The Twilight Report

better security for nuclear laptops

2009-02-13T16:19:00

Usually I read /. for the semi-incoherent rants that pass for “comments”, but today they posted this semi-incoherent article instead:

A memo leaked by the Project on Government Oversight watchdog brought the lost [Los Alamos National Libratory] nuclear [sic] laptops to the public's attention, leaving the Energy Department's National Nuclear Security Administration with no choice but to confess. Better than letting the debacle blow up in their faces, we presume.

— IT News: U.S. nuclear weapons lab loses 67 computers

I worked at Los Alamos (LANL) briefly when I was in college, and I can attest to this. I was issued with a top secret nuclear laptop, which not only was fuelled by a highly secret portable nuclear drive, but also contained designs of all the nuclear weapon systems and codes to be used in case of nuclear war which would have allowed me to launch a retaliatory strike against the Chinese and North Koreans. Honest.

I wouldn’t hesitate to say that LANL has serious systemic problems it will probably never overcome, I don’t think losing a few laptops is one of them. I am sure The Lab (as those of us who lived in the town refer to it) has thousands of laptops, and I am equally sure that none of them have sensitive data on them.

In reality I worked for a scientific data management group at LANL and our primary customer was a climate modelling scientist. Notice that none of that directly has anything to do with nuclear weapons. It is useful to understand how nuclear weapons will affect climate conditions so I wouldn’t say it’s unrelated but it also has a number of peacetime applications as well. I am not saying that they don’t do research to build “better” nuclear weapons, but there are entire swaths of The Lab that are doing basic research, which is a good thing, some of which doesn’t even indirectly have to do with nuclear weapons. The Lab is a convenient punching bag for the media anytime they are foolish enough to bring attention to themselves.

old photos closer to home

2008-05-04T00:47:00

July 1983:

I scanned another roll of grandpa’s C-41 today. These ones are from the same trip, and according to the envelope scroll include:

Taos
Bandelier
Rio Grande
Los Alamos

Los Alamos

The pond is named after someone named Ashley Pond (I kid you not)

(more)

These were taken before the last set that I posted. They are all in New Mexico, closer to the area where I actually grew up. Although, again, this was long before we had any idea that we’d be moving out there. I had to spot more of these than from the last set, although the majority were completely clean! Some of them had some paper glued to the edges, put there probably by whomever had processed the film. I hate it when places do that because it is not good for the long term storage of the film.

Grandpa was a good photographer. There isn’t a single frame that is out of focus or incorrectly exposed, and the compositions are good.

more vacation hikes

2007-08-29T13:55:00

Pecos

(click to see in Google Earth)

First place I took my intrepid party to was Pecos. It isn’t really a full fledged hike, but a nice meander through the ruins. There is a lot of history wrapped up in the place and you get to see the early blending and confrontation of Spanish and native cultures. There are mountains around that always look to me as though they had a giant bear claw scratches in them. It was here that the party noticed that there are a lot of juniper trees in New Mexico, and I learned the Russian word for that tree.

(more...)

P.S. I am back in Australia now.

Bandalier

2007-04-15T06:30:00

This is where I am going in August

On being useful

2006-11-24T02:51:00

The other day, someone at work asked me (not entirely out of the blue), if I “had anyone useful” in my family.

Without missing a beat I answered: “No, they are all scientists.”

Because it’s true, at least in the context of the conversation, which made the question more like do you have anyone with skills that are useful to ordinary people in your family. I mean, they contribute to the sum of human knowledge, and arguably do important things, but hardly useful skills, such as being able to cut hair (like Nina’s husband) or even fixing a Windows XP machine full of viruses that you stupidly downloaded (like me. er, the fixing part, not the downloading of viruses part).

“But wait,” I added, “it gets worse, because I grew up in a company town, where the ‘company’ was a federal laboratory, and everyone who lived in the town were also scientists.”

Later, when I was explaining this conversation to my mum (who didn’t seem to find it as inherently funny as I did), she pointed out to me that there are also engineers in Los Alamos.

“Well, they can be useful.” I said.

“Not those engineers.”

Mum seems to hold engineers in the same esteem as people who live in Melbourne (“seriously,” I can imagine her saying, “if you are in Australia, why wouldn’t you live in Sydney?”).

I know this attitude sort of filtered down to me, unfortunately, because early on when I met my friends in New York who also worked at The Company, I said with some disdain that I wasn’t an engineer, when one of them described us as a group of engineers. I have always preferred the term “programmer” or “coder” (which is actually different from what my friends do), although I do have to admit my job title was “software engineer” for those six years in New York.

They are pretty cool engineers though. They do things like make the processors that go into all of the next generation video game consoles. (When the dust settles from this round of the Console Wars, I don’t know if Sony or Nintendo will be left standing, but either way The Company stands to make a tidy profit either way). More importantly, they are cool people, who know how to have a good time and be good friends.

