2/6     http://www.cnn.com/2006/LAW/02/06/gyn.sentenced.ap
        Reminds me of the hand that rocks the cradle, heh
        \_ what a bozo
        \_ rape is so funny!

2/6     http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060207/ap_on_re_us/reagan_birthday
        The most charming and worst president in the US honored today.

2/6     German penisis. Or is that penises?
        http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20060206/od_nm/soccer_penises_dc

2/6     Morning everyone!
        link:tinyurl.com/b4qn7 - der FURIOUS

2/7     Best AG-in-front-of-Congress quote evar:
        Alberto:  "President Washington, President Lincoln, President Wilson,
        President Roosevelt have all authorized electronic surveillance on a
        far broader scale."
        Rumor was that Washington's handle was "cHeRrYcHoPpEr" on AIM, but
        that was never substantiated ...
        \_ Show me the quote.  It's true that they all surveilled.  I want
           audio of him saying this precise sentence or you should retract it.
           \_ http://www.crooksandliars.com is video good enough?
              \_ Yes, thanks.  So this is true but petty, right?
                 \_ it's funny.. what's your point?
                    \_ Government bureaucrats are allowed to be inarticulate
                       fools, as long as they support MY opinion.
                       \_ An example of a verbal flub from someone I detest is
                          when Ted Kennedy misspoke and called Barak Obama
                          "Osama".
                       \_ No, anyone speaking in public gets reasonable
                          allowances for verbal flubs, regardless of their
                          opinion.
                          \_ except for al gore
                             \_ You mean "creating the internet"?  That's not a
                                flub.  He was claiming more than was
                                reasonable.
                                flub.  He was claiming more than was reasonable.
                                \_ So is Gonzalez.  -tom
                                   \_ Gonzales's point is that prior presidents
                                      have authorized extensive surveillance.
                                      He added an extra word, which is under-
                                      standable given the circumstances - he is
                                      testifying before Congress re electronic
                                      surveillance.
                                      Gonzales' statement is is VERY different
                                      from statements that a candidate for
                                      the highest office makes on the campaign
                                      trail (a la ALGOR and Kerry) in order to
                                      make themselves appear more favorable to
                                      the electorate.
                                \_ Ass, find me a quote. That lie's so stale,
                                   even Rove's turning his nose up at it.
                                   http://www.snopes.com/quotes/internet.asp
                                   \_ Huh?  The quote is real.  "During my
                                      service in the United States Congress, I
                                      took the initiative in creating the
                                      Internet."  The point is he was claiming
                                      far more that he really did (even though
                                      yes he was for expansion of the internet
                                      to a more public entity).
                                      \_ So rather than launch into a 15 minute
                                         history of DARPA, he used the shorthand
                                         "the internet".  You're being dis-
                                         ingenuous.
                                      \_ Next you're going to insinuate that
                                         McCain has an illegitimate black baby.
                             \_ "I voted against it before I voted for it"
                                 \_ Not a verbal flub.  That was an attempt to
                                    please both Kerry's base and yet say he
                                    supported the war effort.  He didn't say he
                                    misspoke.
                                \_ Once again: Kerry voted *for* an amendment
                                   to a bill, which failed; he then voted
                                   *against* the legislation.  The idea that
                                   this was a flip-flop was created by
                                   Karl Rove and the dittohead machines. -tom
                                   \_ Yes, he voted for one thing, and then
                                      against another.  Not the same "it".
                                      Trying to please both sides.  Classic
                                      Kerry.
                                      \_ uh...so you think he should for
                                         for everything or against everything?
                                           -tom
                                         \_ No.  I think he shouldn't say
                                            that he voted for something before
                                            he voted against it.
                                            \_ He didn't.  Find the quote.
                                                -tom
        http://www.factcheck.org/article155.html_
        "I actually did vote for the $87 billion before I voted against it."
        It was even more blatant than I realized.  It wasn't "it".  He
        explicitly claimed to have voted for the bill before voting against it.
        \_ http://www.berkeley.edu/news/media/releases/2004/09/02_lakoff_gop3.shtml
           Quote is out of context for political gain, of course.   -tom
           \_ Your reference fails to even quote Kerry's words on that part.
              Talk about taking things out of context.
              \_ It quotes just as much as yours does.  Kerry voted *for*
                 an $87 million funding bill, which failed, and then
                 *against* a funding bill which included a $20 million
                 no-bid blank check for Halliburton.  To represent that
                 as flip-flopping, or trying to play both sides, is absurd.
                    -tom
                 \_ He voted for the amendment to the bill, not the bill
                    itself, and then voted against the unamended bill.
                    \_ He also *sponsored* a troop funding bill, which
                       Bush threatened to veto, and which the Republican
                       Congress killed in committee.  I guess Bush voted
                       against it before he voted for it.  -tom
                             \_ or howard dean
                                \_ You mean the scream?  Not a flub.  The rant
                                   about going to various states culminated in
                                   the scream, and it was the whole rant that
                                   made him look like a crazy person.  Not to
                                   mention 3rd place in the primary didn't look
                                   so good.
                                   \_ You really love grabbing things out of
                                      context, don't you? The man was standing
                                      in front of an overenthusiatic, screaming
                                      crowd of fans who couldn't hear him
                                      unless he was screaming. It was a
                                      rallying cry.
                                      \_ A rallying cry about how great 3rd
                                         place was.
                                         \_ Do you really believe that? Moron.
                                            'dict rally'. It was about trying
                                            to cheer up his supporters after
                                            a disappointment. "This is just
                                            one state, we're gonna go to X
                                            and Y and Z so don't give up" etc.
                             \_ Flubs are fine. Repeated lying is not.
        \_ he was hacking root... of the cherry tree.
           \_ he was emancipating pr0n... which wants to be free.
        \_ There was electronics in Washington's days?
        \_ There was electronics in Washington's and Lincoln's days?
           \_ Welcome to level 2.  Enjoy the extra hitpoint.

