1/14    Why is NULL defined to be "0" in C++ instead of "((void *) 0)" like in
        C?  I have some overloaded functtions where one takes an integer
        parameter and the other a pointer parameter.  When I call it with
        "NULL", the compiler matches it with the integer version instead of
        the pointer version which is a problem.  Other funny effect is that
        sizeof(NULL) is different from sizeof(myPtr).  Thanks.
        \_ In C, a void pointer is implicitly convertable to any other pointer
           type, so (void *)0 works in any context where you need a pointer.
           C++ doesn't allow that conversion, because it isn't typesafe.
           (That's why you can write "int *p = malloc(4)" in C but not in C++.)
           Unfortunately, there's no simple equivalent of (void *)0 that works
           in C++.  Recent C++ compilers have added a new keyword "nullptr"
           that does the right thing, but they've avoided defining NULL to it
           so they don't break old code.  --mconst

4/29    Why were C and Java designed to require "break;" statements for a
        "case" section to terminate rather than falling-through to the next
        section?  99% of the time poeple want a "case" section to terminate.
        In fact some compilers issue warning if there is no "break;" statement
        in a "case" section.  Why not just design the languages to have
        termination as the default behavior, and provide a "fallthru;"
        statement instead?
        \_ C did it that way because it was easy to program -- they just
        \_ C did it that way because it was easy to implement -- they just
           used the existing break statement instead of having to program
           a new statement with new behavior.  Java did it to match C.
           \_ I see.  -- OP

4/04    Is there a good way to diff 2 files that consist of columns of
        floating point numbers, such that it only tells me if there's a
        difference if the numbers on a given line differ by at least a given
        ratio?  Say, 1%?
        \_ Use Excel.
           1. Open foo.txt in Excel.  It should convert all numbers to cells in
              column A.
           2. Open bar.txt in Excel.  Ditto.
           3. Create a new file in Excel.
           4. In cell A1 of the new file, enter this:
              =IF(foo.txt!A1=0, IF(bar.txt!A1=0, "same", "different"), IF(ABS((b\
ar.txt!A1-foo.txt!A1)/foo.txt!A1)<1%, "same", "different"))
           5. Select cell A1.  Hit Ctrl-C to copy.
           6. Select the same number of cells as the number of cells that exist
              in foo.txt or bar.txt.  Hit Ctrl-V to paste.
           7. Hit Ctrl-F.  In "Find what:", enter "different".  In "Look in:",
              choose "Values".  Click "Find All".
           Another way is to write a C program to read the two files using
           fscanf("%f") an do the arithmatic.
        \_ does this help?
#!/usr/bin/python
import sys

threshold = float(sys.argv[3] if len(sys.argv) > 3 else 0.0000001)
list1 = [float(v) for v in open(sys.argv[1]).readlines()]
list2 = [float(v) for v in open(sys.argv[2]).readlines()]

line = 1
for v1, v2 in zip(list1, list2):
    if abs((v1 - v2) / v1) >= threshold:
        print "Line %d different (%f != %f)" % (line, v1, v2)
    line += 1
        \_ Something like this might work ($t is your threshold):
           $ perl -e '$t = 0.1 ; while (<>) { chomp($_); ($i,$j) =
             split(/ \t/, $_); if ($i > ((1+$t)*$j) || $i < ((1-$t)*j)) {
             print "$_\n"; }}' < file

7/19    In C or C++, how do I write the code of a function with variable
        number of parameters in order to pass the variable parameters to
        another function that also has variable number of parameters?  Thanks.
        \_ The usual way (works on gcc 3.0+, Visual Studio 2005+):
               #define foo(fmt, ...) printf(fmt, ##__VA_ARGS__)
           The cool new way (works on gcc 4.3+):
               template<typename... Args> void foo(char *fmt, Args... args) {
                   printf(fmt, args...);
               }
           The old way (works everywhere):
               void foo(char *fmt, ...) {
                   va_list ap;
                   va_start(ap, fmt);
                   vprintf(fmt, ap);
                   va_end(ap);
               }
           --mconst
           \_ That's very helpful!  Thank you!!!
           \_ Did you say VISUAL STUDIO? Why??!?!?!? All jokes aside,
              thanks for bringing back motd to the way it used to be.

1/24    http://james-iry.blogspot.com/2009/05/brief-incomplete-and-mostly-wrong.html
        Amusing "history" of computer science.
        \_ Where's the mentioning of Al Gore the inventor of AlGorithm?

10/9    RIP Dennis Ritchie
        \_ <DEAD>plus.google.com/u/0/101960720994009339267/posts/ENuEDDYfvKP<DEAD>
           He was a really nice man - met him once when Inferno was first
           being developed.
           \_ was he NAMBLA nice?

8/3     http://vedantk.tumblr.com/post/8424437797/sicp-is-under-attack
        \_ http://www.cs.berkeley.edu/~bh/61a.html
           \_ this is sad
        \_ "An Update
            SICP will not be abandoned at Berkeley."

3/7     I have a C question.  I have the following source code in two identical
        files t.c and t.cpp:
                #include <stdlib.h>
                int main(int argc, char *argv[]) {
                  const char * const * p1;
                  const char * * p2;
                  char * const * p3;
                  p1 = malloc(sizeof *p1);
                  p2 = malloc(sizeof *p2);
                  p3 = malloc(sizeof *p3);
                  free(p1); /* warning in C and C++.  Expected. */
                  free(p2); /* warning in C only.  Why warning in C? */
                  free(p3); /* warning in C++ only.  Why no warning in C? */
                  return 0;
                }
        When I compile t.cpp, "free(p2)" generates a warning and "free(p3)"
        generates no warning, as expected.  However, when I compile t.c, the
        opposite happens.  Why?  Thx.
        \_ gcc 4.3 complains about free(p1) and free(p3) in both C and C++.
           What compiler are you using?
           \_ MS Visual Studio 2008 command-line for x86 (cl.exe).  -- OP
        \_ Some input.  add typedef char * cstr, then replace char * with cstr
           you will get warnings on all frees.  Which means to me that the
           issue might be that binding of ** is stronger than const.
        \_ Some input.  It may be clearer to add typedef char * cstr; then
           replace char * with cstr and you will get warnings on all frees.
           Which means to me that the issue might be that binding of ** is
           stronger than const.
           const char * * p2; // const charPtrPtr p2 not array of const char *
           note, a line const char * string = p2 will not throw any warnings
           note, a line const char * cstr = p2 will not throw any warnings
           (if you put it after the malloc(for init)).  You can also go:
           p2 = (const char **)0xdeadbeef since you can modify p2.
           Funny note: both:
           *p2 is not const since both:
                *p2 = (const char *)0xdeadbeef; // or
                *p2 = (char *) 0xdeadbeef;      // will work.
           no warnings of "assign from incompat ptr type".  (put this before
           the p2 = assignment if you test them both otherwise SEGV)
           with no warnings of "assign from incompat ptr type".  (put this
           before the p2 = assignment if you test them both otherwise SEGV)
           This is on gcc 4.4.4.
                I am assuming here tho that you didn't specifically mean to
           create a constant charPtrPtr with p2.
                My question to you is can you explain what you are declaring
           with p1, p2, p3; that would be a good point to start debugging.
                Also if you can get a disasm of the code look for push's of
           absolute values. that should tell you where the const is.
                RE: cpp vs c.  If you put the code as is in g++ you will get
           errors not warnings.  If you cast properly in the malloc and free
           you won't get any errors.  My guess is that g++ has stricter
           regulations than gcc.
                I'll answer some more when soda has been rebooted because it's
           fucking non-interactive right now.

2/4     random C programming/linker fu question.  If I have
        int main() { printf("%s is at this adddr %p\n", "strlen", strlen); }
        and soda's /proc/sys/kernel/randomize_va_space is 2 (eg; on)
        why is strlen (or any other libc fn) at the same address every time?
        \_ I don't pretend to actually know the right answer to this, but
           could it have something to do with shared libraries?
           \_ i thought tho the whole point was to randomize the addresses
              of the shared lib fns so that people couldn't r2libc.

8/29    ok i give up; why is this throwing an error?
        #define Lambda(args,ret_type,body) \
        class MakeName(__Lambda___) { \
        public: ret_type operator() args { body; } }
        usage:
        Lambda((int a, int b), int, return a+b) foo;
        >g++ -o foo foo.cpp
        foo.cpp: In function ‘int main(int, char**)’:
        foo.cpp:9: error: expected primary-expression before ‘class’
        foo.cpp:9: error: expected `;' before ‘class’
        foo.cpp:11: error: expected `}' at end of input
        ref: http://okmij.org/ftp/cpp-digest/Lambda-CPP-more.html#Ex1
        \_ works for me.  see /tmp/lambda.cpp
           \_ nod thanks,  i didnt have MakeName defined there. sorry.

8/8     Trying to make a list of interesting features languages have
        touted as this whole PL field comes around, trying to see if they
        have basis in the culture of the time: feel free to add some/dispute
        1970 C, "portability"
        1980 C++, classes, oop, iterators, streams, functors, templates
             expert systems
        1990 Java, introspection, garbage collection, good threading model
             CORBA -- collosal failure. RMI nice and light.
             neural nets
        2000 CGI hacks. PHP and Perl hacks. Bad post dot-com crap
             programming (lots of disposable UI code).
             organic evolvers
             - PHP, javascript, flash (ha)
             \_ Do you guys remember at some point they started to use TCPIP
                over localhost to do IPC? I think this was around this time,
                also at the same time people started to make everything MVC
                I remember when say old apps were suddenly split into server
                and client component (where client was the webbrowser) because
                "it was easy and quick to design a UI on the browser" tho
                I think this died out.
             \_ Patterns started to become big.
        2010 Slow language fast prototyping scripting. Javascript,
             Ruby on Rails, Python. Use of NoSQL. Protocol buffer.
             \_ This helps chip companies sell faster and bigger chips.  What a
                waste.
             Cloud Computing
             Death of AI

6/4     Is this valid C++ code?

        std::string getStr(void) {
            std::string str("foo");
            return str;
        }
        void foo(char *s);
        void bar(void) {
            foo(getStr().c_str());      // valid?
        }

        Will foo() receive a valid pointer?  Is there any dangling reference or
        memory leak?  Thanks.   --- old timer
        \_ Yes, this is fine (except for the const problem noted below).
           The temporary std::string object returned by getStr is destroyed
           at the end of the statement in which you called getStr.
           \_ It can be a pointer to inside the implementation--it doesn't have
              to alloc anything.
        \_ c_str() returns a const char*, not a char*.  foo needs to take a
           const char*, and does not need to deallocate anything (nor is it
           allowed to modify the contents of the char*). You can cast away the
           const for legacy functions that don't deal with const well as long
           as you know the function won't try to change the string.
           \_ So after I change foo() to "void foo(const char *s);", everything
              is good, right?  Thanks.  -- OP
              \_ Yep. -pp
              \_ for bonus points think about how many times the copy ctor
                 is used.
                 \_ One?  -- OP

5/25    The warranty that the 2pir and Syzygryd code will ship with.
        It's hilarious: http://bit.ly/bqowSx
        -dans

2/12    I need a way to make a really big C++ executable (~200MBs) that does
        nothing.  No static initialization either.  Any ideas?
        \_ static link in lots of libraries?
        \_ #define a   i=0; i=0; i=0; i=0; i=0; i=0; i=0; i=0; i=0; i=0;
           #define b   a a a a a a a a a a
           #define c   b b b b b b b b b b
           #define d   c c c c c c c c c c
           #define e   d d d d d d d d d d
           #define f   e e e e e e e e e e
           #define g   f f f f f f f f f f
           int main(int argc, char *argv[])
           {
               volatile int i = 0;
               if (i == 0) return 0;
               g g g
               return 0;
           }
           This should give you about 210MB in both Linux and Win32.
           This should give you about 210MB in both Linux and Win32 on x86
           machines.
           \_ I like you. Best motd answer, EVAR.
           \_ Wow, thanks.  That's cool.
        \_ Just wondering, what is this for?
           \_ At work we're porting a very large code to a new platform.
              The executable was seg faulting and I just figured out that
              the system probably can't handle executables larger than
              ~100 MBs.  (It turned out to be about 54MBs really).  I
              needed a reproducer. -op

9/28    http://www.tiobe.com/index.php/content/paperinfo/tpci/index.html
        Java is #1!!! Followed by C, PHP, C++, Visual Basic, Perl,
        C#, Python, Javascript, then finally Ruby. The good news is
        Pascal is going waaaay back up!
        \_ C is still more popular than C++?  I feel much better about myself
           now.
           \_ I rather die than to use C++. Piece of shit.

8/20    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Threading_Building_Blocks
        Anyone use this?  Any gotchas? thanks.

8/6     In C one can do "typedef int my_index_t;".  What's the equivalent in
        C#?  Thanks.
        \_ C#? Are you serious? Is this what the class of 2009 learn?
           \_ No.  I have to learn .NET code at work.  I am Class of '93.
           \_ python is what 2009 learns, see the motd thread about recent
              cal courses and languages
        \_ using directive.  I think you would have written:
           using my_index_t = int;
           http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/sf0df423(VS.80).aspx
           Btw using is overloaded to do a few different things, so... enjoy
           the reserved word ambiguity created for your convenience. -mrauser
        \_ http://lmgtfy.com/?q=c%23+typedef
        \_ in C nobody can hear you scream
           \_ You're kidding me right? Java sucks donkeys, hands down.
              \_ HERESY.  You are dangerously close to THOUGHTCRIME, voter.
              \_ But Java haz eklipze!!! ZOMG!  HAT3R!!!!1!

7/6     I will attempt to write a desktop application for the masses.
        Should I write it in C++, Java, C#, or Python anticipating
        that "Shed-Skin" will be mature enough to use to turn my
        Python into C++ code.  Comments please ladies and gentlemen.
        \_ What OS do the masses use?
           \_ powershell.
        \_ What is more important, the ability to do lots of calculations,
           or rapid development and the ability to modify and add functionality
           at will?  ARe you interested in cross-platform compatibility?

5/7     http://james-iry.blogspot.com/2009/05/brief-incomplete-and-mostly-wrong.html
        \_ 1964 - John Kemeny and Thomas Kurtz create BASIC, an
                  unstructured programming language for
                  non-computer scientists.
           1965 - Kemeny and Kurtz go to 1964.
           This should not have made me giggle so much.
           \_ GODDAMNIT, now you've got me giggling.
        \_ 1996 - James Gosling invents Java. Java is a relatively verbose,
                  garbage collected, class based, statically typed, single
                  dispatch, object oriented language with single
                  implementation inheritance and multiple interface
                  inheritance. Sun loudly heralds Java's novelty.
           2001 - Anders Hejlsberg invents C#. C# is a relatively verbose,
                  garbage collected, class based, statically typed, single
                  dispatch, object oriented language with single
                  implementation inheritance and multiple interface
                  inheritance. Microsoft loudly heralds C#'s novelty.

4/6     In C++, if there are several instances of an object, and for
        debugging purpose I want to see which instance of an object it is, I
        can do 'printf("%p", pObj);' to print out the address of the object.
        Is there any way to do something similar in C#?  Thanks.
        \_ CLR objects can get shuffled around in memory nondeterministically.
           Using the address or something like that won't work for identifying
           an object.  You need an object identifier, a UID or something
           explicitly in the object to follow it.
           \_ How do I get an object ID that I can print out?  Thanks.
           \_ How do I get an object ID that I can print out?  Thanks. -- OP
              \_ You need to set it, probably when you instantiate it.
                 \_  I see.  Thx.  -- OP

2/25    Spinoff of the silly food stamp thread below:
        The US Recommended Daily Intake values (which the current USRDA is
        based on) were developed during WWII.  The methodology was to take
        "volunteer" subjects (white male conscientious objectors, mostly
        Quakers) and put them on nutrient-deprivation diets until their
        systems failed.  Then they would add the missing nutrient back in
        until the systems began to function again.  The level of nutrient
        required to avoid system failure was then established as the RDI.
        These studies did not examine overall health, or long-term
        effects of low nutrient levels.  What is more, the countries which
        have something like the USRDA are in complete disagreement about
        their recommendations, which often vary by a factor of 5 or more
        from country to country.
        So when you look at a food product that claims to provide 100% of
        the USRDA of Vitamin C, that means that it contains enough vitamin
        C to keep white male Quakers of military age from getting scurvy.
        It doesn't say anything about how much vitamin C you should have
        for good health.  -tom
        \_ Ha, that's pretty interesting.  Do you have a link?
           \_ http://gunpowder.quaker.org/documents/starvation-kalm.pdf
              talks about the project but not specifically the implications
              for the USRDA.  See:
              "Keys A, Brozek J, Henschel A, Mickelsen O, Taylor HL:
              The biology of human starvation. Minneapolis: University
              of Minnesota Press; 1950."  -tom

2/23    Has anyone read Anathem yet? How good (or bad) is it in comparison
        to Cryptonomicon?
        \_ Depends: what did you like/dislike about Cryptonomicon?
           \_ I started to dislike the overlapping WW2 and present day stories
              by the 1/2 half of the book.  And it seemed like a lot of the
              technical details were thrown in to prove how smart Stephenson
              was rather than to add anything to the narrative.
              \_ Paradoxically, those were the parts I enjoyed. Anyway,
                 Anathem is comprised significantly of technical details and
                 philosophy of science/math. If you thought C was too clever
                 for its own good, you may find A suffers from the same.
                 That said, I enjoyed it as much as C, less than System of
                 the World, about as much as Diamond Age, less than Snow
                 Crash.
                 \_ In the first half of C, I liked the overlapping narrative
                    b/c it kept me guessing how the two stories were related,
                    but I found it tiresome and confusing in the 2d half.
                    WRT the technical details - it just felt like I was reading
                    a watered down, inarticulate version of Applied Crypto.
                    Maybe I will get Anathem a try. Thanks.
                 \_ What if you just thought C was too smarmy for its own
                    good?
                    \_ Don't know that I'd call A smarmy. It does have its
                       fair share of being interested mostly in itself,
                       though.

2/19    Student Expectations Seens as Causing Grade Disputes:
        http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/18/education/18college.html
        \_ "I tell my classes that if they just do what they are supposed to do
            and meet the standard requirements, that they will earn a C."
            All well and good, but the problem is that 2.0 is perceived
            as almost failing. Maybe once employers and grad schools
            realize that 3.0 is not a minimum effort but a pretty good
            student then students will adjust expectations accordingly. I
            got a B in a very difficult upper division math class and I
            had a recruiter tell me "You must not be very good at math."
            I told her I was very good and where did she get that idea.
            "Your report card." So as long as students have to deal with
            that crap then hell yeah we won't accept a C for spending 40
            hours per week on a class even if it's "what we deserve"
            because the perception is that a C is really a D (pass for
            credit, but that's about it). Perhaps this is a result of grade
            inflation, but I don't think students spawned it. Competition
            did. It used to be fairly easy to get into schools like Stanford
            and very few students took the SAT. If 80% of the class got
            C's that was fine. It's not fine anymore and from what I can
            see from my nieces and nephews kids are working harder than
            ever even at young grades. My 3rd grade nephew has like 3-4
            hours of homework a night. I think we have to do this to
            complete as this is common in places like Japan, but the older
            people in the system don't realize how much things have changed
            and have not adjusted expectations accordingly. You won't get
            only the top 5% of students in college anymore at most
            universities and the kids that are there are less motivated by
            learning. They need that B to be able to survive while at the
            same time there is a perception that C = poor student.
            \_ C *IS* poor. My parents used to tell me that C is for
               inferior native kids, B is for second generation immigrants,
               and A is for people like us.     -hard working immigrant
               \_ Not with the definition professors are using:
                  "I tell my classes that if they just do what they are
                   supposed to do and meet the standard requirements, that
                   they will earn a C." By the way, your parents sound
                   like real pieces of work.
        \_ I agree, kids these days have no sense of perspective. They
           want 100 column terminals, good grades, friendly professors,
           &c.  Back when I went to Cal everyone knew that a C- was the
           mean and working your butt off to get mean was standard
           operating procedure b/c the mean student was an asian
           overachiever just like you. An A was a mythical promised land
           reserved for future nobel prize winners - the ones who sat in
           the front row and could correct the mistakes of the nobel prize
           winner teaching the class.
        \_ Wasn't there a CSUA'er who took like 39 units in a semester and
           ended up with a 3.9+ GPA? calbear? I wonder if he's gonna win
           a Nobel Prize. I had a crap GPA while at Cal but knew lots of
           people with 3.7's who didn't study 24/7. College just seemed
           easier for them, like how High School was just easy for most
           Cal students.
           \_ I went to HS with calbear. He was wicked smart.  Last I
              heard he dropped out of the PhD program at the farm. But
              he might still win a nobel prize though.
              \_ I thought he completed his Ph.D.
              \_ http://hkn.eecs.berkeley.edu/~calbear/resume/mr.htm
                 \_ Guess I heard wrong.

