Not to be pedantic, but I think you're focusing on the wrong thing here. If you're going to build a 50,000 node supercomputer, I'm pretty sure you're not going to let yourself be limited by ethernet cables. I imagine they'd use some sort of fiber network.
The better question is why do you need to simulate a brain in real time? I mean, if you can make something magical happen with a million cores in real time, why can't you just use the plain old Internet and make it happen with a million cores in 1/100th or 1/1000th real time?
It may be a little misleading, but it is common to do this in astronomy. We take "invisible" waves and frequency shift them to ranges where we can visualize them as pretty pictures. Radio astronomy does the same thing, but with one dimensional signals; they just also use a transducer to convert them to mechanical waves, because our minds find it useful to hear one dimensional signals, rather than just look at plots of them.
I used to study VLF waves produced by lightning on earth, and we would often play signals out through speakers to help us understand their nature. This is the reason that whistlers are called whistlers, and not something lame like "dynamic frequency lightning produced electromagnetic waves"
Yeah they used some weird transcoder. mp3check doesn't even recognize it as an audo mpeg stream. They also upsampled their 4khz.wav file into an 8khz mp3. Don't worry though, I'm sure audiophiles can hear the difference =p
Well, if they are receiving EM waves caused by lightning, it would probably cause a pressure wave similar in nature to "thunder". It would be difficult to say what it would sound like at one particular location, since I imagine their recording is a superposition of all the electrical activity coming from a large region of the storm. I also imagine the sound would vary greatly based on altitude (due to different atmospheric pressures). On the other hand I don't think (but I'm not entirely sure) that what you hear is dependent on the gas transmitting the pressure wave, so I don't see why lightning on Saturn would sound any different than lightning on Earth.
There are no sounds in space, because there is nothing to support it.
That's not entirely true. More accurately, there's just *very little* sound in space. Also, you would definitely hear it if a large spacecraft full of gas exploded next to you, even in a perfect vacuum. All that gas and energy is going to expand outwards in a significant pressure wave. Sure, it will die out much faster then it would on Earth, but it certainly is not going to be silent to an appropriately positioned observer.
Lasers going pew pew in space, now THAT is ridiculous =p
While you may be right historically (I don't know either way, nor do I care to research it since it's just semantics), Qt refers to a "drop-down list" as a combo-box because it is both a list and a button (when you select something, it triggers a clicked() callback). I wasn't aware that a combo-box also refers to something like a modern browser's URL bar.
This telescope can directly image objects 1000 km across at the center of the galaxy.
Well, maybe, but that's assuming said object is really luminous. Sure, you can get 1000km resolution on a star, but it does you no good to have 1000km resolution on an exoplanet if the number of photons reaching you from the exoplanet are less than your noise floor. I could be wrong, but I don't think this resolution is *quite* as exciting as it sounds... unless of course you attach it to some wide aperture high quality optics.
Yikes... that's pretty scary. On the other hand, at least they don't try to hide their censorship... they smack you in the face with it and if you don't like it, too damn bad.
Many programmers in China are very badly trained because they have only used Windoz. They know how push buttons and drag and drop to make software. Some have no idea how to really write code.
I think the problem is really that China is pushing far too many people into the fields of engineering and computer science. They don't have the educational infrastructure in place (thanks in large part to the Cultural Revolution) to support educating the amount of engineers and programmers they are producing. As such, quality suffers. They are trying to solve the problem by sending massive numbers of students abroad (and then bringing them back once they graduate), but if they're not careful the problem could become perpetual (bad programmers teaching students to program), resulting in poor quality for generations to come.
Why does the education system rely on overpriced commercial literature at all? Why doesnt it work to hire 1-2 experts per subject and let them write for hire definitive textbooks for the particular subject which then could be used without any royalties for years and decades by thousands of students?
I like the idea and all, but if they could do this, they probably would. The good textbook writers wouldn't sign a deal to write a textbook for you unless they got some royalties though. Then if you want printed copies, you need to get a publisher to print them for you... so you're back where you started anyways.
It might be feasible once everything is electronic, but it would basically just be a way of cutting out the publisher, since good authors are still going to want royalties.
While Academia does churn through a lot of paper, in my experience they are also very good at recycling it.
