Berkeley CSUA MOTD:2005:February:25 Friday <Thursday, Saturday>
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2005/2/25 [Uncategorized] UID:36409 Activity:nil
2/25    w00t!
2005/2/25 [Computer/SW/P2P] UID:36410 Activity:low
2/25    No more bittorrent for me :(
        http://money.cnn.com/2005/02/24/technology/hollywood_lawsuits.reut
        \_ eek. how does that work though? let's say someone puts up a web
           page with his "free e-book". But it's really an illegal copy.
           Clearly he's liable for the illegal distribution but what about
           users who downloaded it? Granted this isn't plausible in all
           cases.
           \_ just don't use bittorrent for those blockbuster movies, it seems
2005/2/25 [Health/Women] UID:36411 Activity:high
2/24    Hey ilya, is it true that in Russia, women <24 are skinny twigs,
        and over 40 old Olgas are "Mother Russia"?
        \_ I don't think ilyas is Russian
        \_ That's what I keep hearing.  However, I left russia when I was young
           enough to not be paying attention to women, so I didn't really
           notice. -- ilyas
        \_ I was in Moscow and St. Petersburg ~2 years ago.  I wasn't really
           all that impressed.  What did astound me, though, was that a lot
           of very young girls were seriously jailbaiting (many of them while
           hanging out with mom.)  -John
2005/2/25 [Politics/Foreign/MiddleEast/Iraq] UID:36412 Activity:very high
2/25    Ever wondered what it's like to be a soldier in Iraq? What it's like
        to roam around the Iraqi street, to interact with the Iraqi people,
        and to be ambushed by enemies that you can't even see? Ever wondered
        how our soldiers retaliate? And ever wondered if the Iraqi people are
        really pro-USA or secretly pro-insurgents? I recommend "PSB Frontline-
        A Company of Soldiers." Watch it on PBS. If you can't then get it on
        torrent:   http://www.mininova.org/get/10752/frontline022205.torrent
        This is neither pro-war or anti-war, it just shows you the way it is.
        \_ Some of us don't have to wonder.  Some of us keep in touch with
           people in Iraq and Afghanistan. -- ilyas
           \_ Note you can know exactly what's going on in Iraq and Afghanistan
              and be either pro- or anti-Dubya.
              Bush is a moron, but he's a good guy.  This tends to lead
              to mostly defendable intentions in foreign policy, but
              incredible mis-steps in execution occasionally.
              \_ Occasionally?  name a non-misstep. intention is shit when one
                 is so royally imcompetent.
              \_ He's not a "good guy". Who's not a good guy anyway? Who has
                 mostly indefensible intentions in foreign policy? Idiotic.
        \_ I have an acquaintance coming back from Iraq this weekend for
           leave (US Army). He has told me before that the Iraqis are
           overwhemingly pro-USA. It only takes a few dufuses (Saddam's
           ex-dufuses) to create trouble. I'm sure he'll have more to say
           than fits in his usual letters.
           \_ I think it entirely depends on where you are stationed. The
              Kurds love us, the Sunnis hate us, in Baghdad it depends on
              the neighborhood.
           \_ Please tell him thanks and that he's appreciated.
                \_ poor guy, he's a victim of Bush's incompetence
                   \_ 1. He is career military and it beats paperwork.
                      2. He find values in doing things like handing out
                         books to kids who never had them.
              \_ Seconded. There are lots of us back home who really
                 value his service.
        \_ Thanks for sharing this info. In the video an Iraqi civilian
           gets killed and one of the soldier said "Shit, I got a ...
           collateral damage. God damnit, someone call civilian
           ambulence." Then they quickly run away as to not get ambushed.
           Later on there was some intelligence that indicate that the
           family of the killed civilian is pretty mad at US soldiers
           and is planning to do something for revenge. So let me ask
           you this, is there really a fine line between the good guys
           and the bad guys? I mean, couldn't it be possible that
           regular civilians get mad and join the insurgents, or the
           other way around?
