Supercomputer Breaks the $100/GFLOPS Barrier

Hank Dietz writes "At the University of Kentucky, KASY0, a Linux cluster of 128+4 AMD Athlon XP 2600+ nodes, achieved 471 GFLOPS on 32-bit HPL. At a cost of less than $39,500, that makes it the first supercomputer to break $100/GFLOPS. It also is the new record holder for POV-Ray 3.5 render speed. The reason this 'Beowulf' is so cost-effective is a new network architecture that achieves high performance using standard hardware: the asymmetric Sparse Flat Neighborhood Network (SFNN)." Because this was a university project, KASY0 was assembled entirely by unversity students, which while being a source of cheap labor, is also a good way to get a lot of students of involved in a great project.

Comments

Re:Why do you always call it slave labor? Its not.

[jd]

Personally, I don't like the idea of anyone being a slave to anything.

I grew up in England at a time when the Government still payed 100% of the tuition fees AND a very sizable grant for living expenses (I got something like $8,000 per year).

Compare that to the US, where students need to excell at sports, or wage-slave themselves between lectures to keep going.

Slavery was "abolished" over 200 years ago. It is time to finish it completely. Students, when they graduate, will often earn better jobs and therefore pay higher taxes. Charging them for learning, then for living, and then charging them yet again for student loans, is to tax them four times over for learning.

This is why only the rich can learn in the US. Very very few poor people have degrees, unless they are on a sponsorship trip, in which case they are likely to be spending too much time on the game field to be really learning a damn thing. Sure, it gets them out of the ghetto, but it still ain't learning. Don't mistake the two.

I regard the Thatcher years as the latter-day "Dark Ages" of Britain, but I think she got a few things right. She wanted to increase the number of people getting into University, and aimed to make it practical for everyone to make the choice of going, if they wished.

These days, I believe the estimates place the number of people who have the option of going to University in the UK at around 60%. We're not talking vocational colleges, or unaccredited e-mail spamiversities. We're talking real, established, often hundreds of years old, centers of learning with a proven track record.

The US doesn't even come close. Many kids can't even get through high school, because their parents can't afford it. Public schools in the US are a joke - assuming you survive the endemic violence in them.

There is no possibility of a "reneissance" in the US, as it is utterly counter to the existing system. Power is held by the rich, the rats are kept by the poor. The US, far from being classless, is an excellent example of a fiefdom.

Yes, I resent that. I resent the fact that students are cheap "slave labor". I resent the fact that those who do the most are paid the least and get the least credit. I resent the fact that the "land of opportunity" exists only in the minds and pockets of the rich elite.

Why all this resentment? Because I come from a land which had learned the errors of this way of life. It learned the hard way, by becoming virtually bankrupt, by destroying virtually the entire of its own society, that what happens to the poor in society will eventually happen to the whole of society. You can run, but you can't hide from the monsters you create.

So why am I in the US at all? Because the US is still better off than the UK. The UK learned, but too little and too late. It is still decaying, as evidenced by the expulsions of tourists for not knowing who Yoko Ono was. The spy cameras, the paranoia - these things are proof positive that the UK is still in a state of decay. The better education will help, eventually, but it'll take time. The UK won't recover in my lifetime, though.

The US, on the other hand, is not yet in that same state of total ruin. It's a lot bigger, and a lot richer, which helps stave off these problems. The continuing evidence of yet more accounting fraud, the fragility of the power networks and the total absence of any serious mass transit for most of the country means that further decay is inevitable, and may be irreversible by this point. Nonetheless, the US is still a country you can live in. The UK really is not.

So if I dislike the US this badly, why stay here at all? What are the alternatives? New Zealand has a low crime rate, true, but getting in is next to impossible and there's no industry there, to speak of. Australia is set firmly on the same course of self-destruction as the UK and US. Most of Europe is in bad shape

Re:Why do you always call it slave labor? Its not.

[AceM2]

Where I live you can also sit on your ass on government welfare and do nothing.

I'm glad you're proud of the fact that there are hundreds of thousands (conservative estimate) cheating the system and being allowed to be leeches when they could be working. Actually, since you're so glad about supporting deadbeats, I'll be more than happy to let you pay my taxes. I'll make a deal with you.. Just give me your checking account number and I'll let you pay for my groceries too.



I'm not just being an asshole either, I've honestly had to work with people collecting government funds, and I'll tell you.. For every hard luck case, single mother gets laid off and is really looking for a job, there are at least 3 deadbeats and 2 crackheads who have found ways of cheating the system to collect good money. The way our system is now, why NOT cheat it? I'm not totally against government support, I don't want to see that single mother get kicked out of her apartment, but I'm certainly not proud of the deadbeats in this country. Welfare and foodstamps aren't preventing muggers and beggers one bit, and I'd wager that most 'muggers' (>50%) are already on government support.

People who don't want to work/won't work are, after all, a minority and will never bring a society financially to its knees.

The minority you speak of is huge. They're sucking billions out of our economy, and the able bodied free loaders should be stopped. The working man and woman, no matter what they're doing as long as it's legal, should be proud of themselves. Just think of the programs which could be funded by spending the welfare/foodstamps/etc money on them instead of giving it away to people who do nothing to deserve it. Think of the extra tax money that would even be generated by the thousands of people that could be employed instead of freeloading.

And before the libertarians jump in and start spouting crap about how they should not be made to pay for these freeloaders, let me remind you that you are free to leave the society.

That's such a stupid comment.. It's like saying after I build and maintain a successful business I shouldn't be allowed in the building because people want to smoke inside and I don't want them to.

You can take your business and live outside it, all tax free, but you'll come crying back when you realize that you'd have to fund your own law enforcement, health care and rescue services.

1) I can protect myself if allowed. I don't want to have to use one, but I'd use a gun, baseball bat, kitchen knife, or pencil if I had to.
2) Uhm.. I already have to pay full price to go to the doctor, what's going to change? I'll still just walk into one and pay the price.
3) Okay you got me, if I fall into a well I'll just hope some good person walks by to save me.. It's a risk I'm willing to take


Don't buy into the garbage of if you want protection you have to have welfare for deadbeats, it just doesn't make sense. I'm tempted to ask if you even have a job and what it is..