Lanterns, camera flashes, and premature grumpiness

 Personal  No Responses »
Aug 092009
 

I discovered this last year completely by accident, when I went for a late evening walk… imagine a park, usually dark at night, illuminated by a myriad of faint lanterns hanging from the trees and whatnot. It was a magical experience, made even more so that it was completely unexpected… I did not know about the Lumiere Festival at the time.

This year, I took my wife along. We went a little earlier. Perhaps that was a mistake… perhaps the crowds just got bigger since last year. But crowds are one thing. It’s another thing altogether that just about every second (!), I was blinded by someone’s camera flash. Now I will not go on about the pointless stupidity of using a camera flash when you’re trying to photograph faint lanterns in the dark, as I got past that some forty years ago, at the age of six or thereabouts, when I was watching an ice skating event on television, complete with spectators using camera flashes high up in the seating area, perhaps hundreds of feet away from the competitors they were trying to photograph.

No, it’s the inconsiderateness that bugged me. The blasted flashes made it impossible to enjoy the sights… every time I stared at a faint lantern, trying to discern its shape (and some of them were quite beautiful and elaborate) some idiot flashed his camera in my face. At one point, I could stand it no more, and yelled back at the dark, in the direction of the multicolored swirl that was still on my retina, telling the unseen photographer that he is ruining it for everyone with the stupid flashes. In retrospect, I realize that I sounded just like Victor Meldrew from the British comedy, One Foot in the Grave. So much for the promise I made to myself years ago about not joining the club of grumpy old men prematurely!

 Posted by at 12:33 pm

Russian hackers?

 Internet, Politics  No Responses »
Aug 082009
 

Concerning the recent massive DDoS attack on Twitter, Facebook, and other sites, one sentence in particular caught my attention as I was reading news reports: “A source close to Facebook further told IDG News Service on Friday that the attack was aimed at a specific user based in Georgia.”

Is this true? And does this mean that Russian hackers (with possible support from Russia’s government) are behind this? And, if such attacks on the global IT infrastructure become more frequent, what can the world do? Firewall Russia off the Internet? It may be feasible to do so technologically, but it also amounts to a kind of a “nuclear option”. However, as the Internet is becoming ever more vital, if there are “rogue nations” that refuse to police online criminals within their borders (or perhaps even actively support them) the “nuclear option” may very well be the only practical alternative.

 Posted by at 6:38 pm

Duke Nukem and a computer mystery

 Computers  No Responses »
Aug 062009
 

I built myself this dual-core computer several years ago, and it has been my main workstation ever since. By and large, it’s a good and reliable machine (not counting a broken fan and some fried capacitors on its motherboard… never mind, I now have spares of the same motherboard just to be safe) but there have always been a few minor glitches.

One of those glitches concerned MIDI files… if I played back a MIDI file on this computer, its tempo was all off. That is, unless I set the processor affinity of the MIDI playback program to play back only on a specific CPU core. Go figure. If that’s the worst problem I have on a machine that otherwise runs for months without a reboot despite being used for everything from software development to video editing, I guess I can call myself lucky.

But now, years later, I ran into another curious problem. There’s this computer game from the 90s, Duke Nukem, that I, for some reason, still find quite enjoyable. I usually run it on an old Windows 98 box. Recently I found out that there is an open source effort to develop and maintain a multiplatform Duke Nukem executable. I downloaded it and tested it on a test machine… it worked fine. So the other day, I put it on my main machine. It didn’t work fine… if I hit a key on the keyboard, it registered as a large number of very rapid keystrokes to the program.

I’ve been searching for a solution and came across a comment about CPU drivers and processor affinities. Whoops! Restricting EDUKE32 to a single CPU did the trick as a workaround. And then, I remembered that two years ago, I chose not to download a processor driver update from Microsoft Update, following the good old principle of “don’t fix it if it ain’t broken”. So now I took a deep breath and downloaded this update (okay, I wasn’t too worried, since this update already ran fine on a test computer with nearly identical hardware.)

