How To Build a Supercomputer In 24 Hours

An anonymous reader writes with a link to this "time lapse video of students and postdocs at the University of Zurich constructing the zBox4 supercomputer. The machine has a theoretical compute capacity of ~1% of the human brain and will be used for simulating the formation of stars, planets and galaxies." That rack has "3,072 2.2GHz Intel Xeon cores and over 12TB of RAM." Also notable: for once, several of the YouTube comments are worth reading for more details on the construction and specs.

Comments

Pretty sure

[Anonymous Coward]

that my old palm pre has more computing power than most human brains on this planet.

Re:Pretty sure

[tnyquist83]

You also have to remember that the human brain also has to handle all of those useless background process like "breathing" and "heartbeats". If you only took into account the user-taskable portion of the brain, then computers have surpassed that level a loooooong time ago.

Re:Pretty sure

[Anonymous Coward]

Indeed, what's interesting about this, other than the speed of assembly, is what a difference optimization makes. A human brain couldn't do this task, mainly for reasons you mentioned, but a computer hasn't yet been developed that can handle the tasks that a human brain can at a similar speed.

Re:Pretty sure

[bertok]

Computers have surpassed that level a loooooong time ago

Doubtful.

The computational requirements for simulating the human brain have been severely, even hilariously, underestimated in the past. To quote Wikipedia: One estimate puts the human brain at about 100 billion neurons and 100 trillion synapses.

That's... a lot.

First off, a lot of people think that 1 FLOP = 1 Neuron, which is not even close. The active points are the synapses, of which there are about a thousand per neuron! Each may receive an impulse over ten times a second, and involve dozens of parameters, such as the recent history of firings, neurotransmitter levels, hormone levels, membrane potentials, etc... A very conservative estimate would be that a single neuron, receiving impulses at around 10 Hz on 1000 synapses would require on the order of 1 megaflop to simulate. That's ONE neuron. Now multiply that by 100 billion, and you get a picture of what's required: about 100 petaflops, minimum. Storage is nothing to sneeze at either. Assuming a mere 50 single-precision floating point values per synapse to store all simulation state, you're looking at almost 18 petabytes of memory! That's over $100M for the memory sticks alone, even with a deep bulk-purchase discount. Unlike most server or HPC workloads those 18 petabytes would have to completely read out, processed, and possibly updated again at least ten times a second.

Second, consider that the first simulations won't be very optimized. We still don't really know what's relevant, and what can be simplified away. Hence, I suspect that the first attempts will be much less efficient, and may require 10x or even 100x as much computer power compared to later attempts. For example, neurons don't just fire impulses, they also grow and change shape. I don't think there's even a good model for how that works in the complex 3D environment of the brain!

We are getting closer, but expect to wait at least a decade or two before people start talking seriously about a full human brain simulation.

Re:Pretty sure

[wdef]

You also have to remember that the human brain also has to handle all of those useless background process like "breathing" and "heartbeats".

Fyi those are called autonomic functions and are handled by low level centers in the reptillian part of the brain that only do that stuff and things like balance and the other complex bodily coordination tasks that we normally don't need to think about. Some of it happens in the spinal cord alone. Some functions can control themselves if all connections to the central nervous system are severed (the heart is like this and has a built-in processor of its own). Actual conscious thinking happens in high level centers like the frontal cortex. So these things happen on different (connected) machines if you will. Every neuron is a processor in itself anyway.

If you only took into account the user-taskable portion of the brain, then computers have surpassed that level a loooooong time ago.

Citation needed.

Re:Pretty sure

[wdef]

Actually, to correct myself, it's specific types of thinking (involving planning) that happen in the frontal cortex. IANAB (not a biologist).

Re:Pretty sure

[AK Marc]

So these things happen on different (connected) machines if you will. Every neuron is a processor in itself anyway.

I think that's part of why computing power greatly surpassed humans long ago, and will not reach human levels for many years. The brain isn't digital. It holds an "infinite" number of analogue states, simultaneously. With massive errors and gaps filled in with guesses made from other parts, without even an minor error check that indicates that he information being determined to be "true" is 100% interpolation with 0% fact or actual memory. The very idea of an error check that was wrong more than right and kept no indication of where the result actually came from is so incredible that nobody would ever create a computer capable of operating that way. It won't be until we have computers many millions times more powerful where we can remake a "perfect" brain, until then, we'll never be able to match the capabilities of the human brain.

Re:Pretty sure

[Anonymous Coward]

Computers have surpassed that level a loooooong time ago

Doubtful.

The computational requirements for simulating the human brain have been severely, even hilariously, underestimated in the past. To quote Wikipedia: One estimate puts the human brain at about 100 billion neurons and 100 trillion synapses.

That's... a lot.

First off, a lot of people think that 1 FLOP = 1 Neuron, which is not even close. The active points are the synapses, of which there are about a thousand per neuron! Each may receive an impulse over ten times a second, and involve dozens of parameters, such as the recent history of firings, neurotransmitter levels, hormone levels, membrane potentials, etc... A very conservative estimate would be that a single neuron, receiving impulses at around 10 Hz on 1000 synapses would require on the order of 1 megaflop to simulate. That's ONE neuron. Now multiply that by 100 billion, and you get a picture of what's required: about 100 petaflops, minimum. Storage is nothing to sneeze at either. Assuming a mere 50 single-precision floating point values per synapse to store all simulation state, you're looking at almost 18 petabytes of memory! That's over $100M for the memory sticks alone, even with a deep bulk-purchase discount. Unlike most server or HPC workloads those 18 petabytes would have to completely read out, processed, and possibly updated again at least ten times a second.

This is why we've invented discrete event simulation. Beyond "faster is better", read/write times should not be an issue.

Re:Pretty sure

[Anonymous Coward]

Doing equivalent computation to a human brain, and simulating a human brain, are two very different problems.

You have to solve a non-linear coupled differential equation at 1MHz to simulate a 5kHz sawtooth wave generator in Spice. It's about 30 MFLOPS. But, functionally, all you're doing is generating a 5kHz sawtooth wave, which is 15 kFLOPS of work. This is a 2000:1 efficiency difference between simulating an analog system and running a direct digital equivalent implementation.

So divide that 100 PFLOPS by the fundamental inefficiencies of simulating the analog domain in the digital domain, and you get a more reasonable figure for when a computer can functionally compete with the human brain.

Re:Pretty sure

[zbox4]

your assumptions are close to mine when i estimated the ~1% compute capability of the brain. individual neurons send an outgoing signal depending on the amount and rate of incoming signals), but i am an astrophysicist, not a neuroscientist ;) the zBox4 can calculate at over 10 petaflops.

Re:Pretty sure

[Anonymous Coward]

We are getting closer, but expect to wait at least a decade or two before people start talking seriously about a full human brain simulation.

Boats and submarines don't "simulate" fish, but they still swim.

Airplanes don't "simulate" birds, but they still fly.

Artifical intelligence may not need to "simulate" the brain to reach human level.

