This is a gross simplification, glossing over the details and not correct in some aspects... but close enough.
SIMD - single instruction multiple data. If you have thousands or millions of elements/records/whatever that all require the exact same processing (gee, say like a bunch of polygons being rotated x radians perhaps????) then this data can all be arranged into a bitmap and loaded onto the GPU at once. The GPU then performs the same operation on your data elements simultaneously (simplification). You then yank off the resultant bitmap and off you go. CPU arranges data, loads and unloads the data. GPU crunches it.
A CPU would have to operate on each of these elements serially.
Think of it this way - you are making pennies. GPU takes a big sheet of copper and stamps out 10000 pennies at a time. CPU takes a ribbon of copper and stamps out 1 penny at a time... but each iteration of the CPU is much faster than each iteration of the GPU. Perhaps the CPU can perform 7000 cycles per second, but the GPU can only perform 1 cycle per second. At the end of that second... the GPU produced 3000 more pennies than the CPU.
Some problem sets are not SIMD in nature. Lot's of branhcing or relienace on the value of neighboring elements. This will slow the GPU processing down insanely. FPGA is far better (and more expensive, and more difficult to program) than GPU for this. CPU is better as well.
If Windows decreases market share to around 50% expect to see Redmond Linux - which so happens to provide a nice upgrade path and compatibility from Windows.
Chicken farmers seem to be enough, I would say. And perhaps hunters. Also consider that in advanced enough civilization *individuals* might have the power to eliminate our young stellar empire (picture a few kids flooding an anthill with a garden hose).
So let's just become a horde of locusts jumping from planet to planet consuming their resources and polluting them into lifeless rocks until a coalition of alien species has to band together to eliminate the threat humanity represents to the galaxy.
Or, learn how to survive on this planet before going out and colonizing another one.
I am thinking a tricked out HP i7 rig. Gone are the days where I will bother to build my machine from parts.
That said it should last for years, considering my current HP has been chugging along for over a decade and is showing no signs of dying. (Nor did its Dell P3 predecessor.) So... I guess I agree with the article somewhat. Market saturation, long lived machines, and competition from mobile devices all have formed a perfect storm.
BTW: The lucky craps roller in Vegas can have the casino wire the funds to his/her bank account. While taking the cash is not illegal, it is certainly stupid since the casino withholds taxes from such a large win anyway. Not to mention such a win is easily verifiable.
While I realize that you were just coming up with a plausible example as to why a couple of sketchy dudes have $800,000 there is always a plausible counter as to why an honest person would not have such cash on them.
I agree that having money is not a crime - but bypassing the many systems in place that are meant to securely store and transfer it is highly indicative of illegal behavior.
The term "hydrogen bomb" has always been a misnomer. Also most modern weapons dispense with the fusion altogether - the secondary is simply another fission core imploded by the primary radiation rather than by conventional explosives. Fusion it seems has gone out of style and with today's accuracy is no longer needed aside from boosting which is rather trivial.
Weapons that do use fusion mainly employ fusion as a neutron generator to cause fission in a fissile tamper thus dramatically increasing yield (fission 1%-fusion 15%-fission 84% portion of yield respectively). The weapons that use fusion for primary weapon effect are either banned and out of production (so called neutron bombs which is basically just a bomb as mentioned above without the fissile tamper) or are three stage weapons so huge as to be impractical these days like the Tsar Bomba. Some bombs produce tritium by bombarding lithium deutride with neutrons from a fission "spark plug" in the secondary which is in turn fused producing neutrons for the above cycle... but this can hardly be called a "hydrogen bomb". "Lithium bomb" would be better.
All fusion is not the same. Stellar fusion employs different nuclear reactions than what a weapon employs. A fusion reactor is different yet again, but more closely resembling stellar fusion.
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You had it good. Those clay tablets were a bitch to load,
In my day, a Beowulf cluster had 128MB ram per node.
Uphill. Both ways. In the snow.
>> The main issue is that the complexity writing a program that does things on the GPU is much higher.
Not so much. There is programming overhead, but it isn't too bad.
This is a gross simplification, glossing over the details and not correct in some aspects... but close enough.
SIMD - single instruction multiple data. If you have thousands or millions of elements/records/whatever that all require the exact same processing (gee, say like a bunch of polygons being rotated x radians perhaps????) then this data can all be arranged into a bitmap and loaded onto the GPU at once. The GPU then performs the same operation on your data elements simultaneously (simplification). You then yank off the resultant bitmap and off you go. CPU arranges data, loads and unloads the data. GPU crunches it.
A CPU would have to operate on each of these elements serially.
