2/25    You know, no one disputes the economic power and efficiency of the
        free market. Adam Smith wrote the Wealth of Nations way before
        the term monopoly and corporate clout/abuse became common. Just
        Google for articles on why free-market doesn't work the way it
        did in the 18th-19th century; meritocracy is non-existence in the
        absence of competition. I will however buy the Division of Labour
        argument, Labour theory of value, price of commodities, etc. In
        short I find both the free-market and the centralized-market theory
        incomplete, inefficient, and unfit in the complex world we have
        today. There needs to be a balance of both, or an alternative economy.

2/26    Dogs lift up their legs to mark territories. The more pee and
        smellier the pee, the more they claim their territory. What
        are some common human behaviors that are similar to "marking"?
        \_ The best example I can think of is pimped up car playing super
           loud heart thumping music.
           \_ racist!
        \_ motd?
        \_ Engagement ring
           \_ Good one!
        \_ For human, substitute pee with cum.
        \_ what could be more obvious than 'fence building'
           \_ From what my sister told me who used to live in Davis suburb,
              those husbands are not trying to mark their terriroty.  They are
              implicitly competing for who has the best looking frontyard.
           \_ I like it, good one. Better-- sitting in front of the
              porch with your shotgun.
           \_ Interestingly, after I built a fence to semi-enclose our front
              yard, the amount of dog poop in the yard drastically reduced.
              Obviously it's not the dogs who know not to easily walk around
              the fence.  It's the dog owners/guardians who know they probably
              shouldn't walk their dogs into my front yard now that a short
              fence is there.
              \_ Dog owners who let their dogs use your lawn as a toilet
                 are scum.
                 \_ what about cat 'owners'
                    \_ My cats are inside 100% of the time.
                    \_ people who are scratched up by their own cats are
                       'claimed' by their cats.
        \_ Human beings build the biggest house they can on the biggest
           hill they can find.

2/26    How many people find the old Caloric Theory by Antoine Lavoisier
        to be really fucked up? He theorized that heat is a
        weightless substance that penetrates through materials. Equally
        fucked up is how Count Rumford, the guy who tried to destroy
        Lavoisier's reputation with the Theory of Thermodynamics
        ended up marrying Lavoisier's wife after Lavoisier was beheaded.
        Man, scientists are sick.
        \_ Obviously not right now that we know a hell of a lot
           more != whack.
           \_ Detroying another man's reputation, then marrying his widow
              = whack.
              \_ I so want to do this to my brother-in-law.
                 \_ why?
                 \_ You want to marry your sister?
                    \_ It's my wife's brother.  I love his wife.
        \_ Caught some of this in the NOVA program on Absolute Zero:
           http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/zero
           Yup, absolutely whack.
           \_ Cool we have same interests! We should start a club of
              PBS watching sexless geeks.               -op, no lay guy #3
              \_ Sorry, man, I'm happy, hornily married.
                 \_ Damnit. Why the hell are you watching PBS? It's like
                    a straight guy wearing metrosexual clothes. It really
                    messes up the dating pool for gay men.
                    \_ I'm really going to screw things up for you by telling
                       you that I just finished Super Mario Galaxy on the Wii
                       last night, too, aren't I.
        \_ Scientists are human too.  They want fame, they are horny, they have
           rivals and enemies, they do little dirty things to get what they
           want.
           want.  Just like other humans.
           \_ Sure. And some other humans are whack, too.
           \_ Exactly why the liberal ideology of trusting everyone and
              giving everyone the exact same rights while holding hands
              and singing kum-bai-ya and sharing mass transportation won't
              work. People are whackos beyond help. Better to just fence up.
        \_ Sounds like a pretty good explaination of Infrared Radiation,
           a piece of heat transfer.  Not too wacky.

