Check out the University of Chicago's Computing Cluster & Cybercafe"> and MIT's Media Lab for more information about human user interfaces. This article is behind the times, in regards to stuff that's already been produced in the laboratories.
(Note: we've already encountered an instance where persons are paired with themselves, and where links have been duplicated (perhaps describing communication links of people talking to themselves and shouting at each other, as opposed to talking with each other.)
I especially like how the model is already beginning to show signs of (x | AAA, BBB, CCC). Also, it looks like there is a lot of replication, as in (AB | AAB, ABA, BAA, BBA, BAB, ABB). Actually, this is getting close to some population genetics work I've seen done.
The problem is that N^N still isn't the correct model for the phenomena.
I'm sure that the parent post may look insightful, but the moderators have been led astray. The poster doesn't know what he's talking about, or is a troll. Probably both.
Thank you for your comments Anonymous Coward. I have had professors and mathematicians at the University of Chicago and Notre Dame look at my mathematics before, and although I cannot claim to be a mathematician, they have certainly agreed that I know something about which I talk about.
If the value is N^N, then each additional user multiplies the value by (N+1) * ((N+1)/N)^N, which is about (N+1)*e for large N. If adding the millionth user makes a network a few million times more valuable than it was before, then you have a poor definition of value.
I'm not exactly sure when or where N^N was introducted to this line of discussion. I was refering to N! which, although related to N^{nth power}, actually increases faster than N^{nth). Perhaps I am wrong. The fact of the matter is that it increases quickly, and it accelerates as it increases.
Group theory and quantum theory are not relevant here. If the poster had enough of a mathematics background to understand either of those topics, though, then he would not have misunderstood N^N.
"Graph theory combinatorics" is not a term anyone working in graph theory or combinatorics would use, and if they did, they would not elevate this trivial problem by claiming that they are relevant anyway.
Except for the 56,000 people who are recorded by google as having used those three words together in a webpage. Oh, wait, here is a conference on it, and here is a plug-in for mathematica. Oh, wait, they teach classes and hold conferences and seminars on group theory and combinatorics. (Have you ever hear of adjectives?) And more over, these are the basic mathematics used to discuss world problems, such as poverty, hunger, disease, and war.
Linear dynamics is not relevant, and probably nobody thought it was.
Except for the person who said that the problem was exponential or logarithmic.
Eigenfunctions and eigenvalues are not relevant here.
It appears to me that you don't know how to use eigenfunctions and eigenvalues to calculate quantum graphs, or to solve real world problems in quantum computing, fiber optics, network routing, group addressing, domain name spacing, etc. etc. etc. I suppose that it never occured to you that quantum graph, or a network graph, such as is described by Reed's Law could be described by a matrix or an eigenvalue, did you?
Whatever you think "modular mathematics" is, it's not relevant either.
You know what. I'm just not going to be drawn into this argument.
Much of the rest of what the parent's poster said doesn't make any sense. I think it's clear that he's full of shit.
Excellent strategy! When confronted with something you don't understand, resort to the use of vulgarities! Full of shit I am! It's a biological phenomena which results from eating food. I'm also full of water, proteins, amino acids, calcium deposits, muscle masses, and nucleic acids. But I try to be polite, and I try not to curse.
Reed's law is indeed rubbish. Where would anyone get N^N anyway? Someone could be forgiven for thinking that every possible subset of users adds some minimum value to the network, and they'd get 2^N. That would be a dubious proposition of itself. But N^N is ridiculous
Agreed! N^N is rubbish! I don't know where you got that expression. If you observe my posting, nowhere did I use the expression 'N^N'. Perhaps you were attempting to raise 'N' by 'N+1' or something. I'm not sure. I was attempting to express a concept which is typically refered to with the notation 'N!' although in my haste, I did not compose that message with that particular expression. Anyhow, I agree that N^N is rediculous. Why did you bring it up?
Well, all I can say is that I was hired by our university's department of networking services & information technologies to design and install computing clusters. Designing, building, and producing console boxes is merely a problem of building a computing cluster, which you then 'uncluster' and distribute the nodes to buyers.
I didn't say you had to use Sense8's WorldToolKit or any of the other proprietary software products. I was merely pointing in directions of additional information of equipment and materials which may be pertinent to the project at hand.
As far as designing a filesystem... well, if you have to ask that question, I am going to have to suggest a book for you, written by Donald Knuth, entitled The Art of Programming. The file system is going to be central to the entire machines memory usage, both RAM, ROM, CD, and NFS. Optimization and funtionality are going to be based upon it.
And then 'magically configuring' the system to play XBox games ?! Laf. Well, I suppose so. The 'magical configuration' was done during the installation of the device drivers and the file system layout. Disk imaging can be more tricky than one may imagine. When we were at work in the laboratories, a majority of our time was spent imaging builds rather than coding. But then, we were working at a tier-1 research university, and we didn't like to loose the work we had done to a disk error.
Agreed on all accounts. I think I even have one of those precompiled linux for Javastation somewhere around my house. I, too, never got around to setting up my boot server. Got a BOOTP server setup and running for a computing cluster we installed at college, but never got it working at home. (I must admit that it's pretty cool to watch 100 workstations, fresh out of the shipping packages, go through a BOOTP launch for the first time. It's kind of like conducting an orchestra, but with video monitors.)
Honestly, Ultra1 is as far back as my memory goes. Got to set up a quad processor Ultra80, which was pretty darn cool. Sounds like you've been in the industry longer than I have.
a lot of these devices aren't that hard to write drivers for
which is exactly why you have a job in VR design, which requires you to sign Non Disclosure Agreements. You happen to have a gift for three dimensional mathematics. Not everybody does.
As far as WorldToolkit goes, I like it mostly for its device driver support. Frees up my time to be worrying about other problems. Its much, much easier to simply write an eigenfunction, than it is to write device drivers. But I agree, writing device drivers really isn't all that difficult for most of this stuff.
PlaneShift, Quake, and Unreal could all be possible avenues of investigation, if you were willing to limit all of your Xbox games to being derivatives of 3D engines.
HMDs? Head Mounted Displays? Nah. Weight is clunky. Maybe you've got some really light weight version, but I never got to work with a HMD that made me 'see the light.' I'd rather just have a backlit wall, but then the applications I've worked on tended to be in the scientific and medical communities... not so much need for 360 degree rotation, but rather for a dozen folks to stand around with their coffee discussing strategies for further research and operations.
