AMD Opteron notice

AMD Opteron x52 and x54 Processor Production Notice: CPU Frequency Margin Test Escape (from AMD official site) FAQ (from AMD official site) Opteron x52, x54...I think it's unafordable for individual users... :P

Joe's computer

I was asked to fix Joe's computer today as somehow his computer didn't boot up. From its beeps I realised it's caused by the video card or its cable. But apparently the problem is not that all. Some messages about SATA and RAID show up after booting up, and it also looks like some hardwares can hardly be detected. This is solely some mis-setting on BIOS. The biggest problem is that he wants to play online game (World of Warcraft) with this 3-year old machine, with which it's quite hard to play seamlessly. Actually even now the speed of the computer is quite bloody slow for daily use. What he can do is reinstall the whole Winblows Windows system for short term, or upgrade his hardwares for long term's viewpoint. The re-installation itself is not quite a hard task for me; the installation disk is the one Jou borrowed from his friend. As this is illegal version and the system can't be updated from M$'s website, the security issue is quite of concern to me. To play his game smoothly, it's unavailable for Jou to get some new parts and upgrade the spec of the computer (VGA, RAM, CPU, and hence motherboard as well). He said he'd buy new RAM module tomorrow morning. By the way. here is the current spec of Jou's computer (just in case): CPU: AMD Athlon 2100+ MB: Gigabyte 7VAXP Ultra RAM: 256 + 512 MB (I find the 512MB one is not working :P ) HD: Seagate 80G Audio: onboard NIC: onboard (RTL8139)

R 2.2.1 -> R 2.3.0

The R project has relesased the new version of R. As usual, tons of update and new functions have been added in this new release. Rock! CRAN!!

Kerry's got eye infection

This morning we got a phone call from Kerry and said she'd got eye infection and would be off today. I was asked to do her a favor: Collect all towels and lab coats, pop them down to the science store and get new towels, and also get a box of petri dish and niddle.

Earthquake

Quake rocks remote Russian region (on BBC News) 7.7 magnitude...that's much more violent than 921 quake hit Taiwan years ago eh...

Another donation to OpenBSD (OpenSSH) project

GoDaddy.com Donates $10K to Open Source Development Project (on The Hosting News) Another $10k for OpenBSD project (and, again, therefore OpenSSH projct as well). Anyway, when would Sun show their respect to OpenSSH project by way of donation? :P (Huh? I heard they said NEVER)

Discussion with Ray (and David...?)

As I've got some strange result in time-effect test when comparing with Enterococcus faecalis and Pseudomonas aeruginosa, I took those results down to Ray's place and had a small discussion. David was there as well. It looks like this result interested Ray and David, and they even thought this has to do with resistant gene and would like me to screen there genes. Not quite sure what resistnat genes may be responsible to this, Ray asked David which gene should be screened. Guess what David answered - 16S?! (Even Ray was surprised... :P ) Ray pointed out that the volume I'd been using (20ul) is too small and, I should use 100ul-1 ml instead. He also considered that the inoculum density of mine (100,000 CFU/ml) is too heavy and may reduce it down to thousands or even hundreds of CFU/ml. However, 20ul is what we've been using in our lab, and also 100,000 CFU/ml is the standard in CLSI (previously called NCCLS). Dillema...

Flight tonight ?!

Gloria got a message from Vicky, which says ask Pop to ring Vicky's cell phone. After that I knew that Robyn had told Pop to ring her a few minutes ago. Surprisingly, Vicky is gonna take tonight's flight to NZ - because Jessica has got sick. Is this another joke?

Empty email box

What can be more terrible than all emails are missing? Unfortunately this seems happened to Vicky a few hours ago. Is this is a joke?! There is one possibility I can figure out that may cause her emails disappear - when Vicky read them this morning, she (actually the computer she used this morning) had moved all emails FROM EMAIL SERVER to the computer she used this morning. In most case this is due to the setting of email agency (such as Outlook Express). I emailed her and told her if she still need those emails then she can send back those messages from the computer to her own email box - as long as those messages are still kept in that computer (and make sure her email box still got enough space to receive messages; I know her campus email box has been full...:P ). I hope she didn't check her emails in internet cafe this morning, or there could be no chance to rescue her mails back...

Vicky's response

After sending email to Vicky last week, she finally gives me a reponse. Apparently she's always been in a rush in the past days.

Go to Japan! ...Er...not me

Vickly will be abroad in the following 2 weeks; 2 days in Tahiti and the rest 10 days in Japan. It's quite a shame that they are so unorganized. They are supposed to get all luggages ready before today whereas actually they're still looking for something until nearly 9:00am, this morning ! Vickly even hasn't prepared her speech which will be given in Japan...

