According to Sun's official OpenOffice support page, OpenOffice 1.1 is only supported on Windows, Solaris, and Linux...in other words, only platforms where StarOffice also exists...
Who did you talk to and what did you say?
The reason I ask is that y girlfriend tried to do just that, last week, and again, last night. Last night, she ended up getting transferred to the "retention" group, after saying she wanted to cancel her service unless they'd move her evenings to 7pm to the first two tiers of customer service. Finally, she got to "retention" (the group that tries to give you perks if you say you're leaving). She complained about how the 7pm ads are not only misleading, but also brought up the fact she always uses less than 100 minutes a month, but it was the principle of the thing.
She has been with Sprint for 3 years, and has had Spring long distance for longer. When they wouldn't change her evenings to 7pm, she said she wanted to cancel her PCS service and would cancel her Spring long distance as well, and wanted to do it on the spot. They STILL wouldn't change the evening start time...all they would offer was 50 minutes free LD per month (which we already have and don't use) or a 10% discount if we switched to Sprint local service (which we can't even get in our area). She specifically said "you'd rather have me cancel all Sprint services than move my nights to 7pm?" and he said there was nothing he could do......he DID say he could do it for $5/mo, and that ALL new customers also pay $5/mo for 7pm evening start time...even though they don't say this in any of the advertizing. (And yes, that is true; I verified that even NEW customers under this new ad campaign pay $5/mo additional for 7pm evening start time). So are you saying you got 7pm evening start time for free? If so, who the hell did you talk to and what did you say?
You've managed to shift blame from the Neistat brothers to me (nice), insinuate that I'm doing something immoral, unethical, or wasteful (again, nice, and I'm not, by the way), all the while skillfully ignoring that the Neistat brothers CONTINUE to host a patently untrue video (even if it were half true before, it isn't now), all as a sad attention-grab.
No, you can't "expect", wholesale, Li ion batteries to day after a year. It can happen to some, but to make it sound as if its exceedingly common, and that a manufacturer should "expect" massive routine failures is just as disingenuous as the Neistat brothers' video. And it's not Apple's fault that they broke their iPod, no matter how much you wish it were so.
And nice "ethics" jab. Yeah, that's why Apple is consistently ranked #1 in various support and quality surveys, most notably Consumer Reports. Real poor ethics, that Apple.
I can't imagine the amount of shifting and logical fallacies that were contained in this one post. Yes, it sucks that the iPod died. Apple didn't have its own replacement program for batteries that the time. They now do. The Neistat brothers refuse to tell people about the program they themselves admit is fair and reasonable. They continue to be out for attention. The number of people with severe early battery issues is comparatively very small. Nothing they Neistat brothers caused Apple to change any policies, since the battery program came out BEFORE they released the video. They have no interest in acknowledging that Apple fixed the very issue they have a gripe with.
Actually, Apple's program was launched BEFORE ipodsdirtysecret.com was even registered. Apple launching the battery replacement program had nothing whatsoever to do with the Neistat brothers, or their video. The problem came from the fact that Apple had a (very high) flat rate repair plan for the iPods, which was ridiculously high for the battery. The Neistat brothers were (rightfully) pissed, and they hatched this plan to publicly deface Apple. In the meantime, and completely unrelated to anything having to do with the Neistat brothers, Apple launched its $99 battery replacement program. But the Neistats had already put all of their time and childishness into the video, so they chose to launch it knowing full well about Apple's program, and STILL refusing to link to information about how to solve the problem, or otherwise acknowledge that Apple's program even exists.
They just want to screw Apple because Casey had to buy a new iPod. Real mature.
That's what happened. That is the completely unadulterated email exchange; take it or leave it. My offer had ONE condition: that they link to Apple's official battery replacement information. They agreed to do so (several times). They never did. I think the email exchange speaks for itself. Instead, they lied and stole for two days. Which, in retrospect, shouldn't be surprising.
