11/18   Is Nabolom Bakery still open?  If they close I'll really miss their
        chocolatines and cinnamon twists, but they seem to be incompetant at
        self-managment.
        \_ Yes, I was walking to BART after The Big Game and I saw it still
           there.
           \_ Go Bears!

11/18   the new ContraceptiveSpongebob movie is pretty good, though it drags
        in a few spots overall its got 'phat beats'.

11/19   So, in roughly five years time, when food and travel costs are
        >2x current costs with little increase in salaries due to fuel
        cost increases, how will the motd readers continue to live in the
        Bay Area and pay mortgages? Google "peak oil" if you don't know what
        I'm talking about.
        \_ ride bike and tuna over rice
        \_ some won't.  market forces will prevail.
        \_ perhaps a better question would be how will all  folks who've moved
           to the suburbs get by, where they don't even have a shred of a
           public transit system, and the people there live even further away
           from work than those in the bay area.  I can ride-bike+BART to work.
           Someone with a 'cheap house' in say Tracy doesn't ahve that option.
           \_ Never heard of the train, huh?  (ACE train runs from Tracy into
              the bay area.)
        \_ If that happens life will change.  People will work closer to home
           and will find ways to make that happen.  If food prices double
           people will stop eating out so damn much and learn how to cook
           again.  People adapt.  Life goes on.

11/19   The motd readership seems to have an excess of free time and
        mathematical education.  Why doesn't someone here analyze the
        election data themselves to look for anomalies and put it in
        /csu/tmp? I'll bet if one of you conservatives can use the numbers
        to show convincingly that there was *not* a problem, you'll be
        on a foxnews talkshow faster than you can say "spin."  Why not?
        \_ on a related note, anyone wanna play nettrek later?
        \_ I think the burden of proof is on folks who say there _is_ a
           problem.  (Who do stupid things like observe some things, and
           claim VOTING MACHINES CAUSE INCREASE IN BUSH VOTES! W00t!!!!!!!!)
           \_ And the right wing ignores evidence such as a county in
              ohio where only 600 votes were cast, yet Bush received
              over 4000 votes.  Nothing wrong there.
              \_ url-p.  Evidence-p.  -- evil right-winger fact-checker
                 \_ http://csua.org/u/a1a (Washington Dispatch)
                 \_ More evidence at http://www.votersunite.org/electionproblems.asp
              \_ Would you like some cheese with that whine? Give it up.
                 You lefties lost this year and you are going to go on
                 loosing because people are finally realizing that you
                 losing because people are finally realizing that you
                 guys have never had a good idea and that its time to
                 take our country back from the New Deal and the Great
                 Society or this great nation will end up a hell hole
                 like Europe.

11/18   Should cows be tipped?
        \_ of course. though I (and I think most people) usually just
           round up to the next dollar, and if that is less than 10%,
           add a dollar.
        \_ Why tip them?  They are being paid for the services.  Who started
           this kind of tipping system.  It so ridiculous.
           \_ shut up, overpaid software engineer - danh
                \_ also taxi drivers make like $2.00 an hour.  I know
                   it's not your job to make their careers viable
                   but it's something to keep in mind. - danh
                \_ If your're going to tip taxi drivers, barbers, waiters, etc,
                   you might as well tip other people providing services to

