5/12    On the flip side, CNN headlines "U.S., Iraq vow to hunt down killers
        of American hostage", but do not attribute this declaration to anyone
        in particular in the story itself.
        \_ uh, what do you mean?
        \_ On the flip side of what?  Are you trying to be shocked that CNN
           does third rate reporting?

5/11    how do i check to see that the ISO I have was faithfully burnt to
        CD.  Can I run and MD5 check on a CD?  (how?).  I have an md5
        checker for windows which works for the iso but not on the cd, I
        could always put the cd on a linux box if there is a way to do it
        there.
        \_ Uh, run the verification after you burn, which practically every
           CD-ROM burning software has as an option? I mean, c'mon, do you
           you really have to ask a question like this on the motd?
           \_ nero, for one, doesn't seem to allow you to verify ISO burns.
              \_ My version of Nero seems to allow verification just fine.
                 What version are you using? -williamc
              \_ Hold the orginal and the copy up to the light, side by side.
                 \_ This solution has never failed me.
           \_ huh huh, smart guy isn't so smart anymore huh? -troll
              \_ hi troll, troll better!  that was weak!
        \_ In Linux, with an ide-cdrom: "dd if=/dev/cdrom of=newcdimage.iso"
           or with scsi (or ide-scsi):  "readcd  dev=N,N,N f=newcdimage.iso"
           cksum newcdimage.iso  ; cksum sourcefile.iso
           or use md5sum if it was complied with "big file support".

5/11    This is the best article I've read in a long time, and it's very
        positive too.  It's about Taguba:
        http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A18916-2004May11.html

5/12    Bush not attending his daughters' graduations because he "does
        not want to subject other families to the disruptions of a
        presidential visit".  He doesn't, however, seem concerned about
        disruptions at the 3 commencments in battleground states he'll
        speak at.
        http://csua.org/u/79o (nytimes.com)
        \_ Can you *really* not tell the difference between having the
           President Of The United States as a speaker vs. having him as a
           random there in the audience to scream "JENNA!  WHOO!  YEAH BABY!"
           when she gets her diploma?  Troll harder.
           \_ His two daughters are graduating.  He's making public excuses
              for why he's not attending their commencements.  He's, instead,
              speaking at graduations in swing states.  He can't bring himself
              to say "We have scheduling conflicts."  He has to lie.
           \_ from the persptective of turning the streets of new haven into
              a fucking circus, there's no difference between bush giving a
              speech and attending in the audience.  also, bush is really really
              hated in this town.  I think there may actually be fewer
              republicans in new haven and at Yale than at berkeley.
                                                        -new haven resident
              \_ I shall translate these posts for those of you less
                 fluent in modern "liberul speech."
                 <Bush sucks!  Hate BUSH!!! BUUUSSSSHHHH!!!  EEEVVVVIILL!
                 HATE, FEAR, KILL, HAAATTEEE BUUUSSSSHHH!!! AUGH!>
                 \_ Typical Right Wing villification of anything that might
                    challenge your way of thinking.  Chill out, son.
                 \_ It's not hate. It's terror at what our country is
                    becoming from the top down.
                    \_ A) BS. B) What I'm saying is you guys have lost all
                       touch with reality.
                       \_ dear ass monkey, "bush is hated in this town" is
                          an observation of how other people feel, not
                          necesarily my own opinion.  If you think that Bush
                          is anything but despised in ultra-liberal college
                          towns it is you who are out of touch with reality.
                          republican campaign strategists, unlike you, are
                          very aware of this reality, which is why they know
                          it's a waste of time and money to campaign in
                          an ultra-liberal college town.
                          \_ Dear Moron: I can only assume you
                             misinterpreted this on purpose.  I was not
                             responding to the statement of fact that Bush
                             is hated in said town.  I was translating the
                             posts that claimed Bush was weaving an evil
                             tapestry of lies and deceit to get out of
                             his daughter's graduation. Your assumptions
                             of understanding all the details of what went
                             on it planning behind the scenes in the Bush
                             administation are completely retarded.
                             You're all making mountains out of molehills
                             for your anti-Bush campaign.  I am not a Bush
                             fan, but even a monkey could see this.
                             \_ dear jiveass dipshit: if you were not
                                replying to that post, you shouldn't have
                                formatted your post so it looked like you
                                were.  learn to fucking format.
                                \_ Sigh, low reading comprehension scores,
                                   huh?  You notice I used the word
                                   "posts."  You see, that's a pural.  It
                                   means "more than one post."  I
                                   responding to elements of BOTH posts.
                                   Not a specific fact in ONE post.
                             \_ But why even bother throwing out bogus excuses?
                                Because "I'm on the campaign trail, so I can't
                                make my daughters' graduations" won't play well?
                                It's an epidemic with the man.  He can't appear
                                flawed so instead he lies.  That's sociopathic
                                any way you cut it.
                                \_ Try cutting it so it looks more like
                                   reality.  They probably decided the
                                   graduation thing years ago.  Now, the
                                   campaign advisor sees he has free time
                                   that day and schedules a speech.  What,
                                   did you expect him to sit home and
                                   watch Oprah just because his daughter
                                   was graduating and he couldn't go?
                       \_ I love America and am as patriotic as they come.
                          And I agree that Bush has to go for the good of
                          America. Fortunately, I am in a large and growing
                          majority. Enjoy your next four years out of power.
              \_ so if Bush is the speaker he'd attend?
              \_ Well, I doubt he got to be valedictorian at his own
                 graduation.
              \_ Yes, but wouldn't be sitting next to Random Parent in the
                 audience.  He'll be up on the stand with the rest of the
                 speakers where the attention is already focused.

