Channel can now tell Dell to go to h***

Intel's answer to AMD Hypertransport will even up the odds

The development of CSI should be a giant step forward for Intel but it still leaves Intel with the design problems associated with RDMA. Testing at Oak Ridge, Los Alamos, and Sandia National Laboratories has settled this issue pretty much for good. See the paper of Dr Patrick Geoffray of the University of Lyon and the Software Development Laboratory of the Oak Ridge National Laboratory in conjunction with work at Sandia and Los Alamos National Labs. Dr Geoffray's paper states in the relevant part:

"Inasmuch as the RDMA operations are faster in native RDMA interconnects than the implementation of Send/Recv over RDMA, it is logical to try to use RDMA for small messages, even with intermediate copies. The protocol is straightforward: the send buffer is copied into a pre-registered internal buffer, RDMA-Written into a pre-registered internal buffer on the receive side, and then copied out to the corresponding MPI receive buffer. The problem lies in the one-sided characteristic of the RDMA Write: only one process can safely write into a remote buffer at a time. So the solution is to allocate a pre-registered internal buffer for each possible sender and look for messages in all of these separate buffers. Sounds nice? Not really. This strategy does not scale in time or in space. With only two processes, the receive side has only one buffer to poll. With N processes in the MPI job, the receive side has (N-1) locations to poll. Inasmuch as the polling time increases linearly with the number of processes, so does the latency. That's why most MPI implementations on RDMA-based fabrics use an RDMA method for small jobs, and fall back to a slower, more scalable, Send/Recv method for larger MPI jobs. For example, here are the short-message latencies reported in "InfiniBand Scalability in Open MPI", Shipman, et al, IPDPS, May 2006, for the two modes of MVAPICH over InfiniBand." Here.

And "The biggest can of worms that the RDMA programming model brings to the table relates to scalability. RDMA is a connected model, i.e., one software entity called a Queue Pair (QP) in one process space is associated with one and only one such entity in a different process space. So, if you want to be able to communicate with all N processes in your MPI job, you need to use a different QP for each process except yourself. That's (N-1) QPs per process. Even with multiple processes per nodes, the number of QPs per RDMA-based NIC is large enough to accommodate all of them. However, this connected model directly affects the host memory footprint: each QP consumes host memory, so the total memory footprint grows linearly with the number of QPs. For example, it was not uncommon to see several gigabytes of memory required for large InfiniBand clusters. The following graph, which well illustrates this point, is from "InfiniBand Scalability in Open MPI", Shipman et al, IPDPS, May 2006."

The advantages Intel will enjoy are for data send receive of blocks of data 4k and smaller. Typically simplified desktop functions. For blocks 16k and larger Intel still falls way short of AMD in memory efficiency and latency for large data requests. Note the difference in performance between Thunderbird and Red Storm both installed at Sandia National Labs. These problems and the failure to address them were the reasons why Intel was dropped after the first round of the DARPA Petaflop SuperComputer Research Grant Program. The effective choices were between the Sun Rock processor, Cray/AMD Cascade, and the IBM P7. See also this PDF published by Los Alamos National Laboratory in conjunction with the University of New Mexico.

Ed Hinders

Siouxsie Sue hates technology and the wibblenet

So let me get this straight : a "punk" is chafing because her "music" is being downloaded en masse?

What happened to the punk mentality ? Didn't it used to be "f*** society" ? Isn't it all about personal freedom, anti-establishment and so on?

If you really were a punk, Siouxsie, you'd be happy that you're getting downloaded at all. Instead, you're basically ranting that the anti-establishment isn't nicely filing up to hand over to RIAA a bunch of money in exchange for a crappy CD. You're angsty not because you're a punk, but because you no longer are and you'd like everybody to be anarchist on someone else's paycheck, not yours.

Well, Siouxsie, looks like that's what you get for being a sellout half-punk. I've never felt sorry for any punk, I'm sure not going to be for a turncoat one.

Pascal

Three flavours of Open Source disties reviewed

As is so typical of Lynix distros, there is no cohesion i nthe linux world. Everyoine has their own "flavoure" which really brings the entire concept of the Linux OS down. Why? because there are far more useless distros than actually good ones. When you average them out Linux ends up getting the image it has today. User unfriendly, not a gaming OS, not a business OS. I ask you, what the heck kind of an OS is not for the average Joe, not for games & not for graphics and sound work ala mac?

