Slashdot Mirror

Conversely, well-run UNIX servers only run those services that they need to run, giving them the same protection as a stripped down pre-MacOS X machine.

buffer overruns... The possibilities are endless, and the lack of process based security makes pre-MacOS X machines more vulnerable than UNIX boxes.

So, if you are to reply again, explain why there are so many more of these exploits for *nix. Consider the possibility it has something to with remote logins and multi-user setups, things MacOS classic lacks.

Art At Home

Sorry, but nVir and other application based viri pre-dated MerryXmas by a good 4 - 5 years. HyperCard viri didn't hit till at least about the time of System 7 and I was dealing with boxen infected by stuff like nVir back in '88.

You got your dates wrong. MerryXmas did appear before nVir, whereas MeryXMas (also known as the Peace virus) was spreading early 1988 and triggered on march 2nd 1988.

See the Mac virus faq.

Some things not quite mentioned on the FAQ, but quite well known here in Montreal is that author of this virus was Richar Brandow, the then president of Club Mac Montreal.

Karma karma karma karma karmeleon: it comes and goes, it comes and goes.

It is nice to see it in Scientific American, but I think EUVL has been brought up in discussions of other NGLs here on /. The article does take a good broad perspective on the issues as they stand.

Intel has a paper on their website (if you can find it) that describes the process pretty straightforward as well (it might help the read to have a little bit of background).

Here is that and some other URLs:

http://www.llnl.gov/str/Sweeney.html

http://developer.intel.com/technology/itj/q31998/a rticles/art_4.htm

http://lithonet.eecs.berkeley.edu/network/backgrou nd.html

http://lasers.llnl.gov/IST/euvl.html

http://www.lbl.gov/Science-Articles/Research-Revie w/Highlights/1998/ALS_chips.html

http://chomsky.stanford.edu/~kevbert/neha_poster/s ld001.htm

http://www.cr.org/publications/MSM2000/html/W3202. html

http://www.google.com/search?client=googlet&q=EUV% 20lithography

-nicole

It is nice to see it in Scientific American, but I think EUVL has been brought up in discussions of other NGLs here on /. The article does take a good broad perspective on the issues as they stand.

Intel has a paper on their website (if you can find it) that describes the process pretty straightforward as well (it might help the read to have a little bit of background).

Here is that and some other URLs:

http://www.llnl.gov/str/Sweeney.html

http://developer.intel.com/technology/itj/q31998/a rticles/art_4.htm

http://lithonet.eecs.berkeley.edu/network/backgrou nd.html

http://lasers.llnl.gov/IST/euvl.html

http://www.lbl.gov/Science-Articles/Research-Revie w/Highlights/1998/ALS_chips.html

http://chomsky.stanford.edu/~kevbert/neha_poster/s ld001.htm

http://www.cr.org/publications/MSM2000/html/W3202. html

http://www.google.com/search?client=googlet&q=EUV% 20lithography

-nicole

Nope, but jupiter might have some metallic hydrogen

There is a group at Lawrence Livermore National Lab that is working on a totally new MagLev system. It is called Inductrak. What is unique about this system is that it uses totally passive technology.

It works by lining the center of the track with passive copper coils and lining the bottom of the train with Hallbach magnets. These Hallbach magnets have two interesing properties. One, they create a sinusoidally varying magnetic field, and two, the poles are aligned so that the magnetic field above the cabinet (i.e. where the passengers are) completely cancels out. What this means is that as the sinusoidally varying field passes over the passive coils, the coils create a repulsive field, but only so long as the train is moving. When the train slows down to below a few miles an hour, it will settle back down on the normal tracks.

The people who are developing this system are now working on a scale model with NASA for possible use in rocket launches.

But the real upshot to this sort of system, as opposed to the system mentioned in the article (Dynamic EM) or other such systems (Superconducting EM) is that the levitation system does not require precice computer control. With either of the other systems, a contol failure could cause a fatal accident. With Inductrack, the worst case scinario is a propulsion failure, in which case the train would simply continue floating until it slows down enough to land on the rails again.

The control issue is one of the major problems that have held back the deployment of large scale MagLev systems for decades. I think that this passive technology is probably going to prove to be the way to go. (IMHO, YMMV, etc.)
--

There is a group at Lawrence Livermore National Lab that is working on a totally new MagLev system. It is called Inductrak. What is unique about this system is that it uses totally passive technology.

