| |||||||
| Do you want to post messages on Berkeley.Blog (aka MOTD) or get a Berkeley email forwarding address? Membership at CSUA (Computer Science Undergrad Association) is free for all majors, all students, and alumni. Stay connected, get a free email address, and post to Berkeley.Blog... what more could you ask for? Sign-up is commitment free and takes minutes. Just come to 343 Soda Hall or call 510-642-7453 now! WARNING: Please note that the views expressed on this page are solely that of U.C. Berkeley students, alumni, and affiliates and in no way reflect the views, opinions, beliefs, or actions of Berkeley, U.C. Regents or anyone affiliated with hosting this content. Please email politburo@csua.berkeley.edu for more information. This site is unfiltered and contains offensive and politically incorrect materials written by immature Berkeleyeans. |
| 9/3 |
| 2010/9/3 [Uncategorized] UID:53946 Activity:nil |
9/3 http://www.cracked.com/blog/what-hell-wrong-with-twenty-somethings |
| 2010/8/31-9/3 [Uncategorized] UID:53945 Activity:nil |
8/31 Has anyone successfully hooked up a 3G phone to their laption as
a modem in linux? (like via minicom) thx. |
| 2010/8/30-9/3 [Reference/Military, Recreation/Media] UID:53944 Activity:nil |
8/30 Supersonic fighter jet that still flies for sale. Only $175k.
http://www.csua.org/u/rhm
But it burns $500 of fuel per minute when going supersonic.
\_ Stop telling me how to live you PC liberal. |
| 2010/8/30-9/3 [Transportation/Car, Industry/Jobs] UID:53943 Activity:nil |
8/30 Engine Yard hiring in greater-Chicago area:
http://chicago.craigslist.org/chc/tch/1927473851.html |
| 2010/8/29-9/3 [Computer/SW/Languages/C_Cplusplus, Computer/SW/Languages/Java] UID:53941 Activity:nil |
8/29 ok i give up; why is this throwing an error?
#define Lambda(args,ret_type,body) \
class MakeName(__Lambda___) { \
public: ret_type operator() args { body; } }
usage:
Lambda((int a, int b), int, return a+b) foo;
>g++ -o foo foo.cpp
foo.cpp: In function ‘int main(int, char**)’:
foo.cpp:9: error: expected primary-expression before ‘class’
foo.cpp:9: error: expected `;' before ‘class’
foo.cpp:11: error: expected `}' at end of input
ref: http://okmij.org/ftp/cpp-digest/Lambda-CPP-more.html#Ex1
\_ works for me. see /tmp/lambda.cpp
\_ nod thanks, i didnt have MakeName defined there. sorry. |
| 2010/8/29-9/3 [Consumer/Camera, Computer/SW/Languages] UID:53939 Activity:nil |
8/28 Hi, anybody printed a photo image to a big plotter? Something like
36"x36"? I'm wondering how many megapixels the image need to
have in order for the print to "look good". There is a rule of
thumb? Like 6 megapixel is good for X size print. 10 megapixel
is good for Y size print. Thanks.
\_ You don't need that many more megapixels for much bigger prints,
because people tend to view bigger prints from farther away. |
| 2010/8/27-9/3 [Computer] UID:53938 Activity:nil |
8/27 '"We're about to crash," BA passengers told in error'
http://www.csua.org/u/rgm (news.yahoo.com)
This should warrant some legitimate emotional distress lawsuits. |
| 2010/8/26-9/3 [Uncategorized] UID:53937 Activity:nil |
8/26 http://howfuckedismydatabase.com |
| 2010/8/25-9/3 [Recreation/Pets] UID:53936 Activity:nil |
8/25 http://27bslash6.com/missy.html --linkpusher \_ they'd be funnier if they were true \_ So.. you're looking for reality on the internet? -!OP |
| 2010/8/23-9/3 [Industry/Jobs] UID:53935 Activity:high |
8/23 Job opportunity at the US District Court, Northern District of CA:
Courtroom Technology Specialist
http://sfbay.craigslist.org/sfc/tch/1914895472.html
--erikred
\_ $54k/yr! Damn those overpaid civil servants!
\_ it's really about 70k-80k yr if you factor in things like
planned vacations, ease of work, no doctors bills for ulcers,
9-6 work day, 5 day work week.
\_ Plus no layoff.
\_ you're kidding, right?
\_ Layoffs in public sector have been much lower than private.
In private you get fired, not furloughed.
\_ Layoffs in public sector have been much lower than
private. In private you get fired, not furloughed.
\_ really? what if you're an unionized pilot/stew/maint
\_ What if you're not? I agree with the guy above.
Lots of people should be terminated and should
be glad they were furloughed instead.
\_ Bullshit
\_ Want to post some facts to back that up?
\_ you're the one who made the claim.
\_ http://blogs.sacbee.com/the_state_worker/100817%20Job%20loss%20chart.JPG
http://www.ebudget.ca.gov/pdf/BudgetSummary/BS_SCH6.pdf
Also, being laid off from the State
requires 120 days notice and layoffs
are determined by seniority and not value.
\_ Salary looks about right for the requirements. I know someone
\_ So the State, which employs 300k out of
20M, has had 40k layoffs, this is 13%. The
public sector has had 1.2M out of 20M,
this is about 6%. Thanks for the data.
\_ You are misreading the data.
The 40K layoffs is for State
and local workers both. There
are about 1.8M government
workers when you add in the State
workers in the second chart.
(Source: http://www2.census.gov/govs/apes/09locca.txt
The second chart shows that there are
30K more State workers than in 2006
and only 10K less than the maximum.
Do your math again and get back
to me.
\_ Salary looks about righe for the requirements. I know someone
with a very similar job who makes about $50K. Difference
being she's not a civil servant with all of the benefits
attached.
\_ So of course, the free market is the best way to set
compensation. Because of the magic of the invisible hand,
the most competent people are necessarily in the
highest-paying jobs. Unless they're civil servants, in
which case they're obviously incompetent, overcompensated
pariahs sucking taxpayers dry. Right. -tom
\_ Says Tom, who will rake in $100K/year (in today's
dollars) with free health care for the rest of his life at
around age 60. So you think this Bell city manager deserved
to make $800K/year and retire on $600K/year? He was
overcompensated and did suck the taxpayers dry. I am
dollars) with free health care for the rest of his life
at around age 60. So you think this Bell city manager
deserved to make $800K/year and retire on $600K/year? He
was overcompensated and did suck the taxpayers dry. I am
not sure if he was incompetent, but I do know that if
the position was advertised at that salary he probably
wouldn't have gotten the job despite his UCB undergrad
degree. You can make the same argument for the CEO of any
large company (incompetent and overpaid) _except_ it is not
at the taxpayer expense.
degree. You can make the same argument for the CEO of
any large company (incompetent and overpaid) _except_ it
is not at the taxpayer expense.
