Slashdot Mirror
Japan Builds World's Fastest Computer
claylikethemud writes "The New York Times reports that Japan has built the world's most powerful supercomputer from "640 specialized nodes that are in turn composed of 5,104" NEC processors. The machine boasts the computing power equivalent to the 20 fastest American supercomputers combined, and with a top speed of 35.6 teraflops, outpaces the next fastest machine, the ASCI White Pacific, by more than factor of five. Applications include climate modeling, global warming prediction, and other non-weapons research."
That's what you get for setting off that e-bomb last week.... oh, and don't forget the obligatory: imagine a Beowulf cluster of these posting....
...we are from the government - we are here to help...
With all of the supercomputer posts on /. recently, I've seen a lot of talk about the various ASCI projects in the works by IBM and others. No one even mentioned this before. I'm glad to see that someone is building supercomputers for reasons other than nuclear weapons research though.
Interesting comment from the SJ Mercury
The accomplishment is also a dramatic statement of contrasting scientific and technology priorities in the United States and Japan. The Japanese machine was built to analyze climate change, including global warming, as well as weather and earthquake patterns. The United States has predominantly focused its efforts on building powerful computers for simulating weapons.
Also worth noting is that the article mentions that the US gov't has blocked sales of these machines because they believe that NEC is "dumping" them on the US market - eg selling them below cost. Has there been any WTO action on these restrictions? Wouldn't this be a perfect test case for getting US trade restrictions struck down?
They say "640 specialized nodes that are in turn composed of 5,104" but it cant be 5104 processors each. So each processor is doing 8000mega flops. Why not build a machine with 1 million Celeron processors for 100+ Million instead ?
Applications include climate modeling, global warming prediction, and other non-weapons research.
Ok, it's non-weapon if you think "weather-man". But virtually anything, and any knowledge, can be used to "weapons" end. Why should this be different?
if you use a good enough junk-filter, slashdot.org will display a single, *blank*, page
I wonder who long till IBM comes out with another super computer base on the Power4 processor. It should make the game more interesting since Power4 destroys Power3 in terms of performance and memory bandwith.
Don't you wonder why they bother? They're only going to have to destroy the thing when it sprouts purple tentacles and destroys Tokyo.
We all know that it's really used for Japan's top secret Super Ultra Omega Gundam Robot Mobile Suit 95006^10.
The supercomputer was built with 'the earth systems model' in mind. This will be the most ambitious computer model ever concieved. It aims to simulate every aspect of the earth system climate - including more processes than ever before: atmospheric processes, ocean processes,land surface feedbacks and land use models, economic models, ice sheet models, at a higher resolution than ever before.
... ;-)
Predictably the model is rumoured to be still 2 years off target yet - so there is the worlds fastest computer sitting idle for the mean time.
Perhaps I could buy some space to run my webpage off it in the mean time
"It's potentially quite significant," said Dr. Tim Kalleen, a space scientist who is director of the American climate research center. He said his researchers were discussing with their Japanese counterparts the technical details needed to make sure CounterStrike server will run on the Japanese machine.
I had no idea CS was still so popular.
Do not fold, spindle or mutilate.
Non-weapons research my foot. While I know that other countries actually do have other things on their mind than defense against people they've pissed off, that doesn't mean that they're still going to reasearch weapons. ;-)
On a side note, how much of that computing power is used to administer tasks to all the processors? It seems to me that the more processors you have, the less power each adds on, because some power has to be saved for administrative tasks.
I wonder what kind of FPS someone could get on that thing...
generates a login:
http://www.majcher.com/nytview.html
Is that soon, very soon Cray will be back into this game. It will be very interesting to see, yes indeed.
If Australia had a supercomputer, what would it be used for ?
1) Predict travel plans of boat people
2) Invade people privacy
3) Helping solve world problems (being a good global citizen)
4) others ?
You dont need to a supercomputer to know it wouldnt be 3.
Non Weapon research??
Yeah right !
Uh.. from Chapter II, Section 9 of the Japanese constitution:
"Aspiring sincerely to an international peace based on justice and order, the Japanese people forever renounce war as a sovereign right of the nation and the threat or use of force as means of settling international disputes. 2) In order to accomplish the aim of the preceding paragraph, land, sea, and air forces, as well as other war potential, will never be maintained. The right of belligerency of the state will not be recognized."
The Japanese are only able to maintain a defensive force, not an army, so even if it was weapons research, it would only be for use in self defense.
slashdot!=valid HTML
http://www.majcher.com/nytview.html
Wow, that's quite an impressive film career. I didn't know he was such an accomplished actor.
