Madd Matt's New Writeups

signal (thing)

2001-08-15T21:59:30Z

In the context of the Unix operating system family, "signal" refers to a specific operating system construct by which a process is informed of the occurance of some asynchronous event.

If you want to know more, then you will want to look at this node.

SIGSTOP (thing)

2001-08-15T08:09:41Z

After a process receives a SIGSTOP it is typically described as "suspended", since the scheduler is no longer allocating CPU cycles to the process but otherwise it is business as usual.

SIGSTOP holds a special place in the Unix signal pantheon, as it is one of the only two signals that a process is NOT allowed to catch, block, or ignore. The only other signal that has this special status is SIGKILL.

One means of sending the SIGSTOP signal to a process is through your shell. All commonly used Unix shells follow the convention of interpreting the Control-Z (i.e. ^Z) key stroke as an instruction to send SIGSTOP to the current foreground process, causing it to suspend and allow the shell to accept new commands. The process can then be reactivated (by sending a SIGCONT) using the shell builtin fg (which returns the process to the foreground) or bg which causes the reactivated process to become a background process.

John Brunner (person)

2001-08-15T01:52:13Z

John Killian Houston Brunner was born in Oxfordshire, England in 1934 and died in Glasgow, Scotland in 1995. He wrote a massive number of novels and short stories, some of them published under the pen names "K. H. Brunner", "Gill Hunt", "Keith Woodcott Brunner", "Trevor Staines", and "John Loxsmith". He held very strong views on social and political systems (considering all extant examples in the modern world flawed), and these opinions heavily influence his writing. History will probably remember him for having first coined the word "worm" to describe a type of computer program that spreads through a computer network and subverts the resources of the network towards the goals of the programmer (i.e. a computer virus).

Of his works that I have read, I would particularly recommend "The Sheep Look Up".…

Amok (idea)

2001-08-15T01:01:53Z

While "amok" is typically described as an Indonesian word, it is actually a word of Malay origin. The traditional Malay language has been the dominant lingua franca in the region that these days contains the countries of Indonesia, Malaysia, and Singapore. As a result the modern languages spoken in these countries (Bahasa Indonesia and Bahasa Malayu) are heavily based on this old language. Thus the word "amok" is present in both of them.

Personally I suspect that the word is so commonly associated with Indonesia because in this country the dominant island (politically and economically) is Java (that's where the capital Jakarta is). Java just happens to be the most densely populated island in the world, so they have more then their fair share of people running amok there.

Music Has the Right to Children (thing)

2001-08-14T23:56:34Z

This album is on my list of "Greatest Albums Ever". When I think "trip hop" I think this album, though I suspect many would question this judgement.

It features excellent beats that ride the fine line between hip hop and drum n bass. These beats have that groovey back beat syncopation that shouts "old school funk". But also they ooze an oomph and crunchiness that one usually finds in drum n bass and other forms of electronica, yet they never descend to the crass phonic abuse and pointlessly irritating breakbeating that drum n bass so often does. Additionally the tracks on this album feature increadible harmonic depth that somehow seems to sway between stark ice-cold beauty and warm smothering comeliness. Crusty synthesiser noises, samples from film soundtracks, and more are blended with the care, precision, and taste that one would expect from the…

Gladiator (thing)

2001-08-13T23:25:49Z

Gladiator is not just a type of person that fights for mass entertainment, not just the name of a movie that won five awards at the 2001 Oscars, but also the name of an arcade game release by Taito in 1986 in the US and Europe. It can also be found as a bootleg under the name "Golden Castle", and in Japan under the name "Ougon No Siro".

The game is an early example of the beat-em-up genre, in which you control the valiant armoured warrior "Guaranos". You battle a series of computer-controlled enemies in one-on-one contests interspersed with side-scrolling "obstacle course" stages in which you dodge flying knives and so forth. The controls use three buttons to make high, middle, and low attacks with your sword, while the joystick allows you to position your shield at one of these three positions. …