Apple to Award Workgroup Clusters to Scientists

Graff writes "Apple is giving away five Apple Workgroup Clusters for Bioinformatics (each worth approximately $40,000) to four higher education researchers and one non-education researcher. A panel of independent scientists and Apple will choose the lucky researchers."

Comments

Nifty

[Burgundy Advocate]

For the mad scientist who has everything!

oh

[Linwood]

must be a 1.8 ghz G5 with monitor to add up to that size of cash.

Re:oh

[Anonymous Coward]

Loser.

OMG

[Jonathan Pater]

Imagine a beowulf.....

$40,000 is a pittance

[Anonymous Coward]

If you were to somehow develop a miracle drug with your bioinformatics program, then Apple and other sponsoring companies would own it.

I guess $40,000 is more than many engineers make in a year these days, but I would think that those who had the wherewithal to develop BI systems would also have real jobs.

More trouble than it's worth?

[Anonymous Coward]

Considering Apple's declining marketshare, maintenance of the clusters could be more expensive in the long run than simply buying from Dell from the get-go.

Re:More trouble than it's worth?

[Anonymous Coward]

Considering Dell's lack of quality, maintenance of the clusters could be more expensive than buying from Apple from the get-go.

Trolling is fun!

Re:More trouble than it's worth?

[oscast]

Though not saying you (like every other person you mistakenly interchanges the term market share for the word install base) are assuming that the company's install base is declining... something that there is no proof of. Declidining "market share" could simply mean that Windows market share increased while Apple's stayed the same... (end result is still declining *market share* for mac users) or that Mac users are simply getting more life out of their computers (end result is still declining *market share* for mac users)... or that PC users are suddenly getting less life and are having to upgrade more frequently (end result is still declining *market share* for mac users). What I'm getting at is that market share is NOT an indicator of the increase or decrease in a platform's install base. Apple's install base is probably in the 7%-12% range... though you would never know it because the major research companies are only shoing *market share* statistics. This information is of no use to anyone EXCEPT stock holders in the company the stats they refer to as it is an indicator of profit and loss. If market share indicates profit and loss... its important that we understand that Apple is one of only two profitable computer companies these days and that their computers are priced exactly in tune with the rest of the industry (not over priced as is so commonly suggested).

Re:More trouble than it's worth?

[Erwos]

Um, no.

Market share and install base are definitely linked. If Apple's only selling 3% of computers, their install base is going to trend to 3% over time, holding all other things equal.

Mathematical example: total market is 100 computers, Apple has 3% market share)
Year 0: 6 Macs, 150 PCs (so Apple has about 3.8% of the install base when we start)
Year 1: 9 Macs, 247 PCs (install base is 3.5%)
Year 2: 12 Macs, 344 PCs (install base is 3.3%)
Year 3: 15 Macs, 441 PCs (install base is 3.2%)

I think you get the picture. Market share is not representative of total install base RIGHT NOW, but is certainly a good indicator of what's going to happen in the future. If you disagree, that's too bad, because I've just mathematically shown that you're wrong. Market share and install base are definitely linked.[1]

Apple's profitability really has nothing to do with their install base so much as their margins. If I'm selling stuff with a huge mark-up on actual costs, I could sell 30 pieces of it and still make money, even if the total market is 3 billion pieces.

-Erwos

[1] As for your "PCs don't last as long as Macs": prove it. I've used Macs for years, and Apple's build quality is not as good as people make it out to be. I'm not going to factor in differing "computer decays" without any kind of proof for them.

Re:More trouble than it's worth?

[Dog135]

year 0: 10 Macs, 10 PCs
year 1: 0 new Macs, 10 PCs replaced
year 2: 0 new Macs, 10 PCs replaced
year 3: 10 Macs replaced, 10 PCs replaced
year 4: 0 new Macs, 10 PCs replaced
year 5: 0 new Macs, 10 PCs replaced

total sold: 20 Macs, 60 PCs
install base: 10 Macs, 10 PCs

I have seen research that shows Macs have something like twice the life of a PC.

I've owned both Macs and PCs for years, and my Macs are capable of running more new software then the PCs.

Re:More trouble than it's worth?

[gb506]

As crazy as it appears, this pretty much echos what I see at the clients I've supported - especially in the laptop arena.

At least in the graphic arts and video sector, anyone who thinks that PCs offer better TCO is oblivious to reality and/or a zealot.

Re:More trouble than it's worth?

[Anonymous Coward]

Show me that research because it makes little sense to me. The hardware that is in a Mac is nearly identical (and so components are identical) to a PC. Why should your hard drive (usually one of the first things to go) should last longer than the same hard drive in a PC? Is it something to do with how the OS works with files? I would love to see the research you refer to.

Re:More trouble than it's worth?

[EccentricAnomaly]

Dells cost a lot to maintain.. lots of bum hardware... parts take so lon g to replace under waranty that if you need to have your system back up in under three months, you just go ahead and buy the parts yourself.

Re:More trouble than it's worth?

[Anonymous Coward]

Coming from a prepress background, just about every shop I've ever been in uses many 3-5 year old Macs as production machines and has a pile of dead/useless PCs in the back. I see the same thing in homes. Lots of people with new PCs and lots of people with old Macs. I think to increase marketshare Apple has to make computers that need to be replaced more often. :)

Re:More trouble than it's worth?

[Erwos]

Have you seen that research? Let's see a link, then. Because, frankly, I think you're pulling the whole thing out of your ass.

-Erwos

Re:More trouble than it's worth?

[NutscrapeSucks]

Objectively, how is a five year-old 2x500Mhz Mac any better in 2004 than a five year-old 2x500Mhz PC?

It's not really. Just that Mac advocates typically engage in the intellectual dishonesty of comparing $3000 Macs with $1000 PCs.

Furthermore, it's pretty clear that G4 have had a pretty long lifespan because PowerPC development was so retarded. Until the G5s came out there really wasn't a compelling upgrade for PMac G4 users.

I'm not sure if the long shelf-life of Macs really help anyone. Mac users have to wait until they've saved up another $2000+ to upgrade, and in the meanwhile they're stuck wtih old machines, and Apple is getting no revenue. A PC user might pay less to replace a cheap machine every year and always have top-end kit.

Re:More trouble than it's worth?

[falcon5768]

ummm explain G3's then... cause I have been running 3 of them (2 300mhz and a 900mhz iBook) the 2 300mhz are from 1999 when I bought them and where the low man on the pole of the Desktop systems.

Im still using them today running Adobe CS and Dreamweaver.

This compaired to the 450 mhz AMD K6 I just worked on that is struggling to run anything AFTER I completely wiped the HD reinstalled and fully loaded it with ram. Same year, the G3 on new software runs circles around the AMD on new software (Win XP)

Oh and BTW that G3 was $1300 in 1999, you can still buy 1.4 gihz G4 mirror drives for $1000, its just to the Mac market you DONT have to buy the best gear to get your software to run, unlike the PC market. People are running Final Cut Pro and Maya on $700 eMacs perfectly fine with minimal speed reduction.

Re:More trouble than it's worth?

[Graff]

Market share and install base are definitely linked. If Apple's only selling 3% of computers, their install base is going to trend to 3% over time, holding all other things equal.

You are not counting the rate at which the computers are removed from the market. This is anecdotal evidence but I find that Macintosh computers tend to be removed from the market at a rate 1/2 that as Windows computers. I have seen studies in the past that bear this out but I can't seem to locate one on the internet right now. I'll look around some more and see if I can locate one or two.

So you get this situation:

market is 1000 computers
Mac is 3% of yearly sales
Windows computers remove from market at a rate of 30% per year
Mac computers remove from market at a rate of 15% per year

removed added total % install
year Mac Win Mac Win Mac Win Mac
0 0 0 30 970 30 970 3%
1 5 291 9 287 34 966 3%
2 5 290 9 286 38 962 4%
3 6 289 9 286 41 959 4%
4 6 288 9 285 44 956 4%
5 7 287 9 285 46 954 5%
6 7 286 9 284 48 952 5%
7 7 286 9 284 50 950 5%
8 8 285 9 284 51 949 5%
9 8 285 9 284 52 948 5%
10 8 284 9 283 53 947 5%

There may be some small rounding errors in there, but those are minimal. I can't get the table to display correctly but the numbers go:
(year) (removed: {Mac Win}) (added: {Mac Win}) (total: {Mac Win}) (% Mac installed base)

As you can see, the installed base of the Macs actually grows past the 3% market share. This is because less percent of Macs are being removed from the market than are being added.

Re:More trouble than it's worth?

[Anonymous Coward]

Has anyone run benchmarks on old machines? If you took a machine that originally came with, say, Win 98, has anyone wiped the HD, done a standard install, run the benchmarks and then compared them against original ones? We always our computers are getting slower because of the crap we put onto them, but perhaps there's something more nefarious at work...

Re:More trouble than it's worth?

