12/29   Anybody tried hacking amazon's gift certificate system?   they send
        these out to all of their customers, I'm wondering if there's a way
        to crack their code.   -pissed at amazon
        \_ at least they honor they gift certifcates.  http://buy.com wouldn't
           accept their own gift certificates, so i had to shop elsewhere
        \_ Go away, crybaby.  Shop elsewhere.
        \_ so if you shopped at a brick-and-mortar store and had an unpleasant
           experience, you'd condone stealing from them?  or trying to figure
           out a way to break into their cash registers?  or maybe forging
           paper gift certificates?  wtf?  if you don't like them, don't buy
           from them.
                \_ what's really pathetic is that his "bad experience" is that
                   his order got screwed up (probably by him) and amazon
                   "only" gave him a $10 credit for it.  -tom

12/29   Any recommendations for good reference books on Informix and
        Sybase? -alexf
        \_ I would recommend
           \_ message deleted for lack of motd formatting
           \_ repost? or was there never anything posted to start with?

12/28   If you want to add to the motd add to the motd. Don't delete other
        people's stuff unless you're deleting the old threads.
        \_ And take pitty on Eric's motd archive. The more you re-add and
           re-delete things the faster it grows.
           \_ He's got a disk space quota and access to gzip like the rest of
              us.  If the motd archive is so important, root can run one.
              \_ I occasionally rotate out and compress the motd.  I'll move
                 it to /csua/tmp or something or ask root either for a quota
                 exception or to take it over, if I need to.  For now its
                 not an issue.  -ERic
           \_ ok, I'm a motd newbie... where is this magical archive of which
              you speak?
              \_ Most motd content gets thrown into /dev/null. You might
                 want to try looking there.
                 \_ <JOKE>Well, that's rude.</JOKE>  The magical motd
                    archive is in ~mehlhaff/tmp/motd,v.
        \_ I'm always happy to see my stuff selectively purged because someone
           else disagrees with me and is too stupid to refute anything I say.
           \_ I dunno man -- maybe they're just deleting your stuff to make
              you OVERCONFIDENT, allowing them to more easily EXPLOIT your
              WEAKNESSES.
                \_ Yeah, I feel so exploited and weak when they do that.
                   Uh huh.  No, actually, it shows their intellectual failings.
                   Censorship is the same everywhere.  Suppress that with
                   which you disagree if you've nothing intelligent to say in
                   opposition.
                   \_ unless what you have to say is so vacuous and stupid
                      that the space it consumes is worth more than the
                      'intellectual price' of flushing you.  if it makes you
                      feel good about yourself to brag on the motd about how
                      intellecutally challenging and insightful your every
                      posted brain-fart is, then go for it.  Don't let
                      trifles like reality get in the way of your self-image.
                      \_ No, actually, it's censorship.  Nice attempt to drag
                         me into your trollish childish personal little
                         flamefest but I'm not biting.  Cookie, troll.  If
                         what I had to say was so worthless then it would be
                         ignored or ridiculed like the rest of the motd
                         nonsense does, not struck.  Funny how you can so
                         easily and readily judge what's been censored
                         without having the slightest clue what it might have
                         been.  Yeah, it must have been vacuous and stupid
                         because you said so.  I trust you.
                   \_ Yeah, it's shameless, intellectually dishonest and
                      corwardly.

12/28   hey, how do you pronounce "motd"?  "mod"? "mode"? m-o-t-d?
        \_ You say tomato, I say tomato.
        \-"mot-dee". "em oh tee dee" is also acceptable. --psb
          \_ "motd dee" is correct. "em oh tee dee" is not correct. psb
             is wrong on this issue. -ali
             \_ "motd dee" is not a pronunciation you ninny. It's
                pronouncing the "dee" twice.
             \_ Nonsense!  I use "em oh tee dee" and I am always right.
             \- who would you pick as you arbiter elegantiae? psb or ali?
                the choice is clear. --psb
                \_ Pepsi?
                \_ i get more chicks. -ali
                        \_ psb gets hotter chicks.  - #1 fan
                    \_ get a life, people. -chicks
                       \_ chances are that you are an ugly chick. your
                          opinion is irrelevant. sit down. -ali.
             \_ "motd dee"?  don't you love those recursive pronunciations...
                \_ gno
        \_ I pronounce it the "Shoot from the hips rant board".
        \_ What about "mot-d" (one sylable where the t and d sound almost
           the same.  Almost like "modt")
        \_ "mote-dee".  YMMV.
           \- "modt" and "mote-dee" with a long o are wrong. the worst thing
              to mispronounce to pronounce "chuh mod" "shuh mod" ... even "see
              aitch mod" is better than "shuh mod". of course saying "vye" is
              funny. --psb
              \- actualyl worse than shmod is "jig-a" for "gig-a" --psb
              \_ I say "mote-dee", "seesh", "tee-seesh", "shmod", and "pee-
                 ess-bee", and I'm proud of it.
                 \_ You have bad taste!
                        \_ That's a matter of opinion.  I like you.  A lot.
              \_ while we're debating useless topics like this: how do most of
                 you pronounce "char"?  like "character" or "charcoal"? (and
                 yes, I know this is addressed on the comp.lang.c FAQ.)
                 \_ No.
              \_ Along the same lines:  "libe" and "vair" for /lib and
                 /var.  Drives me nuts.  -geordan
              \_ "et-see" or "ee-tee-see" or "etcetera" ? --jon
        \_ I wonder how computer voice programs would pronounce it.
                \_ However it was programmed to.
        \_ if you look at the overall "look and feel" of this thread, it
                looks kind of interesting.  Lots of short responses, and
                a whole bunch of "" and -
                \_ You find _that_ interesting?  BTW, I'm suing you over look
                   n feel.

