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| 2004/1/31 [Uncategorized] UID:12044 Activity:nil |
1/30 OH MY GOD
WORST SHOW EVER
SciFi's CODENAME ETERNITY |
| 2004/1/31 [Politics/Domestic/President/Bush] UID:12045 Activity:nil |
1/30 We're going to have to invent a whole new term to describe the Bush
Administration's spending. "Like a drunken sailor" doesn't even begin
to cover it.
http://csua.org/u/5sa (yahoo news link)
\_ Since the motd is chock full of conservatives who don't like
the Bush admin's leftist spending policy, you're baiting your
hook with the wrong worm. Care to try again?
\_ Actually I wasn't trolling. Were you? Did you even read
the link? Its about money for "Star Wars," a favorite
conservative pet project. |
| 2004/1/31 [Science/Space] UID:12046 Activity:high |
1/30 So to summarize. The biochemical path taken by developing life was
swept clean by later, more sophisticated life such that no empirical
evidence exists for any biochemical path whatsoever. Moreover,
scientists don't have a complete, compelling theory, even though they
are unburdened by ANY possibly falsifying evidence. Well, I will say
that support for 'life started on earth' is about as strong as support
for any other hypothesis, including 'life started on mars', 'life started
on the moon', 'life was brought here by aliens,' etc. Keeping in mind
that mars and moon may have a better preserved record than earth, and
that aliens may have evolved like scientists think: from chemistry.
-- ilyas
\_ the problem with all this stuff is that you can always go one step
back and say "ok so how did that happen? what predates that?" all
the way to the 'beginning' of the universe (if there is such a
thing) and then you get into, "ok, so how did the universe come
about?" which leads to various religious concepts or the equally
oddball stuff coming from physics.
\_ what oddball stuff are you talking about?
\_ Yes but you only have to go back a little way before you start
running into contradictions with religions like Christianity.
(And no, I'm not talking about stuff like "virgin birth"; aside
from the biological debate, biblical details such as whether
someone was a virgin are impossible to verify.)
\_ A lot of it can be written off as errors in translation and
misunderstandings over time. Even so, if all religions could
somehow be proven to be untrue, you still have the same
problem with going back and back and back to "how did the
universe come into being, from what, and what was 'here'
before (wherever 'here' might be in that context?".
\_ Humans like to think things are magic. Historically they thought things
from weather to illness were supernaturally controlled. All through
history, the more we learn about the universe the more we see
how things result from natural processes. At the limits of observation
we don't have all the answers, but we can make reasonable conjectures
that don't involve magical beings. We know a lot of organisms for which
we have almost no fossil record (e.g. except in amber, which obviously
only existed in an advanced age). We have some chemical evidence for
self-replicating processes that could occur.
Humans also think things are magical when they are improbable. For
example, when a someone comes out unscathed from a huge disaster.
But these improbable things too have natural explanations. And it's
not improbable that the lottery will have a winner.
But these improbable things too have natural explanations.
otherwise. [moved because it made the other replies to op look like
replies to this which they weren't]
\_ Argument from history is not enough. I can also use such an
argument another way: 'Historically, we could always find some
intermediate form organism or "living fossil" living in the
backwoods of the amazon, or some deep sea trench. Why can't
we find the lifeform intermediate between a chemical and a
bacterium?' Personally, I find the existence of life truly
puzzling. Right now we have no answer. Nor did my alternative
hypotheses postulate magical beings (or magic of any kind),
although I don't reject magic either. I also have problems with
some feats attributed to evolution, but that's another story.
I don't see _any_ support for 'life started on earth' at this
moment. It's cheaper to assume spores traveled from mars, and
hope mars has something illuminating in the rocks, than to assume
carbon and hydrogen combined to form a replicating machine
involving three separate components (each a giant molecule), none
of which can function without the other two.
-- ilyas
\_ How so? How is it cheaper to assume spores traveling from Mars
than a primordial soup of amino acids getting a spark from
the nascent Earth atmosphere? In the first case you still need
to explain where the spores came from, and then explain how
it is they happen to be capable of surviving the journey from
Mars, not to mention what force caused them to suddenly
migrate to Earth at just the right moment to get sucked into
the Earth's orbit rather than the much more likely scenario of
the spores missing Earth completely and ending up in the Sun.
If you're willing to assume that many coincidences, why not
believe that the elements on Earth just happened to fuse in the
right way to form the essential amino acids that form the basis
for life?
\_ Because there are lots of spores, and they can survive the
trip (spores from bacteria on earth routinely go off into
outer space, they are found at all layers of the atmosphere).
Also, because it's more likely life arose on Mars, given a
good fossil record on Mars (which may or may not exist --
we don't know, but we can't rule it out), and traveled to
earth than it arose on earth, given no record before bacteria
at all. The missing variable here is whether there is
some location 'close by' where a good record exists. In my
mind the probability for something like that shoots up, if
there is nothing here on our rock. I don't buy the argument
that every single trace of pre-bacterial life simply
disappeared. It just never happened at any other stage of
life. -- ilyas
\_ 1) So because it never happened at any other stage of
life, _so far as we know_, it's unlikely to have
happened? 2) We have possible traces of pre-bacterial
life in the structure of our own cells and in our DNA.
