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[2006-01-17 14:40:52] - Pierce: LOOK has gone from about $800 to $430 and XYBR (my biggest flop) went from about $1k to $50
-Paul[2006-01-17 14:40:15] - Pierce: I've gotten about a 9% return over the past 5-6 years with my investments. -- Xpovos
[2006-01-17 14:40:14] - Pierce: Mine varies a lot. I spent $7.3k on AMD and it's now worth about $13k so that almost doubled. ATYT went from $4.4k to $5.5k and FCX went from $1.6k to $2.8k but I've also had some enormous stinkers too. -Paul
[2006-01-17 14:30:50] - what's the average gain or loss you guys have had on your stocks, as a percentage? it seems like a lot of you got in on what are now very valuable stocks back before they inflated. - pierce
[2006-01-17 14:25:52] - Pierce: It might not hurt you to wait until tonight to buy AMD anyway, the stock is going down so far today. -Paul
[2006-01-17 14:25:26] - Pierce: Heh, all this talk about investing got me to thinking about bumping up my 401(k) and looking into making my Roth IRA contribution but I can't remember my username for MorganStanley and I don't know my account number for my IRA so I'll have to wait until tonight to do anything too.
-Paul[2006-01-17 14:24:33] - mig: well put, by the way. - pierce
[2006-01-17 14:24:02] - dammit, I don't remember my account number for ml.com... I'll have to wait until tonight to put in the buy order for AMD. - pierce
[2006-01-17 14:09:42] - Dave: The old company? -Paul
[2006-01-17 14:08:10] - Paul: I think you have to talk to the company to figure that out -dave
[2006-01-17 14:05:37] - just shred it up and say it doesn't apply anymore. - mig
[2006-01-17 14:05:27] - seriously though, if we have a constitution that supposadly explicitly defines exactly what the powers of government are, yet people think it's ok for government to disregard the limitations that they are supposed to abide by, then why bother having a constitution? - mig
[2006-01-17 14:04:19] - Speaking of which, does anybody know anything about transferring my 401(k) from a previous job over to something else? -Paul
[2006-01-17 14:04:00] - a: Ah, I haven't added any money to scottrade for a while. Probably over a year. I'll probably bump up my 401(k) some more before I buy more stocks, though. -Paul
[2006-01-17 14:02:29] - a: I'm so not diversified at all in terms of the stocks I own. I have like 5 stocks I own and like 80% of it is invested in tech stocks.
-Paul[2006-01-17 14:01:12] - paul: usually takes about a week. i have it done automagically every month. ~a
[2006-01-17 14:01:11] - a: AMD has taken a big hit lately but they have also been on quite a run this past month or so. Normally the stock dropping so much would've made me cry but it's still up a huge amount from when I bought it so I don't mind so much. -Paul
[2006-01-17 14:01:08] - a: I have like nothing in the tech corner at the moment.
- pierce[2006-01-17 14:00:48] - paul: yep. ~a
[2006-01-17 14:00:28] - don't forget about 2001. i'm glad i wasn't as much in the market back then, but i'm going to learn from other peoples mistakes. lots of people i know lost their entire life savings. ~a
[2006-01-17 14:00:25] - a: Interesting. How exactly does one get money to them through billpay? Just enter in your account number and send off a check and they'll know what to do with it? -Paul
[2006-01-17 13:59:23] - pierce: what's important is to be well deversified. don't put too much money into the tech corner. ~a
[2006-01-17 13:56:12] - a: that was - pierce
[2006-01-17 13:56:07] - a: interesting, I hadn't been keeping up with the stock in the last few weeks but I've been thinking about AMD for a while... think I should get in on it?
