4/19    Please accept my apology for believing and posting to the motd
        everything I've posted for the last year or so.  After reading this
        link I now truly understand the way the world really is.
        http://www.davidicke.com/icke/articles3/plot.html
        \_ Go stick your head in a pig.
           \_ You know "they" are coming for you.  From the same folks you
              can find out how the Israeli government at all levels is engaged
              directly in the white slave trade from the former soviet states.
        \_ You obviously have not spent enough time reading this guy. It is
           not the Isrealis, it the FreeMasons. No, its the Catholics. Wait
           not the Isrealis, it's the FreeMasons. No, it's the Catholics. Wait
           it's the Illuminatis. Maybe NATO is in on it, too.
           \_ I read it all.  It's all true!

4/19    http://www.thecarolinachannel.com/gs/news/andersonnewsroom/stories/andersonnewsroom-140886820020419-160457.html
        The dangers of entering a Subway(c) bathroom....

4/19    Mildly amusing flash animation:
        http://www.lebonze.co.uk/stuff/move.htm
        \_ That was pretty cool.
        \_ neat.

4/19    I'm looking for free windows (2000) software that will just
        play the mic input.  (e.g. so that i can plug a microphone
        into my computer and talk and hear it through the speakers
        without having to record and playback). I don't care much
        about sound quality. recommendations?
        \_ yahoo messenger with 'talk' turned on
           \_umm, o.k. i'll try it.
        \_ Hmm, it should be as simple as setting a couple of bits in the sound
           chip.  But since you probably don't have control over the sound
           driver, this won't help.  Did you try opening the Volume Control
           from the Task Bar and then turning up the volume for Microphone?  (I
           don't have a microphone to try.)  -- yuen
            \_ yeah, if i turn the "line-in" and the reg. volume ALL THE WAY UP
               i can kind of hear it throught the speakers, but then any system
               sounds are way too loud.
                \_You need to use the mic in and/or the microphone boost under
                'advanced properties'
               \_ Line-in?  Did you plug your mic to the wrong jack?  On my PC
                  there's both an audio-in jack and a microphone jack.  On my
                  NT the Volume Control has both a volume for Line and one for
                  Microphone.  If you don't see that, go to Options ->
                  Properties and select all of the controls in the list.  Also
                  try to select "Recording" and then play with the Microphone
                  volume control in that section.  -- yuen
                    \_ i've tried it with both.  doesn't seem to make much
                       difference. I was able to up the volume a little by maxing
                       the appropriate selection in the "recording control", but
                       it is still very soft compared to normal computer sounds.
                       (it is better though so thanks to all above for the help).
                       difference. I was able to up the volume a little by
                       maxing the appropriate selection in the "recording
                       control", but it is still very soft compared to normal
                       computer sounds. (it is better though so thanks to all
                       above for the help).
                       [ learn to format - motdformatd ]
                       \_ get an amplifier for your microphone then.

4/19    Which way produce better sound quality: software decoding
        mp3 to regular audio format and play it with cd player OR
        play mp3 file with mp3 player?
        \_ Anybody can tell me if the software can restore the missing
           data in mp3 because of compression to the digital waveforms
           very close to the original recording.
           \_ I guess when you compress the data using mp3, once the
              data is lost, there is no way you can recover the original
              bits no matter how smart your software is. Not sure though!
              \_ Yes, MP3 is lossy.
                \_ No, use the new .phil format for music files!  Convert all
                   your mp3s to .phil today!
                   \_ admittedly, "phil files" has a nice ring to it.
        \_ Assuming you are just comparing the MP3 player vs. the CD player
           (e.g., using the same headphones), it will depend on the quality
           of the digital-analog converters in the MP3 player vs. cd player.
           If it's a cheap portable CD player, I doubt the sound quality
           will be very different one way or another.
        \_ I am not familiar with the mpeg2 algorithms, but is it really the
           best data shrinking mechanism out there? Or it's just a bunch of
           mpeg jerk using their power to make money?
           \_ There is no "best data shrinking mechanism" for all types of
              data.  Lossy compression (such as MPEG) isn't appropriate for
              some data types.  Generally different data types are best paired
              with different compression algorithms.  Even restricting
              the domain to video doesn't sufficiently narrow the scope;
              MPEG2 video can produce better picture quality than MPEG4 video
              at high-bitrates.  MPEG4, on the other hand, is tailored for
              relatively low-bitrate video.  What were you asking, again,
              and what does it have to do with MP3?
        \_ depends on how you record to the CD, and the media quality. I
           did a blind test of this and people could hear the difference
           between the CD-R and original source CD without recoding!
        \_ decoding an mp3 offline for conversion to pcm audio (and later
           burning to an audio cd) would allow you to apply smoothing and
           other audio processing techniques to the decoded audio correct
           for (de)compression artifacts prior to burning to the CD.  It
           is possible to do this on the fly in a portable mp3 player, but
           I don't think many if any do anything more than DA conversion.
           I think you'll be more limited by how good/bad your headphones
           are or what shape your ears are in.  (and of course, there is
           less one can do about bad pops and skips, but one has more of a
           chance correcting that offline) -jon
        \_ Somehow, this whole line of discussion seems much sillier while
           listening to an SACD.  MP3s -- how quaint.

