I've built about 9 computers in the past 4 years and have run various flavors of Linux on all of them (mostly LTS builds of Ubuntu), and I've never had compatibility problems with the motherboard. Nowadays nobody can really afford not to support Linux, so I think the important thing is to wait a little while for the chipset drivers to get integrated into the newest builds of the Linux kernel, and then go from there. I've had issues with USB 3.0 support for an older CentOS version, but overall everything works for the most part. Linux even works better out of the box than a clean install of Windows 7 sometimes, because Win7 doesn't have drivers for a lot of common NICs, whereas Linux usually did. As you mentioned, in the latest computers I've built, the UEFI did give me more problems than traditional BIOS, but they weren't show-stoppers by any means, just a google search away from a resolution.
But NVIDIA's consumer oriented cards have very slow double precision processing, something like 1/16 the processing speed of single precision. And they even artifically hobbled the DP performance of the GTX 780, which is otherwise a slightly cut down Titan (i.e. big kepler). All of AMD's 79XX cards (and its rebranded brethren the 280X card), and the new 290X card have 1/4 DP performance. I've consistently bought AMD Radeon cards for my OpenCL applications because their $300 cards are almost as fast as NVIDIA's $1000 card, and in some cases faster, for DP calculations.
Hm, small world--I'm also in metabolomics (more on the computational end than the biological side of things, what I like to call computational metabolomics). I was going to write a post similar to your own, but more generalized for those who aren't familiar with the biology behind it.
The issue now is that well established informatics/statistical/computer science approaches are used as general tools in biology/astronomy/biochemistry, and there is a great need to formulate novel algorithms to take advantage of the particular idiosyncrasies of their respective data sets. Otherwise you end up losing a lot of valuable information. The word "interdisciplinary" is fairly abused in academia, but it really does apply in the case of these emerging computational/informatics approaches to classical fields of biology/astronomy/etc. We need people who are equally trained in both biology/astronomy/etc and computer science/informatics to really make the revolutionary leaps in their respective fields.
I used a Thinkpad X61 tablet pc for note taking and lecture recording while doing my bachelors in EE, and still use it as a regular notebook and note taking now as a grad student. I recently loaded Windows 7 on a SSD and it flies. The screen's 1400x1050, so no screen real-estate complaints here. Most of the time I type my notes, but when I need to write down equations and diagrams, I flip it around and draw them, then go back to typing when I need to. It's fast enough to be a regular use noebook, especially with the new SSD. I love it. The sad thing is they don't make 12.1 inch IPS high res screens anymore, as the latest incarnation, the X200 tablet, uses a 1280x800 screen that's far inferior. Still I think it's worth a look.
You hit the nail right on the head. Incidentally, I work at the Lockheed site that's funding this research, and I also went to Cornell. Let me shed some light on this. These "students" are not really students per se, and are employees of Lockheed Martin who are undergoing their ELDP (Engineering Leadership Development Program). It is a three year program in which you work full time for Lockheed while earning your MEng at Cornell (not a bad deal unless you consider the fact that it only takes 1 year to earn the same degree full time, and, honestly, the surrounding area is depressing as hell, plus you get worked to the bone for 3 years). So in fact, these graduate students are professional Lockheed Martin engineers already.
Almost right about the X series tablet thing. IBM/Lenovo produces the X60 and X61 tablets, which can be configured to have a 12.1" 1400x1050 resolution IPS screen. This unit is still in production, but always difficult to obtain.
You're right in that these degrees aren't easy at all, but getting a BS in biochem, math, or physics is just the start. To really get into any meaningful work you need to pursue a PhD in these fields, which typically means 5 more years of getting paid a piss poor stipend while earning that doctorate, plus 2-3 years of slightly less piss-poor pay doing your postdoc. In that 7-8 years time in the industry as an engineer your pay would've gone from good to great, plus with all that experience. And as for everyone bitching about no engineering jobs actually out there, they're all full of it. I'm graduating in May and job hunting right now, and companies, especially defense contractors like Lockheed Martin and Boeing, are snapping up new engineering graduates by the bucketfull.
Take consolation in the fact that when you step out into the job market you can command a much higher salary than most other majors, especially for electrical engineering and CS majors. An engineering BS is, more often than not, all you need to make a very decent living. Can't say the same for a BS in biochem, math, or psych.
When you are 6 you are unburdened by the full weight of reality, and even though you may not have the intellect to enjoy a game of Risk, you don't care about that. You get enough from the simple things in life, and you didn't have to worry about anything. I fail to see the point you're making about being mentally undeveloped. So what if you're 6 and you can't enjoy a game of chess? If a 6 year old were to get the same enjoyment out of playing with sticks in a puddle as you do in playing Risk, who's to judge the 6 year old for being a simpleton? Whatever brings you happiness, is all that matters to you, no matter what anyone else says.
