I rarely ever ‘click’ things on my own websites/blog – but I just did, and I found the link to be bad – - – BAD LINK!!
Some things I *should* have patented!
and
My Binary Watch Training Program
I’ve never liked rings: probably because I can’t personally stand anything that’s not symmetric: So, I’d like two of these please!
London!
As a qualifying Cockney (being born there) –– I hate and loathe London!
I had to go there yesterday – a lame thing really. I was accompanying another Oxford academic who can’t really deal with lots of people, crowds and whatnot … me thinks I can’t do that anymore either!
So, up at 7.00 am to hit the road at 8, to get to the railway station in Oxford for the 9.30 – it was already a bit of a chore; however softened by the Radio 4’s Today programme.
Traffic into Oxford is always bad, but especially so at this sort of time. Still, there’s always the ‘wanker’ to make you ever more angry – the wanker who (dangerously) steams past you – the one you want to ask: ‘how much more earlier will you arrive?’ – have you seen all of that traffic ahead?
As always, I was panicky about getting to the station – that’s 1 hour 30 mins to go about 45 miles; and mostly on smooth running country roads. It’s the Oxford city limits that are the problem – 45 minutes to go hardly anywhere!
I entered the car park. No time to piss about looking for that ever elusive space that ought to be there – fuck that, park down the far end!
Once parked-up, and taking those long (soon to be) ‘thigh stinging’ strides toward the station; I make it: I’m on time for the 9.30!
But, where is my colleague – I mean, she lives just up the fucking road!
I call her on my mobile – she’s also running late [WTF!], and so we’re not going to make the 9.30! Why the hell did I bother?
She arrives. We buy tickets. It’s slow, bacause she’s slow – and she needs some sort of card renewed. I know she’s slow, but I can’t help hearing the 9.30 is departing!
She ‘washes her hands’ … she left home a few minutes ago, and yet spends nigh on 10 minutes in the Ladies ‘washing her hands’ [are cabs that dirty?] at every turn. I know she always does this – but it always grates! I was there to catch the train she’d proposed we catch, yet she turns-up late – and then fucks about!
My mood is not good!
I ‘go through’ the barrier – like a lamb to the slaughter, ‘through a one at a time gate’ – I have to sort out my discounted parking – I have to punch-in the secret three-digit code displayed only on the platform. What a chore: juggling my phone, and wallet – Eeeek – now it wants the 3-digit code of my credit card! I add juggling my glasses into the mix.
Where the fuck is she!?
I ask a guard about ‘fast’ trains, but am met with derision – the ‘English way’ the service industry is trained to respond to their customers [you’re a wanker – but, as I have to; how can I respond so as you don’t ask me another fucking question; and that allows me to carry on chatting-up my co-worker?]
… I sleep on the train.
Later.
We’re in a drizzly London. She’s dropped off; yet straight into ‘lunch’.
I wander – in the rain. Westminster Abbey wants £12 to enter! I was hoping to see Newton’s resting-place – but I’m not paying to have a personal one-on-one with God – for £12 I’d expect nothing less!
No time to do anything interesting then 
I spend some money on the tube and go in search of John Updike’s ‘Couples’. I have no luck – it seems that everyone knows he’s just died; and they’ve beaten me to every bookshop.
I notice the squalor, the mad people, the beggars. I overhear conversations, but they’re all in languages I don’t understand. I want to let everyone hear me say ‘Dirka Dirka’ out loud – but resist. Just.
I wonder what my son’s future will hold? I feel very sad. I’m Conservative [cap on purpose], and I fear for ‘Britishness’. Will there be such a thing I wonder? Maybe not, and yet maybe that’d be good?
I fear that it won’t be – I really feel my age, and, to be honest, really, truly know just then why my father is so fine about ‘turning up his toes’.
I find myself, in some small way, wishing that there is a God! I know it’s a win-win, and I favour Pascal’s argument to some degree [I mean, God must be pretty thick!]. Yet, as my religion is really ‘Richard Dawkins’, I know that it’s just me, and my little brain – cursed with conciousness.
I notice the squalor, the mad people, the beggars. I overhear conversations … yup, it’s all there ever will be for me – and then it’s off to ‘the void’. So many things left undone, unsaid.