[znu]

Objectively, how is a five year-old 2x500Mhz Mac any better in 2004 than a five year-old 2x500Mhz PC?

Well, for one thing, OS X gets faster with every release, rather than slower. Unlike certain other operating systems.

Re:More trouble than it's worth?

[NutscrapeSucks]

OK -- I have a 333mhz G3 Powerbook. At my old job, I had a 300Mhz PII ThinkPad. They were about the same -- If anything the ThinkPad was faster than the PB, especially under OS X. For web/mail/office stuff, the ThinkPad still works great.

If you can do your job on a X year old $Y Mac, you can do it on a X year old $Y PC. Period.

However, you can replace the PC for cheaper and get a hugely faster machine, which still isn't true for Macs, except at the top end. I'd buy a new Mac, but the low-end of their laptop line isn't very appealing.

(Most AMD K6 machines were junk, sorry. We could ask how long Performa 6200s lasted as well.)

Re:More trouble than it's worth?

[NutscrapeSucks]

Given enough memory, XP is faster than 2K is faster than NT4. The difference isn't as dramatic as with OS X improvements, but 10.0 and 10.1 were half-baked.

Re:More trouble than it's worth?

[GlassHeart]

Objectively, how is a five year-old 2x500Mhz Mac any better in 2004 than a five year-old 2x500Mhz PC?

You can sell one for more money than the other on eBay. Four such Macs are currently getting $625, $550, $465, and $51.50. 500 MHz Pentium III computers are getting between $89.95 and $9.99. It's not particularly easy to search for a dual PIII (any ever made?), but that should give you the picture.

A PC user might pay less to replace a cheap machine every year and always have top-end kit.

If you need or want to stay in the "top end", then you cannot be buying "cheap machines" every year.

Re:More trouble than it's worth?

[NutscrapeSucks]

Well, the used Mac market only reflects how out-of-wack the new Mac market is. If Apple introduces a 2Ghz "G5 Mini" for $1000, as discussed on the rumor sites, those old PMacs would cost $200 just like the old PC workstations.

Also, Mac buyers on ebay are completely insane -- a CDRW drive for my 6 year old powerbook goes for like $400. You could buy a whole fuckin PC to burn CDs for that.

> If you need or want to stay in the "top end", then you cannot be buying "cheap machines" every year.

Well, in the PC world, you are usually paying a premium for things like SCSI/SATA and huge cases -- the machines aren't priced by CPU speed.

Re:More trouble than it's worth?

[NutscrapeSucks]

That's nice, but the fact is that that old installed base is running MacOS 9 and isn't buying new software. So, it's basically "dead" for everything but bragging purposes.

And face it, the longer those people sit on their ancient Macs, the more likely it is that they will be assimilated into the PeeCee ecosystem -- I've seen happen to a few friends of mine.

The cool thing about the original iMac was that it got all those old ass Mac users into the store to buy a new Mac. And that drove software and perpherial sales and made apple lots of $$$. It did this because it was price & speed competitive with home PCs of the day.

Apple really needs to get a product out to encourage people to upgrade, rather than pointing to worthless installed base numbers.

Re:More trouble than it's worth?

[falcon5768]

nothing nefarrious about it, OS forces movement, its a known fact.

Remember when AMD was pushing its XP line of chips, or how about how Apple shut out all Gen 2 power PC's with OS X. Its not the work of anything more evil than we want you to upgrade and buy more of our products.

Seriously when is the last time outside games and maybe video that you couldnt do anything on a older machine you could on a new

even with video I did a lot of work on a 5500 with the AV cards, most old macs can encode mp3's AND worked with iTunes and replated mp3 Players (my rio worked great with my PowerComputing Powerbase 180) Word prossesing, Adobe products just add to a already base software, same with Macromedia.

There is no reason to upgrade other than to use the few tools that dont work with older machines, and to run things faster and thus produce work faster of which word prossesing isnt included cause the only thing stopping you there is your typing speed.

But then all the computer manufacturers wont have anyone to sell to!

Re:More trouble than it's worth?

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm not sure what your point it. I can force a PowerMac 7600/120 with a 120MHz PowerPC 604 chip to run OS X 10.1. It totally sucks, but it can be done. Similarly, the software you mention will undoubtedly run on a 300MHz G3, but it will run like molasses. And you're either brain damaged or a fucking liar if you turn around and tell me that "it runs great at 300MHz". Bullshit. I've run OS X on a G3/500 system well stocked with RAM and it was excruciating. I'm typing this message on a 1GHz 12" PowerBook, and it wouldn't want to be a single MHz slower. eMac owners running FCP without slowdown...pffft. Bullshit again. If an eMac could run pro video editing apps without any slowdown, why the fuck would anyone buy a G5?

The problem with the 'old school' Mac advocacy community is that when it comes down to it, they're all fucking liars. 5 year old Macs don't run OS X well. 5 year old Macs don't run Abobe's latest RAM and disk sucking version of PhotoShop well. Macs on the whole aren't better built that name brand PCs of similar prices. A 450MHz G4 system isn't as fast as a 2GHz Pentium 4. A prerequisite of becoming a die-hard Mac zealot is drastically lowering any expectation of performance...and an ability to lie through your teeth.

The best thing that could happen for Apple's market share is for the typical Apple zealot to shut their fucking mouth, and crawl back to their G3/300 system and never connect to the internet again. Not only are you full of shit, but you haven't bought a new Mac for years!!!! SPEND SOME FUCKING MONEY RETARD!!! Apple needs it to stay in business. You're just making the whole situation worse.

Now get the fuck off my internet.

Re:More trouble than it's worth?

[GlassHeart]

Well, the used Mac market only reflects how out-of-wack the new Mac market is.

Somebody just paid, if memory serves, $104M for a painting. Markets don't have to make sense. The money you get from selling your old Mac is still real. You are exhibiting what some critics of the iPod often fail to understand: the iPod is not "overpriced", because people are buying it. The price is whatever the market will bear.

If Apple introduces a 2Ghz "G5 Mini" for $1000, as discussed on the rumor sites, those old PMacs would cost $200 just like the old PC workstations.

Sure. Until it happens, so what? Consider also what a $1,000 G5 will do to the eMac and iMac when guessing Apple's intentions.

in the PC world, you are usually paying a premium for things like SCSI/SATA and huge cases -- the machines aren't priced by CPU speed.

I wasn't talking about CPUs only. The point remains: buying a $400 PC every year doesn't put you in the "top end".

Re:More trouble than it's worth?

[NutscrapeSucks]

Just to clarify, something is worth what someone will pay for it.

The point is that used mac values aren't so much of a feature, but a fault. Who cares if you can sell it for $500 on ebay if a replacement costs $3000?

Re:More trouble than it's worth?

[falcon5768]

um actually it runs great, it was only slow on my iBook SE but even that has 10.3 on it and runs, though not very speedy, its much speedier than 10.0 was on it, which BTW was my default OS when I got it

and well my 900 mhz iBook and 1st gen iPod would tell you your wrong about not buying Apple gear.

see this is where the older generation mac users have you beat... we know how to TAKE CARE of our macs and get them to perform as fast as they are supposed to, not bog them down. Honestly the one G3 works great with CS and Vectorworks, maybe not lightning fast, but it works, it doesnt crash,and best of all, it gets the job done.

its so sad to see they arnt modding down the trolls to -5 these days :-D

Re:More trouble than it's worth?

[falcon5768]

btw Apple will do perfectly well, as everyone has pointed out you dont bitch and moan for BMW to sell cheaper cars to raise their marketshare.

And I was on the internet well before you my young friend... which is sad considering I most likely am younger than you

Apple and bioinformatics

[Neil Blender]

Apple (as well as other computer companies like IBM) are getting very interested in bioinformatics. They have loaned us a ton of equipment for free even though our product is linux based. Of course, Apple has always had a stronghold in academics.

Re:Apple and bioinformatics

[harvardian]

"Apple has always had a stronghold in academics"

That's a bit broad. K-12 education, sure, but at the bioinformatics lab I worked with, we worked exclusively with IBM. The attractiveness of using consumer-level Macs in a grade school setting most certainly doesn't translate to a high-performance computing environment. That might change as Apple moves into this space, however...we'll see.

Re:Apple and bioinformatics

[Neil Blender]

That's a bit broad. K-12 education, sure,

When I worked at the University of Washington doing life sciences research, my personal observation saw it to be about 50/50 pc vs mac. (And the UW is a giant in life sciences) When I left in 1999, linux was slowly creeping in but most of the unix based stuff was run by the computer center. The 50/50 number is certainly different than the 95/5 or whatever the worldwide average is/was. And my observations were only in the life-sciences. I have no idea what the ratios were in say, physics or chemistry.

Re:Apple and bioinformatics

[harvardian]

Are you talking about day-to-day use, or high-performance use? If you use Apple in a high-performance setting, your lab may be more the norm than where I worked. And I did leave 9 months ago, so who knows what's changed since then...but knowing the speed of academia, probably not much.

