Notes on two presentations by Gordon Bell ca. 1998
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From: Eugene Miya on 4 Feb 2010 16:09 In article <36cb85eb-0bbd-467e-a756-59bc6ab5907e(a)h2g2000yqj.googlegroups.com>, Robert Myers <rbmyersusa(a)gmail.com> wrote: >On Feb 2, 6:26=A0pm, eug...(a)cse.ucsc.edu (Eugene Miya) wrote: >> That's the nature of hindsight. >> You had a stand alone Cray? =A0How luck of you! >> You likely really mean shared Cray. >> >> It would also depend whether you were in the COS or similar batch side >> of the world vs. the insistent interactive CTSS side of the world. >> >Let's put it this way. I could hear the disk drives grinding away >while I watched the screen buffer slowly fill with pixels, and I could >see the dedicated Cray at it's single-minded task, but, no, I did not >actually *own* the machine. I wasn't asking if you owned it, merely if you had it stand alone (as I could occasionally get ours). >It was there that I, who had previously only used COS, was introduced >to CTSS, and I'm still getting over the shock. There was also a VAX >front-end. 8^). Yeah, I used Interactive COS which having another production X-MP with just batch COS. Then CX-OS, and then UNICOS (us). >You've been lots of places, and maybe you've even been where I was. I >was only a player as far as the hydro was concerned (but, in that >role, I was a key player), but I did get to hear what was sold in >terms of graphical capabilities, and I did get to sit with the money >men who referred to us weenies as "smart guys" who would undoubtedly >get it done with the application of the appropriate amount of cash. >You probably know lots of people who talk that way. I have sat on 2 procurements, and helped other (e.g., DNA) justify theirs. I also watched graphics move into CUG (surprisingly it was the govt sites and not industry, which were new to workstations at the time). >HAL is nonsense. You mean Clarke and Kubrick's fiction/movie? With David what's his name at Ricoh >The numerical wind tunnel is nonsense. Which one? The one in Japan or the one in Wisconsin? Most graphics people have no idea what a wind tunnel is. They think the issue is looking at moving air. It's not. >Computer-generated movies are a reality and they are getting better all the >time. It's been a long time since supercomputers in any conventional >sense have been in the movie business. Their rendering is a reality, and because of Photoshop and other graphics systems, which is great for conspiracy theorists. What conventional sense is that? Entertainment? -- Looking for an H-912 (container).
From: Eugene Miya on 4 Feb 2010 16:33 In article <0be0aa0d-cd89-44a7-a03f-cdd505a662cc(a)r6g2000yqn.googlegroups.com>, Robert Myers <rbmyersusa(a)gmail.com> wrote: >> >If I, as a taxpayer, can't see what you are doing, and >> >it's not classified, what right do you have to be spending my money? >> >> What makes you think that the taxpayer's money is directly involved? >> Consider mapping the human genome. It wasn't all Francis' money. >> Did you understand the computing issues involved and whose machines were >> used? =A0Do you think it is/was different in other fields? =A0(I do.) >> >You've brought this up before. Yeah, this is why I started FAQs in the 80s. If I have to repeat it, I can send the message via cron/crontab and get on with my life and have people think all kinds of branded things. >People who are deeply invested in some particular thing often can't >see clearly what they think they are so certain of. The current >Secretary of the Treasury is my current b=EAte noir. I'm sure that he >or any of his mafia would talk to me with similar condescension. I >don't really understand because I can't see the whole picture. Hey I agree with you on the Treasury. But economics has people get ahead because someone has less than complete understanding: that's their margin. >Do you think I'd buy that from you any more than I'd buy it from the >masters of the universe? One doesn't need the masters. One only needs Craig Venter as a motivating force. No Gods, just a guy who thinks differently. Ever follow the acqusition history of his firm? >> >As to the running faster to stay in the same place analogy, that's >> >what I have long suspected is going on, and it's one of the most >> >disheartening things you have said to me. >> >> Pick up a copy of of Alice in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass. > >I've had Martin Gardner's Annotated Alice since I was attending a well- >known trade school in the Cambridge that Nick doesn't work in. Visit the other well know older competitor to Cambridge. That's where Carroll/Dodson made up and wrote down the story (scenes in 2nd appear). >> The world was like this before you were born. =A0That's the nature of the >> progress we are in. >> >> It's economics Robert. =A0My own agency realized that it could not support >> the exist of nearly a dozen supercomputer facilities. =A0Not only that, >> many of the competing facilities were poorly run. >> >That's an argument I'll buy. If these "supercomputers" are really >throughput machines, then it's a whole different story. I doubt very >seriously, though, that the Congress realizes that it is buying the >equivalent of tens of thousands of well-managed personal workstations. 