And in your link, Neistat even says "I fully acknowledge that they arenow offering a very fair battery replacement program. I think $99 dollars is a very fair price." Yet he still won't link to it. And Apple had been offering that program BEFORE they even launched the video. I think they're just a little upset that their grand little childish attention-getting plan would have been totally negated by the fact that Apple had already launched a reasonable - by their own admission - replacement program. And they STILL won't link to it!
I've seen many forum posts/blog followups/etc from people who have seen the video saying "Wow, is that really true?" or "Hmm, now that I know that, I don't think I'm getting an iPod!" How is their lying at all helpful to anyone?
1. The iPod's battery is replaceable, by either Apple itself, do-it-yourself solutions, or third-party mail-in options.
2. The iPod's battery does NOT last "18 months". No Li ion battery lasts forever, but the vast majority of first generation iPods, over two years old, are still in service without issue.
And if anyone is interested in the truth...you may be interested to know that I offered to mirror their video after their original webhost apparently pulled out, with ONE condition: that they link to, or otherwise inform users about, Apple's official $99 iPod battery replacement, since the video, as it stands, is incorrect: the iPod's battery is replaceable, and, on top of it, there's an official Apple program for $99 (not to mention third party options).
They agreed to provide this information, and said they had no problem telling users how to solve the problem. I, in turn, provided webspace and bandwidth for them. The bottom line: after two days of lies and false starts, and milking my institution's generosity by providing almost 100,000 downloads and 0.7 terabytes of data transfer, they NEVER posted any information about how to solve the problem that they promised to post. Their agenda seems clear, and that's sensationalism, melodrama, and attention. The full email exchange is here:
From: Dave Schroeder <das@doit.wisc.edu> Subject: Computer terminology Date: November 24, 2003 12:27:14 PM CST To: jsandoval@isd.co.la.ca.us Cc: seconddistrict@bos.co.la.ca.us, thirddistrict@bos.co.la.ca.us, fourthdistrict@bos.co.la.ca.us, fifthdistrict@bos.co.la.ca.us, firstdistrict@bos.co.la.ca.us
Regarding the recent memo sent to a county vendor regarding "master/slave", it may interest you to know that this is, and has been for years, the accepted and only terminology that refers to the hierarchy of the most commonly used computer hard drive interface in the world, known as "IDE" or "ATA". It may also interest you to know one of the definitions of "master" and "slave" according to Merriam-Webster:
master - 3 a master mechanism or device slave - 5 a device that is directly responsive to another
And from the definitive reference on the English language, Oxford University's Oxford English Dictionary:
http://dictionary.oed.com/cgi/entry/00303043 master - e. A component of a system which controls or regulates the operation of one or more of the system's other components. Cf. SLAVE n. 5b. See also master-slave, sense C. 6.
http://dictionary.oed.com/cgi/entry/00227171 slave - c. techn. Used to denote a subsidiary device, esp. one which is controlled by, or which follows accurately the movements of, another device.
master-slave a. (attrib.) (b) chiefly Electronics and Computing, designating or relating to a system in which one component controls the behaviour of one or more other components.
The names "master" and "slave" are codified in the official ANSI ATA-1 interface standard, X3.221-1994, titled "AT Attachment Interface for Disk Drives". You may be aware that ANSI, the American National Standards Institute, is the largest standards body in the United States. It would seem odd that a county purchasing agency would want to throw out well established standard names created over years of cooperation and deliberation by scientists, engineers, and standards experts. Further, almost every hard disk currently in the possession of the county has the words "MASTER" and "SLAVE" printed directly on them. Perhaps it would be an interesting exercise to destroy this labeling on each drive, spending thousands of manhours and voiding manufacturers' warranties in the process. Your next computing equipment bid will likely be an interesting one, since all hard drive manufacturers refer to their drives using the same terminology.
Insisting that vendors comply with the requirements in the memo makes the county look extremely, extremely foolish, and directly flies in the face of accepted, descriptive technical names for device interaction. You may also wish to caution your vendors about using the words "male" and "female" in the description of plumbing and electrical fixtures.
