No. No it isn't. Supercomputers require high-speed optical interconnects and extremely fast switches to handle the bandwidth from massive computations with sub-millisecond latency. The coms hardware alone alone will run you into the millions for any decent powered supercomputer. Then you start getting to blades which use high reliability components, ultra-fast drives, and even customized hardware in some cases. Then you've got the cost for maintaining and administering the system, which is far from cheap. Then the power, cooling system, etc. . All in all, it takes millions to buy the hardware and millions to maintain it.
$10 million won't buy you much for a good super computer. Even a low end supercomputer will probably cost about $1million with an annual upkeep of about half that. You can take that money and build yourself a grid out of commodity hardware, but it won't perform anywhere near what a supercomputer is capable of. And you still have to deal with all the other costs as well.
People have constructed impressive massively parallel processors using game consoles, after all.
Yes, and those are useful for embarrassingly parallel problems. Most problems are not. For example, a climate model would run orders of magnitude slower on a cluster than they would on a supercomputer just from the latencies.
It's the programmers, not the supercomputer makers, who will make the difference in this "race."
Actually, it's neither. Computational scientist already do a good job utilizing the hardware (GP-GPU programming is a little more recent so that may take more time). The real problem to solve is going to be data management. Peta-scale sized problems are going to require peta-scale sized data management, and that's not trivial. It's pointless to have a really fast machine and really fast algorithms if you cannot access, utilize, and store the data quickly and efficiently. In fact, this has been a top topic of conversation at supercomputing conferences.
Computational speed is actually useless if you have no way to access, store, or process the data being produced in an efficient way.
The real problem is on the data side. A petaflop system could easily generate peta or exabyte scale data. How do you quickly store and access this data? How do you analyze it? The computations are always fast, but how fast will your app run if it is spending 30% of it's time waiting on IO?
Computational benchmarks really are pointless when it comes to real system utilization. They give you a possible "best case" scenario, and that's about it.
Just because the corporatists have redefined "free market" to mean "raping the public for every last dime they have" doesn't mean that the original concept no longer exists.
A free market is one controlled by customers, I agree. Corporations DO NOT want to be controlled by anyone, least of all their customers.
My section of the globe is having record cold, not record warmth.
Um, congrats? Hence why I said the global temps are near record warmth. Yes, some areas of the globe are experiencing cooler temps, but overall the temps are above average.
The Dalton, Sporer, and Maunder minima all existed, AGW has no explanation for them.
Huh? Why the hell would AGW have an explanation for solar activity? Especially solar activity that happened centuries ago?
You are confusing AGW with Heliophyisics. They are two very different topics.
CO2 levels say the temperature should have been constant. It was not.
When? During the solar minima? If CO2 levels were relatively constant and solar output decreases, what on earth would make you think that temps would stay constant?
You're just making shit up. AGW is a recent phenomena. AGW is not historical nor paleoclimatology. Before you start making claims like this you may want to look at the research. Otherwise you just sound like an idiot.
Something else is going on. Exactly what is the great question.
In regards to what? Solar activity? We know relatively little about the sun, mainly because we can't get a good look at it's internal mechanics. Then again, as I've said before, heliophysics is an entirely separate branch of study.
If you're talking about climatology, then where is your proof that something else is going on? There's an entire world out there waiting for your genius insight to show why all the current research is wrong and you are right.
Until you have something more substantial than idle speculation and gut feeling, I think I'll side with the mountains of evidence and research.
Apparently, "stable temperatures" and "interglacial" do not go together.
So, you're basically saying that climate scientists are idiots? That none of them have stopped to analyze previous periods and the climatological factors to get a better handle on the current situation? That none of them have looked at the solar records, or have bothered to take into account any of the most basic fucking facts in climate science? Are you really that ignorant about the climate sciences?
You "pointing out" these things to climatologists would be like me pointing out using a keyboard to someone on Slashdot. Let me know when you have some real research to contribute to the discussion, preferably in the form of a peer reviewed science article.
Except that Piers Corbin is not a climatologist, is a borderline quack, and none of his "research" in this area is backed up by peer reviewed articles.
Now add to this that the past three winters have actually been some of the warmest winters (especially in the arctic) we've had, there is nothing very "harbinger" about it. Warmer winters mean more precipitation, which is what we've been seeing. Currently, there are wide swaths of the arctic that are as much as 20F warmer than their average, hence for the first time on record there has actually been an arctic ice REDUCTION in winter which you can see for yourself here http://www.iup.uni-bremen.de:8084/amsr/amsre.html, or you can go by ice volume here http://psc.apl.washington.edu/ArcticSeaiceVolume/IceVolume.php . In addition, global temperatures have still been rising even during a solar minimum. Even with the moderate La Nina we're still having near record warmth for the globe.
