Statistics for the Worker Bee
I was curious about what percentages of our life are spent doing what over long periods of time, such as a career that we might have for most of our life. That and I'm bored.
One to Dig To Your Heart
The Armadillo
A lot of people seem to have misconceptions of the armadillo. While I am one person that gleefully welcomes them to migrate further north to my fair state, other people seem to think of them as more of a pest. They have been found as far as Illinois, so it’s only a matter of time until I can adopt one from the wild myself.
Speaking of the wild, they are only native to the Americas. There is a lot of folklore about these cute little fellas, but stories like those do not interest me. I could rattle on for pages about the false tales of misunderstood animals, one especially that of the armadillo. As far as science goes, these guys are quite the handful.
The nine-banded armadillo is the one species out of the many that might be the most interesting to refer specifically. Not only are armadillos the one of few non-human animals that can be infected with leprosy, but the nine-banded armadillo gives birth to four genetically identical quadruplets in each litter. There are very, very few species in the world that are known to possess this unique reproductive ability.
Speaking of ability, the armadillo doesn’t fall short of impressing would be skeptics of how lazy they may perceive the beast. A motorist may drive across a road and see a dead armadillo lying on the side. The immediate conclusion would be to think that it was hit by a car by darting into traffic, but how exactly was it struck? Typically by the fender.
Armadillos can jump rather high for looking so stubby and heavy. There are other animals in the world that give very odd instinctual reactions to being startled such as the genetically engineered fainting goats who go into temporary paralysis if given a good scare. It is thought that the fainting goat experiences no pain, but other animals are not as fortunate.
The armadillo will leap up in the air from a non-moving standing position high enough to be struck by the fender of an automobile. Imagine a car on the road driving and there is an animal in the way. The immediate horn blast scares the poor creature into a leap that places it directly in front of the car. It may be sad, but it is an impressive jumping feat nonetheless.
Other amazing abilities that other species of armadillo possess is the ability to inflate itself with air enough to swim across bodies of water and, quite the opposite, remain underwater for up to six minutes. There is one type that actually rolls up into a ball for defense like the common woodlouse. Though, I would imagine the armadillo has the clear advantage over which has the best defense capability.
Indeed, they are only known to be in the Americas, but what about fossil records? Well, one fossil record found in South America compares the size of the ancient armadillo to that of a car. Ridiculous to think about if it could roll itself into a ball and travel like when all the aliens in Critters 2 combined to form a ball of flesh eating terror. Well, except this guy would crush full sized sedans.
There exist so many species of armadillo, from cute and little to big and hairy. While I will not get into specifics about each and every one, just know that I would enjoy very much so to have one as a pet roaming my home. Of course, one that would not have the instinct to burrow around the basement. I can only imagine what linoleum would do to a set of claws.
In Apple We Antitrust
An apparent leak has been revealed that Microsoft will be shipping Windows 7 without Internet Explorer already bundled. While it is not the first time we've seen Microsoft hit with anti-trust lawsuits recently, many can only imagine why no one complains about Apple bundling all of their applications by default without alternatives out of the box.
One announcement from WWDC 2009 is that Snow Leopard is only $29 to upgrade from Leopard. That's good news, but remember that the initial Mac OS X public beta was $29.95 and only lasted a little over half a year. As for Microsoft, we can download Windows Server 2008 R2 Release Candidate, based on the NT 7.0 kernel, and the Windows Server 2008 trial is good for 60 days. Also, Windows 7 has been out for several months now, with official and unofficial releases, for a long haul beta.
The $30 beta for Mac OS X did apply a discount for Cheetah, but was lacking in almost all features, and was rather unstable. Things did not improve for some time after the initial launch of OS X. Not only did the community pay for a beta, but they also paid for a very unfinished, featureless, and buggy operating system for the first retail release of OS X 10.0. They paid to stare at the Aqua UI. The Apple community can say what they want about Windows not being the best out of the box, but it took a couple of years for OS X to achieve usability.
