Orcmid's Lair |
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2002-12-21
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IBM Storage hardware, software, solutions and services.? Essentially all-about storage systems from IBM's perspective.? This is different than for memory systems.? My next search. 2002-12-20
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Mainframe offeringsIBM 3995 Optical Library Home Page | IBM Optical Drives | IBM Tape and Optical | IBM TotalStorage.? Here's optical storage on 5.2 GB optical cartridges.
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IBM Enterprise Tape System 3590 for Midrange and Open Systems | IBM Tape and Optical | IBM TotalStorage.? How to rack up over 100 terabytes of compressed data on cartridge tapes, with transfer rates of 14MBs.
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IBM Magnetic Media Products Page | IBM Storage Media.? Ah, removable disk packs, sort of. The top seems to be QIC DC5010 MLR1 with 16 GB capacity.
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IBM LTO Ultrium 100 GB Data Cartridge Offering Data Sheet | IBM Storage Media | IBM TotalStorage.? I can't find IBM-manufactured removable hard disks any more.? Tch.? This is a removable tape cartridge, of mid-range performance, holds 100GB (200GB with 2:1 compression), on 2000' of half-inch tape in a cartridge that works in an IBM 3583 (which will be a wonder to behold).? The tape has an estimated 30-year archive life.
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New ESS enhancements.? Enterprise Storage Servers are the high-end storage servres available from IBM.? There is an intention to achieve industry-standard Bluefin compatibility as well. The storage server uses drives with UltraStor 146Z10 characteristics, in arrays of up to 55.9 terabytes (TB).? Just for comparison, does anyone use removable platter disks anymore?? I need to get out in mainframe country more, I guess.? It has been a dozen years since I last walked into a mainframe data center, and I am beginning to feel like Rip Van Winkle.
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IBM Ultrastar 146Z10 hard disk drive.? An impressive server class hard drive, with 146GB, 10,000 rpm, and average seek time of 4.7 ms.? Complete specifications and documentation on-line, of course.? I still want to find what gets used in data centers.
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Tom's Hardware Guide Mass Storage: Fastest IDE Hard Drive Ever: IBM Deskstar 75GXP - IBM DTLA-307030.? Exploring the latest specifications on memory and disk drives.? I figure to find monster drives for use on mainframes, but that isn't apparently what happens.? Instead, for non-removable drives, we find arrays of low-form factor, small drives of the same kind that go into PCs.? I want to find out how sound that observation is.
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Loose CannonsEconomist.com: The race to computerise biology.? About bioinformatics, this article relates the current direction in biological firms.? There is an important caveat.? There must still be some way to confirm the predictions of these models in reality, no matter how good the models are claimed to be.? The bridge between theoretical abstractiions and the realities of living biological systems happens in the empirical world of the biological, not the abstract.? This can end up being related to the problems of trust in terms of theoretical computation systems and the real ones we use.
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Salon.com Technology | Radio Free Software.? About the GNU Radio project. One glove down in the war between open and closed content.? Jerry Michalski says this war will be long and unclear.? It will be interesting to see if the high ground actually can be seized this way, and for how long. Some interesting links to other articles, too.
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IBM Research | Autonomic Storage at Almaden.? Collective Intelligent Bricks are viewed as part of the IBM work in Autonomic Storage, part of the Autonomic Systems initiative that is a central theme for IBM research.
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IBM Research | CIB-Hardware at Almaden.? CIB is for Collective Intelligent Bricks, and this site provides background on the development of storage bricks. This work is out of the IBM Almaden Research Center in San Jose, California.
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ZDNet: Printer Friendly - IBM stacks 3-D storage blocks.? This article is about brick stacking. A brick is good for just over 1 terabyte of data and contains 12 hard drives. A 3 x 3 x 3 brick stack holds 32 terabytes. These are relatively small, an 8-brick-wide stack a little wider than an adult's arm span. So a brick is less than one foot in a cube. The hard drives would seem to net out at about 100GB. The units, which are water cooled, suffer too much latency on a 1 Gbs ethernet, so 10Gbs is expected to be used. 2002-12-18
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Man in CyberspaceHow We Are to Be Known to MachinesHuman Markup Language and raceThe HumanML (it is hard for me to be with it when I write it out completely) was proposed to have race as a primary physical descriptor for human beings, with no other particular context or an solution to the contextualization of an usage.? The contextualization problem is still not solved. I am satisfied that they removed the term, though this was just a loud example of how the model being pursued won't hold up in practice.? I am gratified that this occured.? I had not been kind in my objections here and on the comment list during the public comment period.Why describe humans?The working group members were amazingly gracious in working with me to articulate what I am concerned about in this effort.? There are lofty ambitions for the work, and a grand vision with regard to enhancing the fidelity of human communication.? I am not satisfied that it is demonstrated how that is actually supported by this approach.? I think there may be useful applications, but it won't be anything so grand.I am leaving this behind, but I don't want to drop the loose ends.? If you want to see why the fuss is not about race (thought it was an easy one to object to and be heard), but with how many different intentions for use are loaded on these single term categories, you can get the context from the discussion-list archive [huml-comment] RE: Apartment Clerk Informal Scenario.? Where I left off in exploring how unclear it is what the use cases for Human ML are.? It is clear that someone wants it anyhow, at least enough someones to form a committee.? I don't understand the convergence of interests in this work and am now moving on to other challenges without figuring it out.
