What would calculating the theoretical peak tell them about the (real) sustained performance?

Partitioning the problem in chunks that can be distributed to the nodes in the cluster adds overhead. Assembling the finished results does the same. It is kind of hard to predict what this over will be as it depends on the interconnect. In this case they used 100Mb/s ethernet, but there was contention from running NFS over the same network. Building it and measuring it is the only way to find out what kind of performance you really get.

Wow. Really?

I can't believe that you missed the point of his post so completely. Did you really read it, or just skim the first couple of entries, miss the painfully obvious pattern and then post the most self-humiliating reply that you could? Try reading it again. Maybe see if the words are familiar between items on the list and see if he is making some kind of wider point...

What about iBrowser?

Have you read your own link?

Microsoft claims that malware infections will rise on OSX in the future, and as evidence they dissect an exploit that only works on an obsolete version because it is fixed in the lastest version. Your signature is oddly appropriate.

You need to lift your finger to flick between home screens. Nothing in the claim about lifting your finger, just moving above a velocity threshold

Says who?

verb/flik/
flicked, past participle;flicked, past tense;flicking, present participle;flicks, 3rd person singular present

Propel (something) with a sudden sharp movement, esp. of the fingers
- Emily flicked some ash off her sleeve

Notice that flicking something off of a surface would be distinct from flicking something across a surface, but that both are forms of flicking.

The patent covers something very specific: using the velocity of a swipe across a touchscreen to decide to remove an object / set of objects when a threshold is exceeds. Or in other words flicking / swiping through a collection of things, like the iPhone home screen or cover flow in iTunes. Ignoring whether the patent is valid or not (seems quite trivial to me) how is this "something we already know how to do, but on a computer"? It's a HCI gesture, not sure how it could be done without a computer...

There is a man over here that will sell you that dream. Just don't ask him how long it will take...

When you can freely block AC posts using the tools that you already have available why would you want to ban other people using them? It does lead me to suspect that you are a fundamentalist - it's not good enough that you can't see it, you still have the nagging suspicion that somebody somewhere is doing something that you disapprove of.

Maybe you have been in a smaller more sheltered pool than you realise? I can't think of an office that I worked in where there were not sick jokes around the water cooler. I'd say that it is obvious that there is a wider range of humour in the world that what you consider acceptable, and I'm surprised that you think you have the majority view.

Seemed easy enough, took a couple of minutes without a calculator. Seemed like a well designed test that was thought out to check the underlying skills. The spread of answers was well chosen to provide an appropriate number of red herrings. Tl; dr Easy test, well designed for target audience.

Slashdot is not what it used to be. 275 comments so far and people are still arguing over the relatively unimportant issue of how CGI compares to models on film. Guys, they have called it "C" instead of "c". Seriously guys...

Far harsher systems of control have been overthrown by those who chose not to go along with them.

The problem is not consoles evolving, it is that they do not evolve fast enough. The idea is that a box can be designed that will last for 5-10 years with the developer recouping huge initial losses over the entire life of the system. This idea is dead. Look at the difference in performance between this year's smartphones and last year's. Or over two years, three years etc... If you want a concrete comparison fire up Infinity Blade II and compare it with headlining games from 2-3 years ago on the 360/ps3. That was the mid-point in that generation's life-cycle. It was never anticipated that the gap between a console a phone would close so quickly. It was also not anticipated that stationary and mobile consoles would converge (like the Wii replacement tablet thing).

Give me a device that I can use as a mobile console (and that I will actually carry as does other stuff with the pocket space it occupies), and then give me an easy way to plug it into my tv and use it just as a controller on a big screen. We are not far from that point now, and the pace of improvement in the phone business and the short window between release cycles means that by the time it is feasible for Microsoft / Sony to bring another generation of consoles to market - there may be no point. Combine an iPad with AirVideo and it is already a good replacement for a console as a multimedia device.

Indeed. People in general (i.e. on both sides of the debate) tend to forget that we *choose* what kinds of behaviour we wish to encourage, or discourage, as a society based on our natural aversions and beliefs about how those choices will affect us all. There are no absolute moral positions when it comes to copyright as it is an artificial construct designed to produce certain outcomes in society. Either side is capable of losing the argument when they forget that.

How does murder fit into your argument? The universe has made it pretty easy and it is only petty human laws that prevent it.