2/9     I am new to signal handlers in C. I want to clean up some temp
        files if my program is interrupted. I can catch the interrupt
        just fine, but signal() doesn't take any args to pass to the
        handler. So how can I pass it the information it needs to be
        useful, like the names of the files to delete before exiting?
        STFW doesn't yield much.
        \_ You are going to need a global variable.
        \_ Be careful.  Almost every library function can't be used from
           within a signal handler.  Take a look at this website, and
           take its message to heart ;)
           <DEAD>www.securecoding.cert.org/confluence/display<DEAD>
           seccode/11.+Signals+(SIG)
        \_ You will probably need to do something with sigsetjmp and
           siglongjmp.  Stevens APUE Ch 10 has a good explanation iirc.
           \_ Depending on your security needs this is a bad idea
              <DEAD>www.securecoding.cert.org/confluence/display/seccode<DEAD>
              SIG32-C.+Do+not+call+longjmp%28%29+from+inside+a+signal+handler
              \_ Didn't know this. Thanks for the link.

11/25   Yargh! They sank the wrong pirate ship!
        http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20081126/ap_on_re_as/as_piracy_1
        \_ Oh shit!
        \_ duh, work with indian java monkeys sometime.
           \_ That's stereotyping!  Other language (C, C++, Perl, etc.)
              monkeys are also the same.
        \_ The boat was taken over by pirates!  Now no one needs to worry about
           paying ransom.  Why didn't they think of this earlier?  Oil prices
           and environmental awareness are too low as it is.  Fire away!

11/23   C++ question: If I have "char *p = new char[10];", is there any real
        difference between "delete p;" and "delete[] p;" after compilation?
        The Standard C free() function only has one form and works for freeing
        both a single character and a character array.  Why are there separate
        forms in C++?  Thx.
        \_ For an array of char, there's no difference.  If you have an array
           of objects, though, delete[] needs to call the destructor for each
           one.  --mconst
        \_ http://www.parashift.com/c++-faq-lite/freestore-mgmt.html#faq-16.13
           \_ Thanks to both replies.  -- OP

10/9    Can anybody sumarize what is the basis of Citigroup's suit against
        WFB and Wachovia?
        \_ It doesn't matter.  WFC has the better argument.  C had an
           exclusivity agreement but the bailout bill trumped it.
           \_ I'm not asking if it "matters", I'm trying to learn what
              was at issue.
              \_ C had an exclusivity agreement
        \_ C had an exclusivity agreement but the bailout bill trumped it.

10/8    Fossil shows how turtles evolved their shells:
        http://preview.tinyurl.com/4dqlhk [new scientist]

9/7     I want to learn Design Patterns without having to buy the famous
        book. Is there a place online where I can learn and study it?
        \_ http://c2.com/cgi/wiki/wiki?DesignPatterns
        \_ I'll sell you my copy in near mint condition for $25. -abe

6/8     CSUA code guru please help. I need to see my random number
        generator with a good seed (I just need random 18 bit
        identifiers). The usual time(NULL) is OK, except my program
        might be invoked faster than once a second, and seeding using
        time() produced the same result. I tried clock() but it seems
        to return 0. My program needs to be run in Linux/DOS (Watcom
        32bit compiler), so I prefer to stick with standard API.
        What's a good way to get some randomness without using special
        time function that goes into millisecond precision? Poke at
        some random bytes? Allocate a random array? This is in C. If
        I allocate say a 64byte block, and XOR the uninitialized
        memory, is there any guarantee that it will be a different
        64byte block the next time my program is run? Thanks!
        \_ What are you doing this for?  If it's encryption why are
           reimplementing the (really difficult to get right) wheel?
           If it's not encryption what is it that needs high quality
           random numbers?
           \_ I need to assign ID that are unique within a day to
              something 30 bit. I am thinking seconds_since_midnight
              (17 bits) + a random number (13 bits). If I simply seed
              using time(), my rand() will generate the same number if
              invoked within a second. So I am now seeding it using
              the XOR of time() with 64 uninitialized int on the stack
              (again XORed together). This seems to do the trick.
              \_ Huh? You only need to seed once. After that you have a
                 supply of random numbers you can draw on. So just seed by
                 time when you start the program. Or are you thinking you
                 are going to invoke main() many times per second? I don't
                 know what you are doing here so it's hard to give good
                 feedback, but think in terms of "now I have a stream of
                 random numbers and I just need to use them."
                 \_ The program exists after generating one ID.
                    \_ Do you mean "exits"? S/w like SSH uses prngd to
                       get around this problem.
        \_ Use another random number generator to generate the random seed for
           your random number generator!  Oh wait ......
        \_ What is wrong with rand?
        \_ Easiest just to bite the bullet and use non-ANSI C functions.
           The random array allocations are not at all guaranteed.
        \_ seed it with time and getpid.   Expecting unintialized memory
           to have random data runs the risk some chowderhead will take your
           code and comment it out when it generates warnings.
           \_ Does DOS even have PIDs? Wtf is even using DOS these days...
              \_ Embedded applications like digital cameras, I guess.
                 http://www.datalight.com/products/romdos
        \_ you could try opening and reading from a dummy file and then using
           clock to seed.  That way you'll block on IO and the amount of time
           you do that should be relatively random.
           \_ I thought about it again and this wouldn't be a good idea
              especially if you are running the progam often.  What will happen
              is that the file's memory page will be in cache after the first
              read and you won't have good random behavior.  You could try
              file writes, but in general this is not a very strong
              randomness anyways. -pp
        \_ You're not a Debian contributor are you?

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

3/18    RIP Arthur C. Clarke
        http://preview.tinyurl.com/2264p8 [nyt]

1/14    Why do we put up with plurality voting for stuff like primaries?
        When the "winners" get around a quarter to a third of the vote
        something is broken. We should have IRV. And also, national
        popular vote for president.
        \_ IRV is not monotonic.  What you want approval voting. -dans
           \_ Actually I'd rather have IRV. I think we discussed this
              before though. I think monotonicity is mostly irrelevant.
              The arguments I've seen against IRV are either wrong (use
              a misconception of what IRV is) or else cite concerns
              about tactical voting. But we have tactical voting now.
              The question is whether the situation is improved. I
              believe we can be a lot more confident in broad support
              of an IRV winner than a plurality winner.
              \_ Uh huh.  But approval voting has all the advantages you just
                 described, doesn't suffer from being not monotonic, and
                 elimnates tactical voting.  As a practical matter, have you
                 ever tried to count the votes in an IRV system?  It sucks,
                 and is completely opaque. -dans
                 \- See Arrow Impossibility Theorem
                    \_ Thank you for supporting my point. -dans
                       \- I am not supporting your point.
                          you pretty much cant eliminate tactical
                          or various other pathologies. if you think
                          you can, you dont understand the Arrow Thm ...
                          which is of course quite possible.
                          \_ Actually, you're the one who doesn't understand
                             it.  Voting systems can and do eliminate the
                             pathologies mentioned, it's just that a given
                             system cannot eliminate *all* of them.  Tactical
                             voting has a very specific definition in this
                             context, and you don't seem to understand it.
                             Indeed, all the arguments I've seen that suggest
                             approval voting is not strategy free seem rooted
                             in the same misunderstanding you hold. -dans
                             \_ What is the specific definition, and who
                                decides it? If there are problems that don't
                                fall into your specific definition, who cares
                                what the definition is, if the problems are
                                real? The fact is that approval voting does
                                not allow ranked choices and has its own
                                pathologies/strategies/whatever.
                                \_ Pathologies != Strategies.  Obviously
                                   approval voting does not have ranked
                                   choices, but that's not the point.  The
                                   point is that all forms of ranked choice
                                   voting I've seen add significant complexity
                                   to the process, and can produce oddball
                                   results where people's choices get
                                   permuted.  Both of these considerations are
                                   unforgiveable. -dans
                                   \_ Approval also adds complexity to the
                                      process. IRV is being used already so it
                                      is clearly a manageable complexity and
                                      obviously "forgiveable". Oddball results
                                      I think you're just wrong about.
                 \_ It does not have all the advantages. It does not eliminate
                    tactical voting, duh. If I approve A, but like B better
                    than C, I could vote B even though it hurts A's chances.
                    That is tactical. It does not let you rank your choices
                    which is the entire point. How is monotonicity relevant?
                    Who gives a shit?
                    With approval voting, approving another candidate could
                    lead to my preferred candidate losing. How is that
                    better?
                    \_ You're just wrong.  If you vote for A and B in approval
                       voting, then you're saying you're okay with either A or
                       B, and there's no way your vote can help C, who you
                       don't approve of, win.  In IRV, if you vote A as you
                       first preference and B as your second, you can actually
                       cause C to win.  Whoops. -dans
                       \_ Show me a realistic example where that happens.
                          \_ Read the literature. -dans
                             \_ I have. It doesn't happen in any realistic
                                case. I believe, and I'm not alone in this,
                                that your concerns about being monotonic
                                totally irrelevant.
                             \_ You're making the assertion.
                                \_ It's not my job to do your homework,
                                   especially when if you're just going to
                                   assert that my example is unrealistic.
                                   Don't be disingenuous, and don't bring a
                                   knife to a gunfight. -dans
                                   \_ I've done my homework and think you're
                                      wrong. Many <learned authorities>
                                      support using IRV. Show me where we
                                      "cause C to win" by voting A. I think
                                      you're selectively playing fast and loose
                                      with terminology.
                                      Examples of this problem:
                                      Math Prof at Temple University:
                                      http://www.csua.org/u/ki3
                                      Wikipedia: Instant-Runoff Controversies:
                                      http://www.csua.org/u/ki4
                                      -dans

                                      \_ I read the first example in the first
                                         link and it's ridiculous. Range voting
                                         is obviously less intuitive when you
                                         have averages, and his first example
                                         shows C winning even though the
                                         majority of the voters either dislike
                                         or know nothing about C.
                                         The discussion of monotonicity also
                                         shows how irrelevant the concern is.
                                         Yes, it is unrealistic: it proposes
                                         looking at the results after the fact
                                         and saying "if I had done such and
                                         such then the outcome would be
                                         different". How would you ever know
                                         to that detail how others would vote?
                                         You could easily end up accidentally
                                         electing C. The reality of the example
                                         is that it is close to a 3 way tie
                                         and any winner is "reasonable". Most
                                         importantly, the result of the
                                         "honest" IRV is reasonable.
                                         And how would you translate that into
                                         approval voting? All voters ranked
                                      \_ <cut mostly irrelevant comments -op>
                                         How would you translate the example
                                         to approval voting? All voters ranked
                                         all 3 candidates. Does that mean they
                                         approve them all?
                                         approve them all? Let's say they each
                                         approve their top two choices. Then
                                         B wins. But what if the supporters of
                                         A, being crafty, decide to withhold
                                         their approval of B, to make A win?
                                         In this way, "lying" helps them. So
                                         regardless of your terminology the
                                         same "problem" exists.
                                         \_ I am not advocating for range
                                            voting, merely citing an egregious
                                            flaw in IRV.  Since we're asking
                                            for citations, kindly cite all
                                            future unnecessary changes of
                                            subject and strawman arguments you
                                            plan to make before continuing this
                                            discussion. -dans
                                            \_ I'm sorry you're too dense to
                                               comprehend. I'll give up now.
                                               I mentioned the range voting
                                               because the source advocating it
                                               as realistic means the source is
                                               dense.
                                               \_ You're right.  I am dense.
                                                  If I was sparse I would have
                                                  also asked you to list all
                                                  ad hominem attacks you would
                                                  apply before continuing the
                                                  discussion. -dans
                                                  \_ The ball was in your
                                                     court and you gave a
                                                     worthless response so I
                                                     responded in kind.
                                         \_ No, it doesn't.  They approve of
                                            both A and B.  One of A or B wins.
                                            Notably, in most actual ranked
                                            choice systems, e.g. San
                                            Francisco, you must rank all
                                            candidates.  Whoops. -dans
                                            \_ In the example below, A or B
                                               still wins. So it is the same.
                                               Perhaps it is merely a bad
                                               example. I found this one far
                                               more convincing/damning:
                                           http://rangevoting.org/CoreSupp.html
                                               However, I still don't agree
                                               with that article's conclusion.
                                               Pairwise comparisons aren't so
                                               meaningful. In this example,
                                               C and G are sharply split: you
                                               have those 5 voters in the
                                               middle who rank C on top and G
                                               on the bottom, who give their
                                               votes to M.
                                               votes to M. Condorcet isn't
                                               provably the best winner.
                              (Example from the link:)
                              voter1:   A>B>C
                              voter2:   A>B>C
                              voter3:   A>C>B
                              voter4:   A>C>B       IRV EXAMPLE.
                              voter5:   B>A>C
                              voter6:   B>A>C
                              voter7:   B>C>A
                              voter8:   C>B>A
                              voter9:   C>B>A
                              One of IRV's flaws is that it is not monotonic
                              and dishonesty can pay.  In the example, suppose
                              voter1, instead of honestly stating her
                              top-preference was A, were to dishonestly
                              vote C>A>B, i.e. pretending great LOVE for her
                              truly hugely-hated candidate C, and pretending a
                              LACK of affection for her true favorite A.
                              In that case the first round would eliminate
                              either C or B (suppose a coin flip says B) at
                              which point A would win the second round 5-to-4
                              over C.  (Meanwhile if C still were eliminated
                              by the coin flip then B would still win over A
                              in the final round as before.)
                              In other words: in 3-candidate IRV elections,
                              lying can help.  Indeed, lying in bizarre ways
                              can help.
                              \_ It sounds like your grief is with the imple-
                                 mentation of IRV (i.e., mandatory ranking of
                                 all candidates). If you allow voters to NOT
                                 rank all candidates, this problem appears to
                                 evaporate.
                           \_ And lying in approval voting can help. So what?
                              But you said "In IRV, if you vote A as first
                              preference and B as your second, you can actually
                              cause C to win." You haven't shown an example of
                              that, which is what I asked for.
                              \_ No, it can only hurt.  Casting a vote for
                                 someone you don't want in office helps them.
                                 Not voting for someone you do want in office
                                 hurts them. -dans
                                 \_ Most real people have a top choice. If
                                    everyone only votes for who they really
                                    want then AV reduces to plurality voting.
                                    \_ Really?  Show me data.  You realize
                                       this flies in the face of a fairly
                                       large body of psychological,
                                       sociological, and hci research about
                                       choice, and peoples ability to
                                       effectively express their choices.
                                       -dans
                                       \_ Well *I* always have a top choice.
                                          The problem with plurality winners
                                          that the majority of the votes
                                          did not count. A minority is able
                                          to elect the winner. With IRV,
                                          the rank system ensures that your
                                          preferences get factored in to
                                          the outcome. No, IRV does not
                                          eliminate tactical voting: with
                                          a field of strong candidates with
                                          divergent voter preferences there
                                          would be tough choices to make as
                                          to which of your top 2 choices to
                                          rank first. But that's perfectly
                                          fine: it's inherent to any runoff
                                          system. AV does not solve the
                                          problem that IRV solves. It still
                                          decides the winner based only on
                                          plurality. IRV also solves the 3
                                          candidate spoiler problem while AV
                                          does not.
        \_ I've read the wiki and other articles on most of the voting
           methods.  Although interesting most of them ignore the increased
           complexity of the system over a simple, "mark an X next to my
           favorite and drop it in the box" method we use now.  Some people
           say that various methods of anti-voter fraud are too high a burden
           for voters and are discriminatory but that's nothing next to the
           complexity of several of these alternative voting schemes.  What I
           got from my reading is that each of these other methods has a
           different idea of the 'best' way to determine a winner but their
           idea is based on their own notions of fairness.  Fairness is not a
           measurable absolute.
           \_ Approval voting is not complicated.  Instead of mark an X next
              to my your favorite candidate, you mark an X next to any
              candidate you would accept in office.  The winner is the one
              with the most votes so its notion of fairness is pretty close to
              that of plurality voting. -dans
              \_ If it "pretty close" then why not just do the simpler way
                 we already have now?  Seems like added complexity for no
                 reason.
                 \_ It eliminates spoilers and, more importantly, would make
                    it possible for us to grow viable third parties. -dans
                    \_ What you call a spoiler I call a low support third
                       party candidate.  For example, I don't think Nader
                       ruined Gore in 2000.  If those people really wanted
                       Gore to win, they understood the voting process and
                       should have voted Gore not Nader.  I also don't see
                       the need for third parties.  What has happened in this
                       country to third parties is the two major parties have
                       absorbed their platform when it became popular enough
                       eliminating the need for the third party without
                       causing the instability of a multi party mush that you
                       see in some other countries in Europe, Israel, etc.
                       In those place you end up in a situation where an
                       extremist party with a normally trivial number of votes
                       gets joins the majority party coalition and ends up with
                       power that far exceeds their vote count in the general
                       population.  I don't see that as a positive.
                       \_ So in other words, you believe something, and
                          whenever someone presents evidence to the contrary
                          you redefine the terms to suit your purposes and
                          state that the evidence is irrelevant.  Awesome!
                          P.S. Your assessments of the American two party
                          system as well as politics in "Europe, Israel,
                          etc." show an impressive degree of ignorance. -dans
                          \_ Why did you have to make this personal?  What is
                             wrong with you?  How about you provide some
                             actual facts or even some contrary opinions
                             instead of personal attacks?  I think if you call
                             me a "douche" like you normally do, you'd look
                             really extra super duper smart.  Good street cred.
                             \_ There's nothing personal about this.   I
                                present facts, cite source, you repeat the
                                same arguments, change the subject, and
                                dissemble.  Nothing personal about that,
                                unless you think my pointing out that your bad
                                form is 'personal', in which case, get a
                                thicker skin, and maybe join a debate or
                                forensics society.  And, yes, you're being a
                                douche. -dans
              \_ Of course it completely misses the point that "I could live
                 with this bozo" vs "I really want this guy" are two seperate
                 things.  While IRV does have some theoretical issues, in
                 any real world situation they don't actually matter worth
                 a damn.  Oh and as to how to count votes, well guess what,
                 there's this magical thing called software.
                 \_ Okay, "mark an X next to any candidate you want in
                    office".  Don't be a douche.  Of course, since you're
                    advocating a voting system that, by your own admission, is
                    so complex that it requires software to effectively
                    implement the count, you have shown yourself to be utterly
                    unqualified to take part in any discussion of voting
                    systems and methodologies. -dans
                     \_ Suppose I have an election with a total bozo (B) and
                        2 pretty good candidates.  (A and C).  Out of 100
                        people 99 like A and C but like C better.  But 1
                        person likes A and B.  In an approval vote system
                        that gets you candidate A.  But if B isn't in
                        the race that gives you candidate C.  Thus having
                        B in the race changes the results UNLESS people vote
                        with the knowledge that B has no chance.  I'm not
                        saying it is likely, but then again neither are the
                        contrived IRV problems, and IRV has big wins because
                        ranking matters.
                        \_ By the numbers, more people wanted A.  Get over it.
                           -dans
                           \_ No, more people "approved" A. But the vast
                              majority wanted C. There is a difference.
                              \_ Now you're just arguing with semantics. -dans
                               \_ No, because if C wasn't in the race the
                               \_ No, because if B wasn't in the race the
                                  result would be different.  But because
                                  you have decided on a set of criteria that
                                  happily ignores that you don't think it is
                                  a problem.  You've decided "tactical voting
                                  is bad" and then defined tactical voting
                                  in a nonsense way so that you don't have to
                                  admit that in ANY voting system there will
                                  be tactical voting.  Oh and once again
                                  in real world situations IRV is much less
                                  likely to be broken and much less likely
                                  for a small group of tactical voters to
                                  throw an election.  Plus it gives you
                                  ranked choices which are a win.
                     \_ You're ignoring his point about ranked choices.
                        Don't be a douche. I've yet to see a case where
                        IRV produces results that are "unreasonable". (Where
                        "reasonable" is intuitive, since no one result is
                        provably "best" for all voting scenarios.)
                        Don't be a douche. Show me some cases where IRV
                        produces "bad" results and let's talk about how
                        bad they really are.
                        \_ Preference inversion (i.e not monotonic).  Done.
                           -dans
              \_ How's that STD going dans?
                 \_ Awesome!  I've got a sentient talking boil on my ass that
                    likes your philosophy, and wants to know if you have a
                    newsletter it could subscribe to.  As a practical matter,
                    would you actually make fun of someone who had an
                    nasty and possibly life-threatening disease?  Wow, what an
                    asshole! -dans
                    \_ the most common STDs are not life-threatening.
                       \_ Yeah, 'Sorry about your syphilis man, Haw Haw!' like
                          I said, what an asshole. -dans

1/14    You know, I'm really tired of C++ books calling the '%' operator
        'modulus'.  It's remainder folks, not modulus.
        \_ I've never seen it called 'modulus', just modulo. Remainder
           doesn't really work. Usually an operator is a verb. Modulo
           returns a specific remainder. You say "the remainder of
           <a division>" not "the remainder of A and B."
           \_ Modulo is worse. It has a specified definition that isn't the
              same as how C/C++ uses it.
              \_ According to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Modulo it doesn't
                 have just one definition. Which one do you think is the
                 "real" one?
                 \_ wikipedia is not authorative, not by a long shot.
                    \_ hence my question
                       \_ wikipedia points out the word shift of modulo ==
                          remainder.
        \_ just say "mod". everybody happy?

