12/2    When filling up my quota on soda recently, I discovered two files
        in my .spamassassin folder in my home dir taking up about 10MB of
        space. Can I delete these? Will my spam filter return many more
        false positives? Are there shared bayes* files somewhere on soda
        that people use?
        \_ the bayes* files are specific to your spam corpus. sharing
           the token files would be counterproductive.
           \_ not necessarily, but it would be somewhat less effective.
              exactly how much is debateable.
           \_ which one can we safely delete?  I see four bayes* files.
              It has gotten big.  I need to clean up.  bayes_journal,
              bayes_msgcount, bayes_seen, bayes_toks.

12/2    "I sed bad wurds," he wrote.
        When asked what he should have done, he replied, "cep my mouf shut."
        Gotta love the language skills down in Louisiana.
        \ebonics

12/2    What are the pros and cons of disc brakes vs. drum brakes?  Why do
        big trucks and buses have drum brakes and small cars have disc brakes?
        obGoogle:
        http://www.edmunds.com/ownership/techcenter/articles/43857/article.html
        I like it when people ask questions that are easily answered by
        google because it makes me look up things that I was interested in
        but never got around to looking up.
        \_ with disc brakes and drum brakes you pollute the environment,
           destroy communities, waste your money and turn into a fatass.
           with living near enough to work to not drive you don't.
           \_ there are arguments to be made about why it's a bad idea to
              cram a lot of people in tight quarters.
                \_ stupid arguments.
                     \_ Animals can be driven insane by placing too many of
                        them into too small a space. Man is the only animal
                        that voluntarily does this to himself. -RAH
                     \_ Although I don't have the statistics readily avail.
                        I'd give long odds that Murder rates (per capita)
                        are higher in densly populated cities vs. rural areas.
        \_ price (drum) vs performance (disc)
        \_ yeah, that is the drawback of some of the subarus.
        \_ When I took my autoshop class, they told me the opposite. Drum
           brakes can stopper better than disc brakes because drums pads have
           more surface area than disc brake pads;however, drums take longer
           to brake (building up heat/friction or what not) than discs do,
           but once they do "kick-in" they have more stopping power.
           \_ So it's an issue of reaction time vs. braking power, and sports
              cars need reaction time.

12/2    FYI, after the APA Board of Trustees removed homosexuality as a
        disorder from DSM-II in 1973, there was a big uproar from
        psychiatrists.  The issue was brought to a referendum, and out of
        ~ 10,000 votes, 58% voted that it should be removed from DSM-II.
        http://www.worldandi.com/public/1997/april/ar5.cfm
        \_ Wow.  Science by vote.
           \_ of course. it's fundamental principle which democracy
                is build upon.  We can not allow few elites hijack
                the reality and the truth.  Science should belong to the
                oridinary people.
           \_ In a qualitative science, could you do any better?
              \_ Wtf is a qualitatiave science?
                 \_ One that relies on qualitative data.  I.e. "He was
                    diagnosed as crazy" vs. "He is 73.2% crazy"
                 \_ Contrast with quantitative. It's fuzzy science, if it is
                    science at all.
                    \_ That was sort of my point.  There are no fuzzy sciences.
                       There are analytic sciences (mathematics), and
                       empirical sciences (biology, physics, etc.).
                       \_ then, there is Chemistry. you can argue that it's
                          not a science at all.  -- ex Chem Eng major

