5/15    http://www.csua.berkeley.edu/~ilyas/problems/good_and_evil
        A classic theory problem cast in slightly theological terms. -- ilyas
        \_It's 2 in the morn. and i've had some sake, but this q. makes no
          sense to me.  Am i missing the definition of good and evil
          somewhere in there?
          \_ No.
        \_ Well in theological terms, anything that comes from Satan is of
           Satan and therefore evil.  All objects from Satan are evil.  No
           objects from Satan are good.  The correct answer in pseudo code is:
           while (getNextObjectFromSatan()) { print "Object is evil" }
        \_ Is this actually two questions? (1) a strategy for the man to be
           fooled about good objects no more than half the time, and (2)
           to "program a computer" to always be right?
           \_ No, you assume the man knows the strategy already, whatever it
              is, for S. -- ilyas
        \_ Once again, my problem with theory problems is figuring out
           what the heck they are talking about.
           \_ For this problem, substitute "ilyas" for "Satan", "theory
              problem" for "object", and "stupid" for "evil".  Then make
              ilyas' goal to convince you that the problems are good.
              The human wins when he realizes he's wasting his time.
                \- good one. if i were that witty, i'd have signed my post.
                   -- !sarcastic
                   \_ It would have detracted from the joke.  -tom
                      \_ Naturally.

5/14    Under the new order ... issued Thursday, Sanchez and his staff will
        no longer consider any extraordinary interrogation methods other
        than putting prisoners alone in cells or in small groups segregated
        from the general prison population for more than 30 days. Regular
        interrogation techniques such as direct questioning of detainees
        without physical contact will remain allowable without special
        approval. -Washington Post
        \_ great... interogate them with a cushy pillow and mud facial.
        \_ cool, now even more americans will die because we can't use the
           most basic and trivial techniques that are used in police departs
           around the world.  thank you leftist scum for killing more people.
           \_ and those parts of the world suck .  have fun in egypt
              \_ egypt?  parts of the world?  any police force in the US is
                 allowed more 'techniques' than that.  read a newspaper lately?
                 \_ I hope you end up in prison, sodomized with a broomstick,
                    by a prison guard. It would only be just.

5/15    The new world of campaign opposition research
        http://www.theatlantic.com/issues/2004/06/green.htm

5/15    This has been bugging me for a while.  Is there a statute of
        limitations on war crimes?  I'm guessing not.  So why are we in the
        process of electing Kerry, a self proclaimed war criminal, instead
        of investigating his crimes and those of his unit and prosecuting?
        \_ pathetic troll.
           \_ always easier to point the troll finger than answer the question.
              if it was Bush who publicly stated he had committed war crimes,
              you and the media would be all over it.  you don't even have to
              admit it.  it's clear.  kerry is a war criminal.  he has said so
              in public.  and you are going to vote for this bastard.  nice.
        \_ Kerry is not a self proclaimed war criminal:
           http://hnn.us/articles/3552.html
           Kerry says he committed "atrocities" not war crimes. Do you
           think that firing your .50 cal in combat and burning houses on
           a search and destroy mission is a war crime?
        \_ So I am always curious about people like you. Why do you spread
           lies in an attempt to destroy a good mans character? Is there
           money in it for you? Do you make more than $250k/yr and fear
           a tax increase? I could understand that motivation, at least.
        \_ It's not a war crime unless you're fighting for a side that
           not only loses the war, but is taken over by the enemy.  Otherwise
           it's just a tragedy of war.

5/15    I am thinking of getting a MS-Finance (14 courses) with emphasis
        on computational / modeling areas to complement my CS background
        Has anyone had any school or work experience with this?  Is it
        a good idea?  (note: not in bay area, so it's not a berkeley-
        specific question)
        \_ I thought it was MS Money
        \_ No, but I am interested in finance, too. Which program are you
           applying to? What will you be doing after graduation?
           \_ I am working in the Chicago area and looking for a
              part-time program so I don't have too many choices.
              I have looked at U of Chicago part-time MBA and IIT
              (Illinois Institute of Technology) MS-Finance.  UofC
              has a famous name but is expensive (company will
              only pay part of it), takes longer, and requires
              courses that I am not interested in.  I am not too
              sure what I will be doing, but preferably something
              where a CS background and decent math foundation can
              come into play.  Don't mind doing investments either.
              I have some experience with oracle financial and hyperion,
              so with a MS-finance, it's probably easy to get a job
              in corporate finance, but corporate finance bores me
              to tears.  My CS/engineering experience is in wireless
              infrastructure, but this whole outsourcing thing kind
              of spooked me, and I want to spread my bets a little.
              What is your situation?
              \_ Then don't look for an MBA. Get a masters in Mathematical
                 Finance or Financial Engineering. Dunno which schools in
                 Chicago area offer such degrees..
                        [useless troll deleted]
                 \_ What are the schools in the US that offer these
                    degrees?
                    \_ Lots of business schools, including Haas, see:
            http://www.global-derivatives.com/schools/fin-rankings2003-04.php
                       \_ Thanks, that's very helpful!