Bingo! EDUKE32 runs like a charm and guess what… so do MIDI files? A years old mystery solved. Now I can happily shoot some heavily pixelated aliens in post-apocalyptic L.A…

 Posted by at 1:49 am

Inkblots

 Health, Programming  No Responses »
Aug 022009
 

Someone wrote to me about inkblots. Apparently, the topic has become hot, in response to the decision by Wikipedia editors to make the Rorschach blots available online. Attempts by some to suppress this information using, among other things, questionable copyright claims, are of a distinctively Scientologist flavor (made all the more curious by Scientology’s rejection of conventional psychoanalysis.) They do have a point, though… the validity of the test could be undermined if test subjects were familiar with the inkblots and evaluation methods. On the other hand, one cannot help but wonder why such an outdated test is still being used in daily practice. It certainly gives credence to those who consider psychoanalysis a pseudoscience.

I am also wondering… suppose I build a sophisticated software system with optical pattern recognition, associative memory, and a learning algorithm. Suppose the software is buggy, and I wish to test it. Would I be testing it by running the recognition program on meaningless symmetric patterns? The behavior of the system would be random, but perhaps not completely so; it may be a case of ordered chaos with a well defined attractor. Would running the recognition program on a few select images reveal anything about that attractor? Would it reveal enough information to determine reliably if the attractor differs from whatever would be considered “normal”?

More importantly, do practitioners of the Rorschach test know about chaos dynamics and do they have the correct (mathematical, computer) tools to analyze their findings?

I am also wondering how such a test could be conceivably normalized to account for differences in life experience (or, to use my software system example, for differences in the training of the learning algorithm) but I better shut up now before my thoughts turn into opinionated rantings about a subject that I know precious little about.

 Posted by at 2:36 pm

Hostile environment?

 Space  No Responses »
Aug 012009
 

Canadian astronaut Julie Payette is safely back on terra firma. During the post-mission press conference, she described the environment in which the International Space Station has been constructed, i.e., space, as “one of the most hostile”.

But… is it?

The funny thing is, while the human body is not designed to survive in space, if you suddenly found yourself floating outside the ISS, you’d have several seconds of useful consciousness before passing out. Further, if you managed to get back in before too many seconds have passed, you might survive the experience with only minor wear and tear and no permanent damage. (Yes, that infamous scene in 2001: A Space Odyssey is scientifically plausible.)

Compare this to the bottom of the ocean. How long would you survive under a pressure of several hundred atmospheres? Or consider the crater of an active volcano. How many seconds of consciousness would you enjoy before your body is vaporized?

And then I have not even considered something like the surface of the Sun (not to mention its interior.) Talk about hostile!

The thing is, space is hostile alright, but we are creatures of the near vacuum: we can briefly survive in vacuum, even return from it without major injury. Even for our machines, it’s much easier to survive in space than it is to survive elsewhere. Perhaps this should be seen as encouraging… once we master the challenge of getting out of the Earth’s gravity well economically, living in space may not be as hard as it sounds.

 Posted by at 3:17 am

Quantum religion

 Physics, Religion  No Responses »
Jul 292009
 

I am somewhat surprised that this idea has not become more popular yet, even though it’s yet the clearest “scientific proof” that we are, in fact, all immortal.

The “many worlds” interpretation of quantum mechanics says that the wave function never collapses: instead, every time a measurement is made, corresponding to each possible outcome a new universe comes into existence. You measure the spin of an electron and presto: there are now two universes, in one of which the spin is +1/2, in the other, -1/2. You flip a coin and presto: there are now two universes, the “heads”-universe and the “tails”-universe. (And many other universes in which the coin lands edgewise, explodes in mid-air, gets snatched by a passing eagle, or any other bizarre, improbable, but not impossible outcome that you can imagine.)

But if this is true, well, human death is just another measurement; and whereas in one universe, your heart might stop beating, in another, it beats one more. Or two more. Or two hundred million more.