12/2    If anyone wants to see a video of some guy beating mario bros 3 in
        ~11 minutes, look at /csua/tmp/mariobros3.wmv (~18 MB).
        \_ out of curiosity, why is that interesting/impressive?
           \_ what, is that too slow for you? maybe i'm just easily impressed.
              \_ No, specifically, what about it is impressive?  Did he find
                 a shortcut through, and then memorize the moves?  Or is that
                 the whole game?  Or ...  Basically, "what makes this
                 impressive?", from someone who hasn't played the game but
                 is randomly curious...
                 \_ just watch it, the guy makes almost no unnecessary
                    movements.  there are just some sequences that are
                    incredibly well-timed. -- !op
                    \_ no unnecessary movements except for getting nonstop
                       1-ups on the scroller levels.  that's just showing
                       off. -geordan
             \_ It's amazing because he beat the whole game in 11+ minutes when
                it should've taken an hour or so (at least with my sad gaming
                skills). Also, he did it with such minimal movements (well,
                minimal while still getting 99 lives).
        \_ Amazing. I would say flawless but one of his cards was a mushroom
           and not a star.
           \_ That's intentional. If he got 3 stars it would take longer
              to play the little anthem and award free lives, which he
              really had enough of. -bz
              \_ Genius. Pure Genius.
        \_ Wow!  Absolutely incredible.
        \_ He used an emulator to slow speed down to 1/30th, also saved and
           reloaded.
           \_ I thought it was too perfect.  You have a URL to back up that
              claim?
           \_ it looks like it was captured from a real NES.  Emulators don't
              produce the weird screen artifacts on the side.
           \_ http://soramimi.egoism.jp/emu.htm is Morimoto's web page.
              He describes doing exactly what is asserted here.         -brain
              \_ That's great, he describes it... in Japanese!
                 \_ You've never heard of http://babelfish.altavista.com ?
                    (Mind you, you need a good sense of humor to work
                    through it....)
        \_ The part where he got 74 1-up's had me giggling like a little
           schoolgirl.
        \_ You should all watch Quake done Quick

12/2    One of my students (anonymously) sent me a note saying:
        "Next class, can you please say "Baheb Gazmitak" to the class??"
        I'm pretty sure I'm being screwed with. But I don't know what this
        means (nor what language it's in). Ideas? Turkish friends throught it
        was Farsi, but a Farsi friend said it's not Farsi ...
        \_ if you say it, he probably won't be so anonymous.
           \_ Likely. I'd like to avoid the presumed embarrassment to find out
              though.
        \_ "But Here Goes My Talk"?
           \_ Serious? What language is that?
              \_ I just said it quickly in my head and that's what it sounded
                 like.  It also sounds a little like "Butthead goes..."
                 \_ that reminds me of this forward i got once where these guys
                    went around a london airport getting airport personnel to
                    say their pseudo-foreign-sounding, actually-dirty-phrase
                    made-up names.
                    \_ or that time during finals week when someone got the
                       (female)library announcer to say "will mike hunt please
                       come the third floor circulation desk."
                    \_ Man...sometimes people are really weird.
                       \_ well, don't get me wrong, it was pretty funny.
        \_ hebrew?

12/2    Anyone play puzzlepirates?
        \_ wouldn't you rather play buttpirates instead?
           \_ you mean that game you invoke by typing vi /etc/motd.public?

12/2    Anyone here play FFXI?  If so, what server are you on?
        Titan: .
        \_ Is that any good?  -- MMORPG fan
           \_ I like it, and am really hooked on it.  But I've never played
              any of the other MMORPGs except for Ragnarok Online for a short
              time.  And that doesn't really count.  You're better off reading
              online forums for reviews than from me, since I have nothing to
              compare to. -op
        \_ How about FFX-2?  --sky
           \_ My roomate has rented X-2.  He says it plays like an expansion
              pack for FFX, is light on story, repetitive, and not fun.
              I's also like to give a shout-out for FFTA.

12/2    LaTeX thread deleted by op
        \_ DUDE!  How can you be deleting latex threads?  This is the MOTD!

12/2    I want to allow users to change their passwords via a webpage (they
        don't have shell access), but I don't really understand PAM and most
        of the stuff I see out there is for Linux. Unfortunately, my machine
        is running Solaris. Any pointers on how to start writing this
        (or a script that already exists) or why this is a bad idea?
        \_ You could feed their passwords to the passwd command (or whatever)
           using something like expect, running from a CGI script.
           \_ urgh!

12/2    Anyone here modify their Linksys WRT54G?  I'm looking for interesting
        software to put on it.

12/2    Not even in the top 10? We lost to CANADIANS? We lost to EASTERN
        WASHINGTON UNIVERSITY? This is degrading. Back when I was an
        undergrad we used to stomp the competition. Undergrads, stop reading
        the motd and start programming more.
 http://icpc.baylor.edu/icpc/regionals/ViewRegionalStandings.asp?ContestID=647
        \_ More importantly, we lost to the Tree.  Shit!
        \_ UC Davis beat us.  Can we talk about the healthy farm girls at
           Davis vs the drug addicted berkeley whores?
           \_ mmmm, drug addicted whores.  Cheap and Easy, just like we like 'em.
           \_ Yee ha!

