5/4     Should pennies be taken out of circulation? Pros/cons?
        \_ Absolutely.  They're a nuisance.  Further, dollar bills should
           be taken out and replaced with dollar coins.  Dollar bills are
           very inefficient currency:  it costs a lot of money to print them
           and replace them since they wear out so fast.  Coins last 20+
           years.
        \_ Who cares?
        \_ I think all coins should be replaced with paper money of equal
           denominations. Why? Bills are easier to carry in a typical wallet.
           Most wallets sold these days don't seem to have a compartment for
           coins. Those that do have it usually get torn down eventually with
           the metal coins. Besides, paper money is cheaper to print.
           coins. Those that do have it usually get torn down eventually due
           to friction. Besides, paper money is cheaper to print.
           \_ The coin lobby comes from the vending machine industry.
              They're the ones that pushed for the dollar coin.
           \_ Replace it by living-torg.  -John
        \_ I think the correct answer is non-physical money.  We're at the
           point where the cost to build out the infrastructure is less
           than the cost of counting coins.
           \_ There are too many arguments against exclusively electronic
              currency to count.  Privacy concerns aside, your argument
              assumes universal good infrastructure and similar price and
              profit levels for all businesses, disregards the need for
              failsafe mechanisms (power outages?) and doesn't consider that
              currency isn't just used in its country of origin.  -John
        \_ Yes.  Seriously, 1 cent?  Zimbabwe doesn't even bother to make
           anything smaller than their $500 bill!
           http://www.iht.com/articles/2006/05/02/africa/zimbabwe.php
        \_ We should re-value the currency. Well, issue new currency
           that is worth 10 times the old. So newDollar = $10old, and
           newDime = $1old. This would be too expensive. But it would be
           nice. We could go back to 10 cent hamburgers, and a decent
           car would cost $2000. The American people would be psychologically
           rejuvenized! And the economy would get a kick in the pants from
           extra spending. This plan is the best. But sadly it will never
           be followed.

5/4     Can the money spent on taking community college or UC extension
        courses be deducted from my taxable income if they weren't part
        of any degree program?
        \_ No. I was in this same situation (taking some language
           classes in the morning before work just for the sake of
           learning) and I remember TurboTax saying it was only
           deductible if going for a degree. -bz
           \_ I see no reference to this requirement:
              http://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-pdf/p970.pdf

