9/17    Is there a study that shows how safe microwaves are? My mama who
        just came from India is convinced that microwaves put radiation
        into the food and wouldn't eat anything that's been nuked. Thx.
           \_ Uh, is you mother from some village? Does she still watch
              movies and wonder how they can fit a building in such a
              small box? If so, Your SOL Dude. Otherwise, explain it
              to her that microwaves != radiation. Microwave ovens
              use the vibrational properies of hydrogen bonds to cause
              a temperature increase in the surrounding moleules.
           \_ This must be some kind of joke, even my 85 yr old Grand
              Mother in India has a microwave and uses it regularly.
        \_ microwave ovens vibrate the hydrogen bonds in water. This
           may cause certain nutrients to break down.  Not sure if there
           are any long-term studies that look at the effects of eating
           nuked food.  At any rate, respect your mother's authoritay!
        \_ Tell her to look for "Made in Pakistan" stickers.  -John
        \_ i ate microwaved food most of my life. i don't have cancer.

9/17    Does anyone carry more than one job?  I'm looking for something
        extra (income, learning, exp) on the weekends.  Wonder if anyone
        has ever done it.
           \_ I did it while I was at Cal. I worked to part time jobs.
              They money was great (I was making ~ $25 / hr with both
              combined, yes its not much these days, but this was in
              early 90's), but balancing work and studying was hard.
              I ultimately quit one of them (my boss was a jerk).
              My advice (if you are a undergrad) is to just study hard,
              and maybe work part-time; don't pull this two job stunt
              and short-change your future.
        \_ Yes.  I had 3 over the summer.  It was painful - paolo
           Now i just have 2.
           \_ How do you find the 2nd job?  I assume you don't
              carry 2 full-time jobs...
              \_ 1 is 8 hrs/week, the other is 16 hrs/week.  the 2nd
                 job found me.  email me for details.
                 \_ sign you post twink.
        \_ I had two jobs last year, one $15/hr as a sys admin at lbnl,
           and one making $150/hr on weekends as a dancer.  I learned a
           lot more from the first one, but the second was a lot of fun.
           \_ so do you swing?
        \_ Lots of people do. I have one full-time job and then a parttime
           one on campus (weekend and evenings). Learn a lot, have fun
           and getting paid for it.

9/18    On employment contracts I've seen recently, there is a section
        where it asks me to "list any prior inventions," etc.  If I was
        to just name and briefly describe all the little things I've
        created or been working on for the last few years that I don't
        want to assign to the company, it would take pages.  I really
        don't want to assign the company ownership of all those things,
        I'd prefer not to even have to list them since many are viable
        business seeds.  How do you guys deal with this kind of stuff?
        \_ everyone i know who has had to to deal with an ip law issue and
          not used an ip lawyer as their primary recourse has severely
          regretted it.  the motd is a worse source than most, but your
          buddy in engineering with 12 patents might be just as bad.  talk to
          a lawyer.
         \_ I don't know how it would hold up in a challenge but i tended
            to be vague and simply stated "any and all [inventions] while
            working on project X..." (where x was often a domain name i had
            registered. And on like that through enough types of projects
            to cover everything, being slightly more specific (with worlds like
            "...including but not limited those...") on those things i was
            most worried about, had most developed or were most likely to be
            similar to things i would be doing for the employer.

9/18    Anybody here have CCIE?  Which books do you recommend?  There is a
        shitload of CCIE books out there, I'm wondering which one is most
        useful for passing the written test.
        \_ None. You can't learn how to be a CCIE from a book. You need
           to know the stuff cold from work experience. Why do you want
           a CCIE anyway? The $s? You can make the $s without CCIE, by
           just knowing the technology. Figure out when and how to use
           each of the following and people will line up to give your $s:
           BGP, OSPF, (E)IGRP, Spanning-Tree, VLANs.

9/18    What is the best rechargeable AA battery? I.e. the one that packs
        the most milliamp-hours. URL?
        \_ I've used 1600 mA hr NiMH batteries in my camera.  I've seen
           1500's at Radio Shack and 1600 at CompUSA, they're not hard to
           find --oj
           \_ Are they 1.2V?
             \_ Yes.  Which makes the "battery life" indicators give
                misleading info --oj
                \_ So I suspect a 1600mAh 1.2V battery lasts somewhere between
                   80% and 100% as long as a 1600mAh 1.5V battery in a camera
                   with both analog and digital components.  Is that right?
                        \-with a camera. especially a flash, i would strongly
                        encourage using batteries especially for photo gear
                        such as the varta batteries. they have a much sharper
                        power drop off, so your flash goes from charging
                        "instantly" to not at all ... rather than charging
                        taking longer and longer. --psb
           \_ this 1.2V shit is stupid. Can't use it on 80% of the devices
              \_ I heard this too, but my Sony Discman works fine on 2 x 1.2V
                 AA's.  Which devices really can't use 1.2V batteries?

