[FRIAM] A PolyMath by any other name...
Steven A Smith
sasmyth at swcp.com
Mon Dec 30 17:19:07 EST 2019
Oh Nick!
Let me "chastise" you again <grin>. This was so far from trash (your
original observation, my "chastisement", and your polite but unnecessary
"apology"). I was, of course, friendly-teasing you about your use of
the term "bored" while trying to acknowledge that PolyBores abound (esp.
on this list) and "boredom" is very much in the eye of the bored-beholder.
This list/meetup is going on 15-18 years old now... I'm too lazy/skeered
to go look at the archives... and I don't know when I joined the list
(or made my first meetup)... I think it was before I took a year's
sabbatical in Berzerkely 2005/2006 as I think I remember making a
"meetup" at St. Johns during a (re)visit to LANL during that year. I
have enjoyed watching the evolution of various character's characters on
this list, including your own... I think we met at that meetup but I
didn't get to know you much at all until SfX days when you were noodling
a lot about noodling and had (recently) written the MOTH paper with
Guerin/Densmore...
I am attracted to PolyBores, because/in-spite of their endless prattling
on various pet topics... the signal-noise ratio always seems low at
first, but with enough listening (attentive as well as background) I
eventually begin to learn the language of such individuals and can begin
to at least speak a pidgin of sorts with them, or adopt the
pidgin/creole I hear them speaking with another who I might be closer in
spirit/language to.
I have off-list engagements with several from this list, some in person,
others online, some professional, others personal and while those
engagements have a much higher signal-noise ratio (because focused on
mutually interesting topics and including specific attempts to meet
halfway), the conversations here which I might not fully be able to
follow (over my head, beyond my patience, outside my ken, etc) often
"soften me up" for important/interesting conversations later on or in
private. We are on a good day, a "rich, living batch", a PolySpecies
symbiotic colony of PolyMaths/PolyBores methinks.
I definitely hear you converging on more understanding or at least more
shared language with others here... and your tireless pursuit of many
topics Pearcian and otherwise, have provided both helpful "convergence"
and "divergence" in the sense of annealing..
It was a (mild) shock for me to hear my own "voice" here 4+ years old,
but it was a reminder that we've been rattling on about the same things
for years now!
Which reminds me of one of my favorite "They Might Be Giants" song-lyrics:
https://greatsong.net/PAROLES-THEY-MIGHT-BE-GIANTS,LUCKY-BALL-CHAIN,335311.html
/I lost my lucky ball and chain//
//Now she's four years gone//
//Just five feet tall and sick of me//
//And all my rattling on/
/.../
/ I was young and foolish then,/
/ I am old and foolish now.../
/ ../
Carry On!
- STeve/
/
On 12/30/19 2:51 PM, thompnickson2 at gmail.com wrote:
>
> OUCH!
>
>
>
> The person who said the internet is forever sure knew a thing.
>
>
>
> Why we need to resurrect these posts, in particular, is unclear to me.
> Suffice it to say, I cannot recreate the context in which I would say
> such nasty things so /nastily. /But the evidence that I did is
> overwhelming. So. All I can do is apologize again. I have learned
> so much over the years from talking with glen and marcus. Much of
> what they talk about is still foreign to me, but in the last year I
> feel I am understanding more, and would hate to have that channel
> gummed up by digging up this trash.
>
>
>
> But that is the consequence of having said stupid things; one is
> thereafter and forever dependent upon the grace and maturity of others.
>
>
>
> Nick
>
>
>
> Nicholas Thompson
>
> Emeritus Professor of Ethology and Psychology
>
> Clark University
>
> ThompNickSon2 at gmail.com <mailto:ThompNickSon2 at gmail.com>
>
> https://wordpress.clarku.edu/nthompson/
>
>
>
>
>
> *From:* Friam <friam-bounces at redfish.com> *On Behalf Of *Roger Critchlow
> *Sent:* Monday, December 30, 2019 2:04 PM
> *To:* The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group
> <friam at redfish.com>
> *Subject:* Re: [FRIAM] A PolyMath by any other name...
>
>
>
> Okay, resurrecting this four plus year old discussion because it
> matched a search for vagus.
>
>
>
> https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5807379/#B20 reports that
> electrical stimulation of the outer ear can stimulate the vagus nerve
> and has positive results for treating depression. It's hitting a spot
> that acupuncture uses to treat depression.
>
>
>
> -- rec --
>
>
>
> On Thu, Aug 13, 2015 at 11:22 AM Nick Thompson
> <nickthompson at earthlink.net <mailto:nickthompson at earthlink.net>> wrote:
>
> Steve,
>
>
>
> Thank you for not chastising me, as I surely deserved. I want to
> take this opportunity to renew my apology to the list.
>
>
>
> If you asked me to think deeply, I would say that boredom is
> actually one of those things that is in the eye of the beholder.
> A person who is bored by a topic is just a person without the
> resources or energy to find what is interesting about it.
