Rumi Nations

Longforms and 'Best of 2017' Lists and Favorite Books by Ashutosh Joglekar and Scott Aaronson

2018-04-20T13:10:00.000+05:30

Ashutosh Joglekar's books list.

http://wavefunction.fieldofscience.com/2018/03/30-favorite-books.html

Scott Aaronson' list

https://www.scottaaronson.com/blog/?p=3679

https://www.wired.com/story/most-read-wired-magazine-stories-2017/

https://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2017/12/the-best-books-we-read-in-2017/548912/

https://longreads.com/2017/12/21/longreads-best-of-2017-essays/

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2017/12/21/world/asia/how-the-rohingya-escaped.html

https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/how-journalists-covered-rise-mussolini-hitler-180961407/

https://www.smithsonianmag.com/innovation/artificial-intelligence-future-scenarios-180968403/

https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/1997/01/20/citizen-kay

https://www.smithsonianmag.com/innovation/where-we-are-hunt-cancer-vaccine-180968391/

https://www.smithsonianmag.com/innovation/dna-based-attack-against-cancer-may-work-180968407/

https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2017/12/22/donald-trump-vladimir-putin-cold-war-216157

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/01/06/obituaries/john-young-dead.html

https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2017/12/22/donald-trump-vladimir-putin-cold-war-216157

https://arstechnica.com/science/2017/12/apollo-risk/

https://www.theatlantic.com/photo/2018/03/bike-share-oversupply-in-china-huge-piles-of-abandoned-and-broken-bicycles/556268/

https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2018/01/the-internet-broke-emergency-alerts/550520/

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2017/12/04/world/middleeast/saudi-missile-defense.html

Personality Tests, Online Quizzes, Cambridge Analytica — The Dangers

2017-12-31T02:35:00.001+05:30

Online quizzes are not so innocent.

It seems Myers Briggs is a bogus psychological test but very popular. Sigh.

Somewhat better than a horoscope, MBTI (Myers Briggs Type Indicator) is as bad as a lie detector.

Beauty of the night sky

2017-12-30T09:00:00.002+05:30

Mauna Kea Heavens Timelapse

2017-12-30T09:00:00.001+05:30

Mauna Kea Heavens Timelapse from Sean Goebel on Vimeo.

KAIBAD ELEGY

2017-12-30T08:44:00.002+05:30

SKYGLOWPROJECT.COM: KAIBAB ELEGY from Harun Mehmedinovic on Vimeo.

Edward Snowden

2016-05-03T03:57:00.000+05:30

This seems to me to be the defining journalism-whistle-blower story of this generation.

It's rare in today's world when privileged people voluntarily choose to take steps whereby they give up comfortable lives to do something that is in the 'public good.'

Mr. Snowden was clearly a computer whiz which explains why he got jobs at the CIA (including postings in Geneva under diplomatic cover). Booz Allen obviously did not hire him or pay him the $1,20,000 salary without Mr. Snowden showcasing some considerable technical expertise.

I believe Mr. Snowden's expertise probably lies in having deep expertise in various flavors of Linux. That is what I am inclined to infer from his various job roles as a 'Systems Engineer' or 'System Administrator.'

Being the self-driven sort of person that he was, I am sure he must be having good knowledge about networking and encryption stuff including but not limited to Cisco routers and related technologies.

To put these things in perspective, I would guess there must be thousands in the United States with similar kinds of expertise as Mr. Snowden (and probably hundreds in India).

I imagine a 'Systems Administrator' in India or a Networking expert with 10 years experience having almost the same kind of technical expertise as Mr. Snowden. He would get a salary of $20,000 per annum to $30,000 per annum or may be even $40,000 per annum which is a very good salary in India. He would be employed at one of the top IT companies or banks. He would live a busy but 'comfortable' life defined by the usual material amenities of life and possibly a bunch of maids helping out on the home front (cheap human resources are one of the 'perks' of life in India).

