2/11    How does this work?
        http://lauragreig.com/valentine

2/11    Whites to be minority in US by 2050: study - Yahoo! News:
        http://www.csua.org/u/kqm
        Obama can still get minority support after 2050 -- he'll be calling
        himself a white presidential candidate.
        \_ Minority or not plurality?
           \_ Non-plurality: 47%.
            \_ You don't know what plurality means do you?
               \_ Actually, I do, but I'm tired. Plurality at 47%, no majority.

2/11    WTH does M$ want to buy Y!? On the other hand, M$ + GOOG =
        superpower of computing + internet.
        \_ I guess buying Goolge would be too expensive to be worth the money
           for M$.
        \_ Because Yahoo is a reasonable company run by reasonable people
           that could eventually be integrated into M$.
           \_ Yahoo rejects MS bid, MS hints at hostile takeover.  Yeah,
              that'll work.  -tom
              \_ For some reason M$ thinks it needs to be in the Yahoo/GOOG
                 market. I think M$ is dumb, but if it really wants to be
                 in the Yahoo/GOOG market, which company do you think would
                 be easier for M$ to take over? The one run by tools and
                 kooks or Yahoo?
                 \_ MS may succeed in taking over Yahoo, but it seems
                    exceedingly unlikely that they will succeed in improving
                    their business by doing it.  -tom

2/11    Obama is kicking Hillary's ars.
        \_ Ars Democrata?
        \_ Is Obama thrusting into Hillary's ars?
           \_ Yup.  link:www.csua.org/u/kqq

2/11    "Scientists have invented the Prius of ocean-going submersibles"
        http://www.csua.org/u/kql (Yahoo! News)
        \_ submarines have been using 'hybrid' power systems since WWI, in that
           they  have batteries to run off of and diesel engines to recharge
           those batteries. Granted this was done not to save fuel, but to
           actually have motive power when underwater.
           \_ "submersibles".  Besides, it's not exactly a hybrid in the Prius'
              sense.  It gathers thermal energy from the ocean to power its
              propulsion, and uses battery power to run its controls only.  I
              guess it doesn't re-charge its battery by thermal energy or by
              any equivalent of regenerative braking either.  -- OP
              \_ the 'prius' reference in the article was completely off base
                 and uncalled for.

2/11    Clinton's campaign manager replaced with a perl script. News at 11.

2/11    Awesome. Pennies and Nickels are now worth twice their face value in
        metals.
        http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2008/02/07/60minutes/main3801455.shtml

