I'd love to read this story, if you can figure out or remember the name of it. Maybe it's just the telling of this tale from Annie Hall that another poster mentioned? But it'd be great if it's actually a story, definitely worth a read. Searching Google for "woody allen happiest couple story" brings up only your Slashdot post as the first hit!
This would be the same Woody who said, "I don't want to achieve immortality through my work. I want to achieve it through not dying."
Hey, my boss kept saying we needed an IT Rock Star! It is getting kind of expensive, though, having to build a new machine after every spectacular, caffeine-fueled shutdown.
Excellent point. Good old First Law of Thermodynamics, it never steers us wrong! What I've learned from this discussion is that a watt meter would be an essential addition to my tool box. It would also be nice to know how close to its limits the power supply is. It will be twenty bucks well-spent.
Admittedly, the 38 C was under pretty moderate load, probably "typical use". Bunch of apps open, lots of reads and writes, network activity, music playing, web surfing, etc. But nothing like running SETI@home while tarballing my music collection and running a 3-D flight simulator; I'm sure it would get warmer in there. Also admittedly, the motherboard seems to be running warmer than this, around 45 C. I don't know where this is measured or when it gets to be a real concern, but it's high enough to make me uncomfortable. I currently have the fans (1 CPU fan and 2 case fans) set to let the motherboard decide their speed ("Optimal"), but have the option ("Performance") to run them full-speed all the time.
On the other hand, the thing is currently crammed under a desk with poor airflow, and the fans still don't spin very hard to maintain these moderate temps. So I have some hope that when I get it out in the open, I can keep the CPU under say 40 C, even if I have some load spikes or add in more memory or a graphics card.
CPU (topic of article): AMD Phenom II X4 CPU cooler: AMD factory fan that came with the CPU Mobo: ASUS M4A78T-E Memory: CORSAIR XMS3 DHX 4GB (2 x 2GB) DDR3 memory (motherboard accommodates 4 X 4 GB) Hard Disk: SAMSUNG Spinpoint F1 HD103UJ 1TB 7200 RPM, SATA connector Case: Rosewill R5605-BK (two 120 mm fans in front and back) Power Supply: Rosewill Green Series RG530-2 530W No additional graphics card or sound card (one of these days though; easy upgrades if cash allows)
Extras: Card reader/USB: Rosewill RCR-IM5001 USB2.0 75 in 1 internal Card Reader DVD Burners (x2): SAMSUNG Black OEM (not sure of the model number) with IDE connectors
Not even close to being stuffed full of goodies, but plenty for my moderate needs. I haven't tried overclocking anything. What I've learned from this thread is that I really should add a Kill-A-Watt or other meter to my toolbox. People have a good point about any watts drawn eventually turning into heat. The motherboard is running a little warmer, too (about 45 C) which is a little worrisome and I'll have to keep an eye on. I haven't looked into exactly where on the mobo that measurement takes place.
I have AMD's "Cool 'n' Quiet" setting on, which I think is just marketing speak for "tries hard not to crank when nothing is happening", and all fans (1 CPU and 2 case) on the "Optimal" setting which lets the mobo control them according to temperature (the alternatives are "Performance" i.e. run fans all out all the time, and "Quiet" which means cook your chips as much as possible while trying not to run the fans). I add this info just for the benefit of newbies (it was new to me when I started building) but I imagine it is old hat to many people here.
"Have you seen DISTRICT 9?" Because if you haven't. You can't even enter the conversation yet.
I would say that applies to ANY movie. Or book. Or blog entry, or song, or... Few things are more irritating than people spouting off about things they haven't actually looked at (slashdot articles being a notable and beloved exception, of course).
Sure, people and battery companies are looking at this already. Altair Nano and A123 come to mind. But, utility-scale batteries (a.k.a. a crapload of smaller batteries linked together) like this are very pricey on a per-megawatt basis.
So the question they have to answer is whether the difference in electricity prices between peak hours and off-peak hours is enough to justify the cost of buying and maintaining the batteries. The economics are getting better over time as battery technology improves, but at this point there are only a few large battery installations like this in the country.