Just sayin'.

Re:Pretty sure

[Razgorov Prikazka]

I couldn't agree more. That is why I think we should re-explore the concept of analogue computers and/or fuzzylogic computers. In order to get more 'brain-like' computers. Not an expert on this, just thinking out loud...

Re:Pretty sure

[Anonymous Coward]

takes a few billion years to construct a decent analogue computer

Re:Pretty sure

[__aaltlg1547]

Google's cars say different.

Looking at physical complexity:
A human brain has about 86 billion neurons. An Intel Core-i7 process has 731 million transistors. A neuron is more complex than a transistor. Let's say it does a job, for the sake or argument, that would take about 16 transistors. So say the Core-i7 has the equivalent of about 45 million neuron-equivalents. That's a factor of about 1900 in physical complexity.

But the brain manages to pull off a clock cycle about 200 Hz, based on the neuron's firing rate. Maybe 1000 Hz at most. The clock rate of the CPU is 3.2 GHz. It is 16 million times faster than your brain.. Since the computer can execute programs of arbitrary complexity, it can simulate your brain's operation -- if properly programmed, with a much smaller hardware set running much faster. In raw computational capacity, it apparently has 16 million / 2000 = 8000 times the computational capacity of your brain. So even if its' simulation were quite computationally inefficient, it should still be able to do the job of a number of brains, if programmed to do so.

In short, exceeding the capacity of a human brain isn't a hardware problem any more. It hasn't been for years. It's a programming exercise, albeit a particularly challenging one.

Re:Pretty sure

[Anonymous Coward]

we'll never be able to match the capabilities of the human brain.

That really should be a statement unto itself. From the human brain comes "mind," that is personal experience, the myriad of emotions of pain, pleasure, sadness, joy, inspiration, interest and boredom etc. Computers have already overtaken the human brain in speed of mathematical calculaculation (the "speed of thought" is actually very slow compared to the lightspeed of connections in a computer, the chemical messages in the human brain move far far slower than the speed of electrons through conductive wires). But that is the only achievement digital computers will have over the human brain. It is not the status of the technology of computers that prevents them from having "mind," but our own limited understanding of the epiphenominal nature of mind-from-brain that prevents computers from matching the brain. Yet even in that distant future when medical science has advanced far enough that humans begin to fully understand the nature of brain and mind, computers are still never going to have any chance of matching it. It is difficult for anyone that loves computers to accept, but a computer will never be sentient. The best that can be hoped to achieved is that a computer appears sentient.

Re:Pretty sure

[raftpeople]

I think you are making some gigantic assumptions about how the brain works if you think you can even calculate a comparison of the brain to any computer at this point in time. Are you aware of the following (for example)?
1 - White matter (neuroscientists are discovering) is actively involved in computation and it changes due to learning - there are 10x more glial cells than neurons
2 - "Type" of dendrite (in some cases) influences how the signal is transmitted and at what rate and this function plays a part in learning, independent of the synapse
3 - In some cases firing is triggered purely by the electrical field the neurons are surrounded by - no synapse
4 - Brain waves transmit information from one region to another

My impression of reading neuroscientists is that they don't think they can accurately estimate brain processing power - everything is just very simplistic ballpark guesses that vary by multiple orders of magnitude.

Re:Pretty sure

[pitchpipe]

The brain isn't digital. It holds an "infinite" number of analogue states, simultaneously.

You can't approximate a very large number with infinity. The difference between a very large number and infinity is ... well ... infinity.

Re:Pretty sure

[AK Marc]

It is difficult for anyone that loves computers to accept, but a computer will never be sentient. [wikipedia.org] The best that can be hoped to achieved is that a computer appears sentient.

Then you get into definitions of sentience. Can a human be "dumb" enough to not be self aware? If a computer were to behave as if it were self aware, how would we be able to distinguish it from one that actually was?

The problem with the question is that we are working on the answer without defining the problem. We may have sufficient computing power to match the capabilities, but no program to simulate it. Maybe the problem isn't hardware, but software. The problem is that the science concerns itself more with the hardware and the software is a trivial add on when they are done.

I personally think that the idea of error is the prime problem. The human brain parallel processes with all (well, a large number) of neurons at certain times. When we can create a single threaded program that runs on a trillion core processor a trillion times faster than a single core one running a trillion times the speed, then we'll be close to the combination, just minor tweaks from there to make it sentient.

One thing that confuses computer scientists is that the brain makes decisions before the CPU cycle is over. Think of a clock speed of 1/Hz. Every 1s, the output is complete. Now, sample the inputs and outputs at 100 MHz. Sample the first 10 cycles of the higher speed at the inputs and outputs, then guess what the answer will be, and while you are at it, guess what the next set of inputs will be and reset them. When we can do that, we are closer to getting a computer that operates like the brain.

Re:Pretty sure

[AK Marc]

A number sufficiently large as to be incomprehensible is indistinguishable from infinity.

Re:Pretty sure

[Anonymous Coward]

Then you get into definitions of sentience

Nice attempt at a hand-waved dismissal, but pretending we don't have precise definitions of words is a trap.

Subjective experience is a reality for us, an effect of brain, just as digestion is an effect of the stomach, or fire is an effect of combustion. A computer can simulate fire or digestion, but nothing will ever be burned or digested... it is a simulation. In the same sense a computer can simulate intelligence, understanding and subjective experience for an observer, but nothing will actually be "thought," understood, or subjectively experienced by the computer. It can, at best, only appear that way. No amount of advances in digital computer technology can change this. It is an impenitrable philosophical wall that cannot be breached.

Re:Pretty sure

[Nemyst]

That's a rather simplistic analysis. The problem is that we don't even know how the brain fully works. If, for instance, neurons make use of quantum properties (a very real possibility), then classical computers may be hard-pressed to replicate even a mouse brain. We don't know whether quantum computers are more powerful than classical computers. Many believe that they are, but we have not found proof of this. They could be anywhere from equal to exponentially faster, and you know what exponentially faster means with numbers like what you've been pulling.

Your entire post is based on the premise that a neuron and a transistor are even comparable. That's one hell of an assumption.

Re:Pretty sure

[AK Marc]

Nice attempt at a hand-waved dismissal, but pretending we don't have precise definitions of words is a trap.

Have you ever looked in a dictionary? There are lots of definitions. In fact, almost all words have more than one. I'm not pretending we don't have definitions of it, but that my precise definition of it may not match yours, and we'd both be correct according to every dictionary. Or perhaps you are using the psychological definition and I'm using the philosophical one, both precise, but not identical.

In the same sense a computer can simulate intelligence, understanding and subjective experience for an observer, but nothing will actually be "thought," understood, or subjectively experienced by the computer. It can, at best, only appear that way. No amount of advances in digital computer technology can change this. It is an impenitrable philosophical wall that cannot be breached.

So your opinion is that it's impossible, so that any discussion on it is like discussing the color of Santa Calus's socks. Almost everyone who declared something impossible was eventually proven wrong. Why should we take this declaration to be anything but another in a long list of failed assertions of impossibility?

