Goodbye Houston

Stay beautiful.

Elated

I am free.

"Our intuitive interpretation in such cases seems to arise from the association of connected ideas, not by logical inference on the basis of known facts about the world."

The concept of cat face

  















"You’re famous French detective Antoine Saint Germain. You’ve gathered the suspects in one room (as you do) to announce the culprit. The only problem is that you have no idea who is actually guilty."

Death off the Cuff
What Will You, The Detective, Do Next?

Ducks

An amateur mistake, surely. It is common knowledge that Gloranthan Ducks are death-worshipping berserkers: their terrible wraith is without equal in Dragon Pass.


https://twitter.com/jesawyer/status/750392743478734848

Silently corrupt

This is a terrifying bug: any ZoL pool that was created with v0.6.4 and above (released April 8, 2015) is corrupt. Worst of all, it is silently corrupt.

Silently corrupted file in snapshots after send/receive

Depart, I say, and let us have done with you.

“You have sat too long here for any good you have been doing. Depart, I say, and let us have done with you. In the name of God, go.”

For heaven’s sake man, go!

The speed of space

During inflation, two particles traveled a millimeter or so in in 10 ^ -32 seconds. This means that they traveled at about 10 ^ 20 times the speed of light.

We Are Star Stuff

Hurricane Wasteland

Degrees of freedom

So the question almost forces itself on us: is there something about your identity, your individual consciousness, that’s inextricably bound up with degrees of freedom that it’s physically impossible to clone?

 “Can computers become conscious?”: A Reply to Roger Penrose

To the Ends of the Galaxy

The Three Body Problem 三体

I haven't read sci-fi in years, and so it was with a feeling of elation that I read through The Three Body Problem 三体 and The Dark Forest 黑暗森林. A couple of thoughts:

Aside from the content, what struck me are the limited narrative devices, which seems to be the main  body of criticism that this was a good story told by a not so good story-teller. E.g. cliffhangers in the traditional sense are non-existent; some chapters end in declarative statements that do not even function as transitions. In the face of this shortcoming, I find it more remarkable that the suspense is maintained and driven by the plot alone.

National history joining world history, autarkic cultural developments bridged by the common heritage of science, contingent circumstances reverting to universal axioms. The permutation of these themes gives the novel its suppleness and originality.The first is not a new motif, but significance of this novel in the wider body of Chinese literature lies in it endowing the reader a belonging in the future of world history. And in doing so, kept Chinese society awake and brought it closer to the world.

 

The gauntlet

Panacea

Your glory knows no bounds

Cuirassier, artillerie, and er... Renault FT... everything seems to be in order here.

RPS

Analysis followed through to conclusions

"This particular operation means to render unthinkable the idea that people could arrive at revolutionary politics via a clear-headed analysis followed through to conclusions. Instead they must be in the grip of some hidden compulsion which they obey relentlessly, all the while insisting that this obedience is freedom."

 Review of 'The East'

The sea and her love

ZFS on Linux with LUKS startup automount; Ubuntu 16.04

When ZFS became a first class citizen under Ubuntu, the issue of ZFS on Linux with LUKS not auto-mounting properly at startup was finally addressed in Xenial 16.04.

The following steps successfully produced a successful auto-mount on a nightly build of Xenial in VirtualBox:

# list block devices using /dev/disk/by-id
sudo ls /dev/disk/by-id

# identify the block device for the LUKS container; here, the example is a VirtualBox device
ata-VBOX_HARDDISK_VBd5b297e5-009dc9f9

# create a key file
sudo dd if=/dev/urandom of=/root/key bs=1024 count=64

# encrypt [using defaults here for simplicity] target block device with key file
sudo cryptsetup luksFormat /dev/disk/by-id/ata-VBOX_HARDDISK_VBd5b297e5-009dc9f9 /root/key

# find the newly encrypted LUKS container uuid
sudo blkid

# the result should show the device with TYPE="crypto_LUKS"
/dev/sdc: UUID="b7458a4d-2d45-42bc-8fe7-f392e0a0f85f" TYPE="crypto_LUKS"