...become a huge goddamned distributed-network-in-a-room?
Well, if you look at the number of processor of this supercomputer it's 5104 * 640 = 3.2 Trillion processors.
...) than those kind of computer. Not all applications can benefit of the NEC supercomputer (same things for the Beowulfs).
;-)
I'm not sure that the beowulf approach can follow this performance path. Of course, each processor is more powerfull however, you have to bring electricity and network to all of them (maybe half or a quarter of them if you use multiprocessor motherboard). Here, the number of processor is _huge_ which allow a massive
parallelization of your code.
Of course, some can argue that "we can always build a beowulf of those" but as far as I know, it's not really COTS material and I'm not sure it will be true one day.
Maybe Beowulf will not be able to compete in terms of peak performance. However, for the price it will gives you much more power.
As a conclusion, I would say that Beowulf are less parallel (even with fast network à la myrynet or infiniband or
Today NEC is faster and more powerfull but my guess is that it will not last
The questions are when and how ?
This is, of course, one reason why the post-war Japanese economy was so successful for most of the second half of the 20th century. whilst we were pouring all available resources into 'defence' research, they were getting on with something a litle more useful and productive.
It seems a largely successful strategy and it might be better if more countries were to consider it.
Hmmm...I'd like to see the scientific data behind this statement.
Japanese people are very anti-nuclear-wepons - which is not really a surprise due to the fact that they had two dropped on them. In fact they have sent letters of protest to the heads of every country that tests nuclear wepons since 1965 - hundreds of letters.
Wow - 1 petaflop... Should we be posting our Beowulf cluster posts yet?? Anybody want to jump up and down and claim a first post??
...we are from the government - we are here to help...
Vintage computer games and RPG books available. Email me if you're interested.
And we were worried about the NSA cracking 1024 bit encryption?! http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=02/03/25/212521 1&mode=thread
Evil: "Back in the Sixties I had a weather changing machine that was in essence a sophisticated heat beam which we called a "laser." Using this laser, we punch a hole in the protective layer around the Earth, which we scientists call the "Ozone Layer." Slowly but surely, ultraviolet rays would pour in, increasing the risk of skin cancer. That is, unless the world pays us a hefty ransom."
Weather research my butt!
I really hate Dan Patrick.
So, who's got their calculator handy?
Just think, now that they have all of this processing power they can do some of the following:
1) Make a metal that looks like plastic. Handy for all of those rocket launches.
2) Genetically engineer large reptiles to guard their country from invaders.
3) One word: Gundam.
4) Launch theoretical bombs at ASCI White and see if they can finally win the technology war.
5) Create a fully aware computer program that will help guard us from ourselves.
6) Make a fully synthetic actor that can outact, say, Keanu Reeves. (Oh, sorry, that was the Thunderbirds).
What other possibilities can this thing hold?
"Giving money and power to governments is like giving whiskey and car keys to teenage boys." - P.J. O'Rourke
While knowing that if they were ever really attacked, the US would come to their aid and fight for them. What a deal! Also, I wouldn't say that the US has been putting all available resources into defense. The DOD budget far from being the biggest expense for the US Govt. The percent of GDP spent on defense is only in the single digits (3-5?), but is still twice that of what a country like Germany spends.
the good ground has been paved over by suicidal maniacs
The last time I checked, Google had more than 10,000 servers. I realize these aren't tightly coupled, parallel processors, but it's still a massive machine. Is it 10,000 computers or one? I say for the purposes of comparision that it would beat the Japanese computer. If not now, in a few months when Google's installation grows even larger. This piece struck me as a thinnly-veiled ploy to get more cash for some government computer lab.
Pictures here. so cool!
like the old joke about the japanese electronics miniturising company that was so successful it moved to smaller premises
one day I'll have a
Somebody forgot RC5 from the application list.
--
If you moderate this, then your children will be next.
... American government (world police) nuke Japanese computing facility because "They were going to use it to build nukes"
What i don't understand about the whole supercomputer thing is that nuclear weapons were developed in WW2 with no more computing power than a wrist-watch and theres already a whole bunch of test data that anyone can look at.
This comment does not represent the views or opinions of the user.
Not since we have the big bombs.
will it run Quake at reasonable FPS ?
They test one.
Ad infinitum while the world cringes in fear.
It's going to get ugly when Cuba starts hosting Japanese built systems.
[Okay. Lame joke. It sounded better before I typed it, but I'm too attatched to the effort to not post. You're Welcome.]
-Fantastic Lad
America to the world community is like Microsoft to the business world; "We're here, and we don't want anybody else to be here, so play by our rules, or we'll smack you down."