9/18    I want to build a 4-processor Pentium III machine.  I'll write
        an FAQ afterwards.  URL|adviceP, please let me know. -jctwu
        \_ Is it even possible?  Maybe you can do it with a PIII/Xeon? --PeterM
        \_ Like with two mother-boards? or one that has 4 slots?
        \_ Possible, yes.  One motherboard, possibly daughter cards.  I'm
           doing the web research but if anyone has 1st-hand knowledge. -jctwu
        \_ Some of the big vendors are selling 4/6/8+ processor machines
           so of course it is possible. Most of them are using Xeon chips,
           though. The only thing you're going to need here is the
           motherboard and you're set. What else is there to it? --dim
           \_ How many power supplies?  How many hot-swappable drive bays?
              There's a lot of stuff in vendor ads, and I'd like to reduce
              extraneous parts. -jctwu

9/18    Tab=4 or Tab=8 in coding standard -- which is more popular?
        \_ I use tab=2, tolerate tab=4, and hate pricks who use tab=8 (for
           high level languages. assembly is different)
        \_ I use tab=8, but I mostly code assembly.  -- yuen
        \_ Tab width correlates strongly with line ending, if that helps.
           Unix=8; PC/Mac=4
        \_ Tab = 8, and I want to throttle and maim every single human
           being that has contributed to four-space tabs in code editors.
           \_ problem with tab = 8, is if you stick with the no more
              \_ That's why your code should have spaces inserted when you
                 hit tab.
              than 80 character lines, then the code can start looking
              quite constricted.
           \_ tab 8 is too spread apart, you can't scan the lines well
              \_ When you hit tab in code, the editor should insert 4
                 spaces.  When you hit tab in text, then insert 8 spaces
                 or an actual tab that's as wide as 8 spaces.
        \_ I typically use 4, but only because that's standard for Windoze.
           What I really hate are the fuck ups that use a tab size of 3. -phale
        \_ use tab = 2 pi

9/18    If your area carries both DSL and Cable (broadband), why choose
        Cable if the bandwidth decreases as more users use it?
        \_ i don't know..maybe they offer sweet cable (for your tv) deal
           as a package....
        \_ Cost. Cable may be cheaper.
           \_ $10/mo less, free install, 3 free months
                \_ And put a splitter on the cable line and get free cable.
        \_ Cable is usually faster. I sometimes get 3-4Mbps at home, but at
           work it is significantly slower on DSL. Also, if PacBel is your
           DSL ISP, your bandwidth from the CO to the Internet can be
           significantly less than 384kbps that they "guarantee".ZZ
           \_ I haven't heard anyone get that low. I'm getting pretty much
              750kbps no matter what time of day. My friend gets 600kbps.
        \_ Because cable companies threw big phat pipes at the problem
           and you no longer see prime-time slow-downs.
        \_ Where I live, cable modems come with static IP but DSL comes
           with a dynamic IP.  Actually, I don't think you even get a real
           IP number.  Instead you get to be part of the DSL company's
           network going through a gateway to get to the actual Internet.
           So with a cable modem I can make my machine a server.  I get
           cable modem service from MediaOne and DSL would be from Bell
           Atlantic.  I live near Boston so I don't know if this applies
           to California.  -emin

9/18    Just for fun: Two ropes take exactly 60 seconds to burn. Both are
        of different lengths and both burn inconsistently. Using only those
        two ropes and a match, measure exactly 45 seconds.
        \_ Burn,burnburn; block; burn; block
        \_ burn,burn,burn;burn (a faster bersion)
           \_ How many seconds faster is your 45 seconds?
        \_ I like fruit loops.
        \_ Job interviews huh? Answer is on a <DEAD>.eecs.berkeley.edu<DEAD> web site.
           \_ Answer: On a chilly night, trade the two ropes and the match with
              some pan handler down at Shattuck who happens to have a working
              watch.
        \_ what does burning inconsistenly mean?  So the "velocity" of the fire
           of the rope is random?
           \_ For example, it might take 40 seconds to burn halfway through
              the rope and take 20 seconds to burn thru the 2nd half
        \_ First you fill the 5 gallon jug.  Then you turn on the middle
           switch for a while and then turn it off.  Duh.  -geordan
           \_ You forgot to carry the troll across the bridge.
        \_ Actual Microsoft questions /csua/tmp/usoft if you're interested.
           \_ #9 is funny, because I actually had one of those cube calendars
              at home when I was little, before there was MS-DOS.

9/18    Is there a simple way to turn on line numbering in the all mighty
        emacs?
        \_ Not sure if this is what you're asking for but it's something
           Alt-X line-number-mode.  Don't know a shortcut.
           \_ This should be meta-x line-number-mode.  But it doesn't
              give you line numbers in the buffer, only in the modeline.
        \_ What I want is line numbers in the buffer, like in vi or jove.
           \_ You can't.  Use vi or jove.

9/18    How can I get emacs to have a transparent background like eterm?
        \_ Why would you want to?  You like making your screen harder to read?

9/18    I'm so confused.  When i write a shell script on SODA and don't
        specify a shell it seems to run it in BASH even though i'm using
        TCSH.  How/why is this?
        \_ See /csua/tmp/shell-script.txt  --pld
            \_ Thanks, i get it, though it was not easy to decipher from
                that exchange.
          \_ This doesn't really say why, does it?   When you run
                ~user/foo, is a sh interpreter invoked by default?
                why not the current shell?
             \_ AFAIK, sh invoked by default, unless you use #! to define
                some other shell or other program you desire or even #!/bin/sh
                If you type "source foo", then current shell used, i
                think(unless you specified #!), plus it affects current shell.
                like sets variables. "source" is basically "run these commands"
                as if I typed them in manually.
        \_ It's due to your excessive usage of CAPS.