4/29    Has anyone got notice about gmail?  I signed up for information
        as soon as I heard the news on the radio but haven't gotten
        anything from them.
        \_ It's still invitation only. The only people who have accounts right
           now are Google employees, their friends, then each of them were
           just allowed to invite 2 more people.
        \_ Well, the beta service has been an invite-only thing. It helps
           if you know someone at Google.
        \_ Gmail is just pre-IPO PR noise.  Until you can get an account
           without silly invites and it is officially out of beta, it does not
           exist as anything more than pre-IPO fluff and hype.

4/29    How does one learn musical farting?

4/29    [ recruiters are evil, and so are you for taking a head cut ]

4/30    http://csua.org/u/74q
        http://csua.org/u/74h [this one looks overloaded]
        Pix of the Iraqi POW torture.  One of the captions descrbies the
        picture as a man who was beaten to death by Americans.  That's
        BS, right?  Please tell me that's not true.
        \_ there are always things like this that happen in war. vietnam,
           korea, WWII, panama, etc. why don't you think "americans" are
           capable of this? when ppl are shooting at you, cursing you,
           and generally hate you for "liberating" them while shooting up
           their neighborhood, family, and friends...well, somethings
           gotta give. war isn't rational...it's irrational. even your
           friendly US police beats suspects, prisoners, etc. i've seen
           this with my own eyes.
           \_ But look at the friendly soliders smiling! It's all just fun and
              games.
           \_ US thrashed a city of 300k, killing hundreds because a small
              group of people killed and mutilated 4 US mercenaries, so
              does the above mean Iraqis should kill a few hundred
              Americans in revenge?
              \_ The rest of the population didn't help find them.  It's
                 called "aiding and abeiting."
                 \_ Yeah but just because a mob of a few hundred did this,
                    should you trash a city of 300k?  You don't think any
                    of those people will become terrorists?
                 \_ Given the number of unsolved murders in big cities, most
                    of the US should be firebombed....
                    \_ Most unsolved murders in the US don't have multiple
                       pictures of the perpetrators pasted in every paper
                       in the world.
                       \_ You've seen pictures? URLp?
                          \_ I saw the live film on TV.  You think pictures of
                             these assholes don't exist?  Are you for real?
                             \_ You saw a mob after the fact playing up for
                                the cameras. You didn't see these guys actually
                                mutilated on camera, did you?
                               \_ Hey!  For all we know John Kerry could have
                                   done it.
              \_ Well, that's the reality of war. The US has no choice, being
                 an occupying power they have to crack down on insurgency even
                 if innocents are killed. It's not like troops just go around
                 randomly killing passers-by. Do you think Saddam was nice to
                 insurgents under his rule?
                 \_ Seriously.  Do you think ANY regime that lasted long was
                    nice to insurgents?  If you don't stomp them, insurgents
                    tend to become revolutionaries.
                    \_ Exactly.  Nothing wrong with Saddam stomping the
                       Shitte uprising either.  Those dudes just want
                       a Shiite dominated theocracy kind of like Taliban.
                       The soccer stadium mass grave in Falluja is probably
                       comparable to the Shitte mass graves now.
        \_ "The Pentagon was really very concerned about broadcasting the
           pictures, and I think they had good reason," said 60 Minute
           executive producer Jeff Fager. "The idea that there are hostages
           being held in Iraq concerned us quite a bit in terms of broadcasting
           them. It wouldn't take long to get on Al-Jazeera at all." -BBC
           "But it was agreed for the photos to be shown this week because
           other news outlets had obtained similar pictures." -UK Daily Mail
           "Arab television stations led their newscasts Friday with
           photographs of Iraqi prisoners being humiliated by U.S. military
           police ... Al-Jazeera introduced the pictures by saying they
           showed the 'immoral practices' of Iraq's occupation forces." -AP
           Michael Jackson as lead photo -Major U.S. news sites
           \_ Humiliated?  If we hear one more time about some dimwit bitching
              about humiliation I say we nuke the place to glass and be done
              with it.  After all the mass murders, gassing, rape, and other
              abuses from the Saddam dictatorship, these bozos are whining
              about humiliation and how suicide bombs and mortars are the
              only answer to save their precious honor?  They have no honor or
              they would've killed Hussein decades ago.
              \_ Is this a troll?
                 \_ yeah, I can't tell either
                 \_ The Troll Defense.  When the nail is hit right on the head
                    quickly allude to it's possibly being a "troll" and hope
                    nobody takes a second to read it more carefully.
                    \_ now this is a troll.  The correct way to respond is for
                       op to just say "yes, it's a troll", or "no, it's not".
                       \_ no, it's not.  --op of that sub-thread
           \_ Don't worry, Pentagon has arrested at least 6 soldiers who
              leaked the photo and they will be sent to court martial.
              Cameras of any kind are now banned unless explicitly authorized
              by the high command.
              \_ It's comforting to see The Pentagon take aggressive action to
                 prevent this sort of thing from coming to light in the future.
                 \_ Hey, it worked for the coffins.
                    \_ Out of sight, out of our fucking minds.
                       \_ Idiot.  The rest of us don't need to see coffins to
                          know young Americans are dying in Iraq almost every
                          day.
        \_ This is merely the tip of the iceberg. These "stupid"
           soldiers took these pictures because they think its fun,
           not wrong. You bet no pictures will be taken when they
           actually do torture/rape them. This is merely humiliation,
           not torture.
           \_ I think the young man anally raped by an interrogator
              would probably think different, but then again, there
              are no photos of that particular incident, so maybe
              that makes your point.
              \_ Raped?  URL?

