3/22    Why do people advocate BART + bike-ride? I can never find a friggin'
        place to park @ the BART station, and during peak hour (working hour)
        I can't even take my bike to BART. Fuck BART, bike-ride, and the
        environmentalist hippies. I'm taking my SUV.
        \_ I'm moving out of the bay area, buying a house, and biking 1 mile to
           work.
        \_ Then during non-peak hours, you can do it, right?
        \_ I'm living in an apt. within walking distance from Rockridge staton.
           And I'm moving to a new home in Fremont where there's a bus stop
           right across the street from my door that goes to the BART station.

3/22    The economy is good and I'm tempted to go to a startup for lotsa
        options. Is there any good reason why anyone should consider grad
        school?                                                 -junior
        \_ No. - Paolo
        \_ By the time you get out, the .com bubble will burst.
        \_ Ph.D allows you to do research/professor/teach
                \_ but they don't give you options (and the pay sux)
           \_ you can teach w/o a phd.  Look at mconst.  you can do
              research w/o a phd/university setting. Look at McKusick.
        \_ Recommend trying startup.  If you make it rich, and you like
                grad school, go to grad school after you vest.
                \_ ah, the get rich fast, buy a Ph.D philosophy
                   \_ Nooo, it's more like the "get rich, then get a PhD
                      without living hand-to-mouth like the stereotypical
                      grad student".  And learn how to format your motd posts,
                      dink.
        \_ Unless you *really* like being in school.  Like it really gets
           you off better than sex (if you know what that feeling is or can
           imagine it maybe), then go to grad school.  Otherwise go get a job
           and pay taxes and become an immediately productive member of
           society.
           \_ get sex in school
              \_ easy with undergrads if you are a Ph.D student
                 \_ it's easy now if you just talk to women.  Ya know,
                    not thru aol chat. - paolo
        \_ If you enjoy learning, grad school can be a great experience.
           When I graduated I worked at a startup for 1.5 years.  I loved
           the work and getting paid a decent salary was nice, but it's a
           lot different than the student life.  Anyway, after 1.5 years I
           left the startup and went to grad school at MIT.  Being away
           for a little made it a harder to go back but after making
           the initial adjustment I loved grad school.  You really learn
           a lot.  Do you remember how when you were a senior in high school
           you thought you knew it all and then you went to
           college and learned lots of amazing things?  Going to grad school
           is a similiar experience.  Also, depending on your field you
           can make some decent money consulting part-time and in the
           summer.  I'm in my second year at MIT and I currently have
           a consulting contract at $60/hour.  You probably won't
           become a millionaire, but you can live comfortably.  My advice
           is go to grad school if you love science, math, computers or
           whatever you study.  You'll live comfortably in grad school and
           still be able to get a good job when you graduate.  Working can
           also be a wonderful expereience, but its a lot less likely that
           you'll eventually go to grad school if you don't do it when you're
           young.  Email me if you have other questions. -emin
           \_ There's the difference between working people and students.  The
              student, trained by many years of schooling and still living it
              to the moment, babbles out a 10-12 page essay when a working man
              who doesn't have time for bullshit gets down to it and says very
              simply to only go if you love being a student.  Emin, thanks for
              playing the example of the student mindset.
              \_ Well, I was hoping to provide some background and reasons
                 behind the advice.  In adition I also said that you don't
                 have to live as a pauper since you can do consulting on
                 the side.  I think my response contains additional useful
                 information as well as an invitation to further discussion
                 via email.  I'll pass on the obvious flame about your post
                 providing an example of how the "working man" doesn't take
                 the time to evaluate the facts properly since I don't think
                 your post represents the average "working man".   -emin

3/22    I've been asked to buy a computer book for a 12 year old.  He
        plays Homeworld and Pokemon Vermillion.  Any suggestions?  Abelson
        and Sussman doesn't count.
        \_ Pokemon!  Buy them all!  Woo hoo!
        \_ Knuth TAOCP! Buy them all! Woo hoooo!