Mr. Snowden's salary was pretty good as well even by American standards. He could have looked forward to ever growing salaries and a comfortable suburban existence with its plethora of attractions. I suppose the people who make good money and live in the large cities such as New York or Washington DC or LA or Boston and so on are similarly stuck in a life and a routine which is sort of like riding a tiger — you just can't get off!

Imagine the folks especially in the intelligence community and the defense industrial complex or even Pentagon military officers who have had to execute the Iraq and Afghanistan adventures. Think of everyone who is involved with the drone wars that kill pretty much at random. Do they never feel pangs of guilt? I think they must but learn to live with a guilty conscience because the alternative would be pretty bleak — either being jobless or even ending up in jail for treason.

Mr. Snowden has turned out to be a rare individual (out of thousands) who has chosen to basically END his career and put his life literally on the line for his beliefs. A very, very rare occurrence in deed in today's world.

Why did he do it and why don't many others do it? Well, probably because he is especially young and therefore still idealistic and not fatalistic or career-minded as middle-aged folks tend to be. Mr. Snowden did not have a wife and two kids to support and a house mortgage to pay ... not to mention no college debt since he never went to college in the first place! How smart of him!!! Reminds me of Matt Damon in Good Will Hunting.

I do not know what future awaits Mr. Snowden but he has already become a true 'hero.'

Here's his Wikipedia page and a Financial Times biography.

A remarkable story about Booz Allen, the symbiotic relationships between the government and private contractors in the intelligence business and a seamless revolving door. I find it odd when people like Sen. Collins in this article talk about Edward Snowden not completing his high school. He was a Systems Administrator and must be having pretty spectacular knowledge about Linux flavors. He was a self-taught genius in the nuts and bolts of how operating systems and networks work. May be politicians who are mostly lawyers do not appreciate the complexity of computer systems because they themselves have very little knowledge about it — hopefully they know at least to password protect their Wi-Fi and know how to look up and find out their own IP Address. Of course, a 'Systems Administrator' will be able to find out a lot more. I bet most politicians would never have heard of basic Windows command prompt commands such as ipconfig, tracert, nslookup, and so on ...

Could Mr. Snowden end up like Mehran Karimi Nasseri? Mr. Nasseri of course spent 17 years in the in the departure lounge of Terminal One in Charles de Gaulle Airport in Paris. Sacha Gervasi, the screenplay writer of The Terminal reflects on the choices before Mr. Snowden.

How the GCHQ taps fibre-optic cables for secret access to world's communications.

And how the NSA is spying on Brazilians as well. How can I be sure that the NSA is not doing the same with Indian citizens? And why is the Government of India not protesting. I hope Glenn Greenwald writes an India-specific article detailing how the NSA is spying on Indians. But then, I am sure, the self-appointed spokesperson of Kerry that EAM Khurshid, he will say, 'it's only 'analysis' that the NSA is doing and not 'spying'.'

How the GCHQ is scooping up vast amounts of web and phone data. Appropriately enough, they call it 'Mastering the Internet.'

An interesting WSJ article about the options before Mr. Snowden. The article details how Mr. Snowden might travel from the transit lounge of Moscow Airport to his 'assumed' final destination of Ecuador.

NSA slides about PRISM. A summary of what is known so far.

How the FISA court has vastly broadened the powers of the NSA entirely in secret.

Do you govern, or are you governed, asks Charles Pierce. It applies to all citizens of all democracies, not just America.

David Bromwich in the London Review of Books on Snowden and what he has wrought.

Well, nobody should be surprised really that the FBI tried to send Snowden's dad to Moscow to get him to talk his son back to the United States.

Further insights about the crazy extent of the NSA's capabilities to snoop on EVERYONE's online activities. NSA stores billions upon billions of details about what people do online: social netoworking, emails, and all the rest of it. NSA analysts can then 'query' whatever they want to look up. Sad world.

So Edward Snowden leaves the airport finally and enters Russia on temporary asylum for a year.

