12/20   Hi guys.  The newbs I play Texas hold 'em with require you to use both
        your hole cards; however, according to the official rules you have the
        option to use none, just one, or both of your hold cards to form your
        5-card hand.
        Requiring use of both hole cards makes straights and flushes harder of
        course.  Does anyone out there play like my newb friends?
        \_ god your friends are noobs.  they should look into 7-card stud
           to get a clue.
        \_ Your friends are idiots.  Maybe they're thinking of Omaha?
        Another question:  Let's say all bets have been called and there is
        more than one player at the showdown.  Can a player just fold at
        this point without showing their cards?  I think the answer is no.
        \_ obdragonpokerlittlemythmarkerskevebeatssensenantekidreference
           \_ In one hand, no less!!!1!one
              \_ Outstanding.  I'm glad I'm not the only one.
        \_ no.  players paid to see his cards.
           \_ maybe we're both wrong
              http://www.poker1.com/mcu/rules/b_article11.asp
              This page says that you need to show your cards to win (duh), but
              there doesn't seem to be a rule that says you need to show
              if you're a loser.
              This happens to match my memory of movies where poker is
              played ... someone shows a kick-ass hand, and everyone throws
              their hands face-down.
           \_ The people I play with use a rule where the winner can request
              to see the losers' cards if a river bet was callde.
              to see the losers' cards if a river bet was called.
           \_ In Vegas you can just fold, but I think the above person is
              correct that the winner can ask to see the hand. In Vegas
              'cards speak' which means if you are an idiot who says he has a
              flush when in reality you have a royal flush then the dealer
              will call it a royal flush (the best hand). For this to
              happen people usually just show their cards and keep their
              mouths shut (lest be proven the total morons that they are,
              although everyone makes mistakes). The moral here is not to
              fold without showing your cards at the showdown. Some people
              think there's an advantage to mucking the cards, but I don't
              bother if I stayed in that long. Added: doing some research shows
              bother if I stayed in that long. Added: Doing some research shows
              that while legal to ask to see the hand it is considered VERY
              BAD etiquette and you may be asked to leave.
              BAD etiquette and you may be asked to leave. Here's more:
              http://www.tommyangelo.com/articles/i_want_to_see_that_hand.htm
              \_ Which one has to show first then? I think everyone is
                 just as obligated to show, fuck that etiquette.
                 \_ According to the url, if no one wants to show, then the
                    first person to show is the last guy who bet/raised during
                    the river round (i.e., the aggressor shows first).  if
                    everyone checked for the river round or everyone was
                    already all-in before the river round, then the guy to the
                    left of the dealer shows first.  People then show in a
                    clockwise order from whichever player showed first.
                    Also, anyone can elect to show first, at which point others
                    can show if they want to (in any order).
                    Then again you can have a house rule that says if you
                    get to the river round, you MUST show even if you're a
                    loser, which is what you meant by "fuck that etiquette".
                    Another user who posted above has a similar house rule ...
              \_ The newb who folded at the showdown did so because he was
                 bluffing and didn't want to be further embarrassed by showing
                 the cards he had.
        \_ you can fold at any time as long as it is your turn without showing
           your cards (even if there is no bet in front of you)
           \_ This wasn't in question.

11/30   How do you record to a file the video streams you watch on http://cnn.com
        or http://nightly.msnbc.com?  Thanks.
        \_ Is it streaming windows media video?  Try SDP.
           \_ Or ASFRecorder  -John
              \_ Or mplayer

11/30   I need to send an AVI file to a WindowsME user.
        DVIX, the codec i usually use,  is supposedly not supported.
        Anyone know of a codec or movie format that would work?Thanks.
        \_ I'd be pretty suprised if MPEG2 didn't work.  Or they could just
           install the DivX codec.
           \_ MPEG2 typically doesn't work unless you've installed a DVD player
              program.
           \_ You're thinking of MPEG1.  Anyway, assuming the op meant DivX,
              the WinME user simply could install ffdshow.
              \_ Or VLC, or simply install the divx codec.
                 \_ VLC is completely awesome. http://www.videolan.org
        \_ The other option is to get them to drop WinME.  Microsoft
           should have to pay an apology fee to everyone who had to use
           that piece of trash.
              \_ Or VLC.
                 \_ The WINME user was told to view the video using
                 realplayer, expecting that the correct codec would be
        downloaded and installed. Instead it came back with the error
        message about it not being supported. Sorry about the typo.
        \_ Matroska codec pack.  -John

11/3    Can anyone tell me who wrote the original version of "If I didn't
        have you." recently made famous by them movie _Monsters INC_ ?
        \_ It's an original by Randy Newman.
           \_ are you saying it was original for the movie?  'Cause I would
              have sworn I had heard that basic song long before the movie.
              (though, this would not be the first time I thought a new song
              was an old one).
              \_ 1) It's a Randy Newman song, so it sounds like EVERY OTHER
                 RANDY NEWMAN SONG EVER.  2) It's a common turn of phrase in
                 many standards.
                 \_ If by "Randy Newman song" you mean "Randy Newman song that
                    was written for a movie", then sure. You might want to
                    compare "You've got a friend in me" to, say, "Rednecks" or
                    "Birmingham". -gm
                    \_ Ooh, a two step instead of swing!  How ... adventurous?
                       \_ Why do you hate LA? -gm

7/22    A bunch of grannies tried to enlist in the armed forces and
        got arrested. This is not good media exposure. Why can't the armed
        forces just ask them to fill out an application and hold their
        files as "pending" forever, instead of arresting them and creating
        this media debacle? Secondly, why doesn't the armed forces just send
        them to Iraq and have them cook, or clean up barracks and toilets?
        http://www.cnn.com/2005/US/07/22/raging.grannies.ap
        \_ "The group has protested every week for the last three years outside
           the recruitment center."
        \_ "This was not a performance, a joke or civil disobedience," she
           said. "This was an enlistment attempt."  That is total BS.

7/18    I'm looking for a real picture of the 60s girl who inspired the
        song Girl From Ipanema (Garota de Ipanema) by Astrud Gilberto
        and often sang by Jobim. I've heard that her old 60s picture
        was totally utterly completely hot and puts all the supermodels
        to shame, and that her grand-daughter is just as hot now, but
        I can't seem to find their pictures. Please help, thanks.
        \_ Search for Heloisa Pinheiro.
        \_ Share the fruits of your search with the motd.
        \_ I thought Girl From Ipanema was a Brazilian folk song that has been
           around for a while.
           \_ you thought wrong.  -tom
        \_ http://www.brazzilforum.com/viewtopic.php?t=54
           "The girl from Ipanema is called Heloisa Pinheiro and she's alive
           and well. In fact she's a highly bangable MILF, check her out."
        \_ You have it backwards. Jobim was one of the ones who wrote it,
           Gilberto performed it.
        \_ I once heard a recording over the radio which played "Girl from
           Ipanema" and Coltrane's "Take the A Train" in parallel, in the same
           key (F major).  It was cool.
           \_ Do you mean Ellington's "Take the A Train"?
              \_ Oops!  Ellington's it is.
        \_ http://nortemag.com/tom/publics/ela_carioca/e.ela_carioca.html
        \_ http://www.garotadeipanema.com.br/galeria.htm
        \_ http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/music/1437011.stm

7/16    Cellular Squirrel:
        http://web.media.mit.edu/~stefanm/phd/cellularsquirrel
        \_ What a waste of funding. It's no wonder some people are
           are skeptical of the "hi-tech" work that comes out of
           media labs.
           \_ C'mon, this is cool.  I'd much rather have some dancing stuffed
              rodent than most of the obnoxious headwound-worthy ringtones
              you get on cell phones.  -John
        \_ the japanese are way ahead of us on this.

7/16    I have a lot of problems with iTunes. Occassionally, when I record
        a CD, the CDDB imports data that is all messed up with wrong
        category names, song names, etc. I end up having to name them
        one by one. I have to do this or else it's impossible to search
        for a song I want on my iPod. What do you guys do to make this
        easier? ok thx.
        \_ Submit your track lists to CDDB when you're finished, and maybe
           you will keep other people from the same headache.
        \- You call this an "iTunes" problem? Can you list your name so I
           can add you to the "I am a Moron Contest" watch list?
           \_ Can you name yourself so I can add you to the
              "I am a moron contest" watchlist?
              "I've got a stick up my ass and I'm gonna get a heart
               attack at age 35 because I'm a type A personality"
               list? I assume that OP's problem is with CDDB being
               somehow corrupt (I don't do ITunes and I haven't done
               CDDB in years, so I'm guessing) vs. it being an
               Itunes problem, which is fine. But it's no reason to
               get all fucking persnickity about it.
            \_ How does the OP know the song data are messed up?  Did he
               arrive at that conclusion the same way he decided he has
               a lot of problems with iTunes?
        \_ I rip everything with EAC which uses freedb, never have a problem
           with messed up song titles.

6/21    http://www.loveit-or-leaveit.com/flash/americafuckyeah.html
        Video music of Trey Parker's remake of "America, Fuck Yeah" song

6/17    What are the pros and cons for upgrading to Win Media 10? I'm
        pretty happy with 9 and I'm hesitant to upgrade anything M$
        \_ I think Win Media Player 10 came with a new codec which you
           might need in the future.  Personally, I find v9 to v10 is
           not as painful as v6 to v7, as v9 is pretty bloated at first
           place.

6/15    I downloaded an AVI that requires AC3 audio. I installed AC3 and
        successfully played the video. However, the sound is too
        quiet even though I've turned up the software controlled volume.
        Does anyone know how to adjust the volume when playing other
        codecs? ok thx.
        \_ If you installed ac3filter, its configuration dialog lets
           you increase the gain. --jameslin
           \_ Got it, thanks. I hate how you have so many codecs to download
              and they don't even play on my DVD/AVI box.
              \_ There aren't that many codecs commonly used in practice.
                 Usually all you need is ffdshow and ac3filter. --jameslin
                 \_ I've seen a ton of fairly odd ones (mainly on DVD rips.)
                    http://videohelp.com is a great resource for codec info.  -John

5/17    My second data backup question. I am looking for a backup media I can
        take off-site. I'll repeat that we've found the failure rate backing up
        to CD unacceptable. She wants to go with an Iomega product but I was
        wondering if people have had good/bad experience with these,
        reliability-wise and if they have better suggestions. I have about
        $400 for this.
        \_ hard drive in a USB or Firewire external enclosure?
           \_ Thanks. I'm actually looking for something I could casually take
              to work and expect to survive a few bumps. I think it's between
              Iomega REV And tape right now. Tape is cheaper. REV is faster.
              I have no data on comparable reliability.
              \_ "click of death" Iomega is still in business?  And you don't
                 assume their reliability sucks from the start?
              \_ 2.5" enclosure with hard drive doesn't need a power
                 adapter -- all you need is a USB cable.  It will survive
                 fine when carrying to work.  FYI, the Hitachi 5K100 was
                 released recently and has excellent shock characteristics.
                 Search http://newegg.com or http://zipzoomfly.com for the 5K100, and
                 newegg for the enclosure.
                 What do I do?  I keep a 3.5" enclosure (AMS Venus DS3 FireWire
                 + USB) with 250GB drive at work and run Acronis True Image
                 daily to make a full disk backup of my notebook over FireWire
                 (40GB = 40 minutes); the image is password-protected, and the
                 software is smart enough so that I can continue working in
                 Windoze while it's backing up.  (The image is a snapshot
                 of the drive at the beginning of the imaging process.)
                 I take my notebook home and every once in a while repeat
                 the same backup to a 2.5" enclosure with the 80GB 5K100 at
                 home.
                 If you use FireWire you usually need to bring the AC power
                 adapter for the 2.5" enclosure since (x86) notebooks usually
                 only have the small (unpowered) 4-pin FireWire port; and USB
                 2.0 Hi-Speed throughput is ~ 70% of FireWire for the 2.5"
                 enclosures I've seen.
                 If anyone knows a 2.5" USB+FireWire enclosure that can
                 operate over USB at 17 MB/s, please let me know.  (Yes, I
                 have an enclosure that operates that fast with FireWire.)
                 \_ Well, I have exactly one 2.5" enclosure and can't detect
                    the difference between FW and USB transfers.

4/24    What's the easiest free way to convert from DIVX to avi or mpg?
        Thanks
        \_ DIVX (all caps) as in the failed Circuit City, DRM'd DVD offshoot?
           Or DivX as in the MPEG4 variant?  Isn't the .divx format basically
           a renamed .avi container?
           \_ yea suppose so.  I just want to be able to play without any
              codecs.  Just used http://www.avi2divx.com successfully.
              \_ Also have a look at http://www.videohelp.com --very very
                 good and complete page.  -John
              \_ If you don't want people to install codecs, then you're
                 pretty much stuck with MPEG1.  Just use any
                 DirectShow-capable MPEG1 encoder (e.g. TMPGEnc).  Be
                 forewarned, though: the picture quality will be much
                 worse.
        \_ Also, saying "avi" is almost useless.  Most DiVX files are
           distributed in AVI containers.  There is not remotely a single
           standard codec used for avi containers.  Ditto MOV these days, too.
           \_ Why is this?  I would think it would be easier if there was
              some kind of .dvx extension or something.  I hate getting an
              "AVI" I can't play and I can't figure out which codec it
              uses.
              \_ Because there are a lot of different codecs, and otherwise
                 you end up with a zillion different file formats and need
                 different file handlers for each of them.  It's just as
                 complex (and it eats away at the file extension namespace),
                 and it makes it harder to write video players, since they'd
                 need to handle different fiel formats.  The single container,
                 multiple codec method allows the player to query the system
                 to figure out which decoder it should use (possibly querying
                 a server and downloading an appropriate decoder
                 automatically).  If you want to figure out which decoder
                 you need, just download gspot.

4/1     Man killed over virtual sword:
        http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/4397159.stm
        \_ I thought you wrote "Man killed *with* virtual sword".
           Now that would be cool.
        \_ But he sold it for non-virtual cash, and screwed over the guy who
           lent it to him. What an asshole.

3/21    http://CNN.com = liberal trash media. The front page has a poll that
        asks "Who would you want to make the decision about pulling the plug
        if you were in a vegetative state? Spouse:78%, Parents:15%, Somebody
        else:%7. http://CNN.com, trashy, unfair & unbalanced liberal media. Go Fox!
        \_ Your troll is limp and flaccid.
        \_ Did they cancel your Free Republic account for trolling too?
        \_ Who would you trust, Jesus?

2/26    I just ripped some stuff off of a supposedly copy protected VCD
        from China or Hong Kong (I didn't care about the content, but
        I was curious about the protection) using Alcohol and DVDGear.
        I could not see the mpeg streams from
        either the VCD or the ripped image from my PC unless I did that.
        First, what is DVDGear reading to get the mpeg stream out? Are
        the physical tracks the actual stream with no filesystem?
        Second, the ripped mpegs correspond one to each track, there are
        a total of 8 tracks. I can play the first track with any software
        player like Windows Media Player. However, I cannot play the other
        tracks. The only way to view the other tracks is through a program
        called Nero Media Player. Is there missing header information
        on the subsequent tracks which chokes all the other players and
        Nero Media Player just ignores this? How would I fix this?
        I assume that this method of encoding a VCD is to prevent casual
        people from being able to play the VCD on their computers and
        be able to just rip the disk by doing a simple file copy.
        \_ The .dat files on a VCD are basically just MPEG1 streams.  Just
           copy them.

1/28    Brain destroying animated gif ahead:
        http://csua.org/u/arh
        \_ I still live!  Sinistar^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^Hbrain

1/27    I really like the visualization feature of iTunes.  Is there an open
        source program that does something as nice?  Where can I learn about
        the algorithm/formula it uses?
        \_ There are quite a few open-source iTunes visualizations out
           there which you can d/l and analyze the source for. The basic
           idea is pretty simple -- iTunes feeds you a buffer of time domain
           and frequency domain data (downsampled, so you can't copy the
           song), which your plugin can use to do whatever. A cursory look
           at the output of the default visualizer looks like it just
           draws the waveform, perhaps constrained so a shape like a circle,
           and then uses low-pass filtered versions of previous data to
           generate the trippy melting backgrounds. It doesn't look like
           it uses the FFTs. You can run some test signals through the
           visualizer and see how it responds to get a better understand
           of what it is doing.
        \_ I'd love to be a Visualization Engineer! No backward compatibility
           issues to work on, and who's going to tell you that your
           visualization algorithm is wrong or inefficient?

