11/17   http://www.cnn.com/2004/US/11/16/life.hunting.reut/index.html
        one fine tech innovation from a Red State.
        \_ Counting the days until this is used to shoot a person, either
           by accident or intentionally...
        \_ The best line in this article is:
           "We were looking at a beautiful white-tail buck and my
           friend said 'If you just had a gun for that.'
           A little light bulb went off in my head," he said.
        \_ How long before this sort of thing is used in warfare?
          \_ not sure but I wouldn't mind serving the country via the internet.
             I'd love to shoot gooks with this.

11/17   Starwars laserbeam to become reality:
        http://csua.org/u/a06 (cnn.com)
        \_ It can't be, TMD is a fraud!!! Noooo!!!

11/17   Half-life 2:  Best - game - evuh!
        \_ Let's hear an in depth review!
           \_ Better than Cats.
              \_ I could play it again and again!
           \_ Basically:  Far Cry with a much better story, much better levels,
              better physics, better graphics, outstanding polish, and the best
              NPC emotions/animation ever.  Still heavily scripted, and still
              has intra-level loading like HL1.  Say good-bye to Doom 3 with
              its relatively small, block-like levels inhabited by NFL players.
              HL2 features which obviously need improvement:
              (1) Better, more realistic SMG or the addition of an assault
                  rifle (what, am I just going to use the Magnum or 9mm for
                  all distance shots?)
              (2) Better story (people who could tell you wtf is going on,
                  don't)
              (3) Better enemy AI (duh, you'll see)
              (4) Better NPC-ally AI (they jumble up and get in the way easily)
              (5) Realistic pineapple grenades
              \_ Yeah, I've heard the AI is a bit of downgrade from HL1.
                 This seems wierd to me, since that was a main selling
                 point of HL1.
              \_ I've only played a few hours, but this is about right.  The
                 ability to pick up just about anything in the game adds a lot.
                 The intra-level loading does break the immersive feeling,
                 especially because the load times are longer than HL1.  But
                 this is a *really* *great* game.
        \_ I don't play video games much since college, so I have no idea
           WTF this is all about. What I do know is that I have nieces
           and nephews who want a game console for Xmas. Which is the best
           to get? Are titles like HL2 available on multiple consoles?
           \_ HL2 is PC only.
           \_ PlayStation 2.
           \_ It depends, how old are they?  What kind of games do they
              like?  What kind of games do their parents want them to
              play?
              \_ Ages 5-17, most about 8-14. They like Tony Hawk, Justice
                 League, Sonic, that Dolphin game, and that stuff. Their
                 parents prefer stuff that's cutesy rather than violent.
                 They have PS1 already.
                 \_ Pretty much a toss-up between PS2 and Gamecube then.
                    Xbox is right out.  Probably PS2 is a better choice,
                    but the parents would probably prefer the gamecube,
                    since pretty much all the games are non-violent.
                 \_ If you get them a Gamecube you will forever be known as
                    the uncle who cheaped out and didn't get them a PS2.
                    Tell the parents the kids can't play Dance Dance Revolution
                    with a DDR pad and lose weight that way with a Gamecube.
                    \_ People still play with the PS2? I haven't bought a game
                       for that console in over a year. Past ten games or so
                       have all been GC or XBox
                    \_ GC has a few good unique games. Kids would be happy to
                       have both. The biggest PS2 game is Grand Theft Auto
                       which is obviously pretty violent. Big game coming out
                       is a new Metal Gear, not exactly cutesy. GC will have
                       a new Zelda game next year that should be pretty great.
                       Man how many kids are in this family? "Most" 8-14?
                       \_ 5 kids. 5, 6, 8, 8, 15, 17. It's not just the
                          kids, but also their friends.
                          \_ That's six kids.
                             \_ The 6th is a different nephew, but he will
                                be over to play it. 5 kids in 1 family.
                    \_ GTA III

11/17   What happened to <DEAD>webcat.berkeley.edu<DEAD> ?!??
        \_ what is <DEAD>webcat.berkeley.edu<DEAD>?
             \_ iirc it is where the recorded class lectures were. -top
                \_ webcast, twink.

