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I am seeing cases where the environmental movement is wilfully exaggerating how bad things are, and is arguing that no matter what the choice, the environment is both the first and the only thing.

I am becoming more and more skeptical of the environmental movement. Too much of it seems to be pushing an anti-capitalist morality with which I do not agree....

The other side of the issue is that powerful economic interests in the USA are capable of buying legislation which sells out the public interest to protect their profits, and they are just as capable of manipulating the press, think tank reports and other coverage to blunt public backlash against them. Just because the watermelons are for something isn't necessarily a reason to oppose it; you have to look carefully at everything, preferably with an understanding of the underlying reasons and mechanisms. If you don't have this understanding yourself, take your cues from someone who both has one and has taken the time to explain it in ways which can be checked. Dogma is the enemy, we need to fight it with reason. I've read Lomborg's book, and it is very long on endnotes and short on real supporting evidence; worse, the researchers cited by Lomborg have often disagreed violently with the conclusions he reaches based on their work. This reflects poorly on Lomborg.

(OT re command economies and authoritarian regimes: China's pall of pollution is so bad that it is affecting crop yields. The sources I can find mention pollutants such as ozone and SO2, but I recall reading that soot directly reduces plant growth by cutting off the supply of energy (sunlight) to the plants. China in particular still uses lots of coal in individual coal stoves, leading to the same emissions which caused the killer fog in London in 1952 (here's the NPR feature). These emissions would be drastically reduced if China gasified that same coal in a central plant and piped it through cities as "town gas".)

Here's another page with some pictures of it.

anchor

What, no one has posted a link to the Therac 25 incidents yet? Shame on you all!

Back in my day we didn't have this abstract stuff [introduction to a book]. No sir. No turing machines and no compilers. We had to hard code our algorithms. We didn't have punch cards either. I had to manipulate the very laws of physics. My computers were huge, took large grants from the government to build. Heck, one of my employees (a woman) had to pretend to be a man just to find work.

--Charles Babbage

This service reminds me of the Sega Channel. Here's a picture of the cartridge used for the service, along with some extra information.

It was pretty disastrous. It makes you wonder if a similar idea will work now.

except for illustrating how the Gitmo situation is not in keeping with 200+ years of stated american policy, i.e. no indefinite imprisonment.

200+ years you say? Check your facts.

60 years ago
160 years ago (PDF file)

Actually, a four second google search would reveal this link. Here's the relevant part (emphasis mine):

Going to work for Atari after leaving Reed College, Jobs renewed his friendship with Steve Wozniak. The two designed computer games for Atari and a telephone "blue box", getting much of their impetus from the Homebrew Computer Club. Beginning work in the Job's family garage they managed to make their first "killing" when the Byte Shop in Mountain View bought their first fifty fully assembled computers.

I miffed some of my links in the parent post:

Here is the reference to the ex-SDSC scientist.

Here is the link showing that the Opteron cluster is using Linux Networx.

Finally in the interest of full disclosure and to pre-empt the anti-Mac zealots, I should mention that the $4.2 million for the G5 machines is probably the education list price, because when you go to Apple Store, putting 2GB of RAM into 1100 2x2Ghz G5's will cost you $4.4 million (+ a little more for having some spare machines).

That this was VTTV. Probably cuz the symptoms sound a lot like other VT organizations that I've done work with over the years... :-)

Anyhow - I don't have a lot more to contribute other than that - but I'm sure others will, and I think anyone from around here knows, VTTV could use the help.

That this was VTTV. Probably cuz the symptoms sound a lot like other VT organizations that I've done work with over the years... :-)

Anyhow - I don't have a lot more to contribute other than that - but I'm sure others will, and I think anyone from around here knows, VTTV could use the help.

Since I'm up too late, and interested in a pure 2.6 distro to see if the 32 groups limit is really gone, I've gone Karma Whoring (and this is a pain in the @#$% way to do it).

Here is a torrent.

I believe this is the way most NCAA D1 programs work...the football team is completely self-sufficient. My alma mater is the same way; our football program supports itself so there's no good way to argue that it takes money from taxpayers.

As an aside, Pitt's going down this weekend :)

--trb

All of the obvious answers aside... Maybe Grace wouldn't win the swim suite competition, but if any lady is Queen of the digital realm, it's surely her. http://ei.cs.vt.edu/~history/Hopper.Danis.html

The XBench CPU Test score went from 148.72 to 193.29. There was a slight decline in the "Floating Point Basic" category, but performance in "AltiVec Basic" and "vecLib FFT" improved by over 50% and "Floating Point Library" performance also improved by over 20%.

The XBench Thread Test score went from 185.93 to 209.27, with most of that accounted for by an 18% gain in the "Computation" subtest. The XBench Memory Test score went from 293.70 to 312.41, gaining primarily in the System (vs. Stream) memory subtests, particularly "Allocate" which went up almost 40%. (On my iBook G3-600, Panther improved "Allocate" scores 304%!)

