http://blog.s11n.net blog for s11n.net Fri, 30 Apr 2010 00:38:36 +0000 http://backend.userland.com/rss092 en i'm just so frigging sick to my stomach at the moment because Ubuntu 10.4 ate my home directory, and i wanted to take a moment to warn other Ubuntu upgraders about a data-loss scenario. Full details are in the bug report: https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+bug/571958 If you're going to use Ubuntu 10.4, make damned sure your ... http://blog.s11n.net/?p=86 Hi, all! And how for something very different... A couple of days ago i was looking for JavaScript code which can parse the Google Code wiki syntax reasonably well. i stumbled upon (via a link in a bug report) some code by Fabien Ménager which did most of the work. After coming ... http://blog.s11n.net/?p=85 On April 1st xkcd.com added a new web interface which allows one to view the xkcd comics using a Unix-style command-line interface: http://uni.xkcd.com/ Interested in how it was being done, i followed the source code links, downloaded it, and set it up locally. After spending the whole day hacking on it, and ... http://blog.s11n.net/?p=83 Hello, fellow C programmers! (If you don't program in C (or even know what that means) then the following won't interest you in the slightest. If you are a C programmer, it might interest you in the slightest.) It is common for C code to use the venerable void pointer, and (despite ... http://blog.s11n.net/?p=82 Hi, all! A few days ago i came across a trick in C. It isn't new, but i hadn't seen it used quite this way before and i wanted to share it... Background: i have several mini-libraries which i tend to copy directly in to other projects. It has happened that i ... http://blog.s11n.net/?p=81 Hi, all! The past year or two i've been working on various C-based projects. Through that work i've taken a strong interest in conserving memory and reducing the number of calls made to make new memory available (e.g. via malloc()). For example, i've spent many hours optimizing the whefs embedded filesystem ... http://blog.s11n.net/?p=80 The age-old question goes: Which came first: the chicken or the egg? And i think the point of it is that nobody really knows. Kind of like the ancient Egyptian saying, "if a tree falls in the dunes of the Sahara desert and no one hears it, did it really emit audible ... http://blog.s11n.net/?p=78 Hi, all! Late last year i started working on an embedded filesystem library for C. The library uses "container files" (called embedded filesystems, or EFSes), in which the client can store "files" (i call them "pseudofiles"). The API allows random read/write access to them using a flexible i/o device interface. If ... http://blog.s11n.net/?p=77 Okay, it's time to evangelize a bit... The past few weeks i've been considering buying a netbook (sub-notebook). Not because i particularly need one, but because they're so damned cute and they're relatively cheap nowadays. In my various train trips i've always found a laptop too be more trouble than they're ... http://blog.s11n.net/?p=75 Hi, all! In late February i happened to come across a very interesting open source project, Google's v8 JavaScript engine. Being a long-time hacker of add-ons for the Mozilla SpiderMonkey engine, i felt compelled to try it out. After a couple of days i was convinced that v8 was a cool platform ... http://blog.s11n.net/?p=74