8/26    Iraqi police kidnapping journalists
        http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,2763,1291174,00.html
        Meet the old boss, same as the...oh never mind.

8/26    More from LAT polling.  "Kerry trails in key states"
        http://tinyurl.com/3p3h8 (nynewsday.com)
        There's a bit about margin of error, but Ohio is outside their stated
        margin, Wisconsin barely makes it inside and Missouri is 2 points
        inside the margin in Bush's favor.  I can hear $200 draining away
        somewhere....  :-)
        \_ Maybe we could start a CSUA presidential race betting pool.
           Losers have to donate their bets to the CSUA.  Between the
           $200 guy and the Bush takes CA guy, maybe we could raise enough
           to upgrade soda.
           \_ I'm betting you're looser than yermom.
           \_ Maybe you could do what I did and give money to democratic
              groups instead.

8/26    Iraqi police kidnapping journalists
        http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,2763,1291174,00.html

8/27    Is anyone else haveing a probllem w/ spamassassin not working since
        sometime late last night?
        \_ Yes.  I am using spamc.
        \_ Fixed.  Emailing root is the fastest way to get this resolved
           when spamd hozes itself -njh (root)
           \_ root messed up, root must be squished!

8/27    Do I need a int'l driver license to drive in Canada?  What about
        renting a car there?  And is it more expensive than in the US?  tia.
        \_ IDP is simply a translation of your original driver's lic.
           It does not permit you to drive and you need to bring your
           original one. My guess is that since Canada speaks English
           (or some variant of it) you probably could get away with not.
        \_ I don't think you do, there's some sort of agreement I think we
           have with Canada. Getting an int'l driver license isn't that
           difficult, though.
           \_ I know, but if it is not necessary I will not pay AAA to get one.
        \_ If you have a CA driver's license (or one from any U.S. state), you
           can drive anywhere in Canada.
           \_ I rented a car in Toronto and drove around for a week with a
              CA CDL.
        \_ I believe in many countries around the world, you are permitted
           to drive if you have a valid driving license from where you came.
           So just bring your original drivers license with you.
        \_ You can drive in Canada with a valid US drivers license. I rented
           a car and drove in Ontario (Ottawa) and New Brunswick (St. John)
           w/o any problems.
        \_ RACIST!
        \_ Thanks for all the answers above.  Now is rental in general cheaper
           or more expensive in canada than here?  -op

8/27    Someone want to tell us what just happened there?
        \_ Someone's running a borked merge script.
           \_ Hey now, that sounds like repeated motd munging to me!
              OFF WITH THEIR HEADS!  SQUISH SQUISH SQUISH!. -- ilyas
           \_ If they run a Thomased merge script, do we all get pubic hairs on
              with our Cokes?
              \_ Only if you're a hot chick.
        \_ Someone fingered soda.
          \_ SQUISH!!!!!!!!! We haven't had a squish trigger happy politburo
             since the jon administration. Ah, those were the days...
             \_ I ve said it before, and I ll say it again -- thank God for
                boring government.  The last thing we need is for it to become
                exciting. -- ilyas
                \_ yeah, thank god because otherwise you would have been
                   squished by popular vote, no question asked. Ah, I miss
                   the old administration.
                   \_ Yeah, looks like you miss the days of, as pst would say,
                      the old boys' network politburo.  Good for you.  It's a
                      good thing today's politburo doesn't operate on personal
                      animosity anymore. -- ilyas
                      \_ yeah, it's much better when the csua president
                         doesn't have to worry about getting ousted for
                         violating policy.  -tom
                         \_ Speaking of policy, isn't it against EECS policy
                            for alums to be consuming network resources?
                            "POLICY, THOU ART MY MASTER!  COMMAND ME!"
                            I love a policy wanker.  It's a certain breed of
                            petty tyrant usually inhabiting a government or
                            sysadmin position somewhere, that truly makes my
                            life worth living. -- ilyas
                            \_ Your premise is false.
                               And you're also an idiot.  -tom
                               \_ The Boy Who Cried Idiot strikes again.
                                  I stand corrected though, it's not EECS
                                  policy.  It's Berkeley-wide policy instead.
                                  The network is for students, faculty and
                                  staff only.
                          http://itpolicy.berkeley.edu:7015/usepolicy.html
                                    -- ilyas
                               \_ this rules.  great entertainment.
                                  What does a libertarian think about
                                  providing FREE labor by entertaining
                                  motd readers?  Are we stealing from you
                                  guys?  Should this be taxed?