4/30    Key-escrow is back (now for your luggage):
        http://www.travelsentry.org/travelers.htm

4/29    Help, Al Qaeda has infiltrate csua and nuking motd is!!!
        \_ CSUA Motd has Yoda as member, not!
           \_ Actually...
              soda:[~] finger yoda
              Login: yoda                             Name: Sean Yoda Rouse
              Directory: /home/sequent/yoda           Shell: /usr/local/bin/ksh
              Last login Thu Apr 22 15:02 (PDT) on ttyBu from 128.222.185.145
              New mail received Fri Apr 30 10:17 2004 (PDT)
                Unread since Fri Apr 30 05:57 2004 (PDT)
              No Plan.
              ...
              though I suppose it's an unanswerable question whether yoda@soda
              (I love that) is a "member of CSUA Motd". What exactly
              constitutes motd membership? -- ulysses
              \_ [formatd]
        \_ b/w al qaeda & the u.s., the world knows that only the u.s.
           definately has nukes!!!  so, it might be the u.s. nuking the motd..
           if it is al qaeda, it is blasting airplanes into the motd!!
           \_ Israel has nukes!  It must be the evil Jews!  Kill the Jews!
              Think of the children!  Save the motd whales!
              \_ Thinking like this will destabalize the Middle East for
                 generations.
                 \_ w00t!
        \_ I think I will institute a new rule. Anytime my posts are
           deleted three times in a row, either by malice or by cowardly
           ssh'ing scumbags who refuse to use motd, I will nuke the motd.
           Sound fair?
           ssh'ing scumbags, I will nuke the motd. Sound fair?
           \_ Nukes are not the answer -liburl
              \_ I like Bush! -moron
                 \_ I like bush too! -lesbian
              \_ I like Bush! -moron
                    \_ I like bush and Bush! -Mary Cheney
           \_ just run your own motd archive if you want to restore after
              a nuke.  that's what i did, after mehlhaff stopped his.  obtw,
              how often does motd update from motd.public?  i'd like to make
              sure i have a good sampling rate.
              \_ fyi, from looking at mehlhaff's log, it looked like his
                 was done every two minutes
                 \_ That's the default with motdwatch.
                    See "/csua/bin/motdwatch -h"  to see how to make your own
                    motd archive.
                    \_ yep, though i didn't even bother with motdwatch.
                       i am running mine every 120 seconds, because that's
                       the motdwatch standard, but i am still curious if that
                       is sufficient.
                       \_ I'd venture to guess that the time between motd
                          changes follows a power-law distribution, and so
                          there's diminishing returns as you watch ever more
                          closely.  Since almost all changes are simple non
                          conflicting additions and subtractions, you really
                          only need to watch often enough to catch most changes
                          that orrur right before a nuke.
                          \_ you would be right if you were not interested
                             in microchanges in the motd.  me, i like to make
                             sure i can recover if someone just wants to
                             censor a particular comment or thread (cf.
                             the guy who's trying to kill the java job ad).
              \_ speaking of which, what's a good way to automate the
                 rotating of the archive, assuming i don't have access to
                 cron/at?
                 \_ I'd make a monitoring program generate filenames based on
                    `date "+%Y.%m.%d.%H.%M.%S"` and then purge stuff older than
                    a day or so.
           ssh'ing scumbags, I will nuke the motd. Sound fair?
           \_ Get lost, loser.
           \_ Nukes are not the answer -liburl
              sure i have a good sampling rate.
                    `date "+%Y.%m.%d.%H.%M.%S"` and then purge stuff older than
                    a day or so.
                    \_ find . \! -mtime 1 -exec /bin/rm {} \;
                       \_ i was going to make it based on -size, but yes.

