12/7    In KDE3, how can I get it so that when I double-click in the
        upper left corner of the window, the window closes (like in
        MS Windows). Right now it doesn't close it, rather it just
        opens up the menu associated with that little button).

12/7    put this into google: "miserable failure"

12/7    No Child Left Behind
        http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/south_asia/3298945.stm

12/7    The Last Samurai was REALLY GOOD. It's eerily similar ot Dances with
        Wolves.
        \_ so basically you are saying all alien cultures should seek a great
           white hope to rediscover its roots?
        \_The name in japanese (on the posters) is actually "Way of
          the Samurai"...a much better name.  The Last Samurai as a
          title makes me think its all about some honkey (Cruise) being the
          last samurai, which would be pethetic at best. -scottyg
        \_ Which was visually beautiful but is a really crappy movie.
           \_ Yes.  Last Samurai sounds like another movie about a White Dude
              who gets all Soulful and Righteous after he hangs with the
              Exotic Other.  Bah.
              \_ not just some white dude. an evil scientologist.
                 fuck that shit.  i don't like MPAA, but i'll take MPAA
                 over CoS any day of the fucking week, and you better
                 believe those bastards will get several million bucks from
                 any successful film with Cruise.
                \_ why do you guys hate your own people? Personally, I have
                   no problem watching movies where the great white samurai
                   bring in his superior white culture into the savages and
                   gets whatever he wants from them, like respect, women, etc
                   \_ hate my own people?  you think i'm a scientologist?
                      re-read my rant.  i don't give a shit about this
                      movie or race as an issue in general, i just
                      really really really hate scientologists.
                      also, scientology isn't a race.
                      \_ Ever read "Operation Clambake"?
                         \_ of course.
                   \_ Troll harder, stupid-san.  The ways of the samurai
                      are tough to master.
                      \_ dict irony
                         \_ Wow.  There are some shitty definitions of the
                            word irony in there.  Thanks, I never knew how
                            innaccurate dict was!
                 \_ Amen to that. I'll pass on staring at closeups of Cruise's
                    smug, unshaven face for two hours. From the director of
                    Legends of the Fall? I didn't see that either and hope I
                    never do.
                    \_ I liked both "Legends of the Fall" and "Dances With
                       "Wolves". I guess this movie is for me.
        \_ I liked "Ghost Dog" better. That's a kickass cultural-crossing
           samurai movie.
           \_ Ghost Dog was awesome. Curiously enough, it's star was also a
              well-known scientologist.

12/7    When the US and Soviets took over Berlin towards the end of the war
        both sides took much of the gold and monetary reserves hidden in
        Munich as reparation for WW2. Why can't we do the same for Iraq?
        \_ Because we invaded them under false pretenses and without cause?
           \_ 'False pretenses' is arguable.  'Without cause' is simply false.
              \_ Find a copy of "Uncovered:"
              Getting rid of Hussein is a moral enough cause for me.
              \_ I actually agree with you on the moral cause- but I meant
                 political cause, which for the US (for most of the last
                 century) has always been to counter aggression on another's
                 part.
                 Bringing morals into the equation requires that we then
                 prioritize the list of evil henchman to destroy-- and
                 Hussein, while definitely near the front of the list,
                 doesn't top it.
                 \_ out of curiosity, who does top the list?
                    personally, i think toppling hussein was more of a moral
                    imperative than some random Evil Guy because of the
                    harm we were doing there with sanctions all those years.
                    we had to either get rid of hussein or the sanctions.
                    \_ Osama would be #1 (*), Kim Jong Il (though he's too
                       nutty to attack, something should be done about him),
                       and whoever's driving the slaughters in Africa-- it's
                       not on the media radar (so much so that I can't even
                       name the country) but the number of murders there is
                       approaching Holocaust proportions.  Your point about
                       sanctions is well-taken.
                       (*) Part of the reason I'm upset about Iraq is that
                           it seems like blame shifting-- "Since Osama is too
                           hard to find [or who knows, maybe he was crushed
                           in a cave somewhere], let's attack a guy we know
                           we can find... all those Arabs look alike anyway."
                           \_ except for the part about how apparently we
                              can't find that guy either.
                              \_ ... the best-laid plans of vice and vermin
                    \_ There are a lot of evil guys in the world.  For one,
                        Royal Families in Saudi Arabia. Unlike Iraq, nor Iran
                        for that matter, Saudis are *KNOWN* for their link to
                        al Qaeda.
                        Further, the war was sold based upon weapon of mass
                        destruction.  If anything, North Koreans are the one
                        who is closest of getting the nuke and multi-stage
                        missile.  Why didn't we invade N.Korea instead?
                        Most war of aggression are waged under the moral
                        \_ Why didn't we invade NK instead?  Man, do I
                           wish we could.  But the fact is, even w/o
                           nukes NK has enough artillery on the border
                           to reduce Seoul to rubble within 24 hours.
                           THAT'S why we didn't invade.
                        \_ Ok, name one such war.
                           \_ Opium War, in the name of white man's burden.
                        ground in the history of man kind.  This is not an
                        exception neter.

