Try a New Thing

I have just got this Purex 3-in-1 sample.


Front and back


After washing


After drying


It smells good, but I do not think I will buy it. :P

เจาะใจ - ดร.วรภัทร์ ภู่เจริญ

Tub Tim Krob (Water Chestnut with Tapioca)

I had got this package from Asian market in Shreveport.
ได้ไอ้นี่มาจากร้านเอเชียใน Shreveport


I tried to follow the instructions but what I got was kind of water chestnut in sweet coconut milk (with pieces of jackfruit). The water chestnut was not covered by tapioca. Maybe it was too wet when I mixed it in tapioca.

ความจริงมันค่อนข้าง instant พอสมควรนะ แค่ต้มๆ แต่พอออกมากลายเป็นแห้วในกะทิ (แอบมีขนุนเล็กน้อย) แป้งมันไม่ยอมเกาะแห้ว แห้วก็เลยเป็นแค่แห้ว ไม่ใช่ทับทิม สงสัยตอนคลุกแป้ง แห้วมันยังไม่แห้งเท่าไหร่ พอลงไปต้มแป้งเลยหลุดหมด



It was not good but still not too bad.
เอาน่ะ พอกินได้

Pest Repeller

I have got it for two days. Let us see if it is going to work.

My Second Car (Pix)

Nothing but the pictures.







And find something to eat.

My Second Car

On the first day to Dallas, I thought I could not find the right one for me. But, eventually, I found a gold, 2002 Honda Civic LX from Dallas this morning. Right... It was old, and there were too many miles on it (about 86,3xx miles). However, it was in good conditions. The history was clean. The engine was good, no vibrations. P Gan and Ex helped me test drive and check on everything. It was okay, just too old. I will take the pictures of it post them here soon.

Mourn the Passing of My Car

This is my lost.

From the Police Report

This is what happened...
I am on the right. The truck is on the left.

An Experience on a Car Accident

Today, around 1PM, after I went to pay the utility bill, I drove back home. To go home, I had to head to the south, and it was just a straight way, so I kept on the right lane. When I was on Vienna St., a white truck on the left suddenly moved to my lane!

He hit me! And I also hit a telephone pole!

I got out of the car right away. The neighbors were so nice. They saw the incident and they helped me. I also called P Gan for help.

My right knee got bruised. It would hit the storage under the console. And I had some scratches because the seat belt pulled me back. I was not much injured but my car was really damaged.

The officers came over to collect the evidences and tow my car away. Fortunately, the guy that had hit me did not ran away. But we did not talk.

P Gan took me to the hospital to checkup after that. Nothing broke, only the bruise. James also negotiated with the insurance for me.

I feel really unlucky these days. =(

What I have to do now is just wait to the report from the police.

Thank to those neighbors, P Gan, P Noon, and James. Everyone is so nice.

An Experience on Changing a Tire

I just got all tires of my car replaced couple of days ago. And today, I had to get one of them fixed.

My car was in the parking lot behind Nethen when I found the flat. Seeing from the back, it looked unbalanced. So, I took a closer look and found that the right back tire was flat. I knew that I had to get it changed. But how?

I had seen James car parked there when I had got out of the building. Then, I made him a call for help. While waiting for him, I took all tools that I had in the trunk, as well as the doughnut (spare) tire. It was heavy though. Also, the weather was damn hot!

When James appeared, we started changing it. James was an expert in doing so. It looked not hard though. The problem was, I did not have enough strength to screw the nuts, even thought I use my whole body weight. How pitiful!

Whatever, thank James for helping me.

Once I got it changed, I drove to wall-mart and paid $10 plus tax for this experience. =(

เป็นเด็กวัด

เมื่อคืน...มาเป็นเด็กวัด นอนวัดหนึ่งคืน
ตอนเช้าก็มาใส่บาตร ถวายเพลพระ กินข้าวเที่ยงแล้วก็นั่งคุยไปจนถึงเย็น

พอตกเย็นเอกกับมนมา พลวงพี่โจ้ก็พาไปร้านของทะเลทอด ซึ่งเป็นร้านของครอบครัวคุณคำพลอย เป็นคนลาว (พี่นูนกับพี่ก้านไม่ได้ไป ถือศีลแปดกัน) เราสั่ง 1 fish and 6 oysters เอกกับมนก็สั่งอะไรกันไป ปรากฏว่าพอเอามา มันเยอะมา รู้สึกเหมือนจะเยอะกว่าที่สั่ง กินไม่หมด แถมให้ cheesecake มาอีก เลยต้องเอา cheesecake กลับวัด

ตอนกลางคืนก็มานั่งทำวัตร สวดมนต์ นั่งสมาธิกันไป

เช้ามา ทำวัตรกันตั้งแต่หกโมง แล้วก็ช่วยพระเตรียมงานที่ศาลา ซึ่งยังสร้างไม่เสร็จ เป็นงานวันวิสาขบูชา แต่จัดล่วงหน้า ทำโน่นนี่เสร็จก็ได้นั่งพักหาอะไรกินนิดหนึ่ง คุยกับหลวงพี่โจ้อีกเล็กน้อย ประมาณสิบโมงครึ่ง คนมา ช่วยเตรียมอาหารต่อ

งานก็ไม่มีอะไร แค่ใส่บาตรพอเป็นพิธี มีพระสี่รูป เณรรูปหนึ่ง แล้วก็กินข้าว แล้วก็ช่วยกันเก็บ บ่ายๆ อากาศร้อนมาก ตัวเหนียว แต่ก็ช่วยกันเก็บเสร็จ

สี่โมง ลาพระท่านมา เพราะต้องไปรับเพื่อนพี่นูนที่เพิ่งเดินทางมาถึง แต่เครื่องบิน delay ก็เลยติดรถมนกลับ ส่วนพี่ก้านกับพี่นูนรอรับเขาต่อไป

...ไปเป็นเด็กวัดก็ได้อะไรเยอะดีเหมือนกัน ชอบแฮะ ไม่มีอะไรให้คิดมากดี

...หัวเข่าด้านแน่ๆ คลานไปคลานมา เพราะผู้ใหญ่ผู้น้อยเขานั่งพื้นกันหมด

-จบ-

Success and Fail

Two things:

As I took the qualifying exams earlier this quarter, I just got an email notifying me that I passed PDEs but failed Numerical Analysis. Right.. It was tough. =(

Usually I could not swim from one end to another end of the standard pool. (My friends told me it would be 50 meters). But today I could do that without stopping. Yay! It was so exhausted though.

