9/21    Krugman on the Paulson "Plan":
        http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/22/opinion/22krugman.html
        "... it will be crippled by inadequate capital unless the federal
        government hugely overpays for the assets it buys, giving financial
        firms — and their stockholders and executives — a giant windfall at
        taxpayer expense....if the government is going to provide capital to
        financial firms, it should get what people who provide capital are
        entitled to — a share in ownership, so that all the gains if the
        rescue plan works don’t go to the people who made the mess in the
        first place."
        \- i dont think PAULSON is too bad, but this clearly has to be
           decided by more than 1-2 people no matter who they are. and this
           is one case where diversity would be a good thing, i.e. not ideal
           if the dems say shoved RRUBIN into the process [also a GS elite
           then to citgroup] ... better to have LSUMMERS, NROUBINI, PVOLKER,
           JSTIGLITZ and various other non-tainted, not-super-ideological
           finance or macro academics ... probably cant involve people now
           in the private sector like MDELRAN].
        \_ I'd be all for this if they included a provision limiting the pay
           of every employee of these firms to 100k, just this year.

9/22    If you would like to call your senator or representative about the
        $700B bailout (the one where Congress would give Hank Paulson sole
        discretion on what to spend it on), but are not sure what to say:
        http://www.tickerforum.org/cgi-ticker/akcs-www?post=62163
        (I left messages over the weekend with Mike Honda, Boxer, and
        Feinstein.  I also said that bank transparency needs to happen
        SIMULTANEOUSLY with any money disbursement.  How in the hell do you
        have any negotiating power when you give the money first and negotiate
        later on reform measures?)
        \_ Look how well it worked in Iraq!
        \_ also see: -op
           http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20080922006376/en

9/22    When's the last time to register to vote for Nov?   -first time voter
        \_ In CA, Oct 20:  http://www.sos.ca.gov/elections/elections_vr.htm
        \_ http://www.rockthevote.com/voting-is-easy/important-dates

9/22    What's the term to describe the act that someone says a lot of things
        but never carry out his/her words?  Sayings like "I'll help up on
        house work from now on so that you can get more sleep", "I'll leave
        work earlier from now on to watch the kids so that you can spend more
        time at work", etc.  "Perversion" doesn't seem to be the right word.
        Thanks.  (This is about family members, not presidential candidates.)
        \_ Flake.
           \_ Seconded
        \_ the fish
        \_ Liar?
        \_ Bullshitter? Blowhard? Perverse is the wrong word here, your
           instinct is correct.
        \_ Women in general. My mother.
        \_ All talk, no action.
        \_ Well-intentioned but unnreliable.
        \_ It depends on if you think they actually mean it and are just
           lazy flakes or if you think they are just saying whatever they
           want you to hear in order to get you off their back, in which
           case they are spineless flakes.

9/22    Shit, mortgages are getting expensive again
        http://finance.yahoo.com/q/bc?s=^TNX&t=5d
        We need market tankage to get rates low! </troll>
        \_ The market is finally waking up to the inflation risk.
           \_ the market = Republicans, conservatives, libertarians
              \_ actually, it's mostly foreigners
                 the sheeple just want:
                 the general American population just want:
                 - market go up forever
                 - housing stop going down
                 - nuther stimulus pleese
                 - dank u for cheep gazz
                 \_ Sheeple.  Wow you are so deep.
                    \_ what's your point exactly?  sheeple = the general
                       American population, not just conservatives
                    \_ sheeple = the general American population, not talking
                       about conservatives
                       \_ Anyone older than 19 who uses the word sheeple,
                          even in jest, is an idiot.
                          \_ noted and updated
                          \_ what's significant about 19?
                             \_ It's the age of every girl dans has dated?

9/22    What caused the Great Depression? Is it happening now?
        http://yanswersblog.com/index.php/archives/2008/09/19/ask-mike-what-caused-the-great-depression

9/22    why does the onion ALWAYS KNOW WHAT IS GOING TO HAPPEN
        http://www.theonion.com/content/node/28784
        \_ I think the CIA must be tipping them off or something.
           \_ Old joke: how do we know the CIA didn't kill Kennedy?
              Answer: He's dead, isn't he?

