1/7     I'm looking for cool live cams (G-rated) to use as my wallpaper
                                -corporate slave in a windowless cube
        \_ How about the Sproul cam?

1/7     nweaver & djyoung, how do you guys deal with emacs & vi's key
        bindings when using the Dvorak keyboard?
        \_ global-set-key to something else?
           \_ you change the mappings at the OS level.
        \_ Is it any coincidence that two of the most annoying people that I
           met during my time in Berkeley EECS turn out to be hardcode
           Dvorak-ists?
          \_ You haven't met enough annoying people in Berkeley EECS.
             \_ I think that you're confusing "weird" and "annoying".
         \_ How do you find djyoung to be annoying?  He's got be among one
            of the brightest guys I ever met at Cal.  I'm honored to have
            known him.  He could sleep through a boring lecture, not read
            the book and still ace the exams and labs.
            \_ You're confusing "dumb" with "annoying".  Smart people can
               be annoying.  Dumb people can be pleasant and fun to be with.

1/7     I'm looking for cool live cams (preferably X-rated) to use as my
        wallpaper       -corporate slave in a windowless cube [formatd god]
        \_ How about the Sproul cam?

1/8     Gun control in Britain a huge success!
        http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/uk/newsid_1741000/1741336.stm

1/8     stupid question: i just finished reading the Trilogy, and i don't
        get what the two towers are.  clearly one of them is Orthanc, saruman's
        tower, but what is the other one?  Sauron semems to have several
        towers, and I think Gondor has a tower or two.  Aren't there towers
        all over middle earth?  what the hell?  is it Barad Dur?
        \_ I recall reading that it is a reference to Orthanc and Minas Tirith.
           -- ulysses
        \_ minas ithil and minas arnor.  - someone who read the Silmarion.
        \_ It's yermom's twin towers.  They always come in pairs.
           \_ They don't come in paris in the movie Kung Pao.
        \_ I think Minas Tirith and Minas Ithil (renamed Minas Morgul). --dim
        \_ It's just a metaphore.
        \_ Minas Tirith and Minas Ithil (renamed Minas Morgul) for the
           opposition of light and dark, but the two in the book are
           Cirith Ungol (Barad-dur) and Orthanc. Tolkien himself was unhappy
            \_ I think Cirith Ungol != Barad-dur. The first is the orc fortress
           a bit ambiguous. --dim
               guarding the pass (the stairs of Cirith Ungol) and the other is
               the great fortress in the plains of Gorgoroth and the center of
               Sauron's power. I don't have the book with me, though.
               \_ You are right. --dim
                  \_ ...and this was the source of my confusion.  Barad dur
                     seems more important, because the Main Evil Dude lives
                     there, but on the other hand, we never actually see
                     barad dur in the story, unlike cirith ungol, which
                     is pretty important.  thanks for providing the only
                     useful or intelligent answer!  -OP
           with the title because of the ambiguity. I quote: "I am not happy
           at all about the title 'The Two Towers'." It is supposed to be
           a bit ambiguous. It can even be Orthanc and Minas Morgul. --dim
        \_ Found this:
           http://members.cts.com/king/e/erikt/tolkien/2towers.htm
            -- ulysses
        the problem is that the 2 towers can refer to anything DEPENDING on
        what books you've read.  Hell, even the hobbit has Dol Guldur (in
        mirkwood, sauron's 1st attempt to set up power)...  If you read the
        silmarion, it's obvious you're talking about minas *.  if you read
        lotr, then it's maybe barad-dur and minas tirith.  Altho rohas is
        just as important.  Btw: 3 rings for the elven kings went to:
        1. elrond, 2. galadriel, and 3, (Narya the Great) went to Cirdan who
        gave it to Gandalf.
        \_ Narya the Great?  I suppose the others are Nenya the Okay and
           Vilya the Adequate...

1/8     I want to go to grad school but don't have any publication (yet).
        What's the best way to go about getting an undergrad research position
        (CS199) and doing publications? I don't know what is interesting or
        not-- pretty much everything is interesting to me.
        \_ D'you think that speaking to a professor might be a good start?
        \_ Who are you, what are you interested in? ("Everything" includes
           Gay&Lesbian Studies, Plant Biology, Architecture, and Aramaic.
           Be as specific as possible.) What's your background in terms of
           classwork? What year/major? Relevant past employment perhaps?
            \_  He mentioned "CS199", so we can infer the general area of
                Computer Science, Cog. Sci, or possibly celtic studies,
                maybe chicano studies.  I bet Computer Science though.

