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| 2004/10/22-23 [Reference/BayArea] UID:34283 Activity:high |
10/22 Regarding whoever was saying that Nancy Pelosi is popular in SF
because she "took 97% of the SF vote", she certainly didn't get that
much when running for supervisor. Maybe it has something to do with
people being more likely to vote for someone from "their" town?
Think "pork"... -John
\_ That's what legislators are for - getting pork for your own town.
\_ Welcome to descriptive versus prescriptive politics: you're
describing what legislators do, not what they're for. Drop
the cynicism and concentrate that sharp wit on convincing them
to do what they're supposed to do: represent the people.
\_ Could I have somebody left of center explain to me what, in
particular, I'm not supposed to like about Nancy Pelosi? I'm no
bigger on her than any of the rest but she seems to be doing a
better job than Daschle did. -- ulysses
\_ I'm not familiar with what she's been up to since I moved out
of SF, but when she was on the board of supervisors, she and a
number of her colleagues formed what's best described as a
"bleeding-heart cabal of the stupid." -John
\_ Ooo, boy! Tell me more John!
\_ Or, as non-lunatics put it, a group of concerned officials.
\_ Ah, "lunatic". Well, you're a shit-eating cretin. Now,
anything of substance from your corner? -John
\_ I didn't realize "bleeding-heart cabal of the stupid"
had substance. -!pp
\_ Look, I don't feel like looking up the exact
issues again; suffice to say that when I was in
HS in SF there was a fair amount of pretty idiotic
activity from the supervisors, including Pelosi.
I have no clue what the woman's been up to since,
nor do I care, but a lot of what came out of SF
city government around 1990 did not remotely
translate into "common sense". I fail to see how
that translates into "lunatic". -John
\_ I was around then. It was lunatic. |
| 2004/10/22-23 [Computer/SW/Mail] UID:34284 Activity:nil |
10/22 Is it possible to use includes in virtusertable (sendmail)?
So that I can have, say, a virtusertable.d directory that I put various
files I want to include in. (I don't mind if i have to have an
entry per file as opposed to "include virtusertable.d/*". |
| 2004/10/22 [Finance/Investment] UID:34285 Activity:high |
10/22 So who was talking about shorting Google stock? Hahahaha.
\_ Idiotic momentum buying and tulips. There's no "there" there.
This is not the "new economy". Most people had re-learned the
lesson of the "greater fool theory" by 2001.
\_ nweaver, we're really sorry you decided to stay poor. -tom
\_ What's your net worth, tom?
\_ Well, a stock's always going to be worth what people think it's
worth, new economy or not. -John
\_ Yes, if enough people think that. Until they decide to
take their profit. First one out is the least of fools.
It's all downhill from there.
\_ After the first one gets out, the price drops exactly
because people think it's worth less than before. So the
above statement still holds.
above statement still holds. (Well, if you want to look
more closely, you'll have to distinguish between the
bid/ask/last-executed prices, where the "stock price" is
only the last-executed price.)
\_ Last time I was thinking PMCS was worth $20 but other
people think it's worth like $9. Crap! |
| 2004/10/22-23 [Computer/HW/Memory, Computer/HW/CPU] UID:34286 Activity:low |
10/21 The Emperor's battle computer is now fully operational. ---psb
http://www.tgc.com/hpcwire/hpcwireWWW/04/1022/108601.html
\_ The battle between vector and scalar supercomputers continues!
\_ I'm still waiting to see a tensor computer. |
| 2004/10/22 [Politics/Foreign/Asia/China] UID:34287 Activity:high |
10/22 what books/tapes best to learn mandarin?
\_ Can you already read Chinese? If you can read Chinese, you can
learn by watching Channel 26 every weekday 8-10pm and then Channel
32 10-11pm.
\_ Pimsleur
\_ Practical Audio/Visual Chinese >> Pimsleur
Plus with the videos you can ogle h07 42n ch1x.
\_ thanks guys, you guys rock.. |
| 2004/10/22 [Uncategorized] UID:34288 Activity:high |
10/22 Cardiologists do it 'til your heart stops.
\_ Optometrists... darn you, why did you get me started?
\_ Poison Control Hotline operators do it 'til you puke.
\_ computer scientists do it til their wrist gets tired.
\_ Donkey anesthesiologists do it 'til your ass falls asleep.
\_ Gynecologists do you 'til you dry up.