I was under the impression that the Javastations used Intel processors, which is why they didn't run Solaris. You may very well be correct.
And perhaps the difficulty in running linux on it was that one had to compile a sparc linux. Which makes sense, because I didn't have an extra sparc workstation laying around to build the linux build on for the java station. And hence, I went onto other projects.
Thanks for the correction. It's been awhile since I worked on that project.
I said that the written word is a de-valued commodity, not de-valued in and of itself. Moreover, the written sentence, the written website, and the written book may not be as devalued as the written word (the complexity is greater, and therefore rarer).
As per hypocracy, I am not trying to sell anything with this post. I am not trying to make a profit with it. I am not trying to copyright it. Copy and redistribute as much as you feel like.
And actually, the same cannot be necessarily said for patents. Resource requirements vary from patent to patent, whereas resource requirements for written word generally require a typewriter, computer keyboard, pen, pencil, etc. The fact that resource requirements differ from patent to patent is what differentiates them. Which also brings up the point that patents cannot necessarily be copied cheaper and faster in China or Korea. I can build a restaurant in the US far faster than somebody in China or Korea can build one in the US. I can build kitch that markets to trends locally and faster than foreign markets can.
Moreover, we don't live in the 'patent age'. If someone were to invent an honest to goodness 'replicator' like they have on StarTrek, I would agree that patents would become devalued.
But my point is that the written word is a devalued commodity in the information age.
I could go on if I wanted to, but I don't. And yes, there are billions of people in the world who flip hamburgers, lie to the public, and write code which makes sense to them, but doesn't necessarily have any greater use (myself included). Many of these people are making minimum wage, or slightly better. What they are not doing is making $100K per year, $1M per year, or $1M per month. People who run restaurants, hotels, casinos, heal others, and make kitch can make $1M per year or more.
There are a LOT of people who want to write books or play instruments for a living. Most of them suck.
Agreed. Unfortunately, the fact that most of them suck is a side affect of statistics. (somebody has to create the bulk of a statistical distribution, by which 'average,' 'above average,' and 'below average' are measured by.) I also agree that a lot of people want to write books or play instruments for a living. Doesn't necessarily mean that other people are going to pay them to do it, however. Which is my point, in regards to eBooks. People shouldn't worry about copyrights on written works. Worry about patents on physical things, processess, and systems (such as building a house, opening a restaurant or hotel, making kitch, or building a more efficient automobile.)
My point is that in the information age, there is so much information in the world that its a loosing proposition to try to stand out from the crowd and to actually make a living by merely writing for a living... The competition is too numerous. Writing and coding are merely skills that a person must know how to utilize, in addition, to other skills.
The key to ebooks et al is TRANSFER of the copies. If I buy an ebook, I should be able to give that book to any one person that I want to
Actually, I think I agree with you in regards to the distinction between 'copy' and 'move'. And I definately agree with the physical tie-in, however I also suspect that floppy disks and compact disks are going to be obsolete within the next decade. (optic storage cubes, biochips, wireless transmitters, and smart cards are were tech is currently going).
I'm glad that people can't write down physical constants, mathematical laws, and scientific principles and copyright them.
Wouldn't it be horrible if someone wrote down 'F=MA' or 'PV=nRT' and then owned the copyright on it? Then, every physicist and thermodynamicist in the world would be in the wrong if they copied it...
Goes to show that the written word is a de-valued commodity in the information age; same goes for music (napster). If you want to make money, figure out a way to do something that a billion other people aren't doing (i.e. typing, writing, and playing musical instruments).
If it is a precedent being set, then it could very well be how the population of an entire country operates.
Most people think that 'operating systems' are something that are confined to the workings of computers. History, however, would point out that the term 'computer' used to refer to a person, whose job was to compute (with an abacus or something). Similarly, an 'operating system' also affects how people perform their jobs... Have you ever had somebody tell you something like 'OK, so click Start, Programs, Office, Word' And without thinking, you go through a set of motions that are nearly instinctual? That's an example of how people use operating systems to communicate information and tasks to other people.
I digress a bit. The way I see it, the United States has sort of a 'protective ward' or 'shield' against this kind of stuff, because the USA has a 250+ year old operating system which the federal government uses. The code? Written down in the US Constitution.
Anyhow, the way I see it, you are right, sharing the source code of their OS with a government does seem like its setting a bit of an odd precedent. As far as I can tell, it's sort of like saying, 'OK, we'll organize your billion people just like we organize our files on a supercomputer.' And every person gets a profile, access, authority, and authentication to certain network resources (can you say access control lists (ACLS)?). Hmmm.
It seems to me that it's suggesting a rather Brave-New-World-esque operating system for India. Very, very weird precedent.
Way back when, I had the mixed blessing of working in sufficiently advanced enough laboratories, that I got certified as a systems engineer on Windows NT operating systems. So, I happen to be certified in this area of work, and know something about the process by which one makes console machines. Work I was doing included overhauling Windows to make thin client email stations at our university, which were actually quite similar to console gaming machines. One of the major differences is that thin clients email stations typically use network protocols and network file systems, whereas consoles use compact disk protocols and compact disk file systems. (Ethernet versus Sneakernet)
Anyhow, you have to realize that 'mod' is perhaps a poor choice of words in regards to how one would probably go about making a homebrew X-Box. I would suggest using the term 'lockdown'. In priciple, and in practice, the only thing that really needs to be done is the following:
1. Set up a gaming machine at home. Try using a pizza box or laptop.
2. Install drivers for your gaming controls. Control pads, voice recognition, video drivers, compact disk drivers, et al. Some good links to get started:
Sense8 - The WorldToolKit has the best device driver support that I've seen. Immersion - Good starting point for haptics, game controllers, etc. Voip-Calculator gets you started on voice over internet protocol. Nero - gets you started on CD File System layouts. Altiris - gets you started on image pushing.
3. Design your filesystem.
4. Get the basic configuration working such that it plays an off-the-shelf XBox game.
5. Make a backup image of your gaming station.
6. Delete all unnecessary files, remove all unnecessary subsystems. Lockdown the system until it does nothing other than run the game on the CD when you put it into the tray.