1/5     Note: the "message from Iraq" was a propaganda video in Windows Media
        Player format.  I didn't erase your link, but unless you're willing to
        be honest about the content, expect it to disappear again.

12/29   Need a degauser to erase stuff quickly. Anyone know of a good,
        relatively safe one that isn't too pricey?
        \_ Do you just need to erase magnetic media?  Something like
           SecureDelete might be a better solution (hint: degaussing doesn't
           delete your data as well as you might think).  See:
           http://www.sysinternals.com/ntw2k/source/sdelete.shtml
           \_ That's fine and all, but I've got to delete non-digital media
              as well. I guess I'll go to Radio Shack. I just don't want to
              get something that A) doesn't work or B) works so well that it
              erases my credit cards and USB sticks in my pocket. And
              security is not really that big of an issue, we will be
              re-using media...
                \_ err... can credit cards really be erased, I thought they
                   were just had UPC scan codes or something.
                   \_ Yes, they can.  If you work around high magnetic fields
                      (several Tesla), having your credit card get in the field
                      will make it stop working.  I don't know if the data
                      on it are totally erased, but I know you need a new
                      credit card.
        \_ sign up for a MRI scan and take the media to the inside.

12/22   First, the OS dominance, then the browser dominance, and now,
        media player dominance:
        http://abcnews.go.com/Business/wireStory?id=353887

12/21   Does anyone know the name/singer of that song in Elf, when
        Will Ferrell sneaks in on that girl while she showers and
        sings along with her? thanks.
        \_ baby, it's cold outside.  zooey deschanel
        \_ I thought Elf was a poorly written movie.
           \_ She's gonna be Trillian?
        \_ Elf is terrbile

12/6    http://users.pandora.be/bonte/forumafbeeldingen/dancemonkeyboy.mpg
        Why I'm so hyped about MS.
        \_ Ah, that brings me back.  I love that one.  Ironically I can't
           get it to play in Windows Media Player when downloading through
           IE. *sigh*
        \_ "Give it up for me!"  This guy is the best advertising for open
           source anywhere.
        \_ He's about 2 deep fried twinkies away from a heart attack.  The
           remix is even better.

11/22   I posted this last week but no one responded (thinking it was
        a HW problem) so I'll ask again: given a group of several
        values, is there a way to evaluate or determine if the variability
        between those numbers are significant or not? And if so, what
        statistical test should be used? Thanks.
        \_ Where did the numbers come from?  Is there an underlying
           stochastic (or otherwise) process you can describe? -- ilyas
                \_ No it's not stochastic. Does it matter, though? Can't
                   you just take the numbers at face value?
                   \_ I don't know what 'variability' means.  If it's a
                      normal distribution from which the numbers come,
                      you can estimate the variance, and that's one
                      notion of 'variability.'  If the process is not
                      stochastic, and has no stochastic interpretation,
                      why are you interested in 'variability'? -- ilyas
                        \_ OK, so I have a series of about 10 numbers.
                           I want to know if they really are the "same"
                           or not. Let's say I had 3.0, 2.9, and 3.1,
                           I want to determine whether they are actually
                           centering around one central value (in this
                           contrived example, 3). Is it enough to calculate
                           the percent change from one number to the next
                           and note that it's low, or is there a more
                           objective statistical test I can use?
                           \_ If you want to quantify how much variation there
                              is in your numbers, there are lots of ways: some
                              common ones are range, sample standard deviation,
                              population standard deviation, and average
                              deviation.  You have to pick an appropriate
                              measure and an appropriate cutoff point for
                              "the same" based on what the numbers mean.
                              Just looking at your numbers above in isolation,
                              you can't say they're the same at all -- say you
                              were measuring the speed of light in different
                              media, in units of 10^8 m/s.  If you got 3.0 for
                              some and 2.9 for others it would conclusively
                              show that the media were different, and if you
                              got 3.1 it would be earth-shattering.  --mconst
                                \_ Well the series of values were taken
                                   from a biological source, where there
                                   actually is some baseline value (in
                                   theory).
                           \_ It's called an average...
                           \_ You can't make something from nothing.  You
                              need to make assumptions about the numbers
                              (if you don't know how you got them), or think
                              about how the numbers are created. -- ilyas
                           \_ I think the problem is that you're looking for
                              a one size fits all solution to a humongous class
                              of problems for which none exists. Why don't
                              you just put the data in /csua/tmp and let us
                              mess around with it?
                           \_ Any series of numbers can be the "same" for some
                              arbitrary distribution.
        \_ GIVE US THE GODDAMN DATA!  And tell us the context.  The whole
           context.  Saying "it's a bunch of numbers" does not constitute
           giving the context, and saying you want to "determine the
           variablility" doesn't really tell us what you want to know.
        \_ You need a statistics education.  The motd cannot help.

11/3    So after all that political advertisements, guess who the real
        winner is? MEDIA COMPANIES. They are like the arms dealer, getting
        rich from both sides. And now that Bush wins a second term, all
        the media corporations will be aligned to the current admin.
        My guess is that the Democratic party will bicker and disintegrate
        in a few years while the one party US will just get bigger and
        bigger. Maybe it'll implode, but that'll not happen for
        many years to come.                     -troll rant dude

9/3     "The order of events is still unclear. But one eyewitness has told
        Russian media that one of the many bombs stuck with tape around the
        gym fell and exploded. The roof caved in and hostages started to run.
        The attackers fired at them as they fled, prompting the troops outside
        to shoot back."
        http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/shared/spl/hi/world/04/russian_s/html/2.stm
        Outside the school:
        "Evidence suggesting that Russian forces had not planned a storming of
        the building could be seen around the two tanks, whose soldiers milled
        about, evidently in confusion after the initial blast, before rallying
        and heading into a battle that continued this afternoon. Only after
        the fighting began did three helicopters appear overhead. There also
        seemed to be a shortage of ambulances at the scene, as the majority of
        the wounded were ferried in whatever could move."
        link:csua.org/u/8x6 (nytimes.com)

8/30    Can somebody suggest the most minimally annoying way to view Real
        format media in windows? Everything I've seen for the past few years
        from Real keeps installing crap silently and then popping up
        windows at random intervals.
        \_ I think VLC http://videolan.org plays everything
        \_ www.filesharingplace .. get the K-lite full pack
        \_ BBC's website has/used to have a specially-licensed adware free
           version... but they're moving to their own codec so it might not
           be around much longer.
        \_ Real Alternative.
           E.g., http://www.free-codecs.com/download/Real_Alternative.htm
           \_ Seconded.  Avoid codec packs unless you want to install a bunch
              of useless, old, and broken codecs.
        \_ Can someone explain why Real and their format still exist?  How do
           they make money?
           \_ On the other hand, Real is still the only company that bothers
              to produce a native Unix version of their player.
              \_ Yes and that makes them money?
                 \_ maybe, but only indirectly. They can say to potential
                    customers, "Look, our client software runs on more
                    platforms than MS media player or Quicktime". Notice
                    that http://webcast.berkeley.edu is using Real format, probably
                    for this very reason.
              \_ Apple makes a native Unix version of their player.
                 (If Linux counts as *nix, MacOS X counts too).
           \_ Their server-side software costs money and for the last
              few years they have been trying to reinvent themselves into
              a subscription-based media portal.
              \_ Thanks.
        \_ i don't know what planet you are from, but I've been using the
           newer Realplayer 10 for past 8-9 month, no adware at all.  version
           10 is much better than the older version.  Less cluttered, etc.Real
           alternative has issues with real and wmv streaming format.
           Otherwise, real alternative is very good.
        \_ mplayer?

8/28    RIP, Laura Branigan.
        \ Ever see "Self-Control" Music video. William Fredkin directed it.
          \_ I got it off the net.  Wasn't it banned by MTV at the
             time?  It's a little dated now, but still wonderful.
             \_ Please copy it to /csua/tmp/. I'd like to see it.
                \_ Done.
                   \_ having trouble playing the file... with rp8/linux
                      "General error" -- with mplayer, segfaults.
                      \_ plays fine on Windows.  Try the site directly:
                         http://www.laurabraniganonline.com/sc20ann.htm
                         \_ They're down for the count.
                            \_ I got an mpeg version off a file sharing
                               network a while back.  It's out there.
                   \_ Thanks.
        \_ Now, that's a name I haven't heard in a while. Several years
           back, I somehow got to thinking about that song Self Control and
           sought out a used copy from the $2.00 bargain bin at Amoeba.
           I don't want to speak ill of the dead, but other than the
           title track, the album is unfortunately a turkey. Oh well.
           \_ Absolutely, but Self Control is still one of the best cover
              songs ever, so I guess that's worth the price of admission.

8/14    I'm looking for (a description of) the rules for 5-6 player expansion
        for settlers of catan.  brief desc. to URLs to the real mccoy,
        appreciated.
        \_ http://boardgamegeek.com/game/2807 might be a good place to start
        \_ bigger board (can check the dimensions for you if you like), and
           build phase after each person's turn.  Not much else, IIRC...
           build phase after each person's turn.  Not much else, IIRC... (!op)
           \- see this is one of those cases if you posted non-anonymously
              and either i liked you, you you were a generally useful
              and either i didnt hate you, or you were a generally useful
              member of the sloda community, i'd have just offered to
              FAX them to you. your loss. --psb
              \_ YOU ARE SO FUNNY!!!

8/11    Holo-deck one step closer: http://tinyurl.com/5uusb
        \_ Great, then we can spend every episode in the holodeck.  Oh wait,
           we already did that.
           \_ That was only in Voyager. TNG and DS9 had lots of non-holodeck
              episodes. - STMG
              \_ Actually, TNG was the worst abuser.  How many times did the
                 holodeck computer characters gain true conciousness and try
                 to take over the ship?  The holodeck computer was their
                 greatest enemy on TNG, not the Borg.  DS9 was just boring
                 until they tried to clone the much better B5 and failed.
                 \_ 3 times that I can think of, 2 Moriority episodes and the
                    one where the ship gained consciousness and expressed
                    itself through the holodeck.
                    \_ hahahha!! I don't know what episodes you're talking about
                       so i must not be a nerd! woohoo!

7/27    Kool-aid on your cellphone: http://macnn.com/news/25607
        \_ Aww, now it's all sticky...

7/25    I got whole bunch WMV/MOV files.  In the past, I simply convert
        them into MPEG-1 format.  However, WMV/MOV has much higher compression
        ratio than MPEG-1, so, the file size tend to increase by 4 folds when
        I convert to MPEG-1.
        I would like to encode these propeitary formats to a royalty-free,
        patent-free MPEG4s.  Does such codec exists?
        \_ XviD?
           \_ sorry that I didn't make it clear.  XviD is the closest thing
              I've encountered so far, but XviD is essentially an AVI file,
              which means that it can not be streamed.  (MPEG-1 and even
              MPEG-2 has no such limitation).           --OP
              \_ that's because the index is at the end... you can have
                 xvid asf's that stream just fine.
        \_ 1. WMV and (Sorenson-compressed) MOV files, MPEG1, MPEG2, MPEG4 are
              all lossy.  They will be however big you want them to be.
           2. MPEG4 is not royalty nor patent-free.  Maybe you're thinking of
              Ogg Theora.
           3. XVID is not AVI.  AVI is a container; XVID is a codec.
           4. You care about streaming because...?  If you want streaming,
              leave them as WMV or MOV.  Or you can make standard MP4 files,
              but support for those is a bit more limited. (MP4 is basically
              the QuickTime MOV container anyway.) --jameslin
              \_ thanks, James.

6/15    The Olympic torch will be in LA tomorrow.  I still have yet to find
        anything on the web telling me when and where to go to see it.
        http://www.torch2004.com/city_Los_Angeles.asp?la=2 is the best I
        can find.  It only says rough neighborhoods and it doesn't say
        what time of day.  Surely the media will be covering the torch
        relay, so presumably they know about the route from some press
        release.  Where might I find such a press release?
          \_ http://hometown.aol.com/pinclubs/myhomepage/club.html

6/11    The Olympic torch was be relayed through various US cities next
        week.  I can't seem to find anything on the web showing exactly
        which streets or even parts of town that the torch will be relayed
        through in each city.  Is this secret information, or am I just
        searching under the wrong key words?
        \_ http://www.torch2004.com
        \_ Do you think anyone has bothered to put this online?
                \_ no, of course not. never. they're too busy putting
                   important information online, like how hot it is in
                   some random city, or how a local boyscout troop helped
                   an old lady cross the street, or the successes of
                   online dating.
        \_ I would think it would be public info, and thus on-line.  I
           mean the whole point is for people to watch the torch relay.
           Hard to do, if you don't know where to go to watch it.
        \_ The Olympics and the entire torch relay is just another capitalist
           western bushco driven plot to misdirect us and distract us from the
           real threat to world peace:them and the right wing controller media
           \_ thank you, NERFAMC
              \_ What's NERFAMC?
                 \_ Not Even Remotely Funny Anonymous Motd Comic
                    \_ It wasn't intended to be funny.  Maybe that's why it
                       wasn't, eh?  Not everything here is for your amusement.
                       Actually, nothing posted on the motd is for your
                       entertainment.  If you happen to be entertained along
                       the way, it's a fluke.

5/12    Suppose I have as much RAM as a computer and can memorize/count
        card. But what good is it if the casino uses 10+ decks and they can
        shuffle any time they want? Isn't card counting good only when you
        have very few decks?
        \_ Card counting gives you an advantage.  The size of that advantage is
           determined by how many decks are in play and how many cards have
           been dealt since the last shuffle.  The house has a built-in
           advantage.  If your counting advantage is less that the house
           advantage (because of #decks or shuffling) then don't play.
        \_ Casinos don't exist for you to apply your mad math skillz and get
           rich and famous like some MIT cheats from a few years ago.  They
           exist as a form of entertainment.  Some people actually do win
           money sometimes but (here's the Stat 2 part) because the house has
           a built in advantage you *will* lose money over the course of your
           life if you don't cheat.  The MIT crew were cheating.  Card
           counting alone will not help you tip the odds in your favor.
           \_ How were they cheating?  From what I heard of it, they had one
              player sit at a table playing small hands and when that player
              saw the count become favorable, they signaled for a whale player
              to come over.  When the count went south the whale left.  They
              were sneaky about it, but that's not illegal, just common sense.
              \_ I didn't say it was illegal.  The State determines what is
                 legal or not.  The casino determines what is cheating.  I
                 never used the word "illegal" to describe them.
           \_ I agree with the previous poster.  You need to show how the MIT
              crew were cheating.  Everything I've seen and read suggests that
              they were not cheating.
              \_ If the casino says it is cheating, it is.  They make the
                 rules.  Breaking rules = cheating.  It's very simple.
                 \_ So if the casino says wearing a red shirt is cheating,
                    that's cheating too?
                    \_ It's called a dress code, and if they so chose, they
                       could throw your ass out for violating it, yes.
                       \_ The question wasn't "should they throw you out", it
                          was "is breaking any casino rule cheating" and the
                          answer is "no"
                          \_ Well, actually, since most casinos are private
                             establishments, they can throw you out any time
                             for any thing.  They write the rules of the game,
                             they arbitrate those same rules.  So, I think
                             the actual answer you're looking for is, "yes".
                             I think the question you're answering is "is it
                             illegal".
                       \_ You said "breaking rules = cheating".  Breaking
                          rules.  Not some rules, but just breaking rules.
                          So is wearing a red shirt cheating, if the casino
                          has a rule against the wearing of red shirts?
                          \_ You're being obtuse.  See the post below -- I
                             think he's got a sane explanation.
                             \_ I'm not being obtuse.  The "breaking rules
                                = cheating" guy has a stupid definition he
                                was trying to defend, and I just showed
                                how ultimately silly it was.
                 \_ Maybe we should make 3 distinctions.
                    Breaking the house rules: Whatever rules they want.  They
                    can eject you and ban you from the premesis.
                    Breaking the game rules: Looking at other people's cards,
                    changing your bet mid-game.  Against house rules and
                    generally illegal.
                    Breaking the law: They eject/ban you and you go to jail.
                    Card counting without the use of a computer is only aginst
                    the house rules.
                    \_ Does signaling a whale player count as #2, breaking the
                       game rules?
                       \_ Counting cards by itself is a 1.  Not against
                          the rules, but some casinos won't want you as a
                          customer.  Signaling a friend by itself is a 0.
                          It's quite common and acceptable to tell a friend
                          to gamble at your "hot" table, for reasons of
                          hotness unrelated to card counting purposes.  So
                          a combination of a 1 and a 0, signaling based on
                          card counting, should not be a 2.