12/12   In emacs, is there a way to delete 10 least visited files
        in the buffer?
        \_ Maybe this: Do C-x C-b to get the buffer list, then move the cursor
           to each of the bottom 10 lines and press 'd', then press 'x'.  It
           looks like the files in the buffer list are sorted by time of last
           usage.
           \_ problem is C-x C-b TAB shows alphabetized list...
              \_ What version of emacs are you using?  The one on soda is
                 21.1.4.  There is no C-x C-b TAB, and C-x C-b does display the
                 files in last usage order.
              \_ I use Emacs 22.0.50.1 (i386-apple-darwin8.7.1) on OS X and it
                 sorts by order visited.  I suspect the ordering of the buffer
                 list is tunable in your .emacs -dans
        \- note: if you use frames, this may not work as you expect.
           also i think buffer-menu.el was re-written around for some e22.
           you can look at the Buffer-menu-sort* functions for display order.
           also see midnight-mode and clean-buffer-list.

11/28   T gold indicator forms rare double sell signal
        http://www.minyanville.com/articles/gold-T-mr/index/a/15012
        \_ This is the funniest thing on the motd. Thanks.
           \_ Agreed. This is superb.

11/27   I'm using select to do a nonblocking check to see if a single socket
        has anything to read off it.  Problem is, I can have up to 12228
        file descriptors, and Linux fd_set only supports up to 4096.  Any idea
        what I can do about this?  (Or a better solution?) -jrleek
        \- 1. who are you
           2. i am busy this week and you didnt mention language
              [i am not fmailar with stuff like java nio] but you might
              look at this ucb/cs paper ... matt welsh et al "a design
              framework for highly scalable systems" as well as
              some of the discussion around libevent.
              see the links and graph at http://monkey.org/~provos/libevent
              \_ Ah, the program is all in 'C', but it needs to run on multiple
                 Unix variants.  -jrleek
                 \_ Have you profiled it?  Can you port to python or another
                    scripting language with reasonable performance (alas, not
                    ruby at this time)? -dans
                    ruby at this time)?  At http://Slide.com, a hot startup in
                    downtown San Francisco (we're hiring!), we open AND
                    close millions of socket connections every day. -dans
                    \_ How could I profile it?  This isn't a webserver, it's a
                       server that accepts, and acts on, messages based on a
                       protocol I wrote.  (Over TCP).  In this case, I need to
                       know about the performance of a tiny part of the code.
                       I'm not sure how to get that information. gprof, for
                       example, doesn't seem to allow me to choose just a small
                       section to profile, and lacks the necessary resoluton
                       anyway. -jrleek
                       \_ What you want is a profiling tool that doesn't work
                          via random sampling but that lets you add profiling
                          hooks into your code.  I've written some homegrown
                          things like this in the past to profile very tight
                          loops in massive projects, but I'm sure there are
                          plenty of better tools out there if you poke around.
                       \_ Hint: leek >> dans. Why are you listening to his
                          babbling?
                          \_ Well, I have a lot to learn about network
                             programming, so I'll take what I can get.  Thanks
                             for the compliment though. -jrleek
                             \_ Alas, I don't have any better suggestion that
                                gprof, though there must be better tools out
                                there.  Another alternative would be to compile
                                the source, look at the ASM output and try to
                                hand optimize.  Consider that a WAY last
                                resort, and not worth pursuing unless you're
                                already a fan of ASM.  Two problems though:
                                there.  Another alternative would be to
                                compile the source, look at the ASM output
                                and try to hand optimize.  Consider that a
                                WAY last resort, and not worth pursuing unless
                                you're already a fan of ASM.  Two problems
                                though:
                                a) it doesn't really scale if you need to
                                target multiple platforms and b) it's actually
                                tough to beat a *good* modern optimizing
                                compiler even if you really know what you're
                                doing. -dans
                            \_ UPDATE: I just asked one of the guru's and
                               he responded, 'books?  what are those' see:
                               http://www.kegel.com/c10k.html
                               It's more of a jumping off point, but it will
                               at least give you tools to work with and
                               references potential implementations. -dans
                          \_ Hint: In the last three years have you...
                             a) worked on a project with me?
                             b) read or hacked any code I've written?
                             c) used a service based on my code or systems I
                                administered?
                             Unless you can answer yes to at least two, you
                             have NO FUCKING IDEA WHAT YOU'RE TALKING ABOUT.
                             Why two?  Because I built the systems half (as
                             opposed to the network/routing half) of the
                             anycast DNS rig that runs the roots for over
                             fifty ccTLD's including, amusingly enough, .cx.
                             Thus, the answer to c) is almost always yes.
                             -dans
        \_ Use poll() instead of select, or do multiple selects with several
            different fd_sets .  -ERic
        \_ Can you increase the max size of fd_set in /proc?  I'm guessing not,
           but couldn't hurt to look.  Also, using select on that many file
           descriptors will probably result in sucky performance. -dans
           \_ Do you know where I can read up on getting really good
              performance out of the POSIX tcp codes?
              \_ I wish I did.  Most of what I know is a collection of voodoo
                 and lore.  It's not super complicated, basically you want to
                 use non-blocking sockets and poll.  Also, avoid threads
                 unless you know what you're doing.  Writing correct threaded
                 code is hard, writing high-performance threaded code is even
                 harder.  On Linux, processes are basically threads, but with
                 processes you don't have to handle any locking crap. -dans
        \_ epoll (linux) or kqueue (bsd)
           \_ Unfortunately, it needs to run on AIX (IBM's Unix) as well.
              \- arent you that fellow at livermore? if this is going to
                 run on ibm big iron, maybe if you have a "user services"
                 group they will know this. cray and ibm have some people
                 group they will know this. cray and ibm have had some people
                 stationed here as part of nersc. i am familar with assos,
                 fleebsd, and solaris [/dev/poll] but not aix. btw some of
                 the select vs poll people seem to be unaware of many
                 places where the interface is different, but under the hood
                 they are the same thing. --psb
                 fleebsd, and solaris [/dev/poll] but not aix. --psb
                          \- i have never heard of/used this [i no longer
                             work on aix] but check this out:
                              http://tinyurl.com/26z9jf [pollset]
                             often i would think if there was something
                             that was obscure it probably wouldnt be that
                             good, but in this case 1. ibm has a history
                             of sitting on good things that fail due to
                             obscurity 2. i'm not in the loop [no pun
                             intended] any more on ibm stuff --fmr ibm person
                 \_ We do have such a group, but they don't know much about
                    TCP.  It's kind of an odd thing to be doing.  I wrote this
                    TCP implementation as a proof-of-concept, but we've never
                    gotten to money to do something better, so I just keep
                    trying to improve it incrementally. -jrleek

9/27    Ok so to do the equivalent of  the following:
        bool ? a : b
        In Python, it is:
        (bool and [a] or [b])[0]
        Uh, kick ass?
        \_ 99 times out of 100 if you use the trinary operator you are
           doing the wrong thing.
        \_ 99 times out of 100 if you use the ternary operator you are
           doing the wrong thing.  Oh and python should have
           "a if bool else b".
        \_ Python 2.5 adds the ternary operator with the syntax above.  See:
           http://www.python.org/dev/peps/pep-0308
           The and-or trick was the most recognizable way to do this prior to
           2.5.  See:
           http://www.diveintopython.org/power_of_introspection/and_or.html
           This also explains why you need to do the wonkiness with wrapping a
           and b into arrays and then extracting element 0.  Curious, why does
           the pp feel that using the ternary operator is a bad idea? -dans
           \_ http://tinyurl.com/36zdbe (fogcreek.com) -!pp
              \_ Most of this discussion convinces me that the ternary
                 operator is a good thing.  Many of the posters seem to miss
                 the forest for the trees wrt code readability.  At this
                 point, I don't 'parse' the ternary operator, I just think of
                 it as a (slightly) higher-level construct and find it easier
                 to read and understand.  YMMV -dans
                 \_ bad coders : ternary operator :: Dubya : U.S. presidency
                    \_ bad coders : code :: Dubya : U.S. presidency
                       "However, there is already controversy surrounding the
                       grant. Explains Dean Clancy, "Ok, so we got all this
                       deodorant and shaving equipment now. So-fricking-what?
                       What I want to know is how we are going to get this
                       stuff on the engineers. Whenever I ask an engineer in
                       Soda, "Why do you smell like Rick Starr's underwear,
                       only worse?", they always give me some story about
                       being allergic to deodorant or not having enough time
                       to shower. Like I always say, you can lead a mouse to a
                       window but you can't always make the mouse click on the
                       window."
                       Telling bad coders to avoid the ternary operator is
                       like giving deodorant to EECS students.  It doesn't
                       address the core problem. -dans
                       \_ What about L&S CS?  Are they allowed to bathe?
                          \_ I'm not aware of there being any department
                             strictures forbidding EECS students to bathe.  I
                             don't know if I'm typical of L&S CS students, but
                             I managed to bathe more or less regularly (or
                             date hot women who have a thing for, possibly
                             stinky, geeks).  I suppose there was that one
                             semester Paolo took CS 150 and didn't leave the
                             lab for a week, but I definitely think that's an
                             outlier data point. -dans
                             \_ dans is channeling tjb.
                                \_ i miss tjb.  can we get him back?
                                   \_ Seconded.  The man's a national
                                      treasure.
                             \_ I think we can all agree that paolo is an outlier
                                data point.
                                \_ Nah, I'm not going to try to freestyle.
                                   Though I am pretty white. -dans
                             \_ I think we can all agree that paolo is an
                                outlier data point.

9/20    Is there a way in Twiki to have children inherit settings from a
        parent? I know there is a WebTopicEditTemplate which you can use
        for an entire Web, but what I want is to be able to have all of
        the children under a given topic automatically be populated with
        a template of settings when created. Is there a way to do that?
        Right now I copy and paste my settings each time and not only does
        that take time but there's a chance I forget to do it or else make
        an error.
        \_ Setting of arbitrary parent *topic*?  I don't know of any feature
           by default.  For my purpose, I wrote a plugin that made twiki
           use a custom EditTemplate depending on the suffix of a topic
           name.  I imagine similar concept can be used to check the the
           parent variable.  Search twiki site first to see if such plugins
           already exist.
           \_ Well, I just want the concept of a child topic inheriting a
              template from its parent topic.
              \_ But how do you specify *which* settings it inherit?  When
                 you first create a topic, twiki loads the default topic
                 template and loads it in the edit box.  Settings are
                 interpreted on the fly by running through the topic text
                 file twice.  The settings are just part of normal text
                 as far as it's considered.  You need a way to specify which
                 setting to inherit by perhaps wrapping it around a
                 TWikiVariable.  And given that you can change the parent
                 of a topic by changing its metadata, interpreting it on the
                 fly is probably the best way to handle it given current
                 twiki behavior.
                 \_ It should inherit all of them. Every Set = from the
                    parent gets set in the child at creation time. If the
                    parent changes later then too bad.
                    \_ Keep in mind that TWiki didn't even have a concept
                       of parent/child until few years ago.  At least for
                       the current implementation of new topic template
                       reading, it looked to me like you'd have to actually
                       overwrite that function within twiki's edit script
                       itself and can't be extended with just plugins.  That
                       is, grabbing the variable defines from parent and
                       putting it in place during creation.  What I was
                       suggesting where the settings are read on-the-fly
                       at each access *can* be done via plug-in.  Choosing
                       the right wiki is a difficult task, partly because
                       the ideals of each wiki devel teams are different.
                       Wikis were originally meant to be unrestricted, which
                       is an ideal that TWiki developers still try to hold
                       to.  That is one of the reason why there are commercial
                       wiki implementations popping up designed from groun-up
                       to have access restrictions.  My main reason for
                       choosing TWiki?  It's one of the few that supports
                       versioning of attachments, and rest of my group is
                       still very shy of php, which ruled out MediaWiki.
                       (And I believe MediaWiki has even less access control.)

9/4     http://csua.org/u/jfs (townhall.com, why hide your url?)
        This was all before politicians gave us the idea that the things we
        could not afford individually we could somehow afford collectively
        through the magic of government.
        \_ it was also before it was empirically proven that the unregulated
                                                                   \_ umm. no.
           health care system in the U.S. is twice as expensive as everyone
           else's.
           \_ Everyone else's healthcare is great until you get sick.

7/20  I was handed a templeted code that builds with gcc3.3.3 but not 3.4.4.
      I'm not all that hot with templetes, so I'm having trouble figuring
      out what's wrong.  The error I get is:
        TxBoundedFunctor.cpp:29: error: `template<class RetType, class ArgType>
           class TxFunctorBase' used without template parameters
      where TxBoundedFunctor extends TXFunctor extents TxFunctorBase. Like so:
        // Constructor specifying the pointer to a functor and the dimension.
        template <class RetType, class VecType>
        TxBoundedFunctor<RetType, VecType>::
        TxBoundedFunctor(size_t dim) :
          TxFunctor<RetType, VecType>(dim), TxBounds<VecType>(dim) {
            TxFunctorBase::className += ":TxBoundedFunctor"; }

         Any idea why it won't build with 3.4.4, but will in 3.3.3?
         \_ First, it's "template" not "templete".
            Second, can you post the code to a public file so we don't have to
            parse it from the motd and guess what comes before it?
         \_ Note: this is called a 'pastebin'
            Third, you're never able to get away with dropping template arguments,
            and it's most likely that GCC dropped a nonconforming extension.
            Checking the release notes for 3.4:
            http://gcc.gnu.org/gcc-3.4/changes.html#cplusplus
            G++ is now much closer to full conformance to the ISO/ANSI C++
            standard. This means, among other things, that a lot of invalid
            constructs which used to be accepted in previous versions will now be
            rejected. It is very likely that existing C++ code will need to be
            fixed. This document lists some of the most common issues.

            Here it is:
            In a template definition, unqualified names will no longer find
         members of a dependent base (as specified by [temp.dep]/3 in the C++
         standard).
            members of a dependent base (as specified by [temp.dep]/3 in the
            C++ standard).
            \_ That appears to be it, thanks.  Prefixing with this-> works.

8/23    Update your life scores, you twinks!
        \_ Not unless life-god gets a clue and quits classifying co-op rooms
           as dorms.  Maggot.           -john
                \_ Dear Maggot Infested Peon:
                        Nowhere was it said that a co-op was a dorm.
                        Rather, the life god sayeth: "CO-OPS count not.
                        They make the dorms look nice."  Perchance we shall
                        allow you to return to the hallowed halls of life
                        when you have mastered the difficult art of clue.
                        The life god requests that you not reproduce at
                        this time.
                        \_ Good thing I have the life god's mother hogtied
                           in my closet to prove my points.  -john
                            \_ That's gotta be worth at least a G, if not C.
                \_ What about those 4 to a room co-op rooms? Dorms like
                   mighty nice compared to them
        \_  There's a lot of graduates in the wrong section of the life file,
            too.
        \_ I lost so who the fuck cares.

=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=
Welcome to John's special half-assed life point section.  This section of
the life file exists specifically for those who have it all.  Sort of.
Well, maybe not really.  But we won't get into that right now.

John            .3C+.7G+.7H+.6J+172.3U  174.5   C's a '63 Mercedes in SF
                                                    with a busted carb
                                                G's in Switzerland but hot
                                                H's a coop, what do you
                                                    want, and
                                                J's the fixing stuff I do
                                                    for it, while
                                                U's almost there, all I
                                                    need is a CD drive.
                                                    That, and I own soda.
                \_ the tank should should for an extra life point

John Update:  I'm not getting the tank, because I found out they wouldn't let me
shoot anything with it anyway, thus making the whole exercise pointless.
What counts is that I had convinced them to give me a tank.  I work
for a company called Bull, which is neat, because if they fail, they can
easily change the logo to "Bull", or if they get bought by Microsoft, they
can change it to "Bill".
FDSFSDF

7/17

7/13    CSUA Life Roster

1 point each for:                                               key:
                significant other (out of county rule applies)   G
                car (Chevy Novas do count)                       C
                housing (dorms DO NOT count)                     H
                own computer running reasonable multi-tasking OS U
                job (selling lemonade on the corner counts, too) J
                        \_ how about selling Yermom?

There are no unofficial rules.  All rules are official, and have been laid
down.  Clarifications are available only from the Life God.

The out of county rule is as follows:  if you are not in the same county
as that which would give you a point, you do not get the point.
Please note: the out of county rule applies to all points.

Please keep yourselves sorted.

              __        _____ _   _ _   _ _____ ____  ____
              \ \      / /_ _| \ | | \ | | ____|  _ \/ ___|
               \ \ /\ / / | ||  \| |  \| |  _| | |_) \___ \
                \ V  V /  | || |\  | |\  | |___|  _ < ___) |
                 \_/\_/  |___|_| \_|_| \_|_____|_| \_\____/

                        Winners at graduation
                        ---------------------

Just as a note, any game that allows people like these to call themselves
"winners"...you get my point.

alawrenc                G+C+H+U+J       5       whee...

brianm                  G+C+H+U+J       5       Yes!  I really did graduate!

Philip Brown            G+U+J+H+C       5       I win, I win!
                                                \_ and you are?
                                                        \_ If you have to ask
                                                        you weren't around
                                                        before 1992.
                                                        \_ post1992 update:
                                                           married. But that
                                                           happened after,
                                                           so I still win :-)

Dan Wallach             G+H+J+C+U       5       G/F: Debra Waldorf
                                                \_ creator of the famous salad?
                                                House: 1665 Scenic
                                                Car: Nissan 240SX
                                                Job: Berkeley Systems
                                                Computer: Sparc 1+ clone
    -- a total winner when he graduated May 22, 1993 at 9am.
        (it should be noted he never got the secret life point)

Doug Young              G+C+H+U+J       5       Wow...ooooooh...aaaaaah
                                                G - Getting married Jul 19
                                                C - 1987 Van
                                                H - Which one - I /_OWN_/ two
                                                    and am buying a 3rd!
                                                U - Which one?  Linux?  NT?
                                                J - PeopleSoft ROCKS!

kchang                  G+C+H+U+J       5       LIFE IS SOOOOO GOOD!
                                                No $, no honey! 9/1/92
                                                \_ kchang should be the CSUA
                                                   philosopher.
                                                \_ No $, but still has a
                                                   honey! I work hard for
                                                   all my 5 points.
                                                \_ I run Linux, NT, and
                                                   95, I'm so cool! 128RAM
                                                   8gigHD, Zip, ViewSonic
                                                   PT800, Millenium II 8MB,
                                                   and a lot of warez :)
                                                \_ That doesn't change the
                                                   fact that we had to
                                                   squish your ass. --root

Julie Lin               G+C+H+U+J       5       G: if you have to ask...
                                                C: 97 toyota corolla
                                                H: southside apt
                                                U: colocated FreeBSD box
                                                J: sysadmin
                                                \_in my flakiness I made a
                                                  mistake that technically
                                                  allows me to have acheived
                                                  these things _before_
                                                  graduation.
                                                        \_ It's _at_ graduation
                                                           that counts.
                                                                \_this was true\
at and before graduation

psb                     G+C+H+U+J+S     6       Psb is too cool!

Scott Drellishak        G+C+H+U+J       5       Finally got the U...

Nevin Cheung            C+U+H+G+J       5       Yeeeess!!!  5/96

Mike Scheel             G+C+H+U+J       5       And, I've graduated.

