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| 2003/11/13 [Recreation/Humor] UID:11051 Activity:nil |
11/12 From last year but still funny,
http://satirewire.com/news/feb02/warship.shtml
\_ Why is it funny besides being false? Canada does have Maritime
Command.
\_ umm, no shit. Even if i didn't know that before reading
this very funny spoof, i would have known it afterwards.
It is not at all "false" in the way you mean.
This piece would not be near as funny if it wasn't TRUE.
You are a bit dense. -phuqm
\_ Wow, go back to the store and buy some humor pills. You're
really fucking stiff.
\_ and/or Canadian. I think the ob/gyns up there fasten the
chips on their shoulders at birth.
\_ Those are maple chips^H^H^H^H leaves, eh. |
| 2003/11/13 [Science/GlobalWarming, Science] UID:11052 Activity:high |
11/12 Hey M16 basic-training guy -- shoot me an email; I'm interested in
finding out more about your experiences. TIA. -mice
\_ are you interested in shooting M16s? - !basic-training-guy
\_ As an end unto itself, no. Though I'm interested in hearing
about the guy's experiences in Basic, and in the Military in
general from the POV of an educated guy. I'm also interested
in the technology of the weapon system -- some of his information
general from the POV of an educated guy. I'm also interested in
the technology of the weapon system -- some of his information
contradicts information that I have which is quite reliable.
So I'm curious. -mice
\_ Thanks for the tip. -mice
\_ I recommend History Channel's Tales of the Gun
- !basic-training-guy
\_ Thanks for the tip. -mice
\_ YES! -neither
\_ You bunch of NRA fascists, get off the net! Stop voting for BushCo!
Next you'll be screaming that the 2nd amendment is all about the
government choosing who gets to have or not have a weapon to
defend themselves from the government.
\_ I'm genuinely perplexed. I'm interested because I find this
thingy called 'technology' fascinating. I also enjoy the
history surrounding the development of technology. I really
enjoyed those 'Connections' shows with James Burke when I was
growing up. The funny thing is that very few things tend to
push the technical envelope harder than weapons technologies
largely due to the restrictions placed by human limitations
(weight, physiology, etc). I realize that I'm most likely
being trolled, but it's a little hard to tell sometimes.
\_ We should push progress peacefully not by looking for better
and better ways to kill each other. We can already destroy
the planet 150,000 times over. Stop the madness!
\_ I share your point of view.
history surrounding the development of technology. I really
enjoyed those 'Connections' shows with James Burke when I was
growing up. The funny thing is that very few things tend to push
the technical envelope harder than weapons technologies largely
due to the restrictions placed by human limitations (weight,
physiology, etc). I realize that I'm most likely being trolled,
but it's a little hard to tell sometimes.
\_ I help develop geothermal and biomass powerplants. Green
energy, and all that noise. I agree with the sentiment,
but still have interest in technology.
\_ I share your point of view.
\_ Watch History's Channel "Tactical to Practical",
how military technology affects us in every day life. |
| 2003/11/13-14 [Consumer/Camera] UID:11053 Activity:nil |
11/12 What's the difference between a pixel value and an RGBA value? My
understanding is that RGBA is a 32-bit int w/ 8 bits each for red,
blue, green, and alpha, but I don't know how that maps to a pixel
value.
\_ A pixel "value" is your perception of the light that comes
out of the pixel on the screen. Look at the pixel; you see
white. That's the "value". In color monitors, this corresponds
to the combination of the contributions of the red, green, and
blue guns. Out of RGBA, only RGB contribute (A is opacity and
is used for intermediate computation). RGB can be in any format -
OpenGL supports float or 8-bit int (among others) per channel -
but in general there's a maximum value (in 8 bits, 0xff) that
maps to the maximum brightness. For more details:
http://www.faqs.org/faqs/graphics/colorspace-faq
\_ A pixel 'value' is actually an integer, not a perception of
the light. -- nitpick.
\_ Great Answer -!op
\_ So a pixel is simply a set of color values at the appropriate
transparency?