A good timeline of the Edward Snowden story so far.

The Snowden Effect explained.

How the NSA broke privacy rules thousands of times per year.

The UK continues to faithfully play the role of puppy to the United States as it detained Glenn Greenwald's partner at Heathrow while he was transiting through London on his way to Rio.

Of course, Mr. Greenwald has responded to this cheap intimidation tactics of Scotland Yard/NSA by writing that it will have the "opposite effect" of the obvious attempt at intimidation.

The Washington Post has published details of the U.S. intelligence spending based on documents provided by Edward Snowden.

Here's a nice visualization of the break up of the intelligence budget of the United States.

This week's Snowden revelations show that the NSA has managed to break most of the encryption technologies that are used on the Internet.

Some tech companies are 'angry' about this new revelation. They claim that they did not know that the NSA was up to this. I find it hard to believe these companies at this point.

What can you possibly do to protect yourself and your data in the face of NSA trying to snoop on everyone and everything? Here's some help from The Guardian.

Here's how NSA has made everyone less secure by deliberating weakening encryption standards.

So you thought BlackBerry Enterprise Server was 'un-breakable.' Not so fast. NSA and GCHQ have cracked that encryption too. So there.

One more day brings one more 'odd' development. Johns Hopkins cryptography expert writes blog post that is critical of NSA's shenanigans related to cracking internet encryption standards such as SSL; university asks him to 'remove' said blog post. Professor removes blog post from blog hosted on university server/domain but refuses to remove same post from Google/Blogger blog. Professor tweets about all this —> media firestorm ensues —> university takes back order to remove blog post from university blog.

So, was this just an 'innocent' step taken by the 'Dean' of the Engineering School? Or was there any 'input' from the NSA?

Hopefully, more Snowden's will come out of the woodwork like this article predicts.

A fascinating article about the Fourth Amendment implications of the NSA's bulk collection of internet metadata.

Editors from across the world reflect on the 'ethics' of the publication of the Snowden revelations.

Detailed blog about Edward Snowden in the Guardian.

Now that the spying on German Chancellor Angela Merkel has come out, the NSA and the White House are scrambling to contain the fall out using the old and boring techniques of denial and prevarication and parsing of words.

More about the President vs. the Congress as to the control of the NSA.

Great article about the Snowden NSA revelations and what they say about insiders versus outsiders.

And the NSA's infamy keeps growing daily. It turns out the NSA has broken into Google and Yahoo's private cloud and manages to vacuum humongous amounts of un-encrypted data into NSA's storage facilities and servers mainframes at Fort Meade.

Some people like Andrew Sullivan (@sullydish) who were 'formerly' *skeptical* about Snowden are now turning into Snowden's supporters.

Even the great Diane Feinstein, the chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee is asking for a thorough review of the NSA after it came out that it was listening in on Angela Merkel's cellphone conversation.

Of course Obama must have known about all this! So imagine when Obama comes across this 'explosive' new revelation in the Washington Post based on Snowden's documents ... how does he react privately? By groaning audibly or rolling his eyes or with a wink or a knowing smile?

Obama must be shaking his head at how dumb the citizens of the world truly are. He must be like: "These people! Grow up already!!"

And imagine Obama and Merkel in a press conference just after Obama is 'briefed' about her based on that cellphone tap. Does Obama find it hard to suppress a giggle?

Tim Berners-Lee, inventor of the World Wide Web supports Snowden and The Guardian.

A long profile of Glenn Greenwald.

How Britain is targeting The Guardian over its reporting of the Snowden files.

Revelations about the "collaboration" between the NSA and the RSA.

