High-Performance Update

[loinburger]

China now has the fastest supercomputer in the world, with the DOE falling to 2nd and 3rd place. Of greater interest to me is that a cluster of Amazon EC2 instances ranked at 127th on the list (down from 42nd when it first made the list in November 2011), which means that if I wanted to use a supercomputer then I could rent one (for around a thousand dollars per hour), run my job (doubtless it would be something to do with dickgirls), and then just stop paying for the supercomputer rather than having to continue making mortgage payments on the thing.

[PLATO]

Stand by...In short order ORNL's Titan will blow the doors off anything else out there. DOE just gave a $1million grant for software development to Dr. Jack Dongarra for application in the exascale computing environment that Titan will become. Early estimates are for a potential of 1000 petaflops. From what I understand, the Chinese computers rely simply on huge amounts of cores, where Titan is already being designed around a hybrid system that includes GPU processors...which has a much higher potential for speed.

[loinburger]

Yeah, the Chinese computer uses a crapton of x86 processors (according to the list of top supercomputers, the Chinese computer uses 3.1 million cores, while Titan uses 560K cores), which doesn't seem like a good fit for supercomputing

[Sava]

but can it run Crysis?

[PLATO]

but can it run Crysis?

LOL! I bet the Chinese one can't. No GPUs. Titan would give you a hard on though.

[Sava]

LOL! I bet the Chinese one can't. No GPUs. Titan would give you a hard on though.

Here's what would happen. I'd get that supercomputer and then look at my Steam library and go "Dammit! I am bored!"

[PLATO]

Here's what would happen. I'd get that supercomputer and then look at my Steam library and go "Dammit! I am bored!"

Yes, you would be getting bored so much faster tough! Efficiency in boredom is important.

[Sava]

Yes, you would be getting bored so much faster tough! Efficiency in boredom is important.

At some point, I think I'd reach some sort of boredom singularity!

[PLATO]

At some point, I think I'd reach some sort of boredom singularity!

Boredom implosion...the disease of the next generation. I can see that.

[The Mad Monk]

Lack of proper stimulation is already giving them digital dementia.

[Sava]

[DaShi]

China now has the fastest supercomputer in the world, with the DOE falling to 2nd and 3rd place. Of greater interest to me is that a cluster of Amazon EC2 instances ranked at 127th on the list (down from 42nd when it first made the list in November 2011), which means that if I wanted to use a supercomputer then I could rent one (for around a thousand dollars per hour), run my job (doubtless it would be something to do with dickgirls), and then just stop paying for the supercomputer rather than having to continue making mortgage payments on the thing.

It's solely devoted to cracking passwords.

[The Mad Monk]