mathemajician

World Knowledge Quizz Time!

Sun, 21 Jan 2007 17:53:34 GMT

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HCkYfYa8ePI

(via ehintz)

More crazy weather

Fri, 19 Jan 2007 10:26:49 GMT

According to one Swiss website the forecast high here today is 22 C (72 F).

Huh? What the hell is going on?

UPDATE: It's currently 24 C !!!!!!!

Messed up weather

Wed, 17 Jan 2007 13:24:53 GMT

New Zealand is having a record cool summer, while Switzerland is having a record warm winter. For example, the forecast high tomorrow in Wellington is 16 C — the same as here in Lugano! For New Zealand in the middle of summer to be the same temperature as Switzerland in the middle winter is so screwed up I can hardly believe it's happening.

Another great quote

Sun, 14 Jan 2007 22:50:03 GMT

Experience is what you get when you were expecting something else

What Bill Gates wants for Christmas

Thu, 14 Dec 2006 21:38:57 GMT

I just read this, sort of an interview with Bill Gates. At one point he was asked what he wants for Christmas. His answer was lectures from here. Me too.

I depart for New Zealand in a few days. Man I hate that flight. Anyway, it will be nice being back in NZ again. I'm also spending almost two weeks in Rarotonga (tropical island) before heading to Los Angeles for a couple of days, and then back to Switzerland. Once I arrive back I'll have just 4.5 months before my PhD is over.

I'm starting to work out what to do next. Of course what I'd really like to spend the next 5 years doing would be creating a radical new artificial intelligence system. After working in two companies trying to do that, and having spent the last 4 years learning more about AI for my PhD, I know how I'd go about doing it and I'm reasonably confident that I could succeed. However I have no idea how I could finance it. I estimate that I'd need $1.5 m to get to the point of proof of concept. It would require about 3 people, 10 computers and 5 years work. Once proof of concept had been achieved money would be no problem — the company that is first to develop real AI will easily have a market cap north of a trillion dollars. Alas I don't know any angel investors with that kind of money and outlandish ambition.

Plan B. Currently this plan looks like doing a post doc, perhaps a part time one, in finance. I'd be based in Switzerland and would apply machine learning methods to problems in finance research.

IT crisis, depending on your perspective..

Fri, 17 Nov 2006 12:57:33 GMT

According to this article, in the UK,

"... in the past four years demand for IT and computer graduates has doubled while at the same time the number of students studying the subject has declined by a third."

I've also heard similar things from the US in recent weeks. Even India is supposed to be having a skills crisis according to a few articles I've read recently. Demand there is so out of match with supply that the annual wage inflation for IT workers is running at almost 20%. This is all good news for IT workers incomes. More evidence that shifting from academia to industry now might be a good idea.

If all this industry demand is for real, I find it strange that the demand for people doing theoretical AI research appears to be so bleak.

Busy, busy...

Wed, 01 Nov 2006 13:24:30 GMT

7 months left on the PhD. Lots to do and not much time to blog. I almost have a committee sorted out, and hopefully in a few weeks I'll move to "PhD candidate" status. I know that seems a bit strange at this point, but it's because I've joined the program after a few years at a research institute so I'm doing all this in a compressed amount of time. Anyway, over the next 6 months I need to get some more research done and of course write my thesis. Hopefully that won't be too much of a problem as most of the material will be ripped from my papers and then massaged to fit together into one document. Still it's a lot to do in the next half year — so don't expect to hear too much from me! In the middle of all this I'm also going on a trip to New Zealand for Christmas, then Rarotonga for a couple of weeks, and then Los Angeles for two days on the way home. Extra busy.

Another thing that I need to do is to work out what I'm doing next. One thing that got me thinking recently is the fact that a couple of very good AI theory guys I know who have done a few post-docs aren't having an easy time finding permanent positions. One has now taken another post-doc position as he didn't get any of the permanent positions, and another has given up completely and is now trying to find a job in industry. These guys are really good, and so seeing this is a bit of a worry. Given that I've worked for 5 years in industry, by the time I will have completed 2 post doc positions I'll be almost 40. If I then can't get a permanent position in a university and have to switch to industry, I'll be in trouble.

If I switch next year to business I'll be 33, and with 5 years industry experience already on my CV, I'm not looking too much like a career academic. That should make the switch a lot easier. Given that academia seems to offer little job security, little money and the pressure to publish all the time means that I'm unsure whether I'll ever be able to follow the longer term more ambitious things I'd like to work on, I'm seriously thinking about going to industry. Another problem is that in academia as a PhD grad you don't have much control over where you live next. You just have to follow the jobs shifting to a new city and possibly country every few years. That's bad news for relationships. I understand now why many academics' wives don't have much in the way of professional careers — in the prime of their career building years they are having to shift from one random town to the next.

Another thing is that I find academia to be quite limiting in some ways. If you propose something really radical with a high chance of failure, it's almost sure to be rejected by the funding agencies. You simply can't go away and try something crazy for a few years, instead you have to produce small units of publishable work all the time as this is a key measure of how your performance is judged. Of course if you are the head of the department you can do some crazy stuff as you have a permanent position. But by then it's probably too late as your really creative and crazy days are already over — you've been molded to the norm and blinkered by the dogma of your field. If I had $1 million in the bank, I'd shift somewhere cheap to live and embark on research so unconventional it would make respected academics wince.

Maybe somebody like Google would be interested in giving me a job that wasn't too bad. Or maybe I could find a niche and start my own business doing something interesting. In any case, I haven't lost my passion and belief that very powerful AI is not only possible, but that it's possible in the next few decades. That's the dream, now how do I live it? Getting a PhD in AI is just one step.

Agnostic to Atheist

Wed, 25 Oct 2006 10:32:35 GMT

For a long time I have called myself agnostic.

While I am almost certain that an Abrahamic god does not exist, I've been more reluctant to totally rule out more abstract notions of "god". Thus I didn't feel that my certainty in the non-existence of some kind of a god was high enough to be called an atheist. At a more practical level, where I grew up religious beliefs were pretty mild. You could be an atheist, or a theist, and nobody much would care. Even our prime minister is agnostic and nobody but a tiny ultra religious minority seems to care. As such, there was not much pressure to be explicitly against theism.

However I've decided to change my position. When most people say "God", what they mean is an Abrahamic style god, i.e. Jewish, Christian or Muslim. With respect to this concept of god I've already been atheist for some time. The second reason is that, unlike the mild religious atmosphere of New Zealand that I grew up with, on the world stage today conservative religious voices seem to be getting stronger and are influencing major world events. I think that these voices are moving the world in the wrong direction: away from reason, evidence and science, and towards a world where something is true just because that's what you have decided to believe. In such a climate I think that a clearer position is called for.