Well the answer is very simple, its a network oriented OS. Networks and networking, thats what Linux has strong roots in.

Why is it that everyone is trying to make it into some fluffy jelly bean micro4hat-ish GUI slapon version is beyond me.

WinXP is THE gaming platform. So we do not really need another. Without going into alot of arguments MAC has a long history and a reputation of being graphics and lately sound oriented. Both are uber user friendly, and MAC only needs a single click needed to operate, something even a McCouch Potatoe can do.

If I am not mistaken there are already several Linux distros out there that can already do networking quite well.

So what I am saying here is, please, if you want to make another Linux distro, HAVE A FRIGGIN REASON.

w00tseaker

P.S.

w00tseaker distro now support the Extra Flashy Vista Wannabe Graphics Platform. Its completely useless but its the sh**.

Thanks, Dr. John. I enjoy your reviews and, regarding the distributions that I have tried, I feel generally the same as you do.

If you have not reviewed it yet, would you please consider SimplyMEPIS?

Oh, by the way, I tried PCLinuxOS (who came up with that name?), and found all sorts of bugs.

Good day.

Scuppery

Did you actually install Sabayon 3.4e ? or did you just make up that review? I'd be interested where he game is touted as a "Gamers Distro?" Its not "touted" as this anywhere on the homepage, where i'd think any touting would happen..

the Desktop is Clunky? No its not..

You are pitting DSL against Sabayon, and on the specs your machine, there will obviously be a HUGE difference.

Try the same review for 64bit Linuxes, which WORK out of the box.. Fedora, Suse, DON@T WORK they don't play media files, they don't have haf the software and drivers required for day to day.. Neither does ubuntu. Sabayon however does provide all of this out of the install..

To be brutally honest this "review" isn't worth the screen its rendered on. and is detrimental for Linux as a whole.. you are pitting 3 Linux distros aimed at 3 seperate user based, and hardware specs...

Fieldweb

I was astonished to find Sabayon at the "plonk"-side of things in your write-up of _some_ linux distros (was there any reasoning behind _that_ peculiar selection? oh - dont bother...)

Religious wars aside, i have no emotional affiliation with Sabayon, not even with the Gentoo branch of things (I'm a Debian/Kubuntu user). I just found the Sabayon 3.4e live cd to work without hassle on my DELL work laptop - nvidia 3d graphics, sound, network (wifi + copper) and most of the nifty "it"-games (i did not try tetris!). Most other distros failed to recognise at least one part of the hardware, and here i was able to even watch smutty youtube vids without installing a single additional piece of proprietary software.

Anyway - this distro rocks my evenings at the hotel, when i use my workgear slightly outside the intended purpose ...

Greets,
Martin K

Acer buys Gateway

Great! In one fell swoop, Acer will have the Acer, Gateway, and eMachine brands (along with PB). The channel can REALLY tell Dell to go to hell!

Charles Greene

Avoid Bioshock like the plague

For all the efforts I'd seen go on in the piracy scene, and for the fact that I had already bought it, I thought you were laying a bit heavily on the pot this time Charlie.

But nay! See, I had bought it on STEAM. Like countless others. Given that there is no disc to contend with, and an entirely online activation system, one would think SecuROM might be less off an issue here, or better still, non-existant.

But nay! I go to run Bioshock for the first time from STEAM, and what do I get? SecuROM complaining that I have that nasty dirty evil hacker tool "ProcessExplorer"! Given my desperation to play this game and the ease with which ProcessExplorer can be disabled and re-enabled, I went ahead.

But nay! I still get a SecuROM error. This time, it is "SecuROM™ has determined that some File Monitor or Registry Monitor program is running in the background. Please close this program and reboot your PC before you start the application." Now why would file or registry monitoring software, on my own computer, be an issue for SecuROM? Oh yeah, that's right, so it can install God knows what kind of shit without me knowing! Woop woop!

The kicker is of course that if you try and get a refund for this game from STEAM, they'll tell you where to shove it. Induce a chargeback on your credit card? They'll nullify your entire account.

So how's your day been mate?

Fabless chip firm makes it into top 10

I'm actually rather curious to see how ARM does in these top 10 things. Their technology is used in so many mobile phones, set top boxes, tv's and pc devices that they're literally innumerable.

