Intel - AMD Bhai Bhai

As any computer buyer, I used to get into the mud of confusion when I have to make a selection between Intel and AMD processors. Both people are excellent in drawing graphs, counting benchmarks and chairmarks and writing long stories about their chip. Both are coming out with many core chips. Both are having their PhD in interpreting "Hz, MHz and GHz" in the way they like. Both are claiming as they are cutting the operational costs by lowering the power consumption. Both are talking about the global warming and environmental hazards caused by the heat emitted by computer processors. On top of all these, they are doing market speeches about multi threading, hyper threading, execute disable bits, parallel processing, sequencing, access protection...... innocent buyer is thrashed out!

I strongly started thinking that there must be an end for this war. Usually my solutions are very simple. Same is in this case too. Accept that both processors are good on what they are. Buy each piece of both the processors and integrate them into a single mother board. We are done!

There are few people in the world who are capable of thinking out of the box that can come out with innovative products. I found on such product which is a motherboard with support for both Intel and AMD processors. You may check it here. This is a motherboard which can accommodate either Intel or AMD processor. Customer got the flexibility to choose or switch on a later time.

Aaahh... it is already there in the market! Then why this crazy guy is speaking as if it is his invention? - The question.

As I used to say, even though these people are thinking "out of the box" and creating the innovative product, they will not get out of the box, fly till moon and then think from there! I am there to think from the moon!

If you look at above motherboard, it is clear that it can have only one CPU - either an Intel or AMD. But the motherboard I am going to build is having the capability to accommodate and operate both processors at the same time. The minimal version will look like a dual processor computer which will have one Intel and one AMD processor.

Both the processor will share the resources as in the case of any dual processor architecture. Resources mean the memory, hard disk, bus, daughter peripherals such as display, sound etc etc. So simple!

Now look at the software part. It can be a new operating system itself or it could be an "Intel AMD Bhai Bhai Driver" which does the trick. It should be capable to work based on a list of applications with both Intel and AMD performance indices. For every application there will be three basic processor modes defined:

Intel

AMD

Auto

If the application is in Intel mode, whenever the user opens the application, it will be executed on the Intel processor. Similarly, an application in AMD mode will be always executed on AMD processor. The key is the performance. We have noticed the performance reviews of software - for example MS Office is faster on an AMD PC and at the same time Adobe Photoshop is faster on Intel. In such scenario, we will map Office to AMD mode and Photoshop to Intel mode. This will give us the optimum performance.

And the third mode - the Auto mode - will choose either one of the processor for the selected application based on various parameters. Parameters may include the current processor utilization. All non-classified software or those software where performance is not a deal can go for this mode. Notepad is an example.

If we could achieve this, it will be wonderful. As the suggestions in my previous posts, this may not help in improving the GDP, but it can eliminate the confusion on selecting processor as well as it can bring the best in the desktop. Also, this is a nice idea for any company who is trying to come up in the market with an innovative product. Also the risk in introducing this new product is very minimum as compared to any other new innovations.

This time, let me deviate from the usual question - "Can I see a third hardware giant in the industry that fly on the top of other two?"

Earth, Rotation and Transportation

I happened to start reading about "Teleportation" today. That too from the web site of computer giant Mr.IBM! Whaaat? How come IBM happened to be concerned about Teleportation? Uh! Even I couldn't understand! They are talking some big big things like quantum computing all and I got pissed off! If you are interested, check it here.

Anyway for those are new to the word "Teleportation", here it is (as from IBM site) "Teleportation is the name given by science fiction writers to the feat of making an object or person disintegrate in one place while a perfect replica appears somewhere else."

As usual, time to start the questions! Why I am talking about teleportation today? There must be a reason.

I am not going to claim that I can do teleportation. But, as usual, I could see that there is something excellent available under our nose, which is not discovered by our scientist community. Yes, when it is so close to you, it is very difficult to see that!

