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Interviews: Ask Technologist Kevin Kelly About Everything

Posted by timothy on from the if-forrest-gump-were-smart-and-ambitious dept.

Kevin Kelly has for decades been involved in some of the most interesting projects I know about, and in his roles as founding editor (and now editor at large) of Wired Magazine and editor of The Whole Earth Catalog has helped spread the word about many others. Kelly is probably as close to a Rennaisance man as it's possible to be in the 21st century, having more-than-passing interest and knowledge in a range of topics from genetic sequencing and other ways that we can use measurement in pursuit of improved health to how technology is used and reused in real life. Among other projects, he's also the founder of CoolTools, which I consider to be (unsurprisingly) the closest current equivalent to the old Whole Earth Catalogs. (Disclaimer: I've had a few reviews published there, too.) (He's also one of the founders of The WELL, now part of Salon.) Kelly is also Secretary of the Board of Directors of the Long Now Foundation, the group which for years has been designing a clock to ring on 10,000 years in the future. Below, ask questions of Kelly, bearing in mind please the Slashdot interview guidelines: ask as many questions as you want, but please keep them to one per comment. He'll get back soon with his answers.

99 of 135 comments (clear)

  1. difficultiesd by bbk · · Score: 5, Funny

    the SeaMicro servers handled the load with no difficultiesd

    Hmm... now there's a daemon you really don't want to see running...

    1. Re:difficultiesd by Hylandr · · Score: 1

      This is a tried and true method to use less power per server.

      vim /etc/inittab

      find :

      id:5:initdefault:

      and change to:

      id:0:initdefault:

      Reboot server. - Done.

      - Dan.

      --
      ~ People that think they are better than anyone else for any reason are the cause of all the strife in the world.
  2. DEC patents bloooming after Intel stole/bought. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Interesting

    I was looking at my DEC Alpha today and this story came up, and I pondered on how Digital could have ever been replaced by Intel and AMD after being aquired and stifled by not one but two aquisitors in the likes of Compaq and HP. Here was 1997, and Digital already had a 64-bit 1GHz DEC/Alpha on the EV6 line of lab test and despite being an American-fabricated semiconductor from an all-American company then how was it that now the industry is destitute to ever again fabricate it's own semiconductors ever since The United States brushed udner the rug all the property theft and anti-Trust activities of primarily Intel and HP? Intel was the most un-original chip manufacture, most of it's technology bought since it was founded as an investor-startup to muscle it's way into the market like how Microsoft used XBox at a loss to enter an unrelated market.

    My point being is that the heavy hitters of the industry are all prime examples of when superior American work was destroyed, and in the occasion of the DEC/Alpha it was so-far advanced that Intel slowed-down the industry using Moor's Law so they can reap the profit of every chip revision that is nothing more than the re-implementation of a crippled inferior design.

    Digital was responsible for many of the ARM embedded chipsets, the greatest of Ethernet LAN chipsets, multi-processor scalability, was first to have a retail 64-bit 1GHz processor for sale in 1999 despite being in the rounds since 1997 to developing engineers, and we get stuck with foreign-made non-American monopolies. Do I need to remind everyone that Intel puts STATE OF ISRAEL on the map like what the musical-band U2 does to put Ireland on the map? Who is destroying America supremacy to push our technology into foreign countries that have never done any good to mankind? It stinks of pay-offs.

    And now that The United States is in charge, America is being liquidated.

    1. Re:DEC patents bloooming after Intel stole/bought. by RightSaidFred99 · · Score: 1

      Oh, good. The Alpha fanboys have made an appearance!

      What is with you old farts? The Alpha was a good chip at the time, but that was a long fucking time ago. Intel took the goodness out and it's in other, much superior designs now.

      Mostly, those of us who aren't old farts are sick of fucking hearing about the god damn Alpha. Jesus Tapdancing Christ.

    2. Re:DEC patents bloooming after Intel stole/bought. by PlusFiveTroll · · Score: 1

      Actually didn't AMD get the goodness out and come up with hypertransport and a much better systems bus then Intel had for years?

    3. Re:DEC patents bloooming after Intel stole/bought. by Ex-MislTech · · Score: 1

      And now that The United States is in charge, America is being liquidated.

      Watch the youtube video" confessions of a economic hitman", its worse than most know...

      --
      google "32 trillion offshore needs IRS attention"
    4. Re:DEC patents bloooming after Intel stole/bought. by Roachie · · Score: 1

      Actually the Alpha was a ripoff of a architecture designed by California RISC Systems in 1983. There is nothing new here that IM not fully aware of. Now if you'll excuse me the cheese on my nachos is getting cold.

      --
      This sig is not paradoxical or ironic.
  3. We talk about this need a lot at work. by toonces33 · · Score: 2

    We have quite a few machines in the server room, and we have constant problems keeping the room cool. But ultimately many of the boxes really don't need that much CPU power - they have a fairly simple job that they need to do. We have speculated about using an old laptop on AC power for some of the jobs that don't require a lot of CPU and don't require a lot of disk space.

    These servers sound like they would work quite a bit better for this purpose however..

    1. Re:We talk about this need a lot at work. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      Isn't that the use case for consolidating your servers into less hardware using virtual machines?

    2. Re:We talk about this need a lot at work. by cgenman · · Score: 1

      Like RAM in the 90's, the limiting reagent for a lot of server rooms is the strength of your AC. I wonder if we'll see major leaps forward in computer cooling, or oil-bath server rooms, or server rooms perpetually doused in extra dense gas.

      --
      The ______ Agenda
    3. Re:We talk about this need a lot at work. by Cramer · · Score: 1

      Because you can often do in a laptop with 100W what you cannot do in a 1U server with 300W. A laptop is a much more efficient design -- it's the next best thing to a blade server.

