When I first read the post, I got pretty excited. Dreams of cheap clustering for scientific applications danced in my head. No more need for Myrinet, no Dolphin, just Firewire and Beowulf!
Then, I read some performance metrics on Firewire. High bandwidth. High latency. Doh! The fairies stopped dancing for joy.
The problem is that in scientific computing, the time it takes for one node to say I need that data to another node, and actually get that data determines the performance of many more apps than does the speed of the CPUs.
So, until a cheap, low latency solution for communications comes by, real clusters will be communicating over Dolphin, Myrinet, or some other propietary technology.
If the source code for Office X were available, porting could be fairly straight-forward. This is not the case. Office X is already compiled for PowerPC hardware, and MS is surely not going to release the source code.
WINE works because Windows programs compile to the same processor instructions that Linux or BSD on x86 do. It is then only the linked libraries that WINE needs to replace.
There's a great option to Opera Small-Screen rendering - Plucker. While not yet ported to cell phones (and designed for offline browsing), the screen width is similar to a palm pilot, which Plucker is designed for, and the backend could be compiled to run on a phone. Plus the source is open and the license is GPL2! All it would take is some porting of the renderer, and you'd have an open-sourced small screen browser.
Just tell the telemarketer that calls that you are on a cell phone and don't appreciate them calling it. They will quickly remove your phone number from their list and hang up.
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You're right. There are different clusters for different applications.
Tony
When I first read the post, I got pretty excited. Dreams of cheap clustering for scientific applications danced in my head. No more need for Myrinet, no Dolphin, just Firewire and Beowulf!
Then, I read some performance metrics on Firewire. High bandwidth. High latency. Doh! The fairies stopped dancing for joy.
The problem is that in scientific computing, the time it takes for one node to say I need that data to another node, and actually get that data determines the performance of many more apps than does the speed of the CPUs.
So, until a cheap, low latency solution for communications comes by, real clusters will be communicating over Dolphin, Myrinet, or some other propietary technology.
Tony
Free PDF distiller
This is a tangent, but I just had to let you know about the free PDF distiller.
There is a way to automatically print PDF's from Word.
Tony
Mod the parent up.
If the source code for Office X were available, porting could be fairly straight-forward. This is not the case. Office X is already compiled for PowerPC hardware, and MS is surely not going to release the source code.
WINE works because Windows programs compile to the same processor instructions that Linux or BSD on x86 do. It is then only the linked libraries that WINE needs to replace.
For more helpful info about WINE, check here.
Tony
There's a great option to Opera Small-Screen rendering - Plucker. While not yet ported to cell phones (and designed for offline browsing), the screen width is similar to a palm pilot, which Plucker is designed for, and the backend could be compiled to run on a phone. Plus the source is open and the license is GPL2! All it would take is some porting of the renderer, and you'd have an open-sourced small screen browser.
Visit the Plucker web site.
Tony
Woo-Hoo!
Doh!
alias rm='mv $* /tmp/'
or $HOME/trashcan/ if you prefer.
Tony
Just tell the telemarketer that calls that you are on a cell phone and don't appreciate them calling it. They will quickly remove your phone number from their list and hang up.