\_ Catholic priests do it 'til you hit puberty.
\_ Optometrists do it till they're blind.
\_ Creationists do it 'til the second law of thermodynamics says they
can't. |
| 2004/10/22-23 [Politics/Domestic/California, Politics/Domestic/President/Bush] UID:34289 Activity:insanely high |
10/22 NY Times editorial: Iran's nuclear threat
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/10/22/opinion/22fri1.html (user/pw: bobbob)
This is my prediction of what will happen:
- Iran suspends enrichment, but says it will never renounce right
- Iran accepts reactor-grade uranium from Russia
- Iran operates reactor
- Iran retains knowledge of weapons-grade enrichment
- Israel, U.S. do nothing
- IAEA maintains inspections
"Nightmare" scenario:
- As previous scenario, but ...
- GW Bush re-elected
- Joint U.S./Israel attack destroys reactor, 1/2 enrichment facilities
- 2-3 years pass
- Iran successfully detonates nuke, announces nuclear stockpile
- Israel responds with first public nuclear test
- U.S. stalled in UN by Security Council vetoes
- U.S. rapidly deploys primarily air-based systems near Iran's borders
- Iran blows up some nearby U.S. airbases with nukes before attack
- New Republican administration elected
- U.S. nukes Iran, destroying entire population
- Draft receives Congressional approval, including special skills draft
\_ Okay, and the bad part?
\_ So in your worst case scenario the ultimate bad thing that is going
to come from a nuclear war is the special skills draft? Okey dokey!
That was quite the stretch to get the geek draft in there. Anyway,
we've been over this before. The military is different now. The
draft would be worse than useless. It takes roughly 2 years to
take an off the street slacker and turn them into a soldier. WTF
good is a draft when the conflict will be long over before the first
draftee has a uniform on? FUD.
\_ Two years? Pshaw. It just takes 10 weeks of basic and 12 weeks
of infantry school. -Vet
\_ no you idiot. it's Us nukes iran, destroying entire population.
get your head out of your ass. i hope you're not allowed to vote.
\_ I don't think it's quite true that a _Special Skills_ draft
would be useless. It might take 2 years to train a guy
you want on the ground in Iraq, but support roles probably
aren't that hard. A special skills draft would allow the
military to stuff the support roles with draftees and put
the volunteers in the field.
\_ What about all the discipline, standards, and shit that
militaries want from their goons, support roles or
frontline grunts? You'll never get someone unmotivated
to be a usable combat grunt; rear-area support type will
simply be a tremendous waste of a lot of time. Your best
bet is shooting them on arrival, pre-body-bagging them and
using them as human sandbags. -John
\_ I think you're over-estimating the difficulty of
something. I'm not sure if it's "hearding
sysadmins" or what. Support roles aren't that
hard, and they don't require much discipline. It's
just like coders and sysadmins at IBM, you don't
show 'em to the public, you hide 'em in some back
room, while the marketers (soldiers) do the front
line stuff.
\_ Yes, you know that and I know that, but we don't
run an army. Now find me one of those which
follows this sort of sensible philosophy.
\_ Nah, you just need to transfer out the company
commander once the reservists don't show up
for their contaminated helicopter fuel run.
\_ Drafted sysadmins, coders are cheap. Anyways, I'm just showing
how Dubya keeps his "no-draft" promise - it's for the President
*after* Dubya. Also, anyone can come up with a worst-case
scenario. I'm painting a *realistic* "nightmare" scenario. -op
\_ You're showing nothing but your lack of understanding of the
modern American military. The realistic nightmare scenario
is that Iran is allowed to continue developing nukes, gets
nukes and has a nuclear exchange with Israel. The so-called
skills draft wouldn't make the list even if such a silly did
thing happen. What skills do you think you have they'd want
anyway? Surfing and restarting apache servers aren't
critical military needs.
\_ My scenario (the U.S. and Iran lobbing nukes at each other)
is not far off from Iran and Israel lobbing nukes at each
other. This second scenario is far more obvious, which
is why I didn't mention it. You missed my point on that
part - which is to argue how the U.S. realistically decides
to do some nuking itself.
Now, if the skills draft isn't that important, then why did
the military decide to plan for one, just like adding
a plan for a draft of Middle Eastern language experts?