Snowden's first interview from Russia with Barton Gellman of the Washington Post.
Now the New York Times has expressed its editorial opinion that Snowden should be pardoned.
Of course, I think at this point Mr. Snowden has higher moral authority that the morally ambiguous winner of the Nobel Peace Prize, Mr. Obama.
One more opinion piece about how we are indebted to Mr. Snowden for the NSA surveillance debate happening now.
What was Edward Snowden doing in New Delhi, asks Foreign Affairs.
Edward Snowden interviewed by Jane Mayer in the New Yorker.
"Congressional leaders" (not to mention Obama) continue their crazy rant against Snowden.

Excerpt from Glenn Greenwald's book No Place To Hide.
How technology companies are erecting barriers to NSA surveillance.

Criticism of people (journalists) focusing on the person of Mr. Greenwald (or Snowden) and not focusing on what he has revealed.
Brian Williams interviews Edward Snowden.
One year since Mr. Snowden's revelations were first published in The Guardian. Four ways in which Mr. Snowden changed the world.
How the USG scrambled to nab Snowden — and failed.
Ron Wyden, Rand Paul, and Mark Udall write about how to end NSA dragnet.
House passes bill to cut funding for research into back doors and thus ignites hope for real NSA reform.
An old-ish story where a former Snowden colleague describes him as a genius among geniuses.
A analysis of what NSA captures by Barton Gellman of the Washington Post.
Basically, the story says that those not targeted far outnumber the foreigners who are being targeted by the NSA.
Barton Gellman further explains his reporting with details and explanations.
UN Human Rights report on mass surveillance.
India is apparently against privacy in the digital age since it was not one of the sponsors of the UN General Assembly resolution.
A 16,000-word interview with Alan Rusbridger and Ewen MacAskill of The Guardian.
David Carr profiles Glenn Greenwald.
Story in the Intercept about the terrorist watchlist program and how it has grown.
Intercept article about the speech-to-text capabilities of NSA computers.
Edward Snowden AMA related to the Patriot Act debate in Congress, Senator Rand Paul's filibuster, etc.
John Oliver interviews Edward Snowden.
Amazing WSJ article about NSA spying on Israel, Bibi Netanyahu, and more.
An article by Snowden.

Going Beyond The Drake Equation

2015-11-02T10:57:00.000+05:30

Taking the Drake Equation forward or modifying it, researchers have attempted to find out — estimate — the total number of intelligent civilizations that have ever existed in the visible universe since the Big Bang.

In their words;

Abstract: In this paper we address the cosmic frequency of technological species. Recent advances in exoplanet studies provide strong constraints on all astrophysical terms in the Drake Equation. Using these and modifying the form and intent of the Drake equation we show that we can set a firm lower bound on the probability that one or more additional technological species have evolved anywhere and at any time in the history of the observable Universe. We find that as long as the probability that a habitable zone planet develops a technological species is larger than ~10-24, then humanity is not the only time technological intelligence has evolved. This constraint has important scientific and philosophical consequences.

The paper.

Curiosity's Three Years on Mars!

2015-08-23T16:45:00.000+05:30

All that needs to be said: The best that humans can be!

And the mandatory: it's been three years already since that day in August!?

The Search For ET Gets A Boost From Yuri Milner

2015-08-23T16:44:00.001+05:30

This is fantastic news after all.

http://www.breakthroughinitiatives.org/News/1

The work that began with pioneers like Frank Drake now proceeds forward.

http://phenomena.nationalgeographic.com/2015/07/20/the-new-100-million-search-for-life-in-the-cosmos/

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/07/21/science/yuri-milner-russian-entrepreneur-promises-100-million-for-alien-search.html

Astonishing Antarctica

2015-08-23T16:44:00.000+05:30

That's all. The photos are breathtaking and the landscape is alien. Other-worldly!

Enola Gay Returns to Base After Hiroshima Bombing

2015-08-23T16:43:00.000+05:30

You can see a color video.

Restless Baby

2015-08-23T16:42:00.000+05:30

From the Rolling Stone article about birth tourism.

Wonder how many such cases of birth tourism are happening from India. I remember reading about people (from India) going to the U.S. to give birth in the India Today during the pre-internet days. Must be more than 20 years ago.