    4. Re:We talk about this need a lot at work. by caseih · · Score: 1

      Virtualization can be an immediate, cheap solution. Since you don't need much CPU on each server, just stock one with ram and put all the servers on one box. We cut our server room from 20 or more machines down to just 8, each running 4-6 virtual machines. We backup VMs between hosts in case of hardware failure. In 4 years it has run amazingly well. Combine virtualization with low-power computers (multi-cores) would seem to be a winning combination.

    5. Re:We talk about this need a lot at work. by martinX · · Score: 1

      http://www.apple.com/au/macmini/server/specs.html

      85W. And you can get a rack for them. http://www.sonnettech.com/product/rackmacmini.html

      --
      When they came for the communists, I said "He's next door. Take him away. Goddam commies."
    6. Re:We talk about this need a lot at work. by dave420 · · Score: 2

      They are hardly servers. Not even close.

    7. Re:We talk about this need a lot at work. by Antarius · · Score: 1

      They're less of a server than a laptop is?

    8. Re:We talk about this need a lot at work. by dave420 · · Score: 1

      An old laptop? Of course. I don't know why you'd want all the media-based nonsense in a server.

    9. Re:We talk about this need a lot at work. by LoztInSpace · · Score: 1

      Genuine question:
      Why is virtualisation so good? We have
      - Multi-tasking o/s that generally have resource allocation/partitioning/caps etc
      - Database software that runs multiple instances/databases/schemas
      - Web servers that run multiple sites on multiple threads
      So why is virtualisation better than stuffing your physical servers to capacity rather than adding overhead of multiple o/s
      Seems like the logical end-point will be a single-process O/S run off a mega hypervisor, which is almost indistinguishable from an O/S

    10. Re:We talk about this need a lot at work. by Arrepiadd · · Score: 1

      The reasons for this vary dependent on who is using them and why, but one possibility is someone wanting the mail server on a separate machine than the web server, yet working on a company small enough that it doesn't make sense to have a physical machine for each (in the sense of too much money/power consumption for a machine that will hardly do anything)... You virtualize the two machines and put them running on an actual server.
      This allows you to have different access levels and security restrictions for each of the machines, while keeping the costs minimal (just one machine and the electricity to keep that running).

    11. Re:We talk about this need a lot at work. by LoztInSpace · · Score: 1

      Thanks. While I agree it's a possible or even likely scenario, I'm pretty sure virtulisation in this case would be an unnecessarily wasteful solution. Don't most O/S s allow you to apply security at the application/service level? I'm not saying you're wrong in that people think like that, but I'd expect admins to know that it's not the only way.
      Anyway, thanks for the reply.

    12. Re:We talk about this need a lot at work. by asdf7890 · · Score: 1

      You could manage security at the per service level, but often managing it at a per server level is slightly less hassle, so the VM option reduces admin effort a little in that area.

      Also by keeping the tasks on separate (virtual) machines you reduce the chance of a configuration change for one app having unexpected effects on another. Shared libraries can be an issue to - some commercial app vendors will not support you if you don't have exactly the right library versions and those exact versions might not be the same as the versions required by another app. While it is possible to have multiple versions around on one OS instance, using VMs is much less hassle.

      There are other benefits to: for instance when the workload seen by one or more of the tasks increases to the point where the host is overloaded, moving a VM to a new host is often quicker and easier than pulling a particular service from one mixed task machine to another.

      You are not wrong in that the overhead of virtualisation can be considerable and in some cases the option is far from optimal, but for a lot of environments it ends up making sense to use it over other options.

    13. Re:We talk about this need a lot at work. by me.at.work · · Score: 1

      For us the reasons to go virtual (since 2006 iirc), in no particular order
      - reduce power usage and cooling
      - less hardware to manage
      - more efficient use of hardware
      - faster deployment of new servers
      - separation of applications (mainly a problem on Windows, applications simply don't co-exist in an nice way on the same server)

      We're not a major player by any standards but we now have 10 hosts running a total of 380 vm:s. Lot's of room for more vm:s in there still but it's designed for redundancy, 5 of the hosts can fail and all vm:s can still be kept running on the remaining hosts.

    14. Re:We talk about this need a lot at work. by Dog-Cow · · Score: 1

      What media-based nonsense? You sound like a bigot. The mini has the same power as any laptop, but in a better form factor for non-mobile use.

    15. Re:We talk about this need a lot at work. by vegiVamp · · Score: 1

      Host clustering, for one - you make a cluster of host servers, and you can move the guests between them as necessary, in most case with not a single packet lost - yes, that's live migration to another physical machine.

      You can even keep a live copy of a running VM in sync on a different physical host, so that even if a physical host crashes, the service can transparantly flip to the copy with everything intact, including in-flight transactions. Pretty impressive, really.

      And, of course, capacity expansion is transparant - you add extra hosts to the cluster and redistribute the guests on-the-fly.

      --
      What a depressingly stupid machine.
    16. Re:We talk about this need a lot at work. by drsmithy · · Score: 1

      Why is virtualisation so good?

      Fundamentally, because it's easier to manage a bunch of machines doing one thing each, than one machine doing a bunch of things.

    17. Re:We talk about this need a lot at work. by jmitchel!jmitchel.co · · Score: 1

      It is simply easier and less fiddly to manage applications when they are all totally isolated from each other. I've found that it's pretty damn complicated (especially if your dumb ass sales guys haven't negotiated a proper maintenance window) to negotiate downtime across multiple customers or constituencies. Applications step on each other, have subtly different requirements and expectations, and generally expect to be the only thing running on a system. For instance you stick multiple applications in that one database - and then one application requires you to upgrade and one requires you to not upgrade. And the same goes for web servers - suddenly you find yourself stuck on Apache 2.0 because you require some crufty plug in.

      All of this can be worked around with a bit of cleverness and perseverance but hardware is cheap and good IT guys aren't.

