11/21   Has anyone tried opening a bank account in say, Canada or
        Switzerland? How's the interest rate there and how accessible
        are they online? The second question is, is there a FREE site
        that is like <DEAD>etrade.com<DEAD> where they show you the exchange rate
        chart, trend, etc for the past few years? Thanks.
        \_ Do not open a European bank account for the interest rate.  I
           recommend the Liechtensteinische Landesbank (<DEAD>www.llb.li)--they're<DEAD>
           pretty nice and professional.  Just dump your cash into some long-
           term bonds there if you care about interest (I assume that's not
           your primary worry, or you wouldn't be asking this question.)  As
           for exchange rates, check http://oanda.com.  -John

11/22   So the hunting shooter turns out to be Asian. I hear
        a race card getting ready to be brought out. BTW, I hunt
        and I'm Asian. Hunting has far fewer accidents and far
        more participants than most people know.
        \_ The "hunting shooter?"  What the crap are you talking about?
        \_ Who's pulling out the race card?  I only just saw this story, but it
           looks pretty straightforward to me.
        http://www.guardian.co.uk/uslatest/story/0,1282,-4630724,00.html
        \_ RACIST!!!
        \_ I dunno about the race card, but if he's a displaced Hmong, expect
           to hear the Post Traumatic Stress Disorder defense soon.
        \_ The most charitable explanation I can think of goes like this:
           Redneck: Git offa my property!  <BLAM>
           Asian guy: Oh shit!  <BLAM> <BLAM> <BLAM>
           Redneck 2:  What was that?  He shot pa!
           Asian guy: On no!  More rednecks!  <BLAM> <BLAM> <BLAM> <BLAM>
           \_ There was only 1 gun found amoung the 8 shot.
              \_ The dialog above only has one redneck shooting. So what's
                 your point?
              \_ But let's not let facts get in a way of good ol' fashioned
                 redneck bashing.
              \_ One gun among 8 hunters?  During a 9-day hunting season?
                 This is suspicious.
                 \_ Only one gun was found amoung the 8 shot.
                 \_ Haven't read the article, have you?
           \_ This is Wisconsin, not Kentucky.  Wisconsin has a large number
              of Hmong refugees.  It's possible that the victims used racial
              epithets and heated language, but it's not likely they shot
              first.
        \_ More likely, as a member of a Dem. mascot group, he feels a
           sense of entitlement.

11/22   Monkey Shakespeare Simulator
        http://user.tninet.se/~ecf599g/aardasnails/java/Monkey/webpages

