Because the cost of that electricity is marginal to the electricity you consume while torrenting huge DVD-ISO Linux distros and LibreOffice and Android source files overnight to help test and debug them... ;-)

I know your comment was done in good humour, and I am replying in kind.

I learned my maths at Universidad Simón Bolívar, and was very good at them, from calculus (math1), to imaginary numbers in multivariable calculus (math 6). Then along came fourier (math7), and my brain crapped (in reality, I got lazy, really lazy for a while)... but mind you, I eventually recovered, and became an electronics engineer.

Having said that, I wrote: "do it to have a TAD fewer cheap viagra/penis enlargement offers in your spam folder... DO IT FOR THE CHILDREN!!!! :-)" (uppercase added for this comment).

Please notice that I said a tad less, not eliminate all, and.. How can you refuse to do something for the children?!?!?! You Monster!!!!

No I do not think that 5% of us nerds will save 95% of all machines, but Macs are ~10% of all PCs globaly (something like 16-20% in the US), and Linux hovers around 5%.

But more worrisome is the effect we enlightened slashdot users have when our less enlightened breathen realizes that we do not do backups, and do not run antivirus, and guess what, neither will they... and when their machines crap out.. who are they gonna call? Well not the ghostbusters, but you and me!

I know your post was done in good humour, so I am replying in kind.

Yes, that's why I checked for the presence of the virus using the command line instructions given by many antivirus firms, and was ready to carry out the manual elimination instructions, if needed be.

Lucky for me, I use safe practices when browsing the net/downloading programs, so I was not infected. The point is, even when you _think_ your practices are safe, and even if you _think_ your platform is less susceptible to virus/trojans/worms, you still need antivirus and firewalls as part of those safe practices, do not kid yourself.

On all four counts, the number is 0.

All I've got up until now is false positives from the days of yore, when I used MS-DOS, and was interested in viruses and anti-viruses

Remember things like Flu-Shot plus, the pakistani virus and it's remover programs, or the ping-pong virus and it's removal programs? All safely tucked away in a folder named dviej (oldhdd in English) from the time of my DTK-286 with amber monitor and Ati Wonder (not EGAwonder, not VGAwonder, just plain wonder) card, MS-DOS 6.22 and Windows 3.0.

I set exceptions for that folder on all my windows machines (from my DEC Starion 700i, then my Thinkpad i series, then my Toshiba), but in the MAC, I got lazy about it, so, as ClamAV's signature files refine, I finds more and more of this legacy code, and let ClamXav erase the files, since I realize I have no use for them anymore.

The last time I was hit by a virus, was in 1996, it ate my hard drive, and my thesis with it, lucky me, I had backups on my paralel port Travan Tape Drive, so, all that was lost was a day of work (to restore) + 1 day of updates on the thesis docs...

And that's the other lesson, have good backups!

I know my Mac is less susceptible to virus/trojans/worms, I also use safe practices when browsing/downloading files, but nonetheless, I do not kid myself thinking that this alone is enough, so, on top of that, I run an Antivirus, have the SW firewall enabled, and run a firewall on my AP.

... I see Harvard's owm publications, like, for instance, the Harvard Business review, become OpenAccess too...

You see, those are real cash cows, and probably cost the Harvard library nothing, so, most harvard authors will keep publishing there, costing other universities a bundle.... So much for Open Access.

Don't get me wrong, I hope this becomes true, and helps, but I have become a tad jaded...

Just my two cents.

No matter if your OS is Windows 5.x, 6.x, Mac OS X 10.x or GNU/Linux Kernel 2.4.x or 2.6.x. If your machine is a desktop run an antivirus.

You owe it to the rest of the world to exterminate viruses/trojans/malware, both the many (or few) that your machine is susceptible to, as well as those that, even though will not infect your machine, will be passed on to someone else... ...because YOU, saavy and enlightened slashdot user, did not catch and exterminated them.

