2/24    Has anyone ever used a nonblocking sendile with the glib Main
        Event Loop?  Both the file and the socket are set to O_NONBLOCK,
        but we can't figure out how to get a watch to watch both file
        descriptors.

2/24    The Daily Californian Comedy Fest
        http://comedyfest.dailycal.org
        http://www.berkeley.edu/news/media/releases/2006/02/24_dailycal.shtml

2/24    Ohio lawmaker to propose ban on GOP adoption
        http://www.bradenton.com/mld/bradenton/news/nation/13945272.htm

2/24    Another case of rich fat cats raping your average Americans.
        Unregulated free market capitalism at its best!:
        http://tinyurl.com/zo2qq (buyout firms raping hardworking
        americans)
        \_ You know, it's really old news when Hollywood has made films about
           it 10 years ago.
           \_ I applaud Forbes magazine for standing up to their corporate
              masters.  I think the WSJ news section had a similar article
              a few weeks ago.  There was probably an accompanying rant
              in the WSJ editorial page about the poor oppressed
              private equity firm.  Anyway it's just another reason
              I welcome our new financial robotic overlords.
           \_ Hey smartass, this is a new and bigger wave.
           \_ Don't be an idiot. This is a new and bigger wave.
              And the guys in the 80s don't gut the companies they
              acquire, put all the money in their pockets, and let
              the companies go backrupt, screwing the employess and
              stealing from the creditors.  This is outright
              thievery.  Articles condemning it must be widely
              read, and until the problem is fixed, we must continue
              to pursue it and not let the crooks get away with it,
              just like we don't let crooks like Ken Lay, Jeff Skilling
              and Bernard Ebbers get away.  Are you related to one of
              these crooks yourself?
              the companies go backrupt.
              \_ Ken Lay et al were found through the judicial process to
                 have broken laws.  If these buy out firms have acted
                 illegally, then by all means they should be prosecuted.
                 So has any of these firms been charged for their misdeeds?
              \_ Dividend recap schemes are pretty old news too.  Here's
                 a BofA article about it http://csua.org/u/f3b from a
                 couple years ago.
                 \_ June 2004?  that's relatively recent.
                 \_ June 2004?  that's relatively recent. But what has
                    dividend recap got to do with the discussion above?

2/24    Only their bumper stickers remain, like cockroaches after a
        nuclear holocaust.
        http://csua.org/u/f3a (BBC)
        \_ Hi! I'm a lazy English journalist who doesn't know shit about America
           but wants to keep getting paid to tell whacky stories about whacky
           Americans!  There are a lot of important things that could be said
           by a real journalist about how fucked the Democratic party is right
           now, but this ain't it.  Thanks for wasting my time.
           \_ Anytime, humorless motd guy!
        \_ Hey, jblack, I found a great new site for white people like you
           and me: http://www.natall.com
           \_ Hey, idiot, the above was not posted by jblack.
              \_ That's right, it's posted by our other conservative
                 friend, jrleek the good Mormon.

2/25    Looking for a commandline Unix/Mac util to convert Real Media (RM)
        video to .mov (first choice), .mpeg (second), or .avi (third).
        I would like to watch a series of MIT Physics lectures on my DVD
        player rather than on my computer. Lectures here:
        http://ocw.mit.edu/index.html (Click on Physics, then Fall '99, Lewin)
        You've been good to me in the past, motd. TIA. --erikred
            \- Why dont you just read KLEPPNER&KOLENKOW and APFRENCH?
               \_ Because Lewin's lecture style is similar to Alex Filippenko's
        \_ Given that your ultimate goal is to put it on a DVD, it's strange
           that .mov is your first choice and not MPEG2. (Or do people really
           store MPEG2 video in QuickTime containers?)
           \_ I'm working on a Mac, and I know I can create DVDs from .mov
              files using Toast (which I have). But I'm open to suggestions.
              \_ But it'll probably reencode it, which you don't want.
                 I think ffmpeg will read RM and will certainly output MPEG2.
                 If not, check mencoder.  I know ffmpeg has an OS X GUI
                 frontend called something like ffmpegX  --dbushong
              \_ It looks like ffmpegX can do exactly what you want, but
                 you have to install a separate real media library:
                 http://homepage.mac.com/major4/download.html
                 Scroll down to the optional install part.
                 \_ ffmpegx does indeed promise to do precisely what I'm
                    looking for, though I'm having some difficulties getting
                    it to behave. There's a non-GUI version as well (called
                    ffmpeg) available from SourceForge, but it complained
                    mightily when I tried to make it. Thank you all for your
                    suggestions. --erikred
                    \_ Eureka! Problem solved and video's encoding now. For
                       those who want to do the same thing: Go to the http://mac.com
                       URL above and download the program. Instead of going to
                       Helix, however, download the stable build of the reallib
                       files. Run ffmpegx to create the Library folders in your
                       root tree, then quit, copy the reallib folder into the
                       ffmpegx Library folder, chown everything to root:admin,
                       and away you go. Thank you all for your help. --erikred
                    \_ Re ffmpeg: Try building it using darwinports, that
                       worked perfectly for me.
        \_ I am *VERY* curious on how you do this thing.  Unix doesn't have
           unified codec architecture, no?  This kind of thing is the reason
           why I am still use Windows today.  I do similar things, converting
           lectures from Real Media to .avi file so I can watch it on my
           Treo 650, using free softwares (Real7ime, xvid/PCM ).
helo

2/25    http://www.theonion.com/content/node/32829
        Bush To Iraqi Militants: "Please Stop Bringing It On"
        \_ you're only 22 months late with that link