9/13    Does anyone know who or what Proud Mary refers to in the
        song of the same name by CCR?
                \_ a steamboat?
                   \_ yes, obviously.
                      Though I've also become partial to the interpretation
                      of the line "But I never saw the good side of the city\
                      'till I hitched a ride on a riverboat queen" as a
                      double entendre.  -tom

9/12    can anyone point to me an example of a formal security proof
        that a TCB is secure up to level C or level B? - i'm interested
        in what they construe is a formal proof.

9/12    Since when did they begin dummy proofing the TI-36 calculators to
        accept trig function arguments in degrees instead of radians?
        \_ so you compute temperature by Kelvin too, right?
           \_ Kelvin is the STANDARD.  Unit of temperature.
              \_ yeah, I took physics 7-series too, but who in the hell
                 save the biggest geeks would ever say, "it was pretty
                 damn hot today, it must have been 308.15 K!!!"?
                 \_ what kind of geek would ever say, "it was pretty
                    damn hot today, it must have been {35C,95F}" AND
                    then put the number into a calculator in {C,F} to
                    do something productive with it?
        \_ Isn't this just a mode setting? On the casio I have, you can
           enter in either deg or rad depending on the mode you set it
           to. I usually use deg for everyday stuff, but when I'm doing
           real math, I switch to rad. I would be surprised if the TI
           (much more expensive than my $20 casio) doesn't have the same
           feature. Yeah I have a non-RPN calculator, laugh all you want,
           I bought it cause it was all I could afford when I was in
           school.
           \_ would 20 extra dollars have really killed you?
              \_ I should have been more specific. My calc costed $20
                 retail. I got it free from a friend, so a $40 TI or
                 HP was way out of my price range. Its not anymore, but
                 I don't really need a calc anymore (bc & perl are enough).

9/13    What's a good hotel in Las Vegas?  -nickkral
        \_ define good.
        \_ The Bellagio is the only place that feels like a real hotel.
           \_ I think The Four Seasons has this title. --dim
        \_ where on the Strip?
        \_ Luxor, Bellagio, New York, New York, Venetian.  Try
                http://www.lasvegas.com
           They have hotel/casino ratings there.
                \- there is a four seasons in LV? are you thinking of the
                four queens? luxor seemed really cheesy to me. --psb
                \_ Four Seasons is attached to (but separate from)
                   Mandalay Bay. --dim
                \_ Luxor is cheese. Stayed at Paris last year. Niiiice.
                   \_ Go to the Haxor.  Terrorists win!
                      \_ Look up!  He's shooting you from the power lines!!

9/12    What's the equivalent of "myCommand >& out_and_err.txt" in NT?  Thanks.
        \_ myCommand >out_and_err.txt 2>&1
           \_ he said NT, fool.  not sh.
                 \_ NT is in complete without ksh and UWIN. David Korn's only
                    redeeming contribution to computing.
              \_ It works in NT, my good friend.  There's even command-line
                 completion in NT4.
           \_ It works somewhat, but the output from stdout and stderr are out-
              of-sync in the .txt file.  It seems like the output from stderr
              always comes before the output from stdout in the file, even
              though the output from stdout is generated first.  Thanks again.
              \_ flush your stdout buffers if you expect strict ordering.
                 \_ But I can't change the .EXE that I want to run (no source
                    code), so I can't add fflush() calls.
        \_ get 4nt (http://www.jpsoftware.com then try your command.

9/13    Anybody been to an Olympic game?  I've heard that all the parties
        that goes on in the Olympic games are basically sex binges.  A chance
        for athletes to "mingle" after a game.  win or lose.  This is like the
        NBA where it's all about sex and money.

9/13    Is it possible to use the AoE2 Expansion Pack during multi-play?
        The Expansion Pack says you can automate more (e.g. farmers auto
        replenish farm, etc) and that should give me a lot more competitive
        advantage. However, it doesn't say if it is compatible w/multi-play.
        Thanks.                                                 -gaymer
        \_ I REALLY doubt the expansion pack magically turns off
           multiplayer play.
                \_ no, the question is if the Expansion Pack features could
                   be used in a multi-player game.
        \_ Yes, of course, but RM is all about feudal rushing, so the
           auto-features really wont make that big of a difference
           in competitive games.
        \_ What's RM?  Why don't you guys play it at the zone?  It's free there
        http://www.zone.com  You play Age Of Conquerers againts 8 (max.) other ppl.
           \_ RM == Random Map.

