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Supercomputing Software The Internet Science

Staring Down a Revolution: Questions for Sid Karin 114

Posted by timothy from the listen-up dept.
Mark of THE CITY writes "Mark of THE CITY writes "Since helping to found the San Diego Supercomputer Center in the 1980s, Sid Karin has distinguished himself as a national expert on digital technology and its possibilities for scientific research. Go here for the full interview."
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Staring Down a Revolution: Questions for Sid Karin More

Staring Down a Revolution: Questions for Sid Karin

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  • Dupe (Score:3, Funny)

    by sergiorepo ( 207331 ) on Tuesday August 09, 2005 @11:55PM (#13284144)
    I guess this gives a whole new meaning to the term "dupe".

    Its the first time I see a dupe inside itself.
    • Why not go for broke:

      Mark of THE CITY writes "Mark of THE CITY writes " MARK OF THE CITY WRITES "Since helping to found the San Diego Supercomputer Center in the 1980s, Sid Karin has distinguished himself as a national expert on digital technology and its possibilities for scientific research. Go here for the full interview."

    • Re:Dupe (Score:3, Insightful)

      by LordNightwalker ( 256873 )

      Not to mention the fact that you still got no clue who did the interview or what the interview was about.

      Click here for the interview... THE Interview!!!

      WHAT INTERVIEW?????

      Yes, I know I can click the link to find out, but would it be so hard to actually describe the article in the short blurb? Imagine every submitter fucked up like this, then we'd have to RTFA on every single new slashdot headline. I'd never get around to getting actual work done...

  • "Technological revolutions don't happen every day" (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Ralph Spoilsport ( 673134 ) on Tuesday August 09, 2005 @11:59PM (#13284161) Journal
    But they happen a lot faster when you have cheap energy. It will be interesting to see how all this rah-rah technology thing plays out as energy accelerates in price.

    I think we'll see fewer bells and whistles and more fundamental and substantive shifts in how the technology basically works and how and when we choose/bother to use it.

    RS

  • His revolution: seemingly infinite storage (Score:5, Insightful)

    by ReformedExCon ( 897248 ) <reformed.excon@gmail.com> on Wednesday August 10, 2005 @12:18AM (#13284224)
    He likens terabyte storage to the numerous technological revolutions of the past. His opinion is that at some point storage will become so plentiful in personal devices that the concept of "having it all" will be a reality. His first example is loading all recorded media onto a personal device. His second is storing photo-realistic images in car navigation systems. This is his revolution?

    Having infinite storage is interesting, but if you consider the Internet to be the same type of thing, there are already limitations. First, you need to realize that 90% of everything is garbage. The other 10% may be useful, but to whom? The tiny fraction of a percent of all information that may be useful to you personally needs to be able to find its way to you. So we have tools like search engines to help us. They are slowly getting better, but the tide of information only comes in, so though the engines are getting better, the quality of results is increasingly getting worse.

    What would I do with all recorded music? I couldn't possibly listen to it all in my lifetime. I'd need some sort of intelligent agent to find things that I'd like and play those so that I don't waste time listening to things I'm not interested in.

    This isn't some future revolution. It's reality now, and for the most part it works okay.

    What will we do with infinite storage? Probably just hoard more data, I think. There's only a small amount of data that is actually usable to any one person, expanding storage capacity isn't going to change that.
    • This isn't some future revolution. It's reality now, and for the most part it works okay.

      It's a reality today!? So does that mean when I'm on the way home on the train today I'll be able to watch any movie or any episode of any TV show I can name? Cool!!!

      What will we do with infinite storage? Probably just hoard more data, I think. There's only a small amount of data that is actually usable to any one person, expanding storage capacity isn't going to change that.

      And I suppose you're going to be able to tell
      • I'm not saying that we don't need more storage. I'm saying that it is not a revolutionary step in technology to have massive amounts of storage.

        Lawyers have such a tool. Doctors have such a tool. These tools already exist. Yes, they will expand as information and knowledge grows.

        But the question is not whether information will accumulate. It is whether we will have the tools to gather from that data the information that is relevant to us personally.

        Yes, in a sense you can have access to any movie or TV
        • Lawyers have such a tool. Doctors have such a tool.

          Many lawyers have embraced such technology but my experience is that very few doctors practicing today do.