2/5     How do you organize your MP3s?
        \_ musicbrainz is a good idea in theory.  I think there's a Windows client.
        \_ /mp3/[A-Z]/Artist/Album/Artist - 01 - This Song.mp3
           \_ what program do you use?  (jukebox)
              \_ Winamp 2.91.  Played with iTunes, it's no good unless you have
                 complete ID3 tags on almost everything, and I don't.  I played
                 with Winamp5 and saw no real advangages.
                \_ if you have your files named uniformly, it is quite easy
                   to use some of the tools available out there to quickly
                   generate correct id3 tags for all of your songs... (did it
                   in a couple of hours for ~20GB).  It is nice to be able
                   to sort in different ways...
                   \_ Problem is, I don't.  And I have 65GB
        \_ Genre/Composer/Album/Name.mp3
                I listen to all kinds of music.
                \_ you must have lots of classical.  Composer?
        \_ I Drink Kool-Aid:
           ~/Music/iTunes/{Artist|Compilation/Artist}/Album/NN Song Name.mp3

1/16    Don't know if this has made the rounds yet:
        http://www.baekdu.org/myblog/000030.html
        "Sand Animation" It's a video of drawing images using sand over
        a lit surface. Sorry, .wmv only. -bz
        \_ any non-streaming file for us firewalled/slow link folks?
           \_ /csua/tmp/sandAnimation.wmv
        \_ Hadn't seen them before -- Thanks for the link. Though I
           found I prefered the sand animation films on the artists site:
            http://www.cakostudio.hu/images/filmography_sand.html
        \_ that is some lame ass sh*t
           \_ troll?  (I thought it very impressive)
              \_ Simply idiotic.  Don't grant the name of thought to what can
                 be attributed to mere stupidity.
              \_ Different strokes for different folks, I guess. I liked it too.

1/14    Has anybody else tried iTunes (the player) simply as a winamp
        substitute?  I'm nearly weeping at how *nice* it is.  Would someone
        kindly point me toward the kool-aid?
        \_ does it play mp3s, or does it need to convert to their format?
           \_ it plays mp3s.
        \_ what does it do that is so improved over winamp?
           \_ free kool-aid
             \_ english translation?
           \_ I'm not a mac/ipod person but I love iTunes. It's got a great
              UI for organizing and finding your music if you have a lot of
              files. For me it's replaced 4 programs (player, CD ripper,
              CD burner, and id3-tagger) and it does all of their functions
              well. It's also cool to use it at work if your coworkers use
              it because you can check out everyone's music at your leisure.
              Can someone explain the kool-aid references? I've heard this
              before but I don't get it. - !op
              \_ google "jim jones" and cult
                 \_ Wait wait, so anything Apple related is a cult?  You're
                    so phunny!
                    \_ I didn't say Apple was a cult, but I was pointing them
                         to the origin of the kool-aid reference.
                    \_ yes, they managed to sell millions of people a device
                       with a non-rechargable and non-replacable battery.  and
                       the evil little things continue to sell like hotcackes.
                       if that isn't a cult I don't know what is.  I don't
                       know of any other company that could get away with that
                       sort of shit without 99% return rates.
                       \_ non-rechargable?!?!  Why do I not believe you?
                          \_ http://ipodbatteryfaq.com
                             \_ thanks for the faq.  as it says, it is going
                                to cost bucks to get the battery problem taken
                                care of.  it's a cult.  and to the person who
                                doesn't believe me, don't interrupt.  i moved
                                your thread down here where it belongs, not in
                                the middle of my statements.  it's rude and
                                makes the whole thread hard to read.
                                \_ I posted both the question, AND the faq.
                                   your statement was false - it IS
                                   rechargable, just not easily replaced.
                                   \_ My error in word choice but not intent.
                                      I intended to say that once the battery
                                      is dead it is dead.  I did not mean that
                                      you get 6-8 hours of play and then it
                                      turns off forever.  I stand by my
                                      statement that only a cult could sell a
                                      device by the millions that will die in
                                      18-24 months and just be dead without
                                      shelling out an additional $50 to $100.

1/14    this is kinda cool: a plugin that automatically sets your yahoo
        away msg to the song you're playing in winamp.
        http://www.brokenvaporware.com/products/msgramp
        (won't work for the guy below... maybe someone can make one for
        iTunes.... or maybe a generic one? search some specified tree
        of music files and assume any open file-handle is being played?)

1/8     Follow up the question I asked earlier about record streaming
        contents.  The best way to do this, if you are on Windoze machine,
        is to use this software called Stream VCR. FYI, The entire process
        is a bit more painful than I would like, but it's managable.
        If you are interested in it, email me.          kngharv
        \_ you sure you don't mean Streambox VCR?  It's kind of dated; it
           works well for RealMedia files but doesn't work with some newer
           ASF/WMV stuff.  For those, I prefer SDP.

1/7     To the guy who was interested in listening to NPR/RealAudio on
        Linux/FreeBSD: http://www.live.com/mplayer

1/6     For those who listen to NPR via the web.  Is there anyway I can
        download the streaming programs into an  independent file so I can
        transfer them on my Palm PDA and listen to it while I commute?
        All their audio links are embedded in some sort of javascript
        which makes "save the link as" impossible.  Thanks in advance.
        \_ Have you considered getting an FM radio?  In the Bay Area, you
           can listen to 88.5 FM.
        \_ Yes.  Isn't commuting bad enough?  You want to listen to NPR, too?
           Will you also dig ditches and shovel shit?
        \_ Total Recorder will do this. I have a friend who has CDs of This
        American Life that he rips from the website.
           \_ Total Recorder only runs on Windows.  I found an open source
              program called StreamRipper which can rip ShoutCast or
              IceCast to mp3, but it doesn't rip RealAudio.  Does anyone
              know of a RealAudio ripper which works on LINUX/FREEBSD? - !op
              \_ Are you nuts?  The .ra format is copyright.  To create a
                 'free' version would be a copyright violation.  Copyright
                 law is the *only* thing upon which the GPL is based.  If
                 you go around violating copyright laws willy nilly then you
                 should also be ok when linux and other gpl'd code is stolen
                 by corporations and used without releasing source.  What
                 you're asking for is morally wrong and legally insane for
                 any pro-gpl advocate.
                 \_ Just because the real-audio format is copyrighted doesn't
                    mean I can't build a device which can decode and play it
                    back. It will, however, probably violate some sort of
                    patent. Since software patents aren't upheld by other
                    countries it probably wouldn't violate the GPL, at
                    least not internationally. Technically speaking,
                    decoding a format isn't copying the format, it's
                    violating the copyright of the content, and because
                    it's content, one could argue fair-use.
                    \_ One could argue the moon is made of cheese and twist
                       in the wind while splitting hairs.  One would still be
                       a hypocrite.  One could make the case that the GPL is
                       unlawful and therefore using Linux source code in
                       closed products without releasing said source is
                       therefore technically "ok".  One would be wrong on
                       that as well.  One can not have one's cake and eat
                       it too.
                 \_ You can't copyright a format.
                    \_ But USPTO will give you a patent.
                    \_ Yes, you can.  And they are.  And it's still theft.
                       And you're still hurting the GPL and a hypocrite if
                       you do so.  No different than any software pirate.

12/21   Whoever said Winamp 5 is not a resource hog should go to hell.
        I have a Pentium 3/600 MHZ labtop.  That thing eats up most of the
        CPU cycle. For those who want something light, go for Winamp 5 lite.
        Then again, I don't see any reason for upgrade to winamp 5 light from
        winamp 2.9x, since most of the cool features are in the "full" version
        \_ i run winamp 5 on a celeron 500, and it doesn't use more than 5%
           on mp3s. maybe about 10% on ogg.
        \- all yer cpu cycles belong to us
        \_ I said that it wasn't as much of a hog as ver. 3.

12/18   Real sues M$:
        http://www.infoworld.com/article/03/12/18/HNrealabuse_1.html

12/18   Re: Winamp resource hog:  Winamp 5 seems to be doing better than 2 for
        me.  I use it to listen to soundtracks when playing games, and was
        having trouble with 2.  5 works great.
        \_ CPU-wise, Winamp 5 seems the same as Winamp2, same for resistance to
           skipping.  Winamp5 seems to use a few megs more memory.  All in all
           it's not bad, although it feels a little like it has feature-creep.
           - op of the old thread
           \_ Also, the new skin takes a while to popup when alt-tabbing.
              Global hotkeys makes up for this though.
        \_ What type of system do you guys have? At work, I have an older
           P2-400, and Winamp3 took forever to load and ran very slow (choppy)
           compared to Winamp2.
           \_ I have a Athlon 1700.  Show 2% cpu usage once it gets started.
              Did you turn off transparency?  Are you using a Winamp3 skin?
              Is it populating your "Media Library"?
              Oops. I just noticed you're using Winamp3.  Winamp5 is most of
              the new features of Winamp3 built on the much faster Winamp2
              codebase.

12/17   I'm a die-hard Winamp 2.x user from way back.  Has anyone used Winamp 5
        and if so, how does its speed and UI compare vs Winamp 2.x ?
        \_ you can make the UI pretty much the same as 2.x by using the classic
           skin. i dunno, it might be slower a bit, but not by much, and more
           features usually do that to a piece of software anyway. otoh, i like
           that it has builtin ogg support finally, so i'm sticking with it.
        \_ A couple of people have mentioned it's a resource hog, especially
           for CPU cycles. I figure stick with what works (2.91).
        \_ I was sticking w/ W2 without realizing that a lot of people were
           doing the same thing.  I really like W5 so far-- it's got j<search
           string> functionality, which I was *really* missing.  I like the new
           UI, seems fast to me.
           \_ Addendum: there's still no intelligent guessing of metadata in
              here.  How hard can it be to let me specify a few common filename
              formats to guess with? "artist - track"; "artist" - "album" -
              "track" "artist/album/track" would take care of at least 75% of
              the misnamed files.
           \_ Thank you, motdformatd

11/26   This should be censored really fast.  More on the media's left bias:
        http://www.thehill.com/york/112603.aspx
        \_ What about the WMD (or lack thereof) stories that get buried on
           the back pages?  The fact is that the media is biased against
           anything that doesn't sell to the lowest common denominator,
           because they are corporate owned and beholden to the almighty bottom
           line.  Obscure political scandals aren't juicy enough until they
           snowball, preferably with public hearings, and even then you need
           an obvious villian and an obvious victim.  Both the right wing
           and left wing need to stop whining about this and do something
           about it, if they really care.  This is what independent media is
           all about.
           \_ WMD?  So you want an above the fold front page headline every
              day that says, "STILL NO WMD!"?  Uhm, hello?
              \_ Uhm hello to you.  Remember the "chemical weapons vans?"
                 Remember where THAT story got retracted?  Scandals take
                 a very long time to build.  The original article is just
                 bitching because the scandal isn't nearly as interesting
                 as the columnist wants it to be.
                 \_ And "interesting" as the media defines it is "sounds good
                    in a 10 second sound bite" and "preferably involves sex
                    and/or drugs" and "can be understood by someone with the
                    mental capacity of a turnip."  Look at the Michael
                    Jackson story, for instance - even better since it
                    involves a celebrity, though that isn't required
                    (c.f. Laci Peterson).
                 \_ Where did the chemical weapons van story get retracted?
                    AIRC, the end of the story was the vans might have been
                    used as such and probably had the capability of such and
                    were scrubbed clean in a suspicious way to eliminate all
                    possible evidence of such leaving us with a good guess
                    that they were used as such but not solid proof as they
                    were cleaned of such.  Such is the way of things.  So what
                    was there to retract?
           \_ Also, never underestimate the influence of press "turf wars" on
              what does and does not get covered.  The NYTimes and the WaPo
              have a long standing rivalry, and often if the WaPo is
              taking the lead on a juicy story the Times will try to pretend
              it doesn't exist.  This is why the Times was so far behind
              the WaPo on Watergate, apparently.
              \_ Wait... if you are competing, pretending the story doesn't
                 exist is idiotic.
                 \_ I didn't say it wasn't, though I'd use the phrase "stupid
                    pride" as a more accurate description.  I was just
                    pointing something out that happens.  Why do computer
                    people always assume that everyone simply obeys logic?
                    \_ Why do you assume I am a computer person?
                       \_ Lets see.  You have a soda account.  You write to
                          the motd.  You seem to thinking only in terms of
                          binary logic when terms like "turf war" and
                          "rivalry" can imply something other than logic.
                          Seems pretty likely that you are a computer
                          person.
                          \_ You may be surprised to learn that the CSUA grants
                             accounts to any berkeley undergrad interested in
                             CS, not just 'computer people.'  Furthermore,
                             the only thing I said was that ignoring a story
                             during journalistic competition is idiotic
                             (which is true).  There can certainly be many
                             reasons why people may have ignored a story.
                             Political bias, pride, incompetence, etc.
                             These are all reasons.  This doesn't change
                             the inherent idiocy of the situation, and I don't
                             think me pointing this out entitles you to any
                             judgements about me using 'binary logic', whatever
                             the hell that means (presumably some sort of
                             insult).

11/3    iTunes for the PC has this nifty feature that fades out the tail end
        of one track into the beginning of the next.  Call me easily
        impressed, but I like this a lot.  Are there plugins for Winamp
        that give the same effect? --erikred
        \_ you can turn on 'cross fading' in winamp - danh
        \_ I thought it was nifty until the first time I listened to an album
           where there is not silence on track boundaries.
           \_ I can see where that might be annoying.  --erikred
           \_ I dunno, it still sounds cool.  It sounds like a radio station
              fading from one song into the next.. sometimes it's boring,
              sometimes it's disturbing, but it sounds kinda cool.

11/1    The Hunt for Iraq's Weapons (David Kay corrects Post
        Writers for misrepresentation).  Note this is on A21, Gellmans
        lead story on front page.
        http://csua.org/u/4v8
        \_ OWNED!
        \_ Yawn.  "I'm sticking by what I wrote in my report!  Much work to
           be done!  Can't draw conclusions yet!  Needle is still in haystack!"
           \_ It's important that the lying media be corrected at every turn.
              The problem is that it's the same media who lied on the front
              page in an above the fold headline that buries the correction
              way back on A21.
              \_ Sure, sure, Jason Blair, yadda yadda yadda.  Got it.  It's
                 important for Kay's credibility, but it doesn't advance the
                 search for WMD.
                 \_ Jason Blair?  Who said anything about Jason Blair?  We're
                    talking media bias, not incompetence.  And it does advance
                    the search to correct the media lies because without the
                    support and correct understanding of the American people
                    we'll pull out before the job is done.  Exactly what your
                    leftist media would like to see happen.

10/18   Is there a player that is not a Real product that will play
        .ram and .ra format on Windows?
        \_ There's a winamp plug in that lets you play Real Audio files.
           Google for 'Tara Winamp Plugin' and try to ignore the Tara Reid
           porn.

10/16   When you buy a song from iTune, what format, and bit rate are
        the delivered version?? thx.
        \_ http://www.apple.com/itunes/overview.html
           About the middle of the page, under "AAC: MPEG-4 audio"
           \_ i've read it, it says nothing about the technical aspect,
              what bitrate? are there different versions of the song? one
              with higher bitrate?
              \_ the implication from the page is 128 kbps.
        \_ on a related topic: are there any iTunes-wanna-bes that are
           selling songs in some DRM-less format?
           \_ http://eMusic.com (MP3 format), monthly fee (not per song).

10/10   This is stupid, but is there any way to get Win2k to use the "old
        style" CD player application?  I _HATE_ this new skinned version,
        always trying to download my song info and just ugly and clunky.
        \_ Only way I know of is to reinstall. Better yet, just use WinAmp 2.91
           (and not that bloated WinAmp 3.x crap). I've always liked WinAmp
           better than any version of WMP.
           \_ Aahhhhh.... much better.  I didn't know 2.x was still
              available.
              \_ http://classic.winamp.com - pst
        \_ can't you modify its properties and change things?