8/27    Gymnastics jusges ask Paul Hamm to clean up their own mess for them.
        USOC tells them to shove it.
        http://tinyurl.com/6omhj
        \_ Can anybody explain the error the judges made?
           \_ "The 0.100 points deducted from Yang's start value in parallel
               bars-- the difficulty of the routine-- was the difference
               between third and first. Without the mistake, Yang would have
               won gold, Hamm silver and Kim bronze."
              In other words, the judges mistakenly thought that Yang's routine
              on the parallel bars was in less difficult points category and
              docked his starting score to reflect that. This is a kind of
              handicapping system that encourages gymnasts to try harder
              routines in exchange for more possible points.
              \_ Exactly.  Hamm has offered to give up the medal if they
                 fix their mistake and award the Gold officially to Yang.
                 They say he should save them the embarrasment and just
                 hand it over himself unofficially.
                 \_ Can you provide a URL where he says that?  His line
                    officially now is he won't give it back unless ordered.
                    \_ That means the same thing.  When the conterversy first
                       occured, Hamm said he would return the medal if ordered
                       to.  ie, He's willing to return the medal, but the FIG
                       must fix their mistake, not rely on the good will of the

                       players.
                 \_ I think in this case Hamm does the right thing.  "If you
                    guys insist that my official score is higher than Yang's,
                    why are you asking me to give the gold medal to Yang!!??"
                    But Hamm should make it very clear that his intent is to
                    force them to fix the score, rather than to keep the gold
                    medal to himself.
                    guys insist that Yang's score is lower than mine, why are
                    you asking me to give the gold medal to Yang!!??"  But Hamm
                    should make it very clear that his intent is to force them
                    to fix Yang's score, rather than to keep the gold medal to
                    himself.  He can even team up with Yang to achieve this,
                    like having a joint press conference.
        \_ I should point out as a side note that this is particularly irksome
           to the Koreas because they always fall just short of gold in
           gymnastics (Or at least, so says my wife)  So to get screwed out of
           a gold like this is really pissing off some Koreans.  As a side
           note, I haven't heard this, but I'm willign to bet theres a lot of
           "Those cheating americans!" type yelling in Korea. -jrleek
           \_ Were any of the judges American?  It sounds like the only thing
              he did 'wrong' was refuse to take responsibility for someone
              else's mistake.
              \_ I don't know where the judges were from.  That's kind of the
                 default cry for some people for anything America is involved
                 in where Korea didn't win.  Hamm, hence, the problem must be
                 America's fault.  QED.
           \_ My understanding was they *also* screwed up on the Korean because
              he made an illegal hold and should have lost *more* points.  My
              opinion is that Hamm should send the medal back to the committee
              and tell them he doesn't want his name to be sullied by
              association with olympic judging.
        \_ If the gymanstics jusges were American, they are OBVIOUSLY
           Kerry supporters.  Flip-flop, flip-flop!1$!  You can't have it both
           ways!
           \_ or Bush administration - find someone to take responsibilities
              of their own mistakes.