I am now an atheist.

Geeks starting businesses 101

Mon, 02 Oct 2006 18:57:23 GMT

As a geek who might start a business at some point in the future, this was an interesting read. Indeed I've seen and heard most of this before, but this is a nice compact summary.

Perfect pasta

Mon, 18 Sep 2006 20:47:17 GMT

I think I can now basically make perfect pasta sauce. The down side to this is that now when I go out to restaurants, unless they are good Italian places in Italy, I tend to wonder why I'm paying so much money to get something that's not as good as I make at home. Anyway, here's one pasta sauce recipe, more or less. See I can't tell you the exact recipe because I never actually measure anything, but I can give you the general idea...

Ingredients:

Puree tomatoes. Forget that pre-made tomato sauce with stuff in, start from first principles.

Olive oil.

Honey. You need something to sweeten it a bit and I find that a honey with a mild flavour works well.

Onions, if you want. Amazingly, you can make a real nice sauce with just the three things above.

A tin of tuna works well with this.

EDIT: I forgot one thing, lemon juice. Add some lemon juice. Trust me.

Method:

Get a big pot with high sides. Stick the oil in. If you're doing onions, chop them up and fry them until they start to turn a little transparent. Stick the tomato puree in and add the lemon juice. Now bring it to the boil. It will start to go "plop-plop" and little bits of the puree with be leaping out of the pot and onto the walls. Good. Keep it boiling like that, but don't burn it or anything too drastic. Stir it from time to time. At some point add some honey so that it's very slightly sweet. If you taste it at this point it will still taste a bit bitter from the tomatoes, that fine. After a while the puree will reduce (and probably make your walls dirty) and stop going "plop-plop" and start making quick little bubbles without leaping out of the pot. Good. This is after something like 15 minutes I'd guess.

At this point you'll need to stir it a bit from time to time and it will start to get thicker and start to get slightly darker too. Make sure that there is enough olive oil so that the sauce is just very slightly oily. Keep on frying it. It's the frying that gives it a really good flavour as it makes the tomato caramelise slightly and gives it a sweet and very slightly smoky taste. The key thing now is knowing when to stop. You want to stop when it's thick enough to be pushed into one side of the pot and never flow back. Maybe even a bit more than that. Now take it off the heat. At this point I'd recommend adding a tin of tuna. Just drop the tuna into the hot sauce and mush it around a bit. Done.

I eat it with spaghetti. Italians claim that every different kind of pasta holds the sauce a different way and this all really important. I think they're delusional.

It might sound like a lot of work, but really it's not. Most of the time you can just leave it to reduce away while it's going plop-plop and making a mess all over your kitchen. If you get it right you should get a slightly oily sauce that's fairly thick, with a deep rich slightly sweet taste and a hint of bitterness. I eat exactly the above dish (sans onions because I didn't have any) about half an hour ago and can still taste the rich flavour in the back of my mouth.

I think the combination of the olive oil, plus some sweetener and frying it are what makes the magic happen. I watched part II of The Godfather movie the other week and sure enough, there was a scene about halfway through the movie where somebody cooking pasta sauce explains this very technique.

Economic explosion

Mon, 11 Sep 2006 12:55:48 GMT

A while ago I posted about my visit to Dubai. Here's a couple of nice pictures showing what the economic explosion there looks like. Firstly, this is the new part of Dubai in 1991:

And then 14 years later in 2005:

I hear that China is the same story... just much bigger.

Is There an Artificial God?

Sat, 02 Sep 2006 20:28:09 GMT

This is a great talk by Douglas Adams. Below is one part of the talk that's about God.

Tools have enabled us to think intentionally, to make things and to do things to create a world that fits us better. Now imagine an early man surveying his surroundings at the end of a happy day’s tool making. He looks around and he sees a world which pleases him mightily: behind him are mountains with caves in – mountains are great because you can go and hide in the caves and you are out of the rain and the bears can’t get you; in front of him there’s the forest – it’s got nuts and berries and delicious food; there's a stream going by, which is full of water – water’s delicious to drink, you can float your boats in it and do all sorts of stuff with it; here’s cousin Ug and he’s caught a mammoth – mammoth’s are great, you can eat them, you can wear their coats, you can use their bones to create weapons to catch other mammoths. I mean this is a great world, it’s fantastic. But our early man has a moment to reflect and he thinks to himself, ‘well, this is an interesting world that I find myself in’ and then he asks himself a very treacherous question, a question which is totally meaningless and fallacious, but only comes about because of the nature of the sort of person he is, the sort of person he has evolved into and the sort of person who has thrived because he thinks this particular way. Man the maker looks at his world and says ‘So who made this then?’ Who made this? – you can see why it’s a treacherous question. Early man thinks, ‘Well, because there’s only one sort of being I know about who makes things, whoever made all this must therefore be a much bigger, much more powerful and necessarily invisible, one of me and because I tend to be the strong one who does all the stuff, he’s probably male’. And so we have the idea of a god. Then, because when we make things we do it with the intention of doing something with them, early man asks himself, ‘If he made it, what did he make it for?’ Now the real trap springs, because early man is thinking, ‘This world fits me very well. Here are all these things that support me and feed me and look after me; yes, this world fits me nicely’ and he reaches the inescapable conclusion that whoever made it, made it for him.

Nova Security Control

Mon, 14 Aug 2006 19:38:56 GMT

By Shane Legg at about 11 years of age.

Clearly at this point in my life I'd been watching far too much cold war era sci-fi. Unfortunately I don't have a copy of the original here in Switzerland so I can't put in the parts that were hand written in (no doubt very bad) Russian. Maybe one day when I'm back in New Zealand I'll try to find it and put these back in. I still have the Roman character versions for you Russian speakers to laugh at though.

I still remember writing the part here the helicopter flies over the lake in the space city... that was definately insprired by the opening credits of Miami Vice. As for the over the top cost of the American space station... hey, there must have been a lot of inflation.

Chapter 1

The new space city Nova had just been completed, though people had been living in parts for a century. It looked like an enormous spinning tube with plants and water and gravity, with no disease because of sterilisation of everything the went in. No thistles, mosquitoes, poisonous snakes, spiders. No flies or any other pests. The perfect living grounds.

"What a beauty, the ultimate living grounds," mentioned Rod as he took command of the Tripit, for usually someone would argue with him just for the sake of arguing because it was so boring just zooming around the solar system running errands. But this time no one could put up an argument, it was a true wonder.