Check out the salaries for employees of the City of LA:
http://controller.lacity.org/ssLINK/LACITYP_011307
A "Senior clerk typist" makes $56K, a "Refuse
collector truck operator" makes $64K, a "Maintenance
Laborer" makes $49K, a "Motor Sweeper Operator" makes
$70K. These people do not pay for Social Security or health
http://controller.lacity.org/ssLINK/LACITYP_011307 A
"Senior clerk typist" makes $56K, a "Refuse collector
truck operator" makes $64K, a "Maintenance Laborer"
makes $49K, a "Motor Sweeper Operator" makes $70K. These
people do not pay for Social Security or health
insurance out of these salaries and many of them take
home more money than listed because of perks like
overtime. Now, granted, some positions are underpaid -
like many of the accountants. However, the average pay for
a secretary (senior clerk typist) in LA is only $48K and I
am guessing that her job is more stressful, less secure,
and receives fewer benefits. To wit:
like many of the accountants. However, the average pay
for a secretary (senior clerk typist) in LA is only $48K
and I am guessing that her job is more stressful, less
secure, and receives fewer benefits. To wit:
Disney's job posting for a secretary asks for:
"Ability and willingness to work long hours as needed."
"Ability to be proactive, resourceful, flexible and to
manage a heavy workload."
"Ability to maintain professionalism under pressure."
Pay: $40-60K with an average of $52K
Warner Bros wants:
"Detail oriented with the ability to work well and
maintain professionalism under pressure."
"Must be able to work at a face pace with accuracy."
"Must be able to work under constant deadlines."
Pay: Not listed, but probably about the same
Somehow I am seeing a trend here. Being that my girlfriend
works in entertainment, she will attest that they will
work you to death if possible. A government secretary
(which my sister was for years before going to get her RN)
does whatever work she can and goes home at 5pm.
Sometimes there wasn't enough to do (because she was so
efficient and because they are overstaffed) that her boss
sent her home early. It's one reason she started going
to nursing school while still working full-time: she was
able to get her work done even though she worked only
three days per week. So I wouldn't say that all
government employees are incompetent, but they certainly
set the staffing levels as if they are and yet I've asked
LA (in writing) to fix a mistake on my property tax bill
for 3 years in a row now and when I call I am told:
"Can you call back later? I'm busy right now." WTF?
Take down my number and call me back when you have time.
So, yeah, getting the job done isn't a priority for
some people.
Tom will ask: So why doesn't everyone get a government job
if they are so great? Well, because there is very
Somehow I am seeing a trend here. Being that my
girlfriend works in entertainment, she will attest that
they will work you to death if possible. A government
secretary (which my sister was for years before going to
get her RN) does whatever work she can and goes home at
5pm. Sometimes there wasn't enough to do (because she
was so efficient and because they are overstaffed) that
her boss sent her home early. It's one reason she
started going to nursing school while still working
full-time: she was able to get her work done even though
she worked only three days per week. So I wouldn't say
that all government employees are incompetent, but they
certainly set the staffing levels as if they are and yet
I've asked LA (in writing) to fix a mistake on my
property tax bill for 3 years in a row now and when I
call I am told: "Can you call back later? I'm busy right
now." WTF? Take down my number and call me back when
you have time. So, yeah, getting the job done isn't a
priority for some people.
Tom will ask: So why doesn't everyone get a government
job if they are so great? Well, because there is very
little turnover and once people land a job they stay
there for decades. I also believe that most people don't
really realize what kind of salaries can be made
working for the government. They think it's like it
used to be where everyone pulls down $45K. I can tell
you my sister and I were both shocked when she asked to
get into my company when we had an opening for a senior
secretary and the salary advertised was a _LOT_ less than
she made for the government (like more than 20% less). I
was like "You make _HOW MUCH_?" and she was like "They pay
_THAT LITTLE_? I'll stay put."
really realize what kind of salaries can be made working
for the government. They think it's like it used to be
where everyone pulls down $45K. I can tell you my sister
and I were both shocked when she asked to get into my
company when we had an opening for a senior secretary
and the salary advertised was a _LOT_ less than she made
for the government (like more than 20% less). I was like
"You make _HOW MUCH_?" and she was like "They pay _THAT
LITTLE_? I'll stay put. In other 10 years I'll have free
health care for life." She's 4 years away now (she can
retire at 50) and then she'll collect her "retirement"
while she goes to work full-time as an RN. By then
she'll be making probably $200K/year between the two
salaries and getting free health care on the taxpayer's
dime, too. Then she can retire on her $5K/month
government retirement plus she'll have paid into Social
Security and collect that, too. Sweet! Am I jealous?
Hell yes! Do not anger me, I am dim! Would I have done
that had I known people could take advantage of the
system by double dipping? Maybe so! I think the system
is broken when a person can be a secretary for 25 years
at average salary (or above), switch careers to the
private sector, and then collect two retirements from
the government plus free health care on top of whatever
they manage to save.
\_ 1/10 for content, 0/10 for length.
\_ Working at the UC and taking N contracting jobs is
very standard.
\_ I am a Director at a Silicon Valley company and I make
about 2X what someone in a comparable job makes at the
UC. My wife had a similar experience with HUD and Citi.
As I said before, low skill jobs are higher paying in
the public sector and high skill and management jobs
pay better in the private sector. It is pretty obvious
why this is, if you would pull your head out of your ass.
It would pretty embarassing if a school janitor had to
draw food stamps to make ends meet. Secretaries do not
retire at 25 years, you are full of crap.
\_ You are correct that high-level management jobs pay
more in the private sector. I think a military
general is an example of an underpaid government job.
President Obama is another. However, most government
employees would not be high-level managers in
the private sector. Most government employees are
paper pushers who are overpaid. The fact that
there are a few underpaid positions doesn't change
that fact. Anyone can retire as long as they are
age 50 and have 10 years of service although
there are ways to retire earlier and some plans
make you wait until age 60. Why should a janitor
with the government make more than a janitor in the
private sector?