I think I'll continue following the consensus of the body of climate science, thanks.
I would expect that if multiple people had pointed out multiple flaws over several years and still nothing was done about it, that broadcasting it to everyone would be a SERVICE so that others would be aware of the RISKS and DANGERS being ignored by those who are supposed to be protecting them. The TSA's response is exactly the OPPOSITE of what it should be and reveals the TSA for what it is; a quasi-tyrannical organization more concerned with getting money than supplying actual security.
The TSA is a perfect example of what is wrong with this country.
...sometimes taking on this impossible fight makes previously impossible things possible.
Unfortunately that is a door that swings both ways. The war on terror, the war on drugs, the war on copyright infringement has certainly opened doors for making things possible that were once thought not to be.
Heroes may not compromise with injustice, but injustice is more than happy to compromise with everyone else.
Free-marketers seem to have this inane idea that competition will always yield "the best". This is predicated on a notion similar to evolution. However, evolution never yields "the best". It yields the "good enough". Just because an organism/organization is successful does not mean it is acting in it's own best interest or the interest of others.
Bullshit. The meltdown happened because banks over-leveraged themselves using real estate as collateral against Really Fucking Stupid Loans so they could take the money and invest it in Really Fucking Stupid Investments. Several books have been written about this and they all detail the Really Fucking Stupid Shit the banks did in the name of greed and profit.
Government regulations favor corporations because that's who pays them. A CORRECT government would not be influenced by corporate whims and would reflect the will of the people.
Less government regulations won't fix jack either. That's a blank check for corporate corruption. Corporations actively work to ensure their profits, and if that means being anti-competitive pricks than so be it. This has been demonstrated repeatedly in the past.
You can choose to get screwed over slowly with at least the facade that you can vote to stop being screwed (government). Or you can get screwed over quickly knowing you have no say in the matter (corporations).
More government regulations = corporations win. Less government regulations = corporations win. Either way, we lose.
1. A well educated public. 2. A well motivated public.
The populace as a whole is suffering from it's own ignorance and apathy. The government leaders and megacorps aim to keep it that way.
The reason it's so difficult to effect any beneficial change is that those who are sentient enough to see where we are headed do not make up the majority. And of those, a good chunk happen to be the government/corporate leaders who are more than happy to continue on the present course.
No, you're claiming that the oligopolies are more beneficial to the populace than government. That is very much incorrect.
Institutions whose primary motivation is greed will attempt everything short of outright stealing to make a profit. If they can double dip, they will. If they can add on idiotic fees, they will. If hey want to increase you're bill to astronomical amounts, they will. If they want to oversell their pipes, they will.
Net neutrality is not about who controls the internet.
Of course, because as history has repeatedly demonstrated that whenever there is small exclusive concentration of wealth and power it always works out best for the people.
Free markets only work when there is free and fair competition. This will never, ever happen. Humans are not fair creatures.
I agree. Being all starry eyed with the Next Big Thing is great, but there are millions of people out there with the Next Big Thing and 99.9999% of them will have their dreams smashed across the rocks of reality.
Now, a decent education will help introduce a bit of reality into your ideas, helping you figure how to implement them or if they are even possible. And in case your Next Big Thing turns out to be Yet Another Dud, you at least have something to fall back on.
I've found in interviews that graduates from Expensive Ivy League School know that they are graduates from Expensive Ivy League School and will make sure you know that they are graduates from Expensive Ivy League School .
Why shouldn't a company that has built out infrastructure (in some cases taking enormous risk) be free to charge what they want to access that infrastructure?
Because they didn't. We did.Taxpayer money either subsidized or outright paid for the infrastructure.
I understand that your current contract may allow unlimited use of the internet, but the economics are changing and service providers should be encouraged to think up new business models, or there is no reward for them to ever upgrade their networks.
I don't think you've been paying attention. They have no incentive to upgrade their networks. They oversubscribe their lines, and have been feverishly trying to come up with new ways to milk every last cent out of their customers before throwing down for new capacity. This is especially true in areas where there is only one or two providers, where last milers are still on modems because no company is every going to bother to get broadband to them out of the kindness of it's heart.
If anything, you're making a great argument for why the internet SHOULD NOT be in the hands of private companies. Companies are not motivated by morals, or national pride, or drive to be the best. They are motivated by profit, and the cheaper they can get and increase profit the better.
Therefore, last milers will still be last milers, lines will still be massively oversubscribed, and we will continue to lag the rest of the world.
