Planeattack and Trainattack

Now Spain has had a major terrorist attack. On 2004 March 11, early in the morning, ten bombs ripped through cars of commuter trains taking passengers to or away from Madrid, killing exactly 200 people (this may go higher). It reminds us of Planeattack on 2001 September 11, and it occurred 2 1/2 years after Planeattack. It was only one-third the intensity of Planeattack; in a nation of 52 million people, or about 1/5 the size of the US, 1/15 of the people (200 versus about 3,000) died. Still, it was a terrible tragedy.

However, I do note a problem and an error appearing in the media about this event. First of all, they are calling it 3/11 or even March 11. This is just as inappropriate as calling Planeattack 9/11 or September 11. It demeans people born on March 11, and the phrase "March 11" can't be used for anything else (such as 2005 March 11) without causing confusion. Further, the numbers 3/11 can also cause confusion. If one says that something will occur on March 3-11, then that will cause confusion.

It is difficult to find names for these events, and it was only after some searching that I came up with the name Planeattack for the events of 2001 September 11, choosing it over Attack on America, Towerfall, and several other names. But now that I call the events of that day Planeattack, that suggests that the events in Spain on 2004 March 11 be called Trainattack (el Trenataque or el Trenatentado in español). One problem with both names is that there could very well be another event of this type, especially Trainattack. I suppose it would be Trainattack II, or for the first one, Trainattack in Madrid, instead. Indeed, I have already used planeattack, with a small p, to denote the deliberate crashing of planes into buildings as terrorist attacks in general. But I still am lacking a better name, so for now it is Planeattack and Trainattack.

An error that the media has made is saying that Trainattack occurred 911 days after Planeattack. Maybe this is the reason the day was chosen (more likely is the 2 1/2-year anniversary), but it is just plain wrong. Planeattack occurred on Tuesday, and Trainattack occurred on Thursday. It occurred on Wednesday to people in the Western Hemisphere, but that isn't what counts: it occurred on Thursday in the place where it mattered. The number 91 is divisible by 7, so likewise 910 is divisible by 7. Hence when 911 is divided by 7, the remainder is 1. This means that 911 days after a certain day of the week is the next day of the week. So 911 days after Tuesday is Wednesday, not Thursday. It is true that 911 days lie between the two dates, but that is not how the media states it. The two events occurred 912 days apart, and if the media continues to call it 911 days, then I will have to answer them the same way as the receiver of an unwanted call did: "Ah no, you got the wrong number. This is 91…2."

What's going on tonight, anyway?

It seems like half the Internet is malfunctioning tonight. These things have happened tonight:

1. My workplace says that it can't log me onto my account.
2. Only partly to mostly cloudy were called for in the official weather forecast for Virginia, and instead thunderstorms with high winds occurred.
3. When these thunderstorms occurred, WTVR's site as of the evening of 2004 March 7 displayed a radar from 2004 March 6 1745; since it was perfect weather then, with a beautiful sunset, naturally, nothing was on the radar.
4. Blogger, to which I post my blogs, has a weird new interface which won't let me see my old blogs.
5. CNN had a story on the Republican National Committee warning TV stations not to air ads from moveon.org, so when I searched for them, it said it could not do it right now.I had to go to news.google.com to search for it elsewhere.
6. Accessing Weather Underground causes a vicious popup firm to change your home page, and worse yet, threatens to open up all your CD drives.
7. Intellicast refuses to show radar.

Is there a virus out there? Have some hubs been hit? What's going on here?

Beware of using Weather Underground

Weather Underground is one of the best sites for obtaining weather information. It gives the weather for a wide range of locations, and has a huge amount of statistics for all of these locations. That is why I have listed it as a site on my weather page. However, they now insist on throwing ads and popup windows in your face, or on charging you something like $5 a year. The problem with that is that all these sites want to charge you (or throw ads in your face). If you subscribe to all of them, it can add up to a huge bill.

So I don't subscribe and put up with the ads. But I wish they would put them in their place. They should go inline in with the page and do nothing except sit there with the words. Above all, they should not pop up windows in your face. Fortunately, there are ways of dealing with the popups. You can download Pow! from AnalogX, or Popup Stopper from Panicware. However, these programs do not properly identify the offending popups by name, and only Pow! will allow you to tell the computer which sites to pow off the screen. Still, they keep the popup situation in check.

Now there is a new menace, so severe that perhaps one should not use Weather Underground anymore unless you take precautions. Every once in a while when you access Weather Underground something called Default Homepage Network will throw a popup window in your face. Not only that, but it will change your default page to the Default Homepage Network page, and worse of all, it will open up all your CD-ROM drives. They are clearly going too far here. This could cause damage to the computer, because one does not normally expect all one's CD drives to open up at once. If your hand happens to be anywhere near the CD drives at the time, the CD drive will be blocked and damage may occur. These people are asking for lawsuits. Fortunately I have found a way to cure the menace. Go into Tools, Internet Options in Internet Explorer, and click on Security, then click on the red Restricted Sites symbol. Click on the "Sites…" button, and type "httq://*.default-homepage-network.com" in the blank, and click "Add". Click OK. Then click on the General Tab, and where it says "Address:" in the Home Page block at the top, you will have to retype in your desired default page; Default Homepage Network probably has changed it to their page. Click OK. If you have Symantec Internet Security, you may be able to block the site there. I tried it already and when it happened tonight, it changed my home page, but it did not open up all my disc drives. I think the "restricted zone" bit did it. The red symbol appeared in the right corner. Unfortunately I don't know of any way of blocking popup or other malicious access to your home page; you just simply have to change the page back to where it was.

If any of you know of any more information on this CD-ROM pop-out phenomenon such as who is behind it or a better way of blocking it, please let me know. In the meantime, don't use Weather Underground until you have protected your CD drives from this malicious spam popup.