The Real Problem - Computers Are Too Slow
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Forget Moore's Law?
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· Score: 1
Seriously at this point most people don't need 1Thz CPU's
We are at a point where the next GHz might not mean a lot but the reason is not computers are too fast. The problem is that computers are still too slow.
I recently bought Dragon Naturally Speaking thinking that my 2GHz Pentium 4, which does everything so nicely, would make speech recognition very easy. The software cranks up the CPU but it still can't a lot of what I say. It lags and requires a lot of training. Its technology is based on understanding strings rather than individual syllables, so I can train it with special phrases, but it misses a lot of new phrases.
We need very fast computers that are very small. Applications: - recognition (speech, facial, etc.) - automatic car driver - natural language understanding
I want to carry the computer perhaps on a wristband and have it multitask.
Picture a world where everything required for basic comfortable living is so abundant that it's free. Free food, shelter, energy, health care, transportation, entertainment, etc.
In this world, money is not required to live or even to have some fun. Then what is the purpose of carrying money?
Some things will still be scarce, but they won't be necessities.
Will this world occur? How will we behave in such a place?
Naturally software in heavy use today will become devalued and obsolete. People will pay for the genius required to develop better technologies such as
- automation of more business activities
- Currently a lot of small businesses automate away the secretaries. Many small businesses can conglomerate and still have just one secretary/receptionist. There are a lot of people with skills that have not been automated away in small businesses yet. It's happening slowly as managers buy better tools and reduce the number of steps. - virtual reality - robots - automation of personal activities
What we need with the new technology are loftier goals. - simulation and modeling of nature - businesses venturing into space - colony of robots on the moon - artificial intelligence
Many skilled people will find that menial mundane jobs are done by machines. So what? Who wants that work anyways? There will be work to be done.
It isn't a problem. People who own assets will find that competition will drive them to risk what they have on new ideas. Capitalists didn't get where they were by spinning their wheels. They must seek growth. Technology enables this.
A very quick way for capitalists to understand the potential of technology is to work with them. I am developing some new software for some small businesses. The software started small and served the core business needs but when the business owners saw the software they immediately wanted more features. They can't get enough.
Big businesses have software everywhere. In a big business programmers have to work on new software for new business angles. Leave the simple minded programming for old business divisions to the cheapest programmers. In the new business ventures it's genius that makes the difference between fast or slow success.
Star Trek as a concept is very interesting. The shows propose challenging problems that we must face when we go into space (or have aliens visiting us).
As you watch it feels fine but suddenly it's time to hurry up and finish the story. Usually the wackiest solutions are given. You're left with the feeling that the scenario should have been foreseeable, perhaps through a prior holodeck simulation.
One of the attractions of action movies is the sheer speed that events are forced on the characters. They don't have time to think. They have to show that they have skills or luck.
Star Trek is different - people have to think. That's fine, but where is the genius? And how/what does the audience learn?
The shows bite off more than they can chew. One can imagine ongoing war with the Borg lasting to Star Trek: Lots of Generations After the Next One.
I like Star Trek as a portrait of the future even if the problems are left without full solutions. I would enjoy a movie/show if it deals with what aliens might look like or behave. There was an episode where the Enterprise is sucked into a Dyson sphere. That was fascinating even though there was no final solution.
A movie that shows the development of one future technology would be nice to see regardless of some imagined leaps of technology for the intermediate steps. What could have led to the invention of a warp drive, a time machine, an android, a phaser, a holodeck, a shield, or even a tricorder?
I do enough IT work to be called an IT professional. Comdex has really helped me see different computer technologies I wouldn't know existed. I could get detailed answers on the spot rather than just a few words of jargon on a website.
Most people say exhibitors should focus on informing people rather than on wonderful booths and therefore save money, but I found that the people with the nicest booths were also the most enthusiastic while the really plain booths had total dumbasses who treated me like dirt.
Part of the backplot involved a KGB officer sabotaging Russian space shuttles by tossing a beaker of acid on some of the tiles just before launch. The damage was unnoticeable on launch, but it would cause the craft to burn up and break apart on the way down
Quite a lot to expect from a beaker
And if you run around with a beaker in your hand don't you risk spilling it on yourself?
As the shuttle moves through the air on its way up the acid would vaporize anyway.
Anyone who sneaks all the way up to the shuttle just to toss a beaker! Why not sneak up to stick a block of C4?
if a so-called terrorist had a weapon that could travel 12,000mph (that's 2 MILES per SECOND)-- they're going to point it at stuff alot more interesting than a Space Shuttle
That would make sense if you want to catch up from behind nice and slow like Superman in the movie
But if you have a shuttle moving 12000 mph all you have to do is put something (maybe a VW Beetle out of a cannon) stationary in front of it!
The space shuttle is an amazing technology, but all the shuttles are going to fly until they can't.
This is an acceptable risk, and with the aging shuttle program Columbia is a timely wake-up call.
