ASCI's Debutante Debut

yoshi writes "Apparently, Lawrence Livermore Lab had an open house yesterday for ASCI White, the world's most powerful computer, and CNN has a story on it, including a picture of one of the sys admins! One of the great things about the system is how much information is available. Check out the hardware and software environments."

Comments

sigh

[jon_c]

from the home page...

The DOE's Accelerated Strategic Computing Initiative (ASCI) is building simulation capabilities to predict performance, safety, and manufacturability of U.S. nuclear weapons systems. The program has several mandates, among them:

Determine nuclear weapons' behavior upon deployment using high-resolution, three-dimensional calculations and high-fidelity physical models.

Monitor possible accident scenarios and changes to stockpiled weapons caused by the aging process and variations in the manufacturing of replacement parts.

Extend the lifetime of existing nuclear weapons systems into the indefinite future.

Reduce the overall uncertainty associated with the costs and risks of weapons testing.


Don't htey have anything better to do with all that power?

The most important fact:

[Futurepower(tm)]

The most important fact about this computer is that it is used to study how best to kill people and destroy their property.