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humanmarkup-comment by date for December 2002? Where the HumanML working group documented removal of race as a primary physical descriptor for humans.? My exchanges with the group are here and in the preceding month.? As I said, the group was very gracious in discussions where I challenged the fundamental assumptions of this work.? I appreciate the respect, and I trust that they felt that I worked with them out of respect and a desire to honor the ambitions they have put at stake.? It takes more than sincerity to accomplish that, and I don't know what other support I can provide at this point.
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CNN.com - Race not reflected in genes, study says - Dec. 17, 2002.? An article that the Human ML group noticed after having voted to remove race as a physical and primary descriptor.? It is interesting.? Scientists and anthropologists will be the ones to indicate how reliable these results are.? We may yet get to the point where we accept the degree to which "intelligence" is a social construction too.? More to the point: "ontologies" as they have been taken as prescriptive of something in information-system engineering.? It is weird to even be thinking of this stuff.? The objectification of everything, right up to the all and the nothing.? Wittgenstein said not to do it.? I don't think we understand that is what he was talking about.
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Merely digitally humanThis project appears to have a sounder rationale if, as it appears, attention is on a particular focus, the physiological characteristics of human beings.? At the same time, the slide show exhibits great hubris about the reach of the activity.? Why do we find it necessary to do that?The Digital Human Project.? Well, maybe a little different than the Human Markup Language (Human ML) project, this projects location at the National Institutes of Health gives it a different slant and a different kind of legitimacy.
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Man in SocialSpaceUsed by TechnologyBeing programmed by your computerWell, without looking deeper, I say it is about how we dance with technologies and end up programming ourselves.? Just like my wife and I and our cats program ourselves into patterns around feeding and practically everything else.? And we don't see that we're doing that.? Our relationship to technology appliances is amenable to manipulation, willful or not.? There is someone else in this great social dance involved on the side of the artifact and cyberstructure I am dealing with from over here.? I wonder what there is for me to be responsible for in this:ACM Ubiquity.? I want to capture the current week's issue, but it won't stay at this address.? So, I am looking at Volume 3, Issue 44 (December 17-23, 2002), and it has a selection of B.J. Fogg's Persuasive Technology: Using Computers to Change What We Think and Do.? Instead of a link to an on-line article, there is a link to a PDF? This is my heads up about that. Well, I was persuaded to dowload the PDF file, so it must be working.? This sounds like something that fits into what Jerry Michalski is talking about around consumerism.? Now I have to read it to be certain. This ACM Ubiquity issue will eventually end up on the Past Issues page, but it isn't there yet.? Look for it to be there and have a stable URL after December 23. 2002-12-17
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Trends in CyberspaceDecentralized CollaborationThese tools and ideas and trends will conspire to permit communities to shelter themselves from the hurly burly and also create more efficient, affordable, and fluid structures for cooperation and collaborative work.? I have been looking at some related trends that will make life in IT more challenging along with this.? A topic for my classmates an I in this weeks assignments.IT jobs can become more funThe database evolution continues - Cover Story - Network Magazine India.? A nice survey article of the state of affairs, from an IT magazine created entirely in Mumbei.? A link provided by a classmate who has been bringing me up to date on what Data Base Administration is like and the level of tools available.How's the job market going?Computer and Information Systems Managers.? Hmm, very cool.? Some predictions about how IT jobs will go.? This was referred to me by another student in my M.Sc IT program.? It is time I dug into some hard-core statistics and stopped with the technology pontification so much. But not just yet. ...
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The next do it yourself disruptive technologies, coming to the digital office alreadyNews: Microsoft Plans New Inroads into Enterprise IM? Also provides a nice overview of the players and positioning that is going on.? An interesting problem is going to be containing the local community, the enterprise community, and the world so that this is an improvement in inter-enterprise and virtual enterprise activity without opening new gates to exploits, espionage, sabatoge, and just plain misbehavior.