\_ It is not true that anyone can retire from
Federal service at age 50 with 10 years of
service, where did you get this idea? I checked
what my wife would make if she worked for HUD
for 25 years and got promoted to the top of her
pay and one grade up (GS-14). It would have been
$32k/yr at age 62, which was 25% of what her salary
would be at the time. So 25% of your base salary is
overpaid? Janitors in the private sector are
underpaid but since we use the free market to
set labor values there, that is just the way it
is. Everyone working for the government should
be paid a living wage, imho.
\_ I am not quoting federal retirement. I am
not sure what that is. I am talking about
State and local government.
"The state's current pension system allows
firefighters, Highway Patrol officers, and
peace officers to retire as young as 50
years old and earn 3% of their final
salaries for every year worked. Other
state safety employees may retire at age
55 with a 2.5% multiplier and
miscellaneous employees may retire at age
55 with a 2% multiplier or at age 63 with
a 2.5% multiplier."
(Source: http://tinyurl.com/2db96kp
You can also "buy" years. Other tricks
here: http://tinyurl.com/2ahy8vh
Reform is required. I don't get 401k
matches based on my highest 3 earning years.
Pensions should not be calculated in that
manner either.
Janitors in the private sector are not
"underpaid." They are paid market wages.
Public sector janitors are overpaid. The
government should not pay more than the
private sector. Otherwise, my tax dollars
are wasted. Contract it out. This isn't a
welfare state.
\_ Janitor salaries in the private sector are
artifically depressed by use of
undocumented workers. You can't do that
in the public sector.
\_ Contract it out.
\_ It's no more appropriate for
public entities to be using
undocumented workers through a
contractor than it is for them
to be paying them directly.
\_ I didn't say to use undocumented
workers. I said contract it
out and pay market rate
instead of the inflated
salaries we pay now.
\_ As I said, "market rate" is
artificially depressed by the
use of undocumented workers.
\_ Let's assume this is true.
Surely you are not implying
that all janitors are
undocumented.
\_ no, I'm stating that
the market for janitors
is not free, and thus
"market rate" is
meaningless.
\_ Safety employees are not "anyone," get
your facts straight.
\_ Safety employees have it better, but
it is still possible for anyone to
retire at age 50 if they buy some
airtime, especially if they buy it
early in their careers. It's not
too hard to do once you go out
and get another job after "retiring."
\_ the thing about this that I don't like is gov employees who are
utterly convinced that their benefits aren't a part of their salary
and "industry makes more money" just based on pure | paycheck |.
\_ I'm a govt. employee, and I'm well-aware that my benefits are
part of my salary. It's why my salary is lower than market. I'm
willing to make the trade-off for the security, and I don't
grumble about it. Mind you, I'm also not going to ever become
a startup millionaire, so there you go.
\_ 1988: "Mama, I'm gonna move to hollywood and become a star!1!"
\_ I wonder if in 20 years they'll have reality tv shows about
people moving to silivalley and bringing their software
concepts to the world. "If i could dream dot com."
\_ You know, if the TLC and Bravo can make shows about
\_ You know, if TLC and Bravo can make shows about
those idiots flipping houses in Hollywood, I don't see
why a reality show about 70 hour weeks at a Start-up
wouldn't fly. It's not like there's not enough drama
among geeks.
\_ There would have to be the 6 month 120 episode
prequel series to explain all the in jokes.
\_ Aren't they common culture now?
\_ No, but nerds think so because they are so
insular and closed-cultured.
\_ Would the movie "Office Space" do the trick?
\_ So, you want to do a "The Real Office Space?"
something that is apart from ... The Office
and Office Space and 9 to 5; just saying the
jokes people will get are pretty common and all
boil down to dilbert strips. Funny for a couple
of hours maybe; (office space is still a cult
movie). but not for 2 seasons+.
\_ re: univ perks, one of the nice perks is that you can
actually take classes as an employee. Think about the monetary
compensation for that, how much is it per unit post degree to
take a class at 1. as UC and 2. The Top UC? That example just
came to me, I'm sure there are other perks like that.
Oh right another: free gym membership is another have you
seen how much a monthly gym costs? Granted it's not 24 hour
fitness, but still....
Yes I know it still costs for univ employees but there is
a discount.
\_ Courses are still very expensive for staff. RSF is
$420/year for staff, that's not a discount for what you're
getting.
\_ A big perk often not mentioned is a car allowance. A lot of
government employees get them: up to $550/month or more.
There are others which are not counted as "salary" including
housing allowance and other subsidies. Some of these can be
very significant (up to 50% of total pay.)
\_ And all of those are also available to private sector
employees. If you think government jobs are so great, go
get one. Oh, forgot, you're too incompetent.
\_ My Company Benefits are BIGGER than yours!
\_ I think we take from this that not all priv sector jobs
are the same vs the uniformity of the .gov benefits.
\_ Yeah I'm really enjoying my car and housing allowance.
Oh, wait.
\_ I would have gotten one if I had known what a scam was
being perpetuated. I was living in the past. I didn't
realize what "New Government" was all about! No point
is getting one now, though, b/c the public is going to
end your gravy train soon enough. Public labor is very
scared and upset by the prospects of this eventuality
now that the taxpayers have caught on. You should be!
"The deal used to be that civil servants were paid less
than private sector workers in exchange for an
understanding that they had job security for life.
But we politicians, pushed by our friends in labor,
gradually expanded pay and benefits to private-sector
levels while keeping the job protections and layering
on incredibly generous retirement packages that pay
ex-workers almost as much as current workers."
--Willie Brown
\_ how do you know when Willie Brown is lying? His lips are
moving.
\_ You're going to say this about anyone who disagrees
with you. Better from a SF liberal Democrat with a
history of supporting labor than a Republican you will
dismiss out of hand. At some point you need to
get your head out of the sand.
\_ No, I'm going to say that about Willie Brown, who
has been well-known as a self-satisfied, self-
promoting scumbag for a long time. Also, elitist;
he declared that "all those clerks pushing papers
and pencils" couldn't move into his beautiful
new City Hall. And he had his limo driver take
him 3 blocks from CIty Hall for a photo op on
Bike to Work Day.
\_ I think that this is true for City of SF jobs, but not
true in general.
