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Flash Mob Supercomputer?
dan of the north writes "The NY Times (free reg yyy bbb) is running an article on flash mob computing. More info on the first event in SF on April 3, 2004. The goal is to run Linpack and "build a home-brew computer powerful enough to be added to a list of the world's 500 fastest computers." Minimum requirements are 1.3 GHZ Pentium III/AMD equivalent or better with 256MB of RAM, a 100 Base-T network connection and a CD-ROM - laptops preferred. "After taking a shot at a speed record, the computer will be reorganized to serve as the host of a giant multiplayer video game tournament." Cool... a 2fer!"
so, I'm going, obviously, but my big question is, beyond benchmarking, are we going to actually COMPUTE anything?
-and occasionaly a giant moose.
Singer: Let me see your nodes!
Crowd: *yells*
Singer (to promoter): What the hell is a node anyways?
Promoter: Don't worry about it, just go with it!
Singer (to crowd again): I said let me see those fuckin' nodes!
Crowd: *yells louder*
Singer: Fuck right. That's what I fuckin' like to hear. Now, for our next motherfuckin' song, I want to see the most massive, the most fuckin' atrocious motherfuckin' pit on this motherfuckin' planet.
Yeah, that scenario was implausible. Thus, I don't see supercomputers in concerts anytime soon.
Until Slashdot fixes the funny modifier, use insightful or interesting. The poster knows your intentions.
I think the comment proposes distributed computing, not clustering. This is pretty reasonable wrt network consumption. (seti@home is not known for slowing down your net connection!)
It could actually work.
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Given how long this will take to set up, battery power isn't a viable option. Still, using a laptop is a pretty good idea. If you compare a laptop drawing 65 watts to a desktop drawing 300 at full CPU utilization, with a knoppix CD spinning at full speed, plus monitor power, you see that they gain nearly an order of magnitude in energy efficiency, though this is probably offset a bit by the lower clock speed on the laptop processors.
Now, let's generously assume that each laptop is drawing half an amp at 110 volts. At 1200 laptops, that's 600 amps. The circuit breakers in my house trip at 15 amps, but I'll generously assume this facility has 50 amp wall circuits. That would still require 12 entire circuits, plus a safety factor, nevermind all my generous back-of-envelope assumptions.
Okay, so assuming they've got a lot of extension cords, now we just have to deal with space. Let's assume, again, generously, that each person + computer + associated infrastructure needs only one square meter of floor space. This makes the space requirement equivalent to a 30m x 40m area, or about two World Cup soccer fields. I hope they've got one hell of a big gym.
Heat is, by comparison, a relatively minor issue. If the facility can handle a crowd that large, adding their low-power laptops is minor. People tend to dissipate about 100 watts anyway, so the laptops won't be the most significant source of difficulty.
It sounds like a very daunting task they have ahead of them. I hope they've already gotten these problems figured out, because this project sounds really cool.
WARNING: there is a trojan on your
Yes, but you require a minimum of a 100 Base-T connection. You want to create one of the world's top 100 supercomputers using Ethernet? Good luck in beating that latency, guys....next time, see if you can get a flash mob of infiniband vendors to come along for the ride.
...except, the promoters normally don't want you walking out with a high quality digital recording of the event. If you did, you would be less inclined to buy music from them.
If I seem short sighted, it is because I stand on the shoulders of midgets
...and thus forcing the New York Times to implement a "pay per view" system for each article.
Thank you! That's some great thinking on your part!
Whoever designed level 61 in Frozen Bubble is a sadistic bastard.
Having done a fair bit of linpack benchmarking on 'real' clusters I have to say I think their chances are very slim. The interconnect makes a huge difference particularly when you have so little RAM per node. I doubt they will have a nonblocking switch architecture which makes a significant difference in Linpack (even setting aside it not being gigabit.) Also, MPI applications (Linpack included) often run into bottlenecks with wait conditions, some of the slower nodes will probably end up choking the entire cluster. A few problem laptops with bad RAM modules, and they can spend more time than they have pulling their hair out troubleshooting.
:)
That being said, it doesn't seem like all that serious an enterprise. Good luck to them, and if they have fun, hey all the better.
This is an old idea - it's called bootlegging, and with a few notable exceptions, almost all record labels oppose it. Think about it - this idea would be much cheaper and easier to implement if they just offered to send you a CD later and took $5 and a postal address at the T-shirt stall. Plus, they would get revenue from all the non-ipod owners as well, and could fix the parts where the vocalist sings out of tune.
So who's the idiot?
If I seem short sighted, it is because I stand on the shoulders of midgets