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IBM Developing Lego-like Storage Brick
AaronW writes "According to this story at EE Times IBM is developing a 32TB storage system built around blocks that can be stacked like Lego bricks. Apparently they will be connected in a 3x3x3 mesh using capacitive coupling and will be water cooled."
well, did i get it?
Surely LEGO owns the patent on this concept?
A first post. This one goes out to all the pretty ladies.
I like petting kittens.
Sho-nuff!
>>>>>> Chewie, take the professor in the back and plug him into the hyperdrive.
This is just a marketing ploy so they can sell storage Clusters shaped like Castles, Pirate Ships and the Millenium Falcon!
Mom woke me up and changed my diaper and helped me get ready for school. After breakfast I got my backpack and left the house to go to the bus stop. I met up with Emily and she asked if I'd heard from Laura. "Yeah I went to Laura's house last night and she's doing better but she won't come back to school until Tuesday." "Oh ok, lucky her! I'll miss her though." "Yeah I will too." The bus came and we boarded and took our seats. We talked for a while on the way to school.
We went to our classroom and took our seats. The teacher was late but when she got there we began to do our work. We went to recess and Emily went to get her diaper changed but I didn't need to yet so I didn't. We went back to class and then to lunch and back for afternoon classes again. It was just a typical Monday at school. I had to go number two in the middle of the last part of the afternoon classes so I asked if I could go to the bathroom and then went to go see Mrs. Peters.
I got in the door and looked around. I called for Mrs. Peters. Another lady came out to the main area. "Oh Hi, Mrs. Peters left at lunch time, she was sick. I'm here to fill in for her. So what can I do for you?" "Um, I, I, need, to be changed. I need my diaper changed." "Oh, ok, you must be Tiffany. Mrs. Peters told me about you and another girl, Emily?" "Yeah, that's my best friend." "Oh ok, well come on back there with me Tiffany and we'll get that diaper changed for you ok?" I followed her to the back where I usually got changed.
I was up on the table and she slid off my shorts and slid down my rubber pants. "Oh my goodness, you went poopoo in your diapers? I thought you just went tinkle in them. But don't worry I have a baby at home, so I can handle wiping poopy off of lil babies fannies." I giggled and she smiled at me and cleaned me up and re-diapered me. When she was done she picked me up off the table and patted my bottom. "Ok little girl, there you go. I will probably be in tomorrow also.
I thanked her again and then went back to class. Soon after that, the bell rang and we got on the bus and went home. We got off the bus and walked to my house. Emily and I saw that Kimmie and Tammy were talking in the driveway. Then we saw Tammy go around the corner but Kimmie stood there and said hi. He said hi and then we noticed something strange. She was wetting in her pants! "Kimmie, are you peeing your pants?" Kimmie blushed. Just then Tammy came back around and pulled the water hose out of the back of Kimmie's pants. Then Kimmie laughed and so did Tammy. Then Tammy took the hose and went back around the corner. We went inside and put our books down in the living room and came back out to go sit on the swings and talk for a while before Emily had to go home.
As we walked back outside Tammy had the hose on all the way and was soaking Kimmie from head to toe. Emily and I laughed. Then Kimmie got the hose and started to squirt Tammy in her pants with it. "Hey that's not funny." She said and Kimmie just laughed and hosed her down. Now they were both soaking wet from head to toe. I ran up to them. "Me wanna get wet too, wet me! Wet ME!" I said as I danced around. SO Tammy took the hose from Kimmie and started to squirt my clothes then she came up and grabbed me and put the hose down the back of my diaper and my diaper began to swell up and leak down the rest of my clothes. Then she pulled it out and swatted my soaking wet water balloon diaper. She sprayed my hair and down my back and everywhere. Emily was standing to the side and looking at us.
"You want some to Emily?" Tammy smiled with an evil look in her eye. Emily blushed and then stepped forward. Tammy took the hose and squirted her all over her clothes too. She spun around and got soaking wet from head to toe. "Hey Tammy, can you soak my diaper like you did Tiffany's?" "Sure, turn around and I'll get your diapers soaked." Emily turned around and Tammy put the hose down the back of her diapers and let her diaper fill up until it leaked out the bottom. She also swatted Emily's diaper and it sloshed around like a water balloon on her. "WOW that feels good. Emily and I plopped down on our lil tushies in the grass and our diapers just gushed with water.
Mom came out of the house. "What is all this, you all are soaking wet!" We all laughed and I showed off my water filled diaper. "Oh my goodness, I didn't know diapers could hold all that. Just as mom turned from me to go back in the house Tammy sprayed her tushie and all up her back. Then mom spun around in protest and got her front soaked as well. Then mom grabbed the hose from Tammy and finished soaking herself and then turned it on Tammy and Kimmie and Emily and I some more.
We then turned it off and we went in the garage and closed the door and took off our clothes and Emily and I took our diapers off. We all walked naked into the house and mom gave us towels and we all dried off. Tammy and Kimmie went to Tammy's room to get some dry clothes. And Mom put Emily and I in some of my diapers and clothes. Then she went and got dressed. Mom called Emily's mom to let her know where she was and if she could stay for dinner. Her mom said yes. So We ate and then the clothes were dry and we all changed back. It was a really fun time. Emily and Kimmie had to go home and I had to get ready for bed. After Mom gave me my bath and diapered me, I told her how much fun I had playing in the water today. She smiled and said she had fun too.
Tammy came in a little later to kiss me good night. I asked her how come they decided to wet each other today. "Well um, actually, because on the way home from school Kimmie had an accident and wet her pants. So we decided to get wet in the hose to cover it up. I peed my pants too after I was wet, but no one noticed." Tammy blushed. I smiled at her. "I think that's funny. But I don't have to worry about going pee, because I go in my diapers." "Yep you sure do, and what a cute lil baby you are. Now go to sleep little one and I'll see you in the morning. I love you." "I love you to Tammy."
I woke up early on Tuesday and As I saw Tammy walk by my room I said hi. She turned and came into my room. "You're up early today aren't you?" "Yeah." "Do you want me to change you and get you ready for school?" "Yeppers me ready to get up." She picked me up out of my crib and laid me on my changing table and unfastened my diaper pins and wiped and powdered me. She put on a disposable diaper for school and then she got me dressed in jeans and a t-shirt. The weather was a bit chilly out since it was the middle of October.