Plenty of people would have became rabid if they could have only used the new Windows 7 toolbar with Jump Lists for 6 months without any real applications, DVD support, or much of any productivity software available, let alone that they received the beta for free. What would happen to Windows 7s sales if it took two years to become useful? Also, people were upset about backwards compatibility with Vista, but what of OS X Leopard/Snow Leopard and Classic? No more native OS 9 support.
I remember when Windows XP first came out. I remember the criticism about exploits, revolving door infections, and shoddy performance. After Service Pack 2 was released, everything then seemed stable enough. The same goes for Vista SP1, but what about Windows 7? There are several reports about glitches and other problems, but this is a public beta from Microsoft for a brand new operating system. No one will see a public beta, or free if "available" in beta, for Snow Leopard because everyone is already using Snow Leopard as Leopard or Tiger. It's still OS X.
I have and still do give OS X a chance. I have had Mac OS X Tiger for the longest time and doubt I will ever upgrade to further service packs released by Apple. I cannot justify paying for a service pack for an operating system older then Windows XP that has had 5 retail service packs and a sixth on the way! WinXP had 3 SPs and was pretty solid by the second. While Microsoft didn't focus heavily on themes, the end user can tweak their Windows desktop environment to make it unique.
It bothers me when I see blind iSheep flocking to the next "big" announcement in hopes it matches the rumors, but no keynote ever does. What is really bothersome is how the slightly positive announcements are given the most attention instead of the elephant in the room, such as a new line of expensive MacBook Pros without a removable battery. Apple can be just as greedy, if not more, as Microsoft and guilty of using guerrilla tactics equal to those committed by Microsoft.
I'd rather not wake up in the morning to see Safari secretly installed and automatically assigned as my default browser again. I uninstalled Apple software on my Windows PC, especially the disappointing Safari 4 release for Windows missing the delightful tab-process feature to kill tabs, which is featured in Chrome. Also, Chrome 2 appears has already "stolen the crown" that Apple gave itself, but was more of a pat on the back.
Mac OS X is a decent proprietary operating system with limited hardware configuration and software support, but Apple is the real culprit here with the misdirection, exaggerations, unnecessary mudslinging, and leaving loyal fans wondering if they are ever thought of in think tanks. I would imagine only true Apple fans can wait out the storm of bad ideas and implementations, but what would be considered the limit? Vista drew a great deal of fire, but when Snow Leopard drops, few will complain that they are paying for only a feature-lite service pack for OS X.
Digitus Medius to Consumerist Masochist
It's official: Apple and AT&T gave the middle finger to their loyal existing customers this week. There isn't much to say in regards to the reason why it's a big middle finger, but it's more of a question as to why should everyone care so much. No one really expects AT&T and Apple to give loyal customers deep discounts over new customers, that's the way of the business world.
So, the new iPhone hardware will be hundreds of dollars more for existing customers to upgrade their phone. That's fine. There are dozens of examples where this kind of new-customer-first policy takes place. One that comes to mind is a video store. Everyone has seen the big bold letters advertising 50% off rentals for 30 days to all new customers, but what about the veteran who has rented over 2,000 titles at New Release wall 5-day rental prices?
I could give more examples, but I'm sure everyone will immediately relate this behavior to many other companies. It's nothing new, it's just business. Big Tabacco doesn't care about the black lunged, existing smokers, they want the new and healthy. The difference between other companies and AT&T/Apple is that there is a fine contract between the consumer and a fancy new gadget that will be a quarter of the price after ten weeks.
The biggest insult is that AT&T could give their iPhone customers MMS, and should have before 3.0, but they refused all this time and will possibly push it out over the summer. They'll charge for tethering, possibly adding it onto the unlimited data plan, causing the already pricey data plan to become quite a monthly monster.
The WWDC 2009 keynote announcements have stuffed my RSS feeds with enough rehashed news of rabid fanboyism and upset elitists in regards to the same three announcements for me to care. I noticed Apple fans are different. Apparently, no one can be a true Apple fan without appreciating the fact that they will get shat on often.
At least with Microsoft, there is no mystery. We knew Vista wasn't great, but people bought it anyway. There went all our "ancient" 2005 software and printers that have been in the family for generations. We knew all of this before upgrading to Vista and many have regretted it ever since, but the fact remains that consumers did not have to buy into Vista and even the techie novice knew about many flaws beforehand.