Re:Apple and bioinformatics

[schwanerhill]

Astrophysics is dominated by Suns (as workstations), with a significant Linux presence; very few astronomers use Windows. All the analysis software I've used (in five different institutions) is Unix-based, which effectively means Suns, Linux, and Macs.

However, more and more astrophysicists are using Macs these days. Apple laptops are very popular, and people are also starting to use Macs as workstations and servers. It's hard to guess at numbers, so I'll note anecdotally that my (small) lab is in the process of replacing our 4 aging Suns with G5 towers. We're also considering an XServe cluster to run some moderately substantial simulations. I don't think we're unusual in those regards.

Re:Apple and bioinformatics

[condensate]

Well. In the cellars of our Biology department, there are ten SGIs still packed and never taken care of for about five years because noone actually thought of programming those. Luckily, I did computational physics...

Re:Apple and bioinformatics

[Anonymous Coward]

Too bad pharma's are moving away from from bioinformatics, but I too will concur that both companies mention (IBM and Apple) as well as Sun and SGI have given or loaned the company that I work for now and companies that I have worked for in the past 'free' servers and other hardware. Dell and HP have not been quite so generous but Dell has been much faster at getting us new (paid for) servers faster than IBM or Apple could with Apple a close second and IBM lagging about 2 months behind.

Re:Apple and bioinformatics

[forgotmypassword]

In physics UNIX usage is much higher and Apple usage is slightly higher than normal. Alphas are almost not used anymore and now we are in a transition from Sun to Linux. (Historically it's gone Alpha, Sparc, and now Linux on x86)

As far as clustering though, MS and Apple are insignificant. Though at least now there are Apple clusters. (The majority of Windows clusters I've seen are donated) And as far as desktops, UNIX and Apple are in the same league. Though the trend in grad students is an increasing number of Linux users.

In mathematics Apple use is very high (comparatively). I can't say anything about computational work in math as I never see those people.

And just incase you didn't know, many physicists and mathematicians are just as computer illiterate as everyone else.

Re:Apple and bioinformatics

[the gnat]

When I worked at the University of Washington doing life sciences research, my personal observation saw it to be about 50/50 pc vs mac.

It depends on the branch of life sciences, and more importantly, the biases of the individual professor.

In most computational labs, ALL of the computing is done on Unix, which nowadays means mostly Linux. In crystallography, people still hang on to SGIs but there's a lot of migration towards both Linux and Mac. In fact, my impression is that Apple may be making real progress here, because people explicitly want a computer that can handle both graphics apps, Unix-based physics programs, and PowerPoint/Word.

My previous lab was entirely bioinformatics, and the majority of people used Windows on their desktop, usually a Dell workstation or a Thinkpad. The reason for this had nothing at all to do speed or application availability - it was almost entirely due to laziness or prejudice. When new people joined that lab, they were generally either very computer-savvy and already ran Linux, or they were clueless and needed one of us gurus to set up their computer - so they got Linux. We'd made some progress migrating people, but the boss was such a Windows addict that there's a limit to what we could have done.

There were actually a number of people who would have preferred Macs, but the boss refused to buy them on principle - which principle, I'm not sure. However, most professors are very Mac-friendly; I'd guess that well over half of the ones in my department (mol. bio.) use Macs. Their lab members, however, tend to be very anti-Apple.

This bias is the chief thing Apple will need to overcome if they want their computers to be used for HPC. Most of the apps are custom-coded or open-source to begin with, so there's little or no barrier to using them on OS X versus any other platform. The people using them, however, may be very good biologists or programmers but they know nothing about the computer systems except thirdhand knowledge that hasn't been true since the 1990s. This is why everyone I work with insists on using our old SGIs, while my laptop is several times faster for the same tasks, and they won't touch a Mac unless there's nothing else around.

What I've found really surprising is that of all the comp bio people of various stripes that I've known, those with the most hardcore programming or sysadmin experience have on average been the most Mac-friendly by a long shot.

Re:Apple and bioinformatics

[wirelessbuzzers]

Astrophysics is dominated by Suns...

Somehow, this doesn't seem surprising...

Re:Apple and bioinformatics

[Mocenigo]

I attend cryptographic conferences on a regular basis, being a young scientist in the field.

Three years ago, I saw NO mac laptops in the audience. 300 people, all mathematicians,computer scientists and electrical engineers, half of them with a laptop, no mac.

Two years ago, some appeared.

Last years, one in twenty had a mac laptop.

This year, one in ten. It's amazing how people are "discovering" powerbooks and ibooks.

And you can tell the owner from the machine!

Firm execs or young academicians backed by a middle-class family which choose not to buy a car (read: me): 17". Others in academia, many from software firs: 15". Women and Ph.D. Students: iBooks :)

And then there are the old-style professors (like my boss) that would NEVER buy a laptop without floppy disc drive, look in disgust at everything that does not run Windows 98, shake their heads when people use USB memory sticks to exchange data...

Re:Apple and bioinformatics

[Yarn]

I'm network manager at the Genetics dept at Cambridge Uni. After mashing my network inventory scripts a bit I can give you a few stats:
297 Total Unique MACs
105 Apple
58 3Com
20 HP
17 Intel
12 Sun
10 CompalElec
8 Dell
5 Sony
4 Toshiba

Dumped my database of all mac addresses into a text file, then:

for foo in `cat temp|sed s/:..:..:..$//g` ; do grep -i $foo manuf ; done | awk '{print $2}' | sort | uniq -ci | sort -n -r | head -n 10

The actual prize

[Pranjal]

The actual prize is composed of the following item

• (1) Xserve G5 dual-CPU model with 2 GB of RAM, 750 GB of storage
• (3) Xserve G5 cluster configuration with 2 GB of RAM, 80 GB of storage
• (1) APC Smart-UPS 2200 VA Power Supply
• (1) XtremeMac Xrack Pro Sound Suppressing Server Enclosure
• (4) AppleCare Premium Service and Support Contracts
• (1) Asanté GX5-800 8-port Gigabit Ethernet Switch
• (5) Category 5e Ethernet Cables
• (1) BioTeam INquiry Cluster Provision Tool

Re:The actual prize

[Carnildo]

What? No 23" Apple Studio Display? I'm disappointed.

Re:The actual prize

[DAldredge]

Isn't that UPS just a little undersized for all the kit?

Re:The actual prize

[Neil Blender]

• (1) XtremeMac Xrack Pro Sound Suppressing Server Enclosure

Good thing too, last time I heard one of their rack mounts, the were Xtremely loud. (louder than your average rack mount, which are all pretty loud to begin with.)

Re:The actual prize

[Anonymous Coward]

Nope, it's a big brown truck.

Re:The actual prize

[LostCluster]

Imagine a beowolf cluster of researches that well equiped...

Re:The actual prize

[Twid]

The Xserve G5's are quite a bit quieter than the Xserve G4's. However, the HP/Compaq rackmounts (DL3xx series) are by far the loudest rackmount servers I've heard, even louder than the G4's.

Also, the Xserve G5's have the same adaptive fanspeeds as the desktop Powermac G5's, so if they aren't working hard they are extremely quiet.

Re:The actual prize

[Anonymous Coward]

Jokes modded as offtopic? You people need to take a five minute break and rub one off every now and then...

Re:The actual prize

[pixel.jonah]

What's the point of having a HP cluster and then not working it hard?

Re:The actual prize

[SlamMan]

It was only the first gen G4 Xserve's are that loud. The second were fine. Much quieter that our god forsaken Dells.

Re:The actual prize

[Jeff DeMaagd]

I thought Apple was four months late with G5 XServe shipments, why give them away so soon?

Re:The actual prize

[Trogre]

Damn, that's going to make a dent in my Folding@Home rank.

Vijay, are you going to apply?

Re:The actual prize

[paitre]

They _ARE_ 4 months late on G5 XServe shipments.
I ordered the day the damned machine was launched, and I'm still waiting.
If these are awarded and -SHIPPED- before we get ours, I will very likely be speaking to our legal department.
I need the machine, and I needed it two months ago.

-
J.

Re:The actual prize

[DAldredge]

Thanks, I needed to laugh!

Re:The actual prize

[Twid]

That was a general point on the noise, not a specific point on the cluster, Mr. Literal. :)

Re:The actual prize

[Anonymous Coward]

Geez, dude... They gotta catch up on iPods first! :)

AND a four node cluster

[Anonymous Coward]

Those items are included with the cluster

For the love of god...

[Anonymous Coward]

Please, no beowulf cluster jokes.

Re:For the love of god...

[Anonymous Coward]

Can it run linux?

Re:For the love of god...

[chachob]

damn, you beat me to it ;)

Re:For the love of god...

[Anonymous Coward]

Just don't get any hot grits into it or you'll ruin it.

Re:For the love of god...

[MoneyT]

How about in soviet russia, beowulf cluster jokes you?

