This is an expected and predicted fallout from the recent rise in popularity of beowulf clusters. Slowly but surely managers are realizing, yes, it is possible to have a supercomputer on mass-market hardware, running a free OS.
Don't see this as bad news... it's a sign that we're winning.
Not necessarily. There are plenty of computational problems that, so far, do not lend themselves well to parallelized solutons.
The point of this post and the linked article is that the hype about Beowulf and similar cheap, cluster-based technology has caused mainstream technologists to overlook the need for traditional supercomputers like the Crays.
That indeed is bad news and a sign that computer science in general, while not necessarily losing, is not winning.
How many people will endure the hassle of warranty repair on a 3-5 year old hard drive, when they can pick up something significantly bigger and faster?
First of all, they might replace your 5 year old drive with the latest model that's substantially faster and larger. So the warranty repair might be worth the trouble.
Second, there are some situations where you want a replacement drive that is identical to the original, e.g. RAID.
I had to do it. Someone using a Microsoft browser might go nuts.
Aaah, you have inadvertently become the paragon of one of the most annoying traits of the typical geek: a compulsive need to correct the trivial mistakes of others!:-)
Re:Just an advertising ploy (shock sometimes works
on
Just Add, Umm, Water
·
· Score: 1
This is just an attention (advertising) ploy. Sure, you could use urine, but it would be stupid to do so, since the salt and urea in urine would increase dehydration.
To the chem geeks out there, a question for you: Is there some chemical we can add to our urine to take out the urea and salt? There must be something that would cause it to turn into a precipitate or something, no?
Umm... No. It's not eye muscles getting weaker, it's the lens getting less pliable.
Perhaps the lens does indeed become less pliable, but muscle weakening due to age is definitely the primary factor in age-related far-sightedness. This muscle weakening is part of the general loss of muscle-mass associated with declining levels of growth hormone -- a process that is well-documented as reversible by administering human growth hormone supplements.
I saw this post, and thought "Great, I've been wondering about this for a while". But on reading the comments, I am realizing that dozens of anecdotes (both for and against) don't really help me decide the matter. A google search will
What we really need is some pointers to objective, peer-reviewed quantitative research that lists the major complications and their incidence rate. Can anyone on Slashdot please provide such a reference?
[thesis that the advantage of the two-legged walk for people is that it is lower-energy ]
Care to back that up? Last time I heard there was no consensus amongst investigators on how we ended up walking upright entirely.
Just because there's no consensus on how it came to be does not negate that it is advantageous. That the upright body position allowed by bipedal locomotion is more efficient should be fairly obvious. Your torso rests stationary on a vertical spinal column -- minimal muscle effort is necessary to maintain balance and posture, rather than support your mass against gravity. This doesn't hold true at all for a horizontal body position supported by four limbs.
Who the hell edited the hed? Get this straight: "gracefully" losing would involve Hawking doing pirouettes and somersaults in his electric wheelchair whilst wearing a pink tutu. I believe the word we're looking for is "graciously"!
I'm usually not a language-nazi but, sorry, in this case the conflation projects an unforgivably ridiculous image!
Well, by those definitions anything could be a sport/game. Toenail clipping. Deck sanding. Dwarf throwing.
The real issue is what sports/games are likely to be popular in the mainstream. Sorry, but I doubt that math will be one of them -- mostly because it is so esoteric.
Oddpost was pretty cool, a recap of its highlights... 1) not a lick of advertising - Not any more 2) accessible via POP & IMAP - Not any more 3) send & receive large attachments - Not any more 4) staggeringly effective spam filtering - Not any more
Oddpost was a pay service. #1, #2 and #3 were available from Yahoo's premium (pay) service. #4 is available for free. I fail to see, at least with the features you named, how Oddpost will be any lesser of a service under Yahoo! ownership.
How would you feel if you crashed and burned that poor B-52? I bet they have their best damn RC pilot at the helm when they fly that beast.
I would guess that a model like that would be easier to fly than most smaller ones, precisely because its heft lends it stability (especially in windy conditions). Plus you wouldn't be hotdogging the B-52 the way you would with acrobatic models. So while the consequences of a crash are much greater, the likelihood of it occurring is lower.
And with eight turbines (which are much more reliable, once running, than piston engines) going, the likelihood of catastrophic power loss is almost nil.
As a 48 yo grandmother, I am offended that technical incompetance is equated with being a grandparent. I don't think anyone would have said "so simple even my grandfather could implement." I am incidentally, a C programmer of 20+ years.
Are you offended because you categorically dislike generalizations, or because you disagree with the validity of this particular generalization? If the former, I'd say you've got some emotional issues to deal with. If the latter, you need a bit of a reality check. There are exceptions to every rule, but the exceptions don't necessarily negate the rule.