5/12    http://www.hillnews.com/news/051204/patriot.aspx confuses me.  Are
        we supposed to like republicans for opposing the patriot act
        extension because we hate the patriot act or are we supposed to now
        like the patriot act because republicans oppose it?  Or are we supposed
        to hate republicans *and* PA no matter what they vote for or against?
        \_ I think we need to be glad that more GOP lawmakers have found their
           balls again.
           \_ Exactly. We'll see how long it goes until they cave. Besides
              it's a rollback they should be shooting for as "libertarian-
              minded Republicans". -- ulysses
              \_ So since this is just their nature its ok to keep hating them?
                 \_ Say what? -- ulysses
           \_ Well, this is just for show.  They will quietly sign on later.
              And so will the democrats.
              \_ So we should hate democrats as well?
                 \_ Hate whoever you want, gays, liberals, feminists, or
                    free thinkers.  This is a free-to-hate country.

5/12    Suppose I have as much RAM as a computer and can memorize/count
        card. But what good is it if the casino uses 10+ decks and they can
        shuffle any time they want? Isn't card counting good only when you
        have very few decks?
        \_ Card counting gives you an advantage.  The size of that advantage is
           determined by how many decks are in play and how many cards have
           been dealt since the last shuffle.  The house has a built-in
           advantage.  If your counting advantage is less that the house
           advantage (because of #decks or shuffling) then don't play.
        \_ Casinos don't exist for you to apply your mad math skillz and get
           rich and famous like some MIT cheats from a few years ago.  They
           exist as a form of entertainment.  Some people actually do win
           money sometimes but (here's the Stat 2 part) because the house has
           a built in advantage you *will* lose money over the course of your
           life if you don't cheat.  The MIT crew were cheating.  Card
           counting alone will not help you tip the odds in your favor.
           \_ How were they cheating?  From what I heard of it, they had one
              player sit at a table playing small hands and when that player
              saw the count become favorable, they signaled for a whale player
              to come over.  When the count went south the whale left.  They
              were sneaky about it, but that's not illegal, just common sense.
              \_ I didn't say it was illegal.  The State determines what is
                 legal or not.  The casino determines what is cheating.  I
                 never used the word "illegal" to describe them.
           \_ I agree with the previous poster.  You need to show how the MIT
              crew were cheating.  Everything I've seen and read suggests that
              they were not cheating.
              \_ If the casino says it is cheating, it is.  They make the
                 rules.  Breaking rules = cheating.  It's very simple.
                 \_ So if the casino says wearing a red shirt is cheating,
                    that's cheating too?
                    \_ It's called a dress code, and if they so chose, they
                       could throw your ass out for violating it, yes.
                       \_ The question wasn't "should they throw you out", it
                          was "is breaking any casino rule cheating" and the
                          answer is "no"
                          \_ Well, actually, since most casinos are private
                             establishments, they can throw you out any time
                             for any thing.  They write the rules of the game,
                             they arbitrate those same rules.  So, I think
                             the actual answer you're looking for is, "yes".
                             I think the question you're answering is "is it
                             illegal".
                       \_ You said "breaking rules = cheating".  Breaking
                          rules.  Not some rules, but just breaking rules.
                          So is wearing a red shirt cheating, if the casino
                          has a rule against the wearing of red shirts?
                          \_ You're being obtuse.  See the post below -- I
                             think he's got a sane explanation.
                             \_ I'm not being obtuse.  The "breaking rules
                                = cheating" guy has a stupid definition he
                                was trying to defend, and I just showed
                                how ultimately silly it was.
                 \_ Maybe we should make 3 distinctions.
                    Breaking the house rules: Whatever rules they want.  They
                    can eject you and ban you from the premesis.
                    Breaking the game rules: Looking at other people's cards,
                    changing your bet mid-game.  Against house rules and
                    generally illegal.
                    Breaking the law: They eject/ban you and you go to jail.
                    Card counting without the use of a computer is only aginst
                    the house rules.
                    \_ Does signaling a whale player count as #2, breaking the
                       game rules?
                       \_ Counting cards by itself is a 1.  Not against
                          the rules, but some casinos won't want you as a
                          customer.  Signaling a friend by itself is a 0.
                          It's quite common and acceptable to tell a friend
                          to gamble at your "hot" table, for reasons of
                          hotness unrelated to card counting purposes.  So
                          a combination of a 1 and a 0, signaling based on
                          card counting, should not be a 2.