\_ priv sector people who hate pub sector jobs so much go fix it
CA Voter initiative the pub jobs away. Ha ha. |
| 2010/8/23-9/3 [Computer/Theory] UID:53933 Activity:nil |
9/20 Why does everyone talk about Turing but nobody talks much about
Babbage?
\_ arithmetic vs algorithms |
| 2010/8/23-9/3 [Computer/SW/OS/Windows] UID:53932 Activity:kinda low |
9/21 are you guys really all using win7 in some way now?
\_ Yes. In my company, we have upgraded all our machines for
development, QA and other office use (HR, Finance, Receptions, etc.)
from WinXP to Win7 a few months ago. Our products now primarily
support Win7/Win2008 and secondarily support WinXP/Win2003.
\_ Any weird gotchas support-wise?
\_ Yeah, the admin priviledge thing is strange. Even when the
user logs on as local Administrator, his processes don't
always have admin priviledge. We didn't see these problems
on XP. -- PP
\_ You need to right-click theh app and run as administrator.
to e.g. use notepad to edit HOSTS file
\_ Ack. this... is... not...sudo...
\_ correct. this is not sudo. if you're using sudo with N\
OPASSWD:ALL=(ALL) ALL you're already kinda losing
\_ Do cracked versions work or it's super hard to get one nowadays?
\_ Using it at home. Plug'n'play works like a charm. So much better
than the beta version (aka Vista).
\_ I have it installed on my VMWare Fusion instance on my Mac.
\_ Came with my laptop (x100e) so yes. |
| 2010/8/23-9/3 [Transportation/Car] UID:53931 Activity:nil |
8/23 "China's nine-day traffic jam stretches 100km"
http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20100823/sc_afp/chinaroadtraffic
"... the jam between Beijing and Jining city had given birth to a
mini-economy ..."
And we think traffic in L.A. is bad.
\_ Actually those of us who have travelled don't.
\_ Don't tell suburb lover, he might blow a gasket.
\_ As opposed to city lover? Both would blow a gasket.
\_ Cars are cool. hehe... heheh... heheh
\_ "Four legs good, two legs bad^Wbetter." |
| 2010/8/20-9/3 [Uncategorized] UID:53930 Activity:nil |
8/19 Scott Pilgrim vs. the World: Funnest movie this entire year.
\_ Was this add relevant to you? [yes] [no]
\_ no
\_ why? |
| 2010/8/19-9/3 [Computer/HW/Drives] UID:53929 Activity:nil |
8/19 Anyone have a good MLC vs. SLC writeup that is less than a year
old? I am investigating making a big SSD order. -ausman
\_ how much performance gain are you expecting from using SSD?
Let's say your 7200RPM yields 70 MB/sec (sustained) read and
your new SSD yields 160 MB/sec read, and that your application
is mostly streaming media (so the platter is continuous read,
mostly). Do you expect a 2X performance? Now, let's say your
application is mostly short random meta-data reads and your
7200RPM now only yields 32MB/sec read, while your SSD still
yields 160MB/sec read. Do you expect a 5X performance in your
response time or throughput, or both? I'm quizzing your ability
to perform calculations as an architect. |
| 2010/8/19-9/3 [Reference/History/WW2/Japan] UID:53928 Activity:nil |
8/19 I have business in Osaka. I would like to see Kyoto and,
preferably, Tokyo. However, I only have about 2-3 days to myself.
I have never been to Japan. I can fly into Osaka and out of Tokyo,
if I want. I was thinking of flying into Osaka and then taking the
train to Tokyo before flying back from Tokyo to the USA with the
goal of a full day in Kyoto and a full day in Tokyo in between. Is this
realistic? Should I focus on just one of Tokyo/Kyoto? The idea is
that I check them out in order to figure out what I want to see
next time when I have more time. I know I am trying to compress a lot
into a short period, but I am an expert at that. I just don't sleep.
I'd appreciate advice.
\_ You certainly can see a few things in each place. While I was
there, I chatted with a lady who was doing what you're thinking of
while on a business trip. Depending on your interests, I suspect
even if you spend the full 2-3 days in the Kansai area, you might
want to come back anyways.
\_ Yes, you can do this. You're going to be beat, but it sounds like
you're okay with that. Make sure to hit Kinkakuji in Kyoto.
This site may help with the trains:
http://www.seat61.com/Japan.htm#Train%20times |
| 2010/8/17-19 [Uncategorized] UID:53927 Activity:nil |
8/17 I have a bunch of cron that I want to run but only want to
output to stdout if there is any stderr (or if it returns $?)
so that it'll be in email. Otherwise, I want to output nothing.
Is there a program that does this already?
\_ program >tempfile || cat tempfile; rm tempfile |
| 2010/8/17-9/3 [Finance/Investment] UID:53925 Activity:nil |
8/17 Hey Market Timer, your method doesn't really work:
http://seekingalpha.com/instablog/510046-mark-seleznov/37562-market-timing-with-the-50-day-moving-average-dia-dow-jones-industrial-averages |
| 2010/8/13-9/3 [Computer/SW/SpamAssassin] UID:53924 Activity:nil |
8/12 Ugg, no spamd any longer? I figured I'd have to just give up on my
soda address (sad, very sad) but Vacation doesn't seem to be installed
either, so I can't even leave a mesg. to people telling them where
tom mail me now. Or can I ? Any advice out there. Or can we get
spamassassin/spamd reinstalled or Vacation or... help....
\_ Ha, gmail as spamassassin. presently I am forwarding to gmail
and then forwarding to where I really want it from there.
don't know why I feel compelled to share my kludge. -top
\_ Stop bitching and ask someone on root. I've emailed asking if this
was intentional. Also, storing mail on soda has been deprecated for
the past year and a half. Man up and .forward it already.
\_you misunderstand. I *have* been forwarding it already. (for
quite a long time). But filtered I sent it through spamc first
avoiding, among other problems, loops caused by my anti-spam
service bouncing it when it is spam), now i am forwarding it
twice!)
\_ Apparently spamd was never even set up.
\_ spamassassin used to work, back in the day.
\_ back in the day when the roads in berkeley to silicon valley
venture funds were paved in gold, every startup IPOd and
moore's law worked |
| 2010/8/12-9/3 [Finance/Investment] UID:53923 Activity:nil |
8/12 Holy crap. Feds will monitize the debt. Say goodbye to the dollar.
