3/7     What's the conservative counterpart to Salon? The Economist?
        \_ The Economist is not really conservative.  They support taking
           precautionary action on global warming for example.

3/7     How can I get "perl -MCPAN -e 'install module'" to get via http
        or passive ftp? Regular ftp access doesn't go through my firewall.
        \_ perldoc CPAN discusses how to go through firewalls.
        \_ It's been a while but I believe the first time you try this it
           will ask you to config a bunch of stuff including the network.
           \_ That uses non-passive FTP, but this worked:
                 perl -MCPAN -e '$ENV{FTP_PASSIVE} = 1; shell'
                 from "perldoc CPAN"

3/7     How do I solve for a and b (they are strings)?
        f(a) = 2.90171130144904e+22
        f(b) = 24,386,094,146,700
        where
        f(x) = y=1;for(i=0; i<x.length; i++) {y *= x.charCodeAt(i);}
        \_ If you want to find nice-looking strings, you could do a
           dictionary search -- try encoding lots of different plausible
           strings until you find some that give you the values you want.
           I like "paidsurveys" and "user567".  --mconst
        \_ if you were more than a half-wit, you would have realized that
           there are infinitely many solutions, or at least a lot, depending
           on what alphabet your strings are over
        \_ As per above, there _are_ a lot of solutions (trivially, a finite
           number since the above in all likelihood is over ASCII). However
           that doesn't mean that this is _completely_ impossible. You _do_
           however need to explain more about the problem. What do you know
           about a and b? What kind of characters can they possibly contain?
           Upper-case letters? Lower-case letters? Punctuation? Digits?
           Control characters? "Foreign"/"special" characters (a la extended
           ASCII, 0x80 and up)? What are the strings supposed to be? Words?
           Do they follow some interesting statistical distribution? ...Or,
           alternatively, do you need a _specific_ solution out of many,
           or will any string that f returns those values on suffice?
           Also, you make your job _far_ harder by giving floating point
           forms for the first one; since you're missing several digits from
           the end of the decimal representation, you'll effectively have
           trying to get into?  -alexf
           to make up for it by considering all possible values for them
           (making your job literally 10,000,000 times harder under most
           circumstances). Also, since the format of your statement suggests
           that this is javascript, which shittily-secured porn site are you
           trying to get into? We want some too =)  -alexf
           \_ P.S. if said strings don't contain extended ascii chars, I can
              at least tell you that b contains exactly one "e", and no "a"'s,
              "g"'s, "k"'s, "m"'s, or "q"'s. See also: prime factorization =)
              \_ of course, it should go without saying that mconst is
                 infinitely smarter than i, and you should just go read his
                 post above instead. -alexf

3/7     Am looking for a small, DHCP-capable Router that can also forward all
        all traffic to a remote filter.  Any recommendations?  And if you're
        going to recommend building a Linux box, would you be so kind as to
        include a link to the modules you recommend? --erikred
        \_ D00de, 00ze l1nukz!!1
        \_ I'd recommend netbsd or openbsd running on one of those cheap
           micro-atx boards.

3/7     Does anyone know of decent places that repair laptops? Specifically,
        mine has a line going through the screen. I don't think the lcd itself
        is damaged, just the connections between the screen and laptop proper.
        \_ you have sony, dont you?
           \_ no, actually, it's a dell.
              \_ dude, you're gettin' a bill
                 \_ heh
                 \_ I though that now its: D00D, UR gettin' a cell
              \_ call dell. or check their web site for manual and open it
                 up yourself.
                 \_ this is under the extended warranty service
                    provided by my credit card, so i can go for something
                    local, and i'd rather not bother shipping it back.
                    \_ are you sure they'll cover it? the credit card
                       companies have a lot of ways to weasel out of those
                       extended warranties
                        \_ well, you get a quote first, and then they approve
                           it. but anyway, yeah, they said they would cover.

3/7     Teachers are no longer granted freedom to express their views in Bush's
        Amerikkka: http://www.upi.com/view.cfm?StoryID=20030307-093444-9730r
        \_ It is one thing to give extra credit for students who write letters
           expressing their views, its is a completely different thing to give
           extra credit only if students write letters that concur with the
           teachers agenda.
           \_ i knew a guy once who was a history major.  he used to write
              all his papers slanted opposite the political views of this
              teachers on purpose just as a challenge.  the amazing thing is
              he was such a good writer it actually worked for him.
        \_ Ironic that the poster here argues for teacher freedom of speech
           while argueing against student freedom of speech.
           \_ NO FREE SPEACH FOR FASCISTS!!! -actual sign held by
              Berkeley radical. In case you didn't get the memo, irony is
              dead.
                \_ Did he really spell speech "speach"?
        \_ Thats why the President of the University wrote an apology
           to President Bush.
           And I suppose you view teachers critizing children in the classroom
           whos parents are soldiers deployed in the Gulf is also free speech.
           http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/849965/posts
           http://www.thefire.org/issues/citrus_prelease.php3