9/27    Today is tpc's birthday!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
 _   _                           ____  _      _   _         _
| | | | __ _ _ __  _ __  _   _  | __ )(_)_ __| |_| |__   __| | __ _ _   _
| |_| |/ _` | '_ \| '_ \| | | | |  _ \| | '__| __| '_ \ / _` |/ _` | | | |
|  _  | (_| | |_) | |_) | |_| | | |_) | | |  | |_| | | | (_| | (_| | |_| |
|_| |_|\__,_| .__/| .__/ \__, | |____/|_|_|   \__|_| |_|\__,_|\__,_|\__, |
            |_|   |_|    |___/                                      |___/
 _____ _                       _
|_   _| |__  _   _  ___  _ __ | |
  | | | '_ \| | | |/ _ \| '_ \| |
  | | | | | | |_| | (_) | | | |_|
  |_| |_| |_|\__,_|\___/|_| |_(_)
        \_ Is tpc's penis bigger than tom's?
           \_ Anything's bigger than zero.
                \_ Please. Stop. Now.  This obsession with tom's penis
                   is unhealthy.  For the good of all soda GROW THE FUCK UP
                   ALREADY.

9/27    I'm trying to output the binary representation of a ieee754 double
        in c/c++.  I'm using union { double x; long y; } and then
        shifting iteratively with a value.y >> i and then masking it with
        a value.y & 0x1 but that doesn't seem to work.  Any suggestions?
        \_ first problem:  a double is probably larger in size than a long
           on your architecture.  are you sure your compiler is doing ieee754
           doubles?  what you described is very dependent on what you're using.
        \_ printf("%08x\n", * (long *) &x);
        \_ printf("%qx\n", *(long long *) &x) is what you want on soda, where
           a double is 64 bits and a long is 32.  Other machines will vary.
        \_ Why not use a char array in your union?  That way you only have
           the length of the double to worry about.
           \_And the endian-ness.

9/28    got any tips on buying a decent PC [Piece o Crud] piece by
        piece for around $1k total?
        \_ If you're in L.A., go to the Pomona computer show and buy pieces
           there.  http://www.pricewatch.com for prices.  Buy high-quality hardware
           at a good price point based on what you need or expect to need.
           Celeron 300A and AMD K6-2 300 are good, cheap processors.  Don't
           cheap out on the motherboard.  If you feel like it, you can mail
           me or post a pointer to your desired set-up and I'll comment for
           free.  $900 (includes tax) is what I'm planning on spending this
           weekend for a 300A w/17" CTX OEM monitor. -jctwu
           \_ Celerons are worthless marketing trash, buy a K6-2. --dbushong
              \_ 266 and 300s = sucky. 300A, 333 = good.  Wait 1 week
                 and I'll tell you how the 300A is. -jctwu
              \_ Uh oh.. someone's been looking at worthless business
                 "benchmark" numbers instead of http://www.tomshardware.com  Silly
                 boy.
           \_ The 300A's have double the onchip cache, for a total of 128k
              of *onchip* l1 cache.  Their performance isn't so bad.   -PeterM
              \_ Not only that, they are the most overclockable x86 CPU
                 ever... See http://www.tomshardware.com -mogul

9/28    I need a friend.  /csua/pub/housing/ABATTOIR - danh
        \_ I already have lots of friends.  now i need a roommate. - danh

9/28    Need to find a 4kx4 RAM chip to fix an arcade game.  The simians at
        AL Lashers were unhelpful.  Radio Shanty is right out.  What other
        options do I have? -ERic
        \Mailorder: digikey, et al.
         \_ couldn't find anything relevant on digikey's website.  Any other
             ideas? -ERic
             \_ how about simulating one with a larger chip?  might be cheaper.
               \_ I was thinking about that -- but I'm not enuf of an eecs
                   geek to know whether it'd have a prayer of working. -ERic
        \_ http://www.jameco.com .  Or if it's something obsolete and obscure you
           can try Halted.
        \_ Try a military warehouse, they have to keep obselete
                \_ or Haltek.  It's cooler.
        \_ Try a military whorehouse, they have to keep obselete
           hardware for years because some plane flying still
           uses it. -- daveh
                \_ Cool.  We can break in like on that Buffy episode where
                Xander and Cordelia snuck into the base to steal a bazooka.
                All we need now is an attractive woman to distra-- Oh...
                nevermind.  That won't work around here.
                        \_ Maybe we can hire one of those out-of-work MCB
                           major chicks
                                \_ They have to be good for *something*.
        \_ What kind of RAM chip?  You could also get a databook (handbook)
           from various OEMs (TI, Motorola, various obscure chipmakers), and
           look it up in their memory section.  Some of these handbooks are
           hundreds of pages -- must be in there _somewhere_...

9/28    For those who haven't heard, Star Wars I title is officially
        "The Phantom Menace" (http://www.starwars.com/episode-i
        \_ Yeah, we heard. Doesn't make it go away, does it?