Feminist-Mom, your question deserves an answer. It's unfortunate that there are so many ignorant, angry, disrespectful people who comment on Slashdot stories.
Yes, bacteria cannot develop resistance to alcohol, because alcohol breaks the cell walls.
To see more about Triclosan and Triclocarban, put those words into the
U.S. government's PubMed.gov web site.
As I said before, people use soap with Triclosan and Triclocarban to
prevent body odor, fungus, and bacteria on the skin. People who work outside
and people who can't shower every day are not going to stop using
anti-bacterial soaps because the University of Michigan writes a misleading
press release.
Saying, as the title of this Slashdot article does, "Anti-Bacterial
Soap No Better Than Plain Soap" is misleading. The article referenced by
the Slashdot article is titled "Plain soap as effective as antibacterial
but without the risk" is not what the study showed. The study concerned
infectious diseases, and ignored the real reasons people use Triclosan: To
avoid body oder, skin bacteria, and skin fungal infections.
I have no involvement with the use of Triclosan and Triclocarban other
than as an occasional user.
Think very carefully about the issues here. No one has demonstrated any bad
effects from the use of Triclosan in soap. (I'm not saying there aren't
any. I am saying no one, including Allison Aiello, the author of the study
referenced by this Slashdot story, has demonstrated any bad effects.)
So, there is no story here. She apparently didn't find anything which
would make anyone believe they should avoid using soap with Triclosan to
avoid body odor, as they have been doing for three decades. Apparently what
she did is just junk science, good for a misleading headline by those who care
more about headlines than truth.
I was very sleepy when I wrote my parent comment. Now that I've had some rest, I realize I should have said: The purpose of Triclosan is to prevent or reduce topical skin infection and skin bacteria and fungus, and it does that very well, in my experience.
For example: If you plan a 2-day trip hiking in the mountains, and you don't want to smell bad on the 2nd day, use soap with Triclosan. Triclosan doesn't kill all the bacteria, it just slows their growth, keeping your skin a little healthier if you don't take a shower every day.
I am making no statement here about whether using Triclosan has some bad side-effects. The point is, neither is Allison Aiello. Nothing she said is relevant to science, apparently. People are not going to go back to living with body odor because Allison Aiello said that there "could" be a problem.
"(the negative effects of antibacterial everything in the
household)"
Tricosan is bacteriostatic, but so is soap. One of the points of washing is
to get rid of bacteria. Every time you do anything against bacteria, you
encourage bacterial evolution to find a new pathway.
The article has fraudulent elements, or at least sleazy elements, in my
opinion. This is just a Slashdot comment; the subject warrants a lot more
investigation, which I plan to do.
First, the Slashdot story only references a press release on
Physorg.org, an organization that apparently exercises little oversight over
the articles it runs.
Quote: "... we did not observe a significant impact on antimicrobial
drug resistance during the 1-year period..."
NO development of drug resistance or Triclosan resistance has been
shown as a result of use of Triclosan, apparently, although people have been
speculating about that for at least two decades. There are some chemical
pathways that bacteria cannot abandon.
The story is not new, but is apparently chosen only because it easily
excites the popular imagination.
The sloppiness and over-valuation of the work suggests either: 1) The
University of Michigan does not deserve our confidence, or possibly 2) Allison
Aiello is allowed to be sloppy because she is attractive.
This quote from the U. of M. press release is pure, wild
speculation, not supported by theory or experiment, apparently:"Because of the way triclosan kills the bacteria, mutations CAN
happen at the targeted site. Aiello says a mutation COULD mean that the
triclosan can no longer get to the target site to kill the bacteria because
the bacteria and the pathway have changed form." [my emphasis]
Yes, Triclosan may not prevent bacterial or virus infection. But no one
said it did. The purpose of Triclosan is to prevent or reduce skin fungal
infections, and it does that very well, in my experience.
