Feels much better now. Still not 100%, but somewhere around 90. 11:54 PM Feb 26th
Feeling much better today. Hoping to be back to IST tomorrow. 12:53 PM Feb 26th
Still sick... 6:40 PM Feb 24th
Recovering from what I suspect to be a minor food poisoning. Joana and my brother João are also sick. 4:23 PM Feb 23rd
Laptop battery is almost empty so I'm going back to my office, "fully-recharged" with solar power :-) 1:58 PM Feb 20th
Working outside on campus, catching some sunlight. Work reorganization is almost finished. 1:18 PM Feb 20th
Reorganizing my work. 1:55 PM Feb 17th
Life goes on... Just finished reviewing one more paper. Tomorrow, back to work on IST. 11:48 PM Feb 15th
Goodbye Grand Mother. We grief and Hope. 1:19 PM Feb 14th
"Therefore keep watch, because you do not know the day or the hour - Mt 25:13". Indeed... Back in Portugal hoping the best for my grandmom. 10:01 PM Feb 13th
Monday means that it's time to get back to work. The PhD document is coming along. Writing sure takes longer than I remembered... 3:20 PM Feb 9th
PhD research proposal writing is underway... Abstract and Introduction are complete. Moving forward to the Problem and Proposal. 6:17 PM Feb 4th
The week has started with an outpouring of great friendship... No words can quite say it properly, but: Thank You All 4:39 PM Feb 2nd
2009-02-28
2009-02-25
Copyright notice (as suggested by IEEE)
Science is all about people and information sharing, namely, publications. Most scientists keep a web page with all their publications, along with BibTeX files. For instance, check out my publications page.
However, the publications are copyrighted so some caution is advised when making them available. IEEE suggests the placement on your web page of the following copyright notice:
However, the publications are copyrighted so some caution is advised when making them available. IEEE suggests the placement on your web page of the following copyright notice:
This material is presented to ensure timely dissemination of scholarly and technical work. Copyright and all rights therein are retained by authors or by other copyright holders. All persons copying this information are expected to adhere to the terms and constraints invoked by each author's copyright. In most cases, these works may not be reposted without the explicit permission of the copyright holder.
2009-02-21
Duplex
Duplex
Mrs. Connelly: Tell me about yourselves. What do you do Alan?
Alex Rose: Uh, it's Alex.
Nancy Kendricks: Alex is a writer.
Mrs. Connelly: Oh, a writer. I always thought of that as more of a hobby than a real job. I suppose I'm forgetting about Joyce.
Alex Rose: Joyce. James Joyce. Of course. Wonderful writer.
Mrs. Connelly: He died drunk and penniless.
2009-02-17
Doubt
Doubt
I doubt if I liked this movie... It's just one of the most ambiguous movies I've ever seen. You can choose the interpretation you want based on your own beliefs and trust.
However, the most likely interpretation, given the recent history of child abuse in the American Catholic Church, is pretty obvious for most people. The movie makers also show their "true colors" when they don't resist to add all the tired cliches about the Church to the main characters.
Father Brendan Flynn: You haven't the slightest proof of anything!
Sister Aloysius Beauvier: But I have my certainty! And armed with that, I will go to your last parish, and the one before that if necessary. I'll find a parent.
I doubt if I liked this movie... It's just one of the most ambiguous movies I've ever seen. You can choose the interpretation you want based on your own beliefs and trust.
However, the most likely interpretation, given the recent history of child abuse in the American Catholic Church, is pretty obvious for most people. The movie makers also show their "true colors" when they don't resist to add all the tired cliches about the Church to the main characters.
The Second Great Depression
I've been following Ed Schuster's analysis of the financial crisis and, unfortunately, I must agree with him that we are in the midst of the Second Great Depression.
Beyond fiscal stimulus, spending money to ease the banking crisis is also a major priority. Overall, the banking crisis is becoming worse. I really do not think most Americans understand just of serious of a situation we are experiencing. It might be that the American and global economy will experience 5 years of sluggish growth. I think it seems clear that we are entering the Second Great Depression.
2009-02-15
Good advice for marriage / Bons conselhos para o casamento
In the chronicle The Perfect Couple (in portuguese), José António Saraiva from the newspaper Sol gives some advice to prevent conflicts in marriage:
- Create household routines;
- Define leadership areas with fairness, so that each member of the couple feels that he/she has its own powers and influence;
- Share household chores according to each one's capabilities. Don't try to do everything together: indefinition is a constant source of conflicts.
From my experience I can say it's good advice. Consider it.
