12/30   India & Pakistan edge ever closer to war.  URLs everywhere, go to
        your favorite news service.

12/30   The idiocy of the SDI thread is here the assumption that our
        enemies will be using missiles.  Class dismissed.
        \_ Right, and thats why the Russians had 10,000 nuclear
           missiles?  I nominate you for Secretary of Defence.
        \_ That, and a startling 50% success rate at shooting down missiles
           when we know where they're coming from, where they're headed, and
           when they've been launched....  --erikred
           \_ It's okay to "experiment" with the Great Society and entitlement
              programs until the end of time, but a horrendously technically
              complex proposition like NMD has to work its first time out of
              the box, skipping right over the "development" and "testing"
              phases?
              \_ As for the first, nice troll, and as for the second, it
                 makes sense to expect a workable demonstration of the
                 prototype before one invests the billions intended. A 50%
                 success rate does not make the grade. --erikred
              \_ Can't we just give the tax money directly to the
                 Republican party donors and skip the pretense?
                 \_ I believe that's the stage we're in now, isn't it?  Do you
                    see any large scale deployment or production?
        \_ Right, and thats why the Russians had 30,000 nuclear
           warheads?  I nominate you for Secretary of Defence.
        \_ Yes the enemy could use other things to kill people as well so we
           shouldn't defend against this one thing at all.  Makes sense.  You
           win the Big Doofus Blue Ribbon.  Sober drivers kill people with
           bad driving every single day!  Stop the anti-drunk-driving campaign
           now!  We're wasting our time on drunk drivers when sober drivers
           are killing our children!  Do it for the children!  You're an
           idiot unworthy of the Troll Cookie Award.
           \_ too dumb to get the point.  Our enemies will deliver a bomb
              along with all the bales of smuggled pot.  Or a boat or a plane.
              Not a missle, for which SDI has limited applications (non cruise)
              \_ So you're in touch with the inner workings of the North Korean
                 government?  Have you let our government in on your deep
                 access to this incredibly valuable and secret information?
                 You also know the same about the Iraqi, Iranian, and Chinese
                 governments?  They're all smuggling bombs in to the US via
                 pot bales?  There's a job waiting for you in the CIA.

12/30   Why does the EPA, Department of Interior, the IRS,
        soon NASA, ... basically every branch of government
        have SWAT teams?
        http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/fr/598950/posts
        http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/fr/558735/posts

12/30   Is the portmapper required if I'm not running nfs (client or
        server)? I have a firewall/nat box and I'm wonder if turning
        of the portmapper would be a good idea. tia.
        \_ required for any RPC services

12/29   NYT Opinion piece deleted.  The NYT is the left wing version of Rush,
        but you don't see anyone posting his noise on here.  It's only
        entertainment, not news or unbiased reporting in either case.
        \_ What about all the Free Republic stuff I see all the time?
        \_ Thanks, I thought there for a minute a reasonably
           intelligent debate on something of immense national
           security importance was going on.  Phew!
           \_ After someone else deleted the debate for the fourth time
              without comment, I figured it was better to remove the whole
              thing rather than glorify the NYT Opinion section with
              valuable space on the motd.  If they didn't like where the
              debate they started was going they shouldn't post bait for it.
              \_ NYT articles arguing in favor of the SDI are left wing?
                 Can I have a hit of whatever you are smoking?

12/30   jwang, what's a good 2 seater utility bike that looks sporty?
        \_ Why not just email him?
        \_ without more pertinent information such as price point or
           even what your definition of "utility bike" is, jwang says
           Suzuki SV650.
                \_ thanks. For me "utility" means carrying decent load,
                   like dumb-bells (without wearing a backpack) and
                   being able to carry my little cousin. I don't want to buy
                   a Harley, Cruiser, or something that bulky.
                   \_ get a tank bag for backpack-sized loads. as for your
                      little cousin, make sure both of you are ready for
                      riding two-up, experience-wise and safety gear-wise.
           \_ hey, what is the insurance for an ungaraged SV650, 29 yr man?
           \_ How does CBR600 compare to SV650 in terms of load, stability,
              etc? What's a good URL to learn these things?
              \_ all modern motorcycles are perfectly stable and seats two,
                 although rider and passenger comfort will vary. both the
                 CBR and SV are pretty comfortable, but not as "plush" as
                 the bigger touring bikes like the VFR. you can find new
                 bike reviews at http://www.motorcycle.com

12/30   Very gruesome / graphic of Islamic militants
        beheading Russian soldier:
        <DEAD>www.bcsys.com/warning/Movie_0006d77f.IETemp.mov<DEAD>

