We do not want infinite energy. The earth is (approximately) a closed system that only takes input from the sun. It does not radiate much energy in the void of space.
Said otherwise, if we have infinite (even clean, but non-renewable) energy and produce too much, we will increase the energy input of the system, but that will not translate into a greater dissipation into space. Hence, nuclear fusion/fission is not a long term solution, even if it is rendered completely clean and harmless.
Actually, the only safe option is sun power, although the impact of transforming a significant amount of sun energy into waste heat from thermal losses might have a variety of consequences, compared to when it is used to produce hydrocarbons in plants.
Sure, but the adversary will not be happy with this breach of the terror balance, and will deploy his own version of the weapon. It will be soon clear that the USA cannot defend against these weapons, and we will be back to the original version of the cold war, but with a signatureless weapon that makes everybody extra nervous. "Is this a fly of ducks, or a first strike, I see on my radar?"
Re:Only "troubled" if you're not Lockheed Martin
on
The F-35 Story
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· Score: 1
"projects of that type ALWAYS go over budget, it was as predictable before the project started as it was in hindsight, and therefore should have been accounted for"
The project manager is not an idiot. He knew that the project would not have been voted at its real price. He decreased the price beyond acceptance sticker price. When the budget overruns, you have spent so much already, and the end always looks so close, that you think putting another billion will close the deal. The project manager has been smart, he made a project that would not have fundings start.
Some sort of yellow fever has fogged some minds here.
1. Even if chinese had copied 20 year old Alpha design, building a computer from DEC processors of 20 years ago would not make a petaflop machine. The chinese have -at least- improved and worked on the design to put it to parity with other chips (especially regarding power consumption per flop). 2. The ShenWay chip has a power/flop ratio that is truly among the best of current production. This is the metric that matters nowadays. This is indicative that chinese engineers can come up with something competitive on their own (even if starting from some decade old obsolete material). 3. Infiniband is a specification. It is unclear if the machine uses chinese made Infiniband, or has bought Infiniband network from US or Israeli companies (which are the two most prominent providers of the technology). If they use homemade Infiniband compliant chips, they have made the machine based on local tech only. 4. As somebody stated, network matters more in a supercomputer than processor. What makes Cray attractive is the Seastar interconnect, not the boring AMD chips. If they have not homemade the Infiniband switch (the most difficult part to design in a supercomputer), they still have some way to go.
Infinite energy sounds like all energy problem are solve, does it? Now, think better. Energy is useful only if you transform it into work. What is work? Motion (that is generated by friction, so thermal loss, and that must be stopped by braking, which is almost total thermal loss), or heat (that ends up as thermal loss), or electronic gizmos that compute (almost complete thermal loss here too). Whatever energy we produce, it will end up as thermal loss, because thermal energy is a byproduct of using the energy.
As of now, we do not care about that aspect, because we use only 10^-7 energy units less that what earth receives as input from the sun. Now lets consider that we do, actually, have infinite energy, and use it. Then we will quickly reach the point were we produce some amount of energy that competes with solar input, say 2%. Does an increase of 2% of energy input on earth change the climate ? What about now a 10% increase (thats something like 5 years at exponential growth rate)?
And it is not like there is any comprehensive way to get rid of that extra thermal energy. There is no convection in space, and radiating in the void is the most inefficient way of dissipating energy. We could create convection by ejecting matter in space, but that does not sound practical (energy spent to put stuff in orbit is huge, probably more thermal loss than what the "payload" carries away from earth).
So basically, there is a stronger limit on possible energy consumption than the amount of energy we can produce, it is the thermal envelope of our atmosphere, that must remain somewhat constant to avoid disrupting the fine equilibrium that permits life (at least human life). Infinite energy does not solve the problem, it creates greater opportunities for us to multiply up to destroying ourselves.
Even if they have had difficult to replace contributions, these contributions have been BSD licensed in the past, so basically they can do "whatever the hell they want". Actually, BSD licensing means that not even the original authors can do whatever, but also any fork can. If you don't want your code to go into a closed source project (that you might have no control over and make no dime out of), do not release it BSD.
I understand we want to protect the pure eyes of the public from disgusting content. Well, actually I don't, if nobody gets harmed in the making of the images, to each one is fantasy. Furthermore, it is not like bestiality is around every click, and seeing a nipple is not going to traumatize anybody, we all have two, don't we ?
For the sake of the argument, say we buy the idea that internet 'needs' to be filtered to protect the public from seeing "things". Doesn't it defeats the purpose, when little Johny is protected from porn from 1 to 18, then gets to watch objectively offensive and disgusting porn, the kind of things that makes you despair about humanity, but for 20 hours a week, as a student job to pay tuition ? Am I the only one to think that the work-watchers are going to increase by a wide margin the exposure to insanely offensive material, that otherwise nobody encounters without actually looking for it ?
Usually, current laptop computer would have appeared in top5000 (top500.org) of 7 years ago. iPad 2 would have been the most powerful supercomputer in 1985.
Apparently, the car weights about 1100 pounds, mostly batteries. How long does that weight of batteries keeps the car running at full speed is not described in TFA.
