Reading (For Dummies)

Scenester Hell

After today's workshops, we went to dinner at a crazy little restaurant. I ended up eating dinner with a group of people, talking about privacy issues. In the small-talk, everyone at the table asks, "What's the EFF?" So I slap my head, hence the title.

Then I went to a hotel and smoked some substances with a bunch of famous people that would probably prefer not to be identified (we're at an anonymity conference, after all). Maybe Doug's keyranking will go up as a result.

In the meantime, I'm convincing a number of key developers to move out to Amsterdam. Hahaha.

Blogging the talks

I'm sitting at the Privacy Enhancing Technology workshop. This morning there were three papers presented on Mix networks, hiding communication by scattering the routing. It's tricker than it sounds, because you have to set up a big network of mixed routes, and be mathematically sure that an untrusted node in the mix won't affect things too much, be sure that the message gets to where it's going, and try to make the network not pass too many messages (flooding the network).

Some of this stuff is damn cool. Under "neutral traffic" (the case where everyone in a n-node network is sending 1 message to everyone else), you get an explosion of possible messaging sequences. In a 3-node network, assuming you can observe messages being passed between the nodes, there are 115 possible communications that might be happening, all with equal probability.

And the paranoid rejoice, because they see that it is good.

Wipeout

Yeah, so anyone wondering if I'm really going back to the US, the answer is "Yes." As it turns out, I missed the DAAD stipend application deadline (which you can only find deeply nested inside the website if you can read German, naturally. The english translation for over half their website is broken). So I shan't be able to afford living here for too much longer, plus my pretty much fed-uppedness with the local establishment, with the university, etc.

Ohwell.

Riding to Tschechen

I went riding today.

Some of the scenery along the Elbe

I followed the Elbe down to the Königstein, which was my original intention. But I decided to keep going, to see how much farther the Czech border was.

Well, I made it

The ride down took me about 3 hours, plus a little extra because I took a break in Königstein to have a döner kebap sandwhich and some ice tea for lunch. I brought along my GPS at that point, and left it on until the Czech border. I hadn't really considered this, but I had a moving average speed of 15.3mph, and I only took one or two short photo breaks for photos. That means I went just over 45 miles to get the Czech border. Not feeling incredibly tired, I decided to head back on the opposite side of the river. This was a little bit farhter, because one of the bridges was out and meant climbing a big hill (of similiar height to the cliffs earlier).

Oh my GOD!!!! $^*%!

After I rode another two hours, following this road that promised Dresden, I came across this sign. That kind of downed my spirits. At this point it was 3 in the afternoon, and I was exhausted. I happened across a small food stand by the river, literally in the middle of nowhere, and bought some apple juice and some peanuts. I ate the entire 200 grams of peanuts and 0,3L of apple juice in a few seconds, then started riding. My legs were burning.

I did make it back, at about 5pm. I left at 10am this morning. Not a bad ride, but I felt about to throw up at the end...probably due to lack of water/caloric intake. So I'll be buying a water bottle for the next time.

Still, it was damn cool, and a minimum of 90 miles distance (probably quite a bit further than that), with a bit of muddy offroading thrown in for good measure. I only hope I can walk tomorrow...

Sigh

More media misunderstanding. Can't we support our troops without supporting the war? Can't we support our country without supporting the war? Why are the conservative media trying to paint the war protesting as a decidedly anti-US, anti-troop movement?

I'll keep protesting the war, but will welcome vets home with big open arms. How about you?

The Groove Station

I've been pretty antisocial this week, devouring books instead of talking with people. Guess I got a people overdose and needed my alone time. Last night I decided to hang with folks again.

Skyler and Finiki

Turkey agrees to let us use their military bases

We played pool with some of the Russian batallion. Actually I didn't play pool, I just sat around talking. I managed to teach Maja a few things about sexual harassment law in the United States. I think she likes it.

Place your Bets

Doug came up with a good idea vis-a-vis the war. So place your bets.

I was thinking about doing something similiar, but with a different plan. Make it a 50-50 (50% for the winner, 50% for a veteran's charity of the winner's choice). Of course I really don't feel like carrying the liability that comes with handling other people's money...

But I have agreed to match Doug's funding for your choice of charity.

Waking Up

I woke up this morning, hearing a throng of people shouting, one into a bullhorn and the rest cheering. Bleary-eyed, I ran downstairs with my camera.

I've read some places that the war protests have died off, but I guess it just goes to show that you can't believe any one media. Believe what you see with your eyes, I say. And this is what I've seen.