5/4     Bored:  http://www.okcupid.com/tests/take?testid=10261089081449493081
        Grammar/spelling test.  I think there's one wrong on this but I can't
        figure out which it is.  Anyone?  It's driving me nuts.  -John
        \- caveat browser: they ask a bunch of personal questions before
           giving you the results. the test claims i missed one too and
           i am pretty sure i didnt. this is not a good test. if you dont
           know the answers to a fair number of these you are simply an
           idiot. it would be like giving a geography test and asking
           "what countries are the following cities in: london, paris,
           berlin, ouagadougou." the distrubution will not have good
           distribution properties. i think the only goo question was the
           desserts/desert one. the economist grammar or usage test is a
           pretty good one. like what is the difference between "i read
           the article on google in the last/latest issue of the e'ist."
           ok tnx. --psb
           berlin, ouagadougou." the results will not have good
           distribution properties. the only thing it answers is "are you a
           moron, are you a regular person, or are you one of the few
           people who know where ouagadougou is". i think the only good
           question was the desserts/desert one. the economist grammar
           or usage test is a pretty good one. e.g. what is the
           difference between "i read the article on google in the
           last/latest issue of the e'ist."  ok tnx. --psb
           \_ You don't actually have to fill in the personal info.  Just
              click the Next button and leave that stuff blank.
           \_ Yeah, ditto here--I am positive I got 30/30, went over it very
              carefully and cannot find the one that's causing 29/30.  It's
              not a good test in any case (and for the data farming, use
              mailinator) but I just want to know whether one of the answers
              is wrong or whether it's a scoring glitch (or intentional, as
              it _is_ a dating site.)  -John
              \- oh i didnt know what kind of "cite" it was. i just entered
                 some random info and was wondering why they wanted all that.
                 i think the error mighyt be with the brit spelling of
                 caret. or maybe he got the dessert/desert one wrong.
                 karat/caret. or maybe he got the dessert/desert one wrong.
                 anybody who believes some of those questions are reasonable
                 seems suspect. if you judge people by the company they keep
                 do you know anybody who would get less than 25 on that test?
                 do you know anybody who would get less than 20 on that test?
                 (excusing non-native speakers ... it might be a decent ESL
                 test). presumably he does.
                 general observation: i think you can quite easily tell
                 petty grammarians from people with really good and deep
                 understanding of language. the good people come up
                 with good examples of why agreement to subject/object
                 or other subtle distinctions are important ["john has more
                 friends than me/i"]. while they lamers just relish in
                 berating people. this is a good example of what i mean:
                 http://www.newyorker.com/printables/critics/040628crbo_books1
                 i also remember talking to a woman who i think was ABD in
                 english and was harshing on the poor writing of attornies
                 at the law firm where her job was to edit these letters.
                 at the law firm where her job was to edit their writing.
                 she seems to have trouble following "lack of care" !=
                 "lack of knowledge". i.e. it probably made economic sense
                 not ot have +$300/hr attorney's running spell check and
                 it was better to pay an unemployed english MA 1/8th the
                 salary to make those kinds of corrections.
                 \_ It's not the carat/karat thing and I don't have the
                    patience to go through every conceivable permutation, I'm
                    more curious about whether, this being a dating site/cite,
                    the script purposely auto-deducts a point from every 30/30,
                    whether it does so from all scores, if it's just a flaw,
                    whatever.  Idle curiosity is all.  -John
<<<<<<< Other Changes Below
                    \_ <summary: mice is stupid>
                                \_ I thought "desserts" was colloquially
                                   accepted?  I used mice's ("dessert") and
                                   got 29.  Care to write down your answers
                                   somewhere?  -John
                                   \_ see above summary...mice != 30/30.
                                      \_ Ah, the you answered 30/30 questions
                                         thing?  -John
                                         \_ Heh, yeahhh.  Lack of sleep,
                                            too many drugs, recovering from
                                            brain surgery, distracted by
                                            french foreign exchange student
                                            roommate, etc.....
                    \_ I managed to walk away with 30/30.     -mice
                       \- what did you put for dessert/desert?
                          \_ dessert.  *shrug*             -mice
                             \- that is wrong. as i imagined the author of
                                the quiz is leem. desert doenst just mean
                                a hot and sandy place but also from the
                                same root as "deserve". 29 > 30. --psb
                                \_ Huh, that's interesting.  Colloquial usage
                                   doesn't seem to be in agreement with this,
                                   but I suppose that's the sort of conflict
                                   inherent in a living, evolving language.
                                   I'll have to keep that in mind.  Thanks,
                                   psb!                 -mice
                                \_ Actually, I think both options (as
                                   they're presented) are wrong.   -mice
=======
                    \_ Whoever overwrote mice's posts, fuck you.  It was
                       interesting.  -John
>>>>>>> Your Changes Above
           \_ I got 29/30 but then I now noticed that #24 is talking about
              oxen. I didn't really read it before and chose the wrong one.
              The one with "voila" seems arguable though.
              \_ What did you think #24 was talking about?  And what's
                 arguable about "voila"?  Lack of diacritics?
                 \_ I thought it was a simple spelling question or something.
                    (dealing with eggs) I dunno I was racing through it.
                    And yeah the diacritic.
        \_ Okay, I managed to get 30/30.  As for "just desserts":
           http://www.snopes.com/language/notthink/deserts.htm
           Do you want me to post my answers?

