9/22    I don't know if it's motdedit or someone's anti-nuking or merge
        script, but a lot of entries seem to be getting mauled, with
        lines posted where they don't belong, double-posted, whatever.  -John
        \_ Al-Qaeda has infiltrated CSUA and is now terrorizing motd! FEAR

9/22    I've posted my lifelong collection of weird, unusual, and plain
        stupid pictures:        http://csua.berkeley.edu/~kchang/pix/funny
        \_ How about these:
           http://www.livejournal.com/users/zete_tic/329.html?page=1#comments -jblack
           http://www.livejournal.com/users/zete_tic/329.html?page=1#comments
           \_ Wow, I didn't know there were that many stupid people on LJ.
           \_ Wow, Bush sure does look heroic in that fighter suit with
              stuffed codpiece, doesn't he? I wish he would strut around
              like a rooster again and taunt the enemy some more, while
              safely in his bunker 10,000 miles away, don't you?
              \_ I was hoping you guys had a sense of humor and
                 post some humorous pics of Bush... oh well.
                 post some humorous pics of Bush... oh well. -jblack
                 \_ I was hoping you conservatives had brains and
                    found some humorous pics that were given to you. oh well
                    http://csua.berkeley.edu/~kchang/pix/funny/politics/bush
                    \_ Wow, I thought jblack's pics were stupid, but these
                       really take the taco.
                       \_ Uh, which ones did you find acceptable and which
                          ones did you find offensive?
                          \_ Not offensive, stupid.  "Huh, huh, I
                             photoshopped in a chimp instead of Bush! I'm
                             brilliant!"  etc.  In general the only thing
                             lamer than collecting a bunch of bad pictures
                             of someone who is constantly being
                             photographed, is to make bad pictures with
                             poor photoshop manipulation.
              \_ "Bush in that fighter suit with stuffed cockpiece ......"

9/22    http://csua.org/u/dgs (LA Times)
        "The plane--on the animated map at his seat--'wasn't going anywhere ...
        just hanging around in Los Angeles.' A few minutes later, he heard the
        calm male voice of Flight 292's pilot, Scott Burke, speaking over the
        plane's intercom: 'For those of you who may have noticed we are flying
        in circles ... we are currently experiencing difficulties with the
        front landing gear.' ... A young woman at his side turned to him
        nervously: 'So what does that mean?' ..."
        \_ "Honey, it means I'm your last chance to get laid.  Let's go to
           the lavatory..."

9/22    What's the safest way of restarting a sun machine when someone has
        the screen locked and you can't find that person? At least on these
        suns, a stop-A; sync sometimes results in the machine asking for
        an fsck upon reboot. Also, I realize that a different screen locker
        with a logout option or maybe a script that kills the current X
        session would be more ideal, but the administrators here are lazy
        or something.
        \_ There is no safe way, without root.  On my clusters, rebooting
           the machine will get your account turned off.  -tom
           \_ Does anybody else laugh at tom upon reading things like this?
              \_ no kchang. go stick your head in a pig.
           \_ As long as there's no serious disk activity going on,
              there should be. Even if there is, there should still be, if
              your file system doesn't suck. I'm not sure how much solaris's
              UFS implementation sucks.
              \_ Rebooting multi-user machines has implications other than
                 whether the filesystem needs to be fsck'ed or not.  -tom
                 \_ True, but these users know they shouldn't stay logged
                    in anyway. These are essentially single-user machines
                    that interface to lab hardware. All I care about is that
                    the machine doesn't ask for the root password to fsck
                    upon reboot.
        \_ just accidentally trip over the power cord
        \_ Are you, by any chance, thinking of the Soda 2nd floor labs?
           There I think Ctrl-Shift-Blackspace will usually log them out.
           There I think Ctrl-Alt-Blackspace will log them out. -jrleek
           \_ Nope. If only.
           \_ On the SunRays, there's some key combination (Ctrl-Meta-Moon?)
              that will reboot the terminal. This is also occasionally useful
              for getting rid of the dreaded newt cursor. -gm
        \_ On my Sparc Ultra 5 at work, the power botton at the front
           gracefully shuts down the machine.