There are other ways of storing electricity during off-peak hours and using during on-peak. The most common is Pumped Hydro, which can be quite economical, but only if you have a big lake up a nearby hill you can use. So batteries may have a future.
Regular homeowners here have fixed electricity prices, or sometimes two prices for peak vs. off-peak usage hours. But, if you are a large enough user to participate directly in the wholesale electricity markets (which a multi-megawatt data center certainly is), not so. Wholesale electricity prices fluctuate on a 5-minute basis in many areas of the country, and there are enormous amounts of money to be saved (or squandered) by timing your consumption well. The big dogs can adjust their usage in response to the current 5-minute price, and they can also play the markets in various financial products designed to hedge against unpredictable electricity prices.
And, FWIW, the same is true in Canada. For instance, see the hourly wholesale electricity price at http://www.ieso.ca/ for Ontario.
I recently completed a home-build with this very CPU. Sure, the chip was the single most expensive piece, but with NewEgg combo deals and shipping discounts, I got the entire machine for about $600, including a smashing new case, plenty of RAM and disk space, extra USB ports and two disc burners. That's mid-range in my book.
I'm sure some of you hardware nerds will smack me down for one reason or another, but as a starting point I just installed the AMD factory CPU cooler it came with. I don't know what wattage it's pulling, but the CPU temperature is holding very steady at about 38 Celcius, and the fans don't even seem to be working very hard for that. It's working great, and at those temperatures, it should do fine for years to come.
My $0.02 on the very rare occasion of having first-hand experience with the actual hardware in the story.
"Well, the good news is you'll regain full function of your legs. The bad news is the only guy you'll feel comfortable hanging out with is Paul Karason."
Sometime recently, all the Bill Nye shows have been released on DVD (or at least, a whole bunch of them). Each one includes the original episode, plus some bloopers and an entertaining Science Quiz on the topic du jour. We found 25 or 30 of these at our local library, and I can tell you that my Kindergartner is really digging them.
I can't sum it up any better than the DVD intro page, which is Bill Nye saying, "Science on DVD? AWESOME!"
Agreed. Design Patterns was a classic, but he lost me at the second question by using "on-board" as a verb (and more than once); a sure sign of marketing-speak having overwhelmed the technical side of his brain. It felt sort of like the end of Brazil: "He's got away from us, Jack." "I'm afraid you're right, Mr. Helpmann. He's gone."
Excellent points. Another thing is to consider what else he could have done with that money. I can't recall the source, but I read a couple years back an interview with a doctor, age 55 or so, who spent about this same amount on solar panels. To the doubters, who were saying he'll only get 90% of his money back on the investment, he won't live long enough to see a positive ROI, it's not truly green, etc., he essentially said, "Look, nobody would even blink if I spent $50K on a Lexus, which will be worth almost nothing in 10 years and cost me all kinds of insurance and maintenance money in the meantime. So if I spend $25K on a decent car and $25K on solar panels that almost kinda pay back in savings, I'm coming out way ahead of what most people in my position would do."
...weighs less than a Neal Stephenson novel and has a sharper, brighter image than that monster
Nobody has a sharper, brighter image than Neal Stephenson! This review is heresy! And calling him a monster, that's just going too far (even if you did slog through the Baroque Cycle).
A one-click workaround is to click on the "Change" button in the "Comment Threshold" form right under the article. Then the headlines all show up white-on-green again. It makes the article disappear, but hey, by the time you get to reading comments you've already read the article (uh... right?)
Still... a white-on-white stylesheet bug? In 2009?
The Vibram Five Fingers and several other "interesting" footwear choices are mentioned in this article from New York Magazine called "You Walk Wrong": http://nymag.com/health/features/46213/. It covers much of the same ground as TFA, but with better artwork (various bare feet made up to look like they're wearing shoes) and more about regular walking (as opposed to competitive running).
Haven't tried them myself, though. My $90 Mizunos, chosen after a running store employee filmed my gait, are in their third year of having completely eliminated chronic knee pain. But I'm tempted to try the Vibrams just for looking nerdy and starting conversations.