11/17   Yea!  I can finally log on again.
        \_ And how many more hours until we're hozed again?
        \_ WHAT the fuck is going on. Is this still EECS network prob's?
           \_ Maybe.  I called the office and asked why I couldn't log
              onto soda, nksighn answered and went to the root cave.
              About 2 minutes later I was able to log on.  I assume
              someone in the root cave fixed it. (I was also unable to log
              onto my research machine at Berkeley.) -jrleek
              \_ last says that soda was shut down around 9:45.  Sounds like
                 nksighn probably just booted it up.  --scotsman
                 \_ /etc/motd.official said it crashed because of bad disk.
                    \_ Check wall for pretty complete breakdown. --scotsman
                    \_ C'mon, baby, stay up long enough for me to back every-
                       thing up....

11/17   Soda crashed.  blame root and bad disk. rebooted.  enjoy. --Jon
        \_ squish politburo, it is broken.
        \_ Yeah, who was the idiot who shut down soda, but didn't notify
           anyone with machine room access?  -- ilyas
           \_ What part of crash wasn't understood.  A raid array soda was
              attached to crapped out, and took soda down with it.
           \_ I agree.  Politburo's top priority should be monitoring and
              maintaining the motd!  They are too lax in this, their most
              important duty.  Screw those stupid help-sessions, and
              attemps to get new members!

11/17   I am a Java GUI programming newbie.  I have been asked to save a
        JTextField object as a BMP object.  I was reading about Java Image
        I/O API in JDK 1.5.  Looks great.  Except I can only save an
        Image object...how would I go about coverting my JTextField to an
        image?  Thx - clueless

11/17   Is this new $457 undergrad fee increase per year or per semester?
        \_ Silly sodan, no undergrads read the motd.

11/17   http://www.csua.org/u/a03 (wonkette)
        Infamous Cheney photo.
        \_ Is that the one with his schlong?
           \_ yes.
              \_ And it's TAX-FREE -freeper
                 \_ No, it's FLAX-TAXED.  Not to mention PRIVATIZED.

11/17   Why is Firefox 1.0 for OSX such a piece of shit? All it does is
        crash all the time. It's like using IE on windows. 0.9 was so
        much more stable for me.
        \_ Because you probably did something stupid like not deleting
           all the files related to version 0.9 before installing 1.0.
        \_ So go back to 0.9.
        \_ I also noticed that it doesn't seem to work as well on many
           tasks concurrently on OSX (e.g. sometimes the whole thing or just the
           address bar freezes when loading a site in one window and such).
           \_ Funny, it's rock-solid on OSX 10.3.6 for me.  In fact, I think
              I've seen Safari crash more.  Admittedly, I've only seen
              Safari crash twice ever.
              \_ I am not saying that it crashed. What I am saying is that
                 sometimes it can't walk and chew the gum at the same time
                 too well.
        \_ I haven't had a problen on OS X, but I also didn't install any
           of the previous versions.  Maybe you should delete your profile
           directory to make sure there's not any cruft in there.  -tom

11/17   /csua/tmp/theplay_long.ram
        \_ What's the best way to play .ram files on FreeBSD?
           \_ wine?
        \_ What's that?
           \_ The Play.
              \_ I'd rather see the Anti-Play from '90.

