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New York, 3:19 PM
Sat Nov 28
21 posts in the last 24 hours

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  • posts about #cray more →

    World's Fastest Supercomputer Is World's Largest, Tackiest Case Mod Too

    Cray-1: The Super Computer

    IBM Roadrunner Tops Cray as the Official World's Fastest Supercomputer

    Cray XT Jaguar: The New World's Fastest Supercomputer

    Hands On Cray CX1 Windows Supercomputer: One Day, It'll Make Crysis Cry

    Cray's First Windows-Based Supercomputer Puts a 64-Core Datacenter On Your Desk

    Cray to Create PetaFlop Computer with 24,000 Opterons
  • Your version of Internet Explorer is not supported. Please upgrade to the most recent version in order to view comments.
    Dsmvwl  Admin  Promote to frontpage Approve user Ban user ×
    Image of :negated: :negated:
    11/16/09

    In reply to World's Fastest Supercomputer Is World's Largest, Tackiest Case Mod Too
    It could've been worse:
    They could've tastelessly slapped a metric ton of EL accents, LEDs, and useless slabs of lucite on that bitch, cutting multiple windows in the case just so you can watch the blinkenlights symbolically represent the computing going on. #jaguar
     Reply
    :negated: was starred :negated: was unstarred
    Image of Lite: hates Illinois Nazis Lite: hates Illinois Nazis
    11/16/09

    In reply to World's Fastest Supercomputer Is World's Largest, Tackiest Case Mod Too
    So, stickers really do make your car go faster? #jaguar
     Reply
    Lite: hates Illinois Nazis was starred Lite: hates Illinois Nazis was unstarred
    Image of KeyserSoze KeyserSoze
    11/16/09

    @Lite: hates Illinois Nazis: Yes, that and bright yellow brake calipers/drums. #jaguar
     Reply
    Lite: hates Illinois Nazis promoted this comment KeyserSoze was starred KeyserSoze was unstarred
    Image of Twanzio Twanzio
    11/16/09

    @KeyserSoze: Don't forget really dark tint and a bass speaker the size of Delaware. #jaguar
     Reply
    Lite: hates Illinois Nazis promoted this comment Twanzio was starred Twanzio was unstarred
    Image of KeyserSoze KeyserSoze
    11/16/09

    @Twanzio: and stick on fake hood scoops and fart can exhausts on 4 cylinder car's. Also, neon under the car makes it way faster too. #jaguar
     Reply
    KeyserSoze was starred KeyserSoze was unstarred
    Image of AndPreciousLittleofThat AndPreciousLittleofThat
    11/16/09

    In reply to World's Fastest Supercomputer Is World's Largest, Tackiest Case Mod Too
    Accordingly, the next in the Cray line will now be called "Cool-Ass Airbrushed Wizard Slaying Dragon, Bro" and will play Blue Oyster Cult songs at startup. #jaguar
     Reply
    AndPreciousLittleofThat was starred AndPreciousLittleofThat was unstarred
    Image of Hello Mister Walrus Hello Mister Walrus
    11/16/09

    In reply to World's Fastest Supercomputer Is World's Largest, Tackiest Case Mod Too
    So the new center of the electronic world is... Tennessee? Who knew?? #jaguar
     Reply
    Hello Mister Walrus was starred Hello Mister Walrus was unstarred
    Image of Michai Michai
    11/16/09

    In reply to World's Fastest Supercomputer Is World's Largest, Tackiest Case Mod Too
    " 1.74 quadrillion floating points operation" <----- My response, "Holy shit!"

    Following Moore's law, can you imagine in 50 years when personal computers will have that computing power. At such computing power will all PC's be identical having capped the markets need for computing? What would an individual need with such computing power? #jaguar
     Reply
    Michai was starred Michai was unstarred
    Image of jiggpig jiggpig
    11/16/09

    @Michai: until we have robots that can make me a sandwich, there will always be a need for more computing power. #jaguar
     Reply
    Michai promoted this comment jiggpig was starred jiggpig was unstarred
    Image of NorwoodIsMyHero NorwoodIsMyHero
    11/16/09

    @Michai: I always find this helpful to remember regarding Moore's, or any exponential growth situation really:

    [en.wikipedia.org]

    On 13 April 2005, Gordon Moore stated in an interview that the law cannot be sustained indefinitely: "It can't continue forever. The nature of exponentials is that you push them out and eventually disaster happens." #jaguar
     Reply
    Michai promoted this comment NorwoodIsMyHero was starred NorwoodIsMyHero was unstarred
    Image of Michai Michai
    11/16/09

    @NorwoodIsMyHero: "...eventually disaster happens."... where a new exponential curve begins. #jaguar
     Reply
    Michai was starred Michai was unstarred
    Image of kosai kosai
    11/16/09

    @Michai: I have a feeling it will mean something more like this

    [www.vimeo.com] #jaguar
     Reply
    kosai was starred kosai was unstarred
    Image of NorwoodIsMyHero NorwoodIsMyHero
    11/16/09

    @Michai: Haha, so true, I find it hard to imagine what disaster would befall us if transistors kept getting exponentially smaller.