So if my machine - roughly equivalent to a single node of VT's cluster (theirs have more RAM; mine has more disk) - can get a 30% boost on the CPU test, a 12%+ boost on the thread test, and a 6% boost on the memory test, it looks like the planned upgrade to Panther mentioned in a previous article might help it get past the 10-TeraFLOP mark.

(Hypothetically speaking, if VT's code for LINPACK made extensive use of the AltiVec and vecLib bits included in the OS, going to Panther could boost things up into the 12-14 TeraFLOP range. However, I believe they're probably using custom-written libraries built with optimizing compilers, so I don't think the difference will be that profound.)

Did you look at the pictures here?

Obviously not! They sure as hell gutted the building, and the outside. There was no modding to the systems, they added an InfiniBand card to them, that's it.

If you think it's so easy to build one...go...you have the same three months...well, go...clock's ticking...and I'm counting.

I usually never reply to these things, but I think it is funny that people are arguing about how he ordered on the Apple Store. I find it even funnier that people would even go to the Apple Store and try. It was a joke! There were a lot of dedicated people at Apple, including myself, that helped to make this dream become a reality. The "myth" that I would like to clear up is that Apple DID have a clue and a lot of great people at Apple have been working really hard for that last few months, making a lot of personal sacrifices to make sure that all the awesome work from Dr. Varadarajan and the rest of the cluster team could be possible and successful. That's my 2 cents.

Here is da slide-show

Here is a newly created torrent that has all the episodes. This means that it includes the earlier files, and all of the extras except the original trailer. This is is one .zip and weighs in at 254.9MB.

You should watch the trailer before you abuse everyone's bandwith.

That sure sucks for google, especially considering the practice has already been upheld as legal in America. Playboy sued Netscape over the exact same thing and Netscape won.

I hope my computer law teacher doesn't mind me posting this link on slashdot...heh:
http://courses.cs.vt.edu/~cs4984/computerlaw/playb oy-netscape.doc

Now, since i couldnt find a top-level to reply to, im found replying to the top post.

My lack of skillz may have to do with inebriateion, but I swear, its none the responsibility of my username or its implications.

Regardless, I am a student of the currently famous VT owns the trademarks to a number of its own nicknames, including Virginia Tech. since VT is a big research school, it makes sense to me for them to actively protect their trademarks (as a number of coorperate entities have failed to do, e.g., q-tips/bandaids/etc).. This is a required move by law, if they expect to protect it in the future...

it's not so far different from MS protecthing their trademarks (please dont sue me, I used to work for you :-D).

In all honesty, while i might not like the outcome, they have a right to protect what is indeeed theres..

(while its contradictory to my point), VT has been acknowledged as an acceptable acronym for general publication (ratevtteachers.com) most of the other acronyms (vpi&su, vpi, virginia tech, etc) are vigerously protected..

I admit im an oddball when it comes to ethics, but is it so wrong to force/require sites to move to non-specific sites (thatbookplace.com) as opposed to their original names (vatext, virginiatext.com, others...)...

(im not affiliated, just friends with the developer)..

im gonna stop now since i dont think i can eyeball spelling problems, but just a consideration..

anyhow, cheers all
& love always to the girl i'll never have

(sure mod me down for that pseudo-sig, but i have no sig, so i gotta do somethin somewhere :-P)

I'm sorry to break it to you, but if you go to the VT Terascale Cluster site, and download the slide presentation, you will find (on slide 13) that "The system will run the Mac OS X operating platform".

= 9J =

We DO have a bunch of Mac keyboards sitting around... some of us undergrads who helped build TeraScale offered to take some of the kbs off their hands... they said no and that they had something in mind for them. I think they are donating them somewhere or using them in the Math Emporium.

Repeat after me: IT RUNS MACOSX

PDF presentation link.

According to the VTech press release, Big Mac runs MacOS X, probably version 10.2.8. Maybe they'd get a boost by upgrading to Panther in a few days ?

From the press release itself:

"As evidenced by Virginia Tech's cluster, the combination of industry standard servers, Linux, and InfiniBand creates a new standard in clustering and is changing the way computer power is deployed."

$5 million for the G5s. Now let's add in the price of those racks they sit on. Let's add in the price of the cooling system, the network equipment, cables, power supply.

The total cost of the asset, including systems, memory, storage, primary and secondary communications fabrics, and cables is $5.2M.

ok...some of these comments (and those in other postings) are absolutely fabulous. Totally based on conjecture and in some cases a very narrow view of the world, but hysterical.

You guys are at least providing us with entertainment. Some of you need to go look at the Terascale page at VT (http://computing.vt.edu/research_computing/terasc ale/). Pay particular attention to the presentation, which has ALL the info in there you need.

