9/17    Anyone uses Mozilla Firebird?  I already have jvm installed, but
        my browser doesn't detect java plugins.  How to install java plugin
        manually on firebird?
        \_ Firebird can't do Java
        \_ I'm using FireBird 0.6.1 with JRE 1.4.2, Win2k and WinXP
           without problems (assuming you're on Windows)..
           Check http://plugindoc.mozdev.org/faqs/phoenixwin.html for
           hints and tips.  Most likely, you need to to apply a registry
           patch so Plugins know where to find Mozilla.
           The generic Plugin FAQ is located at
           http://plugindoc.mozdev.org/faqs  Note: I also have Netscape
           7.1 installed, so FireBird may be getting the JavaPlugin info
           from my Netscape Plugin folder.

9/17    Wesley Clark: General Issues
        http://www.frontpagemag.com/Articles/Printable.asp?ID=9522
        Wesley Clark's command at Fort Hood lent 17 pieces of armor and
        15 active service personnel under his command to the Waco Branch
        Davidian operation.
        \_ food for thought- he's the Chairman of a electric car company.
           maybe the voters can help the environment by bringing in corporate
           influence from the opposite direction!
           http://www.wavecrestlabs.com/news/pr042103.html
        \_ He is a soldier.  Soldier doesn't make decisions.  They execute
           orders.
                \_ I imagine alot of German's said this during WWII.
                   \_ It's not a war crime to lend out personnel for a mission.
                   \_ And the Imperial Japanese.
                      \_ And the Americans in Vietnam.
                         \_ Vietnam is hardly comparable to Germany/Japan in
                            WWII.
                            \_ In scale, no, in principle, yes.
                                \_ Sorry, I normally don't reply to motd
                                   posts with insults, but this statement
                                   marks you as an idiot beyond the pale
                                   of the ordinary ignoramus.  -John
                                   \_ We are talking about the principle
                                   \_ We are not talking about the nature
                                      of the wars, but the principle
                                      that soldiers should not always
                                      blindly follow orders.  "It's my
                                      orders" had been used as part of
                                      legal defense for trials of Vietnam
                                      atrocities.  Don't get too excited.
                                        \_ Wasn't excited, was calling you
                                           an idiot.  My apologies, you've
                                           clarified yourself, I take it back.
           \_ Officers are expected to make decisions.
        \_ People accusing how China dealing with FaLunGong... The way
           USA dealing with cult within its territory is not all that
           different neither.
           \_ Uhm no.  The situation was largely unacceptable and there was
              a LOT of criticism and debate that resulted from that fiasco.
              Do you really think a situation like this would hit the chinese
              press as anything but glorious victory of chinese nationalist
              forces over subversive insurgent criminals???
              \_ Perhaps the better analogy for PRC-Falungong is US-Muslims.
                 \_ Perhaps not.  Where are Muslims being rounded up and put
                    in prison or insame asylums?  Take it home, Jack.  We know
                    about China.
                    \_ Perhaps the better analogy would be US-Mormons in the
                       past.
                    \_ Many muslims were rounded up and detained for weeks or
                       months post 9/11.
           \_ Do FaLunGong members stock up firearms?
               \_ no, firearms are hard to come by.  They did disrupt
                  TV signals, etc.  I guess anything they do is legit
                  because they are against a "communist" government, right?
               \_ Gasp!  Stocking up firearms!  They must DIE DIE DIE.
               \_ Since when is this illegal?  Koresh jogged daily
                  through Waco.

9/17    Should the 30 million dollar reward for Saddam be offered and
        eligible to the soldier who bags Saddam?
        \_ The 30 mil is for information leading us to him.  If the soldiers
           have found him, we don't need the info.
           \_ yeah but if we get him without info, that would be more incentive
              for a soldier to capture him or kill him.
              \_ I bet the soldiers have plenty of incentive already.
              \_ our soliders aren't bounty hunters.  they don't need extra
                 incentive to follow orders.  if they do we're really fucked.
        \_ Has Saddam Hussein put a reward on Bush's head yet?
           \- isnt this like offereing your company headhunter a referral
              bonus? i thinkt eh real question is do you shoot him down like
              a dog, or take him alive. --psb
              dog, or take him alive. --psb
              \_ I bet this was moved to a different point on the thread.
              dog, or take him alive. --psb
                 Yay idiot humor.
        \_ Saddam's in my basement.  How do I get my $30 mil?  -John

9/17    http://www.moveon.org/firerumsfeld
        \_ I've got a long list of what you might call 'neocon' websites
           but I don't waste motd bits posting obvious right wing drivel.
           Do us a favor and don't post left wing drivel?
           \_ Left wing?  The man is a fuckup.  It's not a party issue.