While it may not be quality on release, what operating system is without a few updates to harden? Windows XP wasn't quite ready until Service Pack 2, but Microsoft didn't charge each end user to apply the update. Should Microsoft follow Apple in their footsteps and put a price on Windows 7 Service Pack 1? Chaos would erupt. Satan himself would rise from the depths of hell to congratulate Ballmer on a job well done.
Speaking of which, Apple loves to take cheap shots stating that Windows 7 is nothing but a polished Windows Vista, but how can a company that charges for service packs for the same exact operating system over a period of eight years have any room to talk about a rival company charging for a completely new operating system? What a double standard!
Windows 7 is not Vista 2.0. I've been using Windows 7 since January and I've been thoroughly impressed by it. Microsoft giving Windows 7 Home Premium upgrades for $49.99 for Vista owners is also a great incentive. While Snow Leopard upgrades are to be sold for only $29.99, I still cannot justify a service pack update going retail for just a few system enhancements.
Should we really have to pay any money to be able to give our desktop more of a brushed metal theme or to take it away in a future update with something more unified? What about a smaller footprint for the operating system? Ridiculous.
Don't get me wrong, I don't mean to blast Mac OS X. Sure, OS X has come a long way, but I'd rather use another open source Unix-like environment that allows Wine, which is fantastic software. Wine is rather experimental with OS X currently, but Apple could really help out the community, and possibly themselves, by embracing the Windows emulation software.
Why buy a completely different Office version specifically for the Mac when everyone already has pirated Office 2003 for Windows? Imagine the Switch commercials!
Speaking of switching, Apple is beginning to look like a pack of goons without some puppet CEO to hold up shiny new products. How will Apple be without Jobs? That's easy, look at what they were before Jobs. A history of messy hardware choices and poor customer support. Without Jobs on the job, they have already made some potential costly mistakes at WWDC 2009.
The new MacBook line will be cheaper, powerful, but without a removable battery. That's pretty bad, so much for executive professionals. Just keep it charging the entire time the MacBook Pro is in use! It's healthy for the battery.* Also, the little bit about ExpressCard being removed seems a mystery to some, but not to me. Apple has always tried to adopt different technologies, switch it up, and, at times, tackle completely new connections that become unique to their systems.
While it is nice to attempt to be revolutionary and take a different road at certain forks in difficult technological decisions, I think Apple, right now, said silently, "I've made a huge mistake."
Another slap in the face is, of course, the "new" iPhones looking exactly like the "classic" 3G model. I can see the fanboys getting frustrated now! "It's not iPhone3G! It's iPhone3GS! Gawd!" Everyone else can imagine that, I'm sure. Though, the only real difference is video recording and that's too little, too late for the cost of the 3GS.
As for the mud slinging, it won't end. Without Microsoft and Apple feuding over marketshare, I shudder to think about an alternate universe where we would be right now in terms of home computers. Would they would even be as affordable or easily obtainable as they are now? To think that only certain organizations could afford, or donated, computers, such as libraries and schools. This is a terrible thought, but enough of future-speak and what-if scenarios.
Gadgetry like the iPhone3GS is not special, nothing to clamor over or freak out globally on every tech blog on the internet. There are few apps to truly want and the hardware upgrades just don't seem worth the cash to upgrade. Too expensive, but still want it? Wait a few weeks and buy three for the price it cost for one during the release weekend.
* - It's not.
Windows 7, Antitrust Lawsuits, and Linux
No one can ignore the fact that Microsoft is losing market share. Not to their Apple rival, but to a completely different beast. Microsoft may have a lot to fear now that Linux has become quite a force in a variety of different areas.
While Microsoft will not go under as a company, the prestige and respect that was associated with Windows over the last several years may have been tainted by negative media reports, Steve Ballmer, antitrust issues, and rising alternatives.