Regards,
Dave Schroeder Los Angeles County native
cc: County Board
Ref:
ATA (ATA-1) http://www.pcguide.com/ref/hdd/if/ide/std _ATA.htm
Single, Master and Slave Drives and Jumpering http://www.pcguide.com/ref/hdd/if/ide/c onf_Jumpering.htm
INCITS Technical Committee 13 (T13), responsible for X3.221-1994 http://www.t13.org/
The other huge thing is WireTech shelving. It's very heavy-duty coated steel wire shelving in chrome, white, or black, that looks great and is very strong - each shelf can support 300 pounds. It can also be organized in nearly an unlimited number of ways. Take a look at Sensible Storage's site, click "Products", and then see Shelving Kits, Custom Shelving, and Accessories. I strongly recommend checking it out. WireTech is the only type that I have found that is like this. They work great for everything from equipment rack type setups, entertainment center towers, making really complex shelving setups, or just plain old storage.
There are a bunch of different places that sell WireTech, but there is one, and as far I can tell only one, place that sells everything online: Great Ace WireTech shelving. It's actually an Ace hardware store in Chicago, but I've ordered various WireTech things from them a couple times before and I've been happy with the results.
You'd be surprised how much the right tools help with the job, even for things like storage. Good luck.
Hmm, maybe we shouldn't have killed off the Superconducting Super Collider (SSC), after 14 miles of tunneling were already completed and two billion dollars were spent.
The eco-dumbasses talk about it alternatively as an unnecessary geek-scientist's playground, or as a wasteful front for the military-industrial complex.
What it would have been is a window into the most fundamental building blocks of the Universe. And now apparently we want to try again, even though we should have finished it the first time around...
A dual 2GHz G5 costs $2699 at the academic discount. They probably added RAM from a 3rd party.
"Cooling equipment" i would imagine was part of the $1M "facilities upgrade".
From the article, again:
"The total cost of the asset, including systems, memory, storage, primary and secondary communications fabrics and cables is $5.2mil. Facilities upgrade was $2mil. 1mil for the upgrades, 1mil for the UPS and generators."
So out of that $1M, for facilities "upgrades", I'd say cooling/racks/etc was included in that. If you need it any more broken down, I'd imagine you'll have to contact VT.
All the switches and cards $1.6 mil. $176k for the cables."
And since they said the machines cost "$3000 apiece", 3000 x 1100 = about $3.3M.
$3.3M + $1.6M + $176K leaves $124K for other stuff to reach "$5.2M". And then it was $2M for facilities improvements. I think that's good enough of a breakdown.
From http://macslash.org/article.pl?sid=03/10/28/235723 5&mode=thread
"The total cost of the asset, including systems, memory, storage, primary and secondary communications fabrics and cables is $5.2mil. Facilities upgrade was $2mil. 1mil for the upgrades, 1mil for the UPS and generators."
Total: $7.2M + essentially "volunteer" assembly
So it's still a LOT cheaper than anything even close to comparable.
So nope, not only will the PNL Itanium2 cluster not be #2, it will also be 1Tflop behind the Virginia Tech cluster, and it will have done it at almost 5 times the cost. Bravo!
When I said "current #3", I meant the "current #3" on the currently published Top 500 list at top500.org, not the number 3 spot on that report: there is a new player at number 3, which is that Itanium 2 cluster I referred to.
They're now in front of the LLNL MCR Linux cluster (which they were previously behind), but a new HP Itanium 2 cluster, which has appeared since the report was last updated, is now slightly ahead of them. There shouldn't be many more new entries showing up in the top 10 this list (most of the big guns like Blue Gene, Red Storm, and ASCI Purple won't be ready until 2004), but we always knew there could be new entries.
The preliminary performance report at http://www.netlib.org/benchmark/performance.pdf contains the new entries for the upcoming list as well (see page 53).
