The biggest problem is not to acquire the hardware (the graphics boards can be bought easily enough and some manufacturers make motherboards that will host 4 of them), the problem is in the software.
As you probably know your current desktop computer executes software 'in parallel' on multiple cores. Unless that software is written to use multiple cores then the parallelization will probably take place at the task level, in other words, unless special care was taken during the development each core will be executing a different process (or parts of a process, slicing itself up between multiple processes as long as the number of tasks is greater than the number of cpus).
The cell processor and the graphics cards you are talking about (I assume you refer to the nvidia 'cuda' architecture) are not your ordinary processor (though the cell comes a lot closer). They need special software to get the maximum out of their parallel features, which means that you can only exploit that speed when you are trying to solve a particular class of problems.
The issue is that not every problem is easily adapted to a parallel solution, and for some classes of problems it's simply impossible. For general purpose computing a general purpose cpu (with or without multiple cores) is good enough.
If you have a problem that you can solve in a parallel way (say computing chess moves, analyzing genetic strings, ray tracing an image or fluid dynamics, add your own examples here) then it makes sense to invest the extra time to code the problem up in such a way that if you have lots of cpus that they can each work on a small part of the problem.
The graphics cards are closer to a traditional vector processor than the cell, and thus even less suitable to be used as general purpose cpus.
well said. If all people that are currently entering the field have an attitude that's even remotely like yours then I have some good hope for the future:)
The real problem is a general lack of interest by the great masses in the problems that you outline, by the time it will surface on their radar they'll be owned lock stock & barrel by the media companies.
never before was 'anonymous coward' more appropriate.
if you're sick of these 'obey authority' fools telling you what you are allowed to criticize and not criticize I suggest you set up your own commercial firefighting service under your new and enlightened guidelines.
If you can get so much as 1 single person working for you under those guidelines I'll be very amazed.
Attacking the messenger is perfectly acceptable if the messenger tells you how to do your job for you and what risks you should take to save their property. No amount of property is worth the life of a firefighting crew.
Btw, we lost three firefighters in a flashover nearby recently, they were in fact 'just' trying to save some property.
after an explosion you simply can not assume that the original wiring diagram is still matching reality. Any discrepancy between the two translates in to a serious elevation of the risk...
In other words, what you think is a 'dead' wire could easily be a live one because one or more cables that used to be insulated are now connected.
before having inspected the situation and seen that things are good you're better off not risking powering up.
In fact, now that some of the dust has cleared up it seems that the damage was in fact much more serious than was assumed initially, and powering up the servers using emergency generators would not have mattered one little bit (whether it would have worked or not, or even made matters worse is another matter).
I'm in DC1 at the planet, I'm down and I'm not pointing any fingers. I'm pretty sure they did a reasonable job of setting up their systems in such a way that the chances of this happening was small to begin with, and when it did happen they seem to have things under control as much as possible.
There are a lot of 'armchair' specialists and complainers around here and all I would like to say to them is we'll see how it goes when *you* operate 5 large datacenters for years. Accidents do happen (and by their nature are caused by the unforeseeable), how you deal with them is what matters.
And fire fighters lives are more precious than *any* amount of hardware.
The only person I blame for not verifying if what I thought was redundant DNS in two locations is me, and I really thought I had it set up that way:(
I'm one of their customers, and it takes more than a single instance in 5 years of hosting to make me switch. That said we'll see how long it takes to get things back up. Unfortunately *both* my dns servers are in that DC, I thought they were in physically distant locations... so much for ass-um-ing things...
very nice idea! Make it talk SDHC and you can 'upgrade' your drive as well when the next generation of SD cards comes out (say a 32 G card)
Make it a 3.5" form factor and stick in 32 slots, just use the ones that you populate. At a slight angle like the ram on some older motherboards so you can slide them partially over each other would allow you to cram in even more of them.
When we completely run out of oil we will have found the perfect solution to clean up the environment...
Also, by that time the ability to recover the last bits of oil from the oceans from spills in the past will be fought over with tremendous military might, even if it's done from rowing boats.
Now I know why there are so many people in prison, it's to supply our future stock of galley slaves powering the next global war.
the word 'free' has been raped so many different ways it's not even funny any more. The best bit is how many non-free people claim the loudest that they're free.
Slashdot Mirror
move the goalposts much ?
He/she was asked to provide two examples.
The biggest problem is not to acquire the hardware (the graphics boards can be bought easily enough and some manufacturers make motherboards that will host 4 of them), the problem is in the software.
As you probably know your current desktop computer executes software 'in parallel' on multiple cores. Unless that software is written to use multiple cores then the parallelization will probably take place at the task level, in other words, unless special care was taken during the development each core will be executing a different process (or parts of a process, slicing itself up between multiple processes as long as the number of tasks is greater than the number of cpus).
The cell processor and the graphics cards you are talking about (I assume you refer to the nvidia 'cuda' architecture) are not your ordinary processor (though the cell comes a lot closer). They need special software to get the maximum out of their parallel features, which means that you can only exploit that speed when you are trying to solve a particular class of problems.
The issue is that not every problem is easily adapted to a parallel solution, and for some classes of problems it's simply impossible. For general purpose computing a general purpose cpu (with or without multiple cores) is good enough.