9/22    I'm going to Washington DC in a couple weeks more-or-less as a tourist.
        I want to find a hotel in a relatively pleasant/safe area near a bunch
        of touristy things and the metro.  Are their any hotels or
        neighborhoods you'd reccomend?  It doesn't need to be too fancy, but it
        would be nice to find a place with net access in-room.
        \_ Are you going to join Cindy Sheehan, the clueless nutso who happens
           to have a noble cause and is giving us liberals a bad name?
           \_ No, actually I was planning on visiting the Smithsonian, going up
              in the Washington Monument, maybe tour The Capitol, and throw
              a bucket of blood on imperialist aggressors.
        \_ When I visited DC I stayed in Alexandria and took Metro in.
           Otherwise, maybe Dupont Circle. A lot of DC is sketchy.
           However, you'll be fine at any large hotel (Hyatt, Sheraton,
           etc.).

9/22    'The Aristocrats' = funny

9/22    Jimmy Carter says we need to show photo ID to vote.  ACLU says:
        "Photographic identification as a requirement for voting is
        antidemocratic and prevents people from exercising their fundamental
        right to vote whether proposed by the General Assembly of the state of
        Georgia or the Carter-Baker commission"
        http://www.grandforks.com/mld/grandforks/news/nation/12688495.htm
        \_ How does that follow?  (What the ACLU says)
           \_ Is this a matter of confusion between verification of right to
              vote with anonymous voting?
              \_ Yes, and also a question the circumstances of how and who
                 gets a verifable ID and how that ID will be used later on
                 (i.e. will it become akin to SSN or driver's license for
                 serices).
        \_ What does Jimmy Carter say about corporations run by directly
           partisan Republicans supplying black boxes for voting in our
           election?

9/22    Question for motd:
        A day ago I think there was a link explaining the downsides of
        using a nuclear bomb to try to disperse forming hurricanes/tropical
        storms.  I have two questions, does a thermonuclear (fusion) bomb
        have the same fallout effects as a nuclear bomb, and two, if not,
        wouldn't it be a great solution to the problem?  Just go nuke these
        things once they achive hurrican status (because there are too many
        wussy tropical storms).  I'm pretty sure the cost of the bomb would
        be offset by the money saved in devastation (62+ billion for New
        Orleans anyone?).  -mrauser
        \_ Pres. Bush has a dream .. where he can just put his finger
           on the eye of the hurricane and keep it from spinning..
           then it stops.. he wonders if it'll work
        \_ What John and people below have said is essentially correct --
           it's the fireball from the detonation that irradiates stuff.  If
           the fireball is close enough to the ground, then the blast radius
           is likely reduced, but the effects from radioactive fallout are
           greatly enhanced.  An airburst is much cleaner (where the fireball
           doesn't reach the ground) but has greatly enhanced blast effects.
           While air-burst detonating a nuke (hot or cold) in a hurricane
           will not produce as much fallout, any dust or other debris will
           will not produce much fallout, any dust or other debris will
           be irradiated; though compared to a ground-detonated nuke, it's
           still largely inconsequential.
        \_ You do realise that a fusion bomb NEEDS a fission bomb to
           get it going, don't you?
        \_ Someone posted this link that explains why it wouldn't work:
           http://www.aoml.noaa.gov/hrd/tcfaq/C5c.html
        \_ Aside from the link above, what hubris.  The power and energy
           involved in a hurricane dwarfs any single nuke, and possibly
           the entire US nuke arsenal.  We humans are small.  Even our
           nukes are small.
           \_  Trust me when I say that the entire US nuclear arsenal can
               do a lot more damage than a hurricane. Can you imagine if
               8,000 warheads had hit New Orleans?
                \_ 8,000 warheads detonated in the gulf of Mexico wouldn't
                   have flooded New Orleans
                   \_ One warhead on a levee would have.
                      \_ One fertilizer bomb on a levee would have too.
                   \_ I am not sure I agree with this.
           \_  The above link was what I was referring to.  I just
               wasn't sure if fusion bombs had quite the same fallout effects.
               But as I said, we would hit these things when they are tropical
               storms, before they are fully developed.  -mrauser
               \_ The biggest affect to fallout is how close to the ground the
                  bomb detonates, not the size of the bomb.
                  \_ True, fallout usually refers to radioactive dirt that
                     was thrown into the atmosphere.  However, the other
                     kind of fallout is radioactive elements left over from
                     the fission process.  A well made "fusion" bomb will
                     produce much less of this kind of fallout than a
                     fission only bomb because the fission core has more
                     time to complete it's reaction.
                     \_ Not really.  I'd think the contribution of the
                        fissile/fusion materials are almost irrelevant compared
                        to the tons of debris that the fireball would loft up
                        into the air for a ground blast.  I think the bigger
                        issue is the radiation produced by the blast.  Fission
                        generates more of the 'bad particles' that irradiate
                        stuff -- making for much much more lethally radioactive
                        fallout in a ground burst.  It's not the fissile
                        material itself, but the stuff it contaminates while
                        exploding.
        \_ Didn't you see that episode of Dungeons & Dragons where
           the DM takes a day off and gives his powers to the paladin?
           THE WORLD IS A DELICATE BALANCE, MAN!
           \_ Best cartoon series ever.  Bring it back, please!!
        \_ Fusion nukes don't create fallout per se.  It's the fission bomb
           used to set off the fusion part of a fusion bomb that causes
           fallout.  -John
        \_ Why do you hate hurricanes?
           \_ I bet BUD DAY hates hurricanes passionately.
           \_ Because the hurricane terrorizes America. It impedes our
              freedom and liberty, and limits our rights to cheap oil from
              the Gulf. Therefore, we need to launch preemptive attacks
              on the hurricane BEFORE it hits the American soil. We
              will be resolute until our mission is accomplished.
              To the hurricane, I say bring it on, and God Bless.

