3/31    Oh great all knowing motd,  what's the deal with CD-R/RW quality and
        possible degradation?  Does it matter? What's the best value for
        bulk purchasing of CD's that won't degrade? Costco? Fry's?  Oh,
        and ditto for DVD+R's.
        \_ Conventional wisdom says to avoid the cheapo bulk ones.  Spend a
           little more and get Taiyo Yuden manufactured media (basically
           look for a Made in Japan label).  Brand names don't matter;
           the actual media supplier is what matters, and brands often
           changes suppliers.
        \_ The chemical layer is very important.  Better manufacturers will use
           a gold dye (best) or a silver dye (good).  Less stable are the
           blue-green dyes which I believe are cyano-acrylics.
           For DVDs there are also good and bad dyes, but I don't remember
           which is which.
        \_ The TDK cheapos at CostCo have served me well.  I put them and a
           bunch of Imation disks in a container that held 80 CDs and the
           plastic of the container appears to have damaged the CDs.  The
           Imations were nearly unreadable (some were unreadable).  The TDKs
           were just fine.

4/1     And this is supposed to be the #1 English language paper for Taiwan
        http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/front/archives/2005/04/01/2003248585
        \_ Huh?  What's wrong with the article itself?

4/1     Are you living in a bubble area? Now you know from our good 'ol
        reliable http://cnn.com:
        http://money.cnn.com/pf/features/lists/home_valuations
        \_ I wonder if the author has taken into account the immigrants.  In
           the Bay Area, many of them buy houses with all cash.
        \_ The local Chico paper investigated our ranking and the study has
           some serious flaws.  For one, it considered the "fair price" based
           on historical trends and population density--but they used the
           population density for all of Butte County to come up with the
           population for Chico (and Chico has by far the highest population
           density in the county).  I don't know how much stock I'd put in it.
           -emarkp
           \_ I agree. I noticed this for Portland. Essentially, the study
              concludes that expensive = bad value and inexpensive = good
              value, which is useless. This is similar to the studies that
              calculate 'affordability' based on the average salary. True
              information, but useless.
              \_ I don't think you understood the study.
              \_ I think you have a point, but I think the study is more useful
                 than you think.
                 Let's take an example so everyone understands:
                 E.g., let's say my West Los Angeles home was worth $250K
                 in 1999.  Let's say my salary back then was $62.5K/year.
                 Let's say today the house is worth $800K.
                 Let's say today the house is worth $640K.
                 Let's say my salary today is $80K/year.
                 The multiple in 1999 was 4x.
                 The multiple in 2005 is 10x.
                 The multiple in 2005 is 8x.
                 This means buying a new home in the area is a bad value.
                 (ignoring the obvious case of a buyer who thinks the multiple
                 will rise to 10x in a couple years and turn a tidy profit)

4/1     This year's April 1 RFCs:
        ftp://ftp.rfc-editor.org/in-notes/rfc4041.txt
        ftp://ftp.rfc-editor.org/in-notes/rfc4042.txt  -John
        \_ Okay, those are hilarous...in an embarrassingly geeky sort of way.
                                    -mice
           \_ OK here's one for the non-geeks:
              http://csua.org/u/bk3  -John

4/1     So I keep hearing from people I know that my soda account randomly
        bounces email.  The only thing I ever get now is spam.  Is it time
        to retire the soda account for good?  Will soda ever be well?
        \_ I think /var was full the other day.  Some people had trouble
           emailing me and I couldn't send email from soda.

4/1     Okay, you got your commodities pullback.  Now it's going back up.

4/1     LEGO Star Wars!
        http://media.ps2.gamespy.com/media/694/694419/img_2667786.html

4/1     Seriously, the last post on the Schiavo Circus:
        http://csua.org/u/bjt (St. Petersberg Times)
        \_ It can't be the last one.  I declared a 5 day discussion period
           before we can forget about it forever.

