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If these guys show up at your door, then yes, definitely tell them to piss off.

I was surprised to find that the ObjectOutputStream has a static HandleTable inside it that creates an entry for each HashMap that I put through, and it keeps a reference to each HashMap. I searched around, and this is a common problem that is not mentioned at all in the javadocs. You're supposed to reset the ObjectOutputStream periodically to free up the HandleTable. I had assumed that reset was like InputStream's reset and never would have guessed that it had to do with Object caching in the stream.

As far as i can see, there are two different concepts in that thing:

- The real FS part: ReiserFS-like storing of a file/dir architecture, which is nice, disk-space-savey and all, but has no consequences on the way people work. Furthermore it already exists: i'm using it right now.

- The self-organized document hierarchy and search capabilities, which might change the way people work for the best, as far as it's restrained to *very specific parts* of your data. Who would trade a well crafted UNIX dirs architecture for a key indexed FS? What about dirs related documents, like a hierarchy of Java packages? What about URL accessible documents? What about implicit (not already keyword-based) relations between documents? And so on... In most cases, this stuff would have to emulate a standard file hierarchy anyway, which would probably result in system resource overhead only, or would require that you specify explicit keywords (not really knowing how they would impact the search algorythm), which would result in user resource overhead only.

You get my point: this stuff must be an option, and it belongs to the user interface, as in DBFS or Google, with a standard lib/API for easy re-usability by tiers software. It would be of no use with MOST of the files, in my system anyway.

WinFS is not even a solution looking for a problem, it's a problem seeking naive clients for its solution, IMHO.

I use the save button as a super undo, don't throw it away.
You and 65% of America. But really, we have better methods for that. Like versioning systems. Developers used them for years, and a file system should support them natively.

From the FAQ

"KDE, GNOME, make up your mind.

Choice is a good thing. Myself I use Mac OS X daily and love it (much to the irritation of my friends and family). I am not against KDE, or GNOME. Actually the DBFS has two parts in it, a low level part, which can be shared by KDE and GNOME (or Mac OS X or Windows XP) and a GUI part. The DBFS cannot do without a graphical display, and I have to choose a platform. GNOME seems to go the route of instant apply and simplicity for the user, which is more inline to my own ideas. That is why I now want to focus on GNOME."

"I am currently looking for a job. Interested in employing me? Drop me an email."

Ozy has worked on this in his time available as a student. If he gets a job doing something different, he might drop DBFS, and it might die a lonely orphan. Email him only with DBFS job offers, please!

"I am currently looking for a job. Interested in employing me? Drop me an email."

Ozy has worked on this in his time available as a student. If he gets a job doing something different, he might drop DBFS, and it might die a lonely orphan. Email him only with DBFS job offers, please!

The first thing I thought of when I saw the guy's name. Still cracks me up everytime I see it. Am I the only one that thought of this sketch?

There is *no* way that a interpreted or JIT compiled language can be *faster* than native code.

Nope.

There are actually quite a few ways that an interpreted language can be faster than native code.

If you were right, then VLIW processors would've taken over long, long ago.

It's important to realize that the instruction set that any processor uses is not its native instruction set, for a long time now. Ever since the Pentium days, there's a "instruction decode" step in the pipeline, and even PPCs use it to pare down the (comparatively simpler) PPC instruction set to something more RISC-like.

So what does this have to do with programming languages, you might ask?

The point is that the analogy is exactly the same: VLIW processors rely on the instruction stream being very parallel, and well tuned to the architecture so that they can be very simple and very fast. There's only one problem - compilers can't be that smart. You don't have all the information until the program runs - this is very similar to the Halting problem. Until the program runs, you don't know how it will behave.

So what you're saying is "I don't see how an interpreted language can be faster than native code", likely because of the overhead. The answer to your "how" is that the interpreter - like any modern x86 computer - has more information available to it while its running than the compiler had when the program was compiled. Therefore the possibility exists that an interpreted language can outperform native code, because it can optimize for cases that the native code cannot. If that optimization is enough of an improvement over the overhead, you win.