9/18    Top floor, Scotty! http://csua.org/u/4da
        \_ Anyone who wants a space elevator should read Kim Stanley Robinson's
           "Red Mars".  And that's a small one.
           \_ Why? Because he described the fictionalized effects of a
              space elevator in a rapidly decaying orbit above Mars? I
              think you're reaching here.

9/18    I'm a stock holder and I get the following question on the proxy
        vote: "PROPOSAL FOR THE APPROVAL OF THE ADOPTION OF THE FISCAL
        YEAR 2004 EXECUTIVE BONUS PLAN. Directors Recommend: FOR"
        Except for the greedy ass execs, why would any stock holder in
        their right mind vote for "FOR"?
        \_ Everyone washing everyone else's back.  Your vote doesn't matter
           anyway.
        \_ maybe you *haven't read* the thing and it's actually
           decreasing their bonuses or something. and if not, the
           answer is, invariably, some people are stupid! duh.
        \_ The presumption is that by giving these bonuses the execs will
           be better motivated to increase the value of your stock.  Whether
           or not it works is another question.
        \_ The big shareholders (corporate or institutional) fear change
           in leadership even more than slightly below average leadership. By
           approving bonuses, they keep the current execs and avoid possible
           randomness in stock price, speculation, lack of direction, etc.
        \_ don't worry, the NASDAQ board is going to give themselves a
        bonus for ousting Grasso
        \_ what is FOR?

9/18    Somebody settle an argument between my wife and I.  She says that
        a woman's ovaries contain *ALL* the eggs that she'll ever have.  The
        menstrual cycle simply releases one egg every month.  I remember in
        high school bio that ovaries work like testicles.  Sperm cells die
        or are ejaculated and new ones are produced every day.  Who is right?
        Are eggs produced once a month just like sperm cells are produced
        every day or are they simply released every month?  This came up
        because women in their 20s produce healthier babies than women in
        their 30s.  [yes, I've searched the web and can't find anything
        that specific].  Thanks.
        \_ She is correct. The ovaries release one egg per month.
        \_ I pity your wife.  How did she get stuck with such a moron?
                              \_ Pity.
        \_ heh, well some women like their men dumb. btw, not only do
           women not produce more eggs, they have a fairly limited
           supply, like several hundred. good for normal use, but not for
           lots of egg donation.
           \_ Nyet!  They've got gazillions.  Some women like their men both
              dumb *and* arrogant.
        \_ MYSTERY SOLVED BRO:
                During fetal life, there are about 6 million to
                 7 million eggs. From this time, no new eggs are produced.

                The vast majority of the eggs within the ovaries
                steadily die, until they are depleted at menopause.
                At birth, there are approximately 1 million eggs; and by
                the time of puberty, only about 300,000 remain. Of these,
                300 to 400 will be ovulated during a woman's reproductive
                lifetime. The eggs continue to degenerate during pregnancy,
                with the use of birth control pills, and in the presence
                or absence of regular menstrual cycles.  -maxmcc
                \_ How do birth control pills cause eggs to degenerate
                   more than not?
                   \_ The sentence structures out to "no matter what, the eggs
                      degenerate."
           \_ That's right.  When a woman is born, she's got all the eggs
              she's ever gonna have.
           \_ you learned this in CS classes?  - a dumb man

9/18    How does one prevent the motd from being truncated?  For example,
        cp /etc/motd.public ~/foo; mv ~/foo /etc/motd.public
        results in a permission denied error, even though the file is
        world-writable.
        \_ what are you trying to do?
           \_ rewrite /csua/bin/me to use diff and patch... minimize the
              amount of time holding an exclusive lock.
              \_ Hell, just use cvs...
                 \_ Yeah, but don't you need a server for this?
        \_ you can't do that with mv, use cp and then delete foo

9/18    Could anyone recommend a good and cheap ISP in Washington DC.

