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The Internet Killer

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THE INTERNET KILLER - “THE GRIDâ€
If you hate the Internet, you will LOVE the GRID! Don’t kill yourself.

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The Internet could soon be made obsolete. The scientists who pioneered it have now built a lightning-fast replacement capable of downloading entire feature films within seconds.

At speeds about 10,000 times faster than a typical broadband connection, “the grid†will be able to send the entire Rolling Stones back catalogue from Britain to Japan in less than two seconds.



The latest spin-off from Cern, the particle physics centre that created the web, the grid could also provide the kind of power needed to transmit holographic images; allow instant online gaming with hundreds of thousands of players; and offer high-definition video telephony for the price of a local call.

David Britton, professor of physics at Glasgow University and a leading figure in the grid project, believes grid technologies could “revolutionise†society. “With this kind of computing power, future generations will have the ability to collaborate and communicate in ways older people like me cannot even imagine,†he said.

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The power of the grid will become apparent this summer after what scientists at Cern have termed their “red button†day - the switching-on of the Large Hadron Collider (LHC), the new particle accelerator built to probe the origin of the universe. The grid will be activated at the same time to capture the data it generates.



Cern, based near Geneva, started the grid computing project seven years ago when researchers realised the LHC would generate annual data equivalent to 56m CDs - enough to make a stack 40 miles high.

This meant that scientists at Cern - where Sir Tim Berners-Lee invented the web in 1989 - would no longer be able to use his creation for fear of causing a global collapse.

This is because the Internet has evolved by linking together a hotchpotch of cables and routing equipment, much of which was originally designed for telephone calls and therefore lacks the capacity for high-speed data transmission.

By contrast, the grid has been built with dedicated fibre optic cables and modern routing centres, meaning there are no outdated components to slow the deluge of data. The 55,000 servers already installed are expected to rise to 200,000 within the next two years.

Professor Tony Doyle, technical director of the grid project, said: “We need so much processing power, there would even be an issue about getting enough electricity to run the computers if they were all at Cern. The only answer was a new network powerful enough to send the data instantly to research centres in other countries.â€

That network, in effect a parallel Internet, is now built, using fibre optic cables that run from Cern to 11 centres in the United States, Canada, the Far East, Europe and around the world.

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One terminates at the Rutherford Appleton laboratory at Harwell in Oxfordshire.

From each centre, further connections radiate out to a host of other research institutions using existing high-speed academic networks.

It means Britain alone has 8,000 servers on the grid system â€" so that any student or academic will theoretically be able to hook up to the grid rather than the internet from this autumn.

Ian Bird, project leader for Cern’s high-speed computing project, said grid technology could make the internet so fast that people would stop using desktop computers to store information and entrust it all to the internet.

“It will lead to what’s known as cloud computing, where people keep all their information online and access it from anywhere,†he said.

Computers on the grid can also transmit data at lightning speed. This will allow researchers facing heavy processing tasks to call on the assistance of thousands of other computers around the world. The aim is to eliminate the dreaded “frozen screen†experienced by internet users who ask their machine to handle too much information.

The real goal of the grid is, however, to work with the LHC in tracking down nature’s most elusive particle, the Higgs boson. Predicted in theory but never yet found, the Higgs is supposed to be what gives matter mass.

The LHC has been designed to hunt out this particle - but even at optimum performance it will generate only a few thousand of the particles a year. Analysing the mountain of data will be such a large task that it will keep even the grid’s huge capacity busy for years to come.

Although the grid itself is unlikely to be directly available to domestic internet users, many telecoms providers and businesses are already introducing its pioneering technologies. One of the most potent is so-called dynamic switching, which creates a dedicated channel for internet users trying to download large volumes of data such as films. In theory this would give a standard desktop computer the ability to download a movie in five seconds rather than the current three hours or so.

Additionally, the grid is being made available to dozens of other academic researchers including astronomers and molecular biologists.

It has already been used to help design new drugs against malaria, the mosquito-borne disease that kills 1m people worldwide each year. Researchers used the grid to analyse 140m compounds - a task that would have taken a standard internet-linked PC 420 years.

“Projects like the grid will bring huge changes in business and society as well as science,†Doyle said.

