9/18    Defend private property from illegal invasion, get shot by the
        FBI
        Federal agents surround ranch in Douglas, Arizona
        http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1218545/posts
        \_ from one of the freeper posts a bit down on the page:
           "I remember that we held our noses 4 years ago. The pubbies told us
           to give him a gop House and Senate and we'd get what we wanted. We
           held up our end of the deal. This year, I'm not holding my nose."
           Hah! you fuckers are losing your base.  It continues to amaze
           me how the same people who claim to be radical opponents of
           excessive government power can support the Ashcroft justice
           department.
           \_ As much as reality may upset you, gun toting freeper yahoos
              are not the (R) base.  Someone who refers to them as "The
              pubbies" clearly sees himself not as the base but outside the
              party and needing to be bought.  Carry on.
           \_ Generalizations accomplish very little - there are statists
              in both parties.  Exactly which provisions or actions by
              Ashcroft are you upset about?  I never heard
              outcries from the left about Clinton's 1995 anti-terror act,
              of which the Patriot Act simply ties up the loose ends.
              \_ Explain this to us less tinfoil-oriented types.
              \_ Because Clinton:good, Bush:evil.  Very straight forward.

9/18    Any recommendations for a classic movie on DVD? Or perhaps
        a not-so-old movie that just came out on DVD?
        \_ <DEAD>Warrrrrrriorrrrssssss...com<DEAD>e ouuut and plaaaaaayyyyyy!
        \_ DEATH TO OPTICAL DATA STORAGE MEDIA!!1!1!!  Why not get
           a classic movie on VHS?
        \_ original Manchurian Candidate
        \_ Chinatown
        \_ The Sting
        \_ Fail Safe, directly followed by Dr. Strangelove. -John
           \_ I just saw "The Fog of War" this weekend (excellant, BTW)
              and I couldn't help thinking about Dr. Strangelove during
              the film. Made me appriciate Kubrick's genius all the more.
              \_ In the "Iconic Movies" category I'd like to add 'Westworld'.
        \_ the wild bunch
        \_ What do you like? Gilda? Casablanca? Gone With The Wind?
        \_ By "classic" do you mean "Black & White" or "Timeless"?
           Check out the Criterion catalog.
        \_ AFI top 100: http://www.ravecentral.com/afi.html
        \_ Separate but Equal or Inherit the Wind
        \_ Once Upon a Time in the West - Sergio Leone / Charles Bronson
           \__  Thanks all, that's great --op.
        \_ The Manchurian Candidate (not the remake, obviously).
           The Third Man
           Rear Window
        \_ I think "Treasure of the Sierra Madre" is a pretty great flick.
           It doesn't feel as dated as a lot of classic films, and it's not
           real weighty or pretentious. There's a 2 disc special edition.
           I don't have it though, don't normally buy movies.
           \_ Not as dated? "We don't need stinking badges!" indeed.
              \_ I'm too lazy to explain that sentiment better.
        \_ BLADE RUNNER!  BLADE RUNNER IS THE STANDARD!!!
        \_ Jean de Florette & Manon of the Spring -- Some of the best acting
           even IMHO.
        \_ The Graduate
        \_ The Godfather.

9/18    The Sims 2, TOTALLY AWSOME. I love how you can look at people's
        expressions. It's like being a director in a soap opera. EA is
        awsome. BTW you nuke this one more time, I'll retaliate.
        \_ how do I do a "woohoo" in Sims? My love stat is 100/100 and they
           sleep on the same bed but nothing happens
           \_ In Sims 1 at least they have to 'play' using the heart-shaped bed
           \_ have both sims Relax.  the sex option will open then.
              See http://gamefaqs.com forums if you have more questions.
              I agree it is a totally awesome game, extremely polished.
              I "beat" it yesterday and still think it's the best-game-ever,
              and I've played a lot of games.
              \_ CIVILIZATION SERIES BEST GAME EVER!!!
              \_ How do you "beat" it? I thought the sims was just an aimless
                 endless dollhouse game where you constantly tell your sims
                 to eat and take a crap.
                 \_ I've heard in this one they're a lot smarter about
                    remembering to eat and go to the bathroom all by themselves
                 \_ You're right in that there is no endgame screen.
                    I decided maxing out all my skills == beating the game.
        \_ how much will I have to upgrade my computer to play this game
           properly?
           \_ I don't remember exactly but I think you should have:
              1GHz proc, 256-512MB RAM, 3.5GB disk, Radeon 9000 or GeForce 3
           \_ Try the Microsoft Windows XP Game Advisor, needs IE:
              http://csua.org/u   otherwise just google for sims 2
              http://csua.org/u/94k   otherwise just google for sims 2

