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Journal Journal: A tricky slashdot filter!

Quick thing:

If you attempt to put the following string:

Score: #

Anywhere in the title, where # is a number, slashdot will eat it and if there aren't enough other markup in the title, you'll get the "cat got your tongue?" error.

If you've ever tried to comment on the score of someone's post, or question moderation, you may have accidentally run into this nice surprise.

Try Sc0re: #, it passes muster.

Operating Systems

Journal Journal: Unified Network Device Protocol

(This is just preliminary rambling)

Linux (and other Unicies) need a protocol to make remote devices available over networks, both character and block devices. There should be two versions of this protocol:

  • One based on a layer-2 protocol (like a new program type for ethernet) that would allow remote I/O with minimal latency. Zerocopy network and a close relation with the disk buffer layer is key.
  • A second based on a layer-3 protocl (like TCP) which can be used for more complex activity, perhaps in order to parameterize strange ioctls or deal with a spotty or remote network.

There has been some effort down this path with the network audio device and the enhanced networkk block drivers. It would be ideal if both efforts could be combined. It would also be nice to get rid of the user-space component and push the functionality directly into a kernel thread. It could be configured by a nice proc interface, or even iptables.
A scheme that might be tractable is either force the driver to bind to an existing interface like ethertap had done before, or to create a new virtual interface, say nd0 (or nd1, nd2) and then set up routing between external interfaces and that interface. Sending packets to that "interface" would send then to the disk driver to interpret (requests for data or writes).
Another key feature is to attempt to support (and detect remote support) for as many ioctls as possible. The four big ones are OSS/ALSA interfaces for sound, the TTY interface for remote serial lines, the SCSI command set (cdrom, cdda, mag. tape, disk geometry, etc.), and USB HID.
What's nice is that if you support a wide enough dialect of these ioctls on the local side, the remote side can casts these high level commands into different ioctls the actual device supports, like presenting /dev/cdrom as /dev/scd0 and doing SCSI->ATAPI translation on the fly. That, of course, would not be in the low-latency implementation.

Remote framebuffer would also be nice, but then you'd probably need to have compression and that starts to get towards X11... but it also has to be there eventually. Even if it's slow it might be tolerable over 100MB to control multiple slave video drivers or something... big wall displays... mmmmm

Sun's got something similar to this in their Sun Cluster software, but it's sort of a by-product of how it works, not an advertised feature. It would be cool to have just by itself.

ePlus

Journal Journal: Insight into Cell Phone Vehicular Abuse 2

In the April 2003 issue of Communications of the ACM (Vol. 46, no. 4) the News Track section mentions research that has recently determined that using a hands free phone does nothing to improve driver attentiveness. They used scanners that track eye movement and determined that there was no difference using a traditional or hands-free phone in the car, while those talking to a passenger or listening to music were unaffected. The concern is that a number of states are introducing legislation that will force drivers to use hands-free technology to improve safety, and that these laws could instill a false sense of security (in addition to being plain dumb).

The question remains: Why do drivers get tunnel vision when they are talking to someone who isn't there? They know that it's not that the driver literally gets tunnel vision, but that they start filtering out signs and other cars (inattention blindness). Still, what is it about the fact the person they are conversing with isn't there that causes that problem?

I have a theory. Imagine for a second you are in the car, talking to a friend. Then there's traffic up ahead, you say to the friend, "hold on," and you interrupt your train of thought to deal with the vehicles. Later, when the traffic eases up, you both figure out where you last left off.

But on a cellphone, the person at the other end doesn't have this context. You may tell them: wait, I'm in the car, I need to deal with this, but it's not the same. When you initiate a phone transaction, the assumption is that someone has been interrupted (the callee), and so both parties are very focused on the dialog; or maybe they are worried about the minutes left on their plan. The person on the other end of the cellphone won't know why you trail off because you can't be distracted; so you try not to and you struggle to keep engaging them. PRetty soon, you're realizing your about to miss your exit, so you swerve over to the right to make it, then BAM!

Not good. I might also postulate that using a phone is particularly more stressful on the brain because each party is visually imagining the person they are talking to (at least I'm aware that _I_ do it); these are visual cortex cycles that should be focused on one's environment. But this is in contrast with the fact music or books on tape don't were found to NOT have this effect.

Comments?

Media

Journal Journal: Gwen Stefani Sucks 1

Gwen Stefani sucks. She has no talent, dresses like a skanky ho, and has no boobs to make her preference in clothes to be worthwhile. She thinks she's Madonna but she has neither the class nor skills to match.

