Spinor Info

Small people

Jun 172010

BP’s chairman, Carl-Henric Svanberg, responding to questions from journalists, described the residents of the Gulf states as “small people”.

Many suggested that this gaffe should be ignored, as the chairman is from Sweden, he is not a native speaker of English, and in his mother tongue, the term is commonly used to describe average citizens, small businessmen, and the like.

Now it so happens that I am not a native speaker of English either, and my mother tongue also has a phrase, translated literally into English as “small people”, but used the same way as it is used supposedly in Swedish.

So how come I almost fell off my chair when I heard Svanberg’s remarks during the televised news conference?

Welcome home, Hayabusa

Space No Responses »

Jun 142010

Hayabusa, or at least the part of it that was meant to survive atmospheric re-entry, has returned. Hayabusa, also known as MUSES-C, is a Japanese spacecraft, the first ever asteroid sample return mission. Unfortunately it is not yet clear if it has actually managed to collect any samples. Even so, it’s been one impressive mission.

Knee-jerk politics

Economy, Environment, Politics No Responses »

Jun 102010

I admit: I really thought Obama was better than this.

Back after 9/11, the moronic Bush administration shut down all commercial air traffic for days in a knee-jerk reaction that exaggerated the economic fallout of the 9/11 attacks possibly by orders of magnitude. (None of which prevented them from chartering special flights to help Saudi nationals, including members of the Bin Laden family, flee the United States in haste. But that is another story.)

Now here’s this oil rig disaster in the Gulf of Mexico. To be certain, there exists a serious need to review how these rigs are licensed, how they are operated, and whether or not future drilling is worth the economic risk. But shutting down on-going drilling operations? Not only does it do grave economic harm to an already heavily affected region, it may actually increase the risk of another spill.

If this is how Obama continues his presidency, I don’t know what will save us from seeing Sarah Palin and her friends move into the White House in January 2013. Now there’s a scary thought.

When you build a Wall, be prepared to kill for it

Politics No Responses »

Jun 102010

That is the tough lesson guardians of the East German workers’ paradise learned: once you build a Wall along the border, you must be prepared to kill in order to maintain its usefulness and integrity.

It is no different along the US-Mexico border; whatever it is that people think is worth protecting by building a Wall (something that is quintessentially anti-freedom: a device constructed for the sole purpose of limiting people’s freedom of movement, to maintain some kind of a political or economic status quo), such a Wall cannot stand unless its guardians are willing to kill. Kill, if necessary, even a 15-year old teenager by shooting him in the face.

Perhaps someone who has one of those medals in his possession that Honecker used to give his border guards would mail it as a gift to this fine US border agent in appreciation for his bravery.

If you don’t know the answer, shut the … up!

Computers, Internet No Responses »

Jun 072010

To all the smartalecs on support forums out there: what the hell is wrong with you? If I ask someone with a map about the route from town A to B, I expect them to tell me directions, not question my sanity for wanting to drive to town B in the first place. Similarly, if someone posts a question in the form of, say, “I have device A giving error message B under operating system C, how do I solve this problem?”, the one thing they are absolutely, positively NOT interested in is lectures such as “Why would you be using device A?” or “What kind of a moron still uses operating system C?” and the like. If you don’t know the answer, can’t you just shut up and not pollute Google searches with your asinine remarks?

For instance, today I was trying to use a floppy disk. (Yes, people still need floppy disks sometimes. Not because they live in the stone age, but because they may be using a floppy to update a motherboard BIOS, for instance.) I ran into a problem. I searched Google, and found a support forum where a similar problem was discussed. There were a few helpful answers. But then, look at this little exchange:

>>> The other thing is - why do you need it?

<<< I need the floppy to run the Western Digital program to test
<<< the drive [...]

>>> If you're getting lots of bad sectors, then the drive has
>>> problems and you should be getting it replaced under warranty
>>> warranty, not attempting to 'fix' it. [...]

<<< yes, but the thing with western digital is before you can send
<<< the drive back you need an error code [...]

>>> But what error code could possibly be worse than a bad sector?
>>> Tell them the "error code" is  xxxxxxxxxxxx bad sectors!

How bloody helpful. This really told the guy how to fix the floppy disk problem that he was seeking help for.

BP and cats

Environment No Responses »

Jun 032010

Greenpeace had a contest to redesign the BP logo. Here’s my favorite:

Yes, I am partial to cats. Though truth to tell, I hesitated… at this point in time, a cat’s hind hole seems a lot nicer than anything BP does or says.

Vicious mob on the high seas

Politics No Responses »

Jun 032010

Netanyahu tells the world that members of the Israeli Navy were met “by a vicious mob” on board those humanitarian boats that they attacked. Very well… let me take everything Israel says at face value. Let me assume that everything happened exactly as the Israelis say.

