Since nearly two weeks, we are chronically exposed to 50-200 radioactive disintegrations per second in the lab.

I am changing the hosting company for my main website ( poirrier.be). I am leaving Amen because they became very costly (more than 80 € per year for only 50Mb). After considering B-one (problem: they forbid videos on your website, even if you are the producer), I finally chose Online (a little bit more than 30 € per year for 500Mb, they are not the cheapest but I know they are reliable). In less than an afternoon, DNS from Online to the university were already up-to-date. I hope that the transition will be as transparent as possible for everyone. ...

Every morning since the beginning of my Ph.D., I check the temperature and relative humidity when I am arriving in the lab. Now, after nearly 4 years, I have really nice curves (ok: nice charts, if you prefer) … As you can see, temperature for the animals is always between 20°C and 25°C (this is good) and relative humidity in their room usually fits in the 20-80% range (ideal range is 30-70%). For a lab where we are only able to monitor the temperature and relative humidity, it’s good. I am sure that if we had the possibility to control it, it will be better (we only have a pot of water if the relative humidity is too low or an additional heater if the temperature is too low). ...

Well … a city has the same name as mine: Poirrier, in North Haiti (maps from Falling rain and Nona). :-) Now I’m sure this will brighten your days!

GooDiff began its work a week ago and I didn’t see much news/blog posts about it. If I correctly understood, the idea behind GooDiff is to monitor changes in legal documents of (internet) service providers (like Google or Yahoo!). Indeed, service providers are often trying to change on the fly their legal documents, especially in some critical sections like privacy, copyright and alike. With GooDiff, consumers and users are now able to keep track of these changes. Thanks Alexandre! ...

Just a small post to say that I liked the film “Last Witness” from Chang-ho Bae (Korea, 2001 ; reviews here, here and also in French). It was shown this night on Arte TV. In one phrase, this film follows police detective Ho’s investigation on murders linked with the past war of Korea (do not look at the reviews if you don’t want to know the end of the main plot). (photo from Arte)

Today (March 21st) is the International Sleep Day. The Belgian Asociation for the Study of Sleep contributes to the Sleep Day by inviting sleepcenters to organise information sessions ( list here). Unfortunately, neither the University of Liege human sleep lab nor my animal sleep lab are participating (we lacked time to organise something good and we are lacking people to welcome the public). :-( But, if you have time, today, pay these sleep centers a visit.

The National Academies Press are putting some of their books on-line. I was particularly interested in the Guidelines for the Care and Use of Mammals in Neuroscience and Behavioral Research. The only “trick” is that they provide the book one page at a time (either in HTML or in PDF format). If you want entire chapters or the whole book in one file, you have to purchase it. I think it is a fair deal (how many publishers do that?). ...

Les Namur Linux Days avaient pour objectifs de présenter les applications libres, sous GNU/Linux et disponibles pour l’utilisateur final, leur degré d’utilisabilité, leur état d’avancement et leur diversité. Ma première présentation était consacrée àla messagerie instantanée sous GNU/Linux (dont Jabber !) et vous pouvez la télécharger ici (page reprenant toute une série d’informations dont la présentation en PDF). Ma seconde présentation était consacrée àOpenOffice.org Impress. Cette page reprend plus d’informations ainsi que la présentation àtélécharger. ...

Although a lot of software is available for GNU/Linux and not for Windows, I am always happy to see new ones developed for GNU/Linux but not for Windows (at least not yet). One last example: Zfone. This software “intercepts and filters all the VoIP packets as they go in and out of the machine, and secures the call on the fly”. The public beta version is already available for GNU/Linux and MacOS. Windows version will be available in mid-April (only). It would be great if Philip Zimmermann releases the source code under a free software licence ( other comments and ideas in this Slashdot news). ...