An affinity mask is a bit mask indicating what processor(s) a thread or process should be run on by the scheduler of an operating system. Setting the affinity mask for certain processes running under Windows can be useful as there are several system processes (especially on domain controllers) that are restricted to the first CPU / Core. So, excluding the first CPU might lead to better application performance.
Read more about Affinity Mask: Windows API
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“This is of the loon—I do not mean its laugh, but its looning,—is a long-drawn call, as it were, sometimes singularly human to my ear,—hoo-hoo-ooooo, like the hallooing of a man on a very high key, having thrown his voice into his head. I have heard a sound exactly like it when breathing heavily through my own nostrils, half awake at ten at night, suggesting my affinity to the loon; as if its language were but a dialect of my own, after all.”
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