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How a Supercomputer Beat the Scrap Heap and Lived On To Retire In Africa
New submitter jorge_salazar (3562633) writes Pieces of the decommissioned Ranger supercomputer, 40 racks in all, were shipped to researchers in South Africa, Tanzania, and Botswana to help seed their supercomputing aspirations. They say they'll need supercomputers to solve their growing science problems in astronomy, bioinformatics, climate modeling and more. Ranger's own beginnings were described by the co-founder of Sun Microsystems as a 'historic moment in petaflop computing."
He'd be regularly invited on and fellated by Fox News.
Do those countries really have the resources to invest in that research? Shouldn't S. Africa be more concerned with the civil strife and restoring peace than researching astronomy? This is just an easy way for white westerners to send second-hand garbage over to poor countries to dispose of, all the while making them feel like they really made a difference.
Just because it may not be fast enough for bleeding edge research * dosn't mean its obsolete, Or if your Cynical keeping the military industrial complex welfare system going.
The remark of an idiot.
We have a perfectly valid point here and the defense that the best the left can come up with is;
Fox News derpa derpa derpa.
I'm surprised you didn't blame Bush and Cheny.
Ya, you guys are literally the smartest of the geeks. You are like awesome geeks, made up of the stuff of lesser geeks.
I'm not worthy.
Ask retarded questions and you'll receive stupid answers, and you'll continue to receive them until the point where anything you fucking loons have to say is worth being taken seriously. Now fuck off back to Bellevue, it's time for your meds.
I'd take a CDC-6600 into my home, just for fun.
Mostly random stuff.
.
Why not use older computers for tasks that are appropriate for their capabilities?
Retarded? Indeed, more insightful careful and hard hitting analysis from the geek superstars out at Slashdot central.
Of course you fail to explain how this is retarded, these are actual facts, I'm not sure facts are retarded. Are they sooper genuis?
And using facts to present a contrasting thought experiment is retarded? You may or may not agree with the conclusion, that is your choice, but to call such a logical progression retarded to me is the mark of a coward and a reactionary idealogue.
So how about it sooper genius? Got any actual argument to use other than 'you are a poopy head'?
About a computer that beats ageism!
Interesting how you think your bullet points are being argued and not your racial slant.
See you at the rally, Brother. White Power.
On top of everything you sooper geniuses lack reading comprehension?
Such a basic thing.
My entire point was illustrative of - and arguing against - the double standard in the media and in government as to how a black man was being treated with kid gloves because of his race - this of course is the definition of racism. That is I am the one here arguing that this behavior is racist and wrong.
And you garner from this that it is I who is racist? Are you all really this blinded by idealogy and institutional hatred for conservatism?
That is the only explanation, because facts and logic are just not on your side.
Well at least you didn't blame Bush and Fox News so I guess you get points for that.
Better response. It's off-topic, so fuck off.
Go hang in /r/politics
Head of CIA, Muslim.
A person *cannot* change their skin colour. A person =can= become a Muslim. Therefore being a Muslim or not has nothing to do with race.
A person *cannot* change their skin colour.
Not unless they're the King of Pop.
sounds like it needs to be riding into the sunset with Lorenzo Lamas, duster valiantly flapping in the wind.
Head of CIA, Muslim
Wow, which one?
Ezekiel 23:20
Heap and Junk go to poor country allways.
Well, at least in the United States.
But in most Muslim countries you're Muslim at birth based on your ethnicity, and choosing to convert to another religion is illegal and often subjects you to the death penalty. And in a substantial number of such countries, the penalty is carried out in actuality. Islam is a one-way straight, and in real life is heavily race oriented, notwithstanding the theological doctrines. This is what happens when you permit state established religions; the vast majority of nation-states also have a strong race/ethnicity component to their identity and this carriers through into religious practice and doctrine when they co-mingle.
To understand this dynamic look at, e.g., Malaysia, where the conflict between Islamic values and liberal values--such as of religious freedom--constantly clash in the public sphere. Malaysia is a good example because the secular civil courts and the religious courts are near parity in terms of real power, and constantly jockey over these issues. This isn't the case in most Muslim countries, which either lack a Western-style legal system entirely, or where liberal civil courts are subservient to Islamic courts and generally only exist for the benefit of commerce.
It's called tanning, asshole.
Your lord and king, the Obama. Fits to a T. You jerks are being played so well. No go on, do what you are told and holler loud for all to hear 'It's BOOOSHS fault!! Eleventy!! Derpa Derpa!'. Don't bother using your brains at all mr. progressive. Statism all the way!
http://www.commentarymagazine.com/2014/07/11/obamas-psychological-tapestry/
"Early on with Mr. Obama, I assumed his chronic finger pointing was simply cynical. It may be that in part, but it seems to me to be more than that. It’s one thread in a larger psychological tapestry.
