New York Times on the fascist “paradise”

by philg

The New York Times regularly runs stories about Floridians suffering from “fascism”, “tyranny”, and “authoritarianism”, the most accurate descriptions of being governed by Ron DeSantis. What else is true about Florida, according to the newspaper of record? “36 hours: Florida Panhandle” (NYT, July 6, 2023):

The word “paradise” appears twice in the article as the most succinct characterization of the destination covered.

So… Florida is “fascist”, but also “paradise” for a tourist. Does this make sense? Did the NYT recommend attending the 1938 rally in Nuremberg, Germany (after Anschluss) because the city was a “paradise” of historical buildings, culture, and parks?

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Remembering Ed Fredkin

by philg

The New York Times published a thoughtful obituary for Ed Fredkin, an early MIT computer scientist.

I met Ed when I was an undergraduate at MIT (during the last Ice Age). He is quoted in the NYT as optimistic about artificial intelligence:

“It requires a combination of engineering and science, and we already have the engineering,” he Fredkin said in a 1977 interview with The New York Times. “In order to produce a machine that thinks better than man, we don’t have to understand everything about man. We still don’t understand feathers, but we can fly.”

When I talked to him, circa 1980, the VAX 11/780 with 8 MB of RAM was the realistic dream computer (about $500,000). I took the position that AI research was pointless because computers would need to be 1,000 times more powerful before they could do anything resembling human intelligence. Ed thought that a VAX might have sufficient power to serve as a full-blown AI if someone discovered the secret to AI. “Computers and AI research should be licensed,” he said, “because a kid in Brazil might discover a way to build an artificial intelligence and would be able to predict the stock market and quickly become the richest and most powerful person on the planet.”

[The VAX could process approximately 1 million instructions per second and, as noted above, held 8 MB of RAM. I asked ChatGPT to compare a modern NVIDIA GPU:

For example, a GPU from the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 30 series, like the RTX 3080 released in 2020, is capable of up to 30 teraflops of computing power in single-precision operations. That is 30 trillion floating-point operations per second.

So if you were to compare a VAX 11/780’s 1 MIPS (million instructions per second) to an RTX 3080’s 30 teraflops (trillion floating-point operations per second), the modern GPU is many orders of magnitude more powerful. It’s important to remember that the types of operations and workloads are quite different, and it’s not quite as simple as comparing these numbers directly. But it gives you an idea of the vast increase in computational power over the past few decades.

Also note that GPUs and CPUs have very different architectures and are optimized for different types of tasks. A GPU is designed for high-throughput parallel processing, which is used heavily in graphics rendering and scientific computing, among other things. A CPU (like the VAX 11/780) is optimized for a wide range of tasks and typically excels in tasks requiring complex logic and low latency.

Those final qualifiers remind me a little bit of ChatGPT’s efforts to avoid direct comparisons between soccer players identifying as “men” and soccer players identifying as “women”. If we accept that an NVIDIA card is the minimum for intelligence, it looks as though Fredkin and I were both wrong. The NVIDIA card has roughly 1000X the RAM, but perhaps 1 million times the computing performance. What about NVIDIA’s DGX H100, a purpose-built AI machine selling for about the same nominal price today as the VAX 11/780? That is spec’d at 32 petaFLOPs or about 32 billion times as many operations as the old VAX.]

I had dropped out of high school and he out of college, so Ed used to remind me that he was one degree ahead.

“White heterosexual man flying airplane” is apparently a dog-bites-man story, so the NYT fails to mention Fredkin’s aviation activities after the Air Force. He was a champion glider pilot and, at various times, he owned at least the following aircraft: Beechcraft Baron (twin piston), Piper Malibu, Cessna Citation Jet. “The faster the plane that you own, the more hours you’ll fly every year,” he pointed out. Readers may recall that the single-engine pressurized-to-FL250 Malibu plus a letter from God promising engine reliability is my dream family airplane. Fredkin purchased one of the first Lycoming-powered Malibus, a purported solution to the engine problems experienced by owners of the earlier Continental-powered models. Fredkin’s airplane caught fire on the ferry trip from the Piper factory to Boston.

