The Zana Zen

External links in Wikipedia are links to websites that contain information that is relevant to the article at which they appear, most often they are resources that the author used in order to compile his article at Wikipedia. It was interesting for me to find out what are the top 100 domain names that Wikipedia articles are linking to.

I downloaded the Wikipedia backup from the 11/30/2006 and created a PHP script that would create those statistics. I hereby release the statistics I managed to gather from the Wikipedia backup and the source code of the PHP script (please excuse me for the mess, and the CRLFs ) that helped me create those statistics, for those of you who would like to play with it a bit more.

Technical Details

The PHP script moves through the backup file and finds the wikitext of each page (Wikipedia entry), then it parses the wikitext and finds out external links. I designed a simple database that will hold the results, it has an articles table which holds an id and title for each article, and an external links table which holds, for each external link, the domain name and the article id of where it appears. So at the end, after having the database fed with gathered data, the following query calculates the statistics: “select domain_name, count(*) from tbl_exlinks group by domain_name order by 2 desc limit 100;”

The PHP script creates a directory which holds some generated .sql files, which are being executed using the mysql command line tool. I also created a python script that will help me execute them.

The Statistics

en.wikipedia.org has 679597 links.
www.google.com has 81208 links.
www.findagrave.com has 44549 links.
www.britannica.com has 43854 links.
babelfish.altavista.com has 37437 links.
news.bbc.co.uk has 29627 links.
www.allmusic.com has 20782 links.
www.imdb.com has 17460 links.
books.google.com has 17092 links.
www.geocities.com has 15135 links.
www.bbc.co.uk has 10355 links.
www.myspace.com has 10175 links.
www.google.co.uk has 7961 links.
www.nytimes.com has 7805 links.
tools.wikimedia.de has 7210 links.
www.amazon.com has 7185 links.
www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov has 5848 links.
maps.google.com has 5816 links.
www.washingtonpost.com has 5494 links.
www.guardian.co.uk has 5434 links.
www.youtube.com has 5212 links.
www.opsi.gov.uk has 4993 links.
planetmath.org has 4979 links.
www.cnn.com has 4927 links.
web.archive.org has 4703 links.
www.jewishencyclopedia.com has 4622 links.
www.mindat.org has 4552 links.
www.newadvent.org has 4356 links.
www.webmineral.com has 4145 links.
www.baseball-reference.com has 3616 links.
www.cbc.ca has 3613 links.
www.pbs.org has 3587 links.
www.findarticles.com has 3414 links.
www.parl.gc.ca has 3295 links.
www.abc.net.au has 3162 links.
www.nationalregisterofhistoricplaces.com has 2875 links.
www.aafla.org has 2818 links.
www.tv.com has 2692 links.
www.rollingstone.com has 2673 links.
www.angelfire.com has 2663 links.
www.perseus.tufts.edu has 2639 links.
www.gutenberg.org has 2628 links.
www.flheritage.com has 2611 links.
news.yahoo.com has 2556 links.
www.lib.utexas.edu has 2505 links.
www.timesonline.co.uk has 2489 links.
www.history.navy.mil has 2478 links.
members.aol.com has 2472 links.
imdb.com has 2471 links.
www.flickr.com has 2471 links.
www.biographi.ca has 2412 links.
groups.yahoo.com has 2379 links.
www.nba.com has 2348 links.
sports.espn.go.com has 2322 links.
www.fallingrain.com has 2305 links.
www.nps.gov has 2271 links.
de.wikipedia.org has 2215 links.
www.globalsecurity.org has 2213 links.
www.time.com has 2162 links.
www.cricinfo.com has 2127 links.
www.telegraph.co.uk has 2110 links.
www.usatoday.com has 2107 links.
www.msnbc.msn.com has 2099 links.
www.ethnologue.com has 2060 links.
www.hockeydb.com has 2056 links.
video.google.com has 2042 links.
groups.google.com has 2006 links.
www.pantheon.org has 1993 links.
www-history.mcs.st-andrews.ac.uk has 1977 links.
www.mobygames.com has 1945 links.
www.smh.com.au has 1909 links.
bioguide.congress.gov has 1897 links.
query.nytimes.com has 1878 links.
www.census.gov has 1815 links.
www.npr.org has 1810 links.
www.bartleby.com has 1808 links.
www.submission.info has 1794 links.
www.un.org has 1781 links.
www.discogs.com has 1779 links.
www.cia.gov has 1777 links.
www.alexa.com has 1774 links.
www.microsoft.com has 1723 links.
www.theage.com.au has 1692 links.
www.forbes.com has 1686 links.
www.gamespot.com has 1669 links.
www.boston.com has 1665 links.
www.gcr1.com has 1644 links.
www.nscb.gov.ph has 1638 links.
www.defenselink.mil has 1631 links.
www.wizards.com has 1606 links.
www.navsource.org has 1599 links.
www.t-macs.com has 1582 links.
www.probertencyclopaedia.com has 1558 links.
www.uefa.com has 1552 links.
www.sfgate.com has 1542 links.
www.state.gov has 1525 links.
www.reuters.com has 1517 links.
www.archive.org has 1509 links.
adsabs.harvard.edu has 1508 links.
nces.ed.gov has 1486 links.

This HOWTO describes how do debug a Windows HVM domain under the Xen 3.0.3 virtual machine monitor using Windbg. It is taken for granted that you know how to debug a local windows using a serial modem cable, and that you know how to manage Xen virtual machines, these issues are not going to be addressed in this howto.

