1/21    Naive lad or wanna-be terrorist?
        http://www.homelandsecurityus.com/site/modules/news/article.php?storyid=38
        \_ Can't he be both?
           \_ So you mean he didn't know it was a 'bad thing' when he went
              off to Iraq to kill Americans and made up some BS story about
              his "immersion journalism class" which no reporters bothered
              to check up on?  The worst part of this isn't that some kid
              went off to kill Americans in Iraq from Florida.  It is that
              we knew in 1996 his dad was a criminal and didn't do anything
              about it and then in 2006 our news media failed us by feeding
              us unfiltered lies without doing the most trivial checking on
              the story and no follow-up either and these people still live
              here enjoying the freedoms and wealth this country provides
              while looking for other ways to betray our country.
              \_ Your assertions, while fascinating, are actually speculative
                 and not wholly supported by anything printed in the article.
                 As for the part about his dad being a criminal (in _1985_),
                 his crimes were actually against then-dictator Saddam
                 Hussein; you know, the guy we toppled? If anything, it sounds
                 like we should have been calling Dr. Hassan instead of
                 Chalabi when we planned this boondoggle.

1/20    Who is Trevor Pering?
        \_ used to be an EECS grad student.
        \_ who wants to know?
        \_ A scholar & a gentleman, a prince among men, a handsome devil
           who combined the best of all aspects of the ideal Cal students.
           No, really.  -John

1/20    Is it true that Google gives out rebates to employees for buying
        Hybrids or is it an urban legend?
        \_ #t -dans (I've discussed this with friends who work for Google)
           \- wasnt it $5k for a prius? what prevents the employess from
              arbitraging?
              \_ How about losing trust with your employer if caught abusing
                 a nice thing to pocket a few grand?
                 \- well i mean what does the policy against it look like.
                    do they say 1 rebate per year? do they say you must keep
                    he car for x months etc.
                    he car for x months etc. it has to be illegit to get
                    "caught". see e.g. scholars workstation etc.
                    \_ I believe it's one rebate period.  Maybe one per year.
                       Also, you don't get the rebate until at least several
                       months after buying the car.  I don't know for certain,
                       but I suspect that a program like this will have a
                       human signing off on things somewhere, and it would
                       probably raise a red flag if someone applied for the
                       rebate over and over again. -dans

1/21    Is there a good way to write a log file in a multi-threaded system
        that doesn't require locks?  It seems like there should be some
        sort of atomic fsync() or something.

1/21    Hillary was wrong, Bush not the worst President ever. Sixth worst?
        http://csua.org/u/eq4 (USA Today)
        \_ "Except for Katrina"?  Gee, except for losing a major city, bush
           ain't doing too bad.  (Not to mention how wrong that columnist is
           about education or health care, but that's another story.)
        \_ ...the hell has the founder of USA Today got to do with anything?
           \_ if he really is a serious thinker, I bet several well-informed
              e-mails will easily push him to recategorize Dubya to the worst
              three.
              in any case, if you think about it, his precise placement of
              dubya as "6th worst" does 2x damage compared to just agreeing
              with hillary.  it stimulates thought and resists categorization.
              \_ A fine point. Ranking him as 6th worst obfuscates the real
                 (and obvious) issue, which is that he's a fuck-up.
                 \_ I don't know about you, but 6th worst out of 43 is
                    still pretty pathetic.  And I don't know how you would
                    give any credence to someone who evaluates the worst
                    deficit ever as "reasonably well".  -John
        \_ USA Today: it's where I go first for quality news and opinion.

1/21    Partner's death ends happy life on ranch
        http://www.indystar.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=2005512310342
        \_ that's sad.  I think a majority of Oklahomans would support
           Beaumont.  I'd like to think a majority would even if he didn't
           have the will, but I'm not sure, esp. with the constiutional
           amendment.
        \_ The cousins are trying to sue him for past due rent!?  That's just
           fucked up.  BTW, I assume where it says the ranch is worth $100,000,
           they meant $1,000,000.
           \_ No, this is Oklahoma, $100,000 for 50 acres is about right.
              \_ But the guy said he put $200k into it...