\_ No, it's the sum of red light, blue light, and green light.
(Why RGB? You have receptors in your eyes that match those
three frequencies.) It has nothing to do with transparency.
Transparency is only used for intermediate calculations
(google "Porter-Duff Compositing")
\_ Yermom told me all about your "pixel"
\_ By the same token, why do graphics cards have 32 bit color and not
just 24 bit ("true") color? Also, I always run windows/games in
16bit, because it's good enough for most things. when does 32bit
color really make things look better?
\_ A graphics card's "32 bit color" is RGBA (8 bits for each).
The monitor only shows RGB. So they are the same. Your eye
can distinguish roughly 1% gradations in intensity, so you
might think you only need 100 color values per channel not
256. But because of "gamma" (nonlinear eye response, which is
partially corrected in the monitor, see the faq above) the
possible values of each channel are not distributed evenly
across what you can perceive. The only real place more than
8 bits / channel is used is medical applications like xrays
where radiologists usually use about 12 bits/channel (and that's
just 12 bits of gray, not colored at all). Summary: 8 bits
per channel is about all that's needed; you wouldn't notice
much if at all if you had more bits per channel.
\_ I can tell the difference between 16-bit and 24-bit color. (It's
easier with some images than others.) Even when transparency
effects aren't used, 32-bit sometimes is preferred over 24-bit
simply because the hardware can shuttle around double-words more
readily than 1.5 words.
\_ also, the card is advertising framebuffer and gpu features
that affect intermediate calculations as well as final
presentation. extra bits helps prevent a lot of visible
artifacts from poorly normalized colors during steps like
alpha compositing, texture mapping, and multi-pass rendering. |
| 2003/11/13 [Uncategorized] UID:11054 Activity:nil |
11/12 What's up with 'dict'?
\_ Dunno. What is up with dict?
\_ It don't work no more.
\_ http://www.dictionary.com
\_ Don't know. Use "webster" instead. |
| 2003/11/13 [Computer/SW/WWW/Browsers] UID:11055 Activity:nil |
11/12 http://dialanorgasm.com (sorta work safe, but watch out for the porn site popup if you're not running Mozilla) \_ teledildonics? \_ What's "Hen's Nights"? |
| 2003/11/13 [Computer/SW/Languages/Perl] UID:11056 Activity:nil |
11/12 I like the proposal below. I motion a Divestiture of MOTD, splitting
motd.public into baby motd's. Partition it into motd.jokes,
motd.politics, motd.technical (IMPORTANT), and motd.troll (for misc).
\_ Ok, whatever. Might as well just setup a web based message board.
\_ http://www.csua.org/motd
\_ Yes?
\_ Nah. Well, we could start a proposal for people to tag their posts
with what type of post it is. It could be just two types for now.
Then use a simple perl-filter script to read the motd.
\_ Uh, yeah, like that would happen. How about people just skip
over the threads they don't find interesting? |
| 2003/11/13 [Recreation/Media] UID:11057 Activity:nil |
11/12 Christopher Lee cut from RoTK:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/film/3265475.stm
\_ this doesn't suck because it's Christopher Lee, it sucks
because it means they're skipping a very important scene.
skipping the scene (which should have been in the second movie)
in which Gandalf confronts Saruman does not bode well for the
third movie, overall.
\_ ehh, won't they just add it back in a special edition?
\_ The scouring won't even be in the movies at all. I'm finding
myself strangely happy with this decision.
\_ I didn't realize he was also Count Dooku. He's a geek god now.
\_ He already was a horror geek god. Do a google on "Hammer
Horror."
\_read http://www.aintitcool.com It talks about why it was cut
from both the 2nd a 3rd movies. It will be in the 2nd movie's
special edition. |
| 2003/11/13-14 [Computer/Networking] UID:11058 Activity:nil |
11/13 Why does someone(people) keep hitting my port 80 looking for 1.3.3.7 ?
(they don't seem too l33t to me, but maybe i'm missing something.)
