3/22    anyone about siemans solar panels. Running into big problems
        buying the panels. It seems the only resllers of the solar panel
        are installers. Asked for some quotes and they are giving me like
        20K which is just insane considering they snap togther like
        legos, The hardware cost is about 8K and they put in 12K for
        installation- which just sucks
          I am looking for someplace which will sell me just the panels and
        required hardware at a low cost, (it appears normally they go for
        $350/panel for the 75Watt panels and a typcial system has 12 or
        24 panels) I am looking at paying maybe around 300/panel but
        again as I noted I can only find bayside type guys who don't just
        sell the keys but require they install the lock personally and
        bill you up the ass
          also looking for alternatives to the siemans solutions. However
        the industry doesn't seem to be that well known. In other words
        its not like you canjust walk into the nearest home depot and buy
        solar panels. So if you know anyone who knows anything about this
        type of thing let me know what they think. - construction guy
        \_ would love to help you, but you didn't sign your post...

3/22    Any comments on opening up an offshore corporation as a tax haven?
        I have heard the taxes are fairly high in japan and thus if you
        make money fromn investment thy will get it, instead if the money
        is investment in the name of a offshore corp the returns are tax
        free. Not sure how Japan looks at tax havens but figure they are
        a little more flexible than US.  Should also note that right now
        the US is not looking as close as they should at this practice
        and thus now is actually a good time to do something like this.
          The way it works is easy. Foreign entity buys lets say a car ( in
        actuality we would just give the car to the entity ). Then we
        sign agreement with entity to rent the car (but for very large
        amounts- but reasonable). That way all the rent go directly intot
        he business and any returns it makes is tax free.
        \_ You just got a huge tax cut, wanker. This may have been
           understandable in the 70's with 70% top rate, but the IRS will
           see through your "business." Tax fraud and shelter prosecutions
           are on the rise. Enron gave foreign entities a bad name.

3/22    SpamAssassin installed in /csua/bin. Check out the README.ausman
        if you want to install it. It has worked great for me. -ausman
        \_ damn, ONE WEEK after I installed SpamBouncer on my own account.
           Does anyone which one works better?                --kngharv
        \_ So this looks like a weak, hand-maintained take on ifile
           http://www.ai.mit.edu/~jrennie/ifile  I've been running ifile
           for a few months now, and its accuracy is at 94.5%  The trick
           is it learns from every message that goes through.  It's _much_
           more accurate if you can initially train it with a LARGE body of
           your good and spam messages, separated.  I think I fed through
           about 2000 of each.  --dbushong
           \_ I will look at it.  I happened save most of the spam I got.
           \_ I will look at it.  I happened to save most of the spam I got.
              Anyone want spams that for the purposes of feeding to this
              filter, let me know.              --kngharv
              \_ Well, ifile has links to tarballs of spam, but the fact is,
                 it works better if you use your own.  --dbushong
                \_ Is there a program that really goes after spam sites, that
                   tracks  and disrupts them by generating reverse-spam,
                   DOS attack, or other nasty counter measures?
                   \_ The typical spam site is a middle school in South Korea
                      who has an open relay because they were put online by
                      people with no clue.  You want to DoS thousands of SK
                      middle schools?  Be my guest.  It won't help.

3/22    Say all of your coworkers use Visualsomething for development and
        all the indentations are tabs. How do you tell Emacs to treat tabs
        as an indentation size of 2 spaces?
        \_ <meta>-x replace-string <tab> with <space><space>
           \_ oh, you'd be popular in a development group...
        \_ Or you could use the standard tool your group uses and use Visual
           Something(c) also which is what would happen in a real company.
           Standard tools and coding standards means much less nonsense over
           stuff like this.  Or convince them all to use emacs (good luck!)
        \_ There's a tab-width variable for just this, and a google for
           'emacs tab width' turns up a number of resources.
           \_ That's too easy.
        \_ Time to quit and work for a company that hires people with a clue.

3/22    Many applied, few are chosen.  Fewer still get to do the choosing.
        \_ what does it take to open up a graduate school? all us jobless
           peeps should collaborate on this high-demand business oppty.
           \_ money and intelligence, which you probably don't have as
              you don't have a job.
              \_ aw shucks. maybe i can get into the recreational drug biz.

