He's talking about Maxtor's 300 GB drive, which is a 5400 RPM model. While there have been 7200 RPM IDE
drives for years, the largest Maxtor makes is 250 GB. Maybe Seagate, Western-Digital, or Hitachi make a 300 GB 7200 RPM drive, I don't know.
Seems these misspelling are not that uncommon. Google hits:
aureal density
688
aural density
16,300
areal density
70,700
The first hit for areal density is about hard drives, for aural the fist hit is about music, but the second is about hard drives, and for aureal the first is about hard drives and the second is about Aureal's soundcards.
RLE is a kind of compression. RLL hard drive controllers didn't do any kind of hardware compression. RLL is just a more efficient and more complex way of turning bits into flux reversals on the hard drive platters. See here for a good description.
Back in the day of MFM and RLL controllers, the hard drive controller did much of what the drive electronics and firmware do in modern hard drives, that's why you could have MFM or RLL controllers. Hard drives still use RLL encoding today.
"Aureal density" is a misspelling of "areal density". Areal means relating to area. In other words, the bits per square inch of the hard drive platters.
Are you too dense to see the contradiction in your supposed logic, or are you just ignoring it on purpose?
You said trucks have to go slower on the freeway because they do more damage and take longer to stop than cars.
But a car does more damage and and takes longer to stop than a bicycle, so why doesn't the car have a slower speed limit?
Now you say a person in a car gets to go faster because they can and want to go faster. So what if a truck driver can and wants to go 85mph on the freeway, why can't they? Because it's dangerous? But fast moving cars are dangerous too, in fact, they're the greatest cause of accidental death in this country. How come a truck's danger gives it a lower speed limit, but a car's danger doesn't? How come the driver of car's desire to go faster is more important than the safety of other road users, but a truck driver's isn't?
horses used to have the right of way on streets for the same reasons
Traffic signals that gave certain travellers an inferiour use of the public roads didn't exist in the time before cars. And horses didn't have the right of way over pedestrians either, but thanks for trying.
Seems like the majority is giving everyone else the shaft (emphasis mine)
Welcome to our democracy. Good day!
And if the white majority of Montgomery Alabama thinks colored folks need to go the back of the bus to make way for them, then that's just democracy too? Sorry, democracy doesn't mean the majority can take away anything they want from the minority.
We're talking almost certain death if any car going faster than 30mph hits a human.
So why are cars allowed to go faster than 30mph when pedestrians are around? Because a person in car is so elevated in status that their convenience is worth more than a someone else's life?
Can I go skeet shooting next door to you? A bullet is very dangerous, almost as dangerous as a car, so you'll need to crawl around on the ground to avoid getting hit. People just don't belong in the same space as bullets, so you'll just need to stay out of my way. I'll compromise with you, you can keep living where you are, but you'll have to lie flat on the ground. If you want to move, it can only be done in the few seconds when I'm reloading. Since the consequences are so great for you, and there are none for me, it just makes sense that it should be your job to stay out of my way. Safety is the foundation of my argument, it's safer for you lie on the ground while I'm skeet shooting over your house. Maybe you don't think it's fair. Tough shit.
Whether or not you or I or the rest of Slashdot believes it to be true doesnt matter.
But what if the court decides that SCO's claims of owning IP rights to Linux are false? In the end is doesn't matter what you or I or Darl McBride thinks, it's what the court decides that matters.
SCO has said they have a claim to some kind of undefined IP in Linux. So maybe they do and maybe they don't actually think they have a real claim. If the court decides they didn't, then haven't they defrauded people just as much as a mentally ill man colecting tolls on the Brooklyn Bridge? Maybe Darl really does think he has "IP" for something in Linux, and maybe Lenny really does think he has "toll rights" to the Brooklyn Bridge. But if these beliefs are false, and they use them to extort money, then isn't that fraud?
Suppose I stopped tourists trying to cross the Brooklyn Bridge and told them my company had purchased the "toll rights" to the bridge, and that anyone using the bridge needs to pay me a toll of else face a huge fine.
Not that much different that was SCO is doing, claiming they have IP rights to Linux and that anyone using Linux needs to pay for a license or face a lawsuit.
How is SCO claiming that they have rights to linux without any proof any different than claiming rights to the Brooklyn Bridge without proof?
You want one statement, here it is again: It just makes good sense to try to stop cars as little as possible
It only makes sense if you goal is to make things as easy as possible for people in cars, screwing over everyone else.