5/12    I have 2GB of ram and a server that has 20 20MB processes. I have over
        a gig free but many of those processes are put on disk. Is there a way
        to tell Solaris to be less aggressive about putting certain processes
        on disk?
    Memory: 2.0G real, 1.5G free, 266M swap in use, 2.3G swap free
 28820 root       1 50   0 12.5M 1416K sleep  11:07    0  1.60% dansguardian
 28821 root       1 59   0 12.5M 1464K sleep   3:54    0  0.54% dansguardian
 28822 root       1 59   0 13.5M 2216K sleep   3:43    0  0.52% dansguardian
        The processes used to be 50MB but I reconfigured the server to use
        smaller list files. BTW, this is a content filtering proxy that does
        a pass through to squid.

5/12    Any NFS servers that run on windows?
        \_ Can you just use smbmount?
           \_ Unpredictable port number is bad for firewalls
           \_ smbmount doesn't exist for all systems.
        \_ Haven't used any in about 8 years, but a google for
           nfs server windows turns up a bunch. --scotsman
        \_ Sort of.  PCNFS is a commercial product and there are others but
           they all have the same core windows/unix compatibility issue re:
           user name mapping.  It can be done but it becomes a bitch for large
           user bases.  Maybe these days it offers a more automated way of
           doing it when fed a passwd file.
        \_ I haven't used it, but Unix for Windows(or similar name) from
           Microsoft has nfsd.  And Microsoft is giving these away.  I got
           one in the mail a month ago.  A coworker told me that a lot of
           people prefer installing this first, before resorting to Cygwin.

5/12    I started interviewing again. Is it just me, or are a lot of Java
        programmers obsessed with the minutiae of the language?
        \_ You Java programmers still exist? I thought you guys died with
           the whole dot-com fad.
        \_ just Java programmers?
        \_ what specifically are you referring to? are they asking you about
           APIs or stupid questions like "Name 7 things not found in Java that
           are present in C++"?
           \_ some API questions- for example, when to use HashMap vs.
              Hashtable (which I actually knew the answer to...). I've had
              that question twice in two weeks. -op
              \_ They all pull them from the same online quiz.
                 \_ no.  They're also all out interviewing and steal questions
                    from each other.  I've been heavily interviewing for the
                    last few months.  After the first 3-4 interviews, the rest
                    were all clones.  Several admitted that their lists were
                    direct ripoffs of what they had been asked before.  I do
                    the same thing when interviewing others.  It makes sense.
              \_ I got the Vector vs. ArrayList one twice.
        \_ Maybe people aren't smart enough to think of questions that are
           better than crap you can lookup.
           \_ It isn't about crap you can look up.  It is about "if you don't
              know this well enough to talk about it briefly then you haven't
              done this that often".  Yes, anyone can look up anything but if
              you've been around longer you're likely to be looking up less.
              Don't be bitter about it.  Seriously, just apply for everything
              in sight just to learn what the latest round of questions are
              so when you get to the interview you really want you'll fly
              through it and look like an uber genius even though you're just
              some mid-grade coder monkey.

