And no one has mentioned filling them with helium yet...how disappointed I am!
Watch them speakers float around...lol. For those tripping it'd be even more amusing.
Actually, there's quite a lot of Linux at LBL. I worked there until June, so I have some idea what I'm talking about. There is PDSF, which is a giant node farm of a couple of hundred machines in a beowulf-like system.
PDSF has grown to a bit over 300 as of this end of fiscal year. It's one of the systems that NERSC runs (you know that Rob, but for the uninitiated...). I am not sure that I would call it a Beowulf though.
Most of our laptops are lil linux machines. For desktops we still use Solaris boxes. We also have FreeBSD on a few servers here and there.
As for other *nix machines, we have the Crays (68 processor SV-1 cluster and a ~700 processor T3E with Unicos and Unicos/mk respectively), PDSF (300 odd cpu mix of Intel and AMD machines w/ linux), Alvarez (a ~200(?) CPU beowulfish cluster), and Seaborg (3000+ processor IBM SP system running aix).
One of the primary problems is as these devices become more and more ubiquitous, there will be more and more competition to get the feed in now.
If CNN didn't have at least the grainy picture, someone else would and would lose viewers cuz what they're seeing is less real-time. (or so the argument goes).
Additionally, how much does the normal sat transmission equipment weigh? How bulky is it? I suspect that that might be another reason...
For now, the mix of crappy live feed from the Boonies and better, but not real time will be what is around. At least until the algorithms and hardware are more up to snuff.
I'm surprised that we are not seeing a few news UAV's...
But then again, I didn't go the dotcom/bomb route. I picked companies that had a proven track record and the work was interesting. The money - at this point - isn't as important as the work.
The questions I asked myself when I looked at a job were as follows. Will I be bored? Will I learn something? Will this job not work as above, but also work to advance my career?
And the all important: will I get bragging rights?;)
Then again I am also divorced with no kids. Don't get me wrong: the money I make is good, as good as my father the EE makes with over 25 years of experience. It's just not 6 figures like what the dotbombs were throwing around for a while.
My sage advice? (lol) Look for a job while you are snug as a bug in another, even if it's a POS one. Be picky. Look at the employer's record. etc., etc.
I am probably preaching to those that need it least, but...somethings need reiterating.
> No, sorry. You're confusing your apples and oranges here.
That very well might be, but allow me to respond.
I do agree that Germany and Japan were both among the strongest economies before the war; however, the destruction wrought was horrendous enough that it largely destroyed the Big Mistake #2.
Yes, indeed, they did have a large technical base before hand. But then again, BG#2 did also sap a massive amount of the trained expertise into the infantry and other life shortening branches.
The Afghanis are well known, even dreaded, for their abilities as being able to work with technical things, but at poor levels of technological support: repair and maintence of weapons that would nominally require a full out machine shop is the oft cited example. Additionally, not all of the Afghanis that have these skills are wrapped up in the Taliban movement. Based on this story I would say a good number would be tired and willing enough to just get on with their lives.
The CIA world fact book notes that they do have oil, precious and semiprecious stones, natural gas, and numerous industrial mineral deposits. Explotation of these would make it well on its way to pulling itself upwards. Especially if the US were to provide the aid to do so.
Additionally, also noted while reading the WFB that the transport and other basic industrial frameworks are not really there at all. Add these in, again, US aid, and watch this signifigantly help. (C'mon, 24.6 *KM* of railroad?!?!)
Nor do I think that this would be a 30 second in and out job. I think teh war would be somethign long, up to 7 years most likely. The reconstruction and occupation would be another ten. Then we'd phase out of being there. The average Muslim would be a lot less worried about the US if they saw how prosperous we left and indeed DID leave Afghanistan afterwards.
With that intuitive skill base, resources available, and US aid, I think we can work from there. Do NOT get me wrong, I do not think, in reality that Afghanistan would be one of the top 4 economies, but I do think it would be impressively better off than it is now. Even potentially verging on a first world country with 50 years or so of peace afterwards.
Then again, I may be, as you said, just expecting too much.:)
ciao
Perhaps War is what's needed (read below)
on
A New Kind of War
·
· Score: 2, Interesting
It's interesting to note that the countries we have fought and occupied, not just a negotiated peace, not just a withdrawl after a few good kicks, have done extremely well.
Look at Germany: we fought them tooth and nail, clashing on levels not seen before. Yet now they are among the world's most prosperous nations.
The same, and even more so, with Japan. We slagged Tokyo on the scale of Dresden as well as her other cities, and then nuked two more. Now Japan has the world's second largest economy in the world, but the fact is we went in and rebuilt her after WW2.
Perhaps what we really, truly ought to do, even though it will be unpopular in the long run, is to go in, kick ass, take names - baring in mind the xUSSR's experience there and ours in Vietnam - and then...rebuild her.