Re:Pretty sure

[__aaltlg1547]

That's a rather simplistic analysis. The problem is that we don't even know how the brain fully works. If, for instance, neurons make use of quantum properties (a very real possibility), then classical computers may be hard-pressed to replicate even a mouse brain.

I have only one thing to say about that: Pfffffbbbbbt! The brain is an electrochemical machine that works on a macroscopic scale. It can't distinguish and act upon the quantum state of a a particle any more than a hedgehog can sing opera.

All speculation on the brain possibly having quantum properties is complete nonsense based on equivocation and quasi-religious hoo-hah.

We don't know whether quantum computers are more powerful than classical computers. Many believe that they are, but we have not found proof of this. They could be anywhere from equal to exponentially faster, and you know what exponentially faster means with numbers like what you've been pulling.

Your entire post is based on the premise that a neuron and a transistor are even comparable. That's one hell of an assumption.

If you're going to discuss the computing power of a human brain, you are by definition comparing neurons to switches. It's one electrical machine to another electrical machine. Whatever the right number is that approximates the function of a neuron with a number of transistors, there IS a number. I could have the number wrong. But I'm not wrong in principle.

Re:Pretty sure

[zbox4]

i hadn't seen 4 before. interesting. i agree completely, but it is fun to speculate!

Re:Pretty sure

[Anonymous Coward]

Given the neurotransmitters are particules, making signals from one neuron to anothe quantized, not to mention signals are frequency encoded, alone makes the whole thing analogous to digital. So, as usual, you're wrong.

I am a neuroscientist, and speicialize in artificial neural network based systems.

Re:Pretty sure

[AK Marc]

Even if the transmissions are digitized, are the internal processes triggering them digital?

Re:Pretty sure

[raftpeople]

Here's a link to brain wave synchronization:
http://www.sciencecodex.com/insync_brain_waves_hold_memory_of_objects_just_seen-101396

Re:Pretty sure

[Anonymous Coward]

Have you ever looked in a dictionary? There are lots of definitions.

This argument is a form of the strawman fallacy. You are not arguing against what I proposed, you are arguing against something else entirely.

Almost everyone who declared something impossible was eventually proven wrong.

This is an appeal to widespread belief, also known as the bandwagon fallacy.

As identified, both points of your response are fallicious.

Re:Pretty sure

[AK Marc]

You are not arguing against what I proposed,

You proposed nothing, you just attacked my rhetorical style.

Re:Pretty sure

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes but the really scary thing is that maybe someday they will be able to simulate the brain and that is when we are truly fucked. Not necessarily in the sense that robots will take over the world, more like people with that processing power will take over our lives/minds.

Re:Pretty sure

[Tastecicles]

Will a computer ever be self aware?
Or will it always tell you that it's self-aware because that's what it's been programmed to do?

Re:Pretty sure

[wdef]

All speculation on the brain possibly having quantum properties is complete nonsense based on equivocation and quasi-religious hoo-hah.

That may be so, but Einstein thought this was possible. Not one given to equivocation or quasi-religious hoo-hah. There are plenty of macroscopically detectable effects of quantum phenomena.

Re:Pretty sure

[Anonymous Coward]

As the cells in your fingernails and hair are effectively dead, i think 1(one) burnt-out CPU could simulate that and have processing power to spare to simulate all your fingernails and body hair.

Re:Pretty sure

[__aaltlg1547]

All speculation on the brain possibly having quantum properties is complete nonsense based on equivocation and quasi-religious hoo-hah.

That may be so, but Einstein thought this was possible. Not one given to equivocation or quasi-religious hoo-hah. There are plenty of macroscopically detectable effects of quantum phenomena.

Einstein was a physicist, not a neurobiologist. He knew less than most modern scientists about how brains work.

It's already done.

[edibobb]

Just use a bunch of AWS instances (or the equivalent cloud system) and enjoy your own supercomputer from the "privacy" of your own internet connection.

Re:It's already done.

[DMiax]

Not if you want to have a result in your lifetime. Cloud-based systems can be more powerful than your desktop, but are terribly slow compared to even an average supercomputer like this one (they are using ethernet cables for the interconnects...). The stuff you want to compute on these machines requires a high level of communication between the processes, else you would simply run them on several decoupled machines in parallel. You cannot access the required speed for inter-process communication on the cloud.

Re:It's already done.

[Anonymous Coward]

Most any on demand compute services like AWS allows you to use local LAN for interconnect.

Re:It's already done.

[Anonymous Coward]

Amazon offers special cluster instances with 10Gb interconnects...

Re:It's already done.

[DMiax]

I find it hard to believe a standard LAN would be sufficient. You need static routing and possibly optimized paths for gather-scatter of the data. There is a lot of work in designing and optimizing the topology of the network. A very important number is latency. Can you get a reliable microsecond-scale latency on the cloud? In these things if any node lags all the computation does.

I am sure Amazon and buddies can deploy good and even exceptional hardware, just that it is not what they are selling normally and the rates will not be much lower than building one supercomputer in your backyard. Cloud computing is not high performance computing.

Re:It's already done.

[Anonymous Coward]

HPC is not about raw computing power anymore, Amazon or Google have way more power than most supercomputers. HPC is memory bound. CPU memory bandwith, interconnect bandwith, and filesystem bandwith.

Try writing results from 500.000 processors to disk once. Each processors writes to one file? You end up with 500.000 files. Try doing ls on 500.000 files in a distributed filesystem, it'll take hours. Actually, they write to disk 1000s of times per day, to a single file. Amazon and Google can actually wait for writing to disk. In HPC, processors cannot keep working before they write to disk. If each processor has to stop, you waste a lot of money.

Most HPC applications require communicating Gbs of data between all processors multiple times per second. Google and Amazon need to communicate information between their nodes too, but in HPC you cannot continue computing until you have received your information! On that league, even InfinyBand is not enough. You need very fast NUMA aware Message Passing technologies.

Now let's talk about resilience. It is really hard to know if one CPU out of half a million is spitting out bad floating point results every now and then. It might do that a lot before it fails, screwing your simulation on the way. So one can say that you are lucky if one node completely fails. In that case everything is easier, Google and Amazon just keep going with one node less. But in HPC you will need to restart from the last write to disk, and distribute the workload amongst the survivors, if possible. Sometimes if one node fails, you just don't have enough memory to keep going.

So yes, Amazon and Google share similar problems with HPC. However, the applications are so different that the solutions have nothing in common.

Re:It's already done.

[DMiax]

Yes, and it is nice. the question is whether you value having the hardware or not, i.e. for how long your money will get you running on those servers rather than a one-time payment and keeping the cluster with you. More in general, I take issue with the attitude that the best solution to any problem is always paying some company to do the work for you. It is, if you have the same needs as everyone and a dedicated company can lower the costs, but you should always ask yourself if this is the case.

Re:It's already done.