1/8     Apple's new dome shaped iMac-- yay or nay?
        yay: ..
        nay: .
        gay: ...
        too pricey: .
        it looks like a fat desk lamp, you know the arm will break: ..
        \_ Does it have a floppy drive?  It looks like there's no space for
           one.
           \_ iMacs have never had floppy drives, why start now?
           \_ Seriously, who uses a floppy these days? - alum who hasn't
              used a floppy since 97.
              \_ I do.  I dial in with a 28.8K modem and I'm too cheap to buy
                 a zip drive or DSL or cable modem, so floppy is a good way to
                 copy files between work and home.

1/8     Is Bush's calling Pakistani "Pakis" as bad as if he were to call
        Japanese "Japs?"
        \_ no, equivalent is "Jappies"
        \_ No paks (or pakis) is a commonly used term (esp. in UK and
           former colonies) and is not "racist" like "jap" or "n*ga".
           \_ "The term 'Pakis' is considered by many Pakistanis,
              particularly in Great Britain, to be offensive."
              <DEAD>wire.ap.org/APnews/center_story.html?FRONTID=ELECTION&STORYID=APIS7GTG29O0<DEAD>
                \_ Someone is always offended by something somewhere.  Fuck
                   em, they'll get over it.  If it wasn't for needing flyover
                   rights to Afghanistan they'd still be on the shitlist.
                   \_ Yeah,  everyone deserves a little racism and disrespect.
        \_ As a Rich White Conservative Male, you *know* by definition Bush is
           a Racist Oppressor of Other Peoples.  No matter what he said, you
           know he thought racist things about both the Pakistani and Indian
           Peoples.  Move along.  There's no story here.
           \_ You are as sensitive as they are.
              \- "paki" is not a flattering term. the best analogy i think is
              to "jap". in fact it isnt just used of people from pakistan.
              this isnt a simple short form like "frat". it's used by the same
              peopel who would have said "wog" a 100yrs ago ... say the Enoch
              Powell set. --psb
              \_ I guess the BBC is full of racists who like to go around
                 offending people.
                 \_ If you're referring to 'Goodness Gracious Me', it's
                    produced by pakis as a spoof on themselves.  And the
                    term is considered  offensive, if not racist.  -John

1/7     Jobs at VMWare.  I don't work there, but thought people may
        find the posting useful: /csua/pub/jobs/vmware-ucb
        \_ VMWare does not support Dvorak.
           \_ Liar!
                \_ Prove it support Dvorak as well as Windows!

1/7     Thanks to News of the Wierd, we now have proof!

        ] A November report in the Northwestern University daily
        ] newspaper described Dr.  Michael Bailey's research project
        ] (which had already been vetted by the school's ethics
        ] people) to determine sexual arousal rates of females by,
        ] respectively, heterosexual erotic images and lesbian erotic
        ] images. Coeds were recruited at $75 an hour (two to three
        ] times the going rate for campus research guinea pigs) to
        ] have the "vaginal photo-plethysmograph" inserted to measure
        ] moisture and swelling. Dr. Bailey's preliminary conclusion:
        ] Women (whether straight or gay) get aroused by either
        ] straight or lesbian scenes, whereas comparable research
        ] had shown that men were aroused only by images depicting
        ] their own sexual orientation. [Daily Northwestern, 11-29-01]
        \_ Maybe it's the photo-plethysmograph that is arousing them.
           \_ Yea, the next question is how they measured arousal in males...
              If it involved shoving anything up any particular orifice,
              your hypothesis seems like a reasonable guess.
              \_ Standard would be a penile pressure cuff, to measure blood
                 pressure in the member. -chialea
        \_ Your tax dollars at work.  Thank God this sort of quality research
           is going on and improving all our lives!
        \_ Did they differentiate between qwerty and dvorak users? If not then
           we know the research isn't valid.  More junk from a bottom tier
           school.  Dvorak!
        \_ It's tax dollars well-spent, cause now I know I am normal, and
           can stop worrying.
           \_ Glad my money was spent making you feel 'normal' about your
              sexual preferences.  You're just like many other young women
              who are willing to accept money in exchange for watching lesbian
              porn with a probe up their vagina.  Congratulations!
              \_ Why do people insist on calling me a young woman when I am
                 a young man.  Now I feel abnormal again.
        \_ Does two women doing it in straight non-lesbian AVs count as
           lesbian scenes?  I'm a straight guy and I'm aroused by both
           straight and women-women scenes, but I don't watch pure lesbian AVs.
           \_ TMI. Go away.
              \_ What's "TMI"?

