Slashdot Mirror
Slashback: Grids, Netscape, AMD
And Campbell's puts glass marbles in their soup pictures. Roland Piquepaille writes "We saw several grid computing announcements in the last couple of days.Of course, Gateway stole the show. In 'Gateway makes store PCs work overtime,' you can read that 'Gateway's network of 8,000 PCs can deliver 14 teraflops.' This is plain wrong. You all know that this number of 14 teraflops is meaningless. It's just the addition of the peak speed of all the PCs -- never reached anyway on individual PCs. You need specialized software to work efficiently with a grid. And two companies are releasing new products to power grids. Avaki rolled out what it believes is the first Java-based data grid software for enterprise-class IT environments. Kontiki, for its part, on Monday released a grid server that brings its content delivery system into the server realm, whereas previously it was only available for PCs. Check this column for a summary, or this article for more details."
Why aren't those things called 'stick-up' ads, anyhow? Internet Ninja writes "Netscape today released version 7.01 of Netscape based on Mozilla 1.0.2. Back in is popup blocking which they got a lashing for in 7.0 as well as tabs as home pages just like Mozilla. Release notes here and there's a couple articles on Netscape devedge which may be of interest to developers."
And they will continue to have produced my Athlon, too. schnoz writes "And you thought AMD was quitting the PC chip market? Then check out this article on Business Week. Not only are they releasing new chips and plan to continue to do so, they're also still very active research wise, working on new transistor making techniques such as the double gate design as well as metal-rather-than-silicon design. Keep going at it AMD!!"
It might interest some to know that physicists are thinking a lot about grid computing, especially those who use computation heavily, such as numerical relativists and fluid dynamicists. An interesting article appeared last year in Physics Today. Let's hope that the academic community's tradition of openness takes root in the Grid.
i confirmed it on my 3.6 ghtz athlon system (dual 1.8 MPs)...
MARIJUANA, SHROOMS, X: ONLINE?! - E
It's called The Globus Toolkit.
Wow, the fastest netscape I've used to date is (IIRC) Netscape 3.x. All subsequent versions have been progressively slower.
Except this one, apparently.
I wonder how they got it so fast? They must have geavily modified the Mozilla 1.0.2 code because, compared to NS 3.x, it runs like a dog with no legs.
"Nine times out of ten, starting a fire is not the best way to solve the problem." - my wife
"And you thought AMD was quittingthe PC chip market?"
I didn't think they were quitting the PC Chip market. I actually read the article.
I bet the next version of IE will have a popup blocking feature.
Sex - Find It
here: SGE
its a good piece of software at that.
i have had some experience with it.
"Two things are infinite: the universe and human stupidity; and I'm not sure about the the universe." --Albert Einstein
Like, there's one where the mom is home alone with her little kid, and everyone knows that women are only motivated to actually cook when there's a hunky man around. So she's about to make the kid a FROZEN PIZZA when the kid holds up a drawing from school and says "Look, Mommy, I drawded you a pitcher!" and Mom oohs over it and to reward the kid she puts away the frozen pizza and instead the kid gets A BOWL OF CAMPBELL'S SOLID PINK "TOMATO" SOUP for lunch. This is love in the same sense that this is nutrition. Lumpless flesh-colored soup. Remember how Campbell's tried to use the slogan "Soup Is Good Food" for a few months until enough dieticians complained that that was an outright lie in the case of Campbell's watery slime? Remember how they got busted for always showing pictures of soup with the few measly pathetic little veggie bits standing on the surface of the soup because the bowls were always filled with GLASS MARBLES to hold up the little fragments of orange-gray carrots and caved-in peas?
DDR is a dead end, folks.
What does dance, dance revolution have to do with any of this?
It sure wouldn't suprise me if they did include some form of popup blocking, or for that matter tabbed browsing. Microsoft will proclaim their wonderful "innovations" and how they will change the internet. Which is what they have done consistantly...
I would imagine we will start to see a IE 6.5 beta hit the net shortly, possibly incorporating the popup blocking, but my guess is that IE 7 will be the version to really grab mozilla(and opera for that matter) innovations.
Same old, same old
Alright, I guess if thats what you really want. Personally, I think it'd hurt but thats just me.
i sure hope not. i don't want the average joe to be blocking pop-ups. once pop-up blocking becomes mainstream then the advertisers are going to switch to a format that is harder to deal with. i like using mozilla and blocking pop-ups, but if the advertisers change their format to a harder to block type, then i'll be seeing ads again.
Grid computing is definied as super-efficient, superfast clustering... provided you use any languaged BESIDES Java to impliment your algorithms
Yes, yes, imagine a beowulf cluster of these and then imagine the incredible total overhead wasted by hundreds or thousands of instances of any given JVM.