Re:For the love of god...

[Anonymous Coward]

How about in Soviet Slashdot, karma loses you!

Re:For the love of god...

[ruiner13]

I bet you could install yellow dog linux if you didn't mind pissing off apple and losing your possible PR.

Re:For the love of god...

[Anonymous Coward]

how about on earth, you are all idiots!

Re:For the love of god...

[Lennie]

It will run Debian.

wrong icon

[Too Much Noise]

What's the science icon doing on top for this article? It's only Apple's PR, whether the clusters get awarded to some science, defense or giant panda groups it's not really relevant. Put the science icon on some news about what the winners did with the clusters, when those will come out.

Re:wrong icon

[Marxist Hacker 42]

Guess the editors saw it and changed it- it's now the Apple icon.

Re:wrong icon

[Marxist Hacker 42]

And how is it off topic given that both this and the parent were talking about the meta-data on slashdot about the article? If my Karma is going to be bad because of ONE offtopic post, despite the positive scores I've had recently elsewhere- then let it be bad for one complaining about moderation.

You're an idiot.

[switcha]

"Ownership of the underlying intellectual property discussed in any Application remains the property of the Applicant subject to Sponsor's rights to reprint, display, reproduce, perform and exhibit the Application and related studies solely for the purpose of advertising and/or promoting Sponsor's technology to the scientific community."

So writing puff pieces about your great accomplishment means they own it? Bull.

Re:You're an idiot.

[Anonymous Coward]

perhaps you're confused? the applicant retains rights to his/her work. this just states that Apple has the right to brag about those works.

Re:You're an idiot.

[eggegg]

"Applicant" refers to the person submitting the application (scientists) rather than those who review the application (Apple).

Re:You're an idiot.

[switcha]

Right, and so how does the original poster's comments that Apple would own your 'miracle drug' correct at all? It's not. They can just market the fact that the drug you still own the rights to was created/discovered with Apple tech.

/. double standards?

[Anonymous Coward]

Apple gives some Apple computers away, and they are celebrated on Slashdot for their generosity.

Microsoft gives some Windows computers away, and they are scorned on Slashdot for their monopoly.

Gates foundation gives billions to 3rd world countries, and it doesn't even make a slashdot story.

Re:/. double standards?

[Surlyboi]

Apple gives some Apple computers away, and they are celebrated on Slashdot for their generosity.

Microsoft gives some Windows computers away, and they are scorned on Slashdot for their monopoly.

While admittedly, Apple's donating computers is certainly a marketing move, to compare it to Microsoft's donation of 'doze boxen, usually in lieu of paying some fine for one of their many misdeeds, is a bit disingenuous.

Nice try though.

Gates foundation gives billions to 3rd world countries, and it doesn't even make a slashdot story.

Why should it? Did the billions to 3rd world countries foster some technological happening that would fall under the catch-all, "news for nerds"? Probably not. But again, thanks for playing. The Gates foundation should be donating to third world countries, hell anyone with that sort of money should be doing what they can to improve the lot of the less fortunate. But that's running into offtopic territory.

Re:/. double standards?

[Daniel Dvorkin]

Microsoft is a monopoly. Apple is not.

Is that so fucking hard to understand?

Re:/. double standards?

[NanoGator]

"Microsoft is a monopoly. Apple is not."

So Gates isn't allowed to donate to 3rd world countries because two of his products is a de-facto monopoly that the market decided it likes?

Re:/. double standards?

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes. Mon-o-po-ly has more than two syllables. Windows users can't deal with that many at once. Their heads explode.

Re:/. double standards?

[Anonymous Coward]

Monopoly?

How is Microsoft a Monopoly if Apple exists? If that makes Microsoft a monopoly doesn't that make Apple an even worse monopoly (they control the hardware AND the software)?

Re:/. double standards?

[schwanerhill]

More to the point, Apple is doing this voluntarily, whereas Microsoft tried to settle an antitrust lawsuit by donating Microsoft products to schools (and extending their monopoly)--a whole different kettle of fish.

See, e. g., this and this.

Re:/. double standards?

[Trogre]

Gates foundation gives billions to 3rd world countries, and it doesn't even make a slashdot story.

Two words: gift culture.

Re:/. double standards?

[Anonymous Coward]

aye...Dvorkin, is the 'v' silent in your name?

Re:/. double standards?

[OmniVector]

How is Microsoft a Monopoly if Apple exists?
because they control the vast amount of the computing market. you don't have to own all 100% of it just to be declared a monopoly. perhaps you should also keep up with the news. the US and the EU have declared microsoft a monopoly.

If that makes Microsoft a monopoly doesn't that make Apple an even worse monopoly (they control the hardware AND the software)?
sigh. i sometimes wonder if people will ever understand the truth about apple. apple makes the case, the motherboard, the power supply, and the operating system. that's IT. every other component of a mac (including the cpu, video card, hard disk, ram, cdrom, lcds, crts, etc, etc) is standard. if some other company came along and implemented a ppc chip that implemented the same instruction set as the g3-g5 chips and used hardware components (ethernet, video, sound) that are compatible with os x's drivers and implement the openfirmware STANDARD then it will run os x. now that may not be legal according to the EULA but you can do it. worst case you can run linux on your machine, or freebsd, or the various other free *nix operating systems that run just FINE on ppc hardware. heck even windows nt 4 ran on mac hardware (albeit a long time ago, not anymore). if you want more ppc hardware, send a nice letter to amd and intel to implement more ppc compatible chips. send a letter to the various mobo manufacterers to implement more motherboards that agree to said specs. its no different than companies implementing intel's x86 specs. stop spreading FUD

Re:/. double standards?

[prockcore]

Microsoft is a monopoly. Apple is not.

Is that so fucking hard to understand?

Aparently so, since MS isn't a monopoly. They *have* a monopoly.. in consumer level commercial OSes.

Apple has a monopoly too.. in online music distribution.

Re:/. double standards?

[znu]

I don't think anyone has complained about Gates donating money to third-world countries. It might not get much attention on Slashdot, but that's probably because Slashdot is a tech news site, not a site for news about the developing world.

When Gates donates large numbers of Windows machines to e.g. school districts which have traditionally be Mac-based, that's quite a different story. It's very obvious that such actions are more of an investment than a real donation -- and they may actually constitute illegal product dumping (not that the government will do anything).

Re:/. double standards?

[Anonymous Coward]

And that was modded troll why exactly? Astroturfin' mods?

Re:/. double standards?

[minotaurcomputing]

"Microsoft is a monopoly. Apple is not."

Not true... Apple has a monopoly on computers that can run OSX.

Re:/. double standards?

[sean23007]

if some other company came along and implemented a ppc chip that implemented the same instruction set as the g3-g5 chips and used hardware components (ethernet, video, sound) that are compatible with os x's drivers and implement the openfirmware STANDARD then it will run os x.

That's not actually true. It won't run OS X unless the board has the proper Mac ROM that can only be had from Apple that allows MacOS to run on a particular machine. OS X will not run without this ROM chip.

Re:/. double standards?

[Lars T.]

Wrong. There are no "proper Mac ROMs". Infact, MacOS X runs on the AmigaOne (via Mac On Linux).

Re:/. double standards?

[sean23007]

Idiot. Mac OS X may *RUN* on the AmigaOne, but it will not *BOOT*. You can run it through linux, via MOL, but it will not boot by itself without the ROM. This has been the case for ... forever.

Re:/. double standards?

[Lars T.]

There is no special magic voodoo Mac ROM. It's just Open Firmware. And you fucking said "It won't run OS X unless the board has the proper Mac ROM". Run, not boot. Idiot indeed.

Re:/. double standards?

[sean23007]

It (the machine) is not really "running" the operating system if you have to emulate it (using MOL, which stands for Mac On Linux). The machine is *running* linux, which in turn is *running* OS X. The machine itself is not technically running OS X. It uses OpenFirmware, but there is a proprietary Mac ROM which is required for the machine to be able to (directly) run OS X. This is why the homebrew PPC machine from Yellow Dog cannot have OS X installed, only linux.

Re:/. double standards?

[Lars T.]

MOL is not emulation. Heck, you need MOL to run Mac apps when you have Linux running on a Mac. Are you telling us that running Linux on a Mac changes the hardware and lets the magic Voodoo Mac ROM disappear?

The award should be for PCs

[Anonymous Coward]

The award should be for PCs. Only a tiny fraction of the science-related software out there runs on Macintosh.

Re:The award should be for PCs

[Neil Blender]

Only a tiny fraction of the science-related software out there runs on Macintosh.

For gui-based stuff, that might be true. But a very big percentage of bioinformatics is done on the command line. And there is a wealth of free unix based bioinformatics software out there.

Re:The award should be for PCs

[FueledByRamen]

True, that. But the majority of it that doesn't run exclusively on Mac OS runs on a UNIX or on Linux, and a fully functioning Mac version is usually only a recompile away. Also, Apple is giving away the iNquiry software toolkit which claims to include over 200 applications preconfigured for the Workgroup Cluster environment, which is pretty damn spiffy.

