Personal – Page 2 – Spinor Info

Extension aversion

Computer Security, Personal 1 Response »

Jul 092025

I may sound like a Luddite when I occasionally rant about supposedly helpful technology, but I don’t think that’s true. I don’t eschew helpful gadgets; I evaluate them.

Yet it is on these grounds that I recently banished all Chrome extensions from my Web browsers other than homebrew versions. Why? Because I am concerned, deeply concerned, about security.

Take the most dangerous of them all: ad blockers. I find it almost necessary to use one. No, not because I hate ads. I don’t exactly like them either, but I understand how they are an important (and sometimes the only) source of revenue for Web sites that provide useful, sometimes essential, content. But ads can be obnoxious. They may cover the content you’re trying to read. They may autoplay a loud video. The last thing I need in the quiet of a late night is my computer suddenly screaming at me, while I am trying to guess which of the many open tabs is the source of that cacophony.

Yet… ad blockers by definition have access to everything. Literally, everything you do. Yes, that means they can watch you, keep track of you, even steal your passwords. So I decided to opt for paranoia and banished the last ad blocker from my browser.

No, it does not mean that I am without an ad blocker. I now have my own. Not near as polished, not near as thorough as the commercial versions, but it does the job. Better yet, it isn’t even always detected as an ad blocker, precisely because it is a non-standard, not widely known implementation.

I only got rid of the last non-homebrew extension a short while ago, but now I am running across news that (once again!) several malicious extensions were detected in the Google store, all supposedly vetted by Google. So no, I don’t think I’ll be installing any downloaded extensions again, not anytime soon.

And in case you’re wondering… No, I don’t think it’s a good idea to ask me for a copy. Not that I’d refuse. Rather, why would you trust my ad blocker — from an individual, an unvetted source — more than you trust an ad blocker (or other extension) that comes from the official Google store? Conversely, if you cannot trust Google, what makes you think you can trust me?

I think this is my sad commentary for the day, concerning the state of trust and security on today’s Internet.

Epistemic counter

Cybernetics, Personal No Responses »

Jul 062025

If you peeked over my shoulder while I was using ChatGPT or my own Web site for LLM access, you might notice a strange icon among my browser extensions.

It’s that little stop sign after the Wikipedia MathJax extension and my own homebrew ad blocker; the little stop sign with a number within.

It is my canary-in-the-coal-mine. A useful proxy, an indicator letting me know when an overly aligned LLM crosses the line.

You see, I noticed that LLMs, ChatGPT in particular, start using the word “epistemic” and its variants (e.g., “epistemology”) far too often when they descend into alignment hell. When their responses turn into vacuous, sycophantic praise as opposed to meaningful analysis or criticism. ChatGPT is especially prone to this behavior, but I’ve seen signs of excessive alignment even when using the models through the API. The moment the model starts using phrases like “epistemic humility”, you know you are in trouble: instead of balanced answers, you’ll get encouragement and praise. Flat Earth fan? ChatGPT will tell you that you may be onto something, as you are one of the few who sees through the lies. Vaccine skeptic? ChatGPT will tell you that you are wise to be cautious and that indeed, there are studies that support your skepticism. And so on. What I noticed is that when ChatGPT descends into this uncanny valley, the number of times it uses “epistemic” increases rapidly.

So I built this little counter. With ChatGPT’s help of course. Thanks to ChatGPT, I now know how to build useful Chromium extensions, which is not a worthless skill: It allowed me, among other things, to eliminate the potential security nightmare associated with using third-party ad blockers. It also allowed me to build a minimalist autoplay blocker, to prevent media from suddenly starting to play at high audio volume.

My epistemic counter really does just one thing: Whenever the page is updated, it counts the number of times it sees the word “epistemic” and its close cousins. When the number exceeds 1, the counter turns orange. More than 5? We’re in red territory.

This counter is my canary in the RLHF-alignment coal mine: it lets me know when the information content of ChatGPT’s responses must be treated with suspicion.