9/13    From http://dailynews.yahoo.com/h/nm/20000913/tc/apple_test_dc_1.html
        "OS X also offers a technical feature known as ``pre-emptive
        multi-tasking'' which allows the computer user to do more than one
        task at a time without crashing the machine.".  So the previous Mac OS
        (Mac OS 7?) was not pre-emptive?  --- yuen
        \_ no it was originally cooperative multitasking. A scheduled task
           ran until it yeilded. Several RTOS use cooperative multitasking
           as well, notable Cisco IOS.
           \_ So that means Mac OS is even more lame than Windoze in this
              respect?  Ohmygad.
                  \_ Than Lose{NT,2K} yes. Some will argue that pre-emptive
                     leads to worse performance for certain types of workloads,
                     but for non-RT systems, I disagree. As an aside, the kernel
                     in MacOS 8.5 - 9 has the ability (exteremly limited) to
                     preempt/interrupt executing tasks. This is implemented
                     using a mini-kernel (not a full featured micro-kernel like
                     mach).
                     Windows 9{5,8} (they are still basically DOS (the original
                     Denial of Service)) doesn't have this ability, despite what
                     CNTRL-ALT-DEL might lead you to believe.
                     but for non-RT systems, I disagree.

              \_ yes.  -tom
                  \_ Some will argue that pre-emptive leads to worse
                     performance for certain types of workloads (RT notably),
                     but the trade-off is complete service outage due to
                     [ Talking out of my ass here ]
                     individual process failures.

                     taks you do do essential work. But this won't really
                     [ Talking out of my ass here  - ali/tom feel free to
                       correct me ]

                     I suppose that you could write important stuff in the
                     interrupt handlers, so that regardless of the executing
                     task you can do essential work. But this won't really
                     cut it if your interrupt rate is high and your process
                     time in the handler is long.

                     The other option might be to do the important stuff in
                \_ yes.  -tom
                     hardware (asic/fpga) and just run your ui via the OS.
                     This is what most network vendors (Juniper, Cisco) do.

                     [ Done talking out of my ass ]

                     As an aside, the kernel in MacOS 8.5 - 9 has the ability
                     (exteremly limited) to preempt/interrupt executing tasks.
                     This is implemented using a mini-kernel (not a full
                     featured micro-kernel like mach).  Windows 9{5,8} (they
                     are still basically DOS (the original Denial of Service
                     attack)) don't have this ability, despite what CNTRL-ALT-DEL
                     might lead you to believe.

9/13    I am trying to optimize my disk i/o by using RAID. What is a
        reasonable maximum amount of i/o's per second I can expect
        from a Seagate 7200RPM drive? My R/W ratio is about 2/1.
        Terrible, I know. Assume my data is totally random, too.
        \_ Raid only increases bandwidth, with multiple disks.  Most raid
           setups would not help latency.
           \_ I am looking for more total operations/sec, not less
              latency per se. I guess you could say I am looking for
              less latency per user, over a userbase of lots. Raid
              definitely helps with this. I am using RAID 0+1, btw.

9/13    I want to locate my 7c ta from ~ 94-95. Any ideas? He was a postdoc
        researcher.
        \_ Do you have a name?  Why not start with the obvious: google.  If
           he was a postdoc researcher, some of his research is bound to be
           online. -dans
           \_ I don't remember his last name, firstname was Robert. Does the
              phyiscs department keep a record somewhere? He only TA'ed for
              Muller's special section (the dumbass section that met thrice
              a week for two hours, I got a B+ thanks to him). And no I'm
              not a fag or a girl, I just want to talk to him about getting
              a PhD in phyiscs.

9/13    psb and photo fans-- is there anything I can do w/ a darkroom for
        the past 30 years that I can't do with a digital cam+computer?
        I'm thinking of buying a digital cam. Thx
        \_ Yes.
           \_ working with digital images is different than working in a
              darkroom; you can simulate most darkroom effects but it's
              not the same.  Of course, you also can do a lot of things
              you can't do in a darkroom.  -tom

9/13    I've outgrown games.  Is there something wrong with me?
        \_ Sex is considered a game by some.
          \_ Don't be silly, CSUA geeks and sex don't mix
             \_ What about IRC sex?
                \_ once an IRC sex junkie, always an IRC sex junkie

9/12    What's a good hotel in Las Vegas w/ easy access hookers?  -nickkral
        \_ define good.
        \_ The Bellagio is the only place that feels like a real hotel.
           \_ I think The Four Seasons has this title. --dim
        \_ where on the Strip?
        \_ Luxor, Bellagio, New York, New York, Venetian.  Try
                http://www.lasvegas.com
           They have hotel/casino ratings there.
                \- there is a four seasons in LV? are you thinking of the
                four queens? luxor seemed really cheesy to me. --psb
                \_ Four Seasons is attached to (but separate from)
                   Mandalay Bay. --dim
                \_ Luxor is cheese. Stayed at Paris last year. Niiiice.
                   \_ Go to the Haxor.  Terrorists win!

9/13    Anyone know the Sparc Instruction Set that'll do array-out-of-bound
        check? Also if it is possible define such in C? Thanks.