It's time to redesign the shuttle - why does it have to re-enter so fast? (not to evade terrorist missiles) It should be able to fly itself anywhere after re-entry. - crew ejection - tiles falling off - can lift off and land in poor weather - more monitoring to know if something can go wrong (not acceptable to have a tile break off and not know what the consequences are)
Mark this day in your life. Oddly, I was reading slashdot when I heard then news.
I hear that - Columbia is the oldest shuttle - The crew compartment can re-enter by itself allowing the crew to jump out. I wonder if anyone has tested this!
If the master key shear line is not a line but rather a curve that forces you turn the lock in a direction opposite to the common lock direction, then you can't find the master pins one at a time - you need to know all the master pins to make the lock turn.
What we really need is a replacement for the entertainment industry. But we also need a way for artists to be paid.
Right and wrong. We can replace the entertainment system. Since all this intellectual stuff is so copyable and digitizable, let's just have computers generate it and publish it.
Ok. Maybe that isn't high quality. How about Open Source entertainment? Publish your entertainment under GPL and let everyone fix it.
Did Intel ever sell a Windows processor that is faster than what the market really demands? Intel has no reason to sell a processor so fast that buyers won't need to upgrade
A product that appeals to a large variety of users meets a number of high standards. If you look around you, you will find yourself surrounded by "cheap crap" and "nice things". You might have toilet paper made from recycled trash and a really nice glossy magazine.
It's not training, testing, discipline, or a rush to production that makes a difference in many cases. A lot of engineering produces things that suck because management and engineering want it that way for economic reasons, namely that there are people who want to buy things that suck. Many people want to buy cars with no air conditioning. They may prefer cars with solid plastic seats if they existed.
By the same token, a lot of software doesn't suck, even if it doesn't do every magical thing that everyone wants. We expect more and more from software so we impose standards on the user interface, intercommunications, archiving, performance, reliability, etc. Software is so flexible that it doesn't have to be high standard in every area the very first time. It's not like a house that no one wants to upgrade in a major way every year. Software users are happy to use software that is under construction. That's not the mindset of house users.
We should expect standards to improve. The amount of energy expended to produce software is very little so software producers feel little compunction. Software production is a downright fattening exercise. However, software usage is not low energy. If software outputs suboptimal data or directives, a lot of energy is wasted doing physical things that ought not be done or that ought to be done somewhat differently. We haven't had as much ability to tell whether suboptimal software might be-after all for the longest time we were running machines that go slower than 100 MHz and spent most of the time disking to virtual memory. Now we can get more real-time feedback to guide us in building better software the first time around.
Slashdot Mirror
Seriously at this point most people don't need 1Thz CPU's
We are at a point where the next GHz might not mean a lot but the reason is not computers are too fast. The problem is that computers are still too slow.
I recently bought Dragon Naturally Speaking thinking that my 2GHz Pentium 4, which does everything so nicely, would make speech recognition very easy. The software cranks up the CPU but it still can't a lot of what I say. It lags and requires a lot of training. Its technology is based on understanding strings rather than individual syllables, so I can train it with special phrases, but it misses a lot of new phrases.
We need very fast computers that are very small. Applications:
- recognition (speech, facial, etc.)
- automatic car driver
- natural language understanding
I want to carry the computer perhaps on a wristband and have it multitask.
Picture a world where everything required for basic comfortable living is so abundant that it's free. Free food, shelter, energy, health care, transportation, entertainment, etc.
In this world, money is not required to live or even to have some fun. Then what is the purpose of carrying money?
Some things will still be scarce, but they won't be necessities.
Will this world occur? How will we behave in such a place?
Naturally software in heavy use today will become devalued and obsolete. People will pay for the genius required to develop better technologies such as
- automation of more business activities
- Currently a lot of small businesses automate away the secretaries. Many small businesses can conglomerate and still have just one secretary/receptionist. There are a lot of people with skills that have not been automated away in small businesses yet. It's happening slowly as managers buy better tools and reduce the number of steps.
- virtual reality
- robots
- automation of personal activities
What we need with the new technology are loftier goals.
- simulation and modeling of nature
- businesses venturing into space
- colony of robots on the moon
- artificial intelligence
Many skilled people will find that menial mundane jobs are done by machines. So what? Who wants that work anyways? There will be work to be done.
It isn't a problem. People who own assets will find that competition will drive them to risk what they have on new ideas. Capitalists didn't get where they were by spinning their wheels. They must seek growth. Technology enables this.
A very quick way for capitalists to understand the potential of technology is to work with them. I am developing some new software for some small businesses. The software started small and served the core business needs but when the business owners saw the software they immediately wanted more features. They can't get enough.
Big businesses have software everywhere. In a big business programmers have to work on new software for new business angles. Leave the simple minded programming for old business divisions to the cheapest programmers. In the new business ventures it's genius that makes the difference between fast or slow success.
Star Trek as a concept is very interesting. The shows propose challenging problems that we must face when we go into space (or have aliens visiting us).