“Holographic video conferencing is not that far away. Online gaming could evolve to include many thousands of people, and social networking could become the main way we communicate.

“The history of the internet shows you cannot predict it real impacts but we know they will be huge.â€[/b]
 
<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (C A Iversen @ Sep 5 2008, 04:12 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}></div>
Yes, it's real alright.

Well they're switching on the Large Hadron Collider on Wednesday, and if anything goes wrong (we're all assured it won't, but planes aren't meant to crash either) we could all be kissing our behinds goodbye.

Read this article for one: http://www.theherald.co.uk/features/featur...with_a_bang.php[/b]
They're powering up and starting to do things such as attempting to start circulating a beam on the 10th, but they aren't going to start colliding until the 21st of October.

There's all this talk of little black holes forming and all that jazz and safety concerns being tossed aside but I really don't think anything catastrophic will happen at all.

I hope they find the theorized Higgs Boson. If not then it will almost be all for nothing!
 
Why do people need to be kept in constant fear? This is Y2K all over again, big yawn fest.
 
Exactly BLR.

Everything major like this in the quest to further our scientific knowledge will pose a certain level of risk to people involved (which in this case is the whole world), but heck, the chances of these catastrophies occurring are far less than the chances of something not happening.

We'll be fine.
 
Yeah, people are just running out of things to talk about. I mean, everyone loves a good conspiracy, so what better way to grab attention. This is obviously not a conspiracy, but you guys know what i mean. If it were a fact that all it was was some giant leap in technology, nobody would really care. But just the mere possibility of some sort of catastrophe would get the whole world in a buzz!

Not trying to thread-jack, but has anyone heard that story floating around of the world ending on the 21st of December 2012? The end of the Mayan calender, the planets aligning with the Sun, etc etc... Same thing really. The only reason Nostradamus and the rest of them made these sorts of predictions was because they didn't have newspapers to read while sitting on the John. What else is there to think about?

Anyway, back on Topic... can you guys imagine what piracy would become if we could download games in 10 seconds??? Goodbye entertainment industry...
 
This is classic internet forum behaviour. People take popular scientific opinion as law. This is all theoretical, they honestly don't know what they expect to find for sure. Most opinions above are just taking the information expounded by CERN as law. If it makes everyone feel cleverer to look no further then you are all geniuses!

Also Melon, very reassuring, lol. Planes are made to fly and always land too. :lol:

Hey someone has to take the alternate side of the argument too, lol. Professor Brian Cox of Manchester University was on our national news program Campbell Live tonight. He sounded much the same as what I've heard above. Blissfully full steam ahead and not at all looking at the other side of the equation.

This is great debate matter though. The forum is due for a thread which asks the big questions, again. With no real answers, again! :D
 
Yeah, i agree totally dude. The main reason people choose to believe something, is because they understand every possible angle that the situation has. Reasons why people refuse to believe it, is due to lack of understanding. I, for one, read a book a couple of years ago called the da Vinci code. Now, this book got totally BLASTED by the media. Yet, every single person that had an issue with it had never read the book, or even seen the movie when it came out! I heard many people say things like: " i refuse to read it because it's a lie", and God this and Church that, bla bla bla! But when you understand these things through knowledge gained by actually doing research on the subject, you see it in a different light.

Another thing i think is an issue, is brainwashing. This is very VERY common. Anyone see these things about the "Illuminati"? Wow have i seen a lot of doccies and shows on this! But like CA says, you only ever hear one side of the argument, which basically means being a sheep, and becoming brainwashed in whichever side of the story you heard first.

With regards to the atom splitting thing, i actually don't know jack about it, but would really like to read up on it a bit more. The only thing i know about CERN and anti-matter is from what i have read in Angels and Demons. lol. But yeah, i was just illustrating on how and why people choose to believe what they believe on these kinds of subjects.

Personally, i never really make up my mind! I believe it one day, then don't the next... Guess I'm a black sheep then huh? :p
 
<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (melon @ Sep 5 2008, 02:50 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}></div>
Exactly BLR.

Everything major like this in the quest to further our scientific knowledge will pose a certain level of risk to people involved (which in this case is the whole world), but heck, the chances of these catastrophies occurring are far less than the chances of something not happening.

