India Plans A Supercomputing Grid

An Anonymous Coward writes: "According to this article at CNET, India is building a country-wide High Speed Network. Named the "I-Grid" (I is for 'Information' silly !), its a feat for the Indians who have been bogged down by U.S. sanctions in the recent past -- besides, with a country as big as theirs, its one helluva project!"

Comments

the down side...

[edrugtrader]

the data doesn't travel over wires... rather highly trained camels carry packets. still uses IP though.

Re:the down side...

[Aanallein]

the data doesn't travel over wires... rather highly trained camels carry packets. still uses IP though.

Lol! Reminds me of a recent Dilbert.
Hmm, in fact, I think there's a chance you remembered that one as well. Still funny though. :)

Re:the down side...

[Anonymous Coward]

perversity runs in your vein. you can never see goodness beyond your clan.

Re:the down side...

[sharkey]

Ahhh. Perhaps they are adapting the Avian Carrier technology to Large Ruminants to provide lower altitude, higher throughput (camels can carry more than birds) service. Latency is still pretty bad, I'll bet.

Re:India?

[swissmonkey]

Actually, at least 1/8 of the world cares about this place, that's much more than all the ignorant morons of your kind put together.

Go for it!

[bcilfone]

Hopefully they can pull it off... maybe then the US government will encourage its tech workers instead of threatening to throw them in jail in the name of a cartoon mouse.

Re:Go for it!

[CitznFish]

Yeah, blame it on Disney. That is pretty weak. Do you even know what you are saying? Do you have anything to even make that statement mean something? Do you realize Disney employees people in India? Pull your head out of your ass and have a look around....

MOD PARENT UP!!!!

[tfurrows]

Are you crazy? Are all the moderators smoking crack? This is FUNNY folks, pure sarcastic HUMOR. Sure, it's probably not the most PC (Politically Correct, not Personal Computer ;)) joke in the world, but it is still FUNNY.

Moderators, please do the job you are not paid for and mod this little gem UP!

I really hope this is for good....

[wholesomegrits]

And not for developing shitload of nukes to destroy Pakistan with. It sure sounds like the kind of thing perfect for nuclear simluations. Not that I'm fond of Pakistan's idea of leveling India with Nukes.

Braving the sanctions, C-DAC has built four versions of its Param series of machines, putting India in an elite club of supercomputing nations like the United States, Japan, Israel and China.

Oh wow, it's a who's who of nuclear powers. Considering that the US hasn't ruled out bombing the shit out of Afghanistan we're certianly in good company. The U.S. sanctions thing is bogus. They are close enough to Japan, France, Israel, &c to get all the shit they need.

Re:I really hope this is for good....

[Anonymous Coward]

First, India's really a second-world nation. The first/second/third world definitions were western/communist/other, but India's definitely not 3rd world (Uganda, Sudan, Afghanistan), and definitely not first world.

Second, India is less likely to use Nukes than Pakistan -- and U.S. citizens can thank the CIA for giving Pakistan nuke technology. Look up "Gary Powers" in your history books. His U-2 that was shot down over Russia began its flight in Pakistan. The U.S. has been in thick with Pakistan and less-than-honest deeds since. Pakistan was also a favored point for inserting people into the old U.S.S.R, and it touches China, making for more flight options to bases in Japan.

Back during the previous Bush presidency, India and Pakistan were in another heightened state of alert. Pakistan had fighter jets sitting on the tarmac, hot-seating pilots in 2-hour shifts, waiting for the word to sprint across the border and hit large cities like Delhi and Bombay. The previous President Bush, who understood the world far better than his offspring combined, probably deserves a Nobel Peace Prize for calming things down.

Third, Pakistan is the lawless nation here. Their previous female prime minister was forced out partly because of video tape taken by her secret service detail of her having sex with her own husband. (This is too absurd for me to make up, mind you.) Pakistan is currently controlled by a military dictatorship, which puts it into the same category as Pinochet, Hussein, Castro....

Fourth, a "poor" country deciding to spend a LOT of money on a private Internet backbone should scare the begeezus out of people. India is as more proximal to large population pockets than any other country. If you wanted to network Asia, Africa, and Europe, India is the place to do it.

Fifth, India was/is on the U.S. watch list because of grain sales back in the 1970's between Russia and India, and because of the U.S.'s need for a place to launch CIA spy plane flights (see Gary Powers reference above). The old "friend of my enemy is my enemy" simplistic notions of how the relationships between nations should work. India needed food, Russia was willing to sell it cheaper than the U.S., and so the simple rules of capitalism landed India on the watch list.

Sixth, there is great education in India. Who here among us has not had an Indian classmate? For seeing so many of them, remember that you are only seeing the ones that got accepted over here, and/or had the money to come over. There are many brains in India, well-educated, disciplined, and hungry for the opportunity to prove they are good, and to improve their lot in life. They lack only the chance, the opportunity....

Re:I really hope this is for good....

[Spock the Vulcan]

putting India in an elite club of supercomputing nations like the United States, Japan, Israel and China.

Oh wow, it's a who's who of nuclear powers.

Japan wouldn't be too amused at being called a nuclear power.

Re:I really hope this is for good....

[joib]

Come to think of it, if they can allocate money for a nuke program, they can certainly afford to get appropriate number crunching equipment which is solely in the hands of the weapon designers, not shared by half the academics in the country. You know, nuclear weapons research is usually classified something like "top secret"... I doubt they'd let outsiders access their stuff solely for security reasons.

Re:I really hope this is for good....

[T3kno]

Actually I think they'll use it to calculate the optimal consistency of a 7-11 slurpy.

Re:I really hope this is for good....

[Anonymous Coward]

But, its sounds so good for a sensationalist bullshit, sure-to-get-modded-+5 comment!

Re:I really hope this is for good....

[Anonymous Coward]

Heh, jealous... It's not a 5 yet.

Re:I really hope this is for good....

[Anonymous Coward]

There's a reason Seti@Home and dnetx rc5 are Closed Source, buddy.

Re:I really hope this is for good....

[Anonymous Coward]

Pak never made any unilateral promise of not using nukes. The dictator guy Musharraf has very recently reserved the right to use the nukes (paki pop guns) whenever required.
How can you trust a dictator?

Re:I really hope this is for good....

[Anonymous Coward]

India is a "second world" nation!!?! What the fuck have been smokin dipshit? What qualifies India to become a "Second world" nation? Wait I got it ....it must be the fact that more than 90% of the people make less than $100 US a YEAR!!!! Yes that is a year and 90% does infact translate to more than 900 million people!!! And dont fuckin dispute this fact because that is absolutely correct.

Re:I really hope this is for good....

[Anonymous Coward]

The "second world" nomenclature is rather arbitrary, but there's a hierarchy in the third world, and the difference is "industrialization". Countries such as Argentina, Brazil, and India are not in the same group as Afghanistan, Haiti, and most small countries in the Pacific. Countries in the first group are able to feed most of its population, produce industrialized goods and even finance a small but important academic research fund.

And remember different countries have different costs of living. Where I live, I can buy a very decent meal for less than 1 dollar. If I decide to cook my own meal, that figure drops to less than 50 cents. So don't be silly. Maybe those people do earn less than a dollar a day, but if they have how to grow their own crops, they may be doing relatively fine. Maybe their generation is "lost" in a sense, but if their children go to quality public schools, you should expect a totally different picture in less than a generation.

So, don't tell me about money. Tell me about schools, hospitals and information.

Re:I really hope this is for good....

[Lobachevsky]

according to the CIA factbook, per capita is $2,200/yr (2000est), and 35% below poverty(1994est); not $100/yr at 90%.

Re:I really hope this is for good....

[Anonymous Coward]

The "second world" nomenclature was actually used for the communist block during the cold war era. And India is nowehere in the same league as the Argentina and Brasil is. This as far as the general infrasture and average standard of living is concerned. The bottom line is that even by Indian standards majority of indians live in abject poverty and by most civilized standards the standard of living, education and healthcare of more than 90% of indian masses is not even on the scale which can meaningfully evaluated. And this country has the audacity to aspire to be a "superpower".

Re:I really hope this is for good....

[Anonymous Coward]

Have you ever actually been to India? Have you seen the fact that while one in 10 people lives a life a lot of Westerners would envy, the rest basically live in conditions that would make a cockroach have second thoughts (if it needed them)? Yes, India does have a large population of "comfortable" people - 100000000 is twice the population of England - but that doesn't mean that the other 900000000 don't count.

Re:I really hope this is for good....

[Anonymous Coward]

you are quoting GDP per capita that is adjusted by comparing purchase power against rest of the world. The actual GDP per capita will be around $300-400 US and even that is GDP figure which does not reflect the actuals. Even fresh gradutes out of medical colleges will not make much more than $1000 US. Much less so the poor wretched 900 million or so.

Re:I really hope this is for good....

[spasm]

" First, India's really a second-world nation. The first/second/third world definitions were western/communist/other, but India's definitely not 3rd world (Uganda, Sudan, Afghanistan), and definitely not first world."

Kinda ironic india invented the term 'third world' and applied it to themselves - the idea was the world was polarizing into the russian / american camps, & India saw that small, poor nations that cozied up to one or the other didn't do all that well, so decided to go down the route of 'independent neutrality'. Supposedly the rationale for this was all sorts of world-peace type reasons, but the (presumably hoped for & planned) outcome was the US and USSR outdid each other to see who could throw the most money & toys at the Indian Govt. Dig out an old copy of Janes from the 80s or earlier & have a look at which countries produced major chunks of hardware in the Indian military - a weirder mix of USA/USSR you won't find almost anywhere.

Can't think of too many other countries that did as well out of joining the 'third world' camp though, and it quickly became a catch-all term for places mostly thought of by westerners as stupefyingly poor.

Re:I really hope this is for good....

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes I have been to India and yes maybe one in 100 may live in good condition primarily afforded by using the other majority of indian like slaves.

Re:I really hope this is for good....

[kesuki]

Why should we be so scared of India building some backbone? Considering the central location perhaps they could get into the global bandwith business. The problem with imperialism is that while you can prevent your technologies from 'being stolen.' However, the cost of protecting technology is great. By overly protecting a technology you ensure that one big company no longer has the resoources to develop new technologies, because they are so busy trying to protect older ones.
If india can become a huge market of growth by importing some technology from america then it will truly benefit everyone. Look at how companies like Enron can ride market bubbles here in america. The stock market has always had it's share of companies like enron it is impossible to stop all corruption. If Americans try to choke off competition because it isn't from the USA it creates a negative atmosphere. That means that instead of investing capital in 'hot' markets that can grow exponentially legitimately we end up having tons of venture capital looking for a home. People will see this and start up Enron like corperations and get away with billions. The worst case scenario of free markets is that you lose dominance in one market only to find that the country you lost dominace to is importing more goods from you.
It's important to realize that money is a reperesentation of the total productive output of the entire world. There can only be 'more' money if the productivity of the world goes up. The result of productivity collapsing is a collapse in the value of the money in circulation. Inflation is caused by governemnts that print more money than actually represents the total productivity of their nation. There is a slight exception to this however. America prints the majority of it's money for export to other countries. Since it's accepteed in so many nations globally they can print the money based on global demand for a stable currency. Without that kind of advanatage America could never sustain a multi-trillion dollar debt. I also have a facinating theory on the 'Internet bubble.' America had been reducing the rate at which we were aquring new debt. Basically for 2-3 years there we were paying the minimum payments on all our debts. This had the effect of freeing up capital. The internet was growning at exponential rates (and still is) and so it was seen as the obvious market for all the venture capital. Any market that gets oversaturated with capital could find itself in a bubble situation. Especially a 'new' market that no one (with money) understands. Then again a new market can cause a bubble without the help of freed capital, so unless we get in a time machine it's hard to prove.

Re:I really hope this is for good....

[Anonymous Coward]

like that doesn't happen anywhere else.

Re:I really hope this is for good....

[Anonymous Coward]

....Not to that extent

Re:I really hope this is for good....

[jack deadmeat]

Eh, the Chinese are much more likely suspects for helping the Pakistanis out with nuclear weapons technology.

Re:I really hope this is for good....

[nyteroot]

Actually, building a massive internet backbone in India is a really bad idea for two reasons:
1) India needs cheap, regular phone service first. I don't know if much has changed in five years, but last time I was there (not in a big city, mind you, but not exactly out in the boonies.. Udupi, Karnataka, near Mandgalore .. if that means anything to you) but local phone calls weren't cheap and you only made STD (long-distance) calls if you were an important businessman. And the sound quality wasnt good enough to support 9.6kbps.
2) India needs reliable elctricity! I know this one still holds true, I recently read something about the average electricity in India being 8 hours a day. I remember not being able to sleep cause the mill next to us would have to turn on its diesel generators every other night
Once India gets these acts together, then it should worry about getting a huge Internet network.. basics first, guys..

Re:I really hope this is for good....

[Anonymous Coward]

It has changed, in fact. Std rates have come down over 50%, phone availability is really easy now. Not only this, internet connectivity is now available in even remote areas.

5 years is a *lot* of time, dear friend.

Re:I really hope this is for good....

[kiwipeso]

Argentina, Brazil and India are all second world nations, far less developed than my small country in the Pacific.
I am a New Zealand citizen and an Australian citizen, I resent this discrimination against Pacific Islands.

Where I live, I can buy a meal for less than a NZ$. That's about US40 for a McDonalds cheeseburger and none of this 'grow your own' crap.

Re:I really hope this is for good....

[Anonymous Coward]

As jack deadmeat points out elsewhere, it is very unlikely that the US did anything to help Pakistan with their nuclear weapons. It's basically an open secret that China helped them out. The US was once good friends with Pakistan but that was over 20 years ago. In fact allegedly the US was caught flatfooted when Pakistan came out with their nukes. The CIA had no idea they were so close to nuclear capable. It was a significant embarrassment.

I figure the nukes are useful for domestic stability.. It is quite a gratifying ego boost to the population to have them. But since they have no delivery system capable of reaching most of India, they absolutely do not promote regional stability. For MAD to work (however much it does work) you need overwhelming retaliatory capability, preferably with early warning of a strike as well. Pakistan has neither.

Re:I really hope this is for good....

[Anonymous Coward]

Please don't make this forum an excuse for Paki-bashing...

tch tch... That hurt your little heart did it?

look to the USSR, which not only gave India nuke technology, but also gave them ICBM technology.


bulls*t.. India did it on their own.. Unlike Pakistan, who were gifted the techlology by china.

And don't get me started on the hypocrisy of India testing its bombs and then claiming they're for peaceful purposes.


And don't get me started on the hypocrisy of US having the world's biggest pile of Nukes and then telling others that they're bad. FYI, US of A is the only country ever to have dropped a bomb on others. Remember CTBT? well, somebody mentioned that India havn't signed it. Well, neither has USA.

Re:I really hope this is for good....

