Berkeley CSUA MOTD:2005:November:02 Wednesday <Tuesday, Thursday>
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2005/11/2-4 [Politics/Foreign/Europe] UID:40400 Activity:kinda low
11/2    Day 6 of rioting in France.  Riots are spreading.
        \_ I hope this opens up the eyes of Americans as to what is really
           going on in Europe. There is so much romanticizing, but the
           reality is that Europe's problems are deeper than our own.
           \_ yeah, because this has never happened in the U.S.
              \_ Europe claims these things *only* happen in the US.
                 \_ It does?  I need to pay attention to European ministry
                    of truth press releases more closely.  -John
                    \_ All of my family is European (Greek, Dutch, French,
                       German) and I hear the European side of things often -
                       not just from them, but from official sources of news
                       like newspapers. Americans are supposed to be
                       uncouth and heartless people who buy big-screen TVs
                       while letting poor black/Mexican people starve in
                       the streets. Europe has the cure for poverty. The
                       reality is that Europe mostly cares about *white*
                       Europeans, which is not surprising given the
                       history of the Dutch, English, Germans, French, etc.
                       So many liberals were looking to Europe as a model
                       for Arab/Western relations and social welfare and
                       this incident proves that thinking idiotic.
           \_ Since it's completely buried in all the major U.S. news sources,
              it's unlikely to "open the eyes" of very many Americans about
              anything.
              \_ Does "buried" mean in Yahoo! headlines?
           \_ Yeah, the place is falling apart at the seams.  Rape gangs and
              armed mobs run rampant; inflation is nearing the 1,000% mark in
              most Western European capitals, planes are falling from the sky
              and triffids are feasting on the rotting corpses of their
              victims.  London & Paris in flames, film at 11.  We urge you to
              stay in the US, where you'll be safe from the droogies.  -John
              \_ Really? Damn.  I guess I'll have to cancel my weekend plans
                 of putting my loudest Hawaii shirt and my plastic sandles
                 on and parking my 300 pound ass in your favorite restraunt
                 to shout into my cell phone about Nascar.
                 \_ My favorite restaurants don't let you in.  Enjoy shouting
                    into your phone outside, the glass is soundproof.  Saves
                    me $20 on a movie after.  -John
              \_ It's all just a media ploy to keep us away from all the hot
                 european women.
           \_ Yes, that has opened up my eyes.  Since Europe has been
              relatively pro-Arab compared to the US, I always thought that
              their Arab communities must have been better integrated.
              \_ I love how you say "Europe".  Anyway, less to do with Arabs
                 than with poor uneducated <insert ethnic group here> trash.
              \_ They are more racist than we are and their little
                 socialist experiment is proving no better than capitalism and
                 in some ways much worse. They like to turn their noses up at
                 us, but in truth they have the same (or more) problems.
                 By the way, they are not pro-Arab, but anti-Israel.
        \_ What can I say, it's a horrible place alright, full of horrible
           people.  -John
                 \_ I find the motd Europe troll pretty hilarious.  -John
                    \_ That's because Switzerland is not a member of the EU.
                       \_ And thank god at that.  But it's good to see
                          people catching on to how much things suck in the
                          little state of Europe, finally.  -John
2005/11/2-4 [Academia/Berkeley/CSUA] UID:40401 Activity:nil
11/2    Has anyone else been missing mail/getting mail delayed by hours
        on soda lately? --scotsman
        \_ I have ... I was in the process of trying to figure out if
           its a problem with the <DEAD>cal.berkeley.edu<DEAD> forwarding, or
           actually csua.   - rory
           \_ What do we know about the people running @cal forwarding
              anyway? Do they have a clue?
              \_ It's a third-party ASP based in Texas somewhere.  -tom
        \_ /var filled up on scotch an mx for soda. let root know if
           you're not getting as much spam as you expect. -erikk
2005/11/2-3 [Science/Electric] UID:40402 Activity:low
11/2    AC Transit designates today as Rosa Parks Day.
        http://www.actransit.org/news/articledetail.wu?articleid=f17acca4
        http://www.actransit.org/aboutac/bod/memos/1b0435.pdf
        How ironic.
        \_ Why is that ironic?
           \_ A bus agency employee had her arrested.
              \_ Yeah, that's not ironic.  It was done as a salute to her
                 *because* of the action she took.
              \_ That might be ironic if it was an AC Transit employee.
        \_ I liked the guy on The Daily Show "boy.. times have changed since
           Rosa Parks' day... white people used to ride the bus!"
