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79 Comments
- dleas, on 11/16/2009, -4/+23Yeah...but will it run Crysis?
- doctorgrim, on 11/16/2009, -1/+17Break....like your English.
- zeroeth, on 11/16/2009, -1/+17I heard it's called a "Gibson" but there's a huge exploit. The password for the super user is "God".
- Ymeg, on 11/16/2009, -2/+13a lot
- ChronicColonic, on 11/16/2009, -3/+13Oh wow - it must be a Clay computer.
- travdiggsit, on 11/16/2009, -2/+10Hopefully the Nigerians never get their hands on one of these
- pauldy, on 11/16/2009, -0/+7These things should hit mass production later this month and you too can have one for 19.95.
- nseb, on 11/16/2009, -2/+9Good. The more countries the better
- slydexian, on 11/16/2009, -0/+5Can it play youtube without stalling ?
- EchoAlpha, on 11/16/2009, -1/+6As an example of an alternate use, I'm using one of the University of Illinois super computers to run finite element analysis of a very complex system. It could be run on a standard computer, but the simulation would take a very long time.
- taibo, on 11/16/2009, -0/+5You're dumb. Tianjin is one of the largest PRC cities.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tianjin - Digitalist, on 11/16/2009, -2/+6They've had the technology for a long time and are just now admitting to having it. They figure if Iran can admit to having secret nuke sites, then they can admit to having secret super computing clusters.
- bluesz, on 11/16/2009, -0/+4I bet they simply put a bunch of Chinese kids in a basement and forced them to memorize numbers.
- DentThat, on 11/16/2009, -4/+7why you gotta hate? huh *****?
- srs2000, on 11/17/2009, -0/+3Because they aren't really spending their time inventorying it.
This is what the USA uses them for:
"...will be used for simulating nuclear tests by the US Department of Energy at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory. Supercomputers are necessary for this task, as it allows scientists judge the safety and reliability of the US nuclear weapons stockpile without doing live tests."
"Established by Congress in 2000, NNSA is a semi-autonomous agency within the U.S. Department of Energy responsible for enhancing national security through the military application of nuclear science. NNSA maintains and enhances the safety, security, reliability and performance of the U.S. nuclear weapons stockpile without nuclear testing; works to reduce global danger from weapons of mass destruction; provides the U.S. Navy with safe and effective nuclear propulsion; and responds to nuclear and radiological emergencies in the U.S. and abroad."
"Supercomputers built to study nuclear explosions have long allocated spare computing time for other types of science."
"“The speed and power of petascale computing enables researchers to explore increased complexity in dynamic systems,” " - 0mniscient, on 11/16/2009, -2/+5All your base are berong to us.
- Daydreamlately, on 11/16/2009, -1/+4And in 10 years a chip the size of my fingernail would be faster.
- MaxxusFlamus, on 11/16/2009, -2/+5wow- the crazies attempt to critique technology. Let me go get my popcorn.
- matt.rubin, on 11/17/2009, -0/+2No. Nothing can ever run crysis.
- jpartridge, on 11/16/2009, -2/+4Global Warming = One of the largest bastardizations of the scientific method ever
- jinxmix, on 11/16/2009, -1/+3Are you saying, you want it to be a flop?
- DentThat, on 11/16/2009, -4/+6Ya'll stop hating.
- zer0mass, on 11/17/2009, -0/+2A lot of that growth for F@H has been from the release of a good GPU client. The growth has really leveled off this year, possibly due to economic issues given the project runs off donated power. But I think the largest factor is people who were already running The CPU clients were finally able to add the power of their GPU's. Once the bulk of these users add their GPU's to the F@H pool then the growth rapidly slows down.
I don't think it will be long before we see super computers incorporating GPU's as a major component. Maybe some are in development or maybe they are holding out for Intels Larrabee or Nvidia's G300, both of which can run more general computations vs the current generation which is good at pounding out FLOPs for specific types of calculations. - doctorgrim, on 11/16/2009, -3/+5Because supercomputers are not used for espionage. You've watched Wargames too many times haven't you? Mr. Potato Head?! Mr. Potato Head?!
- titaniumdecoy, on 11/16/2009, -3/+5This comment cracked me up. Lighten up, people.
- anthropodeus, on 11/16/2009, -2/+4a supercomputing cold war? finally - an endless war that actually helps our species.
- ckb123, on 11/16/2009, -2/+4>>China becomes one of a handful of nations to own one of the the top five fastest supercomputers in the world
I'm guessing there are 7 countries with one of the top 5 fastest supercomputers, right? - Culyt, on 11/16/2009, -1/+3Can someone explain why "monitor the US nuclear stockpile" requires a petaflop super computer?
Isn't that really just a basic inventory (although with heaps of added security for obvious reasons), perhaps updated real time to ensure nothing launched. Maybe hooked into the launch systems. Maybe even with radiation sensor data and so on. But none of that should require a super computer to monitor.
I mean if they where simulating nuclear fallout or something it would make sense, but they don't say that.
Even if it was some kind of Doctor Strange love doomsday system designed to launch all the nuclear weapons if the US was ever wiped out, it shouldn't require petaflop processing.