In order to remotely debug a windows HVM using Windbg we’ll create a setup that will allow us to do so. You’ll basically need to have a network connection (that supports TCP/IP) between the host and target (the one that is being debugged) machines.

Target Computer Configuration

Let’s start with the Windows virtual machine (HVM) – Start Windows (using xm create…) and once it started, open the boot.ini file with your favourite text editor. Duplicate the right boot line that is booting the installation of Windows that you want to debug, in the new line, add the following boot switches: “/debug /debugbreak /debugport=COM1″ (the serial baud rate default value is 19200).

Your new line should look something like this:

multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS=”Microsoft Windows XP Professional” /fastdetect /debug /debugbreak /debugport=COM1

Save the file and shut-down the VM, open your HVM’s config file with a text editor. Make sure that the line “serial = ‘pty’” exists there, if it’s not than add it, but be sure that your Xen version supports this “feature”.

Now, launch the VM and attach the STDIN/STDOUT of the console (mapped to the HVM’s COM1 device) to a socket that you create with netcat:

xm create xp1
netcat -lk -p 4444 -c “xm console domain_id”

The second command creates a TCP socket and listens on port 4444. The INPUT and OUTPUT of the HVM COM1 serial port is now redirected to that socket. Not all versions of netcat on linux supports the -c switch, If you don’t have the right version of Netcat, then you can download it from here. We are now ready to configure the host computer.

Host Computer Configuration

At the host machine, which runs a native installation of Windows, we will create a virtual serial port that is associated with the target computer’s socket that we’ve created. In order to do that, we will use a tool called HW VSP (Virtual Serial Port), It is made by a company named Hw-Group which specialized in hardware kits. Anyway, the INPUT/OUTPUT of the serial port that you are going to create with HW-VSP will be redirected to the target’s remote socket. Write the target computer’s IP and port (4444), and name your virtual serial port COM5. This closes the loop between the HVM COM1 serial port and the local virtual serial port that you created.

Before you go and create the virtual serial port, you’ll have to configure HW-VSP not to use NVT, a feature that encapsulates the data being sent over the network for the virtual serial port, and not to use TEA based authentication. See the following image:

That’s pretty much about it. Run windbg. Go to File->Kernel Debug.. and choose the virtual serial port you had created (COM5), specify the value 19200 for the baud rate. Press OK. You are ready to debug that HVM. Press ‘g’ to let Windows run after the debug break.

Some notes

It is possible to debug a Windows HVM from a windbg process that runs on anohter Windows HVM, but this can be accomplished pretty much in the same way that I described in this howto.

Comments and suggestions are welcome!

Update – 19/08/2008

Instead of using netcat, you can use the inetd service to redirect the i/o of the virtual serial port to a socket. This is more useful and easy since it is done automatically when you create the hvm. In order to do that you will have to edit these files: (I assume your hvm config file is called vistasp1)

• /etc/inetd.conf – add this line at the end: “windbg_vistasp1 stream tcp nowait root /usr/sbin/tcpd xm console vistasp1″
• /etc/services – add this line: “windbg_vistasp1 4444/tcp”

It’s time for a bit of philosophy

It made clear to me, the meaning of money is “Making people do things for you”. In our lives, we have different goals, and in those paths to achieve those goals, we need other people’s help. We do not want to be bothered with sewing our own clothes, or picking oranges by ourselves.

It is the same when you are working for someone, he pays you to do whatever he wants, and it’s the same when one company pays another company for it’s services. We all try to make money in order to make other people do things for us.

Now, this is clear, but if we will give it a little thought we can see that rich people succeeded to be elevated than the others and they just got more people to do what they want.

Thinking that money equals a new mp3 player or a new TV set is just limited thinking.

So, the bottom line is money == people’s power.

If this is the meaning, then if you can make other people do things for you by other means, it’s like saving money. Charismatic people for instance are just born to be rich.

I came to think about it and it settles very good in my mind. Money… Personally, I look at money like a game, it’s like “points” for me. My goal is to achieve as many points as I can in order to win in this game of life.

I just had an enlightenment!

How far would all those companies go for marketing? How the future looks like?

The thing about commercials is that they “control the herd” in some way. Commercials are everywhere, in any place and they control your mind eventually that you start thinking that if you’ll follow, you will take part in this big mainstream.

50 years ago, the situation wasn’t so provocative like it is on these days. Every couple of years someone decides to be provocative to promote his business, and he drags everybody into a new level of “allowed provocativeness”, it happen in small doses (or else it wouldn’t work), so that it creates a linear line, and the end can be seen already. Today, sexy women sells you almost everything, even math books.

As I see it, future marketing will be based on sex, and I mean it in the full meaning of the word, porn if you would like. Eager people that want to get rich will strive humanity closer and closer to this point. Future commercials will try so hard to stand-out because there would be just too many of them that turning into sex will be inevitable.

Let’s hope that it will happen fast enough for us to enjoy it

http://www.sun.com/emrkt/blackbox/index.jsp

I’m wondering about their marketing landing page, it’s kind of dull, some videos, podcasts and blogs, they should learn what they can do with their budget. Intel beat everybody with their “Second Life” Core Duo campaign last week.

After watching the video at Sun’s website I tought about something:

A unit like this can be worth millions (depending on the data that it contains). I can imagine a fiction future scenario that a special crew steals the whole datacenter in “one shot”. If I were them, I wouldn’t mention the roof and stick to the basement