5/12    "The lead attorney in the case, Eugene Crew, planned to ask the
        judge Wednesday for more than $18.5 million in fees. He told
        the judge in legal briefs that he deserves about $3,000 for
        each of his 6,189.6 billable hours, "considering the enormity
        of this undertaking against the most powerful corporation in
        America."
        \_ fucking lawyers
           \_ yeah, and don't forget all the hours that they fuck the client
              for three grand, but have some paralegal do the work at 12 bucks
              an hour.
              \_ Why do you hate capitalism?
                 \- it's not capitalism, it is self-regulation ... see e.g.
                    the Texas Bar suit again Nolo Press [which fortunately
                    they lost]. --psb
              \_ they probably fuck the paralegal too
        \_ What is this about?
           \_ M$ antitrust
        \_ To be fair, it's typical that class action firms charge what seems
           like larger-than-normal hourly fees for their hours. The reasons:
           1) If they lose, they don't get paid. At all. If "Crew" had not
              won that case, that's 3 years of working for no salary.
           2) They have to pay for the costs of the case up front and only
              get paid back many years later (and only if they win).
           So usually a firm like that gets what is called "lodestar" fees
           which multiply the normal hourly rate by 2x or 3x to make up for
           the above two points. Normal hourly rates for attorneys are
           $3-400 or so, with super exceptional ones $600ish. So, by any
           metric, this would seem like an exceptionally large amount to
           charge. However, note that if the case was on contingency, he'd
           be getting 1/3 of the settlement, which is way more than $3k/hour.
           \_ $3-400 normal hourly rate!  That's 6-8 times what I'm getting for
              being a senior software engineer.
              \_ Right, but if you were working for a consulting firm, they'd
                 probably be billing you out at that sort of rate. $3-400
                 includes lots of other costs besides attorney salary, like
                 staff salary, rent, copying, couriers, etc.
                 \_ I see.
              \_ $50 an hour?  Your fully burdened cost is double that.
        \_ My attorney fiancee reports that "those lawyers did a fantastic
           job" and deserve $3k/hour. The California settlement is a really
           good one for consumers; in fact, it's a larger settlement than
           the *national* settlement. She said that basically when you take
           a case like this, if you fail, you're bankrupt; if Townsend had
           lost the case, there would have been no more Townsend. Other firms
           suffer the same problem (in the IBM toxics/cancer recent case,
           Alexander Hawes & Audet lost and is now in serious financial
           condition).

5/12    Snapfish is hiring a mobile architect. See the posting in
        /csua/pub/jobs/Snapfish.mobile.architect for more details.
        -- ajani

5/12    Berg's father blamed the U.S. government for creating circumstances
        that led to his son's death.

        Coalition spokesman Senor said that in Iraq, Berg had no affiliation
        with the U.S. government, the coalition or "to my knowledge" any
        coalition-affiliated contractor.

        http://tinyurl.com/343s7  (yahoo news)
        \_ tourist?
           \_ http://csua.org/u/72a
              \_ Wrong url?
           \_ Mossad spy?
        \_ "On April 5, the Bergs filed suit in federal court in Philadelphia,
           contending their son was being held illegally by the U.S. military.
           The next day, Berg was released. He told his parents he had not been
           mistreated.
           Michael Berg said that in early April, his son refused a U.S. offer
           to board an outbound charter flight because he thought the travel to
           the airport through an area where attacks had occurred was too
           risky.
           State Department spokeswoman Kelly Shannon said that on April 10,
           Berg told a U.S. consular officer in Baghdad that he wanted instead
           to travel to Kuwait on his own."
           \_ "Today, coalition spokesman Dan Senor in Baghdad said Berg had
              been held by Iraqi police and questioned by the FBI three times.
              Senor said that to his knowledge Berg 'was at no time under the
              jurisdiction or detention of coalition forces,' according to the
              Associated Press."

5/12    I'm having a wierd problem with the JNI.  I have a class with some
        native functions, and in that class I use the statandard
        static{System.LoadLibrary("x")} call.  I have to similar
        programs, in one I have Java call the native claases.  This works
        fine.  In the second, everything is the same except C starts up
        the JNI, which then instantiates this class, which calls
        loadLibrary.  This one crashes, badly, on the loadLibrary call.
        What the crap is up with that?
        \_ What do you mean by "C starts up the JNI"? The JNI is an API.
           Do you mean that you are starting up a JVM in a C program?
           -williamc
           \_ Sorry, yes, starting up the JVM in a C program.
              \_ How are you starting the VM? Are you forking a new process
                 to start the VM? Are you calling it using something like
                 sys?

5/12    Prozac does a body good! Make sure to take your daily allowance
        today aaron, mkay??

5/12    What is the best gyro/shwerma in Berkeley?
        \-i had a pretty decent GYRO at the mexican [?] place directly
            south of SHK. truly med in SF is good so ostenisbly the berkeley
                        \_ Pollo?
            one will be ok. --psb
            \_ not as good, but still a lot better than most of the medit.
               food in berkeley.  of all i've had in the bay area, though
               truly med in the mission is the best.