Truth of the matter is that biotechnology research institutions and companies have much more profitable and readily beneficial things to concentrate on than species classification through DNA analysis. It's a fine idea and all, but all things being researched in biotech are concentrated on the human genome, and animals that have had their genomes sequenced are because they are useful for phylogenetic tracing of human genes. Essentially, we don't have the resources to concentrate on any research that does not have a direct contribution to the understanding of the human genome in some way. The biotech field is still growing, and as it stands now, it must focus on topics that are most likely to get grant money, and that means drug research, etc.
Frankly, the best way to get an internship is to have had previous internships. It's all about getting your foot in the door. I've been doing bioinformatics internships since I was in high school, and in order to get my current job on campus, all I had to do was tell them where I had previously worked and a sample of my research. They didn't even consider my grades. You just have to hack away, ask around, and above all, BE ASSERTIVE. Look up professors in your school's website that are doing research which interests you and email them. Believe in yourself, even if they don't, and soon someone will take interest and give you an ofer.
What I don't like about this thing (besides the price tag) is how it is geared exclusively towards righties. Can't they make a few for us lefties? Considering that this is supposed to appeal to the geek crowd, I would hazard a guess that there is a higher concentration of lefties in this demographic anyway.
I've always figured that happiness and pain are just two sides to the same coin, and while great happiness can subsequently bring you great pain, this pain can never take away that happiness that you had experienced. Does the pain that you experience mean that the happiness you had was not worth it? If you loved someone, married him/her, lived happily for 10 years, but then that person suddenly died, would you wish that person never walked into your life in the first place? I feel that such a happiness is worth whatever pain I may or may not feel as a result, because I cannot make decisions in constant fear of what the future may hold. I cannot agree to living the life of moderation that you speak of, because I believe that a life worth living is a life worth suffering for.
Natural? They're first cut and then polished by master craftsmen before they ever get to the market. The "sparkly" characteristic comes from the light refracting and reflecting within the diamond due to the MAN MADE cuts. It's beautiful because we make it beautiful.
You know when I was growing up I always had that kind of mentality. It's not about the money, its about doing what I love in life, right? Well to some degree yes, but you'd be a fool to never factor in the money issue. People live on money, and to get money, one needs to consider a job that can foreseeably put food on the table. Eventually everyone needs to grow up and make wise choices, and that means being practical and planning for the future. Right now CS is down, and it not going to go up for the foreseeable future. I'd say ECE for the guy.
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I've built about 9 computers in the past 4 years and have run various flavors of Linux on all of them (mostly LTS builds of Ubuntu), and I've never had compatibility problems with the motherboard. Nowadays nobody can really afford not to support Linux, so I think the important thing is to wait a little while for the chipset drivers to get integrated into the newest builds of the Linux kernel, and then go from there. I've had issues with USB 3.0 support for an older CentOS version, but overall everything works for the most part. Linux even works better out of the box than a clean install of Windows 7 sometimes, because Win7 doesn't have drivers for a lot of common NICs, whereas Linux usually did. As you mentioned, in the latest computers I've built, the UEFI did give me more problems than traditional BIOS, but they weren't show-stoppers by any means, just a google search away from a resolution.
But NVIDIA's consumer oriented cards have very slow double precision processing, something like 1/16 the processing speed of single precision. And they even artifically hobbled the DP performance of the GTX 780, which is otherwise a slightly cut down Titan (i.e. big kepler). All of AMD's 79XX cards (and its rebranded brethren the 280X card), and the new 290X card have 1/4 DP performance. I've consistently bought AMD Radeon cards for my OpenCL applications because their $300 cards are almost as fast as NVIDIA's $1000 card, and in some cases faster, for DP calculations.
Hm, small world--I'm also in metabolomics (more on the computational end than the biological side of things, what I like to call computational metabolomics). I was going to write a post similar to your own, but more generalized for those who aren't familiar with the biology behind it. The issue now is that well established informatics/statistical/computer science approaches are used as general tools in biology/astronomy/biochemistry, and there is a great need to formulate novel algorithms to take advantage of the particular idiosyncrasies of their respective data sets. Otherwise you end up losing a lot of valuable information. The word "interdisciplinary" is fairly abused in academia, but it really does apply in the case of these emerging computational/informatics approaches to classical fields of biology/astronomy/etc. We need people who are equally trained in both biology/astronomy/etc and computer science/informatics to really make the revolutionary leaps in their respective fields.
I can see it from my backyard though. I'm going to file a complaint with the HOA!
And even fewer possibilities with the VH-71 cancellation this past spring.
Let me guess...LMSI-O?
I used a Thinkpad X61 tablet pc for note taking and lecture recording while doing my bachelors in EE, and still use it as a regular notebook and note taking now as a grad student. I recently loaded Windows 7 on a SSD and it flies. The screen's 1400x1050, so no screen real-estate complaints here. Most of the time I type my notes, but when I need to write down equations and diagrams, I flip it around and draw them, then go back to typing when I need to. It's fast enough to be a regular use noebook, especially with the new SSD. I love it. The sad thing is they don't make 12.1 inch IPS high res screens anymore, as the latest incarnation, the X200 tablet, uses a 1280x800 screen that's far inferior. Still I think it's worth a look.
It's based off the Sephirotic Tree of Life. I blame too much evangelion for this sort of knowledge.