My basic argument is that engineers are cheap when you
draft them. I'm also participating in FCS design, so I
know what I'm talking about. -op
\_ The Pentagon has a plan for everything. If they didn't
have a plan for everything collecting dust on a shelf
somewhere and getting updated every 10-15 years someone
would scream, "WHY DIDN'T YOU HAVE A PLAN FOR A SKILLS
DRAFT! YOU MORONS!". The US won't be nuking Iran
because Iran won't be nuking anything American. They
would hit Israel first. Once Israel is in ashes, they
"win", no matter what else happens afterwards. By
"they" I mean Muslims across the ME who want every
Israeli dead and Israel destroyed utterly. As far as
language experts go, were you upset they didn't have
enough Pashtun speakers when we went into southern
Afghanistan? They're making sure that sort of thing
never happens again. As an aside, my English instructor
at Cal was also a Baltic languages expert. The CIA was
paying his entire way and then some so long as he
continued to keep up his language skills and promised
to be available as needed. Was that a bad thing? Are
you opposed to that?
\_ Baltic?!! You mean Latvian, Lithuanian and Estonian?!
Are you sure you don't mean Balkin? Why does the
CIA want Baltic language experts? I've been to
Estonia, and it seems odd that the CIA would go
to so much effort to spy one a very small country
of extremely peaceful people who mostly speak
english anyway.
\_ It might seem odd to you, but they do. |
| 2004/10/22-23 [Computer/Companies/Yahoo] UID:34290 Activity:nil |
10/22 My yahoo mail account get flooded with about 2000 mails from a mailing
list that ran amok while I was away. Is there a way to remove all of
them without selecting them one by one?
\_ Yes. Change your options to display the maximum number of messages.
Click the search button. Search for messages that have an
identifying address. Now click Check All and then delete. Repeat
for 10 or 20 screens, depending. |
| 2004/10/22-23 [Politics/Domestic/Gay, Politics/Domestic/President/Bush] UID:34291 Activity:high |
10/22 Watch Fahrenhite 9/11 for free. http://csua.org/u/9lq \_ Huh? Is this the right URL? \_ Fixed. Sorry. \_ What for? It was discredited. \_ If the right-wing tells you F9/11 is left-wing propaganda, then you're saving time by not seeing it. Yay! \_ If it's left-wing propaganda then you're saving time by not seeing it. Yay! \_ Right-wing Wins! Yay! \_ Gay! \_ Is there a refund for the first time viewers who had to pay? Where's your link to Celcius411? How about some fair n balanced? |
| 2004/10/22 [Politics/Foreign/MiddleEast/Others, Politics/Foreign/MiddleEast/Iran] UID:34292 Activity:low |
10/22 http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/latimests/20041022/ts_latimes/israelmayhaveiraninitssights The Jews are at it again. \_ AH, we can always count on them. Seriously, Iran has to really take into account that Isreal might pre-emptively nuke THEM... \_ Count on them? To do what? Destabilise the entire middle east? Israel has had nukes for decades. Now they want to make sure Iran and we all know about Iraq from 1991 don't get military parity. All they want is walls and nukes and Dubya-like pre-emptive strikes on people who are just trying to build a better life for themselves building electric power plans. Why can't the Jews just get along with their neighbors? \_ Isreal is a dick, Iran is an asshole, and you are a pussy. -trey and matt \_ Are you implying an imminent of invasion of Iran by Israel, or are you saying I shouldn't accept any drinks from Israel? \_ I'd go with both, just to be on the safe side. \_ Troll! \_ You confuse trolling with dripping sarcasm. \_ w00t! \_ Dur, the Americans have to do it this time. Thanks for the URL. |
| 2004/10/22-23 [Politics/Domestic/RepublicanMedia] UID:34293 Activity:insanely high |
10/22 Mann Coulter hit by pies while on speaking engagement:
http://www.thepittsburghchannel.com/news/3841599/detail.html
\_ Yeah that's famous liberal tolerance of others. Esp. of
Christians, and anyone else who disagrees with them.
\_ Your pies are so BIG and TAX FREE!
\_ They had the chance to throw pies at Ann Coulter and they only
hit her in the SHOULDER? What a waste.
\_ That'll sure fix her! I'm sure millions of people are now
convinced of the wrongness of her message since two goofballs hit
her with a pie. YAY!
\_ 90+ posts just - like - yours!
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1253783/posts
\_ Yes? And? Do you believe that hitting (or missing) her with
a pie has convinced anyone of the wrongness of her message?