I'd love to understand the sociology behind the fact that computer makers put
their own name on poorly designed software. Don't the computer makers have
anyone smart enough to understand their crud software is self-destructive? Are
they so stupid they don't know their software is poorly designed?
I guess that often the non-technical people at technically-oriented
companies don't know and don't care what they do. For them, it's just a job.
For a technically knowledgeable person, their work is often a satisfying
intellectual challenge. But non-technical people seem to be part of an
incompatible culture; they lead somewhat robotic lives in which things don't
have to work.
How else to explain Toshiba's brainless slogan, "In touch with
tomorrow"? Woooooo--oooooo. Spacey. Do Toshiba managers smoke dope? A
better slogan would be "In touch with reality."
I once asked a Toshiba technical support representative for tomorrow's
stock quotes. Apparently the company has no special connection with tomorrow,
unfortunately, in spite of the fact that they say they do, every time I turn
on my laptop.
Let's start a campaign to move all the non-technical managers of
technical companies into retirement, where they can watch the blinking clocks
on their VRCs.
At 29:41 minutes, Dr. Stroustrup says, "People don't really want to worry about these big things", referring to issues that require a lot of thought.
That's where more leadership is needed. Perhaps a special committee could be formed and advertised as a group of people who must have plenty of available brainpower. Most people use almost all their available brainpower at work, so should not join such a committee.
At 21:33 minutes into the video, Dr. Stroustrup says, "We don't have a marketing organization."
I think C++ needs a marketing organization. At present C++ suffers enormously from ignorance concerning the language and concerning how other languages compare, in my opinion.
For example, what about the ease of decompilation of Java and C#? Why don't Sun and Microsoft write their products in those languages? Why are those languages made for others to use? What economic advantage is there in providing a language that only other people will use?
It seems to me that it will be several years before Java is truly open, if ever.
Second, why did Sun and Microsoft want to make a new language, particularly when they don't use those languages internally? My answer is that Java and C# can be easily decompiled, making it easier for Sun and Microsoft to copy other people's code.
Dr.
Stroustrup made a great contribution by designing the C++ language.
However, in recent years it seems to me that he has been taking a leisurely approach to making improvements.
Stroustrup is, unlike most programmers, an excellent writer. His FAQ is an example. Quote: "What's a good certification for C++ programmers? To the best of my
knowledge, there isn't a good certification program for C++ programmers.
That's a pity. A good certification program would be most useful. However, C++
lacks the central organization that would produce a solid certification
program, and a certification program without authority or that focused on
syntax would be worse than useless."
I'm certainly not an expert in this subject. However, I get the same
impression from the words "C++ lacks the central organization" in that paragraph
that I get from his other recent work. Something like, "What, me be a leader?"
Note that Java and C#, which are sometimes seen as replacements for
C++, are proprietary languages from companies that are routinely mismanaged.
If you use those languages, you partner with those companies, and it is
possible that you too will suffer from their mismanagement. For that reason,
there is a big need for strong leadership in maintaining a language
unencumbered by issues of proprietary behavior.
Concerning Java, Dr. Stroustrup says"Java isn't platform independent; it is a platform. Like Windows, it is a
proprietary commercial platform. That is, you can write programs for
Windows/Intel or Java/JVM, and in each case you are writing code for a
platform owned by a single corporation and tweaked for the commercial benefit
of that corporation."
Concerning C#, he says, "It will take a lot to persuade me that the world needs yet
another proprietary language (YAPL). It will be especially hard to persuade me
that it needs a language that is closely integrated with a specific
proprietary operating system."
Again, I'm not an expert in this area, but it seems to me that Dr. Stroustrup
tends to define his leadership narrowly and concern himself with programming
constructs rather than larger issues such as extension, standardization, and
certification of libraries, for example. About C++ garbage collection he says, partly: "See... Hans-J. Boehm's site". It seems to me that there
are too many areas in which the C++ answer is "You can just go there", rather
than "This is the standard, certified method."