>
>
>
> Obviously I, the pot, who has been known the regale this list with
> commentary on Elevated Mixed Layers, should not be calling any
> pots black.
>
>
>
> Thanks, Steve, as always, for your good will.
>
>
>
> Nick
>
>
>
> Nicholas S. Thompson
>
> Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Biology
>
> Clark University
>
> http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/
>
>
>
> *From:* Friam [mailto:friam-bounces at redfish.com
> <mailto:friam-bounces at redfish.com>] *On Behalf Of *Steve Smith
> *Sent:* Tuesday, August 11, 2015 11:36 PM
> *To:* The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group
> <friam at redfish.com <mailto:friam at redfish.com>>
> *Subject:* [FRIAM] A PolyMath by any other name...
>
>
>
> Nick!
>
> I'm surprised *anything* bores the living crap out of you! I hear
> tell of you staring for hours at water swirling down a drain,
> considering the philosophical and psychological implications of
> such, and even more hours listening to the squawks of Ravens!
>
> That said, I have to say that Marcus' and Glen's conversation
> here was far enough above my head that I can't imagine finding the
> time to noodle out enough of the reserved lexicon to do more than
> gape at it awkwardly.
>
> I have a good friend who is a former AstroPhysicist who has
> reinvented himself a few times as a High Performance Simulation
> Scientist, then Virtual Reality Researcher, then Nueroscience
> Researcher. He is definitely a PolyBore to anyone without
> experience or interest in those fields, but the hoot of it all is
> that one of his best and oldest collaborators has stuck with
> "Applied Math" for 50 years and he calls HIM a "MathHole"... they
> are finishing up a multi-year book project on their theory of
> Neural Function based in Category Theory. I suspect even people
> who Neurophysiology and Category Theory find them Polybores!
>
> I do like the duality of PolyMath/PolyBore... we might have more
> than a few such creatures here on this list!
>
> - Steve
>
> Hi Owen,
>
>
>
> How’s your summer.
>
>
>
> I note that not only can glen and company participate in a
> conversation with me that bores the living crap out of you,
> but they can also participate in a conversation with you that
> bores the living crap out of me. But I am not threatening to
> pick up my marbles and go home.
>
>
>
> I think it’s in the nature of things. They are multitalented
> bores. Polybores, we might call them. I guess being a
> polybore is the other side of being a polymath.
>
>
>
> Nick
>
>
>
> Nicholas S. Thompson
>
> Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Biology
>
> Clark University
>
> http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/
>
>
>
> *From:* Friam [mailto:friam-bounces at redfish.com] *On Behalf Of
> *Owen Densmore
> *Sent:* Tuesday, August 11, 2015 7:41 PM
> *To:* The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group
> <friam at redfish.com> <mailto:friam at redfish.com>
> *Subject:* Re: [FRIAM] [EXTERNAL] Re: unikernels?
>
>
>
> Thanks! Fascinating.
>
>
>
> -- Owen
>
>
>
> On Tue, Aug 11, 2015 at 4:37 PM, Parks, Raymond
> <rcparks at sandia.gov <mailto:rcparks at sandia.gov>> wrote:
>
> The original articles/blogs are from the U of Cambridge
> Xen folks and a somewhat buzzword lovin' sysadmin. The
> current trend in using someone else's computer (SEC, more
> commonly called cloud) is LInux containers and docker.
> The articles predict that the future is unikernels. A
> unikernel is application specific, like containers, but in
> the form of a monolithic VM that includes the specific
> application and necessary kernel services for that app.
> At least two of the current unikernel projects use
> functional languages - OCaml and Haskell. The Xen model
> is for a developer to specify the kernel services they
> need, develop the application code, develop the
> configuration code, and the whole thing gets turned into a
> monolithic VM that runs in the Xen hypervisor. In theory,
> this makes for greater efficiency and less chance of the
> tail wagging the dog. By that latter, I mean that one of
> the major issues in securing computer systems of systems
> is that one gets all of a system one includes (i.e DNS
> Bind) even though one uses one small feature. That means
> all of the vulnerabilities as well as all the features
> that are not used.
>
>
>
> As I said in a previous post, this is a reinvention (for
> hypervisors) of IBM VM and CSM - the latter being a
> minimalist kernel with, usually, a single application.
>
>
>
> The downside of monolithic VMs is that any change
> requires a complete rebuild of the VM - even minor
> configuration changes that are the equivalent of
> environment variables. In a SEC environment, for example,
> adding a static or CDN to the list of sources for a web
> server will require a rebuild. Alternatively, of course,
> one could simply allow the web-server unikernel to invoke
> scripts from any web-site recursively - but then an
> attacker simply inserts an advertisement that invokes
> malware and we're no better off than before.
>
>
>
> The idea of unikernels is not bad nor is it new - but the
> benefits will probably not be as great as the current
> promises. The UX will not be different for the end-user
> although it might be somewhat better for the content provider.