On The Fermi Paradox

2015-07-23T03:36:00.002+05:30

This may be familiar territory for some; but still a detailed article on the Fermi Paradox is always interesting.

Best Magazine and Newspaper Writing of 2013

2015-07-21T00:23:00.002+05:30

Clearly, there is just too much of the stuff.

This is a meta-collection of articles that are themselves collections of good articles.

Starting with this collection of the Best Business Journalism of 2013 compiled by The New Yorker.

The most popular Quartz stories of 2013.

Top Long Reads of 2013.

The 41 best stories of 2013 compiled by BusinessWeek.

Some of the best Sportswriting of the year for those interested.

Epilepsy And Its Treatments Including Medical Marijuana

2015-07-21T00:23:00.000+05:30

Fascinating tales about childhood epilepsy and what people do (and doctors recommend) when drugs and therapies don't work.

One solution is keto diet which consists of food that is full of fat and no carbs. One would think this would damage the kids but strangely enough, the food stops the epileptic attacks.

And the latest is using medical marijuana processed in a particular manner to treat treatment-resistant epilepsy.

And it's working.

Chris Hadfield Space Photography

2015-07-21T00:22:00.000+05:30

Commander Hadfield has tweeted many photographs during his time in space.

Here are a few of his tweets.

Looking north from our orbit to the forbidding rock and ice of Greenland. pic.twitter.com/v4zoygpQgI
— Chris Hadfield (@Cmdr_Hadfield) May 7, 2013

Glacial water burping into the Atlantic in deep Southern Argentina. pic.twitter.com/cRBehZEx
— Chris Hadfield (@Cmdr_Hadfield) February 10, 2013

Tonight's Finale: Nature inspires awe - cloud, ice and rock in southern South America. pic.twitter.com/sqCYVSbZTw
— Chris Hadfield (@Cmdr_Hadfield) February 24, 2013

Tonight's Finale: Patagonia to the Pacific, the glaciers showing the height of the southern Andes. pic.twitter.com/2eWQCzKKV6
— Chris Hadfield (@Cmdr_Hadfield) April 13, 2013

Strange how the slow flow of glacial ice becomes more visible from here, so far away. pic.twitter.com/SCRkzgBABT
— Chris Hadfield (@Cmdr_Hadfield) May 8, 2013

From over the southern tip of S. America, I looked south and saw Antarctica, there in the sea and cloud. Tantalizing. pic.twitter.com/9EfV9vWD
— Chris Hadfield (@Cmdr_Hadfield) February 19, 2013

Five Hostages From The New Yorker

2015-07-21T00:21:00.004+05:30

The story of Kayla, Steven Sotloff, Peter Kassig, James Foley and Theo Fadnos in The New Yorker.

Apollo Lunar Landing Photos

2015-07-21T00:20:00.002+05:30

Commemorating the lunar landing from 46 years ago, here are some wonderful photographs published on The Atlantic website. Some goods ones are there that I hadn't come across before. Really. Go check them.

Let me paste just one here.

Those tiny workers are perched some 110 meters or 360 feet above the ground.

And more photos of Apollo 11 are here.

Fabulous Milky Way

2015-07-10T15:42:00.000+05:30

Paul Kalanithi And Mortality

2015-07-06T05:29:00.004+05:30

When do we learn to accept our mortality? At 60? At 20? Perhaps never. When should we?

Perhaps mot people never accept their mortality — certainly not before the time comes when you start seeing your contemporaries fall off.

Realizing that you are mortal at 60 or 70 may be a good thing. It perhaps makes people more mellow and more congenial, less abrasive, less aggressive.

If one could reach that realization earlier, it might make us better human beings.

Perhaps religion plays a role in how and when people come to terms with their mortality. For me, my idea of mortality and what lessons to learn have to all come from exceptional individuals who lived and died exemplary lives.

