We Have Reached The Limit Of Our Technology

[HeXen]

They can do more with four 1ghz cores these days than you could on an old 4 ghz single core. ghz speed is starting to matter less and less each year. who knows what the CPU of the future is but technology everywhere is progressing quite nicely.

 

[CycloWizard]

As usual you assume you think you know everything.

But as usual you are like those people who when they hear the words "government" and "control" in one sentence, you as they scream fire and brimstone. While at the same time you hold your own government responsible for everything never looking in the mirror because of your own lifestyle. yawn...

Oops, forgot who I'm dealing with. Moving right along...

 

[DrPizza]

Oops, forgot who I'm dealing with. Moving right along...

At least in the other thread, he admitted he had never heard of P vs NP. That seems pretty odd among people who post in HT frequently. Heck, it was(is) one of the millenium problems worth a million dollars if solved. I liken it to someone never having heard of the theory of relativity. Oh well.

 

[William Gaatjes]

Nothing here with which I particularly disagree. Real world examples are often less than clear-cut, and it's even harder when you can't explain it the way you want to. Capitalism and communism--in their purest forms--are equally ridiculous pipe dreams in the real world.

Maybe a little hard on you if they were honest typos (since I've done it too), but I will stand by the fact that arguments are always more persuasive when clear syntax and proper spelling are used. It gives the grammar nazis less to bitch about (including me ) and keeps the discussion above a certain level. I mean, we're not animals, are we :sneaky:?

Strictly speaking, genetically we are animals. But i agree with you that humans are the only living beings on the planet with the capability to transcend pure from the will power of the mind. Even dolphins and apes cannot disconnect as we do. It makes us weaker in one way and stronger in the other.

Even in daily lives the "reptilian" part of our brain also known as the brain stem makes communication between people more difficult then it should be.
To realize is to accept and improve or to ignore and make the same mistake over and over again...


^_^

 

[William Gaatjes]

At least in the other thread, he admitted he had never heard of P vs NP. That seems pretty odd among people who post in HT frequently. Heck, it was(is) one of the millenium problems worth a million dollars if solved. I liken it to someone never having heard of the theory of relativity. Oh well.

I know a lot, but i would be foolish to think i know everything there is to know.
From that simple realization, i understand that i can never learn everything knowing the limitations of the human brain no matter how powerful it may be. It is still finite. The answer lies in cooperation. And that means having no arrogance as some people obviously have here. I am happy with what i know, but i never hold it against someone when that person does not know what i know. And i am always eager to learn from somebody else. Being humble, but yet full of energy and eager to learn is easily mistaken by those who need to feel superior with arrogance.

It is that some of his remarks about his former profession reminds me of Jay Miner... One of many great people with a vision.

 

[Cogman]

I know a lot, but i would be foolish to think i know everything there is to know.
From that simple realization, i understand that i can never learn everything knowing the limitations of the human brain no matter how powerful it may be. It is still finite. The answer lies in cooperation. And that means having no arrogance as some people obviously have here. I am happy with what i know, but i never hold it against someone when that person does not know what i know. And i am always eager to learn from somebody else. Being humble, but yet full of energy and eager to learn is easily mistaken by those who need to feel superior with arrogance.

It is that some of his remarks about his former profession reminds me of Jay Miner... One of many great people with a vision.

Its fine that you know a lot. His point is that it is kind of crazy that you can claim to know as much as you do, and yet somehow you have overlooked a pretty well known and basic problem.

It is almost akin to someone claiming to be an electrical engineer, yet they don't know what a resistor is. (but they want to debate about BJTs vs Mosfets).

The P vs NP problem is that famous.

 

[William Gaatjes]

Its fine that you know a lot. His point is that it is kind of crazy that you can claim to know as much as you do, and yet somehow you have overlooked a pretty well known and basic problem.

It is almost akin to someone claiming to be an electrical engineer, yet they don't know what a resistor is. (but they want to debate about BJTs vs Mosfets).

The P vs NP problem is that famous.

Well, i read the pdf a little and i know about the individual problems as the traveling sales man and other ways to develop search programs or thinking efficient methods to solve a computational problem. That for me is not common nor uncommon but i understand it enough. I just never heard of the P != NP formulation for these kind of problems.

