5/20    "Destruction of the MOTD (by repeated deletion, jive, or any other
        method) is severly frowned upon and will result in the termination
        of your account.  Making the motd extremely long is not cool either.
        Don't be a hoser." /csua/adm/doc/policies/motd
        \_ Squish Tomasa bin Holub!  Repeat offender/censor/terrorist/enemy
           of the people #1!
        \_ How about an anti-nuke script, something that checks to see if
           motd has been zero'ed then restoring it? Is that a squishable
           offense?

5/19    Is it difficult to get into San Jose State Univers MS program
        in CS right now? is it impacted?
        \_ call them. how would anyone here know?
          \_ cuz MS is Masters Degree program
             \_ so?  call them.
        \_ It's not difficult to get in, but the classes most likely will be
           full. I was on the waiting list for all my classes.
           \_ which college is the  CS MS under?
        \_ I am just curious.  Assuming you got a CS BA from Cal, why on
           earth would you go to SJSU for a higher degree??  Isn't it worse
           than having none?
           \_ snob.  no it isn't.  which is better?  cal or cal+sjsu?
           \_ No. It is not worse than having none. Dropping out of
              Harvard is more difficult than graduating from most state
              schools, but a degree earned is a degree earned. It shows
              that you can complete goals and that you are interested in
              the field. It's not as impressive as a degree from somewhere
              else, but would you honestly take Cal BS + no MA over Cal BS +
              SJSU MS? I don't mean when hiring. I mean when evaluating
              level of educational attainment. Something is always better
              than nothing and many HR people are too dumb to notice
              otherwise.
              \_ I think it goes like this:
                  harvey mudd dropout >> cal+sjsu >> cal
                  \_ is this just a shot at tom?
                     \_ Holub brings it on himself.  Take a look at
                        his "Position" /csua/archive/officehours.damn.old.
                        \_ gee, now kchang is stalking me instead of lila.
                           I suppose I should be honored.  -tom
                  \_ From recent experience with Harvey Mudd grads, no.

5/20    The End Is Here!  The WSJ op/ed and tom are both talking about the
        tragedy of the commons!
        http://www.opinionjournal.com/la/?id=110005103

5/20    Everquest fraud:
        http://www.pbs.org/cringely/pulpit/pulpit20040506.html
        http://www.pbs.org/cringely/pulpit/pulpit20040513.html
        \_ EQ?  Who cares?  It's a stupid and _boring_ game.
           \_ Someone didn't get their Prozac this morning.
           \- are you are such a loser apparently you dont realize EQ is about
              5th in terms of what this situation is about. --psb
              5th in terms of what these articles are about. --psb
        \_ Hmm... Something is kinda telling me these people are only getting
           what they deserve for letting their fantasy life take over so much
           of their real life.
        \_ There's a real easy solution to this, just make it illegal to
           buy and sell "virtual" goods. We shut down sites that buy and sell
           this kind of crap, and people who get scammed can just
           duke it out in small claims court.
           \_ Er, but what about virtual goods like digital music?

5/20    GMail users: Did anyone get a TB of storage?
        http://reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml?type=internetNews&storyID=5195988
        \_ It was a bug.  It's in beta.

5/20    The google ipo scams begin (not that the "legit" ipo isn't
        a scam as well):
        http://reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml?type=internetNews&storyID=5181933
        \_ All csuaers should bid everything they have to get a google share!
           Then you'll be able to tell your kids you participated in the
           dotbomb of the 90s *and* the 2000s.
           \_ Fool me once, shame on you.  Fool me twice, shame on me.
              - Pee Wee Herman
              \_ "There's an old saying in Tennessee. I know it's in Texas,
                 probably in Tennessee. It says fool me once... shame on...
                 uh... shame on... you. Fool me can't get fooled again!"
                            -GW Bush

5/20    http://tinyurl.com/2g3gu (news.yahoo.com)
        And you thought Lindy England was bad.
        \_ Is she related to Libby Hoeler? Does that name ring a bell to
           anyone? She was famous during the .com boom.
        \_ It's definitely not as bad as you're saying.  The guy is already
           dead, and she had nothing to do with his death.
           \_ and how exactly do you know she had nothing to do with his
              death?
              \_ always assume the worst of people.  screw that innocent
                 before proven guilty bullshit.
           \_ The guys who were descerated in Fallujah were dead and the
              folks dancing around like idjits had nothing to do with their
              deaths. Their punishment was a hundred or so dead, many more
              wounded, and a month-long siege. It's all relative.
        \_ Seems like the little fish that are being fried are fighting
           back. Hopefully, the bigger fish will get their due.
                            \- random observation: are all the low level
                               people involved so far in the pictures
                               white people? --psb
                               \_ No. There is one black dude involved.

