11/10   How do I delete file names that begin with a dash? I want to delete
        file "-option" and have tried \-option but doesn't work.

11/10   Say hello to President Gore.

        Gore is particularly interested in Broward County, where
        Democrats contend up to 6,700 ballots were punched, but not all
        the way through, preventing machines from counting them.  ``Al
        Gore carried Broward County with more than 60 percent of the
        vote,'' an aide said. ``We believe a hand recount will put most
        of those 6,700 ballots in our column and Al Gore on top.''
        \_ It's interesting how most of these ballots with punchhole
           problems seem to be for Gore.

11/10   I once knew a man from Nantucket.

11/10   Anyone have a good link to tax rates from 1940 to today?
        \_ yer not gonna find a correlation between parties and tax rate

11/10   Kids voting on FL ballot!
        http://news.shreveporttimes.com/111000/101/14163.htm

11/10   wtf is http://venturehighway.com?  Anyone heard of these guys for info
        that's isn't on their website.

11/11   Back to election talk:  Someone asked on wall why they didn't
        use the touch screens that Riverside had.  Here's a quote from
        a cnn article:
        But the technical standards for elections and the conduct of
        elections in the United States that we are all seeing graphically
        and clearly for the first time are that it's extremely decentralized.
        It operates at the state level, rather than the federal level. In fact,
        most of the job of the elections in putting everything in place, even
        to the point of designing and printing the ballots, is done at the
        level of county and local jurisdictions.
        There's a beauty to that, in that it's a safeguard against any attempt
        to take over or manipulate the election system in national elections.
        On the other hand, what we are seeing is that it also leads to some
        uneven quality standards and not a following across the board of best
        practices or of use of best available technology.
        \_ Look at the ballot and tell me what was so damn confusing:
           http://www.jokeslayer.com/Pictures/FloridaBallot.gif
        \_ I might have been the one you were talking about, and I'm fully
           aware that the elections are run by the states and not the
           feds, but apart from not being able to write in candidates
           (someting I'm sure will be fixed within the next two years),
           the touch screen system they had in Riverside was everything
           you could want.  -hjkim
           \_ So what was so great about the touch screens?  I haven't seen
              them and know nothing about them.
              \_ from what I've seen/heard: it's not confusing and it
                 doesn't tie the voter to a specific polling location
                 \_ I didn't find the WPB ballot confusing either so maybe
                    this isn't as useful as it sounds.  Frankly, I think we
                    *want* to ditch the ballots of anyone too stupid to vote
                    correctly.  This is a good thing, not bad.

11/10   biology question:  I need to preserve some DNA that is
        not sperm.  Possibly for future generations to clone
        back to life.  It's not mine.  How do I preserve it?
        Brainstorming welcome.     -brain
        \_ uuuh... nevermind.  I don't want to know.
        \_ Is it human?
        \_ put it in the stomach of a live nude mosquito then encase said
           mosquito in amber. - tpc
        \_ Get some tissue samples and freeze them.  Still, this probably
           won't work:  it'd be rather hard to extract a good set of
           DNA from the mess that will result when it melts.  It might
           be possible, though.  I doubt you could do this alternative:
           get tissue samples and maintain them at .01C.  Furthermore,
           for cloning purposes, not all cells are created equal.  Dolly
           was cloned from a mammary cell, if I remember right.  You could
           also try to keep a sample alive in a succession of petri dishes.
           No telling *what* bizarre mutant would occur after 50+ years in
           a petri dish.
           \_ cloning a bacteria?