At this moment i am figuring out about multi-threaded programming because i need to use this in my W-ARM program. Although many concepts seem standard for me, the used words to create the abstraction needed to explain the different subjects i never heard of. It is a babylonical issue. And this is something that is very common and happens all the time for everybody. It is sometimes not learning something new, it is similar as creating a lookup translation table in your head. Connecting the dots, so to speak.

I always see it like this :
Since everybody has the same cpu architecture(the brain) everybody thinks in the same language, visually spatial and temporal images or just little short movies of a no more then a few 100 milliseconds each. But these little movies must be translated to words and abstract views in order to communicate with other people.
I am agnostic, but i sure find it interesting that somewhere in the bible it says that people had 1 common language once long ago before people where separated and started to talk in different tongues. That was one great science fiction writer or was it ancient knowledge ? Some things of the past never cease to amaze me...

I am happy anyway, i just solved 2 rare random occurring bugs in my embedded ARM code. Now i can continue about writing separate threads and how the writers of the win32 api expect me to do it to make my W-ARM IDE program function correctly.
To give you a clue, i never learned assembler or c programming at school or university, i just find it fun to do and that is how i learned it.

^_^

EDIT:
Woops, not entirely true, i forgot i had a few lessons of z80 assembly once where i had to enter the program hexadecimal by use of binary switches and set the bits manually one bit at a time, byte for byte. But that was it, the real z80 programming i learned at home after building some hardware to control with the program. I had the MSX2 computer before i got the lessons but started to try z80 assembly after the lessons. That was my "education" where it started. Have to stay honest afcourse ...

 

[CycloWizard]

I know a lot, but i would be foolish to think i know everything there is to know.
From that simple realization, i understand that i can never learn everything knowing the limitations of the human brain no matter how powerful it may be. It is still finite. The answer lies in cooperation. And that means having no arrogance as some people obviously have here. I am happy with what i know, but i never hold it against someone when that person does not know what i know. And i am always eager to learn from somebody else. Being humble, but yet full of energy and eager to learn is easily mistaken by those who need to feel superior with arrogance.

It is that some of his remarks about his former profession reminds me of Jay Miner... One of many great people with a vision.

You can know a lot while understanding little: reading a book doesn't make you an expert on its subject matter. The humility you ironically claim should have taught you this long ago.

 

[William Gaatjes]

You can know a lot while understanding little: reading a book doesn't make you an expert on its subject matter. The humility you ironically claim should have taught you this long ago.

The bold part is true.
But i am more then often in the lucky situation to put to good use what i have learned. To put the theory to practice. This is the case for electronics and software and history during the years that i have worked or that i have designed devices for people in my own time. For some reason i always seem to know instinctively a solution to an answer. But i will be the first to admit that some purely theoretical and mathematical solution to a problem will not arise from me, especially if the result must be abstract. If i can not model it in my mind, i am useless.

As most people, i am just a joe average with the choice of learning and sport or 24h the worst kind of commercial television and 1 page scripted video games , bad food, to much liquor and the social problems that arise from such abuse of the body.

The way i see it is simple :
You can acquire any skill you like as long as you try. You may not become as good as someone who had a better education in a better situation, but different environments create different edges. It is just evolution. And adaptation never stops... Recognizing is learning and learning is adapting.
But now enough about me. I feel i am obligated to defend myself in order to prevent to much confusion, but i do not like to talk about myself this much. That is more a trait that fits you.

 

[Ninjahedge]

Since point one has been thoroughly debunked, I'll take a shot at point two - traveling at (nearly) the speed of light. So, there's a problem with particles (mostly hydrogen atoms) impacting your space craft?
A nose cone that's has a very strong magnetic field. Take a look at CERN. They have electrons, protons, even lead nuclei traveling at close to the speed of light. They seem to do just fine with using magnetic fields to guide those particles around in a circle; keeping them from impacting against the walls.

Of course, as you accelerate those particles, you create a lot of radiation, so you just need some lead walls in your spaceship.

DrP...