The claim is very simple - I can do "Transportation" from anywhere to anywhere in the earth with near zero cost! Yes, anywhere to anywhere with near zero cost! Oh, there is a small correction, it is possible only in east-west direction, not in north-south direction. Still sounds great - right?

How? How it is possible? The theory is very simple - you instead of going to the place where you want to be, let the place come to you! All what we need is a facility to raise yourself few meters up from the earth's surface, and a place where you can hold tightly keep yourself in the same place. For example, if you could hang yourself on a rope coming from some other planet, that will do!

Crazy? Relax and read this: All of us know that the earth is always rotating or spinning. To be more precious, according to Nasa, the speed of earth's rotation is approximately 1000 miles per hour. Refer here.

As we are standing on earth, we are also rotating along with earth. This happens without our knowledge or concern. Except few like me, most are unaware of this fact. However, keeping this in mind, think, what will happen if we release ourselves from earth and stand detached? Simple, the earth will keep traveling, but you will not. And if you stand detached from earth's surface for an hour and then you keep your foot down after an hour?? By that time, earth must have traveled 1000 miles and you will not! Your foot will land on a place 1000 miles away from the place where you were before! Putting in very simple language, in one hour, you have reached a place which is 1000 miles away!

Lost? But I am not! With this simple technique, you can move from city to city without traveling an inch! As I mentioned above, the city is traveling the whole distance coming to you! Just align yourself in north-south direction (this is in your own expense) so that you are parallel to the destination, clap your hands, close your eyes, catch the rope, release legs from earth.. that's all! No transportation cost, no fear of falling into holes in the road, no vehicle banth, no need of petrol, no fuel surcharge, no boarding pass, no airport usage fee, no toilet fee..... all at the same speed of an international flight!

The potential of this technique is enormous. Not just for passenger commutation, it can use extensively for cargo movement. We can reduce the cost of living as there is near zero transportation cost. Also this encourages the free trade movements in the globe!

The final question used to be from me - this time also no change. Let me ask - "Don't you agree???"

Electricity from National Highway

This time it is physics – not that Einstein level physics, but just tenth standard physics. An old technology of generating electricity using a magnet and coil, but every engineer and scientist around me has missed a major opportunity to use it in a very practical and wide spread way!

The idea is very simple. We are going to build a big, long toroidal coil tunnel along with the major roads where there are considerable amount of traffic. The road will be passing through the center of this tunnel. The tunnel will be made of insulated copper winding. Refer the figure.

Hei, what are you going to do with this? Answer: We are going to frame a new rule and put it under 9th Schedule of the constitution (Because we don't want the faith of helmet rule, speed limiter rule, involvement of court, petition, law....etc to our new rule). The rule states that, every vehicle must be fixed with a fixed magnet which weighs in proportional to the weight of the vehicle (small vehicles will carry small magnet, big vehicles will carry big magnet). The magnet must be aligned in such a way that, when the vehicle moves through the road made of the coil tunnel, a certain amount of electricity must be inducted on the coil.

Now start using the brain! When a vehicle carrying a magnet moves inside a coil, what will happen? We will get electricity in the coil! And when every vehicle in a busy road does the same, what will happen? We will get lot of electricity!

As the left side of my brain says, we need one way roads with two separate coils for each direction to avoid the cancellation effect due to the traffic in both directions (Sounds confusing? Read it again with slow speed).

All our issues related to power must be solved now! With no worries of getting rain! With no worries of dam collapses! With no worries of petroleum supply! With no worries of nuclear radiation! With no worries of naphtha prices! With no worries of environmental issues! A full stop for load shedding and power cuts!

I am sure this will give a boost to industry and thus economy. If my calculations are correct, GDP should grow by another 20 percent.

Don't you agree with me?

Flying Data Centers

Will the Datacenters fly? Or can it Swim? You may think that this guy is crazy to speak such stupid funny things!

But the answer is, yes - I mean a big YES! Datacenters can fly just like any other cargo with the help of an existing technology - it is nothing but AToM - Any Transport over MPLS - introduced by the internetworking big brother Mr. Cisco Systems. I am sitting and wondering, keeping such a wonderful technology in hand, none of the computer scientists has bothered to introduce a flying datacenter! Not even the Cisco engineers! Therefore I am forced to do research and publish this paper on flying and floating datacenters!