5/12    On Enterprise (the tv show) their computers have a cool way of
        watching logfiles, similar to "tail -f". Except theirs scrolls up a
        bunch of lines together so that each new line added doesn't force
        the screen to scroll. It makes things easier to read. Anybody know
        of a program like this? Otherwise I'll write my own. Thanks.
        \_ tail -f | more.  And you're a dork.
           \_ That requires user interaction. not what I want.
              \_ what you're decribing would be thoroughly unuseful for
                 general real world use.
        \_ less
        \_ justthesame
        \_ Start your xterm with the "-j" option.  Or press and hold ctrl-
           middle-button in your xterm window and select "Enable Jump Scroll".
        \_ That sucks. What if there's a bunch of lines and then one that says
           "starting long-ass job.." followed by a long delay, you might miss
           that message until after the job is done because it got batched up
           with its own results.
        \_ sounds like you want jump scrolling as a less option.  Rather than
           scroll the screen for each line, scroll by say half a screen width
           and then don't scroll again until bottom of screen is reached. I'm
           kind of surprised that isn't already in less (yes I did RTFM).
           \_ what are you talking about? less is a pager, it doesn't scroll
              unless you press space or whatever. It doesn't have some timed
              auto-scrolling thing (right?). Although, that would be a nice
              feature for it (but you should be able to jump in and out of
              that mode via a command).

5/12    Telespree is hiring a mobile application developer.  The posting is
        in /csua/pub/jobs/Telespree_junior_mobile_appdev.  --njh