11/17   Platoon >>> Full Metal Jacket
        \_ I think that if you want to see what viet nam was like in a movie
           made by an actual vet, you should see platoon, but fmj is still
           a classic film for other reasons.
        \_ Apples to oranges, dude.  While both are about the Vietnam War,
           they're very different stories that don't sensibly compare.
        \_ in Vietnam war the US soldiers raped a lot of village
           women and even children. How about Iraq? How many children
           are we raping right now?
                \_ "Easy, just don't lead 'em so much.  Hahaha"  -John
           \_ Nice try for a troll. You get -1 points.
            \_ No, seriously, why is this a troll? Let's ask a few
               fundamental questions. In Platoon the US Army seems very
               unorganized and when you're out in the field you're
               pretty much your own boss and you can do whatever you
               want (rape 10 year old girls, kill their parents, etc).
               Is the US Army still like that nowadays?
               \_ Because you're stupid if you think that the U.S. Army
                  goes around raping children. Nice try at trolling.
                  Better luck nexttime. Don't let the door hit your ass
                  on the way out.
               \_ Are you Chinese?  Do you understand the effect your trolls
                  had on China?
                  \_ the US Army doesn't allow it but it also gives each
                     soldier so much power that he can do whatever he wants
                     when he's on the mission, without anyone watching over
                     him. Now it's pretty damn hard to guarantee that every
                     single soldier knows a thing about ethics isn't it?
                     \_ I wish you'd sign your post. If you really do or did
                        go to Berkeley you must be one of the dumbest sons
                        of bitches ever to attend. One would think that the
                        minimal standards for SAT scores would enforce some
                        sort of common logic within all entering freshman.
                        -williamc
                        \_ Dude, he's so clearly got an agenda he's trying to
                           push.  The sorry thing is that he's so fucking
                           transparent about pushing it, and that it's such
                           a lame duck agenda to begin with that no one is even
                           going try to answer is stupidly phrased, poorly
                           researched, clearly biased "thought-provoking"
                           questions.   Christ, this guy is a moron.  And
                           you know what's truly pathetic?  He's probably
                           congratulating himself about 'once again hitting the
                           Americans in the face with their own hypocrisy' when
                           no one bothers to answer his lame provocations. -POC
                           \_ Well, maybe over time he'll learn somethin'.
                              College kids can be pretty unwise. At least he's
                              apparently making some sort of attempt to discuss
                              his lame issues.
                              \_ Yeah, I guess.  I'm not as optimistic, but
                                 hey, I sincerely hope I'm wrong here.   -POC
                     \_ Replace "soldier" with "cop" and you will see why your
                        argument, while making valid assumptions, is basically
                        flawed.  -John
           foreigners can't or usually don't file a complaint against   _/
           soldiers, but citizens do file complaints and they go to
           civil courts. Civil court vs. military court, hmmmm. Oh, and
           thank you for not resorting to name calling like the other
           posters.   -op
           \_ Obviously it is an order of magnitude worth of difference, but
              the similarity lies in the fact that a cop has a lot of de
              facto control over you in a given situation.  Sheriff Cletus can
              seriously cause you problems if he feels like it, even if there
              is eventual recourse.  -John
           \_ John is often cool like that.  I still don't understand why that
              german-john guy gives him such issue.  Oh, and I'll stop
              'resorting' to name calling if you'll actually do some research
              before rudely dissing the service-men and -women who have
              _volunteered_ to put their lives at risk for some abstract
              notion of duty, honor, or just plain pursuit of betterment.
              They've shown more courage than your ill-informed, agenda-driven
              attacks.  -POC
                \_ maybe John should ask what actions he made several
                   years ago that caused someone to hate him/resent him
                   and is now harrasing him. Introspection may help.
                   \_ OK I have engaged in introspection and inspected my
                      navel and I'M SORRY I KILLED YOUR DAD, OK?!? -John
                \_ that homeless guy John threw a rice cooker at got
                   a Soda account - danh
                   \_ Learn how to post to motd.
                   \_ I never threw a rice cooker at anyone.  I dropped a
                      wok off the 4th floor of CZ, and a bunch of the nasty
                      Berkeley ex-hippies who lived across from us got mad.
                      \_ I threw a full sack of potatoes off the top of
                         CZ, because I suspected there was a mouse in it.
                         No one said anything, you unlucky bastard.
                         \_ Heh, I knew a guy that hurled a couch (with help)
                            from the 10th floor of Unit 1 into the RA's little
                            backyard.      -POC
                         \_ Well, nobody said anything about the watermelons,
                            the old PC, Dave Menache's electric guitar, or
                            the several dozen pounds of tomatoes we launched
                            with the 3-man slingshot.  Just the wok.  -John

11/17   Interesting.  A blog dedicated to a group strategizing on how to
        push the Democratic party in a libertarian direction.
        http://libertariansforamerica.blogs.com/index
        \_ what. ever. Conservatism is in, everything else is out. Get
           on with the program.         -liberal converting to conservative

11/17   I am a TV luddite who just watches broadcast TV. Cable is not
        available in my area. I am thinking of DSS. Is it possible to
        retransmit DSS signals so that I can, say, watch TV in my (detached)
        garage but have the dish on the roof of my house? I would rather
        not bury cables and all that shit. I don't watch that much TV.
        \_ I don't know about retransmitting the DSS signal, but you
           can use a wireless video sender to send the analog video
           from your DSS receiver to your garage, like the X10 video sender:
           http://www.x10.com/entertainment/vk54a_s.html
           \_ Every try one of these things? How good is the picture?