You know what? It worked.
Not really. It worked because people didn't have much choice. AT&T got more revenue because overall people were paying more for the exact same service. And, according to your reasoning, they should have taken that revenue and put it into expanding their network which they didn't (AT&T has the shittiest network out there, bar none).
If you go to the site, they're not saying we should cut ALL of the NSF funding. They're asking people to suggest specific grants that are not good uses of tax dollars. The OP is essentially saying that there can't possibly be waste anywhere in the NSF budget at that anyone who would even suggest such a thing must necessarily be anti-science.
And of course, the general populace who can't even answer the question of "which weighs more, a pound of feathers or a pound of lead" are exactly the type of people we want making decisions on what science should be funded.
There is waste in any bureaucracy. To eliminate it you put people who are knowledgeable in charge, not Joe the Plumber.
My guess is that bank of america merely has the inside scoup and wikileaks is about to be declared official terrorists.
If that happens, then this once great nation built on the ideals of freedom and democracy will be officially dead. Any institution, individual, or country that the government disagrees with could be labeled "terrorists", giving the government a blank check in how to proceed.
So let me get this straight. The average American, who is not well versed in our own government, who doesn't really understand financial management, who can't locate Iraq on map, and overall isn't educated more than enough to make them a somewhat functioning worker, will be given the privilege to recommend what programs should and should not be cut.
Well, I guess it can't be worse than the asshats we already have in congress.
Power don't come from a badge or a gun. Power comes from lying. Lying big, and gettin' the whole damn world to play along with you. Once you got everybody agreeing with what they know in their hearts ain't true, you've got 'em by the balls.
This is what Fox News, swill spigots like Palin and Beck, and most of the Republicans have done. And to their credit, they've done it well. They've taken full advantage of our apathetic 5 minute attention spans and drilled the lies so long and so hard that people just don't question anymore. On top of that they lay 1 mile layer of sweet tasty Jesus-Hypocrisy frosting, and not one god-ferrin' 'merican will ever question them.
Slashdot Mirror
The technology is commodity level
No. No it isn't. Supercomputers require high-speed optical interconnects and extremely fast switches to handle the bandwidth from massive computations with sub-millisecond latency. The coms hardware alone alone will run you into the millions for any decent powered supercomputer. Then you start getting to blades which use high reliability components, ultra-fast drives, and even customized hardware in some cases. Then you've got the cost for maintaining and administering the system, which is far from cheap. Then the power, cooling system, etc. . All in all, it takes millions to buy the hardware and millions to maintain it.
$10 million won't buy you much for a good super computer. Even a low end supercomputer will probably cost about $1million with an annual upkeep of about half that. You can take that money and build yourself a grid out of commodity hardware, but it won't perform anywhere near what a supercomputer is capable of. And you still have to deal with all the other costs as well.
People have constructed impressive massively parallel processors using game consoles, after all.
Yes, and those are useful for embarrassingly parallel problems. Most problems are not. For example, a climate model would run orders of magnitude slower on a cluster than they would on a supercomputer just from the latencies.
It's the programmers, not the supercomputer makers, who will make the difference in this "race."
Actually, it's neither. Computational scientist already do a good job utilizing the hardware (GP-GPU programming is a little more recent so that may take more time). The real problem to solve is going to be data management. Peta-scale sized problems are going to require peta-scale sized data management, and that's not trivial. It's pointless to have a really fast machine and really fast algorithms if you cannot access, utilize, and store the data quickly and efficiently. In fact, this has been a top topic of conversation at supercomputing conferences.
Computational speed is actually useless if you have no way to access, store, or process the data being produced in an efficient way.
The real problem is on the data side. A petaflop system could easily generate peta or exabyte scale data. How do you quickly store and access this data? How do you analyze it? The computations are always fast, but how fast will your app run if it is spending 30% of it's time waiting on IO?
Computational benchmarks really are pointless when it comes to real system utilization. They give you a possible "best case" scenario, and that's about it.
The only language where comic book swear words will beat you at tic-tac-toe.
Just because the corporatists have redefined "free market" to mean "raping the public for every last dime they have" doesn't mean that the original concept no longer exists.
A free market is one controlled by customers, I agree. Corporations DO NOT want to be controlled by anyone, least of all their customers.
My section of the globe is having record cold, not record warmth.
Um, congrats? Hence why I said the global temps are near record warmth. Yes, some areas of the globe are experiencing cooler temps, but overall the temps are above average.
The Dalton, Sporer, and Maunder minima all existed, AGW has no explanation for them.
Huh? Why the hell would AGW have an explanation for solar activity? Especially solar activity that happened centuries ago?
