10/3    Harriet Miers - what a disgrace when you have candidates such as
        Janice Rogers Brown or Owen.  Souter all over again.           -jblack
        \_ The Bush administration is mostly about cronyism.  --PeterM
        \_ Any other historical examples of a president nominating a judge
           based entirely on that judge's loyalty to the president?
        \_ I guess I'm a little behind on all this.  I thought we were
           supposed to hate Brown and Owen?  And isn't this someone Harry Reid
           wanted?  --confused
           \_ Define "we".  OP is probably a conservative.  And I agree with
              him. -emarkp
              \_ Now I'm *really* confused.  --*really* confused
                 \_ There were known judges who rule on the Constitution the
                    way conservatives think it should be done.  Bush wimped out
                    and didn't nominate them, favoring a woman who has no
                    judicial record.  This given the fact that Bush has
                    majorities in the Senate and House and conservatives have
                    won the last several election cycles.  If he can't nominate
                    a known conservative (say, like Scalia), then when can one
                    be nominated?  Especially given the fact that Ginsberg was
                    chief counsel on the ACLU when she was confirmed. -emarkp
                    \_ Maybe even BushCo worries about turning this country
                       into a polluted banana republic theocracy.
                       \_ Non-sequitur.  If Ginsburg can sit on the bench, Bush
                          should be able to nominate someone as conservative as
                          she is liberal. -emarkp
                          \_ Counter-non-sequitor. It amazes me that Clarence
                             Thomas sits on the Supreme Court.
                             \_ Thomas is Black.  Ginsburg is a woman.  What
                                does competence or philosophy have to do with
                                their presence on the Supreme Court?
                             \_ Glad to hear it.  Bush should have nominated
                                another justice like Thomas or Scalia.
                          \_ Republicans control basically every branch of
                             government, so why isn't Bush nominating a
                             frothing reactionary like Thomas or Scalia?
                             \_ Because he is doing very poorly in the polls
                                and does not want to pick another visible
                                fight. See, polls do matter, no matter how
                                some people want you to believe they do not.

10/3    After seeing drunk people, why do people want to get drunk?
        \_ There are many states of inebriation one can reach.  I suspect what
           you're classifying as "drunk" is probably way far over on the
           extreme end of the spectrum.  Most people I know that get drunk
           seldom reach that state, and even if they do, they were usually
           having an extremely good time up until that point.  Personally, I
           like to reach the heavily buzzed state where I'm not slurring but
           can definitely feel the effects.                     -mice
        \_ after seeing people have fun, why would you yourself not
           also want to have fun.
           \_ they don't look like they are having fun.
              \_ you should see them when they're sober

10/3    Dear motd, what are some of the options you have taken in
        purchasing property for own use outside of the US?
        \_ Purchased a condo in BJ.

10/3    Bicycle sales booming in USA, outselling cars, highest level since the
        1973 oil crisis.
        http://tinyurl.com/7efkm
        \_ "The US government has also done its part to promote a more
           bicycle-friendly environment. Some 3.5 million dollars in federal
           money has been set aside to create cycling trails over the next four
           years."  That's just spare change compared to the money poured into
           freeway projects.

10/3    A confession and an announcement. A few months ago I created
        an interface that allows other people to post on the motd.
        It actually started as a request from someone who said he
        wants to post anonymously. The membership grew to include
        two of my other friends, one who actually never even attended
        Berkeley! Yes, it was an interesting experiment. However things
        got more and more vicious and I finally shut down the interface
        last week. I also stopped posting my own trolls as well. I regret
        for posting trolls and anything mean or derogatory, and for
        allowing others to do the same. I take full responsibility.
        I will aaron myself after I copy a few files back to my
        home machine. Thanks.
        \_ Post your name when you do. -emarkp
        \_ I think it's funny that this is posted anonymously.
           \_ Not really.  What op described is a direct violation of CSUA
              policy and grounds for immediate squishing.
              \_ I'm not sure an anonymous confession is a confession at
                 all.
        \_ You should be squished insofar as your interface allowed motd
           overwrites.  (If you went so far as to build it, you should have
           built it right, and it is possible.)
        \_ So, was one of yours the jblack hater guy?
        \_ You owe several people personal apologies.

