5/9     Any ideas as to why google might prevent soda browsers from doing
        searches?
        \_ Which browsers? links, lynx ?
           \_ links... though lynx works for me.  Hadn't tried it before.
        \_ works in w3
        \_ They blocked you because they're a bunch of 'Furders and you're
           at Cal.

5/9     SSL Common name verification bug in Safari (don't use it with SSL
        sites): http://www.secunia.com/advisories/8756

5/9     What are some reasons that would cause malloc to cause a segmentation
        fault rather than just returning NULL? I'm getting a seg fault
        trying to malloc some float**'s.
        \_ typically you have some other pointer bug that overwrote/corrupted
           malloc's bookkeeping data, causing it to segfault.
                \_ what sort of other pointer bugs?

5/10    http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,3-674949,00.html
        This is just... unreal.

5/10    http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,3-674949,00.html
        This is just... unreal. Besides the other stuff, is it common in
        China for people's pets to just be running around loose outside
        or in apartment buildings? I can imagine that for cats but dogs?
        \_ More likely they will end up on dinner tables in
           restraunts.
        \_ Personal observation:  When I was there in '95, I saw _no_ stray
           dogs (as opposed to places like Bangkok where feral and stray
           dogs are ubiquitous), but I saw a lot of stray and feral cats.
           The one mother dog I saw was in the zoo, locked up in a cage
           separate from that of her pups, presumably to keep her from
           eating them, as mother dogs are known to do.  (Whaaa~?)
                \_ Cats have parasites, so you can't eat them.
                   \_ random fact: SARS is harmless to cats.  it just
                      passes through their system in a couple weeks, doing
                      no damage.
                      \_ That's what you dirty humans think.  Stay away
                         from us   - big cat
                         \_ Obreddwarfreference

5/10    Question on MIPS delay slots and scheduling. When we rearrange the
        instructions to fill in delay slots, wouldn't exceptions/interrupts
        be inexact, changing the semantics of the original program?
        \_ Not at all.  There's no relation between the new instruction order
           and interrupt vectors.

5/10    I just got this from my professor:
        "Unfortunately we do nothave the budget to support you for summer.
        I think working in industry is a great idea."
        Here is my question. How hard is it to get funding to support
        cheap grad students for a lousy short summer? Not that hard right?
        Is this his way of saying "hey you're not important, better find
        a new advisor?" I've worked my ass off for this guy doing TA and
        this is how he feels.           -pissed off grad student
        \_ this is their way ot either giving you the cold shoulder
           and saying they don't want you, or telling you that they
           suck at getting money.  Either way, it's time to move on.
        \_ this is their way of either giving you the cold shoulder
           and saying he doesn't want you, or telling you that he
           sucks at getting money.  Either way, it's time to move on.
           getting pissed and moving on may suck a little. being pissed
           all the time as you work for someone you don't get along with
           or who is a gimp-prof sucks alot more. -grad student
        \_ welcome to the real world. now go out and get a summer job.
                \_ the question is whether he should find a new advisor
                   who 1) has more funding and/or 2) is more eager to take
        \_ Obviously you have a close relationship with your advisor seeing
           as how he sent this "fuck you letter" by email.
                   him up as an advisee.
        \_ Many advisors give students this kind of message.  A majority of
           grad students I know work during the summers.  The ones that
           are at an important point in their research are usually the ones
           that want to stay and get funding from their advisors.  So
           unless you told your advisor that you really needed to have
           funding for this summer, I wouldn't take his comment personally.
           Also, due to the poor economy, many researchers I know are
           having trouble funding students during the year, let alone the
           summer.  By all means, make sure you end up working with a
           good advisor; just make sure you evaluate your situation
           correctly before jumping ship.  Good luck.  -emin
                \_ THANK YOU EMIN. I feel much better now.
           \_ I think that it's a bit late for this sort of thing, and it's
              really the sort of thing that I would expect to see discussed
              in a meeting. My advisor, at least, also strongly advises
              staying for one of the first two summers, though I'm sure
              that funding might influence this for some people.
              - chialea
        \_  Whining deleted.  If you delete responses you your whining,
            your whining will get deleted.
        \_ ask nick about his recent experiences.
                \_ nick weaver, tell us about your recent experiences.

5/10    http://www.cnn.com/2003/US/West/05/10/offbeat.klingon.interpreter/index.html

5/10    What's the difference between a simulator and an emulator?
        \_ Emulation is along the lines of "perform all the same actions as"
           while simulation is "a system or enviornment where conditions are
           the same." The distinction is highly contextual.  And as you give
           absolutely no context, your question is pretty unanswerable.
              \_ no, it doesn't.
           \_ are there simulators that do not try to "perform all the same
              actions as" the design under simulation?  is non-trivial
              simulation ever performed where "a system or environment where
              conditions are the same"?
              \_ Don't be daft.  Without valid context, this discussion means
                 nothing.  "But those words can be used almost interchangibly!
                 And they might even be SYNONYMS!"  You're beating a dead horse
                 behind chicken coop doors.
              \_ yes.  The Palm OS Simulator is one example.
        \_ Emulator: VirtualPC, VMWare, etc.
           Simulator: VCS, VerilogXL, etc.
        \_ an emulator tries to mimic hardware.
           \_ and a simulator doesn't?  try again.
              \_ No. He means mimic in that the host environment pretends
                 to be capable of what the guest environment is capable
                 of giving an illusion to the user. For example, VirtualPC
                 gives the user an illusion that a Mac is running Windows
                 software. Simulators make no pretense of doing so. For
                 example, VCS is a verilog simulator. It doesn't allow
                 the computer it's running on to mimic the hardware it's
                 simulating.
                 \_ what's the point of running a simulator if it doesn't
                    mimic the hardware it's simulating?  if i give you a
                    black box, how can you tell if there's a simulator or
                    an emulator running underneath?
                    \_ We use an RTL simulator for ASIC design so that
                       we can pass it some test vectors (similar to how
                       things would happen in real life) and view the
                       results in a waveform viewer. Simulators are
                       orders of magnitude slower than a real machine
                       but the purpose is not to have a usable system
                       but something which you can debug through a
                       waveform viewer. The engineers at Intel, for
                       example, are not using RTL simulators to run
                       WindowsXP on a chip that doesn't exist. That
                       would be impractical. They use it to run small
                       bits of code for design verification purposes.
                       \_ ah, an asic "expert".  have you done hardware/
                          software co-design, where the low-level driver
                          and firmware is developed on the hardware simulator?
                          and they call that... co-emulation?  no!  it's
                          called co-sim, son, as in co-simulation.  and just
                          because win-xp is too bloated and modern processors
                          are too large, that doesn't mean that no os has
                          ever been booted in simulation in the history of
                          hardware design and simulation.
                        \_ AMD used to boot NetBSD on Hammer simulations
                           regularly.
                    \_ speed.  a simulator can be faster than an emulator at
                       the expense of accuracy.
                       \_ ah, speed.  so let's say you have an OS running
                          on a cpu and system that is being simulated on
                          a (say) verilog simulator.  are you simulating or
                          emulating the OS?  can a simulator emulate?  can
                          an emulator simulate?
                          \_ I don't think there's always a clear-cut
                             distinction.
              \_ Maybe he means stimulator.  Oh, yeah. That mimics hardware
                 also.

5/10    Does anybody know of a good, free webpage spell-ckecker,
        similar to the w3c validator?
        \_ lynx -dump | ispell