The next Slashdot story will be ready soon, but subscribers can beat the rush and slashdot the links early!
It's in the Mozilla nightly builds, though I have no idea if it's in 1.2.1
You're new to Slashdot, aren't you?
There's a Mercedes gap too. I want one and can't afford one, but it's not government's job to do anything about it.
Or this guy. (Warning: many megs, but worth it if you have the bandwidth.)
working on new transistor making techniques such as the double gate design as well as metal-rather-than-silicon design.
This reminds me of one of my favorite IBM stories told to me by an ex-IBMer professor a few years back.
It would appear that some time in the 70s (it's been a few years since I heard this story), IBM was having problems with boules* falling over and breaking, costing a great deal of money. IBM being what it was, put out a solicitation for employee suggestions on how to remedy the problem.
One technician was very disappointed to hear that the boules were made of silicon and suggested using a stronger material. It was his wager that a stainless steel boule would be much more resistant to breaking. So, he suggested replacing all the silicon boules with stainless steel.
True story.
* Boules are very tall cylinders of monocrystalline silicon. They are sliced up into fairly thin, circular wafers. These wafers are then processed through the steps that make chips and lastly diced into the silicon chips we commonly see put on plastic or ceramic packages.
I took a long shower when I got home and scrubbed vigorously.
Note that it was just announced that Netscape is laying off people:
a ol _layoffs/
http://money.cnn.com/2002/12/10/news/companies/
Was this release of 7.01 just for spin, to try and keep the positve in the news more than the negative?
I hate marketing.
Using your sig line to advertise for friends is lame.
The SRV record can be used to tell a client what server and port to go to for a named service.
Rather than using hostnames (www.foo.baz)
use a SRV record to send http traffic to a host:port pair, frp traffic to a different host:port pair, and on and on::
; SRV priority weight port target
_http._tcp IN SRV 0 0 8080 heuey.foo.baz.
_http._tcp IN SRV 0 0 8080 deuey.foo.baz.
_ftp._tcp.ftp IN SRV 0 0 21 louie.foo.baz.
No more do you need to include non-standard ports for http. (8080, 81, etc) just make the app SRV aware and update DNS. done.
This would allow for much simpler Server configs too!!
comment directly in my journal
Now that Netscape has re-introduced popup blocking, Microsoft may soon follow suit. However, I did see an article on /. a while back about a group of advertisers that claimed any kind of blockage on their advertisements was theft (they claimed being able to see a site without having to see the ads constituted theft of bandwidth). If all future browsers incorporate popup blocking, where is the future of online advertising headed?
Rather than having window.open() return a null handle, have it return a real handle, but simply don't create the window. Better yet, have it optionally load the contents of the window, so the remote site never even knows that the window simply was never popped up.
Except for supporting the ethically bankrupt attempt of the Rambus company to subvert the industry standard. Playing by competition is one thing. Playing by courting Intel and having Intel twist everyones' arms is worse. Rambus went way beyond that.
The living have better things to do than to continue hating the dead.
I'm now using Phoenix 0.5, which came out just recently, and it's quite toasty - I think it's ready to replace Mozilla as my main browser. The main plugins work (I'd had trouble getting them installed on 0.3 and 0.4) and it's very very fast, especially since I set the startup delay to 0 (default is 1200ms, which lets it recover from slow-loading graphics that would otherwise force redraws.) The Google-search-bar extension is really convenient, though I gather than newer Mozillas also have it. I'm normally no fan of themes (why clutter up the GUI at the cost of making it larger and slower?), but the "LittlePhoenix 1.3" theme has icons that are enough smaller that I can reclaim significant screen space, and the "Linky" extension has been a good way to handle pages with lots of links (e.g. letting you leech all the pictures into a separate window or tab, or examine a page by grabbing all the URLs on it into a tab, which can be cleaner than View Source for some ugly web pages.)
Bill Stewart
New Fast-Compression-only CPR http://preview.tinyurl.com/dy575ks
AMD is also not quiting it's "True Performance Initiative" Read an update at the Tech Report.
http://www.kubuntu.org/
As a long time C coder, I'm normally the last one to come to the aid of Java, but there are some things you should understand before making statements like that.
First, Java is a language. A language cannot be fast or slow. However, the implementation of the Java interpreter can be described as fast or slow.
Secondly, just because the memory heavy, CPU intensive Sun Java VM that you load on your linux or windows or solaris box is slow, doesn't mean that all other implementations are slow.