10/3    Serenity: I know the basic background and saw 2-3 episodes.  Was the
        movie any good for someone who hasn't built a shrine?
        \_ Two of my friends who only came because they thought it would be
           funny to make fun of it admitted that it was a good movie.
        \_ Our friends loved it and they had never heard of Firefly.  They
           said they were going to recommend the film to their friends.
        \_ I never saw Firefly. Serenity rocked hard. -- ulysses

10/3    It's nice to be able to hear again.
        \_ what happened?

10/3    After seeing the faces people make while having sex, who would want
        to have sex?
        \_ There are many states of sexual arousal....
        \_ Try out a different genre of porn.
        \_ Try out a different genre of porn.  I recommend the ones by Andrew
           Blake.

10/3    Wow, Serenity only pulled $10.1 million at the box office.
        http://www.cinematical.com/2005/10/02/weekend-box-office
        \_ Which is about what the studio expected.  By comparison, "Corpse
           Bride" got $2100/theater on opening Friday, Serenity got
           $1800/theater.
           \_ 1800? The numbers I saw showed Serenity getting 4600/theater.
              The movie was very good though, hope word of mouth makes it
              sucessful. It was #1 in australia.
              \_ http://boxofficemojo.com/movies/?page=daily&id=serenity.htm
        \_ It wasn't heavily marketed. And the target audience was quite
           small.
        \_ How much did it cost (including marketing)?
           \_ http://Boxofficemojo.com says $39 M for production, no listed marketing
              costs.
           \_ It will easily make its money back, Firefly was very popular
              in UK for example. And DVD sales will be strong. The question
              is will overseas sales and DVD sales be enough for 2 more sequels.
              is will overseas sales and DVD sales be enough for 2 more
              sequels.
              \_ I felt that the movie did a lot of things to make it difficult
                 for a decent sequel.  I'm not gonna go into details for those
                 that haven't seen the movie yet.  Of course, Joss Whedon's
                 experience shows that it's not gonna hold him back.  But I
                 think certain mysteries and character/team dynamics of the
                 TV series is now gone.  It almost feels like Joss and the
                 cast knew or decided that the movie will be the end of the
                 series and tried to go out with a bang with it in mind.
                 \_ I had the exact opposite impression.
                 \_ Joss Whedon said it best. TV shows ask questions,
                    and movies answer them. The two big questions from the
                    series were kind of settled but it is a fantasy universe,
                    Joss can make up whatever he wants.
        \_ How much did it cost?
                 TV series is now gone.

10/3    Freepers HATE on Miers.  I think she may have my full support!
        http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1495585/posts
        \_  So the man hated by the left, and slowly abandonned by the center
            finally loses the support of the far right.  It almost makes you
            fell sorry for the stupid little fuck.
                \_ I'd feel sorry for him if I wasn't living in the country
                   he's running.
                   he's running^H^H^H^H^H^H^Hfucking up.