Not to mention that while it may seem like a lot, I bet business goes through significantly more. This is because the majority of pages printed/used in academia are actually read by someone (putting a limit on the number of pages used, since we can only read/write so fast). In business vast quantities of pages are printed that are read by someone once, then printed and used over and over again without reading (contracts or other forms for instance).
I find it hard to believe that "there isn't much profit in many of them to start with", when I have to pay $90 - $125 for a textbook. If there isn't much profit it's because they're using antiquated printing processes that require large runs to be profitable. Even given that, at $125, I have no pity for you if you can't turn a hefty profit.
It's straightforward if you have a simplistic view of how economics works... Obviously they are not literally handing them cash along with the software, as Google and others do.
The part where they take a hit to their balance sheet for offering the software at reduced price to PC makers. If they offered the software at below cost to the PC makers, would you then agree that they are "paying" them to install the software?
What's so hard to understand? It's not the PC maker that's paying for Windows, it's the person buying the PC.
But looking at it another way, in some sense Microsoft does 'pay' to get Windows installed by PC makers, because they offer OEM versions of Windows to them at a significantly reduced cost.
I knew that it was going to cost me that much. I just needed to use the phone. The real problem isn't that people don't know about the cost, it's that people have no choice in the matter. Somehow the cell phone companies are in collusion to maintain the roaming charges ridiculously high. I really don't understand how the free market hasn't solved this yet.
I always wondered why Chinese people couldn't just use satellites to get around the firewall, or to at least receive broadcasts. It amazes me that they're just plain illegal. I can't even imagine living in a country where the government has such a great need to control your thoughts, that they tell you that you can't even listen to what anyone from outside your country might be saying.
My provider (Simyo) just created new EU roaming plans because of the legislation. I can now get 50 min for 4.99EU and 50MB for 4.99EU, useable in any EU country. While still not particularly cheap, that's really not bad at all. 150MB is more then enough to check maps and email over the course of my upcoming three week vacation, so I won't even hesitate.
Not to mention, they have a server side roaming data cap which is opt-out (thats right, by default it is ON) set to 59euros.
After my experiences with AT&T in the US, I can't even begin to express how pleased I am with this change. Two years ago I took a summer trip to Europe from the US and brought my iPhone... They wanted something ridiculous like $200 for 50MB. Over the course of two weeks I made about 100 minutes of phone calls and used 10MB of data, and came home to a $900 bill.
I'm so glad I jailbroke the phone, moved to Germany, and now get to benefit from reasonable consumer protection legislation...
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The better question is why do you need to simulate a brain in real time? I mean, if you can make something magical happen with a million cores in real time, why can't you just use the plain old Internet and make it happen with a million cores in 1/100th or 1/1000th real time?
The transducers are on your desk, and in your ears, not in space.
I used to study VLF waves produced by lightning on earth, and we would often play signals out through speakers to help us understand their nature. This is the reason that whistlers are called whistlers, and not something lame like "dynamic frequency lightning produced electromagnetic waves"
Yeah they used some weird transcoder. mp3check doesn't even recognize it as an audo mpeg stream. They also upsampled their 4khz .wav file into an 8khz mp3. Don't worry though, I'm sure audiophiles can hear the difference =p
Well, if they are receiving EM waves caused by lightning, it would probably cause a pressure wave similar in nature to "thunder". It would be difficult to say what it would sound like at one particular location, since I imagine their recording is a superposition of all the electrical activity coming from a large region of the storm. I also imagine the sound would vary greatly based on altitude (due to different atmospheric pressures). On the other hand I don't think (but I'm not entirely sure) that what you hear is dependent on the gas transmitting the pressure wave, so I don't see why lightning on Saturn would sound any different than lightning on Earth.
I know you're only trying to help, but they're only misleading if you don't understand what a transducer is.
There are no sounds in space, because there is nothing to support it.
That's not entirely true. More accurately, there's just *very little* sound in space. Also, you would definitely hear it if a large spacecraft full of gas exploded next to you, even in a perfect vacuum. All that gas and energy is going to expand outwards in a significant pressure wave. Sure, it will die out much faster then it would on Earth, but it certainly is not going to be silent to an appropriately positioned observer.
Lasers going pew pew in space, now THAT is ridiculous =p
I take that back... I forgot you can edit Qt's combo-boxes... so you're totally right. My bad.