Showing Opera Love
I recently have fallen head over heels for Opera. This is not a joke. I used to be infatuated with the amount of customization and addons Firefox presented end users, but I grow tired of the memory leaks and other minor hiccups. I have had Opera installed for a great deal of time now, but I haven't used it nearly the amount of time over the years compared to Firefox. I've used Firefox more than I've used Internet Explorer over the course of my entire life. I can say that as a matter-of-fact. Though, there were several drawbacks, to me personally, when it came to making the switch permanently.
The first hurdle was in-line spell checking. I loved this in Firefox. You see, if I didn't know how to properly spell a word, I wouldn't have to Google it and have them keep a nice collection of how ridiculous I've attempted to get away with spelling words of my own native language properly. Thank you Google for keeping a massive dossier of my search inquiries.
Well, this handy JavaScript available here with the small tutorial is fantastic. It has worked brilliantly for me and this was definitely one of the major stepping stones that had to happen in Opera that allowed me to embrace Opera with no regrets. Not as if I clung that desperately to Firefox, it simply had several tools out of the box I found useful.
In-line Spell Checking with Opera.
Next up was the increase of size of the Speed Dial, or additional pages. I had the Speed Dial add-on for Firefox and it was enormously customizable with tabbed browsing, customization like auto refreshing to the chosen time you would specify for every individual dial or do a complete manual refresh. It was very handy, but always knew if Opera had a simple fix to increase the speed dial to whatever number I wish, I would be sold. While I feel I found this little INI edit a little late, it literally drove me over the edge of switching.
Manually adjust Opera's Speed Dial to what you want.
For more tips and tricks, I recommend Opera's very own tutorials for beginners as they will explain everything in good enough detail to give ideas on what to search for later on for further tweaks.
Did I mention I use Opera on my Omnia i910 a ridiculous amount? The tabbed browsing, the amazing options, and the ability to edit Opera Mobile options to customize it to my likings, such as creating a directory on the external space the cache location and so many more options. Just by navigating to "opera:config" opens up a wide variety of options, not to mention opera:plugins, opera:about, and opera:history. A wealth of knowledge about your tiny, but powerful mobile.
Opera's Settings File Explained
I'm currently running v9.64. A good simple tweak to boost surf speed is to go to Tools>Preferences>Advanced tab>Network and change the "Max connections to a server" from the default to 16 and "Max total connections" from default to 64. Those of you who used the Tweak Network addon in Firefox will be aware of the speed boost. Even though Opera is already fast enough out of the box, it can be tweaked even further for speed out of the box with no additional downloads.
Typing "opera:config" into your Opera browser gives an overwhelming amount of options, but far better detailed and explained than Firefox's config window. In Performance in config, uncheck "Reduce Max Persistent HTTP Connections" and change the "Network Buffer Size" from the default to 32. In 9.64, the default size is 128, but 32KB should be more than enough. Feel free to Google curious settings to find more about them in detail. There are more settings to manipulate to get Opera the way you want than I can put in one blog.
Opera Browser Wiki: Opera Performance Enhancements
Now if you'll excuse me, I need to spend more quality time with Opera. Yeah, it's like that.
Wolverine: Origins Review
Note: There are more spoilers in the trailers for Wolverine: Origin than this review.
I will start with what's good in this movie. The only positive of this movie has to do with the actors. Hugh Jackman and Liev Schreiber, both very talented, were excellent in their roles. They were both ferocious and intense, but became somewhat confusing in the storyline during supposed new twists injected into the plot for movie. Needless to say, not much else made sense other than their past growing up together.
Speaking of a story, how about let's not have a story at all! The writers seemingly chose to throw out all source material at some point. They then sprinkled the film full of unnecessary cameos that were all half baked in a failed attempt to distract viewers. Gambit was in the film, but he had a lack of a certain Cajun accent. Young Cyclops was also featured and, apparently, he had heat blasts while young.
Also, what happened to Deadpool? I didn't realize it was him until I read the credits. What really threw me off is the end of the movie. To those that have already seen the movie will know what I am talking about when I say that none of that nonsense happens. He and that "monster" at the end are completely separate. Best character of all time ruined in a poorly done origins story. Now what are they going to do for a Deadpool spin-off? We will never get Deadpool done right.