5/4     Hey, any idea how Soda was compromised?  Was it USB keylogger from
        internal machines?  Most likely not from traffic sniffing right?
        \_ V FOR VENDETTA!
           \_ lol, wtf

5/4     http://www.nantes.fr/ext/royal_de_luxe_2005
        this is one of the most amazing things I've ever seen.  giant puppet
        elephants make me want to fly to London as soon as possible.
        \_ Huh? I don't see any elephant.
           \_ next page
        \_ Paris.  Muppet.  -John
        \_ I am somehow put in mind of H.G. Wells.

5/4     Ok I need to make a hosting choice soon because my current co-op
        colo is falling apart like http://autobahn.org in the old days. I can
        go with http://dreamhost.com, http://textdrive.com, or http://johncompanies.com [from
        which dans heard good things about]. I really like johncompanies'
        virtual machines because you get root, but it is a whopping
        $47/month!!! http://dreamhost.com is dirt cheap, but you share
        resources and it's probably just as secure as soda (which is
        not very). I haven't heard anything about http://textdrive.com.
        What do you guys use and recommend? Thanks.
        \_ i have a bunch of stuff hosted with dreamhost and have been
           very happy with them. i was referred by another sodan. alot
           of guys at gamespy use dreamhost as well and love it. -shac
           \_ How much quota, IP/hosts, do you get, and how much do you pay?
              \_ i pay annually. so i paid $120 for 1 year starting at 20GB
                 disk, 1TB monthly transfer. each month they increase both
                 of these numbers for you so im probably at like 22GB and
                 whatever monthly transfer. the longer you are a customer
                 the larger your quotas are. see their pricing comparison.
                 http://www.dreamhost.com/shared/comparison.html
                 -shac
        \_ which coop is dieing?  how much do you use now?
        \_ i've heard good things about simpli.biz
        \_ JohnCompanies kicks ass.  You send mail and.. John mails you back
           in like 2 minutes.  None of the trouble-ticket-queue bullshit.  On
           the flipside, yeah, they're (relatively) pricey and you have to do
           all the admin themselves, and if John dies in a carcrash, I'm not
                                            \- that is the scenario i call
                                               BUS TERMINATED. --psb
           sure how much human failover they have.  --dbushong
           \_ HA that's pretty funny. But how do you know johncompany is
              run by 1 man, and if other companies aren't in the same
              situation?
              \_ I don't, but if you go with <insert random huge company>
                 it's unlikely.
        \_ Oh, if you are doing anything art or community oriented, consider
           Laughing Squid. -dans

5/4     Lucasfilm to release original, unaltered Star Wars DVDs
        http://csua.org/u/fpk (Reuters)
        \_ ObHanShootsFirst
        \_ Can you say "New Coke"?
        \_ Got them already from Bittorrents. Lucas missed the boat.
           \_ What's the source material for the torrents?
              The best format it ever came out on was LD...
              \_ LD. I wonder how many Star Wars nuts actually bought
                 all the different editions of the same damn movies.
        \_ Lucas is an !@#$.