Also read the press release that VT put out the first week of September....again, nothing that hasn't been already answered has been asked by this round of posters.

Man you guys are funny...lol

Comes builtin, but they are using Infiniband to interconnect as stated in the press release.

Just a correction, as your post kind of implies they are using Gb exclusively.

Sweet Christ...
According to this PDF from vt.edu, the $5.2M price only covers the cost of the systems, memory, storage, primary and secondary communications fabrics, and cables.
The building would obviously be a seperate expense because a building would have a life-span many times that of the computer. Duh.

I posted this elsewhere...The cluster is running OS X -- page 13 --not linux you nimrod...

Besides, if it was running linux it would be liable for the 'SCO tax' what with Linux' inability to do 64 bit without SCO's 'contributions' ;)

The cluster runs OS X -- page 13 --

As much as you all would like it not to be so, it is, and that's that :)

They are running OSX. From the VA Tech website concerning the cluster, you can find a PDF slideshow concerning the configuration. Slide 13 indicates they will be running OSX on the nodes.

Here is the link:

VA Tech Cluster

Look for the "Slideshow Presentation" link in the bottom left.

$38 million works out to $63000 for each one of the 600 Dell nodes. But the 1750 and 2650 are your run-of-the-mill $3500-$4000 Xeon rack mounts. Where are the other $59000 per machine going? Someone is comparing apples and oranges (no pun intended).

Also, "flops" is a pretty meaningless measure of performance. If you want to use benchmarks, at least use SPEC, and on those, the Macs are not particularly outstanding in terms of price/performance.

Finally, the Macs aren't rack mounts and they require manual modification for use in clusters; that alone makes them an iffy choice. VT can get cheap student labor to do that sort of thing and may not care about bulk, air conditional, or maintenance costs, but all of those matter big time in the real world.

Sorry, but someone is dreaming if they think G5's are the epitome of cluster computing. They may be better than previous Macs, and they may have entered the realm of plausibility, but you are still going to be far better off with rackmounted 1U dual-processor Linux machines in every respect.

See this slide presentation.

That could also by why Dr. Varadarajan is speaking at the O'Reilly Mac OS X conference about the cluster.

... some of the technical details, such as the version of Mac OS X used...

According to this press release (at the very bottom), they're using Linux, not OS X.

He's standing on the sidewalk between McBryde and Holden Hall, in the road towards the handicapped access lot in front of Randolph. The camera's pointed at Durham Hall (New Engineering Building, if you knew it in the early years after it was built in 1995.) The new building is going to go where Durham Lot 11 is currently, and will be multiphased with lots of research space for the College of Engineering and (rumored) a small dining hall to replace Shultz for lunchtime food operated by HDS (Housing and Dining Services, for those of you who don't know Virginia Tech consistently has the highest ranked dining halls in the nation, and we run it all in house instead of contracting to scum like Aramark.), and targeted at the engineering students (perhaps themed in some way). This explains why they're getting projects like the Randolph wind tunnel air-abatement out of the way early.

The project was approved by Virginia voters last year in the bond referendum. (Thanks, if you voted for it in that referendum. You had good company, Virginia supported it by a huge margin.) The building is described as "VTRI Phase I" on this page: Bond Referendum It will cost $31 million, slightly less (but not much) than Torgersen Hall. They're definitely going all out and doing it right.

For those of you not from Tech, the building is sited behind McBryde in square L3: Map This land was hotly contested for some time - a local developer owned it and wanted to put apartments there, and I think Tech finally gained the land via either eminent domain and a lawsuit. (It was definitely sticky.) That explains why it's one of the few chunks of land left on core campus undeveloped.

He's standing on the sidewalk between McBryde and Holden Hall, in the road towards the handicapped access lot in front of Randolph. The camera's pointed at Durham Hall (New Engineering Building, if you knew it in the early years after it was built in 1995.) The new building is going to go where Durham Lot 11 is currently, and will be multiphased with lots of research space for the College of Engineering and (rumored) a small dining hall to replace Shultz for lunchtime food operated by HDS (Housing and Dining Services, for those of you who don't know Virginia Tech consistently has the highest ranked dining halls in the nation, and we run it all in house instead of contracting to scum like Aramark.), and targeted at the engineering students (perhaps themed in some way). This explains why they're getting projects like the Randolph wind tunnel air-abatement out of the way early.

The project was approved by Virginia voters last year in the bond referendum. (Thanks, if you voted for it in that referendum. You had good company, Virginia supported it by a huge margin.) The building is described as "VTRI Phase I" on this page: Bond Referendum It will cost $31 million, slightly less (but not much) than Torgersen Hall. They're definitely going all out and doing it right.

