Geek stuff – Page 97 – a sibilant intake of breath

Telephoto zoomed

I went for it and bought an image stabilized, L-series telephoto zoom: Canon’s 70-200mm f/4. I briefly considered the f/2.8, but I decided it was just too massive to carry around (it weighs about 1.5 kilos). I also considered the non-IS version, but decided that it made more sense to buy the best possible lens once than buy a lesser one and regret it a few years later.

On the basis of my brief experience, the image stabilizing ability of the lens is not exaggerated. Being able to hand hold a shot at 320mm with a 1/45th of a second shutter speed is quite impressive.

Next, I will probably aim to buy a wide angle zoom. Then, at some distant future point, a body with a full frame sensor, like the 5D.

Is Clippy the April Fool?

On April 1st, I uncovered what I think is an April Fool’s prank hidden in Microsoft Word. Sometimes, when you open a new window, a ‘Getting Started’ sidebar appears. There is a search box that has examples underneath. Normally, they are standard stuff. On April 1st, it said: “get rid of Clipply.”

It seems at least somebody at Microsoft is aware that users don’t want an animated paperclip to help them with their correspondence.

Here is a screenshot.

Deep packet inspection in Canada

The Office of the Privacy Commissioner has created a new website. In addition to the commissioner’s blog, there is now a website devoted to deep packet inspection, announced here.

Deep packet inspection is quite a profound modification of how the internet works. All information passed across the web goes through a number of machines. In the classic version of this arrangement, they just forward the information to the next link without giving it any consideration. With packet inspection, the datastream can be monitored by those intermediate machines, including the ones at a user’s internet service provider (ISP) between their computer and the rest of the internet. Given that the computers of your ISP see all your traffic, having them implement deep packet inspection raises some especially serious questions. That is especially true given that they may be vulnerable to attack by malicious actors, and may be willing to cooperate with requests from governments, even if those requests are illegal.

The technology could have good uses, like stopping viruses and worms. It could also have many malicious ones. Companies could use it to block competition, by making the internet discriminate against their existing rivals and new startups. It could also be used for data mining, eavesdropping, and censorship. Personally, I would prefer an internet without it, and I am glad to see that it’s something Canada’s official privacy official has been devoting a fair bit of attention towards.

Dark Sun

The whole technical and chilling history of atomic weapons is reviewed in Richard Rhodes’ Dark Sun: The Making of the Hydrogen Bomb. Released in 1995, it is based substantially on documents that became available after the end of the Cold War, documenting the development of nuclear and thermonuclear bombs in the United States and Soviet Union, as well as delving into issues of international politics, espionage, and delivery systems.

Most people are likely to find some aspects of the book tedious, while others are fascinating. For instance, I noted all the descriptions of design details of nuclear and thermonuclear issues with interest, but found a lot of the minute descriptions of espionage activities tedious (especially descriptions of nearly every meeting between the atomic spies and their contacts). That said, the book will certainly offer good rewards to anyone with an interest in some aspect of nuclear weapons or the Cold War.

The last few pages really ought to be read by everyone. They document the shocking behaviour of Curtis LeMay and the Strategic Air Command (SAC) in the period prior to the Cuban Missile Crisis, as well as during it. At the time, LeMay and some of his commanders could use nuclear weapons without presidential authority; they were also obsessed with striking first, and generally convinced that war with Russia was inevitable. Perhaps the most shocking actions detailed are LeMay’s strategy of flying nuclear-capable bombers over targets like Vladivostok, in the Soviet Union. They were running drills and taking photos, but it looked to the Russians exactly like an atomic attack. I don’t think Rhodes is wrong to suggest that, had the Soviets done something similar in America, the SAC would have launched an all-out attack against them. Rhodes marshals compelling evidence that LeMay did, at times, seek to provoke a nuclear war through initiatives like these flights and the provocative American ballistic missile test undertaken during the Cuban Missile Crisis.

The book’s closing also laments the enormous amounts of sacrifice made to build up these massive, threatening stocks of weapons. The Oak Ridge and Hanford complexes, producing fissile materials, used more energy than the Tennessee Valley Authority, Hoover, Grand Coulee, and Bonneville dams could produce together. One year of expanding the facilities required 11% of US nickel production and 34% of the output of stainless steel. All told, Rhodes estimates that the arms race cost America over $4 trillion, which could have otherwise been put to productive uses. On the Soviet side, the story is far more appalling: with thousands of slaves being terrorized and irradiated in the drive to match the American weapons complex. The irony is that, while generals and arms manufacturers clamoured for ever-more warheads, politicians on both sides of the Iron Curtain had already come to understand that the weapons could never be used. Indeed, Rhodes’ account provides a nice counter-argument to the view that all politicians are short-sighted and lacking in wisdom.

