Technology

I’m writing this post with the hope that it will be helpful to people who face the same computer predicament that I did a few days ago. Here’s a little bit of background information: Last Tuesday I met John Chol Daau, who is from Sudan. He grew up as one of the Lost Boys of Sudan, forced to leave his home and wander hundreds of miles through Africa to survive. If you don’t know much about this particular humanitarian issue, I suggest spending a small amount of time reading up on it. Anyway, John told me that his PC was experiencing a debilitating virus, and asked if I would look at it. I said that I would. After spending quite a bit of time reading through various website forums, here’s a short description of the problem and its solution:

Problem: The PC (which runs Windows XP with SP2) starts normally. The Windows splash screen appears correctly and then the login prompt correctly loads. You can then enter your user name and password like normal, but as soon as you try to login you are IMMEDIATELY logged back out again. The desktop doesn’t even load. It moves immediately back to the login window where you can then enter your user name and password again. No matter how many times you try to login you always experience this immediate logout. Even if you try to login to the computer in safe mode you still experience the same problem. This problem is documented on Microsoft’s website here.

Solution: I’m sure this behavior can be caused by many different problems, but the most common cause is a virus. If you’re familiar with the Windows registry, this virus changes a few registry key values that makes it impossible to login to your computer. If you’re not familiar with the registry, don’t panic. I’ll post links to a few articles that very clearly explain how to fix this problem. Basically, the virus makes two very simple changes to your computer that render it useless. In order to fix the problem, you have to change these two things back to the way they were while your computer was working.

Easy Fix: The “easy” solution to this problem can be found here. In order to use this fix you have to have your Windows XP install CD. This is the CD that contains the files necessary to install the operating system on your computer. You probably have this disk stashed in a drawer somewhere. You should note that there’s a difference between the Windows XP install CD and the recovery CD that may have shipped with your computer. It’s actually possible that when you bought your computer that it didn’t actually come with a Windows XP install CD. Sometimes computer manufacturers will only ship you a recovery disk, which is altogether different. You need your Windows XP install CD so that you can run an application called the Recovery Console. The link above should provide documentation on how to use the Recovery Console. Unfortunately, this fix didn’t work for John’s computer, but it may work for yours.

Slightly Harder Fix: This fix is the one that ended up working to fix John’s computer. A detailed explanation of this fix can be found here. It requires you to have access to another Windows PC with a CD burner (even if it’s a friend’s computer). You have to download a program called BartPE, which is one of the greatest recovery tools that exists. For this particular problem, BartPE will enable you to quickly change the two settings that the virus messed up. You may need a Windows XP install CD for this method as well. But it may be possible for the program to find what it needs from your friend’s computer without having to have access to this disk.

If you have any questions, please feel free to contact me. The above links should give you the tutorials you need to fix the problem. And if you use a PC you should use a virus protection program! If you don’t, you’re asking for trouble! Good luck!

Here’s yet another reason why you should make sure to learn basic math. I suppose that this is one way to lose your job…

There was an announcement yesterday that a collaboration of mathematicians from the United States and Europe have mapped the structure of E8, which is a 248-dimensional Lie group. It’s actually even more rich than that, but I think the concept of a Lie group is intense enough for one post. What interests me most about this particular problem is that there was some SERIOUS computer horsepower that went into the solution. As the Yahoo! news story (link) indicates, “While the human genome, which contains all the genetic information of a cell, is less than a gigabyte in size, the result of the E8 calculation, which contains all the information about E8, is 60 gigabytes in size.” Yikes. Amongst other practical applications this result will provide some good information for physicists who study string theory. The reason for this is that structure of E8 is both symmetrical and extremely complex. Please check out the American Institute of Mathematics page on the E8 project here for more information. There’s a lot of great information on their site. So what does the structure of E8 look like? Here’s the picture:

One of the major gripes I’ve heard people make about the Port Authority transit system in Pittsburgh is that it’s impossible to plan trips. The best method is generally to talk with people who have been using public transportation for longer than you have. Port Authority set up a route search engine through its website about a year ago, but it was downright terrible. I know this system can still be accessed, but I’ve been disillusioned enough by it to forget about its existence. Well, it looks like Google has taken a step in the right direction and created Google Transit, which is a product currently available in 8 U.S. cities, including Pittsburgh. It’s exactly what it sounds like it would be: a way to search public transportation lines in the city of Pittsburgh. I haven’t thoroughly tested it yet, but the interface is basically an extension of Google Maps. Good stuff. I suppose that having Google in Pittsburgh will lead to this type of perk. I’m sure there are some kinks to be worked out, but I’m EXTREMELY happy about this development. I generally think that public transportation is a great way to travel, and one of the hindrances has definitely been route planning, at least for this city. This type of online aid should help with this problem. Now if we can only work on this price system…

