Yes... Straw man arguments are using points that are irrelevant to the topic at hand
Wrong, that is not what a straw man argument is. Go read about them. A straw man argument is misrepresenting someone's position, refuting that position (that you've essentially fabricated), and then concluding that you've refuted their original argument. You continue to have an argument with a misrepresentation of my original statement (which was regarding the versatility of Mac OS X), and this indicates that you are severely irony-challenged. It was a simple point I was making - how could you fail to understand it?
You've claimed that there are known viruses for Mac OS X. Provide a single example.
Look at the OSs used for superclusters - generally either Linux/UNIX/Mac OS X. I just looked at the Cornel Windows supercluster at top500.org, and I see that it has 640 2.4Ghz Intel Xeon CPUs, achieving 1503 Rmax. System X has 2200 2.3Ghz IBM G5 CPUs, achieving 12250 Rmax. Since System X reaches 8.15 times the performace with 3.44 times the number of CPUs, obviously something is holding those Intel CPUs back, unless you think that 2.3Ghz G5 CPUs are 2.37 times faster than 2.4Ghz Intel Xeons.
I mentioned that Mac OS X is easy to use, and you made a straw man argument that ease of use isn't important for cluster nodes - obviously I never claimed that it was. Read about straw man arguments - good to know about!
I mentioned that the availability of commercial software for Mac OS X is a strength, and you made a straw man argument that commercial software is not important for cluster nodes; you are taking a position against something that I did not say, for the second time.
It's not a strawman, knob. Those apps were mentioned in the original post.
This is really funny - obviously you need to click the link I provided and read about straw man arguments.
In my original post, I took the position that Mac OS X is strong in a suprising number of ways; it has top security, no known viruses, is scalable and stable enough for superclusters, yet it is also very easy to use and has commercial software available for it.
Zork Almighty then refuted the argument that using commercial software on a supercluster was useful, but I never made that argument; he was taking a contrary position to an argument that I did not make, which is a common form of straw man argument.
You have made yet another straw man argument, since you are taking a contrary position to the argument that those apps were not mentioned in the original post, but I didn't make that argument either. So you too have made a straw man argument. Good job, now go read up on straw man arguments using the link I provided!
The first one was incapable of spreading itself, and ended up being an embarassment for the software company who brought it up in the first place; it seemed that they were basically trying to scare Mac OS X users into buying their antivirus software.
The opener malware required legitimate administrator access to install; It was clearly not a virus.
The number of known Mac OS X viruses stands at zero.
Hey I own one of those Apple quality products, specifically an iBook. Yes it is great, but give me a break. Like some jackass is going to run Office or Photoshop on a cluster. Jeez.
That remark was a fairly typical straw man argument.
I get a kick out of the fact that System X runs Mac OS X.
Only with Mac OS X can you get the combination of commercial software (such as Microsoft Office and Adobe Photoshop), user friendliness, no known viruses, best available security, and stability/scalability suitable for world-class superclusters.
One important factor with Mac OS X security is its default security settings; when someone buys a new Mac, takes it home and starts it up, their firewall is enabled, all of their sharing/webserving services are turned off, and their root account is disabled.
It's true that Apple does not currently provide a cheap computer that is good for games. Configuring one from the Apple store online, I see that you need to spend at least $2200 without a display, which gets you a 1.8Ghz G5 (roughly equivalent to an Athlon64 3000+), 1024MB RAM, 160GB HD, GeForce 6800 GT and a 2-button mouse.
A similar Dell XPS runs $2014 at the Dell online store, only has a better CPU - 3.4Ghz Pentium4. And of course you do-it yourselfers could probably build something for cheaper than the Dell.
The reason the iPod is "hip and cool" is that it is such an effective meeting of form and function, like many of Apple's products.
The iPod, measured only by its function, is merely "decent"; there are hard drive based portable music players that have greater storage capacity, FM tuners, standard AA batteries, and so on. Functionally, the iPod plays it pretty safe, sticks to what works.
Likewise, if you measure the iPod by its form, is merely "decent"; there are hard drive based portable music players that are smaller, lighter, more scratch resistant, and so on.
If you consider the combined achievement of the iPod's form and function, then perhaps you will understand why it currently enjoys 92% marketshare of all hard drive based portable music players.