[2006-01-17 13:52:50] - pierce: quite amusing, i didn't even think of that -dave
[2006-01-17 13:50:32] - paul: yes i wanted to buy amd since they took such a huge hit this past week. ~a
[2006-01-17 13:50:18] - paul: it's an easy way of transfering money TO scottrade (but to transfer money FROM scottrade, you still have to use old-fashioned-checks). but . . . like i said, they disabled the feature. so now the only way to get money into your account is to mail (via billpay if you want) or hand carry them a check. ~a
[2006-01-17 13:47:07] - dave: "should have been nailed" surely there was a better choice of words available. - pierce
[2006-01-17 13:46:52] - a: I don't even know what echeck is. Is it an easy way of transfering money to and from Scottrade? If so, that sounds like it would be useful. You're looking at buying some AMD stock? -Paul
[2006-01-17 13:34:18] - or like suspending someone's license because they were drastically speeding while trying to rush a dying person to the hospital. You'd think a cop would actually help the person rather than ticketing them -dave
[2006-01-17 13:31:40] - pierce: like with Clinton - I think most would say, if honest, that he probably perjured himself - but that doesn't mean he necessarily should have been nailed for it -dave
[2006-01-17 13:29:43] - pierce: I wouldn't say they were unjustified - tho that is separate from opinion on whether it should happen or not. I can find justification for a lot of things people would probably violently disagree with -dave
[2006-01-17 13:27:45] - pierce: in the same vein, I recall reading somewhere that much of what Lincoln did was grossly illegal -dave
[2006-01-17 13:27:28] - dave: trust isn't a blank check for his behavior in office. I know it won't happen, but if there were impeachment hearings based on his violation of law, would you say that they were unjustified because you trust he made the right decision? - pierce
[2006-01-17 13:24:42] - pierce: this coming right back to the fact that we dont' really know what happened, so it comes down to trust - which I more or less have, and you don't - which is fairly apropos considering I voted for him and you didn't -dave
[2006-01-17 13:22:26] - pierce: i wouldn't be surprised at all if what he did was "illegal" or against some rhetoric that he's put forth. However, even given that, I'm not sure I would say right away that I think he shouldn't have done it (whatever it was) -dave
[2006-01-17 13:21:03] - pierce: what's funny is a co-worker of mine has a wife who is a FISA facilitator. I asked him whether she had an opinion one way or another, and he said he wasn't sure -dave
[2006-01-17 13:20:21] - pierce: I can definitely see how that argument/viewpoint could be made/arrived upon. I just hate judging things (especially legal things) when I have extremely little experience in those areas and when we have no clue what exactly happened. -dave
[2006-01-17 13:10:43] - and that's me very liberally calling the war powers argument an exploitation of a "loophole or vaguery"... in reality I think the legislation was pretty explicit in its meaning, and this is flatly against the law. - pierce
[2006-01-17 13:09:27] - dave: this is a president who has often criticized "activist judges" for exploiting loopholes and vagueries in law to push their own agenda. And yet here he is, unapologetically doing the exact same thing, in clear contrast to his rhetoric. - pierce
[2006-01-17 13:08:38] - dave: as for the "grey area", this behavior comes from a president who pushes the philosophy that there's no such thing as a "grey area" in constitutional law -- that only "original intent" matters (as if understanding that intent wasn't inherently a "grey" process). - pierce
[2006-01-17 13:06:46] - dave: I'm pretty sure I understand what you're saying. I agree that the FISA (that's it, right?) judges probably don't have the resources to research and approve the number of automated taps we "need" to remain secure. But that doesn't grant the president unilateral authority to flout the existing law. - pierce
[2006-01-17 13:05:58] - a: I think that's the reason why it was hushed until now - I think the NYTimes (maybe other newspaper?) had the story for like several years, but was convinced by the govt not to release it - not sure what changed so that they did -dave
[2006-01-17 13:05:01] - pierce: and I'm also not saying what he did was legal either - I just don't know. What I AM trying to say is that oftentimes there's a huge grey area on what is legal/illegal, and you have to vote for the person you'd trust to make those choices -dave
[2006-01-17 13:03:51] - pierce: retroactive warrants don't have anything to do with what I'm trying to say - I'm saying it's volume. clearly you can do retroactive warrants at present -dave
[2006-01-17 13:02:18] - a: I'd be surprised if the organized terrorist groups (the ones we really have to worry about) weren't already avoiding "flag" words and phrases. - pierce
[2006-01-17 13:00:19] - after all this heat the wiretaps have been getting, wouldn't all the terrorists be like "hmm, lets not use the phone for a while". ~a
[2006-01-17 12:59:26] - dave: but if the safeguards in place make it impractical to apply for retroactive warrants, that doesn't mean you can just say you can perform the taps anyway. it means that you have to tell congress to create and fund a more efficient retroactive warrant system. - pierce
[2006-01-17 12:50:46] - pierce: my take on the ars article (which could be entirely wrong) was that it might be some sort of statistical sampling. Like figure out what X% of foreign calls you'd have to sample to get 99.9% chance of catching a conversation with X keywords. -dave
[2006-01-17 12:47:46] - aaron: the two i've heard of are Artisan and Rational Rose. -dave
[2006-01-17 12:45:47] - pierce: i don't think the impracticality comes from not being able to (or being able to) retroactively apply, it's from the sheer volume (IMO). I could easily see an automated system taking a sample from a few thousand lines a day - way too much paperwork -dave
[2006-01-17 12:43:36] - dave: no. we've used microsoft viseo a few times when we had to draw UML for design documents and i hate it. i tried 3 other products and they were all 100x worse - aaron
