4/2     Time to just start using taxpayer money to tear down excess housing?
        http://www.csua.org/u/l6d

4/2     I want a Thinkpad that is light.  I don't need a CD-ROM drive.
        I want a display that is higher resolution than 1024x768.
        Which model should I get?  Thanks you.
        \_ x300

4/2     http://www.reason.com/news/show/125786.html
        Your tax dollars at work providing strip searches for 13 year old
        girls at school for no reason.  I've got mixed feelings on home
        schooling but the morons running the school systems with their
        idiotic "zero tolerance" policies need to go.
        \_ do you think that the fact that some children are molested at home
           is an argument against home schooling?
           \_ Ummm, school doesn't keep them all day.  I'm not sure why school
              would help someone being molested at home.  Except that I
              guess it would be a chance to get out and tell someone?  I was
              under the impression that that rerely happens.
              \_ The issue is orthogonal.
        \_ The whole War on Drugs is a sham. Just like the War on Terrah,
           it is an excuse to funnel your dollars to favored contractors,
           who then recycle it as campaign contributions. As an added bonus,
           it makes the sheeple feel safer and happy that someone is doing
           something about a problem that was mostly a mirage to begin with.
        \_ They forgot to check whether or not she was hiding any ibuprofen in
           her vagina.  Hmm, let me reach inside and verify that.
           \_ At least BushCo is winning in the war on the environment and
              the war on the poor and middle class.
        \_ Hmm, she's probably hiding the ibuprofen in her vagina.  Let me
           reach inside and flush that out.
        \_ "Remember," the school district's lawyer recently told ABC News
           by way of justification, "this was prescription-strength
           ibuprofen."  400 mg per tablet rather than 200!  She must be
           a hard case.

4/2     Yes, Iraqis kicked Al Sadr's butt in Basra
        http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2008/04/whittling_away_at_sadr.html
        \_ Now there's a dependable source.  Obviously I'm just some MSM
           reading, what's the word -- oh yeah, sheeple.
           \_ What's wrong with http://realclearpolitics.com?  They mostly re-post
              stories from MSM from all across the political spectrum.  Have
              you ever even read the site?
              \_ Have you looked at the Creator's Syndicate site?  I have no
                 idea what realclearpolitics is, but considering the link bar
                 has "Meet a Left Wing Housing Thug" I'm going to go with
                 not a reasonable source.
        \_ Does this mean that the Mission is Accomplished and we can finally
           bring our boys home? Good news, indeed.
           \_ If the entire war was about Al Sadr and Basra and Al Sadr was
              defeated and order restored, yes.  But it isn't about any of
              those things.  Is that considered a clever remark in your
              circles?
              \_ So what is the war about anyway? I thought it was about
                 some WMD and overthrowing Saddam Hussein. When are we
                 going to be able to declare victory and go home? 100 years?
                 If the war isn't about any of these things, why did you
                 even bother to tell us about it?

4/2     Code Pink puts on a bizarre April Fools day stunt where they appear
        to be the butt of their own joke.
        http://www.zombietime.com/zomblog/?p=3
        \_ They obviously have a better sense of humour than the confused
           and enraged zombietime bloggers.

4/2     Is there an interpreted version of C or C++ that can be used for
        educational purposes? It doesn't have to be full-featured or
        strictly adhere to the standards, but it's painful for students
        to change a variable in a for loop and then wait for a compile
        to see how it changes the result. Something really lightweight
        would encourage them to play around a lot more and learn more in
        the process.
        \_ There are interpreted versions of C around.  I know of one at UC
           Davis, although I don't know the name and have never tried it.
        \_ Seriously, for this level of programing why are you using C?
           There's all sorts of better learning languages that aren't going
           to get bogged down in C land.
           \_ Because this is to teach students C/C++ in particular and not
              CS/logic. Same reason why not to use perl or python in this
              instance. Imagine that you want to teach high school students
              C/C++. I don't want to use a 'learning language' like
              Pascal, because the objective it to learn the fundamentals
              of the C/C++ language. Many already know Java anyway. We
              can use a real compiler when the projects get more complex,
              but at Ground Zero an interpreted version of C would be nice.
              \_ I would argue that the compiling process is a pretty
                 fundamental aspect of C/C++. So becoming comfortable with
                 that (teach them to use make at the same time?) is part
                 of learning the language. For simple programs compiling
                 should be really simple to do. An IDE is even simpler but
                 probably harder to see what is really going on (Visual
                 Studio feels like using MS Office or something instead of
                 seeing the individual steps.)
                 \_ We are using Visual Studio, but it is far too
                    cumbersome to start with. One compile of "Hello
                    world!" takes a few mins even on modern h/w. It would
                    be nice to be able to prototype simple programs
                    or 'play' outside of the compiler. It is a PITA to
                    recompile every time to do a simple change to see
                    what might happen and it restricts people from wanting
                    to experiment.
                    \_ Few mins for hello world? Something seems wrong.
                       At any rate a simple editor + gcc would definitely
                       be easy. Just edit hello.c, gcc hello.c, a.out.
                       Rinse, repeat. Well, good luck.
                       \_ Or "cl hello.c" if Visual Studio is in your path
                          environment variable.
                    \_ well this then, is your biggest problem. were you using
                       a linux host, gcc would compile simple C programs in a
                       fraction of a second.
                       Barring switching over to Linux, you could potentially
                       try using gcc under cygwin, also very fast. -ERic
                       \_ Can't switch to Linux as their lab runs WinXP.
                          \_ reread my whole comment, including the gem about
                             cygwin, which runs fine under winXP. -ERic
                             \_ I read it. I was just explaining why
                                Linux isn't an option. Thanks.
        \_ Why not use perl? If you have to use C, try cint from CERN:
           http://root.cern.ch/twiki/bin/view/ROOT/CINT
           \_ Please, not perl.  Python.  Ruby.  Hell Scheme.  Anything
              but perl.
           \_ cint looks interesting and I will play around with it.
           \- long ago, there was "Saber C" ... i dunno what is the current
              state of Sabre C/codecenter. Do these studnets know how to use
              gdb? I dont think the "problem" is recompiling, it is syntax
              and inspecting data structures. Why dont you use lisp. --psb