Vintage computer games and RPG books available. Email me if you're interested.
Jeez, could you imagine a single one of those...
...we still operate under this 640 node barrier.
"All in all, it is a surprisingly large amount for a country that doesn't go into military actions. Who are they defending themselves from?"
Red China and North Korea, for starters (who both have nukes, BTW). They don't exactly have the friendliest of neighbors over there. They would be stupid not to have a good defensive force.
So long as "more" is "all". If one country doesn't renounce violence it can just take whatever it wants from the other countries. If several don't they could just split up the world...
Pocket? What's the point of playing Quake in your pocket? Or maybe I shouldn't ask...
640*5104==3.2M CPUs... so I can dedicate four CPUs to each pixel on a 1024x768 display, and get reasonable Quake performance without hardware acceleration? (-:
Got time? Spend some of it coding or testing
Finally, some new news (as opposed to "this is nothing new").
;)
Question - why is it that we JUST found out about this? How long did it take to build this giant supercomputer? Companies like IBM talk about what they're building long before they are done. Speaking of which, I guess IBM's Deep Blue is kinda underpowered now, relatively speaking.
One more thing - why all the hub-bub about US export restrictions re: computer power? If Japan already has this much computing power, who wants our "junk" anyway?
I lied - one more thing - does the NSA have penis envy over this? Or is their computer still faster?
It takes about a few weeks on Sun ultra sparcs to simulate a week long air pollution scenario over the north eastern united states. This is assuming a 8x8 km grid (where the 8x8 sqkm area is one "point"). The wind modeling is extremely simplified, and the focus is on a select set of contaminants.
To do a detailed wind modeling, and have a finer resolution, and to do some statistical analysis of different input conditions... suddenly we end up with requirements far more than the current computing power.
We can always come up with a problem that is more complex than we can solve using current computing power. That is a good pursuit.
S
The fact that they have to mention that the research is non weapons makes me skeptical to begin with..
Isn't breaking encryption keys for diplomats of
all other countries defensive?
I remember seeing this in a magazine a couple years back as a planned project.
Nice to see it working now.
Sorry, just couldn't resist. :)
If only people in the US would try making progress rather than devoting more resources to the "war on terror".
This is great news really. With the supercomputers built for weapons research naturally people doing "normal" research will have problems getting access.
After all they don't want just anyone poking around and finding things they shouldn't.
But with non weapons research systems I can see academics from all over the world getting easier access and maybe something interesting can happen.
640 nodes * 5104 processors is 3266560 processors.
35.6 teraflops (35600000000000 flops)
35600000000000/3266560 = 2724579 (2.7 megaflops per processor)
Where did you get 8 gigaflops from?
Being an avid watcher of anime, I think we all know what Japan is REALLY going to do with this computer. They're going to build extremely large mecha robots which will (for some reason) be immune to conventional weaponry. Rest assured though, that the computer hasn't figured out a crazy enough storyline to justify cute girls in school uniforms piloting them...
This means war!!!!
:) Rock on Japan.
j/k
They're probably using it to find ways to permently get rid of that "I'm Turning Japanesa" song.
Here's the press release from NEC, from back in March: http://www.nec.co.jp/press/en/0203/0801.html
Eliza did that several years ago.
The japanese computer has MILLIONS of processors. Google doesn't even come close to 1/100th of the size.
Google can NOT do 36.5 TERAFLOPS.
The japanese computer is bigger than the top 10 US supercomputers combined. DO you mean to say google is bigger than that?
ANd btw, this project has been in the works for years, I remember reading about it in some science magazine 3 or 4 years ago, when they started the project.
By some rough statistics that I remember, it could render the original Toy Story completely in 30 hours easily. It might not even take that long. Rendering a whole movie in a day, Edwin Catmull would be proud.
This Wiki Feeds You TV and Anime - vidwiki.org
The article mentioned:
Scientists from the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colo., said they were planning to work with the Japanese earth simulation center to convert United States weather modeling codes to work with the new computer.
Would that code most likely be in something like C, C++ or in Fortran or something else entirely? And what kind of changes would you be talking about when adapting it to vector based processors?
Any mad weather scientists out there like to fill in the lay public on the rough details?
WOPR
"Would you like a nice game of chess?"
----- Whats wrong with this picture? http://www.revoh.org:1234/whatswrong
This is comperable to the computing power in desktops we will probably see by 2010.
CNN storyregarding that Linux computer...
but does it open the pod doors when asked to? :-)
I knew it, they were building the MAGI system!
Go Akagi!
Too bad the links in the slashdot story are broken. The blurb seems to incorrectly imply that IBM was responsible, not NEC.