I went to the kitchen. "Wow you got up early didn't you?" "Yep I did mommy." I gave mom a hug and I ate my breakfast in my highchair. Tammy went to her room to finish getting ready for school I stayed in my highchair until mom got me out. I watched cartoons for a while.
Mom came into the living room. "Hey hone, since you are up early, why don't you go down to Laura's house and walk with her to the bus stop." "Yeah that'd be nice. Oh no!" "What honey, what's the matter?" I forgot that I told Laura I would come see her after school yesterday. And I got side tracked and when we had our little water hose fight yesterday I forgot to go see her." "Oh honey she won't be mad at you. She's your friend she knows that you love her because you have gone to see her a lot while she was sick." "Yeah you're right mommy."
I got my backpack and hugged mom and went out the door. I walked down to Laura's house. I rang her doorbell. Her mother answered. "Oh Hi Tiffany, wow you're ready for school early. Laura is just now finishing breakfast, come on in." I came in and sat my backpack on the floor by the door. "Hi Tiffany." Laura said from the kitchen. I came in and sat across from her at the table. "Hi. I'm sorry I didn't come see you last night." "Oh it's ok, I was watching a movie on TV anyway and I went to bed early." "Oh, ok." I then began to tell her what happened with Emily and I and Tammy and her friend Kimmie. Laura thought that was funny.
As Laura got up to put her cereal bowl in the sink and rinse out her glass of orange juice I noticed that she walked a little different and that she crinkled. I knew what this meant. "Laura, um, are you gonna wear diapers to school now?" "Oh yeah, I forgot to tell you. I talked to my mom and told her how much I liked them when I was sick and that I wanted to wear them like you and Emily. At first she wouldn't let me. But I begged and gave her my look that no one can resist." We both laughed. Her mom called from the living room and told us that we should get going to go catch the bus.
Laura's mom hugged her and as we were leaving she said "Laura, don't forget to bring the bag of diapers to the nurse's office and give your note to the teacher ok." "Ok mom, I wont forget." We walked down the street and Emily was already at the bus stop. "Hey Laura, I'm so glad you are feeling better." Emily gave Laura a hug. Laura smiled. "Hey guess what Emily?" "What Laura?" "I wear diapers now too!" "no way, are you serious? Your mommy let you? WOW that is cool!" "Yeah it is, and I love them to death." "I knew you would." I said as we all laughed. Just then the bus came and we got on.
When we all sat in our seat we were all three in diapers. "Wow, this is so neat!" Emily said. "Yeah it is." We talked for a while and then the bus came to a stop. We looked out of the window. "Hey we're not at school? Why is the bus stopped?" some kids were asking. The bus driver announced that the bus had broken down and we were 10 minutes from school and it would be about 40 minutes before another empty bus would come back and take us to school.
Everyone was glad that we could just hang out here and not have to go to school. We all sat on the bus and talked. A while later one girl said. "I have to go pee." And another boy said he had to go also. The bus driver told us to hold it and we would be back soon. Emily, Laura, and I smiled at each other. "Hey we don't have to worry, because we can go potty in our diapers." "Yep" we all giggled.
After a few minutes I wet my diaper and Laura stood up and was still for a moment and you could tell she was going pee in her diapers too. A few minutes later Emily tinkled in her diapers as well. The bus driver noticed what we were doing. "You girls are lucky to have diapers. The kids already knew so it wasn't a big secret anymore.
One girl came back to us. "Hey, I have to pee so bad, and I can't hold it. I don't wanna wet my pants because everyone will make fun of me. Um, can I, like can I, m can you, um, I mean, do you have any extra, diapers?" Laura nodded. "Yeah my mommy sent a few extra with me. I'll give you one." She handed it to the girl. She looked at it. "I, don't know, um, how to put it on." "There's an empty seat next to us, why don't you lay down, and Emily will put it on you. And Laura and I will make sure no one can see you ok?" She nodded shyly.
Emily lifted up her skirt and pulled down her panties. The girl was blushing and tears came rolling down her cheeks. "hey, it's ok, we know what you're going through, we wont make fun of you, it's gonna be ok in a minute, just hang in there." Laura said to her to calm her down. Emily got the diaper on her and pulled her panties up over it and let her skirt back down. The girl was checking herself out. "Um can I go now?" Yeah just stand their and wet. The diaper will hold it all so don't worry, just go like your doing it in the potty ok?" She nodded. She stood still and after a moment you could see a look of relief on her face. "oh my goodness. This feels good." We smiled at her. "Do you feel better now that you went potty?" "Oh yeah, and its warm and squishy. Now I know why you girls like your diapers so much." "Maybe you should ask your mom if you can wear them too." "Oh no, that wouldn't go over very well at all. When I get to school, I'm gonna ditch this diaper in the trash in the girls room." "Well ok then."
The girl went and sat down and I could tell she was embarrassed about having the diaper on and having wet it but I knew she liked it too. Finally the other bus came and we got on it. As we were boarding I saw one boy had wet in his pants. "Hey, you could have used one of my diapers." Laura said to the boy." "No thanks, I'm not a baby like you." "Well look who has wet pants? I mean, if you wore a diaper you would be dry right now." "I don't care, go away baby!" "Ok whatever." Laura just walked back and we sat down with Emily and I.
We finally got to school. The boy went to the office to get dry pants. Emily Laura and I went to class. But our diapers got wet during class too so on the first recess all three of us went to the nurses office. Laura had already gave the note to her teacher and now she just did like us, asked to go potty and then went to the nurses office.
We walked into the nurse's office. Mrs. Peters was still out sick. But that other nice lady was there. "Wow, now I have three girls to change?" We all nodded. "Well get in line then and I'll change you one by one." We all lined up. Laura first, Emily second and me third.
When we were done we walked back outside and soon after that recess was over. We got back to class and the rest of the day went by uneventful. We boarded the bus and went home with no troubles this time. The girl that had borrowed Laura's diaper thanked her again. Some kids teased her for wearing it, but she came back at them saying "Well at least I kept my pants dry unlike some boy on my bus." On my way home I had to go number two as usual and I loaded my diaper while standing in my driveway talking to Laura. Emily kept going because she needed to get home and be changed. She was already loaded with poo in her diapers. Laura only had wet. Finally Laura went home and I went inside. Mom changed my poopy diaper and put me down for a nap.
