Newsgroups: comp.parallel.mpi,comp.parallel.pvm From: Kamran Karimi Subject: Re: Why explicit message passing?? Organization: World Lynx, Inc. Date: Wed, 8 Apr 1998 15:12:30 +0000 Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Message-ID: Hi, Tom Impelluso wrote: >As for that Alan [...] >It is people like that who make it difficult for some (like me) >to express ideas/questions. Ignore him... But I think you know that... I attribute Mr. Williams' remarks to a simple misunderstanding. Based on a number of private emails I have received, there are poeple who are "cautious" to agree with some of my points on these newsgroups publicly. This is very unfortunate. The progress of science depends a great deal on some pepople disagreeing with others, even if the "others" are the majority. One does not have to know everything before posting his opinions (if this was the case, then _no_one_ could post any thing at all). I urge the people who agree with some of my views to express themselves openly. Computer science has been about letting more people use its services. Be sure that you can make a difference, even if you are not a top researcher or university professor with n (n > 20) years of experience in distributed programming (If you actually have such qualifications, then so much the better :-) Actually, you could be at an advantage: You're probably less biased (People have a general tendency to resist changing what they are used to, be it the place they live, the kind of food they eat, or the programming method they use. Scientists should be careful each time they oppose an idea, to see if there are any hidden reasons for what they do). Note: The rest of this email is off topic. Please ignore it if you are not interested in off topic subjects. >>>cares about your culture and customs. I am an Iranian and live in Iran. > [...] >My american media influenced view of Iran, does not jive with >a person who understands massively parallel computing... (again, > [...] >Where were you educated? I got both my BS (in Electrical Engineering) and MS (in Computer Science) from Iranian universities. >What are you doing in Iran? Currently I am involved with the development of an application program under Windows NT. I do the systems programming part. The development software consists of Visual C++ 5.0, Windows NT 4.0 and Windows NT 5.0 (beta 1). The hardware is a Pentium II computer with 192MB SDRAM. The CPU is running at 300MHz, but I overclock it to 337MHz (75MHz bus speed) from time to time. I've been using this system for a few months. (This is not a special case. Such software and hardware configurations are readily available in Iran) >Is there a high-tech center there? >Was is a left-over from the Shah? There are some centers, but I am not aware of anything comparable to your National Laboratories and such. >Or is the current government promoting it? The American sanctions against Iran have been beneficial in some ways. In the past, when someone needed something, the authorities would say: OK, we'll buy it from abroad. Now the response is: We'll build it ourselves. >Do you have Massively Parallel Systems? Logically there should be some in Iran, but I am not aware of anything. >Does your access to internet concern the mullahs? If it did, then I wouldn't be sending this :-) Apart from people in the universities who can access the Internet freely, many private companies in Iran offer Internet access. However, there are concerns about misuses, like importing porno material. >What are your universities like? Open/closed? Having a university degree is a very important goal of nearly every Iranian. Here there are state universities and private universities. Both require passing some comprehensive exams before entering. State universities are of a much higher prestige, and entering them is very difficult (becasue the number of admitted people is limited), but studying in them is free! I have studied in state universities, and considering that pre-university studies in Iran are also free, I have not paid anything for my education. >Please inform me... Please do _not_ believe what you see in the movies about Iran. Iran's cultural and historical heritage is un-paralleled (no pun intended :-) in the region. It is a civilized country with a friendly and highly educated poeple (currently with more than a million university students in a country of 60 million). Poeple of all races and religions (Moslems, Zoroastrians, Christians, and Jews) live together with no problem. By middle-eastern standards, Iran is a very stable and peaceful country (compare it to some of its neighbouring countries). And yes, we have access to many facilities of modern life. Now, Iran has its share of problems, but I guess that would make it like most other countires :-) >(and I think the way the us customs agents treated the iranian >wrestling team in Chicago was disgraceful; >esp. after the way you guys >welcomed our team). Wrestlers are the national heros in Iran. Fingerprinting and photographing them in Chicago has had a very negative impact among the Iranian people. I hope the problems between Iran and some western countries be resolved in near future. -Kamran