Slashdot Mirror

• EMSC European-Mediterranean Seismological Centre, here
• GeoNet Geological hazard information for New Zealand here
• CSN Centro SismolÃgico Nacional, Universidad de Chile.here
• INGV Istituto Nazionale di Geofisica e Vulcanologia here
• IGN Instituto GeogrÃfico Nacional here
• JMA Japan Meteorological Agency here
• Ineter Institution Nicaraguenese de Estudios Territoriales here
• SSN Servicio SismolÃgico Nacional here
• SGC Servicio GeolÃgico Colombiano here
• RSN Red SismolÃgica Nacional here
• Funvisis FundaciÃn Venezolana de Investigaciones SismolÃgicas here
• INPRES INSTITUTO NACIONAL DE PREVENCIÃ"N SÃSMICA here

You can tell I have my own reasons for keeping a list like that, one of which is that the USGS just can't be trusted to be up.

The data is international anyway. It's part of the international network for monitoring compliance with nuclear test ban treaties. So any one of those sites should be able to get you everything you need.

I am not entirely convinced by this explanation, although maybe someone who knows more about the costs and speed of these types of connections can say whether it makes sense. Ideally, any connection that is available should be accessible to anyone at, for example, libraries. I'm not sure whether this is possible in Cuba right now (anyone that can describe the current situation in Cuba?).

The article also mentions that Cuba is building a submarine connection through Venezuela, which is aimed at solving the "internet shortage".

Today with refrigeration? I eat raw sushi all the time.

Sushi is not pork. Let wikipedia explain it to you: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cysticercosis
http://www-lab.biomedicas.unam.mx/cistimex/s5/CVe-infeccion.gif

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_YU8XnROqhU&feature=related

http://www.jornada.unam.mx/2009/05/05/index.php?section=politica&article=008n1pol

The first case of swine flu was in La Gloria, close to Granjas Carroll (Carroll Farms, swines), owned 50 % by Smithfield Foods Inc., expelled from Virgina, USA due to contaminating the environment.

For years people in the area have suffered much higher levels of pulmonary diseases, all caused by contamination from the farms. Protest have been met with arrest and prosecution of the leaders.

Our fraudulent president Felipe Calderon is just an employee of the transnational companies, and under the excuse of reducing government expenses, has been reducing expenses in public health. We really need a Mexican Michael Moore documenting our health system. Mr. del Toro, your movies are very fun to watch ...but, how about directing some of that talent to expose the truth about Mexico?

There's lots of people fighting to change the country, don't believe the propaganda from your government against these social fighters, we're only fighting for things you've already had at least a century ago, the same way Chavez is fighting to have in Venezuela what Mexico, Costa Rica, Chile, etc have had for the last 50 years.

Sorry to say this but the attack overrides the modem's password, the attack from Gusanito and similar attacks (ie El Universal) probes with different common 2WIRE router addresses to get to the MDC. Fortunately it is not that elaborated... This attack was reported during late last year. This exploits a vulnerability in 2WIRE modems, as documented in US-CERT http://nvd.nist.gov/nvd.cfm?cvename=CVE-2007-4389
Trend Micro has a more recent report on a variation of this attack http://blog.trendmicro.com/targeted-attack-in-mexico-dns-poisoning-via-modems/
The UNAM-CERT, also has the "Gusanito" exploit documented (spanish only) at http://www.seguridad.unam.mx/doc/?ap=articulo&id=196
The attack overrides the modem's password...

Well yes is Banamex. This attack was reported during late last year. This exploits a vulnerability in 2WIRE modems, as documented in US-CERT http://nvd.nist.gov/nvd.cfm?cvename=CVE-2007-4389
Trend Micro has a more recent report on a variation of this attack http://blog.trendmicro.com/targeted-attack-in-mexico-dns-poisoning-via-modems/
The UNAM-CERT, also has the "Gusanito" exploit documented (spanish only) at http://www.seguridad.unam.mx/doc/?ap=articulo&id=196
The attack overrides the modem's password...

From what I read in a newspaper article (in spanish though).

Says (for all of you non-spanish speakers) there is "slight hope" for treatment to exist in 10 years.
and the "complicated" treatment would be (according to newspaper and my weird translation).
"..to obtain stem cells from the patient's blood, 'clean' them of the virus in the lab. Then these treated cells would be reintroduced into the patient and should regenerate their immune system.
Although, by this method it is highly unlikely that it will be possible to completely remove the virus from the patient, Hauber does hope that there would be enough removal of the virus to control the infection.
'This is high-technology medicine, and can't be administered in form of a pill (duh', indicated the scientist. In case mutations occured in the ends of the sequence of the virus, recombinases could be adapted quickly.."
It also mentions that the treatment would be cheaper compared to current treatments that supposedly range around $20,000 usd yearly.