\_ Then again, http://pornforprogress.com, watch Ann Cunter get off.
\_ Ann Cunter! Bahahahahhaaha!!! Cool!
\_ Boredcast Message from 'aaron': Fri Oct 22 09:47:37 2004
if only the pies were infected with ebola
Gotta love the sensitive liberals. -- ilyas
\_ Yeah, Compassionate Conservatives wyould have gone for anthrax.
\_ Yeah, Compassionate Conservatives would have gone for anthrax.
\_ See, the difference is, conservatives on soda don't ACTUALLY
wish the pie was covered with some horrible disease.
-- ilyas
\_ For Ann Coulter, perhaps true. For n, where n = any
liberal personality, then patently not true.
\_ Ok. Can you cite an example of a soda conservative
hoping outloud for a horrible disease-ridden pie
hitting some prominent liberal personality (or
wanting a 50-to-1 gangbang, or any of the other
lovely things aaron wished for over the years)?
-- ilyas
\_ Um, I don't think aaron meant people to take the
ebola comment that seriously.
\_ Oh, I see. It was one of aaron's little 'jokes.'
Great sense of humor. Ebola sure is funny.
Anyways, the guy I was arguing with seemed to
think (a) aaron was serious, and (b) conservatives
on soda are guilty of the same sort of thing.
I am still hoping for a rebuttal from him.
-- ilyas
\_ I'm not that guy, but you're right,
conservatives will in large part only say these
types of things using relatively anonymous
accounts on http://freerepublic.com.
\_ The freepers are not conservatives.
\_ What are they then?
\_ Ok, so just to be clear -- you are accusing
soda conservatives of being secretly just
as bad as aaron, it's just that they don't
come out openly and say it. Check. Just
so we are clear. Any proof of this, or
is this projection or assuming the other
side is just as bad or what? -- ilyas
\_ Whoa. How'd we get from "an example"
from your earlier post to "all soda
conservatives"? Nice context shift
there, buddy.
\_ No, I said "conservatives" not "soda
conservatives". Duh. And by this
I mean the subset of conservatives who
post that type of thing on freerepublic.
What part of "but you're right" did you
not understand?
\_ Freepers are not conservatives.
\_ What are they then?
\_ Soda has an interactive forum where you could
discuss aaron's wall comments with him. It is
called wall.
\_ I have no interest of discussing anything
with aaron, he is past my event horizon of
common ground. -- ilyas
\_ But you feel the need to read the wall
log, and post out of context excerpts
from it on motd? Ok.
\_ Sure. I don't want to _talk_ to
aaron. I want to hold him up as an
example of something not to do.
The only defense offered so far is
'but the freepers are just as bad!'
Kind of sad. I would be surprised
anyone on soda from the
conservative side is a freeper.
Certainly no conservative I personally
know. Look at yourselves, liberals,
do you really want to be like this?
-- ilyas
\_ No, I'd far rather be condescended
to by a sanctimonious conservative.
Thanks ilyas, I feel so much more
enlightened now.
\_ I am not a conservative. If
pointing out that wishing
harm on other human beings is
evil, and pleading them to stop
is being sanctimonious,
sign me up. -- ilyas
\_ ilyas just wants to talk to that guy who
thinks soda conservatives openly wish deadly
diseases on liberal figures
\_ I never thought aaron was serious, and I'm
sure conservatives on this forum have joked
about worse than this. Drop the higher moral
ground bit, Ilya, it doesn't suit you. -pp
\_ You're sure? Based on what? Projection?
\_ Aaron's jokes about conservatives have
consistently violent overtones. I am not
dropping any sort of morality card, I am
just staring in wonderment and worry. Are
violent jokes about ethnic groups ok? If
anything, political groups are more
important than ethnic. -- ilyas
\_ Ilya, if you have a beef with Aaron,
bring it up with Aaron. When you paint
all liberals with the same brush, be
careful because the brush paints both
ways. -pp
\_ ^Aaron's jokes about conservatives^ \
freeper's jokes about liberals
\_ Freepers != soda users.
Freepers != conservatives.
Thank you.
\_ There is a soda user who used
to consistently post freeper links.
\_ The pp specified "on this forum".
Please post specific examples.
\_ Yeah, but I'm just saying aaron's
comment did not pop up in a vacuum.
freeper folks have been running
wild (on their forums) for years
now.
\_ Freepers != soda users. You
even say "on their forums" which
is clearly different from "our"
forum here.
