About 16 years ago there was a large computer at my university. It was replaced by a more powerful computer. The large computer was the size of a refrigerator but the new machine consisted of two tower cases you can put on a desk. Suddenly the room looked so empty.
You can tell the university wasn't the richest because it didn't replace the old machine with one of comparable size.
A couple years later someone got an 8-processor SGI machine that was the size of the fridge. I looked inside. The processors took a bit of space in the centre. There was some space used for disk, but over 70% of the volume in the case was completely air - not even cables or anything. So what does size really mean?
5.7 TFlops in less than a square metre coming to a store near you, an IBM Blue Gene. If these start appearing at Wal Mart, it's time to redefine supercomputer.
I do not understand the logic. The science prof. skews the experiment by dressing like a hobo. It makes no sense. I don't foresee store clerks suddenly revising their indoctrinated mindsets and start fawning over black tramps.
People working in retail are not going to treat me like royalty. They are underpaid and look forward to the day a better opportunity comes along. The chances are good someone will stick them up!
One of the paradoxes is that poor looking people in a store with expensive stuff are there to buy something. This is understood by the experienced sales staff. The poor looking customer needs no help. The more respectable customers are more likely to be window shopping or comparison shopping. They are conquests and the sales person has to rise to the challenge. Besides a seedy vagrant isn't likely to be offended by inattentiveness and go spreading bad PR about mistreatment.
A spiel these days more than solicitousness. It is education. Even if the customer walks away, s/he may tell friends and family about the wonders of an interesting product.
Baseball is done and the BoTox have won the World Series. As we wonder what Santa will bring this year our minds drift back to the ball game. We hear the announcer's voice droning on the radio and try to picture the situation. It's been a long game with players scattered over a landscape impossibly green as the snowflakes outside drop past the lamplight onto a thick white blanket.
"Bottom of the ninth. Two outs and California gets ready. Three two pitch. Swing and a miss. Strike three called. The VoIP arced just inside and down. California had no chance. So that was the last swing to end the season."
I hope California strikes out. There should be no tax on voice communications - how could it work anyways? Is it based on time? 10 cents/minute? But time can be compressed with huge bandwidth so tax away while I consume 1 second of time for my entire conversation. Even if the law is based on the time between off and on hook the system can be programmed to connect-disconnect just enough to transmit the information.
BUT if the Internet takes over all telephone communications then there will likely be a tax on the Internet overall because the Internet would have to be available everywhere. In that case taxes to pay for infrastructure improvement are acceptable.
Law or no law, when I spend a few hundred bucks or if I buy something that I eat, I look at reputation. If a store has sold me good stuff for a while, I might try an unknown brand, as long as there is coverage.
Quality and features vary a lot. There doesn't seem to be any benchmark:( I'm a bit sick of testing my equipment for compatibility, capability, etc.
Do the math. Radio Shack pricing seems to be a little high, but it all makes sense.
Nonetheless it's still good business. Some people end up keeping the TV or find it too inconvenient to return.
If Radio Shack was smart they would buy in bulk around the high-demand season so they can have a sale. Then people would be discouraged to return because they wouldn't be able to get such a good price later.
Radio Shack is still in business but not really that thriving. It must be the noncompetive pricing not to mention the eclectic stock and small stores. Yuk.
Why make life difficult? These stores are trying to enlighten the masses to new-fangled toys, thus making toys better and more affordable. If you look around the majority of non-chain computer stores try to dump absolute crap on unsuspecting people and tell you all sales are final.
Around here about 9 Best Buys have opened in the last year. The service has been courteous though not very expert - but what do you expect from a salesperson? For the main stuff the prices are competitive although little components can have a big expense - not as much a problem now with everything more integrated.
With careful shopping and sale pricing I managed to acquire a few nice things. The refund period allowed me to be sure I was getting what I wanted - how can I lose?
Unlikely to target just one person - an attack would be a demonstration of a crack. In a way of speaking supercomputers are cracking the secrets of nature - to find some reliable pattern of prediction without having to do the massive calculations required by fundamental models, or if all else fails to demonstrate that massive calculations are still doable for problems at the scale of humanity.