2/26    GOOG down from 747 to 460, long-term holders do not need to worry for
        next 10 to 20 years
        http://tinyurl.com/39jega (yahoo.com)
        \_ Yeah!  -- guy who has a crush on a woman whose husband works in
           Google.
           \_ Second hand merchandize is not as fresh as new ones.
              \_ Yeah, but I'm not fresh either.  I have a wife.
              \_ sure but sometimes it is good to let someone else out iron
                 out the problems of new merchandice, and take over after
                 the product is broken in.
        \_ I dont think anyone here married a virgin besides Mormon #1,
           Mormon #2, and reiffin
           \_ If reiffin is married to the same girl he was with at UCB
              then I dunno if she was a virgin or not when they met, but I do
              know that some things happened in the CZ hot tub.
                \_ She didn't seem like the virginal type to me.
              \_ The CZ hottub?  Just sitting in that thing will give you
                 multiple STDs.
                 \_ SleaZy for life.
                 \_ I was smart enough to only use it the day it was cleaned.
                    Same with the Cloyne hot tub.
           \_ who is reiffin? Is he affiliated with emarkp & jrleek?
           \_ My wife wasn't a virgin when I married her, but that's because
              I deflowered her before marriage.
              \_ Who deleted the virgin wife discussion? Is it true that
                 most Mormons are both virgins on their wedding day?
                 \_ It's a troll.  It got purged.
        \_ Why do you hate my giant DDD breasts, yearning to be free under
           my tight violet top?
                    \_ In that case, you might as well nuke the motd.
                       From orbit.  Just to be sure.
                       \_ No.  It wasn't the usual political troll.  It was
                          anonymously calling people out by name just to be
                          malicious.  I hope you can see the difference.
                       \_ My dick.  Get off it.  Sex.  Denied.
                          \_ TJB!?!?!!?  How'd you get here?!
        \_ Sh*t.  It's going up today (2/27).

2/26    Social Networking by Continent:
        http://preview.tinyurl.com/2ov6gc (lemonde.fr)
        \_ I can't read this surrender monkey language.

2/26    Documentary team says bomb ingredients can still be smuggled onto
        airplanes:
        http://preview.tinyurl.com/39basa (telegraph.co.uk)
        http://preview.tinyurl.com/yqflv9 (thisislondon.co.uk)
        The TSA disagrees:
        http://preview.tinyurl.com/3b6agt (tsa.gov/blog)
        \_ Airport screening is all about making people *feel* safer and
           very little about actually making people safe.
           \- no, it is about political CYA.

2/26    Interesting article about Obama's policy team
        http://www.tnr.com/politics/story.html?id=4d40a39e-8f57-4054-bd99-94bc9d19be1a

2/26    Interesting article about Obama's policy team
        http://preview.tinyurl.com/3cn6xr (tnr.com)
        \_ That is interesting. Thanks. It will be nice to have a president
           more interested in competence than ideology.
           \_ So if he had people who you didn't agree with would you still
              say they are competent?

2/26    "Resistance is futile," announced the Queen as T'Rai was overcame
        with a wave of pleasure and screamed as she was hit by orgasm after
        orgasm, she rolled onto the floor, her trousers soaked with fluids
        from her pussy.

2/26    As I raised my arms above my head and pulled the dress over me, I
        felt an eerie, unpleasant sensation that I could only describe as
        100 hundred cats licking me with tongues coated in glue.
        What the HELL kind of fabric is this? I began to sweat and itch even
        before the dress finished settling over my body. I felt trapped in a
        slippery mess of fabric suffocating every pore of my body. I yanked the
        dress off and looked at the tag. 100% synthetic fibers. Ok. Surely
        this is just an exception, because everyone knows that with modern
        technology, even rayon and acetate can feel like the most
        luxuriously spun silk. I tried on the next dress - same feeling.
        The shirt following was slightly less suffocating but would not
        button over my breasts. Same with the jacket,
        which fit perfectly in the waist, hips and shoulders, but refused
        to cover my D cups.  The walls of the tiny fitting room were closing
        in. I thought, frantically, "Don't women in Europe have gigantic
        breasts? Isn't that the standard?
        \_ They do.  http://www.inbedwithfaith.com 32G natural.

2/26    Wow, so it *has* been a cold year
        http://csua.org/u/kwb
        \_ Global warming, baby! And when we are in the next Ice Age it
           will also be a product of global warming just like it was
           overfishing that crashed the sardine fishery in Monterey.
           \_ Data point != trend
              See also "dead cat bounce"
              \_ Good, then we can stop hearing about how hot 1998 was?
               \_ Big flucutations are what you get when you add a lot
                  of chaos to a stable system.  Look at the trend.  The deltas
                  are getting bigger and on average getting higher.  If after
                  say 3-4 years things stay down then come back to us.
                  \_ Yah, when you can explain 1940-1970 I'll listen to you.
                  \_ Gore and friends are wrong but I wish they were right.  A
                     slightly warmer planet is better for humanity.

