When I was working for Leeds Libraries, we discussed the need for some sort of Linked Data/Semantic Web app that could help answer the “… I can’t remember what it was called, but it had a blue cover” type of query. I might suggest it to my current employers .

“Almost certainly wrong”? Perhaps in some details, but Gödel and quantum theory certainly have significant implications for philosophy of mind.

I have not long since re-read Consciousness Explained and have doubts myself. I am not sure that the brain in all it’s analogue parallelness would need to simulate a von-neumann machine (and dont understand what he means by a joyceian machine). Fortunately it’s not a choice between Dennett and Penrose however as Penrose is almost certainly wrong (Im struggling to remember the name of a logician who completly destroys his argument, annoyingly I can remember the publisher and colour of a book of his I used at uni but not his name!)

Freedom Evolves is the most compelling and original of the 3 I think.

Tom

I did read Consciousness Explained many years ago. He failed to convince me, and I finished it thinking that “Consciousness Expained Away” would have been a better title. He tries to reduce consciousness to “reactive tendencies” and information processing, things that can be attributed to computers without the need to suppose they have any awareness of what they are doing. It is this basic awareness that I think there is a desperate need to explain.

So, I am on the side of Roger Penrose in all this. However, I was very glad I had read Dennet’s book. Although I did not agree with him, he argues his case well, which pushed me to examine my own arguments more closely – “opposition is true friendship,” as Blake would say.

We’ll keep our eyes on your blog… and definitely keep us updated on your progress!

– Nilay

Good luck,
Tom

According to the results, it doesn’t look like you’re using multiple threads for your fio test. You have named your fio control files using “32thread”, but the file doesn’t have “numjobs=” parameter. I suggest using numjobs=N, where N is the number of CPU cores (or hyperthreaded cores) in your system. For example, if you have a single Nehalem processor, uses “numjobs=8″ (4 cores x 2 hyperthreads).

Without using multiple threads (jobs) you won’t see the maximum performance from the ioDrive.

You should also try adding the “softrandommap=1″ parameter — without this parameter, the random map used may take a lot of RAM/CPU to maintain (to have a “perfect” random access pattern that doesn’t repeat access to any specific block).

Also, before you do any read tests, make sure you write the same amount of data to the ioDrive. If the ioDrive has a fresh “fio-format”, it will have no data, and if you read from it, it will just return zero’s without actually accessing the NAND flash. Without writing first, you could get inaccurate results.

Also, this technology is available for blade servers now from HP:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IO_Accelerator

Cheers,
John

… increase your thread count.

import math
from eulerhelpers import timed

@timed
def solve39(cap=1000):
result = [0] * (cap+1)
for b in xrange(1, cap/2):
for c in xrange(1, min(b, cap/2-b)+1):
a = math.sqrt(b**2 + c**2)
if a+b+c > cap:
break
if not a%1:
result[int(a)+b+c] += 1
if not b%(cap/20):
print b,
yield
print max((i, e) for e, i in enumerate(result))

On my computer, without psyco, it completes in just over 0.1 seconds or about 7 times longer than your more mathematical code. I stopped there thinking it was enough.

Multiple times a year since then I’ve been sent a very glossy, thick brochure/set of leaflets about Oxfam Unwrapped’s new gift ideas, even though I’m pretty sure if there was one, I’d have ticked the “no spam for me, please” box.

The printing/posting costs bother me but the dead tree cost bothers me even more – plus, they come in those plastic bag things so even more waste.

I know I’m probably not typical when it comes to these things and that they have probably assessed that those mail drops are worthwhile in generating repeat business etc, but it really, really puts me off using them every again. Bah.

ColorZilla – has a colour picker for HTML colours, plus also highlights the ID and size of HTML elements on the page.
Nuke Anything – right click and get rid of elements on the page (i.e. that massive picture of a half naked woman etc.)
Adblock Filterset.G Updater – updates your adblock settings automatically
Flashblock – blocks Flash until you enable each individual Flash element – stops sound from automatically starting up etc.
Html Validator – validates that your pages are compliant to their doctype and highlights problems in the source view
IE View – for when you’re on Windows and you want / need to open a page in IE (for testing etc.)

My advice: spend less than you are paid, enjoy it now, gather firewood