12/2    Research on Ecstacy is Clouded by Errors
        http://www.nytimes.com/2003/12/02/science/02ECST.html
        \_ Not surprising.  Most people I've seen on X aren't the greatest
           examples of lucidity.
           \_ uh, the scientists who ran the flawed study weren't
              the ones on ecstacy.  in fact nobody in the study was.
              \_ Whoosh!
           \_ Whoa.  Someone commented on an URL link without reading the
              URL?  SHOCKER!
              \_ Okay.  It was a joke.  Sorry for confusing you.
              \_ INCLUDE YOUR CHILDREN WHEN BAKING COOKIES
                 \_ NEW STUDY FOR OBESITY LOOKS FOR LARGER TEST GROUP.
                    \_ PROSTITUTES APPEAL TO POPE
                       \_ ALL DRUG ADDICTS HAVE EATEN A POTATO AT SOME
                          POINT IN THEIR LIVES.
        \_ Y'all gonna keep them brain doctors working when you're 60.

12/2    I'm using godaddy as my registrar and they don't serve subdomains for
        free.  What do people here use for their nameservers?
        \_ My own machine as a hidden primary, and http://secondary.com (now
           UltraDNS) as the public primaries.

12/2    According to my students (after class), "Baheb Gazmitak" is Arabic
        for "I like your shoes".

12/2    http://www.m-w.com/cgi-bin/dictionary?neoconservative
        "a former liberal espousing political conservatism"

12/2    Is it possible to search for punctuation characters with Google?
        e.g. the string "?????".

12/2    Whatever happened to all the former active CSUA members who are
        now grad students? Why don't they post? Are they too busy with
        their thesis or somethin'? Any one of them profs now?
        \_ They got a clue and stopped wasting time here?
        \_ here's a scary question: do any CSUA'ers have children?
           \_ I know one that has 7.
           \_ Children come from fork()ing.
                \_ Some CSUAers do the fork()ing required to have children.
                   Norby and tabloyd have 2.  Others I know of are expecting.
                   Any more?
                    \_ Depending on your religious convictions I have one or
                        will likely have one in April. -crebbs
                        \_ Is it from a sodan-sodan union or is she not
                           a sodan?
                            \_ Not even a Cal Grad. (UCSD) -crebbs

12/2    Laruie Mylroie: The Neocons' favorite conspiracy theorist:
        http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/features/2003/0312.bergen.html
        \_ Can someone please define "neocon" for me?  It appeared a while back
           criticizing conservatives, but I have yet to see a definition other
           than "sounds scary".

12/2    What's so special about the Scott Peterson case that deserves all the
        media coverage?  I'm sure there are many more other husband-murdering-
        wife cases in the country throughout the year, yet we don't hear about
        those everyday.
        \_ Nothing.  It doesn't deserve the coverage.  Now shut up.  I don't
           want to hear about it anymore.
        \_ They're both photogenic.  He was having an affair.  She disappeared
           while 8 months pregnant on Christmas Eve.  He changed his
           appearance and hid, then hired a celebrity lawyer.
           \_ Actually, it really is just your first point. They're relatively
              attractive people.
              \_ I think without the other salacious details, the story would
                 have died long ago.
           \_ It started out as a missing-persons story on Christmas Eve.  That
              started the drama.
              \_ Then they found out Scott Peterson had been having an affair;
                 Laci Peterson's family was shocked, drove over to Scott
                 Peterson's house, and took back all of Laci's stuff.
        \_ It will all be forgotten once the Michael Trial kicks into high gear.
           Remember OJ?  You ain't seen nothin' yet.
        \_ What's special is that pro-lifers are using the case to write new
           law that erodes the basis of Roe v. Wade by making murder of an
           unborn fetus a specific crime.
           \_ It is difficult to erode that which does not exist. -phuqm
              \_ ah, a pro-life libertarian.  If I didn't have to share a
                 country whith shitheads like you, I would actually find
                 this amusing.
              \_ Thanks, Yoda.  Any more mysterious epithets for us?
           \_ IIRC, the justification is that Scott couldn't get the death
              penalty just for murdering Laci.  Funny how a pro-life law is
              being passed so as to enable an execution...
           \_ Oh boy, here comes the pile-on...
           \_ Actually, that seems a lot more reasonable to me than what it
              normally done.  The legal tradition is that killing of an
              unborn fetus is murder.
              \_ That's not even true in the bible.  Sit down before you
                 fall down.

