Honest to a Segfault

A few weeks back I got a brand new X60 tablet… to replace my relatively new X41 tablet. What can I say? I’m a sucker for high resolution screens… Lots of code and documentation needs to be viewed in parallel, and the X60 has a beautiful SXGA+ (1400×1050) configuration on its little 12″ display (let’s just say it’s a good thing I’m near-sighted). [0] I’m planning on giving the X41 tablet to my sister for the start of her college career, since it’s fully functional, in good condition, and sells for under $800 on ebay.

The Operating Systems Practicum that I’m taking (CS415, my CS project course) forces us to use Microsoft Visual Studio by having a huge, ugly, Windows API-based codebase. I tried to port the first project to make it POSIX compliant, but I couldn’t figure out how to manipulate the stack pointer in gcc assembly — this was necessary to port their user-level threading library implementation. The whole mess was terribly x86 dependent to begin with.

As a result, I need to use Microsoft Visual Studio this semester, and so I decided that I would just squeeze the NTFS partition that Lenovo graciously provided to me, as opposed to obliterating it the first chance that I got. [1] I now dual boot, and many people believe that my leetness level has dropped considerably. To compensate, I did a:

% sudo apt-get install compizconfig-settings-manager

and turned my minimize effect to:

Burn @ 200ms @ (type=Normal|Dialog|ModalDialog|Utility|Unknown)

Which made all my windows go up in flames. Of course, this made me totally leet… for about five minutes, at which point I turned compiz off because I didn’t want Xorg using up unnecessary resources. [2]

[0] My one gripe is that it shipped with a single pixel that’s stuck bright green — single pixels aren’t covered under Lenovo’s pixel replacement policy. Argh!
[1] Not-so-graciously charging me the Windows Tax for an OS that I can get for free through MSDNAA.
[2] More evidence that I’ll probably never be a Mac OS user.

For some reason I find this to be a really suiting characterization of deadlock:

As you’ll recall, Snow White took a bite of the poison apple. This particular poison is an agent with known uses in biological warfare, and puts you to sleep until your true love kisses you awake. Cursing bioterrorism’s name in her last few moments of consciousness, Snow White fell asleep indefinitely.

Prince Charming finds Snow White asleep after some time, but before he kisses her he decides that he’s really hungry and would like a bite to eat. He sees a tasty looking apple conveniently located on a nearby table, and takes a bite. Unfortunately, as you may have guessed, it is the poisonous apple, which hasn’t moved from its original location. [*] Prince Charming also (tragically) falls asleep indefinitely. As consciousness fades away, he clutches Snow White’s limp body, and they stay, deadlocked, in each other’s arms for all eternity.

Awww. [†]