5/12    http://www.wired.com/news/autotech/0,2554,63413,00.html?tw=wn_tophead_1
        Honda's Civic Hybrid is rated by the EPA to get 47 miles per gallon
        in the city, and 48 mpg on the highway. After nearly 1,000 miles of
        mostly city driving, Blackshaw was getting 31.4 mpg. "I feel like a
        complete fraud driving around Cincinnati with a license plate that
        says MO MILES," says Blackshaw, who claims that after 4,000 miles
        his car has never gotten more than 33 mpg on any trip.
        (Also, if you check the Prius msg boards linked from the article,
        it appears those drivers get 45+ mpg.  2004 Prius >> Civic Hybrid.
        But I still think it's easy to hit some poor pedestrian who didn't
        hear you coming.)
        \_ There's very little difference in road noise at speed between a
           hybrid and a standard car.
           \_ "at speed" is definitely not the situation I'm imagining.
              I am now assuming I don't need to give examples of the situations
              I'm actually afraid of.
        \_ Toyota is ahead on the hybrid tech, they've done it longer.
        \_ That's really sad,  I get 33-37 in my regular Honda Civic.
        \_ I used to get 38-42 combined in my crappy '87 Ford Escort.  Maybe
           it's the way he drives.  Does electric motor have the same problem
           as gas engine where rapid acceleration consumes more energy than
           gentle acceleration in order to reach the same final speed?
           \_ It's probably something like that.  The VW diesels say they
              can get over 40 mpg, but you have to shift at like 2000 rpm
              to get that kind of mileage.  Many people get only around 30
              some when driving like they would with a normal car.
        \_ Is it correct that they'll use the gas engine to augment the
           electric engine during hard acceleration?
           \_ The gas engine is the primary means of power.  The batteries are
              charged *solely* by the brakes storing energy in them.  *If* the
              batteries have power, the electric will try to take over for the
              gas engine, but in a high-horsepower situation both will operate
              together.
              \_ Just from the brakes?  So that means that living in a hilly
                 place makes a huge difference, right?
              \_ Is that true for all hybrids?  I thought it was supposed
                 to be that that gas engine generated electricity, which
                 moved the car.  If it's just based on brakes, unless you
                 were very careful you'd just be driving a regular car
                 with too many batteries.
                 \_ OK, hybrid cars shouldn't be thought of as some
                    revolutionary new propulsion technology.  All they are is
                    small gasoline-powered cars with an added system that
                    recaptures energy normally wasted when you hit the brakes.
                    If you live in a hilly area or have to use the brakes a
                    lot, a hybrid will save over a conventional car.  If you
                    drive a lot at constant speed or accelerate hard, you
                    won't save much.
                    Simply having the gasoline engine generate electricity for
                    the electric motor will waste power, because every time you
                    convert forms of energy, you lose.  A normal car converts
                    chemical, to pressure to motion.  If you then convert
                    motion to electricity and then back into motion, you've
                    wasted energy and had to cary around an electric motor too.
                    -dgies ( majored in Physics)
                    \_ dewd, if you checked the Prius web site, you would see
                       that it said the gas engine would recharge the battery
                       if the batteries were low.  Also, further refinements
                       include shutting off the gas engine entirely while
                       the car is stationary.  Note that this is linked to
                       the first statement.
                       \_ Directly charging the batteries with the gas engine
                          *is* wasteful of energy.  However, since the hybrids
                          have small engines, it makes sense to keep some
                          juice in the batteries for when you need some extra
                          horsepower. -dgies
                          \_ okay, as long as we know the gas engine does
                             charge the battery at appropriate times -- it's
                             not all braking action as asked by a previous
                             poster -- and one acknowledges the benefit of
                             having the gas engine turn off completely while
                             the vehicle is stationary.  Finally, the
                             battery is also charged when going downhill by
                             applying automatic braking, and the gas engine
                             may also turn off completely.
                          \_ You are just wrong dgies. Do you understand
                             how a diesel electric train engine works? The
                             hybrids work the same way.
                             \_ Those dang SCIENTISTS and ENGINEERS!
                             \_ Actually, this is not quite true.  There
                                is no physical connection (via transm.)
                                between the diesel engine and to the
                                locomotives wheel.  Prius has CVT as
                                mentioned below.  Prius uses the electric
                                motor to either supplement energy (from
                                the batteries) or used as a generator
                                to capture excess engery (either from
                                the engine or from the wheels "braking").
                                Diesel-Electric uses the engine soley
                                as a power-plant for the electric motor
                                (which connects to the wheels).  The
                                reason behind this is that the narrow
                                powerband of the diesel engine would
                                require a transmission with about 25
                                gears.  BTW, you can use the elec. motor
                                also to brake a locomotive.  Think of
                                it as a giant hair blow dryer.  Instead
                                of storing the energy in a battery, it
                                is used to generate heat.
                                \_ Why doesn't the locomotive also store the
                                   electric energy from braking (or at least
                                   some of it) instead of wasting it?
                                   \_ I guess because freight locomotives
                                      tend to do long haul and not do
                                      quick stop-n-go runs.  It probably
                                      doesn't make economical sense (and
                                      much like hybrid doesn't "shine" in
                                      high speed highways).
                     \_ With CV transmission, you can get "infinite" gear
                        ratio (versus the traditional 1st gear, 2nd, etc).
                        This way, the computer can operate the gas engine
                        at the most efficient RPM without directly
                        affected by the speed of the car.  Any "excess"
                        energy generated by the engine can be used
                        to recharge the battery.
                        \_ Yeah but then you don't get something to mash
                           about while bombing around the hills.  -John
                        \_ CVT isn't specific to hybrids. MINI's and Audi
                           A4's have them.
                           \_ are they something that we should expect to see
                              on all cars in the near future, or are they too
                              expensive? (or is there some other reason that
                              this would be undesirable?)
                              \_ I imagine they're probably more expensive and
                                 less proven reliability.
                           \_ Civic HX (a gas-only car) has CVT also.
                \_ it's my understanding that the Honda hybrids are primarily
                   gas and use the electric motor to supplement it whereas the
                   Toyota Prius is the other way around.

5/12    My work is planning on ordering a raid box and we're considering
        going with fibre channel instead of scsi.  none of us have worked
        with fibre channel.  can anyone recommed for/against any brand of
        fibre channel?  the raid manufacturer is quoting us with a qlogic
        board.  we'll be running it on linux, but experience with any os
        is appreciated.
        \_ You will be able to get *lots* of bandwidth over the fibre
           channel solution, assuming you are going with 7+ drives.  The
           CSUA has a fibre channel raid array that hosts the office
           accounts and the debian mirror, plus some.  It is running
           software raid 5.  We only have a 1Gbit backplane, which I
           can easily saturate when doing linear disk access.  Qlogic is
           the defacto fibre channel controller card.  Make sure you have
           at least a QLA2200 card.  I wasted 6 months of lockups when
           doing testing with a QLA2000 card.  No driver issues
           since the change-over.  If you have any questions, let me know.
           -- njh
           \- helo how much $ did you spend for how much storage?
              i have some SATA numbers built fairly cheeply but an
              curious about the perf gain if we spend a little more $
              ok tnx. --psb
              \_ About $2000 for 1/2TB of 10K RPM 36GB drives in 2 chassis
                 with redundant power supplies.  This was for surplus,
                 unused netapp hardware w/1 year warranty, and 2 spare disks.
                 And no, I can't get such a good deal anymore.
        \_ Or you could get an external hardware raid box like the Arena from
           Maxtronic.  The low end boxes are IDE drives attached via FC or
           SCSI (your choice).  Rock solid.  Cheap enough with decent perf.
        \_ you didn't mention what os you're planning on using it with.  I
           can tell you now to avoid JNI cards like the plague.  We're still
           having issues (linux)
        \_ apple xserve RAID

