8/17    I went to Seattle for the first time in my life, and I have to say
        it really blows. The city traffic sucks as badly as SF, and the
        freeways are almost as congested as Los Angeles. The freeway signs
        are really fucked up and curves too much to be newbie friendly.
        The mass transit doesn't take you anywhere. The $1.75 ticket for a 1
        mile stretch on the famous Seattle Monorail is utterly pointless.
        What's up with the Space Needle? It is expensive, the queue is over
        1 hour, and it's really stuffy & crowded. When you leave the city,
        1/2 of the roads have huge pot-holes and many don't even have
        signs, or have old signs that you can barely read. It's near
        impossible to drive and read the map at the same time, since
        the roads curve a lot and the signs suck. It's funny my flawless
        GPS failed ***three times*** to take me to the right places
        in downtown Seattle; it gets confused. One of the bridges
        closed down so I had to fucking drive 5 hours around the bay
        from Port Angeles to the city. And the weather? It is fucking
        90 degrees. Food is mediocre. Bay Area is so much better.
        Sleepless in Seattle? That's right. Fucking lame city.
        \_ Everyone I know who loves Seattle, happens to be hiking and
           camping fanatics. They can never stop talking about how close
           they are to great camp-sites and all that crap. I am somewhat
           disabled so I don't really give a shit about hiking, or
           Seattle for that matter. Bay Area is still beats Seattle
           in terms of food, traffic, weather, and career opportunity.
        \_ You are correct. You should stay away from Seattle. That much is
           absolutely clear. In fact, you should consider not even visiting.
            -- ulysses
        \_ Good riddance.
        \_ Good riddance.  There's nothing native seattles like more than to
           see Californians go home.
        \_ the proximity to mt. ranier, olympia nat'l park, etc. are nice
           but otherwise it is just another crowded city.
        \_ Still want to visit Seattle. Where is a good yet cheap place to
           stay? Ideally within walking distance of shops, cafe's, etc.
           \_ I did exactly that, I tried to get something cheap and close
              to the Market. The only thing I got was a $120 hotel with
              a $12 parking fee/day, the garage was a HUGE 45 degree hill
                                                           \- have you ever
                                                              been on a 45deg
                                                              "hill"? it was
                                                              probably not more
                                                              than 12deg.
                                                              \_ For reference,
                                                                 the steepest
                                                                 streets in SF
                                                                 are about 32%
                                                               [18 degrees]_/
                                                                 (Lombard is
                                                                 closer to 40,
                                                              [22 degrees]_/
                                                                 but uses the
                                                                 switchbacks)
                                                                 And according
                                                                 to wikipedia,
                                                                 the steepest
                                                                 hill in SEA
                                                                 is 21%, E. Roy
                                                       [12 degrees]_/
                                                                 Street.
              from the hotel, and the Market was 10 blocks aways. It turned
              out to be 10 HUGE blocks, with 30 degree hills all the way.
              The place is called The Virginia Mason Inn. According to
              Google Map and my GPS it's right by the ocean. It's not.
              It's pretty hard to find anything under $150, within 10 blocks,
              and is good. In fact Virginia Mason smells like a hospital. I
              think they converted it to an Inn a few years ago. Anyways,
              I booked 3 days with them, and I totally regret it. The city
              is small and you'll pretty much see everything in one day.
              There's no need to torture yourself by living closer to it.
              \_ We ended up booking the Crowne Seattle in downtown. $129
                 per night. But something like 15% hotel tax will be added.
        \_ Hey, no state income tax.  I visited in 1998, and there were trees
           everywhere and home prices were lower than that in the BA back then.
           \_ No state income tax = no money for mass transit or basic
              infrastructures.
              \_ I don't have any facts, but maybe Microsoft generates enough
                 tax income like Vegas is with the Casinos?
        \_ I visited in July.  Don't forget the stench of coffee everywhere.
           You can't swing a cat by its tail without hitting two Starbucks.
        \_ I have been many times to Seattle. It's okay. The weather sucks.
           The 90 degree days aren't bad, but the cold, wet, and dark (short
           days) winters are unbearable. It's kind of a manufacturing town
           and I don't find it beautiful. It is odd to see so many
           redheaded people, though. There are worse places to be, but I
           don't like it too much, especially now that it is expensive to
           boot. You could buy a big, brand new house there for $150K 12
           years ago and it seemed almost worth it then. Same house is
           $500K+ now and not worth it at all. I'm a California snob,
           though. Whether it's San Diego, Santa Barbara, LA, SF, or
           wherever I find I like CA better than anywhere else.
           \_ Yeah, I'd love to stay in SF, but the housing is too $$$.
              We need a one bread-winner mortgage and a decent quality of
              life.
              \_ follow-up: what neighborhoods near Seattle have decent
                 housing prices, and walking neighborhoods (shops, cafes,
                 etc)? I would like to avoid suburban sprawl, Wal-Marts,
                 and so forth, and prefer independent establishments.
                 Basically your good old-fashioned main street.

