B

2/15    For the Soda Gal:
        There's an eMachinese Computer with 1.6 GHz Pentium4, 17" Moniter and
        printer free 1 year msn Internet Access for $679.97 after rebates.
        There's no contract on anything.  Check it out at BestBuy.
        \_ Get the Dell 4300S, $499 and free shipping (under Small Business).
        \_ Why are you giving her such bad advice. You might as well tell
           her to buy a Geo, Hyundai, or Kia.
        \_ what would you suggest for that price?
           \_ You get what you pay for. Spend your money (even if it means
              spending more) on something you'll be happy with. I always
              tell people of the BMW/SUV analogy. If I gave you $50K to
              spend on either a BMW 3-series or a Ford Explorer, most
              good old Americans would evaluate the bang-per-buck and buy
              the SUV with money to spare. But the BMW owner would usually
              be much happier. I would say stop trying to do a bang-per-buck
              analysis (GHz/dollar, MBytes/dollar, etc...) and find something
              you'll enjoy. Go to an Apple store and at least try it out.
              You might be happier with a Mac than an e-machine. I know my
              dad was. After I gave him an "ancient" G4 tower, he now regrets
              spending a dime on his top-of-the-line e-machine. He loves the
              Mac I gave him, something he never said about a PC.
              \_ Don't settle for BMW/SUV.  Buy a BMW SUV instead. :-)
                 \_ BMW doesn't make an SUV, they only make SAV's
              \_ You can't just tell someone "get a mac".  It matters what
                 software they're running.  There's a ton of stuff that doesn't
                 "run on a mac".  Also it matters what she knows about the two
                 OS's and if she doesn't know enough then it matters what her
                 friends know for freebie tech support.  "Get a mac" indeed.
                 \_ I'm not saying "Get a mac". I'm just saying that most
                    people come to the decision without even trying one to
                    begin with. I never thought of getting one myself. But
                    once I did, I found how much better it was. For me, it
                    didn't matter that nobody else was using it. So what.
                    I can figure things out myself. I'm sure soda gal is
                    smart enough to do so too.
                    \_ maybe soda gal doesn't want to nerd around and just
                       wants her computer to work?
                    \_If you actually know how to figure things out for yourself
                    why didn't you just buy top-of-the-line components and
                    built the computer yourself? -williamc
                    \_ I've done that too. I've put together my own machines
                       from spare parts or -top-of-the-line components
                       and slap Linux or FreeBSD on there. But I wanted
                       a laptop that will work nice with portable MP3
                       players, PDA's, digital cameras, etc... The iBook
                       matched my needs pretty well. A working word
                       processor was also nice.
        \_Datapoint: 1800+ athlon xp, ecs k7s5a MB, 512 DDR ram, cdrw,dvd
          60GB ata100, ati radeon ve, netcard, modem was $800+45 shipping on
          Ubid.(no tax) Not top quality components and cheesy case though.
          \_ That's not particularly cheap for a system w/o a monitor. --dim
        \_ You can build your own system pretty cheaply these days by using
        an nForce motherboard (built in Geforce2 + sound). -eric
        \_ Don't give any more money to Microsfot please.
           \_ Explain? I thought nForce was made by nVidia?
                \_ the microsoft comment was indented incorrectly and should
                   be purged.

2/15    Woman performs TJ Hooker stunt.  Saves beer.
        http://www.msnbc.com/local/wyff/A1078665.asp
        \_ Dude, she died! That's horrible.
           \_ But she saved the beer!

2/15    More register is better right? What if I have a machine with 100
        registers... wouldn't it take more time when I need to save all the
        registers during a context switch?
        \_ Register files are implemented as special memories. Similar to
           memories, the larger they are, the slower they'll run. It is
           especially true in high frequency microprocessors that have
           heavily multiported register files. Larger register files also
           consume more power and require a larger specifier field in each
           instruction.
        \_ Yeah it'll take more time to save all the registers, but you can
           make your time slice bigger to compensate for that.
           \_ what if you have a machine with a billion registers?
              \_ You won't have enough RAM to save the states anyway.
        \_ Use register windows, like SPARC.
        \_ Or you can use a window of registers that changes as you switch
           context so you're only saving which window but nevermind.

2/16    What's a good place in Berkeley to buy alcoholic beverages after 11pm?
        Berkeley Market closes at 11pm on weekdays ;/
        \_ bah! be glad you don't live in New England.  Where I live it
           is illegal to sell alcohol outside a bar after 8 pm.
           these laws used to be moral things in the old days, but
           are now corporate wellfare for the liquor stores so they
           don't have to compete against grocery stores with hours.
           everytime it comes up, the liquor store lobby and the bar lobby
           make sure the law stays and the rest of us just have to go out and
           buy booze at 7:45 or head to the bar. fucking socialist cocksuckers.
        \- safeway ... decent prices generally too.
        \_ Raleigh's

2/15    people, the job-market is moving again.
        \_ Moving where? And where are the jobs?
                \_ India & China for programming/high tech
                   \_ the offshore thing is a passing fad.  It'll take about
                      3-5 years before US companies figure out this is more
                      trouble than it's worth.
                   \_ http://heather.cs.ucdavis.edu/itaa.real.html#tth_sEc9.5
                        \_ these guys clearly didn't actually try to hire
                           anyone two years ago.  We were getting applicant
                           pools with 5 applicants, three of whom were
                           then working as janitors or something.  Anyone
                           who didn't believe there was a shortage had their
                           head in the sand, or up their ass.
                           Nowadays, we're getting pools of 100+ applicants.
                           The methodology used to draw conclusions in the
                           above report is clearly flawed and designed
                           merely to grind a partisan axe.  -tom
                           \_ It's a good thing we have your decidedly
                              unpartisan, bike-riding, linux-using ilk to
                              set us straight, Tom.

2/16    IT Geek Love on CL. http://www.craigslist.org/sfo/w4m/2923359.html
        \_ what net netwbie posted this? this has been going around for ages.
        \_ what net newbie posted this? this has been going around for ages.
           \_ More concretely, since '96 at least:
              http://groups.google.com/groups?hl=en&threadm=55vtpl%249gk%40huffmanpc.SanDiegoCA.NCR.COM&rnum=1&prev=/groups%3Fq%3Dg:thl89367922d%26hl%3Den%26selm%3D55vtpl%25249gk%2540huffmanpc.SanDiegoCA.NCR.COM
              This thread was probably the source of the compiled version
              that appeared a couple of years later all over the place
              and is reproduced above.

02/16   Soda will be going down for a semi-urgent reboot/OS update at 1pm
        today.  -root

2/16    http://www.cnn.com/2002/TECH/industry/02/16/microsoft.code.reut/index.html
        bullshit..as mush as i'm not that fond of microsoft's practices and
        products, this is totally unnecessary.
        \_ if  they are going to make legal claims they cannot separate
            products from the OS, they need to be able to back it up by
            showing the source.