4/12    Looking for a network of Berkeley->UCLA people. Where can I find it?
        \_ does Nadeem look at motd?

4/12    Any recommendations on 17" flat-screen CRT? Where's a good place to
        look at monitors displaying TEXT, not aquarium movies?
        \_ Fry's?
        \_ if text, why not get an LCD monitor?
           \_ they are iridescent, I don't like them, I think the light
              coming out of an LCD is polarized.
              \_ Why would you care rather light is polarized or not?
                 don't tell you you are some genetic mutant that can
                 see the differences.
              \_ LCD doesn't shimmer as much (especially with a digital
                 connection), you don't have to worry about refresh rates,
                 and you can take advantage of subpixel font rendering in
                 some applications.  I use a cheap, $300 analog LCD monitor
                 at work, and I still find it easier on the eyes than a
                 CRT.
        \_ Go to computer store and tell sales drone to ditch graphics and
           put text on the screen.
        \_ CRT's are 'done' technology.  Just go buy the one with the highest
           refresh rate and smallest pixel-pixel spacing you can find in your
           price range.

4/13    The Truth Is Out There:
        http://www.asile.org/citoyens/numero13/pentagone/erreurs_en.htm
        Go go conspiracy theorists!
        \_ Answers:
           1: The pentagon isn't built from the same crap as Soda Hall.
           2: It hit at a downwards angle and killed some grass and walkway.
           3: The plane's structure is built to be light so it can fly. Melted.
           4: Putting down pseudo paving for the heavy construction vehicles.
           5: Mis-representation.  Anyway, they sheared off, and followed in.
           6: He didn't have the info or he's incompetent.  Reader's choice.
           7: The flaming gaping airplane sized hole.
           And my own question to the silly French:  If the plane didn't hit
           the Pentagon then where did all those people go who we *know* were
           on that plane?  The French are so dumb.  Too much bad wine.

4/13    Can somebody recommend a software title for managing address lists
        for printing out onto address labels?  I know MS word has some
        label printing functionality, but I'm wondering if there are
        other ones that has better address management and label printing
        integration.  Thanks.
        \_ avery
        \_ FileMaker
        \_ Woot!  In 1992 I was an in-house tester for Labels Unlimited!  You
           should go find the most recent version (if it still exists) so my
           time wasn't completely wasted.  Thank you for supporting slave
           labor summer interns during a bad economy (the last one).

