When you're considering using hashes as indexes, people can wind upsaying that collisions aren't going to be a problem because the hashesare cryptographically sound. At such times, it's important to rememberthe distinction between deliberate hash collisions and accidental hashcollisions.

The distinction between deliberate hash collisions and accidentalones is that an accidental hash collision is one that just happens,while a deliberate hash collision is one that can be produced by anattacker. All hashes that are shorter than their inputs necessarilyhave accidental

Linux virtual terminals have a simple conceptual model; you hit Alt-Fnand the kernel switches you to virtual terminal n. It even works with X,except that you have to remember to hit Ctrl-Alt-Fn when you're in X toswitch out of it. What I suspect many people don't know is that in thecase of X this simple conceptual model is a bit of a lie.

The issue is that text VTs and the X server VT are in different graphicsmodes, so

I spent a large part of today upgrading my office workstation fromFedora Core 6 to Fedora 7 (I wanted to go straight to Fedora 8, buteither I am too impatient or the Fedora 8 installer stalled duringdependency resolution). As usual, I did this by sticking in theFedora 7 DVD and telling it to do an upgrade install.

The problem with this is simple: an up to date machine running an oldFedora can have more recent versions of packages than are on the installmedia for the newer Fedora