11/22   so what is the justification for eliminating the tax deduction
        for providing your employees with health insurance?  evil?
        assholeness?  true conservatism?  freedom is on the march?
        i don't get it.
        \_ If you are asking a serious question, some people believe
           controlling/encouraging behavior through taxes is not a good
           idea.  Why Bush did this is another matter, of course. -- ilyas
           \_ I don't think the gwbush administration is doing anything
              because of deeply held conservative principles that are ingrained
              in them after long years of study of Smith.  They just
              want to stick non ultra rich people with the bill for
              their spending habits. - danh
              \_ Neat Dan, can I borrow your direct line into W admin's heads
                 sometime?  I mean seriously, is it completely inconceivable
                 to you that there may be a non-evil explanation? -- ilyas
                 \_ so what is their justification?  the war on terror? - danh
                    \_ It's not like Dubya woke up one day and decided to cut
                       in this particular way.  He has some idea of what he
                       wants, and he asks his advisors, who in this case would
                       be high powered econ people, for plausible
                       implementation.  Your beef is probably with them, but
                       I bet they _are_ governed by principle (and understanding
                       of econ).  You may not agree with the principles, but
                       painting them as mindless evil is silly.  -- ilyas
                       \_ No, he didn't wake up and think this.  He's said
                          all along that this was what he wants to do.  His
                          whole plan of the ownership society is about "encour-
                          aging investment".  Unfortunately the HUGE majority of
                          the population does not have sufficient investment
                          to benefit from these policies nor available cash
                          to increase their holdings.  This is a massive tax
                          burden shift from investments to income.
                          \_ Actually, insofar as Bush wants to encourage
                             any sort of behavior (even 'good' behavior, as I
                             see it), I disagree with him.  On the other hand,
                             moves to make out tax system less progressive and
                             more flat make me happy.  I d be annoyed if he
                             copped out of the vague flat taxish motions he was
                             making in early 2004. -- ilyas
                       \_ you don't believe there are evil people in the
                          world?
                          \_ No, I don't believe Bush's econ prof advisors are
                             evil, no.  Do you?  Can I have some of the good
                             stuff you are having? -- ilyas
                             \_ I believe Grover Norquist bathes in the blood
                                of liberal virgins every night. - danh
                             \_ don't be an idiot!  no red blooded texan
                                listens to sissy econ prof from academia.
                                he just finds an econ prof whose theory
                                happens to fit his agenda.
                \_ whether they are evil or not doesn't matter so much to me
                   lately, whoever is in charge of fiscal policy appears to
                   be completely delusional as they continue to increase
                   spending while deliberately cutting off the gov's revenue
                   streams.  maybe grover norquist has gay blackmail photos
                   of everyone?  can you find a non faith based economist
                   who actually thinks cutting off revenue and running huge
                   budget and trade deficits is a good thing for the US
                   economy?  i think the dollar is going to plummet,
                   debt service is going to become a huge chunk of our budget
                   just like several third world countries, but at least
                   gay people won't get penalized by the death tax. - danh
        \_ Link?  I have no idea what you're talking about.
        \_ http://csua.org/u/a2h
           [stuff about the administration trying to further cut capital gains
           taxes]
           "The changes are meant to be revenue-neutral. To pay for them, the
           administration is considering eliminating the deduction of state and
           local taxes on federal income tax returns and scrapping the business
           tax deduction for employer-provided health insurance, the advisers
           said." - danh
           \_ Do people here live in caves?
              \_ More or less.  I don't watch TV, and read the news that shows
                 up on google.
        \_ I particularly like the $2m to buy the presidential yacht.
        \_ The justification is that the current administration is
           against gay marriage and terrorists.  Get it?
        \_ What will screw me is eliminating the deduction for state and
           local taxes. It would be just like Kerry winning. The biggest
           reason lots of Repubs vote Repub is because of taxes. If Bush
           is gonna sock it to high-income people living in states with
           high tax rates then the Repubs are ruined.
           \_ Welcome to the ownership society.
           \_ Dude, Bush is spending massive amounts of money while slashing
              taxes for obscenly wealthy, leading to record debts.  Where do
              you think the money is going to come from?  Just because the
              Republicans claim to be the party of financial responsibility
              doesn't mean they are.
              \_ "If Bush is gonna sock it to high-income people"...
                \_ He isn't socking it to the ultra-high income people.
                   \_ There aren't enough ultra-high income people to make
                      any real difference to government debt one way or the
                      other.
                   \_ Ultra-high income people are still getting screwed
                      by this, because they pay a lot in state taxes. If
                      you make $10 million per year you are paying $1
                      million to CA and Bush's stupid idea costs you real
                      money.
           \_ No.  Those states voted Kerry anyway.  Bush's power base is
              secure.
              \_ Haha, it would be awesomely evil if Bush implemented a
                 blue state agenda in blue states.  Democracy would work
                 then! -- ilyas
                 \_ This was not a blue state agenda in any way shape or form.
                    \_ Raising taxes is always a blue state agenda.
                     \_ Until you start actually questioning this are
                        you just going to keep being surprised that the
                        republicans are fucking you tax wise while claiming
                        the opposite and then forgetting about it until the
                        next time your ass hurts?
                 \_ Oh, you mean CA.  A state with blue state budgetary
                    priorities and the predicted blue state problems?

11/22   Soviet Union was developing laser space battle
        station Skif from beginning of 80's.
        http://www.militaryphotos.net/forums/viewtopic.php?t=30510
        \- space station skiff? --psb