12/7    Learning OCAML. What the ****[fuck] is with the syntax? It seems like
        these people made a more creative pass at the Intercal concept.
        \_ What's this used for anyway? Looks like something dumped on the
           world by the French.
        \_ (a) It grows on you, trust me
           (b) You can redefine the entire syntax if you don't like it
               using ocamlp4
                 -- ilyas
           \_ No it doesn't. Most people don't have as much growing
              on them as you do, ilyas.

12/7    $20,000 per Household: The Highest Level of Federal
        Spending Since World War II
        Have you received your 20,000$ worth?
        http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1036016/posts
        \_ Absolutely.
        \_ Bad freeper troll. The original statement of USGOV spending $20K
           per household differs from implying that everyone gets $20K.
           \_ Well no SHIT...  Humour is so fucking lost on you people.
        \_ Liberating Iraq from the horrors of Saddam Hussein is worth
           $20,000 to me.
           \_ What about the horrors of George W. Bush?  So far we've killed
              about 10,000 Iraqis in this little war alone, and we've only
              been there since March...
        \_ What he do that was any different from any number of oppressive
           fuckers out there in the world right now? Also: did he threaten
           you personally or something, or do you just not like his 'stache?
           \_ Fine, you let them go spend your $20,000.  I want mine back!
        \_ What did Saddam do that was any different from any number of
           oppressive fuckers out there in the world right now? Also:
           did he threaten you personally or something, or do you just
           not like his 'stache?

12/7    White House concerned about the fairness of the Russian election:
        http://csua.org/u/56k
        \_ Anyone remember a crooked African elecion that happened like a year
           ago and the USGOV expressed concerns about fairness and the African
           politician offered to send observers to our next election and made
           some quip along the lines of Pot vs. Kettle.
           \_ Didn't Diebold sue to get this supressed?

