Microwave plan for colossal squid

The squid is thought to be the largest specimen ever found

An industrial-scale microwave oven may have to be used to defrost a colossal squid caught in the Antarctic last month, scientists say.

They are pondering how to thaw out the half-tonne squid in a way that makes sure none of it rots before other parts have defrosted.

The squid has been kept frozen since it was caught by New Zealand fisherman in deep Antarctic waters in February.

Scientists want to preserve the unique specimen for detailed study.

Squid expert Steve O'Shea said the Mesonychoteuthis hamiltoni measured 10 metres (33ft) in length.

It weighed 495kgs (1,089lbs), heavier than an initial estimate of 450kgs (990lbs).

Mr O'Shea said it would take days for the colossal squid to defrost at room temperature - meaning its outer flesh could have rotted by the time the centre thawed.

He said a massive microwave was one option.

"There are certain microwave equivalents that are used by industry, for treating timber and the like, that we could probably fit this thing into," Mr O'Shea, of Auckland University of Technology, said.

Museum display

The fishermen were fishing for Patagonian toothfish in deep Antarctic waters when the squid - which was eating a toothfish - was caught in mid-February.

It took them two hours to reel in the huge creature.

The squid was frozen in the ship's hull and brought back to New Zealand for examination.

Scientists believe it is by far the largest specimen of the colossal squid ever caught.

At the time of its arrival, Mr O'Shea said calamari rings made from it would be like tractor tyres - although would taste of ammonia.

The squid is currently being kept at New Zealand's national museum, Te Papa Tongarewa, in Wellington.

Museum officials hope to embalm the squid and put it on display, while giving scientists access to study it.

Scientists want new drug rankings

Ecstasy use is widespread

The drug classification system in the UK is not "fit for purpose" and should be scrapped, scientists have said.

They have drawn up an alternative system which they argue more accurately reflects the harm that drugs do.

The new ranking system places alcohol and tobacco in the upper half of the league table, ahead of cannabis and several Class A drugs such as ecstasy.

The study, published in The Lancet, has been welcomed by a team reviewing drug research for the government.

The Academy of Medical Sciences group plans to put its recommendations to ministers in the autumn.

Suggested rating of drugs according to harm done

A new commission is also due to undertake a three-year review of general government drug policy.

The new system has been developed by a team led by Professor David Nutt, from the University of Bristol, and Professor Colin Blakemore, chief executive of the Medical Research Council.

HAVE YOUR SAY I would say that on balance, many 'illegal' drugs are less harmful than the two 'legal' drugs available Chris, Shropshire

It assesses drugs on the harm they do to the individual, to society and whether or not they induce dependence.

A panel of experts were asked to rate 20 different drugs on nine individual categories, which were combined to produce an overall estimate of harm.

In order to provide familiar benchmarks, five legal drugs, including tobacco and alcohol were included in the assessment. Alcohol was rated the fifth most dangerous substance, and tobacco ninth.

Heroin was rated as the most dangerous drug, followed by cocaine and barbiturates. Ecstasy, however, rated only 18th, while cannabis was 11th.

Arbitrary ranking

CURRENT DRUG CLASSIFICATION Class A Cocaine/crack Heroin Ecstasy LSD Magic mushrooms Crystal meth (pending) Class A/B Amphetamines Class C Cannabis Ketamine Drugs key facts Crystal meth to be Class A

The researchers said the current ABC system was too arbitrary, and failed to give specific information about the relative risks of each drug.

It also gave too much importance to unusual reactions, which would only affect a tiny number of users.

Professor Nutt said people were not deterred by scare messages, which simply served to undermine trust in warnings about the danger of drugs.

He said: "The current system is not fit for purpose. Let's treat people as adults. We should have a much more considered debate how we deal with dangerous drugs."

He highlighted the fact that one person a week in the UK dies from alcohol poisoning, while less than 10 deaths a year are linked to ecstasy use.

Professor Blakemore said it was clear that current drugs' policies were not working.

"We face a huge problem. Illegal substances have never been more easily available, or more widely abused."

He said the beauty of the new system, unlike the current version, was that it could easily be updated to reflect new research.

Professor Leslie Iversen, a member of the Academy of Medical Sciences group considering drug policy, said the new system was a "landmark paper".

He said: "It is a real step towards evidence-based classification of drugs."

Professor Iversen said the fact that 500,000 young people routinely took ecstasy every weekend proved that current drug policy was in need of reform.

Home Office Minister Vernon Coaker said: "We have no intention of reviewing the drug classification system.

"Our priority is harm reduction and to achieve this we focus on enforcement, education and treatment."

He said there had been "unparalleled investment" of £7.5 billion since 1998, which had contributed to a 21% reduction in overall drug misuse in the last nine years and a fall of 20% in drug related crime since 2004.

But he added: "The government is not complacent and will continue to work with all of our partners to build on this progress."

Time change marks end of an era

The change to BST marks the end of an era for British timekeeping

British timekeeping has marked the end of an era with the switch to summer time in the early hours of Sunday.

The change at 0100 GMT was the last one to be signalled from Rugby, in Warwickshire, which has been the source of the time signal since 1927.

From 31 March, the long-wave signal, which helps keep the "pips" heard on BBC radio services accurate, will start to be broadcast from Anthorn, Cumbria.

The contract to transmit the signal is switching from BT to VT Communications.

Users of the signal, such as emergency services, banks and mobile phone networks, should not notice any change.

"The signal is already up and running and they are swapping between the two," said Fiona Auty of the National Physical Laboratory (NPL), which has responsibility for the time signal.

