Monthly Archive for December, 2004

Jennifer Grey in “Dirty Dancing”

Published on December 28, 2004 in movie. 35 Comments


Remember Dirty Dancing? I just saw it on TV and I had forgotten how hot Jennifer Grey looked. That is, if she was 18 when they recorded the movie, otherwise she’s just pretty.
They sure played “I had the time of my life” a lot for years after that. It even inspired the local girls to shake their hips in a seductive way (occasionally blushing), which is an effect that can only be applauded.
Patrick Swayze, however, stirrs up mixed emotions. He’s not a bad dancer, true, but he gives me the creeps. That strange face, the exaggerated muscles, the way he does his ‘cool walk’ down the aisle in the final dance scene. And somebody please stop him from singing!

So back to the important stuff. What did Jennifer do after that movie? Mostly TV, it appears. In 2000 she played in “Bounce” (a Ben Affleck/Gwyneth Paltrow vehicle) but I can’t recall her appearance there. Judging by the pictures, there’s a reason. Mrs Grey did not age too well. So I’ll leave you with the 1987 picture. When she had the time of her life.

Moore’s law: Christmas PC 2004

Published on December 25, 2004 in hardware. Closed

Moore’s Law in the strict sense states that

The complexity for minimum component costs has increased at a rate of roughly a factor of two per year.
(from Intel.com)

In the broadest sense, it can be used to say any computer hardware grows exponentially at some rate (As Moore said: “if Gore invented the Internet, I invented the exponential”). It seems to be true for CPU speed, hard disk capacity, network bandwidth, RAM size … With some imagination it could even be true for laptop batteries: they double capacity every couple of decades (if we’re lucky). Eventhough some claim Moore’s Law is no longer valid, let’s just assume it still is.

In an effort to keep track of the effect of Moore’s law on our own desktop, I will list the typical 2004 Christmas computer. The computer we are talking about is not a budget PC (you can get a Celeron-based PC for less than 700€) nor a nec-plus-ultra workstation with SCSI disks, 2 Itanium processors and 4GB of RAM. It’s rather what would be listed as a ‘performance’ PC. Spending 1500€ (about $2000) this Christmas would get you:

  • Intel Pentium 4 3.2 GHz or Athlon 3200+
  • 512 MB RAM (e.g. DDR PC3200)
  • 128MB or 256MB graphical card (e.g. ATI Radeon X600, nVidia GeForce 6800)
  • 160GB S-ATA hard disk with 8MB buffer (e.g. Maxtor Pax Plus 9)
  • CD/DVD writer
  • 6 USB 2.0, 1 FireWire
  • 5.1 sound card
  • 7-in-1 memory card reader
  • Gigabit Ethernet
  • 350 watt power supply
  • 17″ LCD monitor (1280×1024)
  • Windows XP Home
  • Wireless optical keyboard + mouse

(from pcmagazine.be Dec 2004)

Blast from the past: 3 years ago (Jan 2002) a ‘performance’ PC was more like 2000€ and looked like this:

  • Pentium 4 2GHz (17% increase per year)
  • 256MB RAM (25% increase per year)
  • 64MB graphical card (25% increase per year)
  • 60GB hard disk (40% increase per year)
  • DVD-ROM + CD-RW
  • a 56K/V92 modem (!)
  • 100Mbps Ethernet (these things go in steps of 10X)
  • Keyboard + mouse with(!) scroll-button
  • 17″ CRT monitor (same size, only now they’re thinner)
  • Windows XP Home (yes, it’s that old!)

(from pcmagazine.be Jan 2002)
If anyone can come up with numbers for Christmas 1998, that would be great!)

So let’s see what Santa brings us for Christmas 2005!

10 free tools to make your PC safer

Published on December 21, 2004 in Belgium. Closed


Philippe Decoene, a Belgian politician from the sp.a feels the government should provide all Belgian citizens with free software tools to protect their PC against threats from the Internet.
He sees 2 ways of providing free software for everyone:

  • government creates a task force of Belgian top-notch developers and develop/adapt software for the Belgian surfers.
  • government buys someone’s product/service through a public tender, and Belgians can use it

In my opinion, the latter is a bad idea, and the former is a very bad idea.

While I agree that too many surfers with too little understanding make the Internet a paradise for rogue hackers, I don’t think it’s the government’s responsibility to provide people with software.

Dear politicians, if you’re wondering what you should do:

  • Inform the public: make an advertising campaign about spam and spyware that people remember and talk about (sex sites, breast enlargement pills, herbal viagra, get rich quick, …; agencies like DuvalGuillaume, LG&F and Mortierbrigade could do wonders with this stuff!). Consider what BIVV did with the BOB campaign.
  • Educate through school: make sure no one leaves high school without knowing the difference between antivirus and firewall software. Unprotected sex is not intelligent, and neither is an unprotected PC.
  • Educate through media. We already have Kijk-Uit for traffic education, why not have a weekly program that covers computer security for the layman. Explain what a hoax is so everyone stops forwarding them.
  • Warn for calamities: the BIPT already has an early warning service, but it looks just a tad amateuristic (for one, it needs a decent web designer, creating web pages in MS-Word is a bad idea). The disclaimer for its SMS-alert service is funny:

    Het BIPT is echter niet aansprakelijk indien zijn sms-dienst door derden wordt misbruikt om informatie te verstrekken of in geval inbreuk op de privacy veroorzaakt wordt door een virus.
    (The BIPT is not liable if its SMS-service is abused by a third party to provide information or if a virus causes a breach of privacy)

As for the 10 free tools mentioned in the title:

