4/6     Study says Americans getting shorter and shorter:
        http://www.guardian.co.uk/usa/story/0,12271,1185457,00.html
        \_ The study lays part of the blame on junk food and says a high
           protein diet causes great stature, but a lot of junk food IS high
           in protien.
           \_ the card board filler they put in McDs isn't protein.
           \_ Junk food also has lots of bad carbs, which cancels out
              the high protein benefits.

4/6     Did something happen recently to spamassassin which causes it to
        put annotated spam in your inbox instead of your ~/spam directory?
        \_ Check yer quota dude.

4/6     Damn it, Why doesn't postfix have ./configure ?
        do these people really expect me to tack on 10 lines of
        CCARGS=-DHAS_stuffiwant -I/...  and
        AUXLIBS=-L/usr/local/lib...
        I mean, what, do they think i know what the hell i'm doing just
        because i don't want to use sendmail?
        \_ vote with your boots.  use something else.
           \_ neither sendmail nor qmail have gnu configure-based setup.
              \_ true, but sendmail's probably already installed and setup.

4/5     Damn it, I hate when facts get in the way of my book sales!  --clarke
        http://washingtontimes.com/national/20040406-121654-1495r.htm
        \_ Damn it, I hate it when the real news doesn't furnish pithy,
           topical subject lines, so I have to resort to my limited creative
           writing skills.
           \_ Clue bat: this isn't a news site.  If you want boring, go read
              CNN.  But you do score half a point for completely ducking the
              content and point of the URL.  Maybe next time you'll get an
              entire cookie!
              \_ Damn it, I hate it when people having fun pointing out the
                 faults in my posts gets in the way of my trolling! --op
                 \_ Keep ducking.  So far you've got 2 ad hominens, 2 ducks
                    and 1 falsely signed post and 0 real replies.  --real op

4/5     Dude, can you guys PLEASE PLEASE wait 12 hours before deleting a
        helpful message (relating to tech/computer/sysadm/etc)? Thank you.
        \_ fuck you.  when people delete politics, tech stuff gets deleted.
           \_ You pathetic baboon, what does deleting political crap have
              to do with someone nicely asking that informative tech posts
              be kept?  Grow up.  -John
              \_ John, stop deleting stuff, and stop using racial slurs
              \_ neither should get *censored* but it seems to be a very
                 simple lesson in tit for tat.  some people want the motd to
                 be techie-only and censor things they don't care about.  they
                 don't listen to those who have asked for years to not do that
                 so you're now seeing the response of frustrated last resort.
                 the lesson is something your mother should have taught you by
                 age 5: treat others as you'd have them treat you.  there's
                 nothing sacred about techie posts.
                 \_ Wait, take this example:  Person A Makes a technical post.
                    Person B makes a political post.  Person C delete's B's
                    post.  You're saying it makes sense for B to delete A's
                    post?  That sounds like completely ineffective collective
                    punishment.
                    \_ Yes, it does.  It punishes C who wanted to keep A.
                 \_ in other words, the trolls get pissed when their attempts
                    at making the MOTD useless by inciting stupid arguments
                    fail, so they go straight to deleting the useful content.
                    \_ this line of reasoning is exactly the problem here.  you
                       think the motd is only for "useful" (to you) threads on
                       topics of interest (to you) and anything else is a troll
                       which makes the motd useless.  when you get over it and
                       finally understand the motd is a public space for
                       everyone, it'll be more useful for everyone.  tit for
                       tat is a very simple concept you should have learned
                       in grade school.  everyone loses.  so stop deleting the
                       topics that are obviously not trolls and are of great
                       interest to others and yours will stick around longer
                       too.  if we measured value by number of replies, length
                       of replies, effort spent in replying, and number of
                       people involved in each thread, it can be easily
                       argued that the motd is primarily for political topics
                       with a secondary function for google-able techie
                       questions and a few job postings.
                       \_ Anything can be argued.  Anyone arguing that the
                          MOTD is a good place for political topics would
                          sound like a complete idiot, but he certainly
                          could argue it.
                          \_ Score another ad hominen.  Got anything to say?
           \_ and destruction begets more destruction.  brillant.
        \_ and you would delete everything else?
           \_ ln -s /etc/motd.public /dev/null
                \_ Permission denied, can someone with root do it please?

