12/17   to those getting this message in pine:
        [Note: some of your config options conflict with site policy and are
        ignored]
        remove this line in your .pinerc:
        disable-these-drivers=mbox
        it is already in the global pine config file. -jon

12/17   Why is too soft of a mattress bad for the back?  My mattress is
        soft and it bents downward when I sleep on it, and sometimes my back
        hurts when I wake up.  I don't understand why it'd make my back hurt
        since my back muscles are all relaxed when I'm sleeping anyway.
        \_ soft mattresses are bad because your back is not straight when
           you sleep on them.  I'd definitely recommend futons or tatamis
           over any mattress.  You can get futons everywhere.  I've only
           found one place that sells tatamis.  There's a store in Cupertino
           called Murakaki or something like that.  They carry tatamis or
           various sizes that can be put onto a regular bed frame.  I have the
           king sized tatami bed.  It's great.  In the winter I have a futon
           over the tatami.  In the summer I just sleep on the tatami.
           \_ Please sign your post. I've a few questions for you. --ulysses
           \_ But doesn't sleeping on a tatami hurt too?  For an average
              person without a very big waist, the butt sticks out more than
              the lower back.  So sleeping on a tatami either leaves the lower
              back up in the air and puts all the pressure on the butt, or
              forces the lower back to bent in the U shape so as to rest on
              the tatami.  Isn't that so?  Thx.
              \_ millions of people in East Asia sleeps on tatamis everyday.
                 I doubt they're all hurting.  If it's too hard for you, just
                 put a thin futon (or any old blanket) over it.
        \_ you expect an answer from *CS*UA?
           \_ it seems reasonable to me that the poster might expect an
              answer on the subject... especially given all the blather
              a few days ago about breathing with diaphragms vs. inter-
              costals. c'mon pre-med's... where you at?
              \_ on second thought, they're probably all sleeping in
                 main stacks or something before their o-chem finals...
                 give it a couple days.
        \_ http://www.ask.com
        \_ They're not all relaxed when you're sleeping, that's the
           thing. They're kinda stretched, since you're kind of in
           a U shape. Think of how you're hanging if your head and
           feet were tied to ropes on the ceiling. Your back is in
           kind of the same configured, but less extreme obviously.
           \_ Kinky.  What's your URL?  Trade pics?

12/17   http://www.smh.com.au/breaking/2001/12/14/FFX058CU6VC.html
        This is for you "I love the UN" types.  What comes after this?  Do
        we tatoo a number on your arm at birth?  Oh wait, the arm-tatoo
        thing was already done by a different European empire....
        \_ It was never about "I love the UN" and all about "I hate the UN".
           Nowhere in the UN charter does it say we should have universal
           identification. This URL talks about one member state proposing
           something equivalent to what Sun Microsystem's CEO proposed
                Don't you mean Oracle? _/
           for America, but on a much larger scale (which, I might add,
           is supported by many Republican law makers).
           \_ No where in the UN charter does it say a zillion other things
              voted in by the General Assembly or the Security Council.  WTF
              does the UN Charter have to do with anything?  That's a lame
              red herring point.  Republican law makers and the *ORACLE*
              CEO also have nothing to do with this.  It is evil.  The very
              concept of recording and databasing people at birth is wicked
              beyond belief.  This doesn't bother you at all?
           \_ Don't you mean Oracle?
              \_ Don't let facts get in the way on the motd.  Rule #1.
        \_ What's wrong with the UN?  This seems impractical and probably
           ineffective, though .
        \_ Not to mention the mind control lasers and Bangladeshi secretly
           impregnating our women with their Black Helicopters...
           \_ You meant Bang-lades-hi?
        \_ The part that bugs me most is not the bit about stamping everyone
           at birth.  It's the attitude of "to control something you must
           measure it or register it in the case of people".  After reading
           shit like this you get all warm fuzzy about the UN?  That it would
           even get seriously proposed at the UN?  What's *not* to hate about
           an organisation formed from people like this?

12/17   Vanilla Sky is mindblowing.
        \_ As in mindblowingly bad? The Salon reviews begins thusly,
           "There are so many transvestites in "Vanilla Sky" that it's almost
            impossible to list them in the order of their infamy." Explain
            yourself.
        \_ any good t&a shots in vanilla sky?
                \_ With that skanky chick he's dating now?  ew!
                   \_ are you gay? just asking.
                        \_ No. I have taste in women. She looks like a skanky
                           crack whore off some corner in Oakland.  The woman
                           has no breasts, no figure, no hips.  She's barely
                           female.  I'm guessing she shaves the mustache every
                           second day.  What exactly do you find attractive
                           about a woman with the figure of a 14 year old boy?
                           Are you gay?  Just asking.
        \_ this is one of those movies that you either love or hate.
           \_ The people I know who worked on it don't like it. What they
              *do* like is "A Beautiful Mind". --dim
                \_ A mind is a terrible thing to waste.