/ This post is bilingual: English (U.S.) and Portuguese (Portugal) /
Na crónica intitulada O Casal Perfeito, José António Saraiva do Jornal Sol deixa alguns conselhos para prevenir conflitos no casamento:
- Criar rotinas dentro de casa;
- Definir com justiça as áreas de liderança, para que cada um dos membros do casal sinta que tem o seu espaço de poder.
- Repartir as tarefas domésticas de acordo com as inclinações de cada um. Não pretender que sejam os dois a fazer tudo: a indefinição é uma fonte constante de irritação e atritos;
Pela minha experiência pessoal posso dizer que são bons conselhos e que merecem ser considerados.
- Create household routines;
- Define leadership areas with fairness, so that each member of the couple feels that he/she has its own powers and influence;
- Share household chores according to each one's capabilities. Don't try to do everything together: indefinition is a constant source of conflicts.
From my experience I can say it's good advice. Consider it.
/ This post is bilingual: English (U.S.) and Portuguese (Portugal) /
Na crónica intitulada O Casal Perfeito, José António Saraiva do Jornal Sol deixa alguns conselhos para prevenir conflitos no casamento:
- Criar rotinas dentro de casa;
- Definir com justiça as áreas de liderança, para que cada um dos membros do casal sinta que tem o seu espaço de poder.
- Repartir as tarefas domésticas de acordo com as inclinações de cada um. Não pretender que sejam os dois a fazer tudo: a indefinição é uma fonte constante de irritação e atritos;
Pela minha experiência pessoal posso dizer que são bons conselhos e que merecem ser considerados.
2009-02-14
+
You've washed the steps my father climbed to hold my hand and carry me, in your Love.
Thank you, Grand Mother!
/ This post is bilingual: English (U.S.) and Portuguese (Portugal) /
Lavaste os degraus que o meu pai subiu para me dar a mão, no vosso Amor.
Obrigado, Avó, foste uma Grande Mãe!
Thank you, Grand Mother!
Surely God is my salvation; I will trust and not be afraid. The LORD is my strength and my song; He has become my salvation.Isiah 12
/ This post is bilingual: English (U.S.) and Portuguese (Portugal) /
Lavaste os degraus que o meu pai subiu para me dar a mão, no vosso Amor.
Obrigado, Avó, foste uma Grande Mãe!
No Senhor pus a minha esperança: a seu lado não temerei.
O Senhor é minha força, Ele é a minha salvação.Isaías 12
2009-02-12
The evolution of the Web
The current day Internet is the global network that connects people from all over the world and enables them to meet to work and have fun together.
At the center of the enormous growth of Internet use in 1990s was a new application: the World Wide Web. The Web leveraged the existing Internet infrastructure and protocols TCP/IP and and provided a simple and elegant abstraction: "Everything is a resource; Any resource can link to other resources".
The Web has evolved from its origins. We can summarize the evolution in three stages: the web of documents, the web of applications, and the web of users.
The web of documents was the original hypertext document system, built from HTML pages linking to other pages. The pages were initially static, but soon there were many ways technologies to generate dynamic pages.
The web of applications came next, leveraging the dynamic web page technologies. Some successful web applications examples are: e-commerce (e.g. Amazon.com), web mail (e.g. Hotmail), and customized portals (e.g. Yahoo!). Soon, the application providers realized that the user inputs were very useful to improve the web applications and its capabilities.
The web of users is the current stage in the Web development. It is also known by the moniker Web 2.0. The user inputs became central in the provided applications. Amazon's recommendations are an early example of this. More notably, the Google search engine took advantage of user clicks on results to create a PageRank. More recently, the user contributions are even more explicit, with social networking applications, like Facebook, MySpace, LinkedIn, Delicious, among many others.
So, what is next for the Web? It is about to become even more world wide.
There are three technology trends that will shape the next stage of the Web: mobile Internet access, geographic information systems, and automatic identification and sensing.
Mobile access to the Internet, using hand-held devices and wireless networks is on the rise.
People are starting to use the Web in new places and situations where a desktop or laptop computer would not be possible or convenient. As a result, there are new user needs and requirements.
Geographical information systems, like Google Maps, allow users to access map data with several information layers, to locate points of interest and provide directions. The current user location can be determined using a GPS enabling location-aware applications.
Automatic identification and sensing technologies, like RFID identifiers and sensors, are making their way to supply chains in retail, pharmaceutical, and other industries. Soon it will be possible to tag any valuable or interesting physical object, enabling item level track & trace. In addition, the object identity can be used as a search parameter, to retrieve data from the Web.
When these three technologies are combined, an Internet of Things emerges, a Web of Things, where people and the physical world can interact in novel ways.
As an example scenario consider the following. A person walks into a bookstore and finds an interesting book. However the only available copy has a torn page. Using the mobile phone camera, the user scans the book's bar-code and queries if the book is available in any other nearby bookstore. It isn't, so the user goes to a on-line shop and orders one copy to be delivered the next day at his home.