One of the things that Ed did with his planes was fly back and forth to Pittsburgh where he was an executive at a company making an early personal computer, the Three Rivers PERQ (1979).

The obit fails to mention one of Fredkin’s greatest business coups: acquiring a $100 million (in pre-pre-Biden 1982 money) TV station in Boston for less than $10 million. The FCC was stripping RKO of some licenses because it failed “to disclose that its parent, the General Tire and Rubber Company, was under investigation for foreign bribery and for illegal domestic political contributions.” (NYT 1982) Via some deft maneuvering, including bringing in a Black partner who persuaded the FCC officials appointed by Jimmy Carter that the new station would offer specialized programming for inner-city Black viewers, Fredkin managed to get the license for Channel 7. RKO demanded a substantial payment for its physical infrastructure, however, including studios and transmitters. Ed cut a deal with WGBH, the local public TV station, in which WNEV-TV, a CBS affiliate, would share facilities in exchange for a fat annual rent. Ed used this deal as leverage to negotiate a ridiculously low price with RKO. To avoid embarrassment, however, RKO asked if they could leave about $15 million in the station’s checking account and then have the purchase price be announced as $22 million (71 million Bidies adjusted via CPI) for the physical assets. The deal went through and Channel 7 never had to crowd in with WGBH.

[The Carter-appointed FCC bureaucrats felt so good about the Black-oriented programming that they’d discussed with the WNEV-TV partner that they neglected to secure any contractual commitments for this programming to be developed. Channel 7 ended up delivering conventional CBS content.]

A 1970s portrait:

A 1981 report from Fredkin and Tommaso Toffoli:

Related:

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Meeting at Oshkosh

by philg

Who’s going to Oshkosh (EAA AirVenture) and would like to meet up? Email philg@mit.edu if you want to get together. Perhaps Tuesday at Chick-fil-A around 11 am? Or we can pick a talk that we all want to attend. I haven’t researched the presentations yet. Folks who have suggestions for important presentations can post them here.

Bad news for those who’ve chosen to leave the safety of Florida’s smoke-free air, ubiquitous A/C, and almost-invulnerable power grid in order to attend this one-week outdoor event: the New York Times says that it is typically unsafe to go outside. See “Is It Safe to Go Outside? How to Navigate This Cruel Summer.” Climate change has come for EAA. Just a few days ago, the hottest day was forecast to inflict a high temp of 94 degrees on aviation enthusiasts. Currently, however, the forecast is for 97 degrees on Thursday:

Maybe we will have to escape to The Sweet Lair in Menasha for air conditioning, board games, and food.

We’re going to be reading the VFR arrival procedures carefully…

… while driving our rental car up from Chicago/Milwaukee (I need to be in Los Angeles for business immediately after). We’re staying at the Sleepy Hollow campground across from the Deplorable SOS Brothers with their beer and bikini-clad bartenders. I’ve packed a full library of works by Betty Friedan, Gloria Steinem, Andrea Dworkin, and Catharine A. MacKinnon to present to the Brothers in hopes that they will change their ways.

Related:

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A pinball machine for the office at Country Music Television

by philg

Every office should have a pinball machine. Here’s one that I found today that would be perfect for the folks at CMT (Country Music Television):

Pinside users rank Dirty Harry, a 1995 game from Williams, #114.

Separately, since the movie Dirty Harry is set in San Francisco, here’s what a friend in Silicon Valley said when I invited him to join me for dinner there on August 2: “I generally avoid the third world, but would do it for you and [a mutual friend], of course, except that I’m going to be in Hawaii.”

Would anyone like to meet for breakfast in Berkeley/Piedmont on the morning of August 2? Or possibly in SF in the evening of August 2 or morning of August 3? (I’m not 100% sure that I want to wade into the mess myself) Email philg@mit.edu if you want to meet up!