So, yes, these numbers are preliminary, and yes, they WILL increase - they already are. See http://www.netlib.org/benchmark/performance.pdf (the official source of preliminary numbers), page 53.
Since yesterday's release at 7.41 Tflop, the G5 cluster has already increased almost a Tflop, and is now ahead of the current #3 MCR Linux cluster, and about 0.5 Tflop behind a new Itanium 2 cluster.
Officials at the school said that they were still finalizing their results and that the final speed number might be significantly higher.
This will likely be the case.
Second, they're only 0.224 Tflops away from the only Intel-based cluster above it. So saying "all the Intel machines" in the story is kind of inaccurate, as if there are all kinds of Intel-based clusters that will still be faster; there is only one Intel-based cluster above it, and with only preliminary numbers for the Virgina Tech cluster at that.
Third, this figure is with around 2112 processors, not the full 2200 processors. With all 1100 nodes, even with no efficiency gain, it will be number 3, as-is.
Finally, this is the a cluster of several firsts:
First major cluster with PowerPC 970
First major cluster with Apple hardware
First major cluster with Infiniband
First major cluster with Mac OS X (Yes, it is running Mac OS X 10.2.7, NOT Linux or Panther [yet])
Linux on Intel has been at this for years. This cluster was assembled in 3 months. There is no reason for the Virginia Tech cluster to remain at ~40% efficiency. It is more than reasonable to expect higher than 50%.
It's still destined for number 3, and its performance will likely even climb for the next Top 500 list as the cluster is optimized. The final results will not be officially announced until a session on November 18 at Supercomputing 2003.
There's a new community site called alienRAID.org that focuses on supporting Xserve RAID in non-Apple and mixed environments. It's likely to be helpful to people interested in deploying Xserve RAID in conjunction with other platforms.
Easy: you yourself point out that 1100 * 15.7 = 17.27... not 17.6.
Since the call for papers for the new Top 500 list was Oct 1, and the BBC show aired on Oct 9 with a companion BBC News story dated Oct 12, you'd hope that VT was simply regurgitating the figure that has already been sent to the Top 500 organization.
And why are you trolling around with one of those super-old benchmarking stories? We've already established that every manufacturer does what they can to show their products in the best possible light. At least Apple documented their testresults and methods in full.
So acually, your logic doesn't make any sense: you jump to the conclusion that it's not real results - even though real results already exist and have been submitted, and the entire story is pretty much about that process, making performance figures a critical piece to get accurate - and that they must have just multiplied some benchmark number by 1100. Then, even though the subject of your own post indicates your recognition that "it doesn't add up", you still apparently assume that the results are somehow doctored, this time for the worse, and you manage to weave in one of the stories that tries to make it look like Apple lied with its benchmarks - which it didn't - which is unrelated to the current issue! How does it "assume" the original scores were accurate?? YOU are assuming that they're just multiplying. You might have been onto something if the multiplication actually came out, but it doesn't, meaning that is NOT what they did.
Slashdot Mirror
I check all these daily:
b c123abc123abc123abc123abc123abc123abc123abc123abc1 23abc123abc123abc123abc123abc123abc123abc123abc123 abc123abc123abc123abc123abc123abc123abc123abc123ab c123abc123abc123abc123abc123abc123abc123abc123abc1
MacInTouch
MacNN
MacMinute
MacFixIt
Mac OS X Hints
MacSurfer
Great software update resources:
VersionTracker
MacUpdate
OS X freshmeat
Other great sites:
O'Reilly Mac DevCenter
O'Reilly Mac OS X Page
Apple Mac OS X downloads
Apple Third Party Products Guide
Developer sites:
Mac OS X Developer Home Page
Mac OS X Developer Documentation
Darwin
OpenDarwin
fink
abc123abc123abc123abc123abc123abc123abc123abc123a
According to Sun's official OpenOffice support page, OpenOffice 1.1 is only supported on Windows, Solaris, and Linux...in other words, only platforms where StarOffice also exists...
