12/17   Chrysler halts production. It's not like anyone I know in N Cal
        actually drives one.
        \_ they still own lamborghini?
        \_ not like everyone i know in N Cal drives
           \_ hasn't stopped them from begging for rides
        \_ It's called a "Dodge" for you.
        \_ Dodge and Plymouth all over N.Cal, but then again I don't
           consider the Bay Area N. Cal.
           \_ The only people I know who buy those kind of cars are
              blue collar workers or those who are uneducated. My
              provider Tracy the stripper drives a cheap Plymouth. Sorry
               \_ "provider tracy the stripper". what does she provide?
              but all my college friends drive Japanese or German cars.
              \_ Wow, a little classist are we?  (And you forgot the
                 occasional Ford, followed by 4 years of "why the fuck
                 was I so stupid?")
                 \_ I have never regretted my 1967 mustang hardtop.
                  \_ There is a special place in hell for idiots who buy
                     cars older than they are.
                     \_ VIP lounge, where all the hottie sluts hang out
                     \_ zomg UNDEAD WARLOCK
                        \_ OH NOES NERF
                           \_ our nerfs will block out the sun..-blizzard
                              ... then we will fight in the shade. -lock
               \_ Plymouth brand was dropped years ago. (2001)
                  Dodge and Jeep (Chrysler corp) are fairly common.  I think
                  Chrysler should be killed though if possible.  Ford is
                  actually a decent company, they have Mazda, are competitive
                  in Europe, have the best financial situation, have had the
                  bestselling truck for decades, etc.  Ford at least has done
                  well in the past with stuff like the Taurus and the Focus,
                  unlike GM.  GM is pretty bad but even they have certain
                  bright spots (they do well in China apparently).
                  GM is pretty crappy though, not that the quality is
                  necessarily bad but their product introductions are sloooow.
                  They also have a mess of redundant brands and need serious
                  restructuring.  They also have a brand image problem after
                  years of trying to push crappy products with heavy marketing.
                  \_ Ford was nice and turned down the bridge loan.
                  \_ I'd love to see ford (and for that matter gm) go back
                     to building nice classic cars of limited production.
                     '58 vette is beautiful- they can exist like that, way
                     '69 vette is beautiful- they can exist like that, way
                     smaller than they were before.  Retool their factories to
                     build military vehicles and public transit vehicles.
                     \_ god wtf are these people taking their designs from
                        the movie "Cars"
           http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fifth-generation_Chevrolet_Camaro
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fifth-generation_Chevrolet_Camaro#2006_Camaro_Concept
        \_ The auto companies always halt production over Christmas/New Years
           \_ For two weeks, not a month.

12/17   What is going on here? (graph of money supply)
        http://tinyurl.com/5on6w9
        \_ Fed keeps cutting interest rate, and printing money to give out
           to banks.  Banks don't need to lend out money, because the Fed
           keeps giving more to them.  So, more money supply without
           more circulation.
           \_ This is GWB's last chance to give cash rebates to the people!
              \_ who's people?
                 \_ You meant to write, "whose people?"
                    \_ or "who is people?" "Are we dancer?"
           \_ 2nd sentence doesn't make any sense. Banks are soaking up
              loans from the Fed to shore up their balance sheets. Once it doesn't
              look like they could collapse at any moment, "they will start lending
              again." Which means lending to more people than just those who are
              a sure thing (fico 750+ ?), like they're doing now.

12/17   Does anyone actually watch the George Lopez show?
        \_ Jon Leguizamo is better.

12/18   Using graphics chips to do generic data-crunching:
        "NVIDIA CUDA Technology Dramatically Advances The Pace of Scientific
        Research"
        http://www.imim.es/news/view.php?ID=37
        \_ Why are you posting marketing press releases here?
           There's nothing new here... they've done the folding @home thing
           on GPUs for a long time and on Playstations.
           Also, YMWTGF: OpenCL
           \_ What is interesting is the layer of abstraction involved.
              Folding @home had to write some seriously special case code.
              \_ The original one did, but they also use Nvidia's CUDA now,
                 but that is Nvidia-specific so it is still special case.
                 In any case the "using graphics chips to do generic data-
                 crunching" aspect is like 8+ years old.
                 It is definitely an interesting research area though.
                 (CSUA should invest in high-end gaming PCs for research...)
                 \_ No need. We already have some. For *cough* research...
                    --t