Related:

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Reparations for the 2SLGBTQQIA+?

by philg

Unless they’re complete hypocrites, taxpayers in California and some other states will soon be paying reparations to descendants of slaves, i.e., people whose ancestors were mistreated ($5 million per victim is the fair price, according to San Francisco’s experts). Why not extend the idea to other victimhood groups whose ancestors were mistreated or, even better, to victims who were personally mistreated? A group that is currently almost universally celebrated but that was once, we are constantly reminded, subject to prejudice, is the 2SLGBTQQIA+. If we take June 2023 when Joe Biden revealed the trans-enhanced rainbow flag at the White House as the beginning of Rainbow Flagism as the U.S. state religion, we as a society owe reparations to anyone who identified as 2SLGBTQQIA+ prior to June 2023.

How much should a 2SLGBTQQIA+ American get? How much for the child of a 2SLGBTQQIA+ American? And how do people prove that they were members of this discriminated-against class prior to June 2023?

Loosely related, some lawn signs of justice in Brookline, Maskachusetts last month:

Note the failure to display the Biden-approved official trans-enhanced Rainbow Flag in some cases. Also from Brookline, a bagel shop in which employees demonstrate every variant of surgical masking to block out an aerosol virus. Over-mouth-and-nose, under-nose, and chip diaper:

(The manager, not shown in the above image, was wearing a Fauci-approved cloth mask.)

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Who understands homomorphic encryption?

by philg

One of my favorite talks at an MIT computer science event last month was by Raluca Ada Popa, a proponent of keeping everything encrypted on servers even during computation. Then it doesn’t matter if the bad people (formerly “bad guys”) break in. How is that possible? Homomorphic encryption, developed about 15 years ago by Craig Gentry, plus hardware support from Intel.

According to Ada Popa, the performance hit from doing everything encrypted is only about 20 percent.

It is tough to know if this can truly protect garden-variety web services, in which the server holds most of the keys, e.g., the database password. I asked Professor ChatGPT:

Homomorphic encryption is a type of encryption that allows computations to be performed on encrypted data without decrypting it. This means that an HTTP server can process encrypted data without ever needing to know what the data actually is. However, there’s a bit of confusion in your question as you suggest the HTTP server has the decryption key.

The real power of homomorphic encryption lies in the fact that the server (like an HTTP server in your question) doesn’t need to have the decryption key at all. It’s the client who holds the key, encrypts the data, sends the encrypted data to the server, and the server performs the computations on the encrypted data. After performing operations, the server sends the encrypted result back to the client, who can then decrypt it using the decryption key.

This offers an unprecedented level of data security because even if the server was compromised, the data would remain safe since the attacker wouldn’t have access to the decryption key. It’s particularly useful in cloud computing, where sensitive data needs to be processed by third-party servers.

The decryption key should be kept safe and private, usually on the client side. If the HTTP server does hold the decryption key, it weakens the system’s security as it creates a single point of failure where both encrypted data and the decryption key can be potentially accessed by an attacker.

Could this prevent all of the credit card and mailing address breaches that we hear about? The credit card number is stored for one-click ordering, but can be decrypted only when the user is logged into an ecommerce site and is ready to enter his/her/zir/their password, which will serve as the key? Ditto for shipping address, but then that has to be transmitted to UPS or some other company, no?

Could it work for Google Drive? The big selling feature is that you can collaborate with 5 other authors if desired. How can that work if the document is encrypted with just one user’s key?

Who has thought about this and figured out whether homomorphic encryption is the silver bullet for defending practical applications?

Also from the event, the Followers of (Computer) Science stay safe in a crowded room for hours at a time by wearing masks:

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A lover of diversity, lockdown, static climate, and democracy is demoted at Stanford

by philg

“Stanford president to resign following findings of manipulation in academic research” (CNN):

Stanford University President Marc Tessier-Lavigne said on Wednesday he would resign from his post after a review by a panel of scientists concluded that research papers he contributed to contained “manipulation of research data,” according to a report released by a special university committee.

His resignation, which was announced in an open letter to the school, will be effective on August 31, though he will remain on the Stanford faculty.

The last part is my favorite. Involvement with academic fraud is intolerable in an administrator, but acceptable for an active researcher and teacher. (Note that CNN implies in the headline that he will be gone (“resigned” from Stanford) when, in fact, he is merely moving offices.)