2/6     Haha, Iranian newspaper planning to print holocaust cartoons:
        http://csua.org/u/ex1
        \_ Shrug.  Government run Arab newspapers print the most racist, ugly,
           and horrible 'cartoons' about Jews and Israel everyday.  This is
           hardly news.  It's an Iranian PR stunt.  Frankly, I really hope
           *all* the Western newspapers and other visual media show their
           cartoons.  It'll be quite the eye opener for a lot of people instead
           of the main stream media white wash we've always had.
           \_ That's why it's funny.
        \_ This will show two things to the world:
           1) what islamic nutcases consider "equivalent" to some pretty tame
              depictions of mohammed
           2) that when you truly, deeply insult jews... they don't riot,
              burn your embassies, and threaten to kill you.  (ok, well, they
              kill you if you fire rockets or assassinate their olympic
              athletes, but that's different)
           \_ on the other hand, if you truly, deeply insult black people ...
              (Rodney King, LAPD, etc.)
        \_ People just love to take things out of context: I heard the full
           text of the edict on pictures of the prophet on NPR.
           The whole quote states that they should not be drawn for idolatry
        purposes only. No where does it forbid other reasons. But as they say,
        a basic requirement for being in a democracy is to be able to
           purposes only. No where does it forbid other reasons. But as they
           say, a basic requirement for being in a democracy is to be able to
        withstand being offended. That is one of the pillars of free speech.
           \_ If what you just gave is the context, how is it in any way
              interesting or important?
           say, a basic requirement for being in a democracy is to be able
           to withstand being offended. That is one of the pillars of free
           speech.

2/6     Here's a security question.  I think my network guy is insane.  We
        have a WiFi connection at work which is set to only allow certain MAC
        addresses, and on top of that it uses WEP.  I have a laptop with WiFi
        which is on our windows domain, but does NOT have the WEP key and its
        MAC is NOT allowed on our WiFi.  Is there a security risk to our
        network if I connect my laptop to a neighbor's open WAP?
        \_ get exploited via neighbor's r00ted box.  bring that shit
        \_ get r00ted via neighbor's r00ted box.  bring that shit
           back to work, connect (wireless, wireless, whatever), boom.
        \_ Home laptops connected to the corporate network are the most common
           virus vector in our company.
        \_ Why did you tell him anything about your neighbor's open WAP?  And
           yes, there is always a security risk moving from one network to
           another.  You hook up to your neighbor's dirty net, get some virus
           then hook up at work and infect everything there skipping most of
           the security in place which is normally designed with external
           threats in mind.  I'm not sure why he lets your laptop on one
           internal net but not the other internal net.  Have you asked him
           to be able to go wireless?  Maybe it isn't technical.  Maybe his
           department charges your department per host and yours hasn't
           coughed up the cash.  Ask.
           \_ The neighbor is a different company.  I'm not on our WiFi for
              different silly reasons.  I want to use the neighbor's WiFi to
              test a server from an expeternal IP.  I am fully patched, using
              a firewall, and not using IE. -op
        \_ Yes there is a risk.  Cracking WEP is not as easy as some people
           make it out to be, but it is pretty easy to catch shit.  We've
           seen some fun trojans around which try various approaches involving
           switching wireless networks.  My question is:  why is the laptop
           on your windows domain if you do not connect it to your local
           network?  If you ever connect that laptop to a fixed newtork
           that is the same as your work's wifi, you are asking for trouble.
           Your network guy is not insane.  Now if the laptop lacking the\
           WEP key is properly secured (firewall, AV, patches, VPN, etc etc)
           then it's no different from connecting via, say, a hotel
           network and you should be fine.  -John

2/7     Does anyone know from first-hand experience whether a PS1
        Gameshark (or Gameshark lite) works on PS2 for PS1 games?
        I tried to google for it but couldn't find any conclusive
        answers--everyone seems to be saying different things.
        Thanks.