Sadly, let's not forget how poorly done the CG was in major scenes. Take for instance the scene of Wolverine in the bathroom looking at his shiny new claws, but the claws are rendered with the brightest and shiniest filter in the world. Also, at one moment, they were shifting knuckles! After that, the blades even "slid off" his fists to magically reattach themselves seconds later. How lazy can you get? Was there no time post-production to have an eye for detail with this kind of enormous budget?
I did not go into the theater looking for mistakes related to his claws. It was that painfully obvious.
Flaming pile of hot, salty garbage.
Grade: F - (minus)
Days of the Blue
I always wondered when I would run into a random BSoD. A truly unexpected blue screen of death, especially when you don't think that the place is running on Windows.
In this case, it was an aquarium. The Shedd Aquarium in Chicago. I took a few photos, but there was no flash photography allowed. These had a touch screen interface that allowed you to touch a picture of the fish in the tank for more information.
I hope the automated systems that keep these fish alive aren't using Windows.
The people around me did not understand why I was taking pictures.
Stroking the Samsung Omnia i910
Wow. Really. Wow. This is truly my first smart phone, but I know this isn't because of that little detail. This phone has blown me away. This is running Windows Mobile 6.1. Look at these incredible features.
The phone comes with 8GB internal storage. This can be further increased by microSD cards. I will snatch a 8GB card soon for 16GB total soon. Wi-Fi ready. Oh, and a removable battery! No sending this little guy into the shop.
A 5 MP camera with face detection, 15 different shooting modes, image stabilization, smile detection, image resolutions up to 2560x1920, 4x digital zoom, panoramic photography up to 8 frames, flash, video resolutions up to 640x480, and a lot of other little options.
The phone is DivX certified. As for video, there is a Video Editor. This allows for trimming video, audio dubbing, and subtitles. With multi-codec support, it can also play just about any format available with a slew of media players including FM radio, multiple media programs such as Windows Media Player, Touch Player, MPlayer, Real Player, etc. It also has a TV-Out option to play videos and images recorded on an LCD television set and can double as a digital frame.
The Omnia also sports an integrated optical mouse that is really handy while browsing non-mobile websites. There are multiple options for on-screen QWERTY keyboards and awesome hand writing recognition software to be used with any application. Voice commands, with password protection, are also pretty well done.
The phone has a flash light, full PDF support, Office Mobile with Word and Excel, Skype, Opera Browser Mobile with tabbed browsing and directory favorites, chat program for almost all protocols (AIM, Gtalk, MSN, Yahoo, etc) all in one program/buddy list. You can also password protect this phone; one would need to type it in after the phone goes idle or turns on from a cold/warm boot.
Other browsers include Iris, SkyFire, Internet Explorer (ugh), Bolt, and soon to be Firefox Mobile and Google Chrome. I say Chrome because just about every Google service has a mobile side to it, why not their new browser in due time?
The phone has software for Podcasts, RSS feeds, and tons of games. Soon to be more, lots more.
It has a motion sensor that automatically rotates the screen in several different ways either to landscape or portrait, depending on how you're holding it. Also, there is an optional feature that allows all sounds to mute when place screen face down.
The Youtube Player freeware (not from YouTube themselves) allows you to search YouTube for videos, save the video on your phone, and will also extract the audio stream from the video into MP3 to save on your phone as well.
Did I mention the native encryption for storage cards and built-in GPS receiver? It also has features to do factory restoration on the phone and to format external flash cards from the phone itself.
I also forgot to mention that you can throw your own ringers on here. Just fire up your favorite program, either MP3myMP3 or Audacity, record or cut a little bit of a song, upload it to your phone with the very easy USB connection into the Ringers folder. That's it. No further input is necessary, until you want to assign those ringers as your default or to any of your contacts.
Samsung TouchWiz is also rather pretty to look at while adding or removing widgets from the desktop area. Nothing incredibly unique or special, but everything can be replaced with another like SPB Mobile Shell.