Thirdly, consider that a Java program that is written poorly will perform poorly. This is the case with any language. If you haven't carefully audited the source code to make sure it is making optimal use of your CPU's time, you can't say for sure that the program isn't at fault.
> No no no, you see everybody had Pentiums running at 120 mhz
> when Netscape 3.0 was out.
Err, no, Pentiums didn't run that fast until a year or two later --
at least not the ones anyone could afford to actually buy. A
486 DX4/100 was still considered competitive as a new system even
when Netscape 4.0 came out. (Which, incidentally, tells you how
*old* Netscape 4.x is. Considering that Netscape 6 was really
ony of beta quality, we can be quite thankful that the long wait
is over and Netscape has a decent browser out again (since 7.0PR1,
which "Preview" or not made 6.2.anything look like junk).) This
new Netscape release, from what I've seen of it so far (admittedly,
not extensive use) seems to be quite solid, though of course it
lacks the majority of the features added during the 1.1 and 1.2
milestones. Which is fine; 1.1 lacked stability, and 1.2 is new
enough that it's hard to say (though I'm using 1.2.1 and it seems
very solid to me so far); Netscape is right to go with 1.0.2 for
now. I'm thinking they'll stick with that 1.0.x branch through
several minor releases and go back to the trunk for a new stable
branch around 1.4 or 1.6 or so. (This is not inside information,
just a prediction based on the pattern I've observed in their
behavior over the last couple of years.) By then, the branch
they are using will feel really obsolete to people who have been
testing the Mozilla builds, but that means that when users upgrade
to the next branch they'll notice a sudden influx of features.
That branch could be 7.5, but I'm predicting it will be 8.0
Cut that out, or I will ship you to Norilsk in a box.
I guess I can kind of understand the attraction of being able to use the grid across various architectures, but you're throwing away (at least) 90% of your computing power.
huh? Where'd that 90% come from? Are you talking about the JRE? As I understand it, Java bytecode gets compiled at runtime, so for computational stuff where you're only launching the app once and letting it run for awhile, it should be pretty fast.
$x='S24;r)>63/* h@<5+oZ)32"5cz';$me='phroggy'x$];
$x=~y+ -xz+\0-Tx+;print$_^chop$me for split'',$x;
I went to a presentation yesterday by Platform (the guys that make LSF) who talked about grid computing. Each person that spoke gave a different definition of what 'grid computing' is: It's clusters of clusters, it's clusters plus processing on individual machines, etc.
The upside is that such processing using PCs is already taking place, in the form of distributed.net, folding@home and seti@home among many others. If gateway wants to use its spare cycles to create a supercomputer capable of many teraflops, then go for it.
On the other hand, apps that are well suited to such distributed computing are those that require little I/O and more number crunching. That is, you don't want to use BLAST (comparing gene sequences) as the data sets are on the order of GB. But simple number crunching, like the examples already given, do not require sending much data to the clients for processing.
BTW, LSF has software to do the same thing with desktop boxes.
Yes, you can run a standard x86 RedHat. That's the attractive thing about the Hammer/Athlon64/Opteron/Whatever. They can run 32- or 64-bit code. In fact, they can run BOTH at the same time. One of the demos that AMD showed was a dual-monitor Opteron, with two spinning 3D objects. One was running as a 32-bit app, the other as a 64-bit app - on the same machine.
However, I believe that RedHat IS going to have a release for the Hammer. Considering that some packages (like Apache) are having a good amount of work done to make them really take advantage of the 64-bit environment, I'm not sure how much of a difference the special distro will make, but there's plenty of time for that.
steve
Oh, you're not stuck, you're just unable to let go of the onion rings.
As far as new ad formats, right on devedge page linked from the artice, you are seeing the future of web advertising.
Instead of popup windows (which are *SO* 90's), we will have popup div layers, positioned to cover the page. Look at Netscape's own popup detection example. They show you how to detect a popup blocker, and open up a fixed position DIV to give visitor a "warning". How long do you think it will take an ad network programmer to figure out that instead of the warning, this DIV can actually be used to show the ad itself?
Better yet, if the window failed to open, you can open the div with an IFRAME in it that points to the same URL. And no popups. :)
Welcome to the future. Doesn't it look a lot like the past?
Are you on drug(s)?!! Why not?
First, Java is a language. [...] doesn't mean that all other implementations are slow.
Java is an environment as well as a language. Unless this Java grid is planning to throw away the JVM, I think it's fair to say that it's probably using that standard Java environment. I'm not ruling out that a "magic" JVM might come along that somehow overcomes all the baggage of how Java is designed, but so far we've not seen this. Given the current state of technology, it seems foolish to me to throw away all that performance.