Now, the basis of my explanation was twofold (look it up if you don't understand it):
1.Humans stop faster than cars 2.Cars do more damage than humans
So, of course trucks have lower speed limits than cars. Cars stop faster than trucks. Trucks do more damage than cars.
Think about what you've said. Doesn't it follow by your logic that cars should have lower speed limits than people? That cars shouldn't get preferential treatment at intersections?
Trucks get to use less of the highway because they cause a greater danger, but cars get to use more time at intersections because they cause a greater danger.
Doesn't seem consistent, does it? Seems like the majority is giving everyone else the shaft, and trying to make up excuses about how it's for their own good, when really they're just trying to make things as nice for themselves as possible no matter what is costs anyone else.
I suppose you would have told Rosa Parks that her leet attitude and neo-liberalist viewpoint is[n't] going to help much. Except that her case went to the Supreme Court, who ruled that segregation in transportation is unconstitutional. Of course now we don't discriminate overtly on color, but if you're not in a car you get a street where the lights are always red and your safetly takes a back seat to the convenience of drivers.
Don't like it when you opinion that you're more important than everyone else is challenged? I know your mother said you were special, but that's not what she meant.
Maybe you know this, maybe you don't, but trucks aren't allowed to use the left most lane on a three lane divided highway. They're also given a 65 mph speed limit instead of 75 mph.
But trucks are bigger, aren't they? They take longer to stop and do more damage in a collision. So why is that trucks get the lower speed limit and can't use the left lane, instead of cars?
Do you think that's backward? Shouldn't it be cars that aren't allowed in the left lane so the trucks don't have to slow down? Does your philosophy that the person who chooses the use the largest, most dangerous, least controllable vehicle should get the preferential treatment only apply when it is you with the big end of the stick?
If some people decide that they are so important that they should be able to go 50 mph in a 25 mph zone, and if someone has to die because of their impatience, then so be it, then maybe increased enforcement is needed. Some people need jail time to teach them their impatience isn't woth the lives of others.
Keeping traffic moving is not they way to keep people alive, and if had read any literature on traffic safety you'd know this. Keeping traffic moving is about maximizing convenience to drivers. It gives you cars moving at high speed with drivers who aren't paying attention to what they are doing. That is what kills people.
And if you think that roundabout is so great, why don't you try crossing it on foot a few times?
It just makes good sense to try to stop cars as little as possible
Said like someone who is always in a car. You might as well say, "It just makes sense that I am more important than anyone else."
Who's fault is it that cars kill people and pedestrians don't? It's the fault of the person who decided they wanted two tons of steel to travel in, isn't it? So you want to reward the person who decided to use the most dangerous means of transportation by making all others subservient to them?
Why have traffic lights at all, why not just have the largest vehicle get the right of way? People in cars should have to stop and look both ways at every intersection, to make sure no trucks are coming! It just makes sense that large trucks should never have to stop, and lights should force cars to wait however long it takes to make sure this happens. I bet you wouldn't go for that, would you?
It does the opposite. By letting drivers pay less attention to their driving, they become even more careless. And making pedestrians wait four times as long encourages jay walking. So you make people want to jay walk so they don't have to wait for two signal changes to get through, and have conditioned drivers to not pay attention for people trying to cross when they turn.
If your true goal was to keep people alive, instead
of maximizing convenience for drivers at the expense of everyone else, you would lower speed limits, eliminate right turn on red, create four way stops, and add time for pedestrians to cross when no turns are allowed.
There are lots of intersections like this in and around Seattle too. The words on pedestrian sign say, "Don't walk", but what it really means is "Fuck you", or the equivalent in Finnish in you're in Helsinki, because that's the purpose of these signals, to fuck over pedestrians.
Consider a simple light that is 30 seconds green and then 30 seconds red. A car that reaches the intersection at second 0 in the cycle, the start of the green, will not have to wait at all. Same for seconds 1 to 29. At second 30, they get the red and have to wait 30 seconds. At second 31 they have to wait 29 seconds, and so on down to second 59 where they only have to wait 1 second for the green. If you calculate it out, the cars have a 50% chance of not waiting at all, an average wait of 7.5 seconds, and a maximum wait of 30 seconds.
A pedestrian arriving at second 0, the start of the green cycle, will have to press the button and wait 60 seconds for the next green cycle, when the pedestrian signal will change to walk. Even though the signal is green for the cars, pedestrians won't get a walk signal when pressing the button. If they arrive at second 1, they have to wait 59 seconds for the next green light, at second 2 they have to wait 58 seconds, and so on down to second 59 when they have to wait 1 second. For pedestrians there is a 0% chance of not having to wait, the average wait is 30 seconds, and the maximum wait is 60 seconds.