3/22    is there a list of supported pcmcia cards for freebsd?
        \_ L1unkz r00lez!
        \_ Yeah, I believe it's under http://www.freebsd.com/hardware  I think
           they did a lot of work on the cardbus stuff, so under 4.0-
           RELEASE pcmcia ought to work better than it has under 3.x
           (sketchy at best.)  Also, there's a FreeBSD implementation
           specifically aimed at laptops, called PAO.  It's at
           <DEAD>www.jp.freebsd.org/PAO--I've<DEAD> found it a bit goofy to work with,
           but it's always worked for me.  -John

3/22    I am having a problem with DHCP --- my machine got assigned a very
        strange ip address and a subnet mask of 255.255.0.0  Is there a way
        for me to scan for the DHCP servers in my network?  Using Open
        Transport 2.0.3
        \_ Does it work?  If it does, maybe it wasnt so strange?
        \_ If you were using a _real_ os like, say LINUX or BSD, you could
           find the DHCP server you respond to prett quickly with tcpdump -e

3/22    Looking for free web site that let you store your files online.
        I need something big.  Not some dinky little 3 meg quota like
        yahoo.
        \_ think xdrive is like 50meg -shac
        \_ http://xdrive.com, http://idrive.com

3.22a   Related to below, somwhat:
        So, BSD is more secure than linux because there are more rootkits
        available for linux?  Don't we also have to narrow it down to what
        is running, daemon and userprocesses?
                \-i didnt say the above. i said "more linux machines are
        broken into then BSD machine" --psb
        \_ BSD is more secure because it isn't a kiddy toy.  On every interview
           I go to where they're using linux, I ask why linux instead of some
           thing else such as bsd or solaris, etc, and they never know.  It's
           just that linux is cool and they don't know anything else.  Good
           hype and PR and no backbone just like MS.  Linux = the MS of the
           unix world.  There's better but nothing kewler.
                \-i didnt say the above. i said "more linux machines are
        broken into then BSD machine" --psb
        \_ ah but is that just because there are statistically less BSD
           machines? I don't wnat to start a holy war, because I'm just
           trying to decide what's best to put on a laptop right now
           freebsd or linux, the only port open would be sshd on either
           i was going to go with linux because of driver support - paolo
                \-there are "statistically" more linux rootkits --psb
           \_ Linux. Friends of my at work who use FreeBSD on laptops
              (dell, toshiba and ibm thinkpads) say that Linux has better
              driver support for PCMCIA cards like ethernet and scsi. Also,
              linux supposedly has better support for the onboard video
              cards in some of the older toshibas and thinkpads. And Linux
              is somewhat better with the power management bios (apm).
              \_ This is generic bullshit.  Check the supported cards list and
                 if BSD supports what's in your laptop, then use it.  If you're
                 lazy, sloppy, and stupid, you'll RIDE BI-- I mean USE LINUX!
                 just because "friends of my at work say...".
                 \_ Linux is easier to install on laptops than FreeBSD, and
                    its device support for "end-user" gadgets such as
                    PCMCIA and sound cards is better and more straightforward;
                    however, once I got it working on my laptop, I found
                    FreeBSD a lot nicer to work with in terms of reliability
                    and transparency.  -John

3/22    Are DBA jobs really as boring as the motd posters claim?
        \_not unless you find getting paid bank really boring.
          \_ They have to pay DBA's well because the job is so boring.  -tom
             \_ Plus, it's kinda like brain surgery. It's really
                fiddly stuff, and if you screw up, someone is going to
                be really, REALLY unhappy.
            \_ I would have expected a more intelligent response from you,
               tom. In answer to the original question:
                1. Do you get misty-eyed looking at ERDs?
                2. Do you love applying normalizations to ERDs?
                3. Do you know any normalizations beyond the 3rd normal
                   form?
                4. Do you know how to do a left outer join in Oracle,
                   DB/2, Informix, and Sybase?
                5. Do you know wtf a left outer join is?
                6. Do you think database nulls are the greatest thing
                   since IEEE floating point?
                7. Is Chris Date your hero?

                If the answer to the above questions is yes, then
                being a DBA would not be boring to you. A good DBA is
                indespensible on a project, especially since so few people
                properly understand relational theory and practice. I have
                a lot of respect for DBAs, but its not my cup of tea.
                \_ Sounds hideously boring to me.  -blojo
                   \_ That's nice. Presumably, this is why you are whatever
                      it is you are and not a DBA. Either way, the person
                      who asked the question should get enough information
                      to make up his/her own mind.
                        \_ I think blojo was just offering his personal
                           opinion and comment.  That's all.
                           \_ I don't want to know personal opinions coming
                              from a blowjob.
                \_ Don't say that again!  I almost jizzed my keyboard when you
                   said "left outer join" and hit my third orgasm at "database
                   nulls"!  I need to go clean up now.

3/22    ALF and ELF save environment with radical dog food factory
        destruction!  Go ALF!
        http://dailynews.yahoo.com/h/ap/20000323/us/eco_terrorism_1.html