Bruce Sterling also addressed this. I think it was in "Schismatrix" (1985) where immigrants (or refugees, or extradited criminals, etc.) from one solar system colony to another had to go through complete internal and external bacterial sterilization before they could enter. People from any given colony weren't immune to the natural microorganisms that lived in the population in other colonies.
Unfortunately for both Herbert and Sterling, the line of thinking in TFA implies that complete sterilization would, more than likely, kill a person in short order. Oh well, I guess that's why they call it "speculative fiction" - not every speculation turns out to be correct or even possible.
In other news, Intel reports that its new chip is faster than chips from AMD, Kellogg reports that Frosted Flakes are tastier than any other breakfast cereal, Marlboro has verified that unfiltered cigarettes extend your life by decades, and a scientific study by U2 indicates that commercial Irish pop is superior to all other forms of music.
You beat me to it, this is exactly the question that came to my mind too. At a rough calculation, Illinois takes up less than 0.03% of the Earth's surface, and in the spirit of "airspace" regulations, only the area directly overhead is in its jurisdiction.
I don't have the spherical dynamics math chops to prove it, but even with the earth spinning around every 24 hours, I would be quite stunned if Pluto is projected to pass "overhead" of Illinois (at night no less) anytime in the next few hundred million years. If it does, I supposed the bars in Chicago can offer free drinks for a few minutes.
Bush has already provided the biggest stimulus open-source will ever get - legions of unemployed programmers looking to do something interesting with their time! Working on an open-source project is certainly my plan, should the axe ever fall.
If I'm unemployed even for two weeks, some worthy project is getting 20 hours of my time that they didn't get when times were good. Multiply that by a few hundred thousand, it's one more nail in the coffin of certain expensive proprietary solutions.
Slashdot Mirror
No, it improves your Raving skills ("...running around in dark rooms, eating magic pills, and listening to repetitive electronic music.")
I'd love to read this story, if you can figure out or remember the name of it. Maybe it's just the telling of this tale from Annie Hall that another poster mentioned? But it'd be great if it's actually a story, definitely worth a read. Searching Google for "woody allen happiest couple story" brings up only your Slashdot post as the first hit!
This would be the same Woody who said, "I don't want to achieve immortality through my work. I want to achieve it through not dying."
Hey, my boss kept saying we needed an IT Rock Star! It is getting kind of expensive, though, having to build a new machine after every spectacular, caffeine-fueled shutdown.
Excellent point. Good old First Law of Thermodynamics, it never steers us wrong! What I've learned from this discussion is that a watt meter would be an essential addition to my tool box. It would also be nice to know how close to its limits the power supply is. It will be twenty bucks well-spent.
Admittedly, the 38 C was under pretty moderate load, probably "typical use". Bunch of apps open, lots of reads and writes, network activity, music playing, web surfing, etc. But nothing like running SETI@home while tarballing my music collection and running a 3-D flight simulator; I'm sure it would get warmer in there. Also admittedly, the motherboard seems to be running warmer than this, around 45 C. I don't know where this is measured or when it gets to be a real concern, but it's high enough to make me uncomfortable. I currently have the fans (1 CPU fan and 2 case fans) set to let the motherboard decide their speed ("Optimal"), but have the option ("Performance") to run them full-speed all the time.
On the other hand, the thing is currently crammed under a desk with poor airflow, and the fans still don't spin very hard to maintain these moderate temps. So I have some hope that when I get it out in the open, I can keep the CPU under say 40 C, even if I have some load spikes or add in more memory or a graphics card.
Sure, a little slow to respond, but I'm game.