1/21    The Thailand-US free-trade agreement: enriching drug companies at the
        expense of Thai citizens!
        http://csua.org/u/eq3 (huffingtonpost.com)
        \_ While this may be a very minor point in the overall article, I
           I don't understand where he gets the idea of generic drug companies
           being forced to conduct tests as being "unethical."  Most people
           whom I know in non-US pharma outfits see FDA regulations as a
           major PITA, but at some level at least, see that they usually
           (with a few egregious exceptions) make sense.  -John
        \_ Thailand is being absolutely stupid to sign bilateral trade
           agreement with USA at first place.  The reason why USA was pushing
           for bilateral agreement is because WTO has built-in arbitration
           mechanism thus USA couldn't really get away with all the wrong
           doings.  With bilateral agreement, there is no mechanism for smaller
           economy to challenge dispute and/or violations
           economy to challenge USA's violation of agreement.

1/21    How does one usually write a log file from a multi-threaded
        server?  Is there a way to avoid using locks around the file
        writes?  Relying on some kind of low-level atmoic writes and
        fsync() or something?
        \_ I would create a class to act as the single point of access
           to the log file. Have the other threads go through the logger
           singleton to write the info into a ring buffer and signal
           a separate thread to actually write to the file. - ciyer
           \_ Well you will need a lock to write into the ring buffer, and once
              one thread has that lock then if the buffer is getting full you
              can have that thread write the buffer and flush the output stream
              right? -!op
              \_ That should work too. I work with audio and parts of my
                 code run in realtime threads which should not block, so
                 I've implemented a lockless ring buffer (using
                 CompareAndSwap on OS X) so the thread writing into the log
                 never takes a lock and can't access the disk

1/21    Cell phone+car accidents, a whole lot of 'em
        http://www.cartalk.com/content/features/Drive-Now/accidents-1.html
        \_ I saw a lecture about this at CNS 2004.  Essentially, tuning the
           radio while driving, talking on the cell phone while driving, and
           driving while mildly intoxicated all have similar cognitive
           impairment effects.  This is true regardless of whether the
           cell phone is "hands-free" or not.  It's a matter of attentional
           capacity being divided.  Iirc, someone else did a study that showed
           sleep deprivation has similar effects, as well.
           \_ I hate cell phone drivers but at least with a phone, the
              distraction stops once they hang up (if they do).  If you're
              drunk when you turn the key, you'll still be drunk when you
              get home (or to the hospital).
              \_ Drivers kill with cellphones, and people blame the phones.
                 They kill with alcohol, and people blame the alcohol.  They
                 kill while eating, and people blame the food.  They kill when
                 they have less than 20/20 vision, and they blame the vision.
                 When are people going to realize what the common denominator
                 here is?  It's just not natural for all people of all ages
                 to have to operate a massive, dangerous machine just to
                 take part in society.  Stop blaming the booze, the phones,
                 the food, and old people for being old, and go to the root
                 of the problem.
                 \_ Yah, seriously -- we should be killing the people.  I mean,
                    honestly, what kind of careless twat drives 70mph on the
                    freeway then cries and moans about the cell phone?  It's
                    all about the selfish selfcentered careless shitheads, and
                    their absurdly litiginous victims.