[zbox4]

exactly. gravity is a long range force, so all parts of the simulation volume are constantly transferring information. we need high bandwidth and low latency networks.

Re:It's already done.

[edibobb]

Of course the cloud is not suitable for many applications, and it won't compete head-to-head with traditional supercomputers. But is does work for some applications. Least year a Pharmaceutical company used a 30,000 core system on AWS for a short period, and a company is already in business that specializes in cloud supercomputing. I expect the capability will grow.

Re:It's already done.

[Anonymous Coward]

InfiniBand interconnects go up to 300 Gbit/s... "only" 30x more bandwith...

Headline is stupid

[Anonymous Coward]

Build a computer in 24 hours? I guess it's possible.

Fund its costs and gather the materials? I guess not.

Re:Headline is stupid

[zbox4]

it took ~year to acquire the funds, benchmark tests, fix the design, make the tender for the parts etc, but all the construction was done in 3x8hr shifts

Re:Headline is stupid

[Gerzel]

Not to mention to mine the ore and manufacture the chips. It's all relative.

Re:Headline is stupid

[Anonymous Coward]

it took ~year to acquire the funds, benchmark tests, fix the design, make the tender for the parts etc, but all the construction was done in 3x8hr shifts

There is also a serial connection ARM component, and equally very super computer if you count the 5x2cores

Title could be

[hcs_$reboot]

"How to spend $800,000 in one day"
Price, from comments:

Just under 750,000 Swiss Francs, or about $800,000

Re:Title could be

[Anonymous Coward]

Amazing things can be accomplished with cheap labor and tons of money: look at the pyramids... these people didn't aim high enough!

Re:Title could be

[Gaygirlie]

"How to spend $800,000 in one day"

Challenge accepted! Now to seek someone to finance the challenge!

Re:Title could be

[Anonymous Coward]

Went to an online shop to calculate the cost before seeing it, around 1 million with our local tax rate.

Re:Title could be

[Anonymous Coward]

Someone got ripped off.

They should never have paid retail for an entire rack.

Re:Title could be

[zbox4]

we benchmarked various configurations with our codes. then we made a tender for the motherboards, memory, cpu's. we got a pretty good price ;)

Re:Title could be

[Anonymous Coward]

No, title could be:
"Youtube comments worth reading found".

Re:quantum entanglement -- my brain to wind ?

[edibobb]

Why do you use 16th century English? Is this really how you speak, or did you run this through an obfuscator? What are tares, and what does "lest while ye" mean?

1% of the human brain ?

[Yvanhoe]

Knowing that the base assumptions can make this kind of silly estimate vary widely, I demand the methodology for this number! Once you take into account the frequency and even if you consider that a neuron is ~ 1000 transistors, such a machine easily outperforms the weak human with his 10 kHz (while being *very* nice toward humans) parallel machine.

Re:1% of the human brain ?

[tsa]

Yes indeed it's a ridiculous claim. If it has the computing power of 1% of the human brain, why even build it?

Re:1% of the human brain ?

[zbox4]

because its hard to train the human brain to make 10^13 floating point calculations each second and solve the poisson and navier-stokes equations..

Re:1% of the human brain ?

[Thiez]

> The computing power of the human brain is infinite, by some standard definitions, as it is analogue (at least partially, according to some theories) and there are an infinite number of analogue states.

Just because the brain theoretically has a practically infinite number of possible states does not mean all (or even most) of those states are meaningful and important. People lose thousands of neurons each day without changing significantly (with respect to both personality and intelligence). Obviously the brain contains a lot of detail that it doesn't really need. There is no reason to believe it is impossible to create a significantly less complex model/simulation of the brain that is both functionally equivalent and finite (except our ego, which seems to prefer to think of the human brain as infinitely complex).

Re:1% of the human brain ?

[__aaltlg1547]

That ignores some basic problems.
1. A neuron isn't really analog. A synapse either fires or it doesn't. 2. Claiming that an analog system's operation can't be adequately simulated by a digital system is wrong. The analog system is only different from the digital system if the digital system doesn't simulate it down to the noise level. 3. What's the noise level of a synapse anyway?

Re:1% of the human brain ?

[AK Marc]

1. A neuron isn't really analog. A synapse either fires or it doesn't.

The speed and strength of the firing matter. Also, each neuron is, itself a DPU (distributed processing unit, as CPU has no meaning with so many "equal" processors), so the firing this time may be digitial, but it sets an internal state that is analog, affecting all future firings.

2. Claiming that an analog system's operation can't be adequately simulated by a digital system is wrong. The analog system is only different from the digital system if the digital system doesn't simulate it down to the noise level.

You answered yourself. A digital system can only "simulate" analog. Whether we are able to notice the difference is a separate question.

3. What's the noise level of a synapse anyway?

I've read they are looking into quantum entanglement as a part of the brain process. So, when the noise level is to the electron level within the brain, how much computing power does that take to fully simulate it?

Re:1% of the human brain ?

[lister king of smeg]

there is more than simply firing and not firing as it fires different things and different combinations of those things

Re:1% of the human brain ?

[Thiez]

> I've read they are looking into quantum entanglement as a part of the brain process.

Is there actually any evidence that this is happening, or is it just someone's pet theory?

Re:1% of the human brain ?

[AK Marc]

A quick search got "quantum entanglement in the brain" got lots of hits from lots of sources. Try it, read some, and let us know.

Re:1% of the human brain ?

[Anonymous Coward]

That mostly happens for the same reason that you lose muscle mass if you don't go to the gym for long periods of time. The brain is capable of using as much energy as a 75w lightbulb if everything were turned on at the same time, the brain is supposed to lose neurons that aren't needed because the brain uses such a large portion of the caloric intake.

It is not however, something that has to happen, if you exercise your brain you should be able to retain the cells longer because the brain actually needs them.

It's not that there's extra detail that you don't need, it's that there's extra cells that you aren't using. That's a big difference.

Re:1% of the human brain ?

[Thiez]

I did spend a few minutes on google before posting that reply, did not find anything substantial. The theory appears to be pushed primarily by Hameroff and Penrose, but I could not find any experiments that support their theory. Other scientists appear to be arguing that either quantum effects are not required to explain the operation of the brain, or quantum systems in the brain would decohere too quickly to have a meaningful influence on computation. Since you originally introduced the Quantum mind theory in this discussion in your reply to Shavano, perhaps you should carry the burden of proof, yes?

Re:1% of the human brain ?

[Thiez]

> the brain is supposed to lose neurons that aren't needed because the brain uses such a large portion of the caloric intake.

That does not seem like a good explanation. The human brain has about 100 billion neurons, so even if you lose 100.000 neurons every day, that means only a 0.04 % reduction every year, which does not make a meaningful difference in brain energy consumption.

Do explain how extra cells you aren't using don't qualify as 'unnecessary detail'.

Re:1% of the human brain ?

[AK Marc]

I cary no burden of proof. I offered it up as "I've read they are looking into quantum entanglement as a part of the brain process." which is a 100% true and factual statement that carries no opinion or disputed facts. In fact, it's true for you now, as you've now read that "they" are looking into quantum entanglement.