I'm just waiting for Tom's Hardware to write up an article on how to overclock this to get an additional 1,000,000 fps in Quake III.
Imagine how fast I could get my PR0N to load up!!!!!!!!!! AAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHH
Mod me down, fine with me, it's my real karma I try to keep up.
"...and other non-weapons research."
Uh-huh. That's what insanely fast monster computers are always used for...
You need a FREE iPod Nano
And asked for his opinion on the new Japanese supercomputer, Bill Gates replied "640 nodes ought to be enough for everybody".
All the sudden the most annoying NBC "the only team of certified meteorologists in the Delaware Valley" and "Most accurate forcasting with the Doppler 10,000" seem kind of funny.
I wonder how far in advance this new supercomputer can predict how far John Bolaris is going to be off in his predictions again (the poor guy made some completely overhyped predictions about a blizzard last year in Philly area).
Anyhow, hats off, Japan! I'm impressed.
Okay, so then the Japanese complain about us dumping. Then what? Let's say they win in WTO hearings. How nice for them. Then the US just ignores it. Why? Because we can. What real punishment can the WTO provide?
The WTO is totally powerless, especially against the US. The only thing it provides is a common forum for working these issues out and for establishing a sort of trade best practices. But when you get right down to it, trade disputes are settled as they always have been, either through discussion, or through various embargoes, tariffs, etc. The WTO may add some legitimacy to a particular countries use of some tariffs, etc, but overall it doesn't provide any significant sanctioning ability.
That's the funny thing with all of the world governmental bodies. They have no real power, they mostly just serve as negotiating platforms. The real power continues to be held by individual nations and there's no evidence that they'll be giving up that power anytime soon.
This sig has been temporarily disconnected or is no longer in service
Take that first sentance, rephrase as follows:
Okay, so the japanase complain about us being protectionist and blocking them.
This sig has been temporarily disconnected or is no longer in service
well, since we didn't use them (IE take the 'offensive'), that means that they were saved in case of attack (which is 'defense').
retard
*shrug*
It's probably just a not particularly subtle jab at the US DOE nuclear weapon simulations research which gets done on the big American gov't supercomputers -- in other words, pointing out that they're using their CPU cycles for what theyc consider a better purpose. Japan isn't particularly fond of nuclear weapons at all.
Only the dead have seen the end of war.
Imagine how many SETI@home data units that thing could process in half an hour...!
..MEGA GODZILLA! Complete with rocket launcher arms and jump-jet feet!
Live web cams
Well that's sort of my point... they can't take over the world with giant mecha until they figure that aspect out...
the factory
Seems sort of strange that most folks are most interested in the potential for nuclear weapons research with this latest development. If anyone actually thinks that Japan is interested in furthering nuclear research, they might want to open up the history books to try to understand why they really have no interest in developing nuclear bombs. For anyone that has actually visited Japan, they would realize that they are committed to the removal of ALL nuclear weapons. It's a devastating weapon that should have never been designed. There are those that will argue (and I would agree) that had it not been for the nuclear weapon, WW2 may have had a vastly different outcome. But given the ability to build a "dirty nuke" these days by anyone that has a serious desire to do so, has ramifications that we should hope never comes to pass.... I believe the *real* topic of discussion here should be this significant leap forward with regards to cryptoanalysis. The Japanese are close allies with us in many areas, I suspect there's probably some INTEL sharing going on too.
OF course you have to assume that under typical black projects the DoE/DoD/NSA is running machines far more complex and powerful than they let on. After all SR-71s were a strategic asset 40 years ago and the performance specs are still largely classified. Similarly with computing. A
Also keep in mind that several years ago the US govt complained about the French performing nuclear testing under the rubric that they could do it all on a machine. And low and behold only a few weeks ago the DoE 'announced' that they now have the capability to do that, seemingly forgetting that it was previously announced in 1999. So in the intervening 3 years how far do you think they've come.
You know, there are scads of scientists working for the govt who could probably get on the short list for the Nobel if they were allowed to publically publish... and that's basic research. Imagine what applied engineering looks like..
My God!!? If you're really worried about global warming, turn that computer off! I can't imagine the heat it generates.
...how dare you! i'm appalled! the good ol' USA? never! another cheeseburger? supersize it!
Here's a book about what the U.S. government is doing. It's worse than you think: What should be the Response to Violence?
Contrary to rumor,
n e02.html
the machine is constructed from 640 nodes, with 8 vector processors per node, and 16GB RAM per node. That totals 5120 processors and 10TB memory.