Wasn't there a fictyion novel that did a bit on this? I forget if it was Silverberg or someone else, but the premise was a near-light-speed ship that travels around carying live cargo stops at a "pre-seeded" planet (one where a genetic variant of man and the appropriate support organisms) were sent ahead on a ship that was less concerned with keeping its contents living (since they were not alive yet).

The ship goes geo-synchronous and starts freezing and lifting large hexagonal pieces of ice up to the craft to replenish its particle shield.....

I forgot what the name of it was, long time ago....

 

[Ninjahedge]

Ps....


42

 

[Devilpapaya]

Are you following what I'm saying? I'm not talking about press-printing or photocopying, I'm talking about an actual PC printer that can print a full-color 11x8.5 page per second, a home PC printer, not a 250-ft-long industrial newspaper press

I'm happily awaiting from you guys a YouTube video of such a home printer, or a 25 Ghz chip installed on a home PC.

You clearly misunderstand the principle of supply and demand. No home user has the need to print pages that fast (make sure you differentiate *need* here from *some idiot that would buy one if it were available*). This creates an incredibly small market to sell to. Given the likely very high cost of R&D for printer parts that were fast and precise enough to perform such a task, would create a very high cost product (further limiting market) will not much of a chance of reasonable ROI.
Same thing goes with a 25GHz chip. Not many people would be willing to spend the money on something like that. Processor manufacturers have found it is much more efficient (power/heat wise) to run multiple cores at lower frequency.

It seems like there is a persistent school of thought that says 'my generation will have and understand everything'. In (I believe) the early 1900's there was a fairly widely accepted notion that mankind would have cataloged all knowledge attainable by man within 20 years. Ithink people see the rate of technological growth and assume that there is no way that rate could continue for any length of time. I'll admit it is baffling, the level of technological growth I've seen in my relatively short period here is astounding. Even if current processors can't push forward at this rate given the inevitable atomic size limitations (you can only make a transistor so small), I think it would be naive to think that new, better methods won't be developed before that becomes an issue. It'd be like someone 50 years ago saying a computer would never be smaller than a house because you could never cram that many vacuum tubes into such a small space; The premise of the argument is true, but the conclusion does not follow from the premise.

Or maybe its egotistic, as in 'my generation is better than every other generation'.

 

[PlasmaBomb]

I just read we have almost reached the physical reach of our technology, there's a reason why our PC chips don't go higher than 4 ghz processing power, its because you can't cram more layers into them without going bigger in size. Its the same reason why we will never reach near-light speeds, there is no material strong enough to prevent that spaceship from disentigrating from the particle bombardment at that speed.

Discuss your views.

Don't tell IBM...

POWER6 reached first silicon in the middle of 2005, and was bumped to 5.0 GHz in May 2008 with the introduction P595.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/POWER6

@ PsiStar: Did you just seriously said that we dont really need faster cellphone data transfer rates than what we have now!?

lol... comprehension fail kommander kink. He said that most people don't use more processing power than is available to them (ie. CPUs idle most of the time when people are surfing/word processing).

Seriously? So if we upgrade the cartons to extra-strength plastic we can make a plastic combustion engine?

If you allow them some metal then yes...

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

 

[CycloWizard]

The bold part is true.
But i am more then often in the lucky situation to put to good use what i have learned. To put the theory to practice. This is the case for electronics and software and history during the years that i have worked or that i have designed devices for people in my own time. For some reason i always seem to know instinctively a solution to an answer. But i will be the first to admit that some purely theoretical and mathematical solution to a problem will not arise from me, especially if the result must be abstract. If i can not model it in my mind, i am useless.

As most people, i am just a joe average with the choice of learning and sport or 24h the worst kind of commercial television and 1 page scripted video games , bad food, to much liquor and the social problems that arise from such abuse of the body.

The way i see it is simple :
You can acquire any skill you like as long as you try. You may not become as good as someone who had a better education in a better situation, but different environments create different edges. It is just evolution. And adaptation never stops... Recognizing is learning and learning is adapting.
But now enough about me. I feel i am obligated to defend myself in order to prevent to much confusion, but i do not like to talk about myself this much. That is more a trait that fits you.