It wasn't a statement that I believe it to be true, but that there are still lots of theories, and we don't know enough to eliminate them, so we obviously don't know too much.

Yes, but...

[jerry.tk]

... can you build a Beowulf cluster of those?

Re:Yes, but...

[ls671]

Didn't you notice the modern miniaturized version of on board Beowulf cluster integrated in a chip chips they put it there? I would guess they put about 50 of them in the rack but since it was in fast forward, I couldn't count accurately. Anyway, if they build a Beowulf cluster of those, we will end up with a Beowulf cluster of Beowulf clusters.

Garbage bin of the internet

[Anonymous Coward]

There are quite a number of instructional, scientific videos on youtube, but for the most part it is the garbage bin of the internet. Also some videos showing inventions, or just people assembling something for you to try. Everytime I go on there they have nothing but the front page filled with idiot videos. There are a few more sites that are mostly science class, experiment videos.

Metacafe being one of them.

Re:quantum entanglement -- my brain to wind ?

[Gaygirlie]

What are tares

"Any of several weedy plants that grow in grain fields." -- http://www.thefreedictionary.com/tare

and what does "lest while ye" mean?

The sentence would be approximately "But he said: 'No, out of fear that while you root the weeds you also root up the wheat with them.'" Ie. "lest" is used to denote the fear or danger of something happening.

Had to be asked

[Anonymous Coward]

But can it run Crysis?

Re:Had to be asked

[ls671]

It supports Crysis 3 only. Crysis 1 and 2 are not supported because of some input problems related to the complexity of game controls in 1 and 2.

News For Nerds

[Tim12s]

Now this is what I call news for nerds. None of this 'how would you crap'!

Go team zurich.

Re:News For Nerds

[zbox4]

i posted the original zBox1 specs/website here about eight years ago. our server was immediately slashdotted & crashed. quickly fixed it and we had over a million page views in 2 days ;) its the same design - shelves of motherboards arranged in a cube. cold air is blown into the center of the machine which has a custom design to allow even air flow over all the shelves. we could possibly run the machine without the cpu coolers which would double the density. its a little over one cubic metre and needs about 40kW of power.

Re:News For Nerds

[Tastecicles]

that... is a lot of juice... not something I could run in my garage then?

Also notable:

[tbird81]

"for once, several of the YouTube comments are worth reading for more details on the construction and specs."

Yeah, unlike the impeccably high standard of comments you see on Slashdot. Mod me up if you hate Bieber!

Re:Also notable:

[Anonymous Coward]

Racist comments don't routinely stay modded up on slashdot as they do on many parts on YouTube. Use of dubious debating techniques such as the strawman usually gets noticed here. Unpopular viewpoints are often modded up to +5 Interesting if they are sufficiently well argued.

Slashdot ain't what it used to be, but it still has standards.

Re:Also notable:

[Anonymous Coward]

Modded you up and posting anonymous to let you know, you're very very right.
I'm pretty much a renowned (sp?) contrarian on several forums. Slashdot is for the most part is still fairly sensible in the way the community promotes well thought out discussion regardless if it follows the crowd. (Although I did just have a post in an Apple thread mod'd down for critisizing ios for not innovating in the last few years, really? Really?!)

The community here, is still quite good, so while it may never become reddit sized - it's far older and I suspect will continue to get traffic long term due to this loyalty.

Also of note, the majority of 'moderated by members' sites like reddit (and more so Digg) are an absoloute bastard if you didn't follow the groupthink. You're basically modded out of sight and then people make a point of following you around to ensure other, completely unrelated posts are hidden too.

Re:Also notable:

[Anonymous Coward]

Thanks for the reply. Slashdot is pretty much the only place I post for leisure. Places that I would be interested in posting, such as the BBC News comments, are simply too dominated by the groupthink you describe. More often than not, I can guess the tone and the substance of the top-rated comments before I've seen them. That's no fun. Slashdot sometimes throws a curveball your way.

There may be better specific forums out there, but I've never found a satisfying alternative to slashdot for general tech news.

Re:Also notable:

[Anonymous Coward]

Racist comments don't routinely stay modded up on slashdot as they do on many parts on YouTube.

Like fuck they don't. Way too many N-word jokes that seem to stick around at +5 "Funny". Way too many people choose to use that word to describe some concept or make some comparison that has fuck-all to do with race. And, I'll bet that the writers are usually some race OTHER than black, judging from the way the word is normally used at this site.

Of course, this will be modded into oblivion, or never seen at all.

Dont' get it twisted.

Re:Also notable:

[tbird81]

Ironically I'm modded up to 5. I assume this was from the Bieber quip.

Be Professional

[SpaghettiPattern]

Be Professional about the whole operation:
1) Brag about how you will succeed well before knowing what it's all about.
2) Immediately after, seek the lowest standards you should comply with.
3) Then, study rhetorics in order to getting away with even lower standards.
4) Subsequently explore the deep and dark lows and lower your standards to the absolute minimum.
5) Hiring time. Get yourself people capable of realizing your preposterous proposition and seek the lowest fee to pay.
6) With a bit of delay -being late is after all quite chique- announce a result and plan a party.
7) Not too late after, make sure the bitmonkey comes up with a result of some kind. Be sure NOT to appreciate his efforts in meeting your egocentric targets.
8) Be smug about the whole adventurous undertaking. Well, you were already from the start, weren't you?
9) Be a celebrity for making headlines with sub-mediocrity.

Re:Be Professional

[Anonymous Coward]

"chique"?

Re:Be Professional

[BorisSkratchunkov]

The French. They exist.

That pesky static discharge

[hardtofindanick]

only seems to bother EE majors and everyone else seems to be immune to it.

Re:That pesky static discharge

[Skylinux]

I was messing around with micro controllers a few years ago and had a few mysteriously die on me.
I started to wear an antistatic wrist strap and did not have another unexplained failure.

PC components may not be as fragile but I always ground the case before doing any work and wear my AWS when handling expensive or important hardware.

Re:That pesky static discharge

[jotaeleemeese]

The risk is so small that most people, rightly, choose to ignore overbearing advice about the handling of "sensitive" electronic equipment.

Re:That pesky static discharge

[thegarbz]

The risk of damage depends on the sensitivity of the component. For instance good luck wreaking a standard BJT with ESD. On many ICs the I/O is either suitably protected against ESD, or the nature of the design makes it less vulnerable to the effects of a sudden static spike.

It's a very different story for say working with high frequency MOSFETs, uncut silicon wafers, or pretty much any RF gear. I remember in our lab one of the PHD students was working on a silicon wafer. The instrument had the wafer suspended on a cushion of air. One of the other students rushed into the room suddenly and the wind from opening the door made the wafer float towards the edge of the instrument and was stopped instinctively with a hand that prevented it from falling off. 2/3rds of the transistors failed testing after that, the survivors were on the opposite side of the hand that steadied it.

