Re:Use an NP-hard problem
on
Gates on Spam
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· Score: 2, Interesting
You've completely misinterpreted my post. The NP complete statement is not referring to the computational requirements of the problem scaling linearly with the complexity of the problem, but scaling with the processing power of the CPU.
This is very different from something like, say, calculating the eigenvalues of very large non-sparse graphs, which is gated primarily on a computer's bus speed. A computer which is 100 times faster than another will still be in the same ballpark assuming reasonably similar chipsets.
There are whole classes of problems which have this quality, many in graph theory for instance. And if a dedicated researcher were to specifically look for such a problem I'm sure they could do much better. That's the point.
Re:Use an NP-hard problem
on
Gates on Spam
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· Score: 4, Insightful
The problem is that algorithms to solve NP-complete problems are usually scale fairly linearly with processing power. In fact, if you're suggesting NP-Complete problems (rather than NP-Hard) then they definitely scale with processing power, so a computer which is twice as fast will take half as long to compute the result (more or less).
So two computers which are 10 years apart in age will be impossible to challenge equally. And even more disturbingly, specialized computers (think Deep Blue, or even a re-purposed graphics card) could be fairly easily constructed to demolish any NP-Complete problem.
The interesting thing about Microsoft's implementation here is that I believe they're using a challenge which is gated on something processor speed doesn't help with much. I'd trust MSR to have done this well. (Say what you will about the corporation, but MSR is top-notch).
I heard it had something to do with bus speeds, but I'd ask someone whose job security doesn't rely on not being tainted by reading others' patent applications.;)
Though I can't say that I'm surprised, this story is 100% pure troll.
The article makes some legitimate arguments about the benefits of Linux on embedded devices (not Open Source in general), and though it's definitely written with a bias at least that's not disguised.
I don't think the poster even read the article however; the claim that you can't see the source code to WinCE is incorrect, thinking that your applications are any more likely to survive an upgrade intact is laughable (WinCE & PocketPC go through extensive AppCompat testing, who does that for embedded Linux?)
I know, I know, slow news day and a Pro-OSS post came up on the radar, but for cripes sake if you're going to be brutally biased at least try to hide it, you're making the cause look even worse!
And as an added bonus, no matter what size of donation you'll get access to the most excellent "Over Easy", one of the best comics online for both artistic merit and style, highly recommended!
C'mon, toss in a buck for the most excellent comic, you won't be dissapointed!
I'd much rather have MY government "buying" free software and supporting open-source development than supporting the rich fat-cats who own all that microsoft stock.
Ah, but which would the government prefer? If they were to spend the same money in both situations (I'm not saying the TCO is always equal, but it's often comparable.) they'd get much more in taxes back by paying it to Microsoft. Microsoft (the company) pays more taxes than any other entity in the US, and by concentrating its pay on fewer developers everyone's in a high tax-bracket and pays a larger % of their salary in tax.
Even ignoring that fact, the cost of software is generally insignificant compared to the cost of lost productivity, or even the risk of lost productivity. (risk has a real cost don'cha know) And Microsoft is a known quantity.
Your idealism is not neccesarily fiscally appropriate. And unless your views are those of the majority, the government should be deciding policy based on purely utilitarian grounds. Rather than rant and rave about the "right" thing to do, you'd be better off either converting public opinion to add weight to the moral argument for OSS, or contributing in some way towards improving the utilitarian facet.
Ok, now seriously people, pay attention to the article. The class in question is a pre-university programming course. Intended to help those students who have never programmed before catch up.
Under curriculum integration, first-choice applicants to UW's E&CE program will be allowed to take a new pre-university programming course in C#, E&CE 050. Completion of this course will be mandatory for students entering the E&CE program. C# is a new programming language developed by Microsoft.
It's understandably confusing in the article I suppose, since the author clearly isn't an Eng student and is in no position to really know (or care about) the curriculum. But most students will never take this course, it's mandatory that the material be understood and credit granted, but most students will demonstrate their knowledge and not care.