2/7     http://www.insightmag.com/Media/MediaManager/Rove2.htm
        Is this really what you apologists think is acceptable?
        \_ At this point, I think not having the backing of the White House
           when running for reelection (even as a Republican) is going to be
           a win in many areas.

2/7     Who gave this guy a nano?
        http://tinyurl.com/b525g - danh
        \_ That looks like a cell phone to me
        \_ Is this an in-jail pic? 'Cos that looks like a knife handle to me.
           \_ It would be funny if we have a picture of Bin Laden listening
              on the iPod.
           \_ without a blade ... http://csua.org/u/ex6 (yahoo.com)
              \_ Good eye. Thanks

2/7     http://www.editorandpublisher.com/eandp/news/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1001958360
        Them libruls just hates the troops... mmmhmm....

2/7     http://www.drudgereport.com/flash8.htm
        "She extended Martin's message against poverty, racism and war. She
        deplored the terror inflicted by our smart bombs on missions way afar.
        We know now that there were no weapons of mass destruction over there,"
        Lowery said.
        The mostly black crowd applauded, then rose to its feet and cheered in
        a two-minute-long standing ovation.
        A closed-circuit television in the mega-church outside Atlanta showed
        the president smiling uncomfortably. ...
        \_ fyi, for posterity, according to the CNN video, the applause lasted
           for ~ 15 seconds, and the reverend didn't appear to expect it.
           also, it appears the applause was much greater for Bill Clinton. -op
           \_ This is precisely why Drudge is useless.  Did he "nod his head
              toward the row of presidents..." on the "misdirection" line in
              your viewing?

2/7     http://csua.org/u/ex5 (http://www.editorandpublisher.com
        Them libruls just hates the troops... mmmhmm....

2/7     I'm thinking of learning/using boost (http://www.boost.org
        and would appreciate comments from people who are familiar with it.
        Is it better/worse/different than STL?  Does it have a low/high
        learning curve?  And of course, should I use it?  Thanks. -emin

2/7     Does anyone from Hong Kong remember how to sing the last paragraph of
        this song: http://hk.geocities.com/musictreasury/child15.htm  I can
        only recall the melody and the lyrics up to the second last paragraph.
        I always thought that the second last paragraph was the end of the
        the song.  Thanks.
        \_ This is CSUA, not HKSA.
           \_ Nor is it Danish Students Assoc. or Islamic Students Assoc.

2/7     Origin of the "pig head Mohammed" picture found.  Interesting
        http://www.neandernews.com/?p=54

2/7     Are there any UCB Students who read the motd? If so, my group
        \_ That's sort of sad.
        at Apple (iTunes Music Store) is looking for 1-2 SW interns.
        Email me if you're interested. -abe

2/7     Is IKEA from Sweden or Switzerland? I always get those two confused.
        \_ Here is an easy way to remember this. Switzerland has a lot of
           other people's money but don't really do much with them. For example
           they kept a lot of Jew and Nazi money but didn't do jack with
           them. The only cool things from Switzerland that are easily
           recognizable in the US are the Swiss Army Knife and
           the overpriced Swiss Watch. At any rate, both countries are
           full of nationalistic white Scandi-Eurotrashes who think they're
           better than everyone else and in that respect John is right.
           \_ There is also Swiss chocolate in the US.
           \_ Don't forget the better roads.  We like dogs too.  And you're
              correct, we are better than everyone else.  -John
              \_ In what ways are you better?
                 \_ Much more skilful at stealing the gold.  -John
        \_ Mr. IKEA IS A NAZI.
           He attended some pro-Nazi meetings and apologized only after
           his past was discovered. Reality-- he's not sorry, he's just
           saying that to placate IKEA stockholders.
        \_ When I was little, I thought they were the same thing. I thought
           they were all weird blonde people with funny American accents.
           Now I'm older, I still think they're weird blonde people
           with funny accents, and still unable to find differences.
        \_ Sweden.  Ingvar Kamprad Elmtaryd Agunnaryd.
           \_ Duh!
        \_ Same thing.  -John
        \_ Tóstarmyndband aldarinnar
           http://www.hugi.is/hahradi/bigboxes.php?box_id=51208&f_id=1471
           \_ This has got to be one of the most disturbing music videos
              I have ever seen in my life. The retro gay images keep
              replaying in my mind and I can't sleep. Is this weirdo
              retro gay style common in in Iceland? Or is it in fact
              a gay music video shot in the 60s?
              \_ I thought most videos were in that style back in those days,
                 when I was a kid.
           \_ What does this Iceland video have to do with IKEA or Switzerland
              or Sweden?
        \_ hint:  colors of the flag
        \_ Swiss is where all the Nazi and Japanese stolen from raping
           their nearby Asian brethren gold that they didn't have enough
           time to hide in the Phillipines and they didn't guard very
           well because they were too busy getting NUKED by Truman
           so Marcos discovered some and that Korean freak Sun Moon
           found the other billion or so in gold bullion, is stored,
           Sweden is where they make Volvos and the girls (and boys)
           enjoy running around naked when weather permits.
           \_ Does your nose bleed when you spaz like this?
        \_ IKEA carries Swedish meatballs.