[sireenmalik]

Why doesnot President Bush Fire Ma'm Rice and hire you as his precious advisor?! You almost know inside-out of everything that moved on this side of Timbuktoo.
Let March 15, 2002 go peacefully then I 'll come back to you and say you wont fire Nukes?!? And whats with you Indians? somebodyin India says I got flu, and you put this on Pakistan!?!
Some dude mentioned of Grid Computing of which i am sure know nothing about, and you burnt all your gaskets for the "informative" pass-time.
Hey, a good idea is to out-source it to Pakistan, they will do it for you,ofcourse as Pakis have contacts with USA, USSR, China, Korea, Afghanistan( old and new) President Bush, President Bush Sr., CIA, FBI, XYZ, PERL, LINUS, Bill Gates, James Bond, Stalin's girlfriend, etc etc. You see Pakistanis can even induce Flu in your country via 3G mobile networks. Seriously.

Re:I really hope this is for good....

[jweatherley]

There was a big drop in call charges in India in the new year. The phone lines support 56k modems - I was reading slashdot from Hyderabad this christmas. Indeed a year and a bit ago I would have had more luck getting an affordable DSL connection in an Indian city than the UK! Broadband has got better in the UK but it still sucks if you don't live in a large city.

As for power a UPS is essential for a computer over there but 8 hours a day is just not true - on average there seemed to be a cut every other day for half an hour max - not great but bearable.

A big problem with electricity in India is the amount of theft - bare wires from the junction box into someones house - nice!

Re:I really hope this is for good....

[Anonymous Coward]

As an Indian, I was amazed at the furious discussions such a simple story has generated. I was not amazed, however, by the presumptuous advice offered by many as to what India should or should not do.

Given some of the comments here, the west seems to know exactly what is best for us. Yet, just how many of you out there know the facts about India? India is seldom in the news for anything positive. Its obvious from comments such as these [India needs cheap, regular phone service first.] that they come from ill-informed people. So go out there, do a reality check and then comment.

But who exactly are you to tell us what to do anyway? Did the US ask us when they built their nukes? Or when they used them on Japan? If these supercomputers are being used to develop nukes, why not?? Its essential for us to have them, given that we have China on one border, and Pakistan on the other. And why should we justify building them to you??? I should remind you that the US recently backed out of the missile treaty with Russia for its convenience and hasn't endorsed the CTBT - talk about hypocrisy!!!

On a more positive note, this backbone is also likely to be used (as the current Param series is) for weather forcasting, geological studies, and crop harvesting - so they actually benefit the common man.

I do not dispute that there are many things that India needs - better roads, electricity, and communications among them. That does not mean, however, that we need to or should deprive ourselves of high-tech infrastructure. And of course, the decision of what to develop MUST be our own.

Re:I really hope this is for good....

[nyteroot]

Buddy, I'm an Indian, if I dont get to comment on what India does I gotta wonder who the fuck can?

"go out there, do a reality check" ?

I lived there, ya dumb fuck. Read my fucking comment before you post next time. Thank you, sit down, shut up.

Re:I really hope this is for good....

[Anonymous Coward]

Um, actually, anybody investing in land lines these days would be a loon. Look at what happened in Europe, particularly in Croatia, for instance. It used to be you had to wait 5 years to get your land phone line (and this was prepaid, equivalent to 500-1000 euro, mind you). The national telephone companies across Europe held tight monopolies in their countries. Then GSM phones showed up. The phone companies still have monopolies, but who gives a shit about their land line services when everybody and their brother can get a GSM / WAP enabled cell phone for a fistfull of change! It's cheaper to have a cell phone good for three continents (in US, it's VoiceStream that sells 'em), than to pay idiotic monopoly prices for something so outdated. Go GSM technology.

Re:I really hope this is for good....

[Anonymous Coward]

If you're from New Zealand, you really have no reason piping in this discussion! New Zealand is one if not THE ONE country on this planet with the highest standard of living! (And no, I'm not from NZ).

Re:I really hope this is for good....

[kiwipeso]

Which is my point, Not all Pacific Island nations are 3rd world countries. Those that aren't about to dissapear by global warming are usually 2nd world places.
As for high standards of living, Wellington, New Zealand has the most : internet domains, internet connections, cafes & restaurents per capita in the world.

I object to comparing pacific islands with the 3rd world, sure the Pacific may be primitive in places like my friend's Fiji holiday home, but that's the point of having a house on the beach. (I live across the road from a beach in wellington)

Re:I really hope this is for good....

[Anonymous Coward]

Second, India is less likely to use Nukes than Pakistan -- and U.S. citizens can thank the CIA for giving Pakistan nuke technology.

Sorry. I don't believe it. Speaking of which, there's an article in Scientific American a few months back on the history of the creation of the Pakistani and Indian nuclear weapons. I think the Pakistani quote was something like, "We'll have a nuclear weapon even if we have to eat grass to pay for it."

Re:I really hope this is for good....

[No One]

Just doing a bit of modproofing, since some dickless wonder's getting his jollies out of modding my week-old Score: 1 posts as Overrated.

Wheeeeeeeee....

Re:India?

[buzban]

much more than all the ignorant morons of your kind put together.

thank god...

Get the physical infrastructure sored out first

[gibler]

Shouldn't roads and irrigation be more important. Hospitals. Schools.

Re:Get the physical infrastructure sored out first

[The-Dork]

Not really !!! Thats the beauty of development in India

• Yes, we have poor people
• Yes, we have dearth of infrastructure
• Yes, we do have political problems
• Yes, we also have literacy problems

But,

• We still launch our own satellites
• We build our defence systems (not all, but many)
• We are a great engineering base
• We build our own computers too

If we waited till everybody was educated, there was great infrastructure and everybody was above the poverty line - then it would be tooo late.....because we could not be able to reach up there....because the western world would not let us! Who likes competition?

And buying technology from the west would leave us like some of the countries in South America - no production at home...all imports...so eventually an economy controlled by the US/West

Re:Get the physical infrastructure sored out first

[Zibblsnrt]

Shouldn't roads and irrigation be more important. Hospitals. Schools.

Do so many people really believe that if a country isn't spending all their money on development, they might as well not be spending any?

...Come on, people, it's not like it's a one-or-the-other decision. It's possible to build roads and computers at the same time, leaps of black-and-white "logic" aside. :P

-PS

Re:Get the physical infrastructure sored out first

[Anonymous Coward]

And what makes you think there aren't any Schools & Hosptials in India?. India has the world's second largest Railway & Road network. It probably has more hospitals than US. Only thing is, it has significantly more more population.

Re:Get the physical infrastructure sored out first

[Anonymous Coward]

So did the USSR and look where it got them.

Re:Get the physical infrastructure sored out first

[jaju]

Of course they are important. But who says that having an I-Bone means neglecting them in the first place?
The backbone is a step in the right direction, connecting more people, letting information flow smootly, and in the long way helping in better education.
Having hospitals need not really mean that the government build each and every hospital. The government provides the facilities, and it's upto the citizens to use such infrastructure and help the society.
A good information backbone might be able to save quite a few lives too!

Re:Get the physical infrastructure sored out first

[Anonymous Coward]

So did the USSR and look where it got them.
So does the US and look where it is. So does China and look where it is. Did UK buy its Nukes from US?

What better country to pull it off?

[Xyverz]

Being as most Americans think of India as a 3rd-world country, I say "what better country to pull it off"?

Actually, there is some sense to my suggestion... They don't have any archaic and esoteric infrastructure in place. They'd have to build this from the ground up, no?

Okay, I'm gonna go read that article now... (I'm prolly misinformed...)

--X...

Where do they go for outsourcing?

[cmdr_beeftaco]

Where will they go for contractors when the project is 6 months behinds schedule and 50 million over budget? Will they farm out the programming to Pakistan? China? I need answer.

Re:Where do they go for outsourcing?

[Anonymous Coward]

They could probably get free resources from Taliban refugees who would work for free if they could test the system with atomic bomb simulations.

Re:Where do they go for outsourcing?

[Glorat]

It is interesting to note that here in the UK, the laws for immigration have changed significantly. Laws are getting tougher for assylum seekers but being relaxed for immigrants that would help the UK economy... and many of these are Indians because they are smart and well educated. Indeed, I have heard of many a project that have been outsourced to India because skilled labour is so much cheaper there. India have the skills and manpower to pull this off

Re:Where do they go for outsourcing?

[cmdr_beeftaco]

projects outsourced to india? unheard of. that's the joke. jeeeeez, do the brits have any humor.

Re:Where do they go for outsourcing?

[Anonymous Coward]

absolutely right!! here we already work
on projects that seem outsourced :-)

Re:Where do they go for outsourcing?

[sharkey]

Perhaps they'll get Battle School grads to do the work in forced-labor camps. Probably only need some kind of a psycho who's willing to kill to keep 'em in line.

Re:Where do they go for outsourcing?

[Anonymous Coward]

If you're british then you've been sleeping all these days. Check out who's handling the maintenance etc. of Your Railways these days.

Re:Where do they go for outsourcing?

[Anonymous Coward]

"Probably only need some kind of a psycho who's willing to kill to keep 'em in line."

Seems like the Middle east has planty of those

Re:Where do they go for outsourcing?

[Anonymous Coward]

Perhaps they'll get Battle School grads to do the work in forced-labor camps. Probably only need some kind of a psycho who's willing to kill to keep 'em in line.

Which drug are you high off of right now?

Re:Where do they go for outsourcing?

[The-Dork]

dude.....have you heard of Sun Microsystems?

You probably havent because they just moved their java development center from *your* US (i presume you are American) to India :-p

High voltage?

[cperciva]

C-DAC's computers, built on a sophisticated clustering of microprocessors, would use advanced software to securely network the machines, much like a high-voltage electricity grid.

Can anyone work out what they're trying to say here? Do high-voltage electricity grids use advanced security software? Perhaps they're saying that anyone who tries to tamper with the network will get shocked? Or...

Re:High voltage?

[Anonymous Coward]

perhaps it's CNET and they're STOOOOOPID

Re:High voltage?

[DarkFyre]

It sounds like two issues to me, or else misuse of the word 'security.' I think the word they were looking for was 'robustness,' in that severing a single line shouldn't cause discontinuities.

I know, my power gets cut off from time to time, too. But I think the 'high-voltage' (ie. non-residential) grids have redundancy in the same way that this proposed network will have better redundancy that the pedestrian Internet (where too many pidgeons on a line in Minneanapolis causes my connection to slow to a crawl).

Re:High voltage?

[talonyx]

They're saying that the computers will be all over the place connected with networks, just like how substations are connected with electrical cables.

I sure hope you failed English in high school.

Re:High voltage?

[kesuki]

Obviously the 'sophisticated clustering of CPUs' is generating a heat shield. So the effect must be a server room that causes anyone who attempts to tamper with the systems to collapse from heat stroke and/or suffer second degree burns. Or perhaps a more simple solution that the server nearest the door has a peltier device redistribting heat to the door knob so no one can enter the server room.
;-)

Re:High voltage?

[Anonymous Coward]

No, I hope YOU failed English. Learn to read. He clearly points out an ambiguity in the wording, but I guess you're too dim to notice it even after the explanation is spoon-fed to you.

Yahoo Chat

[ZaneMcAuley]

So we expect more of em on Yahoo chat? (Assumming Yahoo chat stays up long enough as its down again atm:D ) More "I Love you" , "Happy Valentines Day" PMs :D

Heh

[EricKrout.com]

India's new i-Grid follows a long line of previously successfull Apple products, the i-Pod and the i-Mac being two of them.

When reached for comment, Apple's visionary Steve Jobs stated that his engineers "would worry about the technical difficulties" associated with such a large distributed system after they "dealt with the more important stuff first, like what fluorescent color to make the transparent wires and stuff".

monolinux.com :: GNUs For Nerds. Flawless Grammar.

Re:Heh

[Anonymous Coward]

Jerk. You made me spit coffee out my nose ;)

Re:Heh

[decoydog]

now that's comedy...too bad my mod points expired this past weekend.

Re:Heh

[darkov]

Yeah looks good but it too fucking expensive. When will Apple learn that it can't foist overpriced distributed computing networks onto unsuspecting countries. Someone should tell them they can get a much cheaper Grid by using PCs and Linux.

Also, I hear it only supports one button mice. Sigh.

Mammoth applications?

[Oink.NET]

Quoth CNet:

India's state-run agency for advanced computing plans to build a nationwide grid of supercomputers for mammoth applications.

Mammoth, as in wooly mammoth? I suppose they'll be excavating Cobol programmers to write the code for it...

Re:Mammoth applications?

[scoove]

grid of supercomputers for mammoth applications.

No, you must not have seen the network diagram. It's very explicit, as it has an elephant standing on the back of a turtle (and so on).

Check your Visio2000 India Symbols pack. It's all there.

*scoove*

Re:Mammoth applications?

[dillon_rinker]

Skeptic: But what does the turtle stand on?
True Believer: It's turtles all the way down!

Re:Mammoth applications?

[Bob McCown]

Well, at least get it right...dug this off the web A well-known scientist (some say it was Bertrand Russell) once gave a public lecture on astronomy. He described how the earth orbits around the sun and how the sun, in turn, orbits around the entre of a vast collection of stars called our galaxy. At the end of the lecture, a little old lady at the back of the room got up and said: "What you have told us is rubbish. The world is really a flat plate supported on the back of a giant tortoise." The scientist gave a superior smile before replying, "What is the tortoise standing on?" "You're very clever, young man, very clever," said the old lady. "But it's turtles all the way down."

Re:Mammoth applications?

[SamBeckett]

It's actually in the introduction to one of Hawking's books, too.

Re:Mammoth applications?

[Anonymous Coward]

Just In case You didn't know, mammoth also means big:

mammoth Pronunciation Key (mmth)
n.

1. Any of various large, hairy, extinct elephants of the genus Mammuthus, especially the woolly mammoth.
2. Something of great size.

adj.

Of enormous size; huge. See Synonyms at enormous.

Re:Mammoth applications?

[ElderKorean]

The turtle doesn't have to stand on anything. According to Terry it's just moving through space.

I suspect that it is on the way to the turtle mating place in the sky. When it gets there then the really important question can be answered....What sex is the turtle.

The disc of the world is supported on the back of four elephants which are in turn walking in a big circle on the back of the turtle.

The turtle even has a name - A'Tuin.

Re:Mammoth applications?

[dillon_rinker]

THE TURTLE MOVES!

Indian humour is lost on you

[Anonymous Coward]

You Americanos have no wit! Shock of electricity is joking analogy of high security software.

Priorities

[Ryu2]

Umm, should the indians worry about feeding their own and eliminating bubonic plague as a major cause of death before they build stuff like this?

Re:Priorities

[scoove]

Umm, should the indians worry about feeding their own and eliminating bubonic plague as a major cause of death before they build stuff like this?

