What I like most is the hexagonal heat-element pattern that adapts to the container size – I think it might save energy and allow the entire area of the stove to be used. And, of course, the detailed heat readout with an integrated timer is quite a nice feature for perfecting the recipes.

I’m slightly suspicious about the touch control. I’ve seen touch activated ovens with touch control for heat levels, and they all had pretty poor responsiveness. I can only imagine it gets worse once you try to reduce the heat by poking your finger at a layer of bechamel sauce which just overboiled over the controls.

From the article:

Finally, we were able to distribute the 55,882,296 cosets of H among a large number of computers at Google and complete the computation in just a few weeks. Google does not release information on their computer systems, but it would take a good desktop PC (Intel Nehalem, four-core, 2.8GHz) 1.1 billion seconds, or about 35 CPU years, to perform this calculation.

And now, some late-night number shuffling.

First, let’s make an educated guess of one quad-core 2.8 GHz Intel Nehalem doing about, say, 11.2 GFLOPS. Then, given 1.1 billion seconds spent for the task, the total task used up a total of about 2^63 floating point operations (an interesting power of 2, no?). Google’s computers did this in “just a few weeks” (2 weeks = 1209600 seconds), so that’s about 2^43 floating point operations per second for the mystery number of computers, i.e. the computers achieved a total of 10185 GFLOPS = ca. 10 TFLOPS. Divided with the GFLOPS per CPU, that’d mean about 909 CPUs, given the initial guesstimated specs for the Nehalems.

Yes, an easier way to calculate is to find how how many parallel units there were by calculating 1.1 billion seconds / 1209600 seconds = 909, but the above description is nicer to follow. YMMV.

So, according to my back-of-the-envelope calculations, and factoring in some uncertainties about the times, Davidson, Dethridge, Kociemba and Rokicki used a grand total of about a 1000 or so quad-core Intel Nehalem 2.8 GHz CPUs (or equivalent) for the task.

Anyway, 10 TFLOPS in itself is a nice number but really nothing special. It is not enough to reach even the 500th supercomputer position of the June 2010 list of top500.org. However, do keep in mind that the number of CPUs used for the Rubik’s cube task was obviously but a small fraction of the real ultimate Ninja CPU power that Google can harness at will.

And now, good night!

CSS gurus ahoy, David also wanted to say that he’s happy to receive contributions to the theme if people feel any aspects of the theme can be improved.

Here’s a cleaned up mail I sent, with some links added. What do you think?

There is a major problem with HFTs and fast algorithmic trading and markets due to full computerization (no human in the loop) and the massive speed obtained through those methods. This time, I don’t mean the obvious application of HFTs doing front-running.

Here I use the definition “HFT agents” to be any instance of an HFT/algorithmic trading algorithm running somewhere. Basically a computer reading and writing to the market.

So: I see the dynamics such that HFT agents both observe and influence the market. Yet they are part of that market as well. As they trade, they also influence each other (although indirectly)! And they do trading at such speed, that there is bound to be kind of “resonances” amplifying whatever direction was taken originally – sort of like everyone nudging the same direction a little bit. I think that this kind of system must be unstable.

Human traders can’t jump in and fix up the situation as they can’t keep up with the speed. So, in essence we get either flash bubbles or flash crashes. All this because the HFT agents actions influence each other, they end up modifying each other’s algorithms through application of stigmergy when they modify the market (=they modify the environment they’re in and read their own and others modifications as input to their algorithms).

It’s like the synchronizing of fireflies (see the video and read Strogatz’s book “Sync” for details), they adapt to each other until everyone blinks in unison. Except here the synchrony is a kind of “stochastic resonance” leading to spikes + valleys.

With slower trading the quick peaks and valleys even out, of course we still get bubbles and crashes over a longer period. But the same bubble/crash-creating phenomenon is at play, this time much quicker.

One example follows. There are surely other ways also, given that there is a big diversity in the algorithms.

• HFT agents x and y scans the market. Some condition c holds (e.g. break in 30 day SMA).
• HFT agent x triggers first and does whatever (sell/buy orders etc.), changing the market conditions.
• HFT agent y might do the same action immediately after x, reacting to condition c or action of x (stigmergy comes into play). This “boosts” the direction, be it up or down.
• Now imagine thousands of these agents. Some might react to the amplified direction signal (e.g. drop in price) further amplifying the system.
• Result: flash crash / flash bubble

As long as there would be an overall balance of HFT trading strategies such that some are bearish and some are bullish, we would not see nearly as much volatility. But as it is now, the balance is tilted and therefore I think insane volatility is inevitable.

Note: Sometime after the mail exchange, the Zero Hedge blog blogged about a paper from Reginald Smith examining similar ideas. It is a very interesting article that makes the paper more accessible.

The game itself is very simple; you’re a blob of energy or somesuch, and you grow bigger by consuming blobs smaller than you. You can move around by expelling small pieces of your mass, this makes you smaller and more vulnerable to other blobs.

Sounds maybe too simple? Well! Not quite, the blobs have inertia, there is repulsing blobs and so on.

