Berkeley CSUA MOTD:2003:July:28 Monday <Sunday, Tuesday>
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2003/7/28 [Uncategorized] UID:29154 Activity:nil 75%like:29159
7/26    What is a good book(/other) about currency trading.
2003/7/28 [Academia/Berkeley/CSUA, Academia/Berkeley/CSUA/Motd] UID:29155 Activity:nil 55%like:29093
7/22    Looking for junior java developers.   Limited job experience is a plus.
        Limited desire for good salary, limited IQ, limited education (e.g.
        community college, ITT Tech, Devry Institute) is a big big plus.
        /csua/pub/jobs/Snapfish.junior.java
        \_ then why are you posting here? in berkeley? to insult people??
            \_ u don't read the motd much, do you.
2003/7/28 [Politics/Domestic/California, Politics/Domestic] UID:29156 Activity:very high
7/28    Bob Hope. 100. RIP.
        \_ http://suck.com article on him from 2000:
                http://csua.org/u/3qt                   -brain
        \_ Oh shit.  All week we're going to have tributes to him on TV.
           Time to go find a nice book to read.
        \_ Beat me to it.  What you didn't do was the "YEE HAA! BOB HOPE IS
           DEAD!" part.  No one who knows him will miss him.
           \_ As his closest friend and confidante, would you care to
              share some anecdotes to support your thesis?
              \_ google pig farm neighbors "bob hope" and see what you find
           \_ Unlike the dancing on your grave when you go.
              \_ yeah yeah whatever.  i know who bob hope is.  you know
                 nothing about anything about me.  why even bother posting
                 something like this?  did it make you feel manly or smart?
                 \_ does it make *you* feel manly and smart to dance on
                    bob hope's grave?  or just cool.  yeah, you
                    probably think your pretty damned cool all right.
                    look how cool i am, i can so painlessly hate and be nasty!
                    anyway, that person (and i) know eenough about you to
                    think you're a class A asshole - your post about bob
                    hope.  i mean, i've never thought bob was funny, at all,
                    but i'm not happy he died.  you've said enough about
                    yourself for me to know you totally suck.
                    \_ if you knew more about bob hope you'd be happy he was
                       dead, too.  it has nothing at all to do with his career
                       or talents.  i've judged bob hope on his life.  you've
                       judged me based on my statement about someone else you
                       could know about if you chose to but you instead choose
                       ignorance and the easy road.  its understandable.  its
                       easier to stand up and claim the moral high ground from
                       a position of ignorance and it probably feels good too.
                    \_ When I die feel free to throw a party.  I won't mind,
                       I'll be too busy being dead.
2003/7/28 [Politics/Domestic/Election, Politics/Domestic/RepublicanMedia] UID:29157 Activity:insanely high
7/28    There are stories of pilots from communist countries defecting to
        other places with their planes (N Korean Mig-15 to S Korea, Soviet
        Mig to US, Chinese Mig to Taiwan, etc etc). Are there stories of
        pilots defecting TO communist countries (e.g. U.S. F-16 to Soviet,
        etc etc)?
        \_ Just about 1 month ago there were rumor about couple F-16 from
           Taiwan defected to the mainland China.
           \_ by "rumor" do you mean article in the People's Daily?  I
              wouldn't trust the Chinese state run media to tell me the
              fucking weather.
              \_ looking at how we have hyped up to the iraq war, i think
                 our 'free' media isn't much better either. I use to think
                 otherwise, but now I am fully convinced our government gets
                 to decide largely what they want to feed us. no better than
                 the state run media in china, period.
              \_ I wouldn't trust the Republican run US media to tell me
                 the fucking weather either.
                 \_ How could you not trust such Fox News tickers as these:
                    ... Pointless news crawls up 37 percent ... Do Democrats
                    cause cancer? Find out at http://FOXNEWS.COM ... Rupert Murdoch:
                    Terrific Dancer ... Dow down 5000 points ... Study: 92
                    percent of Democrats are gay ... JFK Posthumously joins
                    Republican Party ... Oil slicks found to keep seals
                    young, supple ...
                 \_ Why Republican?  Why not just say SATAN!  or BIG BROTHER!
                    Or THE MONSTER UNDER THE BED!  If you think our media is
                    right wing biased, you're *really* far left on the spectrum
                    like the nutters writing the SF Guardian who call the
           \_ after 1989, there's no more point in defecting. Let me as you
              this, where do you think the future is, China or Taiwan?