Re:The award should be for PCs

[calicanuck]

The award should be for PCs.

Apple should give away competitors' hardware? To what end?

Only a tiny fraction of the science-related software out there runs on Macintosh.

Hmm. Interesting, broad comment with no support. In the Life Sciences, my experience is that about half of us use Mac OS X. Not a bad cut of the market. If only a "tiny fraction" of the applications used are available, why do so many people use it over Linux, Windows and other platforms?

Word to the wise: think before you make senseless observations.

Re:The award should be for PCs

[sarahbau]

Even back before OS X, I think Macs had a big presence in the scientific community. I went to college before there was Mac OS X, and even though 90% of the school's computers were Unix based, the science and physics labs were all Macs.

Re:The award should be for PCs

[fu_yosemite]

Agreed. As a chem major, I can attest that molecular modeling doesn't get much better than on a dualie-G5.

Re:The award should be for PCs

[strook]

Most bioinformatics software, Windows versions are barely supported. Blast, the SAM toolkit, Clustal_, belvu, BioPerl and BioPython, all of these work perfectly on Mac OS X. Among the more computational bioinformaticists it's very handy to be able to recompile the publicly available software for your needs. Also, it's very common in bioinformatics to have questions you need to answer that don't exactly fit the parameters of the software, so it's important to have an environment where it's easy to write scripts to analyze text files and control the (possibly distributed) running of algorithms. In short, the field of bioinformatics is a perfect fit for Unix-based OSes and a fairly godawful fit for Windows. I don't think this is pure slash-bias; I think most all bioinformatics researchers would agree.

This part slightly OT, but this reminds me how much better bioinformatics tools would be if there were more people who could contribute to the open source tools in the field. Often times a widely used program is released open source, but there are so few people who can code well and also take notice of bioinformatics tools that bugs don't get solved like they could. Somebody please make belvu stop crashing all the damn time, make phylip accept alternate data formats, et cetera... I've already got my advisor's software to debug.

Re:The award should be for PCs

[ManxStef]

And now that OS X does exist Mac's are even more appealing to *NIX geeks:
Mac OS X for UNIX Users (~500KB PDF)

Re:The award should be for PCs

[parvati]

>

I'm not sure what kind of science you're talking about, but Macs are extremely popular in the life sciences, and many of the apps my lab uses--Vector NTI, Sequencer, etc.--most certainly do run on Macs. At my university, both the neurobiology and the biochemistry departments use macs, and in the labs, PCs tend to be in the minority. Our bioinformatics group is split about 50:50, but the head of the group has fallen in love with his new TiBook and is trying to switch everyone over. So if you're right that only a fraction of science software runs on Macs, it's clearly the important fraction.

Its *your* an idiot, idiot

[Anonymous Coward]

Try learning some proper grammer, you jackass.

Re:Its *your* an idiot, idiot

[Anonymous Coward]

First off, it's "Re:It's...", not "Re:Its...", Grammar Boy.

Second, it is you're, as it "you are" an idiot, which coincidentally, applies to you as well.

Re:Its *your* an idiot, idiot

[Anonymous Coward]

and last, it's "grammar", not "grammer"

Exactly what are you suggesting?

[Giant Panda]

It's only Apple's PR, whether the clusters get awarded to some science, defense or giant panda groups it's not really relevant.

Are you suggesting that for some reason Giant Pandas are not worthy of this prize?

United Devices

[kyoko21]

Apple should give a set away to United Devices (Profit) or Grid. Both of these ventures specialize in distributed Cancer/Drug simulations. Let's find a cure for breast and prostate cancer!!!! Go Go Go!!!

Re:United Devices

[Anonymous Coward]

Last time I checked, the UD client was Windows only.

Perhaps a give away to Folding@Home wouldn't be so bad.

Re:United Devices

[Anonymous Coward]

Perhaps a give away to Folding@Home wouldn't be so bad.

That would essentially be an endowment to the Pande group grant writing engine.

Re:United Devices

[Gogo Dodo]

Both UD and Grid are distributed systems. There's not much point in giving the hardware to them. UD and Grid work by using client resources to do the work, not a centralized server farm. Sure, they could use it for some of their backend stuff, but if you're looking to boost UD and Grid's processing power, the clusters are not going to help since UD and Grid are Windows only.

Re:United Devices

[nerk88]

All the more reason to give them a mac development system. You might see that mac client. If they go so far as to use the BSD layer on the mac you might see a unix client for you favourite system.

Re:United Devices

[Anonymous Coward]

It might also look bad because Erik Lindahl (one of the judges) worked just down the hall from Vijay.

Re:United Devices

[Anonymous Coward]

Apple is ghey. Just like you, faggot.

Re:United Devices

[Magada]

Offtopic, I know. But... Some of Folding@Home's ongoing research topics are double-edged, to say the least. So no.

Re:United Devices

[kyoko21]

That is true, but there is always Virtual PC. Granted it's not great, but every little drop helps. Though, I will admit it is probablly not the best way to utilize resources unless you run enough virtual OS to tax the system to death. :-/

BFD

[bmarklein]

Companies give research grants to universities all the time. A DEC grant paid for two years of grad school for me in the early 90's, and gave my lab a bunch of sweet Alphas. Why is this news - because it's Apple?

Re:BFD

[Kenja]

"file a refund action with ebay"

Of course! When Apple does somthing thats been done before its because they're inovative.

Re:BFD

[Daniel Dvorkin]

Probably because it's not an outright grant, but a contest which (theoretically) anyone can enter. And there are a fair number of /.ers who might be interested. I'd enter myself, but my chances of winning as a grad student are probably somewhere between 0 and NULL.

Re:BFD

[needacoolnickname]

Did you submit the story or just expect Slashdot to know that an AC's school was given computers?

I believe that is why there is that nifty submit story link on each page.

Try it and then when they don't post your story bitch about it.

Re:BFD

[Gogo Dodo]

There's no application fee, so you should apply if you can think of some interesting project.

Re:BFD

[peragrin]

no that's Microsoft. No one but trolls are calling Apple innovative with this. It may get marked, but it's not innovative.

Re:BFD

[Unregistered]

Because those Apple supercomputer-in-a-box setups are cool. When i win the lottery, i'm gonna get me a couple two.

Re:BFD

[Anonymous Coward]

You're forgetting about his time. Why should he be writing what is essentially a grant proposal -- when he should be doing research and working toward his degree?

He didn't say that the box would help with his research... If it would, his adviser would probably do the actual application and most of the paperwork -- usually the student only has to write a couple of paragraphs describing their research firsthand. At least that's how it would work if his adviser is worth anything, anyway.

Perpetual Marketshare?

[MoneyT]

I've come to the conclusion that Apple must have some sort of market share that defies the natural laws of the universe. For years now, Apple's market share has always been reported at ~4% with numbers as low as 2% in some places and as high as 10% in others. But the one thing that has remained constant throughout these reports is that it's adwindling market share and it's falling rapidly. Now, how is it that 6 years ago, they could have 4%, 5 years ago they had 4%, 4 years ago they had 4%, 3 years ago they have 4%, 2 years ago they have 4%, one year ago they have 4% and this year, they still have 4%, yet every year it was declining?

This leads to the conclusion that Apple must have invented purpetual self sustaining marketshare, a graph of which could make MC Escher proud, and that they must patent this immediately so that they can increase their marketshare to -pi

Re:Perpetual Marketshare?

[falcon5768]

no its easy to explain, market share does not equal user base. There are many more mac users using equipment from 97-99 still in 2004 running OS X. Unlike some people most of us have OS X running no problem and running just as fast as OS 9 was.

In the PC world your expected to buy a new computer every 2 years, in the mac world thats not the case.

Re:Perpetual Marketshare?

[repetty]

Simple: Births.

Six years ago, neither of my kids had computers. Now they both have Macs. Multiply that out! :->

Re:Perpetual Marketshare?

[EulerX07]

In the PC world your expected to buy a new computer every 2 years, in the mac world thats not the case.

I'll bite. The PC users that need to buy computers every 2 years are the bleeding edge gamers that need to play the most recent games with everything turned on and with 60 fps. You don't see that with the apple crowd because the vast majority of the cutting edge "buy a new video card" games do not come out for Mac (this is not flamebait, this is the cold hard truth).

The two closes friends that are *not* gaming maniacs that I know have respectively a pentium 733 and a pentium 200, and they have no problems doing all their term papers for university. My parents have a custom system that I built for pennies with a 1 GHz Athlon three years ago and it's still way more power then they'll ever need. My father figures he's good for 4 more years. The computers at my old workplace were Pentium II 400-700Mhz, about 12 of them. Only one desktop was above 1 GHz.

In the Extreme gaming world (which Apple is not a part of anyway), you have to buy a computer every 2 years, in the normal users world (PC or mac) that's not the case.

