Fortran does some level of parallelization since F90. Specifically, it has builtin matrix/vector operations, which are inherently parallel operations, so they can be readily parallelized by a compiler. In 2001 I wrote some code at CERN for a dual Pentium III, and the PGF90 compiler made good use of SMP and MMX/SSE.
Of course, there's a lot to improve when it comes to parallelizing code besides vectors/matrices, and I assume Fortress is addressing some of these issues. In any case, a higher-level language is pretty essential to deal with parallel operations; you don't want to write a sequential loop to add two vectors, for example.
A weird example of this is IEEE 1394, which has two trade names: Firewire and i.Link. One of these names is used by Apple, and the other by Sony, but not quite the way you'd expect.
As others have already pointed out, you're missing the point. Besides, in many cases they are interchangeable, if you imagine you could find them in the same capacity.
It's true that electrolytics are polarized and ceramics are not, but it's not a useful design feature. For example, you cannot use an elca as a rectifier, since it's destroyed by reverse voltage. So the polarity is a kind of flaw, but it's taken into consideration in circuit design. If you can find a big enough ceramic, you can use it to replace an elca, but not necessarily the other way around.
Large, centralized power generation is usually more efficient than "mini generators".
Secondly, the main advantage of petroleum is energy density, while it is terrible when it comes to sustainability and environmental concerns. With centralized power generation you can make choices on other bases besides energy density, and focus more on the other factors.
I did read the article, and I wanted to point out that what they are doing is not entirely new. Their approach is somewhat different than what you usually see, but the idea is basically the same.
I also know that convolution isn't always reversible, but in many cases it is. I've made professional use of deconvolution to cancel motion blur in a well-defined system. In less defined systems you need to use stuff like MaxEnt, but it also assumes that there is some unknown, well-defined convolving function.
This is a kind of maximum entropy method, like the unsharp mask in image processing. Basically, if you know the blurring (convolving) function, you can reverse it. There are more sophisticated algorithms for cases where the blurring function is unknown, based on certain regularities; for example motion blur has a fixed direction and magnitude.
What is the dollar value of "avoiding vendor lock-in"?
It depends on the timescale. Philosophies rarely pay off during this quarter-year, but they can make a big difference in the long-term survival of the company and the society.
3. PC when CPU doing actual work sucks 147W thats 1300kWh or $206 a year. When I discovered this, I immediately disabled the protein folding project my PC was participating in.
I'm running a few BOINC applications, one of which includes Climateprediction.net. So a project that studies climate change is itself contributing to climate change:-/ However, it's been estimated as a worthwhile tradeoff. More generally, science always takes energy, time and money. I understand if you want to save your money, though.
Depends... Gentoo docs are generally VERY thorough, so I think that it would be possible to start with it. However, you have to be of the right mentality I think... you have to be a tinkerer, not mind doing some work to get things to work sometimes, be perhaps a bit of a control freak, and you have to have patience.
I agree. A friend of mine has Gentoo as his first proper Linux system, after trying out some mainstream distros with little success. I had suggested something mainstream, but I use Gentoo myself and I trusted his mindset, so in the end it turned out brilliant.
It's time for "Linux" to establish some open specifications that replace existing closed specs by being better.
Things like the Ogg codec family have been doing this for quite a while. Unfortunately, the market doesn't seem to be interested in technical superiority -- see Beta vs. VHS for the obvious example.
I second this. You can get a cheap Cell workstation if you're not too much of a Sony anti-fanboy.
Previously though, I was excited about the 360 because it looked like conventional SMP, and thus readily useful for current applications. Unfortunately it looks like we won't be running Linux on the 360 any time soon. On the other hand, Sony encourages the use of Linux on the PS3, even if graphics acceleration is disabled for now. Applications will be harder to develop, but if this is the direction where computing is heading (as opposed to SMP) then the PS3 could be a nice training platform.
I just tried the demo, and it has no way to change the color scheme, which is black on white. Why does all the software these days switch to these totally uncustomizable browser-like color schemes? Don't they realize that those white backgrounds are REALLY painful on the eyes?
I'd like to know how you deal with reading Slashdot? Do you use custom CSS?
I also happen to hate the black-on-white color scheme, which I think derives from paper documents rather than browsers. For word processing it kind of makes sense to emulate ink and paper look; if you're not planning to print the document, there are surely better ways to write it.
Unfortunately, too many people seem to regard computers as fancy typewriters, so they insist on black-on-white even for websites that are rarely printed. Besides being easier on the eyes, I think alternative color schemes can remind people that they're working with something more than ink and paper.
In addition, the analogy between white paper and white color on a computer display is flawed. White on a CRT or an LCD is basically a fluorescent light, whereas paper does diffuse (not mirrorlike) reflection.
exponential curve, and that we are just on the cusp, or knee, of it going up.
I beg to disagree. The exp curve has no such thing. Only in relation to something else, you can point a definite limit; for example, the rate of technological evolution could surpass the rate of human learning ability at some point.
like the mkdir -p, While I know mkdir could create the entire directory Tree with some parameter, I just never bothered using it, or looking it up.
Interesting... I'm used to using mkdirhier for the same effect. I thought it was simply an alias to mkdir -p, but it turns out to be a shell script (part of X11 imake package) that uses plain mkdir. I better update my scripts to the more portable version now...
On my keyboard layout I need shift to type a slash
This is exactly why I prefer the US/UK keyboard for unix stuff, even if I live in Finland, Finland, Finland, the country where slash needs a shift.
There are similar annoyances with a few other punctuation characters in the Fi keyboard. Besides, it's easy to setxkbmap when you need to type with your native language.
