For each process, the virtual address space looks like this:
------------------ 2^32 - 1
Stack (grows down)
v v v v v v v v v
------------------

(unmapped)

------------------ Maximum stack size.


(unmapped)


-------------------
mmap
-------------------


(unmapped)


-------------------
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
brk (grows up)
-------------------
BSS
-------------------
Data
-------------------
Text
-------------------

------------------- 0
The kernel maintains a list of pages that belong to each process, and synchronizes that with the paging.
If the program accesses memory that does not belong to it, the kernel handles a page-fault, and decides what to do:
  • if it is above the maximum stack size, allocate those pages to the process
  • otherwise, send a SIGSEGV to the process, which usually kills it
When an ELF file is loaded by the kernel to start a program with the exec system call, the kernel automatically registers text, data, BSS and stack for the program.
The brk and mmap areas can be modified by request of the program through the brk and mmap system calls. But the kernel can also deny the program those areas if there is not enough memory.
brk and mmap can be used to implement malloc, or the so called "heap".
mmap is also used to load dynamically loaded libraries into the program's memory so that it can access and run it.
Calculating exact addresses Things are complicated by:
x86 Paging Tutorial / Sample code Updated 2025-07-16
Like everything else in programming, the only way to really understand this is to play with minimal examples.
What makes this a "hard" subject is that the minimal example is large because you need to make your own small OS.
Cycling in the United Kingdom Updated 2025-07-16
The United Kingdom is a great place to cycle in general as there's plenty of small country roads and interesting new small towns to discover, perhaps much like the rest of Europe, as opposed to the United States, which likely has some huge infinitely long straight roads with a lot of nothing in between.
Of particular interest is the large amount of airfields and small air raid shelters in the fields, an ominous reminder of world war 2. The airfields are in various states, from functional military fields, many converted to civilian usage, some have barely any tarmac left but still see usage. And some were just completely abandoned and decayed and became recreation grounds and farms. The UK is therefore also a great place to be if you want to learn to fly as a hobby!
Cysteine Updated 2025-07-16
Intel GPU Updated 2025-07-16
D Updated 2025-07-16
Dance of the Yi People Updated 2025-07-16
Composed by Wang Huiran in 1960.
The Yi people are one of the 55 Chinese ethnic minorities officially recognized by the Chinese government.
Video 1.
Dance of the Yi People performed by Liu Dehai
. Source. From the album Chinese Plucked Instruments: Vol. 2 - Fishermen’s Song At South Sea: www.amazon.co.uk/Chinese-Plucked-Instruments-Fishermens-South/dp/B001HUECZQ (2004)
Video 2.
Dance of the Yi People performed by Wu Man (2021)
Source. Presented by the Aga Khan Music Program.
Dan Kaminsky Updated 2025-07-16
A superstar security researcher with some major exploits from in the 2000's.
Schön scandal Updated 2025-07-16
One is reminded of Nick Leeson.
One things must be said: the root cause of all of this is the replication crisis.
This is why he managed to go on for so long.
People felt it was normal to have to try for one or two years to replicate a paper.
Video 1.
The man who almost faked his way to a Nobel Prize by BobbyBroccoli (2021)
Source. Playlist: www.youtube.com/watch?v=nfDoml-Db64&list=PLAB-wWbHL7Vsfl4PoQpNsGp61xaDDiZmh&index=1
Theory of everything Updated 2025-07-16
As of 2019, the Standard Model and general relativity are incompatible. Once those are unified, we will have one equation to describe the entirety of physics.
There are also however also unsolved problems in electroweak interaction + strong interaction, which if achieved is referred to as a Grand Unified Theory. Reaching a GUT is considered a sensible intermediate step before TOE.
The current state of Physics has been the result of several previous unifications as shown at: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theory_of_everything#Conventional_sequence_of_theories so it is expected that this last missing unification is likely to happen one day, potentially conditional on humanity having enough energy to observe new phenomena.
David Tong Updated 2025-07-16
A charismatic, perfect-English-accent (Received Pronunciation) physicist from University of Cambridge, specializing in quantum field theory.
He has done several "vulgarization" lectures, some of which could be better called undergrad appetizers rather, a notable example being Video "Quantum Fields: The Real Building Blocks of the Universe by David Tong (2017)" for the prestigious Royal Institution, but remains a hardcore researcher: scholar.google.com/citations?hl=en&user=felFiY4AAAAJ&view_op=list_works&sortby=pubdate. Lots of open access publications BTW, so kudos.
The amount of lecture notes on his website looks really impressive: www.damtp.cam.ac.uk/user/tong/teaching.html, he looks like a good educator.
David has also shown some interest in applications of high energy mathematical ideas to condensed matter, e.g. links between the renormalization group and phase transition phenomena. TODO there was a YouTube video about that, find it and link here.
Ciro Santilli wonders if his family is of East Asian, origin and if he can still speak any east asian languages. "Tong" is of course a transcription of several major Chinese surnames and from looks he could be mixed blood, but as mentioned at www.ancestry.co.uk/name-origin?surname=tong it can also be an English "metonymic occupational name for a maker or user of tongs". After staring at his picture for a while Ciro is going with the maker of tongs theory initially.

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