Geek stuff – Page 136 – a sibilant intake of breath

Intelligence, effort, and success

A couple of articles I came across today may be of interest to fellow students. The first, from New York Magazine, discusses possible perverse effects upon learning that arise due to how people understand intelligence. Specifically, people who believe themselves to be intelligent are more likely to choose easy tasks and less likely to apply themselves. Another article, on the website of the Association for Psychological Science, discusses ‘The Myth of Prodigy.’ It is about Malcolm Gladwell, author of The Tipping Point.

While I cannot really comment on the validity of the experimental results posited, the general idea does have the ring of truth to it. Intelligence, I think, is generally more likely to be a source of insecurity than confidence. It can always be proven hollow, or outdone by someone else. What that seems to happen, the trend is likely to sustain itself. This I have seen in both friends and myself. It may have a lot to do with why I never learned to drive or dance, and am rather hesitant to display my ineptitude at either.

PS. As with so many other items of interest, I first found this on Metafilter. On one hand, I feel bad for just grabbing their content. On the other, I recognize that it is a very efficient way of finding interesting material. Furthermore, I am driving traffic in their direction.

Another post for chart fans

Note: ‘Level of Thesis Completion’ is constant.

WiFi Skype phones, a very good idea

If we were allowed to run a wireless network, I would think very seriously about buying a WiFi Skype phone – a product distinctly more novel than the much touted Apple iPhone.

Basically, you have a little device that looks like a cell phone. It searches for wireless networks, connects to one if available, and then uses it to make calls using Skype. More people should use Skype. Calls to anyone who is online are free (as is always the case with Skype) and those to normal phones are cheap (two cents a minute to Canada, from anywhere in the world). For those in the UK, there is a deal right now: a Skype WiFi phone, a wireless router, 900 SkypeOut minutes (to call normal phones), and a year’s worth of voicemail for £99 ($230).

Not having to use a computer, and being able to use the phone anywhere there is a wireless network are pretty excellent features. Of course, the real fun will begin when somebody makes a combined device that can access GSM cellphone networks at times when WiFi is unavailable, but otherwise routes calls through Skype.

The Resolution of Revolutions

Chapter XII of Kuhn’s Structure of Scientific Revolutions is a brilliant and highly convincing account of the historical nature of changed thinking in scientific communities, on matters fundamental enough to define paradigms. While he doesn’t use the analogy, it strikes me as being very similar to the processes of natural selection.

The first adopters of a new paradigm strike upon it for a complex combination of reasons. Included among them are vague aesthetic senses, personal prejudices, and the like. Because of the comprehensive nature of ‘normal’ scientific investigation within the existing paradigm, such meanderings are generally unlikely to be rewarded. That said, if they can win over a few people and develop to the point where they become evidently useful, they have the chance to win over the scientific community as a whole. Naturally, this is easiest to do in times of crisis: especially when the new paradigm seems to help resolve the questions that lie at the core. Kuhn rightly identifies how theories that do an especially good job of predicting effects unobserved until after predicted are unusually good at winning converts.

Consider the development of any novel biological phenomenon. The earliest creatures to undergo a significant mutation probably get eradicated as a result. Only once an alteration is at least benign and at best somewhat useful can we expect any number of beings to be found in the world with it. One can only imagine how many trillions of bacteria snuffed themselves out in the course of random variations that eventually led to things like more efficient cellular respiration, or the development of motion by flagella, or the existence of symbiotic modes of living.

Of course, I like the analogy because it serves my earlier arguments that it is practical usefulness that permits us to argue that one scientific perspective is better than another. Technology, in particular, lets us separate fruitless theory from the fruitful sort, as well as comprehend when seemingly incompatible views are just complex reflections of one another.

The current argumentation about whether string theory is ‘science’ or not strikes at this directly. String theory might be seen as the evolution of a new limb that hasn’t quite proved to be terribly useful yet. Driven by the kind of aesthetic sense that make Brian Greene call his book about it “The Elegant Universe” string theorists are engaged in the kind of development that might eventually lead to a resolution, as described by Kuhn.

PS. Part of the reason natural selection is so frequently useful for understanding what is going on in the world is because of how it is predicated upon an illuminating tautology: namely how arrangements that are stable in a particular environment will always perpetuate themselves, whereas those which are unstable will not. This applies to everything from virtual particle formation at the sub-atomic scale to the success and failure of businesses. That said, it should be noted that the ‘system’ in which businesses actually operate is distinctly different from the ideal form envisioned by the most vocal advocates of free markets. Crime, deceit, and exploitation may be important aspects of that system, in addition to innovation and individual acumen.

GoDaddy hosting trouble

Be warned, GoDaddy is having trouble with their servers again (especially the MySQL servers). This they confirmed when I called them a few minutes ago. Bits of the site keep popping in and out of existence, so bear with it while they continue to engage in whatever form of sorcery they have been building up towards for the last few days. All parts of the blog and wiki have been affected, and the tech support people say they don’t know when it will end.

Thesis typeface: three options

While it may seem trivial to some, I do think it is worthwhile to put some effort into the selection of the font in which my thesis will be written and ultimately printed. For reasons of aesthetics and ease of reading, a fairly classical serif font is the sort being considered. Within that genre, there are three options I am considering most strongly at the moment.