Last Week

On Saturday, we (Thai students) went to the temple again. I drove this time. Fortunately that I have my new GPS and P Gan also showed me the way. My car shook when the speed reached 65 miles/hour. I think I should get it checkup someday.

In the evening, we had a small party. There was pork and beef grill. But I was so tired. I could eat just a little bit.

On Tuesday, there was blood drive in Tech. I could not give blood that day because my hemoglobin was a little bit lower than the requirement. Mine was only 37 while they required 38. The lady there told me to eat a lot of peanut butter. It could make the iron level go up. I did as she had told. I ate a bagel with very thick layer of peanut butter. So my iron level got higher in the next day. It was 39. I could give blood. Yay!

Early Songkran Day

...At Wat BuddhaSamakeeVanaRam. Then had supper and took a walk at Broadwalk, Bossier.

After Qual Exams

I had the qualifying exams on Wednesday and yesterday. Right after the exams, I went to the pool. Swimming was kind of getting relaxed a bit.

To get more relaxed, my friends and I went to eat at Raw restaurant. There were Sushi and Thai dishes. Surprisingly, the chef was also Thai. He has been in Ruston for only three months, but in the U.S. for thirty years. So, even he could speak Thai, his accent was quite like American. Another surprise was he was living in my old apartment.

Also, I just got my GPS today. It was Garmin nuvi 205W. I tested by let it leaded me to Raw.

Snow in Spring

It was Sunday 21st of March and it was snowing. The snowflakes were large though.. What the heck would it mean? Was it because of climate change?

Because Spring is Coming

The qualifying exams will be held next two week. So this is kinda relaxing a bit.

Wat BuddhaSamakeeVanaRam

My friends and I went to this temple this morning. It was so great to be there. And I hope to go there again soon.

Despite the service that we did with some Thais, Laos, and Americans in this morning, we talked, we discussed about Dhamma. It was great to listen to Dhamma from the only monk there.

The temple is at
983 Caplis Sligo Rd., Bossier City, LA 71112
Tel: 318-658-9141

Lovely Orcars

I was taking a day off, seeing some clips on Youtube and found this..





Man... I love Orcars.

My Tasks for Upcoming Spring

There are supposed to be three chapter in my dissertation now.
1. CUDA streams
2. Checkpoint/restart
3. EM for HI problem (as an application)

And, I have two papers that I have to write.. one is CUDA streams and its uses that I owe Dr. Baggag, and EM paper that I am writing with BIOTEC team..

Also, I have to prepare for the qualifying exams next quarter..

Now, final is coming. Bring it on!

Isan Meal

Aig and Monn just had a papaya on the way back from New Orleans.. So we had planed to cook some Isan food.

Here comes the snow again!

I had a test today. After the test, there was ice fall, then the snow came after lunch.

Due to the snow, the school closed since 1 PM because there was no truck or whatever to clear the roads.

The next day, P Gan, P Noon, Bell, and I got together, goofed around, took some pictures and video clips =).

Go Saints!

Go Saints Go...

Nothing much. It was the side effect from Super Bowl XLIV. It was New Orleans Saints VS Indianapolis Colts. And Saints won 31-17.. Yay..It was the team from my state!

New Roommate

He is no one but P Gan...

He just moved in today. He had a lot of things, most of them were kitchen stuff. There were also many things that his ex-roommate had left to him and he was going to give them away. So I got a (my) new lamp, a ceramic bowl, etc. Good for me because I had been thinking to buy them. Now I do not have to buy at all.

Fibonacci Number

Found this interesting number sequence on the poster in GTM, at the front of my class.

From wikipedia

By definition, the first two Fibonacci numbers are 0 and 1, and each remaining number is the sum of the previous two. Some sources omit the initial 0, instead beginning the sequence with two 1s.

In mathematical terms, the sequence F_n of Fibonacci numbers is defined by the recurrence relation
F_n = F_n-1 + F_n-2

with seed values: F_0 = 0, F_1 = 1

Then the sequence is
0, 1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, 21, 34, 55, 89, 144, 233, 377, 610, 987, 1597, ...

Fibonacci sequences appear in biological settings, in two consecutive Fibonacci numbers, such as branching in trees, arrangement of leaves on a stem, the fruitlets of a pineapple, the flowering of artichoke, an uncurling fern and the arrangement of a pine cone. In addition, numerous poorly substantiated claims of Fibonacci numbers or golden sections in nature are found in popular sources, e.g. relating to the breeding of rabbits, the spirals of shells, and the curve of waves. The Fibonacci numbers are also found in the family tree of honeybees.

Care Bears

I found it... the cartoon that I have seen when I was very young. Care Bears!