\_ Soda users post on Freep.
\_ I would hope that we would
expect better from aaron than
from the average freeper.
\_ I think you'd be wrong
there.
\_ So the motd is just is just
free republic for liberals?
\_ Well, maybe for one liberal.
\_ "I'm sure conservatives on this forum have
joked about worse than this." Example
please.
\_ They're scouring the motd archives right
now. Expect to see something from about
8 years ago regarding Clinton and some
STD and Monica. Or maybe not.
\_ I don't see much reason to be "sensitive" in one's comments
towards Coulter. It's Ann Coulter, come on. Have you seen that
bitch in action? It's really nothing to do with her "politics".
\_ So she is stupid, or evil, or a propagandabot. So let's
wish she gets a horrible disease and dies? You need to take
a deep breath and look at yourself. Attention
Mr. "Don't paint liberals with the same brush" above, this
is probably not aaron talking. The scary thing is that
liberals on soda don't seem to have a problem at all.
-- ilyas
\_ Your generalization of 'all soda liberals' is based on
an absurdly small sample size, and seems to be heavily
biased by your clear political bent and your obvious
siege mentality (or at least it seems that way in your
stubborn insistence to make this generalization). Try
to get over yourself a little bit and realize that the
majority of adults here don't feel the need to prove
themselves to you while still categorically NOT sharing
aaron's sentiments.
\_ When did I say 'all'? You have it in quotes but what
are you quoting exactly? -- ilyas
\_ Hey, aaron is your fringe. He may not represent you,
but it's up to you to say it, and deal with the
negatives people like aaron present for the liberal
movement. -- ilyas
\_ I don't think aaron's anger is attached to a
political attribute. It's just a high level of anger.
In other words I bet there are many with his general
political view but just too apathetic to actually
stay worked up about it.
\_ Well, I'm basically a moderate. I'm a bit south-
west on the left-right-authority-liberty compass. I think
you're overanalyzing and too arrogant to allow for the
possibility that your interpretation of this flippant
excerpt from wall might be different than that of the
person who typed it. I could also compare and contrast
aaron with motd freeper types but I'm getting bored.
\_ Let's imagine a slightly different situation, where a
prominent african american activist got pied, and
someone wished outloud that the pie had ebola in it.
Do you honestly
think that 'he was being flippant' is any sort of
defense? I don't think african americans as a group
should be treated any differently in this kind of
situation from 'conservatives,' 'jews,' 'women,'
'homosexuals' or any other meaningful group. They
are all people. Wishing them harm, or wishing to
beat them up (as aaron did at another time) is not
flippant, it's evil and hateful. This has nothing
to do with a siege mentality, the argument stays
the same even if conservatives were a 90% majority
in the US. If you want to comopare aaron with the
in the US. If you want to compare aaron with the
motd freeper types, feel free. I have yet to find
a single example of a similar kind of thing done
by soda conservatives, even anonymous ones. -- ilyas
\_ Well, one thing we seem to disagree on is whether
Coulter truly represents a meaningful group and
whether animosity towards her is based on her
membership in this group or rather her personal
behavior and attributes. I, personally, don't
have any particular dislike for most "conservatives".
If I thought some black activist was a contemptible
ass I wouldn't feel guilty for thinking so just
because ilyas would brand me a racist.
\_ But would you feel guilty wishing he would die
from the ebola virus? -- ilyas
\_ Bitch? So you have a problem with strong women? Do you
call Hillary a bitch, too? It has everything to do with
1) her politics, 2) your hatred of strong women who could
easily put you in your place.
\_ I call her a bitch because someone i know went to law
school with her and said she was a bitch there. -!pp
\_ I take it you haven't seen her in a live setting. She's
a talking-points bot with a side order of ad hominem.
I said what I mean and mean what I said so fuck off.
\_ So who's the guy who has followed up most of the subthreads with
garbage? motd users want to know! |
| 2004/10/22-23 [Academia/UCLA] UID:34294 Activity:high |
10/22 Most expensive colleges in the US:
http://money.cnn.com/2004/10/21/pf/college/expensive_colleges/index.htm
How about Europe? How much are boarding schools in Switzerland?
\_ Why do you want to know? You want your son to run for President?