And in case you still protest, does anyone really think C++ is a better introductory language than C#? Hell, Turbo Basic would be an improvement!
Diagonal placement of the feet on the four buttons, then rocking each foot as needed.
Ah yes, another newbie thinks he's figured it out... Surely the people competing for the $100,000+ prizes in Japan are doing just this, and raking in the dough! No? They're not? You mean you're the only intelligent person in the world? Riight...
Seriously though, that particular technique isn't really that helpful at the upper levels. You simply can't shift weight fast enough, and will find it nearly impossible to make combos last or do double-steps. If you did somehow manage to get good enough at that method to beat a maniac song, you'd probably just be simulating free-style play in an overly complicated way. (It's hard to explain something so visual in this forum, use your imagination).
. I played for about 30 minutes on 4 quarters (50 cents to play) before I got bored and wandered away
I call bullshit. You can't play for 15 minutes straight on one play, simply impossible. Even under the assumption that you're some kind of DDR phenom, and could play the longest song without failing three times in a row on your first try, _and_ you use the full 20 seconds before each selecting, _and_ you use the full 2 minutes to select your character and style, you still can't spend more than 12 minutes (longest single-credit song is just under 3 minutes). And I sincerely doubt your status as a DDR phenom.
Frankly, I doubt you've ever actually played the game. Please keep your opinions on DDR to yourself until you've at least beaten an easy maniac level song. And I'll consider you relevant if you can do a few 9-steps on "fade".
I'd be more worried about someone jamming the communications between the pilot and the plane.
Modern warplanes are hardened against electronic attack, but it's virtually impossible to overcome signal jamming. So the only real countermeasure is to include enough autonomic control to the plane to allow it to complete a mission without direction.
But it's highly unlikely that such a control system would be allowed to select and attack targets without human verification. Would you want to be a ground soldier in combat with loose-cannon planes flying overhead? I sure wouldn't. (And before anyone jumps in and says the allies will all have some sort of signal to prevent them from being blown to smithereens, remember this is in combat with full-force electronic jamming in play)
Jamming a signal is simple, compared to intercepting it. And as the US military becomes increasingly reliant on its advanced communication network to wage war, it will become a simple way of levelling the playing field for the bad guys.
Re:Maybe this would be like digging up elvis...
on
China Plans Moonbase
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· Score: 1
Keep in mind that the average distance between the earth and the moon is around 384,403 km, and you'd be looking for something barely 2 meters across. That means from an earthly observatory seeing the moon lander is about the same as seeing a fly from a distance of four kilometers.
It's made easier of course because of the lack of atmosphere, and the lack of any distractions surrounding the lander. But really, it's a looooong way there to see a tiny feature. That kind of acuity really requires a space-based telescope, outside the atmosphere. And really, will anyone who doesn't believe in the moon landing really take the word of astronauts?
It's worth mentioning that seeing the glint of metal on the moon in the right location (using really powerful telescopes) isn't terribly uncommon. But conspiracy theorists explain that away as an un-manned probe/space debris/meteor.
Finally of course, NASA isn't particularily concerned with proving skeptics wrong. They've got bigger worries, like where their paycheques are coming from.:P
Re:the keyboard hasn't chinese char.
on
Sony PCG-U1
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· Score: 2, Interesting
I'm sure someone else will mention this before my reply gets submitted, but to clear this one up:
Japan uses three ideographic alphabets, hiragana, katakana, and kanji. Hiragana and katakana are small sets, and non-ambiguous. On a japanese keyboard you use a shift key to choose which you're typing in, then input them phonetically.
Kanji is the set of imported chinese characters. Japan uses a small subset of traditional chinese characters called the "Joyou" character set. (My spelling could be awful on that) It's got around 1900 characters that are in common use, and an additional few hundred characters used just for names. (It's changed quite a bit in the past few decades since I last studied Japanese formally, so take those numbers with a grain of salt.)
