I start scouring the 80,496 lines of the Reiser4 source code. Eventually I stumble across a passage that starts at line 78,077. It's not part of the program itself — it's an annotation, a piece of non-executable text in plain English. It's there for the benefit of someone who has chosen to read this far into the code. The passage explains how memory structures are born, grow, and eventually die. It concludes: "Death is a complex process."posted by jessamyn (staff) at 9:35 AM on June 27, 2007
After Nina disappeared, the Alameda County social services agency put Rory and Niorline in a foster home at the urging of police. Two weeks later, the county family court released them to Nina's mother, who took them to Russia for the holidays. It's now late January. They were supposed to return weeks ago. Instead, a letter arrived from a lawyer in Russia, explaining that the kids were terrified of the US and would not return.posted by jessamyn (staff) at 9:47 AM on June 27, 2007
For the past two decades, he has struggled to create a different method of organizing data. His approach, known as ReiserFS, is a file system unlike any other. Rather than assign data a fixed location on a hard drive, it uses algorithms to frequently reposition information, including the code that makes up the file system itself. It elegantly maximizes storage space, but it can also complicate data recovery when a computer crashes. If the algorithms are corrupted, the file system will be unable to locate its own position. All the data it organizes disappears into an indistinguishable mass of 0s and 1s. The contents of that hard drive will be irretrievably lost.If the "Algorithm is corrupted"? That's one step away from the dialog of the movie Hackers. Actually I don't know much about how ReiserFS works (maybe I should look into it) but that phrase is entirely meaningless. Then we get this.
In Reiser's case, a critical piece of data — the location of Nina Reiser — has gone missing.It's just a slap in the face to the very concept of writing
Sturgeon feels that Reiser has cast aside their friendship because of greed. "You find out who your true friends are when you stop giving them money," he says. Sturgeon believes that Reiser's judgment has become clouded by megalomania and the belief that he is the world's greatest programmer. The friendship is over.Greed, but not the part where he was sleeping with his wife?
"The heart of the car is the wheel, not the wide rubber-clad steel wheels that kiss the ground, but the fifth and inner wheel, the steering wheel. Turn the wheel 20° and you enter a slow wide arc, -20° and you'll arc back in the same direction. On some roads though, a 45° twist of the wheel is too much, and a simple 8th of a turn of the steering wheel will end thousands or millions of turns of the road wheels. The car will careen of the road, but the same wheel that takes also gives back. The steering wheel will quickly inflate Filling the space between your face and death. So long as Toyota isn't corrupted!"posted by delmoi at 11:50 AM on June 27, 2007 [8 favorites]
posted by jamjam at 9:27 AM on June 27, 2007