           \_ You're a few wars behind..  Welcome to the reality based
              community.
                \_ No. In the Crusades you had the good guys and the
                   bad guys and it's easy to distinguish between the two.
                   In WW1 WW2 you had the Axis vs. the Allies, and it's
                   easy to distinguish between the two.
                   \_ Were the Crusaders the good guys or the bad guys?
                      \_ The answer is in Indiana Jones.
           \_ Uh, oh, you're going to overload ilyas' binary reasoning circuit.
                \_ what reasoning is that? That he's right and you're wrong
                   that I'm hollier than thou Bush-like reasoning?
           \_ Sure, it happens but not in large numbers. Most of the people
              there are like people here. They just want to be left alone
              to live their lives. They don't want to be a part of anyone's
              revolution, but they certainly hated Saddam.
              \_ 100,000 is not a large number???
                 \_ Try >200k.
                 \_ 25 million people live in Iraq, and I doubt the number
                    of peaceful civilians who suddenly took up arms is
                    100,000. They are ex-military, foreigners, and others
                    with an agenda.
                    \_ Hint: the insurgency has grown steadily.  The longer we
                       are there, the more we're seen as occupiers, the more
                       people will take up arms.  Yes, there are outsiders, but
                       the majority are iraqis.  They gave us a year of
                       relative calm.  When the electricty and water didn't
                       come back on, they came at us harder.
                       \_ What makes you think it has grown in numbers? Links?
2005/2/25 [Academia/Berkeley/CSUA] UID:36413 Activity:nil 66%like:34944
2/25    Clean up /csua/tmp
2005/2/25 [Computer/SW/WWW/Browsers] UID:36414 Activity:nil
2/25    Hey, I got my second FireFox 1.0.1 (WinXP) seg fault within 24 hours.
        Can someone with 1.0.1 try this link and tell me if it crashes their
        browser?
    http://www.worldtribune.com/worldtribune/05/breaking2453427.0368055557.html
        \_ Does it seg fault in 1.0?
           \_ 1.0 only crashed once a week or so for me.  I'll try to
              re-install 1.0.1 given what people wrote ...
        \_ No seg fault, but the pop-up blew right past the pop-up blocker.
        \_ No seg fault for me despite the nasty popups.
          \_ yeah the pop-up stopper is broken, and in fact I've noticed this
             for a while. I thought the pop-up stopper was superior over any
             other pop-up stoppers. I guessed wrong :(
             \_ I run FF 1.0 and LavaSoft Ad-Watch together.  FF 1.0 blocked
                many more pop-ups than Ad-Watch.  I guess I won't switch to
                FF 1.0.1 until its problems are cleaned up.
                \_ 1.0.1 on OSX also allows this pop-up through, FYI.
        \_ Okay, it was crashing because I had the flashblock extension
           installed (prevents Macromedia Flash ads from running unless you
           click on them).  They released a new version of flashblock on
           Feb 23 that fixes crashes.  Now Firefox + flashblock doesn't crash
           with that link.  (Yeah, that's the only extension I'm running.) -op
2005/2/25-27 [Computer/SW/Languages/Perl, Computer/SW/Languages/Python] UID:36415 Activity:low
2/25    Any python guys on the motd?  I'm trying to find a python equivalent
        to $/ (the perl input record separator) so that I can parse a file
        with odd record separators (ie, not \n).  The data I got on google
        suggests that no such thing exists, but those posts were from 2003.
        Has support for this been added of late?
        \_ string.split('record_sep_char') I think.
           \_ Problem with this is having to read in data blocks from the
              file, because otherwise there's an implicit split on \n
              (which my records contain).