4/6     Don't you hate it when facts get in the way of your book sales?
        http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1112119/posts
        \_ Here's a much better article on the same subject:
           http://www.washtimes.com/national/20040406-121654-1495r.htm
           \_ You are joking right?
                \_ if you have to ask...
                   \_ exactly.
                      \_ i don't get it

4/6     Gary Hart: We warned Bush in January 2001 about probable terrorist
        threat; why hasn't 9/11 commission called us?
        http://www.salon.com/opinion/feature/2004/04/06/commission/index.html
        \_ Because Gary Hart is a liar and a piece of shit has-been and no one
           cares what he thinks or claims to know about anything?

4/6     I am writing up a Writ of Execution from winning a lawsuit for
        wage garnishment and I called the defendant's employer (San Diego
        Unified School District) and found out that they actually have a
        separate department from the wage department that handles
        garnishment. Is there anything else they do, or they (SDUSD) actually
        expects a lot of unpaid lawsuits?
        \_ Garnishment is also for child support and alimony, which guys are
           notoriously bad about paying.
        \_ Just out of curiosity, is this the guy who hit you with his car?
           What a jackass.
                \_ yes! Cool someone's actually following my posts, this is
                   really cool! I feel like I should have a fan club or
                   something. Anyways he is a school bus driver and after the
                   incident I've lost a lot of respect for bus drivers. I bet
                   most of them beat their wives and fail to pay child
                   alimony.
                   \_ dood, format your post. -car-dude's #1 fan
                        \_ isn't this taken care of by croned formatd?
        \_ there's something about government and government workers, go figure

4/6     What are people's experience with corkage? Cafe de la Paz charges
        $15/750 ml bottle. Does anybody know prices from other places?
        I'm specifically looking for places that host banquet dinners.
          -- ulysses
        \_ DUDE, you on drugs or what? $15 buys me 3  really really nice
           meals at Carl's Jr. or 4 decent meals at Burger King. Gimme your
           money if you have so much to waste           -poor ucla student
           \_ in college, my roommate and i debated on whether or not we
              should invest in a pallet of topramen. If you need to understand
              the scope of this... you can buy topramen in bulk at Costco for
              $0.06/package. I think the cost of the pallet came down to
              <$0.03/package, but mostly we thought it would be cool to have
              a pallet of ramen sitting in our living room.
        \_ From my general experience, $15 is about average, give or take a
           buck. Restaurants usually mark up low-end bottles by $15-20.
           So I figure unless the bottle I'm brining is at least in the
           $50+ range, it really doesn't matter.
        \_ I don't know about banquets, but it varies. Some places won't
           let you cork a bottle that's on their list at all. Some places
           discount corkage if you also buy a bottle from their list. Some
           places have free corkage. In general, corkage is supposed to
           cover the cost of the stemware and the sommelier/server. $15 is
           a fair corkage fee.
        \_ You can get a deal in San Francisco by going to a place that
           has applied for its liquor license but doesn't have it yet.
           They almost always let you bring your own vino and don't charge
           corkage. Sometimes, other places with no liquor license will
           just let you bring your own, too, but they tend to be lower
           end places. I have never seen this in any other city.
           \_ This happens in SoCal, too. It's probably common.

4/6     I'm looking for people to join a free (GPL), multi-tiered (J2EE)
        educational software project, whose target will be teaching
        introductory Latin.  Email darin if interested.

