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2024/12/24 [General] UID:1000 Activity:popular
12/24   

2006/2/3-7 [Computer/SW/Languages/Misc] UID:41682 Activity:nil
2/3     Hello, I'm trying to create an HTML page that'll give you live
        "tail -f logfile.log" output. I can do it with regular HTML,
        but the problem is the user has to constantly scroll to
        the bottom. Is there a javascript or something that'll
        simply scroll to the bottom for you? Thanks.
        \_ Every time there's an update, just output the data to the page and
           end it with (replace 42 with number of new lines):
           <script>window.scrollByLines(42);</script>
           This might not work in IE, though.  You could do something with
           plain window.scroll(x,y), but it will be more work.  --dbushong
        \_ Any reason you don't put a "<a name="end">" at the end and then go
           to the page as "page#end"?
           \_ I don't think that would repeatedly move you to the end, which
              is what (s)he's trying to do.
              \_ I'm pretty sure you could jump to the anchor with an onload
                 action in the body tag. -gm
                 \_ You're missing the point, this is a continuously updating
                    page that you keep occasionally adding new data to.  An
                    onload only fires once.  A #fragment only fires once.
                    \_ meta refresh?
2006/1/19-21 [Computer/SW/Languages/Misc, Computer/SW/Languages/Web] UID:41436 Activity:moderate
1/19    How do I configure apache so that all the files in certain
        directories are executed as PHP without the ugly .php extension?
        \_ Turn on MultiViews; you can leave the files with the .php
           extension, but just access them without using the extension.  -tom
           \_ Oh goodie, someone talking about MultiViews.  Are there any
              potential problems with turning them on I should be aware of?
              - !op
              \_ I suppose it makes it marginally easier for someone to
                 guess one of your URLs.  There is some potential confusion
                 if you have two files with the same base name in the
                 same directory.  But I don't think there are significant
                 issues.  Our site has been that way for several months:
                 http://ls.berkeley.edu/lscr.  -tom
              \_ MultiViews are not the rigut solution for that. They use content
                 negotiation, IIRC and that causes problems with validation and
                 old browsers. I'd recommend using URL rewriting. in your
                 .htaccess put something like:
                 Options -MultiViews
                 RewriteEngine on
                 RewriteCond   %{DOCUMENT_ROOT}%{REQUEST_URI}.php -f
                 RewriteRule   .* %{REQUEST_URI}.php
                 \_ How does MultiViews cause problems with validation or
                    old browsers?  It's transparent to the client unless
                    the client asks for something specific in content
                    negotiation.  -tom
                    \_ I thought it used to. Apparently I was wrong.
                       By the way http://ls.berkeley.edu/lscr does not
                       pass validation at http://validator.w3.org
                       \_ It validates in HTML Tidy.  I'll look at the
                          issues http://w3.org brings up.  -tom
                          \_ Update for those who care: It looks like HTML
                             Tidy only validates against HTML 1.0 Transitional,
                             even if the DOCTYPE is HTML 1.1 Strict.
                             The 1.1 Strict warnings include stuff for
                             backwards compatibility with not-very-old
                             browsers (IE 5.5), so we may look at falling
                             back to 1.0 Transitional.  -tom
                             \_ Do you mean XHTML rather than HTML?
                                also there is no "XHTML 1.1 Strict."
                                just XHTML 1.1   fwiw.
                                \_ Yes, I mean XTHML.  -tom
        \_ Do your files have an extension now?  If it's, e.g. ".html", you
           could just toss this into your .htaccess:
           AddType application/x-httpd-php .html
           --dbushong
2006/1/16-18 [Computer/SW/Languages/Java, Computer/SW/Languages/Misc] UID:41392 Activity:high
1/16    Okay, I have a technical question here. I administer a cluster
        of java webservers running jetty (not resin, sorry). They are behind
        a load balancer. They used to start up fine under "load" i.e. in
        the load balancer configuration. The latest code release
        broke this somehow and now they crash upon startup unless
        I remove them from the load balancer first. The programmers
        promised to fix this, but of course they did not and now
        they claim this is "industry standard." It is burdensome
        to me to have to remove them and then re-insert them every
        time I need to do a restart. Does anyone else run a java
        webserver cluster? Do you have to remove them from your
        load balancer everytime to start them up or restart them?
        I already STFW and could not find anything on the topic. -ausman
        \_ What I would do (I've been in similar situations):
           1) Escalate to CTO so he knows #2 is coming:
           2) "No, I can't bless this release because your P1 bug isn't
               fixed.  You'll have to explain to the CTO why this bug hasn't
               been foxed."  This will trigger a meeting where you can say:
           3) "This is an industry standard?  The code wasn't broken until
               release X.Y.Z on date MMDDYY which you said was going to be
               fixed.  Find me the IEEE, IETF or other industry standards
               body doc that says this is standard."
           If you don't push back hard on this you're only setting yourself
           up for even worse hassle down the road.  I've 'worked' with code
           monkeys like that before.  They're classic bullies.  Hit back hard
           immediately and be rude about it unless you want to be their ops
           bitch forever who has to kludge around their crap code.
           \_ Unfortunately, there is a tradition of kludging around bad
              code here that I am trying to change. Fortunately, we have
              a new CTO who supports my general philosophy on this.
        \_ Yes, and no. Since you didn't supply more information on how
           you're accomplishing load balancing, I have no idea how to
           fix your "problem".
           \_ Netscaler.
              \_ I assume it's something like a 9000 series. What's the
                 error you're getting when starting up resin? Can you get
                 a debug trace out of it?
                 \_ Yeah, 9000. All kinds of errors, untimately leading
                    to a server crash and restart which then crashes and
                    then tries to restart...
                    then tries to restart... I am trying to dig up the
                    exact error for you now. Actually, email me for details,
                    I don't want to post it on the motd.
        \_ That proves it isn't "industry standard".  Escalate and get the
           programmers whipped into shape.
        \_ They promised to fix it?  Do you have that in writing or in a bug
           tracking database?
           \_ No, but they promised in the code release meeting, where I
              have to sign off on code releases. I only agreed to let this
              code go live on the condition that they would fix it later.
              The CTO, who is in charge of both my group and programming,
              was there. So I definitely can push back if I want to, but
              I need evidence to make my case. It is probably true that it
              is less overall time to do the laborous restart than it is
              to fix the bug, at least in the short term.
              \_ Unless it's an architectural problem that will compound as
                 they continue to build on the existing architecture.
        \_ Sounds like an excellent opportunity to set up a script to handle
           updates.  Take node out of load balancing, restart it, test that it
           started cleanly, and then put back into balancing.   Been there,
           done that.
           \_ nonononononono!!!  do *not* *ever* kludge up something on the ops
              side because your coding team sucks.  Make them fix their code.
              If you want to tweak around with LB'd node status to maintain
              a 100% consistent site, for exmaple taking out half, updating
              them, putting them in a new pool, switching the VIP to that
              pool, then doing the remainder.  Ok, I guess.  You can be clever
              for stuff like that if there's some need.  But in this case, he's
              dealing with lazy code monkeys who are trying to force an ops
              policy change because they introduced a bug.  They need to be
              clubbed into submission.  This will not be the end of ops policy
              kludges to cover bad coding.  He'll regret covering for them.
              \_ bad coding happens.  you can deal with it and catch the
                 problem before you have your entire production cluster
                 spewing garbage, or you can let the bad code mess
                 everything up and get into a finger pointing pissing match.
                 OPS job is to keep stuff working.
              \_ bad coding happens.  you can deal with it and catch the problem
                 before you have your entire production cluster spewing garbage,
                 or you can let the bad code mess everythign up and get into a
                 finger pointing pissing match.  OPS job is to keep stuff
                 working.
                 \_ OPS job is to protect the site.  That includes making sure
                    crap code doesn't get pushed and pushing back hard on the
                    developers if it does.  His situation isn't finger
                    pointing.  The devs screwed the pooch and need to unscrew.
                    Slapping a condom on afterwards isn't going to fix
                    anything.
                    \_ What's wrong with doing both?  I assume he doesn't
                       have to TELL anyone he wrote the script. -!pp
                       \_ The short version: doing it right is better.
                          Don't lie about IT stuff.  Get busted once and your
                          already shakey credibility (you're in IT, right?)
                          is shot forever.
                          \_ I dunno, the exact details of how IT does its
                             job is not really usually that interesting to
                             engineering. I don't think you need to tell anyone
                             about all your little operations scripts, but
                             don't lie if asked either.
                             \_ what would you say if someone asked you how
                                long it would take to write a kludge script?
                                it's a very likely question.  also, in some
                                places OPS will be working with engineering
                                and be more aware of how long the different
                                steps are taking even if they don't know the
                                details.  i don't know if that's jim's case
                                but anyway, i wouldn't go out of my way to
                                be too helpful in a situation like this.  the
                                new CTO was likely brought in *because* the
                                board or CEO or whoever understands the code
                                base is broken.  C*O changes aren't common.
                                if so, then OPS can help the guy do his job
                                which will make OPS future much happier or
                                continue down the same path to piling more and
                                more madness on top.  my philsophy is this:
                                don't do anything you'd say was garbage if
                                someone else did it and you were the new guy
                                taking over that job.
        \_ What load balancer?  HTTP keep-alives work decently well for us.
           If it's not answering to the load balancer, it won't be in the
           pool.
2006/1/16-18 [Computer/SW/Languages/Misc, Transportation/PublicTransit] UID:41387 Activity:low
1/16    What do you need to do to set up a table at BART and
        start trying to prostelyze the masses?  The Scientology
        people have moved their table inside of the Powell
        BART station that is shared by the Nordstrom mall and
        Powell SF MUNI stop with their stupid FREE STRESS TEST
        signs.  Can I set up my own table behind them and
        offer FREE ANAL RAPINGS?  Do I have to get a license
        somewhere?
        \_ It is a public area. You can get away with a good amount, but
           setting up a table is something you'd need to get a license for
           (possible obstruction of a public walkway problems). You can
           carry a sign or something similar, but you need to watch your
           language (disturbing the peace, public nuisance). I think there
           are also provisions against for-profit advertising not approved
           for BART.
           \_ "FREE RECTAL FEVER CHECK WITH WARM POST-CHECK LOTION"
                    \_ LOWER GI MASSAGE ...
        \_ People might not make the connection as well as if you just stood
           there with a sign saying "Free Brain Washing" or "Free Cult
           Membership*"
           \_ When I see those bastards I usually jump around and shout
              "It's a cult!!!"  "Don't talk to them, they're a fucking cult
              and they'll brainwash you!!" at the top of my lungs and wave
              my arms around.
              \_ That should convince any sensible person.
                 \_ Well, it entertains me, and irritates the Scientologists,
                    and that'e enough for me.  Sensible people already know
                    to avoid them and don't need to be convinced.
                    \- the hari krishna activities have led to a lot of
                       free speech in public but functionally dedicated
                       spaces lawsuits. at one point there were inconsistent
                       standars between airports, bus terminals ferry terminals
                       railway stations etc. to the best of my knowledge these
                       distinctions were some what arbitrary and as far as i
                       know a higher court hasnt imposed a uniform standards.
                       note also, it's not as simple as "is it a public space"
                       because there is adoctrine about quasi-public. for the
                       nTH time in the motd, see pruneyard [yes from the
                       south bay] v. robins.
                       \_ Please stop bastardizing the language, while there's
                          still time.
2006/1/15-17 [Computer/SW/Languages/Perl, Computer/SW/Languages/Misc] UID:41383 Activity:high
1/15    This is a computer question which photo geeks would appreciate.
        I am trying to
           extract date/time from JPEG's EXIF header and use that to
           override Windows/NTFS's filename's create time.   I need to
           do this in a batch mode involves hundreds of photographs.
           How to do this?  write a shell script in cygwin?  which library
           do you recommend to extract EXIF header?  how to modify ctime on
           NTFS?   thanks.                      kngharv
           \- i dont know anything about the windows side but i use "jhead"
              [http://www.sentex.net/~mwandel/jhead/] or tcl. ok tnx. --psb
              \_ thanks.  jhead fits that part of my need.  However, I am
                 also looking for something where I can add a field to
                 EXIF, namely "FocusLengthIn35mm."  If any of you guys
                 knows how to do this, please let me know.   OP
                 \_ Image::ExifTool --dbushong
           \_ http://jpgtime.learsy.com i've used it to change the time stamps,
              not sure if it can add other exif data
        \_ Since the beginning of my digital camera days, I've adopted
           the policy of renaming my digital camera images
           YYYYMMDD_HHMMSS_NNNN[_tag].jpg (where NNNN is the sequence
           number and tag can be the camera model). The time a picture
           was taken is more important to me than all the other
           attributes, and name my files this way make sure that
           information will not be lost and every file has a unique
           identification. I use my own perl script to do this, but I
           am sure you can find utilities that does rename for you. My
           script can also re-touches file timestamp based on the time
           embedded in the filename, so I can very easily adjust the
           file timestamp if necessary. The important thing is to make
           sure your camera's clock is set correctly (for the timezone
           you are in), but my script has an offset option for those
           "ops" occasions. On my last trip we used 2 cameras, and the
           file ordering allows me to dump the pictures from both
           cameras together and do slide shows in the order the
           pictures were taken across both cameras. Email me if you
           want to give it a try. -chiry
           \_ I didn't agree with "The time a picture was taken is more
              important to me than all the other attributes" until I became a
              parent.  When other people see my baby's pictures, the first
              question they ask is nearly always "how old was he?".  For those
              pictures without imprinted dates, I quite often find myself
              unable to answer.
              pictures without imprinted dates, I usually find myself unable to
              answer.
           \_ unfortunately, the reason why I've asked this question at
              first place is that I am still using 35mm and other film cameras.
              and they don't have EXIF info :p
         \_ might be a bit overkill, but these should be able to do what
            you want:
            http://www.luminous-landscape.com/reviews/software/asset-management.shtml
2006/1/11-13 [Computer/SW/Languages/Misc] UID:41351 Activity:kinda low
1/11    What's the difference between an MyISAM and an INNODB table?
        I noticed that you can do FOREIGN KEY and CASCADE on
        INNODB but not MyISAM, but that's the only difference I know.
        \_ MyISAM also doesn't do transactions or row level locking.
        \_ If you don't need those (and more) features, and your access profile
           is 99% reads, MyISAM will be much faster.
        \_ http://dev.mysql.com/doc/refman/4.1/en/innodb-overview.html
           I think the major items are:
           - transaction (commit/rollback)
           - no REPAIR TABLE needed
           - row level vs. table-level locking
           - foreign keys
2006/1/9-12 [Recreation/Food, Computer/SW/Languages/Misc] UID:41310 Activity:nil
1/9     I'm trying to remember/find the (I can't remember which)
        the 'food' or 'hunger' program that would modify the utmp
        to reflect a user's hunger status. /csua/bin/foodp is just
        a figlet wall script.           -- Marco
2005/12/9-11 [Computer/SW/Languages/Misc] UID:40932 Activity:low
12/8    How do I make a non-italicized greek letter in Latex?
        \_ If you use them as mathematical characters, they're
           always variables. (I know this doesn't help much.)
        \_ Thanks to the person who nuked my reply. Most fonts probably
           do not have non-italic Greek, and most LaTeX packages probably
           don't support non-italic Greek. You need a font that has glyphs
           for non-italic Greek (probably you can find some native Greek
           fonts for this) and then a package that has options where
           you can select those glyphs (like, say, the MinionPro pkg).
           \_ You hit the nail on the head, dude.  Thanks.  I just put
              in a modern greek language font, and am using that without
              going into the math environment at all.  Problem solved (although
              I briefly ended up with my whole 180 page document in greek
              characters when I put my  {} in the wrong place, which was
              amusing.
              \_ You're welcome. Glad it worked out. --dude
2005/12/6-7 [Politics/Domestic/President/Reagan, Computer/SW/Languages/Misc] UID:40884 Activity:kinda low
12/6    emarkp's little fit below is a good illustration of the "true random
        doesn't seem random" problem that afflicts shuffle-play implementations
        in MP3 and CD players.
        \_ Sigh.  When one value gets 50% of the hits in 200 trials, that's not
           uniform distribution, now matter how many names you want to call me.
           -emarkp
           \_ If this were true, you would be correct.  However, 200 trials
              from a script doesn't mean anything.  What counts is when
              kchang's code re-generates random numbers.  Looking at your
              sample below, it looks like reagan is about 6x more frequent
              than the next closest.  It's improbable, but a uniform
              distribution could have oversampled one item by 6 in the code,
              which comes up as 6/12 item generations.  That's assuming your
              script is distributed evenly across time, and so is his
              random generation code.  Assuming he varies the interval
              between regeneration, then this could be fairly probably.
              between regeneration, your results are fairly probable.
              eg. After nicknames get assigned, wait 1-100 seconds, then
              assign again.  Reagan just got assigned a long wait time, then
              your script oversampled one data point.  Or any variation off
              this procedure.  Done properly, it could give the illusion of
              semi-consistency while remaining truly random.
              -magneto (not "luck of draw" magneto, but "I am Magneto" one)
              \_ Except that several instances of "reagan" occur, then one of
                 (say) hitler or sauron, etc.  After I listed the results,
                 suddenly "reagan" went way down in frequency. -emarkp
                 \_ It's a conspiracy to call you "reagan" and not hitler!
                 \_ Ok, fine. Let's say he hardcoded something so that he
                    called you reagan. What an insult that is! What other
                    nicer villain names listed on his web site would you
                    preferred to be called?
                    \_ I'd like to be Captain Hook.  -!emarkp
                 \_ This is the CSUA. There are numerous algorithms that can
                    do this, biasing results for certain members of the
                    population for given periods of time.  -magneto
2005/12/1-4 [Computer/SW/Languages/Java, Computer/SW/Languages/Misc] UID:40802 Activity:low
12/1    I am trying to make some tests using G-UNIT and Ant.  The tests all
        consist of running MyClass.process(input, output) and then comparing
        the output to an expected value.  I know I could make a suite in
        TestMyClass which just has a bunch of the same test on different
        input/output pairs.  I know I could also make a bunch of seperate test
        functions or classes which just call MyClass.process() with a seperate
        hard-coded parameter.  What I'd *like* is the ability to list a bunch
        of input/output pairs in the Ant script and have it pass these params
        to a single TestMyClass class.  Is there any way to do this or am I
        barking up the wrong tree?
        \_ I was hoping to do something similar with cppunit, though, calling
           it with command line arguments. Instead, I just put a file in a
           well known location that matches up with the test in question and
           put all the input values there. The environment is also a good
           way to pass in some stuff (e.g. a top-level directory).
           \_ That's more or less what I decided on too, but I wish there was
              a less kludgy way... -op
2005/11/28-30 [Computer/SW/Languages/C_Cplusplus, Computer/SW/Languages/JavaScript, Computer/SW/Languages/Misc] UID:40749 Activity:nil
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.
2005/11/17-19 [Computer/SW/Languages/Misc, Academia/Berkeley/CSUA/Motd] UID:40635 Activity:nil
11/17   I'm 41, so what am I allowed to complain about on motd ? I think
        if anything, you becoming more accepting of things  the older
        you get.
        \_ If you're replying to the "at least wait till you're 40" post
           below, I was not meaning to imply that being over 40 makes it cool
           to bitch about young people--just that bitching about young people
           when you're barely over 30 demonstrates spectacular levels of
           assheadedness.  There have always been good people who work hard and
           don't complain, and there have always been stupid whiners.
           \_  I can agree with that. I went back to college for awhile
               and found it odd to be in classes with people who
               were not even born when you started college.
               \_ Hot and easy college babes are worth it, though.
                  \_ and if you can't get them, there is always the moms.
        \_ standard grumpy-old-man stuff about how things are easier these
           days and th whiners should shut up, because you had to hike to
           school 5 miles uphill each way, in the snow.
        \_ You can always bitch about punctuation and formatting.  What
           year were you?
           \_ Let me put it to  you this way, my first  college level
           CS course (in pascal) was in 1983 and was done on punch cards.
            ( .. which leads to  many .. in my day lines ... )
              \_ I am curious because I thought there wasn't anyone from an
                 earlier class than me ('89) on motd.  In fact, when I
                 graduated, I was the first CSUA excom member to do so in
                 2 years.
                   \_  I did not actually graduate from Cal; so you
                       probably don't know me.
                       \_ Well, it's either that or you're okamoto.
                          \_ I actually know Jeff; but its been a few
                          years (over ten now) since I did anime stuff
                 \_ Indeed, who are you, ancient master? -jrleek
              \_ Punch cards?  Didn't Apple ][ support Pascal?
                 \_ These were batch jobs run on the campus mainframe.
                 At that time; only  CS majors got the priviledge of
                 using green screens since they were in short supply.
                 This was not at Cal; btw.
                 \_ Yes, Apple ][ did support Pascal. But in 1983 Apples ][e
                    cost more than a semester at Cal.
                 \_ You have an odd sense of punctuation; btw.
              \_ When I first learned C after using Pascal for a year in
                 school, I though C was cool.  Now after using C for 15 years,
                 I miss Pascal.
            \_ The sad thing is you're only 13 years ahead of me and time has
               been flowing exponentially faster year after year. Ok maybe
               logarithmically. or something.
                 \_ Its like Indy used to say: "Its not the years; its
                    the mileage"
2005/11/2-4 [Computer/SW/Languages/Misc, Recreation/Media] UID:40410 Activity:nil
11/2    Splinter Cell the Movie:
        http://www.latinoreview.com/scriptreviews/splintercell/review.html
2024/12/24 [General] UID:1000 Activity:popular
12/24   