1. WINDOWS UPDATE
Indispensable. You should run the Windows Update program once a week, or once a month at the very least. It will automatically look for bug fixes, security patches, driver updates and install them. When you get a new PC, run this several times (some stuff cannot be installed together with other patches) until all critical updates are done.
In Internet Explorer: Tools/Windows Update – on your desktop: Start/Windows Update
2. PERSONAL FIREWALL
Indispensable. From the moment your PC goes on-line, it will take less than 24 hours for it to be probed by ‘hostile’ computers for vulnerabilities. To make your PC invisible to other computers and protect it against these attacks, you needs a firewall. You might already be protected by a company firewall, or a WiFi router, but install a personal firewall anyway, certainly if you have a laptop.
Try ZoneAlarm (free for home use) or Kerio (free for home use) or Windows XP Service Pack 2
(Remark: you cannot use 2 firewall programs at the same time!)
3. ANTIVIRUS
Indispensable. A program that will check every file just before you save or use it and see if it holds a virus. This kind of software uses a database of virus signatures (i.e. something unique about each virus that allows its detection) and new viruses are born everyday, so this database needs to be updated regularly.
Try AntiVir (free for home use). An alternative is HouseCall (free), but you need to be on-line to use it (it works inside your browser).
4. SPYWARE REMOVER
Indispensable. Websites, emails and hardly-legal software (like Kazaa, Morpheus, Emule, eDonkey, …) will try to install spyware or adware on your computer, so that they can take over your homepage, your search page, or just pop up advertisements on your screen every now and then.
Try Ad-aware (free for non-commercial use) or Spybot S&D (free)
(You can have both programs installed on the same PC, they each find stuff that the other doesn’t. Run them once a month.)
5. POPUP-BLOCKER
Indispensable. If you ever were to browse an X-rated site that keeps on popping up new windows filled with undressed women in uncomfortable position, and there seems to be no way to stop this from happening, and your boss is approaching your desk, you would know why these come in handy.
Try the Google or MSN or Yahoo! toolbar. It’s a question of taste.
6. SPAM FILTER
Indispensable. Estimates are that 60 to 80% of all email is spam (Unsollicited Commercial Email). If you do not receive spam yet, it might be because you don’t have an email address. If you’re gonna be leaving an email address on sites (dating, classifieds, job site, …), get a Hotmail/Yahoo/Gmail address just for that. If you receive spam on an address that you cannot easily change,install one of the following spam detectors.
Try Popfile (open-source, free) or Spambayes (open-source, free)
7. BACKUP
Essential. We all know we should take backups, but we seldom do. And once that hard disk crashes: agony! Forget backup on floppy, tape or CD. Get a 2nd hard disk or an external one (they cost $1/GB). Disk-to-disk backup is fast and requires no manual intervention.
Try the Windows NT Backup program (included in Windows 2000 and XP Pro, and available on XP Home) or SimplySafeBackup
Start/Programs/Accessories/System Tools/Backup
8. SAFER BROWSER
Nice to have. Since most people use Internet Explorer, most hackers concentrate on that browser. Does the word ‘Hotbar’ ring a bell? But there are good alternatives.
Try Firefox (open-source, free) or Opera (free)
9. SAFER EMAIL
Nice to have. If you’re on a corporate Exchange Server, you are obliged to work with Outlook. Since it is the most popular email client, and not the safest one, it is the most under attack. But at home, you have other options!
Try Outlook Express (included with Windows) or Thunderbird (open-source, free)
10. SAFER MESSENGER
Nice to have. MSN, AOL and Yahoo Messenger are very popular, but can be used for letting unsuspecting recipients install stuff they are not aware of. If you chat a lot with family, friends and fools, consider install one safe messenger client that connects to all your accounts at the same time.
Try Trillian Basic or Gaim

Live traffic info

Published on December 16, 2004 in Belgium, Society and tool. Closed


Yahoo just announced that they now have live traffic information on their mapping service:

In a milestone for Internet-based traffic services, Yahoo! has beefed up its existing mapping services to allow customers to plot a route from one local destination to another, and overlay traffic data such as road speeds and potential delays.
(via cnn.com)

When you live in a city like Brussels, you know how unpredictable and unnerving traffic can be. Here in Belgium we also have some services that give up-to-date traffic info:

  • radio1.be gives some info on Brussels and Antwerp in text-format (not much really)
  • verkeerscentrum.be gives an map of Flanders and traffic condition for the main arteries
  • vab.be shows the traffic map info of the whole of Belgium, based on police information.
  • wegeninfo.be also gets info from the Federal Police and show it in a blog-like text-way (reverse chronological).


In France they have something much better: on parisrhinrhone.com they have 10 webcams watching the Paris/Lyon/Dijon motorways and anyone can see the live feed. Sometimes a picture is worth a thousand words!

William Beaty has his theory on how defensive driving helps solve traffic congestion.

That’s the whole point. We WANT people to merge ahead of us before that other lane comes to an end. If I fear that someone will leap into the space ahead of me, or if this makes me resentful or angry, then I close up ranks and prevent everyone from merging. If I try to become the “vengance police” and punish the cheaters who zoom ahead, then I close up ranks and stop all merges. Closed ranks create traffic jams. “Cheaters” don’t trigger traffic jams, it’s the people who try to punish the cheaters who do it.
Lane-jumpers are not the real problem. Traffic jams are commonly caused by people who attempt to punish the lane-jumpers by eliminating all spaces! In the merge-jam animations, the goal isn’t to maintain the empty space under any circumstance. The goal is to ALLOW PEOPLE TO MERGE AHEAD OF US! Closing up the ranks is what produces that jam in the animation.
(from amasci.com)

To see an accurate simulation of how a traffic jam is born at an highway entry, check the Martin Treiber java application.