It's amazing to me, but true leaders are very rare. After all these
years, we still depend on Dr. Stroustrup, even though he has been less than a
complete leader in the more social aspects of developing the C++ language, in my opinion.
"This also requires that the Linux community respects Microsoft rather than ridicule it."
He's another computer professional with zero social experience. People don't like Microsoft because Microsoft is abusive. For example:
Embrace, Extend, Extinguish" or
"The whole world is our beta tester" or
"We can release sloppy, sloppy code because we have a virtual monopoly" or "Security vulnerabilities make us money because many people with infected computers buy new computers, and therefore buy another copy of Windows".
Bill Gates is the Chief of Grief in the computer world. When you partner with Microsoft, you are partnering with someone who will be partly an enemy if that makes more money.
Bush does not run the U.S. government. He is only a figurehead
provided by people who want corruption. There is no evidence he has ever been
mentally engaged enough to understand the workings of government.
The word "conservative" is only a word used by people like Karl Rove
("Bush's Brain") to
get political support. Those who call themselves conservative aren't conservative
except towards someone else's corruption.
Bush is an alcoholic (possibly a dry alcoholic), from a family of
alcoholics. His grandfather was a violent alcoholic. Expect lies and violence
from powerful alcoholics.
Alcoholics aren't religious. The pretense of religion is only a way of
getting elected. Those who want corruption will say or do anything to get
elected. They try to find and exploit the weaknesses of those who are less
educated and less informed.
Saddam Hussein would not restrict the flow of oil, so the other
powers could not get control over the price of oil. The invasion of Iraq was
to restrict the flow of oil so that prices would rise. This benefited oil
company investors like Cheney and Bush and their associates, like "Prince"
Bandar, the Saudi with whom G.W. Bush has been photographed holding hands, as
he has with other Saudis.
People from rich families often arrive at the conclusion that it is their
right to kill other people to make money. They don't do the killing
themselves, of course, but get others to do it.
The system cannot do imaging, which is what I said. That is partly because of reflections of sound from differing materials like air, flesh, and bone. It is not possible to know whether a sound that has been received directly, or as a result of a reflection.
Also, the wavelengths of the sound are far, far to long to allow discrimination of small details.
You said, "Slashdot might be occasionally scientifically challenged, but you are definitely demonstrating how scientifically challenged YOU are."
It's weird how people who comment on Slashdot assume that their guesses could not possibly be wrong, and another person's thoughtful comment that differs from their guesses indicates that the other person is ignorant.
I thought that people with an interest in computers were usually also interested in science in general, but I guess not.
My opinion is that the use of the word "imaging" in this situation is fraud. Find a physicist and consult with him before you invest.
Note that imaging with sound generated in the lungs naturally is apparently
not possible because the source and frequency of the sound cannot be known in
advance. The use of the word "Imaging" is apparently fraud.
The BusinessWeek article says, amazingly, begging the question,
"Its sales prospects are not just hot air"
Notice that, at present, there is no period at the end of that
sentence, suggesting that the article received little or no attention from an
editor.
Slashdot has run several stories about companies that had products
that they were supposedly trying to bring to market, but which, on close
examination, apparently were just methods of collecting investor money, with
no real hope of return.
Roland Piquepaille, the author of the Slashdot story, is apparently
paid to get articles in publications an on blogs. There has never been any
information, that I know of, about whether he pays someone at Slashdot or
Slashdot's parent company. His Slashdot stories apparently never note Mr.
Piquepaille's affiliations with the companies being discussed.
Not everyone knows what PirateBay, Suprnova, Mininova, IsoHunt, and Demonoid do. I think it would be good to explain their purpose and their differences.
Other questions: Why does Demonoid have accounts? "People in the United States downloading torrents tracked on The Pirate Bay are certainly in danger." Why is that? What is PeerGuardian? What is MediaSentry?
For those who are tempted, please skip any negative comments. No one can know everything about computers.
"The culture that produced Vista didn't arise overnight, it's been building for ten years. Vista is the product that comes out of a broken corporate environment.