The kanji _are_ ambiguous, that is, the same pronounciation can have multiple character representation. But with so many possible pronounciations and so few characters (relatively) it doesn't take long to tab through your options when you input one. Generally the way to input kanji is to type in the pronounciation, then the word processor guesses the one you want, then if neccesary you tab through the rest of the options to find the other one. It sounds a little slow, but the ai's are getting better and better, so it's really getting smooth and easy.
In general, Japanese is actually a very computer-friendly language. It's grammatically strict, making contextual inference fairly simple. It's non-tonal and non-inflexive, so voice recognition is surprisingly easy.:) Certainly easier than for English in the average case.
Now, Chinese is a whole different matter. It's the source of most internationalization angst for the pacific rim.:P But that's a different story.
It may not be significant, but its definitely historical.;) It's just as important to remember the mistakes as the past as it is to remember the successes, lest we be doomed to repeat them.
I also have doubts if this could be used to help propel a ship out of the atmosphere.
I strongly suspect the amount of energy needed to maintain the effect will be at least equal to or greater than the potential energy difference of the material affected.
I would submit that it's unimportant how much more energy is required than the energy difference created by reducing the effects of gravity. Within some reason of course, I imagine NASA would be overjoyed if it could safetly propel a projectile into space at a 100-1 energy differential, as long as the energy is expended at a stationary ground base.
By not having to carry fuel, a space vehicle is many-fold more efficient. And by using more efficient energy generation techniques on the ground, it's made more efficient (and cheaper) still.
While I certainly agree that there is little chance this will produce any meaningful results, I think it would be absolutely revolutionary were it to be true.
Laying cable is not nearly as difficult as it may seem. I was actually recently chatting with my uncle, who is the civil works administrator for a large wired city, and digging up pavement is a legacy of the past.
There are so many redundant tubes under our roads right now that nearly any expansion that needs to be done can be fed through them. In our city, natural gas was put in by running new tubes through old waste-water mains. I'm sure fibre will be easier still to lay down.
And never underestimate the value of real wire connections. With heavy usage, the airwaves are becomming increasingly cluttered, and when people start demanding quality and consistent connections (like when appliances start acting as servers as a matter of fact), people might not be so accepting of internet service that cuts out when you use the can opener.
Did anyone else notice that the coaster part of the assembly is an old car bucket seat strapped on to a toy cart by what looks like duct tape? (Look closely!)
http://www.freesoftware.fsf.org/rule/todolist.ht ml
RULE PROJECT todo list
FIRST: Find the guy who already did it!!
I already asked on some Red Hat list about a smaller anaconda, less than one year ago. Some guy came back saying he had done it (squeeze anaconda in less than 32 MB) but that it wouldn't give the code, because the result was so crooked that even he himself didn't know anymore how it worked, and that I had to do it personally, rather than blindly copy somebody else's work, otherwise I might just screw up the whole thing. I have already tried to scan the archives, without success so far. Let's keep trying.
So let's try to help here eh? Who in the slashdot community knows this guy?
I for one am dying to get my mitts on this thing, so I'll do some trolling on the google cache. But maybe the person who did it is reading right now...
I absolutely agree. I would love to see a collection of short(ish) problems.
A good reference for this in the math world would be "Problem Solving through Problems" by Loren Larson, which was one of my favourite books ever in math. Divide the problems into categories, like "optimization", "design patterns", etc. (I know there are more potential categories, but that's for the author to figure out.;)).
Problems could be taken from real-world situations or ACM contests, but it would be a _great_ way to learn. I'd definitely buy such a book.
Windows doesn't load itself into a ramdisk because it's not neccesarily the most efficient. When an OS is running, it's not constantly using the entirety of it's code. Windows, for example, will be heavily utilising the DLL's for the API, but likely won't use the cryptographic DLL's more than once a week or so (if that). So loading the whole OS into RAM is effectively making large sections of it useless.
So the best way to use RAM is to let the memory manager do what it's designed to do. The memory manager will load the parts of the OS that are most frequently used into RAM, and keep them there as long as they remain most often accessed. Similarily for most frequently accessed programs.