So what? The boats in question were attacked by the armed forces of another nation on the high seas. That, last time I checked, is called piracy. And the crew of any boat have the right to defend their boat against pirates, if necessary, even by acting as a “vicious mob”.

From the department of pointless UI options

Computers 1 Response »

Jun 012010

The other day, I updated the Java VM on this machine, and as part of the process, I uninstalled the previous version. During the uninstallation process, I was presented with the following dialog:

I’m not sure what purpose the checkbox in this dialog serves. By checking it, do I suppress the confirmation dialog for all future uninstallations? That doesn’t sound smart. But what is the alternative? A checkbox that serves no purpose other than helping me avoid having to click the mouse one extra time just in case I happen to reinstall, and then uninstall, the 6.19 version of the Java VM?

Nuking the Gulf?

Environment No Responses »

May 302010

After six weeks of non-stop gushing, an oil spill that is already several times the size of the Exxon Valdez disaster, and numerous failed attempts to stop it, I am beginning to wonder if it might have been a good idea after all to follow a Russian suggestion and just try to nuke the well. Then again, had that failed, too, the Gulf coast would now have to deal with a spill that is not only poisonous but also radioactive.

Matrotabulicide?

Computers 1 Response »

May 292010

If killing a motherboard was a criminal act, I guess it’d have a fancy Latin name, too, like matrotabulicide or something.

Fortunately, it is not criminal to murder a computer motherboard just yet, at least not if it is one that you own. Today, sadly, I managed to accomplish just this, prematurely ending the life of a computer I only recently put together for my wife. No, it was not first-degree murder, more like man-, or rather, motherboardslaughter: I did not set out to do damage, on the contrary, I was hoping to get rid of an annoying little problem (no keyboard after the system came back from hibernation) by upgrading its BIOS.

The consequences of the attempt are, sadly, known to many: after the BIOS upgrade program happily reported success and attempted a reboot (I did everything by the book, and there were no signs of any trouble), the system became completely non-responsive, suggesting a failure of the BIOS boot sequence.

Now usually, there are ways to recover from a failed BIOS upgrade. Many BIOSes recognize a corrupt image and drop into an emergency boot flash mode that allows recovery from, for instance, a floppy disk. I’ve done this before, more than once. However, in this case the process did not work: even when I manually “forced” a boot into the boot flash mode by shorting some of the BIOS pins, it just stubbornly refused to attempt to read anything from a floppy, the hard drive, or a CD-ROM. I even tried booting using a POST diagnostic card, but I became none the wiser.

So that’s it. It is time to move on. It wasn’t a new motherboard, but it still had plenty of useful life left in it, so I am sad to see it go. But investing further effort into it is just pointless. I could order an identical motherboard off eBay for about $80 total, including shipping from China, but why would I want to spend that kind of money on 7-year old technology, when I can buy a decent current motherboard, dual-core CPU, and 2GB memory for less than three times that amount?

The said thing is that it means not only junking this motherboard, but also the accompanying Socket 754 single-core CPU and 1 GB DDR memory, as I have no other Socket 754 or DDR motherboards. I hate contributing to the world’s landfills. I wonder just how much otherwise still flawless electronics ends up in those landfills because of BIOS failures?

Homer the scientist?

Mathematics, Physics, Television No Responses »

May 282010

This Homer Simpson is one smart fellow. While he was trying to compete with Edison as an inventor, he accidentally managed to discover the mass of the Higgs boson, disprove Fermat’s theorem, discover that we live in a closed universe, and he was doing a bit of topology, too.

His Higgs mass estimate is a tad off, though. Whether or not the Higgs exists, the jury is still out, but its mass is definitely not around 775 GeV.

The billion dollar summit

Politics 1 Response »

May 272010

What can a billion dollars buy?

Well, a space shuttle cost about a billion dollars new back 25 or so years ago. It might be more expensive to build one now, but a billion dollars can still buy something like three to four robotic missions to Mars. Or one deep space mission to, say, Jupiter or Saturn.

Back here on Earth, it can probably buy food and basic medical care for many millions of people in impoverished countries. Could help a great deal with the recovery in Haiti. Or, closer to home, it could cover nearly half the cost of Ottawa’s planned urban light rail system.

Or, it can buy you security for three days, while Canada hosts the G8/G20 leaders.

Forgive my language but have these assholes not heard of videoconferencing? Can’t they just use e-mail? Or, if they really must meet face to face and smell each other, can’t they meet somewhere like, say, the North Pole, to keep security costs at a minimum and not inconvenience thousands and thousands of citizens in the neighborhood? (I hope seals and polar bears forgive me for this suggestion.)

