Notes on two presentations by Gordon Bell ca. 1998
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From: Robert Myers on 19 Mar 2010 15:42 On Mar 19, 3:17 pm, eug...(a)cse.ucsc.edu (Eugene Miya) wrote: > In article <32538b00-b169-408d-a3dc-39c75610b...(a)g28g2000yqh.googlegroups..com>, > Robert Myers <rbmyers...(a)gmail.com> wrote: > > >On Feb 20, 12:35=A0pm, "Andy \"Krazy\" Glew" <ag-n...(a)patten-glew.net> > >wrote: > >> The best reason to talk about supercomputer-friendly features inside CPUs > >> and GPUs is if you have reason to expect that > >> the features may be useful in commercial, consumer, etc, markets. > > Naw, mixed blessings. > > >That just about says it all. > > >1. The people who buy and pay for "supercomputers" have little > >understanding of the work-a-day world of the people who might want to > >use them. They have even less understanding of where the science is. > > Oh yeah? > Maybe pay. > > >2. No one designs supercomputers any more. People design networks, > > Oh yeah? Then, you are in the wrong circles. > > >where, no matter the rhetoric, the burden is on the work-a-day user to > >worry about where things *actually* are and cache (and associated > >mindlessly-repeated truisms) has left its costly, indelible mark. > > Systems people do design networks and caches. That's true. > Bureaucratic entities have to justify their clusters, and those are > argued for as supercomputers, but they have competition. > > Pay to play. > > >Given those ugly realities, I think it's time for the US taxpayer to > >get out of the business of paying for "supercomputers," which are no > >more a supercomputer than this desktop (Core i7 920). > > That's merely commodity. You don't even have the right vendors. > > If you are unable to ID your target, you won't hit it. > You're in one community. > Your pugnacious response reminds me of an airplane conversation I had with someone from the Pentagon. "He who has the gold rules," he pompously advised me. He didn't understand the science. Either. Robert.
From: Robert Myers on 19 Mar 2010 16:10 On Mar 19, 3:42 pm, Robert Myers <rbmyers...(a)gmail.com> wrote: > On Mar 19, 3:17 pm, eug...(a)cse.ucsc.edu (Eugene Miya) wrote: > > > > > In article <32538b00-b169-408d-a3dc-39c75610b...(a)g28g2000yqh.googlegroups.com>, > > Robert Myers <rbmyers...(a)gmail.com> wrote: > > > >On Feb 20, 12:35=A0pm, "Andy \"Krazy\" Glew" <ag-n...(a)patten-glew.net> > > >wrote: > > >> The best reason to talk about supercomputer-friendly features inside CPUs > > >> and GPUs is if you have reason to expect that > > >> the features may be useful in commercial, consumer, etc, markets. > > > Naw, mixed blessings. > > > >That just about says it all. > > > >1. The people who buy and pay for "supercomputers" have little > > >understanding of the work-a-day world of the people who might want to > > >use them. They have even less understanding of where the science is.. > > > Oh yeah? > > Maybe pay. > > > >2. No one designs supercomputers any more. People design networks, > > > Oh yeah? Then, you are in the wrong circles. > > > >where, no matter the rhetoric, the burden is on the work-a-day user to > > >worry about where things *actually* are and cache (and associated > > >mindlessly-repeated truisms) has left its costly, indelible mark. > > > Systems people do design networks and caches. That's true. > > Bureaucratic entities have to justify their clusters, and those are > > argued for as supercomputers, but they have competition. > > > Pay to play. > > > >Given those ugly realities, I think it's time for the US taxpayer to > > >get out of the business of paying for "supercomputers," which are no > > >more a supercomputer than this desktop (Core i7 920). > > > That's merely commodity. You don't even have the right vendors. > > > If you are unable to ID your target, you won't hit it. > > You're in one community. > > Your pugnacious response reminds me of an airplane conversation I had > with someone from the Pentagon. > > "He who has the gold rules," he pompously advised me. He didn't > understand the science. Either. > If my personality is put on trial, I'll lose. I already know that. I appreciate your willingness to engage me at all, but just once, I wish you'd lay a *fact* on me other than (a) I (Robert) have a limited view of the world. (true, but I claim to do more of my own personal thinking than most, rather than borrowing my wisdom from others) (b) You (Eugene) know more important people than I (Robert) do (possibly true, depends on how you define important and what you mean by knowing someone). (c) You (Eugene) understand bureaucracies much better than I do and are much more adept at manipulating and negotiating them. (emphatically true). I have a bad attitude toward the national security establishment. That's clear. I have also laid out my own technical concerns in some detail. Your preferred mode of response is to bat me away as if I were an annoying insect buzzing around your bureaucratically-blessed head. I may not have manners appropriate for the floor of the US Senate (and I don't know why anyone would be proud of such a skill,. anyway), but it's equally bad manners to respond to a technical beef with bureaucratic generalities. Robert.