It is for this reason that modern x86 computers perform so well compared to VLIW architectures - it's very difficult to extract parallelism from the code itself, before it's executed. It's actually more efficient to extract the parallelism while the code is actually running.

This is the exact same reason why Java can beat C++, in certain cases. And for benchmarks, http://cpp.student.utwente.nl/benchmark/. Note that this is in fact someone improving upon a C++ vs Java benchmark that showed Java won, so this is C++ striving as hard as it can.

Here you can see that for certain cases, Java can win. The most notable one is the nested-loop benchmark, where the Intel C++ compiler ran in 1.8 seconds, and the Java example ran at 1.05 seconds.

Your next statement might be that "yes, but in assembly..." and I will then say that yes, I highly doubt that you can find a Java program that will beat a hand-assembled piece of code. But it still is *possible*, because the interpreter may be able to perform some optimization during runtime that the person doing the coding can't because it's not strictly correct - this is akin to a branch predictor in hardware. It's allowed to cheat so long as it's later proved that it was right, but then pay a penalty when it's wrong.

ARTHUR: Right! One!... Two!... Five! GALAHAD: Three, sir! ARTHUR: Three!

For all you Segway lovers, hereis a torrent of the SegwayPolo movie.

Java does fix many cross-platform performance problems by leaving the optimization up to the virtual machine, it's a similar to what Transmeta does. Some People are even claiming that Java programs are faster than programs written in C++. Less biased benchmarks still put the Java VM just a bit slower than GCC and a lot slower than a really optimized compiler(Intel's).

Has happened before...

Slashdot Slashdotted

Or, if you're not a developer, can't write code to save your life and really aren't qualified to comment on an article about programming language performance, please say so.

No, bother, I was right, the article was a troll. The Java server is impressively fast, but C is still faster for most purposes.

Yes because nobody would throw random objects into a kitchen appliance

Completely new motion, eh, that, ah-- that there be, ah, immediate action--

http://mjrider.student.utwente.nl/gallery/politie

This is probably the US part of the big raid in Europe where some Fairlight sites went down.. rumors have said that sites in both .nl och .us got busted.

Some pictures from Utwente Campus:

http://undying.by.ru/flt.JPG
http://mjrider.student.utwente.nl/gallery/politie
http://www.swecheck.net/bust/index1.html

Or summer, or spring, or fall ? Seasons tend to change the environment quite a bit. You need a lot of processing, or 4 different photographs of each season to at least reduce the difference in those.
Ofcourse, if it is raining on the day you take your picture you are left with a lot of noise, etc. etc.

I saw the field of high-level image recognition up close a few years ago. While the particular paper that the person who did the research wrote was about stereographic recognition of (simple) 3D objects, it shows a great deal about the processing power required to correct an occluded part of a scene, or to work under darker or lighter circumstances (p117-). I expect that in a 2D recognition the same problems rear their ugly head and make things a whole lot harder.

it's a space station that goes ping!

Well, it'd certainly make chartered accountancy a much more interesting job...

'Trolles Eunt Domus' ?
Somebody called the trolls they go the house ?
What's that supposed to mean ?
it means "Firstus postus".
-no it doesn't ! it'd be "trolli ite domum"
Now, write it out a hundred times. If it's not done by sunrise, I'll cut your balls off.

1. The most incredible thing (and kind of funny in a shocking way) is that Microsoft is trying to use that very reason as some kind of excuse as to why it shouldn't be fined in Europe. The argument runs something along the lines of "... but we can do this in America! You can't fine us if we can do it in America!"

Official response from the French delegation can be found and here.

1. The most incredible thing (and kind of funny in a shocking way) is that Microsoft is trying to use that very reason as some kind of excuse as to why it shouldn't be fined in Europe. The argument runs something along the lines of "... but we can do this in America! You can't fine us if we can do it in America!"