8/27    I wanna know how to cuss in different languages, is there a web site
        dedicated for that? Google doesn't help. ok thx
        \_ http://www.insultmonger.com/swearing  -John
        \_ your google fu sucks. fuck languages -> first link
           \_ Dutch-- 5 cuss words
              French-- too many
              What a surprise.
              \_ "Its like wiping your ass with silk!"   [restored the last lin
e.  come on.  the merovingian's
              \_ "Its like wiping your ass with silk!"
                  [restored the last line. come on. the merovingian's
                   accent was terrible]
                 \_ Agreed, but the actor is French.
                    \_ Likely they told him to exaggerate the accent.
                    \_ Will they deport him to Quebec?
                       \_ If we're lucky.
                 \_ Why did you have to remind me of that horriable movie?
                    Augh!
                    \_ The blue pill!

8/27    How does a technology such as http://NoMachine.com's "NX" eliminate X11
        roundtrips?  Is it just a caching technology, does it batch requests
        or does just make them asynchronous somehow?

8/27    Search engines build up their collection of URLs by following links
        from one URL to another. If you have a page that shows up in
        google, for instance, how do you tell what pages are linking to
        that page?
        \_ I think links:http://www.foo.com should do it.
           \_ except google doesn't seem to offer page-level precision.

8/27    Why was the Summer Olympics 2000 held in Sydney, where it's winter over
        there?
        \_ That's why it was so late (September), so they could have it in
           their spring.

8/27    So the NBA can't win the Gold Medal anymore. I guess we can't consider
        the winners of the NBA Championship "World Champions" anymore.
        \_ still wrong
        \_ Our hoops team was beaten by Argentina, a dominant country of ......
           soccer???  Why do we suck so much?  Oh, our baseball team didn't
           even make its way to Athens.  I hate being American.
           \_ This reminds me of that Gilligan's Island movie where the Harlem
              Globetrotters had to beat a bunch of evil robots in a basketball
              game. I think Team USA got caught up trying to play International
              style. They should have just played street style and dominate the
              competition with their athleticism. It should have been like
              those And1 mixtape videos with bounce-pass alley-oop, no-look,
              360 degree between the legs dunks. And lots of trash-talk.
              \_ And blasting rap music at the same time? :-)
        \_ You seem to be confused.  How many of the NBA champs went to the
           olympics?
        \_ Our Olympic team would not have beaten any of the better NBA teams.
           It's not a "Dream Team" in any sense.  -tom

8/27    Last night on NBC the president of IOC mentioned that, as an example
        that IOC doesn't do everyting to please Americans, baseball will be
        removed from the Olympics in the future.  Anyone knows what the reason
        is to remove baseball?  It was just added recently.
        \_ have you eve been to a baseball game involving teams
           you don't care about?  5 hours of pain in the sun!
           \_ it's quite pleasant if you're a fan of the sport.  i try to
              take in a night game when i have the time, especially in the
              middle of longer business trips.
              \_ I bet 5 hours in the grecian sun would suck.  are there
                 any other events with games that long?
                 \_ i believe the average major league game is just under
                    3 hours.  are olympic games longer than that?
        \_ Probably softball too. Too few countries participating. Host
           countries are left with a stadium they can't use for any other
           purpose.
        \_ Because we invaded Iraq.
        \_ Because it's stupid and they can't dress the women in skimpy outfits
           like basketball and *cough* beach vollyball?!?!?
        \_ The Olympics is a bunch of assholes out to make money.
        \_ This is fine. Not even Americans give a shit about baseball, and
           especially not softball which is just bastardized baseball anyway.
           Cricket has a lot more of a world following, and would include
           those highly-populated southeast asian countries. But cricket takes
           literally days to play a match and so a condensed version would be
           needed for the Olympics.
        \_ Sounds more like an anti-Japan ruling...
           \_ Anti-Cuban.  Japan probably does its fair share of greasing
              palms at the IOC.
              \_ And anti-Taiwan?  I think baseball is the #1 sport there.
                 \_ The Taiwanese will give money to any organization that
                    recognizes them.
                    \_ Taiwan is like a big prostitute.  At least it
                       won some cool medals this time around.
                                                - tainan taiwanese
                       \_ Hey, is there some scheme where we can get the
                          Taiwanese government to fund the CSUA?  Maybe
                          we can name a machine after the country or rename
                          ourselves CSUA for Taiwan Independence?
                          \_ It has been a dream of mine to register
                             csua.int for some time. Maybe we can get
                             the US and Taiwan to form a Computer
                             Science Undergraduate Association Friendship
                             committee or something.