                   you such as garbage collector, postman, cashiers, etc.
                   \_ Well, if all those other jobs had their wages lowered to
                      reflect expected tipping, then sure.  Now if you want to
                      question which, if any jobs should be largely paid in
                      tips, that's another matter.
                   \_ Don't forget to tip your local software engineer.
                   \_ Most civilized people give their garbage collector,
                      postal delivery guy, etc a Christmas gift of some kind.
        \_ You can lament the tipping system all you want, but the fact is
           that, particularly in the U.S., we've adjusted salaries based on
           the expectation of tipping, so in a real sense you are only paying
           for the service if you tip the expected amount.  -tom
           \_ Well I was really asking what's "THE STANDARD". -op
              \_ http://www.tipping.org/tips/TipsPageTipsUS.html.  -tom
                  \_ You need to tip furniture delivery person???  I tip
                     people all the time but never to a delivery person.
                     \_ http://csua.com/?entry=11672
                     \_ Please tell me you tip your pizza delivery guy at least
        \_ Oddly topical article from last Friday:
           http://www.kcrg.com/article.aspx?art_id=92666&cat_id=123
           Gist being that driving a cab even in Cedar Rapids is dangerous.
           \-so is it ok to not tip if the service is seriously bad ... and
             i mean stuff under the service employee's control. --psb
             \_ No; you should tip the expected about even if the service is
                  ^ should be a comma.
                    \_ No. It should be a period.
                        \_ A semicolon is perfectly correct, if a little odd,
                           as it is.  The sentiment, however, is wrong -phuqm
                seriously bad, according to Miss Manners.  -tom
                \_ Miss Manners can suck a dick.  The whole point of tipping
                   vs. salary is that with tipping the customer can punish the
                   employee for doing a bad job or reward them for a good job.
                   It's basically an economic system of performance evaluation.
                   \_ Wrong.  15% tip for the waiter is part of his salary.
                      You can give more for good service.   -tom
                      \_ It's part of their earnings, but not part of their
                         salary.  If it was, it wouldn't be a tip.  They're
                         not entitled to a tip if they do a terrible job, and
                         that's borne out both in custom and law.  I always tip
                         but if someone was really rude or incompetant I would
                         not feel obligated.
             \_ Yes, of course.  The understanding implicit in tips is that
                your pay is performance-based.  Bad performance = less or no
                tip. --erikred
             \_ Sure, but some people feel it's OK to withold a tip for things
                out of a server's control, like bad food or a slow kitchen.
                \-yeah i dont mean for a minor slight like "my water glass
                  was empty for 5min. i mean something like a seriously
                  fucked up haircut. or a taxi driver who gets lost after
                  you specifically asked do you know where X is. --psb
                  \_ If I ask for more water twice and it doesn't come, that's
                     bad service.
                     \- if the wait person is stupid vs. surley vs. the
                        restaurant is understaffed, those are all different
                        scenarios in my book. there is bad service and then
                        there is stuff that actually will cost you money ...
                        waiter spills liquid on your clothes. it's the latter
                        cases where i think it is not unreasonable to imply
                        "this is coming out of your tip". --psb
                        \_ and of course, you think it's fine for people to
                           withhold your salary based on their own criteria,
                           and never tell you why.  -tom
                           \_ I have a legally binding contract governing my
                              salary.  I may also receive an additional bonus
                              as an incentive to perform; said bonus may be
                              allotted on purely subjective criteria, so
                              essentially, yes.  Service industry employees
                              hold jobs which involve providing service.  I
                              pay for this service already.  If they are not
                              being paid enough, it is a contractual issue
                              between themselves and their employers.  It is
                              not my problem.  I am already compromising far
                              more than I feel obliged to by adhering to
                              cultural norms suggesting I pay the service
                              staff extra for making an effort to provide
                              particularly good service.  -John
                              \-holube: do you think it is "better" that
                                to you tip a waiter than drops soup on you
                                and then write a letter to management
                                suggesting he/she is a lamer? the analogy
                                to "me and my employer" doesnt work because
                                one relationship is between 2 parties and the
                                other is between 3 parties ... and norms
                                that are sustainable in long term relationship
                                may not work in one-shot cases. it is not
                                feasible for me to tip 15% and then go to the
                                employer and ask for a partial refund because
                                of some problem. again i am talking about
                                cases where something fairly dramatic has
                                gone wrong. also the restaurant case is
                                likely different from others because tip
                                pooling is likely. there are certanly micro-
                                differences in service and tipping is one
                                place to allow for some flexibility [are you
                                a regular who is seated before other people
                                who got there before you? are you seated next
                                to the bathroom etc]. so why arent flight
                                attendants tipped? --psb
                                \_ I can't believe you guys had a whole tipping
                                   conversation without once mentioning Mr.
                                   White.  Philistines!
                                   \_ Do you know what this is? It's the world
                                      smallest violin, playing just for the
                                      waitresses.
                                      \_ Yeah! FUCK POOR PEOPLE!!
        \_ I always forget to leave a tip for the room service people
           in hotels.  Those people make atrocious wages too.

11/19   Seriously John, are you a Russian Jew? I thought you're German...