Official response from the French delegation can be found and here.

That's because of a couple of optimizations Samba does. More info is available here on that.

one stone?

You misspelled coconut :)

http://arago4.tn.utwente.nl/stonedead/movies/holy- grail/scene-01.html

Aspect Oriented Programming. In depth information is here.

Today it's implemented in a lot of different langugages, maybe sometime in the future a whole development system is created using this technique.

Don't mistake Pointcuts as the only feature of AOP...

Another long list of links and a comprehensive introduction of the pioneers.

There is *not* a heck of a lot of content here.

Most of the information is more than obvious to anyone interested in running a NOC (incidently, left out of the Slashdot story is that this is a *Security* NOC).

I've seen random Slashdot posts that would be a lot more useful to someone interested in building a NOC than this thing.

That being said, my own two cents:

If you're using SNMP to manage your network, snmpwalk+scripts is good. If you can stomach not using open source software, Intermapper is really nice. Unfortunately, the two big open source competitors don't quite measure up -- Scotty is kind of old and grotty and rather TCL-oriented, and GxSNMP appears to be dead.

Etherape, as suggested in the article, isn't the greatest choice either...IIRC, it doesn't support satellites, which means it needs to be running on the actual network it's monitoring. Not really acceptable for a NOC tool. Etherape is also, in my experience, rather CPU-hungry. There are a lot of commercial traffic flow visualization tools...not sure what's best, as I haven't played with many.

All in all, while the article's worthy of a post in a random discussion, it really isn't worthy of a Slashdot story.

and for extra bandwidth, two pigeons could string a load of dvd-rs onto a strand of creeper.

held under the dorsal guiding feathers, naturally...

Follow the gourd

Well, there is already zoidberg

TCM (Toolkit for Conceptual Modeling)

I found it on freshmeat.net a few months back. I've done ER diagrams, UML, and even some network diagrams using the Generic Diagram editor.

Here's the .torrent for the new trailer as all the sites are bogged down already.
Be sure to keep your download running to help others with their download!

These links are broken, working link

The torrent for the new kernel: click me!

As a side note, I don't trust a language in which the word for human(male) is "homo"
http://wwwtios.cs.utwente.nl/traduk/EN-EO/Traduku/ ?human

Interesting, thanks.

Maybe these links will help: link link link

Anyway, that line was said by an Australian in "Live at the Hollwood Bowl" about American beer, not about Australian beer itself. If you don't believe me look here.

You really need to get your Monty Python sorted out before you use it to pick on the calibre of Aussie Bruces you will find on Slashdot.

Our next game is not going to be a DOOM, Quake, or Wolfenstein sequel...

Note that he doesn't rule out the possibility of a Commander Keen sequel. Oh well, I can dream.

plate armor probably seemed impregnable in practical terms, until the longbow came along. Yeah, okay, a stinking peasant could hamstring a warhorse and beat the knight to death with a rock while he lay helpless on the ground, but these possibilities were probably ignored with the same superstitious enthusiasm that sysadmins ignore the rarer kinds of attacks on their systems.

OK, first up, the longbow predates the use of plate armor by quite a bit. And there were composite bows (horn/bone/wood/sinew laminates, don't confuse composite with compound aka pulley-type bows) in military use that were capable of penetrating plate long before the English/Welsh longbow became the terror of Crecy and Agincourt. The Parthian horse-archers used composite bows against the armies of the Greek city-states in ancient times!

Second, the knightly class certainly did not ignore the possibility of being brought down by the peasantry. Feudal European military castes preferred to capture their opponents alive whenever possible, because of the practice of ransoming captured enemies for enormous sums. The knighthood would claim that they only wanted to fight their equals for reasons of honor, but more practically they stood a better chance of surviving a defeat by a "gentle-man" than by a peasant levy armed with a hammer or spear (who would be unlikely to gain any significant fraction of a ransom). It's a classic risk/benefit analysis: don't start bar-fights with little guys, you have little to gain and much to lose!

