11/21   "This agency does not do torture. Torture does not work ... We use
        lawful capabilities to collect vital information and we do it in a
        variety of unique and innovative ways, all of which are legal and none
        of which are torture." -CIA director Porter Goss (Nov 21, 2005)
        \_ That depends on what your definition of sex ... er ... torture is.
        \_ I did not torture that prisoner, Mr. Mohammad.
        \_ Torquemada called it "Restoring The Faith." Perhaps the CIA
           has a similar euphamism.
        \_ Torquemada called it "Restoring The Faith."
        \_ I hope you still buy into the AI B.S. when your life is on
           the line.
           \_ I hope you still buy into the freeper B.S. when your life is on
              the line.
              \_ I can shoot back. Can you?

11/21   At BA .271%, parked truck crashes into YOU.
        http://www.wbns10tv.com/Global/story.asp?S=4009353

11/21   Jews fleeing France ... again.
        http://csua.org/u/e1v
        \_ French-Jewish philosopher disparing
           http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/646938.html
        \_ They would've fled 20+ years ago if they were smart.  It's not too
           late now but getting close.

11/21   Any recommendation for a car alarm store in Fremont / Union City area?
        My car alarm has been going off a few times a day by itself.  Sometimes
        it even goes off when I'm driving.  I had it installed 9 years ago and
        it's a Python something model.  Thx.

11/21   Need recommendation for a small form factor network file server
        to connect a PC laptop and a MAC laptop at home.  About 500 gigs
        to 1 T.  I'm looking at the Maxtor Shared storage series and also at
        the "Buffalo terastation".  Can somebody recommend other brand names?
        This is for home use, performance is not critical but it has to be
        reasonably priced.  General purpose PC is out of the question because
        I need something that'll fit on a bookshelf.  Thanks!
        \ I am also interested in this. Was looking at the Adaptec SnapServers
        \_ are you the same guy who posted the following?
           http://csua.com/?entry=40190
           At any rate, you should STFK:
           http://csua.com/?entry=37702
        \_ I am also interested in this. Was looking at the Adaptec SnapServers
        \_ Most reviews of the terastation says that RAID5 speed is really
           poor, although one comment suggested that upgrading to the latest
           firmware improves it.  But I'm also looking for something small.
           I require NFS and decent speed, though.  Oh, and have you
           considered a mac mini with several usb/firewire HDs stacked?
        \_ did you ever fix the lame windows problem where one of your
           PCs running XP Pro hangs for 2-30 seconds without responding
           while your CPU usage is 1-2%?
        \_ Do you have a closet or garage you can drop it in and forget about
           it?  Then size and nouse wouldn't be a big deal and you'd save some
           bucks.

11/21   How much does McDonald's pay these days?  My wife found some old pay
        stubs from 1991 and she was making $4.40/hr.
        \_ They pay minimum wage or thereabouts. That will vary by state.
           \- The one at the Grand Canyon pays more.
           \_ They actually pay a little more than minimum wage. Not much
              more. In-N-Out has better wages.
              \_ I remember when In-n-Out first opened in my home town, a lot
                 of the high school kids applied because of their high pay
                 (something like 7.75/hr back in 93-94?)  Those who did get
                 the job ended up hating it.  But I don't think the ones I
                 talked to had any experience to compare with other fastfood
                 chains.
                 \- were they really polite outside of work?
                    \_ They weren't the politest of the group, but they
                       weren't exactly rude either.  I don't see what your
                       point is, though.

