nov 172019

The other day, I used an analogy to describe the likely result of trying to understand a scientifically or technologically complex issue from the media, from political pundits.

Imagine you lived your entire life in a windowless room, but you heard that outside your room, there is this thing called the sky, and it has a color. But you hear conflicting opinions. One side insists that the sky is red, absolutely red, has never been anything other than red, redder than a boiled lobster’s arse as a matter of fact. The other side tells you that the sky is, and has always been, green and anyone who ever said that it was red is a liar, a cheat, committing a crime against humanity.

So by carefully considering both sides, cautiously and meticulously balancing the conflicting views, you finally arrive at the conclusion that the color of the sky is… What exactly?

Chances are that you will never guess its true color.

But wait, it gets even worse. In real-life debates, it is not always red-sky vs. green-sky. Sometimes it is red-sky vs. blue-sky. That is to say that at least some of the time, one side will, in fact, be representing the truth (or at least a reasonable facsimile of the truth.) By giving both sides a balanced opportunity to convince you, then, you are in fact farther from the truth than you would be if you had simply picked the right side in the first place. But how would you know which side is right?

In the end, you’d have to make an actual observation or read the scientific or technical literature, instead of listening to pundits. But this puts you in a difficult situation. Stuck between the red-sky and the green-sky side, you’ll learn what it’s like not to have any friends. But getting stuck in the red-sky vs. blue-sky debate makes it even worse, because now the red-sky folks will see you as just yet another diehard biased blue-sky fan, while the blue-sky folks will think that you are one of them, that you bought into their religion instead of arriving there by way of sound reasoning, and the moment you actually contradict some aspect of their dogma, you will be branded a traitor or worse.

Welcome to the post-truth world.

Undivided Berlin

Cats, History No Responses »

Nov 102019

Last night was the 30th anniversary of the beginning of the demolition of the Berlin Wall.

It was a momentous event. I spent days glued to CNN, watching things unfold and wondering if I was witnessing the beginning of a new world order or prelude to nuclear Armageddon.

Yet here we are, three decades later, alive and kicking, and still no world war in sight (though looking at global politics in the past decade, I cannot say that I am not worried.)

For now, though, here is a nice picture with which to celebrate, courtesy of a Twitter account dedicated to giant military cats.

You will be assimilated – but not by the Borg

Canada, Politics No Responses »

Nov 032019

OK, these days I tend to have mostly liberal political views. Trump gives me the creeps. Though not with great enthusiasm, but I rooted for Trudeau over Scheer. More broadly, I prefer a welcoming, open, tolerant society over one that is isolationist and xenophobic. I prefer a comprehensive social safety net even at the expense of higher taxes. And as a middle-aged white man, I am not the least bit worried that I am being marginalized by women or visible minorities; quite the contrary, my concern is that both women and minorities still often face prejudice and stereotypes, and have to fight uphill battles.

But every once in a while, I run into things that just make me want to root for Trump. As in, “in your face, you clowns”.

Like, when, a license plate that clearly alludes to a Star Trek meme is suddenly banned because some social justice warrior finds it offensive.

A perfectly ordinary English word is now banished from Manitoba license plates because it happened to remind someone of the sad history of aboriginal Canadians.

Yes, it seems that resistance is indeed futile. When SJWs arrive, you will be assimilated. And you will not even be allowed to say so, because the word itself gets banned and you’re only allowed to use words from the list approved by Ministry of Tolerance or whatever.

Darn it, let me present my own, slightly modified version of this license plate, appropriate for this occasion I believe:

Just to make it clear, it is not my intent to make light of the suffering that Canada’s aboriginal population experienced for many generations. The cultural genocide, sexual abuse, forced assimilation, broken up families, broken lives, economic deprivation, not to mention all the things that are still going on, from chronic unemployment and inadequate medical care to the lack of clean drinking water (in a supposedly first world country!)… These are all real tragedies, tangible problems and it is Canada’s shame that they remain largely unsolved in 2019.

But none of these problems will be addressed by this cottage industry of phony outrage over ridiculous things like a dictionary word on a bleeping license plate or the words of a 1940s popular song. If anything, letting people supply their own context and find offense in everything achieves the exact opposite. It cheapens genuine, real concerns and subjects them to ridicule, ultimately harming the very people that these fearless warriors of political correctness are pretending to defend. In reality, of course, that’s not what they are doing. Rather, they are Trump’s counterparts on the opposite end of the political palette: narcissistic poseurs, infantile hypocrites playing the self-aggrandizing role of valiant defenders of the faithful.

Trump letter meme generator

Politics No Responses »

Oct 232019

World, please say hello to my Donald Trump letter generator, which allows you to create and print letters in the style of the free world’s fearless leader’s most recent missive to the Turkish President.

