12/23   Got my Samsung 193P today from http://jr.com.  It's fine, no bad pixels.
        Only things I can complain about are that it can't elevate very
        much, the bezel could be not as wide, and there could be more buttons
        (the Viewsonic VP191b has all of these and 2 VGA ports + 1 DVI, but
        the refresh is only average - also, from the back the VP191b looks
        like a light pole, but from the front it's just better than the
        193P in my opinion and just more functional).
        Bottom line ... after I get used to it, I'll probably like the 193P
        more, even though it's sitting on two books.

12/24   Today I saw a few protesters on union square handing out flyers
        reading something like "stop Bush's Pinochet social programs."  They
        looked like reasonably educated, intelligent kids, but I couldn't help
        but think that, regardless of whether or not I agree with their points
        (which I could sort of infer) there seemed to be a pretty hilariously
        bad interpretation of politics, history, and reality in general there.
        So just as a general observation, if you're going to argue about a
        particularly emotionally or ideologically charged topic, no matter
        which side you take, it helps to do some _basic_ research first, or
        you look like an idiot.  This has been a public service announcement,
        Happy whatever.  -John
        \_ maybe they're being ironic?  pinochet had lots of great
           social programs involving tossing people out of helicopters.
           in other news, that "NO SEX BEFORE MARRIAGE! NO SEX ! NO SEX!
           NO SEX!!!!!!!!" guy who sits on a fire hydrant all day
           outside of the cable car turnaround on powell in a suit is
           still there - danh
        \_ union square in... Switzerland? Wait, where are you really?
        \_ Sorry, you are siply misinformed:
          http://www.econop.org/SS-SocialInsecurityChile.htm#PrivatizationScheme
           You *do* know that the Republicans pushing for Social
           Security privitization hold up the Pinochet example, right? -ausman
           \_ No, I wasn't aware of that, thanks for the information.  Mea
              culpa, I should have done more research myself, but it seemed
              like a pretty absurd connection.  Anyway, Hitler built nice
              highways... :-)  -John
              \_ Stop the Mussolini BART reform!  The flyer guys are still
                 dumbasses.  Well, either dumbasses or cynics of the worst
                 kind. -- ilyas
        \_ better than sitting on their welfare state public univeristy
           grad school ass.
              \_ Yeah, well calling it the "Pinochet" plan is kind of over
                 the top and stupid, imho, but at least it got your
                 attention, right? I really don't know if this kind
                 of grandstanding works in American politics, but it
                 appears to have worked pretty well most of the time.
                 American politics is laughably stupid. -ausman
                 \_ It got my attention, got me to (indirectly) find out
                    about it, and (a) dismiss these particular guys as kooks,
                    and (b) dismiss their points as invalid.  So, net effect
                    of kookish presentation is negative... -John
                    \_ In my experience, most protest signs about something
                       more complicated than "NO WAR!" are so badly written
                       as to be worse than useless.  If I wanted to stand on
                       the side of a road all day telling people about my
                       oddball political position, I'd just buy an easy to
                       remember domain name, post a clear statement of my
                       position at the website, and hold up a sign with
                       the url on it.  I've pointed this out to protesters
                       who had crappy looking, cryptic signs before and they
                       never seemed to appreciate the advice.  I'd read
                       a url if I saw it on a sign.
                       \_ It's obvious you've never done anything like
                          campaign or run for office or try to get something
                          voted on a ballot. Probably only 1% of the people
                          who would read your URL sign would actually go
                          to the stupid website. The point of protests
                          is to get attention, preferrably media attention.
                          People aren't going to pay attention to you if all
                          you've got is a hard to remember URL. If your URL
                          is easy to remember (which is quite difficult nowadays
                          with all these URLs being taken) you wouldn't
                          need the URL anyway since your message would
                          be short enough to put on a sign.
                          \_ I had a long reply that got deleted.  Your
                             sentence is to live in darkness forever.

12/24   What is the difference between Pop and Rock music.  It seems that
        music from the 50s and 60s would never be classified as Pop.  But
        for music from the last 20 years, what makes it Pop vs. Rock?
        For example, Patrick Swayze's "She's like the Wind".  Pop or Rock?
        "Crazy Life" by Toad The Wet Sprocket.  Rock or Pop or Alternative?
        "Life in a Northern Town" by Dream Academy.  Pop or Rock?
        How is that determined.  I hear the words Pop and Rock and other
        genres all the time, but I never got a clear definition of them.
        Oh, and WTF is World music?
        \_ PopROcks are candy
        \_ who are you?  your problems are stupid.
                \_ and your motd posts ARE? !op
        \_ There was SO 50s and 60s pop.
        \_ Pop is, uh, popular music. Rock is rock, which may or may not
           be pop.
        \_ http://csua.com/?entry=27503
        \_ world music is music from any country not the US or UK.
           \_ You mean like Alanis Morissette?

12/24   Can you guys point out existing tools that do diagnostics by
        sniffing network packets? For example, what are some tools
        that can sniff out packet drop rate (missing ACK, irregular
        RTT, etc), and give warning on possible switch problems,
        router problems, DoS, and simply pinpoint problems?  Secondly,
        are there tools out there that inspect the link layer packets
        all the way up to say, applications for diagnostics? Thanks.
        \_ Cisco sells a couple of things that do some of this.
           Their IDS system would help. There is no simple tool
           that will just tell you where your network problem is,
           you have to have the skill and experience to interpret
           the output.
           \- if you are dealing with a traffic flow that involves
              a lot of weird stuff ... exposed to the open internet,
              or on a network with thousands of devices including
              embedded stuff, you will see a huge huge huge amount
              of stuff you should never see ... there are all kinds
              of spec violating tcp stacks. in some of our applications
              +50% of the code lines deal with spec violating stuff.
              believe me it will be easier to look for specific problems
              rather than anything that isnt strictly correct. there
              are also some things that are strictly correct that are
              just weird to see [like say in the TOS bits]. if you
              combine this with out of order packets vs. possibly
              malicious stuff, it gets complicated indeed [and opens
              you application up to DoS attacks depending on how you
              handle the state tables]. Bro may be a little
              heavyweight for this. some people like etherreal. there
              is some decent commercial stuff. if commercial stuff is
              an option, you can email me. ok tnx.
              \_ what is TOS bits? and who do I email to?

12/24   so I have a giant proprietary format microsoft access db file
        i think mail collection file used with Earthlink Total Access
        on a PC.  how do i convert it to something usable in maildir
        or mbox format for use with another email processing
        program? - danh
        \_ perl DBIx::MSAccess::Convert2Db  -tom

12/24   What's the cheapest way to get a legit version of WinXP Pro?
        \_ get someone who has already bought a (non-bundled) legit
           copy and use that licence to buy another at a discount
           (I think you can buy like 3 discounted copy for every 1
           bought retail).
           \_ Ah, thanks that's prefect!

12/24   Evidence that there are some sane minds in the Islamic
        World:
        http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp?page=story_9-12-2004_pg3_2

12/24   Evidence that there are some sane minds in the Islamic
        World:
        http://tinyurl.com/4my8u
        \_ Umm.. this link goes to a porn site about big breasted women.
           Huh?
        \_ Augh! My eyes!  The googles do nothing!