The exception to this rule is when you want either latency (ie. you don't use a program much, but when you do you want instant response) or when you have a large program that is very tightly integrated or a large section of data (like a database, where you want low latency for all pieces, even if the block they're in is accessed once a week; or doing image editing or CAD work, when pieces of your work can start getting paged out because of inneficient memory management.)
If so, this sounds just like the stupid idea a year or two ago of mapping peoples' phone numbers to DNS. (It's exactly the opposite of what you want to do. If you want to find a particular person's website, why not make use of the new.name TLD and use the person's full name?)
I'd point out a good reason for not making use of the.name TLD with thier full name. How many people do you know named John Smith? I've heard estimates that there are less than 2 billion unique full names in the world right now, and suspect it's probably a lot lower. (Think Asia or the middle east)
And your opinion of what an abuse is is noted, but irrational. Any company doing business on the internet is in all likelyhood willing to do business internationally. And who really knows where a company is based to find it? (Try these ones: Panasonic, Kraft, Legend, Haier, ATI...)
I recently returned from there, and I can tell you it's not nearly that bad. I travelled through the countryside and large cities, and can say that although the standard isn't up to the west it's still very liveable.
People aren't starving by the millions, people aren't generally homeless (though this is a problem for the migrant workers in the large cities, as it is in any number of capitalist countries in south america or asia). By and large, the average standard of living is far better than most of south-east asia.
Now, the issues of political freedom are entirely different. Yes, the oppression of speech and religious freedoms is extreme and prohibitive, and the corruption is significant (though whether it's truly worse than the US is debatable).
Don't blindly jump on a cause without knowing what you're talking about, in this case you look like a fool.
Slashdot Mirror
You've completely misinterpreted my post. The NP complete statement is not referring to the computational requirements of the problem scaling linearly with the complexity of the problem, but scaling with the processing power of the CPU.
This is very different from something like, say, calculating the eigenvalues of very large non-sparse graphs, which is gated primarily on a computer's bus speed. A computer which is 100 times faster than another will still be in the same ballpark assuming reasonably similar chipsets.
There are whole classes of problems which have this quality, many in graph theory for instance. And if a dedicated researcher were to specifically look for such a problem I'm sure they could do much better. That's the point.
The problem is that algorithms to solve NP-complete problems are usually scale fairly linearly with processing power. In fact, if you're suggesting NP-Complete problems (rather than NP-Hard) then they definitely scale with processing power, so a computer which is twice as fast will take half as long to compute the result (more or less).
;)
So two computers which are 10 years apart in age will be impossible to challenge equally. And even more disturbingly, specialized computers (think Deep Blue, or even a re-purposed graphics card) could be fairly easily constructed to demolish any NP-Complete problem.
The interesting thing about Microsoft's implementation here is that I believe they're using a challenge which is gated on something processor speed doesn't help with much. I'd trust MSR to have done this well. (Say what you will about the corporation, but MSR is top-notch).
I heard it had something to do with bus speeds, but I'd ask someone whose job security doesn't rely on not being tainted by reading others' patent applications.
Though I can't say that I'm surprised, this story is 100% pure troll.
The article makes some legitimate arguments about the benefits of Linux on embedded devices (not Open Source in general), and though it's definitely written with a bias at least that's not disguised.
I don't think the poster even read the article however; the claim that you can't see the source code to WinCE is incorrect, thinking that your applications are any more likely to survive an upgrade intact is laughable (WinCE & PocketPC go through extensive AppCompat testing, who does that for embedded Linux?)
I know, I know, slow news day and a Pro-OSS post came up on the radar, but for cripes sake if you're going to be brutally biased at least try to hide it, you're making the cause look even worse!
Just fyi: the update number comes from the number identifying the knowledgebase article where the problem is first identified.
If you love their comics or just want to support their stand, Penny Arcade does take donations.