6. Make backup images of your station as needed.
7. When done, remove unnecessary hardware (floppy drive, keyboard, etc).
8. Push image from server onto new consoles with similar configuration as (7).
Now then, you may be asking 'Homebrew'? This sounds like a major operation! This is a going to cost a fortune! Well, yes and no. Yes, M$ is a for-profit company, which seeks to make money. Yes, if you went through this process, you could probably start-up a company which makes it's own console boxes which are XBox compatible. No, this isn't open-source and freeware technology. Yes, you could probably assemble a homebrew XBox by using these links, this process, a Windows 2000 operating system, and PC parts.
The benefit: You know enough to design games and accessories for the XBox market. Do something like make a stereoscopic VR hack of Halo, utilizing Immersion gloves, and CrystalEyes goggles. Submit the concept to M$, become a business partner, and sell immersive visualization systems to XBox consumers, or something.
Remember back in the day when Sun was trying to push their JavaStation box? It was suppose to run a JavaOS on an Intel processor. It wasn't all that successfull.
Well, the lab I used to work at let some of the undergraduates take home the stacks of spare JavaStations we had laying around. =) The theory was that if you could install Linux and Quake on the OS, you would have a fully functioning console box, open sourced, that could run Quake. For those of you who are interested in mass producing console boxes, here are the lessons learned:
1. You need to be able to store the console operating system on an image server.
2. You need a serial port connector, or a LapLink connector, or a BOOTP enabled network card in the console box.
3. You need to install your OS on a testing machine, and strip down all of the extra functionallity (notepad, emacs, vi, and everything else). This is the process of optimizing your open source operating system. Set up the console box as you would a normal gaming system.
4. Take an image of the machine with some product, such as Altiris LabExpert.
5. Push the basic OS onto new machines, as needed.
6. Write documentation, develop games, etc.
7. Get a CD burner and burn games onto the CDs.
8. Package machines and CDs (seperately, probably).
9. Sell machines at cost plus a markup for time and effort.
10. Attempt to do a few things well and specialize.
Thank you kindly for your assessment. From your other postings it appears that you work at the University of Chicago... And I notice some references to the scavenger hunt, as well...
FYI, I used to work at NSIT, supporting the USITE clusters. You may have been over to the USITE:Crerar lab. We set up all of the visualization and collaborative computing over there. Anyhow, I designed the basic builds of those workstations, and hacked the Windows NT registry to run the SETI project as a low level background daemon (Service), and not just as a screensaver.
You should talk to Scott Wilson about hacking the USITE build, and replacing the Seti@Home daemon with a daemon version of your Sloan survey data viewer. It would be sad to see my USITE:Crerar SETI record go away, but I'm working on other stuff now days. Nab the USITE grid, and hack the registry to run your precompiled Sloan survey data binaries as a low level process. Doing so would be a good way to test the resource negotiation across a distributed computing environment (i.e. The USITE cluster... you would have at least three sites: Harper, Crerar, and Regenstein, running a distributed test environment for a larger scale (possibly global?) distribution of the Sloan survey data viewer)
Postscript: Where are you located? LASR? GeoSci? Argonne?
post-postscript: Check out Dr. Wimsatt's colloquium and lectures on Big Problems, Cultural Evolution, and the Dimensions of Globalization if you get the chance. I'm sure he and Dr. Foster are going to collaborate some day and bust up all sorts of new stuff for grid networks... Wimsatt's got all of the grid population genetics and memetic theory stuff worked out.
Ah should and should nots... you appear to be a judgemental person. Luckily, I was not asking for an Anonymous Coward to grade me or judge me. I neither win nor fail. Rather, I learn from each lesson.
printf ("Hello. Please give us your information so that we can send you a gift you didn't ask for.")
scanf ("%s", &input);
database (input);
gift(database.input);
}
}
blah, blah, blah.
3 servers, a router, a T1 connection, real estate, a shipping and packaging plant, business partnership with UPS, and 3 full-time employees working at $15/hr and you've got that system.
yes, I know that this pseudocode doesn't compile. But, as Slashdot and folks like open source code, here is the basic code for a reverse engineered gift call back system.
Information theory
on
Smart Mobs
·
· Score: 4, Insightful
Be careful about rants like that. They tend to reflect poorly on the poster, due to a need to resort to vulgar language, rather than being able to articulate clear arguments.
Some Debate:
Point 1: Having thought about it, I'm not all that excited about the 2nd Law of Thermodynamics, or the Law of Gravity. But I don't have much choice in the matter. I could rant and rage against how unjust the second law of thermodynamics is and call the whole law 'shit', but that isn't going to do any thing about the fact that energy will always flow from localized to diffused states. Reed's law is similar. I can't say that I exactly have a warm and fuzzy feeling about it, but I cannot deny its existance and truth.
Similarly, if you think about it, you will agree that the value of Slashdot increases with every new member (which is what the law states). The law does not state that a new member will make more difference to the value of the site than any prior person, as you suggest that it does. What it does state, is that a new member will provide a potential link to each other registered member of Slashdot, thereby increasing the factorial graph representation of N users by N+1.
Point 2: Clearly, if you've taken a college level calculus course, a group theory course, or a quantum theory course, you will know that logarithm is expressible in terms of multiplication, just as division is expressible in terms of multiplication, and subtraction in terms of addition. Logarithm and exponents are essentially the same thing. Now, I have thought about this topic, I have studied information theory and network theory, and have worked as a network engineer. The law is valid. The claim is not that "the bigger a network is, the greater the impact of a single new node is". You are confusing "big and great" with "numerous and potential". The more accurate claim is that the more numerous the network is, the more potential a single new node has to interact with other nodes.
Point 3: I hate to break it to you, but the fact of the matter is that not only is the law valid, it progresses at a rate faster than exponential. That is, Reed's Law is factorial, and is based on graph theory combinatorics. You appear to be trying to understand Reed's Law according to linear dynamics, which is why it doesn't make sense to you. Its a nonlinear function and requires modular mathematics, such as eigenfunctions and eigenvalues to properly calculate for a problem such as Slashdot. When you approach the problem of Slashdot with Reed's Law, eigenfunctions, and factorial combinatorics, it works out rather simply.
Case 4: This claim is similar to the prevailing 'wisdom' that a single vote doesn't matter in a large crowd. This unfortunate concept is, in large part, due to the popularity of statistics. As my old professor use to say in statistics class, 'Averages are for average people.' Moreover, every vote does count in an election, and every node does increase, factorially, in potential links to other nodes in a group. If one is able to keep track of factorially increasing links, then the whole problem can be tracked without resorting to using statistics.
