Virtual Grid Supercomputer Goes (Partly) Online

hotsauce writes "The BBC is reporting that CERN (the guys who invented the Web) are working on a virtual supercomputer called the Grid. The Grid taps computing power from 12 countries to process data from a new supercollider that will simulate parts of the Big Bang. Phase One of the Grid just went online."

Comments

Over-hyped

[TwistedSquare]

I have heard from some people involved in the grid that it is a triumph of PR over substance, and that it is not going to be as well-used and participated in as the press releases suggest...

Re:Over-hyped

[grid geek]

I'm doing my PhD on it at the moment. While there is a lot of hype there is a lot more substance to it than there was 2 years ago.

For example we now have a single sign on system spread over more than a dozen countries (never easy when the gov wants to know why other countries scientists are using their machines.)

Loads of work has been done on integrating data resources into the network, large scale systems configuration, data discover etc.

As ever the BBC is a bit behind on the news - this is just a new releases of the software. And there had better be substance when LHC comes on line in 2007/8 as it will be generating 15, 000 TB of data to be stored a year and we need some way to deal with this.

Re:Over-hyped

[cperciva]

I'd go further than that. I've heard the EU DataGrid described as a perfect example of how not to run a large software project.

People working in half a dozen different languages (natural languages, that is, not programming languages!), a complete lack of chain-of-command, software being signed off on because a document detailing critical bugs had been produced (even though the critical bugs weren't fixed!), progress reports being sent back for revision because "they weren't positive enough"...

Take the worst elements of decentralized open-source programming, combine them with the worst elements of government beaurocracy -- and then replace half of the programmers with physicists who have less programming experience than most second year CS majors -- and you'll get somewhere close to what I've been told about the EU Datagrid.

Of course, this is all second-hand information. Maybe the person who was telling me all of this is just a burnt-out coder who would be unhappy with whatever project he was working on. But I doubt it.

Re:Over-hyped

[pubjames]

People working in half a dozen different languages (natural languages, that is, not programming languages!),

Welcome to reality. Reality for most of the rest of the world, that is.

In Europe we speak lots of languages. That's the reality of the situation. Of course this isn't as efficient as just speaking one language, but it is the reality. I know, as an American you're probably thinking "well why don't you all just speak English?"

I had a funny situation on the outskirts of San Francisco once. I asked a guy sweeping up outside a MacDonalds some directions. I replied in very stilted English that he couldn't understand me because he didn't speak English. I noticed his accent so I asked him my question in Spanish. The look of suprise and joy on his face was comical. He told me that most Americans can't speak another language and expect you to learn English, but not speaking another language themselves don't realise that learning another language isn't easy. And they treat you like crap and think you're stupid if you can't speak English. I don't know if what he said is true or not, but unfortunately I don't find it hard to believe.

Re:Over-hyped

[cperciva]

Sure, there are lots of languages in Europe. But do you really need to have half a dozen of them in a project which only has a hundred people?

Any company which was running a project like this would have picked one location, hired a bunch of people, and had them all working in the same building, speaking the same language. It's only because of EU politics -- the requirement that the EU Datagrid be a multinational consortium -- that there are so many languages and locations involved.

Re:Over-hyped

[VanillaCoke420]

I'm european and in EU they want to preserve the diversity by declaring all the official languages of each country to be "official EU languages". However, in a computer project like this, it's just ridiculous not to just use English. I'm not sure about the rest of Europe, but in Sweden it's on the curriculum from as early as from year two in elementary. A lot of the text books (at least in computer science) on college level is in english. I would be surprised if there are a lot of people in Europe born after the 50's who doesn't speak english if they have to. Not only surprised, but actually disapointed.

Re:Over-hyped

[Znork]

"Any company which was running a project like this would have picked one location, hired a bunch of people, and had them all working in the same building, speaking the same language."

And then tried to launch the grid project at multiple corporate sites, whereupon they discover the nice little problem that corporate politics and economics result in them not being able to run that project anywhere but at the site where the project was developed - your project, we're not contributing a cents worth of spare capacity, go buy your own machines.

If you want a project like this to have the faintest chance to succeed you get all the people who are expected to contribute anything out of their budget involved. Or you'll get sunk. Even in a corporation. And for a multinational, that means you have people with different native languages. This is usually not a problem in a multinational because the people involved in such projects usually have at least one language in common, and often more.

Re:Over-hyped

[mcspiff]

I`ve had to help french tourists from time to time here, the look of relief of their face when someone can talk to them in their native tongue can actually be funny. And this is in canada, where we are official "bilingual". The West should really encourage the learning of multiple languages.....

Re:Over-hyped

[gl4ss]

.. also in reality in europe most of people(at least in northern europe) also speak english.

i'm expected to speak 3 languages(finnish, english and swedish, which i don't speak too well.. but can understand somewhat still). the language i use when dealing with people who don't speak finnish is english(that includes one of the guys who i share the bathroom and kitchen with who is chinese, and the german and polish guys before him)

well, i do know for a fact that it's not that uncommon in southern europe that you don't know anything else than your native language(which might come from cultural backgrounds or something), which is really sad when people from these nations come to irc and expect everyone to speak their language(while the channel language for international channels is 100% of the time english).

learning another language is not that hard. sure, speaking like a native can be very hard at times, finnish for example is a bitch to learn so that you can't be singled out as a foreigner very easily, and i know my english pronouncation sucks, even when i have to use it nearly daily since i don't hear much people who in my opinion proper english with brit accent, which is easier to grasp single words from. finnish in this regard is very easy, if you hear a word you know exactly how you're supposed to write it right away, thus pronouncation of names & etc is very easy and one of the reasons why you can catch a finnish person dumbfounded when you ask him 'how you write that?' about his name for example, since most of the times it is not needed(with expections).

though, as for a project like this i would take it for granted that all international communication would be done in english as would documentation & etc done in english also, as it happens that english is the defacto international language for interaction over language barriers at this time like latin once was in europe(even if none of the participants speak english natively). i take it as that english happens to be the most widely used language in oss for collaboration over borders as well.

oh well, maybe i'm just a bit snobby because we have these places called 'schools' in which we are taught at least english and swedish(and of course, our native language)..

Re:Over-hyped

[T.i.m]

No doubt they have overcome a lot of obstacles and they have loads more to overcome.

But the most interesting part of your statement, methinks, were: <br>

<em> especially since I might one day be a user of this facility.</em>
<p>

The grand plan is that all or most of us will use grid computing, atleast for everything that is resonably computing intensive. This makes sense to me, today most computers spend the better part part of there life in idle state or turned of.

Re:Over-hyped

[btg]

CERN also happens to be physically located here near Geneva, and the local language is french. It's lovely and all that lots of the organisations use English as their official language, but it's also useful to be able to go shopping, talk to your landlord, order dinner etc.

Re:Over-hyped

[Becquerel]

Sure, there are lots of languages in Europe. But do you really need to have half a dozen of them in a project which only has a hundred people?

So long as they all code in Fortran with MPI .... it doesn't matter

Re:Over-hyped

[tenchiken]

but unfortunately I don't find it hard to believe.


Which reveals your biases. Almost all high schools and jr. highs in America require 3-5 years of F.L study. I myself am fairly fluent in spanish (which is by far the largest second language in America).

But this is also a cultural difference between America and Europe. Simply put, we have far far too many ethnic minorities here to use anything other then one or two languages in general use, and 10-12 in court use (a friend of mine is a translator at district federal court, and they have to cover over 100 different languages with over 300 translators).

Simply put, we can't afford not to be standardized on multiple languages because there are too many American's of former : indians, russians, Irish (kidding, ouch), english, french, spanish, portugese, chinese, japanese, korean, vientamese, bengladeshi and qatari descent. Think I am exaggerating? That's a list of my friend's ethnic makeup.

Re:Over-hyped

[Xilman]

Interesting that you find 'english with brit accent' easy to grasp single words from. I speak english natively and I can barely understand english with a brit accent. (From BC, Canada)

But that's because you speak Canadian and not English. 8-)

My native language is English (I was brought up near Nottingham in the English Midlands) but even so there are some Brits I can barely understand. Glaswegians are notable examples.

