The Case of the Disappearing Microsoft Sites

Last week I found Messenger suddenly stopped working. And then discover that I could not access any Microsoft sites, including Microsoft, hotmail, msn, and windows update. The message was " the server at..... takes too long.."
Other sites were OK.

My first reaction was checking the firewall setting and turning it off, running anti-virus and then turning it off, and then uninstalling it. None worked.

Could there be a virus specifically targeting Microsoft sites? Not likely, it has never been heard of.

Searching the internet, someone mentioned adjusting the MTU (maximum transmission unit)value. I did, but no avail.

I connected using a dial-up provider, but it was so slow (and Microsoft pages didn't show up, but no error message) and the results were inconclusive.

The I found this software vrle (Visual Route Lite Edition), which is actually just a fancy version of tracert, with visual and color embellishments.
It showed that after about 13 hops, there were unknown sites, packets were lost and the trace could not be completed.

So I switched to a different DNS server, namely OpenDNS recommended in the ComputerWorld article "Fix your DNS problems" , and the missing sites were back to normal!

I am still rather mystified by the whole thing, and would like to hear from others who encountered the same problem.

Learning the Immune System by Playing a Game

The Federation of American Scientists (FAS) has released a computer game called Immune Attack.

ABCNews asks: Are Video Games the New Textbooks?
It is not the first time, that games have been tried in the educational field. I remember seeing a game called Atlantis, where the object is to learn to manage the many aspects of a country.
Some multi-player games are very good for teaching cooperation.


In the Immune Attack we take the role of a nanobot, which we must navigate through a 3D environment of blood vessels and connective tissue, to retrain non-functional immune cells. Along the way, we learn about white blood cells and infections, and immunology in general.

FAS stated the objectives of the games as:

Upon completion of Immune Attack, the student will be able to demonstrate understanding of:

• The role of macrophages and neutrophils in the immune system
• The process of transmigration of monocytes
• How the body uses chemical signals to find the site of infection
• How the body uses chemical markers to recognize enemies
• How macrophages “call” neutrophils for “backup”

I think this is a very exciting way to learn immunology. I expect there will be more games of this kind in the future.

The game can be downloaded for free, it is over 500M, and runs under Windows XP. If you don't want to download it, you can still have some idea of the game by watching videos of the game on the FAS site.

Revisiting Tit-For-Tat

Tit-For-Tat as a strategy was hailed in the Iterated Prisoner's Dilemma (IPD) tournament of Axelrod (see Wikipedia background) as showing that altruism can be a product of evolution (Games People Play and How Nice Guys Finish First):

"Axelrod discovered that when these encounters were repeated over a long period of time with many players, each with different strategies, greedy strategies tended to do very poorly in the long run while more altruistic strategies did better, as judged purely by self-interest. He used this to show a possible mechanism for the evolution of altruistic behavior from mechanisms that are initially purely selfish, by natural selection."

I return to this topic for two reasons.

The first is when I found the software SciLab, the closest thing to MatLab and free as in free beer. SciLab is not a clone of MatLab, but translation from MatLab is relatively easy (there is function mfile2sci in SciLab to do it). I used MatLab before, and I was glad to use open source SciLab.

So the first thing I did was translate the MatLab codes which I got from Iterated prisoner’s dilemma in MATLAB into SciLab and run the tournament.

SciLab is now, together with paper & pen and Microsoft Excel, my favourite tools for doing Mathematics. Sage and Mathematica, although very powerful, are not as handy.

The second reason is the problem of reconciling Tit-For-Tat with Buddhist views.
Tit-For-Tat is said to be nice, forgiving, non-envious, but it also retaliates. It is the last attribute retaliation which is questionable from the Buddhist standpoint.
Tit-For-Tat will never defect first, but it will punish opponent's defection.
The idea of punishment is not acceptable in Buddhism.

Closer examination makes it clear that in the IPD setup, no communication between the players is possible. Hence we can say that IPD is not a realistic model of human interaction.
If communication were possible, it would be used first to reason with the opponent, but then it would not be IPD.
Nevertheless, although IPD is not a realistic model, it does at least show the possibility of the evolution of altruism.