I used to work at a computing cluster & cybercafe, which operated under the paradigm of collaborative computing. We had all the fun toys there, like tablet PCs, palmtops, high end 3D graphic stations, and everything in between. The lesson I learned about computers while working there is this: Due to the personal computer revolution, people typically conceptualize and use computers as one of two things: glorified typewriters or interactive televisions, depending upon their funtional goals. Both of these functional goals are rather sedintary in their usage.
Tablet PCs are a major stepping stone in regards to mobile computing and collaborative computing. I don't mean to tell you what you do or do not like, but I suspect that you "really prefer your keyboard over a pen and screen combo" because you are doing a lot of typing, and not necessarily much else. If you were doing photo archiving, collaborative computing, pharmaceutical design, diagnostic imaging (MRI), or forensics work, a PC Tablet would be orders of magnitudes more efficient, ergonomic, and usefull than a keyboard.
In environments where you have to be walking around a lot, such as in a hospital, a clinic, a research laboratory, or a research center, Tablet PCs are becoming the rage for good reason. The Hype is because they can be really, really usefull. One has to view tablets as 'compute and run' devices for them to be conceptually usefull.
What's your definition of high end 3D, anyhow? Are you talking about a stereoscopic goggle system on your laptop, like in "SnowCrash"? I call that mainstream high end 3D, although it's not exactly mainstream on laptops yet. I do agree that it has definately reached the laptop market, however.
For instance, CrystalEyes goggles were commercially introduced in 1978 for use on AIX and SGI workstations, as I understand. Although, computational rotary based goggles systems were being custom built by chemists for viewing of chiral molecules dating back to the 1950s. Anyhow, those 3D graphics were vector based, and typically were monochromatic and low resolution (240 by 320, similar to a television). So, by some dating systems, it's taken nearly 50 years.
Anyhow, these PC Tablets are surely pushing a 600 by 800 resolution, with 16bit color, now days, due to LCD technology. I bet that these PC Tablets probably aren't going to be wanting for any graphic performance in regards to email, voice dictation, hand writing recognition, spreadsheats, and so forth.
Lastly, isn't the point of tablet PCs to get away from the mouse and keyboard? Seriously, as long as there is a keyboard around, your computer is acting as a super powered typewriter; not as a graphics workstation, not as a database, not even as a punch card reader.
My thinking is that there may be some comparison between apples and oranges going on here... similar to when auto manufactures introduce a new minivan, and the young folks say, "Well, geez, how am I going to win a race in this thing?" One person's junk is another person's treasure, after all...
It is very, very difficult to build a lander, launch it a billion miles across the solar system, and have it actually land on a planet successfully. There already test landers as you have mentioned.
Point 1:
If you want more information on virtual worlds technologies and lander prototyping applications, check out the Sense8 product line. They have a good virtual world program that the astrophysicists use to model, design, and test mars landers. I've used WorldUp, WorldToolKit, and World2World, and can vouch that these are really good products. I think they have a user group on Yahoo. This, however, is probably not the kind of virtual world that NASA is going to be building for this project.
Point 2:
Also, you may want to check out the Laboratory for Advanced Space Research, at the University of Chicago, for information on the kind of data modeling that they are doing. They run a laboratory down at the Enrico Fermi Institute, where they build the nuclear powered satellites and nuclear powered space probes which they launch. Anyhow, I used to work down at the Enrico Fermi Institute, and I'll tell you this: 1. A whole lot of work goes into building a nuclear powered space probe or satellite. 2. NASA would very much build a hundred virtual worlds to help support those kinds of projects.
Specifically, as the article mentioned, there are certain and specific things which the astronomers and astrophysicists look for. These metrics include intensities, spectra, arrival directions, nuclear and isotopic composition of galactic cosmic rays, anomalous components, solar energetic particles, and particles accelerated in solar winds and planetary magnetospheres.
You see, the purpose of these virtual worlds isn't really to make landscapes for gamers to play Quake on. Rather, they are developing heuristics for space probes which are going to be launched in the future.
So, the virtual worlds which they are describing are summations of matrices, probably expressed in a quantum mechanical notation, utilizing a many-worlds interpretation. These matrices correspond to minimum and maximum values of ranges of the above mentioned metrics which the astronomers and astronauts are looking for.
I attended a colloquim and seminar by Ian Foster, one of the authors of the Globus Toolkit, who was visiting down from Argonne Nat'l Labs. From what I gathered, grid computing is more about having the right kind of network negotiation and protocols between resources. Supper-efficient and superfast are second order derivatives; that is, they are a bonus and nice touch, but I don't think that is exactly what grid computing is about.
Specifically, as I understand it, its about global resource management, across distributed, world-wide systems. Joe, who runs a Particle Collider in Europe, can share information and network resources with Jane, who runs a MRI in America, who can share info and resources with Charlie, who runs a radio telescope in Antartica. I may be mistaken, but I understood grid computing to be sort-of the opposite of clustering.
Now, don't get me wrong... I'm not trying to start any kind of crusade. However, I do know a number of people who swear by Java, and I think that Java may actually be the protocol of choice for a lot of Grid Computing applications (such as sharing of astronomical data, genomic data, and magnetic resonance imaging data). These kinds of applications can greatly benefit by the sandbox architecture, garbage collection, security infrastructure, and virtual machines which Java supports. Sure it adds overhead, but I think that there are millions of programmers and scientists around the world who would gladly take the overhead costs, if it means that they can concentrate on chemistry, astronomy, genetics, or whatever, rather than having to worry about memory pointers, memory leaks, hardware support, and so forth.
But I only attended a couple of lectures by one of the authors of the Globus Toolkit. I'm not an expert or anything, so I could certainly be mistaken.
Slashdot Mirror
Check out the University of Chicago's Computing Cluster & Cybercafe"> and MIT's Media Lab for more information about human user interfaces. This article is behind the times, in regards to stuff that's already been produced in the laboratories.
Fine. I agree that N^N increases faster than N!
Now then, let us apply some N^N math here:
1 | (1^1) | A^A | AA
4 | (2^2) | AA, AB, BA, BB | 4
(Note: we've already encountered an instance where persons are paired with themselves, and where links have been duplicated (perhaps describing communication links of people talking to themselves and shouting at each other, as opposed to talking with each other.)
