Welcome to Alan's Internet-Music (iMusic) Album. I thank God for giving me this love for music, performing and a complementing thick skin. Diary of my stay in Edinburgh and the influence of music in my life.
If one has $280 to spare, he/she should really get this vacuum. Remote control, NASCAR-themed, looks quite cool and probably quite powerful. Know quite a bit about vacuums now cause my Christian Fellowship leader is quite a cleanliness freak and we've just bought him a Black and Dekker handheld 12V 35W vacuum. Very nice to play with. So now, every time we go to his house, we would purposely throw some crumbs on the carpet just to use the vacuum:))
In about exactly a month's time, I shall set foot on my adopted motherland, the land of coolness! The land that has given us fine supercars (Ferrari, Lamborghini and Bugatti). The land that has given us excellent actors (Marlon Brando, Robert De Niro and Al Pacino (all Godfathers:P)). Did I mention great food as well? Yup, Rome and Florence here I come. Going with four other friends. Unfortunately, I wont be able to drop Maranello for a cup of tea with Jean Todt and his new assistant, some guy called Schumacher or something (I think he's German). I suppose, I can do it when I'm ready to buy my first Ferrari (by then it'll probably be Ferrari 1000099 (current models are 430, 599 and 612)). I'll carry on my wishful thinking and then get back to studying XML, RDF, Web Services etc.
Wish I could say this anagram thing was my original idea (which would be quite disturbing) but it isnt (Thank God). Got the idea from itv-f1's Gravel Trap (F1 Jokes) article on Adrian Sutil (which can be translated to Staid Urinal:))
Fernando Alonso? Find out yourself:P It's quite bad as well. Hint: Look for the synonym for "touch":))
Just give these two young chaps a fast and reliable car and the tifosi will be celebrating again this year after a two-year drought. Cant wait for the F1 season to start again in March!
Such a sleek and beautiful looking device, it can only come from Apple. It's the Apple iPhone that comes with a full touch screen, built-in iPod (basically means mp3 + video player), motion sensors to detect portrait landscape mode. It even detects when the phone is brought to the ears and automatically reduce the display brightness and reduce the touch screen sensitivity so that users wont accidentally end the call while on the phone. Nice! But the nice part is that it runs OS X or at least a minimized version of it. Pretty cool (for a geek at least:P). Available only in US. Will be available in Europe in Q4 2007 and Asia, 2008. Just in time when my current O2 contract ends:) Summary of its features at Macrumors.
Leng Chye just told me he went to try shooting (real guns! real bullets!) at City Square Shooting Gallery. Only RM100 for 50 bullets. So cool! Must try it next time I go back Malaysia.
I know it's a bit weird but here's another song I've recorded that is originally sung by a female singer. This time it's 担心（Dan Xin) by 陈洁仪 (Kit Chan)
Apologies that the conversion by youtube isnt that good. The syncing between video and audio is a bit problematic. Can download the full version here.
As you've probably noticed by now, I've gotten a haircut:P I wanted to keep it like for a year but I just cannot stand it. I've only managed to maintain it for 4 months. (this sounds even more girlish, so I shall stop talking about this anymore:P) G Bm 我的你总是迟疑 C D7 连吻别也要隔著玻璃 G Bm E 我的你在我指缝间远离去 --- C D 这城市太过拥挤 Bm E 满座的爱情电影 C D 我用力推不开回忆 --- G 担心你的担心 C 怕你将我想起 Bm Em 在那微寒的夜寂寞来寻 C D 最好是屏住你的呼吸 G G/B 哦...担心我的担心 C 你就这样放心 Bm Em 我却如此愿意竟然愿意 C D 用白天用黑夜 G 用思念拥著你
It's been a great month! Just relaxing, waking up late, watch shows (Mythbusters (all geeks and non-geeks would love this show!) and Guess Guess Guess (Taiwan variety show hosted by Jacky Wu, darn funny!). First Christmas and New Year celebrated outside Malaysia. Wow... just the thought of it and the journey the Lord has brought me along these past years... quite overwhelming.. The sense of gratitude to God, my family, my cell members in Malaysia, friends in Malaysia, in UK and in Edinburgh. I really do feel so blessed.
Just a quick update on what I did during Christmas and New Year. Spent 6 days in South of England (Cambridge, Reading, Didcot and London) with my MMU buddies and chums. Went down on the 23rd Dec. The amazing thing was that I didnt sleep at all the previous night. Guess what I did? I actually played Mah Jong!!! Yes. Of all things to pick up in UK, the last I expected was Mah jong but somehow I did. And I learned it from these kids who are like 2-3 years younger than me!! Except 1 guy la...my fellowship leader whereby the word young would be an understatement when used to describe him:P
Anyway, I'm digressing. Just played monopoly, poker, Risk (Lord of the Rings version, so darn complicated since you have know the middle-earth map instead of the world map), tai di and bridge (this is another new game I've learned, very very addictive and so fun). Guess, life in UK is mostly about indoors, so you really gotta learn to love indoor games, board and card based (it's not the end of this story yet, btw:P). Helped Chuan to cook a roast duck as well:
Noticed the end product on the table. Edible and not too bad. Receipe was given by Chuan (long haired gay guy on my left in the photo)'s friend who owns a restaurant in Cambridge.
