5/8     Is there a Visual Basic equivalent to the UNIX system() function?
        I need to write a VB program to run a bunch of dos commands
        and report the results to the user.  If I had a choice, I would
        use perl, python, tcl, bash, or something like that, but I need
        to create a program that will run a standard windows system.  Thanks.
        \_ Yes.
        \_ Yes.
        \_ Perl runs on windows just fine, so does the bourne shell.
          \_ Sorry.  What I should have said was that I need a solution
             which does not involve installing perl, python, tcl, bash or
             some other tool which is not installed on a standard system.
             \_ Install gcc and write a C program to do it.
                \_ Duh.  Without installing anything.
        \_ ShellExecute or CreateProcess - chiapet
        \_ Shell (command, windowmode)
          \_ Thanks.  Shell seems decent.  Is there any way for Shell
             to return the output to VB?

5/8     I'm bored, anyone have good interview questions to ask?
        \_ if (a ^ 2 + b ^ 2) / (1 + a * b) = n, where n is an integer, then
           there exists an integer m, such that m ^ 2 = n.  Prove.  -- ilyas
           \_ n = 1.  m = 1.  a = 1.  b = 1.
        \_ "Do you eat pussy?"
        \_ "So tell me about yourself."
        \_ "So, tell me your greatest strength and your greatest weakness."
           I love that one.  That's the point where I know I'm interviewing
           at the wrong place and try to get out ASAP without being an
           \_ /tmp/13coins. -- ilyas
              \_ Quit wasting VM. Put this in /csua/tmp
           asshole to anyone.
           \_ you need to know if you are looking for a heavier one or
              a lighter one.
           \_ What exactly do you do or say to get out ASAP without being an
           asshole to anyone?
           \_ Don't ask any serious questions about the company, maybe blow
              off the tour by saying you'll have more time on the second
              interview, stuff like that.  Shorten it but don't outright flee.
              The industry is both big and small.  Never know when you'll see
              those same people again and you can laugh with them about how
              bad that company was (assuming they've quit by that point too).
        \_ Let's say you have 13 billiard balls.  One of them is slightly
           heavier, or slightly lighter, than the other 12.  You have a two-
           pan scale.  How can you tell, in three weighings, which ball is
           the defective ball?
           \_ This puzzle appeared in the adventure game "Spellcaster",
              although I believe only 12 objects were involved.
           \_ /csua/tmp/13coins. -- ilyas
           \_ Throw the billiard balls at the interviewer's head.  It's
              \_ How to F everybody and still come out clean?
              likely that the defective one will leave a less massive
              bloody headwound than the other 12.  When you suspect, based
              on the reduced amount of bloody skull splinters and gore, that
              you have just thrown the defective one, un-wedge it from the
              interviewer's cranium and weigh it.  With a bit of attention,
              you should be able to guess it in 2 tries max.  -John
           \_ 1. Weigh six on six.  If it is balanced, then the 13th ball
                 not weighed is the one.
              \_ Uh ... yes, that's right.  Please continue.
           \_ You need to know if you are looking for a heavier one or a
              lighter one.
              \_ Wrong.  Please try again.
                \_ No you are wrong.  Assuming it isn't #13 when you weigh
                   those last two out of three you have a 2/3rds chance of
                   having the bad one on the scale.  In that case you need
                   to know if the bad one is heavier or lighter.
                   \_ Please talk to ilyas.  Or, ilyas, please talk.
                      \_ The man can read as well as you or I, he is just
                         trolling. -- ilyas
           \_ Isn't this a pretty hard problem for an interview?  I know
              that at least the 12 billiard ball problem requires much
              more organization and lucidity of thought that a 20 minute
              interview would allow.
              \_ Yes.  I thought someone was bored.
        \_ muchandr first told me this one, he said this was asked at an
           investment bank interview.  In this puzzle, we have two men, two
           women, and two condoms, in a room.  The puzzle is to figure out a
           way for each man to have sex with each woman in such a way that
           no transfer of fluids between any two parties takes place. -- ilyas
           \_ I guess this is an appropriate question for investment bankers?
                \_ Yup.  Ever seen those hot little asian business chicks at
                   on-campus interview day in their mini-mini fuck-me outfits?
                   \_ Yeah, but do you ever get to work with/on them if you
                      join a IB?
                        \_ If they believe you can advance their career in
                           some way, yes.
                   \_ The hottest women worked for JP Morgan. None were
                      Asian, but so what? It almost makes one wonder what
                      the requirements are to be a "recruiter" there.
                      They must want recruits to believe they *won't* be
                      working with 55 year old men who wear only navy blue
                      suits and smell like Old Spice. --dim
           \_ Men: A,B. Women: a,b. Condoms: 1,2. Solution: (4 steps)
                1: A->1->2->a
                2: A->1->b
                3: B->2->a
                4: B->2->1->b
             ... and they told us to never double up condoms in Health class.
              \_ ... and never re-use condoms.
              \_ Who doesn't mind being B?  Yucks!
                 \_ jj
        \_ on a scale of 1-10 (ten being the best), how do you rate yourself
           in terms of C++ coding (C, Perl, etc.)?
           \_ 11.  For all of them.
                \_ shows confidence, which is good, but perhaps way too
                        cocky for team unity?
        \_ borg cube vs. death star. who wins? -ali
           \_ That's not a fair comparison! It should be cube vs star destroyer!
                \_ Death star.  Ever seen a BC fire one blast at a planet
                   and destroy it?  Not carrything that kind of firepower.
                   Also, not using the force.
                   |_ The force is irrelevant.
                      \_ I find your lack of faith disturbing.  - Vader
                         \_ I have heard this countless times from
                            countless speices. Now they are all M$
                            subsidaries, uh I mean, borg.
                                \_ Until the DoJ gets done with them.
           \_ Kirk vs. Han Solo -> who can get more?
                \_ Kirk got it all the time.  What'd Solo ever get?
           \_ Luke vs. Wesley vs. Nog vs. Jar-Jar vs. Young Anakin vs. Alexander
              Pick three to kill. Justify sparing the others.
                \_ remove Alexander, Jar-Jar, Wesley (who's Nog?)
                   \_ Who is Alexander?
                \_ Sorry, I'd kill them all due to inability to justify.
       \_ Steve Ballmer vs. Larry Ellison, who wins?
          \_ depends on which company is interviewing you
             \_ Good point. I was thinking of a non-aligned power.
          Kirk vs. Picard, who wins?
          Linux vs. *BSD, who wins?
          HPUX vs. AIX, aren't you glad there is Solaris?
          Quebec Frenchies vs. French Frenchies, whose more wako?

