Wednesday, August 27, 2008


All hail our world class transport system!


Taking the MRT at peak hours makes you glad that Singapore has such low birth rates.

posted by nwxiang at 7:46 PM | 0 comments


Saturday, August 23, 2008


Trust


Trust, is when you never have to go for a single pap smear in your whole life.

posted by nwxiang at 12:30 AM | 0 comments


Thursday, August 21, 2008


Piaaaa


Can't believe I'm so pia... but of cos I'm not the MOST pia..

Gogogo full throttle!!

posted by nwxiang at 11:49 PM | 0 comments


Sunday, August 17, 2008


What is the world's fastest processor?


Well, to answer that question, firstly, we need to define "fastest". Thus, we need a unit.

FLOPS
According to Wiki, "In computing, FLOPS (or flops or flop/s) is an acronym meaning FLoating point Operations Per Second. The FLOPS is a measure of a computer's performance, especially in fields of scientific calculations that make heavy use of floating point calculations, similar to instructions per second." Seems like a pretty good unit of measurement eh? Well before we go on, let's just revise some suffixes:

Mega = 106
Giga = 109
Tera = 1012
Peta = 1015

Riiight. Ready? Let's start with our first candidate, the humble calculator.

Simple Calculator - 10 FLOPS
"10 FLOPS" doesn't seem like an impressive number, but sufficient to work out sin [3.1424/(e2!+tan 5+log 3)] in a blink of an eye (or 2). According to Wiki (again), any response time below 0.1 second is perceived as instantaneous by a human. An a simple calculator rarely needs more than 10 FLOPS to achieve that response time. Next up, we have the big brother of the calculator - the desktop computer.

World's Fastest Desktop Processor - 51 GFLOPS
The fastest processor on the consumer market, currently the Intel Core 2 Quad Extreme QX9775 (3.20Ghz x 4 cores), operates at 51 GFLOPS. 51,000,000,000 is a big step up from 10 huh? But this is nothing compared to the behemoths of the computing world - the super computer.

World's Fastest Supercomputer - 1 PFLOPS
As of June 2008, the title of the world's fastest supercomputer is held by IBM Roadrunner, located at Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico, USA. Costing US$133 million to construct, this rig is able to achieve a peak of 1.7 PFLOPS and sustain a rate of 1.026 PFLOPS. Nasty.

World's Fastest Distributed Computing Network - 2.5 PFLOPS
Simply put, distributed computing = a LOT of computers working as one. A lot of times, the participants are normal computer users like you and me, contributing their processing power through the internet. Folding@home is currently the record holder, a distributed computing project designed to simulate protein folding and other molecular dynamics. You can actually download their program and contribute your own computing power. A demonstration of power, by the masses.

And the Fastest of them All??
Highly controversial, but estimates of the processing power of the human brain range from 100 TFLOPS to as high as 100 PFLOPS. Don't ask me how they calculate this. Google it if you want to.. You may ask: How is this possible? I can't even perform sin [3.1424/(e2!+tan 5+log 3)] in 0.1sec?? Well, your brain is regulating your heartbeat, rate of breathing, body temperature, processing information received from the eyes, ears, skin etc etc all at the same time.. And it has a object/face recognition system, and a speech recognition system unmatched by any other. And this is all happening without your notice, while you are trying to solve sin [3.1424/(e2!+tan 5+log 3)]...

Of course, it is on unsteady grounds that computers and the brain are being compared. But one thing is for sure (or just a bit surer) - the brain is quite unmatched in terms of efficiency. The human brain (alone, not counting the rest of the body), draws a power of about 20 W. IBM Roadrunner draws 2.35 MW. Comparing FLOPS/W, the human brain deals out ownage...

Just like to end off with an interesting diagram..

(Btw, Exa = 1018)

posted by nwxiang at 3:43 PM | 0 comments


Saturday, August 16, 2008


Looking on the bright side...


Up till today, I have spent $0.00 on my lunch this week, thanks to OT food from Alexandra Hospital...

posted by nwxiang at 1:03 PM | 0 comments


Friday, August 15, 2008


Engrish


I have absolutely no qualms about blogging in imperfect/informal/broken/absolutely shattered english or singlish. Or when conversing with my friends verbally or electronically over the internet or the phone. But when a paid, global web-hosting corporation gives me "engrish", it just gives me the shudders.



Some parts of the email has been blurred for obvious reasons.

posted by nwxiang at 11:48 PM | 0 comments


Monday, August 04, 2008


到头来


还不是过不了自己这一关...

posted by nwxiang at 12:59 AM | 0 comments


Friday, August 01, 2008


男人哭吧不是罪


勇气, 不是忍着泪水不哭...

而是在擦干眼泪后, 继续走下去.

posted by nwxiang at 2:24 PM | 0 comments


The absurdity of it all


Somehow, somehow... I'm still waiting for someone to tell me that this is all a bad birthday joke...

posted by nwxiang at 12:32 AM | 0 comments