2008

What in our brains invest memories with emotion?

science / /

From Steven Pinker’s “What the F***?” (The New Republic: 9 Octobert 2007):

The mammalian brain contains, among other things, the limbic system, an ancient network that regulates motivation and emotion, and the neocortex, the crinkled surface of the brain that ballooned in human evolution and which is the seat of perception, knowledge, reason, and planning. The two systems are interconnected and work together, but it seems likely that words’ denotations are concentrated in the neocortex, especially in the left hemisphere, whereas their connotations are spread across connections between the neocortex and the limbic system, especially in the right hemisphere.

A likely suspect within the limbic system is the amygdala, an almond-shaped organ buried at the front of the temporal lobe of the brain (one on each side) that helps invest memories with emotion. A monkey whose amygdalas have been removed can learn to recognize a new shape, like a striped triangle, but has trouble learning that the shape foreshadows an unpleasant event like an electric shock. In humans, the amygdala “lights up”–it shows greater metabolic activity in brain scans–when the person sees an angry face or an unpleasant word, especially a taboo word.

What in our brains invest memories with emotion? Read More »

Do’s and don’ts for open source software development

business, technology / /

From Jono DiCarlo’s “Ten Ways to Make More Humane Open Source Software” (5 October 2007):

Do

  1. Get a Benevolent Dictator
    Someone who has a vision for the UI. Someone who can and will say “no” to features that don’t fit the vision.
  2. Make the Program Usable In Its Default State
    Don’t rely on configurable behavior. It adds complexity, solves little, and most users will never touch it anyway. Usable default behavior is required.
  3. Design Around Tasks
    Figure out the tasks that people want to do with your software. Make those tasks as easy as possible. Kill any feature that gets in the way.
  4. Write a Plug-In Architecture
    It’s the only good solution I’ve seen to the dilemma of providing a complete feature set without bloating the application.
  5. User Testing, User Testing, User Testing!!
    Without user testing, you are designing by guesswork and superstition.

Do Not

  1. Develop Without A Vision
    “When someone suggests another feature, we’ll find a place to cram it in!”
  2. Join the Clone Wars
    “Closed-source program X is popular. Let’s just duplicate its interface!”
  3. Leave the UI Design Up To The End User
    “I’m not sure how that should work. I’ll make it a check box on the preferences screen.”
  4. Make the Interface a Thin Veneer over the Underlying Implementation
    “But it’s got a GUI now! That makes it user-friendly, right?”
  5. Treat UI Design as Babysitting Idiots
    “They should all quit whining and read the manual already.”

Do’s and don’ts for open source software development Read More »

Scarcities and the music, movie, and publishing businesses

art, business, on writing / /

In Clay Shirky’s response to R.U. Sirius’ “Is The Net Good For Writers?” (10 Zen Monkeys: 5 October 2007), he takes on the persona of someone talking about what new changes are coming with the Gutenberg movable type press. At one point, he says, “Such a change would also create enormous economic hardship for anyone whose living was tied to earlier scarcities.”

It’s not just writing and writers and publishers that now face that change. Scarcities drove the music and movie businesses, and those scarcities are disappearing. When music is no longer tightly controlled in terms of creation, availability, manufacture, and distribution, when it’s possible to download or listen to anything at any time, those businesses face rapid, discombobulating change.

Is it the government’s – or society’s – duty, however, to put those scarcities back into place, either through technologies or law?

Scarcities and the music, movie, and publishing businesses Read More »

Like music, authors will make more money from personal appearances

art, business, on writing / /

From Douglas Rushkoff’s response to R.U. Sirius’ “Is The Net Good For Writers?” (10 Zen Monkeys: 5 October 2007):

But I think many writers – even good ones – will have to accept the fact that books can be loss-leaders or break-even propositions in a highly mediated world where showing up in person generates the most income.

Like music, authors will make more money from personal appearances Read More »

The Internet makes (sloppy) writers of nearly everyone

art, on writing, technology / /

From Adam Parfrey’s response to R.U. Sirius’ “Is The Net Good For Writers?” (10 Zen Monkeys: 5 October 2007):

I like the internet and computers for their ability to make writers of nearly everyone. I don’t like the internet and computers for their ability to make sloppy and thoughtless writers of nearly everyone.

