01/23   The new politburo:
        team-leader: twohey
        equipment-guy: paolo
        communications-officer: chialea
        loyalty-officer: galen  (treasurer)
        morale-officer: darin (lib)

1/28    http://perltidy.sourceforge.net
        This is a "beautifier" for Perl (like indent(1) for C). It hasn't been
        really announced yet; the author would like it if people tried it out
        to see if they can find real problems before it is announced to the
        world. (Perl is hard to parse, so it will always be possible to write
        code that perltidy treats differently than perl does; but it should
        work on all code that people actually write, including obfuscated perl
        contest entries.) --Galen
        \_ but perl is all about writing cryptic one-liners.
           \_ The perl beautifier will remove all the carriage returns for you.
           \_ no, it just converts it to java
        \_ Seems to work pretty well; I'd like an option to make/leave
           lists/hashes as:
           %foo = (
             a => 1,
             b => 2
           );
           instead of:
           %foo = (
             a => 1,
             b => 2);
           --dbushong
           \_ That's the default; did you mean you want the two-line version?
              \_ Sorry, without the trailing comma too; corrected above.
                 --dbushong
                   \_ the perl whore
                      \_ You know, Dave, Java would be faster for that. -Ilya
                         \_ DA STARS. WE WANT TO KNOW ABOUT DA STARS.
                         \_ You show me that Java is faster for declaring that
                            hash, in terms of "faster to write" or "faster
                            to run", and maybe I'll believe you.

1/28  anyone managed to get NT emacs to display an I beam pointer when
      the mouse is over the text? the arrow pointer is lame for text
      editing. -ali
      \_ Yes. See <DEAD>www.alisucks.com<DEAD>
         \_ why doesn't this site work? - ali #1 fan
      \_ [moronic ali bashing removed. get a life. answer the damn question]
         \_ Why should I? He never manages to answer the question himself
            \_ you see, sophisticated ali bashing has its place.
               {sophisticated {ali bashing}} or {{sophisticated ali} bashing}
         \_ Why should I? He never manages to answer any of my questions
            without throwing in one of his infamous "ali flames".
            \_ i never flame people who ask questions. i flame people who
               answer stupidly to questions. -ali
         \_ {moronic {ali bashing}} or {{moronic ali} bashing}?
            \_ I think the latter is redundant.
         \_ Sure, i'll answer the question.  Come to Triple Rock this sat.
            around 8 pm.
            \_ Ali?  Is that you???? D0000000000d!!!1!! -- #1 Ali Fan!

1/29    How come whenever a big earthquake happens in a country, it always
        takes several days before other countries start to send rescue teams
        to help out?  (Turkey, Taiwan, India, ...)  Don't they realize most of
        the trapped would be dead by then?
        \_ Because they don't have rescue teams sitting around doing nothing
           but waiting to leave the instant a quake hits.  Because it takes
           12-24 hours to fly to the other side of the world.  Because going
           \_ Uh.  Nations cannot be affluent.  Citizens can be affluent.
                \_ Uh. Both can.
                   \_ Uh, no bitch.
                      \_ Win a lot of arguments?
                      \_ The wester dictionary uses it in the example:
                         <our affluent society>
           in before the local government asks for help is an act of war.
           Because you just don't have the brain cells to comprehend.
           \_ But somehow those rescue teams have time to talk to the press
              and post for pictures.
              and pose for pictures.
        \_ Strangely, the United States and Japan (two of the more
           affluent nations in the world) sent a whopping $1 million
           to help out in the disaster.
           \_ ah yes, and Bill Gates who is worth over 60 billion dollars
              donates a WHOPPING 1 million dollar to the AIDs research,
              paid over a period of 3 years. What a philanthropist he is.
                   \- maybe he thinks there are bigger priorities than
                   AIDS research ... which is after all quite heavily funded
                   by the US govt. --psb
                   \_ Bill donates quite a bit more to other causes and has
                        said he is leaving most of his fortune to charity when
                        he dies, not his kids.
              \_ Bill Gates owes you nothing.
              \_ I thought it was 100 million and I agree he owes you
                 nothing.
                 \_ he owes me the $300 he grifted on the POS products
                    he sold me in the last 2 decades (plus tax and
                    compounding interest in the Nasdaq). In total,
                    he owes me several thousand dollars.
                        \_ I wasn't aware that the Nasdaq paid compounding
                                interest. Maybe you would have bought high
                                and sold low....
        \_ No, those are RELIEF planes not a military invasion!  Really!
        \_ "We'd like you to help, but the runways are sorta broken to
            pieces right now....  Please don't try to land, our hospital
            space is overcommitted already."
            \_ "...so maybe you could just sorta' crash your planes in some
               open space somewhere near the epicenter, and we can, you know,
               salvage what we need from the wreckage..."

1/28    Someone please confirm the "black wall effect" an ionizer has?
        \_http://www.electrocorp.nu/faq.html
          \_ but how severe is it? is the Sharper Image shit worth getting?

1/29    Which of the search engines updates itself most often?  i.e. Which
        should i use if i want to find out tech stuff that likely was
        published today?
        \_ I doubt search engines work that fast.  Unless there is a service
           such as the AP wires.
        \_ Try http://headlines.hotbot.com.  Not sure if it's still up or not.
           \_ thanks, but I can watch the worthless news.  I'm looking for
                something that does a lot of crawling nightly so that when
                i see some big headline i can get an independent take while
                i'm still interested.
                \_ It used to crawl 4x a day.  Shrug.