11/26   http://www.CSUA.Berkeley.EDU/~ilyas/problems/blue_eyes_suicide
        the king is not a citizen and is allowed to discuss appearances right?
        \_ The king is not a citizen, and he doesn't do anything except make
           the initial announcement.
        \_ is it legal for a citizen to tell another citizen that s/he should
           commit suicide? If so, and assuming that each person can only ask
           another person each day, then we have a lower limit of (2^28)/2
           \_ Yes.  It is legal for a citizen to tell another citizen just
              about anything.  First Amendment.
           \_Wow, that's a pretty damn large country. Try 28.
           \_ assuming two blue-eyed ask each other the question "should I
              commit suicide", you'll always have one that is alive who
              doesn't know if he is blue-eyed or not, and will have to ask
              another person. Think like a binary tree. So assume the tree
              height is 28, then you have 2^28, no???
              \_ No, that is an indirect way of saying "You have blue eyes."
              \_ crappy logic. remember everyone in the country can talk
                 to everyone else in one day
                \_ The logic is, if there's only one person with blue eyes,
                   he'll see everyone else, realize he must have blue eyes,
                   and kill himself.  If there are two people with blue eyes,
                   they'll each see one person with blue eyes, then the second
                   day, when they realize the other person didn't commit
                   suicide, they figure out that there must be two people with
                   blue eyes, so they must have blue eyes, so they commit
                   suicide.  Etc.  n=28.  It's a stupid problem.  -tom
                   \_ But why do they wait one day? Doesn't the king say
                      you are supposed to kill yourself immediately?
                      \_ they don't know until they've seen everyone else.
                         they see everyone else once a day.  Like I said,
                         it's a stupid problem.  -tom
                   \_ "when they realize the other person didn't commit
                      suicide, they figure out that there must be two people
                      with blue eyes, so they must have blue eyes"... I don't
                      follow this logic. Wouldn't a person with brown eyes
                      think the exact same thing, leading to false suicides?
                      I guess what I'm wondering about is how would the first
                      blue eyed person know to commit suicide.
                      \_ No. Assume he sees everyone else in town each day
                         and knows exactly the number of people with brown
                         eyes and blue eyes, except himself, and has the
                         ability to deduce how many should be dead after
                         the Nth day.
                   \_ The fun part is the 29th day where everyone commits
                      suicide because they haven't seen anyone with blue
                      eyes all day long.
                      \_ funny, but wrong.
                         \_ why is it wrong? on the 29th day how do
                            people know that all the blue eyed people are
                            dead?
                            \_ day 28: you see 28 blue-eyed people, who kill
                                       themselves later that day.
                               day 29: you don't see any blue-eyed people.  all
                                       your blue-eyed friends are found dead.
                                       this means you aren't blue-eyed.
        \_ This is old.  This exact same "problem" has been around for
           decades that I know of and maybe longer.  The names change but
           the math stays the same.  Like tom said, it's a stupid problem.
           \_ No, I think it's stupid because it's linked off of ilyas'
              web page.  It must have gotten some of his stupidity by osmosis
              or something. -- ilyas
              \_ fizban needs bat guano.
                \_ that's the name of the fictional game Kirk comes up with
                   TOS episode "A piece of the action"
                   \_ Do you want points for that?

11/26   http://www.ananova.com/news/story/sm_458773.html?menu=news
        I don't think porn classes in college are very progressive
        \_ "Teachers at Fort Lewis College say the classes will help broaden
           students' horizons."  Next they'll offer a course for students to
           smoke pots to further broaden their horizons.
           \_ reminds me of the dead kenedys song "terminal preppy".
        \_ Is it taught by the Naughty Professor?
           http://www.naughtyprofessor.com
        \_ You understand that ananova isn't exactly a reliable news source?
           \_ really?
                \_ quite.
        \_ Voluntary porn is much more progressive than enforced religion.

11/26   Thursday, November 29 5 pm 22 Warren Hall UC Berkeley
        Featuring:
          Harvey Weinstein, MD Director, Center for Human Rights UC
        Berkeley
          Maria Holden, Ph.D.  Psychologist Survivors International
        \_ We can stop right here.  Without further reading it should be
           obvious where this is going.  We'll go on anyway for kicks.

          What are the effects of war on civilian populations? How will the
        US war on Afghanistan affect public health at home? What has the
        response to war been among health professionals here and abroad?
        What are our responsibilities as public health professionals in
        times of war?

        \_ Well we know that sitting on our asses doing nothing but destroying
           aspirin factories in North Africa wasn't very healthy for several
           thousand New Yorkers.  Bluster and nothing sure wasn't the right
           public health choice.