Note: I don't disagree with your point, but rather with the example you used to illustrate it. Defense in depth is better than Maginot lines, combined arms are better than reliance on a single weapon, and the history of conflict is an infinite loop of thesis/counter-thesis/synthesis.

Why is it, that people always post big stories about the XboX ? I don't see nearly as much stories about the PS/2. I guess as soon as it is from microsoft, it's bad ... GET A LIFE ! Microsoft is just some big company. All big companies do bad things. That you are stupid enough to buy their stuff, that is your fault. They also do good things. Maybe it's not 'cool' to say good things about them. Eike Dehling (be nice to my desktop machine, i sleep next to it)

I'd like to see that, too. When I first started with ham radio, I was by far the youngest person in the local amateur radio club. However, I'm 32 now and still it is an old man's game to me. If I go to the local amateur radio club, I find myself between old people, who lost touch with modern technology or just don't care. It is just not interesting to geeks anymore, people go out and buy the stuff rather than building it themselves (or at least modify it to suit their needs). Most of them are even too stupid (or too old?) to operate a computer. If it wasn't for a couple of guys I know from universities (Eindhoven and Twente) and a local ham who is still very active with VHF and up, I would have given up amateur radio completely.

It is hard to say, but I think amateur radio has become obsolete when internet and cell phones became common. Not that it really has lost its technical aspects (especially not if you are in cutting edge technology like microwave), but it just doesn't appeal to young people anymore. It's doesn't appeal to employers either, though I have studied electronics engineering, I found more (and better pay) jobs as a UNIX and software engineer than as an electronics engineer. On the other hand, it is because of fellow radio amateurs that I came into contact with Linux and Open Source Software. Maybe it does have its advantages, being both a computer and radio geek ;-)

73 de PA3FXW

It may not be a new idea, but it is being used in new and interesting applications.

Not sure what this is about...topless women in leather pants. (SFW)

What's cooler than a Toyota Matrix, all decked out in racing stickers?

Oh yeah, baby...Matrix, the board game

How about the Matrix folding bike? Before or after

The Vic-20 fans out there might appreciate a look at the Matrix game for that platform.

Flashback to math class! Matrix multiplication!

So you see, taco, you're only limited by your imagination. Of course, that could be like saying your writing is limited by your spelling and grammar but still...maybe someone can help you come up with something better.

Boyd anticipates that the slow light device will find a role in the telecommunications industry. When two signals from fiber optic lines merge, the two signals may reach the merging router at the exact same moment and need to be separated slightly in time so they can be laid down one after another. Like two cars merging on a highway where one may need to slow down to let another car into the lane, a light-slowing device could help ease congestion on fiber optic lines and simplify the process of merging signals on busy networks.

Boyd anticipates that the slow light device will find a role in the telecommunications industry. When two signals from fiber optic lines merge, the two signals may reach the merging router at the exact same moment and need to be separated slightly in time so they can be laid down one after another. Like two cars merging on a highway where one may need to slow down to let another car into the lane, a light-slowing device could help ease congestion on fiber optic lines and simplify the process of merging signals on busy networks.

[Shameless act of self-promotion]

There is a web-forum (yeah, like so many others, but better of course ;-) I've been working on for a couple of years now. The intention was to create a framework with which you can create all other forums. The fun thing about it is that I've used it to create all kinds of different (non-forum) websites with the framework. From a photo album to a telephone-cost-administration system. In my opinion it shows how you can write a good OO system and make good use of the features a scripting language can provide.

Please have a look:
AtomicBoard

Ok, I can't resist posting a shameless plug here.
My thesis was about "Ants caught in a traffic jam" :)
http://joost.student.utwente.nl/thesis/

Oops, here's a link

Want to practice this on your own PC? Try Bit Storm! Actually, it is quite addictive :-)

-Miki