3 | 3^3 | A, B, C | AAA, AAB, AAC, ABA, ABC, ABC, ACA, ACB, ACC, BAA, BAB, BAC, BBA, BBB, BBC, BCA, BCB, BCC, CAA, CAB, CAC, CBA, CBB, CBC, CCA, CCB, CCC | 27
I especially like how the model is already beginning to show signs of (x | AAA, BBB, CCC). Also, it looks like there is a lot of replication, as in (AB | AAB, ABA, BAA, BBA, BAB, ABB). Actually, this is getting close to some population genetics work I've seen done.
The problem is that N^N still isn't the correct model for the phenomena.
Thank you for your agreement. I used to work as a network engineer.
I'm sure that the parent post may look insightful, but the moderators have been led astray. The poster doesn't know what he's talking about, or is a troll. Probably both.
Thank you for your comments Anonymous Coward. I have had professors and mathematicians at the University of Chicago and Notre Dame look at my mathematics before, and although I cannot claim to be a mathematician, they have certainly agreed that I know something about which I talk about.
If the value is N^N, then each additional user multiplies the value by (N+1) * ((N+1)/N)^N, which is about (N+1)*e for large N. If adding the millionth user makes a network a few million times more valuable than it was before, then you have a poor definition of value.
I'm not exactly sure when or where N^N was introducted to this line of discussion. I was refering to N! which, although related to N^{nth power}, actually increases faster than N^{nth). Perhaps I am wrong. The fact of the matter is that it increases quickly, and it accelerates as it increases.
Group theory and quantum theory are not relevant here. If the poster had enough of a mathematics background to understand either of those topics, though, then he would not have misunderstood N^N.
Well, Anonymous Coward, I would suggest reading some texts including Cisco's Internetworking Technologies Handbook and Donald Knuth's The Art of Computer Programming. While you are at it, you may want to check out some stuff on Quantum Graph Theory.
"Graph theory combinatorics" is not a term anyone working in graph theory or combinatorics would use, and if they did, they would not elevate this trivial problem by claiming that they are relevant anyway.
Except for the 56,000 people who are recorded by google as having used those three words together in a webpage. Oh, wait, here is a conference on it, and here is a plug-in for mathematica. Oh, wait, they teach classes and hold conferences and seminars on group theory and combinatorics. (Have you ever hear of adjectives?) And more over, these are the basic mathematics used to discuss world problems, such as poverty, hunger, disease, and war.
Linear dynamics is not relevant, and probably nobody thought it was.
Except for the person who said that the problem was exponential or logarithmic.
Eigenfunctions and eigenvalues are not relevant here.
It appears to me that you don't know how to use eigenfunctions and eigenvalues to calculate quantum graphs, or to solve real world problems in quantum computing, fiber optics, network routing, group addressing, domain name spacing, etc. etc. etc. I suppose that it never occured to you that quantum graph, or a network graph, such as is described by Reed's Law could be described by a matrix or an eigenvalue, did you?
Whatever you think "modular mathematics" is, it's not relevant either.
You know what. I'm just not going to be drawn into this argument.
Much of the rest of what the parent's poster said doesn't make any sense. I think it's clear that he's full of shit.
Excellent strategy! When confronted with something you don't understand, resort to the use of vulgarities! Full of shit I am! It's a biological phenomena which results from eating food. I'm also full of water, proteins, amino acids, calcium deposits, muscle masses, and nucleic acids. But I try to be polite, and I try not to curse.
Reed's law is indeed rubbish. Where would anyone get N^N anyway? Someone could be forgiven for thinking that every possible subset of users adds some minimum value to the network, and they'd get 2^N. That would be a dubious proposition of itself. But N^N is ridiculous
Agreed! N^N is rubbish! I don't know where you got that expression. If you observe my posting, nowhere did I use the expression 'N^N'. Perhaps you were attempting to raise 'N' by 'N+1' or something. I'm not sure. I was attempting to express a concept which is typically refered to with the notation 'N!' although in my haste, I did not compose that message with that particular expression. Anyhow, I agree that N^N is rediculous. Why did you bring it up?
Due to pressure from the Cisco, they're also dropping the network routing capability.
Laf. Divergent paradigms of reality at work, eh?
Well, all I can say is that I was hired by our university's department of networking services & information technologies to design and install computing clusters. Designing, building, and producing console boxes is merely a problem of building a computing cluster, which you then 'uncluster' and distribute the nodes to buyers.
I didn't say you had to use Sense8's WorldToolKit or any of the other proprietary software products. I was merely pointing in directions of additional information of equipment and materials which may be pertinent to the project at hand.
As far as designing a filesystem... well, if you have to ask that question, I am going to have to suggest a book for you, written by Donald Knuth, entitled The Art of Programming. The file system is going to be central to the entire machines memory usage, both RAM, ROM, CD, and NFS. Optimization and funtionality are going to be based upon it.
And then 'magically configuring' the system to play XBox games ?! Laf. Well, I suppose so. The 'magical configuration' was done during the installation of the device drivers and the file system layout. Disk imaging can be more tricky than one may imagine. When we were at work in the laboratories, a majority of our time was spent imaging builds rather than coding. But then, we were working at a tier-1 research university, and we didn't like to loose the work we had done to a disk error.
Left.
Agreed on all accounts. I think I even have one of those precompiled linux for Javastation somewhere around my house. I, too, never got around to setting up my boot server. Got a BOOTP server setup and running for a computing cluster we installed at college, but never got it working at home. (I must admit that it's pretty cool to watch 100 workstations, fresh out of the shipping packages, go through a BOOTP launch for the first time. It's kind of like conducting an orchestra, but with video monitors.)
Honestly, Ultra1 is as far back as my memory goes. Got to set up a quad processor Ultra80, which was pretty darn cool. Sounds like you've been in the industry longer than I have.
a lot of these devices aren't that hard to write drivers for which is exactly why you have a job in VR design, which requires you to sign Non Disclosure Agreements. You happen to have a gift for three dimensional mathematics. Not everybody does.
As far as WorldToolkit goes, I like it mostly for its device driver support. Frees up my time to be worrying about other problems. Its much, much easier to simply write an eigenfunction, than it is to write device drivers. But I agree, writing device drivers really isn't all that difficult for most of this stuff.
PlaneShift, Quake, and Unreal could all be possible avenues of investigation, if you were willing to limit all of your Xbox games to being derivatives of 3D engines.
HMDs? Head Mounted Displays? Nah. Weight is clunky. Maybe you've got some really light weight version, but I never got to work with a HMD that made me 'see the light.' I'd rather just have a backlit wall, but then the applications I've worked on tended to be in the scientific and medical communities... not so much need for 360 degree rotation, but rather for a dozen folks to stand around with their coffee discussing strategies for further research and operations.