Paul

Re:Over-hyped

[gl4ss]

yeah the english i'd like to speak is from the english teacher from our university i had for one course.

and yes, he did realise that there's quite a few dialects of english around(and as it's so widespread there can't be a central institution which has a last word on how things should be spelled and written, which smaller languages can have and enforce in education).

there may be most people speaking the indian dialect of english but i'd be insane if i really wanted to speak like that, hattalawaa! maybe i just want to speak british dialect because that's what the focus is on during most of the elementary school english classes(from third grade to 9th, +3 years in highscool, and it seems to be the focus in our technical university too). and partly because that's something that can be defined as well, as oppsed to other branches of english(the problem of many dialects is encouraged by the fact that modern english is quite new as language as well)..

Re:Over-hyped

[doktor-hladnjak]

I had a similar experience in Germany (I live in the Netherlands). Germans have a way of expecting you to speak German if you're in Germany. Crazy isn't it?

I'm an American and I've lived in two smallish cities in Germany. In those two places hardly anybody spoke English except if they were university educated. Even in Berlin, I've had problems where nobody spoke English. However, the thing with Germans is that usually you would be addressed in German first. If you look confused and ask them if they speak English, they'll speak English with you (so long as they know it). But everything is in German by default.

In the Netherlands, I think it's totally different. Once when I was in Leiden there was a waitress who didn't speak English. Every other time when I've asked somebody if they spoke English there, they give you this look and say "Yes, I speak English". However, that look makes it seem more like "WTF? Do you think I'm a bumpkin and don't speak English or something?" I think it's also the only place I've ever been where if I try to speak in the official, native language of the country (and I speak fairly decent Dutch) people immediately pick up on my accent and start responding in English. The French or Germans will usually suffer through a butchering of their language for quite a while before asking if you'd rather speak in English. It's sorta annoying, but at the same time really captures the practicality of the Dutch I think.

Re:Over-hyped

[ErikZ]

Look, if I were to move to Germany I'd learn German, and become pretty damn good at it.

My attitude is that if English is considered the business language of the world, that most new developments are done in English, that if you move to the US, you better learn the damn language.

Re:Over-hyped

[Dick Faze]

And they treat you like crap and think you're stupid if you can't speak English

This is largely because most of the Americans treating them like crap are part of the first, second, or third generation of immigrants who came from another country, worked hard, and found a way to fit in. Now, people come from other countries, change the road signs and the schools, then apply for some government aid. All of which is funded by the tax dollars of the "crap treater" who sees none of the benefit, and imagines the larger picture of his country being harmed by it.

When I was a kid, my father wouldn't *allow* us to speak Spanish out in public, now in parts of Miami you can go days without speaking English. Doesn't bother me, but I can see how it could bother a lot of people.

Re:Over-hyped

[ErikZ]

My US high school required a foreign lanuage. Which has degraded into uselssness due to the fact that almost no one speaks French besides people from France and a few French Canidians.

What a waste of time.

My mother was German. Also as waste of time becuase, get this, only Germans speak German! Outside of german school I never heard of word of German.

Re:Over-hyped

[Zeinfeld]

I have heard from some people involved in the grid that it is a triumph of PR over substance, and that it is not going to be as well-used and participated in as the press releases suggest...

Well when I was working on the Web at CERN they already had comprehensive facilities for distributing computing jobs over large numbers of workstations. Most physics code is pretty easy to parallelise at the event level - whether it be simulations or analysis. So no, it is very clear that the grid will be extensively used. The real question is how novel it is.

The part where the article is completely off is where they describe CERN as the people who invented the Web. Nope, they kicked us all out abart from Bernard C. back in 1995 because they wanted to concentrate on physics and did not want competition for the headlines from the Web folk.

I have not seen the grid computing code. Hopefully it is better than the standard CERN fare. At the time I was there everything had to be written in FORTRAN. They were imensely proud of CERNLIB which was probably the buggiest piece of software in the history of the field, yet they all used it in their analysis.

I remain convinced that the Z0 particle is actually the result of a bug in the GEANT simulation. Meanwhile the Higgs boson has been produced in huge numbers but overlooked because of a bug in PAW (pronounced Poor). Once upon a time physicists redid each other's experiments, now they share each other's programs.

Things might have changed over the past ten years of course. I doubt that CN division is still predicated on maintenance of CERNVM being the top and only priority.

Re:Over-hyped

[The Original Atrox]

For all intents and purposes, Miami is practically another nation now. It has been taken over. And our nation as a whole is under invasion across our entire southern border... its time we did something.

Atrox

Re:Over-hyped

[OwlofCreamCheese]

its not some crazy sign that americans are lazy. its just a fact that in alot of places in america you have a thousand+ mile drive before you find a large group of people that speak another language as their primary. in europe you can't do this.

Re:Over-hyped

[ESSBAND.]

"...then replace half of the programmers with physicists who have less programming experience than most second year CS major"

And this is a bad thing, how? I know /. is not the place to make any kind of derogatory inferences about programmers or CS-types, but your statement is patently stupid. Perhaps in private industry, coders are doing the right thing, but in Big Science, having a CS degree doesn't mean a hell of a lot to me. IAAP, and at my national lab the only people to really make any kind of progress in computing *are* the physicists. Our computer services and software development department are too busy restricting access and applying WinXP patches to do anything useful for us.

You do realize that before most universities were offering CS degrees, there were people programming computers. I'd venture to say a lot of those folks were physicists. We may not be the most efficient coders around, but we build what works for us and allows us to gather and analyze data in the way most conducive to conducting particle accelerator physics experiments.

I'm sure that few of the physicists involved are going to get jobs in Redmond or Cupertino or any other regions in the world where they'll need to build general purpose machines, but I'll take computing systems built by physicists for physicists any time over anything most CS majors without a physics degree (and thus, little idea what we need) crap out.

Another thing you might not realize is that most governments are overly critical of any projects the science community tackles. Anything that smells like lack of progress can mean lack of funding. This is in reference to your comment about progress reports not being "positive enough." There is a fine line many in the community have to walk in order to get the approval of governmental funding agencies that want everything to be run like a fortune 500 company. We're not here to turn a profit to share-holders. Some people seem to lack that understanding and insight.

Flame on, mod me down, whatever, but this is the opinion/observation of someone actually in the field trying to get some physics done. Most of the time, the exhalted CS folks won't produce the tools we need, so we make them ourselves. I'd be interested in hearing from others at the large national labs and their experiences in getting the tools they need to conduct research unimpeded.

When will we do this ourselves?

[Max Romantschuk]

Distributed computing has been a long time coming. Sure, grids are cool, but when can we download a safe piece of software which to use for distributed calculations? When I'm not it need of doing stuff myself it would use my idle time for other people's calculations, and vice versa.

Sure it doesn't work for any type of calculation, but there's still a huge potential.

Distributed backups is another thing I'd like to have now, rather than tomorrow...

Re:When will we do this ourselves?

[SushiFugu]

I apologize in advance if this is stupid, but isn't what you're talking about exactly what SETI does? I thought they used distributed software to do calculations.

Re:When will we do this ourselves?

[BabyDave]

Distributed backups is another thing I'd like to have now, rather than tomorrow...

How about this?

Re:When will we do this ourselves?

[Cochonou]

Meanwhile, just use one of the plenty of distributed computing programs that already exist for scientific research, if ever you got bored by SETI@home...
Analytical Spectroscopy Research Group
evolution@home
eOn
Climate Prediction
Distributed Particle Accelerator Design
LifeMapper
etc...

Re:When will we do this ourselves?

[Max Romantschuk]

I apologize in advance if this is stupid, but isn't what you're talking about exactly what SETI does?

The question is not at all stupid. SETI@Home does this, as does Folding@Home, Distributed.net etc...

But in all of these cases the calculations being done are determined by the server. I'd like to see a system where the calculations could be determined by the users. Providing everyone doesn't need to calculate huge stuff all the time it should work.

The major issue is data security. The program has to be flawless in that area, otherwise a malicious calculation submitted into the grid could have a disastrous effect.

Re:When will we do this ourselves?

[BabyDave]

Distributed computing has been a long time coming. Sure, grids are cool, but when can we download a safe piece of software which to use for distributed calculations? When I'm not it need of doing stuff myself it would use my idle time for other people's calculations, and vice versa.