Students protesting

The sign reads "Make peace without weapons"

Peace

All the protestors were high school students. The interesting thing here is that this big purple building in the background is the high school, but none of the protestors attended it. I managed to glean this tidbit of information from a St. Benno Gymnasium (this school) student who was talking to me. I followed them for some time, and they were marching from high school to high school, and in fact walking through each school, shouting anti-war slogans.

I think the future ain't in too bad of shape, if these Germans are any indication...

My First German 'Scene'

Wow. I was hanging out with Ferri tonight, doing the usual. While riding my bike back, I went past a Polizei car not far from Strassburger Platz. There was a big dude looking through a black mercedes behind it. I rode on past, and two blocks later the black mercedes cut in front of me (on the sidewalk, mind you), and the big dude ran out and grabbed my arm, started shouting at me. So I told him I didn't speak german. We had an interesting conversation in English, he says, "You just went past that car back there." I said "what car?" He and his extremely large built, ahem, business associate said to forget it and got back inside. *whew*. But I took a very roundabout way to get home, just in case.

I probably don't want to know what they were doing...though I guess given the circumstances, I probably said the right f'ing thing, eh? :).

Vets

It's nice to see that the US gov showing how well it plans to take care of Gulf War 2 vets. Assuming Saddam has done crazy biological/chemical weapons and they do make troops do bad things, we get to execute them! Yay!
</sarcasm>

What to do

I'm trying to decide what to do about school. I got back another exam result today. I did so-so...not great but hey I didn't fail (so I can retake the exam lots and lots and lots of times until I get a good grade).

But, I think Dresden isn't for me.

Some time ago I asked Doug for advice. He gave me a real gem, words to think about these days.

I've been washing back and forth upon this for a long time, trying to figure out what to do with my life after Syracuse. Japan seemed like the coolest option, Dresden was a second bet. It doesn't seem to be agreeing with me so much. So, I'm going to apply for some PhD programs while staying in Dresden for a little bit longer, maybe another semester or two (might as well learn a few things while I'm waiting on my grad applications). In the meantime, advice from my nerdy friends is appreciated. Where to go? What's good?

My particular interests these days include artifical intelligence, natural language processing, operating system/software security, and of course formal methods. I'm always becoming more interested in legal aspects of security, and these ridiculous laws being passed and patents being approved lately, as well. I have a few places in mind (which I won't mention for fear of tainting the advice), but what has good programs in not only these highly technical areas but also at least offers a few courses on intellectual property/computer policy? The latter bit is what I'm really not sure about. I don't think I want to go to into computer policy like Doug, but talking the talk and maybe contributing a few cents to improve life in the US would be worthwhile to me...

Concern

Had a big Italian dinner with Boon Chung, Robert, and Finiki. They're helping me through the 3-month separation from my girlfriend. We talked about some semi-serious subjects during dinner.

Most important right now, it seems like Captain Trips is making its way around the world. Kind of scary, since Annie has just been through Toronto and Frankfurt. Both airports have seen people with this fun new form of deadly "pnuemonia" in the last 2 weeks.

The paranoid little voice in my head has told me to make my backpack, so I've gotten together a tent, sleeping bag, a bit of food and whatnot, with plans to head for the hills if the shit hits the fan. Fun, huh?

I've also created a new category for this post, called, "The Coming Apocolypse". I suppose I'll provide some category-based linkage soon enough, but I need to go back and categorize all of my old posts correctly.

Mawwiage (II)

I saw Annie off to the flughafen today. It's very sad. The last few days have been quiet knowing that time is too short and that we'll be off away from each other for a long time again soon. But at least I'll keep myself busy in the meantime.

My brother has been keeping himself busy drawing buildings, going skiing, and the other usual things.

Oh yeah, and getting engaged (note ring on Kristen's finger)

So he'll be adding a sister-in-law to the family. Pretty cool. And it makes me feel old. And I guess I lose my mom's old bet that I'd be the first one married.

Short Messages

Popping SMS' back and forth with Maja, figuring out what to do for dinner tonight, she sends, "I will call later. Just heard that Serbian prime minister was killed 3 hours ago." This is the first time I've learned of a major news story by SMS. Looks like not good times ahead for Maja's home country...

ACS sucks

If you ever have the "opportunity" to receive a college loan through ACS, don't do it. Not only did it take four tries for me to actually get my In-School deferment forms, but when they finally sent them to me (I got it today), they didn't bother to seal the envelope.

Note that the stamp is partly on the envelope, partly on the contents

This wouldn't be such a big deal, except that the deferment request form contains such information as my name, home address, home telephone number, and SOCIAL SECURITY NUMBER. You'd think people would be a little more careful about that kind of stuff, especially in this age of terrorist activity and non-specific threats. So now I have to keep an eye on my credit record and see what happens...hopefully nothing, but you never know. Do I have any right to sue these bastards?