5/12    When people compare miles-per-gallon between gasoline and diesel, are
        they comparing apples to oranges?  How is one gallon of gasoline
        equivalent to one gallon of diesel?  Can they be chemically converted
        interchangably?  Or, can one gallon of gasoline and one gallon of
        diesel be produced from the same amount of crude oil?  Thanks.
        \_ Diesel is more efficient in miles-per-dollar.
        \_ http://auto.howstuffworks.com/question399.htm

5/12    So, do people think the motd is better without locking and some
        few over writes or the way it is now where motdedit totally fucks
        up the merge and munges a lot of posts?
        \_ The MOTD is better when people don't change it out from under
           someone who has a lock.
        \_ I think motdedit is an abomination.
           \_ I think people who stomp over other's posts are an abomination.
              \- i am outraged over the outrage.
           \_ That was very confusing until I realized you were talking about
              a program, and not yourself.
        \_ What is the problem with asking people try not to force write?
                \_ it doesn't work
        \_ the solution to this problem is simple. CVS. CVS does a better
           job at ci/co, and we'll keep a revision. I'd say it's a brilliant
           yet simple idea.
        \_ telling people to use certain programs to edit motd is like putting
           up a sign on the freeway that says "be nice to other drivers and
           say no to road rage!" It just doesn't work.
        \_ proposal, use CVS to handle merging which we know works way
           better than achoi's merge. The other advantage is knowing who
           edit/censors/alters the content and having an archived log.
           Vote:
           aye: ..
           nay:
        \_ why not try to improve the merge program?
        \_ I think the mis-merging is usually pretty funny.  It's also
           easier to fix that having someone else accidently overwrite my
           post, now it still exists, just in the wrong place.

5/12    Kerry says first choice for SecDef would be John McCain
        http://tinyurl.com/2kd82         (politics.com, Reuters article)
        \_ Yes but would he be superb?
        \_ that's because he and Kerry are best buds.  It would be funny
           if Kerry got elected and still chose McCain.  I can understand
           why he named Levin, though.  He was real sharp yesterday.
           McCain, Warner, Kennedy -- they all sounded not as bright.
        \_ hmm ... Kerry-McCain sounds mighty good to me.
           \_ How about McCain-Kerry?

5/12    Perl question, I want to replace nnn with xxx, ie, \nnnn -> \nxxx
        (that's a backslash followed by n, not a newline), s/nnn/xxx/
        gives me \xxxn!! What to do? I want the replace to change everything
        except a literal \n that should stay as is...
        \_ I think s/(\\n)?nnn/$1xxx/ will do it.  That's "match an optional
           backslash-n and nnn and replace nnn with xxx".
           \_ Alternatively, s/(?<!\\)nnn/xxx/ explicitly matches any "nnn"
              that isn't preceded by a backslash.  You may or may not find
              this more intuitive.
                \_ ?<! is the syntax? how weird.
                   \_ It's based on the older syntax of ?!, which looks ahead
                      in the string: /foo(?!bar)/ matches foo but not foobar.
                      When they added the ability to look behind, matching
                      bar but not foobar, /(?<!foo)bar/ seemed like the least
                      bad choice.

                      Yes, it's a mess.  The tentative perl6 syntax for this
                      is /<!after foo>bar/, where <!after foo> is read "not
                      after foo" and means "assert that the current position
                      in the string is not immediately after something that
                      matches foo".  --mconst
                      \_ I must say the introduction of actual English keywords
                         (in regexps, no less!) instead of line noise is a
                         philosophical novelty for Perl.  Or maybe they added
                         so much functionality that the pigeonhole principle
                         hit them pretty hard, and they had no choice. -- ilyas
                         \_ Heh.  You might actually enjoy reading some of
                            Larry Wall's rationale for the new regexp syntax;
                            it includes quotes like:

                                It should not be considered acceptable to
                                define new constructs that contain a plethora
                                of punctuation, but we've become accustomed
                                to constructs like (?<=...) and (??{...}) and
                                [\r\n\ck\p{Zl}\p{Zp}], so we don't complain.