Also you think EE majors are bad you should try Hams. A Motorola technician nearly bit my head off when he saw me dismantle one of their repeaters without an static strap.

Re:That pesky static discharge

[Anonymous Coward]

probrability of latent damage VS number of nodes = jeez why not use a wrist strap. just use the big metal platters and work your potential from that. No EPA no problem just sensible precautions are enough.

Re:That pesky static discharge

[Anonymous Coward]

from uploaders comments: "3 boards had problems and were sent back. Everything else is working. It's been running tests for the last week."

Re:That pesky static discharge

[lister king of smeg]

I always ground the case before doing any work and wear my AWS when handling expensive or important hardware.

you wear amazon web services?

Re:That pesky static discharge

[symbolset]

The funniest static comment was the one expecting latent esd failures to appear weeks later.

Re:That pesky static discharge

[Anonymous Coward]

The floor was coated in conductive material.

Software

[jones_supa]

will be used for simulating the formation of stars, planets and galaxies

It was nice to hear about the beefy specs, but how about a bit more information about the piece above? What kind of simulation, what software applications and so on.

Re:Software

[jovius]

full specs and the system config: http://www.itp.uzh.ch/~stadel/doku.php?id=zbox:zbox4

Re:Software

[zbox4]

we use various astrophysics simulation codes, i.e. GASOLINE, PKDGRAV, RAMSES etc. some are developed by us. they are all MPI and solve the coupled gravitational and hydrodynamic equations that can describe the dark matter and baryons evolving in the expanding universe. memory and speed of the computer limit the resolution that can be attained, so various "sub-grid" physical processes have to be treated carefully. for cosmological simulations we know the initial conditions - those are the fluctuations that we can read off the microwave background. they show the universe was hot, dense and smooth early on. the codes follow the perturbations into the non-linear regime when dark matter haloes, stars and galaxies form. we can then compare the properties of simulated structures with observational data etc.

Re:Software

[jones_supa]

Thank you!

Mod parent up.

Re:Software

[Razgorov Prikazka]

But can it calculate 9999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999 times 9999999999999999999999999998999989999989899999999999999999999976499 ?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9KKgvRw1rrU&feature=endscreen&NR=1

Just asking aaaait? :-)

Re:Software

[ls671]

I just logged into it and yes since bc is installed:

$ bc
'bc 1.06.95
Copyright 1991-1994, 1997, 1998, 2000, 2004, 2006 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
This is free software with ABSOLUTELY NO WARRANTY.
For details type `warranty'.
9999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999 *\
filter trap
9999999999999999999999999998999989999989899999999999999999999976499
filter trap
99999999999999999999999999989999899999898999999999999999999989764990\
filter trap
000000000000000000001000010000010100000000000000000000023501
filter trap

Re:Software

[Anonymous Coward]

So easy to do with a brain!

It's nearly 1000000..... .

Add corresponding number of zeroes, then subtract exactly 1 x the number to be multiplied.

Pen and paper and a minute. A bunch of neurons and a little brainwave magic.

Application of learnt rule #1. Combined with result of learnt rule #2.

On a few calories...

1% of Human Brain Neuro Cap. & Used For *Whar*

[BlueStrat]

The machine has a theoretical compute capacity of ~1% of the human brain and will be used for simulating the formation of stars, planets and galaxies."

May I be the first to say; Formation of stars, planets, and galaxies my ASS!

Nominate it in a special Act for POTUS!

I mean, c'mon. Could it seriously be that much worse than the choices at present?

At least then, maybe the US populace would begin to grasp the concept of GIGO (garbage in, garbage out) and maybe begin to apply it to the other parts of government. And no, nothing at all to do with political party/ideology. Rather, more a perspective from a "CS101 basics" point of view. :)

Strat

OCZ Rebates

[DarwinSurvivor]

So who's job was it to mail in all the OCZ rebate forms?

Re:OCZ Rebates

[Anonymous Coward]

Easy, only one was sent, since there's a limit of one per customer.

Nice rack!

[bazorg]

and it actually runs Linux.

Re:1% of Human Brain Neuro Cap. & Used For *Wh

[Anonymous Coward]

Not everything is about your fucking elections.

This computer stands in Zürich, it has nothing to do with POTUS.

Don't always drag it into the direction of the US and then not always in that of those stupid media-hype-elections where you can either pick the right or the ultra-right wing of the The Party. Stop doing that. There is no, none, zero, nade US relation here.

Apart from that, the claim the computer would do as good as a human governing a nation is either outright stupid or stupid trolling.

Come on, anyone can do it.

[Anonymous Coward]

As long as you have the dough to pay for all the hardware.

Re:1% of Human Brain Neuro Cap. & Used For *Wh

[Anonymous Coward]

U mad? LOL!

Re:Headline is awesome

[Barny]

I will ask the inevitable questions, as a system builder.

How many parts were DOA?

How many failed inside of the first month?

Couldn't it be smaller ?

[Anonymous Coward]

If the team had used a cluster of GPGPU capable graphic cards I believe the number of Xeon CPUs would have been smaller and probably cheaper.

Re:Couldn't it be smaller ?

[zbox4]

see my reply to the post about software. we have some codes that run on GPUs but the main astrophysics codes are too complex to re-write or to fit onto a GPU. some subroutines can use the GPU as an accelerator and we hope to find the extra ~100,000 money units, to put GPUs on all the motherboards at some point.

Re:Couldn't it be smaller ?

[Anonymous Coward]

Sorry I didn't read this comment. It's a very cool setup. From my humble knowledge one con is the Sandy Bridges' SATA2 controller's connection speed what limits the SSD's connection within that setup but it's neat to have that size of SSD storage. Do you run Linux or do you run Solaris with ZFS to have one common file system ?

Re:Headline is awesome

[zbox4]

surprisingly few - a couple of bad motherboards (or static ;). its only been up for a week or so and we are still testing/installing stuff before making user queues live.

Antistatic

[Toast or Rice]

When I had to be build PC's for a living (when men were men and super IO cards were not builtin) we had to wear antistatic wristbands and not rub ourselves with balloons before shift. Am I missing something ? is that not important any more? is that Swiss exercise ball just a big van de graaff generator?

Re:Antistatic

[mrand]

You're not missing anything - and I had the same thought about the Swiss ball. It is really too bad that they didn't take basic anti-static precautions - it really isn't hard at all. It's like wearing your seat belt...

Re:Antistatic

[Anonymous Coward]

They should have taken anti-static precautions. ESD protection is still important IMHO. We all know that many components might fail in subtle ways. Oh well....

"YouTube comments are worth reading"

[Arancaytar]

Individually, five words. Collectively, in that order, the cause of me needing a new keyboard.

Re:quantum entanglement -- my brain to wind ?

[Anonymous Coward]

In today's language: These are not the "weeds" that you are looking for.

China doesn't need timelapse

[Anonymous Coward]

If they would have used china to assemble, there would be no need for
Timelapse. They simply work that fast

WTF?! have these kids never heard of ESD?