All told, Rhodes’ account is an excellent one: historically rigorous, but alive to the human issues raised inevitably by the subject matter. It’s a book that is deeply relevant in a world where US-Russian tensions are growing, weapons are proliferating, and a terrifying number of bombs are still deployed on 15-minute hair-trigger alerts.

Dealing with battery self-discharge

The most annoying thing about rechargeable batteries is the way in which they ‘self discharge’ – slowly tracking towards dead even when nothing is drawing power from them. It’s actually a characteristic that grows more annoying the more batteries you have. Now, due to all the photographic gear I lug around, I need at least twenty AAs to ensure that I back a backup set for all devices. There are few things more frustrating than to spend a couple of weeks carrying around a big sack of batteries, only to discover that they are all dead when you need some. This happens especially often in cold weather.

The solution I have devised is based on grouping batteries into sets. I have devices that require 2, 3, or 4 batteries at a time, so I have made sets of those sizes. The batteries in each set are marked with the same letter, and held together with an elastic band when not in use. Obviously, any set can be used with any device that requires that number of batteries.

If one battery you put in is weaker than the others, the whole device will fail when it does. As such, it is important to charge the whole set at the same time. In addition to that, it is vital to remember to top up the sets regularly, rather than forgetting them long enough to kill them. Finally, to maximize their lifespan, you should use a charger that can put in energy slowly, preventing overheating. I use a La Crosse BC-900 and am very happy with it. It charges batteries at 200mA, by default, thus prolonging their lives. It can also ‘re-condition’ batteries that have lost most of their capacity. Given the number of batteries my growing collection of flashes makes me juggle, I may even end up getting a second one, so I can charge them eight at a time.

I hope somebody eventually comes up with affordable AA and AAA cells that you can charge, leave in a backpack for a few months, and still count on being able to use.

Studio experimentation IV

In preparation for some ongoing photo projects, I have been experimenting with different kinds of two-strobe arrangements. Andrea very kindly volunteered herself as a subject. We tried different umbrella arrangements (both shoot-through and reflective), background lights, rim lights, and some ceiling bouncing. I was firing my 430EX II using my radio triggers and using the optical slave on my LP120. While the latter flash has a longer cycling time than the 430, that can be counterbalanced somewhat by using it as a fill light at a lesser output level.

In keeping with my approach for this series, the photos on Picasa are not digitally altered.

Next, I want to try taking some portraits in an interesting outdoor environment around sunset, balancing ambient and flash light. The mill near Chaudiere Falls would probably offer some interesting backdrops.

Flash practice

Now that I have two strobes, the accessories required to use them, and the relevant theoretical knowledge from Light: Science and Magic, I need to start getting some more practice in flash lighting of various subjects, in different lighting circumstances. I am curious about situations in which my strobes are basically the only source of light, as well as about those where they are supplementing available ambient light (with the balance established by varying shutter speeds and flash power).

Portraits are my top priority.

Renewables, land, and trade-offs

Whether it is solar power, wind farms, dams, or biofuel crops, renewable energy tends to be land-intensive. Indeed, that is one of the major reasons for which improving efficiency in sectors like buildings and vehicles is some important. Improving their efficiency can allow us to reduce our fossil fuel use, both out of concern for climate change and in response to their inevitable depletion, while engaging in the decades-long project of deploying the kind of renewable infrastructure we are going to need to power human civilization in the future. If we want to have an acceptable balance between areas used for energy generation, those used for all other human purposes, and those where nature is meant to be dominant, we will need to improve the efficiency of both our energy production and our energy use.

There are many trade-offs to be considered. For instance, the best sites for wind farms and solar facilities are often far away from centres of energy demand. That establishes a trade-off between producing power at the best sites and managing losses across long distances. While there is a lot of excitement about highly distributed forms of electrical generation, it may well prove to be the case that the most economically and ecologically sound approach is based on big renewable facilities linked to cities through efficient transmission systems, such as high voltage direct current (HVDC) lines.