9/18    Hans Blix gets in his parting shot:
        http://csua.org/u/4dl
        Too bad America didn't listen to him, instead of that boob in the
        White House.
        \_ Yeah, there'd still be hundreds of people getting summarily
           executed, tortured, and disappeared off the Iraqi streets
           everyday by Hussein's thugs if we had listened to Blix.  Your
           moral strength is overwhelming.
           \_ How do you feel about the US propping up tyrants all over
              the world? If you really believe in the Jimmy Carter school
              of foreign policy, I respect you, even if I think you are
              a bit naive. But I suspect you are just a Bush apologist
              who has suddenly found civil rights as a causis belli.
              \_ Well said. --scotsman
              \_ U.S. can't depose every cruel dictator on earth, but the
                 only guy worse than Hussein is someone who can reach
                 S.F. and/or destroy Seoul with nukes.  Granted, that
                 Hussein was bad to his own wasn't the reason U.S. went
                 after him, but why are so many people wringing their hands
                 about what a mistake it was to get rid of him?  Why are so
                 many people hoping Iraq descends into anarchy so that U.S.
                 can be "taught a lesson"?  Why do so many people want U.S.
                 out so that this can happen, paving the way for Iraq to
                 become the next Yugoslavia or Sudan?  And how can these
                 same people claim to be on the side of "civil rights"?  I
                 personally would be wrong than have millions suffer.  Why
                 is this not so with so many of the self-anointed "civil
                 rights" activists?
                 \_ It wasn't a mistake to remove Hussein. The error was the
                    method. Anarchy already exists in Iraq, and since the US
                    is unwilling to relent or give up power, few are interested
                    helping promote a failing policy. And the term you are
                    misusing should be human rights. Plus the US isn't allowing
                    others into Iraq unless they bend their knee to Washington.
           \_ The reason many liberals opposed the war was not because we think
              the U.S. should ignore brutal tyrants, but because the war was
              sold to the public based on half-truths and lies.  Also invading
              another country without U.N. approval and pissing off other
              countries...
              \_ So you would have supported it if they said it was to free
                 the Iraqi people?  I think not.  What does the UN have to do
                 with it?  Since when did the UN become the ruling world body?
                 I don't recall voting to allow a bunch of third world
                    actually Fox News, lies. Almost all (all?) of them have
                 unelected dictators, tyrants, and enemies of the US decide
                 what my country is "allowed" to do.
                 \_ If they'd said it was to free Iraq, I'd've suggested
                    that they consider freeing Burma, Angola, and Syria
                    first.  I'd've also suggested that they lean more
                    heavily on Saudi Arabia and Egypt before they start
                    invading Iraq.  And finally, I would have suggested
                    that they demonstrate that they can actually "free"
                    a country from oppression and install democracy by
                    first finishing up the process in Afghanistan.  Show
                    me you can do this, and I'll march in your army.
           \_ So I'm assuming you can prove it. Ooops. Proof left to reader
              since it's obvious to BushCo!
              \_ I've seen the Eiffel tower.  I've stood at the observation
                 platform and looked out over Paris.  I can not prove I have
                 done so, nor can I prove the Eiffel tower exists.  However,
                 to say that the Eiffel tower does not exist because I can not
                 prove it to your level of comfort does *not* make the Eiffel
                 tower *not* exist.  You're probably right.  All those mass
                 graves reports are just BushCo lies.
                 \_ Most of those "mass graves" reports really are BushCo
                    or Fox News, lies. Almost all (all?) of them have
                    turned out to be regular graveyards. You know, like the
                    kind every country has, even the US. The US killed 10k
                    civilians in this war at least. How long would it take
                    Saddam Hussein to kill this many?
           \_ Saddom would look fairly moderate on the large list of tyranical
              regimes that the US has not only tolerated but also supported
              in the past.
              \_ And the racism of today would look downright tame
                 compared to that of the past.  Is that your only
                 way of evaluating right and wrong - precident?  The
                 sins of Ike should be upon Bush?
        \_ "I find your lack of faith disturbing.."

