Great article in this month's Technology Review about extremely small sensors with radio transceivers arranged in an ad-hoc network. I did some additional Googling and read about the 'motes' and TinyOS being developed at Berkeley. Anyone besides me seeing the frightening analogy between these and the "Larsen Localizers" in Vernor Vinge's novel "Fire Upon the Deep"?
I'm very impressed with the technology and it looks like one could experiment for very little cash - only some work with a soldering iron and fairly basic microcontroller and FPGA programming skills are required.
I'm on MSDN TV talking about the 64-bit implementation of the next version of the .NET Framework and Common Language Runtime. (Disclaimer: I work for Microsoft, but this blog is purely personal. I'm linking to the MSDN site at Microsoft, which of course is their resource. Don't confuse my views here with those of my employer.) I had fun doing this, but I admit it's weird working in front of the camera. I imagine most of my friends are watching this segment and laughing their collective asses off. Go ahead, poke fun at the monkey in the cage.
I went to the Vancouver Molson Indy race last weekend, as I do every year. What a great race. Paul Tracy delivered a complete shit-kicking. He finished with something like an 18 second lead and lapped all but the top four followers. That's two Canadian races in a row and I hope he wins the third and makes this his championship year. The weather was hot and clear and I got several good pictures (which I will post at some point). Oh, I sunburned of course... That part sucked. G, M, Todd, and I also went to the Festival of Lights. Great creativity - many home fashioned lanterns and other light-emitting objects all over the park. Mars was at its -2 magnitude glory as well at midnight, which made things even better. I must get out more often with my telescopes to take advantage of that. Maybe I'll photograph Mars with the digital camera this time.
Once again an article about OpenBSD that turns Theo into a mythical figure. I'm a big fan of OpenBSD and use it to run the firewall in front of my home network. I think it represents a great deal of impressive work by a large number of individuals. However, I refuse to deify a single individual, especially in light of the way Theo seems to treat people. I work with some very bright software developers every day, some burdened with large egos. I guess my plate is full dealing with them and there's no room for yet another.
I hadn't hear about CALEA until now and Cringley's article made me stop for a moment. He attributes the problem to "a dumbing down of IT". Isn't that one of the roots of most security problems? Users and even administrators don't know what needs to be secured or often how to secure it. But, come on, when you are running the infrastructure, shouldn't the burden of competency be a bit higher?
Listening to King Crimson on the way home from work today. Weird collision of feelings as I flipped through the contact list on my cell phone. I've been carrying around the same set of names and numbers for several years. As Adrian Belew sang "Absent Lovers" I was mouthing the names of people I haven't spoken to since before I was married. The names felt wrong on my tongue, as if I'd never spoken them before. I appreciate the simile that time passes like a river, wide then narrow with currents of different rates. Lately I've been spending my leisure time with a group of folks I didn't even know 6 months ago. In a few years, I wonder if I'll be remembering them as contacts on my cell phone, being deleted one by one?
I was chatting with a collegue at work today about personal privacy. He grew up in South Africa and declared the old regime there "a bit like Nazi Germany, without the death camps." If the goverment decided they wanted in, they came in. They seized what they wanted and you didn't get the opportunity, or the right to hide anything. I said, "Well I'm glad I live in a society with Habeas Corpus, search warrants, etc." His response shocked me. "Look, the sooner you get over the illusion of personal liberty and privacy, the better." The discussion went down hill from there. I appreciate the idea of being able to declare certain thoughts and actions as mine alone, and hiding them from the government, speaking specifically of encryption to protect exchange of ideas and free speech. Gregor questioned "Why? What do you have to hide? What makes you so special that you can't share?" His point was more one about joining community and pooling those ideas, but somehow all these ideas and arguments were intertwined. I came away confused. I'm sure I'll write more about this at some point when the haze clears.
I'm sure I'm about the 1000'th person to try this, but I'm writing an MSN Messenger Client right now (in both Python and C# on Mac OS X and Windows). Writing the client is dirt-simple. There are lots of sources of information out on the web now, such as: Hypothetic.org's MSN Messenger Protocol and VenkyDude's practical implementation Although, between you, me, and the fence post, Venky's VB implementation is unreadable. Dude, learn to write maintainable code...
Anyway, my motivation for this is to add encryption. Care to help?
On Windows, I plan is to use OS certificate store support to store the asymetric public/private keys, write a Diffie-Hellman key exchange for the sessions keys and to write my own implementation of either TwoFish or Rijndael to encryption the actual message payloads. I realize writing one's own crypto implementations is a bit like being one's own doctor or lawyer, but this is a pedagogical experiment and I've always been a fan of crypto (you should see my library).
I have a three year old daughter. I've also got a good quality 3-season tent and down sleeping bags. Each weekend, my daughter and I have been camping out in the back yard. It's amazing how fresh the air is and how different the experience from being in the house, just feet away. Even when it rains, we are completely protected. We awake with the sunshine & fresh air. The rain fly is nearly opaque so there's no indication we are still surrounded by civilization. I slowly unzip it, hoping my first view out will be of a deep three-canopy forest with no one in sight. Damn, wrong again.... It's Sunday, and I have to return to work tomorrow.
Ok, I went looking for a specific book on Amazon (wanted to put a link to the Chomsky stuff I'm reading). Three books later, I finally pulled myself away. I can't stop at Amazon without buying something. Tonight's purchases include the Joseph Campbell biography and his book Tarot Revelations. I had no idea Campbell wrote about the Tarot. I've been a big fan of his "Power of Myth" stuff since a professor introduced me to it about 15 years ago. I've been interested in the Tarot longer than that.
For those new to the Tarot, I'd suggest the Marseilles deck or the ever-popular Rider-Waite deck. Even if you don't believe in the fortune-telling aspects, examine the symbology. Tarot contains symbols from the earliest civilizations and represents many of the universal spirtual aspects of Mankind.
Todd convinced me that I should be writing. Despite the number of justifications I came up with for holding back, I'm finally in agreement with him. I haven't written lately because I'm trying to keep a complete split between work and home. I felt I couldn't really express my opinions here without running into conflict should someone from work read them. I guess I've reached the point where I no longer care about that. I'll refrain from mentioning anyone by name, but that's about it.
Been reading some great stuff lately, like Noam Chomsky, More Chomsky, Thomas Pynchon and listening to Morcheeba. Can't really beat that. Plus, the family is fine. Spent our Independence Day doing the traditional American thing - chillin in the backyard with a beer in one hand and smackin' the kids around with the other. Grilled steaks and watched fireworks. By the way, the tattoo that says "REDNECK" is healing nicely, thank you.