9/10    Does anybody else see themselves telling their kids in 15 years,
        "Yeah, I shared files... but it was a different time back then."?
        \_ Dual Income, No Kids, Early Retirement, Happy Life.
           \_ Censor censor censor.  Join the army and mark things.
              \_ The motd censor struck, so I had to remark on it.
                 Apparently someone has decided that there is no such
                 thing as a fat sysadmin.  Probably they're a fat sysadmin
                 themselves.
                 \_ You can't censor a content-free statement.  Your fat
                    sysadmin silliness just adds noise.  If you had something
                    to say it would still be here.
                    \_ I also like the fat sysadmin posts
                       \_ It's funny the first time.  Now it's just noise.
                          Like other trolls and 100% noise posts, they'll be
                          purged instantly like all content-free posts.  I'm
                          one of the louder anti-censor people but I also
                          understand that adding noise is a form of censorship
                          which makes it harder for others to see real content
                          or discuss anything real.  By removing trash and
                          trolls, censorship is weakened.
                          \_ Your logic is flawed.  The motd is 100% white
                             noise.
        \_ http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/right-to-read.html
        \_ yes.  and I can tell my kids (when they are old enough) that
           I was part of underground resistance movement fighting against
           unfair copyright and intellectual property laws.  And no,
           I don't think 90 years of protection is fair.  RIAA is just
           pissed off because they can no longer make obscene profit,
           ignoring consumer's demand like the way they used to (force
           all the junk down his throat when all he wanted is one single
           hit song... just an example)
           \_ Not to mention the fact that the artists themselves see only
              a fraction of the profits unless they've already become wildly
              successful...and typically lose the rights to the music that
              they've created in the first place.
              \_ It's funny that computer programmers don't see the irony
                 here.  -tom
                 \_ Computer programmers are typically very well compensated
                    for the work that they do.  Last I checked, musicians
                    aren't guaranteed any sort of compensation at all.  I
                    see what you're getting at, but I think you're wrong.
                    \_ Neither are programmers.  Heard of the H1b program?
                       \_ Yes.  Two of my friends at Intel were H1B's (each with
                          MS degrees) and were paid according to their grade
                          level (which was the same as Americans with MS
                          degrees).  They were also some of the best engineers I
                          knew. --emarkp
                 \_ are you saying software engineers are like musicians?
                    please name one piece of software that was written in
                    less than a week by four guys, and which was then used
                    for decades with no modification whatsoever and made
                    millions of dollars.  and show me one job ad for
                    a musician to make 80k/year garrunteed with benefits,
                    regardless of wether their code directly makes money
                    or not.  there are similarities in the IP issues, but
                    the economics of the two industries are totally different.
                    maybe i'm reading too much into your post.
                    \_ you're reading too much into the post.
                 \_ I agree with tom on this.  The stars must be in some
                    weird alignment.
              \_ the funny thing is that in the small, non-RIAA labels where
                 the artists actually do see a significant portion of profits,
                 the CD's are actually cheaper.  http://www.misfits.com
                 And, they give away songs and videos free on the internet!
                 The Misfits may sing about evil, but unlike other segments
                 of the record industry they don't actually embody it.
                 amazingly they seem to understand that the same people who
                 download their video for free are likely to spend 30 bucks
                 to go see them in concert.  personally, i'm just going to
                 buy all my music from Misfits records.
              \_ This is all well and good, but it's clear you aren't
                 interested in fighting the (flawed) system but in getting
                 freebies, in other words, stealing.  If you actually wanted
                 to fight you would organize politically.  As it is you
                 are a twice dishonest thief.
                 \_ Failed your reading comprehesion, I see.  I don't support
                    stealing or theft -- either by institutions or
                    individuals.  You need to stop frothing at the mouth long
                    enough to really think.
                 \_ Easy on the assumptions, chief. What makes you think
                    the above poster doesn't contribute to defense funds
                    etc.?
        \_ The ethics of file sharing is intimately related to copyright and
        intellectual property law.  As perhaps some children and
        teenagers unconsciously appreciate, stealing a loaf of bread is an
        inherently different act than downloading a song.  Stealing bread
        denies another from eating it, while downloading a song denies nobody
        else from hearing it.

        Of course, the musicians who produce a song should be compensated if
        we as a society want to encourage the production of music.  The
        framers of the constitution recognized this by allowing congress to
        grant an exclusive right to distribute books, music, etc. for a
        LIMITED TIME.

        Essentially, the idea of copyright is a social contract between the
        consumers and producers of music.  Consumers agree to pay the
        producers for new works with the understanding that, after a
        reasonable time, these works will pass into the public domain.
        Limited copyright strikes a balance between the non-exclusive nature
        of music (i.e., my downloading a copy does not deprive you of the use
        of your version) and the need for musicians to be compensated.

        Unfortunately, the producers of music, movies, and other media have
        refused to hold up their end of the contract.  Large corporations have
        repeatedly lobbied congress to extend copyrights in order to prevent
        their works from passing into the public domain.  In addition, music
        companies in particular have violated various other laws by colluding
        to artificially prop up music prices.  Consequently, a strong case can
        be made that while file sharing may be illegal it is not unethical.
        \_ it's incredible that we live in a country where the intellectual
           property generated by a bunch of kids in a garage 50 years ago
           property generagted by a bunch of kids in a garage 50 years ago
           enjoys more protection than, say, a new drug that took years and
           hundreds of millions of dollars to develop.  It's even more
           incredible that most people don't seem to think this is odd.
           I'm not arguing for stronger patent law; I'm agreeing with you that
           copyright law as it stands in the US is crazy. under US law, my
           post is copyrighted, and technically i could sue all of you for
           "stealing" it by reading this.
           \_ technically, no you couldn't but I agree with the rest.
        \_ that looks like some giant cut n paste from some site. it's also
           based on the assumption that stealing a physical object is different
           than intellectual property.  i think Intel, Ford, and GE would
           disagree with you that the IP they've spent (B)illions of dollars
           to create is not yours for the taking if you find an empty work
           station and bring your own floppy disk on a factory tour.
           \_ Intel Ford and GE would be wrong then. Ideas are not the
              same as things, no matter how much lawyers would like to
              pretend otherwise.
              \_ So you think it's ok to bring your own floppys on a company
                 tour and copy shit off their computers and take it home with
                 you and share it on the net?  After all, it's only IP and not
                 something physical they're losing.  They still have *their*
                 copy of the plans for their next chip/car/appliance, right?
                 I hope you understand that's what you're saying.  The rest of
                 us, non-lawyers included, would call it theft.
           \_ It's a cut n paste from a letter to the editor that I wrote.
              Note that the point isn't that intellectual property should
              not exist or that you should be able to "take IP".  The point
              is that IP is a fiction designed to balance compensating the
              originators of IP and the benefit to society of making IP
              freely available.  In US law, IP is not a "right" like the
              right to life, liberty, and happiness; IP is specifically
              designed to promote science and the arts.
              \_ Was it actually published?  You made the point very well.
                 \_ Thanks for the compliment.  I sent it yesterday and
                    recevied an automated reply saying that letters over
                    150 words would not be published.
              \_ First off, *all* laws are fiction.  You don't _really_ have
                 the *right* to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.
                 That's a fiction.  The concept of physical property not
                 currently in your personal physical possession is also a
                 fiction.  Only the law says your stuff is still your stuff
                 when you're not around.  The law has been extended for
                 creative expressions known as Intellectual Property.  Other
                 than people interested in free-as-in-beer music I think every
                 one should easily be able to see this.
                 \_ True, law is a fiction.  But the law of physical
                    property goes back to primitive times and is designed
                    to promote peace and progress to mankind-- ie,
                    well-defined propery ownership benefits mankind by
                    minimizing disputes and enables some other worthwhile
                    goals (e.g., capitalism, avoiding the tragedy of the
                    commons, etc.).  Intellectual property laws exist
                    because the Framers of the Constitutions recognized
                    that such laws could be of some similar benefit to
                    mankind-- encouraging a creative person to share his
                    invention/music/book/discovery by giving him a
                    temporary monopoly.  Current law, however, is a sad
                    bastardization of what IP was meant to be.
                    \_ I disagree with you and the post you replied to.
                       According to documents written by the forefathers
                       of our government, people have certain inalienable
                       rights.  These rights are not regarded as fiction.
                       You may disagree with this view, but certain rights
                       are viewed as fundamental parts of any legitimate
                       government and IP is not one of them.
                       \_ According to documents is the key phrase.  The rights
                          *are* fiction.  They are created by laws created by
                          men and didn't exist until this country was free from
                          Britain and even today must be guarded closely lest
                          we lose them.  IP is merely an extension of simple
           "stealing" it by reading this.
                          property rights.

7/21    does anyone know where i can find a sound file of the TARDIS
        dematerialization noise from Dr. Who?  I find paging through the
        Dr. Who fan sites to be pretty tedious.
        \_ you can also get the soundtrack somewhere or buy the
           Doctorin' the Tardis song by the Timelords aka KLF.
           Not so sure if the sound is in the song.
           \_ i just want the  "rrrrrRRRRRrrrr   rrrrrRRRRRrrrrr" noise.
              it should be like a 20 second sound bite or something.
              \_ Look for a CD of Dr. Who.  I'm sure they are out there.

7/20    When the bridge walks down the aisle, what is the name/composer of
        the song that plays?
        \_ bride?
        \_ Wagner?  http://www.s-t.com/wedding/music/main_music.htm
        \_ It's the wedding march from Lohengrin.  The music they play
           when the couple walks out is the wedding march from Mendelssohn's
           Midsummer Night's Dream, I think.  -John
           \_ second that.  It's Mendelssohn's that is more popular.  Another
              piece often used in wedding is Mozart's Marriage of Figaro
              (i think)         -kngharv
        \_ This is freaky.  I know it doesn't work with cable modem but
           it's freaky.
        \_ In Da Club, by 50Cent.

5/31    Anybody know where to find old version of programs like Kazaa and
        Real Player?  Their respective web sites only have the latest version
        but the latest version always have bloatware or spyware.  I just want
        to be able to play some .rm files and d/l some music without some
        100 meg monster program.  Yes, I've searched google, but it has too
        many results to sift through.  There must be a site that archives
        some of this stuff somewhere.  Thanks.
        \_ STFW http://www.oldversion.com/program.php?n=real
        \_ STFW for Kazaa Lite
        \_ real has old version on the web.
        \_ For Kazaa, does anyone tried giFT ?
           \_ No, I prefer outright thEFT.

5/19    Interesting episode of Scientific American -- MIT Media Lab:
        Wearable computer, Toy Symphony, All Day Video Man,
        Small Stature Man, Beat Bugs, Mechanical Device competition
        on a balance beam.

5/2     plugged in zip drive 250. said out of space, but clearly not filled.
        anyone encounter this problem before? any good web page on this
        topic?
        \_ look for hidden files.  run a media check on it.

4/3     What's the simplest sound file format out that that can be played on a
        PC by, say, Media Player?  For pictures there is a .raw format which is
        just raw pixel values.  Is there something like that for sounds, where
        I can simply specify values for the waveform like "0, 127, 255, 127,
        0, ......" without complicated encoding, and the sampling rate in
        either a simple header or externally in the application?  Thanks.
        \_ WINDOWS MEDIA FORMAT, EAT SHIT AND DIE
        \_ wav is just raw audio with a header.  Look online for how to get
           rid of it.
           \_ Thanks!
           \_ no it's not.  wav is a container format; the audio data itself
              can be uncompressed PCM, or it can be compressed using any of a
              number of codecs (IMA ADPCM, MS ADPCM, MPEG1-III, etc.)
        \_ What exactly are you trying to do? Without more info, I think
           the best solution to your problem is to write raw, headerless
           data and then use SoX http://sox.sourceforge.net to convert
           it to something playable by WMP. There are many programs out
           there that will play raw headerless data (incl. SoX), so you
           can also use one of those directly if you want.

3/26    I am outside the US right now.  Would you guys be interested in
        some other stuff I heard from non-US news media?
        \_ Sure, but what kind of motd poster asks before posting
            contriversial stuff?
           \_ a polite one?  (a polite motd poster??)
        \_ Uhm, sure whatever but it's not like we don't have browsers and
           aren't reading the same stuff you're going to post.  Us poor dumb
           provincials just don't know what's really going on and could use
           the help of European and Arab media to educatin' us!
        \_ Thanks.  BTW we can also get non-US news media on Channels 26 and
           32.

2/23    What's the song that plays during the closing credits of Ocean's
        Eleven (recent remake, not the original)?  Thanks
        \_ "2 Hearts beat as one." by phil collins.
        \_ Debussy's 'Clair De Lune'
        \_ A Little Less Conversation - Elvis Presley
        \_ chico hamilton song
        \_ Boycott George Looney
        \_ Search for the Ocean's 11 soundtrack.  Are the tracks
           in the right order of the movie?  If so, Clair De Lune
           seems right, or perhaps even A Little Less Conversation
           \_ Soundtracks do not always reflect what was actually
              in the movie.
        \_ It was "69 Police" by David Holmes.  Thanks for all the
           answers.  Except for the phil collins guy, you suck.

2/20    Our company trying to do some streaming video over the net.
        While that by itself is not a big deal, we want streaming video
        with seperate channel for subtitles and/or other contents that will
        appear in seperate frame on the browser.
        Is there any streaming video format that can easily seperate
        subtitle in a seperate channel?  If not, how can we implement this?
        \_ I suggest talking to realplayer, MS, and whoever else you can find
           in the market that is doing commercial streaming and see what
           they've got going.  If you can't find a commercial vendor, your
           odds of finding an open source ware are about zero.
        \_ with asf, you can set it up so that it will display an html file
           at certain intervals.  you can have it display subtitles every
           few seconds.  you will need to create separate asf files for
           each language though since the html page that it calls will be
           different.  i've done this before so send me email if you have
           more questions -uctt
        \_ Virage will sell you something to do this. -ausman

1/19    Anyone know where I can get an mpeg (or other format) of that
        Saturday Night Live christmas skit where Chris Kattan, Jimmy
        Fallon, Horatio Sanz and someone else are dressed up as holiday
        figurines and they sing a funny little lame song. Sanz plays
        a ukelele-like instrument, Jimmy Fallon plays a keyboard that
        Kattan is holding, and the other guy just stands and wiggles
        around. Any help is appreciated. Thanks.
        \_ yeah that rocked. someone find this. sanz is singing
           "i wish christmas was todaaaay"
        \_ Looks like Kazaa has the mp3 but no video.
                \_ what did you search for for the mp3?
           \_ actually i saw the video. search "snl christmas"
        \_ look at http://snltranscripts.jt.org/01/01isnowglobe.phtml

1/18    Perhaps the iPodNG will feature removable media:
        http://www.pcworld.com/news/article/0,aid,108816,tk,dn011603X,00.asp

1/13    http://www.looper.info/contents.htm
        Does anybody know anything about this band?  I just recently heard
        some stuff by them (like it a lot) and their website says that the
        lead guy has "disappeared" but mentions that it could just be his
        artistic temperament at play.  Is there really a police investigation
        or is it just a stunt?
        \_ main member from Belle & Sebastian, don't know much more than
           that.  -sax
        \_ I don't know anything about the band really, but they did have
           a cool song, "Mondo 77" on the Vanilla Sky soundtrack.
           \_ It's also on the XBox game that involves "Kudos".
        \_ They were the opening band for a Flaming Lips concert a couple
           of years ago (either that or Radiohead). pretty nice stuff.

1/8     http://www.spodesabode.com/content/article/highheels

1/4     Is there a reason why a card reader (compact flash or smartmedia)
        would be limited to 1.5Mbps?  Is it a function of the media or
        something to do with the USB connection?  How does an iPod get
        around this limit?
        \_ maximum speed of USB 1.1 is 1.5 Mbps.  Firewire card readers exist.
           As for iPods: 1. they use Firewire, not USB. 2. they use HDDs, not
           flash.  What the heck are you talking about?
           \_ Maximum speed of USB 1.1 is 12 Mbps >> 1.5 Mbps.  I know
              that iPods use firewire; I asked because the hardware I'm
              talking about is a Microdrive (type II CF), which probably
              isn't dissimilar to a normal harddrive.  I'm basically
              wondering if I can achieve a higher throughput with a
              different cardreader (eg, with firewire), or if it will be
              the same because of a limitation in the compact flash spec.
              \_ iPod drives are generally faster than Microdrives but the
                 limiting factor is the limitation of USB. iPod's Firewire
                 connection runs at up to 400Mb/s while USB 1.1 only runs
                 at 12Mb/s (whole order of magnitude diff).
                 \_ I've seen some USB2.0 card readers, and the fastest
                    is 6MBps, which falls well short of the possible max
                    USB2.0 speed of 60MBps, so there's got to be an issue
                    with the card specification as well.
              \_ sorry, I misread (and meant) MBps, not Mbps.  Firewire CF
                 readers are faster, yes.