12/17   Where can I get a poster of Cal pictures (e.g. poster of Sather gate
        or tower, Soda Hall, etc etc?) -Cal sick alumni with a windowless
                                cubicle who hates working in the industry
        \_ http://www.OCF.Berkeley.EDU/~oso/calpics/sather.jpg
           \_ Isn't that from some Playboy College Interview or something?
              \_ are you familiar with the capabilites of the Google
                 toolbar's "Up" button?
                 \_ Did I mention Brooke was my girlfriend until I dumped her?
                    \_ It's strange that http://images.google.com doesn't find any
                       pics for her when searching for "Brooke Williams".
                       \_ it's brooke BERRY now
                          \_ get off my dick.
                       \_ Berry is her real last name.  Williams was an alias.
                    \_ Nice tits!  From your experience are those real?
                        \_ Oh yeah!  They're real!  The doctor said they were
                           as good as the real thing!  Try the pencil test.
                 \_ No, sorry.
        \_ Reprint Mint on Telegraph should have some of the Ansel Adams
           images.  -tom
           \_ Ansel Adams has images of UCB?
                \_ Yes, he did a whole series of Berkeley shots.  -tom
                \_ http://photo.ucr.edu/photographers/adams -lcddave
           \_ any color print? I'm a color kinda person.
                \_ why don't you go there and look.  Sheeze.  -tom
              \_ I too thought Ansel Adams only took B&W pics, but at the
                 "Anzel Adams at 100" exhibition in SF I actually saw a few
                 color postcards.  -- yuen
                \_ he did some color prints, but he wasn't happy with
                   the quality available at the time.  He also basically
                   invented a developing system for black and white prints,
                   and his developing skills wouldn't really carry over.  -tom
                   \_ wow, that's like us, developing awsome UNIX skills
                      that are so esoteric that they will not be carried over
                      to the next few decades
                      \_ Yeah, except for the awesome part.  -oj
                      \_ People still create great pictures in black and
                         white.  -tom

12/17   [Note: some of your config options conflict with site policy and are
        ignored]
        This message has been appearing when pine first comes up lately.
        \_ look up above at motd.official -jon
           \_ Thanks. Sorry I missed it before.
              \_ the motd archive says he posted after you did

12/17   Has anybody gotten java+konqueror to work on freebsd?  Any hints?
        I really just want to play some applet games.
        \_ IE 6.0 on W2k.  Unix for servers.  Windows for surfing and games.
           What's so wrong with that?  Why are you busting your head open
           trying to force a great server OS to be a shitty desktop OS?
        \_ Haven't played with Konqueror, but am getting close to it, since
           I'm finding Mozilla under WindowMaker just too fucking instable
           for any sort of use.  -John
           \_ Have you gotten java to work with Mozilla?
              \_ I can't even get the 1.1.8 port to work (independently
                 even... kinda crappy).

12/16   Dear Economics Department Chair, Placement Officer, and/or
        Placement Assistant:
          Please pardon the impersonal nature of this cry for help.  As you
        may know, the Federal Communications Commission is experiencing
        major mail delivery problems as we deal with the possibility of
        contaminated mail.  We have received very little mail since early
        October.  This has made it difficult for interested job
        candidates, either graduate students or faculty in transition, to
        respond to our advertisement in Job Openings for Economists.  I
        am therefore writing to request that you disseminate to any
        interested parties the attached "broadside" explaining our
        situation and providing email and fax contacts to be used by
        anyone interested in submitting information to us.  I know that
        interview schedules in Atlanta are filling up rapidly, so I hope
        that you or someone in your department can post this information
        soon.
          Thanks in advance for your help and best wishes for a happy
        holiday season.
          Sincerely,
          Jonathan D. Levy Deputy Chief Economist FCC
        The Federal Communications Commission will have several positions
        for Ph.D. level economists  (GS-12 to GS-15) beginning in 2002.
        We seek candidates with expertise in a field of applied
        microeconomics such as industrial organization and candidates
        with expertise in statistics or applied econometrics.  Experience
        in telecommunications and/or regulatory policy is a plus, but not
        a necessity. These positions will primarily involve the domestic
        and international telecommunications industry, the broadcast, and
        cable industries, and the development of policy recommendations
        for the FCC. The current salary range for a GS-12 to GS-15 is
        $53,156 to $114,224.  The beginning salary will be based on
        background and research accomplishments.  Interested individuals
        should submit a vita, 3 references or letters of recommendation,
        and a writing sample to Director of Recruiting, Office of Plans
        and Policy, 445 12th St.  SW, Washington, DC 20554.  Any of this
        material available in electronic form should also be sent to
        jlevy@fcc.gov. Other material, including letters of
        recommendation, may be faxed to (202) 418-2807. The FCC budget
        has been approved by Congress and signed by the President, but
        the total number of positions available has not yet been
        determined.  We plan to interview at the Allied Social Science
        Meetings. U.S. citizenship required.  The FCC is an equal
        opportunity employer
        \_ another reason to go to grad school even if it's not in CS.
           \_ Hardly. Non-CompSci BA.  $120k.  GS15 = 114k with PhD and all
              that other crap?  And I get to play with millions of dollars of
              cool toys in between surfing marathons and I'm not a government
              employee.  That last part is the most important.

