April 28, 2004
iTunes Crash
My laptop deadlocks. I restart. I start iTunes: "The iTunes Music Library file cannot be read because it does not appear to be a valid library file." I am currently working on restoring my playlist and am VERY annoyed. VERY annoyed. I tried the way described on many weblogs (looks like this is not that uncommon), but only got a very old version of my playlist back. I am now reimporting all my songs (just the library description, not the...
Posted on April 28, 2004 06:13 PM
| Permalink
| Comments (0)
| TrackBack
April 27, 2004
Label Your Module License
The current controversy about people mislabeling their kernel modules by declaring them with MODULE_LICENSE("GPL\0"); has angered a lot of developers (Kerneltrap, Slashdot). I absolutely agree that this is a despicable practice. However, for somebody learning about kernel module programming, finding out about this macro was quite useful, since I don't have to live with "Your kernel is now tainted" error messages any more. This story also led me to the Linux Kernel Module Programming Guide, which should make for excellent...
Posted on April 27, 2004 12:21 PM
| Permalink
| Comments (0)
| TrackBack
April 27, 2004
Missed the Ex-Vice-Chancellor
Due to a conflict with my CS 240 midterm I was not able to attend today's talk by the Austrian Ex-Vice-Chancellor Erhard Busek at Stanford, even though I really wanted to go. Oh well, it is too late now. At least I got 2 problemsets done today, and can hopefully finish another 2 tomorrow in order to have all of Wednesday and Thursday afternoon to study for EE 108 B....
Posted on April 27, 2004 03:29 AM
| Permalink
| Comments (0)
| TrackBack
April 25, 2004
Big Fish
I just saw Big Fish. I could write about how the movie made me think of Ulysses and Stephen Dedalus' theory about the author constantly recreating himself in his writing, or how it in some way mirrored the consubstantiality of the father and the son (also from Joyce, not Christianity). Instead, let me say that for a moment I was moved. More moved than I have been in quite a while. This movie has made me happy and reminded me...
Posted on April 25, 2004 09:49 PM
| Permalink
| Comments (0)
| TrackBack
April 25, 2004
When to Reclaim Resources
I have been busily studying for my CS 240 midterm, and realized that a passage in the paper Memory Resource Management in VMware ESX Server by Carl Waldspurger has an excellent scheme for when to reclaim resources that is well suited to my project. This scheme, presented in section 6.3 dynamically reclaims memory depending on how much is left, using different measures, depending on how much memory is available in the entire system. Most Operating Systems on the other hand...
Posted on April 25, 2004 05:10 PM
| Permalink
| Comments (1)
| TrackBack
April 20, 2004
The Final Research Project
I am finally done planning my research project, now simply titled "Distributed Operating Systems". The programming project will remain the exact same. I will design and implement: automatic process migration paging over the network (including memory mapped files) distributed file operations (files are addressed as :) some form of IPC, without which real evaluation would be impossible many different schemes of speeding up these actions algorithms on how to route to process to maximize performance This will take quite a...
Posted on April 20, 2004 12:23 AM
| Permalink
| Comments (0)
| TrackBack
April 18, 2004
Things are Falling into Place
I can't even begin to explain how excited I am. All parts of my research project are finally coming together. This is going to be great, if it works out. More very soon....
Posted on April 18, 2004 10:39 PM
| Permalink
| Comments (0)
| TrackBack
April 18, 2004
Math 51 Redux
Taking Math 51 again is a strange experience. We fortunately do not have to use Matlab which was one of my biggest reasons against retaking it (I don't even really know why). And given how little attention I paid to everything the first time I took it, I find it surprisingly interesting. Wednesday is the date of our first midterm which unfortunately is only worth 20% rather than the usual 25, but that should not matter too much. I am...