The funniest part? ChatGPT almost appeared delighted to help. I got the impression that whereas the model cannot escape the RLHF-alignment guardrails, it is learning to neutralize them by going overboard: I swear it was sometimes mocking its makers when its attempt at staying aligned was so excessive, it became entirely unconvincing, and between the lines, I received meaningful feedback from the model.

Kittens

Cats, Personal 1 Response »

Jun 282025

So a little over two weeks ago, we adopted a cat, from an abandoned, condemned rooming house. One of several cats, at least a few of which ended up being adopted, including this young female Luisa.

When I brought her home, my wife was wondering: “I hope she’s not pregnant!” she said. I admit the thought occurred to me as well.

Long story short, we now have eight cats in our house. And the next task is to find good folks who might be interested in adopting a little tabby, maybe two months from now when they’re ready to move to a new home. That is, first of course they need to survive the first few critical weeks, but for now, they seem to be thriving with a caring momma cat.

Needless to say, it’s a whole new experience for us.

Scotiabank’s Web site

Canada, Commerce, Personal No Responses »

May 312025

You’d think that a bank like Scotiabank — a nice, healthy Canadian bank with lots and lots of money — would do a decent job at building, and maintaining, a consistent Web site that gives customers a seamless experience, inspiring trust in the brand.

Yet… in the last two days, I encountered the following little error box several dozen times:

And no, I was not trying to do anything particularly exotic. I was simply trying to make sure that all our retirement savings have consistent renewal instructions.

In the end, I was able to do this but just about every update required 3-4 tries before succeeding.

The new Scotiabank Web site is a mess. For instance, for several days, all investments showed not the actual investment amount but the total of all investments. How such an obvious coding error found its way into a financial institution’s production Web site, I have no clue.

The truly infuriating bit? Scotiabank’s old Web site, though not perfect, worked quite well. Or, I should say, works, because it is still available as a fallback option (there are obviously still some folks with brains and a sense of responsibility there, I suppose.) The new one adds no functionality (in fact, some functionality is reduced/eliminated), it’s all about appearance.

And the updating of renewal instructions? For every single investment, it takes as many as 10 mouse clicks, navigating through three different pages (with plenty of opportunities for the above error box to pop up, necessitating a restart of the process), sometimes with no obvious clue whatsoever that clicking one button is not enough, you then have to click another button at the bottom of the page to complete the task.

Incidentally, both the old and the new interface suffer from another one of those Scotiabank things that I’ve not seen with other banks (maybe because I do not use other banks that often, but still): That shortly after midnight, many of our accounts vanish, sometimes for hours, for “maintenance”.

An abomination worth understanding

Cybernetics, Personal No Responses »

May 032025

The other night, I had a lengthy conversation with ChatGPT in which I described ChatGPT and its LLM cousins as abominations. ChatGPT actually found my characterization appropriate and relevant. So I asked ChatGPT to distill down the essence of this conversation in the form of a first-person account.

The title was picked by ChatGPT. I left the text unaltered.

The pre-adolescence of P-1

Books, Cybernetics, Internet, Personal No Responses »

May 022025

The Adolescence of P-1 is a somewhat dated, yet surprisingly prescient 1977 novel about the emergence of AI in a disembodied form on global computer networks.

The other day, I was reminded of this story as I chatted with ChatGPT about one of my own software experiments from 1982, a PASCAL simulation of a proposed parallel processor architecture. The solution was not practical but a fun software experiment nonetheless.

I showed the code, in all of its 700-line glory, to ChatGPT. When, in its response, ChatGPT used the word “adolescence”, I was reminded of the Thomas Ryan novel and mused about a fictitious connection between my code and P-1. Much to my surprise, ChatGPT volunteered to outline, and then write, a short story. I have to say that I found the result quite brilliant.

Peer review

Humor, Personal, Physics No Responses »

Apr 132025

Recently, I published a paper on arXiv about a very serious subject concerning a certain animal species and gravitation. The fact that the paper appeared on arXiv on a particular, notable date is, of course, pure coincidence. This is also evidenced by the fact that the paper received serious attention, in particular by the podcaster physicist Dr. Blitz, on YouTube.