Maybe there is more to this great man than academic fraud. Let’s see what we can find with The Google…

August 2020, requiring ID to be displayed when walking outdoors on campus (but requiring ID for voters is hateful?):

The Campus Zones, which encompass research facilities and student housing on the east and west sides of campus, along with the Athletics Zone and the Campus Arts Zone, will also be reserved for approved Stanford community members at this time. … One notable adjustment for students, faculty, staff and postdocs approved to be on campus is a new requirement that they visibly display their Stanford IDs beginning on Sept. 8… You’ll be able to choose how to display your Stanford ID but recognizing that neck lanyards are already a common feature in our campus landscape, the university will be providing them to anyone who needs one to comply with this requirement. It’s also important to emphasize that the focus of the zones program is educational and health-promotional, not punitive. We’ll largely be focusing on signage that helps educate visitors about the temporary limits on access to campus. Safety personnel will be available in some of the areas in the campus zones that are currently most visited by members of the public to help educate them about the role of this program in supporting everyone’s health and safety, and to ensure we are all doing our part to comply with state and county guidance intended to prevent the spread of COVID-19.

January 2021, noting that the “best interest of students” is to not go to school in person:

As Persis and I communicated to students on Saturday, with great regret we had to change our plans to have the frosh and sophomore classes return to campus for the winter quarter, which was planned for two weeks from now. As we explained, the decision was triggered by the continuing surge in COVID-19 cases, which is now predicted to significantly lengthen the stringent public health restrictions we are under, which in turn are expected to seriously constrain the on-campus undergraduate experience for the better part of the quarter. We are deeply sorry to make this change of plans, but we believe it is in the best interest of students and our whole community.

From the same message, don’t forget to fill out the “Health Check” daily, even if injected with a medicine that at the time was sold as preventing infection by SARS-CoV-2:

As we begin this new year, we have reason to hope that, with vaccine distribution underway, we will begin to put the pandemic behind us in 2021. But while there’s promise of a new dawn on the horizon, we remain in a dark and difficult time. We all need to continue to protect ourselves and one another by practicing physical distancing, wearing masks, using Health Check daily for those on campus, and adhering to the other public health measures put in place to protect our community. This includes those in our community who have already been vaccinated.

Also from January 2021, deploring what the Deplorables did:

the violent mob attack on the Capitol Building was shocking and deeply troubling for all who respect our country’s democratic traditions and the peaceful transfer of power. It is a stark reminder of the vulnerability of our democracy, and the need for each of us, as citizens, to rededicate ourselves to upholding and defending our democratic values, norms and institutions.

Less well known, perhaps, is that the statement explains that this promotion also involves, in words so apt to the current moment, “… teaching the blessings of liberty regulated by law, and inculcating love and reverence for the great principles of government …”

In the same message that says paying students are not at liberty to show up on campus, he celebrates “liberty regulated by law”.

June 2023, in which it turns out that following the “law” is actually bad, e.g., if the law prevents you from discriminating on the basis of race:

I am deeply disappointed by today’s U.S. Supreme Court ruling that upends the long-standing practice of race-conscious university admissions to help achieve a diverse student body. I know that many of you in our community are disheartened. Now, our task is to respond in ways that allow Stanford to continue expanding opportunity and fulfilling our mission in a diverse and changing world.

Stanford has long supported race-conscious admissions as a means of obtaining the educational benefits of a diverse student body.

He’s proud to have been doing something for a long time that was found unconstitutional! And he further promises to violate the spirit of the Supreme Court ruling if it can be done in a way that doesn’t violate the letter:

Stanford will continue seeking, through legally permissible means, the broadly diverse student body that will benefit your educational experience and preparation for success in the world, and that will benefit our mission of generating knowledge.

September 2021:

Stanford is launching its first school in more than 70 years. This year has brought catastrophic weather events around the world, including another record-breaking fire season here in California. The extreme weather has underlined the urgency of the climate crisis, which has the potential to transform not only our planet, but also the health and well-being of humanity.

(But it isn’t an “existential crisis” as Joe Biden and the NYT say?)