Unfortunately my calculations show the fusion reactor to be the size of a star and must be constructed hundreds of millions of km from the consumers. On the bright side, the gravity of the power plant will be used to sling the earth quickly through the plant's magnetic field thus allowing us to capture enormous power from induction.
The fourth generation, ASCI Q at Los Alamos, is designed ultimately to reach 30 teraflops. However, it's still under construction and so far exists as two 7.7-teraflop parts.
Am I not supposed to understand that it is ONE machine? There may be 20 major pieces, that might even be hot swappable, but the whole is still n/n = 1. Would it be a big leap to add another 10 or 20 pieces, especially pieces that are faster?
My immediate gut feeling is that they merely wait for better processor technology. After all, processor prices drop like a rock and it would seem really stupid to buy 10,000 CPUs, and by the time they are installed and tested their prices are 30% lower.
Supercomputers by definition have to be better than all other computers. Continuous research in fundamental computer technology makes better supercomputers easier to construct. People who buy supercomputers always want more bang for their buck.
Because supercomputers use techniques never tried before, they are experimental. Suboptimal systems are built in order to implement a test of many theories. The next system will optimize in some aspects and experiment in others.
Supercomputers are not like power plants. Nuclear plants are supposed to provide a steady stream of energy within their lifetime. The set of problems that are to be tackled with computers is infinite. A group of power plants may provide more than enough right now while in a few years may be replaced with better ones. Even the best supercomputer is still not good enough though.
What kind of proof is that - to start with the assumption x = y for all x and all y? It means you immediately assume 1 = 2, 2 = 8.4, -6.3 = 2.71828, etc.
Seems to be the other way around - have you seen anyone do this with Windows??
Just joking around. I still don't want to buy a Mac because I seriously doubt I'll be able to achieve any of my own work with it. I know many people who use computers but less than 5% use a Mac for anything. Even these Mac users use PCs.
There seems to be a distrust of Macs as if Macs are good for one or two things but that longevity will not last. Add to this the lack of people who know Macs and the difficulty finding help and software.
I tried using a Mac to do a few simple things - Macs are not as intuitive as people say they are. The front end doesn't make sense - I think it's the terminology.
Macs are limited by the sheer lack of input. People avoid Macs because there is this feeling of being shut out by Apple, who wants to do everything their own way. As a result Apple is always seen as catching up to consumers rather than taking a leadership stance. People who ask "can I do this on my computer?", if told No, don't ask "is it possible on a Mac?" Instead they think "well pretty soon it'll be available on my computer" and a fraction will even think "then it'll be done somehow on a Mac".
Many people are poor but can buy a PC for $100 and actually get something decent. Pickings for Macs are slimmer. If you want to upgrade the computers for all the kids, are you buying them new Macs or new PC clones? Once the kids grow up are they going to think "I was deprived - I had to use a PC while all the rich kids use Macs" or will think of getting a fully loaded PC?
When I first studied Pascal I was so blown away by recursion and structured programming that I programmed the game of Life with a text based GUI. This was on an Apple II. The Pascal was a big difference from the line-numbered Applesoft Basic.
There wasn't much incentive to keep using Pascal though.
Firstly, the machines didn't take the jobs. They were given the jobs.
Because the number of true and unprovable statements is infinite, surely there are more jobs than machines, hard and easy, especially jobs that are too hard for anything with less than omnipotence.
In the future it seems that people will take the easy jobs, particularly the job of playing with all the new toys. We've got to look forward to having more fun. Hypothesis: people need to work hard, but people having more fun when the work gets harder work harder.
The troubling aspect is that employers want to avoid creating challenges because if they lose personnel the next employee might not be able to handle the problems.
Theoretically, an company eventually should be able to achieve a much greater level of profit by tapping the brainpower of its experienced, bored staff. It's risky.
So if someone is bored at work, what is the best way to find better work? Does anyone know any good sites to visit?
Slashdot Mirror
About 16 years ago there was a large computer at my university. It was replaced by a more powerful computer. The large computer was the size of a refrigerator but the new machine consisted of two tower cases you can put on a desk. Suddenly the room looked so empty.
You can tell the university wasn't the richest because it didn't replace the old machine with one of comparable size.