4/19    Related to European post below: What are some ways for an
        american programmer (like me) with little spanish and
        less french, to find a job in a european country? How
        important is the language issue? (eg, are there places
        that operate in english?) Are tehre other obstacles (eg,
        work permit, citizenship, etc) (John, you seem to have alot
        of experience.) Thanks.
        \_ I had the impression that Europe hates having foreign workers
           except in the most menial of positions?  --PeterM
           \_ Where "foreign" is defined as "anyone not from their village".

4/19    People always complain NT platform is not as stable as Unix platform.
        From the architecture/coding implementation point of view, what are
        the main difference between these 2 OS? Good insight appreciated.
        \_ \/\/1/\||>0\/\/5 r0000lez!@!1111  (sorry, had to)
        \_ for starters, much harder to strip extraneous crap from your system
           so that you konw its runnin the bare minimum applications it
           needs to to perform its function.  With UNIX you can be sure youve
           got just the bare OS and kernel and still have it functional.
        \_ windows registry.  Ever corrupt one?
        \_ Windows always crap up on me.  The other day, my windows doesn't
           start but gives a blue screen.
           \_ I totally. windows is suck. The UNIX better in so much.
              Solaris or any.
        \_ NT is too GUI-dependent.  If something go wrong and you not can
           load the GUI (not even in the safe mode), and OS partition is
           NTFS, it a big hassle.
        \_ Unix good.  NT bad.  Is known so to be.
        \_ It is much harder for me to figure out what is going on in
           a windows box to fix problems. No truss, no lsof, etc.

4/19    The chick in Scorpion King is:
        hot:
        not hot:
        \_ The poster of that is:
           lame:
           stupid:
           not hot: .
           both:  .
           I'm so apathetic I can't even type a dot:
           \_ This letter has circled the globe 70 times! With sex, all
              things can happen!

4/19    Where is the tranthraxxx video?
        \_ jesus used to have it, but no more.
           \_ That jesus.  Always losing his porn.

4/19    I got my acceptance to Cornell for M Eng in EE today. Did anyone
        else hear from Cornell yet? - ucla ee guy
        \_ believe it or not, UCLA MS is harder that Cornell M.E. Cornell
           has a reputation for giving out quick M.E. degrees (1 year prog).

4/19    (Soon to Be) New Grads, get any offers yet? How much? Who's hiring?
        -- '99 alum
        \_ Yes.  Mid 70s.
           \_ Startup? Big Company? Bay Area? That's more than I'm making...
              \_ Startup.  Bay Area.
        \_ only interest from Bay Area start-ups thus far... no formal offers
           yet (two pending). what should I hope for/expect?
        \_ Yes. Low 20s. Grad school.
        \_ What startups are hiring?  Where'd you find their names?  Most of
           the ones I see publicly posting job ads are total bullshit.
           \_ What about defense companies? I've seen positions targetting
              0-2 yr experience at defense company web sites. -another99alum
              \_ I've talked to people that worked at defense companies for
                 20+ year careers.  Their jobs are very unsafe.  Less so than
                 at some random large corp.  Once a project ends the engineers
                 all get axed and need to find a new project.  End = completed,
                 cancelled, on hold for extended period, etc.  And they say
                 the pay was nothing special.  Plus lots of hassles with
                 security stuff which makes sense given who the employer is.