          While the U.S. public health system has concentrated its
        resources on the response to bioterrorist threats, health
        professionals elsewhere habe voiced their criticisms of war as
        being inherently damaging to the health of individuals and
        populations. Major medical journals such as the Lancet have

        \_ I think getting hit with a 757/767 is more damaging than watching
           the nightly news.

        featured articles discussing the millions of Afghani civilians
        who may freeze or starve to death this winter, detailing the
        limb-threatening injuries unexploded cluster bombs will cause to
        children for decades to come, and criticizing as propaganda the
        initial "food from the sky" approach of the U.S. military towards
        providing humanitarian aid. Most U.S. medical journals have

        \_ I suspect life was much better under the Taliban than it will be
           now that the world is on the ball over there.  It was better when
           the aid agencies had to bribe the Taliban thugs to get food in to
           the people than now.

        discussed in depth the threat of and response to bioterrorism on
        U.S. soil but have remained largely silent on the health affects
        of military action. Meanwhile, the American Public Health

        \_ The "public health affects" of military action in another country:
           nothing has blown up in this country recently and roughly 1000
           foreign criminals are no longer able to harm American civilians in
           this country and a reported 360+ criminals have been rounded up by
           other nations.

        Association recently passed a resolution opposing the war on

        \_ The who?  Who exactly is the APHA?

        Afghanistan. Come here from two public health professionals about

        \_ Is either of these people a credentialed and practicing health
           professional?  In what field exactly?

        their experiences working with survivors of war, then stay to
        participate in a discussion of some of the questions raised.
          Free and open to the public.

        \_ Of course entry is free.  Who would pay?

11/26   Adjectivity in the news:
        http://www.mcommercetimes.com/Services/178
        Hey dans, are you a  millionaire already?
        \_ Good for them. -dans

11/26   How do I find file and symlink only that excludes a, b, and c?
        I tried: find . \( -type f -o -type l \) -name a -prune -o
                        -name b -prune -name c -prune -o -print
        and failed miserably.
        \_ find . \( -type f -o -type l \) -print | egrep -v '^(a|b|c)$'
        \_ perl

11/27   Does over-inflating the tires improve gas mileage?  I tried
        over-inflating the tires on my truck by 5 PSI and I hardly notice any
        improvement.  (It's a Jeep Cherokee.)
        \_ They have a PSI rating for a reason.  You're going to improve your
           mileage by some meaningless amount while decreasing the life of your
           tires a *lot* which means new tires sooner and increased chances of
           a blowout which could get you and others killed.  Stop trying to be
           a genius and just do what the maniufacturer says.  They know better
           than you do.  Put your tires back.
           \_ The rating is used for average driving. If you're going on a long
              driving trip, it's ok to go a few PSI over what you would use for
              street driving. The PSI rating is merely an average.
           \_ But the rated PSI for a vehicle takes comfort among other things
              into consideration while I'm willing to sacrifice comfort.  So
              \_ I thought yermom was a ho only at night, not during the day.
              I'm willing to put up with a bumpy ride for better gas mileage.
                \_ The PSI rating sets your tires at a rate where they wear
                   out as safely as possible and last as long as possible.  You
                   have shocks to ease the ride.  Over inflating your tires
                   makes a bad blowout more likely as opposed to a regular
                   flat.  At highway speeds you can drive your flat to the
                   shoulder.  You might not be able to drive your blowout
                   safely to the shoulder.  Please set your tires properly or
                   get off the roads you share with the rest of us.
        \_ Overinflated tired on a hot day on asphault going fast = bad idea.
           \_ I thought under-inflation heats up tires, not over-inflation.
              \_ http://www.usatoday.com/money/consumer/autos/mauto849.htm
        \_ you'll get a much bigger effect on gas mileage by slowing down
           a little, especially on such an aerodynamically inefficent vehicle
           as the cherokee.  Other driving habits will have a huge effect on
           mileage too, such as drafting big vans/trucks as well as cutting
           back on rapid acceleration and unnecessary braking.  tire inflation
           only helps if they were underinflated (underinflation is sometimes
           helpful when off-roading, as it improves traction).  YMMV
        \_ I have a Jeep Wangler TJ - I run 40psi on the street and 20psi
           off-road.  My tires are rated to 44psi, so I am still under the
           limit.  Also Jeep recommends 32psi, that is because they do use
           the tires to help cushion your ride (everyone else here doesn't
           realize what a true off-road vehicle is set up for).
           Only caveat, make sure you have quality tires if you want to
           play with the pressure, BFG, GY, Michelin, etc.
           And yes, I do see a couple of miles/gallon difference!
           And yes again, the ride is much more bumpy.
        \_ Have you actually done the math on what slight gas-milage
           improvements actually saves you?  If you really want to save on
           gas, don't drive a fucking Cherokee.
           \_ Well, I'm getting 25+ mpg on freeway which is not terrible,
              probably because I don't speed.  Besides, I take public transit
              to go to work everyday even though it takes longer than driving.
              That saves more gas than driving an Insight.  I'm just looking
              for more ways to save gas other than getting a new car when I
              need to drive to go on a trip.
                \_ Wow, how do you get 25+ mpg with your Wrangler? What
                   year is it? I only get 12-14 mpg on mine. Also, good
                   advice to the guy above. If you want to get better mpg,
                   don't drive a cherokee. A sedan will be better for you.
                   \_ It's 25+ mpg freeway on the Cherokee.  It's a '96
                      Cherokee Classic 4dr 4.0L 6cyl 5sp manual Command Trac
                      4WD.  I think if I got the 2.5L 2WD that year it'd do
                      even better mpg.