Okie, now who is this atom? How this silly brainless guy will make a huge datacenter with terabits of data to fly? What will happen if it falls down during its fly? Questions, Questions and Questions everywhere! People around me started to think just now!

Atom is a technology which will help in extending a layer 2 (data link) network from anywhere to anywhere in the world. Or, in Cisco's own language "It enables Service Providers to supply connectivity between customer sites with existing data link layer (Layer 2) networks via a single, integrated, packet-based network infrastructure: a Cisco MPLS network" - taken from here .

How this will help the datacenter to fly? Simple, design and construct the datacenter in a big container suitable for airlifting. Remember to fix at least four numbers of empty tires horizontally in the bottom to absorb the shock and vibration caused by normal operation. You may consult local generator service shop for getting this done - they are the masters in this art.

Now, keep our Mr. Atom router in this datacenter and keep the CAT wire or fiber (layer two - don't even utter the word IP address) patched outside the datacenter. Now, connect the business to this jack which is available outside the datacenter - all should be up and running!

The questions are never ending! Now only the most important question is out - what i will do with this or why I have to do such a comedy of setting up a datacenter in a container and keeping atoms and molecules inside that?

Valid question! If we open our eyes and look at any business where IT is most critical, there the cash is burning to answer "what if there is a disaster?". Setting up backups, hot sites, cold sites, redundant links, COBs, replication, latency, delay..........

All these are the efforts of maintaining a backup or alternate site ready and updated. If we could make the datacenter fly, we can stop all these funny activities. Just maintain just one datacenter, - this helps in well maintaining and well focusing on the single datacenter. If we smell a small rain or light wind, before the flood and typhoon comes, clap the hands, call the helicopter, put a rope, plug the datacenter, lift it up and vanish to the next city!

In the next city, another patch cable is waiting to get plugged into the socket outside the container. Let them hug each other! That is it! No need to swing, no IP change, no service restart, no confusion, no panic.. all the magic of AToM! Downtime is just few minutes....and the savings? no additional hardware, no CoB testing, no backup testing....no unexpected failures...

The same concept can be used to make datacenter swim by applying slight modifications.

Do you agree with me now?

Fiber connectivity to moon

It is nice to see that the SRE experiment was a success to India's space research arena. Also, read that this is a major milestone to complete the manned mission - Chandrayaan - to moon.

I believe that we always used to think different and I strongly believe that such thoughts will make us different. Here is a thought which mooted in my mind when going through the Chandrayaan story.

This is a very simple and humble thought - why can't we attach a Cisco GSR and a long optic fiber cable to the end of the rocket and become the first nation having inter-planet fiber connectivity? If necessary, we can embed a CCNP/CCIE person also to the end of the rocket - we have plenty here, I am sure that it will not going to cost much!

Only thing we need to ensure is that there must be enough cable length to cover the distance between moon and earth. Also, experienced scientists like me may raise concern about the heat and fire emitted from the bottom of the rocket may damage the cable during the launch.

Here comes the importance of India's latest achievement - SRE or Space Capsule Recovery Experiment. We have to fold the fiber inside the satellite and launch it to moon. Then tie it somehow in moon (we may tie to a rock or tree) and then clap the hands and call the satellite back to earth. The satellite will unwind the fiber and finally fall on Bay of Bengal. Well, with the help of some fishermen, either we can drag the cable to any costal city or we can patch it with any international fiber (trans Atlantic??) running under the Bay of Bengal.

The conclusion is that this will help us to establish a milestone by owning a TB/s connectivity to moon. Considering the fact that moon is going to be a human colony shortly, there will be a high demand for bandwidth to moon for triple service (Voice/Data/Video). This infrastructure should boost the domestic information flow as well as will be a money maker as we can lend the dark fibers to countries such as US/UK/Japan.