HPC and parallel processing - 2 fave quotes

From HPC wire
Posted by Michael Feldman - November 27 @ 9:04AM

Clever software can make even great hardware humble. D-Wave CTO Geordie Rose, the panel's quantum computing advocate, argued that new algorithms can have a much bigger payoff than more powerful silicon. He noted that using Pollard's rho algorithm from 1977, it would take 12 years to factor a 90-digit number on a modern-day 400 teraflop Blue Gene supercomputer. But using the newer quadratic seive algorithm, it would take just 3 years to perform the same operation on a 1977 Apple II computer. When you consider the multi-million dollar investment that went into the Blue Gene supercomputer compared to the probable investment that went into developing the new algorithm, you can get some sense of the industry's misplaced priorities.


From Slashdot ..
By acidrain (35064) on Thursday March 22 2007, @08:00AM (#18441773)

Look guys. There is no multi-processing silver bullet. It isn't even such a hard problem, *if you stop trying to solve it at such a low level*. Break your application into separate pieces that, *don't need to communicate very often.* Then this is the same kind of problem scalable websites like Google, MySpace, Hotmail and so on, have already, just without having to factor in the reliability issues. Finer grained multi-threading just leads to deadlocks and is really hard to debug. If you *really must* render the same sphere on 100 processors at the same time, then you need the speed of a custom coded solution. But you don't so let it go. The main loop of your program will be just fine as a single threaded implementation, 1 processor will do, and farm the 10% code / 90 % heavy lifting out in big clean chunks to other processors. If you find yourself writing some bizzare multi-threaded message passing system so that you can have 100s of threads all modifying the same live object model at the same time -- you are fucked, just forget about it 'cause you will never be able to debug that one killer bug that you know is going to get you right as you go to ship.


Pure genius from the net

Somthing wierd going on on Halloween, imac display bug

It seems like the trusty 5 year old iMac G4 is not imune to a bit of halloween nonsence, Just after viewing a pdf this happens ...
A reboot solved the issue but how wierd is that ? The system worked ok just could not see many of the letters. I can only speculate that the system display font got messed up or corrupted.




Spooky.

Gannett

Sorry but your email was "brambled".

Ever had a carefully formatted email squashed down to plain text as your colleagues forward it on or replied with follow up ?

You have been "brambled".

Brambled (verb) -
The process by which email has all the formatting combed out, usually when sent via a PDA.

Another i-aarrgh moment brought to you by .. Gannett

Office communiator gone East

Hi,

Ever had done of those really long days at the office when every things comes at you all at once ? Email, phone ( desk ), messenger pings, Phone (mobile ) Well that is exactally when this bug will byte ya.

As you type furiously away in messenger, you'r slightly distracted then Wham, your typeing Chinese ( simplfied ) or Koren.

It looks a bit like this ...

There are no settings in messenger to fix this.
Restarting messenger won't fix this. A reboot will reset this but like I said your having a busy day and there is no time for a reboot. As far as I can tell there is some wierd key combo or bug that switches your input languge.

Here's how to fix it ..
In Win XP
Start -> Settings -> Control Panel -> Regional and language options [ Languages ]
In the [ Settings ] tab

Use remove button to remove unneeded language options such as the Korean one ...

Another i-aarrgh moment brought to you by .. Gannett

Biker phrases.

"Fast bikers quickly reach the end of the road".

"Oops I didn't seem him govn'r" whilst thinking ( I didn't really look ).

"He made a grave mistake on that corner."

"Wheelies are easy ... just watch me."

"Helmet, jacket, boots, gloves, Why bother it's not far."

Take care out there .....


Gannett

According to your recent phone calls and private letters you may be interested in these products ...

"Hi, I am calling from you local phone company. We know that you have been talking with your friends about getting a new car. Have you considered a Ford from Fred Blogs your local dealer ?"

If you had call like this you certainly would be outraged. How can a phone company justify wire tapping you so that they can make money pushing adverts ?

If you postman said "I have read your banks statements, may be you should consider a loan from Sharky loan company." You would be concerned. We take for granted the separation between communication providers and processors.

We expect our phone calls, mail and web activity to be secure end-to-end. An agreed exception is hunting for criminals but even in that example "Probable cause" has to be established before the interception occurs. However such interception is essentiality what BT/Phorm have been doing and plan to do across the data network. By reading your web browsing habits BT and other ISPs plan to deliver content targeted adverts.

Interception of phone and data communications is a key privacy area, in which the few public safeguards have been hard to secure and protect. To see a blatant example of illegal interception just brushed under the carpet for commercial reasons is hard to stomach.

Gannett

Domain poisoning by spam

Hi,

I hold and administer few private domain names for friends and family and each in turn has fallen prey to domain steeling scum. This is not a new problem and is well documented on the net.

An innocent domain name is used as the return address for outbound spam resulting in that domain owner getting all the out of office and non-delivery bound backs. Often the email addresses being used are just "random characters"@domain.net eg: resuling with an email box full of junk such as

From: "yy Maskiew" yy-aecirp@MyDomain.net
From: "Landon Button" adresbeh1965@MyDomain.net
From: "Faramarz Leake" Faramarz-affubs@MyDomain.net
.. snip
From: "Duy meisenheimer" Duy-afgegeve@MyDomain.net
From: "aguskos Greenlott" aguskos-aeristic@MyDomain.net
From: "prasenjit Bluett" aduriked1970@MyDomain.net
From: "DiQiu Giaimo" DiQiu-agijukos@MyDomain.net
From: "Galen Grabek" adyhtims2005@MyDomain.net
From: "elsie masson" elsie-aermster@MyDomain.net

and there can be 100s of these. So here are my tips on handling a long term non-commercial domain name to try and prevent/reduce the impact of this illegal activity by spamming scum.

1) Set up multiple email addresses and keep some for private / trusted contacts and some for public correspondence and websites. Be prepared to change email address about every 2/3 years as even the private ones will leak out.

2) Set up a Sender policy framework on your domain. This should restrict how useful the domain is to spammers. An SPF record says which mail servers can legitimately send email with that domain name. I have to say that this is not as widely implemented as it should be amongst mail servers.

3) Black hole or set email rule and bucket all email that has not be specifically sent to your live email addresses. Some domain hosing companies will have a forwarding address such as blackhole@ispXXX.com that you set as a forwarding address for junk.

4) If you have email addresses that have fallen into the hands of spammers don't let them have a free ride with it. Hunt down any even vaguely legitimate company that has sent you email without your prior consent. Phone up and complain, demand to know how they got your email. But don't bother chasing the pill pushers.

5) Remember "Commercial speech is not free speech." The fact that audiences cost money to reach is one of the few limiting factors that keeps rampant mail/email marketing in check.


Cheers

Gannett

Fly your kite

No day is wasted if you get your kite out to the end of the string especially when the kite is small and the string is long.

Cheers

Gannett