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| 2005/2/23 [Transportation/Car] UID:36372 Activity:nil |
2/23 has IBM ever made a silver Thinkpad? black is so dreary.
\_ http://www.superiorcarcare.net/w892181.html Enjoy. -John |
| 2005/2/23 [Computer/SW/OS/Windows, Recreation/Media] UID:36373 Activity:high |
2/22 Episode 3 revealed:
http://www.tpu.fi/~t4jlaaks/ep3
This one might actually be worth the bw to d/l.
\_ Server doesn't work.
\_ Server doesn't work. Try http://nerdfilter.com -- obSPOILERS
\_ Worked last night when he posted it.
\_ They down as well.
\_ Obviously none of you has looked at the http://slashdot.org front page
today.
\_ I don't read it, but I did and found a link to the very
URL posted above. It doesn't work. It did yesterday.
\_ Yes, that's called "The Slashdot Effect". It's what happens
to a server when millions of people hit the URL in a short
time. It often becomes unavaliable. |
| 2005/2/23 [Recreation/Food/Alcohol] UID:36374 Activity:high |
2/23 Holy shit, this Sierra Nevada Bigfoot ale is strong.
\_ It's classified as a 'barleywine'. There are better and stronger.
\_ If you like barley wine, check out Stone's 2005 Old Guardian Ale
(it was available in Berkeley Bowl a couple of weeks ago but
given that it's a seasonal ale, it might not be available any
more..)
\_ I didn't know it existed. I thought it was just another beer
but after my head was swimming a bit after only half a bottle
I read the 9.6% alcohol on the label. The taste took getting
used to also. A pretty serious beer. Bigfoot is seasonal too
but apparently that season is now. I'll have to try some others.
\_ By the way, barley wine is one of the few types of beer
that can be stored for aging and drinking later. I heard
people say that SN Bigfoot is specially good once you age
it a bit (but I don't remember for how long, check
http://ratebeer.com if curious). |
| 2005/2/23-24 [Computer/Companies/Ebay] UID:36375 Activity:kinda low |
2/23 Someone please explain this eBay bidding pattern to me. It looks to
me this guy's just bidding against himself, raising the second-highest
bid and the amount he has to pay. Is there's any game-theory
explanation for this behavior?
lizard81081 ( 7 ) US $699.99 Feb-20-05 13:14:34 PST
lizard81081 ( 7 ) US $699.00 Feb-20-05 13:14:24 PST
lizard81081 ( 7 ) US $698.00 Feb-20-05 13:14:14 PST
lizard81081 ( 7 ) US $690.00 Feb-20-05 13:13:57 PST
lizard81081 ( 7 ) US $680.00 Feb-20-05 13:13:43 PST
lizard81081 ( 7 ) US $675.00 Feb-20-05 13:13:04 PST
lizard81081 ( 7 ) US $650.00 Feb-20-05 13:11:47 PST
lizard81081 ( 7 ) US $625.00 Feb-20-05 13:11:29 PST
l.mohamed ( 3 ) US $600.00 Feb-20-05 13:06:09 PST
l.mohamed ( 3 ) US $550.00 Feb-20-05 13:05:28 PST
joe8730 ( 3 ) US $522.00 Feb-20-05 09:43:28 PST
\_ What was the winning bid? It should have been $625. I think you
can raise your highest bid even if you're the highest bidder.
So the guy winning at 2/20 13:11:29 with a bid of $625, and
thought to himself the bidding might go higher than his current
high bid, so he kept upping it. Why he did it incremently so much
is dumb.
\_ The winning bid was $699.99. See why I'm confused?
I just had an idea. If there was a very high reserve price,
the winner may have been probing for it so that the he'd win the
item, even if nobody else was willing to pay reserve.
\_ What was the eBay item #?
\_ It's pretty simple. On ebay, if an item has two matching bids,
then the item goes to the earlier bidder. You can also state
the highest bid you're willing to make when you initially bid, and
let it bid for you automatically if someone else bids higher than
your current bid. It looks like what happened here is that
lizard81081 placed a bid when l.mohamed was the current high bidder,
and told ebay he was willing to go as high as <some number at least
$699.99>. Ebay took that as an initial bid of $600. Someone else
attempted to bid $625, but lizard81081 was willing to go that high,
and had the earlier bid, so ebay upped his bid and kept him as the
high bidder. This happened several times, but the other bidder
never went past the highest bid lizard81081 is willing to make.
The highest bid won't go to another bidder until that bidder makes
a bid higher than lizard81081's highest possible bid.
