Ian Foster

The real difference between grid and cloud

Tim Freeman pointed me to this video, which reveals the real difference between grid and cloud: automatic weapons.

Large Hadron Collider explained

I always wondered what my physicist friends at CERN were really up to. Now all is explained in this amusing video. These beautiful pictures are also worth a look.

Cloud, Grid, what's in a name?

I have been watching for a while the ever-broadening range of definitions for "cloud." My favorite is a recent piece that explains that Skype, BitTorrent, and SETI are all clouds. I now realize that a cloud can be whatever you want it to be, and that this is the best definition of the term, from dictionary.com:

cloud
11.    to make obscure or indistinct; confuse

That got me wondering whether the "grid" term has also subject to similar expansion over the years. To some extent, yes--I've read about discovery grids, knowledge grid, data grids, and too many others to count. But I do think there has been a fair bit of conceptual clarity, albeit with some expansion over time. Specifically:

1. The term was initially used to refer to on-demand computing (basically the Amazon cloud definition, but without the benefits of virtual machines) -- e.g., see the first edition of The Grid
2. Then it was broadened to include resource federation within distributed virtual organizations (what you need to enable distributed teams to achieve on-demand access to their federated resources) -- e.g., see The Anatomy of the Grid

Then there is the use of the term to mean "any sort of parallel computing" -- e.g., see Sun Grid Engine, Oracle 10-G, etc. But that is just marketing.

Having dissed the term, I should explain why we at Chicago/Argonne are using it. In brief, we see an opportunity to make connections with the extremely interesting developments in on-demand/utility/cloud computing that are emerging in industry.  Thus:

• Kate Keahey describes her work on Nimbus as a "cloud", to point out that her Globus virtual workspace service provides the same virtual machine provisioning capabilities that Amazon EC2 provides (and some), but in a package that you can run on your machines (if you so desire).
• We are holding a workshop on Cloud Computing and Applications in Chicago in October to help establish connections between those working on data-intensive science and thus developing tools and services for on-demand/utility/cloud computing.

Won't you blog about this song?

Ido Rosen pointed me at this wonderful video by the Richter Scales, Here Comes Another Bubble.

A Plan for the Improvement of English Spelling

by Mark Twain

For example, in Year 1 that useless letter "c" would be dropped to be replased either by "k" or "s", and likewise "x" would no longer be part of the alphabet. The only kase in which "c" would be retained would be the "ch" formation, which will be dealt with later. Year 2 might reform "w" spelling, so that "which" and "one" would take the same konsonant, wile Year 3 might well abolish "y" replasing it with "i" and Iear 4 might fiks the "g/j" anomali wonse and for all.         

Jenerally, then, the improvement would kontinue iear bai iear with Iear 5 doing awai with useless double konsonants, and Iears 6-12 or so modifaiing vowlz and the rimeining voist and unvoist konsonants. Bai Iear 15 or sou, it wud fainali bi posibl tu meik ius ov thi ridandant letez "c", "y" and "x" -- bai now jast a memori in the maindz ov ould doderez -- tu riplais "ch", "sh", and "th" rispektivli.

Fainali, xen, aafte sam 20 iers ov orxogrefkl riform, wi wud hev a lojikl, kohirnt speling in ius xrewawt xe Ingliy-spiking werld.

(Thanks to Ido Rosen for this.)

Newton's Three Laws of Graduation

For the Sunday humor entry, Newton's Three Laws of Graduation:

• First Law
• Second Law
• Third Law

NASA Plans Wireless by 2017

Exciting news from NASA. As Kennedy would have said: "We choose to [install Wi-Fi] in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard, because that goal will serve to organize and measure the best of our energies and skills, because that challenge is one that we are willing to accept, one we are unwilling to postpone, and one which we intend to win, and the others, too."

I couldn't wait any longer ...

http://www.themuse.ca/view.php?aid=39477

Medieval Tech Support

This video is dangerously funny. Thanks to Savas for this pointer--although I found an extended version that also includes the particularly humorous ending concerning the user manual. Perhaps some sensitivity in Redmond on that point? :-)

Stuffit 2.0

How many 2.0s do you know?

• Web 2.0, of course
• Business 2.0, probably
• Science 2.0--why not? (and here)
• Wailing Wall 2.0--huh?
• Computer Science 2.0--sure
• Enterprise 2.0 (Andrew McAfee has interesting things to say)
• Iraq 2.0--inevitable ...
• Bill of Rights 2.0--amazingly, predates Web 2.0 (how did people think back then?)
• Bubble 2.0--my favorite
• That's enough 2.0 ...