11/27   I need to take a snapshot of a window on my screen, and then
        somehow insert it into my LaTeX document (later to be made
        into postscript). What's the way to do this, since postscript
        files can't support jpg's, gif's, etc. (or can they)? Should
        I somehow get the image to eps?
        \_  Depends on the OS:
                Windows - Print Screen key (or ALT-PrntScr for whole screen)
                          puts it in the clipboard
                IRIX - snapshot program (and convert program if needed)
                \_ No, I get how to take the snapshot. I just need to
                   get it to eps or something that LaTeX/postscript can
                   use. Are there jpeg->eps converters, or something
                   similar?
                   \_ photoshop or gimp (xv?) can do that for you.

11/27   Can somebody id this puzzle game?  It's like a typical jigsaw puzzle
        except that all the pieces are squares and made of plastic.  You
        put the plastic pieces into a tablet.  If the puzzle has 16 pieces
        total then one blank piece is removed.  You have to complete the
        picture by moving the squares up, down, left, and right.  Since only
        one piece is removed, you can only move one piece at a time. It's for
        kids and varies in complexity.  I'm trying to get it for my niece.
        \_ Slide puzzle
        \_ http://www.slidingpuzzle.com !
        \_ it is also known as the "15 puzzle".

11/27   Does pacbell DSL provide any of the following newsgroups:
                alt.binaries.games
                alt.binaries.anime
                alt.binaries.old.games
        Thank you for your non-imflammatory replies.
        \_ the pacbell news server, <DEAD>news.sbcglobal.net<DEAD> does not
           carry the alt.binaries.* tree.
           \_ actually, all 3 are carried on the pacbell news
              server <DEAD>news.sf.sbcglobal.net<DEAD>.

11/27   netstat -na reports that I have daemons listening
        on ports 515,
        111, and 1023.  How do I figure out what processes are listening
        where?
        \_ /etc/services can tell what services are _supposed_ to use
           those ports.  lsof can tell which processes are actually using
           what ports.
        \_ lsof -i:<portnum>
           Likely, 111 is portmap, 515 is lpd and 1023 is some rpc based
           service that binds to a semi-random port.
           \_ thanks
        \_ Just so you know, 90+% of attacks reported by portsentry on
           my firewall is for ports 53, 111, and 515.  Stupid redhat.
           FreeBSD rules.

11/27   Anyone knows why Java display the line numbers when an uncaught
        exception occurs but "Compiled code" other times?  Is there a
        way to tell Java to always display line numbers for uncaught
        exception's stack trace?
        \_ Turn off JIT.  For JDK, use <DEAD>-Djava.com<DEAD>piler=NONE ; see docs
           for ther VMs.  -- misha.
        \_ Turn off JIT compiler.  For JDK, use <DEAD>-Djava.com<DEAD>piler=none ;
           see docs for other VMs.  -- misha.
           \_ Ah, thanks.  So why would Java still display the line
              numbers sometimes when I didn't use this option?
              \_ HotSpot uses a complex heuristic to decide when to compile
                 a method.  Depending on when and how you got to the point
                 where the exception is thrown, you did or did not get
                 the line number info (which is available only for
                 non-compiled methods).  -- misha.
                 \_ That's not an excuse (directed at Sun, not you).
                    The Self VM, from which HotSpot was derived, would
                    do dynamic de-optimization when it reached an
                    error or breakpoint, so that you could still debug
                    the code.

