Marvel Salted Fish Kryptonian

"And besides computers, we also need to expand the talent pool for programming software and electrical hardware. Especially the former. Unless someone teaches themselves at home, I don't see anyone in the entire Stark Films who can handle issues in this area."

"I have you." This time it was Tony's turn to smile evilly, like a farmer whipping a slave.

Chapter 329 Capitalist Considerations

Henry still had that nonchalant expression. "Anyway, according to my contract with you, the technology I provided and the patents belong to me. I'll get a share of the profits from the jointly developed technology. You want to throw everything to me, so why would I have any objections?"

Tony Stark turned to the others without a word and ordered, "Recruit people, expand the department. Whatever that Madfake bastard wants, do your best to satisfy him."

They say this genius is a capitalist first, a scientist second. He certainly knows where the profits lie, so how could he possibly give them all away? Especially to a jerk?

If there wasn't a hidden purpose, Tony Stark would never have signed the employment contract that was almost an unequal treaty.

Tony Stark looked at the i486 computer, which hadn't yet produced any results, and roughly calculated the time in his mind. He couldn't help but wonder, "If what you said is true, we'll need to develop higher-resolution cameras in the future for use in movies."

"This means the recorded video files will be larger, and post-production will take longer. Judging by this performance, even the latest top-of-the-line computers won't be much more efficient."

Henry explained, "Technology needs to be accumulated. And don't you forget Moore's Law? Computer performance doubles every eighteen months. Who knows how fast computers will be by the time this entire system is developed?"

"If we were to follow the standards of existing commercially available personal computers, we wouldn't even think about developing this system. It simply wouldn't run. But if we wait until computers are nearly as powerful, what role will we play?"

Suddenly, Tony thought of something. "The one you use at home isn't something slower than a turtle, is it?"

Henry said, "Hey, that's true. But you have to think about it. This will eventually be sold as a commodity, and this is Stark Films. I can't possibly find a way to produce supporting computer parts for this system.

"Unless there's no computer department in Stark Industries today, I wouldn't even consider this. As for the toys in my own home, they're just little gadgets that aren't presentable enough."

Tony rubbed his beard and said, "Computers are the trend of the future, and Stark Industries certainly can't give up. I'm just shrinking the commercial personal computer business, but I can still produce computer equipment for weapon systems."

"If you're looking to use this, it's probably something like Pixar's image processing computer. Without taking Moore's Law into account, how can you simulate the performance of computers a few years from now using existing computer components to aid development?"

Henry said: "Using a multi-core system, we can split the large file into smaller files and have all cores run a portion of them simultaneously. Finally, we can integrate the processed small files together.

"As long as this function is added to the software, the more CPUs and memory capacity there are, the faster the video post-production process will be."

At this time, the engineer who had been listening nearby asked in surprise: "Is it possible to do this?"

Henry replied, "This isn't film. A roll of film can only be cut and joined one way at a time. Even a crooked cut wouldn't work. But a digital film file is essentially just a bunch of ones and zeros."

"While the program is running, it doesn't matter how it's processed, whether it's split up or processed all at once. As long as the final piece is in a playable video format, no matter how it's broken down and dispersed, it's fine."

"A multi-core system." Tony rubbed his beard as if to show off. "Most designs currently on the market are commercial motherboards with two CPUs.

"If, as you say, the more CPUs there are, the better the multi-core division of labor will be. How many do you plan to put in there? Four? Eight? Soldering a few more slots on the motherboard shouldn't be a problem.

"But the bridge chip also needs to be redesigned, otherwise how can multiple CPUs operate in unison? If we want to achieve this, forget about adding more slots for the memory and just package more chips."

"Anyway, it seems like many of these things are custom-made and can't be made from commercially available products. But then, have you ever thought about how much it would cost to build one of these things, and whether it's possible to sell them as commodities?"

Henry replied, "What if we're just developing the system and we're only using it ourselves, and we include the manufacturing costs in the R&D costs? External sales will be primarily software, with hardware as a supplement.

"Furthermore, we can use this dedicated computer ourselves or rent it out. Independent film crews or small film companies do the same thing; they only rent editing studios when they need them."

"Is it possible to do this?" Although he had some understanding of the operation of a film company, Tony Stark still looked at other film company executives and asked for their opinions.

Equipment rental and sales are handled by the head of the equipment department. "Mr. Stark, if we can indeed provide rental services.

"But this would also be a declaration of war on the entire film industry. If no one wants to use our new equipment and we don't get a return on our investment, all this would be for nothing."

"Yeah." Tony looked at Henry. "Then do it."

The film industry executives protested loudly: "Mr. Stark, this won't work."

Tony retorted: "If it were as you say, we would still be fighting with spears, without rifles, let alone airplanes and artillery.

"Once the product comes out, the market will choose the most advantageous option. Unless we are defeated before that. But I am also very curious now, who dares to challenge Stark."

In order to inherit Stark Corporation, Obadiah Stane carried out corporate restructuring at Tony's behest, streamlining Stark Corporation into a military-industrial complex structure.

