( malware ) Beware of ViewPoint. It's a nasty piece of software

Really nasty piece of malware, I found today. ViewPoint.

It announces itself as a sort of upgrade for the "Microsoft Media Player". It almost fools me. Another day, with less sleep, and I probably would have installed it.

Now I DO have to discover how did it sneaked into one of my machines, in the first place. I am sure I download only programs I thing were reputable (perhaps a lapse of reason?) , I have 2 different anti-virus and 2 different firewall upstream my machines, and I do not go to suspect sites (except those how thrive in spelling mistakes of the addresses of popular sites) so, what went wrong?

Using google I found same information. It seems that the general opinion is that it comes with AIM (America on-line Instant Messenger). However I am quite sure I never install that software.

Some links:

http://www.spywareinfo.com/newsletter/archives/april-2003/2.php

http://scottmace.typepad.com/service_provider_blog/2004/09/viewpoint_aols_.html

chaos

This photo of "Aureum Chaos" (near "Valles Marineris") is my desktop picture now.

Taken from the "Mars Express", ( build and launched by the "European Space Agency") in orbit of Mars for more then a year

More details at:

http://www.marsdaily.com/news/marsexpress-05k.html/

the younger generation

“To Bristol for a recording of a programme for the younger generation (15 to 25-year-olds). What emerged was: 1, Great ignorance of Parliament and its work. 2, Cynicism about politicians and their sincerity. 3, Great gap between politicians and young people. 4, No inspiration of young people by politicians. 5, Healthy disregard of politicians’ conceit. 6, Dislike of party or intra-party squabbles except as entertainment. This is all very revealing and disquietening”.

"Tony Benn's diaries", October 23, 1954.

(web & internet & yahoo & spam) What I think about "360.yahoo", part 1

In the last 48 hours I received an invitation to "360.yahoo" (and now I have a few more invites, so if you want one, email me a line - gmail invites are also (yet) available -hundreds of).

Coming from Yahoo (very good web mail, calendar, addresses, files, search, news, etc ) I was curious.

So I am posting here, along several posts, what I think about 360.yahoo (http://360.yahoo.com).

********** part 1 **********

First a word of caution about the "Simple URL".

If you accept the simplest options you end up with a "simple url" of the form

"http://360.yahoo.com/sort_of_my_name"

and, AT THE SAME TIME, an email with the form

"sort_of_my_name@yahoo.com"

Soon the spam spiders are going to lean how to figure out your email address from your 360.yahoo links.

This can be avoided creating an alias, so your link will be something like

"http://360.yahoo.com/sort_of_my_alias"

(just send an email to

"sort_of_my_alias@yahoo.com"

only to be sure that that email does NOT exist)

However, as far as I can tell, we can not use alias in the "simple URL" blog link.

If I can not figure out a way to circumvent this problem with the blog I have to reach the conclusion that the 360,yahoo blog is only useful if you do not publish it's link, i.e., you give the links ONLY to friends.

(otas & tsumami & geophysics) A Minute with 61 seconds

How many seconds we have in a minute? 60, right? Well, not always :-) .

Since 1972, and for 22 times as today, a special minute was introduced, a minute with 61 seconds. The "extra" second it's called a "leap second".

This is needed to keep the most accurate clocks synchronized with Earth rotation.

The first leap second was introduced at the end of June the 30th, 1972. A correct clock should had shown, at the end of day, 23:59:58, 23:59:59, 23:59:60, 00:00:00 (July the 1st), 00:00:01

Negative "leap seconds", i.e. minutes with 59 seconds are also possible, if the speed of rotation increases enough, but no such leap seconds have ever been introduced.

His this important? Sometimes it is.

Unix (and others *nixes) operating systems use the numbers of seconds from seconds since the Epoch (usually 1970-01-01T00:00:00) for some tasks.

Unfortunately some Unix implementations take in account the "leap seconds". Others do not. So if we use Unix function to calculate time between dates, we can get different results, for the same input. That is not important for same application, but in geophysics, 22 seconds can be a long time (interval).

The problem is even a little more complex because before 1972 the corrections of time, due to irregularities of the earth rotation, were made with, "had hoc", micro stretching the duration of some seconds.

We have the TAI, Temps Atomique International, (French for International Atomic Time) that does not introduce leap seconds, but TAI is now (now= 2005:04:19) 32 seconds ahead of UTC (Universal Time Coordinate), used to set ours clocks, so UTC=TAI-32. GPS satellites have the clocks synchronized with TAI(-19 seconds) but can convert to UTC because convenient corrections are always uploaded when needed.

One big problem is that leap seconds are usually only know about six months in advance. So a program can hardly be able to take into account future leap seconds.

That why all my programs that make "time calculation" must find a special ASCII file, called "jsimoes_leap_sec_tab.txt" where the leap seconds are tabulated. An error is generated if the file has not been conveniently updated. All calculations that involve time must be done by my functions (routines).