Grumpy's Three Wishes
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tqq6fwqA6gc

The Great Race
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jFOqAuxbCzE

The Camp Out
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2FKx0sIF8cw

What I bought these days

ช่วงนี้ซื้อของเข้าบ้านหลายอย่าง อาทิ กระติกเก็บน้ำร้อน (thermos) หมอน (pillow) ชั้นวางของอาบน้ำ (shower caddy) แล้วก็ชามแก้วแบบมีฝาปิด

เริ่มที่กระติก ก่อน เนื่องจากช่วงนี้หน้าหนาว ไอ้เอ๋กินแต่น้ำอุ่น (แม้จะหน้าร้อน ไอ้เอ๋ก็กินน้ำอุณหภูมิห้อง ไอติมบางครั้ง) แต่หน้าหนาวน้ำเย็นเร็วมาก จึงต้องมีอุปกรณ์เสริม เป็นกระติกเก็บน้ำร้อนขนาด 2 qt (ประมาณ 1.9 ลิตร) ขนาดกำลังพอเหมาะต่อการต้มน้ำวันละครั้ง ราคาก็ 15 เหรียญ ถือว่าไม่แพงมั้ง

แล้วก็ซื้อหมอนใหม่ เนื่องจากหมอนเก่าได้ฟรีมาจากตอนอยู่หอ ตอนนี้มันแบนมาก หมอนที่นี่ไม่รู้เป็นไง อยู่ได้ไม่นานก็แบน คิดว่าไอ้ที่ได้มาอาจจะเป็นหมอนราคาถูก เคยเห็นแบบ 2 เหรียญอยู่ วันนี้ได้ฤกษ์ซื้อใหม่ กำลังเลือกๆ อยู่ก็เจอ Dr. Dai มาช็อปปิ้งพอดี แกเลยช่วยแนะนำว่า ควรเอา extra firm เพราะไม่งั้นมันจะแบนเร็ว ราคา 5 เหรียญ แต่อีหมอนนี่ เขาวางไว้ชั้นบนสุด ไอ้เอ๋ก็เตี้ย Dr. Dai ก็เลยช่วยหยิบให้ ขอบคุณคับ ^^

อ้อ ตอนนี้หมอนอันเก่าเอาไปรองขาแล้ว แม้มันจะแบนติดที่นอนก็ยังคงใช้ต่อไป ส่วนหมอนใหม่ รอดูอยู่ว่ามันจะพองอยู่ได้นานเพียงใด

ต่อมาเป็น shower caddy หน้าตามันประมาณชั้นวางของพลาสติกกิ๊กก๊อก แขวนไว้กับฝักบัว (ฝักบัวที่นี่ติดกับผนังห้องน้ำ จึงแขวนได้) ราคาประมาณ 10 เหรียญ มีสามชั้น แต่ไอ้เอ๋เอาตรงกลางออกไปชั้นนึง เพราะไม่งั้นวางขวดสบู่กับแชมพูไม่ได้ ช่องระหว่างชั้นมันแคบไป ไม่ได้ใช้ชั้นนึง ลดราคาให้หนูได้มั้ยเนี่ย

สุดท้าย ชามแก้ว ยังไม่ได้ใช้เลย แต่จะเอาไว้ใส่กับข้าวเก็บเข้าตู้เย็นแหละ ก่อนหน้านี้ใช้กล่องพลาสติกตลอด พอใช้ไปนานๆ แล้วผิวพลาสติกมันเป็นขยุกขยุยยังไงไม่รู้ สีก็ออกเหลืองๆ ก็เลยไม่อยากใช้พลาสติกมาก เปลี่ยนเป็นแก้วดีกว่า แต่อีชามแก้วนี่ก็แพงอะ 7 เหรียญแหน่ะ

New Mailbox & Sushi

This morning, when I had checked my mailbox before I left home, it was an old, lame one. But as I came back in the afternoon, it was a new one. My mails will not get wet anymore. Thank to the landlord. =D.

Also, I already tried sushi at Tech. It was so good, though it was more expensive than other kind of food. That was normal.

Today's Weather Report

It is now 14 F.

I have no idea what happen to my water tab. There is only hot water, no cold water come out. Perhaps it would get clogged by ice.

9:55 AM - The cold water had been back.

Everything becomes ICE!

It has been so cold these days. Today, it has not gone over 30 F. Everything was frozen. Even at noon, the water outside becomes ice. I enjoyed stepping on and cracking it. Lady of the Mist (The fountain at Quad) was also frozen. I think she looked more beautiful with her iced base. Unfortunately, I did not have a camera with me, otherwise, I would have taken some pictures.

Snow! Ha Ha

It snowed in the morning until afternoon but the snow did not stay on the ground.

Dallas Trip on Dec 28-30 2009

My Favourite Thai Songs

There are so sweet.

อัศจรรย์ - theme song of "The Overture (โหมโรง)"


เคียงข้างเธอ - theme song of "Siyama (สียามา)"

Amazing Creatures

From the top ten videos 2009 of National Geographic

Some creatures that we've never seen and perhaps, will never see.


November 22, 2009—Oil-eating tubeworms and 15-tentacled sea cucumbers are among the 5,000 deep-dwelling species identified by the Census of Marine Life, a ten-year effort to chronicle life in the deep ocean.



February 27, 2009—A newly discovered frogfish—dubbed the psychedelic fish because of its colorful stripes—hops along the seabed by flexing its lower fins and shooting water from its gills.


May 7, 2009—Scientists have caught a fast-growing, 12-story underwater volcano erupting—along with odd creatures evolved to survive its toxic emissions.

The root of African wildlife may be Asian.


May 5, 2009—After a factory had found a 40-million-year-old whale fossil in a limestone kitchen counter, researchers investigated the stone's fossil-packed Egyptian quarry, which could shed light on the origins of African wildlife.

The origin of the invisible man. First saw the pic of this fish on NG website, I thought it had been retouched.



Here comes the real.