Ballmer needs to go. He's not the only one, but he needs to go first."
"It took Microsoft a few years to stabilise just one release [of WinXP] to make it halfway decent; people are sceptical about Vista for reasons such as this."
"Vista looks cool and all and has some interesting under-the-hood improvements, but the release was rushed..."
Rule number one in dealing with Microsoft: Unless forced by
circumstances, never move to a new version of Windows until the second
service pack is released. Let other people have the grief. (Someone said
that rule will just cause Microsoft to release service packs much more often.
If that happens, it may be necessary to change the rule to "until the X
service pack...")
The huge number of bugs in Windows XP before SP2 was very expensive
for us. If I remember correctly, Windows XP SP2 fixed more than 630 bugs, and
some of the fixes were not documented.
It is not only the vulnerabilities that are expensive.
Where is service pack 3 for Windows XP? We've found that it is
often necessary to reload Windows XP, because of instability and infections.
Windows XP SP3 would make that easier.
I guess Microsoft is trying to discourage people from using Windows XP
by making them download 70 Megabytes from Windows Update, or use Autopatcher. When a company
doesn't take care of business and requires volunteers to maintain its product,
that's abusive.
Slashdot Mirror
Feminist-Mom, your question deserves an answer. It's unfortunate that there are so many ignorant, angry, disrespectful people who comment on Slashdot stories.
Yes, bacteria cannot develop resistance to alcohol, because alcohol breaks the cell walls.
In case someone would like to read more about Triclosan and Triclocarban:
Triclosan and triclocarban: "Triclosan and triclocarban have been used as effective antiseptics [1] in soap since the 1960's."
From the National Institute of Health, a U.S. government web site: The finding of mutants that carry no cost to resistance implies that such resistant strains could persist in natural populations, even without the constant presence of triclosan as a selective agent. That was 6 years ago. The issues in the current article referenced by Slashdot are not new.
Some bacteria are naturally resistant to Triclosan, and always have been.
To see more about Triclosan and Triclocarban, put those words into the U.S. government's PubMed.gov web site.
As I said before, people use soap with Triclosan and Triclocarban to prevent body odor, fungus, and bacteria on the skin. People who work outside and people who can't shower every day are not going to stop using anti-bacterial soaps because the University of Michigan writes a misleading press release.
Saying, as the title of this Slashdot article does, "Anti-Bacterial Soap No Better Than Plain Soap" is misleading. The article referenced by the Slashdot article is titled "Plain soap as effective as antibacterial but without the risk" is not what the study showed. The study concerned infectious diseases, and ignored the real reasons people use Triclosan: To avoid body oder, skin bacteria, and skin fungal infections.
I have no involvement with the use of Triclosan and Triclocarban other than as an occasional user.
Think very carefully about the issues here. No one has demonstrated any bad effects from the use of Triclosan in soap. (I'm not saying there aren't any. I am saying no one, including Allison Aiello, the author of the study referenced by this Slashdot story, has demonstrated any bad effects.)
So, there is no story here. She apparently didn't find anything which would make anyone believe they should avoid using soap with Triclosan to avoid body odor, as they have been doing for three decades. Apparently what she did is just junk science, good for a misleading headline by those who care more about headlines than truth.
I was very sleepy when I wrote my parent comment. Now that I've had some rest, I realize I should have said: The purpose of Triclosan is to prevent or reduce topical skin infection and skin bacteria and fungus, and it does that very well, in my experience.
For example: If you plan a 2-day trip hiking in the mountains, and you don't want to smell bad on the 2nd day, use soap with Triclosan. Triclosan doesn't kill all the bacteria, it just slows their growth, keeping your skin a little healthier if you don't take a shower every day.
I am making no statement here about whether using Triclosan has some bad side-effects. The point is, neither is Allison Aiello. Nothing she said is relevant to science, apparently. People are not going to go back to living with body odor because Allison Aiello said that there "could" be a problem.