It works by lining the center of the track with passive copper coils and lining the bottom of the train with Hallbach magnets. These Hallbach magnets have two interesing properties. One, they create a sinusoidally varying magnetic field, and two, the poles are aligned so that the magnetic field above the cabinet (i.e. where the passengers are) completely cancels out. What this means is that as the sinusoidally varying field passes over the passive coils, the coils create a repulsive field, but only so long as the train is moving. When the train slows down to below a few miles an hour, it will settle back down on the normal tracks.

The people who are developing this system are now working on a scale model with NASA for possible use in rocket launches.

But the real upshot to this sort of system, as opposed to the system mentioned in the article (Dynamic EM) or other such systems (Superconducting EM) is that the levitation system does not require precice computer control. With either of the other systems, a contol failure could cause a fatal accident. With Inductrack, the worst case scinario is a propulsion failure, in which case the train would simply continue floating until it slows down enough to land on the rails again.

The control issue is one of the major problems that have held back the deployment of large scale MagLev systems for decades. I think that this passive technology is probably going to prove to be the way to go. (IMHO, YMMV, etc.)
--

Angry Penguins practice UltraViolent Lithography! The Linux Pimp

Here are the specs from a web page I found at LLNL:

• 512 16-CPU nodes (8192 processing units)
• 375 Mhz Power3 SMP processors
• Will have 6 TB total of system memory
  • 8 or 16 GB per node
• Will have 484 batch and 8 debug nodes

Here are the specs from a web page I found at LLNL:

• 512 16-CPU nodes (8192 processing units)
• 375 Mhz Power3 SMP processors
• Will have 6 TB total of system memory
  • 8 or 16 GB per node
• Will have 484 batch and 8 debug nodes

They're actually leased by the DoE, not owned, according to this CNet story.

ASCI = Accelerated Strategic Computing Initiative

Their site is here. More on ASCI White, including a picture, is here.

They're actually leased by the DoE, not owned, according to this CNet story.

ASCI = Accelerated Strategic Computing Initiative

Their site is here. More on ASCI White, including a picture, is here.

The applications that are deployed on these types of systems are "embarassingly parallel", i.e. specifically designed to be largely independent of inter-process synchronization, which makes them immune to Amdahl's law.

You are completely wrong. The problems solved by these computers tend to be extremely difficult to parallelize. A good example is a 3D hydro code with radiation, in which every cell interacts with every other cell at every iteration.

For an example of an "embarrassingly parallel" problem, consider Monte Carlo radiation transport, such as is solved by the Peregrine project, which is located at LLNL, the same lab as ASCII White.

It's too bad this article came out this week; just two weeks ago was LLNL's Family Days, when (if you had a friend who works there) you could get in to see ASCII White.

Disclaimer: I work at LLNL and I worked on Peregrine

The applications that are deployed on these types of systems are "embarassingly parallel", i.e. specifically designed to be largely independent of inter-process synchronization, which makes them immune to Amdahl's law.

You are completely wrong. The problems solved by these computers tend to be extremely difficult to parallelize. A good example is a 3D hydro code with radiation, in which every cell interacts with every other cell at every iteration.

For an example of an "embarrassingly parallel" problem, consider Monte Carlo radiation transport, such as is solved by the Peregrine project, which is located at LLNL, the same lab as ASCII White.

It's too bad this article came out this week; just two weeks ago was LLNL's Family Days, when (if you had a friend who works there) you could get in to see ASCII White.

Disclaimer: I work at LLNL and I worked on Peregrine

If you're like me you shouted "GIF!" when reading this article, so to slake your thirst for supercomputing pr0n:

http://www.llnl.gov/asci-scrapbook/ ;

njoy.

The system is for "apply[ing] science and technology in the national interest, with a focus on global security, global ecology, and bioscience."

So, what exactly will the ASCI White, SP Power3 375 MHz be doing? BTW, I noticed that LLNL also has the 3rd, 32nd and 36th fastest systems. I assume that Los Almos would be conducting simulated nuclear explosions and what not.

This machine is going in at Livermore - but Los Alamos has already contracted for a larger machine (currently called the "Q" machine) which will be designed by Compaq - installed in 2002 (I think).