[metaforest]

NO grounding straps.
NO signs of any ESD precautions!!!

Lacking from the video is the debugging process.

Sure they built it in 2 days... but how many nodes came ready?

I was cringing through the whole video over their lack of concern for basic ESD prevention. They don't need to be wearing bunny suits or anything that extreme, but FFS.... could ya show a little bit of respect for the hardware? Heck even clipping the freaking base-plates to ground during assembly would have been more than adequate.

That video was like watching "OW MY BALLS" for geeks!

Re:WTF?! have these kids never heard of ESD?

[itpuzh]

We had three bad boards (of 192, i.e., less than 2%). Everything else has been working perfectly for the last week.

Re:WTF?! have these kids never heard of ESD?

[zbox4]

no nodes came ready - we assembled/installed all the motherboards, cpu's, memory, disks, power etc.. on custom made shelves. they are arranged on four sides of a cube and we cool everything by directly blowing cold air into the centre of the frame. a custom insert distributes even airflow over the shelves. its a compact design and easy to maintain/upgrade. grounding straps essential? what is your source for that??

Re:WTF?! have these kids never heard of ESD?

[metaforest]

Maybe that 2% loss was due to sloppy ESD protocol? You'd never know, unless you take proper precautions, and vet nodes before final assembly.

Hey... but that is what ya learn in school, yes? To cross all the 'T's and dot all the 'I's?

Re:WTF?! have these kids never heard of ESD?

[metaforest]

no nodes came ready

I'm going to assume that my comment was misunderstood.

When accepting new hardware it is typical to verify that it works.... THEN assemble it into the desired configuration. THEN verify that each sub-system is fully functional... at least all the I/O. These are basic functional tests... yes?

Where I have issue with the video is the lack of precautions taken during assembly...

That is all.

Re:WTF?! have these kids never heard of ESD?

[metaforest]

Sorry for the second replay.

IF you had a 2% fail on assembly in a commercial environment... you'd be looking for a new job.

Re:WTF?! have these kids never heard of ESD?

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes they should have been wearing full rubber suits when putting it together. Children these days.

Re:WTF?! have these kids never heard of ESD?

[symbolset]

But in a consumer environment you simply return the boards for exchange.

Re:WTF?! have these kids never heard of ESD?

[symbolset]

They assembled it and it works. What more could they want?

Re:WTF?! have these kids never heard of ESD?

[Tastecicles]

2% is below average for an OEM. (IWAOEM (I was an OEM)). Most distributors have an RMA warranty for OEMs.

Re:quantum entanglement -- my brain to wind ?

[flyneye]

I can translate that into something a bit more modern. Don't ask why, you just owe me a cold beer later.

said to him, is your will that we go and gather them up? 13:29
But he said, no; unless while you gather up the weeds, you also root up
the wheat with them.

13:30 Let both grow together until the harvest: and in the time of
harvest I will say to the harvest crew, Get the weeds pulled first,
and bind them in bundles to burn them: but put the wheat into my
barn.

13:31 Another parable he gave them, said;" The kingdom of
heaven is like a grain of mustard seed, which a man took, and planted
in his field: 13:32 Which in fact is the smallest of all seeds: but when
it is grown, it is the greatest among herbs, and grows into a tree, so
that the birds of the air come and live in the branches there

Now that you can read them, can you make out what the parables mean?
Cause after I get a little beer in me, 'm gonna want a lil something else.

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

A lot of CPUs != Supercomputer

[Lawrence_Bird]

A lot more goes into make a 'super' computer than just a bunch of cpus and some ram.

Re:A lot of CPUs != Supercomputer

[symbolset]

Yeah, like infiniband, Linux, high performance high volume storage. Which if you read further you will find they also have.

Re:A lot of CPUs != Supercomputer

[PuZZleDucK]

A lot more goes into make a 'super' computer than just a bunch of cpus and some ram.

... and those things are?

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Umm..

[kakaburra]

That rack has "3,072 2.2GHz Intel Xeon cores and over 12TB of RAM."

I'm not sure if I would like that much silicon...

Re:Umm..

[Tastecicles]

that'd make Pamela Anderson look flat chested...

Like clockwork

[Anonymous Coward]

They build supercomputers in Zurich like clockwork.

But what about all the Garbage?

[Grumpinuts]

Used to do this kind of stuff when I was with IBM about 10 years ago, we had a group in XSeries Manufacturing who specialised in quick turnaround configuration of HPC rack systems just like this. Funnily enough, one of the major logistical elements was dunnage, ie the empty cardboard/foam and plastic that all the option parts arrive in. When running full out we used to have 1-2 guys per shift just to move the rubbish out to the big compactors out back. You wouldn't believe just how much packaging even a comparatively small cluster like that can generate.

101%

[Anonymous Coward]

If it reaches 101% of human brain capacity, it will adjust itself back to 100% and then wonder why it did that.

Hitchhiker Guide

[Anonymous Coward]

The Answer Is 43 (I think)

Re:Hitchhiker Guide

[Tastecicles]

No, it's 42.99999997

FDIV bug, for those who missed it.

A brain costs $0 to make, but ......

[Anonymous Coward]

A brain costs $0 to make or by using a broken condom. But if you're so gung-ho to get a computer version of it, try figuring out the right algorithms. I bet you that our brain may not need as much processing power as once thought but it only requires one heck of a good algorithm. of course, I could be wrong and our brain could be quantum computers, or gateways to the quantum computer of the universe. hah

Re:Headline is awesome

[Anonymous Coward]

Some types of static electricity discharge damage can manifest themselves a month or more later. I really hope you didn't fuck up too many components. It was really, really, amateurish not taking ESD precautions with such expensive equipment.

Do it yourself cluster

[spaceyhackerlady]

I sometimes look at the ads for the local computer stores and add up what it would cost to roll my own cluster. At 2012 prices a 32 core cluster (say, 8 Core i5 CPUs) would cost only a little more than my first computer, that I bought in 1986. And that's at retail prices. I'm sure if I wanted a bulk purchase, the stores would cut me a deal.

Then I wonder what I would do with it, and decide I have better things to spend my money on...

...laura

Re:Do it yourself cluster

[Tastecicles]

Then I wonder what I would do with it, and decide I have better things to spend my money on...

...laura

Blasphemy!

Turn in your Geek card on your way out.

Faster to do it on the Amazon Cloud

[ron_ivi]

The 42nd fastest supercomputer on earth doesn't exist. ... Amazon EC2 ... virtual supercomputer for an unnamed pharmaceutical giant that spans 30,000 processor cores, and it cost $1,279 an hour. "

- http://www.wired.com/wiredenterprise/2011/12/nonexistent-supercomputer/

You buried the lede

[Anonymous Coward]

The most interesting thing I read is that a device with the computing capacity of ~1% of the human brain can be used to model the formation of stars and galaxies.

Suddenly, the notion that all of reality is between our ears doesn't seem so far-fetched.

