Slashdot Mirror
One Computer to Rule Them All
An anonymous reader writes "IBM has published a research paper describing an initiative called Project Kittyhawk, aimed at building "a global-scale shared computer capable of hosting the entire Internet as an application." Nicholas Carr describes the paper with the words "Forget Thomas Watson's apocryphal remark that the world may need only five computers. Maybe it needs just one." Here is the original paper."
Now that old standard user complaint might actually become true!
mod me to oblivion ...
I've seen this movie--and both sequels. It doesn't work out so well for us humans in the end.
plus a hot spare, off-site.
If you mod me down, I shall become more powerful than you could possibly imagine.
Recently one of my friends, a computer wizard, paid me a visit. As we were talking I mentioned that I had recently installed Windows on my PC, I told him how happy I was with this operating system and showed him the Windows CD. To my astonishment and distress he threw it into my micro-wave oven and turned it on. I was upset because the CD had become precious to me, but he said: 'Do not worry, it is unharmed.' After a few minutes he took the CD out, gave it to me and said: 'Take a close look at it.' To my surprise the CD was quite cold and it seemed to have become thicker and heavier than before. At first I could not see anything, but on the inner edge of the central hole I saw an inscription, in lines finer than anything I have ever seen before. The inscription shone piercingly bright, and yet remote, as if out of a great depth:
4F6E65204F5320746F2072756C65207468656D20616C6C2C204F6E65204F5320746F 2066696E64207468656D2C0D0A4F6E65204F5320746F206272696E67207468656D20 616C6C20616E6420696E20746865206461726B6E6573732062696E64207468656D
'I cannot read the fiery letters,' I said.
'No,' he said, 'but I can. The letters are Hex, of an ancient mode, but the language is that of Microsoft, which I shall not utter here. But in common English this is what it says:'
One OS to rule them all, One OS to find them,
One OS to bring them all and in the darkness bind them.
And just for that very same reason, i suggest we implement a kill switch ..
a kill switch like..hmm..how about : whatcouldpossiblegowrong ??
agreed then. Thank you for participating.
Just saying.
I'm glad they're forward-looking enough to implement Phython, the best of PHP and Python in one language. Maybe next year they can implement Pherlthon?
What a fool believes, he sees, no wise man has the power to reason away.
RAII (Redundant Array of Inexpensive Intarwebs) :)
All I can say is they better use a really big UPS.
You are welcome on my lawn.
One for the regular internet, and a second (presumably more powerful) for all the porn?
It'll store all the internet?
Wonderful. Then, just like my computer, I estimate the data it contains to be about 70% porn.
Small potatoes make the steak look bigger.
What happens when they put it on the Internet, and then has to also serve itself?
ADVENTURERS! - ANTIHERO FOR HIRE - CARDMASTER CONFLICT
...and can we call it MCP, please? :-)
That episode was dumb in so many ways.
They developed a method of talking to each other using 'binary' which sounded a little bit like a 10 baud modem, and we're to believe this is more efficient? They 'evolved' to require that they all work in twos, or they were virtually helpless; this is superior to the ability to work either in a team or alone? They wired themselves into a global computer - this makes some kind of sense? Their global computer's ENTIRE memory could somehow be downloaded into ONE starship (Enterprise)'s memory bank? In a few hours? And somehow, throughout this gargantuan operation, and despite the obvious fact that their planet was about to get creamed by a nearby star exploding, they still managed to trick Starfleet into thinking that their exclusive access to the Enterprise's computer was for the purposes of a small upgrade?
== Jez ==
Do you miss Firefox? Try Pale Moon.
Or, instead, prepare for a really big OOPS.
Escher was the first MC and Giger invented the HR department.
That reminds me, what ever happened to the "whatcouldpossiblygowrong" tag for this story?