Good ol American here. Any good online news sites you can recommend then?
I've been checking out the BBC, but even they are pretty filtered these days...

Try newspaper and news channel websites around the world - of course, there's the issue of translating them :-/

For Mexico, there's Proyecto 40, El Universal and La Cronica (right-wing tendency). La Jornada has a left-wing tendency. (No subscription needed for any of them). Of course, you can translate most of them via Google Language tools.

Google news is also a nice source for news - the key is finding a proxy for the country of your choice to fool Google (just in case of great firewalls) and/or including it in the url. Example:
http://news.google.com/news?ned=es_mx&topic=w gives you world news tailored for Mexico, in spanish.

Hope that helps.

Don't get me wrong, I love Wikipedia - but I hope my doctor doesn't rely on it when prescribing medication.
Dont know in USA, but in Mexico, doctors use something called Pharmaceutics Speciality Dictionary (or something similar) and the Mexico's University has it available for free .

Going on topic, The non availability of the research papers has always been frustrating for me. I am currently doing a PhD and fortunately my University has subscription to *lots* of journals and services like Scopus or eBrary. I understand why eBrary is not free (they offer complete books after all) but almost all of the research published in the scientific journals is made on Universities.

But, when I was doing my Bachellors degree (at my poorman's univesity somewhere in Mexico) I remember reading abstracts and some titles of some papers without having the chance to read them all. I think it is not fair. I remember somewhere I read a rant by Prof. Donald Knuth about the editorial monopolies happening in research (by elsevier and two or three others). For some journals the author even has to *pay* the journal to publish his work... that is crap.

Now, both my parents are researchers (biologists) and they told me that, if you are interested in some paper it is still possible to write to the author and ask for it directly, they will almost always agree to give it to you (at the end, you might potentially cite them on a paper). I have done that two or three times but some authors just refer you to the publication (in other words, they do not give it to you ).

For starters, UNAM, the largest university in mexico has it's institute of astronomy here.

There are lots of observatories around mexico, it seems they like astronomy because of all that prehispanic tradition. Anyway, i live in mexico and this telescope was big news last night. The name in spanish is "Gran Telescopio Milimetrico" which translates better (IMO) to "Great Milimetric Telescope".

I think we can be certain consciousness does not develop before the nervous system.

From the article they are harvesting cells after 5 days and the nervous system starts to develop after 17 day.

I assume that changes you mind about this, unless, of course, you think one can have consciousness without a nervous system.

The amount of money comming from the US (I'm in Mexico), product of the innmigrants has been increasing in the last years, and is also a good and easy source of income for the country:

http://www.jornada.unam.mx/2006/06/02/fotos/006o1e co-1.jpg

Figures are in Billions of dollars.

It would be nice to see them provide newspapers for easy download to these devices.

I think the approach will be for the newsaper providers to give the service of a device-friendly version, right now, a paper I read a lot called La Jornada has a HTML (even text only version [english translation ) for free.

So I guess the New York Times and other news will have to do the same.

It would be nice to see them provide newspapers for easy download to these devices.

I think the approach will be for the newsaper providers to give the service of a device-friendly version, right now, a paper I read a lot called La Jornada has a HTML (even text only version [english translation ) for free.

So I guess the New York Times and other news will have to do the same.

It says that large enough random data will eventually generate data with a specific meaning to us. Check out this paper from the University of Texas.

One of my science group teammates in the Faculty of Engineering, UNAM already worked on this phenomenon. They built an associative machine (AI pattern recognition program) using a block of memory filled with random data.

In short, Ramsey Theory is nothing but the scientific explanation behind the Bible Code: It's RANDOM DATA. Period.

Well, the guys at Princeton just earned a "-5, stupid" moderation from me. Bet they didn't predict this ;-)

http://laguna.fmedic.unam.mx/~daniel/pygtutorial/p ygtutorial/x101.html

Not so. If you remember a few years ago, a judge ruled against Blizzard using spyware in their software even though all it was doing was helping them to squash bugs and prevent cheating

I'm a software developer in Mexico and I'm putting exactly this technology in my software. There are no Mexican laws against this (or if there are, I couldn't find any here or here. I could care less what U.S. laws say about it. Just because an American buys it doesn't bind me to U.S. law in this regard.