1/21    It's a GOP scandal, even the National Review admits:
        http://www.nationalreview.com/lowry/lowry200601100816.asp
        \_ I'd be perfectly happy if all the corrupt garbage from both
           parties got banned from public office and lobbying forever.
           Most of Congress wouldn't be there and we could get a fresh
           start.  Anyone there for more than 1 or 2 terms is dirty but
           due to the way the two party system is designed and controls
           election districts and voters being morons, nothing will change.
           Who said the line about democracy being great until the people
           figure out they can vote themselves goodies?  That's where we
           are now and this Abramoff thing is just the tip.  I am shocked
           not that this is going on but that anyone is actually taking it
           seriously.  Where do you all think a ton of ex-politicians and
           ex-staffers go when they're not in power?  They become rich
           lobbyists.  What do you think lobbyists do?  They "buy influence"
           which is also known as "bribing politicians".  Is anyone else
           here honestly surprised this is going on?  Does anyone here
           honestly believe Abramoff is the only one bribing politicians
           or that only one party is guilty of taking bribes?  This is how
           Washington is run.  Every few years someone gets busted, they
           make a few new ethics rules for everyone to ignore and a few
           people return a tiny bit of their dirty money and life goes on.
           This is all bullshit and going nowhere.  Nothing is going to
           change, just the names.
           \_ I don't think anyone is genuinely surprised. This may turn out
              to be a way to tone down the usual corruption, or it may just
              be a hiccup in the status quo. Either way, it's not enough to
              simply recognize that this is the was it's been and then shrug
              our shoulders and live with it. Opportunities like this are a
              way for the few clean people to finally shake out the rug. Please
              don't let your politics-weary cynicism blind you to the few
              chances we have to make it right, or it will never get there.
              \_ Too late.  This turned into a political point score fest
                 on day one.  Maybe the *next* corruption scandal will be
                 different.
                 \_ "political point score fest" and cleaning up corruption are
                    not mutually exclusive.
        \_ and the Washington Post peevishly agrees: http://csua.org/u/eqc
        \_ The article fails at the end with its argument where it argues
           politicians shouldn't justify bribes because they make less
           money compared to their private counterparts. If government
           wants politicians to not take bribes, then government really
           needs to compensate them adequately.
           \_ Cops get paid much less than politicians, but there are still
              very very honest and hardworking cops.  I used to work out at
              a place that was mostly cops, and I was very impressed by the
              work ethic and sense of duty and porfessionalism some of these
              people have.  They really don't get paid all that much, and unlike
              politicians, they put their lives on the line every day, yet
              somehow our society comes up with some decent hardworking, honest
              ones who aren't on the take.  Why is it that cops can do this, but
              politicians can't?  Maybe it's because people like you have
              decided it's ok.
           \_ I couldn't help but rape that woman your honor!  Look what
              the slut was wearing!
           \_ If you can't argue with the statement that it's a Republican
              scandal, attack the article on some other grounds.  It's an
              opinion piece. TNR articles are. The point of the motd post is
              that even a conservative editorial admits the fact that
              Abramgate is a Republican scandal.
           \_ Ignoring that your post is a red herring, our argument puts the
              horse (or rather, horses' asses) before the cart. If people
              want to become politicians, they should learn to accept that
              their rank and power more than make up for a lack of monetary
              recompense. If they can't live up to the perhaps superhuman
              responsibility of living by a strict code of ethics, they
              should quit. Really, it's not as if they're not getting paid
              more than enough to live on already.

1/21    I'm setting up my mac on a subnet @ school.  It doesn't recognize the
        other computers on the subnet without typing in the full address.
        How do I enable that?
        \_ that's a function of dns or whatever naming service you're using.
           it has nothing to do with machines being on the same subnet.
           for dns, if macos uses /etc/resolv.conf, edit that, or do the equiv.
           \_ equiv is to use System Preferences->Network, click on ethernet
              and type in the nameserver in the DNS Servers text box.

1/21    I'm trying to use Apache SSIs to do something like:
        <!--#ifndef expr="$title" -->
          <!--#set var="title" val="Default Title" -->
        <!--#endif -->
        But there's no #ifdef or #ifndef and #if doesn't like to parse
        undefined variables.  Is there any way to do this sort of thing?
        \_ Well, you could try <!--#if var="title" val="" -->.  But it
           sounds like you're getting into PHP territory.  -tom