Mr. Gates and Mr. Stallman are both offended by your remarks!
I would not be so sure about the Mr. Gates remark... after all, he really liked 3rd world countries adopting DOS and Windows 95 for free (pirated). That is what drove its monopoly on the first place!
Fine the Meta key, idiot. Here's a tip, when you play stupid people are going to think that you're stupid. Do you want people to think that you're stupid?
see your sarcasm, but honestly this isn't as much of a security flaw in the OS as it is a "feature" in the OS that makes stupid users even stupider.
And this is why I believe that Windows is still not ready for the Desktop... you see, while in Windows the user has to worry about all these file "extensions" jpg, exe iso, com, bat, etcetera, other user friendly OS (like Ubuntu or OSX) automagically know what type of file is it by actually reading the file (usually only the beginning).
I still can not believe that it is 2009 and some Operating Systems still rely on these 80's "extensions"
Nah, the real bridge comes from the technology choice path dependency. Right now there are few options for anything non-windows to reduce the monopolistic marketshare of Windows.
Just today I started to conceive an ABM for the study of the Linux/OSX/Windows effect based on the polya-urn model. Let's see what interesting behavior can we get:)
cations because it made them look good, eg Autodesk, ESRI,NatlSemi.
Don't forget SPSS, SAS, QuickLooks, SAP, and a plethora of not-very-known third party apps that someone use (and are available only in Windows), like Netica, Palisade decision tools, etc etc.
There are THOUSANDS of software that are only available on Windows and which "Open source" developers could only dream of creating on their spare time.
And that is yet another big issue in the Linux world.
IIRC previous Ubuntu versions used something else than Network-Manager, then they changed to "Network-Manager" because it was supposed to be easy, next version they may change to this Wicd and next next next version to something else.
I wouldn't let my dad or grandpa try an OS that changes its interface as a bitch underwear. And this is every 6 months to 1 year!!
That said, the page you linked to sends users into all that unfamiliar territory. It only reinforces the stereotype that you have to know archaic commands to get stuff done in Linux. And ones like this are particularly troublesome, because it's resolving a problem getting online. But you have to be online to learn how to fix it. So what's somebody going to do? Head straight back to their Windows box to get online and look it up, then wonder why they're messing with this Linux stuff.
haha, that is exactly the same I thought when I saw the page, compare that to Windows XP And you see one example of why Linux Distros are still miles away from the usability and intuitiveness of Windows.
When googling for linux problems you very quickly get to the place where experts meet and find a useful answer.
Or a RTFM n00b , it's not Linux fault is the hardware's fault or just no answer at all. I have experienced those three myself throughout my years of using (temporairly, I still feel windows more comfortable and still feel I have to "fight" Linux while I am running it).
I have tried all the distros you can imagine, from Caldera to Mandrake, Ubuntu, Suse, RedHat, Fedora, Linsipre, Xandros, etc, etc etc... The problem is not Linux (i.e., the kernel) the problem is that there is still no decent distribution.
My personal dream is that the introduction of the EEE pc line (which is some kind of popular PC standard) would make Linux distro makers get it right... but so far I there is no success (current distros won't like my new EEE 1000HE hardware like camera, sound and others... and I don't want to fight once again with.conf and sudos).
. It takes much less effort to keep a linux system working smoothly.
I do not need any effort to keep my Windows XP computers working smoothly. I do not *even* have to think making them work smoothly. I just bought an EeePC 1000HE and start working with it.
What do you have to do in Linux to "keep it working smoothly?"
And while you are at that, use JabRef for bibliographic management.
I tried Zotero once and found it very non intuitive, it was hard to understand. I also dislike that you have to open your "web browser" to manage your bibliography... with JabRef I can have have the Java program, the references databas and the PDF/PS files in my USB flash memory and I can open them whenever I go.
On a similar note, EndNote is completely hopeless, they [in my job] installed me version X2 (I think it is the latest version) and is a complete pain in the ass that makes Word *very* slow. It is easier just to "export to clipboard as Harvard RTF" in JabRef and paste it in Word (when I am forced to use Word).
doSomethingElse(); } That's a difference of 3 lines. Multiply that by the number of if-else blocks alone, then consider that this also affects loops, switches, etc. LoC is basically a composite measure of coding style and complexity. In other words, it's meaningless.