In other words, as the universe keeps branching, you may cease to exist on many of those branches but there will always be branches on which you continue to live.

Think about it. That which you call your present consciousness will exist in an ever growing number of copies; some of those will be extinguished, but a few won’t be, not for a very, very, very long time. There is a continuous line from the here and now to the then and there, no matter how far that “then” is in the future, along which you continue to live. In other words, you can look forward to everlasting life… at least in a few of the many universes that await you.

How do you know if you’re on one of those “lucky” branches? Well, so long as you’re still alive, you are on a lucky branch, since the possibility exists that you will stay alive. Forever.

Of course there is a downside. Among the many parallel universes that represent possible futures, there are those in which you stay alive, but just barely, and in terrible pain and suffering. Or, you stay alive but you lose all your loved ones and even when you decide that it’s time to end your own life, you cannot… there is, after all, a nonvanishing probability that all your attempts at suicide fail.

But that doesn’t change the basic concept: in the multiverse, everyone is immortal. Although I am personally not too fond of the many worlds interpretation of quantum mechanics, I remain a little surprised that this idea has not yet become more popular among the religiously inclined.

 Posted by at 7:08 pm

Another software product I’ll not be buying…

 Computers, Intellectual Property  No Responses »
Jul 292009
 

Another software product I’ll not be buying because of activation is Dragon NaturallySpeaking. I just received a promotional e-mail from TigerDirect Canada, offering this software for only CAD 59.97. Back in the old days, I’d have placed the order without much hesitation. But that was before the days of activation.

Simply put, I don’t buy software the license of which is tied to my computer hardware. My computer hardware is always changing. I have backup and test computers, and I often install software on those before risking my main computers. I only use licensed software and I abide by the terms of the license, but I do not put up with police state nonsense. Software companies do NOT have the right to police which of my computers I install their software on, so long as the spirit of the license is not violated: I am the software’s only user, and I only use one copy at a time. The purpose of test/backup installations is not to violate the terms of the license but to ensure that my ability to work remains uninterrupted by system failures or software incompatibilities.

In any case, my computer has no money. It is silly to tie a license to my computer, which has no ability to purchase anything. I, on the other hand, do have money, and I can purchase things, but why would I want to purchase things that would be tied to a computer that really is a transient entity: tomorrow, its hard drive may change, the day after, its motherboard, and so on? (The particular computer on which I am writing this text has been through many incarnations since the days when it began its existence as an Intel ‘486 machine on my then two-computer home network in the early 1990s, yet in a sense, it still has the same “identity”. Unfortunately, not quite in the sense in which computer identities are interpreted by activation software.)

Activation was supposed to boost sales by reducing software piracy. Perhaps it does that, though I remain skeptical. Meanwhile, at least in my case, I probably saved several thousand dollars over the years by no longer buying software on a whim. What can I say… their loss, my gain, I get to keep more money in my retirement account or pay off my mortgage faster.

I also note with a mild degree of amusement that cracks for most popular software are widely available on the Internet. Further, because activation and copy protection can be cumbersome, a growing number of people who purchased legitimate copies actually use cracked versions for comfort and convenience. I am guilty of doing the same: in order not to have to insert the blasted CD every time I play some particular games, I am using cracked versions instead, in which the copy protection code is bypassed. And this is when one feels compelled to ask the obvious question: if I, a legitimate purchaser, am nonetheless forced to use cracked (i.e., illegal) copies of software just so that I can use it the way I want to, what’s the point of paying for it in the first place?

This is a sad question to ask, given that I also make a living from writing software and as such, software piracy can hurt my wallet.

 Posted by at 3:13 pm

UFO

 Transportation  No Responses »
Jul 282009
 

We have a genuine no-kidding UFO mystery in Ottawa today: in what sounds like a Doctor Who plot (just replace London with Ottawa), according to many eyewitnesses on both sides of the Ottawa river, a flying object fell into the river around 10 PM last night. Yet no small planes are missing from any airports in the vicinity, and no pilot is known to be missing either. Now police have found an object underwater, and it’s reported to be about 9 meters long… but it turned out to be a bunch of rocks or logs, not an airplane. Hence, the FO that fell into the river last night remains firmly U for the time being. Curious.