See http://www.es.jamstec.go.jp/esc/eng/outline/outli
Also of note:
peak performance per processor: 8 GFLOPS
total peak performance: 40 TFLOPS
Remember, when they give you TFLOPS or TOPS values, they're giving you PEAK values.
In reality, most of the time, performance is way below peak values, even for the algorithms for which the computer was designed to handle. IBM's pacific blue has a peak TFLOPS value around 3.6TFLOPS...but in reality, its usually around 1.2TFLOPS.
There's no reason to believe this machine will be any different.
Furthermore, the performance of this machine is likely to sink like a rock when its used outside the area it was specially designed for.
In other words, the best supercomputers in the world are still the ones made by starbridge systems, which were bought by NASA (I believe the one NASA bought was called HAL 15, or something like that).
social sciences can never use experience to verify their statemen
Too bad the post on the main page came across as America vs Japan.
This particular picture (from the above links.) is mildly disturbing.
0 3. jpg
http://www.es.jamstec.go.jp/esc/gallary/images/
"I'm sorry, I can't do that Dave...."
Lousy facepalm.
http://www.es.jamstec.go.jp/
a jium a/
is the homepage of the Earth Simulator.
In the middle of
http://www.watch.impress.co.jp/pc/docs/2002/y
you can find some report(Japanese) and pictures of it.
when you finally grow up, you may discover that 99% of the computers ever made have been constructed for some other purpose than playing a deathly boring first person killing game.
That was classic intercourse!
The correct URL of the second is
HERE
This is faster than the SETI network.
SETI operates at 17 teraflops, but at a cost of only $500000.
We're wondering why you just don't log out already.
Maybe the state's highest function is to grind out insoluble problems. (Zelazny, Hall of Mirrors)
Nuclear weapons are the most sensitive issue in Japan, Japanese people are strongly against it. Since the nuclear accident in Ibaraki Prefecture in 1999, the most serious nuclear leakage accident, Japanese citizens have lost confidence about nuclear industry, they asked governments to reduce or stop nuclear power plant construction.
So how, exactly, do I "not know what I'm talking about"? --
Evan
"$30 for the One True Ring. $10 each additional ring!" -- JRR "Bob" Tolkien
I'm waiting for this thing to develop an A.I., sprout tentacles, become mobile then rumble out and start to destroy Tokyo.
What a monster! Should dominate the number one spot at Top500 for some time! :)
:)
I should imagine a computer system of this power will have the US Government a little concerned.. I shouldnt imagine it will be long before they announce that they have designed a 'more powerful' system though
"Hey! Unless this is a nude love-in, get the hell off my property!!"
Keep OPEC fat and happy: Buy an SUV.
Oh yeah?
How about: "I am a research geologiest and have to drive for hundreds of miles in areas that don't exactly have maintained roads. If I don't have a pickup or SUV how the fsck am I supposed to get there?"
Think not? My fiance is almost done with her degree in geology, and we DO have need to go to places like that.
"Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives" should be a convenience store, not a government agency.
It would not suprise me if the US all ready had a petaflop of super computing power or more in one machine. The box might sit down at some government agency like the NSA (the worlds largest employer of mathmaticians) and be classified so that no person without a clearance and need to know will ever know about it. At least for thirty years or so.
Disclaimer:
I have no clearance , so this is sheer speculation on my part.
Will it run Linux?
non-beowulf cluster of those.
Haha...
ok, not funny I guess.
How many of the semi-alert doctors' wives careening around in a $60,000 SUV's, complete with 5 inches of clearance and flawless paint, do you figure actually go off-road? Maybe 5% at the most. The majority of them would be just as well-serviced by a station wagon, but hey, that's just not flashy enough.
AFAIK, according to their treaty, Japan isn't even ALLOWED to research nuclear weapons.
They also aren't able to send troops out in certain situations (they couldn't help us in Afghanistan, except with some money/equipment/civillian work).
The Japanese are known for their competitive spirit. I say, "Good for them" on the computer they have made. Give credit where credit is due. Now, it's your turn to make/create something worthwhile.
Rapidweather's Linux Screenshots.
You know that skit on Conan Obrien where he shows that a story in the back of the paper is humorously related to a story in the front?
Front page story: Computer generated child porn legalized.
Back page story: Japan builds fastest computer.
i doubt a government would let some pesky little thing like a consitution get in the way. the american government doesn't seem to get too bothered about the US constitution, for example.
Personally, I see a world of difference between using an SUV or a pickup for research, construction, or other legitimate work, on the one hand; and using it to drive around the Suburbs "because bigger is better" on the other.
Finding God in a Dog
(* He said the introduction of democracy to China was essential to world peace. *)
That way they *vote* to kick our butts. Although being a democracy seems to overall reduce agression, it is no guarentee. India still wants to kick Pakistan's butt for some reason.