5/15    And like the coming of the full moon, the AMC arrives right on schedule
        to purge the motd of any interesting topics.
        \_ restored.  to the top.  and the censor isn't anonymous anymore.
           \_ i'd ask you who it is, but I'm skeptical of such statements.
              too many people claim to know who's posting what or deleting
              what and then make preposterous claims.
              \_ duh.  tom was busted red handed.  the blood of murdered posts
                 was all over his hands, clothing and his bike.  nothing
                 preposterous about it.  busted.
                 \_ I am still waiting for the evidence. - !tom

5/15    Anyone know where I can find a good comparison between Quicken and
        Quickbooks? Intuit doesn't compare the two products and am not sure
        which is best for me...
        \_ Quicken: Personal & Business Finance
           QuickBooks: Business Bookkeeping

5/15    Looking for free pdf2txt, google doesnt help. ok thx.
        \_ pdf2ps|ps2html|lynx -dump

5/15    Prison abuse in Iraq and Afghanistan is part of a Pentagon operation
        (Copper Green) authorized by Rumsfeld. An article by Seymour M. Hersh.
        http://www.newyorker.com/fact/content/?040524fa_fact
        \_ Thank God someone is taking terrorism seriously and understands you
           can't treat these psychotics with mittens and expect to get
           anything from them.  A society unwilling to defend itself doesn't
           deserve to survive and history has shown it won't.  I suppose OP
           thinks if we just change our foreign policy to whatever the Islamic
           fascists want then they'd just leave us alone.  Let's start with
           the forced conversion of all Westerners to Islam.  They've done it
           before and are still living in the past.  OBL's "speeches" still
           whine about Muslim losses from 700 years ago.  Go look up the term
           "wakf".  I know you wont so I'll explain:  "Wakf" is the very alive
           Islamic concept that any land *ever* held by Islam is always
           Islamic no matter what has happened since.  They publicly state
           they intend to retake all "wakf" land (which includes most of
           Spain, btw, think about that in relation to recent events there) and
                \_ the Spain bombings were because of Spain's occupation
                   of a tiny sliver of Morocco, I don't know why this
                   doesn't get reported more.  I don't think it was really
                   about Iraq at all.
           beyond.  They don't make any secret of their plans to keep fighting
           and killing Westerners until there aren't any.  They've been
           fighting this war for hundreds of years and aren't going to stop
           because you knuckled under or bribed them.
           \_ too bad the folks at http://dictionary.com don't share your deep
              understanding of the Arabic language and Islamic law:
              http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=wakf
           \_ 1) stop cutting and pasting the same dumbass patronizing post.
              2) go look up the word "wakf" yourself; you have no idea what
                 you're talking about.
           \_ http://www.helplinelaw.com/docs/trust/23.php
              \_ Dictionaries are nice, but sometimes they're lacking context.
                 Quoting an Al Jazeerah opinion piece (csua.org/u/7by),
                 "They [hard core Hamas] consider it a foreign implantation
                 in Palestine, which in Islamic doctrine is a Muslim 'wakf'."
                 So it is in fact possible to place an entire "nation" under
                 the wakf designation.  Is Spain considered a wakf?  There
                 are some wacky people out there, so who knows.
                 \_ This sounds suspiciously like La Raza talking about Alta
                    California.
                    \_ Like I said, there are wacky people out there.  Just
                       because the concept is silly doesn't mean there aren't
                       people who will kill for it.
                 \_ Not Spain, but bin Laden is against the independence of
                    East Timor, on the grounds that it would mean the loss of
                    Muslim land.  (csua.org/u/7bz)  Is there a bin Laden
                    doctrine that says once Muslim, always Muslim?  The man
                    hasn't chosen to enlighten us yet.  Do you think he'll
                    stop with Palestine and East Timor?
                    \_ So has Deerborn, MI become "Muslim land" yet?
                    \_ Is there anyone still out there who doesn't think
                       Al Qaeda and UBL are utterly evil and need to be
                       exterminated?
                       \_ I don't support capiral punishment, so I can't
                          advocate their execution.  That's the same type of
                          thinking they have about us.  Nevertheless, I
                          wouldn't list a finger to save their lives.
        \_"Sy Hersh is the closest thing American journalism has to a
           terrorist." -Richard Perle
           \_ "He has weapons of mass destruction. The lesser risk is in
               pre-emption. We've got to stop wishing away the problem."
              -Richard Perle
        \_ Interrogate the terrosists with cushy pillows, tea
           and crumpets.  That will work.
           \_ Nooo not the comfy chair!  -John
           \_ it's pretty far-fetched to call most of the stuff going on
              "interrogation techniques."
              \_ That's the thing, I don't really mind if they tortue
                 terrorist to get info.  What bugs me about this case is
                 there was no purpose.  It was just brutality for
                 brutality's sake.
                  \_ How do you know?
                     \_ He doesn't.  He says what he's told to feel.  The rest
                        of the claim is these guys were being shown photos of
                        themselves in humiliating sexual situations so they'd
                        break from the threat of having those photos shown to
                        their family and friends.  I trust the CIA to know how
                        to interrogate someone more than I trust some random
                        fuck motd idiot to know anything about it.
                        \_ woah! let me get this straight.  you believe that
                           in spite of the fact that the cia, your bush
                           administration(i can only assume you're a republican)
                           the army and the soldiers involved have all said that
                           the humiliation was just rogue soldiers being
                           perverse assholes that you believe that they
                           are all lying and that the CIA in their infinite
                           wisdom *ordered* this stuff to happen?  and you
                           fucks say it's *liberals* who have too much
                           blind faith in government! incredible.
                        \_ could you help me out with my talking points here?
                           I'm a bit confused.  Are these incidents just
                           soldiers having a bit of fun, like fraternity
                           hazing, and the top brass had no knowledge of what
                           was going on, or are they sophisticated
                           interrogation techniques ordered by the CIA?
                           I missed my bulletin from Rush this morning.  -tom
                        \_ The Israelis, who are experts at this sort of thing,
                           say that sexual torture does not work
                           http://csua.org/u/7bx
        \_ Stupid American move. Long term interrogation works well for
           extracting good infomation from good sources. By choosing wisely,
           you get plausible denyability (people disappear every day...) and
           keep the moral high ground. You try to mass produce this type of
           interrogation on large groups you get huge noise to signal, lose the
           denyability factor, and your formerly secret policy (torture IS
           swell) get publicized. This topic used to be the grist of free lefty
           alternative weeklies. Not anymore. Hey where did my high horse go?
           \_ I think it went looking for your soapbox and your sense of moral
              outrage, but hey, good points all around.  If you're going to
              eschew morality and ethics, _at least_ be smart about it.  Is
              that too much to ask?