After a lot of hand-wringing and head scratching we concluded that the reason they are stealing is because they feel that at $6 an hour, the company is stealing from them.
I've lost my card on a number of occasions (usually only to find it later hidden in the depths of my wallet) and they *always* prove that you are who you say you are.
I wonder if this reflects national differences. I also travel a lot, but mainly in Europe, Asia and Canada. Honestly, I cannot remember a single occasion where I had to show identification to get another keycard.
Maybe it's also because I tend to stay in snooty, high-end hotels where the consequences of staff offending the guests are higher.
Social engineering isn't rocket science -- it boils down to exploiting the trust that exists between people. Smart-alec geeks and slashdotters seem to take pleasure in pointing out how stupid victims of social engineering are. Granted, many social engineering schemes are successful due to mere ignorance. But is it inherently stupid to trust people? Here's the problem: there are costs and benefits to an environment in which people don't trust each other.
Yes, this Israel fellow demonstrated very well what happens when people trust each other too much, but what happens when you take it to the other extreme? You end up with stories about like Walmart where employees are locked in to prevent theft and can't call an ambulance when the forklift rolls on them. Some might think that it's worth compromising on a theft rate of, say.5% if it means being free of stifling bureacracy and draconian security. Given that, trusting each other is a choice we make because the risks it entails is, on the balance, worthwhile.
That's why, for example, hotels generally don't ask you to show ID when you claim you've lost your room key. If they did, they'd suffer more lost business than the cost of insuring against the occasional theft of a guest's belongings.
I lived in england a few years ago when the system changed in all the stores. I almost didn't notice it happen. Same with the euro conversion in the Netherlands. It was fun for a few days then noone thought about it anymore.
Some changes go smoothly because changing isn't actually a big deal. Other changes go smoothly because society at large realized that it wasn't a big deal and so put a hell of a lot of effort into preparing for the change. That's the case with the Euro switchover and UK going metric. I'd hardly describe the process as "painless".
The superiority of Fahrenheit makes them jealous. How is it superior? Resolution....
So it's 33 degrees Fahrenheit outside this morning... that's 0.555555555555-> degrees Celcius. By noon, it gets up to a whopping 40 degrees Fahrenheit. That's an oh-so-easy-to-calculate 4.44444444444-> degrees Celcius.
You gotta be fuckin' kidding me. Do you really care about the numbers after the decimal point? Do you really need a factor of 2 advantage in resolution?
Here's the temperature scale that for all intents and purposes the rest of the human race goes by: T-shirt weather, sweat-shirt weather, wool sweater weather and down-jacket weather (add waterproofing as desired). Unless you're a real wimp, a precision of +/- 5C (10F) enough to decide what to wear.
AEGIS or no AEGIS, defence against over-the-horizon anti-ship-missile attacks is nearly impossible. And the next generation of missiles is even deadlier.
On a side note, the Baja Beach chain of clubs is by far the most fun I've ever been to. Mind you I went to the ones in the Netherlands, but I'm pretty sure they're all built around the same model.
Basically, the theme inside the club is that it's a beach resort. Fake palm trees, fake sand, etc. And the best part? The hosts and hostesses are all super-buff hotties wearing thongs. There's plenty of beefcake for the women and hot flesh for the men -- they literally walk around with only dental floss covering their bodies, selling you drinks on the dance floor. If you're willing to fork over extra money, you get a "body shot" where you drink your drink off the body of the hostess -- although that part grosses me out when you consider who else has licked there. And about every 15 minutes the hosts and hostesses get up on top of the tables and alternate between a male and a female striptease!
How many times do you do stupid things in pictures that you wouldn't normally do? When someone points the camera at you and you make a stupid face--would you make the stupid face at that person if they weren't taking the picture?
Hmm, interesting theory. I wonder if I could walk around on the street and get random girls to flash their boobs for me just 'coz I have a TV camera. I could sell the videos over the 'net or something. Oh, wait...
If this is deliberate irony, then it has truly been well executed.
Why is this news?
on
Robosaurus
·
· Score: 4, Redundant
Why is this being posted to Slashdot? The Robosaurus has been making the rounds at monster truck rallies for a few years now. It was even featured in one of the final scenes of the movie Waking Up in Reno. It's not even very interesting -- just a big crane made to look like a dinosaur.
Slashdot Mirror
This is an expected and predicted fallout from the recent rise in popularity of beowulf clusters. Slowly but surely managers are realizing, yes, it is possible to have a supercomputer on mass-market hardware, running a free OS.
Don't see this as bad news... it's a sign that we're winning.
Not necessarily. There are plenty of computational problems that, so far, do not lend themselves well to parallelized solutons.
