The Leading Source for Global News and Information Covering the Ecosystem of High Productivity Computing
From the Editor | Main Blog Index
April 25, 2008
"Over 75 percent of Americans don't know they're alive." I half expect to see such a headline someday as yet another example of how poorly educated the U.S. citizenry has become. It's not quite that bad yet, but research has consistently shown us how uneducated students and working adults are in this country. The data reflects not just a lack of education, but a lack of commitment to intellectual pursuits.
Therein lies a problem for the U.S. high-tech industry. Although the nation remains the leader in information technology, it has become increasingly dependent upon the scientists and engineers in other countries to feed its high-tech habit. Recent studies released by the Council on Competitiveness (which I cover in this issue) concludes one of the three major barriers to greater use of high performance computing is lack of human talent and expertise in the U.S. A number of other reports, including the landmark Educational Testing Service study, "America's Perfect Storm," also point to the disconnect between our tech-dependent economy and the lack of math and science education.
Why should this be so? The hard truth is that, in the U.S., there's a cultural contempt for education that underlies our seemingly modern society. Its origins can be traced back to the birth of the nation when we broke away from our "elite" European forbearers. The modern version of this contempt is apparent in our political and religious institutions, many of which have become not just anti-science, but also, more generally, anti-intellectual.
Exhibit number one is the Bush regime, with its antipathy towards science and its embrace of religious fundamentalism. The federal "No Child Left Behind" educational policy is based on rote learning, not critical thinking. This approach has been promoted on the right side of the political spectrum for a while. Intellectuals are derided as "liberals" or "elitists" -- which are synonymous in conservative-speak. Essentially, it's the sin of knowledge, where a certain level of education or even a progressive attitude towards learning is disdained.
In a Wall Street Journal blog post this week, Thomas Frank, author of "What's the Matter with Kansas," explains:
"It is a stereotype you have heard many times before: Besotted with latte-fueled arrogance, the liberal looks down on average people, confident that he is a superior being. He scoffs at religion because he finds it to be a form of false consciousness. He believes in regulation because he thinks he knows better than the market...."Elitism" is thus a crime not of society's actual elite, but of its intellectuals."
Fifty-plus years ago, Adlai Stevenson was the prototypical Democratic "egghead" who was relentlessly punished for his intellect by his political adversaries. During one of his presidential campaigns, a supporter assured Stevenson that he was certain to "get the vote of every thinking man." Stevenson allegedly replied: "Thank you, but I need a majority to win." He lost both his presidential bids, the first in 1952, and then in 1956.
Ironically, it is often Ivy League-educated conservatives who promote this elitism meme. More disconcerting though, is that the left is beginning to play into this intellectual bigotry. The recent Democratic battle for the President is turning into a kind of reality show popularity contest for relating to the common folk, where drinking whiskey and bowling have become essential campaign activities. The conventional wisdom for pols: hide your intellect from the citizenry, lest you make them feel inferior.
That might help explain why the 2008 Science Debate was replaced with the Compassion Forum right before the Pennsylvania Democratic primary. The Forum was basically a discussion about the religious views of the candidates. While I'm up for a good conversation about morals and spiritual beliefs as much as the next guy, it was unfortunate that one of the moderators felt compelled to ask Senator Obama if he "believed the Earth was created in six days." What good is that little nugget of information for qualifying the next leader of the Free World? It's depressing enough that we aren't allowed to have a presidential candidate who doesn't profess his or her belief in a supernatural being, but why do we feel the need to embarrass them with unanswerable theological questions?
It would be great if the aforementioned Science Debate was rescheduled. (There is talk of it being moved to Oregon for its upcoming primary in May.) I'd be interested to hear the candidates' views on where science and technology fit into their world view. I'd love for some candidate to make a case for putting science and education at the front of the discretionary federal budget rather than at the rear. It also might be a good venue to suggest to the electorate that the pursuit of knowledge is more patriotic than wearing a flag pin and more fulfilling than watching America's Next Top Model.
In an op-ed piece this week, Bob Herbert of the New York Times wonders why there is not an education discussion in the presidential campaign. At a time when globalization is bringing increased competition and U.S. educational performance is nose-diving, Herbert laments that "no one seems to have the will to engage any of the most serious challenges facing the U.S." Summing up, he concludes:
"While we're effectively standing in place, other nations are catching up and passing us when it comes to educational achievement. You have to be pretty dopey not to see the implications of that."
So far, we've managed to delay the worst effects on our economy by importing technological talent at a record clip. If you look at the personnel roster of any U.S.-based technology firm, you'll quickly grasp how thoroughly internationalized these companies have become. But if the majority of the natives fail to keep up educationally and economically, the whole model will likely collapse.
Without a fundamental change in the culture, the U.S. science and technology community will be relegated to pursuing its agenda as a special-interest lobbyist, against the backdrop of a disinterested citizenry. This is pretty much the case today. Broad support for a technology society, as is the case in much of Eastern Asia, India and Europe, will require us to change our attitudes. Political leaders can help, but we can't rely on them alone to reshape values. If we expect to have our plasma TVs, iPods and cancer drugs, but are not willing to participate in their development, we'll end living in the second-class nation we deserve.
-----
As always, comments about HPCwire are welcomed and encouraged. Write to me, Michael Feldman, at editor@hpcwire.com.
