The Blog of Harald

These days it is stories like these that keep me awake at night.

• China – An Energy Timebomb?
• Basic Choices and Constraints on Long−Term Energy Supplies

Basically: We’ll run out of oil in my lifetime; long before that, it will be expensive, and then rationed. Alternative sources simply can’t fill the gap; we do not have the capability to replace just our electricity needs with renewable energy, never mind our other energy needs. Even if North America switched to nuclear power, we’d run out of fuel in 35-58 years, a mere band-aid for the problem.

Meanwhile, SUVs are the fastest growing market segment in China, and GM is actively marketing them.

I haven’t the faintest idea what we’re going to do about this looming crisis; I do know that our current technique (hiding our heads in the sand) isn’t going to cut it.

Yuck!

Yahoo! News – Kids Plus Rocks Equals 120,000 Angry Bees

Reminds me of watching The Swarm when I was a kid. Not so amusing is that African “killer” bees are slowly moving north across the USA, and interbreeding with our European honey bees…

It is very easy to setup a self-contained network, with a Domain Controller, using Active Directory. Too easy, in fact; I’m on my third attempt :-).

I’m using cloned hard disk images under Microsoft Virtual PC, which caused my latest problem; Active Directory let me register a computer in the domain with the same name as the domain controller. Needless to say, nothing worked after that. The reason this happened was because I tried to rename the image and join the domain at the same time; Windows 2000 apparently joins the domain first, then attempts to rename the computer. This surprised me :-)

Fortunately, I had a master disk image, so it was trivial to restart from a fresh install and rebuild the domain controller (which, thanks to Microsoft’s wizards, is easy). But then I had to rebuild the two child domain controllers, since they refused to “demote” themselves when the domain master was unavailable.

Sadly, all of this is time consuming, even when the host is a P4 2.8 with 1Gb of memory and oodles of disk bandwidth…

I can’t find it now, but I remember reading recently about another “cross-discipline” team that discovered all sorts of interesting things, because each member of the team had a different way of looking at the data. Now a PKI research group has attached a sociologist to the team, and that is starting to produce insight:

A recent survey found that 75 percent of Dartmouth students have shared their network passwords. “They like having people who know their password,” explained Denise Anthony, a sociologist who spoke at the PKI summit conference I attended earlier this month. “They like having someone who can check their e-mail for them or log them in to places where they’re supposed to be.”

Professor Anthony’s talk was dramatically different and showed why it was a really smart move to attach a sociologist to Dartmouth’s PKI research group. As security technologists, we’re easily dazzled by our shiny cryptographic swords. But while we’re brandishing our swords, our users — like Indiana Jones in that famous scene from Raiders of the Lost Ark — might simply pull out their guns and shoot us. Better security protocols alone can’t thwart such game-changing behavior. We need to understand what motivates the behavior and figure out which carrots and sticks will influence it.

It’s a given that most people take the path of least resistance. So, for example, two-thirds of Dartmouth students never change their passwords during their four years of enrollment. And most reuse their internal passwords for external sites such as The New York Times and Amazon.com. How do they perceive the risk associated with such behavior? According to Anthony, it’s a tragedy of the commons. The network is a collective resource, but people connected to the network feel that they’re consuming a private good. Their subjective view, she says, is this: “I’m in my office. I’m using my computer. It doesn’t feel like I’m part of a group. I don’t recognize how my behavior affects you.”

InfoWorld: Tragedy of the network commons

Heh.

Bluetooth proponents have been saying for a long time that Bluetooth security isn’t that big of a deal, because the range is so short. Now a group of enthusiasts has demonstrated that it is possible to setup a 1km, line-of-sight Bluetooth connection by modifying only one side of the connection:

Wi-Fi Toys

So they’re finally getting around to testing digital recordable media:

PCWorld.com – Burning Questions: When Good Discs Go Bad

“We’ve found the quality varies, depending upon the type of dye used to make the write-once discs and [on the] the manufacturer,” reports Byers. Even discs from the same manufacturer, with the same brand, can test differently, Byers adds. “But there was more of a significant difference when you compared discs between manufacturers,” he explains.

But this news is even more discouraging:

“One thing we’ve found in compatibility testing [of DVD-R and +R media] is that it’s a relationship between a specific brand of media and the manufacturer of the hardware,” observes Byers. “There was no one drive that played every single type of compatible media, and there was no one media brand that played perfectly in every drive.”

And, he adds, sounding as frustrated as any consumer might, “You can’t say there’s a clear, delineated set of reasons as to why.”

