(Approx. 1,367 words)

The New, the Best, and the Worst
October 2007
Collected by Pim Borman, Webmaster, SW Indiana PC Users Group, Inc.
http://swipcug.apcug.org/
Swipcug(at)gmail.com

Obtained from APCUG with the author's permission for publication by APCUG member groups.

Mobile Supercomputers
Ever since Compaq designed a “portable” version of the old IBM PC there has been a trend to make computers easier to carry around. Soon there were  laptops, then notebooks, and by now some are cellphone add-ins. But what if you need more computer power than a desktop can provide?

Large enterprises depend on computerized data centers that support the various administrative aspects of the business and support a network of desktop computers. Those data centers are typical arranged in bulky stacks of servers and memory banks, located in air conditioned rooms to keep them from overheating. Such expensive data centers are typically custom-built, take months to construct, occupy expensive real estate in office buildings, and are as immobile as the Empire State Building.
Sun Microsystems has come up with a (more) mobile version of the typical database center by putting all the hardware in a standard 20-foot shipping container. It has up to 250 servers with seven terabytes of active memory (what we usually call RAM I guess) and up to 2 petabytes (2 million gigabytes) of storage. It can support 10,000 desktop users. The individual servers use Sun's proprietary 8-core Niagara chips that are not only fast but also at 70 W per chip use a lot less power than common server chips.
Because of the standard construction, such a center can be much more quickly built and delivered at a fraction of the cost of a custom data center. It can be parked in a parking lot or basement of an office building or moved to a disaster zone, battlefield or third world aid center. Rumors have it that Google is interested for their ever-expanding data storage needs.

Of course, there are still some minor problems. Air blown across the electronics boxes has to be cooled with heat exchangers requiring 60 gallons of water per minute that may have to be recycled through external coolers. It will take a sizable, dedicated fiber optics cable for data input and output, and a big wall outlet with a super extension cord to power it all. And don't forget the nerdy teenager to program it all. 

The Stanford Linear Accelerator Center (SLAC) will be the first end-user to get a Project Blackbox portable data center from Sun Microsystems. The 20-foot shipping container (which will be painted white, not black) will sit on a concrete pad behind the computer building with hookups to power, a 10-gigabit network connection and a chiller located on an adjacent pad. It will allow the SLAC to expand its computing capacity even though its existing data center has maxed out its power and cooling." (From Scientific American, with additional details from the Internet)

Super Jigsaws
If you like jigsaw puzzles as well as computers you may have tried some computer versions of jigsaw puzzles. In my limited experience they were primitive and unsatisfactory, but I may not have looked long enough.

Bertram Nicolay of the Fraunhofer Institute for Production Systems and Design Technology and his colleagues have greatly improved the state of the art. When the Berlin Wall came down and East Germany was to be reunited with the West, the East's State Security Service was in a panic to destroy mounds of secret, incriminating documents in a hurry. Available shredding machines weren't up to the task, so they tore up some 45 million documents by hand. The resulting 600 million pieces of paper are stored in 16,250 bags. To piece the fragments back together would take 30 persons an estimated 600-800 years. Computers to the rescue!

First all the pieces have to be scanned, on both sides, a gigantic task, made possible by technology developed by a daughter company of Bertelsmann, AG. Then the pieces are presorted, based on color and texture of the paper and ink. The scientists have developed algorithms to speed up the matching of edges, and the original documents are reconstituted one piece at a time.

Subsequent work now makes it also possible to reconstitute documents that have been shredded by machine. That task is much more difficult, since all the edges are identical. But already, for Germany’s Tax Authority, a bag full of shredded documents has been successfully reconstructed. (From The Economist,  9/8/07, with thanks to Louis Ritz. See also http://www.ipk.fraunhofer.de/pr/pressekonferenz)

Amazon
Recently I was called upon to edit this newsletter, a seemingly simple task since it only consists of 8 Xeroxed pages, mostly text in a 2-column format. Using OpenOffice Writer, but with no experience in page layout, I found the task harder than expected,.The formatting clearly had a mind of its own, the help files did not help, and it is a wonder that I finally cobbled something together that looked OK.

 In order to be prepared for the next time this might happen, I visited Amazon to look for a helpful book. Surprisingly, there was not a great deal to choose from, but one book stood out as the best-looking choice. The OpenOffice.org 2 Guidebook by Solveig Haugland received rave reviews from 9 reviewers. It was also pricey, at $59.99, but at the bottom of the listing Amazon provided a link to "2 used & new available from $36.00." Clicking on that link led to an offer of the book, in new condition, for $36.00. The choice was easy and I ordered the "used" book.

Amazon sent me the usual confirmation, but the following morning I received another note, from the author, Solveig Haugland, thanking me for my order and she was shipping the book the same day. Because the book is self-published, the author is free to sell her books directly at lower cost than the advertised store price. Anyway, a great way to save $24! More about the merits of the book in a forthcoming newsletter.

Burj Dubai Babel Babble
Reading about the tallest tower at 2625 feet now under construction, the Burj Dubai in the United Arab Emirates,  makes me think of that earlier venture, the Tower of Babel, also in the Middle East, but a few thousand years ago. As you may remember, that project came to grief because the contractors spoke different languages. Now we have computers, of course, who keep in touch wirelessly. Let's hope they all use the same operating system, regularly updated and patched, with protection against viruses and rootkits!

Google
Google generates personal profiles of its users, based on the many ways they use its services. It uses the profiles to target ads based on individual preferences and interests. The ads are unobtrusive so you may hardly notice them. But if you are reading a message in Google mail it is interesting to pay attention to the ads shown on the side, clearly related to keywords in the message that Google is reading over your shoulder.
After Google-mailing the comment about the Dubai tower (above) to myself, including BCC to some correspondents, the message came back with the following "sponsored links" in the margin (hypertext links omitted):

Ocean Front Condos $118k, 2 - bedrooms or 3-bedrooms Ocean Front, 55 mins fm Panama City
Charlotte NC new condos. The place to live in Charlotte... All the amenities. Reserve today.
San Jose Luxury Living. Downtown Residential Tower Dramatic Views. Historic City Park
Macintosh Computers $199. Refurbished G4 G5 Macs from $199 Powermacs iMacs eMacs at Low Prices  Teksale.com
Trump Tower Chicago. View all available Trump Tower Chicago condos with full details.

Makes you wonder about privacy, doesn't it? I often use Google to find answers to crossword puzzle clues. I wonder what conclusions Google draws about me, based on those off-the-wall questions?

©  2007 Willem F.H. Borman. This article may be reproduced in its entirety only, including this statement, by non-profit organizations in their member publications, with mention of the author's name and the Southwestern Indiana PC Users Group, Inc.

This article has been provided to APCUG by the author solely for publication by APCUG member groups. All other uses require the permission of the author (see e-mail address above).