God do I hope that's a silly European and not a stupid American saying something like that. (It's probably a stupid American aspiring to be a silly European, in all likelyhood).

Actually, I think this is an exceptional move to help get people out of poverty (not that all people in India are in poverty - another rather myopic view). Besides the usual opportunities represented in such a move, technology tends to bring in a tremendous opportunity for entrepreneurship (read: a way for poor blokes to move up in the world).

Because of the rate of change with technology, rapid obsolescence, intellectual demands (brain vs brawn), the expansion of technology in any economy really helps young adults create new businesses which in turn feed more money into channels outside of the status quo.

I hope India explores liberal licensing of 2.4 and 5.8 GHz frequencies as well, ensuring this backbone has room to grow. India's telecom network has been terribly restricted, corrupt and ineffective in past years and a wireless broadband framework could serve as an excellent spur network to feed all this new commerce into the backbone.

eliminating bubonic plague

Er... we still have it in the US, buddy! It lives in prairie dogs (which have become recent animal preservationist favorites because they're so cute). Folks still come down with it from other rodent population that comes in contact with the prairie dogs (which are unaffected by the disease).

*scoove*

Re:Priorities

[gupg]

If every nation first tried to feed its people and then did scientific research, then the nation would never progress. The US would first have to work to get every Bum off the street, before it could fund any research.

Re:Priorities

[Anonymous Coward]

Good suggestion.. only India is a *net exporter* of food... has been for years now. I guess you are not to blame for your perceptions.. the only news about india that filter out in the US-centric media is the gory, disaster kind.

Re:Priorities

[Anonymous Coward]

Potable water, anyone? As in the substance that's required to keep humans alive for periods extending up to, or over, a week? Or is India a net exporter of that too?

Re:Priorities

[MagikSlinger]

Ah, the crypto-colonialist has crept out from under his rock.

1) India produces quite enough food for its population. It's poverty that's killing people.

2) Bubonic plague thrives in India because of the close proximity of people and animals over much of the country. Would you like them to start exterminating their biota to make you happy?If you are talking about antibiotics, then India needs a lot of cash it really doesn't have right now because they're still an economic backwater.

3) Since poverty is the greatest risk factor for death in India, maybe some industrial advancement would be in order. Not the kind that produces pollution and low wages, but maybe tertiary and quartenary industries, like say, computing science and engineering. Oops! They've been doing that and enjoying good economic growth and increased tax revenues to pay for things.

THUS to better serve the needs of their people through economic growth and transitioning away from a physical labor economy (where education isn't required), they need this kind of project. So please keep your neo-colonialist views to yourself. Do you imagine everyone outside of Europe and America as poor, stupid, starving darkies who need good white folk like you to put their priorities straight?

PUH-leeze! The White Man's Burden is SO over.

Re:Priorities

[Anonymous Coward]

Good Priorities, but lets apply those to the worst nations in the world.
Who has the worst problems with Bubonic Plague (yersinia pestis). Why the USA. Here in Colorado, we have far more plague than all of India. CDC has a Plague branch in Ft. Collins CO becuase of the high indecence.

And on to the more important point: America has more starving kids than does India. But even without that, the question is how do they afford food since they do not have the land? They must earn money in some fashion. This sounds like they are headed down the right road.

Go India. Just be smart and quit wasting your money on buying OS's that you don't need.

Re:Priorities

[gol64738]

Do you imagine everyone outside of Europe and America as poor, stupid, starving darkies who need good white folk like you to put their priorities straight?

um, yes. look at history and the basic evolution of technology and answer your own question.

Re:Priorities

[osgeek]

(not that all people in India are in poverty - another rather myopic view)

Sheesh... hardly. I lived in India for a few months working in Hyderabad, so I can tell you: That country is a complete hole. While there, I traveled from New Delhi to Bombay to Goa, and everywhere I went, it was the same: abject povery.

Hell, while there, we lived in a nice house in a decent neighborhood, but we still had a couple of grass shacks in the lot right next door to us. Garbage was everywhere, little kids were running around naked and hungry through the piles of garbage (often burning).

When you breathe in the air, you count yourself lucky if you only inhale a cloud of diesel fumes. More often than not, you have to breathe old piss and sewage fumes. Where does that come from? Well let me tell you, my friends -- when the average person living in an Indian city needs to relieve himself, he just whips it out and pisses on the side of the nearest building. Playing "Dodge the Piss Puddle" is no fun while you're walking down the sidewalk.

The reason why everything is so crappy can be summed up in one word: "corruption". Even most Indian friends that I know agree that it's a huge problem, although when they talk about it, it's always some government agency that they blame. Little do they realize that corruption pervades their entire society -- from the Prime Minister down to the little guy on the street. Everywhere you go, you have to be ready to pay bribes or grease someone's palm. You *always* ALWAYS have to count your change when you buy something, or you'll get ripped off. India's only hope to become the super power that they so desperately want to be is to undertake a massive cultural ethical shift. If Indians had the ethics of the Japanese, they'd be unstoppable as a world economic power... but they don't, so they won't ever be.

Spending that time in India was the greatest learning experience in my life. Every time I think about it (like now), I truly appreciate what we have in this country.

Re:Priorities

[Lobachevsky]

There's plenty of food in India; many just can't afford enough of it. Solution?

Well, one is continue with such things as the i-Grid and have the long-term solution of education and job-availability solve poverty,

another is to create a welfare state and subsidize the poor's food, etc., as we in the US do with food stamps,

alternatively, create a communist state where the $2,200/yr per capita income is evenly distributed, which would be enough to feed all.

We'll probably throw sanctions if they turned communist, and the government doesn't have the money to subsidize food (causing their currency to become weaker than it is).

Why is the Indian government exporting food when some of its own residents can't afford it? Reflectively, does our government (the u.s. for those not in here), burn over 50% of crops while some (much fewer here than in india) die here of starvation? In a capitalist world, the long-term economy of the country cannot give freebies to the unemployed/underemployed [unemployment checks in the u.s. were shortened yet again -- to, is it 10months now?]

Re:Priorities

[MagikSlinger]

um, yes. look at history and the basic evolution of technology and answer your own question

That makes no sense as a rebuttal. I have looked at history and the basic evolution of technology, and that's where my original post came from. Technological progress has always lead to an increase in human welfare. Spending little to no resources on progress to feed everyone results in stagnation (cf. Pre-Colonial China).

Could you be more specific?

Re:Priorities

[_Knots]

The White Man's Burden (the poem), I've been told, was probably intended as satire. I don't remember it well enough to quote citations, but that's what my teacher said. Take it with a grain of salt, obviously.

(Note to self: reread.)

_knots

Re:Priorities

[gol64738]

well i suppose the real question is what has always led to an increase of technological progress, right?

Re:Priorities

[OctoBer31]

Wow, not even close with the stats on Plague. The US averages 10-20 cases per year whereas the majority of Plague cases occur in Asia, with recent outbreaks in India as lately as 1997 with roughly 700 cases.

Given your track record, AnonCow, I'll leave your "starving children" stats for others to tease out, Gods help them.

India's project to build this network is an investment in their future - I can't fault them for that one bit, and am encouraged by it, actually. Given time, it has the potential to produce jobs, technology for exports, and encouragement for investors from other countries...+,+,+.

Don't do them a disservice by "quoting" stats just to deflate your mad-on toward the US.

Re:Priorities

[Anonymous Coward]

I am myopic, I resent being associated with those whom have an ignorant view of the world.

Re:Priorities

[Anonymous Coward]

Technological progress has most certainly not always led to an increase in welfare, although satirically, I might say it has led to an "increase" but it certainly hasn't led to an "improvement" in welfare.

Technology is a mixed bag with mixed results, generally because once it's unleashed people use it in a lot of ways unimagined and/or unintended by its creators. Imagine Einstein's disappointment when he couldn't contain nuclear weapons, during his lifetime.

Technology has not evolved in quite a long time. Oh it has certainly grown faster, more powerful, "better" in an aesthetic sense but at the risk of sounding Luddite, let me say that most people are totally unconscious as to what's going on in the world and the devastating effects the collective effect of technology is having on us all.

I would not classify a large fast network in India as being particularly Luddite, but let's get over the notion that technological progress always leads to improvement.

Re:Priorities

[MagikSlinger]

It was indeed satire with a grain of truth. That is how Europeans viewed their relationship with their colonies. Although I've heard some scholars claim the phrase was already in use before the poem was written.

India the Next Superpower

[pyrrho]

There is no doubt in my mind that India is the next big superpower.

(1) Lots of unspoilt natural resources
(2) Smart People
(3) Most Important (A LOT OF PEOPLE)
(4) and it doesn't hurt they speak english allowing them to segue their way in.

My premise..? Numbers don't lie. A giant market is a giant period. This prediction does cover China too, their population makes them a sleeping giant. Except that China does not have an open society. India is struggling against years of exploitation and it's own caste system... but given the adoption of democracy there I can't imagine it won't arrise from these difficulties and when it does, it will have more resources than anyone will be able to (or want to) stop.

Re:India the Next Superpower

[Anonymous Coward]

Boy, India *and* China?
You are REALLY going out on a limb here with these predictions. I mean, really putting your head on the chopping block!
Wow!

India *and* China, both up+coming superpowers. Who woulda thunk it?

Re:India the Next Superpower

[scoove]

There is no doubt in my mind that India is the next big superpower.

Good arguments, but I'm not sold (as much as I'm impressed with India's efforts and potential).

Is there really any good evidence of the emergence of a superpower from a ethnically diverse and incompatible populace, absent significant suppression by the elite minority of the other groups?

China and South Africa are good examples of the potential for advancement under suppression.

I'm really more curious than serious on my argument - I'd have to believe there's a /.'er polysci major that knows of some good material on the topic.

Need some bedtime reading this weekend!

*scoove*

Re:India the Next Superpower

[Anonymous Coward]

Superpower!! Looks like you know all there is to know about india. Try making a long distance call in India at peak time within 1 hour .... or finding a drivable road .... or any place without millions of miserable poor people with nothing to eat.

India is a sick, failed nation with a future which will continue to be the same unless there is a revolutionary change of mindset and prompt action to abandon and destroy their bureaucratic and corupt institions (including entities like C-DAC) and systems. If you know India this means building pretty much everything from scratch.

Will India become a superpower? Not in next 50-100years and certainly not unless it abandons it current system as well as its egotistical stand on Kashmir, which is to hold on it even if it means economic depravation and starvation of the vast majority of its billion souls. That formula is no recipe for success, it does however gurantee that the nation is stuck in this cycle until there is mass revolution or a post-apocalyptic reconstruction.

Re:India the Next Superpower

[NixterAg]

South Africa is experiencing astronomical crime rates (and it is still growing) and corruption at all levels of government. I'd wager that it could go the way of Zimbabwe within the next 20 years (and I hope not...it is a truly beautiful country).

I don't exactly know what you mean "potential for advancement under suppression". I also have absolutely no idea what "emergence of a superpower from a(n) ethnically diverse and incompatible populace, absent significant suppression by the elite minority of the other groups" means either.

Re:India the Next Superpower

[pyrrho]

Do you think roads and communication lines take more than 50 years to get in place? If it was just infrastructural issues, it could happen over night. But it's a matter of waiting for democracy to set in, it's a cultural issue. I don't believe that India will take that long on cultural grounds, and in fact my prediction is exactly as you deny, 50-100 years.

Re:India the Next Superpower

[raldanash]

I disagree with the "unspoilt" resources. India is a 1 billion people in 1/3 the size of the US. Most of the "unspoilt" spaces are mountains and deserts. Try to find wilderness in the flatlands-good luck. India does some some iron and manganese in the Chota Nagpure highlands-but it's industrial capacity isn't a great as someplace like China which has more hydro potentional and more mineral resources (coal).

Re:India the Next Superpower

[ma_sivakumar]

My premise..? Numbers don't lie. A giant market is a giant period.

That is not strictly true. I am from India, and I have worked in China and in UK. Based on my experience, numbers are not everything. While I also see a lot of potential in the huge population of India and China, there are major hurdles to overcome.

1. Education:
   
   

   The education system in India is still the same system which aimed to churn out clerks to serve under the colonial British masters. The bright Indian professionals you meet in the western world are bright inspite of all the negatives of the education system

   
   
2. Personal Responsibility:
   
   

   As a direct result of the poor education system, you can see laws being flouted at all levels (right from the traffic system to awarding government contracts). When you have a big mass of people who are not following the rules, (unless watched over by the police,) most of the energy is drained in watching out rathern than performing

   
   
3. Corruption
   
   

   Again, following the above two, the system is corrupt through and through. NOTHING gets down without palms being greased and even after greasing, in many places nothing gets down EVER

   
   
   

   To mask their inefficiency, the political class resort to religeous fundamentalism, casteism and war mongering.
   
   

I also hope that we can wish away all these. But these are the sad realities. The silver lining is the functioning democracy and the remarkable shrewdness of the ordinary man in seeing through all this.

Thus, we are slowly inching towards progress, but as we say, sometimes you climb an inch and slip a foot, so it is tough

Re:India the Next Superpower

[Anonymous Coward]

Try making a long distance call in India at peak time within 1 hour .... or finding a drivable road .... or any place without millions of miserable poor people with nothing to eat.

Looks like you've been sleeping for the past few years. Ever heard of anybody dying of hunger in India? Ever ?

Re:India the Next Superpower

[Anonymous Coward]

You've been smokin too much crack dude! Half the nation probably dies of some malnurishment related disease. And do you think they have teams of medical experts scouring the villages to find out what people are dying from. And if they find someone the next big news story is going to be "Man dies of hunger in India? Yes you do not hear about people dying of hunger in India, because it is so common for people to die of hunger that it is NOT NEWS!!!!

And what is the infant mortality rate in India? And have you taken a look around at an average Indian. You think an average Indian is an shining example of a super healthly individual. Fuckin BS!!! And how do you explain the fact a billion people cannot compete in any international atheletic endeavour?

Get your head out your ass and start recognising the problems you are faced with instead of harbouring delusional ideas of being a superpower!!!

Re:India the Next Superpower

[Anonymous Coward]

India might break out of its pathetic existing as a sick ulcer on the face of the earth within the next 50-100years if it does an about face and changes it's mindset. That is if it focuses on issue that are really important like education, elimination of all the bereaucratic institutions, letting Kashmiris go their own way and implementing major changes to their political system. If they dont do this and more, 500 years later it will still be a pathetic pauper of a nation!

Re:India the Next Superpower

[jweatherley]

Half the nation probably dies of some malnurishment related disease
Well, actually they probably don't - food is plentiful and cheap in India. (even allowing for the low average wage). BTW perhaps an Indian could spell 'malnourishment'...

And how do you explain the fact a billion people cannot compete in any international atheletic endeavour?
OK they're not a world sporting superpower but there is Sachin Tendulkar - but you USians probably don't know too much about cricket.