2/26    polito, cut it out.
        \_ Stop putting the stupid wank post up and I'll stop removing it
           \_ You're removing it? I'm removing it, too.  Let's just let the
              motd be as is.
              \_ Yeah, sitting on soda, waiting for a build.  I get bored.

2/26    Pakistan rules! Go Musharraf!
        \_ Nawaz Sharif is a corrupt pimp, and he should have been dragged
           out back of the airport when he first arrived back and shot.
           \- if they give him and "mr. bhutto" and ounce of responsibility,
              they will get what they derserve.
              \_ Goddamn it, why do we get the leaders we deserve?
                 \- you did in 2004. i thought the "mass desire for change"
                    that apparently exists in 2008 would have happened in
                    2004 ... becase i wanted to ask people still supporting
                    W then "what more could he have screwed up such that
                    he'd have lost your vote?" [invading a country on false
                    pretenses and botching it, not caputing OBL, loss of
                    america credibility for a generation, probably damaging
                    american military recruiting proscpects for a long
                    time by signaling the civilian leadership holds them
                    in low regard, constrasted with a highly successful
                    recruiting and franchising drive for al queda thanks to
                    the "hooded man" recruiting poster provided by the
                    AbuG and Guantanamo Bay, pluticratization of society,
                    corporate welfare, etc]
                    \_ Thanks.  Now I don't have to visit Kos this month.  W
                       got elected in 04 because the other guy was a big
                       lamer idiot.  Better the idiot you know for 4 more years
                       than the idiot you don't for 8.
                       \_ Turns out, not so much. Ask NOLA.
                       \_ How was Kerry a lamer idiot and why is it better to
                          stick with a known bad over an unknown?
                          \_ Both were bad.  One was 4 years max.  Kerry was
                             not an unknown.  He was and still is an idiot.

2/26    the day the routers died
        http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_y36fG2Oba0

2/26    I made a girl blush.  YES.
        \_ Uh, are you the sexless guy #1, #2, or #3?
           \_ #1.  good call!  still sexless by the way.
        \_ What did you do?
        \_ What are you?  12 years old?
        \_ What did you do, flash her?

2/26    Nick Weaver on slashdot
        http://yro.slashdot.org/yro/08/02/27/0018224.shtml
        \_ Holy shit, people still use slashdot?
           \_ Some even use motd!
        \_ This is not totally correct. Maintenance fees are required for
           patents. Similarly, renewal fees plus proof of continued use
           in commerce is required to retain a trademark. There are also
           filing fees for both patents and trademarks. These fees are
           analogous to a "property tax," as that term is used by nweaver.
           Until 1992, the same was somewhat true for copyrights. Before
           the 1992 revision to the Copyright Act, a renewal was required
           for a copyright to enter its 2d term of protection.
           There is also the whole issue of "moral rights" that further
           complicates copyright.
        \_ Unfortunately most of the slashdot crowd's "solutions" to the
           "patent problem" will always result in big companies stealing
           the real inventions of little guys even more than they already
           do today.  The real answer is to grant patents only for things
           truly novel.  Any sort of fee/tax/money based thing will not
           have any effect on Big Company(c) but will crush the little guy
           every time.
           \_ I believe that nweaver's comments were directed more toward
              copyright rather than patent b/c patent terms are limited to
              no more than 20 years from date of issue. Removing automatic
              copyright renewal will remedy neweaver's concerns.
              Re patents - although a stronger novelty or obviousness std
              will help eliminate some "bad" patents, it will not really
              do much to reduce the litigation threat. One key improvement
              (or reform) that is necessary is to increase the number of
              examiners (esp. in software) and to improve retention. Another
              improvement would be to appoint judges with scientific training
              to the Federal Circuit and to districts with heavy patent case
              loads.

