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Students Power Supercomputer with Bicycles
inkslinger77 writes "A team of ten MIT students powered a supercomputer for twenty minutes by pedaling bicycles. They duly claimed the world record for human-powered computing (HPC). They powered a SiCortex SC648 supercomputer with a Linux cluster of 648 CPUs and almost 1TB of main memory in a single cabinet. The system is low-powered and draws 1,200 watts without needing special power supplies or cooling..."
So, the students don't run Linux... they bicycle it instead!
MIT measures its resident nerds using the International Smoot scale.
They should have just gone over to the nearest administrative offices and unplugged all of the CRTs running "screen savers". This would have freed power to run the computer even longer and wouldn't have been as tiring.
Just callin' it like I see it.
Actually, you're well wrong. Cycling, like anything else, is about power to weight ratio. Lance Armstrong, in training, could output 6.8 watts per kilogramme, which on his body weight of 74Kg is just over 500 watts. Some of the big fast guys (Tom Boonen, Magnus Backstedt) can sustain really startling outputs for long periods of time. I have a friend who peaks around 600 watts and can sustain better than 400 all day; but on his 102Kg that's only 6 watts per Kg. That's strictly amateur - he's fast for us, but he couldn't compete with the pros.
There's nothing at all hard about 200 watts. Any club cyclist who can do a ten mile time trial at evens is sustaining 4.8 watts/Kg for half an hour. I can do that, and I'm probably old enough to be your grandfather. I weigh 82Kg, so for me that's 381 watts. And I can certainly do 200 watts (13.5mph on the flat, for someone my weight) for eight hours continuous without difficulty.
I'm old enough to remember when discussions on Slashdot were well informed.