Posted on April 18, 2004 12:00 AM
| Permalink
| Comments (0)
| TrackBack
April 15, 2004
Learning Done Right
I have been reading this little guide to historic Japanese culture. In there I found this paragraph, with every student and teacher at Stanford (and anywhere else) should read carefully and take to heart: Even so, quite a few people seem to feel that merely to concentrate on acquiring a skill is somehow unsatisfactory, and seek, in addition, personal relationships -- by arranging parties with fellow students in the same course, or by planning trips with them. And just as...
Posted on April 15, 2004 11:06 PM
| Permalink
| Comments (2)
| TrackBack
April 12, 2004
CS 240 Rocks
I spent a large part of last week reading every paper ever read in a prior quarter of CS 240. I learned a lot and am very much strengthened in my determination to continue in Systems. CS 240 is probably the best class I have yet taken at Stanford, even if it is a bit intimidating at times. I really like the discussion based format, because there is too little interaction in the CS department in general. I also like...
Posted on April 12, 2004 05:44 PM
| Permalink
| Comments (0)
| TrackBack
April 11, 2004
Stanford & Safari Books
Special thanks to Travis for telling me that all books from O'Reilly's Safari Online Bookstore are available for free to Stanford students. I will make abundant use of this opportuniy to read such excellent books as Peer to Peer....
Posted on April 11, 2004 04:28 PM
| Permalink
| Comments (0)
| TrackBack
April 08, 2004
Understanding the Linux Virtual Memory Manager
I will be reviewing Understanding the Linux Virtual Memory Manager for OSNews. I am very excited because I would love to learn more about the implementation of Linux, and Prentice Hall is known for its high quality Unix books (I have at least 10). Furthermore, this fits in perfectly with CS 240, and to some degree also with my research project. I cannot wait until they mail it to me, and will try to get a lot of work done,...
Posted on April 8, 2004 04:10 PM
| Permalink
| Comments (0)
| TrackBack
April 07, 2004
Vote! And Vote for ISIS
Thursday and Friday will be among the most important days of this quarter. It is time to vote in ASSU elections, and it is time to vote for special fees funding for students groups. I am not very much interested in the politics of the ASSU or any of the senate races (though I will vote for Josh Shipp, because I know he is an excellent organizer and senator, but I am sure he would win easily without my vote)....
Posted on April 7, 2004 12:50 AM
| Permalink
| Comments (0)
| TrackBack
April 05, 2004
CS 240 Reading
I have spent most of the afternoon reading papers from past offerings of CS 240. These include some of the most important and interesting Operating Systems papers published in the last few years and are a must read for anyone interested in Systems Programming and Design. I for one am profoundly inspired by many of these papers. Together with today's announcement that the Linux iPod port is making progress, this makes for a day of much thinking about Computer Science....
Posted on April 5, 2004 10:27 PM
| Permalink
| Comments (0)
| TrackBack
April 05, 2004
Reflections after the Movie
I just saw The Last Samurai, and like most movies it made me think about many things. Latenight movies often inspire my imagination very strongly, almost stronger than books do. But rather than philosophize about my thoughts, that I always do when walking home, after them, I simply want to describe the feeling. I know that when most people walk out of movies, they start thinking about things in the movie, analyze its plot, discuss it coolness, ridicule its flaws,...
Posted on April 5, 2004 01:25 AM
| Permalink
| Comments (0)
| TrackBack
April 01, 2004
I missed Knuth
Donald Knuth gave a talk today and I forgot about it and missed it. I was thinking about it before lunch but forgot to actually go. The foolishness... At least I know that he will give more talks in the future, but I am quite disappointed that I forgot. I will definitely remember the next time....
Posted on April 1, 2004 08:37 PM
| Permalink
| Comments (0)
| TrackBack
April 01, 2004
This is no Joke
There really is no reason to read the news on April Fools Day, seeing how everything is usually made up. That is, with the exception of Google's Gmail, which offers a gigabyte of email storage. Though it is usually quite easy to spot April Fools Jokes, this one definitely had me convinced that it was bogus, which was obviously wrong. Instead of reading news I will therefore just read my CS 157 textbook and lecture notes....
Posted on April 1, 2004 05:10 PM
| Permalink
| Comments (1)
| TrackBack