5/8     Evidently >> or | only grab STDOUT what if i want STDERR too/instead?
        \_ If you're using tcsh, >>& and |& will grab STDERR as well...
           I dont know about other shells.

5/8     please post the syntax to use csv to read the motd,v version x or
        date 04/22/00.
        \_ sure, all you need is `man cvs`
        \_ man rcs

5/8     Another funny WAZZUP parody:   http://www.csua.berkeley.edu/~azarm/bud.html
        \_ I guess we have a pretty good idea now who has been putting
           long-winded extremely boring jokes in the motd.  -tom
           \_ You're an idiot.  I'd never get involved in anything so
              completely moronic.  It isn't even a parody.  -tom's troll
        \_ this is idiotic. i can't believe houman and drbacher got involved
           in this shit.  what's original about it? other than the toilet
           scene?

5/8     Joanna Dark looks like Yasmeen Bleeth.  Coincidence?
        \_ No.  Same person.

5/8     Any suggestions for online apartment listings for East Bay (around
        Fremont / Hayward)?
        \_ The listings you'll find online will be for the expensive
           apartments in this area.  If you want to find a reasonable
           apartment, drive around and visit a few complexes.  Anything
           with three or more stories will be expensive.  Vacancies abound.

05/08   Thanks for the advice on office DSL.

5/9     What game do you think has been completed the most by CSUAers?
        Starflight?  Wizardry?  Myst?  King's Quest?
        \_ Wolfenstein 3D?  Doom?
        \_ /usr/games/fortune. Forget everything else you've ever seen.
        \_ Tass Times in Tonetown!!!
        \_ Zork!
                \_ 1, 2, or 3?
        \_ Leisure Suit Larry (All Versions)
        \_ /csua/pub/life
        \_ MineSweeper
           \_ 115sec on expert. Still can't break the 100sec. barrier :(
        \_ what about rogue, angband, moria or nethack?
        \_ mario 64
        \_ Freecell!!!
        \_ NT pinball is actually a good game especially for a freebie.
           \_ It's not free if you have to buy NT.
        \_ I would say Nethack to all you windoze heathens, but it's
           CSUA-user 'completed' game.
                \_ Yes. Nethack is CSUA-complete. Everything in class CSUA
                   reduces to Nethack.
                \_ isn't there a unix version of some infocom game somewhere?
                   \_ I played "adventure" (aka Zork 0.1) on 4.2BSD.
                \_ soda mark IV had an "infocom" interpreter that had lots
                   of the classic games.  -tom
        \_ Angband--I seem to recall a big race to see who could finish
           Angband first on soda back in 1992 or 1993.  Of course, that
           doesn't necessarily mean "finished", since after whoever it is
           got through it (Kube?), people seemed to lose interest.  -John
                \_ I finished it too.  The problem with Angband is that
                   after 2000 feet you either win or get killed by something
                   breathing on you in one turn.  It's sorta dull.  -tom
                   \_ http://www.adom.de  I like this one a lot. -- ilyas
        \_ monopoly.  Oh wait, you meant *computer* game?
           \_ But for bill gates, it is a computer game!