Re:India the Next Superpower

[No One]

Just doing a bit of modproofing, since some dickless wonder's getting his jollies out of modding my week-old posts offtopic.

its a feat for the Indians

[Anonymous Coward]

That's it's

Click here for IBM's latest security whitepaper!

Re:its a feat for the Indians

[No One]

Just doing a bit of modproofing, since some dickless wonder's getting his jollies out of modding my week-old Score: 1 posts as overrated.

Ahem

[Anonymous Coward]

Networking computers doesn't increase your country's total CPU power.

If you think that you're going faster because you're also using your neighbors computers, you forget that your neighbors are also using YOUR computer.

Grid computing is bullshit.

Re:Ahem

[TACD]

Um, only if we are both using the computers flat-out. If either me or my neighbour has processor cycles going to waste, then the other coomputer can use them and hey presto! we are going faster.

Re:Ahem

[Anonymous Coward]

If these supercomputers are anything like the ones I've seen, their job queues are always full. The only thing keeping the demand of computing power equal to the supply is people voluntarily removing their job from the queue because they see that it would take too long before it even starts. No cycle is ever wasted.

Imagine...

[Anonymous Coward]

A Beowolf cluster of these.

Better way of spending the cash...

[MoThugz]

It's no secret that India has a high disparity between the rich and the poor. Some of you might even seen it on TV (remember Amazing Race?). Somehow it makes me feel that this project is a waste of money for Indians.

Now with sectarian violence threatening to rip the country apart, they still have time to think of an I-Grid?

Re:Better way of spending the cash...

[Anonymous Coward]

Disparity between rich and poor.. do you know the figures for US??? US has the largest disparity between the rich and the poor.

Sectarian violence.. hmm.. LA race riots anyone?

Re:Better way of spending the cash...

[Anonymous Coward]

I think you spelled 'LA looting frenzy' incorrectly.

Re:Better way of spending the cash...

[nelsonal]

While the US has much higher disparities between rich and poor, Brazil is much higher. I think its close to the top.
One of the most common wealth disparity figures is the gini coeficcient, it measures the difference between a country's Lorenz line (a line plotting wealth percentile to population percentile) verses an ideal 45 degree line. European contries tend to have the lowest numbers, the US is near the middle, and South American countries are generally the highest. In Brazil's case the richest 20% of the country holds almost 70% of the wealth.

Re:Better way of spending the cash...

[Anonymous Coward]

No he didn't. Maybe You'd like to look at your spelling.

Re:Better way of spending the cash...

[Anonymous Coward]

Take the bottom 10% poorest in each country and determine which has the better standard of living. While the difference in what I make and what Bill Gates is huge, I'd still rather have that huge difference and live here than have half the difference and be poor in India.

You can't go by disparity of the rich and poor, you have to look at the standard of living of the poor and percentage of population that falls within it.

Not Indians!

[jamirocake]

Sorry pal, but people from India are not called Indians (Polish are called Poles but people from Holland are not called Holes either). Indians are Hindus, even though not everybody practices the Hindu religion.... Manuel PS Holland people==Dutch people

Re:Not Indians!

[Spock the Vulcan]

And people from the US are not called Americans, but Christians, even though not everyone practises Christianity, right? You, sir, are either an idiot, or very misinformed. And worse is the moderator who modded this insightful. Geez.

Re:Not Indians!

[queequeg1]

Per the US State Dept. India information

Re:Not Indians!

[gupg]

You Idiot !!

Ofcourse they are called Indians - I am from India.

Where do you think the incorrect name for Native Americans came from ?? Christopher Columbus was looking for a new route to India and landed on Islands off of North America and thought he had reached India. So he called those people Indians.

Re:Not Indians!

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, I didn't know you guys knew everything, sorry for my english, but in most latin languages is hindus, actually i guess is correct to call them indians in English since the english speaking population of america has exterminated most of their own native population (and then they complain of imigration! )....

Re:Not Indians!

[Anonymous Coward]

So he called those people Indians.
Thats just because he didnt have the room to write persons of no specific gender or sexual preference of aboriginal ancestry predating arrivals of nonauthentic regional genetic sources primarily of native-killing hate-induced evil-laced western european men in his logbook.

Re:Not Indians!

[Anonymous Coward]

Thats just because he didnt have the room to write persons of no specific gender or sexual preference of aboriginal ancestry predating arrivals of nonauthentic regional genetic sources primarily of native-killing hate-induced evil-laced western european men in his logbook.

He should have wrote "NINJAS" in his logbook! It's even fewer letters! And they're capital!

Re:Not Indians!

[Anonymous Coward]

What are you talking about? I am also from India, but we are all called Hindus! Are you some kind of misinformation machine?!

Re:Not Indians!

[inburito]

And people from where ever you come from are collectively called idiots..

Re:Not Indians!

[Anonymous Coward]

If i were a Christian that lived in India, I wouldnt call myself a Hindu or a Christian, would I? People from India = Indians.

Re:Not Indians!

[OctoBer31]

Er, AnonCow?...if you live in India and happen to be Hindu rather than Muslim, you're a "Hindu". You're confusing your faith with your country of origin. The people living in the country named India are "Indians" in English.

Check out the link queequeg listed above - very informative. (thx, q).

Re:Not Indians!

[OctoBer31]

Don't apologize for your English, rather apologize for your error - English isn't a Romance language. And thank you for the history lesson, lest we evil Americans forget every evil deed ever committed on our shores by our countryfolk. Aren't you glad these evil deeds can only be committed by Americans, and would never, ever be done by people in any other country on Earth, including yours?

Re:Not Indians!

[Anonymous Coward]

And your point is?

Re:Not Indians!

[OctoBer31]

...completely missed by you, evidently.

Re:Not Indians!

[venkataramiah]

Actually, there is is a simpler proof of this.. Indians were called Indians even when Vespucci, Columbus and the other colonizers, found the currently called "native Americans". What did we call them even a few years ago?? Indians, exactly..not Hindus.. The way I see it - India is the country that Columbus went looking for when he found you guys..! isnt that ironic.. Anyway, with my scant know. of Spanish, it looks like old jamirocake is using laws of (incorrect) deduction to come up with his theory. --piece

Re:Not Indians!

[No One]

Just doing a bit of modproofing, since some dickless wonder's getting his jollies out of modding my week-old Score: 1 posts as Overrated.

Interesting Concept

[Anonymous Coward]

"Mr. Simpson please pay for your purchases and get out and come again!"

Re:Interesting Concept

[No One]

Just doing a bit of modproofing, since some dickless wonder's getting his jollies out of modding my week-old Score: 1 posts as Overrated.

Amazing, capitalizing one letter's enough to defeat the lameness filter.

Whts the difference between Pakistan and a pancake

[indole]

From the article:
"Such a grid would share or combine diverse computer memories and software in parallel processes to aid environmental modeling, fast analysis of satellite images, advanced chip design and simulation of heavy-duty equipment like turbines."

I think it's interesting how when one nuclear agressive country imports Playstation 2's we freak the fuck out, but when another nuclear agressive country creates the worlds largest supercomputing grid we say, Bravo!

Ah well, such is life.

Don't let them do it!

[burtonator]

Man... if India can build a super computer that big the could run Nuclear simulations and someday build a Nuclear bomb!

Re:Don't let them do it!

[Anonymous Coward]

...or the world's most sophisticated air freshener.

Re:Don't let them do it!

[Anonymous Coward]

Nuclear SIMULATION!???

They built the Nukes long ago! They dont need an I-grid to see the fireworks.

Re:Don't let them do it!

[TeddyR]

No; but an Supercomputer would allow them to test thories that they would (SHOULD) never contemplate with real nukes. They can test scenarios that initially would seem impossible .... {flashback: Anyone remember that old movie, WarGames...}

[Even the US Govt. admits that without its computing power in WWII they would never have been able to develop the devices used on Japan in time; why do you think they treat computers and encryption as AMMUNITION]

Re:Don't let them do it!

[Anonymous Coward]

hahah own!

Re:Don't let them do it!

[No One]

Just doing a bit of modproofing, since some dickless wonder's getting his jollies out of modding my week-old Score: 1 posts as Overrated.

Wheee....

Colleges

[Telastyn]

From what I understand this will be a large project to interconnect India's largest technical colleges (Institutes of Technology, which are very prestegious and good) and have smallish (by US standards) supercomputers at each one. They would then resell the pooled computing resources as needed.

The American equivalent would be having a supercomputer at Stanford, MIT, UMich, CMU, GATech, and maybe 4 other places, connected via internet2 and ssh tunnels.

Re:Colleges

[gupg]

yeah I think its kind of the national supercomputer centers that the US universities had in late 80s/early 90s. They were called NCSA .. thats where Mosiac came from.

Re:Colleges

[Dock]

I hope you aren't suggesting using a SSH tunnel for the entire connection. You would need those massive systems *just* to encrypt/decrypt the traffic, you'd have nothing leftover for applications. And AFAIK, SSH tunnels are severely limited. You would need a fixed port for the tunnel on the client end and you would only be able to connect to a single remote site through it. We are not talking about a encrypted proxy here.

Would you want to have to use a single port for every host you'd want to connect to over the network? www.uni1:8000, www.uni2:8001, www.slashdot:8050, on and on. You wouldn't be able to connect to more than 65k sites without constantly changing your local profile. Talk about a waste of resources..

Re:Colleges

[Anonymous Coward]

Specifically, NCSA at UIUC. I think the NCSA "alliance" thing came later. I would add UIUC and Berkeley to the parent poster's list.

Re:Colleges

[Anonymous Coward]

Whatever, do you read comic book ALL day long?

Re:Colleges

[Anonymous Coward]

What you are describing sounds strikingly similiar to the globus project.

Mod that one +1 Informative!

[Anonymous Coward]

I just looked it up. I didn't know that the U-2 shootdown almost started a nuclear war.

Re:Mod that one +1 Informative!

[Anonymous Coward]

just about anything will start a nuclear war with an nation that:

- dropped nuclear weapons on their own army troops just to see what effect it would have (hint: they die)

- wiped out 20 million jews just so the germans wouldn't one-up them

- wiped out millions of peasants because they looked and talked funny

- conducted the worst ethnic cleansing of any nation worldwide, just to make sure the moscow whities wouldn't feel out of place in any corner of the country

and best of all, never were brought to justice for all the above crimes and more. Instead, they're given peace prizes and are held as guests of honor at european dinner tables. Sure, the Serbs get hearings. The Germans got hung. But the Russians get cocktail parties!

and the europeans are mad at bush for retaliating in afghanistan. how primitive!

Re:Mod that one +1 Informative!

[Anonymous Coward]

Dude, what the fuck you talking about?
Where in the hell have you heard this bullshit? Was you scared? Did you shit your brain out along with poop?
20 million is a number of russian casualties in WW2, ignorant butthole.

Re:Mod that one +1 Informative!

[No One]

Just doing a bit of modproofing, since some dickless wonder's getting his jollies out of modding my week-old Score: 1 posts as Overrated.

Almost done...

Re:India?

[Anonymous Coward]

Oh come off it. That's like calling the US "That same country which used to enslave millions of people, treat them as property and still count them as 3/5ths of a person for election purposes." Or "That country where a state governor turned firehoses on a bunch of peaceful protestors." Or "That country where four armed police officers beat up a black truck driver, and caused significant portions of the third largest city in the country to go up in flames."

You can't stereotype a country based on the worst of its inhabitants.

Re:India?

[Anomolous Cow Herd]

Yeah, except all the examples you cited are in the past, while what he cited began last week and is still happening. Or are you just trying to say that they are about 100 years behind the civilized world?

Indians are God's people-that's what the word mean

[Anonymous Coward]

And they live in India.

India : Some Facts

[matrix0040]

I guess the replies reflect a general ignorance about india and indians in general. India might have it's own problems with poverty and all but still countries in europe and US relied on indian brain power for their IT needs.

About supercomputing in India. CDAC had developed it's first supercomputer long back and has been making a lot of progress in this field. And before raising a nuclear alarm, India already has nuclear capability (and can launch a satellite into orbit (2+2 = ?) ) besides there are many other civilian applications on parallel computing .. ever heard of weather prediction (farming and fishing happen to be the largest industry in India and weather prediction is critical for these industries) Now i am not going to make a big list of all the applications of parallel computing but developing nuclear weapon is just one among the vast number of critical applications. Hell even the cows in india need the supercomputing power (they're the ones plowing the farms ;-)

Re:India : Some Facts

[Anonymous Coward]

Can't they just open a casino on one of their reservations?

Re: India : Some Facts

[Sivaraj]

The defense department have their own separate supercomputer, called Anurag. It was less powerful than Param from C-DAC, but it was built specifically for defense purposes.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but...

[Anonymous Coward]

Won't they need a power grid first?

Re:Correct me if I'm wrong, but...

[No One]

Just doing a bit of modproofing, since some dickless wonder's getting his jollies out of modding my week-old Score: 1 posts as Overrated.

Wheee........

Re:India Next Superpower NOT WITH RELIGION!

[Anonymous Coward]

Religious countries, despite sometimes having intrinsic genetically bestowed high IQ when porperly nourished, yield nothing at all.

Its seen time and time again around the equator.

Chinese and Indians have higher than world average IQ when properly nourished, but superstitious belief systems, idiotic governmental frameworks, backwards traditions, and religious infighting keep arabs, chinese, and indians in the 3rd world dark ages they are doomed to suffer in as they have for thousands of years.

Perhaps some testosterone is needed (which affects IQ negatively on average), but not too much, and perhaps that is the drive that america enjoyed.

But discounting biological differences or similaririties, I am no going to hold my breath waiting for superpowers to rise up from the dust and decay of China, India, Arab Middle East.

Why?

Because you can predict a persons future actions by their past performance, and so can you judge a cultures future prospects by there past performance.

India is a overpopulated muslim-hindu festering religious war cesspool of corruption and repression with no real competitive edge.

Heck, I would give Australia or GermanY the nod for the fastest gainers of the next 40 years, not India or China.

Named the "I-Grid" (I is for 'Information' silly !

[ZaneMcAuley]

And there i was thinking I stood for Idiot, the Idiot-Grid :D Glad u cleared that up.

I hope none of the fiber goes thru Kashmir

[LM741N]

Or they are going to have lots of network downtime.

Re:I hope none of the fiber goes thru Kashmir

[Quixote]

Why not? Last I checked, Kashmir was a part of India. The International Law recognizes the accession of Kashmir into India. Even the United Nations agreed that Kashmir would be a part of India (until the plebiscite is held). What it does not recognize is the occupation of a part of Kashmir by Pakistan.
The plebiscite has not been held because Pakistan continues to illegally occupy a third of the region. Once Pakistan withdraws, there should be no problems in holding a plebiscite.
Coming back to the topic at hand, I hope this network (or something similar) will spread to every nook and corner of the country, bringing high-speed access to the masses.