Learning you have an incurable disease when you are in your 30s has got to be one of the toughest things one can face in life. Perhaps after years and decades of effort, you are close to achieving some important life goal, some important professional milestone in your mid-30s but then suddenly you are told that you've to say goodbye to it all; you have to go.

"The party will go on without you," as Hitch put it once.

That's what Dr. Paul Kalanithi faced and with what courage and dignity. No words from me can capture his generosity of spirit. In his own words:

Most ambitions are either achieved or abandoned; either way, they belong to the past. The future, instead of the ladder toward the goals of life, flattens out into a perpetual present. Money, status, all the vanities the preacher of Ecclesiastes described, hold so little interest: a chasing after wind, indeed.

And he writes to his daughter:

When you come to one of the many moments in life when you must give an account of yourself, provide a ledger of what you have been, and done, and meant to the world, do not, I pray, discount that you filled a dying man’s days with a sated joy, a joy unknown to me in all my prior years, a joy that does not hunger for more and more, but rests, satisfied. In this time, right now, that is an enormous thing.

Well, what would you do if you were diagnosed with metastatic cancer when you are 36.

Pluto Files

2015-07-03T02:53:00.002+05:30

As New Horizons closes in on its Pluto encounter, some facts about it to blow one's mind.

New Horizons approximate distance from Earth: 3 billion miles; 4.8 billion kilometers (32.28 astronomical units)

New Horizons approximate distance from Pluto: 93 million miles; 149 million kilometers (1 AU)

Time for signal to reach Earth: 4 hours, 28 minutes, 31 seconds

Primary communications: NASA Deep Space Network Canberra Station, Australia (70-meter antenna)

Simple calculations show that at the enormous distance of 4.8 billion kms where Pluto is, one arcsecond equals some 24,000 kms.

Hence, when they point that "big seven-foot, high-gain dish antenna" of the New Horizons spacecraft towards Earth, they've to be pretty precisely so that the signal is received in Canberra. If you are about 15 arcseconds off, instead of the Earth, you might be pointing to the Moon.

Secret History of the Manhattan Project

2015-06-29T02:11:00.002+05:30

Must download and read some of the key parts.

On Polygamy

2015-06-29T02:10:00.001+05:30

And how and why it makes no sense to keep polygamy illegal.

This article dismantles all the usual arguments against polygamy.

Some people make the "slippery slope" argument saying allowing polygamy will lead to people marrying animals or children but the difference is the 'bedrock principle' of consent.

"This bedrock principle of mutually-informed consent explains exactly why we must permit polygamy and must oppose bestiality and child marriage. Animals are incapable of voicing consent; children are incapable of understanding what it means to consent. In contrast, consenting adults who all knowingly and willfully decide to enter into a joint marriage contract, free of coercion, should be permitted to do so, according to basic principles of personal liberty. The preeminence of the principle of consent is a just and pragmatic way to approach adult relationships in a world of multivariate and complex human desires."

" ... the case against polygamy is incredibly flimsy, almost entirely lacking in rational basis and animated by purely irrational fears and prejudice. What we’re left with is an unsatisfying patchwork of unconvincing arguments and bad ideas, ones embraced for short-term convenience at long-term cost. We must insist that rights cannot be dismissed out of short-term interests of logistics and political pragmatism."

The other arguments are even weaker.

Windows Disk Encryption

2015-06-29T02:10:00.000+05:30

Detailed guide about how to enable disk encryption on your Windows machine. Also, Apple and Linux computers.

The benefits of full disk encryption are that they ensure the data on your hard drive is secure even if it gets physically stolen. Nobody but you will be able to access the data.

Worth enabling if your OS supports it. All you need to do is follow the steps given.

Shuttle Challenger Through The Clouds

2015-06-29T02:09:00.002+05:30

With fake photos everywhere these days, it's difficult to tell what is true and what is not.

It's therefore good to have NASA's official comments on the Challenger image.

And a bonus picture of Challenger going to the launch pad on the crawler transporter prior to its first flight.