The Internet makes (sloppy) writers of nearly everyone Read More »

The shift from interior to exterior lives

art, on writing, technology / /

From Mark Dery’s response to R.U. Sirius’ “Is The Net Good For Writers?” (10 Zen Monkeys: 5 October 2007):

But we live in times of chaos and complexity, and the future of writing and reading is deeply uncertain. Reading and writing are solitary activities. The web enables us to write in public and, maybe one day, strike off the shackles of cubicle hell and get rich living by our wits. Sometimes I think we’re just about to turn that cultural corner. Then I step onto the New York subway, where most of the car is talking nonstop on cellphones. Time was when people would have occupied their idle hours between the covers of a book. No more. We’ve turned the psyche inside out, exteriorizing our egos, extruding our selves into public space and filling our inner vacuums with white noise.

The shift from interior to exterior lives Read More »

People being rescued run from their rescuers

commonplace book, weird / /

From Les Jones’s email in Bruce Schneier’s “Crypto-Gram” (15 August 2005):

Avoiding rescuers is a common reaction in people who have been lost in the woods. See Dwight McCarter’s book, “Lost,” an account of search and rescue operations in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park. In one chapter McCarter tells the story of two backpackers in the park who got separated while traveling off-trail in the vicinity of Thunderhead. The less-experienced hiker quickly got lost.

After a day or two wandering around he was going through his pack and found a backpacking how-to book that explained what to do in case you got lost in the woods. Following the advice, he went to a clearing and built a signal fire. A rescue helicopter saw the smoke and hovered overhead above the tree tops as he waved his arms to attract their attention. The helicopter dropped a sleeping bag and food, with a note saying they couldn’t land in the clearing, but that they would send in a rescue party on foot.

The lost hiker sat down, tended his fire, and waited for rescue. When the rescuers appeared at the edge of the clearing, he panicked, jumped up, and ran in the other direction. They had to chase him down to rescue him. This despite the fact that he wanted to be rescued, had taken active steps to attract rescuers, and knew that rescuers were coming to him. Odd but true.

People being rescued run from their rescuers Read More »

World distance reading WiFi and RFID

security, technology / /

From Bruce Schneier’s “Crypto-Gram” (15 August 2005):

At DefCon earlier this month, a group was able to set up an unamplified 802.11 network at a distance of 124.9 miles.

http://www.enterpriseitplanet.com/networking/news/…

http://pasadena.net/shootout05/

Even more important, the world record for communicating with a passive RFID device was set at 69 feet. Remember that the next time someone tells you that it’s impossible to read RFID identity cards at a distance.

http://www.makezine.com/blog/archive/2005/07/…

Whenever you hear a manufacturer talk about a distance limitation for any wireless technology — wireless LANs, RFID, Bluetooth, anything — assume he’s wrong. If he’s not wrong today, he will be in a couple of years. Assume that someone who spends some money and effort building more sensitive technology can do much better, and that it will take less money and effort over the years. Technology always gets better; it never gets worse. If something is difficult and expensive now, it will get easier and cheaper in the future.

World distance reading WiFi and RFID Read More »

Micro-nations

art, history, law, politics, weird / /

From George Pendle’s “New Foundlands” (Cabinet: Summer 2005):

Call them micro-nations, model countries, ephemeral states, or new country projects, the world is surprisingly full of entities that display all the trappings of established independent states, yet garner none of the respect. The Republic of Counani, Furstentum Castellania, Palmyra, the Hutt River Province, and the Empire of Randania may sound fantastical, but they are a far cry from authorial inventions, like C.S. Lewis’s Narnia or Swift’s Laputa. …

Such idiosyncratic nation-building can trace its roots back to the early nineteenth century, when even the mightiest empire had yet to consolidate its grip on the more far-flung regions of the world. The swampland of the Mosquito Coast was just such an untouched area, and it was here that the Scottish adventurer Gregor MacGregor decided to found his new kingdom – the Territory of Poyais.

…

The Territory of Poyais displayed many of the themes that would appear in micro-nations for the next century-and-a-half: Firstly, that the love of money is usually a significant incentive in a micro-nation’s foundation. Secondly, that a micro-nation’s founders will always bestow upon themselves thoroughly dramatic titles. Thirdly, that since all the world’s good spots have been taken, micro-nations are usually gifted with dire and hazardous geography. And finally, should any other country enquire into the status of a micro-nation, it is liable to collapse.

