| brain activity log
23.03.2006 Thursday - random thoughs about luck
The need for "fortunate randomness".
Well... sure: you have to help your luck, otherwise it will get to
nothing. But it's still randomness: the complex composition of events that lead
you to an advantageous situation. Often too complex to be described or even understood.
On the other hand... rationale.
In an example of good luck, a person winning a lottery would generally be considered lucky,
although a rationalist might point out that there was bound to be a winner sooner or later,
and there was actually nothing lucky about someone winning - it was merely a probabilistic event.
It is doubtful that the winner would agree with that analysis, however.
The belief in luck as a supernatural phenomenon is generally regarded by rationalists
as a form of magical thinking. However, there is evidence that people who believe
themselves to have good luck are more able to take advantage of fortunate chance events
in their lives, and to compensate for unfortunate chance events in their lives, than
people who believe that they have bad luck. This appears to be the result of positive
thinking altering their responses to these events.
If "good" and "bad" events occur at random to everyone, believers in good luck will
experience a net gain in their fortunes, and vice versa for believers in bad luck.
This is clearly likely to be self-reinforcing. Thus, although untrue, a belief in good
luck may actually be an adaptive meme.
"Luck is what happens when preparation meets opportunity" - Seneca, Roman Dramatist
"In my experience, there's no such thing as luck" - Obi-Wan Kenobi.
22.03.2006 Wendesday - a kernel fault
I get this fault once in a while. It is not exactly the same every time but it always
seem to relate to moving pages and it happens under really heavy cpu load.
Actually bex2.bin was computing the connected components of a rather huge grayscale bitmap image:
mainly integer operations (no particular memory hogging tough, I think).
Mar 22 22:46:27 etherea ----------- [cut here ]
Mar 22 22:46:27 etherea Kernel BUG at rmap:483
Mar 22 22:46:27 etherea invalid operand: 0000 [1]
Mar 22 22:46:27 etherea CPU 0
Mar 22 22:46:27 etherea Modules linked in: fglrx
Mar 22 22:46:27 etherea Pid: 10081, comm: bex2.bin
Tainted: P 2.6.10-gentoo-r6
Mar 22 22:46:27 etherea RIP: 0010:[<ffffffff80160749>]
<ffffffff80160749>{page_remove_rmap+41}
Mar 22 22:46:27 etherea RSP: 0018:0000010002c4be28 EFLAGS: 00010296
Mar 22 22:46:27 etherea RAX: 00000000fff80000 RBX: 00000000000cf000
RCX: 00000100018831a0
Mar 22 22:46:27 etherea RDX: 0000000000000000 RSI: 0000000000000000
RDI: 00000100018831b0
Mar 22 22:46:27 etherea RBP: 000001001a75b678 R08: 00000100018831b0
R09: 0000000000000100
Mar 22 22:46:27 etherea R10: 0000000000000600 R11: 0000000000000000
R12: 0000000000200000
Mar 22 22:46:27 etherea R13: 0000000000000020 R14: 0000000000000000
R15: 0000002a9d800000
Mar 22 22:46:27 etherea FS: 00000000005d7ae0(0000)
GS:ffffffff8071a940(0000)
knlGS:0000000008b7fc40
Mar 22 22:46:27 etherea CS: 0010 DS: 0000 ES: 0000
CR0: 000000008005003b
Mar 22 22:46:27 etherea CR2: 0000002a9b69c000 CR3: 0000000000101000
CR4: 00000000000006e0
Mar 22 22:46:27 etherea Process bex2.bin (pid: 10081
threadinfo 0000010002c4a000,
task 0000010007540bd0)
Mar 22 22:46:27 etherea Stack: 00000000000cf000 ffffffff80159f85
00000100018831b0 0000002add650000
Mar 22 22:46:27 etherea 0000002a9da50000 0000002a9da50000
00000100247bf760 0000010005cf8550
Mar 22 22:46:27 etherea ffffffff80672ca0 0000000000400000
Mar 22 22:46:27 etherea Call Trace:<ffffffff80159f85>{unmap_vmas+1093}
<ffffffff8015dade>{do_munmap+462}
Mar 22 22:46:27 etherea <ffffffff8015e408>{sys_munmap+72}
<ffffffff8010e1ba>{system_call+126}
Mar 22 22:46:27 etherea
Mar 22 22:46:27 etherea
Mar 22 22:46:27 etherea Code: 0f 0b bc 40 45 80 ff ff ff
ff e3 01 9c 8f 04 24 fa 48 ff 0d
Mar 22 22:46:27 etherea RIP <ffffffff80160749>{page_remove_rmap+41}
RSP <0000010002c4be28>
Nice eh ? :)
The fault is reported at mm/rmap.c, line 483 which looks like:
472 /**
473 * page_remove_rmap - take down pte mapping from a page
474 * @page: page to remove mapping from
475 *
476 * Caller needs to hold the mm->page_table_lock.