Peter Norby             H+J+U+G+C       6       Okay, I've won, Now what?
                                                \_ How is that 6? Anyways,
                                                   it's not YOUR car... (-8

randal                  G+H+J+U+C       5       Beautiful girlfriend whose
                                                still at Cal unfortunatly.
                                                Moving to Seattle to work
                                                at http://Amazon.com.  Got a car,
                                                choose not to drive it.

raytrace             H+J+U+C+G          5       Life is here or someting.
                                                Am I supposed to be happy now.

ryan                    C+J+G+U+H       5       Life is good!
                                                \_ Name them.  When did you
                                                   get the car, and can we have
                                                   a ride?
                                                   \_ Is she a good ride?
                                                G = (4/??/96) Esa Yu
v                                               C = (5/8/96) '96 Mustang Gt
                                                U = (6/9/94) 486/DX 33 w/ Linux
                                                J = (1/4/96) LBL Sysadmin
                                                H = (6/1/95) 2446 Dana St Apt 1
                                                \_ Secret Point
                                                        \_ Yes, I have it!

                      *Those Who Have Succeeded*

hoser                   components      score                   comment
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
                        Overachievers
                        -------------

alanc                   C+G+H+U+J       5       Wow...amazing how these
                                                things sneak up on you
                                                when you're not looking.
                                                Now comes the tricky part...
                                                graduation.

bwli                    G+C+H+U+J       5       Hard to believe...

ivy                     H+J+C+U+C       5
garyg                   G+C+H+U+J       5       Pure luck

kim                     G+C+H+U+J       5       Good thing there's no points
                                                for sleep

marco                   C+H+U+J+G+S     6       Now all I need is time to
                                                *ENJOY* this life...
                                                \_ S?  Secret? -- Yah.
                                                  \_ Are you ever going to
                                                     graduate?

russwong                G+C+H+U+J       5

sameer                  G+C+H+U+J       5

seano                   H+C+J+G         5       I get extra secret life point
                                                \_ why does seano get
                                                   extra life point?
                                                   \_ it's a secret

setol                   G+C+H+U+J       5

shipley                 C+H+U+J+G       5       Do extra girlfriend
                                                want-a-be's count as extra?
                                                Can you set someone up with
                                                points and take a percentage?
                                                \_ Peter has not noticed that
                                                   there is a math deficiency
                                                   going on...
                                                   \_ Aren't you graduated yet?
                                                        \_ Or just dropped out?

uctt                    G+C+H+U+J       5       spanking new G, C, and H!

                        WhothefuckamI (if you still care)
                        -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

aubie                   C+H+U+J         4       I have a harem, but no
                                                .sig other. Car's on
                                                perminant loan. apt w/3
                                                person shower&gets use.
                                                PII 233 w/fBSD, BeOS,
                                                Rhapsody. sysadmin fer
                                                "Steve's other company."
                                                WHAT'S THE FUCKING
                                                SECRET LIFE POINT YOU
                                                TWINKISH LIFEGOD?

                        Normative Person
                        ----------------

aaron                   J+C+H           3       G out of county. i might go
                                                postal over it so don't push
                                                me.
                                                \_ Didn't you graduate?

ali                     C+J+J+J+H       3       Ass kicking machines given
                                                to you by asskicking employers
                                                count, right?

amee                    J+H+G+U         4       Someone teach me to drive
                                                stick shift cars, please?

aspolito                U+H+C+J         4

atom                    H+C+J+G         4       Duty now for the future!
                                                New Girl and New Job!

bbehlen                 G+C+J+H         4       So what if you live with your
                                                girlfriend in an apartment,
                                                and you both have cars?  Does
                                                my Indigo at work count?
                                                \_No.

coganman                J+H+C+U         4       The embarrassing thing is
                                                that my second year here
                                                I was at 4 (GHCJ), then sank
                                                down to 2 (HC) for a while.
                                                Now I'm at least gainfully
                                                employed. My car does, too,
                                                count, even if it's powered
                                                by two gerbils on treadmills.
                                                \_ Update: a couple of the
                                                   cylinders are misfiring.
                                                   Call it 1 1/2 gerbils.
                                                \_ Update 2: Not only do I
                                                   possess the Secret Life
                                                   Point, but I am perhaps the
                                                   only recipient of the
                                                   Secret Life Penalty as well
                                                   \_ What's the penalty? Using
                                                      the car cylinders for
                                                      something they weren't
                                                      intended for?
                                                   \_ Using that Indian over
                                                      there, Tonto, to perform
                                                      an unnatural act.
davem                   C+H+U+J         4       Life is at best, an illusion.
davidf                  C+H+U+J         4       Okay, so I've got a car, an
                                                apartment, a Sun, and a
                                                handful of jobs.  Who cares.
                                                Anyone have a spare
                                                girlfriend? ;)
dpetrou                 H+U+C+J         4       Languish in your misery.
                                                Wallow in your excrement.
fab                     G+H+C+J         4       Would have U, but it's in
                                                Orinda (ie., Contra Costa
                                                county)...

fernando                U+H+G+J         4       U: FreeBSD
                                                J: Does CEA count?
                                                G: She was in LA last summer,
                                                   but so was I!

ksanthan                J+C+H+U         4       H - Finally out of the dorms!
                                                U - Running Linux!
                                                C - My trusty Honda!
                                                \_ J?
                                                \_ What happened to my Honda?
                                                I'm sorry babe, I had to crash
                                                that Honda.

meyers                  J+U+C+G         4       J - Documentum!
                                                U - Linux!
                                                C - way cool Saturn
                                                G - way cool gf

mogul                   C+H+U+J         4       Once again I'm in good shape...
                                                \_ J is in Marin County, no?
                                                   \_ Uh, so? -mogul
                                                     \_ Are the H and U?

moray                   C+H+J+U         4       I don't think I deserve this.
                                                Technicalities help me.

niloc                   G+H+V+J         4       You don't know me.  :)
                                                It's all technicalities
                                                anyway.
                                                \_ but somebody lovers you
                                                   somewhere, maybe.

nweaver                 H+U+C+J         4       H: The NickCave (tm)
                                                U: P5 133 with Linux
                                                C: 95 Saturn Coupe
                                                J: Herder of Cats

philbo                  G+C+H+J         4
philfree                C+H+J+G         4

scotsman                C+H+U+J         4       as for G, I have a roommate..
                                                does that count?

sls                     H+J+U+C         4

sony                    H+J+C+U+G       5       H: cute studio in Oakland
                                                J: It has *NOTHING* to do with
                                                   my major (thank god).
                                                C: I think psb calls it "the de
                                                   la sol chick car"
                                                U: FreeBSD v.2.2.5
                                                G: He's really cool.

susann                  C+G+H+U         4       G: Leo, I lubs you.
                                                   P.S. Hehehehe.

tomcheng                C+H+J+U         4       *sigh*

                    We Who Are About To Cry, Salute You
                    -----------------------------------

agee                    C+H+U           3       Traded a way out of county
                                                J for a barely out of
                                                county G.

ahsrah                  C+H+J           3       C: can't afford the
                                                   insurance, but still can
                                                   afford the tires and CDs 4
                                                   it....
                                                H: Jesus Freaks as
                                                   neighbors
                                                J: Screen Savers are
                                                   important dammit!!!

blojo                   U+H+J           3       Burned to a crisp and bloody
                                                as hell.
                                                \_ Yum, can I have some?

daveh                   u+h+c           3
dickylee                G+J+H           3       i _still_ have more points
                                                than ali...no matter how many
                                                accounts i lose, no matter how
                                                many times i'm banned,
                                                _still_ have more points than
                                                ali!  muahahahahaaa.
                                                \_ no you don't, twink
                                                        \_ ali, yer one
                                                           fugly cocksucker.

jenni                   G+J+H           3       Now if only the ghia was in
                                                in this county.....

jwang                   C+H+J           3       <plus motorcycle cool points>

lindsay                 C+H+J+J         3       man-eater

max                     H+C+J+J         3       Okay.  So I lost the G to
                                                marriage.  But my computer runs
                                                Unix and I've ditched the third
                                                job.  And, yes, the car is mine,
                                                too.

mikeh                   H+J+U           3       Woo woo.  Housing, at last.
                                                Job, if only to pay for U.

rsr                     G+H+J+U         4

runes                   J+H+C           3

sowings                 H+J+G           3       Ohnog.

Lincoln Myers           U+J+C           3       Linux.  Working at Network
                                                Appliance.  But I'm graduated
                                                so I lose the game.
                                                \_ then move your entry over
                                                   to the graduates area.

lolly                   H+G+J           3

                        Too sexy for life
                        -----------------

cje                     H+J             2       It's not fair, my girlfriend
                                                broke up with me...

gregory                 H+J             2       This test is biased by our
                                                society and it's damn
                                                dependence on cars, not being
                                                alone, a stationary
                                                existence, an upward moving
                                                and speeding career, and
                                                using those around you to
                                                further your own goals: It
                                                makes me sick.

kane                    H+J             2       HA, i had a girlfriend
                                                but she got rid of me.
                                                I was too much trouble.
                                                I think about computers?
                                                what ever happened to horses?
                                                \_thou damned inconsistency!

lisha                   H+C             2       F*CK! back i go to too sexy.
allenp                  H+U             2       Running Linux

aymless                 H+J             2       VIXENS!!!!
                                                \_ *pant* *pant* *pant*

drex                    H+C             2       H: Alpha Epsilon Pi - Single
                                                |_ Frats count?
                                                  \_ frats don't count!
                                                  \_ Especially loser ones
                                                C: '85 Honda Prelude (red)
                                                J: Don't want one
                                                   (I was a reader, but it
                                                    wasted time I wanted)
                                                U: Need to buy 16megs (4 now)
                                                G: $#!+ happens, my last girl-
                                                   friend went psycho, now I
                                                   fear women.
kenji                   U+J             2       Suckage.
                                                \_ shouldn't that be +J+J+J+J?
                                                  \_ there are even rumors of
                                                        a +G
                                                   \_ Doesn't suckage imply
                                                        G?  (Even if only
                                                        temporarily hired G?)
                                                  \_ privacy?
                                                        \_ privacy is not
                                                           allowed in the life
                                                           file

raja                    H+J             2       Does having a girlfriend 10K
                                                miles, three continents away
                                                give me extra bonus points?
                                                   NO.  -- life god
                                                Does having three computers
                                                in one (Mac and IBM emul)
                                                count?
                                                \- Three lame computers still
                                                don't add up to one real one.
stevie                  J+H             2       \_ Hey, you guys just broke up.
                                                You're right.  so noted.
                                                And, I was lying about the
                                                computer.
                                                I'd like to mention that I'm
                                                completely anti-car, but I'm
                                                sure that does me no good.
                                                \_ nope, none.
donsw                   H+J             2       The computer at home can be
                                                multitasking if I ever use it.
                                                But it doesn't run UNIX so I
                                                let it rot. Hope it counts.
                                                \_ keep hoping...
dci                     G+H             2
badams                  C+H             2       pure cane sugar . . .
jctwu                   H+J             2

Matt Saunders           H+J             2       if I'm hard up for life
                                                points, I'll just steal one
                                                of your cars.

hahnak                  J+H+U           3       no G, no C.  life has been kind
                                                to me.

mlee                    C+H             2       I have actually gotten out
                                                of that rathole so many of
                                                you would despise, but I
                                                called "home".
                                                G:  I should try to get
                                                one just.for.the.point.

nolram                  J+H             2       *sigh*

                        Life facing suspension
                        ----------------------

brg                     0x1b            4+i     Live orthogonally. Zort.

                        Set Phasers on "Spank"
                        ----------------------

anitac                  G+H+J           3       Three! I have three points
                                                now. Can I get out of this
                                                category oh Benevolent Life
                                                God?

benco                   U               1       I'd give up the U for a G

Andy Collins            U               1

jon                     H+U+J           2       No G (yet)
                                                well, certainly not in county
                                                at least i have a place to
                                                sleep 'sides csua.
                                                Car is gone.  Completely.
                                                jkuroda@cs, whee
                                                \_ finally.
                                                \_ that doesn't stop you though
                                                \_ OpenBSD.

danh                    J               1       C - 1980 black GMC van
                                                H - my house is rad you
                                                    are jealous yes
                                                G - punk rock girl decided
                                                    to date girls, oh well
                                                \_ I thought danh gets all
                                                   the babes?
                                                        \_ girls are icky
                                                           \_ coming from
                                                                someone whose
                                                                lived with ahm,
                                                        we can understand why
                                                        you have a distorted
                                                        view of gurlz

                        Vegetarians (Flounder in our fleshless glory)
                        ---------------------------------------------

hh                      J+C             2       House is in Egypt, so it
                                                counts not.
                                                \_ Graduates belong at the
                                                   bottom, Eric.

russman                 G-H-J-J-C       1       G- out of county
                                                H- in berkeley
                                                J- in SF and LA (out of county)
                                                C- in LA
                                                U- OS2 should count

schoen                  J+U             2       Linux, of course.  If
                                                consulting counts: J+J+J.

                        Transcendent of Life
                        --------------------

kosh                    *+*+*+*+U     NaN       You are not ready for life.

cthulhu                 D+E+A+T+H     666       *BURP*

Dolly                   S+H+E+E+P     aleph-0   Come on, baby, light my fire.

zuul                    Z+U+U+L       ZUUL      There is no life, only...
                                                well, me
                                                \_ I thought it went "There
                                                   is no life, only Nick
                                                   Weaver."
                                                   \_ How about "Here is no
                                                      life but only rock /
                                                      Rock and no life and
                                                      the sandy road..."
                                                   \_ No, it goes "There is
                                                      no life, only DYNIX/ptx
                                                      v4.0.1." Yer all hoes.

                        Total L00zerz
                        -------------

Jim Casaburi (casaburi)                 0               General meeting, Sep 14 1998

Michael Heldebrant                      0       Hows my driving, call:
                                                1-900-9-bite-me, anyways
                                                OS/2 gives me my only point
                        \_READ THE DAMN RULES... OS/2 Doesn't count...
                                \_ But it *should* count. I'm protesting.
                                        \_ protest noted and quashed.
                                        \_ rebel!
bhchan                                  0       "No signs of life here"
                                                Do I get a prize for being
                                                The most lifeless and not
                                                afraid to admit it?  Do I?
                                                \_ No
                                                \_ Isn't it about time for
                                                an update Billy? Last I
                                                checked you had C, G, J
                                                and even H (sorta)
thepro                                  0       I am beyond your petty,
                                                lying morality, and so I
                                                am beyond having a life.
                                                \_ And beyond hope... -imp
                                                \_ Who said that morality
                                                had anything to do with it?!

                                                By the way, I've decided that
                                                my REAL county is Ulster, in
                                                Ireland.  As I've never been
                                                there and know no one there,
                                                I'll never have to revise my
                                                life file, as any girlfriends,
                                                boyfriends, jobs, cars,
                                                housing, or computers I
                                                may get will be out of county.
                                                \_ Ulster's a province, not a
                                                   county, ted. -seano
                                                   \_ seano stores Ulysses
                                                      in his butt for handy
                                                      reference

Sam Trenholme                           0
                                                \_ Golly, nice quote.-dickylee
                                                 \_ you're an idiot, dick. -ali
                                                  \_ Yer stoopit. -dickylee

utsai                                   0       I suck.
                                                \_ Yer right, Jeff! Ya do
                                                   suck. -dickylee

                        LOSER EXTRAORDINAIRE
                        --------------------

AHM                                     1       I GET THE SECRET LIFE POINT
                                                CAUSE I DID SOMETHING
                                                TERRIBLY ICKY.
                                                \_ AHMS ARE ICKY
                                                \_ You obviously have no idea
                                                   what the secret life point
                                                   IS, fool.
                              Dead
                              ----

Donald Kubasak          -                       ...

NIVRA                                           Judgement of life lies not
                                                within this realm. Thus,
                                                judge me as the dead. I careth
                                                not. To all others, Peace and
                                                Happiness in thy Confounded
                                                Existence.
                                                \_ OK EVERYONE WAVE TO THE
                                                   FREAKS IN THE PINK FLOYD
                                                   SECTION - Dr. John

                        Lost by graduation
                        ------------------

Sean Welch              G+H+J+U         4       Happiness is a Sun 4 at home.

Adam Glass              G+H+U+J         4       skip the car, I'm happy enough
                                                ^That's pretty scary.

ERic Mehlhaff           H+J+U+C         4       Amiga UNIX, dude
    "Moved on to Unlife"                      Car older than the microprocessor
        \_(Wow! An xtrek player who didn't flunk out! )
                \_ It happens!   Can you say the same for MUD players?
        \_ Wait...  Don't you work in San Francisco county?????
           \_ I do now.  The above was at time of graduation...
    \_Post graduation update:  (should I even bother? )
                        H+U+C+U+U+U+C+C+N 3     (Job in SF.-- out of county
                                                 rule needs refining!)

cgd                     C+H+U+G         4       There is no comment, only Zuul!

dim                     G+J+H+U+C       5       Too bad I graduated with 4.

Jennifer L. Hom         G+H+C+J         4
                                                \_ Pretty good write-up.
                                                   Almost as good as thepro's.

Byron C. Go             G+H+C+J         4       Lost by graduation, 5/92
                                                  -- working on getting into
                                                        grad school, though,
                                                        so I may return
                04/96 Update:  Lost the J for a year and a half while I was
                        at Netcom in San Jose, but gained a U.  Now that I'm
                        back in Berkeley I have the J back and retain the U.
                        Ergo, G+H+C+U+J = 5.

Doug "Lips" Simpkinson  G+C+H+J         4       Lost by graduation, 12/92

Ian Barkley             G+C+H+J         4       Lot'o life points - still
                                                 no life - do CO-OP
                                                 apartments count as housing?
                                                \_ Post grad update:  How
                                                many points do kids count for?
Payam Mirrashidi        C+H+J+U         4

Mel Nicholson           C+H+G+J         4       lost by graduation twice
                                                96 Update note:
                                                Most controvesial G point
                                                on record (married -- was
                                                counted as I graduated)
                                                Also out-of-county did not
                                                apply to Jobs back then,
                                                as the Life God was not so
                                                clueless as to not realize
                                                that real jobs are mostly
                                                out of county.

Van A. Boughner         C+H+J+U         4       Lost by graduation, 12/91
                                                  -- 95 update: still no G,
                                                     so life still sucks in
                                                     some ways (or rather, it
                                                     never sucks at all.)

John D. Owens           H+C+G+J         4       20 May 1995, moved on to
                                                even more school. RIP.

Tobias Rossmann         H+C+G+J         4       Lost by Graduation 5/95. Moved
                                                to the Farm for another life,
                                                i.e. a red reincarnation.

Tara Bloyd              G-J-C-H         4       Been there, done that.
                                                1/23/97 update:  all 5.
                                                (been that way for a while, but
                                                 I was too lazy to update...)
                                                \_ Haven't you lost the G point
                                                   by the marriage rule yet?

cdaveb                  G+C+J+H         4       Can't get the computer
                                                point till PowerMac Linux
                                                comes out or I bum MachTen
                                                off someone.
                                                \_ So now what's your excuse?
                                                   \_I have a PCI Mac- gotta
                                                     wait a little longer yet-
                                                     besides- I graduated

Eric van Bezooijen      H+U+J           3       Lost by graduation 5/93.
                                                I think I deserved some kind of
                                                comment.  How about the fact
                                                that I was supposed to beat
                                                Dan Wallach at graduation?
                                                \_ We tried really hard to get
                                                   you a gf before graduation
                                                   -- had you gotten that,
                                                   you could have beaten Dan,
                                                   since V graduates before W
                                                   \_ Actually my name goes
                                                under "B"
                                                Life update, 8/97:

                                                G: Nope, married
                                                C: 1989 Honda Civic
                                                \_ The 75 odd gerbils have now
                                                run 180,000 miles
                                                \_ Make that 200,000.  They
                                                are really working up a sweat.
                                                H: My own house!
                                                U: K6-200 running FreeBSD
                                                J: Active Software, Inc. (ooc)

Shannon D. Appel        H+U+J           3       Which car is this?
                                                    1980 Mustang
                                                In this county?
                                                    Santa Clara
                                                Then it counts not.  See
                                                the out of county rule.

Peter Li'ir Key         G+H+J+C         3       does a car jointly owned
                                                yourself and your s.o. count?
                                                or does it have to be solely
                                                owned?
                                                \_ it counts.
                                                \_ dudes with apostrophes in
                                                   the middle of their name
                                                   rule

Connie Hammond          H+G+J           3       G?????? What is the ruling
                                                on this?
                                                \_ It counts until the wedding

David G. Paschich       H+U+C           3       Anyone wanna hire me for
                                                the weekend?
                                                \_ GET BACK TO WORK - pvg
                                                \_ What's yer hourly rate?
                                                \_ This won't get you the G
                                                   point.
                                                        \_BUT, it will get
                                                          the G-spot humming.

Case Larsen             C+H+J+U         4       "Anyone wanna hire me for
                                                the weekend?"
                                                \_ No.
                                                 \_ see Paschich, D.