9/22    Does anyone know how to do auto edge selection in Gimp?  I have a
        logo where I want to make all white transparent.  It seems like
        there should be some easy way to do this.
        Addendum: Never mind.  Select->By Color.  I can't believe I missed
        that.

9/22    Ok, so we've established that the nukular option against the
        hurricane is lame. How about effective ways to HARNESS the
        awsome energy from the hurricane? What are some things that
        could be effective? Portable windmills? Wave energy collection?
        \_ I'd post my idea for a giant blimp array, but you guys will just
           make fun of me.
        \_ Think of it like harvasting lightning for power. The key word
           is substainability.
        \_ Windmills might work if they are rigid enough, since they can work
           with other winds when there is no hurricane.  Another approach I can
           wildly imagine is to build a large array of smaller and somewhat
           flexible windmills so that they don't break in a hurricane.
           \- given that hurricanes generate more energy than the all of
              humanity needs at that moment, how would you store it ... or
              would you just run high energy physics experiments durning
              hurricanes?
              hurricanes? --psb
              \_ Pump water from lower ground to higher ground.  It's not like
                 windmills can tap anywhere close to 100% of the hurricanes'
                 energy output anyway.
                 \- remind me why were are using hurricane power instead of say
                    wave power?
                    \_ I'll remind you that we aren't actually using
                       either.
                 \- remind me why were are using hurricane power instead
                    of say wave power? --psb
                    \_ No one has developed a working large scale model for
                       chaging wave power to something more useful. The large
                       models that have been tested have been very
                       disappointing.
              \_ Somehow, the image of Igor waiting for a hurricane to make
                 landfall before raising the platform just lacks poetry. -gm
        \_ A gigantic propeller!  The size of the whole huricane!  That
           floats along with it!  Yeah!
        \_ Just use solar power.  The amount of energy from sunshine on
           a city in a day is about equal to an atomic bomb.
           \_ Igor, fetch me an atomic bomb.  Or we could just use...
              HAMSTER POWER.  -John
        \_ Lighting rods hooked into your zed-pm.
           \_ Just don't ground them into the ocean by accident.

9/22    So it turns out that a bungload of British army emergency supplies
        and MRE-type food were to be burned as "unfit for human consumption."
        I forwarded this to a colleague in the US, who sent it to Feinstein's
        office just for shits and grins, and according to what they told him,
        nobody'd even heard of this.  This makes baby jesus cry.
        http://csua.org/u/dgx    -John
        \_ The end of this article reads:
           'The FDA said: "We did inspect some MREs (meals ready to eat) on
           September 13. They are the only MREs we looked at. There were 70
           huge pallets of vegetarian MREs.
           "They were from a foreign nation. We inspected them and then
           released them for distribution."'

9/22    My group is looking to hire a part-time student sysadmin:
        /csua/pub/jobs/Linux_Cluster_Admin_UCB_EECS_Student   -mikeh

9/22    ETrade is offering money market for 3.65% APY for the first 3
        months plus $50 credit to you. Is it possible to open up one,
        then close an existing one and get the credit?
        \_ Are you sure there is no fine print already in place against
           existing customers?
        \_ ETrade has a gay ass withdrawal fee of like $50 or something.

