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On Thu, 11 Nov 2010 09:35:04 +0000, Stephen wrote:
> On 10/11/2010 9:26 PM, Jim Henderson wrote:
>> On Wed, 10 Nov 2010 20:47:52 +0000, Stephen wrote:
>>
>>> No worries. Tell you what. When My account is in the black again, I'll
>>> transfer some cash into your account if you give me your details. ;-)
>>
>> We may have to negotiate that over a beer or three. ;-)
>>
>> Jim
>
> Suits me
Just need to find a time to come visit. We're thinking maybe next summer/
fall, primarily a visit to Edinburgh (but we never limit our trips to
just one destination typically).
Jim
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On 11/11/2010 6:56 PM, Jim Henderson wrote:
> Just need to find a time to come visit. We're thinking maybe next summer/
> fall, primarily a visit to Edinburgh (but we never limit our trips to
> just one destination typically).
>
You might be able to squeeze in a visit to the Edinburgh festival if you
time it right.
--
Best Regards,
Stephen
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On Fri, 12 Nov 2010 11:03:48 +0000, Stephen wrote:
> On 11/11/2010 6:56 PM, Jim Henderson wrote:
>> Just need to find a time to come visit. We're thinking maybe next
>> summer/ fall, primarily a visit to Edinburgh (but we never limit our
>> trips to just one destination typically).
>>
>>
> You might be able to squeeze in a visit to the Edinburgh festival if you
> time it right.
Ooooh, now there's an idea. :-)
Jim
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On 11/11/2010 7:44 AM, Stephen wrote:
> On 11/11/2010 1:53 AM, John VanSickle wrote:
>> My laptop is seven years old. As long as I can test render I'm cool.
>
> My laptop is only just over a year old but it has some quirks that have
> been getting more annoying. As it is the only machine I use for
> rendering I want something that has more bells and whistles.
/me shrugs.
For me, the laptop's portability is the main thing. I can model and
render anywhere.
Regards,
John
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On 12/11/2010 7:47 PM, Jim Henderson wrote:
> On Fri, 12 Nov 2010 11:03:48 +0000, Stephen wrote:
>
>> On 11/11/2010 6:56 PM, Jim Henderson wrote:
>>> Just need to find a time to come visit. We're thinking maybe next
>>> summer/ fall, primarily a visit to Edinburgh (but we never limit our
>>> trips to just one destination typically).
>>>
>>>
>> You might be able to squeeze in a visit to the Edinburgh festival if you
>> time it right.
>
> Ooooh, now there's an idea. :-)
>
It is :-D
--
Best Regards,
Stephen
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On 13/11/2010 1:15 AM, John VanSickle wrote:
> On 11/11/2010 7:44 AM, Stephen wrote:
>> On 11/11/2010 1:53 AM, John VanSickle wrote:
>>> My laptop is seven years old. As long as I can test render I'm cool.
>>
>> My laptop is only just over a year old but it has some quirks that have
>> been getting more annoying. As it is the only machine I use for
>> rendering I want something that has more bells and whistles.
>
> /me shrugs.
>
> For me, the laptop's portability is the main thing. I can model and
> render anywhere.
>
My situation is different.
--
Best Regards,
Stephen
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Orchid XP v8 <voi### [at] dev null> wrote:
> On 05/11/2010 07:11 PM, Warp wrote:
>
> > I haven't really followed CPU design all that much, but I have the notion
> > that laptops use special versions of desktop CPUs which consume less power
> > and need less ventilation (because that's kind of mandatory in a laptop)
> > at the cost of being less efficient than the desktop counterpart of the
> > same CPU.
>
> Yeah, laptops have several conflicting design constraints. Users want
> the fastest, most powerful CPU and the biggest baddest GPU and stacks of
> RAM and the fastest HD and the biggest, brightest LCD. But they also
> want the batteries to last for 8 hours straight without recharging. And
> they want it to be small, and light. And not get hot. And be quiet.
>
> Obviously, more CPU power = shorter battery life. And more heat. You can
> have more fans and make it louder, or you can have fewer fans and roast
> somebody's lap. Craming stuff into small spaces is also hard, especially
> if it gets hot.
>
> Jesus, I'm glad I don't design laptops! >_<
>
> So yeah, the best desktop will out-perform the best laptop, and if you
> have a desktop and a laptop of the same performance, the laptop will be
> far, far more expensive. (But not as expensive as a Mac, obviously.)
>
> > Of course that doesn't mean that the fastest laptop CPU today isn't faster
> > than the fastest desktop CPU of 5 years ago.
>
> Sure.
>
> --
> http://blog.orphi.me.uk/
> http://www.zazzle.com/MathematicalOrchid*
This may be of little consolation now, but maybe in 20 years or so...
http://www.tech-faq.com/dna-computer.html
Imagine a computer with a CPU about the size of a coin, capable of 66 Gigaflops
and having 700 Terabytes internal memory AND a power consumption of ~
0.0000000001 watts (minus the screen and interface devices, of course).
