Keep in mind that being "one of the most important proofs in Mathematics" is not related to having "practical consequences" or "real-world applications", at least in the minds of most researchers in pure math.
Pure mathematicians typically study problems because they are interesting, natural, and beautiful. The Poincare conjecture is one such problem. I think it is fair to say that no one has any immediate practical applications in mind for either the solution to the conjecture or the methods of proof. Supposed applications to theoretical physics are also, as far as I know, far removed from real-world applications.
Clustering is a many-cpu, one-problem situation. Many problems are not "do this thing 1000 times", but "perform these 1000 steps in order", so it requires a lot of work to make the simultaneous availability of many CPUs an advantage. The goal is to increase the speed of a CPU-intensive task.
Virtualization is a many-problem, one-cpu situation. Various software tricks make each of several programs think they have an entire system to themselves. In reality it all runs inside a virtualizer/emulator. Speed is sacrificed, but there are other advantages in management, flexible allocation, etc.. The goal is to make better use of a few CPUs by a larger number of programs.
But then I realized, at some point you need to sit back and remember that people have different motives for doing things. For example, when Dvorak writes a column, his goal is to generate ad revenue for his employer. Factual accuracy and an even-handed approach to the issues don't do much for that goal.
It will be a nightmare to manage this thing. Twenty bucks says that after the first HDD failure the box gets dismantled or decommissioned.
If you want a decent home storage server, get youself a nice AMD server board with a PCI-X slot, a Promise SX8 8-way SATA card, 8 identical HDDs, and use linux md software RAID5.
I think this is exactly the point. As much as the MS drones will have you believe that linux is a radical movement maintained by a few shady computer nerds that also own comic book stores, it's not quite that way.
The popularity and marketshare of linux will have a certain ebb and flow that no one can control directly, but this is noise on top of a larger trend. A dip because suddenly a new OS option has emerged on the popular x86 platform doesn't foreshadow the end of linux.
No kidding. The arXiv is basically just a fileserver so that people have one place to look and one RSS feed to monitor. It is irrelevant to the question of open vs. closed academic journals.
The key points, I think, are that peer review doesn't cost anything as it is practiced by expensive journals, and that making published material accessible for free doesn't preclude rigorous review or prestige.
You may as well ask "what's civil engineering culture?". Like any other profession encompassing a large number of people but having a small public image, there are of course elements of culture, but probably nothing terribly interesting to your average Joe. I'm a mathematician, and could probably say a thing or two about mathematical culture, but I doubt you want to hear it.
Well, for example, quad-cpu mobos are so expensive you'd think they were made of platinum. They're also slightly larger than Rhode Island.
So dual-core + dual-socket is a good alternative if you want to bump your server performance up a bit.
This will make sense economically once AMD rakes in some product-launch cash and lowers the prices on their dual-core server chips.
I can say from my recent experience setting up a SATA-RAID storage server that the needs and preferences of people using this technology are so varied that it would be hard to trust anyone's "executive summary".
Thirty-two pages is a lot, but it's also a big investment of time, money, and possible future frustration to setup and manage a storage array. More than likely, anyone who is really interested in this review is actually interested in some of the nitty-gritty content.
What I'd like to know is why so many SATA RAID controller reviews happily include solutions that are not "true hardware RAID" (i.e. 90% of the non-3ware controllers) but mostly exclude the high-quality many-port SATA controllers that are best suited to software-only RAID setups.
For example, the Promise SX8 8-channel PCI-X SATA controller has good linux support, but it's hard to find so much as a whisper about it when people talk about storage arrays.
Well, as someone else pointed out, they don't specify what kind of CPUs you are renting. I think it's clear from the pictures that you're actually renting some 7400 series TTL chips.
So good luck porting your bioinformatics app to the 74LS00 Quad 2-Input NAND architecture.
But I, for one, welcome our new 7404 hex inverter overlords. My collectors are open.
I'm sure this card incorporates some form of elliptic curve cryptography, rather than "elliptical curve encryption", which doesn't mean anything AFAIK.
I guess all of the other mathematicians are watching election coverage rather than pointing out slashdot editing errors...
Slashdot Mirror
Keep in mind that being "one of the most important proofs in Mathematics" is not related to having "practical consequences" or "real-world applications", at least in the minds of most researchers in pure math.