          Yes, in a sense you can have access to any movie or TV episode you want to watch. Currently that information is out on the Internet. If your device is able to access that, download it, and decompress it in a reasonable manner, you'd be able to watch it anywhere you went. The storage medium is just not local to your device.

          If it's not accessible when I n

          • Many lawyers have embraced such technology but my experience is that very few doctors practicing today do.

            True story:

            About two years ago, I went to see my doctor about an annoying rash. We were considering whether it might be something contagious, she went off to check the incubation time for some virus. (Turned out to be nothing but some minor irritation, BTW.) I pictured her going to her office and consulting a big bookshelf of medical reference works.

            She camr back and said she had ruled out the v

            • I'm not terribly surprised. Just pleased to see some doctor's are awake and have left their arrogance behind.

              Google basically saved my girlfriend's life. The doctors (including 2 specialists) had her on a medication that was causing seizures and kept uping the dosage because it was meant to be reducing them. I looked up the side effects of drugs she was on on google and found a few refrences including a NewZealand government site.

              This medication was definitely causing her seizures which had increased in fre
      • Option 1 (which you seem to be suggesting): Create the physical infrastructure to duplicate terabytes of data billions of times in order to allow every human being to carry everything that could possibly be relevant to him on his person.

        Option 2: Store data once and build a cheap wireless network. Yes, it can work on your train ride.

      • It's a reality today!? So does that mean when I'm on the way home on the train today I'll be able to watch any movie or any episode of any TV show I can name?

        Yes, but you'll need to name the show precisely, including any misspellings that the nerd who keyed in the database made. You will also have to watch adverts from the original screening, because depriving those 1980s companies of their revenue would be PIRACY, and you can't eat while you're watching unless it's from an authorised supplier.
      • In my opinion non-volatile ram memory will be the next revolution in computers. Once they make this memory at a competitive price we should see an explosion in the number of computers and their capability. There should be computers that run on fuel cell batteries for years that will take care of one's home security, safety, and medical emergency needs. I also see for the very young who live to be over a hundred years in age, a link between the internet and one's own brain. They already have a man who c
      • You and the parent post actually agree pretty much (if I understand him correctly), except he realises that 90% of everything is crap. The particular 10% that isn't crap is, of course, user-dependant.
        • Actually it's more like 99% of everything is crap in the sense that it's of little use or interest to an individual. I'm happy to dig through the crap though, if it means I don't have to trust someone else to hold my information for me once I receive it the first time.
    • That is again one thing the music industry should take in account with their pricing: People do not like to buy garbage at $16-20 per CD, and discover that 90% on that thing is garbage. Digital storage is much better in discarding garbage. Also to have all the music of the world with you will give you such a serious playlist, that you will dump 90% again just to be able to find the songs you like.

      The fun thing of the interview is though that it is mainly centered on music as example again. I would go as fa
    • Maybe you cant follow me, but the mere fact that one can have all the books of a large library on your computer, fully indexed with the possibility to do boolean and regular searches is as much an revolution as thethe printing press, imho.

      And just like that (the press), it will take decades to slowly get recognition to its worth.

      There wont even the possiblilities of "Burning libraries" anymore if everybody can store the whole history and culture of his country/region/religion on his ipod mk9...
    • The point is not that you, one person, will be able to hoard all data for yourself (with all people doing the same on their own storage devices) for some abstract sense of self-importance.

      The point is that all barriers related to a lack of information will disappear. Anything that anyone knows or has ever known, you can know, too, just like that, instantly, at no cost, from the comfort of your couch. Any song ever written, any novel ever penned, any movie ever filmed, any speech ever given.

      Once the network
    • Herein lies the danger...

      Your view of the world is (obviously) a function of your information feeds. In the old days, that meant what you saw, heard, and felt. Slightly more recently it began to include newspapers, radio, and TV. In both "past eras" you couldn't do too much to select your feeds, and you got a pretty mixed view.

      Today we have infoglut, and it has become necessary to manage our feeds. Unfortunately many will not have discipline to diversify their information input, and will only take in that w
    • "His opinion is that at some point storage will become so plentiful in personal devices that the concept of "having it all" will be a reality. His first example is loading all recorded media onto a personal device. His second is storing photo-realistic images in car navigation systems. This is his revolution?"