From: Eugene Miya on 22 Mar 2010 19:37 In article <8559a661-0aea-4bb0-83ef-3c65c29eec84(a)v20g2000yqv.googlegroups.com>, Robert Myers <rbmyersusa(a)gmail.com> wrote: >On Mar 19, 3:17=A0pm, eug...(a)cse.ucsc.edu (Eugene Miya) wrote: >> In article <32538b00-b169-408d-a3dc-39c75610b...(a)g28g2000yqh.googlegroups= >.com>, >> Robert Myers =A0<rbmyers...(a)gmail.com> wrote: >> >On Feb 20, 12:35=3DA0pm, "Andy \"Krazy\" Glew" <ag-n...(a)patten-glew.net> >> >wrote: >> >> The best reason to talk about supercomputer-friendly features inside >> >> CPUs and GPUs is if you have reason to expect that >> >> the features may be useful in commercial, consumer, etc, markets. >> Naw, mixed blessings. >> >That just about says it all. >> >1. The people who buy and pay for "supercomputers" have little >> >understanding of the work-a-day world of the people who might want to >> >use them. =A0They have even less understanding of where the science is. >> Oh yeah? >> Maybe pay. >> >2. No one designs supercomputers any more. =A0People design networks, >> Oh yeah? Then, you are in the wrong circles. >> Pay to play. >> >Given those ugly realities, =A0I think it's time for the US taxpayer to >> >get out of the business of paying for "supercomputers," which are no >> >more a supercomputer than this desktop (Core i7 920). >> >> That's merely commodity. You don't even have the right vendors. >> >> If you are unable to ID your target, you won't hit it. >> You're in one community. >> >Your pugnacious response reminds me of an airplane conversation I had >with someone from the Pentagon. > >"He who has the gold rules," he pompously advised me. That's the Golden rule Robert. >He didn't understand the science. Either. And you also understand less of the supercomputing market than you used to. The market has changed underneath you Robert. The market has become like Woodstock. If you think you remember it, you weren't there. It's that smoke that they smoke at the Pentagon and elsewhere. -- Looking for an H-912 (container).
From: Eugene Miya on 22 Mar 2010 19:57 In article <356cf4ca-9fac-4871-9cdb-e360d4139101(a)33g2000yqj.googlegroups.com>, Robert Myers <rbmyersusa(a)gmail.com> wrote: >On Mar 19, 3:42=A0pm, Robert Myers <rbmyers...(a)gmail.com> wrote: >> On Mar 19, 3:17=A0pm, eug...(a)cse.ucsc.edu (Eugene Miya) wrote: >> > In article <32538b00-b169-408d-a3dc-39c75610b...(a)g28g2000yqh.googlegrou= >ps.com>, >> > Robert Myers =A0<rbmyers...(a)gmail.com> wrote: >> > >On Feb 20, 12:35=3DA0pm, "Andy \"Krazy\" Glew" <ag-n...(a)patten-glew.ne= >t> >> > >> The best reason to talk about supercomputer-friendly features inside >> > >> CPUs and GPUs is if you have reason to expect that >> > >> the features may be useful in commercial, consumer, etc, markets. >> > Naw, mixed blessings. >> >> > >1. The people who buy and pay for "supercomputers" have little >> > >understanding of the work-a-day world of the people who might want to >> > Oh yeah? Maybe pay. >> > >2. No one designs supercomputers any more. =A0People design networks, >> > =A0 =A0 =A0 =A0 Oh yeah? Then, you are in the wrong circles. >> > Pay to play. >> > >Given those ugly realities, >> > That's merely commodity. =A0You don't even have the right vendors. >> > If you are unable to ID your target, you won't hit it. >> >> Your pugnacious response reminds me of an airplane conversation I had >> with someone from the Pentagon. >> >> "He who has the gold rules," he pompously advised me. > >If my personality is put on trial, I'll lose. I already know that. You would not be the first IT/CS person to lose. Nor the last. >I appreciate your willingness to engage me at all, but just once, I >wish you'd lay a *fact* on me other than > >(a) I (Robert) have a limited view of the world. (true, but I claim to >do more of my own personal thinking than most, rather than borrowing >my wisdom from others) Oh, sure, start by enumerating whom you think build (or used to be but no longer build) supercomputers. Your answer, and most of the people in the news group's answer would be highly media based. The past players are quite a few: Cray Research, Cray Computer, much older, CDC, arguably firms now would be like IBM (LLNL), some would argue the remains of SGI, more arguably SUN, HP, firms who