2/11    If you're on the way to becoming super rich and want to buy your
        very first first primary vacation mansion, where would you buy
        it at?  Let's say ANYWHERE (price not an issue)... Dubai? Monacco?
        Switzerland?
        \_ price not an issue?  ok, THE MOON.
        \_ Paris
           \_ Paris over the Cote d'Azur? Why?
              \- you may wish to read "Paris to the Moon".
        \_ Monte Carlo of Monaco. I'm sure psb likes it too as it appeals
           to people with refined taste.
           \_ "people w/refined taste" - you mean gay people in general.
           \_ psb >> pp
              \- i dunno why i came up, but i put down Cap Ferrat.
                 although if you wanted a serious answer in the $10m
                 range, probably london: speak english, good connectivity,
                 good food, transportation, "diverse" people, good news
                 papers etc. that's more my thing than drinking campari
                 on my balcony over the med and hanging out with the
                 "worthless" people who own +$20m yachts and their friends.
                 \_ Shit weather and shit food.
                    \- london has expensive food, not shit food.
                       considering london's latitude, the weather isnt
                       that bad. do you diss SF because "the pacific ocean
                       is too cold there".
                       \_ yeah, I'm moving to the South Pole because the
                          weather there is pretty good for the latitude.
                          \- i dont think you know what you are talking
                             about. london doesnt really go below freezing.
                             duluth, which is about 5deg *south* of london,
                             is below freezing for half the year.
                             although it does rain frequently, that is true.
                             although it does rain a lot there, that is true.
                       \_ Not the ocean in SF (although true) but the
                          air temperature. I hate it. SF, NYC, London,
                          whatever. It's okay in the summer, of course.
                          \- i really dont understand why people from places
                             like boston whine about SF weather. i mean
                             50deg isnt that bad. i mean i can see the
                             bitching if you are from hawaii or san diego.
                             dont people here own thermals? i guess dressing
                             for the cold is a pain in the ass if you have
                             to be nicely dressed for work, but relatively
                             few people here have that as a major issue.
                     http://home.lbl.gov:8080/~psb/PSB_MISC/PSB_Baltoro-mac.jpg
                                --psb
                    \_ If money is no object, you can have whatever food you
                       want, and weather is irrelevant with indoor pools etc.
                       In any case, some people like a bit of rain.
           \_ I thought they live there mostly because it's a tax shelter.
              Though maybe they like living next to all the other rich people
              also.
              \_ It's more fun playing golf and flying private planes
                 with other people who are able to afford golf/planes,
                 than to hang out with a bunch of drunken football fans.
        \_ Gotta be southern hemisphere, chase the summer.  Sydney perhaps.
           \_ My thoughts, too. Eternal summer. Australia would be great
              and much safer than Africa or South America.
           \_ A place like Hawaii never really gets unpleasant ever (if
              anything summer might get too hot).
              \_ Winter in Hawaii is still winter and it rains all the
                 time and it's humid. I really like Mediterranean climates.
        \- Saint Jean Cap Ferrat
        \_ Bermuda, Hawaii or maybe Tahiti. I think I would pick New Zealand
           over Australia b/c there are fewer people in NZ. But I think both
           might be too cold for me.
        \_ Lake Como seems popular. (Unfortunately it is also apparently
           polluted with sewage.)

2/8     Looking to buy our first home on a tight budget. Which east bay areas
        near a BART station (within walking distance) are generally considered
        safe?
        More criteria/info: limit = 400k, walking much more preferred than
        short drive, but acceptable if I don't have to worry about getting
        there early for parking space. School not high on priority. I'm mainly
        trying to see if there were any BART station areas I didn't realize
        was safe (Union City, for example.) Thanks for the info so far.
        \_ There's a ton of housing 5 minutes drive from the Dublin/Pleasanton
           BART and lots of parking.  I did tiny drive to BART->SF for years.
           Walkable in that area are all apartments built around the BART.
           \_ Isn't that area pretty expensive though?
              \_ Depends on your idea of expensive.  Is $600k for a yard, top
                 scoring schools, near zero crime rate, clean streets and
                 no gang bangers, all within a few minutes of BART expensive
                 to you?
                 \_ plus you have a beautiful view of the prison!
           \_ How soon do you have to get to the parking lot to get a space?
              Don't they fill up pretty early?
        \_ Does this have anything to do with the LOW INTEREST RATE?
        \_ Walking distance is a pretty high bar in the suburbs, but I will
           assume you can walk pretty far:
           El Cerrito - safe but kind of foggy, with not great schools
           Walnut Creek - safe, but not sure what your budget is
           Concord - safe probably a good bet
           Pittsburg - getting cheaper by the minute, you might have to drive to
           Pittsburg - getting cheaper by the minute, you might have to drive
           to [BART]
           \_ why walk when you can drive?                      -American
        \_ Union City.  I see many people (compared to other suburbs) walking
           during the day and early evening in the BART station neighborhood.
           (along Alvarado Niles Rd, Decoto Rd, etc.)  It's quiet at late
           night though.  Schools are only okay.  I don't actually take BART.
           I take the AC Transit Line M Bus that stops at the UC BART station.
           \_ What are the areas around the Hayward and Castro Valley BART
              stations like?
              \_ Hayward: many people walk during the day and evening, but the
                 type of people that you see in the evening doesn't make you
                 feel safe.
                 Castro Valley: no idea.
                 -- PP