2/7     amckee's politburo made a sharp turn to the right when they
        authorized the electronic surveillance of motd post. Read
        the minutes and grep for jrleek. God Bless.
        \_ no loggers going. flame down.  -mrauser
           \_ Alright then, how do you explain tom identifying people
              correctly? And why did you vote for Bush in 2000 and 2004?
              \_ I believe mrauser is replying in the context of official
                 kernel-integrated logging, not logging by users privately.
        \_ didn't they eventually decide to turn off all logging?
                \_ We now only log suspected loggers, unless the post is really
                   juicy.
           \_ Not true. The religious right took over politburo and now
              it thinks and acts just like the Bush administration. The
              bottom line, if you are a good person you have nothing to hide.
                \_ We now only log suspected terrorists, unless the post is
                   really juicy.
                   \_ huh?

2/7     Wanna get killed in a Smart car? It's easy.
        http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=6605730767077503480
        \_ How much better do you think a "normal" car would have done?
        \_ That looks like quite impressive crash performance for a
           collision with a concrete wall at 70mph.  -tom
           \_ Sure the frame is alright, but what about the crash dummy?
              How good the car looks after a crash has no bearing on how
              well the passengers
              \_ There wasn't a crash dummy, but I can't imagine that any
                 car would perform significantly better than the Smart car
                 does in that demonstration.  And of *course* how well the
                 frame looks has a bearing on how the passengers do; do I
                 need to put the Mini vs. F150 page in the MOTD again? -tom
                 \_ Mini vs F150
                    http://csua.org/u/7gp
                    "Most accidents involve only one car?"  Does he mean
                    "fatal accidents?" or "injury accidents" or what?
                    I've been run into like 3 times, but all were pretty
                    slow.  I do agree that head-on collisons are a stupid
                    thing to worry about.  Rear-ending is more common and
                    T-bones are more dangerous.
        \_ You mean 'wanna LIVE in a Smart car? It's easy."? (just looking at
           the video)
        \_ Wanna get killed in any other car? It's also very easy ..
        \_ If the comparison thru 70mph head-on collision is "Smart car hitting
           massive object" vs. "Civic hitting massive object", yes Smart car
           will do better.  Likewise, if the comparison is "Smart car hitting
           Crown Victoria" vs. "Civic hitting Crown Victoria", again Smart car
           will do better.  However, in the latter case the Crown Victoria will
           survive better than both the Smart car and the Civic because of it
           mass.  So, in which of the three cars do you want to be during a
           head-on collision with another car?
           \_ Mass translates into kinetic energy.  I think the premise that
              a vehicle with higher kinetic energy is more likely to be
              safe in a collision is unfounded.   -tom
              \_ KE needs to be considered with P
                 \_ Yes, I'm sure it will be comforting when your large car
                    decides to do work on your skull.  -tom
                    \_ In a head-on, which would you rather be in:
                       Locomotive vs. 18 wheeler:
                       18 Wheeler vs. Hummer:
                       Hummer vs Civic:
                       Civic vs. RIDE BIKE!:
                       RIDE BIKE! vs sneakers:
                       Locomotive vs sneakers:
                       Taking all of 2 seconds to think about this should make
                       it clear that mass of the vehicle will keep the person
                       in the larger vehicle safer overall than the person in
                       the smaller vehicle.  Obviously not being in a wreck at
                       all is best case but we can't always avoid a collision.
                       \_ The head-on collision without any angular vectors
                          is simply not very common.  In the real world, lots
                          of different kinds of fatal accidents happen,
                          and most of them are not head-on, and those
                          that are classified as head-on are mostly not
                          pure-headon-inelastic-collision.  Heck, the Smart
                          car may wind up becoming a ramp for your Crown
                          Victoria.    -tom
                          \_ Uhm, so what?  Take any angle you want.  Which
                             transport would you rather be in in any of the
                             above situations?
                             \_ There are plenty of accidents where it is
                                better to be in a smaller car.  That's why
                                big cars have just as many fatalities.  -tom
                                \_ DUCK!  "I can name that accident in 3
                                   collisions!"  "Tom, name that accident!"
                        \_ This is not always true.  Many big boaty cars of
                           1970s and 1980s were very unsafe because they did
                           not have collapsing steering columns.  In an
                           accident
                           not have collapsing steering column.  In an accident
                           the steering column would pretty much squash your
                           chest and/or head.  If the hummer had a steering
                           column like that, I'd take my chances in the civic.
                           \_ This isn't the 1970s and 1980s.  How many of
                              those cars are still on the road?
                           \_ Then you'll like the massive locomotive, which
                              does not have a steering column.
                           \_ Then you'll like a locomotive, which does not
                              have a steering column.
                              \_ Unless it's diesel or steam, in which case
                                 you'll probably be smooshed in 50 million
                                 pounds of steel AND doused with hot burning
                                 shit, or electric, which will tangle you up
                                 in high tension wires!  -John
                                 \_ More likely the little car would get
                                    smashed aside with everyone killed by the
                                    loco's cow fender on the front.  A bad day
                                    for the loco engineer but he's going home
                                    to his family.  The civic passengers are
                                    dead at any reasonable rate of speed.
                                    \_ Ah, but a gigantic blob of gore may
                                       fly in a spectacular arc towards the
                                       driver's cabin of the locomotive and