During this process, Stark Corporation divested itself of many assets. While some viewed this as a remarkable corporate transformation, the perception of Stark as a prodigal son persisted in some quarters.

Although he did not intend to get involved in areas other than military industry, Henry developed film technology, which in Tony's eyes was actually the development of computer technology.

He plays with software and demands that his hardware also cooperate. Strictly speaking, this behavior is still within the scope of his goals.

Furthermore, internal integration was almost complete. Now Stark Industries had not only established a new structure but also a new network of relationships. It was time to show off their strength.

You cannot become the lion king without defeating other lions.

If Tony rashly competed with other companies in the military industry, he would anger generals from other factions and influence those who supported him. For Tony, this was an unnecessary risk.

But if he showed off his prowess in other fields, the military would only become his backer. So in Tony's eyes, Henry's film technology was a perfect opportunity.

It could be said that this whole thing was in line with Tony Stark's grand strategy. Let Stark Films go out and try it out. Even if it was damaged, it wouldn't harm Stark Industries.

Besides, Tony was now worried that the CEO of Stark Films he appointed would be a nobody in the eyes of a certain class of people. Since this guy had taken the initiative to come forward, how could he not add fuel to the fire?

I need a computer with good performance. This also suits my interests, so I built it!

Chapter 330 West Coast Supercomputer Project

One thing that few people notice is the biggest difference in personality between the father and son of the Stark family.

Howard Stark started his business from scratch. He built it to the scale he has today, a testament to his exceptional skill and foresight, and his fearlessness in taking risks. No matter what problem arose, he always found a solution, living up to his reputation as a genius.

But each company is Howard's hard work, and he is reluctant to let go of any of them. This is why when the baton was handed over, Stark Group was not only bloated but also chaotic.

Tony Stark inherited all of this without any preparation and even with some resistance. So once he had a clear goal, he was very decisive in everything he did.

He's equally unafraid of taking risks, but that doesn't mean he's confident of any situation. It's simply his unwavering confidence that makes Tony Stark's actions impulsive in the eyes of some.

As the saying goes, "The soft fear the hard, the hard fear the tough, the tough fear the stupid, and the stupid fear the desperate." In the eyes of outsiders, this young master's current state is that of the "stupid".

There's nothing you can do about it. It's because they haven't experienced the harshness of society, haven't honed their skills, and yet they're already at the top of the pyramid. They don't bully men or women, or let their dogs bite people, so they're already kind enough.

So Tony Stark made up his mind and discussed with Henry on the spot what configuration the image processing computer should have.

A group of management executives tried to interrupt but couldn't. Those who wanted to grab the second-generation young master and remind him to pay attention to their opinions were pulled away by Tony's bodyguards.

The engineers were even more confused and could not understand what Henry and Tony Stark were discussing at all because they could not keep up with their thinking speed.

Just when they figured out the meaning of a certain term, the other two would have already gone off to discuss it light years away. The engineers couldn't even make their presence felt.

The topics Henry and Tony Stark discussed went beyond commercially available products, ranging from motherboard layout to slot configuration. Both of them seemed willing to manufacture their own chips if necessary.

The only challenge they hadn't yet tackled was chip manufacturing; if other products weren't commercially available, they'd just make their own. Anyway, for Tony Stark, this was also a training exercise for the computer department.

Henry, however, was the type who longed for a computer with thirty-two CPUs, memory measured in gigabytes, and hard drives configured not just as RAID arrays but with terabytes of capacity. He was seriously discussing how to implement such a computer architecture.

Tony Stark, initially confused, also found this exchange of ideas quite fascinating. After all, he rarely encountered people with whom he could discuss professional knowledge. Most people couldn't even follow his thinking.

But Henry not only kept up with his ideas, but sometimes also came up with very interesting insights to stimulate his inspiration.

Moreover, both of them are working towards feasible plans, not just building spaceships to conquer Mars.

To record their thoughts, they brought in as many whiteboards as possible. They discussed their thoughts on the whiteboards, even using the two screens originally used for the film to write on them with markers.

But as Tony Stark looked at the gradually taking shape of the design plan, he suddenly calmed down, reflected for a moment and said, "Have you ever thought about the issue of marginal utility?

"According to Moore's Law, the performance we achieve now by piling up numbers will be achieved in 18 months using half the number of components.

"And with your relentless pursuit of performance, how much does it cost you to spend on 'one' computer? If it's just pure research and development, then there's nothing to say.

"But if you want to rent out post-production equipment, it's definitely not enough to just have one or two. Not to mention if you want to build a market scale, you even have to find ways to promote it.

"So, how many do you plan to produce? How long do you expect this equipment to be obsolete? Is it possible that the revenue will cover the cost before it's eliminated? How can you reduce the waste during the idle period?"

"You can't have failed to think about these fundamental questions. If you can solve a problem like this, even if you build a supercomputer, I have no problem with that."

After listening to Tony Stark's complaints, Henry smiled and exclaimed, "Wow, supercomputer, this is too exaggerated."

"Don't you want to examine your own performance requirements? In some respects, even existing supercomputers don't meet your standards. You're using memory like a hard drive, and the hard drives would fill a warehouse."