9/18    I have an embedded C++ application that passes around a lot of
        68-byte structs-- the struct is a wrapper around a binary message,
        and just about every function call includes one of them (usually
        passed by copy).  Today I changed the struct into a class which
        contains an empty Constructor/Destructor, and Configure() method
        which initializes every field.  Basically nothing else was changed:
        the 68-byte struct became a 72-byte object.  No inheritance, no
        virtual functions, everything is allocated on the stack.  My test
        suite is taking 300% longer to run, even with -O3.  Any ideas
        about what might be causing this?  I'm going to look into gprof,
        but if there are any hints and tips I'd like to hear them.  Thanks.
        \_ WAG: From your description, I gather you changed the definition
           from: struct Foo { ... }; to: class Foo { ... };
           Try changing "class" back to "struct" and see if that changes
           anything.
           \_ It does-- it cuts the running time by 2/3.  I've got 2
              parallel (except for the class stuff) directories and I'm
              running the tests side by side.
              \_ Well, are you passing these structs by value?  Are you
                 constructing and deconstructing tons and tons of classes
                 now?  Calling all those empty constructors and deconstructors
                 can get quite expensive.  Also do you have RTTI turned on?
                 That could explain the extra bytes,
                 \_ I don't have RTTI on explicitly (how would I check?),
                    and I'm not using any template stuff.  The compiler is
                    gcc 3.2.  Is there a way to optimize the (de|con)structor
                    calls to nothing?  I had figured that -O2 would take
                    care of that for me.  Also, I think that extra 4 bytes
                    is just a pointer to the dispatch table, which is
                    completely expected. --op
                    \_ If you have no virtual functions you don't have a
                       dispatch table, and you shouldn't have a pointer.
                       Trust me when your basic math objects are classes
                       and you have umpty millions of them, doubling the
                       size for a dispatch pointer would be really annoying.
                       \_ Aaah!  You're totally right.  Out of habit I had
                          put "virtual ~Foo() { };".  I removed the virtual
                          and the code is now about 5-10% *faster* than the
                          struct version.  Thank you thank you thank you.
              \_ Two more suggestions: Did you define Configure() in the
                 header file? If so, move it to the implementation file
                 and see if that makes a difference. Also, try compiling
                 with -Os, which optimizes for size (at least on my
                 gcc).          - struct guy
                 \_ Configure is defined in the .cc file; I'll give -Os
                    a shot now.
                    \_ Try swapping the the definition of the ctor/dtor
                       and Configure from .cc to .h or vice-versa.
        \_ Why did you change working code in the first place?  That's where
           your real problem is.
           \_ Obviously so he could put C/C++ on his resume!

9/18    I need to buy some decent running shoes, but I don't know jack
        about them.  Any advice for a big guy looking to seriously take up
        jogging/running?  TIA.                 -mice
        \_ Sign your name.  Run on dirt, not sidewalks.
        \_ On The Run, 9th St / Irving in SF
        \_ Go to La Foot on College (near Ashby). They will watch you walk
           and suggest good shoes for you. Expect to pay between $80
           and $130 or so.
           \_ What about $40 Saucony's?
        \_ Athletic Performance (55 W. Main St., Los Gatos). Everyone has
           different requirements & feet (eg, do you over-pronate?). They'll
           help you find the right shoe.
        \_ a rec based on personal experience -- asics.  If they fit your
           particular foot shape, they're good shoes. --jon
        \_ can you trust what they tell you at these specialty stores or are
           they just there to convince you to buy more expensive shoes?
           \- at minimum they should look at the bottom of your shoes
              and watch you walk. you can tell a lot based on the wear
              pattern. also they will at least measure your footwidth.
              some companies make many widths [like NewBalance] ... so if
              you have unusual foot dimensions, NB is a good company to go
              with. Nike has some good shoes but they fall apart easily ...
              then again that is why I havent bought any Nikes in yrs. --psb
           \_ With good shoe salespeople, not at all. I was actually
              recommended a cheaper shoe than the one I was looking at. The
              key is, they want repeat business from you, because shoes are
              really only good for 500 miles or 8-12 months (that's assuming
              regular running). Chains like Foot Locker don't give a flying
              fuck... they just want all your money now (not to mention they
              dunno anything about shoes beyond what's in the pamplets).