A systembuilder license of Vista Home Premium is about 70 Euro (90$) today. I see no reason why Windows 7 won't cost around the same. Besides, most people buy the OS with their machine.
Great, that means I will have to spend 23% more or hmm 0% more! again, though choice!
Spend $40-60 on antivirus. Again - this is clearly a troll/fanboy argument. You realize that there's perfectly good antivirus solutions for free (AVG, Avast, Antivir)?
Read my previous comment on the antivirus consuming your resources... they are costing you [ram, cpu, disk] even if you download them for free... or run an Operating System not prone to infections... again, though choice!
* Limited to three applications. See above, you'll likely get the normal Windows 7 Home version a lot cheaper than the rumored suggested retail prices floating around these days
You must remember that Microsoft only approved the starting Win7 version for Netbooks (discussed in this story/threads). A quick look at froogle,shows Windows Vista Home Basic prices start at $50 USD.... compared to a $0 USD option Again, though choice.
As a rule of thumb: if you're biased (as you clearly are) and trying to make a comparison, put extra effort into making it a fair one. Otherwise you'll just look like the fanboy/troll that you are.
You really sound harsh and offended by GP post. In terms of cost, several Linux distributions (Ubuntu, SUSE, Mandriva, etc) really blow away Windows. Of course there are still other issues to consider (such as intuitiveness, compatibility, etc). These may be (and are, in my case) a very big let down for potential Linux adopters.
One thing you should consider is that Antivirus degrade the performance of a computer. Therefore if you have a 1.66 ghz computer with windows + antivirus, you may be "wasting" about.30 mhz on the continuous Antivirus execution
[sure, the antivirus does not continuously uses the processing power, but only when *you* actually need it like when opening a file or running a program]
Moreover, the Antivirus will consume a certain amount of ram which you should subtract from the total ram (between 20 and 30MB if you are lucky or about 113MB [Mcshield.exe in my current PC]).
If anyone in Linux could market such issues, you could really make a good campaign...
All taxes punish success. You can't get around that fact.
You will get that impression of taxes until you live in a country where tax money is not correctly used (to maintain social services).
I used to bitch about taxes while I was living in Mexico (granted, I was younger, until about 23 years old), mainly because we all know that 50% of the tax you pay there is going directly to the pockets of corrupt government officials.
However my perception on "tax" changed after I moved to the UK and experienced their NHS, the social infrastructure (parks, streets, roads, etc), it *really* makes a difference when the state is using taxes wisely.
Nowadays I live and work in Germany, and I am also happy to pay for whatever taxes I am requested, as long as I am happy with the social benefits I get from the government.
That I do not "spend" all of the money I give as taxes? I do not care, maybe part of the reason for that is that I am from a "poor" country were I learnt the value of social services for people that do not have even a car to spend the night nor the money to buy a can of coke...
It takes half an hour for the people that *know* how to do it. But for others who don't know about PSKTools and Motorola Driver, etc. it means a lot of a hassle.
The huge printing presses of a major Chicago newspaper began malfunctioning on the Saturday before Christmas, putting all the revenue for advertising that was to appear in the Sunday paper in jeopardy. None of the technicians could track down the problem. Finally, a frantic call was made to the retired printer who had worked with these presses for over 40 years. âoeWeâ(TM)ll pay anything; just come in and fix them,â he was told.
When he arrived, he walked around for a few minutes, surveying the presses; then he approached one of the control panels and opened it. He removed a dime from his pocket, turned a screw 1/4 of a turn, and said, âoeThe presses will now work correctly.â After being profusely thanked, he was told to submit a bill for his work.
The bill arrived a few days later, for $10,000.00! Not wanting to pay such a huge amount for so little work, the printer was told to please itemize his charges, with the hope that he would reduce the amount once he had to identify his services. The revised bill arrived: $1.00 for turning the screw; $9,999.00 for knowing which screw to turn.
