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I feel so very behind with my blogging and getting photos up onto flickr. I've been doing more of the later, but still have a lot in my archives that are unpublished. I guess this is what happens when life fills up! I feel like I've gone from about 25-60 in the past month. Our business is up and running and so I'm doing admin work for that when needed, but it isn't very much right now. What is taking up the bulk of my time is my photo internship with The Argentimes. I'm really enjoying getting to see how working on a magazine works and learning more. I love to learn - especially when I don't feel so stupid while the process is taking place. I've done some photo shoots for them and also some work getting things organized. I'm also helping my parents out with a project and while I'm not in the thick of it getting my hands dirty, I am well entrenched. Another sporting match I got to photograph recently was on assignment for The Argentimes. Once a month, hotel Feirs Park sponsors an afternoon of tennis as a club in Villa Urquiza for the ambassadors and consuls to Argentina. The diplomats get to socialize in a different manner than the usual cocktail meet and greet. There is some friendly competition and good exercise.
"The result of the deliberations of all collective bodies must necessarily be a compound, as well of the errors and prejudices, as of the good sense and wisdom, of the individuals of whom they are composed. The compacts which are to embrace thirteen distinct States in a common bond of amity and union, must as necessarily be a compromise of as many dissimilar interests and inclinations. How can perfection spring from such materials?"
“I shall conclude this paper with a specimen of such writing,” he boasted, “which I may safely defy the united ingenuity of the whole human race to decypher to the end of time….”  I think what I really like about this story is how a mathematician bothered to send his new ciphertext to the author of Virginia's statue on religious liberty (as our third President preferred to be remembered). Having just finished Steven Johnson's very enjoyable "The Invention of Air," I'm struck by how broadly engaged with science and the useful arts the founders were. I think that sending an encrypted letter to President Obama would get you ... well, I don't really want to think about it, having just read the Declaration. post a comment
I know Berkeley doesn't allow fireworks, so do you know the nearest place they're legal (i.e. the nearest place I could purchase some)? I know they have them in Sacramento, but I'd prefer to not go quite so far. 5 comments | post a comment
My boyfriend asked me to post this for him:
http://berkeleyfail.wordpress.com/
Sorry, next tweet: go impose some law or order or something, and it was done. Well, as it often turns out, there was more to it than fits in 140 characters, and the real story is far more complicated. There's a good write up from StratFor, "The Real Struggle in Iran and Implications for U.S. Dialogue:" This is because the real struggle in Iran has not yet been settled, nor was it ever about the liberalization of the regime. Rather, it has been about the role of the clergy — particularly the old-guard clergy — in Iranian life, and the future of particular personalities among this clergy.post a comment
Last month I released a parody video for the film “Downfall” (known as Der Untergang in German.) Having purchased the movie, I also watched it of course, and here is my review. At least in my case, the existence of the parody brought some new sales for the film. There are “spoilers” of a sort in this review, but of course you already know how it ends, indeed as history you may know almost everything that happens in it, though unless you are a detailed student of these events you won’t know all of it. The movie, which deals with Hitler’s last days in the bunker, is dark and depressing. And there is the challenge of making some of the nastiest villains of the 20th century be the protagonists. This caused controversy, because people don’t like seeing Hitler and his ilk humanized evenin the slightest. Hitler in this film is in some ways as you might expect him. Crazy, brutal and nasty. He’s also shown being kind to some friends, to Eva, to his dog, his secretaries and afew others. He has to be human or the film becomes just caricature, and not much as a drama.Goebbels gets little humanity, and his wife, who has the most disturbing scene in the film, has a very twisted sort. While we have only a limited idea of what Hitler was like at this time, I feel the movie actually still made him a madman caricature. The real Hitler must have been highly charismatic and charming. He inspired people to tremendous loyalty, and got them to do horrible things for him, including