11/22   So in a recent article I've read that relatively poor people
        who win state lotteries tend to lose all of their money and then
        some within a couple of years, especially those who opt to collect
        all of their funds up front. In other words, it's useless to give
        poor money if they haven't actually earned it since they'll just
        lose it. Something to be said about our tax system.
        \_ are you equating lower tax brackets and welfare to the lottery?
        \_ No, this says something about systems that give money without
           education or expectation.
        \_ TROLL HARDER!
        \_ Did you see what happened to the homeless guy that Howard Stern gave
           money to? He was one of those street drummers. He blew the
           money on liquor and whores. He bought a very expensive leather
           jacket that was then stolen from him. He bought himself some
           nice drums which were also stolen. The idea was that he was
           going to rent an apartment. I think Howard gave him $10K, which
           was a year of rent. He was supposed to report back in with his
           progress and never did. The station finally hunted him down. I
           agree that education is the key, but entitlement programs often
           don't include such components.
           \_ Entitlement program != HUGE CASH PRIZES!
              \_ Entitlement program == small cash prizes
                 \_ No.  A prize is a one time bonus, while a low tax bracket
                    or government service is a regular income source.  If your
                    job gave you a bonus, wouldn't you spend some of it on
                    impulse buys?
                    \_ Not if I was HOMELESS!!!
                    \_ Would you point me a research that says the entitlement
                       class tends to spend smaller regular payments more
                       responsibly than they do larger lump sum payments?
                       Or, to continue the above Howard Stern example, would
                       the recipient of the largess not just buy the drums
                       one month and the leather jacket the next?
                       \_ Would you point me to research that says the poor are
                          more wasteful of their money than, say upper-middle
                          class people with too much disposable income.  Who
                          buys the Hummers and Luis Vuitton bags?  It's not the
                          working poor.
                          \- i'm not sure it's much dumber of a homeless
                             person to blow $10k boon than for a berkeley phd
                             making $150k+ to be amassing credit card debt
                             [i know such a person]
           \_ Buying expensive leather jacket and drums is good.  This
              will help stimulate the economy.

11/22   Dear Perl monkeys, how do I match a substring at the end of a string?
        I want to match '.txt' but not '.txt.gz' or similar.  -thanks
        Something like if($filename <ends with> @valid_extensions) {}
        \_ $ext = join '|',@valid_extensions;
           if ($filename =~ /\.($ext)$/) { ... } # -geordan

11/22   We should make income tax flatter, but also allow all charitable
        donations to be tax deductible.  This will encourage Christian
        giving to the poor and give glory to God as opposed to the evil
        liberals who just want entitlements.
        \_ Except that it doesn't.
        \_ Are you the same guy who's trying to say the poor should pay more
           taxes and not get food stamps because they sometimes blow their
           lottery winnings?  'Cause if you are, that's pretty un-Christian.

11/22   Are restaurant hostess usually attractive?
        \_ Yes.
        \_ Sushi-O-Sushi in Santa Clara used to have a really gorgeous
           Korean hostess.  Any one know her personally?

11/22   'Furd Daily:  http://csua.org/u/a2o
        "Unforeseen were the penalties and the lack of sportsmanship
        displayed by both teams, especially towards the end of the game. ...
        It wasn't only the Cardinal who were playing dirty at the end of the
        game. Defensive tackle Babatunde Oshinowo was injured on what he
        thought was a dirty block by the Cal offensive line late in the game.
        While the Cardinal did pick up a lot of personal fouls, a good number
        were offset by personal fouls on the Bears."
        \_ Sshhh.... we beat them well; we can afford to be magnanimous.  Just
           smile condescendingly if you must.
           \_ "They were playing just as dirty as we were!"

11/22   Boredcast Message from 'danh': Mon Nov 22 12:05:30 2004
        i want to see ilyas on Fear Factor

        Waa, danh doesn't love me. :( -- ilyas
        \_ who among us wouldn't want to see you eat roaches? - danh
           \_ I still want what's best for you, even if you are a
              spiteful communist. -- ilyas
              \_ So when are you going to move to a red state and get a real
                 job?  You're starting to sound remarkably like the liberals
                 who claim that they're moving to Canada, what with your open
                 contempt for the state whose public school system supports your
                 libertarian ass.

11/22   http://sandiego.craigslist.org/pol/49694464.html
        Karl Rove publishes a new book
        \_ Hahaha.. You STILL lost. 4 more years! 4 more years!
           \_ Where's the "come back when you're an adult" guy when we need him?

11/22   What's the logic behind 'consecutive life sentence'?  I can see being
        given multiple life sentences to be served at the same time, i.e. if
        one gets overturned you serve the others.  But making them
        'consecutive' makes no sense unless you believe in reincarnation and
        plan on incarcerating the next incarnation (An insect?).
        \_ I heard some vague explanation about sentences getting shortened
           for 'good behavior,' and how in some cases you don't want people
           getting out that way. -- ilyas
           \_ What's the diff between that and life sentence without the
              possibility of parole?
              \_ Multiple life sentences occur when you commit multiple crimes
                 that each carry a life sentence.
                 \_ It's spelled "sentence".  Corrected.
                    \_ Funny, I thought it was spelled "anal."
              \_ I don't know. -- ilyas