If you were an [Software] engineer you may understand that.
the health care system and environmental conditions in Mexico City is not very good in the former and absolutely terrible in the latter case)
[citation needed]
I agree on your second claim, however the Mexican health system is 100% better than the USA. See, in Mexico we *do* have a Social health system in which anyone can go and be attended without looking at their financial information and kicking them out of the emergency room when they have no insurance.
Now regarding the number of deaths, I know from a first source (a cousin is a doctor in the Mexican General Hospital (http://hgm.salud.gob.mx/) and from what he as seen, the situation is worst than what the Mexican government is trying to paint.
I live in a 3rd world country, and I'll tell you that internet cafes here mostly do not have the bandwidth for such. Most people do it from work. Most of us here are still on dial up or equivalent. Even at most companies/universities, you have to get in at off-peak ours to be able to watch youtube.
Even so, it is not uncommon for people in the towns to own (obsolete) computers (P3 era and up).
I won't comment about the technology issues of delivering high bandwidth services on third world countires. Like it or not, such issues are slowly but steadily being overcome.
However, one of the main points in the summary (yeah, I did not read the article, so sue me[or flame me]) is the *profitability* issue that comes with advertising.
The problem is that as a high school mexican student, usually the ads you see when navigating through porn sites, facebook, hi5 or whatever page is "de moda", you usually see ads aimed at USA teens or at best aimed at a very general Mexican market.
What they (web advertising companies, like google) need is some kind of tiered ads marketing mechanism which allows people from specific cities or states (like say Tijuana, La Paz [BCS] or say Santiago [Chile]) to buy ad time in the internet.
This however should be done person to person, and as such, the ad company (like google) would need to have offices which receive the payments (and setup the ads) on each of the different cities close to the market.
It will also be possible to implement a more automated system to achieve this (using something akin to prepaid cards) in which the product owner buys some "ads-time card" at Elektra and then sets up his advertisement using the card.
I would be interested in performing such type of project (at least for Mexico, when the flu outbreak is over =oP) for a company like google, microsoft or others... If only they were listening
For example, the valuation models for a number of modern derivatives,
FWIW The valuation of REAL modern derivatives (Options, swaps and futures) will not be performed using simple differential equations (like Black-Scholes or Binomial model) because such models are based on a lot of very strong assumptions.
Usually what you use are monte-carlo simulation models or other algorithmic driven process (i.e., computational process) which can calculate the correct price of the Derivatives under a weaker set of assumptions.
Bullshit. If they've got a copy which seemingly works 100%, most of them won't bother buying it because whats the point?
What is the point in buying a used car after you have "tried it" (take it for a ride for testing), when you can just go to back home with your freely obtained car?
The point is that if you did that, you are 100% sure that police will go knocking at your home and you will take some shit.
Whereas people do not buy the software/music/movies because the chance of getting caught is very slim.
Note that I am *NOT* equating thief with copyright infringement. Although they are two different crimes, they are still CRIMES. However, we do not agree with copyright infringement being a crime...
The verdict explicitly addresses this point and states that due to TPB running the tracker and thus being intimately involved in the sharing of copyrighted material any comparison with Google is false. They were not convicted because TPB is hosting a bunch of torrent files, they were convicted because they were running a tracker.
Moreover, while TPB site itself contains the Torrent files, Google only has links to such files.
And again, the "colour" of the bits is what matters, as already said before TPB site itself was not the issue in the trial, it was that the guys conspired to help people commit copyright infringement.
If I recall correctly you do not need any type of identification to get a prepaid telephone in Mexico. It is just a matter of going to your Telcel shop at the corner of the street (there are more of those than there are cantinas) and buy a chip with "100 pesos tiempo aire".
Funny that they provide a link to the Milenio paper... I believe that "El Universal" ( which has the article here) is better.
Now, for those very paranoid slashdotters, note that one of the reasons they are doing this is because given the lack of such identification records, mobile phones are heavily used in blackmailing.
