brainstorms

Tuesday June 13, 2006

recently noted quotes

the principle of commensurate care: the care taken in each aspect of a development should be proportional to PxD where P is the probability that it will go wrong, and D is the size of the disaster if it does. -- michael jackson [software requirements and specifications: a lexicon of practice, principles and prejudices]

Atheism is not a philosophy; it is not even a view of the world; it is simply a refusal to deny the obvious. -- sam harris [an atheist manifesto]

We can think of no workable test or principle that would distinguish 'legitimate' from 'illegitimate' news. Any attempt by courts to draw such a distinction would imperil a fundamental purpose of the First Amendment, which is to identify the best, most important, and most valuable ideas not by any sociological or economic formula, rule of law, or process of government, but through the rough and tumble competition of the memetic marketplace. -- california state appeals court [decision]

It's one of the great tragedies of life, something always ... something always changes. -- gregory house [the honeymoon]

the only thoughts and ideas i borrow from are those of my own. -- ludacris

Any feature added to any system has to pass a basic test: If it adds complexity, is the benefit worth the cost? The more obscure or minor the benefit, the less complexity its worth. Sometimes this is referred to with the name “complexity budget”. A design should have a complexity budget to keep its overall complexity under control. -- ken arnold [generics considered harmful]

Either the transportation of a Catholic saint/goddess directly to the sky without passing GO and without collecting $200 was a verifiable fact of history, or it did not happen. -- William R. Harwood [from the amazon review of science and religion: are they compatible?]

Monday June 12, 2006

recently noted books

richard dawkins, the god delusion
goetz et al. java concurrency in practice
gerald m. weinberg, weinberg on writing: the fieldstone method [he has a related blogspot] [reviews]
sam harris, letter to a christian nation
edward tufte, beautiful evidence
james morrow, the last witchfinder
charles stross, glasshouse

[i consider dawkins, tufte, and harris essential additions to my library. i was very pleased to stumble across weinberg's considerable insights on writing. goetz book appears to be the kind of book no serious programmer [with or without java] should do without. morrow and stross need no elaboration.]

Thursday June 08, 2006

elements of style: unix as literature

just came across thomas scoville's 1998 piece elements of style: unix as literature through a friend's email.

The common thread was wordsmithing; a suspiciously high proportion of my UNIX colleagues had already developed, in some prior career, a comfort and fluency with text and printed words. They were adept readers and writers, and UNIX played handily to those strengths. UNIX was, in some sense, literature to them. Suddenly the overrepresentation of polyglots, liberal-arts types, and voracious readers in the UNIX community didn't seem so mysterious [...]

[musical selection: tbd]

random 10 [meme]

A Ballad	Stan Getz [The Artistry Of Stan Getz, The Best Of The Verve Years]
Logos Part One (B)	Tangerine Dream [Dream Sequence - The Best Of Tangerine Dream]
Just To Hold My Hand	Big Boy Myles [Creole Kings Of New Orleans]
Sitting On Top Of The World	Howlin' Wolf [Chess Blues 1954-1960]
Jeep's Blues	Duke Ellington [Ellington At Newport 1956]
Moustahil	Natacha Atlas [Halim]
Who You Fighting For?	UB40 [Who You Fighting For?]
La Chute	Yann Tiersen [Le Phare]
La mamma morta	Maria Callas [A Night at the Opera]
See Ruby Fall	Johnny Cash [The Essential Johnny Cash 1955-1983]

Tuesday June 06, 2006

what is wrong with ruse?

michael ruse, that lucyle t. werkmeister professor of philosophy, thinks the best kind of philosophical engagement is the exposure of private exchanges in an unintelligible crank's website. evolutionblog has the story with interesting commentary.

[for the record, i happen to have ruse's early and interesting taking darwin seriously which i will keep. evidently two decades can be hard on a philosopher's brain; his relatively recent pulp [and yellowing] effort darwin and design is in the junk pile.]

Wednesday May 31, 2006

about time

hmm, i would not have noticed its disappearance.

Subject: removed sendmail from the tree.
To: current-users@netbsd.org
From: Christos Zoulas
List: current-users
Date: 05/29/2006 20:50:53

Hello,

I have removed sendmail from the NetBSD base sources as core@ and
security-officer@ have requested.  There might be a some tree fallout
while we clean up...

Thanks for your patience.

christos

[i have ran alternative mailers since late-eighties, eg. rayan's zmailer. these days, my netbsd mail server for bsdcore runs postfix...]

Monday May 29, 2006

comics, strange loops... [two books]

scott mccloud's much anticipated making comics including a 50 state tour...
[he visits toronto and vancouver as well]

douglas r. hofstadter's i am a strange loop. [brief review]

recommended listening: fripp and eno, the equatorial stars

Friday May 26, 2006

recently noted quotes

when all else fails, try philosophy. -- taner edis [ghost in the universe]

The NSA would like to remind everyone to call their mothers this Sunday. They need to calibrate their system. -- quoted in bruce schneier's blog

being attuned to vague resemblances is the hallmark of intelligence, for better or for worse. -- douglas r. hofstadter [metamagical themas]

the right way to calculate the animosity and marksmanship of the urban pigeon is to considerboth the presence and the absence of poop on our jackets -- daniel gilbert [stumbling on happiness]

[i nominate the following quote for the stupidest sentence by an occasionally respected industry veteran award]