2005/10/29-31 [Computer/SW/Languages/Misc] UID:40336 Activity:nil
10/29   Cool Link.  Illustrated periodic table.
        http://www.chemsoc.org/viselements/pages/pertable_fla.htm
        \_ Why on earth does that need Flash?
2005/10/9-11 [Computer/SW/Languages/Misc] UID:40033 Activity:high
10/9    Should I italicize the phrase "in situ"?
        \_ BAH!  Go find a style guide, just pick one, and follow it.
           If unsure, ask or figure out which one your prof uses and just
           follow it.  You're "not allowed" to design your own style.  Once
           you start doing that you're just being random and you're
           definitely not doing the right thing.  Style isn't a matter of
           opinion as some here would have you believe.
           \_ If it's not a matter of opinion, why do the style manuals
              differ?  You, sir, are a fucking idiot.
              \_ I'll explain even though you're too dense to get it: it is
                 ok to choose and follow any particular style guide you want,
                 it is not ok to make up your own.  Was that simple enough for
                 you?
        \_ yes -darin
           \_ Thanks.
        \_ I would not. I dislike it when authors reflexively italicize
           in a foreign language. Why do we italicize? Two reasons: emphasis
           (primary usage) or to mark a foreign phrase that could be confused
           in the text. ("We believe _in absentia_ voting made a big difference
           in the previous election.") When I see i.e. or e.g. or et al. or
           ad hoc italicized, I find it both distracting (because
           italics to me means _I'm emphasized_) and pompous. In general the
           typographic rule is up to the publisher but the most common
           rule is that if the phrase has been around long enough to
           feel like it's part of our language, it shouldn't be
           italicized (you wouldn't italicize "etc." for instance). I would
           put "in situ" in that category; you may not; but that begs the
           question that if you don't think it's a phrase that's part
           of our language, why are you using it?
           Example for my point of view:
            http://www.economist.com/research/styleGuide/index.cfm?page=805685
           Example against:
            http://www.bioscience.org/guides/format.htm
            \_ Woah! I'm convinced, I think.  It's for a thesis, so no editor
               other than my advisor gets a say in it.  I'll go with the non
               italicized.
               \_ Outstanding. Another person converted to my Grammar Master
                  Plan. If you have any other need for me to tell you what you
                  should think, just lemme know. -pp
                  \_ Ok, what do you think about "Figure 5" vs. "figure 5" and
                     "Equation 1.4" vs. "equation 1.4"?
                     \_ Personally, I prefer capitalized, and I think that's
                        more common in my field, but either seems just fine
                        to me. -pp
                  \_ Don't try to frighten us with your sorcerous ways.
           \_ it may be a part of my usage, but not part of your redneck usage.
              \_ then don't condescend to us rednecks.
            \_ now if you could only learn how to use the phrase "beg the
               question"...
               \- i would not put "in situ" or other "standard" latin
                  expressions in italics. if you dont have to ask yourself
                  "am i sure they will know what i mean" then you can use
                  roman type with confidence. so i would not use italics
                  with say "circa" or "et al." however i would use it with
                  say "contra bonos mores". some are hard calls like say
                  "tabula rasa" or "sui generis" "prima facie" or "a priori".
                  oh let me say "standard and unbiquitous" rather than just
                  "standard". i would put "pace" and "sic" in italics because
                  they are kind of weird.
2005/10/5-6 [Computer/SW/Languages/Misc] UID:39984 Activity:nil
10/5    After years of using latex without bibtex, I have finally started using
        bibtex, and find that I had been leading a shallow, incomplete life.
        Save yourself from a meaningless life, and start using bibtex now.
        \_ Not all latex leads to shallow, incomplete life.  Many people enjoy
           deep, complete life with latex such as Trojan Magnum XL.
        \_ You don't always have to settle with a shallow life while using
           latex.  Try Trojan Magnum.
2005/9/22-23 [Computer/SW/Languages/Misc] UID:39806 Activity:nil
9/22    I don't know if it's motdedit or someone's anti-nuking or merge
        script, but a lot of entries seem to be getting mauled, with
        lines posted where they don't belong, double-posted, whatever.  -John
        \_ Al-Qaeda has infiltrated CSUA and is now terrorizing motd! FEAR
2005/9/12-14 [Computer/SW/Languages/Misc] UID:39640 Activity:nil
9/12    http://www.google.com/search?q=failure
        \_ http://ars.userfriendly.org/cartoons/?id=20050911&mode=classic
2005/9/9-11 [Computer/SW/Database, Computer/SW/Languages/Misc] UID:39587 Activity:nil
9/9     How do I do a SELECT STDDEV(column),MEDIAN(column) FROM table? I can
        only find references to AVG. Anyone know? Thanks,
        \_ http://dev.mysql.com/doc/mysql/en/group-by-functions.html
           Somehow I'm just _guessing_ you're using MySQL.
2005/8/20-22 [Computer/SW/Languages, Computer/SW/Languages/Misc] UID:39200 Activity:nil
8/20    Anybody know if QuickBooks pro can export plain-text invoices?
        \_ What do you mean by "plain-text"?  Export for printing it, or
           exporting it using some kind of script to grab the data?  You can
           export it to a shitty PDF, or print it out as a text file.  Or you
           can set up a report that reflects only the data in that invoice, and
           export that to an Excel spreadsheet, or to a PDF, or to a text file.
           And finally, you can unlock the Debug menu and actually export an
           invoice to IIF, which is a text format of sorts.  But not sure what
           would actually suit you out of all of these, if any.  -phale
           \_ Export to plain text that I can easily paste into an email.
              \_ Probably printing it to a text file would work best then.  Try
                 printing an invoice, and then in the print dialog you should
                 be able to save it to a text file instead.  Perhaps a quicker
                 thing to do for pasting to an email is run a transaction
                 journal report for the invoice, then export that report to
                 Excel, and then copy and paste the text from the spreadsheet.
                 I'm not sure which one will be better looking.  -phale
                 \_ Thanks.
2005/8/5-6 [Recreation/Dating, Computer/SW/Languages/Misc] UID:39010 Activity:nil
8/5     The problem of / filling up has been fixed.  When I permanently
        unmounted the /vol/backup drives I forgot about the cron job to
        back them up.  Every morning the script was trying to sync 20GB of
        home dir love to a drive only capable of holding a little bit of love.
        Shouldn't happen anymore. - jvarga
2005/7/28-29 [Computer/SW/Languages/Misc, Computer/SW/Languages/JavaScript] UID:38863 Activity:nil
7/28    How easy/hard is it to use Google Map's interface? Do you have
        to be a JavaScript expert? How many lines of code to write
        something simple?
        \_ http://csua.org/u/cus
           You have to know a little JS, but their examples in the docs will
           give you the general idea.  --dbushong
2005/7/22-25 [Computer/SW/Database, Computer/SW/Languages/Misc] UID:38783 Activity:kinda low
7/22    When I do SELECT AVG(col) FROM table, where col is integer, it takes
        2 minutes and returns a float type. I'm suspecting part of the
        problem is that it's doing floating point add? How do I make it
        faster? Thanks.
        \_ How many rows it is querying over?
           \_ about ~2,000,000
        \_ Try adding an index to col.  (When in doubt, add more indexes):
           ALTER TABLE table ADD INDEX (col)
           \_ This won't help at all; he's doing a full table scan with no
              where clause.  You can test your theory by using SUM instead
              of AVG; does it still take a long time?  You also have to
              consider that these very likely are floating point numbers
              if you defined the column as NUMBER.
              \_ I've seen MySQL run faster with indexes on lots of things
                 that really shouldn't have run any faster.
              \_ Indexes may cause the db to do fewer reads, depending on
                 his schema.
           \_ Actually I found out my problem isn't with the AVG but with
              "join" process. For example, I have a lot of the followings
             like SELECT ... FROM ... WHERE table1.id=table2.id2 AND
             table2.id1=table3.id... I've made sure that id, id2, and
             id3 are all indexed, but for 2 million rows it's still
             pretty slow. I wish MySQL would tell you why things are
             slow so that you can fine tune it. ARGG!! -op
2005/7/19 [Computer/SW/Languages/Misc, Computer/SW/Languages/Java] UID:38707 Activity:low
7/19    My boss has a bunch of money for techinical books he needs to get
        spend.  Any suggestions on what I should get?
        \_ Duh, what field is your dept in?
           \_ Actually, it should be something OUTSIDE my field.  (That's
              how the money is budgeted)  Some Topics:
              Linux Kernel Hacking
              MPI programming
              Advanced Threaded Programming
              Software engineering
              \_ Design Patterns
                 \_ Driving J2EE and SOAP CORBA for B2B and B2C success in
                    XML RSS!!!
        \_ The Art Of Computer Programming
2005/7/15 [Computer/SW/Languages/Misc] UID:38639 Activity:nil
7/15    Is there some kind of script that converts normal English to the one
        in the thread below?
2005/7/15-18 [Computer/SW/Languages/Misc] UID:38632 Activity:nil Edit_by:auto 50%like:36687
7/15    is kchang's motd script down or it it just me? does anyone else
        find this liberating?
        \_ you think kchang is the only one running identification scripts?
        \_ Eh.  If you haven't figured out by now that the 'user guessing' is
           useless, you might feel that way.
        \_ What does "down" mean? There are many features, which one is "down"?
           \_ http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=down
        \_ down, or downe?
2005/6/28-29 [Computer/SW/WWW/Browsers, Computer/SW/Languages/Misc, Academia/Berkeley/CSUA/Motd] UID:38333 Activity:nil
6/29    Hey danh!  Can you stop posting http://csau.org links to gorey images as
        responses to threads?  Isn't one of the motd rules not being a jerk?
        \_ Dan's not here, man.
        \_ 1) Dan hasn't logged on since last night
           2) clicking a danh link is done at your own peril
                \_ I don't post random links to the motd without
                   some description, and I use tinyurl, not http://csua.org,
                   since I have a tinyurl firefox extension. - danh
                   \_ It was probably psb.  That's the kind of thing he
                      thinks is clever.  -tom
           \_ Um, so those procs running as 'danh' aren't his?
              \_ He just logged in. pbbbt.
                   \- Fear of a Danhimal Planet
2005/6/15-17 [Computer/SW/Languages/Misc] UID:38135 Activity:nil
6/15    I've been hearing a lot about XHTML and I was wondering if there
        were any disadvantages to converting my personal html pages
        (currently in HTML 3.2) to XHTML w/ either an embedded or external
        (not sure which is better) style sheet. As anyone done something
        similar? Any issues?
        \_ We're now doing all development in XHTML.  It's not really
           that different, just a little more formalized.  If done right,
           it should reduce maintenance issues, as you can remove your
           formatting information from the pages and stick them in
           external style sheets instead, reducing the sloppiness of your
           HTML code.  -tom
2005/6/10-13 [Computer/SW/Mail, Computer/SW/Languages/Misc] UID:38079 Activity:nil
6/10    Does anyone else have this Outlook problem?  Once a while the fonts in
        the HTML messages in my Inbox becomes very big.  Then if I go to other
        messages and then go back to those HTML messages later, the fonts will
        become normal again.  Rich-text and plain-text messages don't have this
        problem.  Thx.
2005/5/12-13 [Computer/HW/Laptop, Computer/SW/Languages/Misc] UID:37652 Activity:kinda low
5/11    If you noticed that your laptop HD never rests because it's doing
        something, and you've already killed all auxilary processes and made
        drives not "Fast Indexable", it's the explorer that's funky. Here
        is one solution. Kill explorer and then run it again. You can use
        a batch file script:
        taskkill -im explorer.exe /f
        explorer.exe
        \_ Make sure you set this to N and reboot if necessary.
           HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Dfrg\BootOptimizeFunction\Enable
           This got rid of the strange HD activity on my laptop. -chiry
           \_ Is it trying to defragment the disk on its own?
              \_ My understanding is it will kick in when your laptop
                 has been idle for some time (ie, 1 hour), and will
                 disappear the moment you ran task manager trying to
                 identify the process using the disk. You will see it
                 in task manager if you leave task manager running for
                 an hour. I think it tries to defrag the boot files,
                 not your whole disk.
        \_ what does explorer.exe do when you don't have any IE Explorer
           window open?
           \_ It's your shell.  Taskbar, tray, file broweser, etc.  IExplore is
              something else.
        \_ There are a bunch of useful toys for checking open processes, file
           handles, etc. under Windows on http://www.sysinternals.com  -John
2005/5/11-12 [Computer/SW/Languages/Misc] UID:37641 Activity:nil
5/11    I made a boo-boo in my motd monitoring script and I don't know how
        to fix it. It might go back up, esp. when everyone calms down  -kchang
2005/5/9-11 [Computer/SW/Languages/Misc] UID:37587 Activity:nil
5/9     How do you write to the motd and being anonymous? I mean kchang's
        script tag you as 'grey'. ;)
        \_ You could take the opposite approach: background a script that
           touches the motd within whatever interval kchang's scripts diff
           at whenever you're logged in.  Of course, that probably doesn't
           work at like 3am when it's only psb, mice, and YOU.
           at whenever you're logged in.
        \_ Slip kchang $20 and he'll anonymize you.
        \_ You go to http://csua.org/motd
        \_ scp
           \_ this doesn't make you gray. it makes you non-existant.  Oh, and
           \_ this doesn't make you gay. it makes you non-existant.  Oh, and
              don't edit over other ppl's comments, please.
2005/5/9-11 [Computer/SW/Languages/Misc] UID:37585 Activity:low
5/9     I'm using Wells Fargo's online statement. I like it a lot better than
        ETrade and other companies because they output my statement to a PDF
        file which I can keep. This is important for me because of a lawsuit
        that I was involved in where I couldn't produce a statement because
        my old bank didn't produce a PDF file (just plain HTML) and didn't go
        back further than 6 months. What bank do you have, how long do they
        keep statements, and do they output PDF or HTML?
        \_ So they court would have accepted PDF or paper, but not HTML?  Why?
        \_ So the court would have accepted PDF or paper, but not HTML?  Why?
        \_ Personally, for my financial related documents, I choose to receive
           the paper version instead of the online version for exactly the
           reason you mentioned above.
           \_ Seconded.  I still choose paper statements for this reason, even
              though I know I'm risking ID theft at my mailbox.
        \_ I use TD Waterhouse as both a brokerage and a bank account. The
           statements they have on their website are in HTML format, but they
           keep them around / available forever.
        \_ Don't know which OS you are using, but most financial
           institutions with online services have a "view printable
           version of statement" link, which I click on, and then print
           the ensuing HTML page to a PDF file on my Mac.
2005/4/29-5/3 [Computer/SW/Languages/Misc, Computer/HW/Printer] UID:37427 Activity:nil
4/29    I used to be able to use ps2pdf (and Distiller 4) to convert PostScript
        files to PDF. After upgrading to Office 2003, I can no longer do that
        as Distiller complains "Error: undefined; OffendingCommand". What
        can I do to convert? -ok thx
        \_ http://www.pdf995.com
        \_ ghostscript.  Also check out
           http://sourceforge.net/projects/pdfcreator
2005/4/25 [Computer/SW/Languages/Misc, Academia/Berkeley/CSUA/Motd] UID:37357 Activity:moderate
4/25    I hereby re-file a motion to squish kchang, and this time, keep him
        squished for good. My charges are as follows:
        1997-- kchang uses a script to modify motd. This offense is so
        serious that the squishage should be permanent. 2003-2004--
        kchang's account is unconstitutionally reinstated. The person who
        unconstitutionally reinstated him should also be squished. 2004--
        kchang writes a web interface to expose our sacred motd to the world.
        This is like taking a private elite file and making it world
        readable, hence violating the "sharing your soda account with other
        people" law. 2004-- kchang tries to bring down the entire Berkeley
        network by fingering motd every second. 2005-- kchang writes a John
        Ashcroft script, thus violating our right to privacy. Let's reopen
        this case and this time, don't fuck up. PS this script is written by
        cat fuck_kchang.txt /etc/motd.public > tmp; cp tmp /etc/motd.public
        \_ Perhaps you should take this up with root.  Bellowing this here
           is akin to haranguing people in sproul plaza; while you might get
           a few people (possibly even quite a few) to agree with you, it's
           still basically just noise.  Rather than screaming your woes to
           a gang of other essentially powerless denizens, why don't you take
           your evidence of wrongdoing direct to the people that make
           these sorts of decisions?  You might save time and perhaps keep
           some needless invective off the motd; it already has more than its
           share....
           \_ twink
        \_ Uhhh, do I know you in person? If not, let's meet somewhere, like
           a coffee shop or something. Let's talk in person.   -kchang
2005/4/24-25 [Computer/SW/Languages/Misc, Computer/SW/OS/FreeBSD] UID:37342 Activity:nil
4/23    Can I determine the number of rows and columns available to an
        interactive terminal session from a shell script?  If so, how?
        Thanks.
        \_ On FreeBSD or Linux, run "stty size".  On other systems you can
           usually find it in "stty -a", but that's more annoying.  --mconst
           \_ 'stty size' works on OS X and OpenBSD as well
2005/4/23 [Computer/SW/WWW/Browsers, Computer/SW/Languages/Misc] UID:37333 Activity:nil
4/23    Hello my Mormon brethren, you'll want the following
        script + the greasemonkey firefox extension
        http://www.arantius.com/article/arantius/clean+language - danh
2005/4/22-25 [Computer/SW/Languages/Misc, Academia/Berkeley/CSUA/Motd] UID:37325 Activity:high
4/22    Per ilyas and dbushong's suggestion I modified motd diff:
        http://csua.berkeley.edu/~kchang/24/?incr=1
        Constructive comment/suggestions welcomed here
        \_ what do the different colors/styles of the listed names mean?
           \_ color key is here: http://csua.berkeley.edu/~kchang/24 go down
        \_ Knowing what I have added to the motd today (very little), I can
           confidently pronounce this as a piece of crap.  Or at least that
           a simple way to defeat it is to edit the motd without a lock and
           background the editor (reloading inside the editor when I want to
           add a change). -emarkp
           \_ I never made the claim it's 100% accurate or undefeatable.
              In fact it's impossible to track everything unless you make
              mods to the OS to track writes, or build something on top of
              root writable motd.public that requires authentication. It's
              a difficult problem, and that's what makes it interesting.
              \_ But claiming to indicate users while being inaccurate is
                 disinformation, especially in some of the charged threads that
                 show up here. -emarkp
                 \_ what, science can't be probabilistic? The indicators are
                    merely what the script THINKS has happened, that
                    it has some confidence that underlined/bold/etc users
                    did something, and low confidence that grayed out users
                    did something. That's it. You're right, it's not black
                    or white. If you don't trust the script, that's fine too.
                    But calling it a piece of crap, that is a bit extreme.
                    \_ It's a piece of crap.  -tom
                    \_ I count 25 entries today with my name in it.
                       Considering that before this thread I made a whopping 2
                       edits, yes I think it's a piece of crap.  Oh, and sign
                       your name. -emarkp
                        \_ I'll gladly sign my name when you start using
                           motdedit or a shared lock system :)
                           \_ Give me a break.  Motdedit is problematic, and
                              faulty.  My editor lets me know if the buffer I'm
                              editing has changed on disk so I don't overwrite.
                              That works for me.  Sign your name. -emarkp
                              \_ Well. You don't use motdedit because you have
                                 your reasons, and I will not sign because I
                                 have my reasons. Let's just leave it at that.
                                 \_ Then do you have a problem with someone
                                    writing a script to divine your identity?
                                    -emarkp
                                    \_ Not really, why should I care? It
                                       interfere with me anyways.
                                    \_ No. I guess we're all different
        \_ The page could use some UI improvements. How about format
           it like those web forums? What I meant is something like
           http://forums.slickdeals.net/t94394.html So that each
           topic is broken into its own colored sections. Also, fonts
           such as Arial would probably be easier to read. How about
           move the "clock" to the front in its separate column? At
           the end of the page, explain the color coding. Remove the
           extra line above and below the highlighted section. And if
           you are really bored, reformat each reply so that it is
           perfectly indented. -chiry
        \_ And if you yearn for anonymous motd again, http://csua.org/motd
           \_ I wouldn't mind if I get a shell account.
2005/4/21-22 [Computer/SW/Languages/JavaScript, Computer/SW/Languages/Misc] UID:37300 Activity:kinda low
4/21    When I go to the http://www.yahoo.com page, it displays a current time
        that's PST.  How does it know I'm in Pacific time zone?
        \_ Are you signed in?  if you are, it uses whatever timezone in your
           profile.
           \_ No, I don't even have a Yahoo ID.
              \_ javascript or other client side scripting knows your tz
        \_ It reads the transponders in your laptop.
        \_ It uses GPS to bounce signals off of your tinfoil hat
        \_ use the source, luke.
           <script language=javascript>d.getElementById('nw').innerHTML=time;</script>
           (see elsewhere for where the time variable is set)
2005/3/23-24 [Computer/SW/Languages/Misc, Computer/SW/Security, Transportation/Car/Hybrid] UID:36839 Activity:nil 50%like:36690
3/23    Now you can RIDE ELECTRIC BIKE!
        http://tinyurl.com/59b77 (gizmodo)
        \_ Electric bikes are not new.  -tom
2005/3/17-19 [Computer/SW/Languages/Misc] UID:36742 Activity:moderate
3/17    Is Latex still the defacto standard in academia/papers/publications?
        \- yes, esp pdflatex.
           \_ latex, dvips, Distiller is the standard in my field, not
              pdflatex - some argue that Adobe, having invented ps and pdf,
              generates the highest quality pdf. I realize this is not free.
              \- i just meant i see .ps and .pdf files provided more often
                 than i am seeing .dvi left around today.
        \_ Yes, at least in CS/EE. Most conferences provide LaTeX templates
           (all conferences to which I have submitted), but rarely do I see
           well-crafted ones for other formats. There are lots of great
           reasons to use LaTeX but in the academic realm, probably the most
           important is that most academic bibliographies are in BibTeX format.
                \_ and the ease of typesetting high quality mathematical
                   equations.
                   \_ Well, there are lots of science/engineering pubs that
                      don't need equations (although of course LaTeX rocks at
                      those), but very few don't need bibliographies.
        \_ Physics and Astronomy use LaTeX, but I'm told biological sciences
           prefer MS Word.  Go figure.
                \_ biologists have no need, or patience, for the features
                   that LaTeX offers.
        \_ Yes, it's proven to be more effective than lamb skin.
2005/2/18-19 [Computer/SW/Languages/Misc, Computer/SW/Languages, Recreation/Humor] UID:36232 Activity:nil Cat_by:auto
2/18    A parent's primer to computer slang
        http://www.microsoft.com/athome/security/children/kidtalk.mspx  -John
        \_ "Was this information helpful to you? Yes"
           \_ "Please tell us more:"  "omgwtfbbq" -geordan
2005/2/5-7 [Computer/SW/Unix, Computer/SW/Languages/Misc] UID:36071 Activity:nil
2/4     I want to add a "glossary" page to my website (for stuff related
        to a current project). I know I could just write the html myself,
        but is there some sort of utility for creating glossary pages,
        which, for example, would make it easy to add or delete entries?
        Thanks.
        \_ Use a Wiki.
                \_ Thanks. Is there any other solution?
2005/2/5 [Computer/SW/Languages/Misc] UID:36068 Activity:high
2/4     2:21AM According to my script, in the past 24 hours, ilyas locked
        /etc/motd.public 51 times, ecchang 29 times, and erickred 15 times.
        Congratulations motd warriors!
        \_ ....must....troll....harder....
        \_ Must script harder. Apart from leaving a more process running, I
           haven't touched motd.public in 48 hours. --erikred
           \_ All of the motd is really me talking to myself, anyways,
              if the spy scripting community is to be believed. -- ilyas
              \_ This sounds like the ending of a bad novel.  "But in the
                 end, the motd was all just inside ilyas' head...."
                 \_ on the motd/ilyas head, no one can hear you scream...
2005/1/29-30 [Recreation/Activities, Finance/Investment, Computer/SW/Languages/Misc] UID:35972 Activity:high
1/29    I see people with all kindsa crazy prompts and colors in their
        terminal that change when they log into different systems and
        such. Is there some easy primer to get a running start on those
        sorts of things?
        \_ http://www.google.com/search?q=zsh+prompt
        \_ Use PS1="$ " ; export PS1 as god and Steve intended.
2005/1/29-30 [Computer/SW/WWW/Browsers, Computer/SW/Languages/Misc, Computer/SW/OS/Windows] UID:35971 Activity:moderate
1/29    How can I convert my IE favorites into an html file that I can
        put on my web page?  And then how to I make it accessible only
        via passwd?
        \_ IE has "file -> export favorites" or something. It exports
           to bookmark.htm or something. Then read up on htpasswd.
        \_ And to answer your other question that somebody overwrote,
           the firefox favorites (for windows) are in your profile,
           which is in a hidden windows folder C:\Documents and Settings
           \username\Application Data\Mozilla\Firefox\Profiles
2005/1/21-24 [Computer/SW/Languages/Misc] UID:35847 Activity:nil
1/21    I have a LaTeX file that I need to convert to Microsoft Word.  I expect
        to cut and paste the text easily enough, and can just re-write the
        small number of equations, but I'm stuck on what to do with the
        references.  Does Word have an equivalent to \cite{nameofreference}?
        Is there an easy way to translate the "\cite" commands in latex
        into the Word equivalent?  Thanks.
        \_ everyone I know who has gone to the dark side uses something
           called EndNote which can import/export bibtex bibliographies.
           I imagine there is a lot of manual work ahead to insert all
           the references.
           \_ Thanks.
2005/1/11-12 [Computer/SW/Languages/Misc] UID:35650 Activity:nil
1/11    In my HTML mail there is this tag <IMG src="cid:picture.jpg">.  What
        is "cid:"?  Thanks.
        \_ Displaying attatched images?
        \_ Aargh. If we keep feeding you, you'll never learn to STFW. Sigh:
           http://www.aspemail.com/manual_04.html
2004/12/29 [Computer/SW/Languages/Misc, Computer/SW/Languages/Perl] UID:35468 Activity:moderate
12/28   Does anyone have a good (free) program for converting .ogg to
        .mp3?  Either for Linux or Windows.
        \_ CDex
        \_ Download the official Vorbis tools and then use oggdec + LAME.
           \_ Not recommended for Windows. On linux it's a one line perl script.
              \_ Why is this not recommended for Windows?  Can't you use a
                 one-line Perl (or even .bat) script there too?
                 \_ Because the Windows CLI is a piece of crap. Yes, you can
                    install cygwin, but by the time you go through the song
                    and dance of installing cygwin you could've already
                    converrted your ogg vorbis files to mp3 already with
                    CDex. Not only that, unlike Linux you can't simply
                    install an RPM/DEB or emerge in gentoo lame and oggdec.
                    You have to manually download each piece of software and
                    unzip it and path the directories correctly. It's just
                    a hassle. I mean, if you really want to write a batch
                    file go right ahead, but why bother?
2004/12/17-20 [Computer/SW/Languages/Misc, Computer/SW/OS/Windows] UID:35349 Activity:kinda low
12/17   Hey ASIC designers. What are some good drawing tools out there
        to do documentation stuff? This is for things like drawing
        waveforms, block diagrams, boolean gates, transistor symbols.
        Something on a non-Windows platform would be preferable.
        \_ Illustrator?
        \_ OmniGraffle on MacOSX
           \_ I've noticed that drawings copied-and-pasted from Omni
              into Word end up rasterized instead of preserving their
              vector format.
              \_ xfig on any unix.  export to CGM and import to
                 MS Office to retain vector format.  export to EPS
                 and include in latex docs.  learn its quirks and
                 never look back.
              \_ Try File->Export and then choose PDF Vector or EPS
                 and then try using Insert->Picture->From File in
                 Word.
        \_ /usr/local/bin/cowsay
        \_ Everybody seems to use Visio.
        \_ Microsoft paint
        \_ Synapticad is hands down the best for timing diagrams.  Bloody
           expensive for what it does, though.
        \_ brlcad.
        \_ xfig
2004/12/14 [Computer/SW/Languages/Perl, Computer/SW/Languages/C_Cplusplus, Computer/SW/Languages/Misc] UID:35286 Activity:insanely high
12/13   http://khason.biz/blog/2004/12/why-microsoft-can-blow-off-with-c.html
        Why Microsoft Can Blow Off with C the Language (humor/funny)
                                                       \_ not really.  -tom
             that's because tom holub is the anonymous humourless nuker _/
        \_ Feel the babelfish flow through you.
        \_ Any body who thinks Fortran hasn't seen widespread acceptance hasn't
           spent much time outside of the world of software development and
           systems administration, methinks. Out where I do my civil
           engineering thing, Fortran is the standard langauge. -- ulysses
        \_ Not the law is clear? There is a beard - there is a success.
           There is no beard - you are guilty.
2004/12/9-12 [Computer/SW/Languages/Misc, Computer/SW/OS/Windows] UID:35234 Activity:moderate
12/9    I have a "friend" who needs to convert ~100 .bmp images to jpg.
        Is there a free Windows program that can do this in some kind
        of batch job?
        \_ irfanview
        \_ ImageMagick for Windows
           \_ imagemagick rocks - available also as part of the cygwin
              package.
        \_ Why do you need to quote "friend"? I mean is it a 'friend'?
           \- it is for my drug dealer; but i get a discount aka
              friend price.
           \_ Don't ask questions like that. Explaining it kills it.
              \_ It's probably the same guy that didn't get the 5% question
                 yesterday.
           \_ could be a former coworker, someone you don't hang out
              with outside of work and don't really know outside of
              a former job.
              \_ that's an associate, not a "friend"
                           \_ not all of us got a 500 on the vocab
                              section of the GRE
                              \- big up yourself.
2004/11/4-5 [Computer/SW/Languages/C_Cplusplus, Computer/SW/Languages/Misc] UID:34675 Activity:kinda low
11/4    I'm learning Fortran 90 for work, and it's suddenly very clear why
        C became so popular.
        \_ so, what's a good language for numerical stuff these days?
           \_ Sadly, the really isn't one.  Fortran 90 is still used, C++
              is used a lot as well.  Niether is really good for the task.
           \_ [Matlab] equivalence class if you don't care about speed :).
                -- ilyas
                \_  Jesus fucking christ.  I actually agree with ilyas on
                    something.  There must be something wrong with matlab
                    I have not noticed.
                    \_ Shut up Rob.
                       \_ Hi tom!
                          \_ uh, what?  -tom
                             \_ Oh eat it you bitch!  I've got the SHOOEEE!
2004/10/31-11/1 [Computer/SW/Languages/Misc] UID:34484 Activity:moderate
10/31   Dear latex experts, I'm learning latex and it's pretty cool, but
        I'm sick and tired of having to do "latex file.tex; dvipdf file.dvi;
        acroread file.pdf"  Is there a more elegant way of doing this?
        Thanks.
        \_ Uh, make? -- ilyas
        \_ question 2, what's the best program do to latex on the PC?
           \_ http://www.miktex.org
           \_ agreed. MikTeX is great.
        \_ Install this at once!
           http://www.winedt.com if you use PC.
           \_ Or just use Vim.
        \_ Dear dipshit that overwrote my post, I hate you*. Anyway, the
           nice cross-platform solution is the "latexmk" perl script that
           comes with most latex distributions:
           % latexmk -pdf foo.tex => creates foo.pdf
           I use it on all platforms. It rocks.
                 * I realize "you" isn't necessarily the person with the prev.
                   post, but I hate whoever "you" is.
           \_ the docs say this just uses pdflatex
           \_ Yeah, but you can configure it to use whatever you want -
              distiller, whatever. Also it takes care of other dependencies
              like bibtex etc.
        \_ oh by the way what's the best way to do spell check/etc
           when doing latex? -op
           \_ ispell (actually I think aspell is the current approved version):
              (setq-default ispell-program-name "aspell")
              (autoload 'flyspell-mode "flyspell" "On-the-fly ispell." t)
              (require 'ispell)
              It'll probably work from the command line too, but within
              emacs, using auctex+flyspell rocks.
              aspell is in the cygwin distribution (Windows) or fink (OS X).
        \_ pdflatex?
           \_ Running Distiller will probably give you higher-quality PDF, but
              pdflatex is pretty good. And I don't think pdflatex saves you
              from the latex, bibtex, latex, latex cycle that latexmk would.
        \_ alias?  script?
        \_ I thought you are talking about condom...
2004/10/29 [Computer/SW/Languages/Misc] UID:34433 Activity:nil
10/29   Via JoelOnSoftware: pretty cool standards-based HTML slide show format
        http://www.meyerweb.com/eric/tools/s5
2004/10/26 [Computer/SW/Languages/Misc] UID:34342 Activity:nil
10/25   Action movie script for dorks:
        http://mcsweeneys.net/2004/10/5keane.html
2004/10/21 [Computer/SW/Languages, Computer/SW/Languages/Misc] UID:34265 Activity:nil
10/21   My digital camera (canon powershot) doesn't have the functionality
        of adding date/time at the bottom right hand corner of every picture.
        And I develop the pictures at Costco and their machines do not print
        date/time at the back of the paper.  I really do not want to use
        software and manually open up each file and add the date/time
        into the pictures.  Too time consuming.  Are there other printing
        services that will print the date on the back of the pictures?  Or
        some software that will automatically add the date in.  Like some
        programs will create thumbnails on all jpgs in a directory and name
        them appropriately.  Thanks.
        \_ I suspect ImageMagick could do this if there's some way to extract
           the timestamp from the EXIF data.  ImageMagick is great for scripted
           image manipulation but I don't know how to extract EXIF data with
           it or any other program. -dgies
        \_ I use Imagemagick's convert wrapped in a shell script to do
           "thumbnailing"
2004/10/18-19 [Computer/SW/Languages/Misc] UID:34203 Activity:nil
10/18   Is there a way to disable domain login script on XP?
2004/10/13-15 [Computer/SW/Languages/Misc] UID:34106 Activity:moderate
10/13   Got into a discussion with someone over how I like the
        Times New Roman font when it is created by LaTeX, but not
        in MS Word. He then claimed they have to look the same if
        they're the same font, but they clearly look different.
        What is the explanation for this?
        \_ The MS fonts have hooks for inserting font viruses and trojans
           which changes their look slightly.
        \_ Are you sure it's not Times vs. Times New Roman?  Spacing might
           might be an issue too.  Also, unless LaTeX gets its fonts from
           .ttf files, they are not the same font. (They might be the same
           typeface, though.)
                \_ I just use the default font. Also what is the difference
                   between font and typeface? -op
                   \_ A font is a computer file that represents a typeface.
                      Fonts are considered computer programs and are
                      protected by copyright laws in the U.S. (but typefaces
                      are not).
                   \_ i think the latex default font is "computer modern"
        \_ The spacing might be different.  Word doesn't do proper kerning.
           Have you done a side-by-side comparison?
           \_ I just compared Times in latex/Word and they look nearly
              identical (including spacing).  The exceptions I've found are
              cases like "fi" which are reduced to a single glyph in latex but
              not in Word.
2004/10/2-4 [Consumer/CellPhone, Computer/SW/Languages/Misc] UID:33885 Activity:kinda low
10/2    I want to get a text message or have my cell phone ring when
        Mt. St. Helens erupts. Any ideas how to do this?
        \_ Perhaps you can use an RSS feed from one of the major news
           organizations, coupled with a script to parse and send the message?
        \_ google alerts?  Of course the trouble with using google
           for news is that there is the crawler lag. -- ilyas
        \_ Tell your neurotic midwestern relatives who watch tv all the time
           that you moved to Seattle, and give them your cell phone number.
           Yes, I realize that Seattle is in no danger, but they won't.
        \_ ask these guys to call you
           http://kvoa.com/Global/story.asp?S=2379524
        \_ set up a script to monitor http://cnn.com for the appropriate headline.
           then have it email your cell phone.
        \_ Uh... why?  Would finding out an hour later matter at all?
2004/9/29-30 [Computer/SW/Languages/Misc] UID:33839 Activity:nil
9/29    MySQL question:  If I create a table where one column is an ENUM such
        as ENUM('a','b','c') can I later expand the enumerated values to say
        add 'd' to the possibilities, or do I have to rebuild the whole table?
        \_ Not really (although I think this makes MySQL silently rebuilt
           the table anyway):
             ALTER TABLE foo CHANGE bar bar ENUM ('a','b','c','d');
           -geordan
           \_ Slightly shorter:
              ALTER TABLE foo MODIFY bar ENUM ('a','b','c','d');
              --dbushong
2004/9/27-10/2 [Computer/SW/Languages/Misc, Computer/SW/OS/Windows] UID:33778 Activity:kinda low
9/27    My company's looking for a PT IT support person (~10hrs/wks)
        to support the 7 person office here at Berkeley (close to Golden Gate
        Field ) Basically need to have a good understanding of Windows
        networking, be able to setup machines and just a lot of misc. trouble
        shooting with our Germany office.  If interested send me your resume
        at mch@soda.berkely.edu Pays about $15-$30/hr DOE
        \_ Wow, that's really low. Guess you're looking for a student.
           \_ Look at the tasks involved.  My brother who's 16 could do this..
              \_ Well, your brother who's 16 can also probably be trained
                 to run a DNA sequencing machine. That doesn't mean a
                 mission critical lab should hire him. Setting up a bunch
                 of machines on a network running Windows is trivial.
                 Setting up a bunch of machines on a network running
                 Windows so you won't get hacked within 24 hours isn't.
                 Setting up a network which is redundant so you won't
                 lose all your data when the hard disk warranty goes
                 out the window isn't a $300 per week task.
                 \_ It might be a 10hrs/week task, but that's more than
                    $300/wk.
        \_ http://www.supportresort.com
        \_ http://supportempire.com