Did some shopping in Reading in London as well. Bought a big bag pack (70+10 litre), 2 new shirts from NEXT and a new windproof/waterproof/heat-containing jacket, which surprising comes with a secret function:
Oh yes! It makes nice sound effects for kung fu moves. As you can see, when Siow Yuen (our host in Reading) held her digicam in video mode, I was "obliged" to do a demo:P More photos here.
Had some duck and char siew at London Chinatown day after boxing day. Photo taken by Shirley Ong, whose camera obviously have some problem since it made everyone in the photo look fatter than normal:))
Went back to Edinburgh to celebrate New Year. Attended this year's Torchlight Procession, a yearly Edinburgh celebration. If you're in Edinburgh on 29 Dec, you must attend this! Everyone will meet at the Parliament Square near Royal Mile. You can buy torches for £5 each (it's for charity) and everyone will start walking down the Mound, along Princess Street towards Carlton Hill. Then a small (and I mean really small) Viking ship will be set on fire. They'll also set fire to a bear (not a real one la, it's made of straw, I think). Then fireworks willl be set off. Wow, it's quite a view to see fireworks from really close by. Nice!
Apologies! Got side comments in the video. Not very professional, I know!
Spent New Year eve's eve at Glasgow, a good brother treated a few of us to watch Night at the Musuem at the Imax Theatre in the Glasgow Science Centre. It was absolutely fantastic! The generosity and graciousness of the people I've met here is so amazing sometimes! Went to look around Glasgow's shopping area. The sales by then had trickled down, so didnt buy anymore stuff (I know I'm sounding a bit girlish but hey, who doesnt like buying stuff man!)
New Year eve was spent at a friend's place as it was his birthday as well. We played a game called Citadel which is quite cool. We're all quite addicted to it cause we've subsequently played 2 more times and I believe there are many more to come:))
New Year day itself was spent playing mah jong, citadel and watching some movies... all indoor activities..again;)
Well, semester's starting again. Back to work again. Choosing my project next week. Hope to choose an interesting one. Postings would be reducing soon.
She's got a good voice and unlike the usual divas, she doesnt over-cook the song with like 10 notes per milisecond. Check out her performance with Take That...it's so amazing..
This section of SNL was extremely funny. All the celebrity parodies are just so so funny, especially Sean Connery and his innuendoes. Get em all at youtube, where else?
Bummer... slashdot's losing it a bit. One of their editors just put up a piece of artcile without checking it properly. The news is about Google and Nasa's collaboration. The article's all wrong cause it used an old article to point to a 'new' news. Worst still, the article also contain a link to a blatant internet squatting, GoogleNasa, which was registered to a certain Chris Kemp who seemed to have registered that domain on 29 September 2005, one day after that announcement by NASA. But, it seems that the site's been slashdotted already:)) as can be seen in this screenshot:
Better buck up, slashdot or you'll be losing more readers to digg.
Here's a tongue-twister I thought of. It was caused by one of my cell member in Edinburgh always making fun of people who cant pronounce Vs and Ws properly:P
Vincent and Wilson and are best of buddies, Vincent wants to buy a Volvo, Wilson wants to buy a Volkswagen, And so on their birthdays, Wilson buys Vincent a Volvo, Vincent buys Wilson a Volkswagen.
See if you can read this fast and clear enough:) There's actually a subtle twist within a twist in it, it's for people with problems with Vs and Bs:)
Wow...cant believe I've lost almost 10kg in less than 9 months. When I left Open Source Systems in March 2006, I was like 84-85kg (which sort of qualified me as overweight with a BMI (weight in kg divided by height squared) of 85/(1.82 x 1.82) = 25.7). I started going to the gym in Shell twice a week and after 5 months of consistent attendance, my weight dropped to 80-81kg (BMI 24.5.. still a bit borderline). Then I sort of got side-tracked with that singing competition and so, reduced my sessions to once a week. After coming to Edinburgh, I've mostly walked to places I need to go and guess what, my weight's now 76 kg (BMI 22.8). Hopefully, it's due to healthy living (eating mostly home-cooked food with very little oil and salt and MSG) and consistent exercise:) and the cold temperature probably:) This is so cool:)
Is this true? Is Top Gear's tame racing driver, Stig testing for Vodafone Mclaren-Mercedes F1?? Don't believe me, look at these photos:
Well, not really, it's actually Alonso getting a surprise Christmas gift from Flavio in allowing him to test for Mclaren for a day despite still being contracted to Renault till end of Dec 2006. Because of the contract, he cannot have any other sponsorship associated with him now and so even his car's decals were removed.