February 24, 2009—For the first time, a live Pacific barreleye fish—complete with transparent head—has been caught on video. The deep-sea fish's tubular eyes pivot under a clear dome.

About December 25

Today is a holiday.

Today is Jesus's birthday.

Today is Horus's birthday (in Egypt's myth).

Today is the day that the sun goes (maybe) furthest towards the south. From now on it will go back to the north.

Merry Christmas

The Known Universe by AMNH

Saw this in my friend's fb.

CUDA Visual Profiler

It says that:

- Execute a CUDA program with profiling enabled and view the profiler output as a table for each GPU method.
- Display the summary profiler table.
- Display various kinds of plots: GPU Time Height plot, GPU Time Width plot, etc.
- Analysis of profiler output: incoherent stores, incoherent loads, warp serializations
- Compare profiler output for multiple program runs of the same program or for different programs. Each program run is referred to as a session.
- Save profiling data for multiple sessions. A group of sessions is referred to as a project.
- Import/Export CUDA Profiler CSV format data

As i know, the profiler is available for Mac not for Linux. Unfortunately, my Mac does not have NVIDIA card and I do not use CUDA on my Mac either. I use it on Linux. =(

Vaporizer

Just got it an hour ago. Let's see if it can make my life better.

OWISE and A Surprised Christmas Gift

Today was a second meeting of OWISE - Office for Women in Science and Engineering. The first meeting was on Friday, Dec. 4 - Leadership Styles. Today's meeting was about Networking 101. There was not much people in the meeting. There was only four people in the first meeting and six today. The mentor was Dr. Jenna Carpenter. She was a wise, good-looking lady. She spoke very fast though.

Just a few minutes ago, the landlady of my apartment got me a Christmas gift. P Noon told me that they did not got one last year. Perhaps the next year will be a good year. =)

Meeting with Sandia Folk

On Monday, we (Dr. Box's research group) had a meeting with a research group from Sandia International Lab, Jim Brandt, Ann Gentile, and Matthew Wong. They had developed the tools for monitoring clusters, called Ovis. Aig helped them installed it on our clusters on the next day. We had lunch at Robb, and I had sushi for dinner at Bristo 102. I gave Dr. Box, Monn and Aig a ride home. There was some excited experience though. =)

What we did with the leftover from thanksgiving

Simple! We just had thanksgiving meal again. Thanks James and his mom for the turkey and sidedishes. And as there still was some turkey left, we had chicken with steamed rice in Thai style. Thanks to Noon this time.

It's Freezing

There was no snow last night (or I could not see), but It was freezing this morning.

Now, it is 23 F (around -5 C) out there.

Driver's License

Got it at last! =)

I just got it yesterday, after I had practiced driving on the route that I was going to take driving test 4-5 times. And I finally passed it. Now I can get onto the road on my own. Yay!

What I Saw When I Was Young

Goliath II



Love to see it again.

Student Driver

Today, I drove to South Hall, to the bank and drove home. I was so nervous and excited 'cause I was on my own.

I will take it out one day.

The First Car of Mine

I finally got it, the first car in my life.

Aig, Monn, P Gan and I went to Dallas yesterday and stop by Sport City Toyota (at Toyota's dealer at Irving) to see a 2005 Toyota Echo. It was a tiny car with around the milage of 75,000, and in a good condition. The engine looked new. The history was clean, even though, it had been a rental car for a year. My friends helped me check everything up. P Gan also tested driving. It was good, according to my friends. Then I got it at $7000 (exclude tax, license plate, etc).

There was an accident on the way to Dallas. I also saw many remains of deers, and other animals along I-20.


This is it, my car!










Me and my car




After that, we had sushi buffet as our dinner. We was so hungry because we had waited for the dealer's process for a half day without having lunch before. We spent a night at Comfort Suites near the DFW airport.

Because I had got it yesterday, we had time to go shopping this morning. We bought some Asian groceries in Asian markets, and whatever. We also lunched at Chinese restaurant. There was roasted duck as well. It was great and not expensive.

On the way back, P Gan also helped me drive my car and let me drove it from Shreveport to Ruston. It was dark and showering, but I made us home. =)

My Final Day of Fall

Today is the last day of my classes of fall quarter. I just finished the final exam at 6 PM. I could not finish some questions. I supposed the others could also not finish them. It was not so hard but needed time.

After that Wei and Li told me that there was going to be free food at CIVIC Center, not far away from Tech. It was Thanksgiving dinner party. Despite of free food, there was free (bible) books, free nuts, free candies, etc.

Notification of Acceptance for My Paper

First, this week is the final week of fall 2009. I am sooooo busy.

However, I just got the reviews of my paper that had been submitted to PDCS 2010. There were two reviewers.

The first reviewer:
Originality Satisfactory
Contribution Satisfactory
References Good
Presentation Unsatisfactory
Language Poor

The second reviewer:
Originality Satisfactory
Contribution Good
References Good
Presentation Good
Language Satisfactory

That means it got accepted, doesn't it?