11/21   Flying to the east coast and trying to decide between getting
        a portable DVD player or  just adding a modular bay DVD drive to my
        Dell laptop. Any good or bad expereiences either way?
        \_ Portable DVD player will have tiny screen and you'll need to lug it.
           Notebook has have a bigger screen and you always take anyway.
           Notebook has a bigger screen and you always take anyway.
           Of course, if you have a desktop replacement notebook, that's a
           problem in terms of size.
           \_ If the Dell is a bit older, the portable player probably has a
              screen with better brightness, contrast and viewing angle.
              \_ Another thing to consider is the battery life.  Older laptops
                 may not have battery life to last through the entire movie,
                 especially with the dvd drive spinning.  I convert my dvds
                 to mpeg4 before any long trips to save the battery life from
                 spinning the drive.
                          \_ Since this is on a plane (AA) : would one of
                             the airplane power converter things be
                             worth the bother ?
                 \_ But doesn't MPEG-4 need more CPU?  Wouldn't it balance out?
                    \_ In my experience, spinning optical drive drained the
                       battery a lot faster than the cpu.  But it may depend
                       on the type of cpu you have in your laptop as well.
                       \_ But if you play it from the optical drive, the OS's
                          power setting can power off the hard disk.
                          \_ I think optical drive + laser consumes more
                             power than a notebook HDD.  And probably the
                             the HDD will spin anyway from swapping or some
                             background task or who knows why.
        \_ Consider ripping the DVD onto your laptop.  You can get it down
           to a ca. 750MB high-res AVI.  Check http://videohelp.com.  You'll probably
           save on battery life and noise (no spinning DVD.)  -John
           \_ Agreed.  Rip an ISO image with DVD Decrypter and then mount it
              with Daemon Tools. --jameslin
              \_ or toss the vobs directly into a decent dvd player (powerdvd,
                 mplayer,etc) --dwc)

11/21   No talk about the Big Game?
        \_ Ummm... look below?

11/21   Okay, does anyone have a problem with deleting old motd entries?  I
        delete everything older than yesterday and someone keeps putting it
        back.
        \_ Older than yesterday? ADD a bit?
        \_ Apparently yes, if someone keeps restoring.
        \_ Two days old and helpful/interesting sounds right.
           \_ The general rule I use is 2 days unless a particular thread
              older than 2 days is still active OR the motd is way too long
              to retain 2 days worth of stuff.
        \_ Yeah I've had people pull that on me. Keeping a long-ass motd
           with stale old shit sucks. Fuck whoever does that.

11/21   State of TX sues Sony over rootkit:
        http://www.kwtx.com/news/headlines/1996172.html

11/21   http://www.boomantribune.com/story/2005/11/20/12242/343
        Former DIA officer, Westpoint professor, and Valor-decorated Army
        Special Forces and MI officer Patrick Lang quoting recent L.A. Times
        article:
        "Curveball was last in his engineering class, not first ... He was a
        low-level trainee engineer, not a project chief or site manager, as the
        CIA had insisted. Most important, records showed Curveball had been
        fired in 1995, at the very time he said he had begun working on
        bio-warfare trucks. ... also apparently was jailed for a sex crime and
        then drove a Baghdad taxi. ..."
        \_ He sounds like he has the right background to be the next governor
           of Texas.
           \_ Or Arkansas for that matter.
              \_ Go fuck yourself.
                 \_ Does Dick Cheney have a soda account?
                    \_ He would have responded to the TX comment.  I think this
                       is one of those guys who heckled Cheney.

11/21   The Conspiracy Against the Taxpayers
        http://www.city-journal.org/html/15_4_taxpayers.html