If you have a problem that you can solve in a parallel way (say computing chess moves, analyzing genetic strings, ray tracing an image or fluid dynamics, add your own examples here) then it makes sense to invest the extra time to code the problem up in such a way that if you have lots of cpus that they can each work on a small part of the problem.
The graphics cards are closer to a traditional vector processor than the cell, and thus even less suitable to be used as general purpose cpus.
maybe he should get 6 billion hand calculators and mail them out ?
That's probably a new contender for the stupidest metric ever, it beats 'libraries of congress per second' hands down.
well said. If all people that are currently entering the field have an attitude that's even remotely like yours then I have some good hope for the future :)
The real problem is a general lack of interest by the great masses in the problems that you outline, by the time it will surface on their radar they'll be owned lock stock & barrel by the media companies.
The legal system is a lottery anywhere in the world.
Incidentally, John Walker pretty much foresaw this whole business in his 2003 document the digital imprimatur.
It makes interesting reading to say the least and if his future view of the headwind for 'p2p' is correct this is really only just beginning.
I'm assuming 100% clicktrough...
"Note: some of the linked (computer-generated) images may be disturbing."
hehe, you're entitled one wicked smile :) next time you decide to switch datacenters please call me...
never before was 'anonymous coward' more appropriate.
if you're sick of these 'obey authority' fools telling you what you are allowed to criticize and not criticize I suggest you set up your own commercial firefighting service under your new and enlightened guidelines.
If you can get so much as 1 single person working for you under those guidelines I'll be very amazed.
Attacking the messenger is perfectly acceptable if the messenger tells you how to do your job for you and what risks you should take to save their property. No amount of property is worth the life of a firefighting crew.
Btw, we lost three firefighters in a flashover nearby recently, they were in fact 'just' trying to save some property.
after an explosion you simply can not assume that the original wiring diagram is still matching reality. Any discrepancy between the two translates in to a serious elevation of the risk...
In other words, what you think is a 'dead' wire could easily be a live one because one or more cables that used to be insulated are now connected.
before having inspected the situation and seen that things are good you're better off not risking powering up.
In fact, now that some of the dust has cleared up it seems that the damage was in fact much more serious than was assumed initially, and powering up the servers using emergency generators would not have mattered one little bit (whether it would have worked or not, or even made matters worse is another matter).
someone mod this up please.
:(
I'm in DC1 at the planet, I'm down and I'm not pointing any fingers. I'm pretty sure they did a reasonable job of setting up their systems in such a way that the chances of this happening was small to begin with, and when it did happen they seem to have things under control as much as possible.
There are a lot of 'armchair' specialists and complainers around here and all I would like to say to them is we'll see how it goes when *you* operate 5 large datacenters for years. Accidents do happen (and by their nature are caused by the unforeseeable), how you deal with them is what matters.
And fire fighters lives are more precious than *any* amount of hardware.
The only person I blame for not verifying if what I thought was redundant DNS in two locations is me, and I really thought I had it set up that way
/me raises hand...
ww.com and a bunch of other stuff...
I'm one of their customers, and it takes more than a single instance in 5 years of hosting to make me switch. That said we'll see how long it takes to get things back up. Unfortunately *both* my dns servers are in that DC, I thought they were in physically distant locations... so much for ass-um-ing things...
to expand on that a bit if you're looking to get your hands dirty with cuda & linux you can start doing so here: http://www.nvidia.com/object/cuda_get.html#linux
that sucks. I didn't know that.
I have seen beaches covered with oil before (I live in nl), and have extracted a couple of birds from oil spilled on to a beach before.
I bought a 8G SD for about 45 euros yesterday (that's about 60 bucks or something like that).
very nice idea! Make it talk SDHC and you can 'upgrade' your drive as well when the next generation of SD cards comes out (say a 32 G card)
Make it a 3.5" form factor and stick in 32 slots, just use the ones that you populate. At a slight angle like the ram on some older motherboards so you can slide them partially over each other would allow you to cram in even more of them.
that's the best you can do ? Tape... hah, if only we had tape.
All we had was chisels and hammers, and stone tablets, lots of stone tablets.
Sequential writes were bad enough, but random ones, my back still hurts remembering.
When punch cards came it was a great relief!
tape... young whippersnappers...
**whoosh**
would you mind letting me in on where you bought this stuff ?
When we completely run out of oil we will have found the perfect solution to clean up the environment...
Also, by that time the ability to recover the last bits of oil from the oceans from spills in the past will be fought over with tremendous military might, even if it's done from rowing boats.
Now I know why there are so many people in prison, it's to supply our future stock of galley slaves powering the next global war.
not for me either, I'm in the diamond business...
well said.
the word 'free' has been raped so many different ways it's not even funny any more. The best bit is how many non-free people claim the loudest that they're free.
thank you Danny, that really made my day... what a gem.
actually, you'd be wrong about the medical care, which in Colombia is some of the best that you could get anywhere on the planet.
:)
try again
You're somewhat right about the kidnappings though, I've been to Colombia and have not been kidnapped so maybe I got lucky...
larry ellison is in serious trouble :)