You are confusing AGW with Heliophyisics. They are two very different topics.
CO2 levels say the temperature should have been constant. It was not.
When? During the solar minima? If CO2 levels were relatively constant and solar output decreases, what on earth would make you think that temps would stay constant?
You're just making shit up. AGW is a recent phenomena. AGW is not historical nor paleoclimatology. Before you start making claims like this you may want to look at the research. Otherwise you just sound like an idiot.
Something else is going on. Exactly what is the great question.
In regards to what? Solar activity? We know relatively little about the sun, mainly because we can't get a good look at it's internal mechanics. Then again, as I've said before, heliophysics is an entirely separate branch of study.
If you're talking about climatology, then where is your proof that something else is going on? There's an entire world out there waiting for your genius insight to show why all the current research is wrong and you are right.
Until you have something more substantial than idle speculation and gut feeling, I think I'll side with the mountains of evidence and research.
Apparently, "stable temperatures" and "interglacial" do not go together.
So, you're basically saying that climate scientists are idiots? That none of them have stopped to analyze previous periods and the climatological factors to get a better handle on the current situation? That none of them have looked at the solar records, or have bothered to take into account any of the most basic fucking facts in climate science? Are you really that ignorant about the climate sciences?
You "pointing out" these things to climatologists would be like me pointing out using a keyboard to someone on Slashdot. Let me know when you have some real research to contribute to the discussion, preferably in the form of a peer reviewed science article.
Except that Piers Corbin is not a climatologist, is a borderline quack, and none of his "research" in this area is backed up by peer reviewed articles.
Now add to this that the past three winters have actually been some of the warmest winters (especially in the arctic) we've had, there is nothing very "harbinger" about it. Warmer winters mean more precipitation, which is what we've been seeing. Currently, there are wide swaths of the arctic that are as much as 20F warmer than their average, hence for the first time on record there has actually been an arctic ice REDUCTION in winter which you can see for yourself here http://www.iup.uni-bremen.de:8084/amsr/amsre.html, or you can go by ice volume here http://psc.apl.washington.edu/ArcticSeaiceVolume/IceVolume.php . In addition, global temperatures have still been rising even during a solar minimum. Even with the moderate La Nina we're still having near record warmth for the globe.
I think I'll continue following the consensus of the body of climate science, thanks.
I would expect that if multiple people had pointed out multiple flaws over several years and still nothing was done about it, that broadcasting it to everyone would be a SERVICE so that others would be aware of the RISKS and DANGERS being ignored by those who are supposed to be protecting them. The TSA's response is exactly the OPPOSITE of what it should be and reveals the TSA for what it is; a quasi-tyrannical organization more concerned with getting money than supplying actual security.
The TSA is a perfect example of what is wrong with this country.
...sometimes taking on this impossible fight makes previously impossible things possible.
Unfortunately that is a door that swings both ways. The war on terror, the war on drugs, the war on copyright infringement has certainly opened doors for making things possible that were once thought not to be.
Heroes may not compromise with injustice, but injustice is more than happy to compromise with everyone else.
11) Snorting lunar dust of an alien hookers third tit
Free-marketers seem to have this inane idea that competition will always yield "the best". This is predicated on a notion similar to evolution. However, evolution never yields "the best". It yields the "good enough". Just because an organism/organization is successful does not mean it is acting in it's own best interest or the interest of others.
Bullshit. The meltdown happened because banks over-leveraged themselves using real estate as collateral against Really Fucking Stupid Loans so they could take the money and invest it in Really Fucking Stupid Investments. Several books have been written about this and they all detail the Really Fucking Stupid Shit the banks did in the name of greed and profit.
Government regulations favor corporations because that's who pays them. A CORRECT government would not be influenced by corporate whims and would reflect the will of the people.
Less government regulations won't fix jack either. That's a blank check for corporate corruption. Corporations actively work to ensure their profits, and if that means being anti-competitive pricks than so be it. This has been demonstrated repeatedly in the past.
You can choose to get screwed over slowly with at least the facade that you can vote to stop being screwed (government). Or you can get screwed over quickly knowing you have no say in the matter (corporations).
More government regulations = corporations win. Less government regulations = corporations win. Either way, we lose.
In order to change anything, you need:
1. A well educated public.
2. A well motivated public.
The populace as a whole is suffering from it's own ignorance and apathy. The government leaders and megacorps aim to keep it that way.
The reason it's so difficult to effect any beneficial change is that those who are sentient enough to see where we are headed do not make up the majority. And of those, a good chunk happen to be the government/corporate leaders who are more than happy to continue on the present course.
