It seems like Windows is having a good laugh at us. When setting up a webcast, suddenly the following pop-up appeared.
No avail in trying to get rid of it. Other than rebooting, that is.
Archive for February, 2007
Thou shalt not reboot later!
Friday, February 23rd, 2007HPM interrupt handling
Wednesday, February 21st, 2007Getting exact process information is tough, especially when the tool one uses is not behaving as one expects. To ease the matter somewhat, I drew a graph that show exactly how perfctr calls the interrupt handler and sets the offending process’ signal.
The idea is to assemble correct information on the event counts per fixed intruction count interval of e.g., 100M instructions. However, due to the non-deterministic nature of a multitasking kernel, sometimes we see IPC values that are … unexpected. Hopefully this graph sets us on the right track once more. In normal circumstances, having a few counts off track, is not too bad, but for the work we’re currently doing, we require correct counts.
Recipe: Turkey in sweet-sour sauce
Tuesday, February 20th, 2007You should prepare this dish a day in advance, as the meat is best when it can absorb the flavours in the sauce.
Preparation time: about 1.5 hours.
Ingredients (for 4 people):
- 1kg of turkey (alternatives: chicken of porc)
- 250g mushrooms
- 6 spoons filled with raisins
- 6 spoons filled with small onions
- 30g of mashed tomatoes
- dark maïzena (binder)
- 1 cube of sugar
- 1 glass of port
- 100ml of cream.
- Salt, pepper, paprika
How to do it:
1. Chop the turkey into square block with 6 cm sides
2. Clean the mushrooms, slice them.
3. Bake the mushrooms in some olive oil. Don’t forget to close the lid.
4. Meanwhile, bake the turkey, so all sides are light brown. You need not bake it thoroughly, as we’ll boil it afterwards. Do remember that, as with all poultry, you must make sure that all parts of the flesh are heated well, at 100º celcius, to kill of all the bacteria (unless you have a desire to kill somebody, that is).
5. Add the turkey to the mushrooms, and stir the lot. Close the lid. There should still be enough fluid from the mushrooms in the pot, otherwise add a glass of water.
6. Add the raisins
7. Add the onions
8. Add the port
9. Add the mashed tomatoes
10. Add the sugar cube
11. Add some pepper, a grain of salt, and a sniff of paprika. You can add a (chicken) boullion cube, if you like.
Make sure the meat is submerged, otherwise, add either water or port. Stir the lot. Cook for at least 45 minutes, and then leave to cool. The next day, before serving:
12. Heat, and add the cream, add the maïzena to bind the sauce. Make sure to get it to boil, so the sauce binder can do its job properly.
Serve for example with beans rolled in bacon, steamed pears with berries, and croquettes. Don’t hesitate to make a bit extra, as the rest can be kept in the freezer quite easily.
Monument Battle (Monumentenstrijd)
Tuesday, February 20th, 2007Yes! The Ghent University Library did not win. Now can you please, please, please stop spamming us?
Vista Speech Recognition
Monday, February 19th, 2007I guess we will not be programming in Vista using speech control anytime soon 
Of course, nobody in his right mind would even try it, but I think this makes for a hilarious video nonetheless. I cannot say if the speech recognition works for the stuff it’s actually meant for, as I have no (and never will) a Microsoft Vista Operating (ahem) System.
Wii
Monday, February 19th, 2007Last Saturday, I had my first Wii experience. We started out playing Wii sports. Tennis was uber-fun, boxing seemed not that much fun, but that might have been because we only had a single remote with a nunchack, so we had to play against the machine. We then moved on to the Raving Rabbits, which was great fun, but very tiresome for some games. My arms still ache a bit. The dancing and island running was cool, though one must overcome any fear of making a fool out of himself at first. Finally, we returned to Wii sports, played some more tennis and finished the evening (or rather, the night) with a game of golf.
I like the tennis best, because it feel most like you really are playing a human opponent, unlike golf, where you have to sit around and wait. The worse your opponent, the longer the wait. So, if I would ever buy a Wii, tennis will be played abundantly. I do think that, while the interface is good to play with initially, if you play a lot, you might yearn for some more control over your tennising avatar. I’m not sure if that’s possible, but using other input besides the timing of the swings might be useful, e.g., using the nunchack.
Anyway, a great experience, and my girl seemed to like it too. So, I’m having high hopes for the future
Spam@work
Thursday, February 8th, 2007For the past months, all Ghent university employees and students have been spammed on a regular basis, to ask them to cast their vote in favour of a Ghent University building that is competing in a TV show, to get refurbished. The show will select one monument in Flanders for getting fixed back to its original state, as the government seems to have too little money to keep our monuments intact.
I can see that the upper echelons would want to let us know that we can actually vote, should we not have watched that TV show (which I didn’t). But to keep sending out these emails on a regular basis, to all employees and students, just seems quite unethical to me. By now, we know! And asking us to ask our friends and family to vote for this particular building seems to take it a step further.
And it’s not even a cool building. To put it simple: it’s butt ugly (YMMV). During WWII, the Germans had occupied the university library, and mounted anti-aircraft defenses on its top. Meanwhile, they apparently had decadent parties on the upper floors. If there was one building the English should have levelled with the ground, this was probably it. A pity for the books, but IMO, there are far better looking libraries, e.g., in Seattle.
So please, stop spamming us. I’m not casting any vote, and should I cast one, I’d certainly not vote for the university library. I like the King’s Stables in Ostend far better.