4/6     Hans Blix says Iraq better off under Saddam than it is now.
        http://csua.org/u/6s4 (Yahoo News)
        \_ Waiting for this to shown to be wrong....
           \_ You think Blix has ever been wrong?  He's European and anti-Bush.
              \_ And?  When the man's wrong, he's wrong.  Show me how his
                 statement that the negatives outweigh the positives for the
                 Iraqis now is wrong, and I'll gladly concede the point.
                 \_ no more human meat grinders is a big positive
                    \_ You do know that the meat grinders claim has never
                       been corroborated, right?
                       \_ Hey, has the Holocaust been corroborated to your
                          satisfaction?  -- ilyas
                          \_ Yes.  I have met holocaust survivors, and seen
                             auschwitz.  The holocaust was not based on the
                             claims of an otherwise-shown-unreliable informant,
                             then exploded by a press looking for gore.
                    \_ I am pretty sure we have killed more Iraqis last
                       year than SH did in any of the last five. We are
                       are using Apache helicopters instead of meat
                       grinders, which I am sure the dead appreciate.
                       \_ it's always how you kill them that matters.
                          gas chamber = bad
                          fire bombing / nuclear bombing = ok
                          and it's also depend upon who does it and who
                          are being killed.
                          Iraqi use chemical weapon = bad
                          Japanese use chemical weapon = ok
                 \_ A second summer with limited electricity will be neato.

4/6     Murdoch news reporting 130 US dead:
        http://www.skynews.co.uk/skynews/article/0,,30200-1130577,00.html
        \_ maybe that was supposed to be 13?
        \_ There's a drudgereport URL which points to a newer skynews article.
           It says the number is from 12 to 130 and it's all unconfirmed.
           CNN says it's 12.  I really really doubt it's 130; skynews probably
           confused this with total people killed on both sides.
           \_ Phew.
        \_ Dude, if that's correct, but tomorrow morning there will be no
           "Saddam Town."
           \_ English please.
              \_ I think he is promising revenge.
           \_ It is actually called "Sadr City" by the residents now.
              No kidding.
              \_ I think you guys are getting your uprisings confused.  The
                 Fallujah resistance is seperate from the Shiite groups that
                 are led (inspired?) by Sadr.  Basically the shit is hitting
                 the fan and according to some emails I've heard from Iraq
                 the situation is much worse than the US media is reporting.
                 \_ But wait, why don't we just give *everyone* there a
                    gun?  According to the "real" conservatives here, that
                    would END ALL CRIME!  It's that simple!

4/6     I just conducted a minor transaction with a cool guy who recently
        started his own business.  He's got a web page, but virtually no Google
        presence.  Can I buy adwords for his site if I don't run it?  Are there
        other means I can help him out in this area?
        \_ what business?
           \_ machine shop; he rethreaded a bolt hole on my intake manifold.
              His main business is removing broken off pieces of bolts and
              screws, which is specific enough that he gets nationwide business
              (hence the google thing seems helpful).  http://www.extractit.com
              \_ that's awsome!  too bad he doesn't list rates at all on the
                 site, though.  it would be nice to have a ballpark idea of
                 what he charges before calling.
                 \_ I paid him $20 for the thread insert and cleaning up the
                    other hole; he also polished the mating surface.  It's a
                    lot more to have him do it on the actual car, of course;
                    I removed this part.
                    \_ Do you have a well-known web presence?  Consider
                       putting a mention on your web page or blog.  Better
                       yet, if you're a well known blogger, get your friends
                       to link to your entry.
                       \_ A well known blog?  Only among the small group of
                          other 'bloggers' in the 'bloggosphere'.
                          \_ That's blogosphere.  And the blog echo chamber is
                             very good at pushing up google rankings.