12/18   Are any of you using any kind of scheme involving, e.g., running
        multiple copies of web browsers in virtual machines so that the
        copy you use for random web browsing is isolated from the copy you
        use for financial transactions? What other sorts of schemes like
        this are people using that aren't a total PITA? P.S. I am talking
        mainly about Windows; on Unixes you could always run stuff under
        a different user account, which might be doable on windows too,
        but I'm not clear on all the details.
        \_ most obvious solutino:  USE LINUX!
        \_ most obvious solution:  USE LINUX!
           \_ I'm not going to make my mother use Linux.
              \_ How about MacOS then?
              \_ Then you may be missing out. Ubuntu 8.10 has enough
                 features for most of the surfing your mom is likely to
                 do.
        \_ parallels/vmware/virtualbox. hit revert after every frivolous
           web search that is non business, non academic.  make sure to turn
           off clipboard, filesharing, all host<->guest access.
           \_ You don't need to go to all that trouble. Just run something
              like sandboxie.

12/18   You know why US economy is messed up? North Korean SUPERNOTES.
        http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Superdollar
        http://www.slate.com/id/2124884
        Throughout WW2, Germany produced supernotes to ruin the
        British/US economy. N Korean is doing the very same thing today.
        \_ Seriously?  You believe this crap?
           \- pakistan has flooded places like nepal with high denomination
              fake indian rupees and they they are often not accepted.

12/18   Whatever happened to the freeper guy(s) on motd? No more
        pro war and Obama mellon jokes?
        \_ jblack has moved on to yellower pastures.
           \_ Oh, like the NYT?

12/18   Peak Oil happening faster than previously suspected:
        http://tinyurl.com/4eqwh2 (FT)

12/18   I'm loving the Privacy Browsing feature on Safari. I turn it
        on, browse porn, then turn it off, and no one using my
        computer would ever know that I browsed porn (no history,
        no cache, nada). Loving it man.
        \_ The guy with the backdoor knows. Also, the shadow knows.
           \_ That may be the case and I don't really care about the
              guy with the backdoor. The most important thing is that
              my kids and my wife don't know about it.
              \_ But it's advertised as being useful for gift shopping!
                 You horrible, horrible man.
                 \_ And tax cuts are good for THE PEOPLE!

12/18   wtf is happening to my money market yield?
        http://finance.yahoo.com/q/bc?s=^IRX&t=my
        \_ spend spend spend! Only *YOU* can save the economy by
           spending.
           \_ I'm actually increasing my spending to some
              extent over usual.
              \_ Bargains to be had?
                 \_ No, I just feel sorry for everyone.  It's
                    tough times and I have cash and don't need
                    credit to buy shit.
                    \_ I am spending more too, but that is mostly because
                       I keep seeing great deals on things like single malt
                       scotch, that I can't pass up.
        \_ The Fed is printing money. The dollar is worthless, hence the
           0& coupon auction recently. We are in for some serious
           inflation eventually.
           \_ The Fed is only "printing money" (through their new loan facilities)
              in markets that are desperate for liquidity. This money supply is
              probably preventing _deflation_ right now (which is much worse),
              and can be quickly soaked up again to keep inflation under control.
           \_ The Fed is only "printing money" (through their new loan
              facilities) in markets that are desperate for liquidity. This
              money supply is probably preventing _deflation_ right now (which
              is much worse), and can be quickly soaked up again to keep
              inflation under control.
              \_ We hope. I don't think the Fed can inject $1T into the
                 economy and not cause inflation.
        \_ This is because practically everyone in the world (including op)
           is buying safe T-bills, driving down yields. Demand is outstripping
           supply, which raises prices and depresses yield. Nothing to do with
           the money supply.
              is buying safe T-bills, driving down yields. The Fed is only
              "printing money" (through their new loan facilities) in markets that
              are desperate for liquidity. This money supply is probably preventing
              _deflation_ right now (which is much worse), and can be quickly soaked
              up again to keep inflation under control.
           \_ What you say is all true except for the last sentence.