Leap Seconds are announced at http://www.iers.org/iers/publications/bulletins/ (just look for: "iers bulletin c -leap seconds" or something like that).

Below I list a recent version of my file "jsimoes_leap_sec_tab.txt".

! (TAI-UTC) listed above is AFTER leap second "event"
!
! "best" name for THIS file: "jsimoes_leap_sec_tab.txt"
!
! do NOT change these initial comments
!
! year month day step TAI-UTC Bulletin Number Bulletin data
!
! (first leap second introduced in 1972-06-30:)
!
1972 06 30 +1 11 -1 0000-00-00
1972 12 31 1 12 -1 0000-00-00
1973 12 31 +1 13 -1 0000-00-00
1974 12 31 1 14 -1 0000-00-00
1975 12 31 +1 15 -1 0000-00-00
1976 12 31 +1 16 -1 0000-00-00
1977 12 31 +1 +17 -1 0000-00-00
1978 12 31 +1 18 -1 0000-00-00
1979 12 31 +1 19 -1 0000-00-00
1981 06 30 +1 +20 -1 0000-00-00
1982 06 30 +1 21 -1 0000-00-00
1983 06 30 +1 22 -1 0000-00-00
1985 06 30 +1 +23 -1 0000-00-00
1987 12 31 +1 24 -1 0000-00-00
1989 12 31 +1 25 -1 0000-00-00
1990 12 31 +1 +26 -1 0000-00-00
1992 06 30 +1 +27 -1 0000-00-00
1993 06 30 +1 +28 -1 0000-00-00
1994 06 30 +1 +29 -1 0000-00-00
1995 12 31 +1 +30 10 1995-07-03
1997 06 30 +1 +31 13 1997-01-06
1998 12 31 +1 +32 16 1998-07-17
!
! no more leap seconds possible until 2005-09-30T23:59:59
! unlike a leap seconds until 2005-12-31T23:59:59
! possible a leap second at 2005-12-31T23:59:59
!
2005 06 30 +0 +32 -1 0000-00-00

How to increase the quality of the pictures

How can you see a picture, in this blog, with a greater resolution or quality?

Most of the cases (but not always) you can see a picture with higher resolution following the (simple) steps.

(a) Click on the picture, of the blog, with the left button of the mouse. Wait a littler while the image opens in a different environment.

(b) Now, near the upper left corner of the image click on "all sizes" (I marked with a red circle in the picture above) again with the left button.

(c) After a few seconds you will see a picture, I hope, with better quality.

For the experts:

In the top of that image you can see a few legends and links allowing you to see the images in all stored resolutions. Choose any one you like, cliking with the mouse.

Most of the cases I have, in my backups, the original files for the pictures. Those file are quit large (most of them around 2 Gigabytes) so it is out of the question to put them in the blog.

However I can send you those files in a CD or DVD or, if your mail account allows such big files, I can send it to you as an attachment. Also I can put then in an area you can access (by ftp or http), if you have a fast Internet connection (or if you have a lot of patience).

(otas & tsumami) The Tsunami Warning System

This is a photo of the "tsunami warning system" I build circa 1990 for my PhD Thesis.

Worked linked to a seismometer and a pressure gauge at the sea bottom and with satellite transmission (INMARSAT-C aka standard-C). It was power by solar panels and by a wind generator. A whip antenna (only barely visible in the photo) and an OMEGA (VLF) receptor were used to synchronize the 2 clocks on board. A few auto-powered RAM cards stored the data. The control program was written in PL/M, compliled in a cross compiler, tested with the help of an ICE and “burned” in an EPROM chip.

After that I somehow forgot this subject. But now I am working to the OTAS project.

http://sourceforge.net/projects/otas

http://otas.sourceforge.net/mediawiki/index.php

http://otas.sourceforge.net

Fifteen years, in science and technology, is a long time, so I have a lot of things to study, to catch up

(free soft & soft patents) Speech of the Minister for Science and HEducation in the Parliament. [updatted:2005-05-09T15:44+01:00]

[Speech of the Minister for Science and Higher Education, (now, Mr. Mariano Gago, PhD in Physics) in the parliamentary discussion of the government program (the government must pass his program in the Parliament - the approval was virtually guarantied, because the Socialists have more then 50% of the seats)]

Portuguese Parliament, the 22nd of March, 2005 (Debate over government program)

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President (of the Portuguese Parliament): So I give the word to the Minister of Science and Higher Education

The Minister of Science and higher Education:

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The development of computational resources for processing the Portuguese language, the stimulus of the information technologies for handicapped and other people with special needs, are also some priorities I would like do stress.

I would like also to leave no doubts that we are against initiatives that are aimed to change the actual rules of European Law, introducing software patents, against the interests of the technology innovation in the sector.