When the Time Changed

เมื่อวันอาทิตย์เพิ่งหมด daylight savings ต้องตั้งเวลาช้าลงไปหนึ่งชั่วโมง ดังนั้นจะรู้สึกว่ามืดเร็วมาก เมื่อตอนเย็นออกจากห้องเรียน ยังไม่ถึงห้าโมงมืดแล้ว แทบกรี๊ด ต้องรีบโทรหาเพื่อนให้ไปส่งที่บ้านเลย เดินกลับไม่ไหว น่ากลัว เมื่อไหร่จะได้รถซะทีเนี่ย

The Day With No Power

จริงๆ ฝนตกมาตั้งแต่เมื่อวาน วันนี้ก็ไฟดับตั้งแต่เช้า ประมาณเก้าโมงถึงบ่ายสอง เขาบอกว่า City of Ruston ตัดไฟ ไม่รู้เพราะมีทอร์เนโดฮิตที่เมืองใกล้ๆ รึเปล่า (มันจะเกี่ยวกันมั้ย) แต่วันนี้ทั้งเมืองไฟดับ ยกเว้นแต่ที่ Tech เพราะ Tech มี power plant ของตัวเอง ไปซื้อของที่ Walmart เมื่อตอนเย็น ตู้เย็นที่ Walmart ก็โล่งเชียว คงยังไม่ได้เอาของมาใส่ ยังดีที่ตู้นมเขาโหลดนมเข้ามาใส่แล้ว แถมได้รองเท้าผ้าใบมาอีกคู่ เพราะคู่เก่าเน่าไปแล้ว ฝนตกตลอดเลยลงน้ำบ่อย น้ำเข้า เท้าแฉะกันแทบทุกวัน แล้วก็ได้เมล็ดมะม่วงหิมพานต์มา ไม่อร่อยเท่าของไทย แต่ก็พอแก้ขัดได้น่ะ

Soymilk

ไม่รู้นึกอุตริอะไร ไปลองซื้อนมถั่วเหลืองมากินแทนนมสดปกติ มันเป็นของ Great Value ยี่ห้อของ Walmart ซื้อรสจืดมา ไม่อร่อยเลย เหมือนน้ำเปล่ากลิ่นเต้าหู้ T_T

คงเพราะมันเป็นรสจืด ไม่ได้ใส่น้ำตาลเหมือนน้ำเต้าหู้บ้านเรามั้ง มันเลยไม่อร่อย

ไม่เป็นไร เพื่อสุขภาพ กินมันเข้าไป

NVIDIA's Fermi

As Moayad was in GPU Technology Conference last week, he just updated us some information about new CUDA Architecture called Fermi

Fermi
- 512 CUDA cores
- 8 faster with double precision
- on-chip shared memory
- giga thread with 16 kernels in parallel
- ECC support (ability to deal with soft error

For more info, see the white paper

New Pot

Just got it today.




There was a copper line toward the bottom, do not know what it was for.

8800 GT vs GTX 295

As Himanshu has replaced the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 295 to the old Tesla card, I have been playing with it.

GTX 295 has 2 devices. Then when running deviceQuery, it returns that there are device 0 and 1 that have the properties as follow:

CUDA Capability Major revision number: 1

CUDA Capability Minor revision number: 3

Total amount of global memory: 939261952 bytes

Number of multiprocessors: 30

Number of cores: 240

Total amount of constant memory: 65536 bytes

Total amount of shared memory per block: 16384 bytes

Total number of registers available per block: 16384

Warp size: 32

Maximum number of threads per block: 512

Maximum sizes of each dimension of a block: 512 x 512 x 64

Maximum sizes of each dimension of a grid: 65535 x 65535 x 1

Maximum memory pitch: 262144 bytes

Texture alignment: 256 bytes

Clock rate: 1.24 GHz

Concurrent copy and execution: Yes

In simpleStreams sample code:

Device name : GeForce GTX 295

CUDA Capable SM 1.3 hardware with 30 multi-processors

scale_factor = 1.0000

array_size = 16777216

memcopy: 19.75

kernel: 19.42

non-streamed: 39.09 (39.17 expected)

4 streams: 20.88

Device name : GeForce 8800 GT

CUDA Capable SM 1.1 hardware with 14 multi-processors

scale_factor = 1.0000

array_size = 16777216

memcopy: 41.44

kernel: 39.59

non-streamed: 80.92 (81.03 expected)

4 streams: 43.94

New GeForce GTX 295

Dr. Box has ordered a new card for the research the I am working on. I have not installed it yet, probably need help from Himanshu. These are the specifications of it.

NVIDIA GeForce GTX 295
480 processor cores (240 per GPU)
Memory 1792 MB GDDR3 ( 896MB per GPU )
Memory Bandwidth 223.8 GB/sec

5 T-Shirts for 5 Bucks!

I was just thinking to buy some new t-shirts. And yesterday, I found some on sale in Walgreen. There were labeled of 5 for $10 on adult ones and 5 for $5 on youth ones. I picked 5 youth shirts because with my size, I could wear medium size of youth. :)

The fabric was okay but more important, they were cheap. ^^

Landscape in Latex & Tex to Word

Found in Tex Blog.

To change the whole document use
\documentclass[landscape, 12pt]{report}
or
\usepackage[landscape]{geometry}

To change only single pages
\usepackage{lscape}
with
\begin{landscape}
...
\end{landscape}


Tex to Word
latex2rtf
Converters from LaTeX to PC Textprocessors

Wet Wet Wet

I did not get burned by the sun yesterday but I got wet...

I had realized that it was going to rain sooner or later before I left home around noon. Still, I forgot my umbrella. Stupid me!

It started sprinkling when I was in the middle of the way and then pouring. I did not run after all. I knew that I could not avoid getting wet.

Alright. Just soggy...

First Day On the Road

In the afternoon, James took me to go practice driving. We started around a quarter past two and reached home around four thirty. Two hours on the road!

James took me to somewhere that the traffic was not busy. I would say... it was almost empty. I started driving with the speed of 20 mph. So slow... The area was not flat and the road was not so straight though. I had to drive up and down hills all the time. I could not control the car to be in the lane at first. It took me a while to be able to control it. After that I drove faster but never made it over 50 mph. I also could not keep the car in the right lane when I made a turn. Fortunately, the roads are empty. =S

We passed some cities which were not busy as well. And when the streets were narrow, I kept went far to the right. The oncoming cars on the left scared me. So James had to push the wheel back for me sometimes. T_T

Anyway, I could make my way home safely. =)

===

James just got me the route a moment ago. Started at A and finished at F which was our house.