2005/11/2-3 [Computer/SW/OS/Windows, Computer/SW/OS/OsX] UID:40403 Activity:nil
11/2    Buy a copy protected CD from Sony, get a rootkit installed for free!
        http://tinyurl.com/auyjl
2005/11/2-4 [Transportation/Car/RoadHogs] UID:40404 Activity:nil
11/2    http://tinyurl.com/dlcu5
        SUV sales in free fall.  w00t!!
        \_ "Detroit relies on SUVs for about half its unit sales, a much higher
            percentage than foreign automakers." Stupid fucking moron assholes.
            The penalty for idiocy *should* be failure.  Too bad the assembly
            line workers have to pay the price for the fucktards who run the
            Detroit auto companies.
                \_ Detroit still hasn't figured out how to make a dime on a
                   passenger car, SUVs were their lifeline.
                   \_ They simply didn't try. I feel nothing but contempt
                      for companies who in the presence of a strong competitor
                      move to a different market segment to avoid the
                      competition. Such companies keep being driven out of all
                      profitable market segments until they have nothing left
                      (witness how Detroit's SUVs are still mostly truck based
                      while Japanese and Europeans have plenty of newer
                      car-based and cross-over SUV models which seem to become
                      more popular). A cure to their problem is to spend more
                      money on R&D of new models instead of hoping that 10 year
                      old gimmicks like Chevy Cavalier will continue selling.
                      Detroit seems to have had learned its lesson though I am
                      not sure whether that'll be sufficient for them to
                      maintain their market leadership position at this point.
                      \_ I dunno. Saturn, for instance, defies this idea.
                         Remember, too, that makes like Jaguar, Land
                         Rover, Saab, and Volvo are also 'American' now.
                         Cadillac also has been reinventing cars, as has
                         Chrysler (which is not American now, I know).
                         \_ Saturn is just one GM brand and I am not sure
                            how it defies that idea. I still see a lot more
                            Hondas, Toyatas, VWs, and whatnot on the streets
                            compared to Saturn. Yes, my understanding is that
                            foreign aquisitions might help with certain areas
                            of expertize. Some of Ford's platforms rely on
                            Mazda designs and GM designated its German Opel as
                            the division responsible for designing car
                            platforms. M-B might have had a hand in the success
                            of the Chrysler 300C.
                            \_ You said they didn't try. They did try. They've
                               failed, but they've tried. It's not like they
                               are rolling out the same old cars. Look at,
                               for instance, Ford's new Mustang and T-bird.
                               No one is buying them, but Ford is trying. If
                               anything, it's been Honda and Toyota rolling out
                               similar Accords and Camrys for years now and
                               dumping cool cars like Prelude. I think
                               it's reputation for reliability rather than
                               R&D on new models.
                               \_ Actually, Mustang is supposedly selling well.
                                  It's now the most sold sports car in the US.
                                  The new T-Bird looked pretty slick but it's a
                                  little on the expensive side. Maybe that's
                                  why it's on the way out.
                                  \_ The Mustangs certainly are everywhere. And
                                     I think the T-Birds were really only bought
                                     by people who had one or wanted one back in
                                     the '50s and were after that nostalgia
                                     factor. Actually, the new Mustangs take
                                     advantage of nostalgia in their styling as
                                     well. -gm
                         \_ I am not sure how Saturn is just one GM brand
                            and I am not sure how defies that idea. I still
                            see a lot more Hondas, Toyatas, VWs, and whatnot
                            on the streets compared to Saturn. Yes, my
                            understanding is that foreign aquisitions might
                            help with certain areas of expertize. Some of
                            Ford's platforms rely on Mazda designs and GM
                            designated its German Opel as the division
                            responsible for designing car platforms. M-B
                            might have had a hand in the success of the Chrysler
                            300C.
2005/11/2-4 [Reference/RealEstate] UID:40405 Activity:nil
11/1    http://www.usatoday.com/money/economy/housing/2005-11-01-real-estate-usat_x.htm
        Housing cooling off, prices drop, inventory grows. If you own
        a few investment properties using ARM, now is the time to sell!!!
        \_ All Hail Swami The Magnificent!
2005/11/2-4 [Computer/SW/Mail, Computer/HW, Computer/SW/Editors/Emacs] UID:40406 Activity:nil
11/2    Does anyone still use VM (Vmail) in Emacs?  I reluctantly switched to
        Outlook 4 yrs ago when I switched job, and I haven't used VM since
        then.
        \_ Used it until ~1 year ago. It unfortunately hasn't been updated
           for several years. It's really solid for what it does, but it
           doesn't do IMAP. I switched to the similar "Wanderlust" which
           does support IMAP and haven't looked back.
           \_ In the VM 7.19 from http://www.wonderworks.com/vm there is an
              vm-imap.el dated 5/30/2003.