</pre></body></html>

</pre></body></html>
        \_ http://supportempire.com

</pre></body></html>

</pre></body></html>

</pre></body></html>
2004/9/22 [Computer/SW/Languages/Perl, Computer/SW/Languages/Misc] UID:33693 Activity:moderate
9/22    I have a form that posts a heap of text from textarea box to a Perl
        script that puts the info into a flat database file. I'm using
        $in{'mytext'} =~ s/\</&lt;/g;
        to change any html tags to harmless <>s, but how do I replace newlines
        with <br>?  I've tried:
        $in{'mytext'} =~ s/^M/\<br\>/g;
        $in{'mytext'} =~ s/\^M/\<br\>/g;
        $in{'mytext'} =~ s/\n/\<br\>/g;
        and I'm still getting ^Ms in my file.  Help!
        \_ ^M is \r, not \n.  -tom
        \_ Aren't HTML form lines ended with \r\n like Windows?  And doesn't
           Perl::CGI deal with this?
           \_ (responding to myself) yes, it's \r\n (CR LF):
              http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40/interact/forms.html#h-17.13.4.2
              \_ what would you want Perl::CGI to do with a textarea that
                 contains newlines, other than put the newlines in the
                 variable?  -tom
                 \_ I couldn't remember if the newline was platform-
                    independent, but if it wasn't that CGI would have a
                    plantform-independent method of splitting/replacing/etc.
           \_ This did the trick, thank you.
2004/9/19-20 [Computer/Networking, Computer/SW/Languages/Misc] UID:33626 Activity:high
9/19    I'm looking for a simple but good load balancing appliance to sit
        in front of two boxes for the purposes of redundancy.  Load Balancing
        isn't really required, I just want the device to send traffic to
        the secondary box iff the first server goes down. Recommendations?
        \_ An OpenBSD 3.5 box running pf + carp can do this. If you don't
           want to use OpenBSD you can try ucarp: http://www.ucarp.org
           \_ I considered this kind of virtual IP solution, but there are
              lots of situations where an app server is down but the host
              still responds to a ping.  A Load balancer solution would be
              better if it could check the port to decide if it is up or
              not.  (which I think is the way they do it, no?)  Optimally
              I'd be able to tell the load balancer  "check this url for this
              answer or consider it down", but that seems like something I'm
              unlikely to get from some off the shelf appliance.  (I want an
              appliance as it should be more reliable than a pc (?) ).  How
              expensive is a small bigIP box or something like that?  I can
              spend a couple grand on this.
              \_ My knowledge of CARP is limited, but it is based on the
                 tx/rx of signed adv. not just ip pinging, so detection
                 of a host that is down but still pingable is not an issue.
                 It can't tell that your http server is down though.
                 I'm not sure what the cheapest soln is, but I've seen
                 lots of people use alteon boxes.
              \_ a pair of bigIP boxes should run you under 2k easily, check
                 fleabay.  I'm assuming you want two, to avoid moving the
                 single point of failure to the bigips.  We have a pair at
                 work... when I started, the active one would crash about
                 once a week.  We haven't done anything major to them (only
                 adding more IPs/services) but now it's not crashing.  They
                 will do ICMP/TCP/HTTP/HTTPS monitoring.  You might as well
                 do load balancing since you get it for free.
                 \_ Hmm, these are pricey.  Any "application switch" type
                    products that don't cost 10K new?
                    \_ Apache+modproxy with a smart proxy list handler.
                       \_ O.K. I can't actually use this solution because the