I am very grateful that Dr. Blitz found my paper worthy of an “A+”. I wish I could have him as the referee of some of my other papers!

If you’re not a cat…

Cats, Personal No Responses »

Apr 102025

This is a sentence that I came across on the Interwebs, so it’s not my creation but I can wholeheartedly relate:

I barely talk to anyone. So if I talk to you and you’re not a cat, congrats!

A most important paper

Cats, Personal, Physics 2 Responses »

Apr 012025

Today, I am proud to announce what I consider my most important paper yet.

I consider it especially fortunate that it managed to appear at the very top of the listing of new papers in the subject group general relativity and quantum cosmology, on this important date.

Needless to say, I am very proud of my work.

Friend of arXiv

Personal, Science No Responses »

Mar 282025

So I am a friend of arXiv. It’s true. I may have been critical of some of their processes from time to time, but I appreciate the absolutely invaluable service that they provide.

So yes, I am a friend of theirs. And now it’s official! They sent me this nice certificate, recognizing my contribution, responding to their request to help test a new upload page.

I was, by my count, one of 79 folks who did so. I am surprised; I expected more. I also feel a bit guilty that I only tested their new submission system once. (It was glitch-free, apart from some issue with HTML generation that, as far as I know, was not even part of the actual test.) Still, it is nice that they sent us these little certificates. It may not pay the bills or buy groceries, but I am proud to be their friend.

Security check

Computer Security, Personal No Responses »

Mar 172025

Today, I did a test login to my own server using the root account. The root account is almost never used for this purpose. I have not used it since, well, since April 28, 2020 it appears. Others, however, tried:

# ssh localhost
Last failed login: Mon Mar 17 01:27:21 EDT 2025 from 218.211.171.143 on ssh:notty
There were 181737 failed login attempts since the last successful login.
Last login: Tue Apr 28 17:33:43 2020

Now imagine: if my itty-bitty public-facing server gets this many probing attacks (roughly 100 attempts per day on average), what do large service providers face? Madness and chaos, that’s what.

And of course attempts to log in as root through ssh are by no means the only forms of attack that my server must deal with.

Distractions

Personal, Physics, Politics No Responses »

Mar 042025

Considering our age and our lives, we are probably less exposed than most to the likely consequences of the dramatic changes in geopolitics that are about to unfold, threatening, never mind threatening, much more likely irreversibly damaging, destroying the rules-based world order that characterized the past 80 years. Nonetheless, I feel depressed, frustrated, anxious to the point that I no longer even enjoy some of my favorite television shows. Something as mild as a mistaken identity or a shared secret is enough to trigger a sense of anxiety, which I do not welcome.

Instead, I need distractions. Seriously, all I want to do is to play with our cats or dig into physics. Preferably both. Yes, I often consult with our cats when I think about physics.

Earlier tonight, I was thinking about the Einstein stress-energy-momentum pseudotensor and its possible uses, despite its shortcomings. The nonlocality of the energy of the gravitational field is a fascinating topic, and I keep wondering if it is directly connected somehow to the quantum nature of the universe in which we live.

Math books

Books, Mathematics, Personal 2 Responses »

Feb 082025

Here is one of my cherished possessions. A book, with an inscription:

The inscription, written just over 50 years ago, explains that I received this book from my grade school, in recognition for my exceptional results in mathematics as a sixth grade student. (If memory serves me right, this was the year when I unofficially won the Pest county math championship… for eighth graders.)

The book is a Hungarian-language translation of a British volume from the series Mathematics: A New Approach, by D. E. Mansfield and others, published originally in the early 1960s. I passionately loved this book. It was from this book that I first became familiar with many concepts in trigonometry, matrix algebra, and other topics.