5/4     China's unsavory friends
        http://csua.org/u/fpj
        and a cartoon on the same
        http://www.filibustercartoons.com/archive.php?id=20060503
        \_ Replace Mao with Uncle Sam, and Sudan oil with Iraq oil:
           "Why hasn't the U.S. done anything to help Darfur?"
           \_ think Rwanda... then, you see some consistency.  I think the
              only reason why US talked about Darfur is because US want to
              pick fight with Arabs anyway they can.
              \_ nah, the only reason why US talked about Darfur is because
                 talk == cheap
           \_ I'm sorry you didn't read the article.
              \_ I'm sorry the comic didn't summarize the article.
                 \_ You expected to get complete and fair treatment from a
                    one-panel cartoon?  I guess that explains a lot about
                    your opinions.  BTW, the cartoonist is Canadian.
        \_ a friendly reminder.  Saudi Arabia still chop people's hands off
           and gauge people's eyes out.  I wouldn't consider Saudi any
           better than Uzbekistan.  *FURTHER*, you may or may not remember
           Uzbekistan was US's friend in the war on Terror.
                \_ Not to mention publically beheading adulterers and gays.
                   The USA has 0 credibility on these matters as long as
                   Bush is holding hands/french kissing King Abdullah.
        \_ Further, I would actually prefer China's position of respect
           UN charter on self-determination... something that imperial power
           in Europe and Americas can hardly understand.
           \_ Yeah, China's ALL ABOUT self-determination, like in Hong Kong
              and Taiwan.
              \_ Hong Kong and Taiwan part of China.   It different.  You
                 not understand, gwailo.  American treat their black
                 people bad.  -John
                 \_ Get used to it, John.  Japan lost the war and China
                    gotten Taiwan back.  And one day, China will make sure
                    Ryukyu get back their independence from Japan.
                    \_ Good please be self-determine oppressed Inuit as well
                       (Alaska historically part of Han China.)  -John
           \_ Wow, I didn't realize murdering half your population was
              covered under "self-determination."  I'm sorry, are all the
              black people in Sudan self-determining themselves to death?
              \_ hey, US supplies arms to Turkey to crack down on Kurds, no?
                 how about Spain and Basques? how about UK and Northern
                 Ireland?
                 \_ This has got to be a troll.  No one on soda is really
                    this stupid, are they?

5/4     in light of the recent compromise, how do we tell if our account
        has been broken into?  Is there a command like "last" instead tells
        when I previously logged in?
        \_ if the system's been compromized, you can't trust the logs to
           really tell you.   We do have 'last' here, for what little its
           actually worth.
        \_ last gets rotated.  'lastlog | grep `whoami`' will show you the
           last login. (should)

5/4     soda does not auto log off after inactivity now?
        \_ it didn't before.
        \_ you might have been seeing NAT timeouts before
        \_ different version of tcsh may have different defaults

5/4     Like father, like son
        http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060504/ap_on_re_us/patrick_kennedy_crash

5/4     http://www.cnn.com/2006/AUTOS/05/04/pet_peeves
        List of annoying driving habits:
        1. Distracted drivers talking on cell phones (28.5 percent)
        2. Slow drivers in the fast lane (21.6 percent)
        3. Pushy drivers who tailgate (18.1 percent)
        4. Drivers who weave through traffic to gain one or two
           car lengths (12.5 percent)
        5. Obnoxious drivers who speed up to keep you from changing
           lanes (5.5 percent)
        6. Hasty drivers who change lanes without signaling (4.9 percent)
        7. Road Rage (2.7 percent)
        8. Motorcyclists who race down the middle of a lane,
           between cars (2.1 percent)
        9. Women applying makeup and men shaving (1.7 percent)
        10. Drivers who leave their turn signal on for miles (0.92 percent)
        \_ Wow.  Distracted Drivers don't annoy me unless they interact with
           me in a dangerous fashion, at which time they frighten me.

5/4     Any comment on South Park, episode Mohammed?
        \_ Some of the most measured, reasonale criticisms of The Family Guy
           to date. Manatees explains everything.

5/4     http://money.cnn.com/2006/05/03/news/economy/realestateguide_3_fortune
        "As painful as it will be for many people, the looming correction
        may turn out to be welcome news for house-hungry Americans. Young
        couples now priced out of the market will once again be able to
        buy a ranch or colonial without forking over half their income
        for mortgage payments. Growing families will be able to trade up
        for more living space without raiding the kids' college funds."
        Thank God for the housing crash. Fuck you all existing homeowners.
                -bitter young guy who is disillusioned that wealth is
                 created by those who happened to be at the right place at
                 the right time. In another word luck plays a bigger role
                 than anything else
                 \- without arguing what has the "biggest" role,
                    in addition to luck, wealthy people have
                    more control over their fates and circumstances
                    which means 1. the can lobby to change some of
                    the rules of the game 2. the can adapt better
                    to the exiting rules of the game. take an
                    investment banker who can structure his income
                    to reduce taxes, incorporate himself etc.
                 \_ Isn't most wealth inherited?