A similar conclusion is reached when reading the New Scientist article Religion is a product of evolution, software suggests.
While the conclusion that religion is an emergent mental artifact of our evolution is quite plausible, the model is simply too crude and unrealistic. Incidentally the software is written in SciLab: SciLab program to simulate the evolution of religion

Link: Blog entries on game theory

Against Doctrines

"Do not be idolatrous about or bound to any doctrine, theory, or ideology, even Buddhist ones. Buddhist systems of thought are guiding means; they are not absolute truth."

This is the first guideline of Thich Nhat Hanh's 14 guidelines of Engaged Buddhism.
I came across it in Dialogic.
The author Thivai Abhor is right that the guidelines are really guidelines and not commandments. When there is no doctrine, there is no extremism and there are no claims to absolute truth.
Buddhist systems of thoughts are guiding means. Everything else is experienced from practice. And when we don't know (e.g the answers to difficult metaphysics), we simply say we don't know, and keep our minds open. To believe then is simply to make a hypothesis, ready to be ejected if found wrong.

It is very refreshing to read Thich Nhat Hanh again, when there is so much extremism around.

Incense is Harmful to Health

After my last post, Forms of Devotion, where I mentioned the use of incense in rituals, I stumbled on an article from the Buddhist Channel, in which scientists reported health dangers of using incense.

"Like any cigarette smoke and wood smoke, incense smoke contains particulate matter, gas products (carbon monoxide, cardiodioxide, and sulfur dioxide) and other organic compounds (benzene, toluene, xylenes, aldehydes and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons) shown to harm human health. Incense burning produces over 4 times more particulate matter than cigarette smoke.

According to the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry, toluene can cause headaches, confusion, and memory loss. Xylenes can cause headaches, lack of muscle coordination, dizziness, confusion, and changes in one's sense of balance, irritation of the skin, eyes, nose, and throat; and difficulty in breathing.

Inhaling incense smoke may cause respiratory dysfunction, allergies, allergic contact dermatitis, growths and tumors, and genetic mutations.

As allergies and chemical sensitivities are on the rise, many yoga studios have looked for alternatives to incense and restrict the wearing of scent to class. Some safer alternatives include natural potpourri and fresh flowers."

Since use of incense is widespread particularly in Asia, we should spread the word about its hazards. The knowledge will hopefully lead people to abandon incense.

Forms of Devotion

This year, I couldn't attend the Vesak (Waisak) celebrations, so I went to the Atthami Visakka Puja instead. Atthami Visakkha means the eighth day after Vesak. Vesak is mostly a morning event, Atthami Visakkha is an evening event.

After the usual rituals, there was meditation, followed by a Dhamma talk.
People sit in rooms, terraces, and gardens under the trees and under the moon.
Everyone carried a candle, an incense, and a fragrant flower (Polianthes tuberose, see wiki and image below)
The chanting together of thousands of people was especially powerful.
On this occasion, the meditation was a short Metta Bhavana (Loving Kindness meditation). It went something (abbreviated) like this: May all beings, in all directions, visible or invisible, devas and other beings, may they be free from greed and attachments, may they be free from hate and anger, may they be free from ignorance and spiritual darkness, may they be free from suffering, and may they be blessed with happiness.
(Actually we start with ourselves first and then extend to others.)

In the Dhamma talk by Sri Paññavaro Mahathera, he said that there are many forms of devotion to Buddha.
The following are my own paraphrasing and examples, not Sri Paññavaro's.

One form could be day to day mindfulness of our thoughts, actions and feelings. The source of greed and hate are often pleasure and displeasure, hence we should be particularly mindful when we feel pleasure and displeasure. We could enjoy sitting in front of the computer all day, blogging, surfing, programming or game playing, that it became an attachment.
We were upset when we heard Sharon Stone's silly remark on karma.
But mindfulness should prevent us from getting angry, and we are no longer upset. Even better, mindfulness could prevent us from getting upset in the first place.

Mindfulness can be cultivated so that it is present most of the time.

Mindfulness in Buddhism is always connected to (it includes) clear comprehension, see e.g. Debugging mind viruses: Clear Comprehension, which is a little different from non-Buddhist mindfulness.

Sri Paññavaro went on to touch on environmental issues, everybody could contribute a little by not littering, not using our private cars at least once a day in a week, not leaving the lights on when not used, not connecting to the internet when not needed, not to cut down a tree without replacing it with another tree. All these are simple little things which anyone can do, and which will have a great effect if added up.

All the above examples are forms of devotion to the teachings of the Buddha.