2/11    I want an rrdtool-like program that can store/retrieve/graph
        arbitrary data, but I don't want it to drop/smooth out data over
        time like rrdtool does.  The amount of data is relatively small
        and I want exact data points stored forever.  Is there something
        like that out there?  I've tried google and freshmeat but I'm not
        finding anything like that.  Thanks.
        \_ Why not use gnuplot to plot and roll your own script to store
           and retrieve data?
           \_ Roll my own would be reading/writing to mysql.  I can do that
              but I was hoping there was an rrdtool-like program out there
              that doesn't smooth out data over time.  If I didn't have the
              data retention requirement I'd use rrdtool+friends.
              \_ have you considered looking into the code for rrdtool and
                 hacking in/out the featuers you want?  it is basically just
                 wrappers to gnuplot and such.
                 \_ I thought about it.  The problem is how RRDs work.  I don't
                    want my data to ever get dropped or blended into other
                    data.  I think it would be easier to just use mysql than
                    rewrite rrdtool to do something it was designed *not* to
                    do.  If no one knows of anything, that's cool.  Thanks.
        \_ Can't you just tell rrdtool to never compress your data?
           \_ I don't think so.  RRD = round robin database.  Upon creation it
              creates a file large enough to store X amount of data where X is
              defined at *creation*.  I suppose I could keep tweaking/growing
              the .rrd files as they near full but that's really kludgey.  If
              there is some way to get rrdtool to do what I want without hacks
              I don't see it documented.
              \_ Why not create them the proper size to begin with?
                 \_ 1) disk space, 2) if I'm going to throw that much disk at
                    my stats, I might as well put them in mysql where I can
                    more easily access them than "rddtool fetch".
                    \_ Sort of my point. You can't get around the disk
                       space problem if you want to store your data,
                       however you access it. It sounds like your solution
                       is exactly what you wanted. What else did you want?!
                       \_ I didn't want to have to double store the data in
                          mysql *and* rrd to do graphing and other analysis.
                          Now I have to keep two data stores in sync and
                          eventually the rrd is going to fill and drop data
                          unless I grow it.  I really wanted the rrd graphs
                          talking directly to mysql.  If I had more time I
                          would've rewritten the graphing code to talk to
                          mysql instead of rrd.  That's what I *really* wanted.
                          But this is ok.  Just sharing my solution for those
                          who might care.
                          \_ I'm not with you here. If you use rrd then
                             what do you need mysql for and vice-versa?
                             You only need one backend to go with your
                             graphing frontend. If you are worried about
                             smoothing use mysql and forget about rrd.
                             Disk space is a red herring, because you face
                             that either way.
                             Just use rrd and size your data store
                             appropriately. You will face that problem no
                             matter how you store it, so what does mysql
                             buy you at that point? You don't need both.
                             You just need a backend and a graphing frontend.
                             \_ I have a few reqs: complete project asap, not
                                smooth data, graph data.  Not smooth data
                                reqs that I use mysql.  Graphing data is
                                easiest with various rrdtools I already have
                                in place.  Time limitation reqs that I do
                                the easiest/fastest thing.  Disk space and
                                maintenance are issues but secondary.  I have
                                more disk space on the mysql server than I do
                                on the graphing server, for example.  I also
                                don't want to grow rrd files later when the
                                current ones run out of space.  I also want to
                                have data in an easily accessed format like
                                mysql that others can deal with without needing
                                a shell on the rrdtool server.  My solution was
                                to limit data to one year for graphs, store in
                                mysql for the long term, use rrdtool graphing
                                programs.  If you have a better solution I'm
                                all ears.
                    What I ended up doing is both.  I store data in mysql from
                    various sources.  Then I fork a copy of the data to
                    rrdtool for graphing purposes where it's ok if I lose some
                    long term data integrity.  The rrdtool files are
                    relatively small since I created files good enough for a
                    few weeks without data smush.
                    I get my graphs, I get long term mysql store/retrieve with
                    no data smoothing.  It isn't the ideal I was looking for
                    but it'll do the job.
                    \_ Excellent work. Who are you? I probably need the same
                       thing and might ask for some pointers. -ausman
                       \_ I'll mail you.  I wrote a trivial script to make
                          and update the rrds.  I have some perl that calls
                          the update script and does some alerting.  Nothing
                          rocket-sciencey but you can't complain about the
                          price.  :-)

2/11    What's the female equivalent of the phrase "Mr. President"?  Is it
        "Mrs. President", "Miss President", "Ms. President", "Ma'am President"
        or "Madam President"?
        \_ Madam

2/11    So I have to say http://walkscore.com totally sucks. I put in my grandpa's
        house in Arcadia/Temple City and only got 40 points even though
        he's only 1-2 blocks away from Dim-sum, Chinese markets,
        noodle house, etc. None of these stores show up on http://walkscore.com.
        Totally sucks.
        \_ as far as http://walkscore.com cares, if a business doesn't have any web
           references, it doesn't exist.  Hence the 'unwarranted' low score.

