Category: Geek stuff

If it involves physics, math, computer science, electronics or has general geek cachet, this is the place for it.

Tolkien on real and legendary wars

Given when it was written, many people have interpreted J.R.R. Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings series as an allegory about the first or second world war. In one introduction to the books, he addresses this matter directly, denying that they are in any way allegorical. He goes on to say:

The real war does not resemble the legendary war in its process or its conclusion. If it had inspired or directed the development of the legend, then certainly the ring would have been seized and used against Sauron. He would not have been annihilated but enslaved, and Barad-dûr would not have been destroyed, but occupied. Saruman, failing to get possession of the ring, would in the confusion and treacheries of the time, have found in Mordor the missing links in his own researches into ring lore, and before long he would have made a great ring of his own with which to challenge the self-styled ruler of Middle Earth. In that conflict, both sides would have held hobbits in hatred and contempt. They would not long have survived, even as slaves.

Flash memory and storing data for the long term

I didn’t know this about flash memory:

Flash memory is really cheap. So cheap, in fact, that it’s too good to be true. In reality, all flash memory is riddled with defects — without exception. The illusion of a contiguous, reliable storage media is crafted through sophisticated error correction and bad block management functions. This is the result of a constant arms race between the engineers and mother nature; with every fabrication process shrink, memory becomes cheaper but more unreliable. Likewise, with every generation, the engineers come up with more sophisticated and complicated algorithms to compensate for mother nature’s propensity for entropy and randomness at the atomic scale.

These algorithms are too complicated and too device-specific to be run at the application or OS level, and so it turns out that every flash memory disk ships with a reasonably powerful microcontroller to run a custom set of disk abstraction algorithms. Even the diminutive microSD card contains not one, but at least two chips — a controller, and at least one flash chip (high density cards will stack multiple flash die).

It reinforces the point that we really have no technology for long-term data storage. Hard drives fail, burned CDs and DVDs likewise. Paper is enduring.

Even backup systems like Apple’s Time Machine have problems. If a file gets corrupted on your hard drive, Time Machine will start backing up corrupted copies, eventually over-writing the good ones. What’s really needed is a system that makes a hash of the files to be backed up and stores distinct copies of all modified versions. Of course, that could require a lot more storage space – especially if the files in question are something like videos being edited.

Re-comp preparation

There are now 17 days left before my Canadian politics re-comp.

Studying involves many distinct tasks, but one big one is working on outlines for responses to likely questions, as well as listing sources to use in answers.

Going back through more than 10 years of exams, I have found that there are a few questions that come up exceptionally often, with minor variations in wording. Having the outline of an answer for each is probably a good strategy:

  • Making reference to specific subfields of the discipline, discuss whether Canadian political science is more in need of research on topics on which the literature is sparse, or of research which builds on and expands existing literature. (Asked 7 times)
  • Making reference to specific subfields of the discipline, discuss why the literature on certain elements of Canadian politics makes substantial use of conceptual-theoretical perspectives, whereas the literature on other elements of Canadian politics is largely atheoretical. (8 times)
  • It has been said that “the world needs more Canada”. Can this be said of Canadian Political Science? Are there conceptual frameworks or empirical findings from the study of Canadian politics that could usefully be applied to other polities? (3 times)
  • Is the ‘democratic deficit’ in Canada growing or contracting? (8 times)
  • “The term ‘identity politics’ is fairly recent, but the substance of what identity politics entails has long been a central concern of Canadian political science.” Discuss. (5 times)
  • “For all the talk of the pervasive and pernicious effects of neo-liberalism on Canadian politics, policy and governance, its actual influence has been relatively modest.” Discuss. (3 times)

The exam consists of 3 essays, chosen from a larger array (usually at least 9). Usually, the possible topics are broken up into sections, and students must choose one from each section.

Open thread: naval warfare

There have been a number of interesting developments in the area of naval warfare recently: Chinese efforts to develop anti-ship ballistic missiles, American experiments with broad area marine surveillance, China’s declaration of an air defence identification zone, the launching of a Japanese destroyer seemingly designed for possible conversion into an aircraft carrier, the launching of China’s first aircraft carrier, and the development of supercavitating torpedoes, to name a few.

Particularly in Asia, the coming decades seem likely to involve considerable developments in marine military technology and deployments.

From MaddAddam

The people in the chaos cannot learn. They cannot understand what they are doing to the sea and the sky and the plants and the animals. They cannot understand that they are killing them, and that they will end by killing themselves. And there are so many of them, and each one of them is doing part of the killing, whether they know it or not. And when you tell them to stop, they don’t hear you.

So there is only one thing left to do. Either most of them must be cleared away while there is still an earth, with trees and flowers and birds and fish and so on, or all must die when there are none of those things left. Because if there are none of those things left, then there will be nothing at all. Not even any people.

So shouldn’t you give those ones a second chance? he asked himself. No, he answered, because they have had a second chance. They have had many second chances. Now is the time.

Atwood, Margaret. MaddAddam. 2013. p. 291 (hardcover)