That's what adding these signals does. Half the time the people in cars don't have to wait at all, but if you not in a car, you always have to wait at the light. The average time you have to wait is four times as long, and the maximum time is twice as long! A signal like this is just a big "fuck you" to pedestrians.
Cities spend tens of thousands of dollars to stick in a signal like this. Why do they do it, when the signal time stays the same, but pedestrians have to wait four times as long? Because if pedestrains where allowed to cross when they came to a green light, like cars are, then turning cars would have to look for the them and yeild. People in cars hate to have to pay attention to their driving, and would much rather being talking on their cell phone or watching a DVD or fussing with their kids in the back seat. So the light makes pedestrians arriving on the green wait and bunch up to cross at the beginning of the next signal. That way drivers get to pay less attention to their driving!
I'm sure it can be done. I remember when dosemu first added support for VGA graphics in an X11 window. One of the first things I did with it was run duke nukem 3d on it. It ran just fine in a window, and under the console it was faster in dosemu than in native dos.
I went to the campus comp sci lab, and had dn3d remote display on an NCD X terminal from my computer in my dorm room. Only got about 4 fps that way, but it was still pretty amazing. This would be sometime around the 1996.
You're talking on the phone while walking and bump into someone. You say, "Excuse me," and the person you bumped is satisfied with your apology.
You're driving while reading/. and run over someone in cross walk. You say, "Excuse me," but the person you hit doesn't hear you, because YOU #!$%! KILLED THEM.
diablobynight, surely your mighty multitasking mind can grasp the difference between these situations. It is the risk involved, that makes driving while not paying attention a crime while walking without paying attention is merely rude.
If you're not drunk, you'd be looking at $250 fine. That's it.
Don't think so? Read this and this. About a year a half ago a Sarah K Potts was speeding in a SUV while taking on a cell phone when she plowed into someone's car on interstate 405 in Bellevue. An entire family of four was burned to death because of this woman. Is she where she belongs in the cell next to Charles Manson and other murderers of entire families? No, she got off without even being charged. Nothing. Not a day in jail. Didn't even go to court. All she gets is a bullshit $250 fine.
So if you think laws about reckless or negligent driving will punish those responsible, much less bring the innocent killed back to life, think again.
God damit!! It's not a fucking game, it's your life you're betting.
I could care less if people want to be THEIR lives, it's theirs to bet after all. What piss me off is the asshats who think they are just so damn good at multitasking that they are willing bet MY life that they can drive without looking at the road or having their hands on the wheel.
I'd like to tie them to a post and try to shoot an apple off their head. I'm think I'm a good shot, I probably won't kill them. Their life is a risk I'm willing to take.
Expect that picture isn't of a nozomi train. It looks like a hikari rail star to me. I rode one from Tokyo to Hiroshima, but the fastest it ever went (when I had GPS reception anyway) was 175 mph.
For this purpose we write programs that saves its COMPLETE state periodically. Thus, when an error
occurs or we need to shutdown for some other good reason, we continue crunching from the latest
good saved state forward. That way, the inefficiency is minimal.
The problem is there is no sure way to detect soft memory errors. If a node fails because of a bad fan or powersupply, you can detect that and restart your code. But if a bit gets flipped and changes some floating point value, how can you know? You may save your state every 10 minutes, but the only way to detect a flaw would be to run each 10 minute checkpoint twice and compare results. In the best case, that will reduce your thoughput by half!
As to the bonus question, I won't calculate it exactly, but I can say that it will take more than 2 weeks.
Back in the days of 30 pin SIMMs, you had 8 bit normal memory and 9 bit parity memory. Now in days of 168 pin DIMMs, you have 64 bit normal memory and 72 bit ECC memory. No such thing as 65 bit parity DIMMs, as memory got wider, parity advanced into ECC.
Suppose Apple has this 100 times better memory that will fail every 2 days.
How many times in avarage will they have to run a computation that takes a
week? A month?
Well, in order to answer a question like this you need to use something called the Poisson distribution. A rate of 2 days per error is the same as 3.5 errors per week. The probability of no errors in a week is then 3.02%. The average number of times you will need to try the calculation is then 33.1! And that's just the time to get a single correct answer! If you get 33 different answers, there is no way to know which one is correct!