Remote address is 158.121.109.201, requested domain = 1.3.3.7,
\_ Proxy raping? Do you have a reverse proxy running? |
| 2003/11/13-14 [Politics/Domestic/California, Politics/Domestic/President/Bush] UID:11059 Activity:high |
11/13 Does anyone have any information on these 4 judicial court nominees?
\_ sure. what do you want to know, unless you're being
a troll I have decided
Pickering is not completely totally evil. - danh
\_ Any urls on Pickering?
\_ here's one from the Village Voice where Pickering
does something that I would consider way out of character
for a member of the Federalist Society:
http://www.villagevoice.com/issues/0345/hentoff.php - danh
\_ how about the 63 the little republican bitches blocked during
the Clinton years? 168 nominees have been passed. this is
absurd.
\_ Were they passed from committee to the floor? Were they voted up
or down?
\_ See, these are things you could verify for yourself, but
instead you swallow the GOP claims whole and try to pick
apart statements to the contrary. in '99-00 60% of the
Clinton nominees to appeals court did not receive the
"up or down vote" that the GOP is whining about now.
\_ What was the decision of the judicial committee? The
current committee can't send them to the floor for a vote
because of the filibuster threats, even if the committee
chose to.
\_ What a strange topsy-turvy Alice-In-Wonderland view
of reality.
\_ How so? You're simply ignorant of how our federal
government works. It is standard practice to
not bring up anything for a vote until it is known
that there is support for it to pass. Where "it"
is any bills, nomination, or anything else. It is
very rare for a bill to be voted on without everyone
knowing in advance that it will be passed.
\_ The Republicans who controlled the committee
refused to even hear the nominees:
http://leahy.senate.gov/press/200307/070903.html
\_ Which has nothing to do with the current issue
about whether the above person has an alice
in wonderland view or not.
\_ The NAACP on Carolyn Kuhl:
http://www.naacp.org/work/washington_bureau/Kuhl081303.shtml
People for the American Way on Caroline Kuhl:
http://www.pfaw.org/pfaw/general/default.aspx?oid=9734
The NAACP on Priscilla Owen:
http://www.naacp.org/work/washington_bureau/PriscillaOwen.pdf
The Independent Judiciary on Priscilla Owen:
link:csua.org/u/4zp (PDF)
\_ The National Assocation For The Advancement of Left Wing
Colored People?
\_ For a strict constructionist, you take a lot of liberties
in adding a letter to that acronym.
\_ Just calling it like I see it. Why is an .org that says
it is for the advancement of black people opposed to a
black person advancing? Only because she's not left wing.
I take no liberties.
\_ Bzzt. Because she's against the advancement of
colored people when those colored people are not her.
You can't promote an Uncle Tom and then say you're
advancing the cause of black people.
\_ You don't know shit about her background, do you?
Come back after reading her bio. I'm not going to
spoon feed you the reader's digest version.
\_ My fiancee is an attorney, has appeared in front of Judge Kuhl,
and thinks she's pretty much horrible ... ideology aside (she's
very right wing), my fiancee felt she doesn't follow the law.
\_ Very few judges follow the law and there's little recourse
in most cases starting from small claims and family court all
the way up. A judge "not following the law" is hardly a
reason to not promote a judge in this country. If that was the
standard we'd have to start all over. Your fiancee is rather
naive for a lawyer. She must be quite young. Don't worry,
though, she'll be corrupt and bitter soon enough.
\_ There's following the letter of the law and following the
spirit of the law, and then there's not following the law
at all. The first two are highly debated, but the third is
universally recognised as being wrong. Kuhl has a tendency
to go with her personal belief even when they conflict with
the latter _and_ spirit of the law.
\_ There's no difference between a judge following what they
decide is the spirit of the law and doing whatever the
hell they please. They're either following the law or not
and as soon as it's ok to do something other than strictly
adhere to the law as written, the show is over, anything
goes. It is intellectually dishonest to claim you want
judges to follow the law, kind of, sort of, sometimes.
