when yon users get the company sued for copyright infringement? How 'bout (knowingly or unknowingly) probing outside networks?
Writing code which floods the network with packets? Crashes workstations? Worse, crashes servers?
Deletes logfiles? Rewrites config files?
Sorry - if it's my name on the line for a given piece of equipment, I want control of that piece of equipment. I left a place last February where that wasn't strictly true - and I'm relatively certain my fellow outsourced contractors were breaking stuff. I never did decide if it was accidental or intentional, but the missing log files made me go "hmmm . ..".
So if some engineer defines a 1.6GHz Intel CPU as having a clock speed of 2.25GHz@-40C, that's not overclocking, right? After all, the environment is still a comfortable 22C, give or take.
Sorry, that's not how it works.
By convention, commodity chips are rated for an environment at or near STP. They don't rate for the chip temperature (that's what fans/cooling towers/heat tubes are for). The environment will still be data center conditions, the cooling systems in question are for the CPU.
So, do we throw away any discoveries or inventions which result from use/misuse/abuse of thought-performance enhancing drugs? Ban depressed/epileptic/psychotic individuals from practicing science because their prescribed drug use gives them an unfair advantage over we poor, unenhanced human beings?
As with many other areas of human endeavor, it'll be necessary for our social understanding to evolve to match our technological evolution in order for us to correctly analyze and act upon the previously unencountered situations which are going to arise from our continued growth as a species.
So, let me make sure I understand this (because I've seen quite a few gaming rigs built to use water/oil/freon cooling) . ..
They're overclocking the POWER6 chip, is that right? Sure, IBM, Cray, DEC et. al. used to do this routinely on big iron back in the day when computer technology was still a science. I still remember seeing a beautiful oil "waterfall" on the front of some mainframes. It wasn't called overclocking back then - it was just how things were done. Now, with computing being a commodity, most companies don't bother with this - too unreliable, too bulky, too power-hungry. Remember, the weakest part of any electronic device is the mechanical aspect and water cooling involves a lot of mechanical processes. You've really got to have a need for speed to bother with this (and, yes, some big environments have such a need - but not many).
For those few environments which need this much speed per processor, this is an important development. Just don't count on it ever impacting the average desktop (commodity) system - the technology won't "trickle down" (unlike the coolant?).
but it is intriguing. I'm always impressed when scientists come forward and admit that they've found something they didn't expect. It validates the scientific method and the people who apply it to research - whether it be mathematics, anthropology, physics, cosmology, . . .
SO - not unlike the assertion (for example) that there's a large asteroid with Earth's name on it, this research seems to indicate that perhaps we should start studying this phenomenon now even if there's nothing we can do about it now. After all, much of our modern technology was understood to be impossible/impractical as little as a century ago; if we start looking now, perhaps we can devise a mechanism for the preservation of our species before we need it. Then again, when has humanity ever shown that much foresight?
I have a good friend - he takes mood-stabilizing medication.
Over the years, he's taken quite a selection of prescribed psychoactive drugs, in varying dosages. Interestingly, my observation is that the personality distortions my friend has shown have always been more closely tied to dosage factors than which drug he's been taking. I've seen him stark, raving mad - enraged - depressed - zombied - manic (uncontrollably so); and I've seen him quite normal. Seems that once they get his dosage down pat, however, it still needs re-tweaking as his mind/body adapt to the chemical changes.
There were a couple years there where I didn't want to even hear about him. Even knowing that it was not his choice but the medications he is obliged to take, it made it hard to preserve our friendship at times.
Mr. Crichton's work was based on sound, confirmed science, dating back to the '40's and earlier - even by the turn of the century, medical science was beginning to understand that direct, external stimuli to the brain resulted in perceptual activities - memories, smells, emotions, etc. - but again, I don't think there was a great deal of truly scientific work in the field until the '40's and '50's.