You're in a Forest, with Annie Heckel, you're very warm

Needless to say...

Annie is in town, and we've been a little occupied. It's rather nice/relaxing/etc. We've wandered around Dresden a bit today, after playing nudist colony for just under 24 hours. What fun :).

Will post more pictures of Annie in Germany as they arrive...

Darned planes

My girlfriend has been incredibly cute the last month or so, keeping a little "countdown to Reid" timer on her livejournal. But now her plane has been delayed a day due to mechanical failure. At least it didn't fly and explode or anything, that would have made me far more upset. But I was really looking forward to seeing her in just 12 hours...Now I have to wait until Sunday. It makes me sad. Ohwell. I can wait, as the old Brahman once said...though really, I can't...

More googling

While I was hiking and skiing and doing fun things in Austria, I spent some time thinking the world's favorite date to hate, September 11th.

Why do people call the event by its date? I guess the only thing for the US to compare it to was Pearl Harbor. Pearl Harbor was easy to say because Hawaii is so far away. "Hawaii was attacked." OOoooh, scary. Especially for us East Coasters. "New York City was attacked." Well now you're hitting close to home.

On a related note, I decided to compare the date by googling. September 11th: 8.5 million hits, December 25th: 1.2 million. Weird.

Anyway, I'll call them the New York City bombings from now on, just to make everyone feel less comfortable. What's in a word, after all?

Amazing...

It's amazing what you can pull out of the void when you've been properly doing tape backups of a website.

I forgot that I had restored my old-old-old website from tape to my old server (which sat in Stephen's apartment in the US when I moved to Germany). I completely forgot about restoring it, and then didn't even notice that I had copied all the data to my new server here in Germany. The data is a journal which goes back to August 1999 in HTML format, and then a wordperfect document which I had always intended to post in HTML, which goes back to 1996 (although, IIRC, in 1998 I didn't keep any records of my existence). Rereading it, it's all drivelly sort of, "what I did today," crap, unfortunately much less interesting and much more petty than the current blog.

Still, should I post all this crap up for the world to see? I suppose I could write some perl scripts to make this movable-type importable. If so, does anyone have a copy of wordperfect that I can borrow? :).

I Like to Ride My Bicycle

I finally got my new toy:

A Sweet Bicycle

I picked it up Tuesday afternoon and have been riding quite a bit already. There is a huge section of forest on the northeast corner of town...some kind of nature preserve that Peggy Will mentioned when I was over there for dinner one time. Bike trails abound, it seems. I'm going to need new tires though, I bought more of street tires for the bike. Ohwell.

Off I go.

Austria

Just got back from Austria.

F'ing BEAUTIFUL COUNTRY. I didn't bring my camera because, well, I once again question my motives behind photos. And this weekend was about being unplugged. No laptop, no handy, no camera. Just me, my brain, my german dictionary, and some clothes.

I had some grand expectations about going to Ferri's parents' house this weekend. I pictured sitting around a table with some wine, with intelligent people speaking in broken half-english/half-german, sharing views of the world. What I got was a group of intelligent people, sitting around a table, drinking wine, speaking in broken half-english/half-german, sharing views of the world. It was beautiful; perhaps the first time my expectations of a social situation were met completely.

Ferri's father was celebrating his 60th birthday over the weekend in their hometown of Klagenfurt, Carinthia, perhaps the last place in the world untouched by Western rudeness and pollution. Strangers say hello on the streets and mean it; the view out the Leberl's window is full of mountains in the Austrian Alps that gives you a reason to get out of bed in the morning. His sister is finishing her PhD in biology, doing stem cell research (which is fairly impossible to do in the US). She is married to a doctor, and has a little baby girl that runs around with a puzzle of a scuba diver screaming "papa!" His mother is from Holland and fluent in French, Dutch, and German, and speaks pretty good English to boot.

The Austrians seem have gotten over the German/English thing a lot better than the Germans. Ferri and I are at the gas station and I go to pay for the gas. "Luft Vier," I say, and the gas attendant says "Which pump? Oh, four. Okay, that'll be 36.34. And here you go, 3.66 is your change," in fine English. They don't mind that my German sucks (in contrast to the Dresden workers/government officials, who seem a little offended [almost French] when I pronounce things wrong). They'd rather just go with what they know. I often wonder if I'm right in making such generalizations about these other countries, but this Austrian description just...fits...from my limited experience there.