5/20    "Destrucshun uh de MOTD (by repeated deleshun, JIBE, o' any oder
        medod) be severly frowned upon and gots'ta result in de terminashun
        uh yo' account.  Makin' de motd 'estremely long be not cool eider.
        Don't be some hoser.  Ah be baaad..." /csua/adm/doc/policies/motd
        \_ Squish Tomasa bin Holub!  Repeat offender/censor/terrorist/enemy
           of the people #1!
           \_ Is Holub related to Emmanuel Goldstein by any chance?  Ignorance
              is Strength!
        \_ How about an anti-nuke script, something that checks to see if
           motd has been zero'ed then restoring it? Is that a squishable
           offense?
           \_ If it fucks things up, we'll still hate you.
                \_ um, zero'ed motd is already fucked up. the question should
                   be whether zero'ed motd is more or less evil than megatons
                   of restored troll.
                   \_ If it works like you say, sounds great.
                      If it fucks things up, we'll still hate you.
                   \_ there's nothing wrong with trolls since around here that
                      only means someone who disagrees with you.  binaries and
                      20+ pages of cut'n'pasted crap from some lame book are
                      not ok.
           \_ so then the nuker replaces with a few random chars... no gain.

5/20    Some ignorant yokel jarhead opens his stupid mouth about Iraq:
http://www.usatoday.com/news/opinion/editorials/2004-05-18-connable_x.htm
        \_ Heh.  This url caption reminds me of the ever tactful Daily Bruin
           article the other day: "Open your eyes, America: the Iraq war is
           a disaster!", which basically was wondering aloud how stupid the
           American people must be to have been buying Bush's story on Iraq
           for so long.  Really makes me see things from their point of view.
             -- ilyas
        \_ "We can and will achieve our goals in Iraq."
           Soldier, when you figure out what those specific goals are (rather
           than the vague "liberation of Iraq"), you let the rest of us know.
           We have faith in your abilities; we do not have faith in those
           who lead you.
           \_ You're just another talking head!
           \_ Maybe the people there have a better idea about whats going on
              than arm chair generals such as yourself?  Probably not.  What
              does an in-field active duty marine veteran know that a brilliant
              young man such as yourself doesn't know better?  You attended Cal
              and ate from the palms of your communist professors.  You know
              how the world works.  Where's that 'vodka glasses into the fire
              with BH' thing when you need it?
              \_ INFIDEL!!! HERETIC!!1! I fondly remember taking 162 from bh.
                 Especially those nights when we'd all gather around the big,
                 silent bulk of the PDP-10 in the machine room, heads bowed to
                 its greatness . . . and bh would pour the vodka, and we'd
                 munch on potstickers and talk for _hours_ about the imminent
                 coming of the Glorious People's GNU-LISP Revolution that
                 would sweep like a cleansing wave!  Some nights we'd watch
                 Animaniacs and listen to the Beatles until dawn.  Then we'd
                 shatter our vodka glasses against the wall and weave our way
                 home, staggering up the middle of Hearst singing Russian
                 peasant drinking songs . . . I didn't learn much about
                 operating systems that year, but damn, I learned about _life_.
                   -- I think this is what you want, hope it helps (original
                      anti-BH poster)
              \_ Actually, I'm a military brat.  I grew up around Marines my
                 entire life.  When a Marine tells you he's going to finish
                 his mission, you'd better believe it-- and you'd better find
                 out what mission he thinks he's supposed to complete before
                 his can-do attitude turns the whole thing into SNAFU.

5/20    http://www.doonesbury.com/strip/dailydose
        \_ I don't really mind, but why was this posted?
           \_ I just thought it was funny... I guess it's not really motd
              fodder though.
              \_ I think doonesbury is like slashdot.  motd'ers either read
                 it every day or choose not to because they're not interested.
                 (i read it every day.)
              \_ I guess it is kinda funny/sad that the funniest Doosbury
                 I've seen in years is a joke about a guy blinded in a
                 war.
                 \_ Are the dreams in which you're dying the best you've ever
                    had?
                    \_ No, but I do find it hard to tell you and I find it hard
                       to take.
                 \_ Nonono ... the funniest Doonesbury was when they were
                    quoting Bush Sr. on why it was a bad idea to invade Iraq.