Who did you talk to and what did you say? The reason I ask is that y girlfriend tried to do just that, last week, and again, last night. Last night, she ended up getting transferred to the "retention" group, after saying she wanted to cancel her service unless they'd move her evenings to 7pm to the first two tiers of customer service. Finally, she got to "retention" (the group that tries to give you perks if you say you're leaving). She complained about how the 7pm ads are not only misleading, but also brought up the fact she always uses less than 100 minutes a month, but it was the principle of the thing. She has been with Sprint for 3 years, and has had Spring long distance for longer. When they wouldn't change her evenings to 7pm, she said she wanted to cancel her PCS service and would cancel her Spring long distance as well, and wanted to do it on the spot. They STILL wouldn't change the evening start time...all they would offer was 50 minutes free LD per month (which we already have and don't use) or a 10% discount if we switched to Sprint local service (which we can't even get in our area). She specifically said "you'd rather have me cancel all Sprint services than move my nights to 7pm?" and he said there was nothing he could do... ...he DID say he could do it for $5/mo, and that ALL new customers also pay $5/mo for 7pm evening start time...even though they don't say this in any of the advertizing. (And yes, that is true; I verified that even NEW customers under this new ad campaign pay $5/mo additional for 7pm evening start time). So are you saying you got 7pm evening start time for free? If so, who the hell did you talk to and what did you say?
You've managed to shift blame from the Neistat brothers to me (nice), insinuate that I'm doing something immoral, unethical, or wasteful (again, nice, and I'm not, by the way), all the while skillfully ignoring that the Neistat brothers CONTINUE to host a patently untrue video (even if it were half true before, it isn't now), all as a sad attention-grab.
No, you can't "expect", wholesale, Li ion batteries to day after a year. It can happen to some, but to make it sound as if its exceedingly common, and that a manufacturer should "expect" massive routine failures is just as disingenuous as the Neistat brothers' video. And it's not Apple's fault that they broke their iPod, no matter how much you wish it were so.
And nice "ethics" jab. Yeah, that's why Apple is consistently ranked #1 in various support and quality surveys, most notably Consumer Reports. Real poor ethics, that Apple.
I can't imagine the amount of shifting and logical fallacies that were contained in this one post. Yes, it sucks that the iPod died. Apple didn't have its own replacement program for batteries that the time. They now do. The Neistat brothers refuse to tell people about the program they themselves admit is fair and reasonable. They continue to be out for attention. The number of people with severe early battery issues is comparatively very small. Nothing they Neistat brothers caused Apple to change any policies, since the battery program came out BEFORE they released the video. They have no interest in acknowledging that Apple fixed the very issue they have a gripe with.
Actually, Apple's program was launched BEFORE ipodsdirtysecret.com was even registered. Apple launching the battery replacement program had nothing whatsoever to do with the Neistat brothers, or their video. The problem came from the fact that Apple had a (very high) flat rate repair plan for the iPods, which was ridiculously high for the battery. The Neistat brothers were (rightfully) pissed, and they hatched this plan to publicly deface Apple. In the meantime, and completely unrelated to anything having to do with the Neistat brothers, Apple launched its $99 battery replacement program. But the Neistats had already put all of their time and childishness into the video, so they chose to launch it knowing full well about Apple's program, and STILL refusing to link to information about how to solve the problem, or otherwise acknowledge that Apple's program even exists.
They just want to screw Apple because Casey had to buy a new iPod. Real mature.
That's what happened. That is the completely unadulterated email exchange; take it or leave it. My offer had ONE condition: that they link to Apple's official battery replacement information. They agreed to do so (several times). They never did. I think the email exchange speaks for itself. Instead, they lied and stole for two days. Which, in retrospect, shouldn't be surprising.
And in your link, Neistat even says "I fully acknowledge that they arenow offering a very fair battery replacement program. I think $99 dollars is a very fair price." Yet he still won't link to it. And Apple had been offering that program BEFORE they even launched the video. I think they're just a little upset that their grand little childish attention-getting plan would have been totally negated by the fact that Apple had already launched a reasonable - by their own admission - replacement program. And they STILL won't link to it!
