6/12    Surprise!  Canadians torture terrorism suspects!
        http://www.citynews.ca/news/news_1097.aspx
        \_ Redacting suspects to Canada is a lot more convenient
           than Poland, Romania, Egypt and Syria.
           \_ Why do you think Canada is any more convenient?  Because the
              plane trip is shorter?  Most of them are closer to Syria than
              the US.
           \_ I think you mean "Rendering" as the verb form of "Rendition"
              "Redacting" means to "putting into writing"
              \_ actually, "redacting" means "editing," not writing, and he's
                 probably looking for "remanding."  -tom
                 \- i think the OP does mean "Rendering" as the PP suggests,
                    as used in the expression "extreme rendition". in my
                    experience "redacting" refers to the practice of "blacking
                    out stuff" that somebody desires to hide before publishing
                    it in a wider context (i am not claiming that is the only
                    meaning, just the only usage i have come across ... i have
                    not seen it used in the general sense of edit, proofread).
                    remand in this case would probably have a diff meaning than
                    what the above poster intended ... i assume he means the
                    USA practice of outsourcing tourture, rather than returning
                    somebody to somebody elses custoody or jusrisdictionw when
                    you are "finished" with him. remand also often is used
                    by a higher court to send something back to a lower court
                    to reevaluate a case possibly with newly announced
                    guidelines.
        \_ YES I meant when US ships a guy to Egypt to bind his testicles
           to a satellite dish running Al-Jazeera because it's still illegal
           to do that on US soil.  We ship people to Syria don't we?
           I thought they were our opponents in the terror war.

6/12    Dae Han Min Gook!
        \_ Korean soap operas convinced me that Korean women are the
           hottest in the world. They don't age and they're georgeous.
           \_ Seconded. I'd be honored if one of the Korean girls would help
              me pass on my genes with her, like jrleek.
           \_ The same soaps have convinced me that Korea is even more
              chauvanistic than Japan. Wtf? Is this some Confucian holdover
              I'm just not able to get as a Westerner?
              \_ Maybe soap operas aren't the best way to learn about another
                 culture, eh?
              \_ Dunno about Japan, but Korea is very chauvanistic. Even if
                 it doesn't look that way on the surface, it is there
                 underneath. It is also a country where pride rules all,
                 where every small business owner insists on being called
                 President Kim and whatnot.
           \_ Which soap operas did you watch? My impression from
              watching many Korean drama has been quite the positive.
              They seem to have strike a good balance between
              absorbing western culture and retain their own
              traditional values. I have more respect for the Koreans
              now. I consider them a good example of what an Asian
              country would look like under good democracy. It is
              precisely because they retained their traditional values
              that they are able to come out with such hot selling
              soap operas, unlike Taiwan and HK which puts out craps.
              HK is getting better, but I have not seen a good Taiwan
              soap opera lately. The last one I watched was Millennium
              Mamboo which is just a piece of shit. All in all I like
              Korean dramas, and I plan to visit it once day.

6/13    http://www.cnn.com/2006/POLITICS/06/13/rove.cia
        Rove won't be charged in CIA leak case
        http://www.cnn.com/2006/WORLD/meast/06/12/iraq.contractors
        Iraq contractors make billions on the front line
        Also on the news Bush visits Iraq and his approval rating
        rebounds. Rove is great and November is looking great!
        \_ approval rating rebounds?  where?
        \_ Seconded. Read:
           http://news.yahoo.com/s/usatoday/20060613/ts_usatoday/pollseesaboostforbushiraqwar
           Conservatives rule while Liburals drool!
           \_ and thus the deep dissatisfaction of the liberals/geeks with
              the rule of the neocons/jocks.
              \_ hey, way to go with the labels and stereotyping.
        \_ If 35 percent is a rebound you are hurting for good news
           \_ esp when other polls went down in the same period.

6/13    I need a way to convert uLaw WAV to PCM WAV in Java.  The tritonus
        library does not offer this.  Anyone know a library that does?  I'd
        rather not reinvent the wheel.
        \_ IIRC JavaSound can handle conversion of mu-law to PCM. Is there
           a reason to do this in Java? If you just need to convert, can you
           just exec sox to do the conversion? - ciyer
        \_ OK, It now seems that while the Tritonus Javadoc says it can't do it
           the code tells a different story.  The problem is that when I
           request a uLaw to PCM converter, the aLaw converter claims it is
           capable, so gets picked, then fails.  When I force it to use the
           uLaw converter, Tritonus works.  Execing sox would have been a
           clunky but usable workaround.  Thanks -OP.

