Sweet. If the unused GPU capacity is put towards something like Folding@Home, they'd almost double the present amount of ATI GPU units in use. (1007 at the time of posting):
Oops, read the wrong column at the Folding@Home website. They've already got over 9,000 ATI GPU's in use. (No idea of model though). Oh, and 16,000 NVIDIA ones too. Still, an extra thousand Very High End ones probably wouldn't hurt. :)
I've used ThePlanet before, and found them pretty decent:
http://www.theplanet.com
Though they're not perfect (they recently had a fire in a data centre, covered on here), their support was always first rate. i.e. generally clueful about *nix and responsive within a few minutes. (a *real* 24 x 7 operation)
However, last used them in depth over 18 months ago, so it wouldn't hurt to double check. :)
Because all of the practical encryption options for backup media are *expensive*.
There's:
+ licensing
ie Encryption option for NetBackup isn't cheap
+ implementation
new tape drives [for hw encryption rather than sw encryption]
key management software plus associated new processes/procedures
impact on restoration/recovery times of encrypted data vs unencrypted
+ legal compliance
+ data expiration considerations
+ and DR can become further complicated
Most places seem to get their backup and recovery strategy "working ok", without then going and getting the next step of securing it properly.
Personally, I'd feel a bit safer if the encryption of *sensitive* data on backup media was legally mandatory AND part of the auditing that's done of financial institutions (i.e. by APRA here in Australia)
Hopefully this means I can add full desktop recording as an flv video stream to my OSS eLearning project (www.salasaga.org). :)
Though, if they're truly going royalty free with this, maybe Adobe should consider using something like theora (www.theora.org) for future video streaming...?
So, after all the airport security systems have deployed T-Ray based weapon detectors... people (with enough $$$) will be able to buy weapons/items covered with stuff based on this tech and thereby avoid the detection anyway.
"My belief is that any startup company or company that’s trying to build a popular mobile app will build it for both platforms".
Android is Java ONLY.
iPhone is compiled code only, Java does not run. Regardless of various fantasies people have about how it *may* be possible to get Java running on it, it doesn't here and now, nor will it actually seem to be more than hot air until its shown to work.
So, is a *startup company* or *company* going to develop their mobile applications in two completely different versions, based upon two completely different design approaches and implementations?
Hmmm, only the *most* lucrative (at best). That's an expensive and extremely-hard-to-maintain way to do things with any degree of success.
Certainly not an approach to be taken by budget focused (startup) companies, nor apps with a large existing code base.
If 18% of people visiting their site to get their music choose a pay option - and if that scales - that's indeed a very good indication a profitable business model can be found going forwards.
There's a bunch of kerfuffle about the home office losing data.
Then a mysteriously "encrypted" cd turns up from eBay with the words Home Office and Confidential on it.
What's the bet that someone created a CD sized bunch of random data, encrypted it, put it on eBay, then started counting down how long it takes for people to figure out (if ever)?
Half of the point of encryption is that people wouldn't be able to tell if there really is data in there. ;->
So what happens when my friends band does a cover (NOT graphical artwork!) of something well known - lets say Def Leppard's "Hysteria" - then puts that on the net for people to check them out?
Let's call it "Def Leppard - Hysteria.mp3".
Would the BPI people just go by file name? Would they actually fully download the song and listen to it as verification? Even if they do, would they realise it's NOT Def Leppard's performance of it?
How did they verify the legitimacy of the "evidence of file sharing" for these first few people they've already disconnected?
Not saying it's impossible, but it sounds like it would certainly be difficult to get properly verified evidence.
Might be a bit harsh to assume he has no rights to IP/work he did during his contract.
It should depends upon the terms of his contract, jurisdiction it's in, etc.
Thinking this because I'm a professional freelance contractor, and I'm *very* careful to ensure anything I create *in my own time* is owned by myself rather than whomever I happen to be officially contracting for at the time.
This person may or may not have done the same, and his jurisdiction may or may not allow that separation, etc.
Looked at the Android stuff the other day, wondering how easy it would be to get my OSS app running on that (shameless plug - www.flameproject.org). They talk about Eclipse a lot.
"Cool!" I thought.
I've used Eclipse a lot the last few years, as the C programming IDE/platform for development (on Gentoo Linux mostly).
Several pages in, *still* looking to find out which languages are supported, they have an FAQ section.. and question # 2 is along the lines of "Can I program in C/C++?". The answer "No. Java only."
One language only! (and not even the one I want!)
Ugh. Complete lossage. Scratch Android from the list.
They try and encourage innovation and people to get involved, then they say "Java Only". Perhaps that C/C++ coders are asking frequently enough for it to be question #2 in their FAQ hasn't quite clued them in that there are lots of OSS C/C++ coders around who would like to take their app mobile.
So, next stop, LiMo Foundation website. And yep, they specifically support C and C++.
Unsure of effort involved, but at least it looks possible with LiMo. Whereas with Android... Ugh... Java Only... Complete Lossage. No thanks.
Hmmmm, so if the sound is hooked up to automatically do voice recognition and record the text versions of the conversations, then that wouldn't "technically" be breaking this guidance?
