12/13   Hello self proclaimed stock gurus. It's time to prove yourselves
        that you are a true guru by winning the motd stock contest. Entering
        the contest is easy: predict the Google stock price in 6 months,
        1 year, and 2 year intervals from now. To receive the title of a
        True Motd Stock Guru, you must sign your real name. I will
        start.
        \_ dunno about goog but made killing on EMRG (in at .36)
        \_ 420, 350, 300                                -junior
        \_ Anyone who claims to be able to predict the price of a stock
           with as much immaturity and volatility as Google is not
           an investment guru.  -tom
           \_ why do I have to agree with tom.  Let's not predict price.
              Just choose stocks.
              \_ yes, choosing stocks is better, but usually, to win,
                 one has to do a risky bet (eg. all oil stocks) and
                 then has some luck.  A more reasonable portfolio
                 would finish above average but will not win.
                 \_ to win what?
                    \_ best performing portfolio of the year.
                       \_ Investing is a marathon, not a 100-yard dash.  If you
                          treat it as a sprint, you're more likely to end up
                          screwed or breaking even.  *You* might have gotten
                          lucky, but as an investment strategy this is fuck
                          stupid.
                          \_ One year is a very reasonable time frame to
                             judge stock picking performance.  Good long
                             term investors may not beat the market each
                             month, but they tend to beat the market year
                             after year, with a bad year once in a while.
                             \_ one year is not enough.  Ten year is more
                                accurate.  You can evaluate trading, and
                                position trading in one year, but not
                                long term investing.
                                \_ well, you need to make an evaluation
                                   or judgement call at least once a
                                   year in my opinion.  But you do need
                                   to consistently make good calls for
                                   several years at least before you can
                                   be considered a good investor, so I
                                   don't disagree with you.
                                \_ A stock can easily appreciate 20% in a
                                   few weeks, turning it from undervalued
                                   to fully valued, and hence a candidate
                                   for selling.  This is called value
                                   investing.  It's not trading.
        \_ 50% GAGEX, 50% VGPMX.  Up 55% and 32% respectively and I think they
           will go higher, especially GAGEX.
           \_ PBR 79% gain since 12/27/04.
              \_ That's a single stock.  GAGEX and VGPMX are mutual funds, in
                 energy and precious metals.
                 \_ Yes, but I am not sure if GAGEX is necessarily less
                    volatile since it is highly dependent on the price of a
                    single thing: crude.
           \_ ILF up 66%, BZF up 74%, EWY up 44%, CEE up 64%. But I only hold
              about 10% in each. You are holding too much risk with an
              undiversified portfolio like that for my taste.
        \_ why not join http://marketocracy.com
        \_ can you play if you're a GOOG employee?

12/13   MySQL PHP admin generates the entity relationship diagram as
        PDF. How does it know what the foreign keys are, and where
        can I find that out? The export of DDL doesn't seem to show
        foreign keys of this database that I'm trying to understand
        but the ER diagram shows them.
        \_ IIRC you need to tell it about the linkages (phpmyadmin) and it
           stores them in a metainfo table.
        \_ SHOW TABLE STATUS has fk constraints in the columns.
           SHOW CREATE TABLE foo \G
           shows it in a more readable format.
           \_ Right, but that only works for InnoDB tables that actually
              support foreign keys.
              \_ I was under the mistaken impression that myisam would record
                 the constraint but not actually enforce the constraint.  But
                 why are you using MyISAM?
        \_ MySQL supports Foreign Keys?

12/13   This is cool.
        http://framboise781.free.fr/paris

12/13   Ya'll are boring.  Enough with the housing talk.  Where's the juicy
        topics?  And I don't mean political flames...
        \_ Be patient my little cricket. One of the politburo
           newbies like amckee will do something stupid and comical.
        \_ my GF insists on getting brazillians even though I'm not that
           into it. what should i do

12/13   For an average priced house in the Bay Area paid with 20% down,
        how much more monthly payments is it per quarter point hike in
        the interest rate? I did a quick preliminary check on yahoo's
        mortgage calculator and it's only about $50/month/quarter point.
        That's not a lot.
        \_ Think about how excited you'd be to save $50/month on, say, your
           gas/power bill.
           \_ and that's just for a quarter point (0.25%)
              \_ The op's point is that even with 1 point increase, or
                 $200/month extra, it's not really going to affect people.
                 Heck, in the Bay Area I pay $80 for gardeners, +$200 for
                 premium cable/phone/DSL, $105 for Cingular family plan,
                 $500 eating out, and another $500 for movies, skiing,
                 road trip, gas, whatever. How is $200 extra/month going to
                 affect the economy where I'm at?
                 \_ Not everything is about you and your ilk.  Are you
                    stupid or just dumb?
                 \_ Let's say rates go up to 8%. That's $400/month and
                    there goes your eating out or your car payment or
                    whatever. Even if it's $100/month it will "affect
                    people".
                 \_ Do you own an average house?
                 \_ Are you one of those contributing to the negative
                    savings rate of the nation?

