I believe they don't sell video games directly because of their contract with Toys R Us. I'm not sure what the current status is (what with lawsuits and all), but originally Toys R Us was the provider for toys (including video games) on Amazon. I don't know if they'll eventually get into selling video games directly, but it would be nice.
There is no mention about how much heat the thing produces, or how much energy it takes to run it. I hope the Ph.D.s running the whole thing realize that while they are trying to do stuff for the "Department of Energy" they are releasing so many thousands of pounds of junk in the land/air/water to run this giant supercomputer.
I'm trying to remember the specifics on energy usage. A slight more informative article mentions 60 times the cooling capacity of a normal house. And they are looking at ways to reduce the cooling requirements/power consumption with a nifty dynamic cooling system I worked on this summer. As for the energy required to run it, well, there's not much they can do about that if they want the processing power.
The headline for the Slashdot article is a bit misleading. It's the fastest non-military supercomputer in the US; it's the fastest Linux-based supercomputer in the world (at least, it's supposed to be). It's not the fastest supercomputer in the US, though.
Choosing a computer depends on what kind of services your school provides
This is a very good point. I would think most schools have some kind of wireless now, but if they don't a laptop with a wireless card is going to be much less useful.
I can say, though, that if you're a bit of a geek -- especially a CS major, go with a Mac laptop. You don't really need Mac support at school; in fact, I get on just fine at Mudd with an iBook. It has wireless so I can connect in most of the academic areas; I just use IMAP to check e-mail (POP3 works, too); and I can use Apple's X to log in to my desktop or the CS server and run GUI applications remotely. I can also code locally, and OS X comes with gcc, so my programs require little to no modification to run on my Linux desktop, or the Solaris CS server.
If you're going to be doing many things, especially if you're coding, get a PowerBook. My iBook is nice and all, but a bit underpowered once I start compiling stuff on here.
Another advantage to Apple is that if you need it, you can get Office for Mac. Of course, any geek really ought to learn LaTeX...
If you're looking for sci-fi/fantasy type books and you liked Snowcrash, check out Otherland. It's a four book series by Tad Williams -- first book is City of Golden Shadow. Not as cyberpunk-ish as Snowcrash, and the writing doesn't have quite the same flair as Stephenson, but it's still a very good read and a huge story. A large part of it is spent visiting different worlds in a giant VR system. It may seem a bit Matrix-ish, but I'm pretty sure the first book came out before the Matrix.
From what I understand, it doesn't handle this at all. Small files are simply determined by a size -- currently 1MB. If the file is smaller than that, it goes in RAM; bigger, it goes on disk. A size and amount of RAM need to be chosen such that all small files will fit in RAM. One of the things that was emphasized at the talk was that the on-disk filesystem code is greatly simplified because they don't have to worry about small files. They can use large chunk sizes, they don't have to worry so much about fragmentation, etc, specifically because they don't need to deal with small files on disk. Having to write small files to disk, or using an algorithm to determine un-used small files were asked about at the talk, and the presentor basically said "Right now, we don't want to deal with that because of the simplified code for only large files on disk"
As far as I can tell, "Animé" is a japanese word taken from the french "dessin animé", and it refers to all animated works.
Err, I'm pretty sure "anime" is just a shortening of the Japanese word for animation. When trans-literated into Japanese, animation is spelled 'a-ni-me-i-sho-n'; taking the first three Japanese letters gives 'anime'.
I agree with your point, though; anime is just a style; it's animated shows.
What other effects can the Net have, you ask? What about the social effects on people? How they make friends, what activities they spend time doing? Are people really communicating more with people all around the world, or are they just using it as a way to replace phone calls to family? Are kids becoming too wrapped up in IRC and on-line games without going outside to play?
How about effects on democracy? Does it promote smaller political groups, or just reinforce the main political parties?
What kind of impact does the Internet have on third world countries, who are often jumping directly to computers and the Internet without much TV or phone (I've heard in areas of Africa they never got around to installing land phone-lines, but now cell phones are easy, and so they're becoming more used)?
These aren't the obvious effects they're studying; these are the side effects -- the things the original creators of the Net almost surely did not think of. There many issues related to the Internet beyond just straight-forward fast communications.
I had the good fortune to see the US premier of this movie last Tuesday at the El Capitan theater in Hollywood.
First off, the showing itself was wonderful -- it's a very nice old-style theater with a balcony and a curtain in front of the screen. The movie was digitally projected, and it looked perfect to me. It was also very nice not having any commercials/trailers at the beginning -- they did some light effects, opened and few curtains and the first thing on the screen was the blue Studio Ghibli screen (and the whole audience applauded at that).
The movie itself is a great movie. Miyazaki did make it for 10-year old girls, but it can appeal to anyone, I think. The feel was a bit like Alice in Wonderland, with a young girl finding this world of spirits and monsters where she meets interesting people and has some adventures (if you really want a good review, there are others out there). Basically, if you have a chance, go see it. I did see the dub, and it was actually fine; after a bit everything just started flowing and I stopped noticing that it was dubbed (I'm generally a big sub-snob for watching anime).
Miyazaki himself was there for a short interview after the movie; he was asked various questions, first mainly about Spirited Away, and then some audience questions ranging from if he's going to work on the Seven Samurai anime (no, he's opposed to it), to if he's ever going to do more in the worlds of Totoro (never), Laputa (never) or Lupin III (never; he leaves that world to others).