[2006-01-17 12:42:09] - *explicit, not explicity - pierce
[2006-01-17 12:41:51] - dave: the impracticality of getting authorization for "automated" wiretaps goes out the window when there's an explicity process in place for getting retroactive approval, as long as they apply for it within three days after the tap. - pierce
[2006-01-17 12:39:03] - paul: oh i have. the first time i went was to set up echeck. the second time was to deposit paper stocks that i needed to sell b/c i was buying my house. the third time is going to be today because if i wait for bankofamerica to send them a check, then amd and sndk will have already recovered (and as you might know, scottrade has disabled echeck). ~a
[2006-01-17 12:33:18] - mig: ahh I see. I wasn't sure, so defended myself by default. -dave
[2006-01-17 12:25:07] - dave: if those comments seemed directed at you, i apoligize, because they weren't. I was mainly referring to Bush's own hypocricy, and the assertions made by talking head dipshits like limbaugh and hannity who've been defending Bush's actions as right and moral because apparently, "Clinton and Carter spied on people too." - mig
[2006-01-17 12:23:04] - http://www.cnn.com/2006/WORLD/europe/01/17/uk.parrot/index.html mouthy parrot reveals a gf that was having an affair -dave
[2006-01-17 12:14:16] - mig: that's the main reason (not knowing exactly what happened) why I didn't try to say he was right or wrong. Congressmen were privy to what he was doing and went along with it, and not just republican ones either. Whether they really understood the situation is of course debatable -dave
[2006-01-17 12:12:38] - mig: again from arstechnica - i dont' think the public will know what exactly happened, for the reasons that so much of what he decides on is classified. So you're stuck with trying to judge the persons character and then trusting them -dave
[2006-01-17 12:11:03] - mig: and besides, i didn't say i thought he was right in what he did (if it was illegal), or that I supported it. -dave
[2006-01-17 12:10:16] - mig: what, so you think most politicians aren't hypocritical? -dave
[2006-01-17 12:07:51] - pierce: and if anyone calls you on it, just say, "there's nothing wrong here. everybody's doing it!" - mig
[2006-01-17 12:04:52] - pierce: welcome to the world of republicans. say what is right and wrong, and then proceed to do everything that you said was wrong. - mig
[2006-01-17 12:04:36] - a: That's pretty cool. All the branches are still pretty far away from me, but that's ok since I haven't had the need to go to any yet. -paul
[2006-01-17 12:03:58] - a:
[2006-01-17 12:03:55] - Dave: We probably do have a UML modeling framework in place here but I don't know much about it. Sorry. -Paul
[2006-01-17 11:44:50] - pierce: i dunno whether he is being hypocritical in the situation, or not, but I'm sure that both he and every other president has been hypocritical about things. Not that it's a good thing, but that it seems to go with the political territory -dave
[2006-01-17 11:42:26] - pierce: did you read any of the arstechnica articles postulating on why they "allowed" the taps? Conjecture was that it was an automated system that took a sampling of different lines and looked for keywords etc. Irregardless of whether it was legal or not, that certainly would explain the impracticality of obtaining the legal documents to do the wiretaps -dave
[2006-01-17 11:41:00] - paul: there is a new scottrade opening up in walking distance from my apartment!
i'm so happy because before this, there weren't any scottrades in all of alexandria. the closest one was almost in dc and the second closest one was in maryland. ~a[2006-01-17 11:32:53] - when that implication flies in the face of clear, explicit wording to the contrary in existing law. Does that not seem hypocritical? - pierce
[2006-01-17 11:31:49] - so here's what bugs me about the wiretapping scandal (or would, if I wasn't inured to the antics of this administration): the president makes great claims about how he's in favor of strict interpretation of the law, and original intent. Yet he's relying on what is at best an awkward set of legal acrobatics to "imply" powers that were not explicitly stated. - pierce
[2006-01-17 11:07:24] - out of curiosity, does everyone have some sort of UML modeling framework that is used at their workplace? -dave
[2006-01-17 10:59:03] - aba: Point taken, I'll shut up.
-Paul[2006-01-17 10:38:57] - paul: if we couldnt all safely operate under the consensus view of the english language, whats the point in having language at all? we could argue over the meaning and interpretation of any word/phrase then. *shrug* - aba
[2006-01-17 10:30:26] - Pierce: I think we can all agree, though, that women wearing pants is hilarious. -Paul
[2006-01-17 10:25:44] - paul: I've always detested that phrase. There are many men who wear dresses, and many women that wear pants. It's so ill-defined and thus meaningless!
- pierce[2006-01-17 10:24:03] - I'm not positive why I used "and/or" there... if I set fire to my apartment in an attempt to cool my computer with cooking oil, there would be no "or" to ruining it; I think we can safely assume that the computer is ruined. - pierce
[2006-01-17 10:23:48] - Pierce: True, but it could be only because Bill Gates (a man) is running like a girl (which is not a man). I think you could also say "Bill Gates dresses like a girl! Hilarious!" and it would be funny without there being any negative connotations to dressing like a girl (unless you're a man, of course). -Paul
[2006-01-17 10:14:33] - sam: why am I the one who should try cooling my computer with cooking oil? I like my computer, and there's no way I'd manage that without ruining it and/or setting fire to my apartment. - pierce
[2006-01-17 10:13:22] - okay, for the record I know were all just being glib and for-the-sake-of-argumenty about this... I'll reiterate that the "hilarious!" in sam's post would give a certain negative connotation to "running like a girl", even if there's nothing implicitly "wrong" with the expression itself.
- pierce[2006-01-17 09:47:42] - aba: I'm just saying that maybe Sam didn't mean that there was anything wrong with running like a girl but you interpreted it as being negative so maybe you're the sexist one here.