Worth $8 nonillion ($8,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000), Nova was 15km in diameter and was a true biggy of the space age, people working in space and living in space.

"Tripit 53 to Nova Security Control, requestion boarding permission," inquired Buck.

"Permission given Tripit 53, enter on port side, spin rate to 8 kmps, over."

"Righto Dan bring spin rate to 8 kmps," said Buck...

"Ok, spin rate on 8 kmps," I said.

"Bring her in Rod," said Buck.

Lights circled and directed us into Nova.

A sliding noise filled our ears as I thought about my retirement because I'd finished my ten year's service and now I could settle down with my wife and kids on Nova. I'd probably get a part-time job and if I was lucky I'd get a job in Nova Security Control (NSC). You got good money there and I'd be made for life.

Clunk. "Give pass beacon."

"Dan, give the pass beacon," ordered Buck. This was to make sure that you were not spies from the Russian space city Orsk.

"Permission given, you may enter Nova."

"Righto everyone out, I'm taking this to be unloaded," said Buck.

I wandered out, the bright lights flooded the room as I went to the elevator and tried to work it. It took me a while to get it going, but after a while I was on my way.

The family was glad to see me at home and we threw a party. In the next month or so I made gardens, did house extensions, got a new car etc. Life became boring, nothing ever went wrong and I never did much work. Slept till 10 am and watched VD (visual data) and wandered round town etc. Life was losing meaning. I had to have something to keep me occupied.

That same week Buck came over. He knew about he conditions. Buck had a brainwave. He and I would apply as NSCOA's (Nova Security Control Operational Agents).

Chapter 2

Buck arrived at 7 am in his ancient 1995 Pontiac Firebird SE. I wished farewell and ran down the driveway (with frost biting my nose), and jumped in. It was nice and warm in the car. As the car started Buck and I started to converse.

"Dan I booked us in for 7.10 am, if we make it we're operation agents. And if we fail we becomes zombies and watch VD all day or go back to work making 3 day - 6 month errands and arguing all day and become zombies again."

"S'pose so but we can only give it our best shot. By the way how long is the test?" I asked.

"I'd heard rumours that it was two weeks, 24 hours a day," Buck said...

"That gives me an idea," I said.

The Buck interrupted, "Here we are, we'd best hurry so we're not late."

I jumped out, the frost got me but not so severe this time as it was 7.09 and had warmed up a bit. We locked up and walked into the big entrance, up the steps and went to the desk, while Buck rummaged through some pamphlet disks found one and put it in the pamphlet disk computer.

"Excuse me but we made an appointment for 7.10 am to see My Phillips," I said. The receptionist flicked through some pages and said "Buck and Dan, 7.10 to see Mr Phillips, elevator 5, top and first on the right, Ok?"

"Yep, come on Buck," I said.

Mr Phillip's office was not far from the reception, only 20 seconds walk. On the way we started feeling uneasy because heavily armed guards (20 or so) all had shiny laser reflecting suits and helmets with visors. They were like robots. Standing rock still or marching exactly in time, quite amazing.

"Here we are, Mr Phillips office," said Buck.

"Place finger on blue panel,"came a voice.

"Who's that," I said.

"Place finger on blue panel," came the voice again.

"I think we'd better, I wouldn't like to see those guards in a grump," Buck said.

First I placed my finger on the blue panel and then came a voice.

"Now the other person," Buck did as he was told. Then doors shut all around us and a door in front opened. The walls were mirrors (probably to reflect lasers) and it was hard walking down the passage, not only because of that but there were four video cameras on each side with guns.

"Dan," Buck said in a shaky voice, "the operator said that I'd be in for my fair share of excitement but this isn't anything like what I expected, Gulp."

At the end of this was another blue panel. "Place finger on blue panel."

This time we reacted much faster. A second or two later the door opened and we walked into a room just like a normal office but with two silver guards with laser guns. The man at the desk started to talk.

"Sit down Dan and Buck," he said, and we did so. "I am My Phillips, head of Nova Security Control Operational Agents, in other words the Secret Service. My real name is not given because of security reasons. I have pleasure in announcing you operational agents."

Buck and I were quite taken back. "But what about the enormous exams and tests etc?" Buck enquired.

"Simple, you passed the exams," said My Phillips.

"When?" I questioned.

"Well, let me see... you started 10 minutes after Buck rang up. It was that lady estimating your car value. She bugged the house and car when she went for a test drive," said Mr Phillips.

"The means that when you estimated my car and I sold it I probably sold it cheap and lost money," I said.

"In this business you can't have things go wrong," explained My Phillips. "When our agent took it for a test drive she stopped at a professional and had it estimated then drove the car back."

After a lecture on what we do etc, he gave us our first assignment. It was nothing much, just to go to someone's place and pick up a box and bring it to My Phillips safely, sounds easy, but is it?

"So the box has floppy disks containing all the artificial weather and how it works and the access code, so guard it with your life," said Mr Phillips. "You may leave now unless you have any questions."

"No," Buck and I said. Then we left through the mirror passage and down the hall then down the elevator and back out to the car.

"How about that!" I said as we hopped back into the car. It shook me a bit being operational agents for Nova Security Control.

A minute or so later I was back home. I said goodbye to Buck and tomorrow at 7.30 a.m. I'd be at his place.

Chapter 3

Next morning took its time coming but I knew it had to come, and anyway we were only delivering floppy disks. I had in my mind that it was so special, I just couldn't get it out of my mind.

Next morning I walked across to Buck's. "Hi Dan," Back greeted me.

"Hi," I said back.

"We've got escorts," said Buck. "A very expensive silver car with guards and escorts."

"Don't think we'll be using my car Dan," said Buck.

We walked to the car and were saluted then we had our fingerprints taken on another blue panel.

"Buck and Dan, you may enter the car," said the guard. We hopped in.

"Orders have been given to take you to Weather Control, pick up something and then deliver it to NSC, is that correct," said the driver.

"Yes," I said. I sat forward and had to hold on to the front seat as I watched the digital speedo shoot to 100 km in about 5 seconds.

Not much talk went around as we sped down the highway. When we got to the Weather Control Centre the driver started to talk again.

"The box is awaiting you."

We hopped out of the car and were handed the box containing the disks. Buck checked them and saluted the man who departed. Then we sped off in the car. Next stop was NSC.

We parked outside NSC and hopped outside, followed by 6 guards. We walked into the entrance up the elevator along the hall, down the mirror passage and had our finger prints taken. We entered the room and sat down.

"We have picked up these disks and brought them here, is that all?" I said.