10/3    http://frum.nationalreview.com/archives/09292005.asp#077899
        National Review contributor and former Dubya speechwriter:
        "I believe I was the first to float the name of Harriet Miers, White
        House counsel, as a possible Supreme Court. Today her name is all over
        the news. I have to confess that at the time, I was mostly joking.
        ... In the White House that hero worshipped the president, Miers was
        distinguished by the intensity of her zeal:  She once told me that the
        president was the most brilliant man she had ever met ..."
        \_ When did Justice Kennedy pee on this guy? - danh
        \_ And that quote is the scariest part -- it should scare both
           conservatives and liberals ... We can disagree on whether
           or not Bush's policies are good or bad for the nation but who
           here thinks Bush is "brilliant"?  I would agree that Karl Rove is
           brilliant, but Bush?
           \_ He could be brilliantly evil pretending to be dumb because,
              apparently, many Americans equate being dumb to being a good old
              regular honest guy. "Wow, he's a dumb ass cowboy from Texas! I'm
              a dumb ass cowboy from Texas! He's just like one of us. He must
              be down-to-earth honest! I'm voting for him in November." Either
              that or he's just plain dumb and it serves him the same purpose.
                \_ Bush is not dumb, but he's a mile away from brilliant.
                   \_ Only a mile? I think you give him too much credit.
        \_ Bush surrounds himself with good people like Rove.
           That's what's good about Bush.
                   \_ Only a mile? I think you give him too much credit.
        \_ speaking of brilliant, Jimmy Carter was very intelligent
           president and look what he did.
           \_ What did he do?
           \_ Why can't we have both brilliant and charismatic?
                             \- you can but you also get bimbos for free.
              \_ Thomas Jefferson would be the one and only president
                 who qualified under that standard.
                 \_ Clinton was both brilliant and charismatic.

10/3    I would like to download my work calendar to my personal
        laptop which is running XP outlook whilst the server is
        Exchange 2003.  The computer is not  a member of the domain;
        the standard  " add exchange account" fails once it can not
        resolve the username via check name. I  have no problems using
        imap or the web  access to get access to the mail. I can also
        log into shares on the machine as well. is there a way to
        download  the calendar via the cli ?
        \_ You don't need to use 'check name'.  It'll be something like
           windowsloginname@exchangeserver.domain.com where domain is your
           AD domain (AD usually but not always corresponds to your DNS
           domain.)  Check with a co-worker's outcrook that works.  If you
           can't figure it out, let me know and I'll check in a few days. -John
           -- I found out what the problem was. There is a value in
           mapisvc.inf called PR_RESOURCE_FLAGS that needed to be
        changed in MSEX section.  Thanks  for responding

10/3    Going to be in SF on business. Any recommendations for hotels? So far
        I am leaning towards the Omni or the Mandarin Oriental. Four
        Seasons and Ritz are out (cost). Anyone have experience with those
        two or know one better in the same price range (<=$300/night)? --dim
        \_ Mark Hopkins and Nikko are both nice. Park Hyatt is good if you
           want to be in the financial district, but otherwise boring.
           \_ Any experience with those I mentioned? I was considering
              Park Hyatt, since it costs a lot less but it also seems less
              nice.
              \_ My parents really like it. Their bathroom on the 2nd floor
                 has the best toilet paper I've ever used. For a five star
                 hotel, it seems very basic and no frills, without the pure
                 brand name of the other hotels mentioned above. I've never
                 been to NYC, but it has that feeling (e.g. guys with weird
                 hats who open doors for you)
        \_ W if you like really dark hallways with dim blue lighting and you
           like everyone dressed in black. The rooms are cozy though.
           \_ "W" was an option, but I think is out because of the
              location and some negative reviews I read on tripadvisor.
        \_ Shame you can't spring for Four Seasons or the Ritz, but if you
           happen to find the extra budget, go for Four Seasons.  Great
           hotel.  The views from the MO are great, but I thought my room
           was small, and it wasn't nearly as posh as the MO's in the Orient.
           My cousin swears by the Huntington, and he's something of an
           expert on luxury hotels (he spends ~100 nights a year in hotels).
           I've never visited, so I can't speak from 1st person experience
           I've never visited, so I can speak from 1st person experience
           though. -tse
           \_ OBTW, I've been told the regular rooms at the Ritz Carlton
              feel old.  I can attest that the club rooms (IMHO the only
              reason to stay at RC properties anyway) are very nice.  -tse
              \- IMHO, campton place food > huntington food.