Here's the standard US Dept of Energy's Computer Incident Advisory Capacity (CIAC) website for tracking common Internet hoaxes.

• http://ciac.llnl.gov/ciac/CIACHoaxes.html

Most of the classics are in there, and they update this on a mostly useful schedule. I include this in the reply whenever one of my less-clued-in remote relatives asks "Is this legit?"

The U.S. National Labs offer lots of internships/positions for computer scientists involving Linux or Unix. Here is an incomplete set links for the curious:

• Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory
• Sandia National Laboratory
• Sandia's California site
• Los Alamos National Laboratory
• Argonne National Laboratory

It's no different from arsenic or bleach in terms of the difficulty of coming up with likely scenarios that could kill more than a few people. In terms of eating it, a smaller amount of arsenic is sufficient. In terms of breathing it, you'd need to inhale hundreds of thousands of particles of plutonium to get a likely death out of it - one particle is not sufficient. Here's a good reference: A Perspective on the Dangers of Plutonium.

I'll quote the abstract and introduction; follow the link to get the detailed conclusions.

-=-=-
A Perspective on the Dangers of Plutonium

W. G. Sutcliffe, R. H. Condit, W. G. Mansfield, D. S. Myers, D. W. Layton, and P. W. Murphy

Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory

April 14, 1995

Abstract

Following the seizure of 10 ounces of plutonium at the Munich airport in August 1994, some press accounts stated that terrorists could kill "hundreds of thousands of people" by introducing plutonium into a municipal water supply. In response to such incorrect and misleading statements, we describe the acute and long-term health effects that can arise from ingesting or inhaling various amounts of plutonium. Our estimates indicate that plutonium introduced into drinking water supplies would produce a radiation dose much less than normal background, and could kill only a very few people (by inducing cancers that might take years to appear). We also estimate the (considerably greater) risks associated with the inhalation of plutonium, clarifying press claims that "a tiny speck ... can cause lung cancer." We estimate the number of people that might die of cancer if terrorists were to introduce plutonium into the atmosphere in a large city. This paper provides a scientific perspective for evaluating possible terrorist threats.

Introduction

Since the breakup of the Soviet Union, television and print news media have widely reported that plutonium from that part of the world is available on the black market. The primary concern aroused by this fact is that, if obtained in sufficient quantities, such plutonium might be made into a nuclear explosive. However, The New York Times and other newspapers have reported that terrorists might also use black-market plutonium to contaminate the air or drinking water of a large city. Specifically on August 16, 1994, The New York Times claimed[1] that "A tiny speck of the fine powder can cause lung cancer in anyone who inhales it, and a small amount in the water supply of a large city like Munich could kill hundreds of thousands of people." Other newspapers made similar claims.[2],[3] The first of these claims is misleading; the second is false. This note provides a scientific perspective on this perceived danger.

Although the popular myth that "plutonium is the most hazardous substance known to man" has been refuted many times, the misconception persists that even a small amount of plutonium taken into the body will be fatal. Plutonium is hazardous, but it is not as immediately hazardous to health as many more common chemicals. This is not to say that plutonium is not a dangerous, toxic material. Chronic exposure to even small amounts should be a matter of concern. But dispersal by terrorists as described in the press could not produce the drastic health effects that are popularly imagined, and that is the issue addressed here.
[...]

Plutonium in the Atmosphere

It is important to understand the claims made in the press concerning particles of plutonium in the air. The New York Times[1] says that "A tiny speck of the fine powder can cause lung cancer in anyone who inhales it." The largest speck of plutonium that can be readily inhaled is about 3 micrometers in diameter and has a mass of about 0.14 millionths of a milligram. The risk of dying of cancer as a result of inhaling that amount of plutonium is about 0.0000017 (12 cancers per milligram x 0.00000014 milligrams = 0.0000017 cancers, or 0.00017% additional risk); that is not zero risk, but it is very small.

The Los Angeles Times[2] says that one ten-thousandth of a gram (0.1 milligram) inhaled can cause cancer. This is correct: we have already estimated that 0.08 milligrams inhaled will have 100% probability of causing a fatal cancer. To inhale 0.1 milligram of plutonium, however, a person would have to inhale more than seven hundred thousand particles. (A single 0.1-milligram particle would have a diameter of over 260 micrometers, about 90 times too big to be readily inhaled.) Although a single respirable particle is unlikely to harm an individual,[13] there is still cause for concern if plutonium were to be dispersed in the atmosphere.