There are enough volunteers here in the US that would probably be willing to go over and help rebuild. Plenty of patriotic americans that are muslim as well. Send them over as the teachers while the rest of us build roads, factories, and more. Build their economy from nothing to something. Take 10-15 years to do so. Just like in Europe and in Japan.
Then transition things back into their hands like we did before...and leave. well off people rarely rise in revolt.
Let the people who want to die fighting us, do so...those that want to live, live.
Then we can work our 'infamous' reconstruction project and go home. It would be great - and amusing - to see Afghanistan as one of the top 4 economies in the world.;)
This morning I woke up, went and dropped myself into the shower after starting to boot up my puter to check email and the like.
I came back and read a message from my gf about what had happened (I'm very much on autopilot in the morning!). I flipped on teh TV cuz the news webservers were choking...and low and behold i wasn't a prank or my gf trying to get my motor running firs thing in the morning.
We did a family check in to make sure that there were no MIA among us...and as I sat there going from horror to relief to total fury...a thought struck me.
If the newsies are even 10% right about these monsters using the net for communicating...who better to play a bit of a game of 'stalk the terrorist online' than the people here...
Now, a suggestion...be DAMNED careful (sorry about the language). No use in having slashdot posthumous awards. Second...be VERY, VERY sure about what you have found. Then, do NOT do a thing, other than tell the authorities, perhaps walking them through the server you found the information. Remember, an LGB is a LOT more effective at ending a terrorist than a thrashed server, k? For that matter a lot of it is prolly sitting right out in plain sight...just takes some people to sift through...and if excellent coders and debuggers can't do that...
Think of it as a massively parallel search engine. Powered by slashdot.
What do you think? If done, there would need to be some sort of coordination...say on IRC?
I just went through this: being interviewed for a sysadmin job. It's a pretty prestigous place and they were getting 60 resumes/day. My boss for a while there was phone interviewing 20 people/day.
There were a few that made it to the in interviews done in person...and that had to have been teh roughest gauntlet I've done. 9 hours and 14 people. Even lunch was an interview. They asked anything from C coding minutae to very simple sysadmin to favourite accomplishments to my favourite hack.
They also encouraged me to ask questions. THAT would be an excellent way of telling about your candidate. What does he/she ask about? Watch that and you can get some peaks. Sysadmins shouldn't be timid! Nor should they be overbearing.
The other thing that they seem to be noticing is whether or not they are are salary hoppers or not. They've been quite purposefully screening out those that change jobs every 6 months...partially due to the fact that they are going to invest a lot of money in training and such. Loyalty is important too.
Finally, ask things they don't know...as someone else pointed out. How they respond matters quite a bit.
*chuckles* I got the job and I'm quite pleased with it. It was also the roughest interview I've ever had.
Slashdot Mirror
And no one has mentioned filling them with helium yet...how disappointed I am! Watch them speakers float around...lol. For those tripping it'd be even more amusing.
PDSF has grown to a bit over 300 as of this end of fiscal year. It's one of the systems that NERSC runs (you know that Rob, but for the uninitiated...). I am not sure that I would call it a Beowulf though.
Most of our laptops are lil linux machines. For desktops we still use Solaris boxes. We also have FreeBSD on a few servers here and there.
As for other *nix machines, we have the Crays (68 processor SV-1 cluster and a ~700 processor T3E with Unicos and Unicos/mk respectively), PDSF (300 odd cpu mix of Intel and AMD machines w/ linux), Alvarez (a ~200(?) CPU beowulfish cluster), and Seaborg (3000+ processor IBM SP system running aix).
If CNN didn't have at least the grainy picture, someone else would and would lose viewers cuz what they're seeing is less real-time. (or so the argument goes).
Additionally, how much does the normal sat transmission equipment weigh? How bulky is it? I suspect that that might be another reason...
For now, the mix of crappy live feed from the Boonies and better, but not real time will be what is around. At least until the algorithms and hardware are more up to snuff.
I'm surprised that we are not seeing a few news UAV's...
The questions I asked myself when I looked at a job were as follows. Will I be bored? Will I learn something? Will this job not work as above, but also work to advance my career?
And the all important: will I get bragging rights? ;)
Then again I am also divorced with no kids. Don't get me wrong: the money I make is good, as good as my father the EE makes with over 25 years of experience. It's just not 6 figures like what the dotbombs were throwing around for a while.
My sage advice? (lol) Look for a job while you are snug as a bug in another, even if it's a POS one. Be picky. Look at the employer's record. etc., etc.
I am probably preaching to those that need it least, but...somethings need reiterating.
That very well might be, but allow me to respond.