Not conflicting and mixing are two different things. Yogurt eating and haircutting do not conflict; they just have different topics. They don't mix either, except if there are some unknown benefits on hair health by eating yogurt.
Using the fact that only 15% on scientist see a clear conflict to suppose that they mix is moronic. It is very clear that they do not conflict because science is about things that can be proved, hence does not pertain to religion.
Do you claim you will never need medical treatments ? Maybe you are just claiming that you will never need medical treatments whose cost would let you broke, but this is the USA, where saying "hi" to a doctor costs you $10, every subsequent word cost you $5.
So, yes, if you don't bike, you don't need a helmet. But unless you don't leave, you need health insurance.
This is the bleeding edge of computer engineering. Nobody knows precisely what the final cost will be before actually building the machine, and how it will actually perform outside of the HPL benchmark. We sure have ideas on cost and performance, and the peak performance is very well known before hand, but the actual maximum performance and cost are totally experimental, in these 1-off machines. In a better economy, the vendor is willing to take the loss for the advertisement he receives from being "the most powerful computer in the world", which definitely helps sell the smaller size machines off the same design (think BG/L and P or Cray XT4 which sell like hot cakes). In the current economy, nobody, not even IBM, has the cashflow to absorb several tens of millions loss on a marketing operation.
Are you running BitTorrent? I tried out two separate D-Link routers about a year ago, when I was looking to replace a dying wrt-54G. Both of the D-Link routers would crash in a big way within minutes of firing up BitTorrent. I ended up buying another wrt-54G from Newegg, which still works perfectly, and vowed never to buy another D-Link product again.
Interestingly, you probably have to choose between two different liabilities.
On one hand, that new law seems to mandate that you take proper actions to protect your network against illegal use.
On the other hand, any broad surveillance of your employees is probably illegal regarding work laws, and if you engage in that, you might be liable for criminal activities (check in your own country, that differs wildly, but is not uncommon that even when using your equipments, your employees have a right to privacy).
Choose your evil.
imagine your bacteria gets into the wild (it will eventually, of course), and mutates to the point where trees immune system cannot fight it. You have now melting forest and crops. Deadly starvation ensues.
Slashdot Mirror
We do not want infinite energy. The earth is (approximately) a closed system that only takes input from the sun. It does not radiate much energy in the void of space.
Said otherwise, if we have infinite (even clean, but non-renewable) energy and produce too much, we will increase the energy input of the system, but that will not translate into a greater dissipation into space. Hence, nuclear fusion/fission is not a long term solution, even if it is rendered completely clean and harmless.
Actually, the only safe option is sun power, although the impact of transforming a significant amount of sun energy into waste heat from thermal losses might have a variety of consequences, compared to when it is used to produce hydrocarbons in plants.
We do not want more energy, we want less people.
Human survival depends on birth control.
Sure, but the adversary will not be happy with this breach of the terror balance, and will deploy his own version of the weapon. It will be soon clear that the USA cannot defend against these weapons, and we will be back to the original version of the cold war, but with a signatureless weapon that makes everybody extra nervous. "Is this a fly of ducks, or a first strike, I see on my radar?"
"projects of that type ALWAYS go over budget, it was as predictable before the project started as it was in hindsight, and therefore should have been accounted for"
The project manager is not an idiot. He knew that the project would not have been voted at its real price. He decreased the price beyond acceptance sticker price. When the budget overruns, you have spent so much already, and the end always looks so close, that you think putting another billion will close the deal. The project manager has been smart, he made a project that would not have fundings start.
It's free software. You want it, you code it.
Some sort of yellow fever has fogged some minds here.
1. Even if chinese had copied 20 year old Alpha design, building a computer from DEC processors of 20 years ago would not make a petaflop machine. The chinese have -at least- improved and worked on the design to put it to parity with other chips (especially regarding power consumption per flop).
2. The ShenWay chip has a power/flop ratio that is truly among the best of current production. This is the metric that matters nowadays. This is indicative that chinese engineers can come up with something competitive on their own (even if starting from some decade old obsolete material).
3. Infiniband is a specification. It is unclear if the machine uses chinese made Infiniband, or has bought Infiniband network from US or Israeli companies (which are the two most prominent providers of the technology). If they use homemade Infiniband compliant chips, they have made the machine based on local tech only.
4. As somebody stated, network matters more in a supercomputer than processor. What makes Cray attractive is the Seastar interconnect, not the boring AMD chips. If they have not homemade the Infiniband switch (the most difficult part to design in a supercomputer), they still have some way to go.
Infinite energy sounds like all energy problem are solve, does it? Now, think better. Energy is useful only if you transform it into work. What is work? Motion (that is generated by friction, so thermal loss, and that must be stopped by braking, which is almost total thermal loss), or heat (that ends up as thermal loss), or electronic gizmos that compute (almost complete thermal loss here too). Whatever energy we produce, it will end up as thermal loss, because thermal energy is a byproduct of using the energy.