"Weather predictions"

[Edmund Blackadder]

I used to know people that developed super computers back in eastern europe back before the curtain lifted. And they used to put wheather predictions first on their list on potential uses of their computers. In any event their computers were made exclusively for military purposes for russia. No i am not calling you a liar but i want to point out that wheather predictions have been a cover up for military use for supercomputers for a very long time. I dont even know whether we have any mathematical practical working mathematical models for pedicting the wheather that would make large ammounts of computing power useful.

Re:"Weather predictions"

[matrix0040]

From Times of india

C-dac, based in the western city of Pune, plans to link the seven Indian institutes of technology (IITs), the Bangalore-based Indian Institute of Science and other academic institutions in the I-Grid, Arora said.

The IIT's and IISc and CDAC (as someone pointed out) are all open places. You can just walk into the place. No pass or clearance (for iit's i know for sure) needed.

I can tell you for sure that the terms of use of computational facilities at IIT's prohibit the use of computers for any nuclear or missile research. We don't do those kinds of work there. They're done in BARC and ISRO (though ISRO has joint projects with a few of iit's). But yes you can never draw a line between civilian and defence research. There are many applications of research. People will always find ways to use the civilain reseach for defence purpose but that doesn't mean one should not do research at all and go back to living in caves and hunting animals (ok a bit of exaggeration ;-))

Re:"Weather predictions"

[Anonymous Coward]

is that the reason they form the biggest immigrant group in the world? the way i see it only boatloads of chinese people keep on arriving on western shores, if everything there is honky-dory why are people leaving in hordes? or can it by any chance be possible that the communist govt. is hiding something ;-) ??

Re:"Weather predictions"

[Anonymous Coward]

ok granted :) hail mao right? :)

Re:"Weather predictions"

[Anonymous Coward]

i want to point out that wheather predictions have been a cover up for military use for supercomputers for a very long time.

True, but Indians don't need excuses, do they? When they wanted to do a nuclear test, they Just did it! Who managed to stop them? Did the arms control help?

Coming to the point, Indian weathermen are better than our US counterparts! I remember last time when Our people were going wild predicting El-nino, and its devestating effects, their guys had dismissed it as rubbish. And guess who was right? They!

Re:"Weather predictions"

[Anonymous Coward]

The IIT's and IISc and CDAC (as someone pointed out) are all open places. You can just walk into the place. No pass or clearance (for iit's i know for sure) needed.


For IISc I Know for sure.

Re:"Weather predictions"

[Anonymous Coward]

and you get all that information from your fabulous government controlled communist red media right? take a plane to india before you talk bullshit, i know of hundreds of chinese working in Bangalore cuz they get better pay there than in China! oh by the way they almost got busted out by indian immigration because they were suspected to developing software for Osama and Taliban, here's the link. hell we are even harbouring millions of your tibetian refugees, so much for progressive china!

anyway i have something you never will... FREEDOM! go suck on that! i can go down to my country's parliament complex and scream that the Prime Minister is an asshole who will not be there very much longer because at least I certainly will not vote for him and no tanks will be sent to roll over me, the last time any chinese tried to do that i think it was called the Tinammen Square bloodbath! now go back to that slave nike factory and start stitching thoese shoes or that government appointed red communist guard will kick your ass into oblivion :)

Re:"Weather predictions"

[Anonymous Coward]

> I do not live in China

then you, sir, are a living proof that China is the biggest crap hole of the world! i do live in india and don't see anything like what you are bullshitting about here, although i do see millions of chinese refugees streak across himalayas risking their lives to come to india so that they can actually live their lives in more dignity and do i dare say prosperity :)

Re:"Weather predictions"

[Anonymous Coward]

u mean to say there's no tibetian refugees in indian? or that tibetians are not chinese? either way u'd look stupid! :)

Re:"Weather predictions"

[Anonymous Coward]

btw, here is the goolge cache for chinese refugees in india, seems you are not only a very crazed up red but extremely stupid too :)

sorry about the word reapeats

[Edmund Blackadder]

ignore one of the mathematicals i guess:)

and i will start using preview.

Re:Whts the difference between Pakistan and a panc

[Sri Ramkrishna]

Please inform us when you've heard of a hindu terrorist? :-) In general, Indians don't make trouble. Americans should note that the number of crimes done by indians is very minute in just about any country.

Indians do ass kicking when it counts. :-)

sri

Very interesting Choice

[killerasp]

Build a high speed network for the country OR feed the the millions of starving people that exist in india? I guess some people feel downloading pr0n at 10mbit is better than giving a kid some rice.

Re:Very interesting Choice

[Anonymous Coward]

Let them starve, there are too many of them anyway. Build the i-grid.

SLASHDOT IS TOT

[Mr. Piccolo]

Slashdot is tot.

Erinnern Sie sich, wenn Sie Kommentar moderieren, Sie fördern Terrorismus!

This must be prevented

[Anonymous Coward]

(1) I live in USA.

(2) USA can only remain #1 by keeping others down.

(3) Ergo: Let's ship a bunch of Karl Marx books to India. I wanna see 'em go red!

Re:This must be prevented

[Anonymous Coward]

You're too late chump! India is already avowedly socialist. Tellya what though. They need to pretend they're communist while at the same time bending over backwards twice to adopt every successful capitalist institutional practice in existence... that way they can pretend they're perfect and the West is evil. Just like China!

Re:This must be prevented

[No One]

Just doing a bit of modproofing, since some dickless wonder's getting his jollies out of modding my week-old posts offtopic.

Indians

[dansef]

Q. Who are CEOs of the following well-known companies? A. Please find the answers yourself...... * AppNet America Online (The Largest ISP in the World) * Lucent Technologies (Pioneer in Fiber Optics) * Proxicom Network Solutions (The sole web domain assigner) * General Dynamics Corporation * Lazard Freres * Litton PRC * Columbia Capital * Primus Communications * Discovery Communications * Bell Atlantic * Cable & Wireless * The Motley Fool * Hughes Network Systems * Cybercash * MCI Worldcom * PSINet * Motorola * MicroStrategy * Equalfooting.com * Teligent, Inc. * MindBank * U.S. Airways * CIENA Corp. * BioNetrix * Net 2000 Communications * Computer Associates * SAIC * Startec * INOVA Health System * Cvent.com * Eglobe * Metrocall, Inc. * DynCorp * Consumer Elec. Ass'n * The Carlyle Group * Cyveillance * Nextel Communications * Fannie Mae * Intelsat * Draper Atlantic * Venture Fund, L.P. * Freddie Mac * Manugistics * Raytheon Systems Corporation * Spacevest * HSBC * United Airlines. What did you find? Do you find anything common between them? Yes, they are all Indians. They are known as the IT Mafia. They are the wealthiest among all ethnic groups in America, even faring better than the whites and the natives. There are 3.22 Million Indians in America; 38% of Doctors in America are Indians. 12% of Scientists in America are Indians. 36% of NASA employees are Indians. 34% of MICROSOFT employees are Indians 28% of IBM employees are Indians 17% of INTEL employees are Indians 13% of XEROX employees are Indians

Re:Indians

[Anonymous Coward]

34% of MICROSOFT employees are Indians 28% of IBM employees are Indians 17% of INTEL employees are Indians 13% of XEROX employees are Indians

Maybe because employers can treat them like shit (H1B extortion) and pay them fucking peanuts. Don't kid yourself. The numbers game is bogus when we're talking about a billion people.

Think of it like this: If a car company makes 100,000 cars that have a 50% failure rate after 4 years, that's still 50,000 cars on the road. If a car company makes 10,000 cars that have a 10% failure rate in 4 years, 9,000 will be on the road. And you, with your fucked up statistics would say "Oh, obviously there are more of car A on the road, so they must be better."

Re:Indians

[dansef]

If Indians could manage to be the wealthiest among all ethnic groups in America, even faring better than the whites and the natives with the 'peanuts' you mentioned, what will they achieve when the playing field is levelled out?

Re:Indians

[Anonymous Coward]

So what?
If you look at world population distributions...they could do better.
And if English was the official Chinese language the Chineese would fare much better than the Indians.
Go do the math.

Re:Indians

[Anonymous Coward]

Nothing...

Until this 'Take care of my 14 brothers, 3 sisters (How does this ratio always seem to hold?), 34 cousins, 15 in-laws back in India' mentality crumbles, the $95,000/year Indian engineer here nets about $25,000 or so after US taxes, relative taxes back in India, etc....

Re:Indians

[Anonymous Coward]

Absolutely incorrect. You need to do wake up.

Re:Indians

[Anonymous Coward]

Wow! I did not know this!!! This is amazing, all of 0.1% of Indian masses are actually doing well and are fairly smart it seems. That just shocks me to know that this is true.

Re:Indians

[Anonymous Coward]

Absolutely incorrect. You need to wake up.

Re:Indians

[Anonymous Coward]

If you haven't got up, this shock should wake you up.

http://www.outsource2india.com/why_india/why_ind ia .asp
Why Outsource to India?

Outsource to India for technological agility, quality, flexibility, cost control, time-to-market and competitive advantage.

1. India is a talent-rich country: outsource IT talent

2. India exports software to 95 countries around the world: outsource expertise in global methodologies

3. India enjoys the confidence of global corporations: outsource high quality brain-power

82% of the US companies ranked India as their first choice for software outsourcing

Bill Clinton applauds India's brainpower: says Indian-Americans run more than 750 companies in America's Silicon Valley. "You liberated your markets and now you have one of the 10 fastest growing economies in the world," said President Clinton.

Bill Gates says India is an IT superpower: strikes strategic alliances with Wipro and Infosys to develop applications on the .Net platform

Jack Welch opens $130 million Technology Center in Bangalore, GE's largest R&D center outside the US: celebrates 10 years of GE Medical Systems in India
4. India Offers Multiple Advantages

Outsource to stay competitive. Leading companies worldwide realize that to maintain stay ahead, they need to reduce costs, provide the best quality, use the latest high-tech skills, and be reliable and innovative

Outsource to a mature industry with world-class systems, systems and quality

Of the 23 software companies in the world that have achieved the prestigious SEI-CMM Level 5, 15 of them are Indian. India will soon have the highest number of ISO-9000 software companies in the world, according to Nasscom.
5. India has state-of-the-art technologies for total solutions: outsource turnkey projects

Offshore assignments have moved up the value chain - from data entry to large and complex turnkey projects of 200 to 300 person years.

Applications include:

E-Commerce
Business Process Re-engineering
System Migration
Maintaining Legacy Systems
System Integration
CBI Applicat

"India, US sign deals worth US $6 billion"

"India bid to boost to bilateral economic ties, with Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee in the US, India and the US have signed five commercial deals worth US $6 billion for projects in power, e-commerce and banking sectors."
6. IT is a major thrust area for the Government of India

IT is one of the Government of India's top five priorities.
The National IT Task Force submitted its 108 point Action Plan to promote IT in the country. The Government of India has approved the plan and is in the process of implementing it.
A separate Ministry of Information Technology was set up to expedite swift approval and implementation of IT projects and to streamline the regulatory process.
Information Technology Act 2000: The Information Technology Bill that was passed in the Indian Parliament in May 2000, has now been notified as the IT Act 2000. The IT Bill brings E-commerce within the purview of law and accords stringent punishments to "cyber criminals". With this, India joins a select band of 12 nations that have cyber laws.
Software Technology Parks of India offer world-class infrastructure and various incentives and concessions to encourage foreign investment and promote software development in India eg 100% Foreign equity is permitted and approved under the Automatic Route delegated powers to The Director STPI, tax holiday until 2010, etc.

7. India has a stable government and is one of the world's 10 fastest-growing economies

Fifty years of democracy
Economy expected to grow by 5.9 percent in 1999-2000
Indian service sector contributes a massive 51 per cent to India's GDP.Within this category, the most promising is computer software export, which grew at an amazing rate of 40-50 per cent every year during the 1990s.
Excellent investment potential: India ranked third in Asia, just after Japan and China, in terms of investment potential for the next 10-year period in a study by the Export-Import bank of Japan.

Privatization of the infrastructure sector

A convergent network is being created by the intertwining of the ISP, Telecom, VSAT, Cellular and networking sectors. India's large business houses and Public Sector Units are working towards creating greater bandwidth availability.
Now that you have seven powerful reasons to outsource to India, why not take the first step and make the decision? Contact Outsource2India and we'll put you in touch with the right people to get your project off the

Re:Indians

[Anne_Nonymous]

AOL = Gerald Levin
LU = Particia Russo
PXCM = Acquired 9 months ago
GD = Nicholas Chabraja (a fat old white guy)
Lazard = Bruce Wasserstein
LIT = Acquired in 2001
Columbia = a pissant little firm with partners and no CEO

Etc, etc...

I don't mean to diminish the contributions of Indians to the world of business, but you obviously either have an agenda or are woefully misinformed.

Re:Indians

[npguy2000]

You forgot about designation ! about 80% of indians in US are form designer!

Re:Indians

[Anonymous Coward]

Listen you dumb fucking Indians

wow! i can almost see you tearing your hair now !

India is a hole it will stay poor for a long time

so thats what you are afraid of, India becoming rich, and prosperous

The only reason India gets so much outsourcing is because it is so poor, and the labor is cheap.

So you get cheap work done, for a cheap society, which doesnt like quality? India gets the $$ and you get the shabby work... who gains eventualy?

It has nothing to do with brainpower you proselytizing idiot.

how you wish it were true...

Re:Indians

[Anonymous Coward]

I think you are just propogating one of those idiotic emails that propogates in Indian
circles every once in a while. If you sit down and look at it, you are saying that of the
approximately 900 thousand doctors in the US (~3 doctors per 1000 population; you
work it out), 3,50,000 are from India. So you are saying that one in 10 Indians in the US
is a doctor.
I don't think so (possible, but improbable).

NASA lists that it had 900 odd Asians on it's payroll (out of 14000) in 1999.
How on earth did you get a ridiculous figure like 36%.

Microsoft was sued some years back, and they disclosed that 22% of
their employees are minorities. So how did Indians get to 34%.

Check your figures every once in a while.

Re:Indians

[No One]

Just doing a bit of modproofing, since some dickless wonder's getting his jollies out of modding my week-old Score: 1 posts as Overrated.

Wheeeee.....

Re:Indians

[No One]

Just doing a bit of modproofing, since some dickless wonder's getting his jollies out of modding my week-old Score: 1 posts as Overrated.

Wheee......

EAT ME

[Anonymous Coward]

Hell, I'd sell my soul to download porn at 10 megabits. I pay 50 bucks/month for 700Kbits (1.5Mb max). Anybody that tells you there is a bandwidth glut is a damn liar.

