LUV and GPUs, Wikileaks and Organised Pathology, Cartoons and Myths

[tcpip]

Saturday spent some time down in docklands with many other geeks and nerds for the annual Linux Users of Victoria Penguin Picnic. Chris Samuel brought along a pétanque set which was quite fun. On a related topic (and following my assignment for Innovation Management) I've made a few brief remarks concerning the future of the GPGPU. Also, after three years in development, Drupal 7 has been released. Which means if you have any Drupal 5 sites around there's no more security patches in development.

Gave the address at the Unitarian Church on Sunday on Wikileaks: The Free and Responsible Search for Truth, making comparisons with an atrocity exhibition of twentieth century lies and the idea that truth itself is the highest loyalty above sectional and partisan interests. Was approached by some people afterwards who wanted to discuss "the conspiracy" of the suppression of creationism, weather control and the like. The address follows a 'blog on the recent PEW survey which showed that atheists are usually better informed with religious doctrine that church-goers. The advantage, in my option, is that conservative organised religion (ignorant, dangerous and organised) has a community - a power which liberal-religious people and their atheist allies often overlook.

Played Toon on the weekend and everyone quite enjoyed the spirit of the game, immediately grasping the beauty that is cartoon physics. Have started a "Young Gods" story, where the protagonists are polytheist era demigods seeking to overcome cultural biases in favour of universals. First scenario will explore the possibility of Atenism. Neglected to mention how much I enjoyed Michael B's birthday drinks in last post; especially his fine collection of gamer friends.

Comments

[mellotron_breakfast]

Do you suppose that Atenism had an influence on historical Moses?

Also, yes, the powerful part of organized religion is the organized part, it seems.

[tcpip]

Do you suppose that Atenism had an influence on historical Moses?

Oh nice. I'll have to think seriously about that angle...

Also, yes, the powerful part of organized religion is the organized part, it seems.

*nods* That is why I despair at times when friends, who have an interest in such things, express opinions that "organised religion" is to blame. I rather feel that the lack of involvement is part of the problem.

re:GPUs

[loic.livejournal.com]

Well, FWIW, I was messing around implementing mandelbrot set rendering in my GPU and discovered it only does single precision floating point - 32bit on Nvidia, 24bit on ATI. We've got a ways to go before our GPUs are ready for general purpose computation.

I know that the OpenCL language supports double precision mathematics, but I don't know if that's efficiently implemented for consumer GPUs.

Re: GPUs

[tcpip.livejournal.com]

The lack of software development is driving me nuts :)

In 2008-09 we had a team of students test GPUs for various scientific applications, including NAMD, MATLAB, HOOMD, AutoDock, and GROMACS. In each of the applications tested, an acceleration improvement was noted ranging from 3.7x (MATLAB), to 35x HOOMD.

These improvements were limited however to those particular functions that had been written for GPUs within each application.

As you say, we've got ways to go...

[castleclear.livejournal.com]

Dear Lev aka TCPip, I've been wanting to reply post to this for some days now, but am only now finding the time. Hooray for the geeks and nerds! *Raises a glass to toast you and them* (though mine will hold an herbal "tea" or infusion.)

I very much enjoyed reading your address as posted via the link. I'm glad that even living on the other side of the planet as I do I was able to read this, since attending services in person would be impossible for me.

Toon sounds delightful! I enjoyed the electronic article on Atenism - it had been a long while since last I read about this.

Happy Happies to you & yours,
John

[tcpip.livejournal.com]

Thanks John... The address was quite a success, a large turnout, just a couple of people less than the anniversary service, and a lot of new faces. Several regulars said that it was the best address I had given, and I suppose they might be right...

What is important however is that Wikileaks survives and expands. Whilst the spooks with a conscience will drip, drip, drip, the ideological battle must be centred around the principle that information contained in any social organisations is information that is owned by the public at large.

[castleclear.livejournal.com]

LOL, I'm sure what's meant by " ...the spooks with a conscience will drip, drip, drip... " The noun "spooks" here in the United States is most often applied to the CIA (U.S. Central Intelligence Agency, our counterpart to the former Soviet Union's KGB or Britain's MI-6, I believe), occasionally to members of the Ku Klux Klan, and otherwise the usual meaning of ghost or spirit without a body. Oh, and it was applied variously by political commentators and humorists to our former Vice President, Dick Cheney, former CEO of one of the for-profit industries who (the industries) financially benefitted from U.S. war(s) abroad. (Sarcastic) I sure am glad there was no conflict of interest there!

[castleclear.livejournal.com]

rats! I left out a key word again! That was to read: I'm NOT sure....
Apologies.

[tcpip.livejournal.com]

I'm referring to members of various intelligence agencies and associated professions (e.g,. US military, like Bradley Manning). In the context of Wikileaks it can refer to any individual in any organisation that has access to information which that body considers classified.

[castleclear.livejournal.com]

Thank you for clarifying. I've been following the Bradley Manning story as best I've been able on DemocracyNow.org - though I confess, I'm a weak soul and often not up to the task of keeping myself informed about the dreadful things reported by the remaining news agencies in whom I still have some confidence and hope for journalistic integrity.