4/29    My recruiter is looking for some entry to intermediate level
        Java developers.  Please see the description at:
                /csua/pub/jobs/intermediate-java-developer
        \_ if nothing else should, at least this should get restored.
        \_ Someone is being nice enough to post a job listing.  If you don't
           like recruiters, fine don't apply for the job.  Just don't try to
           deprive other people of the job opportunity.
        \_ Is there a particular reason you're hiding the name of your
           company?  It may explain why this posting keeps being removed.
           \_ I assume there's the poster, his recruiter, and the company
              the recruiter is recruiting for.  The op may likely not even
              know the name of the company.
              \_ I'm guessing the company might be http://geac.com -!op
                 \_ Not a clue.  I'm the one doing the restores and not the
                    OP.  I just think there might be people looking for
                    jobs.  Call it public service on my part, and I assume
                    the OP's.
           \_ There is no company.  It's a recruiter.  The guy posting gets
              a referral cut.  Evil.
              \_ how do you know?
                 \_ Why would he post a recruiter add on the motd?
                    \_ Who cares?  Even if he does get a cut, that's one more
                       job going to a csua'er.  Better that than no cut, but
                       the job goes to somebody else.  NEPOTISM!
                    \_ He's doing other motd readers a favor?  I've often
                       pointed friends at recruiters with just a "he's looking
                       for X" and no additional information.
                 \_ Because the motd censor is much wiser than the rest of us.
              \_ Yeah, right, like resumes and job applicants are such hot
                 commodities right now.
                 \_ I have recruiters contacting me a couple of times a
                    week for unsolicited job offers these days.

4/30    Not what I wanted to see when I go to http://cnn.com
        http://i.a.cnn.net/cnn/2004/LAW/04/30/jackson.hearing/top.jackson.fri.ap.jpg
        \_ I'm telling you, he's the freaking Joker!  Just dye his hair
           green, and I would hire him to star in the next Batman movie.