As of now, we do not care about that aspect, because we use only 10^-7 energy units less that what earth receives as input from the sun. Now lets consider that we do, actually, have infinite energy, and use it. Then we will quickly reach the point were we produce some amount of energy that competes with solar input, say 2%. Does an increase of 2% of energy input on earth change the climate ? What about now a 10% increase (thats something like 5 years at exponential growth rate)?
And it is not like there is any comprehensive way to get rid of that extra thermal energy. There is no convection in space, and radiating in the void is the most inefficient way of dissipating energy. We could create convection by ejecting matter in space, but that does not sound practical (energy spent to put stuff in orbit is huge, probably more thermal loss than what the "payload" carries away from earth).
So basically, there is a stronger limit on possible energy consumption than the amount of energy we can produce, it is the thermal envelope of our atmosphere, that must remain somewhat constant to avoid disrupting the fine equilibrium that permits life (at least human life). Infinite energy does not solve the problem, it creates greater opportunities for us to multiply up to destroying ourselves.
Even if they have had difficult to replace contributions, these contributions have been BSD licensed in the past, so basically they can do "whatever the hell they want". Actually, BSD licensing means that not even the original authors can do whatever, but also any fork can. If you don't want your code to go into a closed source project (that you might have no control over and make no dime out of), do not release it BSD.
I understand we want to protect the pure eyes of the public from disgusting content. Well, actually I don't, if nobody gets harmed in the making of the images, to each one is fantasy. Furthermore, it is not like bestiality is around every click, and seeing a nipple is not going to traumatize anybody, we all have two, don't we ? For the sake of the argument, say we buy the idea that internet 'needs' to be filtered to protect the public from seeing "things". Doesn't it defeats the purpose, when little Johny is protected from porn from 1 to 18, then gets to watch objectively offensive and disgusting porn, the kind of things that makes you despair about humanity, but for 20 hours a week, as a student job to pay tuition ? Am I the only one to think that the work-watchers are going to increase by a wide margin the exposure to insanely offensive material, that otherwise nobody encounters without actually looking for it ?
Heritage is a more important part of it. Especially cash heritage.
Actually, you pose that as a granted evidence. It is not. Some countries have laws preventing a seller to not do a deal.
Usually, current laptop computer would have appeared in top5000 (top500.org) of 7 years ago. iPad 2 would have been the most powerful supercomputer in 1985.
Apparently, the car weights about 1100 pounds, mostly batteries. How long does that weight of batteries keeps the car running at full speed is not described in TFA.
Not conflicting and mixing are two different things. Yogurt eating and haircutting do not conflict; they just have different topics. They don't mix either, except if there are some unknown benefits on hair health by eating yogurt. Using the fact that only 15% on scientist see a clear conflict to suppose that they mix is moronic. It is very clear that they do not conflict because science is about things that can be proved, hence does not pertain to religion.
Do you claim you will never need medical treatments ? Maybe you are just claiming that you will never need medical treatments whose cost would let you broke, but this is the USA, where saying "hi" to a doctor costs you $10, every subsequent word cost you $5. So, yes, if you don't bike, you don't need a helmet. But unless you don't leave, you need health insurance.
Money for building the computer essentially comes from NSF. U.I.U.C. provides for a marginal part of the cost.
This is the bleeding edge of computer engineering. Nobody knows precisely what the final cost will be before actually building the machine, and how it will actually perform outside of the HPL benchmark. We sure have ideas on cost and performance, and the peak performance is very well known before hand, but the actual maximum performance and cost are totally experimental, in these 1-off machines. In a better economy, the vendor is willing to take the loss for the advertisement he receives from being "the most powerful computer in the world", which definitely helps sell the smaller size machines off the same design (think BG/L and P or Cray XT4 which sell like hot cakes). In the current economy, nobody, not even IBM, has the cashflow to absorb several tens of millions loss on a marketing operation.
Distributing copies, which they might do when they disclose the report, but that could be worked around by giving only short citations of the "work".
Are you serious? The guy is complaining about a notebook that looks *completely different than Macbooks".
Sony is more guilty of ripping off Macbooks.
Sony laptops have looked like that for at least 10 years, if not more.
Are you running BitTorrent? I tried out two separate D-Link routers about a year ago, when I was looking to replace a dying wrt-54G. Both of the D-Link routers would crash in a big way within minutes of firing up BitTorrent. I ended up buying another wrt-54G from Newegg, which still works perfectly, and vowed never to buy another D-Link product again.
That. Don't buy a D-link, it doesn't work.
Interestingly, you probably have to choose between two different liabilities. On one hand, that new law seems to mandate that you take proper actions to protect your network against illegal use. On the other hand, any broad surveillance of your employees is probably illegal regarding work laws, and if you engage in that, you might be liable for criminal activities (check in your own country, that differs wildly, but is not uncommon that even when using your equipments, your employees have a right to privacy). Choose your evil.
imagine your bacteria gets into the wild (it will eventually, of course), and mutates to the point where trees immune system cannot fight it. You have now melting forest and crops. Deadly starvation ensues.
Real alternative does not break RealNetworks copyright (or at least not obviously). Software patents still do not exist in Europe (yet?). So ?
So now, refurbs are new.
I understand your irony, but you have very badly selected your example. have a look at the history of Michelin.