The Last Ringbearer

 Books  No Responses »
Feb 202011
 

Years ago, back in 2002 to be precise, I had an idea. Having just re-read Tolkien’s immortal The Lord of the Rings trilogy, I suddenly realized that there may be two sides to this story. That the book, which I enjoyed so much and read so many times, may just be an overly simplistic version of the history of Middle Earth, as told by the victors. So what if I tried to write down the history of the One Ring and the all-encompassing War of the Ring between Gondor and Morder from the perspective of a Mordorian orc?

I actually sat down and began writing the story, but I never got past the first page. No author, I.

Little did I know that the story I wanted to write was already written, published by a Russian author, Kirill Yeskov, in 1999. In it, just like in the version I envisioned but never wrote, Gandalf is a great manipulator; Aragorn is little more than a highway robber turned usurper; and the “evil empire” of Mordor is, in fact, a land of industry, science, and technology, despised by the magic-wielding but oft illiterate feudal lords of Middle Earth’s West.

In short, Yeskov wrote the story I wanted to write, only he did it much better than I could or would have. And Yeskov’s book is finally available in a (very) decent English translation, as a free download. I downloaded it yesterday, printed it, even bound it in the form of a little book, and now I am enjoying every page of it. Yes, surprisingly, it is actually a page-turner! And also an eye-opener.

I have no idea yet how the story will end. The ending will probably be a lot less neat and tidy than the ending of Tolkien’s version. But, it may also be a lot closer to “reality”.

I think it’s a fitting irony that Yeskov’s book was never officially published in English, as publishing houses feared the wrath of the Tolkien estate. When we say that history is written by the victors, what we really mean is that the victors are usually successful at preventing any version of history other than the official one from reaching bookshelves. It seems that the situation is no different in the case of Tolkien’s fantasy world.

 Posted by at 9:50 pm

Micromort

 Aviation, Computer Security, Society  No Responses »
Feb 152011
 

Here’s a useful unit of measure that I just found out about, thanks to Bruce Schneier’s security blog: it’s called a micromort, a one-in-a-million probability of death. Curiously, according to the Wikipedia, your chances of dying on a train due to an accident are the same as your chances of dying due to cosmic radiation received while flying on a jet: 1 micromort every six thousand miles.

 Posted by at 3:22 pm

Blue eyes no more

 Cats, Personal  1 Response »
Feb 012011
 

Two weeks ago, I took a stray cat to the Humane Society. I thought it was the right thing to do; we already have five of them, no friend of ours wanted a cat, and this stray was obviously not going to do well outdoors (when we first saw him, he was eating some scraps off the pavement in the middle of a street frequented by city buses.) He was also young, healthy, and friendly, so we had every hope that he would be adopted.

Our hopes were in vain. Today, I found out that he was put down after contracting a viral respiratory infection and some secondary bacterial infection that did not respond to antibiotics.

All we have now is this last picture, courtesy of the Humane Society:

Well, that’s the end of one little life. Wasn’t worth much, I guess.

Not sure what to do next time. Would he have had a better chance outside in -30 Centigrade weather?

Damn.

 Posted by at 2:33 am

Leaving the Internet

 Internet, Politics, Society  No Responses »
Jan 292011
 

Earlier this week Egypt, a country of 80 million, collectively left the Internet.

I think this, more than anything, demonstrates that the days (if not the hours) of Mubarak’s regime are numbered. The damage this step causes to the Egyptian economy are likely quite considerable. And a number of other countries are worried: it appears that a significant share of the data traffic between Europe and Gulf oil states, as well as Asia, passes through Egypt. This connections aren’t yet affected, but who knows what happens next?

We live in interesting times.

 Posted by at 9:12 pm

Card security

 Computer Security, Cryptography, Society  No Responses »
Jan 252011
 

The other day, I saw a report on the CBC about increasingly sophisticated methods thieves use to steal credit and bank card numbers. They showed, for instance, how a thief can easily grab a store card reader when the clerk is not looking, replacing it with a modified reader that steals card numbers and PIN codes.