I told my photography teacher what my friends did once, and she thought those GPUs The Company was making were a waste of resources that could have been more appropriately allocated. Seriously though, who is she kidding, she is a professional photographer. What is she contributing to the world that is so awesome that she can go around judging other people? There is nothing wrong with being a photographer, but there is everything wrong with being judgemental and condescending.

Los Alamos, New Mexico

2006-10-21T10:38:00

This was taken on the side of the road that takes you up to Los Alamos, New Mexico. They area is full of mesas, and the town is on a series of mesas which extend from the side of a nearby volcano.

Trees and fire

2006-08-23T11:58:00

This was before the fire that left a scar throughout the mountains where I grew up in New Mexico.

Don't Mock Me

2005-03-16T00:31:00

One day Guthrie and I were making Nathan's life miserable. Back in those days that was pretty much all we did. There isn't anything to do in Los Alamos but ski, and this wasn't winter, so we were making Nathan's life miserable. "Don't mock me" Nathan said in a bizarre voice which had the exact opposite effect than what the words had intended to convey. Children can be so cruel.

Work is exhausting me. Work is supposed to exhaust me though, it's hard work, and I don't get paid to sit around and chat on AIM or write LJ all day. I sometimes miss the days when I was still on ChipBench and I could pretty much accomplish my job without even trying. I definitely miss having manager who didn't suck. I especially miss having e as an officemate, although she will tell you that this isn't true, even though it is.

I was talking to e on AIM today while at work. She was venting her frustrations of sh script, and I was telling her she should find a job where she can do something that she actually wanted to do. She kept repeatedly telling me that she didn't want to do anything. Her job is just a way to earn money to live. There is so much about her life that I envy, and yet, I just can't understand her lack of ambition.

These thoughts are disconnected. I think I will go to bed early tonight.

New Mexican Recipes - Guacamole

2005-01-06T20:08:00

Background: There is this restaurant named Gabriel's between Los Alamos and Santa Fe I used to go to a lot when I lived in, and even when I was only visiting New Mexico regularly. The food is upscale, by which I mean, somewhat unauthentic. There is nothing wrong with though - it is good food. The main reason you'd go there is to have the Guacamole, because they make it fresh right before your eyes. Pretty much the only reason actually. Anyway, at some point it occurred to us that what they did was pretty easy, so we asked the guy preparing it what the exact ingredients he was using. We then went home and attempted to recreate it in a controlled environment. I would say that we succeeded. You want to make this right before you serve it. It goes off pretty quickly. Serve with chips as a snack or along with sour cream with enchiladas, or other main dish.

4-8 avocados
1-2 tomatoes, diced
½ onion, chopped
1-2 cloves garlic, chopped
1 bushel of cilantro
1 lime (or lemon)
salt to taste

Chop the avocados in half, remove the seed and scoop out the goodness. Cut the lime in half and squeeze the juices out. Mix with other ingredients and stir with a wire whisk. Usually I find juice from half of the lime is sufficient, so use half a lime, and taste to see if you need more.

To me, guacamole without cilantro is just wrong. Some like to add jalapeños, I can take 'em or leave 'em for guacamole. The lime juice lengthens the lifespan of guacamole considerably, so make sure you don't skip that.

Nothing of Interest Here

2004-08-23T01:04:00

On Friday, I was doing the laundry and they were playing the Beetles song "Hello, Goodbye." This made me laugh after the previous entry because this song reminds me of another old friend from my past. I won't go into the details, but in elementary school my best friend (at the time) "gUe" and I performed a skit to this song for the Aspen School talent show. It was by far the most creative performance that day, although I can't really take credit for that... the idea had been gUe's mom, who seemed to like the idea of putting us in the talent show.

I thought this was funny, because earlier in the day the song Ruiner had reminded me of another old friend (see previous entry), and I have been thinking about old friends a lot lately. Old friends in this context meaning anyone I was friends with before I moved to New York. I had been thinking also about how I don't keep in touch with anyone from the Los Alamos period in my life to talk to them about these thoughts, but then I remembered that I was going to Philly to see my friend Mike, who goes all the way back to my junior year at high school.

Just last year, he married a nice girl named Sarah who is also from Los Alamos; although I'd never met her until I went down to see Mike this weekend. So I had a bit of Home Town Overload, although it was surprisingly nice. I was pleased with myself because I recognized their wedding photographs as being taken at the White Rock Overlook, which incidentally was also featured in the film Silverado.

Mike was having a summer BBQ/party and I got to meet many of his friends and coworkers. A few of whom I had met the couple of times I have seen Mike since I moved here. He has very nice friends. They are all of the married/have young children age group... which I don't quite relate to yet. I only know one married couple who plan to have children, and that is still some time away. Anyway I was glad to go down there.

Next weekend I go to Maine!