                                       spatter the driver with bits of bone
                                       and brain, thereby inflicting traumatic
                                       dry cleaning bills.  -John
                                       \_ Yeah, that counts as a bad day for
                                          the engineer, but the dry cleaning
                                          bills should be picked up by the
                                          company if he was wearing the
                                          company uniform.  Or maybe the gore
                                          will just splatter across the
                                          wind shield.  Wind shield fluid is
                                          pretty cheap.
                                          \_ What if it hits him in the eye,
                                             and it just happens to be a bit
                                             of stomach lining, and the prior
                                             owner just had a really spicy
                                             Mexican meal?  -John
                       \_ That might work if you are in a demolition derby but
                          in the real world that KE is often gonna end up
                          smashing into some largish inanimate object before
                          too long. Or a pileup of other cars. At which
                          point the safety engineering becomes more important
                          than the mass. What percentage of crashes are head
                          on collisions where the cars don't deflect off in
                          some way? I bet it's not that high.
                          \_ What percentage of non-headons result in death or
                             life long injury?  Headons and side impacts to
                             where someone is sitting are the 2 killers.
                             Getting rear ended at most speeds means you get
                             some painful soft tissue damage and some cash.
                             My 4 door sedan with steel bars in the side
                             panels bounced an SUV coming in at a 45` angle at
                             about 20-25 mph.  They bought me a new door.  No
                             biggie.  My civic would have been totalled.  (Yes,
                             I owned a civic too).  I rear ended another large
                             vehicle (sigh) at about 15 with the sedan.  We
                             both drove home with minimal damage.  The civic
                             got caught in a 4 car (car #3) and pretzeled at
                             about 25mph and the driver (not me) was injured.
                             Maybe my experience runs counter to the odds but
                             I don't think so.  I'll stick with my big
                             vehicles for safety, thanks.
                             \_ How old was the Civic? The door strength I
                                think isn't necessarily tied to the overall
                                vehicle mass. Maybe that Civic just wasn't
                                very safe regardless. A lot of older small
                                cars were, that didn't necessarily have to
                                be (probably goes along with small cars
                                generally also being cheap cars). Shrug.
                                \_ Civic was 2000.  True that putting steel
                                   bars inside a puff box only means the
                                   passengers get steel bars in their chests.
                                   The rest of the car has to be big enough
                                   and structurally sound enough to take that
                                   hit and spread the force without smashing
                                   a passenger.  All else being equal, the
                                   bigger vehicle is going to take a hit better
                                   than a smaller one.  Get Thee To Ye Ol'
                                   Locomotive, Sir!
        \_ Hmm, why did the narrator in this British video use mph instead of
           km/h?  --- yuen
           \_ Um, perhaps the narrator is British, but the video is not?
              \_ But the license plate of the Smart car is UK format.  Okay
                 maybe it's a British narrator reporting a UK crash test on an
                 American channel.  I don't remember which other countries
                 still use the imperial system and have English TV.  --- yuen
                 \_ The Brits use a mix of imperial and metric units. Speeds,
                    at least automotive speeds, are generally given in units
                    of mph. -gm
                    \_ Um, freeway signs are metric in UK.  Are you talking
                       racing world?  Or are you talking out of your ass?
                       \_ I admit I haven't been to the UK in a few years,
                          but speed limit signs, at least, were definitely in
                          mph; I think distance signs were as well, but I don't
                          recall exactly. The UK Metric Association agrees:
                          http://metric.org.uk/Campaign/mess.htm
                          If you have a more definitive souce, I'd be happy
                          to see it. -gm
                          \_ Whoa, I'm smoking the crack.. Sorry.
                             Now I'm wondering where I went...
                        \_ Brits talk in miles quite often.  Officially they
                           use km on road signs.  -John
        \_ Another point that always gets left out of the Mass vs. Safety debate
           is the maneuverability of the smaller car.  If only 3/4 of potential
           accidents are realized in a more maneuverable vehicle, that's a
           pretty big safety win.  SUV == passive safety.
           \_ There's no way a smaller car is going to be able to avoid 25%
              of their wrecks.  Most wrecks either come out of nowhere or
              you have no place to escape to.  And frankly, most people don't
              know how to drive their car anyway and couldn't avoid a wreck
              under optimal conditions.  We call those "fender benders" and
              they're incredibly common.
              \_ Or worse, some drivers try to maneuver their cars to avoid a
                 wreck when they shouldn't (e.g. speed too high, no room on the
                 side), and end up with a bigger wreck like rollover or head-on
                 100+mph collision with opposite traffic, killing others with
                 their stupidity.
                 \_ and let us note, bigger cars are more likely to roll...
                    \_ Huh?  A Sienna is less likely to roll than a 2-dr RAV4.
                       I've driven both, although not actually encoutering any
                       near-rollover conditions.
                       I've driven both, and the Sienna rolls less during fast
                       turns.  I've not actually encoutered any near-rollover
                       situations though.
                       \_ No facts please.
        \_ URL to mroe info on smart car?