View Larger Map

Time to Beat Hearts!

Yeah! I just got the learner's permit today. Let's get a car and out into the street. haha

Well, I did not think I could pass the writing test since I got about 5 from 40 questions incorrectly. At any rate, I've passed. =D

Now all I have to do is just practice driving. Let's do it!

One Week In The New House

A week has passed since I moved to the new apartment. Everything is okay.

I walked to Tech on Monday. It took me half an hour to get there. Even the weather was not so hot, I was sweaty when I got back. I also got some cookies from my neighbor; my landlady's daughter in law.

Yesterday, I spent the whole afternoon with my friends, Gan and Bell, in Shreveport. We had lunch at some sort of Vietnamese restaurant, went shopping, bought some Asian food.

Pix of My New House

Here you go!

New House

I have moved to the new apartment, next to James and P Noon. I moved on Monday afternoon and have spent all day cleaning. I am sick of it. Pray not to have to clean for years. Now I am living on my own. Hopefully everything will be alright.

They Were Really Raccoons!

When I walked to Aig and Monn's house last night (around 9), I saw them strolled around the trash by Dawg House, and there were two of them. By the time I see them I stopped and they also stopped and gazed at me. They were really raccoons with black and gray. There were black circles around their eyes, and black rings along there tails, and black feet, and furry but quite wet 'cause it had rained in the evening. They ran away when I started walking again. They were so cute though. =)

It Must Be a Raccoon!

I saw something while I was waking back from Aig and Monn's House last night. It was a small thing, sprang away from the trash by Dawg House (kindda burger house). It was so fast that I could see it in a wink. It was gray. I thought it was a cat at first. But how a cat had a bushy tail with couple of black rings at the end like that? So I supposed it had to be a raccoon, MUST be a raccoon for sure. There is no raccoon in Thailand. This was the first time I saw a raccoon in nature. How interesting. Hopefully, I can see it again tonight.

It Has Been Destroyed

There was a building that used to be an old apartment. No one lived there for months. And today it was being destructed. The workers used like a mobile with an arm for digging and scooping. It gently hit and took down the wall while someone was spraying the water on the wall.

And today is the last day of the class. I was going to have three days to finish my homework and prepare for the final test. Pray for me. =(

New Pan!

Just got a new pan from Wal-Mart.





Compared to the old ones, it is even bigger and not too heavy.


Okey. Let the first dish of it be fried Tilapia.

CUDA Materials Collection

Other than NVIDIA CUDA Programming Guide
NVIDIA CUDA Basics [PDF]
NVIDIA CUDA Basics [WMV]
NVIDIA Optimizing CUDA [PDF]
NVIDIA Advanced CUDA Webinar: Memory Optimizations [WMV]

NVIDIA: GPU Computing Online Seminar

Threads, Blocks and Grids

From NVIDIA Optimizing CUDA

“Experiment” mode discovers and saves optimal configuration

Blocks per Grid Heuristics

• Number of blocks should be more than number of multiprocessors, so all multiprocessors have at least one block to execute.
  
• Number of blocks divided by number of multiprocessors should be more than 2
  
  • Multiple blocks can run concurrently in a multiprocessor
    
  • Blocks that aren’t waiting at a __syncthreads() keep the hardware busy
    
  • Subject to resource availability –registers, shared memory
    
• Number of blocks that is more than 100 will scale to future devices

Optimizing threads per block

• Choose threads per block as a multiple of warp size to avoid wasting computation on under-populated warps and to facilitate coalescing
  
• Run as many warps as possible per multiprocessor (hide latency)
  
• Multiprocessor can run up to 8 blocks at a time
  
• Heuristics
  
  • Minimum: 64 threads per block (Only if multiple concurrent blocks)
    
  • 192 or 256 threads a better choice (Usually still enough regs to compile and invoke successfully)
    
  • However, this all depends on your computation, so experiment!
    

Zero Copy (Mapped Memory): Directly Access Host Memory from The Device

Came across with this Zero Copy which has just been introduced in CUDA 2.2 when I was looking for the concept of threads and blocks.

Quoted from NVIDIA Optimizing CUDA

• Access host memory directly from device code
• Transfers implicitly performed as needed by device code
• All set-up is done on host using mapped memory

What should be considered when using Zero Copy

• Zero copy will always be a win for integrated devices that utilize CPU memory (check this using the integratedfield in cudaDeviceProp)
  
• Zero copy will be faster if data is only read/written from/to global memory once: Copy input to GPU, One kernel run, Copy output to CPU
  
• Potentially easier and faster alternative to using cudaMemcpyAsync
  
• Current devices use pointers that are 32-bit so there is a limit of 4GB per context

Quoted from section 3.2.5.3 Mapped Memory in CUDA Programming Guide 2.2

On some devices, a block of page-locked host memory can also be mapped into the device’s address space by passing flag cudaHostAllocMapped to cudaHostAlloc(). Such a block has therefore two addresses: one in host memory and one in device memory. The host memory pointer is returned by cudaHostAlloc() and the device memory pointer can be retrieved using cudaHostGetDevicePointer() and used to access the block from within a
kernel.

Accessing host memory directly from within a kernel has several advantages:

• There is no need to allocate a block in device memory and copy data between this block and the block in host memory; data transfers are implicitly performed as needed by the kernel;
• There is no need to use streams (see Section 3.2.6.1) to overlap data transfers with kernel execution; the kernel-originated data transfers automatically overlap with kernel execution.
  

Since mapped page-locked memory is shared between host and device however, the application must synchronize memory accesses using streams or events (see Section 3.2.6) to avoid any potential read-after-write, write-after-read, or write-after-
write hazards.