5/15    Get 'em Kofi!  The Middle East won't be safe until all the Jews are
        dead!
http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/1C1307DD-BF73-4769-AD70-5106EA7C4ADA.htm
        \_ Am I the only one who thinks that Anan/UN's statements make sense?
           Do you really think Israel has the right to raze hundreds of homes
           of these already very poor people? Yes, some of those could have
           been used by terrorists but does that give Israel the right to
           literally treat all of Palestinians like shit? This is a nice way
           to create even more recruits for Hamas and Islamic Jihad.
           \_ The entire palestinian society is now geared for fighting Israel.
              There may be innocents but for practical purposes, they are being
              held hostage by the radicals.  There is no longer any choice --
              Israel has to fight the Palestinian people as a whole.  There is
              no longer a way to separate 'normal' and 'radical.'
              \_ Time for the Final Solution, eh?
                 \_ Israel does not want to destroy the palestinian people,
                    unlike Israel's counterparts who almost certainly wish to
                    annihilate Jews from the Middle East.  Israel does want to
                    disengage in some way.
                    \_ It obviously does.  The difference is that Isreal is
                       not run by a bunch of crude and crazy morons who are
                       more interested in blowing their own people to martyrdom
                       than bulding a viable and functioning state while
                       underming that of its enemy in a complete and systematic
                       way .  The Palestinians deserve no sympathy.  Why should
                       the most stupid people survive?

5/15    I'd like to start doing AI programming again. What is a good,
        free common lisp distribution? I am using Max OS X. -tia
        \_ cmucl.  The sbcl fork runs on Darwin. -- ilyas
           \_ sbcl forked some time ago and is not really the same as cmucl
              anymore.  Franz's Allegro (originated from CS dept at Cal) is
              either free or costs a fortune, depending on the license.  Also
              available is openmcl, which is the only free one that has an
              (experimental) cocoa interface (never tried it).  gcl also works
              now but isn't it still CLtl1?  clisp is of course very slow.
              You probably want to try sbcl and openmcl first.  Somehow it
              seems you get better selection for scheme (bigloo) or even
              prolog (SWI or YAP).
              \_ xsb is a good prolog implementation also, they have tabling
                 and other goodies.  Bigloo is cool.  SWI is slow. -- ilyas
                 \_ So is xsb a reliable prolog to use? Lots of the ones I've
                    at seem to be abandoned.
                    \_ I don't know if there's any work done on it anymore,
                       the latest version was released almost a year ago.
                       It is 'reliable' though, in a sense of being a good
                       non-buggy implementation with useful features. -- ilyas