For example, take the Republic of Indian Stream, a self-declared republic in North America that existed from 1832 to 1835. An ambiguous border treaty between Britain and the U.S. had created a 500-square mile legal loophole between Canada and the state of New Hampshire. Three hundred enterprising American citizens, all hoping to avoid federal taxes, quickly established a government and constitution and declared Indian Stream a sovereign state. The Republic went unchallenged, but when one of its members was arrested for unpaid debts and taken to serve time in a debtors’ prison in Canada, the Republic of Indian Stream swiftly planned a counterstrike. Crossing the border into Canada, they shot up a local judge’s house, broke their fellow “Streamer” out of prison, and returned triumphantly home. This bravado did not last for long. By the next morning, doubts about the attack were mustering, British retaliation was feared, and before long the Republic voted to be annexed by the New Hampshire militia. Indian Stream was soon incorporated into the state where its libertarian longing would continue to be nurtured for years to come.

…

One of the major problems in founding a new country, second only to being ignored, is the threat of invasion by a more legitimate nation. As a result, when a group of Ayn Rand disciples tried, in 1969, to set up a new country named Oceana, defense of the realm was paramount. Even though the exact location for Oceana had not been definitely fixed, boot camps were organized for all those who wanted to live there. Most ominously of all, plans were made to steal a nuclear missile, the ultimate deterrent should another country come knocking on their door. Fortunately the group was disorganized and lacking in funds, and when the ringleaders decided to rob a bar to fund their project, the hapless group was promptly arrested and their startling story discovered.

…

The United States Office of the Geographer stresses that five factors are needed to become a country: space, population, economic activity, government structure, and recognition from other countries. Of these, it is the last factor that has always been the hardest to attain. However, one micro-nation has perhaps come closer to fulfilling these requirements than any other. Founded by a former “pirate” radio operator, Paddy Roy Bates, Sealand is situated on an abandoned World War II anti-aircraft tower, seven miles off the British coast. Consisting of 550 square meters of solid steel, it was declared independent by “Prince” Roy in 1967. (The country’s initial economic activity consisted largely of selling passports and minted coins – both common practices amongst modern micro-nations out to make a quick buck).

…

Just as Sealand now plays host to the Internet, it is the Internet that has revealed itself as the host for a whole new generation of fictional state projects. As the libertarian fetish for micro-nations weakens, the virtual geography of the Internet grants a modicum of affordable tangibility to new micro-nations, without any of the traditional perils associated with abandoned anti-aircraft platforms or disputed South Pacific atolls.

…

In comparison, the Royal Kingdom of Elgaland-Vargaland (KREV) has no pull on believability. Although it claims physical territory, it insanely suggests that this consists of all the border frontier areas between all countries on earth. In doing so, the joint kings of KREV (for even these post-modern micro-nations can rarely resist the traditional attraction of a royal title) seem to be taking the artist Gordon Matta-Clark’s “Fake Estates” project – in which Matta-Clark bought small, inaccessible, and unusable lots of land, situated between buildings – to its furthest logical extension. KREV is a country made up of the intersections between real countries, a nation of negative space – a micro-nation that is best to debate rather than to visit.

Micro-nations listed in the article:

  •   the Republic of Counani  
  •   Furstentum Castellania  
  •   Palmyra  
  •   the Hutt River Province  
  •   the Empire of Randania  
  •   the Territory of Poyais  
  •   the Territory of Poyais  
  •   the Republic of Indian Stream  
  •   the Principality of Outer Baldonia  
  •   Oceana  
  •   Sealand  
  •   the Republic of Howland, Baker and Jarvis  
  •   the Royal Kingdom of Elgaland-Vargaland (KREV)  

Micro-nations Read More »

Chinese attacks on government and business networks

business, security / /

From Foreign Policy‘s interview with Richard A. Clarke, “Seven Questions: Richard Clarke on the Next Cyber Pearl Harbor” (April 2008):

I think the Chinese government has been behind many, many attacks—penetrations. “Attacks” sounds like they’re destroying something. They’re penetrations; they’re unauthorized penetrations. And what they are trying to do is espionage. They’re engaged in massive espionage, not only in the U.S. government, in the U.S. private sector as well, but also around the world. The British security service, MI5, sent a note to the 300 largest corporations in England a few months ago, telling them that the Chinese government had probably penetrated their networks.

…

What’s happening every day is that all of our information is being stolen. So, we pay billions of dollars for research and development, both in the government and the private sector, for engineering, for pharmaceuticals, for bioengineering, genetic stuff—all sorts of proprietary, valuable information that is the result of spending a lot of money on R&D—and all that information gets stolen for one one-thousandth of the cost that it took to develop it.

…

I’m also concerned about penetrations of U.S. research-and-development firms, everything from pharmaceuticals to genetics to aerospace engineering—all the things we have to sell in our knowledge-based economy. We are a post-industrial, knowledge-based society. That’s what we sell to the world. If other people can steal it readily, then we won’t have much of a margin.