There are also ecosystem trade-offs: dams block rivers, biofuel plantations are generally sterile monocultures that can lead to deforestation, and solar facilities crowd the dessert. That being said, fossil fuel extraction certainly causes harm to ecosystems, a well. There is direct harm from both deliberate actions (open pit oil sands extraction, coal mining, etc), near-term indirect harm from accidents like oil and coal ash spills, and the potentially massive long-term harm associated with climate change. Indeed, that final issue alone may be a strong justification for converting large amounts of land towards renewable energy generation; in that way, ecosystem harm can be made to occur in a planned way within large but controlled spaces, rather than globally and chaotically as the consequence of temperature increases, precipitation changes, and ocean acidfication.

Building fission bombs

As recommended by a fellow attendee at the unofficial summer ‘grill thrill’ barbecues, I am currently reading Richard Rhodes’ Dark Sun: The Making of the Hydrogen Bomb. While the book can be detailed to the point of exhaustion sometimes, it does contain a lot of interesting information, on everything from atomic bomb design to the differences in governmental structure and operation in the United States and Soviet Union.

One thing the book has definitely done is diminish my concerns about terrorists building nuclear weapons. Even the ‘simple’ gun-type configuration uranium bomb is a lot more complicated that many of the diagrams and descriptions I have seen would make you believe. A plutonium implosion device is far more complex still. Getting from a sufficient quantity of fissile material to a working bomb is an extremely complex undertaking, requiring a lot of equipment and expertise. It also requires a lot of exotic materials and manufacturing processes. It is certainly easier now than it was for the Russians in 1949 (largely because more information is available), but the degree may not be as great as most people think. Because of espionnage, the Russians actually had the plans for the American bombs while they were building their own. Even under intense pressure from Stalin and Beria and with considerable resources (including access to industrial facilities and thousands of forced labourers), it took the Soviets four years to copy them. That makes it seem unlikely that terrorists without significant support from a state, access to industrial facilities, and high degrees of technical knowledge could emulate them.

Another interesting topic covered in the book is the hasty abandonment of Los Alamos at the end of the war. It would make interesting reading for those who saw the advent of atomic weapons as an immediate sea change in warfare. As it happened, there was apparently a long period after the war where no usable weapons were assembled and available, and the teams of people who would be required to make them so were dispersed around the United States, doing other things. The first bombs definitely weren’t designed with simplicity or shelf-life as a top priority. As a consequence, most of the deterrent effect of the bombs in the immediate post-war period was based around faulty information.

I will write a full review of the book when I have finished it.

[Update: 12 April 2010] My full review was online quite a while ago: Dark Sun: The Making of the Hydrogen Bomb.

Crime fighting with DNA ‘family searches’

Over at Slate, there is an interesting and somewhat frightening article about the use of DNA in law enforcement in the United States. As in the UK, the US is now collecting DNA from many people who have been arrested, and retaining the samples even from those never charged or convicted. The next step along this path of DNA surveillance seems to be ‘family searches.’ Here, police look for near matches between crime scene DNA and people in their database. When they find a near match, they investigate that person’s family members.

This is worrisome for many reasons. As the article explains, “courts could well be troubled by the open-ended idea that once you’re arrested and cleared, the state can subject you and future generations of your family members to permanent genetic surveillance.” It is quite shocking really. These days, people are getting arrested for such trivialities as taking photos of major landmarks. The idea that this would then subject their entire family to future police DNA surveillance seems deeply illiberal. The article also makes the point that the DNA kept on file may be re-examined later to test for other traits: for instance, if genes that predispose people to committing rape or murder are discovered. Finally, the article mentions some of the major racial implications of the policy: given the high rates of arrest and incarceration in the African American community, members of that ethnic group are unusually likely to be subject to police surveillance via family searches.

Maintaining a functioning justice system in an era of rapidly changing technologies is a huge challenge. Arguably, search and surveillance are the most worrisome new issues. The automation of both means that huge databases can be maintained tracking emails, cell phone locations, DNA, and much else besides. These databases will inevitably be accidentally leaked and intentionally abused. Just another reason why governments are far more dangerous than terrorists.

Given the popularity of being ‘tough on crime,’ it is easy to see why many people favour a system that sacrifices privacy in exchange to a higher chance of catching criminals. There are certainly arguments on both sides. DNA can help to free the wrongfully convicted, as well as increase the conviction rate for crimes like rape, when the justice system generally does a rotten job of catching perpetrators. Arguably, the fairest system would be to put everyone’s DNA on file. At least that way people would be receiving equal treatment. Of course, that requires putting even more trust and power in the hands of governments and security services that have too often abused it in the past.