(Would also make searches across large amounts of conversations far easier.)
Hopefully this aspect gets addressed in law somewhere, to disallow circumvention like this.
Someone enterprising just needs to put up a Large Shed in that town, paint the words "Army Base Receiving Depot" on it, and have someone stand out the front dressed the part waiting to sign for incoming tanks. ;->
Many years ago when assisting the PostgreSQL (and OSDB) open source projects, I emailed Jim Gray asking how we could quickly generate large (at the time i.e. 5-50GB I think) sets of good quality TPC compliant test data.
Specifically so we could benchmark and compare various things reliably. (i.e. different configurations, database A vs database B vs database C, etc).
Wasn't aware at the time of how influential Jim was. Heh. Without hesitation he offered practical advise and assistance, including code thoughts, and dug up other contacts for us as well.
Truly a good guy. If he's really gone forever, then I hope his examples of humanity lift others to do the same as opportunities present.
Register
31 posts • joined Tuesday 1st May 2007 10:15 GMT
Wonder how many solar panels it would take to power this?
Wonder how many solar panels it would take to power this, and how much desert space would be needed?
Escher...
Go on... someone upload one of those 3D Escher models.... the infinity loop type... :)
Folding@Home
Sweet. If the unused GPU capacity is put towards something like Folding@Home, they'd almost double the present amount of ATI GPU units in use. (1007 at the time of posting):
http://fah-web.stanford.edu/cgi-bin/main.py?qtype=osstats
Oops...
Oops, read the wrong column at the Folding@Home website. They've already got over 9,000 ATI GPU's in use. (No idea of model though). Oh, and 16,000 NVIDIA ones too. Still, an extra thousand Very High End ones probably wouldn't hurt. :)
Re: MySQL
Easy. They each have strong/better points going for them than the competing options, depending upon the environment and workload(s).
Horses for courses kind of thing.
Intel to buy ATI?
Heh, it would be interesting if Intel made an offer to AMD for ATI.
:)
Re: who do you suggest?
I've used ThePlanet before, and found them pretty decent:
http://www.theplanet.com
Though they're not perfect (they recently had a fire in a data centre, covered on here), their support was always first rate. i.e. generally clueful about *nix and responsive within a few minutes. (a *real* 24 x 7 operation)
However, last used them in depth over 18 months ago, so it wouldn't hurt to double check. :)
Needs to fit 2 people, and a docking station...
Docking station (not the PC type) for one of those rocket wing things that was also on here recently. :)
It doesn't have to be one vs the other
i.e. Think of a Sun server (with it's local SSD), connecting to an EMC SAN (with it's tiered flash/disk/etc storage).
Provides complimentary speedups at both layers, and should work well. :)
Heh, that's my website. :)
Heh... "Digital Distribution". That's my website (really).
www.digitaldistribution.com
:)
@Why are Banks so F'ing stupid, still ?
Because all of the practical encryption options for backup media are *expensive*.
There's:
+ licensing
ie Encryption option for NetBackup isn't cheap
+ implementation
new tape drives [for hw encryption rather than sw encryption]
key management software plus associated new processes/procedures
impact on restoration/recovery times of encrypted data vs unencrypted
+ legal compliance
+ data expiration considerations
+ and DR can become further complicated
Most places seem to get their backup and recovery strategy "working ok", without then going and getting the next step of securing it properly.
Personally, I'd feel a bit safer if the encryption of *sensitive* data on backup media was legally mandatory AND part of the auditing that's done of financial institutions (i.e. by APRA here in Australia)
@ Not really a problem
Me too.
I use an LTO tape library even at home. Just keeps things nice and simple.
Er.... backups?
Sure, restoration of multiple complex systems is going to be a pain... but what they're describing is as if they have to rebuild the lot.
Would be *really* surprised if that's the case. (not impossible, but unlikely)
Heck yeah!
Heh, stuff the motorbike off... this looks fun! :)
Hmmm, wonder if they'll allow them in the Red Bull Air Race at some point?
As a professional contractor...
The choice is easy -> Move on.
Quality staff do not have a problem finding well paid work.
If some place can't afford quality staff, that's their own problem.
They need to be careful though, as they'll get to keep the staff they can afford. :)
Cool!
Hopefully this means I can add full desktop recording as an flv video stream to my OSS eLearning project (www.salasaga.org). :)
Though, if they're truly going royalty free with this, maybe Adobe should consider using something like theora (www.theora.org) for future video streaming...?
Hmmmm.... hidden weaponry?
So, after all the airport security systems have deployed T-Ray based weapon detectors... people (with enough $$$) will be able to buy weapons/items covered with stuff based on this tech and thereby avoid the detection anyway.
Seems pretty useless.. :(
Can't see the use of this in a modern PC. Perhaps it's for older PC's?
What *could* be a lot more interesting, is putting a 8 (or more) of those chips (32+ cores) on a card, with 2G of ram, and a very fast bandwidth bus.
Extreme performance for the specialist crowd. And Folding@Home people. :)
Very well thought out article.
Slow (sorry), but well worth the read. Very well thought out. :)
Damn.
