7/31    My parents have an important anniversary coming up. Is it usually
        expected for kids to do anything for their parents anniversary?
        I never did a thing for any previous one.
        \_ Whether it's expected or not, if you appreciate what they did for
           you and have the resources to do so, it's a wonderful gesture to
           help celebrate their anniversary.
           \_ The above advice is excellent, and need not only apply to your
              parents' anniversary. Which anniversary are they celebrating?
              \_ Yeah that did put things in nice perspective... although I'm
                 just pretty bad with gifts etc. in general. It's hard enough
                 for me to shop for myself. I think it is their 40th.
                 \_ Is it this year? The 40th anniversary is Ruby; my bros.
                    and I pitched in to buy my parents a bottle of 1966 Port
                    from K&L (about $100 with shipping). Even if your parents
                    don't drink, it's a ruby-colored present of some value
                    with the year 1966 displayed prominently on it. --erikred
                    \- i've got to disagree ... if i gave this to my parents
                       they would think it was stupid ... worse even than
                       a kermit lynch gift certificate. a narrow gift like
                       when you know they will have some appreciation of it.
        \_ No.  An anniversary is for the couple only.  You wouldn't want
           to walk in on your parents humping, would you? -proud American
                       a kermit lynch gift certificate :-).
                       to say something constructive: 1. do you have siblings?
                       if so, seems clear you should coordinate. 2. i think
                       you also may want to decide whether to have an event
                       or give them an object. event = small party, dinner
                       with the extended family and friends etc. i suppose
                       different people are sentimental in different ways
                       and you're in the best position to know what your
                       folks would appreciate ... some parents would love
                       a subsidized weekend B&B trip to the wine country ...
                       others would rather spend and evening with their
                       kids who live around the country etc.
        \_ Dude, don't break tradition.  Do nothing.  -proud American

8/1     Dreamhost has a really generous quota but the service is horrible.
        In addition you can't run any script longer than 30 seconds.
        Otherwise, they will kill ALL of your processes. They were unwilling
        to negociate this. They subscribe hundreds of power hungry users
        on each machine and the load is always consistently above 100,
        and slow. You can't even run sa-learn and grep because their monitor
        script will kill all of your processes. Also they do a reboot
        every other day because they don't know how to keep their system
        up. Last week they were down for 2-3 days. At $8.99/month for 20G
        quota, it is theoretically good, but practically and utterly useless.
        I hate dreamhost. Any advice on other affordable co-lo services?
        Thanks so much.
        \_ How about this little ISP called AOL? -proud American

8/1     Would you support stop of arm shipments to Israel?
        \_ No.
        \_ Wouldn't they still be fine?  I mean I was under the impression their
           economy even w/out aid >>> palestine & lebanon's economy.
           \_ but they have to compete with the rest of the Arab nations, too.
               -tom

8/1     I'm looking for a 1GB and a 2GB USB flash drive.
        All the reviews I've seen on amazon seem to be very mixed.
        I'd like something rugged, simple, fast, and reliable.
        Any suggestions? Thanks
        \_ I like the Kingston DataTraveler Elite 2GB.  I backup my pr0n to the
           the encrypted partition, it's fast, and it's reliable.  Other flash
           drives have the cool slideout (so you don't lose the cap), but it's
           hard to find one with real hardware-based encryption.  FYI, the
           "Privacy Edition" is the same thing except you don't have a public
           partition (basically so ppl don't have to think), and I don't care
           for the "Migo Edition" and similar solutions where you load your
           user prefs from your flash drive (too heavyweight IMO).
           http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16820189017
           If you don't want hw encryption, you can go much cheaper, just go
           to http://newegg.com, pick 1GB or 2GB, and sort by Rating.
        \_ Get a U3 Smart flash drive.  This week Office depot 1GB $25.
           http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16820189017
        \_ One of my recent new toys has been a Corsair FlashVoyager, which
           I've been very happy with. It supports partitioning and all that
           good stuff and is fairly snappy for a USB thumbdrive. Plus it's
           built like a brick and hard to lose (rubbery surface stays in my
           pocket much, much better). IMO, teeny-tiny ones (Cruzer Micro or
           smaller) are just too loseable
           http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16820233009
           I think it's also slightly cheaper than a few months ago.
           --michener
           \\\_ Thanks y'all! -op
        \_ I've got a Memorex 2GB Traveldrive.  Never had any problems
           it.  I carry all kinds of porn wherever I go. -proud American

8/1     Bin Laden with the Democrats, so Israel needs to punish Iran.  But
        remember that they should tip at least 20%, especially when searching
        for the new Intel processor at Fry's.  RIDE BIKE!
                                                \_ and use Linux
        \_ Conroe. Learn the name, damnit.
           \_ I guess the geek community basically just rejected "Core 2 Duo"?
              \_ Conroe is 2 unaspirated sylables, Core 2 Duo is 4 sylables and
                 sounds confusingly similar to both their previous chip and
                 the generic term "dual core".  So I want Conroe, but my
                 search term is Core 2 Duo.
        \_ Flash drive has dreamhost data which sucks, and parents'
           anniversaray on flickr is bad because picasaweb is superior,
           renewable energy renews gmail interests because it's eco-friendly,
           and the breakins on a bunch of Cal sites is because minijets
           are coming. Use E6600, drink beer, and do lots of drugs so that
           you can die early and save the environment from pollution!