The Herald (Glasgow, Scotland)[3] says that one millionth of a gram (0.001 milligram) can kill: the actual additional risk of cancer death resulting from the inhalation of 0.001 milligram of plutonium is 0.012 (12 cancers per milligram x 0.001 milligram = 0.012, or 1.2% additional risk).
[...]
-=-=-=
You'll find the rest of the article here.

It's no different from arsenic or bleach in terms of the difficulty of coming up with likely scenarios that could kill more than a few people. In terms of eating it, a smaller amount of arsenic is sufficient. In terms of breathing it, you'd need to inhale hundreds of thousands of particles of plutonium to get a likely death out of it - one particle is not sufficient. Here's a good reference: A Perspective on the Dangers of Plutonium.

I'll quote the abstract and introduction; follow the link to get the detailed conclusions.

-=-=-
A Perspective on the Dangers of Plutonium

W. G. Sutcliffe, R. H. Condit, W. G. Mansfield, D. S. Myers, D. W. Layton, and P. W. Murphy

Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory

April 14, 1995

Abstract

Following the seizure of 10 ounces of plutonium at the Munich airport in August 1994, some press accounts stated that terrorists could kill "hundreds of thousands of people" by introducing plutonium into a municipal water supply. In response to such incorrect and misleading statements, we describe the acute and long-term health effects that can arise from ingesting or inhaling various amounts of plutonium. Our estimates indicate that plutonium introduced into drinking water supplies would produce a radiation dose much less than normal background, and could kill only a very few people (by inducing cancers that might take years to appear). We also estimate the (considerably greater) risks associated with the inhalation of plutonium, clarifying press claims that "a tiny speck ... can cause lung cancer." We estimate the number of people that might die of cancer if terrorists were to introduce plutonium into the atmosphere in a large city. This paper provides a scientific perspective for evaluating possible terrorist threats.

Introduction

Since the breakup of the Soviet Union, television and print news media have widely reported that plutonium from that part of the world is available on the black market. The primary concern aroused by this fact is that, if obtained in sufficient quantities, such plutonium might be made into a nuclear explosive. However, The New York Times and other newspapers have reported that terrorists might also use black-market plutonium to contaminate the air or drinking water of a large city. Specifically on August 16, 1994, The New York Times claimed[1] that "A tiny speck of the fine powder can cause lung cancer in anyone who inhales it, and a small amount in the water supply of a large city like Munich could kill hundreds of thousands of people." Other newspapers made similar claims.[2],[3] The first of these claims is misleading; the second is false. This note provides a scientific perspective on this perceived danger.

Although the popular myth that "plutonium is the most hazardous substance known to man" has been refuted many times, the misconception persists that even a small amount of plutonium taken into the body will be fatal. Plutonium is hazardous, but it is not as immediately hazardous to health as many more common chemicals. This is not to say that plutonium is not a dangerous, toxic material. Chronic exposure to even small amounts should be a matter of concern. But dispersal by terrorists as described in the press could not produce the drastic health effects that are popularly imagined, and that is the issue addressed here.
[...]

Plutonium in the Atmosphere

It is important to understand the claims made in the press concerning particles of plutonium in the air. The New York Times[1] says that "A tiny speck of the fine powder can cause lung cancer in anyone who inhales it." The largest speck of plutonium that can be readily inhaled is about 3 micrometers in diameter and has a mass of about 0.14 millionths of a milligram. The risk of dying of cancer as a result of inhaling that amount of plutonium is about 0.0000017 (12 cancers per milligram x 0.00000014 milligrams = 0.0000017 cancers, or 0.00017% additional risk); that is not zero risk, but it is very small.

The Los Angeles Times[2] says that one ten-thousandth of a gram (0.1 milligram) inhaled can cause cancer. This is correct: we have already estimated that 0.08 milligrams inhaled will have 100% probability of causing a fatal cancer. To inhale 0.1 milligram of plutonium, however, a person would have to inhale more than seven hundred thousand particles. (A single 0.1-milligram particle would have a diameter of over 260 micrometers, about 90 times too big to be readily inhaled.) Although a single respirable particle is unlikely to harm an individual,[13] there is still cause for concern if plutonium were to be dispersed in the atmosphere.