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=newsarchive&sid=ajcLVDMwN5To
\_ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amero
\_ Would Canada and Mexico want to devalue their currency by
being associated with us?
\_ "This has all happened before, and it will happen again."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wörgl#The_W.C3.B6rgl_Experiment
(Adoption of local currency with penalties to hoarders
stimulated job growth in a Depression)
\_ I for one welcome our new Chinese overlords!
\_ China has its own problems with its housing ponzi collapsing:
http://csua.org/u/rcz
\_ source is biased towards bad news. (not saying wrong,
just biased). Not sure how good of an indicator
Earnings to Sales price is for China since income there
is likely to be dramatically understated. Quickly
scanning, I didn't notice if there were rental to price
ratios. (Did you see any?). -crebbs
\_ Yawn, old news. Literally.
\_ I <3 how nobody comments on the documented solution to the
problem (the borgl experiment). |
| 2010/8/12-9/3 [Computer/SW/Languages/Perl] UID:53922 Activity:nil |
8/12 Ruby coders, do you mostly DIY your stuff or use the ruby libs out
there? How is their quality compared to other libs you have used
for other langs? Thx.
\_ I use Ruby for hobby stuff, etc. I use libraries for system stuff
(web access, process, etc.) but that's about it. Perl libraries are
much better/more complete. I assume because of the maturity and
size of the community.
\_ I've found the quality of ruby libs to be lower than perl, which
also often has quality issues. The plus side is reading the ruby
code to figure out wtf is going on is easier than reading perl, imo
\_ what do either of you think of python libs by comparison
(speaking of readability)?
\_ python is quite mature and the programmers that use it tend to
be much higher quality than ruby. ruby programmers, on average,
are just slightly above average php programmers, which isn't
a very good bar to begin with.
\_ I've looked around with some libraries, most of which give me
the feeling that you are right, from their code base, they
seem to have been made for "grab that low hanging fruit for
mindshare" - it's the dancing bear problem of software.
Mostly written by yeah college kids or highschoolers. Reminds
me of MySQL codebase. Which I guess is where most of these
people are from...
\_ dancing bear?
\_ You don't grade the bear on its routine, you are jus
amazed it dances at all. |
| 2010/8/12-9/3 [Computer/SW/Languages] UID:53921 Activity:nil |
8/12 Judge Walker denies Stay. Prop 8 null and void from next Wednesday:
<DEAD>ecf.cand.uscourts.gov/cand/09cv2292<DEAD> |
| 2010/8/12-19 [Uncategorized] UID:53920 Activity:nil |
8/12 "Girl Born On 8/9/10 At 11:12"
http://www.csua.org/u/rcf (news.yahoo.com)
\_ Behold, she is the Messiah! |
| 2010/8/10-9/3 [Computer/Companies/Google] UID:53919 Activity:nil |
8/10 http://www.businessinsider.com/google-puts-wave-out-of-its-misery-2010-8 Google Wave No More. The people who worked on it were pretty smart. They wrote up a super awesome OKR with extremely low bar as a measure of success, exceeded everyone's expectations by going above those bars, and got big fat bonuses and promotions as a result of their planning. Brilliant. \_ How big a bonus are we talking about here? Did they get a founder's award? \_ GOOG has a lot of smart people. Wake me when they do anything of note outside of their search engine service/Ad Sense. \_ I assume you are not including buying up notable services like grand central -> google voice. \_ Buying a product shows some business acumen, but not much engineering acumen. \_ Buying a product, improving it and integrating it into your suite requires possibly more engineering acumen than building it yourself. Google does this all the time, with Google Docs being the best example. -tom \_ No, because if it was harder to integrate than build they wouldn't have spent money buying it. The idea is that it saved money to buy it rather than build it (if they even had the idea to begin with). This is a good business strategy that companies like Cisco use, but it's kind of sad that Google can't originate and develop ideas on their own given the engineering talent they seem to have. There is something dysfunctional there. Maybe it's management. Maybe it's culture. Maybe they are already too big, fat, and lazy. I leave speculation as an exercise to the reader. \_ Companies routinely underestimate the difficulty in integrating software components from different development trees; anyone who's used an "integrated suite" like LANDesk or Oracle Communications Suite can attest. Cisco has a lot of engineering talent, too. Maybe the dysfunctional thing is you. -tom \_ It is harder by far to maintain someone elses code base than to write it yourself.* And harder to frankenstien together systems that are working, reliable and secure from seperate components, To put it like this, companies pay top dollars to coders and sysadmins for integration, not for DIY cowboy setups. * imagine also if all you have is an existing binary and some sparse docs on how it works, or an existing company system setup where all the admins who have set it up have long gone \_ Does this mean I should cover my short now? - short GOOG at $100 guy |
| 2010/8/9-19 [Industry/Startup] UID:53918 Activity:nil 66%like:53913 |
8/8 'What are the favorite questions people ask your company whenever
you say "Do you have any questions?"'
\_ 'What are the favorite questions people ask your company whenever
you say "Do you have any questions?"'
\_ What is the culture like here? How many hours a week do most
people put in? How many do you? What do you like best about
working at Company XYZ? What do you like least? |
| 2010/8/9-19 [Computer/SW/Security] UID:53917 Activity:nil |
8/9 I got two files, one is size 522190848 and the other is size
521648128. Both sha256 to the same number. (and sha1 too).
I don't think this is supposed to happen, right? (least not with
sha256).
\_ how are you checking?
\_ I burned one file to cd, so i mounted /cdrom and
df --block-size=1 /cdrom (=521648128)
then i re dl'ed the iso and checked the size: 522190848
both sha256's of iso and /dev/hdc yield the same.
I have done this type of check on other isos and they yield
the same sha[1,256] and size on both. Just this one is weird.
\_ I don't think df is giving you the number you want.
Try "wc -c /dev/hdc".
\_ hash collisions can (and rarely do) happen. You're deriving a
number consisting of some hundreds of bits from data with millions.
The idea behind the hashing algorithm is that it is hard to get
collisions on purpose, and rare with small changes i.e. bit error or
tampering.
\_ I don't think an SHA-256 collision has ever happened by accident.