Very much Damn. :(
That sounds a bit too optimistic
Thinking this through more:
"My belief is that any startup company or company that’s trying to build a popular mobile app will build it for both platforms".
Android is Java ONLY.
iPhone is compiled code only, Java does not run. Regardless of various fantasies people have about how it *may* be possible to get Java running on it, it doesn't here and now, nor will it actually seem to be more than hot air until its shown to work.
So, is a *startup company* or *company* going to develop their mobile applications in two completely different versions, based upon two completely different design approaches and implementations?
Hmmm, only the *most* lucrative (at best). That's an expensive and extremely-hard-to-maintain way to do things with any degree of success.
Certainly not an approach to be taken by budget focused (startup) companies, nor apps with a large existing code base.
Damn.
18% chose the paid option... that's pretty good!
If 18% of people visiting their site to get their music choose a pay option - and if that scales - that's indeed a very good indication a profitable business model can be found going forwards.
Good luck to them. :)
Heh, someones having a lark...
No, really.
There's a bunch of kerfuffle about the home office losing data.
Then a mysteriously "encrypted" cd turns up from eBay with the words Home Office and Confidential on it.
What's the bet that someone created a CD sized bunch of random data, encrypted it, put it on eBay, then started counting down how long it takes for people to figure out (if ever)?
Half of the point of encryption is that people wouldn't be able to tell if there really is data in there. ;->
Cover's of songs? (i.e. by a tribute band)
So what happens when my friends band does a cover (NOT graphical artwork!) of something well known - lets say Def Leppard's "Hysteria" - then puts that on the net for people to check them out?
Let's call it "Def Leppard - Hysteria.mp3".
Would the BPI people just go by file name? Would they actually fully download the song and listen to it as verification? Even if they do, would they realise it's NOT Def Leppard's performance of it?
How did they verify the legitimacy of the "evidence of file sharing" for these first few people they've already disconnected?
Not saying it's impossible, but it sounds like it would certainly be difficult to get properly verified evidence.
@Anonymous Coward
Might be a bit harsh to assume he has no rights to IP/work he did during his contract.
It should depends upon the terms of his contract, jurisdiction it's in, etc.
Thinking this because I'm a professional freelance contractor, and I'm *very* careful to ensure anything I create *in my own time* is owned by myself rather than whomever I happen to be officially contracting for at the time.
This person may or may not have done the same, and his jurisdiction may or may not allow that separation, etc.
Yay, it doesn't have to be Java!
Looked at the Android stuff the other day, wondering how easy it would be to get my OSS app running on that (shameless plug - www.flameproject.org). They talk about Eclipse a lot.
"Cool!" I thought.
I've used Eclipse a lot the last few years, as the C programming IDE/platform for development (on Gentoo Linux mostly).
Several pages in, *still* looking to find out which languages are supported, they have an FAQ section.. and question # 2 is along the lines of "Can I program in C/C++?". The answer "No. Java only."
One language only! (and not even the one I want!)
Ugh. Complete lossage. Scratch Android from the list.
They try and encourage innovation and people to get involved, then they say "Java Only". Perhaps that C/C++ coders are asking frequently enough for it to be question #2 in their FAQ hasn't quite clued them in that there are lots of OSS C/C++ coders around who would like to take their app mobile.
So, next stop, LiMo Foundation website. And yep, they specifically support C and C++.
Unsure of effort involved, but at least it looks possible with LiMo. Whereas with Android... Ugh... Java Only... Complete Lossage. No thanks.
It's actually the IMDb #1 worst rated movie... EVER.
It's the worst rated movie on IMDb (and that's saying a LOT) *EVER*!
http://www.imdb.com/chart/bottom?tt0804492
Sounds like it will be a clean sweep winner for the Razzies.
What constitutes "recording of sound"?
Hmmmm, so if the sound is hooked up to automatically do voice recognition and record the text versions of the conversations, then that wouldn't "technically" be breaking this guidance?
(Would also make searches across large amounts of conversations far easier.)
Hopefully this aspect gets addressed in law somewhere, to disallow circumvention like this.
Sounds like a good strategic mode
Haven't looked into the valuation or anything, but the move itself sounds like good strategy.
Hope it's executed well. :)
Anyone want some "near free" tanks?
Heh.
Someone enterprising just needs to put up a Large Shed in that town, paint the words "Army Base Receiving Depot" on it, and have someone stand out the front dressed the part waiting to sign for incoming tanks. ;->
So, who wants to buy a tank?
Scholar and a Gentleman
Many years ago when assisting the PostgreSQL (and OSDB) open source projects, I emailed Jim Gray asking how we could quickly generate large (at the time i.e. 5-50GB I think) sets of good quality TPC compliant test data.
Specifically so we could benchmark and compare various things reliably. (i.e. different configurations, database A vs database B vs database C, etc).
Wasn't aware at the time of how influential Jim was. Heh. Without hesitation he offered practical advise and assistance, including code thoughts, and dug up other contacts for us as well.
Truly a good guy. If he's really gone forever, then I hope his examples of humanity lift others to do the same as opportunities present.