4/30    From http://finance.yahoo.com:
        "The Google IPO filing reports a Proposed Maximum Aggregate Offering
        Price of: $ 2,718,281,828
        The value of the natural log e is 2.71828183."
        Now, how do you feel about investing in a company run by geeks?  This
        is no longer the dot-com era.
        \_ It's worth e-Billions!
        \_ Google to investors: We know it is not the dot-com days...do you?
           http://www.nytimes.com/2004/04/30/technology/30value.html?hp
        \_ Google to investors:  We're the hottest thing in town, and we're
           going to go IPO and *still* retain management control.  Who cares
           if your shares have 1/10 the voting power of employee shares?
        \_ Sorry, but the "value of the natural log e is" 1.
           \_ 'Sorry, but the "value of the natural log e" is 1.'
              \_ 'Sorry, but the value of "the natural log" e is 2.718'.
                 "the natural log" e as opposed to "the drug" e.
                 \_ One can argue that "the natural log" is a function which
                    doesn't have a value, while the "base of the natural log"
                    is e and is 2.718......, and "log(e)" is 1.
                \_ Sorry, but the value of e is $20

        HEY: NO ONE CARES.

4/30    Is Google stock for sale yet? What's the ticker symbol?
        \_ Try reading one of the bazillion articles on the Net. SJ Merc has
           at least four in the paper today.
        \_ You have no business investing in anything risky.  Go buy a CD.
        \_ No.

4/30    C-50 (w/ help from Cl):
        http://www.newscientist.com/news/news.jsp?id=ns99994942

4/30    For you anti-bush liburals (yes I know that's redundant), there are
        two good opinion pieces on http://nytimes.com today in EDITORIALS/OP-ED.
        \_ Why do you hate America?           ED! ED IS THE STANDARD! _/
           \_ HATE! HATE IS THE STANDARD!
           \_ PLEASE!  What does this mean?  Why do you keep posting this?
              I don't get it but I'd like to get in on the joke.
              \_ USE LINUX!
              \_ USE L1NUX!
                 \_ RIDE B1KE!
              \_ it's a question used to get liburls off-balance
              \_ It's a kind of jab at the whole "my country right or wrong",
                 "support our president or you're unpatriotic" mentality.
                 \_ Yeah, I think someone's trying to make the "PLEASE!"
                    segment into a similar kind of catchphrase.

4/30    How does the SafeSearch feature in http://images.google.com's filter out porn
        images?  Does it have software to detect the amount of skintone colors
        in the images?
        \_ Search for "La Blue Girl" in quotes or "urabon."  Apparently, it's
           some sort of language-based filter.
           \_ http://ipatterson.com/projects/images/blue-girl.jpg
              \_ that's actually a pretty nice photograph, too bad it looks
                 like it was taken during a football game we were losing
           \_ there was a recent article i read on how google is getting a lot
              of flak for the pretty shitty quality of safesearch. apparently,
              it gets confused by substrings like sex or girl, so sites
              with stuff like "essex" or "littlegirlclothing" get censored.
                \_ I love how people love to nitpick at Google. If they have
                   such problems why don't they write their own search engine
                   or just not use Google?
                   \_ actually, this was in the context of legitimate sites
                      getting censored. as you may be aware, for many sites,
                      google visibility can be a make-or-break factor.

4/30    I am impressed, GWB knows about bit from byte. He said "..... one
        bit". Wow.
        \_ That's nothing compared to Al Gore, who invented the internet.
        http://www.firstmonday.dk/issues/issue5_10/wiggins
        Al Gore was the first political leader to recognize the
        importance of the Internet and to promote and support its development.
           \_ You know, if Star Wars had succeeded and Reagan had the
              physical capacity today to say "I created Star Wars", all
              you freepers wouldn't be saying that Reagan invented
              laser-based-weapons. Fortunately, for Reagan, Star Wars
              was only something you watch in movie theaters and he
              never had a chance to make such statements that would be
              intentionally misinterpreted.
              \_ If Star Wars (SDI) had happened under Reagan then he could
                 say he "created" it.  The internet didn't happen under Gore
                 either in the sense that he made it happen nor in the joking
                 sense that he literally created it with his mad skillz.
              \_ You squished 2 posts.  Use motdedit.
              \_ Do any laser-based weapons exist today?
                 \_ Deployed?  No.  There's a prototype of a chemical-powered
                    laser mounted in a 747 which detects and destroys missiles.
                    Last I heard they were planning on bringing it into
                    production.
           \_ but he did!!
           \_ he took the initiatives.
           \_ alg0r > joo
              http://csua.org/u/74z
              http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Al_Gore#External_links
        \_ urlP?