"(the negative effects of antibacterial everything in the household)"
Tricosan is bacteriostatic, but so is soap. One of the points of washing is to get rid of bacteria. Every time you do anything against bacteria, you encourage bacterial evolution to find a new pathway.
The article has fraudulent elements, or at least sleazy elements, in my opinion. This is just a Slashdot comment; the subject warrants a lot more investigation, which I plan to do.First, the Slashdot story only references a press release on Physorg.org, an organization that apparently exercises little oversight over the articles it runs.
Second, read this article by the same author, which says exactly the opposite of the present article: Antibacterial Cleaning Products and Drug Resistance.
Quote: "... we did not observe a significant impact on antimicrobial drug resistance during the 1-year period..."
NO development of drug resistance or Triclosan resistance has been shown as a result of use of Triclosan, apparently, although people have been speculating about that for at least two decades. There are some chemical pathways that bacteria cannot abandon.
The story is not new, but is apparently chosen only because it easily excites the popular imagination.
The sloppiness and over-valuation of the work suggests either: 1) The University of Michigan does not deserve our confidence, or possibly 2) Allison Aiello is allowed to be sloppy because she is attractive.
This quote from the U. of M. press release is pure, wild speculation, not supported by theory or experiment, apparently: "Because of the way triclosan kills the bacteria, mutations CAN happen at the targeted site. Aiello says a mutation COULD mean that the triclosan can no longer get to the target site to kill the bacteria because the bacteria and the pathway have changed form." [my emphasis]
Yes, Triclosan may not prevent bacterial or virus infection. But no one said it did. The purpose of Triclosan is to prevent or reduce skin fungal infections, and it does that very well, in my experience.
I'd love to understand the sociology behind the fact that computer makers put their own name on poorly designed software. Don't the computer makers have anyone smart enough to understand their crud software is self-destructive? Are they so stupid they don't know their software is poorly designed?
I guess that often the non-technical people at technically-oriented companies don't know and don't care what they do. For them, it's just a job. For a technically knowledgeable person, their work is often a satisfying intellectual challenge. But non-technical people seem to be part of an incompatible culture; they lead somewhat robotic lives in which things don't have to work.
How else to explain Toshiba's brainless slogan, "In touch with tomorrow"? Woooooo--oooooo. Spacey. Do Toshiba managers smoke dope? A better slogan would be "In touch with reality."
I once asked a Toshiba technical support representative for tomorrow's stock quotes. Apparently the company has no special connection with tomorrow, unfortunately, in spite of the fact that they say they do, every time I turn on my laptop.
Let's start a campaign to move all the non-technical managers of technical companies into retirement, where they can watch the blinking clocks on their VRCs.
At 29:41 minutes, Dr. Stroustrup says, "People don't really want to worry about these big things", referring to issues that require a lot of thought.
That's where more leadership is needed. Perhaps a special committee could be formed and advertised as a group of people who must have plenty of available brainpower. Most people use almost all their available brainpower at work, so should not join such a committee.
At 21:33 minutes into the video, Dr. Stroustrup says, "We don't have a marketing organization."
I think C++ needs a marketing organization. At present C++ suffers enormously from ignorance concerning the language and concerning how other languages compare, in my opinion.
For example, what about the ease of decompilation of Java and C#? Why don't Sun and Microsoft write their products in those languages? Why are those languages made for others to use? What economic advantage is there in providing a language that only other people will use?
Thanks for your comment. I torrented the entire video, but have watched only the beginning.
It seems to me that it will be several years before Java is truly open, if ever.
Second, why did Sun and Microsoft want to make a new language, particularly when they don't use those languages internally? My answer is that Java and C# can be easily decompiled, making it easier for Sun and Microsoft to copy other people's code.
Agreed. G.W. Bush is just a figurehead. Rove and Cheney apparently run the government, and that won't stop.
Anti-Rove Rap videos:
Mark Fiore's MC Rove animation.