If you have two different files, the probability that they have
the same SHA-256 hash by chance is 2^-256; that's less than the
chance that in the one second after you hit Enter to calculate
the hashes, your computer is obliterated by three separate
meteorites independently. It could happen, but it's not very
likely. |
| 2010/8/9-19 [Computer/HW/Printer] UID:53916 Activity:nil |
8/9 Yay soda got a printer!
root 4950 0.0 0.0 67440 2664 ? Ss Aug07 0:08 /usr/sbin/cupsd
\_ No, really, do we have a printer? |
| 2010/8/9-19 [Computer/SW/Security, Computer/SW/Unix] UID:53915 Activity:nil |
8/9 Who is this guy 42949672? Posted some root's processes for context.
751 root 15 -5 0 0 0 S 1 0.0 0:24.50 rpciod/0
5293 42949672 20 0 20412 908 576 S 0 0.0 0:18.82 nrpe
1 root 20 0 10312 748 620 S 0 0.0 0:08.75 init
\_ Sounds like -1 (a truncated 4294967295). |
| 2010/8/8-9/3 [Computer/SW/Languages/C_Cplusplus, Computer/SW/Languages/Web] UID:53914 Activity:nil |
8/8 Trying to make a list of interesting features languages have
touted as this whole PL field comes around, trying to see if they
have basis in the culture of the time: feel free to add some/dispute
1970 C, "portability"
1980 C++, classes, oop, iterators, streams, functors, templates
expert systems
1990 Java, introspection, garbage collection, good threading model
CORBA -- collosal failure. RMI nice and light.
neural nets
2000 CGI hacks. PHP and Perl hacks. Bad post dot-com crap
programming (lots of disposable UI code).
organic evolvers
- PHP, javascript, flash (ha)
\_ Do you guys remember at some point they started to use TCPIP
over localhost to do IPC? I think this was around this time,
also at the same time people started to make everything MVC
I remember when say old apps were suddenly split into server
and client component (where client was the webbrowser) because
"it was easy and quick to design a UI on the browser" tho
I think this died out.
\_ Patterns started to become big.
2010 Slow language fast prototyping scripting. Javascript,
Ruby on Rails, Python. Use of NoSQL. Protocol buffer.
\_ This helps chip companies sell faster and bigger chips. What a
waste.
Cloud Computing
Death of AI |
| 2010/8/8-9 [Uncategorized] UID:53913 Activity:nil 66%like:53918 |
8/8 What are your favorite questions to ask companies whenever they
say "Do you have any questions?" |
| 2010/8/7-9/3 [Uncategorized] UID:53912 Activity:nil |
8/7 Why Google is in favor of "Net Neutrality"
http://www.digitalsociety.org/2009/11/fcc-nprm-ban-on-paid-peering-harms-new-innovators
\_ http://www.nanog.org/meetings/nanog47/presentations/Monday/Labovitz_ObserveReport_N47_Mon.pdf |
| 2010/8/7-25 [Industry/Jobs] UID:53911 Activity:moderate |
8/6 Slide acquired by Google:
http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2010/08/google-and-slide-building-more-social.html
-dans
\_ Are you going to retire now? -ausman
\_ No. I'm not quite there yet. But home ownership looks tempting.
-dans
\_ Financially how much better was the exit vs. the amount you could
have gotten working as a sysadmin in ucb?
\_ I'm pretty sure UCB sysadmins don't have exits. What's a
typical UCB sysadmin make? -dans
\_ http://www.sacbee.com/statepay/?name=holub&agency=&salarylevel=
\_ That's just mean. -dans
\_ not as mean as the things tom said to other people
in the past 2 decades or so.
\_ Call that a job perk. The opportunity to bitch out
people on the motd. +1 for UC Sysadmin job. -dans
\_ Probably overpaid given all the other benefits.
\_ I thought government workers were all overpaid. I just
looked up a CSUAer who works for the UC and he is making
about 2/3 what I would expect to pay for someone of his
skill and experince in the private sector. What gives?
\_ Offer him a job at the higher rate then. See if he
takes it.
\_ You are making the mistake of thinking all salary
and wages come in the form of cash.
\_ I am not sure if he would take the job or not.
It's a curious experiment. I think the one
making the mistake is the "2/3 salary" guy.
If the CSUAer could make 50% more in industry
then why isn't he? Could it be because he's
in a pretty cushy spot relative to industry?
\_ Sorry; clarification, i agree with you,
i don't agree with "all compensation is only
determined by the absolute value of my
paycheck" guy. He is assuming many things;
the least of which is that everyone has
identical values. I can give many instances
where people would opt for a lower "pay" but
more secure job: single parents (is only one
example).
\_ Maybe he lives in East Bay and doesn't want
to commute to Silicon Valley. Two extra
hours a day of free time is worth a lot
of money.
\_ I have a resume that came across my desk last
week which is a Berkeley sysadmin (not this guy).
I will probably give him a call. His stated
reason for his job search "The UC is not a good
place to work for right now." I notice most
employees haven't had a raise in four years. |
| 2010/8/4-25 [Uncategorized] UID:53910 Activity:nil |
8/4 I'm heading to St. Louis for a couple of days later this month.
If you have any non-arch-based ideas for stuff to do, pls advise,
although evenings more likely to be free than daytimes.
Food recs welcome too, particularly near Washington University.
BTW, are there any TSEliot-related interesting things at WU?
ok tnx. --psb
\_ My mom relocated to Springfield, Missouri but we went to Saint Louis
to see it while we were out there visiting. Not much to do or
see. The area near WUSTL is definitely the nicest part of town.
The Saint Louis Art Museum is pretty good and worth a visit if
you like art. I never went, but my mom said the Budweiser tour
was surprisingly good. (And she doesn't even drink beer.)
was surprisingly good. (And she doesn't even drink beer.) If
you have a car you might be able to see other things in Missouri
like the Truman Presidential Library or even Kansas City.
\- I'm a Wanted man in Kansas City, and a Wanted man in Ohio |
| 2010/8/4-25 [Transportation/Car] UID:53909 Activity:nil |
8/4 "China Plans Huge Buses That Can DRIVE OVER Cars (PHOTOS)"
http://news.yahoo.com/s/huffpost/669166
WTF!? |
| 2010/8/3-25 [Science/GlobalWarming] UID:53908 Activity:nil |
8/3 http://news.yahoo.com/s/time/08599200808100 'Russia's largest circulation newspaper, Komsomolskaya Pravda, ran a headline on July 31 that asked, "Is the Russian heat wave the result of the USA testing its climate weapon?" The daily's answer was "Yes, probably."' Yeah, let us use our climate weapon on the California climate so that we can get more rain! \_ We don't need any more rain and more rain would eliminate much of the appeal of living here. What we need to do is save more of the rain that we do get or construct an aqueduct from someplace which gets more than its fair share, like Oregon. \_ Interstate Water Wars! |
| 2010/8/2-9 [Uncategorized] UID:53907 Activity:nil |
8/2 So is soda running on an ESX box? Just curious.