That such thefts can happen in the first place, however, I attribute to the criminal negligence of the financial institutions involved. There is no question about it, when it’s important to a corporation, they certainly find ways to implement cryptographically secure methods to deny access by unauthorized equipment. Such technology has been in use by cable companies for many years already, making it very difficult to use unauthorized equipment to view cable TV. So how hard can it be to incorporate strong cryptographic authentication into bank card reader terminals, and why do banks not do it?

The other topic of the report was the use of insecure (they didn’t call it insecure but that’s what it is) RFID technology on some newer credit cards, the information from which can be stolen in a split second by a thief that just stands or sits next to you in a crowded mall. The use of such technology on supposedly “secure” new electronic credit cards is both incomprehensible and inexcusable. But, I am sure the technical consultant who recommended this technology to the banks in some bloated report full of flowery prose and multisyllable jargon received a nice paycheck.

 Posted by at 1:39 pm

Uptime

 Cats, Computers, Personal  No Responses »
Jan 252011
 

I just ran this on my main server:

$ uptime
 08:13:32 up 365 days, 19:56,  4 users,  load average: 0.07, 0.05, 0.06

Yes, this means I last rebooted this server one year and 20 hours ago. (What was I doing, rebooting at 4 in the morning?)

Mind you, it won’t run uninterrupted much longer. An updated server is waiting to take its place, so that I can then take this guy down, thoroughly clean it (removing one year’s worth of accumulated dust and cat hair) and upgrade it as well.

 Posted by at 1:17 pm

Icky or tricky?

 Canada, Health  No Responses »
Jan 192011
 

There is a very icky treatment out there for a very difficult infection: it’s called fecal transplant, and apparently, it can be used to defeat an otherwise deadly, difficult infection.

Not good enough for the health bureaucrats in British Columbia, who, according to news reports, are barring physicians from applying this treatment, because according to them, the treatment is experimental and its safety cannot yet be ascertained.

Commendably cautious, you might say… but wait a cotton-picking minute, aren’t these the same health bureaucrats who spend public money to fund acupuncture and other forms of “alternative medicine”?

Tricky trumps icky, it seems.

 Posted by at 1:38 pm

Blue eyes

 Cats, Personal  1 Response »
Jan 152011
 

This morning, I took this little guy to the Humane Society:

This young, unneutered tomcat showed up at our doorstep during the holidays, obviously homeless and hungry, but otherwise in good shape and friendly. We took care of him but the weather is getting colder, and spending much of his day in our tiny entry hall isn’t exactly a solution. We already have five cats, so adopting him was not a good idea.

On the way to the Humane Society, as the sun shone into the car, I noticed that he had blue-ish eyes. He was obviously part Siamese, but the blue eyes were news to me.

I hope he finds a good owner soon and lives a long and happy life.

 Posted by at 1:07 am

Scientific ethics

 Health, Science  No Responses »
Jan 062011
 

I am reading the articles from the British Medical Journal about the Andrew Wakefield case. Wakefield was the British physician who published a fraudulent study in 1998 linking vaccines to autism, causing a worldwide scare which may have resulted in the deaths of many unvaccinated children over the years.

What I didn’t know was that Wakefield wasn’t merely incompetent: he was a fraudster. According to the BMJ, he deliberately and fraudulently falsified data while being paid by a legal firm that was planning to sue the vaccine manufacturer.

I also do scientific research. My research (thankfully) has nothing to do with people, vaccines, or diseases; it’s about things like historical spacecraft or obscure aspects of gravity theory. Even so, I find the idea of altering or “massaging” my data, be it for fame or for profit, totally unthinkable and abhorrent. To do so when people’s lives are at stake… The likes of Wakefield not only undermine the credibility of the entire scientific community, they also put people’s lives at risk for monetary gain.

I wonder if Wakefield will ever face criminal charges. Perhaps he should.