I do agree that Germany and Japan were both among the strongest economies before the war; however, the destruction wrought was horrendous enough that it largely destroyed the Big Mistake #2. Yes, indeed, they did have a large technical base before hand. But then again, BG#2 did also sap a massive amount of the trained expertise into the infantry and other life shortening branches. The Afghanis are well known, even dreaded, for their abilities as being able to work with technical things, but at poor levels of technological support: repair and maintence of weapons that would nominally require a full out machine shop is the oft cited example. Additionally, not all of the Afghanis that have these skills are wrapped up in the Taliban movement. Based on this story I would say a good number would be tired and willing enough to just get on with their lives.
The CIA world fact book notes that they do have oil, precious and semiprecious stones, natural gas, and numerous industrial mineral deposits. Explotation of these would make it well on its way to pulling itself upwards. Especially if the US were to provide the aid to do so.
Additionally, also noted while reading the WFB that the transport and other basic industrial frameworks are not really there at all. Add these in, again, US aid, and watch this signifigantly help. (C'mon, 24.6 *KM* of railroad?!?!)
Nor do I think that this would be a 30 second in and out job. I think teh war would be somethign long, up to 7 years most likely. The reconstruction and occupation would be another ten. Then we'd phase out of being there. The average Muslim would be a lot less worried about the US if they saw how prosperous we left and indeed DID leave Afghanistan afterwards.
With that intuitive skill base, resources available, and US aid, I think we can work from there. Do NOT get me wrong, I do not think, in reality that Afghanistan would be one of the top 4 economies, but I do think it would be impressively better off than it is now. Even potentially verging on a first world country with 50 years or so of peace afterwards.
Then again, I may be, as you said, just expecting too much. :)
ciao
It's interesting to note that the countries we have fought and occupied, not just a negotiated peace, not just a withdrawl after a few good kicks, have done extremely well.
;)
Look at Germany: we fought them tooth and nail, clashing on levels not seen before. Yet now they are among the world's most prosperous nations.
The same, and even more so, with Japan. We slagged Tokyo on the scale of Dresden as well as her other cities, and then nuked two more. Now Japan has the world's second largest economy in the world, but the fact is we went in and rebuilt her after WW2.
Perhaps what we really, truly ought to do, even though it will be unpopular in the long run, is to go in, kick ass, take names - baring in mind the xUSSR's experience there and ours in Vietnam - and then...rebuild her.
There are enough volunteers here in the US that would probably be willing to go over and help rebuild. Plenty of patriotic americans that are muslim as well. Send them over as the teachers while the rest of us build roads, factories, and more. Build their economy from nothing to something. Take 10-15 years to do so. Just like in Europe and in Japan.
Then transition things back into their hands like we did before...and leave. well off people rarely rise in revolt.
Let the people who want to die fighting us, do so...those that want to live, live.
Then we can work our 'infamous' reconstruction project and go home. It would be great - and amusing - to see Afghanistan as one of the top 4 economies in the world.
This morning I woke up, went and dropped myself into the shower after starting to boot up my puter to check email and the like.
I came back and read a message from my gf about what had happened (I'm very much on autopilot in the morning!). I flipped on teh TV cuz the news webservers were choking...and low and behold i wasn't a prank or my gf trying to get my motor running firs thing in the morning.
We did a family check in to make sure that there were no MIA among us...and as I sat there going from horror to relief to total fury...a thought struck me.
If the newsies are even 10% right about these monsters using the net for communicating...who better to play a bit of a game of 'stalk the terrorist online' than the people here...
Now, a suggestion...be DAMNED careful (sorry about the language). No use in having slashdot posthumous awards. Second...be VERY, VERY sure about what you have found. Then, do NOT do a thing, other than tell the authorities, perhaps walking them through the server you found the information. Remember, an LGB is a LOT more effective at ending a terrorist than a thrashed server, k? For that matter a lot of it is prolly sitting right out in plain sight...just takes some people to sift through...and if excellent coders and debuggers can't do that...
Think of it as a massively parallel search engine. Powered by slashdot.
What do you think? If done, there would need to be some sort of coordination...say on IRC?
I just went through this: being interviewed for a sysadmin job. It's a pretty prestigous place and they were getting 60 resumes/day. My boss for a while there was phone interviewing 20 people/day.
There were a few that made it to the in interviews done in person...and that had to have been teh roughest gauntlet I've done. 9 hours and 14 people. Even lunch was an interview. They asked anything from C coding minutae to very simple sysadmin to favourite accomplishments to my favourite hack.
They also encouraged me to ask questions. THAT would be an excellent way of telling about your candidate. What does he/she ask about? Watch that and you can get some peaks. Sysadmins shouldn't be timid! Nor should they be overbearing.
The other thing that they seem to be noticing is whether or not they are are salary hoppers or not. They've been quite purposefully screening out those that change jobs every 6 months...partially due to the fact that they are going to invest a lot of money in training and such. Loyalty is important too.
Finally, ask things they don't know...as someone else pointed out. How they respond matters quite a bit.
*chuckles* I got the job and I'm quite pleased with it. It was also the roughest interview I've ever had.