12/17   anyone have any problems recently with screen on soda?  whenever I run
        it, it detaches immediately, and it sets the term type to "vt100"
        instead of to the usual value of "screen".

12/18   are we going to go along to pay Iran for Saddam's deed?
        http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/3329671.stm
        \_ ``She must be satisfied.'' Persian girls are too high maintenance...
           \_ that's a hilarious quote.  Are all nations feminine?
              \_ Common practice yes.
              \_ Common practice yes.  For nations and ships.  However:
                 http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/business/63240_tblist.shtml
                 --scotsman
              \_ No.
           \_ Germany was masculine- the Fatherland
                \_ "Das Vaterland".  Also La France, Rodnaya/Mother Russia,
                   etc etc.  I can't think of any proper masculine references
                   to countries.  -John
                   \_ Uncle Sam.  Also it's Rodina-Mat'.  -- ilyas
                        \_ Sorry, misunderstood "narodnaya" in the Soviet
                           national anthem--my Russian is non-existent. And we
                           were discussing national identities, not
                           personifications (e.g. John Bull)  -John

12/18   Prime model of respect of human right which all middle eastern
        nation shall follow:
        http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/3329631.stm
        \_ yeah he really wants to go home .. by way of being a merc

12/17   Is there a web site that lists the California and federal
        income tax rate schedule not only for 2003, but for 2004, 2005,
        etc., as well as the exemption amounts.

        STUPID INCONSIDERATE MOVIE SPOILERS...DON'T DO IT.
        At least prepend your drivel with "Don't read if you
        haven't seen the movie."
        \_ Those amounts have been decided already?
           \_ No.

        STUPID INCONSIDERATE MOVIE SPOILERS...DON'T DO IT.
        At least prepend your drivel with "Don't read if you
        haven't seen the movie."
        \_ The butler, in the study, with the wrench.  -John

12/18   Republican says 9/11 was preventable:
        http://csua.org/u/5b9
        \_ See, you can't win.  If we go in before something bad happens,
           we are unilateral imperialist aggressors.  If we go in after
           something happens, that something was 'preventable.'  I guess
           a republican just can't win if he's in office.  Not unless he can
           see the future.
           \_ or even if he can because it doesn't matter what he does, it is
              still wrong.
        \_ "the commission has navigated a political landmine".  Why can't
           even professional journalists use metaphors correctly?  It's like
           reading an all-kinney motd.
           \_ We live in the Age of the Mixed Metaphor.
              \_ We live in an age of ignorance and journalists are leading
                 the way.  Few people are more stupid than a journalist.
        \_ "As you read the report, you're going to have a pretty clear idea
           what wasn't done and what should have been done," he said. "This
           was not something that had to happen."
           Appointed by the Bush administration, Kean, a former Republican
           governor of New Jersey, is now pointing fingers inside the
           administration and laying blame.
           "There are people that, if I was doing the job, would certainly
           not be in the position they were in at that time because they
           failed. They simply failed," Kean said.
            ...
           Asked whether we should at least know if people sitting in the
           decision-making spots on that critical day are still in those
           positions, Kean said, "Yes, the answer is yes. And we will."
           \_ So do we go back and retroactively fire half the clinton admin?
        \_ Quick look! Micheal Jackson, over there!
           \_ What?  Where?!