Biology is against you

[DrYak]

A neuron is more complex than a transistor. Let's say it does a job, for the sake or argument, that would take about 16 transistors

Let's say that, you completely under estimated the computing power of a neuron.

First of all, a transistor just takes a few inputs, integrates them and give 1 signal out. To over simplify (medical doctor/researcher speaking here, so it will be an abusive over simplification) it will work like a basic boolean operator on 2 input bits.

A neuron is several order of magnitude more complex than that. It takes many more different inputs. The connection between two neuron is a synapse: neural impulse comes to one extremety of the source neuron. at the synapse this cause the release of a chemical (a neurotransmitter), across a gap there's a corresponding receptor on the target neuron. When the chemical is docked into the receptor, this opens a small gate which let a few ion flow through changing the electrical properties on the target neurons.

There can be several *thousands* of synapses on a single neuron, meaning that a single neuron can receive input from thousands of its peers.
Also the integration of all this inputs is complex (a docked neurotransmitter will only *change* the electrical properties on the target neurons, not necessarily fire the target neuron. Whether the neuron will fire or not depends on the net result of all the activities at all synapse. Some will raise the probability of firing, other will lower it). At that point we're already far from the "two bits in ; bolean operator ; 1 bit out" of a computer transistor. We're speaking of "thousands of signals in followed by complex and subtle integration".

Conversely a single neuron projects its output on a lot of target neurons too, so the overall network (synapses) can get very complicated for a given number of nodes (neurons).

The signal itself isn't binary. It's not "fire / no fire" duality unlike the bits in a byte. In fact neuron are (most of them) constantly firing. What varies is the rate at which they are firing. And this can vary across a wide range. So neuron aren't even digital, they are analogue with a lot of subtleties (and few signal loss, because they use the time domain instead of the signal amplitude).

And that's only the near inter-neuron communication. (At the synpase level). There are also a lot of general circulating molecules in the blood flow which can have an impact on the activities of neurons (hormones, etc.)

And all that is only the simulation of the activity going at a single point in time. But neurons are living objects and constantly changing.
Their metabolism changes, they might change their inner structure, etc. For example: The whole point of treatment of the depression is encouraging the neuron cells to produce more receptor for serotonin.

Even if neural cell don't reproduce, the network change over time: new synapses are created (e.g.: more synapses along often used paths) other are removed.
The total population of neuron change two, on one side, old neuron may die (or can get poisoned by drugs and toxins), on the other hand, stem cell (in the amygdalia region) produce new neuron which can then migrate and insert themselves into the network, compensating the loss (well, as long as the individual isn't suffering from dementia).

You will need actually much more than 16 transistors to simulate such complexity. You might as well need a small computer (or at least a whole separate thread) just to simulate 1 neuron. You definitely need a massive super cluster if you want to fully replicate the work of even the simplest animal brain.

Even if we *do* use neural net in computer research and data processing, such nets use virtual neuron which are much more simplified than the real biological counterpart. It's good enough to do research and data processing, it's not good enough to simulate a brain.

So definitely no, you can't count a 1:16 neuron-to-transistor relation in your cyber-brain.

Re:Biology is against you

[__aaltlg1547]

I don't see why it's necessarily a wrong estimate. 16 bits represents 2^16 possible states and a large number of possible connnections. What if I doubled that? Would you be happy then? What if I multipled it by SIXTEEN, so it had 256 transistors, 2^256 possible states and hundreds of possible connections? IT STILL WOULD BE LESS PHYSICALLY CAPABLE THAN A MODERN MICROPROCESSOR because the microprocessor is still 16 million times faster. How many transistors would it take to make you happy and how do you justify it? The trouble we keep running into is somebody always wants to say that no matter how many transistors we throw at the problem of doing the *computational* job of a brain cell, somebody always says it should be drastically if not infinitely more without presenting any plausible alternative means of estimating a brain's computing capacity.

So put up or shut up already. Either the brain is a computer or it's not. If it's a computer it has some amount of boundable computing capacity. Or it's a big pile of useless bio-slush.

Re:Biology is against you

[Tastecicles]

The brain is both a computer and a not-computer. It is a biological system encompassing process of external stimuli and control of internal systems - including itself. The latter part of that description describes a computer, in the broad sense. The former part, an integrated, multitasking system with many, many inputs, an organic network which is constantly evolving (adapting) to meet the needs of the larger organism to fit its environment (or to allow it to change its environment to suit it). There is no artificial computer based on silicon that even comes close to the adaptability or complexity of the brain - not even considering the clock speed. That means precisely nothing when you're talking about a system that doesn't need a reboot every 47 days or grinds to a halt when it runs out of random access memory or shuts itself down when it gets too hot. The brain has other far more efficient protection mechanisms, far more efficient memory management, and a far superior kernel - any of which, if we could replicate it to anywhere near the quality that evolution has done, would revolutionise technology in a way not seen since the invention of the wheel.

Re:Biology is against you

[__aaltlg1547]

There is no artificial computer based on silicon that even comes close to the adaptability or complexity of the brain

That I'll grant you.

- not even considering the clock speed.

I thought we were talking about computing capacity. You can't consider computing capacity without considering the speed of operations.

That means precisely nothing when you're talking about a system that doesn't need a reboot every 47 days or grinds to a halt when it runs out of random access memory or shuts itself down when it gets too hot.

It means something. It just means that a brain's operating system has significant advantages for managing an animal's systems. But you aren't considering downtime, for example. Your brain requires a partial shutdown approximately every 8 of every 24 hours, is not capable of continuous attention AT ALL, is subject to huge perceptual errors and has many other disadvantages when compared to a silicon-based computer and can barely to arithmetic or follow a simple algorithm or repetitive task.

The brain has other far more efficient protection mechanisms, far more efficient memory management, and a far superior kernel - any of which, if we could replicate it to anywhere near the quality that evolution has done, would revolutionise technology in a way not seen since the invention of the wheel.

If you consider forgetting most everything and interpolating what little it does remember with fantasies made up on the spot, I suppose it can be considered not too bad at memory. And protection mechanisms? WHAT protection mechanisms?

Re:Biology is against you

[Tastecicles]

you have mechanical protection in cerebrospinal fluids and a network of intracranial fibroblasts (a sort of scaffold for the brain), for a start. Thermal control by way of the circulatory system. Pain management by way of pentobarbitone-analogues and other chemicals produced by the body to reduce the risk of permanent damage following traumatic brain injury by putting the host organism to sleep.

Speciality

[DrYak]

but i am an astrophysicist, not a neuroscientist ;)

Don't worry. Some of us here realise it and take it with the necessary amused grain of salt.
We understand what you meant actually:
a gigantic number-crunching machine with bat-shit crazy computing capability.

The reverse

[DrYak]

The reverse would be comparing the number of stars in the sky with the number of hairs.
It's probably a gross under-estimation (I in turn am no astrophysicist), but the listener clearly gets the point:
There's an insane amount of other stars out there than our sun.