Another thing that is impressive about Eka is that it was built for just $30 million. This is, according to the Eka architects, significantly lower than the costs of the other computers that are in this league.
> I really want to know more about this interconnect architecture.
Actually I had the same question myself. The talk itself did not go into the details of the interconnect architecture (other than to point out its advantages). I have sent an e-mail to the architect of Eka asking for these details. Should hopefully get some references from him. (In which case I'll post it as an update to TFA.)
In any case, the presentation was targeted towards a general tech audience (i.e. people who don't really have a background in HPC/supercomputing/MPP.) I think the intention was to give people a feel for the challenges involved, without going into the gory details.
However, there are a number of problems due to which a company would be reluctant to ship to any random country:
1) Local laws: the laws in each country could be different. Its too much work to figure out whether you are satisfying all the local laws, before you can ship there.
2) Fraud: as someone else pointed out above, chances of credit card fraud are much higher. Here in India, we don't really have anything akin to the US social security number (nothing that works, anyway). So lots of people just stop paying bills (credit card, cell-phone, personal loan) before they move to a different city. And there's not much that can be done about it. If this is a problem a local company faces, imagine what would happen to a company that doesn't even have an office here.
3) Lost in the mail: Often, items shipped internationally get lost somewhere en-route and never reach the recipient. If it is not stolen or damaged along the way, it might get stuck in customs clearance. Sending it through a reliable channel like Fedex cost a godawful lot of money. And often, customers are going to blame the company if the goods don't reach.
4) Lack of interest: with all the above problems, it is rare that there is an item that is not available locally and easily, but at the same time is popular enough to justify going through all the trouble.
Slashdot Mirror
Wait.
Isn't the syntactically correct way of saying this:
Chuck Norris does not get a PC virus. PCs get a Chuck Norris virus.
Another thing that is impressive about Eka is that it was built for just $30 million. This is, according to the Eka architects, significantly lower than the costs of the other computers that are in this league.
> I really want to know more about this interconnect architecture.
Actually I had the same question myself. The talk itself did not go into the details of the interconnect architecture (other than to point out its advantages). I have sent an e-mail to the architect of Eka asking for these details. Should hopefully get some references from him. (In which case I'll post it as an update to TFA.)
In any case, the presentation was targeted towards a general tech audience (i.e. people who don't really have a background in HPC/supercomputing/MPP.) I think the intention was to give people a feel for the challenges involved, without going into the gory details.
I live in India, so I can feel the OP's pain.
However, there are a number of problems due to which a company would be reluctant to ship to any random country:
1) Local laws: the laws in each country could be different. Its too much work to figure out whether you are satisfying all the local laws, before you can ship there.
2) Fraud: as someone else pointed out above, chances of credit card fraud are much higher.
Here in India, we don't really have anything akin to the US social security number (nothing that works, anyway). So lots of people just stop paying bills (credit card, cell-phone, personal loan) before they move to a different city. And there's not much that can be done about it.
If this is a problem a local company faces, imagine what would happen to a company that doesn't even have an office here.
3) Lost in the mail: Often, items shipped internationally get lost somewhere en-route and never reach the recipient. If it is not stolen or damaged along the way, it might get stuck in customs clearance. Sending it through a reliable channel like Fedex cost a godawful lot of money.
And often, customers are going to blame the company if the goods don't reach.
4) Lack of interest: with all the above problems, it is rare that there is an item that is not available locally and easily, but at the same time is popular enough to justify going through all the trouble.
navin.
Or is it "To boldly go where no Linux geek has come before?
5. ???
6. Profit.
I don't know what the slashdot editors are on today. This has already been covered here and here and here.
Wait a minute. Do those funny little numbers after the name actually mean something? Oh well, nevermind.
I am just waiting for somebody to use him for a case-mod...