That should speed up rendering!
D103
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On 01/12/2010 11:01 PM, D103 wrote:
> This may be of little consolation now, but maybe in 20 years or so...
>
> http://www.tech-faq.com/dna-computer.html
>
> Imagine a computer with a CPU about the size of a coin, capable of 66 Gigaflops
> and having 700 Terabytes internal memory AND a power consumption of ~
> 0.0000000001 watts (minus the screen and interface devices, of course).
>
> That should speed up rendering!
While I'm not disputing the factual content of your statement, the
article linked to is... well, essentially it's dumbed down so much that
they might as well be talking about computers powered by Pixie Dust.
"[T]here is a limitation to how small, fast and compact silicon computer
chips can be. DNA computers show promise because they do not have the
limitations of silicon-based chips."
O RLY?
"For one, DNA based chip manufacturers will always have an ample supply
of raw materials as DNA exists in all living things; this means
generally lower overhead costs."
And you understand that silicon chips are MADE OF SAND, right? You know,
as in "worthless as sand"? Given planet Earth's gross elemental
composition (60.2% silica, 15.2% alumina, >5% everything else), I
suspect that silicon is rather more abundant than DNA. And let us not
even get into the fact that DNA for computers would be utterly different
in sequence to DNA from living organisms.
It's like saying "people all over the world have windows made of glass,
therefore we can easily make silicon chips". The stuff in a modern IC
isn't very much like window glass.
"Secondly, the DNA chip manufacture does not produce toxic by-products."
Riiight. So because the end product is DNA, a molecule that already
exists in nature, therefore you can produce it with no toxic by-products?
And the DNA itself wouldn't be toxic, no?
"Last but not the least, DNA computers will be much smaller than
silicon-based computers as one pound of DNA chips can hold all the
information stored in all the computers in the world."
Current computers are much, much larger than strictly necessary mainly
due to issues of heat dissipation. You can already make RAM chips that
hold absurd quantities of information; it's just that they tend to melt
when you switch them on.
Besides, just because a strand of DNA can /store/ a lot of information,
it does not necessarily follow that you can build a working
/computational device/ which is only slightly larger.
"a DNA computer the size of a teardrop will be more powerful than
today's most powerful supercomputer."
Possibly. But if you want it to do something /useful/, the teardrop by
itself won't be much help. You still need I/O devices, for example.
"The capacity to perform parallel calculations, much more trillions of
parallel calculations, is something silicon-based computers are not able
to do."
I beg to differ. It would be more accurate to say that nobody has come
up with a way of structuring computer programs as trillions of
independent steps. We could totally build really parallel silicon chips.
For example, recent GPU designs involve executing several hundred
computations in parallel. There's no particular reason why you can't
scale that up to thousands or millions - it's just that the extra R&D
work probably wouldn't pay off in extra sales, because the software to
utilise that much parallelism is lacking.
"In the current technology of logic gates, binary codes from the silicon
transistors are converted into instructions that can be carried out by
the computer."
This is a highly questionable and very muddled statement. It's hard to
read something like this and continue to believe that the writer has any
clue what they're talking about.
"though it may be very fast in providing possible answers, narrowing
these answers down still takes days."
This rather suggests that the operation of a DNA computer is
non-deterministic (and hence, applicable to a much smaller set of
problems than a Turing-complete machine).
I won't hold my breath for this happening any time soon. :-P
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On 12/2/2010 3:37 AM, Invisible wrote:
> "[T]here is a limitation to how small, fast and compact silicon computer
> chips can be. DNA computers show promise because they do not have the
> limitations of silicon-based chips."
>
> O RLY?
Of course there's a limit. And there's likely a limit on how small/fast
a DNA-based machine could be as well. The higher the clock frequency,
the more susceptible it is to external influences such as EMI. The
faster the clock, the more limitations on the actual circuit design
there are, but you knew that.
> "For one, DNA based chip manufacturers will always have an ample supply
> of raw materials as DNA exists in all living things; this means
> generally lower overhead costs."
>
> And you understand that silicon chips are MADE OF SAND, right? You know,
> as in "worthless as sand"? Given planet Earth's gross elemental
> composition (60.2% silica, 15.2% alumina, >5% everything else), I
> suspect that silicon is rather more abundant than DNA. And let us not
> even get into the fact that DNA for computers would be utterly different
> in sequence to DNA from living organisms.
The advantages of living on a planet with a primarily silicate crust:
Lots and lots of silicon to go around. Not sure what the ratio is of
silicon to carbon, but I imagine its not hard to find a rock containing
some sort of silicate.
>
> "Secondly, the DNA chip manufacture does not produce toxic by-products."