Yes; I know what my father means now.
I’m hungry.
Earlier I was peering at the glorious fillet of beef in an ‘Angus Steak House’ window – it looked perfect, but it was too expensive.
I also wonder why the Oxford protesters don’t protest about meat eaters; rather than scientists? What’s the most laudable – scientists trying to cure disease, and having to use ‘animate’ animals in the pursuit; or most of us, happy to have animals killed, and then sliced up – just because we like the taste?
Morals aside, I queue in the rain for some cash [it takes ages it seems], and then spend it all in McDonalds.
The guy next to me is pissed that ‘the wireless’ doesn’t work in McDonalds’ basement. He’s running Vista.
Later.
I submit to the futility of my day, and return to Westminster.
She’s meant to be ‘done’ by 2.30 – but she’s late [there's a surprise].
As always, I’m early!
When she does arrive; and I’m frantic to run screaming into the street, and hijack the nearest cab. She just needs to ‘wash her hands’ [surprise surprise]. I wonder what the fuck she actually does in there!
Time, [very] valuable time passes – I told my love that I might make it back to pick up my son you see.
We get a cab.
We miss one train [typical] – that would have been nice! But after a 20 minute [silent] wait, we catch the next.
3.30 pm, and out of this shit hole!!!
We sit next to two young women who fill my precious and much needed space with vacuous chat. It wouldn’t have been that bad if they’d been anything to look at [or listen to] – but they’re not; and I try to sleep again.
No good.
I try and read the Evening Standard. It’s full of ‘depression’, and annoys me by quoting one of Stephen Fry’s previous ‘Twitters’.
I try and sleep again. God, I wish they’d shut the fuck up!
We get back to Oxford, we take elevators – up one side, and down the other. They’re SLOW – and I want to be FAST!
Eventually, I drop her off. I’m free!
Alone at last.
Just me, and the other poor souls; the rain, and the endless ‘creep’ up the Woodstock road.
I arrive home at 6.30. If the traffic going into Oxford is BAD, the traffic leaving shows it in its keeness – and I sit, listening to PM and the news on Radio 4, for mile after drizzly mile until the road opens up. Both programmes are informative, yet depressing – and the article about losing the apostrophe REALLY depresses me [I'll send them an email tomorrow]
I arrive home – brain-dead, and so so tired that I feel that I could sleep on a galloping hedgehog.
I missed getting my son from school. I missed having a swim. I missed having some sort of normal energy-level into the evening – my love and I have no energy to talk.
My love falls asleep [although that’s normal – and I quite like it]
I’m not hungry, but it passes, and later I eat good cheese and water biscuits. Just me, the TV and my love – asleep on the other sofa.
The day is finally over – it’s one I’d like to always forget.
My love briefly wakes and says ‘Cheese!’ I say ‘yes, I talked to you about it!’ She doesn’t remember – she’s as drained as I am.
Bed.
I sleep fitfully.
I dream that my son has been ‘snatched’ – Columbia I think: drug barons! I work furiously yet without success to get him back – all through the night.
What a fucked-up day.
I wake the next morning.
My first words are ‘is Daniel safe?!’
My love tells me that he is – and I thank ‘Richard Dawkins’ that ‘it’s a bloody dream’ [to quote Blackadder!]
“Daily Scans are Pointless” – to the tune of “Every Sperm is Sacred”!
I’m a real fan of AVG’s anti-virus [AV], but for the life of me I can’t understand why, by default, it wants to do a daily scan.
“Please note that by default, the Whole Computer Scan is already scheduled to run every day.”
Actually, I should briefly ‘back up’ and say that until fairly recently, I actually rated most AV programs as next to useless, and that it’s the operating system that should ‘get more a grip’ on protecting its users! I wrote a piece on this for Computer Weekly back in 2002 – although I can’t remember if it was published [I was doing ‘Thought for the Day’ things for them back then]. Anyway, I’ll post that in another article and link to it here.
Back to ‘scanning’ then!
Any decent AV program hooks into the operating-system and scans a file for viruses, etc. whenever it’s accessed. Therefore, why do a scan? If a file is infected, but not being accessed, why worry about it?
