Apple to Award Workgroup Clusters to Scientists

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Apple to Award Workgroup Clusters to Scientists

Posted by pudge on Wednesday May 12, 2004 @10:47AM from the get-your-applications-in-now dept.

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."

12 of 199 comments (clear)

Nifty by Burgundy+Advocate · 2004-05-12 10:48 · Score: 5, Funny

For the mad scientist who has everything!

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Dragging people kicking and screaming into reality since 1996.
oh by Linwood · 2004-05-12 10:48 · Score: 5, Funny

must be a 1.8 ghz G5 with monitor to add up to that size of cash.
Apple and bioinformatics by Neil+Blender · 2004-05-12 10:51 · Score: 5, Interesting

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.
1. Re:Apple and bioinformatics by Neil+Blender · 2004-05-12 11:25 · Score: 5, Informative
  
  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.
2. Re:Apple and bioinformatics by wirelessbuzzers · 2004-05-12 15:24 · Score: 5, Funny
  
  Astrophysics is dominated by Suns...
  
  Somehow, this doesn't seem surprising...
  
  --
  I hereby place the above post in the public domain.
The actual prize by Pranjal · 2004-05-12 10:51 · Score: 5, Informative
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
United Devices by kyoko21 · 2004-05-12 11:04 · Score: 5, Interesting

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!!!
1. Re:United Devices by Anonymous Coward · 2004-05-12 11:08 · Score: 5, Informative
  
  Last time I checked, the UD client was Windows only.
  
  Perhaps a give away to Folding@Home wouldn't be so bad.
Re:The award should be for PCs by calicanuck · 2004-05-12 11:24 · Score: 5, Informative

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.
computing power is unfairly distributed by SuperBanana · 2004-05-12 11:51 · Score: 5, Interesting

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.

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Please help metamoderate.
Re:More trouble than it's worth? by Dog135 · 2004-05-12 12:00 · Score: 5, Insightful

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.

--
"That's so plausible, I can't believe it!" - Leela
Apple by arfuni · 2004-05-12 12:34 · Score: 5, Insightful

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.