Re:Perpetual Marketshare?

[falcon5768]

right and I know people using Mac SE's, Im glad you bit because you proved a important point.

ALL THIS OS FIGHTING IS INSAIN.

The only thing PC's have had over Macs is games and price... THATS IT! You can do the same things give or take ease of use on both. I perfer to use my Macs, but I have a buddy who loves his PC's. Now truth be told when you get to the company line, The Macs have been at a advantage over the PC's because as I pointed out a little earlier elsewhere in this thread I just installed XP on a pretty much rebuilt 450mhz Compaq 5360 with full memory. While XP is running, its not nearly as speedy as OS X has been on my 300mhz G3 both from the same model year.

Now that advantage might dissapear soon, no one knows the requirements of Tiger, but even there unlike the Compaq I can install a 1.4ghz upgrade to that G3 and still run the same software (the question is why spend $500 when for $700 I could get a brand new eMac.)

But your exactly right it doesnt matter the machine! I have friends who still write reports on eMates and Comadores because they can and because they really dont care to get a computer to do anything but be a word prossesor. Heck I was still using a PC Jr. and a Tandy 1000 in 1995 with no problems yet 4 years later have a machine that ran circles around the two. If your comfortable with the machine then use it. And getting back to the main topic, anyone who says to NOT use machines given to the despite the OS being OS X not a PC is a tool, most schools DIE to get new machines.... I JUST got rid of 5500's this summer, replaced with iMacs. Most schools dont have a decent IT budget and cant affored the machines so they take what they can get. Not every school is MIT or Yale you know.

Re:Perpetual Marketshare?

[Anonymous Coward]

Its simple .. as it has been pointed out .. Apple does not make much on the hardware.. so not much use selling much of it now is there.. But where they do cash in is on OS upgrades .. they are hitting 10.4 shortly .. each of the .x costs 120$ US to upgrade .. they usually prevent newer software from running on slightly older OS's .. so you are still paying more in the end ..

Re:Perpetual Marketshare?

[falcon5768]

not true at all

first apple has a decent profit margin on its upper end, its low end is only about 20 - 50 bucks but the upper end is good.

second its the software manufacturers who dictate what runs, there is actually very little software that dosent work on 10.2 or 10.1 but works in 10.3, if anything its the reverse because there was some software that had sloppy code that was broken by Apple by taking out the code shortcuts they where using to address hardware instead of the proper way. The only code i know that only 10.3 can use is in the case of calls that where added to the OS that developers decided to use instead of older but still usable 10.2 calls.

Please use real facts the next time you respond there are many people stilll using 10.2 and 10.1 out there, including my lab of 100 iMacs that we decided not to upgrade since they didnt need the usability features.

2001 A Space Odyssey

[malia8888]

Looking at the picture of the prize--looks like "Hal" to me but with wheels!! :P

BFD

[Anonymous Coward]

Intel gave my school an entire computer lab, numbering approximately 40 computers + monitors + everything. My school was not the only one. Was that on Slashdot??? Noooooooo. However, lardass posts a story about Apple giving away four computers. Go figure.

I work with...

[mfivis]

"...skin. Yeah that's right. I study female skin exposure and do extensive analysis using digital photographs and videos. I need a powerful computing solution to work with some of my experimental data."

MODERATORS BLOW!

[Anonymous Coward]

You heard me you dirty niggers. You people make me laugh. Why post here? If it's pro-Linux and well thought out, instant +4 or +5. If it's pro-Microsoft, you're pretty much fucked unless you include some Linux related suck up somewhere in there. What a bunch of dirty niggers you are.

My Proposal

[platypibri]

Attn: Apple Inc.

I would like to formally propose an educational study in which the effect that faster Photoshop and Quark X-Press productivity would have on my pocket book would be studied. I'd also like to crunch some numbers on the effect of staggering frame rates in UT2K4 would have on my on-line gaming experience, as I currently suck. My studio would be the happy receipient of one of your donor G5 machines. Thank you for your time.

Re:My Proposal

[Johnny Mozzarella]

Seriously I think this would make for a better marketing stunt/commercial.
I love Apple but their commercials suck. There's no meat to them.

Apple clusters?

[Anonymous Coward]

Seriously, unless these are Photoshop scientists, what good will they be?

Re:Apple clusters?

[Ffakr]

I do realize your comment is tongue in cheek.. but Bioinformatic tools (some of them like BLAST) run multiples faster on Apple hardware than on x86 hardware. Apparently apps like BLAST really run great on Altivec.
I haven't seen anything recently, but at one time BLAST ran up to 16x faster on a G4 than a P4.

Re:Apple clusters?

[Anonymous Coward]

BLAST runs faster if you increase the word size. The problem with increasing the word size is that you loose sensitivity, which makes the results useless.

Re:Apple clusters?

[Anonymous Coward]

There is no evidence BLAST runs great on Altivec and every reason to believe it doesn't. Only some slick advertising would lead the naive to believe Altivec is responsible for huge performance gains, but the comparisons Apple publicized are not "apples to apples". Apple and Genentech modified the underlying algorithm in standard C, then sprinkled in a few Altivec instructions so the code won't compile (let alone run) on anything but a Mac. The speed improvement helps at very long word lengths where the sensitivity sucks even more than standard blastn.

computing power is unfairly distributed

[SuperBanana]

For the mad scientist who has everything!

If your definition of "mad scientist" is "person working on weapons of mass destruction", ie, nuclear weapons, most of them already have the world's largest clusters. Pretty sad that we still consider it important to build better nuclear weapons even though we've got thousands of them, and not a single legitimate target for them(the whole deterrence thing is ridiculous- if it's just about deterrence, we only need a dozen or so).

It'd be nice to see some computing horsepower, if only a small piece, go to those trying to do something other than make better nuclear bombs or look for little green men...ie something (gasp) productive.

Re:computing power is unfairly distributed

[Anonymous Coward]

Who is the useless brain dead shit stain who modded this mostly true statement "Troll"

I want my subscription money back.

Re:computing power is unfairly distributed

[evilWurst]

You're misinformed. We *don't* build new nuclear weapons. We don't build old nuclear weapons either. We've signed treaties against testing or selling any of the stuff too. The computer simulations are to see how the existing ones hold up as they age (rather than detonate one every once in a while to make sure the rest still work).

Re:computing power is unfairly distributed

[Paradise Pete]

who modded this mostly true statement "Troll"

Truth or the lack of it has nothing to do with trollishness.

Re:computing power is unfairly distributed

[__aafutm5472]

Every time somebody mentions nuclear weapons, I get reminded of this funny animation about the end of the world. Too fun...

Re:computing power is unfairly distributed

[SkunkPussy]

"You're misinformed. We *don't* build new nuclear weapons. We don't build old nuclear weapons either. We've signed treaties against testing or selling any of the stuff too."

two things:

1) GWB has set policies to actively pursue research into "soft" nuclear weapons

2) USA has signed treaties recognising the United Nations authority, but nonetheless invaded Iraq without a mandate from the Security Council.

Re:computing power is unfairly distributed

[Anonymous Coward]

I think that killed that one. If you missed it, here's a hint: endoftheworld.swf

Bioinformatics eh?

[netsharc]

Could this be a sign of where Apple stands in the stem-cell debate?

Personally I think Bush is an idiot, and it's know he twists science to support his moronic points of views, and no one else's. He probably believes in the creationists. Join the to fight to bring back USA's status as the leading nation in science, and vote against Bush!

Re:Bioinformatics eh?

[repetty]

Thanks for sharing your polital views.

Now go away.

Re:Bioinformatics eh?

[admactanium]

He probably believes in the creationists.

wait... creationists don't exist?

Re:Bioinformatics eh?

[Compact Dick]

I find your lack of faith ... disturbing.

Re:Bioinformatics eh?

[Anonymous Coward]

No, they don't.
Never saw one here in Europe.
Who could be stupid enough to have such thesis?
And more that, who could stupid enough to tell them in public.
Nobody, or maybe in some third world uneducated country...

And yes, I understood the pun.

Calculating the payoff

[amichalo]

So lets run some numbers:
5 $40,000 (retail) prizes = $200,000 retail
only 4 ($160,000) are educational and after looking at the awards, there is no stipulation the 1 non-educational award must go to a non-profit so there is only the $160,000 tax right off guaranteed.
Now if you are a reseller, I don't know if you can right off the retail value of the goods & services donation or not, so that would make the value even lower.

Now the return on the investment:
Well you get smart people in research institutions all over the country dreaming up ways to use 5 Xserves and the 10 way G5 64=bit computing power they bring. So even if they don't win, somebody may get some dollars budgeted to actually buy this type of system outright. Or perhaps they win a different grant and use those moneys to fund it.
Then you have publicity. At least a few hundred /. readers saw it. Does this influence them to but a $40,000 cluster? that's a big nope. Does it influence them to try the Xserve? well perhaps it helps reinforce the production applicability of the Xserve (it runs iTMS and the V-tech super computer and these $40,000 clusters so maybe I shoudl give it a try) Does it make people want to but PowerBooks and iPods, again, doubtful.