              \_ VM's IMAP support is marginal. You can pretty much use it
                 like POP to fetch mail, but you can't do things like
                 disconnected operation etc. ... if you need to use it just
                 like POP because your server only supports IMAP not POP,
                 it's fine, but if you need to do server synching, marks,
                 disconnected operation, etc., VM is not your bag. -pp
2005/11/2-4 [Academia/Berkeley/CSUA] UID:40407 Activity:low
11/2    Since there appears to be an issue with mail right now, I will post
        a mail I was going to send to csua@csua here:
        The politburo has codified the constitutional amendment which will
        be voted on later this week.  This amendment adds two officers
        (Events Officer and Alumni Relations Officer) and changes a few
        other small things.  We encourage you to review it and if you are
        an active member (current students) join us tommorow to vote on it.

        For reference, you can read the old constitution at:
        http://csua.berkeley.edu/constitution.html
        the new constitution at:
        http://csua.berkeley.edu/constitution2.html

        and in /csua/tmp you can find plaintext versions of the new and old
        constitutions, and the diff of the two files:
        /csua/tmp/constitution-new
        /csua/tmp/constitution-old
        /csua/tmp/constitution-diff
        -mrauser
        \_ The two questions I would ask would be, do these really need to be
           voting politburo positions?  And, is it really likely that the
           CSUA will have seven people willing to be active in the
           politburo?  -tom
           \_ This was debated.  I thought a lot of the responsibilities
              would normally fall under the president, but the other politburo
              members thought it would bring more dedicated work if we allowed
              the ability to have a vote to a few typically sub-officer roles.
              Having a few more dedicated workers can also relieve some of
              the work responsibilities of other polit. members.  We will
              have to see how the numbers turn out.  There have been times in
              the past where 5 officers seemed hard to fill.  Reference the
              minutes for the most recent months (hopefully) they will have
              some more of the arguments about this. -mrauser
              \_ How much work is there for the officers? I find it hard to
                 justify having an ARO or not dividing the EO work between
                 the officers and "concerned" CSUAers.
                 \_ It's been a minimum of 5-10 hours a week, with many
                    weeks requiring more time. There have been several
                    initiatives that we have been unable to undertake b/c
                    we simply didn't have the time to do it. Every other
                    organization here has a minimum of ten officers and has
                    not had significant difficulty filling their positions.
                    If the positions go unfilled, then we're no worse off
                    then where we are now. If they are filled, it should
                    allow us to be more ambitious with our activities and
                    provide better service to students, by removing what is
                    currently the greatest bottleneck to this goal.
                 justify having an ARO or dividing the work of the EO between
                 the secretary, president, and "concerned" CSUAers.
                    \_ The problem I see is the need for X/2 or X/3 officers
                       to do certain tasks. Minor, but puts you in an odd
                       spot if you only have 4 officers out of 6.
        \_ I suggest that the Alumni Relations Officer position should be
           opened to CSUA associate members (alumni) as well as current
           students.  Yes, this means that an alumnus can end up as a voting
           member of Politburo.  An alumnus who runs should be available for
           Politburo meetings and related activities (i.e., located near
           Berkeley and have time for it).  If they get too busy for CSUA,
           replacement procedures can treated equivalently as if a student
           member resigned.  In terms of whether it's okay to have a former
           Berkeley student on the executive committee of an ASUC-sponsored
           club, I think it should be okay if they represent just 1 out of 7
           votes.  What do people think?  How about asking it this way:
           Would there be any alumni out there who would seriously run for
           such a position, be located near Berkeley, and have time for it?
           \_ As much as it is hard to fill 5 positions at times, it will be
              even harder to fill 7, but I think it would be near impossible
              to get a commitment from alumni to consistently be in and around
              the CSUA post-graduation.  Coming to weekly meetings isn't all
              that politburo members do, there are a lot of other "being
              around berkeley" types of things that need to get done.  It
              would also require us to change the constitution to allow an
              alumnus to vote.  We plan to review how the most recent amend-
              ments have effected CSUA come spring semester.  If the A.R.O.
              isn't effective we can do away with/change the position.
                        -mrauser
              \_ I want to elaborate on your "near impossible to get a
                 commitment" comment.  Basically, students (while possibly
                 being super-busy if they're in the College of Engineering),
                 have the flexibility of having open slots during the day.
                 In contrast, an alumnus with a job typically has a 9-5
                 work schedule.  Politburo shouldn't need to work around that.
                 Anyways, the official Berkeley policy prevents alumni from
                          mr/ms moot: have you actually
                          looked up the defn in a reputable
                          dictionary? look up "cleave" while
                          you are at it. -\
          PET PEEVE!  MOOT DOES NOT MEAN WHAT YOU THINK IT MEANS -\
                 holding office or voting, so that makes the point moot.