 Posted by at 5:11 am

One-party rule

 Hungary, Politics  No Responses »
Jan 052011
 

One party-rule, proclaims The Guardian in its latest article about Hungary, and they’re not that terribly far from the truth: It seems to me that Mr. Orban is trying to build precisely that, demonstrating that of all Hungarian politicians, he is the one who bears the true legacy of the Kadar era. Indeed I think that this is the best way to describe Orban: he is Kadar’s posthumous revenge.

 Posted by at 3:47 pm

Putinization

 Hungary, Politics  No Responses »
Dec 282010
 

The Washington Post finally took notice: not one but two articles, an opinion piece and an editorial about my country of birth, the latter titled The Putinization of Hungary.

Once again, I wish I could disagree but I cannot. Hungary may have been ruled by the Socialist Party for the past eight years, but even though they are the formal successors of the once all-powerful Hungarian Socialist Workers Party, it’s not them but Orban’s Fidesz who carry the real legacy of the Kadar era.

Or perhaps both do (I certainly have few illusions about the purity of the Socialists), but the Socialists didn’t have the two-thirds parliamentary majority that Orban enjoys. Which gives Orban effectively unlimited power: with his two thirds majority, he can dismantle independent institutions and rewrite the country’s constitution.

Both of which he’s busy doing.

And I keep thinking that it was good that Hungary once had democratic government… too bad it didn’t last very long. Or am I succumbing to hype and writing democracy’s epitaph prematurely? This is one instance when I desperately, sincerely hope that I am badly wrong.

 Posted by at 2:19 am

Season appropriate greeting

 Computers, Culture, Personal  No Responses »
Dec 242010
 

My Linux systems are all configured with an ages old program, fortune, giving me a “fortune cookie”, a random greeting or quotation from a database with thousands of entries, every time I log on.

This morning, I logged on to one of my Linux machines and I saw this quote from the immortal Sam Clemens, aka. Mark Twain:

“The difference between a Miracle and a Fact is exactly the difference between a mermaid and a seal.”

If I didn’t know any better, I’d be tempted to think that the computer has a twisted sense of atheist humor and chose this greeting after looking at the calendar. Not that Mr. Clemens was wrong!

Anyhow, although I am an atheist, I hope I am not twisted, so I just wish a Merry Christmas to all my family and friends, and indeed, all good people.

 Posted by at 2:37 pm

Assange vs. Zuckerberg

 Internet, Television  No Responses »
Dec 222010
 

Here’s a wonderful quote from Saturday Night Live’s impersonation of Julian Assange talking about Mark Zuckerberg: “What are the differences between Mark Zuckerberg and me? Let’s take a look. I give you private information about corporations for free. And I’m a villain. Mark Zuckerberg gives your private information to corporations for money and he’s Man of the Year.”

SNL’s Assange also praised Time magazine for being on top of things, discovering Facebook “only weeks after your grandmother”.

 Posted by at 3:07 pm

Popular science

 Personal, Physics, Space  No Responses »
Dec 162010
 

It’s official: the work we are doing about the Pioneer Anomaly qualifies as popular science according to Popular Science, as they just published a featured article about it.

I admit that it was with a strong sense of apprehension that I began reading the piece. What you say to a journalist and what appears in print are often not very well correlated, as politicians know all too well. My apprehension was not completely unjustified, as the article contains some (minor) technical errors, misquotes us slightly in places, and what is perhaps most troubling, some of the work that it attributes to us was done by others (e.g., thermal engineers at JPL). These flaws notwithstanding (and this article fares better than most that appeared in recent years, I think), it is nice to have one’s efforts recognized.

 Posted by at 12:20 am

Time travel

 Canada, Personal  No Responses »
Dec 132010
 

In the pre-Internet days, when I traveled to a city that I never visited before, the first thing I did was to buy a copy of the local newspaper, and then read the local pages and some of the classifieds.