So what's left
So after Apple ponies up $200,000 in hardware and software, less their margins and tax deductions, they still spent six figures on a marketing stunt and some good Karma. Will it pay for itself? Well if only ONE of these institutions who wins a cluster actually adds on to it within an order of magnitude of V-tech, I would say 'yeah' it will pay for itself.

Have other companies (Big Blue, Hp, etc) had success with similar programs?

Re:Calculating the payoff

[Anonymous Coward]

Don't be silly, Apple is a very small fish in a very big pond compared to real supercomputer companies like SGI.

What the big companies do is let you login to their machines free of charge, over the internet, and take their machines for a spin. See e.g. http://www.testdrive.compaq.com

On top of that, what the companies with a *serious interest* in high performance computing (like SGI and Cray) do is let you email your program to them: they will spend days or weeks (up to you) tuning it, telling you how it works on their hardware, and even telling you that you're better off with the competition, if that ends up being the case. What these companies understand very well, that Apple doesn't, is that people who spend $10M+ on computing equipment, typically with public money, need to show due diligence in their choice of hardware. This means THOROUGH evaluation: benchmarks, benchmarks, benchmarks - and not _standard_ benchmarks, but the benchmarks that matter: the user's own software.

Take a look here to see a real-life snapshot of this kind of process.

Any company that tried to "fudge the numbers" would be caught out, and that looks VERY bad. So the companies instead do all they can to help with the evaluation process, and hope that they get chosen. If not, there's always the next sale. A big supercomputer is sold somewhere every day or two, after all.

Virginia Tech's "X" doesn't come into this category: for example, no actual scientific work has been performed on the machine so far apart from benchmarks/system development, etc. Dr Varadarajan is probably going to get a pretty nasty grilling in a couple of years, when the University asks "so, what did we get for our money?" Some P.R., and not a whole lot more it would seem. I wish them luck...

Apple is not really a supercomputer company: and really, who cares? Apple has been, is, and will probably remain a great computer company for a good long while yet. But don't expect Apple to help you out a great deal if you pop them an email going "say, how does the G5 run on the ASCI Purple benchmarks?". That's just not what Apple are about. (example: they are happy to sell you a box with a 64-bit CPU, but they could care less that they don't have a 64-bit OS to go with it..)

Re:Calculating the payoff

[Anonymous Coward]

V-tech makes toy computers that are sold in Toys 'R' Us. Virginia Tech (also known as VT, VPI, The Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University) built the supercomputer that you're referring to.

Okay, so I haven't had my coffee yet this morning.

Ordinary scientists

[antic]

"The Apple Workgroup Cluster for Bioinformatics places the power of computational clustering within reach of ordinary scientists."

...if they have $40k (or are awarded the grant).

How many "ordinary scientists" have $40k burning a hole in their pocket?

And who would admit to being an ordinary scientist anyway!?

Re:Ordinary scientists

[Daniel Dvorkin]

My company sells digital microscopy systems -- microscope, camera, Mac or PC workstation, capture and image processing software, and assorted other goodies -- which typically run between $75,000 and $250,000. Now, I don't know if our customers would like to be described as "ordinary scientists" <g> but we do sell plenty of systems. Academic customers usually pay with grant money, of course; corporate (mostly pharmaceutical) customers just write a check ... In any case, there are plenty of scientists who have access to that level of funding.

Re:Ordinary scientists

[Anonymous Coward]

Plenty, advancement in science is proportional to the amount of equipment ruined.

Re:Ordinary scientists

[the gnat]

How many "ordinary scientists" have $40k burning a hole in their pocket?

At a decent research university, probably most of them. If they're comp bio, they probably have even more money than that. In bioinformatics, you don't need to spend $250 on a milliliter of antibodies or thousands of dollars on primers - the overhead for keeping a lab running is much lower. And experimentalists regularly have to spend considerably more than $40k on their equipment - as the other poster pointed out, microscopes are an excellent example. (EM systems are even worse - these are usually at least $300k.) Therefore, grant money stretches a long way.

Re:Ordinary scientists

[Anonymous Coward]

i'm an 'ordinary scientist' at a large research university in the us. we just ordered a 250k microscope. last year took delivery of 70k deposition machine. also have 500k xrd machine. department just ordered ~2mil of sem's. although not my field, 40k for computation systems not likely to make anyone blink.

Re:Ordinary scientists

[phiala]

How many "ordinary scientists" have $40k burning a hole in their pocket?

And who would admit to being an ordinary scientist anyway!?

Well, I sure don't... (have the $40K, that is). I managed to talk my way into getting a Palm from end-of-year money last year, but a new computer, let alone one that pricy? Not a chance! (The Palm was for collecting field data, and has already more than saved its worth in my time.)

I'd be thrilled to get even part of this prize, though I don't think I'm eligible, because then I could replace my web server, which is an old PC I scavenged out of the trash. It does okay with the basics, but database queries take an awfully long time...

I'm a fairly ordinary scientist, not a grad student or post-doc, employed in a gov't research lab. We have enough money for salaries, and some support staff, and basic research support, but not much in the way of extra goodies, and we're certainly not rolling in dough. (Although some of those other cooler gov't labs might be!)

We're not allowed to even apply for the most common sorts of outside grants, though gov't scientists are eligible for some. The real advantage, from my point of view, is that we are then not tied to the typical 3-year grant cycle, and have the freedom to do much longer, and potentially more valuable, studies.

Science and Macs

[SkimTony]

My personal experience supporting Macintosh computers for a medical school suggests to me that your assertion that very little science related software runs on Macintosh computers may be a bit inaccurate.

That said, I wonder what I might do to encourage developers to write more science-related software that will run on Macintosh computers? This would appear to be a step toward that goal.

It's a sales ploy...

[kidventus]

From the website "he Apple sales team will be happy to help you with the purchase of your Apple Workgroup Cluster for Bioniformatics." It's not a bunch of stuff Apple put together just for the give-away. It's a packaged product, and Slashdot has helped sell it. Haloed by thou marketing company's name. I love this company.... I love this company, but some things are just crazy.

Re:It's a sales ploy...

[Anonymous Coward]

Shocking. A company trying to sell their product and make money. Who'dathunkit?

I decline!

[callipygian-showsyst]

Sorry, Apple, but I can't accept your offer. You see, my IT department won't support Mac servers.

Re:I decline!

[Anonymous Coward]

Idiot.

Re:I decline!

[Gropo]

Well then show them the 3rd party benchmarks showing how AltiVec-optimized BLAST on a dual 2ghz G5 completely creams absolutely anything else out there, CPU-for-CPU.

If that fails, the XServe doubles as a handy bludgeon--feel free to beat the Win-Magnans all the way back to their cave.

Re:I decline!

[callipygian-showsyst]

You're much more considerate than the guy who just called me an "idiot!"

(This was no joke! They really won't support anything other than Windows XP for desktops or FreeBSD (and 2003 Server) for servers.)

Re:I decline!

[Anonymous Coward]

Homofag!

Re:I decline!

[Anonymous Coward]

10.3's RPC code (Darwin kernel) is absolute garbage, and the slapd on the Xserves is unstable. We had to pull an Xserve out of production as a workgroup server and replace it in a hurry with a desktop Linux machine (literally pulled off someone's desk) to get that group back into production.

That said, Mac OS X is a nice desktop, but it's not server grade, and dangerous to use in that role. It's also quite a bit different from most Unixes, so it'll take a lot of learning and testing before your admins will be able to run it well. At the current time, it's not worth that investment in time.

Apple

[arfuni]

There's a lot of statements in this thread about about Macs not being useful for science due to software support. What the hell? That's like saying that HP, Dell, etc can't be used - Mac systems can take UNIX versions just like any other computer. Regardless, our university's physics department apparently uses nothing but Apple systems, although generally old ones due to the budget.

Re:Apple

[Anonymous Coward]

Realistically, once you get away from page layout and photoshop, there is not much quality software for Apple machines. The amount of scientific and engineering software available for the Mac is indeed pitiful. The Mac emphasis is mostly on graphics arts, not science.

Re:Apple

[the gnat]

There's a lot of statements in this thread about about Macs not being useful for science due to software support. What the hell? That's like saying that HP, Dell, etc can't be used - Mac systems can take UNIX versions just like any other computer.

I think people are confusing commercial and non-commercial apps. The commercial programs are either targeted towards industry/pharma, or are part of some other proprietary system - for example, controlling a purification or mass spec system. These are usually Windows, or sometimes platform-specific Unix. I haven't seen any of these running on Macintosh, and very few of them have been ported to Linux.