Pointing out your ignorance is not the same thing as tooting my own horn. I'm sick of idiots blaming me for their stupidity when I try to rectify it, just like I'm sick of being labeled a jackass when my fact contradicts their opinion. If you don't like reality, kill yourself. Otherwise, man up and accept that, sometimes, you're simply wrong. You're entitled to your own opinion, but you're not entitled to your own facts. If you maintain an opinion which relies on incorrect facts (or incorrect interpretation of those facts using scientific reasoning or logic), expect ridicule in abundance.

 

[tyl998]

They can do more with four 1ghz cores these days than you could on an old 4 ghz single core. ghz speed is starting to matter less and less each year. who knows what the CPU of the future is but technology everywhere is progressing quite nicely.

But more Ghz helps me benchmark better Why have four 1 Ghz when you can have four 4 Ghz cores? I can't wait for 3Dmark11 to come tomorrow.

 

[Cogman]

Don't tell IBM...



http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/POWER6



lol... comprehension fail kommander kink. He said that most people don't use more processing power than is available to them (ie. CPUs idle most of the time when people are surfing/word processing).



If you allow them some metal then yes...

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

This is something that consumes roughly 5600W of power.... Yeah, I'm pretty sure that an intel chip could also get to that clock speed at a much cheaper power output. (The difference being that the power6 is a completely different architecture with completely different goals.)

That to me isn't really progress, it is more of "Look at what we can do!".


Though, for the consumer market, the release of the Core2 really was a huge jump. It is something that I didn't really expect.

 

[Raswan]

Pointing out your ignorance is not the same thing as tooting my own horn. I'm sick of idiots blaming me for their stupidity when I try to rectify it, just like I'm sick of being labeled a jackass when my fact contradicts their opinion. If you don't like reality, kill yourself. Otherwise, man up and accept that, sometimes, you're simply wrong. You're entitled to your own opinion, but you're not entitled to your own facts. If you maintain an opinion which relies on incorrect facts (or incorrect interpretation of those facts using scientific reasoning or logic), expect ridicule in abundance.

Ha! I literally laughed out loud at this (and woke my girlfriend in the next room, eliciting an angry, but well-worth it, glare). You mind if I just lift this verbatim to use again and again as a stamp against idiocy and moron-ectitude? I will give you full credit, of course...Not that I'm passing judgement on whether Gaatjes deserves this--as I stopped reading his posts two days ago (though I suspect he does deserve it).

Just saying, gems like these are few and far between, and like an ice-cold can of Mountain Dew or a good shit, you gotta stop and appreciate them when they come along.You kept it pithy, honest, and plain. A tip of the hat to you, sir.

 

[William Gaatjes]

Pointing out your ignorance is not the same thing as tooting my own horn. I'm sick of idiots blaming me for their stupidity when I try to rectify it, just like I'm sick of being labeled a jackass when my fact contradicts their opinion. If you don't like reality, kill yourself. Otherwise, man up and accept that, sometimes, you're simply wrong. You're entitled to your own opinion, but you're not entitled to your own facts. If you maintain an opinion which relies on incorrect facts (or incorrect interpretation of those facts using scientific reasoning or logic), expect ridicule in abundance.

Well, you know what the problem with you is, you feel superior to everyone. You always have an negative opinion but you never add examples. This in my view proves that you are nothing than a loudmouth hot air idiot. I told you in the past and i will tell you again, you may always prove me wrong as long as you provide me with an obvious explanation. And the only thing you do is just venting your emotions like the simple minded narrow viewed little brat that you are. You see, i fully understand how the world works and accept it in every way, for what i can do to improve, i do. There is nothing wrong with having ideals and presenting them occasionally and having an infinite hope for the future. I am not a frustrated loser like you who vents his anger on other people because you are not happy with the world you live in. I am happy with this world, because everything can change if people want to. It is not the end of the line, it never was and neither will it be in the future.

Yes,if i would take the time to gather all the posts that you have made on the entire anandtech forum, the only thing i see is nag, nag , nag and bitching. When reading your posts cyclowizard, you read like a bitching gay man with hemorrhoids. nag nag nag nag nag. You read like a frustrated nerd who has been beat up to much in his youth. Get a life.