5/9     Is there an OR statement for sed? eg. replace "foo" or "bar" with
        "wassup"? Looked thru UNIX Power Tools, and 26.09 seems to imply
        sed has no such function.
        \_ Two ways: 1) perl (see s2p)
           2) sed -e 's/foo/wassup/g' -e 's/bar/wassup/g'  --Galen

5/9     For those of you interested in the machinations of the OCF, there
        is a general meeting today at 5:30pm in 104 Dwinelle.
        \_ The OCF still exists?
                \_ Yes. -The OCF

5/9     I am caught in between the crossfire of my Manager and the product
        manager.  I've finished up a project early, and my Manager told me
        not to tell anyone about it.  And whenever the Product Manager come
        by to ask me about the progress on the project, I was instructed (by
        my manager) to tell him nothing but I am working on it.  The moral of
        the story: take care of yourself at work places -- doing something you
        have a passion of, but also get the proper respect or in many cases,
        compensation.
        \_ The moral of the story is that your company isn't healthy,
           especially if it is small.  You may consider looking for another
           job unless you enjoy working in the company of people who will
           think nothing of backstabbing each other or undermining the
           welfare of the company for the sake of personal gain.  Do you
           think you will be treated honorably by these same people?
        \_ What's the problem?  You're done earlier; you're telling the
           ProdM you're still on it; your Manager is happy because he or
           she knows you're done early; no one's late.
          \_ the problem is, it's hard to be inconsistent with your answer when
            you are in a small company.  Basically, I have to present my project
            to the tech writers for wording changes.  And the product manager
            is in charge of the tech writers.  He constantly checks with them.
            \_ So let me guess:  From the tech writers the ProdM knows you're
               project is much ahead of schedule.  So the ProdM gets into
               a discussion with your Manager re not disclosing that you
               were done early.  Not your fault; no big deal.  The disagreement
               is between your Manager and the Prod.

5/9     Try this: In vi, type in a paragraph that has its first line
        tab-indented. Then, go to the top of the paragraph, and !}fmt
        (Pipe the paragraph through fmt). It'll tab indent the first
        TWO lines of the paragraph. Here's where it gets wierd: Go
        down and delete the second tab. Go back up and !}fmt again.
        This time it doesn't add the second indent, it does what I
        wanted in the first place. Any theories on what's going on? -- Marco
        \_ The first time you probably had the paragrah all on one line.
           In that case it isn't really clear which you want so fmt guesses.
           Suggestion: use vim with tw and ai set and it will indent as you
           typel. --Galen
           \_ Nope, it happens with multiple-line paragraphs, not just
              single line paragraphs, where it would make sense. -- Marco
              \_ uhh.. it's a fmt bug?
                 \_ It must be something more than that, because you are
                    effectively giving fmt the *same* input and getting two
                    different results. My theory is something about how vi
                    deals with line breaks. -- Marco
                    \_ Ok...I think it is nothing to do with vi but is a
                       consequence fmt's design. If the first line is long
                       enough that fmt needs to break it then it will break it
                       even before it reads the second line. (I think fmt was
                       written as an old-skool unix filter and does no
                       buffering.) The second time through the first line is
                       not long enough to need to be broken so fmt doesn't do
                       this. In either case the second line is not indented so
                       by this time fmt knows you are indenting only the first
                       line (which is why only the first two lines are
                       indented). So: 1) it's a bug; 2) use par (or vim' gq
                       command) to avoid this. --Galen

5/8     Is there a Visual Basic equivalent to the UNIX system() function?
        \_ ShellExecute or CreateProcess - chiapet
        \_ Shell (command, windowmode)
          \_ Thanks.  Shell seems decent.  Is there any way for Shell
             to return the output to VB?
             \_ Redirect the output to a file and then have VB code read the
                file?  -- yuen
                \_ Yeah, I thought of that, but I was hoping there was
                   a cleaner way.
                   \_ Under windows???  pshaw!
                   \_ There isn't.  If you want you can use that Win32 function
                      that generates a unique filename.