                            Check out http://csua.org/u/7af starting at "First, let
                            me enumerate some of the things that are wrong
                            with current regex culture."  --mconst
                            \_ But I *like* line noise!  It makes me look
                               brilliant at work.

5/12    "My understanding is that they suspected that he was engaged in
        suspicious activity," Senor told a news conference.
                http://tinyurl.com/28ctq        (Yahoo Reuters)

5/12    Are there any emacs modes for .l files (lex) and .y files (yacc)?  I'm
        running emacs20.  Thanks.
        \_ just use c-mode or c++-mode.

5/12    I'm trying to make a line graph in the open office spreadsheet
        (Calc), and I can't get the X axis labels formatted the
        way I want.  I would like them to be at even numbers, by
        thousands, regaurdless of my data points. Does anyone know how to
        do this?
        \_ Use a MS product.
           \_ Not an option.  (besides, aside from this one problem, I'm
              very happy with Calc)

5/12    The pernicious idiocy of the left epitomized
        by this thread.  http://Salon.com accuses http://freerepublic.com
        of complicity in Berg's death.
        http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1134424/posts?page=1,50
        \_ Idiocy is synonymous with GWB. Stop trying to hijack our word.
           \_ w00t!

5/12    My brother works as a janitor for a cleaning company while he goes
        to college.  He's paid well, so he doesn't want to quit.
        However, there's this guy he works with who he can't stand.
        Janitors have a lot of time to talk as they take out the trash,
        and this guy says really stupid things constantly.  He's racist,
        sexist, and always asking for computer help.  My brother asked to
        work with someone else, and his boss said that no one else could
        stand the guy either, but he had no reason to fire him.  Is
        "None of your coworkers can stand you" just cause for
        termination in CA?
        \_ Sure you can be fired for any reason whatsoever, or no reason
           at all. Unless you are under some kind of contract, like at
           a Union job. Is this guy in a Union?
           \_ Not in a union.  But I'm not sure you're right.  I've heard
              of people sueing for unlawful termination before, and I know
              it was a concern with my boss when I was a pizza boy.
              \_ whatchoo talkin' bout, boy? unless you can show some kind of
                 discrimination, or contract (union?) they can fire at will.
                 just make up stuff about the guy, or tell the boss he was
                 offensive and shit, that's a valid reason.
                 \_ This is bad advice. Just fire him. Don't give any reason.
                    Giving reasons is the #1 source of unlawful termination
                    lawsuits. It sounds mean, but it covers your ass.
                \_ I love listening to the advice you guys give.  It's
                   obvious none of you have owned or run a business with
                   employees.  Firing someone safely is VERY VERY HARD.
                   \_ his brother doesn't either.  he's a janitor.  i'm
                      clearly missing something about this thread.
                   \_ what state do you live in? I've seen enough CA layoffs
                      that I have to doubt that. other than the safety angle
                      of psychotic revenge with an assault rifle.
                      \_ THE TIME OF PURIFICATION IS AT HAND. *CHA-CHICK*
                      \_ layoff != firing.  and i've seen people file suit
                         after a layoff and the company settle.
                   \_ Firing one person is a piece of cake. You barely need
                      a reason. More than one person, then you have to have
                      good reasons. As the numbers grow, the better your
                      reasons need to be. Suing based on discrimination is
                      HARD since the onus of proof is on the person fired. They
                      would need to show intent of malice. Some folks sue, some
                      employers settle out of court because it's cheaper.
        \_ convince the other guy to quit.  have your brother tell him that
           he loves black/asian/hispanic/jewish/whatever people, that he
           can't wait to see a female POTUS, and some bad computer advice.
        \_ "Creates a hostile working environment."  Log all complaints.  Once
           the paper trail gets long enough, fire the guy with no cause given,
           and retain the paper trail for defense.  If you really want to be
           safe, create an employee handbook with strict rules against racist
           comments, etc. and reprimand him for violating the rules.  With
           luck, he might improve.  Otherwise, you'll have plenty of ammo to
           get rid of him.
           \_ His brother isn't the manager but this is what the manager should
              be doing.  And yes, like other people said above, it is very hard
              to safely fire someone in CA, at-will laws or no.
              \_ The best thing to do (as a manager in a situation like this)
                 is to reduce the hours the guy can work.  Reduce them far
                 enough, and it won't be economical for him to work for you
                 anymore.
                 \_ Then he'll have grounds to sue you because you reduced
                    his hours for no reason while keeping everyone else the
                    same.  This is stupid.  Make policy, document violations
                    from that point on, then fire.
        \_ Maybe he's trying to get himself fired?