Although, I think Alonso probably got his overall colors idea from Renault's previous publicity stunt with Top Gear when Stig did drive the Renault F1 car around the Top Gear track.
Should have seen this coming:)) Sauber Petronas's first supercomputer, Albert was based on AMD Opteron architecture. With Intel now sponsoring BMW Sauber, Albert must have been quite an eye sore in the sponsorship:)) Having worked in a company that was selling small supercomputers (oxymoron here:P), I've realised that it's all just about marketing and exposure. They're not really passionate about technologies and the amazing stuff they can do. It's just about selling more processors. At least that's the case in Malaysia as most of reps here are just marketing people. Gets a bit frustrating dealing with them. Anyway, here's the press release from BMW Sauber:
Albert2, presented on Thursday to international media representatives in Hinwil, is Europe's fastest machine used in industry according to the current Top-500 list. Albert2 is based on Intel processors and employed by the team for computational fluid dynamics (CFD). On average, it is about three times faster than its predecessor.
BMW Motorsport Director Mario Theissen: "Aerodynamics has a crucial influence on the performance of modern Formula 1 cars, with experimental work in the wind tunnel and computational fluid dynamics complementing each other. The launch of Albert2 means a decisive reinforcement of our CFD capacity. Unlike other teams, we are not planning to build a second wind tunnel but will continue to bank on the consistently expanding potential in this area. For the new season, we have set the goal of further reducing the gap to the top. Our new Supercomputer based on Intel technology is an important tool supporting us in this effort."
"The powerful Dual-Core Xeon processors perfectly match the high demand on computing power of the BMW Sauber F1 Team. The cluster based on these processors is one of the fastest in the world running computational fluid dynamic applications,” said Christian Morales, Vice President & General Manager of Intel Europe, Middle East and Africa.“With the move to Multi-Core we are able to meet the future demand on computing power of the BMW Sauber F1 Team for computational fluid dynamics."
Albert2 is based on Intel technology. It has 256 nodes with two Intel Xeon 5160 processors each, and each of these has two cores. This results in a total of 1024 cores. The capacity of the main memory is 2,048 Gbyte, the maximum computing power is 12,288 GFlops.
To illustrate the point for non-computer-experts, this means that Albert2 is capable of performing 12,288,000,000,000 floating-point arithmetic operations per second. To equal this computing power, all the inhabitants of the city of Munich (1.3 million) would have to multiply two eight-digit numbers every three and a half seconds for an entire year.
According to the criteria defined for acceptance in the Top-500 list of Supercomputers, this data makes Albert2 5.5 times faster than its predecessor, Albert. In the field, though - as with any computer - the software used plays a crucial part when it comes to speed. But even when running the complex programs for CFD calculations the increase is immense: when using the Fluent application, the average performance improvement amounts to a factor of three.
The architecture of the Supercomputer was developed by the Swiss company DALCO. A key objective was the achievement of high levels of efficiency as well as very good scalability, meaning that operations can be split among many processors without any significant loss of performance. The software for the CFD calculations is supplied by the German subsidiary of the American company Fluent, Inc., a wholly-owned subsidiary of ANSYS, Inc. since May 2006. Their specialists have been working together with the CFD engineers in Hinwil for several years, optimising the software step by step.
The Intel processors operate inside High Density Racks from American Power Conversion (APC). These combine power supply, cooling and environmental monitoring in an optimised rack construction. The Supercomputer consists of a total of ten racks, each having a width of one metre, a depth of 1.20 metres and a height of 2.30 metres. This results in a total length of nine metres and a total weight of 21 tons.
Albert2's enormous technological potential is used for analyses in the area of aerodynamics. By means of CFD aerodynamics components for Formula 1 cars are calculated on the computer, using numerical grid models that often consist of more than 100 million cells. CFD plays an important part in the development of front, rear and auxiliary wings as well as engine and brake cooling as another key area.
For the CFD specialists, the computing power provided by Albert2 means that they can perform their calculations either at higher speed or greater accuracy. Willem Toet, Head of Aerodynamics for the BMW Sauber F1 Team, says: "Thanks to Albert2 we can calculate more variants and more complex models which, in the end, results in an advantage on the stop watch. Of particular benefit is the system’s good scalability which gives us a very high level of flexibility.” Computational fluid dynamics does not compete with the work in the wind tunnel but complements it. During the development of the front wing, for example, numerous variants are calculated using CFD before the most promising of them are tested on the 60-percent model in the wind tunnel."
"A major advantage of CFD is the ability to simulate the air flow, which enables us to understand why one part is better than another. Consequently, there is a cross-fertilization between simulation and experimental aerodynamics," Toet added.