12/12   New BART Trip Planner is out.
        Palm/WinCE: http://www.bart.gov/stations/quickPlanner/download.asp
        iPod: http://www.bart.gov/stations/quickPlanner/ipod.asp
        \_ It's sort of sad.  Everything this does could be done in a pretty
           small AvantGo channel, and then you'd get automatic updates.
           And it would have cost them like 1000th as much to develop.
           \_ you mean an iAnywhere Solution!  -tom
           \_ And then it would only be useful for people who bought
              a propietary Avant Go client

12/13   I just wanted to say that kchang's villain tagger is cool and was
        already responsible for one of the more entertaining paranoid
        discussions on soda.
        \_ what the hell are you talking about?
           \_ kchang has a motd archiver.  He has a feature that attempts to
              track changes by user, it is semi-accurate.  He modified it to
              substitute villains for the user names.  Some people took it
              personally and hilarity ensued.

12/13   Instead of "Tookie" Williams, maybe people can rally behind
        a death row immate who really got a raw deal.  He's black, had no
        criminal record but lived with his 18 month old daughter in a duplex
        in a bad neighborhood.  In the other unit lived a suspected drug
        dealer. In the middle of the night, a cop + SWAT team perform a "no
        knock raid" on the unit (mistakenly kicking in his door) and he
        shoots the cop, who happens to be white and the
        son of the police chief, and kills the cop.  A mostly white jury
        sentences him to die.
        http://tinyurl.com/8kc4y
        \_ A mostly white jury sentenced Tookie to die, too.  It's completely
           legal as long as jury members aren't known to the court to have
           demonstrated prejudice against the ethnicity of the defendant.
           \_ who said anything to the contrary?  It is also not legalistically
              relevant that the cop who was shot happened to be the son of the
              police chief, but if you think it isn't indicitive of whether or
              not jutice was served, then you are none too bright.
           \- in theory peremptories are not supposed to be based on race.
              i dont have energy for extended discussion but you can start
              with Batson v. Kentucky.
              \_ i don't disagree with you.
                 \- i am not taking a position here. i am just sharing a
                    decision that goes to your "it's completely legal"
                    [where it's not clear what the antecedant to "it" is]
                    \_ I was talking to the "you need to have other black
                       people (peers), don't you?" crowd, just in case there
                       were any of those people reading.
                       \- legality isnt just a matter of who ends up on the
                          jury, but how the juries venire is composed, the
                          vopir dire process itself, and there are special
                          voir dire process itself, and there are special
                          issues for grand juries and "death ceritifed" juries
                          as well as auxilliary issues like victim impact
                          statements. there are some pretty interesting stats
                          about who end up getting the death penality. the
                          crudest generalizations [black people get the
                          death penality] are not so accurate but there are
                          some dramatic staticistic ... like the differnece
                          some dramatic statistics ... like the differnece
                          in likelihood between a black fellow killing another
                          black person vs black killing white getting the
                          death penalty. --psb
        \_ Unfortunately, the white/black issue is pretty much irrelevant and
           by bringing it up you weaken your case.  Also, the defenders of
           "Tookie" have helped people like this guy (who looks like he got a
           raw deal) get screwed.  My friend's mother was sentenced to 20-life
           for killing her husband when there was video of him saying that she
           didn't do it.  Her conviction was overturned, but not until after
           she had been in jail for 10 years and developed MS.
           \_ How did the defenders of Tookie screwed this guy? -clueless
              \_ Most of USA looked at Tookie and decided that the people
                 trying to keep him from being executed were loons.  That
                 weakens any future attempts to keep people from being
                 executed, especially when the race card is played.
                 \_ I think most people think it's okay for Tookie to die
                    because of the abominableness of the crimes, they really
                    think he did it, and that after 26 years an appeal hasn't
                    succeeded so that's good enough proof that he did it.
                    His behavior in his first ~10 years in jail didn't help
                    any.
                    \_ Exactly.  So when the nutjobs say he's innocent, they
                       tune out on a case like this which may be legitimate.
                       \-^innocent^nominate for nobel prize
           \_ I think there is a difference between someone with NO criminal
              record and a known gang leader ... There is really no dispute of
              the facts, only whether or not someone is permitted to defend
              themselves with deadly force if people storm into their house,
              and if there is reasonable doubt that the defendent did not
              know they were police officers, which I believe there is in this
              case.
           \_ Maybe I'm being dense, but how did he make a video if..er, you
              know, he was dead?  -John
              \_ It was taken by the medics who life-flighted him to the
                 hospital. -pp

