Category: Geek stuff

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

Suggest a thesis source

As with my M.Phil thesis, I plan on using various technological tools to help with the creation of my doctoral thesis.

Here’s a simple one I am trying: a web form that allows people to suggest thesis sources.

If you come across something that you think would be interesting and useful to me, please put the details in the form and submit it. Google Docs will automatically compile the responses into a spreadsheet for me.

If you have suggestions about how the form could be improved, let me know through the ‘Notes’ field or leave a comment here.

Software defined radio

Software defined radio (SDR) is one of the things I am most curious about. There is just so much data being exchanged via radio these days. It’s strange to think about the constant complex pattern of broadcasting happening all around us.

This video gives a bit of a taste of what is happening in one part of the world and across a fairly narrow range of frequencies:

It’s pretty cool that he is able to identify and analyze Chinese over-the-horizon RADAR. It shows some of the possibilities SDR opens up for hobbyists.

Much of the hardware required to seriously experiment with SDR is expensive. Interestingly, though, someone has figured out how to do the job for the 64-1700MHz frequency band using an $11 digital TV tuner chip.

You could do some very cool stuff with this: set up your own infrastructure independent computer networks, explore what sort of communication is happening around you, conduct intrusion detection (looking for interception devices broadcasting), and experiment with the security of your hardware, such as the Bluetooth chips in your phone and laptop.

Margin Call

I saw Margin Call yesterday – an interesting fictionalized depiction of the start of the mortgage-backed security meltdown of 2008. The film depicts one fundamental cause effectively enough, namely models that understimated the level of risk associated with mortgage-backed collateralized debt obligations, though what I have read about the crisis suggests that this may not have come as such a total surprise to the investment banking community as was depicted in the film.

Overall, I found the film accessible and interesting – an uncharacteristic portrayal of the internal dynamics of a large company. People who know a lot more about the subject than I do have called it realistic.

The film is also an interesting illustration of a complex strategic position, in which one company suddenly realizes that a major new asset class is toxic and needs to decide how to respond. Threatened with bankruptcy if they take modest losses on their highly leveraged portfolio, they decide to sell off as much as they can in one day, knowing the assets to be worse than useless, and knowing that they will spread chaos through the American financial system. One of the managers makes this point with another: “And you’re selling something that you *know* has no value” and gets the response: “We are selling to willing buyers at the current fair market price”. Among other things, this reveals the experimental nature of financial innovation, the scale of some of the risks associated with it, and the temptation to behave in intensely self-interested ways even when that is costly to others.

The main question raised by the film, as well as by the real-world crisis that inspired it, is probably whether we would be better off with a simpler and less innovative financial system. At one point, the most senior staff member depicted describes the history of American financial crises in this way:

Its just money; its made up. Pieces of paper with pictures on it so we don’t have to kill each other just to get something to eat. It’s not wrong. And it’s certainly no different today than its ever been. 1637, 1797, 1819, 37, 57, 84, 1901, 07, 29, 1937, 1974, 1987-Jesus, didn’t that fuck up me up good-92, 97, 2000 and whatever we want to call this. It’s all just the same thing over and over; we can’t help ourselves. And you and I can’t control it, or stop it, or even slow it. Or even ever-so-slightly alter it. We just react. And we make a lot money if we get it right. And we get left by the side of the side of the road if we get it wrong.

Another lower-level manager also discusses the ethics of the business:

Listen, if you really wanna do this with your life you have to believe you’re necessary and you are. People wanna live like this in their cars and big fuckin’ houses they can’t even pay for, then you’re necessary. The only reason that they all get to continue living like kings is cause we got our fingers on the scales in their favor. I take my hand off and then the whole world gets really fuckin’ fair really fuckin’ quickly and nobody actually wants that. They say they do but they don’t. They want what we have to give them but they also wanna, you know, play innocent and pretend they have know idea where it came from. Well, thats more hypocrisy than I’m willing to swallow, so fuck em. Fuck normal people. You know, the funny thing is, tomorrow if all of this goes tits up they’re gonna crucify us for being too reckless but if we’re wrong, and everything gets back on track? Well then, the same people are gonna laugh till they piss their pants cause we’re gonna all look like the biggest pussies God ever let through the door.

All told, the film offered what seemed like worthwhile insight into the culture of investment banks and the origins of the financial crisis, and did so in a way that was skillful and entertaining.

The magnitude of the original contribution of a PhD

I am reading Estelle Phillips and Derek Pugh’s How to Get a PhD: A Handbook for Students and Their Supervisors. One interesting section is entitled: “Not understanding the nature of a PhD by overestimating what is required”.

Some quotes:

The words used to describe the outcome of a PhD project – ‘an original contribution to knowledge’ – may sound rather grand, but we must remember that, as we saw in Chapter 3, the work for the degree is essentially a research training process. and the term ‘original contribution’ has perforce to be interpreted quite narrowly. It does not mean an enormous breakthrough that has the subject rocking on its foundations, and research students who think that it does (even if only subconsciously or in a half-formed way) will find the process pretty debilitating.