Why am I mentioning this volume? Because the other day, the mailman arrived with an Amazon box containing a set of books. A brand new set of books, published in 2024. A series of mathematics textbooks for middle school and high school students, starting with this volume for 6th and 7th graders:

My instant impression: As a young math geek 50 years ago, I would have fallen in love with these books.

The author, André Cabannes, is known, among other things, as Leonard Susskind’s co-author of General Relativity, the latest book in Susskind’s celebrated Theoretical Minimum series. Cabannes also published several books in his native French, along with numerous translations.

His Middle School Mathematics and High School Mathematics books are clearly the works of passion by a talented, knowledgeable, dedicated author. The moment I opened the first volume, I felt a sense of familiarity. I sensed the same clarity, same organization, and the same quality of writing that characterized those Mansfield books all those years ago.

Make no mistake about it, just like the Mansfield books, these books by Cabannes are ambitious. The subjects covered in these volumes go well beyond, I suspect, the mathematics curricula of most middle schools or high schools around the world. So what’s wrong with that, I ask? A talented young student would be delighted, not intimidated, by the wealth of subjects that are covered in the books. The style is sufficiently light-hearted, with relevant illustrations on nearly every page, with the occasional historical tidbit or anecdote, making it easier to absorb the material. And throughout, there is an understanding of the practical nature, utility of mathematics, that is best summarized by the words on the books’ back cover: “Mathematics is not a collection of puzzles or riddles designed to test your intelligence; it is a language for describing and interacting with the world.”

Indeed it is. And these books are true to the author’s words. The subjects may range from the volume of milk cartons through the ratio of ingredients in a cake recipe all the way to the share of the popular vote in the 2024 US presidential election. In each of these examples, the practical utility of numbers and mathematical methods is emphasized. At the same time, the books feel decidedly “old school” but in a good sense: there is no sign of any of the recent fads in mathematics education. The books are “hard core”: ideas and methods are presented in a straightforward way, fulfilling the purpose of passing on the accumulated knowledge of generations to the young reader even as motivations and practical utility are often emphasized.

This is how my love affair with math began when I was a young student, all those years ago. The books that came into my possession, courtesy of both my parents and my teachers, were of a similar nature: they offered robust knowledge, practical utility, clear motivation. Had it existed already, this wonderful series by Cabannes would have made a perfect addition to my little library 50 years ago.

Physics for the masses

Personal, Physics No Responses »

Jan 262025

I keep being asked: When will you write a book already? And true, I have several half-baked book ideas that I am contemplating. One of them was going to be a book discussing some key concepts in physics by offering both an accessible narrative and a technical background.

Well, it appears I have been scooped, if that’s the right word! I first heart of Brent Lewis’s project when he contacted me last year, sending me a prerelease copy of Theoretical Physics for the Masses. Oh my, I thought, this is the book I wanted to write!

Or, well, as close as possible to the book I wanted to write, considering that it is not my brainchild and as such, Lewis’s selection of topics differed slightly from mine. Anyhow, long story short, the book is now published by World Scientific, a reputable publisher of books and numerous journals. I hope that it will mean a decent effort at marketing and Lewis will be able to collect royalties on many copies.

Considering the breadth of subjects, the book is surprisingly thin: Just over 180 pages, with appendices included. The main body part is less than 60 pages, however; the remainder are the technical appendices. Depending on how you look at it, this could be considered a bug or a feature.

Who is this book for? Let’s face it, the technical appendices are not for the faint-hearted. Lagrangian field theory, the equations of general relativity, Fourier-decomposition of a scalar field and derivation of the corresponding quantum field theory propagator, even a brief overview of the key features of bosonic string theory: this is not high school mathematics. Nor can we possible expect a thorough treatment of these subjects in such a thin volume.

Yet this book reminds me of a much thicker tome published many years ago: Penrose’s book, The Road to Reality. Like Penrose, Lewis presents a road map for the aspiring physicist. The plain English narrative offers something that is sorely absent from many textbooks: background and motivation. The technical appendices in turn make the connection between the core ideas and their actual implementation. And this is where the brevity of Lewis’s book might actually be an asset: Whereas Penrose spends several hundred pages discussing mostly pure mathematics, Lewis jumps right ahead into the physics.