    18. Re:We talk about this need a lot at work. by vlm · · Score: 1

      So why is virtualisation better than stuffing your physical servers to capacity rather than adding overhead of multiple o/s

      You're forgetting you can make virtualization hosts that are not identical.

      I have a box with a very elaborate disk array, another box that has a very elaborate high speed network, another thats just a slush server that holds little stuff that takes up space. So... The web cache lives on the box with the high speed network, and the database lives on the fast ethernet connected box with the elaborate disk array. Also, darn near without telling the end users, I can almost instantly and transparently move images around on the different slush boxes depending on load.

      --
      "Science flies us to the moon. Religion flies us into buildings." - Victor Stenger
    19. Re:We talk about this need a lot at work. by Roachie · · Score: 1

      if yer servers are getting hot just go in there with a hose and spray em down a bit.

      --
      This sig is not paradoxical or ironic.
  4. 512 Atoms in 10U by serviscope_minor · · Score: 2

    512 atoms in 10U doesn't compare that favourable to 480 opteron cores in 10U (standard 1U, 4 socket 6100s). The atoms draw (apparently) 2.5Kw. That sounds a little low: that's about 4W each. That's plausible for just the chips themselves, but what about the RAM, etc?

    By contrast, the opterons will have a 1kW PSU each for a maximum power draw of less than 10kW, which is 4x as much.

    So, is a 2.3GHz opteron core 4x faster than whatever atom cores they use? Quite probably. Though they might use dual core atoms, in which case there are 1024 cores which swings it in favour of the atoms again.

    Basically, the article is far too light on details.

    But as always, vast arrays of weak processors is likely to be popular in some applications and be massively overhyped in others.

    The atom isn't an especially efficient CPU. It's low power for x86, but the high end processors have to be very efficient to fit within the thermal envelope.

    --
    SJW n. One who posts facts.
    1. Re:512 Atoms in 10U by Daniel+Phillips · · Score: 1

      The atom isn't an especially efficient CPU.

      Indeed. Subjectively, my dual ARM Xoom delivers far more compute power while eating less power than my Atom 450 netbook (Dell mini 10). This gives me hope for the future of the desktop, which as of today usually entails large amounts of heat and noise. In my ideal scenario, Android gets a big chunk of the tablet market, so vendors come up with the novel concept of Android desktop machines. Soon they discover that users are wiping Android and putting on standard Linux in order to run real desktop apps. So the vendors offer preloaded Ubuntu, which by this time has learned about touchscreens and how to run Android apps.

      The community certainly will do this even if the vendors don't. Android may be nice for consuming media and running dumbed down games, but for nearly everything else it does not compare to a standard desktop. (Multiple windows? ... )

      --
      Have you got your LWN subscription yet?
    2. Re:512 Atoms in 10U by TubeSteak · · Score: 1

      But as always, vast arrays of weak processors is likely to be popular in some applications and be massively overhyped in others.

      Tilera uses an architecture that eliminates the on-chip bus interconnect, a centralized intersection where information flows between processor cores or between cores and the memory and I/O. Instead, Tilera employs an on-chip mesh network to interconnect cores. Tilera says its architecture provides similar capabilties for its caching system, evenly distributing the cache system load for better scalability.

      Interconnect speed has been a longstanding problem for networking.
      Tilera is opening up the useful bandwidth on the CPU and surprise! they can do more work per watt.

      --
      [Fuck Beta]
      o0t!
    3. Re:512 Atoms in 10U by drhank1980 · · Score: 1

      http://www.seamicro.com/node/164 Here is the Seamicro page on the system. Its using the dual core Atoms.

    4. Re:512 Atoms in 10U by wagnerrp · · Score: 4, Informative

      They're using 256 dual core Atoms, for 512 cores at 1.6Ghz. Those 2.3Ghz Opterons will do roughly twice the work per core as the Atoms, with eight cores per chip, four chips per box, a 1U box will replace roughly 32 Atoms, requiring 8U to achieve the raw power of the 10U SeaMicro box. Those 32 processors run 80W ACP each, so including memory, disk, and chipset, you're looking at 3-4kW under load, versus 2-2.5kW for the SeaMicro.

      So how much will this thing cost you? The CPUs are $500 apiece. $300 for a 1U case. $800 for a board. $60 for a 4GB stick of registered ECC DDR3, times eight per processor. $275 for four 120GB SSDs. You end up around $6K per box. Now the SeaMicro uses Infiniband for its internal networking, for communication intensive tasks. Lets do the same. $900 each for dual port 40Gbps cards, and another $6K on a 36-port QLogic switch.

      That adds up to just over $61K, versus $150K for the SeaMicro box of roughly equivalent performance. For nearly three times the cost, you get maybe a third lower power consumption. At worst you have double the power consumption, an extra 2kW, and say one more for the AC. That's 30 YEARS before you make up the difference in initial cost. Therein lies the problem with SeaMicro claims. They compare power consumption against hardware two and three generations old, the servers that are going to be replaced. If you actually compare them against new hardware, they're pretty mediocre.

    5. Re:512 Atoms in 10U by wagnerrp · · Score: 1

      Then fix the software, to allow you to take full advantage of the hardware.

    6. Re:512 Atoms in 10U by datapharmer · · Score: 1

      ...only if you run cyanogenmod. Have you seen the crap support from venders?

      --
      Get a web developer
    7. Re:512 Atoms in 10U by grumling · · Score: 1

      Android has a very, very long way to go before it can be seriously considered for content creation. Not talking about applications, but just simple things like knowing when I have an external keyboard connected, don't pop up the on-screen keyboard. Cursor navigation is also just terrible, although I'll know more tomorrow when I pick up a Bluetooth mouse to see if that helps.

      And just simple things like having a "home" button on a browser... Does someone have a patent on it or something?

      So we throw Ubuntu or whatever on a tablet and find out that we have to recompile everything since it was written for X86 processors. Then we find out that there's a bunch of libraries that also need to be built and compiled for ARM. No way anyone but the most dedicated will even attempt it, and you'll never get those IT guys with MS Certs to even make the effort.

