US Gov't Blocks Sales To Russian Supercomputer Maker

Nerval's Lobster writes "T-Platforms, which manufactured the fastest supercomputer in Russia (and twenty-sixth fastest in the world), has been placed on the IT equivalent of the no-fly list. In March, the U.S. Department of Commerce's Bureau of Industry and Security added T-Platforms' businesses in Germany, Russia and Taiwan to the 'Entity List,' which includes those believed to be acting contrary to the national security or foreign policy interests of the United States. U.S. IT companies are essentially banned from doing business with T-Platforms, especially with regards to HPC hardware such as microprocessors, which could be used for what the government views as illegal purposes. The rule, discovered by HPCWire, was published in March. According to the rule, Commerce's End-User Review Committee (ERC) believes that T-Platforms may be assisting the Russian government and military conduct nuclear research — which, given historical tensions between the two countries, apparently falls outside the bounds of permitted use. An email address that T-Platforms listed for its German office bounced, and Slashdot was unable to reach executives at its Russian headquarters for comment."

Comments

Re:"Slashdot was unable to reach executives..."

[guttentag]

Since when did Slashdot start doing real journalism?

Never. The submitter, Nerval's Lobster, is a frequently-accepted shill that submits stories for Slashdot's "business intelligence" and "cloud" channels, which are usually paid advertisements disguised as journalism.

The submitter's name is a pun in reference to 19th-century French surrealist poet Gérard de Nerval, who had a pet lobster he would take for walks in the Palais Royal gardens in Paris on the end of a blue silk ribbon. He was quoted as having said, "Why should a lobster be any more ridiculous than a dog? ...or a cat, or a gazelle, or a lion, or any other animal that one chooses to take for a walk? I have a liking for lobsters. They are peaceful, serious creatures. They know the secrets of the sea, they don't bark, and they don't gnaw upon one's monadic privacy like dogs do."

Dice sees paid content writers as pets on a ribbon it takes for walks in the Slashdot gardens. When people comment that it is absurd to masquerade these paid content writers as journalists, Dice asks why a paid content writer should be any more ridiculous than a journalist. Or a cat, or a gazelle, or a troll, or other animal. It likes paid content writers. They are peaceful, serious creatures that keep secrets, don't bark and don't gnaw upon one's privacy like journalists do.

The only thing funny about the pun is that it's fairly obvious and we haven't noticed.