"No," Mr Phillips said, "Now here is your choice, this is the point where you opt out, or continue past the point of no return. You have a fortnight to think about it."

Chapter 4

In that two weeks Buck and I did a lot of thinking, and the next fortnight we came back to Mr Phillips. We'd both decided yes.

In the next 4 months we trained and trained, laser gun shooting, fighter jet flying etc. We were also taught all about Nova and Orsk and how they worked, we were also taught about the KGB, everything about it, and NOSC. We were both given new cars (like the ones we delivered the disks in). We also were also given special belts with bleepers so that if we were needed we could be contacted and told where to go. After that we were real secret agents.

Due to high security needs we were forced to, well not forced but it became dangerous living in our houses, so we had to move. My wife and kids were not happy about moving until I said the place would be Presidential Avenue and Buck and his wife Margo would be living next door. Presidential Avenue was a very high class area.

Nothing much happened after that for a month or so. We made 3 or 4 visits to Mr Phillips until one day...

Bleep, bleep came a noise from our belts.

"I think we're in for it this time", I whispered. We bent over and listened to the belt communicator.

"Don't move, the three men standing at the door are KGB agents. You have to capture them now before they disappear. It's up to you. Over and out."

All was silent, I turned around and looked at Buck.

"Don't look at me," whispered Buck... "Look the easiest way is to count to 3 and swing around and fire, Ok. 1, 2," said Buck.

"Surely you can come up with a better idea than that," I said.

"Ok Mr Brilliant, what is your suggestion?" said Buck.

"1, 2," I started to count...

"3" we said.

We swung around and fired. Pieces of wood and other things flew up all around the three Russians. One cried out in pain and fell. As the other two fled outside they removed two laser pistols from a bag and jumped in an awaiting car and with a squealing of wheels they left.

We ran (knocking over tables as we went) to the door and raced off in my car. My thoughts were about my wife and kids still sitting in the lunch bar, as we sped off after the Russians.

Buck was already confirming with NSC about the Russian we picked off, the word came through that he was Ok and being taken to NSC for questioning. Meanwhile I'd just been through two red lights and over a lawn and through a crossing and almost hit a hundred or so cars. If this kept up I'd be banned off the road for life!

It was no use shooting laser guns because their car was silver and would reflect laser beams. "Dan the space port has been booby trapped, as long as we keep them going this way they'll end up at the space port. There's one turn off about 1 km up the road, you have to stop them from turning off," said Buck.

The sound of the wind had now grown because we were doing 163 kph.

The turn off appeared and the Russians started to turn. Buck yelled, "Cross the road island." The wheels ripped up grass as we slid across the road island. Immediately the Russian car did a 130 kph power slide back over the road island. We followed it back over nearly coming off the road. "Crazy," Buck murmured to himself.

The space port came into sight, with the monstrous gates. "Buck the gate are opening, when the car is in there he's trapped," I said to myself. Both us and the Russian's car flew through the entrance, quickly the gates locked and immediately soldiers emerged like from nowhere. The Russian's car slid into the front door, the front of the car made its way through the glass door.

Heavy sounding Russian words came from somewhere and the two Russians emerged from inside the car. Quickly 10 or so soldier rushed up and seized the two men and started checking the car.

About five minutes later a group of escorts with some vans and a truck came to the scene and collected the car and the Russians, then left. As everyone was leaving an officer walked over and started to talk.

"T'was a good job you did of that and Mr Phillips will be pleased. Mr Phillips want to see you tomorrow at 10.00 am Ok?" said the officer.

We said goodbye and then drove back to the lunch bar.

Chapter 5

Next day a 10.00 we were at Mr Phillip's office. "May I congratulate you on that mission, you did well. But about the driving, it was excellent though you broke every rule in the book. The traffic inspector started to chase you but within 1 minute he'd lost you and contacted me and told me. I told him why and NSC only had to pay damaged of $100," said Mr Phillips.

Bells started ringing and a voice came out. "Draco City, Dowing Street," came the voice.

"Quickly, to the heli pad," said Mr Phillips. We followed him through a door and a rush a wind blew back my hair. We bent over and we walked into the chopper.

When we were in the chopper the rotors accelerated till I thought if they went any faster they'd rip off. We were forced back into the sear as we shot up out between the buildings, leaving Mr Phillips far below. The sun lit up our faces. I put my hand in front of my face so that I could see out the side. Under me was a mass of buildings only being cut by roads and with the morning light casting shadows off them.

We swooped down and on to Lake Nova at the edge of the building mass. The water flittered as we shot over the man made lake. The main land came under us. We started to slow down and a road came into view. The pilot lowered the helicopter down onto the road. We hopped out and the helicopter left.

An officer walked up. "The man in the red car over there is a Russian. He as a hostage so we can't take him. He says that he'll kill the hostage and himself if we don't set him free. When he's free he'll let the hostage go. What do we do?".

Buck and I discussed this problem for a while and decided what to do.

Buck approached the officer and squad and said, "Dan and I have decided not to play up or push him because that might endanger the life of the hostage, just go along with him, Ok. Escort him to the space station."

The procession began at a slow pace, 30 kph. Though tension was high nothing much happened. In an hour we stopped a the space station.

I became alert again and hopped out of the car. Buck followed me. We stood still and watched. A Russian with hostage climbed out of the red car. "It's Ok so far," Buck murmured to himself. We followed the Russian into the space port, the Russian had a laser gun pointed at her head.

We slowly moved to the outlet. He jumped through the door into a space ship and pushed the hostage out and shot off. We could not stop the Russian by closing the outside door because of the danger of him wrecking the outer layers of Nova.

Chapter 6.

Next day at NSC.

"There are too many Russian coming in and out of Nova, they might be planning and attack, we don't know," said My Phillips. "To counter balance their threat we want you to plant a bomb in Orsk. You'll have to improve your Russian so it is very fluent. Your course has been arranged, your teacher will be Mrs Dempsey.

Mrs Dempsey proved to be a nice person but got a bit grumpy when we didn't do our homework. Lessons went from 9 am to 12 pm and for two months.

First we started with a few easy words like ga, syn, r, brat, banan, which mean I, son, in, steel or brother, banana, though are written much differently. (Note: The original had hand written Russian characters at this point) We advanced more until we could speak Russian fluently.

We had Russian passports forged and cover Russian names, Schyot and Dya. Our cover jobs were as space errands, we would be bringing lunar dirt to Orsk (like my old job) apart from I would be in command instead of Buck and Buck didn't like it.

Chapter 7

Next day we were at the space port and starting to go through Customs. At the counter I brushed my thumb across my watch and then took my watch off and put it in my right pocket. This was the signal to say that we were NSC agents and to clear anything that we had.