What's worse is $$$exy Gwen Stefani, a slashdot luser who combines Gwen Stefani (suck), with an attempt to ride on the coattrails of $$$$$exyGal (lame).

Can you say attention-grabbing failure of a troll?
I knew you could.

Slashdot has officially gone to hell. I hope you like brimstone.

Encryption

Journal Journal: Snow 5

THE SNOW IS ENCRYPTING MY GRASS WITH WHITE NOISE.

THE SNOW IS ENCRYPTING MY CAR WITH ICED LOCKS.

THE SNOW IS ENCRYPTING THE ROAD WITH STUPID DRIVERS.

THE SNOW IS ENCRYPTING MY LEGS AND THEY ARE FROSTBITTEN

THE SNOW IS ENCRYPTING MY DOG AND SHE CANT TAKE A SHIT BECAUSE IT IS ENCRYPTED UP TO HER ASS.

THE SNOW IS ENCRYPTING TEH INTERWEB AND I CAN'T OWN IN QUAKE

I HATE THE SNOW

I HATE THE SNOW

I HATE THE SNOW

I LIVE NEAR DC AND I HATE THE SNOW

The Media

Journal Journal: The art of being Direct 5

I just changed my signature to demand that people post in my journal. I hope that will increase the total number of comments in my journal beyond a figure which I can count on one hand.

Most of the time, if I am direct and demand something of people, suddenly they get this idea to do exactly what I said. Maybe at first they act belligerent, and do the opposite. But the germ is there, and in a moment when their guard is down, when they have an idle moment, with nothing immediately planned, they feel suddenly compelled take it upon themselves to do it. They may even construct a whole series of events that lead up to this culminating point because they cannot rationalize blindly obeying some prompt for which they have no opinion. In a roundabout way, I have them doing exactly as I bid.

So reply, I dare you. ^_-

User Journal

Journal Journal: Word Definition Fun 3

Definition Jam

Send me email with more suggestions for that seed of a list.

I'd like words that expound upon the first four words, if possible. Other "groups" of words with tight or humuorous definitions are also welcome.

Programming

Journal Journal: Professional Discount Voucher

Tax Receipt & Money Back Guarantee

This voucher entitles you to our discounted Professional rate. Under this Preferred Business classification, you will receive the guaranteed lowest rate available for twelve (12) issues of C/C++ Users Journal

Money Back Guarantee

Simply return this attached voucher in the envelope provided and we'll send you the next issue. If at any time during the subscription you decide the magazine isn't all you expected, you may cancel your subscription and receive a full refund.

Important Tax Information for Professionals

Your subscription may be tax deductable if used for corporate or business purposes. Please save the receipt for your tax preparer.

(Print this out, add your CC# and expiry, and send in a SASE to:)

PO BOX 52583
Herndon VA 20171-4208

ACT NOW!!!

Censorship

Journal Journal: Cussin' 2

Which word do you find most offensive:
  • shit
  • cunt
  • fuck
  • dick
  • tits
  • nigga
  • spic
  • bitch
  • asshole
  • cocksucker
  • motherfucker
  • ntoskrnl.exe
  • genunix
  • vmlinuz
  • you fill in the blank
Bug

Journal Journal: Prim's Algorithm

Does anybody know a sane way of implementing Prim's algorithm in perl. Does anybody know a sane way of representing a directed graph in perl (without an adjancey matrix). Holy crap my brain is fried on this one.
Help, thanks, no one'll probably read this tho. But this is too stupid for ask Slashdot... or is it.

Slashdot.org

Journal Journal: New Slashdot Poll Idea...

The new moderation category should be:

        * -1: Incorrect
        * -1: Astroturfing
        * -1: Speaking out of the Ass
        * +0: Devil's Advocate (yes, that's a 0)
        * +1: Concise
        * +1: Example Code
        * +2: Artful Integration of CowboyNeal

Christmas Cheer

Journal Journal: Diabolical ways of getting rid of vehicles?

I've got this problem. It seems that the whole world has taken it upon themselves to use the shoulder outside my development as a place to sell cars. They sit parked near an intersection with for sale signs within. I used to call them up (phone number on for-sale sign) and politely tell them that I would have their car towed and/or ticketed within a few hours if they didn't haul ass.

I got tired of that. There's 3 out there right now, I can see em too from my window.

So the question is, does anyone have any creative ways I could make their lives miserable? I have considered using brightly colored posterboard and duct tape to cover the signs and attract the attention of cops (maybe scribbling "FUCK YOU COPPERS" or "TOW ME PLEASE" in marker on it would help)

Comments?

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