12/28   English is not the National Language in the US:
        \_ Yeah, and it's not even required for elected officials
           or the people who try to vote for them.
        http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/JWCRAWFORD/debate.htm
        \_ Ok... so who is putting the little daffy symbol in Mr. Daffy's
           'corrections'?  "The 1990 Census found that most minority language
           speakers are bilingual --- 94.2 percent of them speak English
           with varying levels of proficiency."  Yes.  Varying.  Like the same
           way I knew the Spanish word for 'water' when the busboy didn't know
           the English word for it.  English, American dialect, *is* the
           national language in the U.S.  Trying to deny the obvious is plain
           stupid.  Have a cookie, troll.
           \_ officially, it is not the official national language.
                It may be the unofficial national language, but not
                the official one.
                \_ Officially?  That's not what the link or the original post
                   is about.  Like, uhm, hey, duh.  We know there isn't an
                   "official" language so why bother mentioning it?  Might as
                   well remind us all that Martian isn't the official language.
              \_ so it's the official unofficial language?
        \_ What the hack.  In Singapore, Malay is the official national
           language, but the government and businesses use English for
           everything, and most people speak Chinese after work.
        \_ the appropriate term is "de facto"

12/27   Bush is a machine.      -mogul
        \_ The smart one or the dumb one?
        http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A52767-2000Dec26.html
        \_ Bush won.  Get over it and enjoy the lower taxes.
           \_ No new taxes this time?
              \_ He never asked you to read his lips.
              \_ He's from Texas. Texas is an anagram of taxes.
              \_ Yup.  Having learned not to trust the Democrats, that
                 mistake won't be made twice.  Never deal with people who
                 put party politics above nation.  Less than 22 full days
                 left and counting down.  Still looking for a legacy.  I
                 think peace in the middle east is a good one.

12/29   Where can I buy boxes to carry soap for travelling?
        \_ grocery store
           \_ yes, they have those small travel size products like toothpaste
                and soap containers.

12/30   We should setup the equivalent of junkyard wars for both
        computer engineers and computer scientists.
        \_ "We"?  Go ahead.  Do it.  Use the source, Luke.
        \_ "Here we are in the UCB E&S warehouse... let's see if our
            competitors can... build a computer!"  "Done, I've got a '286"

12/30   Cock.
        \_ a doodle
        \_ mine is larger than yours... nyah nyah nyah nyah
                \_ "I had to stop sleeping with him it hurt so bad.  It felt
                   like I was being ripped in half from the inside!".  A
                   friend of mine commenting on her ex-boyfriend's 8.5 inch
                   cock.  Of course YMMV, but I doubt it.
                   \_ Uh, I would have thought in this case that girth
                      mattered more than length.  So why don't you "probe"
                      your friend a little more.
                        \_ maybe the 8.5 figure was width
                        \_ Uh, Clueless?  Your cock will never be that wide.
                           Your cock *can* (well, not _yours_, but other men's)
                           be _long_ enough to hurt badly.  I probed my friend
                           enough, so to speak.  She was pretty clear about
                           what her issue was.
                           \_ This is a joke.  This is a joke that went right
                              over your head.  Any questions?
                   \_ I guess she just didn't know how to get horny enuff and
                      loose enuff to accept his cock.  Either that or he's
                      utterly inept at using it and turning her on.
                      \_ Lubrication is for wusses! (</sarcasm>)
                      \_ You'd guess wrong twice but what else is the motd for
                         if not to go off about things you know nothing about?
                         \_ Okay look, you're the idiot here.  It's impossible
                            for both (a) the 8.5 to refer to length, and
                            (b) for the guy's hurting her to have nothing
                            to do with sexual ineptitude.  If he cared about
                            not hurting her, he wouldn't ram it in so damn
                            far.  Fucking duh.
                            \_ there is nothing impossible about the 8.5
                               referring to length, and if the woman's
                               vagina is short, it could be very difficult
                               for a man with a long penis to avoid hitting
                               bottom.  not impossible of course.
                            \_ Cock ring, baby.
                            \_ Damn it, can't we have penis envy in peace
                               without calling the guy's sexual eptitude
                               into question?

12/30   Snow is white.
        \_ Not for long.

12/30   Hi echelon! oc256-07-p.nsac.ns.ca
        \_ Hi paolo! -echelon