The Mountain Dew joke

"I cast magic missile at the darkness!"

Classic Dead Alewives.

Science fiction becomes ... well, not so fictional

I found this article via Slashdot. Turns out I was right when I speculated that we exist in one (or more) of a multitude of parallel universes. I didn't believe the stuff about John Titor, but the idea that one could visit very "close" alternate timelines in the past seems somewhat rational. It's getting back to where you started that seems problematic. And the "difficulty" of changing the past isn't a difficulty at all, because you can never change your own timeline. Your timeline is always the timeline in which you never changed the past (at least as far as you or anyone you know, etc., etc., could ever know about).

Thinking (or trying to think) about the existence of alternate universes is really mind-blowing stuff, but it does now mean I can write a post-apocalyptic novel and not have to worry about the small fact that our own timeline wasn't destroyed (almost) by a worldwide war. Well, not yet, at least. If I understand correctly, John Titor predicted/reported (depending on what you believe) a nuclear war, or something, that broke up the U.S. and resulted in a much more fractured existence for folks. Hell, his whole story is a great plot for a novel. (And I am surprised not to have heard of the novelization of the John Titor experiment.) I am certain his story is a work of fiction.

So, if for example, I wanted nuclear war in 1979 so as to provide a suitable backdrop trope for my novel, then I can have it. Of course my novel isn't about time travel outside the "old-fashioned way" (i.e., moving forward one day at a time) but perhaps I can use the notion of infinite alternate universes to give my characters a little bit more uncertainty. That is, the universe they find themselves in isn't the one they thought they were in. Could be interesting.

I am excited that the theoretical mathematicians have shown that subatomic particles branch off into parallel universes (infinitely). Methinks they're right, so all we need to do now is figure out how to go visit these places.

Not content with others hammering on their coffin, Microsoft starts buying nails

Apparently our friends at Microsoft recently applied a stealth update to both Windows XP and Vista. This update took place--and this is important--even if users had Windows Update turned off.

This ranks right up near the top of "things not to do to your customers." Right behind suing them, I would suppose. (RIAA, are you listening?) Most stupid Windows users probably don't mind; hell, they probably don't even know. But that doesn't justify violating user privacy. Some may have good reason for not auto-updating their copy of Windows, but regardless whether the reason is good or just dumb, Microsoft still should ask permission and/or notify users what they are doing.

I think it's to patch a truly serious security hole in Windows Update, since it was those components that changed. I think Microsoft felt it important to protect all those millions of systems, since to really foul up a system you need to get into its innards. Windows Update, being über privileged, could certainly delve into our system's most highly protected internals. Yeah, it could have been a nightmare for the folks in Redmond.

But I don't care. They should have told us what they were doing. And why.

Southwest Airlines in the news

I came across this article about Southwest Airlines having told a female passenger to cover up because her clothing was deemed too revealing. Most curious. With respect to clothing and any purported "dress code," there probably is a line beyond which they should take action, but the two recent reports of women who were asked to "cover up" don't on the surface seem to qualify.

Officially the airline says they leave it up to their employee's "common sense and judgment." That's probably accurate, but it does make the similarities between the incidents rather curious. Perhaps someone complained. That's reasonable, but of course just because one person thinks a woman's halter dress is offensive doesn't mean that it is.

I found some comments (from the article) made by a Lynda White, self-styled "First Lady of Manners" to be interesting. She recommends "business casual attire, in case you happen to be seated next to a potential employer or business contact. If you wear provocative clothing, tattoos, or you smell of alcohol or cigarettes, who's going to believe you?"

Indeed. If one is traveling on business perhaps one should maintain a business-like image, particularly if one intends to network while on the plane. On the other hand, if you're not trying to impress anyone, why bother? The choice, to my point, should be up to you.

As an aside, I used to travel on business. This was pre-9/11, so attitudes were much more relaxed. There were a few occasions I talked (and had copious drinks) with my row-mates, but mostly I just read or slept. On a few occasions I witnessed fairly obvious sexual activity going on around me, though not any that involved explicit public nudity. I have also observed flight attendants conspicuously not interfering with what they obviously were seeing. At that time it seemed passenger privacy was more important than propriety. My point is that if I knew what was going on, so did others.

Maybe Southwest Airlines is afraid of the liability they'd face if some old lady's eyeballs exploded because she saw a young woman's bare shoulders. I don't know, but that could do it.

I didn't know you could do that

This article from Worse Than Failure is a humorous and probably apocryphal story of a truly abysmal programmer called Megan. No, I don't think it's sexist, particularly, but if it makes you feel better to think so, then have at it ...

I have met programmers as clueless as poor Megan. Some, even, were Masters candidates. It just goes to show that a university education can be wasted. Any person wanting to enter a computer science program (or for that matter any curriculum where programming might be involved) should take a problem-solving aptitude test beforehand. Do less than the 90th percentile--find another major. But, of course, that's an overly simplistic view. In real life the sub-90s are management material.