We'll be fine.[/b]
I actually read an article on this, well skimmed it, which basically said the Hadron Collidor cannot cause a huge problem because of the basis of what it actually does. Off the top of my head I believe the article said that the two atoms or whatever are being smashed together or whatever but there is still not enough in there to cause a chain reaction which would cause a problem so a disaster is pretty much impossible, never hear about that story though. I wish I saved the article now, I know it was on a science website, but I didn't even read it close enough to get a guist.
 
Yeah going off topic here, but I have personal theories on a lot of things. But they're mainly theories to disprove other things.
One of my theories on human nature is that deep down we like the idea that we're not in control of our destiny, and somewhere far far away there is a greater scheme of things happening.
We become obsessed with things we can't wrap our heads around. By default humans are ambitous beings, so it becomes this cycle that never ends.
There's evidence of this in other things as well. Things like horoscopes, man-made super heroes, tarot cards, religion, conspiracies, soothsayers, and so on.
We like not having all the answers but we love the novelty of searching for them.

The worst kind of conspiracies are the ones based on other conspiracies. Like this idea of the end of the world. There's so many conspiracies on how it's gonna end, that we forget to question why we ever thought it's gonna end!
I believe that planet Earth will end when that day comes when the Sun stops burning or when the every changing cycle of energy eventually cuts out it.
Has anybody questioned if the people who made the Mayan calenders couldn't count that high :p?
 
Well I believe we'll find a way to wipe ourselves out.

Scientists are trying to find a way for humans to be immortal despite the fact the earths overpopulated. They've been pretty successful so far with mouses regenerating limbs and broken backs healing by themselves.

I read an article that the Pentagon a shitload of cash in a attempt to make robots will fight wars for us. Have these guys seen the animated matrix? Terminator or iRobot?

They're making great strides in controlling jet planes with computers & Im quoting what they said "All you need is a computer and mouse" Yay! I feel so so much safer now.

We will wipe ourselves Im sure of it. I dunno if this is thread jacking but its my thread damnit
 
<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (DarkManX @ Sep 5 2008, 09:47 AM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}></div>
Scientists are trying to find a way for humans to be immortal despite the fact the earths overpopulated.[/b]

Really? :mellow: Immortality is pointless if we can't get away from Earth - even if we sent ship-loads of folk to live on Mars or the Moon (or Mars' moons) they would be overpopulated in a decade or so if we find a way to stay alive forever or extend our lifespans. I read Time Enough For Love recently and this idea is carried out in the book - except that there, humanity has found away to travel through the Galaxy at many times the speed of light and populate alien planets... The day we learn to do this is the day I grow a tail... or die. I'd love that to happen - it probably won't for a while (if ever); sadly not in my lifetime. :(

....There's me typing like I know what I'm talking about. :lol: Like steve-o said, we live talking about things like this because we don't know anything about it...
 
<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (DarkManX @ Sep 5 2008, 08:47 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}></div>
Scientists are trying to find a way for humans to be immortal despite the fact the earths overpopulated.[/b]
Once humanity discovers the secret to immortality....that which makes us human will cease to exist...instead we will evolve to become dark depraved creatures....in short....alive but dead. Humanity NEEDS death...death brings out the best in humanity. Finality in self gives us the perspective on how precious our time alive is....and it is the savouring of every moment that ascends humanity onwards using our ONE gift that makes us unique....the gift and perhaps percieved curse of self awareness. Humanity as a whole survives because each individuals does not.

I remember watching an old movie with Sean Connery in it where these people had found the gift of immortality.....however at the end of the movie they were begging Connery for death.
 
I'd hate to live forever imagine if you were the only one in the world that could. You would have to watch everyone else die like your family and friends and all the bad things that happen in life your be stuck with because your immortal stuff that.

Only thing I wanna know is how long is it gona take before we grow wings and start flying? I'm still a kid at heart and would love to fly but being immortal just doesn't appeal to me because it has so many negatives. Immortality is probably not impossible but right now it is very unlikely.

Anyway back to topic I think this Grid thing could be quite good but extremely bad. Technology like that shouldn't be given to the public because it just gives too much power to random people and you never know what they could do with it. If you could download a movie in a few seconds how long would it take a hacker to hack countries defencive systems and shut them down than fire off a bomb?
 

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