4/30    what does this do:
        soda [~] % more ~emarkp/bin/clean.pl
        /home/sequent/emarkp/bin/clean.pl: Permission denied
        \_ ~emarkp/bin is not group executable.
        \_ Why don't you email and ask him?
        \_ It takes all the evil swear words and turns them into things
           like a** and f***.  When it was world readable people were
           amusing themselves giggling over some of the words emarkp
           was so horrified of seeing he had to have them stared out.
           \_ Do tell!
           \_ Swearing f\/cking kicks AS5!
           \_ And this, ladies and gentleman, is why emarkp is the motd's
              best Mormon.

4/30    Media on torture back in 2001 (nonfree article is on nyt but here is
        a free link)
        http://www.refuseandresist.org/newrepression/110501torture.html
        For development since, google Dershowitz (Chutzpah) with torture.
        Although the pictures coming in are not pretty, it's hardly surprising.
        We should do a better job of catching those who are distributing
        the pics since they obviously are trying to disrupt our job there.
        \_ Sure, let's start arresting and stringing up journalists
           we don't like. That would be par for the Neocon course.

4/30    Other than making the current shareholders rich, why is Google
        making an IPO?  What will they do with the money so raised to
        make money?
        \_ The "other" is a bigdeal. The original investors want liquidity,
           as do many of the employees.
           \_ Money allows them to take more risks (inovation) than they can
              now. It also, if they use it correctly, minimializes the impact
              of a bad economy or a business downturn against their core
              company.
              \_ I haven't really been reading up on this since I'm too
                 poor to buy any stocks, but how are they going to go
                 public and take more risks?
        \_ They have to do public reporting now so they might as well get the
           benefits of being public.

4/30    Given the auction structure of google ipo as proposed in its S-1
        filing, I would be able to get share if I put my bid sufficently
        close to the upward ceiling, right?
        \_ Yes and you'll lose your shirt when it sinks like a rock after.

4/29    http://csua.org/u/74u Sinclair not to air Nightline's The Fallen
        \_ McCain for 2004.  Please.
           \_ Yar.  It's nice to see someone else saying this.  I've been
              hoping for the past two years that he would pull a coup.
           \_ Please.  John "I hate the 1st amendment" McCain got my vote in
              the Republican primary in 2000, but will never get it again.
              Nightline's name-list is obviously politically motivated--it was
              originally going to only air the names of troops killed since
              Bush announced an end to "major hostilities".
              \_ Why are you so ashamed of the war dead that you want them
                 hidden away?
                 \_ There's a difference between hiding them and not using
                    their deaths to further your own political agenda.  We
                    all know how many have died since it gets announced a
                    zillion times a day on tv and in every newspaper.
                    \_ You would have a point here, except the issue is
                        that Bush is hiding them to further his own political
                        agenda.  Both sides are equally bad, but Bush is
                        the one going against all historical precedent here.
              \_ "I hate the 1st amendment"?  Explain.
                 \_ Regulation of political speech.  McCain-Feingold.  Note
                    that the ads this year are even nastier than before, and
                    the little guy can do even less to get his voice out.
                    \_ Money as speech is a fat fucking lie.
                       \_ You are a fat fucking idiot.
                       \_ Set up a webserver.  Post a blog about a lying
                          politician.  You've most likely gone over the limit
                          and have to register with FEC.  And you can't do this
                          within 90 days of federal election.
                       \_ TV time costs money whether individuals pay or
                          corporations pay.  Are you saying a television spot
                          isn't speech?
                     \_ I support campaign finance reform, and I support
                        the elimination of big money in politics.  Give the
                        candidates a month to campaign, give them all equal
                        broadcast time, and penalize the hell out of them
                        for violating that.  All you're telling me is that
                        John McCain is my boy.
                        \_ Cool, then we'd never be able to get rid of a bad
                           incumbent.
                        \_ That of course guts the 1st amendment.  It also is
                           impossible.  Now we just have groups like http://MoveOn.org
                           slamming Bush's policies, with funding from foreign
                           nationals like George Soros (and I'm sure there are
                           examples on the Republican side of the aisle).
                           \_ No, our boy is an american.
                        \_ McCain-Feingold, does little good and some harm.
                           CFR is compicated and there are real speach issues
                           involved.  Speaking of Soros, his website has a
                           good primer: link:tinyurl.com/2th23 -phuqm
              \_ Source for the end to major hostilities bit?  Also remember
                 Nightline dedicated a show to the names of those who died
                 on 9/11, so this isn't totally out of the blue.
                 \_ Can't find it now.  However, why aren't they doing this on
                    the anniversary of the *beginning* of the war?