5/20    On the Nick Berg video - some of their points seem valid, but I
        find it hard to believe the whole thing was a conspiracy.  What
        gives? http://www.kuro5hin.org/story/2004/5/15/22827/0477
        Is this a known wacko site?
        \_ I agree with you.  I can refute nearly every one of the first 14
           "suspicious circumstances", and then I got tired.  And I'm a
           liberal.
           \_ The low 30s are the only things that sounded somewhat plausible.
              Fat arabs?  White guys?  Left hand to mouth?  Why the jumpsuit?
              Why would the FBI step in and say to the family "you can't see
              the body"?  I'm not saying his mother would want to, but it's
              the family's call.  The rest was too far out there.
              \_ Nobody's going to refute this?

5/20    Holy Jesus, how fast was this guy going?
        http://uk.fc.yahoo.com/040516/46/etpu8.html
        \_ I don't know but those ain't Z-rated tires.
        \_ Looks like only one car is involved and there is no sidewalk.  So
           probably all six dead were passengers in the car.  Overloading and
           speeding, what a combo.
           \_ I see bits of another car there.
              \_ I see some multicolored tarps to cover the bloody
                 remains, but I don't think I see any other car bits.

5/20    Chalabi, what's going to happen to Chalabi?
        http://csua.org/u/7dr (nytimes link)
        \_ We need to appoint him as head of the Iraqi governing council.
           \_ After or before he is arrested?
              \_ That job has a high enough turnover rate that it won't matter.
           \_ got you point.  let the 'enemy' disposes of him.
        \_ Media today is saying State Dept didn't trust him, but Pentagon
           loved him.
           \_ obOldNews
        \_ "My message to the CPA is <dramatic pause>: Let my people go.
            Let my people be free.... it is time for the Iraqi people to run
            their own affairs."
           Mr. Chalabi, if the Iraqi people were allowed to run their own
           affairs, you'd be hanging from a lamppost.

5/20    Why I don't have much faith in the oil-for-food scandal.
        http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2004_05/003969.php
        \_ Except that Chalabi wasn't the only one making the accusations.
        \_ Uh yeah.  Our guys have recovered tens of thousands of pages from
           \_ Chalabi deserve it.
        \_ Uh yeah.  Our guys havne recovered tens of thousands of pages from
           Iraqi files about it.  It must have never happened.  Kofi is a hero!
           \_ mind you that USA literally installed Kofi at UN.  Go read
              about USA's coup to oust UN's previous secretary general.
        \_ don't you get it?  we just want an excuse to crush our political
           enemy.  Remember that young Shiite Clerk which we are trying so
           hard to arrest?  He was being accused of kill someone during the
           Saddam's regime.

5/20    Kerry is divorced.  Has there ever been a divorced president?
        \_ Uh... Reagan.
           \_ thanks
           \_ divorced someone else  but remarried to Nancy (1st lady)
        \_ i've always wondered the same thing.

5/20    Kerry divorced and remarried.  Has there ever been a president who
        divorced and remarried?
        \_ Uh... Reagan.
           \_ thanks
        \_ why do you hate us divorcees?
           \_ Divorcees hate America.
           \_ I love BDG! -bdg #3 fan
              \- BUSH was arrested for Drunk Driving. Given that Ted Kennedy
                 will never be elected, has there ever been a president who
                 was arrested for DUI/DWI? --psb
                 \_ AFAIK, Bush is the first president EVER with a criminal
                    record (upon entering office).
                    \_ Bush had the strength of will to go off the bottle,
                       and the leadership to not have to apologize for it.
                       \_ Leadership means never having to say you're sorry?
                          \_ I'm just saying that's what conservatives like
                             about the guy.  What's worse than a Limbaugh /
                             Fox News fan having to apologize to a liberal?
                             With Clinton, and all his "feeling your pain" --
                             well, Republicans think this was all horseshit.
                       \_ Right. Now wonder he choked on that pretzel-- he
                          was drinking O'Doul's.

5/20    Special for John:
        http://www.workingforchange.com/comic.cfm?itemid=16961.  -tom

5/20    Another amusing first for W.  First president under whom all 50 states
        run deficits simultaneously.
        \_ CARTER'S FAULT!  DUBYA NUMBER ONE!  4 M0R3 Y32RZZZZ!!!!!111!!@#!@#
        \_ Why do you hate America?
        \_ I find it really hard to believe that Wyoming is running a deficit.
           What is your source?