I've seen many forum posts/blog followups/etc from people who have seen the video saying "Wow, is that really true?" or "Hmm, now that I know that, I don't think I'm getting an iPod!" How is their lying at all helpful to anyone?
1. The iPod's battery is replaceable, by either Apple itself, do-it-yourself solutions, or third-party mail-in options.
2. The iPod's battery does NOT last "18 months". No Li ion battery lasts forever, but the vast majority of first generation iPods, over two years old, are still in service without issue.
Sorry, but they're in the wrong here.
And if anyone is interested in the truth...you may be interested to know that I offered to mirror their video after their original webhost apparently pulled out, with ONE condition: that they link to, or otherwise inform users about, Apple's official $99 iPod battery replacement, since the video, as it stands, is incorrect: the iPod's battery is replaceable, and, on top of it, there's an official Apple program for $99 (not to mention third party options).
They agreed to provide this information, and said they had no problem telling users how to solve the problem. I, in turn, provided webspace and bandwidth for them. The bottom line: after two days of lies and false starts, and milking my institution's generosity by providing almost 100,000 downloads and 0.7 terabytes of data transfer, they NEVER posted any information about how to solve the problem that they promised to post. Their agenda seems clear, and that's sensationalism, melodrama, and attention. The full email exchange is here:
http://das.doit.wisc.edu/neistatsdirtysecret.txt
...they could always go all SCSI.
From: Dave Schroeder <das@doit.wisc.edu>
/00303043
d _ATA.htm
c onf_Jumpering.htm
Subject: Computer terminology
Date: November 24, 2003 12:27:14 PM CST
To: jsandoval@isd.co.la.ca.us
Cc: seconddistrict@bos.co.la.ca.us, thirddistrict@bos.co.la.ca.us, fourthdistrict@bos.co.la.ca.us, fifthdistrict@bos.co.la.ca.us, firstdistrict@bos.co.la.ca.us
Regarding the recent memo sent to a county vendor regarding "master/slave", it may interest you to know that this is, and has been for years, the accepted and only terminology that refers to the hierarchy of the most commonly used computer hard drive interface in the world, known as "IDE" or "ATA". It may also interest you to know one of the definitions of "master" and "slave" according to Merriam-Webster:
master - 3 a master mechanism or device
slave - 5 a device that is directly responsive to another
And from the definitive reference on the English language, Oxford University's Oxford English Dictionary:
http://dictionary.oed.com/cgi/entry
master - e. A component of a system which controls or regulates the operation of one or more of the system's other components. Cf. SLAVE n. 5b. See also master-slave, sense C. 6.
http://dictionary.oed.com/cgi/entry/00227171
slave - c. techn. Used to denote a subsidiary device, esp. one which is controlled by, or which follows accurately the movements of, another device.
master-slave a. (attrib.) (b) chiefly Electronics and Computing, designating or relating to a system in which one component controls the behaviour of one or more other components.
The names "master" and "slave" are codified in the official ANSI ATA-1 interface standard, X3.221-1994, titled "AT Attachment Interface for Disk Drives". You may be aware that ANSI, the American National Standards Institute, is the largest standards body in the United States. It would seem odd that a county purchasing agency would want to throw out well established standard names created over years of cooperation and deliberation by scientists, engineers, and standards experts. Further, almost every hard disk currently in the possession of the county has the words "MASTER" and "SLAVE" printed directly on them. Perhaps it would be an interesting exercise to destroy this labeling on each drive, spending thousands of manhours and voiding manufacturers' warranties in the process. Your next computing equipment bid will likely be an interesting one, since all hard drive manufacturers refer to their drives using the same terminology.
Insisting that vendors comply with the requirements in the memo makes the county look extremely, extremely foolish, and directly flies in the face of accepted, descriptive technical names for device interaction. You may also wish to caution your vendors about using the words "male" and "female" in the description of plumbing and electrical fixtures.