12/18   Campus USENET service will be terminated on 12/31.
        http://ls.berkeley.edu/mail/micronet/2008/1608.html
        \_ I emailed RobR to tell him. -ausman
        \_ The CSUA is considering asking campus to allow us to run NNTP for
           ucb.class.*, as bSpace sucks major major ass. Thoughts? --t
           \_ That's noble, but maybe the effort would be better spent
              writing a web-based bulletin board that doesn't suck?
              \_ Big difference in outlay of effort IMO. No. --t
           \_ You should do this, if you have the inclination.
              \_ I just emailed Michael Sinatra, the person who sent the
                 reminder. Who else should I email? --t
           \_ Surely you can come up with something better than NNTP and
              Usenet, even if bSpace isn't it.  -tom
              \_ Seconded. Get on with the Web 2.0 bandwagon and forget about
                 gopher, mozilla 0.1, and nntp usenet. It's like people in the
                 70s trying to design a computer using tubes all over again.
                 The world move forward.                                -kchang
                 \_ Sarcasm, I hope. Web 2.0 the marketing strategy is a sham.
                    Web 2.0 the technology (AJAX, etc.), OTOH, I can sort of get
                    behind. --t
                    Web 2.0 the technology (AJAX, etc.), OTOH, I can sort of
                    get behind. --t
              \_ But what's wrong with USENET/NNTP? It's served the classes
                 wonderfully, isn't broken, and there are plenty of programs
                 that *others* maintain. In fact, this is exactly why bSpace's
                 attempt at web-based bulletin board sucks so hard. I can't run
                 a desktop client/script to check bSpace forum messages, and a
                 replacement of sufficient complexity, similarity, and
                 portability would essentially be reimplementing NNTP, badly and
                 haphazardly in such a way that few classes would care to use,
                 as it would not be integrated into their system as bSpace is.
                 Sorry alumni, replacing a shitty new system with a shitty newer
                 system is a shitty idea. --t
                 portability would essentially be reimplementing NNTP, badly
                 and haphazardly in such a way that few classes would care to
                 use, as it would not be integrated into their system as
                 bSpace is. Sorry alumni, replacing a shitty new system with
                 a shitty newer system is a shitty idea. --t
                 \_ What's wrong with USENET is that the distribution mechanism
                    sucks and the signal to noise ratio is effectively zero.
                    That doesn't matter so much for ucb.class.*, but then you
                    get into the fact that the interface sucks, too.  What
                    percentage of students in the relevant classes do you
                    think actually pay attention to ucb.class.*?  -tom
                    \_ I'd say 80% or more in the classes that use it. No lie.
                       There's a very *low* amount of noise. The CS188 amd CS61C
                       classes typically run into the several thousand posts.--t
                       There's a very *low* amount of noise. The CS188 amd
                       CS61C classes typically run into the several thousand
                       posts.--t
           \_ How much do you know about USENET? Groups like ucb.class.*
              don't really have a home or a host. Several non-Berkeley NNTP
              servers propagate the ucb.* hierarchy, although most do not.
              All you need is access to a free USENET server that accepts
              these groups. While there is value in CSUA running such a server,
              ucb.* isn't dead without it. More important is official buy-in.
              If the teaching staff for a class doesn't promote the newsgroups,
              they won't get used, regardless of how they're supported.
              It might be worth asking CNS (or whoever) if they can provide
              you with any data on usage of the ucb.* groups.
              \_ I'm pretty sure teaching staff will go along with NNTP if
                 there's someone supporting it. There are peripheral
                 benefits, such as being able to legitimately plug the CSUA
                 in all of the CS classes with active newsgroups. --t
        \_ No more alt.stories.* on soda.  One fewer reason to log on.
           \_ alt.stories.*? I do not know of what you speak. Explain? --t
              \_ I think he means alt.sex.stories.
        \_ I am all for more reasons for http://soda.csua.berkeley.edu to exist.
           Undergrads, PLEASE host NNTP for ucb.eecs! ok tnx.
        \_ God damn, one of the main reason I log on to csua is to
           browse the news group. Call me old fashioned but I still
           like the tin interface better than anything else. This is
           sad.

12/18   Hi, is there a how-to to access csua with ftp?
        \_ man scp
          \_ Thanks that did it.