      Be fair to the guy - he's talking to an interviewer from a completely non-technical magazine. He's giving extremely good examples, because they relate directly to the lives of the kind of people who'l

    • What would I do with all recorded music? I couldn't possibly listen to it all in my lifetime. I'd need some sort of intelligent agent to find things that I'd like and play those so that I don't waste time listening to things I'm not interested in.

      How is this "problem" any different that finding music you like at the music store or on Amazon? I don't see how having all the info locally causes a new problem, but it does make it immediately available once you find what you want. Ditto for stuff outside o

    • First, you need to realize that 90% of everything is garbage. The other 10% may be useful, but to whom?

      Even worse, what if everything is garbage to 90% of everyone, but everything is valuable 10% of everyone, and it's not always the same 10%?
    • All of this storage is useless if your access to it is limited. That is the situation we find ourselves in now, to an extent. Windows, for instance, is largely useless as an OS for large amounts of data particularly if that data is in the form of thousands of small files. I realize this is an NTFS issue largely, but SMB is also limited. Then you look at bandwidth. Transporting large amounts of data over typical 100Mpbs of shared pipe can be cumbersome as well. It's nice to have a terabyte of storage but whe

  • Uh oh (Score:4, Funny)

    by dirtsurfer ( 595452 ) on Wednesday August 10, 2005 @12:19AM (#13284227) Journal
    "Mark of THE CITY writes "Mark of THE CITY writes "Mark of THE CITY writes "Mark of THE CITY writes "Mark of THE CITY writes ">>STACK OVERFLOW
    • Yeah, I noticed this morning. It's my first approved story, but it was rejected at first because the synopsis was too long. In resubmitting I forgot to remove the link, hence the appearance of recursion.

  • Email? (Score:3, Funny)

    by alienfluid ( 677872 ) on Wednesday August 10, 2005 @12:24AM (#13284243) Homepage
    mailto:mrkwscha@yahoo.com [mailto] Who posts their email address in the main story summary on Slashdot? This guys must be nuts!
  • I wonder if the slashdot effect occurs with mail clients. Seeing as everyone probably clicked the first link thinking it was a web page, only to have their mail app load up.

  • Okay... (Score:2, Insightful)

    by WhiteHat101 ( 874390 )
    So, now that we have a terabyte of space in out GPS we can use that to scroll ahead to find out the current gas price. How does that work? Won't that require access to the Internet or some other source to get current images anyways..? So that terabyte of space would be wasted because you're not going to be able to get that much current information that quickly!

    I'm also confused on his ideas on buying a license for all music... and then playing $.16 for each song... Don't those ideas contradict themselves..?
    • > that terabyte of space would be wasted

      Most people drive in pretty limited areas, so that terabyte of space could be used to cache data for your usual driving area. When you drive somewhere else, you probably ask the GPS to give you directions, and it can cache the suggested route. It's not that bad an idea. Note also that he says "photorealistic", so I'd imagine large stretches of highway and desert would probably be simulated until satellite imagery is available to update it (and determined to contain
  • "I don't think so. When cars first came along, there were places that said you had to have someone walking in front of the car ringing a bell."

    I'm not sure I'm quite getting this reference. Does he mean that the bell would have to be rung so that people will stay clear of the vehicle? If so, why not affix the bell to the car?

    I'm getting the point that there were people with silly ideas back then, but I was hoping somebody could clarify this point.

    • Re:mmm? (Score:3, Informative)

      by I confirm I'm not a ( 720413 )

      Does he mean that the bell would have to be rung so that people will stay clear of the vehicle? If so, why not affix the bell to the car?

      (From wikipedia [wikipedia.org])
      ...a backlash against these large speedy vehicles resulted in passing laws that self-propelled vehicles on public roads in the United Kingdom must be preceded by a man on foot waving a red flag and blowing a horn.

      So, a vehicular-mounted bell wouldn't cut it - you needed the full servant-with-flag-and-horn set-up to remain lawful. This wasn't as hard

  • Personal data storage into the terabyte, a vast global communications network, and the article is about the music industry's inability to deal with digital file sharing (?) I expected to look at the bottom and see it dated 1998. Seriously, in the '05, shouldn't a supercomputer guy be thinking about biological modeling (or something).

    IMHO, Ray Kurzweil [kurzweilai.net], master book/snake oil salesman that he is, is at least addressing some of the changes implied by the (what are we calling it now?) Information Explosion.