For those of you not from Tech, the building is sited behind McBryde in square L3: Map This land was hotly contested for some time - a local developer owned it and wanted to put apartments there, and I think Tech finally gained the land via either eminent domain and a lawsuit. (It was definitely sticky.) That explains why it's one of the few chunks of land left on core campus undeveloped.

I would... But i have no mod points :)

Yea, great supercomputer and all...

Now we just have to work on that 650 MB ul limit in the dorms... and the whole 10 base connection thing... the whole Math Emporium thing... and the god damn instructors!!!

You would think that since they can afford this awesome spectacle of computing (and this is from a Mac hater), they'd be able to hire some teachers that can speak freaking English. Out of my 5 classes right now, only 3 instructors speak English as a first language(and two of those instructors are teaching 1 class). I've got Slawny for physics (think Milton from office space, except add a heavy russian accent, and mumbles even more), some indian TA for vector geometry (not bad english, but can't teach worth shit), and a chinese guy for Differential Equations (can't remember his name, but he talks so damn fast).

All that other crap... You would think a tech school would be more open to letting me run a couple (ok, lots) of servers. Or at least fragging at 100 base. And the Math Emporium, for those too lazy to click on the link, is one of the largest Mac labs in the world. Why does it suck you ask? Because a fair number have that crappy round ball mouse w/ 1 button, the rest have the crappy 1 button optical, the way they have OS X configured, when you load safari, the window size is about triple the resolution,

But yea, our football team ROCKS! As I recall, the lasf few games were landslide victories, to say the least.

Yep, the numbers must be wrong.

And if not, they have a 6 megawatt coal-fired power plant within spitting distance of the engineering buildings. That's 5 kilowatts per computer; plenty for either a house or a computer.

Incidently, after years of putting up with coal dust, I thought we would finally see the benefits of living next to a huge coal pile. We had a severe ice storm and most of blacksburg lacked power. but so did campus!.

The whole thing could conceivably fit into a room

It strikes me that the macs are still in their own cases. How fast can information travel between machines at the far ends of the racks? It all comes down to the size of the room that the computer is built in...

Since they went to so much effort to assemble the entire system, they should put the motherboards closer together. Is that harder to do with Macs as opposed to PCs?

How accurate are the benchmarks for supercomputers? If I want to compare this Mac cluster to a futuristic CPU running 17 THz who will appear faster?

Patents are not about who is right, or who is first; patents are about who will sue.

The US PTO is a money-making service for the government, and this fact is why it operates as it does.

There is a misconception that it is the central duty of the PTO to form a blockade against granting patents. The PTO can and will block applications where there's heavy similarity with prior art or existing patents, but that's really just a guideline to using the service, not the core function.

The meager regulatory behavior also weakens further in tough economies, because Big Business believes that having patents, even if they are untenable, will generate revenue; the administrations can open the floodgates at will.

The PTO's purpose is to grant patents for a fee, and it's wholly suited to do so.

The application vetting process of the PTO is a cost center for the operation of the PTO. This is akin to saying that customer service is a cost center for the operation of AT&T. It is required, but they'll cut costs as much as they can get away with.

To fix the patent application vetting process, two things must happen:

• Congress must stop using the PTO's filing fees as a revenue source for other pet interests instead of the PTO's own budget, and
  
• The PTO needs to allow third parties to aid the vetting process by challenging potential patents before they're granted.

As of 15 March 2001, the USPTO has changed their policies to solve that second problem. They can now publish patent applications before the patent itself is awarded to the applicant. Third parties may now submit "helpful" arguments against controversial applications. The USPTO can then weigh obviousness against challenges without incurring the costs of doing all the searching themselves.

Breaking patents by finding simple prior art is not enough for most cases. Patents already granted are almost never cracked, certainly not by someone using an independent third party's prior art. In the famous Heinlein/Waterbed case, the patent was denied before it was ever granted by the Patent Office. Once a patent has been granted, the Patent Office rarely will get involved in disputes; that is a matter for the courts.

[/RANT]

courses.cs.vt.edu - all of Virginia Tech's computer science courses, usually 2 - 5 semesters' worth, publicly accessible

Yes indeed. Guess who's company it was? Big Billy Gates, himself

Look at the rack on that one!

Even bigger rack!

What the G5 sees

Looking in.. notice no nose prints/drool marks on the window(yet)

Look at the rack on that one!

Even bigger rack!

What the G5 sees

Looking in.. notice no nose prints/drool marks on the window(yet)

Look at the rack on that one!

Even bigger rack!

What the G5 sees

Looking in.. notice no nose prints/drool marks on the window(yet)

Look at the rack on that one!

Even bigger rack!

What the G5 sees

Looking in.. notice no nose prints/drool marks on the window(yet)

Look at the rack on that one!

Even bigger rack!

What the G5 sees

Looking in.. notice no nose prints/drool marks on the window(yet)