12/13   Which is better for an individual investor, savings bonds or treasury
        bonds/notes?
        \_ Bill Gross, the king of bonds, recommended FAX, an asian bond fund
           with 7.30% yield.  It's a closed end fund that's trading at 10% below
           its NAV (net asset value).  I am buying it tomorrow.
           with 7.30% yield.  It's a closed end fund that's trading at 10%
           below its NAV (net asset value).  I am buying it tomorrow.
           \_ 47% in Australia. It is not really diversified.
        \_ neither is not good.  Liquidity gets pretty bad.  I would go for
           bond mutual funds instead.

12/13   http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20051213/od_nm/china_bra_dc
        Stalkers rejoice! Stalking is a declaration of love and thus
        condoned by the mainland Chinese government.
        \_ Understand, I beat you up and stole your wallet only out of
           love for you.

12/13   Any particular reason why /usr/man does not exist ?
        \_ looks like all the docs and stuff go in /usr/share, including man

12/13   Currently the yearly gift tax limit is $11,000 per year, and if it
        is over you can deduct it from your lifetime unified gift tax (for
        both gift and estate) exemption limit per person, which is $1.5 mil.
        This will increase gradually in the next few years thanks to Bush.
        http://www.fairmark.com/begin/gifts.htm
        http://law.freeadvice.com/tax_law/gift_tax_law/unified_estate_gift_tax.htm
        http://www.amerilawyer.com/gift_taxes.htm (old, just change numbers)
        According to the URL above, "Because of all of these rules, gift
        taxes are rarely required to be paid." Fine. If they're rare
        in the first place why did Bush want to increase the limit, and
        what % of the Americans actually give more than $1.5 mil as gifts?
        \_ political benefits?
        \_ Because taxes should always be cut to zero whenever possible,
           and instead of balancing the budget you just pressure Asian
           countries to keep buying out debt?
           countries to keep buying our debt?
           \_ asian money is like opium.  We have a need for it but it's
              bad for us.
        \_ Republican Party ideology requires as many tax breaks for the
           rich as are politically feasible.  -tom

12/13   Europeon's outraged over Tookie's death:
        http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/10450663/from/RSS
        \_ Wow, instead of copying and pasting, you misspelled European and
           abused the apostrophe.  You rock!
           \_ No, I spelled europeon correctly.
           \_ No, I spelled it correctly: euro-peons.
              \_ Amerikkkan's celebrate!
        \_ The first Terminator never expressed any remorse for his killings
           either.

12/13   I am visiting relatives in the NYC area (LI) and taking my wifi laptop
         These people have nothing better than dialup at their house.
        Anyone care to reccomend something better than Starbucks ($$) for
         internet access ?
        \_ The local library?
        \_ McDonalds?  Barnes & Noble?
        \_ A cantenna?  Maybe they have neighbors with wifi?

12/13   http://www.breitbart.com/news/2005/12/13/051213173239.bo5ciosh.html
        "Ticket sale revenues dropped five percent in the first 11 months of
        2005 while the number of Americans going to the cinema fell by 6.2
        percent compared with the same period in 2004"
        So once again the revenue-per-consumer goes up, and they wonder why
        we're spending less on the movies.
        \_ A 1.2% annual increase is less than inflation, so quit yer bitching.
           \_ And your source that the numbers were not inflation-adjusted is?
        \_ What about DVD sales.  I bet those were higher than ever.
           \_ DVD sales are actually dropping.  Too many DVDs.

12/13   The motd archiver is looking for a more permanent, non-UCLA home.
        I as the author will give out the complete DB and the source code
        of KAIS MOTD to whoever wants to continue hosting the archives,
        preferably outside of the .edu domain for the purpose of
        fault tolerance and many other reasons. I don't mind if the new
        owner renames it or do whatever with it as long as the archives are
        provided to the public on a continuing basis as has been
        done in the past few years. If you have the hardware to share
        (small bandwidth and only 300M disk), I will spend time to set it
        up for you. If no one wants to host it, the archiver will be gone
        for good some time next year. Thanks.                   -kchang
        \_ Would this be a good thing for http://csua.org?
           \_ the person who owns http://csua.org does not want to host it, for
              good reasons (liability, maintenance, etc). In short I actually
              think the death of the archiver may actually be good. It'll allow
              a few selected motd addicts to move on with their lives. As for
              me, I don't mind having one less thing to maintain for the
              pleasure of other people.                                 -kchang
              \_ http://csua.net, then
                 \_ It's pointing back to the original .edu ip.
        \_ is soda out of question?