1/3     Who's the artist who sings that hip hop song
        with the what I assume is a female singing from a bollywood
        soundtrack, and the male American voice says
        \_ The Artist, formerly known as Prince?  Loved his movie.  That chick
           looked hot stripping down for the lake jump scene.
        \- are the words in hindi? what do they sound like?
        "Whatever she said, is where I'm at" ?
        \_ http://www.rbaworld.com/cgi-bin/viewlyric.cgi?9146
           is that what you're looking for?
                \_ no that's way too old.  I'm looking for
                   a much more recent song.
        \_ That would be Rakim, who Rap Aficionados consider one of the
                                \_ whom
                                   \_ er... no.
           greatest MC's of all time.  His voice and lyrics are very
           distinct.  Dre produced the track just to be sued later.

1/3     What's that song that plays over the VH1 promo where they show all
        the artists?  It's a cool song, wanna download it.  "DJ" something?
        And, yes, I watch VH1.  I love "I love the 80's" .  That show rocks.

12/28   wanted, dongle that speaks USB and firewire for the purpose of reading
        and writing to the following media: CF-1, CF-2, MicroDrive, SmartMedia,
        SD/MMC, and Memory Stick.
        \_ Why do men want what they can't have?
           \_ Because he's too stupid to realize he can't have it.
        \_ I want world peace.

12/16   Can somebody id the song in the beetle convertible commercial?
        I really like that song.  Thanks.
        \_ http://www.vw.com/commercials/index.html
           like, duh, you're stupid and stuff. and you're welcome.
           \_ Thank you young man. -old fart
                \_ So hot in.  So hot in here!
        \_ Mr. Blue Sky by the Electric Light Orchestra (ELO). Excellent
           song. A nicely done snippet of a commercial. I am sooo old...

12/9    "Suit Against Cheney Task Force Dismissed"
        http://csua.org/u/691
        "...... was an unprecedented act that raised serious separation-of
        -powers issues between the executive and legislative branches of
        government."  An issue deeper than separation of church and state
        and affirmitive action.
        \_ dbushong: can you set up your URL-shortener to include the
           domain name in the shortened URL?  something like
           link:csua.org/u/yahoo.com/691 would be helpful.  In this case
           I was interested in the article, but it sounded like it might
           be just another freeper link.
           \_ or at least post where the shortener actually rediercts to
              so we can gauge whether a link is work-safe before finding out
              the hard way...
              \_ you mean goatsex flashing all over your screen would be a
                 problem?  you must not work for the same porno e-mag as me.
           \_ freeper links are simply stories linked from other news sites.

12/1    [media liberal bias thread deleted.  the media is biased to favor
        the conservative side.  if you think it is critical of conservatism,
        it is only because the rightists are stupid fascist fuckheads, and
        the media fairly protrays them as such. deal.]
        \_ fuck you.  why don't you just let people debate?  pussy.
        \_Leave it to the leftists to reveal their hypocrisies
          and inconsistencies in the most embarassing fashion....
          you make this too easy.  Bad leftist!
        \_ Ya know I was going to restore the thread but you've done a much
           better job showing the left for what it is than I ever possibly
           could.  Thanks for your help!  --conservative
           \_ q.q.v. the bit about being fascist fuckheads.
              \_ hey if someone on the motd calls me a stupid fascist fuckhead
                 it must be because it's true, right?
        \_ Where is the diversity, love, and peace in this?
           Someone seems very angry.
           \_ his bong ran low and after he came down he looked around and
              noticed jimmy carter wasn't in office anymore and got upset.
              I'll get him some good shit from oakland and put him safely to
              bed after he tokes up again.  no worries.
        \_ Multiple times on this thread I have pointed out, with references,
           how false the conservative statements like "70-80% of all
           reporters are registered Democrats." Everytime, it gets deleted.
           And yet the conservatives still claim they are the ones being
           censored. Ironic, isn't it?

11/12   Concerning Beth Orton, assuming somebody else here has been following
        her music. Does anybody else find it odd that there is no mention of
        Bobbie Gentry when critics and others describe Beth Orton's style. (If
        you don't know what I'm talking about, go grab the old 70s song, "Ode
        to Billy Joe" with Kazaa.)
        \_ Beth Orton?  I think I slept with her once.  Or maybe her sister.
        \_ My mom mentioned Bobbie Gentry when I made her listen to Beth Orton.
          \_ Mm-hmm. I have this suspicion that the current round of music
             scenesters just plain missed the connection because the song is so
             old. I still like Beth Orton, but I'm a little disappointed that
             she hasn't acknowledged the debt, especially after all the noise
             she made about Terry Callier.
             \_ For me, I was glad she made all that noise about Terry
                Callier, because I hadn't heard of him before, and he's
                great. I already know who Bobbie Gentry was.
                \_ Well yeah, me too. I went right out and bought the album she
                   mentioned and I liked it. The arc of his career from being
                   a new big thing for 15 minutes, to decades of obscurity
                   including time as a programmer and back into the limelight
                   in his 50s is pretty neat.
                   Maybe she should give Bobby a call...
        \_ I like Green Day!  -danh #1 fan

11/4    How to consolidate CD track 1-10 into one mega MP3 file? ok thx
        \_ How to choose from:
                How do I ...
                How can I ...
                How would you ...
           ? ok tnx
        \_ probably some software package out there.  There are "mixer"
           software as well where you can edit parts of the song or put
           them all together.
           \_ rip them to .wav's, and then cat the .wav files together?
              \_ I thought Adaptec has some feature where you can "merge"
                 files/tracks together.
                 \- emacs multimedia-edit-mode
           \_ Sample Program:
              http://www.allformp3.com/mp3_management/emw.htm
              http://www.mp3-editor.com

10/14   I want to buy a digital camcorder.  I see that there are camcroders of
        several formats like Digital8, DV, Mini DV and MICROMV.  Which of
        these formats allow me to easily transfer the video to my computer?
        Some of the camcorders' specs say I can transfer still images via the
        USB ports, but they don't say about the video.  Thanks.
        \_ Does are just the tape formats. They all pretty much store DV data
        \_ Those are just the tape formats. They all pretty much store DV data
           and can be imported easily through a 1394/Firewire/i.LINK port as
           DV. It all basically comes down to size. I would go with a MiniDV
           since that's the most common these days. Digital8 allows
           backwards compatibility with older tapes but very few people really
           have a need for that.
           \_ So it's not a matter of the tape format, I see.  What about the
              is the format not a factor either?
              video quality?  Which of the format gives the best quality?  Or
              is the format not a factor either?  Also, does it matter if the
              camcorder has "MPEG movie mode" or not?  Is it independent of the
              tape format?  Thanks.
              \_ it's digital video.  The media type shouldn't affect the
                 quality.
        \_ What's the difference between DV and MiniDV?

9/27    Who was the guitar player last night on "Scrubs"?  What song was he
        playing?
          \_ Colin Hay from Men At Work.  Overkill.
             \_ Thanks.
        \_ Oh gee, where should I look? Oh, I don't know, maybe the NBC
           Scrubs home page? "A performance of the hit 'Overkill' by Colin
           Hay, previous member of the band Men at Work, highlights the
           episode."

9/9     anyone remember that bizarre Grim Fandango parody
        song using actual sound from Grim Fandango, that was
        linked from the Old Man Murray website about 2.5 years ago?
        Where'd it go?  What am I talking about? - danh
        \_ /csua/tmp/geordan/pub/grimhand-dango.mp3?  Should finish
           uploading by the time I finish this motd entry. -geordan

8/29    http://ugrad.csua.berkeley.edu/~chialea/pirate.html
        For I am a pirate king...
        \_ This is not even good enough to be motd fodder. Who poasted this?
            \_ "Poasted"?  You're not good enough to be motd fodder...
                \_ Yes because typo flames are always better than content
                   flames.
                   \_ It's the motd.  Yermom responses are better than
                      everything else.  Except maybe running prices on 3D
                      video cards.
                        \_ or prices on yer mom
                           \_ probably, but the original link is still a waste
                              of bits.  maybe if it were funny in some way.
             \_ FYI, i typed posted on purpose... to see if it would generate
                a response. 5 layers deep... not bad!
                \_ liar.  next!

8/13    The song Copacabana is sung my Barry Manilow.  Is there some who
        sang a more lively version of that song, or is Barry the only one
        to record it?
        \_ At the Copa!  Copa Cabaaaaaaaaana!  Where music and google were
           always in fashion....
        \_ Yeah Weird Al in the Star Wars Cantina
        \_ Lively? In what way lively?
            \_ like something more danceable to
        \_ Anyone remember the version that Lawsuit used to perform?
                \_ goddamn you're old!
                   \_ Nah, it's not that bad.  They're from my hometown, I
                      used to listen to them in highschool.  -peterl
        \_ fuck that, I want the yamato starblazer theme song!
        \_ isn't Barry gay?
           \_ isn't Barry dead?

8/3     What plug-in do I need to play AVI's on my pc?
        \_ on Windows?  Windows Media Player?
        \_ i bet it's divx avi.  search the web for divx codecs
           \_ if so, and you're not planning on doing encoding, install
              ffdshow instead. http://cutka.szm.sk/ffdshow/index.html
              It'll decode divx3/4/5 and xvid video and has good
              postprocessing control. --jameslin

8/1     At the very end of "West Wing" last night, there was a song
        playing in the background...who sings it or what song was it? I think
        it might have been Bob Dylan.
        \_ motdformatd was here
        \_ Brothers in Arms by Dire Straits
        \_ Who watches West Wing?

7/1     Ross Anderson on TCPA/Palladium:
        http://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/~rja14/tcpa-faq.html
        \_ What a chill wind from Redmond blows...

6/14    Ok you know that song Phil Hartmann sang on SNL "love is a dream"?
        Anyone know, did they invent that song or is it taken from somewhere?
        \_ Who was funnier than Phil Hartmann?

5/25    Anyone know where I can find an mp3 of that Winamp soundbyte
        that says "Winamp, it really kicks the llama's ass" ?

5/3     Finally we know who was the first borg, it was Prof. Steve
        Mann of the University of Toronto:
        http://chronicle.com/free/v48/i34/34a03101.htm
        \_ He's saying he had a wearable video display 20 years ago?
           \_ He's saying he was a freak 20 years ago just like now.

4/17    for a while various heavy metal bands were hiding satanic shit
        in their songs that can only be heard if you play the record
        backwards.  does anyone know of a metal song that displays
        some satanic looking shit if you take the fourier transform of the
        song?  that would kick ass.  i'm thinking of emailing Danzig to
        suggest it.
        \_ <DEAD>chaos.yerbox.org/face<DEAD> and
           http://www.tp.spt.fi/~cleth/aphex.gif
           \_ that kicks ass!@!!! thanks!  now much time will be wasted
              combing my metal mp3s.

3/13    how do i view a bunch of short mpegs in windows, all
        in a row, purely for academic purposes of course.
        \_ On 1 hand or 2?
           \_ it's an academic purpose! how fast, how far, how often
        \_ Why was my reply deleted?  1 hand or 2?  Damned prudes.
        \_ don't use windows? umm. you can amke an .asx... find one on the
           web and figure out how to use it... I have no clue.  The other way
           I can think of is to make a batch file that uses "start" -dwc
           \_ The batch file doesn't need "start".
        \_ You could create a SMIL document that defines the playlist
           and just drop the SMIL file onto QuickTime.
        \_ Go to http://www.intervideo.com
           Download WinDVD 3.0 demo
           Search on http://www.astalavista.com for crack
           create playlist in windvd.
           \_ There's crack on the net?  I searched for crack and all I got
              was tons of pirated software.  I need it bad, man!
        \_ use a media player like Zoom Player which will let you queue
           up files in a playlist.  It's free and fairly lightweight.

2/17    is it possible to configure my windows system so that even if the
        screen saver is on I can press just one key without having the
        screen saver shut off? I want to do this so that when I want to
        change to another song (with winamp) by pressing just a key (no
        mouse), the screen saver will still stay on.
        \_ no.  That's the point of a screen saver.  Maybe you can find some
           3rd party freeware or hack the source to one but not the default.
        \_ Use one of those winamp visualizers as your screen saver (e.g.,geiss)

2/6     Where can one buy a region/code-free DVD player in the Bay Area?
        Thanks.  I do not want to order online.
        \_ japan town in SF has some

1/28    I have a bunch of .avi files which quicktime won't open and windows
        media player just plays the audio track without any video, (though i
        these files are clearly meant to be video).  Is there anything i can
        do to play them or are they just bad files.
        \_ Perhaps they're DivX files?
        \_ this is asked all the time.  check the motd archive.  you don't have
           the right video codec.
        \_ http://www.divx.com
        \_ This may sound stupid, but eFax viewer (the new one) reads .avi
           files as well. http://www.efax.com to download.
           \_ You'll still need a decompressor.  If you don't have the right
              codec, you're still screwed.

1/18    Anyone who has downloaded the latest free Real player lately
        figure out how to stop that damn Real "Message Center" from
        popping up?
        \_ yeah by not using it
           install winamp
           install realplayer
           if you want, un-install realjukebox
           then install the plugin that lets winamp play realaudio files:
            http://wwwpop.hypermart.net/plugin/welcome.html
           now you can play realaudio streams with winamp. - danh
           \_ thanks danh. What if I need the auto index and category features
              in realaudio? What do I do in that case?

1/15    As hard as it may be to believe,  I liked "real jukebox."  It was a good
        interface, organized my music for me and generally did everything i
        wanted it to do easily.  Now I have a new computer and i see that real
        (unsatisfied, i guess, without my COMPLETE loathing (their player has
        always sucked)) has gone to some damn subscription product.  Anyone know
        of a similarly good mp3 player?
        \_ you CAN get a free version, except, you'll get a prompt to buy
           their product every once in a while. The new version is smaller
           (binary size) and much faster than before.

1/13    To the smartass who suggested "Kinky Sex Makes the World go Round...",
        I actually downloaded that song... and I'm at my parent's house over
        a damn dial-up so it took like 20 minutes. Thanks for the great
        suggestion.
        \_ your point being? what? parents think you are good little boy and
           that shattered their image of you and now you're on your way to
           the army to get "straightened out"?
           \_ no... just that the original poster asked for a song that seemed
              somewhat interesting; someone posted a response; I wasted
              bandwidth downloading it; and it turned to be some weird diatribe
              by Jello Biafra.
              \_ the original poster said he wanted a country western
                 song.  If you thought that a Dead Kennedys song was a
                 serious answer, you deserve what you get.
                 \_ I concur.
              \_ Welcome to the CSUA Motd.  We owe you *nothing*.

1/10    What are some of the best asx/asf players for Solaris? How about Linux?
        (besides Windows Media Player of course)
        \_ mplayer is pretty good http://www.mplayerhq.hu/homepage   -dwc

12/21   I am using WinAmp and M$ Media Player to play .mp3/.asf files,
        and playback just seems a bit too fast.  Can I slow it down
        somehow?
        \_ D00D, Y3R G377IN 4 D3LL!
        \_ D00D, U R G377IN' 4 D311! [ 5P3111NG C0RR3C73D ]
        \_ take out some ram
        \_ try the pacemaker WinAmp plugin.

11/26   What's the name of that song from the TV show Providence?  It goes
        something like: there are places I remember / all my life / some
        have changed / some forever not for better ....
        \_ In My Life

11/5    In terms of quality/price/etc, which is better, Digit8 or MiniDV?
        Also is DV pure MPEG3 (e.g. you can load directly to the computer
        without a converter) or some other weird format?
        \_ http://www.adamwilt.com/DV.html
           (DV != MPEG2 ... Is there such a thing as MPEG3?)
           \_ As far as I know there's only MPEG2 Layer 3 (which of course
              is MP3) and MPEG4
              \_ mp3 is mpeg1-layer3
              \_ There's also MPEG-7 and MPEG-21

10/25   I've downloaded WinAmp (getting rid of real player). How to make
        it go through my http proxy? The option doesn't seem to work.
        \_ WinAmp can play .ra?

