What I Learned Today

A desire has been growing in me for some time now to pick up a little Latin. And now with the spring semester at a close, I jumped at the chance to browse some beginning Latin books at the library.

The one I took home with me is “Teach Yourself Beginner’s Latin.” It starts out very basic and has you reading simple Latin from the first chapter. (By “simple” I mean “Dick and Jane” level, but far more interesting, as it discusses the antics of a monk and his mule in the woods.) Despite its simplicity, the feeling of accomplishment is satisfying. Mulus equos non amat. “The mule does not like the horses.” The book jumps right in with declensions (nominative, accusative, and ablative) but, curiously, reserves introducing gender for a few chapters later. So far, it feels comfortingly similar, yet intriguingly different, from my previous studies of French, Spanish, and Italian.

Once I gain some basic reading ability, I will want something to read. That is, something within a beginner’s reach, which probably rules out Tacitus.

My local library contains, to my surprise, two children’s books that have been translated into Latin: Tela Charlottae (Charlotte’s Web) and Winnie Ills Pu (Winnie the Pooh). The former is in juvenile non-fiction, while the latter is in adult non-fiction, due either to inconsistency or some guideline I have not yet grasped. The Library School won’t let me take Cataloguing to find out, until I take some required database class this fall! The non-fiction designation alone puzzled me, until I realized that these books are next to annotated or scholarly versions of various children’s (fiction) literature, so I guess a translation is similar in spirit.

There are also some good pointers to online materials for beginning Latin readers. This list led me to a delightful 1933 text called Cornelia, which is designed with a progressive vocabulary that makes a point of encouraging you to learn words by context as they are encountered. From the Author’s “Foreward to Pupils”:

Salvete, discipuli. This is the story of a little American girl named Cornelia. Her life was different from yours, but not very different. You will readily understand the things that she did. I hope that you will like her and that you will enjoy the adventure of finding out about her in a language that is not your own. Valete, discipuli.

Benigne, magistra!

Cybersecurity is a serious issue not just for computers on Earth, but also for those in space.

Last month, JAXA (Japan’s space agency) announced that hackers had broken in to gain access to information about the Kibo Space Station module. The information consisted of Kibo “operation preparations” and mailing lists. In September, a 16-year-old was sentenced to six months in jail for hacking into NASA (and other) computers. In early 2012, NASA’s Inspector General Paul Martin testified to Congress about the state of NASA’s cybersecurity defenses and woes. “In 2010 and 2011, NASA reported 5,408 computer security incidents that resulted in the installation of malicious software on or unauthorized access to its systems,” he said. This goes beyond hacking into an employee’s PC: “The March 2011 theft of an unencrypted NASA notebook computer resulted in the loss of the algorithms used to command and control the International Space Station.”

Naturally, the same concerns apply for our rovers on Mars.

On Tuesday, I attended a talk titled “MSL Cyber-security implementation status report” by Bryan Johnson and Glen Elliott of JPL. You can view the slides from a similar conference talk. They reported on the long list of actions the team has taken to increase the security of operations and commanding for the Mars Science Laboratory (MSL) rover. These include the implementation of Two-Factor Authentication for access to mission systems and applications, consolidating computers into a single virtual LAN, implementing and testing an “incident response process,” and taking obvious (but time-consuming and easy-to-overlook) steps like pruning the list of people with access to the MSL network.

These steps all aim to improve security here on the ground. I asked whether they would discuss measures being taken to prevent unauthorized access to the rover itself, such as encryption or authentication prior to the rover accepting commands. Unfortunately, they declined to discuss it, but the unofficial word is that there is little or no security on the rover side. Conceivably, anyone with a powerful enough antenna and the right pointing information could send the same kind of signals currently being transmitted by the Deep Space Network to all of our remote assets (rovers, orbiters, and other spacecraft). And as we know, security through obscurity only gets you so far. MSL has had a sufficiently high profile that a rumor began circulating last August that the hacker group Anonymous was trying to gain access to the rover:

MarsCuriosity: “Anyone in Madrid, Spain or Canbarra who can help isolate the huge control signal used for the Mars Odyssey / Curiosity system please? The cypher and hopping is a standard mode, just need base frequency and recordings/feed of the huge signal going out. (yes we can spoof it both directions!)”

A group dedicated to “Space Asset Protection” is looking into this side of the problem. Unfortunately, there is some reluctance to adopt encryption, which carries its own overhead in complexity and bandwidth consumption for the often severely limited data links available for spacecraft communication.

And as for authentication, there’s always the chance that the rover might suddenly say, “I’m sorry, Dave, I’m afraid I can’t do that.”

Wow.

I just finished watching The Bitter Truth (video), and it really is as compelling, and frightening, as everyone says. In this lecture, Dr. Robert Lustig (Professor of Pediatrics at UCSF) gives us a pile of studies and a biochemistry analysis that point to this conclusion:

Fructose is a toxin.

I think we’ve all heard rumblings about how high-fructose corn syrup (HFCS) might be bad for you, but Dr. Lustig lays it out in crisp detail. The video is long (1.5 hours) — it took me three sessions to finish — but it’s definitely worth watching. He explains how fructose (which sounds innocuous; after all, it comes from fruit!) is metabolized quite differently than glucose (our native sugar) is. In fact, fructose behaves more like a fat, which is why an ostensibly “low-fat” product, which has been pumped up with high-fructose corn syrup to make it palatable, often causes body fat to increase.

