5/2     Math people: if I have a password generator that doesn't generate
        any collsions in 1,000,000 runs, is there a way to estimate a lower
        bound on the size of the space with a certain confidence?
        \_ yes.  Lower bound of 1,000,000.
        \_ You expect a collision at about \sqrt{n} trials, if there are
           n elements in your space. See birthday paradox. -chialea
           \_ What chialea means to say is that, if you trust it to be using
              reasonably strong random bits (which aren't, for instance, cyclic
              and loop in a cycle of length 1,000,001), there's good reason
              to expect the space size to be >=1e12. However, there are
              many real-world issues that would make this analysis null and
              void, and to actually get statistical confidence intervals
              on it, you'd need to assume quite a bit about the world, and
              then talk to somebody who knows more statistics than I. -alexf
              \- hola i havent done the math but is there a rule of thumb
              that says "for n buckets with equal/indep probability, the
              number of instaces to have say 50% collsions is some f(n)"?
              withthe birthday problem it's 365 with close enough to
              equal probability to hit 50% collision chance at 24 or 28
              [i forgot the number] ... i am wondering about a rule of
              thumb like the "rule of 70" on interest rate doubling, or
              say even stirling formula for n! --psb
              \_ I found a web page that said it's about 1.2*sqrt(n).
                 Using Stirling's formula and a Taylor series for ln,
                 I get that the constant in front is sqrt(2*ln(2))
                 which is about 1.1774. Details left to the reader -lewis
                 \_ URLp
                 \_ constants are for sissies
              \_ Thanks alex, that's indeed what I meant. I blame it all on
                 e190! -chialea

5/2     http://www.religioustolerance.org/nat_mott.htm
        \_ Indeed.  For all you who feel like hanging on to the "separation
           of church and state isn't about 'no prayer' in government," go back
           and look at who instituted the idea.
           \_ Yes indeedy!  Dead Rich White Men, WASPS all, are trying to take
              over the country by adding the word "G-d" everywhere!  Gadzooks!
              The end is near!  --a real atheist, not an alt.conspiracy fan

5/2     hi.  does anybody out there know about how physics postdocs do in
        doctoral programs for finance, accounting, etc?  any personal
        stories, cautionary tales, etc, please write to me, hahnak.
        thanks in advance
        \_ hi.
        \_ if you go from physics to finance with a phd from a name-brand
           school, no post-doc is necessary, and you certainly don't
           want to waste your time with some idiotic finance grad program.
           for reasons that are perhaps a litle odd, there are lots of
           finance type employers on wall street desperately trying to
           recruit physics phds all the time.  i am a second year grad student
           in applied physics, and i periodically get solicited by these
           people even though i am years from graduating.  lot's of people
           seem to go this route, but no one i know personally because
           it tends to be the particle theorist wannabe loosers, and i'm
           in condensed matter experiment.  from what i've heard, expect
           to make less than the *real* finance poeple, to work long
           hours, to hate your boss, and to lead a pointless existence
           in the most expensive city in the US(nyc).
           in the most expensive city in the US(nyc). huh.  this reply
           was intended as a troll(although i honestly believe everything i
           said.) apparently this is the wrong crowd.
           \_ What part of physics studies is applicable in the financial
              world?
                \_ being able to think and create mathematical models.
                   \_ yeah, and also an understanding of the study
                      of random processes.

5/3     Anybody know what percentage of the population in Israel do not work
        for a living and receive welfare checks?  I know the religious
        groups live off the state I'm wondering if there are more people like
        that.  My tax dollars are funding shit like that, and it pisses me
        off.
        \_ Your tax dollars are getting porked all over this country and the
           rest of the planet and you know it.  Take the troll elsewhere.
        \_ How does it feel to be a frustrated, powerless, anonymous ranter?

5/3     http://www.lpl.arizona.edu/~vance/www/vaxbar.html
        \_ Ooookay... that was reaaaaallly nerdy.
        \_ Why doesn't the CSUA have one? The vp needs to get on the ball.
           \_ I wanted to do this with the old Sequent Balance back in
              the day.  We could have moved Lame in there.  (Lame being
              the old mini-fridge, before it spawned life and had to be
              cleaned... and was subsequently stolen.) -geordan
              \_ I don't think it was stolen.  I think that after danh's
                 underwear mated in an unholy union with a 6 year old bottle
                 of snapple in the bowels of Lame, someone duct-taped and
                 dumped the fucker. --scotsman
                 \_ Had SnappleĀ®. even been around for 6 years then? --jon
                 \_ Had SnappleM-. even been around for 6 years then? --jon
                    \_ It's quite possible.  I had that bottle of Snapple
                       Iced Tea living in my room for what, 2 years when I
                       started college. -geordan