2/11    If David Shuster accused George H.W. Bush of pimping his son
        George W. Bush, would he get the same flak he's getting now?
        \_ No, it's a sympathy ploy for Clinton.
        \_ Of course not. MSNBC is a wholely owned subsidiary of the DNC and
        \_ Of course not. MSNBC is a wholly owned subsidiary of the DNC and
           Clinton(tm) machine.
        \_ For your anology to make sense, Dubya would have to be accused
           of pimping his daughters. When will some big time reporter
           do that, so we can find out?

2/11    What's the best way to sell used video games.  Most fairly recent.
        I'm never going to play these again and they are worth quite a bit.
        GameStop is a ripoff.  Ebay is a pain in the ass.  Craigslist is
        totally hit and miss.  There has to be an easy way to unload these
        suckers.
        \_ You can have ease or a good price. Pick one.
           \_ I'm willing to sacrifice some price for ease.  I just was
              wondering if there is a good middle ground I'm missing.
              \_ List them here on soda. You might get lucky.
                 \_ A good idea.  Looking at the few replies below, there
                    may be a small but concentrated/local market here.
           \_ agreed.  There are sites like http://cheapassgamer.com where people
              trade games, but that's not really all that different from
              ebay or CL.  If I really didn't want to sell each game for
              less than a buck, I'd try CL first.  If you buy a lot of
              games, some say the pay-for club thing at gamestop/ebgames
              actually helps.  You can also try to wait for specials where
              they give you more trade-in value if you use it towards a
              preorder.  I originally meant to do CL, but eventually gave
              up on the idea that I'd follow through with it and went the
              ebgames route.
        \_ Some other games stores will buy them. There is a good one
           near me (LA area) called Enteract. There might be one in your
           area. Otherwise, realize that GameStop is paying you less
           because they are less of a PITA than the alternatives and just
           deal with them.
        \_ I recently used http://half.com. Sold my Assasin's Creed for PS3 for
           $35 there. I called GameStop before that and they said they
           would have only given me $18 for it.
        \_ I've sold most of my games using Amazon. It is fairly easy and
           you should be able to get a decent price, esp. for new games.
        \_ I'll pay $15 for Dead Rising. -jrleek
        \_ Speaking of, does anyone wanna buy Forza 2 for the Xbox360?  I'd
           be willing to trade as well. -jrleek
           \_ That's a pack in title right now, so there are tons of copies
              floating around.  Anyone want to buy Mass Effect?  -aspo
              \_ Crud.  They still seem to be asking $40 for it at GameStop.
                 Maybe I can trade it for a copy of Dead Rising there. -jrleek
                 \_ You're a MARRIED MORMON with a full time job, why
                    are you playing computer games?
                    \_ 'Cos they're fun? Oh, wait, you were kidding.
                    \_ I know this is a troll, but I don't even get it.  What
                       are you talking about? -jrleek
                       \_ TV + video games = evil liberal influences. Just
                          look at all the drugs and violence and crazy
                          celebrities like Britney Spears. I thought
                          Mormons are against evil liberal influences.
                       \_ Doesn't procreating and having awesome through
                          me thou will live in The Most Glorious of Glories
                          with me for all eternity Mormon sex take up all of
                          your time?  How do you have time for video games?
              \_ Sorry, I don't think my wife would like me buying a game that
                 features virtual orgasmic rape.

2/8     Sleep your way to 100 with power naps (siesta is good for ya!):
        http://preview.tinyurl.com/2m5tkb (health.yahoo.com)