12/2    I'm sick of using a razor everyday. I'm giving up and switching
        to an electric. Any favorites out there?
        I'm leaning towards the Braun Syncro right now.
        \_ Electric ones are a PITA too.  Just shave in the shower.
        \_ I like the beam-of-light ones from the UFP.
        \_ Panasonic Wet and Dry.  You can rinse it with water.
        \_ You won't get as good a shave, and I have yet to find an electric
           that doesn't feel like it's yanking the hair out, but if that doesn't
           bug you then you're fine.
           \_ I only get the yanking feeling from the circular head ones. That
              Panasonic is probably good, I use a Braun that's pretty convenient
              and works well except a bit tricky on my neck hairs.
        \_ Offtopic, but anyone here ever use a straight razor and strop?
           I can't stand electrics _or_ safety razors... -John
           \_ My brother uses one, but he does it just to be old-school.

12/2    What's a quick way to find the length of the longest line in a file?
        \_ perl -p -e'print length $_; s/.*//' <file> |sort -n|tail -1
           \_ perl -pe 's/.*/length/e'
           \_ perl -pe 's/.*/length $_/e'
           \_ perl -lpe '$_=length'
              however this automatically chomps the trailing newline, so
              you'll need to add 1 to the result if you care about them.
              -geordan
                \_ what does the l do? which perldoc describes cmdline args?
                   \_ man perlrun
           \_ awk '{print length}'
        \_ awk '{L=L>length?L:length}END{print L}' <FILE>
           \_ perl -pe 's/.*/length $_/e'
              -geordan
           no sort or tail needed. beat that!

12/2    To those who got NSF funding, what were your GRE (general & subject)
        scores? I have a good GPA but my GRE scores suck so I'm not sure
        whether it is worth my time applying. Thanks!
        \_ They are primarily looking for quality research.  You should
           talk to your advisor about this.   The motd is just going to tell
           you that "you don't understand how it works" and that you won't
           get money without promising to agree with the opinions of the
           evil environmentalist jewish scientist conspiracy.  They do
           expect top grades and scores, but primarily look at the
           research project description.  I did not bother to apply
           (also because of lousy grades), but I know people who've gotten
           it who's grades were not quite tip-top, and I know people who've
           been involved in the selection process who said that grades are
           not their top criterion(although they are important.)
        \_ 1. it's too late for this year by a month already. 2. flavour-of-
           the-year research is useful. 3. write in short, non-brainpower-
           consuming sentences, at least according to my advisor. 4. apparently
           you need to claim that this work will have REAL, BIG, NON-
           CONTRIVERSIAL impact, and that this imact will apply to the world
           at large. 5. human rights and protecting people's ability to
           communicate in the face of repressive regimes is apparently
                                      \_ Are you a liberal America hater?
                                         \_ Yes, she is.  -- ilyas
                                            \_ A concise illustration of why
                                               anonymity is preferable on the
                                               motd.
                                               \_ Would you rather have the
                                                  motd consist solely
                                                  of disembodied jokes, for
                                                  fear someone will take
                                                  something seriously, get
                                                  offended and sue?  -- ilyas
                                                  \_ Disembodied jokes?  You're
                                                     a sharp guy, ilya, but
                                                     sometimes you're kinda
                                                     weird.     -mice
                                                  \_ Who said anything about
                                                     fear or lawsuits?  The
                                                     motd is just more fun
                                                     when you don't have to
                                                     worry about actually
                                                     offending anyone in
                                                     particular.
           not something you want to put in your SoP. -chialea, who doesn't
           have any NSF fellowship, but has another one, and just applied
                \_ has another what? non-NSF fellowship?
                \_ DAMN! So when was the deadline, and can continuing
                   grad students (2-4th year MS/PhD) apply? Do they look
                   at your undergrad GPA?
                   \_ oh, for fucks sake, just rtfwp:
                      http://www.ehr.nsf.gov/dge/programs/grf
           \_ chialea, I'm desperate for $ and I missed the deadline. How
              about FAFSA, is that a viable option?   -poor grad student
              \_ errr... beats me. there are lots of other fellowships which
                 have january deadlines. email me at leak@cs.cmu.edu and
                 tell me what year you are and so on, and I'd be happy to
                 give you a list culled from cmu. -chialea
          \_ You could always sell yer ass for $20.
          \_ medical research and taking sruveys are good instant sources of
             cash

12/2    "Betry us, loose 2004"
        \_ huh?