A block of page-locked host memory can be allocated as both mapped and portable (see Section 3.2.5.1), in which case each host thread that needs to map the block to its device address space must call cudaHostGetDevicePointer() to retrieve a device pointer, as device pointers will generally differ from one host thread to the other.

To be able to retrieve the device pointer to any mapped page-locked memory within a given host thread, page-locked memory mapping must be enabled by calling cudaSetDeviceFlags() with the cudaDeviceMapHost flag before any other CUDA operations is performed by the thread. Otherwise, cudaHostGetDevicePointer() will return an error.

cudaHostGetDevicePointer() also returns an error if the device does not support mapped page-locked host memory.

Applications may query whether a device supports mapped page-locked host memory or not by calling cudaGetDeviceProperties() and checking the canMapHostMemory property.

CUDA Wrapping

Quoted from Section 4.1 of CUDA Programming Guide 2.2.1: A Set of SIMT Multiprocessors with On-Chip Shared Memory

The CUDA architecture is built around a scalable array of multithreaded Streaming Multiprocessors (SMs). When a CUDA program on the host CPU invokes a kernel grid, the blocks of the grid are enumerated and distributed to multiprocessors with available execution capacity as illustrated in Figure 4-1. The threads of a thread block execute concurrently on one multiprocessor. As thread blocks terminate, new blocks are launched on the vacated multiprocessors.

A multiprocessor consists of eight Scalar Processor (SP) cores, two special function units for transcendentals, a multithreaded instruction unit, and on-chip shared memory. The multiprocessor creates, manages, and executes concurrent threads in hardware with zero scheduling overhead. It implements the __syncthreads() barrier synchronization intrinsic with a single instruction. Fast barrier synchronization together with lightweight thread creation and zero-overhead thread scheduling efficiently support very fine-grained parallelism, allowing, for example, a low granularity decomposition of problems by assigning one thread to each data element (such as a pixel in an image, a voxel in a volume, a cell in a grid-based computation).

To manage hundreds of threads running several different programs, the multiprocessor employs a new architecture we call SIMT (single-instruction, multiple-thread). The multiprocessor maps each thread to one scalar processor core, and each scalar thread executes independently with its own instruction address and register state. The multiprocessor SIMT unit creates, manages, schedules, and executes threads in groups of 32 parallel threads called warps. (This term originates from weaving, the first parallel thread technology. A half-warp is either the first or second half of a warp.) Individual threads composing a SIMT warp start together at the same program address but are otherwise free to branch and execute independently.

When a multiprocessor is given one or more thread blocks to execute, it splits them into warps that get scheduled by the SIMT unit. The way a block is split into warps is always the same; each warp contains threads of consecutive, increasing thread IDs with the first warp containing thread 0. Section 2.2 describes how thread IDs relate to thread indices in the block.

Every instruction issue time, the SIMT unit selects a warp that is ready to execute and issues the next instruction to the active threads of the warp. A warp executes one common instruction at a time, so full efficiency is realized when all 32 threads of a warp agree on their execution path. If threads of a warp diverge via a data-dependent conditional branch, the warp serially executes each branch path taken, disabling threads that are not on that path, and when all paths complete, the threads converge back to the same execution path. Branch divergence occurs only within a warp; different warps execute independently regardless of whether they are executing common or disjointed code paths.

SIMT architecture is akin to SIMD (Single Instruction, Multiple Data) vector organizations in that a single instruction controls multiple processing elements. A key difference is that SIMD vector organizations expose the SIMD width to the software, whereas SIMT instructions specify the execution and branching behavior of a single thread. In contrast with SIMD vector machines, SIMT enables programmers to write thread-level parallel code for independent, scalar threads, as well as data-parallel code for coordinated threads. For the purposes of correctness, the programmer can essentially ignore the SIMT behavior; however, substantial performance improvements can be realized by taking care that the code seldom requires threads in a warp to diverge. In practice, this is analogous to the role of cache lines in traditional code: Cache line size can be safely ignored when designing for correctness but must be considered in the code structure when designing for peak performance. Vector architectures, on the other hand, require the software to coalesce loads into vectors and manage divergence manually.

Not quite understood but was trying to read more.

Out to Swim (Again)

I intended to go swimming this afternoon... Really intended!

เมื่อตอนกลางวัน เราตั้งใจจะไปว่ายน้ำ ตั้งใจมากๆ

I left my house at nearly four, felt good that the sunlight was not so strong like the other days. I was not sure how long I had been swimming. Perhaps about half an hour. Then the rain came. Though it was an indoor swimming pool, the staff called everyone to get out of the pool. Do not ask me why. I do not know.

เราออกจากบ้านเมื่อตอนเกือบสี่โมง ดีที่วันนี้แดดไม่จัดมาก ไปถึงก็ว่ายน้ำ ไม่แน่ใจว่าได้ว่ายอยู่นานเท่าไหร่ ประมาณครึ่งชั่วโมงได้มั้ง แล้วฝนก็เทลงมา จริงๆ สระมันอยู่ในตึก แต่คนดูแลก็เรียกทุกคนขึ้นจากสระ อย่าถามว่าทำไม หนูไม่ยู้

At least I got some exercises after all. I walked to the pool, swam, and walked back. hehe

เอาน่ะ อย่างน้อยหนูก็ได้ออกกำลังกายแหละ เริ่มจากเดินไปสระ ว่ายน้ำ แล้วก็เดินกลับ อิอิ

Summer Class

It has been three days since the class began. I have class everyday this quarter and there are only six weeks to the end of quarter. The weather is so hot that I do not want to step outside. :(

These days I have been addicted to comics that Pao (my senior) has introduced me. It is bad. I should have been focusing on studying and my research.