Chinese attacks on government and business networks Read More »

The NSA’s cryptographic backdoor

security / /

From Bruce Schneier’s “The Strange Story of Dual_EC_DRBG” (Crypto-Gram: 15 November 2007):

This year, the U.S. government released a new official standard for random number generators, which will likely be followed by software and hardware developers around the world. Called NIST Special Publication 800-90, the 130-page document contains four different approved techniques, called DRBGs, or “Deterministic Random Bit Generators.” All four are based on existing cryptographic primitives. One is based on hash functions, one on HMAC, one on block ciphers, and one on elliptic curves. It’s smart cryptographic design to use only a few well-trusted cryptographic primitives, so building a random number generator out of existing parts is a good thing.

But one of those generators — the one based on elliptic curves — is not like the others. Called Dual_EC_DRBG, not only is it a mouthful to say, it’s also three orders of magnitude slower than its peers. It’s in the standard only because it’s been championed by the NSA, which first proposed it years ago in a related standardization project at the American National Standards Institute.

…

Problems with Dual_EC_DBRG were first described in early 2006. The math is complicated, but the general point is that the random numbers it produces have a small bias. The problem isn’t large enough to make the algorithm unusable — and Appendix E of the NIST standard describes an optional workaround to avoid the issue — but it’s cause for concern. Cryptographers are a conservative bunch; we don’t like to use algorithms that have even a whiff of a problem.

But today there’s an even bigger stink brewing around Dual_EC_DRBG. In an informal presentation at the CRYPTO 2007 conference this past August, Dan Shumow and Niels Ferguson showed that the algorithm contains a weakness that can only be described as a backdoor.

…

What Shumow and Ferguson showed is that these numbers have a relationship with a second, secret set of numbers that can act as a kind of skeleton key. If you know the secret numbers, you can predict the output of the random number generator after collecting just 32 bytes of its output. To put that in real terms, you only need to monitor one TLS internet encryption connection in order to crack the security of that protocol. If you know the secret numbers, you can completely break any instantiation of Dual_EC_DRBG.

…

My recommendation, if you’re in need of a random number generator, is not to use Dual_EC_DRBG under any circumstances. If you have to use something in SP 800-90, use CTR_DRBG or Hash_DRBG. Or Fortuna or Yarrow, for that matter.

The NSA’s cryptographic backdoor Read More »

Graveyard shifts and torpedo coffins

commonplace book, history, science, security / /

From Atul Gawande’s “Final Cut: Medical arrogance and the decline of the autopsy” (The New Yorker: 19 March 2001):

… in the nineteenth century … [some doctors] waited until burial and then robbed the graves, either personally or through accomplices, an activity that continued into the twentieth century. To deter such autopsies, some families would post nighttime guards at the grave site – hence the term “graveyard shift.” Others placed heavey stones on the coffins. In 1878, one company in Columbus, Ohio, even sold “torpedo cofins,” equipped with pipe bombs designed to blow up if they were tampered with.

Graveyard shifts and torpedo coffins Read More »

The Ellsberg Paradox: People prefer definites over ambiguity

commonplace book / /

From Nicholas Lemann’s “Paper Tiger” (The New Yorker: 4 November 2002):

Ellsberg devoted a good portion of his life to decision theory, and made quite a significant contribution for somebody so young. People are still publishing comments on his best-known idea, the so-called “Ellsberg paradox.”

The paradox arises from a series of games involving colored balls in urns. Let’s say there are two urns, each of which contains a hundred balls, which are either red or black. One urn contains fifty red balls and fifty black balls. The proportion of red and black in the other urn is unknown. You can draw one ball from one of the urns, without looking, and if you draw a red ball you win a hundred dollars. Which urn will you choose?

There is no good reason to think that the chance of getting a red ball is any better in one urn than in the other, but Ellsberg found that people overwhelmingly chose the urn known to have fifty balls of each color. The person running the game would then say, “O.K., you think that urn is likelier to have a red ball; now I’m going to offer you a hundred dollars if you draw a black ball.” If you turned to the fifty-fifty urn for the red ball, it would seem you had a hunch that the other urn contained more black balls, and therefore you should try to draw your black ball from it. But, overwhelmingly, people chose the fifty-fifty urn again. The Ellsberg paradox is that people so strongly prefer definite information over ambiguity that they make choices consistent neither with the laws of probability nor with themselves.