taking their own lives at the end as we’re shown several times. The Nazis who were recruited by Hitler in his early days all spoke warmly of his charm, but none of this comes through in the film. We don’t like to think of him that way. The movie is told in large part from the viewpoint of Frau Traudl Junge, one of Hitler’s private secretaries, who escaped the bunker and died recently. The real Junge appears in the film, apologizing for how she just got caught up in the excitement of being Hitler’s secretary, and how she wished she never went down that road. Like all the people who were there, she says she was unaware of what was really going on. Considering she typed Hitler’s last testament, where he blames the Jews for the war, and other statements he dictated to her, it’s not something she could have been totally unaware of. Junge asks Eva Braun about Hitler’s brutality as a contrast to his nicer times and she explains, “that’s when he’s being the Führer!” suggesting she compartmentalized the two men, lover and dictator, in two different ways. During the movie the Soviets are bombing Berlin, and Hitler refuses surrender, in spite of urging from his generals and pleas for the civilians. Even Himmler, whose dastardly evil side is not shown in this film, is the “smart one” encouraging Hitler to leave Berlin, and who “betrays” Hitler in trying to negotiate a surrender. As in any war movie, when you see people being blown up by bombs and shot from their point of view, your instinct is to sympathise, and it’s easy to forget it is the allies who are doing the bombing, and the people dying are the ones who stuck with Hitler to the end. Some of them are “innocent” including many of the citizens of Berlin, but many are not. Their loyalty may seem redeeming but they are giving that loyalty (and have reached a level of trust from Hitler) in a world where many in Germany wanted him out, where a number had been executed for plots to be rid of him. A few Nazis get favourable treatment. Speer, for example. A scene from his memoirs, which is probably false, has Speer telling Hitler that he has disobeyed his “Nero” scorched Earth orders. This scene appears in Speer’s later memoirs but is denied in earlier ones, making it likely to bean invented memory. To give Speer credit of course he did disobey the orders, and he was the only top Nazi to own up, even partially, for what he did. Junge herself comes off as perfectly innocent and loyal. General Mohnke and SS Doctor Ernst-Günther Schenck (both of whom died moderately recently) get positive treatments. The most disturbing scene involves Frau Goebbels executing her own children. There are conflicting stories on this, though the one piece of documentation, her last letter, makes it somewhat credible. Movie directors “like” such scenes, as they are incredibly chilling and nightmare-inducing. While Hitler was losing his grip on reality, the others were not, and these horrors are all a result of how much they embraced their bizarre ideology. Frau Goebbels could have sent her children to safety, she felt there was no point in them living in the world that was to come. Still, this scene will give you nightmares, along with a number of other gruesome suicides, even if you know in your mind that the people suiciding have done such incredibly nasty things. But this is a part of history worth understanding. And it is worth trying to understand — though we may never do so — how human beings not as different from us as we would like to believe —could have been such monsters. The movie is well made, and powerful, if depressing and disturbing at the same time. post a comment
Calling all Canadians! Here is your chance to celebrate July 4th in your own independent way. Instead of watching the foolishness of the lower 48, you can enjoy a medley of songs from a variety of musicals, performed by students from Sing House Studios in a fundraiser for One Laptop Per Child. Their rendition of I Hate Musicals!, which includes songs from Phantom of the Opera, Rent and Hello Dolly! will also feature the amazing singing duo Alex Lacasse and Kira Isabella. If you can make it, here's the details: I Hate Musicals! OLPC Fundrasier If you're not near Canada tomorrow, you can still follow along with your own mini-OLPC musical with Pydance on the XO - an open-source clone of Dance Dance Revolution, courtesy of Joviko: And if that's not enough to make you July 4th happy, then what about converting all that motion into energy with a dance-powered XO charger.
( Bar exam approacheth - leave me alone now, please )
There was a Giant Moth with big blue eyes. Um. Eye-like spots on it's wings that were sort of blue. I have many many really awesome moth pictures. But I don't have the cord to upload them to the computer. That cord would be somewhere in my room in Somerville.