…

We find that when we make this point, some social science students who have read Kuhn’s (1970) work on ‘paradigm shifts’ in the history of natural science (science students have normally not heard of him) say rather indignantly: ‘Oh, do you mean a PhD has to be just doing normal science?’ And indeed we do mean that.

…

You can leave the paradigm shifts for after your PhD, and empirically that is indeed what happens. The theory of relativity (a classic example of a paradigm shift in relation to post-Newtonian physics) was not Einstein’s PhD thesis (that was a sensible contribution to Brownian motion theory). Das Kapital was not Marx’s PhD (that was on the theories of two little-known Greek philosophers).

…

Overestimating is a powerful way of not getting a PhD.

Open thread: smartphone security

There are masses of important recent news stories on the topic of smartphone security. I have been filing them below posts like this one, this one, and this one, but they really deserve a spot of their own.

First news story: Micro Systemation makes software that allows people to bypass the 4-digit lock code on an iPhone in seconds. This could be important for people crossing borders, people who get arrested at political protests, etc.

Excluding traffic noise

My latest effort to avoid the constant sound of traffic and streetcar noise in my bedroom consists of wearing DeWalt DPG62-C ‘Interceptor’ Protective Safety Earmuffs over top of foam earplugs.

The earmuffs are rated for 29 decibels of sound reduction, while the earplugs are supposedly good for 32. The sound reduction doesn’t seem to be equal across the range of frequencies I can hear. Birdsong comes right through strangely unaffected, and the rumble of heavy trucks and SUVs remains perceptible, along with the clang and whoosh of streetcars. Together, the two forms of hearing protection do pretty effectively exclude traffic noise, at least when I have my window closed. Whether the whole setup will remain in place overnight is another question.

Wearing the combination is actually a bit disconcerting. There is a constant hiss in my ears, which I think is a combination of the hiss you get from hearing damage with the quiet flow of blood through my ears themselves. If I walk on pavement, each step produces a loud pounding noise. Even walking softly on a wooden floor in socks, I can hear my joints complain slightly when I put my weight on them. For some reason, wearing all this ear protection also makes me more aware of my body, from the mild ever-present pain in my left shoulder to the bodily exhaustion that characterizes the end of another frustrating and largely fruitless day.

We will see whether this combination of tools helps square the circle of a person who is always intensely irritated by traffic noise living in a thin-windowed second-floor apartment overlooking one of Toronto’s busier urban streets.

Using rsync to backup local folders to DreamHost’s backup accounts

One awesome thing about DreamHost is that they provide all hosting customers with 50GB of free online backup space. It can be accessed using ftp, sftp, and rsync.

I am trying to use it to make a backup of my USB key. I am always moving between computers, so documents that I am actively working on tend to follow me on the key. Having a backup would be useful in case it got lost or damaged.

I am trying to figure out what the correct terminal command would be to synchronize a folder from Mac OS X to DreamHost using rsync. I think it should be something like:

rsync -aP --protocol=29 /Volumes/USBKEYNAME/* BACKUPUSERACCOUNT@BACKUPUSERSERVER.dreamhost.com::keybackup

Is that right? If any rsync gurus are out there, I would really appreciate their input on what options and syntax to use.

The Starbucks archipelago

For a person on the move, the world’s countless Starbucks locations provide a lot of very useful infrastructure. They provide caffeine, wireless internet access (even at night when they are closed), a place to sit, bathrooms, electrical outlets, and tolerable food. Their bagels with cream cheese are affordable, reasonably filling, and not spectacularly unhealthy when consumed in moderation.

Starbucks has been key for me on a great many trips. For instance, when I was in Washington D.C. photographing the Keystone XL protests. It is especially useful and important when I am traveling somewhere where Fido’s data roaming rates are evil. I can orient myself with Google Maps, make calls with Skype, check email, upload images to Flickr, and update websites all through the glory of Starbucks WiFi – and all while keeping my iPhone safely in ‘airplane mode’. And it can all be done with the accompaniment of a half-litre of highly caffeinated brew.

In Oxford, Starbucks locations were part of my meandering reading system. I generally can’t just sit in one place for hours and pay attention to the documents in front of me. I do much better when moving periodically from place to place: from one library to another to a Starbucks and on to a different library. If I do start a PhD, I will probably resume similarly peripatetic habits when dealing with large volumes of reading material.

Just as coaling stations were once essential support infrastructure for coal-fired ocean-going ships, the vast scattering of near-identical Starbucks locations around the world provide the necessities of life for those away from home everywhere. If they just added some coffin hotel style sleeping berths, there would be no real need to rely on any other businesses when visiting a strange city.