        \_ Someone is being nice enough to post a job listing.  If you don't
           like recruiters, fine don't apply for the job.  Just don't try to
           deprive other people of the job opportunity.
        \_ Is there a particular reason you're hiding the name of your
           company?  It may explain why this posting keeps being removed.
           \_ I assume there's the poster, his recruiter, and the company
              the recruiter is recruiting for.  The op may likely not even
              know the name of the company.
              \_ I'm guessing the company might be http://geac.com -!op
                 \_ Not a clue.  I'm the one doing the restores and not the
                    OP.  I just think there might be people looking for
                    jobs.  Call it public service on my part, and I assume
                    the OP's.
           \_ There is no company.  It's a recruiter.  The guy posting gets
              a referral cut.  Evil.
              \_ how do you know?
                 \_ Why would he post a recruiter add on the motd?
                    \_ Who cares?  Even if he does get a cut, that's one more
                       job going to a csua'er.  Better that than no cut, but
                       the job goes to somebody else.  NEPOTISM!
                    \_ He's doing other motd readers a favor?  I've often
                       pointed friends at recruiters with just a "he's looking
                       for X" and no additional information.
                 \_ Because the motd censor is much wiser than the rest of us.
              \_ Yeah, right, like resumes and job applicants are such hot
                 commodities right now.
                 \_ I have recruiters contacting me a couple of times a
                    week for unsolicited job offers these days.

4/30    on average, motd is posted by at most 3-5 different people a day.
        I make this conclusion based on the fact that for the past 2 weeks,
        I actually wrote 1/3-1/2 of the posts. It's actually quite sad.
        \_ Someone is being nice enough to post a job listing.  If you don't
           like recruiters, fine:  Just don't apply for the job.  Don't prevent
           other people from applying.
        \_ For you or for the motd?
           \_ For him, I guess.  I, and I hope most people, only post to
              the motd once or twice a day.
        \_ Obligatory "One person writes 1/3-1/2 of the posts?  Now it makes
           sense!"
        \_ there are at least 10 users who sign their posts. i know of several
           ppl who post but dont sign their posts. Of the anonymous posters,
           several personas (could be the same person?):
           Anti-Semite, Jew, Arab, NeoCon, TrueCon, Libertarian #1-N, Liberal,
           Bleeding Heart Liberal, Con who hates Bush, Deaniac, Kucinich Freak,
           Taiwan (pro and con current govt), the several users getting
           married, divorced, single, wnat to get laid, etc.
           \_ Bastard!  You forgot me!!!  --Nader '04!
           \_ wait!  I want to get laid!  That one must be me!
           \_ i'm trying to figure out who i am.
              \_ The motd is no place to search for self-enlightenment.

4/30    What's a good simple freeware/shareware spreadsheet program for
        Palm OS 5?
        \_ USE LINUX!

