@callmebob, the art of the abacus... i can see this is no kindergarten learning tool! I'm sure it's amazing to watch your wife or other abacus experts in action. I'd be lost, no doubt.
My wife is Japanese and she grew up using a soroban and she was speed lightening. You can still find many older mom and pop shops and restaurants using them to calculate their customer's bill. Regarding the profile for a skilled abacus user, they should have nimble fingers, a quick brain, and an underlying comprehension of math and numbers. I found this simple virtual soroban that should help anyone's Sudoku skills.
Beth, - Thanks for the HPA link. Talking of years back, its actually 14 and not 12 now that i think of it. When i had just joined high school...lol. Whats funny is that upto today i still haven't seen an actual mainframe computer though i've visited a handful of relatively big server rooms locally. I should make it a mission to find out who has a mainframe nearby so that i go and look.
In-memory computing can indeed speed up data analysis and help companies gain competitive advantages. In-memory computing benefit from the constantly falling price of memory which most organizations can easily afford nowadays. The move to in-memory computing might even become inevitable for certain analytics solutions where entier set of data need to be investigated rather than a representative.
kichecko -- I remember years ago (more than 12 but I won't say how many!) as a young reporter covering the rapidly changing telecom industry, I had the opportunity to visit an MCI (now long defunct) data center to see its mainframe operations. I knew nothing about computing, but the size was impres sive. Now the smaller the size the more impressive, it seems! I suppose mainframes are more common in US, for example, with more mature markets?
As to HPA -- that's high-performance analytics (analytics run on high-performance computing platforms). SAS, this site's sponsor, has lots of info on HPA to share. If you're interested, you can find out more on its HPA microsite.
I really admire the managers who oversee the IBM mainframe division. Those folks have not only technical skills but also exceptional political skills. They did not get comfortable with their success but saw the advent of the PC and figured out how to protect its product line. They have set a marvelous example for all of the young turks who think that product longevity rolls in on the wheels of inevitability. Lotus 123, Visi-Calc, Word Perfect - a lot of products had their 15 minutes of fame. But the mainframers dug in and made survival a part of the product line. Yes, I was one of those who waited for the demise of the mainframe. But those folks fought for their job security and kept themselves relevant and are still looking for ways to stay relevant. That requires technical and political know-how. They serve as a model for the young product makers of today - find ways of keeping your product relevant - know your business environment - do the R&D - understand what people need - look for ways to integrate your product with other products - stay hungry. This reminds me of an old saying 'In the jungle, whether you are an antelope or a panther, if you stop running, then you will not survive'. The IBM mainframe crew have never stopped running - mega kudos to them!
HPA - High Performance Analytics - using speedy processing techniques like in-database computing, in-memory computing, or grid computing. Basically, you make the analytics faster by moving the processing to another location or splitting up the processing across processing nodes.
LEADERS FROM THE BUSINESS AND IT COMMUNITIES DUEL OVER CRITICAL TECHNOLOGY ISSUES
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Visual Analytics: Who Carries the Onus? The Issue: Data visualization is an up-and-coming technology for businesses that want to deliver analytical results in a visual way, enabling analysts the ability to spot patterns more easily and business users to absorb the insight at a glance and better understand what questions to ask of the data. But does it make more sense to train everybody to handle the visualization mandate or bring on visualization expertise? Our experts are divided on the question. The Speakers: Hyoun Park, Principal Analyst, Nucleus Research; Jonathan Schwabish, US Economist & Data Visualizer
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