After this we went up a lift to the farewell station where our Tripit was awaiting. Above the door into the shop was a luminous sign that said `two man flight from Nova to lunar base 2, flight No. 470321'.

Buck check the flight number and then put our cards in the slot. The screen said `clearance given' and the door opened. The stuff had been packed already and we were ready to leave.

I sat down at the helm and Buck sat at the co-pilot's seat. I enquired to space port control for permission to leave.

"Permission given to leave, go to 25% throttle... lock air vent... release brake," said the voice. I responded to the commandments. Lights surrounded us and directed us out of Nova. The speed of the lights sped up, all of a sudden Nova disappeared from in front of us and we were in space.

I went to full throttle and started to play Advanced 3D Stratis O'Limbus. Buck said he was tired and went to sleep. An hour later we had lunch which was Big Macs. The traditional American lunch. This reminded me of a news item which said that a new Ronald Snack came out and was described as to have enough artificial additives and preservatives to kill an elephant!

After lunch the Moon Base came into sight. We could see tiny specks on the edge of a crater. As we got closer I could see space men and buildings everywhere.

I hovered over the pad for a few seconds and then started to descend very slowly (about a decametre a minute), and on to the pad. An airtight door shot out of a building and locked itself on to our hatch and the door opened.

We wandered out wobbling a bit because of the weight of our suitcases etc. We went to the lift and to the departure floor. On this floor our change man was awaiting us.

We walked up to him and said "Hi." He turned around and look at my face for a second.

"Yes," he said. "Your ship is Russian and you will fly to Orsk. Here are your Russian passports and can I have you American passports".

We gave him our American passports and he said "Bleezha Moock" and we replied, "V."

We boarded the Russian ship and had a good look at things but no need to worry everything was like the one we practised on at Nova. There were some differences like layout but the controls were basically the same as Tripits.

I sat down with Buck as co-pilot, same as before. I pressed the (Note: Russian script was here) button and the door locked, the latch on the door slid back into the moon base and the ship started to rise. "Wow," I exclaimed, "Just how I have been told. I don't know why Nova doesn't get some of these."

By now we were above the moon base and stopped to hover for a second. The screen flashed `Are you ready to go to full power?' (in Russian). Buck said "Sure am," as he switched on to full power.

The ride took 4 1/2 hours and was smooth from take off. I missed the Stratis O'Limbus game though found another game on board the Russian ship and it, well I can't say whether it was good or bad because I never got it going!

The Russian space city Orsk came into sight as a kind of spinning bike tyre and the entry was where the tread would be. I requested permission to land, "Ya kasmanavt a-eraport samalgot."

"Pabyedeet, Ya mator masla un bataryeya neezhny, peelot," came the voice (Yes, your motor oil and battery low, pilot.)

I flew in line with the landing inlet then right inside. The runners gave a small jolt as they caught up with the runner track.

"Myelyenna masheena," came a voice (breaking now). I could feel my momentum pulling me forward though I had no trouble staying on my feet.

Chapter 8

Within a minute we'd stopped and the digital speedo read 000,000,000. Our hatch slid open and we went out to customs taking our luggage. The door closed behind us as we lined up to customs. In about 30 second we were at the front of the line. "Ksak stodnn vs skashkee?" (Do you have anything to declare?), she said. No, we replied in Russian.

Now a Russian soldier came into sight. He looked much the same as American soldiers though had a different helmet and gun and also had a red badge on this shoulder and helmet. He watched us as our bags were searched and we went through the metal detector. We walked out of the space port, caught a taxi and soon arrived at our hotel.

At our hotel we got our keys for room 1313. Buck thought it was a bad number, though it was one of my best numbers. We paid for our one night's stay in cash (roubles) then took our luggage to our room. There we had some refreshments and a rest.

At 7.30 we got ready to go to the restaurant where we would meet out contact. "Hey um Dan... opps," Buck's eyes turned towards the roof. He started speaking again - this time in Russian. It was to tell me it was time to go.

We arrived at the restaurant just in time to see Cordush (our contact) arrive.

"Bleezka" we greeted each other. "Lyevy," I said as I showed Cordush the way in to the dinner room. We sat down at the table and a waiter arrived on the scene. The waiter asked if we were ready to eat or wished to converse first. We said we wanted tea at 8.00, in quarter of an hour.

"Ok Dan and Buck, here's your instructions. You will send your briefcase to Magadan from Orsk City, the address is 87 Soodya St. In your briefcase will be Buck's shoelaces - Ok?" Cordush said quietly in Russian.

"Why my show laces?" said Buck.

"Because your shoe laces are the explosive for the bomb we will make to plant here on Orsk to counter balance any Russian threat to Nova," replied Cordush.

The waiter arrived at our table. "I believe it is time for your meal, or do you want to keep talking?".

"We are ready to eat," said Buck.

"Ok" said the waiter. "What will you have?"

Buck, Cordush and I decided upon veeno, tooshyenoyenoye (wine and fondue) for a main meal and voosh salat (fruit salad) for dessert. It was delicious.

Afterwards Buck and I went back to our room and had a night's sleep. The next day we would post the briefcase.

Chapter 9

Next morning at 10.00 am we had packed up and were outside the hotel. Buck had to wear different shoes because his explosive laces were in the briefcase and the laces he had been given as a replacement were white and his shoes were black - it looked a bit awkward.

We caught a bus to the mail office. There we checked that the laces were in the briefcase and locked it up. Then we stamped it and had it mailed to 87 Soodya St, Magadan.

We caught the bus to the space port. The route seemed to be different but we got to the space port, I think we were getting nervous.

We hopped off the bus and went into the space port, trying to look as normal as possible.

The first counter came into sight and a lady was their. "Flight No?" she asked.

"230508," I told her in Russian.

She typed in our numbers on a compute and tapped her finger on the table as I saw "Searching" flashing on the screen, then a beep and "Gate 217". She told us our gate number and stamped No.1 on our cards, we progressed onward.

Before we go to the last desk we walked through some metal detectors and that proved negative. We had No. 2 stamped an went to No. 3, the last one.

At the last desk we had our bags searched. When the lady came to Buck's shoes she frowned and looked them for a second or two then shrugged and stamped No. 3.

Then we went to gate 217 where a man checked that we had stamps 1, 2 and 3. The man glanced at our card and said Ok and opened our gate.

Buck walked into the ship carrying his bag. As I bent over to pick up my bag I caught sight of the Russian spy that had escaped from Nova, I don't know if he saw me but with a thumping heart I quickly jumped inside and closed the door.

