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Re:Wunderground Classic revival?!?! by QuietLagoon · 2015-10-28 10:57 · Score: 1 · on IBM Acquires the Weather Company's Digital Business (techcrunch.com)

The new site is slow as molasses. It takes about 10 to 15 seconds to load a page. The old site was nearly instantaneous to load. It ised to load as quickly as this weather site.

.
The original incarnation of the new site was an abomination, a perfect example of the bad web design that is afflicting the web nowadays: poor font contrast, slow load times, excessive click requirements, etc. Basic current weather information required multiple clicks to access.

At least the current version of the new site eliminates the excessive clicking. But it is gawdawful slow.

I've been a member of the WU site for a few years (I'm grandfathered at $5 a year). I was thinking of punting the membership, but now I think I'll wait another year to see if IBM can fix the site's slowness and make it useful again.

Re:Just Marketing by Guy+Harris · 2013-08-20 19:46 · Score: 2 · on Intel, Unisys Partner On New Range of Servers

Unisys is actually interesting because they're the last large vendor still selling a sign-magnitude machine

No, they're the last large vendor still selling a ones' complement machine, as, for example, their "C Compiler Programming Reference Manual Volume 1: C Language and Library" says:

6.1.1. Integer Type Conversions
...
UCS C represents an integer in 36-bit ones complement form (or 72-bit ones complement form, if the long long type attribute is specified).

Unisys has history as a system house by cold+fjord · 2013-08-20 17:38 · Score: 2, Interesting · on Intel, Unisys Partner On New Range of Servers

They have had some interesting systems over the years, such as the ES7000 line.

Enterprise Servers: Unisys ES7000 Model 7600R G3 Enterprise Servers
Up to 8 sockets and 6 TB of memory with Red Hat and Suse support.

And Now for Something Completely Different by Anonymous Coward · 2012-07-03 11:02 · Score: 0 · on Sea Level Rise Can't Be Stopped

Some evidence.

I know, I know, it's not fashionable to actually look into the facts before posting about important subjects such as these.

Re:fearmongering by Anonymous Coward · 2012-05-16 01:05 · Score: 0 · on Americans More Worried About Cybersecurity Than Terrorism

So the report is from unisys (http://www.wired.com/images_blogs/threatlevel/2012/05/UnisysSecurityIndex_1H2012_Report.pdf) and simply typing unisys cyber security into google comes up with

http://www.unisys.com/unisys/news/detail.jsp?id=1120000970008210101 ("Unisys Expands Cybersecurity Offerings")

and we are supposed to view this article as worth the paper it's written on?

Re:Training and Visualization by siride · 2012-03-31 02:41 · Score: 1 · on Wind Map of US Will Blow You Away

The Unisys site has had a wind streamlines map for ages: http://weather.unisys.com/surface/sfc_con.php?image=st&inv=0&t=cur&expanddiv=hide_bar

vortex.plymouth.edu lets you make maps with streamlines as well.

Granted, none of these are animated, but the point is that streamlines are hardly new in the online weather visualization field.

Sunday 28 August 1100 EDT by hicksw · 2011-08-30 04:02 · Score: 1 · on When Did Irene Stop Being a Hurricane?

The tracking data at
http://weather.unisys.com/hurricane/atlantic/2011/IRENE/track.dat
shows
ADV LAT LON TIME WIND PR STAT
32A 41.80 -73.20 08/28/12Z 65 963 HURRICANE-1
33 41.40 -73.70 08/28/15Z 50 966 TROPICAL STORM

about 60 miles north of NYC
--
Times have not become more violent, they have just become more televised.

Re:Not climate 'skeptics' by sanzibar · 2011-06-30 17:40 · Score: 1 · on Climate Skeptic Funded By Oil and Coal Companies

I cant seem to find a single climate model that predicted the abnormal cold oceans.

http://weather.unisys.com/surface/sst_anom.gif

Do you have one?