Oh, drat. I almost forgot to mention the Remote Desktop support for Windows based computers. It does a wonderful job remoting into the chosen desktop on the network and shows a full screen (on the phone) version of the Windows desktop PC. This feature really impressed me.
If a program is hanging, that's no problem. We are all familiar with the Windows Task Manager. If you're not, you probably just pull the plug on the computer when Microsoft Word freezes for more than two minutes. If you don't use Windows, but are familiar with the Task Manager, it's probably why you're off using OS X or any of the hundreds of Linux distros.
I don't know what else to add. It's a very solid phone. I can't imagine what I'm missing, but I'm sure there is plenty. Well, there is the bit about the stylus not actually having an embedded place to call home in the phone, but with a responsive touch screen and optical mouse, the stylus isn't that necessary. Undoubtedly a last minute after thought.
If you have Verizon, give it a try while you wait for your name to be called. And then while you wait for someone to help you. And then while you wait for the associate to figure out what's going on with your account. Then while you wait for the associate to fix his mistake that you told him would happen before he went and made the changes to the account.
To the Verizon guy Chuck: I told you that would happen. You should have listened. You made me angry, told me my phone's promo ended a week ago when another associate told me the promo would last well into April, and then did nothing to try to calm me down besides act like a huge d-bag. I was an inch away from canceling my out of contract subscription. How would that have looked on your commission and to the manager hovering over your shoulder?
It's a great phone, though. Aside from this phone, the Pre is the only other one I think I would get this year... so far. While I was stroking my Omnia earlier, Talal had to go and mention the Palm Pre. Oh, what a sexy beast that will be if it ever hits retail...
One to Eat Your Mother’s Corpse
The Komodo Dragon
When I was young, like most boys, I was fascinated by lizards and dinosaurs. Especially dinosaurs. I knew all of the names of dinosaurs, recognized which was which in books, knew what their diet consisted, and what period they thrived. Dinosaurs were an enormous deal for me and it was a childhood desire to grow up to become a paleontologist. After a viewing of Jurassic Park, the dream became a fantasy when I realized that paleontology is the study of fossils. I will never have the chance to meet a living dinosaur as they are extinct.
Until I went on a class field trip to the Toledo Zoo in Ohio. There were Komodo dragons on display. Not only did these enormous lizards plunge me back into my younger years of interest, I began a whole new idea on what I would like to do when I'm older. Of course, working in a zoo was one of those ideas, as working day to day with animals I have only seen on the Discovery Channel would be a huge thrill. I saw zoo keepers swim in tanks full of exotic fish to clean and maintain the habitat. Depending on the position gained, it would be rare to have a boring work day.
I found my professional calling elsewhere, but still think that the huge monitor lizards native to several islands in Indonesia are an awesome sight. If it wasn't for protective barriers, the 7 to 10 foot, 350 pound lizard would descend upon the unlucky stumbler with the force of a fearsome beast equipped with powerful legs, large, sharp claws, and a tail they use for more than just whipping. The Komodo dragon can rear back on its hind legs and use the support of the tail to stand up straight and tall. This must be an amazing sight, but I can only imagine feeling overwhelming fear knowing it can charge with speeds up to 12 miles per hour. It may not sound fast, but they are very stealthy, strategic hunters. They normally go for the throat.
The Komodo dragon is a carnivore in every way possible. Not only will it eat live prey, even their own as they are cannibals, but they have a steady diet of carrion. A carcass is a quick and easy meal as they have no competition on their native islands. This is called island gigantism. There was not another animal to challenge them for dominance. This explains the monitor lizards extreme size, but it does not explain the disgusting habit of digging up human corpses from graves and eating the remains. Aside from being a terrifying predator, they are also grave robbers.
While they are great hunters, they are extremely vicious when it comes to prey. They typically eat an animal alive by tearing chunks of flesh off the body while holding whatever it would be down with powerful legs. Although, if the animal is small enough, like a goat, it will be swallowed whole. To speed up the process of swallowing an animal, the Komodo dragon will ram the body of the animal against a tree shoving it further down the throat. Don't worry, the Komodo dragon will be fine during this process because it will not suffocate while swallowing an animal whole as it has a snorkel underneath its tongue. It has all the time it needs. It's also safe to say that these enormous lizards will eat just about anything, dead or alive, including horses.
