Rapidshare can compress any file to just 16 bytes!!!

Or so it claims:

there is a program which calculates the MD5 checksum for each file immediately after the upload. The MD5 checksum is a 16 bytes value which is alsways the same when calculated for the same file. This value is stored in connection with the file. If you upload and distribute an illegal file, we will delete the file upon notification and add the MD5 checksum to a blacklist, so the same file cannot be uploaded again.

(Emphasis mine).

Now, I really, really, really want to see their blacklist implementation, since obviously it holds the key to the dark art of infinite compression, which is the Holy Grail Of Computer Science, the Universe, and Everything. Yes, the notorious Holy Grail that nobody wants to touch because apparently it's the favorite pooping place for some very special pigeons...

JComboBox pure craziness

Someone asked me why his ItemListener, attached to a JComboBox, was getting two events when he selected something on it. Weird.

I looked up JComboBox' javadocs, just to be sured, and....this is what I found:

Adds an ItemListener.

aListener will receive one or two ItemEvents when the selected item changes.

I understand Swing is a huge framework and it has its rough edges...but this? It certainly looks like someone couldn't fix this strange behavior, and desided to make it a documented feature instead. Way to go!