Anyway, very cool experience. If you're in the LA area, El Capitan will be showing Spirited Away for a month or so, mostly in English, but a few showings in Japanese, subbed, and while Miyazaki won't be there, it should be a great place to see it.
Slashdot Mirror
I believe they don't sell video games directly because of their contract with Toys R Us. I'm not sure what the current status is (what with lawsuits and all), but originally Toys R Us was the provider for toys (including video games) on Amazon. I don't know if they'll eventually get into selling video games directly, but it would be nice.
I'm trying to remember the specifics on energy usage. A slight more informative article mentions 60 times the cooling capacity of a normal house. And they are looking at ways to reduce the cooling requirements/power consumption with a nifty dynamic cooling system I worked on this summer. As for the energy required to run it, well, there's not much they can do about that if they want the processing power.
The headline for the Slashdot article is a bit misleading. It's the fastest non-military supercomputer in the US; it's the fastest Linux-based supercomputer in the world (at least, it's supposed to be). It's not the fastest supercomputer in the US, though.
This is a very good point. I would think most schools have some kind of wireless now, but if they don't a laptop with a wireless card is going to be much less useful.
I can say, though, that if you're a bit of a geek -- especially a CS major, go with a Mac laptop. You don't really need Mac support at school; in fact, I get on just fine at Mudd with an iBook. It has wireless so I can connect in most of the academic areas; I just use IMAP to check e-mail (POP3 works, too); and I can use Apple's X to log in to my desktop or the CS server and run GUI applications remotely. I can also code locally, and OS X comes with gcc, so my programs require little to no modification to run on my Linux desktop, or the Solaris CS server.
If you're going to be doing many things, especially if you're coding, get a PowerBook. My iBook is nice and all, but a bit underpowered once I start compiling stuff on here.
Another advantage to Apple is that if you need it, you can get Office for Mac. Of course, any geek really ought to learn LaTeX...
If you're looking for sci-fi/fantasy type books and you liked Snowcrash, check out Otherland. It's a four book series by Tad Williams -- first book is City of Golden Shadow. Not as cyberpunk-ish as Snowcrash, and the writing doesn't have quite the same flair as Stephenson, but it's still a very good read and a huge story. A large part of it is spent visiting different worlds in a giant VR system. It may seem a bit Matrix-ish, but I'm pretty sure the first book came out before the Matrix.
From what I understand, it doesn't handle this at all. Small files are simply determined by a size -- currently 1MB. If the file is smaller than that, it goes in RAM; bigger, it goes on disk. A size and amount of RAM need to be chosen such that all small files will fit in RAM. One of the things that was emphasized at the talk was that the on-disk filesystem code is greatly simplified because they don't have to worry about small files. They can use large chunk sizes, they don't have to worry so much about fragmentation, etc, specifically because they don't need to deal with small files on disk. Having to write small files to disk, or using an algorithm to determine un-used small files were asked about at the talk, and the presentor basically said "Right now, we don't want to deal with that because of the simplified code for only large files on disk"
I agree with your point, though; anime is just a style; it's animated shows.
What other effects can the Net have, you ask? What about the social effects on people? How they make friends, what activities they spend time doing? Are people really communicating more with people all around the world, or are they just using it as a way to replace phone calls to family? Are kids becoming too wrapped up in IRC and on-line games without going outside to play?
How about effects on democracy? Does it promote smaller political groups, or just reinforce the main political parties?
What kind of impact does the Internet have on third world countries, who are often jumping directly to computers and the Internet without much TV or phone (I've heard in areas of Africa they never got around to installing land phone-lines, but now cell phones are easy, and so they're becoming more used)?
These aren't the obvious effects they're studying; these are the side effects -- the things the original creators of the Net almost surely did not think of. There many issues related to the Internet beyond just straight-forward fast communications.
-Darien Jax
I had the good fortune to see the US premier of this movie last Tuesday at the El Capitan theater in Hollywood.
First off, the showing itself was wonderful -- it's a very nice old-style theater with a balcony and a curtain in front of the screen. The movie was digitally projected, and it looked perfect to me. It was also very nice not having any commercials/trailers at the beginning -- they did some light effects, opened and few curtains and the first thing on the screen was the blue Studio Ghibli screen (and the whole audience applauded at that).
The movie itself is a great movie. Miyazaki did make it for 10-year old girls, but it can appeal to anyone, I think. The feel was a bit like Alice in Wonderland, with a young girl finding this world of spirits and monsters where she meets interesting people and has some adventures (if you really want a good review, there are others out there). Basically, if you have a chance, go see it. I did see the dub, and it was actually fine; after a bit everything just started flowing and I stopped noticing that it was dubbed (I'm generally a big sub-snob for watching anime).
Miyazaki himself was there for a short interview after the movie; he was asked various questions, first mainly about Spirited Away, and then some audience questions ranging from if he's going to work on the Seven Samurai anime (no, he's opposed to it), to if he's ever going to do more in the worlds of Totoro (never), Laputa (never) or Lupin III (never; he leaves that world to others).
Anyway, very cool experience. If you're in the LA area, El Capitan will be showing Spirited Away for a month or so, mostly in English, but a few showings in Japanese, subbed, and while Miyazaki won't be there, it should be a great place to see it.
-Darien Jax