At the bottom of the ClubPA page (http://www.penny-arcade.com/clubpa.php3) there's a link to their paypay donation box.
And as an added bonus, no matter what size of donation you'll get access to the most excellent "Over Easy", one of the best comics online for both artistic merit and style, highly recommended!
C'mon, toss in a buck for the most excellent comic, you won't be dissapointed!
Ahem...
From Japanese dokomo literally translates to "everywhere".
I'd much rather have MY government "buying" free software and supporting open-source development than supporting the rich fat-cats who own all that microsoft stock.
Ah, but which would the government prefer? If they were to spend the same money in both situations (I'm not saying the TCO is always equal, but it's often comparable.) they'd get much more in taxes back by paying it to Microsoft. Microsoft (the company) pays more taxes than any other entity in the US, and by concentrating its pay on fewer developers everyone's in a high tax-bracket and pays a larger % of their salary in tax.
Even ignoring that fact, the cost of software is generally insignificant compared to the cost of lost productivity, or even the risk of lost productivity. (risk has a real cost don'cha know) And Microsoft is a known quantity.
Your idealism is not neccesarily fiscally appropriate. And unless your views are those of the majority, the government should be deciding policy based on purely utilitarian grounds. Rather than rant and rave about the "right" thing to do, you'd be better off either converting public opinion to add weight to the moral argument for OSS, or contributing in some way towards improving the utilitarian facet.
Quoth gerf:
Oops, that transistor's off a bit again!
hee hee, get it? it's a bit off?
*giggle*
Ok, now seriously people, pay attention to the article. The class in question is a pre-university programming course. Intended to help those students who have never programmed before catch up.
Under curriculum integration, first-choice applicants to UW's E&CE program will be allowed to take a new pre-university programming course in C#, E&CE 050. Completion of this course will be mandatory for students entering the E&CE program. C# is a new programming language developed by Microsoft.
It's understandably confusing in the article I suppose, since the author clearly isn't an Eng student and is in no position to really know (or care about) the curriculum. But most students will never take this course, it's mandatory that the material be understood and credit granted, but most students will demonstrate their knowledge and not care.
And in case you still protest, does anyone really think C++ is a better introductory language than C#? Hell, Turbo Basic would be an improvement!
Diagonal placement of the feet on the four buttons, then rocking each foot as needed.
Ah yes, another newbie thinks he's figured it out... Surely the people competing for the $100,000+ prizes in Japan are doing just this, and raking in the dough! No? They're not? You mean you're the only intelligent person in the world? Riight...
Seriously though, that particular technique isn't really that helpful at the upper levels. You simply can't shift weight fast enough, and will find it nearly impossible to make combos last or do double-steps. If you did somehow manage to get good enough at that method to beat a maniac song, you'd probably just be simulating free-style play in an overly complicated way. (It's hard to explain something so visual in this forum, use your imagination).
. I played for about 30 minutes on 4 quarters (50 cents to play) before I got bored and wandered away
I call bullshit. You can't play for 15 minutes straight on one play, simply impossible. Even under the assumption that you're some kind of DDR phenom, and could play the longest song without failing three times in a row on your first try, _and_ you use the full 20 seconds before each selecting, _and_ you use the full 2 minutes to select your character and style, you still can't spend more than 12 minutes (longest single-credit song is just under 3 minutes). And I sincerely doubt your status as a DDR phenom.
Frankly, I doubt you've ever actually played the game. Please keep your opinions on DDR to yourself until you've at least beaten an easy maniac level song. And I'll consider you relevant if you can do a few 9-steps on "fade".
I'd be more worried about someone jamming the communications between the pilot and the plane.
Modern warplanes are hardened against electronic attack, but it's virtually impossible to overcome signal jamming. So the only real countermeasure is to include enough autonomic control to the plane to allow it to complete a mission without direction.