5/3     phillip, why is your mail spool no longer world-readable?  Have we
        done something to anger you?  Have we forsaken your trust?
        \_ procmail always resets my mailspool mode.  i'll try to fix -Phillip

5/2     If you have offer or rejection letters from any graduate
        schools, I would really appreciate it if you could mail me
        a copy of the text within the next day or two. I am collecting
        additional data for a term paper in linguistics.  Thanks.  -brg
        \_ Can I trust you that you'll publish your paper? I got a bunch of
           rejects, I am very depressed. How do I get them to you anonymously?
           \_ OCR baby!
              \_ Oral-Clitoral-Rectal baby!  Ooh, aah!
           \_ Post the text on Craigslist, m4m.
           \_ brg, touch a world writable file in /csua/tmp/rejects so that
              ppl can just paste it into there (anonymously).
        \_ brg, you're slow on my reply above, so I am not going to give any
           to you
        \_ I already did a paper like this, not for linguistics though.
           I merely wrote Universities, addressed specific depts and
           names explaining and asking. All replied, some negatively.
                \_ reportP

5/3     Anyone know about 4-pin/6-pin Firewire? I wanna get an iPod, but
        have a Sony Vaio with a 4-pin Firewire port. Should a 4-pin to 6-pin
        plug be enough to get this to connect? (In addition to any extra
        software I need to get of course.)              - rory
        \_ Yes. Infact the iPod should come with that adapter.
           \_ Really? That'd be great if the adapter was even included,
              but my understanding was that all the macs had the 6-pin
              ports and Apple not was putting any effort into supporting
              non-mac usage of the iPod. url? Thanks.
              \_ I thought that the new iBook had the smaller port, but
                 it turns out I was wrong. Anyway, I asked a friend of
                 mine here at work who has a iPod and he has been using
                 it with his vaio at home with just the 4 pin to 6 pin
                 cable and xpod or some such software.
                 \_ Great! That's just what I wanted to hear... thanks!
                    ... and if you ever find out the exact software he
                    is using, please post or email. I am looking at a
                    couple different programs right now-- some free, some
                    not.
                    \_ The guy at work uses XPlay:
                        http://www.media4.com/products/xplay
        \_ the only difference between 4- and 6-pin firewire is that 6-pin
           carries power on the extra two pins.  If you have a device that
           can be powered externally, then you should be able to go from 6- to
           4- with no problem.

5/3     What's up with s/key?
        soda:~ [104] keyinit
        error in opening database: Permission denied
        \_ skey bad, telnet good

5/3     Contrary to popular belief, getting your news from Rush Limbaugh
        does not make you "informed"
        \_ Who's Rush Limbaugh?

5/3     http://salon.com/news/wire/2002/05/03/commandments/index.html
        \_ District Judge weighs in on the seperation of Church & State
        \_ Yeah she ruled the poor babies "endured unwelcome contact" with
           the 10 commandments.  Gosh.  I wish I could sue anytime I "endured
           unwelcome contact" with something.  That's a hell of a standard for
           constitutional law.
           \_ I wish some teacher would lead each class with a hearty
              "Hail Satan" just to see you fundies cry bloody murder.
              \_ And they'd be right to do so and I'd support them in that
                 for what _should_ be obvious reasons.  --real atheist

5/3     Anyone has any experience with ACE?  How was it?
        \_ If by ACE you mean Doug Schmidt's Toolkit. I've used it
           on and off over the years. Once you get the hang of ACE
           it is really easy to write portable scalable programs.
           Learning ACE can be a pain, esp. if you don't have someone
           to talk to who already knows how to use it. It is also
           a bit hard to get a new developer up to speed on ACE.
           \_ Thanks!  Does Schmidt's books (POSA2, ACE and Patterns,
              ACE and Framework) help in learning it?  Are they worth
              getting?
              \_ When I started with ACE, these books didn't exist
                 so I can't really say if they will help you. Given
                 what I have seen of Schmidt and co., these books
                 will heavy into c++ and patterns theory, so unless
                 you are *exteremely comfortable* with patterns, they
                 probably won't help you much. One of the reasons I
                 gave up on ACE was because of patterns.
        \_ Telebears was a big improvement over ACE.
           \_ ACE forms taught you how to deal with big, govt bureaucracies.