3/22    Sara Brady of the Anti-Gun Brady Bill fame buys gun for her son and
        possibly violates gun purchase laws.  Whoops!
        [restored, dont let facts get in the way of your agenda]
        \_ url please
           \_ link:www.miami.com/mld/miami/news/politics/2909641.htm
              \_ Has the story been censored? (URL doesn't work in Mozilla
                 or IE).
        \_ There is nothing contradictory in being a supporter of anti-gun
           laws while at the same time buying guns to protect oneself in
           a society where guns are prevalent.
           \_ Sure there is, especially when you're skirting gun control laws
              to buy a gun.  The real crime isn't her possible violation of
              gun control laws, nor the contradiction between her statements
              about getting rid of all guns yet buying one herself, it is the
              blatant hypocrisy required to do so.  Make no mistake, this will
              hurt her anti-gun crusade and rightly so.  As far as "guns are
              prevalent so she needs one, too", if you read the article you'd
              know it wasn't for herself and it wasn't a self defense weapon.
              Further more, it is a common anti-gun statement to say that we
              should rely on the police and other authorities to protect us,
              despite various court rulings that the police,etc have no legal
              obligation to protect you before the fact, only take a statement
              (or collect your body) after and apprehend the bad guy.
              \_ hypocrisy is part of human nature. also, I can't believe
                 that since George W Bush kept saying 'make no mistake' in
                 his speeches (over 20 times in one week) it has actually
                 caught on and people are using it all the time now. ugh.
                 \_ I haven't seen any GWB speeches.  Maybe he got this *very*
                    common phrase from me!  Maybe you could use some SubA or
                    E190 to figure these things out....
                    \_ E190!! E190!! E190 is the STANDA, er..wait...

3/22    Any advice on where to open a Roth IRA? Does it matter whether I
        do it through my bank, broker, 401(k) provider, etrade, etc.?
        \_ i was told Vanguard is the standard.  - pst
        \_ We use TD Waterhouse. No fees!
        \_ any bank or brokerage will do this for you.  for a no-brainer
                investment, indexed equity funds are always good.
           \_ Which makes Vanguard's Index 500 the standard. -not guy above

3/22    I got this advice from a friend - is he on crack?  I always thought
        roth iras were Always A Good Thing To Do (tm):
        \_ My understanding is that the gains on Roth IRA is all yours
           while those on the Traditional IRA will be taxed.  Is that true?
           Of course for traditional, you start up with a higher base,
           since you will have the additional money you would have paid
           out as taxes if you go the Roth route.  This "additional" money
           would unfortunately be outside of any IRAs.  Of course you can
           put them in your 401k unless you maxed that one out also.
           In short, if you maxed out everything, Roth essentially let
           you tax shelter a little more money since $3000 in Roth is
           worth more than $3000 in Traditional.
           \_ Isn't there a limit on how much you can be making and still put
              $3000 in a ROTH?
        \_ WSJ's Smartmoney magazine advice on where to put your money for
           most people:
                1. Max out 401k portion with company match.
                2. Max out Roth IRA.
                3. Max out unmatched portion of 401k
                4. Other stuff.

3/22    Nethack 3.4.0 installed as nethack-3.4.0; bugs to mconst.

3/22    Can we have a god damn postage rate that remains the same for more
        than a season? It's rising again, to 37 cents, in the summer! It's
        not the increases, but the frequency that is so annoying! --dim
        \_ How long has it been $0.34? At least 2 Christmases, by my
           Christmas-card-phobic measurement. I was gonna say that it's what
           you deserve from a quasi-gov't/public corporation, but FedEx/UPS/DHL
           would do the same, so it's a fact of nature. -psb #1 fan
           \_ You are not the true --psb #1 Fan
           \_ Try 3 increases in 18 months. Just increase it to $0.50 and
              then leave it the fuck alone. It's the hassle, not the cost.
        \_ What I hate about it is the oddball numbers they pick.  Nothing
           that multiplies cleanly into some reasonble figure of x-many stamps
           that multiplies cleanly into some reasonable figure of x-many stamps
           for y-many dollars for reasonable numbers x,y.
           \- do you expect them to just round gas to the nearest quarter?
              you know there is a lot of lobbying and compromises around
              postal rates (eg for the size of the discount for presorted mail
              which i belive can involve fractional cents) --psb [for my fans]
              \_ At least the nearest nickel or dime.  What's with all this
                 32,33,34,37 cent crap?  30 cents = 10/$3. 35 = 10/$3.50, etc.
                 Those are easier to make/have change for than $3.20, $3.30,etc
                 Or for a single stamp, who carries a pile of pennies around?
                 Down with the tyranny of the penny!
                 \- you are talking about "rounding" on the order of 5% ...
                 how would you feel if your $1433.67 computer was rounded to
                 $1500 just to keep the math simple. some businesses have
                 postal costs as a significant expense ... they should pay
                 because you cant do arithmetic and cant buy a calculator
                 watch? if life should be made simpler in any arena, it is
                 in tax law. why dont you just assume the postal rates are
                 $.40 and walk away before they give you change. --psb