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Instant Messaging Planet.? Well, where exactly is the disruptive technology in here?? A place to watch.
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Usability First: Groupware? Looks like a nice place for beginning any deep exploration of this topic.
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developerWorks: Java technology : Making P2P interoperable: The JXTA story.? I wonder what there is later than this August 2001 posting.
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PuTTY Download Page.? Not what I was looking for, but something I am happy to have found. This is important in working with systems like SourceForge that use SSH and other secure-logon technologies.
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Peer-to-Peer File Sharing and Copyright Law After Napster.? Some guidelines for P2P developers staying out of the way of the law and use of P2P for copyright infringement.? Corporate introduction of P2P may want to look at how employee use can be addressed in a way where inappropriate use is prevented as well as prohibited.? Having a log of all transactions would be good for a start.? Sounds big-brother-ish, doesn't it?
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O'Reilly Network: P2P Networking with Rendezvous and iChat [Aug. 28, 2002].? Hmm, maybe old news. Something to look for.
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A typical interesting source of WikisThe sheltered communities will not want external hosting.? So IT organizations will need to learn how to install and operate these and deal with virtual-enterprise collaboration.? That will happen, if only to satisfy mobility requirements and eliminate the cost of true VPNs.SeedWiki.? A place to create a public but free Wiki.? Has a long list of supported Wikis.? It looks like it might be one big Wiki that has different view into.? That can't be right, but maybe it is.? Curious.
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The tension around transparencyWhile privacy of collaborative spaces is important, transparency of operation is as well.? Can we have both?? What does it take to have a corporation learn to trust?Credibility Crisis 2001-2002.? A Jerry Michalski Wiki page (I think).? Here are some of the ideas covered in Jerry's OOPSLA 2002 address.? That "transparency is essential" is going to be an interesting exploration.
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PolicyLink Equitable Development Toolkit.? I am here tracing another Jerry Michalski link.? This is really different and I can't stay here long.? This is perhaps the most-important site of the list, too. The key thing here is about what tools are and how they are used. I traced the link on Expiring Use because I was curious.? (I can't give you the URL because the site actively prevents deep linking.) ? The tool first provides clear information, and illustrates ways that action is taken in communities based on the information.? The information summaries are very clear.? I don't know about accuracy, but it is easy to give them credibility.? An interesting notion.
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The unreasonable faith in technology and logicBill Burge said to me once, "somebody still has to write it all down."? This was in the context of programming, but it applies here.? Someone should do the math before trying to write it all down.? The notion that "the idea of ..." prefix changes level of abstraction and is not idempotent should be enough to clue people into the difficulty.? There's more.? So is there even a practical, heuristic level of this that would be widely (I don't dare say universally) useful?? And how many of these will there be.? Look at the explosion of XML profiles.? Sigh.AquaMetaWiki.? Oh, I just had to come back and grab this little tidbit too: "When ideas represent everything and there's a declared ConceptualUniverse, it's possible to make all sorts of ActionSystems that move these ideas around in the conceptual universe in some way that would be beneficial to idea world if it were the real world, and then move the real world things around to match." I think no one is doing the math about the space of ideas.? I do think it was, indirectly, one of the things that Wittgenstein was refering to in his famous precaution. I just don't know what to do with this sometime.? I want to object, yet that isn't helpful.? I don't think this will go away if it is ignored.? It is too appealing (why?) and people want it to be true. And at some point the dissonance with reality and the hurly-burly of human existence and the tensions of life does show up.? See my upset over Human Markup Language for more about that.
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AquaMetaWiki.? One of a number of interesting Wiki's out there, this one on Jerry Michalski's list.? It is all very playful, and also exhibits what poor observers we can be of our situation in the world. To whit, "I believe we're close to an information structure that can effectively capture all the worlds information, and break it up in a way that makes sense. The FragmentationOfThought breaks the information of the world into little Idea-shaped chunks, and pits competing ideas (alternatives, options, peers) against each other in a specified context." Tom Steele would love this.? Sort of Extreme Uncol adapted to human affairs. Useful links, nice format (unreadable logo), charming.? My kinda crackpot.