477 */
478 void page_remove_rmap(struct page *page)
479 {
480 BUG_ON(PageReserved(page));
481
482 if (atomic_add_negative(-1, &page->_mapcount)) {
483 BUG_ON(page_mapcount(page) < 0);
484 /*
485 * It would be tidy to reset the PageAnon mapping here,
486 * but that might overwrite a racing page_add_anon_rmap
Investigating on why page_mapcount(page) is less than 0 is not in my timeplan
at the moment: probably a 2.6.10-gentoo/x86_64 bug. My kernel is even tainted because
of the proprietary ati display driver. I should find some time to upgrade and see if it happens
with the latest vanilla kernie.
I have also noticed that the x86_64 gcc tends to produce buggy code
with heavy optimisations: this might be the reason too...
Time will tell :)
20.03.2006 Monday - an encyclopedic approach to love
While eating my lunch I had a quick run through the wikipedia links about love
and found some interesting things. A curious note is that I've ended up in there
by looking up the word "Pragma" :D Anyway... let's get to it.
Love styles are models of lovers developed by
Susan Hendrick and Clyde Hendrick. They identified six basic theories that people use in their interpersonal relationships:
- Eros - a passionate physical love based on physical appearance
- Ludus - love is played as a game; love is playful
- Storge - an affectionate love that slowly develops, based on similarity
- Pragma - pragmatic love
- Mania - highly emotional love; unstable; the stereotype of romantic love
- Agape - selfless altruistic love; spiritual
Those whose love style is described as Ludus tend to:
- Keep their passions in check
- Avoid trouble and intensity in their relationships
- Feel uncomfortable about commitment
- Keep secrets from their significant other
- Are more likely to have affairs
- This love style is observed more often in men.
Those whose style can be described as Mania tend have these personal characteristics:
- They tend to be jealous romantic partners
- They tend to be obsessive romantic partners
- Their self-worth comes from the relationship
- They tend to have an intense infatuation/need for love
- This is often the first love style teenagers display.
Pragma is the form of love based on practical reasons.
A statement like "I'll marry him because he has a well paid job" would be an example.
Furthermore, they found men tend to be more ludic, whereas women tend to be storgic and pragmatic.
Relationships based on similar love styles were found to last longer. People often look for people
with the same love style as themselves for a relationship.
Romantic love is a form of love that is often regarded as different from mere needs
driven by sexual desire, or lust. Romantic love generally involves a mix of
emotional and sexual desire, as opposed to Platonic love. There is often,
initially, more emphasis on the emotions than on physical pleasure.
While romantic love as discussed above is a dream of many, some claim that such
love as is depicted in books and movies rarely, if ever, occurs. They point to the
modern practice of dating, where often the goal is to have sexual intercourse as soon
as possible instead of building a lasting relationship. Often, the rigorous demands of
careers in the modern world rob people of the time to find such ideal companions, and mental
disorders such as social anxiety disorder prevent people from approaching others.
Platonic love in its modern popular sense is an affectionate relationship into which the sexual
element does not enter, especially in cases where one might easily assume otherwise. A simple example
of platonic relationships is friendship between two heterosexual people of the opposite sexes. (LoL!)
This should be enough to make you curious. Take a trip on wikipedia, and maybe start
exactly from here :)
19.03.2006
17.03.2006 Friday
Too good it's friday :) This week seemed to never end and this was another really long day.
The system at Evolution Bassilichi Services is up and running. It moves 15 persons.
Time to study a lot now.
want more ?
... really ? :D
Browse around then.
You're viewing 5 posts per page: you can view more or less, if you want.
The entries marked in red are the ones you're viewing now.
| 