The Herald (Glasgow, Scotland)[3] says that one millionth of a gram (0.001 milligram) can kill: the actual additional risk of cancer death resulting from the inhalation of 0.001 milligram of plutonium is 0.012 (12 cancers per milligram x 0.001 milligram = 0.012, or 1.2% additional risk).
[...]
-=-=-=
You'll find the rest of the article here.

According to this article the original cost of a Cray Y-MP C90 was $30.5 million.

Some specs from utk.edu :

• 4.1 ns Clock Cycle
• 15.6 Gflops/s maximal
• 16 GB main memory
• 12 GB/s single proc. memory bandwith
• 2-16 processors

Apparently, today's fastest supercomputers are at about 12.3 teraflops! Still, I bet the power bill on the C90 still packs a punch! (But at least you won't need a heater in the winter!)

---
In a hundred-mile march,

HyperSoar could also be employed as the first stage of a two-stage-to-orbit space launch system. This approach would allow approximately twice the payload-to-orbit as today's expendable launch systems for a given gross takeoff weight. At the high point of its skip, HyperSoar could eject an upper-stage vehicle and its payload into low-Earth orbit. A larger HyperSoar vehicle, the size of a Boeing 777 for example, could handle a 13,700-kilogram payload in addition to the weight of a typical second-stage launcher. At a 255,000-kilogram gross vehicle weight, the HyperSoar would weigh about half as much as the largest Ariane 4 expendable launch vehicle but could carry about 40 percent more payload.

HyperSoar could also be employed as the first stage of a two-stage-to-orbit space launch system. This approach would allow approximately twice the payload-to-orbit as today's expendable launch systems for a given gross takeoff weight. At the high point of its skip, HyperSoar could eject an upper-stage vehicle and its payload into low-Earth orbit. A larger HyperSoar vehicle, the size of a Boeing 777 for example, could handle a 13,700-kilogram payload in addition to the weight of a typical second-stage launcher. At a 255,000-kilogram gross vehicle weight, the HyperSoar would weigh about half as much as the largest Ariane 4 expendable launch vehicle but could carry about 40 percent more payload.

When the machine is ready for "general" use ("general" as long as you have a Q clearance!), then the plan is to move the current machine to the unclassified side, and open it up for use by the ASCI alliances and other unclassified users.

They should be able to simply add it on cluster style as you suggest, since the current machine on the unclassified side is basically the same architecture. I can't tell you for sure that it's what they'll do - but if they do, they should have about a 4-5 tflop machine for unclassified use by the end of the year.

As far as what will happen to ASCI White when they're done with it - it's only being rented from IBM - so it'll go back to Kingston or whereever...

--Rob

It is possible for unclassified simulations to be run on the machine with a Q-cleared "proxy" user running the code on behalf of someone else - but in this day and age of ultra-tight security in the wake of Wen Ho Lee and missing disk drives - that is highly unlikely to happen.

However, there is a mighty impressive machine available on the "open side" which will be used for things like weather sim, drug design, etc... In this case it will be the machine ("ASCI Blue") which is currently behind the fence, which will be moved outside. 5000+ PowerPC 604e's, and not a bad parallel environment to work in, I must say...

The ASCI program is also funding 5 university ASCI centers. These centers are targeted with solving unclassified "grand challenge" type problems which involve similar complexities to nuclear simulations. ie - solid rocket motor simulations (Illinois), Astrophysics (U Chicago), accidental fire scenarious (Utah), turbulence (Stanford), and material modeling/response (caltech). These centers get time (or "fight for time" if you asked them) on the unclassified ASCI machines.

The unclassified machines are usually just one step behind, or slightly smaller, so they don't make splashy headlines. They are, however, still very very impressive machines, and there is lots of groundbreaking research being done on them which would probably not have been possible (yet) without ASCI

I (and others) don't particularly like the fact that these machines are used mostly for nuclear simulations - but it's better than the alternative (craters in Nevada), and it's definitely helping push the envelope of parallel computing - which is all I really care about. :-)

Los Alamos has a similar contract with SGI to supply large machines for them. Sandia has a large machine from Intel, and have subsequently been concentrating on massive linux clusters (ala CPLANT) as their future.

More information here

The "old" systems, though they aren't the most powerful, are still used every day (and every night, too) by a wide variety of projects. There is a heck of a lot of research going on around the clock at LLNL.

