Comments on: Chasing The Number

By: Jack

Jack — Thu, 28 Feb 2013 23:23:03 +0000

I have the first Linux magazine volume 1 number 1 would anyone be interested in buying it?

By: frank1985

frank1985 — Mon, 03 Oct 2011 05:04:07 +0000

I’m glad I’m not the only one who noticed – I was going to comment myself.

Errors aside, I think this is an issue that plagues a lot of industries, not just HPC – the fact that benchmarks that a lot of people rely on use a highly limited number of metrics to determine rank. Sure, if a computer can run at 10 TFLOPS, that’s super – what if the I/O isn’t up to the task and it craters at 1.5? Millions of dollars down the drain because you didn’t look at the big picture. A 1000HP car that goes like a fish is no good if it steers like a cow. A hybrid car can shoot itself in the foot if it chooses a battery that causes as much pollution in its production as a 1970 Dodge V8. A 1000″ Plasma that maxes out at 1280×768 – what’s the point?

I know I’m going for some pretty extreme examples here, but the point is that if you only look at a limited number of metrics and don’t look at the big picture, it can really bite you in the backside when push comes to shove.

By: vidivici

vidivici — Mon, 25 Apr 2011 20:28:22 +0000

I have never written anything novel, interesting or useful. However my spelling, grammar and punctuation are usually perfect. My colleague, on the other hand, cannot write a single sentence correctly in any language. His ideas, now patented, earn his employer over one million pounds a year in license fees, which is why he is the professor and I am not.

By: buggsy2

buggsy2 — Mon, 25 Apr 2011 17:09:06 +0000

It’s not too much to ask. I enjoy the content of these pieces but the numerous spelling and grammar errors, which are in every piece, detract from that comment. Use a copy editor!!

By: Mike Robinson

Mike Robinson — Mon, 25 Apr 2011 13:55:01 +0000

The article is fine, but the writing standards seem to be dropping. I agree with xembly above that reading poorly crafted prose detracts from the merit of the article. The word ‘maybe’ in the opening paragraph has a different meaning from the phrase ‘may be’ and is not interchangeable with it.

Grammatical mistakes of this nature are not ‘part of the long history of language’, as asserted by kalloyd, who compounds the matter by introducing a grammatical error of his own: using “it’s” when he clearly meant “its”.

By: kalloyd

kalloyd — Mon, 25 Apr 2011 13:36:11 +0000

“The number” is merely a coarse indicator. What it means (and what it doesn’t) and how it is (mis)interpreted by folks is the problem – especially to those testosterone driven, overly competitive types.

As far as the linguistic mistakes, they are part of the long history of language. For example, “by and large” is a nautical term for sailing with and against the wind. It came from: “Thus you see the ship handled in fair weather and foul, by and learge.” – which has it’s own issues.

By: g s

g s — Mon, 25 Apr 2011 12:28:15 +0000

Top500 is like Formula 1 – it may not have much real bearing on the cars we drive to work, but it pushes some of the boundaries of the technology, and it provides much media exposure. Media, and thus politicians and taxpayers are generally more likely to see and be impressed by a good Top500 result than by a dozen scientific papers resulting from the same machine’s “normal” work. That in turn helps in the race to get money allocated to science generally.

By the way, is it too much to ask a “Senior Editor” not to make 3 elementary language mistakes in one short paragraph? The plural of “analyst” is “analysts”, no apostrophe; the phrase is “by and large”, no “u”, and “lose” has one “o”.