Something POSITIVE for a change...

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All this BO-bashing and associated racism has got my head boiling.


SO....


Do you know what the world's fastest computer is?

From howstuffworks.com:

To put things in perspective, let's start with the computer sitting on your desk -- the computer you use on a day-to-day basis to browse the Internet, handle spreadsheets, create documents, etc. Most people have something like a Pentium computer running Windows, or a Macintosh. A computer like this can execute approximately 100 million instructions per second. Your particular machine might be twice that fast or half that fast, but that's the ballpark.

The fastest computer in the world is much faster than that, and it is sitting right on top of your shoulders! The human brain is an amazing computing device and the fastest processor available right now. Let me give you an example:

Your desktop computer is just starting to get to the point where it can "understand" speech and take dictation, translating spoken words into written words. It can only understand one speaker, and that speaker has to train it for about 20 minutes, and the dictation software will still make a lot of mistakes. So 100 million instructions per second can barely handle dictation.

Your brain, on the other hand, can understand any number of speakers. It needs no training and will make zero mistakes. It may even be able to understand multiple languages! And the speech processing portion of your brain is just one small part of the whole package -- your brain can also process complex visual images, control your entire body, understand conceptual problems and create new ideas. Your brain is made up of about one trillion cells with 100 trillion connections between those cells. We might take a rough estimate and say it is handling 10 quadrillion instructions per second, but it really is hard to say.

In the 2006 TOP500 list, which ranks supercomputers by speed, the top three supercomputers are as follows:

   1. IBM's BlueGene/L - 360 teraflops
   2. IBM's BGW - 115 teraflops
   3. IBM's ASC Purple - 93 teraflops

Another supercomputer called MDGrape-3, built by the Japanese company RIKEN, has a theoretical maximum speed of 1 petaflop (1 guadrillion operations per second), which is three times faster than the BlueGene/L. But MDGrape-3 can't run the official ranking software of the TOP500 list, so BlueGene/L remains at the top of the list at 360 trillion operations per second, which is pretty fast...but it's still not as fast as your brain.

Correction: They just made a computer that is over ten times faster than IBM's BlueGene.  It's called RoadRunner, and it just finished construction.

From Wikipedia:
Roadrunner is a supercomputer at the Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico, USA. Currently the world's fastest supercomputer, the US$133 million Roadrunner is designed for a performance level of 1.026 petaflops peak, which it reached on May 25, 2008,[1][2][3] and to be the world's first TOP500 Linpack sustained 1.0 petaflops system.

IBM built the computer for the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE).[4][5] It is a hybrid design with almost 6,912 AMD Opteron dual core processors and almost 12,960 IBM PowerXCell[6] 8i CPUs in special designed TriBlades connected by Infiniband.

The Roadrunner uses the Red Hat Enterprise Linux operating system and is managed with xCAT distributed computing software. It occupies approximately 12,000 square feet (1,100 m²) and became operational in 2008.

DOE plans to use the computer for simulating how nuclear materials age and whether the aging nuclear weapon arsenal of the United States is safe and reliable. Other uses for the supercomputer include the sciences, financial, automotive and aerospace industries.


Even still.  The human brain is FASTER!  How bout them apples?

[Gunit Hussein Sangh]

You must obviously be talking about liberal brains ... conservative brains just ain't that fast 

[bored]

Its not a logical comparison. Spreadsheets and word documents, etc. are software which, like hardware cannot make its own decisions without being told what decision to make when. Of cource processor speed and resources will speed this process but computers cannot think on their own. In that regard, they will always be inferior to the brain.

On another note, I am a fairly good chess player. I have used and studied some chess software The calculation time used to decide the best move (or close to it) is incredibly faster than any grandmaster can.

The liberal brain thinks must faster because emotion is instantaneous.

[bored]

What? No on found my joke on the end there funny?!

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Its not a logical comparison. Spreadsheets and word documents, etc. are software which, like hardware cannot make its own decisions without being told what decision to make when. Of cource processor speed and resources will speed this process but computers cannot think on their own. In that regard, they will always be inferior to the brain.

On another note, I am a fairly good chess player. I have used and studied some chess software The calculation time used to decide the best move (or close to it) is incredibly faster than any grandmaster can.

The liberal brain thinks must faster because emotion is instantaneous.

I guess I didn't see it, but I'll laugh. Heh heh.

Anyways--the reason computers seem so much "faster" at calculating numbers is because the brain is constantly taking care of background things, and doesn't think naturally in numbers and symbols.  That is why reading is a challenge for some people.

Numbers don't occur naturally in our thinking process.  It is an adaptive skill, which is why most humans cannot calculate numbers very fast--like a computer would.

But the fact that we CAN adapt to that kind of thinking process is, in and of itself, amazing.


Most things that we actively "think" about include images, sounds, and other senses reproduced in the brain.  Interestingly enough, we learn to think with our learned language.  When you have a thought inside your head, you may hear your own voice speaking the thought in the English language.  But this is only a practice trait for our brains to exercise our languages without physically speaking them.  The actual thought that drives the words is actually much deeper than the words themselves, and the words are your brain's best attempt at putting structure to--and making sense of--your thoughts.

The same thing happens when you dream.  Your memory of the dream is not really formed until you try and recall it.  The dream itself is just random nerves firing deep from within your brain stem.  When you "recall" your dream, your brain converts the randomness into pictures, sounds and possibly even "extra" senses you can understand.  This is why dreams are so vivid and random--and also why they don't have any certain "time" to them.

We may never be able to understand the full mystery and potential of our brains.

[bored]

Your points are all valid. I haven't thought if it that way.

Looking at my post, it looks like I am making both arguments. But basically I meant to say that computers are about as stupid as they come. They are superior in the sense that they can calculate algorithms but that is the extent of it. Your explanation needs no further input. Simply put, they are as dumb as a rock.

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Correct.

Computers have no judgment.  Personally, I think we should keep it that way.

[bored]

It will be that way unless some completely new technology comes out. Which I doubt.

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Did you also know that DNA are just little computers?  The DNA strand is an set of instructions and RNA travel up and down it, copying and replicating.  Our whole bodies are made up of tiny biological, chemical computers.  It's fascinating.

[bored]

Thats an interesting point of view. I haven't heard that. Maybe we were put here by aliens!

[trex]

Its not a logical comparison. Spreadsheets and word documents, etc. are software which, like hardware cannot make its own decisions without being told what decision to make when. Of cource processor speed and resources will speed this process but computers cannot think on their own. In that regard, they will always be inferior to the brain.

On another note, I am a fairly good chess player. I have used and studied some chess software The calculation time used to decide the best move (or close to it) is incredibly faster than any grandmaster can.

The liberal brain thinks must faster because emotion is instantaneous.

The liberal thinks faster because their harddrives are empty.

[bored]

And the 128M stick of RAM. That's why they often jump from topic to topic without warning.

[trex]

And the 128M stick of RAM. That's why they often jump from topic to topic without warning.

Its mainly that liberals can only focus on one thing at a time or they get dizzy.

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Mmkay.  This thread is dead to me.  Failed experiment.

Thanks anyways guys.

[bored]

We're just having a little fun.