Reminds me of floppy drives, which had alignment issues that could often prevent disks written on one drive from being readable on another.

Tape is still a reliable form of long term storage, but tape drives (and/or tapes!) are still very expensive. I’m beginning to think that the best method of backups these days is a big JBOD or RAID server; hard disks are reliable…

Ok, everone else is linking to the new Apple AirPort Express, but I will too because it really is a neat gadget. It’s not just a wireless stereo connection, or a wireless printer connection, or a wireless base station; it’s all three in one. Not only that, but it will also automatically build a mesh network with another Airport Express or Airport Extreme, either to extend the range of your existing wireless, or just to avoid stringing ethernet cables around.

Cool…

ComputerZen.com – Scott Hanselman’s Weblog – Will ANYTHING new ever work?

There is a subtle (as a brick in the face) difference between “It just works” and “I got it to work.”

When I think about it, I realize how much this applies to the things I do on a day-to-day basis. Certainly most things in my life “just work”; cars, telephones (but not cell phones), kitchen stuff, light switches, hot water heater, laundry, furnace, and on and on. (Can you imagine what life would be like if they didn’t?)

And then there are computers (and other bits of computerised technology, like VCRs), where sometimes things “just work”, and sometimes “I got it to work”, and sometimes “I threw it out the window in disgust”. I’m often surprised by items in all three categories; sometimes things I expect will require a hammer and a lot of elbow grease “just work”, and (frustratingly) sometimes the opposite.

Where I work, we try very hard to make software that works, and yet are continually surprised by the bizarre things people do with their configurations before they call and complain. Reliability in the face of unexpected problems with computers and networks is one thing; reliability in the face of determined administrators is another thing entirely.

Anyway, I’m not sure where I’m going with this, so I’ll stop. Go read Scott’s article; I think it is interesting.

I find toilets that flush themselves very annoying. I suppose it’s good when you work with inconsiderate louts that are incapable of flushing for themselves, but my experience with them is that they flush when I don’t want them to, a cold experience…

Automatic faucets, on the other hand, are good; there’s a sanitation advantage, in that you don’t have to touch dirty tap handles with your freshly cleaned hands. They’re much better than the old push-button, temporary flow kind. Those old ones accomplished the goal of saving water, at the expense of convenience.

Anyway, we have yet another new WC innovation: waterless urinals. Even better, it’s a very simple, low maintenance design, with no moving parts…

Falcon WaterFree Technologies | How does it work?

Ignore fad diets. Weight loss is a simple concept: Eat Less, Exercise More.

Yahoo! News – Study Tells Overweight Adults to Walk

Participants who got no exercise during the eight-month study gained an average of almost 2.5 pounds. But 73 percent of those who briskly walked 11 miles a week, or about 30 minutes a day, were able to maintain their weight or even lose a few pounds.

The study […] involved 120 overweight or mildly obese adults who were instructed not to diet during the research.

The study confirms that exercise without cutting calories is not the most effective way to lose weight, said Dr. Samuel Klein, director of the Center for Human Nutrition at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis.

But demonstrating that small amounts of exercise alone can prevent weight gain is significant, given the nation’s growing obesity epidemic, Klein said.

It is reassuring to know that if you really are a couch potato, you’re hosed; while even a little exercise (such as lunchtime walks, or the walk to/from commuter transit) can make a difference…

(via Teal Sunglasses)

I think the Martian Planetary Defense Forces sent out the infantry this time:

Scientific American: Mars Rover Stops Sending Data

Spaceflight Now | Breaking News | Space station’s mystery leak may be resolved

Space station commander Michael Foale today found a braided flexible hose with an apparent leak in it that may explain the slight loss of air pressure station engineers have been struggling to resolve over the past week.

The hose is part of a system that evacuates air between two of the six panes making up an optically-clear window in the U.S. Destiny laboratory module.

Once they switched off equipment in the Destiny lab, they could apparently hear the leak…

In The Space Station has a leak… Chuq writes:

Can we just admit [ISS] was a complete and absolute mistake, cut our losses, and hope it doesn’t hit someone when it falls out of orbit and lands somewhere? The Space station isn’t a scientific expedition, but a political one, and one aimed more at pork barrel funding than scientific advances.

Sadly, I’m beginning to adopt this opinion myself. ISS-the-dream was really cool; ISS-the-reality, not so much. The program has been cut back too far; there really isn’t much useful science being done, and I suspect much of it could be done more cheaply in other forms. Short duration experiments were working just fine in the Shuttle microgravity missions. Our robotics are getting good enough that many other experiments could be launched in small, un-manned capsules.