Re:Should we be happy that it didn't happen? by sanzibar · 2011-04-21 16:15 · Score: 0 · on What Happened To the Climate Refugees?

the problem is, you are caught in their twisted logic.

The "not as cold as it is supposed to be" argument is a logic fallacy. Cold is fucking cold. You want to try and redefine cold as some sort of "hot cold". See the stupidity yet? Cold is cold.

Second, the agw hypothesis rests on questionable data that is used to produce models. Remember the hockey stick? Its all about Warmer and Warmer. No Cold. Up and Up.

Case in point and what you fail to observe in those two photos:
1. 1996 "ice is melting rapidly" oh noes! This proves global warming we all going to dies - they say
2. 2011 "uh oh the ice all came back - bigger and stronger" shhh. lets say its hot cold. they stupid, they believe anything we say.

But... http://weather.unisys.com/surface/sst_anom.gif

AGW modelers missed this CLIMATE trend. Now they try to invent more bullshit to cover it up.

Further, their code sucks. Take a look at this snippet:
http://stevengoddard.wordpress.com/2011/04/20/why-scientists-should-not-be-allowed-programming/

So, if you cant start to see by now, I would highly recommend that you take some time to educate yourself in the *deserved* criticisms of AGW.

Now bug someone else. I cant help you.

Re:Can't blame them by rubycodez · 2011-03-23 18:52 · Score: 1 · on Oracle Claims Intel Is Looking To Sink the Itanic

Not true, welcome to the 21st century.

You can get x86 processor modules for the Unisys Dorado that run Window, Linux and x86 Java VM. And the midrange Dorado 4000 and Libre 4000 actually USE intel xenon. http://www.unisys.com/about__unisys/news_a_events/05158777.htm
,
You can get x86 processor modules for the IBM Z series, same deal, run Windows and Linux and x86 Java VM.
The IBM PowerVM Lx86 emulator lets one run x86 linux applicatoin on PowerPC

Re:Windows or *nix mainframe... by afidel · 2010-11-27 07:48 · Score: 1 · on Computer Glitch Leaves Some Australians Without Cash

https://www.unisys.com/products/enterprise__servers/insights/insights__compendium/The_Emergence_of_a_Windows_Mainframe_White_Paper.pd Unisys has been slogging their large scale x86 machines running Windows Datacenter Edition as mainframes for almost a decade.

Apple just made a deal with Unisys by zonker · 2010-11-05 03:54 · Score: 0 · on Apple To Discontinue Xserve

Perhaps there is more to the deal with Unisys than previously reported. Maybe this is what Unisys is getting out of the deal? Probably not but still fun to speculate.

The Question by pgn674 · 2010-10-27 15:28 · Score: 1 · on Most Americans Support an Internet Kill Switch

Found the press release and the original report. The report phrases the question as:

Supplemental question: If there were clear evidence of a malicious cyber-security attack by a foreign government against our military, civilian government, electrical grid, financial systems, or other critical infrastructure, should the President have the authority to take control of or effectively shut down portions of the Internet to mitigate a crisis?

The results:

A clear majority of Americans (61%) say that the President should have the authority to take control of the Internet in the event of a malicious cyber-security attack.

Presidential authority to take control of Internet in a crisis:

Household income: Affluent consumers ($75K+) LEAST supportive of Presidential Internet takeover in event of crisis (56%)

Race: Blacks are much MORE supportive of Presidential Internet takeover (86%) than Whites (59%)

Gender: Women are more likely (67%) to support a Presidential Internet takeover than are men (55%).