A few minutes later we were out of the Orsk and bound for Nova instead of the moon where we were supposed to go, according to our ticket.

"Phew," Buck said in English. "Glad to be out of that dump. At last I can speak my own language and not be in fear of being caught."

I felt the same, what a relief.

Two week's later we were at Mr Phillips office. "Thank you for your assistance. Unfortunately, I cannot give you any more information about the mission because of security reasons," said Mr Phillips.

Chapter 10

Buck and I continued to work for NSC though we did not go back to Orsk because we would probably have been recognised.

Years later, Mr Phillips retired and Buck and I took his place, they need two people now and the organisation had grown, even though by those days Russia and America were better friends.

One day I was look through old files and found our mission to Orsk. I called Buck and we looked through it. It explained our mission in more detail than security had allowed us to know before.

NSC had been worried about he number of Russian agents coming into Nova. NSC never did find out why they were coming by decided to send 7 agents into Orsk thinking they were part of an operation to plant a bomb. The whole operation was a fake to make the Russians suspicious so if NSC ever needed to they could fool Russia into thinking that an unexploded bomb had been planted by NSC on Orsk.

We put away the file and silently meandered into the hall.

"Bloody ridiculous," Buck though aloud. "Shoelaces have worried me to death since then, all for nothing."

After a minute or two of silence he blurted out again "Suppose it gave us a job and income and excitement."

I thought about what Buck said for a long time. Cold wars have supported millions of people for centuries.

Scorpio

Sun, 13 Aug 2006 14:31:03 GMT

A story I wrote in about 1982. I was a bit scientifically confused, but hey, I was 9...

Chapter 1

Coming to with the alarm clock blowing my ears out is bad enough but, what a terrible night that was. There was something wrong with the nuclear reactor for sure.

While floating past the computer I typed “Nuclear Reactor.” Out came the same problem as last time. “Oh well,” I murmured “can’t solve problems on an empty stomach.”

I jumped into the AG tube and gave one good blow with my feet and was sent down the AG tube so fast that lights on walls were just a blur. The AG (Anti Gravity) tube was one of the exhilarating things on board the Scorpio (our ship). It was fast and good fun. One good blow with your feet sent you hurtling down the tube like a bullet. Everybody travelled down the AG tube whether for pleasure or for convenience.

Within 30 seconds I was out of the AG tube and in the dining room.

Chpater 2

The dining room was not crowded because I was late. I walked to the counter and asked for “A down to earth breakfast” instead of that dehydrated rubbish. The man said “We’ll be out of rations in two months, they only gave us 5 years of rations.”

I stumbled to my seat and sat down. He was right, we had been in space for almost 5 years. Because of a mineral (Jesus) we were searching the fields of space. This mineral was called Jesus because it was going to save the world from nuclear waste and Jesus means saviour. The mineral Jesus had the power to neutralise nuclear waste.

This mineral had 4 times the normal gravitational pull of matter. On our charts on earth we had recorded immense gravitational pull round the area we are located at now. A small metorite was found on earth which contained this mineral and our role was to find the source of this mineral Jesus.

When we left Earth we were given 11 years rations, 5 to get there and 5 to get back with a year’s extra in case we ran into trouble. In two months time our first five years would be up and we would have to turn round and travel back home. So far we have been unsuccessful and with only two months left chances ran high that we won’t find it.

Chapter 3

After all this down to earth business I decided to walk to work because I felt like a “down to earth morning.” As I am walking along I can hear the slight buzzing sound of the people whizzing past me in the AG tube. After 1 km I reckon I’ve done enough walking so I jump into the AG tube and whiz off to work.

As I enter work I see Jim and ask “What have you come up with?” Jim says “The computer come up with 3 things, the nuclear explosions in port engines 1, 2 and 3 are working but the starboard engines 1, 2 and 3 are not functioning. Therefore there is no power generated on that side which makes us spin.” “Thanks Jim” I said. “Darby” says Jim. “Yes” I say. “By the way because there is no power on starboard you will have to work off port’s power, and when you get it fixed take the spin off this ship.” “Bye” I say. I get the computer to take samples of how the explosions are taking place on starboard and port. I find out to my surprise that on starboard the mineral Jesus has leaked into the starboard engines and neutralised the engines.

I check for leaks and then get the computer to fix them by remelting down the spots.

The computer finds that the mineral Jesus, because of it’s four time matter gravitational pull, it had pulled itself into the ship. Because the ship is spinning the ship created its own centrifugal force so therefore instead of the ship being pulled to Jesus, Jesus was pulled to it.

We must be in the right place to find the mineral Jesus!

Chapter 4

The next day Scorpio’s engines are functioning but before we put them back into action we notice that the outside of the ship is becoming coated with a substance. I get the computer to analise what substance is coating out ship. Quickly the computer comes up with the answer Jesus mineral!!

I discuss this with Jim. We decided not to restart the starboard engines, but to keep the Scorpio spinning so that more Jesus mineral will stick to the ship. Perhaps we will be able to take the mineral back to earth stuck to the outside of the Scorpio.

After two days we take note that the build up had gradually come to a halt, so we figured out that we had got as much as we needed and as much as was out there. Apparently the build up was 0.5 metres.

Chapter 5

Sliding in the AG tube I hit my hand but that was not stopping me. I speed down the AG tube. All of a sudden I burst in to the captains room and said “Captain, as you know the ship is spinning, it is also bringing the mineral Jesus on our ship, coating it. We have collected up enough Jesus so we can head home.” “Great,” says the captain “but can we use the starboard engines or will taking the ship out of a spin release the Jesus mineral?”

“Yes we can take the ship out of a spin because the Jesus mineral has so much gravitational pull it is almost bonded to the Scorpio.”

“Well done Darby” said the captain. “I will give the order to head home.”

In five years we will be back on earth. It seems like a long time, but at least we have the ingredients to save the world!

Talking mirror

Fri, 21 Jul 2006 09:44:07 GMT

Ever wanted a talking mirror... just like the evil Queen in Snow White?

Now's your chance!

One minute it's a normal looking mirror...

...then out of nowhere fades in a talking head.

Watch the animation.

You can hook it up to things around your house like a camera on the front door to tell you when people are arriving etc.

I want one!

You can get them from Theme addicts.

Heat

Thu, 20 Jul 2006 22:33:02 GMT

The forecast for tomorrow is 36C (97F), about the same as today.

That would be no problem in, say, Texas. But here in Switzerland very few houses have air con., indeed even the public library doesn't.

So we just... cook.

Thankfully work has good air con.