12/30   Indians only days away from full mobility.  Pakistan mobile now and
        might launch first strike.  Both sides moving missiles near front.
        Stop deleting this.  Nuclear war is just as important as an arcade
        in the South bay: a post you didn't delete.
        \_ personally, i never delete posts, but i can see their point.
           there are thousands of news sources out there a click away
           with every different viewpoint, language, and depth of detail,
           and hundreds of places this can be debated online. political threads
           like this on the motd usually end up as heated debates of very
           long posts between just two people, which are not fun to read.
           since most of us read the motd for fun, that means your post
           sucks.
        \_ A nuclear conflict there might not be so bad.  Their limited
           capability means the damage will be constrained within
           Asia.  A war can semi-permanently set back both countries and
           possibly China, which might not be a bad thing.  India, although
           currently it pretends to be pro-US, eventually will become a bigger
           threat with a more functional government and military and less
           fondness for western ideas.
           \_ Not so bad?  You are such a humanitarian...
           \_ Yawn. This has been going on in Korea for 50 years.
        \_ Hey, thanks for the news!  Now that the motd's turned into World
           News Now, I don't have to go to the effort of firing up my Web
           browser.  Now, *does* anyone have the address of a good arcade in
           the South Bay?  If we're all going to be annihilated in a nuclear
           firestorm, I wanna go out having the most fun that a CS major can
           have!

12/30   Where's an arcade in the South bay that has Megatouch Maxx games?

12/30   "Both Reno and O'Donnell, a foster parent, said they
        shared a commitment to helping children."
        Like the ones burned to death in Waco and Elian?
        http://freerepublic.com/focus/fr/599106/posts
        \_ As bad as I think Reno was for the country at least she isn't the
           total nutjob that O'Donnell is.  As long as Rosie keeps to her
           self-ego boosting magazine and bad TV we're safe.

12/30   I bought a few DVDs from HK and a few of them don't play on my
        machine. WTF? How do I make them play on my machine?
        \_ Ever heard of region encoding? Basically, it prevents what you're
           trying to do.
        \_ buy a region-free player, hack your player to be region-free, or buy
           a region 3 DVD player.  if you have a DVD-ROM drive, you may have
           better luck playing it on your PC.  You can also try ripping it to
           disk and decrypting it...
           \_ Some PC DVD players let you choose the region. One I used
              before (forgot which) let you switch regions up to three times.
              Then you had to reinstall to change it again.

12/31   solaris: i'm logged on as root using sh.  I type tcsh.
        I'm now using tcsh. (file completion history, etc all work).
        however $SHELL still says /bin/sh.  What up?
        \_ variables are passed down to children shells.
           \_ that, and $SHELL was never meant to indicate "shell you're
              currently using" either; it's initialized by login/sshd/whatnot
              to "the default shell of the user currently logged in", and
              shouldn't be altered elsewhere. -alexf
                \_ Can you/does it matter if you set $SHELL to a a new
                   value in your .cshrc?  -John
                   \_ You can set SHELL in your .profile and your .cshrc.
                      I don't think that it breaks anything. --ranga
                      \_ Yes you can, but it may, well, break anything that
                         reads $SHELL and makes certain assumptions about it.
                         Use at your own risk simply since this is not, tbmk,
                         standard practice. -alexf
                        \_ Yeah but does it do anything?  I.e. is there anything
                           in userland using $SHELL?  -John
                        \_ Yeah but does it do anything?  I.e. is there
                           anything in userland using $SHELL?  -John
                           \_ I tried find /usr/src/usr.bin and it looks
                              like a few pgms are using it (apply, limits).
                              But changing it doesn't seem to affect the
                              behavior of these commands.
         \_ the SHELL variable is meant to indicate to programs what shell
            they should spawn should they want to run something in a subshell.
            it's not meant to tell you what the current shell is. -ali

12/31   Anybody know what's going on with the National Park service web
        site?  http://www.nps.gov  It used to be the most complete web site on
        national parks and now it's gone.  What the hell?
        \_ I think it's a GWB VRWC conspiracy.  Soon it'll point to
           <DEAD>www.evil_white_men_in_office.com<DEAD>
        \_ Hacked by Chinese!!!
        \_ The ENTIRE Department of the Interior (which includes the NPS) was
           disconnected from the Internet by court order on December 5th (the
           result of a lawsuit against the government for poorly securing DOI
           computers handling Indian trust-fund accounts).  If you visit
           http://www.doi.gov it'll tell you that the only Interior bureau currently
           allowed to connect to the Internet is the USGS.  -- kahogan
           \_ I'll bet this was a Bush appointed judge.
             \_ Needless to say, the systems found so insecure the DOI had
                to be forced off the net were windows based...
           \_ http://forum.fuckedcompany.com/fc/phparchives/search.php?search=usgs
           \_ Does it only apply to only HTTP or does it apply to everything
              including e-mail?

12/31   To whoever asked, there's a Megatouch Maxx at a gay bar called
        Mac's Club at 39 Post St. in downtown San Jose.
        \_ What was the question?
           \_ Where is there a Megatouch Maxx machine in the South Bay?