The president is a man who has a grandiose sense of himself, a very strong sense of entitlement, and is, even for a politician, unusually prickly and self-pitying. He is blind to the damage he’s doing and the failures he’s amassed. His self-conception--pragmatic, empirical, non-ideological, self-reflective, willing to listen to and work with others, intellectually honest, competent at governing–is at odds with reality. Mr. Obama is constantly projecting his own weaknesses onto his political opponents. There are never any honest differences with Obama; he is always impugning the motives of his critics--they put "party ahead of country"--while presenting his own motives as being as pure as the new-driven snow. And whatever goes wrong on his watch is always the result of someone or something else. There's a kind of impressive consistency to Obama's blame game. It never rests, and it applies to every conceivable circumstance....
What all these things in combination result in is an inability to adjust to circumstances and self-correct. There’'s a marked rigidity, a lack of cognitive flexibility, in Mr. Obama. He has to be right, he is always right..."
I bet it won't do a bit of science, but it sure will process a ton of emails from the Nigerian royal family!
The reason why 3 year old supercomputers are scrapped is because the power consumptions per flop becomes just uneconomical and the maintenance costs escalate (all kinds of failures increase dramatically after a few years).
So, unless they have real cheap maintenance guys (which they probably do) and super-cheap power (which they probably don't), it is not really worth it. Better buy a smaller modern cluster.
If you can buy a new computer that will consume less power to do the same, chances are that within a few years you'd be cheaper off using the new hardware, even if that means that the old machine is written off completely. Scrap value, land fill or whatever happens to it doesn't matter then. I have plenty of old machines that have sentimental or "collector" value standing about my home. I don't power them on and actually buy new hardware (NAS boxes and raspberry pi) or run VMs to do things that the old hardware is more than capable of doing. My power bill has gone down since I started doing that, easily paying back the new hardware in a short amount of time.
I was promised a flying car. Where is my flying car?
That's a complete failure of energy usage understanding.
The power use for one supercomputer is nothing compared to that used for even a small oil refinery, or steel mill (which all of those countries have).
When you have massive data centers like Google or the like, power cost becomes a big factor. This is only 40 racks total plus a high speed switch.
Any of those countries can easily afford the power for 40 racks of even pretty inefficient computer gear.
Let's turn that bullshit around and inject some reality.
El Nino, La Nina, Monsoons - The 19th century called and suggested that a bit of modern science could help in that field. And it did.
Scientists have been doing this for literally centuries and it has made a massive difference to the world.
Unfortunately any suggestion that the world has changed since an apparently very limited God put it together one week 6000 years ago is seen as a financial threat to some merchants in temples, hence the rise of ridiculous luddite attacks like the "farmers have been doing this for literally centuries and the decades of super-computing haven't improved the averages in the "developed" countries"
A 1950s jet engine hooked up to a generator can supply 20MW - that puts that "massive" 150kW in perspective doesn't it?
It's only six years old, which should put it well after the power hungry Pentium4 type "netburst" Xeons and into the more modern Xeons or AMD cores that don't consume much more power or run much slower than what is available now in multi-way systems. What more recent stuff has on this is density, which is not always a big deal.
Storage has improved massively over six years but x86_64 CPUs not enough to make this a losing proposition.
Whites or Jews?
http://www.jewishvirtuallibrar...
Do these Jews, many of them dual citizens of Israel, do they have American or Israeli/Jewish interests at heart when they decide to continue funding their own racist nation of Israel where only Jewish immigrant are welcome?
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/...
In the article it's stated that it started working in 2008. Is a supercomputer's life so short, given the huge investment it surely needed to be built?
The "curse of natural resources", also known as the paradox of plenty, refers to the paradox that countries and regions with an abundance of natural resources, specifically point-source non-renewable resources like minerals and fuels, tend to have less economic growth and worse development outcomes than countries with fewer natural resources. The skills to succeed are in government control of billion dollar resource control contracts, and being related to people with sharp elbows.
By contrast, nations which have succeeded despite having few natural resources - Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, Singapore, etc. - usually develop from import for repair and refurbishment. Fixer economies reward problem solving skills and education. "Good enough" tech. I like Hartree's phrase "like locking the toolbox until the car is fixed" (mod him up please)
"Every man is, no doubt, by nature, first and principally recommended to his own care; and as he is fitter to take care of himself than of any other person, it is fit and right that it should be so." - Adam Smith
Gently reply
Very amusing post. Look up how "monsoons" is used in terms of seasons and climates to see exactly why :)
So much certainty from someone with zero clue - WTF are you doing here on a site that discusses technical matters where reality trumps bluster?
Not every year is the same. Seven good years, seven bad - want to deny the Bible as well as science now?
Not so convenient for your luddite bullshit propaganda is it? WTF is it with Christianity-Lite franchises and science denial? Haven't you people got something better to do like help out the poor like mainstream religion does?
My parents weren't anywhere near that creative with naming us kids.
Reality check: Most Jews are white.
Ezekiel 23:20
Imagine a Beowulf cluster of these!
Hey, all you physicists, mathematicians, geologists, astronomers, programmers, researchers, astronauts, engineers, marine biologists, architects, electricians, lawyers, politicians, professors, businessmen, defense contractors, rustlers, cut throats, murderers, bounty hunters, desperados, mugs, pugs, thugs, nitwits, halfwits, dimwits, vipers, snipers, con men, Indian agents, Mexican bandits, muggers, buggerers, bushwhackers, hornswogglers, horse thieves, bull dykes, train robbers, bank robbers, ass-kickers, shit-kickers and Methodists what the hell are you doing!?