      Seems we take a step forward on hardware and 3 back on software (but at least we got a micropayment system for software that actually works!).

      --
      "Well, good luck finding a judge that doesn't run a bestiality site."
    8. Re:512 Atoms in 10U by grumling · · Score: 1

      Android's biggest failure is the committee-style update process. Google is running on a ship early, ship often approach and running head long into the ultra-conservative, test, test and test some more attitude of the handset makers (who dump their crapware on) and the phone service providers (who dump their crapware on). So Google's buggy code ends up on handsets and never goes away, even though they updated and fixed the bugs months ago.

      I realize the last thing the handset manufacturers want is to end up selling a commodity product, but there's still plenty of variation in hardware to keep the marketing dept happy without having to muck up the OS. The first handset manufacturer who announces stock Android and allows updates direct from Google will get my dollar. And my next phone if that doesn't happen will be a Nexus-3, as long as the hardware is better than the Nexus-S (need to have an SD slot).

      --
      "Well, good luck finding a judge that doesn't run a bestiality site."
    9. Re:512 Atoms in 10U by TheGratefulNet · · Score: 1

      atom only has a very short time when it will be relevant (some argue its no longer relevant and some even say it never was due to the chipset being the power hog, not the cpu).

      seamicro tries to abstract or virtualize the whole hardware and make it 'visible' by all the cpus. sorta kinda.

      thing is, atoms still suck as cpus and the big box is still a power and noise pig.

      nice try but not really worth the price.

      --

      --
      "It is now safe to switch off your computer."
    10. Re:512 Atoms in 10U by TheGratefulNet · · Score: 1

      have you tried the intel i3 (i5, i7) cpus? and their chipsets?

      I doubted it until I got one. go touch the heatsink on the i3 (any modern chipset) northbridge. (do they still call them NB's? maybe not.) at any rate, its cold to the touch even with the system doing things! totally shocked me.

      I can turn the fan OFF on my i5 system. I can run 100% fanless for minutes on end, even half an hour or more if I'm doing light office/web work. even just one gen before (the core2 duos and quads) were so much hotter and these new chips and processors are almost passive coolable!

      atom is a dead cpu. somehow, intel (maybe amd, too; but I have not bought amd for years, to be honest) has taken power savings to a new level. the size of the NB heatsink is tiny and it needs no fan. the chassis cooling in a normal i3/5 system needs no fan. only during video rendering does the fan make any real noise. unbelievable (in a good way).

      if I was running a datacenter. I'd take a miss on these atoms. too little too late. ok for netbooks, sort of; but nothing else, really.

      --

      --
      "It is now safe to switch off your computer."
    11. Re:512 Atoms in 10U by 0123456 · · Score: 1

      atom is a dead cpu.

      I recently replaced my Atom MythTV server with an i5, and while the i5 is about 5x faster and only uses about 2x the power under load the i5 CPU and motherboard alone cost more than the complete Atom system.

    12. Re:512 Atoms in 10U by wagnerrp · · Score: 1

      Actually, you would be wrong. One of the things Intel ripped out of the desktop Atoms in the interest of cutting costs is the power management hardware. There is no clock scaling, and little difference between idle and full load power consumption. For a nettop with a single processor plugged into the wall, a couple watts one way or another won't make a noticeable difference. When you have 256 (or 384 on the larger one) all running nearly full consumption all the time, the story is different.

    13. Re:512 Atoms in 10U by wagnerrp · · Score: 1

      Did the Atom provide sufficient power to run the MythTV server? If it didn't, then however cheap it may have been is irrelevant.

    14. Re:512 Atoms in 10U by Penguinoflight · · Score: 1

      You can't really gauge the efficiency of sandybridge (the current cycle of intel i3/i5/i7 cpus) by their "northbridge" heat. It's true that these chips don't draw so much power, but with sandybridge platform has memory controllers and integrated graphics right in the CPU; you can guess that these two components draw the most power. It's probably still a minor win for power efficiency, but it's not like there's been a huge efficiency breakthrough.

      --
      "And we have seen and do testify that the Father sent the Son to be the Savior of the World"
      1 John 4:14
    15. Re:512 Atoms in 10U by 0123456 · · Score: 1

      Did the Atom provide sufficient power to run the MythTV server?

      It ran fine as an SD PVR for over two years, but it's just too slow for HD transcoding in a reasonable amount of time. It's still running as a Zoneminder server, Zabbix server and game server.

    16. Re:512 Atoms in 10U by 0123456 · · Score: 1

      It's probably still a minor win for power efficiency, but it's not like there's been a huge efficiency breakthrough.

      I disagree: one reason why I decided to replace my Atom with an i5 is that the Sandy Bridge systems are extremely power-efficient compared to PCs of a few years ago. I haven't measured the power consumption of mine yet, but online benchmarks show i5 systems with integrated graphics idling at half the power usage of my Atom system.

    17. Re:512 Atoms in 10U by timeOday · · Score: 1

      I recently got an i7 4-core MacBook Pro and wonder if I should have got an i5, because this one can hardly do anything without the fan coming on, and is often uncomfortably hot on my lap.

    18. Re:512 Atoms in 10U by bemymonkey · · Score: 1

      "Subjectively, my dual ARM Xoom delivers far more compute power while eating less power than my Atom 450 netbook (Dell mini 10)."

      Are you sure about that? I love ARM chips as much as the next guy (heavy Android user), but I get the feeling that most of the processing (be it rendering web pages or whatever) is offloaded to the GPU and other supplementary chips... last gen's ARM chips were barely fast enough to render DivX content in software.