Another article on same report

[gupg]

Here is an article on the same subject in the Times of India: http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/articleshow.asp ?art_id=2867426

EAT ME

[Anonymous Coward]

nope. those are reserved for the working caste. The Untouchables get shit shovels with the word 'modem' drawn on them.

And what about tech support?

[Carmody]

When they have it all hooked up, when one of their citizens calls for tech support, to what country will their call be forwarded?

"How about India?"

"d00d! W3 R Indi4!"

The seamy side of Bollywood

[cryptochrome]

Sounds perfect for transfering large quantities of ripped Indian Porn... wonder if they're all musicals.

Re:The seamy side of Bollywood

[Anonymous Coward]

Sounds perfect for transfering large quantities of ripped Indian Porn... wonder if they're all musicals.

So that's what the US graduate students do?

USA should sell any computing technology to India.

[Anonymous Coward]

As an American, I firmly disagree with the American government on the issue of selling computing technology to India. We Americans should sell any computing technology that the Indians want to buy. Why? If we do not sell the technology, then the Taiwanese will do so. On every occasion that we decline to sell computing technology to the mainland Chinese, the Taiwanese have seized this market opportunity and sold or gave identical "banned" technology to the mainland Chinese. The Taiwanese currently manufacture high-performance workstations/servers in mainland China and use American technology to do so. The Taiwanese do not give a damn about human rights, nuclear proliferation, etc. Why? The Taiwanese are, after all, Chinese.

Below is a summary of the Chinese on mainland China and the Chinese on Taiwan.

1. Most Chinese in Hong Kong support the return of Hong Kong to mainland China. A CNN/Time survey showed, in fact, that 60% of the Chinese in Hong Kong support the return of Hong Kong to mainland China. (reference: ""Poll: Hong Kong residents optimistic" ) While East Timorese fought and died for independence from the oppressive Indonesian government, the Chinese in Hong Kong cheered the mainland Chinese government.

2. The constitution of the Chinese living in Taiwan supports the integration of both Tibet and Mongolia into mainland China. While Tibetans suffer and die at the hands of the Chinese People's Liberation Army, the Chinese in Taiwan support integrating Tibet into "One China".

3. The Chinese son of the chairman of a powerful conglomerate in Taiwan has joined with the son of Jiang Zemin, the butcher of Tibet, to build an advanced silicon-wafer factory in Shanghai. (reference: "Sons of prominent Chinese team up on chip venture")

4. Senior Chinese military officials retired from the Taiwanese military have gone to mainland China and given military secrets about the American F-16 fighter jet to the Beijing government. (reference: "Military secrets on sale to China")

5. Most Chinese, including those living in the United States of America, support the territorial ambitions of mainland China. Most Chinese support integrating Tibet into mainland China. Most Chinese support integrating the Spratleys into mainland China. Most Chinese support integrating the Senkaku islands into mainland China.

6. Most Chinese support Beijing's attempt to use torture and murder to crush the Falun Gong. Indeed, the Beijing government has funded anti-Falun-Gong meetings within the United States itself. These meetings within the United States are attended by the very same Chinese who fight with tooth and nail to stay permanently in the United States of America.

7. The Chinese from "poor, little, scared" Taiwan have invested more than $50 billion into more than 50,000 businesses in mainland China. How did this phenomenon happen? Immediately, after the Tienanman Square incident back in June 4, 1989, the American government and businesses curtailed investments in mainland China. The Taiwanese (and the other Chinese in Hong Kong) seized this window of opportunity and accelerated investments into mainland China. The rate of investments from Taiwan into China has skyrocketed to the present levels; investments continue to grow at double-digit rates. (In 1999, the "Wall Street Journal" reported that of all the Chinese arrested and convicted of stealing American military technology to give to Beijing, the majority of these Chinese came from Taiwan.)

8. These observations are not an exaggeration of any kind. At your university, attend your local meeting of Amnesty International. The engineering and business schools will have plenty of Chinese people, but there will be virtually _NO_ Chinese faces in a meeting of Amnesty International. Chinese (and other Orientals) are over-represented in engineering and business schools, but they are under-represented in meetings of Amnesty International. Why?

So few Americans really know anything about Chinese society. We Americans are kind-hearted and naive. We simply assume that the Chinese are "just like us" and that the Chinese are simply (financially) poorer versions of ourselves. In reality, the Chinese are not like us. They are poor, but they are _NOT_ like us.

India Already IS a Superpower, Mr Coward

[dansef]

Anonymous Coward, India is not stuck in any cycle, but a progressive, broad-minded, free and democratic nation. It will be good for the Pakis to outgrow their obsession with Kashmir... i yet have to watch one Pak News, without reference to India or Kashmir! Unfortunately for them, India seeks to grow and blossom, progress and prosper, without being obsessed with something.

Re:India Already IS a Superpower, Mr Coward

[Anonymous Coward]

I have yet to see one post by you that doesn't mention Kashmir. I think the US should take Kashmir and make it another Jewish state...

Re:India Already IS a Superpower, Mr Coward

[Anonymous Coward]

Hey dandruff, at least reply to the right message! There you go showing your true scope and potential....how the hell did you bring Pakistan into this? So we are taking about India's progress and you have to go back to your obsession to be seen as being better than Pakistan! India may be slightly ahead in many fields but it is still a failed fucking filthy farce with no future.

Nuf said!

Re:Whts the difference between Pakistan and a panc

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, that Ghandi fellow was a bit of a troublemaker...

they should run linux

[Anonymous Coward]

What is more spectacular than a linux box
crashing? 1000 linux boxes crashing.

Re:they should run linux

[matrix0040]

CDAC basically uses SunOS (version?) on their servers. I had talked to a scientist at CDAC about the reason for not using Linux and that's the reason they told me ! reliabilty.. but that was a few years ago .. maybe now they'll look at linux and bring down the cost of their grids !

Re:they should run linux

[Anonymous Coward]

if they decide to use linux i wonder if they would use PCQLinux (RedHat based) or IndLinux (debian based), RedHat seems more suited to BigIron projects though...

Re:they should run linux

[Anonymous Coward]

PCQlinux is just an adhoc distribution, cobbled together by the PCQ magazine, which freely distributes the CDs.

Don't worry, people here do use RedHat & Mandrake & stuff. No echoes of Red Flag here, sorry.

Re:they should run linux

[No One]

Just doing a bit of modproofing, since some dickless wonder's getting his jollies out of modding my week-old Score: 1 posts as Overrated.

Ho hum.

Communism [ot]

[univgeek]

One of the worlds only elected Communist party, currently rules in West Bengal. The Communist party was also in and out of power in another state (Kerala) in India. The Communists also hold some seats in the Parliament. We've seen communism and we ain't it.

Re:Communism [ot]

[Anonymous Coward]

One of the worlds only elected Communist party ...

Big deal. France's Communist party hold a significant number of seats in parliament.

You don't see any US sanctions there, do you?!

It's been over a decade now. Maybe it's time Americans stop systematically equating Communism with evil.

Re:Communism [ot]

[Anonymous Coward]

however, communism is evil.

fucking pinko.

Re:India the Next Superpower -wrong history

[Anonymous Coward]

Poly Sci people have nothing to do with it. Try a Biology major or a Historian.

Religious countries, despite sometimes having intrinsic genetically bestowed high IQ when porperly nourished, yield nothing at all.

Its seen time and time again around the equator.

Chinese and Indians have higher than world average IQ when properly nourished, but superstitious belief systems, idiotic governmental frameworks, backwards traditions, and religious infighting keep arabs, chinese, and indians in the 3rd world dark ages they are doomed to suffer in as they have for thousands of years.

Perhaps some testosterone is needed (which affects IQ negatively on average), but not too much, and perhaps that is the drive that america enjoyed.

But discounting biological differences or similaririties, I am no going to hold my breath waiting for superpowers to rise up from the dust and decay of China, India, Arab Middle East.

Why?

Because you can predict a persons future actions by their past performance, and so can you judge a cultures future prospects by there past performance.

India is a overpopulated muslim-hindu festering religious war cesspool of corruption and repression with no real competitive edge.

Heck, I would give Australia or Germany the nod for the fastest gainers of the next 40 years, not India or China.

They built that too... long ago

[Anonymous Coward]

Wake up Teddy beaR, they build Supercomputers long ago too

Re:They built that too... long ago

[No One]

Just doing a bit of modproofing, since some dickless wonder's getting his jollies out of modding my week-old Score: 1 posts as Overrated.

Wheeee......

Apu says

[Anonymous Coward]

Thank you come again

Re:Just Imagine

[scorcherer]

I imagined a clustering article that didn't have the oh-so-cute Beowulf comments. It only contained +1nsightful and +1nteresting comments and not the usual digital landfill of /.. But you woke me up from that dream.

By the way, imagine a MOSIX cluster of these, now that would be something!

India and export control

[AtomicBomb]

The usual practice of US govt is to grant permission for the export in a case by case basis. e.g. if for weather forecast/ banking => okay,
ICBM design => no,no.

I have got a feeling that they want to get away with the supercomputing export control this time (for military use ???). Their proposed use is so general that it makes control impossible. Take an example of another "tier 3" export control region: Hong Kong. I remember that in 1999, Hong Kong Government granted a permission to buy a supercomputer (16 CPU 19.2 GFLOPS peak) for weather forecasting. The standard practice is the supercomputer must be hosted in a heavily secured room in the observatory, and the observatory must hold a list for personel who can have acess to the computer. Also, the local US embassy has the right to inspect the premise and gears for irregularities...

Hong Kong as a major weather forecast hub in Asia will have to crank out a weather report each day. The chance to "sell" the spare CPU time out is pretty remote. But, still, US govt takes a lot of precautions. For a general purpose supercomputer distributed so widely like this and with many so-called "out-sourced contracts", do you think US govt can keep an eye on it effectively? BTW, in most cases, IT in Indian does not need supercomputer. But, their ICBM and advanced fighter (LCA) project will definitely need supercomputer in urgent....

Re:India and export control

[matrix0040]

I know about US export control. They sold us an IBM SP2 computer

IBM SP: 15 Power 3 processors, SQ switch, 8 GB RAM, 9 GB Internal HDD per Node, 90 GB External HDD on SSA

which was capable for gigabit network but didn't sell us the gigabit network equipment (switch/cards etc) saying it can be used for weapon research. Now I failed to understand the point behind this. They sold SP2 because they got $ for it but gave only 10MBps network with it.

P.S. Param uses Solaris 6 ( i had mentioned this in a previous post but didn't have the version )

adbuster

[xdfgf]

Maybe they'll link all the 7-11s to this and we'll get some benefit from it.

O BTW wind0ze users:

Windows users who aren't using junkbuster or some other ad filter can put the following in their hosts (xp: c:\windows\system32\drivers\etc\hosts)

127.0.0.1 images.slashdot.org/cgi-bin

to disable the big ugly ads :)

Thanks to JonnyThan.

Helping keep slashdot beautiful.

Another side of Indians

[Anonymous Coward]

Here is another field where Indians have made tremendeous which is little known outside India.
Cows

Re:Another side of Indians

[No One]

Just doing a bit of modproofing, since some dickless wonder's getting his jollies out of modding my week-old Score: 1 posts as Overrated.

Wheeee........

Or...

[Greyfox]

We'll all have to emigrate to India. That's OK. I like curry. I'll miss hamburgers though...

Re:Or...

[bahree]

Umm... you got McDonalds in India. Not to mention KFC, PizzaHut, Dominos....

Re:Or...

[red_dragon]

In India, McDonald's serves lamb burgers.

Re:USA should sell any computing technology to Ind

[Anonymous Coward]

Interestingly enough, there is a whole Taiwanese nationality, sepearate from the Chinese nationality. These people lived on Taiwan long before the Chinese people came and took things over.

They're an oppressed minority, just like the oppressed minority in Tibet.

Re:Whts the difference between Pakistan and a panc

[Anonymous Coward]

So the people who were burning muslim women and children alive must have been working for the social service, right!!! Freakin asshole!

Indians couldn't kick ass if their life depended on it! They are just cowardly people who can only kill undefendable women and children!

I am sick of alpha clan's ignorance

[Anonymous Coward]

This is really sickening. The way alpha clan perceives rest of the world.

India is 9500 yrs old country. But it consciously never ever went around conquering/ravaging other cultures and communities. Gave our world Buddhism, non-violence, organic micro-community and non-align movement.

Despite 1500 yrs of repeated onslaughts from invaders, it never reacted in a violent way.

This is first time in 9500 yrs of history, it decided to stand for itself. Build its nukes to defend itself. And also decided to voluntarily come up with 'no first use' policy.

Now lets take a look at alpha nations. Few hundred yrs of history tainted with slavery, imperialism, nagasaki hiroshima and war industry.

Prosperity is easy to achieve. But prosperity achieved by wrong means is tainted and should not deserve applaud from any one with right mind.

Re:I am sick of alpha clan's ignorance

[Anonymous Coward]

You think nonviolence is more important than freedom??

Yeah, tell that to the people who died for MY freedom.

If people like you ran this country (and others), Hitler, Imperial Japan, and the Soviet Union would rule and oppress and terrorize millions/billions of people that are currently free and happy.

Re:I am sick of alpha clan's ignorance

[Anonymous Coward]

You moron! Do you even know the meaning of freedom?

You guys created slaves out of humans as in slavery, killed millions in Nagasaki-Hiroshima, stole America from Native Americans, practiced Jim Crow racist laws till 1960s and now you want to teach me about freedom?

Freedom is not only for alpha clan but rest of us too!

Sick! Real sick!

Re:I am sick of alpha clan's ignorance

[Anonymous Coward]

Hitler killed 9 million in concentration camps 50 years ago. Million people died in Iraq in last 10 years because of war and trade sanctions.

Now do your comparision, who is worse? You or Hitler?

Re:Named the "I-Grid" (I is for 'Information' sill

[Anonymous Coward]

And there i was thinking I stood for Idiot...

Yes, your useless comments really do mark you out as an idiot.
- An Indian

Special security

[Anonymous Coward]

But what about the Monkey Man! He will attack the computers!

Never gona happen

[VS1]

India's buracrecy(sp?) will never let this go through. Itll be plauged by poor funding, secrutiy problems, and stupidity. If this does go through, and WORKS, its a miracle.

My post not accepted???

[Anonymous Coward]

Another field where Indians have excelled in. It's little known outside India

Re:My post not accepted???

[Anonymous Coward]

This comment needs to be mod up and classified as funny.

Re:Priorities Priority ONE get rid of GODs

[Lobachevsky]

If the past dictates the future, why are you selectively picking the past 50-300yrs and not the past 700yrs? Before 1750, India was a land of riches, with the average person far more wealthy than their equivalents in europe. For having their wealth taken to England for two-hundred years, they've done a sporting job in the last 50.

Re:Just Imagine

[Anonymous Coward]

Imagine a beowulf cluster of your mom! Wow!