Donald Tsang            H+C+J           3       Real J, but C is British
                                                (i.e., not always running).

sheikh                  G+H+J           3       "I need my car back..."

Erik Nielsen            J+G             2       Lost by grad., 5/92, but
                                                now have all 5.  Amazing what
                                                graduating can do for you...
                                                Maybe some of you should
                                                try it.

lucasp                  NULL            0       Ohwell.  I had H for a while,
                                                but now I move on to grad
                                                school and dorms again...
                                                Never had G, never had U,
                                                never had C, summer J's...

Oliver Juang            C+J+H           3       lost by graduation: 5/92
                        C+J+H+U                 95 update:  hope it's not
                                                another 3 for the G point.

Gene Kan                H+U+J           3

yuen                    C+H+U+J         4       Lost by graduation: 5/93
                                                U: GEOS 2.0, a preemptive
                                                   multi-tasking multi-thread
                                                   graphical true OO OS with
                                                   virtual memory, but which
                                                   does NOT offer memory
                                                   protection (cuz it runs on
                                                   8086)

Maroo Lieuw             H+C+U+J         4       Aint life grand.
                                                Got a morticycle, a scooter,
                                                and a car. (only 1 point? :() )
                                                I finally made it out. 12/95
                                                Got me a Windows NT.

dennisc                 H+J             2       yup yup yup.  SECRET SAUCE.

Matthew Seidl           H+J+U+G         4       Rent controled appartment
                                                3 blocks from campus
                                                TCS sysadmin job
                                                Sparc I at home (19" color is
                                                                 KEWL)
                                                \_ matt - you still have G?
                                                \_ Well, he certainly doesn't
                                                   have the TCS job...
                                                   \_ By graduation, you twinks.
                                                    \_ he should be moved.
                                                        \_ moved.
                                                6/98 update:
                                                H - living in GF's House
                                                G - Soraya Ghiasi
                                                U - PII300 with FreeBSD
                                                J - RA
                                                C - Prism LSI

                Slept with The Life God by Graduation
                -------------------------------------

tmonroe                 C+H+U+F         2.1416  And it was gooood, too.  But
                                                you never return my phone
                                                calls...

                 Shot the Life God During Graduation
                 -----------------------------------

geordan                 C+U+J           -(2+i)  Lives are overrated.  I'm
                                                returning mine.  And fuck
                                                you all, anyway.  I will find
                                                you in the night when you
                                                least expect.

                Vegetarians by graduation "we just don't dig on swine"
                -----------------------------------------------------

lila                    H+J             2       I still think men bring only
                                                misery and an evil streak, I
                                                have a job at the moment, but
                                                only till the end of this
                                                week.  Hopefully I will soon
                                                have a real job.  After I
                                                acquire said job, I will then
                                                break down and buy a computer.
                                                I am also buying a car, for
                                                better or for worse.  970827
                                                \_ lila is a fat ass ugly bitch

Jim Ausman              C+J             2       Sigh. I had four points
                                                three months before graduation.
                                                \_ It was the ugly hair
                                                   cut, Jim.  -John

Christine Lee           F+U+C+K         ?       trent is the life god; bite me.
                                                \_ you've got the J & H, just
                                                   get your G to buy you C & U
                                                   (since he can afford it much
                                                    more than any Taos drone)
                                                   and you'll be set
                                                   \_ i already got  my
                                                      C & U off my Taos Drone
                                                      salary.  Now, I have no
                                                      M (money), so leave
                                                      my broke-ass alone...btw,
                                                      now that i'm now a
                                                      registered student at Cal
                                                      AGAIN, do i get a 2nd
                                                      run at Life?  --chris
                                                        \_ You have the M
                                                           (monkey)  -John
                                                        \_ Your "broke ass"
                                                        will be worth millions
                                                        the day you tie the
                                                        knot, so stop whining.

Lars Smith              H+J+secret      2+1     Secret life point: if you
                                                have to ask, you don't know.
                                                G was out of county, computer
                                                was mac-a-saurus.
                                                My all time high was three
                                                (G+H+J) and my largest
                                                fluxuation was from 3 to 0
                                                to 1 in 2 months.

                        Greatly misunderstood the purpose
                        ---------------------------------

Victor Chang                            0       I lose.
                                                \_ You're right.

                        Too Lame To Have Entries
                        ------------------------
George W. Herbert
Craig Latta
Doug Orleans

Official Responses from the Life God

From                    comment                         response
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
Dan Wallach             do computers at work count?     No.  If it's not
                                                        at home, it doesn't
                                                        count.
                                                        \_ can work be an
                                                           unofficial home?
                                                           \_ If you live
                                                              there, yes.
                                                           i have my mail go
                                                           there, for instance.

Eric Mehlhaff           how about  work-owned computer
                        at home?
                        \_ these should count.

Peter Shipley           Do extra girlfriend want-a-be's No, and no.
                        count as extra?  Can you set
                        someone up with points and
                        take a percentage?

Byron C. Go             does Microsoft Windows count?   Serious questions only.
                        \_ NT takes as much HD space as any version of UNIX
                           and it's as processor-intensive, does it count?
                                \_ It's ain't UNIX, right?
                                    \_ Yet another wonderful product
                                       from MicroSloth gets DISSED!

Scott Drellishak        clearly, this scale is faulty.  Obviously.

Case Larsen             Yes, very.                      Again, obviously.

Oliver Juang            (does grading count?)           If you get paid, yes.
                        work count?                     above.

Eric Hollander          Computer is 286, but runs       OS/2 counts not.  See
                        OS/2.                           the rules, under
                                                        "reasonable."
        \_ Hasn't the OS/2 ruling changed with the new version?
           \_ Get Real. (Get Round Table)

Eric Hollander          House is in Egypt.              House in Egypt counts
                                                        not.  See the out of
                                                        county rule.

Donald Wihardja         Hope it counts.                 If it's not running
                                                        a real OS, it doesn't
                                                        count.

Connie Hammond          G?????? What is the ruling      G is merely a code,
                        on this?                        not a judgement.

Dormie Scum             Whaddya mean dorms aren't       That's not saying
                        housing?  It's better than      much.
                        living in the WEB like Roy.

                        Actually, I don't even live in the dorms anymore --
                        roy
                        \_ I kicked you once when you were sleeping
                           under the WEB tables cause I got all excited
                           about IRC when I was a freshman.  It was
                           a formative moment.  -John

                        But you live in the WEB, and therefore have computer
                        at home. - Dormie Scum

                        Some dorms are ok.  Only        No dorm is ok.
                        Unit 2 sux.                     All dorms suck, some
                                                        just suck more.

                        Unit 2 has its good points.  They're just few and
                        far-between.

Scott Drellishak        What about slack?               Slackfulness has very
                                                        little, if anything,
                                                        to do with life.

Peter Norby             I've achieved negative          Possibly, but lifeness
                        lifeness.                       and life points are
                                                        much different.

                        Does your gf know this?

George Herbert          Can I be readmitted to the      No - being a space
                        game now that I'm a student     cadet doesn't count.
                        again?

                                                        Besides, life ends
                                                        upon graduation.

Kumaran Santhanam       OS/2 2.0 is a preemptive multi-
                        tasking fully reentrant OS.     But is it multiuser?
                        It's gotta count.               Not.
                        With TCP/IP it is multiuser.
                                          ^^^^^^^^^
                        It's multiuser, complete with
                        passwords, and file protection.
                        I, in fact, run SLIP and have
                        people log in all the time.
                        \_ it doesn't count.

----------------

Dear Life God:

        how do we go about adding more life point qualifiers?

You don't.  The rules are final, and clarifications are available only
from the Life God.

        Can we have the point of the week qualifiers (eg: if you do/don't
                own a copy of wiz war, or disqualify Macs on odd
                numbered days)?

No.  Life is not a weekly process, but rather lasts forever, or at least
until you graduate.

        Co-dependent personality (eg: physio or mind fucking) girlfriends
                should *not* count

A girlfriend is a girlfriend.  Subjective judgements do not come into play.
        \_ but some of us can't STAND that term... and we still get the
           point, right?

        If you are married you should be disqualified (since you obviously
                can not be happy in any marriage situation).  Although
                a woman on the side should qualify.
                        ^
                        \
                         The author of this obviously doesn't know Mel.
                         His spelling is likewise pathetic.
                         ^   \_ Some errors korekted
                         |   \_ use philspell
                         \ Is Mel married, or what?
                           Yes.  So is his wife.-^

A wife/husband is not a girlfriend/boyfriend, thus doesn't count for a point.
If you have a girlfriend/boyfriend in addition to a wife/husband, you get the
point.
  \_ so is girlfriend soley defined by having sex? does oral sex count?
     does manual sex count? does S&M count? can you count the number of
     whip lashes? can whiplashes count for you?
        \_ see thepro's comments (in his entry above) for a relevant
           discussion of morality.

A girlfriend/boyfriend is defined by both parties agreeing that those terms
apply to them in their relationship.  Sex is not a requirement in the least.

Okay, so define this "SO lock" thing that we've been babbling about.  Needs
much clarification.

>Life God
>Do you anyone verify someones score!  or can we all cheat

The Life Points are automagically verified.  Do not dare to
offend the Life God.
        \_ I hereby dare to offend the Life God.  "Play that funky
           music, white boy!"  -- tmonroe
        \_ I ever monkey and happy red!  -John

>So is the Life God an elected position?  Or is it passed on from previous
>Life winners to their hand-picked successors?

The Life God is immortal, therefore, succession is not an issue.  Do not
concern yourself with such issues.

>O Mr. Life God:
>We need a better definition of girlfriend.
>\_Do the for-hire ones count?

If you have to hire a girlfriend, you don't deserve any points, but since
the rules are absolute, it doesn't affect your score other than that the
girlfriend for hires counts not.

>Mr. Life God:
>What bribes are required to gain more life?

Suicide will get you a point, in this case.  (But only if it is verified
as successful.)
        \_ If this is the super-secret sixth life point, then the
           Life God is pathetic.
It's not.
        \_ The Life God is still pathetic.

>Mr. Life God:
>Do girls who want to be your girlfriend count?

Only if they actually are your girlfriend.  Similiarly, someone who is your
girlfriend and doesn't want to be also counts for a point, although the
stability of this particular point is questionable.

>Oh wise and wonderous Life GOD:
>Is it possible to have less than 0 life points?

As unfair as it may seem, no.

>Does a computer which is tunred off and being used as a doorstop count?
>[it's a sparcstation]

Yes it counts, though why you would be using it as a doorstop is not clear,
unless you have more powerful hardware at your disposal, in which case you
couldn't need the sparcstation for a point anyway.

>Does it count if you aren't in the dorms but are with your parents?

Not even close.

>I want a definitive ruling on my motorcycle.  It outperforms many people's
>cars, it probably costed more than the cars some people are using for their
>life points, and it probably has more cc/kg than any car on the road.  It
>should, therefore, count.

Well, where did the definitive ruling go?       -hh
\_ the motorcycle counts.

New questions for Life God
--------------------------

>If you have your own workstation at work, and a dedicated ISDN line to
>it, and your home computer runs X, such that you can't tell the difference
>between it and a real computer, does that count as U?  [guessing not]

It's the computer at home that matters, not the interface to it.

>Why does Solaris count (i.e., define "reasonable")?

Because the life god has ruled so.

>Hey does living in the student co-ops count as housing?  I see a number of
>people here claiming that as housing. "Where are you living next semester?"
>"Anywhere but the USCA!"

CO-OPS count not.  They make the dorms look nice in comparision.

>What about frats?

>What about the losers who drop out but never graduate?  When have they 'lost'?
>There's a number of them in the non-grad section!    -ERic

>I think out of county rule needs to be expanded to include all areas in
>non-toll phone range of Berkeley.  County lines are pretty arbitrarily drawn
>around here...

>Does it count as graduation when all you get is a piece of paper and
>keep on going as a grad student?

>Can I have an extra life point for having a network at home?  My living
>room is a machine room.   -raytrace

>Hey, Life God, do I look like a bitch?  -- tmonroe

Motd comments on the life god
-----------------------------

5/10    My company is looking for good C/C++ developers, a sysadmin comfortable
        with both Windows / Linux (there is a significant vacancy for a senior
        or mid-ranking person here), and business operations person (day-to-
        day superversion).  See /csua/pub/jobs/snt for more info. -jctwu

5/4     28 A B C D DD E F FF G GG H HH J JJ K
        30 A B C D DD E F FF G GG H HH J JJ K
        32 A B C D DD E F FF G GG H HH J JJ K
        34 A B C D DD E F FF G GG H HH J JJ K
        36 A B C D DD E F FF G GG H HH J JJ K
        \_ ?
        \_ 32 DD.  (But I can only dream.)
        \_ 32 DD.  (But I can only dream.)  My wife is 34B.  My ex-gf is 38D.
           \_ DD on a 32?  Only in plastic.
              \_ Well, 32D or even 34D is good enough too.  -- PP
              \_ http://www.32dd.net  Are those women in the pictures really
                 32DD?  Those busts look so small.
        \_ My gf is 32C and I like that. 34C and 36C are fine, too, but
           I don't really care enough to make that some kind of
           determining factor in a mate. I guess I would say that A cups
           do not excite me, but anything else is fine. In fact, larger
           than D is probably not too good either.
           \_ You just haven't met the right A....
              \_ Like I said, it's not a factor I use in choosing a mate.
                 A cups are fine if they are attached to the right girl,
                 but given a choice B is better.
           \_ pictureP
        \_ 34C is perfect.

4/30    Technical question:
        I have a threaded webserver, one thread waits around and calls
        accept, then pulls threads out of a thread pool to handle the
        requests.  I want to be able to shut down the webserver cleanly, so
        I have the main thread wait for a signal to shutdown.  It then
        joins on the accept thread while the accept thread cleans up the
        threadpool.  The only problem is, how do I get the accept thread
        to exit?  I can't get it to stop waiting on accept.  Even closing
        the socket out from under it doesn't always get it to wake up from
        the accept call.  Is there a standard way to handle this?
        Addendum: Oops, Using C on *nix.
        \_ Umm, what language are you using?
           \_ obviously english. :D
        \_ Use select to see if there is something available on the socket
           before you accept.  Create the accept socket with O_NONBLOCK.
           It's all in the man page for accept.
        \_ You generally need to use select(2)/poll(2) on the fd to make
           sure there is something to read before calling accept(2), or
           you will run into this problem. Take a look at Stevens, Unix
           Network Programming Vol. 1 2d Ed., Ch 6 and Ch 27 for fairly
           detailed examples of how to do this.
        \_ Use shutdown(fd, SHUT_RDWR) instead of close.  It will wake up
           the accept.

4/12    Just finished a programming quiz. Do you think critizing the test
        was OK? They wanted someone to write code for something that could
        be done via shell aliases. This was at Riverbed.
        \_ I assume Riverbed is a company and this was an interview?  If so,
           I think this kind of criticism is a great thing to do.  It shows you
           really know your stuff if you can do both.  If they count that
           against you they are idiots and you don't want to work there anyway.
                \_ this was actually after the phone screen. Probably not a
                    good sign. Or maybe the manager's worries too much.
        \_ IMO, the right way to handle something like this is to say, "Oh,
           this would be really easy to do with shell aliases, and I can show
           you how I'd do it that way after I write the code to do it..."
           -dans
        \_ It makes you think twice about their ability to create well
           architected code if they cant come up with a good quiz; especially
           considering what is already out on the net. I have seen too many
           cases these days crafty perlers who write terrible code. Knowing
           what $_ means does not you are good engineer or coder.
           \_ Jesus christ you are an idiot.  A programming quiz is not
              real work.  It is a way of saying "prove to me you can do
              basic tasks in this language."  Making it a simple problem
              means it is something you can actually have someone write
              in half an hour or so.  Most simple tasks are probably easier
              to do with a shell script than with a real program.  So what.
              That's totally orthogonal to the tester's goal.  Oh and I'd
              almost take dans's advice.  Start with answering the problem
              the way they asked and then mention, as an aside, not a
              critisism, something like "you know, if this was something
              I had to solve at work I'd probably just do x instead."
              You don't come across as too good for the test (which looks
              very bad, lots of otherwise good engineers are a disaster
              because they don't work well with others), you show you know
              your mad shell skillz, and you are letting someone know that
              you know to use the right tools for the right job.  I've seen
              people rewrite stuff like find | xargs grep because they
              didn't know diddly about unix.  That kind of stuff is never
              pretty.
              \- sort of the flip side of this, for a sysadmin interview,
                 i've asked questions like "how would you generate a 10
                 random numbers between 1-100 from the shell", "how would
                 you generate the numbers 1-100 from the shell" etc and
                 people who would do it in C are slightly missing the point.
                 people who would do it in C are sort of missing the point.
                 i mean it is fine to say "i dont know how i would do it from
                 the shell, but here is the 5line C program, that took 2min
                 to write", but to say "that's dumb to do from the shell"
                 will not serve you well. yeah, there are a lot of people
                 unfamilar with xargs, mapcar, apply, lambda ...
                 while riverbed may be in an inflationary phase, i suspect
                 they are still small enough that they are being careful
                 about who they hire. the OP had an interesting quandry
                 whether to not to de-anonymize himself on the motd ... if
                 he's an active member of the sloda community he faced either
                 a "oh i dont know about his technical chops, but he seems
                 pleasant enough" to "i havent seen his code, but he seems
                 like a dumbass" ... given that various people here have
                 various riverbed connections.
                 various riverbod connections.

4/5     Pyramids might have been built using an internal spiral ramp:
        http://urltea.com/3uy (independent.co.uk)
        http://urltea.com/3uz (khufu.3ds.com - pictures ~ p 28)
        \_ Or by aliens who to this day still visit area 51.
           \_ The Asgard didn't build the pryamids; the Goa'uld did. -stmg

3/29    http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/archives/000781.html
        Coding Horror, Programming and human factors by Jeff Atwood.
        \_ An interesting link from that page, a test to seperate out people
           who can never learn to program.  With serious scientific paper.
           http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/archives/000635.html
           \_ I love this:
              "To write a computer program you have to ... accept that
               whatever you might want the program to mean, the machine
               will blindly follow its meaningless rules and come to
               some meaningless conclusion."

3/23    In C#, are there pre-defined strings for class names and method names,
        like __FUNCTION__ in C?  Thanks.

3/22    How do I use strftime (or something else) to print the date in
        locale format, except using YYYY instead of YY as year? %x
        gives "11/17/05", I want "11/17/2005". Thanks!
        \_ did you try %Ex or %EX?
           \_ did you?
              \_ no, but I was too lazy to write a test program. I
                 figured op was in a better position to try it and
                 see.
                 \_ It doesn't work on Windows, and no difference
                    on Linux. -op
        \_ Unless you redefine your locale, you don't.

3/19    "Linked List Patented in 2006"
        http://yro.slashdot.org/yro/07/03/19/112247.shtml
        Was this a joke?
        \_ not a joke apparently: http://tinyurl.com/3bnwwv

3/16    I'm trying to watch the Valerie Plame hearing on C-SPAN but all I get
        is "looking for satellite signal".  C-SPAN2 is showing a Competitive
        Enterprise Institute guy debunking global warming and that shows up
        fine.  Can anyone else get the Plame hearing?  wtf.
        \_ http://cspan.org archives everything, and also streams.
           \_ i couldn't get foxnews either, so I guess it's just my fux0red
              sat tv

3/9     When I start trn in a shell, I always get this:
        "*** glibc detected *** malloc(): memory corruption: 0x08091600 ***
        Abort"
        But when I run trn inside the shell buffer in emacs, the problem
        doesn't happen.  Any idea?  Thanks.

3/7     Do people still write source code that confines to 80 columns?  I've
        been doing this for my C code for years.  But ever since I started
        writing C# code recently, I find 80 columns rather limiting.  Thanks.
        \_ I usually restrict myself to 80 cols for things like C, C++,
           Perl, Shell, &c. For Java (which is similar to C#), I can't
           limit myself to 80 cols b/c the stupid language is so verbose.
        \_ Not for years.

3/4     trn crashes on me upon startup:
        "*** glibc detected *** malloc(): memory corruption: 0x08091618 ***
        Abort"
        Any idea?  Thanks.

3/2     If you are using Wordpress 2.1.1, upgrade to 2.1.2 b/c 2.1.1
        downloads were compromised:
        http://wordpress.org/development/2007/03/upgrade-212

2/18    Anyone have Richard Stallman's old .emacs config?
        \- why, you want to borrow some of his abbrev stuff?
           that about the main unique thing that was in there.
           well maybe some gdb stuff. --psb
           \_ the macros were pretty funny.  can you put a copy
              in /tmp?  ok thx.