At McDonald's

Today, I had lunch at McDonald's. It was the first meal that I ate out since I got back to Ruston. It was because I wanted somewhere to hide from the sun. I had and appointment with the landlady of my new apartment at 10 AM. So I left my house around 9:10, walked, and got there around 9:40. It was so hot because of the sunlight. After having a talk with the landlady I walked back. The landlady actually offered me a ride but I would like to stop by somewhere (which i realized that it was closed on Wednesdays afterward :( ).

วันนี้ไปกินกลางวันที่แมคโดนัลด์มา เป็นมื้อแรกที่ออกไปกินข้างนอกหลังจากกลับมาถึง Ruston ทั้งนี้ทั้งนั้น เพราะไอ้เอ๋อยากหาที่หลบแดด เดินไปอพาร์ตเมนต์ใหม่ตั้งแต่เก้าโมงสิบ เพราะนัดกับเจ้าของอพาร์ตเมนต์ไว้ตอนสิบโมง ไปถึงนั่นเก้าโมงสี่สิบ อากาศโคตรร้อน แดดแรงมาก พอคุยกับเจ้าของเสร็จแล้วก็เดินกลับ จริงๆ เจ้าของบ้านก็บอกว่าจะมาส่ง แต่ไอ้เอ๋จะแวะซื้อของก่อน (ซึ่งมารู้ที่หลังว่ามันปิดวันพุธ :( เซ็งเป็ด! )

I stopped by County Market around 10:30, grabbed some bread, instant noodles, etc. Then I crossed the street, walked into McDonald's and made an order, paid for it and waited. I waited in front of the counter for couple of minutes with no one got me my meal. :(

ทีนี้ก็เลยแวะ County Market ตอนประมาณสิบโมงครึ่ง ซึ้อขนมปังกับบะหมี่กึ่งสำเร็จรูป แล้วก็อย่างอื่นอีกหน่อย แล้วก็เลยข้ามถนนไปแมค สั่งๆ จ่ายๆ แล้วยืนรอ รอเงกอยู่หน้าเคาน์เตอร์ตั้งนานก็ยังไม่มีใครเอาแฮมเบอร์เกอร์ตูมาให้

However, there at last was a black girl realized that I was waiting for something. She asked me and I told her I was waiting for my burger and fries. She got me my cheeseburger, and another black girl told me to wait for the fries. The were not done yet. After couple of minutes, and the fries were getting done, the first black girl asked me again because she saw me still waiting there.

และแล้วก็มีสาวผิวหมึกคนหนึ่งเห็นไอ้เอ๋รออะไรอยู่ พี่แกเลยเข้ามาถาม ไอ้เอ๋ก็เลยบอกไปว่ารอเบอร์เกอร์กับเฟรนช์ฟรายของตูอยู่ พี่แกก็หยิบชีสเบอร์เกอร์มาให้ สาวหมึกอีกคนก็บอกให้รอเฟรนช์ฟรายก่อน กำลังทอดอยู่ ไม่กี่นาทีต่อมา เฟรนช์ฟรายเสร็จแล้ว สาวผิวหมึกคนแรกก็มาถามต่อ ว่าตูรออะไรอีก

"My fries..." I told her.

"เฟรนช์ฟรายหนูล่ะ..."

I finally got my fries with bunch of ketchup packets. :)

ไอ้เอ๋ได้เฟรนช์ฟรายในที่สุด พร้อมกับห่อซอสมะเขืออีกกำนึง :)

Let's Jump into the Water!

I just got back from the swimming pool. It was good to get some exercises but I was so tired. Tech's swimming pool is ok, not bad but not too good. At least, it is bigger than the ones in my village back in Thailand.

เพิ่งไปว่ายน้ำมาแหละ ได้ออกกำลังบ้างก็ดีเหมือนกัน แต่โคตรเหนื่อยเลย สระว่ายน้ำที่นี่ก็ใช้ได้ ไม่ได้แย่ แต่ก็ไม่ได้ดีมาก อย่างน้อยมันก็ใหญ่กว่าสระว่ายน้ำในหมู่บ้านที่เมืองไทยละกัน

My sister had told me to go to swim sometimes. She said that, for me, it is better than other sports since I have varicose vein (blood circulation problem) on my legs. It used to cause me pain when I played badminton or other sports. And I also have allergy. Let us see if I can get rid of it!

โอ๋เคยบอกว่าให้ไปว่ายน้ำบ้าง เพราะเรามีเส้นเลือดขอดที่ขา ทำให้ปวดเวลาเล่นกีฬาอย่างอื่น แล้วก็ยังเป็นภูมิแพ้อีก ก็ดูแล้วกันว่าจะหายมั้ย

Small Party at Gan't Apartment

There was a small party (only Thais) at Gan's apartment last night. There was nothing but hamburgers and salad. Aig and Mon had prepared the hamburgers for us. They were really nice, wern't they? :) There was some alcoholic drink as well. Mon and I did not touch it for sure.

It was my first time to grill hamburgers as well. (Actually Aid, Mon and Gan did it.) They sprayed some oil, put some salt, black pepper and thyme on the beef loafs. I had no idea that there would be thyme on the hamburgers. Because there was rain all day, it was hard to lit the stove. But Gan did it at last. The hamburgers were good. That might be because we did it ourselves. :)

It's SUMMER!

กลับมาได้สามวัน เจออากาศร้อนเหยียบร้อยกันทุกวัน แทบกรี๊ด

ตอนนี้ที่ Ruston อากาศร้อนมาก เปิดแอร์กันทั้งวันทั้งคืน ค่าไฟบาน แล้วนี่มันคงจะร้อนกันไปอีกอย่างน้อยสามเดือน ละลายดีกว่า