The cost is quoted in the article at $45 million over a three year period, which indicates that the "Columbia" super cluster gets a bit more than 1 teraflop per million dollars. That seems impressive to me, considering the overall performance.
It would be interesting to see how well the Xserve-based architecture held its performance per dollar when scaled up to higher teraflop levels...
Does anyone know how much this system cost? It would be interesting to see how good of a teraflop per million dollar ratio they achieved.
For example, I know the Virginia Tech cluster (1,100 Apple Xserve G5 dual 2.3Ghz boxes) cost just under $6 million, runs at a bit over 12 teraflops, so it gets a bit over 2 teraflops per million dollars.
Other high-ranking clusters would be interesting to evaluate in terms of teraflops per million dollars, if anyone knows any.
Actually, I was checking it out on a widescreen, high-resolution, color-calibrated LCD. I watch lots of movies on the same setup, I've worked in a photo lab making color-balanced prints, and I can tell lousy color when I see it.
It's pretty hilarious how many people are asking, "why can't you just wipe off the negatives, or dunk it all in a photo-wash bath, or..."
Wiping off negatives pretty much always scratches them, and even if dunking negatives in a photo-wash bath was perfectly safe on such old film, it would do nothing for scratches.
Additionally, the BBC article mentions that there were often cases in which a couple of layers of film were bonded together (for special effects), and there was sometimes dirt and/or scratches between those layers.
Furthermore, the whole problem of the color having faded over the years was not something that simple cleaning could help with - although they did a terrible job with the color (WAY too punchy, sometimes just not the right colors at all).
Lastly, the way in which they were able to analyze groups of frames to reduce film grain and increase resolution was only possible using computers.
So no more of this "why couldn't they just..." silliness!
Slashdot Mirror
Yes... Straw man arguments are using points that are irrelevant to the topic at hand
Wrong, that is not what a straw man argument is. Go read about them. A straw man argument is misrepresenting someone's position, refuting that position (that you've essentially fabricated), and then concluding that you've refuted their original argument. You continue to have an argument with a misrepresentation of my original statement (which was regarding the versatility of Mac OS X), and this indicates that you are severely irony-challenged. It was a simple point I was making - how could you fail to understand it?
fitten:
2 2237&tid=172&tid=179&tid=190
I mentioned that it has top security. Here's the slashdot post that caused me to think so:
http://it.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=04/11/02/17
You've claimed that there are known viruses for Mac OS X. Provide a single example.
Look at the OSs used for superclusters - generally either Linux/UNIX/Mac OS X. I just looked at the Cornel Windows supercluster at top500.org, and I see that it has 640 2.4Ghz Intel Xeon CPUs, achieving 1503 Rmax. System X has 2200 2.3Ghz IBM G5 CPUs, achieving 12250 Rmax. Since System X reaches 8.15 times the performace with 3.44 times the number of CPUs, obviously something is holding those Intel CPUs back, unless you think that 2.3Ghz G5 CPUs are 2.37 times faster than 2.4Ghz Intel Xeons.
I mentioned that Mac OS X is easy to use, and you made a straw man argument that ease of use isn't important for cluster nodes - obviously I never claimed that it was. Read about straw man arguments - good to know about!
I mentioned that the availability of commercial software for Mac OS X is a strength, and you made a straw man argument that commercial software is not important for cluster nodes; you are taking a position against something that I did not say, for the second time.
Next thing you're gonna tell me that Gates never said that 64K should be enough for everyone?
Well, actually, yes! Gates never said that.
He said that 640K should be enough for anybody.
Of course, we well-informed readers of slashdot all know that Al Gore never actually claimed to have invented the internet...
http://www.snopes.com/quotes/internet.htm
It's not a strawman, knob. Those apps were mentioned in the original post.
This is really funny - obviously you need to click the link I provided and read about straw man arguments.
In my original post, I took the position that Mac OS X is strong in a suprising number of ways; it has top security, no known viruses, is scalable and stable enough for superclusters, yet it is also very easy to use and has commercial software available for it.
Zork Almighty then refuted the argument that using commercial software on a supercluster was useful, but I never made that argument; he was taking a contrary position to an argument that I did not make, which is a common form of straw man argument.