Mozilla Foundation Donates $10K to OpenSSH

After deRaadt's claiming that the OpenBSD project(and hence OpenSSH as well) is in difficult in their finance weeks ago, Mozilla foundation announces to donate $10K which is a big help to the project. Mozilla Foundation activities, week ending 2006/03/31 - Projects for the week Mozilla Foundation Donates $10K to OpenSSH Although they still need more funding, at least this is a good start.

The PhD game

This is really a funny one (and is also quite a sad one though). The PhD Game

Dorset Naga

I don't like hot or spicy things, but I have to admit I'm a bit of interested in this "super chili. Can Korean bear it? :P Farmers claim to grow hottest chili (on TMCnet.com News) (UPI Quirks in the News Via Thomson Dialog NewsEdge)Two farmers in England claim to grow the world's hottest chili -- the Dorset Naga, which registered a Scoville heat unit of 876,000. The most recent Guinness Book of Records says the Red Savina Habanero, with a rating of 577,000 is the hottest chili -- but Joy and Michael Michaud of West Bexington, England, say they will contact the Guinness Book of Records to claim the record, The Daily Telegraph reported Saturday. The U.S. laboratory that tested the chili -- developed from a variety which originated in Bangladesh -- found it was almost 60 percent hotter than the one listed in the Guinness Book of Records. The results were so surprising the laboratory did a second test, the Michauds said. They said they even have to wear gloves when they harvest the seeds. Most people don't cook with it; they just have it near to them when they eat, said Aktar Miha, of the Indis Bangladeshi restaurant in Bournemouth, England. If you don't know what you are doing it could blow your head off. The chilli so hot you need gloves (on TIMESONLINE) THE world’s hottest chilli pepper does not come from a tropical hot spot where the locals are impervious to its fiery heat but a smallholding in deepest Dorset. Some chillis are fierce enough to make your eyes water. Anyone foolhardy enough to eat a whole Dorset Naga would almost certainly require hospital treatment. The pepper, almost twice as hot as the previous record- holder, was grown by Joy and Michael Michaud in a poly- tunnel at their market garden. The couple run a business called Peppers by Post and spent four years developing the Dorset Naga. They knew the 2cm-long specimens were hot because they had to wear gloves and remove the seeds outdoors when preparing them for drying, but had no idea they had grown a record-breaker. Some customers complained the peppers were so fiery that even half a small one would make a curry too hot to eat. Others loved them and the Michauds sold a quarter of a million Dorset Nagas last year. At the end of last season Mrs Michaud sent a sample to a laboratory in America out of curiosity. The owner had never tested anything like it. According to Mrs Michaud, the hottest habañero peppers popular in chilli-eating competitions in the US generally measure about 100,000 units on the standard Scoville scale, named after its inventor, Wilbur Scoville, who developed it in 1912. At first the scale was a subjective taste test but it later developed into the measure of capsaicinoids present. The hottest chilli pepper in The Guinness Book of Records is a Red Savina habañero with a rating of 570,000 Scoville Heat Units (SHU). Mrs Michaud was stunned when the Dorset Naga gave a reading of nearly 900,000SHU. A fresh sample was sent to a lab in New York used by the American Spice Trade Association and recorded a mouth-numbing 923,000SHUs. Mrs Michaud said: “The man in the first lab was so excited — he’d never had one even half as hot as that. The second lab took a long time because they were checking it carefully as it was so outrageously high.” The Dorset Naga was grown from a plant that originated in Bangladesh. The Michauds bought their original plant in an oriental store in Bournemouth. Mrs Michaud said: “We weren’t even selecting the peppers for hotness but for shape and flavour. There is an element of machismo in peppers that we aren’t really interested in. When the results of the heat tests came back I was gobsmacked.” The couple are now seeking Plant Variety Protection from the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, which will mean that no one else can sell the seeds. Mrs Michaud, 48, has run the company with her husband at West Bexington, near Dorchester, for ten years. Mr Michaud, 56, has been a regular on the television chef Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall’s River Cottage series, advising on vegetable growing. Anyone wanting to try the Dorset Naga will have to be patient as chillis are harvested only from July on. In Bangladesh the chillies grow in temperatures of well over 100F (38C) but in Dorset they thrive in polytunnels. Aktar Miha, from the Indus Bangladeshi restaurant in Bournemouth, said that even in its home country the naga chilli was treated with respect. “It is used in some cooking, mainly with fish curries, but most people don’t cook with it. They hold it by the stalk and just touch their food with it,” he said. “It has a refreshing smell and a very good taste but you don’t want too much of it. It is a killer chilli and you have to be careful and wash your hands and the cutting board. If you don’t know what you are doing it could blow your head off.”