The open-source scientific software is almost exclusively Unix, and yes, it will almost always run on Mac. Virtually every piece of software I use for my research is open-source - and actually, the lone program that isn't has a Mac port anyways. In bioinformatics, almost every important program is open-source, and there's actually quite a bit of interest in getting stuff running well on Mac. The author of one of my favorite programs (PyMOL) actually recommended the dual G5 as the optimal system for running his software.

Re:Apple

[paulio]

The amount of scientific and engineering software available for the Mac is indeed pitiful.

What??? Macs are UNIX based and will run just about any UNIX/Linux app. And yes X-Windows is built into the OS too.

Re:Apple

[nettdata]

You're right...

My cousin does cancer research at Harvard, and I design/write software for a living. He found that there was a huge empty space for software that would help him do his job (cancer research), so 2 years ago we started a software company that specializes in reagent management (cryogenic storage, dna plasmids, oligos, antibodies, protocols, animal experiments, etc., all cross-referenced), and made sure that it was 100% Java and cross-platform.

While we really have no direct competition (yet), it is very interesting to see the platform requirement limitations (mostly DOS/Windows) that a lot of the other software companies have. There really is a huge shortage of cross-platform software.

Our experience has shown that most commercial labs tend to be Windows based, while most academic labs are Mac based. It is also not uncommon to have the Academic labs have 1 or 2 Win32 boxes that are there just to run a particular program they're using. It also appears that the IT departments in academia tend to use Linux back-end servers, with an interestingly high occurance of Yellow Dog. (That's Linux on PPC, for those of you unfamiliar with YD). Usually, we've found that the YD servers are older G3 and G4 towers that have been repurposed.

Now, these are the environments that we've been exposed to, and may not accurately represent the group as a whole, but regardless, it's been an interesting and enlightening experience seeing what/how different labs are currently (and used to) using by way of software.

Re:Apple

[Anonymous Coward]

Only if you have the source. A $5000/yr commercial scientific application vendor doesn't typically release the source.

The *vendor* can port it very easily, but *I* can't. If the vendor isn't interested in customers who run Apple, then the application doesn't support Apple.

Plus, when an application costs this much, you buy the hardware to suit the application -- not the other way around.

Re:Apple

[kencurry]

Unfortunately, mac support for instrumentation software was better 10 years ago than it is today, although G5/OSx is re-gathering interest in the platform.

Companies claim they cannot support multiple platforms anymore, and or course that means a lot of instrumentation software is windows only - I just went through this buying a new instrument for my lab. 3rd party options are extremely risky if validation for GMP compliance will be an issue. Universities are a different world than the commercial product development lab because of regulatory hurdles like this.

Another big problem area for engineering types is lack of CAD support for mac.

Sad, but true for Mac purists who have to use PCs in the lab, myself included.

But You're Forgetting...

[Anonymous Coward]

...Hell hath no fury like an MCSE scorned.

Watch them come out to play the moment anybody dares criticise MS...because to criticise MS is to criticise the MCSE's decision to throw away his trust fund on a laughably worthless certification.

Dear Apple

[Wesley Felter]

Before you start giving away Xserve clusters, could you please ship the Xserves that we ordered over a month ago?

Re:Dear Apple

[flatland_skier]

I would like to second that. Mine was ordered on March 5 and was supposed to ship 4/30. May 1 rolls around and they changed my ship date to June 29. June frickin` 29 about 4 months after I ordered it.

For the most part I love Apple's stuff, but this is just bull. Tell me you are having delays...don't sneak it in after I've put off ordering a Dell to do the same job.

So at Apple prices....

[stygar]

...that's like two iLamps and a bundle of CD-Rs, right?

What, no iPod?

[johkir]

I was just reading the dity on BioTeams site about iNquery, and spotted this:

Apple Mac OS X users can deploy their own iNquiry clusters on Xserve or G5 systems via a unique self-deployment method that uses an Apple iPod as a cluster installation and configuration device.

Now I need to get an iPod too. I've booted Mac for repair using a system on an iPod, but I had no idea it could be used for that kind of cluster too. I guess I just didn't think about it enough. Cool.

"Once these terriers and barifs are torn down, this economy will grow" - Gee Dubya

Re:What, no iPod?

[SavoWood]

The software is provided WITH the iPod. When you get your iNquiry stuff, it's delivered on an iPod. You can automagically set up your cluster nodes with it by simply plugging the iPod in. It's a very cool system.

3rd World had to sign license agreement...

[Anonymous Coward]

Hmm,

Working hard in the USA to dominate the software industry,
then shifting all the money to the third world...

Think - cheaper outsourced overseas programmers ?

maybe not so nice a guy after all...

maybe just investing in his own future?

PC vs. Mac bickering.

[mac os ken]

Lets just get this straight and not dive into the tireless Win/*nix/OS X debate. Apple is giving away some serious prizes. PERIOD. This isn't about a turf war.

NT4 didn't run on a mac

[Anonymous Coward]

while we're clearing things up, NT4 could run on some PPC hardware. The NT4 supported hardware and MacOS supported hardware were mutually exclusive groups.

NT4 never ran on the same machine that could run MacOS, though it could run on that processor. Microsoft later killed NT4's PPC support due to lack of interest. Well, yeah. Very few people had non-mac PPC hardware.

-theed

Thanks a lot

[Anonymous Coward]

Trust me this Xserve's are "best". We had it in our lab (we are a bioinformatics research lab at a University in Los Angeles). We liked it so much because a) We had to reboot this "Server" atleast once in a week. The reason was its "awesome" filesystem b) We had to call Apple atleast 5 times in a month and listen to their "smart" technicians. Mostly we got the same answer and that is "We don't have the required level of service subscription from Apple" c) Recently, because of this Xserve atleast 15 people in our lab did nothing, waiting for it to comeup from its crash for 2 full weeks (this 15 people includes 6 post-docs and professors, 8 graduate students and 1 undergrad) Result: We got a debian box from Fry's which has 65 days uptime with no restarts required or no problems conclusion: Xserve's are good aesthetically and they are good webservers too. But if you really want to do some bioinformatics research work instead of you and your team administering computers, DO NOT BUY THIS CRAPY BOX. IF SOMEONE GIVES IT AS A GIFT, SELL IT ON EBAY AND GET ATLEAST 5 PC BOXES FROM FRY'S. I CAN BET THAT THEY WILL MAKE YOUR LIFE MORE EASY AND YOU WON'T REPENT FOR ALL YOUR LIFE

Re:Thanks a lot

[Yarn]

I have a dual G4 tower running 10.2 server (Inherited it from my predecessor). So far only downtime has been for security updates, which surprised me (coming from a solaris/linux background)

Admittedly, the update probably didn't need reboots, but it doesn't really give you a choice. My reviewlet is: "Nice UI, a bit opaque". I'm not planning on replacing it, as was my original kneejerk reaction.

Good idea

[djupedal]

...and one that should be greeted favorably all around.

Unlike the ip ban that is akin to shutting the barn door after... It's nice to see some policing going on, but c'mon - a bit late, and the way its' being done...sledgehammer approach - seems a bit inelegant, almost scud-like.

Join the Mac OS X Folding Team!

[SailfishMac]

Clicky here!

Anyone who supports Apple is welcomed to join Linux and PC, just pop #1971 as your team number!

Thanks!

Thanks for making the world a better place...

[Anonymous Coward]

...for the rest of us.
You're to be congratulated on collecting what sounds like a fair sized group of rather stupid people in one place.

Astrophysics and Macs

[oneiros27]

I'm doing IT for a group of solar physicists, and we're running a rather high percentage of Macs. [I'd say over 50% of the physical systems, with Suns and Alphas coming in roughly tied for second, with Intel based systems a distant fourth].

With 64bit macs, I'm guessing they're going to get an even stronger foothold, especially as we look at the G5 XServe [which if procurement ever gets right, might actually come in sometime this year].

Good to see It just works computing in the Lab

[gsdali]

Think of the time saved by being able to buy a preconfigured cluster. Just open the box plug in, fire up and go. Now Beowulf may be cheaper, butthink of the time saved by just being able to buy a cluster off the shelf. Think of the time saved by not having to set up and configure. I don't really mind who's selling this kind of solution but I'm glad someone someone is.

Roll on clustered Shake and FCP renndering though.

Re:Actually. . .

[Anonymous Coward]

No. It's not.

lol

[Anonymous Coward]

Stop, you're killing me!

Ah Yup...

[eyegor]

I'm dragging around a five year-old Apple laptop and it's still a very usable system (unlike my two year old Dell laptop). It's stable, light, and "just works". I recently handed out an old G3 laptop as a testing system to a co-worker. It's a bit slow, but it still gets the job done.

And no. I'm not some mindless Mac drone. I've been using and admining x86 and SPARC boxes since forever.

I use Solaris, Linux, OS X and Windows on a daily basis, and I'm totally blown away with the stability of OS X and how well the OS is integrated (ah, the joys of a propriarity system).

That being said, there are a few "Mac-isms" that drive me nuts (like command line user management, for instance).