But it's highly unlikely that such a control system would be allowed to select and attack targets without human verification. Would you want to be a ground soldier in combat with loose-cannon planes flying overhead? I sure wouldn't. (And before anyone jumps in and says the allies will all have some sort of signal to prevent them from being blown to smithereens, remember this is in combat with full-force electronic jamming in play)
Jamming a signal is simple, compared to intercepting it. And as the US military becomes increasingly reliant on its advanced communication network to wage war, it will become a simple way of levelling the playing field for the bad guys.
Keep in mind that the average distance between the earth and the moon is around 384,403 km, and you'd be looking for something barely 2 meters across. That means from an earthly observatory seeing the moon lander is about the same as seeing a fly from a distance of four kilometers.
:P
It's made easier of course because of the lack of atmosphere, and the lack of any distractions surrounding the lander. But really, it's a looooong way there to see a tiny feature. That kind of acuity really requires a space-based telescope, outside the atmosphere. And really, will anyone who doesn't believe in the moon landing really take the word of astronauts?
It's worth mentioning that seeing the glint of metal on the moon in the right location (using really powerful telescopes) isn't terribly uncommon. But conspiracy theorists explain that away as an un-manned probe/space debris/meteor.
Finally of course, NASA isn't particularily concerned with proving skeptics wrong. They've got bigger worries, like where their paycheques are coming from.
I'm sure someone else will mention this before my reply gets submitted, but to clear this one up:
:) Certainly easier than for English in the average case.
:P But that's a different story.
Japan uses three ideographic alphabets, hiragana, katakana, and kanji. Hiragana and katakana are small sets, and non-ambiguous. On a japanese keyboard you use a shift key to choose which you're typing in, then input them phonetically.
Kanji is the set of imported chinese characters. Japan uses a small subset of traditional chinese characters called the "Joyou" character set. (My spelling could be awful on that) It's got around 1900 characters that are in common use, and an additional few hundred characters used just for names. (It's changed quite a bit in the past few decades since I last studied Japanese formally, so take those numbers with a grain of salt.)
The kanji _are_ ambiguous, that is, the same pronounciation can have multiple character representation. But with so many possible pronounciations and so few characters (relatively) it doesn't take long to tab through your options when you input one. Generally the way to input kanji is to type in the pronounciation, then the word processor guesses the one you want, then if neccesary you tab through the rest of the options to find the other one. It sounds a little slow, but the ai's are getting better and better, so it's really getting smooth and easy.
In general, Japanese is actually a very computer-friendly language. It's grammatically strict, making contextual inference fairly simple. It's non-tonal and non-inflexive, so voice recognition is surprisingly easy.
Now, Chinese is a whole different matter. It's the source of most internationalization angst for the pacific rim.
It may not be significant, but its definitely historical. ;)
It's just as important to remember the mistakes as the past as it is to remember the successes, lest we be doomed to repeat them.
I also have doubts if this could be used to help propel a ship out of the atmosphere.
I strongly suspect the amount of energy needed to maintain the effect will be at least equal to or greater than the potential energy difference of the material affected.
I would submit that it's unimportant how much more energy is required than the energy difference created by reducing the effects of gravity. Within some reason of course, I imagine NASA would be overjoyed if it could safetly propel a projectile into space at a 100-1 energy differential, as long as the energy is expended at a stationary ground base.
By not having to carry fuel, a space vehicle is many-fold more efficient. And by using more efficient energy generation techniques on the ground, it's made more efficient (and cheaper) still.
While I certainly agree that there is little chance this will produce any meaningful results, I think it would be absolutely revolutionary were it to be true.
Laying cable is not nearly as difficult as it may seem. I was actually recently chatting with my uncle, who is the civil works administrator for a large wired city, and digging up pavement is a legacy of the past.
There are so many redundant tubes under our roads right now that nearly any expansion that needs to be done can be fed through them. In our city, natural gas was put in by running new tubes through old waste-water mains. I'm sure fibre will be easier still to lay down.
And never underestimate the value of real wire connections. With heavy usage, the airwaves are becomming increasingly cluttered, and when people start demanding quality and consistent connections (like when appliances start acting as servers as a matter of fact), people might not be so accepting of internet service that cuts out when you use the can opener.