4/6     Is there a way to make mozilla start in Gnome >=1.4.x when I click
        on a URL in gnome terminal?
        \_ Preferences, Preferred Applications

4/6     Cute little "life" kind of game:  http://www.rgb-game.com
        You build organisms out of some number of red, blue, or green blobs,
        which need to eat those colors in the environment to reproduce. But
        the blobs also impart abilities to the organism.
        \_ You bastard.  There goes my afternoon.
        \_ 69000 so far.  still got a bunch on the board.
           \_ I got 370000 but then I kind of screwed it up. Forgot for a
              second that adding something would drop my score, plus now
              the board balance seems screwed up and probably can't recover.
              I was using one blob of each color but the reds all died at
              some point. Now it's toast.
        \_ 73409 with 6red, 6green
        \_ That's really interesting getting symbiosis going.  2r1g, 1b2g is
           working pretty well. Also 1g, 2b1r
        \_ 445321, 1g 1b 1r, but I tossed some more in early on.
        \_ Fantastic and evil.  I'll never work again.  -John
           \_ again?

4/6     Reviews of William Hung's new CD on Amazon: http://csua.org/u/6s7
        \_ I have plenty of regrets, like not assaulting him on
           Sproul.  Hopefully he has enough money now to move
           out of a residential hotel.
           \_ $25 does not a house buy.
           \_ I'm sure you'd be more polite if he had a gun.
              \_ No, if he had a gun, he'd just be asking for it and he'd be
                 more likely to get shot or injured, not less.  Unarmed people
                 are always safer.  It's simple logic.
        \_ William Hung: "Everyone wants a piece of me."
           http://www.mercurynews.com/mld/mercurynews/entertainment/8369074.htm
        \_ What i'm waiting for is the other asian copycats.

4/6     Is Ilyas the guy with long black hair and long mustache?
        \_ Is the "ilyas" we speak of Ilya S. or Ilyas N. ?
           The Ilyas I know was a CS150 TA and was bald.
        \_ ilyas is Ilya S. He has long black hair/facial hair, and is
           thin. -chialea
                \_ is he the long black hair/facial hair guy who is around
                   the 4800 corrider in Boelter a lot?
                   \_ Yup, that's the bastard. -- ilyas
                      \_ Get him!

4/6     Ambush on U.S. forces and ensuing firefight in Sadr City Sunday
        leave 8 U.S. soldiers dead, 40+ wounded:  http://csua.org/u/6s6
        \_ You know, unlike Afghanistan, the terrain around there is a bit
           more conducive to cordoning off slums full of nutcase thugs and
           napalming the crap out of it... -John
           \_ Where is your European sense of civility?
              \_ John calls from Switzerland. They are not like the Europeans
                 you are probably thinking of. Ask John, for instance, when it
                 was Switzerland granted women the right to vote.
                 \_ Federal income tax for someone making $78k in .ch is 4%.
                    I am SO moving there at the first opportunity. -- ilyas
                    \_ yepthe Swiss rounded up jewish refuges, sent them to
                       nazi firing sqad waiting on border, and then pocketed
                       their bank accounts.
                       \_ Hey you should hear what the wartime Pope had to say
                          about the Jews.  Hope you aren't Catholic, or want
                          to move to Italy (let alone Germany).  And then there
                          is FDR who (half in jest, apparently) was suggesting
                          that all Germans be neutered after the war.  You
                          would also be surprised to learn that bombing of
                          civilians was first authorised by the Allies
                          (specifically Churchill).  It's obvious the only
                          fully guiltless party here is Soviet Russia!
                            -- ilyas
        \_ old news
           \_ If you read the link, you'll see interesting details of the
              battle that weren't available yesterday
              \_ "Bring it on!" -gwb
                 \_ You're a sick bastard.
                    \_ "Mission Accomplished!" - gwb