                          client wants a hardware box.  (there are advantages,
                          e.g. flash memory is more reliable than a harddrive)
                          But, I'm curious as to how a smart proxy list handler

                          would work.  URL?
                          \_ http://www.arachna.com/edu/talks/loadbalancing/slides/mod_rewrite_1_of_2.html
                          \_ http://tinyurl.com/4qzvt
                             the RewriteMap script (slide 11) can do whatever
                             you want.  I've set one up where it stats a file
                             containing valid hosts, rereads it if it has
                             changed, and set up a monitoring script that
                             updated that file.  That monitor script can
                             do whatever you want it to. --scotsman
                             do whatever you want it to as well. --scotsman
                    \_ okay, I actually went and looked on ebay.  The p3-550's
                       that we have have buyitnow prices of $300 ea.
                \_ if you want an appliance type box to do this, the arrowpoint
                   (now cisco 5000) devices would do it and quite well. Again
                   you might find these on Ebay for not to much. -EricM
                   \_ ExtremeNetworks also make a little switch (1i?)
                      that can do this.
2004/9/17 [Computer/SW/Database, Computer/SW/Languages/Misc] UID:33585 Activity:nil
9/17    In SQL it seems DATE, DATETIME, TIME and TIMESTAMP are all reserved
        words.  What do you use to name your date fields?
        \_ What date it actually is, e.g.: "created_date", "updated_date",
           "renewed_date" (or just "created", "updated", "renewed", etc)
           --dbushong
           \_ Good idea, thanks.  Another question:  How do I create a table
              with a record which is an array of strings, eg: a table of
              some type of record where one element is a list of keywords.
              Do I have to put all the keywords in one string and do something
              like comma-seperation?
              \_ If they're going to be of varying length and short, then the
                 comma separation bit will work.  Otherwise, make a new keyword
                 table and tie it to the first table with a foreign key.
2004/9/9 [Computer/SW/Languages/Misc] UID:33434 Activity:nil
9/9     In a sh script what is the significance of the "X" character here:
          read yn
          if [ X$yn = Xn ]; then
             \- if $y is empty and you do if $y = foo, it well  generate
                a syntax error because the shell will see if = foo --psb
                \_ Thanks! --op
2004/9/4-6 [Computer/SW/Languages/Misc] UID:33351 Activity:high
9/3     I started getting spam on an account that is only mentioned on
        my webpage (it's not my normal account). If it's an automated
        spider or something that scans webpages for email addresses,
        would it make a difference if I either 1) put up the email address
        without an actual "mailto:" link or 2) put up an image of the
        text of my email address? Thanks.
        \_ http://www.codehouse.com/webmaster_tools/email_obfuscator -tom
           \_ 30 seconds and someone's added that to their harvester script.
           \_ nice concept, but as you come up with a solution, it's already
              obsolete. Naive. Nice try.
              \_ Wrong.  Certainly it's possible to write a harvester that
                 gets around obfuscators, but there are dozens of different
                 ones out there, and they include random elements which makes
                 it difficult to script for.  You don't need to solve 100% of
                 the problem to make a big improvement.  -tom
                 \_ There's no such thing as a right/wrong answer. There are
                    are only trade-offs to consider. This is a typical
                    tom holub opinionated answer. Go get an education.
                    \_ You said it was obsolete, he said you're wrong. I think
                       he wins.
                       \_ You still view talking to, you know, other people
                          as a competitive game with winners and losers?
                          Yeah, ok, you 'win,' buddy.  Let us know when you join
                          the rest of the adult world. -- random guy
                          \_ Tom in a nutshell:  An asshole online.  Not
                             stupid, but not as smart as he thinks he is.
                             He has some native intelligence but is not
                             well educated, so he doesn't know how to
                             think about complicated concepts.  His main
                             defect is not realizing these limitations.
                             Disclaimer:  I don't know what his personality
                             is like face to face, but I've been around
                             CSUA for a while.
        \_ make a comment form and script
        \_ It's too late for that account.  Once your account is on 1 spammer
           list, it'll soon be sold and resold forever until they all have it.
           I suggest changing the account name, dropping that address and
           implementing various email hiding solutions.  Uhm, in reverse
           order to what I just said, :-).
        \_ http://www.spamhole.com
           \_ Nice.  http://Mailinator.com as well.  -John
           \_ Or http://spamgourmet.com, which is even easier after initial setup
2004/9/2 [Computer/SW/Languages/Misc] UID:33303 Activity:nil
9/2     Wow this is funny. And has nothing to do with BushKerryNader:
        http://virt.vgmix.com/jenny18
        \_ Any emacs port for it, similar to M-x psychoanalyze-pinhead?
2004/8/6 [Computer/SW/Languages/Perl, Computer/SW/Languages/Misc] UID:32750 Activity:high
8/6     On Linux, how can I find out how much space a directory takes up?
        (Including all it's files and subdirs, etc.)
        \_ du -sk .  -tom
        \_ try windirstat (ok, it's not linux), it's awesome!!
           \_ on Linux we just take such things for granted
              (hint, du -k | sort -rn )
              \_ windirstat is a lot more advanced than du -k. come on, this is
                 no longer the 80s.
        \_ For each file, type ls -l.  Copy that down in notepad.exe.  Then
           write a perl script to take the input you save in notepad.exe,
           put a plus sign "+" inbetween the numbers and pipe it through the
           'bc' command, take the output from 'bc' and print it out, send a
           fax of the photocopy of your printout to your boss's secretary
           asking her to ask him to approve the numbers, and don't forget that
           at each stage you should have the security department double check
           everything so you're not in a state of policy violation.
        \_ ~jameslin/bin/dirstat is a lame awk script I made awhile back to
           calculate this. --jameslin
2004/8/4-5 [Academia/Berkeley/CSUA/Motd, Computer/SW/Languages/Misc] UID:32694 Activity:very high
8/4     So I have a few questions.  Why is ilyas zilching the bottom part of
        motd.public, and with a script too it seems?  Is ilyas also the same
        guy who was nuking it for out-of-order deletions, or was that jblack?
        \_ Not with a script.  I am zilching it because someone deleted a thread
           I was (still) participating in, while leaving the threads below it
           be.  I ll stop if you give me a good reason why I should.  Or perhaps
           what I should do is whine to the politburo about how my posts are
           getting victimized, like someone suggested yesterday. -- ilyas
           \_ How very libertarian "I'm not getting my way so I'll throw a
              fit and mess with everyone else's posts" of you.  Go Ilyas!!
              \_ Indeed.  If you were me, what would you do?  Btw, please
                 sign your name, so we can try your approach on your posts.
                 I am not, btw, messing with everyone's posts.  I am merely
                 interpreting a deletion of a thread as a sign that the entire
                 section of the motd past that point has gotten stale and needs
                 garbage-collected.  -- ilyas
                 \_ So anyone replying to a thread should move it to the top
                    of the motd, to indicate its freshness?  When did this
                    start?
                    \_ No they shouldn't.  People who perform the legidimate
                    \_ No they shouldn't.  People who perform the legitimate
                       public service of cleaning up old threads tend to only
                       deal with the bottom that isn't getting modified anymore.
                       I have no beef with them.  You are putting words in
                       my mouth. -- ilyas
                 \_ If I were you, what would I do?  I'd try to figure out
                    why everyone thinks I'm a jackass.
                    \_ Well, if you think I am doing something wrong, at least
                       you know who to blame.  You seem to have no unkind words
                       for the anonymous jackasses who fuck up motd threads,
                       which I find interesting.  You wouldn't happen to be
                       one of them, would you? -- ilyas
           \_ Seems punitive, especially of parties who didn't participate
              in the thread (I assume it was the Partha-Kantian one).  I am
              not sure how fair it is to punish disinterested third-parties.
              \_ Yes it does seem punitive.  I don't think it's a good
                 reason for stopping though.  I don't know of another way to
                 'encourage' certain motd idiots to not delete stuff out of
                 order. -- ilyas
                 \_ Punishing the deleter seems fair.  The same logic that
                    would justify the punishment of others could lead to all
                    kinds of unpleasant applications.  I don't think the
                    inability to punish just the delete would justify the
                    punishment of all.
                    \_ Seems like we disagree, then.  I have no way of
                       punishing the deleters even if I knew who they all were.
                       You are right, if you take what I am doing to its logical
                       conclusion, the motd becomes extremely unpleasant.
                       That's sort of the point.  Don't delete non-stale
                       threads to avoid unpleasantness.  Or, to phrase it
                       another way "if you fuck up someone's posts, you are
                       really hurting the motd as a whole -- don't do it."
                         -- ilyas
                       \_ It's probably not difficult to figure out who
                          deleted your thread (repeated reinstatement, forcing
                          the deleter into a predictable behavior pattern), if
                          you wanted to.  Having done that, you could either
                          selectively punish that person by deleting his
                          subsequent posts, or you can at least hold his name
                          up to public scrutiny.
                          \_ I could, probably, if it's a single person.  (I
                             don't think it is). But
                             public scrutiny will not encourage anybody to
                             change their behavior (it's certainly not
                             encouraging me), and I have no desire to maintain
                             an error-prone script to try to determine who
                             posts what, and selectively delete a wrong person's
                             post.  I think my method works better.  It occurs
                             to me this argument is already occupying too much
                             space here, on the motd.  If you have something
                             constructive to add to address the problem of
                             selective deletions, just email me and I ll be
                             happy to discuss more.  To people deleting active
                             threads: please don't do it, you aren't helping
                             anyone. -- ilyas
                             \_ I hate the politics purgers as much or more
                                than you do.  getting pissed at them doesn't
                                help.  they love that.  here's what works:
                                purge a unix-related thread for every politics
                                thread they kill.  This is the only thing
                                these fuckers understand, and it works.
                                The typical politics purger is some dick who
                                wants the whole motd to be a little unix
                                nerd forum where we all talk about drivers
                                all day.
                   \_ One of you is guilty, all of you shall be held
                      responsible till the guilty one comes forward.
        \_ My apologies to jblack for impugning his honor, btw.
2004/8/2-3 [Computer/SW/Languages/Misc, Computer/SW/Unix] UID:32648 Activity:nil
8/2     Is there a way I can invoke  abs (absolute value) from a bash script?
        In general how can I use math function from shell script?
        \_ If you're worried about math functions, then it is time to start
           using a real scripting language instead of shell.
           \_ Agreed.  But, if you're not quite ready to rewrite your script
              yet, it's pretty easy in bash: $((x < 0 ? -x : x)) will return
              the absolute value of $x.  See the section ARITHMETIC EXPANSION
              in the bash manpage.  --mconst
              \_ Thanks.  I would have used Perl if I had thought that
                 I would need math functions.
                 \_ It's never too late to do the right thing.  It'll only
                    be harder to convert later.
        \_ bc (use a here document), note you have to define your own
           abs function.
2004/8/1-2 [Computer/SW/Languages/Misc] UID:32614 Activity:high
8/1     A silly question: how do I output something to stderr from a shell
        script, except by echo foo-bar > /dev/fd/3?
        \_ You mean /dev/fd/2, right?  That works fine, and it's actually
           the only way to do it in csh.  If you're using sh, you can also
           do "echo foo-bar >&2" -- the &2 means "file descriptor 2", just
           like /dev/fd/2.
           \_ Stricly speaking you want echo foo 1>&2 in sh.
2004/7/31-8/2 [Computer/SW/Languages/Misc] UID:32611 Activity:high
7/31    Using CSS, is there a way to make my text just take up the middle 700
        points of the webpage, similar to the way it would be done as if I
        had made a table with width="700" (using only HTML)? Thanks.
        \_ http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-CSS1#box-properties  -tom
        \_ http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-CSS1#box-properties  -tom
           \_ whoever keeps messing up this URL, stop.  -tom
        \_ here's a real world example of using CSS mixed w/ kludge to get
           the desired effect:
                http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0
                http://creativecommons.org/includes/deeds.css
2004/7/9-10 [Computer/SW/Languages/Misc, Health/Sleeping, Industry/Startup] UID:32202 Activity:nil
7/9     http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=573&ncid=757&e=1&u=/nm/20040709/od_nm/life_naps_dc
2004/7/7-12 [Computer/SW/Languages/Misc, Computer/SW/Languages/Python] UID:31205 Activity:high
7/7     If you're interested in working at Lawrence Livermore National Lab,
        there are quite a few openings.  The first opening I heard about
        today was for working on parallel file systems in Linux, a good OS
        hacking job.  See it at: /csua/pub/jobs/LLNL.  However, there are
        always a lot of jobs for scientific programmers (Familiariry with
        Math, Physics, and/or biology are big pluses). There's also some sys
        admin jobs and other miscelleous things. You can check out:
        http://csua.org/u/82x click "search by organization", and select
               \_ All I get is a PeopleSoft8 error page:
                  "Webserver appears to be incorrectly configured."
                  \_ It's a government facility.  Someone will take a look at
                     the logs next week and submit the "Form a committee to
                     discuss error log issue" paperwork a week later.  Quit
                     yer bitichin', take your pension and stop stirring the
                     water.  You trying to get someone in trouble?
                  \_ Works for me, but you could also go to ww.llnl.gov
                     and click "Jobs" then click "advanced search"
        "Computation."  Or search more generally.  Or email me. -jrleek
        \_ thanks for the post.  can you comment on the quality of life issues
           of living out there?  I.e. rent, ease of getting around with or
           without a car, traffic, access to parks and such, how easy it is to
           get back to the bay area, etc.?  Could one buy a decent home
           out there on a LLNL salary?
        \_ Do you have to be a genius to work there?
           \_ I think you're confusing LLNL with the apple store
              \- LLNL has a reputation of having a lot of politics ...
                 although maybe a hacking job isnt especially affected.
                 what do you think? --psb
              \_ The genius I met at apple store is positively retarded.
           \_ No, but it helps.  Basically, LLNL is fully of
              self-modivated geniuses.  If you want to get ahead and be
              self-motivated geniuses.  If you want to get ahead and be
              really important, yeah, you should have both a PhD and a
              genius level intelect.
              To psb: Actually, yeah, the politics here can be pretty bad.
              Basically, you get a good income, great benifits, great job
              security, and you work with geninuses.  The downside is you
              have to put up with some petty acedemic-style politics.  I
              consider this a reasonable trade. -jrleek
              \_ 1.  What is academic politics like?  2.  Why does government
                 job well?  I thought government job pay sucks.
                 \_ My pay is a little less than my friends who started
                    work at the same time, but I work a lot less, and have
                    a lot more flexibility.  And oh man, THE BENIFITS are
                    stellar.  How would you like your retirement paycheck
                    to be 100% of what you were making when you retired?
                    That's pretty dang good.  Acedemic politics are all
                    the piss-posturing about Phds and worring about
                    whether something is really RESEARCH or not that you
                    see around Universities.  You know, the stuff like
                    what professors do where they get more worried about
                    who's who and who has what education and went where
                    than about who's doing a good job.  It's not really
                    that bad around here, but you see it sometimes.
                        -jrleek
                    \_ Ok, so maybe academic politics isn't worse than office
                       cubicle politics.  But you also need security clearance
                       to work there, right?  Do people get harrassed for
                       having brown skin?
                       \_ yes, you do, no they don't care that you're a heavy
                          pot user and queer, no they don't care but you will
                          care that they're all white and very conservative.
                       \_ This post above me ^^^^ is a little
                          unintelligible, but correct.  Brown skin's not a
                          problem, although not being a citizen is.  Our
                          biggest "minority" is easily Chinese, but yeah,
                          this place is mostly white.  It still feels
                          wierd after leaving Berkeley to end up in a room
                          where all the occupants are white.  That's
                          really just a function of the citizenship rule
                          though really. Oh, and having been a
                          druggie in the past isn't a problem, but
                          currently being "a big pot user" might be a
                          problem.  Being a big booze drinker is a
                          problem. -jrleek
                          \_ it was intelligible.  i simply chose to ignore
                             common english syntax like psb does but no one
                             calls him unintelligble.
                             \_ are you insane?  people call psb unintelligable
                                all the time.
        \_ jrleek, are you elite and what do you do?
                \_ http://csua.com/?entry=12410
           \_ I'm about as un-elite as they come, but here's what I do:
              http://www.llnl.gov/CASC/components/babel.html
              -jrleek
              \_ I hope you didn't pick the color scheme.
              \_ Why not SWIG (swig.sourceforge.net)?
                 \_ obItWorksWithOcaml! -- ilyas
                 \_ SWIG actually does provide pretty good functionality.
                    It is currently well used at the lab.  The main
                    problem is that since it's not specifically designed
                    for scientific programming, there are some features
                    we really need that SWIG just doesn't have, and
                    probably shouldn't add.
                 \_ More on SWIG.  Also, in SWIG all callers must be
                    script languages.  We want the whole call stack to be
                    mixed languages.  Python calls Java, which calls C,
                    Which calls fortran, which calls Python. Completely
                    impossible in SWIG. -jrleek
                    \_ Uh... what's a 'script language' jrleek?
        \_ Oh sure, end your hiring freeze right after I get another job
           elsewhere.
        \_ I guess I wouldn't mind but is there a Ranch 99 nearby with
           Boba Tea hang out place filled with cute Asian chicks? That's
           more important than say, pay or housing.             -chinese
           \_ Sorry, AFAIK the nearest Ranch 99 is in Albany and there are
              no Boba places.  As they meantion below, open a restraunt
              and either serve good foor or cheap prices and you'll be
              packed constantly.  As far as single h@t 4SI4N CH1X0R, I
              know one at church, and one at work.  This being a nerd
              town, there are quite a few asian chicks, but they're
              already married to white guys.
        \_ can you comment on the quality of life issues of living out there?
           what is the housing situation?  traffic?  easy access to decent
           stores, easy access to parks?  how long does it take to get back
           into the bay area?  do you have to own a car to get around out there?
           \_ I live in the area but don't work at LLNL.  Housing is much
              easier here than in SF,Oak,Berk,SJ,SC,Penninsula,etc.  You have
              the choice of paying less to get the same size but newer than in
              those places or paying the same to get much more and newer.
              Traffic: not too bad but getting worse.  Depends which direction
              you're going and when.  Decent stores: Costco is nearby, every
              chain imaginable is near by, Berkeley is 25 minutes for the rest.
              I live 90 seconds walk from a nice park.  It's 25 to Berk, 45 to
              SF.  Yes, you must have a car but contrary to popular opinion,
              you aren't legally required to drive an SUV in the suburbs.  The
              biggest problem here now is lack of restaurants.  The food is ok
                                          \_ The other side of the hills may
                                             not be Berkeley or SF, but
                                             Walnut Creek offers many fine
                                             eating choices, and the kickin'-est
                                             ribs in the Bay Area are to be
                                             found in Lafayette. -elizp
              but there simply aren't enough.  Come out here and open one and
              you'll be packed at every meal as long as you're not killing
              people.
              \_ yahoo maps gives a time for driving between llnl and berkeley
                 that is exactly double what you claim.  looking at the
                 map, it looks to me like walnut creek is just as far away
                 as berkeley...throw in traffic, and you've got a solid hour
                 or more to get *anywhere*.
                 \_ yeah plus it's hot as hell in the summer out there. and
                    you're making your living suckling at the gubmint's teat!
        \_ what's the pay?
           \_ they pay decently but not great.  if you spend your career
              there the pension more than makes up for it as well as the
              other perks and benes.
        \_ no Ranch 99, no Boba, no Chinese radio, only 1 foreign channel,
           forget it.                                           -chinese
           \_ For 100, do you try harder?
           \_ You can listen to RTHK over the Internet if you have
              RealAudio.
        \_ um, parallel file system? It's called the RAID. Stop
           reimplementing things that have been done decades ago.
                \_ That's all Linux is, isn't it?
2004/7/4-5 [Computer/SW/Languages/Misc] UID:31159 Activity:low
7/4     Is there any script which can split a multi-page pdf to multiple
        single pages pdf?
2004/6/30-7/1 [Computer/SW/Languages/Misc, Computer/SW/Security] UID:31095 Activity:low
6/30    I have a ps file probably made from a (la)tex source but I do not have
        access to the source.  ps2pdf renders it but only with totally ugly
        result - the fonts look like scaled up bitmaps.  How do I make it look
        normal?
        \_ Try a more recent version of ghostscript.
2004/6/30 [Computer/SW/WWW/Browsers, Computer/SW/Languages/Misc] UID:31075 Activity:insanely high
6/30    US Govt. recommends: Use a different web browser.
        http://www.kb.cert.org/vuls/id/713878
        \_ That's why I use IE for work but Netscape to surf other stuff.
2004/6/29-30 [Computer/SW/Languages/Misc] UID:31053 Activity:high
6/28    is it useful/essential to learn Latex? I'm pretty happy with MS Word
        and Powerpoint but occassionally people make fun of me and I kind of
        feel left out and wanna learn Latex, but I'm not sure if it's
        worthwhile to spend the time learning it. thx.
        \_ I don't think I've ever found it useful, and I know very very few
           people in industry that have any use for it.  Perhaps it's different
           in academia if you're serious about publishing something (lecture
           notes, text books, etc).  It's a tool, man.  If a tool serves a
           need you have, then learn it.  It sounds like the people you hang
           with are kind of silly.
        \_ If people are making fun of you for not knowing LaTeX, those
           people really need to get a life. Meet girls, pick up a language,