I was under the impression that the Javastations used Intel processors, which is why they didn't run Solaris. You may very well be correct.
And perhaps the difficulty in running linux on it was that one had to compile a sparc linux. Which makes sense, because I didn't have an extra sparc workstation laying around to build the linux build on for the java station. And hence, I went onto other projects.
Thanks for the correction. It's been awhile since I worked on that project.
I said that the written word is a de-valued commodity, not de-valued in and of itself. Moreover, the written sentence, the written website, and the written book may not be as devalued as the written word (the complexity is greater, and therefore rarer).
As per hypocracy, I am not trying to sell anything with this post. I am not trying to make a profit with it. I am not trying to copyright it. Copy and redistribute as much as you feel like.
And actually, the same cannot be necessarily said for patents. Resource requirements vary from patent to patent, whereas resource requirements for written word generally require a typewriter, computer keyboard, pen, pencil, etc. The fact that resource requirements differ from patent to patent is what differentiates them. Which also brings up the point that patents cannot necessarily be copied cheaper and faster in China or Korea. I can build a restaurant in the US far faster than somebody in China or Korea can build one in the US. I can build kitch that markets to trends locally and faster than foreign markets can.
Moreover, we don't live in the 'patent age'. If someone were to invent an honest to goodness 'replicator' like they have on StarTrek, I would agree that patents would become devalued.
But my point is that the written word is a devalued commodity in the information age.
Like what? Playing with computer code? Flipping hamburgers? Lying to the public?
1. Building shelters (architecture)
2. Healing others (medical doctor)
3. Feeding others (restaurant management)
4. Listening to others (psychiatry)
5. Making kitch (manufacturing)
6. Hospitality (hotel management)
7. Risk management (actuarial science)
I could go on if I wanted to, but I don't. And yes, there are billions of people in the world who flip hamburgers, lie to the public, and write code which makes sense to them, but doesn't necessarily have any greater use (myself included). Many of these people are making minimum wage, or slightly better. What they are not doing is making $100K per year, $1M per year, or $1M per month. People who run restaurants, hotels, casinos, heal others, and make kitch can make $1M per year or more.
There are a LOT of people who want to write books or play instruments for a living. Most of them suck.
Agreed. Unfortunately, the fact that most of them suck is a side affect of statistics. (somebody has to create the bulk of a statistical distribution, by which 'average,' 'above average,' and 'below average' are measured by.) I also agree that a lot of people want to write books or play instruments for a living. Doesn't necessarily mean that other people are going to pay them to do it, however. Which is my point, in regards to eBooks. People shouldn't worry about copyrights on written works. Worry about patents on physical things, processess, and systems (such as building a house, opening a restaurant or hotel, making kitch, or building a more efficient automobile.)
My point is that in the information age, there is so much information in the world that its a loosing proposition to try to stand out from the crowd and to actually make a living by merely writing for a living... The competition is too numerous. Writing and coding are merely skills that a person must know how to utilize, in addition, to other skills.
The key to ebooks et al is TRANSFER of the copies. If I buy an ebook, I should be able to give that book to any one person that I want to
Actually, I think I agree with you in regards to the distinction between 'copy' and 'move'. And I definately agree with the physical tie-in, however I also suspect that floppy disks and compact disks are going to be obsolete within the next decade. (optic storage cubes, biochips, wireless transmitters, and smart cards are were tech is currently going).
I'm glad that people can't write down physical constants, mathematical laws, and scientific principles and copyright them.
Wouldn't it be horrible if someone wrote down 'F=MA' or 'PV=nRT' and then owned the copyright on it? Then, every physicist and thermodynamicist in the world would be in the wrong if they copied it...
Goes to show that the written word is a de-valued commodity in the information age; same goes for music (napster). If you want to make money, figure out a way to do something that a billion other people aren't doing (i.e. typing, writing, and playing musical instruments).
If it is a precedent being set, then it could very well be how the population of an entire country operates.
Most people think that 'operating systems' are something that are confined to the workings of computers. History, however, would point out that the term 'computer' used to refer to a person, whose job was to compute (with an abacus or something). Similarly, an 'operating system' also affects how people perform their jobs... Have you ever had somebody tell you something like 'OK, so click Start, Programs, Office, Word' And without thinking, you go through a set of motions that are nearly instinctual? That's an example of how people use operating systems to communicate information and tasks to other people.
I digress a bit. The way I see it, the United States has sort of a 'protective ward' or 'shield' against this kind of stuff, because the USA has a 250+ year old operating system which the federal government uses. The code? Written down in the US Constitution.
Anyhow, the way I see it, you are right, sharing the source code of their OS with a government does seem like its setting a bit of an odd precedent. As far as I can tell, it's sort of like saying, 'OK, we'll organize your billion people just like we organize our files on a supercomputer.' And every person gets a profile, access, authority, and authentication to certain network resources (can you say access control lists (ACLS)?). Hmmm.
It seems to me that it's suggesting a rather Brave-New-World-esque operating system for India. Very, very weird precedent.
Way back when, I had the mixed blessing of working in sufficiently advanced enough laboratories, that I got certified as a systems engineer on Windows NT operating systems. So, I happen to be certified in this area of work, and know something about the process by which one makes console machines. Work I was doing included overhauling Windows to make thin client email stations at our university, which were actually quite similar to console gaming machines. One of the major differences is that thin clients email stations typically use network protocols and network file systems, whereas consoles use compact disk protocols and compact disk file systems. (Ethernet versus Sneakernet)
Anyhow, you have to realize that 'mod' is perhaps a poor choice of words in regards to how one would probably go about making a homebrew X-Box. I would suggest using the term 'lockdown'. In priciple, and in practice, the only thing that really needs to be done is the following:
1. Set up a gaming machine at home. Try using a pizza box or laptop.
2. Install drivers for your gaming controls. Control pads, voice recognition, video drivers, compact disk drivers, et al. Some good links to get started:
Sense8 - The WorldToolKit has the best device driver support that I've seen.
Immersion - Good starting point for haptics, game controllers, etc.
Voip-Calculator gets you started on voice over internet protocol.
Nero - gets you started on CD File System layouts.
Altiris - gets you started on image pushing.