10/23   I started growing in 3rd/4th grade. By 8th grade I was up to a full B,
         a little too small for a C. By the beginning of 10th grade I was
         wearing F (yes, I have a lot of stretch marks on my boobs as a
         result). By graduation I was a full G.  Christmas break of my
         freshman year of Cal I was H. Summer between my sophomore and
         junior years I was an I.  Now I'm a senior at the church
         and I'm starting to get double boobies again. So I'm pushing a J,
         I guess.  I guess this means I might be heading into the scary
         bra size territories of 34JJ.  Yay, even less choice in bra.
         Which brings me to my question....excluding pregnancy and
         weight gain,  when the hell will these things stop growing?
         I know it's different for everyone probably, but generally when
         does breast size stabilise?  Is this all going to stop soon,
         or am I looking at continuing to grow a cupsize every
         6-9 months until my late 20s, and ending up a 34KKK or something?
         I'm hoping that, since there are quite a lot of men in their 20s
         here, someone will be able to shed some light on this, and what
         I've got in store for me.
        \_ Yawn.  Again?
        \_ Apparently it is god's will that you have an enormous rack.
        \_ Make an appointment to buy a B/C. Nip/Tuck. Stop trolling the motd.

9/30    Got a function that parses data structures. For debugging and stuff.
        How do I find/print the "name" of the data structure?

        parseStuff($array_ref, $hash_ref1, $hashref2);

        sub parseStuff {
         use Data::Dumper;
         foreach my $structure(@_) {
          print "you're looking at a data structure named [?]\n";
          print "and it looks like: " . Dumper($structure) . "\n";
         }
        }

        And then I want it to tell me "array_ref" and spew its contents,
        then "hash__ref1", etc., for an arbitrary number of arbitrarily
        named data structures.
        \_ Without some nasty AST traversal, you really can't.  That's why
           Data::Dumper has the full call, "Dump", that works like this:
           print Data::Dumper->Dump([$array_ref, $hash_ref1, $hashref2],
                                  [qw(array_ref   hash_ref1   hashref2)]);
           --dbushong
           \_ If you just want a quick hack, the C preprocessor works pretty
              well:

                use Filter::cpp;
                use Data::Dumper;
                #define DEBUG(x) print q{x}, ": ", Dumper(x)

                DEBUG($foo);

              If you want something more general, yeah, you're pretty much
              stuck using Filter::Simple and doing your own parsing.  --mconst

9/19    Dear C++ experts, how did you do on these questions?
        http://www.gotw.ca/gotw/069.htm

9/14    http://www.salon.com/tech/feature/2006/09/14/basic
        I never knew C++ was a higher-level language than BASIC
        \_ It's salon.  So what?
           \_ More specifically, it's David Brin, who writes decent hard sci-fi.
              Too bad he apparently didn't get a decent computer education
              either.
           \_ More specifically, it's David Brin, who writes decent hard
              sci-fi.  Too bad he apparently didn't get a decent computer
              education either.  [formatd]
              \_ Still doesn't bother me.  He's a fiction writer, not a
                 scientist.
                 \_ A friend of mine was in a technology-related tv show
                    with David Brin, and reports that he's pretty
                    technically naive / clueless.  I do like his books,
                    though.  - niloc
                 \_ It doesn't bother you that he's saying "the problem with
                    doing X w.r.t educating our children is that <incorrect
                    fact>"?
                    \_ Not at all.  It's a slate article online, not an
                       official publication from anyone who has anything to do
                       with education.  I give it the weight it deserves: zero.
        \_ I once read an article by a tech analyst which said the internet was
           invented in year 1991.
           \_ Wow that guy is a total idiot.  Everyone knows it was the year
              1991 when they invented the 1nt@rw3b!1.
        \_ Quick, someone tell that man about ruby/python/scheme/whathaveyou
           \_ He already discarded Perl as "too high level"  He doesn't seem
              to understand that crappy != "low-level"
              \_ He mentions Python os well, and calls C++ "high-level."

8/30    Dear motd career advancement specialist,
        I need to fill out a self appraisal form for my performance review.
        and I'm curious how other people approach these things. I can rate
        myself on a scale from 'Exceptional' to 'Not Performing' in several
        areas (with some guidelines provided). I'm not sure how honest to be
        and how modest (I don't want to sell myself short but I don't want to
        sound like an asshole). I've gotten good feedback from my boss in
        general and I know he's happy with my overall performance. Any advice
        is appreciated.
        \_ Here's how mine went: I put "meeting requirements" (the middle one)
           for everything but a few where i gave myself excellent, b/c i was,
           and one were i put one tick below avg b/c i was.  My boss took it,
           and one where i put one tick below avg b/c i was.  My boss took it,
           changed all of my answers to excellent, and submitted it.  Apparently
           they put both on file, but his determines the raise I ended up
           getting.  Hurray for boss, boo for stupid pointless system.
           \_ I put the best rating that I am prepared to defend. I agree
              that it is pointless.

3/30    Does anyone know a good, free, C++ code formatter?  We'd like to
        enforce some semi-arbitrary coding guidelines.  (Like, a keyword
        should not be on the same line as a closing brace.)
        \_ astyle comes with Cygwin http://astyle.sourceforge.net
           \_ Cool, this looks like it might help.  Thanks. (Does
              anyone else have suggestions?) -op

8/25    Dear C++ experts. Why would there be two "const" in the following
        method declaration?
        const bool ILikeMotd() const;
        \_ The first const refers to the data type returned.  The second
           const says the function doesn't modify an object's member variables.
           The first const in your example is bad, I believe; it should
           be something like const bool& or const bool*.

8/23    Dear scoped pointer experts. Let's say I turned a regular ptr into
        the following:
        scoped_ptr<MyClass> myObj;
        Now there is a method that is expecting type MyClass* in the argument.
        If I simply pass myObj into that method, it will complain "no
        matching function for call to 'myMethod(scoped_ptr<MyClass>&),
        candidates are: ... myMethod(MyClass*)"
        What's the proper way to pass a scoped pointer? Alternatively I can
        just use the regular ptr and explicitly delete in the destructor,
        but I'm wondering if this can be done. Thanks.
        \_ Uh, can't you do myObj.get() to get the raw pointer?
           http://www.boost.org/libs/smart_ptr/scoped_ptr.htm

8/23    I've been primarily developing Java in Eclipse, but I need to do a
        project with embedded C++, and I'd like a better IDE than Emacs.  MS
        Visual Studio is way too windows-centric.  All I really need is
        something that can do context-assists and autocompletes and flagging of
        illegal syntax.  Suggestions?
        \_ Have you tried this: http://www.eclipse.org/cdt --oj
           \_ That looks pretty good, but another project is having a minor
              crisis so I'll have to investigate later.  Thanks.

7/27    In C/C++, how come some parameters have "mconst" before the type
        and some don't? I don't see how it changes anything. -newbie
        \_ If it's a pointer or reference, then you can't change the contents.
        \_ Nicely summarized here:
           http://www.parashift.com/c++-faq-lite/const-correctness.html
        \_ The answer is 47. -proud American

7/25    Found this on digg today, pretty cool collection of computer and
        programming cheatsheets:
        http://mypage.bluewin.ch/yuppi/links/cheatsheets.html  -John

7/20    Does anyone know a good, thread-safe, C++ streambuf?  We currently
        have a non-thread-safe streambuf doing our logging, which is bad.
        I don't really want to have to write my own streambuf, or change
        all the code to use a whole new library, I'd like to just plug in
        a safe streambuf.  (Although, a whole new library is better than
        writing my own.)

7/13    How do you get milliseconds in C? I want to do something like:
        t1=sec;
        long_operation_that_needs_to_be_benchmarked();
        t2=sec;
        printf("This operation took %f seconds", (t2-t1));
        \_ You could try using clock() and CLOCKS_PER_SEC.
        \_ gettimeofday()
        \_ I think some OS'es have a gethrtime() call.
        \_ http://www.quepublishing.com/articles/article.asp?p=23618&seqNum=8&rl=1
           struct timeval tv;
           // Obtain the time of day, and convert it to a tm struct.
           gettimeofday (&tv, NULL);
           // then access tv.tv_sec (in second) and tv.tv_usec (in
           // ***microsecond***). Yes it's missing millisecond, which
           // is kind of brain-dead.
              \_ cuz there's a great efficient type in C to from 0 to 100.

5/19    I need a simple plug-in 128-bit (or so) C encryption library.
        Semmetric key is easiest, but public key is ok if that's the only
        thing I can get.  Any ideas?
        \_ symmetric
        thing I can get.  Any ideas?
        \_ http://mcrypt.sourceforge.net --dbushong
           \_ Thanks, I'm checking it out.

5/10    I'm trying to port a small project from builsing with MS Visual Studio
        to GCC in MinGW on windows.  Only 1 line is having a compile error.
        Using STL, the line
        if(hashmap->find(key)!=0)
        Has the following error:
        no match for `std::_Rb_tree_iterator<std::pair<const std::string, int>,
                                            std::pair<const std::string, int>&,
                                            std::pair<const std::string,int> >&
        != int' operator
        Does anyone have any ideas?  I'm just trying to compare to see if a
        pointer to an iterator is null and in compiles fine in MSVC.
        \_ For gcc, you have to say: if(hashmap->find(key)!=hashmap->end())
           It's more annoying, but it will work with Visual C++ too.  --mconst
        \_ Unfortunately, gcc doesn't have null iterators; you have to say
           if(hashmap->find(key)!=hashmap->end()).  You could also change it
           to if(hashmap->count(key)).  --mconst
           \_ mconst is my savior. -OP, not author of problematic code.
        \_ Did you try == NULL?
           \_ Yeah, slightly different error message. -OP
        \_ mconst is right, but I'll also note that hashmap is not part
           of the STL.
           \_ my bad, its actually a map named hashtable. -OP, the benighted
              maintainance programmer

4/29    C for Cookie:
        http://tinyurl.com/kmd9z
        --michener
        \_ That's awesome.  Thanks. -jrleek
        \_ Fantastic, thanks.  Any ideas as to where to find a not-PITA-to-
           download version of that?  -John
           \_ Firefox VideoDownloader, don't know how well it works, someone
              just pointed me to it: <DEAD>addons.mozilla.org/firefox/2390<DEAD>
              -dans

4/25    Hola, this isnt actually GHUBBARD is it? It looks like him except
        maybe HUBBARD is older: http://csua.org/u/fmn

4/16    I'm very disappointed with os x:
        I made an application bundle around a python script: it executes fine
        but dropping a file on it doesn't work
        turns out finder passes a ProcessInfo object
        and you get that as argv[1]
        well, you get its UID- and that is the only arg you get
        so far the on;y way i have found to translate the UID into a process
        info, and thus to get the path of the file i dragged, is with cocoa
        i.e. c++ or objective c.
        doesn't seem to be any decent applescript way to do it, or i could just
        shell out to osascript
        i guess this explains why all the droplet hacks use a binary executable
        to call shell, perl, or python scripts
        this man-made creation troubles me

3/30    In C, what's the purpose of using "extern" for function declarations
        in .h files that are included by .c files in other modules?  Thx.
        \_ Functions are default globabl scope in C, so extern is redundant.
           See p 41 Expert C Programming.
        \_ It's unnecessary.  I guess you could use it for emphasis to
           contrast against 'static', though.  See:
           http://c-faq.com/decl/extern.html

3/25    The Ultimate Casio Watch:
        http://www.watchreport.com/2006/03/review_of_the_m.html
        \- i used to have an older incarnation of the Pathfinder [till it
           fell off at Mughal Sarai Junction] and a couple of comments:
           1. it is good they have changed this to a strap rather than a
           bracelet design. bracelet not good for these kinds of watches. i
           nearly lost mine after a b'let failure on a catemaranin 9ft
           seas, which is not where you want to try and fix something with
           <1mm springs. 2. i find the themometer of limited use, since
           while on your wrist you are really measuing the "temperature
           near you wrist". 3. if you really need a compass, you need to
           take a real orienteering compass ... these watch compasses are
           sort of just opportunistic things. 4. some of the featuers like
           altitude alarm, altitude recording, multiple alarms i dont find
           that useful [you cant upload the telementry data to a computer
           can you ... GPS mre useful in this area] and these things tend
           to make accessing the frequently used function slower and more
           complicated (like say converting between ft <-> m ... which was
           my main complaint with my old watch 5. often you can get an
           older model for vastly cheaper by just sacrificing some function
           you may not really need [you can get some older p'finder models
           for around $85 vs $300+ for this one, which is significant if
           you think of this as a piece of gear rather than your
           watch]. thanks for posting the link. i am happy to give advice
           on outdoor gear except for aid climbing and snow and ice. --psb
        \- i used to have an older incarnation of the Pathfinder
           [till it fell off at Mughal Sarai Junction] and a couple of
           comments: 1. it is good they have changed this to a strap
           and not a bracelet design. bracelet not good for these kinds
           of watches ... nearly lost mine after a b'let failure on a
           catemaran ... which is not where you want to try and fix
           something with <1mm springs. 2. i find the themometer of
           limited use, since while on your wrist you are really measuing
           the "temperature near you wrist". 3. if you really need a
           compass, you need to take a real orienteering compass ... these
           watch compasses are sort of just opportunistic things. 4. some
           of the featuers like altitude alarm, altitude recording, multiple
           alarms i dont find that useful [you cant upload the telementry
           data to a computer can you ... GPS mre useful in this area] and
           these things tend to make accessing the frequently used function
           slower and more complicated (like say converting between ft <-> m
           ... which was my main complaint with my old watch 5. often you can
           get an older model for vastly cheaper by just sacrificing some
           function you may not really need [you can get some older
           p'finder models for around $85 vs $300+ for this one, which
           is significant if you think of this as a piece of gear
           rather than your watch]. thanks for posting the link. i am
           happy to give advice on outdoor gear except for aid climbing
           and snow and ice.
           \_ I wanted to get this watch b/c it was the first casio I've
              seen that has world atomic timekeeping, is solar powered,
              water resistant  and it has that "indiglo"-like lighting.
              The compass was an added bonus, but I usually carry my eTrex
              GPS so its not an essential for me.

3/13    Star Trek fans.  Rank the series:
        STNG > Voyager > Original >> Enterprise > DS9
        \_ Hell no. Enterprise was definitely not better than DS9
        \_ DS9 > STNG > TOS > TAS > Enterprise > Voyager
           \_ I can agree with this.
           \_ What is TAS?
              \_ The ASS^WAnimated Series
                 \_ never heard of it.  thanks for the new trivia information.
        \_ TNG > DS9 > E = V  (didn't watch O)
        \_ B5 > Original > STNG > DS9 > Voyager.  Enterprise should never
        \_ Original > STNG > DS9 > Voyager.  Enterprise should never
           even have been made.  I never saw the cartoon.
           even have been made.  I never saw the cartoon. [I said B5.  I meant
           B5.  Don't edit my posts.  Add your own comments if you have
           something to say.]
        \_ not that many ST fans here.
        \_ TOS > TNG s3-7 > DS9 > TNG s1,2 = TAS > Voy
           That TOS is the GREATEST ST EV4R is self evident. No other ST
           show has eps. that come close to 'City on the Edge of Forever',
           'Amok Time', 'The Corbomite Maneuver' [ far better than the
           leem "Picard Maneuver" ], Trouble w/ Tribbles, Devil in the
           \- you must pay me 5cents.
           Dark [ "I'm a doctor not a bricklayer" ], &c.
           TNG also rates lower on than TOS b/c the Enterprise D was such
           a pos ("The Romulans are scowling Captain, sheilds down to 20%").
           It wasn't until the Enterprise E that Picard had a useable ship
           (though the Defiant/San Paolo was still better).
           TNG s3-7 are listed separately b/c TNG s1,2 are weak and s2
           included one of the worst characters in all of ST, Dr. Pulaski.
           She was worse than the retarded genetically enhanced Dr. Bashir
           on DS9.
           Enterprise is not listed b/c it is not Star Trek. It is a piece
           of festering maggot infested rancid week old meet that not even
           vultures will eat.
           A better question is rank the movies:
           TWOK > TVH > FC > TUC > TSFS > TMP > TFF > N > G > I
           Re B5 - What a total piece of crap. JMS sux. If he hadn't killed
                   of Good Kosh and Marcus, then I would say B5 > DS9, but
                   NO JMS had to kill off the two best characters. Not even
                   Garibaldi going rouge, Bad Kosh and the addition of Chekov
                   can redeem JMS. Nothing can.
           -stmg
           \_ STMG, isn't it true that TNG 1&2 were terrible because Rodenberry
              kept trying to recycle old ideas from TOS? Also, isn't it true
              that production values on TOS were so ridiculous that only the
              advent of Blake's 7 showed that you could could throw even less
              money and talent at a SF show and still inspire ludicrous levels
              of fan loyalty?
              \_ TNG s1,2 were awful b/c Rodenberry kept trying to recycle
                 TOS plot ideas that they didn't let him film during TOS b/c
                 everyone knew they sucked  (and then Majel Barrett aka
                 Nurse Chappel aka Loxanna Trio tried to double recycle them
                 for bad Andromeda/Earth Final Conflict plots).
                 I also don't like s1,2 b/c they have the bad uniforms and
                 Riker doesn't have a proper beard.
                 I don't know too much about B7. I try not to associate w/
                 B7 and Dr. Who fans. They are really weird, and totally
                 unlike normal people who watch Star Trek. -stmg
                 \_ Hey!  The correct term for a fan of the longest running
                    sci fi show in history is "Whovian".
                 \_ excellent posts STMG.  I agree Dr. Pulaski is an awful
                    character, and STNG seasons 1&2 were subpar.  I was wishing
                    the old ST came back.  But things got better after
                    season 2.
                    Why don't people like Voyager as much?  I thought it
                    was a good series worthy of the Star Trek name.
                    \_ Voyager had too many tired rehashed plots, and the
                       characters were not strong and didn't seem to have
                       chemistry, and the Vogager ship wasn't interesting.
                       I think the whole thing was sort of been there, done
                       done that. Maybe it would have worked better by being a
                       bit darker and edgier, more towards what Battlestar
                       Galactica is now.
                    \_ Although eps. where 7 walks around w/ in a skin tight
                       suit w/ high heels and a concussion phaser rifle set
                       to kill are entertaining, one gets to the point where
                       one begins to wonder if Jadzia would look better in
                       that outfit. And then one starts to miss Jadzia and
                       then it all goes down hill.
                       BTW have you ever wondered why the Voyager looks like
                       the result of a drunken one night stand between the
                       Enterprise D and the SeaQuest? Maybe Scotty spiked
                       the the Romulan Ale at the Utopia Planitia christmas
                       party some year.
                       BUT I must say that Voyager has ONE redeeming quality:
                       at least it was not Enterprise.
           \_ STMG, you made me laugh. I think that was brilliant. -- jsjacob
           \_ there was a history channel documentary about
                "How William Shatner Changed the World" or something
                like that.

2/22    Does anyone know the name of this piece of orchestral music?  It starts
        with something like this:
        Key: C-maj, 3/4 (probably)
                C--- --BC DCBA | C-CA C--- BAED | G----
        I heard it while watching the Olympics mixed ice dancing on Sunday
        around 2-3pm.  The team was wearing purple and they got a perfect 6.0.
        Thanks.
        \_ From your transcription, it could be Ravel's Bolero, but that's not
           in 3/4. --scotsman
           \_ Actually, it is in 3, like most bolero's.
              \_ Sorry, I'm smoking the crack.  Too much Puccini on the brain.
                 You're right. --scotsman
              \- ravel's bolero is a good guess. it is in 3/4 and C-maj.
                 you could pick out the key but had never heard Bolero?
                 that's funky. do any of you know the ADRIAN HO/Bolero
                 episode in 238 Evans Hall [old CSUA office]?
        \- i do not watch the olympics but if in 3/4 time may be one of
           the "standard" competition watlzes for ice skating.
           some of them appear to be here:
   http://skatersworld.org/DeskTopDefault.aspx?MediaTitle=blues.mp3&tabid=256
           i dont remember well enough to "name that tune" by "sight reading"
           the motd. oh it looks like the REVENSBURGER is the STANDARD at
           TORINO. i think that is really crappy piece. my competitive
           ice skating associate has ceased associating with me otherwise
           i could ask i suppose. ok tnx.