>
>
>
> It's not clear to me that the visionaries have thought
> about this outside of the WWW. For example, I recently
> read an article about how NetFlix worked hard to be able
> to provide streaming video with SSL encryption. They
> started with their standard server and added SSL - the
> performance hit made that impractical. Eventually, they
> found a configuration of VMs and infrastructure that made
> the performance hit acceptable. A unikernel that only
> served SSL-encrypted video would be more efficient than
> their current VMs running a general-purpose OS plus video
> streaming software. But configuration changes (newly
> added caching locations, links that are down, et cetera)
> would be the bane of a unikernel NetFlix. Each time BGP
> reports a change, either the video streaming unikernel
> would need to be rebuilt or there would need to be another
> layer of unikernel that dispatches requests to the video
> streaming unikernel VMs. But that dispatcher would either
> need to be reconfigured or there would need to be another
> unikernel that tracks network connectivity changes and
> informs the dispatcher - and now we still have
> configuration changes and a complex system of unikernels
> that exist to make it possible.
>
>
>
> The Internet is a dynamic system that constantly changes
> - and any system that uses the Internet needs to adapt to
> constant change. The two ways to do that with unikernels
> are to have the meta on meta layers I imagine in the
> previous paragraph or to change the VM unikernels on the
> fly so the user will eventually get directed to a
> correctly configured unikernel. That latter means there
> will be performance hits - how bad those will be is TBD.
>
>
>
> Ray Parks
> Consilient Heuristician/IDART Old-Timer
> V: 505-844-4024 <tel:505-844-4024> M: 505-238-9359
> <tel:505-238-9359> P: 505-951-6084 <tel:505-951-6084>
>
>
>
> On Aug 11, 2015, at 3:25 PM, Owen Densmore wrote:
>
>
>
> I'm so outta this conversation!
>
>
>
> Could one of us give a brief explanation of unikernels
> and the related tech being discussed?
>
>
>
> On Tue, Aug 11, 2015 at 2:49 PM, glen ep ropella
> <gepr at tempusdictum.com <mailto:gepr at tempusdictum.com>>
> wrote:
>
>
> OK. But what I'm still missing is this: if
> unikernels are more domain- and/or task-specific,
> then the dev environment will branch, perhaps
> quite a bit. I.e. one dev environment for many
> deployables. We end up with not just the original
> (false?) dichotomy between config and compiled,
> but meta-config and, perhaps, meta-compiled. And
> that may even have multiple layers, meta-meta.
>
> So, while I agree pwning the devop role allows the
> attacker to infect the deployables, the attacks
> have to be sophisticated enough to survive that
> branching to eventually achieve the attacker's
> objective. I.e. "closeness" in terms of
> automation doesn't necessarily mean "closeness" in
> terms of total cost of attack.
>
> It just seems that the more objective-specific the
> deployable(s), the less likely a hacked devops
> process will give the desired result. I'd expect
> a lot more failed integration/deployment attempts
> if my devops process was modified.
>
> But this is all too abstract, of course. The
> devil is in the particulars.
>
>
> On 08/11/2015 01:13 PM, Parks, Raymond wrote:
>
> I would expect the dev environment to be
> closer if not actually in the same
> hypervisor. It's almost like the web-site we
> once attacked by using the java compiler on
> the web-site's computer sytem to modify the
> code in the web-site. Right now, with devops,
> the dev environment is probably not in the
> cloud/hypervisor. And, for unikernels that
> may also be true. But to deploy quickly in
> both devops and unikernel, there has to be a
> direct channel from dev to cloud.
>
> In more traditional environments, there's a
> dev server in a separate space, a testing
> server in its own environment (sometimes
> shared with production but not touching
> production data), and a production server.
> While traditional environments don't always
> follow the process well, in theory the flow is
> developers develop on a development network
> with the dev server, roll their system into
> the testing server which runs alongside the
> production server with a copy of the
> production data and processing real or test
> transactions, and finally install the tested
> version on the production server. From my
> standpoint, that means I can attack the
> production server directly or the development
> server on a separate network. There has to be
> connectivity, but it's likely to be filtered,
> if only to prevent the development server from
> affecting the production environment.
>
> In devops and in future unikernel systems,
> the pace of change is, of necessity, much
> faster and the three roles are collapsed into
> one VM. The VM image is modified in place,
> given a new name so that rollback is possible,
> and the management software is told to use the
> new image instead of the old.
>
> One of the principles of cyberwarfare (as
> formulated in our paper of that name) is that
> some entity, somewhere, has the privileges to
> do whatever the attacker wants to do and the
> attacker's goal is to become that entity. In
> the case of devops and unikernel, that entity
> is the developer(s) who make(s) the changes to
> the VM. In traditional environments, the
> attacker might need to assume the privileges
> of several entities.
>
>
>
> --
> glen ep ropella -- 971-255-2847 <tel:971-255-2847>
>
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