How a Supercomputer Beat the Scrap Heap and Lived On To Retire In Africa 145
New submitter jorge_salazar (3562633) writes Pieces of the decommissioned Ranger supercomputer, 40 racks in all, were shipped to researchers in South Africa, Tanzania, and Botswana to help seed their supercomputing aspirations. They say they'll need supercomputers to solve their growing science problems in astronomy, bioinformatics, climate modeling and more. Ranger's own beginnings were described by the co-founder of Sun Microsystems as a 'historic moment in petaflop computing."
And why not (Score:4, Insightful)
Just because it may not be fast enough for bleeding edge research * dosn't mean its obsolete, Or if your Cynical keeping the military industrial complex welfare system going.
Re:Really now (Score:2, Insightful)
But do we really need a supercomputer to know when spring will arrive? Pro-tip: It will happen next year on almost exactly the same day as it did this year. Seriously, farmers have been doing this for literally centuries and the decades of super-computing haven't improved the averages in the "developed" countries
The weather for planting, as the whole climate change community is constantly saying, is weather and cannot be modeled. Only multi-decade average trends can be modeled.
Re:In an alternate universe (Score:1, Insightful)
Your lord and king, the Obama. Fits to a T. You jerks are being played so well. No go on, do what you are told and holler loud for all to hear 'It's BOOOSHS fault!! Eleventy!! Derpa Derpa!'. Don't bother using your brains at all mr. progressive. Statism all the way!
http://www.commentarymagazine.com/2014/07/11/obamas-psychological-tapestry/
"Early on with Mr. Obama, I assumed his chronic finger pointing was simply cynical. It may be that in part, but it seems to me to be more than that. It’s one thread in a larger psychological tapestry.
The president is a man who has a grandiose sense of himself, a very strong sense of entitlement, and is, even for a politician, unusually prickly and self-pitying. He is blind to the damage he’s doing and the failures he’s amassed. His self-conception--pragmatic, empirical, non-ideological, self-reflective, willing to listen to and work with others, intellectually honest, competent at governing–is at odds with reality. Mr. Obama is constantly projecting his own weaknesses onto his political opponents. There are never any honest differences with Obama; he is always impugning the motives of his critics--they put "party ahead of country"--while presenting his own motives as being as pure as the new-driven snow. And whatever goes wrong on his watch is always the result of someone or something else. There's a kind of impressive consistency to Obama's blame game. It never rests, and it applies to every conceivable circumstance....
What all these things in combination result in is an inability to adjust to circumstances and self-correct. There’'s a marked rigidity, a lack of cognitive flexibility, in Mr. Obama. He has to be right, he is always right..."
Re: Really now (Score:4, Insightful)
and please spare me the bullshit that most of that shit matters, it doesn't, even I like reading about it because it is interesting, but it's in no way actually beneficial to society as a whole practically and is just a pissing contents between folks who write needless papers for a living
Many of the fields of study we now use as the backbone of the modern era started out as mere intellectual curiosities, and often stayed that way for centuries until practical applications were invented. Scientists started seriously studying electricity in the 1600s, but we found few practical uses for it until the late 19th century. The scientists studying theoretical physics and astronomy today are no different than the likes of Michael Faraday, who never created useful inventions from his research in electricity.
No one knows what the next technology will be to usher in the next age of mankind. The study of multiverses may bring about faster than light communication, and quantum mechanics may bring the computational power of thousands of today's supercomputers into your cellphone. Or maybe they will do none of those things, but we can be sure some other intellectual curiosity will change the way we live our lives.
I for one think we spend far too little on intellectual curiosities. Increasing funding that goes towards basic scientific research ten fold would be a good place to start.
Re:Cost lies in power consumption and maintenance (Score:5, Insightful)
There's still the initial outlay to consider. You can buy quite a bit of expensive ZA power for the up-front cost of a new cluster (USD $25-30 million). Any work to create the facility is recoverable if/when they do choose a newer cluster. Additionally, there shouldn't be much in the way of "teething problems" if they can give it clean-enough power, so it becomes useful, almost on day 1.
Re: Really now (Score:5, Insightful)
Many of the fields of study we now use as the backbone of the modern era started out as mere intellectual curiosities, and often stayed that way for centuries until practical applications were invented. Scientists started seriously studying electricity in the 1600s, but we found few practical uses for it until the late 19th century. The scientists studying theoretical physics and astronomy today are no different than the likes of Michael Faraday, who never created useful inventions from his research in electricity.
This in spades.
One of my favorite Michael Faraday stories (of which there are variants) is a visit to his lab by Prime Minister Robert Peel, during which Peel asked "what use is electricity?" Faraday replied "what use is a new-born baby?"
Re:Really now (Score:5, Insightful)
While reading this a thought occurred to me. Assuming that our African friends are ingenious in their use of this computing power and do a lot of good with it, in a few years perhaps more decommissioned government supercomputers, like the one that replaced Ranger which is 20 times faster, will head in their direction and bless other African universities. African universities are full of very clever, brilliant people who will make use of this gift, and likely do it in ways that will surprise us.
CALLING EVERYONE! (Score:3, Insightful)
Hey, all you physicists, mathematicians, geologists, astronomers, programmers, researchers, astronauts, engineers, marine biologists, architects, electricians, lawyers, politicians, professors, businessmen, defense contractors, rustlers, cut throats, murderers, bounty hunters, desperados, mugs, pugs, thugs, nitwits, halfwits, dimwits, vipers, snipers, con men, Indian agents, Mexican bandits, muggers, buggerers, bushwhackers, hornswogglers, horse thieves, bull dykes, train robbers, bank robbers, ass-kickers, shit-kickers and Methodists what the hell are you doing!?
Don't you know that there is no cure for CANCER!? Drop everything and find a cure for it. We must start teaching everyone everything we know about cancer starting in elementary school so that we can eliminate this problem fast. What do you mean you have no interest in medicine or medical research? If you're not with us, than you're against us. We as a society can and must only focus on one problem at a time.