\_ Thank you, strict constructionist. According to your
view of the law, it is illegal to wink at an
unacquainted female in Ottumwa, Iowa, and anyone
caught doing so must be prosecuted to the full extent
of the law, despite the fact that modern morality
significantly differs from the morality prevalent at
the time the legislation was enacted. The purpose of
the judicial branch is to add the element of human
wisdom to the process of the law. Without loose
interpretation, the law is merely code, and the
executive branch has all the power.
\_ No, enforcement and the decision to prosecute lay
this other person we call "the prosecutor". In some
places we call this person "the district attorney".
Yes, this will be on your Basic Civics 1A quiz at
the end of the week.
\_ Following the law is secondary. Bush appointees must be
ideologically pure. The right-wing is terrified of another
Souter.
\_ No we just want judges to follow the law. So you attack us
for being strict constructionists and then you attack us for
not wanting to follow the law at all. You can't get it both
ways without looking like an idiot.
\_ Like Roy Moore, right: that conservative who was just
removed from the Alabama Supreme Court for acting like
an Anarchist?
\_ try upholding Alabama Constitution, which mentions
God. They take on oath.
\_ He also has to uphold the U.S. Constitution, and the
U.S. Constitution takes precedence over state ones.
\_ Where in the USC does it say he can't have the
10 commandments in a public space? I'm a
strict atheist (none of that agnostic weenie
stuff for me) and I've got no problem with it.
The USC says no such thing. In God We Trust.
\_ He was ordered by a higher court to remove
it and refused to. That is not called
enforcing the law, that is called breaking it.
\_ Uh oh, looks like a debate bait n switch!
So you agree the USC doesn't say any such
thing. Now let's address your new point.
He has the right to refuse. He has the
right to appeal. He has the right to
protest and engage in an act of civil
disobedience. This is still a free
country. The word of a higher court, even
the highest court is not always the
correct decision. He has the right to say
no and suffer the legal, political, and
career consequences of his protest and
has bravely chosen to do so. I'm stunned
that you'd come on here and say that just
because a court said something that it is
automatically 'good' and he should blindly
obey. I'd scream "fascist!" but I don't
think you really understood or believed
what you were saying above.
\_ You claim that you want judges that
follow the law, then in the next
statement, claim that judges have
the "right" to engage in civil
disobedience??? The USC clearly
states that the Federal Governemnt
is sovereign over the states. Look
at the statement "the US Constitution
takes precedent over state ones" and
you will see that it is you that keeps
trying to change the subject away from
judicial responsibilty to obey and
enforce the law. I'd scream "hypocrite"
but I don't think you'd really
understand what the word means.
\_ thanks -nivra
\_ We don't need to vote! We already know they're all eevvviiill
BushCo Republicans! We only vote on people we like!
\_ How many Bush nominees have already been voted on?
\_ right. Bush is the only one who likes to talk about EVIL.
Evil. A big issue in the world today. Domestic violence, war,
it's all just evil. Why doesn't Bush declare war on Satan?
\_ BushCo won't declare war on Satan because BushCo is Eevvvill!
We all know BushCo reports directly to Satan!! Like all the
eeeeevvvvviiill!! Republicans! Eeevvviiill! |
| 2003/11/13 [Politics/Foreign/MiddleEast/Iraq] UID:11060 Activity:nil |
11/13 link:famulus.msnbc.com/FamulusIntl/reuters11-12-212426.asp?reg=MIDEAST Iraq insurgency was planned by Saddam \_ Your article says that "some U.S. Commanders" believe this. I bet "some U.S. Commanders" also believe in the tooth fairy, that doesn't necessarily make it so. |
| 2003/11/13-14 [Recreation/House] UID:11061 Activity:high |
11/13 When I grow up, I'm going to be a chair engineer.
\_ When? If. |
| 2003/11/13-14 [Computer/SW/OS/OsX] UID:11062 Activity:high |
11/13 I reinstalled OS X and that fixed my mouse problem. I installed Office
X and it seemed to be working ok. Yesterday it was printing random
characters but I rebooted and that problem went away. But today WordX
has crashed twice so far. This doesn't sound normal... what could
be causing this? Old hardware? Corrupt installation? --osx newbie
\_ What version, what hardware, clean install?