               \_is the file really big?
                 f = open("/usr/dict/words")
                 f.read().split('record_sep_char')
                 I'm curious too if there's a better answer
        \_ I don't do much work in Python so I don't know if this will
           actually work, but my copy of Python in a Nutshell mentions the os
           module has an attribute linesep which is set to '\n' on Unix and
           '\r\n' on Windows.  What happens if you try to set that attribute
           to your desired separator before sucking in your file? -dans
2005/2/25 [Politics/Domestic/Election, Politics/Foreign/Europe] UID:36416 Activity:high
2/25    Wired, how far you have fallen:
        http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/13.03/view.html?pg=5
        \_ What the fuck are you talking about?
           \_ Wired used to be techno-libertarian, this is written
              by a Euro Socialist.
              \_ Lessig is a Euro Socialist?  Wow.
        \_ Op-ed piece about tech stuff, mildly sensationalist, about
           something of import to geek types?  Sounds like Wired. -John
        \_ Once again the invisible hand of the "free" market gives us
           the finger.
           \_ OK, dude, very basic again for those of you who were asleep
              in Econ 100A&B:  collusion, government lobbying, anything like
              that is NOT the invisible hand, the free market, capitalism, or
              anything along those lines.  Thank you, you may now go back to
              sleep.  -John
              \_ in other words, there's no such thing as the free market,
                 thus we can stop relying on it to solve our problems. -tom
                 \_ Haha.  Let's play a game called 'spot the flaw.' -- ilyas
                    \_ w00t!
                    \_ How about "spot the twit." Hey, it's ilyas! I win!  -tom
                       \_ w00t!  You both get a "w00t!" for entertaining the
                          rest of us.  A grateful motd thanks you both.
              \_ This is how every implementation of capitalism has been.
                 \_ Yeah, this kind of sounds like the people who defend
                    communism.  But in a perfect world...
        \_ Whyis a regular op-ed column by one of the most respectable legal
           scholars on constitutional and cyberspace law a problem? -dans
        \_ An article showing corporate corruption in government, applicable
           to tech stuff, this is inappropriate/wrong for what reason?
        \_ I agree with the article. The government can do something
           better than private enterprises because they are
           fundamentally different. Private enterprises are there to
           make money, governments are there to serve. If a company
           can suck $100 out of you, they will not sell for $99.
           Governments on the other hand just need to cover their cost.
                \_ At the same time, governments are technically not
                   looking for max profit, so they have less of a incentive
                   to minimize cost and maximize efficiency.  The company
                   may want to sell it for $100, but could sell it for $80
                   and a competitor is selling for $85 so it sells it for
                   $80.  The author has a point that if the government CAN
                   do it cheaper/better and it is for a service/product that
                   makes sense, it should.  Making laws prohibiting it from
                   doing that just because it eats into the bottom line of
                   some corporation is not a good enough justification for
                   not doing it.
        \_ Thanks for the link, it is somewhat interesting. While we're on
           this topic, may I suggest an excellent documentary that talks
           about similar topics? "The Corporation" is an extraordinary film
           about the creation of the American corporation, its legal
           organizational model, its global economic dominance, and its
           incredible ambition to influence every aspect of culture in its
           unrelenting pursuit of profit. You can rent it in Blockbuster,
           Netflix, or buy it on http://Amazon.com
           \_ you can get a preview here:
       http://www.mininova.org/get/4719/The.Corporation.DVDRip.XVID.avi.torrent
2005/2/25-27 [Politics/Domestic/Crime] UID:36417 Activity:nil
2/25    http://www.tennis-x.com/story/2005-02-25/n.php
        Proper courting behavior indeed
        http://www.elitestv.com/pub/2005/Feb/EEN421f5ecb61b68.html
2005/2/25-27 [Industry/Startup] UID:36418 Activity:moderate
2/25    I heard a rumour that Yahoo was deliberately targeting employees
        with lots of stock options to make their bottom line look better.
        Is there any truth to this???
        \_ Targeting how?
           \_ Firing them.
              \_ And how would that help their bottom line?
                 \_ They need to exercise their options within 30 days of
                    getting fired or they lose them? -!op
                 \_ Stock options are now expensed.
