Why can't CPUs run so slow during idle periods their fans are off? When I want to watch a movie or play some music the CPU should not be used - there are lots of tasks that don't really need CPU although the CPU option should be there for fine control. Common tasks like moving a window, etc. should be learned by special circuitry and not require CPU work. Then CPUs can run at several speed levels, which can be controlled by users who want cool laptops or satisfied deadlines.
Compile speed is one thing I could use. I don't do a full compile that much, but I don't like waiting.
As programmers we can encourage the demand for faster processors by writing software that will do more for users if only they would spend more money. Users have to have the desire to achieve goals that they cannot reach without the help of some blistering computation. What could that be?
Futuristic scenarios like AI, virtual reality, true speech recognition, true handwriting recognition, automated car driving, etc. demand processor speeds out of this world not to mention software that works extremely hard. People will buy such software if we programers prove it's plausibility. Then we'll have our fast CPUs.
The AMD roadmap says it all: "As market requires". If the market says give me 5 GHz and I'll pay anything you can bet 5 GHz will be on the shelves. Right now you can buy sub $500 supercomputers that sit relatively idle. Word processing, db query, e-mail, web surfing, solitaire - most of the world goes no further.
The next market force is competition. If AMD looks like it will be selling a 4000+ Intel will match that.
Processors capable of this speed are most likely possible. There's no way Intel can sell and support 3.6 GHz without having perhaps seen 2 to 2.5 times as fast in stable operation under extreme cooling. In the lab where they can really reduce the feature sizes and power consumption who knows what is really around the bend?
Has anyone noticed the recent trend in laptop computers? It's all marketing and forcing consumers to buy crap. No floppy drive - so how do you boot if you want to install legacy stuff? Ultra wide screens but I've seen screens at 12" and the laptop has all the interface goodies (CD-RW, parallel port, PCMCIA, USB, speakers, 10/100, modem, headphone/microphone jacks). The widescreen monsters don't have any new interfacing, but are super heavy and don't necessarily have long battery life. The idea is to hook the suckers who will see the error of their ways and buy a new version several years later for the sake of lighter weight and longer battery.
It makes sense. I try not to store any queries in the database except maybe some one-time queries because of the difficulties remembering for so many different databases serving so many different applications what query is doing what. Most of the time I find that a query is called by one part of a program and not by many different parts of many programs. Also a query in a database might be changed by someone and then the program using the query stops working - some people who would never change the program have no compunction changing something in the database feeling they cannot hurt the data. Databases have very friendly interfaces for managers that want to quickly peek at the data. Isolate management from the code.
Nulls are useful - a program that hasn't entered a value into a field yet knows that the field has to be null. It's a good way to keep track of whether anyone has gotten to the point of actually entering a value.
Autonumber primary keys are useful too. If I'm looking at a database that I haven't been looking at for a few months in order to do a couple of small tasks, I won't remember exactly which fields need to be unique. However, by having number foreign keys named after the table they are related to I know by looking at the table what relationships exist. This also allows the tables to be modified later to add/remove uniqueness and add/remove fields that could have been used as keys.
One danger is the possibility of mistaken removal of uniqueness and then creation/alteration of records with nondesired duplicated values in certain fields, especially the omission/alteration of information identifying a record.
The point may be that supercomputers are merely rising to new depths. While 6 mil may buy more computing than ever before the top 5 is getting more and more crowded with systems of similar power. Surely something should have beaten the Earth Simulator by now, especially now that we see so many teams putting together clusters of PC class machines.
All the same people don't want to invest $50 million only to be overtaken in 3 or 4 years by a $5 million system. It's more economical to upgrade as new processors and technology become available. The incentive to spend big money depends on how soon results are desired. One may argue that supercomputers are used by people in a real hurry and thus it is simply paradoxical for these people to even think about saving money. On the other hand, if one plans to build a $50 million system, it will take quite some time to thrash out the design and in a few years a lower cost but simpler system can be built with the same speed.