He also draws an interesting parallel between fructose and ethanol (another carbohydrate), which is metabolized like fructose in the liver (leading to fat deposition), with additional brain side effects (a buzz) lacking in fructose.

If you aren’t creeped out by his discussion of our country having obese *six-month-olds*, then you have a stronger constitution than I do.

He does offer a “lifestyle intervention” plan, which he uses to help obese kids:

1. Get rid of all sugared liquids — only water and milk
2. Eat your carbohydrate with fiber (fructose + fiber, which is how it manifests in actual fruit, is okay)
3. Wait 20 minutes for second portions
4. Trade screen time minute-for-minute with physical activity

He comments that #4 is the hardest one to achieve, which I can readily imagine! I don’t think I could do it myself, much as I might want to.

Now I’m compulsively checking labels on various foods and realizing a new limitation therein. While fats are now broken down into saturated and unsaturated fats, sugars are all lumped together (instead of breaking them down into glucose, fructose, lactose, maltose, etc.). Dr. Lustig’s point is that different sugars affect the body differently. If the ingredients include HFCS, you know it contains fructose. Plain sugar is sucrose, which is fructose + glucose, so you’re getting some of each. But what if it contains “corn syrup”? How about “evaporated cane juice syrup”? Or my beloved Raisin Bran Crunch, which has sugar, brown sugar syrup, corn syrup, and honey? It doesn’t look good.

Awareness is the first step. With informative sources like Dr. Lustig’s talk, we can look at our options in a new light and consider whether changes are worth making in our individual lives. Take a look at his talk. I found it very compelling.

I guess it’s not surprising that someone would find a way to monetize the exoplanet craze. A startup named Uwingu will now charge you $4.99 for the chance to nominate a name for an exoplanet (plus a downloadable certificate). Not a specific exoplanet, mind you. No, they’re simply compiling “a baby book of names” for astronomers to consult, should they choose to.

That’s right, there’s no guarantee that your suggestion will ever be used, and since it’s not associated with any particular planet, no chance for you to make it suit the planet’s characteristics. (That makes the baby-name analogy more apt, actually, since most parents choose names before the child is born.)

But if so, why should Uwingu get to collect $4.99 for it? And what will they do with the funds?

“Our goal is to award up to half of all Uwingu’s proceeds to The Uwingu Fund, which will provide grants to scientists and educators to conduct space research, education and exploration projects,” says Uwingu. Their first call for grant applications will happen in mid-2013.

But wait, there’s more!

You can pay them $0.99 to cast a vote for the best name, a contest that closes on April 22. Just $0.99 for each vote! What happens to the winning name? They want to assign it to Alpha Centauri Bb, but since they have no authority over official naming, nothing will actually happen. It would be like a band of people deciding to rename New York to be “The Big Apple.” Sure, you can use the name colloquially, but no one’s going to start changing road signs or the name over City Hall or birth records.

So far they’ve received 1230 nominations and 4933 votes, or $11,021. The most popular name is currently Rakhat.

The International Astronomical Union (IAU), which oversees the offical naming of astronomical bodies, is apparently not on board with this at all.

“Such certificates are misleading, as these campaigns have no bearing on the official naming process — they will not lead to an officially-recognised exoplanet name, despite the price paid or the number of votes accrued.”

Uwingu CEO Dr. Alan Stern stated, “This is a first step in democratizing planet naming.” . . . which should be democratic why?

Far be it from me to dissuade any popularizing of science and astronomy. But this seems overly opportunistic, reminiscent of those “Name a Star” scams (check out some words of wisdom from the IAU). It would be one thing if they were compiling a list of names as the outreach-based, public awareness effort they claim it is. But the charges they levy instead highlight it as a semi-deceptive money-making venture, playing on people’s desire to be involved but not delivering what most people think they’re paying for.

At sea for ten months. What would you take on your Kindle?

Sailors in the 1800s, of course, had no such luxury.

The American Seamen’s Friend Society, starting in 1837, took it upon itself to package up book collections and ship them out on as many sailing vessels as possible. By 1930, they had distributed 30,040 libraries, which could be exchanged for a new set when the content was exhausted. Each library contained about 40 books, mostly religious or focused on self improvement.

Sailors wrote back with reports on the libraries they received. Here is one example:

“No. 3,095. — Books all read; ‘Four Pillars of Temperance,’ ‘Laurence Monroe,’ ‘Light on the Ocean,’ ‘Blind Tom,’ and ‘Alcohol’ were most read. The last named book I read aloud to the crew, with delightful results. All signed the pledge. The books have been a great blessing; better send ‘Alcohol’ in every library. It is just the thing for sailors.” — A. Morrill, Capt. schr. W.H.Rogers.

Because they were commonly provided in a standard wooden box, painted red, the libraries came to be known as “Little Red Box Libraries.” One has to wonder if there is any connection to today’s DVD provider, Redbox. I wasn’t able to dig up any details on how the company selected its name to find out. I wonder!