CPU (topic of article): AMD Phenom II X4
CPU cooler: AMD factory fan that came with the CPU
Mobo: ASUS M4A78T-E
Memory: CORSAIR XMS3 DHX 4GB (2 x 2GB) DDR3 memory (motherboard accommodates 4 X 4 GB)
Hard Disk: SAMSUNG Spinpoint F1 HD103UJ 1TB 7200 RPM, SATA connector
Case: Rosewill R5605-BK (two 120 mm fans in front and back)
Power Supply: Rosewill Green Series RG530-2 530W
No additional graphics card or sound card (one of these days though; easy upgrades if cash allows)
Extras:
Card reader/USB: Rosewill RCR-IM5001 USB2.0 75 in 1 internal Card Reader
DVD Burners (x2): SAMSUNG Black OEM (not sure of the model number) with IDE connectors
Not even close to being stuffed full of goodies, but plenty for my moderate needs. I haven't tried overclocking anything. What I've learned from this thread is that I really should add a Kill-A-Watt or other meter to my toolbox. People have a good point about any watts drawn eventually turning into heat. The motherboard is running a little warmer, too (about 45 C) which is a little worrisome and I'll have to keep an eye on. I haven't looked into exactly where on the mobo that measurement takes place.
I have AMD's "Cool 'n' Quiet" setting on, which I think is just marketing speak for "tries hard not to crank when nothing is happening", and all fans (1 CPU and 2 case) on the "Optimal" setting which lets the mobo control them according to temperature (the alternatives are "Performance" i.e. run fans all out all the time, and "Quiet" which means cook your chips as much as possible while trying not to run the fans). I add this info just for the benefit of newbies (it was new to me when I started building) but I imagine it is old hat to many people here.
I would say that applies to ANY movie. Or book. Or blog entry, or song, or... Few things are more irritating than people spouting off about things they haven't actually looked at (slashdot articles being a notable and beloved exception, of course).
Sure, people and battery companies are looking at this already. Altair Nano and A123 come to mind. But, utility-scale batteries (a.k.a. a crapload of smaller batteries linked together) like this are very pricey on a per-megawatt basis.
So the question they have to answer is whether the difference in electricity prices between peak hours and off-peak hours is enough to justify the cost of buying and maintaining the batteries. The economics are getting better over time as battery technology improves, but at this point there are only a few large battery installations like this in the country.
There are other ways of storing electricity during off-peak hours and using during on-peak. The most common is Pumped Hydro, which can be quite economical, but only if you have a big lake up a nearby hill you can use. So batteries may have a future.
Regular homeowners here have fixed electricity prices, or sometimes two prices for peak vs. off-peak usage hours. But, if you are a large enough user to participate directly in the wholesale electricity markets (which a multi-megawatt data center certainly is), not so. Wholesale electricity prices fluctuate on a 5-minute basis in many areas of the country, and there are enormous amounts of money to be saved (or squandered) by timing your consumption well. The big dogs can adjust their usage in response to the current 5-minute price, and they can also play the markets in various financial products designed to hedge against unpredictable electricity prices.
And, FWIW, the same is true in Canada. For instance, see the hourly wholesale electricity price at http://www.ieso.ca/ for Ontario.
I recently completed a home-build with this very CPU. Sure, the chip was the single most expensive piece, but with NewEgg combo deals and shipping discounts, I got the entire machine for about $600, including a smashing new case, plenty of RAM and disk space, extra USB ports and two disc burners. That's mid-range in my book.
I'm sure some of you hardware nerds will smack me down for one reason or another, but as a starting point I just installed the AMD factory CPU cooler it came with. I don't know what wattage it's pulling, but the CPU temperature is holding very steady at about 38 Celcius, and the fans don't even seem to be working very hard for that. It's working great, and at those temperatures, it should do fine for years to come.
My $0.02 on the very rare occasion of having first-hand experience with the actual hardware in the story.
Me too. I plead "guilty", then spent the weekend ashamedly refactoring.
"Give it to me straight, doc."
"Well, the good news is you'll regain full function of your legs. The bad news is the only guy you'll feel comfortable hanging out with is Paul Karason."
The 18-year-old or the 14-year-old? I need to let the media know whether that comment was funny or reprehensible.
Sometime recently, all the Bill Nye shows have been released on DVD (or at least, a whole bunch of them). Each one includes the original episode, plus some bloopers and an entertaining Science Quiz on the topic du jour. We found 25 or 30 of these at our local library, and I can tell you that my Kindergartner is really digging them.
I can't sum it up any better than the DVD intro page, which is Bill Nye saying, "Science on DVD? AWESOME!"
