I was lost in Linux this afternoon….trying to locate the mysql data. The database is hosted in an old machine with small harddisk capacity. This afternoon the harddisk was full and I tried to work out how much space was taken up by the mysql data. It took me a while to search for it in the Linux itself and also to search for help in google.
Eventually I found it. The mysql data is stored in the /var/lib/mysql directory.
I’ve been browsing for small and beefy laptops for work. The definition of small is that the screen size is around 12″ and it weighs only around 2kg. By beefy, it must have fast processor, large RAM and HDD.
The suitable options I have found so far are Fujitsu Lifebook T4215 and Toshiba Protege M500. The Fujitsu one has Core 2 Duo 2GHz, 1GB RAM and 100GB HDD while the Toshiba has Core 2 Duo 1.66GHz, 1GB RAM and 60GB HDD. Obviously the Fujitsu is more pricey, around $3k while the Toshiba is cheaper by $500. As a whole package though, the Fujitsu seems better plus it’s a tablet.
I came across a new experience with mysql today. It threw an error “Lock wait timeout exceeded; try restarting transaction” while trying to lock some tables.
The solution is as suggested in http://forums.mysql.com/read.php?22,73439,73443#msg-73443. I login to the server as root and display the status: SHOW INNODB STATUS. I notice that there was one active transaction. As suggested in the forum, I kill the thread that holds the active transaction: KILL THREAD_ID.
Problem solved.
This morning, I did a test for the Cognitiv research. I could perform all of the required Cognitiv actions. I am very happy with the outcomes though it is not ideal yet.
In the early days, I was a regular “guinea pig” for the research. We used a commercial device at that time with more sensors. My performance was pretty good. When we switched to our own in-house device with fewer sensors, I found that my performance became poor. Over time, as we improved the algorithm, my performance only improved slightly. For the last few months however, my team (Cognitiv) has implemented various advanced algorithms to improve the Cognitiv detection. We have come a long way now within a short period. And I saw the firstfruit of the labour this morning. More improvements are on the way with promising results in the next few weeks.
For several weeks, almost all of the engineers and scientists at work have been practicing on Quake once a week. The executive order came directly from above. As the company is penetrating into the video gaming industries, all staffs are expected to be “expert” in the first-person-shooter genre at minimum.
Last week, we started to shift from Quake to the Medal of Honour Allied Assault (MOHAA). MOHAA was one of my suggestions and I downloaded the multiplayer demo. Everyone enjoyed the game. Some prefer Quake to MOHAA for personal reasons. I personally like more realistic scenarios and hence prefer MOHAA to Quake. We also consider CS (Counter-strike). Unfortunately, there is no demo version for CS so we have to purchase it. In the mean time, I continue browsing for various FSP demos.