 

[CycloWizard]

Ha! I literally laughed out loud at this (and woke my girlfriend in the next room, eliciting an angry, but well-worth it, glare). You mind if I just lift this verbatim to use again and again as a stamp against idiocy and moron-ectitude? I will give you full credit, of course...Not that I'm passing judgement on whether Gaatjes deserves this--as I stopped reading his posts two days ago (though I suspect he does deserve it).

Just saying, gems like these are few and far between, and like an ice-cold can of Mountain Dew or a good shit, you gotta stop and appreciate them when they come along.You kept it pithy, honest, and plain. A tip of the hat to you, sir.

By all means. I have been practicing this diatribe all week, as various people tell me that I'm a jackass for pointing out that my facts trump their opinions.

 

[William Gaatjes]

You are delusional because you never post any facts, you post your own opinion. I hope you will find a cure for your apparent illness. May you should post : " IMHO" as first writings. I have a song for you to make you happy :

Black - Wonderful life.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uMXz3TQOS_c

Maybe it will help if you sing it out loud.

^_^

 

[PlasmaBomb]

This is something that consumes roughly 5600W of power.... Yeah, I'm pretty sure that an intel chip could also get to that clock speed at a much cheaper power output. (The difference being that the power6 is a completely different architecture with completely different goals.)

That to me isn't really progress, it is more of "Look at what we can do!".


Though, for the consumer market, the release of the Core2 really was a huge jump. It is something that I didn't really expect.

Actually according to IBMs specs the servers maximum power consumption is 27,500 watts, its maximum weight is around 2,341 kg (5,160 lb) without doors, 64 5.0GHz cores, 4096 GB of DDR2 memory, 70.5 terabytes (TB) of internal SCSI disk storage, 666 TB of external SAS disk storage, 288 TB of external SCSI disk storage.

The processors themselves are 65nm and their TDP is 160W at 4.7 GHz. So it's of the same gen as the Core2 X6800, which needs dry ice to run at 5 GHz stable so it must be sucking down the juice...

 

[HeXen]

But more Ghz helps me benchmark better Why have four 1 Ghz when you can have four 4 Ghz cores? I can't wait for 3Dmark11 to come tomorrow.

looking at and comparing numbers never helped me in any constructive way. i'd rather use that processing time to enjoy a game or something, but whatever you like.

 

[disappoint]

Since point one has been thoroughly debunked, I'll take a shot at point two - traveling at (nearly) the speed of light. So, there's a problem with particles (mostly hydrogen atoms) impacting your space craft?
A nose cone that's has a very strong magnetic field. Take a look at CERN. They have electrons, protons, even lead nuclei traveling at close to the speed of light. They seem to do just fine with using magnetic fields to guide those particles around in a circle; keeping them from impacting against the walls.

Of course, as you accelerate those particles, you create a lot of radiation, so you just need some lead walls in your spaceship.

As you know you're going to need a lot more than lead walls to make a spaceship that can send you hurtling through space at anywhere near c safely.

/me asks gf: "Does this velocity make me look fat?"

 

[daRkKon]

the higheset clocked processor that came stock was 3.93 ghz from intel, i forget the exact model, but i can swear by those clocked stock

 

[Anteaus]

Since point one has been thoroughly debunked, I'll take a shot at point two - traveling at (nearly) the speed of light. So, there's a problem with particles (mostly hydrogen atoms) impacting your space craft?
A nose cone that's has a very strong magnetic field. Take a look at CERN. They have electrons, protons, even lead nuclei traveling at close to the speed of light. They seem to do just fine with using magnetic fields to guide those particles around in a circle; keeping them from impacting against the walls.

Of course, as you accelerate those particles, you create a lot of radiation, so you just need some lead walls in your spaceship.

As your speed increases, so does your mass as well as the energy needed to continue to accelerate. Traveling at (nearly) the speed of light will bring complications much more imperative than atomic friction.

It takes CERN a ridiculous amount of energy just to get an atom moving at such high velocities. Getting any useful amount of matter to those speeds requires so much energy that it isn't even worth asking the what-ifs.