10/17   Has anyone been in Rome around thanksgiving holidays? Is it normally
        snowing during that time?
        \_ Funny. I was just looking at that exact same city at the same time.
        \_ Wouldn't you prefer to go to Rome when it's nicer weather?  -John

10/17   I was driving home late the other night going around the speed
        limit with no other cars in sight. Then all of a sudden, I see
        these headlights approach from the horizon on the left lane
        until he reaches my car and pulls into my lane (all the way
        on the right) and he tailgates me for about 3 miles. When he
        finally pulls off, it turns out to be a CHP. Why do they do
        crap like this? Are they just being jackasses?
        \_ They're checking speed and such.   That behavior is almost
           exclusively CHP, I always get out of the way when I'm in the
           left lane and someone does that to me.
           \_ Pulling within several feet of another car on an open
              hwy is just harrassing and very dangerous. And I wasn't
              speeding. What makes him think that it's going to
              change for the next 3 miles?
              \_ One time I was driving back from my girlfriend's house
                 in St. Helena, and it's like 3 am.  I get a tail gater
                 for a mile or so.  I speed up a few mph, and he hits his
                 lights.  He basically asked me "what is a 19 year old from
                 fremont doing in st. helena at 3 am" and let me go.
              \_ I don't know, I'm not a CHP officer, but I imagine it
                 allows him to check you more closely for suspicious
                 behavior: swerving, etc.
                 \_ He could also be getting closer to check your plate. Or
                    he could just be an asshole. -gm
                    \_ Oh, good one.  I'd forgotten registration. -pp
           \_ I tend to slow down.  But there was this one time I was
              actually doing about 10-15mph over the limit and CHP was
              behind me and asked me over their loudspeaker to pull over
              but didnt turn on the red/blue lights, just their bright
              white lights.  So, I called CHP via 911 and asked them to
              confirm that there was a CHP officer trying to pull me over,
              and explained that their officer failed to properly identify
              him/herself as a police officer.  Guess this pissed his
              CO off enough to chew the officer out after we both pulled
              over and so no ticket for me.
        \_ Maybe he hoped you'd speed up and then he'd give you a ticket.
           \_ This reminds me of something I've seen on 280 during commute
              hours: CHP cuts into #2 lane and hits his brakes, fairly hard;
              the car behind him pulls into the carpool lane to avoid hitting
              the CHP car; then the CHP officer pulls over that car, presumably
              for a carpool violation. True, the following car should have left
              enough room that a lane change wasn't needed, but it still seems
              both dangerous and stupid. Maybe something else was going on
              there. -gm
              \_ I mentioned this because this actually happened to my dad.
                 We were on vacation in Europe like 20 years ago driving
                 through Belgium with foreign plates, so I guess the cops
                 there saw this as a nice revenue stream. One cop tailgated
                 our car, dad sped up thinking cop wanted this -> ticket.
                 \_ If this happens to you in any EU country + CH, stay calm
                    and tell the cop he was tailgating, which is harassment,
                    and that you have a witness.  He'll let you go  The
                    European court of human rights has curtailed that kind of
                    jackass behavior by cops reasonably well.  -John
                 \_ (nice nuke, asshole.)  If this happens to you anywhere in
                    Europe or CH, confront the cop politely and say that he
                    was harassing you, and that you have a witness--the guy
                    will almost certainly lay off.  The European court of
                    human rights, for all of its silliness, has done a pretty
                    good job of curtailing jerk cops.  -John
        \_ CHP has the most difficult police academy, but yet they are
           nothing more than AAA with guns. They hardly ever solve typical
           crimes. They maintain a SWAT team only for capitol and defer to
           local PD/Sheriff units for tactical situations on the freeway.
           And their CHP 11-99 foundation charges more than other police
           charities.
           charities. Not to mention they DUI commanders off the hook.
           (The CHP commadner for Socal apparently has a past of DUIs)
           \_ Do you mean "They let commanders with DUIs off the hook?"
              \_ http://tinyurl.com/7mzjv
                 \_ I was actually just trying to clarify the last
                    sentence of the previous post.  Nice link though.
           \_ What is the deal with the CHP 11-99? I went to a Ferrari
              show and lots of the Ferraris had CHP 11-99 license plate
              frames. If you have that frame does that mean you might be
              able to avoid getting a ticket?
               \_ Essentially you have donated $500 for a possible
                  avoid a _CHP_ ticket. It goes to help their officer
                  down fund.
        \_ Sounds like this cop was trying to bait you into a getting a speeding ticket.
           \- i wonder if this "rush you from behind" is a common cop
              tactic deliberately to get you to speed up or just to
              catch up to check you out. at the bottom of the pleasant
              valley hill [which is absurdly 25mph and frequently has
              a cop hiding at the bottom on a side street] where it
              becomes grand ave i had a cop drive up to me a liek 50mph
              so i sped up to get out of his way and then got a ticket.
              i wasnt going 25 admitedly, but this seemed kind of leem.
              also with 0 traffic at 11pm on sunday.
              \_ Do police have the authority to speed when not in a
                 pursuit? Can you fight the ticket based on that alone?
                 (I was going the speed limit and this idiot cop went
                 2x the limit to catch up with me.)
                 \_ I've been told that they can only violate traffic laws
                    when they have their lights on. I know I've seen cops
                    turn on their lights, blow through a red light, and turn
                    them off again on empty streets late at night. This may
                    not apply to speeding. -gm
                    \- to abbreviate bighead's comments ... "different jobs
                       have different perqs. when you are a cop, your perq
                       is you can break the law."
                       is you can break the law." --psb
                       \_ s/perq/perk/
                          \- i like using "perq" since it is short for
                             perquisite and "perk" has another meaning
                             [as in "perk up" "perky breasts"] although
                             you're right, "perk is the standard".
                          \_ I think perq is more correct in this context.
                             Use any dictionary and look up 'perquisite'.
                             \- my dictionary does not contain "perq"
                                and has other meanings for "perk" however
                                going by google hits, "perk" seems to be
                                the more common short form for 'perquisite"
                                and this is backed up in Fowler MEU 3rd Ed.
                                So while I acknowledge "perk" may be more
                                common, i continue to use "perq" and feel
                                that should get a pass. --psb