2/21    Silly poll: What is your favorite design pattern?  Gang-of-Four or not.
        \_ Template method: .
        \_ Houndstooth: .
           \_ Is that structural or creational?
        \_ POLKA DOT: .
        \_ I've never seen a really good reason to use design patterns other
           than the fact that some of their concepts are built into the
           language (i.e. Java Swing, etc.). I suppose it makes sense on
           a language level (better designed, more OO languages, etc.), but
           I've never seen a very well designed piece of code using
           the concepts as described by the GOF. In fact, I've seen over
           designed projects, especially when someone decides to drag in
           Rational Rose and they go UML crazy. I suppose it works on
           Really Large Projects (TM), but it certainly holds no place
           in mid or low level projects, at least not in my experience.
           I think there's a major disconnect with academia's concept of
           software engineering and what really goes on in the nitty gritty
           real world (big surprise). The whole concept keeps on
           reminding me of the chapter "no magic bullet" from The
           Mythical Man Month.

1/21    I'm trying to use Apache SSIs to do something like:
        <!--#ifndef expr="$title" -->
          <!--#set var="title" val="Default Title" -->
        <!--#endif -->
        But there's no #ifdef or #ifndef and #if doesn't like to parse
        undefined variables.  Is there any way to do this sort of thing?
        \_ Well, you could try <!--#if var="title" val="" -->.  But it
           sounds like you're getting into PHP territory.  -tom

12/21   I have a complex chuck of C code, and somewhere it in, I'm freeing
        a bad pointer.  However, this doesn't happen if I run it under
        gdb.  Does anyone know how I can figure out where it's crashing?
        \_ Valgrind is usually pretty good at finding this stuff.  It's slow,
           though.  If the program runs under FreeBSD, you can try running it
           with MALLOC_OPTIONS=AJX.
        \_ Is it running in gdb that causes the crash or is it running
           a debug build that causes the crash?  Debug builds null all
           memory at allocation, I believe there is a way you can tell
           gcc to set all the memory to some other value than null instead.
           If all memory is nulled then freeing that null value will do
           nothing, but in the non debug mode you will free a random int
           and boom, your code will crash.
           \_ No, running in gdb DOESN'T crash.  Running it normally does.
              \_ It's obviously freeing an uninitialized pointer.  In a
                 a debug build all allocated memory is nulled so you are
                 going to free null, which is valid and doesn't cause a
                 crash.  There is a way to make debug builds (or maybe gdb)
                 not null out memory.  It has been a while since I debugged
                 c, but I know for a fact that is your issue.
              \_ try attaching to the pid after it starts?
        \_ gdb the core dump
           \_ I don't seem to have a core dump.  It just seg faults. (on
              linux)  Is there a way to force a core dump when it frees a
              bad pointer?  (Sometimes it gives an error: free(): invalid
              pointer 0x9091420!)
              \_ Don't segfaults dump core?  Do you have ulimit set to 0?
                 \_ ulimit in unlimited.  Apprently they don't always
                    dump.
                    \_ Is it setuid?  -tom
                       \_ no.
        \_ Above suggestion, and this sort of failure-to-reproduce could mean
           the bug is in something time-dependant, either using a clock, net IO
           or bad synchronization between threads.  Heisenbugs suck.
           \_ I think it's because I have lots of if(x) {free(x);} stuff.
              I could see this happening if I didn't initialize all my
              pointers to NULL.  (I understand gdb helpfully
              automatically initilizes pointers to NULL for you.) However,
              I can't find any uninitialized variables.
              \_ if (x) { free(x); } is pointless if you're using the standard
                 C library.  free(NULL) is a no-op.  Also, if it's a Heisenbug,
                 check that you're not overflowing stack frames.  If you're
                 worried about uninitialized variables, make sure you compile
                 with all compiler warnings on.
                 \_ Good point.
        \_ How about doing some good old-fashioned trace logging to pinpoint
           the crash?  Unless trace logging prevents the crash from happening
           as well!

11/28   Any recommendations for a provider of unmanaged dedicated servers.
        My current provider is 2 hours into a network outage today. and they
        don't have an ETA yet.
        \_ Check http://www.webhostingtalk.com and see the offer section.  Then
           do a search to see if any of the company you are interested
           in has any bad review.

11/28   Recommendation for a good business card printing site.  There are
        a zillion of them that pop up when I search for "business card".
        One that offers a lot of templates would be nice.  Thanks.
        \_ There are general purpose printers and places that specialize
           in the profession that you're in. What profession are you in?
        \_ I was happy with just going in to Kinkos with a pdf of my card and
           having them print them up.  I realize that doesn't exactly answer
           your question, but I found this to be a low hassle method of getting
           cards.  I used Illustrator to make the card.
           \_ actually this is good feedback also.  I didn't consider
              this option.  Thanks.
        \_ Vistaprint
        \_ Speedway printing.

11/22   Emacs users: Do your fingers get tired of pressing the Ctrl key
        so much?
        \_ No.     -mice
        \_ I use Kinesis keyboards where they map CTRL to thumb
           operation and I've been really happy since then.
        \_ http://csua.com/?entry=21074
           http://csua.com/?entry=28755
           http://csua.com/?entry=38806
        \_ No.  I don't use the cntl keys for everything -- I try to spread
           basic navigation between both hands, and leave special functions
           to my left.  So far, this has worked very well for me.    -mice
        \_ No.  Actually I've been using only the left Ctrl and Shift keys
           (instead of both left and right ones) for emacs and everything else,
           so as to train my left pinkie which is the weakest.  It works.
           -- piano player
           \- if you are C-f/b/n/p too much, you are probably not doing
              something correctly/optimally.
              \_ My keystrokes are far, far from optimal.  But then I press
                 a lot of C-a C-e C-a C-e ...... out of no reason but boredom
                 anyway, so being optimal is not my concern.  BTW I bind C-q /
                 C-z to scroll down / up one line, and I use them a lot.  Also,
                 I don't swap Caps and Ctrl on my PC keyboard.  -- piano player
                 \- if you dont use incremetnal search to move, you may want to
                    consider that.
           \_ what piano piece(s) are you working on?
              \_ I like Chopin's short pieces like Nocturnes and Etudes.  I'm
                 not good enough to play any of his long pieces.  With a kid in
                 in the family, I rarely practise now.  But on the rare
                 occasion that I play, I find that over the years my left
                 pinkie have gained strength.  Now I don't need any wrist
                 action when playing the low notes.  I think it's nice to write
                 code and get paid at my job while training my fingers at the
                 same time.  BTW, if anyone still remembers the Sun4's in 260
                 Evans and the TVI920c's in Evans basement, those keyboards
                 were even better for training fingers even though they drove
                 me crazy when a project deadline was coming up.
                 were even better for training fingers too even though they
                 drove me crazy when a project deadline was coming up.
                 -- piano player
                 \_ oh my god yes.  I recall how stiff those keys were to
                    press!
        \_ No, I play FPS games and bind walk and crouch to shift and ctrl.
           I can press them all day with my pinky. But I was amused to notice
           that after recently not playing for 6 weeks or so, the next time
           I tried both my hands got really tired.
           \_ Nostromo is calling you! http://csua.org/u/e23 (Belkin)
              \_ lame, it's not even a mouse
        \_ Yes. very. Emacs and screen both kill my pinky finger. switching
           the caps and ctrl key helps, but doesn't make it go away.
           Ultimately, using *nix less helps the most.
        \_ Yes, so I switched to VIM. -emarkp
        \_ As a vi user, no, but doing HTML kills them (all of the <>s and
           ""s)
           \_ ouch.  html is for html-editors
        \_ No, and don't be such a baby.  -meyers

11/1    In emacs, I'm editing a C++ header file in C++-mode.  However,
        when I tab, it only goes 2 spaces instead of 4.  Tabbing in a source
        file does work, but not a header file.  TIA.
        \_ I think the 2 spaces are for "public:/private:" lines; then another
           tab and you can get to the 4 spaces for member vars, decls, etc.

10/11   For future job security - Java or C++?
        Java:
        C++ : .
        \_ English : .
           \_ For Great Justice!
        \_ Chinese : ..
        \_ I would say either all the way to the J2EE field, or get back
           to plain old C.  From my perspective, next 5 year's action is going
           to be in the embedded space.  C is more important than Java in that
           space.
           \_ As an embedded guy who knows neither C++ nor Java, I'm glad to
              hear that!  -- !OP
              \_ COTS or in-house?
        \_ I am going to guess more Java jobs, but also more Java
           programmers. You will not lose with C++ in the near future. You
           can do so many more things with it and there are fewer great
           C++ programmers. If you know C++ then 'plain old C' comes
           easily as well, especially if you only knew Java before.
           C++ programmers. If you know C++ then 'plain old C' comes easily
           as well, especially compared to people who know only Java.
           \_ "seee plus plus is yeezee!" - indian programmer
           \_ "see plus plus is yeezee!" - indian programmer

10/7    I declared a function that takes (char const* const*), which
        protects array[x] and array[x][y] from being re-assigned (but
        still allows array to be assigned to a different entity), why
        do I need to cast a regular (char **) to it?  Just like I
        don't need to cast a (char *) to a (const char *).  Is this a
        known bug because no one uses (char const* const*) or (const
        char * const *)?
        \_ Your compiler is broken.  This conversion is safe; gcc and Visual
           C++ both allow it without a cast.  (You need both consts, though.
           Converting char ** to const char ** is not safe.)  --mconst

10/3    Windows Explorer question: Is it possible to modify the context menu
        (right click) to add a custom action?  I have templates of spreadsheets
        I want to copy quickly to certain folders.  I envision using the
        context menu in this manner: Right-click -> Create Template Here ->
        [template1], [template2], [templateN].  It should have one of those
        right arrows that will expand into another menu from which I can choose
        templates 1 thru N.  I tried Googling and there's a lot of information
        on customizing Windows, but I haven't hit on the right search terms for
        what I'm trying to do as described above.  If anyone knows how, or has
        the right search terms, please let me know.
        \_ Try "explorer extension"
           \_ Thanks for this tip.  The closest Google match seems like this
              one from MS: http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/default.asp?url=/library/en-us/shellcc/platform/shell/programmersguide/shell_int/shell_int_extending/extensionhandlers/shell_ext.asp  This article is called "Creating Shell
              Extension Handlers".  I'm not a developer by any means, and this
              article provides code samples, so I'm afraid I'm over my head
              here.  If someone has the time, can you take a glance and let
              me know if this is even going down the right path?  If it is,
              I'll try to do some learning, but I'd rather take a path of less
              resistance and use an app to create these "expanding context
              menus", if such an app exists.  --op
              \_ You'll probably have a hard time doing this if you aren't a
                 developer.  The best you might hope for is to add your
                 templates to the ShellNew folder.  But anyway, try:
                 http://csua.org/u/dlq
                 \_ Another nice tip.  The "Extending the New Menu" section
                    could be a stop-gap.  I would be able to right-click ->
                    New -> template1 ... N; the drawback is that I could have
                    a very long menu.  If I could define some arbitrary command
                    with expanding menus, it would be much more flexible.  I
                    know the command in my original post is "Create Template
                    Here" but I might as well generalize it.  Was the "Creating
                    Shell Extension Handlers" article going down the right
                    path though?  --op
                    \_ No, my link is better.
              \_ You're not going to be able to do this if you aren't a
                 developer.  The best you can hope for is to add your
                 templates to the ShellNew folder.
        \_ There must be a way, because after I install ClearCase on my XP,
           I see some new items when I right-click on file in ClearCase VOBS.
           I don't know how, though.
        \_ An open-source example is TortoiseSVN which I use for subversion.
           Check http://TortoiseSVN.tigris.org
           \_ I looked through this briefly, but I don't even know which part
              of the src to begin with to figure out how they did all that
              integration.  --op

9/30    What's the name of the rand() function that returns a float
        between 0 and 1? Or alternatively, how do I use the normal
        rand() to return a number between 1 and n? I could % n, but
        it's not really uniform if n is large... Thanks.
        \_ Language?
           \_ C.
              \_ I strongly suggest looking up public code for the "Marseinne
                 Twister" if you're on a 32-bit platform.  Do *not* use "%" if
                 you want uniform.  Find the largest value k such that k*n <
                 MAX_RAND (or 2^31-1 for the twister).  Any value larger than
                 that should be discarded.  Then use %.  That gives you uniform
                 distribution.
                 \_ Thanks!
              \_ 30 seconds with the appropriate manpages turns up drand48. I
                 don't know how random its output is. -gm
                 \_ Which isn't in standard C or C++, but is commonly available
                    on Linux.
        \_ Are you on a platform w/ /dev/random or /dev/urandom? If so
           you could use that and normalize to btwn 0-1.
        \_ Also avoid % because most rand() implementations aren't very
           random for the low-order bits.
           random for the low-orbit bits.

9/21    http://tinyurl.com/7swro
        It's the dawn of the age of uninhibited file sharing! LionShare is
        creates a neat, private sheltered place where people could shop
        music and movies to their heart's content without entertainment
        companies ever knowing.

9/15    Emacs question.. I use meta-Q to reflow a paragraph. How can
        I set the right-side end-of row width for the text?
        \_ M-x set-variable <RET> fill-column
        \- C-x f runs the command set-fill-column  --mr. emacs
           \_ "set-fill-column requires an explicit argument"
              \- as RMS said to me about 15 yrs ago "universal argument"
              \_ C-h k C-x f
        \_ M-x set-variable <RET> default-fill-column to set it for all
           buffers.  Then you can override it in individual buffers by setting
           fill-column.
                \- i rarely want to set it for all buffers [or would
                   use a hook or .emacs setting]. also often you want to
                   set it to the current cursor column. anyway, ymmv.

8/17    Bell Labs kills Dept. 1127:
        http://www.unixreview.com/documents/s=9846/ur0508l/ur0508l.html
        \_ A massacre!  Oh, _Department_ 1127.
        \_ All high calibar people: Thompson, Kernighan, Ritchie, ...
        \_ All high caliber people: Thompson, Kernighan, Ritchie killed.
        \_ All high caliber people: Thompson, Kernighan, Ritchie, ...

8/3     dear motd LGPL expert:
        I'm using an open source LGPL library at work. I need to make some
        minor changes to the source code of the library to get something
        working, and am not sure exactly what I need to do to legally use
        the modified library in a commercial application. My vague
        understanding says that I need to make the source code changes
        "available" (even though the change I made is really simple),
        but what does this mean? (what exactly do I do to make them available?)
        \_ Why don't you just submit your bug fix/enhancement to the
           project team?
        \_ You are going to distribute the modified library with your
           commercial product, yes?  You can:
           a. Distribute the source code to the library too.
           b. Wait for someone to ask you for the source code to the
              modified library.
           c. Submit your changes back to the library maintainers, and then
              it's not an issue.
        \_ I've been in this spot before and we shipped the src to the
           library along with the patch containing our changes. We also
           send the changes to the maintainers, but it took some time
           for the changes to be incorporated and for us to pick up the
           new version so shipping the src and the patch covered us until
           that time.

8/2     XP question.  The C function CreateThread() returns both a thread ID
        and a thread handle.  What's the difference between them?  Thx.
        \_ A thread handle lets you do stuff with the thread, like kill it
           (TerminateThread) or get its exit code (GetExitCodeThread).  A
           thread id is just a number, and all you can do with it is call
           OpenThread to get a thread handle.  Thread ids and thread handles
           are exactly analogous to filenames and file handles -- CreateThread
           is like a function that creates a new file, and returns both an
           open file handle and the name of the file.  Usually all you care
           about is the handle.  --mconst
           \_ Very helpful!  Thanks!

8/1     What's a reliable website that tells me approximately where an
        ip address is from?
        \_ whois -a will give you the ARIN registry entry.
        \_ use <DEAD>dnsstuff.com<DEAD> - danh
        \_ use http://lin.kz/?u4f1e - danh
        \_ use <DEAD>dnsstuff.com<DEAD> - danh

7/15    Is it possible through JNI to write a function which takes a float[]
        array and through the magic of c casts it to an int array and then
        returns the int array to Java, not modifying the actual data?
        If not, is there a good Java way to do the C equivalent of:
        int* i = (int*) f; ?
        Don't ask whether I really need to be doing this because there is a
        good (performance) reason.
        \_ You can modify your implementation of VMFloat, or create a new
           class similar to it, to provide an additional method that works
           on arrays of ints and floats, rather than just on individual 32
           bit values.  This will entail creating a new shared library, etc.
           This is probably the cleanest and most efficient way, but obviously
           will not be portable.  I am assuming you know how to write the
           C necessary to convert the array type while leaving the bit
           representation unchanged. -- ilyas
           will not be portable.  -- ilyas
           \_ Do you know of any in-Java way to convert float[] to int[]
              without using JNI or touching the underlying data? -op
              \_ If you thought about it, you should be shocked if there were.
              \_ I do not know of such a way.  I think when you are starting to
                 care about performance to the extent where you don't want to
                 just call floatToIntBits on each element of the array, you
                 should either forget platform independence, or use a better
                 language.  By the way, the previous poster is wrong, there
                 is no reason Java shouldn't provide this functionality in
                 VMFloat (it provides a function for individual 32 bit values).
                 It just doesn't because it sucks. -- ilyas
              \_ Sure:
         for(int i = 0; i < float_array.length; i++){
                int_array[i] = java.lang.Float.floatToIntBits(float_array[i]);
         }
                If you want to avoid the overhead of a loop, or aren't
                willing to write your own shared library + class wrapper to
                do what this loop does in one swipe, or aren't willing to
                abandon Java, then you lose. -- ilyas
                \_ I'm already doing the above, but want to avoid an additional
                   O(n) step, and am too lazy to write another JNI wrapper.
                   I guess I do lose.  I also saw ByteBuffer has methods for
                   providing IntBuffer and FloatBuffer views, but I can't find
                   a low overhead way to go FloatBuffer->ByteBuffer or
                   IntBuffer->ByteBuffer.
                   \_ For reference, consider how a well-implemented strongly
                      typed language (ocaml) handles this:
                      let float_array = [| 1.0; 2.0; 3.0 |] in
                      let int_array : Int32.t = Obj.magic float_array in
                      ...
                      Obj.magic is an unconditional type cast without promotion.
                        -- ilyas

7/7     I never took AI but I'd like to learn something about Bayesian
        belief, inference, etc. Something like a 10 page intro PDF or
        a URL would be useful. Recommendation?
        \_ http://www.cs.ubc.ca/~murphyk/Bayes/bayes.html
           Kevin is a former Cal grad student, btw.  Very smart guy. -- ilyas
                 \- how do you know kevin?
                    http://home.lbl.gov:8080/~psb/ASSOCIATES/Mike+Kevin81.jpg
                    He actually fits into this story:
                      *Boredcast Message from 'psb': Mon Aug  4 15:22:19 2003
                      ||let's see: A is hosting B for a few days ... B
                      ||who used to date C who is marrying D who was
                      ||interested in A and was told by B to go out with
                      ||A. D was the roomate of the office mate of E who
                      ||used to date X and later dated F who got
                      ||together with B.
                      ||A = psb
                      ||X = rob pike
                    I note in passing B also works on graphical models and
                    was formerly trafficking with various UCLA and Harvard
                    and Berkeley Bayesians.
                    \_ I worked on Kevin's toolbox a long long time ago.
                       We took some classes together also.  Kevin interviewed
                       at UCLA for a faculty position, but didn't take it.
                         -- ilyas
           \_ spasibo ilya! That is exactly what I was looking for. You are
              a very cool guy. Why do people make fun of you?
              \_ Probably because I am considered the motd retard. -- ilyas

7/5     You know what would be cool?  Google maps + fast updating
        traffic condition data in the bay area + xplanet =
        neat background for my monitor.
        \_ Yahoo! maps has traffic conditions overlay.
        \_ Google earth should have licensed firework displays marked. -- ilyas
        \_ How about an overlay of parking rules and street-sweeping schedules?
           \_ How about an overlay of where dem hos at?
           \_ Plus meter-maid schedules.
           \_ And known speed traps!  -John
              \_ So how hard would it be for you pros who can really do this
                 stuff to jerryrig a Wiki version of Earth or Maps?
                 -- ulysses (I do storm drains, not C)
                 \_ You write software that manages storm drain projects?
                    \_ I haven't written a significant amount of new code of
                       any kind since finishing my master's program. It's an
                       interesting idea, though. The available storm drain
                       software kind of sucks. -- ulysses

6/22    Technical question:  My friend is trying to program a
        single-threaded signal based server.  He's using the icc compiler
        on 64-bit linux.  However, the following problem comes up.  The
        server is working and calls malloc.  Malloc grabs the allocation
        mutex (thread-safe!), then a signal comes in.  The signal
        interrupts malloc and calls the handler function.  The handler
        function calls malloc, deadlock.  Any idea what can be done where
        to avoid deadlock?
        \_ what, besides the obvious 'dont use malloc in the interrupt' ?
           \_ Yeah, besides that.  Since I'm not writing the code, I'm not
              sure, but I guess that option is undesireable.
        \_ I reccomend the 'don't call malloc in the handler' but here's an
           alternate hack:  Replace both calls to malloc with calls to a new
           myMalloc().  myMalloc keeps a fixed-size buffer and its own mutex to
           controll calling malloc itself.  When myMalloc is called and the
           mutex is not free, it returns a pointer to somewhere in the fixed
           buffer and reduces the bytes free in the preallocated buffer.  When
           myMalloc is called and the mutex is free, it calls malloc normally,
           then checks if the preallocated buffer is 'too small' and if so
           performs a realloc on it.
           Two problems with this are:  You need an upper bound to how much
           memory the handler(s) will need to malloc, and if they want to
           free the memory too then myMalloc really needs to keep enough
           preallocated buffers equal to the maximum number of myMalloc calls
           you will see between times the mutex is freed.
        \_ What about something simple like writing a function that sets all
           signals to SIG_IGN, then calls malloc, then sets all the signals
           back to SIG_DFL?
           back to your signal handler?