Here is one example. Guess the date is a little off; the meme generator always uses today’s date.

Enjoy!

[All processing is done by your browser. No information is sent to my server.]

Good-bye, Alexei Leonov

History, Space No Responses »

Oct 112019

I just saw the news: Alexei Leonov died.

Leonov was a Soviet cosmonaut. The first man to ever take a spacewalk (which, incidentally, nearly killed him, as did his atmospheric re-entry, which didn’t exactly go as planned either.)

Leonov was also an accomplished artist. Many of his paintings featured space travel. Here is a beautiful picture, from a blog entry by Larry McGlynn, showing Leonov with one of his paintings, in 2004 in Los Angeles.

So Leonov now joins that ever growing list of brave souls from the dawn of the space age who are no longer with us. Rest in peace, Major General Leonov.

Nerd sniping

Humor, Physics No Responses »

Oct 112019

I just came across this XKCD comic.

Though I can happily report that so far, I managed to avoid getting hit by a truck, it is a life situation in which I found myself quite a number of times in my life.

In fact, ever since I’ve seen this comic an hour or so ago, I’ve been wondering about the resistor network. Thankfully, in the era of the Internet and Google, puzzles like this won’t keep you awake at night; well-reasoned solutions are readily available.

Anyhow, just in case anyone wonders, the answer is 4/π − 1/2 ohms.

De Niro’s opinion on Fox News

Politics, Television No Responses »

Sep 302019

One of the few news shows I still watch is Reliable Sources on CNN, a weekly backgrounder on Sundays.

Yesterday, Robert De Niro was interviewed in one segment.

He certainly did not hide his opinion about Fox News. Gave me a good chuckle, too, but then I remembered why he was saying what he was saying and it no longer felt funny at all.

Amazing paintings by Vilhelm Hammershøi

Art No Responses »

Sep 172019

I just came across the name of an artist, a painter, that I never heard before: Vilhelm Hammershøi (1864-1916) of Denmark.

Amazing paintings. Here is one example.

I find the subdued, melancholic atmosphere of his works irresistible. If I had the talent (which I most decidedly lack), this is what I would paint.

Bitcoin fraud

Computer Security, Internet, Personal No Responses »

Sep 162019

Very well, I’ve been had. I lost all my bitcoin savings.

Don’t worry, it was not much. Approximately 0.0113 bitcoins. Just over a hundred US dollars at current exchange rates. And it’s not like I didn’t know from the onset that something fishy was going on. Of course I was not planning to hand over my hundred bucks to a scam artist, but I figured the learning experience was worth the risk. I had no idea how things would play out, except for one thing: I knew I was not going to get richer, but my risk was limited to my meager bitcoin holdings.

Here is how it began. I became acquainted with an Neale H. Spark* on Quora. At first, we exchanged some private messages, in part about some of the answers I wrote. But soon, he started talking about the business he is in, cryptocurrency. He seemed legit: I looked him up. A cryptocurrency expert, member of a listed cryptocurrency company’s advisory board. He asked if I wanted to invest some bitcoins into cloud mining, because supposedly, I can make “8% a day”.

OK, red flags are up. Nobody, and I mean nobody, is paying you 8% daily interest. That this was a scam, of that I had no doubt, but I just couldn’t resist: I had to understand how the scheme worked.

It so happened that I actually had some bitcoins, those 0.0113 BTC, in a bitcoin wallet. So what the heck… let’s play along.

As soon as I agreed to become his victim (not that he called me that, mind you), this Mr. Spark kindly set up a “mining enabled” bitcoin account for me at blockchain.com. He provided me with all necessary details and soon enough, I was able to manage the account. I then transferred my bitcoin holdings from my other wallet to this one.

And within 24 hours, I received about 0.0008 bitcoins. And again, 24, 48, 72 hours later. I was told by Mr. Spark that this money is not completely free money: that there will be a “mining fee”, which sounded odd because how can they charge any fee to my bitcoin account? But you know what, let’s see what happens. Indeed, after about a week of regular, daily payments, four days ago I actually got charged about 0.0008 bitcoins. But the payments continued: after two more payments, my bitcoin holdings were getting close to double my initial investment.

Meanwhile, Mr. Spark called me several times on the phone. It was always a bad connection, suggesting to me that he was using a VoIP phone, but for what it’s worth, his calls came from a California number consistent with his place of residence. He was advising me that I should invest a lot more; that investors who put in a full bitcoin or more (that would be $10,000 US) are doing much better. I told him that I’d think about it. He asked when I might make my decision. I said he’d be the first to know. He did not sound happy.