\_ IMD in Lausanne takes the cake for MBAs. Lycaeum Alpinum in Zuoz
is an expensive boarding high school for little rich snots; mots
other private schools here are for "difficult" students or those
with learning disabilities. Across Europe, the great universities
tend to be public--I can only think of Oxford/Cambridge as
pricey private Universities (and they've apparently lapsed pretty
badly in terms of quality.) -John
\_ http://Economist.com says Oxford and Cambridge are still in the top
20 worldwide... of course so is UCLA (which kind of scares me,
since the world can't be that bad). University rankings in
general are sort of an iffy thing. -- ilyas
\_ why do you look down on UCLA, the land of the happy
sexy and healthy women.
\_ Email me if you want a serious answer. -- ilyas
\_ They admitted ilyas and kchang to their grad program.
\_ w00t!
\_ Are there any great universities in Britain that are public?
\_ Are U of Edinburgh or LSE public? |
| 2004/10/22-24 [Politics/Domestic/Election, Politics/Domestic/President/Bush] UID:34295 Activity:high |
10/22 Diversity, tolerance, and all that good liberal vibe in LA.
http://www.slate.com/id/2108561
\_ This pretty much matches my expectations.
\_ Actually, this matches the soda experience pretty well also.
\_ I thought the article was rather funny and well-written, but as
far as the social phenomenon it's not really fair. Ignoring the
strong geography aspect (people in California are either democratic,
apathetic, or too rich to care; things might be different in Texas)
I think the scorn for Bush/Cheney is appropriate-- these men have
proven themselves to be whatever people see them as, while Kerry
remains a wildcard. You can't hate a man for thinking he can do
better, but you can hate a man for needlessly taking your country
to war. See the difference?
\_ Right. Thanks for the confirmation.
\_ Right. Thanks for the confirmation.
\_ Presuming you're op: being angry with people for proven
reasons is not an indication that liberals are hypocrites,
or whatever it is you're trying to imply.
\_ Just a bit sensitive, aren't you?
\_ Only my nipples. Or were you not being sarcastic?
\_ So a guy wore a Bush/Cheney t-shirt in a liberal area, and
the worst thing that happened was a couple of people muttered
"asshole" under their breath? "Help Help I'm being oppressed!"
\_ Compare that to people attacked and beaten for being
Kerry supporters in Texas.
\_ Link please?
\_ If this is true, fucking Nazi bastards. They should
go live under Hitler, Hussein, or some such.
\_ And if it isn't? And if there are Republicans
out there getting attacked and beaten is that ok?
\_ I've been looking, but I can't find anything from the
news on this. All I found was a blog report where
some Bush supporters were assulted at a Kerry rally in
Milwaukee. Which I take with a grain of salt...
http://disjointed.org/archives/001032.html
\_ Kerry supporters are all peaceful victims. Bush
supporters are all evil and we can't trust them not
to lie about this. Not even that woman at the (R)
campaign office that got her wrist broken by some
piece of shit union thugs.
\_ Link?
\_
http://www.libertypost.org/cgi-bin/readart.cgi?ArtNum=70201
What happened to that guy who was claiming a
month or so ago that only the American right
wing has a history of violence, and the left
wing is never violent?
\_ This always amuses me; the notion that because
people ascribe to one philosophy or another that
it somehow magically makes all its devotees
special and somehow superhuman. They always
seem to ignore that these are aspects of basic
human nature, and in any large enough group,
there will ALWAYS be vile, violent and unethical
people...and that this doesn't necessarily
reflect anything on the philosophy or group
(obExceptBlatantlyEvilGroupsLikeNazisOrSlavers). |
| 2004/10/22 [Computer/SW/OS/Windows] UID:34296 Activity:nil 72%like:34300 |
10/22 Microsoft Service Pack 2: Good or bad? In particular, do I need
to have it to run iTunes?
\_ XP SP2, I assume you mean...
\_ No problem for me. I've installed it on a few systems. |
| 2004/10/22-24 [Politics/Domestic/California] UID:34297 Activity:high |
10/22 Trying to decide how to vote on prop 66 (the 3 strikes one).
Any thoughts?
"A decade after it was enacted, California's three-strikes
sentencing law has had little impact on violent crime while
costing taxpayers $8 billion to imprison tens of thousands of
felons, most of them for nonviolent offenses, according to a
study released today."
http://www.justicepolicy.org/article.php?id=396 - danh
\_ VOTE NO. It only strengthen a provision of the child abuse
statute that no DA has ever used. While weakening others from
felonies to misdamenaors (i.e. must prove INTENT for bodily
harm in non-fatal DUI accidents if 66 passes)
\_ I am voting NO. Judges and DAs already have discretion on
when/where to apply the 3rd strike. The case of people
stealing some pizza and getting 25 to life is a myth.
