On Thu, Jul 15, 2010 at 10:56 PM, Robert Myers <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:rbmyersusa@gmail.com">rbmyersusa@gmail.com</a>></span> wrote:<br><div class="gmail_quote"><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); padding-left: 1ex;">
<div class="gmail_quote"><br><div>This is a technical forum, not a debating society. Science is awash already in useless flops.<br></div></div></blockquote><div><br>You're showing your ignorance, Robert. FLOPS is a very useful measure and more is always good, but I don't think you know what it means. It means FLoating Point Operations Per Second. It's nothing more than a measure of computational speed and says nothing about the accuracy of the models being computed.<br>
</div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); padding-left: 1ex;"><div class="gmail_quote"><div></div><div>In one of these long-running public debates, I pointed out to a national decision-maker how relatively meaningless and frequently wrong NOAA's hurricane season predictions have been. Guess what? The most recent forecast was wrapped in all kinds of weasel words. That won't stop them from drawing their paychecks and burning megawatts producing useless pictures.</div>
</div></blockquote></div><br>If the forecast is wrong, the either the model was inaccurate or the input data was wrong. It says absolutely nothing about the value of computing the answer fast (what FLOPS provides). While I totally get you're going to somehow try to refute the idea that "having a fast computer is good" and thus, I can only imagine, make the case that "a slow computer is even better," you're not going to convince anyone.<br>
<br>Anyway, technical forum or not, it's a forum made up of people and that makes it a community. To get along in a community, it helps to not be an asshole. While you may not care about being an asshole, do note that "getting along in a community" does influence if anyone takes you seriously. And you seem very much to want to be taken seriously. <br>
<br>Just a friendly FYI.<br><br>-- <br>Chris<br><br><br><br>