5/4     http://money.cnn.com/2006/05/03/news/economy/realestateguide_fortune
        Swami the Magnificant predicted correctly. Spring 2006 begins
        the fall of housing.                    -Swami Stud's #1 Fan
        \_ ObAccusationOfBitterness
        \_ Can the Swami guy like, produce an Excel chart for me showing the
           mean price of a 3-bdrm standalone house in San Jose with $ on the
           y-axis and time on the x-axis through the next ~ 5 years (use error
           bars because nothing's definite).  Tnx, then I'll know exactly
           when to buy!
        \_ uh, Swami predicted Q4 2005, and prices are still going up in
           Q2 2006.  -tom
           \_ Not according to http://Zillow.com. They say that prices in SF and
              Alameda County peaked in Nov 2005.
             http://www.zillow.com/Charts.htm?chartDuration=1year&zpid=24811647
             \_ that's not seasonally adjusted, and Zillow is not any kind of
                authority, anyway.
                Update: Bay Area home prices rose by 10% in March.
                http://tinyurl.com/n6p3h (sfgate.com)  -tom
                \_ I'm not sure if the guy meant "They" meant http://zillow.com, but:
                   "... firm DataQuick. The peak price of $656,000 [considering
                   single-family homes only] came in November"
                   Here in SoCal we had a bounce from a depression around
                   Feb 06 to a new peak Apr 06, so it could happen for Bay
                   Area ...
                   Here in SoCal we had a bounce from a low spot around
                   Feb 06 to a new peak Apr 06, so it could happen for Bay Area
                   \_ month-to-month prices are not meaningful; you need to
                      compare with previous-year numbers for each month.  -tom
                      \_ What is the inflection point for the following series
                         of prices? To me it is Nov 2005. For you it is
                         Apr 2006, I guess. -ausman
                        Apr 2005 $100
                        May 2005 $100
                        June 2005 $100
                        July 2005 $101
                        Aug 2005 $102
                        Sep 2005 $103
                        Oct 2005 $104
                        Nov 2005 $105
                        Dec 2005 $104
                        Jan 2006 $103
                        Feb 2006 $102
                        Mar 2006 $101
                        Apr 2006 $100
                        May 2006 $99
                        \_ You can't look at prices in isolation.  Houses
                           are known to have seasonal variation in price;
                           houses purchased in January are, all else being
                           equal, less expensive than houses purchased in
                           May.  -tom

5/4     Anyone know where to watch Pride Final Conflict in the Bay Area?
        \_ 920 Keeler Avenue, Berkeley, CA 94720. Call 510-527-2588
           for more information.
          \_ I have a friend who used to live in that house.  Weird.

5/4     How come motorcycle tires tend to have smaller tires on the front
        whereas bicycle tires have symmetrical sizes?
        \_ I can't answer for motorcycles, but for bikes, it's for simplicity
           in spare parts, and the performance differences of differently-sized
           wheels are not very great.  Some bikes for small women have a
           smaller front wheel, to allow for a shorter top tube with
           sufficient foot clearance, and some downhill mountain bikes
           have a 26" front wheel and 24" rear to push the center of gravity
           backwards.  -tom
        \_ consider that motorcycles tend to be rear wheel drive vehicles.
           granted, so are bicycles, but I don't know of many riders who
           can output as much HP/torque on bike as a motorcycle engine.
           Also, do you mean larger diameter or wider tires?

5/4     http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/iraq          The Bush
        administration steps up efforts to make terrorists look inept.
        \_ the Dick Cheney of Al Qaeda..?

5/4     Don't buy diamond shaped paper shredders. The blades get wrapped
        easily and break down fast. My expensive Ativa diamond shaped
        shredder that I bought for $69.99 broke down in 5 months.