\_ G3, 10.2.x, I didn't wipe the machine clean.
\_ Install Windows 2000. I've never had such problems. I'm still
on the same install I did when win2k first came out.
\_ Yes? And how many patches have you installed?
\_ A *LOT* however the machine has never been super fucked
like this guy's Mac.
\_ I don't think that G3's support Win2k.
\_ Sorry, I forgot the rest of the followup: buy real hardware
and stop getting ripped off at http://apple.com where you pay more
for less.
\_ How about stop flaming? How old is the Mac vs. PC flame?
\_ It was never a war. The tiny battle that was was over
in the 80s. And it isn't a flame. It's real. Buy
real hardware that has real support and run real
software from a part of the computer world that has
more than a 3.5% market share and you'll pay less and
get more support if something does happen. This guy
has been posting about his problems for days and the
best anyone could come up with is to reinstall the
whole fucking OS from scratch. What a load of crap.
I'm a unix guy but I wouldn't use apple's bastard
child if you paid me. I tried it and got rid of it
before the server room melted from the sheer and
complete stupidity that apple inflicted upon the
world with yet another almost-but-not-quite unix.
\_ What is the UNIX (not Linux) market share?
\_ popularity does not correlate to quality
\_ I'll stop using my Apple when people stop driving
BMWs, Daimler Benzs, Ferraris, and every other car
with less than 5% market share.
\_ So you equate low market share with quality?
How about you tell that guy what was wrong with
his mouse and how to fix it without a full
reinstall? Apple = Mercedes? Dream on. A
computer has only one purpose: to compute. Duh.
An x86 will do more computing for less money.
The rest is bullshit, illusions, hype, and the
Steve Jobs unreality zone.
\_ don't get me wrong, i largely agree with you,
but you are aware that the quality of
mercedes has been going down ever since the
merger with chrysler, right? and if a
computer's only purpose is "to compute,"
does a car have any purpose beyond going
from one place to another? |
| 2003/11/13-14 [Recreation/House] UID:11063 Activity:moderate |
11/13 Where I work we have a couple types of office chairs, both pretty
comfortable. They have a lever on one side that lets you raise
and lower the height, which makes sense. But in addition to that,
there's this crazy lever on all of them that spontaneously tilts the
seat forward, catapulting the user out of the chair. What the hell
is the point of this "eject lever?" I just don't get it.
\_ Eject, Maverick! Eject!
\_ use in case of "meeting going bad".. Eject!
\_ For meetings. You hit the other person's eject lever without
letting them hit yours.
\_ The lever adjusts the tilt of the seat pan. Very often, it's more
comfortable to work with the seat tilted slightly forward. Try
tilting a chair like that about 5-10 degrees forward down and using
it for a day. You might be surprised.
\_ ok, i'll try it. but some of the chairs also have a catapult
action of the *back* of the chair, which really launches people,
and is definitely more than a 10 degree action. I swear this
is some chair engineers' sick joke.
\_ I actually pitch my chair forward when I'm working
on small mechanical devices. Fixing motherboards,
working on small models, helps my back stay in a
good position.
\_ I pitch my chair forward the entire time I work at my desk.
It makes me sit high, so the monitor is tilted up. Also,
the keyboard is tilted horizontal or slightly backward.
It keeps the spine straight, and is good for the back.
\_ coitus |
| 2003/11/13 [Computer/SW/Editors/Vi] UID:29633 Activity:nil |
11/13 vi .login
delete "more /etc/motd" line
save
Goodbye fuckers! Its been a terrible six years, lemme tell ya!
\_ vi .login
jjjjjjjjjj
i
alias m more /etc/motd.public <esc>
ZZ
m .... m ... m
\_ shouldn't you just be touch'ing .hushlogin?
\_ wow, what a dufus. as if the rest of us hadn't done that and
made aliases in the first week we had an account. i doubt we'll
miss you or your mad tek skillz. |
| 6/4 |