  • Yeah, sure. (Score:2, Interesting)

    by dal20402 ( 895630 ) *
    "All of recorded music" in a terabyte or two? I think not. My collection takes up 170 GB and covers only a tiny fraction of recorded classical music. The idea of buying a license to all recorded music is preposterous for the foreseeable future. Good thing, too... no universal license that anyone could afford could support any significant number of artists.

    He seems to have noticed the problems with the record industry's current business model, but he's not saying anything new. Next!

    • Re:Yeah, sure. (Score:3, Interesting)

      by TheRaven64 ( 641858 )
      You could probably fit all recorded music they you might want onto a few terrabytes. The business model that would work in that case would be something like a subscription service, except that you could download anything and retain it (no DRM). The reason you would keep paying would be new music - which is also the reason the RIAA don't like this model; it requires them to continue making music people actually want to listen to.
    • "no universal license that anyone could afford could support any significant number of artists."

      If we all paid what we currently spend on music into a universal licence it would support the exact same number of musicians, since it's the same amount of money. Distributing it fairly (and preventing fraud) would be tricky... but if we wanted to maximise our gains at the expense of pure capitalism we could actually get MORE full-time musicians out of it by capping salaries - a few millionaire rock stars could g

  • Why wait .. (Score:2, Funny)

    by martindp ( 540152 )
    .. for someone else to dupe your post when you can dupe it while posting it. Duping just got alot smarter!
  • Rather than have lots of devices with terabytes of capacity, is it not more likely that people will access all of their data remotely from one central location?

    Then depending on the situation, one could stream the data at varying levels of quality to the client.

    • Local storage is faster. It would be good to have a 10TB disk to use as a local cache. If you then wander somewhere where the coverage is spotty, then you can keep working on stuff in the cache and have it automatically re-sync when you get back into range. If the autonomic system is done right, you won't even notice when you go out of range (unless you are actually talking to someone).

    • Re:wireless anyone? (Score:1, Interesting)

      by Anonymous Coward
      He is talking about things like terrabytes worth of space on your flash-like drive, or a simple media player. Hell even a credit card could hold that much data.

      Why waste money on wifi when you can carry it in your pocket? It doesn't matter. It's the same thing.

      Ever heard of distributed clustering file systems? You download and cache everything, it's distributed. Everything you want is transparently aviable to you, you don't have to worry about wifi being aviable or terrabytes of information aviable at your

      • Look at it another way... A ultra-unpersonalized (Score:1, Interesting)

        by Anonymous Coward
        music player

        Say you just busted your last set of headphones. You want to get a new player and some people have a slick looking pair of headphones to come with a updated music player device.

        Notice the steps:
        Step 1. You buy the music player device.
        Step 2. You plug in your headphones.
        Step 3. You listen to your music.

        You notice how there is no 'download songs' or 'copy files' step?

        This is because the media player comes pre-installed with the music you like.

        However it's not because of focus marketting or they tr
  • I mean, "Kid Sarin", that sounds like a band name or something.
  • Mark of THE CITY writes "Mark of THE CITY writes "Since helping


    Is this a recursive story or something?

  • The _real_ questions for Sid. (Score:2, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward
    People really need to not worry about asking questions regarding the stuff that the marketplace and consumers like slashdot readers will work out for themeselves.

    Karin is in a position to answer some really tough questions.

    The questions that need to be answered are things like, how can peer review be improved to eliminate the cronyism that goes on? When will the National Science Foundation understand that persistent IT infrastructure for supercomputing is as critical as things like telescopes in hawaii
  • I used to own a 20MB drive, in 1985-86 that was huge.

    Along with the local storage to each PC (4+15+15+40+80GB) I own a 160GB and I recently had to clear come files off of it.

    I am thinking of installing a NAS with a 1TB drive from LaCie.

    That shows me the amount of storage required in a 'digital home' can't be predicted with any certainty. As storage grows to encompass everything we used to store, we store something else which takes up a lot more space.
  • So is this guy's evil alter ego known as Kid Sarin?
  • What on earth does Sid Karin have to do with Nintendo?

    A better question would be is how did he get information about the Revolution?? This guy must have some great contacts!
  • I love how "Mark of THE CITY" occurs twice in the "Related Links" box to the right of the story.
  • of the recorded music.

    Uh?

    Uncompressed, terabyte is about 1500 to 2000 CDs (roughly). With compression, say, 1:10, it is still only up to 20,000 CDs. A lot but hardly 'all of the recorded music'.

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