3/22    Anyone know what the [.*] field in the subject of lots of spam
                             \- can you post an example of what you mean here?
        mail is for?  Some sort of tracking, I assume, but what do they
        do with it?
        \_ One goal is to prevent you from using a checksum system to make
           a useful collaborative database of spam in order to block it.  (If
           each message is different, the MD5 or SHA1 will be different, too.)
           Another is to find out which spam you were replying to, if you
           reply, or which spam you were complaining about, if you complain.
           Some spammers also use "web bugs" to catch those people whose MUAs
           support HTML mail -- as soon as you open the message, you've been
           tracked, and the spammer has confirmed that your e-mail address is
           valid and that you regularly read e-mail.   -- schoen
           \_ Also be careful if the spam contains a URL with a big unique
              looking identifier in it, like http://www.foo.com/VIUHVIUHXIXCH
              Because likely they have a database mapping that ID to your
              address, so if you do choose to check out their product, whammo,
              they now know that you are not only a valid email address,
              but one interested in receiving _lots_ of spam about that
              product.
        \_ Uhm, the above are both correct and all but really why care?  Just
           delete it and add them and *.kr *.cn and *.jp to your block list.
           \_ oh yeah, there's no chance you could ever receive legitimate
              mail from Asian countries.  -tom
              \_ Hey lover boy, how much legit mail do you receive from Asia?
                 I parse my reject logs and have received *zero* in the last
                 few years.  Are you trying to buy a gf from one of those
                 http://koreangirlfriend.com sites?  That doesn't count.  By your
                 logic we should not block any spammish-looking emails because
                 you never know when you'll want a refill on your Viagra.
                \_ Get a life (I have friends who've moved to Asia) and a
                   a job (I have colleagues there), twink.  -tom
                   \_ Gee, non-anonymous insults are so much more useful.
                        \_ I'm willing to stand behind my words.  Are you? -tom
                   \_ Need technical help configuring your spam blocks to let
                      your friends mail you while still blocking the spam?
                      What does spam blocking having to do with getting a life
                      or a job?  You're an interesting fellow.  Don't you work
                      for a school?  What colleagues do you have in Asia?  Just
                      curious.
                        \_ do you think there are no schools in asia?  do you
                           think professors never leave campus?  -tom

3/22    Does anyone have suggestion on where to get a light portable crowbar
        that one could carry around under a trench coat without much
        discomfort?  [motd formatd]
        \_ ACE hardware.
        \_ soviet military surplus catalogs like sovietski sell
           titanium crowbars from time to time.  I love mine. --jon
           \_ Is it good enough for ripping those rediculous body kits off
              souped up Civics and Integras or should I get something heavier?
              \_ I've never used it for that, but I have used it for
                 ripping plaster walls down. --jon
        \_ http://botachtactical.com/paratechbiel.html

3/22    Hey Tom, do you always delete a thread in which you do something
        stupid at the end?
               \_ I have caught tom deleting threads that make people or
                  ideas he doesn't like look good.  Try it out!
                  \_ Prove it.     -mice
                     \_ It isn't hard to keep track of the motd, who edits it,
                        the changes afterwards, etc, etc.  To say "Prove it"
                        is to show your lack of scripting fu.  I spent all of
                        \_ Nah, it has more to do with the fact that I don't
                           have an axe to grind, and hence, is not worth
                           the time or effort.  Nice try, though.    -mice
                        2 minutes writing and testing 2 or 3 simple scripts to
                        keep track.  Is it provable in a court of law?  No, of
                        course not and you know it's not because everything
                        here is untracked text.  Anyone can make their own logs
                        say anything.  Write your own scripts and follow a few
                        hot button threads for yourself and see what happens.
                        \_ better yet, just use the phrase " fragile-ego
                           dickhead sysadmin."  i predict this thread
                           will combust in less than .5 hours now.
        \_ if you're referring to the deusberg thread, I didn't delete it,
           and the only stupid thing I did was allow myself to be trolled
           by someone who thinks the stars might be sentient beings because
           we can't prove otherwise.  -tom
           \_ You realize tom, that I added NOTHING to that thread, right?
                -- ilyas
           \_ You weren't trolled.  It was a real topic of real interest.  You
              stepped in blaring Tom's One True Holy Truth as usual and got
              put in your place, as usual.  That's not trolling.  That's what
              we call looking stupid.  Don't worry, no one thinks any less of
              you for it.  It's only the motd.  We still like you, Tom.
                \_ gee, more anonymous insults.  coward.  -tom
                   \_ Why would anyone insult you?
        \_ can someone repost the deusberg thread?

        [Restored by request even though I think the thread had it's day]
                             its.  dude, you need to take e190. _/

3/23    Here's a big shocker, Swiss turned back Jewish refugees during WWII
        sending thousands to their deaths in Nazi camps.
        http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A5713-2002Mar22.html

3/32    Does anyone know who to have emacs diff a buffer I'm editing and the
        contents of the file as currently stored on disk?
        \_ M-x diff-backup

3/23    MacOS X's Preview bypasses PDF "security":
        http://www.macuser.co.uk/macsurfer/php3/openframe.php3?page=/newnews/newsarticle.php3?id=1854
        Why is it that Adobe's attempts at "security" are always so damn
        stupid?