Unisys by Dotren · 2010-10-27 08:09 · Score: 2, Insightful · on Most Americans Support an Internet Kill Switch

Should I be surprised that Unisys, a corporation which describes itself as selling IT solutions to "governments around the world", comes up with a survey result that shows a "majority" of Americans support a possible government program that would likely see the government purchasing a large amount of product from Unisys?

who cares what it looks like by systematical · 2010-03-04 07:55 · Score: 1 · on Ubuntu Gets a New Visual Identity

I don't LOOK at my operating system so much as I USE my operating system. Does anyone really care about how sexy your O.S is? I just want to get the task at hand done and Ubuntu works great for me. Now if this helps them some how gain market share then bonus for me, it will likely lead to more improvements. Though I did chuckle at orange and purple being professional, maybe they took a bid tip from these guys: http://www.unisys.com/unisys/

Re:Maybe they're right, maybe old OSes never die by idontgno · 2009-09-17 08:00 · Score: 1 · on Old Operating Systems Never Die

Yes indeedy

Disclaimer: not a Unisys employee, just a satisfied former user of some of their products.

Re:Unisys by Guy+Harris · 2009-03-04 12:10 · Score: 2, Interesting · on Microsoft Windows, On a Mainframe

Hasn't Unisys been pushing Windows for mainframes for years now? Since Win2K?

link

Some of the mainframes in question are apparently built out of "Intel" processors (presumably either x86-64 or Itanium); the others appear to have proprietary Unisys chips implementing the 36-bit Univac 11xx architecture but probably also have Intel chips to run Windows. What's impressive about those is that they're apparently running the old OS for the 36-bit Univac processors on the Intel systems ("This revolutionary server features the OS 2200 operating system running on Intel(R) processors"), which probably involved at least as much work (probably via binary-to-binary translation + instruction interpretation) as the stuff the people at Mantissa have done (also probably via binary-to-binary translation + instruction interpretation, but the Mantissa people are presumably just emulating one 8-bit-byte-oriented architecture on another, not emulating a 36-bit word-oriented architecture on an 8-bit-byte-oriented architecture).

Unisys by ThrowAwaySociety · 2009-03-04 11:35 · Score: 2, Informative · on Microsoft Windows, On a Mainframe

Hasn't Unisys been pushing Windows for mainframes for years now? Since Win2K?

link

Fascinating by AlienIntelligence · 2008-07-26 22:17 · Score: 5, Interesting · on MIT Artificial Vision Researchers Assemble 16-GPU Machine

I think this part of the computing timeline is going to be
one that is well remembered. I know I find it fascinating.

This is a classic moment when tech takes the branch that
was unexpected. GPGPU computing will soon
reach ubiquity but for right now it's the fledgling that is being
grown in the wild.

Of course I'm not earmarking this one particular project
as the start point but this year has gotten 'GPU this' and
'GPGPU that' start up events all over it. Some even said
in 2007, that it would be a buzzword in 08.

And of course there's nothing like new tech to bring out
a naysayer.

Folding@home released their second generation
GPU client in April 08. While retiring the GPU1 core in
June of this year.

I know I enjoy throwing spare GPU cycles to a distributed
cause and whenever I catch sight of the icon for the GPU
client it brings the back the nostalgia of distributed clients
of the past. [Near the bottom].

I think I was with United Devices the longest.
And the Grid.

Now we are getting a chance to see GPU supercomputing
installations from IBM and this one from MIT.
Soon those will be littering the Top 500 list.

I also look forward most to the peaceful endeavors the new
processing power will be used for... weather analysis,
drug creation, and disease studies.

Oh yes, I realize places like the infamous Sandia will be using
the GPU to rev up atom splitting. But maybe if they keep their
bombs IN the GPU it'll lessen the chances of seeing rampant
proliferation again.

Ok, well enough of my musings over a GPU.

-AI

Re:It's just business? by Anonymous Coward · 2008-05-28 10:33 · Score: 4, Insightful · on Dell Found Guilty of Fraud, False Advertising

Dell doesn't do onsite service. They outsource it to Unisys and BancTec. Don't expect better service from HP as they do the same.

As far as quality of the actual systems goes, all of the pieces, if not the final assembly, are done by ASUS, Foxconn and a handful of other overseas companies. Dell and HP are marketing and distribution companies.

Anecdotal evidence of support problems will not prove a case either way. Statistically all of the major hardware companies are very similar. Shipments to support cases is around 4%.