    He did also point out that their are ultimate limits at the atomic level to how small things can get. #jaguar
     Reply
    NorwoodIsMyHero was starred NorwoodIsMyHero was unstarred
    Image of Lite: hates Illinois Nazis Lite: hates Illinois Nazis
    11/16/09

    @NorwoodIsMyHero: One word... Skynet. #jaguar
     Reply
    Lite: hates Illinois Nazis was starred Lite: hates Illinois Nazis was unstarred
    Image of SkipErnst SkipErnst
    11/16/09

    @Michai: I'd argue closer to 25 years rather than 50.

    According to this article ([www.macobserver.com]) the fastest Mac Pro in 2008 was 1/12,142 as fast as RoadRunner.

    Given that ratio, it will only take 14 doublings (which is 16,384 times more) to reach this speed for a consumer computer.

    Moore's law says we should expect a doubling of transistors on a chip every two years which comes to only 28 years.

    Ray Kurzweil argues (convincingly) that the doubles are occurring faster than every two years and in fact are themselves speeding up. So 28 years is probably a very conservative estimate.

    But will it run Crysis? #jaguar
     Reply
    Michai promoted this comment SkipErnst was starred SkipErnst was unstarred
    Image of brianmi40 brianmi40
    11/16/09

    @Michai: Since we've made similar statements for decades now while Moore's Law has been working and had all those needs filled and more, I'm believing that you'll need this power for your latest 3 dimensional Hollo-Deck display in the game room of your house by then where a MMG finally exceeds 100 million simultaneous players and even the cockroaches walking under your feet are being modeled and you have infinite zoom to be able to check molecules in objects. Bottom line, whatever computing power is created will cause applications to be written that will enable it's use, and more... #jaguar
     Reply
    Michai promoted this comment brianmi40 was starred brianmi40 was unstarred
    Image of Michai Michai
    11/16/09

    @kosai: Thanks for the vid, very cool. I'd like to add that it does not account for the intelligence of software aiding in the conductibility of trillions of computers. #jaguar
     Reply
    Michai was starred Michai was unstarred
    Image of Michai Michai
    11/16/09

    @NorwoodIsMyHero: Here is a cool fact that everyone may find interesting. All of todays digital information, if translated into a physical weight, would weight about the same as large grain of salt*. Given that knowledge a atomic matrix the size of a 6 sided die has the potential to hold more than enough information for generations to come.

    *(I read this story in either one of my Scientific American or Discover magazines, I spent a few minutes looking for the article but could find which month or magazine it was. Props to the person who locates the original article for me. It was within the last 9 months.) #jaguar
     Reply
    Michai was starred Michai was unstarred
    Image of Michai Michai
    11/16/09

    @SkipErnst: Yes true, but Kurzweil doesn't account for - like anything the closer you get to reaching the exponential's vertical the longer it takes. Also a change in transistor tech from silicon to 'whatever' will cause an initial slowing of the curve. #jaguar
     Reply
    Michai was starred Michai was unstarred
    Image of Michai Michai
    11/16/09

    @brianmi40: Your probably right. Can you imagine programming for 240bit software platforms!? #jaguar
     Reply
    Michai was starred Michai was unstarred
    Image of Michai Michai
    11/16/09

    @Lite: hates Illinois Nazis: lol #jaguar
     Reply
    Michai was starred Michai was unstarred
    Image of Monty Monty
    11/16/09

    In reply to World's Fastest Supercomputer Is World's Largest, Tackiest Case Mod Too
    Dude, Apple dumped the Jaguar release years ago since it had significant user interface and speed issues - they need to get Snow Leopard on this thing ASAP.I assume they are leasing time on this system for those silly scientists and engineers to use to figure out the answer to life, the universe, and everything. Multiply six and seven, geeks - your search will be over and we can stop building these crazy fast systems. #jaguar
     Reply
    Edited by Monty at 11/16/09 2:08 PM Monty was starred Monty was unstarred
    Image of Dustin Dong Dustin Dong
    11/16/09