-Paul[2006-01-17 09:21:12] - in the US -dave
[2006-01-17 09:20:12] - ack, 600k -dave
[2006-01-17 09:20:05] - http://www.cnn.com/2006/TECH/fun.games/01/16/xbox.360.reut/index.html 100k Xbox360 units sold -dave
[2006-01-17 09:19:54] - lori: I worked Monday as well -dave
[2006-01-17 09:18:35] - pierce: you should try that! get some cooking oil! -sam
[2006-01-17 09:17:52] - aba:
-sam[2006-01-16 22:06:46] - sam: haha, i wasnt offended! just pointing out how silly a phrase it is.
and paul, true, the phrase itself says nothing bad, but the usage is almost always in a negative sense. - aba[2006-01-16 17:49:47] - lol, oops, i meant swung, not swang... -sam
[2006-01-16 17:48:09] - aba: i'm sorry if that offended you. i just copied and pasted the title of the video clip from G4 TV. and i thought that video clip was hilarious, not necessarily because he supposely "ran like a girl," but the way he swang his arms when he ran to the center stage.
-sam[2006-01-16 16:29:40] - lori: anyway i am sorry to you, too. -amy
[2006-01-16 16:29:16] - lori: my company gave us extra floating holidays since we barely get any actual ones. it means i have to come in to work when everybody else is out partying martin luther king jr. style. but it maybe i can take a week vacation later. -amy
[2006-01-16 16:15:37] - amy: I'm sorry that you have to be in the unfortunate minority as well then - lori
[2006-01-16 14:30:09] - lori: no. -amy
[2006-01-16 14:18:34] - Am I seriously the only one who had to go to work today? - lori
[2006-01-16 11:18:11] - http://www.tomshardware.com/2006/01/09/strip_out_the_fans/ cooling the pc with 8 gallons of cooking oil -dave
[2006-01-16 10:06:08] - Hmm... is it also funny if a girl runs like a man? A girl running in a mannish manner? ... ehh probably not .( -amy
[2006-01-16 09:40:19] - http://us.ent4.yimg.com/tv.yahoo.com/images/he/photo/tv_pix/thewb/beauty_and_the_geek_2/geek2_thaistyson.jpg Awwww.... How adorable. -paul
[2006-01-16 02:19:58] - Pierce: It depends, is it un-PC to make fun of sissies? -paul
[2006-01-16 02:11:46] - plus, girls run like sissies. you don't want to be described as running in a sissified manner, do you? sissy boy? - pierce
[2006-01-16 02:10:31] - paul: the phrase isn't by itself, though... it's "hilarious". That implies a certain level of disrespectability, if it's not outrightly pejorative. - pierce
[2006-01-16 01:33:57] - aba: By itself, the phrase doesn't say that running like a girl is bad, but your last statement seems to imply that you think "running like a girl" = "running badly". Is that what you think?
-paul[2006-01-15 13:40:34] - ive always detested that phrase..... there are many girls who run very well and many men who run badly! its so ill-defined and thus meaningless!
- aba[2006-01-14 22:29:02] - Bill Gates runs like a girl! Hilarious! http://www.g4tv.com/videos/index.html?video_key=10354 -sam
[2006-01-13 17:01:06] - sam: yes
[2006-01-13 16:57:35] - aba: does google fight just searchs and finds out which one has the most search results? -sam
[2006-01-13 16:50:12] - pierce: i think www.wachovia.com is the same way too. -sam
[2006-01-13 16:36:19] - pierce: but you'll know after you submit your password. if you submit your password and it takes you to HTTP, then you know not to trust the techies at bankofamerica.com and you know to spend your lunch break closing your account with bank of america. ~a
[2006-01-13 15:15:06] - http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/01/12/AR2006011202400.html US hands over control of Hussein palaces to Iraqi military forces...which are promptly looted, some say by the iraqi military themselves -dave
[2006-01-13 14:02:00] - aba: haha great site .) -amy
[2006-01-13 13:55:08] - I wish there was an easy way to indicate the security of an HTML form submission. If I go to bankofamerica.com, the page itself is HTTP but the login form submits to HTTPS. But unless I open up the source, I can't be sure whether my information is going to be encrypted or cleartext... and even then, there might be some javascript hook that makes me wrong. - pierce
[2006-01-13 13:54:44] - A suicidal eighth grader who pulled a handgun in class and briefly took another child hostage was shot by a SWAT team member Friday when he later threatened deputies http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060113/ap_on_re_us/school_evacuated -sam
[2006-01-13 13:42:50] - amy: http://googlefight.com/ i am sure your support was a lot more legitimate than mine