Posted by Michael Feldman - April 25 @ 6:49PM
(Digg, Technorati, more)
SDSC and Appro Next-Generation Supercomputer: SC09 Video Interview
Learn how SDSC and Appro are pushing the envelope and have come up with a supercomputer design that delivers 32 "supernodes".
Appro Ready-To-Go-Clusters – Quickly deploy ANSYS & Intel Cluster Ready Solutions
Offering a fully integrated Ready-To-Go Cluster based on the Appro GreenBlade System supporting up to 28 blade nodes in a half-size standard rack cabinet, including master nodes and switches.
Michael Feldman is the editor of HPCwire.
More Michael Feldman
HPC = servers but a lot more by truly64
Oracle SPARC != Fujitsu SPARC by Alan M. Feldstein
Sun & HPC != Oracle & HPC by Merblich
a third vendor for lossless low latency 10GbE fabric by lee.fisher@hp.com
Response to GAH by KevinButerbaugh
Response to KevinButerbaugh by GAH
Response to KevinButerbaugh by GAH
Response to GAH by KevinButerbaugh
Response to bdrupp by KevinButerbaugh
Climate Crisis and Exaflops by bdrupp
Climate Crisis and Exaflops by John Hules
Climate Crisis and Exaflops by GAH
Climate Crisis by KevinButerbaugh
IBM "Brain Simulation" article is not properly presented. by Merritt
563 out of 1206 by vvolkov
Little Iron by gadunk
At least it's not "cloud" by KevinButerbaugh
Native QPI Interface? by commike
Mmmmmm by hellcats
New transistorized IC chip scales. by symmecon
Itanium at IDF by Alan M. Feldstein
Communication time by jnapper
"The financial meltdown and computing" by donpellegrino
Human Models by mdgabriel
High-End SPARC Chip for Scientific Applications by Alan M. Feldstein
RapidMind by Mr LolO
Rapidmind by dminor
Longer run times by JohnWest
re: Algo trading Angst by jshore
Results of Testing by in_the_crease
Rediculous notion! by jimmymac
The benchmark is completely wrong. by Patrick LEE
SiCortex / Betamax by KevinButerbaugh
TACC's Ranger supercomputer celebrates its second year of enabling important research; Microsoft partners with NSF to bring cloud services to researchers; and NSF submits its fiscal year 2011 budget request. We recap those stories and more in our weekly wrapup.
Read More...
It seems only natural that the US space agency would be casting its eyes toward the clouds. Sure enough, NASA is now looking to cloud computing to optimize the operation of the agency's IT infrastructure for some of its science codes. Like many commercial businesses and government organizations, NASA is being asked to do more computing with fewer datacenter resources.
Read More...
There is no such thing as an NSF (Supercomputer) Center and there never has been. There should be. What there are, in the words of Ed Hayes, then comptroller of NSF, are "NSF ASSISTED Supercomputer Centers." This is a double edged sword.
Read More...
Feb 09 | eWeek Europe | Company says new high-end servers will deliver "intelligent performance." Read more...
Feb 09 | EE Times | Wireless technology promises energy-efficient chip-to-chip communication. Read more...
Feb 08 | eWeek | A new kind of Rocky Mountain high. Read more...
Feb 08 | Computerworld | Chip maker hopes to bring CPU-GPU processors to servers in two years. Read more...
Feb 05 | Technology Review | IBM has created graphene transistors that leave silicon ones in the dust. Read more...
Jan 12 | | In-depth look at vSMP Foundation server virtualization technology, technical implementation, use cases and capabilities. The technical whitepaper provides an architectural overview and details on the three vSMP Foundation products: vSMP Foundation for SMP, vSMP Foundation for Cluster and vSMP Foundation for Cloud.
Jan 18 | | This white paper discusses Gore’s copper cable assemblies, and how they continue to exceed the standards for providing reliable, cost-effective solutions for high-performance computer applications.
Jan 11 | | LLNL is home to some of the fastest computers in the world. In 2012, LLNL expects to have the Sequoia supercomputing cluster operational with a projected performance of over 20 PFLOP/s. These systems will focus on strengthening the foundations of predictive simulation through running large suites of complex simulations and then comparing model predictions with experimental data. To visualize this project’s large amount of data, LLNL requested an Appro Supercomputing Cluster specifically designed to support interactive data analysis.
Join this online panel discussion for live Q&A with leading industry experts, analysts, and end-users to discuss the latest innovations, best practices, barriers to implementation, and measurable benefits of server virtualization with a particular focus on today's real world solutions.
Learn about scalable fault-tolerant architectures and examples of energy efficient and scalable supercomputing clusters using dual QDR InfiniBand to combine capacity computing with network failover capabilities with the help of programming languages such as MPI and a robust Linux cluster management package.
LIVE@SCO9: The IBM team discusses new innovations in hardware, software and services that help clients better understand their workloads and get insight from their R&D efforts. Technology demonstrations include the soon-to-be-released Power7 HPC processor, the DCS990 system with 2.4 petabytes of storage, the xCAT management tool, secure HPC cloud computing and more. Winners of two HPCwire Readers' and Editors’ Choice Awards! Take the IBM virtual tour at SC09 or more information go online to: http://www-03.ibm.com/systems/deepcomputing/sc09.html