I was meandering through the Slashdot archives this evening and came across this discussion about philosophy’s role in computer science. I think the conversation is illuminating on several levels. There are blatant IT professionals coming from one angle versus hard-core philosophers coming from another. While there’s a lot of overlap in perspective each person tends to accentuate a particular part of the (dis?)connection. I think the threads are worth reading both from a professional and an academic standpoint.

There are obvious links between the disciplines, notably the fact that concepts such as computability were born from the work of folks like A.M. Turing, but I often wonder if computer scientists think about this with any sort of regularity.

I started thinking about the RSA Factoring challenge the other day when I received my RSA SecureID® fob to log into the UPMC network offsite. According to the RSA website, “The RSA Factoring challenge is an effort, sponsored by RSA Laboratories, to learn about the actual difficulty of factoring large numbers of the type used in RSA keys. A set of eight challenge numbers, ranging in size from 576 bits to 2048 bits is posted here. Each number is the product of two large primes, similar to the modulus of an RSA key pair.” So if you feel like trying to make yourself an easy $200,000, try to factor the following number as the product of two primes:

25195908475657893494027183240048398571429282126204
03202777713783604366202070759555626401852588078440
69182906412495150821892985591491761845028084891200
72844992687392807287776735971418347270261896375014
97182469116507761337985909570009733045974880842840
17974291006424586918171951187461215151726546322822
16869987549182422433637259085141865462043576798423
38718477444792073993423658482382428119816381501067
48104516603773060562016196762561338441436038339044
14952634432190114657544454178424020924616515723350
77870774981712577246796292638635637328991215483143
81678998850404453640235273819513786365643912120103
97122822120720357

If you’re interested in learning about the history of RSA, which is an algorithm for public key encryption that helps to make internet security tick, you should read this Wikipedia article or check out the RSA Laboratories website.

I’ve noticed a trend…

My high school calculus teacher used a calculator that looked like it had been built in 1985. My undergraduate algebra professor used a calculator that looked like it had been built in 1990 (perhaps earlier).

And though I hate to admit it in some strange sense, my calculator of choice is my TI-85, which was introduced to the world in 1992.

Maybe it’s nostalgia that I always reach for my TI-85 when sitting down to do personal finances. Maybe it’s the fact that I must’ve spent YEARS of my life playing Tetris on that sucker. But it’s probably because I’ve learned how to use it with incredible efficiency over the years. For some reason the calculator seems to violate my desire for extreme technological innovation. I constantly desire the cutting edge in consumer electronics. So what is it exactly that keeps me from updating to a TI-89? I may never know.

So does anyone out there have a specific piece of technology (calculator or otherwise) that has followed you through the years? Leave a comment if you have something. And if you’re looking to have some Texas Instruments nostalgia of your own you should check out ticalc.org. They’ve got some good stuff over there.

While Emily and I are in the process of totally remaking our downstairs space we’ve moved all of our belongings to other parts of the house. This includes our television, which has made its way upstairs to our “guest room”, which is now serving as our dorm living headquarters. It’s basically the only living space in the entire house right now, so it’s grand central station for the time we’re spending in the house and not sanding, stripping paint, or whatever. Since the TV is upstairs we currently don’t have it hooked up to cable. On Saturday evening, while Em was out with some old friends, I was bored and tried to check out what could be found on the television. Amidst the static I found three channels which offered actual content. The content was distressing. Rather, the content was a reminder of some of the worst parts of the American condition. Here’s what I found on the stations:

1. A generic home shopping network program, i.e. the worst possible caricature of American consumerism, where the watcher is asked to consume mostly worthless cultural artifacts. I believe when I was flipping through that the fare of the moment was some sort of terribly ugly fake jewelry.

2. An infomercial, sponsored by GM, for their OnStar system, i.e. the most blatant and strange type of marketing message that exists. While the show tried to pawn itself off as a source of safety information in reality it was just a long commercial for GM vehicles.