My blog here has been a bit slow recently... I've been busy with other stuff, including posting more often to my research blog.

"Ubuntu Shock"

Sat, 15 Jul 2006 21:10:16 GMT

I'm having "Ubuntu Shock".

I had a file I wanted printed and saw a printer sitting here under a desk. So I turned it on, plugged it into my laptop's USB port and selected "install new printer" from the system admin menu. Ubuntu told me it could see an HP 950 printer and asked if I wanted to set it up as a local printer. I glanced over, and sure enough the printer had HP 950 written on the front. So I clicked "yes". Back to Adobe acrobat and click print and... out comes the paper.

*gasp*

Earlier today my girlfriend brought an MP3 player. I plugged it into my laptop and, just like magic, up popped a little icon of an MP3 player on my desktop. Simple as that.

*gasp*

I'm sure Linux is not supposed to be this easy. At this rate I'm going to have to start using GNU Hurd in order to get my nerd cred back.

Nobody tell the Christians....

Mon, 10 Jul 2006 21:03:56 GMT

... but there is experimental evidence suggesting that the earth really could be at the centre of the universe.

From this article:

...when you look at CMB map, you also see that the structure that is observed, is in fact, in a weird way, correlated with the plane of the earth around the sun. Is this Copernicus coming back to haunt us? That's crazy. We're looking out at the whole universe. There's no way there should be a correlation of structure with our motion of the earth around the sun — the plane of the earth around the sun — the ecliptic. That would say we are truly the center of the universe.

Music for free?!? That's criminal!

Fri, 02 Jun 2006 09:57:46 GMT

Remember my recent post about The Piano Society where you can legally get free mp3's of classical music? The idea is that pianists want to advertise themselves and so they put some of their performances online for free download.

Unfortunately, Swedish police worked out that a lot of mp3s where coming from these web servers and nobody seemed to be paying for anything. So they shut the site down. From the website:

Piano Society is temporarily off line.

The reason is that the swedish police by mistake took the Piano Society server in their attempt to catch possible illegal activity at http://thepiratebay.org/

Our server just happend to be hosted by the same co-location company and has of course no connection to the Pirat Bay. The swedish police admit their mistake and we are working for a solution and hope to have the site up at latest on sunday.

Sorry for the inconveniance.

It reminds me of a story about Redhat Linux in the UK being contacted by police and informed that somebody had been caught making copies of Redhat Linux. It took 20 minutes to convince the police that no only did Redhat not care, they actually encouraged people to make free copies.

The idea that you can legally get music or software for free clearly has some people very confused.

Brussels, Belgium

Sun, 21 May 2006 12:57:47 GMT

If we think of the political system in the US, images of the White House and the Capital Building come to mind. If we think of the political system in the UK, we can imagine 10 Downing Street or the Houses of Parliament at Westminster. But what about the EU Parliament? This is a building at the heart of a 25 nation union of some of the most wealthy countries on earth with a total population about to exceed half a billion people. But has anybody ever seen the EU Parliament? Or even a picture of it? I never had, and so while I was in Brussels I decided to find out what it looked like.

After getting a city map and hunting for a minute I located the EU Parliament, about 3 km from where I was staying. So off I went. After about half an hour walk finally I found it.

I present, the European Union Parliament:

Or from down the street,

I was expecting something a bit more classical old school European, but that was clearly all steel and glass. I think one reason why it's not well known is that it's hard to find a good place to get a picture of the building. It's really just one huge building connected to a mass of other equally huge buildings with no clear vantage point for taking photos.

One strange thing about the place was that you could really just walk up to the building and look in through the glass. I was expecting a place this important to have at least a 50 metre zone around it where you couldn't enter without going through a security check.

Even stranger was when I walked around the back. What do you expect to see behind the EU parliament... why, a small brick house of course!

I could see tables and chairs in the house, it looked like somebody may have actually lived there. How odd.

Gent, Belgium

Sat, 20 May 2006 23:53:23 GMT

The machine learning conference in Gent, Belgium went well. The speaker before me finished 5 minutes early and I was the last talk of the day... so I made the most of it and talked for 35 minutes followed by 10 minutes of question time. As my presentation topic was seriously radical and ambitious, I was proposing a universal mathematical definition of intelligence, I thought there might be some really tough questions during question time. It turned out that I could easily answer the questions, and indeed one question was perfect because what he asked about was what I presented a paper on the week before at the Gödel symposium in Vienna. I couldn't have planned it better! My supervisor thought it was a "great presentation" and the next day I had people commenting on how confident and passionate I was while talking about my research.

For those who are interested:
talk slides
poster
paper

As for Gent... well it was rather pretty actually with lots of old buildings, bridges and canals. Some of the views could have been oil paintings:

After the social dinner I headed out to a salsa bar with some of the other students. On the way I found this mysterious looking building all beautifully lit up:

Free Music

Wed, 17 May 2006 14:20:09 GMT

I'm back from Belgium, had a great time, will post pictures etc. in a few days.

One thing that bothers me at work is noise, specifically people talking for hours and hours and hours on end in the room I work in. It's not their fault, the problem is that I work in an office with 5 other people. My ideal office would be a bunker with a two foot thick steel door that I could lock so that I could have silence to really think hard. As it is, most of my best work is actually done at home rather than work because I can't think properly at work.

Anyway, one way to counter this problem is to listen to music while I work. I actually don't like listening to music while I work, but it's better than listening to people talking. Classical music I find the best.. but where to get it? Lots of it? For free?

The Piano Society

Just click on the composers link on the side of the page and then you can download the mp3s. There's music by about 50 different classical composers, perhaps 400 tracks in total.

Brno and Vienna

Sat, 06 May 2006 13:32:00 GMT

Brno, Czech Republic

The first day of the conference was a trip to birth place of Kurt Gödel, Brno in the Czech Republic. The weather was great and I spent the day talking to well known cosmologist Prof. Wolfgang Rindler about all kinds of things. The ambiance in Czech Republic was still as magical as ever. If the European fairy tales my mother read to me as a child ever took place, it was surely in the Czech Republic.

Apfelstrudel

I'd always thought that apple strudel was a second rate desert, not in the league of, say, tiramisù. However some years ago while traveling through Austria I decided to try the Apple strudel knowing that it was a local specialty. That experience changed my idea of apple strudel for life. Since then I have tried apple strudel in many other places, including of course Germany and German speaking Switzerland. Sadly the strudel never lived up to what I'd tasted in Austria.

Naturally on my return to Austria I had to try the Apfelstrudel to see if it was as good as I remember. It was. I am forced to conclude that only Austrians known how to really make apple strudel.