A couple years later someone got an 8-processor SGI machine that was the size of the fridge. I looked inside. The processors took a bit of space in the centre. There was some space used for disk, but over 70% of the volume in the case was completely air - not even cables or anything. So what does size really mean?
I would downgrade my Doom3 server but I can achieve the same thing with a few useless processes in the background.
5.7 TFlops in less than a square metre coming to a store near you, an IBM Blue Gene. If these start appearing at Wal Mart, it's time to redefine supercomputer.
Did you know? Did you know?
How the hell did I know? It was slashdotted!!
So you'd better be right
I do not understand the logic. The science prof. skews the experiment by dressing like a hobo. It makes no sense. I don't foresee store clerks suddenly revising their indoctrinated mindsets and start fawning over black tramps.
People working in retail are not going to treat me like royalty. They are underpaid and look forward to the day a better opportunity comes along. The chances are good someone will stick them up!
One of the paradoxes is that poor looking people in a store with expensive stuff are there to buy something. This is understood by the experienced sales staff. The poor looking customer needs no help. The more respectable customers are more likely to be window shopping or comparison shopping. They are conquests and the sales person has to rise to the challenge. Besides a seedy vagrant isn't likely to be offended by inattentiveness and go spreading bad PR about mistreatment.
A spiel these days more than solicitousness. It is education. Even if the customer walks away, s/he may tell friends and family about the wonders of an interesting product.
Baseball is done and the BoTox have won the World Series. As we wonder what Santa will bring this year our minds drift back to the ball game. We hear the announcer's voice droning on the radio and try to picture the situation. It's been a long game with players scattered over a landscape impossibly green as the snowflakes outside drop past the lamplight onto a thick white blanket.
"Bottom of the ninth. Two outs and California gets ready. Three two pitch. Swing and a miss. Strike three called. The VoIP arced just inside and down. California had no chance. So that was the last swing to end the season."
I hope California strikes out. There should be no tax on voice communications - how could it work anyways? Is it based on time? 10 cents/minute? But time can be compressed with huge bandwidth so tax away while I consume 1 second of time for my entire conversation. Even if the law is based on the time between off and on hook the system can be programmed to connect-disconnect just enough to transmit the information.
BUT if the Internet takes over all telephone communications then there will likely be a tax on the Internet overall because the Internet would have to be available everywhere. In that case taxes to pay for infrastructure improvement are acceptable.
Law or no law, when I spend a few hundred bucks or if I buy something that I eat, I look at reputation. If a store has sold me good stuff for a while, I might try an unknown brand, as long as there is coverage.
:( I'm a bit sick of testing my equipment for compatibility, capability, etc.
Quality and features vary a lot. There doesn't seem to be any benchmark
Do the math. Radio Shack pricing seems to be a little high, but it all makes sense.
Nonetheless it's still good business. Some people end up keeping the TV or find it too inconvenient to return.
If Radio Shack was smart they would buy in bulk around the high-demand season so they can have a sale. Then people would be discouraged to return because they wouldn't be able to get such a good price later.
Radio Shack is still in business but not really that thriving. It must be the noncompetive pricing not to mention the eclectic stock and small stores. Yuk.
Why make life difficult? These stores are trying to enlighten the masses to new-fangled toys, thus making toys better and more affordable. If you look around the majority of non-chain computer stores try to dump absolute crap on unsuspecting people and tell you all sales are final.
Around here about 9 Best Buys have opened in the last year. The service has been courteous though not very expert - but what do you expect from a salesperson? For the main stuff the prices are competitive although little components can have a big expense - not as much a problem now with everything more integrated.
With careful shopping and sale pricing I managed to acquire a few nice things. The refund period allowed me to be sure I was getting what I wanted - how can I lose?
Unlikely to target just one person - an attack would be a demonstration of a crack. In a way of speaking supercomputers are cracking the secrets of nature - to find some reliable pattern of prediction without having to do the massive calculations required by fundamental models, or if all else fails to demonstrate that massive calculations are still doable for problems at the scale of humanity.
to harness fusion
Unfortunately my calculations show the fusion reactor to be the size of a star and must be constructed hundreds of millions of km from the consumers. On the bright side, the gravity of the power plant will be used to sling the earth quickly through the plant's magnetic field thus allowing us to capture enormous power from induction.