(applause by the socialists)

Those initiatives, in its actual formulation, are against the European interest and against national interest. Been approved in it's actual form, could restrict severely the capacity of innovation of a lot of companies and the progress of all the research in that area. Also we are clearly in defense of the increasing use of no-proprietary operating systems, whenever possible, for example in the public service, and we will incentive its generalisation and the proper formation to reach that goal.

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Links (in Portuguese):

http://www.parlamento.pt

Originals:

Terça-feira, 22 de Março de 2005 I Série — Número 3
X LEGISLATURA 1.ª SESSÃO LEGISLATIVA (2005-2006)
REUNIÃO PLENÁRIA DE 21 DE MARÇO DE 2005
Presidente: Ex.mo Sr. Jaime José Matos da Gama

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O Sr. Presidente: — Para uma intervenção, tem a palavra o Sr. Ministro da Ciência, Tecnologia e EnsinoSuperior.

O Sr. Ministro da Ciência, Tecnologia e Ensino Superior (Mariano Gago):

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O desenvolvimento de recursos computacionais de tratamento da língua portuguesa, o estímulo detecnologias de informação para deficientes e outras pessoas com necessidades especiais são ainda algumasdas prioridades que gostara aqui de sublinhar do Programa do Governo.Gostaria também de deixar claro que nos pronunciamos contra as iniciativas em curso que visam alterar asactuais regras de Direito Europeu, introduzindo patentes de software, contra os próprios interesses dainovação tecnológica neste sector.

Aplausos do PS.

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Essas iniciativas, na sua formulação actual, são contra o interesse europeu e contra o interesse nacional. Aserem aprovadas na versão actual, poderiam restringir consideravelmente a capacidade de inovação demuitas empresas e o progresso de toda a investigação nesta área.Também nos pronunciamos claramente em defesa da crescente utilização de sistemas operativos nãoproprietários, sempre que apropriado e possível, designadamente em serviços públicos, e estimularemos asua generalização e a formação que for adequada para atingir esse objectivo.

Vozes do PS: — Muito bem!

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(free soft & soft patents) Address The President of Portugal at the Seminar on The Network Society and the Information Economy

[In Portugal the President is mostly a protocol figure. However we has the power of veto over the laws (that veto can be overturned). He can also call general elections (as he did a few months ago, opening the way to a socialist majority in the Parlment). He is elected by popular vote each five years. He can be reelected only once.

The actual president of Portugal is Dr. Jorge Sampaio, a Socialist, elected for the first time in 1996, reelected in 2001. Previously he has been secretary general of the Socialist Party.]

Address by His Excellency The President of The Portuguese Republic at the Seminar on The Network Society and the Information Economy: Portugal in a Global Perspective, 5-6 March 2005

Lisbon, "Centro Cultural de Belem"

the 6th of March, 2005

(excerpt:)

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The broadening of the access to digital networks, needed to prevent the generation of other forms of exclusion, can be made considering new opportunities associated with open source software, by the follow up of experiments such as those developed in Brazil can be very interesting, namely in a framework of strategic promotion of the Portuguese language in the world. To follow the debate over European Union directives, over software access rules, is a demand we cannot disregard.

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links (in Portuguese):

http://presidenciarepublica.pt/pt/cgi/noticias.pl?ver=discursos&id=1212

http://presidenciarepublica.pt/network/


Originals (in Portuguese)

Intervenção de Sua Excelência o Presidente da República, Dr. Jorge Sampaio, por ocasião do Encerramento do Colóquio: A Sociedade em Rede e a Economia do Conhecimento: Portugal numa Perspectiva Global, 5-6 Março 2005
Lisboa, Centro Cultural de Belém

06 de Março de 2005

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O alargamento do acesso às redes digitais, indispensável para que não se gerem novas formas de exclusão, pode passar pela consideração de oportunidades associadas a open source software, pelo que o acompanhamento de experiências como as que hoje se desenvolvem no Brasil pode revestir-se de grande interesse, designadamente numa perspectiva de promoção estratégica da língua portuguesa no mundo. Acompanhar o debate sobre directivas comunitárias sobre a regulação do acesso ao software é uma exigência indeclinável.

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(free soft & soft patents)

Why I am writing this blog in ENGLISH

Why am I writing this blog in ENGLISH?

My native language is Portuguese and my English is quite poor. I know that. In high school my poorest grades where always in English :-) .

However some of my friends, and most of the people I work with, can not read Portuguese. Since I can not afford the time to write a bilingual blog I am writing the blog in English. All my friends and all members of my family under 75 can read English quite well, and my blog is mainly pictures so I believe it is quit easy to read and understand.

As always I am quite happy if someone corrects my wording (or any other thing). Just contact me using the email address that can be found in the top of this page or in the blog main page (i.e. http://lasers-in-the-jungle.blogspot.com ). Thanks.