3. Design your filesystem.
4. Get the basic configuration working such that it plays an off-the-shelf XBox game.
5. Make a backup image of your gaming station.
6. Delete all unnecessary files, remove all unnecessary subsystems. Lockdown the system until it does nothing other than run the game on the CD when you put it into the tray.
6. Make backup images of your station as needed.
7. When done, remove unnecessary hardware (floppy drive, keyboard, etc).
8. Push image from server onto new consoles with similar configuration as (7).
Now then, you may be asking 'Homebrew'? This sounds like a major operation! This is a going to cost a fortune! Well, yes and no. Yes, M$ is a for-profit company, which seeks to make money. Yes, if you went through this process, you could probably start-up a company which makes it's own console boxes which are XBox compatible. No, this isn't open-source and freeware technology. Yes, you could probably assemble a homebrew XBox by using these links, this process, a Windows 2000 operating system, and PC parts.
The benefit: You know enough to design games and accessories for the XBox market. Do something like make a stereoscopic VR hack of Halo, utilizing Immersion gloves, and CrystalEyes goggles. Submit the concept to M$, become a business partner, and sell immersive visualization systems to XBox consumers, or something.
Remember back in the day when Sun was trying to push their JavaStation box? It was suppose to run a JavaOS on an Intel processor. It wasn't all that successfull.
Well, the lab I used to work at let some of the undergraduates take home the stacks of spare JavaStations we had laying around. =) The theory was that if you could install Linux and Quake on the OS, you would have a fully functioning console box, open sourced, that could run Quake. For those of you who are interested in mass producing console boxes, here are the lessons learned:
1. You need to be able to store the console operating system on an image server.
2. You need a serial port connector, or a LapLink connector, or a BOOTP enabled network card in the console box.
3. You need to install your OS on a testing machine, and strip down all of the extra functionallity (notepad, emacs, vi, and everything else). This is the process of optimizing your open source operating system. Set up the console box as you would a normal gaming system.
4. Take an image of the machine with some product, such as Altiris LabExpert.
5. Push the basic OS onto new machines, as needed.
6. Write documentation, develop games, etc.
7. Get a CD burner and burn games onto the CDs.
8. Package machines and CDs (seperately, probably).
9. Sell machines at cost plus a markup for time and effort.
10. Attempt to do a few things well and specialize.
But I left the address form blank, so they can't reach me!!! Har, har, har!
oh wait...
doh! -smacks hand on forehead-
Thank you kindly for your assessment. From your other postings it appears that you work at the University of Chicago... And I notice some references to the scavenger hunt, as well...
FYI, I used to work at NSIT, supporting the USITE clusters. You may have been over to the USITE:Crerar lab. We set up all of the visualization and collaborative computing over there. Anyhow, I designed the basic builds of those workstations, and hacked the Windows NT registry to run the SETI project as a low level background daemon (Service), and not just as a screensaver.
You should talk to Scott Wilson about hacking the USITE build, and replacing the Seti@Home daemon with a daemon version of your Sloan survey data viewer. It would be sad to see my USITE:Crerar SETI record go away, but I'm working on other stuff now days. Nab the USITE grid, and hack the registry to run your precompiled Sloan survey data binaries as a low level process. Doing so would be a good way to test the resource negotiation across a distributed computing environment (i.e. The USITE cluster... you would have at least three sites: Harper, Crerar, and Regenstein, running a distributed test environment for a larger scale (possibly global?) distribution of the Sloan survey data viewer)
Postscript: Where are you located? LASR? GeoSci? Argonne?
post-postscript: Check out Dr. Wimsatt's colloquium and lectures on Big Problems, Cultural Evolution, and the Dimensions of Globalization if you get the chance. I'm sure he and Dr. Foster are going to collaborate some day and bust up all sorts of new stuff for grid networks... Wimsatt's got all of the grid population genetics and memetic theory stuff worked out.
Ah should and should nots... you appear to be a judgemental person. Luckily, I was not asking for an Anonymous Coward to grade me or judge me. I neither win nor fail. Rather, I learn from each lesson.
Well, they're really just automating some poor sap's job. It's an automated call back system.
Lets see some pseudocode:
#include "math.header"
#include "network.header"
#include "database.header"
#include "gift.header"
array order[];
array nettrace[];
array template[];
array input[];
main (){
if (order != template) {
traceroute (nettrace);
callback (traceroute);
printf ("Hello. Please give us your information so that we can send you a gift you didn't ask for.")
scanf ("%s", &input);
database (input);
gift(database.input);
}
}
blah, blah, blah.
3 servers, a router, a T1 connection, real estate, a shipping and packaging plant, business partnership with UPS, and 3 full-time employees working at $15/hr and you've got that system.
yes, I know that this pseudocode doesn't compile. But, as Slashdot and folks like open source code, here is the basic code for a reverse engineered gift call back system.
Be careful about rants like that. They tend to reflect poorly on the poster, due to a need to resort to vulgar language, rather than being able to articulate clear arguments.
Some Debate:
Point 1: Having thought about it, I'm not all that excited about the 2nd Law of Thermodynamics, or the Law of Gravity. But I don't have much choice in the matter. I could rant and rage against how unjust the second law of thermodynamics is and call the whole law 'shit', but that isn't going to do any thing about the fact that energy will always flow from localized to diffused states. Reed's law is similar. I can't say that I exactly have a warm and fuzzy feeling about it, but I cannot deny its existance and truth.
Similarly, if you think about it, you will agree that the value of Slashdot increases with every new member (which is what the law states). The law does not state that a new member will make more difference to the value of the site than any prior person, as you suggest that it does. What it does state, is that a new member will provide a potential link to each other registered member of Slashdot, thereby increasing the factorial graph representation of N users by N+1.
Point 2: Clearly, if you've taken a college level calculus course, a group theory course, or a quantum theory course, you will know that logarithm is expressible in terms of multiplication, just as division is expressible in terms of multiplication, and subtraction in terms of addition. Logarithm and exponents are essentially the same thing. Now, I have thought about this topic, I have studied information theory and network theory, and have worked as a network engineer. The law is valid. The claim is not that "the bigger a network is, the greater the impact of a single new node is". You are confusing "big and great" with "numerous and potential". The more accurate claim is that the more numerous the network is, the more potential a single new node has to interact with other nodes.