Table-ized A.I.
http://www.nec.co.jp/press/en/0203/0801.html
mostly the same info already mentioned but
does offer a few pics
You forget that alot of defense spending has a positive Keynesian influence on the economy. Technologies and methods developed at taxpayer expense are exploited by private industry thus expanding the American economy. Defense research spending provides R&D dollars without the risk to private industry.
Somewhere, something incredible is waiting to be known. -- Carl Sagan
That they know of...
hehe
Magius_AR
...they come in different colors! I wonder which is faster: the green or the blue ones?
I'm going to wait until the charcoal DV version comes out... it should be faster.
i doubt a government would let some pesky little thing like a consitution get in the way. the american government doesn't seem to get too bothered about the US constitution, for example.
Maybe you should find some specific examples of the Japanese going against their constitution before you start making arguments like that. The Japanese government is not the American government, and vice versa. Unless you have some concrete evidence otherwise, you may not want to make broad generalizations about one government based on what you know about another.
slashdot!=valid HTML
I believe it has to do with the interconnects. While a cluster's many nodes may be talking to each other at 1 Gbps, or whatever, these speeds don't work for a supercomputer like this. A cluster or distributed network is good for jobs that can be split up easily. For example, SETI@home or load balancing servers. However, this is the world of simulations. Like people were pointing out during our discussion on ASCI White, the entire environment of the simulation must be calculated simultaneously. You can't calculate what is going on at point (x1,y1,z1) at time t1 and then move on to (x2,y2,z2) at time t1 becuase the two are touching and interdependant on each other. This is true for every point in the simulation's scope. Therefore, the processors have to have an interconnect speed that will allow them to act as if they are all on the same bus and process data simultaneously for all points before moving on to the next time increment.
Of course, I am only a lowly CS student and I'm sure that someone out there can give a more detailed explanation. Thanks.
i know im going to get it for responding to a troll but here goes... you are so WRONG WRONG WRONG... first of all you are calling their cartoons 'goofy' in the wrong place... also of course they are overcrowded... welcome to earth but the differnce is that they have learned to manage their population issues in a very efficient way... also your genital comment was just completly dumb... im not going there... and as for saying japan chooses your career??? WTF r u tlaking about... japan has one of the most open career systems around as they look completly at merit of an individual... they may look differently than western culture does but they really do try do judge simply on your own possibility to succeed... and it is NOT all work work work in japan... face it... they have faced some really huge issues and solved them quite well... i think america has a lot to learn from them... just look at our telocom system... nuff said...
unzip; strip; touch; finger; mount; fsck; more; yes; unmount; sleep
2002-04-20 06:27:35 [-0000] World (Fastest Super Computer) x 20: Japan 1, US (articles,news) (rejected)
Suckmydick.We now know WHO really started it all. From the press release:
"Blue Gene/L will also be a part of IBM's research in "autonomic computing", an initiative to design computer systems that are self-healing, self-managing and self-configuring."
unfinished: (adj.)
Every body knows NURV is non-nuclear but still weapons oriented. The Eva's are all there to save us against the angels when they come.... they are pro gay too, their main pilot is gay. His name is Shinji.
So this new supercomputer will be the driving force behind the desing team of the next-generation of Evas.... a new tomorrow awaits us....
CC
NO SIG
(* A cluster or distributed network is good for jobs that can be split up easily. For example, SETI@home or load balancing servers. However, this is the world of simulations.....[but] the entire environment of [certain] simulation must be calculated simultaneously. You can't calculate what is going on at point (x1,y1,z1) at time t1 and then move on to (x2,y2,z2) at time t1 becuase the two are touching and interdependant on each other. *)
This sounds like the definition of "largest supercomputer" depends on *what* you are calculating. The SETI project could qualify as the largest if not doing the "touch-heavy" kind of simulations you talk about.
Perhaps "the largest supercomputer for X-type calculations", but maybe not for Y-type.
It sounds like Japan is trying to have "the biggest" simply for the sake of bragging rights (perhaps as advertizing for country industry of a sorts). Japanese culture tends to have a fascination with "the largest". This is why Tokyo is so big, not to mention Sumo wrestlers. They got themselves into hot water by purchasing some big-name American landmarks/industries in the late 80's, only to watch them not produce profits. (Note that every culture has its own silly quirks, like our rabid lawyers, so I am not picking on their entire culture, just one aspect.)
Table-ized A.I.
(* In Japan modesty is natural while blowing your own horn is shameful. *)
Sounds like a better place to buy a used car.
