January 2012
2 posts
Data Sustainability and Preservation
Research data preservation and interoperation are key to the future: http://bit.ly/vZt30n
Childlike Wonder
Thoughts on the scientist in all of us, inspired by children: http://www.hpcdan.org/reeds_ruminations/2011/12/science-its-about-the-wide-eyed-wonder.html
March 2010
1 post
Presentations and Memes
Thoughts on the joys and horrors of public speaking.
January 2010
1 post
Post-WIMP Interfaces
Some thoughts on lifting intellectual iron and creating new, anticipatory natural user interfaces (NUIs)
December 2009
2 posts
The Ghosts of Holiday Shopping: Past, Present and... →
A few thoughts on holiday shopping
4 tags
Technology Strategy and Policy
A bit of professional (personal) news.
November 2009
2 posts
Reflections on SC09
Another supercomputing conference has come and gone, with some interesting highlights.
HPC and Eventual Consistency
I conjecture there are HPC reliability lessons to be learned from cloud services.
October 2009
2 posts
Ten Is Big Enough
What factor makes a difference in technology adoption? It’s not two, but it is ten.
Computer Architecture: Holistic Design
In an era of hyper-specialization, it’s worth remembering the broader definition of architect.
September 2009
4 posts
Gadget Explosion and Smart Grids
How many electronic devices do you own? How much power do they consume?
Personal Reflections on 9/11
I happened to be on Capitol Hill that day. It was interesting, shall we say.
The World Is Small
Much has changed regarding how we collaborate across time and space.
Feeling Technologically Lucky
A few lessons from ILLIAC IV on how to choose risk wisely.
August 2009
3 posts
Really Broadband Networking
Multistrand optical cables can transmit multiple terabits/second. How might we use this bandwidth for workload geo-distribution?
Research Culture
How do we identify impact and innovation? This question is as old as research, but one very relevant to the nature of computing. It’s impact, not artfacts.
Data Center Flavors
Data center efficiency is (bad pun coming) a hot topic. Here are a few thoughts on the similarities and differences between cloud and HPC data centers.
July 2009
5 posts
Bridging Cultures for Collaboration
Computing has broad applications across diverse disciplines, but culture melding is not always our strong suit.
Exascale Data, Not Just FLOPS
High-performance computing (HPC) need not be synonymous with floating point operations er second (FLOPS). We need the exabyte storage systems with high-bandwidth, low latency access.
A test of ping.fm
Lessons from Apollo
It’s the 40th anniversary of the Apollo 11 lunar landing (July 20, 1969). I’ve posted a few thoughts on the lessons to be learned from the experience.
Green HPC
A few ramblings on green computing at scale.
June 2009
2 posts
HPC Rankings
I posted a few comments on the fallacy of total orders (rankings) for complex, multivariate phenomena, related specifically to ranking supercomputing systems.
A Small Fortune
I posted a few musings on some truisms related to the HPC business on both HPCDan and the CACM blog.
Commodity Interconnects
Like the Cheshire Cat in Alice’s Adventures In Wonderland, it seems increasingly clear that in the high-performance, low latency interconnection network space, we will be left with nothing but the smile. Simply put, the last remaining non-commodity component of HPC clusters – the high-performance interconnect – is in grave danger, due to the global economic downturn and the price-performance...
May 2009
4 posts
NITRD Reauthorization (H.R. 2020)
I have spoken and written repeatedly about the state of computing research in the United States, the importance of long-term, strategic investment and the critical need for strategic, interagency planning. Today, the U.S. House of Representatives passed H.R. 2020, the Networking and Information Technology Research and Development Act of 2009, which embodies many of those recommendations. ...
Web Services vs. HPC
Our abstractions have evolved from TCP/IP to rich services in the web world but not in the HPC world. Why?
http://cacm.acm.org/blogs/blog-cacm/25872-high-performance-computing-whered-the-abstractions-go/fulltext
Approximating Truth
We want to believe that the results of large-scale computational science calculations are “correct” even though all our experience suggests the answers are approximations.
http://www.hpcdan.org/reeds_ruminations/2009/05/on-getting-the-right-answer.html
April 2009
4 posts
Seymour Cray and Sidney Fernbach Awards
Nominations are solicited for outstanding contributions to architecture and applications. Details at http://www.hpcdan.org/reeds_ruminations/2009/04/cray-and-fernbach-awards.html
Can I Get A Little Surface Area, Please?
A few reflections on escaping from flatland (aka DDR memory) in favor of chip stacking.
http://www.hpcdan.org/reeds_ruminations/2009/04/escaping-from-flatland.html
Exascale: Learning From the Past
Fifteen years ago, we started thinking seriously about petascale systems. Today, we are comemplating exascale systems. What does the past teach us?
http://www.hpcdan.org/reeds_ruminations/
PhDComics: Funny But True
If you have a PhD, you know what it’s like
http://www.hpcdan.org/reeds_ruminations/2009/04/doctoral-comedy-which-way-is-the-door.html
March 2009
3 posts
Computing That Changed The World
Well, that title may have been just a wee bit over the top, but there’s no doubt computing has had a huge impact on society, and the day was very interesting. We did a “computing’s greatest hits” summary for agency leads and Congress (members and staff) today. Great fun! Details at http://www.cra.org/ccc/locsymposium.php
Interconnected networks
I continue to be amazed at the interlinking of social networks. A single post can ripple across many, many networks.
Reed's Ruminations →
Dan’s musings on the nature of technology, high-performance computing, science policy and other random thoughts.