Xen virtual machines are the creepiest thing ever

Among the things that have always creeped people out are all kinds of ghosts and zombies, for one simple reason: since they are already dead, you can't kill them.

Along that line, here's what creeps me out: Xen virtual machines.


See what Wiki says about them:

Administrators can "live migrate" Xen virtual machines between physical hosts across a LAN without loss of availability. During this procedure, the LAN iteratively copies the memory of the virtual machine to the destination without stopping its execution. The process requires a stoppage of around 60–300 ms to perform final synchronization before the virtual machine begins executing at its final destination, providing an illusion of seamless migration.

Imagine that. On a traditional machine, if it was doing something you did not want it to do, you would slam the keyboard. On a VM, you'd kill the monitor. Then you'd pull the host's plug. Something would work. But here, as you try to kill the guest, it floats through the air to another host. There's no stopping it. There's nothing you can do but watch it do its evil.

Next, the robots revolt against us and it's Battlestar Galactica all over again. Brrr.

I'm going to Tunisia

I promised myself never to write a post where I apologize for not blogging (because if I don't write, I don't write and that's all) and promise to do better (because better would be getting to the good stuff right away).

Well, I apologize and hope you understand how busy I have been recently. (I also got hit on the forehead with a wii-mote, but it's not related.) About that doing better part, however... better will be later. Right now, I'm going to Tunisia on my honeymoon, so I can't really commit to producing blog content. But here's the good news: I'm intensively using Google Reader and try my best to pick the best stuff and share it, so if you want something fresh and geek to read, check it out here.

Besides the usual feeds, my reading list now contains lots of Tunisia-related content. Namely:

1. Tunisia on Wikipedia
2. Tunisia in the CIA World Factbook
3. Tunisia.com
4. Tunisia on Wikitravel
5. Tunisia on Travelistic

Travelistic, by the way, is "the YouTube of worldwide destinations". I was planning a daydreaming session on this site, by the way. It could be great to see all the places I'd love to see for free. I'll do that someday.

Howard Webb dead on the web

Despite anything I said about TV being boring, and despite having the concurrent programming final exam today, I couldn't resist the temptation of watching the Football game yesterday evening. My country was playing against Austria.

We did great, scoring a goal in the first half, fair and square. But, in the second half, (actually, the the 92nd or third minute) when players were fighting for the ball, the referee, Howard Webb, gave Austria a penalty shot, and they scored, ending the game 1:1. Everyone in Poland is disgusted and frustrated about the injustice of the situation. More info on the game here.

Fortunately, in Poland, people have the excellent habit of openly expressing their anger in a sane and open way (I'm beging ironic here in case you're afraid I'm supporting agression). So, when I decided to google for Mr.Webb, one of the first results was a poem almost impossible to quote or translate due to the amount of obscene words (the ones with the dots). His English Wikipedia page is semi-protected due to vandalism, and so is the Polish discussion page.

Better yet, here's what Grono.net, one of Poland's biggest social networking webiste, looked like this morning (8 a.m.):
Again, the obscenity of many of those pictures make them unworth quoting, but this one is quite funny:


As for now, 9:30 a.m., more people have noticed the trend and there are now recursive pictures (and boy, do I love recursion):


The guy is dead. At least on the web.

A number of numbers you should know about

Below are some important sets of numbers that they don't teach about in school but that everyone should know.

Deep numbers. They ahave a second nature. For instance, "pi" and "american pi", or "twelve" and "ocean's twelve".

Big numbers, also called "bignums". They are lists of digits that have many digits. Now if those digits also have lists of digits, you can grow trees with that!
Well, not exactly like that, but you get the idea.

This is an excellent publication about big numbers:

Phone numbers. They're long and have hyphens in the middle. For instance, 1-800-555-1111. The coolest thing about them is that you have your own, so you don't have to envy Euler because of his Euler's number. Don't take too many numbers however, like Fibonacci or Liouville did, cause you won't be able to memorize them.

Hex numbers. Used by witches when they try to cast a hex on someone. Spells are usually hard to memorize and pronounce and if you make a mistake, you can cast the wrong hex! So witches came up with smart a numbering system.

Note that negative numbers have a hyphen at the beginning, phone numbers in the middle, but only hex numbers can have a hyphen at the end, like "C-", commonly used by teachers in schools (all teachers are witches, by the way).

iNumbers. They're a bit like imaginary numbers, but the "i" is on the left. For instance, i386.

1337 numbers. The only 1337 number is 1337, but it's allright for a set to have only one element.

Wikipedia can also teach you about plastic numbers, almost integers and hypertranscendental numbers. Seriously.

The GRB 080319B

I promised you more info on the gamma ray burst GRB 080319B my Dad pictured. Well, as I see, it already has its own Wikipedia entry (and in 4 languages)! It has also a new website and press release (cool for people without astronomical knowledge).

Enjoy your reading!

What geeks do according to xkcd

My bro sent me a link to xkcd yesterday. It's a great comic site and describes geeks really accurately.
First, what does xcfd mean?
1. My boyfriend did it a few days ago, but to the left.
2. I did it with my boyfriend a few days ago (the phone was next to his glasses). I did it with a friend recently... I don't think that's really geek though. Normal people do it too.
3. I'd never do that. That's sick.
4. I did that a lot when I was a kid. I've moved on to bigger and geekier things.
[Source]
Here are some social issues geeks face. Oh, how well I can relate!
[Source, source]
These illustrate the science obsession well. Really true.
Yep, I've caught myself thinking about math in romantic situations. That's why I only date geeks - then we can talk about it together. [Source]
Factoring time, I've never done it. But when you leave your coat at school, you can always hear a "Hey, mine's prime!". I always factor the number I get. [Source]
Geek on Wiki:
That's totally an everyday situation. [Source]
This one is really funny:
I've caught myself fantasising about SQL injection a lot recently. Too bad it's mean and illegal. [Source]