Kevin Butler is a character made up by Sony's marketing department (his Wikipedia page says his twitter account is run by the marketing agency that invented him).
Some behind-the-scene marketing basically replied without knowing what he was replying to -- whoops..
Here is just one of many examples (from a while back). Of course, keep in mind that he gives demos all the time, and more so than Gates, so it's bound to happen now and then..
In Grid computing, which is not exactly the same as high-performance computing, the number of flops doesn't really matter that much, it's more about providing an environment for multiple users to address problems that can be solved by splitting it up in a huge number of smaller tasks.
> How is it that there are plenty of things going wrong?
From the article: "Although 43% said the SP2 installation had gone without a hitch, 49% of those contributing had problems ranging from minor to severe.
A few contributors said they had to completely rebuild a system before they could get the update to work."
I had the same opinion initally, but if you check out the spoofed Mozilla window you have to admit this could prove to be dangerous..
Having said that, I'll stick to Firefox nonetheless - let's just hope the Firefox team will find a way to fix it soon.
That's how it started here in a lot of UK cities: to tackle security in downtown areas, a few streets were covered with CCTV cameras. Result: crime shifted towards other areas, CCTV is claimed to be responsible for a drop in crime (but only in the covered area), and more cameras are introduced. I don't want to sound too gloomy, but get ready for a snowball effect..
Was asking myself the same question; the only information I could find was on the ariannespace website: "It uses the Boeing 702 satellite bus and carries a mixed payload of 32 Ku-band transponders, 38 Ka-band transponders and 24 C-band transponders."
I imagine it's impressive, considering its size (48 metres solar array!)..
I fully agree with most points, but definitely not the third one: "a patent should be connected to an actual product which already has been sold seriously"..
Patents are supposed to protect and stimulate inventions for those that do the research, requiring an actual product that is being sold makes this very hard for individual researchers, and very easy for the big companies.
Let's also not forget that the UK has CCTV cameras everywhere, and that cars in downtown London are tracked as well. Although this may have some real benefits (tourists being warned when they approach dangerous areas for instance)..
I switched a month ago from Outlook to Thunderbird, which went so well that I switched last week from IE to Firefox. Especially the ease of importing of previous Outlook/IE settings was astonishing!
On the other hand, I found out that it is not that simple to get rid of IE though, a quick search reveals that it is not always simple[google].
Wise words: the impact of popular/. topics like SCO or software patents is minimal compared to that of the next presidential election and anything that might shape it. Not just for Nerds. Not just for the US.
Slashdot Mirror
Kevin Butler is a character made up by Sony's marketing department (his Wikipedia page says his twitter account is run by the marketing agency that invented him). Some behind-the-scene marketing basically replied without knowing what he was replying to -- whoops..
BBC had a video of this as soon as it happened: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/7328816.stm They also have a real-time visualization of where the two modules are, so people can prepare for taking pictures of it: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/7330925.stm
Here is just one of many examples (from a while back).
Of course, keep in mind that he gives demos all the time, and more so than Gates, so it's bound to happen now and then..
The current version of GCC is 3.4.2, and the next planned version will be called 4.0.0
More info on the GCC site
In Grid computing, which is not exactly the same as high-performance computing, the number of flops doesn't really matter that much, it's more about providing an environment for multiple users to address problems that can be solved by splitting it up in a huge number of smaller tasks.
> How is it that there are plenty of things going wrong?
From the article: "Although 43% said the SP2 installation had gone without a hitch, 49% of those contributing had problems ranging from minor to severe. A few contributors said they had to completely rebuild a system before they could get the update to work."
The BBC has a pretty good article about it, entitled "Concerns over key Windows update". Seems like there are plenty of things going wrong..
I had the same opinion initally, but if you check out the spoofed Mozilla window you have to admit this could prove to be dangerous..
Having said that, I'll stick to Firefox nonetheless - let's just hope the Firefox team will find a way to fix it soon.
That's how it started here in a lot of UK cities: to tackle security in downtown areas, a few streets were covered with CCTV cameras. Result: crime shifted towards other areas, CCTV is claimed to be responsible for a drop in crime (but only in the covered area), and more cameras are introduced. I don't want to sound too gloomy, but get ready for a snowball effect..
Was asking myself the same question; the only information I could find was on the ariannespace website: "It uses the Boeing 702 satellite bus and carries a mixed payload of 32 Ku-band transponders, 38 Ka-band transponders and 24 C-band transponders."
I imagine it's impressive, considering its size (48 metres solar array!)..
I fully agree with most points, but definitely not the third one: "a patent should be connected to an actual product which already has been sold seriously"..
Patents are supposed to protect and stimulate inventions for those that do the research, requiring an actual product that is being sold makes this very hard for individual researchers, and very easy for the big companies.
Let's also not forget that the UK has CCTV cameras everywhere, and that cars in downtown London are tracked as well. Although this may have some real benefits (tourists being warned when they approach dangerous areas for instance)..
I switched a month ago from Outlook to Thunderbird, which went so well that I switched last week from IE to Firefox. Especially the ease of importing of previous Outlook/IE settings was astonishing!
On the other hand, I found out that it is not that simple to get rid of IE though, a quick search reveals that it is not always simple[google].
Wise words: the impact of popular /. topics like SCO or software patents is minimal compared to that of the next presidential election and anything that might shape it. Not just for Nerds. Not just for the US.