There has been so much success with the Mars rovers and Cassini. Hopefully Hubble will be serviced by robots.
Proposition: automatic control of reusable spacecraft. This will allow more flights as well as improve space robotics.
The fourth generation, ASCI Q at Los Alamos, is designed ultimately to reach 30 teraflops. However, it's still under construction and so far exists as two 7.7-teraflop parts.
Someone put a fork in it.
How is the hair split?
Am I not supposed to understand that it is ONE machine? There may be 20 major pieces, that might even be hot swappable, but the whole is still n/n = 1. Would it be a big leap to add another 10 or 20 pieces, especially pieces that are faster?
My immediate gut feeling is that they merely wait for better processor technology. After all, processor prices drop like a rock and it would seem really stupid to buy 10,000 CPUs, and by the time they are installed and tested their prices are 30% lower.
Supercomputers by definition have to be better than all other computers. Continuous research in fundamental computer technology makes better supercomputers easier to construct. People who buy supercomputers always want more bang for their buck.
Because supercomputers use techniques never tried before, they are experimental. Suboptimal systems are built in order to implement a test of many theories. The next system will optimize in some aspects and experiment in others.
Supercomputers are not like power plants. Nuclear plants are supposed to provide a steady stream of energy within their lifetime. The set of problems that are to be tackled with computers is infinite. A group of power plants may provide more than enough right now while in a few years may be replaced with better ones. Even the best supercomputer is still not good enough though.
I see the unstoppable and the immovable - now what do I need to do to chop a brick?
Not ever having the training to work with databases, I do this all the time. Is there a better way?
BTW I do not plan to make database work a lifelong career.
x++;
What kind of proof is that - to start with the assumption x = y for all x and all y? It means you immediately assume 1 = 2, 2 = 8.4, -6.3 = 2.71828, etc.
Seems to be the other way around - have you seen anyone do this with Windows??
Just joking around. I still don't want to buy a Mac because I seriously doubt I'll be able to achieve any of my own work with it. I know many people who use computers but less than 5% use a Mac for anything. Even these Mac users use PCs.
There seems to be a distrust of Macs as if Macs are good for one or two things but that longevity will not last. Add to this the lack of people who know Macs and the difficulty finding help and software.
I tried using a Mac to do a few simple things - Macs are not as intuitive as people say they are. The front end doesn't make sense - I think it's the terminology.
Macs are limited by the sheer lack of input. People avoid Macs because there is this feeling of being shut out by Apple, who wants to do everything their own way. As a result Apple is always seen as catching up to consumers rather than taking a leadership stance. People who ask "can I do this on my computer?", if told No, don't ask "is it possible on a Mac?" Instead they think "well pretty soon it'll be available on my computer" and a fraction will even think "then it'll be done somehow on a Mac".
Many people are poor but can buy a PC for $100 and actually get something decent. Pickings for Macs are slimmer. If you want to upgrade the computers for all the kids, are you buying them new Macs or new PC clones? Once the kids grow up are they going to think "I was deprived - I had to use a PC while all the rich kids use Macs" or will think of getting a fully loaded PC?
I mop the floor with my laptop.
When I first studied Pascal I was so blown away by recursion and structured programming that I programmed the game of Life with a text based GUI. This was on an Apple II. The Pascal was a big difference from the line-numbered Applesoft Basic.
There wasn't much incentive to keep using Pascal though.
Long ago I've been thinking of whether a computer can be made from one atom. Now what is next? A proton? How about a vacuum?
Firstly, the machines didn't take the jobs. They were given the jobs.
Because the number of true and unprovable statements is infinite, surely there are more jobs than machines, hard and easy, especially jobs that are too hard for anything with less than omnipotence.
In the future it seems that people will take the easy jobs, particularly the job of playing with all the new toys. We've got to look forward to having more fun. Hypothesis: people need to work hard, but people having more fun when the work gets harder work harder.
The troubling aspect is that employers want to avoid creating challenges because if they lose personnel the next employee might not be able to handle the problems.
Theoretically, an company eventually should be able to achieve a much greater level of profit by tapping the brainpower of its experienced, bored staff. It's risky.
So if someone is bored at work, what is the best way to find better work? Does anyone know any good sites to visit?