12/18   s.a.d.
        http://money.cnn.com/2003/12/17/pf/q_nomorework/nomorework2.gif
        \_ Get over it.  This happens to every job, sooner or later.  Even
           doctors, plumbers, lawyers, etc. will eventually be replaced
           by Tajikistanis or robots.  New jobs are created, and overall
           we all have more leisure--the average worker in a western country
           works somewhere around 8 hours, 5 days a week--compare that to
           100 years ago.  Where's the problem?  -John
           \_ Big difference is that India and China are fucked up then.
              Now they are reemerging.
                \_ Their standards and cost of living (and wages) will rise,
                   it's called the free market.  At the same time, their
                   demand for goods and services will go up.  Currently, they
                   don't have nearly as much of a market for the sort of
                   stuff they're supplying "us" for cheaper as we do, hence
                   "we" send the work over there.  That will change, it
                   always has.  I seem to recall reading some article to
                   the extent that a lot of Indian companies were worried
                   about IT work moving to China for cost reasons, which is
                   pretty revealing.  -John
                   \_ Some of us have rent to pay while your little global
                      free market economy rebalances itself at the expense
                      of the middle class.
        \_ No surprises here.  If you haven't already started looking into
           other careers, now is a good time.  Of course, I'm sure you all
           think that you're one of those blessed with so much talent that
           you'll never be hit by the continuing dismantling of the
           domestic software industry.
           \_ another career?  nah, not only that, but another country too.
              give up software and high tech, and what do you have left,
              and how safe would those be?
        \_ The source is Forrester Research, the same people who predicted
           in 2000 that by 2002 the market penetration of personal video
           recorders would be in the same ballpark as that of washing
           machines. Keeping your options open is always good, but I don't
           think the verdict is quite in yet.
           \_ looks like a new career should be statistical research &
              prediction, then.
        \_ Five counter trends are: (1) less H1Bs, (2) fewer students in
                                        \_ fewer
           CS these days, (3) Indian and Chinese software engineers moving
           back to their respective countries, (4) rapidly falling dollar
           narrows the gap a little, (5) rapidly rising cost of living
           in say China.
           \_ and these are reasons why it will take 12 years for it to
              fall 33%.  Without these mitigating factors, it would fall
              faster.  And oh, btw, the biggest counter trend is probably
              the growth of the software industry as a whole as the
              presence of computers and technology permeate more and more
              of every day life.
        \_ This will start happening to System and Network Admins, too:
           http://csua.org/u/5bg
           \_ I highly doubt that this will happen. From my experience it's
              practically impossible to outsource sysadmin. You still need
              to be physically there when the server goes down. I've seen
              many attempts at just remote sysadmining and that never works.
              I also find that at least half of sysadmin is help-desk, so
              unless you want users to start calling India everytime they
              can't get something to work then I don't see the trend. However,
              I do see the trend in possible consolidation. I think there are
              many small/medium sized firms who don't need a full-time sysadmin,
              and what they need is a firm which will contract out sysadmin
              work. Overall, I think that there will be much less local
              programming work, but there will be more computer support work.
              As for programming, it doesn't come as a surprise to me. It's
              relatively easy to learn programming (especially enterprise
              stuff in which you typically just populate datastructures from
              forms), and with the predominance of 4GL languages now in the
              field this is even more so. Another high-tech area that will
              be greatly hit will be layout designers for chips (place and route
              software will kill off custom layout) and probably circuit
              designers will just all be off-shore instead of being H1Bs.
              \_ Locally outsources sysadmins?  Having a helpdesk across
                 town is no better than having it in India.  That's not going
                 to work.
                 \_ It certainly will work. Someone across town can come in
                 twice a week for system maintenance and be there for
                 emergencies. Try that with a Punjabee.