What does the fraudster say about matters 2SLGBTQQIA+? It’s tough to know. The university’s main Twitter feed seems to have been silent on the subject of Pride all through June 2023. Instead they did things like celebrate the notorious hater John McEnroe:

Why is McEnroe a hater? State-sponsored NPR pointed out that Serena Williams was, as a purely factual matter, the best tennis tennis player in the world. McEnroe responded, “if she played the men’s circuit she’d be like 700 in the world.” There was some backlash… (Vox, for example)

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California says inequality is bad and also participates in Powerball?

by philg

From Governor French Laundry, 2022:

“In California, we recognize that our incredible diversity is the foundation for our state’s strength, growth and success – and that confronting inequality is not just a moral imperative, but an economic one,” said Governor Newsom.

It’s a moral imperative to reduce inequality. Therefore, anyone who increases inequality is evil (immoral).

From a government agency run by Governor Newsom:

Middle- and working-class Californians became poorer so that one Californian could become a billionaire. It is tough to think of a better-targeted method of increasing inequality. Why does California do this? Nothing requires the state to participate in Powerball or, indeed, run a lottery at all (Alabama, Utah, Alaska, Hawaii, and Nevada do not have government-run gambling (CNN)).

Florida runs a lottery, of course, and it funds college tuition scholarships for the academically inclined. But Governor DeSantis does not say that it is a moral imperative to reduce inequality. Ron D. might be the terrible person that NYT and CNN say he is, but he isn’t a hypocrite on this issue.

Loosely related… a tax question… California exempts winners of its government-run lottery from paying the 13.3% state income tax (calculation for each state). What if the payout chosen is annual, though, and the winner moves? If he/she/ze/they doesn’t move to a tax-free state (e.g., NV, FL, TX) does he/she/ze/they have to pay the new state of residence’s income tax on the payouts? Suppose the winner had lived in Maskachusetts and bought the ticket in Maskachusetts. If he/she/ze/they moved to Florida after winning, would he/she/ze/they have had to continue to pay MA state income tax every year? I’m guessing the answer is “yes” because the money is actually coming from a Massachusetts state government agency so it is obtained in Massachusetts. (It still might make sense to move, however, because investment income on the newfound wealth would then be tax-free. See Effect on children’s wealth when parents move to Florida for an example, noting that it doesn’t include the new 9% income tax rate for successful people in MA.)

(On reflection, the tax policy is interesting. California does not tax people who enjoy taxpayer-funded housing, health care, food, smartphone, and home broadband. California does not tax people who collect child support or alimony. California does not tax people who decide to buy a lottery ticket instead of their daily cigarettes and marijuana. If a person chooses to work and/or invest, however, he/she/ze/they will be taxed.)

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Why isn’t July a designated victimhood month?

by philg

Loyal readers know how passionate I am about Pride Month, Asian American and Pacific Islander Heritage Month, Latinx Heritage Month, etc.

Given how some of these victimhood designations have had to share/overlap, I’m surprised to find that July hasn’t been claimed by any victimhood group (see this purportedly comprehensive list).

Can anyone think of a deserving group that doesn’t have a month yet?

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Floridians brave Extreme Danger heat levels

by philg

Following up on Ireland in the European heat wave… the latest map from the New York Times shows that Palm Beach County is suffering from 125-degree heat:

If it gets even 1 degree hotter, we might be into the “Extreme Danger” zone:

Due to a toilet trip lever failure (everything in this 20-year-old house seems to have been designed to last for exactly 20 years), we cautiously ventured out to Home Depot in the local strip mall (Palm Beach Gardens; 4 miles from the ocean). We decided to eat lunch at one of the high-end restaurants there and found that these two people had chosen to flirt with Danger at an outdoor table rather than enjoy the comfortable indoor air-conditioned environment where they’d received their food. Not shown: the person on the right (pronouns unknown) was wearing massive fuzzy bunny slippers, ordinarily marketed for use in frigid New England winters.

After stopping into PetSmart, we passed by a table-service restaurant in which a Floridian is wearing long pants and a sweater in what the New York Times says might be 125-degree heat:

Here’s what the Google says about afternoon temps in the heat dome over the strip mall:

Fortunately, I hope to be escaping to comfortable 93-degree weather in Oshkosh, Wisconsin for next week’s EAA AirVenture:

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