make what we call clusters. Oh yeah, a few people might recognize Fujitsu, Hitachi (Nick's former machine bit which he dangles before people), NEC. A few dozen older minisuper firms existed, but those arguably were minisupers not supers. Let's just stick to supers. So here's one example of an obscure fact: Bamford goes and writes a book and writes about a box in AT&T in SF where all intercontinential traffic comes in. Big deal box. So the name of this firm is Narus, and they claim to make a supercomputer. So who has ever heard of this company? Bamford clearly. Well they just happen to have offices where I live and used to be in a center where Mozilla was done and other friends firms like TellMe. We have the web now. The two things any naive person can do is firmname.com or google(firmname). Does this firm make a supercomputer? You tell me. One can go down a thread, realize that some people would say, well it's not general purpose or stand alone, or any number of features. The firms above lacked significant competition: remember Thinking Machines? (They had better publicists.), Maspar, ever realize that Goodyear was once in the supercomputer industry? And they still have computers flying around? >(b) You (Eugene) know more important people than I (Robert) do >(possibly true, depends on how you define important and what you mean >by knowing someone). I don't know any more important people than you think you do. If I do, not that much more important. >(c) You (Eugene) understand bureaucracies much better than I do and >are much more adept at manipulating and negotiating them. >(emphatically true). I hate to say it, I do cynically know a bit more about bureaucracies. I would not use the words manipulating or negotiation (far too much power sounding). Work navigates in the bureaucracies. >I have a bad attitude toward the national security establishment. >That's clear. I have also laid out my own technical concerns in some >detail. Your preferred mode of response is to bat me away as if I >were an annoying insect buzzing around your bureaucratically-blessed >head. I may not have manners appropriate for the floor of the US >Senate (and I don't know why anyone would be proud of such a skill,. >anyway), but it's equally bad manners to respond to a technical beef >with bureaucratic generalities. Maintain that attitude. It's a good attitude to have about them. This is usenet Robert, all we can talk about here are generalities. It's the behind the scenes email where things get done. Politicians are compromisers, which is why people tend not to like them. There's bigger fish to fry. Go after MS Robert. The problem isn't at the high end. It's commodity. -- Looking for an H-912 (container).
From: nmm1 on 22 Mar 2010 19:11
In article <4ba7f5c6$1(a)darkstar>, Eugene Miya <eugene(a)cse.ucsc.edu> wrote: > >Oh, sure, start by enumerating whom you think build (or used to be but >no longer build) supercomputers. Your answer, and most of the people in >the news group's answer would be highly media based. The past players >are quite a few: Cray Research, Cray Computer, much older, CDC, arguably >firms now would be like IBM (LLNL), some would argue the remains of SGI, >more arguably SUN, HP, firms who make what we call clusters. Oh yeah, a >few people might recognize Fujitsu, Hitachi (Nick's former machine bit >which he dangles before people), NEC. A few dozen older minisuper firms >existed, but those arguably were minisupers not supers. Let's just >stick to supers. I sincerely hope that more than a few people would recognise NEC among those! And there were others before and simultaneous with CDC, but let's skip them. >>(c) You (Eugene) understand bureaucracies much better than I do and >>are much more adept at manipulating and negotiating them. >>(emphatically true). > >I hate to say it, I do cynically know a bit more about bureaucracies. >I would not use the words manipulating or negotiation (far too much >power sounding). Work navigates in the bureaucracies. The word "navigates" implies more planning in the direction of the decisions than fits the facts. Calling it Brownian motion is a little unfair, though. It's more a sort of biassed random walk with absorbing boundaries. Regards, Nick Maclaren. |