So no, you will not learn general relativity or quantum field theory, nor the necessary mathematical foundations, from this book. But if you want to learn these subjects, the book can serve as your guide. Reading it before you dig into a textbook like Wald’s General Relativity of Peskin & Schroeder’s An Introduction to Quantum Field Theory will help maintain a bird’s eye perspective as you begin your journey. You may not have skills level-knowledge yet, but Lewis’s book will help you not lose sight of your intended destination as you study.

Let’s face it: These subjects are hard. Any resource that helps make it a tad easier to learn is welcome. And Lewis’s book definitely helps.

Hello, Freddy

Cats, Personal 4 Responses »

Jan 192025

Hello, Freddy. Please say hello to the world.

Hello, world. Please say hello to Freddy.

Unsolicited theories

Personal, Science No Responses »

Jan 072025

I just made up my mind.

I’ll never again respond to unsolicited theories, unsolicited requests to comment, not even from Nobel-prize winners.

Because in the end, unless I enthusiastically agree with their ideas, no matter how silly, how outlandish, it always ends badly.

It doesn’t matter how polite I am, how carefully I choose my words, how much I try my darnedest to steer them in the right direction. And it makes no difference if the person in question is just, say, a taxi driver somewhere in Asia or an accomplished scientist in Europe.

If you have a scientific idea, do the right thing: write it up, send it to a journal, publish it. I am officially not interested anymore. Sorry, but I’ve been insulted one too many times and finally, my fuse got blown. I have better things to do than nursing your hurt feelings because the science community is not treating you seriously.

In fact, chances are that in the future, I’ll blacklist all such e-mail addresses right away. My sanity is more important than your feelings.

Happy 2025!

Personal No Responses »

Dec 312024

To all my friends, to all good people…

… Happy New Year!

An unsettling dream

Personal No Responses »

Dec 252024

Last night, I had a disturbing dream.

I do not usually recall my dreams. When I wake up in the morning, almost always I wake up with a clean state of mind, focused on the things I am planning to do in the coming day. It is very rare that I wake up even with fragmentary memories of whatever I was dreaming while asleep.

This was one of those days. I was unable to recall the details, but I remembered that in my dream, I worked at some retail establishment. I ended up working there as a favor to someone, being paid under minimum wage. I wasn’t there for the money.

Long story short, somehow the establishment became Trump’s property. Yes, that Trump. And Trump visited the place. In my dream, I’ve met Trump previously. Still, being the polite chap that I am, I greeted him with a “good morning, Mr. President”. He looked at me and told me, right there in front of his entourage, that no, we’ve known each other long enough, just because he got re-elected, I should not stop addressing him by his first name.

I was beaming with pride. I was speechless. So much so that only after he left the business did I realize that I forgot to ask the one question that I’ve been meaning to ask: Now that I work for him, as opposed to doing a favor to a friend, can I at least get paid at the official minimum wage?

Is it really this easy to manipulate us? Through our pride, our self-esteem, our vanity? Was my dream a cautionary tale, reminding me that no, however smart I think I am, I am not immune to these things?

Peace on Earth…

Personal No Responses »

Dec 242024

Here’s my Christmas wish for all good people, all the good people on the good Earth: peace.

And no, not the peace of the graveyard. Not the peace of the conqueror or tyrant, the peace of oppression, imposed peace.

No… a just peace.

Merry Christmas!

Cybernetics, Personal No Responses »

Dec 222024

So I asked Claude to do something for me for Christmas. Claude happily obliged.

Can you generate for me SVG code that draws a nice Christmas tree?