Tammy woke me up and put me in my highchair for dinner. After dinner Tammy had homework. I had a little bit and finished it. Then I talked to Laura and Emily on 3-way until mom came in to get me my bath. Then soon after my bath I went to bed. Tammy came in to tuck me in. "Well did you have a nice day?" "Yeppers me did." "That's good. Let's say our prayers and thank the Lord for a great day ok." "Otay, we pray now." Tammy held my hand as we prayed. Then she read me another short story out of a Children's Bible Book. Then I fell asleep. The last thing I remember is her kissing my forehead and walking to the door and turning out the light. After that I was asleep. I dreamed about silly muffins with arms and legs and there was this mean person that kept eating them. And I was hiding muffin people in my closet. And the muffin eaters came in and since they couldn't find any muffins they tried to eat me. But Tammy came in and saved me.
No I am serious, can you just imagine it?
>>>>>> Chewie, take the professor in the back and plug him into the hyperdrive.
"Just imagine a Lego cluster of these!"
That'll be the new obligatory smart-aleck remark about cluster computing technology. :)
A truly excellent pizza parlor is a delight unto the heavens. Treasure the sauce and the toppings!
2. Shave palms (again)
"IBM's Ice Cube project aims to define a way for end users to easily maintain increasing amounts of data, while also plowing ground for a similar approach to computing systems."
Ice Cube? Lemme guess: They sell a bandwidth package for Internet hosting called "Ice T"
Their bandwidth monitoring and packet sniffer is called "Snoop Dog."
Oh wait...IBM's PS/2 had the MCA bus. Maybe that was a Beastie Boys reference. Maybe IBM has been into Rap and the like for a long time...
Am I wrong in thinking that this design may lead to a new approach to servers farm, where each cube offers some kind of power (processing, storage, networking, moka brewing), and the whole assembly keeps itself in shape?
/., the assertion "Imagine a cluster of these!" takes its full meaning: storage might be the first step, and only the bandwidth of the couplers is a limit to the usability of CPU cubes or networking cubes.
For the first time in the history of
More, the software part will certainly bring some huge advances in clustering, as the challenge of virtualising all those cubes may help in building self-repairing (or should I say self-dumping?) clusters...
Oh, and by the way, here is the first step to assimilation.
--
Arkan
I'm not sure I follow. They say they want it to be easily stackable, and fault tolerant (they specifically mention leaving blocks in place if they fail), but how do you combine that with a water cooling system?
With a water cooling system, you need to make sure that the joints between cubes are water-tight, and maintain them over time, thus defeating their "no maitance" theory.
Or am I missing something? Perhaps they could use "disk blocks" and "cooling blocks" and just swap out the "cooling blocks" if there is a problem? Still takes more work than air cooling, but less than inegrating it into every block would.
What about just leaving air holes, and using it in a chilled room? Most server rooms are chilled anyway.
Just some ignorant thoughts.
Colin Davis
Colin Davis
I have don't hold NEAR that much. I sure hope mine are upgradable.
--Travis
EOF
Will these be compatable with the Duplex blocks for the four and under crowd? So that while your kids imagination grows, so does their legos?
Someone hates these cans.
If I were IBM I would avoid Lego comparisions
and 2nd, I would change the name.
Chicago2600.net more than a lifestyle, its a survival trait.
2. Tinkertoy: storage structures too delicate, engineers kept losing fins for making "windmill" structure.
3: Play-Doh: kept getting stuck in carpet.
4. Erector Set: engineers spent too much time making jokes about name.
See Robert Morris's presentation (6+MB PDF) from the USENIX File and Storage Technologies conference. The videos of the invited talks are also worth watching (if you can afford the b/width to get them).
The two most important improvements are:
The system is watercooled. Imagine this, you have 12 harddisks per cube. You certainly don't want to hear the fans which would be needed to cool all of them.
The second improvement, and you'll instantly see why this is coming from IBM, is that bad disks are not supposed to be replaced in the cube. They are simply turned off and the storage system works around them. If you need more capacity or can't live without the failed storage space, add another cube.
...do you end up having to pull em apart with your teeth? I'd rather not, I'm sure they get really hot.
"Your superior intellect is no match for our puny weapons!"
Can you offset the cubes a bit, rather than lining the faces up perfectly? That would really open up more possible structures.
I think it's a given that, at least in places that have room for it, there will be some playful constructions made from these things.
Looks like an excellent step towards a truly borg like information technology system.
IBM: resistence is futile!
Websurfing done right! StumbleUpon
augment your senses: http://sensebridge.net/
i am wondering how to acces disk block (let's say it died [GXP anyone?] and needs to be replaced) that is somewhere in the middle of such construction.
I'm glad they finally announced this project I've been dying to talk about it. I talked to a researcher on this project while I was at IBM's Almaden Research Center.
I was blown away when they described it to me. I have to say that IBM is by far the greatest computer techonology research company. They take the top minds give them boat loads of money, ten years later they blow your mind with the completely innovative technology. I mean come on, cube storage?!?!
Too bad, they just can't make any inroads in the client side market. They invented the harddrive years ago and today they aren't going to even make any more client models.
Anyhow, I just wanted to talk about cube failures. Ice cube uses a 3x3x3 array of 27 cubes. But, the question is what happens if a cube goes bad. Essentially, you can never turn off Ice Cube. It's meant to be continuously running. If a single cube failure occurs the system just routes around it. To compensate you can stick more cubes on the outside. Of course, throughput will be hampered.
I asked the researcher what happens if say all the middle cubes burn out or when the throughput gets too damaged. He responds, "Well, given the failure rate, it probably won't be an issue until about ten years have passed, and by then we'll have much more powerful storage technology."
Finally, anything that is water-cooled is nifty in my book.
Mark Shuttleworth becomes the first African in space! Yay !
Is this the same IBM thats getting out of the disk storage system? So what are they going to use for hard disks... Fujitsu?????