\_ Uh, if that were the case, then why aren't the opposing bids
listed? The theory about probing for reserve price makes more
sense.
\_ Because they aren't actual bids. The earlier bidder that was
willing to go higher already pwned the prospective bidder.
\_ I don't think that's how it works. I think *all* bids
are recorded.
\_ nope. pp is right.
\_ not disagreeing with you, but I always wondered
why eBay doesn't list the competing bids that
triggered an automatic re-bid
\_ So someone is probing for Lizard's highest bid, but finally
gave up?
\_ It's more accurate to say they wanted to outbid Lizard with
the smallest margin necessary, or, just gave up when the
amount was too high. If the auction ended 10 seconds later,
it's possible the second bidder just ran out of time.
\_ Couldn't he have bid $1000 and it would automatically
win w/ the smallest margin necessary? Or... just bid the
maximum he's willing to pay, which will result in him
either not getting the item or getting it w/ the smallest
margin necessary.
\_ Your psychological maximum changes over time.
It may be that after you win it, you regret it.
People are not perfectly predictable. |
| 2005/2/23 [Politics/Domestic/Crime] UID:36376 Activity:nil |
2/23 Dumbest Criminal Ever Award: Man admits bank robbery on radio talk
show.
http://www.suntimes.com/output/news/cst-nws-radio23.html |
| 2005/2/23-24 [Computer/SW/Security] UID:36377 Activity:very high |
2/23 Hi, my girlfriend's mom is in Taiwan. Her computer stopped booting;
it shows BIOS, but it won't show the WinXP screen. So, it sounds like
a virus (less likely, partial drive failure / OS corruption, but let's
assume it's a virus).
She is concerned about recovering her files.
Normally if I were on-site I'd just pull out the drive, put it in an
enclosure, and bam.
Is there any convenient way for her to recover her files without my
being on-site? I am thinking something along the lines of a bootable
CD-ROM I can mail her that could mount an NTFS partition and also a
USB memory key. It would show an easy Explorer-like tree with which
she can explore the C: drive and copy files over.
\_ The only convenient way I can think of is for her to buy a new
computer, then open up the old computer, take the disk out and
put it in the new computer as a secondary drive. Even this is
not "easy", but it is relatively straightforward for a non-
technical user. Can you trust her to be able to operate a
screwdriver? If not, she needs to bring it in to a data
recovery service, which will be much more expensive.
\_ have somebody in Taiwan make a KNOPPIX CD.
You make the same knoppix CD here and talk her through it.
She copies the files from HDD to the USB key.
In these situations avoid the screwdriver if you can.
\_ Thanks, I'm downloading KNOPPIX 3.7 English now and will try it
out. I'll let motd know how it goes.
\_ Also, if you could get remote access to her computer,
that would probably make things easy for you. You might try
setting up a remote access tunnel. Have her run (as root)
\_ Also, if you get remote access to her computer,
that would probably make things go faster.
You might try setting up a ssh tunnel like this:
Have her type:
(at the boot: prompt) knoppix 2 vga=normal
# passwd (to set the root password)
# /etc/init.d/ssh start
# ssh -R 2222:localhost:22 account@yourserver
then you ssh to you@yourserver and run
$ ssh -p 2222 root@yourserver
This should give you root on her server. I haven't tried
this specificaly but I'll test it out later tonight.
Then you ssh to yourserver like normal and run
$ ssh -p 2222 root@localhost
at the password prompt, type her new root password.
This should give you knoppix root on her computer.
I just tested it and it works. -brett
\_ Sounds cool. She gets net via PPPoE, though. So I guess
I will need to fish for the PPPoE settings in KNOPPIX and
tell her how to do that?
\_ D'oh. She doesn't she have a firewall/router device?
That could explain how her computer got comprimised.
\_ That's what I told my gf. But my gf does Windows
Remote Assistance all the time with her family and
didn't want to mess with unblocking ports.
...
"It ain't broke, so why fix it?"
"Because you might get p0wn3d one day"
"But I have everyone on Windows Automatic Update"
"Okay"
"Dang, I got p0wn3d!"
The real answer is that we need to test the port
unblocking in the U.S., and move them to the
D-Link gateway next time we visit Taiwan.
\_ Your girlfriend should either:
1) fix it herself now (or)
2) follow your advice ahead of time.
3) Get Macs for her parents.
Your gf doesn't understand inbound/outbound rules:
"If you are using Network Address Translation (NAT) in a
home environment, you can use Remote Assistance without
any special configurations."