12/2    "Iran is a more complex problem because the problem is not as clearly
        verifiable as it is in North Korea. Also, we have less - fewer levers.
        The key, I believe, to Iran is pressure through the Soviet Union.
        The Soviet Union is supplying much of the equipment that Iran, I
        believe, most likely is using to set itself along the path of
        developing nuclear weapons. We need to use that leverage with the
        Soviet Union and it may require us buying the equipment the Soviet
        Union was ultimately going to sell to Iran to prevent Iran from
        developing nuclear weapons."  -- Howard Dean (as of a few days ago)
        \_ source?
           \_ Statement on Hardball with Chris Matthews on MSNBC.
              \_ Picked up by http://RushLimbaugh.com
                 \_ Better quote:
                    "Dean's ignorance of how people get their news
                    - and hostility towards letting them choose it
                    - is truly frightening, as is his quip that
                    he'd break up Fox News Channel "on ideological
                    grounds." Imagine the outrage if Bush made a
                    similar statement about CNN!" --Rush Limbaugh
                    \_ I can't tell: is this better because you agree with it?
                       \_ Dean did say he would break up Fox on ideological
                          grounds which makes him sound scary, rather than
                          stupid, like the first quote.  However, I think it
                          was meant to be a joke in context of the show.
                          I didn't find it particularly funny myself.
                          \_ obviously it's not scary if it's a "quip".
                             How about this comment:
                             "If this were a dictatorship, it'd be a heck of a
                             lot easier...just as long as I'm the dictator..."
                                                        -- GW Bush, 2000
                             \_ Benevolent dictatorship, ho!
        \_ What Soviet Union?
           \_ Exactly.  This whole thread seems to miss the original point,
              which is that Dean's a moron.

12/2    texperts please help!  I'm using the book documentclass, and for some
        reason the first chapter has the words "list of figures" printed at the
        top of each page as if that were the name of the chapter (which it
        isn't)  what could have caused this?  I've used both \chapter
        and \mainmatter before the pages where I'm seeing the problem.
        thanks.

12/2    More stupidity over homosexuality:
        http://csua.org/u/54w

12/2    So why did emarkp have the motd locked for like an hour?
        \_ Because motdedit sucks.
           \_ I closed the motd in my vim session, but did not quit vim.  I
              promise not to use motdedit again.  Why the session didn't expire
              on its own is beyond me. -emarkp
              [Oh, and by the way, the reason I left the vim session up was to
              keep a copy of the edit I made in the buffer in case it was
              overwritten.  Ironically, this bracketed statement was overwritten
              just after I posted it.]
              \_ Yeah, motdedit DOES suck.  Wow.  No more motdedit.
              \_ You did not quit vim; you did send it SIGSTOP.  -jon
                 [grammar god]
                 \_ Apparently you don't understand how vim uses buffers.  I
                    closed the buffer that the motd was in.  I left a different
                    buffer open which contained a copy of the text I'd added to
                    the motd.  Then I ctrl-Z'ed it so I could restore the text
                    if it was overwritten.  I didn't state anywhere that I
                    "quit vim".  This is an incompatibility between my chosen
                    method of preserving my edits to the motd and motdedit.  The
                    way I will fix the incompatibility is by ceasing to use
                    motdedit.  Thanks for bringing it to my attention, but in
                    the future, feel free to nwrite me and ask me about it
                    instead of simply invoking root to kill the process. -emarkp
                    \_ grow up.
                       \_ Hey, I'm the one signing my name--not you.  And what
                          in the above comment suggests that I need to "grow
                          up"? -emarkp
                    \_ you apparently don't understand child processes.
                       \_ Yes, I do.  However, I have not investigated the inner
                          workings of motdedit, nor was I thinking carefully
                          about it when I was editing the motd. -emarkp
                 \_ SIGTSTP, as tom has corrected -jon
        \_ Why do you ask the question about me by name but fail to sign your
           own? -emarkp
           \_ because he's a jackass. --emarkp #1 fan