                    \_ The company already issued them so they are going
                       to take the one-time charge whether they are exercised
                       or not. I don't see how firing people prevents
                       this after-the-fact.
2005/2/25-27 [Consumer/TV] UID:36419 Activity:low
2/25    What is the standard resolution of NTSC and PAL videos? How about
        DVD and HDTV (is HDTV the same resolution as DVD?) How about
        those new S-video plugs, what kind of signal/resolution do
        they carry?
        \_ google wikipedia { NTSC | PAL | DVD | HDTV }  have phun
        It's roughly ntsc 640x480, pal 720x486, dvd 720x480,
        hdtv 720p=1280x720, 1080i=1920x1080 interlaced.  S-video?
        That's NTSC era.  If you are going to use HD, you want HDMI,
        DVI, component in that order of preference.  -ax
        \_ NTSC DVD is 720x480.  PAL DVD is 720x576.  NTSC video and PAL
           video are both analog formats and don't have "pixels".  NTSC
           has roughly 480 horizontal scanlines (and PAL, 576), but the
           resolution in each row is highly dependent on the quality of
           the source. --jameslin
2005/2/25-27 [Science/Battery, Computer/HW/Laptop] UID:36420 Activity:nil
2/25    Stupid question, how is the 2300mah on my AA battery different
        from the 4500mah on my laptop battery? Is it the voltage? If I
        take 2 of my AA NiMH battery and add it up, the capacity is
        larger than my laptop battery's rated mah....
        \_ mAh is basically how much charge is available at a rated voltage.
           Total energy stored is maH*Volts.  Since your AA batery is 1.5V and
           the laptop's is around 15, the laptop's battery has about 20 times
           as much energy as an AA battery.  You could approximate a laptop
           battery with 2 columns of 10 AA batteries in series. (DO NOT attempt
           this)
           \_ what will happen?
              \_ Laptop batteries have 3 or 4 pins to allow them to monitor
                 and control charging.  Leaving these pins free is not in the
                 laptop design.  Also, laptop batteries are not exactly 15V,
                 some are 13.2 and others are 18.6 or whatever.  Getting it
                 wrong could let out all the smoke in your circuits.
                 \_ Feed the columns of AA batteries to the inlet for the AC
                    adaptor.
                    \_ OK, if you got the voltage and polarity right that
                       would work. -pp
2005/2/25-27 [Computer/Networking] UID:36421 Activity:moderate
2/25    What is the smallest (physical and price) cisco router that can
        handle BGP?  It should be able to have more than 256 ram.
        \_ When you say ``handle BGP'', do you mean supports the bgp
           protocol or supports enough ram to keep a reasonable (what do you
           consider to be reasonable) number of routes in memory?  Do you want
           to be peering at PAIX, or do you just need a router to run the T1
           line for your house?  256 megs is a *LOT* of RAM for a router and
           more than you would ever reasonably need to run your home T1 line.
           The 1760 is a reasonably good entry-level/consumer grade router,
           but it maxes out at 96 megs.  The 2691 appears to support 256 megs.
           -dans
            \_ I mean "supports enough ram to keep a reasonable number of
              routes in memory."  I shouldn't have mentioned price, I have
              changed it to be just physical.  I don't understand why a router
              running bgp between two networks memory needs to be multi-u.
              Isn't one of the advantages of having a "do one thing" box is
              that it can be small?   Anyway, I want a commercial grade
              cisco router.  I do plan to multi home my IP address, so that
              if one colo goes down my precious pron server will still be
              up at ISP number 2.  (I know, the ISP has to cooperate, and
              i'm kidding about the pronness)
              \_ You need to define what you consider to be a reasonable
                 number of routes.  Based on that you can calculate the amount
                 of memory you need.  My (still largely uninformed) off the
                 cuff answer based on the above would be something from the
                 2600 series, which, I believe, are all 1U. -dans
           \_ why would you run BGP out of your house? is there any reason
              to run BGP unless you are multi-homed? Don't you need some
              unique ID (ARIN or something-erother) to be multi-homed?