12/13   Winter ain't over until it's over: http://tinyurl.com/d5qo9
        \_ "Despite urgings from some Republican senators, the U.S.
           oil industry declined to offer any of its $30 billion
           in third-quarter profits for what it views as a
           government responsibility. The only significant outside
           aid has come from Citgo Petroleum, controlled by the
           Venezuelan government and its president, fierce Bush
           administration adversary Hugo Chavez, who has promised
           $10 million in discounts to low-income northeastern
           heating oil customers."
           \_ Having been a low-income northeasterner for quite some time now,
              living in the shitty old tenements they call "housing" out here,
              I would say that at least half of the energy used on heat here
              is just pissed straight out the single pain windows, poorly
                                                     \_ pane
              insulated walls and un-caulked joints.  The only way to really
              help people in the long run out here is to somehow provide a
              financial incentive to the slumlords to apply a little basic
              thermodynamics to the housing rather than just letting the
              tenant pay 300 bucks a month to heat a small two bedroom
              apartment.
              \_ Hence "ownership society!" Silly liberals.
           \_ I do agree with the oil companies ... It's not their fault that
              America has a "faith-based" approach to energy, just praying that
              the invisible hand of the market will always provide citizens
              with cheap energy when we've known for over 30 years that growth
              and depletion would start causing major problems right around
              the year 2000 or so.
              \_ I agree with them also.  Our problem is not that our government
                 is controlled by oil men.  Our problem is that our government
                 is controlled by stupid, ignorant, and incompetent oil men.
              \_ Hence Bush's crusade to secure oil resources!  see, it
                 all makes sense.

12/13   Hiring the A-Team via Craigslist:
        http://www.stuffo.com/a-team-finding.htm
        \_ Old.
           \_ I've never seen it before -- it's hilarious!  I'm glad it was
              posted again.                   -mice
              \_ seconded

12/13   Oedipus Lives!
        http://entertainment.tv.yahoo.com/news/wwn/20051209/113414040002.html
        \_ Uh huh.  Weekly World News.

12/13   Shark v. Octopus. Round 1 Fight!
        http://www.pbs.org/wnet/nature/octopus/media_players_blue/shark_hi.html
        (Needs Real Player)

12/13   51 Terrorist Suspects Crossed Border Illegally
        http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1539796/posts
        \_ posted by jblack

12/13   Hi guys, SMTP relay does not work with the new soda.
        It used to work using SMTP/SSL with password authentication on old
        soda.
        Can someone get SMTP/SSL relay working again, on some port?
        (I don't like to use the company SMTP server for personal e-mails, and
        I actually prefer a GUI client over logging in and using mutt.)
        \_ This is a known issue, root types are trying to figure it out.
           \_ Thanks root!
           \_ I have this working nicely on Postfix if there's anything
              from my setup you want (don't know how sendmail does it.) -John

12/11   Ok, I got a kick out of this.  Potter and Aslan:
        http://www.shortpacked.com/comics/20051212sticks.png
           \_ http://www.robandelliot.cycomics.com/archive.php?id=180
        \_ the really jacked up part is that local Christian group
           here in Taiwan is boycotting Harry Potter for this reason,
           they are arguing that film like this (and Lord of the Ring)
           promote evil.
           \_ Hmm ... I haven't heard of any Christian organization
              opposing Lord of the Rings.  This is probably because
              Tolkien is a good friend of C.S. Lewis who wrote "Mere
              Christianity", the Narnia books, and many others.
              \_ Tolkien wasn't just a friend of Lewis, he was a very
                 devot catholic himself.
                 \- i may have put this on the motd before, but here it is
                    again. the first paragraph is pretty funny. --psb
                    http://www.lrb.co.uk/v23/n22/turn03_.html

12/13   Military spying on anti-war protesters.
        http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20051214/ts_nm/security_pentagon_spying_dc

12/13   http://www.samorost2.net
        \_ keywords: fun flash game samorost samrost samrost2

12/13   I just watched Donnie Brasco and got to thinking after the
        scene where Donnie Brasco, still under cover, runs into
        some federal DA or attorney or something, and he beats the
        guy up to prevent the DA from recognizing him (and thus
        revealing his true identity). Does anyone know of what the
        policy is in real life, to prevent potentially serious
        predicaments like this from happening? Is no one allowed
        to acknowledge each other when not in the office?