There's no Freedom like UFP-dom
...as known by anyone who has played with toys like Legos and iMacs, is: What colors do they come in?
I thought IBM was planning on Bailing Out of the Hard Drive Market? I guess IBM really does have multiple heads these days - although maybe like the article says, IBM's focus on this product is the hugely complicated software that will be necessary to make it work, rather than the hardware.
Websurfing done right! StumbleUpon
augment your senses: http://sensebridge.net/
even IBM isn't THAT dumb!
>>>>>> Chewie, take the professor in the back and plug him into the hyperdrive.
What if they use IBM drives? Then all the disks will die if used over 300+ hours a month.
What a marketing scheme--Force them to buy a whole new unit rather then just replace a part of it.
I find this storage technology troubling... There could be cubes the size of elephants floating around in there!
This problem is obvious, to anybody with an advanced degree in hyperbolic topology, m-hay.
there was an arcticle about this. It said that the main problem was electron leakage between the circuits. I wonder if IBM is just saying they're thinking about it or if they've solved it. I hope they post more info =D
Imagine the possibilities-- a Lego robot that can solve a Rubick's cube *and* store the contents of the Library of Congress.
Cache Rules Everything Around Me
Trains, planes, cars, rockets, telescopes, tires, telephones, radios, television, electricity, atomic energy, computers, and fax machines. All miracles made possible by the minds and spirits of men with names like Ampere, Bell, Caselli, Edison, Ohm, Faraday, Einstein, Cohen, Teller, Shockley, Hertz, Marconi, Morse, Popov. Ford, Volta, Michelin, Dunlop, Watt, Diesel, Galileo, and other "dead white males."
All reports indicate that we have a booming economy right now, but few understand why this is so. I hate to disappoint my friends on the radical left, but it has nothing to do with Bonnie and Clyde Clinton or the Democratic Party, or with any other party for that matter. What Im about to say is tantamount to blasphemy in this politically correct day and age; yet truth is truth. How long are we going to pretend that origins play no role in our world, the origins of the inventions, science, technology, and economics of the world in which we live?
Our present economic boom is due to the revolution in electronics and computer technology. But saying this is not enough, for these things didnt just spring into existence by themselves. They have traceable origins. And all of our "booms," throughout history, have the same origins as this one. Its no mystery. Just look at the list of names in your history books, and their national origins.
The great majority of "booms" past and present have been brought about by the genius and inventiveness of that most "despicable" of genders, the dreaded white male, or, to be exact, by specific, individual white males. This is not to discredit the many contributions coming from non-whites, but fact is fact. Our most important and consequential inventions have come almost exclusively from white males.
Curse me, or all white males, if you wish, that changes nothing. But if you call me a liar, youll have to come up with the proof that Im wrong. Remember, I didnt say there were no important contributions by non-whites; I said the overwhelming majority. Of course, I know about such things as the Chinese and gunpowder, but they didnt take it much beyond firecrackers and pyrotechnics. And I know about the pyramids and masonry of South America and the zero of the Arabs.
Would we have atomic physics and electricity if it hadnt been for the ancient Greek philosophers who, for example, had the idea that all matter consists of tiny atoms? Aristotle (5th century, B.C., 25th century pre P.C.) used electric charges to treat gout! Archimedes perceived the center of gravity of solids, cylinders, and spheres. From the basic discoveries of Greek civilization it went to the Romans and after the fall of Rome, it passed to later Europeans who expanded on this scientific knowledge. In modern times these ideas were developed by such Europeans as Volta, Ampere, Watts, Bell, Edison, and Einstein, who provided the basis for most of the technical wonders of today. All of them dreaded white males.
Maybe you got your enlightenment from one of the Ivy-League institutions of dis-education. Maybe they taught you that its all the result of white racism and oppression. That every time a potential Einstein, Edison, or Ford popped up in the Third World, a White hit-squad would swoop down and eliminate him before he had a chance to prove himself. Or maybe their schools refused to teach him in the Ebonics of his day. Or maybe they didnt have proper daycare facilities. Or maybe our would-be innovator came from a "dysfunctional family."
But the facts tell us that many of the great men pursued their genius at great personal risk--like the astronomer Galileo, who proved that the earth revolves around the sun. He and other men of genius and courage refused to be suppressed even if it meant their lives. They would permit no race, gender, group or class to keep them from their pursuit of truth and excellence whatever the cost.
If you eliminate, suppress, or debase the while male, you kill the goose that laid the golden egg. If you ace him out with "affirmative" action, exile him from the family, teach him that hes a blight on mankind, then bon voyage to our society. We will devolve into a turd-world cesspool. Where has there ever before in history been a group of human beings who have brought about the likes of the Magna Carta, the US Constitution, and the countless life-saving and life- improving inventions that we now enjoy?
Now it is certainly true that China did lead the world in technology and commercial inventiveness about 1,000 years ago. They had great coal-mining operations, gunpowder, six-masted sailing ships, and intense commercial enterprise. But it all collapsed because the elites, the long-nailed Mandarins, centralized control--1,000 years before Mao--and crushed the expansion and inventions.
Does this mean we should sit back and let ourselves be governed by someone just because hes a white male? Of course, it doesnt. It means simply that we shouldnt suppress anyone, including white males. Let our God-given gifts run free in a free and just society, free from the oppression and tyranny of social engineers. If anyone has gifts beyond our own, be he a white male or other, be grateful. Maybe we have gifts that in some small way can contribute something of value as well. One way or another, were all in the same boat. Few of us have truly outstanding gifts. And most of us have to humbly accept that there are others around who are more gifted than we are. In a democratic society its not for Big Brother to decide who shall thrive and who shall struggle in the hive.
Wah. Wah. Cry wah. Fuck you commie. You leftish shit. Lets make the doors out of paper to let the burgulars in, give a big hug and try to kiss and make friends lalalalalal.
This thread is making me sick, and all the commie leftist biased shit going on makes me even more sick.
There are those few people here which have said some conservative sense to these leftists that would teach gay love to young boys for the sake of diversity.
No one holds a gun to your head to eat that fuckin' McDonalds. NO ONE. These third world saps suck up American culture because they are busy chopping clitorises off of women, suppressing ethnic minority groups though genocide or some other bull shit.