4/1     Is there a way to delete just the attachment in gmail? -ray
        \_ not that I know of, but on a related note: is there anyway
           to determine the size of a message in gmail? I'm using ~25%
           of my quota and would like to delete some crap but have no
           easy way to see what the large msgs are.
           \_ I agree, a size field would be nice. -ray

4/1     Yay! We're running out of oil.
        http://news.ft.com/cms/s/d5213f46-a21a-11d9-8483-0000e2511c8.html

3/31    Hey small Chinese guy.  Did you know you could add 5 inches in one
        year for only $6K? (of height, not length)  http://csua.org/u/bjo

4/1     U.S. Soldier Convicted of Killing Iraqi Walks Free
        http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=578&e=4&u=/nm/20050401/ts_nm/iraq_courtmartial_dc
        \_ your url is long and tax free
        \_ I'm amazed he was convicted of anything.  I don't know how we have a
           military that can accomplish anything when this kind of thing goes
           on.
           \_ Yep, it's GOOD to be the invader isn't it?
              \_ FOAD.  It's a question of ethics on the battlefield.
                 \_ It's a sad case.  If you were in Infantry, it
                    would have been drummed into you that if there is
                    a mortally wounded enemy lying down in front of
                    you, defenseless, and probably suffering terribly
                    (this happens a lot when you're a U.S. soldier),
                    you JUST CAN'T PUT THEM OUT OF THEIR MISERY --
                    even if you personally think it's morally
                    justified.  However, the guy was trained as a tank
                    commander, so he probably didn't know.  He's a
                    poor guy, since he did what he thought was right
                    and probably spent a lot of time securing the role
                    of company commander.  His Army career is over, he
                    can't even be a desk jockey.
        \_ It doesn't say what kind of discharge he got. If it was a
           dishonorable discharge, that will be a huge burden on him
           for the rest of his life.
           \_ http://basic.armystudyguide.com/benefits/after_the_army.htm
              6. Including Commissioned and Warrant Officers who have been
              convicted and sentenced to dismissal as a result of General
              Court-Martial. [included with Dishonorable Discharge]

4/1     http://newscenter.berkeley.edu

4/1     Yet another April fools post that pissed some people off
        http://www.sswug.org/columnists/editorial.asp?id=623

4/1     New Dr Who announces that he is quiting  (no joke)
        http://news.bbc.co.uk/entertainment/tv_and_radio
        Weird to quit after your first episode is shown and  got good
        reviews and ratings

4/1     Yay! We're running out of oil.
        http://csua.org/u/bjv  (Financial Times)
        \_ cf yesterday's http://csua.org/u/bjk (Yahoo! News)
        \_ FUD comment.  While we may or may not be running out of mail, the
           article talks of measures in terms of possible crisis and to
           alleviate economic shocks in case of price spikes (general price
           rises if you prefer) like we have now.  -John

4/1     What happens when you combine Yahoo and Google together? You get a
        dual powered search engine called     http://yagoohoogle.com
        \ now i just need a firefox searchlet for it... - danh
        \_ now i just need a firefox searchlet for it... - danh

4/1     So wrong...: http://600673.com
        -dans
        \_ Google seems to be going crazy with the whole April Fools
           thing today.
        \_ no description, to be deleted in 10 min
           \_ no brain, to be euthanized in 3 h
           \_ 600673=GOOGLE in hacker speak (or they say, 3733+ hax0r $p33k)
                                                          \_ I think you mean
                                                             1337 h4x0r
                                                             \_ He means H07
                                                                42N CH1X.
        \_ The other major google april fools joke:
           http://www.google.com/googlegulp

4/1     I'd like to play my favorite EA game on the laptop. However, I
        don't have a CD player for my laptop and I'm wondering if it
        is possible to mount the CD on my desktop and access it via
        wireless. I know that EA has really weird CD protection
        schemes, that's why I'm wondering if anyone has successfully
        done this. -ok thx
        \_ Never tried that, and I suspect it won't work.  You can install
           VirtualCD or Alcohol 120% on the laptop, then make a SafeDisc-aware
           rip of the CD, put the image whereever, and then mount it in the
           virtual drive.
           \_ Does VirtualCD or Alcohol "simulate" bad sectors or weirdness
              in CDs that EA games use for protection? Which one is better?
              \_ A120% has never failed to deal with any copy protection I've
                 encountered on CDs.  Daemon Tools also has some good
                 copy protection emulations.  -John
        \_ Rip with discdump and then mount the ISO with Daemon Tools.
        \_ CDAnywhere is a tool to do this too, mounting a disk image as a
           virtual CDrom device.