6/19    Programming Jobs Losing Luster in U.S.
        http://tinyurl.com/737b8 (nytimes.com)
        \_ Oh darn.  You mean those opportunistic little shits who clogged up
           all of my project groups in CS classes aren't around anymore?  Cry
           me a fucking river.
        \_ is there a CSUA password?
           \_ No, some dumbass disabled it.  Just use http://bugmenot.com.
                \_ Just checked out http://bugmenot.com. what a great site!
                   \_ If you are using firefox there is a nice bugmenot
                      plugin:
                      http://roachfiend.com/archives/2005/02/07/bugmenot
        \_ err... if you think of it, programming jobs *ARE* manufacturing
           jobs... manufacturing of software, that is.
           \_ Some computer jobs could be classified as manufacturing
              (ex. build/release engineering) but stuff like actual
              design of new software products and development is more
              like classical engineering work than manufacturing jobs.
              \_ just like design of new consumer electronics and other
                 traditional products are done in USA, and manufacturing
                 is done somewhere else.
        \_ If asian countries can do better at software and engineering,
           they can also do better at other things.  What will the US
           be left with?  More than half the new jobs created are related
           to real estate.  Besides that, what else?  Scientists, lots
           of accountants, MBAs?  Service jobs are being outsourced too,
           and pay tend to be low, and those won't help in balancing the
           trade deficit.  The top people will be making more and more,
           while the others will become poorer and poorer.  "Learn foreign
           language and become cross-cultural managers"?  huh?  Once
           language and become cross-cultural managers"?  snicker.  Once
           everything moves to asia, they don't need no stupid cross-
           cultural managers from the US.  I find it a little funny that
           some people seem to think that we can just let asians do
           the software and engineering work, and we can just be their
           managers.
           \_ What's gonna happen? Possibly, the US will continue hemorrhaging
              those jobs until the wage differrentials between US and East Asia
              are not so wide as they are now. Another possibility is to come
              up with new types of products and jobs to replace them.
           \_ America has thrived because it's able to invent new things
              that have never been done. Look at all the cool things that
              came from America: aeronautics, automobile, consumer
              electronics, DRAM, LCD, GPS, etc. At first America has
              the lead on these things, but in a matter of 5-10 years,
              foreigners find ways to perfect techniques and out produce
              better automobiles, TVs, stereos, LCDs, DRAM, and other
              common things.  Go to Fry's or Best Buy... how many products
              are really made in the US? My point is America has never
              really been good at perfecting existing products. They invent
              something new, and move on to something else. The way I see
              software and hardware development is that it's maturing, and
              a lot of complexities are broken down in such a way that SW
              dev is more and more like designing automobile and consumer
              electronics. Despite what we know about OO, scalability,
              reliability, usability, QA, verification, and other things
              that complacent Americans think they're the only people who
              excel at, it's just a matter of time before Indians and
              Chinese really understand computer science, and catch up.
              \_ The assumption is that America can out invent the
                 Chinese and Indians.  The thing is, the Chinese
                 and Indians ain't bad historically at inventions
                 (compared with say the Japanese), but just haven't had
                 the opportunity (wars, poverty, easier to just copy
                 instead of invent when you are behind) to lead and
                 invent.  Once they have lots of engineers doing leading
                 edge work, they will become very competitive with
                 inventing new things.  The other thing is that with
                 internet and globalization and how fast information
                 travels, the benefit you get by being the inventor has
                 been reduced.
                 \- Some years ago on the cover of the IEEE Spectrum there
                    was a pictures of the Pentium design team. That should
                    tell you something about the Chinese and Indians as
                    ethnicities vs. nations. See also winners of programming
                    olympiad type stuff.
                    \_ I am thinking more in terms of culture / nation
                       and not race / ethnicity.
                 \_ The advantage America has is one of numbers. We have
                    so few people and so much resources that large numbers
                    of creative minds can simply sit around and tinker w/
                    things until they make something new.
                    It is not so in Asia (my experience is w/ India, but
                    China is the same from what I'm told). In Asia there
                    are a million people competing for every single dead
                    end job that is out there. If you just want to live
                    you have to stay w/in the system. This societal setup
                    does not allow for the freedom to invent new things
                    b/c if you sit around wasting time tinkering your
                    kids end up starving to death.
                    \- The US universites benefitted from the Oxbridge
                       braindrain. They got some big names who were paid
                       ass there and were picked up here. On the other hand
                       some junior faculty and grad student types I have
                       known seem to feel kind of threatened by russians
                       and chinese people who are way better at math than
                       they are ... these people are not mathematicians but
                       in related disciplines like stat, finance, econ etc.
                       People losing out to competition are not happy.
                       But the structural metaphor isnt outsourcing but a
                       raising of the bar in a field like applied stat.
        \_ "the West won the world not by the superiority of its ideas or
            values or religion but rather by its superiority in applying
            organized violence. Westerners often forget this fact,
            non-Westerners never do."
            \_ Where's this from?
           cultural managers from the US.
            \_ Bet they said this about the huns or the Ottomans as well.
               \_ Or the Mongols.

6/13    Sometimes I accidentally type Ctrl-X in vim and am consigned to some
        sort of vim purgatory where the program no longer responds to input,
        not even the ctrl commands that it "helpfully" lists at the bottom
        of the screen for "Ctrl-X mode."  Can anyone tell me how to escape from
        this?  And no, "use emacs" is not a helpful response.
        \_ Let me guess: you enter this mode by typing C-x C-s to save. The
           problem is the C-s, not the C-x; C-s suspends terminal output. Hit
           C-q to resume it. You can just hit escape (or, I think, any other
           key) to get out of Ctrl-X mode. -gm
           \_ Thanks, you rule.

6/10    I'm trying to write my own Java properties file reader so that I
        can get something similar to C's #include macro, but I'm having
        problems getting the properties back from System.getProperty().
        For example, I'll call System.getProperty("foo") and get null
        back, but printing out all properties (via
        System.getProperties().list(System.out) ) clearly shows "foo=bar"
        in the output.  I've tried loading the file using different
        charset names (ascii, utf8, several other usual suspects) but that
        hasn't helped.  Has anyone seen something like this before?  TIA.

5/15    Has anyone upgraded from a 300D (digital rebel) to the new
        Rebel XT?  I was thinking of cl'ing my 300D and getting an
        XT this summer b/c the XT is lighter/smaller than the 300D
        and has usb 2.0, but I wanted to know if the reduced weight
        and size is noticable.

5/14    Jobs available in my group at Amazon
        http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/stores/jobs/pre-sales-marketplace-management/-/1/103-6511325-3219840
        Interested?  Send me your resume -larryl
        \_ Leisure Larry?
        \_ No location?

5/6     (Not a homework question)  You have a horizontal gap of length L and
        \_ bullshit.
           \_ double-bullshit.   I made a paperclip chain and am curious how
              to most easily drape it (and I'm a big nerd).
        a rope/chain/cable with mass per unit length w, and there is vertical
        gravity of acceleration g.  What length of cord should you use to
        bridge the gap to as to minimize the tension at the anchor points?
        \_ A suspension like this is described by a hyperbolic cosine,  the
           least amount of tension is produced when the rope or chain is exactly
           the length of L.  Let me know if you need more proof.  -scottyg
               \- re: hyperbolic cos: also and probably more commonly known as
                  Cantenary arc/arch [like the st. louis object]. you can
                  google from "cantenary" ... somebody probably has the
                  solved integral that gives you a closed form for arc length.
                  this name actually comes from the idea of "hanging chain",
                  so appropos to you underlying physical model. and now lets
                  talk about the feynman sprinkler.
                  \_ And when you can't find the answer, search for
                     "catenary."
           \_ Perhaps you misunderstood.  The gap width is L.  Trying to bridge
              that with a cord onle L long would require infinite tension when
              under gravity.
              \_ it is a simple optimization problem that reduces down to the
                 more string you have, the greater the weight, and therefore the
                 greater the tension.  L is the minimum amount of string one
                 would need to span the gap, therefore it is also the optimized
                 length for minimum tension.  See the equations below for tens-
                 ion, T, as they are correct.  BTW, I have a degree in Physics,
                 and not CS, if that gives me any more credit. -scottyg
                 \_ "assume the horse is a sphere"...  sorry, nope. it doesn't.
              \_ no it wouldn't.
                 \_ assuming an infinite tensile-strength cord, yes it would.
                    Take a reasonably heavy rope or chain and try to pull it
                    to be absolutely straight while not supported in the
                    middle.  You can't do it.
                    \_ but that's not what we're trying to do. you can
                       straighten it by pushing in the middle. in any case
                       the answer is "as straight as you can".
                       \_ What I'm trying to do is find what length of paper
                          clip chain will bridge a gap L with minimum tension.
                          The answer is NOT L, because that has extremely
                          high tension which bends the paper clips all out of
                          shape.  But the answer is not 100L either, because
                          that is way too much extra weight.
                          \_ you don't have to pull the ends to straighten
                             the chain. you can straighten it theoretically
                             without bending.
              \_ Based on what little I remember about CE, scottyg is right.
                 A cable w/ uniform weight per unit length is described as
                 a cantenary.  You need two equations to determine the length,
                 L, of the cable. Assuming that you know the separation between
                 the endpoints (X) and the "sag" (S) (the distance from the
                 horizontal passing through the end points and the lowest point
                 of the cable), you can use the following equations:
                        EQ1.1 The half length, L/2, equation:
                        EQ 1.1 The half length, L/2, equation:
                                y^2 - (L/2)^2 = c^2
                        EQ2.1 The parameter, c, equation:
                        EQ 2.1 The parameter, c, equation:
                                y = c cosh (X/c)
                 Since y = S + c you can simplify to:
                        EQ 1.2: L = 2(2c^2 - 2Sc - S^2)^(1/2)
                        EQ 2.2: S/c + 1 = cosh (X/c)
                 You can use excel or some such to solve for c in EQ 2.2 and
                 then it is simple to substitute into EQ 1.2 to get L. iirc,
                 in most cases it is simpler to just think of the thing as a
                 parabola.
                 then it is simple to substitute into EQ 1.2 to get L.
                 Now that I re-read your question, it seems like you want to
                 minimze S as well as L right? I don't remember enough calc
                 to help you out there, but I think that you probably need
                 to do this by minimizing the tension T at the end points.
                 The equation for T at the end points is:
                        EQ 3.1: T = w(c^2 + (L^2)/4)^(1/2)
                 Good luck!
                 \_ Hmm, what scottyg claims above is that tension T is minimum
                    when the string length L equals to the gap width X.  Now,
                    as L approaches X, S approaches 0.  Using your equations,
                    as X approaches L, S approaches 0.  Using your equations,
                    we get this:
                                limit(L->X) S = 0;
                                limit(X->L) S = 0;

                        EQ 2.2: S/c + 1 = cosh (X/c)
                                limit(L->X) (S/c + 1) = limit(L->X) cosh (X/c)
                                1 = limit(L->X) cosh (X/c)
                                0 = limit(L->X) X/c
                        thus    limit(L->X) c = infinity
                                limit(X->L) (S/c + 1) = limit(X->L) cosh (X/c)
                                1 = limit(X->L) cosh (X/c)
                                0 = limit(X->L) X/c
                        thus    limit(X->L) c = infinity

                        EQ 3.1: T = w(c^2 + (L^2)/4)^(1/2)
                                limit(L->X) T = limit(L->X) (w(c^2 + (L^2)/4)
                                limit(X->L) T = limit(X->L) (w(c^2 + (L^2)/4)
                                                                ^(1/2))
                                              = infinity
                    I don't see how the tension is minimum in this case, using
                    your presumably correct equations.  --- L&S CS major
                    your equations.  --- L&S CS major
                    your presumably correct equations.  So scottyg is wrong.
                    --- L&S CS major
                    \_ I think that what scottyg is getting at is that you
                       have to balance the tension at the end points against
                       the tensile strength of the material that makes up
                       the cable in order to find the min sag and length.
                       \_ Sorry, but this "L is the minimum amount of
                          string one would need to span the gap, therefore
                          it is also the optimized length for minimum
                          tension" seems to contradict that.
                          \_ Okay, I see your point. When I originally
                             posted the equations I was probably wrong
                             about the minimizing the tension at the
                             end points.  Anyway, do you see anything
                             wrong w/ balancing the tensile strength
                             of the material w/ the tension at the
                             end points to get the optimal length
                             and sag?
                             \_ Not at all.  That seems like a very reasonable
                                way to think about it.

4/11    I've been programming professionaly for about 4 years but my background
        is in the sciences, so sometimes I feel my knowledge of CS concepts
        and/or theory has a few holes.  Would you care to reccomend a book
        that would help me fill out areas I might have missed?  I'm not looking
        for a language book, or an "all about [compilers|databases|graphics]"
        but rather "these are the data structures, here are some smart
        algorithms, heres how to architect something".  --Thanks
        \_ Get a copy of CLR. Other algorithms/programming books I've
           like include 'Algorithms in C' by Sedgwick and 'Expert C
           Programming' by van der Linden.
           \_ Huh?  I tried STFW.
              \_ Cormen, Leiserson, Rivest, Intro to Algorithms  - yap
              \_ http://theory.lcs.mit.edu/~clr
           \_ What about Design Patterns?  Useful or hype?
              \_ Thumbs up from me. Not that we shouldn't learn how to write
                 them from scratch, but I think STL and Boost and design
                 patterns are all really useful for a wide range of software
                 problems these days.
        \_ Check out the lecture notes on MIT Open Courseware, excellent stuff! -ray
              \_ I thought DP was all hype. It did nothing for me,
                 but I've mostly been doing systems, network and
                 security programming. Might be useful if you are
                 doing application programming. FYI, my background
                 was science but I've been a coder for about 5 yrs
                 so a lot of stuff that I didn't know I picked up
                 by eiether taking courses via SITN or bumming books
                 from co-workers.
                 \_ Design Patterns are very useful.  Even if you don't know
                    anything about it you will notice much of your code
                    actually fit one or more of the design patterns once you
                    start reading it.  I am an application programmer.
              \_ What are Design Patterns?
                 \_ When you see the code of a large application,
                    sometimes you will wonder why it is written that
                    way, and how did whoever wrote it decide to write
                    it the way it is.  Design Patterns is the attempt
                    to systematize the above, as opposed to learning
                    it through experience or sheer intelligence.  At
                    least that is my understanding.
        \_ Check out the lecture notes on MIT Open Courseware, excellent
           stuff! -ray
           \_ http://ocw.mit.edu/OcwWeb/Electrical-Engineering-and-Computer-Science/6-170Laboratory-in-Software-EngineeringFall2001/LectureNotes/index.htm
           \_ http://tinyurl.com/53tpe (owc.mit.edu)
              check out lecture notes 12/13/14 on design pattern.

3/31    From the "shit I could have told you myself" department:
        "95% of IT Projects Not Delivered On Time"
        http://it.slashdot.org/it/05/03/31/1527257.shtml?tid=218
        \- what %age of IT projects are not worth doing? i sure see
           a lot of churn which involves people trying to justify
           their jobs. if an organization grows 5% over 10yrs but
           computers become 10x more powerful and 1/5th the size,
           some stuff is upgraded too often needlessly.
           \_ Sure, but not all upgrades are needless due to continual
              increases in number crunching and data storage demand, and a lot
              of systems which really ought to be upgraded, aren't.  I think
              most of the waste comes from inefficient process-heavy
              organizations.  -John

3/30    What is the difference between >  < and |. The former has to do with
        std input output. But it seems to be just a special case of |.
        \_ can the op use "the former" to refer to a plurality?  Is "the
           formers" a more accurate way to write?
           \_ No, you can only use former and latter. Two choices, not three.
              \_ My question was unclear.  In the sentence "A & B were the
                 first to arrive. C & D arrived last." Can "the former," and
                 "the latter" be used to refer to "A & B" and "C & D,"
                 respectively, eventhough the referred to items are plural?
        \_ < and > always involve files. | links between programs.
        \_ > < connect stout and stdin respectively to a file.  | connects
           stdout of one process to stdin of another using pipe(2). --jwm
           \_ So then > < is implemented as a special case of |.
             \_ not quite but close
             \_  > and < open a file as file descriptor 1 and 0 respectively
                 man pipe(2) and dup2(2). A pipe is not a special case of
                 a file, but both can be accessd through file descriptors.

3/28    Is there any tool that can take a bunch of cpp and .h files and draw
        up an inheritance tree and a calling tree, like "a is called by b,
        b is called by c1 and c2, c1 is called by d, d and c2 are called by
        main"? and "new Foo() has as members the following classes, which each
        interit from ... and have as members these classes..."
        \_ Egypt (http://www.gson.org/egypt builds call graphs for C. I don't
           know if it works for C++; it'll probably output a call graph with
           mangled names or something. It doesn't do inheritance graphs. -gm

3/5     How many pieces of 8.5 x 11 paper can I fit in an envelope before
        I need to use 2 stamps?
        \_ I've heard "seven" as the conventional wisdom, but the official
           constraint is "1 ounce", so the exact count would presumably depend
           on the type of paper used. -alexf
        \_ What's the weight of the paper?  20 lb. paper is 500 sheets of
           double-wide, double-tall paper.  So that's 2000 sheets to weight.
           For normal 20 lb. paper one sheet weighs 20 * 16 / 2000 ounces.
           Which makes 6.25 sheets/oz.  What about the weight of an envelope?
        \_ If you are using ave printer/copy machine paper, 5 or less
           sheets is generally okay for 1 stamp.
           \_ Is it correct, then, that with 2 stamps, I could send
              up to 10 sheets?  -op
              \_ yes.
              \_ If you are using a regular envelope I wouldn't send more
                 7 or so sheets b/c the thing might fall apart.
        \_ From http://www.usps.com/customersguide/dmm100.htm#PostageRates
           "Tip:  One ounce is approximately equal to four sheets of paper plus
           a standard envelope."
           Or you can use the gsm (grams per sq meter) to calculate.  For me, I
           just go to the cafeteria at work and weight it with the salad scale.

2/19    M$ on '1337 Speak:
        http://www.microsoft.com/athome/security/children/kidtalk.mspx
        \_ I guess when you have billions of dollars, you can waste
           money on useless primers like this.
        \_ This is old and has already been posted:
           http://csua.com/?entry=36232

2/18    Emacs guru please help.  I am running shell within emacs and have a
        couple hundred lines of text beyond the current prompt, which I use
        one by one as some command argument.  Somehow it just all disappeared
        (from the current prompt to the end).  It is not a c-w because I
        couldn't yank it back.  I didn't save it to another file/buffer.  Is
        there anyway to get it  back?

2/17    I need to write some code using sockets that will work on both
        Windows and LINUX.  Ideally, I'd like to just use the standard
        POSIX sockets and have the code work on both platforms.  Based on
        info from MSDN, it looks like this is possible but I'd like to
        ask people on the MOTD if they've encountered any inconsistencies
        or other issues doing things this way.  Thanks.  -emin
        \_ It mostly works, except for a few little things (WSAStartup,
           closesocket, ioctlsocket, etc.).  As long as you're not doing
           anything complicated, a few #defines are all you need.  --mconst
        \_ What language?  (I assume C or C++.)
           Which compiler on Windows?  Which on Linux?
           What are your library options?
           \_ Sorry, language=either C or C++ is fine, compilers=Visual C/C++
              on Windows and gcc on LINUX, library options=whatever I need
              to get it to work, but preferably standard stuff.  Thanks. -emin
              \_ I recommend wxWidgets (formerly wxWindows).  It's got sockets
                 and should compile on both platforms without source code
                 changes.
              \_ Someone else recommended sdl_net a while ago, but beware: it's
                 LGPL.