Indeed, the phone calls stopped and for the past two days, I received no e-mail notification of payments in my bitcoin wallet either. So earlier today, I went to check the wallet, and whoops: all my bitcoins are gone. The wallet has been zeroed out two days ago.

I sent this Mr. Spark a Quora message but I am not expecting a reply. On the other hand, I think I can reconstruct what actually happened, so my bitcoins were, after all, well spent: I did learn some intriguing details.

For starters, I am pretty certain that the Quora account doesn’t actually belong to the real Neale H. Spark. I tried to find information online about Mr. Spark but I was unable to locate a valid e-mail address or social media account. The person is undoubtedly real, mentioned in a 201█ press release by G█████ T███████████ as a newly minted member of their advisory board. But Mr. Spark seems like a rather private person with little visible online presence.

The Quora account was only created about a month ago. It has very low activity.

The aggressive sales tactics seemed odd from a noted expert, and represented another indication of fraud. But how exactly was the fraud committed?

Here is how. It all started when “Mr. Spark” kindly set up that “mining-enabled” Bitcoin wallet for me on blockchain.com. I knew something was not kosher (what exactly is a “mining enabled” account, pray tell?) but in my ignorance of the technical details of cryptocurrency wallets, I could not quite put my finger on it. When I received the account info, everything checked out and I was able to secure the account, restricting transactions with two-factor authentication and even by IP address.

However, unbeknownst to me, “Mr. Spark” must have copied down the blockchain.com wallet backup phrase: twelve words. The company warns me: Anyone with access to my backup phrase can access my funds. What I didn’t know is that the backup phrase can be used anywhere. They need not access the wallet through blockchain.com; with the appropriate cryptocurrency software, they can recreate the wallet and empty it.

Which means that my entire blockchain.com wallet was compromised from the onset. Never mind the steps that I took, setting up two-factor authentication and all… It was never really my wallet to begin with.

The big warning sign was when the crook first processed a “mining fee”. I did not understand the details, but I knew that something was wrong. No third party can take money from your bitcoin wallet, “mining enabled” or otherwise. Yet at the same time, I continued to receive small payments, so I was still waiting for the other shoe to drop.

I guess eventually “Mr. Spark” decided that I am unlikely to invest more into his scheme, but more likely, I was not his only or biggest victim. You don’t set up an elaborate scam like this, with a fake social media account, fake phone number and all to just steal a hundred bucks from someone. (That would be a less effective, and certainly more risky, way of making money than working at minimum wage.)

There is the usual, “if it’s too good to be true” lesson here: Nobody is going to pay you 8% interest a day. OK, I knew that. I also knew that cloud mining is a very risky proposition, the returns are not spectacular and fraud is rampant. I didn’t have to spend a hundred bucks to learn this.

But there is also a valuable technical lesson. I had zero experience with cryptocurrency wallets in the past, and thus I did not realize that anyone setting up the wallet basically has a permanent, irrevocable key to that wallet. And when a sum, however small, goes missing from your bitcoin wallet, it is a guaranteed indicator that the wallet is compromised.

There is also another other thing that I did not realize until today. Namely that the Spark account on Quora is ~~almost certainly~~ a fake, an impersonation. In fact, it was not until I actually asked myself, “how can this chap commit such fraud under his own name?” that I came up instantly with the obvious answer: he didn’t. Rather, a scamster used the name and credentials of a respectable but social media shy expert to set up shop and rip off his victims. That I did not think of this possibility earlier is a consequence of my prejudice. I had very low expectations to begin with, when it comes to people in the speculative cryptocurrency business. So neither the cheap VoIP line nor the pushy behavior raised additional red flags: I was wondering what scam the real Neale Spark was dragging me into, I did not expect to be dealing with an impostor.

*Name altered to protect the privacy and reputation of the person who was impersonated.

Dilbert and the consultant

Computers, Personal, Programming No Responses »

Sep 132019

My favorite cartoons are Kliban’s cats, but the Dilbert comic strips represent a close second.

Today’s Dilbert offers a perfect demonstration why.

I could actually be the consultant that Dilbert’s pointy-haired boss is looking for. Over the years, I learned one very important thing about this business: As a consultant, my job is to offer my best advice to my customer, but then whatever decision they make, it’s theirs to make, not mine. My job is to continue supporting them to the best of my abilities.

In my career, I have seen customers make bad decisions that destroyed their projects. I offered my advice. When it was ignored, I did not take it personally. Neither that nor judging the customer are part of my job description. That is not to say that I do not feel regret, or that I did not often second-guess myself: Could I have offered better advice? Could I have been more convincing? Why was my advice not accepted?

But judging? Nope. That would be rather unprofessional.

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