The reason everyone (and I do mean everyone) has shitty support. Is that tech support is a shit job. Anyone who has ever worked the phones will tell you this. Most techs last around 6 months to a year. Consumer support, speaking with the unwashed masses, 8 to 12 hours a day, trying to squeeze bits of useful information out of the lady on the other end of the line who thinks her monitor is her computer. Who installed Microsoft Live Support AND Norton 360 with all the addons even though their system with Preloaded with McAfee. The guy sticking floppy disks in jewel cases and shoving them in the CD drive. Angry people trying to get you too pay their phone bill because they downloaded a porn dialer. The guy with wire snips trying to cut his AGP video card to make it fit in a PCI Express slot. Who is pissed off because everyone keeps telling him he can't.

*twitch*

Anyone that even comes close to having a clue will find a better job. I promise.

Useful animated gifs by SpaceLifeForm · 2008-05-28 07:51 · Score: 1 · on Adobe Flash Zero-Day Attack Underway

Weather maps

Re:Not to mention things non-mainframes don't atte by Richard+Steiner · 2007-07-06 02:46 · Score: 2, Informative · on The Mainframe Still Lives!

That's news to me, and it would surely surprise my current and multiple former employers (all of which still heavily use either current OS2200 or current MCP mainframes from Unisys).

Re:Not to mention things non-mainframes don't atte by Richard+Steiner · 2007-07-06 02:46 · Score: 2, Informative · on The Mainframe Still Lives!

That's news to me, and it would surely surprise my current and multiple former employers (all of which still heavily use either current OS2200 or current MCP mainframes from Unisys).

Re:Chaos theory by lazy+genes · 2007-04-26 14:01 · Score: -1 · on Possible Clue On Saturn's Hexagon?

It is not uncommon to see a hexagon pattern in our upper atmosphere.The Current Northern Hemispheric 500 mb Plot at http://weather.unisys.com/upper_air/ua_nhem_500p.h tml I noticed this several years ago and copied a few Hexagons.I think you are correct about the role gravity plays in this formation, Because this happens between the new and full moons .I havent noticed it lately because la nina twists this layer in all directions.Temp mixing plays a big part also.I can tell the position of the moon just by looking at that plot.Explaining why it is a hexagon may only be possible with the help of LSD .

Re:Virtualisation negates the need for a compile f by Wdomburg · 2007-03-13 04:40 · Score: 1 · on Alternatives To SF.net's CompileFarm?

Really? I couldn't find any on their website and have never heard of IA-32/64 architecture being pushed that far. According to their products site only their POWER based machines are 64-way, their Intel/AMD units are four socket (16 cores at most).

Try the IBM System x3950. See also the Unisys ES7000/one.

To be fair, the aging bus archiecture of the current Xeons is definitely a hinderance onec you move beyond commodity servers. In terms of widely available machines, you're still generally looking at 16 core (four quad core Xeon or eight dual core Opterons). Howver, Intel is set to debut CSI (Common System Interface) to replace the front side bus and AMD is set to transition to Hypertransport 3.0, both of which will support at least sixteen quad core CPUs.

The Cell is being looked at by large banks and they are sufficiently interested to set up specialist teams to see how the architecture can be best used.

I never said it wasn't being looked at. So was the Itanium. :)

The Niagara is a toy with laughable floating point performance; the example unit we got sent ended up as a foot-rest.

A product isn't suitable for applications it wasn't designed for? Shock.

Rock is much more useful (each of the four cores having a dedicated FPU) but the IC design has only just been finalised and the first servers won't be shipping for another year.

There's also a FPU per-core in the UltraSparc T2, which should be available soon. Neither of the Niagara CPUs are a good replacement for the mainstream UltraSparc line, though, since they suffer from the same "weakness" as the Cell - they're good for the subset of problems they're deigned to solve, but mediocre to bad at things they're not designed for.

There's also the problem that it's an extension of the UltraSparc architecture rather than "cool" and new like the Cell. Sadly this is often the deciding factor with IT managers at the very large banks.