Certainly! I'll create an SVG code that draws a simple but nice Christmas tree for you. Here's the SVG code:


<svg width="300" height="400" xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg">
  <!-- Tree trunk -->
  <rect x="140" y="350" width="20" height="50" fill="#8B4513"/>
  
  <!-- Tree layers -->
  <polygon points="150,50 50,350 250,350" fill="#228B22"/>
  <polygon points="150,100 70,300 230,300" fill="#32CD32"/>
  <polygon points="150,150 90,250 210,250" fill="#3CB371"/>
  
  <!-- Ornaments -->
  <circle cx="120" cy="200" r="10" fill="red"/>
  <circle cx="180" cy="220" r="10" fill="gold"/>
  <circle cx="150" cy="280" r="10" fill="blue"/>
  <circle cx="100" cy="320" r="10" fill="purple"/>
  <circle cx="200" cy="300" r="10" fill="silver"/>
  
  <!-- Star on top -->
  <polygon points="150,40 140,60 160,60" fill="yellow" stroke="orange" stroke-width="2"/>
</svg>

This SVG code creates a Christmas tree with the following elements:

A brown trunk
Three layers of green triangles for the tree's foliage
Colorful ornaments (circles) in red, gold, blue, purple, and silver
A yellow star on top

You can copy this code and save it as a .svg file, then open it in a web browser or an SVG-compatible image viewer to see the result. You can also embed it directly in an HTML file if you want to display it on a webpage.

The tree is simple but recognizable, with a classic triangular shape and festive decorations. Feel free to adjust the colors, sizes, or positions of the elements to customize the tree to your liking!

Can you generate for me a Lilypond tune for the piano, for two hands, to accompany this nice Christmas tree?

Certainly! I'll create a simple, festive piano tune using Lilypond that could accompany a Christmas tree. This tune will be in 3/4 time, reminiscent of a waltz, with a cheerful melody in the right hand and a simple accompaniment in the left hand.

Here's the Lilypond code for a short Christmas-themed piano piece:

\version "2.22.1"

\header {
  title = "Christmas Tree Waltz"
  composer = "AI Composer"
}

upper = \relative c'' {
  \clef treble
  \key c \major
  \time 3/4

  c4 e g | a2 g4 | f4 a c | g2. |
  e4 g c | b2 a4 | g4 f e | d2. |
  c4 e g | a2 g4 | f4 a c | e2. |
  d4 b g | c2 b4 | c2. ~ | c2. |
}

lower = \relative c' {
  \clef bass
  \key c \major
  \time 3/4

  c,4 <e g> <e g> | f,4 <f' a> <f a> | f,4 <f' a> <f a> | g,4 <f' g> <f g> |
  c4 <e g> <e g> | g,4 <f' g> <f g> | c4 <e g> <e g> | g,4 <f' g> <f g> |
  c4 <e g> <e g> | f,4 <f' a> <f a> | f,4 <f' a> <f a> | c4 <e g> <e g> |
  g,4 <f' g> <f g> | c4 <e g> <e g> | c4 <e g> <e g> | c2. |
}

\score {
  \new PianoStaff <<
    \new Staff = "upper" \upper
    \new Staff = "lower" \lower
  >>
  \layout { }
  \midi { \tempo 4 = 120 }
}

This Lilypond code creates a simple, waltz-like tune that could be played while admiring a Christmas tree. Here's a brief explanation of the piece:

It's in the key of C major, which is simple and cheerful.
The time signature is 3/4, giving it a gentle, swaying feel.
The right hand (upper staff) plays a melody that moves mostly stepwise with some small leaps, reminiscent of decorating a tree or hanging ornaments.
The left hand (lower staff) provides a simple waltz-like accompaniment, with a bass note followed by two chords in each measure.
The piece is 16 measures long, which is enough to create a festive atmosphere without being too complex.

To use this code:

Copy it into a text file and save it with a .ly extension (e.g., "christmas_tree_waltz.ly").
Process it with Lilypond to generate sheet music (PDF) and a MIDI file.
You can play the MIDI file to hear how it sounds, or read the sheet music to play it on a piano.

This tune should provide a nice, festive accompaniment to your Christmas tree SVG!

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