Pure mathematicians typically study problems because they are interesting, natural, and beautiful. The Poincare conjecture is one such problem. I think it is fair to say that no one has any immediate practical applications in mind for either the solution to the conjecture or the methods of proof. Supposed applications to theoretical physics are also, as far as I know, far removed from real-world applications.
Clustering is a many-cpu, one-problem situation. Many problems are not "do this thing 1000 times", but "perform these 1000 steps in order", so it requires a lot of work to make the simultaneous availability of many CPUs an advantage. The goal is to increase the speed of a CPU-intensive task.
Virtualization is a many-problem, one-cpu situation. Various software tricks make each of several programs think they have an entire system to themselves. In reality it all runs inside a virtualizer/emulator. Speed is sacrificed, but there are other advantages in management, flexible allocation, etc.. The goal is to make better use of a few CPUs by a larger number of programs.
Control? I think you mean money.
But then I realized, at some point you need to sit back and remember that people have different motives for doing things. For example, when Dvorak writes a column, his goal is to generate ad revenue for his employer. Factual accuracy and an even-handed approach to the issues don't do much for that goal.
If you want a decent home storage server, get youself a nice AMD server board with a PCI-X slot, a Promise SX8 8-way SATA card, 8 identical HDDs, and use linux md software RAID5.
I think this is exactly the point. As much as the MS drones will have you believe that linux is a radical movement maintained by a few shady computer nerds that also own comic book stores, it's not quite that way.
The popularity and marketshare of linux will have a certain ebb and flow that no one can control directly, but this is noise on top of a larger trend. A dip because suddenly a new OS option has emerged on the popular x86 platform doesn't foreshadow the end of linux.
If true, this is certainly the most exciting story I've read on slashdot.
I look forward to my next notebook: beautiful design, powerful hardware, and my favorite x86 linux distribution running without a hitch.
No kidding. The arXiv is basically just a fileserver so that people have one place to look and one RSS feed to monitor. It is irrelevant to the question of open vs. closed academic journals.
The key points, I think, are that peer review doesn't cost anything as it is practiced by expensive journals, and that making published material accessible for free doesn't preclude rigorous review or prestige.
You may as well ask "what's civil engineering culture?". Like any other profession encompassing a large number of people but having a small public image, there are of course elements of culture, but probably nothing terribly interesting to your average Joe. I'm a mathematician, and could probably say a thing or two about mathematical culture, but I doubt you want to hear it.
Well, for example, quad-cpu mobos are so expensive you'd think they were made of platinum. They're also slightly larger than Rhode Island. So dual-core + dual-socket is a good alternative if you want to bump your server performance up a bit. This will make sense economically once AMD rakes in some product-launch cash and lowers the prices on their dual-core server chips.
Mod parent +5 FUNNY... It's not insightful, you insensitive clods.
This is not really surprising, since last time I checked, most bugs were in fact created using keyboards.
Thirty-two pages is a lot, but it's also a big investment of time, money, and possible future frustration to setup and manage a storage array. More than likely, anyone who is really interested in this review is actually interested in some of the nitty-gritty content.
What I'd like to know is why so many SATA RAID controller reviews happily include solutions that are not "true hardware RAID" (i.e. 90% of the non-3ware controllers) but mostly exclude the high-quality many-port SATA controllers that are best suited to software-only RAID setups.
For example, the Promise SX8 8-channel PCI-X SATA controller has good linux support, but it's hard to find so much as a whisper about it when people talk about storage arrays.
So good luck porting your bioinformatics app to the 74LS00 Quad 2-Input NAND architecture.
But I, for one, welcome our new 7404 hex inverter overlords. My collectors are open.
Okay, I'll stop.
In the southern hemisphere, the hourglass turns the other way.
This should be a poll, not an ask slashdot. That way Debian would still win, but you'd be able to tell without reading 10^8 responses.
You think there's a difference in encryption and cryptography?
No. I'm saying that the correct term is "elliptic curve", not "elliptical curve" as it says in the original post.
I'm sure this card incorporates some form of elliptic curve cryptography, rather than "elliptical curve encryption", which doesn't mean anything AFAIK.
I guess all of the other mathematicians are watching election coverage rather than pointing out slashdot editing errors...