Astronomers have confirmed the existence of a new class of planet: a waterworld with a thick, steamy atmosphere. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-17117030

You've spent years studying hard the inner workings of computers, networks and various protocols, and now you are a hacker, congratulation. You are also activist and in order to sort of coordinate your work with others of your kind you spend time on forums, private chat rooms and the like. Because you are accumulating a bit of a reputation you tend to use the same pseudonym so that people can recognise you. And you even have a twitter account (with the same pseudonym...).

But then something happens, your account is compromised, you lost it to the hand of an opponent, maybe somebody from the secret services is trying to take over your identity. You need to redefine your online pseudonym, but then you don't feel like starting all from scratch, because people trust the existing one. What to do ?

Do it the Pascal way. Generate a sequence of sha1s, say 1024 of them, from x(0) up to x(1023), as follows: generate a random number and then hash it, that's x(0). Then you get x(n+1) as the hash of x(n). When you are done, use x(1023) as your (first) online name. If one day this id is compromised and disputed, send the following message on a public channel: "I am the true owner of the now compromised account x(1023), and from now on I will use x(1022) as my my twitter account (or whatever....). You can check that I am the real me just by hashing x(1022) and check that you get x(1023) - the other person claiming owning x(1023) would not be able to do that ^_^"

Of course, you do not want to keep the entire sequence on your own computer (where it could be compromised if one day the police storm into your bedroom), you just want to keep the seed, eg: x(0), somewhere safe on the internet. And also, in the unlikely event that you would need to change your identity more than 1024 times over the course of your career, no problem, as an exercise for you I let you guess what to do when you star using x(0) :-)

In fact there are lots of little nice things you can do with this idea, lots of nice little authentication mechanisms that one can devise, use your imagination... (^.^)

I am going to write a program to keep track of every single piece of cloth I have (existing but also any future acquisition or discard). I will then be one shell command away of being able to know exactly how many pair of socks or how many shirts I have :-)

:: Side effect of a unique event happening between two persons, last night, somewhere on the planet. A quest has ended, now a new chapter of their common history starts... ::

It's funny how I desired you all my life, but I never really expected or knew how awesome it would actually fell to be with you. I can see all of you now and it's an amazing feeling. I told you in the lift that I felt complete, but in fact a better way to say it is that I feel much larger than before. It's like in some world the Internet had always been into parts. Two parts which could not communicate between each other, and suddenly, the networks admins decide to connect the two parts. The information slowly but surely, and more rapidly, start flowing between the two parts forming a unique network of knowledge, sensations and awareness :-)

Pictures taken by her, or because of her... ("or" not exclusive...)

She took a picture (featuring the end of one of our computations) of one of the black-boards we were working on last night. She sometimes do that as a quick way to record some of the stuff I want to keep, but don't have time to re-write down. I found it particularly interesting...

It really pisses me off, that theoretical physicists think that writing mathematics is about shooting formulae at you, without ever stating what the variables are and without never ever writing (English) sentences between them.

To their defence, even some pure mathematicians think that I put too much care in writing mathematics properly; with extremely carefully crafted sentences, and a logical flow so transparent that even the most stupid first year would understand what I am doing...

I Thought that somebody ought to make that joke. Wish granted! The irony is that I a posting this while the weblog is down....

Alain de Botton: You may not agree with religions, but (...) they are not fit to be abandoned to the religious alone, they are for all of us.

So...., unless you've been living under a rock, you must have heard about SOPA, and the planned blackout of few high profile websites on Wednesday 18th to protest against it. I could not care less as long as it was Facebook, Twitter that kind of useless things. But if Wikipedia (an organisation to which I have already donated money) is going to shut down as well, then, then, then... it's personal !

ps: Thinking of it, I might as well join the list and plan a 24 shut down of all of this weblog on that day as well... might do...

I first came across this advert many years ago and I still love it !! (pictures are a bit blurred, sorry about that...)

Math doesn't suck, you do, Maddox style, of course :-)

A bit blurred, but it was a non planned picture, in which I accidentally got the four macs of the room...

The one I was after....

 

 

 

 

 

The Perfect Moment
Star Trek: Insurrection — MOVIECLIPS.com

 

The last time I saw this scene (in 1998), it brought me to tears... For at least few reasons, including the fact that even though I have not been to space, I have always had an innate perception of Picard's feeling of seeing Earth from few thousand kilometres away and realising that it's home. In the very purest sense of the world. In fact, this feeling is the most treasurable feeling of my life. Maybe because the development of my entire personality has always been aligned with an increasing perception of belonging to the human species as a whole, that anything else (race, age, religion, citizenship), just didn't matter....

But more importantly, since that day, the relationship between Picard and Anij became the ideal of perfection to me, not only the ideal relationship, but the ideal of perfection in itself.

Anij, had this amazing ability to bring peace to Picard's heart. But make no mistake, she looks simple but actually comes from a civilisation far more advanced (not only on a technological level) than the Federation. Her simple presence, her personality, her kindness, her depth, had on Picard something nobody, not even him, despite his experience, could have anticipated...

I just saw it again, but this time tears didn't come. Only the amazing feeling that I am soon going to see her again..., and feeling lucky for so...

 

Nothing is more complicated than perception

I have some friends who think that cheap physical sensations are the net plus ultra of what the human mind/body pair has to offer. That somehow being sexually liberated is the final step of human social evolution. As far as I am concerned, it's Veni, vidi, vici. The next cycle of my life has started few months ago, and I won't look back. I won't miss anything either...