Their software isn't better, their hardware isn't better, and they can't see themselves as anything but a maker of hardware or software, so my simple recommendation is that they take the rest of their cash and try entering a hot new field like -- say -- space flight. Or making really fine cakes. The world will always need fine baked goods. Or just give it back to the shareholders. Really. -- robert cringely on SUN [It Doesn't Take an Einstein to Realize Why Microsoft Is Headed Down and Google Is Headed Up]

surely, if we could create the world anew, the practice of organizing our lives around untestable propositions found in ancient literature -- to say nothing of killing and dying for them -- would be impossible to justify. what stops us from finding it impossible now? -- sam harris [the end of faith: religion, terror and the future of reason]

if history reveals any categorical truth, it is that an unsufficient taste for evidence regularly brings out the worst in us. -- sam harris [the end of faith]

Wednesday May 24, 2006

zphone

i too am playing with zimmermann's zphone...

interesting zrtp draft

startup lessons...

paul graham's latest essay the hardest lessons for startups to learn is useful, but perhaps more so for software projects rather than entire companies to ride on:

• release early

• keep pumping out features

• make users happy

• fear the right things [what other people could be doing]

• commitment is a self-fullfilling prophecy

• there is always room

• don't get your hopes up

• speed, not money

short but deep essays are hard to write. graham keeps trying; there are always interesting and nauseating tidbits. rough sketch after rough sketch, there is the promise of a finished work of real value someday.

related interesting reading: guy kawasaki's art of the start.

Monday May 15, 2006

rumble my pad

you would think that if a company uses the macos logo on its box, it gives you something directly usable, would you not? alas for some companies, that logo stands for potentiality, not reality, as in here, now. for example, a mac logo on a logitech gamepad box simply means you can attach its usb plug to a mac and things will not blow up. it does not mean it is usable with any mac games you own now or in the near future. there is no logitech software support for mac os x in that box or outside. [yes i know, one can of course spend more money and get something like usb overdrive or gamepad companion to feel marginally less stupid... oh sure i knew that there are hardly any games that support the human interface device (HID) manager...]

Sunday May 14, 2006

brave new ballot

i pre-ordered a copy of avi rubin's brave new ballot: the battle to safeguard democracy in the age of electronic voting coming out in september. [have you ordered yours?] it may well be the most important book on security and democracy i will read this year. [i worry that some of the more delusional canadian politicians may be tempted to replace our simple paper ballots with some badly programmed, touchscreen driven bag of silicon...]

current: ed felten's blog entry about harri hursti's report. to quote:

2001: Doug Jones produces a report highlighting design flaws in the machines that became the Diebold touchscreen voting machines.
July 24, 2003: Hopkins/Rice study finds many security flaws in Diebold machines, including ones that were pointed out by Doug Jones.
September 24, 2003: SAIC study finds serious flaws in Diebold voting machines. 2/3 of the report is redacted by the state of Maryland.
November 21, 2003: Ohio’s Compuware and InfoSentry reports find critical flaws in Diebold touchscreen voting machines
January 20, 2004: RABA study finds serious security vulnerabilities in Diebold touchscreen voting machines.
November, 2004: 37 states use Diebold touchscreen voting machines in general election.
March, 2006: Harri Hursti reports the most serious vulnerabilities to date discovered.

[recommended listening: tbd]

Thursday May 11, 2006

bithacks, laws of crypto [links]

these two i kept re-visiting...

sean anderson's cool bit twiddling hacks page
neal wagner's excellent [but probably not well known] the laws of cryptography with java code

relativism [link]

just came across simon blackburn's essay does relativism matter ...

First the Buddhist talked of the ways to calm, the mastery of desire, the path of enlightenment, and the panellists all said ‘Wow, terrific, if that works for you that’s great’. Then the Hindu talked of the cycles of suffering and birth and rebirth, the teachings of Krishna and the way to release, and they all said ‘Wow, terrific, if that works for you that’s great’. And so on, until the Catholic priest talked of the message of Jesus Christ, the promise of salvation and the way to life eternal, and they all said ‘Wow, terrific, if that works for you that’s great’. And he thumped the table and shouted: ‘No! It’s not a question of it if works for me! It’s the true word of the living God, and if you don’t believe it you’re all damned to Hell!’

And they all said: ‘Wow, terrific, if that works for you that’s great’.

[it would be fun to re-write the part of the catholic priest for an ayatollah...]

Tuesday May 09, 2006

recently noted quotes

ideas are not soda cans. recycling sucks. we need new, shiny ones. -- dr. gregory house

the debate rages on: is ruby a bachtrian or dromedary platypus? -- unknown

its only when your brain predicts badly you suddenly feel avocado. -- daniel gilbert [stumbling on happiness]

one of the most annoying songs in the often annoying history of popular music begins with this line: "feelings, nothing more than feelings." -- daniel gilbert [stumbling on happiness]

congratulations, you have just discovered the secret message. please send your answer to Old Pink, care of the funny farm. -- hidden message in goodbye blue sky, pink floyd.

the benignity of most religious moderates does not suggest that religious faith is anything more sublime than a desperate marriage of hope and ignorance, nor does it guarantee that there is not a terrible price to be paid for limiting the scope of reason in our dealings with other human beings. religious moderation, insofar as it represents an attempt to hold on to what is still serviceable in orthodox religion, closes the door to more sophisticated approaches to spirituality, ethics, and the building of strong communities. -- sam harris [the end of faith: religion, terror and the future of reason]

let's be frank: writing that quotes writing is a nuisence for readers. quotes take extra energy to read. -- bill stott [write to the point]

the problem of hiring astrology professors is relatively easy. hiring a mathematician or a physicist involves knowing his work, reading his papers, looking at letters of recommendation, etc. but to hire an astrologer, all one has to do is cast his horoscope and see if he would make a good astrology professor. -- quoted by raymond smullyan [the tao is silent]