The point of this post and the linked article is that the hype about Beowulf and similar cheap, cluster-based technology has caused mainstream technologists to overlook the need for traditional supercomputers like the Crays.
That indeed is bad news and a sign that computer science in general, while not necessarily losing, is not winning.
How many people will endure the hassle of warranty repair on a 3-5 year old hard drive, when they can pick up something significantly bigger and faster?
First of all, they might replace your 5 year old drive with the latest model that's substantially faster and larger. So the warranty repair might be worth the trouble.
Second, there are some situations where you want a replacement drive that is identical to the original, e.g. RAID.
I had to do it. Someone using a Microsoft browser might go nuts.
:-)
Aaah, you have inadvertently become the paragon of one of the most annoying traits of the typical geek: a compulsive need to correct the trivial mistakes of others!
This is just an attention (advertising) ploy. Sure, you could use urine, but it would be stupid to do so, since the salt and urea in urine would increase dehydration.
To the chem geeks out there, a question for you: Is there some chemical we can add to our urine to take out the urea and salt? There must be something that would cause it to turn into a precipitate or something, no?
Umm... No. It's not eye muscles getting weaker, it's the lens getting less pliable.
Perhaps the lens does indeed become less pliable, but muscle weakening due to age is definitely the primary factor in age-related far-sightedness. This muscle weakening is part of the general loss of muscle-mass associated with declining levels of growth hormone -- a process that is well-documented as reversible by administering human growth hormone supplements.
I saw this post, and thought "Great, I've been wondering about this for a while". But on reading the comments, I am realizing that dozens of anecdotes (both for and against) don't really help me decide the matter. A google search will
What we really need is some pointers to objective, peer-reviewed quantitative research that lists the major complications and their incidence rate. Can anyone on Slashdot please provide such a reference?
[thesis that the advantage of the two-legged walk for people is that it is lower-energy ]
Care to back that up? Last time I heard there was no consensus amongst investigators on how we ended up walking upright entirely.
Just because there's no consensus on how it came to be does not negate that it is advantageous. That the upright body position allowed by bipedal locomotion is more efficient should be fairly obvious. Your torso rests stationary on a vertical spinal column -- minimal muscle effort is necessary to maintain balance and posture, rather than support your mass against gravity. This doesn't hold true at all for a horizontal body position supported by four limbs.
Who the hell edited the hed? Get this straight: "gracefully" losing would involve Hawking doing pirouettes and somersaults in his electric wheelchair whilst wearing a pink tutu. I believe the word we're looking for is "graciously"!
I'm usually not a language-nazi but, sorry, in this case the conflation projects an unforgivably ridiculous image!
Well, by those definitions anything could be a sport/game. Toenail clipping. Deck sanding. Dwarf throwing.
The real issue is what sports/games are likely to be popular in the mainstream. Sorry, but I doubt that math will be one of them -- mostly because it is so esoteric.
Oddpost was pretty cool, a recap of its highlights...
1) not a lick of advertising - Not any more
2) accessible via POP & IMAP - Not any more
3) send & receive large attachments - Not any more
4) staggeringly effective spam filtering - Not any more
Oddpost was a pay service. #1, #2 and #3 were available from Yahoo's premium (pay) service. #4 is available for free. I fail to see, at least with the features you named, how Oddpost will be any lesser of a service under Yahoo! ownership.
How would you feel if you crashed and burned that poor B-52? I bet they have their best damn RC pilot at the helm when they fly that beast.
I would guess that a model like that would be easier to fly than most smaller ones, precisely because its heft lends it stability (especially in windy conditions). Plus you wouldn't be hotdogging the B-52 the way you would with acrobatic models. So while the consequences of a crash are much greater, the likelihood of it occurring is lower.
And with eight turbines (which are much more reliable, once running, than piston engines) going, the likelihood of catastrophic power loss is almost nil.
It looks like 'Enterprise' might be moved to Fridays next year.
Perfect. Finally geeks can claim with some credibility that they've got a reason for staying in on a Friday night.
Costco also has annoying people by the door who check receipts for merchandise.
Which does absolutely nothing to stop social engineering -- the topic of this discussing.
As a 48 yo grandmother, I am offended that technical incompetance is equated with being a grandparent. I don't think anyone would have said "so simple even my grandfather could implement." I am incidentally, a C programmer of 20+ years.
Are you offended because you categorically dislike generalizations, or because you disagree with the validity of this particular generalization? If the former, I'd say you've got some emotional issues to deal with. If the latter, you need a bit of a reality check. There are exceptions to every rule, but the exceptions don't necessarily negate the rule.
After a lot of hand-wringing and head scratching we concluded that the reason they are stealing is because they feel that at $6 an hour, the company is stealing from them.
