Book Reviews


[Day Permalink] Tuesday, January 27, 2004

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Virginia Tech to upgrade supercomputer to Xserve G5: "The new system, which went online toward the end of last year and which Virginia Tech said was the most powerful supercomputer at any university in the world at the time, will be completed by May. By moving to the thinner servers, the supercomputer will consume less power and generate less heat [...] The price of the upgrade has not yet settled on, but Varadarajan said it would be minimal compared to the cost of building a new supercomputer from scratch." [The Macintosh News Network]

This was to be expected. The new PowerPC 970FX's in the Xserve G5 require only half of the power of the original 970 processors. This is due to moving from 130 nm to 90 nm manufacturing process at IBM. The upgrade is not a small matter, but if someone can make it happen, Virginia Tech is the place to try it first.


[Item Permalink] Review of Lessons in Project Management -- Comment()
I today submitted my review (in Finnish) of the book Lessons in Project Management (by Tom Mochal and Jeff Mochal; Apress, 2003). This is a good book, giving 50 practical lessons on problematic situations in managing projects.


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Power, up to a Point: "Some say PowerPoint should be abolished for spreading incomprehensible jargon, while others say they could not survive their working day without it."


[Item Permalink] Book on solving optimization problems -- Comment()
My textbook on optimization is in press. The book is written in Finnish, and this is the third revised edition. The book is already available on the web in PDF format. Here is the bibliography data for the book:
Optimointitehtävien ratkaiseminen (Solving Optimization Problems).
Juha Haataja.
CSC, 2004. 245 pages, 3rd revised edition.
http://www.csc.fi/oppaat/optimointi/
See the dokument Books on the Web for more of my books on the web.


[Item Permalink]  -- Comment()
Strung Out by Woody Allen may be the first to use string theory in a humor piece: "What I do know about physics is that to a man standing on the shore time passes quicker than to a man on a boat - especially if the man on the boat is with his wife."