When they mention the nuclear simulations, that may be the biggest problem that they tackle, but there is no shortage of smaller (relatively speaking) projects which need CPU cycles on a regular basis.

Check out http://www.llnl.gov/llnl/06news /feature-techno.html for all the cool non-nuclear stuff they do at Livermore.

Nate
...and hi to Brooke if you're out there at the lab again. How's the rice?

"One of my teachers is working on protein folding, and has about 45% accuracy using nueral networks and genetic algorithms."

By whose standards? His own I would guess. That's the problem with protein folders as a group: no objectivity. Every year for the past 35 or so one or more of them claims to have a solution. That's why competitions like CASP 4 arose to address this dilemma. No one at that meeting ever makes claims like 45% accuracy at protein folding, but some do issue the occasional nutso press release wherein they claim their method is better than the competition or others improperly exploit their position to force a wacky article into print about a technique of questionable value for solving protein folding which failed to pan out.

"is there any ever protein folding news?"

Well, protein folding is tough, really tough. You may think cracking 512-bit encryption is tough but that's just peanuts compared to protein folding, the inverse attack on the problem first proposed by K. Eric Drexler has turned out to be much more effective, and entire careers have been wasted chasing this dream (which is not to say it isn't WORTH chasing, but just to put things into perspective).

Anyhow, a quick Altavista search is all that it took to get these (and more) - From the CIAC at the DOE (boy we love those gov'ment acronyms): History of Virus Hoaxes.

Must be a slow "news-for-nerds" day.

While were talking about current developments:

Trojans have recently been found in things like wuarchive ftp.

Maglev doesn't necessarily require superconductors, powered tracks, or unreasonable amounts of energy.

http://www.llnl.gov/str/Post.html

See:

"Inductrack"

Maglev: A New Approach, Scientific American (January 2000) - article not available online.

"Track to the Future," Popular Mechanics (May 1998), pp. 68-70.

Is there a Deception Tool Kit script for Trinoo? May as well waste the time of Trinoo monkeys...

Okay, nice responses on water ice. But you're forgetting evaporation of frozen methane can make sea levels go down when the water warms. Of course, then we've got a bunch of methane in the air too. Got all that in your climate models?

Replying to my own post, how chic.

According to http://ciac.llnl.gov/ciac/CIAC Hoaxes.html#elfbowling it is a hoax, and my mother can go on enjoying life to its fullest, thanks to shockwave games.
--

D-T pellet fusion research already has major funding and is under construction.

The NIF (National Ignition Facility) is based on the pellet explosion approach.

Fairly failsafe, since both the pellet transport *and* the lasers would have to runaway, and at a rate at which they don't function.

Learn about it:

National Ignition Facility

ASCI Red specs

ASCI Red FAQ

There's a user manual available here for ASCI Blue. LLNL is already working on a 10 teraOPS machine called ASCI White. 8000 processors... ASCI Red is currently 1.8 TeraOPS.

There's a user manual available here for ASCI Blue. LLNL is already working on a 10 teraOPS machine called ASCI White. 8000 processors... ASCI Red is currently 1.8 TeraOPS.

The article says the concept was tested in England, so I doubt it's the same technology, but hope springs eternal.

Troy Baer wrote
Something to keep in mind about the the Origin 2000 (SGI's 128-256 CPU boxes) is that they're not SMP systems. They're ccNUMA machines, and a lot of the "ccNUMAness" (including cache coherence, I think) is handled largely by the hardware.

The point of ccNUMA is to minimise the cost of porting software from uni-processors. The crux of the matter is that it is non-trivial to adapt programs to run on multiple processors efficiently. The ideal is to have a single source tree, add extensions such as OpenMP, then recompile. Kernels are a different matter as they have to be closer to the hardware. It is still a royal pain to code to the wire and manually manipulate the cache and bus protocols but that is what is needed for maximum performance. Apart from special cases such as national defence codes, the commercial imperative is time-to-market which means a ccNUMA machine can address 95% of the issues at reasonable cost would be preferred.

I wouldn't be surprised if you could boot the MIPS version of Linux on (for instance) an Origin with little or no modification. I don't know how well it would scale, though.