      Are there even any tasks on tablets that are particularly CPU-intensive? There's not much in the way of multitasking (what with background apps being hibernated and so on), and single apps usually just peg the CPU until they're done... sure, iPads/iPhones and Android devices are pretty snappy, but they're still severely limited by processing power, especially in comparison to chips other than Atoms - which are also getting more and more efficient.

      I bet if you put a dual core ARM in a netbook and souped it up to the same raw CPU power as an Atom, it'd draw pretty much the same amount of power and require as much cooling... Or am I missing something? Links for self-study would be much appreciated in that case ;)

    19. Re:512 Atoms in 10U by bemymonkey · · Score: 1

      "have you tried the intel i3 (i5, i7) cpus? and their chipsets?

              I doubted it until I got one. go touch the heatsink on the i3 (any modern chipset) northbridge. (do they still call them NB's? maybe not.) at any rate, its cold to the touch even with the system doing things! totally shocked me.

              I can turn the fan OFF on my i5 system. I can run 100% fanless for minutes on end, even half an hour or more if I'm doing light office/web work. even just one gen before (the core2 duos and quads) were so much hotter and these new chips and processors are almost passive coolable!"

      Interesting, I assume this is on desktops? The laptop space is more or less the other way around - where Core2Duo Penryn 25W systems would run completely fanless at ~45C, Core iX (both first and second gen, the 35W GPU-on-chip versions, which are more or less equivalent to the older 25W+GPU TDP versions, I suppose) shoot up to 60-70 quickly with the same workload (just idling, reading PDFs and occasionally loading a new web page). It's even worse with CPU+GPU load - the Core2Duo systems top out at 70C in a warm room, while many Core iX systems are at 90+...

      Just take a look at systems like the Thinkpad X series... cool and quiet on Core2Duo, hot and loud on Core iX (to the extent of the processor having to go into thermal throttling mode). The Sandy Bridge i3s seem to be alright, but they're so cut down on features that they're not particularly usable.

    20. Re:512 Atoms in 10U by obarthelemy · · Score: 1

      I think this is more about PC vs network: Nobody cares if a handset crashes, which is what Google, and the users, deal with. Even I don't care if my telephone crashes (which happens about 1 a month). Carriers are more afraid of one buggy device, or a whole series of buggy devices, bringing down / overtaxing their network. This justifies the carriers' validation process. Not the crapware !

      --
      The Cloud - because you don't care if your apps and data are up in the air.
    21. Re:512 Atoms in 10U by serviscope_minor · · Score: 1

      They're using 256 dual core Atoms, for 512 cores at 1.6Ghz.

      Well, that's not great from the atom point of view.

      Those 2.3Ghz Opterons will do roughly twice the work per core as the Atoms,

      That sounds a little low. The clock rate of the opeterons is higher, they are much wider (more superscalar), and have out of order execution. From the old netbook benchmarks, the 1st gen P3 900 (somewhat comparable to the opteron core in terms of features, but older now) runs about as fast as as the 1.6GHz atom. I would expect the opteron cores to go 3-4x as fast, at least.

      with eight cores per chip, four chips per box, a 1U box will replace roughly 32 Atoms,

      The 6100s come in 12 core varieties at a reasonable price. 48 cores per box, so 1U replaces probably 96 or more atoms.

      So how much will this thing cost you?

      Well, hard to get comparable specs. The sea micro people don't talk much about RAM. RAM is by far the biggest cost of the 6100s. EUR8500 would (a few months ago) buy you a complete 48 core box with 256G RAM. The full 1/2 TB would cost more like EUR16000. Of course at EUR8500 per box, you get 2TB RAM into the 8U. That would be equivalent to having 4GB per atom, which sounds reasonable.

      $900 each for dual port 40Gbps cards

      Every year it astonishes me how cheap cool stuff has got.

      That adds up to just over $61K, versus $150K for the SeaMicro box of roughly equivalent performance.

      Well, your raw numbers are different, but a similar price/performance. I gather that the 2.3GHz 6100s are not the most efficient. At the time I got them, they were the fastest, though 2.5GHz ones are available now. If you invest in the HE versions, it will cost more per chip and probably an extra server or two to get the same performance, but that could easily wipe out the power difference.

      They compare power consumption against hardware two and three generations old, the servers that are going to be replaced. If you actually compare them against new hardware, they're pretty mediocre.

      They always do. The 48 processor 1U 6100s offer astonishing performance. In terms of price/performance, they are unbeatable. In terms of efficiency, and density they are very competitive. And very cheap.

      The intel ones are similar but usually cost 2k more. Given that it's getting towards 6-8K per machine, that pushes it in favour of AMD.

      --
      SJW n. One who posts facts.
    22. Re:512 Atoms in 10U by serviscope_minor · · Score: 1

      have you tried the intel i3 (i5, i7) cpus? and their chipsets?

      I have an i7 desktop (first gen 975). That thing can chuck out heat on full. I love the i7s because of the really high pre-thread performance. That makes them fantastic for developing stuff on and running small quantities of batch jobs with a quick turnaroud. I also love my AMD compute servers.

      I've never tried disconnecting the fan. It's conneded to one of those sealed all in one water cooling units.

      --
      SJW n. One who posts facts.
    23. Re:512 Atoms in 10U by wagnerrp · · Score: 1

      Those 2.3Ghz Opterons will do roughly twice the work per core as the Atoms,

      That sounds a little low. The clock rate of the opeterons is higher, they are much wider (more superscalar), and have out of order execution. From the old netbook benchmarks, the 1st gen P3 900 (somewhat comparable to the opteron core in terms of features, but older now) runs about as fast as as the 1.6GHz atom. I would expect the opteron cores to go 3-4x as fast, at least.

      Entirely possible. I intentionally chose a safe underestimate of the performance difference.

      The full 1/2 TB would cost more like EUR16000. Of course at EUR8500 per box, you get 2TB RAM into the 8U. That would be equivalent to having 4GB per atom, which sounds reasonable.