3) If we find that fossil record on Mars or the Moon,
then I will certainly give your theory more credence;
until then, the idea that multi-cellular life is the
result of random molecules bonding and that subsequent
iterations of such life wiped out the traces or our
equipment is still too insensitive to detect the evidence
sounds much more likely. I don't expect to convince you,
but I do want you to understand why some of us disagree
with you.
\_ humans like to think probable things are improbable, due to
inappropriate assumption of (combinatorial) conditions that
are really independent...
Bottom line, there is more support for "life started on earth" than
otherwise.
\_ ok...so?
\_ the problem with all this stuff is that you can always go one step
back and say "ok so how did that happen? what predates that?" all
the way to the 'beginning' of the universe (if there is such a
thing) and then you get into, "ok, so how did the universe come
about?" which leads to various religious concepts or the equally
oddball stuff coming from physics.
\_ Yes but you only have to go back a little way before you start
running into contradictions with religions like Christianity. |
| 2004/1/31-2/1 [Computer/SW/SpamAssassin] UID:12047 Activity:nil |
1/30 So, if i'm using spamassassin -p /my/prefs/file and want to change to
spamc, can I? I maned spamc and didn't see a analogous flag.
\_ Currently, you can't; the protocol spamc uses to talk to spamd
doesn't include any way to specify which prefs file to use.
This wouldn't be too hard to add, though, if you think it would
be useful -- let me know. --mconst |
| 2004/1/31-2/1 [Computer/SW/SpamAssassin] UID:12048 Activity:nil |
1/30 Has anyone else been getting these creepy messages/spams from Word
Of Mouth Connection? They say "someone is requesting information on
you," but in order to find out who, you have to pay money. Seems like
a total scam, and a seemingly very effective one as it plays on your
natural paranoia.
\_ sounds just like the secret crush/admirer spam.
\_ Yes. And I've blocked about 12 of their domains so far. It's just
spam shit. Here's my sendmail access file so the rest of you can
avoid adding them one at a time:
\_ http://www.choam.org/tbp/weblog/2003/11/26/000132
womc.info REJECT
http://womc.net REJECT
http://womc.com REJECT
wordofmouthconnection.info REJECT
<DEAD>wordofmouthconnection.net<DEAD> REJECT
http://wordofmouthconnection.com REJECT
wordofmouthreports.info REJECT
<DEAD>wordofmouthreports.com<DEAD> REJECT
<DEAD>wordofmouthreports.net<DEAD> REJECT
<DEAD>wordofmouthconnections.org<DEAD> REJECT
<DEAD>wordofmouthconnections.com<DEAD> REJECT
http://wordofmouthconnections.net REJECT
<DEAD>wominfo.net<DEAD> REJECT
<DEAD>wominfo.org<DEAD> REJECT
<DEAD>wominfo.com<DEAD> REJECT |
| 2004/1/31 [Uncategorized] UID:12049 Activity:nil |
1/31 Little Jeremiah should be returned to his mother. This is just
another case of the government trying to dstroy the African-American
community and ruin a young woman's reputation and dishonor her
special status as a mother. http://www.ohio.com/mld/ohio/7832835.htm |
| 2004/1/31-2/1 [Computer/SW] UID:12050 Activity:nil |
1/31 /csua/pub/jobs/software.architect
Snapfish is looking for very senior software person to do what you'd
expect from very senior software people. Snapfish HR likes good cover
letters, so send one if you have one. I can answer questions about
the company and most questions about the position. I'm posting this
as a favor to HR so you can use my name in your cover. --reiffin
\_ If anyone wants some real-world input on the interview process
with this company feel free to drop me an email --williamc |
| 2004/1/31-2/1 [Uncategorized] UID:12051 Activity:very high |
1/31 What do you do on weekend afternoons?
\_ troll the motd
\_ we aren't doing such a good job now, are we.
\_ got you to reply.
\_ yermomma's so dumb, she burned down the house with the
CD burner!
\_ that's not serious and political enough to be funny.
(Boondocks reference noted.)
\_ Work on my no-doubt-overvalued Bay Area home. |
| 2004/1/31-2/1 [Uncategorized] UID:12052 Activity:nil |
1/31 New, improved Trek:
http://mtrek.game-host.org |
| 2004/1/31-2/1 [Science/GlobalWarming] UID:12053 Activity:high |
1/31 Motd poll!
World revolves around motd: .
Motd revolves around world:
\_ world? what is this "world" of which you speak? there is
something outside the motd? the world is larger than 80x24?
URL, please. you have no proof of this at all.