I just seems that every top of the line supercomputer is used to "monitor nuclear weapon stockpiles". I wonder if in the 1960's when it would require a top of the line supercomputer for stock taking like that, someone decided that would be code for any kind of secret government computer project. - pinchduck, on 11/17/2009, -0/+2Are we still giving them foreign aid? If so, why? They're playing with the big boys now.
- vofuse, on 11/16/2009, -0/+2Sadly, you just described how America is currently dealing with China in all other areas as well.
- ben162005, on 11/16/2009, -1/+3Cray makes some awesome *****. If you ever get to take a tour of their building in Chippewa Falls do it. Its pretty cool.
- boogerthecat, on 11/17/2009, -0/+2Nuclear fission is the process of complex atomic nuclei breaking apart, releasing energy and forming daughter elements. This process is called radioactive decay. This occurs naturally at a predictable rate per any given isotope. The time that it takes for 1/2 of a given mass of radioactive material to decay into daughter products is called the materials half-life. In the case of plutonium its about 30,000 years. U-238 is over 4 billion years.
Plutonium and enriched Uranium form the radioactive core of a nuclear weapon which are imploded to reach critical mass In a nuclear warhead sitting on the shelf, the process of radioactive decay occurs naturally and spontaneously at a slow rate based of the core material's half-life.
What has to be monitored is the rate and type of radioactive decay and what daughter products are present in a given sample. Some daughter products are neutron absorbers and will cause the chain-reaction to behave unpredictably or actually fail.
The calculations for monitoring warheads are actually complex simulations which use formula from nuclear physics and chemistry and simulate how the bombs will behave if used, or if they need to be decommissioned because too much of the core is contaminated by daughter products. This is a critical application because nuclear weapons are stored for decades. Some of our larger warheads were designed at the height of the Cold War and how they age and behave is critical to know whether they will work if necessary and how to handle them if they are to be decommissioned. Some of our biggest nukes are ~40 years old. - SchmuckofNI, on 11/17/2009, -0/+1Well lets hope it doesn't catch on fire and hopefully the people who built it don't need to go back to robot soldering school...
- inactive, on 11/17/2009, -1/+2***** you two of my ***** died running away from Crysis.
- PandaBearShenyu, on 11/17/2009, -0/+1F@H is powered mainly by GPUs and PS3s.... Oh I forgot where they made them...
- PandaBearShenyu, on 11/17/2009, -0/+1ONE MILLION FLOPS! (which is, coincidentally, over NINE THOUSAND)
- pseudocitizen, on 11/17/2009, -0/+1what game is that from again LOL?
- PandaBearShenyu, on 11/17/2009, -0/+1Your mother must be disappointed in you.
- matt.rubin, on 11/17/2009, -0/+1 What is it? What's wrong?
Nothing, it's just a minor glitch.
"Minor glitch" with you seems to turn into a
major catastrophe.
I WANT A COOKIE. GIVE ME A COOKIE NOW!
There's a new virus in the database.
What's happening?
It's replicating, eating up memory. What do I
do?
Type "Cookie", you idiot. I'll head 'em off at
the pass.
We have a Zero Bug attacking all the login and
overlay files.
Run anti-virus. Give me a systems display!
The systems display comes up. Red flashes everywhere,
signifying new attacks. Plague presses a key.
Die, dickweeds!
The rabbit is in the administration system.
Rabbit icons start to fill the systems display.
Send a Flu-shot. - Psych77, on 11/17/2009, -1/+2Basic sarcasm detection fail.
- boogerthecat, on 11/17/2009, -2/+3China's espionage activities target industrial secrets so they can skip years of pesky research and development costs for their state run industries. In the eighties IBM, Cray and Sun were major targets.
Supercomputers are extensively used for espionage- NSA uses hundreds, maybe thousands of them for various activities. Echelon, Sig-Int, Lint, Pen-Lite, TITAN, Pine Gap and TICTA are all applications/programs/projects that use supercomputers (or high-end) computers to process their data.
Now the Chinese have that ability and that is not a good thing. - jamesmetham, on 11/17/2009, -0/+1I swear these countries use supercomputers to map out the future of the world. I don't think politicians even make decisions anymore. The human brain is far too feeble.
- techdever, on 11/16/2009, -0/+1Time to use bootcamp
- zer0mass, on 11/17/2009, -0/+1It could be a system of sensors detecting the decay of the nuclear material. Maybe it can calculate how long before the weapon needs to be disposed of, how effective they may still be as a weapon, and will the internal components degrade to a point where they could unintentionally trigger a reaction right where they are.
This monitoring system could also be a low priority job on the whole system and maybe just keeps a bunch of scientists employed.
But I do like your theory that it could be code for something secret and it is an easy way to write off these projects. - ChronicColonic, on 11/16/2009, -1/+2...before you bury me for being insensitive, I shared this with my wife and she thought it was hilarious. She is Japanese.
- dleas, on 11/16/2009, -1/+2Your username was kind of a giveaway on that one...
- waspbr, on 11/16/2009, -1/+2and then some
- jayman7375, on 11/16/2009, -1/+1Yeah...but will it blend?
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