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Software

World's Most Powerful Private Supercomputer Will Hunt Oil and Gas 135

Posted by samzenpus from the black-gold dept.
Nerval's Lobster writes "French oil conglomerate Total has inaugurated the world's ninth-most-powerful supercomputer, Panega. Its purpose: seek out new reservoirs of oil and gas. The supercomputer's total output is 2.3 petaflops, which should place it about ninth on today's TOP500 list, last updated in November. The announcement came as Dell and others prepare to inaugurate a new supercomputer, Stampede, in Texas on March 27. What's noteworthy about Pangea, however, is that it will be the most powerful supercomputer owned and used by private industry; the vast majority of such systems are in use by government agencies and academic institutions. Right now, the most powerful private supercomputer for commercial use is the Hermit supercomputer in Stuttgart; ranked 27th in the world, the 831.4 Tflop machine is a public-private partnership between the University of Stuttgart and hww GmbH. Panega, which will cost 60 million Euro ($77.8 million) over four years, will assist decision-making in the exploration of complex geological areas and to increase the efficiency of hydrocarbon production in compliance with the safety standards and with respect for the environment, Total said. Pangea will be will be stored at Total's research center in the southwestern French city of Pau."

Comment Re:Definition of a cap (Score 1) 605

by PacoSuarez (#42694759) Attached to: Senators Seek H-1B Cap That Can Reach 300,000

I went through this ridiculous process to get my green card. I had been working for my company for 6 years with an H1-B visa. I am a smart guy, I get along with everyone in the group, I know the system we work on in and out. I haven't seen the adds they ran, but I wouldn't be surprised if they looked like what's described in that video. Why would the company be interested in firing me and hiring someone else that comes with huge uncertainties and with months of training to get up to speed?

It gets even more ridiculous than what's in that video. Over the years, immigration lawyers have learned what requirements they can get away with listing in the add. For instance, I have a M.S. degree, but they couldn't list it as a requirement because I am not a manager. Of course there is no connection between being a manager and having a M.S. degree, but I guess this makes sense if you posses a lawyer's brain.

There are two things that don't match your story, though:
  (1) My salary is not low by any standards.
  (2) The company has hired people that responded to these "fake adds", because the scarcity of good candidates is real. They just had to come up with some excuse why the candidate wasn't qualified for that specific job, and then offer him a different job.

It's all a strange dance, where the government knows and understands what the company is trying to do and why, but the government has to keep the appearance of being protecting the U.S. workers. The solution is to stop requiring these ridiculous adds.

Comment Re:Whoever is responsible for this article (Score 3, Informative) 1258

by PacoSuarez (#39821015) Attached to: Analytic Thinking Can Decrease Religious Belief

Perhaps you can read the whole chapter, and you'll see that the sentence is uttered by a king in a story that Jesus was telling. It still seems like the king is being portrayed positively by Jesus, so the message remains contradictory, but you shouldn't remove the context so blatantly.
Data Storage

Portugal Is Considering a "Terabyte Tax" 353

Posted by samzenpus from the pay-to-store dept.
An anonymous reader writes "As a proposal to avoid becoming the 'next Greece', a Portuguese opposition party has proposed a tax on storage. The party claims that the tax will not effect the average citizen and is mostly levied at business users, but internal storage on mobile phones means a 64GB iPhone could be €32 more expensive. From the article: 'The proposal would have consumers paying an extra €0.2 per gigabyte in tax, almost €21 extra per terabyte of data on hard drives. Devices with storage capacities in excess of 1TB would pay an aggravated tax of 2.5 cents per GB. That means a 2TB device will in fact pile on €51.2 in taxes alone (2.5 cents times 2048GB). External drives or “multimedia drives” as the proposed bill calls them, in capacities greater than 1TB, can be taxed to the tune of 5 cents per gigabyte, so in theory, a 2TB drive would cost an additional €103.2 per unit (5 cents times 2048GB)."
Math

The Math of Leap Days 225

Posted by samzenpus from the extra-days-extra-credit dept.
The Bad Astronomer writes "We have leap days every four years because the Earth's day and year don't divide evenly. But there's more to it than that... a lot more. A year isn't exactly 365.25 days long, and that leads to needing more complicated math and rules for when we do and don't have a leap year. If you've ever wanted to see that math laid out, now's your chance, and it only comes along every four years. Except every hundred years. Except every four hundred years."
Google

OpenStreetMap Reports Data Vandalism From Google-Owned IPs 178

Posted by timothy from the yes-but-where-are-the-perps dept.
An anonymous reader writes "Following reports of misconduct by Google employees in Kenya and India, It has been found that Google IP addresses have been responsible for deliberate vandalism of OpenStreetMap data. While it is unlikely that this was a deliberate or coordinated attack by Google HQ on the competition, multiple such reports does raise the question of whether or not Google has become too big to effectively enforce its 'Don't be evil' philosophy across its massive organization."

Comment Re:HFT borderline illegal (Score 1) 791

by PacoSuarez (#36938426) Attached to: How and Why Wall Street Programmers Earn Top Salaries

HFT is somewhat illegal, since it could be considered insider trading, since you have time to process information before it becomes available to other people thanks to a faster network infrastructure.

You probably would also complain if you were playing soccer against people that run faster than you. It's not fair!

There is no insider trading If everyone in the market has access to the same information. You'll try to process it as quickly as possible and do something as smart as possible with it. If you are not fast enough or smart enough, you don't need to be in this business. Trading is not an amateur activity.

Comment Re:Whining, chess-playing, sore losers! (Score 1) 315

by PacoSuarez (#36615840) Attached to: World's Best Chess Engine Outlawed and Disqualified

An interesting note is that the article doesn't state if any of the 34-person panel of chess-playing programmers contributed code to any of the allegedly plagiarized codes. There may be a conflict of interest here.

Yes, at least Bob Hyatt (author of Crafty) was a member of the panel. I have a lot of respect Dr. Hyatt and I am not suggesting that the panel's conclusions are wrong: I am just providing the data you were requesting.
Image

Chinese iPad Factory Staff Forced To Sign 'No Suicide' Pledge Screenshot-sm 537

Posted by samzenpus from the and-you-thought-your-job-was-tedious dept.
An anonymous reader writes "Employees at Foxconn facilities in China, used to manufacture the iPhone and iPad, were forced to sign a pledge not to commit suicide after over a dozen staff killed themselves over the last 16 months. The revelation is the latest in a series of findings about the treatment of workers at Foxconn plants, where staff often work six 12-hour shifts a week, 98 hours of overtime in a month, and live in dormitories that look and feel like prison blocks."
Government

Jesse Jackson, Jr. Pins US Job Losses On iPad 628

Posted by timothy from the protectionism-as-religious-talisman dept.
theodp writes "Illinois Congressman Jesse Jackson Jr. went on an anti-technology rant on Friday on the floor of Congress, blaming the iPad for eliminating thousands of American jobs. 'Why do you need to go to Borders anymore?' asked Jackson. 'Why do you need to go to Barnes & Noble? Buy an iPad, download your book, download your newspaper, download your magazine.' Jackson continued: 'What becomes of publishing companies and publishing company jobs? And what becomes of bookstores and librarians and all of the jobs associated with paper? Well, in the not too distant future, such jobs simply will not exist. Steve Jobs is doing pretty well. He's created the iPad. Certainly, it has made life more efficient for Americans, but the iPad is produced in China. It is not produced here in the United States."

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