>
> Riiight. So because the end product is DNA, a molecule that already
> exists in nature, therefore you can produce it with no toxic by-products?
>
> And the DNA itself wouldn't be toxic, no?
Not unless it codes for something that could cause illness or kill you,
but who's paying attention anyway. Organic compounds are some of the
most toxic to us, because they are the most likely to interact. To be
sure, there are a lot of extremely toxic inorganics as well.
> "Last but not the least, DNA computers will be much smaller than
> silicon-based computers as one pound of DNA chips can hold all the
> information stored in all the computers in the world."
Storage is not the same as computation. No mention as to how fragile
that pound of DNA is. UV light or any form of ionizing radiation?
consider your data hopelessly corrupt. so much for DNA computers in the
space program. Other chemical and even physical processes could degrade
it. If it happens to get contaminated by bacteria, they'd certainly
enjoy the amino-acids that used to compose your photos from your latest
family vacation to Hawaii. Not stable in the least!
> Current computers are much, much larger than strictly necessary mainly
> due to issues of heat dissipation. You can already make RAM chips that
> hold absurd quantities of information; it's just that they tend to melt
> when you switch them on.
I believe the bigger limitation on the amount of information that RAM
can ultimately hold is more about the lower limit on the size of a
transistor, rather than heat. What generates heat is the act of
switching. If a latch is held, then there isn't much switching going on,
though I'm sure there is some power consumption leading to some heat.
Processors get burning hot because they constantly switch. RAM gets hot
because of the way its state is maintained and how its accessed, at very
rapid rates nowadays. Flash memory is obscenely high density, yet
generates very little heat, unless it's accessed at its full bandwidth
for an extended period of time, and even then its not nearly as much as
a processor. Its also a few orders of magnitude slower than RAM.
>
> Besides, just because a strand of DNA can /store/ a lot of information,
> it does not necessarily follow that you can build a working
> /computational device/ which is only slightly larger.
>
> "a DNA computer the size of a teardrop will be more powerful than
> today's most powerful supercomputer."
>
> Possibly. But if you want it to do something /useful/, the teardrop by
> itself won't be much help. You still need I/O devices, for example.
>
> "The capacity to perform parallel calculations, much more trillions of
> parallel calculations, is something silicon-based computers are not able
> to do."
>
> I beg to differ. It would be more accurate to say that nobody has come
> up with a way of structuring computer programs as trillions of
> independent steps. We could totally build really parallel silicon chips.
> For example, recent GPU designs involve executing several hundred
> computations in parallel. There's no particular reason why you can't
> scale that up to thousands or millions - it's just that the extra R&D
> work probably wouldn't pay off in extra sales, because the software to
> utilise that much parallelism is lacking.
You'd need the pipelines to do it in the chip die. You'd need to build
very small computational units to get that massively parallel.
I don't get how DNA can compute anything. DNA is essentially a coding
for proteins. What would your end result of a computation be? A glob of
proteins that mean some sort of result?
> "In the current technology of logic gates, binary codes from the silicon
> transistors are converted into instructions that can be carried out by
> the computer."
>
> This is a highly questionable and very muddled statement. It's hard to
> read something like this and continue to believe that the writer has any
> clue what they're talking about.
The statement doesn't seem to make a lot of sense. The instructions,
encoded in binary do tell the computer what to do, yes? But it's
essentially flipping a bank of switches to route the data from the input
of an ALU to one unit or another....
> "though it may be very fast in providing possible answers, narrowing
> these answers down still takes days."
>
> This rather suggests that the operation of a DNA computer is
> non-deterministic (and hence, applicable to a much smaller set of
> problems than a Turing-complete machine).
Huh? Computers can very quickly give exact answers to a wide class of
problems. Modeling complex systems, however, is a different story. I
don't see DNA helping with that. Often performing calculations much
quicker than our organic brains can. That cluster of neurons may be
massively parallel, but it's still not very fast at doing things like,
say, computing a Fourier transform. In fact, before the silicon-based
machines of today, the Fourier transform was regarded as largely useless
because it was so difficult to compute. And still, until FFT was
discovered it was regarded as simply a novelty.
> I won't hold my breath for this happening any time soon. :-P
If you do that, you may cause a catastrophic failure of your DNA-based
system.
I haven't read the article, just adding my commentary to your
selections, but based on what I've seen this sounds like massive
speculation and nothing more. What is needed, really, is more
improvements on existing algorithms to allow them to operate in parallel
on simpler computational units. Once a high degree of parallelism is
met, then we'll see some huge jumps in how fast these silicon machines
can really work.
--
~Mike
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On 12/2/2010 7:34 AM, Mike Raiford wrote:
> I haven't read the article, just adding my commentary to your
as a further aside, tech-faq.com is considered naughty by our stupid
censoring filter. Dumb piece of equipment. I hate that thing
--
~Mike
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