\_ the world was, for a moment, larger than 80x24, but then
was quickly reformatted
\_ thank god, now it's all coming into clearer focus. |
| 2004/1/31-2/1 [Uncategorized] UID:12054 Activity:nil |
1/31 http://www.kaicurry.com/gwbush/remindus.swf |
| 2004/1/31-2/1 [Reference/Tax] UID:12055 Activity:nil |
1/31 Is the economy picking up? 4 job postings on the motd. Not quite 1998,
but not bad either.
\_ i was thinking the same thing. of course, i've been hearing
talking heads and economists say shit about economic recovery,
but until job postings on the motd picked up i have to admit
i didn't believe it. I guess this relates to the above poll.
\_ This despite Bush's tax cuts oppressing the poor!
\_ No really, are you an idiot? [restored]
\_ OMG! WTF! LOL! No. Are you?
\_ because if they didn't hire the rest of us would just keel over and
die and then they'd have to hire and have no one to train the new
people. having a job has been nice but it isn't 1998 nice.
\_ Amazing it took this long considering how much money is being pumped
into the economy via tax cuts and big federal spending increases.
I guess it takes a long time to "trickle down" from defense
contracts.
\_ Bush' claim to fame is that this is one of the shortest
recessions ever. nice troll though.
\_ Actually neither are true. The recession started during the
Clinton admin. and the official length of time is about the
same as any other since these things were tracked. And no,
it wasn't a very good troll, just standard lefty noise. As
a middile class person who got a useful amount of money back
on my taxes, I'd be really fucking pissed off if all those
"tax cuts for the rich!" got rolled back.
\_ See, that's funny, because I'm a "middle class person"
likely in the same upper five figure income bracket as
the rest of you, despite what Mr. I'm A Big Adult
seems to think. And I got a whole $40 a month extra
out the tax cut. Is that what you call a "useful amount
of money?" Its half a good pair of pants! Or a halfway
decent meal out!
\_ It was a one time boost. Already the economy is starting
to turn back down.
\_ nothing goes straight up or straight down. when it was going
down there were plenty of 'ups' along the way.
\_ Uhm, a lot of us haven't gotten our first full refund yet. If
you earned a pay check you'd know that. Come back when you're
taller. Thanks for joining us for today's grown-up topic. The
kids' topic for tomorrow is "pokemon or yu-gi-oh, which is right
for you?"
\_ Hey look, its Mr. I'm A Big Adult! You're my favorite motd
asshole. Seriously, you need a new line.
\_ When the kids leave, I'll stop using it. I think Pokemon
is more your speed. Would you disagree? Are you more of
a Yu-gi-oh kid?
\_ Keep on trollin'...
\_ So you're a "Heart Of the Cards!" guy, huh?
\_ I think he's a Pokemon guy.
\_ There was an article in the paper (either Chronicle or WSJ) that
mentioned that there was this guy that either turns around your
company or liquidates it. He moved from San Diego to Silly Valley
because there is lots of liquidation business...and this was very
recent. The big tech turnaround hasn't happened yet, and probably
won't until the next big innovation happens. There are still too
many ppl looking for too few jobs. If you don't have the skill set,
experience, exceptional talent, and/or bow to a company's every
wish, expect to be out of circulation for quite some time.
\_ I read that article. It was just his high hopes and free
advertising. He moved here years ago, not recently and it was
from LA, not SD.
many ppl looking for too few jobs. |
| 2004/1/31-2/1 [ERROR, uid:12056, category id '18005#15.2865' has no name! , ] UID:12056 Activity:nil 72%like:29775 |
1/31 I guess Dean was the better candidate afterall....
http://tinyurl.com/2l8kh (signonsandiego)
\_ Direct URL:
http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/politics/20040130-9999_1n30kerry.html |
| 2004/1/31 [Computer/SW/Virus] UID:29773 Activity:nil |
1/30 Someone asked how computer viruses are named?
http://www.wildlist.org/naming.htm |
| 2004/1/31 [Computer/SW/Unix] UID:29774 Activity:nil |
1/30 Um, so, if I do "find . -type f -exec grep -i port {} \;" I don't
get the file name. How do I make it print file name?
\_ -print?
\_ find . -type f | xargs grep -i port
\_ doesn't work if path contains space
\_ if your path contains spaces then you need to go shoot
yourself and whatever moronic user put spaces in a path.
\_ find . -type f -print0 | xargs -0 grep -iH port
(if you've got gnu find and xargs) --dbushong |
| 2004/1/31 [Politics/Domestic/Election] UID:29775 Activity:nil 72%like:12056 |
1/31 http://signonsandiego.printthis.clickability.com/pt/cpt?action=cpt&title=SignOnSanDiego.com+%3E+News+%3E+Politics+--+Kerry+no+stranger+to+lobbyists%27+donations&expire=&urlID=9116821&fb=Y&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.signonsandiego.com%2Fnews%2Fpolitics%2F20040130-9999_1n30kerry.html&partnerID=621 I guess Dean was the better candidate afterall.... \_ Direct URL: http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/politics/20040130-9999_1n30kerry.html |
| 5/16 |