1) Congress doesn't recognize depreciation. Especially Moore's law speed ones. 2) Workstation class COWs and NOWs are all PC clusters. I've had to dispose of Tom's and Jim and Don's original PC covers which went into their first Beowulf. 3) Development sites different from production throughput sites. >> >Computers have fulfilled their promise only in the area of computer >> >graphics and animation. >> >> I'm not certain what promise you are thinking. >> >Everyone has their own perspective. I've described an important part >of mine in a different post. I will repeat: What promise is that? Who said it? >> >AI >> >> They need better understanding of natural intelligence first. >> They mistook a clear view for a short distance. >> >I don't think anyone has enough insight to have a clear view. At this >point, all we can say is that we don't even know a path. It was a boss of mine who stated: "I think funding AI is stupidity." One path known is simulate all the physics (down to the chemistry and quanta). Others want to go around that. I'm open to listening at least. >> >As to computational physics, I have long had serious doubts as to >> >whether bigger computers at this point are producing anything more >> >than more visually-engaging graphics. =A0They may well be an obstacle to >> >insight and real progress--especially as the vested interests that are >> >more interested in the computers than in the science become ever more >> >vested, visible, and powerful. >> >> Code production (human time) vs code execution (long machine run time) >> are two different topics. =A0Many fields >> (e.g., cryptanalysis, machine translation, etc.) don't have graphical pro= >ducts. >> >> Every one should buy Knuth's new book in about 2 weeks on >> Selected Papers on Algorithms. >> >I had Knuth's old book of selected papers on algorithms. Yes, he's >smart. Lots of people are smart. I have to run to a mtg..... -- Looking for an H-912 (container).
From: Eugene Miya on 4 Feb 2010 18:48 In article <7sv55fFfm...(a)mid.individual.net>, Del Cecchi =A0<delcecchinospamoftheno...(a)gmail.com> wrote: >> >You can do a billion times more science because you can do things now >> >you couldn't do at all then. =A0Like model the weather hundreds of years >> >in the future. =A0ok, the climate not the weather but whatever. Whatever tee shirst were passed out in Portland. I doubt that science has an improvement metric like 10e9. On Feb 4, 4:05=A0am, n...(a)cam.ac.uk wrote: Nick: >> One can debate how much that is due to computing power and how much >> to more and better data, but the computing power is certainly used >> for that. =A0And might be essential for it. One of the values, Robert, is that some guy, like where Nick is, gets frustated enough that they go off and develop a new tool like calculus. In article <e5754988-bb6c-46cb-92ed-e9db8d1b939a(a)k41g2000yqm.googlegroups.com>, Robert Myers <rbmyersusa(a)gmail.com> wrote: >And the fact that we now how the capacity to *appear* to be able to do >this kind of modeling and that (mirabile dictu) the modeling predicts >problems that require massive funding don't make you at all suspicious? The problem comes from the composition of things a person or the field of people agree and believe (say Stefan-Boltzmann power law) with other information/agorithms, etc. A threshold is reached when some skepticism is reached. It will likely be when it's the other contributor's science than our own individual information. In computing, it was when the NCAR 7600 was running 24 forecasts taking 27 hours (typical story given). We all have stories based on the skepticism we know ("So what does this 'Chemical Option' mean?" "Oh, your usual non-persistent nerve agent") about simulation. >As I've pointed out, prospective modeling of weather patterns a few >months in advance has a dismal track record. Given that reality, why >should I take climate "modeling," which is little more than a not >always successful exercise in retrospective curve-fitting, any more >seriously? What about a 4 word linguist model for seasons? And the semantics are like winter -> it's cold/cool (unless Equatorial regions, and note I didn't use month). Or assumptions when to expect rain? Or snow? >And I strongly suspect that Del had his tongue in his cheek. The spreadsheet has changed a lot of people's views of wanting to do shotgun science. -- Looking for an H-912 (container).