Based on my own experience, Java is on the average about 1/10th the speed of an equivalent C program, although clearly it depends on what you're doing. Where Java is particularly bad is very data intensive work, such as string manipulation. Where I was particularly appalled at Java's performance was XML parsing.
Java works best when it's a "glue" mechanism to pass communication between systems. Where it is not appropriate IMO is very computationally intensive applications, which presumably would be what you would use a grid for.
Sometimes it's best to just let stupid people be stupid.
It's in the Mozilla nightly builds, though I have no idea if it's in 1.2.1
Yeah, it's in 1.2.1. Just load up tabs for all the pages you want, then go to Edit | Preferences | Navigator and click "Use Current Group".
Graham "Teach" Mitchell, computer science teacher, Leander HS
I'm skeptical about your definition.
I attended a colloquim and seminar by Ian Foster, one of the authors of the Globus Toolkit, who was visiting down from Argonne Nat'l Labs. From what I gathered, grid computing is more about having the right kind of network negotiation and protocols between resources. Supper-efficient and superfast are second order derivatives; that is, they are a bonus and nice touch, but I don't think that is exactly what grid computing is about.
Specifically, as I understand it, its about global resource management, across distributed, world-wide systems. Joe, who runs a Particle Collider in Europe, can share information and network resources with Jane, who runs a MRI in America, who can share info and resources with Charlie, who runs a radio telescope in Antartica. I may be mistaken, but I understood grid computing to be sort-of the opposite of clustering.
Now, don't get me wrong... I'm not trying to start any kind of crusade. However, I do know a number of people who swear by Java, and I think that Java may actually be the protocol of choice for a lot of Grid Computing applications (such as sharing of astronomical data, genomic data, and magnetic resonance imaging data). These kinds of applications can greatly benefit by the sandbox architecture, garbage collection, security infrastructure, and virtual machines which Java supports. Sure it adds overhead, but I think that there are millions of programmers and scientists around the world who would gladly take the overhead costs, if it means that they can concentrate on chemistry, astronomy, genetics, or whatever, rather than having to worry about memory pointers, memory leaks, hardware support, and so forth.
But I only attended a couple of lectures by one of the authors of the Globus Toolkit. I'm not an expert or anything, so I could certainly be mistaken.
you are right; game consoles do use RDRAM. But in the end, RDRAM is not killed because it's bad technology, but because othere stuff.
first on the tech. (REALLY quick brief)
1) RDRAM has a faster interface (duh)
2) and it has a much more narrow bus
3) but to make chips drive at such a high frequency ON THE CIRCUIT BOARD, the bus interface for RDRAM is totally wacky
explanation: RDRAM is serially connected, *kinda* like... SCSI, or COAX ethernet back in the days. and it's heavily terminated. and because the signal goes so damn fast (remember, circuit board made of FR4 here - not cache->CPU interconnects), the routing of the signal traces, while sparse (something they tout - and it's true, DDR has like 2-4 time the wire density as RDRAM on the board), has very small tolerance for length difference. furthermore because the high speed, the chips must have a very strict output impedance (which is why mem-makers got shitty yields at the beginning and the RDRAM price were so high).
performance wise / practically speaking, since it's the signal routing / RIMM detection and delay adjustment (remember no trace length differences etc) that's difficult and causes trouble - in game consoles where you will never add memory, RDRAM is actually better (easier to work with / better performance - better perf because you don't incur additional delays in the trace by adding more modules, everything is fixed). Same time on PCs, when you do it right, RDRAM still offers better bandwidth than DDR; DDR-2 i am not so sure, but that won't be in massive production for a while so don't wait for it yet. depending on architecture (P4 is, have to say, on the side of "optimized for RDRAM"), you would get better performance out of RDRAM for a little while longer.
now the non-tech side:
RAMBUS charges royalty. 2% i think? now - memory business is not high-margin business (or else there won't be only like 4-5 memory makers left!), so when 2% is actually like 40% from the margin - if you can do away with RAMBUS (even at a performance hit), it would enable you to survive, or make more money - depending on the company.
so... the moral of the story? RDRAM is not bad technology (i.e. has its uses - like in consoles), but it's not GREAT technology, and certainly not good enough to warrent the margin cut and the headaches in engineering (output impedence - and these days they are going to 32/64 bit so the sparse signal lines is less and less of a advertisable benefit). But I expect that it will maintain it's little niche and won't just die off suddenly one day. i mean, heck - even if they only supplied for the game consoles, (especially with the large chunck of change intel gave to RAMBUS) they can survive for quite a while. RAMBUS as a company I think will eventually fail if they continue this path of IP-only, though - for other reasons. but this is getting long already.
My life in the land of the rising sun.