And the Cell is just an extension of the PowerPC architecture (yes, I know the SPE implements a new ISA, but that sort of nuance is lost on pointy-hairs) rather than "cool" and new like the Niagara. I mean, come on, the UltraSparc T2 can handle 64 simultaneous threads and the Cell can handle a piddling eight. Big numbers sell just as well as novelty (often better, since novelty comes with free "new and scary").

The Cell's designed, with one PPE and a number of SPEs is very suited to a number of pricing calculations. Many instruments are priced in an iterative manner or by use of monte-carlo. The lack of DMA for the SPEs is not really a problem in these cases as the inputs for each iteration/simulation don't change that much and (in most cases) could be wedged in to the 256K available to each element. You're assertion that Cell is best deployed only for a limited task set is correct, but banking contains such tasks and the Cell appears to be well suited to the role.

Ah, I read "The Cell processor is attracting a lot of attention as a potential replacement for Sparc and requires specialist development machines." as more of a general statement rather than being applicable specifically to banking. Would explain some of the disagreement.

I'm not intimately familiar with financial software, but I was under the impression fixed point arithmetic is generally prefered. I have no idea how the Cell would perform for that makes the performance hit of IEEE-754 mode out of the picture. :)

Re:Big claims indeed! by tongue · 2006-05-25 01:31 · Score: 2, Informative · on MS Proposes JPEG Alternative

The patent on LZW compression (the problematic portion of the GIF format) expired on June 30, 2003, though Unisys claims to have patents and patents pending on a number of improvements to the claims in the original patent.

On-demand computing by Anonymous Coward · 2006-05-22 00:02 · Score: 4, Informative · on Microsoft Introduces Pay-as-You-Go Computing

Not exactly time-sharing, but "on-demand" computing. Unisys and IBM are doing this now - it's actually a new concept for them as well...

Re:ROFL by walt-sjc · 2006-04-04 06:04 · Score: 1 · on Unisys Smoking Hot Demo at Linux World Boston

I take it that these were not the Self Healing servers that they sell...

Itanics or Xeons? by Brian+Stretch · 2006-04-04 06:04 · Score: 1 · on Unisys Smoking Hot Demo at Linux World Boston

Was is an Itanium or Xeon server rack that went boom? Unisys sells both, though in the case of the Itanics I use the word "sell" in the theoretical sense.

I keep telling people to switch to Opterons, if only because they run cooler, but noooooo...

Re:They tried this a few years ago with Unisys? by Jason+Earl · 2006-03-17 07:25 · Score: 1 · on Microsoft Goes Head-to-Head With IBM

I've seen one. Interestingly enough, however, it never got rolled into production. It's basically a known fact that these beasts sold very very poorly. In fact, they sold so poorly that you can now get UNISYS support for Linux on them as well.

Massive "mainframe-style" machine simply aren't the way that the market is going right, especially for those folks that are using Windows. Heck, Microsoft points to the UNISYS machines when it wants to show that Windows can scale straight to the mainframe, but then Microsoft salespeople will happily point out that a cluster of commodity servers running Windows is a much less expensive alternative. Microsoft isn't in the business of selling hardware, it wants to sell software. UNISYS' machine is nothing more than a commercial to Microsoft.

And so, several years after UNISYS debuted with its Windows mainframes it is now marketing the same machines running Linux so that Microsoft's sales people don't get involved.

Re:They tried this a few years ago with Unisys? by BuR4N · 2006-03-17 06:37 · Score: 2, Informative · on Microsoft Goes Head-to-Head With IBM

Please let Unisys know:

http://www.unisys.com/products/es7000__servers/har dware/index.htm

Re:Their Clearpath (mainframe) servers are nice, I by Huh? · 2006-01-06 14:56 · Score: 1 · on Unisys Gets DHS Contract Worth Up to $750 million

Follow your own link a bit further:
http://www.unisys.com/products/clearpath__servers/ lx__servers/index.htm