                 -person who originally suggested the idea
           \_ http://csua.org/u/dwo (Cal Office of Student Life)
              Okay, never mind, it's stated pretty clearly that it's not
              possible:
              "Only currently registered students, faculty and staff may be
              active members in a registered student organization. Only active
              members may vote or hold office."
              \_ There are alumni who are faculty/staff.
                 \_ Which means we could have a faculty/staff member of
                    the Politburo.
2005/11/2-4 [Computer/HW/Drives] UID:40408 Activity:nil
11/2    I've suspected that Netflix is delaying mailing out new movies because
        my turnaround times are too good.  But I'm too lazy to actually sit
        down and analyze my rental activity.  Fortunately someone wrote just
        such a program: http://www.tallrock.net/RentalStats/index.html
        \_ So, are they throttling you?
        \_ I had similar experience.  The turn around time was really good
           for the first few months and then got worse and worse.
           \_ Me too.  --dbushong
        \_ After I noticed throttling, I changed to the 4-DVD program and keep
           2 DVDs two weeks before mailing them back, and only request the new
           2 DVDs 12 days before mailing them back, and only request the new
           shit every other week as well.  Helps I guess.  Yeah, I know it's
           ~ the same price as renting in-person, but it's the convenience of
           mail and having a wide selection.
2005/11/2-4 [Computer/SW/WWW/Browsers] UID:40409 Activity:low
11/2    Firefox 1.5rc1 is out:
        http://www.mozilla.org/projects/firefox
        \_ Does it use less memory than 1.0.x?
           \_ Leakiness seems a bit better, but that's fairly subjective.  Page
              rendering times and forward/back are buttloads faster.  --dbushong
              \_ How about comparing to IE-whatever-the-latest-version?
                 \_ It's _almost_ as fast as IE on really simple pages, and
                    faster on really complex ones.  YMMV.  --dbushong
              \_ Sigh.  I launched 1.0.7 and browsed many pages in separate
                 tabs and windows.  Now I have closed all other tabs and
                 windows except one that's displaying the http://www.yahoo.com page,
                 but Task Manager shows that the VM Size is still at 125MB.
        \_ I assume you don't use any of the extensions, no?  I would *LOVE*
           to jump to the newest version, but the general availablity of
           extension is not there yet... and i am addicted to some of the
           extensions.
           \_ I only use AdBlock and Tabbrowser Extensions. AdBlock didn't
              require any changes, and the tabbing plugin has a 1.5 version. -gm
2005/11/2-4 [Computer/SW/Languages/Misc, Recreation/Media] UID:40410 Activity:nil
11/2    Splinter Cell the Movie:
        http://www.latinoreview.com/scriptreviews/splintercell/review.html
2005/11/2-4 [Politics/Domestic/President/Bush] UID:40411 Activity:kinda low
11/2    Wow, has only Nixon been more unpopular than Dubya in the 2nd term?
        http://csua.org/u/dws (cbsnews.com)
        \_ Heh, I got as for as "Dubya" before I realized that you weren't
           talking about World of warcraft.
        \_ But Dubya is the Great Uniter!  He said so himself!!1!
           \_ He's united everyone against him
              \- the people who voted for BUSHCO in 2004 were:
                 1. single issue fanatics [abort,keep down assmastery,gunnuts]
                 2. NPV voters
                 3. stupid [bubba, cletus an me hate dem DEATH TAXES]
                 some single issue people got nervous with HARRIET THE JUDGE,
                 NPV people may be getting nervous about macro factors,
                 but i suppse he still has his "base" ... #3.
                 \_ 4. Flip-flopper haters.
                    \- 5. and people who SERVED ... oh wait ... and people who
                          *serve* the EVIL CYBORG.
                          \_ BUD DAY doesn't like your CYBORG.
                             \_ Are you human?  Do you understand the effect
                                cybernetics had on humanity?
                 \_ what does NPV stand for?
                    \- "net present value". i.e. voters who say "ok maybe
                       bush is soft on torture, has tarnished our international
                       reputation etc, but i expect to have $130,456 more
                       if i vote for BUSHCO, so that's what i'll do. when i
                       travel abroad i can tell people i am from canada."
                       of course some of these NPV people probably dont care
                       at all about other issues [Halliburton executives]
                       or are being compensated via other means [Brownie ...
                       crony is a sub class of NPV]
        \_ Maybe we can get this scumbag brought up on War Crime charges
           afterall. At this rate, he will have no defenders left in three
           years.
2025/03/15 [General] UID:1000 Activity:popular
3/15    
Berkeley CSUA MOTD:2005:November:02 Wednesday <Tuesday, Thursday>