4/2     This is some awesome pro-gun propaganda.  I especially like the little hammer
        and sickle on IL.
        http://gunmap.org
         \_ nice.  I love how the 2 "right denied" states exempt politicians.

4/2     I'm running Windows.  How do i get cool virtual desktops
        like on a mac or 100 million other Unix window managers?
        \_ 2 minutes of googling should get you some answers.
           MS has a "powertoy" for this.
        \_ VMware Workstation?

4/2     http://blog.wired.com/cars/2008/04/should-drivers.html?nup=1&mbid=yhp
        "Yet motorists in Los Angeles County might be paying an extra 9 cents
        per gallon at the gas pump -- or an additional $90 on their vehicle
        registration fees. The purpose? It would help fight global warming."
        Yeah.  Let's do this here in the Bay Area also.

4/2     "Military feels fuel-cost gouge in Iraq" - Yahoo! News:
        http://www.csua.org/u/l6j
        "In World War II, the average fuel consumption per soldier or Marine
        was about 1.67 gallons a day; in Iraq, it's 27.3 gallons,"
        \_ So?
           \_ They should get hybrid Humvees.
              http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/iraq/2006-02-13-humvee_x.htm

4/2     "Boy, 12, kills man who attacked his mom"
        http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080402/ap_on_re_us/boy_stabs_man
        Yes!  Well done!
        \_ I assume that the only reason they are even considering whether
           to charge the kid with anything is to keep their options
           open until they are able to verify the story?

4/2     New trend: retirees leaving the suburbs for the convenience of
        The City:
        http://www.csua.org/u/l6p
        \_ Only in San Francisco. San Francisco is the opposite of
           mainstream America.
           \_ " The Gruens say they represent a national trend: Senior
               citizens, unwilling to live exclusively with their own
               age group, find everything they need (and can afford)
               to age gracefully by selling the family home and moving
               downtown.
               'It's a massive trend!' said Nina. 'It's happening all
               over America, and there's a good reason for it.'"
              \_ I get all my demographic news from Nina Gruen!  She's the
                 best!
                 \_ do you have a point?
                    \_ Yeah. How the hell would she know?
                       \_ maybe, unlike you, she has investigated the
                          issue.
                          http://www.planetizen.com/node/19780   -tom
                          \_ What does that study mean by 'moving to the
                             cities'? Is Alameda 'a city' by this
                             definition? What about Barstow?
                             \_ Funny how it's always easier to
                                nitpick at other people's data than to
                                come up with some of your own.  -tom
                                \_ That's your entire MOTD modus operandi.
                                   \_ You mean like in this thread, where I
                                      provided direct evidence and you
                                      haven't?  -tom
                                      \_ Where did you post direct evidence
                                         that Nina Gruen did any research
                                         rather than talking out her butt?
                                         \_ are you really this stupid?  -tom
                                            \_ You know, reading this roadkill
                                               of a conversation, it occurred
                                               to me it would be a simple
                                               matter to write an eliza-bot
                                               tom simulator that would fool
                                               most motd readers.
            \_ It is true. We are smarter, richer and more successful
               than elsewhere:
               http://www.csua.org/u/l6x (bizjournals)
        \_ Stop trying to bore me.

4/2     In depth review of the classic MMOG 'Outside'
        http://csua.org/u/l6o

4/2     hmm.
        [A lot of porn with "aspo" in the path removed]
        \_ Nope, that's really not my style of porn.  Out of curiosity where
           did this come from? -aspo