So now you have the question of how many tries it will take to get two successful runs when the probability of a success is 3.02%. For this one uses a negative binomial distribution. The average number of tries until you get 2 successes is 66.2.
You can see why ECC memory is considered very important. Say their memory is 10,00x better than mine, then the average number of tries to get two successes goes down to 2.83. Divide big mac's GFLOPS by 2.83, and they drop to 16th place on the top 500 list.
How about one hundred thousand times better memory? Probably doesn't exist. The chance of a week long calculation failing is 3.44%. Small enough to not double check the answer? I doubt it.
The lack of ECC is a very good point. I built a small beowulf cluster a few years ago, we had 20 nodes with 1/2 GB of ECC memory each. When running computations 24/7 I would get emails about single bit memory errors from the ECC reporting software I wrote about once a week. That was after I replaced a marginal DIMM that had errors about once a day.
My memory (128MB PC133 DIMMs from crucial, this was several years ago..) had an average of around.01428 errors per day per gigabyte. If bigmac's memory is ten times better than mine, they should see an error on the average of once every 3.82 hours. If their memory is one hundred times better, then the interval would be 1.59 days on the average.
Big mac does NOT have a magic software memory corrector. Such a thing is impossible anyway. Srinidhi Varadarajan said that they may need to run things twice. Well, if they're running stuff twice, doesn't that halve their effective GFLOPS from 10.28 to 5.14?
Obviously window modded hard drives aren't for "real" computers. They're for computers whose sole purpose is to look cool and unique while still working. It's likely the modded drive has nothing but UT or counterstrike on it and that's just mirrored over from a normal drive in a normal computer. Some people have more than one computer you know.
As to why someone would bother, have you ever heard of something called a hobby? Some people like to mod computers. Yes, doing something they don't have to do, what a concept. Some people think watching what a hard drive looks like as it works is pretty cool. When I was a kid and our 65MB RLL drive died, I opened it up and powered it
on to see if it would still spin. Is curiosity gone now days?
What's so bad about having a window modded hard drive fail? I'm sure everyone who has done it realizes the reliability has been severely compromised. Hard drives don't cost $500 anymore, with rebates you can get them for less than $50. If your modded drive fails after 6 months, SO WHAT? Just buy another. It's not the end of the world.
Plutonium is no where near as toxic as caffeine. 10 grams of caffeine is a fatal dose, eating a 10 gram pellet of plutonium is unlikely to have any health effects at all.
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He's talking about Maxtor's 300 GB drive, which is a 5400 RPM model. While there have been 7200 RPM IDE drives for years, the largest Maxtor makes is 250 GB. Maybe Seagate, Western-Digital, or Hitachi make a 300 GB 7200 RPM drive, I don't know.
Seems these misspelling are not that uncommon. Google hits: aureal density 688 aural density 16,300 areal density 70,700 The first hit for areal density is about hard drives, for aural the fist hit is about music, but the second is about hard drives, and for aureal the first is about hard drives and the second is about Aureal's soundcards.
Back in the day of MFM and RLL controllers, the hard drive controller did much of what the drive electronics and firmware do in modern hard drives, that's why you could have MFM or RLL controllers. Hard drives still use RLL encoding today.
You said trucks have to go slower on the freeway because they do more damage and take longer to stop than cars. But a car does more damage and and takes longer to stop than a bicycle, so why doesn't the car have a slower speed limit?
Now you say a person in a car gets to go faster because they can and want to go faster. So what if a truck driver can and wants to go 85mph on the freeway, why can't they? Because it's dangerous? But fast moving cars are dangerous too, in fact, they're the greatest cause of accidental death in this country. How come a truck's danger gives it a lower speed limit, but a car's danger doesn't? How come the driver of car's desire to go faster is more important than the safety of other road users, but a truck driver's isn't?
Traffic signals that gave certain travellers an inferiour use of the public roads didn't exist in the time before cars. And horses didn't have the right of way over pedestrians either, but thanks for trying. And if the white majority of Montgomery Alabama thinks colored folks need to go the back of the bus to make way for them, then that's just democracy too? Sorry, democracy doesn't mean the majority can take away anything they want from the minority. So why are cars allowed to go faster than 30mph when pedestrians are around? Because a person in car is so elevated in status that their convenience is worth more than a someone else's life?Can I go skeet shooting next door to you? A bullet is very dangerous, almost as dangerous as a car, so you'll need to crawl around on the ground to avoid getting hit. People just don't belong in the same space as bullets, so you'll just need to stay out of my way. I'll compromise with you, you can keep living where you are, but you'll have to lie flat on the ground. If you want to move, it can only be done in the few seconds when I'm reloading. Since the consequences are so great for you, and there are none for me, it just makes sense that it should be your job to stay out of my way. Safety is the foundation of my argument, it's safer for you lie on the ground while I'm skeet shooting over your house. Maybe you don't think it's fair. Tough shit.
