There’ an explosion of energy on the FOAF front, due no doubt to the interventions of such power hitters as Joi, Marc, and Shelley. Joi may be the one who started the present rush; as the surge of friends-of-friends rushes past and we begin settling to figuring out what it all means, Marc and Shelley have begun probing some follow-up questions.
Marc is asking about nuanced expressions for friendship, acquaintance, relation, and so on. This seems an appropriate way of handling some delicate distinctions among human relationships, but almost ends up obliging users to say too much. I listed Marc as a “friend” when I was assembling my FOAF profile because, well, we’ve exchanged polite words several times online, and I was desperate for names I might include. Marc seems a cheery and relaxed guy, so I hoped he wouldn’t mind (and it seems he doesn’t —whew!); but he’d be reasonable to object that “friend” overstates our connection. If I thought we were best buddies, though, and he thought I was some guy, the RDF syntax of our relationship might be confusing, and sorting it out might entail some tensions and (perhaps unnecessary) hurt feelings.
Shelley points out that there may be something uncomfortable about specifying the precise texture of our relationships in an open online source. That, too. Although I’m content to support a loose, heuristic web of public relationships, a more fine-grained network could easily amplify the very tech-savvy Homeland Security Department (hey, they adopted Windows as their high-security OS) to find out more about us than we wish.
Meanwhile, Liz said something very provocative on the topic, but it slipped my mind and and I can’t find it on her blog. I may edit this part later to include Liz in the discussion.
Much as I appreciate the nuance that Marc’s entry seems to promise, I suspect that we might gain more meaningful, more fine-tuned information by looking at links: are they all one-way? do they seem to be mutual — that is, nearly-simultaneous — or do they alternate by direction at sporadic intervals? how do complementary links relate the two (do third-party linkers tend to emphasize her rather than me, or me rather than her)? Throw in even a crude whuffie system, and we learn a great deal from public information, learning that doesn’t depend on how each party inflects the word “friend.”
Posted by AKMA at July 23, 2003 05:11 PM | TrackBackSince the Heap has no definite rules as to where it will create space for you, there must be some way of figuring out where your new space is. And the answer is, simply enough, addressing. When you create new space in the heap to hold your data, you get back an address that tells you where your new space is, so your bits can move in. This address is called a Pointer, and it's really just a hexadecimal number that points to a location in the heap. Since it's really just a number, it can be stored quite nicely into a variable.
Posted by: Ciriacus at January 13, 2004 12:34 PMWhen compared to the Stack, the Heap is a simple thing to understand. All the memory that's left over is "in the Heap" (excepting some special cases and some reserve). There is little structure, but in return for this freedom of movement you must create and destroy any boundaries you need. And it is always possible that the heap might simply not have enough space for you.
Posted by: Osmund at January 13, 2004 12:34 PMThe rest of our conversion follows a similar vein. Instead of going through line by line, let's just compare end results: when the transition is complete, the code that used to read:
Posted by: Wombell at January 13, 2004 12:34 PM