                    SF Chronicle right wing and rag on Feinstein for being a
                    Republican shill.  Sometimes the answer lies within....
                    \_ If you don't think that the media is corporate
                       dominated, you have the most serious case of tunnel
                       vision imaginable. corporate != republican, exactly,
                       but the big media companies serve business interests
                       in a way that is unprecedented both historically and
                       in comparison to other countries
                       \_ well said!!
                       \_ that's fine and all and I don't disagree that news
                          has become big business.  however, it is no more
                          republican than Senator Feinstein.  If you meant
                          to say 'corporate' then say corporate.  btw, where
                          exactly do you think the democrats get hundreds of
                          millions of dollars every election cycle?  hint:
                          it isn't small donors sending in their $5 each.
                          \_ Actually in Dean's case (the man with the most
                             money so far) the majority of his money comes
                             from small donations.  Yet another reason Dean
                             is The Man. -aspo
                                \_ http://billmon.org/archives/Dean table.gif
        \_ Mostly people from the west have more sense than that but in the
           last 50+ years there have been a tiny number of defections but I
           don't know of any that included planes.  It would've been a huge
           PR coup for the communists and you'd know about it.
           \_ we'd know about it because the american media loves to distribute
              the propaganda of other countries? this isn't BBC. this is CNN.
                \_ How many reports of tapes sent to Al-Jazeera, or Iraqi
                   press conferences did they re-broadcast?  -John
                   \_ Some would say too many.  It's more fun to think we live
                      in a Big Brother controlled State then in reality.  I
                      think these people imagine they're some sort of freedom
                      fighters, fighting the good fight against the oppressive
                      Bush controlled CIA run CNN or something.  The
                      information wants to be free or something like that.
                      \_ no, it's not fun. it's just the way it is. try
                         comparing domestic news against news broadcast in
                         europe and you'll know what i'm talking about. i'm
                         not saying foreign news is better. i'm saying that
                         US media as a whole makes a LOT of editorial choice
                         about what  to broadcast and it's not what is
                         happening everywhere in the world.
                         \_ I do.  And EU news makes editorial choices as well.
                            You seem to prefer those editorial choices and
                            find them personally preferable to US editorial
                            choices (in the maintream news media).  That is
                            your personal choice and does not in any way make
                            EU news superior or more accurate or less biased
                            than US news.  You simply prefer the EU bias over
                            the US bias.  That's all mostly about how they
                            report the news. As far as your point about certain
                            stories never getting reported at all, it isn't due
                            to a grand conspiracy.  It is simply because the
                            average American doesn't give a crap what's going
                            on in the next county, much less another part of
                            the world.  If it sold ads and newspapers they
                            would be printing it.  They are as you pointed
                            out earlier corporate controlled and thus have
                            profit as their primary motivation.
        \_ http://home.sprynet.com/~anneled/Defections.html
           According to this site the were a lot of China->Taiwan defections
           until 1989. What happened after 1989, the Taiwanese start to
           shoot down all the defectors? Or did the Chinese government
           threatened to kill the family members of the defectors?
           \_ A single random plane flying in with the pilot screaming into
              his radio on a known frequency, "don't shoot! im defecting!" is
              not going to be shot down.  Family killed?  That's more likely.
           \_ "4 July 2003 Two Indonesian F-16s intercepted US Navy F-18s ..."
              I think our Top Guns should now learn dog-fighting against our
              own fighter jets besides the MiG's.
                \_ the US Airforce estimates that in a total combat, the
                   aircraft attrition rate would be one F22 raptor vs four
                   F16s. So as long as we own F22s, it's ok.
                   \_ Note that the F22 also costs about four times the price
                      of an F16 (well over $100 million a piece).
              \_ Intercepted only means they were in the area and threatened
                 to shoot them down.  It doesn't mean there was a dog fight
                 and the F18's lost.
                 \_ yeah, it means "we see you".  there are no dogfights
                    unless both guys run out of missles before reinforcements
                    arrive from the nearest airstrip/carrier.  they should
                    fire before enemies are even in eyesight now.
           \_ Taiwan is a dead end. Hence no defection anymore.
              \_ A dead end in what sense?