You have made yet another straw man argument, since you are taking a contrary position to the argument that those apps were not mentioned in the original post, but I didn't make that argument either. So you too have made a straw man argument. Good job, now go read up on straw man arguments using the link I provided!
Neither of those was a virus.
The first one was incapable of spreading itself, and ended up being an embarassment for the software company who brought it up in the first place; it seemed that they were basically trying to scare Mac OS X users into buying their antivirus software.
The opener malware required legitimate administrator access to install; It was clearly not a virus.
The number of known Mac OS X viruses stands at zero.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Straw_man
I get a kick out of the fact that System X runs Mac OS X.
Only with Mac OS X can you get the combination of commercial software (such as Microsoft Office and Adobe Photoshop), user friendliness, no known viruses, best available security, and stability/scalability suitable for world-class superclusters.
One important factor with Mac OS X security is its default security settings; when someone buys a new Mac, takes it home and starts it up, their firewall is enabled, all of their sharing/webserving services are turned off, and their root account is disabled.
It's true that Apple does not currently provide a cheap computer that is good for games. Configuring one from the Apple store online, I see that you need to spend at least $2200 without a display, which gets you a 1.8Ghz G5 (roughly equivalent to an Athlon64 3000+), 1024MB RAM, 160GB HD, GeForce 6800 GT and a 2-button mouse.
A similar Dell XPS runs $2014 at the Dell online store, only has a better CPU - 3.4Ghz Pentium4. And of course you do-it yourselfers could probably build something for cheaper than the Dell.
That's it! The democrats probably planted the toy there, and then they called Homeland Security. Man, what a dirty election this is turning out to be.
I will rest well tonight, knowing that Homeland Security is protecting me from possibly illegal toys. That was a close one, too - I live in Oregon!
The reason the iPod is "hip and cool" is that it is such an effective meeting of form and function, like many of Apple's products.
The iPod, measured only by its function, is merely "decent"; there are hard drive based portable music players that have greater storage capacity, FM tuners, standard AA batteries, and so on. Functionally, the iPod plays it pretty safe, sticks to what works.
Likewise, if you measure the iPod by its form, is merely "decent"; there are hard drive based portable music players that are smaller, lighter, more scratch resistant, and so on.
If you consider the combined achievement of the iPod's form and function, then perhaps you will understand why it currently enjoys 92% marketshare of all hard drive based portable music players.
Since no one else has answered my question, I'll post the results of searching on my own:
f or+supercomputer/2100-1010_3-5286156.html
http://news.com.com/Space+agency+taps+SGI,+Intel+
The cost is quoted in the article at $45 million over a three year period, which indicates that the "Columbia" super cluster gets a bit more than 1 teraflop per million dollars. That seems impressive to me, considering the overall performance.
It would be interesting to see how well the Xserve-based architecture held its performance per dollar when scaled up to higher teraflop levels...
Does anyone know how much this system cost? It would be interesting to see how good of a teraflop per million dollar ratio they achieved.
For example, I know the Virginia Tech cluster (1,100 Apple Xserve G5 dual 2.3Ghz boxes) cost just under $6 million, runs at a bit over 12 teraflops, so it gets a bit over 2 teraflops per million dollars.
Other high-ranking clusters would be interesting to evaluate in terms of teraflops per million dollars, if anyone knows any.
(I was the one who brought this up)
Actually, I was checking it out on a widescreen, high-resolution, color-calibrated LCD. I watch lots of movies on the same setup, I've worked in a photo lab making color-balanced prints, and I can tell lousy color when I see it.
It's pretty hilarious how many people are asking, "why can't you just wipe off the negatives, or dunk it all in a photo-wash bath, or ..."
Wiping off negatives pretty much always scratches them, and even if dunking negatives in a photo-wash bath was perfectly safe on such old film, it would do nothing for scratches.
Additionally, the BBC article mentions that there were often cases in which a couple of layers of film were bonded together (for special effects), and there was sometimes dirt and/or scratches between those layers.
Furthermore, the whole problem of the color having faded over the years was not something that simple cleaning could help with - although they did a terrible job with the color (WAY too punchy, sometimes just not the right colors at all).
Lastly, the way in which they were able to analyze groups of frames to reduce film grain and increase resolution was only possible using computers. So no more of this "why couldn't they just..." silliness!