              \_ so he can learn how it works?
              \_ Look, I'm not the one asking for the ``smallest ... cisco
                 router that can handle BGP [that] should be able to have
                 more than 256 ram.''  As for why one might run BGP out of
                 one's house:
                 a) maybe you're a practitioner of the better homes and colo
                    facilities phenomenon
                 b) yes, there are other reasons to run BGP than being
                    multi-homed (details left as an exercise for the reader,
                    hint IBGP)
                    i) Those reasons aside, I said something about using a
                       router to run a T1 line, *I* never said anything about
                       running BGP out of your house.
                The `unique ID' you are referring to is an Autonomous System
                Number or ASN.  You need one if you want to announce a
                routeable ip address block on the internet. -dans
2005/2/25-27 [Computer/SW/Mail, Computer/Networking] UID:36422 Activity:low
2/25    Hi motd.  A friend of mine wants to keep her AOL e-mail address (or
        set up forwarding) since she got a cable modem.  From what I found
        on http://aol.com, it sounds like she wants to switch from AOL Dial-up
        ($24/month) to AOL Broadband  ($15/month).  Is this the right way
        (I guess via AOL account management or calling them up)?
        Is there a cheaper way?  Anyone have any experience?  Thanks!
        \_ Tell your friend to let go and get a better permanent
           email address. @aol.com is a sign of stupidity.
           \_ What do you recommend?  I was thinking @cal.berkeley.edu, but
              when you send e-mail from your ISP account, people will start
              using the ISP e-mail and forget about the @cal.berkeley.edu
              account.  Yahoo! e-mail (gmail still being in beta) is all that
              comes to mind. -op
              \_ Umm, google doesn't seem to have the same concept of "beta"
                 as the rest of the world.  To steal a joke from some blog:
                 You should just think of "beta" as a hip type of product.
                 like "loose-fit" vs. "boot-cut" jeans.
              \_ Don't be so dense. You set it as the reply to address,
                 or better, the from address (though those loser webmail
                 services may not let you do that).
              \_ Set the From address in outlook.
              \_ To the two posters above:
                 reply-to is something I thought of already -- basically the
                 issue is that some friends will see the ISP e-mail address
                 in the From: and a number end up using that.
                 I thought you would be smart enough to see this problem,
                 at least without insulting me, which is why I didn't
                 write about it in the first place.
                 As for From:, don't most ISPs these days have blocks on
                 modifying this?
                 modifying this? -op
                 \_ No, they don't block modifying the From: header since it's
                    something damn near every mail client on the planet has
                    been able to do for nearly a decade, and if they started
                    to block mail based on From: headers it would cost them
                    literally millions in customer support calls, and, yes,
                    you are dense if you believe this is happening.  Perhaps
                    you're confusing it with the increasingly common and far
                    more lame practice of an ISP blocking port 25 outright
                    forcing customers to use its own smtp servers sxclusively.
                    \_ No, I'm not confusing modifying the From: header with
                       blocking port 25 outright by default (which SBC Yahoo!
                       DSL just enacted as you already know).  I honestly think
                       Comcast does the From: checks to alleviate spoofing,
                       but I guess I can check up on this to see if it's
                       still true. -op
                       \_ Comcast != most ISP's.  Perhaps you're thinking of
                          SPF (or the functionally equivalent thing Microsoft
                          is (was?) pushing)? -pp
                          \_ No I am not thinking of SPF or Microsoft's thing.
                             When I say "most ISPs", I am not referring to
                             absolute number of ISPs, big and small -- I am
                             referring to ISPs that users are most likely to
                             be using, such as Comcast cable Internet or SBC
                             Yahoo! DSL.
                             Perhaps I should have written "Comcast and SBC
                             Yahoo! DSL" instead of "most ISPs".