Think of it this way - you are making pennies. GPU takes a big sheet of copper and stamps out 10000 pennies at a time. CPU takes a ribbon of copper and stamps out 1 penny at a time... but each iteration of the CPU is much faster than each iteration of the GPU. Perhaps the CPU can perform 7000 cycles per second, but the GPU can only perform 1 cycle per second. At the end of that second... the GPU produced 3000 more pennies than the CPU.
Some problem sets are not SIMD in nature. Lot's of branhcing or relienace on the value of neighboring elements. This will slow the GPU processing down insanely. FPGA is far better (and more expensive, and more difficult to program) than GPU for this. CPU is better as well.
If Windows decreases market share to around 50% expect to see Redmond Linux - which so happens to provide a nice upgrade path and compatibility from Windows.
Cancer is a human disease, which has perfect meaning this context.
Agenda 21 is that certain types of men are a cancer, not all of mankind. My kind of man is, of course, acceptable.
>> Space travel isn't exactly a "green" endeavor.
I agree. I also disagree with the spacer point of view that we need to find a new planet to suck dry as quickly as possible before this one runs out.
>> So what should we do
Learn how to steward our limited resources and control put population and industry? That's just a guess.
Chicken farmers seem to be enough, I would say. And perhaps hunters. Also consider that in advanced enough civilization *individuals* might have the power to eliminate our young stellar empire (picture a few kids flooding an anthill with a garden hose).
So let's just become a horde of locusts jumping from planet to planet consuming their resources and polluting them into lifeless rocks until a coalition of alien species has to band together to eliminate the threat humanity represents to the galaxy.
Or, learn how to survive on this planet before going out and colonizing another one.
Until, of course, we become the owl... at which point we need to hide from farmers with shot guns.
...then we are basically a cosmic cancer.
I am thinking a tricked out HP i7 rig. Gone are the days where I will bother to build my machine from parts.
That said it should last for years, considering my current HP has been chugging along for over a decade and is showing no signs of dying. (Nor did its Dell P3 predecessor.) So... I guess I agree with the article somewhat. Market saturation, long lived machines, and competition from mobile devices all have formed a perfect storm.
I'll also take the wiped hard drive and non working ATM card over the 500 pounder coming through the living room window, thanks.
>> And what will it do to people on those small boats, or if fired at a manned aerial vehicle?
I suspect that the US Navy is hoping that it will kill said people.
I suspect to protect it from heavy seas.
Because somehow a surgical mistake have far more dire consequences in the US than in, say, the UK or Canada.
In the home, sure. In the workplace with 2000+ workstations many of which can barely run XP, it gets a bit more complicated.
Minuteman III was developed in the 1960's. Sorry about your ignorance.
...MDs, JDs, EE PhDs, ect are raking it in.
The chances of wrecking the car your money is hidden in are pretty high. Not to mention having the car stolen.
That said you are correct about banks laundering money and being far more guilty than any individual ever could be.
A "bit" of cash?
BTW: The lucky craps roller in Vegas can have the casino wire the funds to his/her bank account. While taking the cash is not illegal, it is certainly stupid since the casino withholds taxes from such a large win anyway. Not to mention such a win is easily verifiable.
While I realize that you were just coming up with a plausible example as to why a couple of sketchy dudes have $800,000 there is always a plausible counter as to why an honest person would not have such cash on them.
I agree that having money is not a crime - but bypassing the many systems in place that are meant to securely store and transfer it is highly indicative of illegal behavior.
The term "hydrogen bomb" has always been a misnomer. Also most modern weapons dispense with the fusion altogether - the secondary is simply another fission core imploded by the primary radiation rather than by conventional explosives. Fusion it seems has gone out of style and with today's accuracy is no longer needed aside from boosting which is rather trivial.
Weapons that do use fusion mainly employ fusion as a neutron generator to cause fission in a fissile tamper thus dramatically increasing yield (fission 1%-fusion 15%-fission 84% portion of yield respectively). The weapons that use fusion for primary weapon effect are either banned and out of production (so called neutron bombs which is basically just a bomb as mentioned above without the fissile tamper) or are three stage weapons so huge as to be impractical these days like the Tsar Bomba. Some bombs produce tritium by bombarding lithium deutride with neutrons from a fission "spark plug" in the secondary which is in turn fused producing neutrons for the above cycle... but this can hardly be called a "hydrogen bomb". "Lithium bomb" would be better.
Of course this is all open source regurgitation.
Fusion is not in the realm of chemistry.
All fusion is not the same. Stellar fusion employs different nuclear reactions than what a weapon employs. A fusion reactor is different yet again, but more closely resembling stellar fusion.