I apologize in advance if this is stupid, but isn't what you're talking about exactly what SETI does? I thought they used distributed software to do calculations.

I think he means a generalised piece of software - i.e. you can upload your 50,000 data sets, along with the spec file for what you want doing with them (mathML-based, maybe?), and they get distributed to other people, with results being sent back to you.

It sounds like a good idea in theory, but there's the problem of people sending out 'dodgy' calculations - e.g. if John Q. Terrorist uploads a model for generating anthrax yields, are all the other people liable for assisting in the production of biological weapons?

Re:When will we do this ourselves?

[SushiFugu]

Ahh, I see what you mean now. If implemented properly I think that could really be a great idea. An open yet secure platform for the community to perform calculations that they might never be able to perform reasonably on their own.

Re:When will we do this ourselves?

[teemu.s]

may you want to try this one: openmosix

Re:When will we do this ourselves?

[grid geek]

No, seti is a distributed application - 3 million instances of the same program. The grid is a distributed environment - an operating system if you like, which programmers can write their own applications to run on top of.

Like the OS for your desktop the Grid's middleware software deals with things like I/O, resource allocation, security etc.

So, seti@home could run on the grid, but is not a grid in its own right.

Re:When will we do this ourselves?

[sql*kitten]

Sure, grids are cool, but when can we download a safe piece of software which to use for distributed calculations? When I'm not it need of doing stuff myself it would use my idle time for other people's calculations, and vice versa.

You can get it here along with some case studies of how it's used in production.

Distributed backups is another thing I'd like to have now, rather than tomorrow...

Uuencode, split, and post to Usenet...

Re:When will we do this ourselves?

[dkf]

if John Q. Terrorist uploads a model for generating anthrax yields, are all the other people liable for assisting in the production of biological weapons?

No, since as part of the Grid, everyone will have proof of who authorized the calculation; you'll be able to say to the Feds "I can prove it was John Q. Terrorist, Kabul."

Of course, the Feds will ask you why you were selling any compute time to JQT given that the Grid doesn't mean that you have to sell to all-comers (no more than you have to give Unix shell accounts to anyone who asks), but that's another matter...

Re:When will we do this ourselves?

[CGP314]

Distributed backups is another thing I'd like to have now, rather than tomorrow...

Three steps to a distributed backup:

Step one: Zip and encrypt your data into 650mb size chunks.

Step two: Name the chucks 'Matrix Reloaded' and 'Britney and Madonna Snog and Shag'

Step three: Share on Kazaa.

Re:When will we do this ourselves?

[AlecC]

One problem with this is the ability of some idiot to absorba an almost infinite amount of processing time if it is available. Like trying to find primes using the Sieve of Eratosthenes in a half-baked implementation across the whole net. The current difficulty of Grid computing means that people trying to do it a re serious about it and optimise their algorithms and test before launching across a million PCs. Make it easy, and peope will kaunce "while (1 == 0)" across all the PC in the world and wonder why it doesn't terminate.

Re:When will we do this ourselves?

[Multics]

We (the USA) have multiple times:

The TeraGrid is the NSF flagship for grid computing - be it good or bad.

The Grid.org people are some of the former SETI@home people gone more general purpose.

And of course, there is The Global Grid Forum which is meeting in Chicago in a week or so. GGF is the standards behind the Globus enabled grid.

We could ask why CERN/etal couldn't have come up with a slightly more imaginary name?

We can also ask why NSF are such suckers for the last 20 years of hype from the people who have run the national supercomputer centers in the USA? Ditto congress. But that is a (sad) story for a different day.

And finally we can ask what Top500.org is going to do when people begin reporting HPL benchmarks using these things? That HPL became the standard that people are designing supercomputers around argues just how totally screwed up high performance computing really is at the moment.

-- Multics

Re:When will we do this ourselves?

[Jim McCoy]

Distributed backups is another thing I'd like to have now, rather than tomorrow...

Ask and you shall receive...

Check out HiveCache for grid-based backups for your enterprise. There are lots of great distributed systems out there that do more than just provide a cheap supercomputer replacement. Some of them can actually save your biz money and eliminate some of the more unpleasant tasks your IT staff has to deal with.

Re:When will we do this ourselves?

[ErikZ]

An operating system distribued over a million different platforms?

Gah!

(Curls into fetal postion)

Re:When will we do this ourselves?

[Max Romantschuk]

Ask and you shall receive... Check out HiveCache for grid-based backups for your enterprise.

Thanks for the info, but unfortunately this solution lacks two things I'm looking for: Open sourceness and platform independency.

The idea is right on target though, but I'm still waiting for a solution I can run together with my friends and over the Internet. This also implies public key encryption and an efficient distribution system though :)

Datagrid homepage

[maharg]

http://eu-datagrid.web.cern.ch/eu-datagrid/

Re:Datagrid homepage

[henben]

Jesus, look at this.

Here's their "intranet", which is publically accessible:

http://eu-datagrid.web.cern.ch/eu-datagrid/intrane t_home.htm

You can't access all the reports, but you can get lots of design documents and stuff. It's done in FrontPage and riddled with spelling errors. Not promising.

Re:Datagrid homepage

[utexaspunk]

Have you worked in a post-graduate computational research environment? I worked for a subgroup at TICAM (now ICES) at UT back when I was a student and most of the grad students, post-docs, researchers, etc. in the places where I've worked speak very little english and have no eye for presentation. Most of them WOULD use FrontPage, because they just want to slap something up there. They often also had a hard time doing even the most basic stuff in Powerpoint. I find most of the people that are real into theoretical computing/mathematics stuff don't give a rat's ass for spending time on presentation. Good for me, though, as that was my job to clean up their stuff :) So, maybe it says something about their project that they didn't have enough money (or weren't marketing savvy/vain enough) to hire their own graphic designer.

CERN didn't invent the web..

[Anonymous Coward]

Al Gore did

Re:CERN didn't invent the web..

[switched4OSX]

No, he'll get the UN, which we didn't need before (but now we do), do it for him. If I was a voting member in the UN I'd tell him to get stuffed. Of course, once a democracy is formed in Iraq, they will be a model for the Arab world (yes, I am being sarcastic).

Re:CERN didn't invent the web..

[WIAKywbfatw]

After September 11th, Dubya had the political good will of virtually every country in the world. Somehow, in less than two years, he managed to piss it all away. That's some acheivement.

The Grid?

[Jason1729]

Time for a lot of That sounds like the Matrix jokes

Jason
ProfQuotes

Re:The Grid?

[NanoGator]

"Time for a lot of That sounds like the Matrix jokes"

You mean like "It has no substance"?

Don't diss it

[wodon]

I know it sounds like the world domination scheme from a bond film, but I've seen what it can do.

A friend of mine is working on part of the grid for his PHD in the uk
and once you have watched him transfer 700 MB files from the uk to
Switzerland in under a minute you realise that they aren't joking.

I guess their next step is running quake over it!

Re:Don't diss it

[ihatesco]

I guess their next step is running quake over it!

They already did it...

Guess what is coming next?

But I am wait ing for this one.

Re:Don't diss it

[Tybalta]

Imho bandwidth and computing power is not the same ;)

But, oh well, can't wait to get access to this LWC (or Large W@rez Collider) ;)

Re:Don't diss it

[ErikZ]

Ask him to send me a copy of "Homeworld 2" too.

Power to the Grid!

[richie2000]

The Grid taps computing power from 12 countries

And electrical power from how many?

(
I for one welcome our new Grid ove *thwap*
But, just imagine a Beow *thud*
In Soviet Russia, the Gridski compu *wham*
)

Re:Power to the Grid!

[ryanvm]

Why do people think that *pretending* to tell hackneyed geek jokes is funny? Don't you guys ever get tired of this shit?

Re:Power to the Grid!

[richie2000]

Don't you guys ever get tired of this shit?

Not really, but then again I only do it part-time, as a volounteer.

Imagine...

[CowboyMeal]

Imagine a beowulf cluster of... oh wait.

Re:Distributed computing has been here for years

[Max Romantschuk]

In fact, distributed computing and "grids" are older than you are.