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The Black Hat conference in Las Vegas always has its share of drama. This year, it's happened a month before the conference opens. The researcher Barnaby Jack had to cancel his talk. Risky.biz gives an account of this; his talk was to make an Automated Teller Machine spit out a "jackpot" of cash, in the style of a slot machine. According to reports, the manufacturer of the ATM pressured Jack's employer, Juniper, to pressure him to withdraw the talk. I certainly roll my eyes at this. It doesn't do a lot of good to pressure someone to withdraw their talk. But even more so, if you're giving a talk, it behooves you to save the showmanship for the stage. I mean, come on. Last year, the big cancellation was the team of MIT students who broke the Boston MBTA Charlie Card system. There was a legal injunction put against them that spoilt their presentation. The fault, in my opinion went to them for naming their talk, "How To Get Free Subway Rides For Life." Imagine that you are a judge who is interrupted from an otherwise pleasant Saturday by panicky people who want an injunction against a talk with such a dramatic name, you'll at least listen to them. You decide that sure, no harm to society will come from an injunction from Saturday 'til Monday, and you'd be right. No harm came to society, DefCon was merely a little less interesting. Now imagine that you are the same judge and you're asked for an injunction against the talk, "A Practical Cryptanalysis of the Mifare Chip as Implemented in the MBTA." That one can wait until Monday, and the talk goes on. In a similar gedanken experiment, imagine that you are the VP of Corporate Communications for the XYZ ATM Corp. You learn that in a few weeks, someone is going to do "ATM Jackpot" with one of your ATMs in some show in Vegas. Despite the fact that someone else in the company approved it, what do you? You pressure them to cancel. Duh. If you don't, then you're going to spend most of August reassuring people about your products, your boss is going to be really ticked at you (after all, isn't it the job of Corporate Communications to control these things?), and it's just going to be no fun. This is also why you're paid the big bucks, to make embarrassments go away. This is why if you are a researcher, you do not name your talk, "ATM Jackpot" you name it "Penetration Testing of Standalone Financial Services Systems." It is only on stage that you fire up the flashing lights and clanging bells and make the ATM spit out C-notes for minutes on end. That would get you all the publicity for your talk that you want, and you actually get to give it. Remember, do as I say, not as I do. If you have a flashy Black Hat talk, put the punch line at the end of the joke. post a comment
 What they were emphatically not doing, said Jay Platt, the third-generation proprietor of the ranch, was abiding by a federally recommended livestock identification plan, intended to speed the tracing of animal diseases, that has caused an uproar among ranchers. They were not attaching the recommended tags with microchips that would allow the computerized recording of livestock movements from birth to the slaughterhouse.The New York Times reports that not even cattle need Real ID in"Rebellion on the Range Over a Cattle ID Plan." There's a web site, NoNAIS.org which is tracking things like Oklahoma is now mandating Premises ID for anyone wanting participate in the Swine Shows. One more tricky little way that they make “voluntary” into mandatory.Image: IstockPhoto post a comment
Having just recently started volunteering with non-profit One Laptop per Child, I've been amazed to find out about their Contributors Program. OLPC offers free XO laptops if you help their worldwide children's project. I can hardly imagine a truer opportunity: get involved in OLPC hands-on, find out how easy it is to touch lives in far corners of our planet, and weave your very own inspiration into one of the most humanitarian endeavors out there. (I find it shocking how few people know about the opportunity!)  They could be using your software! How It Works: The OLPC Contributor's Program seeds grassroots initiative allowing teachers, engineers, librarians, and community advocates (actually anyone!) to create projects around the OLPC movement. The Contributors Program then provides XO laptops to any dedicated person who can help OLPC and its Sugar software provide learning content, technologies or teaching tools to countless needy kids worldwide. In fact, There's an App for That:-) A very quick App(lication) in fact, with free shipping worldwide in about a week! Which is why the Contributors Program has already seen a stream of successes. I'm hoping to share the best of these with you in future writings. Already, Contributors are creating a vast array of Activities for the XO - from text-to-speech technology, new math programs, and even a disaster relief system. Best of all, the Contributors Program works hard to pair every proposal with a dedicated Mentor to assist you in any questions or challenges arising during your project! I really urge you to apply, if you share OLPC's community vision to make things happen. Literally people of all ages can submit ideas - if you or the people you know can dedicate yourselves to creating software, hardware, illustrations, teaching guides, puzzles, quality-testing or support - you name it. Can you advance Activities focused on the environment, languages, health, science, math or humanities? Or perhaps you're striving to be a social entrepreneur? Then set up a local laptop-lending library, or a community repair center, whatever! Now that summer is here, now is a perfect opportunity for teachers, after-school providers, college students and aspiring youth leaders to get involved, enhancing a myriad of XO learning tools. Do you know students of any age you can engage? Tell them advance prototypes of the new XO 1.5 hardware will be available in August to projects requiring superfast technology, spurring the impact of their work further than they will ever know... Honestly, how often in your life do you get the chance to dedicate your energy to a cause that stands to impact the minds of millions of hungry kids worldwide? If you just have a few hours a week, you can participate in this powerful worldwide movement, simply by reading the FAQs and submitting a proposal. Then go thank yourself for making a difference by meeting the kids in 2019.  Margaret Hartley is a recent Boston University graduate dedicated to improving female education and access to learning technologies in East Africa. She will even be your mentor if you ask nicely.