5/20    Anybody find themselves in a similar situation: You have a good
        friend of the opposite gender.  This person is either married or
        in a serious relationship with a loser.  The loser doesn't display
        any obvious jealously (and there is no reason to be jealous), but
        does seem to quietly sabotage your relationship.  Like saying
        "I'm feeling tired and want to go home" or just becomes moody
        and ruins things.
        \_ "no reason to be jealous" doesn't sound accurate
           \_ Not in a sexual sense.  I think he knows he is a loser.  He
              probably makes less than half of what she and I do, for example
              so he is always lobbing to go cheap on things.
              \_ it sounds like you are the loser.  -tom
                 \_ Why do you say that?  Nobody is showing off.  It's more
                    like after going out to dinner he wanted to go home or
                    go across town to a bar where drink are $1 cheaper.
                    He also doesn't have a car so he always needs to be
                    picked up.  Isn't it embarassing for guys if the woman
                    has to pay for bar and restaurant tabs because you are
                    always short (this isnt some Bad Boy Hells Angels type).
                    \_ here's a hint: the world doesn't revolve around you.
                    \_ Is this person married? I'm tending to agree with
                       tom here.
          \_ Maybe it should be rephrased "doesn't know he has a reason to be
             jealous"
             \_ I sort of expected this to be challenged.  But you have to
                accept that at face value.  This is someone I've known for
                a long time, gone on trip with together etc.  If something
                were going to happen, it would have.  I dont want it to.
                In fact I always make sure to give them some space.
        \_ I hate hanging out with my wife's friends and family, and I'll
           make excuses so we'd leave as early as politeness allows when
           they are around.  Most of the time I'll just ask my wife to go
           stag when they will be present.  Is the loser SO insisting on
           showing up, or is your friend the one bringing the SO along?
           \_ I dont think this is a case of not liking me.  He seems
              perfectly happy to talk about sports or movies, when "the
              women" are doing something else.  I wonder if his behavior
              would change if I were not single.
              \_ You obviously don't like him much, I doubt he loves hanging
                 with you. Stop being an arrogant asshole.
        \_ sabotage your platonic relationship?  eh?
           \_ basically it's a case of "my buddy got hooked up, and now I've
              lost my buddy" -- which happens all the time
              \-Many of you are "begging the (non)hypothetical" ... surely
                if a guy says "he's not after a woman" you can take take
                that at face value. This sounds very plausible to me,
                especually around here ... say your are friends with someone
                from school and she hooks up with someone who was doing well
                back in the 1990s and then became a (fat, in poor physical
                condition) <DEAD>dot.com<DEAD> causualty and became a bitter lemur with
                no car. --psb
                \_ And...? She likes him. This dude needs to mind his own
                   business. What's his question?
                   \- i think the question is whether to antagonize the
                      Lemur. You should tell him to "get a (job|car)". --psb
                   \_ I guess what he really wants to ask is how he can win her
                      over or at least get into her pants.
        \_ Sure, this happens with both male and female friends, if their
           new lover doesn't get along with me or thinks that I am a bad
           influence. He is just jealous, in the general sense, not the
           sexual sense. Does he try to drive away all of her friends?
           If so, that is a warning sign of an abusive personality.
           \_ You might be on to something there!  He is really moody, and
              they do have a lot of fights sort of in public.

5/20    Terrorist lawyer released.  (yahoo AP)
        http://tinyurl.com/2bxac
        \_ The fingerprints turned out to be from another guy.  But, the
           lawyer has a gag order on him.  From the story:
           Mayfield's brother, Kent, had to be pulled away from the TV
           cameras by Wax when he shouted out: "This proves it was a total
           witchhunt!"
           \_ Can there be a blanket gag order to thwart all hate-america
              anti-freedom speech and writing?
              \_ But Foxnews said that freedom is slavery.  you're not
                 pro-slavery are you?
                 \_ We should all be slaves of God, Christ, and His
                    free market on earth.  Are you a godless communist?
              \_ Good way to kill what could have been a good conversation.  Do
                 you *really* prefer that the motd is just partisan noise?