Care to elaborate? Making claims is easy, but I'd like to know what you mean ;)

Nobody can be told what the Grid is...

[WIAKywbfatw]

...you have to see it for yourself.

From Reference.com:

Entry: matrix
Function: noun
Definition: origin
Synonyms: cast, forge, form, grid, model, mold, origin, pattern, source, womb
Concept: origin/source
Source: Roget's Interactive Thesaurus, First Edition (v 1.0.0).

What they do at CERN

[hkon]

Is it just me, or is referring to CERN as "the guys who invented the web" a bit like referring to Paul McCartney as "the guy from Wings"? To a lot of people, CERN is probably better known as "the guys who know more than anyone about particle physics".

Re:What they do at CERN

[meadowsp]

"Wings, only the band the beatles could have been"

Re:What they do at CERN

[markus_baertschi]

Only that the web was really invented at CERN as a byproduct of the main physics research. Tim Berners-Lee was working to improve the communication and collaboration of the Particle Physicists. This is still very important, as they do most of their work at home and come visiting the center only once in a while.

Markus

Re:What they do at CERN

[BigBadBri]

No - Ladislo Biro invented the Biro.

Nasa wasted millions developing a zero-G ballpoint, whereas the Russians used pencils.

Re:What they do at CERN

[AlecC]

Nasa wasted millions developing a zero-G ballpoint, whereas the Russians used pencils.

Urban Legend

Re:What they do at CERN

[Rasta Prefect]

Nasa wasted millions developing a zero-G ballpoint, whereas the Russians used pencils.

As another poster pointed out, this is an urban legend. Also, there is a significant advantage to using pens - you don't have (conductive) graphite dust floating around your zero-G envrionment.

Re:What they do at CERN

[sexylicious]

One thing that the Russians do with their space hardware is make it sealed and pressurize it to 1 atm. These would be the avionics packages on everything from Soyuz, to Progress, to satellites.

Re:What they do at CERN

[dexace]

Although I agree with the theme of your comment, it's not true that CERN is "the guys who know more than anyone about particle physics". They may be building the largest HADRON collider as of now, but particle physics is done with many types of machines. Currently, for example, the largest electron-positron collider is at SLAC in California. The types of particle physics that you do with these two machines are different simply because of the types of particles that they collide. Smashing leptons are much different from smashing hadrons such as protons. It's true, for example, that the LHC (Large Hadron Collider) at CERN will probably be the first to discover the Higgs boson (if it exists), but you will need an electron collider like the one at SLAC (but much bigger with more energy) to probe certain properites of the Higgs further. Another point is that labs like CERN and SLAC are collaborative worldwide. These labs are hosts to scientists from countries all over the world. It is because of this collaboration that the WWW was even invented. As a matter of fact, SLAC was the first place in the US to use the WWW.

Re:What they do at CERN

[BigBadBri]

Ah well, what do I know?

I only remember back to around 1968 - I'm sure I remember it on Tomorrows World as having developed for the US space programme.

CERN's site is down

[rizzn]

I've been a big fan of distributed computing ever since distributed.net came out with their first client. The TCA Internet team used to be hot stuff back in the day as far as number crunchers (due primarily to me sticking the RC5 client on all three of the NOC's e450's as well as all the cube farm machines). So naturally, this interests me. I wanted to see what it took to get a grid-enabled machine. Costs involved. Scope of the project. The article's fine and all, but I knew I could go direct to the source. Not found. In fact, all of googles top 25 links to .ch sites seem to be down. Is this just me or did CERN disconnect their webserver and absorb the circuits into their grid or something?

15,000 TB/year

[Moderation abuser]

No big deal. You can get almost a Tb on to a single tape these days.

"The equivalent of"

[EinarH]

the equivalent of more than 20 million CDs a year

Why can't journalist start using Terabytes and Petabytes instead of "the equivalent of x number of CD's" and "x number the Library of Congres"?

Re:"The equivalent of"

[The Clockwork Troll]

Why can't journalist start using Terabytes and Petabytes instead of "the equivalent of x number of CD's" and "x number the Library of Congres"?

Because they're still niche terms, just like gigabyte was a few years ago. They're not meaningful to mainstream readership yet (though terabyte likely will be soon, as consumer demand for digital video storage continues to increase).

You will also be disappointed if you expected USA Today articles to mention megaparsecs and kiloTesla anytime soon.

Re:"The equivalent of"

[ColaMan]

Because your average layman wouldn't know a terabyte if you force fed it to him , bit-by-bit.
For example - I bought an 80GB drive for a server the other day.....

Secretary : "80GB? how big is that?"

Me: "Well...... if you presume that there are:
80 characters across a page by 66 lines down, you get approx 4000 characters per page of (dense) text.
So, 80 thousand million divided by 4000 gives you 20 million pages of text."

Secretary (mildly impressed): "That's a lot!"

Now, she has no real idea how much volume of paper is involved in 20 million pages, so I continued :

Me : "So, if you translate that into boxes of paper thats... 20000000 / 500 sheet reams / 10 reams to a box.. that gives 4000 boxes of paper, like that heavy box on the floor beside you. Imagine 4 cubes of 10x10x10 boxes, that's 20 million pages. (Casually waves drive about) All in this conveniently-sized package!"

Secretary (dumbfounded): "Wow."

Me : "Ain't technology great?"

Re:"The equivalent of"

[Hittite Creosote]

For the same reason they still use inches and fahrenheit - the point is to write in a language the reader will understand.

Under-hyped

[pubjames]

I think one thing that distinguishes the USA from Europe (and in fact many other countries) is that, in the USA, you're really good at hyping stuff.

Over here in Europe we're crap at it, or rather, it's not seen as being so important - which I believe is a mistake.

I was once knew a marketing person at CERN who said that as they had invented the web, they were thinking of putting up some good web pages about it to let the world know what they had achieved. Later I found out that she had been told that it had been decided that it wasn't a priority and so no budget was allocated to it. So outside of techy fields most people in the world don't know that the web was invented in Europe. (Yes, I know the Internet network was an American invention).

This is true of many other achievements in Europe. For instance, everyone in the world knows lots about NASA and yet very little about the achievements of the European Space Agency, which has also done some really impressive things.

The USA also has a good way of claiming innovations as its own, by "Americanising" everything. So, for instance, most people - Americans and non-Americans - think that most technological innovation during the last century has been American, whereas in actual fact much of it was just "absorbed" by America. Example - landing on the moon is seen as a purely American achievement but was actually significantly based on German work. Another example - Einstein was of course European but many people believe he was American.

Don't get me wrong. I'm not really criticising the USA, I'm actually criticising Europe for not promoting its achievements or those of its citizens. And of course one of the great things about the USA is that it has the money and drive to make things happen, which is why many projects initiated in other places end up taking off in the USA. But it is frustrating to meet Americans that believe that everything is invented in America.

Re:Under-hyped

[TwistedSquare]

In a similar vein (but taken further), there is a dangerous trend of American revisionism in films, especially related to the second world war. I just wonder if Americans will ever rename their language to "American"...

Re:Under-hyped

[lanswitch]

I just wonder if Americans will ever rename their language to "American"...

A lot of British people are waiting for the americans to actually admit that their language has indeed little to do with The Queen's English...(joke)

Re:Under-hyped

[Bi()hazard]

There's good reasons why most of your examples were favorable to America. Outstanding, one in a million reasons, reasons so good you HAVE to subscribe now for the low, low price of $14.99, half off the retail value!!! (yes, I'm an american)

But more seriously, NASA gets headlines and the ESF doesn't because NASA was there first with the things that impress the general public. It might be more scientifically sound to be conservative and focus on what benefits research, but you get credit for sticking some guy on the moon for a photo op. However, American talent for hype only goes so far:

Most technological innovation over the last century was not just absorbed by America, it was adopted and developed there. The moon landing drew on rocketry work done by Nazis who wanted to blow up London. Nobody in Europe wants to take credit for Nazi experiments, and America and Russia were the only countries able to adopt and continue German science. Europe disqualified itself. The same thing happened with Einstein and many others like him. Born in Europe, but if they stayed there they would've been executed as Jews. They only achieved greatness because they fled to a land where they were allowed to develop their ideas.