Slightly offtopic, I'm curious, are there any web sites in the States with all the federal and state laws? InfoJus is a great resource for Mexicans (and foreigners, like me, in Mexico).

Not so. If you remember a few years ago, a judge ruled against Blizzard using spyware in their software even though all it was doing was helping them to squash bugs and prevent cheating

I'm a software developer in Mexico and I'm putting exactly this technology in my software. There are no Mexican laws against this (or if there are, I couldn't find any here or here. I could care less what U.S. laws say about it. Just because an American buys it doesn't bind me to U.S. law in this regard.

Slightly offtopic, I'm curious, are there any web sites in the States with all the federal and state laws? InfoJus is a great resource for Mexicans (and foreigners, like me, in Mexico).

The strongest anti-American sentiment I saw was a sentiment that we caused September 11th by having a foreign policy which pissed off foreign countries. There is also a sentiment that the current adminstration is a bunch of war mongers.

There is no sentiment that America is the great Satan or the other kind of nonsense which is common in some middle eastern countries. In fact, Acapulco has a lot of large banners saying "God Bless America" when I was there a year ago.

I've frequently read one of the more radical newspapers, La Jornada; it is left-wing, but no more so than the San Francisco Bay Guardian.

- Sam

HandyKey Twiddler 2The Twiddler2 is a pocket-sized mouse pointer plus a full-function keyboard in a single unit that fits neatly in either right or left hand. The Twiddler2 plugs into both keyboard and mouse PS/2 ports on any computer that accepts standard PS/2 mouse and keyboard input. WearClam: A Wearable Input InterfaceThe WearClam is an wearable Input device, developed for those situations where you need keyboard-like input nearly all the time. It is an ergonomic ring which resembles a real Clam's shape and as such it could be considered as a wearable interface for a wearable computer. L3 Systems WristPC KeyboardL3 Systems has developed the WristPC Keyboard for portable and wearable computer applications. The WristPC is a rugged QWERTY keyboard with a standard PC keyboard interface. The housing is a black anodized aluminum. Completely sealed, it can operate in the rain and other harsh environments. Fitaly One-Finger KeyboardThis "keyboard" is optimized for entry with a single finger or with a pen, as is the case on a pen computer or a computer with a touchscreen. The Fitaly One-Finger Keyboard minimizes pen or finger travel as well as hand travel. Tactex smart fabric technologyTactex's Smart Fabric technology enables the manufacture of both expressive and rugged control surfaces, which can be presented in a wide variety of shapes, sizes, and surface finishes. A retail product, the MTC Express, is about the size of a mouse pad, and is produced for Mac and Windows platforms. Senseboard virtual keyboardSenseboard (tm) is a virtual keyboard, designed for the millions of mobile computer users, struggling with their tiny or nonexistent keyboards when trying to communicate or type. The VK hand mounted devices allow the user to type on any surface as if it were a keyboard. Sensors in the units measure the finger movements and artificial intelligence and a language processor determine appropriate keystrokes or mouse movements. Thunbscript Input DevicesThumbscript (TM) is a patented universal text entry system for mobile people and devices. Equally at home with Pen based devices like the Palm Pilot and keypad devices like your telephone or TV controller, Thumbscript offers users a single system that is simple, inexpensive to implement and easy to use because it is visual. FrogPad keyboardThe "FrogPad" is a 19-key device that uses patented simultaneous key function change technology to emulate a full-size keyboard, and requires a fraction of the physical space. Kord Interface TechnologyKord (R) Interface Technology (Kord [R] IT)is a suite of hardware and software that creates "an ambidextrous, chordic Human Machine Interface HMI, suitable for any computing device". Essential Reality P5 GloveTo digitally "walk" through an online room or actually "pick up" objects in a video game requires the ability to manipulate in three-dimensions. Not through complicated keystrokes but by the simple movement of your hand in space.