\_ You sure about this? The term mandatory minimums and
life in prison for 3 crimes seems to contradict your
bit about juridical discretion. California's prison system
is a shambles, and we imprison too high a percentage of the
population; I can say that much. The actual problems
of three strikes, and the merits of prop 66 I don't know
enough about. URLs would be helpful.
\_ "A strict reading of the language of the statute and the
initiative back in 1994 led to the interpretation that there
was no discretion for the prosecutor to dismiss qualifying
prior convictions... This narrow interpretation proved to be
incorrect in light of the California courts' decisions in
People v. Superior Court (Romero) and People v. Kilborn,
among others. Romero highlighted the court's ability to
strike prior strikes in the furtherance of justice and Kilborn
highlighted the prosecution's ability to request the court to
strike prior strikes in the furtherance of justice. Thus, in
an effort to accomplish justice, the prosecutor has the
discretion to request the court to dismiss prior convictions
in order to prevent a defendant from being punished unjustly.
And even if the prosecutor does not choose to exercise this
discretion, the trial court, which has the obligation to
impose a just and fair sentence, may dismiss prior strike
convictions." [Sorry for the long quote.]
http://www.cdaa.org/WhitePapers/ThreeStrikes.pdf
\_ So far, that says the trial court and prosecutor have
leeway to drop prior "strikes". I do not have time to
read your link. Does it include a part where _judges_
have the ability to decide sentencing apart from the
basic terms given in 3 strikes?
\_ Once a prior strike has been dropped at either the
request of the prosecutor or the discretion of
the judge, then the newest conviction can be
sentenced normally based on whatver other guidelines
(from other sources) that may apply.
\_ Hmmm.. My understanding was that the "pizza theft" incendent
\_ Hmmm.. My understanding was that the "pizza theft" incindent
actually occured, but what they fail to meantion was that it
wasn't just a petty theft, it was a strongarm robbery for a
slice of pizza. Which is exactly the type of person I want
in jail.
\_ Exactly. Also, a lot of these 'drug convictions' are just
convenient ways to lock up people involved in a lot more
than smoking out at their mom's house. Face it, anyone
can make a mistake. Or two. The third time then I want
a mandatory sentencing. Crime is way down so it seems to
work. Do you want all of those criminals (some "harmless"
and some not-so) released?!
\_ The real solution to the incarceration problem is not
to gut the three strikes law, but to gut the war on
drugs. Of course, no one will ever put this on a ballot
measure.
\_ We already did, remember "Medicinal Marijuana?"
\_ I agree very much! |
| 2004/10/22-24 [Transportation/Car, Transportation/Airplane] UID:34298 Activity:low |
10/22 Recommendation for real-time internet traffic and outage reports?
\_ ping. :-)
\_ http://traffic.com You have to register, though. |
| 2004/10/22-24 [Consumer/Audio] UID:34299 Activity:moderate |
10/22 MPEG-4 AAC vs. MP3. Pros? Cons?
\_ It really depends on what MP3 encoder you're comparing it to, as
the quality/bitrate can vary a lot. LAME with the right settings
produces quality comparable to AAC at the same bitrate, but others
(Xing, Fraunhoffer) will not sound nearly as good. MP3 wins hands
down for compatability though.
\_ AAC is supposed to be higher quality/bitrate. MP3 has more player
support. Since Apple has such a huge share of the market, we
might be seeing more AAC support in the future.
\_ OGG VORBIS!
\_ Can one notice the difference in audio quality between MP3 at
160 kHz vs. a regular CD if using speakers that aren't state
of the art?
\_ Maybe. If you play the right kind of music and/or have
been trained to listen for artifacts, then you're more
likely to hear them. What speakers?
\_ LAME's --preset-standard setting does VBR, I think it averages
above 192kbps but goes higher. This is supposed to be
transparent even to trained listeners although there are always
some "problem samples" people can find. 160 CBR is not considered
to be transparent but even 128CBR is "good enough" for a lot of
non audiophiles who aren't doing back-to-back tests.