Another incentive for expensive supercomputers is the proof of concept. Today's cheapo supercomputers are made possible by experience with really expensive initiatives. Such high end systems should be in the top 5.
When you get down to it, angle measure in integers refers to radians. At 2 * pi radians all the way around the earth, there aren't *that* many intersections of integers.
But do people living at an intersection even know that. It doesn't look like anyone makes a point of it.
with that much of bandwidth available, the world keep getting smaller.. Sooner or later, it'll get crowded!
I second that. You'll have to admit that this is the kind of bandwidth that will make us involuntarily stuff the entire Internet into the same office tower.
Come to think of it, the sun outputs so much power why don't we build a Dyson sphere?
I drive like this all the time. If I approach a green light, my crossing is reserved but if I approach a red light, I slow down enough to get there when it turns green.
Other than that, drive on main roads where green is longer than red. If you approach a green where very few cars are around you know it's been green so long it will turn red by the time you get there so slow down early to save on brakes. If you approach a red where cars are lined up chances are it will turn green pretty soon so go with the flow. There are certain streets known to line cars for miles - avoid them.
The word "video" is the key. We want more interactiveness and smartness.
Computers are being used as glorified typewriters and TVs now but consider we should expect computers of the near future to perform more automation around the home: prepare a meal, tidy up and clean, repair the car and house, build structures, etc.
How fast is 3.6 GHz? I've been using Dragon Naturally Speaking on a 2 GHz and it doesn't recognize a lot of words. The processor usage is quite heavy though not 100% - perhaps the software isn't working as hard as it really could. All the same it isn't using first principles to be able to recognize all sounds. Maybe 10 GHz would be the minimum required for full sound recognition. Full handwriting recognition without using so much CPU that there isn't anything left for other things would also take up 10 GHz.
Let's believe in the power of materialism and imagine what is possible in a world of 100 GHz CPUs. It would be an era where a DVD would store several TB. Screen resolutions would be normal at 1440 dpi. Imagine cameras with telescope quality zoom and microscope abilities. Some people may have dreamed of such a world with 1 GHz processors. It's hard to say what 100 GHz will really let us do. Maybe most of us will still be stuck with really fast word processors. Even 10 GHz will make a big difference and people will wake up to computers taking over a lot of jobs.
Software testing is boring boring boring. You have to try things out again and again after each change. Modules that haven't changed gain confidence in the face of changes and might not be tested, but omitting tests can end up being the Achilles heel. There can be an overwhelming desire when a project nears completion to just get things done and over with. After all the hard problems may well be solved and it's all down to seemingly inconsequential details.
These days programmers have a Sword of Damocles hanging over them. Once they finish a major piece of code they may have a hard time finding new work. The economy has not lived up to forecasts of more jobs. Outsourcing has reduced computer opportunities. Management of many companies do not see new uses for computers. Off-the-shelf programs abound for almost every aspect of computerized work.
Stress may distract software engineers enough that someone will make a major mistake.
A book lying on its side is stable and a nail standing on its end is unstable.
Even though the loss is high the software might not be as unstable as it appears. It may be a very peculiar set of inputs that causes a failure. This is hard to detect in testing. Imagine a chair with 4 legs but one leg is telescoping with some friction. Someone can sit perched over any of the legs but the chair falls only when one leg is heavily loaded.
Programmers like transparency. Effort used to break a program into 1024 threads running on 1024 CPUs is one thing I wouldn't want to deal with. The time used to do this plus all the extra code, which obscures bugs, makes it hard for multiprocessor systems to deliver value.
An OS or even a CPU-chipset combination that can automatically offload work to different processors will allow an existing software base to run faster.
My alma mater won many such contests in the 80s with one car at nearly 6000 mpg. A wind tunnel helped in body development. The driving technique is to iteratively accelerate to the optimum speed and coast.