9/21    A deadly plague hits Warcarft world. Hundreds of dead virtual
        bodies lie on the streets. Blizzard tried to control the plague by
        staging rolling re-starts of all the servers supporting the Warcraft
        realms and applying quick fixes. However, there are reports that
        this has not solved all the problems and that isolated pockets of
        plague are breaking out again.
        http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/4272418.stm
        \_ Well you know vaccines and cures aren't always 100% effective
           in the real world either.

9/22    More details on the Crawford Ranch:
        http://eyeball.sabotage.org/prez-eyeball.htm
        \_ BBC Map shows the hurricane is going directly to Crawford TX:
           link:tinyurl.com/ah5nv

9/22    "Report says global warming could spark conflict"
        http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20050922/sc_nm/environment_warming_dc
        \_ We're already doing well without global warming's help.
        \_ Report says global warming affects Jennifer Lopez's sex life.
           Report says global warming could lead to discovery of Sasquatch.
           Report says global warming killed JFK.

9/22    Clinton dodged the draft, hid FBI files, smoked dope, flipped
        Whitewater property, set up a new Korean wing in the White House,
        fired the travel staff, paid hush money to Hubbell, sold the
        Lincoln bedroom like an upscale Motel 6, and grabbed
        every ass that entered the Oval Office. Got it? Good.
        \_ What is this in relation to? Do you really want us to list all
           the bad stuff about Dubya? BTW: Clinton never inhaled.
        \_ Clinton didn't inhale. Dubya snorted coke.
           \_ huh?
        \_ How many thousand people died because of Clinton's scandals?
           \_ How many people died during Desert Storm under Clinton?
                \_ Desert Storm was a Clinton scandal? WTF?
                \_ tons.. mogadishu.. kosovo..
                \_ 0, Desert Storm was under Bush I.  Exactly!
                   \_ It started under Bush I and continued in Clinton's
                      time.
                      \_ Are you stupid or just stupid?  Or are you thinking
                         that the no fly zone enforcement was part of Desert
                         Storm.  What would BUD DAY think?
           \_ I imagine more people died under Lincoln or FDR.  How many
              died under Bush I?  I wouldn't be surprised if Bush I & II
              have the least blood on their hands of any war-time president.
              \_ It's this type of thinking that gets America screwed up in
                 the head about what the military is used for. While
                 casulties are an important consideration, War is an extension
                 of Politics. Comparing the number of dead is rather pointless.
                 \_ I didn't start the comparison of number dead.  However,
                    if you want to run numerical comparisons, then Bush II is
                    relatively clean.  Personally, I think 1 dead in an
                    unnecessary war is too many and a million dead in a
                    necessary war is not.
                    \_ ~100,000 dead Iraqis in a war of choice is too many.
                        \_ not to the Christian zealots
                        \_ And if that were the number, it might be worth
                           quoting.
                 \_ Clinton's wars were not scandals, neither were Lincoln's
                    or Bush I's or FDR's.  They didn't lie to invade countries
                    unilaterally that posed no threat to us.
                    \_ You mean the Nazi's actually did bomb Pearl Harbor? And
                       the Civil War was actually fought to free the slaves?
                    \_ So how many died under LBJ?
                        \_ Who cares? This is about how Clinton's scandals
                           are meaningless compared to our current President.
                           \_ IOW, LBJ is worse, but let's not talk about him.
        \_ You forget to mention that he assassinated anyone who threatened to
           reveal his financial crimes, that he gave away the Panama Canal to
           his Chinese masters, and that he had Waco stormed because he was
           jealous of Korresh's harem. Oh, and black helicopters, black
           helicopters, black helicopters! Quick, borrow my tinfoil hat!
           \_ And the embarrassment in Somalia to our elite forces.

9/22    Anyone know where I can find video of the Jetblue landing last night?
        \_ http://csua.org/u/dgs

9/22    Help. The NFS on my Mac OSX is sick and I can't find /etc/init.d
        or any /etc/rc.X to do nfs restart. I can't even do init 2 or
        other things. How do I do this on the Mac? Thanks.