Europe deserves criticism not only for its lack of hype but for its apparent determination to destroy itself. Europe started both world wars, and left itself far too debilitated to play in the same league as the USA and USSR. England, the only candidate for third superpower after the fall of suicidal Nazi Germany, lost its empire due to it's short term imperialist policies. With the homeland ravaged by war, Britain was never the same. The continent is still only beginning to make up for its past mistakes. Maybe they'll catch up to us next century if they can stop killing themselves.

Re:Under-hyped

[Max Romantschuk]

The USA also has a good way of claiming innovations as its own, by "Americanising" everything. So, for instance, most people - Americans and non-Americans - think that most technological innovation during the last century has been American, whereas in actual fact much of it was just "absorbed" by America.

It's not just technology... Pizza is a prime example. Some (fortunately not that many) Americans think it's an American thing.

Re:Under-hyped

[stanmann]

Einstein, of course, was an American, and like many other Americans, he was born somewhere else, and got here as quickly as he could.

Re:Under-hyped

[pubjames]

Your response shows factual errors that just highlight what I am saying.

For instance, Einstein did nearly all his significant work and published most of his important papers whilst he was in Europe. He only fled to the US in around 1931, after he had published nearly all of his most significant work. And yet you seem to believe that Einstein and others like him "only achieved greatness because they fled to a land where they were allowed to develop their ideas." That's just rubbish, and your misunderstanding of Einsteins history just proves the point I am trying to make!

Re:Under-hyped

[Anonymous Coward]

I think you are basically right. But I also think you have a different attitude toward immigration than we do. Einstein, Fermi, Von Braun, etc. became US citizens. In American eyes, that means that they were Americans, and no longer Europeans.

Although some issues (viz. undocumented immigrants) remain contentious, on the whole, people in the US recognize that the majority of our greatest accomplishments were done by immigrants, and we actually take a lot of pride in this.

(Although it should be noted that, in reality, Einstein made most of his discoveries while still in Europe.)

Also, a technical note: the US and USSR space programs made extensive use of German work. But the Germans in turn learned a lot from the experiments of Goddard in the US. (Unfortunately, in the US, Goddard was mostly ignored and sometimes ridiculed.)

Re:Under-hyped

[pubjames]

Einstein, of course, was an American, and like many other Americans, he was born somewhere else, and got here as quickly as he could.

Einstein was born in 1879 and moved to America in 1931 at the age of 52.

Re:Under-hyped

[pubjames]

I think the responses I am getting to my post just demonstrate the point I am trying to make.

Einstein moved to America when he was 52. He had done nearly all his most important work by that time.

You say that this is because Americans have a different attitude to imigration. However, when Americans move abroad you don't seem to consider them no longer American.

I understand Madonna now lives in London. Should I now start referring to her as British? Are all her achievements now British ones? Is Gore Vidal Italian? He's been living there for years. Are his books now Italian ones?

You're just proving the point I am making.

Re:Under-hyped

[Aglassis]

You said: "Einstein was born in 1879 and moved to America in 1931 at the age of 52."

Actually it was 1932. He was so proud of his german heritage that he gave up his citizenship twice. He became a US citizen in 1940.

Re:Under-hyped

[Aglassis]

You said: "You're just proving the point I am making."

In order to have a proof you have to have 3 things:
1. A mutual understanding of words, symbols, and their meanings,
2. Agreement on axioms that require no further justification, and
3. Agreement on when one statement follows logically from another.

I think is extremely obvious that you do not give any of those in your argument. Prefer the word 'demonstrating' to 'proving'. The idea of a proof really loses its meaning (both legal and scientific) when people use it informally to justify biased arguments.

Re:Under-hyped

[whovian]

Accordingly, it's rather interesting that American society associates Einstein (or his icon) with genius. In conversation you might here something like "Yeah, Jimmy over there is soooo smart! He's such an Einstein!".

(Of course then, you have to wonder why the US lags behind some other countries in science education....)

Re:Under-hyped

[CGP314]

For instance, everyone in the world knows lots about NASA and yet very little about the achievements of the European Space Agency

Europe has a space agency? :)

Re:Under-hyped

[pubjames]

Actually it was 1932. He was so proud of his german heritage that he gave up his citizenship twice.

Yes, the first time to become Swiss. Which is in Europe.

Re:Under-hyped

[Aglassis]

You said: "(Of course then, you have to wonder why the US lags behind some other countries in science education....)"

You have to be really careful to say exactly what you mean when you make general statements like this. While it is true that US K-12 (or in particular 8-12) science education falls behind much of Europe, that is not true for college education or other types of education not normally considered (thinktanks, museums, libraries, private education, etc.,). You can't always compare one countries science education against another because they use different methods of implementation in their education process. For example, some countries give a test in about the 8th grade. Depending on the student's score, he or she is trained in vocational or scientific disciplines for the equivalent of his or her high school period. These vocational students are not tested for science when compared against other countries.

Re:Under-hyped

[glenrm]

In the case of Einstein we had the common sense to not try and make a genius fear for his life. Another smart thing we do is to never fund groups that want to kill our customers. Also our PR firms would never make an add as horrible as the dam Mentos one.

Re:Under-hyped

[qwertyatwork]

You for one will welcome your new american overlords!

Re:Under-hyped

[xA40D]

they used to be spelt in the UK before some jumped up Victorians decided it would be `better` to spell them more like the French

Your Evidence?

The way I heard it was that Webster decided to "fix" spellings when publishing his dictionary.

Re:Under-hyped

[tenchiken]

I think it's more that we like to take technology out to it's conclusion. For example you state:


I was once knew a marketing person at CERN who said that as they had invented the web, they were thinking of putting up some good web pages about it to let the world know what they had achieved. Later I found out that she had been told that it had been decided that it wasn't a priority and so no budget was allocated to it. So outside of techy fields most people in the world don't know that the web was invented in Europe. (Yes, I know the Internet network was an American invention).


Which a) Ignores all of the other search systems, and the original concept of hyperlinking which came from America and b) Fails to note the huge performance and capabilities difference between prototype and developed. You also state:


This is true of many other achievements in Europe. For instance, everyone in the world knows lots about NASA and yet very little about the achievements of the European Space Agency, which has also done some really impressive things.


Which is true, but has also been because NASA helps prop up every other space program in the world (including ESA, which would not have a single person in space save the US (and maybe the USSR).

It's one thing to go to the moon in the 1960's and 1970's. It's another to do it 2003. Which is a bigger acomplishment?


The USA also has a good way of claiming innovations as its own, by "Americanising" everything. So, for instance, most people - Americans and non-Americans - think that most technological innovation during the last century has been American, whereas in actual fact much of it was just "absorbed" by America. Example - landing on the moon is seen as a purely American achievement but was actually significantly based on German work. Another example - Einstein was of course European but many people believe he was American.


Which ignores the five largest technical innovations of the last centurt, the mass produced car and engine (Ford), Rockets (Goddard), Flight (Wrights), Internet (DARPA), Atomic Energy (Oppenheimer). Everyone one of thoose gentleman would have taken it as a insult to be called European rather then American.

They were American. Just like I am American. This is a fact that "American's get" and European's tend not to. We don't care where you were born, or what your past life was. If you agree with the constitution, Bill of Rights, Declaration of Independence and the Gettysburg Address, you are American. Period.

The advantage of America is we have no problem allowing Immigration into our nation vs. the stagnant European attitude about such. We do 1+ million a year in legal immigration (with unfortunitly countless millions more in illegal... my point of view, if someone is willing to risk death to get into America, teach em english, and give them citizinship).

Einstein was American, because Europe would not take him.

Finally to compare landing on the moon with the V-2 rockets (while ignoring the fact that every german stated that their work was reallly Godddard's work) is a bit akin to comparing your CISCO 678 DSL router with a CISCO BFR. Same idea maybe, but the scale is completly different. Something that Bohr said stuck with me here. America, because of it's industrial base and technological experience was "the only nation" that could build the atomic bomb.

Re:Under-hyped

[tenchiken]

Which is the reason why America does have a lot of the innovation that is missing in Europe. We do not define citizinship ethnically. We do not make any sort of insane restrictions of political asylum, and we do better then 3 millions in immegration a year.