11/19   I have a set of numerical values, and I want to determine if there
        is significant variation between the numbers or not. What kind of
        statistical test would be appropriate? Thanks.
        \-jacknife^H^H^H^Hass
        \_ more info please.  what exactly do you want to know about the
           numbers?
        \_ Does this have something to do with voter fraud?
                \_ no, it doesn't. -op
        \_ define variation.  If you mean difference, a simple t-test would
           work. -nivra
        \_ What kinds of numbers are these?  Are they samples from some
           distribution?  Even if not, is it meaningful to assume a
           distribution (e.g. gaussian)?  This kind of question is hard to
           answer statistically for a set of data if you don't have an idea
           what process produced the data. -- ilyas

11/19   Hey angry voter fraud guy, Bush received more votes than the number
        of registered voters in several Ohio counties.  Where's your
        outrage???
        \_ COOK COUNTY!!!1! KENNEDY WAS A FRAUD!!!   YEAAAARGHHHHH!!!!1!!

11/19   [ ok ]

11/19   [ peak oil idiot deleted. ]
        \_ ride bike and tuna over rice
           \_ all seafood contains cancer causing mercury.
              \_ Get a cat
                 \_ In Soviet Russia (and in the US, for that matter)
                    cat gets you.
        \_ some won't.  market forces will prevail.
        \_ perhaps a better question would be how will all  folks who've moved
           to the suburbs get by, where they don't even have a shred of a
           public transit system, and the people there live even further away
           from work than those in the bay area.  I can ride-bike+BART to work.
           Someone with a 'cheap house' in say Tracy doesn't ahve that option.
           \_ Never heard of the train, huh?  (ACE train runs from Tracy into
              the bay area.)
              \_ somehow I doubt that train woud have the capacity to handle
                 even a tiny fraction of the area's drivers.
                 \_ What, are we imagining what would happen if all the oil ran
                    out tomorrow?  What makes you think nothing would change?
                    \_ We have a very well-developed, efficient and high-
                       capacity public transit system in Zurich and its
                       suburbs, and there is no chance in hell it could handle
                       all commuters if gas ran out.  -John
                 \_ Barring some unforseen disaster, oil's not going to up and
                    'run out'.  What will happen is it will get progressively
                    more expensive.  The question is will we be able to adapt
                    to the increasing cost as fast as the cost increases or not.
                    Large infrastructure like public transit systems are
                    notoriously slow to adapt.
                 \_ So... you think that BART could handle all the Bay
                    Area commuters?  The poster said people in Tracy have
                    no way to get inside the Bay area besides car.  I said
                    that's wrong.  (It is)  I never claimed ACE train
                    could handle all commuters. That's dumb.
        \_ If that happens life will change.  People will work closer to home
           and will find ways to make that happen.  If food prices double
           people will stop eating out so damn much and learn how to cook
           again.  People adapt.  Life goes on.
           \_ And the world will always need fat sysadmins, so your complacency
              is justified.
              \_ I'm neither fat, a sysadmin, or complacent.  I'm just saying
                 things will get solved.  2x transportation cost and food costs
                 will mean things will change.  Life will change.
              \_ Somehow people got by in the 70s. Like many people, if
                 my transportation and food bills doubled it would mean
                 tightening belts, but not economic collapse.
                  \_ The US imported only 30% of oil supplies in the 1970s,
                     it's 60% and growing now.  And we are not talking a
                     temporary supply disruption, we're talking long-term
                     depletion -- Why are people who see this called "idiots"?
                     Have you done extensive research in this area, why is
                     there no counter-information except for the "market"
                     will fix the problem?
                     \_ Why can you not read?  Who are you responding to?  None
                        of you points have been brought up before.  (Except
                        the 70s one)
                     \_ Because the market always does, Chicken Little.  People
                        like you always show up, in every age, and see a crisis
                        in everything.  And somehow the market makes everything
                        work.  You d think you people would learn.
                        \_ The market "makes things work," only if you define
                           the term "work" in an insane way.  The market can
                           and will destroy lives and countries if it is
                           allowed to, and I think it's fair to say that the
                           USA is in big trouble when oil gets scarce.  I am
                           not convinced that this will happen in the next
                           few years, as some of the wingnuts do, but it will
                           few years, as some of the wingnuts are, but it will
                           certainly happen eventually.  -tom
                           \_ Don't you know?  "Makes things work" means
                              that everyone at least as rich as dubya
                              gets richer, the middle class disappears,
                              and the rest of America suffers.  It's eerily
                              close to Ross Perot's vision of America.
                              \_ That's the magic of the invisible hand!
                           \_ By your "destroy lives and countries" standard
                              the industrial revolution and the information
                              revolution were both bad things b/c they put
                              lots of people out of work and destroyed the
                              economies of countries based on agriculture
                              and mass employment in menial labor. In the
                              free world (ie everywhere except for Bezerkely)
                              the industrial revolution is considered a
                              good thing.
                              BTW, it seems as though you don't understand
                              the most basic rule of economics: as a rsrc
                              gets scarce, people start looking for alt.
                              and usually the alt. are MUCH cheaper than
                              the origial product. The trend over time is
                              that things get cheaper, better and more
                              reliable. That is how the real world works,
                              perhaps someday you can visit it.
                     \_ The US can pump more oil if it wants to. There is
                        a huge supply of untapped oil and every argument
                        you make for the US applies just as well to China,
                        Japan, or Europe. The world economy will not
                        collapse without oil. It will adjust.
                \_ The visigoths were just "free market forces"?
                        \_ Consider them "foreign investors"
        \_ Why is the peak oil guy an idiot? Don't you think that eventually
           we will start to run out? Why do you keep deleting this instead
           of answering it, coward?
           \_ You are an idiot because you don't understand how 'running out'
              works.  We ll never 'run out.'  There will be a gradual decline
              in cheaply obtainable oil, which will prompt people to move
              to other sources of energy.  Investments are already being
              made in this direction by big energy companies, and such
              investments will increase as oil becomes more expensive.
              You = alarmist fool.
              \_ "Start to run out" is not the same thing as "run out."
                 You have very poor English comprehension skills.
                 Your theory sounds almost exactly the same as the Peak
                 Oil guys, if you had bothered to read it, instead of
                 of just censoring it. Then again, maybe you did read
                 it and just didn't understand it.