8/1     Is Mel Gibson a NeoCon?
        \_ That depends on wheather you like him or not.
        \_ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neocon
           But don't forget, Neocon also == Jew according to some. So Mel
           probably isn't a Neocon. I doubt he thinks about politics much.
           \_ The only people who claim neocon == jew are people who are
              trying too hard to paint anti-neoconers as anti-semites.
              \_ I think there are also some members of the extreme right
                 who associate both the neocon project and Jews with the
                 New World Order, and so probably equate them.  That particular
                 breed of right wing nut does not appear on the motd, though.
        \_ Mel Gibson is an Aussie.  Foreigners out!  -proud American

8/1     Does anyone know if foreign Mandarin accents irritate Mainland Chinese
        as much as Beijing Chinese accent irritates say, the Taiwanese? In
        another word do Mainlander discriminate as much as the non-Mainlanders
        based on non-local Mandarin accents?
        \_ The answer is "No" with almost absolute certainty for several
           reason.  While Beijing is more or less being the capital for
           past 800 years, Chinese government traditionally ran by Mandarins
           selected by sheer examination scores.  This means government
           up to cabinent members can came from anywhere.  As result, there
           is little geographical sense of superority.  The situation changed
           somewhat during Manchu Dynasty, mostly due to ethnic tensions
           between royal desent (Manchus) and Hans who made up majority of
           government body.  The funny things is, those royal family based
           their pride on proper Mandarin (specifically, "inner city" Beijing
           accent, oppose to "outter city" and "outside of city"), instead of
           Manchurian, a native Manchu tongue which almost no one speaks.
           Fastforward to today,like any other metropolitans,bulk of Beijing's
           14 million resident came from outside of the city.  Consider that
           China has several thousands of dialects, most people don't hold
           anything agaist you if you speak with an accent.
        \_ Short answer: No.  While Beijing has been the capital of China for
           more or less 800 years, majority of government officials, e.g.
           Mandarins were selected by examination, thus, no particular
           geographical ties.  Today's Bejing, just like rest of major
           Metropolitians, more people are from outside of Beijing than
           the true native.   While people do praise those who speak
           with proper accent, very few, if any, are being discriminated
           because of his/her accent, as there are at least 1.2 billion people
           speak Mandarin with some sort of accent.  -kngharv
        \_ I don't know about accents, but my wife served as a tour guide
           at the Salt Lake Temple Square, and generally the Taiwanese
           tour guides did not give tours to the mainland Chinese.  She
           wasn't quite sure why, but it seemed to have to do with
           tensions over Taiwanese independence. -jrleek
           \_ jrleek.  The root cause of this tension is because
              pro-independent Taiwanese plays racial politics.  Race, by
              their definition, is based upon where one's parents were born.
              As result, myself, born in Taiwan and currently working in
              Taiwan, is considered as "Chinese Pig" by those Taiwanese.
              (by the way, "Chinese Pig" was the exact term they use.)
              Right now, Taiwan's democracy is completely engulfed by racial
              politics that anything deemd "Native" (i.e. those people who
              came to Taiwan prior to First Sino-Japanese War in 1845) is
              justified.   Politicians are judged based upon his blood line,
              not by how well he/she has been ruled.    kngharv
              not by how well he/she has ruled.         kngharv
           \_ It is true. The Taiwanese people resent the Mainlanders
              and their government. I'm wondering if the reverse is
              also true. Do Mainlanders hate the Taiwanese?  -taiwanese
                   \- there are some pretty crazy shenannigans between
                      china and taiwan. do you know about the crazy panda
                      diplomacy trick? i understand there is some either
                      pro-chinese or pro-taiwanese radio talk show in LA
                      and people get so worked up when calling from cell
                      phones in cars, they get into accidents. china also
                      does some wealsey things like objecting to a USA visa
                      for taiwanese officials truing to come to things like
                      college reunions.
                \_ We should bomb Taiwan.  Why the hell does this
                   tiny country even exist? -proud American
                   \_ To provide us with motherboards, DUH!
                \_ You misunderstand.  The tour guides didn't have the
                   problem, the guests did.  In otherwords, from this one
                   data point it seems like mainlanders might have a
                   problem with the Taiwanese.  One third hand data point
                   ain't much though. -jrleek
                   \_ nope, jrleek, that is not correct.  People from mainland
                      tend to have problem with people from Hong Kong for one
                      reason or another, such resentment toward people from
                      Taiwan virtually non-existent.   Majority of problem
                      lies upon Taiwan side.  -kngharv
        \_ I don't know Chineese, but I do know people, so I can pretty
           confidently say, "Yes." Yankees hate southern accents.
           Swiss hate Austrian accents. Sri Lankans hate Indian Tamil
           accents. Limeys hate Gringo accents. People everywhere are
           convinced that their way of speaking a language is the one true
           way and everyone else is wrong. So it goes.
           \_ That's not always true.  Some accents get classified as "sexy"
              or "sophisticated", along with associated stereotypes(I'm talking
              about English here).
           \_ Southern accents are great.  Northern ones are ugly.  -Yankee
              \_ You guys are right. The corollary is that people
                 everywhere hate their own accent and like other accents.
           \_ I don't know man. I use to dislike Cantonese (and I am a
              Mandarin speaker), but there was this cute sexy girl who
              I swear speaks the most sexy sounding Cantonese I've
              ever heard. After that, I don't find Cantonese so
              offensive sounding. ;)