Can you imagine it? If you can, and would like to work on it, leave a comment here on the blog or email me.
At the center of the enormous growth of Internet use in 1990s was a new application: the World Wide Web. The Web leveraged the existing Internet infrastructure and protocols TCP/IP and and provided a simple and elegant abstraction: "Everything is a resource; Any resource can link to other resources".
The Web has evolved from its origins. We can summarize the evolution in three stages: the web of documents, the web of applications, and the web of users.
The web of documents was the original hypertext document system, built from HTML pages linking to other pages. The pages were initially static, but soon there were many ways technologies to generate dynamic pages.
The web of applications came next, leveraging the dynamic web page technologies. Some successful web applications examples are: e-commerce (e.g. Amazon.com), web mail (e.g. Hotmail), and customized portals (e.g. Yahoo!). Soon, the application providers realized that the user inputs were very useful to improve the web applications and its capabilities.
The web of users is the current stage in the Web development. It is also known by the moniker Web 2.0. The user inputs became central in the provided applications. Amazon's recommendations are an early example of this. More notably, the Google search engine took advantage of user clicks on results to create a PageRank. More recently, the user contributions are even more explicit, with social networking applications, like Facebook, MySpace, LinkedIn, Delicious, among many others.
So, what is next for the Web? It is about to become even more world wide.
There are three technology trends that will shape the next stage of the Web: mobile Internet access, geographic information systems, and automatic identification and sensing.
Mobile access to the Internet, using hand-held devices and wireless networks is on the rise.
People are starting to use the Web in new places and situations where a desktop or laptop computer would not be possible or convenient. As a result, there are new user needs and requirements.
Geographical information systems, like Google Maps, allow users to access map data with several information layers, to locate points of interest and provide directions. The current user location can be determined using a GPS enabling location-aware applications.
Automatic identification and sensing technologies, like RFID identifiers and sensors, are making their way to supply chains in retail, pharmaceutical, and other industries. Soon it will be possible to tag any valuable or interesting physical object, enabling item level track & trace. In addition, the object identity can be used as a search parameter, to retrieve data from the Web.
When these three technologies are combined, an Internet of Things emerges, a Web of Things, where people and the physical world can interact in novel ways.
As an example scenario consider the following. A person walks into a bookstore and finds an interesting book. However the only available copy has a torn page. Using the mobile phone camera, the user scans the book's bar-code and queries if the book is available in any other nearby bookstore. It isn't, so the user goes to a on-line shop and orders one copy to be delivered the next day at his home.
Can you imagine it? If you can, and would like to work on it, leave a comment here on the blog or email me.
A public thanks to Continental Airlines
I wish to publicly thank Continental Airlines for their outstanding service of me and my wife, in flight CO 64 from Newark to Lisbon, especially during check-in.
2009-02-11
2009-02-10
Amazon e-books
Our vision is every book, ever printed, in any language, all available in less than 60 seconds.
2009-02-09
Human Work
Work is the expression of our being. Work (...) must assist and be in function of the truth and happiness to which everyone personally aspires. (...) The aim of work is not the work itself, rather it is man.
To sustain his "heart" in face of society, man needs a company, a belonging.
John Paul II said that "the aim of the Church is to construct a civilization of truth and love." Jesus said "He who follows me will have eternal life and one hundredfold here below."
The right of free association is among the fundamental human rights. (...) In an association, freedom finds more space and security. (...) Just how democratic a society is, is measured by its respect for this freedom that permits a place to work to spring from the heart and be sustained in association.Father Luigi Giussani
2009-02-06
Windows Vista is actually OK
Back in the days when Microsoft named the Windows versions by year - Windows 95, 98, 2000 - I had a "golden" rule: never install a Windows version on its year!
This meant that I would wait at least a year after release so Microsoft could finish the product. By the way, this is true not only of Microsoft software but of all software: complex software has bugs; new software has more bugs than older software (assuming it is still being developed, of course).
I applied the "golden" rule to Windows Vista: wait for the first service pack before installing it.
Now that I did, I'm happy with it. Windows Vista is not bad and is actually OK. It got very bad early reviews but now that hardware has caught up with it, and that many bugs have been fixed, using Windows Vista is actually an upgrade from Windows XP. It has several user interface improvements that are worthwhile. The main problem is UAC. It's so annoying I have my doubts it actually makes the system more secure. As a user I just want to click "continue" to get on with what I'm doing.
Screenshot credits: Paul's Computer Service
This meant that I would wait at least a year after release so Microsoft could finish the product. By the way, this is true not only of Microsoft software but of all software: complex software has bugs; new software has more bugs than older software (assuming it is still being developed, of course).