As far as I'm aware (correct me if I'm wrong), the SGI port of Linux has so far concentrated on older systems such as Indys and patches for their VisualWorkstation. I suspect it will take a while (2-5 years?) for them to get to the stage of having Linux+IRIX SMP extensions running on their highly scalable systems. Cellular IRIX is a single system image which is different from the way Linux is designed. Perhaps one conceptual integration approach is to follow how RTLinux works in having a separate real-time kernel embedded within the full Linux system. Also there are other multiprocessor optimisations like processor affinity which might take a while to enter into the kernel. SGI staff may be very enthusiastic and dedicated but there is a lot of work involved which will take time.

In other words, nice PR for SGI but don't hold your breath.

LL

The real crying shame is that we know how to build a space station that could be launched with one shot into orbit on an existing vehicle; we did it with Skylab, and LLNL proposed a while back that we build an inflatable space be a few $billion. Of course, this would not station and launch it on a Titan (up in one shot). Total cost, from design to launch, would have given enough money to the space contractors, nor would the State Department have been able to use it as a way to funnel money to Russia as a way of doing some foreign policy out of someone else's budget, so that idea went bust. (I tried searching LLNL's site for the "community space suit" paper, but the search engine doesn't seem to know where it is.)

This leaves us in a state where the Senate is trying to kill all of NASA's non-Shuttle, non-ISS programs, keeping the boondoggles and nuking all the science. It's enough to make you sick.

see the Linux Weekly News' Security page for information on Linux security projects which are already under way:
Secure Linux Projects Bastille Linux
Khaos Linux Secure Linux
Security List Archives
Bugtraq Archive
Firewall Wizards Archive
ISN Archive

Distribution-specific links
Caldera Advisories
Debian Alerts
Red Hat Errata
SuSE Announcements

Miscellaneous Resources
CERT
CIAC
Comp Sec News Daily
Crypto-GRAM
Linux Security Audit Project
OpenSEC
Security Focus
SecurityPortal

Plutonium is not the most toxic substance known to man. There are many biological toxins that are much more dangerous. There is a paper on the subject here, written by scientists at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory. It contains actual scientific facts, not eco-loonie propaganda as propagated by Helen Caldicott and Karl Grossman.

BTW... RS/6000 is a product line, not a CPU. The RS/6000 line uses the PowerPC series (601,603,603e,604,604e) for interger math and Power, Power2, Power2sc, and Power3 processors for floating point math.

Huh? I hope you don't mean to imply that RS/6000 systems have both a PPC chip and a Power chip, because they don't. They ship with either a Power series chip or a PowerPC chip.

(As an aside, the ASCI Blue Pacific system at Livermore is all PowerPC 604e's rather than Power3s, according to this web page. Personally, I think this is why the machine is so much slower than ASCI Blue Mountain, even though Blue Pacific's theoretical peak is higher; the PPCs only have 1 FPU, while the Power3s and the R10ks in Blue Mountain have 2 FPUs.)

--Troy

___________________________________
Forwarded Message
Subj.: Virus Warning!
From: HOONOZE
To: All@msn.com
To: Jake5551212@aol.com
To: President@whitehouse.gov
To: Pope@vatican.va
To: 007@MI5.com
To: Flounder@fish.net
To: Etal@etc.com

************************************************** ****************
WARNING, CAUTION, DANGER, AND BEWARE!
Gullibility Virus Spreading over the Internet!
************************************************** ****************

WASHINGTON, D.C.--The Institute for the Investigation of Irregular Internet Phenomena announced today that many Internet users are becoming infected by a new virus that causes them to believe without question every groundless story, legend, and dire warning that shows up in their inbox or on their browser. The Gullibility Virus, as it is called, apparently makes people believe and forward copies of silly hoaxes relating to cookie recipes, email viruses, taxes on modems, and get-rich-quick schemes.

"These are not just readers of tabloids or people who buy lottery tickets based on fortune cookie numbers," a spokesman said. "Most are otherwise normal people, who would laugh at the same stories if told to them by a stranger on a street corner." However, once these same people become infected with the Gullibility Virus, they believe anything they read on the Internet.

"My immunity to tall tales and bizarre claims is all gone," reported one weeping victim. "I believe every warning message and sick child story my friends forward to me, even though most of the messages are anonymous."