11/21   I've noticed that the OS X Terminal.app and xterm etc are all
        slower than xterm / rxvt on Linux/x86. Even a 500 MHz P2 has
        quicker response than a 1.33 Ghz G4 when you are logged
        into a server via SSH. I'm wondering what could be the cause
        of this lag. Is it something that can be adjusted? I find the
        sluggishness the only think holding me back from using a Mac
        for Everything.  Any ideas, suggestions?
        \_ X is in emulation on OS X, and Terminal sucks.  You could
           try one of the Terminal replacements like iTerm, if text speed
           is really that important to you.  -tom
           \_ I just tried iTerm, it seems slower than Terminal.
              Why can't a Mac running OS X be as snappy as on old
              linux box running at 500 Mhz? If I ran linux on my G4,
              would it be more responsive in X?
              \_ gee, maybe because the system isn't optimized for
                 displaying text in terminal windows quickly.  Running
                 linux on a G4 is a dumb idea.  -tom
                 \_ How fast of a Mac would I have to get to match the
                    text displaying quickness of a P2 500 MHz linux box.
                    \_ look, the mac is just too good for you, so get with
                       it and stop being a twink.  obviously "text display
                       in a terminal window" is a difficult and unsolved
                       problem.  when apple solves this feat, the world will
                       be ready for it.  until then, youll use your one button
                       and like it!  go away, kid, shoo!
                        \_ Do you like Mac OS X?
                           \_ Of course!  Nothing is better than Mac OS X.
                              It is flawless!  The Mac is flawless!  Anything
                              it can't do you shouldn't want to do anyway,
                              because we have a better way.
              \_ Re Linux on the G4 - It has been a few years and yellow
                 dog may have improved, but Linux on PowerMac was always
                 a big hassle. It was not worth the trouble. Besides,
                 why would you switch to Linux from OS X? I mean OS X
                 has iTunes, Word, Excel, OmniGraffle, Photoshop, VPC,
                 Toast, Acrobat, &c. and it is basically *nix underneath.
                 If you don't use any of that stuff, why would you get
                 an iBook, when you can get a pc laptop much cheaper
                 and just install linux on it?
        \_ What else the Mac running? Are you comparing to a P2 running
           linux w/ no X11 and no other users?
           I haven't really seen this problem w/ my OSX systems, but some
           terminal tips you might be interested in trying are turn off the
           unlimited scrollback buffer, rewrap lines on resize, disable
           blinking text and disable anti-aliasing.
           \_ The P2 is running Linux 2.4, XFree86, fvwm2, and rxvt. The
              Mac is Tiger, Aqua, X11, fvwm2, rxvt. Thanks for the tips
              for Terminal.app.  I've tried those but they didn't change the
              behavior. I was wrong about the P2. It is 232 MHz, not 500.
              \_ I don't think I understand your problem. Is it:
                 1. When you ssh into your mac the response is slow? OR
                 2. When you ssh from your mac into a different system
                    the terminal is slow?
                 I'm wondering if this is a ssh config issue rather than
                 a terminal issue. A couple of other questions:
                 \_ (2). 768MB 1.33GHz G4 iBook.
                 1. How much memory does your mac have? Running X11 and
                    fvwm on top of aqua can use up a lot of ram and OS X
                    quite the ram hog.
                 2. Are you using color ls? I've noticed that color
                    anything in the terminal slows it down considerably.
                    \_ Turned off color, behavior still exists. Booted
                       into text mode http://hacks.oreilly.com/pub/h/348
                       (no-aqua, no X1) behavior still exists.
                    \_ Turned off color, behavior still exists. Is there
                       a way to boot into text mode and run ssh from the
                       command line, ruling out aqua display issues.
                       (no-aqua, no X1) behavior still exists. Wow!
                       \_ You might want to try GLterm:
                          http://www.pollet.net/GLterm
                          It is ugly as all get out but it does seem
                          much faster than terminal/xterm/rxvt on my
                          g5.
                          \_ Not any faster on my G4.
                             \_ I have no idea, maybe this is a problem
                                w/ the cipher or key negotiation in ssh?
                                I wish I could have helped you. sorry.

11/21   Basically the only reason I care about the Xbox360 at all: it's
        music visualizer was written by Jeff Minter.  Awesome.
        http://csua.org/u/e1w
        http://llamasoft.co.uk