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ShouldExist || A Spam Catcher.? Here are suggestions about preventing spam harvesting of web pages.? These make it difficult for ordinary folk, of course.? But it is an example of how consumer capitalism (Jerry Michalski's term) is getting to be a big pain in the ass.? I don't see it going away.? Part of the Internet may simply be like walking through a crowded bazaar in some disreputable place full of pickpockets, flim-flams, and other attractions.? I expect to see a fortress response.? It is what we are good at.? It won't work, but it is what we'll do first. 2002-12-16
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Loose EndsCerulean Studios' Trillian.? Recommended as an alternative to MSN Messenger, AIM, etc., while operating with all of those services.? I want to check it out.? I think it is closed source, and it seems to use the Blogger business model.? Basic version free, Pro version for a fee.? This is interesting to watch.
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Trends in Computing and CyberspaceJerry Michalski ObservationsEcology and disruption of music distributionMusic bits are better than atoms.? From Jerry Michalski's Blogger.? This simple end-to-end flow and the externalities of the ecological costs are mind-boggling.? Jerry says the CD is dead.? I think it will have to be.? I don't think the replacement is that obvious.
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The law of convenienceI suppose the downside of this has to do with the little impact recycling has had versus the growth in outrageous packaging practices and the unwillingness of consumers to put their foot down.? We need to ask ourselves, "whose planet is it?"This also shows up in the way we are about security concerns or backup and preservation at the individual level.? I know I am terribly sloppy in that regard.? I promise to shift that before the New Year.? I am wondering -- since it is my way in life to wonder about everything -- how we deal with coherently making some of this invisible and unobtrusive and not create major pitfalls for people. The Law of Convenience.? A Jerry Michalski musing? This is an interesting article on what has us turn away from inconvenient technologies and other arrangements.? I am wondering if this is something that must be addressed in the removing of barriers between decentralized technologies and the global commons, while making it easy to know what's what, where we are, and what's appropriate where we are.
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Jerry Michalski's Home on the Web.? Sociate (pronounced so-see-eight according to Jerry, who chose the term.) I did not expect to find a blog at this point.? How foolish of me. Jerry Michalski gave one of the keynote addresses at OOPSLA 2002 in Seattle, on November 6, 2002. Jerry appeared as part of the Onward! track fostered by Richard Gabriel, who made the introduction.? Jerry gave an interesting look ahead, and there was a lot to take away.? My lap-top is too unwieldy to pack around the conference and type in a conference seat.? I could have used my little telefonino, a Nokia 9000il that has a full QWERTY keyboard under the cell-phone cover. But I have let that fall into disuse and beside, I was sitting beside Haim Kilov and it was more interesting to chat with him during the lulls. I am doing this quick blog because I am very sympathetic to the themes Jerry raised and I want to find a reference to recommend to others.
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Public Library of Science? Here is the site that proposes to provide a non-proprietary publication mechanism for scientific research. (This link and the one below were both provided by Vlad Nuri.)
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Scholarship and CollegialityPublic Research Published in PublicAnother run at open publishing and availability of scientific papersI agree with Vlad Nuri that this is a heartening trend.New Premise in Science: Get the Word Out Quickly, Online.? (You will need to register to have free access to this article.)? Amy Harmon article, The New York Times, December 17, 2002.? More in the argument to not rely on proprietary journal systems for the dissemination of scientific research.? I am going to be brash and propose that this, just like Open Source development, will become a commonly-accepted case, while there will also be highly insular and proprietary arrangements in non-public research.? I am looking at there being a commons that is reliably useful, especially for all manner of publications, alongside of near-invisible distributed communities using decentralized technology, mostly for (commercial) secrecy/privacy and to avoid being intruded upon.? How the two worlds can live together and degrees of involvement in both be navigated is what I see as an open question. There will be stiff page charges in this model, and I think the model is too oriented around institutional structures, favoring the current academic research model.? But the discussion needs to continue and the attraction of prominent advocates is newsworthy.
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Trends in CyberspaceDecentralized TechnologiesJerry Michalski is a fan of this trend as well as I can tell (see the later bloggings, above).? I think it is exciting too, especially around the simplicity of cooperative work that may entail.? I just wonder what we will do to avoid nasty coherence problems.? lack of consistent standards will certainly matter.? I am not one who thinks that the Semantic Web will save us here.Views of the SuperNova conferenceSalon.com Technology | Life on the edge.? Here's Scott Rosenberg's article.? Scott makes this observation about decentralized technologies, including blogging:`These disparate boomlets share an "end to end" design: They rely on the power of individual users' computers -- there's no big, centrally operated piece of software or hardware mediating. The users connect across an open, "stupid" network -- the Internet itself, today -- that simply moves information without worrying about what it is. The resulting software is ad hoc, impromptu, flexible, "lightweight." Empowered individuals at the ends of the network try out new ideas and build myriad new services. It's geek heaven.' He goes on to point out that there is not a potent business model. There are some great links in the article.