12/17   more left wing propaganda!
        http://www.thenation.com/doc.mhtml?i=20011224&c=1&s=friedman - danh
        \_ This is a lie.  It's all a lie.  It says he was the 7th generation
           of his family in Jerusalem and he was born in 1926 but we know there
           weren't any jews there until around 1947 when the UN and Britain
           said it was ok to kick out the Palestinians from their ancient
           homeland.  This is all right wing trash raising up a butcher and
           a racist like some sort of holy man.  I'm shocked you would post
           this danh.  I thought you were a good person.
           \_ right-wing israeli ~ left-wing american
                \_ whatever.  its right wing trash.
           \_ actually I was being sarcastic.  I don't think it's left
              wing or right wing, but the article is pretty sympathetic
              to the palestinians.  this is another in article
              in a long series of recent articles about how miserable
              the living conditions for the palestinians are,
              and no one, israeli or palestinian, thinks a good
              solution will happen anytime soon.  i also thought
              the "7th generation israeli" part didn't make
                \_ whatever.  its right wing trash.
              any sense. - danh
                   \_ You discredit yourself when you say stupid stuff
                      like that. Jews were living in Palestine for many
                      years before the creation of Isreal so it is
                      entirely possible. It says he is a 7th generation
                      Jerusalemite, not Isrealite.
                        \_ Bullshit.  There weren't more than a thousand or
                           so jews here and there wandering around doing
                           nothing important.  This is ancient Palestinian
                           land.  Always has been.  Always will be.  Who said
                           jews ever were there before 1947 anyway?  Some old
                           jewish stories and some scraps of paper in a cave?
                           *Read* this thing.  It makes it quite clear who
                           the good and the bad people are in the area.  Let
                           me spell it out for you. Palestinian = good.
                           Jew = bad.  7th generation my ass.
                                \_ Oh right, and I suppose the Romans
                                   conquered I dunno, maybe five or so Jews
                                   to take Jerusalem.  Mohammad never
                                   even visited present day Isreal.
                           \_ You are obviously saying the opposite of what
                              you believe, in order to discredit the article.
                              Anyway, we have to remember that the biological
                              difference btw middle eastern Jews and
                              Palestinians is almost nil, the latter having
                              converted to Islam centuries ago.  Their
                              mortal struggle is a brutal family quarrel.
                                \_ Both are sons of Abraham, except muslims
                                   are descendants of a handmaid.

12/17   What happened to http://www.japanvcd.com  Thx.  (Just when I wanted to
        buy my first VCD it went down.)
        \_ it's all about http://www.asianvids.com
        \_ http://www.vcd1.com
           \_ Is this and http://www.asianvids.com trustworthy?
              \_ Yes, but be forewarned: http://asianvids.com gives you CD-Rs, not
                 the originals, hence why their prices are so low.

12/17   Where's the cheapest place around to get a Sony Wega?
        \_ From someone else's house.
        \_ Good Guys has the 27" KV-27FS13 Wega for $550.  Free shipping.
           The 27" w/ PiP (KV-27FV17) is $749.  Cambridge Soundworks has the
           FV17 for $675 right now.  It was $650 but it went up on the 2nd.
           -sky
           \_ sky is back?
        \_ Are Wega's really all that?
           \_ the cheap Wegas are so-so, but XBR Wegas are all that.
        \_ Shut up.  thanks.
           \_ Yes. I have XBR Wega and I must say it is by far the
              best TV for under $7K.
           \_ yes.
        \_ From Sony employee purchase. (seriously).  Otherwise, find
           an on-line dealer and go to http://www.goodguys.com for a price-
           match with no sales-tax and free delivery.
           \_ i thought the good guys didn't match online prices. That was
              true 18 months ago when i tried to buy a receiver there.  has
              \_ not goodguys the brick store.  http://goodguys.com the online
                 branch does price-matching.
        \_ I bought a 36" Wega at Circuit City for around $1200 (including
           3 year instant exchange and tax). I bought the previous years
           model rather than the current model, which saved me about $300.
           --ranga
              that policy changed?
        \_ I purchased a 36" wega from Circuit City for ~ $1200 (including
           3 year instant exchange and tax). I saved abut $300 by buying
           the previous model rather than the current one. --ranga