      The SeaMicro box I saw priced for $150K only had 1GB of memory per core, 512GB total. My estimate was for double that, 128GB per quad socket server.

      $900 each for dual port 40Gbps cards

      Every year it astonishes me how cheap cool stuff has got.

      I'm not sure where I read they used infiniband internally, but that seems to be not the case. That's likely just an external interface. Internally, they use some custom toroidal design similar to older supercomputers, which is likely where the bulk of their cost goes, and why they rate so high on very interdependent tasks like mapreduce. However, there is still a lot of free space on that switch, so if 640GBps between the nodes doesn't cut it, another $7200 and you can double it.

      I gather that the 2.3GHz 6100s are not the most efficient. At the time I got them, they were the fastest, though 2.5GHz ones are available now. If you invest in the HE versions, it will cost more per chip and probably an extra server or two to get the same performance, but that could easily wipe out the power difference.

      Very likely correct. Rather than search out the best performance per watt, I was simply continuing using the same Magny-Cours chip the OP had mentioned.

    24. Re:512 Atoms in 10U by petermgreen · · Score: 1

      I doubted it until I got one. go touch the heatsink on the i3 (any modern chipset) northbridge. (do they still call them NB's? maybe not.)

      There isn't really a northbridge in a LGA1156 or LGA1155 system. The main functions traditionally provided by a northbridge are the memory controller, the high speed IO (usually used for the graphics card though it doesn't technically have to be these days) and the integrated graphics (if present). With LGA1156 and LGA1155 these functions are integrated into the CPU.

      The chip you are feeling is probablly the PCH which is essentially the eqivilent of a southbridge. Southbridges always ran much cooler than northbridges.

      --
      note: i'm known as plugwash most places but i screwd up registering that here somehow in the past and now can't register
    25. Re:512 Atoms in 10U by avandesande · · Score: 1

      If your data center has limited power the savings go far beyond the price of the unit.

      --
      love is just extroverted narcissism
    26. Re:512 Atoms in 10U by grumling · · Score: 1

      Yep, I'm amazed at how many times a day the Internet crashes because of buggy devices. You'd think someone would do something about it.

      That's their excuse, not their reason.

      --
      "Well, good luck finding a judge that doesn't run a bestiality site."
    27. Re:512 Atoms in 10U by poetmatt · · Score: 1

      ARM chips are designed for power efficiency. They kick the crap out of atom's in that sense. Atom's are just seriously underclocked, old processors.

    28. Re:512 Atoms in 10U by wagnerrp · · Score: 1

      If your data center has limited power, you need to replace the data center, or upgrade the utility. Power reductions ignoring the cost of all else is foolish and short sighted. If you buy the traditional servers now, you'll only spend a third the cost of the SeaMicro box, at the expense of increased power consumption. Two years from now, you'll be able to replace all those traditional servers with more traditional servers, achieving the same performance for half the price, now consuming far less power than the SeaMicro box. Another two years, you replace them again with hardware a quarter the cost of the original, with yet lower power consumption. At the end of six years, you've consumed considerably less energy than the SeaMicro box would have, and your total cost is easily a third less.

    29. Re:512 Atoms in 10U by avandesande · · Score: 1

      You know upgrading your utility costs? Getting the capitol together to replace your data center is more difficult than in the case where you are replacing your server with something that uses less power. Am I missing something? If you don't have the cash you don't have the cash.

      --
      love is just extroverted narcissism
    30. Re:512 Atoms in 10U by wagnerrp · · Score: 1

      If you don't have the cash to upgrade your utility, you don't have the cash to spend 3x the cost on servers either. It's not like an extra 15A@110V is that hard to come by.

  5. Tilera and memory bandwidth? by White+Flame · · Score: 1

    Last I looked at Tilera's offerings, their core count to memory controller ratio was really high. It seemed to be really focused on purely streaming data applications, like packet inspection or video conversion.

    Anybody know if how Facebook is using them is actually memory-constrained, or it's just low power enough not to matter when 80 quadjillion requests are eventually handled quickly enough, regardless of actual latency?

    Also, lack of ARM is disappointing.

    1. Re:Tilera and memory bandwidth? by TheGratefulNet · · Score: 1

      ARM is not i686 compatible.

      that's the ONLY real advantage of atom, is that it runs binary code that 'everyone already has'.

      ARM only works well if you own source. most data centers do not (not all of it).

      --

      --
      "It is now safe to switch off your computer."
    2. Re:Tilera and memory bandwidth? by imroy · · Score: 1

      ARM is not i686 compatible.

      Neither are Tilera's processors. Being x86-compatible is often unnecessary in the non-PC, non-Windows world. If you're running a web server farm with Linux boxes and server software written in Java, Perl/Python/PHP, or even C/C++, the processor architecture matters very little. And that's the way it should be.

    3. Re:Tilera and memory bandwidth? by TeknoHog · · Score: 1

      Exactly. I guess it's news when a big business discovers the world outside x86, where some of us have been living for years.

      --
      Escher was the first MC and Giger invented the HR department.
    4. Re:Tilera and memory bandwidth? by Medievalist · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Unfortunately, if you plan to run the Oracle JVM, yes [processor architecture] does matter. Only a few {operating system, architecture} tuples are supported. For example, no {openbsd, sparc}.

      Thank you! Yet another good reason to avoid Oracle.

    5. Re:Tilera and memory bandwidth? by imroy · · Score: 1

      Unfortunately, if you plan to run the Oracle JVM, yes it does matter. Only a few {operating system, architecture} tuples are supported. For example, no {openbsd, sparc}.

      True. One of the big disappointments of Java is how few platforms this supposedly cross-platform software actually runs on. Sun really dropped the ball on that aspect. Meanwhile, scripting languages like Perl run on many more platforms, even though cross-platform compatibility was never really their main goal.