8/1     http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3284163,00.html
        Israeli news editor says fuck ya'll to world reaction to Qana massacre

8/1     http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/14136797
        Big 3 automakers see sharp declines in sales. I guess multi-billion
        dollar advertisements using famous and well liked American Idol
        superstars like Taylor Hicks, "FORD THINK BOLD" with super hot blonde
        women, and all that commercial blitz from Dr. Z saying "Chrysler is
        not dumb American but smart German engineering", all shown on prime
        time TV hasn't helped the companies that much.
        \_ "Obviously, we didn't spend enough on advertising"  -execs
        \_ I used to work with a guy who was a long time GM employee.  He
           had a lot to say about the development -> production cycle that
           pretty much guarantees they are always out of sync with what
           buyers will want by the time the vehicles are in show rooms.
           \_ I don't know, particularly Chrysler's had a history _recently_
              of getting concept cars -> production very, very fast.
           \_ I don't know about the other 2, but Ford is totally out of sync
              from what the market actually wants. Even GM is moving in the
              right direction, slowly but they're getting there. I like the way
              they turned around Cadillac and how they're doing it now with
              Saturn. Ford's problem on the other hand is that they're not
              going to bring anything fundamentally new to the market for a
              long long while.  Their biggest fuckup is the complete lack of
              competitive compact models.  The US-spec Focus is outdated, even
              though every other market in the world, including Japan and
              Russia, got the new Euro-spec Focus. They make plans to replace
              the American Focus only around 2010. They also make plan to come
              up with a competitor to Yaris, Aveo, and such in 2010-2011..
              hello? Will Ford even exist then? The Lincoln division plans to
              sell basically more expensive, more upscale Fords, etc. none
              of which sounds like a "way forward".
              \_ Ford is also Volvo, Jaguar, etc.
                 \_ Speaking of which Jaguar is a huge money loser and Ford
                    will probably end up offloading that division.
        \_ Heil Herr Dr. Z!
           \_ No need for such empty insults--Ford was started by a bona fide
              Nazi.
              http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1593640188/sr=8-2/qid=1154486048/ref=sr_1_2/102-7698563-2572958?ie=UTF8
        \_ I always buy American cars.  Corvettes and Vipers -- the way to
           a trashy blonde Motley Crue groupie's heart. -proud American

8/1     Bush successfully destroys the Army's readiness even more than
        Clinton was able to:
        http://www.csua.org/u/gl7
        \_ There was an article a little while back where a major (Marine?)
           base was unable to pay its electric bill because their funding had
           either been redirected, or not been approved.  Go go Republican
           Congress!
        \_ Yes.  Mission accomplished!  -proud American

8/1     County officials in one Chinese province decide to club to death all
        non-military/police dogs due to rabies outbreak.  Check out the photo.
        http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/14139027
        \_ Why USA codemn mainland china for beat dog when Iraq Guataanimao
           no China USA brutal Israel@!
           \_ American care more about dog than they cares about non white.
                \_ That's not true.  As a proud American, I care deeply
                   about all black and Mexican women...at least when I'm
                   just about to climax on them. -proud American
        \_ I was going to make a dumb joke but that's just sad.
           \_ did you delete the existing joke(s)? that's sad...
              \_ No.
        \_ I love my cat, I club my dog
        \_ they should of use lethal injection, just like what USA does.
        \_ They probably deserved it. -proud American
        \_ Those filthy dogs deserved everything they got.  -proud Chinese