8/18    help from procmail wizard.  I would like to do two things with
        procmail.
        1. if the message is encoded in CP-1251, I want to send it to spam
        2. if the message is encoded in some other legacy encoding, i would
           like to use iconv to convert to utf-8.  How to do these?  TIA

8/18    Japan travel agency to offer trips to space:
        http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20050818/sc_nm/space_japan_tourism_dc
        It says "...... zero gravity tour, which will take participants to an
        altitude of 100 km for a relatively inexpensive 11 million yen."
        Does anyone remember at what altitude it is considered "space"?  11M
        yen (~$100k) seems awfully cheap for that.
        \_ 100km is the generally agreed upon lower boundary of space.  A brief
           suborbital flight seems doable for 11MY.  Remember that the German
           V2 rockets lifted 1000kg into space back in the 1940's.

8/18    I'm putting up a wall in my house. I've already built the frame
        using mexican studs and I'm ready to put in 2 drywalls. The edges of
        the dry walls are tapered, so when I put 2 drywalls together
        they concave in. Do I simply fill them up using the gap filler,
        or the general purpose spackling paste? It would take a LOT of
        paste to make them look straight, so I'm probably not doing
        this correctly? Help.
        \_ Can you post some pics? This may help us remedy the situation.
           \_ Ok so the dry wall looks like this:
                -----------+ +-----------
                ___________/ \___________
                            ^ Is this where I put the tape and fill it?
                              \_ Yes, but why is it tapered? I did drywall
                                 and the board was not tapered like that.
                                 \_ Some drywall is.  It's no big deal, just
                                    slap a bunch of mud in there (enough that
                                    it's overflowing), put joint tape over it,
                                    then flatten the whole thing out with
                                    another thin layer of mud.  It looks nice
                                    when done well.  -tom
                                    \_ So, mud=joint compond=spackling paste=
                                       plaster? They all refer to the same
                                       thing?
                                       \_ No. Mud=joint compound, which is
                                          what you want to use. Spackle
                                          and plaster are different (and
                                          different from each other).
                                          \_ It's the same stuff you should
                                             be using to cover over the nails
                                             in the dry wall.
        \_ You use joint compound and joint tape.  Just slather it on there.
            -tom
           \_ after that, you might want to put (spray) wall texture to match
              your existing walls.
        \_ Mexican Studs?  What, you aren't willing to pay a decent wage
           so the American Studs will take the job?
           \_ It's for Latino porn.

8/18    Forget about Prius.  Does the VW TDI diesel engine Jetta and
        Passat help save fuel costs?  are there drawbacks?  diesel
        seems to be about the same price as the lowest grade gasoline,
        but does it really run 30% further per gallon?
        \_ you can convert diesel engines to run on vegetable oil.  You
           need to start and end the day on diesel to clean out the engine,
           but once it heats up you switch over to a second gas tank, which
           you could possibly fill for free if you know anyone in the
           restaurant business.  ...I have no idea what level of emissions
           this produces, though.  -sax
        \_ yes, and you get almost no power as a bargin!
           \_ The Prius seems to have even less.  76 vs. 100 BHP.
           \_ HP ratings don't tell the whole story. You get lots
              of torque at low RPM.
              \_ Yup.  Typical for diesel engines.
        \_ Where are you located? Everywhere I've looked Diesel is more
           expensive than Premium these days.
           \_ chicago.  maybe california has more environment tax?
              \_ Yep.  Diesel #2 (auto diesel) is more than premium unleaded
                 in CA and has been for about a year or two.
              \_ Close.  It is more tax, but road tax, not environment tax.
        \_ Diesel has more energy per gram. I don't think it is 30% but
           it is quite a bit. Also, the combustion process for diesel is
           more efficient, extracting more of the energy and wasting less
           as exhaust and heat. -ausman

8/18    Does anyone live in Vancouver? What is it like working and living
        there? How easy is it to get a citizenship? What about buying
        properties, what is it like buying a cheap affordable condo
        (you can get a 2 bedroom for only $300,000 CAD) in W Vancouver?
        \_ Vancouver is historically a very expensive city with very
           expensive real estate. Be careful of any bargains you find.
           They may not be in a good area.
        \_ Parts of W. Vancouver are pretty much in the sticks.  The city
           is gorgeous with a lot of great bars and restaurants, nice
           geography all around (I think they have some rule that no
           building built downtown can block anyone's view of the mountains
           or something like that) and beautiful women.  I hear it gets real
           cold though.  -John
           \_ In terms of weather, Vancouver is considered the Hawaii/CA of
              Canada.
              \_ Why do you hate Canada?  -John
           \_ It rains a lot.