2/7     Interesting article on the genral affects of literacy
        and globalisation on faith, with particular emphisis on Muslim
        countries.
        http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/HB07Ak02.html
        \_ My mom once said humor is a sign of knowledge and intelligence.
           If that were true, the Muslims must be dumb.
        \_ 1) effects, not affects
           2) This is a correlation study.  The word "effect" doesn't appear.
           \_ and "general".  Also, "globalization" in the U.S. is spelled
              with a z.

2/7     Dear Alumni, the current politburo is thinking about having an alumni
        event. We were thinking of having an event here in Berkeley in a couple
        of months (perhaps near the end of the semester). Here are some options
        we would like you guys to vote on:
        * Resturant or Soda-BBQ
        * Weekend Evening or Weekday Evening?
        * How far in advance?
        Thanks all
        -lin / CSUA Alumni relations
        \_ ack, this is too much pressure! What is it you want from
           us alumni? Money? Attention? Job? Companion? Love? Well
           we can't offer the last one but I can give you an advice.
           If you don't have a mate and graduating soon, GET ONE.
           Real life in Silicon Valley is lonely and depressing and
           unfulfilling. You spend weekdays and weeknights with other lonely
           geeks like yourself, debugging someone else's code 24x7.
           I guess this is alright if you're gay. But if you're not,
           understand that most of the women in Silicon Valley are
           married, and those that aren't are either old, ugly, or both,
           and still in high demand. Get mate while you're still in college
           or forever be doomed to bitching on motd as your only source of
           sexual relief                -pathetic alum, really miss college
           \_ Actually I really miss multi-day hack sessions, sexual
           \_ Actually I really miss multiple day hack sessions, sexual
              frustration, and lonely geekdom.
           \_ I agree, if I hadn't gotten married right out of college, I
              don't know how I would've met anyone around here. -happy mar.
           \_ I met a sexy young caucasian girl who works for a pharmie as a
              s/w engineer who is single. So it can happen.
              \_ Are you serious? It is my impression that most of the sodans
                 have Asian fetish. You are not a real Sodan.
                 \_ Err, most != all
        \_ I won't speak for all alums, but I imagine weeknights are
           bad for everyone what with work/wife/kids. They are probably
           also bad for students what with school and/or work. Make it
           a Friday or Saturday.
        \_ Soda-BBQ seems much better in terms of miixing and such.
        \_ Soda-BBQ works better for me. Make is on the weekend before
           a Cal game and I will show up for sure! -ausman
        \_ Soda-BBQ + weekend for me.  --dbushong
        \_ Soda-BBQ + weekend works for me. -dans
           \_ P.S. Two weeks lead time would be great.  My February is
              already completely booked.
        \_ Soda-BBQ + weekend is the most likely for me.  It would be fun
           to meet some of the people that I've been ridiculing on MOTD for
           years so I can ridicule them in person.  You going to be there
           John?...I could sure use a good yodel to perk me up.       -mice
           \_ Olay deedle fucking dee.  -John
        \_ Soda-BBQ + weekend for me, too.
           You know, back in my day, we didn't have BBQ's.  Or sodas.  Or
           weekends.  We had treebark.  And we liked it.  We loved it.
           -geordan
           \_ *pshaw*  In my day, we didn't even have trees.  We just had
              roots.   When we got hungry we had to gnaw on the bare,
              uncooked roots in the sun (since we didn't have trees for shade).
              Kids these days....              -mice
           \_ I needed a new heel for my shoe, so I decided to go to
              Morganville, which is what they called Shelbyville in those
              days. So I tied an onion to my belt, which was the style at
              the time. Now, to take the ferry cost a nickel, and in
              those days, nickels had pictures of bumblebees on
              'em. 'Give me five bees for a quarter,' you'd say. Now
              where were we? Oh yeah - the important thing was I had an
              onion on my belt, which was the style at the time. They
              didn't have white onions because of the war. The only thing
              you could get was those big yellow ones...