\_ No. |
| 2010/8/2-25 [Computer/Companies/Google] UID:53906 Activity:nil |
8/2 Ex-CSUA-er piaw gives advice to Nooglers:
http://piaw.blogspot.com/2010/08/tips-for-noogler-engineers.html |
| 2010/7/29-8/9 [Computer/SW/Mail] UID:53905 Activity:nil |
7/29 How do I get pine to work with mail? I have 1900 mails and I want
to delete them. Or is there a better one to use? never learned
'mail'..
\_ mutt
\_ so why doesn't alpine work? What setting should I use to have
it work with my csua mail folder? Thanks!
\_ Use of maildir and apparently a still-broken SSL cert for mail
...seriously, alpine just doesn't support Maildir.
\_ Reply from root. At least I'm not the only one having issue.
As far as accessing mail, your mailspool is still accessible via NFS
on soda: /var/mail/username
Of course, this mount is only accessible via soda,
so if you're not using alpine on soda, you'll need to find a different
way.
I'd give you more details on configuring alpine to read mailspools,
but I'm off work soon, and I won't be near a computer for a while
afterwards. You should be able to google it - sorry for not having
clear instructions handy.
\_ Thanks for the detailed reply. I was able to delete my mails via
mutt. Nice program. -op |
| 2010/7/29-8/9 [Uncategorized] UID:53904 Activity:low |
7/29 O great worshipful roots,
can you please
apt-get install libtool binutils-dev ruby1.9-dev libmagic-dev?
Am doing some fun tinkering on the output of libopcodes- Thx!
\_ Paolo, your mac has ruby in it already.
\_ Not if you request over motd. Try emailing root@csua.
\_ Ah ok, policy shifted.
\_ Who's on root these days? -!OP
\_ Check /etc/motd. Derp derp. |
| 2010/7/29-8/9 [Uncategorized] UID:53903 Activity:nil |
7/29 Anyone been to or heard things about "Walking With Dinosaurs: Live"?
This seems so geared to 8 year old boys, but an acquaintance in med
school in NYC actually recommended this to me so I am more
interested than I might otherwise be. Will this be worth my time
and money? I do like dinosaurs, but not as much as when I was 8. |
| 2010/7/28-8/9 [Uncategorized] UID:53902 Activity:nil |
7/28 "Zedonk hybrid born at Ga. wildlife preserve"
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/us_odd_newborn_zedonk
"Wait, honey, I can explain ......" |
| 2010/7/28-8/9 [Uncategorized] UID:53901 Activity:nil |
7/28 I have a few relatives who are always on me to do/go see "this, that
and the other thing" every time i'm on vacation. I finally figured
out this was because they can't ever take vacations, and never have
the time to do the things on that list themselves, and most likely
want to live vicariously through me. Issue being is that I really
don't want to spend my time off rushing about like a madman(1) and
just to fulfill someone else's checklist(2). What's a nice iconic
statement to tell them to fuck off? (Preferably short, sweet,
repeatable, --i plan to get a bumpter sticker with this, or a tshirt).
\_ "Thanks for the pointer, I'll see if we can fit it in." -tom
\_ Thanks, tshirt ordered; going to wear it whenever I see them
and point to the statement whenever they start off with the
"At your age, you should..."-list.
\_ I recommend you "Walk with the Dinosaurs". |
| 2010/7/26-8/25 [Reference/Military] UID:53898 Activity:low |
7/25 Friend of mine's thinking about joining the armed forces.
He was thinking either marines or army. I was going to say that
marines are far more dangerous, but then I stopped and thought of
the Three Block War vs. the Navy shelling the crap out of Iraq
before the marine had to storm it; is the notion reversed now?
Does the army has a tougher job/more dangerous job than the marines
(because occupying is no longer about occupying pro-western areas)?
\_ well discuss why he wants to do join the armed forces. If it is
about getting 'a job' then a 'safer' branch might be for him. If
he wants to go out and actually see combat action and shoot people
either of those will do.
\_ How old is he? Is he psychologically malleable enough for
brainwashing? Finally, does he have a college degree? -Army Vet
\_ He's 23, got a degree from san jose state.
\_ Does he want to be an officer? Is he planning on just doing
one tour, or is he thinking about making it a career? In
general, I agree with military brat below, the Air Force
treats its people the best, though I personally would
way rather be in the field than cooped up in a ship.
way rather be in the field than cooped up on a ship.
If you just want to do a short tour of duty as an enlisted
man to check it
man to check it out, then the shortest tour of duty is probably
advised, this usually means Army.
\_ I thought if you had a degree they put you as an officer?
Or is that an urban legend..
\_ A degree is no guarantee of commission, in fact one of
my seargents had a BS and was trying to get sent to OCS.
\_ How scary was your tour? (I told him airforce btw)
\_ I was in the 82nd Airborne, so it was pretty
tough, but I got a lot out of it.
\_ What's your take on this:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three_block_war
It sounds like a total nightmare to me. :-(
\_ It sounds like a good recognition of what the US Army should
have realized a long time ago: the need to better train their
small unit leaders in subjects beyond just small arms and
fieldcraft.
\_ How about we train our mility to fight in guerilla style?
It seems like no national militaries do that. Is there a
reason?
\_ guerilla tactics don't accomplish our military goals.
\_ We did. a longtime ago. Look up "frontier fighting"
in any history book in the 80s and 90s. Doubt it
would be in any book now but yes, the US Armed forces
fought guerilla style wars against the British under
Mr. Founding Father Geo. Washington. It was of course
Highly successful against troops that were taught at
Blenheim or Aughrim other conv. theatre in Europe.
\_ Oh how the wheel turns.
\_ This is a U.S. myth; it was only after we got
better at using rank and file tactics that we
started winning battles. -tom
\_ Read up on "inflitration tactics" though this it not
strictly guerilla style. You can't really take and
hold territory that way.