11/22   Ilya, was that your tantrum?
        \_ Doubt it.  He has better grammar. -geordan
           \_ I guess he gloats when he nukes the motd.  This was just
              'Wah! Someone deleted something! -anonymous'

11/22   What is this?  They guy who got bested by ilyas nuked the motd?
        \_ Maybe something was deleted out of order and "someone"
           ilyased the motd.  -meyers
        \_ Ilya nuked it.
           \_ Is he going for some sort of "biggest ***hole" award or
              something?
              \_ Someone deleted my reply, you ****** ********* ******.
                   -- ilyas
                 \_ Random deletions are no excuse to be a dick
                    \_ Perhaps you should take it up with the guy who
                       deleted my reply, then.  I am tired of having
                       this conversation over and fucking over again.
                       You are not changing my mind.  I will defend
                       myself.  Go find something better to argue
                       about.  -- ilyas
                       \_ For a guy who gets so bent out of shape over
                          occasional motd friction, you sure do a good job
                          overwriting other people's posts. -jrleek
                          \_ It's all part of the ilyas doctrine.  If he
                             delete's someone's thread, they should just
                             "deal", but if it's his thread, there'll be
                             hell to pay.  -meyers
                       \_ If you're sick of having this conversation, stop
                          being such an asshole, asshole.
                       \_ "I will defend myself" == Nuking in self-defense :D
                 \_ So repost it, dummy, Sheesh.

11/22   What's a good database program for Mac OSX? I just found out they
        don't make MS Access for macs. I did a quick search and found a
        Filemaker. Can anyone recommend any others? Thanks.
        \_ what's your need?  FileMaker is fine (better than Access) for
           personal/home use.  -tom
        \_ MySQL?  as above, what do you need it for?  I also like
           FileMaker - sax
                \_ It'd be for work, for uses that are probably very
                   similar to home/personal uses. -op
                   \_ FM 7 does multi-table databases fairly well with an
                      interface that's easy to learn.  If you need to
                      share databases between users, it would be better to
                      also get the FM server software, which might be a
                      budget concern.
        \_ Depends on what you need. If you want the db running all
           the time, go with postgres. It is much better than mysql.
           If you are looking for something that is easy to progam
           to, but don't need to have running all the time take a
           look at sqlite.

11/22   Hey script people, did he "ilyas" the motd again?
        \_ Basically, we've determined ilyas' Kryptonite: just mention how
           he's a hypocrite for being a libertarian who lives for free
           off of the UC system.
           \_ This is as moronic as blaming wall socialists for not moving
              to Cuba.  Rather than sitting in CA, and reaping the benefits
              of the evil, worker exploiting capitalist society with
              BushCo at the helm. -- ilyas
              \_ I don't know of anyone on wall advocating socialism.
                 \_ Heh.  Then I am not a libertarian, but a Queen of
                 \_ Heh.  Then I am not a libertarian, but the Queen of
                    England. -- ilyas
           \_ I thought you could always make ilyas look like an idiot just by
              deleting one of his posts or signing his name to something he
              wrote.  It never fails.  He always does something stupid in
              response.
              \_ Since he insists on strict ordering, and prefers everyone
                 sign their posts, why doesn't he wall instead of posting
                 on the motd?  Is it because he can't nuke the wall log??
                 \_ Because on wall he can't pretend to be 5 different people.

11/22   Ilyas, how was Santa Monica, you had fun on the Third Street?
        \_ Pretty good, Kevin.  How are you? -- ilyas
             \_ You're on drugs, he hasn't logged in for a while.
                \_ You're stupid.  he still runs commands.
                   \_ kchang is famously paranoid.
                \_ What is the sound of kchang posting to the motd?
                   \_ "[twink]...[twink]...[twink]..."

11/22   ilyas ever seen a shrink for your tantrum?

11/22   The Hmong People in the U.S.
        http://www.jefflindsay.com/Hmong_tragedy.html
        \_ Hmong people Among people.
        \_ So, um, I'm curious. Does the rice man wear glasses? Did he
           wear glasses when he threw the ilyas-like tantrum?
           \_ He ruined hunting for everybody!
              \_ He has ruined the reputation of the Hmong people
                 for generations to come.
              \_ Maybe he just descided to hunt the most dangerous game...
        \_ I guess McVeigh was the U.S. people in teh U.S.