And the shocks didn't make him murderous - the shocks conditioned his brain to trigger a psychomotor epileptic seizure (to experience the pleasure of a shock) - eventually, the conditioning caused seizures which overrode the neural pacemaker's ability to moderate his brain's electrical activity.
I'm sure they've forgotten that little fiasco regarding MS-DOS? Why, I'm quite sure IBM doesn't even miss the revenues licensing that little jewel to M$ cost them. I'm sure it's all forgive and forget there, eh?
Go ahead, Bill. Retire and make yourself comfortable.
Part of the problem is that MS-Windows is the easiest desktop environment to use. This has reflected itself in the tools which Microsoft makes available to Windows System Administrators. Easy to learn, easy to use - safetied out to ensure that you can't easily shoot yourself in the foot (or shoot a bug, for that matter). Even a mediocre administrator can handle Windows without publicly embarassing himself - especially when the OS lends itself to taking the blame for him. UNIX/Mainframe - well, I can do anything I want; but if what I want to do crashes the system, the first I'll know about it is when smoke starts pouring out of the data center - approximately 300ms after whatever I did wrong. Being servers, everyone in the enterprise will know shortly thereafter that something is wrong, and the blame will be unequivocally mine (Mainframe/UNIX environments will see to keeping a crystal clear record of my idiocy).
Then again, if I'm any good, I can (usually) fix it in that same 300ms.
. . . my entire educational experience in college was augmented by drinking large quantities of java - I turned out just fine! Come to think of it, sometimes I had Dewar's in my java . . . ew.
I didn't say I'd like to see the money spent on earthbound enveavours; rather that I was thinking NASA should consider shortening their focus my a decade or two.
The war campaign in the Middle East has nothing to do with this (save that it's wasting perfectly good money which could be used to fund both lines of scientific inquiry about two thousand times over. That's not hyperbole - look up the numbers and crunch 'em - I'll wait).
If these scientists wanted to discover unexplored craters, they need merely have looked at the acne scars on each others faces.
Ba-dum, ching.
Seriously, it's intriguing - personally, I'd rather see the energy and capital investment spent on something with a slightly more tangible payoff like the exploration/colonization of Luna/Mars/etc. . . but if closer analysis of Mercury lets astrophysicists devise more accurate models of planetary formation, I suppose there's a value there too.
Nano-technology . . . last I heard, not the easiest stuff to engineer in. Nope - can't find too many qualified workers on street-corners. 'quipment ain't at the local machine shop.
Erm, even if this isn't just another load of vapor, just how much will these things cost? and how do you mass-produce 'em?
Oh, and we've heard this whole "new technology discovered which promises blah." We didn't need to hear it twice.
Slashdot Mirror
Writing code which floods the network with packets? Crashes workstations? Worse, crashes servers?
Deletes logfiles? Rewrites config files?
Sorry - if it's my name on the line for a given piece of equipment, I want control of that piece of equipment. I left a place last February where that wasn't strictly true - and I'm relatively certain my fellow outsourced contractors were breaking stuff. I never did decide if it was accidental or intentional, but the missing log files made me go "hmmm . . .".
*Ba-dum ching*
Sorry, that's not how it works.
By convention, commodity chips are rated for an environment at or near STP. They don't rate for the chip temperature (that's what fans/cooling towers/heat tubes are for). The environment will still be data center conditions, the cooling systems in question are for the CPU.
This looks like overclocking to me.
I'm still laughing at my previous assertion - IBM certainly understands the wisdom of "Field of Dreams" (*whispers* If you build it, they will come).
HUGE difference.
As with many other areas of human endeavor, it'll be necessary for our social understanding to evolve to match our technological evolution in order for us to correctly analyze and act upon the previously unencountered situations which are going to arise from our continued growth as a species.
