Tag: Books

My review on “Algorithms on strings”

My review on “Algorithms on strings” (for which I’ve blogged before) for the ACM SIGACT News is out. There’s a typographical error though: I did not review “Algorithms on strings” by Dan Gusfield, but “Algorithms on strings” by Crochemore, Hancart and Lecroq.

Thank you Bill Gasarch for the opportunity and thank you for fixing the typo too!

PS: You can download the review PDF from Bill Gasarch’s site.

Update: The review entry is corrected in the ACM site: Like Bill Gasarch wrote to me: “There is no such thing as a final version of anything anymore!“

The Social Organization of the Computer Underground

I think I read the text version of “The Social Organization of the Computer Underground” sometime between 1993 and 1995. Recently I found out that the author has written an anniversary edition with a new introduction to the text (plus PDF and ePub versions).

While information in the text is dated (it was published in 1989) it is still a useful reading for those who wish to understand just a little deeper what went on (and some of what goes on) in the Digital Underground. Even better the introduction offers a methodology on how to do this the right way. I still consider it mandatory reading. My best part of the text is how the following typology from Best and Luckenbill’s 1982 “Organizing Deviance” is used to describe the Computer Underground:

Form of Organization Mutual Association Mutual Participation Division of Labor Extended Organization
Loners no no no no
Colleagues yes no no no
Peers yes yes no no
Mobs yes yes yes no
Formal Organizations yes yes yes yes

I think that people who will read the text will agree that the above typology most probably stands even today. Formal organizations for example do not appear in Meyer’s study, however these days almost every nation is investing in building a cyberwarfare capability (and this is not an “overground” operation).

It is a pity, I think, that such a work cannot be repeated today. If it could, it could provide us with some glimpse into modern cybercrime networks and even espionage (industrial or national) ones. But then again one can hope that there exists the sociologist who will prove me wrong.

PS: Revisiting the text I was reminded of the Cu Digest to which I was a subscriber for quite some time.

Update: Reading the description about the Anonymous group behind the HBGary hacks, I kind of appreciate the above table even more:

“Anonymous is a diverse bunch: though they tend to be younger rather than older, their age group spans decades. Some may still be in school, but many others are gainfully employed office-workers, software developers, or IT support technicians, among other things. With that diversity in age and experience comes a diversity of expertise and ability.”

Bringing Nothing to the Party

I heard about the book thanks to a post written by @nikan. I read the HTML version of it on my BeBook Mini. What follows are a few thoughts on the book (in no particular order):

While the subtitle of the book reads:

True Confessions of a New Media Whore

It could easily (and more fittingly) read:

“Οὐκ ἐᾷ με καθεύδειν· τὸ τοῦ Μιλτιάδου τρόπαιον”

According to the narrative, Carr spends a lot of his time in Entrepreneur networking events together with very (financially) successful (and famous in certain circles) people:

“I’ve been around the people in this room for my entire working life, and count many of them among my good friends. I’ve written about them in newspapers, and I’ve published their books. I go to their parties, and share their successes and failures. But I’m not one of them . And that’s fine by me.”

(Big personal parenthesis: The above paragraph could easily describe my experience with the Greek Database Mafia. I am a friend of most of them, but not one of them. And that is fine by me too.)

Only it really was not fine by the author. And with “If them, then why not me?” at hand, he proceeds on discussing about his successes and failures (including some personal ones) using sharp British humor, which is kind of helpful when one reads the book on the bus returning home after work. Other than that the book contains useful instructions on how not to kill your angel investor by Power Point and a basic element for success:

– Have a fucking brilliant idea

Ultimately, Paul Carr failed in his quest for while he was committed to the jet-set lifestyle of the entrepreneurs he spent time drinking with, he was not committed to hard work the same way they did. An interesting story, but nothing more.

The Unwritten Laws of Engineering

MEMagazine is running a three part series entitled “The Unwritten Laws of Engineering” by W. J. King and James G. Skakoon. W. J. King first published the three series articles in Mechanical Engineering magazine in 1944. Briefly the laws are:

  1. However menial and trivial your early assignments may appear, give them your best efforts.
  2. Demonstrate the ability to get things done.
  3. Develop a “Let’s go see!” attitude.
  4. Don’t be timid—speak up—express yourself and promote your ideas.
  5. Strive for conciseness and clarity in oral or written reports; be extremely careful of the accuracy of your statements.
  6. One of the first things you owe your supervisor is to keep him or her informed of all significant developments.
  7. Do not overlook the steadfast truth that your direct supervisor is your “boss.”
  8. Be as particular as you can in the selection of your supervisor.
  9. Whenever you are asked by your manager to do something, you are expected to do exactly that.
  10. Cultivate the habit of seeking other peoples’ opinions and recommendations.
  11. Promises, schedules, and estimates are necessary and important instruments in a well‑ordered business.
  12. In dealing with customers and outsiders, remember that you represent the company, ostensibly with full responsibility and authority.
  13. Do not try to do it all yourself.
  14. Every manager must know what goes on in his or her domain.
  15. Cultivate the habit of “boiling matters down” to their simplest terms.
  16. Cultivate the habit of making brisk, clean‑cut decisions.
  17. Learn project management skills and techniques, then apply them to the activities that you manage.
  18. Make sure that everyone, managers and subordinates, has been assigned definite positions and responsibilities within the organization.
  19. Make sure that all activities and all individuals are supervised by someone competent in the subject matter involved.
  20. Never misrepresent a subordinate’s performance during performance appraisals.
  21. Make it unquestionably clear what is expected of employees.
  22. You owe it to your subordinates to keep them properly informed.
  23. Never miss a chance to commend or reward subordinates for a job well done.
  24. Always accept full responsibility for your group and the individuals in it.
  25. One of the most valuable personal traits is the ability to get along with all kinds of people.
  26. Never underestimate the extent of your professional responsibility and personal liability.
  27. Let ethical behavior govern your actions and those of your company.
  28. Be aware of the effect that your personal appearance and behavior have on others and, in turn, on you.
  29. Beware of what you commit to writing and of who will read it.
  30. Analyze yourself and your subordinates.
  31. Maintain your employability as well as that of your subordinates.