 Posted by at 9:16 pm

Rainy season

 Weather and Climate  No Responses »
Jul 282009
 
An aerial view of the Finch Avenue W. sinkhole on Monday, July 27, 2009.

Finch Avenue W.

This July has been the rainy season here in Ottawa. Indeed, we may yet break the all-time record for July rainfall. In some parts of Ottawa, homes and streets have been flooded, and yet we can consider ourselves lucky: unlike the folks in Toronto, we have not yet had to cope with a giant sinkhole in the middle of a major city road.

 Posted by at 1:28 pm

Why no Nortel bailout?

 Economy, Politics  No Responses »
Jul 222009
 

There is an interesting article in The Globe and Mail this morning that asks a very curious question: given the amounts of money spent in Canada to help save GM and Chrysler (who do most of their research and engineering outside of Canada), why was there not a similar government effort to save Nortel from bankruptcy, even though this company was by far Canada’s largest contributor to private research?

 Posted by at 10:01 am

Smelloscope

 Technology  No Responses »
Jul 212009
 

In one of my favorite cartoon series of television, Futurama, there is an aging science professor with many fictitious inventions. One of them is the smelloscope: a device used to detect, amplify, and measure smells.

Except that this device is not fictitious. They might not call it a smelloscope, but CBC News was using it nonetheless to measure that unpleasant consequences of Toronto’s ongoing municipal strike:

Smelloscope in Toronto

Smelloscope in Toronto

Ah, the wonders of modern science. Is there nothing in fiction that does not eventually get turned into reality?

 Posted by at 10:53 pm

A message from Rogers

 Internet  No Responses »
Jul 212009
 

In addition to my primary Internet connection, I also use a cable modem for backup, and also for large downloads. Earlier month, I downloaded a fair amount of data.  Today, when I visited Wikipedia (using the Rogers connection), I was confronted with a rather strange message:

Rogers warning

I suppose I should appreciate the warning. I feel a little more ambiguous about the method in which it was delivered: my Web page request was intercepted by a transparent proxy, which then wrapped the page in question inside a frame. Apart from potentially breaking the page (indeed, as a result all links that I clicked on in this page afterward appeared with the Wikipedia URL showing on top) it also raises a whole host of privacy and other issues.

Now in my case, it’s a matter of seconds to switch back to my primary connection, which is straight to a backbone provider (MCI), with no ISP acting as an intermediary. But others may not enjoy the same luxury.

 Posted by at 7:19 pm

40 years

 Space  No Responses »
Jul 202009
 

I was 6 years old 40 years ago today, visiting family in Romania with my parents. I did not really appreciate this moment (hey, I already read Jules Verne, isn’t going to the Moon a perfectly natural thing to do?) but I did see the first landing of a human being on another celestial body on television.

 Posted by at 11:39 am

WPBS and Rogers

 Television  1 Response »
Jul 162009
 

I received a notice from Rogers Cable in the mail this morning, about their decision to shuffle some channels about in the cable lineup. The notice is a little confusing: two stations are moved from channels 61 and 69 to 95 and 96, but does this mean that they are becoming digital-only stations? 95-96 do exist as analog cable channels, but Rogers never used these high channel numbers in the analog lineup, so I am not sure. I am concerned because I am not a fan of proliferating set-top boxes and remotes, so I remain a happy analog cable customer for now… but I fear that the beginning of the end is near, and set-top boxes will soon be inevitable.

But I am even more concerned about another change: the station on channel 64, WPBS from Watertown, is altogether being removed from the lineup, to be replaced by a PBS channel from Detroit. Rogers has done this in the past, replacing US network channels that were coming to us from Watertown with their Detroit equivalents, and I can’t say that we are better off with that change. However, WPBS is special: it has many supporters, even many volunteers in the Ottawa area, and the channel has been serving the Ottawa valley faithfully for many decades.