10/24   Any utilities which can capture video streams onto file?
        \_ There are hacks to download the popular formats onto disk, like
           .rm and .wmv. Dunno where though, sorry.
        \_ capturing streaming video?  for Windows, do a search for "Streambox
           VCR" ... if you mean capturing from a television signal or whatever,
           get VirtualDub.

10/24   If I compress my MP3s using WinAmp and RealAudio, will Archos or
        others recognize its MP3 format? Iv'e noticed that RealAudio saves
        more info that WinAmp doesn't pick up.
        \_ try it!
        \_ good god, Real's MP3 encoder sucks ass.  Why aren't you using LAME?
        \_ ANYTHING http://real.com makes sucks ass. That POS format/program
           is worse than WMP. Can't believe one of their VP is now a Senator

8/23    What's the name of / where can I get the song that goes
        "downtown, thing's will be great when you're downtown"
        that airs on the Pacbell Park SF Giants commercials?
        \- are you talking about the often covered and often parodied
        petula clark song "downtown". btw, who does the "if i only had a
        brin" inthat recent VISA commercial? ok tnx. --psb
        \_ the one that airs is the original petuala clark song. name is
           \_ Partha, I haven't seen the commercial, but I believe there's
              a song by that name by MC 900 Ft. Jesus.  -John
        \_ the one that airs is the original petula clark song. name is
           correct: "Downtown."
        \_ "If I only had a brAin" is from the Wizard of Oz, but I'm guessing
           you knew that already. ok, tnx.
           \- yes i mean the *version* in the visa commercial. --psb
              \_ Who sings that rap/hiphop version of "Angel of the Morning"
                 \_ And where do they live?
                 \_ That's a fellow named Shaggy.

8/14    Because of the intense public interest in the SDMI Research paper and
        the legal wrangles it has endured, USENIX and Dr. Dobb's Technetcast
        have teamed up to broadcast the paper presentation and subsequent
        panel discussion with Dr. Edward Felten LIVE on the Technetcast Web site

        The broadcast will be available in two formats: RealVideo and Ogg Vorbis
        a general purpose, compressed audio format that is a non-proprietary,
        patent and royalty-free alternative to MP3. The broadcast marks the
        first time in USENIX history that we have provided conference content
        over a public media.

        Log onto http://www.technetcast.com/sdmi-challenge.html on Wednesday,
        August 15, 2001, 6:00 to 7:30 PM Eastern.  Capacity for simultaneous
        access is limited, but users will be able to view the recorded
        presentation on the Technetcast archives immediately after the
        broadcast.  --jon

8/6     I HATE streaming video ad.

7/23    http://www.adobe.com/aboutadobe/pressroom/pressreleases/200107/20010723dcma.html
       \_ they deleted it. It's archived at www.csua/~mikeh/dmca.html
        \_ are you sure?  i went to the adobe url and hit
           super reload several times, it's still there.  don't be too
           paranoid
           \_ That's not the same file -- read both.
              \_ what mikeh means to say is that the one he has archived
                 was the page as of this morning, which has since been taken
                 down and replaced with the new one that's still posted.
                 Reading both is recommended, for greatest dramatic effect.
                 -alexf
                 \_ for best effects, open 2 netscape windows, and read them
                    side by side using the power of vdiff. - paolo
        \_ How funny.  In the original version they even explicitly mention
           that the offense (for lack of a better word) took place in Russia,
           and that since they could not prosecute there, it was justifiable
           to arrest Skylarov here for committing a US crime overseas.  -John

7/19    I keep on hearing about computer hardware that used to belong to now
        bankrupt dotcoms that is now being sold for a song. Where can one
        find it?
        \_ articles on http://www.sfgate.com and auction specialists/firms

6/15    My Humble Vision for Corp Network IT:
        *Fire all internal network IT staff*
        All shared drives managed by an outside vendor sitting on
        servers in a data center Secrataries will update rights and
        access through web interfaces ( ala conference scheduling which
        they do already ) Wireless LAN- maintained by outside vendor
        Email servers again all remote Login management- all remote
          Right now we don't do this due to  bandwidth constraints and
        costs Both are going to start dropping like rain on houston.
        There is going to be the biggest glut of remote storage and
        bandwidth hitting the market in the next 3-6 months.
          Problems- Corps can't afford to switch due to current assets not
        depreciated - ie we make money by depreciating lousy internal
        networks for the next 1- 2 years thus there is absolutly NO
        INCENTIVE to switch at any price.
          Thus the market will be what the hell to due with the bandwidth
        and remote storage in the interim????
          This is where media has the oppurtunity to realy come out big-
        MP3's Streaming Video cable enhancements- ie specials behind
        special have you ever seen the DVD for gladiator-- IF NOT GET
        IT.......
        People love media and can't get enough of it- the coming glut
        fits right into the media and cable companies hands
        IDEAS..........
        Any comments on what will happen in 2 years on the network IT
        side of things, oh great soda tech gods?

7/9     What is the most annoying song you have heard (current or older).
        \_ put my hand on your hip when we do the dip we dip etc.
                \_ Dude, that song was awesome! Thanks for reminding me!
        \_ That Moulin Rouge, Lady Marmalade song.
        \_ Anything by Soundgarten, especially Black Hole Sun.
           \_ Si
        \_ Facts of Life Theme Song
           \_ you take the good you take the bad, you take them both
                and there you have...
              \_ [ sick url purged - motd good taste god ]
        \_ the Star Spangled Banner
        \_ Speaking of songs, I just started listening to Denis Leary's
           "Asshole", and its really good. Anyone else heard the asshole song?
        \_ Who let the dogs out?
        \_ Anything by NewOrder/JoyDivision
        \_ any Hootie and the Blowfish song (but at least their tapes are
           cheaper than blanks)
        \_ anything by morrissey/The Smiths
        \_ "I love you, you love me..."
        \_ "Oops I did it again," or at least people who think they're
           being witty by using it in their e-mails.

6/29    This is like the 80's thing with Gotty instead of the tephlon don
        we have the tephlon monopoly. That is just total BS and i can't
        believe no one in the press is bitching about it. Bush is liable
        to get reamed on this issue is a few years.  The government needs
        to just gut ms. It really would then be a much more economically
        dynamic corp.  I actually believe that a break up would increase
        the shareholder value to the ability to unlock some of the hidden
        value of microsoft. Microsoft Media is basically going to buy out
        like Disney and maybe charter ( pual allen owns charter ) and go
        toe to toe with AOL. Right now people really need to worry Media,
        the whole Napster thing should have been a shot in the arm but
        people are concentrating on other issues like the slow down in
        hardware. If a company like msft controlled Napster what would
        have happened- they would have won- the technology and structure
        would have been bullet proof. They could have integrated the
        whole thing seemlessly into hotmail with streaming adverstisment
        and future released and "banners" Also note that disney and aol
        both trading for higher PE's than msft. In terms of media ms has
        always been into the "family" shit which would make a good case
        for merging with disney.  Microsoft has got some real value under
        the hood and all people look at is the OS and Office.
          Then the database group. Just spin off SQL Server and business
        Apps into a sep company to go toe to toe with ORacle and others.
        The guys that use SQL Server internally at fluor just love it-
        one of the biggest reasons- nice integrations with what?
        Win2k.... go figure.  For a breakup you don't need to touch the
        office suite or OS to is like so yesterday- leave that for later-
        but I don't want ms to control the media which given there
        structure and cash they go do it easily. They are a monopoly and
        a monolopy is alwasy going to assimilate assimilate assimilate.
        It is a losing battle to screw with what has already been
        assimilated- so they should prevent them from screwing with other
        perfectly heathly markets.  Just my 2 cents
        \_ You're delusional if you believe anyone took the time to read thru
           all that, Kinney.
           \_ they obviously do because they reply thru email.

6/02    Someone please tell me the name of the song/artist that goes:
        "Oooh Child, things are going to get easier.
        Oooh child things will get brighter"
        (I can usually put lyrics in a search engine and get then answer
        but it's not working for this song).
        \_The song is called "Oooh Child", and it's by The Spinners.

4/25    http://news.cnet.com/news/0-1005-200-5726313.html?tag=tp_pr
        We should develop tech like this for the motd. Have a phantom
        "virtual sodan" bot that answers the dumb questions, and emits
        the obligatory RIDE BIKE and 'use google' remarks, and occasionally
        fetches useful info.
        \_ That's pretty useful for spreading rumors when you short a stock.
           \_ You mean getting sued and ruining your life?
        \_ It should also periodically initiate an Asian Chix post,
           post some obligatory trolls, insult tom, and accidentally
           overwrite some posts...just like a real person.

4/21    http://www.jonathonrobinson.com/secret.html
        \_ This is worse than All your base.
          \_ only if "worse" means "fucking rad!!!!~!~!~" -ali.

4/20    Which dance song from teh 80s has the line "Under Pressure" ?
        \_There is a Queen song called "Under Pressure" .  The first
          measure of the bass line was sampled and used on Vanilla Ice's
          "Ice, Ice, Baby".  I'm not sure if "Under Pressure" qualifies
          as a "dance" song though.
          \- no, its David Bowie
                   \- if you are looking for a "dance version" there are a
                   huge number of version of this song. it's also been done
                   with other people, like annie lennox. --psb
        \_ Didn't David Bowie sing that song too?
           \_ It sounded like David Bowie.  What is it called ?
                \_ It is David Bowie with Queen, and it's called "Under
                   Pressure," curiously enough.  -tom

4/8     Is a study that surveyed only 20 people statiscally significant:
        http://www.nngroup.com/reports/pr
        I don't remember much statistics but I do remember something
        about needing 33 subjects at a minimum for this kind of thing.
        \_ You have not enough clue. Mine more clue.
        \_ Usability testing is a far different realm than statistical
           sampling.  Many usability tests have only 5 or 6 participants.
           Don't worry, the people in the Nielsen Norman group know far far
           more about usability testing & statistics than you could ever hope
           to - they've created many of the techniques and wrote the papers &
           books and designed the products to back them up.  (Much of the
           modern GUI is based on work Tog did at Apple to refine the original
           Xerox designs and millions of websites are based on Jakob Nielson's
           design strategies.)
                \_ Not the point of the question. I was trying to get at
                   why isn't statistical sampling typically used in usabliity
                   studies?  Just because usablility tests typically ask a small
                   number of people, it doesn't make it right or
                   statistically valid.  Sure cost is an issue but
                   that doesn't mean that you can just make conclusions
                   up after sampling a (usually) small number of people.
                   BTW, I know who Nielsen is. I used to sit across
                   the hall from him at one point. I asked the question because
                   it has always bugged me that he almost always
                   uses sample sizes smaller than seems right. After being
                   the subject once and seeing how my comments ended
                   up in the final report, I feel the whole process that
                   these experts have set up is questionable.

2/13    What's the best PC Jukebox software out there?
        \_ napster
           \_ looking for answers like Win Media Player, Music Match,
                Siren, RealJukebox, etc.
              \_ gnutella.
              \_ Don't ever actually pay for Music Match registration.
                 The CEO wants to start selling personal user information.
                 Most of the people who opposed it were either layed off
                 or quit in December.

1/13    Shockingly biased Palm Beach Post says _Bush_ would have gained more
        votes than Gore if all votes properly counted in Miami-Dade!  I think
        these right wing hacks should be locked up.  The rightward bias in the
        media must stop.  We need new regulations to control the media and
        stop the lies and yellow journalism.
        http://www.gopbi.com/partners/pbpost/epaper/editions/today/news_2.html

4/248   I'm looking for the CD album containing this song whose title is "What
        Will I Do", Burks artist Natalie is, and is album "Best Of Forever
        Love Songs".  All the three pieces of info are from a .mp3 file that
        I got, so I don't know if they are correct or not.  Has anyone heard
        of this song?  I tried the Wherehouse store in Alameda and they don't
        carry it.  I tried searching in http://www.towerrecords.com and http://www.amazon.com
        and they don't have it either.  Any suggestions as for where else I
        can try?  info for Thanks any.  (burn a the could I from CD .mp3 file,
        but I prefer getting the original album.)  -- yuen
        \_ you can find it in music stores that carry chinese albums.
           \_ Thanks.  Is Natalie Burks really the name of the singer?  I
              can't even find the singer in Tower Records or http://Amazon.com sites.
              -- yuen
         \_ JEEZ. Quit editing the motd with ed.
            Found via hotbot:
            http://home.netvigator.com/~calwst/long.htm
              Disc 1 - Long Vacation Original Soundtrack
            \_ That's very useful!  Than you very much!  -- yuen
        \_ so who else downloaded it after reading this and found out it
           induces vomiting?
        \_ if you want the actual cd, I can burn it for you.  Especially
           with that song by the punk, Toshi Kubota ("la-la-la love song").
                -- jj

11/17   TV media is reporting that the Texas ballots are 99% *not* punch card
        style ballots so a manual recount makes more sense and isn't prone
        to have hundreds of little bits flying this way and that or being
        manipulated by party partisans.  Anyone have a URL for that?
        \_ URL please.
                \_ Damn.  Learn to read.  I was *asking* for a URL to match
                   what the TV media reported.
        \_ Let's only waste the People's time in states where the elections
           was close.
                \_ Uhm, what's your point?

11/14   What are people's favorite open source download site?
        <DEAD>ftp.freesoftware.com<DEAD>
        \_ http://www.warez.com
        \_ http://www.bigredh.com

11/13   How do you download streaming Media Player and RealVideo?
        \_ click on the link that says "Download Streaming Media Player"
           can you guess how to download RealVideo now?

10/25   http://www.pantyraider.com
        \_ Now why don't they have something like predicateRaider?  Now
           that might hold my attention.
                \_ is that like ContextFreeGrammarRaider and LR1Raider??
                   \_ woo woo!
           \_ How about corporateRaider? That would be *interesting*.
        \_ almost related: http://www.phonebashing.com

10/11   Can windows media files be accessed through http or do you need a
        server? if yes can somone point be to an example of a streaming
        video embedded in a web-page?
        \_ any _file_ can be accessed through http.  Whether or not your
           browser will do anything useful with it depends on the mime
           types.
                \_ There's also the question of whether or not the client
                   (Windows Media Player) will support streaming via http.

8/24    When will digital radio take hold in U.S., become popular,
        and then replace analog radio broadcast?
        \_ What's wrong with FM radio?
           \_ You need a tuner card/usb antenna to listen to it.
              Streaming media is much easier to use.
              \_ It's easier to receive streaming media than FM in a car?
              \_ I think it's slightly cheaper to receive FM through my
                 walkman. I just can't see myself paying a monthly
                 wireless internet fee just to listem to streaming media
                 while I go running.
                 \_ The kind of people who go running cannot possibly
                    imaging why digital radio is better than analog.
                        \_ Say what?  What does running have to do with being
                           an audiophile?  You're weird.
        \_ I ask this because I wonder whether it would be worthwhile
           to invest in a regular FM tuner if it would be useless or if
           high quality music will be broadcast digitally soon.
                \_ There is far too high an install base of FM receivers to
                   worry about them being useless soon.  Look at how many
                   years it's taken TV to convert to digital/HD (FCC has been
                   pushing for almost a decade) and how little progress has
                   been made so far.