That happened to my brother once, he was studying in Mexico City and he got a call which went like this: After the phone rang and he answered a shouting voice said:
"Hey we got your brother, and we will kill him unless you comply with our desires"
After that, a voice in the background of the telephone shouted as if he was the "captured" brother "please please, help me, please don't leave me"
In the "heat" of the moment, my brother shout my name "Pedro, are you ok?" [not my real name of course].
Of course with that information the criminals continued with their tale, telling him that yes they had "Pedro" and they were going to hurt him blah blah...
My brother just hung up the telephone and called my mother (who lives in another state)... Fortunately for us, I have been living *outside* Mexico for the last 5 years... therefore I could not have been trapped in Mexico City...
My brother wrote me an email telling me to ask me to mail back just to be shure I was OK, I called him that afternoon from the UK where I was living then.
There are countless of similar stories with such kind of social engineering. Of course not all the people are as "wise" as us, or they get blackmailed in the middle of some kind of crisis (money, family, etc) where the scenario of a kidnapped relative is very possible.
The issue until now (that the database is started) is that even if you had a caller-id and a number, you could not do anything with it because it would not be registered, or it will be faked. The current registry will require both an valid id (Mexican voting credential which is the national id) and a fingerprint.
I completely agree with parent comments. Trying to find a "career" name for someone who understands HTML is like wanting to do the same to someone who knows to work with a hammer and nails, how to you name them? Hammerist?
HTML/javascript and javascript are just tools (as in language tools), depending on your background you may know how to use such tools to/develop/ programs or to develop beautiful interfaces.
Slashdot Mirror
Mr. Gates and Mr. Stallman are both offended by your remarks!
I would not be so sure about the Mr. Gates remark... after all, he really liked 3rd world countries adopting DOS and Windows 95 for free (pirated). That is what drove its monopoly on the first place!
Story be damned - it's always the most forgettable part in gaming, regardless of how well it was written. Bring the fun back
Wasn't Carmack the one who said (about FPS) that:
Story in a game is like a story in a porn movie. It's expected to be there, but it's not that important.
Very true!
Fine the Meta key, idiot. Here's a tip, when you play stupid people are going to think that you're stupid. Do you want people to think that you're stupid?
Meta key?
which meta key?
see your sarcasm, but honestly this isn't as much of a security flaw in the OS as it is a "feature" in the OS that makes stupid users even stupider.
And this is why I believe that Windows is still not ready for the Desktop... you see, while in Windows the user has to worry about all these file "extensions" jpg, exe iso, com, bat, etcetera, other user friendly OS (like Ubuntu or OSX) automagically know what type of file is it by actually reading the file (usually only the beginning).
I still can not believe that it is 2009 and some Operating Systems still rely on these 80's "extensions"
Really is a bridge to far for average Joe... :-/
Nah, the real bridge comes from the technology choice path dependency. Right now there are few options for anything non-windows to reduce the monopolistic marketshare of Windows.
Just today I started to conceive an ABM for the study of the Linux/OSX/Windows effect based on the polya-urn model. Let's see what interesting behavior can we get :)
cations because it made them look good, eg Autodesk, ESRI,NatlSemi.
Don't forget SPSS, SAS, QuickLooks, SAP, and a plethora of not-very-known third party apps that someone use (and are available only in Windows), like Netica, Palisade decision tools, etc etc.
There are THOUSANDS of software that are only available on Windows and which "Open source" developers could only dream of creating on their spare time.
Wicd [sourceforge.net] is the way to go
And that is yet another big issue in the Linux world.
IIRC previous Ubuntu versions used something else than Network-Manager, then they changed to "Network-Manager" because it was supposed to be easy, next version they may change to this Wicd and next next next version to something else.
I wouldn't let my dad or grandpa try an OS that changes its interface as a bitch underwear. And this is every 6 months to 1 year!!
That said, the page you linked to sends users into all that unfamiliar territory. It only reinforces the stereotype that you have to know archaic commands to get stuff done in Linux. And ones like this are particularly troublesome, because it's resolving a problem getting online. But you have to be online to learn how to fix it. So what's somebody going to do? Head straight back to their Windows box to get online and look it up, then wonder why they're messing with this Linux stuff.
haha, that is exactly the same I thought when I saw the page, compare that to Windows XP
And you see one example of why Linux Distros are still miles away from the usability and intuitiveness of Windows.