\_ You have never had a girlfriend, have you?
\_ Doesn't she have any computer savvy acquaintances in Taiwan?
Isn't Taiwan a high tech island?
\_ Friends we used to ask are in gr4d sk00l in the U.S. |
| 2005/2/23-24 [Computer/SW/WWW/Server] UID:36378 Activity:nil |
2/23 What's the server/port for CSUA's imap server?
\_ It's soda, port 993 (the default for SSL-secured IMAP). We don't
support non-SSL IMAP anymore. --mconst
\_ Thanks, that was exactly my problem.
\_ fyi, I've been using SSL IMAP for a year or so on soda.
Thanks to whoever got it working.
For some reason spam has been much reduced recently, so thanks
to whoever is fixing that. |
| 2005/2/23 [Reference/Law/Court, Politics/Domestic/President/Bush] UID:36379 Activity:high |
2/23 So, the Supreme court is going to examine the Oregon euthanasia laws.
170 people have used since it became legal in 1997 to end their lives
prematurely, mostly cancer patients, who I assume were in horrendous
pain or discomfort. I can sympathize with the arguments of the
prolifer, even if I don't agree. I am totally baffled by the Bush
administration's meddling with the Oregon law -- I thought Republicans
were for states rights (or is that states rights only if we agree
with those rights?). This law is not being abused (20/year?),
doctors are not "killing off their patients" -- Is the Bush
administration in favor of suffering? Or is their religious zeal
clouding their judgement?
\_ The latter. Suicide is a sin and this law opens the door to stuff
like late-term abortions of severely abnormal fetuses.
\_ "opens the door"? Abortion is a legal choice (thankfully) for
women with severely abnormal or terminally ill fetuses. At least
for now. In my eyes, legally forcing someone and their loved ones
to endure a painful illness that can only end in death is about
as un-loving as you can get.
\_ Bush and company want to live in a black-and-white world
with clear delineation of good and evil, no gray areas,
no exceptions, (and also little room for thought,
compassion, and mercy).
\_ The bottom line is that doctors will help patients end their
lives no matter what the law says. Doctors have always helped
their patients with this and they always will. |
| 2005/2/23-25 [Computer/SW/OS/Windows] UID:36380 Activity:nil |
2/24 [Reposted because nobody responded]
I'm wondering who has experience with different personal finance
software. It needs to run under windows, but Windows+Cygwin is OK too.
Mostly I'm looking for ease of use and not integrating itself into the
OS any more than it should. I need basic budgeting and maybe some tax
planning and investment tracking.
\- quicken works fine for me. cheap and does what you want.
\_ obYermom
\_ quicken for balancing accounts, excel for investment tracking. |
| 2005/2/23 [Uncategorized] UID:36381 Activity:nil |
2/22 I'd appreciate hearing from anyone who's ever subcontracted through
SAIC--I have a few questions regarding their contracts. -John
+-------------------------------------------------+-------------------------+
| | D3TH ########### H3D! |
| 50RDZ AR3 K00L, BU7 D3R3"S 0NLY ^ | ############# |
| 1 A><3 0F B1FF!!!(++L0T5, N0 H0z3RZ)/ \ | ############### |
| \,,,,,,,,, _______________________/THE\______ | ### ##### ### |
| #########|______________________ A><3 _____> | ### ##### ### |
| /````````` // \\ | ############### |
| // 0f \\ | ###### ###### |
| L0RD B1FF 0F B1FfN3T!!!!!!!111 /_ B1FF!!!_\ | U ########### B1FF |
| M@J0RLY K3wL D00D 0F EV3RWHER3 \__________/ | N0 ||||||||| 5KULL |
| | M3SS!! ######### R00LZ |
+-------------------------------------------------+-------------------------+ |
| 2005/2/23-24 [Computer/SW/OS/Solaris, Computer/SW/Unix] UID:36382 Activity:nil |
2/23 Trying to load tcsh on a SunOS 5.7 machine, getting C compiling
errors. Resources? Suggestions? STFW returns nothing useful.
\_ what errors?
\_ Trying to load it or compile it? If you are just trying to load
it, get it from sunfreeware and pkgadd it. |
| 2005/2/23-24 [Academia/Berkeley/CSUA/Motd] UID:36383 Activity:high |
2/23 So why do people seem so uncomfortable about answering questions
that seem to come from coursework? Is it about making students
suffer, or because of an assumption that they'll learn more by
doing it the hard way? The question below is something I hazily
remember and it's something I'd like to know, just to stay sharp.