Of course, it may be that you’ve got a virus in some file, and yet it’s only recently that your AV’s been trained to recognise it [see the other article], but again, what’s the problem there? I repeat: if an infected file’s not being accessed, why worry about it – when and if it is accessed, it’ll be caught.
Think about how many AVG installations there are in the world. Think about how many people go with the default ‘scan every day’ option. Think about how much energy that uses! Think about all of the other AV vendors that also do daily scans by default now!
Also, and anyway, scanning on any modern Windows machine could be greatly speeded up because the operating-system can keep a journal of exactly what’s changed on a drive – that’s over reboots too. This technology has been there since Windows 2000, so why scan everything anyway? Only scan what’s been changed/added if you want to find ‘new stuff’ – but again, why even bother with that? Wait until an infected file is accessed – and fix it then!
This missive from 2002 is here simply because it’s referenced from this.
Or, was it this? Dunno … I’m as ‘confused’ as normal!
Antivirus programs cannot truly protect you and, at worst, lure you into a false sense of security; and, I’ll tell you why…
The State of ‘Play’ Today:
• Way back, computer-viruses were transmitted via floppy disk – slowly, from one machine to another.
If the virus was known, and the destination machine had an up-to-date anti-virus program on it, further spread could be prevented as an infected file was accessed.
• Then came networks – but these too could be kept reasonably safe, so long as the ‘entry-point’ (floppy disk-drive) onto that network was protected – as above.
• Then came the Internet – in lots of ways the Internet is just a big network – the ‘EWAN’ – the ‘Extraordinary-Wide-Area Network’. Now it’s getting kinda tricky to protect yourself.
The main thing is that, in order to catch a virus, your anti-virus program has to first know that it exists.
It’s like the way the Flu jab works – you get innoculated against the strain that is predicted to hit the country: not ‘the Flu’ per se. However, if a different strain hits you – well, you’ll get the Flu! Viruses – real or cyber – have signatures, and you can only be immunised against known entities.
With the Internet, it’s quite possible that you’ll get hit by a new strain before an antidote can be prepared by your anti-virus program’s vendor.
Take the way viruses use email programs to move themselves about nowadays – it goes like this:
• Someone gets a virus (somehow)
• It does its damage and then emails a copy of itself to everyone in his or her contacts-list/in-box, etc.
• When the recipients get it, it does the same for them – this is Exponential!
So, in no time at all, it spreads (successfully) like wildfire – as, remember, we’re pretty much all connected at the speed of light now – and your antivirus hasn’t been informed about this new strain yet!
Anyway, some poor soul ultimately discovers that this thing is a self-replicating virus – and (if they can be bothered – as it’s too late for them) they notify Norton, Symantec, AVG, blah blah blah. In a bit, they all confirm that it is indeed a virus, and work out a fix – time ticks by. They then issue this on their web-sites. Hopefully, you’ve got an ‘Active Update’ kind of program running at your end (or do you have to periodically check for updates yourself!?), and quite soon (this is usually based on a pull rather push model – so you probably update once in 24 hours) you’ll get the fix! However, will it all be too late when it arrives? You bet ya! The likelihood of this is almost certainly proportional to the value of your data of course!
So, are anti-virus programs really worth having? Well, broadly speaking, I say ‘no’. What’s needed is better technology – viruses could be caught by the operating-system – and they should be!
In order for a virus to work, it needs to be executed: either directly, or by some other already-executing-process. Now, the operating-system is the thing that creates processes; and as such it can learn what they access. So, if the operating-system were a bit more picky about what processes it’ll start ‘automagically’, well … these things could be caught very effectively.
Imagine, you double-click what looks like an Excel file-attachment appearing in your email. However, the operating-system sees that the file is actually an executable. Next, it checks to see if this executable has been run on your machine before and, if it hasn’t, it simply asks you – “Are you sure you want to run this PROGRAM?”. You answer ‘no way’. Problem solved. How about if the virus infects Excel itself – and runs as some sort of extension to the program though? Well, hopefully you’ll have run Excel a few times before, and the operating system can learn about its habits? For example, should Excel now try to access your Firefox settings, or start trawling your folders for a Microsoft Money file, one would hope that the operating system might think that this is all a bit peculiar, and ask you about it [suspending Excel while it consults you of course].