Nick Anderson of the Houston Chronicle: Feel Good, Inc..
Dr. Stroustrup made a great contribution by designing the C++ language. However, in recent years it seems to me that he has been taking a leisurely approach to making improvements.
... Hans-J. Boehm's site". It seems to me that there
are too many areas in which the C++ answer is "You can just go there", rather
than "This is the standard, certified method."
Stroustrup is, unlike most programmers, an excellent writer. His FAQ is an example. Quote: "What's a good certification for C++ programmers? To the best of my knowledge, there isn't a good certification program for C++ programmers. That's a pity. A good certification program would be most useful. However, C++ lacks the central organization that would produce a solid certification program, and a certification program without authority or that focused on syntax would be worse than useless."
I'm certainly not an expert in this subject. However, I get the same impression from the words "C++ lacks the central organization" in that paragraph that I get from his other recent work. Something like, "What, me be a leader?"
Note that Java and C#, which are sometimes seen as replacements for C++, are proprietary languages from companies that are routinely mismanaged. If you use those languages, you partner with those companies, and it is possible that you too will suffer from their mismanagement. For that reason, there is a big need for strong leadership in maintaining a language unencumbered by issues of proprietary behavior.
Concerning Java, Dr. Stroustrup says "Java isn't platform independent; it is a platform. Like Windows, it is a proprietary commercial platform. That is, you can write programs for Windows/Intel or Java/JVM, and in each case you are writing code for a platform owned by a single corporation and tweaked for the commercial benefit of that corporation."
Concerning C#, he says, "It will take a lot to persuade me that the world needs yet another proprietary language (YAPL). It will be especially hard to persuade me that it needs a language that is closely integrated with a specific proprietary operating system."
Again, I'm not an expert in this area, but it seems to me that Dr. Stroustrup tends to define his leadership narrowly and concern himself with programming constructs rather than larger issues such as extension, standardization, and certification of libraries, for example. About C++ garbage collection he says, partly: "See
It's amazing to me, but true leaders are very rare. After all these years, we still depend on Dr. Stroustrup, even though he has been less than a complete leader in the more social aspects of developing the C++ language, in my opinion.
Conclusion in the article: Too expensive.
I always check all inputs before using the data. Don't other people do that?
"This also requires that the Linux community respects Microsoft rather than ridicule it."
He's another computer professional with zero social experience. People don't like Microsoft because Microsoft is abusive. For example:
Embrace, Extend, Extinguish" or
"The whole world is our beta tester" or
"We can release sloppy, sloppy code because we have a virtual monopoly" or
"Security vulnerabilities make us money because many people with infected computers buy new computers, and therefore buy another copy of Windows".
Bill Gates is the Chief of Grief in the computer world. When you partner with Microsoft, you are partnering with someone who will be partly an enemy if that makes more money.
Present-day realities of the U.S. government:
Bush does not run the U.S. government. He is only a figurehead provided by people who want corruption. There is no evidence he has ever been mentally engaged enough to understand the workings of government.
The word "conservative" is only a word used by people like Karl Rove ("Bush's Brain") to get political support. Those who call themselves conservative aren't conservative except towards someone else's corruption.
Bush is an alcoholic (possibly a dry alcoholic), from a family of alcoholics. His grandfather was a violent alcoholic. Expect lies and violence from powerful alcoholics.
Alcoholics aren't religious. The pretense of religion is only a way of getting elected. Those who want corruption will say or do anything to get elected. They try to find and exploit the weaknesses of those who are less educated and less informed.
Saddam Hussein would not restrict the flow of oil, so the other powers could not get control over the price of oil. The invasion of Iraq was to restrict the flow of oil so that prices would rise. This benefited oil company investors like Cheney and Bush and their associates, like "Prince" Bandar, the Saudi with whom G.W. Bush has been photographed holding hands, as he has with other Saudis.
People from rich families often arrive at the conclusion that it is their right to kill other people to make money. They don't do the killing themselves, of course, but get others to do it.
