3/13    Iraq will likely not be an Islamic state:
        http://abcnews.go.com/International/print?id=575516
        (relevant bit is about 1/2 way down the page)
        \_ The Iraqis will tell us anything at this point, if they think
           it will make us go away faster.

3/13    MMC Gunner's Palace - watch, wait for dvd, or skip?

3/13    So how expensive is your daily nicotine habit?
        \_ Nicotine free:  ....
        \_ $0:  .........
        \_ 25 cents: .
                \_ That's not bad.
        \_ 2nd hand smoke is free

3/13    What's the deal with this academic conference spam?  Are any of these
        real conferences, or are they scams to get email addresses and credit
        card numbers?  I get quite a few of these, and they don't seem to care
        that none of the conferences are even close to my field.
        \_ The one someone forwarded to me came from an ISP account and was
           relayed through China.  Looks like a new virus or some such.  -tom
        \_ Many academics, me included, get a phenomenal number from the
           "World Multi-Conference on Systemics, Cybernetics, and Informatics".
           These clowns extend the deadlines repeatedly and generally send
           me something about once a month, which is why I'm such a fan of
           the terrific paper by David Mazieres and Eddie Kohler that they
           submitted to the conference:
           http://www.scs.cs.nyu.edu/~dm/remove.pdf
           \_ That's funny and clever and I appreciate the sentiment, but it
              doesn't really answer the question.  Does the WMCSCI conference
              really exist?  If not, is it just an email harvester or are they
              stealing credit card numbers also?
              \_ I think it's "legit" in that it's not a scam, but it's just
                 a really really crappy conference, and the only people there
                 will be the authors. (Lots of Euro conferences are like this -
                 it's a joint venture between the conference organizers and the
                 hotel, just to fill the hotel, and they usually invite a big
                 name [Nobel] to speak and pay him with your conference fees.
                 But the only attendees at the conference are the authors.)
                 \_ Ok, thanks.  That's idiotic, but I guess I can't call the
                    FBI over it.
                 \_ This sounds worse than a scam to me.
                 \_ Why do authors bother to attend then?
                    \_ Some academics are more desperate than others to publish
                       somewhere, anywhere. Also if you have funding to travel
                       to present, a European location ain't bad.

3/13    Can anybody suggest a proxy server that runs on windows?  I'm not
        experienced with setting up proxies but would like to set up one using
        encryption.  Would I have to seperately set up a VPN and then run the
        proxy over that connection?
        \_ Just out of curiosity, what's the situation?  What are you
           planning to proxy?
           \_ Primarily 'questionable' http and bittorrent traffic.
        \_ Try squid:
           http://www.acmeconsulting.it/pagine/opensource/squid/squidnt25.htm
        \_ Probably should have been more specific.  I think I want some sort
           of encrypted SOCKS proxy. -op
           \_ Perhaps openssh's -D option?

3/13    iptables v.s. pf
        Which is better?

3/13    I'm trying to get a Mac with an Airport on the net via my lynksys
        AP.  My W2k laptop works fine but I can't get the Mac to talk to
        it.  I'm using 128bit WEP but turning it off didn't help.  Is the
        Mac able to talk to non-apple APs?
        \_ Yes
        \_ I had this problem but the other way around.  It was an issue
           with the way SSIDs/keys were entered (I forget the specifics, but
           it was a question of leading 0x and hex/non-hex strings.)  Try
           something along those lines if nothing else works.  -John
        \_ I had to put a "$" in front of the WEP password when
           entering it into the Mac.  Didn't have to change anything
           on the linksys.  Works fine after that.
        \_ John and anon person, thank you.  I'll give those both a try.
           Where did the idea of prefixing a "$" come from?  Thanks! --op
           \_ I googled it a year ago when I had the same problem as you
              did.  John's explanation is vaguely familiar; it definitely
              had something to do with hex vs. plain text, and the $
              makes it a literal WEP key ... or something.

3/13    HDD question: ran badblocks (hda1) once: found 1 badblock.
        ran it again (hda), found 0 badblocks. The HDD is still
        in warranty. If it were yours, would you replace it?
        \_ To all potential repliers:  Please note the question is primarily
           about "how accurate is badblocks if it reports 1 badblock on one
           run and 0 on the second".  For the obvious example of Windows
           stalling on just one sector or reporting any bad sectors at all, I
           would schedule that disk to be replaced as soon as possible.
        \_ is badblocks a linux tool?  I would find a SMART tool such as
           smartctl on linux and check the disk status.  if it has run low
           of block-remapping entries, replace it yesterday.
           \_ Thanks. Yes, I used badblocks (-w) on the KNOPPIX CD.
              I just ran smartctl in KNOPPIX, and it doesn't appear
              to have any block-remapping entries that I can find.
              I ran:  smartctl -a /dev/hda and noticed that it says
              "Warning! SMART Selective Self-Test Log Structure error:
               invalid SMART checksum. SMART Selective self-test log data
               structire revision number 1." How serious is this error.
               BTW, I've ordered a replacement disk from dell. Hope it
               was the right thing todo.
              \_ sorry it is called Reallocated_Sector_Ct in the
                 output from -a.  I think it is in percent and starts
                 at 100 for a new, healthy disk.  i'm not familiar
                 with log checksum errors.
                 \_ It looks like that starts at 0 and goes to 100.
                    The WORST and VALUE columns are 100.
                    This RAW_VALUE is 0. That test looks okay.
                    This SMART stuff is pretty nifty.
                    \_ hmm, on mine it starts at 100 and goes to zero
                       when all reallocation entries are in use.  if
                       yours is 100, I have no idea why you have block
                       errors.  cable/controller problems?  the disk
                       should self-correct until it runs out of map
                       entries.