While you may be right historically (I don't know either way, nor do I care to research it since it's just semantics), Qt refers to a "drop-down list" as a combo-box because it is both a list and a button (when you select something, it triggers a clicked() callback). I wasn't aware that a combo-box also refers to something like a modern browser's URL bar.
A drop down list is a combo box, according to Qt in any case.
This telescope can directly image objects 1000 km across at the center of the galaxy.
Well, maybe, but that's assuming said object is really luminous. Sure, you can get 1000km resolution on a star, but it does you no good to have 1000km resolution on an exoplanet if the number of photons reaching you from the exoplanet are less than your noise floor. I could be wrong, but I don't think this resolution is *quite* as exciting as it sounds... unless of course you attach it to some wide aperture high quality optics.
Yikes... that's pretty scary. On the other hand, at least they don't try to hide their censorship... they smack you in the face with it and if you don't like it, too damn bad.
Many programmers in China are very badly trained because they have only used Windoz. They know how push buttons and drag and drop to make software. Some have no idea how to really write code.
I think the problem is really that China is pushing far too many people into the fields of engineering and computer science. They don't have the educational infrastructure in place (thanks in large part to the Cultural Revolution) to support educating the amount of engineers and programmers they are producing. As such, quality suffers. They are trying to solve the problem by sending massive numbers of students abroad (and then bringing them back once they graduate), but if they're not careful the problem could become perpetual (bad programmers teaching students to program), resulting in poor quality for generations to come.
You're right of course, but it seems unlikely that anyone would offer you $n up front.
Why does the education system rely on overpriced commercial literature at all? Why doesnt it work to hire 1-2 experts per subject and let them write for hire definitive textbooks for the particular subject which then could be used without any royalties for years and decades by thousands of students?
I like the idea and all, but if they could do this, they probably would. The good textbook writers wouldn't sign a deal to write a textbook for you unless they got some royalties though. Then if you want printed copies, you need to get a publisher to print them for you... so you're back where you started anyways.
It might be feasible once everything is electronic, but it would basically just be a way of cutting out the publisher, since good authors are still going to want royalties.
Not to mention that while it may seem like a lot, I bet business goes through significantly more. This is because the majority of pages printed/used in academia are actually read by someone (putting a limit on the number of pages used, since we can only read/write so fast). In business vast quantities of pages are printed that are read by someone once, then printed and used over and over again without reading (contracts or other forms for instance).
I find it hard to believe that "there isn't much profit in many of them to start with", when I have to pay $90 - $125 for a textbook. If there isn't much profit it's because they're using antiquated printing processes that require large runs to be profitable. Even given that, at $125, I have no pity for you if you can't turn a hefty profit.
It's straightforward if you have a simplistic view of how economics works... Obviously they are not literally handing them cash along with the software, as Google and others do.
The part where they take a hit to their balance sheet for offering the software at reduced price to PC makers. If they offered the software at below cost to the PC makers, would you then agree that they are "paying" them to install the software?
But looking at it another way, in some sense Microsoft does 'pay' to get Windows installed by PC makers, because they offer OEM versions of Windows to them at a significantly reduced cost.
No, the consumer pays to install Windows. The PC manufacturer gets a commission on that.
I knew that it was going to cost me that much. I just needed to use the phone. The real problem isn't that people don't know about the cost, it's that people have no choice in the matter. Somehow the cell phone companies are in collusion to maintain the roaming charges ridiculously high. I really don't understand how the free market hasn't solved this yet.
I always wondered why Chinese people couldn't just use satellites to get around the firewall, or to at least receive broadcasts. It amazes me that they're just plain illegal. I can't even imagine living in a country where the government has such a great need to control your thoughts, that they tell you that you can't even listen to what anyone from outside your country might be saying.
Not to mention, they have a server side roaming data cap which is opt-out (thats right, by default it is ON) set to 59euros.
After my experiences with AT&T in the US, I can't even begin to express how pleased I am with this change. Two years ago I took a summer trip to Europe from the US and brought my iPhone... They wanted something ridiculous like $200 for 50MB. Over the course of two weeks I made about 100 minutes of phone calls and used 10MB of data, and came home to a $900 bill.
I'm so glad I jailbroke the phone, moved to Germany, and now get to benefit from reasonable consumer protection legislation...
And you can really get (un)limited mobile data for 10 pounds a year? That's amazing.