Do it for the unwashed masses, that are clogging the pipes with port scans and attempts to infect, do it to have a tad fewer cheap viagra/penis enlargement offers in your spam folder... do it for the children!!!! :-)

If you "feel confident" (note the quotes) that your OS is "safe", that you use "safe practices", and the AV is a "Waste of resources", then fine, get an AV with a small footprint, both in system resorurces, and in $£¥€, and run it while you are sleeping, so it does not affect your daily work routine.

I am writing this fom Firefox 10.0.3 esr in a Mac with 10.6.8, and I am not scared at all about these developments, but, as safe practice, run ClamXav manually. I scan my machine and its external hard-drives every night, and scan smaller/unknown removable media every time it is inserted. ;-)

So, please my Linux and Mac OS X brothers and sisters, stop being a bunch of snobs, get on with the program, and run an antivirus. :-)

--

OpenOffice's/LibreOffice's dictionary can't hold a candle to Word. Neither in English, nor in Spanish.

Sorry, I know is trollish, but I had to vent it!

So they charge 99 cents for iPhone users who, at least with the 4S have a superior (and free) alternative, but give it away for free on the android market?

I think it should be the other way around... then again, I guess all those iPhone4 people want to talk to their phones, so that their cool friends think they have got a 4S ith Siri.....

No, MacOS X is a heavily modified MACH 3 os Microkernel, running a BSD server in Userland**.

The Server in userland may as well be BeOS, ReactOS, Haiku, or, for that matter, even WinNT.

So no, BSD is BSD, MACH is MACH, and MacOS X is Mach running a BSD Server in userland.

** A similar arrangement, and probably inspired by Mach is the "personalities" of WinNT (for those who rememeber there were the DOS personality, OS/2 Personality, Posix personality and Win 32 Personality).

Huawei has been asking for some time for a public inquiry about these alledged ties with the red army, istead of being stonewalled in their initiatives with what they call excuses.

Having said that, be carefull what you wish for, now they have the govt probe they requested, if the allegations are found to be true, all hell will break lose.

The probe is not only to see if chinese makers are spying, but also to see if the relevant intel agencies in the us are capable of detecting the spionage, as well as countering it.

Full idsclosure: I worked in Huawei for a year.

Clarification: Not many people know, Huawei does not trade in any stock exchange (so, less scrutiny and compliance burden, they have IIRC KPMG auditing their stuff, but the stuff is never published), but, allegedly, there is no govt participation in it. On the other hand, ZTE trades in some exchanges (mainly shangai), so there is more transarency, but the chinese govt. owns something along the lines of 20~30% of the shares.

In Madrid they had to kindly ask teachers to moderate their accents while in the classroom, because some where using common street pronunciations that where plain wrong like saying "Madriz" instead of 'Madrid', or saying "fogo" instead of 'Fuego'

On July 12, 2011, The head of the patent portfolio at apple, Richard Lutton left, without so much as an explanation. Maybe he was behind the photoshoping and was forced to resign, maybe he did not agree with the photoshoping, and quit before he would get tarnished....

From:

http://money.canoe.ca/money/business/international/archives/2011/07/20110712-084412.html

Apple is engaged in an expanding web of litigation concerning smartphone patents, mostly with phonemakers using Google's rival Android software, and it was unclear why Richard "Chip" Lutton Junior, who manages the iPhone maker's patent portfolio, is leaving the company.

Unlike most modern games, were you have a clear separation of the engine from the ".wads/maps/music/textures/game files/etc.", in those early games, the game itself was interewined in the code.

If you see all the FOSS releases idSW has made over the years, the ENGINE soruce code gets the FOSS treatment, but the copyright of the game files themselves remains in the hands of the company, therefore, you still need to buy a copy of the game to play it legaly, even if you use a FOSS engine, or a port (my case on a MacBook).

So, most likey, they will not release that older code, not because they lost the source, but because releasing it in that case is to give away the game for free...

Cheers

And a heavy brain is a liability when you try to fly....

Of course we all know that brain weight alone is not 100% correlated to inteligence, but you see where i am going, right?

Science marches forward, nowadays several variable gauge systems have been invented. Two types are in use in Spain, where I did my MBA.

check this:

https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Variable_gauge_axles

So yes, the gauge change had to be done in the 19th century, but nowadays is less of a necesity.