When googling for linux problems you very quickly get to the place where experts meet and find a useful answer.
Or a RTFM n00b , it's not Linux fault is the hardware's fault or just no answer at all. I have experienced those three myself throughout my years of using (temporairly, I still feel windows more comfortable and still feel I have to "fight" Linux while I am running it).
I have tried all the distros you can imagine, from Caldera to Mandrake, Ubuntu, Suse, RedHat, Fedora, Linsipre, Xandros, etc, etc etc... The problem is not Linux (i.e., the kernel) the problem is that there is still no decent distribution.
My personal dream is that the introduction of the EEE pc line (which is some kind of popular PC standard) would make Linux distro makers get it right... but so far I there is no success (current distros won't like my new EEE 1000HE hardware like camera, sound and others... and I don't want to fight once again with .conf and sudos).
. It takes much less effort to keep a linux system working smoothly.
I do not need any effort to keep my Windows XP computers working smoothly. I do not *even* have to think making them work smoothly. I just bought an EeePC 1000HE and start working with it.
What do you have to do in Linux to "keep it working smoothly?"
And while you are at that, use JabRef for bibliographic management.
I tried Zotero once and found it very non intuitive, it was hard to understand. I also dislike that you have to open your "web browser" to manage your bibliography... with JabRef I can have have the Java program, the references databas and the PDF/PS files in my USB flash memory and I can open them whenever I go.
On a similar note, EndNote is completely hopeless, they [in my job] installed me version X2 (I think it is the latest version) and is a complete pain in the ass that makes Word *very* slow. It is easier just to "export to clipboard as Harvard RTF" in JabRef and paste it in Word (when I am forced to use Word).
LoC is meaningless:
if(x){
doSomething();
}else{
doSomethingElse();
}
versus
if(x)
{
doSomething();
}
else
{
doSomethingElse();
}
That's a difference of 3 lines. Multiply that by the number of if-else blocks alone, then consider that this also affects loops, switches, etc. LoC is basically a composite measure of coding style and complexity. In other words, it's meaningless.
x?doSomething():doSomethingElse();
I win
A systembuilder license of Vista Home Premium is about 70 Euro (90$) today. I see no reason why Windows 7 won't cost around the same. Besides, most people buy the OS with their machine.
Great, that means I will have to spend 23% more or hmm 0% more! again, though choice!
Spend $40-60 on antivirus.
Again - this is clearly a troll/fanboy argument. You realize that there's perfectly good antivirus solutions for free (AVG, Avast, Antivir)?
Read my previous comment on the antivirus consuming your resources... they are costing you [ram, cpu, disk] even if you download them for free...
or run an Operating System not prone to infections...
again, though choice!
* Limited to three applications.
See above, you'll likely get the normal Windows 7 Home version a lot cheaper than the rumored suggested retail prices floating around these days
You must remember that Microsoft only approved the starting Win7 version for Netbooks (discussed in this story/threads).
A quick look at froogle,shows Windows Vista Home Basic prices start at $50 USD.... compared to a $0 USD option
Again, though choice.
As a rule of thumb: if you're biased (as you clearly are) and trying to make a comparison, put extra effort into making it a fair one. Otherwise you'll just look like the fanboy/troll that you are.
You really sound harsh and offended by GP post. In terms of cost, several Linux distributions (Ubuntu, SUSE, Mandriva, etc) really blow away Windows. Of course there are still other issues to consider (such as intuitiveness, compatibility, etc). These may be (and are, in my case) a very big let down for potential Linux adopters.
* Spend $40-60 on antivirus.
One thing you should consider is that Antivirus degrade the performance of a computer. Therefore if you have a 1.66 ghz computer with windows + antivirus, you may be "wasting" about .30 mhz on the continuous Antivirus execution
[sure, the antivirus does not continuously uses the processing power, but only when *you* actually need it like when opening a file or running a program]
Moreover, the Antivirus will consume a certain amount of ram which you should subtract from the total ram (between 20 and 30MB if you are lucky or about 113MB [Mcshield.exe in my current PC]).
