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Austrailians are cool.

Smart folk. They picked the simplest, straightest line from need to solution.

I wonder what kind of resolution will be visiable. Will all aircraft and ships at sea be easily tracked? This has the potential for very invasive monitoring.

Australia has the most beautiful women in the world. Painfully, shockingly beautiful. And now they are using the most beautiful, most powerful computing solutions as well.

God, I must move there someday soon.

Yeh-hehssssss. I too love Australian women. They make most American babes seem like Janeane Garofalo. Or Britney Spears without makeup. Hey, I keed the zit-covered!

No, seriously, I would move to Australia myself except for the poisonous frogs that can kill you in 3 seconds and the deadly spiders and the fact that the sharks and 'gators practically run the country. No really, I once met a dingo that stunk so bad I nearly passed out and lost my flesh to him. It reminded me of de time I partied with Artie Lange. He smelled so bad I could have pooped on him and he wouldn't have noticed!

Memo to Lange: That thing with the faucet above your head -- it's not just for sobering up. Yesssss.

Some of us get lucky and are married to an Aussie chicky-babe.
:D

ps Triumph: spiders and snakes aren't really that much of an issue. They only hurt you if you hurt them. It's the American/Japanese tourists you have to be careful of.

(yes, that's a joke joyce)

How many XServe cluster will now be in the top 25 Super computers next year? I count 5 now

"It's the American/Japanese tourists you have to be careful of."

Uhh, lovey, I daresay we Americans have just been 'punked' . . . or 'bitch-slapped' . . . or whatever it is the kids are calling it these days.

notatotalsucker:
"Some of us get lucky and are married to an Aussie chicky-babe.
:D"

Ohh, I SO wish MDN would let you post a picture . . .

you lucky BASTARD!

I heard that Australia was once a prison.

^ Yes - a prison of LOOVVVVVE!!!

"Some of us get lucky and are married to an Aussie chicky-babe."

What the hell's a "chicky-babe"?

An Australian baby chicken?

This system is not planned to be fully operational until 2007.

This is actually a set of seven separate clusters of 200 Xserves each (assuming Apple gets their act together so that by mid 2006 the Xserves of that time are about twice as fast as they are now -- if not then the individual clusters will require more Xserves). Each cluster processes information from a single sensor on board the satellite. There clearly will be other computers (Macs are quite probable) running the SAN. The SAN will grow at approximate 21 TB a day [over 7.5 PB a year] -- that is NOT a typo.

About Charlie's concern. The resolution of the best sensor is 250 meters per pixel. The best possible inference under the best of conditions is about 16 meter objects (given perfect conditions, LOTS of post processing, and additional information from Low Earth Orbit satellites). You won't see any "Enemy of the State" (movie) type pictures. Resolving sub meter objects (like people) will require optics so large they won't be at geostationary orbits for decades to come.

The nice thing about this system is it will be truly real-time. The sensors take images once per second (or faster). The current weather satellites give images on the average of every 20 minutes (varying from every 6 minutes to every 3+ hours depending on conditions and type of scan). The downlink, processing and delivery to customers is anticipated to take less than 10 seconds.

So you really see the Earth as it really was just 5-10 seconds ago.

One last thing ... the three primary sensors are in 33 bit RGB -- so true color. The current geostationary satellites up there use red and infrared -- no green or blue.

So do they mount the xServes upside down in the racks?

Charlie-
"This has the potential for very invasive monitoring."

Please, there are more dire things to worry about then someone monitoring ship/air traffic.

Just think of all the potential macro environmental capabilities these imaging systems can be used for (tracking population sprawl, deforestation, wildfire & pollution tracking).

Don't worry, the little boats you're using to smuggle in your dope can't be distinguished from all the other little boats.


Jeese

No, seriously, I would move to Australia myself except for the poisonous frogs that can kill you in 3 seconds and the deadly spiders and the fact that the sharks and 'gators practically run the country. No really, I once met a dingo that stunk so bad I nearly passed out and lost my flesh to him. It reminded me of de time I partied with Artie Lange. He smelled so bad I could have pooped on him and he wouldn't have noticed!

Look out for the Drop Bears while your walking around in the Outback as well. They can be pretty dangerous for the unwary.

JFK's Head,
A chicky-babe is a girl/woman. Popularized by guys of southern European extraction on several Aussie TV shows like Acropolis Now. Miss those shows!
Guess it makes me a chicky-babe even though not living in Oz now.

giofoto


Apr 20, 05 - 02:13 pm

I heard that Australia was once a prison.

Correct! The English exported all of their convicts to the far flung colonial outpost that is Australia. It is a history that they are still proud of to this day. Tasmainia was a large "prison island" as well

WinMacGuy,
Drop Bears are pretty rare. You can walk for days in the bush without seeing one.

The article says it will run Tiger but by 2007, we should be running the next big cat from Apple. Perhaps the cow from Redmond will utter it's first fart when this system is online.

Fast forward to 2007: for a mission critical job which OS will you rather have, a mature OS based on Unix or a 1.0b OS based on NT?