I think NOT answering it, as tends to happen, might send the wrong
message to student members.
\_ Well, the question below is different from actual homework problems.
I am sure you can see the problem with doing someone's homework
for them. -- ilyas
\_ Remember your Physics professor/TA telling you that you learn by
doing and getting stuck with the problem, not by getting spoon-fed
the answer? That wasn't all baloney.
As for soda, the ideal responses are hints and things of that sort,
although many responses are not always ideal (in particular, the
ones that end with, "Lazy bitch.")
\_ Amusingly enough, I seemed to have been the only poster that
actually solved the problem, and gave an actually useful
hint (splitting the array into 3 sums). But I am sure all
your bitching about me telling off the lazy undergrad bitch
is far more ideal. -- ilyas
\_ Are you talking about the contiguous int's in an array? My
CS170 book (Udi Manber) gave a solution using two sums, not 3.
\_ Heh, you can think of it as either 2 sums or 3 (the third
sum is what's left). -- ilyas
\_ Asking anyone outside of the class can be considered cheating in
some classes/professors these days.
\_ Why do you say this? I've only heard something this strict for
take-home midterms/finals; homework seems to be > 90% "as
long as you don't copy".
\_ In all the classes I have ever TAed, the understanding is that
you do the homework yourself. -- ilyas
\_ You're a unionized state employee. Awesome.
\_ By "the understanding is", do you mean the TA or professor
says "You should do the homework by yourself", or do
you mean they say, "You are not permitted to ask someone
else for help. For this course, it is considered
cheating."?
\_ I consider the latter the legal codification of the
former, and in practice, I consider them equivalent from
the 'what you should morally do' point of view.
Certainly I would feel entitled to call anyone in
violation of either 'lazy bitch.' -- ilyas
\_ But you know it can't be policed. So I think if this
policy is in place then the grade should not depend
on the correctness of the homework.
\_ You can't perfectly police takehome finals
either. Or GREs (if the perpetrator is clever).
Or speed limit laws. Or anything, really. What's
your point? -- ilyas
\_ So have you given up on your "thread order
enforcement"? I see you're active today,
but I also see threads being selectively
deleted "out of order". -meyers
\_ I ll retaliate if some thread I care about
disappears 'prematurely.' You can do all
the other ones, Robby. -- ilyas
\_ Those other things are a lot better policed.
I dunno, I'm not in school anymore. But I think
the point of homework is to learn, and
discussing the problem with others can help.
\_ I agree that discussing can help, especially
for math proofs. But motd is a bit of a
one-sided discussion. -- ilyas
\_ What do you mean by "motd is a bit of
a one-sided discussion"?
\_ When someone asks for homework help
on the motd, it's not a real
discussion. It's one party fishing
for clues while contributing nothing,
really. 'Discussion' for these
things has to be face to face, imo.
Also, it's a little annoying because I
have never ever seen anyone admit
upfront they are asking for homework
help on the motd. It's always 'hey,
here's a neat problem!' That already
seems dishonest from the start.
-- ilyas
\_ I would say the majority of users
have problems with students asking
the Internet at-large to do their
homework.
The same majority also feels it is
dishonest for students to pretend
not to be students.
There is no disagreement there.
\_ Hey ilyas, can we call you an "uptight dickhead?"
\_ The difference between the two is obvious.
Lazy bitch.
ilyas, it's good that you're concerned about cheating. -/
Luckily, most HW assignments are less than 5-10% of
the total grade, and in the case of most grad schools,
they're worth nothing.
they're worth nothing. My take is this. If students want
to cheat on the HW, let them cheat! When they take the exam,
their grades will reflect their lack of efforts they've
put into their study anyways. |
| 2005/2/23-24 [Computer/Theory] UID:36384 Activity:nil |
2/23 In the CLR book, chap 4.1-4.3, there are 3 basic ways of solving
recurrence. The first way, 4.1, is the substitution method, which
I think is straightforward and simple (albeit sometimes time
consuming). The second way, 4.2, is the tree method, which I
think is great, but a bit too informal as a proof. The last
one, 4.3, master's theorem, is GREAT. Now suppose you're taking
a test and forgot your master's theorem, can you actually get
prove everything using 4.1? In another word, are there recurrences
that can't be derived using 4.1, but can using 4.2 or 4.3? ok thx
\_ Hey are you the 'contiguous sequence sum' guy? Why do you feel
the need to get the motd to solve your 170 for you?
\_ this is kind of embarrassing but it's for the quals and since
I haven't done this in ages (several years) I've pretty much
forgotten everything.
