A surprise about random IO versus unnecessary IO

Here is a tough trick question: which is better, a mailbox format whereall the messages are just concatenated together (eg, traditional Unixmbox) or a mailbox format where everything is concatenated togetherbut you have an index of the starting byte offsets of every message'sheaders and body (an indexed mbox format)?

(Assume that there is no overhead for maintaining the index.)

Some years ago, I would have confidently told you that the indexed mboxformat was clearly better, and it was obviously more


潮熊熊抱Coke Zero

皆因我為人節儉(查實是孤寒),本來,對那些什麼潮牌,我一概沒甚興趣,但某天,當我手上拿起一罐新近的特別版 Coke Zero ,發覺罐上那隻樣衰衰、幪著眼、抱著另一頭小熊和一支電結他的啤啤熊插圖時,我便按奈不住,開始為

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亞洲電影節選映《策馬入林》


今屆亞洲電影節 (HKAFF) 為資深攝影師 李屏賓 作回顧展, 《策馬入林》(Run Away, 1984) 榜上有名, 令我十分意外 .

《策馬入林》
第30屆亞太影展最佳攝影獎, 李屏賓早年的作. 記憶所及, 台灣曾舉行的中影回顧展, 《策

精武風雲---陳真("Legend of the Fist The Return of Chen Zhen") ------ The film got no soul!!!
























片名 : 精武風雲---陳真 (2010)
導演 : 劉偉強
演員 : 甄子丹, 舒淇, 黃秋生, 黃渤
片長 : 106 分鐘

1. 自從"無間道"之後,劉偉強似乎已沒有拍過好作品(也許是有的,只是我忘了,讀者可以提點一下),令人覺得
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簡單心

不少人喜歡說要以平常心看世事,尤其是看人生的起跌和別人對自己的毀譽。「平常心」本為佛家語,馬祖道一謂「平常心是道」,《景德傳燈錄》說得詳盡點:「若欲直會其道,平常心是道。謂平常心無造作、無是非、無取捨

Pentax 645+FUJI VELIVA 50正片+Pentax67 75 4.5

本想這一次一定沒問題,把pentax 645的iso 調成50,用FUJI VEIVA 50正片,萬無一失。可惜手痕痕,為我的pentax 645裝上了pentax 67的鏡頭,結果因為失光,要加一點ev,又沒有加,唉,低曝了。

成像的效果因為沒有低曝得太利害,令

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無知 • 白開水 • 蘇格蘭威士忌

美國特拉華州共和黨參議員候選人Christine O’Donnell因為初選以冷門勝出,且得到茶黨(Tea Party)支持,大受傳媒注視。O’Donnell是個基要派基督徒,她以往的極端保守言論,現在都給傳煤挖出來了;例如大約十年前,她便公開大力反對自慰

Why Grub2 doesn't solve my Ubuntu kernel problem

A commentator on this entry asked what soundslike a good question: why don't I have Grub2 boot the older kernel that Iwant to use, instead of removing the newer one?

The problem is that it's not a robust solution. The first and largestissue is that what I really want to do is enforce a negative ('neverboot this specific kernel'), but the only tool Grub gives me is apositive one ('boot this specific kernel'). There are a


Why there is no POSIX standard for a Unix GUI

The other day I was reading A Tale of Two Standards ,where Jeremy Allison mentions in passing:

Interestingly enough the SUS doesn't cover such things as the graphical user interface (GUI's)elements, as the history of Unix as primarily a server operatingsystem meant that GUI's were never given the importance needed forUnix to become a desktop system.

I don't think that this is the real reason that there is no POSIX orequivalent standard for Unix graphical user interfaces. Because I am a


想得太多系列︰男人小便

偶然想起一些已經回答得太多的經典問題,也許會感到有趣,因為它之所以經典,來自於其豐富的內涵和多端的變化,在不同的人生階段和處境之下,竟然都可以發掘出新一堆點子。這些問題就如「人生的意義」、「哲學是甚麼