But what if the court decides that SCO's claims of owning IP rights to Linux are false? In the end is doesn't matter what you or I or Darl McBride thinks, it's what the court decides that matters.
SCO has said they have a claim to some kind of undefined IP in Linux. So maybe they do and maybe they don't actually think they have a real claim. If the court decides they didn't, then haven't they defrauded people just as much as a mentally ill man colecting tolls on the Brooklyn Bridge? Maybe Darl really does think he has "IP" for something in Linux, and maybe Lenny really does think he has "toll rights" to the Brooklyn Bridge. But if these beliefs are false, and they use them to extort money, then isn't that fraud?
Not that much different that was SCO is doing, claiming they have IP rights to Linux and that anyone using Linux needs to pay for a license or face a lawsuit.
How is SCO claiming that they have rights to linux without any proof any different than claiming rights to the Brooklyn Bridge without proof?
It only makes sense if you goal is to make things as easy as possible for people in cars, screwing over everyone else.
Think about what you've said. Doesn't it follow by your logic that cars should have lower speed limits than people? That cars shouldn't get preferential treatment at intersections?Trucks get to use less of the highway because they cause a greater danger, but cars get to use more time at intersections because they cause a greater danger.
Doesn't seem consistent, does it? Seems like the majority is giving everyone else the shaft, and trying to make up excuses about how it's for their own good, when really they're just trying to make things as nice for themselves as possible no matter what is costs anyone else.
I suppose you would have told Rosa Parks that her leet attitude and neo-liberalist viewpoint is[n't] going to help much. Except that her case went to the Supreme Court, who ruled that segregation in transportation is unconstitutional. Of course now we don't discriminate overtly on color, but if you're not in a car you get a street where the lights are always red and your safetly takes a back seat to the convenience of drivers.
Maybe you know this, maybe you don't, but trucks aren't allowed to use the left most lane on a three lane divided highway. They're also given a 65 mph speed limit instead of 75 mph.
But trucks are bigger, aren't they? They take longer to stop and do more damage in a collision. So why is that trucks get the lower speed limit and can't use the left lane, instead of cars?
Do you think that's backward? Shouldn't it be cars that aren't allowed in the left lane so the trucks don't have to slow down? Does your philosophy that the person who chooses the use the largest, most dangerous, least controllable vehicle should get the preferential treatment only apply when it is you with the big end of the stick?
Keeping traffic moving is not they way to keep people alive, and if had read any literature on traffic safety you'd know this. Keeping traffic moving is about maximizing convenience to drivers. It gives you cars moving at high speed with drivers who aren't paying attention to what they are doing. That is what kills people.
And if you think that roundabout is so great, why don't you try crossing it on foot a few times?
Who's fault is it that cars kill people and pedestrians don't? It's the fault of the person who decided they wanted two tons of steel to travel in, isn't it? So you want to reward the person who decided to use the most dangerous means of transportation by making all others subservient to them?
Why have traffic lights at all, why not just have the largest vehicle get the right of way? People in cars should have to stop and look both ways at every intersection, to make sure no trucks are coming! It just makes sense that large trucks should never have to stop, and lights should force cars to wait however long it takes to make sure this happens. I bet you wouldn't go for that, would you?
If your true goal was to keep people alive, instead of maximizing convenience for drivers at the expense of everyone else, you would lower speed limits, eliminate right turn on red, create four way stops, and add time for pedestrians to cross when no turns are allowed.
Consider a simple light that is 30 seconds green and then 30 seconds red. A car that reaches the intersection at second 0 in the cycle, the start of the green, will not have to wait at all. Same for seconds 1 to 29. At second 30, they get the red and have to wait 30 seconds. At second 31 they have to wait 29 seconds, and so on down to second 59 where they only have to wait 1 second for the green. If you calculate it out, the cars have a 50% chance of not waiting at all, an average wait of 7.5 seconds, and a maximum wait of 30 seconds.
