erroneous thoughts

Acabei de chegar desta palestra: “Evolucionismo vs Criacionismo“. O meu objectivo em ir ver esta palestra era ir tentar conhecer melhor o que é o “criacionismo”, porque de cada vez que tentava ler coisas sobre isso na net, só via disparate incongruente. A minha opinião depois de ter visto a palestra, é que o criacionismo são um monte de disparates incongruentes (e tenham em conta que é um católico que vos diz isto). Pelo menos eu não disponho de outro modo de classificar afirmações como “o universo tem alguns milhares de anos”, que essencialmente é o mesmo que dizer que toda a física desenvolvida no último século está errada. Afirmações deste calibre exigem provas do mesmo calibre, e dessas eu não vi nenhumas. Isto remete o criacionismo para a área do disparate (ou se quisermos ser politicamente correctos, pseudo-ciência). É incongruente porque ao mesmo tempo que diz isto, também se afirmou que o criacionismo não contradiz as leis da física, e que Deus criou o mundo segundo um conjunto de leis para que os homens as possam entender. Não é possível ser-se mais incongruente do que isto.

Na sessão de perguntas que se seguiu ao debate, perguntei ao Professor Jónatas Machado, representante do criacionismo, duas coisas:

• como é que explicava “remendos evolutivos”, viz. o polegar do panda;
• se considerava o criacionismo refutável (como qualquer teoria dita científica tem que ser), e se esse fosse o caso, que implicações teria para a religião se algum dia fosse possível refutar o criacionismo.

Não obtive resposta para a segunda, e acerca da primeira, a resposta foi que actualmente se está a descobrir que afinal muitos desses “remendos” até constituem afinal, muito boas soluções (sem mais detalhes, mas também devo dizer que o tempo não era muito). Ainda tentei perguntar qual a função do apêndice humano, mas já tinha acabado o “tempo de antena”. Começo a perceber o porquê disto:

In general, however, Dawkins has followed the advice of his late colleague Stephen Jay Gould and refused to participate in formal debates with creationists because doing so would give them the “oxygen of respectability” they crave. He suggests that creationists “don’t mind being beaten in an argument. What matters is that we give them recognition by bothering to argue with them in public.”

In a time when such phrases as “what they teach at the universities is too much theory, what they should teach is more practical stuff, closer to industry needs” have become common place, I here by submit to you the total opposite view. While that phrase can be (and usually is) applied to a wide range of subjects, my point here is to discuss the specific case of Informatics.

A prolific writer, Edsger Dijkstra also wrote about the strengths of the academic enterprise, where he explained that

destroy the campus, muzzle your intellectuals, and rapidly life deteriorates in all respects. The explanation is that, with all its aloofness, the university has an essential role to play, viz. to explain to the world the foolishness of its ways.

Put another way, it’s not the (primary) job of universities to produce what the industry (or any segment of the society) needs. And yet this curious illusion persists. The function of universities should be that of promoting the advancement of society. Of course the question then arises, of whether to give to society what it needs, or what it wants:

If the two coincide, there is no problem, but often they don’t, and in computing such coincidence is extremely rare. In case of discrepancy, you must ignore what they ask for and give what they need, ignore what they would like and tell them what they don’t want to hear but need to know. [...] a leading university has no choice: to be leading means in this context showing new and better ways and possibilities no one else has dreamt of; if you give society what it asks for, you are not leading but led, viz. led by the demands of society as it sees them.

But this cannot happen when college becomes the natural step after high-school! If everybody goes to college, and only after they start thinking (properly) about career paths, then universities do become the logical extension of high-schools. And it is then understandable the claims that graduates are ill-prepared to the industry challenges. It is the same thing as if the majority of students that graduated from high-school were not able to read or write properly: we would naturally blame the schooling system! If universities are perceived as such an extension, then it is natural to blame them if they fail to give the students the skill set the industry requires. But universities should NOT be perceived that way! Being their purpose the advancement of society, their focus should be on research. This does not mean teaching should be regarded as a secondary activity (far from it, actually), but it does mean that instead of educating students to become “what the industry requires”, they should instead be taught to become researchers, to continue the university’s duty to society as a whole. Only this way we will be able to maintain the state of affairs described in the very first paragraph:

In the Western world, 66 institutions have enjoyed a continuously visible identity since 1530. Among those 66 are the Roman Catholic Church, the Lutheran Church and the Parliaments of Iceland and the Isle of Man. What makes these 66 so interesting —and I owe the knowledge of this fact to our President Dr. Berdahl— is that the remaining 62 are all universities!

Should universities become extensions of the schooling system, that 62 figure is doomed to plunge inexorably to a hollow round naught (and one is to wonder if that’s not started already…).

Exceptions can of course arise, but when the majority of graduates are expected to pursue a career in the industry, right after graduating, then something is clearly wrong. Virtually every time I have tried to explain this to someone, the reaction I get is utter shock, as people look at me and say: “are you really suggesting that the universities should only be open to the elites?!” The answer is no, universities should primarily be opened to those willing to continue its job. Of course if their job is perceived as the last cycle of compulsory education, all bets are off… but I’m repeating myself.