Pulling over a whiteboard with no more information on it, Henry quickly wiped the writing clean. "Do you know that paper from '74? 'Normalization Conditions for Virtualizable Third-Generation Architectures'?"

"A collaborative paper by Gerald J. Popek and Robert P. Goldberg? You're going to make a system virtual machine?"

Henry explained: "Yes, that's it. In fact, as early as the 60s, IBM's mainframe computers had CMS (Interactive Computing Single-User Operating System).

"It uses thread-based time-sharing to give all users the illusion of simultaneous use. With current hardware and software technology, we can do better.

"For example, we can create multiple virtual hosts on a single host and allocate different hardware resources. Who takes up more resources, who takes up less, and how resources are allocated can all be determined based on the number of users and costs.

"Another advantage of this is that once the renter has finished editing their movie, they can simply disconnect the virtual host they rented. This way, there is no need to worry about data leakage.

"In terms of specific design, we have two directions to consider. One is the system virtual machine, which can fully control the allocated virtual resources. The other is operating system layer virtualization, which is more flexible in use."

Henry wrote on the whiteboard and explained how to build this virtual layer. However, he noticed that Tony Stark's questions were getting less and less, as if his thoughts couldn't keep up with his own speed.

So after a certain point, Henry stopped talking, so as not to give the young master the impression that he was showing off. Instead, he said, "If possible, I would also like to build a supercomputer.

"But I haven't read that kind of stuff, and I can't find any relevant papers. So, I can only consider how to improve performance based on commercially available personal computers. As for the balance between cost and expected benefits, I need to do the math to figure it out."

Tony suddenly asked, "What does CK mean?"

“Isn’t that Calvin Klein?”

"Fuck! It's you!" Tony threw the pen in his hand, his face full of displeasure.

"What do you mean by me? What are you talking about?" A certain Kryptonian continued to play dead.

"When asked this kind of question, most people would question it first, and some would just randomly guess the answer. But it was like you had prepared an answer for a long time, so you could answer it right away. Even though this answer was misleading."

"Haha." At this time, Henry didn't know what to say except pretending to be stupid.

Could it be that the concept of Docker was exposed? This was one of the technologies used to build the Joker BBS. People on the Internet still used the term "honeypot" to refer to the computer trap.

Although it has been exposed for a long time, the core technology has not yet been widely circulated. This is because those who are capable of cracking it are usually busy with their own work and have no time to think about how to further explore the technology.

While some have implemented similar features based on the description, no one has yet reached the same level of success. The main issue is that aside from creating network traps and defending against hacker intrusions, no one knows how else this feature can be used.

Should I say he is truly a genius, so sensitive to technology.

However, although he was unhappy, Tony didn't seem to want to pursue the matter further. He just had no interest in continuing the discussion.

The young master said with an annoying face: "I will have someone give you the design drawings of the supercomputer that Stark Industries built in New York, as well as the relevant patent content.

"Based on those and today's ideas, please compile a design plan for me. I also want to build a supercomputer on the West Coast. Otherwise, I'll have to do a lot of work on the East Coast."

"Don't you want to discuss the design?"

Tony, with an unhappy look written all over his face, said, "What's there to discuss? Anyway, when your plan comes out, I'll just revise it and build it, just like a teacher marking students' homework. You just need to prepare the software."

"At that time, we will allocate some of our resources to Stark Films to develop digital film post-production software. If we start renting post-production capabilities, we'll determine our future plans based on the market."

"Wow, uncle, do you really think I'm an employee?"

"I paid for the supercomputer!"

"Okay, boss, you have the final say. I have no objection. Money is king."

Chapter 331 Geniuses who make things difficult for each other

"Henry."

"Yes, dear. Call me now if you need anything?"

To facilitate communication, Stark Films provided the latest mobile phones to its executives, and CEO Henry certainly had one too. However, not many people had his phone at the moment.

In the same social circle, most people are still observing, waiting to see how valuable this man is before deciding their attitude.

Although the plan to digitize movie cameras had been widely rumored, most people still believed that the mastermind was the genius of the Stark family, and Henry Brown was just a cover.

Because of this, not many people have his phone these days, and even fewer would call it. Charlize Theron is undoubtedly one of them.

But she wouldn't make a phone call unless she had something to do. At least the two of them wouldn't spend hours on the phone just to talk about trivial family matters.

So in her second sentence, Charlize got straight to the point and asked, "Can Jen come to our house today and watch our acting practice?"

"Why did you think of inviting her?"

"Because she thinks I should go to a formal acting school. But I didn't learn as much from you as I did from Salvador. So I declined. She meant to see our training process."

"If she wants to come, I have no problem with that. Don't worry, Katie. That little kitty can't hurt anyone while I'm here."

"It's just..." Charlize hesitated on the phone.

"Dear, if you have anything to say, just say it."

"In fact, although Jane didn't say it explicitly, I still felt that she was a little worried about our relationship."

"What's wrong?" Henry was puzzled. It's not easy to blindly guess what others are thinking.