5/20    Stupid procmail question from a procmail newbie:
        Sometimes a line has ':0'.  Sometimes it's ':0c:'.
        What's the significance of the 2nd ':'?
        \_ http://www.zer0.org/procmail/mini-faq.html#syntax-colon
           \_ Thanks!  -op
        \_ OK, so this isn't working for me.  I want, under a certain
           condition, for a message to go to a certain folder AND be
           forwarded to a certain address.  I have:
                :0
                * condition
                {
                :0c:
                ${MAILDIR}/file
                :0
                !name@domain.com
                }
            Any idea why this doesn't do what I want it to?
            \_ Are you sure your condition is correct?
                 \_ Yeah.  It actually works.  I was confused.  The problem
                    is in the log file.  It only seems to log the last
                    command.  So, in the case above, it logs that it
                    forwarded the mail, but not that it saved it to the
                    file.  It would be nice to log both, not only the
                    latter.
                        \_ There's a "VERBOSE" option for .procmailrc which
                           should come in handy.  Just turn it off when you're
                           done or bounces will show to senders.
                        \_ You can use AND clauses
                             \_ Isn't that only for the condition?  Or can
                                one use that for the actions too?
                :0
                * condition
                !name@domain.com
                        :0 A:
                        ${MAILDIR}/file
                   \_ This doesn't work, but thanks.  It only logs the
                      1st action, and it doesn't seem to even do the 2nd.
            \_ I'm getting a lot of SPAM at root on one of my computers.
               Is there a good procmail rule to say "only accept mail
               from my domain, say http://berkeley.edu, and unqualified names,
               like those that may orginate on the local machine?
                :0 :
                * ^From:.*berkeley.edu
                $MAILDIR

                # send all other mail to dev null
                :0
                /dev/null
                \_ Wont this trash mail that come from just "root" with no
                   @ sign in the From field?
                   \_ special case it.

5/20    I have seen some ocaml comments on the motd.  What about Haskell?
        Is it better/worse/about the same?  I know it is supposed to "pure"
        but don't know what this translates to in reality.
        \_ Haskell is the only language I want to know something about, yet
           know almost nothing about.  I know it's not speedy, unlike ocaml,
           but has lots of clean ideas, and you can write really short code in
           it.  Haskell is a 'pure functional language' in that it allows no
           sideeffects.
           Haskell programmers use something called 'monadic programming' to
           get around this (say when doing IO).  Another way out is to use
           something called 'uniqueness typing' which is what Clean does.
           Personally I think insisting on a pure functional language is silly.
             -- ilyas
           \_ What value are these languages outside of theory and academia?
              \_ Troll attempt noted and appreciated. -- ilyas
                 \_ "Trolls are anyone that disagrees with you," a motd
                    person, circa May 2004
                    \_ You are right, it was a thoughtprovoking question.
                         -- ilyas
                        \_ I was actually quite serious you self righteous
                           bastard.  You're always going off about all these
                           obscure little languages and I actually really
                           wanted to know what use they are outside academia
                           but frankly I don't give a damn now.   If you don't
                           know or don't want to bother explaining then just
                           don't.  I certainly wasn't trolling.  --bite me
                 \_ This is a legit. question. What exactly is it that makes
                    this language (and/or any other language you keep talking
                    about on the motd) much better than C? I've looked up
                    things like ocaml and such, but they just seem like ya
                    syntax to learn w/o any added benefit (the resulting code
                    doesn't look any easier to write/debug/maintain than C).
                    Its not that I have anything against learning new prog.
                    langs (I've been working on ObjC to do Cocoa/OSX stuff),
                    its just that I want to know what the real benefit is
                    of these non-C-like langs that you keep mentioning.
                    \_ Well, I can't answer this for you.  _I_ find that GC
                       languages with good libraries infinitely easier to
                       get work done in than C.  YMMV.  Prolog is one of those
                       languages where if you are solving the right problem
                       the solution is 10 lines, and would have been 300 lines
                       in pretty much anything else (not a made up example).
                       Prolog also has fast implementations, since there's a
                       good mapping between prolog code and C.  Also, I agree
                       with Dijkstra in that poking with new languages can
                       teach you about programming, so it's certainly good to
                       learn other languages just for that reason, even if you
                       don't plan to use them in practice. -- ilyas
                       \_ The only benefits of C are: there's a C compiler for
                          nearly every platform--okay there's only 1 benefit.
                          GC is a non-issue really, and I've seen as many
                          problems with GC as without.  But yes, an important
                          reason to learn many languages is that some concepts
                          are easier to implement in different languages, hence
                          you actually think about doing things differently.
                          It's better to have many tools in the box than to
                          have a reeeeally good hammer. -emarkp
           \_ Is there something in the language itself that dispose it to
              slower implementation or just nobody bothers to make the effort?
              \_ Troll attempt noted and appreciated.  -- ilyas #8 fan
              \_ I don't know about Haskell.  Ocaml is about as fast as gcc
                 compiled C.  Does that answer your question? -- ilyas