11/10   So how *does* one delete a file that begins with '-' like '-foo'?
        \_ lauch gnome. click on file.  click on properties.  hit delete.
           \_ solaris has a filebrowser in openwin which does the same.
        \_ "rm -- -foo"  man rm.
        \_ or rm ./-foo
        \_ rm -f * \-*
        \_ rm -rf *
        \_ And of course before you start rf -rf'ing your home directory,
           \_ this fails (the -foo shows up as an argument to rm).  You need
              to do rm -rf .  -tom
        \_ And of course before you start rm -rf'ing your home directory,
           you'll read the man pages to find out what -r -f and -i do.
        \_ Related note:  Any ideas on deleting a file named "????????????"
          \_ it's probably not really named ????????; ls substitutes ?'s for
                \- the one 100% reliable way to delete any file[*] is to get
             unprintable characters.  (This is common among hax0r kiddies).
             Usually I go with "\rm -i *"or emacs dired.  -tom
                \- a 100% reliable way to delete any file[*] is to get
                the inode number with ls -i, and then use something like find
                to delete it. [* it is possible if you managed to create a
                file with a / in the name this wont work. i have to think about
                that case]. --psb
                    \_ yes, you do that.
                    \_ no. it is not possible that he managed to create a file
                       with a / in the name.
                       \_ In this case you need to unmount the device, and
                          edit the raw disk by figuring out the offset of the
                          directory from the start of the partition.
                          \_ That would work, but clri(8) is easier.
                                \_ well, the '???' file in question is on
                                   soda...  does this mean I can become one
                                   with the rootcow?
                                   Yet even more disturbing: ls -i lists
                                   inode # for the file, and
                                        % find . -inum blah
                                   returns:
                                        ./
                                   Maybe deleting this file is risky... ;^)
                                   So does clri(8).
                                   -joshk

11/11   Some comments on statistical analysis and data collection and how it
        relates to the elections:
        http://www.opinionjournal.com/editorial/feature.html?id=65000587
        \_ Mr. Glaeser is an idiot.  Can someone in Boston tell him that, plz?
                \_ And you base that opinion on what other than political bias?
                   Perhaps could you provide a URL that demonstrates the man
                   is an idiot for reasons other than who you voted for?  I
                   suggest you try something clever like posting the same URL.
                   If you can't be right, be a smart ass.  That always works.
                        \- yes but the is putting this on a web site for
                \- i dont think that article is particularly interested or
                illuminating, but what is idiotic about it? --psb
                \_ He's a Brookings/Harvard prof/very smart man.  This is
                   a politically charged issue.  His conclusions are obvious.
                   Do I really have to say anything more?
                        \- yes but he is putting this on a web site for
                        the masses, not Econometrica. --psb
                        \_ Fine.  The masses need this education.
        \_ Fine, Mr. Glaeser is not an idiot.  I realize that most
           of my rantings were because I was a liberal.

11/11   I want to impress a girl with my wonderful cooking skills. Problem
        is, I can't cook for shit. Any recommendation of recipes?
        \_ The long term approach is to cook for yourself all the time,
           so that you learn for future reference what works and doesn't.
        \_ good luck.
        \_ check out <DEAD>soar.berkeley.edu<DEAD>...or http://marthastewart.com (click on
           "cooking" and then peruse her recipes archive).
           \_ Any favorites? -kitchen virgin
              \_ there are some easy favorites in my recipe index (separate of
                 soar, which is someone else's project).  Email
                 me (chris) if you want to take it offline.  I don't feel
                 like posting detailed recipes on the motd.
        \_ a tip:  if you're doing this for a special occasion/to impress
           a date...and you've never tried/cooked the recipe before, do a test
           run before the actual date.  and go simple at first.  most girls
           are impressed of a guy who cooks at _all_.
           \_ it's true. -been there
           \_ That's pretty funny. -male who can't cook
        \_ Buy clams, garlic, parsley (or cilantro).  Get flat pasta.
           Simmer clams in garlic + butter, pepper and throw in some
           clamjuice (from the can)  garnish with parsley.  Boil the flat
           noodles for 15 minutes; strain. - paolo
           \_ Hear hear.  Any sort of pasta is pretty easy to do well.
           \_ paolo cooks some good stuff -paolo No. 1 fan
        \_ also, try http://epicurius.com for a recipe index.
              \_ that's really sweet of you, thinking of making a meal
                 from scratch.  If you follow recipes from any
                 good food site (i.e. not the KRAFT website), you should
                 come out ok.  Don't try anything too complex;  I helped
                 my friend one summer, it's an experience I'll never
                 forget.  We ended up working 24 hours straight to get
                 this stuff together...we're talking little stuffed tomatoes,
                 pate appetizer, roasted squab, salad, that fancy rice
                 dish (Italian) that I can't remember the name of right now,
                        \_ risotto?
                 and our feeble attempt at tiramisu.  Not that it tasted
                 bad, it just didn't taste like tiramisu.  This was all
                 sort of a thank you for a girl.  The funniest shit was that
                 this girl had a boyfriend who also came to the meal.
                 shortly thereafterward, the boyfriend got dumped and
                 my friend accomplished "the hostile takeover" as we
                 like to put it.  And this, all from recipes found on the
                 internet and a little effort.  good luck!