MSDN and the Knowlege Base have an incredible amount of useful information. The problem is that it's very badly organized. Case in point: I needed to look up the syntax of the MessageBox API call. I couldn't remember what section of the Windows API documentation it was under, so I tried the search engine. The first hundred results contained all sorts of irrelevant things, such as the VB.NET MsgBox procedure and dozens of examples that just incidentally used the MessageBox function.
My policy for games is to not even look at a game that is less than a year old. I've found that this filters out 90% of the crap, and reading a year's worth of player reviews gets rid of most of the rest.
Now, add in the cost of the gigabit cables, the gigabit switches, the power supplies, HVAC for the computer room, labor for putting it together, and don't forget the shipping charges for the hardware.
It is how most cluster-based supercomputers start out.
With single-piece supercomputers, the hardware configuration is fixed, and the percent of potential perfomance is changed by optimizing the software. With a cluster-based supercomputer like this one, you can also do some hardware adjustment (such as how the nodes are connected) to improve performance.
...maybe i'm obtuse, but i keep hearing about this thing as "..and we're only seeing X% of its real potential right now!"....
1) Why can't they just shout "Let 'er rip!!" and crank the thing wide open?
In theory, every CPU in the cluster is able to perform two floating-point operations every clock cycle, but only if one of those is a multiplication and the other is an addition. The two occur in combination fairly often in scientific computing.
The "real potential" is how fast the computer could run if every CPU was executing two instructions every clock cycle. The "X%" is caused by things such as communications delays, memory accesses, and when the CPU has to do something other than a multiplication and addition.
A "supercomputer" is usually one that is optimized for vector operations: operations that take a data set, and perform the same operation on each element of that data set -- sort of a "Super SIMD/SSE/AltiVec/whatever". Your desktop computer is designed around performing a series of different operations on a single data element at a time. The graphics card of your computer could be considered a very specialized supercomputer.
In terms of raw processing power, the computer on your desk is more powerful than an early Cray. But if you tried to do weather modelling or finite element analysis with both, the Cray would win.
Three hours and no serious posts? Is wireless security really that unimportant to people?
Admittedly, my idea of securing a wireless network is to run Ethernet or fiber optic cables, but still, this seems like something people would care about.
Slashdot Mirror
Do they have enough oil to get George W excited?
MSDN and the Knowlege Base have an incredible amount of useful information. The problem is that it's very badly organized. Case in point: I needed to look up the syntax of the MessageBox API call. I couldn't remember what section of the Windows API documentation it was under, so I tried the search engine. The first hundred results contained all sorts of irrelevant things, such as the VB.NET MsgBox procedure and dozens of examples that just incidentally used the MessageBox function.
My policy for games is to not even look at a game that is less than a year old. I've found that this filters out 90% of the crap, and reading a year's worth of player reviews gets rid of most of the rest.
What's this, the annual Slashdotting of DevNull?
What's number 1?
Only if "local authorities" means the nearest lynch mob.
17 offenses? $1.5 million? Sounds like he's a small-time wannabe. Don't expect any noticable reduction in the number of scams in your mailbox.
The article lists two South American broadcasts. One lead to mass panic, the other lead to a riot that burned down the radio station, killing 15.
name two web browsers with a market share greater than 1%.
Internet Explorer 5, and Internet Explorer 6.
If they manage to pull that off, I'll eat my hat
You want salt with that?
Microsoft's solution is going to win on Windows for the same reason that Internet Explorer is the dominant browser.
Which is amazing, considering they claim to be a *software* company.
What will happen to people using these things when Microsoft deprecates the WMA format, just like they did with the AVI format?
And no-one buys stuff from spam.
Snopes doesn't have anything on alien invasions.
I wonder what sort of panic would ensue if someone were to do a similar broadcast now?
You could be right. I picked that up from a previous Slashdot discussion of this supercomputer.
The Athlon CPU produces more heat per square centimeter than any other heat source in the world.
;)
And no, it's not efficient enough to be a perpetual-motion machine.
$3000/machine * 1100 machines = $3.3mil
Now, add in the cost of the gigabit cables, the gigabit switches, the power supplies, HVAC for the computer room, labor for putting it together, and don't forget the shipping charges for the hardware.
$5.2mil seems a lot more reasonable now.
It is how most cluster-based supercomputers start out.
With single-piece supercomputers, the hardware configuration is fixed, and the percent of potential perfomance is changed by optimizing the software. With a cluster-based supercomputer like this one, you can also do some hardware adjustment (such as how the nodes are connected) to improve performance.
...maybe i'm obtuse, but i keep hearing about this thing as "..and we're only seeing X% of its real potential right now!"....
1) Why can't they just shout "Let 'er rip!!" and crank the thing wide open?
In theory, every CPU in the cluster is able to perform two floating-point operations every clock cycle, but only if one of those is a multiplication and the other is an addition. The two occur in combination fairly often in scientific computing.
The "real potential" is how fast the computer could run if every CPU was executing two instructions every clock cycle. The "X%" is caused by things such as communications delays, memory accesses, and when the CPU has to do something other than a multiplication and addition.
A "supercomputer" is usually one that is optimized for vector operations: operations that take a data set, and perform the same operation on each element of that data set -- sort of a "Super SIMD/SSE/AltiVec/whatever". Your desktop computer is designed around performing a series of different operations on a single data element at a time. The graphics card of your computer could be considered a very specialized supercomputer.
In terms of raw processing power, the computer on your desk is more powerful than an early Cray. But if you tried to do weather modelling or finite element analysis with both, the Cray would win.
Three hours and no serious posts? Is wireless security really that unimportant to people?
Admittedly, my idea of securing a wireless network is to run Ethernet or fiber optic cables, but still, this seems like something people would care about.
That's the cracker logo. We hackers need something more dignified.
Me too!