We do have a different (and IMHO better) attitude about immegration.

It's great that the EU is working on a new Grid program. Sun has been trying for years, and never got it to work well. I think it's mostly hype, but we will see.

Re:Under-hyped

[pubjames]

Thank you for pointing out my misunderstandings. I now understand that:

a) Actually, America invented the web.
b) The European space agency wouldn't have achieved anything if it weren't for America.
c) Americans invented the car, rockets, flight, the internet, and atomic energy (and those Americans would take it as an insult to be called Europeans).
d) Europe has a bad attitude to immigration.
e) Einstein was American.
f) The German work that the Americans used to land on the moon was actually American.

I can see that the observation in my original post - that Americans tend to believe everything was invented in America by Americans - is wrong. Or rather, it was stupid of me to try to claim that anyone other than Americans have ever invented anything significant. I stand corrected. Sorry for my ignorance.

Re:Under-hyped

[tenchiken]

you thesis was:

[American's] think that most technological innovation during the last century has been American, whereas in actual fact much of it was just "absorbed" by America.


My point is that each of the five big technological advances of the last century started here. Mass produced Cars (and the combustion engine), Planes (lightweight engines as well), Atomic Energy (both bombs and other wise), the Internet, and Rockets all were created here. If you want to go even further back, Take a look at Thomas Edison (Electricity for Lights), Alexander Graham Bell's Telephone, Even the telegraph (Samuel F. B. Morse).

Even the heart of the industrial age has roots in America when Eli Whitney implemented standardized, interchangeable parts for use in muskets in 1798. (Which is ironic given that he also created the cotton gin). The north would industrialize and the south became more agrarian due to those technologies.

Your point is simply not valid.

Re:Under-hyped

[Obyron]

That will probably happen around the same time Belgians rename their official language to "Belgian."

Re:Under-hyped

[pubjames]

Your point is simply not valid.

You're right! All major technologies since America was founded originated in America by Americans, and were not based in any way on any work done outside of America, or by non-Americans.

Now I cannot think of a single thing that someone outside of America has invented. Oh wait! Didn't the French invent waffles?

Re:Under-hyped

[matfud]

It makes you wonder what they are taught in school doesn't it?

The "Space Race" amuses me too.

Russia's firsts.
First craft into orbit
First animal into space
First human into space
First human into orbit
First space walk
First space docking
First space station
First to orbit the moon (unmanned of course)
First to lad a probe on the moon (sample return but it crashed).
First woman in space.
In addition:
Records for time spent in space.
Records for space station lifetime

America's firsts:
First to put a man on the moon.
In addition:
Most money spent?
Went to the moon many times.

matfud

Re:Under-hyped

[Roger W Moore]

I'm actually criticising Europe for not promoting its achievements or those of its citizens.

It's not just Europe. Did you know that the electric light bulb was invented in Canada? It was then improved by Swann in England to use tungsten and all Edison did was buy the original Canadian patent and steal Swann's improvements.

Swann successfully sued Edison in the UK and won. However, since it was (and still is) impossible to win patent suits in the US courts as a foreigner (the US patent office cheerfully boasts that 98.5% of all foreign brought cases in the US fail!), Edison made enough money to buy out the UK assets he was forced to hand over to Swann.

Makes me wonder if in 100 years everyone will be being taught that Bill Gates invented the computer .

Re:Under-hyped

[DunbarTheInept]

Pizza is a prime example. Some (fortunately not that many) Americans think it's an American thing.

If it's got meat and cheese on it, it is.
The original Pizza ("Tomato Pie") is tomato paste and bread.

Re:Under-hyped

[DunbarTheInept]

Atomic Energy (both bombs and other wise)

Many of the atomic scientists working in the US on this during World War two came from Eurpoe, by way of the UK, and they were in the US because the US and the UK chose to combine efforts on researching the atom bomb after the US joined the war. It was mutually agreed that it made more sense to carry out the research in the US (and move the scientists out of Britian to join with the US effort) because the US could hide them away from public eyes easier - there was more empty open land to run the experiments in. And being farther away from the "front" made spying less likely, and an air raid would be out of the question.

Steam powered railroads were invented in England, originally as an outgrowth of coal mine carts.

While the Wright Brothers made the first plane that worked, their relentless intellectual property arguments in the years that followed stagnated progress by treating aviation as an industry (where information is not shared) not a science. As a result, the next decade of advancement of aviation was in Europe, out of reach of their relentless patenting.

Re:Under-hyped

[gilgongo]

> They were American. Just like I am American.
> This is a fact that "American's get" and
> European's tend not to. We don't care where you
> were born, or what your past life was.

Of course, those people not here to verify your conjecture on that, but you seem to be saying that just because somebody lives in America they are American.

That does actually explain to me a lot about how Americans think. The whole "melting pot" mentality (racist lunatics or various flavours notwithstanding) basically comes down to that.

But can you see how using that logic to claim that America has been responsible for basically all technological innovation in the last 100 years might be, erm, completely ridiculous?

Re:Under-hyped

[Thing 1]

The USA also has a good way of claiming innovations as its own, by "Americanising" everything.

This is true in TV as well. I've been seeing ads for this "new" show "Coupling" on NBC, so I decided to set my ReplayTV to record it. (Studios are smart: they put ads for new shows at the end of the commercial break, so when I 30-second skip too far, I end up 7-second instant replaying back a bit too far as well; and if the commercial looks interesting, I'll rewind to the beginning of it.)

Since it was a few weeks before the debut, and the ReplayTV only has a week of schedule, I set it to record any show with "Coupling" in the title, actors, directors, or description.

I was surprised that, less than a week later, I had a new episode to watch! I thought, "But it's not supposed to debut for a few more weeks, and besides this is on the PBS channel, not NBC."

So I watched it, and it was pretty good, and even had some of the same jokes/spots that the commercials were showing.

I saw another episode before the American version debuted, and happened to catch a talk show (flipping channels) where one of the characters talked about it being originally British and being redone (by the same guy) for an American audience, and that he had done that for a couple other countries as well (Australia being one of them).

When I saw the pilot last week, I was amazed -- the pilot was actually the first episode I had seen from PBS! Except with different people, of course, and the jokes were somewhat different with American words instead of lorry, bonnet, and steak-and-kidney pie.

I'll bet that most people who watched the show believe that it was an NBC original.

Re:Under-hyped

[Kardamon]

In Belgium, there are 3 official languages: Dutch, French and German. A lot of people speak English too. Which of them should be renamed into "Belgian"? There's already a name for Belgian Dutch: it's called Flemish.

I strongly disagree that all science should be done in English. Education and justice should be in the local language, at least everyone has access to it. Science, as it is organised in universities, is part of the educational system. Diversity is a good thing.

Re:Under-hyped

[Obyron]

You miss my point. I wasn't trying to make a specific example by using Belgium, and I was aware they have several official languages. For the sake of argument, let's pretend I said: "Probably around the same time Mexico renames their official language Mexican."

I'm not trying to make a point about English as the language of science (although I see no problem with it), I'm simply saying that Americans take flak for not calling our language "American." Why should we?

Re:Distributed computing has been here for years

[Max Romantschuk]

Not particularly. If you can't be bothered to perform Google searches I'm not going to do it for you.

Being able to perform Google searches is within my abilities, but I fail to see why you seem to wish to hold on to a piece of information which is freely available.

I'm sure I could find the references you originally implied, but I would be unable to determine if what I find is indeed what you were referring to in the first place. Your comment was far too ambiguous to make it clear what you meant.

I'm sure your arrogance serves you in some way, but I dare say you might find that being helpful instead of arrogant can be quite fulfilling as well.

Mmm, supercollider

[Spunk]

I'm getting a hadron just thinking about it.

Re:Mmm, supercollider

[BigBadBri]

You sad boson.

Re:Mmm, supercollider

[Theaetetus]

I'm getting a hadron just thinking about it.

You think that's going to charm us? Damn, you're strange. A little bit quarky, too.

Cunning OpenMosix plan

[BiggerIsBetter]

I know about OpenMosix, but what I just wondered about was this...

Why not run a VPN for a worldwide network of "trusted" OpenMosix machines? OpenMosix is tunable, so you could tell it if you're on a slow-as dial-up link, so it only gives you long running jobs. You could use a chain of trust approach if required, or just sign up via the OpenMosix website for example.