4/30    It is nice outside.  What are you doing in front of your computer?
        \_ Shut up, Paolo.
        \_ trolling on the motd!
           \_ are you a Dwarf?  (vs Elf or Human)
              \_ Shut up, Paolo.
        \_ Working.  Just got back from lunch outside.
           \_ Your text here demonstrates you are (were) not working, ipso
              facto, but hey.
              \_ Working for the csua.
              \_ Waiting for compilation to finish.
              \_ Getting paid to sit in front of a machine.
                 \_ sys admin?
                    \_ just ahead of schedule and on the clock (contract).
              \_ working for the weekend?
        \_ killing kittens

4/30    Commie, America hating Scientific American weighs in
        on the Bush Administration's science policy:
        http://csua.org/u/74x
        \_ More like Scientific UnAmerican!
           \_  Some ppl take this freedom of speech thing too damn
                far! where's the patriot act when you need it?
               \_ Soon, baby.

4/30    It's hell...everything will be destroyed
        http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,2763,1206705,00.html

4/30    Quick C++ question. In Meyer's More Effective C++, Item 22, he has
        a snippet of code like this:

        template<class T>
        const T operator+(const T& lhs, const T& rhs)
        {
          return T(lhs) += rhs;
        }

        My question is, why is it legal to do 'T(lhs) += rhs;'? T(lhs) yields
        a temporary, which is AFAIK, an rvalue, so since operator+= is not a
        const member function, the compiler shouldn't allow that line. My
        reading of the C++ standard seems to support my line of thought. But
        OTOH, g++ 3.4.0 happily accepts code similar to the above. So am I
        missing something here? Thanks.
        \_ T(lhs) is calling the copy constructor, which returns an object;
           I don't think it counts as a temporary.  Not sure though.
           \_ No, T(lhs) is the functional cast expression, which may call a
              constructor (but not the copy constructor).  Section 5.2.3/1 of
              the standard says that T(lhs) (that is, a type followed by parens
              and a single argument) is equivalent to (T)lhs.  5.4/1 then says
              that (T)lhs for a REFERENCE type is an lvalue, but for a
              non-reference type it's an rvalue. -emarkp
              \_ I agree with what you say, except for the part where you say
                 a copy constructor can't be called. That's illogical, and I
                 don't see where the standard says anything about that anyway.
                 \_ Well, that's the only part that isn't clearly in the
                    standard, so I'm glad you agree with the rest. :)  Anyway,
                    the standard says that: T(x) is equivalent to (T)x, which
                    any compiler will turn into a noop if the type of x is T.
                    I guess one exception for this would be if the type of x is
                    T const.  In which case I guess it would call the copy
                    constructor if T is not a reference type.  T *is* a
                    reference type in the example though. -emarkp
                    \_ Oops, my bad.  Yeah, this would call the copy
                       constructor (what was I thinking?) because of course lhs
                       can't be modified, but since lhs is a reference type the
                       copied object is an lvalue.  I'm sure this is one of the
                       screwy type rules that was made precisely for operator
                       overloading.  Sorry for the screwup. -emarkp
                       \_ Hmm, I don't think so. lhs may be of reference
                          type, but T(lhs), which is the same as (T)lhs, is of
                          type T, which is not necessarily a ref type. -op
                          \_ Okay, section 3.10/10: An lvalue for an object is
                             necessary in order to modify the object except
                             that an rvalue of class type can also be used to
                             modify its referent under certain circumstances.
                             [Example: a member function called for an object
                             (9.3) can modify the object.]  So it *is* being
                             copied, and it *is* an rvalue, but non-const
                             member functions can modify an rvalue of class
                             type.  -emarkp
                             \_ That's nasty, but thanks! -op
        \_ Ob: And this is why C++ sucks.
           \_ I agree it is often way too complex, but it has its moments. -op
           \_ Ironically, the reason this is so complex is so that it will work
              like you expect, or in a way that a compiler can optimize well.
              \_ Disagree.  At a certain point of complexity it's no longer
                 economical to expect anything.  All of this would be irrelevant
                 with T.add(lhs, rhs).
                 \_ Are you arguing against overloaded operators?  In your
                    expression, where does the sum go?
                    \_ It's returned as an instance of of T.  I'm not being a
                        smartass here, I'm just wondering about cases where
                        operator overloading saves anything more than a few
                        characters of function name.  What's the real win?
                       \_ Operator overloading is essential to having
                          user-defined types that don't feel like second-class
                          citizens. "Smart pointers" would be syntactically
                          ugly and cumbersome to use if you couldn't overload
                          pointer-ish operations, for example. I'm sure there
                          are lots more examples when you start using c++ as
                          more than just "a better C".
                          \_ To whoever asked why ocaml syntax is so warty
                               -- in part because ocaml has no operator
                               overloading.  I sometimes wish it was there,
                               but I am not holding my breath.  The ocaml way
        \_ Perl.
                               is that the operator can only be the same if
                               the underlying algorithm is the same (so for
                               instance they have +. for floats and + for ints,
                               but < for both floats and ints).  So they have
                               'polymorphism' instead of 'overloading'.
                                 -- ilyas