    @Monty: not sure what you are referring to about jaguar? #jaguar
     Reply
    Monty promoted this comment Dustin Dong was starred Dustin Dong was unstarred
    Image of Monty Monty
    11/16/09

    @Dustin Dong: Sorry, I confuse myself, too:

    [en.wikipedia.org] #jaguar
     Reply
    Monty was starred Monty was unstarred
    Image of Lite: hates Illinois Nazis Lite: hates Illinois Nazis
    07/19/09

    In reply to Cray-1: The Super Computer
    I always cringed when someone talked about troubleshooting one of these. The wires were all the same damn color in it...
     Reply
    Lite: hates Illinois Nazis was starred Lite: hates Illinois Nazis was unstarred
    Image of JawzX2: Hoon The Earth @ www.cafepress.com/jawzx2 JawzX2: Hoon The Earth @ www.cafepress.com/jawzx2
    07/19/09

    In reply to Cray-1: The Super Computer

    The thing that always gets me about the old Crays is how beautiful they were. Functional and elegant in an obscenely complex way. The workmanship and design evident in every connector, board and panel, a showpiece, not just a mass of technology thrown together to brute-force a result, but a finessed and finely tuned collection of components assembled to create something special, a work of art really. Modern machine may SLAUGHTER even the most powerful of Cray's machines, but they never have that eerie feeling of the future embodied that a Cray 2 has...
     Reply
    dingus promoted this comment JawzX2: Hoon The Earth @ www.cafepress.com/jawzx2 was starred JawzX2: Hoon The Earth @ www.cafepress.com/jawzx2 was unstarred
    Image of dingus dingus
    07/19/09

    @JawzX2, polishing his commenting guns...: That thing in the back was the famous waterfall: the Fluorinert coolant was pumped to the top and ran down the sides of that plexiglas to dissipate heat. IIRC there were some versions with fancy lighting.
     Reply
    dingus was starred dingus was unstarred
    Image of oldgraygeek oldgraygeek
    07/19/09

    In reply to Cray-1: The Super Computer
    I knew a guy in Maryland who owned a Cray, and ran it in his dining room.
    He bought it from LearJet for $10K cash, hauled it home in a rented truck, and set it up on the separate 200-amp electrical service he used in that room,which was full of racks. It used a SPARC station as its "BIOS:" you had to log into the SPARC, then tell it to boot the Cray.
     Reply
    dingus promoted this comment oldgraygeek was starred oldgraygeek was unstarred
    Image of dingus dingus
    07/19/09

    @oldgraygeek: That's how pretty much all Crays were and still are: Everything on the computer is controlled and loaded through a second computer. Even the modern XT machines, with Opterons and petabyte disk arrays still get bootstrapped from a small white-box desktop PC.
     Reply
    dingus was starred dingus was unstarred
    Image of strider_mt2k strider_mt2k
    07/19/09

    In reply to Cray-1: The Super Computer
    Originally these were used to make crayons.

    "Crayolla! It's magic!" one would yell as yet another oiece of brightly colored creativity fuel was dropped from the mighty computer's dispensing system.

    Each machine made just one color too, but the name stuck to this very day.

    Now of course they have factories turning the things out by the truckload, but THEN, children, THEN it was...different.

    ;)
     Reply
    Edited by strider_mt2k at 07/19/09 8:12 AM strider_mt2k was starred strider_mt2k was unstarred
    Image of MauriceCallidice MauriceCallidice
    07/19/09

    @strider_mt2k: So I tied a circuit board to my belt - which was the style at the time...
     Reply
    strider_mt2k promoted this comment MauriceCallidice was starred MauriceCallidice was unstarred
    Image of psychiccheese psychiccheese
    07/19/09

    @MauriceCallidice: ...we didn't have the small ones, because of the future. We had to use those big green ones...
     Reply
    Lite: is on a boat. promoted this comment psychiccheese was starred psychiccheese was unstarred
    Image of dingus dingus
    07/19/09

    @strider_mt2k: Cray employees often refer to themselves as "Crayons".
     Reply
    dingus was starred dingus was unstarred
    Image of .- -. --- -. -.-- -- --- ..- ... / .. ... / .-.. . --. .. --- -. .- -. --- -. -.-- -- --- ..- ... / .. ... / .-.. . --. .. --- -.
    07/19/09

    In reply to Cray-1: The Super Computer
    Speed: 160 MFLOPS

    Heehee, we're up to teraflops now amirite?