12/18   So if it wasn't for your boy Dean spoiling the election, my man,
        Ralph would have a much better chance in '04.  Here's some background
        on your guy.  Read it and weep while you suffer through 4 more years.
        http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A9661-2003Dec17?language=printer
        \_ Ralph's a grumpy old man that should pass the reigns if he wants
           the greens to do anything.
        \_ Hi, Republican Troll.  The Greens really don't understand the
           meaning of the word coalition.  The Republicans have their own
           loonies, the Christian Right.  They understand coalition.  They
           unite with their party and pick their battles, and guess what?
           They're winning.  They control the Republican party, they hold
           the White House and much of Congress, they are gaining ground in
           the courts and they control school boards across the nation -
           enabling them to subtly indoctrinate the next generation.
           The biggest problem with the left, since the very dawn of the
           modern age, is its tendency towards internecine warfare and
           self annihilation.  Ideological purity is a fool's game.
           The war is won not with revolutions but with gradual change.
           \_ Why does it surprise you that at a liberal school like Berkeley
              there might be a single Green posting on the motd?  Grow up.
        \_ "Read it and weep"? I thought it made him look pretty good.
        \_ I love how the story starts out with the 9/11 warnings crap:
           From above:  http://csua.org/u/5b9
           also: http://csua.org/u/5bj
        \_ That's the most they can dig up? To most of those "examples", they
           quote a reasonable explanation from the Dean camp. What a snore.
           One thing that's true is Kerry does nothing now but attack Dean.
           \_ Does this usually happen with all prez primaries? Or is the
              anti-dean vitriol worse than usual?  -newbie to primary process
              \_ I'm not very old or anything, but I can't remember a primary
                 race ever being quite like this. There are a more candidates
                 who have or had a real chance. The Kerry/Dean animosity is
                 probably highest since they're both New England, and Kerry
                 thought he had that in the bag before Dean rose up.

12/18   Random question (based on a random thought I had). How many
        people do you think are researching cancer? I was wondering
        if it reached 1 million?
        \_ in the entire world? most likely. in the us, probably not.
        \_ what about if you include the distributed computing stuff?
        \_ War on Cancer is machismo bullshit.  Prevention is better than
           cure.  Want to know how to prevent cancer?  Read Dr. Ornish's
           book.  Vegetarians and vegans almost never get cancer.  And
           we have great skin too! :-)  -pretty boy

12/18   Nice selective motd editing, asshole.  -John
        \_ Selective = stupid stuff removed.
           \_ I liked the Zagat guide to Middle Earth and Rogue

12/18   David Kay to leave WMD-search group, for "personal/family reasons":
        http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A9823-2003Dec17.html
        \_ Yeah, he's got "FuckThisBullshitThere'sNothingThereAnywayitis"
           \_ Is it "Bullshit" or is it "Bushit"? :-)
        \_ It took this long for him to realize WMD is just an excuse to
           going to war.  Rather Iraq has WMD or not was never an important
           issue.  This partly explains why the administration kept stripping
           his resources to do his job.  I feel sorry for him.
        \_ He was always a patsy.
        \_ DIANE SAWYER: But stated as a hard fact, that there were weapons
           of mass destruction as opposed to the possibility that he could
           move to acquire those weapons still--
           PRESIDENT BUSH: So what's the difference?

           If my boss were this blase about lying to the American people,
           I think I would leave for "personal/family reasons" too.
           \_ Due to blindness or paranoia or not listening well enough to
              the CIA, the Bush administration believed in the WMD theory
              enough that the military was outfitted with all the protective
              gear for the Iraq assault.  It's just that everyone has been
              telling Dubya recently, "Um, they probably don't have WMD."
              \_ Right.  He was lied to.  Sure.

12/18   Padilla to be given civil trial:
        http://www.cnn.com/2003/LAW/12/18/padilla.case/index.html
        \_ It might go to the Supreme Court.  That would be great, if it did.
           Even if they rule in Dubya's favor, the dissenting argument will
           surely have something like:  "When the U.S. government interned
           Americans of Japanese descent in the interest of 'national security'
           after the surprise attack on Pearl Harbor, it was wrong then;
           and in this post-9/11 world ..."

12/18   That's got to be pretty funny.
        There was an MSN Today link to an article titled "Stress=longer life?
        Study says brief exposure to stress may actually help protect cells
        in the body against damage".  I click on it, and get "No Such Link",
        in big fat letters.
        \_ They're trying to help you live longer.
        \_ this is a theory advanced to explain why living at low temperatures
           causes increase in drosophylia life span, and why eating low-cal
           diets causes increases in life span in mutiple lab animals.

12/18  Which tastes best and why?  -rogue
       Orcs
       Uruk'hai
       Strider
       Aragorn
       Naxgul
        \_ mmm... manflesh