If anyone in Linux could market such issues, you could really make a good campaign...
Too bad my modpoints expired. This is the most relevant, on topic and informative reply for this topic and is only modded 3 informative?
All taxes punish success. You can't get around that fact.
You will get that impression of taxes until you live in a country where tax money is not correctly used (to maintain social services).
I used to bitch about taxes while I was living in Mexico (granted, I was younger, until about 23 years old), mainly because we all know that 50% of the tax you pay there is going directly to the pockets of corrupt government officials.
However my perception on "tax" changed after I moved to the UK and experienced their NHS, the social infrastructure (parks, streets, roads, etc), it *really* makes a difference when the state is using taxes wisely.
Nowadays I live and work in Germany, and I am also happy to pay for whatever taxes I am requested, as long as I am happy with the social benefits I get from the government.
That I do not "spend" all of the money I give as taxes? I do not care, maybe part of the reason for that is that I am from a "poor" country were I learnt the value of social services for people that do not have even a car to spend the night nor the money to buy a can of coke...
Seriously, this takes half an hour to do at most,
It takes half an hour for the people that *know* how to do it. But for others who don't know about PSKTools and Motorola Driver, etc. it means a lot of a hassle.
The huge printing presses of a major Chicago newspaper began malfunctioning on the Saturday before Christmas, putting all the revenue for advertising that was to appear in the Sunday paper in jeopardy. None of the technicians could track down the problem. Finally, a frantic call was made to the retired printer who had worked with these presses for over 40 years. âoeWeâ(TM)ll pay anything; just come in and fix them,â he was told.
When he arrived, he walked around for a few minutes, surveying the presses; then he approached one of the control panels and opened it. He removed a dime from his pocket, turned a screw 1/4 of a turn, and said, âoeThe presses will now work correctly.â After being profusely thanked, he was told to submit a bill for his work.
The bill arrived a few days later, for $10,000.00! Not wanting to pay such a huge amount for so little work, the printer was told to please itemize his charges, with the hope that he would reduce the amount once he had to identify his services. The revised bill arrived: $1.00 for turning the screw; $9,999.00 for knowing which screw to turn.
If you were an [Software] engineer you may understand that.
the health care system and environmental conditions in Mexico City is not very good in the former and absolutely terrible in the latter case)
[citation needed]
I agree on your second claim, however the Mexican health system is 100% better than the USA. See, in Mexico we *do* have a Social health system in which anyone can go and be attended without looking at their financial information and kicking them out of the emergency room when they have no insurance.
And about the "cytokine storm", although it has not been scientifically confirmed, so far the pattern of the deaths is close to that observed in spanish flu ( see chart http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:W_curve.png , from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spanish_flu)
Now regarding the number of deaths, I know from a first source (a cousin is a doctor in the Mexican General Hospital (http://hgm.salud.gob.mx/) and from what he as seen, the situation is worst than what the Mexican government is trying to paint.
I live in a 3rd world country, and I'll tell you that internet cafes here mostly do not have the bandwidth for such. Most people do it from work. Most of us here are still on dial up or equivalent. Even at most companies/universities, you have to get in at off-peak ours to be able to watch youtube.
Even so, it is not uncommon for people in the towns to own (obsolete) computers (P3 era and up).
I won't comment about the technology issues of delivering high bandwidth services on third world countires. Like it or not, such issues are slowly but steadily being overcome.
However, one of the main points in the summary (yeah, I did not read the article, so sue me[or flame me]) is the *profitability* issue that comes with advertising.
The problem is that as a high school mexican student, usually the ads you see when navigating through porn sites, facebook, hi5 or whatever page is "de moda", you usually see ads aimed at USA teens or at best aimed at a very general Mexican market.
What they (web advertising companies, like google) need is some kind of tiered ads marketing mechanism which allows people from specific cities or states (like say Tijuana, La Paz [BCS] or say Santiago [Chile]) to buy ad time in the internet.
This however should be done person to person, and as such, the ad company (like google) would need to have offices which receive the payments (and setup the ads) on each of the different cities close to the market.