12/8    c++ question, how do I overload << in my class so it will handle
        endl? ie: myclass << "some string" << endl
        I know how to do the "some string" part:
                myclass & operator << (const char * s);
        what about endl?
        Thanks!!
        \_ I thought endl was just a regular char* too.
        \_ what self-respecting c++ programmer doesn't have a copy of
           stroustrup available? it's in there.
           \_ Don't know about you, but the stroustrup text blows chunks.
              It is nowhere close to being something like K&R. The text
              I usually refer to (but no doubt is incomplete, but hey, that's
              what you get with a badly designed kludge of a language) is
              the Lippman text we used in CS61B. I rarely have to use
              anything arcane like overloading operators, and I think
                                        \_ overloading operators is fine
                                           if it's not done stupidly.
                                           C = A + B has a very well-defined
                                           and clear meaning if A, B, C are
                                           square matrices of size N, for
                                           example.  Overloading + to do
                                           a matrix multiply would be a
                                           stupid overload.
              that most of the OO baggage of C++ is unnecessary. Not only
              that, it seems like popular APIs (i.e. kde, mfc)
              promote things like OO very inconsistently.
              \_ while i agree that c++ is pretty kludgy in many cases,
                 if you think operator overloading is "arcane", you must
                 not know c++ very well at all. do you prefer stuff like
                 a.add(b).multiply(c).divide(d)? and that's just for nice
                 short variable names. operator overloading is pretty cool, and
                 even guy steele thinks java will need it as it matures.
                 \_ uhg, is all berkeley cs lost? (/ (* (+ a b) c) d)  ;-)
                 \_ if you need to do things like add multiply and divide, sure
                    it makes sense... but how often do you need those
                    constructs? the Matrix example above was a good example.
        \_ endl is a manipulator, not a string constant.  In addition to ending
           the line, it flushes the buffer.

12/7    Cool new search engine:  Ask the Yzzerdd!
        http://www.yzzerdd.com
        \_ You damn meatwad...
        \_ First time I've seen popups in a long, long time.  -- firebird user
           \_ I use Moz and was surprised. --op

12/7    Hey military hardware people.  I liked the movie Aliens 2 a lot.
                                                         \_ Aliens, no 2
        It showed a lot of futuristic military gear that are really cool.
        Just how much is that stuff is in use today?  E.g., I like the guns
        with LED counter on the number of bullets lefts, the handheld motion
        sensor maps, the body armor with cameras in the helmets and links
        to a command post which monitors their vital signs, the automatic
        machine guns which fires based on motion, etc.  Seems like we can
        use a lot of that stuff.  Thanks.
        \_ Pancor Jackhammer.  And for all the naysaying luddites below,
           have a look at troop tactics over the years, and how they have
           adapted to technology over the years.  You may note that the
           individual soldier _is_ more valuable today (note also that we
           don't go for rolling curtains of artillery or human wave charges
           anymore?)  A lot of that is due to the ability to project force
           more precisely.  Today's army uses computers, lasers, satellites,
           smart munitions and strong air-ground coordination, where you
           people would probably have bearded thugs beating each other with
           clubs.  So yes, mr. OP we can and do use a lot of that stuff
           (although yes, the blinkenlights might be sort of a liability in
           battle.)  -John
           \_ The Jackhammer was a prototype fully auto shotgun. What does that
              have to do with the assault weapons in Aliens? As I recall, those
              were select fire, fired caseless ammo and had an integrated
              grenade launcher. P.S., I'm no gun nut, but a fully auto weapon
              with a 10 round magazine doesn't seem all that useful...
        \_ A transparent magazine works almost as well.  Lots of automatic
           guns have those now.
        \_ I think that in general, the idea of a lot of expensive stuff on
           each soldier works logically in the movie, where because it's a
           space ship there is a fixed supply of troops and each one is very
           valuable. Here on Earth, troops are a dime a dozen. Monitor their
           vital signs? I think the blood and screaming is a good monitor.
           Elite commando forces can use more stuff like that.
        \_ an LED counter on the side is going to get troops killed.  "Look
           for the red lights at night, Abdul, and shoot there!"
           That movie had a good moral -- if you don't use the technology
           right they'll still kill you.
        \_ I can also see motion sensor guns causing a lot of friendly
           ire deaths...
           \_ what kind of reasoning is that?  Any weapon can cause friendly
              fire.  With the automatic shoot-on-motion machine guns, you
              don't put them on your front gate where people come in and
              out.  You put it on the border between Iraq and Iran.  Shoot
              to kill any fucker that tries to get in.  Also between
              US and Mexico or Afghanistan and Pakistan.  Illegal immigration
              will stop after that goes in.  I guarantee you that.
              \_ Wouldn't they be easy to take out/avoid? They would stupidly
                 fire at any moving thing? Tumbleweed etc. I can imagine a lot
                 of wasted ammo. Then, they are fixed, open targets for someone
                 to shoot. Probably expensive with the optics/sensors/tracking.
                 Just overengineering for a problem that doesn't really exist.
                 \_ Couple an optical and IR sensor.  Shoot at every
                    warm-blooded moving thing.
                    \_ Would that work in deserts? Anyway, people could hide
                       behind thick shields and wave stuff around until the
                       ammo is gone. But how about this alternative? You have
                       the remote-control gun emplacements with fancy imaging
                       sensors. You have a room of counterstrike players. Then
                       you route the control of the guns to the players based
                       on motion detection, telemarketer style.
              \_ Even when only deployed in the right areas, I can still
                 imagine carelessness causing a lot of deaths.  Maybe computer
                 controlled gun turrets would make more sense.
                 \_ ...right, with deibold software on top of a windows os.
                    \_ If their field-of-fire is fixed at 120-degrees and they
                       are programmed to shoot everything, then they won't
                       kill friendlies unless they walk into the field-of-fire.
           \_ You could have friendly troops wearing specialized RFID chips
              and put a terrahertz-band transmitter on the gun and it would
              be a challenge-response system.
              \_ RFID isn't terahertz.
                 \_ I know.  You'd want something that can be better confined
                    to a beam.  You don't want the gun to set off every tag
                    around, just those its pointed towards.  Likewise, you
                    don't want peoples' tags signaling in every direction.
              \_ You should apply for an ARPA grant. Seriously.
                 \_ Maybe, but I'm reminded of the Matt Damon monologue from
                    "Good Will Hunting"
                    \_ Why?  It has nothing to do with you.
        \_ Strap on your headset and play the Counterstrike mod
           "Natural Selection".
        \_ I thought I saw a documentary on the future infantry man.
           They are doing research and testing on new technologies now.

