Yunliang Yu, IT Senior Manager
 Open source is an investment in the future.
FDS Motto: we serve and empower the faculty.
- Contact Info:
- Office Hours:
- 12:01AM - 12:02AM every other day excluding today.
Not by appt:)
- Specialties:
-
Mathematics
- Famous Sayings:
- Your dream will come true,
if you eat your soup.
--- Angela Yu - Don't be a turkey; read a book.
--- Christina Yu
- To learn and practice what is learned from time to time is pleasure, is it not? To have friends from afar is happiness, is it not? To be unperturbed when not appreciated by others is a gentleman, is it not?
--- Kungfu Zi - Better to light a candle than to curse the darkness.
--- Chinese Proverb 
mathprograms.org, academicjobsonline.org,
mathjobs.org,
ShortURLs.
/. headline news :-)
- Is That Sushi Hazardous To Your Health?
2009-11-23T00:18:00+00:00
pdclarry writes "A recent study by scientists at the American Museum of Natural History and Columbia University found that a piece of tuna sushi may not be tuna at all: 'A piece of tuna sushi has the potential to be an endangered species, a fraud or a health hazard,' wrote the authors. 'All three of these cases were uncovered in this study.' The study, published in PLoS ONE examined 68 samples of tuna sushi purchased from 31 restaurants in Manhattan (New York City) and Denver, Colorado. Some of these were from endangered species, others were not as labeled, and some one not tuna at all. Of these last 5 samples labeled as "white tuna" were from a toxic fish, Escolar, which is a gempylid species banned for sale in Italy and Japan due to health concerns. "It can cause gastrointestinal symptoms range from mild and rapid passage of oily yellow or orange droplets, to severe diarrhea with nausea and vomiting. The milder symptoms have been referred to as keriorrhea [i.e. flow of wax in Greek]." Fraud in sushi is not new; Slashdot also reported study on mislabeling in 2008. This new study shows that some sushi can actually make you sick. The study was also reported in Wired."
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
- Light Resonators Used To Move Nano-Sized Objects
2009-11-22T23:03:00+00:00
ElectricSteve writes "Scientists at Cornell University report they can now use a light beam carrying a single milliwatt of power to move objects and even change the optical properties of silicon from opaque to transparent at the nanometric scale." As the article says, such an advancement "could prove very useful for the future of micro-electromechanical (MEMS) and micro-optomechanical (MOMS) systems."
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
- Simple, Free Web Remote PC Control?
2009-11-22T21:42:00+00:00
MeatballCB writes "Hey folks. Being the 'technical' guy of the family, I often get calls from friends and family members when they're having PC issues. Most of these folks are not technical, so trying to troubleshoot problems over the phone can often be a challenge. Anyone know of a simple to use, and preferably free, service that would allow for remote viewing/control of their PC's. I know there's WebEx and GoToMyPC, but I hate to pay for something I'd use once every two months. I also know about VNC, but trying to walk someone through opening up ports on their router that thinks their Internet is broken when their homepage gets changed is not realistic. Anyone know of anything that would be easy to set up and use?"
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
- Google Patents Displaying Patents
2009-11-22T20:30:00+00:00
theodp writes "Google has actually managed to patent displaying patents. The USPTO issued US Patent No. D603,866 to six Google inventors for their Graphical user interface for display screen of a communications terminal. Among the six inventors is the guy who introduced Google Patents. Ironically, Google Patents can't seem to find the new Google patent for Google Patents."
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
- No More Fair-Price Refund For Declining XP EULA
2009-11-22T19:22:00+00:00
mark0 writes "Getting a fair-price refund from Amazon or Asus after declining the Windows XP EULA appears to be a thing of the past. In contrast to reports from the US and the UK from earlier in the year, Amazon simply refuses and provides information to contact Microsoft. Asus is offering US$6. Despite being confronted with publicly available information about the real OEM price of Windows XP Home Edition being $US25-US$30, Asus replies, 'The refund price for the decline of the EULA is correct in it being US$6. This price unfortunately is not negotiable I do apologize for any inconvenience this may have caused. Please be assured that it is not ASUS intentions to steer you away in any which way.'"
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
- Colossus 3.5-in SSD Combines Quad Controllers
2009-11-22T18:12:00+00:00
Vigile writes "The new Colossus SSD comes in capacities starting at 256GB and going all the way up to 1TB in a standard 3.5-in hard drive form factor. This larger size was required because the drive actually integrates not one but four Indilinx SSD controllers and three total RAID controllers in a nested RAID-0 array. All of this goodness combines to create an incredibly fast drive that beats most other options in terms of write speeds and is competitive in read tests as well. Using some custom 'garbage collection' firmware, the drive works around the fact that TRIM commands aren't supported in RAID configurations to maintain high speeds through the life of the SSD."
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
- Chrome OS and Android "Will Likely Converge" In the Future
2009-11-22T16:54:00+00:00
xchg writes "When Google first announced that the company would be pursuing development of two distinct operating systems, many questioned Google's motivation. 'Google executives, including CEO Eric Schmidt, have downplayed the conflict ever since, asking for time to let the projects evolve. And a few days after Chrome OS was revealed, Android chief Andy Rubin said device makers "need different technology for different products," explaining that Android has a lot of unique code that makes it suitable for use in a phone and Chrome has unique benefits of its own. But Brin, speaking informally to reporters after the company's Chrome OS presentation on Thursday, said "Android and Chrome will likely converge over time," citing among other things the common Linux and Webkit code base present in both projects.'"