\_ Isn't this the case with math in general? I am having
a hard time remembering some things if I haven't used them
for about year, although the knowledge seems to come
back quicker than when learning things for the first time.
\_ Just curious, which class is this for? |
| 2005/2/23-24 [Politics/Foreign/Asia/Korea] UID:36385 Activity:nil |
2/23 Hi, are there any Koreans who watch "Jewel in the Palace" on Ch26?
Is the drama true to Korean history (the costumes, rituals, etc.)?
Thx. -- Chinese
\_ I don't watch it, nor have I ever watched it, but if it's like
most Korean dramas based on pre-modern society, the rituals are
probably correct. The costumes, however, are probably more
vibrant than they actually were. |
| 2005/2/23-24 [Uncategorized] UID:36386 Activity:low |
2/23 Apparently Hunter S. Thompson's ashes will be shot out of a cannon,
per his request.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/7018054
\_ that's almost as cool as a Viking funeral. - danh
\_ According to Ralph Steadman, the cannon is supposed to be
100 feet of chromed steel with a big red "gonzo fist" on top.
\_ I recall an Iain Banks book ("The Firm") where one of their high
level guys has himself set up on a Viking long boat on a Scottish
lake when he dies, and the whole thing is packed with explosives
and ignited via flaming arrow. Then there's this:
http://tinyurl.com/6hgm6 Whatever, it all rocks. -John |
| 2005/2/23-24 [Computer/SW/Unix, Computer/SW/Unix/WindowManager] UID:36387 Activity:high |
2/23 Does anyone manage to change the copy-paste behavior of Windoze to
more Unix like? (hilight yield copy, middle click yield paste)
thx
\_ Maybe tweakui can do this.
\_ No.
\_ No offense, but the Unix way is stupid. Highlight something and
the entire copy/paste buffer is gone. I am glad windows is not
broken in the same way.
\_ Why are you hilighting something you don't want to paste?
\_ For example, in a Windows editor you can highlight something
and then hit paste to replace it with what's on the clipboard.
This is annoying to do in Unix.
\_ Maybe you just click on the window and you accidentally
highlight something?
\_ I usually highlight as a I read, it gives me a visual cue
as to how far I've read, in case I need to switch to a
different document and then switch back.
Also the highlight as copy make it really hard to overwrite
with a paste.
\_ I bet you just love click-to-focus too?
\_ Yes. It makes much more sense than mouse focus.
\_ How so? What's the purpose of pointing your mouse cursor
at some window you don't intend to interact with? It's
a waste. --likes-xmouse-but-hates-unix-copy/paste
\_ To get it out of the way, because you bumped it by
accident, etc. xmouse sucks for the same reason as unix
copy/paste. Although unix copy-paste can be convenient,
it's flaky and you can easily accidentally highlight
something when placing the cursor for the paste. Unix
human interface all suck shit except fancy cmd shells.
\_ see, there's your problem. unix paste works right
w/ focus-follows-mouse. you don't place cursor
as some extra step, you just middle-mouse the new
text right where it belongs.
the old unix mouse model is for people who think
and then act; not for clicking and
dragging all over the screen looking for visual
response.
\_ But really sucks when you're trying to paste
the URL into your webbrowser that's already open
to a page. KDE has a decent workaround with its
black "X" button, which deletes the current URL
and places the cursor in the location bar.
\_ with most browsers you can just paste a URL
into the main frame. I think you're just
not curious enough.
\_ The Unix way IS stupid. It makes no sense whatsoever. The people
who first implemented the method in xterm were morons.
\_ What more can you expect from MIT?
\_ does anyone know how to make gnome not auto-raise when I click
somewhere in the window pane? I'd like to operate on deeper
layers and only raise when I click the title bar, etc.
\_ what I like about unix is the double left click then right click
highlighting a region. windows you have to hold down shift key. |
| 2005/2/23-24 [Computer/SW/SpamAssassin] UID:36388 Activity:low |
2/23 I sometimes receive spams that has apparently nothing to sell, or
messages to spread. What are they for?
\_ spam fishers. If you didn't bounce the mail, you're gonna get
a lot more spams in the future. Sorry.
\_ How do I bounce the mail back to sender in a way that makes it
think my email addr doesn't really exist?
\_ I don't think this is possible (it wasn't last I
checked) but I think it's a feature that needs to be
added.
\_ Forward them to spam@ftc.gov, spam@uce.gov and uce@ftc.gov
(don't know which one is the real one). Better than no
action at all. |
| 5/17 |