11/22   I posted this last week but no one responded (thinking it was
        a HW problem) so I'll ask again: given a group of several
        values, is there a way to evaluate or determine if the variability
        between those numbers are significant or not? And if so, what
        statistical test should be used? Thanks.
        \_ Where did the numbers come from?  Is there an underlying
           stochastic (or otherwise) process you can describe? -- ilyas
                \_ No it's not stochastic. Does it matter, though? Can't
                   you just take the numbers at face value?
                   \_ I don't know what 'variability' means.  If it's a
                      normal distribution from which the numbers come,
                      you can estimate the variance, and that's one
                      notion of 'variability.'  If the process is not
                      stochastic, and has no stochastic interpretation,
                      why are you interested in 'variability'? -- ilyas
                        \_ OK, so I have a series of about 10 numbers.
                           I want to know if they really are the "same"
                           or not. Let's say I had 3.0, 2.9, and 3.1,
                           I want to determine whether they are actually
                           centering around one central value (in this
                           contrived example, 3). Is it enough to calculate
                           the percent change from one number to the next
                           and note that it's low, or is there a more
                           objective statistical test I can use?
                           \_ If you want to quantify how much variation there
                              is in your numbers, there are lots of ways: some
                              common ones are range, sample standard deviation,
                              population standard deviation, and average
                              deviation.  You have to pick an appropriate
                              measure and an appropriate cutoff point for
                              "the same" based on what the numbers mean.
                              Just looking at your numbers above in isolation,
                              you can't say they're the same at all -- say you
                              were measuring the speed of light in different
                              media, in units of 10^8 m/s.  If you got 3.0 for
                              some and 2.9 for others it would conclusively
                              show that the media were different, and if you
                              got 3.1 it would be earth-shattering.  --mconst
                                \_ Well the series of values were taken
                                   from a biological source, where there
                                   actually is some baseline value (in
                                   theory).
                           \_ It's called an average...
                           \_ You can't make something from nothing.  You
                              need to make assumptions about the numbers
                              (if you don't know how you got them), or think
                              about how the numbers are created. -- ilyas
                           \_ I think the problem is that you're looking for
                              a one size fits all solution to a humongous class
                              of problems for which none exists. Why don't
                              you just put the data in /csua/tmp and let us
                              mess around with it?
                           \_ Any series of numbers can be the "same" for some
                              arbitrary distribution.
        \_ GIVE US THE GODDAMN DATA!  And tell us the context.  The whole
           context.  Saying "it's a bunch of numbers" does not constitute
           giving the context, and saying you want to "determine the
           variablility" doesn't really tell us what you want to know.
        \_ You need a statistics education.  The motd cannot help.

11/22 wow... first spam utilizing figlet-style letters. bastards
     ____            ___
    /\  _`\         /\_ \
    \ \ \L\ \    ___\//\ \      __  __  _
     \ \ ,  /   / __`\\ \ \   /\__`\\ \/\'\
      \ \ \\ \ /\ \L\ \\_\ \_/\  __/\/>  </
       \ \_\ \_\ \____//\____\ \____\/\_/\_\
        \/_/\/ /\/___/ \/____/\/____/\//\/_/
        \_ spamassassin didn't mark this as spam.

11/22   How do I get find to return me a list of files with every questionable
        character escaped by a backslash?  ', ", ?, <space>, etc are
        "questionable"
        \_ find . -print0 | perl -0pe 'chop;s#[^\w/.,-]#\\$&#g;$_.="\n"'
           (assumes you have perl and find which supports print0; both common
           on modern boxes; also i specified the list of "OK" characters rather
           than questionable ones; i think it's safer; note also that -print0
           by itself may have been what you were looking for, since this will
           possibly give you results like this:
           file\ with\ newline\
           in\ it.txt
           (the newline is blackslashed, but that may or may not help you)
           --dbushong
        \_ Pipe it through perl -ne 'print quotemeta $_'
        \_ Pipe it through perl -ne 'print quotemeta $_' --scotsman
           \_ or just perl -pe 'print quotemeta'
              \_ Er, no. perl -ne 'print quotemeta'
              \_ Er, no. perl -ne 'print quotemeta' --scotsman
                 \_ perl -pe '$_=quotemeta'
                    -geordan
                    \_ Actually, perl -pe 's/./\Q$&/g'
                       -geordan
                       \_ That's slick, but the newline issue applies there.
                          --scotsman
                          \_ I guess
                                perl -pe 's/./\Q$&/gs'
                             would fix that, but it's still just getting
                             escaped. -geordan
           \_ This doesn't work if any of the files have newlines in their
              names.  --dbushong
              \_ Well, it escapes it, just as yours does. --scotsman