\_ Trained audiophiles with good hearing can easily distinguish
between CD and higher-bitrate SACD and DVD-A. The quality diff
between lossy recordings and CD is much greater than CD and
SACD/DVD-A is much. Of course, if you aren't using a reference
SACD/DVD-A. Of course, if you aren't using a reference
system for listening it will be much harder to tell the
difference between any of these. Go to Home Entertainment 2004
to listen to some truly reference systems! (http://www.he2004.com
\_ I was impressed with mp3 sound until the day I realized
my speakers had been slowly decaying (after ~15 years).
so I replaced my rotten drivers and was blessed with
enough fidelity to hear big differences. but now I hear
much more difference between audio paths (analog or toslink)
from the same mp3s than between mp3 and CD over toslink...
\_ I can easily hear problems in 160kbit files on most halfway
decent audio systems. All 160kbit files are not alike, however.
Aside from CBR vs. VBR, some encoders (such as LAME) can do a
much better job making a nice file with limited bandwidth.
A well-encoded 160 or 192 kbit MP3 will have barely-detectable
distortion on most systems, but a poorly encoded 160 can sound
quite bad. |
| 2004/10/22-24 [Computer/SW/Security, Computer/SW/OS/Windows] UID:34300 Activity:kinda low 72%like:34296 |
10/22 XP Service Pack 2: Good or bad?
\_ No problem for me. I've installed it on a few systems.
\_ Mostly good, and no. It changes your TCP/IP stack such that if
are 10 half-open TCP connections, you can't open any more until
time out. This greatly slows the spread of worms but screws you
if you're running a mail server or P2P. The only fix is a hex-edit
of tcpip.sys
\_ I had some issues with regards to stability that were traced
to SP2's security center. Had to play around a bit to keep
the machine from locking up every hour or so. Others I've
talked to had problems with certain software, particularly
games, so they just went back to SP1.
\_ Mucked up my brother's Outlook Express such that he can't open
messages with attachments, but that's what he gets for using OE.
He switched to Thunderbird, and all is well.
\_ It takes five seconds to turn this off from the preferences
menu. Give me a break, you don't even know how to turn off
a preference in OE?
\_ My sister-in-law called my up and has been on the phone with
Microsoft because the XP SP2 failed halfway through and messed up
the system. It seems to be hit-and-miss in terms of the chances
for disaster. |
| 2004/10/22-24 [Recreation/Humor] UID:34301 Activity:nil Cat_by:auto |
10/22 EE pr0n:
http://www.gizmodo.com/archives/circuits-discover-each-other-024002.php |
| 2004/10/22-23 [Politics/Foreign/MiddleEast/Iran, Politics/Foreign/MiddleEast/Others] UID:34302 Activity:nil |
10/22 The Jews are at it again: http://tinyurl.com/5hskc \_ AH, we can always count on them. Seriously, Iran has to really take into account that Isreal might pre-emptively nuke THEM... \_ Count on them? To do what? Destabilise the entire middle east? Israel has had nukes for decades. Now they want to make sure Iran and we all know about Iraq from 1991 don't get military parity. All they want is walls and nukes and Dubya-like pre-emptive strikes on people who are just trying to build a better life for themselves building electric power plans. Why can't the Jews just get along with their neighbors? \_ Isreal is a dick, Iran is an asshole, and you are a pussy. -trey and matt \_ Are you implying an imminent of invasion of Iran by Israel, or are you saying I shouldn't accept any drinks from Israel? \_ I'd go with both, just to be on the safe side. \_ Troll! \_ You confuse trolling with dripping sarcasm. \_ w00t! \_ Dur, the Americans have to do it this time. Thanks for the URL. |
| 2004/10/22-24 [Politics/Domestic/Election] UID:34303 Activity:moderate |
10/22 Sinclair Bends Over For Kerry
i.e. boycott threat worked:
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1254113/posts
\_ Haha, how do you like it boys? c.f. "The Reagans."
\_ The Reagans was full of made up crap chock full of scenes the
writers couldn't possibly have witnesses to such as Ron and
Nancy discussing AIDS in America tucked in at night. Sinclair
has video of people who were in Vietnam telling their own
stories. If you can't see the difference between the two there's
no point in discussing it with you. As far as how do I like it?
I don't care either way. I downloaded the video out of curiosity
but haven't viewed it.
\_ So... you didn't inhale?
\_ Yea... real funny. Depriving war heroes, who an average lost
4 years of their lives as POWs defending you, from telling
their story. What a victory. |
| 3/15 |