12/18   How does a unix box decide when to send traffic to the default
        route?  ARP or network address?
        \_ network address
           \_ So what is ARP used for these days?
              \_ ARP maps IP to MAC. Without the ARP table, you
                 can't send ethernet frames to your router, etc.
                 \_ So you really dont need to keep track of ARP broadcasts
                    from other people on your subnet, since the switch and
                    router figure out where everythign should go?
                    \_ If you have a switch, but you can't assume that
                       you are connected to a switch, since you could
                       be connected to a hub and there is no easy way
                       to determine that in software.
        \_ Huh?  Default route is gateway of last resort;  if a machine can't
           find a more specific route via another IP (i.e. a multihomed box,
           or a computer on a segment with several gateways) it sends traffic
           to the default gateway.  If it's on an ethernet segment, traffic
           gets to that default router via ARP, otherwise via whatever other
           layer2 protocol is used.  Two different things.  -John
        \_ UH, default route points to an IP address, ARP is what the system
           uses to find out what ethernet MAC address is associated with that
           IP address.
           \_ I think he means does the unix box send out an arp request
              for an IP address which it knows is outside the local network
              (because of the subnet mask), or does it just send the packet
              to the default route. I don't know, but snoop the network and
              you'll find out.
              \_  the kernel tries to send out a packet, wants to send it to
                  the default route, and if there's no arp entry for the
                  gateway router's ip address, either holds onto the packet
                  until it gets an arp entry, or dumps it.   If the gateway
                  IP isn't on one of the connected networks, what happens then
                  is system dependent (some systems wont let you set a default
                  route to an ip address it has no route for).
                  \_ if the gateway IP is not a directed connected network
                     (or a network which the host has a static route to it).
                     it's a configuration error.
                     \_ well some (broken) systems *will* let you configure
                        a default router ip address that  has no routes to it.
                        not exactly an  'error' in the frame of its
                        configuration, but still something that shouldn't work.

12/18   is 68% (770 score) good, bad, or ugly for a CS subj GRE score?
        - wants to know if she should take it again.
        \_ Bad.
        \_ Forget your score.  They look at percentile.  32% are better
           than you are.  Is that good enough for you?  It isn't good enough
           to get into a top school if that's what you want.  Maybe if your
           dad bought someone a building.
           \_ what tier school will that get me in?
        \_ Is the score out of 800?
           \_ no. I don't know what it's out of, but I got >800. it's also
              < 900, according to the papers the GRE people send you.
           \_ what tier school do you think will take me?
              \_ I think you can get into a 2nd tier school; they'll take
                 anyone.
                 \_ No.  Correction.  They'll take anyone who can pay.
                    \_ You are confusing 2nd tier with 3rd tier.
                        \_ You think 2nd tier has standards??
        \_ wait a minute... you're saying that you scored 770/800 and that
           is 68th percentile?? That is incredible.
           \_ 770/990.
        \_ wait a minute, I took it in 1998 and got a 700/990, but my
           percentile was 75% (I got discouraged and didn't apply to any
           school). How come you have a 770 with a lower percentile?
           \_ Obviously people who took it in 98 were a lot dumber, such
              as yourself.
           \_ I took it with twohey, chialea, brg, ilyas... 'nuff said.
              \_ uhh. like this is really going to affect your percentile.
                 \_ has it been so long since you've taken a CS theory
                    class that you don't remember what "..." means?
                    \_ ok... what exactly is your point?    - !jwang
                       \_ my point, jwang, is that the rest of the people
                          who took that test were at least of their caliber
                          since i saw basically the rest of HKN and other
                          random smart people there too.
                          \_ And no HKN people took the test in 98??  98 was
                             set aside for dummy testing?
                                \_ I think at this point we can safely
                                   conclude that the poster belonged in the
                                   lower 68%-ile.
                                   \_ Really?  You sure?  Doesn't HKN showing
                                      up in 2001 and not 1998 make it different
                                      somehow?
        \_ help me understand this better. Is "percentile" relative to
           everyone else who took the test on the same day, or relative to
           past X year's average?
           \_ Percentile is relative to everyone else who took the same test.
              Presumably, ETS (or whoever it is tha administers the GRE) does
              not use the same test more than once, and, if that's the case,
              then it's relative to everyone who took the test on the same
              day. -dans

12/18   I just got a BSOD in my NT and it said it's dumping physical memory.
        Where can I find the file so that I can delete it after I reboot?  Thx.
        \_ look online!