        \_ I think that an American did defect to Russia in a plane. Once. I
           STFW and couldn't find the story, though. --dim
           \_ This sounds vaguely familiar but I can't recall the details
              either.  I think the Republican Corporate Controlled CIA run
              Evil USian Media is to blame for brainwashing us!  ;-O
2003/7/28 [Uncategorized] UID:29158 Activity:nil 60%like:28720
7/28    John's (Scary) Link of the Day:
        http://www.fansoffieger.com/lawfame.htm -John
2003/7/28 [Finance/Investment] UID:29159 Activity:moderate 75%like:29154
7/26    What is a good book(/other) about currency trading?
        \_ "Heart of Darkness?"  Why don't you find an honest way to invest,
           fucker?
           \_ your vitriol excites me.  Are you accepting applications for
              "follower"?
              \_ you will paint silly slogans on your buttcheeks and run around
                 without pants in front of the webcam on sproul.  you will
                 then bury your resume in gravel for 5 years, unicylcle
                 acreoss the bay bridge in critical mass, and report back
                 to the motd.
           \_ honest?  it's high risk. it is not in any way dishonest or
              ethically different than other financial investment options.
              did you get robbed?  that could've happened to you in any
              market.  you got greedy and got burned.
        \- uh it depends a lot on your fianance and math background and
           your interest in the theory-practice spectrum. for general
           stuff you can look at one of the JCox books. There are also
           some books by DeRosa. you might read some stuff by R. Mundell
           on fundamentals. i havent been keeping up on the literature for
           5-6 years so these might be somewhat non-contemporary but i wouldnt
           call what they cover out of date. note: a lot of the good books in
           this area are really expensive. i suspect the classics will be
           hard to get from the lib. might be a good "secondary market"
           however. a good WEEB site is http://riskbooks.com. --psb
        \_ I thought currency trading was all about finding negative cost
           cycles in dags? -- ilyas
                     \- do you mean dir acyclic graph or is this some
                        finance terms i dont know? if you are referring to
                        fast ways to compute arbitrage stratgies, there is
                        more to FX than arbitrage. for home users arb is
                        hardly the business to get into. --psb
                        \_ Yup, directed acyclic graph.  Probably need
                           lots of money to make money on arbitrage.
                           -- ilyas
        \_ damn you guys are rich
           \_ yeah, don't you need like $3million in an account before you are
              covered to make these kinds of trades?
        \_ if you had enough skill and money and knowledge to successfully
           get into arbitrage you wouldn't be asking here about it.  your
           question is no different than, "i sometimes have headaches, what
           is a good book on brain surgery on yourself?"
           \_ isn't this the stuff that you can get a job making $400K+
              immediately after finishing an an NYU PhD about?
              \_ sometimes, yes.  it's also easy for everything to fall to
                 shit in minutes while you're in the bathroom.  it's *very*
                 high stress and most people don't last more than 3 years in
                 the field before they completely burn out.  arbitrage is a
                 24x7 activity.  they can never sleep.  they have to have
                 alerts and triggers set to wake them if something ugly
                 happens on the market with zero response time.  etc,etc,etc.
2003/7/28-29 [Computer/Networking] UID:29160 Activity:high
7/28    I currently have a standard SBC DSL for 49.95/month.  Their site lists
        this has 384K-1.5M download.  I'm thinking of upgrading to their 59.95
        package that claims 576 - 1.5M download.  Anybody done this switch?
        I'm thinking if this is a gimmick or they can really guarantee that
        speed.  DSL speed depends on distance from CO.  If they can suddenly
        crank up my speed, that means that they're currently putting caps
        on my bandwidth?   I'm trying to avoid switching and then not seeing
        a difference and have to spend a lot of time trying to switch back.
        Thanks.
        \_ dump SBC and go with http://speakeasy.net.
        \_ heck, at work we get 4 Mbps easy.  It's upload that's the problem.
           of course we pay work prices, ~ $150/month.
        \_ Sucka. SBC DSL is $29.95/month
           \_ ???
        \_ their 1.5M/256k "deluxe" service is $39.95 with 12-month
           contract.  i think the offer ends 9/30 or something.  basically
           $20 off any service plan w/ 12-month commitment.  speed is
           a tiny bit slower than my old comcast cable service, but
           i am happy to be shed of the comcast "thou shalt also
           subscribe to our cable tv or be fuxxored" policy.