In the Portuguese scenario, the successive governments are at least partially to blame: they treat the universities like sheep herds. The more “heads” there are, the more funding the university gets. This is antithetical with the initially stated purpose of universities: the way to promote better research is not to become over-crammed with students. But it gets worse. The industrial fabric in Portugal is quite different from that of the US, for example. For instance, the number of companies that hire PhDs are a drop in the ocean (they do exist, though). And the percentage of software and/or information technology companies is still relatively small. An interesting consequence of that fact is a recent study (Portuguese only, sorry), that seems to point to the surprising fact that what the overall industry is in need of, in terms of human resources, are carpenters, electricity technicians, and similar professions! I bet you didn’t see that one coming!

And a lot more could be said, but by trying to say more, I’d say less. I’ve made my point.

(For a further discussion on the “academic enterprise”, read Dijkstra’s paper.)

… security flaws. Here’s the the most blatantly idiot of all:

Windows 9x introduced a nifty little concept wherein users could host a password-protected mini file server, aka a share, on their PCs. The idea was simple: Allow users of networked computers to host and share files securely. Only the padlock Microsoft used to lock the door came equipped with a gaping hole that rendered it useless.

“When processing authentication requests for a NetBIOS share, Windows 95/98 would look at the length of the password sent by the attacker and then only compare that number of bytes to the real password,” writes vulnerability expert H.D. Moore, who manages the Metasploit Framework project.

Oops. “This let the attack specify a password of zero bytes and gain access to the share,” without actually knowing the password at all, Moore explains.

“The real damage,” he continues, “was that by trying all characters of incrementing lengths, they could literally obtain the password for share from the server.”

Kind it makes wonder about Schneier’s Law, does it not? The rest of the article here.

From “alternative” uses of Coca-Cola to peace and plants, to that great science of economics:

Economics: strippers earn more when they are at peak fertility. Ever sign up for psychology experiments while in college? I bet you didn’t get picked for this one: a trio of psychology researchers from the University of New Mexico found that exotic dancers make up to 60 percent more when they are at peak fertility.

Here’s the link.

Caveat lector: this is definitely THE most geek nerd thing I have ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, seen.

Portuguese columnist Vasco Pulido Valente once described the current Portuguese Prime Minister (José Socrates) as “a fireman who was called when the house was on fire” (free translation, original sentence in Portuguese). He said that to mock the Prime Minister’s (unhealthy) obssession with (trying to get rid of) the national debt. Well, Portugal’s situation may not be that famous, but that of the US may be even worse (with all that entails for the rest of the world).

The first comment to that news was this:

Deficits don’t matter. All that matters is that your dogs are bigger and meaner than the debt collectors’.

This witty reply followed (emphasis added):

that might be true if our society weren’t so dependent on global trade. but if our trade partners suddenly cut all economic relations with us our domestic economy would collapse. we depend on other nations for manufacturing, investments, and imports/exports.

we might be able to raid other countries for their oil, but we can’t use military coercion to force other countries to import our goods or manufacture our raw materials. and since our trade relations with other nations are generally good for us, bad for them, if we’re no longer an economic superpower, i imagine most of the developing nations we exploit would cut their ties with us and just nationalize the resources we’ve hijacked from them like Venezuela has done.

i mean, if we don’t have money to lend other nations, the IMF & World Bank would cease to be relevant. and without the power and influence of the IMF/World Bank, we wouldn’t be able to dictate the domestic policies of other nations anymore. so 3rd world nations who’ve allowed us to privatize their industries and open up their markets to us would cease to allow themselves to be exploited.

and quite frankly, we need them more than they need us. many American-based corporate conglomerates would tank if our globalization policies were reversed. WalMart and other retailers wouldn’t have cheap sweatshop made goods to sell. Monsanto would lose most of their profits made from selling developing nations GMO seeds every planting season. and 38% of Microsoft’s annual revenue comes from sales outside of the U.S. heck, Hollywood makes more money from foreign ticket sales than from the domestic box office ($12 billion a year versus $9 billion).

if our money was certainly no good internationally, or if countries like China decided to collect on our debts, we would be royally screwed.

Talk about putting things in perspective

And the best tutorial on to use the 8.04 alternate CD to achieve all that is right here!

(shortest post ever, btw )

Each time I’ve had to design a C++ application, I’ve come to wrestle myself with how to use namespaces. The best advice I got came from a page arguing about a specific feature of C++ namespaces, namely, using directives and declarations. In essence:

• Quoting: «namespaces are designed to resolve name clashes, not to prevent them»
• Never, ever, ever use using directives (using namespace std;) or using declarations (using std::cout;) inside an header file; use those only on cpp files, if you feel they’re useful
• inside header files, always fully qualify the names, using namespace alias (namespace s=std;) if suitable

The details are very well explained in the article.