11/19   I don't want logwatch to tell me that there were "134 messeges sent"
        but I would still like to have it parse the maillog file.  I can
        comment out the line in the perl script in "scripts"   but that
        doesn't seem clean.  Same with it telling me that my user has logged
        in.  I know my user logs in; can I tell it not to watch for me?
                Is there a way to modify the .conf files in services to tell
        it not to send this info?  I've searched around a lot for this and
        can't find anything.  <DEAD>logwatch.org<DEAD> just has the man page for docs.
                If anyone knows of some more extensive logwatch docs on-line,
        it would be appreciated.

11/19   All discussion of voter fraud censored for The Good Of America.
        \_ Why do you hate voter fraud?
           \_ ain't no fraud gonna make up 3million votes
              \_ but 200k votes is enough to turn the election.
                 \_ republican: good, democrat: eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeevil
        \_ You go girl!
           \_ Are you a hoser?  Do you have any idea the effect of ilyasing
              the motd has on the CSUA??
              \_ Wear a uniform when ilyasing the motd, or you may be legally
                 shot on sight!
                 \_ You must also act as part of an organized military force
                    while ilyasing the motd, or you may be tortured.
                    \_ You must also hate freedom, America's god given right
                       to rule the world, welfare (except corporate welfare),
                       cute puppies, apple pies, and yermom.

11/19   I read all the voting thing with amusement. Aren't there any sanity
        checks done in the hardware or something after the voting? ie, make
        sure that the total number of votes does not exceed the total
        registered voters by certain amount, some kind of auditing information
        or record should be produced. This is so fucking messed up.