The Ellsberg Paradox: People prefer definites over ambiguity Read More »

Bots on campus!

education, security / /

From Lisa Vaas’ “Are Campuses Flooded with Zombified Student PCs?” (eWeek: 22 October 2007):

Rather, bot herders have sophisticated technology in place that can detect how fast a bot’s connection is. If that connection changes over time – if, say, a student is poking around at her parent’s house with dial-up all summer and then comes back to school and the campus network’s zippy broadband – the herder detects the increased bandwidth, and that zombie PC suddenly becomes a much more useful tool for sending spam or engaging in other nefarious activities, as pointed out by SecureWorks Director of Development Wayne Haber …

“The more significant factor is to take a machine that was the only system, or one of two to three, on a home network, and to move it to an environment of hundreds or thousands of machines on a network in different states of being patched and of running security software,” [Craig Schmugar, threat research manager for McAfee’s Avert Labs] said. “The new students coming in, there’s a greater chance of having new computers, and those might not have firewalls. It’s a more diverse network environment, with a greater opportunity for machines to be attacked. Maybe not successfully, but at least there’s more traffic thrown at machines.”

Another helpful thing about campuses, of course, is that they have loads of systems left on around the clock in their labs. Universities also have the added stickiness of trying to administer security policies for a constantly shifting population, with visiting scholars coming and going and a variable range of access rights necessary for staff and students.

Bots on campus! Read More »

Jughead’s weird hat

history, weird / /

From Jim Windolf’s “American Idol” (Vanity Fair: 20 December 2006):

A vestige of the franchise’s 1940s roots remains in the form of Jughead’s hat. In those days, explains Archie Comics managing editor Victor Gorelick, kids would take their fathers’ discarded fedoras, cut off the brims, and scissor them into jagged beanies. Archie artists have recently tried giving Jughead a backward baseball cap in an effort to make him more up-to-date, but fans always cry out for the crown.

Jughead’s weird hat Read More »

50 years of change due to senior citizens

history, non-fiction, politics / /

From Charles C. Mann’s “The Coming Death Shortage” (The Atlantic: 1 May 2005):

The twentieth-century jump in life expectancy transformed society. Fifty years ago senior citizens were not a force in electoral politics. Now the AARP is widely said to be the most powerful organization in Washington. Medicare, Social Security, retirement, Alzheimer’s, snowbird economies, the population boom, the golfing boom, the cosmetic-surgery boom, the nostalgia boom, the recreational-vehicle boom, Viagra—increasing longevity is entangled in every one. Momentous as these changes have been, though, they will pale before what is coming next.

50 years of change due to senior citizens Read More »

Rich and poor drug users

politics / /

From Tim Wu’s “That Other Drug Legalization Movement” (Slate: 14 October 2007):

As the National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse at Columbia University reports, rich people tend to abuse prescription drugs, while poorer Americans tend to self-medicate with old-fashioned illegal drugs or just get drunk.

The big picture reveals a nation that, let’s face it, likes drugs: Expert Joseph Califano estimates that the United States, representing just 4 percent of the world’s population, consumes nearly two-thirds of the world’s recreational drugs. In pursuit of that habit, the country has, in slow motion, found ways for the better-off parts of society to use drugs without getting near the scary drug laws it promulgated in the 20th century. Our parents and grandparents banned drugs, but the current generation is re-legalizing them.

Rich and poor drug users Read More »

How to open a physicist’s briefcase

security, technology / /

From John D. Barrow and John K. Webb’s "Inconstant Constants: Do the inner workings of nature change with time?" (Scientific American: 23 May 2005):

One ratio of particular interest combines the velocity of light, c, the electric charge on a single electron, e, Planck’s constant, h, and the so-called vacuum permittivity, 0. This famous quantity … called the fine-structure constant, was first introduced in 1916 by Arnold Sommerfeld, a pioneer in applying the theory of quantum mechanics to electromagnetism. It quantifies the relativistic (c) and quantum (h) qualities of electromagnetic (e) interactions involving charged particles in empty space (0). Measured to be equal to 1/137.03599976, or approximately 1/137, has endowed the number 137 with a legendary status among physicists (it usually opens the combination locks on their briefcases).

How to open a physicist’s briefcase Read More »

My new business idea

business, language & literature, musings / /

A coffee shop where the employees all wear platform shoes, glitter make-up, orange spiked hair, feathers, and silver spaceman pants.

It’s name:

ZIGGY STARBUCKS!

My friend Michael Krider made the following suggestions:

Drink names:

  • The Cafe Young Americano
  • Caffeine Genie
  • Sumatra-jet City

When employees hand your money back after a sale, they say, “Here’s your ch-ch-ch-change.”

My new business idea Read More »