Table-ized A.I.
C'om on.....its not the end of the world guys..
So, the japs have a large boxen somewhere and beat mighty america at something other than delivering pizza under 30 mins.... big fucking deal...
You guys are sudenly so much more sensitive at the rest of the world having leadership at anything....
Buzz off....japs rule for having their neat thingie.... no need fo america to have a larger box somewhere or anything...its just a damn weather box too...
Alex
NO SIG
They just had to be better than them ;).
0xC3
Applications include climate modeling, global warming prediction, and other non-weapons research.
... and Word 2003, which no doubt will require a machine of this stature to just run that annoying little animated Helpy Helperton thing that everyone immediately turns off.
So we should start calling this the first of the Oracles?
-Knots
Anarchy$ dd if=/dev/random of=~/.signature bs=120 count=1
...will it excite the aliens like a Pentium 4 does?
Cress, cress, lovely lovely cress
Japan does have a relatively large defense buget, and a lot of modern weaponry (Aegis class missile cruisers, AWACS, etc). However, they go through great lengths to ensure that the hardware they have is "defensive" in nature.
For an example, back in 1998, N. Korea launched a rocked that passed over Japan and landed somewhere in the Pacific. For a while, the Japanese thought (and I know this because I was there) it was an experimental missile launch, and were generally threatened by it. I remember reading an article in some magazine saying how it would be impossible for the SDF to strike at North Korean missile sites, even in self defense. This is because without air refueling capabilities or aircraft carriers, none of the strike aircraft in their arsenal would be able to reach North Korea and return back to base. Needless to say, Japan does not possess long range cruise missles or surface to surface missiles suitable for such a task.
In some ways, I think the SDF is only for show. The only thing they can effectively defend against is a small scale invasion, for which the threat is practically non-existent. But then, I guess most nations have armies that are either self fufilling or self defeating in purpose anyway.
As for nuclear weapons, I'll say this as a native Japanese speaker and someone who understands the land, people and culture: it won't happen in our life time. Sure, Japan has all the necessary technologies to slap up an ICBM in no time flat. But the public/political support for such a move is simply not there... in fact, even suggesting nuclear armament would probably be suicidal for a politician.
With regards, to Article 9 of the constitution (the one banning all wars)... The constitution was written after WW2 (in 1945), and hasn't been ammended (at least it wasn't the lats time I checked), even though there is an article (54 or 56, can't remember which) that specifically allows for ammendments. Why? Because the public (and politicians) feared that making ammendments to the constitution at all would eventually lead to ammendments to Article 9. So they stuck with an outdated constitution for a long, long time. Perhaps that'll help you understand how sensitive this subject is in Japan (and calm fears among some of you who still seem to think that Japan's just itching to go to war or something).
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Open Source Shirts
I think you'll find ideally the US would go to war with weapons that would annihilate all life and leave all buildings and weapons.
According to their press release: http://www.es.jamstec.go.jp/esc/jp/press/020418.ht ml
Peak: 40 TFLOPS
Actual: 35.61 TFLOPS
They also give some numbers for ASCI White:
Peak: 12.288
Actual: 7.226
Unless they're lying in the press release statement, it seems like more than just hype.
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Open Source Shirts
I guess you're unaware of the recent push in the Diet to introduce legislation to change this law (partially, at least) so that Japanese are capable of joining wars in some cases.
Link to story at Asahi.com
"What is the the operating system running?"
Hyper Operating System.
graspee
Well it doesn't look any fancier than the WOPR in Wargames. I mean come on. Mathew Broderick had an account on the really big iron. He could play chess, talk to it, and even nuke the world.
I will be really impressed when our real life computers can do what the ones in our fave movies can do.
Wargames - Talking Box with Nukes
2001 - HAL was good and Evil and was a great alarm clock. (possibly a code branch of Windows)
Hacker - When do I get a chick who looks like Angelina Jolie in spandex and who punches code? OK, ex girlfriend was one but dont want my site slash dotted.
And my all time favorite who is not a computer. Bender from Futurama. A fully aware intelligence that will drink beer, steal your money, and tell you to bite his shiny metal ass?
Call me when our boxen can do any of things. I would like to know. Make all of our time in front of the CRT more enjoyable.
The Revolution Will Not Be Televised
The grid they are building will be four times as powerful as the system described in this article.
This is actually the prototype for the Playstation 3 which Sony is contracting out to NEC.
;-)
NEC have figured out that if they can simulate the enitre earth on this hardware, then it's capable of rendering any game imaginable.
Now all they have to do is shrink it in size
-marc
Can I put a distributed.net client on it? Gotta find the key...gotta find the key...