ASME has published the expanded version of these laws as a book. From the introduction of the book we learn that these laws are the result of direct observation for 17 years in four engineering departments. Also “many of these laws are generalizations to which exceptions occur in special circumstances. There is no thought of urging a servile adherence to rules and red-tape, for there is no substitute for judgement; vigorous individual initiative is needed to cut through formalities in emergencies. But in many respects these laws are like the basic laws of society; they cannot be violated too often with impunity, notwithstanding striking exceptions in individual cases”.

[via]

$5/year and the Paradox of Choice

It has been over a month since I purchased 20G of disk space from Google for $5 per year. Given that a relatively cheap 32G USB drive is being sold for €19 this is a bargain (including the risk of not being able to access my stuff over the network).

The reason I bought space from Google, was because I wanted to upload “My Documents” (PDF mostly) to a single place where I could access it from any computer I work from and always be in sync. By the way, for non-documents I am using MyNetworkFolders.

But here is where the Paradox of Choice emerges: In my “Books” directory I see over 200 ebooks (Math and CS-Math related mostly). They are either O’Reilly titles (including a few from Apress less than 20) or interesting books that have been made available online. Picking them up and filing them in a directory is quick and easy (Hey a book on Optimization, another on Topology, etc let’s keep a copy around). Can you imagine the actual space that 200+ hundred books would occupy? Would the bookshelf cost $5 per year? But then again how many of these books will I ever manage to read in my lifetime? At least it seems that sometimes when someone has a question, the answer may have already been downloaded.

The speed and easiness of the delivery are making us somewhat less picky (or alter the way we research before grabbing a book). I was having a similar discussion with a friend who is a professional photographer and he observes that people click far too many (digital) photographs which they file away and forget, as opposed to taking the time and shooting less photographs (because film was expensive, developing took time, etc) which they enjoyed viewing more. As Ashby said “only variety can destroy variety“.

Prolog books found online

This is an incomplete list of books about Prolog that can be found online:

I am counting on readers’ comments to grow it.

Update by ΤΖΩΤΖΙΟΥ:

Adobe Digital Editions E_ACT_TOO_MANY_ACTIVATIONS error

After reformatting my desktop (and installing the world) I was bitten by the “too many activations” error while trying to register my Adobe-ID. I lost about an hour chatting to the web support staff, with no sucess. I resorted to Adobe forums, where Jim Lester provided a helpful answer:

Support through ADE is not offered via phone or Web Chat support. It is only offered through submitting a web case (http://www.adobe.com/support/digitaleditions – click on ‘Submit a web case’). Avereage resolution time for these cases runs about 3 days.

Note: you have 6 activations (for computers, and then 6 seperate activations for devices) and each time you reformat you lose your activation

I submitted my web case and in less than 24h I got a friendly email informing me that I was OK.

Being Geek

I finished reading “Being Geek” by Michael Lopp. I am sure that Panagiotis (one of my “Your People“) will appreciate it more than me. For the first 20 chapters or so I got increasingly bored (to the point that I switched to reading another book). Then in the middle the book changes pace and provides valueable advice on how to prepare yourself before delivering a presentation. The author argues that there exists no good advice on how to write a presentation, I urge people to read Tufte‘s work, or at least “The cognitive style of PowerPoint“. Then the book becomes boring again.

While the book tries to be a personal growth / career book, it deals so much with interdepartmental politics and intrigue that it is no wonder people work overtime. Their regular worktime is spent not on what they are supposed to work on, but on forecasting fault and making sure it is delegated to others. I’ve got two more issues with the book. First, either it is full of grammatical and syntactic errors, or it makes use of so many American idioms that it is difficult to be read by someone for whom English is not a native language.

Second, I am highly irritated by the liberal use of the word engineer and its interchangeable use for computer scientist and programmer. There are people who are none, one, two or even three out of three, but the terms are not interchangeable. My absolute worst was when the author implied that engineers are not good project managers. Oh really? An Engineer knows his science, understands deadlines, knows that has to deliver a withing the budget solution and can manage people. Sorry Rands, I have an army Engineers to prove this. For example, Civil Engineers do this for a living in Greece and in the process manage people (and teams of people) of multicultural, multilingual and varying educational backgrounds. The fact that one can engineer solutions, does not make one an engineer.

I should have listened to Ozan. So why did I buy the book? Kudos to O’Reilly for providing cool bargaining deals on their eBook offers! I bought it in a buy one, get one free offer. Then why did I recommend the book to @stsimb? The book is not without value. I simply found it hard and tiring to decipher it. On the other hand I know @stsimb for ~15 years and can understand that there exist books that he might like while in fact I definitely did not. Given that I read most of the book while in the bus, this was not a total waste of time.