12/7    Is there any reason to use bzero over memset(foo, 0, sizeof(foo))?
        \_ ANSI!  ANSI! is the STANDARD! C runtime library.
           (use memset instead)
           \_ Is ANSI the standard or is K&R (in the K&R C book) the standard?
              I've always been using the K&R book as reference when I want to
              write portable code.
              \_ K&R 2nd edition has a big "ANSI C" label on the cover.
                 I think "K&R C" refers to K&R 1st edition.
        \_ On some systems bzero used to have an optimized assembler
           implementation. If you are not concerned with speed, stick
           to memset() since it is part of C89.
           \_ Wouldn't those systems also have a quick compiler check to
              call the assembly when the second arg was 0?

12/7    Would anyone be interested in buying toilet paper smeared (pun
        intended) with pictures of GW Bush, Gray Davis, or Britney Spears?
        \_ I don't know, but in Korea they have toilet paper with
           "common english phrases" and their korean translations.  Study
            English while wiping your behind!
            \_ No wonder their English is so shitty. Fighting!!!
               \_ hey, maybe we really like to fight.  all the time, by
                  how common that phrase has become, apparently.

12/7    Seriously why can't we consider plundering the Iraqi wealth (banking,
        oil, etc) for war reparation? In WW2, after the U.S. and the Soviets
        took over Berlin, each side plundered as much gold/silver/art as
        possible. The winner gets all. Why can't we do the same in Iraq?
        \_ Bad PR.
        \_ well in most warfare, the winner gets all. Look at the Roman
           empire. It's based on conquering nations, plundering wealth, and
           using the new wealth to fund more expansions. It's stupid to
           conquer and not plunder wealth. So I agree with you. We should
           plunder their oil and fund our deficit and expand our great Reich.
        \_ Are you a troll or a very just dumb sodan?
           \_ I vote for 'very dumb sodan troll.'

12/8    45 minute claim proven true!
        http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/politics/3297771.stm
        \_ And by proven, you mean... alleged?
        \_ Your description of the URL is way, way misleading.