           \_ What about current customers? --dim
        \_ The switch doesn't work in all cases. If they can't find
           an open circuit in your co that meets the distance req.
           they will tell you that you can't be upgraded.
           \_ This whole broadband thing is still a really immature technology.
              One day you'll get data service the same as phone service and
              none of this BS about how far you are from the CO or open
              circuits or different speed charges, etc.  It'll just work.
              Until then this whole thing is a big hack.
                \_ This whole politics thing is a really immature society.
                   One day, you'll get world peace and equitable allocation
                   of scarce resources, with none of this nonsense about
                   nationalism or different ethnicity.  People will all just
                   get along.  Until then, this whole thing is a big hack.
                   \_ Network bandwidth will continue growing until it becomes
                      truly ubiquitous.  Clean water, food, and land will not
                      until we can easily leave this planet or a few billion
                      people get wiped out quick and clean.
                      \_ Electricity will be too cheap to meter! This was the
                         slogan of the nuclear power industry 40 years ago.
                         \_ Maybe you missed the part where we haven't built a
                            new reactor in decades?
                            \_ Maybe you missed the point.
           \_ This whole dating thing is still a really immature sociology.
              One day you'll get date service the same as sexual service and
              none of this BS about how far you are from third base or open
              relationships or different STDs, etc.  People will just screw.
              Until then this whole thing is a big hack.
2003/7/28-29 [Uncategorized] UID:29161 Activity:low
7/28    http://www.psy.ritsumei.ac.jp/~akitaoka/t2_03.jpg
        Optical illusion.
        \_ That is fucking trippy.
        \_ It's also worksafe.
           \_ I wouldn't have thought twice, but the comment made me question
              how safe it was. It's a bunch of abstract circles, so ya, it's
              WS.
        \_ some of the other ones at that site are pretty good too.  I like:
                http://www.psy.ritsumei.ac.jp/~akitaoka/sakuras2b.gif
                http://www.ritsumei.ac.jp/~akitaoka/wanage1.gif
                http://www.psy.ritsumei.ac.jp/~akitaoka/SwampA2.jpg
2003/7/28 [Recreation/Music] UID:29162 Activity:high
7/28    Is it possible for an average person to learn violin by self-study?
        I've seen many books for teaching yourself piano or guitar, but I
        haven't seen any for violin.  Thanks.  -- yuen
        \_ I hope you live alone and have thick walls.
           \_ Violin is not so hard as all that, at least to make
                non-horrible sounds.
        \_ no way. well, i guess that depends on what you mean by "learn".
           \_ By "learn" I mean learning to play some simple pieces, just like
              what one can through self-study on piano and guitar.  -- yuen
        \_ if you have to ask this question, chances are you are tone deaf.
           do you know what vibrato is? do you have a good sense of pitch?
           do you know what whole steps and half steps are? if not, you
           should get an instructor. violin is a lot harder to get started
           than other instruments.
           \_ Well, I don't know what vibrato is.  I assume that's when the
              player jerks his/her left hand on the neck of the violin.  I saw
              violinsts doing that on TV.  As for pitch and steps, I think I've
              got some sense of them since I started playing the piano more
              than twenty years ago.  I even suspect I have absolute pitch.
              --- yuen
              \_ If you suspect you have absolute pitch, you most likely don't.
                 -- ilyas
              \_  half the people on American Idol thought they did as well
2003/7/28-29 [Reference/Law, Politics] UID:29163 Activity:high
7/28    Is there any law or something that allows the telemarketers not
        to disclose the party that provided them my personal info? I had
        a telemarketer call me a few weeks ago and he refused to provide
        this information. It really would be nice to find out who has
        been selling my contact info to them..
        \_ use a different middle initial each time you give out your name,
           or a different suffix or prefix, like jr. or sr., and keep track
           of who has what name. then all you have to do is ask them what
           your full name is in their database, and you have the culprit.
        \_ I think you mean "is there a law which forces telemarketers to
           disclose the party...".
        \_ A lot of times, they don't have access to that. They get all
           sorts of lists and compile them. I bet the data is encoded in
           the dB, but the lackeys who do the calls don't get that info on
           their screen.
           \_ ask for their manager
        \_ A friend of mine used to manager a telemarketer bank.  She claims
           that the whole thing about "do not call lists" and such is bullshit
           because they're often just using the phone book.
Berkeley CSUA MOTD:2003:July:28 Monday <Sunday, Tuesday>