Time to revisit this Fortune Magazine article again.
Synopsis: Costco suffers much less stock shrinkage than Walmart because it pays its employees well and treats them nicely.
I've lost my card on a number of occasions (usually only to find it later hidden in the depths of my wallet) and they *always* prove that you are who you say you are.
I wonder if this reflects national differences. I also travel a lot, but mainly in Europe, Asia and Canada. Honestly, I cannot remember a single occasion where I had to show identification to get another keycard.
Maybe it's also because I tend to stay in snooty, high-end hotels where the consequences of staff offending the guests are higher.
Social engineering isn't rocket science -- it boils down to exploiting the trust that exists between people. Smart-alec geeks and slashdotters seem to take pleasure in pointing out how stupid victims of social engineering are. Granted, many social engineering schemes are successful due to mere ignorance. But is it inherently stupid to trust people? Here's the problem: there are costs and benefits to an environment in which people don't trust each other.
.5% if it means being free of stifling bureacracy and draconian security. Given that, trusting each other is a choice we make because the risks it entails is, on the balance, worthwhile.
Yes, this Israel fellow demonstrated very well what happens when people trust each other too much, but what happens when you take it to the other extreme? You end up with stories about like Walmart where employees are locked in to prevent theft and can't call an ambulance when the forklift rolls on them. Some might think that it's worth compromising on a theft rate of, say
That's why, for example, hotels generally don't ask you to show ID when you claim you've lost your room key. If they did, they'd suffer more lost business than the cost of insuring against the occasional theft of a guest's belongings.
Everything is a compromise.
I lived in england a few years ago when the system changed in all the stores. I almost didn't notice it happen. Same with the euro conversion in the Netherlands. It was fun for a few days then noone thought about it anymore.
Some changes go smoothly because changing isn't actually a big deal. Other changes go smoothly because society at large realized that it wasn't a big deal and so put a hell of a lot of effort into preparing for the change. That's the case with the Euro switchover and UK going metric. I'd hardly describe the process as "painless".
The superiority of Fahrenheit makes them jealous. How is it superior? Resolution. ...
So it's 33 degrees Fahrenheit outside this morning... that's 0.555555555555-> degrees Celcius. By noon, it gets up to a whopping 40 degrees Fahrenheit. That's an oh-so-easy-to-calculate 4.44444444444-> degrees Celcius.
You gotta be fuckin' kidding me. Do you really care about the numbers after the decimal point? Do you really need a factor of 2 advantage in resolution?
Here's the temperature scale that for all intents and purposes the rest of the human race goes by: T-shirt weather, sweat-shirt weather, wool sweater weather and down-jacket weather (add waterproofing as desired). Unless you're a real wimp, a precision of +/- 5C (10F) enough to decide what to wear.
'It took Adam Arkin and David Schaffer just $200,000 and a grad student...
Let me guess: the grad student came up with the idea and did all the work, and the supervisors took the credit? Par for the course, I'd say.
Your theory fails to take into account surface to air missiles. I'd like to see your airplanes vs. an AEGIS cruiser.
One word: Exocet.
AEGIS or no AEGIS, defence against over-the-horizon anti-ship-missile attacks is nearly impossible. And the next generation of missiles is even deadlier.
On a side note, the Baja Beach chain of clubs is by far the most fun I've ever been to. Mind you I went to the ones in the Netherlands, but I'm pretty sure they're all built around the same model.
Basically, the theme inside the club is that it's a beach resort. Fake palm trees, fake sand, etc. And the best part? The hosts and hostesses are all super-buff hotties wearing thongs. There's plenty of beefcake for the women and hot flesh for the men -- they literally walk around with only dental floss covering their bodies, selling you drinks on the dance floor. If you're willing to fork over extra money, you get a "body shot" where you drink your drink off the body of the hostess -- although that part grosses me out when you consider who else has licked there. And about every 15 minutes the hosts and hostesses get up on top of the tables and alternate between a male and a female striptease!
What else could a young, horny lad ask for?
How many times do you do stupid things in pictures that you wouldn't normally do? When someone points the camera at you and you make a stupid face--would you make the stupid face at that person if they weren't taking the picture?
Hmm, interesting theory. I wonder if I could walk around on the street and get random girls to flash their boobs for me just 'coz I have a TV camera. I could sell the videos over the 'net or something. Oh, wait...
If this is deliberate irony, then it has truly been well executed.
Why is this being posted to Slashdot? The Robosaurus has been making the rounds at monster truck rallies for a few years now. It was even featured in one of the final scenes of the movie Waking Up in Reno. It's not even very interesting -- just a big crane made to look like a dinosaur.