- aba[2006-01-13 13:32:46] - aba: what's google fight? i was about to post a link to something on bartleby.com but i guess you beat me to settling the argument .) -amy
[2006-01-13 13:30:18] - sam: google fight says "one and a half minutes" wins. - aba
[2006-01-13 13:30:12] - so is anyone else completely and utterly distracted by the beautiful weather and totally unable to work or is that just me? .) i don't even have a window in my office, but i walked across the hall and caught a glimpse of the outside world... -amy
[2006-01-13 13:28:27] - sam: but technically I think "one and a half minutes" is grammatically correct. hmm i wonder if there's a place we can look that up. *curious* -amy
[2006-01-13 13:27:54] - sam: i'd say a minute and a half -amy
[2006-01-13 13:23:46] - Sam: I think I normally say "one and a half minutes" -Paul
[2006-01-13 13:19:07] - what's correct? "one and a half minute" or "one and a half minutes?" -sam
[2006-01-13 13:03:56] - dammit, - pierce
[2006-01-13 13:03:35] - ...but if you collapse a remote quantum state, it doesn't have any physical effect on that location except for guaranteeing a certain result if you try to observe that particle. And since you can't control what result it gives (since you couldn't control the collapse of your own entangled particle either), you're not having any causal impact on the remote location. - pier
[2006-01-13 13:01:56] - a: you can only subvert cause and effect if you can control the simultaneous collapse, because then you're having an effect on something outside the event horizon (I think that's the term for it). Basically, you can "beat" causality to its destination. - pierce
[2006-01-13 12:53:03] - http://www.transbuddha.com/alphamonkey/mediadir/media/java/punchout.html (video, with sound) - pierce
[2006-01-13 12:51:42] - it's getting hot in here, i'm gonna take my socks off
[2006-01-13 12:35:38] -
[2006-01-13 12:35:13] - "it's getting hot in here, i'm gonna turn a fan on" then take your clothes off! ;-p
[2006-01-13 12:05:32] - hmmm. nevermind. information can't observe, can it? ~a
[2006-01-13 11:27:41] - as i recal, if you can send information faster than the speed of light, then you can subvert cause-and-effect. ~a
[2006-01-13 11:26:26] - i'm not sure that you can send information faster than the speed of light. i'm an einstein man. ~a
[2006-01-13 11:23:15] - (but leave "instantly" alone) - pierce
[2006-01-13 11:23:02] - replace "instant" with "random" in that sentence. - pierce
[2006-01-13 11:22:35] - the only thing I can figure is that the entanglement would allow an instant one-time pad to be shared between two sources instantly, but I'm not sure how that's helpful if the message that's being padded has to travel at the pokey old speed of light. - pierce
[2006-01-13 11:21:24] - dave+a: quantum computing doesn't necessarily have to take advantage of the spooky entanglement phenomenon. the parallelization can occur within the "traditional" non-spooky interactions at very fast (but not instantaneous) speeds. - pierce
[2006-01-13 11:16:12] - dave: quantum computers can paralellize computations in a way that makes decrypting of current non-quantum-codes very easy. there exist quantum computer emulators that show these decryptions are very easy. ~a
[2006-01-13 10:19:05] - pierce: yeah, i dont' get how they are used in the encryption application everyone is touting. Other applications listed include quantum computers, medical imaging equipment, and finer resolution for manufacturing processes -dave
[2006-01-13 10:07:35] - dave: as I understand it, quantum entanglement can transmit data faster than light, but you have no control over what that data is, so its applications are more limited than "instant communication". - pierce
[2006-01-13 09:55:26] - Dave: Very true, like Paris Hilton. -Paul
[2006-01-13 09:50:40] - paul: although, i would think there are a ton of things that do well that really have no practical application, hehe -dave
[2006-01-13 09:39:17] - Dave: I hope so, because that's the only practical application I can see of this.
-Paul[2006-01-13 09:35:31] - "the glowing properties of the pigs make it possible to monitor and detect stem cell growth without requiring operational procedures to be done" -dave
[2006-01-13 09:34:55] - Paul: apparently it helps them see something to do with stem cells -dave
[2006-01-13 09:33:47] - Dave: What exactly is the practical benefit of glow-in-the-dark pigs?
-Paul[2006-01-13 09:33:24] - dave: hey that's my parents' alma mater .) -amy
[2006-01-13 09:32:58] - Amy: Hopefully you stop drinking once you start getting sick.