Yeah, and Darby won the game, too

I came across this BoingBoing article mentioning Hilliard Davidson and Hilliard Darby high schools. I live about 500 yards from Darby High School (as the crow, etc.) and have family members and friends who attended there. I also have a nephew who graduated from Davidson. Apparently a Davidson senior arranged to have a bunch of black and white cards placed in the Darby stands that spelled out "WE SUCK" that the unsuspecting Darby fans dutifully displayed during the game.

I hadn't heard about the prank, but I did hear that Darby won the game. This, coming after Davidson won the state football title last year. Despite the "legendary" stature of the prank, Darby got their revenge:

Stephen Bell, a Darby freshman, said he was facing the field Friday night. So he missed the big moment.

"It was sneaky, knifing and downright clever," he said yesterday as he walked to football practice.

"But we'll get them back."

In one sense, Darby already did -- the team won Friday night's game, 21-10, ending Hilliard Davidson's winning streak. Davidson was the Division I state champion last year, having won all 15 games.

Good DRM article for non-geeks

I found this article via BoingBoing, a blog/portal (take your pick) for which Cory Doctorow writes. Despite having some errors in the editing (surely they know the difference between affect, a verb, and effect, a noun) the article does a decent job of making the explanation.

Yes, the laws of physics do state that it's not possible to exceed the speed of light. The universe is asymptotic at that velocity; we cannot say what happens beyond that point. Notwithstanding that we may be able to move through space via other dimensions, we can't simply keep going faster and faster via the conventional methods. And that's the essence of why DRM can't work.

Cryptography only works when the sender and receiver are the only ones with the key. Furthermore, the key iteself is only secure if it's sufficiently long enough (say, 128 bits) to make the number of possible combinations (to decrypt the message) a big enough number to dissuade even the most ardent of "brute force" attacks. According to the Wikipedia article:

The amount of time required to break a 128 bit key is also daunting. Each of the 2¹²⁸ possibilities must be checked. This is an enormous number, 340,282,366,920,938,463,463,374,607,431,768,211,456 in decimal. If a device could be built that could check a billion billion keys (10¹⁸) per second, 10,790,283,070,806 (~10¹³) years would still be required to exhaust the key space. By way of comparison, the age of the universe is only about 13,000,000,000 () years.

That's a long time. And if it was just you and me with the key, our conversations would be pretty secure with a 128 bit key. Until someone hacked our computers.

Of course, that's the problem with DRM on your DVD player. The key must be stored in the DVD player, and it's a piece of hardware (and software) that cannot effectively keep its innards secret forever. You cannot simply change the encryption key or the encryption algorithm on a DVD (or other) player. You've sold millions of players, and hundreds of millions of media, and you cannot obsolete players and media that easily. Once every ten years is too often, even. Think about how long the audio CD format has been around. Would you be OK with having to replace your entire music collection with the latest and greatest thing? Especially if you're "old" as I am, because I still have vinyl albums I haven't replaced with CDs. I use the audio CD analogy here because it's fairly mature. There is also no DRM on audio CDs, either.

If we lived in a "bits-only" world we could probably keep changing the encryption keys on content, and keep updating computers with the new keys, and so on. But today even the most secure keys would suffer from being very widely distributed. With infinite haxx0r monkeys typing on infinite keyboards, sooner or later (and it's really much, much sooner than later) the keys will be cracked. These haxx0rs are not Joe Public, willing dupes to the aims of big business; these are determined non-lawful individuals with the need to prove their geek manhoods. Yes, it really is the same thing as the "when guns are outlawed only outlaws will have guns." They don't give a damn for your laws.

This is what's wrong with the DMCA, among other things too numerous to mention. What kind of fool (rhetorically speaking) thinks you can achieve content protection merely by making it illegal to circumvent it? We have speed laws, but they don't eliminate speeding, do they? It isn't that when you crack someone's DRM you have just done it once--you have done it forever. You cannot put that genie back into the bottle. Oh, and let us not forget a basic truth: people break speed laws because they don't consider them just (or appropriate). They will (and do) break DRM "laws" for exactly the same reason.

I could not care less if the information wants to be free, or not. Content creators can only protect their interests to the extent that people (i.e., their customers) respect those interests. Media companies (publishers, etc.) must compete with free, because that's what the competition is doing. Placing more and more (and more stringent) forms of DRM on content only affects (as opposed to effects) your paying customers. Those who truckle to your prices and policies. (Those who willingly obey the speed limits--the saps, in other words.) The thieves are going to be out there still, being thieves. You won't be winning those hearts and minds with your puny efforts.

To close, it's never good business to sue your customers. I don't care who you talk to, or what laws you write, you really shouldn't make it harder for your biggest fans to enjoy your stuff, because there are a lot of choices in the marketplace, and people will choose.

Penis B Gone

A 30 year old Spanish man cut off his own penis so he would "stop sinning."

According to teh article:

There was also a suggestion he may be suffering from psychological problems.

You think?

Famed atheist PZ Myers thinks this guy could be a Darwin Award consolation prize winner. Well, he has almost eliminated his chances at swimming in the gene pool, but methinks he aimed a bit too high. Ouch!