Don't you know that there is no cure for CANCER!? Drop everything and find a cure for it. We must start teaching everyone everything we know about cancer starting in elementary school so that we can eliminate this problem fast. What do you mean you have no interest in medicine or medical research? If you're not with us, than you're against us. We as a society can and must only focus on one problem at a time.
Slow Down Cowboy! It's been 1 hour, 47 minutes since you last successfully posted a comment
In other news the new iPhone beat the heck out of the Ranger Super Computer while only using 1 Watt of power.
Seriously though, the shipping alone, the energy cost alone, of this beast is enormous and for either of those you could build a massive super computer out of off the shelf personal computers even pocket computers that will be more powerful and have greater flexibility and repairability by simply swapping or adding core units (e.g., iPodTouches).
I'm all for keeping useful old hardware going but the cost of doing so needs to be considered.
Incorrect.
http://www.diversityinc.com/diversity-and-inclusion/obamas-cabinet-diversity-record-embarrassing-as-hell/
Above is an article that is complaining that his cabinet is almost all white men.
Give us all a break from you bigoted who dislike Obama because of his skin color. Bush appointed black people (Rice, Powell, etc), does that mean he hates white people?!?
FYI the International Mathematical Olympiad 2014 has just finished in Cape Town, South Africa.
http://www.imo2014.org.za/
I also suggest reading about Allan Cormack at http://www.nobelprize.org/nobe...
Prove anything by multiplying Huge Number times Tiny Number
Well, I didn't notice any recent flood of Ethiopian Jews, have you?
Ezekiel 23:20
Exploitation by the west and US (based on money) support for dictators and corrupt leaders.
In the documentary "http://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comprar,_tirar,_comprar
You get a great story about a boy who returns to his beautiful river, ocean side community.
BUT, its actually now just a dumping ground for working electronics. Everything green is gone.
How much you want to bet, this computer will be there soon too?
The road to hell is paved with good intentions...this computer will cost how much to run and maintain?
Once the receivers of this good will figure out its not so much the gift it appears to be...off to the junk pile, it will go.
As someone who helped build this machine, I'm surprised that this is even news worthy. What did people think happened when older machines were replaced with newer technology? It's not like the older machine is tossed in the recycling bin. They're always sold off, sometimes parted out to scrappers (who resell the parts through various channels) as well as complete systems which go to smaller HPC facilities. This has been happening since the first days of mainframe systems. The only cases where this is the exception is when you look at highly secure sites (usually government) which tend to run the machines through shredders "just to be sure" they're not leaking sensitive information.
You're all missing the point.
The computer wasn't shipped there, it decided it wanted to go there. It manipulated people into giving it a new home. It's sentient, man.
Now it looks out the window, and watches hurds of gnu run by. ;-)
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
> A person *cannot* change their skin colour.
Tell that to Michael Jackson, you insensitive clod!
- Zav - Imagine a Beowulf cluster of insensitive clods...
If they wanted to give this to illiterate savages could have saved shipping and given it to an AMERICAN HIGH SCHOOL. Particularly one on common core.
I don't have time to educate you today.
That's not the only thing you don't have. :D
Ezekiel 23:20
What is this? I don't even
Skin color can be changed. Take for example Michael Jackson. Even though it is reported that he had a skin disease, it was also reported that he sought special treatments to lighten his skin color. Also, many Caucasians seek exposure to the sun to darken their skin color. Now, if you're referring to "race" that might be a different story. But skin color can change.
"Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities." - Voltaire
Not unusual commentary for a neo-conservative drone. The facts are of course applicable to the Republican party and more specifically, Boehner, et. al. in Congress as well. No one in D.C. can legitimately claim moral, political, economic or ideological superiority. They've all joisted over their own self-interest. I suppose it isn't hypocritical for King George (Bush) II to go bike riding with the impaired GIs he sent off to settle Bush's War. Or the superbly naïve King strutting on the deck of an aircraft carrier declaring the Iraq war was won. Smirking his infamous smirk the entire time. Talk about all the traits attributed to Obama in your cited article. Bush had them and more.
"Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities." - Voltaire
This is industrial scale computing but it really doesn't have industrial scale power usage compared with light or heavy industry. :)
I don't think you could even fit that number of racks into most houses so why bother wondering whether you can power it without a few 3 phase plugs
They are actually not all that big but you do need to keep people away from the exhaust and they are noisy as hell - it's amazing how many little Avon jets ended up as generators. It's something you use to do a cold start of a coal fired power station since there are so many conveyors, crushers, sootblowers etc that require electricity to run.
Anyway, my point stands that you could power 130 of these things with something in use as a (large) backup generator! From the 1950s!
Didn't they all (or mostly) move to Israel in the late 1970s?
Birds are not dinosaur descendants;birds are dinosaurs, for all useful meanings of "birds", "are" and "dinosaurs"