They're overclocking the POWER6 chip, is that right? Sure, IBM, Cray, DEC et. al. used to do this routinely on big iron back in the day when computer technology was still a science. I still remember seeing a beautiful oil "waterfall" on the front of some mainframes. It wasn't called overclocking back then - it was just how things were done. Now, with computing being a commodity, most companies don't bother with this - too unreliable, too bulky, too power-hungry. Remember, the weakest part of any electronic device is the mechanical aspect and water cooling involves a lot of mechanical processes. You've really got to have a need for speed to bother with this (and, yes, some big environments have such a need - but not many).
For those few environments which need this much speed per processor, this is an important development. Just don't count on it ever impacting the average desktop (commodity) system - the technology won't "trickle down" (unlike the coolant?).
SO - not unlike the assertion (for example) that there's a large asteroid with Earth's name on it, this research seems to indicate that perhaps we should start studying this phenomenon now even if there's nothing we can do about it now. After all, much of our modern technology was understood to be impossible/impractical as little as a century ago; if we start looking now, perhaps we can devise a mechanism for the preservation of our species before we need it. Then again, when has humanity ever shown that much foresight?
Anybody got Gov. Ryan's cell number handy?
Just askin'.
Which reminds me, could you tell me where a fellow with one or two niggling little DUI's and lots of cash could get himself a CDL?
Hmmm...you sound like somebody I used to work with.
How's 'bout some hard fact 'bout what they're fixin'? And, er, um - what'll it break and how long 'til SP2 fixes it?
Over the years, he's taken quite a selection of prescribed psychoactive drugs, in varying dosages. Interestingly, my observation is that the personality distortions my friend has shown have always been more closely tied to dosage factors than which drug he's been taking. I've seen him stark, raving mad - enraged - depressed - zombied - manic (uncontrollably so); and I've seen him quite normal. Seems that once they get his dosage down pat, however, it still needs re-tweaking as his mind/body adapt to the chemical changes.
There were a couple years there where I didn't want to even hear about him. Even knowing that it was not his choice but the medications he is obliged to take, it made it hard to preserve our friendship at times.
And the shocks didn't make him murderous - the shocks conditioned his brain to trigger a psychomotor epileptic seizure (to experience the pleasure of a shock) - eventually, the conditioning caused seizures which overrode the neural pacemaker's ability to moderate his brain's electrical activity.
I'm sure they've forgotten that little fiasco regarding MS-DOS? Why, I'm quite sure IBM doesn't even miss the revenues licensing that little jewel to M$ cost them. I'm sure it's all forgive and forget there, eh?
Go ahead, Bill. Retire and make yourself comfortable.
Then again, if I'm any good, I can (usually) fix it in that same 300ms.
. . . my entire educational experience in college was augmented by drinking large quantities of java - I turned out just fine! Come to think of it, sometimes I had Dewar's in my java . . . ew.
The war campaign in the Middle East has nothing to do with this (save that it's wasting perfectly good money which could be used to fund both lines of scientific inquiry about two thousand times over. That's not hyperbole - look up the numbers and crunch 'em - I'll wait).
Ba-dum, ching.
Seriously, it's intriguing - personally, I'd rather see the energy and capital investment spent on something with a slightly more tangible payoff like the exploration/colonization of Luna/Mars/etc. . . but if closer analysis of Mercury lets astrophysicists devise more accurate models of planetary formation, I suppose there's a value there too.
So, NASA . . . are we there yet?
(Ba-dum, ching)
Much more intriguing storyline, IMHO.
Still, I imagine there are people out there willing to find one more excuse to shake their cell phones around, people with money.
Nano-technology . . . last I heard, not the easiest stuff to engineer in. Nope - can't find too many qualified workers on street-corners. 'quipment ain't at the local machine shop.
Erm, even if this isn't just another load of vapor, just how much will these things cost? and how do you mass-produce 'em?
Oh, and we've heard this whole "new technology discovered which promises blah." We didn't need to hear it twice.
so I wasn't that far off-base!
After all, Columbus, DeGama, Balboa, Cortez, Magellan - they all had flawless journeys of exploration, didn't they?