2/26    http://origin.www.spike.com/video/2650367?cmpnid=800&lkdes=VID_2650367
        Really really cute blonde with wardrobe malfunction (nsfw)

2/26    Rejoice renters and bitter comrades who missed out! Home price
        index drops 8.9%, the largest drop in 20 year history!
        http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/23350937
        \_ GLOBAL RECESSION IS HERE! Prepare to be laid off soon. As
           for savers... good for you!          -Recession Swami
        \_ And you'll still need two mortgages and a spotless credit rating
           to afford a house in the Bay Area.
           \_ But Bay Area offers unheard of opportunities to get super
              rich from the dot-com companies!
              \_ For some.  But really it is about base salaries here being
                 almost double most other places.  For anyone who bought a
                 reasonable house within their price range without some
                 weirdola non-standard mortgage (98% of people), none of this
                 housing stuff matters much, if at all.
           \_ You need spotless credit almost everywhere right now.
           \_ Two mortgages or two incomes???
              \_ i think he's talking about piggy-back mortgages (which are
                 becoming much less common now in favor of 20% hard cash)
                 \_ I wouldn't even think about buying unless I had 20%
                    saved as a down payment.
                    \_ It's that kind of thinking that kept a lot of people
                       out of the housing market when it was cheap. I thought
                       the same way and was busily trying to save $60K on
                       an entry-level salary and meanwhile the years
                       ticked by: 1997, 1998, 1999, 2000. Around that time
                       I got a clue and realized that I could get a loan
                       and afford a payment with the $25K I had so what the
                       hell was I waiting for? I bought in 2001. If I was
                       still saving I think I'd have $100K and it *still*
                       wouldn't be 20% and my mortgage would be higher.
                       wouldn't be 20% and my mortgage would be bigger.
                       Just buy when you can afford the payment and don't
                       worry about the price so much. It's a bad way to
                       buy a lot of things, but a good way to buy real estate.
                       I could have bought back in 1997, had a better
                       standard of living, saved more money on my house,
                       and been 4 years closer to paying it off had I not
                       been worried about that mystical 20% down.
                       \_ Yeah, but that is just because your "saving" period
                          was during a time when real estate prices happened
                          to be rapidly appreciating. If you had 10% down now,
                          you would probably be better off waiting until you
                          had 20% down. In general, it is a bad idea to buy
                          more than you can afford, but I agree if you can
                          get a bank to sign the paper work, can afford the
                          monthly payment, and have 6 months worth of expenses
                          in the bank, you can buy with even 0% down now. I
                          would not do it, though.
                          \_ My point is that if you can comfortably afford to
                             buy now (for all values of now) then do it.
                             Maybe you can buy cheaper later. Maybe you
                             won't. There's no time like the present. That
                             can't. There's no time like the present. That
                             20% is not magic and it's unrealistic in markets
                             like urban CA if you're a first-time homebuyer.
                             You will waste a lot of time trying to go
                             from 10% to 20% down for no good reason. If
                             you would rather wait to buy for other reasons
                             that's something else, but simply waiting to
                             buy until you gather 20% down is not a good reason.
                             buy until you gather 20% down is not a good
                             reason.

2/26    http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/23348068
        Oh shit, Antidepressants don't work! Now I'm REALLY pissed and
        depressed and I'll be going postal soon!        -pissed and depressed

2/26    Why are there so many Indian women on BBC talking about British
        and world news? Shouldn't they present Indian news instead?
        \_ Outsourcing.
        \_ Light skin coloured Indian women with Bengali last names
           speaking in Standard British accent sound more sophisticated and
           smarter than bloody dumb blondes.
           \_ Their skin color makes them sound better?
              \_ It doesn't, but most Bengali's are fair skinned and
                 very Westernized (they love Channel and Fendi and
                 Tiffany's) and have a presence more elegant than
                 bloody dumb blondes. Southern women tend to be a bit
                 more brash and ditto with Punjabs      -pp GO INDIA!
                 \- speaking as a bengali who is reasonably fair skinned,
                    has bought ChanNel [sic] but hates spending money on
                    perfume [maybe Channel 5 is the Chav version of Chanel
                    No. 5?] owns a Fendi scarf, but equates Tiffany with the
                    Devil aka DeBeers ... you dont know what you are talking
                    about.
                    \_ Hey, give him a break, he's probably a sexually
                       inexperienced nerd who is confusing being attracted to
                       exotic women with character judgement.
        \_ Why are there so many East Asian women on US new channels?
        \_ Why are there so many East Asian women on US news channels?
           I bet the answer is the same...
           \_ Is it because big robust blonds like JACKIE JOHNSON looks
              less exotic and intellectual than Asian news-anchorwomen?