           explore the world, learn about other cultures, see live theater,
           read a book. There's so much more to life than learning LaTeX.
           If you have nothing better to do then knock yourself out.
           \_ Shut up Paolo.
              \_ Uhm, even if it is Paolo, his comment seems pretty sensible.
                 Dumbass.
           \- you should learn troff -me macros.
              \_ my first resume was ms macros with tbl.  those were good times.
        \_ I use LaTeX as my main way of composing a document of which
           appearance is important.  The only time I run word is when
           I have to deal with a word.doc someone else sent me.  Although
           I hope the world does not revolve around MS Word and its
           proprietary file format, I don't think the reasons your offered
           justify learning latex.  (It sounds like a troll actually.)
           BTW, I never learned latex in the sense of taking a course or
           sitting down and read a few chapters of a book.  Nobody does.
           You just look at an existing document or draft and emulate.  That's
           the advantage of LaTeX.  I knew all about Word 10 years ago but
           since I stopped using it, now I forgot how to do many things in it.
        \_ I need to learn it for my work.  (LLNL)  Really, for large
           documents where layout is important and there are a lot of
           graphs and pictures, Word becomes unuasable.  It got so bad
           that my version of Word XP would crash whenever I tried to
           insert a text box.  It's just the wrong tool for the job.
           -jrleek
           \_ well, yes; Word is not a layout tool, it's a word processor.
              If you need layout, use InDesign or Quark.  Or better, do it in
              XHTML.  -tom
              \_ vi and troff.  real men settle for nothing less.
2004/6/18 [Computer/SW/Apps, Computer/SW/Languages/Misc] UID:30910 Activity:nil
6/18    [reposted] What is the best software to use for making large posters?
        I have found that Illustrator goes crazy when you have too large a file
        with too many bitmaps imported, and obviously powerpoint kind of sucks.
        It's been suggested that i use latex, but that seems like a silly way
        to do graphical layout.  i  don't object to buying expensive software
        (i won't be paying for it) but I want to know what the *right*
        software is.
        \_ talk to someone at Kinko's. They'd know.
2004/6/4 [Computer/SW/Languages, Computer/SW/Languages/Misc] UID:30603 Activity:low
6/4     The Seventh Antual ICFP Programming Contest begins!
        http://www.cis.upenn.edu/proj/plclub/contest/task.php
2004/6/3 [Computer/SW/Languages/Misc] UID:30565 Activity:nil
6/3     Jesus Christ.  The motd is moving backwards and forwards in time.  Is
        this some kind of script war?  I think we might have been better off
        with no controls of any kind.
2004/5/2-4 [Computer/SW/Languages/Misc, Computer/SW/Languages/Web] UID:29950 Activity:very high
5/1     Can someone please recommend a good apachelog analyzer (generates
        statistics, etc etc)? Something cool, maybe with HTML+graphics,
        easy to use, and free.
        \_ awstats.  uses php, easy to set up.  maybe doesn't do everything
           that webalyzer does, but a heck of a lot easier to install.
           \_ umm, webalizer is pretty easy to install.
        \_ analog is the STANDARD!
        \_ Search the web for "Scratchy"
2004/5/2-4 [Computer/SW/Languages/Misc] UID:29947 Activity:insanely high
5/1     Anyone recommend a word processor for writing a book? My friend's mom
        just finished her book, and it's one Word doc per chapter... I was
        wondering if there is any software out there geared to handle 300 pages?
        She's a writer, so no, she doesn't want to use LaTex.
        \_ FWIW, my mom wrote her dissertation (100s of pages, plus footnotes)
           in WordPerfect.  She seemed pretty happe, but she also used EndNote
           in WordPerfect.  She seemed pretty happy, but she also used EndNote
           to help with footnoting.
        \_ Why in god's name did she start a new doc every page?
                \_ sorry, I meant one doc per chapter.
        \_ Framemaker...kinda industrial, but powerful.
           \_ Don't be mad.  FM is such a bitch she might as well us LaTex.
        \_ People have written math books in latex. -- ilyas
                \_ that's the whole point. she has no interest in making
                   perfectly typeset symbols and the like. she probably
                   just needs something to efficiently handle many pages of text.
           \_ asking someone's mom to use latex is just plain stupid.  she
              needs a word processor.  what she really needs is for someone to
              teach her how to use Word properly.  one .doc per page is just
              user error/ignorance.  she already has the right tool.  she now
              needs lessons in basic use.
                \_ no one doc per page is my typo. it was 41 chapters, so 41
                   docs. she wanted to get the page numbers right before
                   sending the book off to the publisher, so printing each
                   document wont do. as for using 1 doc vs. 41 docs, I don't
                   think her decision to go one doc per chapter was so bad...
                   it's faster to load, easier to manage, etc. also, there are
                   probably fears of losing 1 chapter vs. losing the whole
                   document if there is corruption.
           \_ How many math books nowadays *aren't* written in LaTeX?  I can't
              imagine trying to make a 100+ page document with extensive
              mathematical typesetting without LaTeX. However, I think it's
              pretty clear that the op's friend's mom is *not* writing a
              math book.
              \_ TeX/LaTeX are good even for non-math stuff. I wrote all my
                 english essays in LaTeX, for example.
           \_ I think the OP was acknowledging that LaTeX could be used, but
              it's complexitity was too great for the intended user.
              \_ LaTeX is really not that hard to use. You can do all the
                 typing first, and then the proofing and formatting later.
                 \_ Latex is so easy, even I use it all the time. -- ilyas
              \_ aren't there plenty of graphical LaTeX editors?
                 \_ there's scientific word, but personally i don't trust
                    it.  I've seen people wrestling with it for hours to get
                    it to not fuck up their figure captions, and i've seen it
                    destroy bits and pieces of  documents in screwy ways.
                    mathematica can generate latex from its wysywyg, but
                    it's some kind of fucked up latex code that not all latex
                    compilers will recognize.  if you want a point and click
                    interface, why use latex?
                 \_ no
           \_ LaTeX is flexible, powerful, and totally impossible to use on any
              non-*nix platform.  Don't delete this again.
              \_ wrong. i used to use latex all the time on windows, using
                 miktex under cygwin. there are also other fine editing
                 environments like winedt, if you don't like CLI's.
                 \_ winedt rocks.  also, ostex for mac is really nice.
        \_ Why would she not use Word, and put the whole book in one document?
           Let the publisher worry about formatting it, that's not the
           author's job, unless it's a "book" she'll be printing out and
           binding herself.  (In which case she should still write it in Word
           and then lay it out in Quark or InDesign). -tom
           \_ I agree.  also, writing the document in word doesn't mean you
              can't typeset it in latex later, or better yet get someone
              else to deal with typesetting. as an author, typesetting
              is not really your problem.  I know of one journal(science)
              that actually lets authors submit latex manuscripts which they
              then actually *convert* to Word 97 for publication.  go figure.
        \_ Actually, this is largely the purview of the publisher.  Most
           publishers say ``Thou shalt use xxx.''  In most cases, xxx is one
           version or another of Word.  Most of them like Word for its change
           tracking features.  A handful of publishers will let you use any
           tool you want, but, unless your friend's mom is sufficiently well
           established to pick and choose among publishers, the question is
           probably moot. -dans
        \_ What's wrong with one word doc per chapter? When I was writing, I
           put each chapter in a separate word document. The publishers
           liked this as it made it easier for them to email the chapters
           between the different editors and myself.
           Once the manuscript is finished, the publishers will use
           something like frame or quark to layout all the chapters and add
           indexing codes, consistent footnote numbers, pg numbers, &c.). I
           wouldn't put all the chapters into a big word doc and worry about
           getting the pg numbers right &c.; let the publishers do that,
           they have better tools.
           Just make sure that the publishers send the proofs in ps or pdf
           so that she can get a good idea about how printed edition will
           look. I would plan to spend a couple of weeks reviewing the
           proofs in order to make sure that formatting codes and deleted
           text don't accidentally show up.
           BTW, I wouldn't recommend word for chapters longer than 50
           pages. I ran into problems with footnotes and revision control
           (office{98,X} on Mac).
        \_ I would suggest she try a stick and rock.
2004/4/27 [Computer/SW/Languages/Misc] UID:13402 Activity:nil
4/27    Can someone write a script that greps for /\s+\-+(\w+)/ on the
        entire motd log? I'm interested to know who posts their names.
        This will give a lower bound as to how many people actively posts
        on motd.
        \_ get a life.  -tom
           \_ Boy, if there was ever a time for pot kettle black...
              \_ you should sign your name, so you can help provide a lower
                 bound as to how many people actively post on the motd -troll
        \_ tell us about the stars ilyas!
           \_ Wtf?  Hey, anonymous mental giant, did you notice how I sign
              my name?  -- ilyas
        \_ Yes, I can.
2004/4/27 [Computer/SW/Languages/Misc] UID:13398 Activity:nil
4/26    Is there a *nix program that allows one to define arbitrary object
        with connections between them, not for oop but just for arbitrary
        graphs?  Visual representation would be nice but is not the most
        important factor for me.  I would like to be able to specify the
        objects and relationships textually rather than graphically.
        \_ Prolog.  In fact, it will do more than what you want.  It is not
           just a knowledge representation tool, it is an inference tool --
           it will answer questions about your knowledge base.  A slightly
           less esoteric answer is to use your favorite relational database
           with a friendly frontend. -- ilyas
           \_ I appreciate the answer, but do you have a more conventional one?
              \_ I don't understand the question then.  If you want to do
                 knowledge representation, the conventional answer is to use
                 either logic (i.e. prolog) or databases.  Maybe you are
                 looking for something other than what you seem to be asking
                 for.  I said my answer was 'esoteric' in a sort of
                 tongue-in-cheek way to mean that Prolog is sadly unfamiliar
                 to most American CS types, not that it is somehow unsuitable or
                 unpopular (it is used heavily in Europe and Japan). -- ilyas
        \_ if you just want to draw graphs, use dot [google for graphviz]
        \_ magic(1).  it's orig. for circuit description.
           \_ Is cornell's magic vlsi what you are referring to?
2004/4/23 [Computer/SW/Languages/Misc, Computer/SW/Languages/Python] UID:13352 Activity:nil
4/23    What's a twink point?                                   -newbie
        \_ run ~tom/bin/twink_warriors
           \_ sucky interface
              \_ /accounts/tom/pub/twinks
                 \_ Wow, what's cmlee's claim to fame?
        \_ What is a "twinkish statement?"
           \_ "how many attachments can I send in a hotmail e-mail?"
              \_ Wow, so my above statement is recursive.  Do I now have
                 infinite twink points?  Or is there a recursion limit
                 like in Python?
        \_ I like this line:
        tom                       1                       1
           \_ I earned one for a bug I introduced into my script.  -tom
              \_ But naturally none for anything you have ever said. -- ilyas
              \_ boy, it looks like you spend a lot of time on this.  Why not
                 archive the offending statements as well.  I'd love to see
                 the particulars.
                 \_ don't be a twink
        \_ You missed me!  Either I'm not a twink, or I've managed to stay
           pretty anonynmous.
2004/4/22 [Computer/SW/Unix, Computer/SW/Languages, Computer/SW/Languages/Misc] UID:13331 Activity:nil
4/22    Does hotmail have a limit to the number of attachments that can be
        in a RECEIVED email.  I have about 10 jpegs (approx 20k each) and I
        wonder how many emails I need to seperate them into to send them to a
        friend with a hotmail account.
        \_ record all data to punch cards, load them onto a surpluss Oscar
           Meyer Wiener truck, and launch the whole truck to the destination
           using a giant railgun.
           \_ Never underestimate the bandwidth of a station wagon full of
              tapes.  -- Dr. Warren Jackson, Director, UTCS
        \_ generally, asking a hotmail question on soda is a bad idea.
           here is a standard soda answer:
           write a shell script to send these pictures one by one using
           mail/mailx, eventhough I am not sure how to encode binary files
           in MIME format using commands
           \_ mimencode
              \_ mpack
        \_ Don't be a doofus.  Put them on a web site and send links.  -tom
           \_ You're a doofus, doofus.
           \_ Wow, the previous guy is like, a prophet or something.  An
              insult and an answer that doesn't really answer the
              question!
              \_ Of course it answers the question.  In fact, it's the correct
                 answer to the question.  If someone asks "how do I hammer in
                 these nails with a screwdriver?", the answer is "use a hammer,
                 doofus."  -tom
                 \_ Heh, that made my day.
                 \_ Bad analogy, doofus.  I'm not saying your answer was
                    not a possible right answer, but it's also possible
                    there is some reason that's not feasible.  Unlikely,
                    but not impossible.  Also, there's no reason to be
                    a jerk.  You could politely suggest your alternitive.
                    I suppose this anwers my question as to why everyone
                    wants to sorry your account.  -jrleek
                    \_ The person has a soda account, so of course it's
                       feasible.  You might say there's no reason to be a
                       jerk--I say there's no reason to ask stupid questions.
                        -tom
                        \_ And so he posts after the op already posted
                           why he didn't want it on a webpage.
                           \_ The op is still a doofus.
                           \_ The op's reasoning is flawed. This whole thread
                              is stupid enough that by MOTD charter section
                              7 subparagraph B the op shall be subject to
                              insults until such time as the thread is gone.
                              The fact that it's also about Hotmail is just
                              insult to injury.
                                \_ Hey, can I help it if people I associate
                                   with make the mistake of using hotmail
                                   for email?  In the future, the first
                                   question I ask when I meet someone will
                                   be if they use hotmail for their email.
                                   If so, I just won't associate with them.
                                        -op
                              \_ You mean injury to insult?
                                 \_ No, he probably doesn't.
                    \_ I'm surprised anyone would even mentioning sorry in
                       in this context!  I agree with Tom - given the OP's
                       posting, "why not send links" seems a very reasonable
                       question...
                       \_ That's what I'm saying, it IS reasonable, but
                          you don't have to be a jerk about it.  As for
                          the sorry mention, that's referencing
                          yesterday's discussion. -jrleek
                    \_ so if you dont have a hammer available, you'd rather
                       insist on using the screwrdiver, instead of getting one?
                \_ I appreciate the suggestion to put the pics on a web
                   page.  There are 2 reasons why I don't prefer to do
                   this.  I don't want the pics publicly available.  And I
                   don't want them on my web site indefinately.  If I send
                   a link, the receiver might assume they will always be there.
                   But I will eventually take them off the web.  So, good
                   suggestion, but I still prefer to email them.  So, is
                   there anyone out there with a hotmail acct that can
                   answer my original question?  -op
                   \_ There's another reason people might choose to hurl insults
                      at you at this point.  It literally took me less than
                      100 seconds to go to http://hotmail.com, look at the FAQ, and
                      see that any email under 1 MByte total is fine, as long
                      as it doesn't put the user over their total quota.
                      So you're ok if the user is not close to having a
                      full mailbox, since you want to send less than .5 Meg.
                      \_ The FAQ I found on http://hotmail.com says there is a
                         limit of 1 Meg for outgoing messages.  I doesn't
                         say anything about incoming messages (that I saw),
                         but I vaguely recall that there is some limit to
                         the number of attachments an incoming message can
                         have.
                        \_ All this discussion, but no answer to the actual
                           question.  I guess hotmail users don't post to
                           the motd.
                        \_ you could have frigging mailed the stuff already
                           and not wasted so much time. Just email once or
                           10 times in smaller amounts. what the fudge is it?
                           It is only 200k total. Send it in one email doofus.
        \_ send yourself 20 small jpg files and see what happens.  there must
           be some reason you're asking this if you don't think this will work.
           \_ I don't have a hotmail account.  It's easier to ask on the
              motd than to get a hotmail acct just for this purpose. -op
        \_ Better yet:  open a Yahoo Mail account.  Send the pix one at a time
           to that account.  When all of the pix have been received by the
           account, send the username and password to your intended target.
           Yahoo gives more storage than Hotmail anyway.
2004/4/15-16 [Computer/SW/Languages/Misc] UID:13225 Activity:nil
4/15    what is an html way - easier than wrapping it in a table - to wrap
        a phrase you don't want broken up? (like say
        <don't break>Firstname Lastname</don't break>).
        \_ I think it's <nobr> or <nobreak>.
           \_ it's nobr, but that's deprecated.  I think with CSS you need to
              specify a style: "white-space: nowrap;"
        \_ Substitute spaces with &nbsp;, as in Firstname&nbsp;Lastname.
2004/4/15-16 [Computer/SW/Languages/Misc, Computer/HW] UID:13218 Activity:nil
4/15    http://csua.com/?q=tom (118 results)
        http://csua.com/?q=psb (145 results)
        psb >> tom                                      -psb #1 fan
        \_ that's >, not >>
           \_ What sort of horrible Frankenstein would result from appending
              psb to tom?!
              \_ Partha T. Holubjee
              \_ Ride Cricket Bat!
                 \_ CHEESEBOARD!  CHEESEBOARD IS THE STANDARD!
                    \_ Cheeseboard IS the standard.  I miss it. -- ilyas
              \_ Welcome! I am Frau Blucher! <sound of horses rearing>
        \_ kchang has access to soda again?
2004/4/10 [Computer/SW/OS/Linux, Computer/SW/Languages/Misc] UID:29914 Activity:nil
4/10    Does anyone know how Redhat turns on IP forwarding? Apparently you can
        set a directive FORWARD_IPV4=yes in /etc/sysconfig/network, but I can't
        seem to find the script (or whatever) that acts on this. I know you can
        'echo 1 > /proc/net/ipv4/ip_forward' to do the same thing, but I'd like
        to find that file in hopes of also finding a list of other similar
        directives. Google also does not seem to be coming up with a definitive
        list of these things. Thanks.
2004/4/2-3 [Computer/SW/Languages/Misc, Computer/SW/SpamAssassin] UID:12993 Activity:nil
4/2     Interesting.  Now I'm seeing spams that consist entirely of HTML
        mail containing Javascript code that reads characters from a
        numerical array - the spam consists of little more than a list of
        numbers.  Funny that spam detection techniques have slowly pushed
        the spammers into making their mail illegible.
        \_ but that's easy enough to filter.  what legitimate reason is there
           to allow javascript in email? (heck, I still think there are few
           good reasons for HTML mail at all...)
           \_ I think rich-text-format is good enough.  No need to go HTML.
           \_ there was never any reason to allow html in email.  or really
              i should say the disadvantages overwhelm the minor advantages.
2004/3/25 [Computer/SW/Languages/Misc] UID:12857 Activity:nil
3/25    Did someone run some wierd script on the motd? All the \_ changed
        to \- and the formatting is all off now.
        \_ M-x query-replace is your friend.
           => query? i guess you like hitting the y key.
        \_ 1,$s/\\_/\/-/g
2004/3/23-24 [Computer/SW/Languages/Misc, Computer/SW/Languages/Web] UID:12825 Activity:nil
3/23    A friend is going to create an email account for her small business
        and post it on the net.  Assuming she would get lots of spams, she
        wants to know whether spam blocking at hotmail or yahoo is any good
        or whether she should use a domain hosting service.
        \_ Why does she want to post it on the web? Just make her a
           comments form and and cgi/php script that sends her email.
           Commercial spam blocking services suck ass.
           \_ There are various simple b2b sites that let businesses post ads
              with contact info, like a bulletin board.  So it's beyond her
              control.  Many such sites are not spam-smart yet.
        \_ I know this is not what you asked, but I highly recommend you make
           some sort of "contact us!" page for the business with a HTML form,
           rather than post her email address on her site.      -brain
        \_ Spam blocking at yahoo and hotmail is waaayyy too overzealous for
           this sort of thing.  I have a box set up to do
           ``what you want'' (TM) for email, i.e. IMAPS, non-destructive
           spamassassin with well trained bayes filters, SMTP+AUTH over SSL,
           redundant MX hosts, etc.  As long as your friend is not going to
           bandwidth hose or attract DOS attacks I would be willing to host
           her email inexpensively.  If your friend's business is something
           cool, e.g. non-profit working to promote human rights, I'll do it
           gratis.  Drop me an email. -dans
                \_ What method and server software do you use for SMTP+AUTH?
                   \_ Pretty much everyone is running Cyrus SASL for the
                      authentication layer.  All modern MTA's that I am aware
                      of have the necessary plumbing to support SASL.  I run
                      postfix, but I've also done it with sendmail (I wouldn't
                      want to do it again). -dans
           \_ My friend is selling bio weapons to third world nations so they
              can play on a level field with the evil Western powers.  It is
              entirely non-profit and advances the rights of women and the poor
              in the third world.  What do I need to do to get a free account?
              \_ One meellion dollars in small, unmarked, non-consecutively
                 numbered bills. -dans
           \_ Thanks.  Are you running a commercial hosting service?  Is there
              any commercial hosting service that does it?  (presummably with
              a shell account?)
              \_ No, I am not running a commercial hosting service.  I just
                 happen to have several boxes set up to do this, and offer
                 service to friends, family, and friends of friends.  Mostly
                 it is an evil ploy to get my friends off of shitty webmail
                 services like Hotmail and Yahoo so I don't ever have to
                 update my address book, resend messsages when they bounce due
                 to quota, etc...  In particular, email account != shell
                 account on my boxes.  Most people don't need shell accounts,
                 and most people lack the clue to use a shell account in a
                 responsible manner that won't compromise system security.
                 -dans
                 \_ I guess that is why almost no low cost hosting service
                    offers a shell account.  But if I have a domain hosted
                    with email acct., is there a way to route the incoming
                    emails there first to a place where I have shell acct.,
                    say soda, filtered it w. spamassassin, and then route
                    back to that domain?
                    \_ No, I think it's mostly that shell accounts aren't in
                       wide demand.  ftp is sufficient for most people's needs
                       so it's not cost effective to provide shell accounts.
                       You *can* route it to a place with a shell account and
                       filter it with spamassassin, probably easiest to do
                       with /etc/aliases, which I can set up.  Pushing it back
                       to the original box is tricky to do without creating
                       mail loops.  Of course, if you read what I wrote,
                       you'll note that my box is already running
                       spamassassin.  Also, I've got my box set up to allow
                       mail filtering without a shell via sieve. -dans