10/17   Can anyone recommend a cheap granite fabrication outfit for the
        South Bay? Thanks. (and/or supplier)
        \_ granite is very hard, and machining it requires even harder tools.
           such tools get warn down in the process and are quite expensive.
        \_ Wouldn't you prefer to go to Rome when it's nicer weather?  -John
           \_ well, my usage of "cheap" here is of course relative. just
              throwing it out... this process is pretty annoying

10/18   After motd is successfully Christianized, Conservatized,
        and jrleeked, let's all migrate to      http://csua.org/motd
        \_ We can just use /csua/tmp/motd*
        \_ We can just use /csua/tmp/motd.sexfarm

10/18   Funny daily show clip on the staged telcon.  2nd half is good too.
        http://www.crooksandliars.com/2005/10/18.html#a5429

10/18   http://www.livejournal.com/users/dpodbori/1369.html
        ON DANGERS OF BEING AN INSECT WITH WINGS AND A MYSTERIOUS
        INSTANCE OF MASS MAILING
        \_ Why was this posted?  Is it supposed to be funny?
                \_ No it's not funny.

10/16   Another reason to hate France.
        http://www.americanthinker.com/articles.php?article_id=4903

10/18   RIP Bill King.
        \_ I may dislike the A's, but King was a class act.

 _____________________________________
< Politburo Approved for YOUR safety! >
 -------------------------------------
        \   ^__^
         \  (xx)\_______
            (__)\       )\/\
             U  ||----w |
                ||     ||
ObDoNotTauntTheAMcKeePolitburo
\_ Say it with me:  I will respect the politburo's authoritay!
        \_ Was there a politburo meeting?  Any news to report?
           \_ The meeting was long and well-attended.  amckee resigned, but by
           \_ Yes. Ruling Soda With An Iron Fist!
           \_ The official minutes are at http://csua.org/u/drj  Quick summary:
              the meeting was long and well-attended.  amckee resigned, but by
              the end of the meeting pretty much everyone agreed to reinstate
              him (without root).  Politburo decided not to log the motd, at
              least for the time being, and will actually try to make the motd
              more anonymous.  There's now an explicit policy that root should
              ask politburo before sorrying someone, except for account
              breakins and similar emergency stuff.  The official minutes
              are in /csua/pub/minutes/F2005/20051017.politburo.  --mconst
              least for the time being, and will actually try to make it more
              anonymous.  There's now an explicit policy that root should ask
              politburo before sorrying someone, except for account breakins
              and similar emergency stuff.  --mconst
              \_ The minutes are particularly weak on explaining the discussion
                 about the motd.  Basically it was decided that logging it or
                 moving it to somewhere else would decrease the possible use-
                 fulness to new students.  We proposed instead to try and
                 do something which would improve the overall quality of the
                 motd and return it more to its original purpose, an anonymous
                 discussion.  It was proposed we would create a program, much
                 like /csua/bin/motdedit that would allow a user near total
                 anonimity (or in the words of Vadim "we can make it really
                 hard to figure out who posted") when editing motd.  In theory,
                 this will reduce the amount of personal attacks and trolling
                 in general.  I hope this clears up the current course we are
                 taking in regards to the motd. -mrauser
                 \_ I don't think it's accurate to say that the motd's original
                    purpose was to be anonymous.  In the early days, pretty
                    much everyone signed their names.  It turned out to be
                    anonymous simply because it was a world-writable file,
                    so it attracted people who didn't want to be
                    identifiable.  -tom
                    \_ How long was it before, say, half the posts were
                       no longer signed?  (honestly, just curious)     -mice
                       \_ I don't really recall, but trolling didn't take
                          over until the mid to late 90s.  -tom
                    \_ How far back was 'original', anyway? -gm
                       \_ I believe /etc/motd was first made world-writable
                          on the original Apollo, which would mean 1988 or
                          so.  -tom

10/18   Katrina-related iMix:
        http://phobos.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewPublishedPlaylist?id=542024&s=143441
        (requires iTunes)

10/18   Regarding cell phone plans: If someone knows that he will be going
        over his allotted minutes (a couple hundred minutes over), are there
        any alternatives to just paying the $0.40/min overtime penalty?
        Just in case, I use Sprint PCS and the excess usage will probably
        only be for the current month.
        \_ A few years ago, AT&T let me switch to a higher-priced plan
           retroactive to the beginning of the month.  I ended up keeping
           the new plan; I don't know if they would have let me switch back.
        \_ what about switching your plan to the fair-and-flexible via the
           online account mgmt?  it might need up to a month to kick in,
           dunno.  also need a 2-yr contract w/sprint for fair-and-flexible,
           dunno if that includes switching back to free&clear inside that.
        \_ Some companies will let you buy batches of minutes with a
           discount.  Some may let you switch your plan immediately
           but may possibly extend your contract. Ask.