4/30    The president of Sinclair Broadcasting Group, the local television group
        that is refusing to air the Nightline soldier broadcast, has been
        arrested in Balitomore for pandering.  No URL just yet but this is
        reported in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.
        \_ WHY DO YOU HATE AMERICA?
        \_ Is this for real?  Is Pittsburgh close to Baltimore?
        \_ Where is Balitomore?
        \_ 24 hr later still no url and not on google.  This must be a troll.

4/30    Now do you still sympathize with the Japanese hostages?  They call
        their captors resistance fighters who acted in self-defense.
        http://tinyurl.com/39l6e        (yahoo AP)
        \_ Yes.
        \_ yes.  For all pratical purpose, their kidnap is just part of their
           resistance toward occupation.
        \_ Just because they're stupid doesn't mean I don't sympathize
           with them.  I know many stupid people.
        \_ This story is interesting.  Just reading your description, I
           thought, Stockholm syndrome, so what?  But the gist of it is that
           their captors didn't threaten them with death every day, like
           they did with the European hostages.  I can understand why the
           Japanese police didn't believe their stories:  these two guys
           are idiots, at least.
        \_ No, of course not.  If you stick your hand in a meat grinder, we
           all know you'll get your hand turned into hamburger.  If they got
           tortured and killed I might feel badly for their families.

4/30    "Americans claim that they respect freedom and democracy but only
        in their country." - Ahmad Taher, 24, a student at Baghdad's
        Mustansiriyah University.
        \_ He's wrong -- send him a copy of the Patriot Act
           \- can someone explain to me why john walker lindh is not at the
              guantanamo holding facility? --psb
        \_ The U.S. has never been a democracy.
           \_ WHY DO YOU HATE AMERICA?
                \_ America has always been a representative republic not
                   a democracy (as Athens was supposed to be).
        \_ Students are so cute.

4/30    Vietnam's Hero Still Grateful to Anti-War Americans
        "I would like to thank them," the 93-year-old veteran [Gen. Vo Giap]
        said on Friday of those Americans who opposed the war.
        http://209.157.64.200/focus/f-news/1127653/posts
        \_ you know by now everyone knows that you are hiding freeper posts
           by using the ip address.
        \_ WHY DO YOU HATE AMERICA?
        \_ I would thank them too, cuz it stopped a senseless war at first
           place.
           \_ Even Yoda can speak better than this and he's just a sock
              puppet on steroids.

4/30    Given that the Fed now has huge databases about us (like the info.
        all the arilines provided after 9/11 which contains address and credit
        card #), would it be long before some rogue employee share it with
        google, spammers, mafias, terrorists, or rogue states?  And the
        spammers probably have better data technology than FBI.
        \_ You think the feds didn't already have your address?  Uhm, duh, have
           you ever paid taxes?  Kids today....
           \_ not me, pal.  I happen to own a *large* black magic marker,
              and have removed my name from all the phone books I can get
              my hands on!
           \_ The IRS does not have my c.c. #.