I’m just thinking off the top of my head here. I think a manned presence in space is important; but maybe it’s time to separate that from space science, and do each one separately in a slightly more cost-effective manner…

My friend Greg tells me that there is actually a simple way to detect small leaks in space structures. Google tells me that the station even has one: a portable mass spectrometer. This can be used to detect gas leaks with larger holes, but can also be used to detect extremely slow leaks like the one I mentioned earlier As humidified air leaks out, water ice forms on the surface of the station close to the leak; the spectrometer can easily detect that ice, pinpointing the leak.

There’s also a trick: watching the station’s orientation that can be used to detect relatively small leaks (any outgassing will act as a rocket, changing the station’s position in space; by monitoring that position, leaks can be pinpointed).

There are others; google has zillions of links…

In SciScoop || The International Space Station Is Running Out Of Gas, we read that the ISS has experienced a minor air pressure drop (11 mm of mercury, or the equivalent of going from sea level to about 300 ft above (Toronto is about 300 ft above sea level, if I recall correctly).

How does one go about finding a slow leak from the space station? You can’t immerse the whole thing in water and look for bubbles…

HoustonChronicle.com – Bird deaths causing concern about true value of wind farm

The wind turbine farm in Altamont Pass, CA has killed approximately 22,000 birds over its 20 year lifetime, so two environmental groups want the operator permits for the farm revoked.

Let’s look at these numbers, shall we? 22,000 birds over 7000 turbines is just over 3 birds / turbine, and 0.157… birds/turbine/year. Wow, are those things safe!

The article quotes someone saying that this is “a terrestrial Exxon Valdez every year”. The Exxon Valdez disaster killed an estimated 250,000 birds, including 250 bald eagles. If you only count the bald eagles, I suppose you can force the statistic…

On the other hand:

many more birds are killed annually in collisions with vehicles (60 million), window panes (98 million) and communication towers (4 million) than die nationwide in wind turbines (10,000 to 40,000).

Even the common household cat […] is responsible for more bird deaths than turbines.

None of this takes into account the birds that would have been killed by the pollution generated by a non-wind powerplant producing the same power.

In conclusion: what are these people smoking?

Yet again, an example of a common phenomenon: if it came from the computer, it must be right.

An interim report on the August 14th, 2003 power outage has been published, and SecurityFocus picked up the story here: Computer trouble had wide impact in Aug. 14 blackout

My eyes gravitated to this quote from the report:

“Unknowingly,” the report continued, “they used the outdated system condition information they did have to discount information from others about growing system problems.”

This not to pick on First Energy; the problem could have (and has) happened to anyone. If someone is calling you and telling you there’s a problem, you should at least investigate, instead of blindly trusting the computer.

As Horatio Cain said on CSI:Miami last night: “Trust, but verify”.

Hey, there’s a Lunar Eclipse on Saturday November 8th!

All times eastern standard time, for the city of Toronto:

The current weather forecast is:

Saturday : A mix of sun and cloud. 30 percent chance of morning showers.
Sunday : Cloudy. 40 percent chance of showers.

Excellent; I’ll be at a party, so I won’t have a chance to play with the camera, but I will stick my nose outside to check the moon…

Well, it’s happened. According to a CBC news article, a Montreal driver has been convicted of dangerous driving. While there were no witnesses, the car computer recorded his speed at 131 km/h at the time of the crash.

The problem I see is simple: these computers are not designed to record evidence; they’re designed to operate the car airbag system. They’re connected to the vehicle’s sensor network, which can return false or misleading data, and I’m sure the computer is trivial to tamper with, before or after an incident. (In fact, the /. crowd is already discussing the challenge :-). Will the positive uses balance out the potential abuse?

In this case, the blackbox was only used to settle a “he said, she said” type of case. The defendant claimed that the other car was speeding; there were no witnesses and no skid marks on the road. It’s interesting to note that he was cleared of the more serious charge of “criminal negligence causing death”; hopefully the courts/jury decided that computer testimony wasn’t enough for the more serious charge?

The OPP has been using blackbox evidence for a while now, apparently, as have insurance companies. Something to keep on the radar…

Wired News: It Came From Beneath the Sea

Apparently blocks of sold methane can break off the bottom of the ocean floor, turn into large gas bubbles as they rise, and can sink ships that happen to be above them.

Of course, nobody has ever seen one. Sinister…