On the winning day, there was a helpful wind. Since the shape of the car had a large vertical panel on each side one might wonder what the wind-free fuel economy is. I remember a similar designs coming in over 3000 mpg in a subsequent contest.
The cars go around an oval to negate the effect of wind but it would seem the car was still very advantageous in wind.
Consider a glider or sailboat though - no need for an engine.
Remember the movie The Core, where the earth's core was restarted? I propose The Coil, an enormous vertical iron post wrapped with many many turns of current. If the earth's magnetic field drops to zero, The Coil will be powerful enough to make a new field.
Has science fiction reached the point where our expectations of future technology have been enumerated? We've recognized what is realizable and what isn't within any given time span.
Another thing against science fiction writing is our multimedia capabilities. We want to be shown our fantasies with audio and visual. It's hard to picture scenarios that cannot exist when you read about them.
Some science fiction tends to rely too much on our experiences at the movies and don't try to explain or discuss phenomena but rather just take for granted their usability.
A good science fiction topic is the development and application of technology that will emerge within a decade.
It's just a matter of time that DVD capacities will reach the stratosphere, far more space than required by a movie. Therefore why not be able to buy a massive assortment of music all written on the same disk when you go to buy a movie? The store would have a computer where you select a movie or two as well as humungous music collection. You simply select what you want and a disk is created while you wait or for later pick up.
You save all the time you need to wait for downloading. You are assured of the quality. What more can you ask for?
When you consider all the box office records being smashed there's always going to be people buying movies. When they can also just pick up a few songs for a song, no one can lose.
Since I was told I had to buy my own clothes, I just go to work naked. But I don't really go because that means I have to pay rent. I just live in the office.
Slashdot Mirror
Why can't CPUs run so slow during idle periods their fans are off? When I want to watch a movie or play some music the CPU should not be used - there are lots of tasks that don't really need CPU although the CPU option should be there for fine control. Common tasks like moving a window, etc. should be learned by special circuitry and not require CPU work. Then CPUs can run at several speed levels, which can be controlled by users who want cool laptops or satisfied deadlines.
Compile speed is one thing I could use. I don't do a full compile that much, but I don't like waiting.
As programmers we can encourage the demand for faster processors by writing software that will do more for users if only they would spend more money. Users have to have the desire to achieve goals that they cannot reach without the help of some blistering computation. What could that be?
Futuristic scenarios like AI, virtual reality, true speech recognition, true handwriting recognition, automated car driving, etc. demand processor speeds out of this world not to mention software that works extremely hard. People will buy such software if we programers prove it's plausibility. Then we'll have our fast CPUs.
The AMD roadmap says it all: "As market requires". If the market says give me 5 GHz and I'll pay anything you can bet 5 GHz will be on the shelves. Right now you can buy sub $500 supercomputers that sit relatively idle. Word processing, db query, e-mail, web surfing, solitaire - most of the world goes no further.
The next market force is competition. If AMD looks like it will be selling a 4000+ Intel will match that.
Processors capable of this speed are most likely possible. There's no way Intel can sell and support 3.6 GHz without having perhaps seen 2 to 2.5 times as fast in stable operation under extreme cooling. In the lab where they can really reduce the feature sizes and power consumption who knows what is really around the bend?
Has anyone noticed the recent trend in laptop computers? It's all marketing and forcing consumers to buy crap. No floppy drive - so how do you boot if you want to install legacy stuff? Ultra wide screens but I've seen screens at 12" and the laptop has all the interface goodies (CD-RW, parallel port, PCMCIA, USB, speakers, 10/100, modem, headphone/microphone jacks). The widescreen monsters don't have any new interfacing, but are super heavy and don't necessarily have long battery life. The idea is to hook the suckers who will see the error of their ways and buy a new version several years later for the sake of lighter weight and longer battery.
Lordy, you can see a lot in those roadmaps I can't! I wish Intel was nearly so verbose.