    Take that! seventies!
     Reply
    dingus promoted this comment .- -. --- -. -.-- -- --- ..- ... / .. ... / .-.. . --. .. --- -. was starred .- -. --- -. -.-- -- --- ..- ... / .. ... / .-.. . --. .. --- -. was unstarred
    Image of dingus dingus
    07/19/09

    @.- -. --- -. -.-- -- --- ..- ... / .. ... /...: Petaflops. IBM & Cray are still duking it out over who got there first.
     Reply
    dingus was starred dingus was unstarred
    Image of .- -. --- -. -.-- -- --- ..- ... / .. ... / .-.. . --. .. --- -. .- -. --- -. -.-- -- --- ..- ... / .. ... / .-.. . --. .. --- -.
    07/20/09

    @dingus:
    In Supercomputers yes, but I remember consumer graphics cards hitting the teraflop...
     Reply
    .- -. --- -. -.-- -- --- ..- ... / .. ... / .-.. . --. .. --- -. was starred .- -. --- -. -.-- -- --- ..- ... / .. ... / .-.. . --. .. --- -. was unstarred
    Image of PaddyDugan PaddyDugan
    07/19/09

    In reply to Cray-1: The Super Computer
    Can one of you geniuses give us a mathmatical comparison? What does 4MW of memory and 160 mflops equal in today's terms?
     Reply
    PaddyDugan was starred PaddyDugan was unstarred
    Image of Vexorg Vexorg
    07/19/09

    @PaddyDugan:

    Wikipedia says that the size of a data word on a Cray-1 was 64 bits, so 4 megawords would be basically 256 megabytes of RAM.

    As for 160 megaflops of processing power, desktop computers are running easily in the gigaflop range, and supercomputers today are well into the teraflop range. Based on the data for the fastest supercomputer listed at top500.org, it would be roughly 9.3 million times faster than a Cray-1.
     Reply
    badhatharry promoted this comment Vexorg was starred Vexorg was unstarred
    Image of dingus dingus
    07/19/09

    @Vexorg: A 64-bit word is 8 bytes, so that would be 32MBytes. Still a crapload for the day
     Reply
    dingus was starred dingus was unstarred
    Image of longbourne longbourne
    07/20/09

    @PaddyDugan: An iPhone 3GS runs about eight times faster.
     Reply
    dingus promoted this comment longbourne was starred longbourne was unstarred
    Image of dingus dingus
    07/20/09

    @longbourne: No, an iPhone 3GS clocks 3x faster. It doesn't have floating point so it's a bad comparison. With a good soft-float library it might be equal.
     Reply
    dingus was starred dingus was unstarred
    Image of darthvader66 darthvader66
    11/17/08

    In reply to IBM Roadrunner Tops Cray as the Official World's Fastest Supercomputer
    is it me or does this happen for everyone...


    on the pic above move your mouse wheel and your eyes will start foolin you as though the machine is WARPing (sic!)

     Reply
    darthvader66 was starred darthvader66 was unstarred
    Image of Gann Gann
    11/17/08

    @darthvader66: It's the 3point perspective of the photo. Scrolling the converging vertical lines induces the illusion of field motion.
     Reply
    Gann was starred Gann was unstarred
    Image of ripfire ripfire
    11/17/08

    In reply to IBM Roadrunner Tops Cray as the Official World's Fastest Supercomputer
    I knew the Opterons suck too much power.
     Reply
    ripfire was starred ripfire was unstarred
    Image of ugar ugar
    11/17/08

    @ripfire: Umm... IBM used less than half the number of processors in their design, hence roughly half the power of the Cray system...
     Reply
    ugar was starred ugar was unstarred
    Image of ripfire ripfire
    11/17/08

    @ugar: I don't get it. What's your point?
     Reply
    ripfire was starred ripfire was unstarred
    Image of jdbaile3 jdbaile3
    11/12/08

    In reply to Cray XT Jaguar: The New World's Fastest Supercomputer
    so apparently I'm the only one who thinks the crysis joke is getting old?


    runs fine on the machine i puttogether for under $1000

     Reply
    jdbaile3 was starred jdbaile3 was unstarred
    Image of Kaiser-Machead Kaiser-Machead
    11/12/08

    @jdbaile3: It's still not as funny as Midlife Crysis.
     Reply
    Kaiser-Machead was starred Kaiser-Machead was unstarred
    Image of Lite: hates Illinois Nazis Lite: hates Illinois Nazis
    11/12/08

    @Kaiser-Machead's Cookie-Powered LEGO Machine: Midwife Crysis? I think you've just birthed a whole new genre.
     Reply
    Lite: hates Illinois Nazis was starred Lite: hates Illinois Nazis was unstarred
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