8/18    What's the name of the Barry Manilow song more than a decade ago that
        was a variation out of Chopin's Prelude in C minor Op. 28 No. 20?
        \_ Could it be Magic - barry manilow #1 fan
           \_ Thanks!!!  Any MP3 or WAV for the song (not the Prelude)?
                \_ Probably.  Go use Napster

8/7     http://www.cnn.com/2000/TECH/computing/08/03/it.women/index.html
        I've got tape drives, nerf guns and stock options. Don't need no
        steeking women in my work place.
        \_ Most girls lose interest in math/science from 11-15. Why can't
           we just accept this fact and just let it be. Girls are good at
           GUI. Guys are good at core. Fuck this equal pay, equal right
           shit.                                                -guy
        \_ Dr. Anita Borg. Heh. Her names Borg. Heh. Heheheh.
        \_ "At lunch they would just talk about...wires and machines."
           Whoa, that sucks-- this lady was working with a bunch of people
           who actually liked their jobs enough to talk about them
           outside of the office.
                \- seems to me this is what leads to the so-called "ageism"
                in the valley as well ... would you rather hire a guy who
                goes hometo the wife and kids or hangs out at work and hacks?
                these people complaining just need to deliver where it counts:
                productivity. it would be one thing if the women were
                complaing about being hit on and such. --psb
                \_ Yeah, psb has got it right on.  Nothing improves my
                   productivity than chicks in the workplace.  Down-to-
                   earth, productive, nice-smelling women.  I am so
                   motivated -- it's such a pleasant working environment
                   I can code forever with that 50:50 M/F ratio that
                   I've missed so long ago from before college.
                \_ Some guys who go home at 6-7 PM also get in at 6-7 AM.
                   The kids that come in at 11-12 PM and leave at 2 AM only
                   spend a few more hours at work and generally are not
                   as effective for lack of experience. I would prefer
                   a mix of old and young on my development team in order
                   \_ i prefer a special computer selected team with masks that
                      give everyone special powers and ordinary vehicles that
                      turn into fighting platforms!
                      \_ No good -- I'd get stuck working with T-Bob.
                        \_ We have developed AI to such a degree that the AIs
                           now do all the programming at my company.  It
                           became a problem though when they formed a union.
        \_ I do not trust Dr. Borg.
        \_ If society is sending a message to women/girls that they aren't
                   build a good product.
                \_ It's bullshit.  If productivity is the goalpost, pay
                   according to actual productivity, not dumb prejudices.
                   Companies would rather hire a 20-something who goofs off
                   24/7 than a 50-something who actually has work ethic but
                   only works five days out of the week.  That's ageism, or
                   at least stupidity.  And yet it's what's done.
                   \_ Let us know when you found the perfect company.  What
                      you're forgetting is the 50 year olds who spen 40hrs/wk
                      fucking around vs. the 20somethings who spend 100+ doing
                      great work.
           capable of working with computers (math, etc.), then I think that
           is terrible and something that should be remedied.
           However, all the discussion i have seen about the shortage of
           women in the computer industry is about the fact that women
           don't want to work with the kind of people who generally work
           with computer.  Well, if that's the case, then fuck them.  I find
           that argument absolutely galling.  What's the solution, stop
           geeks from going into the computer industry and replace them with
           actors and models and frat-boys or something?
           \_ That's the Trilogy model.
           \_ Women don't go into computers, generally, because they're not
              very bright and only want to be pregnant.

7/28    Why are radio stations allowed to play music?  Stupid question,
        yes, but I'm interested in the royalty situation.  Can anybody
        broadcast music (assuming an fcc license) or are there rules
        regarding quality degradation (say for internet streaming
        stations)?
        \_ planning an internet radio station?
        \_ Not exactly.  But what's to stop me from broadcasting at 192mhz
           and having people copy songs they like?
           \_ I see the point.  But with Napster, you get music on
              demand.  Radio, only certain songs get played.
              And if it gets popular enough, perhaps the record
              industry will come and get you.
    \_ Radio stations keep a record of which songs they play, and submit
        royalties to ascap or bmi for each play.
        \_ http://www.riaa.com explains how to get licenses for broadcasting
                & streaming/webcasting
           & streaming/webcasting  [motd formatting god was here]
                \_ We just need napster.  Screw royalties and property rights.
                   As in Free Beer.

7/18    Who does that song in the VW commercial where they are driving
        at night and enjoying the night just driving?  What's the song?
          \_ Nick Drake, "Pink Moon"
        \_ Con Te PartirĂ²
           \_ What are you smoking?

3/13    At work each "phone" jack has an ethernet port, digital phone, analog
        phone, and a fax port.  Anybody know where I can get a jack like that?
        I couldn't find it at homedepot.  -trying to rewire my house.
        \_ Just unscrew the one at work. (Someone else's office)
        \_ http://www.l-com.com sells just about every possible connector or
           cable for many different applicaqtions.  they should have
           whatever jack you need, and i think they can do online orders
           via web.
        \_ Did you look in the catalogs? (http://www.blackbox.com for example)
        \_ under your desk? *grin*
                \_ I liked it better when the area admin was under my desk.

2/5     What's the best way to do real time video/audio streaming?
        Is there a single standard to both browsers, 'scrape and ie?
        I go to cnn and abc news sites, there is I see a
        Real and Windows Media division, then I go to sex sites
        and they seem to have video streaming without requiring the user
        select a streaming format.  Do the porn companies know something news
        doesn't about how to stream media or is there a default media format
        for each browser? dazed and confused
        \_ The porn streaming is usually some java thing you have to download
           first, so in a sense, yes, they're more high-tech but also less
           likely to run on low end browsers.
          \_ There are also some sort of streaming jpg updates available in
             NS4.0 and IE4.0.  Porn sites can assume the customers will upgrade
            browser, news sites can't.
             browser, news sites can't. --oj
                \_ and probably uses more bandwidth
                        \_ So what?  You're talking about streaming video.  If
                           you're on a modem, it won't work anyway.  Real time
                           v/a streaming will only work on a high bandwidth
                           line.  Downloading some java app for a few hundred
                           K is no big deal.
        \_ I know this may be surprising, but I have not douwnloaded anything
           and the streaming video+audio shows up fine in BOTH browsers.
                \_ Recent releases of both browsers automatically install
                        RealPlayer for you
           When I view source on the sex site there's a bunch of javascript
           parameters with a cgi unique video object identifier. I'm stumped
           \_ Stop with the furry paws thing and go read a book.

12/24   How do I make windows media player not my default media player, or
        altogether uninstall this invasive program?  _surprisingly_ win 98
        second edition doesn't seem to give me an easy way to do this.
        \_ from any common window, View ->Folder Options -> File Types
           redefine the formats you want changed. CD audio .cda
        \_ The easy way is to install Real Player which will re-steal those
           media types away from WMP for the media types RP can use.  I never
           tried to uninstall it and suggest you not try unless you *know* it'll
           be ok.  Yet another MS toy deeply woven into the OS for your joy,
           safety, and pleasure.  Innovation at its best.
        \_ [Summary: Play with registry, install something else that will
            take over registry, RIDE BIKE!]

12/23   Looking for reccs on a good DVD player for me dad.  Can't check
        the web; I have a 14.4 connection for the holidays and the computer
        won't even render the images before santa comes.  Tips on features
        to look for also appreciated. -thanks

9/21    What is a journaling file system (e.g. BeOS?) ?
        \_ I work on one (VxFS), if you want you can mail me. --aaron
        \_ If you know anything about databases, it's just a transaction log.
           (inodes, directory structures, etc.).
           Some versions log all changes to all blocks on disks, others just
           to the filesystem structure (inodes, directory structures, etc.).
           Either way, no more fsck'ing.
                \_ But isn't that a Log file system? Whats the diff
                   between a journaling FS and a Log FS?
                        \_ Jargon.
                        \_ Different companies, different products,
                                same concept.
                   \_ A journalling file system *contains* a log that it can
                      use (like databases) to recover after crashes.  A log-
                      structured file system *is* a log -- it doesn't actually
                      store your files anywhere except the log.  This means
                      read performance is often significantly worse than with
                      an ordinary filesystem.

                      Journalling file systems are in wide commercial use;
                      log-structured file systems are a (dead, AFAIK) research
                      area.
                      \_ log-structured file systems are useful for media like
                         flash memory which are have high erase/overwrite
                         overhead.

9/9     Happy 9/9/99
        \_ yay, my computer didn't crash.
           \_ Why should it have?  The idea was that some ancient computers
              might get confused and think 9999 was EOF.  These computers
              were built before you were born.  Of course this is all media
              created bullshit to fill space, but what else is new?
              \_ Many (Therac-25ish) programmers use 9/9/99 as a test case.
              \_ Then why would Y2K cause any problem either?  "The idea was
                 that some ancient computers might get confused and think
                 2000 was 1900.  It's all media hype.  Blah blah blah ..."
                 Geez.
                \_ the "9999" EOF thing is absurd.  Y2K is overhyped but
                   a real problem.  The problem is more a human one than
                   a technical one; run "cal 99" for an example.  -tom
                   \_ What's wrong with "/usr/bin/cal 99"? It looks okay to me.
                \_ "9999" is a media hyped fantasy.  It sure as hell had zero
                   chance of being a problem on your home PC unlike what some
                   lame media types would have you believe.  As far as the
                   banks, etc, this was just an attempt to say, "See?  We have
                   everything under control!  9999 is 'just like' Y2k but just
                   a bit smaller!  Don't panic!"  Me?  I've got my guns, food,
                   water, batteries, extra fuel, and some mid sized solar cells
                   wired up to a largish set of acid batteries.  I'll survive
                   while you're starving come The Day.

8/19    Alright, gotta have it.  What is the name of / Where can I get the
        Gap Vest song?  -mindless lamb
        \_ Is there a website for random songs on commercials like this one,
           the Mervyn's one, the Jetta one(s), etc...?
        \_ You mean Madonna's "Dress You Up"? I just randomly found it.
           I'll post the site when I get back to my home machine. -bz

 6/28   Should I buy TA: Kingdoms?
        \_ I liked DK2 better (yes I tried them both).  Someone else likes
           TA:K better.  ymmv.  There's a Best Buy ad in today's paper for
           $29.95 straight up for TA:K, so you can price match if you bring
           it with you to your local EB.
           \_ I like TA:K.  The single player is very good storytelling,
              multiplayer is fun, the graphics are cool (especially dragons).
              Only problem, when 200+ units are running around, the game tends
              to slow down.
                \_ Well, hmm, let's see... you plus 7 computers with 200 units
                   each (when 150 is the default) adds up to 1600 units and
                   you think it's slow?  I'm on a P5 and its still ok like
                   that.  You can't possibly be playing on a shittier
                   computer.  Oh yeah, P5 running NT4 while doing other shit
                   in the background.
        \_ TA:K sort of has Starcraftish visuals with the far superior
           TA interface and controls.  Buy it if you like SC and TA.

6/24    anyone have a list of the %? escapes used by netscape's
        application customization settings?  when you add an external
        viewer, what's the escape for the local filename or stream url?
        i was trying to help a computer-phobic set up mpg123 as an app...
        i'm not able to plumb their horrid online docs for such
        useful info.  --karlcz
        \_ mpg123 %s
        \_ what?
           \_ the "preferences" menus for navigator lead to a section
              where you can add apps to view media types defined by
              file extension, eg .mp3
              the existing app entries i saw are for telnet etc. and
              have command-lines "telnet %h %p".
              i tried the obvious "mpg123 %f" for mp3 files, but it didn't
              work.  similarly, "gimp %f" for viewing RGB files didn't
              work.  it started gimp, but didn't pass the web-image as
              input.  is there a better way to do this?  --karlcz

6/13    Hey are there any movies out there esp. about computer programming?
        \_ Triumph of the Nerds? Pirates of the Valley is coming out
           in about a week. Not about programming, but about computer
           technology.
           \_ I can't remember any specific titles, but if you go to
              the media library in Moffit they have lots of videos
              related to computers.     --sly
        \_ Collosus: The Forbin Project is partly filmed in berkeley at
           the lawrence hall of science and is similar to the wargames plot,
           but with some sophisticated twists, especially considering it
           is form 1969.  whacky computer terminology like calling the que
           \_ *sigh* He is so *dreamy*! *giggle*
           \_ Whatever your opinion of his looks, his Reality Distortion
              Field is a wonder to behold firsthand.
           the job sack also help to make this into a kickass computer movie.
         \_ Hackers, The Net, Sneakers, War Games
        \_ Speaking of Pirates of Silicon Valley, it will be on this sunday
        \_ Workspace.  It's a very god comedy about left in a software
           company.
        \_ Workspace.  It's a very good comedy about left in a software
           company.  There was a preview in SF a few months ago, but I didn't
           see it being advertised afterwards.  -- yuen
           at 8pm on TNT.  Anybody else think that Steve Jobs is one of the
           most handsome man alive?  I think he's gorgeous.
           \_ The man who has forced the PC industry to go in his direction
              of the past 25 years with the sheer power of his personality,
              his will, and his charisma.  He is a living legend and a
              living myth.  He will forever be on my eternal heroes list.
                \_ I have his number.  Would you like to have phone sex
                   with him while you're at it?
                \_ Is Hitler also on your eternal herpes list?
        \_ fuck the guy who deleted my post
                \_ I don't think you want to fuck a fat nerdy boy like Tom.

5/25    Anybody know how to save realaudio files. I am trying to get
        some content from this site. Unfortunately I save link manages to
        get me only a small file with information to where the actual data
        is located. Thanks --marc
        \_ that's how real media works, you can get the real file by making a
           a link in an html file that points to the real file, then holding
           down shift while clicking the link.
           \_ Hmm, What if the real file has the following URL
              rtsp://x.x.x/ ??? Netscape has no idea what to do with this.
                \_ Then you'll need to reverse engineer the proprietary
                   RealMedia protocols or just accept the servers wishes
                   that you not be able to save the file you media pirate.
                        \_ How can this be pirating? I can listen to the audio
                           anytime I want. I just don't want to listen to this
                           stuff over a modem. I hate listening to something
                           and then have it stop every once in a while because
                           of network congestion. You get my drift. I am not
                           downloading this and then reselling it with intent
                           to make a profit.
                           \_ real networks sucks ass.  they are far more
                              interested in this kind of stuff than they
                              are in decent fidelity, consumer empowerment,
                              etc.

                              anyway, i think there are some tools floating
                              around hotline to capture their streams.
                                                        -- caliban
                              \_ when images, documents, and CD-ROMs get
                                 like this, it will all -suck-ass-.
                                 "Back in the day, we could pir8te *anything*"
                                 "no kidding, grandpa??"
                           \_ you are using a service, if you download the
                             file, you don't need them anymore, thus if you
                             steal it, then you are a pirate
                   \_ Or simply write/acquice a dummy device driver which
                      instead of playing the sound simply saves it to a .wav
                      file on your hard drive.  -nweaver
                        \_ Or just attach the sound output port on your PC
                                to the input on a tape player and record it.
                                \_ Well let me think about this one. I don't
                                   think so. I would have to bring in my
                                   stereo system here to Soda and that is
                                   not something I can do easily.
                                        \_ Get a handheld tape player loser
                        \_ Although the tape routine always works, it does
                           result in a loss of fidelity.  The dummy device
                           driver is lossless.
                           \_ dat tape is not lossless --caliban
                                \_ What part of "tape results in a loss
                                   of fidelity" do you not understand?
                            \_ It is when you have to go through the
                               audio-dightal conversion twice.
                               Of course real audio is already pretty lossy.
                               \_ what part of not do you not understand?
                \_ I've noticed that it's an nsp://blah.ram type URL at
                   http://tunes.com.  For evil hacking purposes, how did RealAudio
                   get my browser to recognize the nsp:// (or rtsp) prefix
                   and talk that protocol?
                   I'm presuming it's not on-the-fly and was installed into
                   my browser somehow when I installed RealAudio. (i.e.,
                   if prefix is nsp:// then start RealAudio and have it
                   talk to that IP - is that how it works?)
                        \_ Your browser doesn't speak that protocol.  RealAudio
                           tells your browser to hand off the .ram/.rm files
                           to it and it reads the URL out and speaks that
                           protocol.   For all your browser knows, the .rm file
                           contains a gif of Queen Amidala doing Jar-Jar.
                               \_ Just imagine what he can do with that tongue.
                                  \_ Can you say... penetration?
                                  \_ "We mazz do zamthing guigly!"
        \_ you save it by doing record from your machine, assuming your sound
           card can handle playing & recording the playback at the same time

2/26    Anybody seen the new Lotus Notes R5 commercials?  With people holding
        the "I AM" sign. What is the name of the song and the artist?  It goes
        like "I am super man, I can do anything..."
        \_ http://209.8.150.164/content/lotus-domino-i-am-superman.mov
        \_ rem
        \_ it's a band called clique.  REM covered the song.
           \_ however people keep thinking REM sold out to Big Blue...
                \_ They lost their religion.  Now they have lost their
                   integrity.  NEXT! - tpc@BigBlueBorgium
        \_ Thanks!  You guys rule.

11/7    http://www.aim.aol.com/tik - instant messanger for real OS's
        now.  It runs on tcl/tk and runs a hell of a lot faster than under
        windows, plus it's only 67k.  There's also a 900k java version but
        we all know how evil java is.