-Paul[2006-01-13 09:32:29] - Sam: I would guess probably not, although in some respects I don't think it's necessarily a bad thing. -Paul
[2006-01-13 09:29:42] - http://www.dailytech.com/article.aspx?newsid=262 taiwanese scientists create glow-in-the-dark pigs -dave
[2006-01-13 09:24:37] - apparently quantum entanglement can transmit data faster than light - with two quantum entangled photons, one will always have the opposite spin as the other, no matter how much distance is between them apparently -dave
[2006-01-13 09:23:35] - http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20060112-5971.html quantum entanglement on a chip -dave
[2006-01-13 09:11:06] - sam: what kind of discrimination? -amy
[2006-01-13 09:10:39] - Paul: lol thanks. I have actually, at work, drank so much water to the point where it made me sick to even take another sip. so i think the body probably has a mechanism that tells you to stop drinking water before you, you know, die or something. -amy
[2006-01-13 08:49:40] - sam: well . . . the definition of ugly people will change. ~a
[2006-01-13 07:26:46] - will discrimination against ugly people ever go away? -sam
[2006-01-12 17:40:31] - Amy: http://episteme.arstechnica.com/groupee/forums/a/tpc/f/34709834/m/130009227731 Ars debates how much water a person can safely drink in a workday. -Paul
[2006-01-12 17:34:25] - http://www.popvssoda.com/countystats/total-county.html Generic names for soft drinks by county. -Paul
[2006-01-12 16:47:07] - a: Oh, yeah. I wasn't really thinking about true brute force I guess, or really brute force at all. I guess I really just meant that it should be very easy for a computer to solve in a short amount of time. -Paul
[2006-01-12 16:35:52] - I found a nice online solver a while back, that simultaneously explained the algorithm it used. can't find it though - vinnie
[2006-01-12 16:29:53] - of course the trick of the simplest viable solution is to cut out almost all of the 9^53 possible boards down to a reasonable amount. i'm almost done coding it up. ~a
[2006-01-12 16:27:59] - paul: well it depends on what you mean by brute force. (brute force in my mind isn't really well defined) really dumb brute forcing makes 9^53 possible boards. at 1billion boards per second (which is a lot), it will take 10^34 years to solve. ~a
[2006-01-12 15:59:06] - a: Sudoku seems very solvable by a computer. It might not even be that hard to brute force it (although I'm definitely speaking without thinking much about it). -Paul
[2006-01-12 15:45:50] - in fact, i wonder if you can use dp (dynamic programming) ~a
[2006-01-12 15:44:47] - seems like another game where it would be very easy to code up a solver. ~a
[2006-01-12 15:40:56] - Dave: Yeah, I first learned about Sudoku from the washington post. -Paul
[2006-01-12 15:18:16] - a: http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20060112-5961.html -dave
[2006-01-12 15:17:37] - dave: ok. ~a
[2006-01-12 15:17:22] - a: just read an article that says if blu-ray becomes the standard, then they will -dave
[2006-01-12 15:16:46] - i doubt there will be a bluray dvd addon for the xbox360. microsoft is very anti-bluray. ~a
[2006-01-12 15:13:59] - although it makes you wonder, since they say that recorders are going to debut at like $500 themselves -dave
[2006-01-12 15:13:20] - a: probably depends on how much the HD-DVD and Blu-Ray DVD add-ons for the Xbox360 turn out to be. -dave
[2006-01-12 15:12:25] - paul: http://www.uclick.com/client/wpc/wpdoc/ sudoku on washpost, or at least linked to from washpost -dave
[2006-01-12 15:11:46] - dave: well hell, do you want a 3core system with a 9gb optical drive for $400, or do you want a 8core with a 50+gb optical drive for $500? ~a
[2006-01-12 15:10:18] - http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/01/11/AR2006011102235.html new body armor for troops "We don't want a medieval knight. We are not going to be hoisted onto a horse" -dave
[2006-01-12 15:04:25] - i wonder if you can load win2000/xp using elilo. ~a
[2006-01-12 15:03:53] - http://money.cnn.com/2006/01/11/commentary/game_over/column_gaming/index.htm Analysts and Developers postulate $500 price for PS3 -dave
[2006-01-12 15:03:52] - . . . and the answer is yes. elilo (linux loader for efi) is already stable. ~a
[2006-01-12 15:00:54] - i'm more interested in knowing if linux/bsd can boot to efi. ~a
[2006-01-12 14:59:54] - dave: you mean if i got an apple machine i could dual boot to TWO operating systems that i wouldn't actually want to boot to? ~a
[2006-01-12 14:57:19] - http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20060112-5962.html Intel Macs will run Windows...eventually (Windows Vista and on, since Macs don't use BIOS) -dave
[2006-01-12 14:53:44] - http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20060112-5960.html rootkit found in Symantec software -dave
[2006-01-12 14:48:41] - aaron: yeah, my guess is that the bidder didn't pay up or something -dave
[2006-01-12 14:45:37] - pierce: well, it's the last block of pixels in something that certainly has and will have a ton of visibility, so I wouldn't be surprised about someone paying 100k+ for an advert on it -dave
[2006-01-12 14:36:59] - aaron: it might have been a bogus bidder. although if it landed on $40,000 and that wasn't bogus then I'm still stunned. - pierce
[2006-01-12 14:22:16] - a: well, it's not even really a commentary on whether MS is going to do well, it's just a commentary on the fact that investors feel that another company will do better -dave
[2006-01-12 14:04:18] - wasn't that "million pixel" e-bay auction up to >$100,000 yesterday? because it looks like it finished around $40,000, so i'm confused - aaron
[2006-01-12 13:32:34] - a: They should be, but I imagine lots are not taking that into account. -Paul
[2006-01-12 13:02:33] - paul: yes but investors (should be) taking into account the money that microsoft WILL MAKE in the long run on the xbox 360. stock is basically X% of a company forever. ~a
[2006-01-12 13:00:57] - 4% down in 1.5 months is huge. ~a
[2006-01-12 13:00:17] - dave: i have no idea what reasons. i just know it's down 4%. ~a
[2006-01-12 13:00:03] - dave: 4% down since november 22nd open. ~a
[2006-01-12 12:05:13] - a: Well, Microsoft probably has lost a ton of money so far on the Xbox 360 so it's not a huge surprise to me. -Paul
[2006-01-12 12:00:08] - a: how much? and do you really think that's the main reason? -dave
[2006-01-12 11:52:19] - a: hehe. not quite the success story that the original XBOX launch was! (or was it!