People are way to young and don't read much history. Ask Tibet how it likes China's takeover. Ask the Chinks how they like the Japs when they killed 100,000's during the occupation of Manchuria. Ask any of the down trodden eastern Europeans how it felt to have the long spear of the Soviet Ramrod up their asses during the cold war days? How bout a nice day in a GOULAG? How about making bomb shelters in Iraq near legit military targets to get "bad lefty communist like Christiana AMAPOUR to report civvie deaths even though Hussein is at fault?" How about starving Iraqi "children" aka terrorists in training starving to death because their leader is spending upwards ot 50B/year in WMD research. How about Canada and France selling No. Ko. reactor parts, great fuckin friends we have. How about getting the death penalty in Singapore for smoking a joint? How about giving the Middle East nations the oil fields back (after we built huge oil platforms for them, because the tent dwelling cretins were too fucking retarded
FUCK TIHS ANTI AMERICAN shit. all the foreigners who get here legally stay for a fucking damn good reason. And I welcome you, so long as you pay taxes do what you fuckin want.
This is historically unfounded. We get over our vices and inconsistencies fast here. USA makes mistakes, but the Sudanese still have slavery, we don't. We got over slavery damn quick compared to the rest of the world. We came a long way on suffrage (the right to vote to all the bleeding heart commies who have yet to pay much into the system yet). We may not be perfect yet, but shit, its far from shit. very far.
I hate the commie shit socialists who want the least common denominator for everyone.
FUCK YOU. Id rather nuke your ass and suck up some nice radiation I paid for that share my home with you fucking lazy un-working vermin.
I'll never worry about losing the cure for cancer by nuking dumps like Iraq, because these defunct shithead countries will never make one.
There is so much trash going around on this thread, it makes me laugh. Pseudo educated suppressed homosexuals (not that homosexuality is bad, but suppressing it, geeze you liberal fucks should spread the cheeks and get it done with, you spit your wad a lot harder when the person fucking your ass has a towel on his head) eructating puerile shit.
I'm glad we are planning to make it possible to put me into bondage. I would rather die than be in bondage to these shitty subversive chinks or commies or morally bankrupt suppressive shitass Islamic Towelheads.
We have said for 40 years plus, you do it, you think about it, and you are gone. the red button gets pressed, the red telephone gets slammed on the receiver.
The Japs did well surrendering to us. They are the second or third largest economy in the World, jeeze, the USA really sucks to surrender to , huh? You tools need to think - you really think the US didn't do them a favor by burning down that house? They made off with our car industry for Christ's sake, and boy, I do love driving my Japanese car - its great. And I fucking paid it off in 9 months, $33,000 bucks. And not, its not public property, you cant have a ride, fuck off , its mine I PAID FOR IT. None of this commie shit.
John Walker scume floating around Marin. Bezerkelyite fuckers with Barney Telletubbie view of the world scumballing their shit subversive agenda.
I must say, piss on John Asscraft for being a fascist shit. I may hate you leftist fuck commies, but this right wing fascist shit sucks too.
Really, really. What is going on? There are circles of power, some leaning left, some leaning right, some existing for themselves. They divide the people of the world, always focusing on what makes us different! Are you a fag or not? Are you black or white? Are you left or right? Are you a fat fuck? You know what I dont give a shit what you are, and thats still my fucking car. The circles of power want us to fight amongst ourselves while the prance off with all the fucking money and power.
Everyone wants a nice Japanese import car, real medical care (not socialized shit, like that shit in the UK where if you reach a certain age you entitlement to care is GONE, like if you get dialysis, hit age 65, they PULL THE FUCKING PLUG, because they are commie shits), they want halfway decent schools, freedom to think etc. We got all that here. I live it. You fall on your face here because you are lazy, not a caste system.
Tactical nukes are appropriate, and we had the finger on the button the last 50 years, we just want to remind the world, hey, have a wet dream, and well have a coupla kilotons of force to save us some money.
Appeasing Hitler landed Neville Chamberlain in the historical doghouse, and it took Winston Churchill to show the world the right way. To quote Churchill, "'Democracy is the worst form of government except for all the others,'"
All high and mighty EU, they armed these fucking countries. Half the Islamic nations shit came from French military hardware, roundly supplemented by the zipper heads. The I hear some leftist shit in this thread quote MAO the DUNG on the US being the "paper tiger". HAH. Nice life expectancy in China there, Mao Tse Dung. Nice going, harvesting organs from political prisoners for the highest bidders and government dignitaries.
Commies say big business is evil. Hah. The "Evil" Big Business: Doesn't exist like you think it does. I am in a small business. My small business was created from money from big business to innovate new technology to stop Internet DDOS attacks. The innovation would be a B2B service for medium and small businesses. I get my health care, dental, paid vacation and education subsidy either directly or indirectly from Big "Evil?" Business. One could way to make things work better would be to give outright tax credits to companies doing good things in their communities, like building schools or repairing roads or bridges. I'm sure HP could negotiate a better price for the "NEW BAY AREA BRIDGE" than the cabal of stupid idiots running Oakland and San Francisco. Now that I think of HP, I think of a huge company that has built several hospitals and given BILLIONS of dollars in charity through the "David and Lucille Packard Foundation" - established 1964. General Electric was run by a bottom-to-top rags-to-riches engin
Point: Be angry at the media for sucking, be angry at the government for wasting your money. Unless we get a western version of Mohandas Gandhi, be angry with every single Congressman, Senator whatever else. They step on your heads everyday.
Time to go read about some new scientific discoveries or new information about open source software or something interesting. Politics suck.
God I love those Krauts too. The fucking purified leftovers from the National Socialist party. Fuck you krauts. You started two god damn world wars. This Eurotarded Eurotrash Union is a suck bag quagmire of shit.
And these Towelheads and their newfound love for Palestine. Keep in mind these Palestinian vagrants have been booted out of every ISLAMIC nation they try to infect. They are hooligan vagrants , and if you replaced Israel with lets say, a pro Towel regime like France, they would be next on hit list of all the adjacent Arab nations. No one wants to pay for these tent toting Neanderthalic holdovers from the 3rd century. May as well kill them. We wont have to in the long run, the morally bankrupt Islamic nations will mop them up for us when they have expired their usefulness to their twisted cause.