8/27    Cool!  asians can jump too!
        http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/sports/AP-OLY-Mens-110-Hurdles-RUN.html

8/27    What's the best way to get rid of smoke smell on a leather object?
        I got something on ebay that turned out to come from a smoky
        environment.  Thanks.                                   - brendal
        \_ Where there is smoke there fire!
        \_ spray on some new car scent.
        \_ Have you considered taking it to a dry cleaner?  They specialize in
           that sort of thing.

8/27    Pleasure boat captains for truth
        http://www.pleasurecaptains.com
        \_ This is pretty darn funny.
        \_ Why won't Bush release his AA records?  What is he hiding?

8/27    My hands get pretty cold when I type. Is there such a thing as a
        hand/infrared warmer that you can attach close to your keyboard?
        \_ http://www.mousemitt.com/web-content/kb.html
           http://www.mousemitt.com/web-content/ss.html

8/27    What is it about Japan and Robots? Robotech, Mr. Roboto song,
        Honda Asimo, Sony Aibo, and all the weird Japanese robot movies.
        What's up with that?
        \_ Uhm, Styx wasn't japanese.
           \_ Yes, but they were making the same point.
        \_ I, Lobot!
        \_ Wow you're right! I bet no one ever noticed that before.
        \_ RACIST!

8/27    I'm currently running a 1.2 Ghz Celeron with 386 megs or so of RAM.
        I'm thinking of buying a new machine, but I want to go cheap, maybe
        less than $500.  I want to end up with a nice machine and a crap
        machine at the end of this.  (Crap machine so my wife can do email and
        stuff) so don't need a CD drive or monitor, and the video card
        doesn't have to be great because I already have a nice one in my
        current machine. A TNT2 would be fine (It just has to be good enough
        to play video full screen). Any suggestions?
        Will I be able to use the old ram in my new machine?
        \_ What are you proposing?  Buying a crap machine for your wife?
           Buying a tricked-out new machine and giving her the Celeron, or
           buying a new machine, and putting some of the Celeron's parts in it?
           \_ Option B + C.  I going to take the nice video card out of the
              celeron, so I'll need one to replace that. I'll also take the CD
              burner, and some RAM if I can.  I'll probably need to buy: New
              processor, motherboard, case, harddrve, and RAM for the new
              system.
              \_ OK.  Almost any video card can play full-screen videos.  I
                 could sell you an old Radeon VE for $10 or something or you
                 can go on Craigslist.  The RAM is not transferable to the
                 new computer because the Celeron is probably using PC133 and
                 a new machine would be using DDR400 or the like.
                 I bought an ATX case I like and have had it for 6 years.
                 If you're video-card shopping, the magic word is 'overlay'.
                 \_ What's an overlay?
        \_ Dell is routinely selling 2.8GHz systems for less than $500.  See
           http://gotapex.com.  The Dimension 4600 systems are great and include
           integrated video (but have an AGP slot), SATA, and typically 512MB
           Ram.  Watch out for the 2400's though, they don't have an AGP slot.
           \_ AMD!  AMD IS THE STANDARD ENTHUSIAST CHIP!
           \_ That's interesting info.  However, aren't chips up to 3.8 Ghz or
              something now?  Shouldn't I at least be able to get a AMD 64-bit
              3Ghz processor cheap by now?
              \_ Search the same page for amd and you'll get some results.
        \_ And what the freak is an AMD Sempron?  Sounds like a word for a
           deformed shrimp.
           \_ It is a brand-name that AMD came up with to prevent
              Athlon(TM) brand from becoming perceived as "low-end"
              because, frankly, they're not.  Most of the current desktop
              Sempron processors are K7-based cores.  The only exception
              is the 3100+, which is basically a true Claw Hammer (256k
              L2) with a fuse blown to disable long-mode.  It's
              practically identical to a Drill Hammer Athlon 64 2800+
              (512k L2), other than the fact that it has a smaller die and