It makes sense. I try not to store any queries in the database except maybe some one-time queries because of the difficulties remembering for so many different databases serving so many different applications what query is doing what. Most of the time I find that a query is called by one part of a program and not by many different parts of many programs. Also a query in a database might be changed by someone and then the program using the query stops working - some people who would never change the program have no compunction changing something in the database feeling they cannot hurt the data. Databases have very friendly interfaces for managers that want to quickly peek at the data. Isolate management from the code.
Nulls are useful - a program that hasn't entered a value into a field yet knows that the field has to be null. It's a good way to keep track of whether anyone has gotten to the point of actually entering a value.
Autonumber primary keys are useful too. If I'm looking at a database that I haven't been looking at for a few months in order to do a couple of small tasks, I won't remember exactly which fields need to be unique. However, by having number foreign keys named after the table they are related to I know by looking at the table what relationships exist. This also allows the tables to be modified later to add/remove uniqueness and add/remove fields that could have been used as keys.
One danger is the possibility of mistaken removal of uniqueness and then creation/alteration of records with nondesired duplicated values in certain fields, especially the omission/alteration of information identifying a record.
The point may be that supercomputers are merely rising to new depths. While 6 mil may buy more computing than ever before the top 5 is getting more and more crowded with systems of similar power. Surely something should have beaten the Earth Simulator by now, especially now that we see so many teams putting together clusters of PC class machines.
All the same people don't want to invest $50 million only to be overtaken in 3 or 4 years by a $5 million system. It's more economical to upgrade as new processors and technology become available. The incentive to spend big money depends on how soon results are desired. One may argue that supercomputers are used by people in a real hurry and thus it is simply paradoxical for these people to even think about saving money. On the other hand, if one plans to build a $50 million system, it will take quite some time to thrash out the design and in a few years a lower cost but simpler system can be built with the same speed.
Another incentive for expensive supercomputers is the proof of concept. Today's cheapo supercomputers are made possible by experience with really expensive initiatives. Such high end systems should be in the top 5.
When you get down to it, angle measure in integers refers to radians. At 2 * pi radians all the way around the earth, there aren't *that* many intersections of integers.
But do people living at an intersection even know that. It doesn't look like anyone makes a point of it.
with that much of bandwidth available, the world keep getting smaller.. Sooner or later, it'll get crowded!
I second that. You'll have to admit that this is the kind of bandwidth that will make us involuntarily stuff the entire Internet into the same office tower.
Come to think of it, the sun outputs so much power why don't we build a Dyson sphere?
Mod parent +1 funny
I drive like this all the time. If I approach a green light, my crossing is reserved but if I approach a red light, I slow down enough to get there when it turns green.
Other than that, drive on main roads where green is longer than red. If you approach a green where very few cars are around you know it's been green so long it will turn red by the time you get there so slow down early to save on brakes. If you approach a red where cars are lined up chances are it will turn green pretty soon so go with the flow. There are certain streets known to line cars for miles - avoid them.
The word "video" is the key. We want more interactiveness and smartness.
Computers are being used as glorified typewriters and TVs now but consider we should expect computers of the near future to perform more automation around the home: prepare a meal, tidy up and clean, repair the car and house, build structures, etc.
How fast is 3.6 GHz? I've been using Dragon Naturally Speaking on a 2 GHz and it doesn't recognize a lot of words. The processor usage is quite heavy though not 100% - perhaps the software isn't working as hard as it really could. All the same it isn't using first principles to be able to recognize all sounds. Maybe 10 GHz would be the minimum required for full sound recognition. Full handwriting recognition without using so much CPU that there isn't anything left for other things would also take up 10 GHz.
Let's believe in the power of materialism and imagine what is possible in a world of 100 GHz CPUs. It would be an era where a DVD would store several TB. Screen resolutions would be normal at 1440 dpi. Imagine cameras with telescope quality zoom and microscope abilities. Some people may have dreamed of such a world with 1 GHz processors. It's hard to say what 100 GHz will really let us do. Maybe most of us will still be stuck with really fast word processors. Even 10 GHz will make a big difference and people will wake up to computers taking over a lot of jobs.