And that is the threat! We must be prepared for threats we can't even imagine!
That's actually a good point. The airline security theatre is always updated to counter the latest terrorist technology, so it will consistently lag one step behind evil. Any real security would have to take future imagination into account. Thus solving the problem once and for all!
Slashdot Mirror
Fortran does some level of parallelization since F90. Specifically, it has builtin matrix/vector operations, which are inherently parallel operations, so they can be readily parallelized by a compiler. In 2001 I wrote some code at CERN for a dual Pentium III, and the PGF90 compiler made good use of SMP and MMX/SSE.
Of course, there's a lot to improve when it comes to parallelizing code besides vectors/matrices, and I assume Fortress is addressing some of these issues. In any case, a higher-level language is pretty essential to deal with parallel operations; you don't want to write a sequential loop to add two vectors, for example.
A weird example of this is IEEE 1394, which has two trade names: Firewire and i.Link. One of these names is used by Apple, and the other by Sony, but not quite the way you'd expect.
No shit! Actually, Mr. Hankey does give a crap.
In direct proportion to their spelling power, I would presume ;)
Your analogy blows.
As others have already pointed out, you're missing the point. Besides, in many cases they are interchangeable, if you imagine you could find them in the same capacity.
It's true that electrolytics are polarized and ceramics are not, but it's not a useful design feature. For example, you cannot use an elca as a rectifier, since it's destroyed by reverse voltage. So the polarity is a kind of flaw, but it's taken into consideration in circuit design. If you can find a big enough ceramic, you can use it to replace an elca, but not necessarily the other way around.
Large, centralized power generation is usually more efficient than "mini generators".
Secondly, the main advantage of petroleum is energy density, while it is terrible when it comes to sustainability and environmental concerns. With centralized power generation you can make choices on other bases besides energy density, and focus more on the other factors.
I did read the article, and I wanted to point out that what they are doing is not entirely new. Their approach is somewhat different than what you usually see, but the idea is basically the same.
I also know that convolution isn't always reversible, but in many cases it is. I've made professional use of deconvolution to cancel motion blur in a well-defined system. In less defined systems you need to use stuff like MaxEnt, but it also assumes that there is some unknown, well-defined convolving function.
This is a kind of maximum entropy method, like the unsharp mask in image processing. Basically, if you know the blurring (convolving) function, you can reverse it. There are more sophisticated algorithms for cases where the blurring function is unknown, based on certain regularities; for example motion blur has a fixed direction and magnitude.
No, he's in comma.
I thought Prion was Toyota's protein/virus hybrid ;)
Only in a 12-tone equally tempered scale.
It depends on the timescale. Philosophies rarely pay off during this quarter-year, but they can make a big difference in the long-term survival of the company and the society.
I'm running a few BOINC applications, one of which includes Climateprediction.net. So a project that studies climate change is itself contributing to climate change :-/ However, it's been estimated as a worthwhile tradeoff. More generally, science always takes energy, time and money. I understand if you want to save your money, though.
Actually, 'stereo' means 'spatial' and it does not imply any definite number of channels.
I agree. A friend of mine has Gentoo as his first proper Linux system, after trying out some mainstream distros with little success. I had suggested something mainstream, but I use Gentoo myself and I trusted his mindset, so in the end it turned out brilliant.
Things like the Ogg codec family have been doing this for quite a while. Unfortunately, the market doesn't seem to be interested in technical superiority -- see Beta vs. VHS for the obvious example.
Rudolph the Red-shift Reindeer.
25,000 bottles of Ajax on the wall.
I second this. You can get a cheap Cell workstation if you're not too much of a Sony anti-fanboy.
Previously though, I was excited about the 360 because it looked like conventional SMP, and thus readily useful for current applications. Unfortunately it looks like we won't be running Linux on the 360 any time soon. On the other hand, Sony encourages the use of Linux on the PS3, even if graphics acceleration is disabled for now. Applications will be harder to develop, but if this is the direction where computing is heading (as opposed to SMP) then the PS3 could be a nice training platform.
I'd like to know how you deal with reading Slashdot? Do you use custom CSS?
I also happen to hate the black-on-white color scheme, which I think derives from paper documents rather than browsers. For word processing it kind of makes sense to emulate ink and paper look; if you're not planning to print the document, there are surely better ways to write it.
Unfortunately, too many people seem to regard computers as fancy typewriters, so they insist on black-on-white even for websites that are rarely printed. Besides being easier on the eyes, I think alternative color schemes can remind people that they're working with something more than ink and paper.
In addition, the analogy between white paper and white color on a computer display is flawed. White on a CRT or an LCD is basically a fluorescent light, whereas paper does diffuse (not mirrorlike) reflection.
I beg to disagree. The exp curve has no such thing. Only in relation to something else, you can point a definite limit; for example, the rate of technological evolution could surpass the rate of human learning ability at some point.
Interesting... I'm used to using mkdirhier for the same effect. I thought it was simply an alias to mkdir -p, but it turns out to be a shell script (part of X11 imake package) that uses plain mkdir. I better update my scripts to the more portable version now...
This is exactly why I prefer the US/UK keyboard for unix stuff, even if I live in Finland, Finland, Finland, the country where slash needs a shift.
There are similar annoyances with a few other punctuation characters in the Fi keyboard. Besides, it's easy to setxkbmap when you need to type with your native language.
That's actually a good point. The airline security theatre is always updated to counter the latest terrorist technology, so it will consistently lag one step behind evil. Any real security would have to take future imagination into account. Thus solving the problem once and for all!