                             Anyways, I didn't just dream up of From: address
                             blocking.  It did happen, with something that
                             wasn't out in left-field.  ... was it uclink? -op
                             \_ Bugger if I know, I barely ever used uclink
                                even when I was on campus regularly. -pp
                                \_ Anyways, looks like with Comcast cable,
                                   custom From: addresses works fine.  And
                                   she can use that with @cal.berkeley.edu. -op
                     \_ I have comcast and have my own From field. It works fine.
                        \_ Thanks! -op
                 \_ I have just given up and started using SMTP forwarding
                    from my email provider rather than trying to munge from
                    addresses.  If your ISP blocks SMTP, try it w/ TLS or get
                    it unblocked?  Where there is a will, there is a way.
                    \_ meant to add, I use "msmtp" sendmail replacement to
                       use w/ a linux mail client.
        \_ My folks did something like that ... just call up customer
           service and they can switch you to a bring-your-own-access
           type service.
2005/2/25 [Science/Physics] UID:36423 Activity:very high
2/25    Is anti-matter and dark matter the same thing?  Thx.
        \_ Is our children learning?
           \_ No they ain't. As to original question, not at all.
              \_ No, you're wrong. Technically speaking dark-matter could
                 be the "same" as anti-matter if it turns out to be
                 composed of neutrinos. Since neutrinos are their own
                 anti-particle you could say that dark matter is composed
                 of anti-matter. Right now we don't know what dark matter
                 is. Perhaps it could be composed primarily of some sort
                 of anti-matter. Nobody knows.
           \_ "More seldom than not, the movies gives us exquisite sex and
              wholesome violence, that underscores our values. Every two
              child did. I will."
        \_ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antimatter
           http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dark_matter
        \_ Dark matter is quite different from normal baryonic matter
           and anti-matter.  There are several views on what exactly
           anti-matter is, but in general it can be though of as
           matter that is composed of particles that are similar to
           protons and electrons except that they have the opposite
           charge (ex. positron is an electron with a + charge).
           Dark matter is completely different. It interacts with
           regular matter very weakly and is probably not composed
           of any sort of known particles. Dark matter's presence
           is mostly inferred from gravitational anomalies in the
           rotation of galaxies.  Some newer experiments are trying
           to detect dark matter based on nuclear interactions, but
           so far nothing has turned up.
           \_ There was some /. story recently on something that looks like
              an entire galaxy composed entirely of dark matter.  Dark matter
              has a bit of a 'magic blue smoke' quality to it, imo. -- ilyas
              \_ I agree. The entire dark-matter/dark-energy discussion
                 reminds me a lot about the cosmic ether discussions prior
                 to SR. It seems like the universe is telling us something
                 fundamental and physicists want to shoe-horn it into the
                 standard model.
                 BTW, how did they detect a dark matter galaxy?
                 \_ I am not a specialist, so I don't know (the article didn't
                    really explain it well).  Obviously using some indirect
                    way involving gravity, coupled with noticing there are no
                    stars there. -- ilyas
                    \_ If you are talking about the recent results re
                       VIRGOHI21, my understanding is that it was a
                       radio telescope search looking for H emission
                       lines. Also this isn't a dark matter galaxy
                       but a dark galaxy (basically a huge cloud of
                       H w/o many stars).
                       \_ I would be very surprised if you could get a cloud of
                          H to behave like a galaxy without any star formation.
                            -- ilyas
           \_ How much dark matter is in a liter of the air next to you?
              If none, how much dark matter is there in a liter of volume
              of deep space?
              If negligible, about how much volume of deep space would you
              need to get one particle of dark matter?
              \_ IIRC current estimates are that each second every square
                 meter of the earth passes through 1e9 dark matter particles.
                 \_ That means 1 liter has ~ one million dark matter particles!
                    I am swimming in dark matter!
                    \_ In comparison a liter of water has ~ 1e25 water
                       molecules.