              that it cannot enter long-mode.  All mobile Sempron chips
              are K8-based, again with long-mode disabled.
              It appears that all corporation-generated trade-markable
              names get made fun of.  Can _you_ come up with something
              better?  Seriously, I'd like to hear your opinions.
              And above comments such as "I'm currently running a 1.2 Ghz
              Celeron" and "aren't chips up to 3.8 Ghz or something now?"
              really saddens me.
              \_ why does that sadden you? i was running a 500 MHz celeron,
                 up until a few weeks ago, and it was all right for most
                 things, except playing some movies and all games.
                 though having 1 GB ram does do a lot.
              \_ Those "2800+" numbers have become silly with so many chips
                 with the same number but different performance. Oh and do you
                 work in marketing? There is no need for (TM) on the Motd(TM)
                 CSUA(TM) Motd(TM) Copyright (C) 2004. All Rights Reserved.
                 \_ As much as I hate all those numbers, those are all that
                    most people look at.  In fact, it saddens me that people
                    buy things based on numbers instead of even attempting to
                    learn a bit more about the products they're buying and
                    thinking about their requirements.  It's not all that hard
                    to differentiate them if you just try little bit.  For
                    example, at this point, I just cannot possibly recommend
                    anyone buy a K7-based processor.  Embedded memory
                    controllers on K8-based processors are simply too
                    worthwhile to pass on.  No, I don't work in marketing.  I
                    work in microprocessor design verification. --ricky
              \_ I'm kinda wondering about your sadness too.  What part of
                 that post makes you cry?
                 \_ Except for that certain Celeron (known as CeleronA, I
                    think), they're like 300 horse power engine attached to a
                    1980's 2-speed automatic transmission.  Seeing as how
                    during the most of the period these were available, Athlon
                    was also available at similar price points, it makes me
                    feel sad that people were buying these.  The other part
                    about 3.8GHz thing, to me anyway, shows the lack of
                    understanding of microprocessors in general by the general
                    population.  Not much I can do about it, but still
                    saddening. --ricky
           \_ I'm sure the marketroids who probably spend many meetings
              coming up with that would be hurt. I can only guess it's related
              to the latin, as in "semper fidelis". I don't think it works
              they way they think though. Just like celeron is supposed to have
              the association with excel, accelerate etc. but to me just sounds
              like celery. Or "sell her on". Or cellophane.
           \_ Semprini!
        \_ Update, I was going by Fry's anyway, so I stopped by to take a
           look, there were some good deals, so I went ahead and bought
           what I needed.  I got: Athlon XP 2800+ and mother board for
           $100, 512Mb of 400 Mhz ram, $60, and a Maxtor 7200 RPM 160 GB
           HD for $70.  In particular I think that HD is a pretty dang
           good deal.  I think this should cover me.  -op

8/27    Israeli spy discovered in the highest reaches of the Pentagon:
        http://csua.org/u/8t0
        \_ Uh, tell us something new?
           \_ All countries spy on each other, even allies. The French with
              their DGSE actively targets American companies for corporate
              episonage.
              \_ BUT THIS IS ISRAEL!  DIE JEW DIE!
                 \_ I am not Jewish - !op
        \_ WHY DO YOU HATE ISRAEL?

8/27    How do I get perl to read in a hex value from a file and store it
        as an int?  I basically want strtol for perl
        \_ int(hex($value)) should give you what you want
        \_ hex($value) should give you what you want

8/27    http://www.cnn.com/2004/US/South/08/27/911.toy.ap/index.html
        Get your 9/11 toys now!