* Posts by TimTheEngineer

8 publicly visible posts • joined 3 Oct 2017

Open source versus Microsoft: The new rebellion begins

TimTheEngineer

Re: I wish them luck

If one were suspicious/cynical enough one might contemplate that some massive cluster of systems with some clever software, perhaps some sort of artificial intelligence like tools would enable the interrogation and investigation of all that information a little more practical.

Of course, that's probably just science fiction, eh ?

Florida man might just stick it to HP for injecting sneaky DRM update into his printers that rejected non-HP ink

TimTheEngineer

Re: HP printers

Awful how ? I've used brother laser printers with Macs at home for... well over 10 years, it must be. I've not had any problems with them at all....

BOFH: The company survived the disaster recovery test. Just. The Director's car, however...

TimTheEngineer

Re: That reminds me of another story...

... and the consequent discovery that brand new shiny also means upgraded OS across the board, which in turn means application upgrades ... none of which had happened in a timely fashion in the past because it was varyingly too difficult / not worth the expense / name your excuse du jour.

eBay as a DR strategy...

Google age discrimination case: Supervisor called me 'grandpa', engineer claims

TimTheEngineer

When you find yourself involuntarily launched into the market a few months after your 60th birthday in what could best be described as a "grey hair short back and sides" and start learning the whole new world of what a CV is supposed to look like, with your personal branding (WTF ?) etc. etc., and the strong advice from the "professional resume writer" that you "dispose of a few decades worth of experience" ... they're all insane, if you ask me. You end up dreaming of having a rational conversation about a solid piece of work with a functional manager with opposable thumbs.

Oh, did I say that out loud.

(FWIW it took eight months to find something)

Frontiersman Cray snags $50m storage contract for 'largest single filesystem'

TimTheEngineer

1.5 exaflops ? 1.5 x 10^18 flops.

Assuming we are treating these as real and equivalent numbers (hardly), doing the simple numbers

A Y-MP was a little over 2GFLOP - let's pretend 2.3 x10^9 FLOP for want of a better number.

I make that about 650 x 10^6 Y-MPs...

Cray's found a super scooper, $1.3bn's gonna buy you. HPE's the one

TimTheEngineer

Re: SGI,...

While it was fashionable to blame Cray for SGI's woes, SGI had actually had a couple of bad quarters before the acquisition and was already on a glide path because their classic market of 3D graphics systems and workstations was being consumed by the wintel boxes with graphic accelerators.

TimTheEngineer

Re: DEC (was SGI,...)

... and, WRT to this article in particular, cray built the T3D 7 T3E MPP systems using Alpha chips. TheT#E was a very successful, popular machine that SGI killed off.

Thomas the Tank Engine lobotomised by fat (remote) controller

TimTheEngineer

The Victoria Line, which opened in 1968 IIRC, has always been completely automated - all the driver does is close the doors and push two "start" buttons simultaneously; everything else is under machine control. One suspects that the only reason the driver is actually there is for the PR to the passengers... and possibly some input from ASLEF.