Cosmic rays can flip bits in memory cells or processor datapaths. Once upon a time, Sudhakar and I asked the question, "can an attacker exploit rare and random bit-flips to bypass a programming-language's type protections and thereby break out of the Java sandbox?" A recently published science-fiction anthology Thoughtcrime Experiments contains a story, "Single-Bit Error" inspired by our research paper. What if you could use cosmic-ray bit flips in neurons to bypass the "type protections" of human rationality? In addition to 9 stories and 6 original illustrations, the anthology is interesting for another reason. It's an experiment in do-it-yourself paying-the-artists high-editorial-standards open-source Creative-Commons print-on-demand publishing. Theorists like Yochai Benkler and others have explained that production costs attributable to communications and coordination have been reduced down into the noise by the Internet, and that this enables "peer production" that was not possible back in the 19th and 20th centuries. Now the Appendix to Thoughtcrime Experiments explains how to edit and produce your own anthology, complete with a sample publication contract. It's not all honey and roses, of course. The authors got paid, but the editors didn't! The Appendix presents data on how many hours they spent "for free". In addition, if you look closely, you'll see that the way the authors got paid is that the editors spent their own money. Still, part of the new theory of open-source peer-production asks questions like, "What motivates people to produce technical or artistic works? What mechanisms do they use to organize this work? What is the quality of the work produced, and how does it contribute to society? What are the legal frameworks that will encourage such work?" This anthology and its appendix provide an interesting datapoint for the theorists.
I’ve written before about both the desire for universal dc power and more simply universal laptop power at meeting room desks. This week saw the announcement that all the companies selling cell phones in Europe will standardize on a single charging connector, based on micro-USB. (A large number of devices today use the now deprecated Mini-USB plug, and it was close to becoming a standard by default.) As most devices are including a USB plug for data, this is not a big leap, though it turned out a number of devices would not charge from other people’s chargers, either from stupidity or malice. (My Motorola RAZR will not charge from a generic USB charger or even an ordinary PC. It needs a special charger with the data pins shorted, or if it plugs into a PC, it insists on a dialog with the Motorola phone tools driver before it will accept a charge. Many suspect this was to just sell chargers and the software.) The new agreement is essentially just a vow to make sure everybody’s chargers work with everybody’s devices. It’s actually a win for the vendors who can now not bother to ship a charger with the phone, presuming you have one or will buy one. It is not required they have the plug — supplying an adapter is sufficient, as Apple is likely to do. Mp3 player vendors have not yet signed on. USB isn’t a great choice since it only delivers 500ma at 5 volts officially, though many devices are putting 1 amp through it. That’s not enough to quickly charge or even power some devices. USB 3.0 officially raised the limit to 900ma, or 4.5 watts. USB is a data connector with some power provided which has been suborned for charging and power. What about a design for a universal plug aimed at doing power, with data being the secondary goal? Not that it would suck at data, since it’s now pretty easy to feed a gigabit over 2 twisted pairs with cheap circuits. Let’s look at the constraints Smart PowerThe world’s new power connector should be smart. It should offer 5 volts at low current to start, to power the electronics that will negotiate how much voltage and current will actually go through the connector. It should also support dumb plugs, which offer only a resistance value on the data pins, with each resistance value specifying a commonly used voltage and current level. Real current would never flow until connection (and ground if needed) has been assured. As such, there is minimal risk of arcing or electric shock through the plug. The source can offer the sorts of power it can deliver (AC, DC, what voltages, what currents) and the sink (power using device) can pick what it wants from that menu. Sinks should be liberal in what they take though (as they all have become of late) so they can be plugged into existing dumb outlets through simple adapters. Style of pins
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cheerful
We want low current plugs to be small, and heavy current plugs to be big. I suggest a triangular pin shape, something like what is shown here. In this design, two main pins can only go in one way. The lower triangle is an optional ground — but see notes on grounding below.