Category: Geek stuff

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

Peter Russell on recent decades of Canadian constitutional politics

At the beginning of this book I introduced Burke and Locke as representing two different approaches to constitutionalism. For the Burkean, a constitution is thought of not as a single foundational document drawn up at a particular point in time containing all of a society’s rules and principles of government, but as a collection of laws, institutions, and political practices that have passed the test of time, and which have been found to serve the society’s interests tolerably well… From the Lockean perspective, however, the Constitution is understood as a foundational document expressing the will of the people, reached through a democratic agreement, on the nature of the political community they have formed and how that community is to be governed… The central argument of this book has been that up until the 1960s constitutional politics in Canada was basically Burkean, but for a generation – from the late 1960s to the mid-1990s – the prevailing constitutional aspiration in Canada and in Quebec was for a Lockean constitutional moment. That effort failed, for the now obvious reason that in neither Canada nor Quebec was there – or is there – a population capable of acting as a sovereign people in a positive Lockean way.

Russell, Peter. Constitutional Odyssey: Can Canadians Become a Sovereign People? (Third Edition). 2004 (first edition 1992). p. 247-8

HOPE 6 videos

2600 Magazine has just posted an archive with 67 hours of talks originally given at HOPE 6 in 2006. They are available for purchase at DVD quality, of free viewing via YouTube at lower quality.

There is some seriously interesting stuff in here: Basics of Forensic Recovery, Binary Revolution Radio, Exploring Your World with Open Source GIS, GPS, and Google Maps, Keynote Address – Richard Stallman, Urban Exploring: Hacking the Physical World, and a lot more.

Note: many of these videos include bizarre and implausible conspiracy theory ideas.

From The War of the Ring

I have long found Tolkien to be an effective antidote to leaden academic prose. His sentences demonstrate such craft, and his epic language – evocative of Beowulf and Norse legend – contrasts pleasingly with the sesquipedalianism of the academy.

Reading The War of the Ring yesterday, I found a passage that is ironic in hindsight. Gandalf is explaining why vanquishing Sauron is a sufficient task, even though it may leave other perils to be faced by those in the future:

Other evils there are that may come; for Sauron is himself but a servant or emissary. Yet it is not our part to master all the tides of the world, but to do what is in us for the succour of those years wherein we are set, uprooting the evil in the fields that we know, so that those who live after may have clean earth to till. What weather they shall have is not ours to rule.

This is strange to read, in light of climate change realities. The weather future generations shall have is now largely ours to rule, and we must decide how much suffering we are willing to impose on them for our convenience and for the pleasure of extravagant energy use.

I have heard it argued that there is no point in dealing with climate change, because some other problem will inevitably arise to confront those in the future. Alternatively, some argue that climate change should be ignored until other ills which they consider more pressing have been addressed. To me this seems a cowardly bit of rationalization. We have the knowledge know to foresee the consequences of our energy choices, and we have several varied courses of action open to us. In choosing how to rule the weather of the future, we ought to acknowledge that and confront the implications.

Strunk&White on style

Young writers often suppose that style is a garnish for the meat of prose, a sauce by which a dull dish is made palatable. Style has no such separate entity; it is nondetachable, unfilterable. The beginner should approach style warily, realizing that it is an expression of self, and should turn resolutely away from all devices which are popularly believed to indicate style — all mannerisms, tricks, adornments. The approach to style is by way of plainness, simplicity, orderliness, sincerity.

p. 69

Operational security for disclosing wrongdoing

Wired on the steps now required for whistleblowers to leak evidence of wrongdoing to journalists, in an age of ubiquitous surveillance:

“Get a dedicated computer or tablet: the cheapest Windows laptop will do. And pay cash, as our normal laptops have a host of automatic synchronization and similar services. Our personal web browsers also contain all sorts of location-identifying cookies. Even if you’re logged in to but don’t actually visit Facebook’s home page, a subpoena to Facebook can still reveal where you connect and what pages you visit — every “Like” button reports to Facebook that you are visiting that particular page, at a particular time, from a particular IP address.

Leave your cellphone, your normal computer, and your metro card (like SmarTrip) at home: anything that speaks over a wireless link must stay behind. Then go to a coffee shop that has open Wi-Fi, and once there open a new Gmail account that you will only use to contact the press and only from the dedicated computer. When registering, use no personal information that can identify you or your new account: no phone numbers, no names.

Don’t forget: if you get anything at the cafe, or take public transit, pay cash. Be prepared to walk a bit, too; you can’t stay close to home for this.

Of course, the job still isn’t finished. When you are done you must clear the browser’s cookies and turn off the Wi-Fi before turning off the computer and removing the battery. The dedicated computer should never be used on the network except when checking your press-contact account and only from open Wi-Fi connections away from home and work.”

Related: Wikileaks and whistleblowers

Some tidbits on the B.C. election

Some articles about the recent election in British Columbia:

I was hoping the NDP would win and immediately kill the Northern Gateway pipeline. Regardless of the outcome, the fight against fossil fuel expansion (pipelines, fossil fuel export terminals, etc) will need to continue.

One item from the first piece caught my eye: “voters 55 or older made up half of all voters” (they represent 35% of the population). These people will be dead long before the worst effects of climate change are felt. If today’s young people are going to stop serving as a punching bag for older people, they are going to need to get active politically.

The Looking Glass War

I picked up a library copy of John le Carré’s The Looking Glass War because all my own books were in moving boxes, and to begin re-habituating myself to intensive reading in the lead-up to my comprehensive exam in August.

The novel is what you would expect from le Carré: not sensationalized, conveying a sense of awareness about realistic tradecraft. The characters aren’t much differentiated, but the writing is very good and the book seems like a nice counterweight to the sensationalism of the general espionage genre. For instance, there are a number of detailed passages about the inconveniences of operating a WWII-era radio using Morse code. The bureaucratic turf war that forms the primary motivation for the action in the novel seems depressingly realistic.

To sum up: it’s a reasonably interesting quick read which provides the sense of a brush with realism that distinguishes le Carré from other writers in the genre.

What Harvard tenure requires

The Harvard Crimson has a piece on the school’s tenure program and what is necessary to succeed in it. It probably gives a flavour of what tenure committees throughout academia are looking for:

“It is necessary to become a world expert in your field, publish great
papers in good journals, develop a healthy funding pipeline, and do
responsible service for the College and the University.

…

‘Being a faculty member here is like having three full time jobs on top of each other,’ Cox says. ‘There are only so many hours in the day. An hour spent on teaching is an hour not spent in the lab doing research or an hour not spent writing a grant proposal.'”

I suppose it demonstrates how multi-talented a person needs to be in order to secure tenure at a first-rate institution; not only must you be a capable and accomplished researcher, but you also need to be able to bring money in and serve your school’s teaching and administrative needs.