2/7     Faces of meth
        link:csua.org/u/exb
        \_ I didn't know meth made your face get scabs. Anyway the guy on the
           lower left looks exactly the same except longer hair. Haha.
           \_ The scabs are from falling down and walking into things.
              \_ no the scabs are from the fact taking speed all the time
                 makes you jumpy and nervous so you pick at your face a lot
                 \_ No, the wounds are because of the nasty chemicals in meth
                    escaping through your skin.  It also decalcifies your
                    \_ Uh, do you have a link for this?  This sounds like urban
                       legend bullshit.
                    bones.
                    \_ While I can't speak to chemicals escaping through your
                       skin and decalcifying bones, meth users I've known do
                       tend to break out quite a bit when they are on a
                       bender.  This may be caused by the chemicals once
                       consumed, or it may be caused from exposure to fumes,
                       which are corrosive, when smoking meth. -dans
        \_ Is there a difference between meth and speed, either in the drug
           itself or in the way it is intaked? What about crystal eth?
           \_ No, meth, speed, crystal, and crystal meth are all just
              different slang names for methamphetamine.  Meth can be taken in
              by insulfating (snorting), smoking, or injecting. -dans
              \_ Hmm, I was under the impression that crystal meth isn't
                 quite synonymous with meth -- a different form or a slight
                 variation on the chemical compound or something about purity.
              \_ Boy, dans sure does know a lot about meth!
                 \_ there's this new fangled thingy called 'the web'.  It
                    sometimes has lots of information on these other new
                    inventions called 'web pages'.
                 \_ Your bar for knowing a lot is pretty low.  Everything
                    stated above could be learned from any of:
                    - paying attention in your high school drug scare
                      education class
                    - obGoogle
                    - reading any of the materials published by the City of
                      San Francisco to combat the considerable abuse problem
                      that exists in SF
                    - knowing someone who habitually uses or has used meth
                    I enjoy learning about most subjects.  That doesn't change
                    because a subject might be taboo, dangerous, or looked
                    down on by society.  And I haven't even mentioned PnP.
                    Troll Harder. -dans
                    \_ http://www.erowid.org/chemicals/meth/meth.shtml

2/7     http://news.yahoo.com/s/zd/20060206/tc_zd/170810
        Want to buy several vacation penthouses in Santiago Chile? Be an
        SAP Functional Consultant.
        \_ SAP, Functional?  That's funny.
        \_ I lived in Santiago for nearly 2 years, and while I really liked the
           people, you'd be hard pressed to pay me enough to move there.  For
           one thing, the smog makes LA look like a small town. -emarkp
           \_ It's not that bad right now, but whenever you ask people what's
              good to do in winter, they say "leave"...ugh.  -John

2/7     http://news.yahoo.com/s/usatoday/20060207/cm_usatoday/corettascottkingbushforeverlinkedbysymbolism
        Bush and King linked forever. Forget Katrina,
        Bush DOES care about the blacks.
        \_ You're either being incomprehensibly sarcastic or amazingly tonedeaf
           \_ c'mon, op is just trolling, that's all there is to it.
              anyway, the column title is "Coretta Scott King, Bush forever
              linked by symbolism", and he writes, "And while others might not
              want to give the president credit for this gesture, I will,
              because I believe there are times when the symbolism of a
              person's actions ought to be taken seriously."  His previous
              column was http://tinyurl.com/8jzsz which was kind of stupid.
        \_ Is it so fucking hard to link back to the original USAToday
           article instead of pretending that it actually comes from Yahoo
           News?
           \_ He probably just read it on yahoo, but I would suggest that
              it should be common courtesy to mention which site the
              tinyurl link points to.