And everyone blames DUBYA, like one person runs the fucking country. Meanwhile, the Congress and Senate make all the fuckin laws, the only power W gets is a big fat Veto. There isnt much the legislative branch can't override. DYBYA has an big administration, so of it is typical Right wing special interest trash, some of it is true blue pro the future of America. Shit, these people have to have some notion of self preservation. Every single Bush family relative isnt surviving WWIII, fuck, I'd be willing to be that 90% of everyone in that administration's extended families would be dead as doornails if there was an all out nuclear conflict. No one wants an extended nuclear conflict, but I would pay front row admission to see bin Towelheads skin get baked off by a tactical nuke dropped off by a Predator or some shit. You dont eve have to aim.
The geopolitical situation in the world is not solely exacerbated by the US. It is bullshit to think that this country control the world's direction. People want what we have and arent willing to adopt our ways. We get what we want by worshipping our own dollar, more than POWER or RELIGION. Its only natural cretins dont catch on to this and feel like trying to defeat us "imperialists." Hey, quick secret you fuckers who hate us - STOP BUYING AND SELLING SHIT TO US, STOP USING OUR CURRENCY. I would be willing to bet that most of the world printed US currency isnt even in the US. Out of many one, e plurbus unum. Printed on the fucking money. I dont buy trickle down doesnt work either, our success trickles down. People think we should have the upper hand after we invent all this shit and create a venue for success because they are failures in life and have to resort to communism or socialism to make up for the fact they need Viagra to get it up, another American invention.
I love how America is seen as this pretty glass castle, and the rest of the serfs plowing the fields for a fair wage all start tossing rocks because they or their culture or their family failed to give the intellectual tools to succeed. Yeah, thats our fault.
I dont think an Islamic person will ever set foot off this planet, because anything not of the planet or Mecca or any aliens are probably UNCLEAN, UNHOLY and vile, and they MUST BEND to ALLAHS will. I cant believe people still believe in this superstitious bullshit.
Hey lefty, youll get extra credit for your shit clas at Berkelely - its called the SUNDANESE CULTURAL CLASS, 101, learn to carve a girls clitoris off! 4 CREDITS!
Bread gets moldy, turns to black.
Lots of things turn dark, moldy and brown with age.
Your kitchen floor was white at some point but you slovenly self had created a swampy quagmire of festering shit.
Black or darkness is an archetype for ignorance in literature, because in the very early days, darkness of the night was a preclusion of the world that was known.
White light is the presence of all the colors in the spectrum, black is the absence of all color.
Your tird-world ape nations have a lot to learn from the crackers. Us whiteys. Us honkies. Us stupid and intellectually inferior (being very facetious here) crackers.
We can cure you. We can. We can dilute your Arab stupidity, we can breed out your nigger sickle cells, we can wane your Asiatic elitism, we can eliminate your Pakistani desire to sell carpets and stink like body odor. We can probably not ever fix the lazy spics and mulattos of the south Americas, but maybe. We have to fuck your women. Let us come in droves and cure you of the animal genes that are mixed in there. Given that you apparently have a cerebral cortex, the animal nigger genes must be recessive.
We can help. Help me help you. Find your wife, and let me knock her up.
1. Take off car's gas cap.
2. Hump the hole furiously.
Islam is Death, Death to Islam.
This article IceCubes would mean cool computing at New Scientist covered the technology.
"Software ... core challenge"??? (This sentiment is in the context that IBM aren't totally clueless about this sort of thing ;-)
Starting with a simple schema:
- Low level disk manager carves up disks into globally uniform chunks - say 20GB for argument's sake.
- RAID manager does the usual RAID 5 stuff using chunks from different cubes.
- Logical volume manager combines/carves up logical raid arrays into user required sizes.
- And finally a robust resizeable filesystem presents space to the user (or go back a step to present a virtual block device to Oracle or anything else that likes to avoid filesystems.
OK - that's a simple schema from which a better system can be evolved - but the core technology exists now. 1- disk partitioning; 2- RAID; 3-Linux LVM, Veritas Volume Manager and many others exist; 4- Growable filesystems exist (reiserfs, Veritas etc etc. Need to work on the ability to shrink for a fully rounded solution. Stage 2 needs to be careful concerning topology to avoid bad latency problems.To make this truely plug and play (but not in the MS sense) inserting a disk-cube would see it tested, auto partitioned and put in a pool. The systems engineer would be required to create/delete/alter filesystems and/or virtual disks as they needed - and configure things like how many simulatenouse cube failures can the system tolerate, how many hot spare cubes are kept in the pool and so on.
The software to do the underlying stuff is here today - I'm using it - albeit rather manually. The automation/management software to make this polished isn't hard conceptually. Of course if you only wanted one filesystem like the article mentioned it would require even less configuration ;-)
I'm actually much more impressed with the hardware here. Very cool. Not sure about the 3D and "stacking" structure. Bugger to replace a dead cube in the middle. Unless you are supposed to leave it there and throw a new cube on the top? I'd go for a 2D stacking system with overlapping layers (like a brick wall) - but with the couplers designed so you can knock a brick out sideways leaving the others undisturbed. Hmm - just a thought...
Why can't women be like Hedy Lamarr - beautiful, talented and inventors of frequency-hopping spread-spectrum techn
This was posted a while back on /. I dun't know why old news gets everyone attention.
I could buy a hard drive that communicates wirelessly with my computer, and which is powered by the Tesla coil. I could just put it on a shelf near my computer and leave it in it's box.
That would be cool.
http://pcblues.com - Digits and Wood
I'se gonna memorize the whole thing and recite it to my friends like that one guy in "Diner" did with the dialog from "Sweet Smell of Success"
I have a better "brick technology". It's red, rectangular, and in theory, it could be used to bludgeon Paramount studios executives until they agree to cease the endless reruns of that god-awful crime against humanity known as Star Trek: Voyager.
It's on every fucking night, and it's not any better the second fucking time around. What are these dipshits trying to prove? The fucking thing obviously wasn't good enough to continue making episodes, so they canceled it. Why subject us to continuous re-runs? Syndication Money? Those fuckers obviously have no conscience.