        \_ I have a yahoo account, and I seem to get a lot less spam than my
           family and friends who use hotmail.
2004/3/16 [Computer/SW/Languages/Misc, Computer/SW/Unix] UID:12703 Activity:nil
3/16    Is there a program that will take a hostname -- or better yet, a list
        from stdin -- and return the ipaddress?  I want to write a script
        that will taken a human readable file using hostnames and generate
        a config file for some software by substituting ipaddresses.
        \_ tcsh% foreach i (`cat filename`)
                 host $i
                 end
           You can pipe the output of host through grep/sed/cut/awk/whatever
           --scotsman
           \_ I was familiar with host, and thank you for the suggestions,
              but as you see, host returns a bunch of other things too.
              I have used host for this purpose but I was wondering if there
              was a program that didnt have all the verbosity about MX info.
              \_ You are a very lazy person.
                 \_ Beyond lazy.  learn to use grep/awk/cut/splice, etc, and
                    you will be able to accomplish simple tasks like this
                    without bothering motd. --scotsman
              \_ RTFM!
                 \- Helo, host is ok, but I'd be interested in the
                    opposite of this program:
                    -rwxr-xr-x psb  Oct  8  1999 /csua/bin/ip2hostname (hf)
                    as well. a foreach loop in the shell is not a reasonable
                    way to process a 1000 of these ... and it would be nice
                    to have an inline filter like ip2hostname. Maybe I'll
                    write it "one of these days" but I am lazy too. It would
                    be great if there was something like this around. --psb
                    \- although since you cant quite neatly match hostnames,
                       the hostname2ip would be less powerful ... like only
                       match hosts at beg of line. maybe something can be
                       done with true FQDNs. --psb
                       \_ http://he.fi/slookup/README --scotsman
                    \_ a foreach loop in the shell is totally doable if you
                       know how to read in a line at a time from a file in a
                       shell.  your problem isn't your ignorance, that can be
                       cured with effort.  your problem is laziness.
2004/3/16 [Computer/SW/Languages/Misc] UID:12700 Activity:nil
3/16    Need a dos batch script to launch of a bunch of executables.
        How do I tell the executables to run in the background?
        \_ DOS doesn't support background processes.
           Maybe the "start" command is sufficient for your needs, though.
           \_ that's it exactly.  thanks.
        \_ You might want to see if "4dos" and "4cmd" still exist if you're
           doing more than trivial 'batch programming'.
2004/3/15-16 [Computer/SW/Languages/Misc] UID:12692 Activity:very high
3/15    Any Sodans who is Mogolian?  I am a bit curious on how you deal
        with the fact that Mogolians can only be written vertically.  Is there
        any software such as browser that has vertical layout?
        \_ You're forgetting one very important aspect of Mongolian history:
           Russian imperialism.  They use a cyrillic phonetic system now,
           which is what they've adopted for the web.  For example:
           <DEAD>www.pmis.gov.mn<DEAD>
           \_ I am fully aware of Russian imperialism.  90% of Mongolians
              speak Russian.
           ".mn" is their domain extension.  Also, there is a LaTeX font
           package for mongolian that handles the vertical script:
           http://userpage.fu-berlin.de/~corff/im/MLS/montex.html
           \_ cool... but that is not what I am looking for.  I am wondering
              about how their browser works :p
              \_ yes, and that was answered with the above link to a .mn
                 website.  They use the cyrillic alphabet for web stuff.
           ".mn" is their domain extension.  Isn't it amazing what 30 seconds
           with google will do?
        \_ do you perhaps mean "Mongolian"?
           \_ no, Mogolian... lives out with the Moguls.
              \_ then wouldn't it be "Mogulian"?
              \_ Aren't the two related?
              \_ then wouldn't it be "Mogulian"?
              \_ Aren't the two related?
                 \_ Do they read the Klingon Book of Mormon?
                    http://james.jlcarroll.net/Star_Trek/Klingon_BoM
        \_ ok, Mongolian.  Does anyone knows how computer deal with
           writing which can only be written vertically?
           \_ I am having a hard time visualizing any writing system which
              _requires_ vertical writing.  What if Mongolian is written
              horizontally?  Will Mongolians suddenly cease to understand it?
                -- ilyas
              \_ Mongolians are similiar to Arabic in a way which all letters
                 are connected, and depend upon the position of the letter
                 relative to its word, the glyph may be different.  It is
                 less convinient than traditional Chinese or Koreans to
                 change its orientation.  I just thought this would be a
                 very interesting computer science problem to solve this kind
                 of writing system.  Besides Mongolians, Manchurians (which
                 is heavily influenced by Mongolians) are the only script I
                 know that is written exclusively in vertical form.
                 know that is written exclusively in vertical form.
                                        -kngharv
                                        -kngharv
                 \_ Would it be analogous to trying to write calligraphy
                    vertically? People below don't seem to get what you are
                    saying.
                 \_ what's the problem? if they have arabic fonts then you
                    can easily do mongolian. if nothing else you could
                    flip the display sideways. in English you can still read
                    something if you flip it sideways, it's just harder.
                    \_ w p n t t s i b
                       h r o o r i f e
                       a o t   y d   t
                       t b   r   e i t
                         l a e f w t e
                       i e   a l a   r
                       s m b d i y l
                         ? i   p s o
                       t   g l p   o
                       h i   i i a k
                       e t d k n n s
                         ' e e g d
                         s a       e
                           l t m s v
                             h e e e
                             i   e n
                             s
                             .
                        \_ Enter the Matrix!
                        \_ this is why you guys don't work in Usability
                           \_ it's a cultural thing.  A lot of old Chinese
                              text which contains English are written this
                              is way, and it's matter of getting used to it.
                        \_ except mongolians alphabets are all connected.
                        \_ ugh! I meant to show that it's difficult
                           to read vertical english.  the words are
                           tongue in cheek, but it seems that people
                           think it's easy to read the vertical
                           text above.
                           \_ For viewing, flipping is ok, but what about
                              when you are entering text?  Doing it sideways
                              would be a big pain.  I don't think that's acceptable.
                        \_ sigh. Don't you get it? I was referring to English
                           turned on its side. In your example, the letters are
                           l t m s v
                             h e e e
                             i   e n
                             s
                             .
                        \_ Enter the Matrix!
                           still horizontal but you placed them vertically.
                           the brain recognizes word shapes, which your example
                           destroys, but which is preserved when rotated. Now
                           imagine a font that creates sideways Mongolian.
                           \_ For viewing, flipping is ok, but what about when
                              you are entering text?  Doing it sideways would
                              be a big pain.  I don't think that's acceptable.
                              what's  needed is like a word processor that goes
                              verticle line by verticle line.
                              \_ What I'm saying is that if you for example
                                 made the font as I described, and just set
                                 your monitor on the side, it seems like that
                                 would give you most of what you want in Word.
                                 In fact all of Windows could be flipped and
                                 the titlebars etc. would make sense. It may
                                 not be easy in current programs, but concep-
                                 tually I don't see any real problem.
                \_ Chinese used to be written almost exclusively vertically
                   until the last century.  There is no problem reading Chinese
                   aligned in any orientation, so it's just a matter of habit.
                   \_ that's because chinese is different.  It doesn't use an
                      alphabet, and words are not composed of letters.
                      Instead each "word" is always a square shape.
                      So it feels more like what's below except it's even
                       \_ sigh.

You have new mail.

You have new spam.
                         what      a       this.     see
                         is        big     try       if
                         the       deal    flipping  it
                         problem?  to      me        looks
                         it's      read    sideways  even
                         not       like    and       better.
                      better in that each word is always a square (maybe
                      like each word is always 5 letters).  Also,
                      "pictographic" (don't know the more accurate
                      term) writings tend to be easier to read.  One
                      can scan it really fast.  In practice, I think there is
                      no difference in terms of reading speed for chinese
                      between vertical and horizontal.
                         what      a       this.     see
                         is        big     try       if
                         the       deal    flipping  it
                         problem?  to      me        looks
                         it's      read    sideways  even
                         not       like    and       better.
                 \_ It be analogous to trying to write calligraphy
                    vertically? People below don't seem to get what you are
                    saying.
                    \_ imagine hand writing English (script form) which each
                       letters in a word are connected... try to write *THAT*
                       in a vertical form, you would get some idea what is
                       the problem... this analogy doesn't reflect the true
                       difficulty in Mongolian, as English alphabets' shape
                       does not change relative to the position of the word
                       and vows.
2004/3/12-13 [Computer/SW/Languages/C_Cplusplus, Computer/SW/Languages/Misc] UID:12645 Activity:nil
3/12    Iway'may eryvay eryvay impressedway atway owhay icklyquay ethay otdmay
        ormattingfay odgay ormatsfay may intentionallyway illway ormedfay
        ostspay. Iway'may onderingway ifway itway'say actuallyway away
        onedcray ormattingfay iptscray orway omethingsay, andway ifway osay,
        ancay youay easeplay ostpay ethay iptscray? anksThay
        \_ It's no script.
           \_ That's no moon.
        \_ Why do YOU care?
           \_ Wow, motdedit fixed up my post pretty funny.  This was
              supposed to be on the Jessica Lynch post, but someone
              deleted it.  I can't say it's any less applicable here
              though...
        \_ The motd formatting devil was here
        \_ I'm pretty sure there is no script as this is a pretty complicated
           problem (context sensitive flow analysis with statistical
           inference, etc). However, I do think that whoever does the
           formatting is equivalent a very complicated finite state automaton
           that runs in an infinite while loop.
           \_ it's not that hard.  parse the motd looking for a newline
              followed by a number to get the start of a post, then anytime
              you see a "\_" or "\-" preceeded by tabs or spaces you get a
              change in authorship.  the actual reformat is trivial.
                 FUCK its hard because there are so many corner cases. For _|
                 U example, suppose I interrupt your line in the middle, then
                 C your parser will get fooled. The other example is if I
                 K start posting in ascii pictures. Then what if I jive your
                 F content? And what if the indentation IS indeed unusual
                        like a C/Java code? ANd what if I use letters
                           I_ to indicate a response? And the list goes
                              on and on, but the point is, it's very easy
                              for the naked eye to catch infinite weird
                              cases, but putting them into smart/self-learning
                              generic rules is just as hard as writing
                              spamassassin.
                \_ Corner cases?  fuck em, its the motd.  this isn't one of
                   hilfinger's courses.
                   \_ I am Gunnery Seargent Hartman, your Senior Drill
                      Instructor.  From now on, you will speak only when
                      spoken to, and the first and last words out of your
                      filthy sewers will be "Sir!"  DO YOU MAGGOTS UNDERSTAND
                      THAT?!
                      \_ SIR YES SIR!!!!!!!!!!!!!
2004/3/12 [Computer/SW/Languages/Misc] UID:12642 Activity:moderate
3/12    I'm very very impressed at how quickly the motd formatting god
        formats my intentionally ill formed posts. I'm wondering if it's
        actually a croned formatting script or something, and if so, can
        you please post the script? Thanks.
        \_ It's no script.
           \_ That's no moon.
2004/3/11 [Computer/SW/Languages/Misc, Computer/SW/Security] UID:29863 Activity:nil
3/11    Truck carrying $1e6 in computers stolen:
        http://www.indystar.com/articles/6/128121-2046-127.html
2004/3/11-12 [Computer/SW/Languages/C_Cplusplus, Computer/SW/Languages/Misc] UID:12613 Activity:moderate
3/10    Teach yourself programming in 10 years:
        http://norvig.com/21-days.html
        \_ "Learn at least a half dozen programming languages"
           Why? What is the point of knowing a bunch of languages
           when the only language that is of any real use is C?
           \_ Assuming this is not a troll I'll just throw in that I know
              more than a couple of people who have been slow to get re-
              absorbed into the employment pool because they could not claim
              to be experienced and proficient in more than one language. As
              an outside observer, it really looked to me like they should have
              been augmenting C with Java or J2EE with C++ and so on...
               -- not a cs professional
           \_ Did you study CS at Berkeley?  If you want to get any
              real work done, you ought to use high-level languages.
                \_ if you want any real job you need to know more than 1 lang.
                \_ I didn't study CS (I was an eng.) I'm not sure
                   what you characterize as real work, but I've
                   worked on device drivers, custom embedded
                   oses and encryption protocols; all in C.
                   \_ "Hydrological _and_ hydrodynamical!  Talk about
                   \_ "Hydrological _and_ hydroelectrical!  Talk about
                      running the gamut." -- ilyas (though the credit has to
                      go to Sideshow Bob)
                      \_ The first mention of my profession on the motd,
                         ever! Well, actually I kind of gave up on hydrology.
                         -- ulysses
           \_ Because really learning another language means learning what
              its strengths are and understanding why those are strengths.
           \_ It's better to learn new languages naturally as the need arises.
           \_ I don't know why I bought all those tools when the only
              \_ BAM!
              tool of any real use is the hammer.
2004/3/4-5 [Computer/SW/Languages/Misc] UID:12520 Activity:nil 54%like:12414
4/3     How to write bad documentation.  Pretty funny.
        http://www.kuro5hin.org/story/2003/9/29/104212/112  -John
        \_ My god, this is spot on.  Excellent.
2004/3/1-2 [Computer/SW/Languages/Misc] UID:12465 Activity:nil
3/1     I barely, if ever, used Javascript.  Can someone tell me if this is
        possible?  If so, can you either give me a sample of how to write
        "func()" or point to where I can find some samples?  Thanks.