4/6     Looking for introductory material on SVM, C4., Ripper, and Naive
        Bayes. Most of the junk on google are too deep for comprehension.
        I just need introductory material. ok thx
        \_ http://paulgraham.com / google "A Plan For Spam"
        \_ where did you hear about all of these terms? did you learn about
           them with regards to spam filtering? naive bayes is a specific
           text classification strategy. SVM and C4 are generic classifiers.
                \_ which one is most powerful?
        \_ dude, you're asking a hardcore computer science theory  question.
           Most of the people here are sysadms (they don't even know how to
           do FFT in their sleep). Wrong place.
           \_ Naive Bayes is hardcore if you call counting hardcore.  SVM
              stuff isn't really CS, although AI people use it (they are big
              on separating things with planes).  Also, the poster above is
              wrong, Naive Bayes is also a general classifier.
              An interesting thing about classifiers is that
              you don't want the one that's 'most powerful' because it will
              overfit.  You want one that's barely smart enough to work.
              Statisticians call this 'bias/variance tradeoff'.  -- ilyas
           \_ I'm a sysadmin.  I graduated with a ~3.5 in CS.  I sysadmin
              because the options are 1) coding which I hate and it's all
              going to India anyway, 2) I don't want a MS/PhD because I like
              to eat and pay my bills, 3) I work for about 1.5 hours a day and
              get paid more than almost every coder I've ever met.  Instead of
              being bitter that you work harder for less while always having
              to worry about when your job is going offshore, you should learn
              some industry best practices and get paid to surf like me.  What
              good is FFT in your sleep if in your waking hours you're looking
              for a non-existent job in your field?  None of this applies to
              the PhDs and most MS people who can always teach if they must.
           \_ FFT?
              \_ Final Fantasy Tactics!
              \_ Fast-fourier transform.
              \_ this is very sad.

4/6     http://www.thememoryhole.org
        Wired also has a story about it.
        \_ Ah, finally looked at the mutilation pics. Nice. Grinning kids
           looking like they're on a pleasant field trip, charred torso
           being poked. They should have set up a soccer game with one of
           the heads.
           \_ Actually, I meant the docs about the goings-on of 9/11.
              I guess I should have posted the http://wired.com article instead.
              \_ Or maybe some of the context for the link.  Duh.
                 \_ Mind read or die, scum!

4/6     My take on motd censorship: techie stuff gets posted at all hours.
        politics gets posted mostly m-f, 8-6.  Given the quantity and number
        of participants, this says to me techie stuff is a general but
        secondary interest to a variety of people while politics is mostly
        of interest only to the working/alum population.  Does this make
        sense to the rest of you?
        \_ Not really.     -mice
           \_ thanks for adding nothing.  why bother posting?
              \_ Pot, kettle, black, shithead.
        \_ Actually, I think people are avoiding political posts in the off
           hours, when they could be easily culled or ignored.
           \_ Exactly.  Because most of the politically interested people
              aren't online after work hours.
        \_ You can't troll when no one's around.
           \_ How to trolling when asking techie FAQs when others around
                being?  Is be much thank pleasing yes if would you answer
                my question reading google for me!  tx!
                \_ don't know how to imitate, don't imitate lah.  makes
                   you look very silly.
        \_ So what?

4/6     What free software most closely matches the functionality of Adobe
        Illustrator?
        \_ I've never used it, but you might want to look into Sodipodi.

4/6     Hans Blix says Iraq better off under Saddam than it is now.
        http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/ap/20040406/ap_on_re_mi_ea/iraq_blix&cid=540&ncid=1480

4/6     Sigh. What happened to the "Clarke's trying to sell books" thread?
        I was looking forward to finishing that one.

4/6     Wow.  http://Salon.com running an ad for John Kerry for their free day pass.
        Nice work for objective journalists:
        http://images.salon.com/src/pass/kerry/kerry_splash2.html
        \_ when did they ever claim to be objective?
           \_ So why does anyone take them more seriously than freerepublic?
        \_ Uh, that means that Kerry is paying them to run ads.  Did you know
           all the TV networks run ads for whoever pays them money?  It's like
           bribery or something!
           \_ A political ad to donate money to a candiate--while going to an
              article criticizing bush.

4/6     Packetel guy, when will the new numbers you ordered become available?
        I have been waiting....