) - aaron[2006-01-12 11:46:45] - off topic: microsoft's stock has gone down since the xbox360 was released. ~a
[2006-01-12 11:31:10] - dave: they are correct. linux does distribute fat support. they might start pulling it though. ~a
[2006-01-12 11:19:33] - a: so are they incorrect in saying that Linux would have issues if MS decided to take action against it? -dave
[2006-01-12 11:18:30] - a: yeah, you can't really expect much from fat considering how old it is -dave
[2006-01-12 11:17:40] - http://www.dailytech.com/article.aspx?newsid=243 chinese govt bans wikipedia -dave
[2006-01-12 11:17:14] - dave: on the webserver, i use ext2 only. on my desktop, i use ext3, ntfs (my windows partition), and fat32 (my windows data partition and half of my external drive). ~a
[2006-01-12 11:14:58] - dave: linux supports fat. it supports ntfs (some versions), xfs, jfs, reiserfs among many others. ~a
[2006-01-12 11:13:56] - fat is slow, space inefficient, doesn't support any sorts of permissions or ownership, doesn't support any sorts of journalling, no file linking (hard or symbolic), the filesystem is case insensitive for goodness sake! ~a
[2006-01-12 11:12:04] - a: ahh, so Linux doesn't use it? -dave
[2006-01-12 11:12:02] - a: re: to dave: I was unaware of that. I thought this issue was that Linux was using FAT for itself within Linux. I don't know enough about the nuts and bolts of Linux, I guess. -- Xpovos
[2006-01-12 11:08:40] - fat actually . . . really sucks balls. ~a
[2006-01-12 11:07:23] - dave: hmmm. i didn't even think of flash media. so linux depends on fat much less than, say, the digital camera industry. 99.9% of all linux machines (that aren't dual boot) don't use fat. fat is usually just a hack to get something that works in all operating systems of a multi-boot machine. ~a
[2006-01-12 10:34:16] - a: Yes, I am well aware of the differences. However it was a simple analogy. A more complex analogy for patents, then, would be Pfitzer suing my ass for making Viagra which I was giving away. I don't even have to be calling it Viagra, so long as I'm using their formulary, or one similar enough to give reasonable doubt to the PTO -- Xpovos
[2006-01-12 10:20:03] - a: apparently MS has gone after a bunch of people already for it, digital cameras, video cameras, printers, audio players etc -dave
[2006-01-12 10:17:12] - a: well, i take that back, they wouldn't HAVE to be licensed, but IBM could theoretically sue for tons of money and/or get the distributions stopped -dave
[2006-01-12 10:16:31] - a: I'm not positive, but basically anything that used something in the patents would have to be licensed - so if linux or unix uses the stuff in the FAT licenses, it could no longer be distibuted for free, or at least somehow licenses would have to be procurred for them -dave
[2006-01-12 10:14:16] - "The patent decision could represent a proverbial Sword of Damocles hanging over the open source community, because Microsoft could, at least in theory, seek royalties for Linux. Microsoft has given no indication it plans to use the patents against the open source community. " -dave
[2006-01-12 10:13:35] - also patent law != copyright law. ~a
[2006-01-12 10:13:20] - miramax does not have a patent on dark city. ~a
[2006-01-12 10:13:00] - xpovos: patent != copyright. ~a
[2006-01-12 10:05:11] - a: Money is not the issue. If I make illegal copies of Dark City because I think it's a great movie that everyone should see, and then give them away, Miramax will still come down on my ass. -- Xpovos
[2006-01-12 09:45:26] - . . . and he didn't make any money off of the fat32 modules anyways. ~a
[2006-01-12 09:44:17] - plus he didn't write the fat32 code anyways (again, i don't think) ~a
[2006-01-12 09:44:04] - linus doesn't live in the united states i don't think. ~a
[2006-01-12 09:41:38] - a: Well, start with Linus then move on to Red Hat and all the other distributors... -- Xpovos
[2006-01-12 09:41:31] - google? ibm? comcast for giving me a cool dvr with fat32 & linux on it? ~a
[2006-01-12 09:40:49] - dave: hah. who's there to go after? ~a
[2006-01-12 09:31:49] - Sam: 46" DLP. I believe it's the Samsung HLR4667W model. -Paul
[2006-01-12 09:27:06] - sam: 36" projection - aaron
[2006-01-12 09:20:08] - Sam: 27in diag. CRT -- Xpovos
[2006-01-12 08:29:36] - http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20060111-5959.html MS FAT patents upheld. Will they go after Linux? -dave
[2006-01-12 07:02:34] - to all: how big are your TVs? and what kind do you have (projection, LCD, Plasma, CRT, etc.)? -sam
[2006-01-11 23:17:46] - What I would like to see (and which may already exist), are variable type of stop orders where instead of selling at a certain set amount, it instead sells if the stock drops a certain percentage from it's high. -Paul
[2006-01-11 23:11:40] - As for a company, I don't know how things work but does it really mess up a company if it's stock takes a big dip for a couple of days? I can't imagine that it does... -Paul
[2006-01-11 23:10:54] - It just happens a little slower without stop orders. -paul