<what's up with the censorship?>
        \_ Use kill, the way God and Bill intended. You might be able
           to (re)start NFS using the following script:
           /System/Library/StartupItems/NFS/NFS

<what's up with the censorship?>

9/22    What are the downsides to using a nuclear bomb to disperse forming
        Islamic extremists?  I'm pretty sure the cost of the bomb would be
        offset by the money saved in devastation (100+ billion in a major city
        anyone?).
        \_ 9/23 reply: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/rita_wishful_thinking
        \_ if you use a neutron bomb, nothing (well other than a bunch of
           annoying anti-bomb peacenicks protesting in the streets and
           annoying anti-bomb peaceniks protesting in the streets and
           making the morning commute that much worse)
           \_ Does the US even possess neutron weapons anymore?  I thought
              those were only deployed for a brief time during the '80s as
              a buffer against a Russian tank invasion of Europe?
              \_ Possibly.  They have a short shelf life, and we aren't
                 making anymore AFAIK.  We might be refurbishing them
                 though.
              \_ Do you really think the government is dumb enough to
                 get rid of something like the neutron bomb (regardless
                 of what the official peacenik friendly story is)?
              \_ Do you really think the government is dumb enough to get
                 rid of something like the neutron bomb (the official
                 story is probably just a cover to keep the peaceniks
                 happy)
        \_ Assuming this is a serious question, (a) the islamic extremists
           that threaten anyone don't "form" per se, (b) we'd blow up a lot
           of innocent people and their infrastructure which we're at least
           not supposed to do, (c) we have always had a policy since the end
           of WWII of never using nukes first, and (d) nobody would ever ever
           talk to the US again.  Go sit in a corner.  -John
           \_ re (b), best reason to use a neutron bomb, the infrastructure
              remains intact, some collateral human damage will occur, but
              in war that can't be helped.
              re (c), the no first strike policy has been "reviewed" by the
              current admin and may be rescinded if the situation was dire
              enough - therefore this policy is presently not a barrier to
              the use of "nucular" weapons
              re (d), the US is not well liked overseas, it is not likely
              that further degradation of international opinion is a major
              concern to the decision makers - armed retaliation may be a
              concern but currently no nation can field a force sufficient
              to make retaliation a sufficient threat to avoid first strike.
              \_ neutron bombs are still atomic bombs ; they are just optimized
                 for radiation output vs. explosive blast power.  If you want
                 to kill people and not infrastructure biological and chemical
                 weapons are the way to go.  There's significant political
                 costs to their use, however...
                 \_ As opposed to less significant costs for normal atomic
                    bombs?

9/21    FireFox 1.0.7 is out (several security fixes):
        http://www.mozilla.org/products/firefox/releases/1.0.7.html

9/22    Invited by PRC to speak at Beijing University, Li Ao quoted
        Chairman Mao saying that the CCP will one day perish, and
        gave an outspoken and daring speech attacking everyone from
        Beijing University officials, CCP leaders to Taiwan politicians.
        http://www.nytimes.com/2005/09/23/international/asia/23china.html

9/22    Hi azarm, is OpenTV still in Marina Village in Alameda?  Just curious.
        \_ We're in downtown SF now.  Much nicer!
           \_ Are Eric del Sesto and Ian Porteous still there?
        \_ POOOOORRRRKKKK!!!!! --oj

9/22    http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20050922/ap_on_re_us/katrina_criminals_hk4
        "State police did criminal background checks on every refugee and found
        that more than half had a criminal arrest records -- a third for
        felonies."

9/22    National Hurricane Center's image of Rita's "wind distribution":
        http://www.nhc.noaa.gov/refresh/graphics_at3+shtml/023809.shtml?swath?large
        \_ Damn, Florida's getting fucked.
           \_ Florida???

9/22    Why the hell are the Texans fleeing? It's not like they have a levee
        or anything that'll be as disasterous as New Orleans.
        \_ Worst US natural disaster was in Galveston, TX. 6000 dead.
           \_ Galveston is an island on the Texas coast that was nearly
              wiped out 100 years ago. The question is why are Houstonians
              fleeing Houston when the water will not wash away the city.
              It'll get damped and innundated with water, yes, but it's
              a mainland, and it's above sea level.
              \_ Flying rooftops can kill too.
        \_ cuz they'll shoot at FEMA and the CHP ..
           cowboys like freedom.. true freedom
        \_ Flooding and wind. Hurricanes tend to throw down a lot of water
           and toss about a lot of crap. Plus basic services will not be
           readily available. Being hurt, dying, homeless or sans food when
           there may not be enough people to help you is a bad thing. The
           more people around in the same circumstances, the worse it is.
        \_ Cause 165 mph winds can do a lot of damage and kill people.
           Course now that everyone is bailing Rita has dropped down to
           135mph winds but it is going over another warm water area soon
           so will probably pick back up.
        \_ Cause when their internet access goes down, all hell will break
           loose.
        \_ Do you need a reason to flee Texas?
        \_ "I didn't want to be in the way." -Dubya

9/22    11:15PM  151 users, load averages: 35.97, 28.68, 14.67