November 20, 2001
2:43 PM Subscribe
Distributed computing projects are everywhere. Wired reports a new European project similair to a US initiative that is an explosive moment in the development of computing brainpower, equivalent to the point when mammals leapt ahead of the dinosaurs. What other cool distributed projects are there?
United Devices is one I participate in. They're working to cure cancer.
posted by lizardboy at 3:30 PM on November 20, 2001
posted by lizardboy at 3:30 PM on November 20, 2001
Scientific American had an article about distributed computing taking place on abandoned PC boxes at the Oak Ridge National Lab in Tennessee. They named it the Stone SouperComputer since most of the parts were donated. The machines are Beowulf class machines . The cool thing is that some of these computers rival the fastest super computers. The CPlant/Ross cluster ranks 30th fastest in the world as of a few days ago. I believe it was built with off the shelf parts (COTS).
posted by daver at 3:41 PM on November 20, 2001
posted by daver at 3:41 PM on November 20, 2001
The CTO at United Devices is Dr. David Anderson. He's the director of Seti@home too. Small world... Ok, you're right. It is a slow day at work.
posted by daver at 3:45 PM on November 20, 2001
posted by daver at 3:45 PM on November 20, 2001
<snark>
You ask "What other cool distributed projects are there?" I think you linked pretty much all of them- which particular link was the point of your post, exactly? I was so confused, I did not know which link to click!
Also, in your post, did you feel the need to link both the specific Wired article as well as the main site, www.wired.com? Don't you think that by now, most of us "Internet Users" will know how to extract the main site address from the specific article URL?
Argh...
</snark>
posted by hincandenza at 4:23 PM on November 20, 2001
You ask "What other cool distributed projects are there?" I think you linked pretty much all of them- which particular link was the point of your post, exactly? I was so confused, I did not know which link to click!
Also, in your post, did you feel the need to link both the specific Wired article as well as the main site, www.wired.com? Don't you think that by now, most of us "Internet Users" will know how to extract the main site address from the specific article URL?
Argh...
</snark>
posted by hincandenza at 4:23 PM on November 20, 2001
'equivalent to the point when mammals leapt ahead of the dinosaurs...'
Oh, so this is how humans become extinct and computers take over the world?
IBM's megasupercomputer 'Blue Gene' (currently being built) is 500 times faster than any supercomputer currently in existence and 40 times more powerful than the next 40 supercomputers in the world combined - and two million times more powerful than the fastest desktop personal computer, with a target speed of a petaflop (a quadrillion calculations per second). It consists of 64 towers standing six feet high covering an area 40 feet square and will give off so much heat that an airconditioning turbine the size of a jet engine is required to cool it down. Do you think that's an amazing computer? Then how about a computer with at least that petaflop speed, but shrunk into a container about a liter in size and using only ten watts of electricity? No, it's not science fiction... it's the human brain. Yes, it's you. Ponder that for a minute...
posted by SenshiNeko at 7:21 PM on November 21, 2001
Oh, so this is how humans become extinct and computers take over the world?
IBM's megasupercomputer 'Blue Gene' (currently being built) is 500 times faster than any supercomputer currently in existence and 40 times more powerful than the next 40 supercomputers in the world combined - and two million times more powerful than the fastest desktop personal computer, with a target speed of a petaflop (a quadrillion calculations per second). It consists of 64 towers standing six feet high covering an area 40 feet square and will give off so much heat that an airconditioning turbine the size of a jet engine is required to cool it down. Do you think that's an amazing computer? Then how about a computer with at least that petaflop speed, but shrunk into a container about a liter in size and using only ten watts of electricity? No, it's not science fiction... it's the human brain. Yes, it's you. Ponder that for a minute...
posted by SenshiNeko at 7:21 PM on November 21, 2001
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posted by anewc2 at 3:28 PM on November 20, 2001