OZ will surely quell those colony rebels!
I'd question that statement, as both the T1i and the 5D Mark II have the DIGIC 4 processor.
You hit the nail right on the head. Incidentally, I work at the Lockheed site that's funding this research, and I also went to Cornell. Let me shed some light on this. These "students" are not really students per se, and are employees of Lockheed Martin who are undergoing their ELDP (Engineering Leadership Development Program). It is a three year program in which you work full time for Lockheed while earning your MEng at Cornell (not a bad deal unless you consider the fact that it only takes 1 year to earn the same degree full time, and, honestly, the surrounding area is depressing as hell, plus you get worked to the bone for 3 years). So in fact, these graduate students are professional Lockheed Martin engineers already.
Almost right about the X series tablet thing. IBM/Lenovo produces the X60 and X61 tablets, which can be configured to have a 12.1" 1400x1050 resolution IPS screen. This unit is still in production, but always difficult to obtain.
You're right in that these degrees aren't easy at all, but getting a BS in biochem, math, or physics is just the start. To really get into any meaningful work you need to pursue a PhD in these fields, which typically means 5 more years of getting paid a piss poor stipend while earning that doctorate, plus 2-3 years of slightly less piss-poor pay doing your postdoc. In that 7-8 years time in the industry as an engineer your pay would've gone from good to great, plus with all that experience. And as for everyone bitching about no engineering jobs actually out there, they're all full of it. I'm graduating in May and job hunting right now, and companies, especially defense contractors like Lockheed Martin and Boeing, are snapping up new engineering graduates by the bucketfull.
Take consolation in the fact that when you step out into the job market you can command a much higher salary than most other majors, especially for electrical engineering and CS majors. An engineering BS is, more often than not, all you need to make a very decent living. Can't say the same for a BS in biochem, math, or psych.
It just might be enough to destroy the Angels that are a'comin' in 2015!
Oh wow that's the first thing I thought of too. How depressing, for both of us.
When you are 6 you are unburdened by the full weight of reality, and even though you may not have the intellect to enjoy a game of Risk, you don't care about that. You get enough from the simple things in life, and you didn't have to worry about anything. I fail to see the point you're making about being mentally undeveloped. So what if you're 6 and you can't enjoy a game of chess? If a 6 year old were to get the same enjoyment out of playing with sticks in a puddle as you do in playing Risk, who's to judge the 6 year old for being a simpleton? Whatever brings you happiness, is all that matters to you, no matter what anyone else says.
Truth of the matter is that biotechnology research institutions and companies have much more profitable and readily beneficial things to concentrate on than species classification through DNA analysis. It's a fine idea and all, but all things being researched in biotech are concentrated on the human genome, and animals that have had their genomes sequenced are because they are useful for phylogenetic tracing of human genes. Essentially, we don't have the resources to concentrate on any research that does not have a direct contribution to the understanding of the human genome in some way. The biotech field is still growing, and as it stands now, it must focus on topics that are most likely to get grant money, and that means drug research, etc.
Frankly, the best way to get an internship is to have had previous internships. It's all about getting your foot in the door. I've been doing bioinformatics internships since I was in high school, and in order to get my current job on campus, all I had to do was tell them where I had previously worked and a sample of my research. They didn't even consider my grades. You just have to hack away, ask around, and above all, BE ASSERTIVE. Look up professors in your school's website that are doing research which interests you and email them. Believe in yourself, even if they don't, and soon someone will take interest and give you an ofer.
What I don't like about this thing (besides the price tag) is how it is geared exclusively towards righties. Can't they make a few for us lefties? Considering that this is supposed to appeal to the geek crowd, I would hazard a guess that there is a higher concentration of lefties in this demographic anyway.
I've always figured that happiness and pain are just two sides to the same coin, and while great happiness can subsequently bring you great pain, this pain can never take away that happiness that you had experienced. Does the pain that you experience mean that the happiness you had was not worth it? If you loved someone, married him/her, lived happily for 10 years, but then that person suddenly died, would you wish that person never walked into your life in the first place? I feel that such a happiness is worth whatever pain I may or may not feel as a result, because I cannot make decisions in constant fear of what the future may hold. I cannot agree to living the life of moderation that you speak of, because I believe that a life worth living is a life worth suffering for.
Well damn that beats the price of an Athlon 64 FX and the Pentium EE for sure so 625 ain't so bad!
It's not the size that matters, it's how you use it.
Natural? They're first cut and then polished by master craftsmen before they ever get to the market. The "sparkly" characteristic comes from the light refracting and reflecting within the diamond due to the MAN MADE cuts. It's beautiful because we make it beautiful.
You know when I was growing up I always had that kind of mentality. It's not about the money, its about doing what I love in life, right? Well to some degree yes, but you'd be a fool to never factor in the money issue. People live on money, and to get money, one needs to consider a job that can foreseeably put food on the table. Eventually everyone needs to grow up and make wise choices, and that means being practical and planning for the future. Right now CS is down, and it not going to go up for the foreseeable future. I'd say ECE for the guy.