6/13    Pre 6/12, brutally executed.  Carry on.
        \_ don't break your arm patting yourself on the back
           \_ if you don't "get it", an explanation won't help you.

6/13    In PHP what is the Perl equivalent of
        map {$_="HEY $_ HO";} @array; ? Thanks so much!!!
        \_ foreach ($array as $i => $val)
             $array[$i] = "HEY $val HO";
           --dbushong

6/13    http://www.wbir.com/news/national/story.aspx?storyid=35168
        "Judge Frank Damrell said the minted words amount to a secular
         national slogan, and don't force Michael Newdow to believe in one
         God."
        Whether or not you agree w/ the ruling, how can that possibly be
        considered a secular slogan?
        \_ In much the same way that Xmas has become a commercial holiday?
           I'm quibbling, perhaps....
           \_ commercial != secular  (e.g. "megachurches")
              \_ Church'N'Munch!
        \_ Maybe the judge needs to see the definition of 'secular' in the
           dictionary.  Didn't Stephen Colbert say something like "I don't
           care if you're Muslim or Hindu or Jewish, there are many ways to
           accept Jesus as your savior"

6/13    Does anyone know anything about starting a franchise business? For
        example, how much money is it required to open up a Ben & Jerry,
        Subway Sandwich, and such? This is of course not considering the
        cost of location rental which is very geographically dependent.
        Any pointer would be appreciated, thanks!
        \_ Learn to use Google.
           Subway:
           Total Investment: $70,000-$220,000
           Initial Franchise Fee: $12,500
           Royalty Fee: 8%
           Ben and Jerry's:
           Total Investment: $147,000-$396,000
           Initial Franchise Fee: $5,000-$30,000
           Royalty Fee: 3%
        \_ Read fast food nation. I remember the book saying particularly
           bad things about Subway franchising costs.

6/13    ok, memorizing all these passwords is driving me insane. I
        know this has been asked before but I cant find it: whats the
        best way to keep a password-protected file of very sensitive
        information? in this case, all my other passwords. thanks
        \_ I use http://www.bugmenot.com
        \_ Whatever happened to this single login thing called the
           MS Passport or something?
        \_ I just use a yellow sticky note on my monitor.  Works like a charm.
        \_ I use a Palm Pilot that is password protected. I then have a
           Crypto program on it (also requires a password).
           \_ the second part is very important, cause even if you password
              protect the file using Palm's native password protection, the
              document is downloaded in unencrypted format when you sync to
              your computer.  I use Keyring for encryption:
              http://gnukeyring.sourceforge.net
        \_ I pgp encrypt this password excel file. You should have
           some password level as well:
           - password to this excel file
           - password for financial sites
           - password for secure e-commerce sites
           - password for other non secure sites
           A secure password can be the initial of your favorite
           phrase. I consider sites that emails back your password in
           plaintext as non-secure site. Good sites should reset your
           password to a random one in the worst case.
        \_ For passwords I don't get to choose, I use this:
           http://www.schneier.com/passsafe.html on PocketPC
           For passwords tied to domains, I use a command line version of this:
           http://bushong.net/dave/webpasswd
           (generates a reproducible hex hash)  --dbushong
        \_ http://keepass.sourceforge.net
           Also, in the same vein as generating passwords from hashes,
           here's a Firefox extension to make it more convenient:
           http://www.xs4all.nl/~jlpoutre/BoT/Javascript/PasswordComposer
           \_ Ooh.  Great minds think alike.  This one looks more secure than
              mine (uses a Base64 variant encoding rather than Hex).  Alas,
              I can't switch now or I'd have to check 2 of them :-) --dbushong
        \_ this program is really old but it's simple and works (for windows
           users): http://www.passkeeper.com

6/13    Anyone have any recommendation for a reasonable-cost accountant?
        I'm starting a consulting business on the side and thought I'd
        look into it. The side business is for lunch money, so cost is a
        big factor.
        \_ Isn't accounting one of those professions being outsourced
           to India?
           \_ Accounting is actually one of the safer professions, I
              think. They do things like conduct audits, which often
              requires them to be on-site. I'm also not sure how many
              American companies want to open their books to foreigners.
              CPAs are also regulated by the State. I can imagine the legal
              problems with trying to go after a foreign accounting firm
              engaged in, say, fraud.
           \_ No.