[2006-01-11 23:10:43] - Pierce: I'm sure it happens, but I'm not sure if things would be very different (from an individual investor's perspective) if there weren't stop orders. Something can still trigger a downward trend which causes other people to panic and pull out their money. -Paul
[2006-01-11 18:56:02] - and that's just looking at it from the investor's perspective. think of the company, which can't count on its financial backing being closely knit with its real health... one urban legend or high-profile PR hit can ruin what is otherwise a fiscally healthy company. - pierce
[2006-01-11 18:54:29] - paul: but that's exactly what happens, very frequently. something triggers a downward trend, which starts accelerating due to stop orders until the stock is extremely undervalued. then, once the stop orders have mostly been filtered out, people snatch up the artificially undervalued shares and it spikes upward. seriously, happens all the time. - pierce
[2006-01-11 18:13:09] - Pierce: I suppose, but you also don't have to re-buy back in. I suppose if you just bought a stock and it spikes down and back up really quickly you could get screwed by a stop order but it seems less likely to happen than the potential positive situations. -Paul
[2006-01-11 17:56:04] - paul: unless it spikes up, then you've lost money. in other words, you're good if you buy low, sell high and you get screwed if you sell low, and have to rebuy high in order to get back in. - pierce
[2006-01-11 17:46:57] - Pierce: Besides, like Adrian said, you can always go back and buy those stocks back at (presumably) the same price, if not lower. -Paul
[2006-01-11 17:45:32] - Pierce: That's true, stop trades really don't have any sense of the momentum of the stock so it might sell something that, in retrospect, might not have been the best idea. Still, if it's plateauing like that, there would seem to be plenty of time for you to modify your stop trade price. -Paul
[2006-01-11 17:40:11] - pierce: then you could just buy it back like paul said. ~a
[2006-01-11 17:37:25] - paul: what if you think it's plateauing around your stop price (which I'd say is actually pretty likely, since people probably pick stop prices based on a perceived minimum healthy value of the stock)? you wouldn't likely sell if you thought it was already as low as it was going to go based on its health, but the stop price wouldn't have the same restraint. - pierce
[2006-01-11 17:36:58] - paul: yes, that's a good point. hmmm . . . ~a
[2006-01-11 17:28:23] - a: Even if you thought it was going down for a dumb reason, though, you might not want to weather the fall. Wouldn't it be better to sell before it goes down all the way and then try to buy it when it's at it's lowest? -Paul
[2006-01-11 17:26:37] - paul: unless you thought the stock is going down for a dumb reason (so it would then go up). ~a
[2006-01-11 17:22:30] - Pierce: And even if it was how the stock market worked, wouldn't that mean that the price of the stock is tied to the health of the company? In that case, you WOULD want to sell the stock when it's value went down. -Paul
[2006-01-11 17:20:46] - Pierce: Whether or not that's how the stock market is supposed to work, I think we can all agree that it's not really how it works. -Paul
[2006-01-11 17:14:59] - and perhaps, that would keep the pendulum swing of the stock price closer to its actual "value", rather than careening past it on the way down. - pierce
[2006-01-11 17:14:16] - so sure, even in the absence of stop orders, people would still sell once a stock price started slipping (that was too alliterative). but each of those people would be much more likely to do some reasoning about why it's slipping (and perhaps hang in there) than a computer program intended to "sell when price <= 20". - pierce
[2006-01-11 17:10:40] - (imo) - pierce
[2006-01-11 17:10:26] - the whole point of the stock market as a societal tool is to support "healthy" businesses, and anything that deviates from that ideal is harmful to the market and to society. - pierce
[2006-01-11 17:08:53] - paul: they hurt the market because they add a variable that dissociates "the health of the company" from "the value of the stock"... if people are selling solely because the price is going down, then they're not making an actual, reasoned judgement call about the event that triggered the slide. - pierce
[2006-01-11 17:08:13] - By the way, AMD has been an insane stock the past 3 months. It's gone from around $21 a share to over $36 a share at the close of business today. -Paul
[2006-01-11 17:07:15] - a: I suppose that's true but I think the problem isn't necessarily with the stop and limit trades as devices but more with the thinking of the individual. I don't use stop or limit trading but I've been hurt by those same things. -Paul
[2006-01-11 16:23:22] - though i change my mind on one thing: selling short does hurt the market (and is too risky to be useful). ~a
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