The Mozart effect

If I have one piece of advice to Austria it's that they need to get over one of their historical figures — Mozart. Yeah, he was a great composer and all, but really, do you need to name everything in the country after him? There are Mozart cakes, Mozart chocolates, Mozart streets, Mozart squares, Mozart crystal, Mozart cutlery, Mozart wines, Mozart beers, Mozart restaurants, Mozart knödel, Mozart sausages... and on and on and on it goes. I wouldn't be surprised if they decided to simply rename the country Mozartland. I have to wonder if their efforts to associate Mozart with anything and everything Austrian is in part driven by a desire to distance their association with their most famous son.

Vienna

Perhaps the most impressive thing about Vienna is the architecture. Europe has plenty of cities full of beautiful buildings, but it's hard to think of many that can compare to Vienna. I think Paris is the only one. I took a few photos but seeing bits of individual buildings can't hope to capture the panorama of monuments, gardens and buildings that you take in as you stroll the city. You'll just have to see if for yourself some day.

Conference

I have little to say about the conference itself. There was an illustrious collection of professors who had Knighthoods, Fields Medals and countless other awards. However I didn't find most of the lectures or debates very interesting. I wanted to see something fresh and exciting, but instead things either trod well worn paths, were about very specialised and technical areas of mathematics that don't interest me much, or were about vague philosophical issues that, however deep, cannot in my opinion be productively treated with equally vague arguments. I think Gödel was right when he said that philosophy is in the same state as mathematics was in during the Babylonian times.

I think things are going to change however. Why philosophise about the meaning of "meaning" when at some point in the future, and I believe the relatively near future, we will understand how information is stored, manipulated and utilised by the brain? It would be like philosophically investigating the nature of heat after the notion has already been fully characterized in terms of atomic physics.

For similar reasons I think that mathematics has almost reached its high water mark in terms of human development. With a deep understanding of human intelligence will come super human machine intelligence and thus, to paraphrase Vernor Vinge, the human era of mathematics will end. Machines will see deeper than us, broader than us, and will not make our mistakes.

Perhaps the highlight of the conference for me was spending ten minutes explaining my proof about the relationship between complexity, intelligence and Gödel incompleteness to the famous physicist Sir. Roger Penrose. He seemed to understand the key points in my proofs and took a copy of my paper to read later.

I'll leave you with a picture of me talking to the quantum cryptographer Sven Ramelov at a Viennese night club,

In a few days I leave for a machine learning conference in Belgium. Ciao!

Vienna calling

Tue, 25 Apr 2006 10:10:01 GMT

I'm out of here for a week to go to a mathematics conference in Vienna celebrating the life of Kurt Gödel. Quite a number of famous mathematicians will be present, so it will be interesting to see what they say about my work on the relationship between Gödel incompleteness, complexity theory and artificial intelligence. Roger Penrose will be there so maybe I'll get to talk to him if he checks out the posters. Thanks to everyone for the poster suggestions!

I'm also making a small trip to the Czech Republic which should be cool. It will be interesting to see how it has changed in the last five years.

Addio!

Prime suspect

Mon, 17 Apr 2006 17:16:22 GMT

The following prime number is against the law:

49,310,835,970,285,019,002,757,776,723,907,649,572,849,077,721,502,
086,320,807,501,840,979,262,788,509,765,886,455,780,201,366,007,328,
679,544,734,112,831,735,367,831,201,557,535,981,978,545,054,811,571,
939,345,877,330,038,009,932,619,505,876,452,502,382,040,811,018,988,
504,261,517,657,994,170,425,088,903,702,911,901,587,003,047,943,282,
607,382,146,954,157,033,022,798,755,768,189,560,162,403,006,411,151,
690,087,287,983,819,425,827,167,456,477,481,668,434,792,846,458,092,
913,153,186,007,001,004,335,318,936,319,343,912,948,604,450,370,991,
980,047,709,462,921,558,180,711,169,153,031,876,288,477,878,354,157,
593,289,109,329,544,735,088,188,246,549,506,000,501,900,627,470,530,
538,116,427,829,426,747,485,349,652,574,536,815,117,065,502,819,055,
526,562,213,531,463,104,210,086,628,679,711,444,670,636,692,198,258,
615,811,125,155,565,048,134,207,686,732,340,765,505,485,910,826,956,
266,693,066,236,799,702,104,812,396,562,518,006,818,323,653,959,348,
395,675,357,557,532,461,902,348,106,470,098,775,302,795,618,689,292,
538,069,330,520,423,814,996,994,545,694,577,413,833,568,990,600,587,
083,218,127,048,611,336,820,265,159,051,663,518,740,290,181,976,939,
376,778,529,287,221,095,504,129,257,925,738,186,605,845,015,055,250,
274,994,771,883,129,310,457,698,090,915,304,613,359,419,030,258,813,
205,932,277,444,385,255,046,677,902,451,869,706,262,778,889,197,958,
042,306,575,061,566,983,469,561,779,787,965,920,164,405,193,996,071,
698,111,261,519,561,027,628,323,398,257,914,233,217,269,614,437,443,
810,564,855,293,488,763,492,103,098,870,287,874,532,331,325,321,226,
786,332,837,027,925,099,749,969,488,775,936,915,917,644,588,032,718,
384,740,235,933,020,374,888,506,755,706,587,919,461,134,193,230,781,
485,443,645,437,511,320,709,860,639,074,641,756,412,163,504,238,800,
296,780,855,867,037,038,750,941,076,982,118,376,549,920,520,436,825,
585,464,228,850,242,996,332,268,536,912,464,855,000,755,916,640,247,
292,407,164,507,253,196,744,999,529,448,434,741,902,107,729,606,820,
558,130,923,626,837,987,951,966,199,798,285,525,887,161,096,136,561,
780,745,661,592,488,660,889,816,456,854,172,136,292,084,665,627,913,
147,846,679,155,096,515,431,011,353,858,620,819,687,583,688,359,557,
789,391,454,539,356,819,960,988,085,404,765,907,358,972,898,983,425,
047,128,918,416,265,878,968,218,538,087,956,279,039,978,629,449,397,
605,467,534,821,256,750,121,517,082,737,107,646,270,712,467,532,102,
483,678,159,400,087,505,452,543,537

The problem is that this particular prime could be interpreted as a computer program that would allow you to watch DVD movies without the proper rights. At least in the US that's a crime, and having tools that let you do that, such as the above prime number, is also against the law.

So kids remember, doing math at home is a nice hobby, but be careful that you don't break any laws. You wouldn't want to end up in jail as a serial math offender.