\_ My whole family is military: Army and Air Force. Tell him to
join the Air Force. It's almost civil. Whatever you do, stay
out of the Army. It's the definition of grunt and they treat
you like it. I say this as a person with a Lieutenant Colonel
in his family and a West Point grad Colonel step-relative.
Marines isn't much better, but at least it is a small
fraternity of men who serve with honor. If I were to join I'd
choose Air Force and Navy in that order.
\_ My dad was Navy for 35 years; started out as E-1 and finished
as O-5; got sponsored for OCS and got his Bachelors/Masters
while in. If your buddy bears grudges, can't let things go,
and can't get goal-oriented, no branch of the service will
advance him. If your buddy is looking for travel, training,
and opportunity, go Navy, or, as above, Air Force.
\_ Why do you say "bears grudges"? Why is a forgiving nature
important to career success in the military?
\_ Military life, like civilian life, has plenty of
jerks, both as coworkers and bosses. Being
constructive with your frustration is fine and will
generally be rewarded; rising to bait, mouthing off,
and letting the minutiae get to you, however, will
hold you back. In theory, if you study your material,
pass advancement-oriented tests, and do your time,
you will advance; in reality, if you get written up
for fighting or otherwise being immature, you will
not advance. Buddy of mine, whip-smart, did great on
the tests, impressed the Captain and XO with his
reliability, and was headed for promotion, but he
couldn't keep his temper or let go of small slights,
and he got written up. After five years of failing
to advance, he gave up and bowed out. That's all I
mean.
\_ Yeah, I got into a lot of conflict with people when
I was in, I can see how that would not work if you
wanted to make a career out of it. |
| 2010/7/25-8/25 [Computer/SW/Graphics] UID:53897 Activity:nil |
7/25 What's up with that moving bit pattern that Win7 displays when it
boots up? (It's the one that's like in the Apple II days when you
use the graphics memory for code or data while it's still in HGR
mode.) Is there a way to disable that? It slows things down a lot
every time I reboot my Win7 VM on my office machine if I RDP to the
machine via DSL. Thanks in advance. |
| WARNING: The views expressed on this page are solely that of U.C. Berkeley students, alumni, and affiliates and in no way reflect the views, opinions, beliefs, or actions of U.C. Regents or anyone affiliated with hosting this content. Please email politburo@csua.berkeley.edu for more information. |
| 2010/8/29-9/3 [Politics/Domestic/California] UID:53942 Activity:nil |
8/29 OC turning liberal, maybe there is hope for CA afterall:
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/30/us/politics/30orange.html |
| 2010/8/29-9/3 [Recreation/Humor, Politics/Foreign/Europe, Computer/Theory] UID:53940 Activity:nil |
8/29 http://www.google.nl/trends?q=ramadan,+porno&ctab=0&geo=ma&date=all&sort=0 Funny graph. -- linkpusher |
| 2010/8/23-9/3 [Reference/Tax, Politics/Domestic/California/Prop] UID:53934 Activity:nil |
9/19 http://www.latimes.com/news/local/bell/la-me-city-property-tax-table,0,5895218.htmlstory Poor cities pay more % of prop tax than wealthy cities. Compton pays 1.5% prop tax. \_ poor people also pay more for groceries. and taxes and in general everything. It's why rich people stay rich. I love $2 country club burgers! \_ Maybe it's because the average property value in poor cities are lower than those in rich cities, such that a higher prop tax % rate doesn't translate to higher proper tax dollar? And maybe it's also because poor cities need to provide more service per capita than rich cities? \_ it's ok to make fun of the poor again. Just call them The Offline. remember you're at the top of Digital Darwinism, you're online with your iphone because the Digital God gave you the best genes. |
| 2010/8/17-9/3 [Politics/Domestic/California, Industry/Jobs] UID:53926 Activity:nil |
8/17 Private sector growing, public sector shrinking:
http://finance.yahoo.com/news/If-Private-Sector-Is-Hiring-cnbc-4039402657.html?x=0
\_ starve the beast!
\_ why do they never count the armed forces as employment |
| 2010/7/27-8/25 [Politics/Domestic/California, Reference/Tax] UID:53900 Activity:nil |
7/25 Is there a polite way to tell a recruiter "too busy at the moment
but keep me in mind for future stuff." Or "not in that field at
this exact moment but am switching positions over the next few
months for your role, keep me in mind" ? Thx.
\_ You know what, recruiters have thick skins. You won't hurt
their feelings. Go ahead, try, you can't possibly get them down.
Tell them you have a job, and you'll keep them in mind next
time you are unemployed.
\_ I think you have it right there. Recruiters in general don't mind
it if you are direct with them.
\_ I had THREE different recruiters from Amazon at different
quarters. Each time, I tell them "Sorry I have no interest
in going to Seattle." The third time, I told them "I hate
Seattle and if you want to attract real talent, setup an
office in Silicon Valley. Stop bothering me." I finally
got them to stop.
\_ A co-worker of mine requested to be transferred from here to the
Seattle branch of the company in the '90s so that he could avoid
paying state income tax and maybe state capital gain tax on his
huge stock earnings.
\_ Word. Not to mention stupid CA laws.
\_ I know a few people who moved to .ca just for that reason too. |
| 2010/7/26-8/19 [Academia/Berkeley/CSUA/Troll] UID:53899 Activity:low |
7/25 Some bank now lets you photo a check for a deposit with your
phone. What do you guys think?
\_ It's a fine line between clever and stupid.
\_ It's USAA and it's awesome. They trust their customers, and no,
you can't join.
\_ Looks like a Chase ad to me?
\_ Wouldn't want to. Sounds like a headline waiting to happen.
\_ How can you search for banks that actually keep their
online presence to a minimum? Trying to find one that is
extremely conservative when it comes to online crap.
\_ Why?
\_ No interest in that lifestyle.
\_ Using computers is a "lifestyle?" Log off the CSUA
then pervert!
\_ I have no interest in the smartphone religion
please don't proselytize it.
\_ Thou shalt ssh to soda from your droid or
Burn in Everlasting Hellfire!
\_ I will laugh hard when they announce your bank is getting rid
of ATMs because "our users can just use their cell phones!"
\_ not gonna happen until cell phones can print cash.
\_ Cash? Only Terrorists and the people who support
terror industries use untraceable funds. :-P
\_ What is this cash thing? Some archaic system?
-- NTT DoCoMo Micropayments User |