4/1     At my job I can plug in my own laptop ; but they block the mail
        ports for all machines but the mailserver. This is
        windows/outlook. I want to be able to use my laptop at work
        just as I could at home. Any suggestions on something that is
        a minimum of fuss?
        \_ ssh port forwarding.
        \_ Is this sending or receiving e-mail?
           \_ sending only. Everything else works fine. I just want a
              combo that I have to do a minimum amount of work to use

4/1     Jobs to take helm of IKEA:
        http://www.theregister.co.uk/2005/04/01/steve_jobs_joins_ikea
        \_ He's keeping CEOship of Pixar and Apple.  Jobs for Dictator
           For Life!

4/1     What is a good alternative to paypal for selling stuff on ebay?
        It must be able to take international payment.
        \_ Small, unmarked non-sequential bills. E-Gold. Western Union.
           What are you trying to do, commit fraud or become the victim
           of it?

4/1     How come Palestinians want luxury homes demolished? Do they have
        plans to build grass huts on the same land?
        http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/4401921.stm
        \_ I don't know, this sounds right in line with their usual
           antics.  They're more interested in hurting the Isrealis in
           any petty way possible (including a measly $20 mil demolition
           fee) than they are in helping their own people.
        \_ What a scam. The settlers got paid money to move to Gaza, free
           luxury homes paid for by US tax dollars, and now they are getting
           paid 1/4M (or is it 1/2M now) to move.

4/1     I wonder if that's Jewish salad dressing?
        http://www.cnn.com/2005/POLITICS/04/01/buchanan.attacked.ap/index.html
        \_ I really don't like either one of those guys, but it sounds like
           they handled it with class, and the students look like jackasses.
           \_ My thoughts exactly.
        \_ "Could 10 of the largest College Republicans start walking up and
           down the aisles and start removing anyone shouting?  Otherwise, this
           lecture is over." -A. Coulter, Kansas University

4/1     VMWare gurus, please help. I've configured my VMWare on my laptop and
        everything seems fine at first until I unplug my eth100 and wireless.
        All of a sudden, my host system (XP) and VM (Linux) can no longer
        reach each other. How do you configure it so that it doesn't rely
        on having a connection? -ok thx
        \_ Well, how is the virtual NIC configured for the VM?  If you're
           using host-only or NAT, then it should work fine.  If bridged,
           then it's not surprising if it doesn't work, especially if
           you're using DHCP.
           \_ I'm using automatic bridging, and by default it already
              selected VMnet2 and VMnet8. It gave me subnet
              192.168.175.0 for vmnet2 and 192.168.117.0 for vmnet8.
              Is there something I have to do?
              \_ What do you mean "it automatically selected VMnet2 and
                 VMnet8"?  What is "it"?  Selected them when?  How did "it"
                 select both?  And how is your host configured?  And BTW,
                 VMware does have support forums on their website...
                 \_ I didn't configure ANYTHING, it's the way it is when I
                    installed it. What do I do? Thanks.         -pp
                    \_ Uh, I thought I made it clear already that you can
                       try setting the VM to use host-only or NAT networking.
                       You still haven't said whether your host OS uses DHCP
                       or not.
                        \_ Yes, host OS uses DHCP, what difference is that
                           gonna make? If it's not DHCP it renders my laptop
                           portability to "pain in the ass to reconfig"
                           \_ Well, I don't know what Windows does when it
                              can't obtain a DHCP address, but it doesn't
                              surprise me that it would suddenly become
                              unaddressable.  Anyway, you always could
                              try adding a second virtual NIC to your VM
                              that uses host-only networking.  I'm not sure
                              if that would work; I've never been in your
                              situation.  If not, then ask on VMware's
                              support forums.

4/1     What's a good place to buy music CD online? Cheaper than Amazon?
        \_ I like http://cheap-cds.com.  They have good prices, a simple website,
           and they show you the shipping costs up front.
        \_ http://half.com?

4/1     I don't get it.  How is the Schiavo case going to lead to more
        restrictive laws?  The vast majority of the public was against
        all the last-minute theatrics and interventions.  Or is this the
        New York Times being a bunch of hacks again? (not the liberal use
        of the phrase "may be")
        http://csua.org/u/bk2 (nytimes.com)

4/1     Man killed over virtual sword:
        http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/4397159.stm
        \_ I thought you wrote "Man killed *with* virtual sword".
           Now that would be cool.
        \_ But he sold it for non-virtual cash, and screwed over the guy who
           lent it to him. What an asshole.