Re: 1teraflops cell processor possible?

On Sat, 29 Nov 2003 20:40:10 -0600, "del cecchi" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
wrote:

>
>"Robert Myers" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote in message
>news:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
>> On Sat, 29 Nov 2003 17:50:32 -0600, "del cecchi" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
>> wrote:
>>
>> >
>> >"Robert Myers" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote in message
>> >news:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
>>
>>
>> <snip>
>> >>
>> >> There are some things about infectious diseases we already know:
>> >>
>> >> 1.  The infrastructure of vast portions of an entire continent,
>> >> Africa, is on the verge of collapse on a scale that will make any
>> >> other modern human catastophe pale by comparison because of HIV.
>The
>> >> glowing economic future of China may not ever materialize because
>of
>> >> HIV.
>> >
>> >One could point out that HIV can be controlled by behaviour
>> >modifications or draconian societal measures more easily than by
>> >scientific miracles.
>> >
>>
>> Would you want to be a part of such a society?  Would you want to be
>> part of a society that tried to impose such measures on other
>> societies?
>>
>I guess you don't recall how smallpox and other diseases were handled in
>the good old USA before the advent of vaccines for them.  People were
>quarantined until they were no longer infectious.  I know this is non PC
>and off topic, but it is you predicting the collapse of society.  That
>would be worse, eh?  So what is it I'm chosing from, some folks' rights
>violated vrs society collapse?
>
HIV, at least in its current form, is not a threat to society in
developed countries.  Smallpox was a disease with obvious symptoms
that ran its course in a very short time.  The only way to identify
otherwise apparently healthy carriers of HIV is through a blood test.
No country that I can think of, with the possible exception of China,
has the means or the will to carry through the kind of program of
identification and segregation of carriers that would even make a dent
in the epidemic.

As to my predicting the collapse of society, let's please be careful.
In certain parts of sub-Saharan Africa, it has already happened.
Forty million infected worldwide is a big number, but that's out of
six billion human beings, or 2/3 of one percent of the human race.  It
is the maldistribution of those infection rates that raises the
possibility of societal calamity.  It is easy to defend adult
infection rates of 25% in some countries in Africa, and I have heard
infection rates claimed as high as 40% among adults aged 15-49.

>> >>
>> >> 2. Infectious diseases arise as if out of nowhere and because of
>> >> modern transportation girdle the globe in a matter of days.  It is
>> >> astonishing that HIV hasn't transformed itself into something more
>> >> durable, virulent and deadly because of the frequency with which it
>> >> mutates and reproduces itself.  It seems as if the SARS epidemic
>was
>> >> an exceedingly close call.
>> >
>> >Maybe we need more isolationism rather than computers built out of
>> >unobtainium.
>> >
>>
>> If such a thing comes to pass, it will be because we are already on
>> the brink of a "Blade Runner" future.  Do you want to let things go
>> that far?
>Blade runner was not society protecting from external disease threats.
>Totally different situation.
>Nice try, however.  How do You Think the western societies will react
>after the first epidemic that kills a million or ten million people in a
>short period of time?
>
It might make a good made-for-TV movie.  In fact, I'm kind of
surprised that no one has.  If it is not too late (as it might be if
smallpox *were* suddenly introduced into the population), I agree that
otherwise unthinkable restrictions on civil liberties would be the
likely result and that developed countries would be likely to survive
such an onslaught, although possibly with a massive loss of life.

>This concludes my contributions to this particular subthread.  It's
>interesting but sort of off topic.
>

When the Cray-I came out, people started talking crazy, and I happened
to be in the midst of two flavors of that craziness: one was about
what was possible in terms of CFD, the other was about what was
possible in terms of computer-generated imagery.  I was, in fact,
involved in both, and there is a movie out there that has some of my
fluid mechanics in it.  As overblown as the claims as to what was
possible seemed to be at the time (and they were wildly overblown with
a mere Cray-1 at anyone's disposal), all but the most extravagant
claims have largely been met.  Things that I thought were just plain
nutty to predict have come to pass.

I'm trying to get a different kind of crazy talk started, in the hope
that it, too, might come to pass.

RM