"So there are times when people are picking up the signal from Cumbria without even knowing it."

World clock

The national time signal is accurate to within 1,000th of a second of Co-ordinated Universal Time.

It is controlled by two caesium atomic clocks housed at the antenna in Rugby.

Peter Whibberley uses atomic clocks to keep British time accurate

"They are typically accurate to tens of nanoseconds, or billionths of a second, over a day," said NPL's Dr Peter Whibberley.

These are kept in line by comparing them to GPS signals and a suite of reference clocks at NPL in Middlesex.

"That allows us to get a good measure of whether those clocks are changing - we can then apply an adjustment if necessary," said Dr Whibberley.

The master clocks at NPL are in turn kept in check by comparing them with measurements from atomic clocks around the world, a task co-ordinated by the Bureau International des Poids et Mesures (BIPM), near Paris.

Changing hands

The national time signal underpins many aspects of society.

"It's used incredibly heavily by police, the ambulance service, the fire brigade, in speed cameras on the road and clocks in train stations," said Miss Auty.

In addition, many home users have the relatively inexpensive receivers in appliances such as digital TV boxes.

All receive the MSF 60 kHz signal, as it is known, currently transmitted from the Rugby Radio Station by BT under contract from NPL.

But the telecom company's contract has now expired, and responsibility for broadcasting the signal has changed hands to VT Communications.

Their mast, located on a Ministry of Defence site in Anthorn, on the west coast of Cumbria, will be easier to maintain than the older antenna in Rugby.

It will start broadcasting the national time signal around the clock from midnight on 31 March, one week after the switch to British Summer Time.

Intel's $2.5bn China chip plant

Intel says China is its fastest-growing major market

Intel is to build a $2.5bn (£1.3bn) computer chip plant in China, boosting the country's high-tech industry.

It will be Intel's first integrated wafer plant in Asia, serving the US firm's "fastest-growing" market.

"This project confirms... the strategic importance of China in our global strategy and the IT industry around the world," said Intel boss Paul Otellini.

However, the technology used in the plant is at least a generation behind Intel's most advanced computer chips.

Intel already employs more than 6,000 people in China, making memory chips at factories in Shanghai and Chengdu.

China innovation

The new factory, where production is scheduled to begin in 2010, will use 90-nanometre technology.

It will be based in the port city of Dalian, in the north-east of China.

"China is our fastest growing major market, and we believe it is critical that we invest in markets that will provide for future growth to better serve our customers," said Mr Otellini.

Intel wanted to "support a transition from 'manufactured in China to 'innovated in China'," he said.

Zhan Xiaoqiang, vice chairman of China's National Development and Reform Commission, said he hoped the new factory would "bring more value-added research projects" to the region.

The new factory will take Intel's total investment in China to $4bn.

How to make a CSRDS on windows OS

This is tutorial or howto make Counter Strike Source server on WinOS (If you want to make real server, I suggest to use Linux as OS)

Minimum system requirements: Cpu: 2GHZ; >512mb of RAM; VGA - forget it!!! :D

First, create a folder where the files for the dedicated server will be located. In this manual, C:\srcds will be used as the server directory. Verify 1 GB of free space is available on the drive.
Next, download the HLDS_UpdateTool from here:

HLDS_UpdateTool

Copy this file where you like. Doubleclick it and follow the instructions. The destination folder to use is: C:\srcds. Some files will be copied to this directory when finished, one of them is: HldsUpdateTool.exe
Doubleclick on HldsUpdateTool.exe, so it will update itself. We will be using this file in the next sections.

Download the Server Files Now, we download the server files that are required to run the server. Depending on your connection this could take from a few minutes to a few hours.

The next section need to be completed via the DOS command line. To go there do this:
Click Start, then Run, Type in cmd then click the OK button. Once the Command Prompt is up, we need to change directory by typing this in the command line: cd C:\srcds

Now type the following in the command line or copy from here:

hldsupdatetool -command update -game "Counter-Strike Source" -dir c:\srcds

This will download all the server files needed to run a Standalone Source Dedicated Server.
Once finished retrieving the files, this text will appear:

HLDS installation up to date

If it's not working the first time then try again, again and again

From time to time you will need to update your server, just follow the same steps to do this or make a batch file.

Creating a shortcut to run the server
Go to your C:\srcds directory. Find srcds.exe Right click on it and create a shortcut. Now right click on the newly created shortcut and go to properties. Click on the tab shortcut, in the Target line you see probably the following: C:\srcds\srcds.exe. Now we need to add the following behind this line to get the server started properly.

-console -game cstrike -autoupdate -tickrate 100 +maxplayers 12 +map de_dust

Don’t forget the space between srcds.exe and -console! So the complete line would be like this:

C:\srcds\ srcds.exe -console -game cstrike -autoupdate -tickrate 100 +maxplayers 12 +map de_dust

What else we can add? Here are only a few things:
-console – enables console
-autoupdate - enables autoupdate
-game – game modification
+maxplayers – player limit
+map – map with who server will start
+hostport – gives a different port, the default port is 27015.
-tickrate – changes a server tickrate, the default tickrate is 33, but usually, tickrate is 66, CW 100
-insecure – disables VAC
+ No DWP – turns off dynamic pricing

Click OK when finished.

Start the server.
All you need to do now to start your server is doubleclicking the shortcut you created.

If your server lag’s you can try to open task manager and set the priority of csrds.exe @ high. I don’t know will it help to you, but it works great to me…


References:
Lady Racquel,
Wrecked,
Eitleg