As you watch it feels fine but suddenly it's time to hurry up and finish the story. Usually the wackiest solutions are given. You're left with the feeling that the scenario should have been foreseeable, perhaps through a prior holodeck simulation.
One of the attractions of action movies is the sheer speed that events are forced on the characters. They don't have time to think. They have to show that they have skills or luck.
Star Trek is different - people have to think. That's fine, but where is the genius? And how/what does the audience learn?
The shows bite off more than they can chew. One can imagine ongoing war with the Borg lasting to Star Trek: Lots of Generations After the Next One.
I like Star Trek as a portrait of the future even if the problems are left without full solutions. I would enjoy a movie/show if it deals with what aliens might look like or behave. There was an episode where the Enterprise is sucked into a Dyson sphere. That was fascinating even though there was no final solution.
A movie that shows the development of one future technology would be nice to see regardless of some imagined leaps of technology for the intermediate steps. What could have led to the invention of a warp drive, a time machine, an android, a phaser, a holodeck, a shield, or even a tricorder?
I like Comdex
I do enough IT work to be called an IT professional. Comdex has really helped me see different computer technologies I wouldn't know existed. I could get detailed answers on the spot rather than just a few words of jargon on a website.
Most people say exhibitors should focus on informing people rather than on wonderful booths and therefore save money, but I found that the people with the nicest booths were also the most enthusiastic while the really plain booths had total dumbasses who treated me like dirt.
Quite a lot to expect from a beaker
And if you run around with a beaker in your hand don't you risk spilling it on yourself?
As the shuttle moves through the air on its way up the acid would vaporize anyway.
Anyone who sneaks all the way up to the shuttle just to toss a beaker! Why not sneak up to stick a block of C4?
That would make sense if you want to catch up from behind nice and slow like Superman in the movie
But if you have a shuttle moving 12000 mph all you have to do is put something (maybe a VW Beetle out of a cannon) stationary in front of it!
The space shuttle is an amazing technology, but all the shuttles are going to fly until they can't.
This is an acceptable risk, and with the aging shuttle program Columbia is a timely wake-up call.
It's time to redesign the shuttle
- why does it have to re-enter so fast? (not to evade terrorist missiles) It should be able to fly itself anywhere after re-entry.
- crew ejection
- tiles falling off
- can lift off and land in poor weather
- more monitoring to know if something can go wrong (not acceptable to have a tile break off and not know what the consequences are)
My opinion - not a dirty lens because the problem occurs at one time only and is repeatable.
Mark this day in your life. Oddly, I was reading slashdot when I heard then news.
I hear that
- Columbia is the oldest shuttle
- The crew compartment can re-enter by itself allowing the crew to jump out. I wonder if anyone has tested this!
... works on all locks?
If the master key shear line is not a line but rather a curve that forces you turn the lock in a direction opposite to the common lock direction, then you can't find the master pins one at a time - you need to know all the master pins to make the lock turn.
Still a finite problem though.
I'll bet MS is alive and well in Houston. Any small project that needs a new computer up and running yesterday will be running Microsoft software.
Trust me - no one wants to see Pete Townsend nekkid
It's about time we built redundant planets in various orbits around the sun. Everyone else is doing this.
Right and wrong. We can replace the entertainment system. Since all this intellectual stuff is so copyable and digitizable, let's just have computers generate it and publish it.
Ok. Maybe that isn't high quality. How about Open Source entertainment? Publish your entertainment under GPL and let everyone fix it.
Did Intel ever sell a Windows processor that is faster than what the market really demands? Intel has no reason to sell a processor so fast that buyers won't need to upgrade
It's not training, testing, discipline, or a rush to production that makes a difference in many cases. A lot of engineering produces things that suck because management and engineering want it that way for economic reasons, namely that there are people who want to buy things that suck. Many people want to buy cars with no air conditioning. They may prefer cars with solid plastic seats if they existed.
By the same token, a lot of software doesn't suck, even if it doesn't do every magical thing that everyone wants. We expect more and more from software so we impose standards on the user interface, intercommunications, archiving, performance, reliability, etc. Software is so flexible that it doesn't have to be high standard in every area the very first time. It's not like a house that no one wants to upgrade in a major way every year. Software users are happy to use software that is under construction. That's not the mindset of house users.
We should expect standards to improve. The amount of energy expended to produce software is very little so software producers feel little compunction. Software production is a downright fattening exercise. However, software usage is not low energy. If software outputs suboptimal data or directives, a lot of energy is wasted doing physical things that ought not be done or that ought to be done somewhat differently. We haven't had as much ability to tell whether suboptimal software might be-after all for the longest time we were running machines that go slower than 100 MHz and spent most of the time disking to virtual memory. Now we can get more real-time feedback to guide us in building better software the first time around.
Use the table. Long pips are for weenies.
The sun is heating up as it ages. Before long, we're going to have some global warming.