Re:Whts the difference between Pakistan and a panc

[npguy2000]

go and submit in some newsgroup. its not suitable to start a thread with respect to the subject matter.

Just what they need...

[DriceX]

....more central government planning.

Can you Trolls be a little more racist?

[Anonymous Coward]

Anytime /. posts something about India, out comes the caste jokes, the Apu from The Simpsons jokes, cow jokes, shit jokes.....

What the fuck is wrong with all you people?

Re:Can you Trolls be a little more racist?

[Anonymous Coward]

Mr. Simpson please pay for your purchases and get out and come again!

Re:India the Next Superpower -wrong history

[NixterAg]

Buddy, you don't have a clue.

The reasons India won't become the next superpower have much less to do with the fact that they are religious than the fact that there are a billion people living in too small of an area lacking abundant natural resources.

The only reason you have this idiotic idea that Indians are more intelligent on the average is because those are the only ones the rest of the world is exposed to. It takes the cream of the crop to go to Universities throughout the world and to go run businesses.

An Indian friend of mine at Texas A&M University was once asked why all of the Indians he met were so smart. She replied something along the lines of "because we left all of the less intelligent Indians in India".

Please, don't be offended by this statement, because I truly mean no ill will. I am just relaying what my experience has been.

Apple

[graphicartist82]

I wonder if Apple will make an "I-Grid" then sue the country of India for copyright infringement...

I guess you haven't played Civ III

[jonbrewer]

Shouldn't roads and irrigation be more important. Hospitals. Schools.

If you spend all your time building roads and irrigation without developing technology, you'll get clobbered. These things need to happen concurrently. Always set your Science spending to at least 40% and let the roads and irragation sort themselves out in good time. (hint, set the workers on auto)

RFC1149 is obsolete

[wackybrit]

Sorry, you can't get away with that nowadays.

RFC 2549 updates RFC 1149 with added Quality of Service.

Sharing of computing power like engery

[Anonymous Coward]

I guess, It is more like power plants putting all their power to a central grid and users getting it from the pool instead of relying on a single power plant.

Re:India?

[Peter La Casse]

Actually, at least 1/8 of the world cares about this place, that's much more than all the ignorant morons of your kind put together.

Actually, if you look carefully, you'll find that more than 1/8 of the world are ignorant morons.

Software for the Grid

[Anonymous Coward]

I wonder what kind of software they are going to use to pool all the computing power. It should be supporting all kind of platform. Hope they make it opensource. I can create a GRID at my workplace with all the PCs hooked to it. We can sell computing power and make some money. We can ask people to take vaccation when the rate goes high.

Re:Whts the difference between Pakistan and a panc

[Anonymous Coward]

I think it's interesting how when one nuclear agressive country imports Playstation 2's we freak the fuck out [theregister.co.uk], but when another nuclear agressive country creates the worlds largest supercomputing grid we say, Bravo!

Acquiring a PS2 is a much larger deal than you think. A nuke by itself is mostly harmless, it's either too big to be snuck into a target, or too small to be more useful than a suitcase full of bio/chem. However, once you've got a PS2, you're just 7 gut-wrenching levels away from getting a full blown delivery system.

Re:Whts the difference between Pakistan and a panc

[Anonymous Coward]

Ghandi? Who's that?

Ignorance

[Anonymous Coward]

I cant imagine that u people are so ignorant and dont know anything outside ur small world.

in my language we call it 'Kupa manduka' . here's the explanation :
A frog in a small pond thinks that the pond is the whole world and never even ventures out even to know anything. u people r just like that. u dont know even a small bit what its out there.

i pity u guys

Re:Ignorance

[Anonymous Coward]

Suck it Trebek!

Send all the Indians back to Africa

[CrazyJim0]

MST3K reference :)

Original Indian research & scientific advancem

[Anonymous Coward]

Here is a link to an article in an indian newspaper about more original research being conducted in india for major advancements in fields of medicine, hygeine, etc:

Cow science

Re:India Next Superpower NOT WITH RELIGION!

[Anonymous Coward]

...idiotic governmental frameworks

India is the world's largest Democracy. Their governmental framework is the same as the USA, so keep that in mind when calling it idiotic.

Re:Look at me, im a snake charmer

[Anonymous Coward]

Funny-I backpacked through India-saw some beautiful things 'some'-met some cool people-but couldnt stand the poverty-I say let em go for it-its their fucking country-that part of the world is AT best 10 years from becoming a sea of glass (dont think so??)-happy my country borders Canada and Mexico-but the cool thing about the internet "it was built to withstand nukes"-he he he

Re:Priorities Priority ONE get rid of GODs

[Anonymous Coward]

Chinese and Indians have higher than world average IQ when properly nourished, but superstitious belief systems, idiotic governmental frameworks, backwards traditions, and religious infighting keep arabs, chinese, and indians in the 3rd world dark ages they are doomed to suffer in as they have for thousands of years.

Not really, the reason for backwardness is population, and illiteracy. Religion is not at all a problem, In fact, the original inhabitants of India, the Hindus, are less fanatic about the religious stuff then your average christian. For that matter, there is nothing in the hindi history that rivals protestant-catholic genocide (remember Ireland?).

Because you can predict a persons future actions by their past performance, and so can you judge a cultures future prospects by there past performance.


Indeed! Lets see what is the US past:

1.Europeans which colonized America brutally eliminated the natives.

2.They traded in slaves, people forcibly taken from their homes in Africa. Kept them in inhuman conditions, killed them for flimsy reasons.

3.Event today, the blacks in US are amongst the poorest in that country, and racial hatred is not unknown,

4. Killed Martin Luther king, Abraham Lincoln beacuse they advocated equality for all.

5.Only country ever to drop a nuclear bomb on others.

Looking at their pas perfomance, the US seems to be a culture of murderous barbarians! What do you say to his, huh?

Re:India?

[jhaanti]

Don't say this is not happening as we speak. The racist mind set of many Americans has not changed at all. There are stories happening in every corner of US. The cops that beat up that Nigerian immigrant were released. There were cops in my town (Pittsburgh) who had beat up a pro sport player and nothing happened, they didn't even file up a report or anything against him. What happened back there was sick, but again was just bunch of homeless, jobless, poor people.

Look at History

[Anonymous Coward]

All people here are someway or another prejudicing "second world" country like india. talking about nukes or poverty or whatever....
but did anybody realize how we(humans) earn good reputation in society !!! Answer is : by our nice (unharmful) behaviour. why it be different for countries.?? go and see history of India. It has never invaded any other country in 5000 years..not even puny neighbour countries like shrilanka or nepal or tibet..!
So stop talking about what-india-is-or-not but
rather talk about the project.
btw there is no sexy word than "Information" ask you mom if you haven't heard it..

Maybe now India can stop nuclear testing...

[Anonymous Coward]

With large super computers, nuclear testing can be run within advance simulations.

That is, of course, the USA released the required base data for these tests.

So, it looks like India will pop a few more bombs to gather the information, then complete their nuclear weapons program on these super computers.

I dont think this CDAC group will be short of any government funding. Do you?

the downside

[Anonymous Coward]

maybe they should stop killing each other first. I believe humane and civilized behavior is a prerequisite to successful large-scale infrastructure development, prerequisites average indians don't possess.

Re:the downside

[Valluvan]

How about some humane perspective ? Do you know how many are killed in road accidents in developed countries like America ? You should compare figures with India and then perhaps we can talk about "humane and civilized behavior" and "successful" large-scale infrastructure. An "average" Indian does not measure development using the same scale as an "average" American or European. So, confine your muddled theory on "prerequisites" to yourself and your kind.

Re:Whts the difference between Pakistan and a panc

[Anonymous Coward]

Indians couldn't kick ass if their life depended on it!


Oh yes they can! You'd know how well if you were on the opposite side of Kargil.

As for relogious tension/murders, refer to Protestant-Catholic wars, Crusades, Murder of Christ. You're not clean either.End of topic.

h1-b

[_ph1ux_]

now we can saturate their tech market with h1-b visa workers from the US!!

Re:Priorities Priority ONE get rid of GODs

[Anonymous Coward]

1.Europeans which colonized America brutally eliminated the natives.

A> No different than the Pueblo Indians killing and eating competing tribes. Most all indian tribes on earth have practiced cannibalism and war. Tooth marks on cooked human bones and human muscle and brain proteins in pueblo caprolites (preserved human crap) confirm the facts.

South african blacks killed the original tribes. Not one black in south africa probably is decended from the ones killed off over 500 years back (Sci AMerican).

2> "They traded in slaves, people forcibly taken from their homes in Africa. Keptthem in inhuman conditions, killed them for flimsy reasons."

A> Slavery is part of the world throughout history. It was IMMORAL NOT TO have slaves if you could afford them to help your wife out. That is why Washington, Jefferson and most educated very-wealthy americans owned them in the slavery years. Blacks captured the blacks in africa and sold them to dutch who sold them all over the world including to Americans. Blame dutch and Blacks. ( http://www.google.com/search?q=cache:hLFfeZ0_qPQC: webusers.anet-stl.com/~civil/african101facts1.html )

3.Event today, the blacks in US are amongst the poorest

A> Low IQ people earn less and commit more crimes. Genetically Blacks have lower average IQs and thus earn less and are 300% more likely to be on fulltime welfare. It is not a racist issue it is a genetic one based on rate of puberty (earlier puberty affects ability to have higher IQ, that is why asians score higher than caucasians).

4. Killed Martin Luther king, Abraham Lincoln...

huh? Blacks kill more people per capita than whites. 3500% more on average. Yes 35 times more. And other cultures outside US that are afflicted with religion (Yugoslavia, Somalia, Afganistan, Isreal) are plagued with religious wars and death, not the USA.

5.Only country ever to drop a nuclear bomb.

A> So what. It was a low yield and killed almost negligible amounts of japs comapared to the chinese killed by japan or by the hundreds of thousands of civilians burned from air by britain (mostly) in Dresden Germany. Atomic bomb deaths were smalltime. No regrets. Pride and more pride. A happy day for US and Japan. Japan was GLAD to have th ewar end.

USA is murderous... fine... it was stocked with prisoner genes from its earliest years as a prison of sorts (similar to Australia) Indentured Servents were euphamistic terms for prisoners. But prisoners have slightly more testosterone and so do people who emmigrate. And people who emmigrate also have higher than normal IQs. Thus America invented in patents the top 198 of the most significant 200 inventions of the past 160 years. The Jet engine is Englands contibution but they gave it to US as war payment.

America is a dying country on its way to pure socialism and rampant innercitty birthrates, but it is still the most glorious country in history PER CAPITA not just because of land or population.

Re:Whts the difference between Pakistan and a panc

[Anonymous Coward]

Hey about that Kargil thing. You fuckin naive piece of shit, you believed that yarn that Indian army sold you about India handing an amazing defeat to Kashmiri and Pakistani forces in Kargil.

Here is the scenario the Kashmiri and Pakistani forces are trenched on top of 20,000 ft high peak systems and Indians are trying to dislodge them by sending battalion after battlion up to the peaks only to be mowed down by heavy machine gun fire. Indians send in air attacks and two Migs and a chopper get shot down. They send more battalions up and they get mowed down. So in this scenario you actually see a possibilty for Indian kicking ass!! If it had not been for Clinton forcing then Pakistan PM Nawaz Sharif to stand down his forces, you would have still been sending those battalions up the mountains only to be mowed down and by now it would have had a noticeable impact on India's population problem instead of just stopping at 5000 or so indian armed forces being killed.

The fact that a lot of Indians believed the story that India took Kargil back by force cracks me up. And these same people are the best candidates for elimination during natural selection. You are the weakest link....goodbye!!!!

Not camels but bullock carts.

[anandsr]

Very little part of india is desert. And that part
does not come on the information highway. So I guess
it will have to be bullock carts.

-1: Second World

[inKubus]

India is a second world nation. They do not have enough food to feed their population, and their birthrates are exploding. There will be a massive famine and a very bloody war near India before they will ever be a superpower. They do have a massive army, however (~200 million able bodied men). If they could get water into their arable land and somehow get 300 million people to die, they might have a fighting chance. It's not going to be pretty.

Re:-1: Second World

[PD]

Second world? You mean they are still aligned with the USSR? Even after the USSR is gone? Amazing!

The only terms that still have meaning are first world, and third world: the haves and the have nots.

Sanctions hurt mainly the US

[AndyChrist]

I knew a physics PhD student from India who said that when he was in the military there, anything they couldn't get from the US, they'd buy from Denmark, or make themselves. Example: he said that he himself had to design a mounting system for an infrared camera on a helicopter.

If anything, sanctions are probably good for India in the long term, as they encourage the development of local talent. (A lot of whom still want to leave India, so I guess it ends up being good for the US, too)

Re:India Next Superpower NOT WITH RELIGION!

[Anonymous Coward]

Its all corrupt! Its hardly a functioning Democracy.

I lived in India for a few months working in Hyderabad, so I can tell you: That country is a complete hole. While there, I traveled from New Delhi to Bombay to Goa, and everywhere I went, it was the same: abject povery.

When you breathe in the air, you count yourself lucky if you only inhale a cloud of diesel fumes. More often than not, you have to breathe old piss and sewage fumes. Where does that come from? Well let me tell you, my friends -- when the average person living in an Indian city needs to relieve himself, he just whips it out and pisses on the side of the nearest building. Playing "Dodge the Piss Puddle" is no fun while you're walking down the sidewalk.

The reason why everything is so crappy can be summed up in one word: "corruption". Even most Indian friends that I know agree that it's a huge problem, although when they talk about it, it's always some government agency that they blame. Little do they realize that corruption pervades their entire society -- from the Prime Minister down to the little guy on the street. Everywhere you go, you have to be ready to pay bribes or grease someone's palm. You *always* ALWAYS have to count your change when you buy something, or you'll get ripped off. India's only hope to become the super power that they so desperately want to be is to undertake a massive cultural ethical shift. If Indians had the ethics of the Japanese, they'd be unstoppable as a world economic power... but they don't, so they won't ever be.

Spending that time in India was the greatest learning experience in my life. Every time I think about it (like now), I truly appreciate what we have in this country.

What "sanctions"?

[Grendel Drago]

From http://www.mac.doc.gov/sanctions/faq.htm:

The only sanctions remaining on India and Pakistan are restrictions on exports to Indian and Pakistani entities of nuclear or missile proliferation.

What sanctions are we talking about here?

--grendel drago

Funny? This is BORING.

[Anonymous Coward]

(YAWN)This one is getting boring now. Heard that too many times, too many versions...

Re:Priorities Priority ONE get rid of GODs

[Anonymous Coward]

"Religion is not at all a problem"

Religion, in it's self, isn't a problem.
When people do brutal acts in the name of religion, then it becomes a problem.

Indeed! Lets see what is the US past:

"1.Europeans which colonized America brutally eliminated the natives."