Regards,
Dave Schroeder
Los Angeles County native
cc: County Board
Ref:
ATA (ATA-1)
http://www.pcguide.com/ref/hdd/if/ide/st
Single, Master and Slave Drives and Jumpering
http://www.pcguide.com/ref/hdd/if/ide/
INCITS Technical Committee 13 (T13), responsible for X3.221-1994
http://www.t13.org/
I use two things heavily:
Sterilite storage bins, and WireTech wire shelving.
For the storage bins, I make heavy use of the clear storage drawers and bins. See this page for all storage options. Quite a few places sell Sterilite.
The other huge thing is WireTech shelving. It's very heavy-duty coated steel wire shelving in chrome, white, or black, that looks great and is very strong - each shelf can support 300 pounds. It can also be organized in nearly an unlimited number of ways. Take a look at Sensible Storage's site, click "Products", and then see Shelving Kits, Custom Shelving, and Accessories. I strongly recommend checking it out. WireTech is the only type that I have found that is like this. They work great for everything from equipment rack type setups, entertainment center towers, making really complex shelving setups, or just plain old storage.
There are a bunch of different places that sell WireTech, but there is one, and as far I can tell only one, place that sells everything online: Great Ace WireTech shelving. It's actually an Ace hardware store in Chicago, but I've ordered various WireTech things from them a couple times before and I've been happy with the results.
You'd be surprised how much the right tools help with the job, even for things like storage. Good luck.
The facility's name is Terascale Computing Facility. The cluster itself is called "X".
This is similar to NCSA. The facility is called the National Center for Supercomputing Applications (NCSA). Their new #4 cluster is called "Tungsten".
Hmm, maybe we shouldn't have killed off the Superconducting Super Collider (SSC), after 14 miles of tunneling were already completed and two billion dollars were spent.
The eco-dumbasses talk about it alternatively as an unnecessary geek-scientist's playground, or as a wasteful front for the military-industrial complex.
What it would have been is a window into the most fundamental building blocks of the Universe. And now apparently we want to try again, even though we should have finished it the first time around...
A dual 2GHz G5 costs $2699 at the academic discount. They probably added RAM from a 3rd party. "Cooling equipment" i would imagine was part of the $1M "facilities upgrade". From the article, again: "The total cost of the asset, including systems, memory, storage, primary and secondary communications fabrics and cables is $5.2mil. Facilities upgrade was $2mil. 1mil for the upgrades, 1mil for the UPS and generators." So out of that $1M, for facilities "upgrades", I'd say cooling/racks/etc was included in that. If you need it any more broken down, I'd imagine you'll have to contact VT.
Well, from that same article:
7 23 5
http://macslash.org/article.pl?sid=03/10/28/235
"What's the cost on Infiniband?
All the switches and cards $1.6 mil. $176k for the cables."
And since they said the machines cost "$3000 apiece", 3000 x 1100 = about $3.3M.
$3.3M + $1.6M + $176K leaves $124K for other stuff to reach "$5.2M". And then it was $2M for facilities improvements. I think that's good enough of a breakdown.
From http://macslash.org/article.pl?sid=03/10/28/235723 5&mode=thread
"The total cost of the asset, including systems, memory, storage, primary and secondary communications fabrics and cables is $5.2mil. Facilities upgrade was $2mil. 1mil for the upgrades, 1mil for the UPS and generators."
Total: $7.2M + essentially "volunteer" assembly
So it's still a LOT cheaper than anything even close to comparable.
See http://www.netlib.org/benchmark/performance.pdf page 53.
1. Earth simulator
2. ASCI Q
3. Virginia Tech G5 cluster (9.555 Tflops and rising, $5.2M HARDWARE ONLY)
4. PNL Itanium2 cluster (8.633 Tflops, $24.5M HARDWARE ONLY)
So nope, not only will the PNL Itanium2 cluster not be #2, it will also be 1Tflop behind the Virginia Tech cluster, and it will have done it at almost 5 times the cost. Bravo!