But like that Quallcom(whatever) bunch, they fabricate nothing. They rely solely on research&development and licensing the technology to folks like Samsung to make (i.e. the chip in the iPhone; ARM tech, Samsung fab'd).

ARM runs your life in a manner of speaking. Seriously, you'd be surprised where they hide.

Name supplied

Telescopes

There are no fancy telescopes that cut through light pollution, except one. Hubble. And it's not on Earth.

But while we're at it, that infernal light pollution that won't let us humans see the stars....that is 100% energy wasted. If the light isn't lighting the ground, it's busy lighting up the atmosphere and escaping into space.

And the best news of all: you're paying for that waste.

And it's adding to the demand on the world's supply of oil, coal & gas. Having trouble sleeping at night?

Toss a blanket over that infernal street light and say "G'night Dick"

Robert B

Biothingie

Charlie,

You gaily proclaimed in a story awhile back you were done with windows ... that you have your game console and are done with windows forever.

Surprise! You couldn't last more than a couple months if that. Your console was obviously lacking as we all knew it would be, you couldn't resist the marketers of Bioshock and you choose to break your promise.

And on top of that embarassing failure and exposure of your weak will (I can only imagine the great shame your parents are now experiencing), you whine like a baby again over activation.

If you use the game as it is intended to be used then just like with Windows, activation is not a problem. If you pirate it then you're screwed as you damn well should be.

Just like driving your car. When you choose to speed, drive drunk, or run down the elderly, the police deal with you regardless of your whining.

You have ABSOLUTELY NOTHING to complain about!

For better or worse, You knew exactly what you were coming back to when you booted up your windows machine again ... by breaking your promise and coming back to Windows you made a conscious choice to accept the issues you've been wrongly whining about for years. By choosing to come back, you gave up any right to complain.

You have no one but yourself to blame, take responsibility for your actions and keep your spoiled crybaby squaaaaks to yourself.

I really don't understand why The Inquirer keeps you around when you've proved yet again that you have absolutely no credibility.

Is The Inquirer really so desparate for writers that they need you're two-faced misleading lies? errr ... stories? Surely there are monkeys randomly hitting keys on a typewriter somewhere that could fill the space just as well.

Ken Lord
Vancouver BC, Canada

Wily Ferret! Listen up!

Hi,

This message is for Wily Ferret.

Just wanted to drop you a quick note about your recent story, "MTV Ditches Microsoft." Your piece includes a statement that says, “Rhapsody, Real's own music store, will now carry a version with the MTV brand.”

I just wanted to clarify that story incorrectly states that the merged URGE/Rhapsody service will carry the MTV brand.

Please let me know if you have any questions.

Best,
Kayla Kooyman
for RealNetworks

Sony invents "biological" battery

"When we will see the sugar batteries in production? Sony didn't say".

More importantly, what will their explosive yield be?

:-)

RasEm Brsiq

P.S. (Ex-)addicts of X-Com, the few who haven't succumbed to old age, will tell you that the aliens' biological bombs packed a mean punch. So I'd be careful around any of these new batteries, myself...

Great now instead of exploding laptop batteries they will mutate and turn into Godzilla

Pete

Well I am very happy to see that we are taking a "thinking outside the box" approach here. Battery technology is quickly becoming very competitive and pretty damned interesting. I have one major issue with this design... The anode contains potassium ferricyanide. Maybe the ferrous version of it is different, but last I checked cyanide is a HIGHLY lethal agent. I work with some potassium aurocyanide in the lab and that is treated with EXTREME caution. I am worried about this device killing consumers when it leaks. Sony has already had one very costly battery related debacle, I am pretty sure their shareholders would prefer to avoid another....

Cheers
Matt Schneider

Ummmmmmmmm biglogical batteries....Arhhhhhhhh......sooooo sweet and tasty.

Does that mean that on election day politicians are going to be handing out sweetie batteries instead of lollipops. Sony could certainly do with a decent PR story at the moment.

Chris

You can't be Sirius

To the reader who said Sirus is missing on Google Earth (sky).

Its actually not 1 star its 2 stars which makes it even more interesting, maybe aliens live there and Google is afraid that if to many people know about this cool star system people might point their wireless antenna into that direction to send some dirty pictures of earth to Sirius.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sirius