Agreed. Design Patterns was a classic, but he lost me at the second question by using "on-board" as a verb (and more than once); a sure sign of marketing-speak having overwhelmed the technical side of his brain. It felt sort of like the end of Brazil: "He's got away from us, Jack." "I'm afraid you're right, Mr. Helpmann. He's gone."
"+3 Informative" at the time of writing? Man, and I thought I was cynical...
Excellent points. Another thing is to consider what else he could have done with that money. I can't recall the source, but I read a couple years back an interview with a doctor, age 55 or so, who spent about this same amount on solar panels. To the doubters, who were saying he'll only get 90% of his money back on the investment, he won't live long enough to see a positive ROI, it's not truly green, etc., he essentially said, "Look, nobody would even blink if I spent $50K on a Lexus, which will be worth almost nothing in 10 years and cost me all kinds of insurance and maintenance money in the meantime. So if I spend $25K on a decent car and $25K on solar panels that almost kinda pay back in savings, I'm coming out way ahead of what most people in my position would do."
...weighs less than a Neal Stephenson novel and has a sharper, brighter image than that monster
Nobody has a sharper, brighter image than Neal Stephenson! This review is heresy! And calling him a monster, that's just going too far (even if you did slog through the Baroque Cycle).
A one-click workaround is to click on the "Change" button in the "Comment Threshold" form right under the article. Then the headlines all show up white-on-green again. It makes the article disappear, but hey, by the time you get to reading comments you've already read the article (uh... right?)
Still... a white-on-white stylesheet bug? In 2009?
The Vibram Five Fingers and several other "interesting" footwear choices are mentioned in this article from New York Magazine called "You Walk Wrong": http://nymag.com/health/features/46213/. It covers much of the same ground as TFA, but with better artwork (various bare feet made up to look like they're wearing shoes) and more about regular walking (as opposed to competitive running).
Haven't tried them myself, though. My $90 Mizunos, chosen after a running store employee filmed my gait, are in their third year of having completely eliminated chronic knee pain. But I'm tempted to try the Vibrams just for looking nerdy and starting conversations.
Bruce Sterling also addressed this. I think it was in "Schismatrix" (1985) where immigrants (or refugees, or extradited criminals, etc.) from one solar system colony to another had to go through complete internal and external bacterial sterilization before they could enter. People from any given colony weren't immune to the natural microorganisms that lived in the population in other colonies.
Unfortunately for both Herbert and Sterling, the line of thinking in TFA implies that complete sterilization would, more than likely, kill a person in short order. Oh well, I guess that's why they call it "speculative fiction" - not every speculation turns out to be correct or even possible.
Slashdot rejoices until they RTFA.
So... the rejoicing continued indefinitely?
In other news, Intel reports that its new chip is faster than chips from AMD, Kellogg reports that Frosted Flakes are tastier than any other breakfast cereal, Marlboro has verified that unfiltered cigarettes extend your life by decades, and a scientific study by U2 indicates that commercial Irish pop is superior to all other forms of music.
Sheesh...
You beat me to it, this is exactly the question that came to my mind too. At a rough calculation, Illinois takes up less than 0.03% of the Earth's surface, and in the spirit of "airspace" regulations, only the area directly overhead is in its jurisdiction.
I don't have the spherical dynamics math chops to prove it, but even with the earth spinning around every 24 hours, I would be quite stunned if Pluto is projected to pass "overhead" of Illinois (at night no less) anytime in the next few hundred million years. If it does, I supposed the bars in Chicago can offer free drinks for a few minutes.
"Lickability", on the other hand, is an important contributing factor in choosing a significant other.
Agreed! I had to lick quite a few people, in all kinds of unusual places, before I found my tasty spouse.
Bush has already provided the biggest stimulus open-source will ever get - legions of unemployed programmers looking to do something interesting with their time! Working on an open-source project is certainly my plan, should the axe ever fall.
If I'm unemployed even for two weeks, some worthy project is getting 20 hours of my time that they didn't get when times were good. Multiply that by a few hundred thousand, it's one more nail in the coffin of certain expensive proprietary solutions.