See http://www.netlib.org/benchmark/performance.pdf page 53. The G5 cluster has moved up to 9.555 TFlops.
When I said "current #3", I meant the "current #3" on the currently published Top 500 list at top500.org, not the number 3 spot on that report: there is a new player at number 3, which is that Itanium 2 cluster I referred to.
They're now in front of the LLNL MCR Linux cluster (which they were previously behind), but a new HP Itanium 2 cluster, which has appeared since the report was last updated, is now slightly ahead of them. There shouldn't be many more new entries showing up in the top 10 this list (most of the big guns like Blue Gene, Red Storm, and ASCI Purple won't be ready until 2004), but we always knew there could be new entries.
The preliminary performance report at http://www.netlib.org/benchmark/performance.pdf contains the new entries for the upcoming list as well (see page 53).
So, yes, these numbers are preliminary, and yes, they WILL increase - they already are. See http://www.netlib.org/benchmark/performance.pdf (the official source of preliminary numbers), page 53.
See http://www.netlib.org/benchmark/performance.pdf page 53.
Since yesterday's release at 7.41 Tflop, the G5 cluster has already increased almost a Tflop, and is now ahead of the current #3 MCR Linux cluster, and about 0.5 Tflop behind a new Itanium 2 cluster.
First, from a an Oct 22 New York Times story:
Officials at the school said that they were still finalizing their results and that the final speed number might be significantly higher.
This will likely be the case.
Second, they're only 0.224 Tflops away from the only Intel-based cluster above it. So saying "all the Intel machines" in the story is kind of inaccurate, as if there are all kinds of Intel-based clusters that will still be faster; there is only one Intel-based cluster above it, and with only preliminary numbers for the Virgina Tech cluster at that.
Third, this figure is with around 2112 processors, not the full 2200 processors. With all 1100 nodes, even with no efficiency gain, it will be number 3, as-is.
Finally, this is the a cluster of several firsts:
First major cluster with PowerPC 970
First major cluster with Apple hardware
First major cluster with Infiniband
First major cluster with Mac OS X (Yes, it is running Mac OS X 10.2.7, NOT Linux or Panther [yet])
Linux on Intel has been at this for years. This cluster was assembled in 3 months. There is no reason for the Virginia Tech cluster to remain at ~40% efficiency. It is more than reasonable to expect higher than 50%.
It's still destined for number 3, and its performance will likely even climb for the next Top 500 list as the cluster is optimized. The final results will not be officially announced until a session on November 18 at Supercomputing 2003.
There's a new community site called alienRAID.org that focuses on supporting Xserve RAID in non-Apple and mixed environments. It's likely to be helpful to people interested in deploying Xserve RAID in conjunction with other platforms.
Easy: you yourself point out that 1100 * 15.7 = 17.27 ... not 17.6.
Since the call for papers for the new Top 500 list was Oct 1, and the BBC show aired on Oct 9 with a companion BBC News story dated Oct 12, you'd hope that VT was simply regurgitating the figure that has already been sent to the Top 500 organization.
And why are you trolling around with one of those super-old benchmarking stories? We've already established that every manufacturer does what they can to show their products in the best possible light. At least Apple documented their test results and methods in full.
So acually, your logic doesn't make any sense: you jump to the conclusion that it's not real results - even though real results already exist and have been submitted, and the entire story is pretty much about that process, making performance figures a critical piece to get accurate - and that they must have just multiplied some benchmark number by 1100. Then, even though the subject of your own post indicates your recognition that "it doesn't add up", you still apparently assume that the results are somehow doctored, this time for the worse, and you manage to weave in one of the stories that tries to make it look like Apple lied with its benchmarks - which it didn't - which is unrelated to the current issue! How does it "assume" the original scores were accurate?? YOU are assuming that they're just multiplying. You might have been onto something if the multiplication actually came out, but it doesn't, meaning that is NOT what they did.
Bravo, +1 Troll.