I want to see Jenna Jameson fucking farm animals, not some fucking stupid episode about how Tuvok has a life-threatening disease and has to go to sick bay for an hour, and 45 minutes later that faggot doctor comes up with a "miraculous" cure.
Fuck that. I want naked breasts. Lots of them. And maybe some chick on her knees with a guy jizzing on her face. That always brightens my day.
Oh wait, it already is
They seem to use smaller 2.5" hard drives, like the ones in notebooks. It does mean smaller power consumption and less noise, but what does that do to performance is yet to be seen. Maybe they are betting on time to make them faster and technologicaly more advanced. Yet, after i read an article at TomsHardware about doing raid with 2.5" disks, i am a believer! Not! :)
/Pedro
/Pedro
To divide and conquer!
I must burn in hell, suffer and pay for my sins
But Gods the one who's losing, Satan always wins!
Dead, but reportedly alive...
Karma whorin' since 1999
I feel that the "lego" comparison is a bit flawed - this to me suggests a completly sealed box which stores data, power being inductively coupled, data through RF, etc. Also, lego is designed to be built, taken apart, built again.
This system is meant to have 27 cubes in a 3x3x3 cube, and when part fails, it is supposed to remain in place. Low latencies and high throughput are due to their being interconnected to the surrounding bricks.
First issue here is, that people don't like seeing things fail, and leaving them. This thing contains a "fast x86 processor", a gig of ram, (later on) six port Infiniband switches, plus all the disks. One of these failing is expensive - and getting the middle brick out would require removal of many other bricks, and probably knock out the system quite well....
It isn't really exandable either. For 27 cubes, perhaps the 3x3x3 is the best layout or topology of the blocks, but as you increase the size of the array (100 bricks or something), a cube becomes far more complex, with longer paths between cubes, longer latency, impossibility of removing a central brick. Heat would build up in the centre (yes, they are watercooled, but every part will be making heat, and not all of them connected to the heatpipe and watercooling system).
Maybe some mad buckyball style arrangement would provide the shortest average path between disks (but this would require a lot of statistical work, and depend on how the data was stored, what sort of access was required).
We could end up with huge, weirdly shaped storage arrays, like in films.
The watercooling is a step forwards, working in server rooms is getting far too loud.
Reliability may be an issue - 2.5" disks which it uses are known to be not as reliable as their larger counter parts. And there are a lot of them in this (12x27 = 324 disks), so failure is almost guaranteed within a short time.
I think this may be more of a concept thing than a final product - certainly the lego and modularity aspects need to be re-thought.
Great - but will it die after 6 months of use - or not be fit for 24/7/365 use like some of their current drives?
To see the picture, click here:r ick.gif
http://img.cmpnet.com/eet/news/02/april/icecube_b
-Jake.
Umm, wouldn't someone like Angelina Jolie be a better choice?
You're allowed to keep it running only 333 hours per month =(
Oh well
Expandable storage just by adding a brick... very cool! I hope they continue with this idea in other ways as well!
I have to say, I wish I'd thought of it first.
However, this does bring me back to an original idea that I had for a server room. The room will be entirely empty, with large square tiles on the floor. Each tile will have information on the hardware that is below it (server name, switches, routers, etc). And, each will have a latch of some sort. Then, you unlock the latch, and pull up, and a large storage bin below slides up on spring-loaded rails, and locks into place. Then, you service the parts that need working on (swapping tapes, changing bad hdds), and slide it back down. All of the hardware will be sub-ground-level, which will make for much easier cooling, and a lot less cluttered environment.
These Ice Cubes from IBM would make a helpful addition to this idea, except you could only have probably two or three servers to a tile, attached one on top of the other. And there would be no side-to-side connections.
Eh, it was an idea.
The speed of time is one second per second.
Quote from article: "A central tenant is you leave it alone"
So are they going to charge rent to their central tenants?
Oh, wait, that should be "tenet". Sorry. Never Mind.
If you bothered to read the article, it's apparent that each cube is connected to an external sink (in this case, a water pipe/heat exchanger) by heatpipes. Someone could rig up a similar setup for conventional rack equipment, and cool a server room worth of equipment with a conventional A/C compressor!
) style design to use in their own invention.
The 3D mesh is designed for insane densities, when you really need that multi-terabyte installation. Presumably these would be used for supercomputing installations, and each would maintain two or more mirrored cube 'stacks'; when one's failure rate grew too high, you'd switch over to the backup while the techies ripped the other apart, probably over a week or two. Basically, they're trying to provide more storage in a bedroom-sized space than you could ordinarily pack into a gymnasium's worth of racks. Cray has been using the same capacitative couplers for a while, and apparently they really do provide some maddeningly speedy links.
The *big* question here is- why are they shoving x86s in the machines, when IBM's own PowerPC/Power4 designs exist, with *much* less heat dissipation? I assume this is IBM's left toe not knowing what its right arm is doing, but it says something when the research division couldn't find a BriQ (http://www.terrasoftsolutions.com/products/briQ/
... with these!
Geez imagine if you have a hundred of these stacked in a cube and one at the centre springs a leak...
<fnord>OBEY</fnord>
That's where a team will come in with a new stack with same capabilities and mirror the data in realtime. Bring down the old stack, replace the bad bits, mirror the stuff back over (because data would have changed in the meantime) and then send the bill. =)
There are hardware diskarrays like HP Virtual Array that can do this. Just pull one 36 disk out and stick a new 72 GB in and the array will automaticlt resize and start up sync up and migrare RAID-5 data to the new available space. Very cool, combine this with a inteligent volume-manager and filesystem that can resize automaticly and you have something that works simliar to the IBM IceCube concept.
s k_ arrays/midrange/va7400/index.html
http://www.hp.com/products1/storage/products/di
More like CINDER BLOCKS
This isn't exactly a new idea... Anyone remember the old apples where you upgraded the memory by stacking more memory on top of what you already have?
;)
Hmm, didn't those old apples have NUMA?
Do not meddle in the affairs of sysadmins, for they are subtle, and quick to anger.
To put all their effort pushing a new technology, like this one. IBM has been quite creative in their devellopement over the year, maybe they felt it was time to pass to something else. Can't wait to see this...