Point 3: I hate to break it to you, but the fact of the matter is that not only is the law valid, it progresses at a rate faster than exponential. That is, Reed's Law is factorial, and is based on graph theory combinatorics. You appear to be trying to understand Reed's Law according to linear dynamics, which is why it doesn't make sense to you. Its a nonlinear function and requires modular mathematics, such as eigenfunctions and eigenvalues to properly calculate for a problem such as Slashdot. When you approach the problem of Slashdot with Reed's Law, eigenfunctions, and factorial combinatorics, it works out rather simply.
Case 4: This claim is similar to the prevailing 'wisdom' that a single vote doesn't matter in a large crowd. This unfortunate concept is, in large part, due to the popularity of statistics. As my old professor use to say in statistics class, 'Averages are for average people.' Moreover, every vote does count in an election, and every node does increase, factorially, in potential links to other nodes in a group. If one is able to keep track of factorially increasing links, then the whole problem can be tracked without resorting to using statistics.
I used to work at a computing cluster & cybercafe, which operated under the paradigm of collaborative computing. We had all the fun toys there, like tablet PCs, palmtops, high end 3D graphic stations, and everything in between. The lesson I learned about computers while working there is this: Due to the personal computer revolution, people typically conceptualize and use computers as one of two things: glorified typewriters or interactive televisions, depending upon their funtional goals. Both of these functional goals are rather sedintary in their usage.
Tablet PCs are a major stepping stone in regards to mobile computing and collaborative computing. I don't mean to tell you what you do or do not like, but I suspect that you "really prefer your keyboard over a pen and screen combo" because you are doing a lot of typing, and not necessarily much else. If you were doing photo archiving, collaborative computing, pharmaceutical design, diagnostic imaging (MRI), or forensics work, a PC Tablet would be orders of magnitudes more efficient, ergonomic, and usefull than a keyboard.
In environments where you have to be walking around a lot, such as in a hospital, a clinic, a research laboratory, or a research center, Tablet PCs are becoming the rage for good reason. The Hype is because they can be really, really usefull. One has to view tablets as 'compute and run' devices for them to be conceptually usefull.
What's your definition of high end 3D, anyhow? Are you talking about a stereoscopic goggle system on your laptop, like in "SnowCrash"? I call that mainstream high end 3D, although it's not exactly mainstream on laptops yet. I do agree that it has definately reached the laptop market, however.
For instance, CrystalEyes goggles were commercially introduced in 1978 for use on AIX and SGI workstations, as I understand. Although, computational rotary based goggles systems were being custom built by chemists for viewing of chiral molecules dating back to the 1950s. Anyhow, those 3D graphics were vector based, and typically were monochromatic and low resolution (240 by 320, similar to a television). So, by some dating systems, it's taken nearly 50 years.
Anyhow, these PC Tablets are surely pushing a 600 by 800 resolution, with 16bit color, now days, due to LCD technology. I bet that these PC Tablets probably aren't going to be wanting for any graphic performance in regards to email, voice dictation, hand writing recognition, spreadsheats, and so forth.
Lastly, isn't the point of tablet PCs to get away from the mouse and keyboard? Seriously, as long as there is a keyboard around, your computer is acting as a super powered typewriter; not as a graphics workstation, not as a database, not even as a punch card reader.
My thinking is that there may be some comparison between apples and oranges going on here... similar to when auto manufactures introduce a new minivan, and the young folks say, "Well, geez, how am I going to win a race in this thing?" One person's junk is another person's treasure, after all...
It is very, very difficult to build a lander, launch it a billion miles across the solar system, and have it actually land on a planet successfully. There already test landers as you have mentioned.
Point 1:
If you want more information on virtual worlds technologies and lander prototyping applications, check out the Sense8 product line. They have a good virtual world program that the astrophysicists use to model, design, and test mars landers. I've used WorldUp, WorldToolKit, and World2World, and can vouch that these are really good products. I think they have a user group on Yahoo. This, however, is probably not the kind of virtual world that NASA is going to be building for this project.
Point 2:
Also, you may want to check out the Laboratory for Advanced Space Research, at the University of Chicago, for information on the kind of data modeling that they are doing. They run a laboratory down at the Enrico Fermi Institute, where they build the nuclear powered satellites and nuclear powered space probes which they launch. Anyhow, I used to work down at the Enrico Fermi Institute, and I'll tell you this: 1. A whole lot of work goes into building a nuclear powered space probe or satellite. 2. NASA would very much build a hundred virtual worlds to help support those kinds of projects.
Specifically, as the article mentioned, there are certain and specific things which the astronomers and astrophysicists look for. These metrics include intensities, spectra, arrival directions, nuclear and isotopic composition of galactic cosmic rays, anomalous components, solar energetic particles, and particles accelerated in solar winds and planetary magnetospheres.
You see, the purpose of these virtual worlds isn't really to make landscapes for gamers to play Quake on. Rather, they are developing heuristics for space probes which are going to be launched in the future.
So, the virtual worlds which they are describing are summations of matrices, probably expressed in a quantum mechanical notation, utilizing a many-worlds interpretation. These matrices correspond to minimum and maximum values of ranges of the above mentioned metrics which the astronomers and astronauts are looking for.
I'm skeptical about your definition.
I attended a colloquim and seminar by Ian Foster, one of the authors of the Globus Toolkit, who was visiting down from Argonne Nat'l Labs. From what I gathered, grid computing is more about having the right kind of network negotiation and protocols between resources. Supper-efficient and superfast are second order derivatives; that is, they are a bonus and nice touch, but I don't think that is exactly what grid computing is about.
Specifically, as I understand it, its about global resource management, across distributed, world-wide systems. Joe, who runs a Particle Collider in Europe, can share information and network resources with Jane, who runs a MRI in America, who can share info and resources with Charlie, who runs a radio telescope in Antartica. I may be mistaken, but I understood grid computing to be sort-of the opposite of clustering.
Now, don't get me wrong... I'm not trying to start any kind of crusade. However, I do know a number of people who swear by Java, and I think that Java may actually be the protocol of choice for a lot of Grid Computing applications (such as sharing of astronomical data, genomic data, and magnetic resonance imaging data). These kinds of applications can greatly benefit by the sandbox architecture, garbage collection, security infrastructure, and virtual machines which Java supports. Sure it adds overhead, but I think that there are millions of programmers and scientists around the world who would gladly take the overhead costs, if it means that they can concentrate on chemistry, astronomy, genetics, or whatever, rather than having to worry about memory pointers, memory leaks, hardware support, and so forth.
But I only attended a couple of lectures by one of the authors of the Globus Toolkit. I'm not an expert or anything, so I could certainly be mistaken.