If a human being, or any other animal, does survive an attack, they will undoubtedly need immediate medical attention for more than the gaping wounds. Their saliva contains a great deal of bacteria and can be considered rather venomous. While there is no antidote for the infection caused by its bite, don't worry, the Komodo dragon is completely immune to its own biological warfare. In the saliva exists a deadly strain of P. multocida, which is very serious news to a bite victim. Most animals that survived, but were bitten, typically live a week before the disease kills them slowly.
These monogamous lizards aren't all bad, though. The female can reproduce asexually in the absence of males. This was recently documented in detail by a zoo in Kansas. While it might be possible that a single female can land on an island, lay over 10 eggs, and allow them to hatch. They will all be male, but that's no problem. The female will then reproduce with the males, her very own, to allow reproduction to allow females to be born. This is obviously a rather worrisome flaw because it's a very bad idea to scrape the bottom of the gene pool barrel. Google an article about cousins marrying and then try (don't) to imagine what happens when you multiply that by eleven.
Although, they really aren't all that bad. Numerous accounts in zoos reporting that Komodo dragons have actually been taken out of their enclosures to interact with the visitors of the zoo. They become tame rather quickly and like to play. While having a brain and an impressive memory, we know that they are not confusing a bucket with a piece of meat. The Komodo dragon will carry the bucket around in its mouth, stick its head in a box, and several other documented games to engage in play. While they may be a fun display at a zoo to watch and study, people must exercise extreme caution when encountering a Komodo dragon in the wild. If provoked or have their territory threatened, they can become killing machines.
What? It’s Only an 80 Core CPU.
Note: I wrote this a few years ago. I've been neglecting my blog, so I'll post some reading material new to this place.
Taken from Intel's website. It's a short read and you can skim for important facts, but you won't find much information that isn't already here. If you're skimming, of course.
A little over ten years ago, ASCI Red (a collaboration between Intel and Sandia Labs, as part of the U.S. Government's Accelerated Strategic Computing Initiative) was the world's first TeraOps supercomputer in 1996.
Though, the machine was decommisioned in 2006. Some fun facts in regards to this beast:
· Mesh-based (38x32x2) MIMD (Multiple Instruction stream, Multiple Data stream) massively-parallel processing machine.
· Originally consisted of:
-4,510 compute nodes
-1,212 GB of memory
-12.5 TB disk space
· Originally used nearly 10,000 Pentium Pro CPUs, each clocked at 200 MHz.
· Later upgraded to 9,298 Pentium II OverDrive CPUs, each clocked at 333 MHz.
· Consisted of 104 cabinets, taking up almost 2,500 square feet.
· First computer on Earth to rate above 1 TeraFLOPS.
· After being upgraded with Pentium II Overdrive processors, it benchmarked above 2 TeraFLOPS.
· Consumed 500kW of power and another 500kW to cool the room.
Now, for the Intel TeraFLOPS Research Chip:
· Achieves 1 TeraFLOPS on one wafer.
· One die with 80 simple cores.
· Only consumes a mere 62W of power.
· Tested frequencies of 3.16GHz to 5.7GHz.
· Higher frequency achieves a TeraFLOP rating of 1.81, but still only needed an additional 200W of power.
How awesome is that? I mean "awesome" in the original sense of the word, not the much abused position the word finds itself in many conversations that teens use today regarding the latest popular band or a non-epic movie.
Well, moving forward. That is going from using nearly 10,000 Pentium IIs to only one chip that goes well beyond the performance from today's higher end quad-core dies in a little over 10 years.
So, those of you who have purchased higher end quad-core processors this year should not frown; you have a very sexy processor that is available to the general public. Also, the fact that this chip will not be used for general purposes such as gaming ... obviously. Nonetheless, it's still nice to think about where technology might be in another five years.
I can't wait for my Intel® Extreme Edition Octo-Phantom 2.86 GHz. (Note: Not a real processor. New Note: I should have said dodeca-core.)