Alternatively, this kind of approach – where the operating-system is rather more proactive – could be extended to anything that has write-access to your hard disk. After all, no write-access = no-damage [writing to a port, i.e., writing ‘across the wire’ is a write operation of sorts, and as such is not permitted]!
Written in 2002
Well, surprise surprise, I over ran!
I remember getting about two slides into my ‘deck’, of only about four slides, when I saw that I had just 24 seconds left! Knew it’d happen though!
However, they did let me go on a bit – so thanks for that ‘OG’s – and I think that what I managed to offer was received ok – anyway, the warm applause was very welcome. Perhaps someone will say something here about all of this though? PLEASE!
One last thing. On the way out [I had to talk and run] a guy commented to me that, in all of the Oxford Geek Nights he’s been to, it was the only talk about ‘Microsoft stuff’ that hadn’t been booed
WOW!
Actually, on that most ‘recent theme’ – why ‘boo’ Microsoft? Is it just ‘fashionable’, or founded in experience? Forget what you might have read, or think, or understand: is it just the /. folks that can’t take on a constructive argument? I’ll not defend my old employer beyond my personal morals, but nor will I ignore a lack of understanding.
Now, on that, I’d really like to open/invite a thoughtful debate – here.
Nice idea, but
Just watch and HIT the play button too [unless you like static images, this last hint is just for you]!
It’s a nice animation, but, in particular, watch the orange spot. And, ask youself:
A) is it possible?
B) if ‘yes’, in what universe do you live [provide examples]?
If in doubt, maybe Gamow’s Biography of Physics is a a decent place to start [for me, a perfect Chistmas present]?
At Oxford Geek Night 10, I’m giving a talk – if you can call it that; as actually it’s more like an ‘elongated cough’ … it’s a 5 minute spot! I mean I’ve told jokes that were longer than that [and if you weren't there, 'yeah': well - they were actually very well received! {for geek jokes}]. However, what can one say in five minutes – esp. when one has lots to say on the subject at hand? Ok, so it makes one ‘concentrate’ – but what to leave in and what to leave out? FIVE MINUTES! [G]eeeeek!
So, I’ll be [speed] ‘talking’ on some subset of subset of subset of subset of the Windows 3.0 development experience [mainly] … you know the kinda thing: ‘hidden stuff’ [oh how we wanted to switch some stuff on in the final build!!!]; stuff that went into its development; stuff that certainly *wasn’t* appreciated at the time! Blah …
However, I think folks might be more receptive now – but we’ll see!!! Blah again!
I’ll be taking a few ‘trophies’ along though …. like a few things I made sure I ferretted away at the launch on 22nd May 1990 – ahem – several copies of the ‘on the day’ [and for one day only] Windows 3.0 box – complete with the ‘I witnessed the Event’ stickers. Oh, and my ‘Magician’ shirt! Side point: I also have a ‘MakeProcInstance Spoken Here’ shirt somewhere I think — um, maybe – I emptied what was probably a fair fraction of a quarter of a ton of old Microsoft shirts into Oxfam’s clothing recycle thingmy a while ago – of course I did have a little ‘I bet they’ll be collectable sometime’ in my mind; but, hey, there ya go! At least I’ve kept the very personal ones.
I do hope it goes well, and that I get some very ‘deep’ questioning – esp. from the girls! Hey, that’s OK – Baby Love‘ll be flying back from ‘Up North’ while I’m in Oxford!
Just got myself a 22″ LG Flatron M228WD from PC-World. Now, normally, unless I’m desperate for something, I use PC-World simply as a place to just wander around, having a ‘geek out’. However, at £120, I could not resist it! Don’t want [just yet] the digital TV bit, or Freeview – just a big monitor – for ‘a snip’!!
Bloody hell!
Just been watching the Royal Institution’s Christmas Lectures and saw a demonstration of a tool called Dasher.
Very cool, but a bit of a kick in the nuts, and a wake-up call for me really. The reason? Well, I had a system doing more or less the exact same thing in 2000 [it was better than what was demonstrated too]! I even showed it off to various Computational Linguistics folk at Oxford [who said "nice, but" ... [who'd use it|so what|it runs on Windows!|you've got too much spare time on your hands|etc]].
Crap!