                       \_ If we take 1 liter of air, I'm getting ~ 4 particles
                          of dark matter for every trillion molecules of
                          air.  Is that right?
                          \_ Sort of. Dark matter is "there" but it doesn't
                             interact w/ regular matter. It just passes
                             through your body (and pretty much everything
                             else) as if it wasn't even there.
           \_ Hmmm, so the motd is dark-matter.  If we put ilyas and tom
              together, would they explode?
              \_ I think that you are confusing a few concepts. Dark
                 matter is weakly interacting and does not affect
                 normal matter except via its gravitation effect.
                 The following works a bit better: the motd is space-time,
                 ilyas is matter, tom is anti-matter. If they both
                 meet on the motd you will get an uncontrollable burst
                 of energy that will destroys everything in its path.
        \_ If the only way to detect dark matter so far is from gravitational
           anomalies, how do they know that dark matter is in the form of
           discrete particles (or wave-particles like the way normal particles
           are in quantum physics)?
           \_ If you really want to know, look online in a source that does
              not consist of computer science people.  There is much
              bullshit in the above answers, and I have become tired of
              having flamewars with morons on the motd about physics.
              Look on the websites of the various darkmatter searches out
              there, and they should have good explanations of what they're
              looking for and why.
              \_ is dark matter like the Force?
           \_ Not everyone agrees that dark matter is made of particles.
              The leading theory is from the super-symmetry people who
              think that one of the particles in their theory, the
              neutralino, fits the dark matter bill.
              FYI, SciAm had some decent articles on this topic a few
              months back.
2005/2/25 [Politics/Foreign/MiddleEast/Israel] UID:36424 Activity:kinda low
2/25    This is what Palestinians mean when they say "cease fire":
        http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/4299609.stm
        \_ The bomb was planted by a militant group that never agreed
           to the ceasefire, and is actively trying to sabotage
           negotiations.  Same old shit...
           \_ except Arafat is dead now
              \_ Anyone who thought that was going to change much of anything
                 was living in a fantasy world.  Both the Israelies and the
                 Palestinians are paralyzed by the demands of their hard
                 line factions - the idea that the death of one man would
                 change that seems a bit silly.
2005/2/25-3/1 [Uncategorized] UID:36425 Activity:nil
2/25    Looking for mid-level desktop support.  If interested, email resume to
        resumes@goodvibes.com
        \_ $14/hr?  Do you get "other" benefits?
           \_ It's $14.07/hr
           \_ Wow, that's like what, $30,000 per year?
              \_ With the current Social Security system, you will have lost
                 $3,651/month versus private accounts!  You would have had
                 $700,148 in your private account when you retired!
                 \_ Actually, with private investing getting around $700,000
                    is not exactly hard. I'm not saying you'll get that much
                    just sticking it in a bond market fund at 3.25%, but if
                    you invest wisely you can easily get that if you dump
                    around $100,000 in a well balanced portfolio for 30
                    odd years, as long as you are willing to ride the dips
                    with the rises in the S&P.
2005/2/25-28 [Computer/SW/OS/OsX] UID:36426 Activity:nil
2/25    Looking for a webcam that is Mac-compatible and preferably comes with
        an easy to use software that lets you save a snap shot every 3-4
        seconds to the HD so that I can put it on the web site. Again it's
        gotta be Mac-compatible (my Logitech QuickCam 3000 doesn't come with
        supported Mac drivers, and the free unsupported SourceForge driver
        crashes after about 10 minutes). Thanks.
        \_ Um, iSight?
2005/2/25 [Uncategorized] UID:36427 Activity:high
2/25    For those of you old enouogh to remember the 80's: Fry's has
        Macgyver Season 1 on sale for $20. The Fry's on Arques still
        has several copies left.
        \_ My wife and I watched the whole run on USA several months ago.  Best
           TV show ever.
           \_ Your wife's name wouldn't be Aunt Selma, would it?