It doesn't make sense to be making a request for every item. A policy should be in place.
Software testing is boring boring boring. You have to try things out again and again after each change. Modules that haven't changed gain confidence in the face of changes and might not be tested, but omitting tests can end up being the Achilles heel. There can be an overwhelming desire when a project nears completion to just get things done and over with. After all the hard problems may well be solved and it's all down to seemingly inconsequential details.
These days programmers have a Sword of Damocles hanging over them. Once they finish a major piece of code they may have a hard time finding new work. The economy has not lived up to forecasts of more jobs. Outsourcing has reduced computer opportunities. Management of many companies do not see new uses for computers. Off-the-shelf programs abound for almost every aspect of computerized work.
Stress may distract software engineers enough that someone will make a major mistake.
A book lying on its side is stable and a nail standing on its end is unstable.
Even though the loss is high the software might not be as unstable as it appears. It may be a very peculiar set of inputs that causes a failure. This is hard to detect in testing. Imagine a chair with 4 legs but one leg is telescoping with some friction. Someone can sit perched over any of the legs but the chair falls only when one leg is heavily loaded.
But you do.
1 DVD-R > 4 Gb
1000 DVD-R > 4 Tb available for $1000
What is easier for programmers, I ask?
Programmers like transparency. Effort used to break a program into 1024 threads running on 1024 CPUs is one thing I wouldn't want to deal with. The time used to do this plus all the extra code, which obscures bugs, makes it hard for multiprocessor systems to deliver value.
An OS or even a CPU-chipset combination that can automatically offload work to different processors will allow an existing software base to run faster.
My alma mater won many such contests in the 80s with one car at nearly 6000 mpg. A wind tunnel helped in body development. The driving technique is to iteratively accelerate to the optimum speed and coast.
On the winning day, there was a helpful wind. Since the shape of the car had a large vertical panel on each side one might wonder what the wind-free fuel economy is. I remember a similar designs coming in over 3000 mpg in a subsequent contest.
The cars go around an oval to negate the effect of wind but it would seem the car was still very advantageous in wind.
Consider a glider or sailboat though - no need for an engine.
Remember the movie The Core, where the earth's core was restarted? I propose The Coil, an enormous vertical iron post wrapped with many many turns of current. If the earth's magnetic field drops to zero, The Coil will be powerful enough to make a new field.
Has science fiction reached the point where our expectations of future technology have been enumerated? We've recognized what is realizable and what isn't within any given time span.
Another thing against science fiction writing is our multimedia capabilities. We want to be shown our fantasies with audio and visual. It's hard to picture scenarios that cannot exist when you read about them.
Some science fiction tends to rely too much on our experiences at the movies and don't try to explain or discuss phenomena but rather just take for granted their usability.
A good science fiction topic is the development and application of technology that will emerge within a decade.
It's just a matter of time that DVD capacities will reach the stratosphere, far more space than required by a movie. Therefore why not be able to buy a massive assortment of music all written on the same disk when you go to buy a movie? The store would have a computer where you select a movie or two as well as humungous music collection. You simply select what you want and a disk is created while you wait or for later pick up.
You save all the time you need to wait for downloading. You are assured of the quality. What more can you ask for?
When you consider all the box office records being smashed there's always going to be people buying movies. When they can also just pick up a few songs for a song, no one can lose.
I've seen the movie. He's the Oracle
Since I was told I had to buy my own clothes, I just go to work naked. But I don't really go because that means I have to pay rent. I just live in the office.
This must be a new technique for preparing gyros. Around here gyros are made in the kitchen.
Open source is never more relevant to Iraq. The whole idea was to open source the oil.
You get some of it with
ftp oilfield.com
Maybe not. It's been slashdotted.
What do you expect? Programming requires a lot more inventive than house painting. If you want a team to paint the Mona Lisa, it will take longer too.