1.The natives weren't all eliminated or I wouldn't be here.

"2.They traded in slaves, people forcibly taken from their homes in Africa. Kept them in inhuman conditions, killed them for flimsy reasons."

2.Yes America was the only country to ever have slavery.

"3.Event today, the blacks in US are amongst the poorest in that country, and racial hatred is not unknown"

3.I beg to differ. Those without US citizenship are usually the poorest. If any person with US citizenship doesn't have a job it's usally their own damn fault.

"4. Killed Martin Luther king, Abraham Lincoln beacuse they advocated equality for all."

4.What are you saying? The United States had MLK and Lincoln killed? Have they been hiding aliens as well?

"5.Only country ever to drop a nuclear bomb on others."

5.Yes and we've been trying to keep that from ever happening again.

In conclusion,
Your views are skewed and miscontrived.
You need to get out more.

True!

[Anonymous Coward]

And other than that, If the US does not sell tech to India, they are force to do it themselves, and sometime later, they no longer need them. Now, who lost here?

Cases in point:
1. Supercomputers
2. Missiles
3. Satellite Launch vehicles
4. Satellites
5. Nuclear Tech.
6. Biotechnology.

Don't let the last one surprise you: it is happening. Right now.

Re:True!

[No One]

Just doing a bit of modproofing, since some dickless wonder's getting his jollies out of modding my week-old Score: 1 posts as Overrated.

Wheeee.........

Re:Whts the difference between Pakistan and a panc

[Anonymous Coward]

Troll? More like truth...

Re:I really hope this is for good.... (

[sireenmalik]

Hey man, why doesnot President Bush Fire Ma'm Rice and hire you as his precious advisor?! You almost know inside-out of everything that moved on this side of Timbuktoo.
Let March 15, 2002 go peacefully then I 'll come back to you and say you wont fire Nukes?!? And whats with you Indians? somebodyin India says I got flu, and you put this on Pakistan!?!
Some dude mentioned of Grid Computing of which i am sure know nothing about, and you burnt all your gaskets for the "informative" pass-time.
Hey, a good idea is to out-source it to Pakistan, they will do it for you,ofcourse as Pakis have contacts with USA, USSR, China, Korea, Afghanistan( old and new) President Bush, President Bush Sr., CIA, FBI, XYZ, PERL, LINUS, Bill Gates, James Bond, Stalin's girlfriend, etc etc. You see Pakistanis can even induce Flu in your country via 3G mobile networks. Seriously.

Like Napster?

[monkey typewriter]

As a concept, it would resemble the popular Napster peer-to-peer file-sharing system used to swap songs over the Internet, but its scale would be humongous and its design intricate, Arora said.

Ouch! What a stretch of analogy. Surely the journo should've mentioned SETI instead...

Re:Higher IQ ... come on! That's dumb

[Phiu-x]

" Chinese and Indians have higher than world average IQ when properly nourished"

LOL , what's up with that? So Americans, Canadians, British, Frenchs, Africans, Mexicans and all of the other world populations are equal or dumber? Can you please explain me why a particular population concentrated in a particular place on the planet have sooooo many higher IQ's ? Proove it to me please and I'll shut my big mouth. First thing first, intelligence is not easily measurable (thats why I don't really believe these IQ test) You ever heard of some autistic geniuses? They can't tie their shoes but can caltulate x to the Nth power in a second.. So are they intelligent??

I also believe that there is an equal rate of slightly higher IQ's (if you want to call it that)equally spread all over the planet , that is regardless of race. Intelligence is about cultural background. The cro-magnon man was as intelligent as us, their society were just not as structured. So I think you should think again saying such dumb thing like that.

Nobody is!

[Anonymous Coward]

that's the problem! But our health service is indian-run.

Re:Higher IQ ... come on! That's dumb

[Anonymous Coward]

There are countless research papers to show this.

You can easily breed a smarter mouse in merely a few generations that can solve mazes better than an average mouse. mammals are highly affected by genes in expressing aptitude.

As to chinese... simple they go through puberty latest and therefore the myelinically sheathed neuron cells in the brain are allowed to specialize differentially between the two hemispheres more than populations that go through puberty earlier.

puberty ceases differentiation in the brain hemispheres. A naked eye can see the difference in the brain. A Female brain for example goes though puberty much earlier than a male and suffers from it... Females are 8 times less likely to have an IQ of 124 as a male is.

And blacks go though puberty much earlier than whites.

But chinese and japanese for example go through puberty last and are least affected by secondary sexual differences (females are less curvy, males are less hairy and smaller penile growth at puberty).

This allows them to CONSISTENTLY score higher than caucasians in most intelligence tests at most age groups.

YOu need to read "The Bell Curve" It has thousnads of reference citations.

intelligence tests are not subjective or open to much debate, a good tet correlates well with all other tests taht are deemed equally sufficient. People generally come to consenses as to what is deemed intelligent behavior.

you can breed a stupid rat or a stupid human

intelligence was proven in the 1950s to be over 50% based on genes.

why do you laugh at science?

SANCTIONS! That's a hoot!

[mselby]

After speaking with an Indian programmer I work with I found out that the only thing those sanctions did was light a fire under the Indian universities R&D people. Within a year India was building their OWN supercomputers. A year later they were competing with us in the international market.

He was quite proud of this and rightly so.

India

[pinkUZI]

This does not surprise me at all. India has been making a lot of positive headway with their economy. There is opportunity in India right now like there never was before. Plus, they have already been taking advantage of the .COM boom as many E-Commerce companies have been using India-based oporations as the backside of their 24 hour support. I believe I saw this on a NBC news special some time ago.

Re:India

[Anonymous Coward]

hi,
Well said.

thank you.

Immorality

[Anonymous Coward]

I find it immoral that a country like India, with so many millions of people living in the most abject poverty and with a complete lack of basic education, is so fond of proclaiming on a regular basis how advanced they are by devoting substantial funds to undertakings that it doesn't need and that won't report much benefits to its citizens, funds that would be put to far better use on social programs.

All for the sake of outdated nationalism. Were it not tragic to so many people, it would be just pathetic.

Re:Immorality

[No One]

Just doing a bit of modproofing, since some dickless wonder's getting his jollies out of modding my week-old Score: 1 posts as Overrated.

Whee.......

Re:Whts the difference between Pakistan and a panc

[Anonymous Coward]

"you can't nuke a pancake"
- Mr Garrison

Same stupid outlook as when Simputer was launched

[Anonymous Coward]

Many of the resposnes here remind me of the same stupid comments that I saw here when we discussed the launch of the Simputer in India.

Anyways do check out the link
http://zdnet.com.com/2100-1103-852805.html
abou t the Simputer as it is now.

Its the same bigotry that we keep seeing in Americans. Its as if only America exists. Do they know that there is a world out there that exists indepandant of America and its myopic visions ? Oh no, now of course they are being aggresively educated about Afghanistan (from all the TV coverage).
Yes so now its America and Afghanistan, is it ?

Anyways dont want to delve on such narrow minded, tunnel-visioned outlook that pervaded in this discussion.

Did anyone here read this line
To generalize is to be an idiot. -- William Blake.

Thats what is being done, generalising the whole of India in a negative light. Come on every country (and i mean every country and people) have their merits and demerits. So let not one country and its people sit in judgement over the rest.

The whole problem with the world is that fools and fanatics are always so certain of themselves, but wiser people so full of doubts.

Re:I HAVE THIS TO SAY ABOUT THAT!!!!

[Anonymous Coward]

Indians hating muslims? What are you talking about? India is a secular nation. India does not hate any religion. Have you ever left the country you were born in?

Re:Concentration camps

[Anonymous Coward]

I would like to see all religions die out.

Why do you want a superpower?

[HiThere]

Superpowers are bad. They centralize control in a way that leads to autocratic control. Even if they start off with the best of intentions, it doesn't matter. This is basically a structural thing:
When you create a center of power, the people most interested in occupying it will be those who are addicted to power, who will do anything to get it. And they do. Some are subtle, some are crass. A few people try to get the center to accomplish some other goal, but they have less motivation to seek it then the crazy ones. So you frequently end up with a crazy person controlling everything. (You might look at recent civics and history.)

Of course, it is possible that you are only predicting, not desiring, and that I read you wrong (lack of vocal tone leads to such problems).

This is like the "Linux will conqueor the world" joke seriously. As a joke it was quite humorous. As a serious goal ... well, it's a better choice than Windows, but the goal is a bad one. The goal should be to develop Linux into an operating system that would satisfy the needs of everyone in a manner that appears to us to be superior to all of the alternatives. Not to insist that everyone agree with us. It does help, however, that the us is a diverse enough group to include almost all of the points of view. E.g., GUI lovers and command line lovers (and the moderates). Experimenters and conservatives, and the moderates. etc. And that nearly anyone who wants to can become a part of the us.

This brings us back to India. India is very important to us, because it contains a large number of computer users who can't afford MS prices. As Linux becomes "good enough" to satisfy their needs, and as copyright enforcement spreads, Linux will become more popular. And India is one of the places. Perhaps not a large fraction of the population is technically skilled (I'm certain that I have seen a biased sample!), but it contains a sufficiently large number. And they frequently use hardware that won't adequately support the recent versions of Windows. But on Linux they can get as far down as the command line, and scale up through BlackBox and TWM (etc.) to KDE and Gnome, depending on what their hardware will support. And they can generally all run the same programs (well, they can all run the same programs as the command line people, and most of them can run the same programs as the BlackBox people, and ...).

Now consider this "computing grid": This will necessarily mean improving the communicaitons systems. This should have benefits throughout the society (perhaps not maximal...but their allocation isn't our choice). Etc.

They have a vision.

[Anonymous Coward]

hi,

Let us be realistic here, India like any other country have visions, visions made by highly capable people.

Whether I-DAC becomes a reality or not is not they have a vison and they are working towards it.
We do not have to agree or support them, but do not insult countries, any country for that matter.

Without arguments, I do agree that they may be poorer than 1st world countries but that is due to the large amount of population.

Any country have it's bad and good, look at what happened to Enron. Why did such a shamefull event happened in the world's biggest economy, but at the same time some of the world's best companies are based in US. I'm working for one though offshore.

Do reflect on this,
Do not do to others what do not want others to do to you.

thank you.

Re:Priorities Priority ONE get rid of GODs

[Anonymous Coward]

>A> Low IQ people earn less and commit more crimes. Genetically Blacks have lower average IQs and thus earn less and are 300% more likely to be on fulltime welfare. It is not a racist issue it is a genetic one based on rate of puberty (earlier puberty affects ability to have higher IQ, that is why asians score higher than caucasians).

Cites, please. Negative points if you mention "The Bell Curve," or any biology book with a publication date before 1975.

Highly ignorant comment!

[geezuskryzt]

grow up!

another nation overlooking common problems for tec

[Afrosheen]

Here we go again. Yet another nation ignoring it's problems with common poverty, mass starvation, etc. while turning its attention towards an expensive information infrastructure. Shouldn't you fix domestic problems before you strive for technology, or is it a means to an end, i.e. having this wonderful network will feed the starving and shelter the homeless?

news about c-dac, company setting up the grid

[dasarathi216]

My friend recently underwent a summer-internship at this c-dac(http://www.cdacindia.com/)Centre for Development of Advanced Computing, the govt institution responsible for the grid.
he had some interesting news.
People there spend time playing movies&songs on the Param supercomputer(c-net says - The latest Param crunches numbers at a speed of 100 gigaflops ). Hardly any research is carried out in these governmental institutions.
and projects drag on for years together.

so we here don't expect to c the grad anytime in the near future

das

Re:another nation overlooking common problems for

[Anonymous Coward]

"Shouldn't you fix domestic problems before you strive for technology, ...."

What does that imply, that "technology" is not domestic to such poor countries ? Is it some international agenda not to be fooled around with such nations as India ?

In that case, shouldnt countries like America concentrate its monies and energies to solve the "shoot-as-you-like" dementia that grips this country (aka School shootings, cult bombings, etc)instead of spending billions on some computing needs or star wars and such like ?

Will having such advances in science and technology help in ridding the Americans of their dementia ?

Instead of just riling away some queer logic like that, why dont you think twice and read history before commenting.
Science and Technology has never been (NEVER) been divorced from social welfare, economic improvements, "domestic" developement and all that. It is rather a part of the whole gamut of developement - for the rich and poor alike.

Re:Same stupid outlook as when Simputer was launch

[Anonymous Coward]

I agree.

This always happens wheneverthere is news of some technology development in other countries which the so called -first waorld countries havent or are in the process of achieving.

Thats a thing called Ego.
Its as if technology from our countries has to flow to poor countries just cause we deem ourselves to be more advanced (Why I dont know).

Thats the residula mentality of colonialists that still lingers on that says that "we" can't learn anything from "them".
And its so true that we havent learned much as a result.

Shame to us.

Re:India?

[Afrosheen]

I'd say closer to 9/10ths.

Re:Whts the difference between Pakistan and a panc

[cduffy]

Please inform us when you've heard of a hindu terrorist? :-)

Hmm... I'd say those responsible for murdering the women and children at Cawnpore deserve the term. Opening fire under a white flag isn't exactly respectable either.

(Of course, it's noteworthy that I had to go back over a hundred years to find an example -- and certainly, the British were no saints either).

Re:India Next Superpower NOT WITH RELIGION!

[No One]

Just doing a bit of modproofing, since some dickless wonder's getting his jollies out of modding my week-old posts offtopic. And the lameness filter, like said dickless wonder, can bite me.

Re:India Next Superpower NOT WITH RELIGION!

[No One]

Just doing a bit of modproofing, since some dickless wonder's getting his jollies out of modding my week-old posts offtopic.

Move along, nothing to see. Unless you're the dickless wonder.

Re:India Next Superpower NOT WITH RELIGION!

[No One]

Just doing a bit of modproofing, since some dickless wonder's getting his jollies out of modding my week-old posts offtopic.

And the lameness filter, like the dickless wonder, sucks donkey balls and enjoys it.

Re:Higher IQ ... come on! That's dumb

[No One]

Just doing a bit of modproofing, since some dickless wonder's getting his jollies out of modding my week-old posts offtopic.

AC trolls...

Re:India the Next Superpower -wrong history

[No One]

Just doing a bit of modproofing, since some dickless wonder's getting his jollies out of modding my week-old posts offtopic.

Anyone who mentions The Bell Curve seriously has got to be a troll.

Re:Whts the difference between Pakistan and a panc

[No One]

Just doing a bit of modproofing, since some dickless wonder's getting his jollies out of modding my week-old Score: 1 posts as Overrated.

Ho, hum, hmmmm.

Re:USA should sell any computing technology to Ind

[No One]

Just doing a bit of modproofing, since some dickless wonder's getting his jollies out of modding my week-old Score: 1 posts as Overrated.

Wheeeeee....