It will also be possible to implement a more automated system to achieve this (using something akin to prepaid cards) in which the product owner buys some "ads-time card" at Elektra and then sets up his advertisement using the card.
I would be interested in performing such type of project (at least for Mexico, when the flu outbreak is over =oP) for a company like google, microsoft or others... If only they were listening
For example, the valuation models for a number of modern derivatives,
FWIW The valuation of REAL modern derivatives (Options, swaps and futures) will not be performed using simple differential equations (like Black-Scholes or Binomial model) because such models are based on a lot of very strong assumptions.
Usually what you use are monte-carlo simulation models or other algorithmic driven process (i.e., computational process) which can calculate the correct price of the Derivatives under a weaker set of assumptions.
Isn't the guy who created nmap active on slashdot? (fyodor or something like that?)
Bullshit. If they've got a copy which seemingly works 100%, most of them won't bother buying it because whats the point?
What is the point in buying a used car after you have "tried it" (take it for a ride for testing), when you can just go to back home with your freely obtained car?
The point is that if you did that, you are 100% sure that police will go knocking at your home and you will take some shit.
Whereas people do not buy the software/music/movies because the chance of getting caught is very slim.
Note that I am *NOT* equating thief with copyright infringement. Although they are two different crimes, they are still CRIMES. However, we do not agree with copyright infringement being a crime ...
The verdict explicitly addresses this point and states that due to TPB running the tracker and thus being intimately involved in the sharing of copyrighted material any comparison with Google is false. They were not convicted because TPB is hosting a bunch of torrent files, they were convicted because they were running a tracker.
Moreover, while TPB site itself contains the Torrent files, Google only has links to such files.
And again, the "colour" of the bits is what matters, as already said before TPB site itself was not the issue in the trial, it was that the guys conspired to help people commit copyright infringement.
Not that I am in favour of that shit... :(
If I recall correctly you do not need any type of identification to get a prepaid telephone in Mexico. It is just a matter of going to your Telcel shop at the corner of the street (there are more of those than there are cantinas) and buy a chip with "100 pesos tiempo aire".
Funny that they provide a link to the Milenio paper... I believe that "El Universal" ( which has the article here) is better.
Now, for those very paranoid slashdotters, note that one of the reasons they are doing this is because given the lack of such identification records, mobile phones are heavily used in blackmailing.
That happened to my brother once, he was studying in Mexico City and he got a call which went like this:
After the phone rang and he answered a shouting voice said:
"Hey we got your brother, and we will kill him unless you comply with our desires"
After that, a voice in the background of the telephone shouted as if he was the "captured" brother "please please, help me, please don't leave me"
In the "heat" of the moment, my brother shout my name "Pedro, are you ok?" [not my real name of course].
Of course with that information the criminals continued with their tale, telling him that yes they had "Pedro" and they were going to hurt him blah blah...
My brother just hung up the telephone and called my mother (who lives in another state)... Fortunately for us, I have been living *outside* Mexico for the last 5 years... therefore I could not have been trapped in Mexico City...
My brother wrote me an email telling me to ask me to mail back just to be shure I was OK, I called him that afternoon from the UK where I was living then.
There are countless of similar stories with such kind of social engineering. Of course not all the people are as "wise" as us, or they get blackmailed in the middle of some kind of crisis (money, family, etc) where the scenario of a kidnapped relative is very possible.
The issue until now (that the database is started) is that even if you had a caller-id and a number, you could not do anything with it because it would not be registered, or it will be faked. The current registry will require both an valid id (Mexican voting credential which is the national id) and a fingerprint.
Here's the old Linux ad by IBM. It's pretty cool:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EwL0G9wK8j4
Interesting IBM product...
http://www.ibm.com/open
To bad it leads to a nasty 404
Linux is everywhere... Linux is nowhere
I completely agree with parent comments. Trying to find a "career" name for someone who understands HTML is like wanting to do the same to someone who knows to work with a hammer and nails, how to you name them? Hammerist?
HTML/javascript and javascript are just tools (as in language tools), depending on your background you may know how to use such tools to /develop/ programs or to develop beautiful interfaces.