Rogers claims that they’re doing what they’re doing in response to customer demand. Forgive my French but… piss off, will ya? Months ago I phoned Rogers about a simple problem, namely that the audio on several analog channels (including music channels) is missing either the left or the right channel (yes, I checked, it’s not my equipment.) You’d think that a company concerned about their customers would fix such a simple and embarrassing technical issue. But they didn’t. So I can perhaps be forgiven if I call their sad little excuse a flat out, unadulterated, shameless lie.

 Posted by at 10:43 pm

Forty years

 History, Space  No Responses »
Jul 162009
 

Forty years ago this morning, Apollo 11 was launched: Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin were on their way to land at Mare Tranquilitatis, in the most significant journey in human history to this date.

The scary part is that this year also marks the 37th anniversary of the last trip to the Moon, indeed the last voyage by a human being beyond low Earth orbit.

I was only 6 when Armstrong and Aldrin landed on the Moon, and I had no doubt in my mind that by the time I turn 46, there would be people on the Moon, on Mars, possibly on select satellites of Jupiter and Saturn, perhaps even on their way to the stars.

Now that I am 46, I am doubtful that I will live long enough to see another human fly beyond low Earth orbit. This is not a pleasant thought. Perhaps I’ll be lucky enough to live another 40 years in good physical and mental health, and get a chance to be proven wrong.

Until then, I keep dwelling on the irony of the fact that nowadays, most of the documentaries you can find on manned deep space missions and exploration of the Moon are aired on the History Channel.

 Posted by at 1:00 pm

New visa rules: A manufactured crisis?

 Canada, Politics, Transportation  No Responses »
Jul 152009
 

When I heard yesterday that the government of Canada was about to impose visa requirements for Czech and Mexican citizens visiting Canada, my first thought was to wonder just how inept Harper’s government really is: imposing a visa requirement smack in the middle of the summer tourist season, with no warning and no preparation, is just plain stupid, it will inconvenience tens of thousands of legitimate visitors, and will cost the Canadian tourism industry millions of dollars.

But today, there are comments from the immigration minister that the Canadian immigration system is in need of a serious revision. What a wonderful country we live in, with all those rocket scientists working for the government who figured this out. But if this ever so clever minister of ours actually knows this, then why the visa requirements? Why not spend his efforts instead on these supposedly much needed revisions of the immigration system itself?

Ah, I got it. Now that the whole thing is on the national news, which wouldn’t have happened without seriously pissing off the Czechs and the Mexicans, he can claim urgency, and perhaps even get credit in the end for a decisive solution. That the urgency is a result of his own ineptness, I guess he hopes it will be quickly forgotten.

 Posted by at 3:09 am

0xC0190001 error during VISTA SP2 install

 Computers  No Responses »
Jul 142009
 

I have to thank a fellow blogger (ouch, does that make me a blogger, too? I still can’t stand this word, but I suppose it’s now inevitably part of the English vocabulary) for an excellent post that helped me out: during the install of VISTA SP2 on my laptop, the machine failed with the error code 0xC0190001 associated with explorer.exe. The first thing I did was to try Google, and the first Google hit I found was the above-mentioned blog entry, advising me to reboot into Safe Mode, allow Windows to do its thing and reboot again, and presto: VISTA is back, with SP2 properly (I hope) installed, and I saved myself a significant amount of unpleasantness associated with a system reinstall.

Or maybe I’ll have to reinstall something in the end… because although SP2 came up just fine, for some reason I lost the Aero desktop altogether, and I am back to a standard Windows 2000 style theme, the Aero theme nowhere to be found. Curious. Good thing that laptop is not mission critical, except when I am traveling, which I am not planning to do anytime soon.

Ah. Stupid service pack upgrade disabled the Themes service. It also monkeyed with one of the VMWare services, but now that I started everything that needed starting, things seem to be working fine.

 Posted by at 7:56 pm
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