That might even actually work.

Re:Distributed computing has been here for years

[The Clockwork Troll]

He doesn't really know what he's talking about specifically, which is why he defers to Google.

He heard a story a while back (in the good old days), about grid computing, and thought it was neat at the time. That is the extent of his memory and knowledge about pre-existing distributed computing grids.

Re:Cue skynet has ben launched jokes...

[3.5 stripes]

Excuse my fat fingers and monsterous head cold.

The Future For Technology

[locarecords.com]

I for one am excited by the potential for offloading complex calculations from my machine to online electricity grid like computing power that frees my lonely machine to be more responsive to the things I want it to do. And leave the slow boring lone-processor killing stuff to another.

This would mean that silly frivilous things like email apps etc would literally jump to attention regardless as to the size of the file I am working on, rather than as now everything slowly to treacle...

Question is paying for it. It would have to be cheap, built into the operating system and require fast broadband to transfer the data to the servers... Few year yet probably...

Re:The Future For Technology

[DaneelGiskard]

You really should not start an insightful comment with "I for one", you will not get the target audience you wish to reach... ;)

Clay Shirky's opinion : Girds unnecessary

[anti-NAT]

for business and home users.

Grid Supercomputing: The Next Push

Re:Clay Shirky's opinion : Girds unnecessary

[anti-NAT]

Oh, and if Clay is wrong,

I, for one, welcome our new grid computer overlords.

..as a user of GRID

[Anonymous Coward]

I can tell you it is not a waste of time, or some glorified PR exercise. The establishment I work at specialises in large-scale carbon growth modelling, and we have seen computational time for whole-Europe models fall from 48 hours on a dual P4 Xeon to a mere 5 minutes using MPI Fortan/C++ on a 64-node GRID machine.

Re:Distributed computing has been here for years

[lrXh]

Hehe :) Despite his manner he's right: certainly other particle physics experiments have been using distributed computing to analyse their data, not using a Grid (BaBar for example, eh Grid Geek? ;)). Like the LHC, the initial aim is data distribution rather than accessing processing resources...

Re:question

[Bill Quayle]

Isn't this the experiment which some say could end the world by creating a black hole?

Well, some people say this, but they don't really know what they're talking about. (I seem to recall some people saying that RHIC would be the downfall of all human civilization, by the way, yet we're still here.) Black holes decay via Hawking radiation. The smaller they are, the faster they decay, and the ones that might be produced at LHC would be mighty small. (...if they could even be produced at all, which is sort of doubtful in my mind) They would decay long before they even reached the inner wall of the detector.

I think that in general, it's a good idea to be sceptical about end-of-the-world scenarios like this. If it were possible to destroy the world by smashing particles together, it would have happened long before humans ever existed - Earth is continuously bombarded by cosmic rays that have **much** higher energies than anything we could ever hope to create in a lab. Any kind of strangelet, black hole, or whatever that could ever be produced in an accelerator has been produced by cosmic rays in the upper atmosphere. So don't worry about this sort of thing.

-Bill

Re:question

[Tybalta]

no, afaik.

the experiment to create artifical black holes is another story, but yes, it will take place in this Collider (LHC).

Anyway, you don't have to be afraid, black holes which doesn't reach the critical mass will "eat up" themselves (radiating out their energy to the environment), so they'll eventually evaporate ( according to Prof. Hawking. The experiment will only create very-very-very small black holes, which will "live" only for some nanosecundum or less ..
)

you should check out http://www.hawking.org.uk/ for more info.

Re:Distributed computing has been here for years

[Bi()hazard]

In fact, distributed computing and "grids" are older than you are.

I'm 76, you insensitive clod!

but according to ICDCS, it is older than my lesbian granddaughter.

User access?

[Starmaven]

Note that the article didn't say conclusively whether this computing power would be available for home users... But, it would be useful to use the power of all those computers that are left on all night by companies (the ones that use 5% of the total US power consumption).

Ideas behind SuperSymmetry

[rjdegraaf]

In case somebody is wondering what LHC might discover, Frank Wilczek explains in his lecture ' The World's Numerical Recipe' the ideas behind Super-Symmetry.

Rob de Graaf

Correction

[GreggBert]

"The BBC is reporting that CERN (the guys who invented the Web)..."

I thought Al Gore invented the Web as part of that Internet invention thingy of his.

Re:Correction

[cyfer]

http protocol was create at cern. For documentation problem over the network.

Re:question

[Gil-galad55]

Black holes can only be created at the LHC if extra (Kaluza-Klein) dimensions exist on the microscopic scale. It is gravity acting through these extra dimensions that will give the extra oomph needed to create black holes in a proton/proton collision. If Kaluza-Klein dimensions do not, in fact, exist, the LHC's center-of-mass energy is far too low to make even such small black holes.

Re:And then it became self aware...

[Gil-galad55]

SPOILERS Didn't you see T3? A particle accelerator saved the day! 5.76 TeV baby! Hello to any Summer Students who may be reading this.

Re:And then it became self aware...

[Phigrin]

Aah yes, that may be so. I was however referring to the first 2 movies, I haven't seen T3 either. What was that you say? In the movie the governor of California was armed with a 5.76TeV something and saved the day?

One of the problems with us Americans learning....

[StressGuy]

...another language is that it's very hard for many of us to find opportunities to use it. I wish I could speak more than one language. I also like the concept of everybody learning Esperanto and making that the universal tounge. The problem is, in the entire course of my life, I've met only a handful of people who speak a language other than English. I've tried to learn German, but because I very rarely get to use it, I can't remember it.

Because of this, circumstances do sort of require that if you're going to be living and working in America, you probably need to learn English. As for looking at people who don't speak English as stupid; I can't speak for everyone but I think you've got that backwards. I tend to look at multi-lingual people with a certain degree on envy.

Re:Cue skynet has ben launched jokes...

[Vision.nl]

Actually we thought to be responsible... atleast if you are in italy. The French electrics needed more power and patched the italian one to have more capacity. But it blown out some kinda something with a cascading effect. ... sweet ...

Which parts?

[aaaurgh]

"...that will simulate parts of the Big Bang"

Which parts? The "BA..." or the "...NG!" or the "What the f**k was that?" 8-)

Buzzwords

[Moderation abuser]

"Grid computing" is just the new buzzword for PHBs and arts graduates (yes, that's you, that is). So, no I can't truly say that I ever heard any stories about grid computing "in the good old days".

I could tell you all about network queueing systems though, home grown, freely available open source stuff and commercially available systems.

As I said, "Grid computing" is nothing new, it's been in use for decades by those of us who know better than to waste 95% of the computing power they've purchased.

Distributed computing and "grids" are only new to you.

Somethings ...

[Vision.nl]

LHC is the collider. LHC is being used by atleast 4 projects. These projects make the 8~10 PB of data a year. This is already filtered data ;-) Grids are to divide the load and distributed the computational tasks as the storage tasks for the experiments. Also biomedical tasks and Earth observation use the Grids for there data intensive jobs.

Re:Learn the language, dummy!

[pubjames]

You should learn (and strive to master) the language(s) of your host country or expect to be received as a retarded person or an animal would.

Yes! I bet all those US troops in Iraq are currently making a big effort to learn Arabic and Kurdish...

Al Gore financed the early web

[peter303]

His "computer superhighway" bill in the late 1980s finnnced the connection of the miltary network with several disaparate academic networks.

Angels & Demons

[tomzyk]

Coincidentally, I just finished reading "Angels & Demons" by Dan Brown last week. The book talks a little about CERN's work in "recreating the Big Bang" and anti-matter and all that fun stuff. It's a pretty good book about the Illuminati, and it gives you a little look into art history in and around the Vatican as well.

It wasn't as good as "The DaVinci Code" though. (Possibly one of the most interesting books I've ever read.)

NOTE: If you want to read the books, don't look at the pictures on the website until AFTER you read the book(s).

Oh yeah...

[tomzyk]

And by the way... CERN IS THE DEVIL!

What's their logo all about? 2 rings and 5 lines going out from it?? Rotate the logo and you'll see three 6's!!! SATANISTS!!! ;-)

I used to work there...