11/27   http://www.CSUA.Berkeley.EDU/~ilyas/problems/hat_problem
        How many times are they allowed to pass and guess? God ilyas, you
        really need to clarify your questions.
        \_ once -!ilyas
        \_ Once.  There is an article in the NY Times about this problem.
           It's a genuine one, but see if you can get the correct answer.
           Hint:  It's not the trivial solution. -!ilyas
        \_ Yet another stupid problem. Two of the people pass, the other
           one will guess. That gives them a 50% chance of winning the price
           [sic]
           \_ Try again grasshopper.
        \_ How about this.  It's unlikely that all the hats will be the same
           color.  So if a player sees two hats of the a color, he guesses the
           other color, otherwise he passes.  This increases the chance of
           winning to 6 in 8.  (RRR, BBB are losers, other 6 combos are not.)
           \_ Congratulations.
              \_  Yes! I am the smartest man alive!
        \_ let each person decide for the other person, and then move to the
           left side of the room for blue hat, right side for red. So person
           A B C ( a decides for b, b decides for c, c decides for a). If person
           A is on the right side, b will say he (b) has a red hat.. etc

11/27   Let's talk about ilyas' blue-eyed problem. Again. I still don't see
        how the base case works. Assume 1 blue eyed person only. How would
        that person know that he should commit suicide? Wouldn't the brown
        eyed person think the same way and commit suicide? Think induction.
        Tom's basis is flawed.
        \_ The big problem with this whole thing is that it assumes that
           all these people have taken math 55 and understood it.
        \_ Please report to the food vats immediately.
        \_ No.  The key is that there exists at least one blue eyed person.
           If only 1 blue eyed person exists, he will notice that as far
           as he can tell, no one has blue eyes.  Since at least one person
           must have blue eyes, it must be him/her.  So (s)he kills himself.
           \_ Added to that, a brown eyed person would see that there is a
              person with blue eyes, and would expect him/her to commit
              suicide after the first day. And when (s)he does, the brown
              eyed person concludes that that person was the only blue
              eyed person in the town.
           \_ Can you explain the case of three blue-eyed people, both for
              blue and brown-eyed people. Won't everyone expect someone
              else to commit suicide?
              \_ Another way to explain it:
                 [someone else motd-mashed the first explanation]

                 For two blue-eyed ppl, a blue-eyed person would see one
                 blue-eyed person on the first day.  At the end of the
                 second day, both blue-eyed people would kill
                 themselves.

                 For three blue-eyed ppl, a blue-eyed person would see
                 two blue-eyed people on the first day.  He would see
                 them again on the second day.  Assuming that there are
                 only two blue-eyed people total, they would kill
                 themselves at the end of the second day.  But we are
                 saying that our given person is blue-eyed, and there
                 are three blue-eyed ppl.  On the third day, this
                 blue-eyed person would STILL see two blue-eyed people.
                 At the end of the third day, all three blue-eyed people
                 conclude that there must be three blue-eyed people, and
                 they must be one of them, and kill themselves.
                 \_ Ah, ok, I finally get it. Thanx! -stupid Math 55 flunkie

                 For two blues and one brown, from a blue's point of view
                 there is one other blue and one brown. Now at the second
                 day, each blue knows he's a blue, because if he was brown
                 the other blue would have known he was the only blue since
                 there is at least one blue and the other two are brown.
                 So both blues kill themselves.  From the brown's point of
                 view, he knows he's a brown by the third day, since the
                 blues wouldn't have killed themselves yet had he been blue.
                 --0x48
        \_ Take math1a or 55 or high school math. learn induction. 0xAFB
        \_ one of the many problems is with ilyas' question. He should add
           that each person can see every other person ONCE PER DAY. This
           question really reflects ilyas' intelligence.
           \_ 1.) The kingdom was small: any person in the country could meet
                  all others in one day.
              ?
              \_ it says 'could', but that doesn't mean it is necessarily so.
                 \_ Rule 1 suggests that they could if they wanted.
                    Rule 2 suggests that everyone really wants to.
                    The weakness perhaps is we have a lot of inferences.
                    \_ The weakness is that it's a stupid problem.  -tom
                       \_ I thought the puzzle was a good one and I learned
                          some things.  Of course, the problem did have
                          problems.

11/27   More on letters of rec: So it was generally agreed that prof >> TA,
        but what if you take a class that is taught by someone who is
        basically a post-doc? I guess that's just somewhere in between?
        Also, how valuable is it to get letter from a non-tech (CS, Math, etc)
        prof if you're applying to tech grad program?
        \_ Between a post-doc who knows you well and can write highly of you
           and a prof who doesn't care, pick the post-doc.  Prestige is
           important, but it will be meaningless if he/she cannot write
           highly of you.  The important thing, imo, is that the letter
           makes the admission committee able to appreciate your achievement.
           A letter from Patterson saying "he took my computer architecture
           course and he graduated" is pretty much meaningless.  If you already
           have two excellent recommendations on your tech "achievement",
           I'll go for a humanity/math letter.