Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Introduction to High-Performance Scientific Computing

pages.tacc.utexas.edu

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

51–55 of 55 posts

Re: Introduction to High-Performance Scientific Computing

#51

Post by RhysU »

arcanus wrote: post #36
jabl wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The author is one of the heavyweights in numerical linear algebra (which a lot of hpc boils down to in the end), and certainly knows his stuff. And based on some skimming of the book I did a while ago, yes, I'd say it's good. As for whether it's a good book "to get into the topic", I guess it depends on what you mean exactly. If you're a scientist who needs to write simulation code that can run on current HPC resourc…

> The author is one of the heavyweights in numerical linear algebra (which a lot of hpc boils down to in the end), and certainly knows his stuff Came here to say this. I know Victor, and he is top notch.

Agreed.

Re: Introduction to High-Performance Scientific Computing

#52

Post by pkolaczk »

j-pb wrote: post #46
shoyer wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It looks like they install (sell?) racks of computers as household "heaters". Scroll down to the "Win, win, win!" section on their homepage with a video. This is a cute idea but I am skeptical that it makes sense from either an economic or environmental perspective. There are far more efficient ways to produce heat than electric heaters that run 24/7, and likewise cooling in data centers can be extremely efficient by…

> There are far more efficient ways to produce heat than electric heaters that run 24/7. Do you mean cheaper? Because generating heat always has 100% efficiency. The only difference is that if you go from burnable materials to heat directly you don't get the nice side effect of getting computation done, so burning stuff is actually less efficient.

Technically you're right, but what you really want at home is not generating heat, but having more heat inside. These are not the same things. You can actually move some heat from outside to inside by using a heat pump (powered by electricity), commonly known as "air conditioner". Heat pumps can typically move 2x-6x more heat then they consume energy. So practically their heating or cooling efficiency is 2x-6x better than a resistance-based heater.

As for burning stuff - burning stuff is typically much cheaper, although it is actually the least efficient way of heating, in terms of a ratio between the usable heat you get and the total chemical energy converted to heat.

Re: Introduction to High-Performance Scientific Computing

#54

Post by victotronics »

agumonkey wrote: post #53
espeed wrote: post #7

Link to course page, including the source and latest revision of the book (2nd ed, revision 2016): http://pages.tacc.utexas.edu/~eijkhout/istc/istc.html

Then https://zenodo.org/record/49897/files/EijkhoutIntroToHPC.pdf

No. Please don't. The book still gets updated regularly, so any copy that is not straight from the repository will get quickly out of date. (I first published this book 6 years ago. You can find pdf copies out on the intertubes that are 200 pages shorter than the most recent version.)

Also, if you link straight to the pdf you don't get to see links to my other books.

Or links to places where you can get a paper copy. Which actually earns me a couple of pennies.

So please: don't make your own link to the pdf file. Don't.

Re: Introduction to High-Performance Scientific Computing

#55

Post by agumonkey »

victotronics wrote: post #54
agumonkey wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Then https://zenodo.org/record/49897/files/EijkhoutIntroToHPC.pdf

No. Please don't. The book still gets updated regularly, so any copy that is not straight from the repository will get quickly out of date. (I first published this book 6 years ago. You can find pdf copies out on the intertubes that are 200 pages shorter than the most recent version.) Also, if you link straight to the pdf you don't get to see links to my other books. Or links to places where you can get a paper copy.…

Apologies ..

dang if you see this, could you delete or edit my above comment ? Thanks

Post reply on HN