4/14    iBook w/OS X vs. laptop w/Linux
        Which one to get?  {Adv,Dis}advantages to each?
        \_ My $0.2: Printer drivers do not seem to be as well or as broadly
        \_ http://www4.macnn.com/macnn/articles/unixad.jpg
        \_ My $0.02: Printer drivers do not seem to be as well or as broadly
           supported by HP for Macs as they are for PCs. If your job involves
           needing to use a wide variety of HP plotters and such (as mine does)
           \_ FYI, it's "my two cents" ($.02), not 20 cents ($0.2)
                \_ maybe he was giving us 10X the usual advice.
           no Mac is worth the last-minute stress from finding you can't
           plot your stuff.  -- ulysses
        \_ iBook and OS X:
           + superior industrial and usability design
           + things that just work out of the box:
             power management, printing, DVD, CD-RW, 801.11b, BlueTooth, ...
           + Apple's integration ability between hardware and software:
             iTunes, iMovie, iDVD, iPhoto
           + 5-6 hours of real-world battery life
           - not a speed demon for 3D games (get a video game console)
           - open source stops at the Darwin (kernel and BSD system) level
           - iBook has VGA out, but limited to video-mirroring the LCD only
                -- jwang
        \_ 95% of all your favorite windows apps (Quicktime, office, explorer,
           etc) are or will be available on OS X. On the other hand, one
           annoying thing about OS X is that it still feels noticeably slower
           compared to Linux or Windows.
           \_ Yeah it feels slower, but what I've noticed is that I can
              get more coding done while using a OS X system than a linux
              system. I don't waste time compiling this that or the other
              thing to get my system working. Everything is already there
              and preconfigured properly.
        \_ The iBook's design is orders of magnitude ahead of anything in
           the PC world.  But bang for buck, it can't compare.  Depends
           what your needs are.  If you get one, I'd go for the 12" rather
           than the 14" screen--the 14" screen is bulkier and has the same
           max resolution as the 12".  -tom
           \_ The design?  How so?  All laptops from all makers are simply
              squishing as much hardware into as small a space as possible
              with weight and battery life a secondary issue these days.  They
              all look like computer "bricks" to me in the store.
              \_ Have you looked at an iBook?  The port layout, the hinge
                 mechanism, the little touches like the battery power
                 indicator lights and the lighted power plug, all point
                 to real thought being put into design, unlike the rest of
                 the bricks out there.  Dell's idea of "design" is "molded
                 plastic" and "not quite entirely black!"  -tom
                 \_ It's a brick with a different logo on it.  I don't pay
                    extra for logos.
                    \_ I disagree.  I think quality is important for
                       notebooks since parts are not easily replaced.
                       That's why people go for Thinkpads instead of say
                       Twinhead.
              \_ There are 4 pound bricks and there are 7 pound bricks.
                 ibook is actually cheap for its weight class.
                 For example, compare it to the thinkpad X series.
           \_ This is what I hate about Mac OS/X.  By using Darwin/whatever
              instead of X it manages to remove much appeal of a *nix OS
              (speed, open source, and lost free software with GUI).  Right
              now it is at the same time the worst Mac OS and the worst *nix
              ever.  Bill Gates must be glad.
              \_ Exactly how stupid are you?  You can run X on Mac OS X if you
                 care about it.  The vast majority of Macintosh owners--that
                 is, the customer base--has no interest in running gmines,
                 or whatever it is you think the killer X app is.  -tom
                 \_ no, that implementation is inferior.
                    \_ XonX is inferior? To what? It is XFree86 4.2. If
                       XonX is inferior, then X on Linux must be inferior
                       as well.
                       \_ of course. RTFM.
              \_ I think it's funny to read all the /. kids saying how much X11
                 sucks and never had a reason for being and replacing it should
                 be the open source community's highest priority.  --love X11
                \_ iBook's video hardware is rather slow on OS X. I'd
                   wait for something with an nVidia chipset instead of
                   the archaic ATI Rage.
                   \_ Doesn't the iBook have Radeon Mobility?
           \_ But, if you need battery life, the 14.1 inch iBook has it.
        \_ iBook runs Debian GNU/Linux.  Nicely at that.  Check out
           <DEAD>www.oreilly.com's<DEAD> Apple section for an article with links to step
           by step "How to run Debian on an iBook".  Get the iBook, run OS X.
           If it doesn't suit your needs, wipe the disk and run linux. -dans
           \_ LinuxPPC is a awful. Its is slow, cumbersome, and poorly
              supported. Most linux open source pgms won't compile and run
              properly, and good luck trying to find a Kernel that will
              work reliably. The only decent browser is a broken Netscape
              4.7.x, so forget web browsing without MOL (MacOnLinux).
              Stick to OS X. It is a decent OS that you can use to actually
              accomplish some work. - former Linux (x86 and PPC) user

4/14    Tax Rule of Thumb question: If you paid more than $4550 [the std
        deduction] in State Tax, should you always itemize?
        \_ i make my money from federal research grants, and you are rich.
           it is in my best interest for you to pay lots of taxes.
           don't itemize anything. ever. get all your financial advice from
           the motd, and pay extra voluntary happy taxes.
           \- hey the fed govt pays my salary too ... i should be totally
              exempt from state tax. i finally decided to grow up and start
              itemizing. in fact i should file amended returns now and get
              back all the $ i kissed away. ok tnx. --psb
                \_ It isn't your money.  It is the government's money. You
                   are taxed because the government knows better than you how
                   to spend your money.  They let you have some money for
                   pocket change like having an allowance as a kid.  Tax rates
                   for every citizen have gone up dramtically since they were
                   first imposed.  This is very similar to how the campus fees
                   that were originally voted into existance by students
                   turned into thousands of dollars/semester over time.  Once
                   a paper pushing faceless government org is giving the power
                   to take your money via taxes, levies, fines, fees, etc, the
                   prices only go up.  How dare you try to reclaim more pocket
                   change?  Don't you know you're hurting the children?
                   \_ Tax rates have gone done over the last 35 years.
        \_ I think if you have more than $4550 state tax *withholding*, you
           should itemize your federal even if your actual state tax liability
           is less than that.  The real answer is more complicated than that.
           Say when you filed your 2000 state tax form in 4/2001 you made a
           payment of $1000 to cover the difference between your 2000 state
           tax and 2000 state tax withholding.  And during 2001 your state tax
           *withholding* is $3000, and all other misc. stuff during 2001 (e.g.
           CA-SDI, vehicle license fee, house poperty tax, donation) add up to
           $551.  Since $1000 + $3000 + $551 = $4551 which is more than the
           federal standard deduction, you should itemize your federal.