        If I have the following embedded table, can I dynamically replace the
        embedded table with
          nothing (i.e., empty string)
          &nbsp;
          or from a selection of like 3 differently data sets
        when a user selects a different option in the dropdown menu?
        <form ...>
          <select onChange=func()><input>1</input><input>2</input>...</select>
          <table>
            <tr><td>...</td><td>...</td></tr>
            <tr>
              <td>...</td>
              <td>
                <table>
                  <tr><td>...</td><td>...</td></tr>
                  <tr><td>...</td><td>...</td></tr>
                  ...
                </table>
            <tr><td>...</td><td>...</td></tr>
          </table>
        </form>
        \_ Rather than removing it, you might consider simply hiding it with
           CSS (though removing it is possible):
           <table id="showMeAtFirst">...</table>
           <a href="#" onclick="swapVis('showMeAtFirst')">Show/Hide</a>
           <script>
             function swapVis(id) {
                if (document.getElementById(id).style.display == 'block') {
                  document.getElementById(id).style.display = 'none';
                } else {
                  document.getElementById(id).style.display = 'block';
                }
             }
           </script>
        \_ Pretty cool--this actually shows up as intended on soda's finger
           cgi.  -John
2004/2/27-29 [Computer/SW/Languages/Misc, Computer/SW/Languages/Perl] UID:12439 Activity:high
2/27    In perl, say I have a @list of strings, how do I print the first
        character of those stings, concatinated? For example, if @list is
        ['hello','world',123], I want an output of hw1. I can do a loop,
        substr, and the .= operator, but it looks lame...
        \_ what's wrong with just doing what works?
        \_ TMTOWTDIT, but foreach $item (@array) { print substr($item,0,1) }
           is one way. -tom
           \_ map { print substr($_,0,1) } @array
              or
              $output = map { substr($_,0,1) } @array
              \_ The latter doesn't work, because it calls map in scalar
                 context; you need $output = join "", map { substr($_,0,1) }
                 @array.
              \_ (dolist (i array)(print (char i 0))) -- ilyas
                 \_ gee you're clever.
                    \_ Array.map (fun x -> print_char x.[0]) array
                       p([[X|_]|Y]):-print(X),p(Y).
                       Incidentally, I know of multiple cases where a Perl
                       programmer benefitted from seeing a solution in another
                       language.  But I respect your anonymous snide remark
                       anyways. -- ilyas
                       \_ Because we all know that anyone posting anonymously
                          is also less intelligent and has invalid points.  I
                          post anonymously to cloak my inferiority to you and
                          others who are so smart because you sign your names.
                          Really, it's just jealousy.  Anonymity is a form of
                          envy.  I think I'll start signing all my posts so I
                          envy.  I think I'll start signing all my posts so I
                       anyways. -- ilyas
                          can be just as smart and well likde as you!
                          can be just as smart and well liked as you!  -- ilyas
                          \_ you're pathetic. -intelligent, valid anonymous guy
              \_ wow I can't believe how many ways there are to do this.
                 Here is the ultimate question. After parsing, internal
                 representation, and optimization in Perl, which one of the
                 above gives you the quickest runtime?
                 \_ Depends on the size of your array.  Generally map is faster
                    as length @array gets larger.
                     \_ what are you implying, that the function "foreach"
                        expands the representations in memory (extra malloc
                        maybe?) and then goes through the elements? For
                        example "foreach $a (1..10000)" does an expansion,
                        and that "foreach $a list" does the same thing?
                        \_ I'm not implying anything.  Everything I say is
                           emperical experience.  I leave the internals as
                           an exercise to the reader.
        \_ That's all bullshit.
           array.each {|i| print i[0].chr}
           \_ Prolog is shorter:
              p([[X|_]|Y]):-print(X),p(Y). -- ilyas
              \_ I'm not convinced that's really shorter. How is that used? I
                 don't know much about Prolog. Given a list called "Array",
                 how do you print it?
                 \_ p(Array). -- ilyas
                    \_ As I suspected. So it ain't shorter!
                       \_ In some sense, 'array' in your code and
                          '[[X|_]|Y]' in mine are equivalent.  Both are
                          internal variable names for some data.  What you were
                          asking me to do is something else, namely provide
                          a function call wrapper to the code, which isn't what
                          your code does.  I think the original stands as an
                          equivalent to yours. -- ilyas
                          \_ In some sense, that code and your code are
                             given the same input.  You rule!
                             equivalent because they produce the same output
                             given the same input.  You rule!  -- ilyas
                                \_ Well I could say
                                   [].each{|i|putc i[0].chr}
                          \_ Given an array "array", it prints the characters.
                             It's a function call. No? (It's ruby, for anyone
                             who doesn't know...)
                             \_ Given an array "[[X|_]|Y]", it prints the
                                characters.  Prolog names can have structure
                                built in.  -- ilyas
                                      \_ cool. btw i shortened it again.
           array.each {|i| print i[0].chr}
                                built in.  -- ilyas
                                \_ Well I could say
                                   [].each{|i|putc i[0]}
                                   [].map{|i|putc i[0]}
                                   Is that longer than Prolog? I'm no ruby
                                   expert so I'm not sure if there's anything
                                   better there.
                                   \_ Yup, you win.  You can look here for more
                                      examples me, dbushong and some others
                                      came up with:
                                      http://www.bushong.net/david/comparisons
                                      \_ cool. btw i shortened it again.
                                         \_ you rock!  -- ilyas
                                        -- ilyas
                                      \_ cool. btw i shortened it again(2)
2004/2/25-26 [Computer/SW/Languages/Misc] UID:12403 Activity:nil
2/24    Is there a way for a shell script to set its return status?  return
        can only be used for sourcing or inside a function.
        \- you mean like "exit #" --psb
           \_ Yes I do and I guess I have been malnutritioned.
2004/2/24-25 [Computer/SW/Languages/Misc, Computer/SW/Unix] UID:12371 Activity:nil
2/23    My snapfish account is expiring and they want to delete all my photos.
        Anyone have a nice wget/curl script to get my images?
        \_ You could do something really weird like actually *buy* a photo
           or two.  It might cost you all of 50 cents so they continue storing
           your zillion gigabytes of photos for another year.  If you wget them
           you're not getting the original images, btw.
        \_ always save your photos on cdrom or dvd. if you need to store
           online, try getting a cheap web hosting solution like
           http://www.onedollarhost.net (?). no bandwidth or storage space limit.
           they have a setup fee, but afterwards it's $1/month.
2004/2/20-21 [Computer/SW/Languages/Misc, Computer/SW] UID:12326 Activity:nil
2/20    What's the deal with this "optimized" or "accelerated" dial-ups?
        Do they just cache stuff behind your back?  Compress things?  Just
        a bunch of crap?  What's the deal?
        \_ They compress parts of the download that are easily compressible,
           such as HTML and email text.  I think some of them may also give
           a lower QoS to images, so the 'meat' of webpages loads faster.
           \_ Some also compress (or re-compress) images. E.g., really
              low-quality JPEG.
2004/2/10 [Computer/SW/Languages/Misc] UID:29788 Activity:nil
2/9     I'm in search of a new blogging script.  I've used b2 in the past, but
        it's no longer being developed, and I thought I'd see what else is
        out there.  What do you use, and why?
        \_ b2 is still being developed; it lives on as WordPress.  I use it
           because it's free and simple.  http://www.wordpress.org
2004/1/22 [Computer/SW/Languages/Misc] UID:11880 Activity:nil
1/21    EMRG guy, what do you think of DOC?
        \_ overkill technology to track cows and don't have the software
        to back up the embedded tags, EMRG better, has software to track
        as well as tags.
        \_ Both are a flash in the pan going up on pure FUD.  It can't last.
           Try MDK instead.
           \_ Mersey Docks and Harbor?
              \_ nope, murder death kill!
2004/1/20 [Computer/SW/Languages/Misc] UID:11842 Activity:nil
1/19    I'm setting up LDAP to replace NIS+ at work. I got the server running
        and I think I know how to setup the clients. However, what exactly am
        I supposed to do to add in things like a /etc/hosts table or an
        automount table?
2004/1/19-20 [Computer/SW/Languages/Misc, Academia/Berkeley/CSUA/Motd] UID:11831 Activity:very high
1/19    Why does /csua/bin/motdbrowser format the line-indents(tabs&spaces)
        differently from simply: less /etc/motd?
        \_ Because they're using "less -r" instead of "less -R"
           \_ neither less -r nor less -R give the indenting of motdbrowser.
              see the first two replies in the caucus thread below for an
              example, or the first line of the Stock market post below.
              \_ Um..  Did you even read the script?  Come back when you
                 have a clue.
                 \_ open(LESS, "| less -r")
                    while (<MOTD>) { ... print LESS; }
                    so why does piping the file line-by-line thru less -r
                    give a different stdout than "less -r /etc/motd?" The
                    difference seems to be related to how the "| less -r"
                    interprets tabs, but seems inconsistent.
                    \_ Not the tabs.  The color codes.
2004/1/10-11 [Computer/SW/Languages/Misc] UID:11745 Activity:nil
1/9     I have a start script that I source from rc.  It runs perfectly fine
        if run as just a shell script but fails during reboot.  What could be
        the problem?
        \_ probably different environment variables, like PATH.
           \_ What could possibly be wrong with
                foo=`/bin/date +\%s`  ?
              \_ and what makes you so sure it's that...
                 \_ Well, I have ConsoleMessage both before and after it....
                    \_ what is that supposed to mean...
        \_ how about you just post the script?
2003/12/3 [Computer/SW/Languages/Misc] UID:11292 Activity:nil
12/2    I want to allow users to change their passwords via a webpage (they
        don't have shell access), but I don't really understand PAM and most
        of the stuff I see out there is for Linux. Unfortunately, my machine
        is running Solaris. Any pointers on how to start writing this
        (or a script that already exists) or why this is a bad idea?
        \_ You could feed their passwords to the passwd command (or whatever)
           using something like expect, running from a CGI script.
           \_ urgh!
2003/12/3 [Computer/SW/Languages/Misc] UID:11291 Activity:nil 50%like:28857 66%like:29868
12/2    LaTeX thread deleted by op
        \_ DUDE!  How can you be deleting latex threads?  This is the MOTD!
2003/11/29-12/1 [Computer/SW/Languages/Misc] UID:11262 Activity:nil
11/28   With HTML, I don't like how text runs from the left edge to the right edge
        of the browser window. Without using a table with a width that's some
        percentage of the screen, how can I let there be a (empty) margin on
        both sides of the text? It's easier to read this way. Thanks.
        \_ use <div> ... </div> tags to surround the text and use CSS to
           specify the location and width of that region.  you also could use
           CSS to specify margins for the <body> tag, but that will apply
           to everything, not just text.
           \_ Wow, for a second I saw <booty> rather than <body>.  I was trying
              to figure out what the hell the <booty> tag did, and when it
              got added to the spec....
        \_ you're totally right. use css:
             body { padding-left: 10%; padding-right: 10%; }
                \_ hey that's awesome. now is there a way to fill up that empty
                   10% on the left side with a solid bar of color, or some
                   sort of vertically-oriented image?
                   \_ make another div, set the width to 10% and set the
                        background-color: orange;
                   \_ something like
                body { padding-left: 10%; padding-right: 10%;
                       background: orange url(./img.jpg) no-repeat top left;
                     } might work, experiment.  See http://www.csszengarden.com
        \_ use css but make sure you test on whatever browsers you want to use.
           IE 5 fucks some stuff up, so I test against IE5 and Firebird (which
           is pretty similar to IE6 in terms of rendering CSS... but better)
        \_ Cool, thanks everyone. -op
2003/11/26 [Computer/SW/Languages/Misc] UID:11236 Activity:high
11/26   Is there any rule on motd that prohibits deletion targeting at
        certain individual, and/or using automated script to delete certain
        person/types of post?
        \_ No such rule.  The admins would prefer not to waste their time
           policing the motd.  The deleter's lameness is its own punishment.
                --PeterM
        \_ Using an automated script should be squishable--but paolo still
           has his account.  -tom
           \_ there are worse things than selectively or automatically
              purging the motd--but tom still has his account.
2003/10/30-31 [Computer/HW/CPU, Computer/SW/Languages/Misc] UID:10871 Activity:moderate
10/30   I want to run a script that checks if a machine has active users on
        it, and if there aren't any, than starts a CPU intensive process,
        and also to turn it off if there are users. Is there a way to check
        this easily?  The best I've come up with is running ps and who -u
        checking for idle users and/or processes.  TIA.
        \_ uptime
        \_ can't you just run the process with a weightless priority.  then
           it will only use the CPU when nothing else is using it.  The only
           downside is if it uses a lot of memory you may experience swapping
           issues.  'npri -w <command>' (at least on IRIX).
           \_ hmm... sounds like it would work.  However, I don't run Irix.
              Anyone know of a Linux equivalent?  nice -19 is too intensive
              \_ what do you mean by "intensive"?
                 \_ I mean that users complain that the system is slow
                    and sluggish even when the job is nice -19
                    \_ The problem probably is not CPU time, but that the
                       working set of your process is too big.
        \_ if you're trying to reinvent a queueing system, don't. install
           openpbs, lsf, or condor instead.
           \_ Sun Grid Engine is free and worked well when I used it before.
2003/10/28 [Computer/SW/Languages/Java, Computer/SW/Languages/Misc] UID:10817 Activity:nil
10/27   Is there any search engine that lets you search for symbols?
        I am trying to figure out what the significance of # starting a
        line in a CSS file is and no search engine i know will do anything
        but ignore a '#'
        \_ look at the instructions.  Maybe you can use quotes.
                "#"
        \_ why not just check the CSS spec on http://w3.org?  Or ask?  #foo in a
           cascading style sheet refers to the element with the unique ID "foo"
        \_ sorry I'm late punkass.  when you start something with "." it refers
           to a class you defined, like something you use with "class='foo'".
           When you start with # it's an "id"- a uniquely named block.  Just
           use it once, using "id='foo'".  I use this to float layers.
           look at the examples at   http://csszengarden.com    -brain
           \_ Also, if you use neither, it refers to a predefined HTML tag.
                HTML                    CSS
                <div class="h2">        .h2 { }
                <div id="h2">           #h2 { }
                <h2>                    h2 { }
2003/10/27-28 [Computer/SW/Languages/Misc] UID:10815 Activity:nil
10/27   Is there any program or script that will overlay text titles or
        headers on top of a postscript file?  mpage and a2ps have these
        options but they only seem to work on text files.  thanks.
2003/10/27 [Computer/SW/Languages/Misc] UID:10800 Activity:nil
10/25   Is there a command line equivalent (and not a wrapper script or
        similar) of http://www.allwhois.com
        \_ unable to connect to <DEAD>whois.dotster.com<DEAD> (115: Operation now in progress)
           \_ o-kay...was that meant to be informative?
              \_ thats what it said when i put in my domain.
2003/10/21-22 [Computer/SW/Languages/Perl, Computer/SW/Languages/Misc] UID:10722 Activity:kinda low
10/21   I'm trying to write a Perl script with a spam assassin interface
        so that it'll take out trolls. Please keep up the troll keywords
        thread below so that I can make the program as perfect as possible.
        \_ You mean an auto-motd-censor script?  I thought these were grounds
           for sorrying of account.
           \_ it damn well better be.  hey op, go fuck yourself.
              we know who you are.
           \_ no no no, no AUTO motd script. Yes, auto motd scripts can
              get you sorried (case in point dumb ass kchang). My point is
              creating something that allows me to kill threads that I
              personally deem as troll with one push of a button instead
              of having to do it manually. So short of complete automation
              I believe what I am doing has no grounds for sorried account
              \_ it just makes you a fucking asshole.
              \_ If you can do this, then why not create a motd reader
                 that simply doesn't display threads with these words in
                 them?
                 \_ because it isn't about him not seeing it, it's about an
                    infantile need to control what others read.
        \_ how about an auto script that corrects my grammar on motd post?
        \_ how about an auto script that purges your account?
        \_ do you really want to get into scripting wars over the motd?  it's
           been very calm all these years (mostly).  if you turn it into a
           script war you'll find others writing scripts to delete the stuff
           you've deemed worthy of staying.  when we're done the motd will
           be blank most of the day.  suggestion: grow up, you're not the
           smartest kid in your HS anymore.  w3 awl g0t m4d sk1llz!1
2003/10/9 [Computer/SW/Languages/Java, Computer/SW/Languages/Misc] UID:10548 Activity:kinda low
10/8    my google foo is weak, any css wizes around here?  I want to make
        a box.italic class that makes a little slanted box around whatever
        like so...