3. Christian religious programming of the worst kind. I made myself watch it for about a quarter hour. I was sickened. I’m so sorry to all of you who believe that this is what Christianity either is, or what it has been reduced to. The message of the show was that (for the price of a lofty sum of money) God would give you success, whether it be in occupation, finances, or whatever. Sigh…

Needless to say I turned off the television quite soon after turning it on. But I still can’t quite shake the message that the three programs sent to me. It’s disturbing. But what shall I say, is this not America? At least in some of its worst forms surely it is.

Those of you who have ever ready anything by Kurt Vonnegut know that his style is full of the type of sarcasm that reads as apparent fact. The following excerpt from his book Cat’s Cradle is no exception when it comes to what the author is actually saying about technology. This fiction traces the effects of pure knowledge manifested through technology, as well as the role of religion and belief in a world of tech. Cat’s Cradle is a quick read, and is well worth the time. The book maintains of level of uncomfortable humor throughout, which made me ask myself more than once why I was laughing.

“[Research] isn’t looking for a better cigarette filter or a softer face tissue or a longer-lasting house paint, God help us. Everybody talks about research and practically nobody in this country’s doing it. We’re one of the few companies that actually hires men to do pure research. When most other companies brag about their research, they’re talking about industrial hack technicians who wear white coats, work out of cookbooks, and dream up an improved windshield wiper for next year’s Oldsmobile.”

“But here…?”

“Here, and shockingly few other places in this country, men are paid to increase knowledge, to work toward no end but that.”

“That’s very generous of General Forge and Foundry Company.”

“Nothing generous about it. New knowledge is the most valuable commodity on earth. The more truth we have to work with, the richer we become.”

I’ve read two books recently that have traced the same type of theme, though from different angles. The first is the aforementioned Cat’s Cradle. The second is the late Neil Postman’s Technopoly. This is my first reading of anything by Postman, though he has been on my “to read” list for several years now. His legacy is one of cultural criticism, especially concerning the subjects of education, entertainment, and technology.

The book Technopoly expounds upon the current trend of wholesale faith in all things technical. In other words, in our common belief that anything created through an application of pure science will lead to a better life both in the here and now and in the future. This belief holds in medicine, education, entertainment, food consumption, as well as other areas.

As an example, Postman recounts an experiment he would perform on fellow colleagues. He would walk up to a fairly education person and say something like “Did you hear that there was an article in the New York Times today about a Harvard scientific study which found that individuals who drank coffee every morning are 35% smarter than those who don’t?” He found, more often than not, that though the subject of this study would have initial reservations about the study, the common response was something like “Wow, that’s strange”, or “Where did you say that study was from again?”. In other words, the common response was one of belief rather than unbelief.

The modern mindset states still that science is king. If it can be wrought by science, not only is it true, but it is most likely good as well. His term Technopoly applies to cultures who express an unreserved belief in the process of technological innovation. We eat it up without fail, oftentimes without a thought to the consequences. In this thread Postman traces some of what has been lost in education due to this reliance. One is the lack of focus in using memory. Since all information is immediately available it has become even more unnecessary to use memory as a discipline (in contrast to the era of print, in which reliance on memory was greatly reduced, but not totally eliminated). Also, since our culture has generally adopted the mindset that “what is newer is better”, education has shifted its focus away from the “classic founts” of education, such as logic, grammar, early philosophy, and the like.

I don’t totally agree with Postman’s conclusions. He seems to a certain extent to pine for a bygone age. But I do think his voice sounds a necessary warning. At the very least we should as a culture stand back and think of the consequences of our faith in science expressed through technology. Of course, I say this as a technological “early adopter”. I very often love looking into the latest and greatest in regard to technology, especially when it comes to personal computing and “gadgets”. I need to do a better job of critically engaging our culture on this front.

I do think that our culture has responded to some areas of technology in a critical way. Looking at the organic food movement of the past several years I would have to conclude that there has been at the very least a noticeable minority of people who have become interested in eating food the “natural” way. Sales of organic products in places like Whole Foods, local farms, co-ops, and markets has been stunning to me. People are interested in hormone-free milk, cage-free eggs, grass-fed beef, and pesticide-free produce. As far as the food market is concerned, the consumer doesn’t seem to be doing a terrible job letting business know what it wants. I can only hope that this particular trend will expand.

Consider this as an introduction to a topic that I’d like to continue writing about. Just because it’s new doesn’t mean it’s better. And just because we can do it doesn’t mean that we ought to do it, either because it is ethically questionable from a philosophical perspective, or because the consumer isn’t calling for it from an economic perspective.