Now, thanks to the Internet, I can time travel the same way, without leaving my chair. For instance, I can browse the pages of the Ottawa citizen from 1973, the year my Mom and I visited this fine city. Not sure what is weirder… how much has changed or how much remained the same.

 Posted by at 4:55 pm

38 years

 Space  No Responses »
Dec 112010
 

A sad anniversary: it was 38 years ago today that a human being landed on the Moon for the last time. Who’d have thought back then that nearly half a century (!) later we have yet to venture beyond low Earth orbit again?

 Posted by at 3:59 am

Wikispin

 Internet, Politics  No Responses »
Dec 082010
 

Conspiracy theorists, rejoice: Paypal apparently admitted that the decision to freeze the Paypal account of Wikileaks was due to US government pressure. Long live freedom and democracy. No wonder some folks are comparing our treatment of Assange to China’s treatment of Nobel laureate Xiaobo. We are, after all, doing the same thing China is doing: we are trying to suppress information, and we threaten and intimidate those who release it. I find myself in strong agreement with the writer of an article that appeared in the Vancouver Sun: we are forced to ask questions (about torture, detentions, intimidation, death threats and worse) that ten years ago none of us thought we’d be asking.

There is, though, a silver lining. Perhaps all this evil has always been part of our “civilized” society, and it’s only now, in the era of the Internet, that we can so easily find out.

 Posted by at 3:52 pm

There, I’ve done it

 Internet, Politics  No Responses »
Dec 072010
 

I’ve done it: I donated to Wikileaks. While I still could, at least using a credit card, now that the Paypal option is gone.

Does this mean that I am now on somebody’s list as a supporter of Mr. “rapist, worse than a terrorist” Assange and that I can expect to be sexually assaulted, er, I mean, strip searched when I next go through an airport?

And isn’t this something that only denizens of evil police states should have to be worrying about?

 Posted by at 1:23 pm

Hipocrisy

 Internet, Politics  No Responses »
Dec 042010
 

News flash: Paypal blocks Wikileaks.

But no, we’re not like the evil Chinese. We don’t do censorship. It’s strictly for legal reasons, you see.

I wanted to send money to Wikileaks yesterday. Perhaps it’s better that I didn’t, because for all I know, monies in Wikileaks’ account may be frozen by Paypal. I’m sure there will be other ways. Hopefully I won’t be charged one day as a supporter of terrorism because of a $20 contribution.

Yes, I’ll continue to use Paypal and buy books from Amazon. I just have a worse opinion than ever about our commitment to our cherished Western values.

 Posted by at 2:22 pm

Censorship

 Internet, Politics  No Responses »
Dec 032010
 

No, we don’t do censorship. This is the West, after all. We are civilized, democratic, and we deplore evil regimes that prevent their citizens from prying into the secrets of the almighty State.

Except…

Except when said secrets are a little too inconvenient. We then stop pretending and issue an international arrest warrant against the founder of a Web site for a crime that, even if it was really committed, was likely little more than an unwarranted sexual advance; we “convince” a large hosting provider to stop hosting the unpleasant content; and we convince the DNS provider to stop servicing the name of the domain in question. This is so much more civilized than running a state censorship establishment!

My arse.

For the record, Wikileaks mirrors can be located by looking them up at http://wikileaks.info/. As of this morning, the following information was provided there:

Wikileaks Mirrors

Find all the current Wikileaks Mirrors here. Helpful, if the main site – wikileaks.org – is down.

Real mirrors on different IP Addresses

  • wikileaks.info – Mirror hosted in Switzerland [62.2.16.94]
  • wikileaks.se – Mirror hosted in Sweden [88.80.6.179]
  • nyud.net – Mirror hosted in the United States [129.170.214.192]

Important Wikileaks Links

Contrary to what is being said above, the wikileaks.de domain name works this morning; it points to 213.251.145.96, which seems up to date, including the “cablegate” releases.

Bleeping hypocrisy. At least the Chinese are honest about what they are doing.

 Posted by at 1:25 pm
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