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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?
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.