11/19   How I Began to Teach About the Vietnam War
        http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1284084/posts
        \_ I love free republic guy.  Do you have a family?
           would you like to come over for Thanksgiving? - danh
           \_ what do you think of the article?
                \_ It is well-written, balanced, historically accurate, and
                   insightful.  It does not do the author justice to have
                   his article reproduced among the steaming ill-informed
                   monkey-shitpile that is http://freerepublic.com  -John
                   \_ So what kind of monkey-shitpile is soda wall, John?
                \_ article was fine.  I do not agree that the US had
                   any clear way of "winning".  losing over 1/10 of their
                   population to US explosives didn't phase the Vietnamese
                   at all while they were defending their home turf. - danh
                   \_ No, no, no! You are wrong. The Nixon bombings were
                      effective and broke the stalemate at the Paris
                      Peace talks. If Watergate had not happened we may
                      still have had an effective cease fire. In addition,
                      the Tet offense was a disaster for the North, and they
                      didn't try an invasion like that again for many years.
                      It's a common myth that the VC were invincible. They
                      were not. We were constantly beating them, it's just
                      that we should've invaded the north. We couldn't because
                      of China. The U.S. didn't lose Vietnam, they abandoned it.
                \_ The article was fundamentally flawed, in that it glossed
                   over the fact that the United States *did* support
                   illegitimate and unpopular regimes after the overthrow
                   of Diem.
                   \_ All of you are missing his fundumental thesis.  ie "It
                      was a good idea, but we &*%)ed it up."  All of you saying
                      "Yeah, but we did this wrong" should be agreeing with
                      him.  Also, by extension, we shouldn't not help anyone
                      else just because we boned it up once.
                      \_ It was a bad idea, AND we $*%)ed it up.
                         See post below for why.
                         \_ I assume you mean the domino theory one?  True, the
                            domino theory turned out to be incorrect, but I
                            don't think that made Vietnam a bad idea.  Korea
                            didn't turn out perfect either, but I'm dang glad
                            we protected SK.
                            \_ Bad idea, good idea.  Let's call it a mistake.
                               Also, Vietnam != Korea.
                               U.S. participation in Korea, Gulf War 1, WW2
                               were not mistakes.
                       \_ No, his fundamental thesis was that he had been
                          taught three incorrect things by the anti-war
                          movement: 1) that the gov't of SV was illegitimate,
                          2) that we had no legitimate reason for being in
                          Vietnam and 3) that we couldn't have won anyway.
                          "These are that there was never a legitimate
                          non-communist government in Saigon, that the
                          U.S. had no legitimate reason to be involved in
                          Vietnamese affairs, and that the U.S. could
                          not have won the war under any circumstances."
                          The article is bad because 1 and 3 are correct, imo,
                          and no serious person held #2. I am sure you can
                          find a few Communists and the like who believed
                          #2, but most Americans, even anti-war Americans,
                          believed that the US had a commitment to fight
                          Communism. They just didn't think Vietnam was
                          the right place to do it and they didn't like
                          the way we fought it. The whole line of argument
                          of his that Dinh was legitimate is a red herring,
                          since most of our support came after he was
                          deposed and we supported the coup that deposed
                          since most of our support for the wary came after he
                          was deposed and we supported the coup that deposed
                          him to boot!
                          \_ Ever hear of SEATO?  Yea but you are right
                             NATO was a stupid idea too.
        \_ The three "axioms" he mentioned I don't think are that important.
           The key issue is the dominoes did not fall after we lost the
           Vietnam War and expended significant national resources in doing so.
           \_ Wrong, one significant domino did fall. Ever heard of Cambodia?
        \_ American ideals and beliefs are one thing, but how many times
           have US allowed its selfish self-interest to take precedence over
           these.  People around the world like democracy, freedom, rule of
           law, etc., but they don't like US trying to bully other countries
           for its selfish goals and interests.  Just because US, as a
           country, is one of the better representatives of these ideas, does
           not mean its use of power abroad is just or in support of these
           ideals.  To assume so is the biggest hole in the argument the
           author put forth.
           \_ Apparently you need to get yourself a copy of "Weatlh of Nations"
              and read it from cover to cover. It's amazing what a little
              education can do for even the weakest of minds... But I doubt
              you will so here's the capsule. A) All countries are after
              their own self interest, that's just how it works. B) Having
              a country like America look after its own self interest in the
              world is not merely justified, it's necessary for not only
              the continuation of America but life as we know it. C) If
              it wasn't America it would be China or Russia. I know a
              LOT of people who are MUCH happier with America at the reigns
              rather than China or Russia. D) If people REALLY dislike
              America so much why is everyone always trying to get in, yet
              hardly anyone ever leaves? And if you think that American policy
              is bad, just take a look at how other colonial powers treated
              their subordinates. The Americans, by contrast, have been
              exceedingly gracious. Yes, we are the Romans of our era, and
              being as such we will need to recognize that we are indeed an
              august nation and have certain responsibilities that others
              do not have.
              \_ "We are better than China and Russia.  Hence you should
                  support us in all that we do!"  What a stupid logic.
                 \_ America is not perfect, but it sure beats any and
                    all alternatives thus far conceived by mankind.

