random news

IBM supercomputer claims speed record, pending drug test:
IBM today claimed bragging rights to the world's fastest
supercomputer. In a recent Linpack test, the company's
BigBlue supercomputer ran at a sustained speed of 36.01
teraflops per second,

beating NEC's Earth Simulator's record of 35.86.
~
One disc? Doesn't look like much of a pr0n collection to me:
How many DVDs do you own? 50? 100? Imagine if you only
needed one. Researchers from London's Imperial College have
developed a new optical storage format that can potentially
store up to one terabyte (1,000 gigabytes) of data in a
single optical disc. Called Multiplexed Optical Data Storage
(MODS), the technology boasts a data density 10 times that of
Blu-ray Disc, enough to easily store all 350 episodes of
"The Simpsons," with room to spare. MODS discs are expected
to arrive at market sometime in the next six to 10 years.
So, if you're a Simpson's fan, you'd best start saving now.
"If you put all of 'The Simpsons' on a disk, you would have
to sell it for $10,000," said Peter Török of Imperial College
London, whose team is developing the new technology.
"Could you bear that thought?"

See if you can sort out the good news-bad news implications
of this. Forty percent of PCs shipped with Linux in the U.S.
and Western Europe are subsequently scrubbed clean and
outfitted with a pirated copy of Windows. In emerging markets,
that fate awaits a full 80 percent of Linux pre-installs.
This according to research outfit Gartner, which notes in
a report aptly titled: "Linux Has a Fight on Its Hands in
Emerging PC Markets," that by 2008, Linux will account for
7.5 percent of desktops shipped, but only 2.6 percent of the
installed base. Just as the high price of legitimate copies
of Windows is driving vendors in countries like China and
Russia to ship Linux on many of their machines, the low
price of pirated copies of the OS -- which will set you
back $1 in most cities in Asia and Eastern Europe -- is
driving many new PC owners to swap Linux for Windows.
Writes Gartner analyst Annette Jump: "The widespread availability
of pirated versions of Windows at a fraction of the cost of a
legal copy stimulates the growth of Linux on PCs in emerging markets,"

Re: You know what would be funny? A couple folks wrote in Wednesday to
comment on speculation that Microsoft might one day acquire Oracle (see
"You know what would be funny?"). Among those who e-mailed me was one
Oracle employee who suggested his employer might be better served pursuing
an alternate acquisition strategy: "Yeah, Microsoft buying Oracle would be
really funny. At least it would get rid of all those pesky applications
that get in the way of figuring out how to sell databases. A friend and I
were discussing the PeopleSoft acquisition attempts a while back, and we
think we have a novel strategy for Larry: Withdraw the offer. Wait a week.
Buy BEA. Watch PSFT drop like the rock that it is. Then make a lowball
offer for PSFT with a two-week expiry and see what happens. Funny, Larry's
not returning our call. It would be fun to watch, though."

Off topic: Request: a 419 monologue and Google Answers: Subject:
google headquarters, flammability of (Thanks Karlie)

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