10/3    Got this nifty new  car stereo  ipod adapter. Kind of bummed
        though that podcasts are not showing up in the playlistsearch section
        Anyone else have the same problem ? I got  mine from Alpine

10/3    DeLay indicted on second charge: money laundering
        http://csua.org/u/dln (statesman.com)
        \_ WOOOOOOOOOOO!
           What cell do I send his ham sandwich to?
           \_ You mean the ham sandwich the grand jury indicted as well?
              \_ Ham sandwiches are dangerous.  Put both of them in the
                 cell.  See who survives.
                 \_ Republican + pork?  I think they'll get along just fine.
                    \_ It's jail. There will be plenty of the other white meat
                       to get along with.

10/3    Can anyone recommend a self-extractor on Windows that:
        1) Shows progress while it is unzipping
        2) Can be built inside a build (not using IDE)
        3) Allows you to run a command (EXE) packaged inside the .EXE *AND*
        4) Allows you to pass in arguments to that EXE
        Winzip self-extractor meets all these reqs except for #4.  I don't
        care if it is freeware or costs money.
        \_ There are commercial installer products that should be able to
           do what you want which seems to be to distribute an installable
           compressed .exe file.  If one of them doesn't do exactly what you
           want, ask them how much for a custom mod since money doesn't
           seem to be an issue for you.
        \_ Why not use a batch file?
           \_ Because my customers don't want to have to read a README and
              download files and batch file and type shit in.  They want to
              double click an EXE.  And if there's problems I'd like to be
              able to parse command line arguments.
        \_ What are the flags you want to support, and what do you want each
           flag to do?
        \_ Let's say you have pkg.exe, and when you run it, it unzips files
           to a temp directory, then runs a file "setup.exe" inside.
           Feature 4 means you want "setup.exe" being run with some flags
           that are always the same?
                \_ No winzip self extractor supports that.  I want:
                   pkg.exe -flag to run: setup.exe -flag.  So the arguments,
                   if any, are not known ahead of time but chosen by the
                   user.
                   \_ I'm gonna go out on a limb and say "this is dumb."
                   \_ Why do you want a self-extractor to do this? Just
                      write a setup program to do it. Let the
                      self-extractor simply extract.
                   \_ I'm gonna go out on a limb and say "this is dumb."
                      \_ This IS dumb and it breaks the UI rules for Windows.
                         Under Windows user interaction with a setup program
                         is done through the setup UI, i.e. installshield
                         or MSI's GUI scripts. So do it properly and have
                         the user interact with the setup UI, not through
                         some sort of nonstandard command like B.S. What
                         works for UNIX doesn't work for Windows.
                         \_ The question wasn't "is this a dumb thing to do".
                            The question was "does anything support this".
        \_ what about nullsoft's nsis?
        \_ Never mind everyone I've figured out a way of doing it.  It's
           stupid and usability will probably complain but it will work.
                   pkg.exe -flag to run: setup.exe -flag.

10/3    Windows Explorer question: Is it possible to modify the context menu
        (right click) to add a custom action?  I have templates of spreadsheets
        I want to copy quickly to certain folders.  I envision using the
        context menu in this manner: Right-click -> Create Template Here ->
        [template1], [template2], [templateN].  It should have one of those
        right arrows that will expand into another menu from which I can choose
        templates 1 thru N.  I tried Googling and there's a lot of information
        on customizing Windows, but I haven't hit on the right search terms for
        what I'm trying to do as described above.  If anyone knows how, or has
        the right search terms, please let me know.
        \_ Try "explorer extension"
           \_ Thanks for this tip.  The closest Google match seems like this
              one from MS: http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/default.asp?url=/library/en-us/shellcc/platform/shell/programmersguide/shell_int/shell_int_extending/extensionhandlers/shell_ext.asp  This article is called "Creating Shell
              Extension Handlers".  I'm not a developer by any means, and this
              article provides code samples, so I'm afraid I'm over my head
              here.  If someone has the time, can you take a glance and let
              me know if this is even going down the right path?  If it is,
              I'll try to do some learning, but I'd rather take a path of less
              resistance and use an app to create these "expanding context
              menus", if such an app exists.  --op
              \_ You'll probably have a hard time doing this if you aren't a
                 developer.  The best you might hope for is to add your
                 templates to the ShellNew folder.  But anyway, try:
                 http://csua.org/u/dlq
                 \_ Another nice tip.  The "Extending the New Menu" section
                    could be a stop-gap.  I would be able to right-click ->
                    New -> template1 ... N; the drawback is that I could have
                    a very long menu.  If I could define some arbitrary command
                    with expanding menus, it would be much more flexible.  I
                    know the command in my original post is "Create Template
                    Here" but I might as well generalize it.  Was the "Creating
                    Shell Extension Handlers" article going down the right
                    path though?  --op
                    \_ No, my link is better.
              \_ You're not going to be able to do this if you aren't a
                 developer.  The best you can hope for is to add your
                 templates to the ShellNew folder.
        \_ There must be a way, because after I install ClearCase on my XP,
           I see some new items when I right-click on file in ClearCase VOBS.
           I don't know how, though.
        \_ An open-source example is TortoiseSVN which I use for subversion.
           Check http://TortoiseSVN.tigris.org
           \_ I looked through this briefly, but I don't even know which part
              of the src to begin with to figure out how they did all that
              integration.  --op

