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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."
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.
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Why not use older computers for tasks that are appropriate for their capabilities?
No, no, no. Those are just the public reasons they gave. They are really for all the Nigerian princes to help get out the message about their uncle and his money problems. Now, we can also hear from the Tanzanian, Botswanan and Zulu princes as well.
Horse hockey.
South Africa (one of the destinations) is the tech hub of southern Africa and has long been highly competitive with Europe and the Americas in research and industry.
Supercomputers can be used for all sorts of problem solving and are part of the basic modern scientific infrastructure. You don't have to have the utter best and fastest to still be very useful.
To keep at the cutting edge you have to get ever faster systems. But most day to day research work doesn't need that much horsepower. (full disclosure: I work for the chemistry department at a major US university. I'm in the same group that supports research computation, though I do lab instrument repair)
How do you propose to train and keep researchers to solve the problems of those countries if there are no facilities?
Are you saying that they should shut down everything in their research centers and universities until every problem is solved? That's like locking the toolbox until the car is fixed. Doesn't make much sense does it?
That's like saying you should shut down US universities and research labs until we take care of the many civil problems we still face (poverty and crime ridden areas, for example)
and please spare me the bullshit that most of that shit matters, it doesn't, even I like reading about it because it is interesting, but it's in no way actually beneficial to society as a whole practically and is just a pissing contents between folks who write needless papers for a living
Many of the fields of study we now use as the backbone of the modern era started out as mere intellectual curiosities, and often stayed that way for centuries until practical applications were invented. Scientists started seriously studying electricity in the 1600s, but we found few practical uses for it until the late 19th century. The scientists studying theoretical physics and astronomy today are no different than the likes of Michael Faraday, who never created useful inventions from his research in electricity.
No one knows what the next technology will be to usher in the next age of mankind. The study of multiverses may bring about faster than light communication, and quantum mechanics may bring the computational power of thousands of today's supercomputers into your cellphone. Or maybe they will do none of those things, but we can be sure some other intellectual curiosity will change the way we live our lives.
I for one think we spend far too little on intellectual curiosities. Increasing funding that goes towards basic scientific research ten fold would be a good place to start.
-- All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing. -- Edmund Burke
There's still the initial outlay to consider. You can buy quite a bit of expensive ZA power for the up-front cost of a new cluster (USD $25-30 million). Any work to create the facility is recoverable if/when they do choose a newer cluster. Additionally, there shouldn't be much in the way of "teething problems" if they can give it clean-enough power, so it becomes useful, almost on day 1.
Many of the fields of study we now use as the backbone of the modern era started out as mere intellectual curiosities, and often stayed that way for centuries until practical applications were invented. Scientists started seriously studying electricity in the 1600s, but we found few practical uses for it until the late 19th century. The scientists studying theoretical physics and astronomy today are no different than the likes of Michael Faraday, who never created useful inventions from his research in electricity.
This in spades.
One of my favorite Michael Faraday stories (of which there are variants) is a visit to his lab by Prime Minister Robert Peel, during which Peel asked "what use is electricity?" Faraday replied "what use is a new-born baby?"
If it weren't for deadlines, nothing would be late.
While reading this a thought occurred to me. Assuming that our African friends are ingenious in their use of this computing power and do a lot of good with it, in a few years perhaps more decommissioned government supercomputers, like the one that replaced Ranger which is 20 times faster, will head in their direction and bless other African universities. African universities are full of very clever, brilliant people who will make use of this gift, and likely do it in ways that will surprise us.
It's really quite a simple choice: Life, Death, or Los Angeles.
One of my favorite Michael Faraday stories (of which there are variants) is a visit to his lab by Prime Minister Robert Peel, during which Peel asked "what use is electricity?" Faraday replied "what use is a new-born baby?"
As Faraday licks the BBQ sauce off his slightly burnt fingertips, answering both questions at the same time.