Continue reading “Thesis typeface: three options”

More amateur cryptography

One of the oldest problems in cryptography is key management. The simplest kind of cryptographic arrangement is based on a single key used by however many parties both for encryption and decryption. This carries two big risks, however. In the first place, you need a secure mechanism for key distribution. Secondly, it is generally impossible to revoke a key, either for one individual or for everyone. Because of these limitations, public key cryptography (which utilizes key pairs) has proved a more appropriate mechanism in many applications.

Once in a while, now, you read about ‘unbreakable’ cryptography based on quantum mechanics. The quantum phenomena employed are actually used for key generation, not for the actual business of encrypting and decrypting messages. Like the use of a one-time pad, the symmetric keys produced by this system hold out the promise of powerful encryption. Of course, such systems remain vulnerable both to other kinds of cryptographic attacks, particularly the ‘side channel’ attacks that have so often been the basis for successful code-breaking. Recent examples include the cracking of the encryption on DVDs, as well as Blu-Ray and HD-DVDs.

An example of a side-channel attack is trawling through RAM and virtual memory to try and find the password to some encrypted system. When you login to a website using secure socket layering (SSL), the data sent over the network is encrypted. That said, the program with which you access the site may well take the string of text that constitutes your password and then dump it into RAM and/or the swap space on your hard disk somewhere. Skimming through memory for password-like strings is much less resource intensive than simply trying every possible password. Programs like Forensic Toolkit by AccessData make this process easy. People who use the same string in multiple applications (any of which could storing passwords insecurely) are even more vulnerable.

As in a large number of other security related areas, people using Apple computers have a slight advantage. While not on by default. if you go into the security menu in the system preferences, you can turn on “Use secure virtual memory.” This encrypts the contents of your swap space, to help protect against the kind of attack described above.

The real lesson of all of this is that total information security can never be achieved. One just needs to strike a balance between the sensitivity of the data, the probability of it coming under examination, and the level of effort that would be required to overcome whatever security is in place.

PS. My PGP public key is available online, for anyone who wants to send me coded messages. Free copies of the encryption software Pretty Good Privacy (PGP) can also be easily downloaded.

Aeon Flux

I saw the film version of Aeon Flux today. The physics and biology were bad; the architecture and lighting were good. Overall, it makes me want to go to Berlin. It also makes me want to watch Gattaca again: a film with similar logical flaws, but a comparable commitment to aesthetics.

As virus-haunted-future films go, 12 Monkeys is much better. As lethal heroine films go, Ghost in the Shell remains the standard. The philosophical issues raised are less superficial, and the combat is infinitely more credible. There is a lesser extent to which Force = [ Mass * Acceleration / Physical attractiveness of person in question ]. Also, no matter how many Hollywood dollars they seem capable of bringing in, elaborate flips and cartwheels are simply not tactically effective.

Infernal machines

Proving the adage that technology is actually driven by evil spirits who let it fail just when it is most inconvenient: the MySQL database that serves as the back-end to my wiki has chosen this morning – an hour before I need to give a presentation stored in the wiki – to go kaput. SQL failures have been an irksome occasional occurrence with GoDaddy hosting. Good thing I printed off a PDF version of the presentation before going to sleep.

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Review: Etymotic ER6i headphones

Now that I’ve had these earbuds for about five months, it seems worthwhile to make a few comments. While they have their peculiarities, these are acoustically excellent devices. The noise isolation is so good that I use them to sleep on planes and buses. Indeed, when wearing them I am unable to hear whether my cell phone is ringing in my pocket (save for the very slight buzzing the radio transmission seems to induce in the connecting wire).

Admittedly, it takes a little while to get used to the unique flanges that make these earbuds look so distinctive. To begin with, I didn’t think they fit me very well. You gradually learn how to insert them to the proper depth, and with an appropriate air pressure between your eardrum and the earbud. Now that I have, I loathe the times when I need to use the awful default iPod headphones. (Given how well the ER6is exclude noise, cycling with them in would be somewhat reckless.)

The best things about these headphones are the excellent sound fidelity, the small size, the effective sound isolation, and the surprisingly good customer service provided by Etymotic. The sound fidelity is such that you can easily hear the minor differences in playback between a G4 iBook, a fourth generation iPod, and a first generation iPod Shuffle (especially in the bass range). As for the size: even in the carrying case they come with, they are small enough to carry everywhere. An iPod Shuffle fits neatly into the case with them, and then into a small pocket. In my experience, the Etymotic staff as very helpful. If you call their customer support line, you will be speaking to a real and knowledgeable person immediately. When I called them because I thought the flanges fit badly, they sent me a bunch of alternative sizes to try out for free.

The problematic things about them are the time lag before their particular style of seal begins to feel natural and the cheap looking – but seemingly durable – wires. Since the very rapid failure of the wires on my old Sony Fontopia earbuds was the reason I switched to these, I am happy they haven’t frayed in any visible way so far. As with any headphones, there is also the danger of pushing up the volume too many times over the course of a few hours of listening, then finding yourself struggling to hear those around you. Of course, sometimes that is just the price you need to pay for comprehensive musical immersion.

If these got stolen, I would buy them again.

I am even considering spending $12 on their fancy earplugs. When you’re trying to sleep on a plane, the last thing you want is to be hassled about turning off electronic devices. Additionally, these would be a good counter to the champion snorers that multi-bunk hostels seem to attract.

[Update: 17 January 2008] I replaced my second filter today. I also changed the white eartips. The old ones were getting pretty grungy and yellow. Ordering supplies from Etymotic involves very high shipping fees, so I bought them on eBay instead. I had to spend an awful week listening to iPod headphones; I am so glad to be back in the world of beautiful sound.