[mt-biker]

I used to work in the computer centre at CERN, and they've been using distributed computing (read "clusters") for a long time (at least 10 years) now. By the time I left, there were already some 500 2 CPU Linux PCs in the computer centre, and a serious amount of thought was being given to building a mezzanine level within the computer centre to create more floor space for PCs. CERNs problem was always one of scale.

Now it seems they want to buy floor space at other institutions around the world. :) I hope it all works out. What I'm wondering is what sort of network they have connecting the sites - the work load of these machines is very simple - but mostly IO bound. What sort of bandwidth do they need to make 15,000 TB available all over the world?

More fun facts - at the time I left they had 5 STK Powderhorn silos, holding their current data. Prediction for LHC requirements (including better tape storage densities) was that they would need another 40 silos. If you've seen an STK Powderhorn, then you know just how ig the things are. So another building was to be built just for these silos. :)

Oh, and as someone pointed out, the 15,000 TBs a year is just the data that gets kept - the live data from the detectors is preprocessed in the computer centre and "thinned out". The data rates coming into the computer centre are truly mind-boggling.

Re:I used to work there...

[Vision.nl]

During integration of new security software i saw the building of a new place to store more computers. There are 1300 nodes @ the computer centre (as one cluster, not mentioned other smaller ones). New power cabeling... DataTAG is a collaborating project with EDG that is also working on Internet2 for HighSpeed and Long Distance Networking issues (optimizing, altering tcp-stack, Level-1 networking, other stuff). @DataTAG there was a route set from Amsterdam to California with a average of 933Mbit/s. 5.6Gbit/s is already set from Amsterdam to CERN. Very sweet progress for long distance issues.

Re:Coincidence?

[Vision.nl]

i think not. Uhm i think you are affending some of my collaborating friends :-) I know some people from all those countries, not just the dozen, but the other big list of countries ... so what is the point i must be missing?

Sorry, got to disagree with you there...

[WIAKywbfatw]

I think you're missing something here. To a lot of physicists and other scientists, CERN is probably known as "the guys who know more than anyone about particle physics". But, to the average guy, CERN is probably a totally unknown quantity.*

If you were to mention particle physics then Mr. Average would probably still be none the wiser - to him it would still be "men in white coats with massive dome-shaped heads" stuff. However, if you mention the world wide web, the chances are that he'll know what you're talking about.

People relate to things by association, especially by association with their own lives and experiences. Most people have no clue what a quark is, let alone know what flavours mean in this context, but they do know what a web page looks like.

(*That's not to say that only scientists know about CERN, only that relatively few non-scientists know about it. I'm sure there are some non-scientists that know CERN backwards, but they're in a very small minority.)

Re:Sorry, got to disagree with you there...

[ErikZ]

I'm a scientist?

Well, I guess I better clean up aound here and experiment on something.

What Big Bang?

[hump_]

no further comments...

Right Idea, Wrong Movie....

[Mr. Arbusto]

The Matrix just isn't right for this. Tron is.

"Hey, hey, hey! It's the big Master Control Program
everybody's been talking about."

"C'mon big fella, let's see what 'ya got!"

"I want him in the games until he dies playing."

"I'm going to have to put you on the gamegrid."

End of Line

Obligatory Reference, Please Mod Down

[jea6]

So at what time did it become self-aware?

Re:And then it became self aware...

[T.i.m]

It was a small collider but unfortunatley not small enough to be carried, not even by the GOVERNATOR.
<br>
This article should no boubt be mandatory reading for all summies.
<br> ...The only summie who actually thought that T3 was as good as the other two movies

For people who want to ask details

[cyfer]

I am working on the group that work on the Grid behing the LHC. The name of this Grid is LCG.

A grid is :
+ connectionn between large cluster
+ distributed mass storage system
+ dynamic reallocation of the ressources
+ And lot of other services for transparent usage of ressource trough the world.

If you want precise url to get info read this :
LCG (itself) : http://cern.ch/lcg/
Eu Datagrid (European Grid Software use in LCG) :
http://eu-datagrid.web.cern.
Globus Toolkit : http://globus.org/

If you need other info ask (i will try to follow).

PS : Cern create http protocol.
Datagrid was long and hard to devellop, but the actual result is *good*.

A computer simulated universe

[Burpmaster]

Unfortunately, no one can be told what The Grid is... You have to see it for yourself.

Re:What SETI does

[Becquerel]

I apologize in advance if this is stupid, but isn't what you're talking about exactly what SETI does? The question is not at all stupid. SETI@Home does this

Well not quite. The distinction that needs making is that SETI@Home, etc. Is a parallel implimentation of a serial code. Whereas the GRID that CERN is talking about is a parallel implimentation of a parallel code, or even just a single parallel code. Where the calculations that are taking place are done on such huge datasets that they require thounsands of processors to work together on the problem.

So the code would split the calculations between the processors, but interprocessor communication would be an essential part of the program. Meaning that it could only be done on machines with fast interconnects, ie super-computers. Each of the computers in the GRID will have around a TFlop max output, and when there linked together, it should give some awesome power....

Just imagine a beowolf cluster of those things ;)

whoa

[mantera]

Am i the only one with a dirty mind or does the name "the large hardon collider" sound a little inappropriate?

Press: so... what's the name of your new supercomputer?
PR: the large hardon collider
Press: the large hard on collider??!!
PR: yes

hahaha

[mantera]

This is unbelievable...

A *large hardon* collider that will simulate the *big bang*!!!

LOL

who named this thing!

Ermmm...

[jmichaelg]

You can't always compare one countries science education against another because they use different methods of implementation in their education process.

You can compare countries by giving students the same test. That's exactly what the The Third International Math and Science Study (TIMMS) did.

To get around your objection that some countries segregate students after 8th grade, they tested 4th and 8th graders in all the participating countries. Bottom line was that if you are an American who scored in the top 5% on your math tests, you're just a bit above average compared to Taiwan, Japan and Singapore.

Wonder why all the IT jobs are going overseas? There's one very good reason.

Re:Learn the language, dummy!

[Obyron]

If and when we set up a long-term military base there, they will. I've had several friends who were stationed in South Korea, and many of them *Gasp!* speak Korean! Imagine!

I'm sure many of them already speak a bit of Arabic, and those who worked with the Kurdish Pesh Murgas probably *gasp!* know a bit of Kurdish. Right now, however, they're probably more concerned with not getting killed in the last dying gasps of a tyrannical regime.

It's interesting to see how, in the absence of an actual point, people bash American foreign policy. It's almost like a new form of karma whoring. If you don't agree with America, fine, but don't bash the troops, bash the rich old white men that send our children out to die.

Infinite Computations

[Spanishfly]

CERN will hit a brick wall with this project. The infinite number of calculations required to predict the ripple effect caused in the big bang can not be calculated using conventional brain based computers. In theory it is a good idea, but with quantum computers still in the concept phase, CERN will find that they cannot accurately complete this project without a computer that can make calculations an infinite number of times.

Re:Grid Problems.

[Sdoh]

There is no market for this thing (yet).

Grid is good for science where people intend to
share data and results. I doubt that big industry
or military would trust their tasks to a world
distributed network.

For the rest of the people the power of one PC
is still enough. There is no "killer application"
which would make them use home delivered computer
power and pay for it (unless MS will decide to
add some extra features :))

Entertainment industry and gaming with heavy
MMORG worlds simulations are probably a good
candidates.

Who Really Invented the Internet

[jbelton]

I thought it was Al Gore???

the web?

[iammaxus]

can somone give me a link for "the web"?

Re:question

[Thing 1]

Neat. So the LHC is also an "extra dimension tester"? That's really cool. I wonder what we can do once we find extra dimensions? Could we somehow pull energy out of them?

Re:question

[Gil-galad55]

Well, the LHC has many things it is supposed to find, extra dimensions among them. Honestly, I'm not terribly familiar with the Kaluza-Klein theory. Basic physical laws would still hold, so no energy could be created. Furthermore, in order to have the extra gravity at small dimensions, you first have to accelerate your particles enough so that they overcome any Coulombic (or strong force) repulsion, more than offsetting any gains you might get from gravitational potential. So nah, I don't think so.