I'd rather be sailing...
This is the ideal story for Slashdot - legos, data storage, a big company like IBM, new technology...
I mean, it's like it was tailor-made!
Must have been difficult choosing an icon for the story. I can just imagine the editor agonizing over the little lego, the ibm logo, the hardware nut... or maybe the Borg Gates icon just to get people to read it.
Why use an x86 processor? 1. Aren't there way more efficient processors out there? 2. Why use a competitor's CPU rather than IBM's own POWER chip? - Which happens to be one of those more efficient CPUs.
sure there isn't a caveat that says they are only supposed to be used for like five hours a day or something?
Some of us have fallen in love with the notion of giving without reserve-Raoul Vanegiem, Revolution of Everyday Life
A company call Tricord Systems has been developing software that can do this for years. Although their hardware is not the enterprise level IBM is offering, their software is a perfect match for them.
The RIAA is pushing for new legislation which would make it illegal to exchange Legos, having heard that they may soon be used to store .mp3's
This comes on the heels of IBM bailing out of the consumer HD market.
Are they going to have a 6 week waiting period if one of the drives fails? Are they going to tell people that their drives don't fail any more than anyone else's? Are their drives going to have extraordinarily high failure rates, in some cases 50%? Are they going to tell people that they are using their drives too much if they are on for more than 8 hours a day?
Sorry, but they can't even get consumer grade hard drives to work with any semblance of reliability. Why would people trust them to make drives that are obviously going to be targeted at high-end commercial boxes?
There is currently a class action lawsuit pending against IBM for their recent HD disasters that they unleashed upon the public. Maybe people should wait and see, before jumping on the next IBM storage bandwagon.
Here's the link to the lawsuit, if you are interested.
the "lego" is the size of a small refrigerator! unless they're using ipod sized drives.
Now that IBM have announced they are selling off their OEM storage division to Hitahi this becomes irrelevant.
It will not make it to market without funding.
Maurice W. Hilarius Voice: (778) 347-9907
thanks for the link to Lego.com.
Otherwise I would have had no idea what you were talking about.
Really. Very helpful. Consider me subscribed!
I'd imagine the software for this would work a lot like freenet, assuming it will be fault-tolerant and hot-swappable. Files would probably be scattered about in such a way that if a piece is temporarily unavailable, it would find the missing piece elsewhere, with the possibility of additional storage coming online or going offline randomly...
Please consider making an automatic monthly recurring donation to the EFF
Tricord is filing for chapter 11. they were a dot com and have fairly worthless web based software. their investors were complaining about tricord being worthless two weeks ago.
High density magnetic storage for the purposes of building very large storage systems will hopefully soon be replaced by optical hollographic crystal storage. Once these systems reach production it will be possible to store hundreds of billions of bytes of data, transfer them at a rate of a billion or more bits per second and select a randomly chosen data element in 100 microseconds or less.
This will pretty much make all the obtuse magnetic data bricks and high density RDRAM obsolete! I would image that IBM knows this, but wants to make 32TB data storage systems a reality today and for now, only has magnetic disks at thier disposal.
That's funny, I never heard of a tenant being used this way...
Life steals from art.
20 years ago Heinlein discussed in his books a storage system he calls fine grained Welton cubes. They are closed independent systems, accessible wirelessly, very small, and expensive.
I think someone at IBM must have just read Time Enough For Love or another of the books in which Weltons are present.
I bet their next product annocement will be a new series of computers that are setient and want to become really hot human women so they can have a lot of sex with you. I think they will sell fairly well.
Time Enough For Love is one of the greatest books ever written. Go read it now....you are just wasting time anyway.
NO. From ZDNet
IBM and Japanese electronics giant Hitachi on Tuesday said they have agreed to collaborate on developing open data-storage systems as they take aim at industry leader EMC.
collaborate != bailing out.
Holy s-, it's Jesus!
The first "portable" computer I ever saw or used was like this. There was a base unit, and extra storage or a printer could simply snap onto the back via parallel port. Done printing? remove the printer box.
It was a very useful design, and I've been waiting for it to return to mainstream computing.
"IBM is developing a 32TB storage system built around blocks that can be stacked like Lego bricks"
...Will this be compatible with Tyco blocks?
Then take a few days sick leave for the chipped teeth and bleeding gums ;-)
Ali
"Windows and Linux can co-exist on the same machine." - Microsoft Corporation.
I've noticed a number of disparate posts about criticisms about the practical design of this storage system. While these criticisms certainly have validity, I'd offer this counterpoint:
Sure, IBM's view of the architecture's abilities may be idealistic. That being said, hasn't creative engineering been the force behind making innovative, yet seemingly impractical, designs feasible? What about Shannon's law, dial-up modem bandwidth and the development of better encoding schemes (I admit that I have only a rudimentary knowledge of Shannon's law).
For instance, if a module goes out, why would the architecture still be "blocking?" Wouldn't it be possible to scale up the bandwidth of adjacent busses to accommodate for this? (In the electric utility business, critical transmission paths are designed with 'double contingency'--i.e., if one critical transmission line goes down, another line will be able to pick up the remaining capacity. If THAT line goes down, a third line can handle the capacity of the other two. Wasteful, yes, but better than the unpleasant consequences of urban areas losing a large percentage of their electric power.)
Another valid point raised surrounded the issue of water cooling. Again, wouldn't good industrial design and advances in materials science (pipe sealing components, etc.) possibly help us here?
By the way, is this concept really new? After all, haven't the folks at n-Cube been using "3-D" interconnection schemes for a long time (i.e., MediaCube servers used to serve broadcast-quality movies at hotels, cruise ships, etc.)?
These cubes implement the 3D mesh (in real 3D! :)), and it has too long a latency for real multiprocessor computing. When you are accessing slow device (hard drive) you can live with this latency. If you want to run computation on this network, you'll notice that your efficiency is terrible. This is why interconnects in real supercomputers are either crossbars or some kind of multistage networks, maybe meshes, but 5-7D. Try packing THAT into lego blocks! :)
Paul B.
Can any Douglas Coupland fans say `Ooop'? :)
Everyone knows the best part about the lego fortress is the lego men to habitat it. Do I smell a IBM/Lego partnership?