1/7     Would someone please point me to a reference explaining memory usage
        in unix.  Specifically, what is "cache"d memory and "buff"ered mem?

1/8     http://www.zeosync.com/flash/pressrelease.htm
        1) Man, what a bunch of fucking morons.
        2) Someone show them philcompress.
        3) DAMN what a bunch of fucking morons.

1/8     I am interested in handwriting recognition.  In particular,
        Chinese handwriting recognition.  What are the relevant CS/EE fields?
        What is a good grad school to go to for such things?
                - person who finally found out what he is interested in, but
                  don't have much idea on how to pursue his interest.
        \_ AI.
           Berkeley, MIT, Stanford, CMU, UCLA, UIUC, UW, etc.
        \_ Machine Learning and AI.  -- CMU, Cornell, Berkeley, MIT, ...
           Here's a link to code which recognizes faces (which is similar
           to recognizing handwriting):
        http://www-2.cs.cmu.edu/afs/cs.cmu.edu/user/mitchell/ftp/faces.html
           \_ Thanks, what about some tier two schools?  Are they worth
              going?  Or should I just find a job at the companies that
              are implementing these things.
              \_ Gradschool or not depends on where your interest lies.
                 If you want to work on developing algorithms on handwriting
                 recognition, then you should go to grad school (in machine
                 learning).  If you're more interested in the engineering
                 and implementation aspect of the product, then work for
                 a company.  Somewhere in between --> work as a developer
                 at a research lab.  If you decide to go to grad school, then
                 first find a research AREA you're interested in.  Going in
                 with a specific application in mind is not really good,
                 because 1) your interests will change, and 2) you may not
                 find a professor who's interested in EXACTLY the same
                 application.  I would suggest you start by reading some
                 papers on handwriting recognition, and look at the homepages
                 of people who do ML, and pick your favorite people.  Then
                 write those people a nice email and demonstrate you know
                 what you're talking about.  If you still have a couple of
                 years to kill at Berkeley, then start by doing some research
                 in the area.  I don't know why I'm even writing all this
                 down.  You're probably not even going to read this far.
                 -- alice
                 \_ Thanks!  That helps!  You are a very nice person.
                    I think I am interested in the engineering and
                    implementation aspect.  Does that rule out grad
                    school or can it still be useful?
                    \_ In that case, check out http://www.synaptics.com  Apparently
                       they make (made) chinese handwriting recognition
                       products, according to John Platt's homepage.
                       http://research.microsoft.com/~jplatt
                       John, perhaps known in this crowd as the inventor of
                       ClearType, is smart and a nice guy.  He may even answer
                       general inquiries from random people about about
                       Synaptics and handwriting recognition.  And please,
                       don't call me nice.  It gives people the wrong
                       impression.  -- alice
                    implementation aspect.  Does that rule out grad school
                    or can it still be useful?
                    \_ If you have further questions, be VERY nice and send
                       her an email. She might respond. Sending personal email
                       reduces the chance that you're just trolling or
                       interested in the hypothetical
                   \_ why not a Master's where you concentrate on learning
                      AI, and machine learning ideas, and maybe work on
                      a project on machine learning, then go to industry
                      afterwards?  Another option is to take classes at
                      Stanford's SITN (if they have those courses there)
                      while working.
        \_ Study Dvorak instead.
        \_ Japanese Handwriting recognition demo:
                http://ai.bpa.arizona.edu/go/mlir/japanesehandwriting.html

1/8     Gun Control works! Just take UK for example:
        http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/uk/newsid_1741000/1741336.stm
        \_ They would have gotten even better results with Dvorak.

1/8     I have a domain with networksolutions.  I want to xfer it to another
        company because they're quite expensive.  What is the procedure?  Do
        I initiate the xfer from the new company or from network solutions?
        Also, can somebody recommend a good company?  Thanks.
        \_ the other company
        \_ http://dotster.com has been good to me. i switched from netsol a while back
        \_ http://www.gandi.net  12 Euro/year, unambiguous dispute resolution
           policy--I have two domains with them and they are really un-
           complicated about transfering from another registrar.  Also see
           http://www.domainnamebuyersguide.com  -John