                 ___________
                /  yermom  /
                -----------

        (but with solid lines).  Can i do this?  how?, o.k. thanks(ia) -phuqm
        \_ OK, since there are no constructive responses yet, I'll give it a
           crack-  look at the code for the index page for slashdot-
           specifically the headers for each article.  It's a image of a
           corner on a colored background.  You can do something similar
           by defining a style and prepending a slanted mask to your SPAN
           and appending another at the end... If you want a border on this
           slanted monstrosity you are going to have to define a background
           also which will be covered by the slanted ends, and cannot use
           transparency.  This is because the background will show through,
           so you have to cover it on the ends.  For a similar reason you
           cannot use the CSS "border" attribute.  For more ideas check out
                http://csszengarden.com                         -brain
        \_ I'm fairly competent with CSS, and this is probably beyond anything
           CSS 2 can reasonably do.  http://www.csszengarden.com for some
           cool alternatives.
        \_ you can do this relatively easy using any server side language.
           \_ uh, if you can't get a browser to render a slanted box with
              solid lines, wtf can the server do about it?
                \_ I think he's talking about auto-generating an image with
                   "yermom" in it.  Don't do that though.
                   \_ why would you need to auto-generate an image with
                      yermom?  there are plenty of those images on the web
                      already.
                       \_ I would do it because it is not always going to say
                           yermom, sometimes it is going to say "whatever"
                           (as the original example given).  I could create
                           a script which auto-generates an image with $words
                           in it, but then i get into size issues,
                           transparency issues and all kinds of crap.  It is
                           far from "easy" and far from optimal. -phuqm
        \_ One of many CSS-related bugs in M$ IE.
2003/10/8-9 [Computer/SW/Languages/Misc] UID:10537 Activity:nil
10/8    I've got to parse very simple XML files in Java.  Is it worth using/
        installing either the Sun parser (JAXB/P??) or xerces or something, or
        should I just write my own?  It seems fairly straightforward.  I'm
        just wondering whether there's an advantage to the commercial ones.
        \_ http://xml.apache.org... the SAX parsers are fairly simple, and you only
           need to set ~ 4 listeners to use it (all the same object)
2003/10/3 [Computer/SW/Languages/Misc] UID:10444 Activity:nil
10/3    I like to run a script to tell me what changes have been made to
        the motd-- it lets me follow the responses as they happen and stores
        the changes so I can read them later if someone nukes the motd.
        Recently, however, my processes have been Suspended (and show up
        Stopped (T) in ps).  Is this a new development?  Or is someone with
        access just hosing any script having to do with the MOTD just 'cos?
        \_ isn't there already motdwatch?
2003/9/24 [Computer/SW/Languages/Misc] UID:10310 Activity:nil
9/23    I wanna put my own pix on my mLife phone, what's the easiest and
        cheapest (preferably free) way to do this? Can I setup my own
        WAP/HTML web site to make it free?
        \_ shutterfly
2003/9/22-23 [Computer/SW/Languages/Misc] UID:10286 Activity:nil
9/22    Can someone recommend a good UML designer that can translate a class
        diagram to a W3C XML Schema Definition?  Being able to translate in
        both directions would be a definite plus.  Thanks.
        \_ -- ilyas
2003/7/15-16 [Computer/SW/Languages/Misc, Computer/SW/Unix] UID:29047 Activity:kinda low
7/15    What's the best way, using free software, to merge two eps files
        into a single pdf document?
        \_ using latex, put them into one ps document, then
           ps2pdf them?
           \_ Actually, I just found this:
        gs -sDEVICE=pdfwrite -dNOPAUSE -dBATCH -sOutputFile=testout.pdf \
        Page1.eps Page2.eps
        works great.  thanks anyways. -op
        \_ you can also use psmerge | ps2pdf
           \_ cool, thanks.
        Okay, a related question, I have a ps file that has type3 fonts.
        What's a quick way to remove them?  They are unnecessary and
        don't work in xpdf.
2003/7/9-10 [Computer/SW/Languages/Misc] UID:28983 Activity:high
7/09    My script calls another (and puts it into the background).
        Is there anyway (short of a "trap" command) to make sure
        that script is killed/dies once mine is/does ?
        \_ if you are using csh/tcsh you should know the job number by
           where you launched it (first bg job is 1, second is 2, . . .).
           just do a 'kill -9 %#' in you cleanup (where # is the job number).
                                           \_ i.e. "use the 'trap' command"
2003/7/9-10 [Computer/SW/Languages/Misc, Computer/SW/OS/OsX] UID:28976 Activity:insanely high
7/8     Is there a utility to convert MS Word files to PDF from the command
        line?
        \_ Do you really need it from the command line or do you simply need a
           batch convert (even though that may have a GUI frontend)?
           \_ Here's my use case... a secretary needs to post meeting minutes
              online. she can do "save as html" but that kind of sucks. so i
              want to have a webpage that lets her upload the doc and then
              auto-generate html and pdf (or just pdf) links on the site.
              if you have a GUI way to do it, that's fine too (she uses a Mac,
              i have a PC and UNIX, but no X on my UNIX server). thanks. -abe
              \_ If she's using OS X, she can just print to PDF from the
                 print screen of any application. -chialea
              \_ I'd just use OpenOffice 1.1 -- export to pdf.
           anything with a doc with non-mS software won't always result in
           correct output. If your secretary has a budget, and you want
              \_ No X on your unix box??  Install it.  It isn't that big.
                 \_ I don't *want* X and I definitely don't want OpenOffice.
                    \_ What's wrong with X?  You some MacBigot?
        \_ The inards/spec of the "Word" document are secret, so doing
           tried an existing program "doc2html" but it makes even single
           carriage returns into paragraph boundaries </p><p> That wouldn't
           work for me, so I wrote a perl script to turn doc into xhtml,
           but there is junk near and the beginning and end of the file
           that I have to edit out by hand.  Not elegant, but it works.
           I'll send you my code, perhaps you can improve it. mail brett.
           Microsoft does not "play welll with others".
        \_ The inards/spec of the "Word" document are secret, so using
           non-mS software won't always result in correct output. If your
           secretary has a budget, and you want perfect output, she should
           buy Adobe Acrobat, which comes with "Distiller".  that will
           allow her to "Print to PDF".  Otherwise, she could print to a
           postscript file, but that creates other issues with fonts and
           pages and such.  I have a similar task.  I tried an existing
           program "doc2html" but it didn't do quite what I wanted, so I
           anything with a doc with non-mS software won't always totall do
           things correctly. If your secretary has a budget, and you want
           perfect output, she should buy Adobe Acrobat, which comes with
           perhaps you can improve it. mail brett.  Alternatively, you
           could quote:
           "Distiller".  that will allow her to "Print to PDF".  Otherwise,
        \_ Is the Secretary running OS X? If so, she can select File->Print
           then hit "Save as PDF..."
           she could print to a postscript file, but that makes other
           issues with fonts and pages and such.  I have a similar task.  I
           tried an existing program "doc2html" but did't like it, so I
           wrote a perl script to turn doc into xhtml, but there is junk
           near and the beginning and end of the file that I have to edit
           out by hand.  Not elegant, but it works.  I'll send you my code,
           perhaps you can improve it. mail brett.  Microsoft does not
           "play welll with others".
             http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/no-word-attachments.html
        \_ If she has OSX, there's built-in export to PDF.
           \_ I'm thinking about upgrading her to OS X... but I was wondering
              if there were any UNIX equivalents...
              \_ OS9: http://www.versiontracker.com/dyn/moreinfo/macos/126
              \_ OSX *is* Unix.
                 \_ The Open Group does not agree with you.
        \_ best results from print-to-file with postscript printer driver
           from MS Word and then ps2pdf13 to distill it.
2003/7/9 [Computer/SW/Languages/Misc, Computer/SW/Languages/Web] UID:28968 Activity:high
7/8     Is there a way to put a colored border on the inside of a cell
        in an html table?
        \_ use CSS, border attribute
           \_ td, th { border: 2px solid orange }
                \_ why ",", not " "?
                   \_ RTFSpecs
                   \_ with comma: "apply this rule to any td or th"
                       w/o comma: "apply only to th that is child of td"
        \_ Can't you set BGCOLOR?  For example, <TD BGCOLOR=GREEN>
           I don't know if it's standard, though, so it might not work in
           all browsers.
           \_ That stuff has been deprecated.
           \_ and you will die for suggesting the use of bgcolor, esp. in caps
        \_ related css question: how can i change the blue background of the
           selected item in a dropdown list?
           \_ select option:active { background-color: pink; } might
              work.
              \_ at least w/ IE6, it doesn't work. i think "active" is
                 only a pseudo-class for the a element, no?
                 \_ In CSS1, yes, but CSS2 expands active, hover, and focus
                    to all elements.  See if it works with mozilla.  Also, try
                    select, option:active { background-color: pink; }
                          ^ note the comma
                    just to make sure.
                 \_ I suggest using the validator services. valid xhtml is
                    the way of the future.  http://validator.w3.org and
                    http://jigsaw.w3.org/css-validator
                    \_ ya very nice and all but it still doesnt work.
                       \_ it may not work but at least you'll be spec-clean!
2003/7/4-5 [Computer/SW/Apps, Computer/SW/Languages/Misc] UID:28921 Activity:nil
7/3     I need to convert powerpoint files to web-presentable form.  No, the
        built-in functionality doesn't work because my cms can't handle
        anything with FRAME in it.  Any other easy way (yes, i could output
        everything to PNG files and write whole bunch HTML myself) ?
        Thanks
        \_ ok, I installed 50+mb Open Dufus just for this purpose.  Stupid,
           but it works.
2003/6/20-21 [Computer/SW/Languages/Misc] UID:28782 Activity:kinda low
6/20    I can't find a symbol for degrees in LaTeX. For now I'm using a
        superscripted \circ. Is there actually a degrees symbol?
        \_ \usepackage{textcomp} ; \textdegree
            http://www.educat.hu-berlin.de/~voss/lyx/symbols/textcomp.phtml
            - CSUA LaTeX Guy
            \_ you or someone like you has answered alot of my latex questions
               also.  We, the latex newbies are really appreciative.  please
               continue.  thanks.  -!op
2003/6/18 [Computer/SW/Languages/Misc] UID:28758 Activity:nil
6/18    To the person who suggested I use \renewcommand{\baselinestretch}{1.0}
        to resume single-spacing in my LaTeX document...it doesn't quite
        work actually. When I put that in the .cls file, it made everything
        single spaced (the entire document), not just the \verbatiminput stuff.
        I still need the rest of the document in double space. I put that
        command at the end of the VERBATIM section in the .cls file. Did
        I do it wrong? Thanks. again, it's at /csua/tmp/mythesis.cls
2003/6/11 [Computer/SW/Languages/Misc] UID:28703 Activity:kinda low
6/11    I'm trying to get LaTeX to put a figure on a page by itself, so I'm
        using \clearpage both before and after I insert the figure. I'd like it
        so that the figure is centered on that page, but it isn't. Is there a
        way to do this?  Thanks.
        \_ I'm sorry, I don't have my latex book on me, but I belive there are
           flags you can pass to make it put it on its own page (and top,
           bottom, etc). they go in the flags spot: \begin{figure}[flags]
           \_ In particular the "p" flag is probably what you want:
              \begin{figure}[p]
              p: Page of floats: on a separate page containing no text,
                                 only figures and tables.
2003/6/10-11 [Computer/SW/Languages/Misc] UID:28690 Activity:high
6/10    I'd like to have a \section heading be typeset as small caps in
        LaTeX, but just putting {\sc ... } doesn't work. is there any way
        to do it?
        \_ In the LaTeX file, the letters you want to be smallcaps
           should be lowercase --- are they in your file?
                \_ Yeah, they are, and it doesn't work.
                   \_ Odd. E.g. \section{{\sc Introduction}} works for me,
                      using the "article" document-class.
                        \_ I'm actually using a style file (actually a .clo
                           file). would that affect it? -op
                           \_ That's my guess.
        \_ Why do some people still use *tex for anything?
2003/6/5 [Computer/SW/Languages/Misc, Computer/SW/Security] UID:28642 Activity:high
6/4     Does anyone know if there's a web interface for FORTRAN?  Basically,
        I want to write and run FORTRAN programs from a Web browser without
        having to install anything on my desktop.  Thanks!
        \_ no
        \_ Hmmm. If your goal is just to write FORTRAN programs without
           installing on your computer, you could SSH into soda and
           use g77. Is using a web browser really important? Maybe
           the Java SSH interface would suffice.
           \_ Thanks for that thought.  I have a need where it would be more
              than just myself and not all my users would have an SSH
              client... I just figured Web browsers are ubiquitous.  Also, I
              was hoping for a richer UI.  Any other thoughts?... I
              appreciate any ideas.
        \_ How about install a VNC server?  VNC has java applet client
           and it works reasonably well.
           \_ The problem with VNC is all users share the same desktop.  So
              if two people needed to work on their own project, they
              couldn't.  I didn't mention this as a requirement previously
              so I definitely appreciate the suggestion... but I cannot use
              it.  Please keep 'em coming, though.
        \_ you can run them from a browser as a cgi like anything else.
           writing them is no different than any other web based input system
           that you see message boards,etc using.
           \_ In other words, you mean use an HTML TEXTAREA where the
              programmer can write his/her code; but when the submit button
              is clicked, the code is fed to the FORTRAN compiler on the
              server?
              \_ something like that.  In short I mean "use CGI".  that's what
                 it's there for.
        \_ more stupid idea.  How about install an X-client on the
           FORTRASH computer, install an X-server on your own computer,
           and access that way?  It will resolve the problem.  I know,
           you said you don't want install anything on your computer, but
           i personally think an x-server should be an exception: everyone
           should installed X-server (and FTP server :p )
           \_ and a kazaa server and put at least 200 gigs online so we can
              all share because the information wants to be free!!!  you're
              truly brilliant in a k-12 sort of way.
2003/5/22 [Computer/SW/Editors, Computer/SW/Languages/Misc] UID:28517 Activity:high
5/21    Is there any decent open source html2pdf converter?  I've seen some
        that do the reverse, but the only html2pdf are commercial.  Thanks.
        \_ OpenOffice?  Has HTML editor and 1.1 beta can save as pdf.
        \_ /usr/local/bin/html2ps $1 | /usr/local/bin/ps2pdf - $2    -crebbs
           \_ Perfect, thank you.
        \_ Now how about a util to convert a pdf file to a 2up (2 pages per
           side, like enscript) pdf?
        \_ pdf->ps->psnup->pdf
           \_ Thanks.
2003/5/14-15 [Computer/SW/Languages/Misc] UID:28435 Activity:high
5/13    I'm trying to typeset a document in LaTeX, and I'd like to break it
        up into smaller more manageable files. But when I say:
                \chapter{Introduction}
                \include{chap1}
        it puts the chap1.tex text on a new page, when I'd like to have
        it on the same page that has the "Introduction" chapter heading.
        How can I do this? Thanks.
        \_ Use \input not \include. \include == {\clearpage \input \clearpage}.
           \include is useful only in conjunction with \includeonly. -recentphd
                \_ Thanks.
           \_ You making any money recentphd?
              \_ he's a recentphd in a bad economy.  there are plenty of jobs
                 for waiters and movie ushers.
           \_ I'm a professor. Relatively immune from vagarities of the
              economy. Economy is bad, funding sucks, but good students
              come to grad school. Economy is good, funding is good,
              but the smart students get rich instead. My job, fairly
              steady either way.  -recentphd
        \_ Related question:  is there a reason people use LaTeX now that
           OpenOffice exists?
           \_ I wouldn't write technical papers in OO.
           \_ Practically, most conferences / theses have LaTeX formats,
              so it's most convenient to write in LaTeX. LaTeX makes
              beautiful output although Frame is close and Word is evidently
              getting better. Equations totally rock in LaTeX, more so than
              anything else. LaTeX is very portable - there's something to
              be said for software that can be used anywhere (Mac, PC, Unix).
              It's also a text format which is (IMHO) more convenient than
              a binary format. Philosophically, I find it nice to write
              in Emacs without worrying about what it will look like when it
              is typeset. Separating out the content-creation from content-
              layout is desirable ... WYSIWYG is not such a good thing for
              writers. This is a philosophical point though - I like
              separating the two, but you may not.
              \_ Scientific Word and Mathematica both provide a WYSIWYG
                 environment with TeX output.
                 \_ There are several real-time TeX editors. Blue Sky makes
                    "TeXtures" for instance. I prefer to write in emacs
                    and compile when I'm done writing, but your mileage
                    may vary.
           \_ Using MS Office (or its poor clones) in science is Considered
              Harmful(tm).  Actually, the group revisioning functions of
              Word can be handy in writing papers collaboratively, but if you
              ever see Excel being used in a scientific project -- run!!!
              Seriously, papers written in Word look awful.  The nice thing
              about using a structured document format (LaTeX, SGML, etc)
              coupled with the World's Best Typesetter (TeX or maybe even
              troff) is the total consistency of the output.  Word documents
              inevitably accumulate accidental font changes, unintended
              automatic substitutions (like a list (a), (b), (c), ..., where
              the (c) is automatically transformed into a copyright symbol).
              Having converted totally to writing term papers (etc) in EMACS
              with LaTeX, I can't go back -- Word with all its useless bells
              and whistles is just Too Painful.
              \_ What's amazing is that Science magazine uses Word 97 as
                 their standard.  You can send your manuscript in in
                 latex, but then they convert it to word 97 in house.
2003/5/12 [Computer/SW/Languages/Misc] UID:28411 Activity:kinda low
5/12    latex gurus please help.  When I complile my latex file to ps and
        look at it with gsview, the figures look fine.  Then, when i convert
        it to pdf, all the text in the figures gets strangely fubared: the
        letters are run into eachother somehow.  What might cause this?
        \_ PDF font embedding?
        \_ try using pslatex to compile and see if that helps.  -hahnak
           \_ ok, so now I tried using ps2pdf on another computer with
              the same file and it worked!  So, in one sense my problem
              is solved, but what the hell happened?  Same program, same
              file, different computer, different font embedding.
                                        ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^
              \_ different versions?  different available fonts?  bad magic?
2003/4/24 [Computer/SW/Languages/Web, Computer/SW/Languages/Misc] UID:28209 Activity:nil
4/23    HTML form JSP question:
        What I have is essentially, an array of a set of radio buttons.
        Since radio buttons are identified by its name and there is no
        concept of scope in HTML, how do I deal with this? I really want
        to avoid things like
        <input type="radio" name="radio1">
        <input type="radio" name="radio2">
        <input type="radio" name="radio3">

        mainly because the javabean for this form is going to be a pain
        in the butt to write.

        any pointer? custom tag?  thanks in advance
        \_ Well, any form inputs are basically parameters to a function
           (read cgi).  So name them accordingly.  A terse, descriptive
           name.  And there certainly is "scope" in HTML.  It's global per-
           page (correct me if I'm wrong).  Also, you mention JSP, which
           definitely has definable scope (e.g. page, session, etc.)
           --scotsman
           \_ what i want is a radio input which has the scope of
              let say, 1 table row!
        \_ radio buttons belong to a group, so you could do the following:
           <input type="radio" name="group1" value="radio1"/>
           <input type="radio" name="group1" value="radio2"/>
           <input type="radio" name="group1" value="radio3"/>
           So, the parameter is group1 and then whichever radio button
           is selected will pass the value.
           \_ Well, this is what you would do for, say, a multiple choice
              question or the like.
              \_ What is your use case exactly?
                \_ example: a page of 10 multiple choice questions.
                   idealy we want be able use an array to handle
                   them, instead of hardcoding the name.
                   \_ I wouldn't recommend this, but if you want to use an
                      array you could give each question-group the same name
                      and then make the value for each answer something like
                      q1_a2 (1 and 2 would be values from the question and
                      answer loops).   Then you could retrieve every
                      answer by getting the parameter value array for the
                      parameter named "questions".  An example entry would
                      be:
                      <input type="radio" name="questions" value="q1_a2"/>
                      But I'd rather name each question-group something
                      like q1 ... qn and then each answer in that group
                      a1 ... an and then just pull out the parameter values
                      using a loop of names q1 ... qn and stop when the
                      value for q_current is empty.
2003/4/24 [Computer/SW/Languages/Misc] UID:28208 Activity:nil
4/23    ok, same problm as question below, but different approach.
        Is there any existing tool that extract <input> html tag
        and generate javabean automatically?
        \_ this question probably means you're missing something.
           Look up the ServletRequest api for getParameterValues and
           getParameter-- you can name all your form inputs the same and
           get them back as an array.  This works well for a feedback
           survey with 50 questions where all the answers are something
           like "Strongly Agree" "Agree" "Disagree"-- name your radiobuttons
           surveyAnswer, and if surveyAnswer[3] == 2, then someone
           strongly agreed w/ statement 4.
2003/4/14-15 [Computer/SW/OS/Windows, Computer/SW/Languages/Misc] UID:28114 Activity:high
4/14    I need to write a script to run under DOS (yes, I know it sucks)
        and I need it to stop a program that can only be terminated by
        hitting Control-C. How can I give that to the script as a
        command? Thanks.
        \_ try installing cygwin (cygwin.com ?) and use their "ps" and
           "kill" functions?
        \_ Is it a true DOS platform, or a DOS window in a windows environment?
                \_ a DOS window in Windows      -op
        \_ You could write a vb function that runs your script and sends key
           strokes to the window.  though you'll have to write code to get the
           handle to the window.
        \_ Or put a timer in your program that you wrote that exits after
           10 seconds.
        \_ what are you smoking, DOS is not a multithreaded environment
        \_ grab one of the freebie or shareware keyboard/macro programs off
           the net.  Since you're in windowed dos you can get away with a
           stunt like this.  There is also 4Dos which can probably do what
           you need.  It's a command shell replacement for command/cmd.  You
           can also install perl and then use the plist and pkill and other
           stuff MS provides in some freebie package.  If you give more
           details you'll get better answers.
2003/4/7 [Computer/SW/Languages/Misc] UID:28012 Activity:high
4/7     The 'dict' command always seems to format stuff very nicely
        from the commadn line, but when I envoke it from code or a
        shell script I get no formatting... couldn't find anything on
        the man page. is there an env var I should set to get this to
        work?  thanks.
        \_ it could be using isatty() to check the output is on a terminal
           or not in which case it's not an environment issue. Use the source
           Luke.
        \_ it could be using isatty() to check the output is on a
           terminal or not in which case it's not an environment
           issue. Use the source Luke.
2003/3/28 [Computer/SW/Languages/Java, Computer/SW/Languages/Misc] UID:27889 Activity:nil
3/27    I have a large home directory, want to back it up to CDs. Is there a
        front-end to mkisofs that will split up the stuff neatly into multiple
        700MB ISOs?
        \_ there was some http://www.freshmeat.net project to
           to that, no i don't remember the name of it, sorry.
2003/3/24 [Computer/SW/Languages/Misc] UID:27831 Activity:nil
3/24    Re: earlier post about POW.  Geneva convention obliges waring party
        to ensure they are protected, anonymous, and unhumiliated.  Inviting
        mobs of "embedded" journalists to have a feeding frenzy is about as
        in compliance as having a mob of thugs not controlled by the
        government beating the POWs.  Both sides violated the convention,
        but the civilized coaliation so far has much more serious violation.
        It achieves so by having a poorly informed but self-righteous
        population.
        \_ is a declaration of war necessary for Geneva convention to apply?
        \_ embedded journalists didn't film any pow's.  it was pows left behind
           to be picked up by later troops that random non-embedded independent
           journalists filmed.  I believe what they did was wrong but it was
           not an official U.S. government sanctioned act.
2003/3/23 [Computer/SW/Languages/Misc, Computer/SW/Languages/Web] UID:27808 Activity:high
3/22    The real solution would be to replace motd.public with something a
        little more secure and functional, like a CGI weblog script or
        something.  But that would be too rational and easy, which wouldn't
        be in the spirit of the motd.
        \_ http://csua.org/motd
        \_ that wouldn't be the motd anymore would it?
        \_ The real solution to what exactly?  I don't see a problem.
2003/3/21 [Computer/SW/Languages, Computer/SW/Languages/Misc] UID:27775 Activity:nil
3/20    I'm RTFMing right now, but i have a deadline, and need to figure this
        out fast.  How do I get LaTeX to single space, over-riding the
        double space default in the REVTEX style file?
        what's the simplest way to just double space or single space
        in the same document?  I want to have single spaced figure
        captions, with the rest of the document double spaced.
        thanks!
2003/3/21 [Computer/SW/Languages/Misc] UID:27773 Activity:high
3/20    What exactly is an "embedded system"? Is that just MIPS core
        with other stuff around the core? Or is it DSP stuff?
        \_ What's an embedded reporter?
        \_ microprocessor with stuff around it.  could be a core, more often
           parts on a board.  laser printer, for example.
        \_ There's no exact definition.  Different people use it to mean
           different things.  My company makes printer controllers for office
           printers.  When we give the controller a PC-like housing and put it
           next to the printer, we call it a server.  But when we remove the
           call it an embedded controller.  -- yuen
           fancy housing and mount the thing inside the printer housing, we
           call it an embedded controller.  In my previous company, when we
           stopped writing our OS on desktop machine and started writing for
           devices that has flash memory instead of hard disks and "embedded
           processors" (x86 CPU plus 8259's plus other things all in one chip)
           instead of regular x86's, we called those products embedded devices.
           -- yuen
        \_ a controller, some memory devices, input/output devices
           mounting on a pc board.
        \_ Here's a definition:
           http://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/Embedded_system
2003/3/19 [Computer/SW/Languages/JavaScript, Computer/SW/Languages/Misc, Computer/SW/Languages/Web] UID:27739 Activity:moderate
3/18    How do I put my e-mail address in my home page and avoid being picked
        up by spammers?  Do spammers scan for "mailto:" links or do they scan
        for all text in the .html files?  Thx.
        \_ Don't worry so much about the scan part...it is too hard to
           maintain. I just use spamassassin now, and sometimes give
           out user-tag (or user+tag) type addresses.
        \_ put up an image of your email address. The spammers aren't going
           to bother taking the image file and trying to OCR it to get the
           email address.
           \_ Cool!  Thanks!
        \_ Make a form that posts to a cgi script that sends you mail
        \_ post your email address to usenet then everyone will have it and
           you won't need it on your web page.
           \_ This is like that entry on the multiple-choice test your
              teachers warned you about.
              \_ "E"!  It's always "E"!
        \_ Someone deleted my post about JavaScript obfuscation, which is
           probably the best way to keep the functionality of a mailto: link
           while hiding from spammers.  ObGoogle.  -tom
        \_ I wouldn't use a mailto: link. I'd rather just post my email
           address in html using '&#64;' for '@' and '&#46;' for '.'.
           This will prevent the vast majority of spammers from harvesting
           your email addr from your webpage.
           \_ This sounds good too.  Thanks.
           \_ Thanks! -spammer
2003/2/19-21 [Computer/SW/Languages/Misc] UID:27461 Activity:low
2/19    Is there something like the hyperref package for latex 2.09?  I want
        to automatically add hyperlinks for \ref \cite etc in a large
        latex 2.09 file.  Ok tnx.
        \_ pdflatex supports it, IIRC, but since I don't think dvi has
           "hyperlinks" per se, I don't think it would have such a thing.
           -chialea
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