11/21   If 2^x=googol, what is x?
        \_ x = 300 * log(2) -mrauser
           \_ No, x = 100 log 10 / log 2
              \_ Crap I inverted the addition/multiplication log rules.
                 I loose. -mr
                 \_ yermom's loose
        \_ Ummm.. when did we start giving high school students accounts and
        \_ Ummm.. when did we start giving high school students accounts
           motd access?
           \- is this a case of 1. you dont know a google is defined as
              10^100 or 2. you know that but dont know how to solve for
              x in 10^100 = 2^x ? you may wish to learn about THE AWESOME
              POWER OF LOGARITHMS (tm).
              \_ It's hard to claim not to know the definition of a googol in
                 this age of erm google.
                 \_ You're on crack.  Probably 90% of the people who've heard
                    of "Google" have never heard of a "googol".
                    \_ My we are dense on motd today.  It's trivial to google
                       the definition of googol.
                    \_ My we are dense on motd today.  It's trivial to find
                       the defintion of googol with google.
                       \- that assumes it occurs to you there is a defn to
                          google for. which probably doesnt occur to most
                          people. its easy to find out QUANTAS is the
                          queensland and nothern territory aerial service
                          via the WEEB ... but it never occurs to many that
                          it stands for soemthing rather than being a word.
                          it's easy to find out nokia used to be in rubber
                          goods but it never occurs to most people it might
                          have been something other than a cell phone
                          company. it si easy to discover SPRINT was part
                          of a rail company but most people wont accidentally
                          stumble on that or wonder "i wonder what SPRINT
                          stands for".
                          \_ Given the context of the original question, it's
                             fairly obvious that a googol is *something*.
                             After that, it shouldn't take a lot of enterprise
                             or imagination to look up the word in a dictionary
                             or to ask google for a definition.
                             \- we're not talking about the original question
                                where the fellow explicitly asks "what number
                                is it" but the vast majority to whom it is a
                                search engine and probably never occurs to them
                                that the name predates that. when google first
                                got going newsstories would often explain the
                                name. now nobody does. the fact that they
                                explained it suggests the meaning wasnt common
                                knowledge. i bet a lot of people who once
                                heard the meaning no longer remember it had
                                a separate meaning. i think it might occur
                                to some people "inktomi" is probably from
                                somewhere [i would ahve probably guessed
                                japanese for spider, rather than a native
                                am word] but i think if you put it to many
                                people, they would have guessed google was
                                just a nonsense word or a made up word like
                                say "accenture". i think even fewer
                                realize "googleplex" is also doublemeaninged.
                                i'm sure they assume it is only from
                                "google complex" and dont know that it too
                                is a number.
                                \_ You do realize that the original question
                                   says "googol" not "google", right?
                          \_ It's QANTAS, not QUANTAS.
           \_ Dumb high school students, no less.
              \_ Hey tom, can you solve this?
        \_ This gets my vote for lamest thread of the week.

11/21   The Conspiracy Against the Taxpayers
        http://www.city-journal.org/html/15_4_taxpayers.html
        http://www.city-journal.org/html/15_4_taxpayers.html
        By the way I'm a gay Republican.                        -jblack
        \_ Best...motd...post...ever!
        \_ as a private-sector moderate, i'll agree that public-sector pension
           benefits are unfair and fleece America.
        \_ Why do you hate firemen, policemen, teachers, nurses, and children?
           Are you some kind of devil monster?

11/21   CNN hates Cheney!
        http://www.drudgereport.com/flash3cnc.htm

11/21   On the scale of global averages, which one is a worse investment,
        a condo or a loft? I know that single family homes have much
        higher demands and limited supplies, hence making them much better
        investments. However, I'm curious to know whether condos or lofts
        are better.
        \_ There is no global answer to this question.  Do you mean on a
           scale of Bay Area averages?  After all, Italy has wildly different
           real estate laws.  I ran a few searches on mls and the condo
           prices seem to fluctuate in lock step with loft prices (small
           data set, do not trust this answer for investment purposes).
           Were I you, I'd look at more important things like location,
           noise, layout and so on.  That what the people you resell to
           will look at.
        \_ Single family homes do not make better investments over time.
           Who told you they did? SFH tend to do better at the beginning
           of a housing boom, condos at the end. The maint cost of a
           condo is going to be lower, that is why big investors prefer
           multi-unit buildings.