Help us build a better map!
Sorry dude. Unfortunately for you and anyone else that might actually need one, 85% of SUV owners never take them off pavement and own them as some sort of status symbol. Because the car companies know that the ave new SUV buyer has a household income of $120K or more, the markup is at least three times that of a normal car. It's about as pad with pickups. Most aren't sold to people who actually use them to get work done. The extra profits and classified so that they do not hurt CAFE standings, the auto makers love them along with everyone in the oil industry.
I'm glad that you have a practical use for one. I just wish more people bought vehicles by how they will use them on a day to day basis instead of as something to impress their friends and neighbors.
the good ground has been paved over by suicidal maniacs
(* Pakistan is full of psychotic muslim wierdos who would destroy any democracy they could - don't forget, if the people are running a country, Allah isn't... *)
But they are not currently running the country, at least not most of it.
Besides, how exactly would India solve that if it was true?
Nuke the whole country just to get rid of the psychopath fanatics? I doubt that would work. It would just invite more "martyrs" to bother you from other countries with psychopath fanatics. IOW, trigger their "victim gland"
Table-ized A.I.
In realtime 3D with blood and swords and genuine terrified screams as a pawn is ridden down by a knight... (-:
Got time? Spend some of it coding or testing
I'm 39, have at least three children, and earn $120 an hour for consulting. And rarely get to play Quake, which I do admire for its, uh, execution.
Yeah, running viruses, apparently... oops, Billy boy only has 94% of the desktop. Does Quake exist for the Mac? If so, we could probably go pretty close to 99% at least capable of it, if not actually designed to do it. Tell me with a straight face that all of those 3D cards ship for use only in CAD workstations.
Got time? Spend some of it coding or testing
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Overview of the design: note that it's 640 nodes with 8 processors each
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Earth Simulator entry/home page
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Jamstec -- Japan Marine Science and Technology Center: Looks pretty much like the USA's NOAA
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News on Top500 Supercomputer Sites where y'all should have been getting this kind of info from to begin with
I can't account for the 16 missing processors - possibly the 640 nodes include not only processing nodes but also various management/admin nodes that do not have the full 8 processors. Maybe it's just mis-information that propagated through the news. If someone finds better as-built specs, drop me a line.No, not really... For example, take the Gulf war. It was supposed to be a high tech war, using "smart" weapons. In actual fact, later on a senior US military official admitted that only 7% of the weopons dropped on Iraq during the war were "smart"... and from other documented sources, 70% of the not "smart" weopons missed their targets completely causing "collateral" ie civilian casualties. From journalists such as the famous John Pilger in his hidden agendas book, we find that in fact during the Gulf war over 250 000 people died, of which only a fraction were military, the rest civilian. When I talked to a sales person about what the Hawk planes do, and many other weopons, they had such stuff as copper dust which is meant to be inhaled into the lungs to kill lots upon lotsa people, Napalm B is made from benzene, polyethylene which burns on contact with skin and almost impossible to get off, killing slowly and painfully. And u call this saving people's lives? more like torturing the remnants of their lives.
Hehe, love that Guy. I ended up taking 2 days of work off waiting for the snow.
Ok, before I open my mouth here, I work with Japan's technical advisor to Thailand. The major problem with Japan is that big business controls everything. More so, even, than in the US.
Put identity in the browser.
That's why I call them "Sub-Urban Vehicles"
Put identity in the browser.
"We're here and we do a *ton* of good for the world. If you mess with us you will find out about our bad temper.
And you that getting a few SETI Work Units for your small fleet, imagine trying to run 5000+ processes at once.
I'm told it will push a winmodem at 55 kbs.
DMCA, Hollings, Palladium. What might have sounded like paranoia is now common sense.
With all that power you need a big MF reset button.
I wager I'm not alone in wishing you'd just go away.
Maybe the state's highest function is to grind out insoluble problems. (Zelazny, Hall of Mirrors)
Another computer you may be interested in is Grape-6 which is a 48 Tflop accelerator for gravitational calculations, developed at U. Tokyo for astrophysics. The creator won the Gordon Bell Award a couple years ago.
bite
Maybe the state's highest function is to grind out insoluble problems. (Zelazny, Hall of Mirrors)
no.
Maybe the state's highest function is to grind out insoluble problems. (Zelazny, Hall of Mirrors)
yawn.
Maybe the state's highest function is to grind out insoluble problems. (Zelazny, Hall of Mirrors)
No, I just don't live in front of a computer. What were we talking about again?
Maybe the state's highest function is to grind out insoluble problems. (Zelazny, Hall of Mirrors)