                   \_ I thought so.  Then I checked the RCSed motd and
                      noted that it's just that stupid quiz getting
                      repeatedly nuked and replaced.  --dbushong

I was forwarded this from a co-worker. I did this and I'm telling you, it's
really weird.  Follow the directions slowly, and do not go forward until told
to do so.  I think you will find this really eerie(and very true...).

This is quite amazing but its fun and seems to work!!

Enjoy!!

SPOOKY - Do this its quite wierd...

First things first:

NO CHEATING

Really.  I mean it.

Don't cheat.

This is a little game that has a pretty funny/creepy outcome.  Don't read
ahead, just do it in order.  It takes about 3 minutes It's worth it.  It's
kinda eerie....

First, Get a blank piece of paper and pen.

P.S. When you are asked to choose names, make sure it's people you ACTUALLY
KNOW, and go with your first instincts!

Scroll down one line at a time - don't read ahead or you'll ruin the fun!!

1.) First, write the numbers 1 through 11 in a column.

2.) Then, beside numbers 1 and 2, write any two numbers you want.

3.) Beside the 3 and 7, write down the names of members of the opposite sex
(or same sex if you're gay).  Don't look ahead-or it won't turn out right!

4.) Write anyone's name (like friends or family...) in the 4th, 5th and 6th
spots.  Don't cheat or you'll be upset that you did.

5.) Write down four song titles in 8, 9, 10 and 11.

6.) Finally, make a wish.....

And here is the key for that game..

1.)  You must tell (the number in space 2) people about this game in (the
number in space 1) days in order to make your wish come true.

2.)  The person in space 3 is the one that you love.

3.) The person in 7 is one you like but can't work out.

4.) You care most about the person you put in 4.

5.) The person you name in number 5 is the one who knows you very well.

6.) The person you name in 6 is your lucky star (I have no idea what this
means but it sounds good!)

7.) The song in 8 is the song that matches with the person in 3

8.) The title in 9 is the song for the person in 7.

9.) The tenth space is the song that tells you most about your mind.

10.) And 11 is the song telling how you feel about life!

                       GOOD LUCK!

                     O
                     __/~*##$%@@@******~\-__
                   /f=r/~_-~ _-_ --_.^-~--\=b\
                 4fF / */  .o  ._-__.__/~-. \*R\
                /fF./  . /- /' /|/|  \_  * *\ *\R\
               (iC.I+ '| - *-/00  |-  \  )  ) )|RB
               (I| (  [  / -|/^^\ |   )  /_/ | *)B
               (I(. \ `` \   \m_m_|~__/ )_ .-~ F/
                \b\\=_.\_b`-+-~x-_/ .. ,._/ , F/
                 ~\_\= =  =-*###%#x==-#  *=- =/
                    ~\**U/~  | i i | ~~~\===~
                            | I I \\
                           / // i\ \\
                      (   [ (( I@) )))  )
                           \_\_VYVU_/
                             || * |
                             | *  *\
                            /* /I\ *~~\
                          /~-/*  / \ \ ~~M~\
                ____----=~ // /WVW\* \|\ ***===--___

                \_ Never know what hit 'em.
                \_ I'm gone
                \_ This is getting a mite repetitive, n'est-ce pas?
                   \_ I thought so.  Then I checked the RCSed motd and
                      noted that it's just that stupid quiz getting
                      repeatedly nuked and replaced.  --dbushong

11/7     71st anniversary of Great October Socialist Revolution.
         Y'all unite or something. -petr

I was forwarded this from a co-worker. I did this and I'm telling you, it's
really weird.  Follow the directions slowly, and do not go forward until told
to do so.  I think you will find this really eerie(and very true...).
\_ I just did it, and it's really un-eerie and very untrue...  unless "The
   Safety Dance" best describes how I feel about life...     :/

This is quite amazing but its fun and seems to work!!

Enjoy!!

SPOOKY - Do this its quite wierd...

First things first:

NO CHEATING

Really.  I mean it.

Don't cheat.

This is a little game that has a pretty funny/creepy outcome.  Don't read
ahead, just do it in order.  It takes about 3 minutes It's worth it.  It's
kinda eerie....

First, Get a blank piece of paper and pen.

P.S. When you are asked to choose names, make sure it's people you ACTUALLY
KNOW, and go with your first instincts!

Scroll down one line at a time - don't read ahead or you'll ruin the fun!!

1.) First, write the numbers 1 through 11 in a column.

2.) Then, beside numbers 1 and 2, write any two numbers you want.

3.) Beside the 3 and 7, write down the names of members of the opposite sex
(or same sex if you're gay).  Don't look ahead-or it won't turn out right!

4.) Write anyone's name (like friends or family...) in the 4th, 5th and 6th
spots.  Don't cheat or you'll be upset that you did.

5.) Write down four song titles in 8, 9, 10 and 11.

6.) Finally, make a wish.....

And here is the key for that game..

1.)  You must tell (the number in space 2) people about this game in (the
number in space 1) days in order to make your wish come true.
        \_ pi, 0xdeadbeef


2.)  The person in space 3 is the one that you love.
        \_ Karen
3.) The person in 7 is one you like but can't work out.

        \_ Benco


4.) You care most about the person you put in 4.

        \_ Punky Brewster

5.) The person you name in number 5 is the one who knows you very well.

        \_ Jerry Springer

6.) The person you name in 6 is your lucky star (I have no idea what this
means but it sounds good!)
        \_ Adam Sandler
7.) The song in 8 is the song that matches with the person in 3
        \_ Piece of shit car
8.) The title in 9 is the song for the person in 7.
        \_ Barbie Girl
9.) The tenth space is the song that tells you most about your mind.
        \_ Frou frou foxes and midsummer fires
10.) And 11 is the song telling how you feel about life!
        \_
                       GOOD LUCK!
        \_ don't you mean 81?

11/3    Computer for sale. 9months old.  K6-200Mhz, 64 SDRAM, 4.3GB,
        ATI all-in-wonder /w TV, 3D accel, etc. Creative DVD drive and
        decoder card. 56.6k f/v/m, SB 64AWE, ProAlpha super case 3 fans,
        15" digital monitor.  Win98, MS office, DragonNatspeak 3.01 which
        is $695 speach recognition software.  $1000 or best offer. -hitran
        \_ Wow, damn good deal. I'd get it, but i already have a computer
        \_ Actually Dragon is $100-$150.  Will you be selling the original
           media or keeping it?  Is it okay to use the motd to post ads for
        \_ Wow, damn good deal. I'd get it, but i already have a compute
                \_ actually it's the Deluxe edition so it IS $695...look
                   it up...you can't buy this one just anywhere.-hitran
        \_ Why are you selling it?  I don't think you'll be able to sell it
        \_ Actually Dragon is $100-$150.  Will you be selling the origina
           \_ hey dumbass, it will be kinda hard for him to do that if
           media or keeping it?  Is it okay to use the motd to post ads fo
           \_selling it cuz I'm short on cash.-hitran
           piracy if you're not selling the originals
           \_ yup...I have the media disc of Dragon Natspeak.  but win98
                \_ actually it's the Deluxe edition so it IS $695...loo
                   it up...you can't buy this one just anywhere.-hitra
        \_ Why are you selling it?  I don't think you'll be able to sell i
           it here.  but let me know if you get it sold and how much
           \_ hey dumbass, it will be kinda hard for him to do that i
              you don't sign your fucking name
           \_selling it cuz I'm short on cash.-hitra
        \_ Pretty good if software is not pirated
           \_ yup...I have the media disc of Dragon Natspeak.  but win9
                was installed...so it might be pirated

10/29   How do I save a real audio file off the web? If I right-click on a
        real audio link and do "Save link as" it just saves the link and
        not the actual .ram file
        \_ If it's off a real media server, then you need Real Player Plus
           (not the free version) to download it. If it's just a file on
           a server, then you can right-click + download.
           \_ Most RealPlayer (.ram) files on the net have been designted
           copyrighted so they can not be saved even with Real Player
           Plus.  So don't buy it thinking you can save a bunch of
           RealPlayer files afterworrds, I have yet to use this feature.
           \_ ?? I have used netscape to download, then play, .ram files.
              trouble is, I had to wade through HTML to find the real
              path sometimes.
           \_ It really depends on what server they are using.  If they
              are using a pnm:// (I think it's pnm) protocol, then good
              luck.  If it's just on a web site (eg: http:// then you can
              easily grab the file.  What I'd like to know if if one could
              figure out a way of keeping track of pnm packets, time-
              stamping them, and then doing a fake retranmission of them
              to Real Player whenever you want to listen.  If you have a
              clear transmission the first time, this would in essence
              allow one to get the full thing on their hard drive, whether
              or not it's protected.   (or for that matter, one could
              simply hook their line-out into a tape deck, but that's too
              easy!)
        \_ Try just going into the advanced application portion of the
           preferences file (in netscape not sure about IE) and setting
           the option to ask before downloading for .ram files. This
           should allow you to save the file, not sure if it gets around
           the problem with the time stamps, I am pretty sure it does not.

9/29    MCB majors desire minor in CS.  If anyone has any advice for these
        poor souls, consider mailing to mcb-students@uclink4.  ~jctwu/pub
        for the e-mails. (or post here and I'll forward the motd)
        \_ They're fucked.  A minor is worthless anyway.
           \_ Next time you go to the ER and your kid's or your own life
             is in danger tell the doctor what you think about MCB majors
              if it may prove useful. A minor is usually only 3 classes
              and see if they'll bother saving your life.  Learning about
              two different subjects means you're broad minded and not a
              narrow minded nerd.  And I have a lot more respect for
              MCB/CS than I do for CS/buisness who only care about
              becoming the next bill gate$.
           \_ I think it's worthwhile to take lots of upper division
              classes in majors different from your own, especially
              if they may prove useful. A minor is usually only 3 classes
              short of the requirements for a major. --dim
                \_ If you want it for work, you can't compete with majors.
                   \_ The idea is that, for example, a biologist who can code
                      is better than one that can't. The workplace is
                      becoming more and more interdisciplinary. Maybe
                      someone should tell Bill Gates that he'll never
                      compete with majors (or grads for that matter). --dim
                        \_ Nice theory.  "Hyuck! Hyuck!  Bill Gates is a
                           great example for all arguments!  Hyuck!  I can
                           always prove my point by using BG!  Hyuck!"
                        \_ You don't need a minor to show you can code.  In
                           fact, I would not assume that a CS major meant
                           you could code either.
                           \_ The idea isn't to *prove* you can code. The
                              idea is to *learn* how to code. Of course
                              you can learn without the minor (or major),
                              but that's one way to learn. --dim
        \_ I love the fact that a lot of MCB kids who take upper division CS
           classes flunk in them, and start realizing that they're worthless
           shitheads-- they can't get into med school, and they can't code.
        \_ too late. Too bad you listened to your parents. It is rather sad
           that every Chinese parent wants his/her child to be a pre-med.
           Too late. Too bad. Should've grow a mind of your own.
           \_ That is so true. That is why there are fuckin so many luzer
              Chinese kids in MCB who can't get into pre-med and are now
              disillusioned about life.
              \_ dude, sounds like me.  worst decision i made in college was
                 pre-med.  (best was to switch to major in cs).
              \_ Parents are parents.  Can't please them all the time,
                 especially on decisions that have such a large impact on
                 your own life.  Mother still complains I do not give her
                 the bragging rights that her friends' kids do, but, to
                 steal a line from the Bosom Buddies song, "I don't care
                 what you say anymore, this is my life.  Go ahead with
                 your own life; leave me alone."
                \_ too bad you can't "switch" to a major in CS now... you
                   kind of have to start out in one --brg
                   \_ you're kidding!  is that a new rule?  or does that mean
                      you can't declare something new if you've already
                      declared in third year?  that's kinda late.
           \_ How about growing an opinion of your own, instead of repeating
              trite cliches you heard on Rush Limbaugh?
                   \_ Rush Limbaugh is a big fat idiot. - A. Franken
                \_ Gosh.  Maybe the cliche is based on reality?  Nah, I'm
                   sure it's just *totally* made up by Rush and the other
                   180 million people in the VRWC.
                \_ it's totally true.  My parents were reallly weirded
                    out when I didn't go premed.
           \_ My parents pushed me into engineering. Thought about switching
              but stayed when I finally realized engineering is what I
              hated least, not what I liked most.

9/5     2001: HAL = IBM - 111
        \_ Uhm... duh.
        \_ oh boy you're the first person who ever noticed that.
        \_ Martin Gardner's _Mathematical Circus_, published in 1979, and
           containing columns written prior to that year, mentions this fact
           on p. 110; "Clarke has since assured me that it was totally
           accidental, and that he was astounded when the shift was first
           called to his attention."  -- schoen
           \_ not surprising considering Clarke is a fucking idiot.
                \_ fine, let's see YOU manage to live in Sri Lanka,
                   you ugly player-hater.
                        \_ Dumbshit, all the Sri Lankans have managed _that_
                           entirely unamazing feat for centuries.  What makes
                           AC Clarke such a fucking wonder man for it?  They
                           let YOU into Cal?  Have the entrance requirements
                           really dropped so low?
                           really dropped so low?  He lives in a fucking
                           palace surrounded by guards and servants. Boo hoo.
                        \_ I live in Berkeley, fuck head.  Let's see Clarke
                           try *that* for a week!  hah!
        \_ What does HAL stand for?  Thanks.
           \_ Heuristic ALogrithmic Computer
           \_ Heuristic ALgorithmic Computer

8/17    Does anyone remember how the theme song to Perfect Stanger goes?
        \_ http://www.lyrics.ch
        \_ http://www.connect.usq.edu.au/students/q9721967/pslyr.html
        \_ Does anyone know the title or artist of the Bosom Buddies song?

5/1     Anyone know the name of the song in the Swatch commercials?
        "Free to give my life...."???  Artist and title?  Thanks.
        \_ Midge Ure "Breathe"
        \_ The commercial and the song is nice, but it doesn't make me
           feel such a need to buy a watch.
           \_ I have bought 4 Swatches in the past 10 days. I didn't think
              it was because of the commercial, though... but, then again
              I don't have any pets, I don't think... of course, you could
              count the cat but GODDAMN THAT FUCKIN CAT!
           \_ How does Tyra Banks make you feel?
              \_ Potatos.
                \_ Potatoes.
                \_ Protoss

4/14    I heard this on the song on the radio: "James Brown is dead". Is he
        really dead? If not, what is he doing lately?
        \_ No James Brown is not dead. In fact, he got of prision not too
        long ago. I will tell you, however, and with no doubt whatsoever,
        that James Brown is quite queer. Last I heard he performed at the
        \_ huh?
        second to the last superbowl.
        \_ This is a song by L.A.Style i believe. It has nothing to do with
           reality.

4/10    From the LA Times today:

        "Stung by the public relations fallout from antitrust investigations
        of its business practices, Microsoft Corp. has secretly been planning
        a massive media campaign designed to influence state investigators by
        creating the appearance of a groundswell of public support for the
        company.

        "The elaborate plan, outlined in confidential documents obtained by
        The Times, hinges on a number of unusual-and some say
        unethical-tactics, including the planting of articles, letters to the
        editor and opinion pieces to be commissioned by Microsoft's top media
        handlers but presented by local firms as spontaneous testimonials."

        More info at:

        http://www.latimes.com/HOME/NEWS/BUSINESS/UPDATES/lat_microsoft0410.htm
        \_ Does any of this come as a big shock or surprise to anyone here?

        More info at:

        http://www.latimes.com/HOME/NEWS/BUSINESS/UPDATES/lat_microsoft0410.htm

10/8    Anyone know of any shareware/freeware MPEG players that don't
        have a 1 Meg before registering restriction?
        \_ Get XingMPEG player.  URL: http://www.xingtech.com
        \_ If this is for some odd Un*x or other, you shouldn't have
           to ask.  If this is a Mac/WinBlows thing, you don't want
           to ask.
        \_ Silly me, I meant for Win '95.  I know, I know, but I must use it.
        \_ I use VMPEG... It works nicely...
           ftp://papa.indstate.edu/winsock-l/Windows95/Graphics/vmpeg17.exe
        \_ The Apple Quicktime player plays both MPEG and Quicktime movies.
         \_ I d/l'd the Apple Quicktime player and it plays .mov files real
            well, but when I try to play my .mpg's the thing doesn't work,
              even though it CLAIMS that it can handle MPEG's.
         \_ Thanks for the suggestion, vmpeg works perfectly.