5/3     If IRS has all the legal access it needs to verify whether or not
        people cheat on their tax return, why doesn't it eliminate the tax
        return and simply calculate the tax amount for everyone?  Sure it'll
        need a lot more computer and maybe human power, but the extra tax
        dollars that it otherwise won't collect will probably more than cover
        the cost.
        \_ Do you *really* want the IRS figuring your tax for you? --dim
        \_ Because you aren't required to pay taxes, only file a correct
           return, what dim said x10000, and also there's a zillion different
           life style deductions that they may not be aware of.
           \_ which of course is a problem in itself. They need to wipe
              the slate and have no deductions. Deductions don't help anyone,
              for ex. mortgage deductions just make the prices of houses go
              up by that much. Ok maybe they help e.g. Enron and rich fuckers.
              \_ Of course deductions help.  If you had any clue about tax law
                 you'd know that mortgage deduction phase out as you make more
                 money.  Higher income people (like me and I'm just some slob
                 posting on the motd from work) don't get most of the mortgage
                 deduction and people making only slightly more get none.  So
                 the next time you want to go bash the rich please at least
                 have some tiny shred of clue what you're babbling about.
                 \_ Mortgage deductions don't phase out. They aren't phased
                    out for me and I'm "rich." Anyway my point was that if
                    we all get mortgage deductions, it just makes more demand
                    at a given price point therefore net result is that
                    we're just the same only houses cost more. If there
                    was no deduction we'd have the same purchasing power.
                 \_ That is crap. You need a better tax advisor. Income
                    has nothing to do with mortgage deduction. There is
                    a 1M mortgage cap, but it does not phase out. You get
                    all of the interest deduction on your 1M loan no matter
                    how much you make.
           \- well you know there are laws about smoke detectors ... so why
           doesnt the govt just install all smoke detectors. obviously it
           should be up to you how much "optimizing" to do on your tax return.
           if you read the tax booklet you will notice there is an option
           to have the irs compute you tax for you. however, they are almost
           certainly just going to add up you incomes an subtract the std
           deduction and then figure out the number. --psb

5/3     Finally we know who was the first borg, it was Prof. Steve
        Mann of the University of Toronto:
        http://chronicle.com/free/v48/i34/34a03101.htm
        \_ He's saying he had a wearable video display 20 years ago?
           \_ He's saying he was a freak 20 years ago just like now.

5/3     What kind of idiot is MIT prof Stuart Madnick?
        \_ The best kind.  The kind that can be bought.
           \- yeah if i were an attorney or we could get him to a csua
              meeting i would ask him "are you stupid or bought off?" --psb
        \_ Apparently doctoral degrees from MIT can be brought too because
           he has one.
           \_ Holding a doctoral degree from MIT does not imply that the
              holder of that degree is an individual of good character.
        \_ There are plenty of professional expert witnesses.  Most of them
           don't get busted in such a public case.  They needed to prepare
           him better which is MS's lawyer's fault.  He's just your standard
           say-anything-for-bucks expert.
           \_ Maybe that's the problem: MS-lawyers teaching an MIT professor
              about the meaning of "Operating System".
              And MIT PhD's and MIT Professors are not your "standard
              say-anything-for-bucks" expert -- they are supposed to have
              higher ethics. Can you imagine a UC Berkeley prof testifying
              on the stand like that? We'd run him/her out of Berkeley.
                 \_ You can buy a UCB prof too, but MS didn't want to pay
                    the extra 10% fee.
              Shame on MIT.
              \_ ahh... to be young and idealistic..
                 \_ Why does someone always beat me to it?  I was thinking
                    exactly this as I read the naive post above and then BAM!
                    someone else has said it already... sigh.
                    \_ ahh... to be old and slow...
                 \_ You can buy a UCB prof too, but MS didn't want to pay
                    the extra 10% fee. Plus fly them cross country.
                    \_ Since when does a UCB prof cost more?  Who the hell has
                       heard of UCB when compared to the blaring bullhorn that
                       is MIT?  More like MIT/10 = UCB cost.
                        \_ it's funny how those of you who think so poorly of
                           Cal still have enough "self-respect" to stay at the
                           school.
                           \_ It's not funny.  It's called "most bang for the
                              buck".  Not all of us are on the Parental
                              Payment Plan and have to go to the best that
                              we can afford, not simply the best.  BTW, you
                              called your mom and thanked her for all that
                              easy money lately?  You should.  She deserves
                              at least a phone call once a week.
                                \_ funny again. mommy didn't pay for me.
                                   or daddy.
                           \_ Not all of us *gasp* are smart enough (or had
                              good enough grades/scores) to get into MIT, but
                              still see its superiority (if in nothing else,
                              than at least in reputation).
              \_ preparing witness != teaching witness.  Please report to
                 slashdot for legal education immediately!  (yes thats a joke)