2005/2/25-28 [Computer/SW/Graphics, Computer/SW] UID:36428 Activity:low
2/25    Hello video experts, I've been using DVD2AVI to convert VOBs to
        AVI and WAV and then combining them using TMPGEnc, which I thought
        was free. Today, it says "MPEG-2 expires after 30 days due to
        licensing issues, please buy this product." What the hell? What
        are other alternatives out there?
        \_ mpeg2 is not free.
        \_ TMPGEnc provides free MPEG1 encoding, but MPEG2 is not free.
           You need to pay for TMPGEnc Plus.  Both TMPGEnc Plus and CCE Basic
           are around $50.  Incidentally, using DVD2AVI to generate AVI files
           isn't a great idea.  Also, if your goal is to go DVD->DVD, then
           why not use DVDShrink?
           \_ Actually my goal is simply DVD(mpeg2) to VCD(mpeg1), I got
              mixed up so it's cool. By the way it's quite tedious to split
              the DVD into AVI/WAV then combining them, is there an easier
              way?
              \_ You're not actually supposed to create an AVI with dvd2avi
                 (despite its name; they've now renamed it to get people to
                 to stop using that misfeature), since that's just going to
                 be a collosal waste of HDD space.  The usual way is to save
                 the project file (.d2v) and then open that (usually using
                 AviSynth, but I think the current version of TMPGEnc
                 can open it directly). --jameslin
2005/2/25-28 [Computer/HW/Memory] UID:36429 Activity:low
2/25    To people running VM Ware, how much memory do you have? I have p4-1.7
        and 256mb and its slow. How much memory do I need?
        \_ A lot. You are running 2 operating systems. I'd double your RAM
           at a minimum and more is better.
           \_ Two OS's plus VMWare itself.
        \_ 256 MB of RAM is not that much.  If you're using a Windows host,
           it's barely enough for even that one OS.
        \_ 1 GB. RAM is SO cheap. Get plenty.
           \_ My stupid machine at work uses Rambus memory, fuck.
        \_ I've heard that when you run VMWare, it's even faster to disable
           your host virtual memory so that you don't get double swapped
           (where your host AND your virtual machine swaps at the same time).
           Is this really true and has anyone benchmarked this?
        \_ I run a 192 mb linux server as guest with windows as host on 256
           seems to work fine, though I only use the linux os remotely and
           haven't tried doing real work on the windows box at the same
           time --darin
        \_ I've always wondered if you can run a simple client on a P100
           and hook it up on a Win based server
2005/2/25-27 [Politics/Domestic/RepublicanMedia, Politics/Foreign/MiddleEast/Iraq] UID:36433 Activity:high
2/25    Best... Freeper... Post... Ever....
        http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1350645/posts
        \_ What...the...fuck...? I don't even understand the intent of the post
           or of any of the replies enough to even make fun of them.
        \_ wow wtf is that? tangent: kids with flags and uniforms make me sick.
        \_ I feel a great swelling of pride... in not being one of those
           people.
           \_ On the other hand, you post here.
              \_ Touche'.
        \_ The "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" Mom in the upper right corner is just
           too perfect.
        \_ Since you all seemed unable to figure this out, the thread is for
           the morale of troops who visit the site, of which there are
           a significant number.  So, my reply is you all are pricks.
           Do you mock the USO as well?
           \_ Posting morale boosters for the troops to freep is akin to having
              your anti-war rally blessed by UBL. I mean, sure, the sentiment
              is there, but it's still ick.
              \_ Bad analogy.  There are probably quite a few soldiers who
                 read and enjoy freerepublic, and appreciate the support.
                 The idiocy in the freeper post isn't idiotic because it's
                 a freeper post or because it is intended to support or
                 entertain the troops, it's idiotic because it's idiotic.
2025/03/15 [General] UID:1000 Activity:popular
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Berkeley CSUA MOTD:2005:February:25 Friday <Thursday, Saturday>