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What Grinds Our Gears: I’m out-pacing my computer with these datasets

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If you’re going to give me massive files to process, could you at least give me new hardware too?

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Come on buddy, don’t leave me hanging on 99%. Image: Maxwell Gawlick / The Peak, with photo courtesy of Richard Brutyo/Unsplash

By: Nathan Tok, Peak Associate

As I am writing this, my laptop is labouriously trying to load some data files for a class. And it is taking forever. 

Seriously? I am not a Big Data person or some hot shot researcher. Why am I being given all these absolutely massive datasets that take so long to load? I’m sorry if my laptop only has 8GB of RAM but you know, having a laptop with all the top specs is kind of expensive. 

I suppose there are some benefits to slow processing speeds. I can go find snacks to eat as I wait for these maps to buffer, or maybe I can contemplate my life choices that led to this moment as the software tries to run the datasets. I actually think I am learning to be more of a Jedi in these moments. To control myself and to be more mindful of the present and not letting my mind wander off to what could have been, and the future . . . 

Oh look the dataset has loaded. OK, now let me try modifying just one single parameter and . . .

Crash.

Well, guess I can go run a marathon or something while it loads again.

 

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Simon Fraser University’s independent student newspaper since 1965.

Contact us: [email protected]

© The Peak Publications Society 1965-2024

Simon Fraser University’s independent student newspaper since 1965.

Contact us:
[email protected]

© The Peak Publications Society 1965-2024