A pedestrian arriving at second 0, the start of the green cycle, will have to press the button and wait 60 seconds for the next green cycle, when the pedestrian signal will change to walk. Even though the signal is green for the cars, pedestrians won't get a walk signal when pressing the button. If they arrive at second 1, they have to wait 59 seconds for the next green light, at second 2 they have to wait 58 seconds, and so on down to second 59 when they have to wait 1 second. For pedestrians there is a 0% chance of not having to wait, the average wait is 30 seconds, and the maximum wait is 60 seconds.
That's what adding these signals does. Half the time the people in cars don't have to wait at all, but if you not in a car, you always have to wait at the light. The average time you have to wait is four times as long, and the maximum time is twice as long! A signal like this is just a big "fuck you" to pedestrians.
Cities spend tens of thousands of dollars to stick in a signal like this. Why do they do it, when the signal time stays the same, but pedestrians have to wait four times as long? Because if pedestrains where allowed to cross when they came to a green light, like cars are, then turning cars would have to look for the them and yeild. People in cars hate to have to pay attention to their driving, and would much rather being talking on their cell phone or watching a DVD or fussing with their kids in the back seat. So the light makes pedestrians arriving on the green wait and bunch up to cross at the beginning of the next signal. That way drivers get to pay less attention to their driving!
I'm sure it can be done. I remember when dosemu first added support for VGA graphics in an X11 window. One of the first things I did with it was run duke nukem 3d on it. It ran just fine in a window, and under the console it was faster in dosemu than in native dos.
I went to the campus comp sci lab, and had dn3d remote display on an NCD X terminal from my computer in my dorm room. Only got about 4 fps that way, but it was still pretty amazing. This would be sometime around the 1996.
You're driving while reading /. and run over someone in cross walk. You say, "Excuse me," but the person you hit doesn't hear you, because YOU #!$%! KILLED THEM.
diablobynight, surely your mighty multitasking mind can grasp the difference between these situations. It is the risk involved, that makes driving while not paying attention a crime while walking without paying attention is merely rude.
So if you think laws about reckless or negligent driving will punish those responsible, much less bring the innocent killed back to life, think again.
I'd like to tie them to a post and try to shoot an apple off their head. I'm think I'm a good shot, I probably won't kill them. Their life is a risk I'm willing to take.
Expect that picture isn't of a nozomi train. It looks like a hikari rail star to me. I rode one from Tokyo to Hiroshima, but the fastest it ever went (when I had GPS reception anyway) was 175 mph.
As to the bonus question, I won't calculate it exactly, but I can say that it will take more than 2 weeks.
Back in the days of 30 pin SIMMs, you had 8 bit normal memory and 9 bit parity memory. Now in days of 168 pin DIMMs, you have 64 bit normal memory and 72 bit ECC memory. No such thing as 65 bit parity DIMMs, as memory got wider, parity advanced into ECC.
So now you have the question of how many tries it will take to get two successful runs when the probability of a success is 3.02%. For this one uses a negative binomial distribution. The average number of tries until you get 2 successes is 66.2.
You can see why ECC memory is considered very important. Say their memory is 10,00x better than mine, then the average number of tries to get two successes goes down to 2.83. Divide big mac's GFLOPS by 2.83, and they drop to 16th place on the top 500 list.
How about one hundred thousand times better memory? Probably doesn't exist. The chance of a week long calculation failing is 3.44%. Small enough to not double check the answer? I doubt it.
My memory (128MB PC133 DIMMs from crucial, this was several years ago..) had an average of around .01428 errors per day per gigabyte. If bigmac's memory is ten times better than mine, they should see an error on the average of once every 3.82 hours. If their memory is one hundred times better, then the interval would be 1.59 days on the average.
Big mac does NOT have a magic software memory corrector. Such a thing is impossible anyway. Srinidhi Varadarajan said that they may need to run things twice. Well, if they're running stuff twice, doesn't that halve their effective GFLOPS from 10.28 to 5.14?
As to why someone would bother, have you ever heard of something called a hobby? Some people like to mod computers. Yes, doing something they don't have to do, what a concept. Some people think watching what a hard drive looks like as it works is pretty cool. When I was a kid and our 65MB RLL drive died, I opened it up and powered it on to see if it would still spin. Is curiosity gone now days?
What's so bad about having a window modded hard drive fail? I'm sure everyone who has done it realizes the reliability has been severely compromised. Hard drives don't cost $500 anymore, with rebates you can get them for less than $50. If your modded drive fails after 6 months, SO WHAT? Just buy another. It's not the end of the world.
Plutonium is no where near as toxic as caffeine. 10 grams of caffeine is a fatal dose, eating a 10 gram pellet of plutonium is unlikely to have any health effects at all.