  6. Re:hmmm by rbrausse · · Score: 2

    instead of the not production-ready salt silo hydroelectricity seems a more realistical solution - either as pumped-storage to balance the fluctuating production of photovoltaic/wind or run-of-the-river as 24/7 supplier. the latter is the only source of energy for one quite big hosting company here in Germany

  7. nice things by luther349 · · Score: 1

    i got one of those tiny plug in servers that draw pretty mutch no power acting like a nas on a usb hdd. it does its job very well.

  8. Price of Quanta's Tilera servers? by White+Flame · · Score: 1

    I've been googling around; their site is just a "Contact us" sort of sales deal, and no other hit seems to mention a price, like can sometimes be found in articles about headlining sales.

    Anybody in the know here?

    1. Re:Price of Quanta's Tilera servers? by wagnerrp · · Score: 1

      Last I checked several months ago, the 256 processor (512 core) version was going for $150K.

  9. Is that why my firefox crashes daily ? by obarthelemy · · Score: 1

    Please Mozilla, go back to real CPUs please. And to fixing bugs, instead of playing with fancy servers.

    --
    The Cloud - because you don't care if your apps and data are up in the air.
  10. details of the CPUs? by reiisi · · Score: 1

    That's something else I'd like to know.

    It's like, "We don't know anything about pricing yet. But trust us, we'll do it right."

    And, then, "We know everything you need to know about the CPU so you don't need to. Trust us. We'll do it right."

    Or is it, "If you have to ask about price, you needn't bother." followed by, "If you have to ask about the CPU's instruction set, register count, etc., you needn't bother."

    I know, CPU is so passe, now, but I'd still like to know. (Yeah, and money is also passe.)

    --
    Computer memory is just fancy paper, CPUs just fancy pens with fancy erasers; the 'net is just a fancy backyard fence.
    1. Re:details of the CPUs? by White+Flame · · Score: 1

      Tilera describes their instruction set as "64-bit VLIW with 64-bit instruction bundle", so that doesn't sound quite like stock MIPS if they truly mean multiple independent parallel instructions per 64 bit instruction word. However, MIPS is also desirable for their low-power features, so their licensing might have been for something along those lines.

    2. Re:details of the CPUs? by White+Flame · · Score: 1

      Ah, one of the comments on the article linked to the original paper: http://gigaom2.files.wordpress.com/2011/07/facebook-tilera-whitepaper.pdf

      This board uses the older 32-bit model CPU, 64 registers, 3-way VLIW, 5-deep pipeline, in-order, 64KB of L2 per core, 24KB of L1, cache coherence with an automatic subscription model and all the L2 cache combining to the effective L3 cache, 2 user-space mesh interconnect lines available between cores, full MMU with up to 64GB physical memory (still 32 bit, so 4GB per process), etc.

  11. How about 20w xeons? by Pegasus · · Score: 1

    I wonder how would latest sandy bridge based xeons compare to these ... E3-1220L has two cores and 20W tdp, I'm trying to find it for my home server for the next 5 years or so.

    1. Re:How about 20w xeons? by wagnerrp · · Score: 1

      You're looking at maybe 3x the total performance, and 4-5x the single threaded performance of the Atom, at roughly twice the power consumption.

  12. Hmm... SGI Was Right About It by PotatoHead · · Score: 1

    Just a bit too early...

    --
    Blogging because I can...
  13. Re:Cores vs. Processing power? by White+Flame · · Score: 1

    If your load isn't very computationally expensive, then you can have weaker cores running them "fast enough" at a fraction of the power, rather than a slice of a very fast machine churning through it very quickly while taking lots of power. It's all about performance ratios against power.

    But I don't think the product's intent is talking along the same lines as people here, the latter namely being consolidating unused computing potential. Rather, it's more about getting machines taking less power while having the same effective computational capacity.

    So run your big threaded app or VM array on N fast cores with X power consumption, vs getting the same (or greater!) overall effective speed on N+M slower cores at X-Y power consumption, as the promise has been for a long time. And systems like web servers and such can make do with tons of requests, each being handled on a slower core. And^2, the speed of the various individual low-power cores is nothing to sneeze at nowadays.

    However, this is all pretty newly forged territory, so we'll have to see what this means in the real world at the moment.

  14. Proofreading... by CowardWithAName · · Score: 1

    ... is something that's not found st Slashdot.

    1. Re:Proofreading... by Jeng · · Score: 2

      Neither are coherent topics.

      Am I the only one that sees the blurb at the top is about asking some guy at Wired questions, yet all the comments are about low powered chips used in servers?

      --
      Don't know something? Look it up. Still don't know? Then ask.
    2. Re:Proofreading... by Revotron · · Score: 2

      It appears the comment stream got merged with the article that discussed Mozilla's use of SeaMicro servers. Oddly enough, the Mozilla article now has no comments...

    3. Re:Proofreading... by CowardWithAName · · Score: 1

      It appears the comment stream got merged with the article that discussed Mozilla's use of SeaMicro servers. Oddly enough, the Mozilla article now has no comments...

      This ^ . I was replying to the low-powered servers article, not anything about some technologist named Kevin. I was referring to the fact that the article synopsis misspelled the word "at", instead saying "st", hence the intentional typo in my post.

  15. Re:leaps in cooling by Flyin'+Low · · Score: 1

    I wonder if we'll see major leaps forward in computer cooling, or oil-bath server rooms, or server rooms perpetually doused in extra dense gas.