8/18    So what do you guys think about this "reintroduce the megafauna"
        to North America idea?  Seems almost crazy enough to be a god one...
        http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20050817/sc_nm/usa_wild_dc
        \_ Sounds like a lot of dead mega fauna.
        \_ Those animals disappeared because of Intelligent Extinction.  We
           shouldn't try to interfere with it.
        \_ Are the Asian and African species the same species that disappeared
           here 13000 years ago?  If not, they're not really restoring lost
           species, but they're only trying to prevent some other species
           elsewhere from going extinct.
           \_ No.  These are different species.  The native megafauna was
              wiped out when early humans wandered in.  The African species
              co-evolved with humans and were able to survive a while.  The
              American species never had a chance.
        \_ I am still waiting for them to recreate (clone from frozen
           mammoth tissue and grow in elephant womb) the woolly mammoth.
           that would be really cool.
                \_ "Yes we have a T-tex"
        \_ Once all the imported megafauna die out, get buried, and turn into
           oil under the ground in 100,000 years, we will finally be free of
           dependence on foreign oil!
        \_ Cool, elephant burgers!  -John
           \_ Ribwich ... Mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm
              \_ "Thag, got mammoth on face"

8/18    Apparently the crazy housing boom doesn't happen everywhere.
        For example, College Station TX, El Paso TX, Montgomery Alabami,
        Odessa TX, Memphis TN, etc decreased by 10% while cities like
        San Diego and Santa Barbara appreciated over 50%.
        http://tinyurl.com/b8dgq (USA Today, sources from National City Corp)
        \_ what a shock, prices go up in places where people want to live. -tom
           \_ Wait, does this imply people from Redneck states are moving
              out, and moving into MY liberal home town? Where my parents
              and great grand parents already stayed for generations?
        \_ heh, 1/2 of the housing fizzle come from Texas.
        \_ In Detroit many homes are available! http://csua.org/u/d2s
           \_ Man, Detroit is some shit.  Downtown is genuinely spooky -
              boarded up skyscrapers, no working traffic lights...
                \_ Detroit is the most liberal city in the US -- damn
                   liberuhls!
                   \_ If you think that's why Detroit is so fucked up, you
                      really don't know very much about Detroit.
                      \_ why Detroit is fucked up has certainly caused
                         it to become a liberal hotbed though.  If that's
                         what it takes for an area to become liberal,
                         America's too damn prosperous to be liberal.

8/18    More students take religious and political studies, up 9.8%
        Take that you intolerant liberals!
        http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/education/4160594.stm
        \_ Huh?  It doesn't say Christian Studies.  Religious studies
           sounds more like "World Religions" type stuff.  Traditionally
           very liberal.
           \_ Are you forgetting that conservatives on soda like to mis-
              represent facts to suit their needs?
              represent facts to suit their needs?  For example, when an
              article on evolution which mentions X is referenced, those sodan
              would go to great lengths to essentially say "The article
              concludes Y from X.  Since it's bad science to conclude Y from X,
              evolution is flawed.", while in reality the article never
              concludes Y, let alone concluding Y from X.
              \_ Pot.  Kettle.  Black.
        \_ Religious and political studies are liberal.
        \_ Way to go USA! Because having more PolSci and Religious studies
           majors will certainly give us a strong competitive advantage
           over East Asia and the rest of the world.
           \_ dude, religious studies is totally full of hot babes.
              \_ Babes, maybe. Hot, I dunno. Wouldn't they be frigid babes?
                 \_ I think you're confusing the Wymyn's Studies chicks with
                 \_ I think you're confusing the Womyn's Studies chicks with
                    with the Religious/Political Studies chicks.

8/18    "Welcome to the "Csua" mailing list"  ???
        anyone else get this email?
        \_ We're fixing lists.  When we imported the old list into mailman,
           we forgot the "don't send welcome messages" flag.  - jvarga
           \_ Well, _I_ felt welcome.
        \_ Yes. I guess I'm not as special as I thought I was
        \_ I had no idea such a thing existed until today and I've been here
           12 years...oh...did I say that?
           \_ The CSUA is NOT just an email account!
              \_ Whachoo sayin?
           \_ Me neither, 12.5 yrs.
           \_ me too, 20 yrs.

8/18    To the person looking for a laptop going to Iraq:  I was going to
        say that you should find something touted as being 810F compliant
        but then I figured that would break your wallet and so I stayed silent
        but then I saw this on gizmodo:  http://csua.org/u/d2y
        \_ Thanks, da fools didn't list the exact price on the product page,
           though.

8/18    Why does Kanye West hate America?
        http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20050818/ap_en_mu/people_kanye_west

8/18    "Both our children have left the village to work in the cities.
        The central government leaders just care about themselves -
        not about the masses, not about the people." Yao Min, Guizhou Province
        <DEAD>tinyurl.com/5kql3<DEAD> (BBC News)
        Ah, the wonders of Capitalism. Fuck your neighbours and help yourself
        \_ Great Leap Forward.
        \_ From the last page: "Someone from Hebei province tried to buy our
           land a few years ago, and the government just closed their eyes
           so we had to buy it back ourselves."  Huh?

8/18    Das haben wir gleich.
        In Ordnung.
        Ihr entkommt mir nicht!
        \_ Heil cherman john guy, stat!  Please show this person that a _real_
           German haiku would get the syllables right.  -John
           \_ Obviously, you don't use Yahoo Messenger's new International
              Audible feature.
              \_ Nein!

8/18    A refrigerator box under the bridge: The
        Kelo Seven prepares for the worst
        http://fairfieldweekly.com/gbase/News/content?oid=oid:119000
        \_ It's not chutzpah, but it's a definite case of sore winners.

8/18    Please comment on the realiability and quality of comcast's internet
        service in Berkeley area.