11/19   Any sodans work at google? I've discovered what I believe to be a bug
        and I'm not getting response from google's official channels.
        I'm wondering if there is a better contact to write to. -brett
        \_ aaron, misha, mgoodman.
        \_ google code is officially bug-free. -- misha.
           \_ either this statement is true, or misha is full of bugs.  -pundit

11/19   Saturday, 11/20, 12:30pm
        Cal will find a way to lose the game:
        \_ I prefer the phrase "Snatch defeat from the jaws of victory."
        Cal Golden Bears roll on: .
        \_ Roll on, you bears!
        \_ The Stanford newspaper is already saying how this would be the
           biggest upset in Big Game history if they win. Nice big 'if'
           \_ They just want everyone to forget "The Play", where even
              having John Elway as their QB wasn't enough to seal the
              victory.

11/19   I have an Athlon XP 1700 on a 266 FSB, with 266MHz RAM.  Can I put a
        333MHz bus CPU (say an XP 2800) in the socket and down-clock the FSB to
        266, but keep the same core speed (by raising the multiplier)?
        \_ Most new CPU's have locked multipliers.
        \_ Get a cat
           \_ Oh, shazbot.

11/19   Why does Alan Greenspan hate America??
        \_ what is this in reference to?

11/19   http://tinyurl.com/64f2b (cnn.com)
        Microsoft Warns Linux lawsuits.
        \_ Which crack pipe did Balmer smoke from when he made this
           announcement? What total FUD.
           \- I like: "Nobody ever knows who built open-source software!"
           \- I like: "Nobody ever knows who built open-source software!"--psb
                \_ In some ways this is true. Do you really know who
                   wrote your linux ethernet driver, or who was resp.
                   for the png library that mozilla uses? You could
                   probably find out with some work for most things,
                   but there are lots of bits and pieces that are
                   completely unattributed.
                   \_ Actually, it's funny.  I once had what I thought was
                      a buggy Freebsd ethernet driver, and it wasn't very
                      hard to find out the exact person responsible, mail him,
                      and get a reply (ultimately I had a hardware problem).
                      That's not something I could have done with MS. -- ilyas
                        \_ Personally I prefer OSS, I've had to debug
                           lots of things (squid, tomcat, nfs, ...)
                           and it was much easier on FreeBSD/Linux b/c
                           I had the source. However, many of the src
                           files were completely unattriubted and even
                           the project leaders didn't quite know how
                           some of the stuff worked. It wasn't like
                           OSS was any better than M$ (or other comm.
                           vendors).
                   \- it's not like there is any liability that attaches
                      to msft if their os is unreliable. "who cares".--psb
                      to msft if their os is unreliable. "who cares".
                      to msft if their os is unreliable, so "who cares".
                      i think far more significantly msft code base is so
                      large, they are the ones with problems tracking things
                      down due to complexity. --psb
                      \_ Seconded.  MS was actually pretty cooperative with
                         my last client, although they have a small country
                         organization, and the client is the 800lbs gorilla
                         here.  The best actual business-valid reason I can
                         get out of most management against OSS is "there's no
                         one to sue", which is bunkum--I've never known this
                         to be the case.  The more appropriate phrase is "no
                         one ever got fired for hiring IBM."  It's purely a
                         psychological safety blanket for the "more expensive
                         must mean it's better" crowd.  I'm currently working
                         with a big outfit considering an OSS solution both
                         on its technical merits, and on the idea that, if
                         something is broken, they can hire someone to come
                         fix it... -John

11/19   http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,139013,00.html
        This says smog has no proven correlation with deaths.
        \_ Neurosurgeons prefer Camels, for steady nerves!
        \_ Fox News, FAIR AND BALANCED!!! We report, you decide!

11/19   What's the url for that motd archive @ ucla?
        \_ it's in mehlhaff's directory
         \_ mehlhaff is DA BEST!!!