Another victim, now in remission, added, "When I first heard about Good Times, I just accepted it without question. After all, there were dozens of other recipients on the mail header, so I thought the virus must be true." It was a long time, the victim said, before she could stand up at a Hoaxees Anonymous meeting and state, "My name is Jane, and I've been hoaxed." Now, however, she is spreading the word. "Challenge and check whatever you read," she says.

Internet users are urged to examine themselves for symptoms of the virus, which include the following:

• the willingness to believe improbable stories without thinking
• the urge to forward multiple copies of such stories to others
• a lack of desire to take three minutes to check to see if a story is true

T. C. is an example of someone recently infected. He told one reporter, "I read on the Net that the major ingredient in almost all shampoos makes your hair fall out, so I've stopped using shampoo." When told about the Gullibility Virus, T. C. said he would stop reading email, so that he would not become infected.

Anyone with symptoms like these is urged to seek help immediately. Experts recommend that at the first feelings of gullibility, Internet users rush to their favorite search engine and look up the item tempting them to thoughtless credence. Most hoaxes, legends, and tall tales have been widely discussed and exposed by the Internet community.

Courses in critical thinking are also widely available, and there is online help from many sources, including

• Department of Energy Computer Incident Advisory Capability at http://ciac.llnl.gov/ciac/CIACHoaxes.html
• Computer Virus Myths page at http://www.kumite.com/myths
• IBM's Hype Alert web site at http://www.av.ibm.com/BreakingNews/HypeAlert
• Symantec Anti Virus Research Center Hoax Page at http://www.symantec.com/avcenter/hoax.html
• Network Associates Virus Hoax Listing at http://www.nai.com/services/support/hoax/hoax.asp
• Dr. Solomons Hoax Page at http://www.drsolomon.com/vircen/vanalyse/va005.htm l
• The Urban Legends Web Site at http://www.urbanlegends.com
• Urban Legends Reference Pages at http://www.snopes.com
• Mining Company Urban Legends Page at http://urbanlegends.miningco.com
• Datafellows Hoax Warnings at http://www.Europe.Datafellows.com/news/hoax.htm

Those people who are still symptom free can help inoculate themselves against the Gullibility Virus by reading some good material on evaluating sources, such as

• Evaluating Internet Research Sources at http://www.sccu.edu/faculty/R_Harris/evalu8it.htm
• Evaluation of Information Sources at http://www.vuw.ac.nz/~agsmith/evaln/evaln.htm
• Bibliography on Evaluating Internet Resources at http://refserver.lib.vt.edu/libinst/critTHINK.HTM

Lastly, as a public service, Internet users can help stamp out the Gullibility Virus by sending copies of this message to anyone who forwards them a hoax.

************************************************** ****************
This message is so important, we're sending it anonymously! Forward it to all your friends right away! Don't think about it! This is not a chain letter! This story is true! Don't check it out! This story is so timely, there is no date on it! This story is so important, we're using lots of exclamation points! For every message you forward to some unsuspecting person, the Home for the Hopelessly Gullible will donate ten cents to itself. (If you wonder how the Home will know you are forwarding these messages all over creation, you're obviously thinking too much.)
************************************************** ****************

ACT NOW! DON'T DELAY! LIMITED TIME! NOT SOLD IN ANY STORE!

Home Page of Robert Harris | SCC Home Page
Robert Harris is Professor of English at Southern California College. RHarris@sccu.edu


I keep it around for just this purpose
Mark

Well the whole point of the "football stadium" that is mentioned casually in the article is to break even (i.e. energy out > energy in) with fusion. To my knowledge it hasn't yet been done, that's why the NIF (National Ignition Facility) project is under development. It is interesting what can be done on a small tabletop scale, however I'm not really sure what you can practically use it for. On the other hand, the NIF is sorta expensive (1.2 billion), unless you compare it to defense $$. I don't know much about the tokemak approach, LLNL is mostly using lasers to try to break even. Interesting stuff.

Well the whole point of the "football stadium" that is mentioned casually in the article is to break even (i.e. energy out > energy in) with fusion. To my knowledge it hasn't yet been done, that's why the NIF (National Ignition Facility) project is under development. It is interesting what can be done on a small tabletop scale, however I'm not really sure what you can practically use it for. On the other hand, the NIF is sorta expensive (1.2 billion), unless you compare it to defense $$. I don't know much about the tokemak approach, LLNL is mostly using lasers to try to break even. Interesting stuff.