Did anyone else notice that the coaster part of the assembly is an old car bucket seat strapped on to a toy cart by what looks like duct tape?
(Look closely!)
from:
http://www.freesoftware.fsf.org/rule/todolist.h
RULE PROJECT todo list
FIRST: Find the guy who already did it!!
I already asked on some Red Hat list about a smaller anaconda, less than one year ago. Some guy came back saying he had done it (squeeze anaconda in less than 32 MB) but that it wouldn't give the code, because the result was so crooked that even he himself didn't know anymore how it worked, and that I had to do it personally, rather than blindly copy somebody else's work, otherwise I might just screw up the whole thing. I have already tried to scan the archives, without success so far. Let's keep trying.
So let's try to help here eh? Who in the slashdot community knows this guy?
I for one am dying to get my mitts on this thing, so I'll do some trolling on the google cache. But maybe the person who did it is reading right now...
Though I'm sure I'll just be one of many posting in support of this idea, it's important to chime in, so congrats!
The only real question for me is whether this distro is planning to do any work towards including old hardware that never got supported.
I absolutely agree. I would love to see a collection of short(ish) problems.
;)).
A good reference for this in the math world would be "Problem Solving through Problems" by Loren Larson, which was one of my favourite books ever in math. Divide the problems into categories, like "optimization", "design patterns", etc. (I know there are more potential categories, but that's for the author to figure out.
Problems could be taken from real-world situations or ACM contests, but it would be a _great_ way to learn. I'd definitely buy such a book.
I'll try to give a clearer answer then.
Windows doesn't load itself into a ramdisk because it's not neccesarily the most efficient. When an OS is running, it's not constantly using the entirety of it's code. Windows, for example, will be heavily utilising the DLL's for the API, but likely won't use the cryptographic DLL's more than once a week or so (if that). So loading the whole OS into RAM is effectively making large sections of it useless.
So the best way to use RAM is to let the memory manager do what it's designed to do. The memory manager will load the parts of the OS that are most frequently used into RAM, and keep them there as long as they remain most often accessed. Similarily for most frequently accessed programs.
The exception to this rule is when you want either latency (ie. you don't use a program much, but when you do you want instant response) or when you have a large program that is very tightly integrated or a large section of data (like a database, where you want low latency for all pieces, even if the block they're in is accessed once a week; or doing image editing or CAD work, when pieces of your work can start getting paged out because of inneficient memory management.)
Hope that makes it clearer.
If so, this sounds just like the stupid idea a year or two ago of mapping peoples' phone numbers to DNS. (It's exactly the opposite of what you want to do. If you want to find a particular person's website, why not make use of the new .name TLD and use the person's full name?)
.name TLD with thier full name. How many people do you know named John Smith? I've heard estimates that there are less than 2 billion unique full names in the world right now, and suspect it's probably a lot lower. (Think Asia or the middle east)
I'd point out a good reason for not making use of the
And your opinion of what an abuse is is noted, but irrational. Any company doing business on the internet is in all likelyhood willing to do business internationally. And who really knows where a company is based to find it? (Try these ones: Panasonic, Kraft, Legend, Haier, ATI...)
Where do all my left socks go from the dryer?
I can't imagine what, but I bet it had something to do with an inuit carving...
I recently returned from there, and I can tell you it's not nearly that bad. I travelled through the countryside and large cities, and can say that although the standard isn't up to the west it's still very liveable.
People aren't starving by the millions, people aren't generally homeless (though this is a problem for the migrant workers in the large cities, as it is in any number of capitalist countries in south america or asia). By and large, the average standard of living is far better than most of south-east asia.
Now, the issues of political freedom are entirely different. Yes, the oppression of speech and religious freedoms is extreme and prohibitive, and the corruption is significant (though whether it's truly worse than the US is debatable).
Don't blindly jump on a cause without knowing what you're talking about, in this case you look like a fool.