Re: AMD planning 45nm 12-Core 'Istanbul' Processor ?

On a sunny day (Tue, 27 May 2008 13:21:56 -0700 (PDT)) it happened Robert
Myers <rbmyersusa@xxxxxxxxx> wrote in
<c7a3170b-c606-4484-b3d2-c279fd0b6800@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>:

There are also many ways to build a house, concrete,
bricks, wood, and many tools to do it.
Thats is an advantage, not a disadvantage.
And the right person will use the right tools for the job.

Before the most recent earthquake in China, you could have gone on a
tour of the stricken region and had a regional official tell you, "See
our building codes and our land use planning work." Similar things
would have been said to anyone who worried about San Francisco in the
early 1900's or Chicago before it burned down.

"See, it works" is about the most foolish kind of risk estimation
there is. When the lesson is hammered home in the harshest possible
way (tsunami, earthquake, hurricane, market collapse, shuttle
disaster, Chernobyl, Three Mile Island), there is no place left for
the wishful thinkers to stand. New Orleans "worked," even though much
of it was below sea level. "See, it works."

I am not sure about the point you want to make,
Sure, if I design an electronic digital instrument, like I have here,
I do _not_ take into account (and this thing is embedded full of software, in asm actually),
that in 2038 or so, a big comet may hit it!

Those kind of calamities cannot be taken into the design idea.

Sure, I agree (been reading this thread now a while) that in case of
for example NASA, the original mars lander, errors were made, NASA knows that,
12 or more design changes were made, Phoenix _works_, they learned, and also
had communications during landing to see what went wrong, if anything, this time,
prepared to learn..

In Europe there is a fault line south of Gibraltar, many hundreds of years ago
there was a big earth quake there that flattened houses up into the north of France.

Does that mean everything is now build to withstand a force 8 earthquake?
No, it is cheaper to rebuild.

There is the economic factor, and also the probability factor.
Software, and also financial software (I wrote some), is designed to do a specific job.
_How_ you use the tool, and the risks you want to take, is up to you.
Much of the financial world is simply gambling anyways,
The chances of winning are about 50%, bit more if you are good, a lot
better then 1 in 100 million for a big lotterie, so they take the risks,


http://blogs.trb.com/news/politics/blog/katrina-new-orleans-flooding3-2005-thumb.jpg

See?

Yea, part of the Netherlands once was flooded too, they build dikes,
and an elaborate protection system.
Still some comet plunging in the North Sea would wash away things.
Accepted risk.


Building codes, tsunami warning networks, land use regulations,
nuclear safety controls, market circuit breakers and increased
regulation, and better risk analysis all happen the hardest possible
way: whatever it was, it *didn't* work well enough. NASA, I'm afraid,
is beyond hope.

NASA is absolutely great, it learned from its mistakes, what more can you want.
They really really tried with Phoenix to get things right, I love it, and I am
happy it worked,
NASA bashing sometimes is appropriate, but much of the problems come from political
changes in position and goals.
This time the engineering was great!
My hat of!


Robert.

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