Hot

Weather and Climate No Responses »

May 262010

This is going to remain a memorable picture for some time to come:

It’s not every May, after all, that we measure 35.8 degrees Centigrade in what is supposedly the world’s second coldest capital city.

Welcome home, Atlantis

Space No Responses »

May 262010

Welcome home, Atlantis, for the very last time.

After being in service for a quarter century, her next trip is to a museum somewhere.

Removing a screw

Environment, Technology No Responses »

May 262010

I don’t think I ever watched the unscrewing of a screw with as much anticipation as last night, staying up way past my bedtime, glued to the BP live stream bringing video from the bottom of the Gulf.

I watched as a robot was struggling to remove a screw by “hand”, and failed. I watched as another robot approached, handing this robot a T-shaped tool that turned out to be a screwdriver of sorts. I watched as this robot used its two manipulator “hands” to position the tool just right, approach the problem screw, and try again. I watched as, every once in a while, the oil plume hit the scene, making everything murky for a while. I watched as the robot finally unscrewed the screw, and I realized that I was holding my breath.

Amidst the environmental tragedy, I continue to remain amazed by the astonishing robotic infrastructure that can operate and carry out complex industrial operations a mile beneath the surface of the sea,

Composition

Television No Responses »

May 252010

Sometimes, CNN uses a “picture-in-picture” format to show an important live feed while they are reporting on something else. It is important to make sure that the resulting composite picture does not convey the wrong impression. Otherwise, you might end up like this poor gentleman, who was talking on CNN about a new portable power source, but ended up appearing as if he was getting a chest X-ray on live television.

Phoenix on Mars

Space No Responses »

May 242010

Sitting on the surface of Mars, a space probe that was not designed to survive the Martian polar winter did not survive the Martian polar winter. Not exactly a surprise.

The surprising bit is that another space probe orbiting Mars, designed to operate for two years but still working fine after four, has been able to snap high resolution pictures of Phoenix, which tell us what likely happened: the weight of carbon dioxide snow and ice broke Phoenix’s solar panels.

It is amazing that we have this kind of infrastructure around Mars.

Everybody Draw Mohammed Day

Religion No Responses »

May 232010

Recently I joined the Facebook group, “Everybody Draw Mohammed Day!”

No, I am not an intolerant SOB (at least I hope I am not) who thinks that Islam is the root cause of all evil. (I do consider religion in general to be the root cause of many evils, but in that sense, Islam is not in any way special.) No, I don’t think that Muslims “hate us and hate our freedoms”, to quote my least favorite US President. No, I don’t look suspiciously at people on the street just because they wear traditional Middle Eastern clothing.

On the contrary, I respect and cherish the freedom of religion: the right to believe (or not believe) in the deity or deities of your choice. This is a right that I would be willing to risk life and limb to defend. (Mind you, we’re all in real deep trouble if the world goes so badly haywire that a country like Canada suddenly needs the services of a 47-year old programmer in general infantry.)

But, as a devoted atheist, I also believe in another right: the right of freedom of speech, which includes my right to mock, insult, disrespect and belittle religion. Every religion, including Islam. I may not win any popularity contests by doing so, but I have the right to ridicule any adult who needs imaginary friends to feel happy and secure, or to live ethically.

Some people want to take this right away. Some people believe that their religious freedoms go beyond freedom of conscience, and grant them the authority to interfere with my rights, even using the threat of physical violence to intimidate us into submission.

Hell, no. I may not start drawing Mohammed cartoons right now, but if anyone thinks that they can deny me the right to do so, think again. (NB: The drawing above is not Mohammed. I have no idea what Mohammed looked like, and in any case, given my limited abilities as a graphic artist, I doubt I could produce a faithful rendering. No, it’s just some bearded guy with a turban carrying a flag with the crescent-Moon-and-star symbol.) My only hope is that the voices of those who assert their right to be free will not be drowned out by the voices of hatemongerers who use this Facebook group as yet another forum to express their fear and loathing of Islam and Muslims. The intent is not to promote hatred, but to end self-censorship.

Excel 2010 crashing

Computers, Programming No Responses »

May 222010

So why is Excel 2010 crashing on a spreadsheet that I have been using for years, containing my bookkeeping? Is this supposed to be the latest and greatest of Microsoft Office?

That dreaded PDF non-vulnerability

Computer Security, Internet No Responses »

May 162010

Recently, news have been circulating about a new form of phishing attack that doesn’t rely on some unpatched vulnerability; rather, it uses a legitimate feature of Adobe Acrobat to hijack users’ computers.

Sophos Labs offer a detailed description of how it works. (Basically, it’s the ability of Acrobat to open non-PDF attachments that is abused, tricking a user into running an executable program.) They also offer advice on how to disable this feature. I think it’s a darn good idea to follow their suggestion: most of us never deal with PDF documents containing non-PDF attachments anyhow.

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