# open the LUKS container with key file and map it to a name, example here is mapped to "crypt-c"
sudo cryptsetup luksOpen UUID=b7458a4d-2d45-42bc-8fe7-f392e0a0f85f --key-file /root/key crypt-c

# add a line for the new LUKS container under crypttab so it can be identified during startup
sudo nano /etc/crypttab
crypt-c UUID=b7458a4d-2d45-42bc-8fe7-f392e0a0f85f /root/key luks

# Identify the LUKS partition UUID
sudo ls /dev/disk/by-id

# the result should show the device starting with dm-uuid-CRYPT
dm-uuid-CRYPT-LUKS1-b7458a4d2d4542bc8fe7f392e0a0f85f-crypt-c

# create the zfs partition on top of the LUKS partition
sudo zpool create -o ashift=12 zfs-test-pool /dev/disk/by-id/dm-uuid-CRYPT-LUKS1-b7458a4d2d4542bc8fe7f392e0a0f85f-crypt-c

# nothing added under /etc/fstab

# upon restarting, zfs-test-pool is auto-mounted and can be verified with zpool status

Reference links:
zfs-raid-and-luks-encryption-in-linux
zfs-on-linux-with-luks-encrypted-disks
zfs-raidz-encryption
zfsonlinux/pkg-zfs/issues/126
cryptsetup/+bug/1422153
Dm-crypt/Device_encryption manual

St. Dominic

But what then?

"But what then? Is it better to stand by in the face of tragedy? To let it wash over the world, a hungry tide?"

Equity

As all Western legal systems have known since Aristotle, literal interpretation of any legal material will sometimes produce unintended unjust results, which can and should be corrected by the invocation of "equity."

 The Linux Kernel, CDDL, ZFS, Dtrace

Compression patterns, debris footprint

Released

I've decided to publish and back date some drafts that I've been withholding. These are posts that were written for occasions, experiences and periods in life that left me with such raw feelings, feelings that I found difficult to both capture and disclose.With time and distance I can approach some of these instances with detachment. All drafts will be released as an ongoing process, be it takes months, years, or even decades, so that the truth of the moment is not lost to time.

"A Russian officer maybe?"

"Do you know my parents?"

"Are they famous?"

Elena nodded. "My father was a Russian officer maybe, I think, and Mama comes from a famous Cossack family. They're all soldiers!"

"A Russian officer maybe?" I raised an eyebrow.

"Well, Mama met him when she was dressed as a man and joined the Cossack host. He was very surprised, I think," Elena shrugged. "Mama says he died of shock, leaving me as a present. But I think he probably ran away because Mama is so fierce!" She looked proud rather than distressed at this prospect.

I blinked down at the little cabin girl, rather at loss as to how I should respond. "That's... nice." I hazarded, and she nodded enthusiastically.

Photographs

The thought of photographs and cameras made me feel very melancholy. I remember buying an extremely poor quality camera and then abandoning it only to have my parents take up on it. They made use of it enthusiastically, not minding that the camera was of a Christmas-cracker joke quality. They seemed truly derived joy in using it. There is something about the effect of documenting the present, the happiness of capturing the effervescent.

Thinking of fleeting moments make me think of the future. Will there be someone to remember me? As I remember my parents now, however narrowly? I am thirty one now and yet to have a family of my own. I feel... very alone, sometimes. There is few if anything, no photographs, to document the life I am living/have lived. My mind wanders widely. But how much can we say to have lived if we pass through the world silently, observing? And letting what we read and the ideas that we understand act as ciphers of our being?

80 Days

"As well as brilliantly retelling Jules Verne’s classic through hundreds of optional and intertwined encounters, its locations and their inhabitants are a constant source of delight. It is, wonderfully, a game concerned with progress and progressive thinking. The journey itself is at the heart of that but Inkle repeatedly confound my expectations with the humane and empathetic depiction of the many cultures and people of the world."

 80 Days Impressions