From: Robert Myers on 5 Feb 2010 19:11 On Feb 4, 4:33 pm, eug...(a)cse.ucsc.edu (Eugene Miya) wrote: > In article <0be0aa0d-cd89-44a7-a03f-cdd505a66...(a)r6g2000yqn.googlegroups.com>, > Robert Myers <rbmyers...(a)gmail.com> wrote: > >I've had Martin Gardner's Annotated Alice since I was attending a well- > >known trade school in the Cambridge that Nick doesn't work in. > > Visit the other well know older competitor to Cambridge. That's where > Carroll/Dodson made up and wrote down the story (scenes in 2nd appear). > Having walked the same well-worn terrazzo as Wiener and Shannon without grasping the history at the time is sin enough for a lifetime. Oxford makes prime ministers. Let them have at it. Worshiping at Oxford is like worshiping at the little red schoolhouse up the river. They have enough worshipers without this factory hand. > >That's an argument I'll buy. If these "supercomputers" are really > >throughput machines, then it's a whole different story. I doubt very > >seriously, though, that the Congress realizes that it is buying the > >equivalent of tens of thousands of well-managed personal workstations. > > 1) Congress doesn't recognize depreciation. Especially Moore's law speed ones. > 2) Workstation class COWs and NOWs are all PC clusters. I've had to > dispose of Tom's and Jim and Don's original PC covers which went into > their first Beowulf. > 3) Development sites different from production throughput sites. > I'm not particularly arguing for Beowulf clusters. I've said my bit about the meaninglessness of hugeness (other than for bureaucratic and institutional sales and promotion) several times. If I thought more than a handful got it, I'd stop repeating myself. If more than a handful got it, the institutions that can afford these things would stop taking us for chumps. > >> >Computers have fulfilled their promise only in the area of computer > >> >graphics and animation. > > >> I'm not certain what promise you are thinking. > > >Everyone has their own perspective. I've described an important part > >of mine in a different post. > > I will repeat: > What promise is that? Who said it? > The original language was compelling, but, since it was a private conversation, I can't repeat it exactly as I remember it. What it came down to is that computers would eventually be able to produce even a very complicated street scenes involving humans. We're not there yet, but we're getting closer all the time. The people who actually owned the Cray said it. > >I don't think anyone has enough insight to have a clear view. At this > >point, all we can say is that we don't even know a path. > > It was a boss of mine who stated: "I think funding AI is stupidity." > > One path known is simulate all the physics (down to the chemistry and > quanta). Others want to go around that. I'm open to listening at least. > That will happen just as soon as computers can do realistic Reynolds numbers by direct simulation, which is to say, never, without some unforeseeable breakthrough in technology. > >> Many fields > >> (e.g., cryptanalysis, machine translation, etc.) don't have graphical pro= > >ducts. > I think that everyone understands the potential of brute force in cryptanalysis. I don't know what to think of machine translation. Arabic language skills seem to be plenty in demand. Brute force doesn't *always* not work--just most of the time. Robert.
From: "Andy "Krazy" Glew" on 5 Feb 2010 22:06
>> well know older competitor to Cambridge. Stamford? :-) (Not Stanford. M, not N. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stamford,_Lincolnshire#Education ) |