Also, the presentation is simply so wonderfully calm and beautiful. Set on an ambient music background, playing the game has some sort of tranquilling effect on me. It’s kind of like watching a lava lamp, and playing it too.

Check out the Osmos demo, and if you like it, buy it. It’s only $10. I bought it and I think it’s well worth the money.

PS. See item 63 for description why 239 is a nice number.

Check out a quite interesting/entertaining/sad article in the Rolling Stone magazine. It’s a story about corruption on so many levels.

It’s like gambling on the weather. If your bondholders are expecting you to pay an interest rate based on the average temperature in Alabama, you don’t do a rate swap with a bank that gives you back a rate pegged to the temperature in Nome, Alaska.

Not unless you’re a fucking moron. Or your banker is JP Morgan.

(Cheers to Global Guerrillas for the link.)

The good news is that this is super simple to fix.

As for bad news… well, there is none, this time. With these instructions, and the ones from part I, I was able to do a complete tax e-deklaration in Skatteverket’s page, including signing the final submission.

The Problem

You can’t sign things (with the non-repudiation certificate), at least not with the version 4.10.2.16 of Nexus Personal.

The Reason

This is because Firefox lacks the plugin. The Nexus Personal installer copies it into a weird place.

The Solution

Fix the situation by copying the browser plugin to a proper place:

cp /usr/local/lib/personal/libplugins.so ~/.mozilla/plugins/

Then restart Firefox.

Write “about:plugins” to the address bar and ensure Nexus Personal is there. The plugin should claim to accept MIME types such as “application/x-personal-signer”, and all of those should be enabled (all rows have “Yes”).

Now you can fill your skattedeklaration online, AND sign it too. Enjoy!

You need the “pocket calculator” cardreader (I used Todos NCR1), a suitable USB cable and a card with an EMV chip. If you have Nordea-issued bankkort or VISA you’re OK.

Note: These instructions are Debian-specific but they should work with other distros too with appropriate, slight changes.

Update: Signing will most likely be broken for you, but you can fix the signing too.

Step 1. Get the driver + Nexus personal

Go to this Nordea page to download.

Interestingly, I could not find the page from within Nordea’s web page. Also, the information on that page was not in the same place as for the other OSs (Windows, MacOSX). No pain, no gain!

Step 2. Activate e-Legitimation on your card

Log in to Nordea’s web site. Then go to Vardagsärenden, e-legitimation, kort and choose activate. Sign with the Todos box as usual.

Click the link to go back to cards page. You should see your cards in Inaktiv status.

Click Aktivera. Tick the box for Uttag activation, and proceed.

Now you need to go to an ATM and make a money withdrawal. This will finally activate e-legitimation in your card by downloading some data from the bank.

Step 3. Install the software

Yeah, I wish it were all open source, in case of problems… but it’s not. Take a deep breath and prepare to install some Chinese driver binaries, plus a binary-only browser plugin, etc.

But first verify that you get printout like the following when you:

• attach the USB cable to your Todos box
• issue “dmesg” command


[4332544.912080] usb 2-3: new full speed USB device using ohci_hcd and address 4
[4332545.162128] usb 2-3: New USB device found, idVendor=0b0c, idProduct=002e
[4332545.162142] usb 2-3: New USB device strings: Mfr=1, Product=2, SerialNumber=0
[4332545.162151] usb 2-3: Product: Nordea E-code
[4332545.162158] usb 2-3: Manufacturer: Todos Data System AB
[4332545.162369] usb 2-3: configuration #1 chosen from 1 choice


If that was OK, proceed. Otherwise make your USB work :)

Next, you need pcscd and libccid.

apt-get install pcscd and libccid

Unzip the Nexus and do as root:

./install.4.10.2.16.sh i

Unzip + install the driver:

unzip NCR1_Linux.zip

The zip contains a .deb so you’ll need to install it too:

dpkg --install NordeaDeb_1.0.0_i386.deb

Now the software part is done.

Step 4. Test drive

Restart Firefox.

Start Nexus application. Attach Todos reader NCR1 with USB cable. Insert your card. You should see something other than “Unknown” in it.

Nordea’s own test page is broken – they expect Microsoft Internet Explorer (maybe some ActiveX control too) for some totally screwball reason, I did not investigate this further. So it’s best to try e.g. Skatteverket’s page where you can check your Skattekonto.

Note: When prompted for a certificate, choose the certificate with “Basic PIN” in it. The other option did not work for me.

Enter your card PIN in the Todos box when prompted.

The web page should open properly, now you’ve got e-Legitimation!

The marketing slogan used for it is “Our most advanced technology in a magical and revolutionary device at an unbelieveable price”. Indeed, it is revolutionary in the business model it represents.

The hit products which Apple has made recently include the music player iPod, the smartphone iPhone, and now the table computer iPad. What do all these have in common? Snazzy UI, yes, but also the closed hardware and the tight lock-in with the Apple App Store (and iTunes for media content).

On a more abstract level, every single one of those devices give the vendor more or less exclusive control over what you can and cannot run or view in your device.

Is this the magical and revolutionary new way of the future? If so, count me out.