Australia started being a penal colony (not a prison) after the English were no longer able to send their offenders to the Americas. It only stopped being a penal colony after they discovered gold and all the prisoners WANTED to there (according to Bill Bryson in 'Down Under')!

I hope this project encourages more of the same and builds a base of Apple 'experts' who will be in great demand as Apple approaches 10% of all new CPUs.

As a scientist, I would be very interested to study this fascinating new species, the Australian Chicky-Babe. Now, how do I find one?

: Sara


Apr 20, 05 - 02:48 pm

WinMacGuy,
Drop Bears are pretty rare. You can walk for days in the bush without seeing one.

True although I have been told that it still pays to be wary of them

The system, once operational, almost certainly will not be running Tiger. It is anticipated that the next OS from Apple will ship no later than January 2007. In all probability the clusters will be running some variant of the OS that ships next after Tiger. The development work will be done under Tiger between now and then.

CEOs (Managing Directors in Aussie) are seldom technologically adept enough to know the transitions necessary, how to build development systems (the program will do development and testing on a small cluster then migrate to a moderate sized cluster to test scaling and such then migrate to the full clusters), and their full implementations. It would not surprise me if the reporter asked if the system would be running Apples soon to be released Tiger OS, and the CEO responded "Maybe" or "Probably".

Yep, and they have some cool stuff too. I spent 4 weeks in Oz in 2001 (US citizen) and was *very* impressed with the general courtesy and politeness.

If you go, *do* try the kangaroo tips. Seriously.

winmacguy, I'd be more worried about cassowaries. But I'm too worried about black widow spiders, scorpions, copperheads and diamondback rattlesnakes here in the US. Every country has its share of dangerous critters; mostly they're dangerous to people unfamiliar with their ways.

(Am I correct that Australia has no venomous snakes (the salt-water crocodiles might make up for that...) - or is it no venomous arachnids? Something like that...)

(Am I correct that Australia has no venomous snakes (the salt-water crocodiles might make up for that...) - or is it no venomous arachnids? Something like that...) Australia has something like 5 of the world's most venomous snakes

If you have the "Jamster" side banner put your curser over it, and make sure your speakers are on.

Holy cow that's annoying...

(Am I correct that Australia has no venomous snakes (the salt-water crocodiles might make up for that...) - or is it no venomous arachnids? Something like that...)

Actually in all honesty its a shorter list if you go for what isn't venemous.

We have the most (or a number of Top Ten) venemous (and deadly):

Jelly Fish
Fish
Snakes
Spiders (arachnids)
Frogs
Sea Snakes
and on and on and on (Great White Sharks, Crocodiles, Large birds, large lizards - just as dangerours, just not venemous)

I think it may be why generally Australians aren't too up them selves (there are excpetions), as nature has its way of putting you in your place, and showing you that no matter how important you think you are, nature can put you six feet under in a matter of minutes.

my 2 cents

Luke

Australian women beautiful? I missed that part 20 years ago when was selling Massey Fergusons down there. Mostly fake blondes with a yen for yanks, much like Orange County, other than the abos, who of course all look like W.C. Fields. I settled for a west indian....or was it the other way around.......I betta off boss.

Nice of the ozzies to back us up in Iraq I must say, however. No matter what has happened since, we were originally expatriates who moved to lush lands populated by natives who couldn't fight much. That is the sort of bond that cannot be broken.

Seriously, thanks Aussies, and bollucks, Spain. And good "O" Brits, for soon landsliding Blair to four more years, or whatever it is over there.

There are more people who know right from wrong every day. Witness the death of Marla Ruzicka. Finally no one, even Marla's team, can deny that the "insurgents" are jerks. And looooosers.

Sara - "A chicky-babe is a girl/woman. Popularized by guys of southern European extraction on several Aussie TV shows like Acropolis Now."

Thanks. I mean, I thought so, but I'd never heard those two words put together in that way.

Joe McConnell: I stand by my statement about Australian women. On average, I think they tend to be more attractive than almost any others. I don't think it's any surprise that the Aussie men (and women) on this board are agreeing with me, but I also bet they're being honest.

But FWIW, the women of Iceland were pretty damn beautiful too, when I visited there. So, there you have it: Australia and Iceland.

RRRROOWWWWRRRR!!!

You know, I once blew an Australian guy and he didn't even let me snowball. I just had to swallow.

Jobs-ian,

I've heard Aussie women are nice. But I do believe the most beautiful women on the third rock from the sun are women from Brazil! I was there for three weeks last year, and all I can say is the food was amazing, but the women were hot!

I blame it on Rio.

I think it may be why generally Australians aren't too up them selves (there are excpetions)
Those being Rugby, League and cricket just to name a few!

My vote is for Danish/Swedish/Norwegian woman.... without a doubt in my mind. Blonde hair, deep blue eyes, and nice big natural ? ... ummm.. well, I'll just leave it as big and natural.

I stand corrected. Perhaps it was New Zealand I was thinking of that was totally lacking in venomous snakes.