9/18    Is there A finance.yahoo symbol for a barrel of crude?
        I can't seem to find any commodity or futures symbols.
        \_ I know precious metal symbols, but no others.
        \_ No. Yahoo! doesn't list commodities.
        \_ Try CLA (futures) or WTI (West Texas Intermediate)

9/18    how do i fix my thinkpad cmos battery?  i can't find
        the correct part to buy online.  is this something i can
        buy at radio shack?
        \_ watch out! I had a thinkpad where I thought the battery was
           busted, I bought a new battery, and it turned out that
           it was not the battery, it was something in the laptop's
           charging circuits or something.  new battery did not help.
           \_ he's talking about the CMOS battery, not the main battery.
        \_ get the FRU# from 1-800-IBM-SERV. Buy the part on ebay.

9/19    I'm looking for a simple but good load balancing appliance to sit
        in front of two boxes for the purposes of redundancy.  Load Balancing
        isn't really required, I just want the device to send traffic to
        the secondary box iff the first server goes down. Recommendations?
        \_ An OpenBSD 3.5 box running pf + carp can do this. If you don't
           want to use OpenBSD you can try ucarp: http://www.ucarp.org
           \_ I considered this kind of virtual IP solution, but there are
              lots of situations where an app server is down but the host
              still responds to a ping.  A Load balancer solution would be
              better if it could check the port to decide if it is up or
              not.  (which I think is the way they do it, no?)  Optimally
              I'd be able to tell the load balancer  "check this url for this
              answer or consider it down", but that seems like something I'm
              unlikely to get from some off the shelf appliance.  (I want an
              appliance as it should be more reliable than a pc (?) ).  How
              expensive is a small bigIP box or something like that?  I can
              spend a couple grand on this.
              \_ My knowledge of CARP is limited, but it is based on the
                 tx/rx of signed adv. not just ip pinging, so detection
                 of a host that is down but still pingable is not an issue.
                 It can't tell that your http server is down though.
                 I'm not sure what the cheapest soln is, but I've seen
                 lots of people use alteon boxes.
              \_ a pair of bigIP boxes should run you under 2k easily, check
                 fleabay.  I'm assuming you want two, to avoid moving the
                 single point of failure to the bigips.  We have a pair at
                 work... when I started, the active one would crash about
                 once a week.  We haven't done anything major to them (only
                 adding more IPs/services) but now it's not crashing.  They
                 will do ICMP/TCP/HTTP/HTTPS monitoring.  You might as well
                 do load balancing since you get it for free.
                 \_ Hmm, these are pricey.  Any "application switch" type
                    products that don't cost 10K new?
                    \_ Apache+modproxy with a smart proxy list handler.
                       \_ O.K. I can't actually use this solution because the

                          client wants a hardware box.  (there are advantages,
                          e.g. flash memory is more reliable than a harddrive)
                          But, I'm curious as to how a smart proxy list handler

                          would work.  URL?
                          \_ http://www.arachna.com/edu/talks/loadbalancing/slides/mod_rewrite_1_of_2.html
                          \_ http://tinyurl.com/4qzvt
                             the RewriteMap script (slide 11) can do whatever
                             you want.  I've set one up where it stats a file
                             containing valid hosts, rereads it if it has
                             changed, and set up a monitoring script that
                             updated that file.  That monitor script can
                             do whatever you want it to. --scotsman
                             do whatever you want it to as well. --scotsman
                    \_ okay, I actually went and looked on ebay.  The p3-550's
                       that we have have buyitnow prices of $300 ea.
                \_ if you want an appliance type box to do this, the arrowpoint
                   (now cisco 5000) devices would do it and quite well. Again
                   you might find these on Ebay for not to much. -EricM
                   \_ ExtremeNetworks also make a little switch (1i?)
                      that can do this.