Courtesy of good ol' Google:

Sunsite.dk HTTP, Denmark -
Complete mirror with sources, binaries and contrib files.
Qkaka HTTP, China P.R. -
Complete mirror with sources, binaries and contrib files.
Utwente HTTP/FTP, Netherlands -
Complete mirror with sources, binaries and contrib files.
Planet Mirror HTTP, Australia -
Complete mirror with sources, binaries and contrib files.
VLSM HTTP/FTP, Indonesia -
Complete mirror with sources, binaries and contrib files.
E4A HTTP, Italy -
English and italian binaries.
Edumail HTTP, Belgium -
Complete mirror with sources, binaries and contrib files.
Giganet HTTP, Hungary -
Mirror with sources, binaries.
GD TU Wien HTTP/FTP, Austria -
Complete mirror with sources, binaries and contrib files.
Stud FHT-Esslingen FTP, Germany -
Complete mirror with sources, binaries and contrib files.
3Way FTP, Hong Kong, China P.R. -
Complete mirror with sources, binaries and contrib files.
RWTH-Aachen FTP, Germany -
Complete mirror with sources, binaries and contrib files (german, french, english).
PWR Wroc FTP, Poland -
Complete mirror with sources, binaries and contrib files.
Sunsite Cnlab-Switch FTP, Switzerland -
Complete mirror with sources, binaries and contrib files (german, french, english).
CHG FTP, Russia -
Complete mirror with sources, binaries and contrib files.
Mirror AC HTTP, United Kingdom -
Complete mirror with sources, binaries and contrib files.
Unam FTP, Mexico -
Complete mirror with sources, binaries and contrib files.
Stardiv FTP, Germany -
Complete mirror with sources, binaries and contrib files (german, french, english).

Thanks OpenOffice team!

A few years ago I was looking at the web page of a company that made a collection of fancy plug-ins for Photoshop. These were the Alien Skin plug-ins or somesuch. They had a bunch of useful snazzy special effects, and most of them could be accomplished by combining the functions of several of the then-existing GIMP plug-ins.

So I was looking at their examples, and I was saying to myself, "got it", "got it", "got it", "umm, could do it with a little hacking". I came to a very pretty effect that made an image look like if it were woven with thick ribbons. So I got off my butt and wrote the Weave script for Script-fu. I was very proud. I was also very happy that complicated effects could be whipped up quickly with a little Scheme script.

The Alien Skin plug-ins were proprietary and quite expensive; this 300-line Scheme script is free software and gratis. The Alien Skin stuff still has a prettier user interface, and Script-fu does not provide facilities for real user interfaces, but the point is that the same effect could be pulled off with the existing GIMP tools and a bit of hacking.

Metacreations' KPT plug-ins are mostly of the same kind; no wizardry involved, just a very flashy user interface. I haven't missed them with all the stuff the GIMP can do.

Still, Metacreations has some really incredible stuff that will take some heavy wizardry to duplicate as free software, in particular their 3D mesh decimation and compression stuff. It is awesome. Hopefully some highly clueful hackers and 3D junkies will write free software that does an equivalent thing.

Free software can make a big difference. I hope developers are not put off by companies releasing proprietary software for free systems. We win nothing with that kind of software. It has to be freed or replaced with something free.

Ok, so I know this is both somewhat off-topic and a long shot. Anyhow, I missed the oportunity to post a question to Miguel about recommended readings; I wanted to know about this because someone who once was his teacher (I study CS in UNAM) told me he read very good books. I have already ordered "Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs", which he recommends on his activity log but surely he has read other equally enlightening books (specially but not limite to computer related books). I post this here so it may not be lost amongst the thousands of mails he gets and to get the enlightened guiding of other slashdoters.

• Mexican Schools Embrace Linux by Leander Kahney (WIRED)
• Scholar Net

Greetings, beloved GNOME users and developers.

I work as the proyect leader of the "Scholar Net", a program that aims to bring computers and the net to every elementary and mid-level school in Mexico. We expect to install from 20 to 35 thousand labs per year to a total of 140,000 centers in the next five years.

Due to matters of cost, reliability and configurability, we plan to use GNU/Linux to replace the propietary server options and, now thanks to GNOME, the propietary desktop application options.

We will develop GNOME to a point where we can get a useful and friendly enough desktop for the elementary and high school student. There are some aspects of GNOME, such as uniformity, spanish translation, bug fixing and application development which we will address to achieve this.

At an average of 20 users per machine, and being all of them school children and teachers, GNU/Linux will become, at the long term, a major influence in Mexico. In the short term, GNOME will get an additional impulse from us and those who will contribute following our guidelines, and GNU/Linux will prove to be a real-world option for the end user.

For further information and details on the Scholar Net and, specially for GNOME developers, on how to contribute to GNOME for us to arrive to deployment stage, please contact Arturo Espinosa .

Arturo Espinosa Aldama
Proyect Leader
Academic Services Coordination
National Autonomous University of Mexico

The text above may be copied in any way provided that it stays with this parragraph and unmodified.

Miguel de Icaza's activity log has a link to the irc discussion that the author of gnap had with the people from Napster. I am not sure if this discussion took place before or after he received the letter.