We are a small minority.
No, you're claiming that the oligopolies are more beneficial to the populace than government. That is very much incorrect.
Institutions whose primary motivation is greed will attempt everything short of outright stealing to make a profit. If they can double dip, they will. If they can add on idiotic fees, they will. If hey want to increase you're bill to astronomical amounts, they will. If they want to oversell their pipes, they will.
Net neutrality is not about who controls the internet.
Of course, because as history has repeatedly demonstrated that whenever there is small exclusive concentration of wealth and power it always works out best for the people.
Free markets only work when there is free and fair competition. This will never, ever happen. Humans are not fair creatures.
I agree. Being all starry eyed with the Next Big Thing is great, but there are millions of people out there with the Next Big Thing and 99.9999% of them will have their dreams smashed across the rocks of reality.
Now, a decent education will help introduce a bit of reality into your ideas, helping you figure how to implement them or if they are even possible. And in case your Next Big Thing turns out to be Yet Another Dud, you at least have something to fall back on.
I've found in interviews that graduates from Expensive Ivy League School know that they are graduates from Expensive Ivy League School and will make sure you know that they are graduates from Expensive Ivy League School .
And that's really about it.
Why shouldn't a company that has built out infrastructure (in some cases taking enormous risk) be free to charge what they want to access that infrastructure?
Because they didn't. We did.Taxpayer money either subsidized or outright paid for the infrastructure.
I understand that your current contract may allow unlimited use of the internet, but the economics are changing and service providers should be encouraged to think up new business models, or there is no reward for them to ever upgrade their networks.
I don't think you've been paying attention. They have no incentive to upgrade their networks. They oversubscribe their lines, and have been feverishly trying to come up with new ways to milk every last cent out of their customers before throwing down for new capacity. This is especially true in areas where there is only one or two providers, where last milers are still on modems because no company is every going to bother to get broadband to them out of the kindness of it's heart.
If anything, you're making a great argument for why the internet SHOULD NOT be in the hands of private companies. Companies are not motivated by morals, or national pride, or drive to be the best. They are motivated by profit, and the cheaper they can get and increase profit the better.
Therefore, last milers will still be last milers, lines will still be massively oversubscribed, and we will continue to lag the rest of the world.
You know what? It worked.
Not really. It worked because people didn't have much choice. AT&T got more revenue because overall people were paying more for the exact same service. And, according to your reasoning, they should have taken that revenue and put it into expanding their network which they didn't (AT&T has the shittiest network out there, bar none).
I'll say this about American style capitalism: It makes socialism look good.
If you go to the site, they're not saying we should cut ALL of the NSF funding. They're asking people to suggest specific grants that are not good uses of tax dollars. The OP is essentially saying that there can't possibly be waste anywhere in the NSF budget at that anyone who would even suggest such a thing must necessarily be anti-science.
And of course, the general populace who can't even answer the question of "which weighs more, a pound of feathers or a pound of lead" are exactly the type of people we want making decisions on what science should be funded.
There is waste in any bureaucracy. To eliminate it you put people who are knowledgeable in charge, not Joe the Plumber.
At least don't cut any more funding for education. How else are we all going to learn Mandarin?
Well, we don't need to learn THAT much mandarin. I mean, how long does it take to learn "Yes master" and "Thank you sir, may I please have another"?
My guess is that bank of america merely has the inside scoup and wikileaks is about to be declared official terrorists.
If that happens, then this once great nation built on the ideals of freedom and democracy will be officially dead. Any institution, individual, or country that the government disagrees with could be labeled "terrorists", giving the government a blank check in how to proceed.
Are you new here sir? Just stumble in sir?
So let me get this straight. The average American, who is not well versed in our own government, who doesn't really understand financial management, who can't locate Iraq on map, and overall isn't educated more than enough to make them a somewhat functioning worker, will be given the privilege to recommend what programs should and should not be cut.
Well, I guess it can't be worse than the asshats we already have in congress.
To quote Sin Ciy's Senator Roark:
Power don't come from a badge or a gun. Power comes from lying. Lying big, and gettin' the whole damn world to play along with you. Once you got everybody agreeing with what they know in their hearts ain't true, you've got 'em by the balls.
This is what Fox News, swill spigots like Palin and Beck, and most of the Republicans have done. And to their credit, they've done it well. They've taken full advantage of our apathetic 5 minute attention spans and drilled the lies so long and so hard that people just don't question anymore. On top of that they lay 1 mile layer of sweet tasty Jesus-Hypocrisy frosting, and not one god-ferrin' 'merican will ever question them.
Amazing, but in a sad way.