For more information, see this article: George W. Bush comedy and tragedy.
Buffer overflows are so 90s. Isn't there a way to prevent them entirely, like using only good libraries?
The system cannot do imaging, which is what I said. That is partly because of reflections of sound from differing materials like air, flesh, and bone. It is not possible to know whether a sound that has been received directly, or as a result of a reflection.
Also, the wavelengths of the sound are far, far to long to allow discrimination of small details.
You said, "Slashdot might be occasionally scientifically challenged, but you are definitely demonstrating how scientifically challenged YOU are."
It's weird how people who comment on Slashdot assume that their guesses could not possibly be wrong, and another person's thoughtful comment that differs from their guesses indicates that the other person is ignorant.
I thought that people with an interest in computers were usually also interested in science in general, but I guess not.
My opinion is that the use of the word "imaging" in this situation is fraud. Find a physicist and consult with him before you invest.
Bronze them and use them as lawn ornaments.
Keep them around as an example of "dumber than a post". Drawback: Posts may feel belittled.
Use them to scare your kids: "Better study or you will be as stupid as him."
Note that imaging with sound generated in the lungs naturally is apparently not possible because the source and frequency of the sound cannot be known in advance. The use of the word "Imaging" is apparently fraud.
The BusinessWeek article says, amazingly, begging the question, "Its sales prospects are not just hot air"
Notice that, at present, there is no period at the end of that sentence, suggesting that the article received little or no attention from an editor.
Slashdot has run several stories about companies that had products that they were supposedly trying to bring to market, but which, on close examination, apparently were just methods of collecting investor money, with no real hope of return.
Roland Piquepaille, the author of the Slashdot story, is apparently paid to get articles in publications an on blogs. There has never been any information, that I know of, about whether he pays someone at Slashdot or Slashdot's parent company. His Slashdot stories apparently never note Mr. Piquepaille's affiliations with the companies being discussed.
Slashdot has often been scientifically challenged. The Slashdot article The Car That Makes Its Own Fuel has a +5 moderated First Post that expresses the consensus of the comments on that story.
Thinking that she would not be detected certainly puts an upper limit on the intelligence of NBC executives.
Not everyone knows what PirateBay, Suprnova, Mininova, IsoHunt, and Demonoid do. I think it would be good to explain their purpose and their differences.
Other questions: Why does Demonoid have accounts? "People in the United States downloading torrents tracked on The Pirate Bay are certainly in danger." Why is that? What is PeerGuardian? What is MediaSentry?
For those who are tempted, please skip any negative comments. No one can know everything about computers.
"The culture that produced Vista didn't arise overnight, it's been building for ten years. Vista is the product that comes out of a broken corporate environment.
Ballmer needs to go. He's not the only one, but he needs to go first."
"It took Microsoft a few years to stabilise just one release [of WinXP] to make it halfway decent; people are sceptical about Vista for reasons such as this."
"Vista looks cool and all and has some interesting under-the-hood improvements, but the release was rushed..."
Mod parent up to +10.
"... many large issues with stability."
Rule number one in dealing with Microsoft: Unless forced by circumstances, never move to a new version of Windows until the second service pack is released. Let other people have the grief. (Someone said that rule will just cause Microsoft to release service packs much more often. If that happens, it may be necessary to change the rule to "until the X service pack...")
The huge number of bugs in Windows XP before SP2 was very expensive for us. If I remember correctly, Windows XP SP2 fixed more than 630 bugs, and some of the fixes were not documented.
It is not only the vulnerabilities that are expensive.
Where is service pack 3 for Windows XP? We've found that it is often necessary to reload Windows XP, because of instability and infections. Windows XP SP3 would make that easier.
I guess Microsoft is trying to discourage people from using Windows XP by making them download 70 Megabytes from Windows Update, or use Autopatcher. When a company doesn't take care of business and requires volunteers to maintain its product, that's abusive.