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ACM News Service: "Life on the Edge".? This news-service abstract is about Scott Rosenberg's Salon article on the Supernova converence.? This deals with the current tension between the entertainment industry and use of decentralized technologies. I gave this a second look because of the later squib on the same conference.
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ACM News Service: "Word to the Wise: Decentralize".? This is the news service coverage of Dan Farber's Tech Update interview with Kevin Werbach, cited below.? What intrigues me is that this abstract has the following statement: "Werbach predicts that businesses will focus on deriving value from their human capital instead of from IT systems themselves, which he says will become commoditized." That's what had me go to the article, because I am in a class discussion on what IT will be like 10 years from now. I can't find that particular juxtaposition at all. There is something close to "However, better management, provisioning, and automatic features are needed for decentralized systems, and Werbach warns that efforts could be hijacked by software incompatibility."
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ZDNet: Printer Friendly - Word to the wise: Decentralize.? Dan Farber, from ZDNet Tech Update, December 11, 2002.? Technology analyst Keven Werbach is interviewed at this week's Supernova conference about his belief that centralized computing will be unable to scale sufficiently. With regard to the commoditization of IT, Werbach is quoted as saying that " Centralized systems are becoming so complex and are difficult to scale. With commoditized computing and connectivity, the costs are much cheaper than the massive mainframes of past. In addition, as IT becomes more commoditized, the differentiator within organizations is people and finding ways to help them collaborate and get maximum advantage."
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Technology TomorrowThe Robots Are Coming!And they will feel your pain ...ScienceDaily News Release: Designing A Robot That Can Sense Human Emotion.? Based on a press release from Vanderbilt University, the article describes a project that is not about creating a single response to human patterns but to allow a robot to be trained to recognize the emotions behind physiological responses of specific individuals.`"Psychologists have been trying to identify universal patterns of physiological response since the turn of the century without success. All this effort has shown is that there are no such universal patterns," says [Craig] Smith.' Smith is the professor of psychology and human development on the team. Nilanjan Sarkar is the professor of mechanical engineering who proposed the project: ' "Psychological research shows that a lot of our communications, human to human, are implicit," says Sarkar, an assistant professor in mechanical engineering. "The better we know the other person the better we get at understanding the psychological state of that person. So the prime motivation of our research is to determine whether a robot can sense the psychological state of a human person. Sooner or later, robots will be everywhere. As they become increasingly common, they will need to interact with humans in a more natural fashion."' In the initial research, apparently the human participants need to be wired up with micro sensors of various kinds so that the robot can have appropriate inputs. It is interesting to note that people don't require that.? I can't tell from this article whether the sensors are needed for the research work or will be required of people who have such robots tending to them. There is a lot to question here.? In any case, I think the subtleties will be lost and this could become the latest version of the voice-analysis stress detector that were sold for addition to peoples telephones.? I wonder why I haven't seen much of that anymore?? It is either so prevalent that it is unremarkable, or it simply petered out.? I am not quite sure how to find out. While taking your job and that of aspiring workers in developing countries ...INDUSTRYWEEK ARTICLES -- The Robot Evolution? Interviewing MIT's Rodney A. Brooks, author of Flesh and Machines: How Robots will Change Us, Pantheon Books (2002).It's amazing how this abstract and the one above appeared in the same ACM News Service e-mail!? Someone must be having a lot of fun.? This article surfaces the following predictions: 1. In five years, the boundary between fantasy and reality around robots will be breached in ways as unimaginable as the daily use of the WWW was 10 years ago. 2. `in principle there is no reason why it should not be possible to build "a machine from silicon and steel that has both genuine emotions and consciousness," given both the fact that humans have emotions and his belief that humans are machines. What may be missing are the mathematical techniques to make that leap, he surmises.' 3. Robots will be used to displace labor, and this will impact developing countries. It is about reducing costs. 'Brooks points out that many firms rely on low-cost manufacturing in underdeveloped countries. Those low-cost manufacturing locations keep changing as the introduction of industry slowly raises the standard of living. "We might eventually run out of places to 'exploit,'" he says, which will give rise to calls for new low-cost solutions. (No insult to manufacturers is intended by the term 'exploit,' says Brooks, who notes that his own company manufactures in China to take advantage of its lower costs.)' Now there's something to make everybody happy about globalization, yes? So, will it be "Our robots work cheaper than your robots?" 4. The breakthrough needed in computer vision is not at hand. 5. Low-cost dexterous manipulation is not in the 10 year window, and may be 30-40 years away.
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