    I'm pretty sure bringing liquid cooling to the server room on large scale is the next thing in this arena. Immersion in a dielectric coolant is one way to go. I've worked with Hardcore Computer and their Liquid Blades a bit, and am optimistic: http://www.hardcorecomputer.com/servers/liquid-blade/index.html

  16. but what about.... by Eponymous+Hero · · Score: 1

    this sucks, i was planning on heating my home from the heat given off by servers.

    http://tech.slashdot.org/story/11/07/26/1324212/Microsoft-Suggests-Heating-Homes-With-Data-Furnaces

    --
    insensitive clod overlords obligatory xkcd car analogy russian reversals whoosh pedant fanbois ftfy in 3...2...1..PROFIT
  17. How Frequently Do You Kill or Leave a Project? by eldavojohn · · Score: 2

    It looks like you've been involved in many projects. I've got about 10 different side projects (outside of work) going on at any given time in several different realms. How often do you decide it's time to end a project so that you can focus on a better project? Have any projects that you devoted a lot of time to result in nothing or have all come to fruition in one way or another? What is your criteria for this?

    --
    My work here is dung.
  18. Long now clock by vlm · · Score: 2

    What insights can you provide to the /. crowd about building the clock?
    Project management anecdotes about the clock project?

    --
    "Science flies us to the moon. Religion flies us into buildings." - Victor Stenger
    1. Re:Long now clock by vlm · · Score: 1

      get someone to finance it with big big big big big big money.

      Yes I was mystified why Rolex etc isn't paying all the bills, or if they are, why they aren't showing up on the site.

      I can almost see the magazine ads now. Its like a perfect made for PR - puff piece moment. Probably even get some journalist coverage that way.

      I bet Rolex only has to sell a handful of those "presidents" or "submariner" things to finance the whole LN project... That's how it is with a luxury product.

      --
      "Science flies us to the moon. Religion flies us into buildings." - Victor Stenger
  19. The 10,00 year clock by strangeattraction · · Score: 1

    Will there be an actually clock completed (other than prototypes) before the 10,000 years are up?

  20. how much money do technologists make? by decora · · Score: 1

    and how do i become one?

  21. So... by Greyfox · · Score: 1

    What time is it... really?

    --

    I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?

  22. Everything is complex by bug1 · · Score: 1

    Where did everything come from ?
    I feel everything is too far away, is this a common perception ?
    There seems to be a lot of useless stuff around, are you happy with the composition of everything ?
    If we could change the form of everything, what should we change it too ?

    Does this make me a troll ?

  23. Long-term thinking by hereisnowhy · · Score: 1

    One purpose of the Long Now Clock is to encourage long-term thinking. Aside from the Clock, though, what do you think people can do in their everyday lives to adopt or promote long-term thinking?

  24. In 10,000 years... by turkeyfeathers · · Score: 1

    Will my bitcoins be worth more than they are now?

  25. Will you please do a story about... by Paul+Fernhout · · Score: 1

    ... the irony of technologies of abundance in the hands of those thinking in terms of scarcity?
    http://www.pdfernhout.net/recognizing-irony-is-a-key-to-transcending-militarism.html

    --
    A 21st century issue: the irony of technologies of abundance in the hands of those still thinking in terms of scarcity.
  26. Why "exotropy"? by ynotds · · Score: 1

    I still cite Out of Control as the most readable introduction to the oft confused subject of complexity, and am right now wading through What Technology Wants but finding it far more forced (sleep inducing). While I clearly don't disagree with the idea of seeing technology as a partner with humanity, your newer book reads like you have invested too long in a world constructed from your imaginings and cut back your level of interest in looking at what is actually going on, an interest which seemed to pervade your earlier projects.

    Yes, I am well past your rationalisation for abandoning "extropy", so what I really want to know is whether we are all going to be condemned to defend our business models to the death?

    --
    -- Our systemic servants do not good masters make.
    1. Re:Why "exotropy"? by xerxesVII · · Score: 1

      I can understand your frustration with What Technology Wants. Having come to similar conclusions as Mr. Kelly on my own, I find the way that he relates the idea rather slow and repetitive. However, the idea that he is asking you to take in and think about is so difficult to explain without sounding like it's taking place in a dorm room that I appreciate what he's trying to do. I find even the name Technium kind of silly, but he could have puzzled over what word to use for years. Better to go with a silly name and try to float the idea. Also better to go with a slow, repetitive explanation than jumping straight to some of the ideas on offer.

      --
      "We shall grapple with the ineffable, and see if we may not eff it after all." - Douglas Adams
  27. Renaissance Man? by kmoser · · Score: 1

    Kelly is probably as close to a Rennaisance man as it's possible to be in the 21st century, having more-than-passing interest and knowledge in a range of topics from genetic sequencing...

    Since when was genetic sequencing a hot topic in the Renaissance? I'd be more impressed if he was fluent in stained glass artistry, music composition, and Latin and Greek.

  28. Serious Question by bughunter · · Score: 1

    OK, I'll take TFA seriously and ask a serious question. I have a good idea of the answer, or parts of it anyway, but I'm interested in other viewpoints.

    Q: Why don't we have fusion power yet? What are the specific technical, political, economic and social obstacles to replacing dirty fossil fuel and potentially catastrophic nuclear fission power plants with nuclear fusion plants? I know this is kind of a "where's my flying car" question, but I feel that if our society really wanted affordable, practical fusion power to replace fossil fuel driven plants, we could achieve it, but we have barely even started down that road. Why not? What would it take to make it a priority?

    --
    I can see the fnords!
  29. value of travel by EricBoyd · · Score: 1

    I know that you did a lot of travel when you were younger (e.g. backpacking in Asia for years). How important was that for your status as a "Renaissance man"? Would you still recommended extensive travel to young people, or has globalization changed the opportunities?

    --
    augment your senses: http://sensebridge.net/
  30. Genetic Switches by JMJimmy · · Score: 1

    So we now know that genetic switches exist which activate specific genes.

    Can this knowledge be applied to things like cancer treatment to effectively "deactivate" a cancer by targeting a specific cancer's on/off switch?

  31. Tool philosophy for software tools by TheLoneGundam · · Score: 1

    What is your philosophy on software tools? Do you prefer to use a lot of small pieces, loosely assembled, using scripts to join things together and get things done, or do you like to find a software suite (such as Office) and work within that?