10/3    A Cal athletics program with an... interesting name:
        http://kingkong.me.berkeley.edu/~dannyant/stuff/barebacker.jpg
        \_ Is that for real?  What's the date one it?
           \_ This is for real, and the flier was picked up a few months ago.
        \_ We need to make football more homoerotic!
           \_ Is that even possible?
        \_ It's "bear backer"
           http://calinthecommunity.berkeley.edu/programs/CIC_2002_08_09_4.htm
           \_ Doesn't make the name less worrisome.
              \_ It's unfortunate to enunciate ("Are you a bear/bare backer?"),
                 but the print advertisements are fine, IMO.
        \_ I have been a proud Bear Backer for many years. -ausman

10/3    Even in jest, you probably shouldn't threaten to burn your prof at
        the stake.
        http://90percenttrue.com/index.php?p=41
        \_ Cody Cobb : humor :: Condi : Iraq WMDs

10/3    "Wherever the standard of freedom and Independence has been or shall
        be unfurled, there will [America's] heart, her benedictions and her
        prayers be. But she goes not abroad, in search of monsters to destroy.
        She is the well-wisher to the freedom and independence of all. She is
        the champion and vindicator only of her own. She will commend the
        general cause by the countenance of her voice, and the benignant
        sympathy of her example. She well knows that by once enlisting under
        other banners than her own, were they even the banners of foreign
        independence, she would involve herself beyond the power of
        extrication, in all the wars of interest and intrigue, of individual
        avarice, envy, and ambition, which assume the colors and usurp the
        standard of freedom. The fundamental maxims of her policy would
        insensibly change from liberty to force.... She might become the
        dictatress of the world. She would be no longer the ruler of her own
        spirit..." --John Quincy Adams, 1821
        \_ The Prime Directive!
        \_ I'm waiting for the day when the conservatives start telling us
           that the founding fathers were full of shit.  Then we'll know
           that it's over.
           \_ What? Apparently you either flunked or never took a good course
              on American History. The founding fathers were in general
              isolationist (at least in theory). You can reference Washington's
              farewell address or Jefferson's inaugral address as case and
              point. Initially this notion extended over the original
              colonies, but obviously didn't hold water with the Louisianna
              Purchase and the concept of Manifest Destiny. A reinterpretation
              came essentially with the Monroe Doctrine in which this
              "isolationism" was extended to not only the continental U.S.
              but the Americas in general. As for isolationism in the modern
              day context it is all but a dead concept, especially since
              WWII. Anyway, taking quotes out of context is always fun, but
              makes for crappy public policy (q.v. "axis of evil").
              \_ you are saying not invading another country is consider
                 a policy of isolationism?
                 \_ Healthy Forests, Clear Skies, Aggressive Isolationism!
              \_ Thanks, I took AP History in highschool too.
                 \_ god damn it, I was never qualified to take AP classes