9/21    So I did it and got myself a Macbook Pro. Any suggestions for the best
        PC->Mac transition?  After finding out that Outlook is not supported
        under Mac; I bought parallels and am installing XP to grab my outlook
        mail archive (~1GB) from the original PC disk (the pc itself is
        basically dead). Any suggestions on a relatively painless import to
        entourage? The Mac Genius guy also reccomended an upgrade to 4GB and
        said that you needed to buy an upgrade kit and ; unlike PC; all RAM
        is not created equal pgrade kit and ; unlike PC; all RAM
        is not created equal. Can Ibuy this from frys or do I need to order it
        online ? Thanks
        \_ Just use quality brand and matching (or exceeding) requirements.
           I put Corsair in Mac and it works fine.  Just go through some
           reviews on http://newegg.com.
        \_With new laptops coming out in a couple weeks, why would you buy a
          Macbook Pro now.  You could get a much nicer machine for the same
          price, or end up paying less for what you bought.
          \_ Not the OP, but I'd bet the buying decision was based on the
             untimely death of previous system.  Reading comprehension FTW
             -- Waiting for new MBP but still have working system
                        -- Yes; its the same poster. Dell death was prime
                        motivator as well as the closeout pricing. I also
                        have travel coming up and I wanted to finish the
                        conversion before then.
        \_ FYI, Entourage 2008 (part of Microsoft's Mac Office 2008) works
           pretty well with Exchange.
           \_ Really? Maybe I willl ask helpdesk for an upgrad ethen.
           \_ Really? Maybe I willl ask helpdesk for an upgrade then.
              \_ Yeah. I have been using Entourage 2008 with our office
                 exchange server for 6+ months and haven't had any major
                 problems.  The only issue I have had w/ our exchange
                 server and Entourage 2008 is that the exchange server
                 refused to authenticate me if I supplied a workgroup.

9/21    Why has McCain deliberately spent the last 30 years covering up
        evidence of US soldiers still left in Vietnam?
        http://www.nationinstitute.org/p/schanberg09182008pt1

9/22    Gmail's "conversation feature" drives me nuts! Is there a way to
        disable that and make Gmail act like every other e-mail client on the
        planet? WTF thought this was a nice thing to have on by default?
        \_ Umm, why don't you just use another email service then...
           \_ Umm, I do, which is how I have something to compare to. I get
              mail in at least 4 places only one of which is Gmail. I
              rarely use my Gmail account, but I decided to try it again
              today just to see how it was running and what features it
              has added. I like to stay current with this stuff for the
              same reason that people have accounts on flickr, snapfish,
              photobucket, and shutterfly. This "feature" of Gmail annoys
              the crap out of me.
              \_ Well, it is kind of central to their design of the product.
                 So if you don't like it and can't deal with it, use something
                 else. This need to "stay current" with different email
                 services is also somewhat mystifying. Do you like to
                 "stay current" with different word processors too? I mean,
                 there is some benefit to being familiar with whatever, but
                 it seems like there are many more worthwhile things to spend
                 your time learning.
                 \_ That's nice. I run Windows, Mac, and Linux but I guess
                    some people just learn Windows, are happy with it, and
                    that's that. So, yes, I do use different Word
                    Processors (OpenOffice and Word), mail clients (Mail.app,
                    Thunderbird, kmail, and Outlook), etc. You might find
                    you like to watch TV, golf, or whatever your hobby is
                    that I find a waste of time. If you learn C++ does
                    that mean you shouldn't spend time learning Java or ruby
                    or python or whatever even if it turns out you think the
                    language sucks once you invested time in it?
                    \_ So a mail program is like a language?  "Keeping
                       current" with gmail means figuring out all the cool
                       things they do with javascript.  It doesn't mean knowing
                       how to read your email.
                       \_ I think you are wrong here. There are features
                          that can make you more productive if you know
                          about them. If you know "vi" then why learn
                          "emacs"? You already know a text editor, right?
                          \_ If you need to "stay current" with mail readers
                             you aren't smart enough to stay current.  It's
                             a flipping mail reader.  It reads mail.  A
                             moron can figure it out within 10 minutes.
                             \_ Spoken like someone who doesn't know very much.
                                "It's a friggin text editor. It edits text. A
                                moron can figure it out within 10 minutes."
                                Point here is that you don't know what
                                features are available until you spend
                                that 10 (or whatever) minutes trying it out!
                                \_ You keep that "gmail power user" on your
                                   resume.  Let us know how it works for you.
                                   \_ Keep reading your e-mail using PINE and
                                      let me know how it works out for you.
                          \- what is weird are the people under say 30
                             who learned vi rather than emacs.
        \_ Options -> sign out of chat.
        \_ There doesn't seem to be any way to turn it off.  It drove
           me crazy at first, but now I love it.
           \_ Same here.  At first I hated it, now using my yahoo account
              feels like going back to elm.

9/22    wtf, oil is back to ~$115.  bailout now! </troll>
        \_ Expect high volitility until the financial markets settle down.
           Also, we're at the end of the summer, so demand has decreased.
           It'll spike again at the first cold snap.
        \_ Part of the same fear of t he dollar that is causing the
           drop in reasuries.
        \_ The dollar is trash.
           \_ I'll pick up your trash for free.

9/22    In SQL, how can I do something like this:
        SELECT ip_addr, count(*) AS ct FROM table WHERE
          ct > 10 GROUP BY ip_addr?
        I can't get the conditionals to recognize 'ct'
        \_ SELECT ip_addr, count(*) AS ct FROM table HAVING
            count(*) > 10 GROUP BY ip_addr?
            \_ SELECT ip_addr, count(*) AS ct FROM table
                  GROUP BY ip_addr HAVING ct > 10 ?
               Note that HAVING must be after GROUP BY and before
               ORDER BY. Thanks for the reminder!

9/22    I'm diagnosing a geometric algorithm, and would love a fixed-width font
        that has the same height as width on Windows.  Anyone know of such a
        font?