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
- The State of Ruby VMs — Ruby Renaissance
2009-11-22T15:59:00+00:00
igrigorik writes "In the short span of just a couple of years, the Ruby VM space has evolved to more than just a handful of choices: MRI, JRuby, IronRuby, MacRuby, Rubinius, MagLev, REE and BlueRuby. Four of these VMs will hit 1.0 status in the upcoming year and will open up entirely new possibilities for the language — Mac apps via MacRuby, Ruby in the browser via Silverlight, object persistence via Smalltalk VM, and so forth. This article takes a detailed look at the past year, the progress of each project, and where the community is heading. It's an exciting time to be a Rubyist."
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
- New Attack Fells Internet Explorer
2009-11-22T15:33:00+00:00
alphadogg writes "Attack code has been identified that could be used to break into a PC running older versions of Microsoft's Internet Explorer browser. The code was posted Friday to the Bugtraq mailing list by an unidentified hacker. According to security vendor Symantec, the code does not always work properly, but it could be used to install unauthorized software on a victim's computer."
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
- New Research Forecasts Global 6C Increase By End of Century
2009-11-22T14:16:00+00:00
jamie writes with this snippet from the UK's Independent: "The world is now firmly on course for the worst-case scenario in terms of climate change, with average global temperatures rising by up to 6C by the end of the century, leading scientists said yesterday. ... [The study] found that there has been a 29 per cent increase in global CO2 emissions from fossil fuel between 2000 and 2008, the last year for which figures are available. On average, the researchers found, there was an annual increase in emissions of just over 3 per cent during the period, compared with an annual increase of 1 per cent between 1990 and 2000. Almost all of the increase this decade occurred after 2000 and resulted from the boom in the Chinese economy. The researchers predict a small decrease this year due to the recession, but further increases from 2010."
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
- Facebook Photos Lead To Cancellation of Quebec Woman's Insurance
2009-11-22T12:51:00+00:00
No. 24601 writes "A Quebec woman on long-term sick leave, due to a diagnosis of depression, lost her health benefits after her insurance provider found photos of her on Facebook smiling and looking cheerful at parties and out on the beach. Besides all the obvious questions, how did the insurance company access her locked Facebook profile?"
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
- How Augmented Reality Browsers Stack Up For Navigating London
2009-11-22T09:40:00+00:00
We've mentioned the tantalizing possibilities of augmented reality here several times, including Microsoft's stab (using scene recognition) at an information overlay for cell phones, and some display technologies that could make a Terminator-style information overlay on the real world possible without even looking down at a screen, including both glasses with microdisplays and contact lenses. An anonymous reader points to this two-part review of several cell phone apps, in which the writer has "tested several mobile augmented reality browsers and their ability to find places to eat and function as a tourist guide by identifying tourist attractions in London," writing, "This is the first review I have seen where all the browsers have been compared together; what's interesting is all the browsers use different data sources, and so either miss popular locations or give the wrong location."
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
- UAVs Go Green With Fuel-Cell Powered "Ion Tiger"
2009-11-22T06:23:00+00:00
Hugh Pickens writes "Increasingly, the military is deploying unmanned aerial vehicles, or UAVs, as eyes in the sky to scan the ground for targets and threats, especially for missions that are too dangerous for manned aircraft. Now Live Science reports that a new robotic spy plane called 'Ion Tiger' will harness alternative energy to make it more covert and longer lasting than battery-powered or engine-powered UAVs. A 550-watt, 0.75 horsepower hydrogen fuel cell will power the Ion Tiger with four times the efficiency of a comparable internal combustion engine and seven times the energy of the equivalent weight of batteries. When Ion Tiger took flight in October, it exceeded any demonstration of electrically powered flight so far, flying 23 hours and 17 minutes. 'And it carried a 5 lbs. payload to boot — enough to carry, say, a day-and-night camera,' says researcher Karen Swider-Lyons, head of the alternative energy section at the Naval Research Laboratory in Washington. 'No one has come close to flying 24 hours with a significant payload before.' Another big advantage is the Ion Tiger's reduced noise, heat and emissions. 'Think about lawnmowers or chainsaws — they're really loud,' says Swider-Lyons. 'It's hard to spy on people when they know you're there, so you had to fly them at high altitudes to keep them from being heard.'"
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
- Brazilian Breaks Secrecy of Brazil's E-Voting Machines With Van Eck Phreaking
2009-11-22T03:11:00+00:00
After the report last week that Brazil's e-voting machines had withstood the scrutiny of a team of invited hackers, reader ateu writes with news that a hacker has shown that the Linux-based voting machines aren't perfectly safe; he was able to eavesdrop on them (translated from Portuguese) by means of Van Eck phreaking.
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
- Ten Things Mobile Phones Will Make Obsolete
2009-11-22T00:02:00+00:00
An anonymous reader writes "recombu.com has an article examining ten things mobile phones will make obsolete, including phone booths, wristwatches and handheld games consoles. It's interesting to see how many devices have been absorbed into mobile phone technology, and it raises the question: are we better off having everything in one device? The author poignantly concludes that while it's great to have so much power at our fingertips, it does mean that some of us will rely on mobile phones for even basic mental tasks, which is great until the battery runs out." See also Isaac Asimov's The Feeling of Power.
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
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Mathematics Department