2/7     I have a little multi-threaded server I'm writing, and I log at
        the start of each call and at the end of each call.  I log by
        having a global lock file, lock, write, flush, unlock.  This
        seems like a bottleneck, is there a better way to log from a
        multi-threaded server? Perhaps something like syslogd where I
        could send messages to another process that would log for me?
        (This would avoid the flush because it could keep running even if
        the server crashes)  Order in the log is not terribly important,
        since a quick run through sort on the date will order that for me.
        \_ What about a separate thread to manage the log? Put the msgs
           in a shared queue, and have the logging thread write out the
           messages later on.
           \_ Not a bad idea, but if the server crashes I won't get the
              messages just before the crash.
              \_ There isn't really a way to avoid this problem in a
                 threaded app, except to move logging into a separate
                 process, such as syslog. If you are going to use
                 syslog(3), then you probably should openlog(3) prior
                 to starting your threads.
        \_ How about each thread keeps its own log file, as well as writing
           into a shared buffer which is flushed periodically to the common
           log.  That way in normal operation you have just one log to look
           at, but when the server does down, you can examine the per-thread
           logs.  In normal operation, other threads will not have to wait
           while one thread flushes its own log.
        \_ I don't think there is a problem with just using write(2), it is
           atomic and writes to buffer cache so a crash of the process won't
           be a problem.  With some applications, mmap(2) is better, but
           depends on what you are doing.  --jwm
           \_ Note that write(2) is only atomic if nbytes is less than
              PIPE_BUF (which is at least 512 according to POSIX). That
              said, if you know your log messages will be reasonably short,
              this is the way I'd go. -gm
              \_ I was assuming he wanted to write a file, and in that case
                 I suspect that the atomicity extends at least to the page
                 size, though I may be wrong.  --jwm
              PIPE_BUF (which is at least 512 according to POSIX). You
              can also get short writes, even if nbytes is less than 512,
              if you're writing to a pipe or other space-limited fd. -gm
           \_ Really?  I didn't know that.  Related, why is it called
              write(2) rather than just write()?
              \_ That represents that it's in section 2 of the man pages which
                 is the system call section. "man write" shows you the page
                 for the write utility to send messages to someone's tty.
                 "man 2 write" gets you the write system call.
                 \_ On Slowlaris: man -s 2 write
                    \_ Unix needs it's own diversity day.
              \_ Stop geeking and find a hot gf during undergrad before it's
                 too late!
           \_ I'll add to my previous comment some speculation. If you're
              using stdio or iostreams, I suspect your flush is not syncing to
              disk, but merely calling write(2) to flush it's internal buffer.
              To test this you could use ktrace to see the calls it is making.
              Of course you will still may need a lock to protect the library
              you are using as I suspect these are not threads safe.  And if
              you don't like locks, you could use sprintf() and write(2) with
              no locks. --jwm
              \_ Tried using sprintf and write(2) with no locks, and it
                 doesn't quite work.  The log file is a bit messed up.  It
                 appears that concurrent calls to write can screw things
                 up.  (Not threadsafe)  But, it seems like in that case
                 the lock shouldn't be costing as much as I had supposed
                 anyway, since the write is just being buffered somewhere.
         \_ Having every thread in your application serially accessing
            a piece of code that does I/O is a really bad thing, you
            really don't want to do this.  Grabbing a lock and
            sticking data on some list that another thread comes and
            consumes will be a lot faster (just makes sure that other
            thread doesn't hold the lock while writing the data, then
            you've lost everything you gained in the first place.)  As
            for needing to get everything logged in case your
            application crashes, you are never going to get that
            anyway.  If you have 10 threads waiting to grab the lock
            and the server crashes those 10 logging statements will be
            lost no matter what.
            How often you log should influence your choices here, are
            we talking tons of debugging logging or just 1 or two
            lines a second?  If a lot of logging keep in mind that
            things like gettimeofday are syscalls and those are more
            expensive. Is it really that important that you get the
            date of the log statement exactly right?  Can you get the
            time before or after you get the lock?  If you really need
            to order your logs, maybe just use a long that you
            increment per statement?
            Getting a lock is done entirely in user space (and
            normally in just a few asm instructions AS LONG AS THERE
            IS NO QUEUE FOR THE LOCK.  Locks get a lot more expensive
            to use (by orders of magnitude) when any blocking has to
            occur.  If you are worried that a lot of threads are going
            to be blocking at a time keep the critical section as
            small as possible, it really helps.
            Finally, while logging can be more complex than it looks
            at first, it is also a pretty solved problem.  There are
            tons of free logging libraries out there that do all this,
            do it well, and do it fast.  It might be worth your while
            to just use existing code.
            \_ Interesting. Thanks.  What could I search for to find some
               of these logging libraries?  I didn't have much luck last
               time I tried.  (The critical section was already tiny, just
               the write and the flush.  The string is all built outside
               the critical section.) -op
               \_ You do understand that I/O is THE most expensive thing
                  you can do don't you?  Just because it is only 2 lines
                  of C code doesn't mean the critical section is fast.