I applied the "golden" rule to Windows Vista: wait for the first service pack before installing it.
Now that I did, I'm happy with it. Windows Vista is not bad and is actually OK. It got very bad early reviews but now that hardware has caught up with it, and that many bugs have been fixed, using Windows Vista is actually an upgrade from Windows XP. It has several user interface improvements that are worthwhile. The main problem is UAC. It's so annoying I have my doubts it actually makes the system more secure. As a user I just want to click "continue" to get on with what I'm doing.
Screenshot credits: Paul's Computer Service
Weak privacy or dust for the eyes / Privacidade fraca ou poeira para os olhos
The Portuguese government has legislated that all motor vehicles now must have a built-in identification chip. In the law it is claimed that the chip poses no privacy problems because only a "code" is communicated and access range is local.
This statement is not true. By always transmitting the same code, all that it takes is to know a vehicle's code - and to know who uses the vehicle - to have a key to for track and trace data.
I recommend the following paper for a better understanding of privacy:
A. Juels and S. Weis. Defining Strong Privacy for RFID. 2006.
/ This post is bilingual: English (U.S.) and Portuguese (Portugal) /
Esta afirmação não é verdadeira. Ao transmitir sempre o mesmo código basta saber qual o código de um dado veículo - e saber quem é a pessoa que usa o veículo - para ter a chave que dará acesso a todo um rastro de dados.
Recomendo a leitura do seguinte artigo sobre privacidade (em inglês):
A. Juels and S. Weis. Defining Strong Privacy for RFID. 2006.
This statement is not true. By always transmitting the same code, all that it takes is to know a vehicle's code - and to know who uses the vehicle - to have a key to for track and trace data.
I recommend the following paper for a better understanding of privacy:
A. Juels and S. Weis. Defining Strong Privacy for RFID. 2006.
/ This post is bilingual: English (U.S.) and Portuguese (Portugal) /
A salvaguarda do direito à privacidade dos proprietários e/ou condutores e a protecção dos respectivos dados pessoais não são postas em causa com este sistema, uma vez que o DEM apenas transmite um código e não qualquer elemento de identidade dos proprietários e/ou condutores. Por seu turno, os equipamentos de detecção electrónica de veículos são dotados de um alcance meramente local, não permitindo um acompanhamento permanente dos veículos em circulação.Decreto-Lei que, no uso da autorização legislativa concedida pela Lei n.º 60/2008, de 16 de Setembro, procede à segunda alteração do Decreto-Lei n.º 54/2005, de 3 de Março
Esta afirmação não é verdadeira. Ao transmitir sempre o mesmo código basta saber qual o código de um dado veículo - e saber quem é a pessoa que usa o veículo - para ter a chave que dará acesso a todo um rastro de dados.
Recomendo a leitura do seguinte artigo sobre privacidade (em inglês):
A. Juels and S. Weis. Defining Strong Privacy for RFID. 2006.
2009-02-03
Thank You All
The week has started with an outpouring of great friendship... No words can quite say it properly, but:
Thank You All
Thank You All
2009-02-02
The Elements of Style
The Elements of Style by William Strunk Jr. and E.B. White is a small book full of great advice for writing in English and taking advantage of its ability to write short, clear, and to-the-point.
Here are the suggested "Elementary Principles of Composition":
- Choose a suitable design and hold to it.
- Make the paragraph the unit of composition.
- Use the active voice.
- Put statements in positive form.
- Use definite, specific, concrete language.
- Omit needless words.
- Avoid a succession of loose sentences.
- Express similar ideas in similar form (e.g. Beatitudes).
- Keep related words together.
- In summaries, keep to one tense.
- Place the emphatic words of a sentence at the end.
This advice comes in a good time, since I'm writing my PhD research proposal. Thanks to Joana once again for finding yet another great book.
Here are the suggested "Elementary Principles of Composition":
- Choose a suitable design and hold to it.
- Make the paragraph the unit of composition.
- Use the active voice.
- Put statements in positive form.
- Use definite, specific, concrete language.
- Omit needless words.
- Avoid a succession of loose sentences.
- Express similar ideas in similar form (e.g. Beatitudes).
- Keep related words together.
- In summaries, keep to one tense.
- Place the emphatic words of a sentence at the end.
This advice comes in a good time, since I'm writing my PhD research proposal. Thanks to Joana once again for finding yet another great book.
2009-02-01
The Boston Museum of Science
I really liked the computer science section with a World War II Enigma machine and a UNIVAC.
A Indy 500 racing car and a Naboo Starfighter were on display!
The museum also has a nice Dinosaur section.
It's definitely worth a visit.
http://mos.org
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)